Advice to Youth

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No wonder that the liar is regarded as so degraded a character. Long ago did he begin to go astray by not keeping up the distinction between truth and falsehood, so that he soon became not only unable to repeat the same story twice in the same way, but ready to add one circumstance and another, until now he can tell a point-blank lie and not blush. If there be deeper degradation than this, I scarcely know where to find it. What a process has all the while been going on in the man's own mind. That his comfort is destroyed, and the light of heaven shut out from his bosom, is only a part of the evil. One transgression follows another, until by and by he is palpably detected, and known and recognized as a liar. All honest and true men exclude him from their companionship as a nuisance and a plague-spot.

What is he to do and where is he to go in such circumstances? I am not speaking now of the sadness with which the child retires to its pillow, or the gloom with which the student opens his books, or the dread which fills the bosom of the clerk after the commission of the first fault of this kind. This, if it goes no farther, is dreadful. There is already an arrow in the soul, the poison whereof drinks up the spirits. But let the solitary act become a habit, and though the conscience should gradually grow so callous as at length to be past feeling, the public ignominy which must henceforth and forever hang upon his footsteps, is absolutely overwhelming. All, all of real virtue is now gone.

We tell a sad tale of a young man, when we say that he is now and then overcome with wine, or that he sometimes swears profanely. God forbid that I should speak of such practices, in any other terms than those of decided denunciation. But on some accounts, and in relation to certain aspects of character, it is worse and more fraught with every ingredient of utter hopelessness, to be compelled to say of him, that he no longer feels upon his heart the sacred obligations of truth. When this is said, all is said that can be meant by the fearful word 'ruin'.

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O, then, give me assurance that you will never conceive or utter words of falsehood, and "my heart shall rejoice, even mine." Let our little children, growing up as olive plants around our tables; our sons and daughters at school; our clerks and apprentices, be truth-loving and truth-speaking, at all times and under all circumstances; and everyone who wishes their welfare, will be filled with gladness. As for being rich, or acquiring great learning, or standing high in the temple of fame—it is more than any one can assure you of. But you can all attain to the dignity and honor of having a perfectly transparent character, and this will be sure to shed a hallowed light over your future pathway, be it what it may, and lead where it will.

You can never be real Christians, without a sacred regard for truth. Men may be sincerely pious, and yet have many errors in their understandings and many corruptions in their hearts, but they cannot be pious if in league with him "who loves and makes a lie." Such a life is one perpetual falsehood—a grand and fatal deception.

No matter what the exigency is, meet it manfully and abide the result. It may be a sore trial to the boy of ten years, to come forward and say, though it be with a beating heart and quivering lip—I did the wrong. It may make a heavy draught upon the courage and constancy of the young man, frankly to say—The evil is upon me, for I am its author. It may require a greater strength of inward principle than many members of the community possess, to say ingenuously—That mistake is mine. But once rise to the elevation of saying so, and a grand victory is gained. A single such open and candid avowal is worth more than tongue can tell.

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That strict and undeviating adherence to truth will never cause you temporary inconvenience, is more than I dare promise. But what of that? Should love of truth threaten you with poverty and loss of friends, or should it turn you out cold and comfortless upon the world, mind it not. The gain will be greater than the loss. Sit down in ashes with Job and feed like the prophet on tears, rather than dwell in the palaces and share the banquets of falsehood.

"Buy the truth and sell it not." Be thankful to the parent, who watches over you with sleepless vigilance and marks the slightest aberration from truth. Prize the teacher who, pass by whatever other faults he may, never feels at liberty to let you trifle with truth. Venerate the Minister who stands up in the pulpit and tells you, that none can enter heaven who do not speak the truth.

But yield in this matter to the beginnings of evil, and a weak and cowardly heart will soon feel the necessity of sustaining one false statement by another still more false, until at length the chain becomes so heavy as to break by its own weight, and what was carefully concealed is suddenly brought to light as open, ignominious and never to be forgotten guilt.

Is it not wise and well to offer the prayer, Lord, "cleanse me from secret faults, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins."

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BIBLE HONESTY.

Religion is not, as some take it to be, a system of dry, abstruse doctrines. It comprises practice as well as faith; the regulation of the life as well as the rectification of the heart; a correct conduct in the world, as well as a sound creed in the church. If one page of the Bible tells us what man is to believe concerning God, the next is sure to tell us what duties God requires of man. Thus the way is prepared for uniting good citizenship and true piety, the strictest integrity with the purest devotion.

