LIFE—ITS OPPORTUNITIES AND TEMPTATIONS.
March 12, 1885.
I propose to speak to you now of some plain and practical duties which await you in life; and, as there are many boys here who are anxiously looking for the time when they will leave the college to make their way in the world, some of whom will probably have left the college before I come again, I speak more especially to them. And my first words are words of congratulation, and for these reasons:
1. Because you are young. And this means very much. You have an enormous advantage over people that are your seniors. Other things being equal, you will live longer, and I assume that “life is worth living.” Then you have the advantage of profiting by the mistakes committed by those who precede you, and if you are not blind, you can avail yourselves of the successes they have achieved.
You have the freshness, the zest of youth. You are full of courage and endurance. You can grapple with difficult subjects and with a strong hand. And if you blunder, you have time to recover yourselves and start anew. In short, life is before you, and you look forward with the inspiration of hope, and it may be, also, of determination.
2. I congratulate you also because you are poor. You have your own way to make in the world. You know already that if you achieve success, it must be because you exert yourselves to the very utmost. Indeed, you must depend upon yourselves, and this means that you must do everything in your power that is right to do, to help yourselves.
You must understand that there is no royal road to success, any more than there is to learning, and that there is no time to trifle. If you were rich men’s sons, these remarks would have no special pertinence, or importance.
My congratulations are quite in order also because very many, if not most of the high places in our country, are held by those who once were poor lads.
Should you turn upon me and say, “Why, then, if one is to be congratulated on his poverty, do fathers toil early and late, denying themselves needed recreation, not ceasing when they have accumulated a good estate, almost selling their souls to become millionaires—why do they so much dread to leave their sons to struggle for a living?” More than one answer might be given to these questions. Some fathers have so little faith in God’s providence that they forget his goodness, which now takes care of their families through the instrumentality of parents; and who can continue that care through other means, just as well, when the parents are gone; but high authority says that “they who will be rich, fall into temptations and snares,” one of which is that the race for riches unfits the racer for all other pursuits and amusements, and he can’t stop his course, he can’t change his habits, he has no other mental resources—he must work or perish.
Do not, then, let the fact that you are poor discourage you in the least—it is rather an advantage.
3. But again I congratulate you, because your lot is cast in America. Do not smile at this. I am not on the point of flying the American eagle, nor of raising the stars and stripes. It is, however, a good thing to have been born in this country. For in all important respects it is the most favored of all lands. It is the fashion with certain people to disparage our government and its institutions; and one must admit that in some particulars there might be improvement, and will be some day; but, notwithstanding these defects, it is unquestionably true that it is the best government on earth. Is there any country where a poor young man has opportunities as good as he has here, to get on in life? Is there any obstacle or hindrance whatever, outside of himself, in the way of his success? If a young man has good health of mind and body, and a fair English education and good manners, and will be honest and industrious, is he not much more certain to attain success, in one way or another, in this country than anywhere else? You know he is. Why? Because of our equal rights under the law. There is no caste here, that curse of monarchies. There is no aristocracy in sentiment or in power, no House of Lords, no established church, no law of primogeniture. One man is as good as another under the law as long as he behaves himself.
If you want further evidence, only look for a moment at the condition of the seething, surging masses of Europe, and the continual apprehensions of a general war. Before this year 1885 has run its course the United States may be almost the only country among the great powers that is not involved in war.
And if still further illustration were needed, let me point to that most extraordinary scene enacted in Washington some weeks ago.
A great political party, which has held control of this government nearly a quarter of a century, and which has exercised almost unlimited power, yields most quietly and gracefully all high places, all dignity, all honor and patronage, to the will of the people who have chosen a new administration. And everybody regards it as a matter of course.
Was such a thing ever known before? And could such a thing occur anywhere else among the nations?
Once more, I congratulate you because you live in Philadelphia. Ah, now we come to a most interesting point. Most of you were born here, and you come to this by inheritance. This is the best of all large cities. More to be desired as a place to live in than Washington, the seat of government, the most beautiful of all American cities, or New York, with its vast commerce and enormous wealth, or Boston, with its boasted intellectual society.
