The Devil's Why the Little Wedge of Discouragement Attracts the Largest Number of Victims By ORISON SWETT MARDEN CARTOON BY GORDON ROSS OMEWHERE I have seen a picture called "The Devil's Auction," in which, from among many other articles, the devil, as auctioneer, exhibits a small wedge with a very sharp edge. This he is said to prize above all his other tools, because he has caught more victims with it than with any of his other devices. We all know what this insidious wedge is, for there is no one who has not at some time in his life made its acquaintance. It is called Discouragement. The devil holds that this is the only thing he can insert in the average mind almost without notice; that, in fact, one is unconscious of the entry of the thin sharp edge of the wedge. But after it has once entered he can make his victim do anything he pleases. When a person is once thoroughly discouraged, the devil has little difficulty in urging him to do some desperate thing that will mar or utterly ruin his whole life. D I ISCOURAGEMENT is at the bottom of more failures, more crime and misery, more broken hearts, more ruined lives, more suicides, than any other one thing. As author and magazine editor, I receive more letters from people suffering from this form of mental disease -chronic discouragement is a disease-than are written to me on any other subject. Not long ago a letter from a young man who was then undergoing a jail sentence for robbery, told me that it was discouragement that had driven him to crime. He had a wife and child dependent on him when he lost his job, and nothing laid by for a rainy day. Discouragement got hold of him, and, no doubt, had a great deal to do with his failure to get another position, for nothing tells so quickly in one's appearance and manner, or hinders so much in getting work, as a depressed mentality. In this condition, he was an easy mark for the devil; and when the temptation came to rob in order to relieve his necessities he yielded. "I believe we all make our unfortunate slips, our bad breaks," he wrote. "when we are in a discouraged, despondent state. Then, to get rid of our anxieties, our pressing necessities, we are willing to do almost anything." Although this young man is filled with remorse for what he has done, and is resolved to redeem his one lapse from the straight path of honor when he leaves prison, yet he will never be able to wipe out wholly the record of his crime. This is the most terrible thing about discouragement; once you allow yourself to yield completely to its depressing influence you are liable to do something that you never can undo, something that you will unavailingly regret to the end of your days. FIND letters from God dropped in the streetand every one is signed by God's name, and I leave them where they are; for I know that whereso'er I go, others will punctually come, forever and ever. -Walt Whitman hopes to enter his chosen career, so he times his attacks until he can get him when he is down and out mentally. That is the time he spreads black pictures before his eyes and whispers in his ear words of discouragement, when he tells him that there is nc use in struggling against fate, that the only way out of the difficulty that confronts him is the way he points out. No psychologist in this world knows human nature like the devil, so none knows better than he that the man who is down and out is easily influenced, and will always look for the easiest way out. no other way out of their trouble, whatever it was, than the taking of their own lives. The student in school or college-sometimes it is a child in grammar school-fails in his examinations, or is afraid he will; the business man It is estimated that the average number of who in a financial crisis sees failure and ruin making them believe they were on the wrong track, and that somewhere else, in some other field, they would have a better chance. So he has kept people moving about all over the world, shifting, changing, never finding the satisfaction and happiness they crave because they are round pegs in square holes. D1 ISCOURAGEMENT is a disease that is universal in some form. Everybody in greater or less degree is the victim of its poison. I frequently get letters from young men and women on the threshold of their active careers, with fine possibilities ahead of them, telling me how discouraged they are. A recent one from a young woman, after detailing a pitiful list of her troubles and discouragements, the things which she says are keeping her down and making her prematurely old, closes with, "Yours from the depths of the blues." Now, people who live in "the depths of the blues" are sure marks for the devil's wedge. Our habitual moods have everything to do with our success, and the man or woman who encourages the "blues" instead of driving them away is bidding for failure. Encouraging