Newspapers / Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.) / July 4, 1935, edition 1 / Page 1
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■ v . •« j -'^ nr 'ini \\ * AND YE SHALL ENOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH SHALL 1CAKE YOU FREE.-'John viii:32. * 'X’vJ ,5l;» KWt*SSi5 ■ iS. vu . VOL. LVL • CHARLOTTE, N. C, TI I £ 1 NO. 26. |A.;: -tf-j ’Hr II1 \ *'■ ' fab £k 1 3# a rai ft ? ‘!_1 ills'? ■ 1 1 WL ' L I HOW TO OVERCOME THAT WFERKHtlTY COMPLEX By Ernest C. Durham, In The Charlotte Sunday Observer I do not mean to say that I am, or ever have been, afflict ed with an inferiority complex, if it were something generally regarded as an attainment, or accomplishment, of which one should be proud, I might be glad to undertake proving vthat i have had, at least, slight symp toms, especially at certain in tervals and on various occa sions. But since I have a sneak ing notion that the thing is re garded almost entirely as a handicap, I am trying to believe (if not to prove) that 1 have had nothing very closely re sembling a symptom. And yet I undertake to write about mastering such an ail men, Let no one be too quick to become the least bit suspicious for there is many a doctor who prescribes a remedy or treat ment of ailments he has never known anything about from the standpoint of experience. He has not had the diseases; he has only made a thorough study of them. He thinks he know3 the cure. He, with a great deal of confidence in his diagnosis and his knowledge, prescribes medicines or treatments that will cure. So, sticking right to the sub ject, the doctor nunself, as his very self-confidence seems to prove, is a person who is not afflicted with an inferiority complex. it is_saie to say mat anyone who has lived in anything ap proximating mature life through i¥hii¥T* ten years knows some lEng^f'She'pi^aieHtrof ^fire trouble known as Inferiority Complex. The word, or term, has been used by every public speaker. It is seen, and has been seen for a spell—in every news paper—perhaps in every edi tion of every newspaper. Certainly it has been true .that a book could scarcely be writ ten without the use of the term. You have even heard high school boys and girls talk about having a good case of it. It has even been heard escaping the lips of one, or both, of two lov ers, out beneath the shade trees in the summer time, when everything was conducive to ro mance of the finest kind and when there was nothing, as the observer might suppose, to cause either of the two to think of anything akin to inferiority. (Perhaps, however, in a situa tion like that there might be this particular sort of feeling: Where one or the other, if not both, is so infatuated with the other that words can not be found with which to express the inner feeling, and that one gives up and shouts: “What’s the use? How can I ever master this in feriority complex?”) People you would suppose have no reason in the world for feeling afflicted with the ail ment often speak as though they had a genuine case of it. A few years ago a young man of perfect body and whose mind had been trained in some of the leading colleges and universities of tie South, spent two weeks with me as an assistant in some work, the most of which time he spent nights and odd hours in my home. And if he used that term once he used it doz ens of times—“inferiority complex.” He claimed that he had acute cases of it on all pub lic occasions, so intense that when alone and meditating up on tie severe public attacks he would develop even worse cases. I said to him one day: “Why don’t you throw away some of those detailed notes and give us a talk some day right out of your mind and heart—something that the people will really ap preciate?’’ And that’s when he made bold the assertion to me that he was so prone to have a case of what I am writing about in this piece. "At once/' ne said, "the very minute 1 take my eyes on my notes, as u x wouia not look m tnem anymore, x see notrnug in me worm out a Oiaim wan, ana x can t inline ox a sensioie worn to say. x am worried to oeatn witn mysen lor navmg such attacks oi mienority com plex.” At nrst we declare mat it is simpiy tern Die xor a young man —a young man strong m bouy anu minu—to De so aiwcteu, and yet i nave seen conege proiessors ana speakers oz ex perience anu renown ueveiop me very same trouoie. At least, it was apparently true. especi ally in tne case where a noteu editor had been an arouna tne world and came back to a conege community to ten tne ooys an anout what he hau seen, and because he left his manuscript at home ne forgot that he had seen anytning. leather he could not talk intelli gently about a single tmng ne nad seen; and, judging irom wnat he said, you couldn't ten chat he had ever been out of his home county. One might doubt that he had ever seen ms coun ty seat, if he even knew what a county seat was. And that man became so con scious of his failure there before the college concourse that he looked like he felt sure the in feriority complex trouble would WT0irl^6frhTc5uId