They may call us the “Quaker City,” or the “worst paved city,” or the “slow city,” or the “city of rows of houses exactly alike;” but these houses are the homes of separate families, and in a very large degree are occupied by their owners, and you cannot say as much of any other city in the world. Although there are doubtless many instances in the oldest part of the city, and among the improvident poor, where more than one family will be found in the same house, yet these are the exceptions and not the rule; and so far as I know there is not one “tenement house” in this great city that was built for the purpose of accommodating several families at the same time. I need not point you to New York and Boston, where the great apartment houses, with their twelve and fourteen stories of flats for rich and well-to-do people prevail, utterly destroying that most cherished domestic life of which we have been so proud, and introducing the life of European cities, with its demoralizing associations and results; nor shall I describe the awful tenement houses in those two cities, where the poor are crowded like animals in a cattle-train, suffering as the poor dumb creatures do, for want of air, and water, and space, and everything else that makes life desirable.
Of all cities on the face of the earth, Philadelphia is the most desirable for the young man who must make his own way in the world....
And having shown you how favorable are the conditions which are about you, the next point is, What will you do when you set out for yourselves?
All of you are expecting when you leave school to be employed by somebody, or engaged in some business. And I suppose you may be looking to me to give you some hints how to take care of yourselves, or how to behave in such relations.
I will try to do so plainly and faithfully.
I cannot absolutely promise you success. Indeed, it would be necessary first to define the word. And there are several definitions that might be given. One of the shortest and best would be in these words, “A life well spent.” That’s success. And this definition shall be my model.
Work hard, then, at your lessons. Let your ambition be, not to get through quickly, not to go over much ground in text-books, but to master thoroughly everything before you. If you knew how little thorough instruction there is, you would thank me for this. There are so many half-educated people from schools and colleges that one cannot help believing that the terms of graduation are very easy. There have been, and are now, graduates of colleges who cannot add up a long column of figures correctly, nor do an example in simple proportion, nor write a letter of four pages of note paper without mistakes of grammar and spelling and punctuation, to say nothing of perspicuity and unity and general good taste.
It is quite surprising to find how helpless some young men are in the simple matter of writing letters; an art with which, in these days of cheap postage and cheap stationery, almost everybody has something to do. If you doubt this let me ask you to try to-morrow to write a note of twenty lines on any subject whatever, off-hand, and submit it for criticism to your teacher. Do you wonder, then, that an employer calling one of his young men, and directing him to write a letter to one of his correspondents, saying such and such things, and bring it to him for his signature, is surprised and grieved to see that the letter is in such shape that he cannot sign it and let it go out of his office?
It is very true that letter-writing is not the chief business of life, not the only thing of importance in a counting-house, but it is an elegant accomplishment, and most desirable of attainment.
Let me say some words about shorthand writing. In this day of push and drive and hurry, when so many things must be done at once, there is an increasing demand for shorthand writers. In fact, business as now conducted cannot afford to do without this help. It often occurs that a principal in a business house cannot take the time to write long letters. Why should he? It does not pay to have one that is occupied in governing and controlling great interests, or in the receipt of a large salary, tied to a desk writing letters, or reports, or statements of any kind. He must talk off these things; and he must be an educated man, whose mind is so disciplined to terse and accurate expression that his dictation may almost be taken to be final. He wants a clerk who can take down his words with literal accuracy, and who will be able to correct any errors that may have been spoken, and submit the complete paper to his chief for his signature. The demand for this kind of service is increasing every day, and some of you now listening to me will be so employed. See that you are ready for it when your opportunity comes.
If you get to be a clerk in a railroad office, or in an insurance company, or in a store, or in a bank, devote yourself to your particular duties, whatever they may be. And don’t be too particular as to what kind of work it is that falls to your lot. It may be work that you think belongs to the porter; no matter if it is, do it, and do it as well as the porter can, or even better.
