“He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.”
Labor! It is the secret of happiness. We are born bundles of self-activity, in infancy ever developing our powers by ceaseless movement, with eager curiosity ever reaching out toward knowledge of external things, ever laboring and constructing in imitation of the great, working world. Unless our energies are wasted by folly and our hearts are chilled by custom, it is the natural condition, even as children, older and wiser, but still as children, ever to extend with enthusiasm the boundary of knowledge, and in reality to join in the labor which was the play-work of our childhood. And when our effort overcomes, creates, develops power, aids humanity, we are conscious of the joy of true living. In our work self must be put in the background. “He that loseth his life shall find it.” The great Goethe, once weighed down with a mighty sorrow, forgot his grief in the study of a new and difficult science.
It is a mistake to suppose that interest and happiness may not attach to duty. Duty is not a dead, barren plant that no more will put forth green leaves and blossom. Philanthropists do not need our sympathy. A man of learning, culture, and ability, capable of enjoying keenly the amenities of civilization, and of winning worldly success, goes on a mission to the interior of Darkest Africa. Amid hardships and dangers, he offers his life to help an alien race in its suffering, ignorance, and savagery. He makes this devotion his supreme interest, and who shall say that his satisfaction will not be as great as that of the most favored son of wealth amid the luxuries of civilization? “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
One great purpose of education is to increase and strengthen our interests. It shows the many fields of labor and gives us power to work therein; it reveals the laws and beauties of the natural world; it introduces us to many lands and peoples, and acquaints us with the problems and means of progress; it opens to us the treasury of man’s best thoughts; it gives us philosophical and poetic insight.
Sydney Smith, indulging one of his quaint conceits, says: “If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong—and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole.” This fancy has some truth, but more of nonsense. “Men at some time are masters of their fates.” Create your place in life and fill it, or adapt yourself to the best place you can find. The choice of occupation is important, but filling well the profession chosen is more important. Turn your knowledge and power to the performance of to-day’s duty.
Lowell in his “Vision of Sir Launfal” imparts one of the sweetest lessons man may learn. Sir Launfal is to set forth on the morrow in search of the Holy Grail, the cup used by our Saviour at the last supper, and in his sleep there comes to him a true vision. As in his dream he rides forth with pride of heart, at his castle gate a leper begs alms, and in scorn he tosses him a piece of gold. Years of fruitless search pass, and as he returns old, broken, poor, and homeless, he again meets the leper at the castle gate, and in Christ’s name he offers a cup of water. And lo! the leper stands forth as the Son of God, and proclaims the Holy Grail is found in the wooden cup shared with communion of heart. The morn came and Sir Launfal hung up his idle armor. He had found the object of his quest in the humble duty at hand.
A poet of our day quaintly but not irreverently writes of the future life, “When the Master of all Good Workmen shall set us to work anew.” There we shall work for the joy of it; there we shall know things in their reality; there we shall enjoy the perfect appreciation of the Master, and know the blessedness of labor performed in His service. Thus the lesson is good for this world as well as the next.
“And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;