Life and Conduct

by J. Cameron Lees

CHAPTER II.

SUCCESS IN LIFE.

We often hear the word success used. The great wish that most have in beginning life is that they may be successful. One man constantly asks another the question regarding a third, How has he succeeded?

What is success in life? It may perhaps be defined in this way: It is to obtain the greatest amount of happiness possible to us in this world.

There are two things to be borne in mind in estimating what success is:

I. Lives which according to some are successful must in the highest sense be pronounced failures.—The idea of many is that success consists in the gaining of a livelihood, or competency, or wealth; but a man may gain these things who yet cannot be said to have succeeded. If he gets wealth at the expense of health, or if he gets it by means of trickery and dishonest practices, he can hardly be said to have succeeded. He does not get real happiness with it. If a man gains the whole world and loses his own soul, he cannot be said to have succeeded. True success in life is when a fair share of the world's good does not cost either physical or intellectual or moral well-being.

II. Lives which according to some are failures must in the highest sense be pronounced successful.—The life of our blessed Lord, from one point of view, was a failure. It was passed in poverty, it closed in darkness. We see Him crowned with thorns, buffeted, spit upon; yet never was Christ so successful as when He hung upon the cross. He had finished the work given Him to do. He "saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied."

Milton completed his Paradise Lost and a bookseller only gave him fifteen pounds for it, yet he cannot be said to have failed.

Speak, History, who are life's victors? unroll thy long
annals and say,
Are they those whom the world calls victors, who won
the success of the day,
The martyrs or Nero? The Spartans who fell at
Thermopylae's tryst
Or the Persians or Xerxes? His judges or Socrates?
Pilate or Christ?

What may seem defeat to some may be in the truest sense success.

There are certain things which directly tend to success in life:

The first is Industry.—There can be no success without working hard for it. There is no getting on without labor. We live in times of great competition, and if a man does not work, and work hard, he is soon jostled aside and falls into the rear. It is true now as in the days of Solomon that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."

(a) There are some who think they can dispense with hard work because they possess great natural talents and ability—that cleverness or genius can be a substitute for diligence. Here the old fable of the hare and the tortoise applies. They both started to run a race. The hare, trusting to her natural gift of fleetness, turned aside and took a sleep; the tortoise plodded on and won the prize. Constant and well-sustained labor carries one through, where cleverness apart from this fails. History tells us that the greatest genius is most diligent in the cultivation of its powers. The cleverest men have been of great industry and unflinching perseverance. No truly eminent man was ever other than an industrious man.

(b) There are some who think that success is in the main a matter of what they call "luck," the product of circumstances over which they have little or no control. If circumstances are favorable they need not work; if they are unfavorable they need not work. So far from man being the creature of circumstances he should rather be termed the architect of circumstances. From the same materials one man builds palaces and another hovels. Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks till the architect makes something out of them. In the same way, out of the same circumstances one man rears a stately edifice, while another, idle and incompetent, lives for ever amid ruins. Circumstances rarely conquer a strong man; he conquers them. He

Breaks his birth's invidious bar
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star.—TENNYSON.

Against all sorts of opposing obstacles the great workers of the world fought their way to triumph. Milton wrote Paradise Lost in blindness and poverty. Luther, before he could establish the Reformation, had to encounter the prestige of a thousand years, the united power of an imperious hierarchy and the ban of the German Empire. Linnaeus, studying botany, was so poor as to be obliged to mend his shoes with folded paper and often to beg his meals of his friends. Columbus, the discoverer of America, had to besiege and importune in turn the states of Genoa, Portugal, Venice, France, England, and Spain, before he could get the control of three small vessels and 120 men. Hugh Miller, who became one of the first geological writers of his time, was apprenticed to a stonemason, and while working in the quarry, had already begun to study the stratum of red sandstone lying below one of red clay. George Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine, was a common collier working in the mines. James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine, was a poor sickly child not strong enough to go to school. John Calvin, who gave a theology to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which has not yet been outgrown, was tortured with disease all his days. When were circumstances favorable to any great or good attempt, except as they were compelled by determination and industry to become favorable?

(c) Even if circumstances seem in every way favorable, industry is necessary to success. Though we be born, as the saying is, "with a silver spoon in our mouth," we cannot afford to dispense with work. Unless we are hard-working, life will become a weariness to us. Work keeps life full and happy; it drives all diseased fancies out of the mind; it gives balance and regularity to all movements of the soul.

If then we expect to succeed in life we must make up our mind to work hard. We must not let it be our notion of a fine lady or gentleman to do nothing. The idle life is a miserable life; it is bound to be so. God has promised many a blessing to industry; He has promised none to indolence. God himself works, and He wants His children to work.

The second thing that tends directly to success in life is a distinct Aim.—A man may run very hard in a race, the perspiration may stream from his brow and every muscle be strained, but if he is not running in a right direction, if he is running away from the goal, all his activity will not help him. So, industrious habits are not sufficient, unless we have a distinct idea of what we are aiming at. The world is full of purposeless people, and such people come to nothing. Those who have succeeded best have chosen their line and stuck to it.

One great aim, like a guiding-star above,
Which tasked strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift
Their manhood to the height that takes the prize.
BROWNING.