Timke his escape from the platfrom. Besides that, it was such an evident case of it that all of us who were listening, or trying to, took the same trouble—or the jitters, or something else that was mighty bad. So, from more standpoints than one, it is bad to have the disease. We humans are so constituted that when a big brother up before us is simply suffering agony with the trouble, we fall right in and suffer in the same way. Every body wishes for a hole to fail through—and on out into eter nal oblivion. XT, nas Deen a mignty guuu time these last few days, to de velop cases of that trouble, and to observe others who had it. It has been commencement time in the big colleges and uni versities. People from all walks of ljfe have gathered together. Yonder were two people, at an other place a little group, hav ing the time of their lives in conversation and laughter. But in hundreds of cases there was the lonely looking fellow, stand ing around with the appearance of one who had got off at the wrong place, or one whose best friend had just died, or one whose sweetheart had “kicked” him, or one who was simply wondering if he himself should ever have been born. He felt all right at home, but when he got off over there— well, his world simply ended. In many a case the situation might have been something like this: The fellow dressed himself up in the best he had—and it all looked good to him—it al ways does look so there in the house before he gets out where there is something better; he proudly said goodbye to the members of the family remain ing at home, waving his hand like a king to the little fellows as they were talking and jab bering to what they regarded the best man on earth; he threw his traveling bag into the car and drove off in break-neck speed, like a ?ellow sent for, to get to where he thought he ought to be. Everything was in high gear—his feelings and all —until he got in sight of “Old Alma Mater.” Then things gan to look different on the o side, and certainly conditu were rapidly changing for tj worse on the inside, and he began to feel that very p: ably he had as well not the venture. To make th: worse, and to complete the de velopment of an inferiority com plex, he met a professor on tjhe street—one who used to sn&le at him occasionally in the cP room or out on the campus wl meeting up, and who was g enough to give him 80 a few times on a subject when the student didn’t really deserve but 70 or such a matter—and this commencement-bound son of the dear old college, tures to speak to the prof as in years gone by—wl and behold, the professor him as if he wondered what corner of the universe|.he came from, and never so mtich as grunted. If such, a thing as that ally happened, we might was enough to give a poor low a case of what we are wait ing about. In which case- it might have been a fine thing li the embarrassed old college “grad” had boldly walked up to side, and said: “Look here, i&h, the high-minded professor’s I’m So-and-So from Swill Creek, a member of the class of XYZ, and doing as important piece of work down there as you have ever done here—even when you prepared me for this taisk. Whafs this commencementrior, if it’s not for me and my kipd?” (Or it might have beer the best thing if the old “j^riid” peered just as wondering^ at the professor as the professor did at him—or if he had, upon the slightest opinion of how the professor would act, strutted on by him with more dignity ’than anybody else on earth 'eSuld make use of.) But now we are getting down to the problem—how to master this ailment so universally known and so frequently spok en of by the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the edu cated and the less educated, the good and the bad, in short, al most everyboy. Getting right down to the problem, therefore, and to be sure to start early enough in one’s life, I want to suggest to everybody interested in master ing an inferiority complex that he begin about 100 years before birth (at least /that early) choosing who his parents shall De. i. This is something really to be serious about. Every man has the right to be well-born, and a lot of choosing should be made use of a long time before he is born—such wise choosing that the very day he is born into this world all who know about it may be able to say: “That fel low certainly has a right to be proud of his birth, and he is to be congratulated ^for the choic es he m?