Galileo was so absorbed in his pursuit that he forgot personal comfort and even personal safety, and lost his eyesight in quest of the mountains in the moon, the rings around Saturn and the "star-heaps" in the sky. And when that distinguished man of science, Professor Agassiz, was invited to lecture at a great price, his reply was, "I have no time to make money." Likewise did the great Spurgeon, when offered almost fabulous prices to cross the Atlantic and lecture, refuse because of a zealous devotion to the purpose of his life. And every one should learn that the thorough and faithful performance of duty is the first essential of a worthy life.
Every human soul was made with some design, invested with the possibility of a useful life, a noble destiny. Whether it be the mercenary Greek vending his wares on the street corner, or the roaming Italian with his harp strapped over his shoulder, or the dissolute man behind prison bars paying the penalty of misspent days--all are invested with latent power and talent to fill a loftier place in the world. But, unfortunately, while most men have the desire, not all have the determination to rise above the ordinary and the common state in which they find themselves. This is a deplorable condition, seriously detracting from the sum of human greatness.
Every man has been called for dominion. Each, in the divine plan, is to be a ruler in the universe, not a "mollusk with aimless revery;" he is to be a man with vitality, not "dead matter known only as avoirdupois." By this measure a man is not worth so much as a sheep which furnishes two substantial commodities--food and clothing. Minus the attributes which qualify him for a high rank, man is a being with a buried talent, only a unit in the great world around him. Plus these attributes, no system of mathematics can compute his worth.
"Let me but do my work from day to day,
In field or forest, at the desk or loom,
In roaring market place, or tranquil room;
Let me but find it in my heart to say,
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
'This is my work; my blessing not my doom;
Of all who live I am the one by whom
This work can best be done in the right way.'"