To judge by the complaints which we hear continually around us, we might conclude that the commonest thing in the world is for men to fail in their undertakings. Now, I admit that it is a very common thing indeed for men to fail in obtaining what they desire. There are many men who have some darling object of ambition which they cannot reach. But I do not think it is a very frequent thing for men to fail in attaining an end which they steadily aim at, and which they take the proper means to attain. I believe the rule is the other way. I believe success is the ordinary result of well-directed endeavor. I know indeed that the Holy Scriptures tell us that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor to the skilful: but time and chance is all." [Footnote 224]
[Footnote 224: Eccles. ix. 11.]
But surely all that this means is that the providence of God, for its own purposes, sometimes interferes to thwart the best-concerted measures, and to crown feeble attempts with unexpected success. The race is not always to the swift, but ordinarily it is. The battle is not always to the strong, but when it is not, it is an exception to the rule. The rule is, that success commonly attends the employment of proper and judicious means. The experience of life proves that this is true. Let us look around and see if it is not so.
We will look first at the business world. Here at first sight a succession of the most surprising changes meets our eye. Men that were rich a few years ago are now poor. Men that then were poor are now rich. The servant and his master have changed places. If you return to the city after a few years' absence you will find the same handsome houses lining our avenues, but the occupants of many of them will be changed. The same gay carriages roll along the street, but there is always a new set of people riding in them, and they that used to ride now go afoot. What wonder is it that men have imagined Fortune to be blindfold[ed], and the ups and downs of life the chance revolutions of her wheel? But when we look closer, we see this is not the case. For the most part each fall and each success has had an adequate history. There has been a rigid bond of cause and effect. It is only a metaphor when we say that riches have wings. Gold and silver, and real estate, and most kinds of personal property, are solid and substantial, and do not melt away in a night. So, on the other hand, fortunes are not made by accident. The rich man becomes rich by aiming at it and striving for it. He does not need any extraordinary genius perhaps, but he bends his talents, such as they are, to the task. He rises early, he is constantly at his place of business, he keeps himself informed of all its details, he thinks about it. When a favorable opening comes, he takes advantage of it. When a reverse comes, he is not discouraged by it. Other men would be discouraged, but he is not. Perhaps he is in middle life, perhaps he has a growing family, but he looks out for a fresh field of enterprise, and begins anew to battle with the world, and he becomes rich again. His success is owing in part, if you will, to favorable circumstances, but largely to his own energy and industry. These were the conditions, without which no amount of mere external advantages would have insured success.
Again, if we look to the world of Literature and Art, we find the same thing. Disappointed authors and artists often talk as if they were the victims of the world's stupidity or malice; as if men were unable or unwilling to appreciate them. Now, I know it is said that such things have been. There have been men of rare promise, but of a sensitive nature, who have been crushed by coldness and neglect, or by the hard and unfair criticism with which their first attempts were met. But this is far from being a common thing. The world likes to be amused and pleased. It is really interested in having something to praise. This being so, how is it possible for a man of real merit to remain long unrecognized? Who can imagine that the great masterpieces of painting, or the great poems that have come down to us from the past, could have failed to excite the admiration of men? In fact, human judgment, when you take its suffrages over wide tracts and through the lapse of ages, is all but infallible. In a particular place it may be warped by passion; in a particular time it may conform to an artificial standard; but give it time and room, and it is sure with unerring accuracy to detect the beautiful and true. It is as far as possible, then, from being the case that celebrated authors or celebrated artists have become great by accident. There may have been favorable circumstances. There were undoubtedly great gifts of nature; but there was also deep study and painful, persevering toil. I have been told that the manuscripts of a distinguished English poet show so many erasures that hardly a line remains unaltered. The great cathedrals of Europe were the fruit of life-long labor. And these are but instances of a general rule. When we go into the workshops in which some of the beautiful articles of merchandise are manufactured, we see a great fire and hear the clank of machinery, and men are hurrying to and fro, stained with dust and sweat. Now, something like this has been going on to give birth to these beautiful creations in Letters and Arts which have delighted the world. There has been a great fire in the furnace of the brain, and each faculty of the mind has toiled to do its part, and there have been many blows with the pen, the pencil, or the chisel, until the beautiful conception is complete. Such men were successful because they deserved it. The approbation of the world did not create their success, it only recognized it.
