The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American CharacterSpeer, Robert E. (Robert Elliott)
Philosophy
The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American Character
Speer, Robert E. (Robert Elliott)
Character; Christian life; Conduct of life; Moral education
A friend in New York tells a lovely story about a boy in one of the
great English schools. He was an only child, and his mother died when
he was but a little fellow. Between him and his father there grew up
relations of the most delicate and sensitive intimacy. The father was
blind, so that the little boy had to be his father’s eyes, and until
the day came when the lad had to go away to school there was scarcely
an hour when the two were separated. But at last the time came and
the boy went. He became the best athlete in his school. One spring,
just before the final game in which the boy was to bowl for his own
school, tidings came that his father was seriously ill and he must
come home. The news sent the whole school into lamentation, for they
were afraid that he might not recover and that if he did not the boy
could not play in the concluding and critical game. And indeed, as it
turned out, the father died. The day before the game was to be played
the boy came back to school, and, to the amazement of all, let it be
known that he intended to play. The next day he took his place and
played as he had never played in his life before. When at last the game
was over and the school had won its triumph, one of the masters came
to the boy and expressed to him the delighted surprise of the school
at what he had done and their amazement both that he had played at
all and at the way he had played. “Why,” said the boy, “didn’t you
understand? I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. That was the first
game my father ever saw me play.” Beneath the consciousness that for
the first time his father’s eyes were open and watching him the boy had
discovered capacities of power that he hardly knew he possessed before.
Beneath the eye of our Father, Who is looking upon the game that we are
playing, where is the man that cannot play a better game, who cannot
draw on the reservoirs of power untouched before, who cannot come out
and do his work in the world and live his life with larger inspiration
and strength, with more dominion and sovereignty, because he is living
it before a God Who is alive? To such a man will compromise not seem a
filial insult impossible except by a base degradation of the soul?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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