|ie along through sev eral generations before he got here. He has made a good start; the rest of the way ought to be rather easy.” And there’s a lot in just that. I look all around me and find people who are handicapped on every hand, simply because they did not make a wise selec tion of parents—and other kin folks. Whatsoever any psychologist says about the theory that any man can be just anything he chooses after he gets here, I want to say that the biggest part of that is nothing but the ory. A start does mean some thing. Blood does tell. Heredity does count. Environment is not all. That may sound like dogmat ism. Whatever it is, it's true. I have seen the handicap in too many places—and I knew exactly what caused it. You can’t take a man and fling him for a hundred or more years through just any sort of blood veins and then expect him to be able when he gets into the world to become what the fel low can wno has selected care fully what sort of blood he should germinate ana grow in. Of course tnis thing is so se rious tnat we who are now liv ing must get down to actual thinking about tne matter, plan ning wisely and patiently wno snail be born, and of wn&t— some nunared or more years from now. it is a pity that a lot of folks cannot go back a few hundred years and be born ah over again—after making selection of parents and Kin folks. blow i would go back to along about the beginning of one s life on earth and give some ad yice about environment. ■The man who once shut him self up m a monastery, or some where, jto beat himself into sainthood, or to isolate himself into Goa s perfect kingdom, perhaps did not hear the divine call to that sort of procedure that he then thought he did. if a man is a ‘‘mixture of de ity and dust," the dust must touch dust as well as it is true that deity must touch deity. A long line of wise choices, as concerns environment, has tremendous effect upon what sort of complex shall develop in one’s life. A deal sight of in feriority, and the feeling of it can be prevented. A good birth is very impor tant; but that is not all—sur roundings and associations are tremendously important factors in the shaping of a life in ac cordance with the tendencies with which one was bom, and in creating of ideals in one’s life not born simply of good blood. I should like to see one man who spent 100 years selecting his parents and 100 years more in selecting his environment. I would dare that man to prove to me that he even knew what an inferiority complex is. And yet there are some oth er things I should like to say to those who are interested in mastering an inferiority com plex. This might figure in the envi ronment problem, but I want to emphasize the importance of choosing the right sort of work as a life pursuit. I have talked a lot in the past about square pegs in round holes, and I want to say again that there are plenty of them— and there’ll never be a fit until a square hole is made for the square peg. In fact, there will be such a misfit that not, only will the individual misfit be sorely conscious of an inferior ity complex, but everybody else will be conscious of ‘he poor fellow’s misfitness ard unhap pmess. But let a man choose the right sort of work, in which he is happy—whether that work be ditch-digging or anything else of its class—and I defy any man in any socalled superior work of life to make that happy workman become conscious of an inferiority complex. Ferhaps just before this I should have inserted a state ment concerning the all-impor tant thing of choosing to be something within as concerns genuine character. Let a man be well-born and let his environment be good, then let him choose to be good in the good environment and to do good work, whatsoever the task—then I would defy any of the world superiors to make him out an inferior fellow', either in the estimation of the individual himself or in that of the multitudes of observers. That fellow can certainly walk up to the college profes sor, or anybody else and de clare: “My work is as impor tant as yours, and if I work my task as effectively as_ you do yours, and if I work with the same boly purpose of service to humanity as you do, then we are on equal footing—we have the same foundation and our lives are fired with the same (Continued on page 4) AN ffPBU, h RUNSTATE BIBLE AS A CODE OF MORAIS FOE CHURCH, SCHOOL, STATE AND NATION (Reprinted from a booklet bythe Rev. Robert Elliott Flickin- * ger, D. D., Rockwell City, Iowa.) Article IV. THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE BIBLE, THE DIVINE STANDARD OF GOOD MORALS Enforce the Law Enforce the law is the frantic cry that is going up iron* the people. i*ut enforcing the law is not sulncient to stop tne crime wave, bo long as the source oi it remains unchecked, enioreing the law will not keep your boy or girt trom matting an error chat win doom their useful ness. uam was not put in prison lor the flow tnat envy leu him to iniiiet upon ms hr-cUe.