Unfinished Rainbows, And Other Essays - free ebook by George Wood Anderson

Unfinished Rainbows And Other Essays

by GEORGE WOOD ANDERSON Abingdon Press logo THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1922, by GEORGE WOOD ANDERSON Printed in the United States of America...

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I. Unfinished Rainbows

The rainbow was only a fragment of an arch because the needed sunshine was withheld. Had the sunlight been permitted to permeate all the atmosphere with its golden glow, the arch would have spanned the entire heavens. This is the reason why, in hours of sorrow, we do not grasp the fullness of God’s promise; we permit the denser clouds of doubt and faithlessness to keep the light of God from shining through our griefs; or, with a little faith, we get a gleam of light that gives us but a tiny frag

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II. Gathering Sunsets

The sunset is the sheaf of the day’s activities, wherein are bound all the roses and poppies and fruits and grains of the passing hours, for the experiences of life are constantly coming to full harvest. Weary with toil and worn with watching, we do not see the riches of to-day; or, stirred by some new ambition, our eyes become so fixed upon the future, that to-day’s golden grain is trampled under foot and lost. Instead of facing the morrow’s morn, rich with garnered treasures, we greet it with

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III. Beyond the Curtained Clouds

One of the rarest treasures of the May time is the richness and purity of the sky. The winter wraps the heavens in robes of somber hue as though in mourning for the summer dead; but at the coming of the first white cloud, and sound of first lark’s song, the sky seems to melt in tenderness, and assume the softest, richest hue of blue. As far as the eye can reach there is nothing but blue—soft, rich, warm, tender, melting, soul-entrancing blue. Blue, as clear as an unshadowed midland lake. Blue as

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IV. Tilling the Sky

Man , that must till the soil for the building of his body, must also till the sky for the growing of his soul. This was the thought of a little woman among the Ozarks, who had given a long and beautiful life in training her people of the hills. It was Commencement Day in the college she had founded. Gathered about her were the young men and young women from the humble homes of those rugged hills. They were now leaving her sheltering care to “commence” life. She was such a tiny bit of woman, but

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V. Unquarried Statues

Michael Angelo , with his statues of David and Moses, proved that Phidias and Praxiteles had not exhausted the marvelous possibilities of the art of sculpture. Rodin, with his “Thinker,” has shown, while Phidias and Praxiteles demonstrated the possibility of giving immortality to the unsurpassed beauty of Grecian form, and while Michael Angelo revealed the power of expressing grace, as in David, and commanding leadership, as in Moses, that the achievements of these two schools of art were the Pi

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VI. The Ages to Come

No matter how earnestly we may love our life-calling, and rejoice in our chosen field of activity, there are hours when the easiest task becomes irksome and its daily repetition seems unbearable. However healthy the soul and robust the moral nature, a constant onslaught of sorrow may wound like a poisoned dart, filling the soul with painful forebodings. Beholding the transitoriness of life, and the apparent frailty and uncertainty of those things upon which we place our heaviest dependence, we b

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VII. The Unlocked Door of Truth

History has proven that the power of the “All Highest” War Lord is as weak as a baby’s arm compared with the power of the humblest individual who has entered into and taken possession of some great truth. A thousand lords and ladies were gathered within the Babylonian palace which was ablaze with light and filled with music. All hail to King Belshazzar! His praises were upon every lip. All honor to the royal family that had lifted the hanging gardens above the low-lying plains, who had swung gat

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VIII. Weaving Sunbeams

Nature is always busy weaving sunbeams, and not one of them, like a knotted thread, is cast from her loom. The waves cast their crystal spray upon the sands to waste away, but not so with the sun as he lavishly casts his beams broadcast o’er the earth. Not one of them goes upon a fruitless errand, and not one of them fails to reach its intended goal. It is not that the sun is wise in directing its energy, but because the earth is ready to utilize, with untiring fidelity, the gift of sunlight. Ho

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IX. The Pathway of a Noble Purpose

