A second book of CRUMBS From a Table Spread
By
JOSEPH SADONY
Printed and Published
at the Valley Press
MCMXXIV
COPYRIGHT 1924
BY THE VALLEY PRESS
The mind must be fed
But let us lay aside fine words and spiced dishes.
Let us set the wine aside until evening.
Let us sip the milk of our childhood — and live on Bread for a day….
You ask, “What is Truth?” Truth is an established principle, a law unerring, fixed by the Creator of reality. It can be acquired by man, sustained by reason and logic. It is the criterion of God. It is the existence within existence, or the soul of life.
Man’s understanding is limited. Beyond this limit he fails to grasp Truth. It is like going into a forest. One can go no further than the center without beginning to come out again.
While we possess this human conveyance we are taxed by it’s laws to obey its own mandates: a law onto itself which may conflict with modern Christianity, but did not under the teaching of the Master.
He who is able to recognize his own weakness, is able to understand the power of virtue — just as the simpleton, when able to respect a wise man, loses his title as a fool.
He who lives in despair and dies in hope, lives to give hope to those who are to die in despair.
Cannot the soul of intelligence be that Law which governs crystallization in minerals, a law of individuality which governs instinct, the milestone of distinct species in the animal: character and personality in man.
I do not seek pleasure. I let it find me.
Forget your kind deeds, so your friends may remind you of them by following your example.
We blindly assume responsibility with eyes upon the reward, balancing lightly the fact that our mountain of ambition is as high as our valley of difficulties and problems is deep. The law of compensation keeps her books perfectly balanced. Though but a dewdrop be absorbed and evaporated, it has its own accounting — by its sediment, which remains: as do man’s accomplishments. The hands of the clock themselves mean nothing, though they be studded with diamonds. They may be replaced by a dry twig. …For back of them exists a powerful spring governed by a hair-spring, its weakest affinity of impulse which is governed by its compensated regulator, Time. The hands but point to the Past’s dead. We have wings, still we dare not fly — just yet.
If a man thinks it is a sacrilege to breathe upon a toad, to him it shall be. As a man thinketh, so is he — but not as he thinketh himself to be.
The man who is selfish, is so ignorant that he cannot see that there is an abundance of everything. The unselfish man knows that there is an exhaustless supply of everything.
Let him who would be heard give his sermons in whispers.
Falsehoods are so subtle that it behooves us to examine the mirror’s deformity, rather than to blame its reflection. Neither should we blame a perfect mirror for our own disfigurement.
His foot has reached a precipice, who thinketh himself safe.
This precious electrical force, magnetism, vibrations, subjective consciousness, ether, mental telepathy, intuition, inspiration, illumination, the “voice of the spirit”, re-incarnation of thought, “angel voices”, the whisperings of God within us, or the honest creation of man’s aspiration for Truth — call it cloth, shape, or what you please — will still be the original substance used: the Law of Life and Truth.
He who will not cast a few drops of water upon a dry plant, cannot expect to pluck the flowers.
God does not create a master-piece just to destroy it. And, as His work is of love and construction, He would never build unless He had a place for this construction. As the soul is all love, we naturally grasp for that inheritance.
Let your imaginary hurts be destroyed by the flame of sleep. The cup of hunger shall be filled for him who will resign himself to the will of his Creator; for there is a way as long as we have eyes, ears, and a tongue, to see, to hear, and to give.
When the gaming season is closed, a hunter is apt to kick his hound about every day. But the first day of the season he will overfeed him and kill him with kindness.
When one starts with all vim, and after a while begins to relax, it is evident that he is not in the right territory — for if the want lasts but a certain time, it proves that the brain, and not the heart is working.
One must feel the sorrow to place the picture into color.
Human faculties are flowing springs of pure water that often dry up for want of use. They may become a destructive flood if turned into one channel by discretion…. Endeavor to drink of each, if but one drop, to keep them gently flowing.
Let no spectacular sermon or service control the true good common sense that God gave you. Clarity begins at home, and your prayers should be offered up in your own little bedroom where no one but God and His servants may hear you.
Man can change nothing — except an individuality.
Bear in mind that there is no frown in existence that cannot be destroyed with a smile.
All you really need to make good, is to close your eyes and see nothing but your ambition to do so. Don’t lose the thought for one moment, and you will find that every side-track will lead to your point of concentration, just as all tracks lead to a big city.
As we think and act, so we are. Our thoughts leave an indelible mark upon our features, while our actions leave monuments in the graveyards of the memories of others.
If you wish to determine your own value, consider what good you do to those you meet, what value they place upon it, what joy they derive, and what pleasure you have received in giving it: then multiply the result with your own modesty and appreciation.