Doing justly, you will readily see, is no less necessary than loving mercy and walking humbly with God. No system of sound morals or Christian piety can be deemed complete, which does not bring clearly out the principle of perfect honesty between man and man. Something to regulate the complicated business communion of the world, is indispensable to the welfare of individuals, and of society at large. The Catechism of King Edward thus explains the ninth precept of the Decalogue—"It commands us to beguile no man, to occupy no unlawful wares, to envy no man his wealth, and to think nothing profitable that either is not just, or differs from right and honesty." This seems to cover the whole ground.

But we turn to the Savior's Sermon on the Mount, and find something still more full and comprehensive. The injunction of the Great Teacher is, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12) These words are "like apples of gold, in pictures of silver." It is said that one of the Roman Emperors had them inscribed on the walls of his closet, and frequently referred to them in his public acts; and it would be sad if they should receive less respect at Christian hands.

We may regard this as the true and proper definition of the word HONESTY, and I cannot better fill up the present chapter, than by explaining the precept, and specifying some of the cases to which it especially applies.

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Much is comprised here in one short and easily remembered sentence. It requires us to deal with our neighbors, in everything which appertains to the commodities of life, just as we should think it proper for them to deal with us in an exchange of circumstances. If we would have others act fairly and righteously towards us, then we are bound for the same reason to act fairly and righteously towards them. The measure of our just expectations from the men with whom we have business communion, is the precise measure of our own duty. Such is the substance of all the teachings both of the law and the prophets, on this important point. Nothing more is required from man to his fellow-man. Nothing more is demanded by the claims of the purest rectitude. For anyone simply to do to others what you would have them do to you, is enough.

The moral beauty of the precept before us cannot fail to be seen at once. Not only does it lay an absolute interdict upon everything in the form of direct theft, but it goes behind the act, and strikes at that desire for the property of others, in which such act originates. An honest man according to the Savior's teachings, is one who always intends to do right, whether it works for him, or against him. Besides regarding the false balance and the deceitful weight as an abomination, he is above all that shuffling and evasion, by which multitudes seek to advance their interests in the world. His intentions are upright in the sight of God, and hence it is natural for his dealings to be upright in the sight of men. In every transaction, which has respect to property, he is what he would be thought to be; his conduct is a fair transcript of his principles. Not intending wrong, he has nothing to conceal, and nothing to gloss over. Try him as often as you please, and let him be exposed as often as he may, his unbending integrity still shines forth, as gold from the heat of the furnace.

Such a man is honest simply because he does to others as he would like that they should do to him. Is he a dealer in those articles which are needed for daily domestic consumption, it is as safe to send a child eight years of age to make the purchase, as to go yourself. Does he employ some laboring man to gather in his harvest, the hard-earned wages are not kept back a moment unnecessarily. Has he money for which he has himself no immediate use, no advantage is taken of the exigency of some less fortunate neighbor. In all matters of this nature, he acts upon one fixed and well-defined plan, and hence his heart does not reproach him for injustice.

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A truly honest man will never avail himself of the weakness or incompetency of the purchaser, to fill his own purse. What he gives in articles of food, fuel or clothing, he intends shall be a fair and just equivalent for what he receives in produce or money. If the article has in it any defect, known to him, but unknown to his customer, he feels bound to reveal it, however much it may work to his monetary injury. Never does he sell a damaged yard of cloth, whatever its texture or appearance, for a full price. Never does he put off a horse as sound, when he himself has evidence to the contrary. In such cases, all the loss resulting to one individual through ignorance, is so much unlawful gain to the other. So far as principle is concerned, it would be just as proper to go unobserved into a neighbor's house, and take from it an equal amount of silver or gold. To say that such things are common in the business world, avails nothing, unless you can prove that they are right.

That the deviation from perfect fairness, in the way of trade, is in itself but small, by no means proves that it is proper. The maxim of the blessed Savior is, "He who is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much, and he who is unjust in that which is least, is unjust also in much." It is neither the largeness nor the littleness of the thing, that makes it fair or unfair, honest or dishonest. Find a man who will deliberately overreach his neighbor in the smallest item, and that man, if the temptation were increased, would overreach him on the broadest scale. The straight line of duty may as really be passed, by the least departure from rectitude, as by the most palpable injustice.

