The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

ones) a stepping stone to nobler things ; remember it is the surplus of life (ability) on one plane which, under evolution, prepares for the next higher plane; make friends by taking a real interest in every one you meet; fill perfectly every present relation and be ready in advance for the promotion sure to come.

      How Helen Wilmans Conquered Poverty

      “Lives of great men” and of great women as well, “all remind us, we can make our lives sublime.” No truth in words impresses us so strongly as the truth in a life. Helen Wilmans’ life story is a Bible of Revelations for the age in which we live full of the new thought, the new theology and the divinest inspiration.

      Mrs. Wilmans declares that fear is at the bottom of poverty fear of others and distrust of self. She declares: “I have known poverty most thoroughly. I was held in a belief of its power all through the earlier part of my life; I looked to others as my superiors, I was ready to take a place beneath them; I was tortured day and night by actual want.”

      “Then my reasoning powers began to awaken, first on the subject of religion, then on other things and my mind broke its fetters so I began to see the light. I threw off a hundred beliefs considered essential to salvation. I slowly acquired a measure of individuality that enabled me to stand alone.”

      Read the story of her life; it is thrilling and most instructively interesting. A farmer’s wife, the farm mortgaged and then sold, in poverty, all her possessions in a valise, without money, securing a ride to a town five miles distant, whence with $10 borrowed money, wrenched by mental force from a shoemaker, she proceeds to ‘Frisco, spends her capital, fasts three days, refuses though hungry any work or job, save what she has set her heart upon, newspaper work, which at last she secures it at $6.00 a week then loses gains another place.

      Then one day she throws down her pen and marches out of the office, determined to serve others no longer, she stands alone in the sleet and snow of the street, her sole capital 25 cents and her own self-reliance, and resolves to found a newspaper of her own. She goes home and the boarding housekeeper, suspicious of her early return, asks:

      “Have you been discharged by the chief?” “No,” she answers, “I have discharged the chief.”

      “Is your bread and butter assured?” he asks.

      “My bread and butter are assured,” she answers.

      “How?” he asks.

      “I am going to found a paper and it is a success before it is born. Listen and I’ll read you my first editorial.”

      Then she read him her editorial on “I”, and he sat listening to the burning enthusiasm and the ringing clarion tones of freedom and aggressiveness, till his soul was on fire and his face illuminated and he cried out: “I’ll gamble on you. I have $20,000 in the bank. You can draw on every dollar if you like.”

      She refused, but asked him to wait for a short time for her board bill. Three days later when $7.00 came in, they danced with joy around the table till the dishes were scattered and broken. Then followed more subscriptions, donations, appreciation, larger hopes, plans, courage and success.

      She conquered poverty by conquering fear, learning of, and trusting in herself and daring to say, “I can and I will.”

      Planning

      One great secret of success in life is careful, wise and prudent planning of our labors in advance. Perhaps in no one thing does the successful man surpass the unsuccessful more than in the ability to foresee the future, prepare and arrange his plans to meet its exigencies and to so direct his labors to avoid loss of time, money and energy, and make all his work bear directly on the attainment of his great purpose in life.

      All great generals Caesar, Hannibal, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant have excelled in ability to lay out practical plans of campaign and, in a multitude of great battles, the victory has been won more largely by skillful, bold and decisive planning than by the use of superior force.

      What is the chief thing in good Planning? We answer that the first essential is knowledge. Take the general about to engage the enemy’s forces in battle. What does he need especially for the formation of his plans of battle? Chiefly knowledge. He needs to know fully the forces arrayed against him; he needs to know accurately the forces at his command; he needs to know the weak and strong points of both armies ; he needs to know every foot of the ground over which the battle may rage; and, in short, the more complete and accurate his knowledge, the better plan of battle can he lay out and the greater his prospect of success.

      The architect before building must know the nature of the site, quality of material, figure out the cost, take into account the element of time and weather, and, in short, build his structure completely in mind before he builds it in mortar, as the successful general must fight out in the mental arena his battle before he successfully fights the enemy.

      So every young person in planning his life work needs, especially, knowledge. First, he needs to know himself, physically, intellectually and morally, his strength and weaknesses, his tastes, inclinations and special talents.

      The next essential in successful planning is such a scheme as will recognize all the great facts and factors entering into the life. Every young man should study himself know his own ability, find out his own talent and special inclinations, and then lay out, as a general does his order of battle, as an architect does his building, his life plan.

      A large class of young men seem to have formulated no plans, schemes, purposes, beyond the present and the immediate future.

      Not long since I heard a distinguished man giving one great reason for his success and he had risen under very adverse influences from ignorance and poverty to wide knowledge and a position of great honor and power in these words:

      “When as a country lad I entered college in my ‘teens, I laid out carefully in advance a course of five years in Arts and four following years in Theology. I was poor and had to earn my money during the vacations, by editorial work during the college year, and labored under great disadvantages in other respects. Yet my carefully matured plans I followed out through nine years without deviation, and if I have met with success in life it has been largely owing to my ability to plan my work carefully and then stick to my plans until I had completed them.”

      The Right Use of Difficulties

      There is no better test of character than a man’s treatment of difficulties. The coward shuns them; the lazy man tries to go around them; the idler dawdles in front of them, waiting like Micawber for something to turn up or some miracle to remove them; the baby-man waits for some friend to lift him over them ; but the manly man surmounts them.

      There are two important questions for young men: How are we to think about our difficulties? How are we to treat our difficulties?

      1. How are we to think about the difficulties we meet in life? This is a question of vast importance, for upon its correct solution depends largely our happiness and our success.

      We should never look upon difficulties as misfortunes. They are often, and when rightly used, always among our greatest blessings. Difficulties encountered start the mind to active enterprise, develop the inventive genius, spur us to exertion, summon our resources and exercise them for growth and enlargement.

      Difficulties are to young people what the wind is to the young oak nature’s method of causing us to lay hold more deeply on her strength and grow stronger fiber in our mental and moral being. Difficulties furnish us our grandest opportunities becoming, as they do, the great incentive and inspiration to our undeveloped forces. They call forth our reserve power. They are Heaven-ordained instrumentalities for awakening the slumbering powers within us to life and activity.

      A young man with many difficulties in his way ought to thank God and take courage. He should spell the word d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t-i-e-s, but should pronounce it opportunities.

      2. How are we to treat our difficulties?

      First, we must face them squarely. Many of life’s difficulties are more imaginary than real. They dwindle to insignificance