Failure camps on the trail of the man who is ready to give up because
difficulties multiply. A representative of a large paper warehouse made
up his mind to add to his list of customers a certain Michigan firm.
Repeated rebuffs did not daunt him. Every sixty days he sent the firm a
letter of invitation to buy his goods. During twenty-seven years one
hundred and sixty-one letters were mailed without result. Then, in reply
to the one hundred and sixty-second letter, the Michigan firm asked for
quotations. These were given promptly, and two carloads of paper were
sold. What if this letter writer had become discouraged before he wrote
this final letter?
"I thought you were planning to complete your education," a friend said
to a young man whom he had not seen for some time; "yet now you are
clerking in a store. Perhaps, though, you are earning money for next
year's expenses."
"No, I am earning money for this year's expenses," was the discouraged
reply. "I did want an education, but I found it was too difficult to get
what I sought, so I have decided to settle down."
Of course it is easier to give up than it is to push on in the face of
difficulty, but the youth who pushes on is fitting himself to fill a
man's place in the world, while the young man who is easily discouraged
is fitting himself for nothing but disappointment. The world has no
place for a quitter.
There is a tonic for young people who purpose to make the most of
themselves in glimpses of a few college students who had the courage to
face difficulty. One of these was an Italian boy, who was glad to beat
carpets, wash windows, scrub kitchen floors, mow lawns, teach grammar,
arithmetic and vocal exercises at a night school for foreigners.
Then--as if his time was not fully occupied by these occupations--he
made arrangements to care for a furnace and sift the ashes, in exchange
for piano lessons. That student finished his preparatory course with
credit, taking a prize for scholarship.
A seventeen-year-old boy wanted an education, but he had nine brothers
and sisters at home, and he knew that he could look for no financial
assistance from his parents. So he picked cotton at sixty cents a
hundred pounds, sawed wood, cut weeds and scrubbed floors--and thus paid
his expenses.
One student could not spare the money to pay his railroad fare to the
school of his choice. But he had a pony. So he rode the pony the entire
distance of five hundred miles, working for his expenses along the way.
A beginner in college was too full of grit to give up when bills came on
him more heavily than he had expected. During the school year he did
chores, rang the bell for the change of classes, did janitor work, and
waited on table in restaurants. In the summer he found work on farms
near by.
"No task is too difficult for the man with a purpose," declared a worker
with young men, some of whom were ready to give up. "Two things are
necessary if you would be successful," was another man's message to
those whom he wished to inspire to do purposeful work. "First: know what
you want to do. Second: do it."
Those who permit obstacles to stand in the way of the performance of
tasks they know they ought to perform if they would make the most of
themselves, need to take to heart the message given by a mother to her
son when he was ready to give up the unequal struggle with poverty and
physical infirmity. "Thou wilt have much to bear, many hardships to
suffer," she said. "But mark what I say, we must not mind the trouble.
During the first part of the night we must prepare the bed on which to
stretch ourselves during the latter part."
Giving up after failure is always easier than trying again, but the men
and women who count are those who will not be dismayed by failure. When
J. Marion Sims, the famous surgeon, was beginning the practice of
medicine, he proudly tacked an immense tin sign on the front of his
office. Then he lost two patients, and pride and courage both failed
him. "I just took down that long tin signboard from my door," he wrote
in the story of his life. "There was an old well back of the house,
covered over with boards. I went to the well, took that sign with me,
dropped it in there, and covered the old well over again. I was no
longer a doctor in the town." But fortunately he conquered
discouragement, made a fresh beginning, and overcame tremendous
obstacles. After his death a famous man said that if all his discoveries
should be suppressed, it would be found that his own peculiar branch of
surgery had gone backward at least twenty-five years.
Indomitable perseverance is necessary for the business man as for the
professional man; and it will just as surely bring reward to those who
are engaged in Christian work as to those who are seeking worldly honor.
So when the uphill climb seems too difficult, there must be no
faltering. Remember--as Christina Rossetti said--"We shall escape the
uphill by never turning back."
In gathering material for a history of Charles V of Spain, a Spanish
historian was painstaking in his researches. Finally he was able to tell
the king's whereabouts on every day of his career, except for two weeks
in 1538.
Then friends assured him that he had done his best. In all probability
nothing of importance happened during those days. But the historian
believed in being thorough to the end. So he delayed publication. For
fifteen years he sought news of the missing fortnight. Finally, and
reluctantly, when he was seventy-five years old, he published the book.
At length an American woman, studying in the archives of Spain, having
learned of the lost days, resolved to find them. Among musty documents,
in many libraries, she toiled. Then, by a woman's intuition, she was led
to look for documents of a sort the Spanish historian had never thought
of. And she found where the king was on some of those days. The news was
sent to the historian, just in time for him to make additions to his
inaugural address to be delivered on taking his seat in the Academy of
History. In this address he rejoiced to give full credit for the
discovery to the American.
But the woman was not satisfied; there was still a gap to be filled. She
made further trials, and failed. Again intuition led her to documentary
sources that had hardly been touched since they were filed away nearly
three hundred years before. She succeeded, and now that bit of history
is complete.
A well known writer for young people was also persistent in tracing a
story to its source. When he came to America from his native Holland he
heard for the first time the story of the Dutch hero who stopped the
hole in the dike, a story unknown in Holland. He resolved to prove or
disprove this. The record of his long search was published later. Not
only did he prove the existence of the boy, but he proved that the boy's
sister was a partner in the heroic deed. Thus the helpful story has been
saved for future generations.
These incidents make interesting reading. But do they not do more?
Surely it is unnecessary to urge the lesson of persistence in a task
seriously undertaken. Often there is temptation to slight some
worth-while task, after one has worked on it painstakingly for a time.
"Why pay so much attention to detail?" is asked. "Surely no real harm
will be done if I give less time to some of these things that seemed so
important at the beginning!"
Fortunately there are multitudes of workers who are constitutionally
unable to slight a task. The proofreader on a paper of large circulation
is an example. It is a part of her work to prove statements made, to
verify facts and figures, to see that these are altogether accurate.
Once when there was an unusual pressure of work the editor suggested
that she might wish to take certain things for granted, but she showed
her conscientious thoroughness by performing the task to the end,
according to the rules of the office, and in the face of weariness that
was almost exhaustion.
It may not be given to you to be a historian. You may not be called upon
to prove the story of a hero. It may not be your task to read proof or
to verify manuscripts. But each one has a definite part in the work of
the world and there is no one to whom the example of historian and
proofreader is without value. All need to remember the truth in the
assurance, "There is nothing so hard but search will find it out."
V