Let none of you, therefore, think that anything you are likely to be called upon to do is beneath you. Do it, and do it in the best manner, and you may not have to do it for a long time.
Make yourself indispensable to your employer. You can do that; it is quite within your power, and it may be that you may get to be an employer yourself; indeed it is more than probable; but you must work for it.
If you get to be a book-keeper in any counting-house or public institution, remember that you are in a position of trust and responsibility. When you make errors do not erase the error; draw faint red or black lines through it and write correct characters over the error. Do not hide your errors of any kind. Do not misstate anything in language or figures. Everybody makes errors at some time or other, but everybody does not admit and apologize for them. The honest man is he who does admit and apologize, and does so without waiting to be detected.
There have been of late some deplorable instances of betrayal of trust in our city. I may as well call it by its right name, stealing. The culprits are now suffering in prison the penalty for their crimes. While I am speaking to you there are men, young and not young, in our city who are now stealing, and who are falsifying their books in the vain hope that it may be kept secret; who are dreading the day when they will be caught; who cannot afford to take a holiday; who cannot afford to be sick, lest absence for a single day may disclose their guilt. What a horrible state of mind! They will go to their desks or their offices to-morrow morning, not knowing but it may be their last day in that place.
And the day will come, most surely, when you will be tempted as these wretched ones have been tempted. In what shape the temptation may come, or when, no human being knows. The suggestion will be made, that by the use of a little money you may make a good deal; that the venture is perfectly safe; some one tells you so, and points to this one or that one who has tried it and made money. It is only a little thing; you can’t lose much; you may make enough to pay for the cost of your summer holiday, or for your cigar bill, or your beer bill; or you will be able to smoke better cigars or drink better beer, or buy a gold watch, or a diamond ring, or anything else; you can’t lose much. You have no money of your own, it is true, but what is needed will not be missed if you take it out of the drawer. Shall you do it? No! Let nothing induce you to take the first dollar not your own. It is the first step that counts.
But suppose you don’t care for this warning, or forget it. Suppose the time comes when you find that you have taken something that was not yours, and that it is lost, and that you cannot repay it, what then? Why, go at once to your employer; tell him the whole story; keep back nothing; throw yourself upon his mercy, and ask forgiveness. Better now than later. You will assuredly be caught. There is no possibility of continuous concealment. Tell it now before you are detected, and, if you must be disgraced, the sooner the better.
Am I too earnest about this? Am I saying too much? Oh, boys, young men, if you knew the frightful danger that you may be in some day, the subtle temptations that will beset you, the many instances of weakness about you, the shipwrecks of character, the utter ruin that comes to sisters and to innocent wives and children by the crimes of brothers, husbands and fathers, as we who are older know, you would not wonder that I speak as I do.
Every case of breach of trust, every defalcation, weakens confidence in human character. For every such instance of wrong-doing is a stab at your integrity if you are in a position of trust. Men of the fairest reputation, men who are trusted implicitly by their employers, men who are hedged about by the sacredness of domestic ties, on whom the happiness of helpless wives and innocent children depend, men who claim to be religious, go astray, step by step, little by little; they defraud, steal, lie, try to cover up their tracks, cannot do it long, are caught, tried, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned. Then the question may be asked about you or me: “How do we know that Mr. So-and-So is any better than those who have fallen?” Don’t you see that these culprits are enemies of the public confidence, enemies of society, your enemies and mine?
If the names of those who are now serving out their sentences in the public prisons for stealing, not petty theft, but stealing and defrauding in larger sums, could be published in to-morrow morning’s papers, what a sad record it would be of dishonored names and blighted lives and ruined homes, and how the memory would recall some whom we knew in early youth, the pride of their parents, or the idol of fond wives and lovely children; and we should turn away with sickening horror from the record! But, if there should appear in the same papers the names of those who are now engaged in stealing and defrauding and falsifying entries, who are not yet caught, but who may, before this year is out, be caught and convicted and punished, what a horrible revelation that would be!
I close abruptly, for I cannot keep you longer.