As the sleepless eye thirsts for the dawn, and the troubled child hungers for the sound of its mother’s voice, so each growing soul seeks a coveted goal the attaining of which, to him, means success. As boys, to be boys, must dream their dreams of strife and conflict upon a battle’s front, and girls, to be girls, must dream their milder dreams of love, so coming maturity demands of each aspiring soul that he linger long upon the visions of strife that lead to success. It is well to seek for grea

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X. Swords for Moral Battles

The best weapons with which to fight moral battles have already been forged, sharpened, and polished, waiting to be unsheathed for conflict. There are some things that the ingenuity of man cannot improve. Man’s genius may perfect the locomotive to give swiftness to his feet; it may magnify his voice until his whispers are heard a thousand miles away; it may perfect machinery giving speed and accuracy to his busy fingers; it may print his speech and multiply his audience a millionfold; it may ope

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XI. Spiced Wine

In his Songs Solomon referred to a beautiful Oriental custom. The bride and bridegroom drank from the same cup, that they might show the assembled guests their willingness to henceforth share all the cups of life, whether sweet or bitter. To add to the joy of the wedding banquet the cup from which the wedded ones were to drink would be passed first to the others who were seated with them. As it passed from hand to hand each guest would drop into the ruby wine a gift of fragrant spice, expressing

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XII. The Fever of Health

One of man’s richest possessions is the feeling of restlessness and discontent that ever pushes onward seeking something new. It is the secret of discovery. Beholding the sunset, like a thousand camp fires flashing their beams upon the crimson and purple curtained tents of ever-encamping angels, man determined to enter into and share their quiet place of rest and luxury. Hastening forward, he easily found the hills that yester-night formed the mystic camping ground, but nowhere would a torn leaf

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XIII. The Wisdom of the Unlearned

The pathway of true brotherly love is bordered with deformed social conditions which must be faced and remedied. Entering the temple at the hour of prayer, Peter and John had their pious meditations interrupted by the appealing cry of a crippled beggar, who was crouching helplessly at the temple door. His haggard face, his wistful eye, his bony, outstretched hand, pleaded so passionately that the singing of the Levites was drowned and the temple call to prayer unheeded. The eyes of Peter and the

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XIV. The Strength of Weakness

An old man was once opening the treasury of his experience to enrich the young people of Corinth. Youth ever needs such a benefactor, for life’s most difficult problem is to definitely determine upon which element or elements of life the emphasis should be placed. Like a river, life has so many contributing streams of large volume that it is difficult to decide unto which one we are most indebted for our power. There is only one way to ascertain this fact, and that is to trace the current of lif

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XV. Crumbling Palaces

The crumbling of our palaces does not necessarily mean loss, especially if they be the grotesque ones built in untutored childhood, or those planned in moments of unguarded enthusiasm, or given form by impractical impulse, or intended for selfish or sinful pleasure. We have never tried to live in the blockhouses built upon the nursery floor, neither do we mold our lives according to childhood fancies. There can be no progress without the compelling power of a well-guided enthusiasm, but overwrou

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XVI. The Echo of Life’s Unsung Songs

We are familiar with the echo of life’s unfinished songs. The unfinished songs of confidence, sung by the martyrs as they stood upon the yellow sands of the Coliseum, looking upward beyond the soft blue of the Italian sky to heights hitherto unseen, have never ceased to vibrate through the centuries. The unfinished songs of sacrifice and patriotism which were sung by our soldiers and sailors who perished in the world-wide war are still echoing in the music of every wave that laves the shores of

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XVII. Modern Judases

The story of Judas casts a dark shadow through the sunlight of twenty centuries. His deed was more than a betrayal of friendship. Lady Macbeth, coming from the chamber of death into the candlelight and beholding her lily-white hands stained ruby red with the blood of murdered friendship, and fearing to wash them, lest the ocean’s flood should tell to every rock-bound coast the blushing secret of her guilt, was not half so bad as Judas. This deed was more than the betrayal of friendship; it was t

