Now here are some springs, such as are used in watches. These springs are worth, according to their size and quality, from twenty to fifty or sixty dollars a pound. Here also are some little screws, such as are used in the construction of watches, and which are worth even a hundred dollars a pound.
While these different articles are all made of the same material, you see there is a great difference in their value. One is not worth a single cent a pound, and another may be worth one hundred dollars a pound. Now this difference in value is due to two things. One is, difference in quality, and the other is the use which is made of the article into which the iron is manufactured.
Watch Spring and Screws.
I suppose, if these different pieces of metal could think, and had the power of speech, this piece of old iron would complain to the other pieces which are of more value, and say to the watch spring, "I am just as good as you are, we were both dug from the same ore bank. I remember the time when we were both cast into the hot fire and melted in the furnace; after that I was taken to the foundry, and made into a stove, and after a few years of use I was rejected and cast into the alley. I have had to lie about in the mud and in the cold and snow, and men have passed me by and scorned me as though I were of no value. But I want you to understand, Mr. Clockspring and Mr. Watchspring, that I am just as good as you are, and there is no reason why I should be cast out into the mud and cold, while you are placed in a gold case and carried in a gentleman's pocket."
The nail also would cry out, and say that he was just as good as the little screws which are used in the watch, and would complain against being driven violently into a board, where it is compelled, year after year, to hold a board on to the side of a building; to have putty placed over its head, and then paint over the top of that, so that nobody could even so much as see where it was, or know what it was doing.
Now, the old iron, and the nail, and the others have no right to complain. There is a vast difference of quality, and there is also a difference of work.
The higher grades and better qualities of metals are secured by refining processes. Again and again the metal is cast in the fire and melted. Sometimes it is beaten on the anvil into such shapes and forms as will render the metal of greater service, and consequently of more value.
Suppose this metal had feeling, and the power to express its wish. Do you not see how it would cry out against being cast into the fire, and being beaten with great hammers upon the anvil? I am sure the fire, the hammers, and the anvil bring no sense of pleasure to the metal while being refined and being beaten into such forms as render it of greatest value.
Just so, in some senses at least, are all boys and girls alike. If they were all permitted to grow up in neglect, without being governed by thoughtful parents, without being educated and refined, without being sent to school and required to attend church, without being taught at home and being instructed in the Catechism and in the Bible, and without being shown their duty to God and their fellow men, they would all be pretty much alike. It is the difference in the influences that are made to refine some boys that causes them to differ so much from others who are about them. The boy who has only been taught to pick stones, or sweep the streets, or dig ditches, may cry out against the boy who is gentlemanly, and obliging, and obedient, and truthful, and reliable, and who has a position of great responsibility in a bank, or in the office of some man who occupies a very responsible position; yet oftentimes, and quite universally, there is a very great difference in the merit and value of these two boys. One has been disciplined and governed and controlled, educated and taught, while the other has likely been neglected, and consequently has not learned the importance of these things.