JAMES ALLEN: BYWAYS OF BLESSEDNESS: REST-HOUSES OF PEACE

2018 0204 05  James Allen: Byways of Blessedness: Rest-Houses of Peace

James Allen [1864-1912]

James Allen (1864–1912) was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of the self-help movement. 

Allen was forced to leave school at the age of fifteen and worked as a private secretary and stationer in several British manufacturing firms. In 1893 Allen moved to London and started earning his living by journalism and reporting. 

Allen entered a creative period and published his first of his nineteen books, From Poverty to Power (1901). 

In 1903 Allen published As a Man Thinketh loosely based on the Biblical passage, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," [Proverbs 23:7] which brought him world-wide fame. 

Byways of Blessedness

Along the highways of Burma there is placed, at regular distances away from the dust of the road, and under the cool shade of a group of trees, a small wooden building called a "rest-house", where the weary traveller may rest a while, and allay his thirst and assuage his hunger and fatigue by partaking of the food and water which the kindly inhabitants place there as a religious duty.

Along the great highway of life there are such resting places; away from the heat of passion and the dust of disappointment, under the cool and refreshing shade of lowly Wisdom, are the humble, unimposing "rest-houses" of peace, and the little, almost unnoticed, byways of blessedness, where alone the weary and footsore can find strength and healing.

Nor can these byways be ignored without suffering. Along the great road of life, hurrying, and eager to reach some illusive goal, presses the multitude, despising the apparently insignificant "rest-houses" of true thought, not heeding the narrow little byways of blessed action, which they regard as unimportant; and hour by hour men are fainting and falling, and numbers that cannot be counted perish of heart-hunger, heart-thirst, and heart-fatigue.

But he who will step aside from the passionate press, and will deign to notice and to enter the byways which are here presented, his dusty feet shall press the incomparable flowers of blessedness, his eyes be gladdened with their beauty, and his mind refreshed with their sweet perfume. Rested and sustained, he will escape the fever and the delirium of life, and, strong and happy, he will not fall fainting in the dust, nor perish by the way, but will successfully accomplish his journey.

                                   

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