The dear old liar! I was seeing the worst days of my life. If there is anybody shortchanged--if there is anybody who doesn't have a good time, it's a child. Life has been getting better ever since, and today is the best day of all. Go on south!
It's Better on South Seeing your best days as a child? No! You are seeing your worst days. Of course, you can be happy as a child. A boy can be happy with fuzz on his upper lip, but he'll be happier when his lip feels more like mine like a piece of sandpaper. There are chapters of happiness undreamed of in his philosophy.
A child can be full of happiness and only hold a pint. But afterwhile the same child will hold a quart.
I think I hold a gallon now. And I see people in the audience who must hold a barrel! Go on south. Of course, I do not mean circumference. But every year we go south increases our capacity for joy. Our life is one continual unfolding as we go south.
Afterwhile this old world gets too small for us and we go on south into a larger one.
So we cannot grow old. Our life never stops. It goes on and on forever. Anything that does not stop cannot grow old or have age.
Material things will grow old. This stage will grow old and stop.
This hall will grow old and stop. This house we live in will grow old and stop. This flesh and blood house we live in will grow old and stop. This lecture even will grow old--and stop! But you and I will never grow old, for God cannot grow old. You and I will go on living as long as God lives.
I am not worried today over what I do not know. I used to be worried. I used to say, "I have not time to answer you now!" But today it is such a relief to look people in the face and say, "I do not know."
And I have to say that to many questions, "I do not know." I often think if people in an audience only knew how little I know, they would not stay to hear me.
But some day I shall know! I patiently wait for the answer. Every day brings the answer to something I could not answer yesterday.
It will take an eternity to know an infinity!
What a wonderful happiness to go on south to it!
Overcoming Obstacles Develops Power As the Mississippi River goes on south he finds obstacles along the way. You and I find obstacles along our way south. What shall we do?
Go to Keokuk, Iowa, for your answer.
They have built a great concrete obstacle clear across the path of the river. It is many feet high, and many, many feet long. The river cannot go on south. Watch him. He rises higher than the obstacle and sweeps over it on south.
Over the great power dam at Keokuk sweeps the Mississippi. And then you see the struggle of overcoming the obstacle develops light and power to vitalize the valley. A hundred towns and cities radiate the light and power from the struggle. The great city of St. Louis, many miles away, throbs with the victory.
So that is why they spent the millions to build the obstacle--to get the light and the power. The light and the power were latent in the river, but it took the obstacle and the overcoming to develop it and make it useful.
That is exactly what happens when you and I overcome our obstacles.
We develop our light and power. We are rivers of light and power, but it is all latent and does no good until we overcome obstacles as we go on south.
Obstacles are the power stations on our way south!
And where the most obstacles are, there you find the most power to be developed. So many of us do not understand that. We look southward and we see the obstacles in the road. "I am so unfortunate. I could do these great things, but alas! I have so many obstacles in the way."
Thank God! You are blessed of Providence. They do not waste the obstacles. The presence of the obstacles means that there is a lot of light and power in you to be developed. If you see no obstacles, you are confessing to blindness.
I hear people saying, "I hope the time may speedily come when I shall have no more obstacles to overcome!" When that time comes, ring up the hearse, for you will be a "dead one."
Life is going on south, and overcoming the obstacles. Death is merely quitting.
The fact that we are not buried is no proof that we are alive. Go along the street in almost any town and see the dead ones. There they are decorating the hitching-racks and festooning the storeboxes. There they are blocking traffic at the postoffice and depot. There they are in the hotel warming the chairs and making the guests stand up. There they are--rows of retired farmers who have quit work and moved to town to block improvements and die. But they will never need anything more than burying.
For they are dead from the ears up. They have not thought a new thought the past month. Sometimes they sit and think, but generally they just sit. They have not gone south an inch the past year.
Usually the deadest loafer is married to the livest woman. Nature tries to maintain an equilibrium.
They block the wheels of progress and get in the way of the people trying to go on south. They say of the people trying to do things.
"Aw, he's always tryin' to run things."
They do not join in to promote the churches and schools and big brother movements. They growl at the lyceum courses and chautauquas, because they "take money outa town." They do not take any of their money "outa town." Ringling and Barnum & Bailey get theirs.
I do not smile as I refer to the dead. I weep. I wish I could squirt some "pep" into them and start them on south.
But all this lecture has been discussing this, so I hurry on to the last glimpse of the book in the running brook.
Go on South From Principle Here we come to the most wonderful and difficult thing in life. It is the supreme test of character. That is, Why go on south? Not for blessing nor cursing, not for popularity nor for selfish ends, not for anything outside, but for the happiness that comes from within.
The Mississippi blesses the valley every day as he goes on south and overcomes. But the valley does not bless the river in return.