But do not think that it is for your future in this life only that I am concerned. Life does not end here, though it may seem to do so. Our life in this world is a mere beginning of existence. It is the future, the endless life before us, that we should prepare for; and no preparation is worth the name except that of a pure, an upright and honorable life, that depends for its support on the love and the fear of God. You must accept him as your Father, you must honor him and obey him, and so consecrating your young lives to his service, trust him to care for you with his infinite love and care.
William Welsh.
ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM WELSH,
First President of the Board of City Trusts.
February 22, 1878.
When I spoke to you last from this desk I tried to persuade you to adopt the thought so aptly set forth by one of the old Hebrew kings, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. I little thought then that Mr. Welsh, who was one of the most conspicuous examples of working with all his might, and so much of whose work was done for you, whom you so often saw standing where I now stand, I little thought that his work on earth was so nearly done. Last Sunday he addressed you here. One, two, three services he conducted for the boys of this college, one in the infirmary, one in the refectory for the new boys, and one in this chapel. I venture to say from my knowledge of his method of doing things that these services were all conducted in the best manner possible to him; that he did not spare his strength; that there was nothing weak or undecided in his acts or speech, but that he took hold of his subject with a firm grasp, and did not let go until the service was finished. It is very natural that we should desire to know as much as we can about a life that has come so close to us as the life of Mr. Welsh, and to learn, if we may, what it was that made him the man that he was. The thousands of people that gathered in and about St. Luke’s Church on the day of the funeral, as many of you saw; the very large number of citizens of the highest distinction who united in the solemn services; the profound interest manifested everywhere among all classes of society; the closing of places of business at the hour of these services; the flags at half-mast, all these circumstances, so unusual, so impressive, assured us that no common man had gone from among us. What was it that made him no common man? What was there in his life and character that lifted him above the ordinarily successful merchant? In other places, and by those most competent to speak, will the complete picture of his life be drawn, but what was there in his life which particularly interests you college boys? It will surprise you probably when I tell you that his early education—the education of the schools—was very limited. He was not a college-bred man. At a very early age (as early as fourteen, I believe) he left school and went into his father’s store. You know that he could not have had much education at that age. And he went into the store, not to be a gentleman clerk to sit in the counting-house and copy letters and invoices, and do the bank business and lounge about in fine clothing, but he went to do anything that came to hand, rough and smooth, hard and easy, dirty and clean, for in those days the duties of a junior clerk differed from those of a porter only in this, that the young clerk’s work was not so heavy as the robust porter’s. And even when he grew older and stronger he would go down into the hold of a vessel and vie with the strong stevedore in the shifting and placing of cargoes. And the days were long then: there were no office hours from nine to three o’clock, but merchants and their clerks dined near the middle of the day, and were back at their stores, their warehouses, in the afternoon and stayed and worked until the day was done. So this young clerk worked all day, and went home at night tired and hungry, to rest, to sleep and to go through the next day and the next in the same manner. But not only to rest and sleep. The body was tired enough with the long day’s work, but the mind was not tired. He early knew the importance of mental discipline, of mental cultivation. He knew that a half-educated man is no match for one thoroughly equipped, and so he set himself to the task of making up, as far as he could, for that deficiency of systematic education which his early withdrawal from school made him regret so much. What definite means or methods he resorted to to accomplish this I cannot tell you, for I have not learned; but the fact that he did very largely overcome this most serious disadvantage is apparent to all who have ever met him. He was a cultivated gentleman, thoroughly at ease in circles where men must be well informed or be very uncomfortable. As the President of this Board of Trustees, having for his associates gentlemen of the highest professional and general culture, he was quite equal to any exigency which ever arose. All this you must know was the result of education, not that which was imparted to him in the schools, but that which he acquired himself after his school life. He was careful about his associates. Then, as now, the streets were alive with boys and young men of more than questionable character. And the thought which has come up in many a boy’s mind after his day’s work was done, must have come up in his mind: “Why should I not stroll about the streets with companions of my own age and have a good time? Why should I be so strict while others have more freedom and enjoy themselves so much more?” I have no doubt that he had his enjoyments, and that he was a free, hearty boy in them all, but I cannot suppose, for his after life gave no evidence of it, his general good health, his muscular wiry frame forbade the thought, I cannot suppose his youthful pleasures passed beyond that line which separates the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. Few evils are so great as that of evil companions.
