HABIT, THE POWER OF
Samuel Adjai Crowther, an African slave-boy who became a bishop, delighted to tell to his children the story of how he put on his first shoes. In “The Black Bishop” Jesse Page gives the story in the bishop’s own words. Four of the pupils in the missionary’s school had been promoted to the position of monitors. This was at Fourah Bay College, under Rev. Charles Haensel:
To give effect to our position, we were allowed to wear shoes. Strong, stout shoes, with very thick soles, were procured and given to us; they were called “Blucher shoes.”
On a Saturday afternoon we were called, received a pair each, and were told to wear them every Sunday to church at St. George’s Cathedral, a distance of about three miles.
Never having had shoes on before, we began practising in our dormitory that evening. None of us could move a step after lacing up on our feet the unwieldy articles, and consequently we were objects of laughter to our pupils.
An idea struck me which I at once put into execution. Crawling to a corner of the room, I first knelt down, then holding on to the wall for support, I stood up, and still being supported by the wall, I stept round the room many times, the others following my example, till we were able to leave the wall, stand alone, or move about without support.
You can well imagine what a burden this was to us, and after losing sight of the college, we sat on the grass, took off the shoes, walked barefoot, and put them on only at the porch of the church. We did the same on returning to college. After some months’ practise we were able to move better in them, but complained how they hurt our feet, and would rather be without them. But after some months we invested in the purchase of boots ourselves, and were always careful to buy those that made noise and creaked as we walked, to our great delight and the admiration of our pupils.—The Youth’s Companion.
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Helen M. Winslow declares that it was her intention from childhood to become a writer, and that she early obtained a position on the staff of a city newspaper. During a period covering several years she had charge of twenty-eight columns a week, on three papers, all of which she filled without help from subordinates. She worked eight hours a day in a dark, dingy office, and six more in her “den” at home every night, going to theaters from twice to five times a week, and working all day Sunday to bring up the ends. She edited news-columns, fashion, health, dramatic, hotel, book-review, railroad, bicycle, fancy-work, kitchen, woman’s club, society, palmistry and correspondence departments, and withal kept up an editorial column for eight years. Then she started a journal of her own. She worked like a slave for seven years more, wrote articles, editorials, read manuscripts and books, kept up an enormous correspondence, solicited most of her advertisements, and went to the printing-office every issue to attend personally to the details of “make-up” and proof-reading.