Part 6 (2/2)

Whoever would thrive in his farming must bend his whole will and purpose to it. Nothing which can be done to-day should be put off till to-morrow. To-morrow may never come, and should it come, may not changed conditions and difficulties render set tasks impossible?

Under some circ.u.mstances men trust to fortune, without serious errors, in postponing the execution of appointed tasks. The maxim that 'procrastination is the thief of time' points a moral implied in itself, and is unquestionably true in a majority of instances.

Men of business are often careful in some matters, to the neglect of others more important. Different men have different methods of business, which, considering differences of const.i.tution and manner of application, is only natural; not dangerous, but rather beneficial. No two men go to work in the same way, notwithstanding they may have both learned of the same teacher, or been instructed upon the same principle. The greater trouble lies in improper application and inattention to details. Trifles make up the sum of life, as cents make dollars. An overanxious man, he who makes great haste to be rich, seldom prospers long in any undertaking.

Possibilities, not probabilities, should be the guide. A sanguine disposition may or may not be useful in business. Disappointment often follows sanguine hopes. A good business man calculates closely; does not allow antic.i.p.ation to run away with his judgment, nor imagine that any good result can follow a false move.

”For these reasons, the farmer needs to think and to reason more; to attend more strictly to business rules and methods, and to exercise a greater courage and persistency in applying them. 'Work while it is day,' says the Scriptures, 'for the night cometh when no man can work.' Command the present moment that shakes gold from its wings.

That the future may bring bread for his family, the farmer sows seed in confidence, and awaits the harvest in hope. But if he fails to do what is necessary to a proper yield from his crop, he has made a failure of the talents committed to him. Men must acknowledge the responsibility that rest upon them, and meet it with that true courage which directs them aright. The lack of knowledge does not imply lack of ability to think and to reason. All men, unless of idiotic, impaired, or diseased minds, are possessed of the faculty of reason, and should use it for the purpose for which it was given-- to supply needed helps to our temporal existence. From thought comes ability, and from ability system, courage, attention, application, the most valuable aids to every man of business.

”But in farming as in every other calling the first great requisite is self-reliance. The man who depends upon his neighbors, as Aesop ill.u.s.trates in one of his fables, never has his work done. But when he says that he will do it himself on a certain day, then it is prudent for the bird that has been nesting in his grainfield to change her habitation.”

CHAPTER XIII

AS TO PUBLIC LIFE.

The relations of the citizen to the state, and of the state to the citizen, are reciprocal. Every man who becomes a member of an established government, whether it be voluntary, as where an oath of allegiance is taken to obey the laws, or involuntary, as by birth, which is the case of a majority of all citizens, he surrenders certain natural rights in consideration of the protection which the government throws about him.

In a state of nature, man is free to do as he pleases, without any recognition of the rights of others; and his power to have his own way is entirely dependent on the physical strength and courage which he has to enforce it. This is why, in a savage state, war is the almost constant business of the men, and the strongest and the bravest of the lawless mob, tribe, or clan usually becomes leader.

When through either of these agencies a man finds himself a member of an established government, he owes to that government implicit obedience to its laws, in consideration of the protection to life and property which that government throws about him.

In consideration of the protection which the banded many, known as the state, gives to the individual, the individual pledges implicit obedience to the laws of the state.

Horace says : _Dulci et decorum est pro patria mori_--meaning that it is brave and right to die for one's country. Old Dr. Sam Johnson, like his successor, Carlyle, was apt to sneer at the grander impulses of humanity. He said on one occasion: ”Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel.” And yet we know that the n.o.blest characters of all history have been the men who felt, with Horace, that it was n.o.ble to die for one's country.

Americans, perhaps more than any other people in the world at this time, have an intense appreciation of this spirit of patriotism.

From the days of the Revolution to the present time, our most prominent and most respected characters have been the men who, in the forum or in the field, have devoted their lives to the preservation and elevation of the Republic.

Public life has its rewards, but they rarely come to the honest man in the form of dollars. Franklin, Jackson, Taylor, Jolinson, Grant, Garfield, and Lincoln were all the sons of poor men, and they died poor themselves; but who can say that their lives were not grandly successful.

An interest in politics should be the duty of everyone, but the young man who enters public life for the sake of the money he may acc.u.mulate from office, starts out as a traitor to his country and an ingrate to his fellows.

Public life should be an unselfish life. The service of the public requires the strongest bodies, the clearest brains, and the purest hearts, and the man who devotes his life to this great purpose must find his reward in a duty well performed, rather than in the financial emoluments of office.

Duty is the spirit of patriotism, and while this spirit should run through every act in every calling, it must particularly distinguish the man who has entered the public service as a soldier or civil official. It is duty that leads the soldier to face hards.h.i.+ps and death without flinching, and the same high impulse should stimulate the conduct where there is no physical danger.

Samuel Smiles, to whom we are indebted for much that is valuable in this work, has the following to say in this connection about duty:

”Duty is a thing that is due, and must be paid by every man who would avoid present discredit and eventual moral insolvency. It is an obligation--a debt--which can only be discharged by voluntary effort and resolute action in the affairs of life.

”Duty embraces man's whole existence. It begins in the home, where there is the duty which children owe to their parents on the one- hand, and the duty which parents owe to their children on the other.

There are, in like manner, the respective duties of husbands and wives, of masters and servants; while outside the home there are the duties which men and women owe to each other as friends and neighbors, as employers and employed, as governors and governed.

”'Render, therefore,' says St. Paul, 'to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.'

”Thus duty rounds the whole of life, from our entrance into it until our exit from it--duty to superiors, duty to inferiors, and duty to equals--duty to man, and duty to G.o.d. Wherever there is power to use or to direct, there is duty. For we are but as stewards, appointed to employ the means entrusted to us for our own and for others'

good.

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