Article July 24, 1902 Issue

The Value of Simplicity

CHARLES WAGNER

TRUE life is the realization of the higher virtues—justice, love, truth, liberty, moral power—in our daily activities, whatever they may be. Once captivated by the beauty and simplicity of the true life, the heart holds the fascination of it. Gradually everything subordinates itself to its powerful and persistent charm. The necessary hierarchy of powers is organized within one: the essential commands, the secondary obeys, and order is born of simplicity. ...

I despair of ever describing simplicity in any worthy fashion. All the strength of the world and all its beauty, all true joy, everything that consoles, that feeds hope or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity, those who have made another object of their desires than the passing satisfaction of selfishness and vanity, and have understood that the art of living is to know how to give one's life.—REV. CHARLES WAGNER of Paris, France.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Great Canals of the World