HOW TO MEET GREAT EMERGENCIES.
“You believe in meeting great emergencies with great individual energy?”
“There doesn’t seem to be any way out of it. A man must work hard, extra hard, at times, or lose many a battle.”
“You have mingled in public affairs here in Chicago, also, have you not?”
“Yes, I have always tried to do my share.”
“You believe the chances for young men to-day are as good as in times gone by?”
“I certainly do. That is my whole doctrine. The duties devolving on young men are growing greater, more important, more valuable all the time. The wants of the world seem to grow larger, more urgent every day. What all young men need to do is to train themselves. They must train their hands to deftness, train their eyes to see clearly, and their ears to hear and understand. Look at the call there is going to be upon young men when this country will be organizing its new possessions and opening up new fields of activity. What the world needs is young men equipped to do the work. There is always work to be done.”
“You think, in your own field, there is a call for energetic young men?”
“It never was greater. A young preacher who looks around him, studies the conditions, finds out just a few of the ten thousand important things that are going begging for someone to do them, and then proceeds to work for their accomplishment, will succeed beyond his wildest dreams.
“The world looks for leaders, it looks for men who are original, able and practical; and all I have got to say to a young man is simply to find out clearly all about a need in a certain direction, and then lead on to the alleviation of it. Money, influence, honor, will all follow along after, to help.”
XLVI
From the Forge to the Pulpit, a Life of Devotion and Application.
“SO you want me to tell you of myself,—to ‘blaw my ain harn,’ as we used to say in old Yorkshire. Well, I’m not in love with the undertaking, for what we call a self-made man usually shows that he has made a pretty poor fist of it when he begins to describe the job himself. However, if an outline of my life be of service, I give it gladly. The beginning was in the hamlet of Ilkley, Yorkshire, England, seventy-five years ago. I was born well; that is, I was born of simple, hard-working folk who inspired in me very early a hearty respect for work. My mother was a noble woman. I can see the old home now,—the bit of grass in front, the plum tree, the whitewashed walls, and within, the two rooms with floor of flags, the old prints on the walls, the highly polished chairs and bureau, the tall clock that was always too fast at bedtime and in the morning, and always too slow at mealtime, the little shelf of books,—Bunyan, ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ Goldsmith, and the Bible, full of pictures. Until I was eight years old, I went to school to old Willie Hardie, who tried to find in me the spring of what we called the humanities in the same way that they used to try to locate a spring of water, namely: with a hazel rod.”
THE RIVALS: BOOKS AND THE MAIDEN.
“All the schooling I ever had under the master was finished in my eighth year, when I went to earn my own living in a linen factory. There was an article of faith in our good home creed about which both my father and mother were of one mind,—the boys must learn a trade. So, after six years in the factory, I was apprenticed to the village blacksmith. I was a hard-working, conscientious boy, but full of mischief and fond of fun. I had, however, a ravenous appetite for books. I remember once, when quite small, I stood for a long time before a shop window with a big English penny in my hand, debating whether I should spend it for a particular kind of candy, of which I was very fond, or for a little paper-covered book of travels. At length I went in and bought the book. At meals I used to read, and even when I was courting the lass whom I made my wife, I read all the books in her father’s house. I am surprised she did not give me the mitten, and it would have served me right, too.
“Books were not only pleasing to me, but were my passion. Give a young man or maiden a passion for anything,—for books, business, painting, teaching, farming, mechanics or music, I care not what, and you give him or her a lever with which to lift their world, and a patent of nobility, if the thing they do is noble. So I call my reading my college course. It was not an adequate college nor an adequate course, and there have been times when I felt a trifle sad that there should have been no chance for me at a good, all-round education. But there is a chance in the everlasting hunger to read books, and it is with reading as it is with eating,—you grow choice when there is a plenty. You instinctively learn to distinguish what is sweet and wholesome and what is neither, and then you read as you eat,—only the best.
“A great sorrow came to me in 1849. As a result of it, I found my way into a Methodist meeting house, and began to express what I felt. From a few words, uttered standing by my seat in the meeting, I began to preach at irregular intervals; and when I did, it became the custom, after a while, for some one to go through the village, ringing a bell and calling out: ‘The blacksmith is going to preach this morning.’ The working people came to hear me because I was one of themselves. Then they would have me preach regularly,—at nothing a Sunday and find myself.
“Sometimes I would forget the flight of time and preach for two hours or more. As I look back upon the poor mortals who sat under my ministrations for such a length of time, I am reminded of the judge who, when asked how long a sermon ought to last, replied: ‘About twenty minutes, with leanings to the side of mercy.’”