The Majesty of Calmness | Page 5

a new and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who
focus in an instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion
against life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence.
You lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is
disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the
magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great
mountains of iron ore.
There are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,--cold,
reserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you
involuntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who
left the door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most
depressing influence on all those who fall under the spell of their
radiated chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial,

who are like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing
undaunted and undismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their
presence brings warmth and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous,
stimulating breath of spring. There are men who are like malarious
swamps,--poisonous, depressing and weakening by their very presence.
They make heavy, oppressive and gloomy the atmosphere of their own
homes; the sound of the children's play is stilled, the ripples of laughter
are frozen by their presence. They go through life as if each day were a
new big funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other
men who seem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating,
giving new draughts of tonic life and strength by their very presence.
There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is
radiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your
welfare,--when they need you. They put on a "property" smile so
suddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be
connected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their
voice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made
almost natural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the mask
will slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach their eyes the
look of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, but they
cannot deceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation which makes
us say: "Well, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that man is not
honest."
Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character,
this constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade
the responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can
select the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can cultivate
sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, loyalty,
nobility,--make them vitally active in his character,--and by these
qualities he will constantly affect the world.
Discouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they
can, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world.
Trifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose.
In 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of
revolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced
Thomas Malthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798.
Malthus' book suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which

he devoted many years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication
of The Origin of Species,--the most influential book of the nineteenth
century, a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but
three links of influence extending over sixty years. It might be possible
to trace this genealogy of influence back from Godwin, through
generation and generation, to the word or act of some shepherd in early
Britain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his quiet life, and
dying with the thought that he had done nothing to help the world.
Men and women have duties to others,--and duties to themselves. In
justice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that
keeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master it.
If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious vapor, kills
our best impulses, we should remove from that influence,-- if we can
possibly move without forsaking duties. If it be wrong to move, then
we should take strong doses of moral quinine to counteract the malaria
of influence. It is not what those around us do for us that counts,--it is
what they are to us. We carry our house- plants from one window to
another to give them the proper heat, light, air and moisture. Should we
not be at least as careful of ourselves?
To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice
what we believe. A magnet does not attract