Never forget, my young friends, that a penny stealthily taken from the drawer, a sixpence belonging to another appropriated to one's own use, a false representation made in regard to a piece of tape, is as real dishonesty, before God, and so far as the state of the heart is concerned, as the changing of the face of a bond from fifty dollars to five hundred. It was not the value of the fruit, which constituted the criminality of our first parents. Their act was criminal because it was disobedient, and the smallness of the thing done, if it affected its blameworthiness at all, only made that blameworthiness the greater, inasmuch as it was proof of a stronger disposition to transgress.

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These remarks should be well weighed by such as are just commencing their business career. It is no excuse for the false statement, or the incorrect entry, but a great aggravation of them both, that not much profit is anticipated by such deviations from rectitude. What then are we to think of the thousand little tricks, and petty dishonesties, which so often disfigure the dealings of man with his fellow-man? It seems as if the real dishonesty of the heart, in such cases, must be greater, inasmuch as the temptation is less. Besides, little here leads to much, and to tamper with evil at all, is the first step towards going after it openly and fully. The act which puts a man in the state-prison is not usually the only one of the kind committed. A beginning was made previously, of which this is the natural and appropriate consummation.

Such is the searching nature of the precept in question, and cases to which it especially applies are easily pointed out.

That all fraud, in the common use of the term, is here forbidden, is too plain to require a word of proof. This is a crime so well understood, and so universally infamous, that not a moment need be spent in holding it up to your detestation. Direct theft and outright robbery are not sins into which young men of any respectability are much in danger of falling. At least, this is not the point at which aberration usually commences. It will be more profitable to put you on your guard against the same general evil, in its less palpable and reproachful forms.

But to prevent all misapprehension, let me make a single preliminary remark. You are by no means to conclude that there is anything, in this golden rule of the Savior, to render a man indifferent to the obtaining of what is clearly and justly his due. Some of the most perfectly honest men I have ever known, have been very careful to require, at the precise time and in full measure, what was truly their own. Prompt themselves, they naturally expect promptitude from others, and if they demand what is right, they never demand more than is right. Strict integrity is the law of their own dealings, and the law which they wish to see everywhere enforced. These, too, mark it where you will, are generally the men whose hearts and hands are most open to aid the Christian and benevolent enterprises of the day. With them it is a principle to save, in order that they may give; and careful to keep their outgoes clearly within the limits of their income, they are seldom without something to bestow.

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In seeking to incorporate honesty with the daily business of life, the great point is, not to covet any man's "silver, or gold, or apparel." This is checking the evil in its embryo; and when all desire of unlawful gain is thus expelled from the heart, it will be found an easy thing to keep the hands from defilement. A man of true integrity is so on principle, and would be so irrespective of all laws and penalties on the subject. Still it is well to be specific, and see how the general rule of duty is to affect individual cases.

The injunction, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you," has a double application. It addresses those who have hands to labor, as well as those who have property to live on—those who would rise, as well as those who have risen in the world. To the first of these classes, its direction is, deal fairly and equitably with your employers. The capital with which you commence business is your strength and skill and perseverance; and see to it that you use them according to the terms of the specific, or implied contract. For the time being they belong to another, and not thus diligently to appropriate them is fraudulent. Make no promise, which at the moment you do not feel able to perform; but having made it, be as good as your word, though compelled to rise while the stars are still shining. Redeem every pledge of this sort, unless prevented by the providence of God. Better deny yourselves food or sleep, than be guilty of any such keeping from others what belongs to them.

This however is not all. The Savior's precept tells men that build houses, and open stores, and have lands cultivated, that they too have a duty to discharge. Just as soon as the service is rendered, the equivalent for it in money or goods, is no longer yours, and you cannot retain it and be strictly honest. On what principle is it that you have a right to make the journeyman, the clerk, or the day-laborer, wait your convenience? Who authorized you to consume his time—time perhaps which he needs to obtain bread for his children—by requiring him to call again and again? The world may not denominate this fraud, but it is fraud, and fraud which God has promised to avenge.

In process of time, some of you may attain to wealth and distinction, and find it proper to band yourselves with others in carrying forward important enterprises. Should such be the case, be on your guard. It is a common opinion, and no doubt often a correct one, that chartered companies will allow themselves to do what, as individuals, they could never do and retain the least reputation for honesty. The idea seems to be, that though a single man may not take advantage of his neighbor, ten or twenty united may do it with impunity. Each appears to merge his individuality in the collective body, so that the guilt of the wrong transaction, may be diffused over the whole, and thus not be perceived.

