Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1915 — Dr. Marden’s Uplift Talks [ARTICLE]

Dr. Marden’s Uplift Talks

By ORISON SWETT HARDEN.

OepyriCbk hr MoCtaw Newspaper ByndlaaM PREACH THE DOCTRINE OF CHEERFULNESS. Bmlle once in * while, ~ It will make your heart seem lighter. Life's a mirror—ls we smile. Smiles coma back to greet us; If we’re frowning all the while. Frowns forever meet us. Mr. Paul Poiret, the well-known Frenchman who visited our shores last fall, carried away some not very flattering impressions of our people and country—says we do not know how to laugh, or at least must be “made" to laugh. With the French laughter is the expression of a gay heart, while with the American humor Is appealed to through the intelligence. Even in our sports we are serious, •ays M. Poiret. "Those who take part In them do it as soberly and as intensely as if ft were an. act of business. And the spectators! They might be watching a man being tried for his life. They could hardly look more copcerned if they were.” ’ Many people give us the impression that the famed Damocletian sword of pain, suspended by a thread, hangs over them constantly, ready to fall and pierce them at any moment, even In their joys and pleasures. They never seem to enjoy anything without alloy. They give you the Impression that they are conscious of the skeleton’s presence at every feast The American people as a rule take life much too seriously. They do not have half enough fun. Europeans look on our care-worn, solemn-faced people as on pieces of machinery run at forced speed and which squeak for lack of oil. "I question if care and doubt ever wrote their names so legibly on the faces of any other population,” says Emerson, “Old age begins In the nursery.” Why take life so seriously, anyway? A lot of play will not only Improve your health, but increase your efficiency wonderfully. If a man is living in a perfectly normal way he ought not to have, as so many have, a haunted, hounded look, as though he suspected either a policeman or a detective were on his track. He ought not to be worried and anxious every minute. He ought not to take his vocation so very seriously, and should not give the impression that the whole universe is hanging upon the result of his task. A great many men fail because they are too serious; because they develop unsocial, morose, cold qualities, which repel and which make them poor mixers. It is the sunshiny, happy nature which attracts friends and trade. The too serious people seem to say, "Keep away from me, life is too serious a matter to be spent on trivial things.’’ They are dry and rutty because there Is not enough play in their Ilves to furnish the necessary lubrication, variety, or change. Not long ago I heard a young clergyman preach a sermon which was so very serious, and so very gloemy, that it made everybody in the congregation feel melancholy and depressed. There was no uplift, no encouragement, nothing to stimulate one to greatest endeavor. People did not go out of the church, as they should have gone, resolved to try a little harder than ever before, to do something worth while; but the whole congregation went away with a gloomy look on their faces There had been nothing inspiring in the clergyman’s appearance. His face was so serious and his whole manner so depressing that it was really palnful to listen to him. People have burdens enough of their own to bear, and do not want anybody to Inject dark, doleful pictures in their minds. They go to church for uplift, encouragement. They want to rid themselves of the enemies of their happiness and prosperity. Thousands of people who now remain away from church would gladly go if they could come away feeling uplifted, encouraged, and with Increased hopefulness. "He that cannot laugh and be gay should look to himself,” wrote Henry Ward Beecher. "He should fast and pray until his face breaks forth into light.”

TRAGEDIES caused by the TONGUE. They had "heard rumors and became frightened." Thia was the only reason the panic-stricken'depositors would give for their mad rush on the hank for savings in New York a few days ago. The silly gossip of a servant, it was thought, started the rumor that the hank was in difficulties. Although its president stated that the deposits were ninety-seven million dollars, nearly eleven millions of a surplus,, and that the largest banks In New York had offered to come to the rescue with fifty million dollars if necessary, yet thousands of men and women crowded one another in their frantic haste to get their money out of one of the soundest institutions in the country! The whole fabric of . the business world hangs upon confidence. Our •vast credit system depends absolutely upon it- Anything which throws the slightest suspicion upon it causes ■disaster. Nothing else irw'-W Ove as confidence. And there isnoth-

' tag quite so malignant 111 Its power to destroy it, to blast everything it touches, as rumor, the baseless gossip of idle or malicious people. Sometimes the least breath of suspicion will seriously injure a man’s credit which it has taken a lifetime to build up. It'has often made havoc -of a woman’s reputation. One of the crudest things that a human being can do is to peddle gossip, to pass along slander, or even a true story which tends to injure another, or to put him in an unfavorable light. It is fatally easy to say things which will cause lifelong wounds, and many people are so careless with their tongues! Only a short time ago a woman in Brooklyn was driven to suicide by the gossip of her neighbors. They told her that her husband was paying attention to other Women; and although he assured her that he was doing nothing of the kind the gossips succeeded in making her so jealous that she poisoned herself. I know people who would never forgive themselves for striking another with their hands, but who do not hesitate to stab an absent person in the back with an unkind, uncharitable, cruel remark, or to spread a bit of slander which may have disastrous effects on the victim. Some years ago this headline appeared in a New York daily: "Georgia Cayvan Dies on a Sanatorium Cot! Falsehood Ended Her Career.” Miss Cayvan was an actress. She began her career by reading selections from Shakespeare to customers in her mother’s "candy store” in Bath, Me. Later she graduated from the School of Oratory in the Boston university and attracted the attention of Daniel Frohman, who brought her to New York. In a short time she became a star, and one of the most popular actresses in New York city. Her beauty, brilliancy, vivacity and remarkable talent made her such a favorite that those envious of her began to reflect upon,her character. A scandal was started which so preyed upon Miss Cayvan’s sensitive mind that she fell into melancholy and never returned to the stage. Although it was proved that the actress was in Europe at the time of the scandal in this country with which her name was falsely connected, and notwithstanding the fact that her character received a sweeping vindication, yet the wagging tongues continued to peddle the scandalous gossip until her melancholy developed into paresis, and finally put her beyond medical aid. There are thousands of people in the great failure army today who might have been a success but for the gossips. The unkind criticisms of companions or neighbors, the scandals calculated by the thoughtless or evil-minded unnerved 'them. They lost heart when even those they thought were friends stabbed them in the back and they gave up the struggle. We probably have all of us come to points in our careers when it would not have taken very much to have discouraged us and turned us the other way. Who can ever estimate the number of failures, the lifewrecks, that have been caused by gosslpers? How many people have been driven to suicide by cruel slander? How many people have become disheartened and havelaid down their burdens and given up the struggle because their sensitive natures could not stand the strain of misrepresentation? There is no meaner, more cowardly or contemptible thing than to take advantage of another’s absence to discuss his shortcomings, and to peddle idle gossip and slander about hllh. I believe the time will come when the person who says unkind, cruel things about another in his absence will be ostracized as an enemy of the race, will be despised as a traitor to everything that constitutes real friendship and true manliness or womanliness. There is no more despicable habit than the gossip habit. The people who indulge in it little realize that they are exhibiting their own defects; that they are showing themselves up in the most unfavorable light possible. Everybody who knows them knows that he may be the next victim.