“The Mills Will Never Grind with the Waters That Have Passed”

"THE MILLS WILL NEVER 
GRIND WITH THE WA-
TERS THAT HAVE
PASSED."

The above quotation seems true enough, yet nearly nineteen centuries have passed and the human race has failed to realize its truth. Mankind has thought, acted and lived as though it believed in the other side of the proposition. The statement is not doubted it its literal applications to the mills that line our streams, but when you widen the application and extend the significance to the multitudinous life mills in which are framed human character, and in winch human achievements are moulded, then indeed does humanity lose sight of the truth embodied in these words. We know that the waters which turn the old mill down by the river to-day, will turn it no more, but on the morrow will be far on their way to the sea; and we ought to know that the efforts and energies expended yesterday will not serve the purposes of the morrow. No sane man would stand by a humming mill, where rushing waters whirled its wheels, and way that its machinery would move again, with the waters that had passed, yet men and women are standing to-day by the mill of their moral and intellectual natures, expecting the waters that have gone to grind out great futures for them. The sooner the truth of the subject is seen and felt, the better for mills and miller. Let the waters of to-day do the work of to-day, and the force of to-morrow work out results for the morrow. Too much reliance on yesterday's work, too much living and dealing with bygones, have woefully hampered the studies of human progress. It is no uncommon sight to see men striving to demonstrate the other side of this subject, to see them living as though the force that had once propelled their physical, moral, and mental machinery, had taken the contract for time and eternity, and then weep over, what they find to be at the age of three score years and ten, their greatest mistake. The great truth impressed by this subject is that we must make the most of the all important now, and let the past go for what it is worth. Dwellings on past achievements can never effect future triumphs. It matters not how far reaching are the results of yesterday, the results of to-day and to-morrow are the vital elements of future success. Men are too prone to let what they have done at one period of life stand for what they are called to do at another stage of existance [sic]. But the "mountain men and women" of history have not been those, who after the accomplshments [sic] of some great work have spent the rest of life in contemplation of the beauty, symmetry and magnitude of the work and in admiration of the author's genius, but rather those who have sent their resistless and restless energies speeding through ten thousand other channels for the accomplishment of even greater purposes. This world has many men who believe that "the mills will turn forever with the waters that have passed." And these are the characters who do not know how to live in the present. Rusty from long dependence on the waters that have passed, blinded by deep seated prejudices imbibed long ago, and weakened by an over fondness for antiquated times and things, they are unfitted to grapple with the pregnant questions of a living present. One serious trouble with the politics of the day is, that too many men of influence in the parties act on the principle that the "mills must grind with the waters that have passed." In every party are to be found these fossllized [sic] politicians whose highest endeavor is to apply to the issues of the day convictions and prejudices begotton [sic] a score years ago. And wherever you find these characters you also find that they have been breaching too long in the wilderness of dead issues to appreciate and understand the force of living principles. Such characters are never happier than when they can resurrect some long buried prejudice, arouse some sleeping passion or condemn some vital issue which their beclouded minds cannot understand; and not until these troublesome fossils are beneath the sod, will parties and peoples learn to divide on honest and vital principles instead of disastrous prejudices. Young men in college often fail to appreciate the force of this subject. They are too prone to rest upon the oars after a hard fight and a well won race, forgetting that the strokes of one race, can never win a second. And it were well for every young man to bear in mind that at no period of his career can he set down to dream of yesterday's triumphs without diminishing his power for future conquests. No man, I care not how marvellous [sic] his achievements, how brilliant his career, can get anything by living in the past, but can only attain the full measures of his capacities by pressing every day into active service and making no surrender 'till called by the Master. When a man steps out into life to-day, the world cares but little what his former achievements have been. The question is not "what have you done, but what can you do, sir?" He is measured and justly too, by his present capacity to do the work of to-day. Then let each and all of us bear in mind the truth that "The mills will never grind with the waters that have passed."