the "blues" usually ends in chronic discouragement, and when any one allows himself to fall into this state, no one outside of himself can do anything for him. Unless he turns about face, shuts out the devil and his wedge, and finds the God in himself there is no hope for him. S O long as life remains, no matter what your age or sex or condition, you can regain your lost hope and courage. You can drive out fear, worry, the "blues," all forms of discouragement, all the enemies of your success and happiness, by claiming your divine inheritance and asserting your kinship with God. The Creator never made any one to be a coward, to run away from difficulties. It is only the devil's wedge that does that. We were made to hold up our heads, to look the world in the face without flinching, to conquer every difficulty that opposes us in our efforts to do the thing we were sent here to do. We were made to succeed in our work, to be happy in it, and if we fail, it is because we turn coward in the battle of life; for it is cowardice, lack of faith in the Creator, that drives people to despair and suicide. No matter how depressing your present condition, or what your troubles, if you take your higher self, the man or woman God made you to be for your guide, you can recover your footing, you can be the brave, successful, happy being the Creator planned. T DON'T PUT OFF HE hard problem, the tough job. Tackle it first. Writing to your mother or father, or brother or sister, and in other ways showing your affection for them. The putting on of new clothes. Don't put off putting up a good front, making a good appearance that will tally with the thing you are after in life. Keeping fit, looking after your physical and mental welfare. The daily bath and the perfect grooming of yourself. Self-improvement. While it is never too late to learn, it is better to begin early. Attending to your friendships. Friends will leave us if we give them no attention, and one of the greatest regrets of multitudes of men, as they near the end of life, is that they have put off their friendships-put off cultivating them while they were making money. Getting acquainted with your family, giving time to your children, showing interest in their sport and having fun with them. Be their pal and you will not regret it later. Being kind to others; saying and doing the helpful, considerate thing to-day. Trying to control your unbridled temper or cruel tongue. Giving time and attention to your home life, and contributing toward a beautiful home atmosphere. Registering your vow for better things. Being honest and square in your dealings. The higher impulses until they cease to plead with you. The beginning of the thing your heart longs for, and that you feel able to accomplish. Making a decision until it is useless or you lose your power to decide. Getting out of a rut. The present is a good time to make the effort. Turning over a new leaf and reforming your bad habits. Do it now! -O. S. M. Misfits Who Were Kicked into Their Kingdoms How Leigh Hunt, Admiral Farragut, Salmon P. Chase, David Livingston, Karl Harriman, Peter Clark MacFarlane and Others Who Became Successful Started for Their Goals By WILLIAM L. STIDGER "OU'RE fired!' said the managing editor of The man who was thus suddenly informed that fate no longer wanted him around these parts as a substantial part of the pay roll grinned. He grinned just as some men grin when they face their executioner, but his heart was as heavy as a three-ton truck. He had been married only a month. All during that month, in the enthusiasm of youthful optimism, he casually informed his wife that the next move for him would probably be the city-editor's desk. Instead, the next move was through the front door. "But it was the best thing that ever happened to me!" this same man said to me a few days ago, as I sat in his office in Chicago. He is Karl Harriman, now editor of the Red Book Magazine, with supervision over two other magazines. "Why do you consider being fired such a glorious experience?" I asked him. "Because, if I hadn't been fired I would be writing copy to-day for that paper at a meager salary. As it was, being fired compelled me to dig out for myself. I went to Philadelphia and applied for a job with a publishing house in that city, and, in a few years' time, Mr. Edward Bok invited me to be the managing editor of The Ladies' Home Journal. "So that's why you believe now that the managing editor did you a good turn when he fired you?" I asked, with a smile of understanding. "I sure do!" "Did you at the time you were fired?" "No! I considered it a great calamity then. That's why I am anxious to tell others that getting fired from that job was the best trick that fate ever played me." "You were, then, literally and figuratively kicked into your little kingdom here in this office, weren't you?" "Kicked is right; kicked just like the boy peeping under the tent when along came a circus roustabout and, the first thing the boy knew, he was sitting in the lap of a clown: 'How did you get here?' asked the clown. I was kicked in,' answered the boy. "Then in you stay!' said the clown. 