ambition, but they are not the outcome of those characteristics;
they are the natural outgrowth of long and arduous effort, and of
pure and unselfish thoughts.
Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations. He
who lives constantly in the conception of noble and lofty thoughts,
who dwells upon all that is pure and unselfish, will, as surely as
the sun reaches its zenith and the moon its full, become wise and
noble in character, and rise into a position of influence and
blessedness.
Achievement, of whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of
thought. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity,
righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends; by the aid
of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of
thought a man descends.
A man may rise to high success in the world, and even to lofty
altitudes in the spiritual realm, and again descend into weakness
and wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish, and corrupt thoughts
to take possession of him.
Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained by
watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly
fall back into failure.
All achievements, whether in the business, intellectual, or
spiritual world, are the result of definitely directed thought, are
governed by the same law and are of the same method; the only
difference lies in _the object of attainment._
He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would
achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must
sacrifice greatly.
VISIONS AND IDEALS
THE dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is
sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and
sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of
their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it
cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows
them as they _realities_ which it shall one day see and know.
Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the
makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is
beautiful because they have lived; without them, labouring humanity
would perish.
He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart,
will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another
world, and he discovered it; Copernicus fostered the vision of a
multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it;
Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty
and perfect peace, and he entered into it.
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that
stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the
loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will
grow all delightful conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these,
if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve. Shall man's basest
desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest
aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law: such
a condition of things can never obtain: "ask and receive."
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your
Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is
the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The
oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the
highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the
seedlings of realities.
Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long
remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You
cannot travel _within_ and stand still _without._ Here is a youth
hard pressed by poverty and labour; confined long hours in an
unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of
refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of
intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of,
mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a
wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest
urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means,
small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and
resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the
workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony
with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is
cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities, which fit the
scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years
later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of
certain forces of the mind, which he wields with worldwide influence
and almost unequalled power. In his hands he holds the cords of
gigantic responsibilities; he speaks, and lo, lives are changed; men
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