make the
premises clean and beautiful, so as to add so much to the sum total
of pleasure. I have a right to stay on my own side of the road and
keep to myself; but it is a great privilege to go up for a
half-hour's exchange of talk with my neighbor John. He always clears
the cobwebs from my eyes and from my soul, and I return to my work
refreshed.

I have a right, too, to pore over the colored supplement for an hour
or so, but when I am able to rise to my privileges and take the Book
of Job instead, I feel that I have made a gain in self-respect, and
can stand more nearly erect. I have a right, when I go to church, to
sit silent and look bored; but, when I avail myself of the privilege
of joining in the responses and the singing, I feel that I am
fertilizing my spirit for the truth that is proclaimed. As a citizen
I have certain rights, but when I come to think of my privileges my
rights seem puny in comparison. Then, too, my rights are such cold
things, but my privileges are full of sunshine and of joy. My rights
seem mathematical, while my privileges seem curves of beauty.

In his scientific laboratory at Princeton, on one occasion, the
celebrated Doctor Hodge, in preparing for an experiment said to some
students who were gathered about him: "Gentlemen, please remove your
hats; I am about to ask God a question." So it is with every one who
esteems his privileges. He is asking God questions about the glory
of the sunrise, the fragrance of the flowers, the colors of the
rainbow, the music of the brook, and the meaning of the stars. But I
hear a baby crying and must get back to my potatoes.

CHAPTER XVI

CHANGING THE MIND

I have been reading, in this book, of a man who couldn't change his
mind because his intellectual wardrobe was not sufficient to warrant
a change. I was feeling downright sorry for the poor fellow till I
got to wondering how many people are feeling sorry for me for the
same reason. That reflection changed the situation greatly, and I
began to feel some resentment against the blunt statement in the book
as being rather too personal. Just as I begin to think that we have
standardized a lot of things, along comes some one in a book, or
elsewhere, and completely upsets my fine and comforting theories and
projects me into chaos again. No sooner do I get a lot of facts all
nicely settled, and begin to enjoy complacency, than some disturber
of the peace knocks all my facts topsy-tur