*, ADel. LjU'1 he was 'ieJ to ex claim. "My pumsnment is great er tnan jl can bear." <iod spared ms life, but. he put a mark on oain, tne mara of guilt on his memory anu conscience. Most people who have learned the Commandments in youth, and to remember the babbath as a day for public worsnip, reirain from oecoming violators oi the civu laws by their respect for the nigher moral laws of <iod, in the oommandments. Crime Must lie Prevented That was the method, out lined by Moses in the manage ment oi the Commonwealth oi israel. He was given the Ten Commandments and directed to instruct the people in the Knowledge oi them. They were prohibitory in their form: Thou shalt not hill, steal, covet, nor oear iaise witness. fTeventhm-# ew«&e by in* struction is better than cure. Crime in the State is very much like disease m the human ooay. The ideal of a sound mind in a healthy body is maintained by a variety of good foods that have in them all the elements# for the bones and sinews; and outdoor exercise. All chronic diseases in the alimentary tract are now said to be due to a deficiency or surplus of the food elements. Prevention of disease iby a balanced diet is cetter than cure. All the youth of our land need to know the divine standard good morals as it is found in the Authorized Version of the Bible. They need to know also something about the broad ways that lead to ruin. They need to be taught that crime does not pay. They need a wholesome fear of crime implanted in their youthtul minas. “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”— Solo mon. “Wisdom and knowledge is the stability of thy throne.” — Isaiah. Every child and youth needs a correct standard of good mor als more than he does the mul tiplication table, or weights and measures. The Authorized Ver sion of the Bible is the stand ard in good morals that made England and the American Cr onies great. It is the standard that every American youth now needs for good citizenship, and for leadership in checking the present wave of crime and cor ruption in high places. About 1840, the country by some of the Old World elements in its citizenship, ruled the Bi ble out of the public schools, in some of the older States, and its importance as a standard of good morals was not appreciat ed by the legislators of a num ber of States organized later. The Bible needs now to be adopted by all the States and nations as the Divine Standard of good morals. Let the Bible now be replaced in the class -rooms of every public and pri sate elementary arid secondary school in the land, as one of tne most approved metnods of pre senting tne spread of vice, crime ana corruption. inis appeal is tor unity and cooperation in maxing the Au thorized Version of the Bibie the standard of- good morals, and placing the same or a copy of- 'one New Testament and Psalms in the hanas of every alien, and in every elementary ana seconaary, private ana pu rocnial scnool, college and State university as a corrective and preventive of crime. The cost of crime in our country is now greater than the cost of education, one of the oest ways of preventing cnme xs through the good influence of the elementary schools where the New Testament and tne Golden Rule are exemplified. This appeal contemplates a time when all the teacners and public officials will be Bible readers and approvers of the .di vine standard of good morals. “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.'’ This appeal tor the aany use of the Bible in all public schools of the land is based upon the well known facts that God, whose name is Jehovah, is the Sovereign Buler of the Uni verse; that he created man af ter his own image, endowing him with a spiritual or moral faculty known as the soul, so that he might hold converse with his Creator; that he has revealed to man that his name is Jehovah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords; that he has giv en to mankind the power of language both spoken and writ ten; and in the Old and Nejy Testaments, the inspired Word of God. These sacred Scriptures, by history, precept, prophecy, and the ministry of his only begot ten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, reveal what man is to believe concerning God and the duty he requires of man. They reveal Satan, that old serpent the dev il, as the great enemy of God and man. Satan causes r an oi man Satan, entering the Garden of Eden, caused the fall of our first parents from innocency and personal fellowship with God, and their exclusion from Eden. Satan caused Cain to envy, hate and even to slay his broth er, Abel, and merely because he was righteous. He caused the ante-deluvians to be so wicked and worldly they were swept away as a nuisance from the face of the earth by a mighty flood. When the chosen people were delivered from hard bond age in Egypt and were prosper ously settled in the land of Ca naan, Satan caused them to be come divided in two monarchies soon after the beautiful temple of Solomon was built. By wicked rulers, like Jere boam and Ahab, he caused the people to become idolaters, dis sipated, and drunk with strong drink; and as a punishment for their general ungodliness, to be carried in captivity by the As syrians and Babylonians. The remnant of the Jews in the world today represent a miracle of the ages, a fulfillment of the prophecies made known by Mos es, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. (To be continued) In the Gospel of Matthew, the great teacher said: “The poor have the Gospel preached to them.” You can always tell the real Gospel, for it has something for the poor.—Sel.
Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.)
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July 4, 1935, edition 1
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