I will take one more example of the rule I am illustrating—personal character, reputation. I believe, as a general rule, it is pretty nearly what we deserve. We reap what we sow. People think of us pretty much as we really are. I am not unmindful of the occasional success of hypocrites, nor of the instances, happily not very frequent, of innocent persons overwhelmed by a load of unjust accusation and calumny. Again, I know that when people are angry with us they sometimes say spiteful things which they do not mean, and when they wish to flatter us they say things more complimentary, but just as false. But notwithstanding all this, I affirm that the judgments which people who know us form of us are very nearly correct. Indeed it must be so, for we cannot disguise ourselves altogether, or for a long time. We cannot always wear a mask. An ignorant, ill-bred man may go to a tailor's and dress himself out in fashionable clothes, but the first word he speaks, and the first movement he makes will betray his want of education. So, while we are trying to pass ourselves off for something else than what we are, to a keen observer our habitual thoughts and character will pierce through and discover our true selves. Even what our enemies say about us, when they say what they think, is very likely to be true. Men have no need to invent bad things about us. We have all got faults enough. They have only to seize these, exaggerate them a little, caricature them, separate them from what is good in us, and they will make a picture bad enough, but not too bad to be recognized as ours. Their description of us is like a photographic likeness. It takes away the bloom from the cheek, and the brightness from the eye, and the rich tints from the hair. It notes down each imperfection, each frown and wrinkle and crookedness of feature, and there it is, a hard, severe, but not an untrue likeness. In fact, my brethren, one of the last things I would advise any man to attempt would be to try to seem something he is not. He is almost sure to be unsuccessful. There is a law in the world too strong for him—the law of justice and truth, the law that binds together actions and their consequences, the law that attaches honor to what is good and right, and contempt to what is base and false.
Thus we see on every side illustrations of the rule that our success is in proportion to our merit. We sow what we reap. Much more is this true in regard to religion. You have observed that hitherto I have been obliged to make some qualifications, to make some exceptions in each of the instances I have brought forward. God may prevent our becoming rich, however legitimately we may labor for it, because He sees that riches would not be good for us. Or He may allow our talents to remain unappreciated, and our name to be covered with obloquy, in order to drive us to seek His Eternal Praise. But in religion our labors are sure to meet with success. There is absolutely no exception. Our success will be infallibly in proportion to our endeavors, neither more or less. You know, my brethren, that a doctrine may be familiar to us, but may not always make the same impression on us. We may hear it many times and assent to it, but on some special occasion, it may enter our mind with such force, take such a lively hold of our imagination and heart that it seems new to us. This is what we call coming home to us. Now, I remember an occasion when the doctrine I have just stated thus came home to me. It was on hearing the words of St. Alphonsus: "With that degree of love to God that we possess when we leave this world, and no more, will we pass our eternity." Any thing more startling and awakening I do not remember ever to have heard. Not the thought of the pains of hell, or the horrors of sin, or the bliss of paradise, ever seemed to me so loud a call for action. All of heaven that we shall ever see, we acquire here. Perhaps you too, my brethren, have not realized this sufficiently. The truth is, I think many men act in regard to religion as children and weak-minded persons do in regard to the things of this world—they build "castles in the air." This is a very favorite occupation with some people. They spend hours and even days in it. It is a cheap amusement, and they who follow it do not usually stint themselves in the warmth and color of their pictures. The only difficulty is, to fix a limit to their imaginary splendors. They imagine themselves very rich, worth, say fifty thousand, or a hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand dollars, with beautiful houses and furniture, and all the elegancies of life. Or they imagine themselves very famous, with a reputation as wide as the world, and admiring crowds shouting their praises wherever they go. Now something like this, equally silly and unsubstantial, passes in the minds of many Christians in regard to their hereafter. They imagine that, somehow, one of these days, they will find themselves caught up to the third heaven, borne by angels to the throne of God, crowned with a jewelled crown, seated on a golden throne, with palms in their hands, to sing forever the song of the redeemed. They may be now in mortal sin, they may be in the habit of mortal sin; they may be the slaves of passion, drunkards, impure, dishonest; they may be unwilling to renounce the dangerous occasions of sin; or they may not be so bad as this: they may belong to that class who have their periodic spells of sin and devotion, and are saints or sinners according to the time of the year you take them; or they may belong to a still milder type of ungodliness, those who are negligent and cold-hearted, with a host of venial sins about them, and at intervals, now and then, a mortal sin—no matter: somehow or other, by some kind of a contrivance, all—the relapsed sinner and the habitual sinner, the drunkard, the impure, the dishonest and the profane, the worldly and tepid, the prayerless and presumptuous—all are going to heaven. O miserable delusion! Does the Bible teach us this? When it speaks of a "way" to heaven, does it not mean that all must walk in that way to reach there? When it tells us that "the Judge standeth at the door," does it not mean, to judge us by our actions! Which of the saints was ever wafted to heaven in this passive way? Ah! the apostle tells us, "they were valiant in fight," they fought with the wild beasts of their passions, and put to flight the armies of hell. No: it is an enemy that hath sown among you this Calvinistic poison—yes, this worse than Calvinistic poison, for the Calvinists did but assert that a few elect were saved by a foregone decree, while this practically extends it to every one. Do not believe it. "What a man soweth that shall he reap." "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, and, he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." [Footnote 225]
[Footnote 225: Gal. vi. 8.]