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XVIII. The Adjustable Universe

That God should adjust a universe so that all of its forces and energies should be at the instant disposal of those who, through obedience to his laws, lay claim to them, should not seem strange when we realize how perfectly we are now adjusting our mechanical and social conditions to meet the hourly needs of the body. The water supply of many of our large cities is pumped and propelled by what is known as the Holly Engine. Its regulation is perfectly automatic. Without any apparent cause, there

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XIX. Seeing Love

The value of life is measured by the power of vision. The savage, tramping the diamond beneath his feet, and clinging to tooth and claw of the wild animals he has slain, represents a very narrow, restricted life, for he possessed a narrow vision. Beholding fruit-bearing trees, he saw only the crab and wild cherry of bitter taste. Looking across the open fields, he saw only the wind-tossed, tangled grass whose matted meshes made slow his travel. Along the wayside he saw only the daisy, and the th

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XX. The Dignity of Labor

There is no liberty without toil. To enjoy the freedom of the sunshine, the germinating seed must lift and throw aside the clod which outweighs it a thousandfold. Before the blossom can unwrap its tinted petals in the sunlight it must, with the warmth of its own healthy growth, melt the wax that seals it in its winter sepulcher, and with its increasing strength tear away the rough bud-scales and hurl them to the ground. The oriole wings its way and fills the afternoon with song, only, after earn

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XXI. Above the Commonplace of Sin

Individuality is one of God’s ways of expressing his greatness. His voice penetrates the centuries like the sound of silver bells, but there is never an echo. No duplicates are ever found among the works of God’s creative power. He gives his gifts unto the world with boundless generosity, but through the centuries no single gift has ever found its counterpart. Everything coming from the hand of God is original, unique, entirely dissimilar to anything else in the realm of nature. No two oak leave

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XXII. The Investment of a Life

The problem of investment provides much of the romance as well as the tragedy of life. The fascination of expending one’s energies or possessions in legitimate undertakings holds all men spellbound, whether it be the peasant investing in seed for the coming harvest, the newsboy buying his bundle of papers for the evening trade, or the merchant purchasing wares against the changing styles and fitful customs. The investment proving good furnishes the joy and romance of existence. The investment pr

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XXIII. Thought Planting

There is nothing more common, and seemingly insignificant, than the planting of a garden. There are the simple upturning of the sod, the mellowing of the soil, and the burial of a hard-shelled seed. Let a chemist analyze the soil, and a scientist examine the seed, and they will be unable to find anything signifying relationship between the two. There is nothing, so far as the human eye can see, to suggest that the combination of seed and soil would be other than the combination of stone and stub

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XXIV. The Rosary of Tears

God meant man to be happy. The sweetest music of this world is clear, ringing laughter. Beside its resonance the majestic voice of the cataract, the rolling melody of dashing billows, the gurgling ripple of the sun-kissed streams, the thrilling throb of the wild bird’s song, the merry chirp of the cheerful cricket, the lyric of the wind-tossed leaves are as nothing. Better one sudden, spontaneous outburst of childish laughter than all the symphonies and oratorios of the long centuries. Nothing c

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XXV. The Hearthstone of the Heart

Speaking to a young man who was about to assume the more weighty responsibilities of religious work and living, Paul bade him stir up the coals of genius, and build a fire of enthusiasm that would warm and set aglow with holy zeal his every endeavor. “I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee.” As the housewife stirs the living coals out of the dead ashes of the old fireplace, and fans them until they glow with sparkling fervor, setting aflame the newly placed

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XXVI. The Unoared Sea

Each one spends his childhood playing upon the golden sands of an unoared sea, over which in the after years he must find his way to shipwreck or safe harbor. How little does childhood in its helplessness know of life! Pleased with simple things, it greets the world with gladness, and shouts for very joy when finding a tinted shell or bit of seaweed. With spades of tin it undertakes to dig a hole “clear through the earth,” and smiles in contemplation of a vision of the Chinese sky. With chains o

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