THE KIND OF A WORKER.
There is plenty of work a boy can do for Jesus. There are tracts to distribute, acts of love to be shown to the sick and aged. There are boys who can be influenced to go to Sunday-school and church. Beethoven’s maxim was, “Not a day without a line,” and the boy’s should be, “Every day this one thing I do, something to lead a soul nearer to Jesus.” Be a patient and careful worker. “The one prudence in life,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “is concentration; the one evil is dissipation.” Paul’s exhortation to Timothy was, “Show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,” (2 Tim. 2:15), a first-class workman. To be this demands judicious planning and careful executing. It is not so much the amount done, but the way in which it is done. A right motive to a right way is found in the fact: “Thou God seest me.” (Gen. 10:13).
Hooker, speaking of Edward VI. said, “He died young but lived long, if life be action.” John Summerfield was but twenty-seven when he died, yet with a frail body, he lived long enough to tell the Gospel message to the whole English-speaking race of his time. “So little done, so much to do,” said Cecil Rhodes on his death-bed. Though a man of affairs and a prodigious worker he sorrowed over the fact that he was leaving much unaccomplished. One of Napoleon’s dying veterans received on the battlefield the grand cross of the “Legion of Honor” from the Emperor’s hand and said “Now I die satisfied.” My boy, may you be enrolled in God’s Legion of Honor. Let nothing discomfort you. Make condition your bond slave, grasp opportunity by the forelock and work out destinies in sunshine and darkness, so that you may hear the Master’s voice after the labor and battles of life are o’er.
“Go labor on; spend and be spent
The joy to do the Father’s will;
It is the way the Master went;
Should not the servant tread it still?
Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice!
For toil comes rest, for exile home;
Soon shalt thou hear the Bridegroom’s voice,