Speaker 1: Right beginnings, all common things, each day's events that with
the hour begin and end. Our pleasures and our discontents
are rounds by which we may ascend. We have not wings,
we cannot soar, but we have feet to scale and climb.
Longfellow for common life, its wants and ways, would I
set forth in beauteous hues browning. Life is full of beginnings.
They are presented every day and every hour to every person.
Most beginnings are small and appear trivial and insignificant, but
in reality they are the most important things in life.
See how in the material world everything proceeds from small beginnings.
The mightiest river is at first a rivulet over which
the grasshopper could leap. The great flood commences with a
few drops of rain. The sturdy oak which has endured
the storms of a thousand winters, was once an acorn,
And the smoldering match carelessly dropped may be the means
of devastating a whole town by fire. Consider also how
in the spiritual world the greatest things proceed from smallest beginnings.
A light fancy may be the inception of a wonderful invention,
or an immortal work of art. A spoken sentence may
turn the tide of history. A pure thought entertained may
lead to the exercise of a worldwide regenerative power, and
a momentary animal impulse may lead to the darkest crime.
Have you yet discovered the vast importance of beginnings? Do
you really know what is involved in a beginning? Do
you know the number of beginnings you are continuously making
and realize their full import? If not, come with me
for a short time and thoughtfully explore this much ignored
by way of blessedness. For blessed it is when wisely
resorted to, and much strength and comfort it holds for
the understanding mind. A beginning is a cause, and as
such it must be followed by an effect or a
train of effects, and the effect will always be the
same nature as the cause. The nature of an initial
impulse will always determine the body of its results. A
beginning also presupposes an ending, a consummation, achievement, or goal.
A gate leads to a path, and the path leads
to some particular destination. So a beginning leads to results,
and results lead to a completion. There are right beginnings
and wrong beginnings, which are followed by effects. Of like nature.
You can, by careful thought, avoid wrong beginnings and make
right beginnings, and so escape evil results and enjoy good results.
There are beginnings over which you have no control and authority.
These are without in the universe, in the world of
nature around you, and in other people who have the
same liberty as yourself. Do not concern yourself with these beginnings,
but direct your energies and attention to those beginnings over
which you have complete control and authority, and which bring
about the complicated web of results which compose your life.
These beginnings are to be found in the realm of
your thoughts and actions, in your mental attitude, under the
variety of circumstances through which you pass in your conduct
day by day, In short, in your life as you
make it, which is your world of good or ill,
in aiming at the life of blessedness. One of the
simplest beginnings to be considered and rightly made is that
which we all make every day, namely, the beginning of
each day's life. How do you begin each day? At
what hour do you rise? How do you commence your duties?
In what frame of mind do you enter upon the
sacred life of a new day. What answer can you
give your heart to these important questions? You will find
that much happiness or unhappiness follows upon the right or
wrong beginning of the day, and that when every day
is wisely begun, happy and harmonious sequences will mark its course,
and life in its totality will not fall short of
the idle blessedness. It is a right and strong beginning
to the day to rise at an early hour, even
if your worldly duty does not demand it. It is
wise to make of it a duty and begin the
day strongly by shaking off indolence. How are you to
develop strength of will and mind and body if you
begin every day by yielding to weakness. Self indulgence is
always followed by unhappiness. People who lie abed till a
late hour are never bright and cheerful and fresh, but
are the prey of irritabilities, depressions, debilities, nervous disorders, abnormal fancies,
and all unhappy moods. This is the heavy price which
they pay for their daily indolence. Yet so blinding is
the pandering to self that the drunkard who takes his
daily dram in the belief that it is bracing up
the nerves which it is all the time shattering. So
the lie of bed is convinced that long hours of
ease are necessary for him as a possible remedy for
those very moods and weaknesses and disorders of which his
indolence is the cause. Men and women are totally unaware
of the great losses which they entail by this common indolence,
loss of strength of both mind and body, loss of prosperity,
loss of knowledge, and loss of happiness. Begin the day, then,
by rising early, if you have no object in doing so,
never mind, get up and go out for a gentle
walk among the beauties of nature, and you will experience
a buoyancy, a freshness, and a delight, not to say,
a peace of mind, which will amply reward you for
your effort. One good effort is followed by another. And
when a man begins the day by rising early, even
though with no other purpose in view, he will find
that the silent early hour is conducive to clearness of
mind and calmness of thought, and that his early morning
walk is enabling him to become a consecutive thinker, and
so to see life and its problems as well as
himself and his affairs in a clearer light, and so
in time he will rise early with the express purpose
of preparing and harmonizing his mind to meet any in
every difficulty with wisdom and calm strength. There is indeed
a spiritual influence in the early morning hour, a divine silence,
an inexpressible repose. And he who purposeful and strong throws
off the mantle of ease and climbs the hills to
greet the morning sun will thereby climb no inconsiderable distance
up the hills of blessedness and truth. The right beginning
of the day will be followed by cheerfulness at the
morning meal, permeating the household with a sunny influence, and
the task and duties of the day will be undertaken
in a strong and confident spirit, and the whole day
will be well lived. Then there is a sense in
which every day must be regarded as the beginning of
new life, in which one can think, act and live
newly and in a wiser and better spirit. Every day
is a fresh beginning. Every morn is the world made new.
