Pauline text : Forgetting the things which are behind, I press to
ward the mark and the goal of my high calling in Christ Jesus.
In the lay sermons, Huxley has compared life to a game of chess.
"A game which has been played for untold ages, every man and
woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her
own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena
of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws
of nature."
In what respects does some sort of analogy obtain between
games or athletics, and our common lives of work and achieve
ment ? Let me indicate several directions, with possibly a few
suggestions as to each :
First, the athlete stakes all on the emergency. The object of
training is to enable ,us to meet the tests of life. , But the tests of
life are mainly emergencies; failures to those who do not see
them, opportunities to those who do. The athlete trains long and
hard for the emergency, when not only the routine powers are
tested, but when the unexpected, the incalculable, challenge his
powers to a creative and spontaneous use. Life is full of such
tests, such emergencies ; and men differ more in their ability to
see the opportunity (which for every soul is a supreme emergency)
than in the number of opportunities themselves. Professor James,
in a suggestive passage, writes : "The huge world that girdles us
about puts all sorts of questions to us, and tests us in all sorts of
ways. Some of the tests we meet by actions that are easy, and
sonic of the questions we answer in articulately formulated words.
But the deepest question that is ever asked admits of no reply,
but the dumb turning of the will and tightening of our heart
strings as we say : "Yes, I will even have ,it so !" When a dread
ful object is presented, or when life as a whole turns up its dark
abysses to our view, then the worthless ones among us lose their
hold . on the situation altogether, and either escape from its diffi
culties by averting their attention, or, if they cannot do that, col
lapse into yielding masses of plaintiveness and fear. The effort
- required for facing and consenting to such objects is beyond their
power to make. But the heroic mind does differently. To it, too,
Athletics and Life.