LEARNING FROM OUR FAILURES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 148, 10 July 1937, Page 12

LEARNING FROM OUR FAILURES

(By Canon "Dick" Sheppard). There is a glib English proverb which declares that a man, who has never made a mistake has never" made anything. Unlike most of our proverbs this particular specimen does not seem to be the pithy little lesson in wisdom that a proverb ought to be. It savours too much of an easy-going excuse for each and every blunder and mistake we happen to make, and is too much like a mental and rather indolent shrug of the shoulders. It is perfectly true, of course, that everyone who has achieved anything worth while" has made mistakes in the process; but the end was attained nol simply beca*se of the mistakes but in spite" of them. The wise man is he who learns how to proiit by his mistakes. At the wonderful Chinese Exhibition in London whieh has just come to an end, I was specially fascinated by the most ancient exhibits of all — the bronze bdwls and vases which belong to the remote period before ever the known history of China began. These bronzes are so perf ect in workmanship that not even the creations of the great Italian bronzemasters of the ages of greatest culture surpasses them. The sight of their inarvellous beauty of f orm and deoora- . tion set my mind speculating on the patience which must have gone to the process of trial and error which at last resulted in works so completely satisfying. The ancient craftsnnen had learnt by their failures as well as by their successes. We can feel confxdent that they did not make light-hearted ex« cuses for their failures. It is evident that they kept an exacting ideal before them. They could say, as our own poet Browning said some two thousand years and more later: Better .have failed in the high air, as I, Than vulgaritv iq the low aim succeed, As, God be thankedl I do not. Tests of Charaoter. The dusidious danger of repeated failures is that they may induce us to accept the, lower aim. When we lose heart and begin to tell ounselves that we have attempted too much, we are obviously ■ going down hill, because we are taking the line of leasfc resistance. Failures and successes are both searching tests of a man's character. We can all of us think of people who ,l:ave been spoiled by success, but we do not so readily notice thoSse who have been spoiled by failure. It may be that we are touched in our sympathies and are sorry for the i'riend or ! acquaintauce who has been again and again disappointed and discouraged by failure. It is perfectly true, indoed, that the world 's failures are among the most | eharming companious. They have not : the arrogance and irritating pelf-satis-faction about "them which eo often mars the succesteful. None the less, failure may have been no less damaging. Tho difference is that it is not so apparent in its effects on character. It has been said that the Recording Angel takes note not of the number of things which you do just right, but of the spirit in which you scramble to your feet and press on when you have fetuinbled.

Admitting No Defeat. Most things in this life which aire worth having, are gained by taking our failures in the right way and turning them to good account. Those lovely bronzes in the Chinese Exhibition were a delight to the eye of every visitor. Can you imagine with what satisf action they were regarded by the craftsmen who won their way to that aecomplishment through innumerable failures and set-backs? Most people have discovered that the thing that as easy to do is not worth doing. The golfer who could hole out in one stroke from every tee On the course would ehuck the game Up. The zest of the game, when you come to think of it, is in overcoming failures and hazards. Yet for some strange reason many people seem to think that the Christian religion is easy, and when they find that it is not, they consider that justification enough for doing no more about it. It is exceedingly diffieult to hold faithfully to the Christian religion. It is . exceedingly diffieult to pray. But here, as in all else, success is won only by mastering tlie art of learning from failure. It is because there have always been enough men and women of grit and determination to take their failures as an ineentive to renewed effort, that the Spirit of man aud the mind of man have stormed so many strongholds. I am quite sure that as you look back anto your own iives, as I look back into mine, you see how immensely important were those failures of whieh you took the right advantage. They are more than ihe cement of character; they are very largely the foundation on whieh we have built. But they don'fc become foundations if we take them lightly in the spirit of that rather smug proverb with which I started this article.