“I hear it singing, singing sweetly,
Softly in an undertone;
Singing as if God had taught it,
‘It is better farther on.’
“By night and day it sings the same song,
Sings it while I sit alone;
Sings it so the heart may hear it—
‘It is better farther on.’
“It sings upon the grave, and sings it—
Sings it when the heart would groan
Sings it when the shadows darken—
‘It is better farther on.’
“Farther on? How much farther?
Count the mile-stones one by one.
No! No counting—only trusting;
‘It is better farther on.’”
A Genial author has written a little book on the evolution of an ideal, taking as her text the quotation, “The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment.”* Most people think that the way of life is by acquisition, by getting things and keeping them, by accumulating and conserving. But the saying is true — it is by abandonment, by letting things go and leaving them behind, when they have fulfilled their purpose that we really grow. Bulk is not greatness. It is in being, not in having, that character consists.
Saint Paul gives us in a remarkable sentence a plan of life, a scheme of progress. He says it is by forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forward to things that are before, that we grow. As we think of it, we see that this is the only true way to live. Childhood is very sweet and beautiful, but no one would want to stay a child always. The boy is not sorry when he feels himself growing into manhood. He seems to be leaving much behind — much that is winning and attractive. Perhaps his mother grieves as she sees him losing one by one the things she has always liked — his curls, his boyish ways, his delicate features, the qualities that kept him a child, and taking on elements of strength, marks of manhood.
But if he remained always a boy, a child with curls and dainty tastes, what a pitiful failure his life would be! He can press to the goal of perfection only by putting away, letting go, leaving behind, the sweetness, the gentleness, the simplicity, the innocence of boyhood.
The same principle runs through all life. Manhood is stern, strong, and heroic. It would seem that childhood is more beautiful. It is sweeter, daintier, more winning. But who regrets passing from childhood’s gentleness and attractiveness to man’s strength and ruggedness, and man’s hard tasks?
* The quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Circles” (1841)
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