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning, here is
a beautiful hope for you, a hope for me, and
a hope for you. Do not dwell upon the sins
and mistakes of yesterday so exclusively as to have no
energy in mind left for living rightly today, And do
not think that the sins of yesterday can prevent you
from living purely today. Begin today, aright and aided by
the accumulated experiences of all your past days. Live it
better than any of your previous days. But you cannot
possibly live it better unless you begin it better. The
character of the whole day depends upon the way it begins.
Another beginning, which is of great importance, is the beginning
of any particular and responsible undertaking. How does a man
begin the building of a house? First secures a plan
of the proposed edifice, and then proceeds to build according
to the plan, scrupulously following it in every detail, beginning
with the foundation. Should he neglect the beginning, namely the
obtaining of a mathematical plan, his labor would be wasted,
and his building, should it reach completion without tumbling to pieces,
would be insecure and worthless. The same law holds good
in any important work. The right beginning and first essential
is a definite mental plan on which to build nature
will have no slipshod work, no slovenliness, and she annihilates confusion,
or rather confusion is in itself annihilation. Order, purpose eternally
and universally prevail. And he who, in his operations ignores
these mathematical elements at once deprives himself of sustainability, completeness,
and success. Life without a plan, as useless as the
moment it began, serves merely as a soil for discontent
to thrive in an encumbrance ere hath spent. Let a
man start in business without having in his mind a
perfectly formed plan to systematically pursue, and he will be
incoherent in his efforts and will fail in his business operations.
The laws which must be observed in the building of
a house also operate in the building up of a business.
A definite plan is followed by coherent effort, and coherent
effort is followed by well knit and orderly results to wit, completeness, perfection, success, happiness.
But not only mechanical and commercial enterprise, All undertakings of
whatsoever nature come under this law. The author's book, the
artist's picture, the order's speech, the reformer's work, the inventor's machine,
the general's campaign are all carefully planned in the mind
before the attempt to actualize the miscommenced, and in accordance
with the unity, solidarity, and perfection of the original mental plan,
will be the actual and ultimate success of the undertaking.
Successful men, influential men, good men are those who, amongst
other things, have learned the value and utilized the power
which lies in those obscure beginnings which the foolish man
passes by as insignificant. But the most important beginning of all,
that upon which affliction or blessedness inevitably depends, yet is
most neglected and least understood, is the inception of a
thought in the hidden but casual region of the mind.
Your whole life is a series of effects, having their
cause and thought in your own thought. All conduct is
made and melded by thought. All deeds, good or bad,
are thoughts made visible. A seed put into the ground
is the beginning of a plant or tree. The seed germinates,
the plant or tree comes forth into the light and evolves.
A thought put into the mind is the beginning of
a line of conduct. The thought first sends down its
roots into the mind and then pushes forth into the
light in the forms of action or conduct, which evolve
into character and destiny. Hateful, angry, envious, and impure thoughts
are wrong beginnings which lead to painful results. Loving, gentle kind, unselfish,
and pure thoughts are right beginnings, which lead to blissful results.
This is so simple, so plain, absolutely true, and yet
how neglected, how evaded, and how little understood. The gardener
who most carefully studies how, when, and where to put
his seeds obtains the best results and gains the greater
horticulture knowledge. The best crops gladden the soul of him
who makes the best beginning. The man who patiently studies
how to put into his mind the seeds of strong, wholesome,
and charitable thoughts will obtain the best results in life,
and will gain greater knowledge of truth. The greatest blessedness
comes to him who infuses into his mind the purest
and noblest thoughts. None but right acts can follow right thoughts.
None but a right life can follow right acts, And
by living a right life, all blessedness is achieved. He
who considers the nature an import of his thoughts, who
strives daily toils, eliminate bad thoughts and supplant them with
good comes. At last, to see that thoughts are the
beginnings of results which affect every fiber of his being,
which potently influence every event and circumstance of his life.
And when he thus sees, he thinks only right thoughts,
chooses to make only those mental beginnings which lead to
peace and blessedness. Wrong thoughts are painful in their inception,
painful in their growth, and painful in their frutage. Right
thoughts are blissful in their inception, blissful in their growth,
and blissful in their frutage. Many are the right beginnings
which a man must discover and adopt on his way
to wisdom. But that which is first and last most
important in all embracing, which is the source and fountain
of all abiding happiness, is the right beginning of the
mental operations. This implies the steady devas development of self control, will, power, steadfastness, strength, purity, gentleness, insight,
and comprehension. It leads to the perfecting of life. For
he who thinks perfectly has abolished all unhappiness. Every moment
of his life is peaceful. His years are rounded with bliss.
He has attained to the complete and perfect blessedness