Courage and Determined Effort : Part 2

How to Get on in the World: A Ladder to Practical Success
by Major A.R. Calhoon

(Page 6 of 26)

I will go farther and say that it is the best preservative against petty anxieties and the annoyances that arise out of indulged self-love. Men have thought before now that they could take refuge from trouble and vexation by sheltering themselves, as it wore, in a world of their own. The experiment has often been tried and always with one result. You cannot escape from anxiety or labor - it is the destiny of humanity . . . Those who shirk from facing trouble find that trouble comes to them.

"The early teachers of Christianity ennobled the lot of toil by their example. 'He that will not work,' said St. Paul, 'neither should he eat;' and he glorified himself in that he had labored with his hands and had not been chargeable to any man. When St. Boniface landed in Britain, he came with a gospel in one hand, and a carpenter's rule in the other; and from England he afterward passed over into Germany, carrying thither the art of building. Luther also, in the midst of a multitude of other employments, worked diligently for a living, earning his bread by gardening, building, turning, and even clock-making."

Coleridge has truly observed, that "if the idle are described as killing time, the methodical man may be justly said to call it into life and moral being, while he makes it the distinct object, not only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes the hours and gives them a soul; and by that, the very essence of which is to fleet and to have been, he communicates an imperishable and spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies therefore directed are therefore methodized, it is less truly affirmed that he lives in time than that time lives in him. His days and months and years, as the stops and punctual marks in the record of duties performed, will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant when time itself should be no more."

Washington, also, was an indefatigable man of business. From his boyhood he diligently trained himself in habits of application, of study and of methodical work. His manuscript school-books, which are still preserved, show that, as early as the age of thirteen, he occupied himself voluntarily, in copying out such things as forms of receipts, notes of hand, bills of exchange, bonds, indentures, leases, land warrants and other dry documents, all written out with great care. And the habits which lie therefore early acquired were, in a great measure the foundation of those admirable business qualities which he afterward so successfully brought to bear in the affairs of the government.

The man or woman who achieves success in the management of any great affair of business is entitled to honor - it may be, to as much as the artist who paints a picture, or the author who writes a book, or the soldier who wins a battle. Their success may have been gained in the face of as great difficulties, and after as great struggles; and where they have won their battle it is at least a peaceful one and there is no blood on their hands.

Courage, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome difficulties apparently insurmountable. It gives force and impulse to effort and does not permit it to retreat. Tyndall said of Faraday, that "in his warm moments he formed a resolution and in his cool ones he made that resolution good." Perseverance, working in the right direction, grows with time and when steadily practiced, even by the most humble, will rarely fail of its reward. Trusting in the help of others is of comparatively little use. When one of Michael Angelo's principal patrons died, he said: "I begin to understand the promises of the world are for the most part vain phantoms and that to confide in one's self and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course."

It should to be a first principle, in beginning life to do with earnestness what we have got to do. If it is worth doing at all, it is worth doing earnestly. If it is to be done well at all it must be done with purpose and devotion.

Whatever may be our profession, let us mark all its bearings and details, its principles, its instruments, its applications. There is nothing about it should escape our study. There is nothing in it either too high or too low for our observation and knowledge. While we remain ignorant of any part of it, we are so far crippled in its use; we are liable to be taken at a disadvantage. This may be the very point the knowledge of which is most needed in some crisis, and those versed in it will take the lead, while we must be content to follow at a distance.

Our business, in short, must be the main drain of our intellectual activities day by day. It is the channel we have chosen for them they must follow in it with a diffusive energy, filling every nook and corner. This is a fair test of professional earnestness. When we find our thoughts running after our business, and fixing themselves with a familiar fondness upon its details, we may be pretty sure of our way. When we find them running elsewhere and only resorting with difficulty to the channel prepared for them, we may be equally sure we have taken a wrong turn. We cannot be earnest about anything which does not naturally and strongly engage our thoughts.

Published by the Christian Herald, Louis Klopsch, Proprietor, Bible House, New York.
Copyright 1895 by Louis Klopsch.