Part 5 (1/2)

Life, all suns.h.i.+ne without shade, all happiness without sorrow, all pleasure without pain, were not life at all--at least not human life. Take the lot of the happiest--it is a tangled yarn. It is made up of sorrows and joys; and the joys are all the sweeter because of the sorrows; bereavements and blessings, one following another, making us sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life more loving; it binds us more closely together while here. Dr.

Thomas Browne has argued that death is one of the necessary conditions of human happiness, and he supports his argument with great force and eloquence. But when death comes into a household, we do not philosophize--we only feel. The eyes that are full of tears do not see; though in course of time they come to see more clearly and brightly than those that have never known sorrow.

There is much in life that, while in this state, we can never comprehend. There is, indeed, a great deal of mystery in life--much that we see ”as in a gla.s.s darkly.” But though we may not apprehend the full meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best have to pa.s.s, we must have faith in the completeness of the design of which our little individual lives form a part.

We have each to do our duty in that sphere of life in which we have been placed. Duty alone is true; there is no true action but in its accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of its fulfillment. Of all others, it is the one that is most thoroughly satisfying, and the least accompanied by regret and disappointment.

In the words of George Herbert, the consciousness of duty performed ”gives us music at midnight.”

And when we have done our work on earth--of necessity, of labor, of love, or of duty--like the silk-worm that spins its little coc.o.o.n and dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay in life may be, it is the appointed sphere in which each has to work out the great aim and end of his being to the best of his power; and when that is done, the accidents of the flesh will affect but little the immortality we shall at last put on.

CHAPTER X

SELECTING A CALLING.

In reading the lives of great men, one is struck with a very important fact: that their success has been won in callings for which in early manhood they had no particular liking. Necessity or chance has, in many cases, decided what their life-work should be.

But even where the employment was at first uncongenial, a strict sense of duty and a strong determination to master the difficult and to like the disagreeable, conquered in the end.

In these days of fierce compet.i.tion, no matter how ardent the desire for fame, he is a dreamer who loses sight of the monetary returns of his life-efforts.

There have been a few men whose wants were simple, and these wants guarded against by a certain official income, who could afford to ignore gain and to work for the truths of science or the good of humanity. The great English chemist Faraday was of this cla.s.s. Once asked by a friend why he did not use his great abilities and advantages to acc.u.mulate a fortune, he said: ”My dear fellow, I haven't time to give to money making.”

It is, perhaps, to be regretted that in nearly every case the efforts of to-day, whether in commerce, trade, or science, have for their purpose the making of fortunes. Nor should this spirit be condemned, for fortune in the hands of the right men is a blessing to the world and particularly to those who are more improvident.

Peter Cooper, Stephen Girard, George Peabody, and many other eminent Americans who made their way to great wealth from comparative poverty, used that wealth to enable young men, starting life as they did, to achieve the same success without having to encounter the same obstacles.

It is a well-known fact that boys who live near the sea have an intense yearning to become sailors. Every healthy boy has a longing to be a soldier, and he takes the greatest delight in toy military weapons.

Our ideals for living, particularly when they are the creations of a youthful imagination, are but seldom safe guides for our mature years. The fairy stories that delighted our childhood and the romances that fired our youth, are found but poor guides to success, when the great life-battle is on us.

It is a mistake for parents and guardians to say that this boy or that girl shall follow out this or that life-calling, without any regard to the tastes, or any consideration of the natural capacity.

It is equally an error, because the boy or girl may like this or that branch of study more than another, to infer that this indicates a talent for that subject. Arithmetic is but seldom as popular with young people as history, simply because the latter requires less mental effort to master it. The world is full of professional incompetents--creatures of circ.u.mstances very often, but more frequently their life-failure is due to the whims of ambitious parents.

While the child and even the young man are but seldom the best judges of what a life-calling should be, yet the observant parent and teacher can discover the natural inclination, and by encouragement, develop this inclination.

As the wrecks on sandy beaches and by rock-bound sh.o.r.es, warn the careful mariner from the same fate, so the countless wrecks which the young man sees on every hand, increasing as he goes through life, should warn him from the same dangers.

It is stated, on what seems good authority, that ninety-five percent of the men who go into business for themselves, fail at some time.

It would be an error, however, to infer from this that the failures were due to a mistaken life-calling. They have been due rather to unforeseen circ.u.mstances, over-confidence, or the desire to succeed too rapidly. Benefiting by these reverses, a large percent of the failures have entered on the life-struggle again and won.

In the early days of the world's history, the callings or fields of effort were necessarily limited to the chase, herding or agriculture. In those times, the toiler had not only to work for the support of himself and family, but he had also to be a warrior, trained to the use of arms, and ready to defend the products of his labor from the theft of robber neighbors.

In this later and broader day, civilization has opened up thousands of avenues of effort that were unknown to our less fortunate ancestors.

While the world is filled with human misfits, round pegs in square holes and square pegs in round holes, the choice of callings has so spread with the growth of civilization, that every young man who reasons for himself and studies his own powers, can with more or less certainty find out his calling, and pursue it with a success entirely dependent on his own fitness and energy.

In a general way, the great fields of human effort, at this time, may be divided into three cla.s.ses. First, the so-called ”learned professions”--journalism, theology, medicine and law. Second, the callings pertaining to public life, such as politics, military, science, and education. Third, those vocations that pertain to production, like agriculture, manufactures, and commerce.

But apart from the callings selected, it should be kept carefully in mind that, no matter the business, success is dependent entirely on the man.