America lies beyond.
Nothing is final!
So many people give up. If they would go on they would discover America.
That little company on the “Pinta,” the “Nina,” and the “Santa Maria” are a good type of us all. They were afraid. All about them was the dreadful unknown. Imagination had peopled the sea with monsters. They were sailing where man had never sailed before, which calls for the last reserves of courage. They wanted to turn back. They threatened mutiny. Only the iron-willed Columbus said, “Sail on!”
So we venture on into Tomorrow, an uncharted water. We know not what we shall find. The ghosts of our fears and fancies threaten us. We shrink from the future. We would quit, turn back. We are like the sailors. But let me rather be like Columbus.
For America lies beyond.
Nothing is final.
Have you lost your money? Has your business failed? Is poverty staring you in the face? You know not which way to turn. You say you are “up against it.” You sit and brood. Despair is your companion.
Go on! Tomorrow lies before you. Who knows what is there? Perhaps the land of Success is just beyond the horizon and tomorrow’s sun will reveal it, palm-fringed and glistening.
You have lost your position. You have lost your love. Disgrace has fallen upon you. Disease has attacked you. Friends have deserted you. Or some other calamity shadows you.
Go on! Life is not a fixed point. Life is a stream, ever flowing. It is a moving picture continually unfolding. It is a strange tale; there will be another chapter after this. Let us see what is in it.
Thank God! no man knows the future. Let our curiosity keep up our spirit. Life is an unending adventure.
America lies beyond.
Nothing is final.
Life is a puzzle. But every puzzle has a solution. To high hearts and undaunted minds there is always hope.
Come! Faces toward the Future! Pull the belt a little tighter! Speak cheer one to another! Whatever has happened to us or in us, whatever outward evil or inward weakness, we are not cattle, nor rabbits, we are souls, a little fragment each of us of Almighty God; no one can make up despair except ourself.
If I fall I shall rise again. The fates may be very strong, but they cannot make me afraid.
My soul is a Columbus; and not watery wastes, nor strange sounds, nor glooming mysteries, nor bludgeoning facts, not heaven nor hell shall send me back, nor make me cry “Enough!”
America lies beyond.
Nothing is final.