William Welsh was not afraid of work. I mean by that he was not lazy. A large part of the failures in life are attributable to the love of ease. We choose the soft things; we turn away from those which are hard. We are deterred by the abstruse, the obscure; we are attracted by the simple, the plain. A really strong character will grapple with any subject; a weak one shrinks from a struggle. A character naturally weak may be developed by culture and discipline into one of real strength, but the process is very slow and very discouraging. A life that is worth anything at all, that impresses itself on other lives, on society, must have these struggles, this training. I do not know minutely the characteristics of Mr. Welsh’s early life in this particular, but I infer most emphatically that his strong character was formed by continuous, laborious, exacting self-application.
I would now speak of that quality which is so valuable (I will not say so rare), so conspicuously and so immeasurably important, personal integrity. Mr. Welsh possessed this in the highest degree. He was most emphatically an honest man. No thought of anything other than this could ever have entered into the mind of any one who knew him. All men knew that public or private trusts committed to him were safe. Mistakes in judgment all are liable to, but of conscious deflection from the right path in this respect he was incapable. His high position as President of the Board of City Trusts, which includes, among other large properties, the great estate left by Mr. Girard to the city of Philadelphia, proves the confidence this community had in his personal character. His private fortune was used as if he were a trustee. He recognized the hand of God in his grand success as a merchant, and he felt himself accountable to God for a proper expenditure. If he enjoyed a generous mode of living for himself and his family—a manner of life required by his position in the community—he more than equalized it by his gifts to objects of benevolence. He was conscientious and liberal (rare combination) in his benefactions, for he felt that he held his personal property in trust.
Such are a few of the traits in the character of the man whose life on earth was so suddenly closed on Monday last. Under Providence, by which I mean the blessing of God, that blessing which is just as much within your reach as his, these are some of the conditions of his extraordinary success. His self-culture, the choice of his companions his persistent industry, his integrity, his religion, made the man what he was. I cannot here speak of his work in that church which he loved so much. I do not speak with absolute certainty, but I have reason to believe that, next to his own family, his affections were placed on you. He could never look into your faces without having his feelings stirred to their profoundest depths. He loved you—in the best, the truest sense, he loved you. He was willing to give any amount of his time, his thought, his care, to you. The time he spent in the chapel was a very small part of the time he gave to his work for you. You were upon his heart constantly. I do not know—no one can know—but if it be possible for the spirits of just men made perfect to revisit the scenes of earth—to come back and look upon those they loved so much when in the flesh—I am sure his spirit is here to-day—this, his first Sabbath in Heaven—looking into your faces, as he often did when he went in and out among you, and wishing that all of you may make such use of your grand opportunity here as will insure your success in the life which is before you when you leave these college walls, and especially as will insure your entering into the everlasting life. Such was his life, full of activity, generosity, self-denial, eminently religious, in the best sense successful. He was never at rest; his heart was always open to human sympathy; he denied nothing except to himself. He wanted everybody to be religious. He died in the harness; no time to take it off; no wish to take it off. But in the front, on the advance, not in retreat. He never turned his back on anything that was right. His eye was not dim; his natural force was not abated. Death came so swiftly that it seemed only stepping from one room in his Father’s house to another. We are reminded of the beautiful words in which Mr. Thackeray describes the death of Colonel Newcome in the hospital of the Charter House School, after a life spent in fighting the enemies of his country abroad, and the enemies of the good in society at home. “At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll and Thomas Newcome’s hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face. He lifted up his head a little and quickly said Adsum, and fell back. It was the word they used at school when names were called, and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name and stood in the presence of ‘The Master.’”