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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals: 09. Flying the Flag at the Tip-top.
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 09. Flying the Flag at the Tip-top.
Other Subjects in this Topic:
Flying the Flag at the Tip-top.
If in conversation one refers to the true ideal toward which conduct and life should be pitched, and by which they should be governed, it is quite common to hear someone say, "Oh! yes, of course, that's the ideal, but, you know, we're living down in the world." The inference being that it is impossible to have such ideals in practical life; that we must take things as they are, and move along where the crowd goes, and as it goes. The remark is generally made with a peculiar positiveness of tone and manner, as though the whole matter were settled then and there, and nothing more could be said.
Every such remark is a confession of weakness and defeat. It tells a story of knowing the right, and refusing to hold to it, because the crowd pulls the other way. It is a cowardly pulling down of the flag, and surrendering to the enemy, without so much as a decent show of fight. In nonessentials we should follow the line of least resistance, saving our strength for the things worth while. But in the great essentials we should never budge by so much as a half-hair-width, regardless of resistance. Yet we can smile sweetly all the time, with the wholesome fragrance of a pure life back of the smile. The highest ideals send a fine flavour out into the personality.
There is no greater nor kindlier service we can render to those we touch than the tactful holding to our ideals, out in the contacts of life; whether at the meal hour, in the business circle, in the little group of callers, at the afternoon tea, or the more formal social affair. There are some who exploit their ideals untactfully; and that is not good. Though it is not as bad as those who keep their ideals in hiding, even while they are being abused, and sneered at, and while lower ideals, that are really low ideals, are being freely talked.
But then the cowardliness of some people with really high ideals is painful. The social law that you must be agreeable, and say only agreeable things in social gatherings, leads many of us badly astray in lowering or hiding our flags. There is a cowardly fear of being thought of as a little unusual, or queer, or marked by some oddity. The desire to be thought only well of grips us so. It is true it does take thoughtfulness and strength to speak clearly and positively of the true ideals among those who do not accept them. It takes yet more strength and depth, and real touch with the ideal Man, to do it tactfully in such an atmosphere.
But of course it can be done. And that is a part of the life-mission of him who would ring true. A wisely chosen word spoken in the social circle, where the opposite may be the popular thing, spoken gently with a face that unconsciously fits the word, and a life behind that steadies it, is in perfect accord with the most rigid social canons. It is just what so many need. It tends to bring out to the fore whatever odd remnants of conviction there may be in hiding in that circle.
We need to train ourselves away from thinking that the sweet serious things of life may not properly be brought into any social gathering. The common standards of social contacts to which so many have been trained simply do not make provision for the more thoughtful, serious things. There is always a tendency to being light and even frivolous. The bright breezy good cheer that properly belongs to the social hour easily crosses the line into the thoughtless and frivolous.
When a bit of the thoughtful does come in, as come in it will, it is quite likely to be subjected to the indignity of brilliant—or, quite as often, maybe oftener, not-brilliant—frivolousness. And that is the sort of atmosphere in which so many have gotten their social training. It doesn't fit naturally into such training to retain sweet seriousness in the midst of the cheery good-fellowship and light exchange of the social hour.
Yet it can be done, and there is no finer sounding-board for letting our ideals ring and sing their music out into human hearts. And no music finds more open, grateful hearts for its uplift and rhythm.
"The robin sang out through the rain,
He waited not a golden day.
The gladdest thing that he could say
Might not be needed so again.
The robin sent his richest strain,
Adown dim, slanting lines of rain." (Edith H.) Kinney.)
There comes to mind a scene in a drawing-room, one summer afternoon. A group of callers were chatting with their hostess. One of the callers was making the usual sort of frivolous, half-cynical remarks. The hostess was an earnest Christian woman, active in service. "We knew her as believing in the highest ideals, and trying to teach them faithfully, and live them consistently. Yet she met her guest more than half-way in his run of talk, not merely assenting laughingly, but suggesting some of the same sort and in the same way.
We could easily see that she was simply following her earlier social habit, that had been fixed before her deeper life had developed. Yet she had both the moral conviction and courage, and the tactful grace of speech and manner, to have drawn her caller easily up to a higher level, through the doorway of his own talk, if she had thought to do it. And what a blessing it would have been to him!
Another similar scene comes to mind. A company of young people had gathered for a social evening. Among the guests was a young woman who insisted on standing on the level of her ideals in any gathering, and with any individual. A young man who had been introduced to her, said, after a little conversation, "May we slip off to a quiet corner for a few minutes, where we will not be interrupted? for you are the only young woman I have met this evening who will talk thoughtfully." At the evening's close this young woman and another, a friend, were chatting together. The friend was thoughtful and earnest, too, but with a strong desire to be agreeable that led her to remain on the level of the trifling talk in which she found others indulging. Now she turned to the first young woman mentioned, and with much surprise said, "I saw you talking with Mr So-and-So," naming the young man who had made the request, "and I wondered how you ever stood him, for I was never more bored in my life than with him this evening; I was never with one who could talk so much of little nothings, and be as frivolous as he."
Each of these, the young man and the second young woman, had high ideals, and longed for fellowship in them; and yet each lacked the bit of quiet courage to give the simple tactful upward turn to the conversation, lest it might not be acceptable. And each suffered a distinct loss, in his own life, and lost a golden chance to help a hungry heart. Whenever one person holds steadily to the highest, others will be kept up by that very steadiness.