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Are you ready to say, None but a sadly perverted mind could ever thus impose upon itself? This is true, and yet the iniquity, we have reason to believe, is often practiced, and the evils resulting from it are felt far and wide. Many a widow, and group of fatherless children, have in this way been despoiled of their little all. I charge you spurn every such companionship in iniquity. Never do a disreputable deed, because there is in it a division of responsibility. The dishonesty is personal, though the act is that of a company.

There is still another case, which may try the strength of your uprightness. After rising to the possession of wealth, you may lose that wealth, and be reduced to the hard necessity of putting off your creditors with fifty cents on a dollar. Nothing is more common in the fluctuations of the business world. The rich man of today may become the poor man of tomorrow. But the path will after all be open before you, and the tide of fortune may again set towards your habitation. And what will be your duty, as honest men, under such circumstances? Why, to pay every penny you owe in the world. No matter if you have a legal clearance. No matter if nothing can be demanded of you. It is impossible that any bankrupt law should set aside the enactments of the Savior.

Let me cite an example. A man who was once Franklin's fellow-passenger to England, had been engaged in business in that country, was unsuccessful, compounded with his creditors, and came to the United States. Here by dint of unremitting industry, and careful frugality, he amassed a considerable fortune in a very few years. Upon his return to England, he invited all his old creditors to an entertainment, when after thanking them for their indulgence, he presented to each an order for the full amount of his claim, principal and interest. Noble man! He did as he would be done by. And if ever brought into similar circumstances, go and do likewise.

Fix it then in your minds from this hour, that you will always act upon this rule of the Savior. Be assured "honesty is the best policy." Overtaken by misfortune you may be, but so long as you are conscious that no one can point to a single unfair act, in all your business arrangements, you may sit calmly down in the midst of broken hopes, and darkened prospects. But, as Milton justly says, "God and good men will not allow a fair character to die." The day often arrives when the man of unbending integrity is permitted to come back to the mansion, where he formerly met the smiles of joyous and confiding friendship. Hold on to what is right, and the outcome will be happy. You may die poor, but you will die honest. Your couch may be hard, but your sleep will be sweet.

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And so far as the well-being of society is concerned, honesty is of pre-eminent importance. Deprive the world of trade, of this strong bond which now holds all its parts together in harmony, and it would fall to pieces as certainly and as suddenly, as would the world of matter, if deprived of the great law of gravitation. But blessed be God, there is enough of fairness and uprightness, in business transactions, to lay a foundation for general confidence. What else could induce a merchant or manufacturer to allow all he has to depart from under his own eye, and go to the other side of the globe, there to be lodged with people he has never seen? Bad as the world is, it is not so bad as it might be. Here is a man in New York, sleeping soundly on his pillow, while all the gains of years of successful industry, are stowed away in the warehouses of London, or Liverpool. This tells a favorable story for the commercial integrity of the world. Everything is entrusted to factors abroad, with an assurance almost, that it will return with a double tide of opulence to the man's own door.

I charge you, my young friends, do nothing yourselves to break up the foundation of this general confidence. Live in a lowly dwelling, wear a threadbare coat, sit down to a dinner of herbs, sooner than create a temptation to dishonesty, by permitting your expenditures to outrun your income. Distressing tales might be told on this subject. If you begin to go astray, you will find before you are aware of it, that you have woven a web about your steps, from which there is no breaking loose. Determine from the very first, that though you may be poor, you will not fail to be honest. Come what will, rise or fall, have friends or be left alone, resolve, as God shall help you, that no man shall ever say you willfully did him wrong.

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Our literature is public domain—use it in any way you desire.
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INDUSTRY, the road to success.

There is running through the whole system of nature, providence and grace, a very close connection between means and ends. Success is not to be gained—the hill is not to be climbed—the crown is not to be won—without an effort. No one need expect to be borne along to the prize, either in religious or secular matters, independently of his own exertions. Though the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, yet he who deals with a slack hand will become poor. The diligent in business may fail, but drowsiness is sure to clothe a man with rags.

