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Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of agreat nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moralatmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled.Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and consciouspower,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.
The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,--petrifaction is notcalmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no onelives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than theman who is calm.
The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment,hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklesslyindifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship,drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no knownport to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to allnature is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is not,--calmness.
The man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart.His hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger,hidden reefs,--he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calmand serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage heneeds a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to doeach day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinchnor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave hiscourse for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the truechannel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. When hewill reach it, how he will reach it, matters not to him. Herests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to beoverthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,--in calmness.To no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality.God commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new daysto use the best of his knowledge.
Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of thedepths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only thesurface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred feet,--below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the greatcrises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness isthe crown of self-control.
When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear uponyou, and you chafe under the friction,--be calm. Stop, rest for amoment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let theseirritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessingyour inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study thedisturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of yournature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one,melt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow ofcalmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of aninflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelationof the supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some greathour of your l