Page 23 - 102717-James Allen-Byways to Blessedness-flipbookversion_Neat

BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS 19

work of loving service, or fostering in her heart some ungratified desire, she is perpetually
discontented and unhappy, and complains of “trying circumstances”. Discontent and Selfishness
are inseparable companions. Self-love knows no joyful labour.
Of the two sets of circumstances above depicted (and life is crowded with such contrasted
instances) which are the “trying” conditions? Is it not true that neither of them are trying, and that
both are blest or unblest in accordance with the measure of love or selfishness which is infused
into them? Is not the root of the whole matter in the mind of the individual and not in the
circumstance?
When a man, who has recently taken up the study of some branch of theology, religion, or
“occultism,” says: “If I had not burdened myself with a wife and family I could have done a great
work; and had I known years ago what I know now I would never have married.” I know that that

man has not yet found the commonest and broadest way of wisdom (for there is no greater folly
than regret), and that he is incapable of the great work which he is so ambitious to perform. If a
man has such deep love for his fellow-men that he is anxious to do a great work for humanity he
will manifest that surpassing love always and in the place where he now is. His home will be filled
with it, and the beauty and sweetness and peace of his unselfish love will follow wherever he goes,
making happy those about him and transmuting all things into good. The love that goes abroad to
air itself, and is undiscoverable at home, is not love — it is vanity.
Have I not seen (Oh, pitiful sight!) the cheerless home and neglected children of the misguided
missioner and religionist? It is on such self-delusion as this that self-pity and self-martyrdom ever
wait, and its self-inflicted misery is regarded by the deluded one as a holy and religious burden
which he or she is called upon to bear.
Only a great man can do a great work; and he will be great wherever he is, and will do his noble
work under whatsoever conditions he may find himself when he has unfolded and revealed that
work.
Thou who art so anxious to work for humanity, to help thy fellow-men, begin that work at
home; help thyself, thy neighbour, thy wife, thy child. Do not be deluded; until thou doest, with
utmost faithfulness, the nearer and the lesser thou canst not do the farther and greater.
If a man has lived many years of his life in lust and selfish pleasure it is in the order of things
that his accumulated errors should at last weigh heavily upon him, as, until they are thus brought
home to him, he will not abandon them, will not exert himself to find a better life; but whilst he
regards his self-made, self-imposed burdens as “holy crosses” imposed upon him by the Supreme,
or as marks of superior virtue, or as loads which Fate, circumstances, or other people have heaped
undeservedly and unjustly upon him, he is but lengthening out his folly, increasing the weight of
his burdens, and multiplying his pains and sorrows. Only when such a man wakes up to the truth
that his burdens are of his own making, that they are the accumulated effects of his own acts, will
he cease from unmanly self-pity and find the better way of burden-dropping; only when he opens
his eyes to see that his every thought and act is another brick, another stone, built into the temple
of his life will he develop the insight which will enable him to recognise his own unstable
handiwork, the unflinching manliness to acknowledge it, and the courage to build more nobly and
enduringly.