'You are my guest from now on.' That boy, I would say, was, to use your phrase, literally kicked into a boy's kingdom." Thus spake the editor from his little room on the top floor of a big Chicago officebuilding. His is truly a little kingdom. The bell rang and in came an artist. The decision as to whether an illustration should be cut for two pages or run clear across double pages was made in a few seconds, and made by the editor. A young woman entered. "Mr. Blank, to see you." I recognized the name as that of a wellknown author. It was fascinating to watch Karl Harriman at work, and to realize that, as is the case of any successful editor, more than a million people are a part of his kingdom; a part of his audience; a part of his congregation; a part of his political constituency; a part of his great group of unknown. I How Peter Clark MacFarlane Left the Ministry KNOW a successful writer. He is Peter Clark MacFarlane. Fate kicked him out of the theater. He was an actor. As he walked home he saw a little church boarded up, a sign on the front door stating that the church was closed because it didn't have a preacher. MacFarlane had always had a hankering to preach, so he hunted up the deacons and said that he would fill the pulpit until they could engage a regular preacher. He captivated the congregation, and the result was that he became a successful preacher. Then fate gave him another kick. This time it was sickness, and he landed in Panama where he interviewed George W. Goethals, the engineer who built the Panama Canal. It was the first time that the great American had ever been successfully interviewed, although many magazines had made an attempt. MacFarlane was a sick man. He had to have a sea voyage for a rest. His friend, Captain Yardley, then commanding a small coast-wise Goethals when he took the sea trip for his health. "It was only to get rid of a serious malady that threatened my life. In fact I didn't know what I was to do. I was blue and discouraged, with no money and no possibility of going back to preaching, because of my health. When we landed in Panama, I decided to have a talk with Goethals, if that were possible. It I landed a real interview. It won attention, and then came others. They were followed by stories and books." was. "So you, too, were 'kicked into your kingdom' by fate?" I said to him. "I certainly was! And I still bear the prints of the hobnails on my anatomy!" he said with a grin. "So far as that is concerned," said MacFarlane, "Theodore Roosevelt was 'kicked into his kingdom' too, by fate." "What do you mean; into the Presidency?" I asked him. "No, I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking of the time he suddenly faced the fact that he was a weakling, physically, and had to go West for his health. That was the turning point in Roosevelt's career. He told me so himself; so bad health literally kicked him in, too!" Leigh Hunt and Farragut Were Misfits HEN, I thought of Leigh Hunt. He had THEN, been a misfit through all his early days. In school and college, he was one of the men who didn't fit in. A sudden sickness came while he was in New York. It was a sickness that was accompanied by terrible suffering. But he says of this sickness in his autobiography: "One great benefit resulted to me from this suffering. It gave me an amount of reflection, such as, in all probability, I never should have had without it. It taught me patience, it taught me charity, it taught me the worth of little pleasures, as well as the utility and dignity of great pains; it taught that evil itself contains good." This sickness made Leigh Hunt. It changed his life. ship, out of San Francisco, bantering him, said, D kingdom by his father. AVID FARRAGUT was kicked into his "Bring your family and take a trip with me down to Panama." "I had no idea he would take me up," Captain Yardly told me, as I talked with him in San Francisco. "But, when the ship was ready to sail, Peter showed up with his whole family. They were a great crowd. I remember that the children told the passengers their father was the janitor of a New York apartment house. That was their idea of a man of power." MacFarlane had no idea of interviewing He had been rather dissolute and careless, and held the idea that a real seaman must be a swearing tyrant. According to an old story of his early life, his father called him into his own cabin after turning everybody else out, and, locking the door, remarked: "David, what do you mean to be?" "Follow the sea!' said his father. "Be a poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, |