This is a wise and kind arrangement, at once blessing men and making them a blessing. It is the flowing brook, and not the stagnant pool, that is pure itself, and spreads health and fertility over the land; and it is the man of persevering industry, who is happy in his own bosom, and who contributes to the happiness of others. Let idleness prevail, and the cheerful hum of business is exchanged for the discordant notes of vice and revelry. Besides, it should never be forgotten, that the use of one's powers, physical and mental, is necessary to their full and proper development. Without bodily exercise, the muscular arm of the laboring man would never have had its present strength. Without activity of mind, Bacon and Locke and Newton would have been weak as other men.

Think of this, as you are now starting for the goal, and gird yourselves for a life-long labor. If you look about in the world at all, you must see that comfort and competency are not ordinarily to be anticipated, except at the price of honest industry. So teaches the inspired volume, and such is the testimony of observation and experience. You wish to rise in the world, and we blame you not for it. The desire is natural and laudable. But remember that the cost of this attainment is steadfast and well-directed effort. Let me tell you,

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1. What industry really IMPLIES.

You must engage in some useful calling. Labor is the allotted condition of man. It was so in Paradise, and still more emphatically is it so now. He is to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. Active exertion is what he was intended for. Every feature of his countenance, every faculty of his mind, every bone of his body, every muscle of his limbs give indication of this. It is said that all are indolent by nature, but indolence is proof of depravity. Savages hate work. Barbarians in every land and climate are lazy. It is only in Christian countries, that habits of industry are found, and these are formed generally while the heart is tender and the character is taking its complexion. You can scarcely find an industrious man, anywhere, the morning of whose days was spent in idleness. So well was this understood among the Jews, that it passed into a proverb—he who does not bring up his child to industry, brings him up to be a beggar.

Yet toiling with the hands is not necessary in every case to show that man is fulfilling his allotted condition here on earth. Who works harder than the minister of the gospel, with the cares and responsibilities of a large congregation upon him—or the physician, liable to be called to the sick-bed by day and by night—or the lawyer, surrounded by clients whose interests he is bound to regard as his own—or the judge, dispensing justice from the bench—or the legislator, watching for the welfare of multitudes. Chalmers, and John Mason, and Emmet, and Sir Matthew Hale, and Wilberforce were industrious. It is a great mistake to suppose that labor is confined to farmers, mechanics and merchants. The nature of the service rendered to God and their generation by these several classes of people differs, but there is no harder work than that which tasks the head, the mind and the heart. This often wrinkles the face and turns the hair gray sooner than ploughing and digging.

No exceptions are to be made for such as are in affluent circumstances. In respect to industry, there is no favored class. Parents, who are themselves happy examples of successful industry, must not let their children grow up in idle habits. Sons and daughters should scorn the idea of allowing their fathers and mothers to toil from the rising of the morning until the stars appear, while they themselves have nothing to do. The kind of employment is left very much to your own option, but the duty of being employed is one of divine inculcation. We are to labor six days of the week, as well as rest on the Sabbath.

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Besides, you must work energetically and perseveringly. Not that there must be incessant toil, without relaxation or rest. Nature demands due repose, and nothing is lost to mind, body or estate by hearkening to her voice. The man who toils early and late, and hardly takes time to sleep, to visit a friend, or observe the Lord's-day, will find sooner or later, that he is not consulting his own best interests. It is impossible for you to better the divine arrangements. "Poor Castlereagh," cried one of his earliest and best friends, when he heard of the suicide of the great statesman, "Poor Castlereagh! he had no Sabbath." Relaxation is like stopping to sharpen a scythe, a file or saw, or oil the wheels of a carriage. The time thus spent is more than made up by the ease of the after movements.

It is easy to make grievous miscalculations here. Energetic as the student, the clerk, or the apprentice may occasionally be, he will find it impracticable to lay the burden of one period over upon another. What is not done at the proper time, whether in sacred or secular things, is generally never done, and certainly never done well. But it is possible for men to be occupied every day and every hour of the day, with no result that seems to correspond with the effort put forth. Thousands, says the old adage, make greater haste than good speed. This reminds us of the exclamation of a busy man on his death bed, "I have wasted life by laboriously doing nothing." There is such a thing as being in a hurry, and yet not getting forward. The reasons are two—men either occupy themselves with trifles, or they fail to carry through what they undertake. It is not the deep and majestic river, but the shallow brook that makes a noise. What we need, both in the church and in the world, is a calm, steady spirit. To run well for awhile is not sufficient. There must be a holding on and a holding out to the end, or the prize will not be secured.

