Whatever you do in life, be greater than your calling. Most people look upon an occupation or calling as a mere expedient for earning a living. What a mean, narrow view to take of what was intended for the great school of life, the great man developer, the character-builder; that which should broaden, deepen, heighten, and round out into symmetry, harmony, and beauty all the God-given faculties within us! How we shrink from the task and evade the lessons which were intended for the unfolding of life's great possibilities into usefulness and power, as the sun unfolds into beauty and fragrance the petals of the flower!
I am glad to think
I am not bound to make the world go round;
But only to discover and to do,
With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints.
JEAN INGELOW.
"'What shall I do to be forever known?'
Thy duty ever!
'This did full many who yet sleep all unknown,'—
Oh, never, never!
Think'st thou, perchance, that they remain unknown
Whom thou know'st not?
By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown,
Divine their lot."
CHAPTER XI
CHOOSING A VOCATION
Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.—SYDNEY SMITH.
"Many a man pays for his success with a slice of his constitution."
No man struggles perpetually and victoriously against his own character; and one of the first principles of success in life is so to regulate our career as rather to turn our physical constitution and natural inclinations to good account than to endeavor to counteract the one or oppose the other.—BULWER.
He that hath a trade hath an estate.—FRANKLIN.