Just place eight kings in a ditch to dig, and they will accomplish no more than poor Pat, with a pick and shovel. But place them upon their thrones, and where they belong, and you will see some action……
Tears that have evaporated can never be dried by the hand of sympathy…. They must be paid for.
It is little credit to a natural, born artist to draw a wonderful picture. There is more credit due to one who is not an artist, and who still draws well.
One must undergo all the anguish of mind that the flesh is heir to, in order to see the wants of others.
We must not judge future events by past experiences.
Let not your feet dance your brain to death.
Some think they must live to eat and to love. Some eat that they may live and be loved. Is it not better to feel that one is born to live, and to understand love, than to think one lives but to die?
Real joys are debts paid in full.
Our desires and ambitions are frames to be filled with that which we lack and which will make us complete. Many of us have unframed art-galleries; many of us, pictures to give away, but failing to do so in fear that the frame may outshine the picture, or vice versa.
Curiosity is a mental snare by which curses and blessing seek an outlet.
Some of us mortals give away more grain and fruit than we grow in our field and orchard; and many of us accept more than we need to plant in the Springtime of action.
As jazz music is a mental drug, so is a sweet melody good bread to our hungry bodies.
A mental stimulus is to the body what sunshine is to the flower. Both may grow in shadows: but without distinction of color or beauty.
If you have done all you could, and the world still looks drab — try a little music.
Diplomacy is thrice a virtue when a pleasant smile of forgiveness or tolerance meets and overcomes a grinning sneer of disrespect.
To be affected by the criticism of another, is not only to compliment him, but to admit the question of doubt as to validity of acquirements.
I believe it is far safer to starve on the road to our real want, than to have an attack of gout in but a momentary pleasure that we know is not our own.
He whose one desire to make money, is successful — until he becomes covetous.
Man will live as long as he is able to substitute a mechanical energy for his own, to realize and understand his complexity, to control his animal propensities, and to possess a want. When he is complete, by the amalgamation of every know chemical, life and love which here exists, his mission on earth has been fulfilled.
All that man needs for health, happiness, and prosperity, is hard work under discipline: whether that discipline be self-obligated, through pride, or any other cause. This keeps the well-water of his brain clear, cool and sparkling.
Neglected virtues become burdens of Necessity.
When everything appears undecided, why not visualize your real desires, and govern circumstances, instead of allowing circumstances to govern you? Why not make the dress fit you, instead of trying to make yourself fit into the dress?
An ignorant man displays his emotions in tears: a wise man, in action.
It is the small things that are most important, for they are in the making and can be altered. The big things have already been made, and are permanent.
You who have ever been in fear of Death, and who question Immortality, see before you each day the manifestation of Death, and still you know it not. You, Fathers and Mothers who are atheists, gaze with pride and love upon your baby boys and girls, and are not aware of their loss by Death from Babyhood into Manhood and Womanhood: for they are now within your elements, and the child has passed away. They are called as you are: Man and Woman. And they are called to Death. It is your unreceptive mind which selects and grinds the color that you mix with the Dew of Death upon the brows of those whom you would force into the shadow of Death, the unreal: Manhood, the death of your child; Godhood, the passing of man. Mortality is but a shadow, ill-shapen and deformed; Immortality, the substance upon which the light of God shines in all splendor.
Give more thought to life’s to-morrow, to pay for your needs to come, than to the past dead which gives you no return. You can shape the future and offset the past by a perfect masterpiece. You can always patch and repair a broken pitcher — which will make it more valuable through realization and appreciation. Likewise, false pride can be eliminated by asking forgiveness. For greater is he who receives an undeserving blow in silence, than he who strikes one, even though justified.
I would rather trust a thief than an honest man who knows no temptation. Each stumbling block in our way has given us more Prestige, and the right to accept the reward our efforts seek.
Let the man who would be contented, without malice, without envy — let him spin his own web.
One who drifts aimlessly over the waters of inspiration, becomes wrecked upon the shoals of the imagination.
Man seeks for truth in every part of this earth, but only at the height of his eyes. He gathers material about him which confuses, hampers and trips his movements, until his progress is uncertain and slow, because of matching his timber to complete the picture of his ideal.
Let him sit himself down and gaze upward, for there he will find Truth, already shaped in all its splendor, as an obedient Servant instead of a pitiless Master……
……BUT WE cannot live by bread alone. We must drink water to carry that staff of life through our veins and arteries. As the Master has rightly spoken, “Eat ye and drink of my body and blood.” Eat ye the bread of truth, and scatter it to the four parts of the earth by the pure water of deeds and action. What he hath offered thee by birth thou mayest possess in Death.