Again, you must act upon some regular and well-considered plan. System is everything. A distinguished individual was once asked, how it was possible for him to get through with such an amount of labor. His reply is worth remembering. "I do one thing at a time." General Washington was remarkable for the order and regularity with which he attended to the vast affairs entrusted to his care. Every paper had its date and its place. No time was lost in looking up what had been mislaid. The distinction of Henry Martyn, both as a man and a missionary, depended not a little upon his habits of regularity. To such an extent did he carry these, that he was known in the University, as the student who never wasted an hour. No wonder that he rose to such eminence as a scholar and a Christian.

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There is more in this than you probably are aware of. How often is it that men carry to their graves a sort of unfixedness and desultoriness of character contracted in early life. They never become in the pulpit, at the bar, or on the bench, what they ought to have been. If they have a shop, everything is out of order; and if they have a farm, it looks as though it had no owner. The inattention of the first fifteen or twenty years of life, hangs about them like a gloomy incubus to the very end. When will it be learned that distinction is not won by fits and starts. A sudden impulse now and then, however noble, is not enough to lift one up to enduring eminence and respectability. "Patient continuance in well-doing," is necessary.

A good plan of life is like the skillful packing of merchandise; you get much more into the same space. What can a man do, who has no regular hours for rising, for prayer, for meals, or for rest. Everything in such a case must of necessity be loose and ineffective. Take for instance the bright and buoyant hours which thousands waste on the morning pillow, and what a vacuum do they make in life. Piety, health, and success, all suffer by such indulgence. Reckoning the day at ten hours of active employment, and one hour lost in bed, out of every twenty-four, makes a difference of six years in sixty. Who of the heavy-headed slumberers among us thinks of this? The celebrated Buffon promised his servant half a crown for every time he should get him up at a certain hour. And to this fact, he tells us the world is indebted for his Natural History.

But it is time we proceeded to the inquiry how is industry the road to success.

It is so, partly because it keeps men out of the way of temptation. To be busy, is itself a security against a thousand ills, and a passport to a thousand blessings. If the young Divine has no pastoral charge, let him read, and think, and write, and a call will come in due time. If the young lawyer has but few causes to try, let him attend to his office and his books, and clients will by and by appear. If the young Physician has only now and then a patient, let him keep at work in gaining fitness for duty, and his services will be sought. If the young Merchant or Mechanic has but few customers at first, let him stick to his counter or shop, and they will come by and by. The effect of such a course is two-fold—it preserves him from evil, and it fits him for duty.

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We have an affecting description of an idle, sauntering youth, in the seventh chapter of the Book of Proverbs. Much of the detail could not with propriety be given here. But suffice it to say, that a young man void of understanding was seen at the dusk of the evening, wandering about the city, where he was met by an impudent woman, who with her much fine speech caused him to yield, so that he went after her straight-way, as an ox to the slaughter, or a fool to the correction of the stocks. But it proved like a dart striking through his liver, and he found at last, that her house was the way to hell, leading down to the chambers of death. But for King David's leisure, the story of Uriah's murder had never been told. It is a proverbial remark, founded on experience and common sense, that Satan will employ him, who does not find employment for himself. Unoccupied, he is sure to fall into a current which will gradually carry him farther and farther away from God, from hope, and from heaven.

Industry will secure the confidence and encouragement of good men. What is it that we first inquire after, respecting one who is just coming forward on the arena of public life? Brilliant talents may be desirable; respectable connections may have an influence; property may serve as an outfit; but after all, our real judgment of the man, and our readiness to commit important trusts to his keeping, will depend on something more inherent and personal. We must know that he is industrious and faithful. Without these abiding qualities, capacity, and family, and fortune will seem light as air and empty as a bubble.

It is instructive to ask who they are, that rise to the highest distinctions both in church and state. Flashes of genius and outbursts of effort usually accomplish little. We hear much of fair openings and happy beginnings, but in a great majority of instances the men of persevering diligence bear away the palm. The best talent on earth is that of assiduous application. Pharaoh understood this matter well, when he said to Joseph, "If you know any men of activity" among your brethren, "make them rulers over my cattle." We know what to depend upon when we employ such people. But show me a young man, who mingles in every little group gathered at the corners of the street, and is ready to attend to anybody's business but his own, and it requires no prophetic eye to foretell his course. No one puts confidence in him. He dooms himself to the occupancy of an inferior position all the days of his life.

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