The University of Hard Knocks | Page 7

the lesson with one bump. We are unlucky
when we get bumped twice in the same place, for it means we are
making no progress.
When we are bumped, we should "stop, look, listen." "Safety first!"
One time I paid a seeress two dollars to look into my honest palm. She
said, "It hain't your fault. You wasn't born right. You was born under an
unlucky star." You don't know how that comforted me. It wasn't my
fault--all my bumps and coffee-pots! I was just unlucky and it had to
be.
How I had to be bumped to learn better! Now when I get bumped I try
to learn the lesson of the bump and find the right path, so that when I
see that bump coming again I can say, "Excuse me; it hath a familiar
look," and dodge it.

The seeress is the soothing syrup for mental infants.

Blind Man's Fine Sight
The other day I watched a blind man go down the aisle of the car to get
off the train. Did you ever study the walk of a blind man? He
"pussyfooted" it along so carefully. He bumped his hand against a seat.
Then he did what every blind man does, he lifted his hand higher and
didn't bump any more seats.
I looked down my nose. "Ralph Parlette," I said to myself, "when are
you going to learn to see as well as that blind man? He learns his lesson
with one bump, and you have to go bumping into the same things day
after day and wonder why you have so much `bad luck'!"

Are You Going Up or Down?
Let me repeat, things that go downward will run themselves. Things
that go upward have to be pushed. Going upward is overcoming.
Notice that churches, schools, lyceums, chautauquas, reform
movements--things that go upward--never run themselves. They must
be pushed all the time.
And so with our own lives. Real living is conscious effort to go upward
to larger life.
If you are making no effort in your life, if you are moving in the line of
least resistance, depend upon it you are going downward. Look out for
the bumps!
Look over your community. Note the handful of brave, faithful,
unselfish souls who are carrying the community burdens and pushing
upward. Note the multitude making little or no effort, and even getting
in the way of the pushers.
Majorities do not rule. Majorities never have ruled. It is the brave
minority of thinking, self-sacrificing people that decides the tomorrow
of communities that go upward. Majorities are not willing to make the
effort to rule themselves. They are content to drift and be amused and
follow false gods that promise something for nothing. They must be
led--sometimes driven--by minorities.
People are like sheep. The shepherd can lead them to heaven--or to
hell.

Bumping the Prodigals
Human life is the story of the Prodigal Son. We look over the fence of
goodness into the mystery of the great unknown world beyond and in
that unknown realm we fondly imagine is happiness.
Down the great white way of the world go the million prodigals,
seeking happiness where nobody ever found happiness. Their days fill
up with disappointment, their vision becomes dulled. They become
anaemic feeding upon the husks.
They just must get their coffee-pot!
How they must be bumped to think upon their ways. Every time we do
wrong we get a Needless Knock. Every time! We may not always get
bumped on the outside, but we always get bumped on the inside. A
bump on the conscience is worse than a bump on the "noodle."
"I can do wrong and not get bumped. I have no feelings upon the
subject," somebody says, You can? You poor old sinner, you have
bumped your conscience numb. That is why you have no feelings on
the subject. You have pounded your soul into a jelly. You don't know
how badly you are hurt.
How the old devil works day and night to keep people amused and
doped so that they will not think upon their ways! How he keeps the
music and the dazzle going so they will not see they are bumping
themselves!

Consider the Sticky Flypaper
Did you ever watch a fly get his Needless Knocks on the sticky
flypaper?
The last thing Mamma Fly said as Johnny went off to the city was,
"Remember, son, to stay away from the sticky flypaper. That is where
your poor dear father was lost." And Johnny Fly remembers for several
minutes. But when he sees all the smart young flies of his set go over to
the flypaper, he goes over, too. He gazes down at his face in the
stickiness. "Ah! how pretty I am! This sticky