Let Us Get Back to Fundamentals

THE world feels sick, and is bewildered. It is no wonder. Since August 4, 1914, we have lived a century and more; and what thrills we have gotten out of it! No age ever dreamed of such an orgy as the World War gave us. We smashed billions on billions of property, slaughtered millions of men, and gave a big setback to civilization. We have dipped into the valley of financial depression, have leaped up to delirious heights, and are now in the depths again. We have knocked out many of the underpinnings of faiths, customs, and traditions upon which civilization was supposed to be built; and we know not the end thereof. This New Year’s Day we wake up feeling like the ‘morning after’; our head aches, our eyes are blurry; but we still have the brains and the will to think.

Up from the ruins rise elements of great value. We recall memories of an heroic past, sacrifices for home, country, and liberty; discoveries in many fields which will bless mankind; a sincere desire for international peace with honor and justice, and a determined movement toward that goal. Conciliation is now a word to conjure with in industrial and political life. We have broken shackles of tradition and superstition which have held down many faiths, virtues, and hopes, and have set them free.

With all this said, we must, if civilization is to be sustained, gird up our loins and determine upon vigorous thought and action. In this New Year we will reach down and rediscover some of the foundations upon which our lives and happiness are built.

First, and most conspicuous, we will learn again the economic and spiritual truth that ‘if any will not work, neither shall he eat.’ Billions of dollars in property once destroyed cannot be replaced with paper, margins, and speculation. We will pay our bills. Patient, quiet, dogged work will do it; each of us must pull his own weight and his share of the weight of the boat, too. He who habitually spends a dollar above his income is headed toward poverty. He whose balance is on the other side is laying up a reserve; and for safety, enterprise, and advance a reserve is essential. In a self-sustaining democracy (and all nations are coming to that), every man, woman, and child has his place and his job.

Second, this is the time for us to think, review, and work out a practical philosophy of life, for it is certain that in the long run a man cannot have force, happiness, the respect of others, or anything but defeat, unless he has and is ready to Stand by some principles.

This is the time for each of us to ask himself what his highest hopes and ideals are, and on what foundations he is building them. Philosophers, wise and foolish, may argue about the origin of conscience, the sanctions of right and wrong; they may carry us into the mist and leave us there. But we everyday people have got to act to-day and to-morrow; assuming that there are a right and a wrong, we must make our decisions as best we can, — based on our intelligence and conscience, as we have them, — and stand by the result.

The application of moral principles changes with the movement of social and political life, and demands thought, discrimination, and wisdom. It also calls for moral courage, and sometimes for daring to stand alone.

Third, while the times call for vigorous, rugged, straight character, they demand men and women of such grace and consideration that they may win, not drive, others to support their standards.

The younger people have made a great stride toward the right of the individual to do as he or she wishes. They have smashed many conventionalities and traditions which are well smashed. The next step for them is to have the confidence in their cause and the courage to be considerate of others. Only thus will they have charm or win their way. We are familiar with the formal, stately gentleman of the old school; we look for the informal and easy gentleman of the new day.

Fourth, a healthy, happy civilization calls us back to the worth of beauty in life and nature.

We Americans are a quick-moving, intense people. We transform our athletics into spectacular shows; we turn our love of flowers into highly organized garden clubs; and we think we see and enjoy the country as we speed along metaled roads in cars which shut out the treetops, the hills, and sloping fields. An immediate problem in the shortening of working hours is the use of our leisure. The cultivation of the little garden, the children’s game, the comradeship of poetry, the love of art in painting and music, the reading of finer literature, the quiet atmosphere of home and family, give real and lasting happiness. Let us dare to give play to our finer tastes, and, if we will, live the simpler life.

Fifth, fifty years ago science seemed to be on the way to make our heavens brass. Now we have a fuller sense of freedom. Life may now be more than conformity to law. Life for us all is a venture of faith; and unless we recognize the fact that there are spaces, and atmospheres, physical, moral, spiritual, beyond our ken, we are stupid and without hope. ‘Young men see visions.’ Of course they do; they are young, and a people that has a future will see visions of glorious discovery, transformed character, and moral exaltation, opening up vista after vista.

By the overthrow of many traditions of religion and the emphasis on material forces and laws of nature, we have caught the habit of thinking that there is nothing above and beyond. If that is true, we are lost as men and women who live, lead, and move on to higher and higher realms.

To-day, as never before, the ways are open to every man to think and believe as he will. The history of man’s faiths is behind and with us. The spiritual experiences of to-day are confirming us in the faith that in the mysterious beyond, and the more mysterious beside us, there are forces of the spirit living in and through us.

And in the great venture of Faith, a consummate belief in a living, loving God, revealed in His Son who walked this earth, we have a confidence and a courage to meet what comes which give to the men and women who are enveloped in them what all men and women sorely need to-day — the spirit of serenity.