(a) The choice of a trade or profession is of enormous importance in settling our aim in life. Men often fail from having adopted a calling for which they are entirely unfitted. The round man in the square hole is a pitiful spectacle. It is difficult to lay down any special rule in regard to the choice of a profession or business. Some are obliged to take whatever opportunity offers, and others have to begin work at too early an age to permit them to form a true idea of what they are best fitted for, and are obliged to follow the wishes of others rather than their own. This only we can say, that so far as we have a choice we should adopt the calling that is most congenial to us and suits our inclinations. "Grasp the handle of your being" was the direction given by a wise counsellor to one who sought advice as to what calling he should follow. Everyone has certain aptitudes, and as far as he is able should keep them in view. There is often a distinct indication at a very early period of life for what we are best fitted. "The tastes of the boy foreshadow the occupations of the man. Ferguson's clock carved out of wood and supplied with rudest mechanism; Faraday's tiny electric machine made from a common bottle; Claude Lorraine's pictures in flour and charcoal on the walls of the bakers' shops; Canova's modelling of small images in clay; Chantrey's carving of his school-master's head in a bit of pine wood,—were all indications clear and strong of the future man."

(b) Whatever you resolve upon, keep to it. "One thing I do," is a great rule to follow. It is much better to do one thing well than many things indifferently. It may be well to have "many strings to our bow," but it is better to have a bow and string that will every time send the arrow to the target. A rolling stone gathers no moss. He that is everything by turns and nothing long comes to nothing in the end.

If thou canst plan a noble deed
And never flag till it succeed,
Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,
Whatever obstacles contend,
Thine hour will come, go on, thou soul!
Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal.
CHAS. MACKAY.

(c) The higher our purpose is, the greater our attainment is likely to be. The nobler our ideal, the nobler our success. It seems paradoxical to say it, but it is true, that no one ever reached a goal without starting from it; no one ever won a victory without beginning the battle with it; no one ever succeeded in any work without first finishing it in his own mind.

Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high,
So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be.
Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky
Shoots higher much than he who means a tree.
G. HERBERT.

When we go forward to life we should make up our mind what we intend to make of life. Make up your mind after prayer to God, and work for that.

The third essential to success in life is Moral Character, in its various elements of honesty, truthfulness, steadiness, temperance. "Honesty is the best policy" is one of those worldly maxims that express the experience of mankind. A small leak will sink a great ship. One bad string in a harp will turn its music into discord. Any flaw in moral character will sooner or later bring disaster. The most hopeless wrecks that toss on the broken waters of society are men who have failed from want of moral character. There are thousands of such from whom much was expected but from whom nothing came. It is told of a distinguished professor at Cambridge that he kept photographs of his students. He divided them into two lots. One he called his basket of adled eggs: they were the portraits of men who had failed, who had come to nothing though they promised much. What brought most of them to grief was want of character, of moral backbone. Some of them—a good many of them—went to drink, others to love of pleasure, others to the bad in other ways. Good principle counts for more than can be expressed; it is essential. Many things may hinder a man from getting on—slowness, idleness, want of ability, trifling, want of interest in his vocation. Many of these faults may be borne with long by others, and may be battled with earnestly by ourselves; but a flaw in character is deadly. To be unsteady, dishonest, or untruthful is fatal. Before God and man an unfaithful servant is worthless. We may have other qualifications that go to command success, such as those we have noticed,—industry and a distinct aim,—but want of principle will render them useless. Slow and sure often go together. The slow train is often the safest to travel by, but woe be to it and to us if we do not keep upon the rails.

The last essential to success in life is Religious Hopefulness.—(a) Our industry, our purpose, our principles may be all they ought to be, yet the "race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong." But when we find the race going from us and the battle going against us, if we have trust in God and the hopefulness that comes from religion, we will find heart to try again: we will not be utterly cast down. Christian faith keeps men in good heart amid many discouragements. (b) Even if a man or woman become rich or clever and have life pleasant around them, they cannot feel at the close of life that they have succeeded if the future is dark before them. When Cardinal Wolsey, who had been the favorite of the king and had long held the government of England in his hand, fell from power, he said, "If I had served my God as truly as I served my king He would not have forsaken me in my gray hairs." The world is a poor comforter at the last. No man or woman has become successful until their essential happiness is placed beyond the reach of all outward fluctuation and change. Faith in Christ, the faith that penetrates the future and brings down from heaven a bright and blessed hopefulness, which casts its illumination over the present scene and reveals the grand object of existence, is essential to true success.

We cannot sum up the teachings of this chapter better than in the words of a poem of which we should try to catch the spirit: they express the very philosophy of success in life:

Courage, brother! do not stumble,
Though thy path be dark as night;
There's a star to guide the humble;—
Trust in God, and do the right.

Let the road be rough and dreary,
And its end far out of sight,
Foot it bravely! strong or weary,
Trust in God, and do the right.

Perish policy and cunning,
Perish all that fears the light!
Whether losing, whether winning,
Trust in God, and do the right.

Trust no party, sect, or faction;
Trust no leaders in the fight;
But in every word and action
Trust in God, and do the right.

Trust no lovely forms of passion,—
Fiends may look like angels bright:
Trust no custom, school, or fashion—
Trust in God, and do the right.

Simple rule, and safest guiding,
Inward peace and inward might,
Star upon our path abiding,—
Trust in God, and do the right.

Some will hate thee, some will love thee,
Some will flatter, some will slight:
Cease from man, and look above thee,—
Trust in God, and do the right.
NORMAN M'LEOD.

That is the way to succeed in life.