Those who, in early life, learn to be courageous in the face of
difficult tasks will be ready for the temptation that is apt to come to
most young people to compromise with what they know to be right and
true, to allow an exception "just this once!" in the straightforward
course they have marked out for themselves. And the worst of it is that
such a temptation is apt to come without the slightest warning and to
present itself in such a light that it is easy to find an excuse for
yielding, and to deem it quixotic and unreasonable not to yield.
Once a young teacher who later became famous at Harvard, had occasion to
censure a student who had given, as he believed, the wrong solution of
a problem. On thinking the matter over at home, he found that the pupil
was right and the teacher wrong. It was late at night and in the depth
of winter, but he immediately started for the young man's room, at some
distance from his own home, and asked for the man he had wronged. The
delinquent, answering with some trepidation the untimely summons, found
himself the recipient of a frank apology.
"Why, in the name of reason, do you walk a mile in the rain for a
perfectly unimportant thing?" this man was asked on another occasion.
"Simply because I have discovered that it was a misstatement, and I
could not sleep comfortably till I put it right," was the reply.
Again the story is told of him that he borrowed a friend's horse to ride
to a town where he expected to take the stage. He promised to leave the
animal at a certain stable in the town. Upon reaching the place he found
that the stage was several miles upon its way. This was a serious
disappointment. A friend urged him to ride to the next town, where he
could come up with the vehicle, promising himself to send after the
borrowed horse and forward it to its owner. The temptation to accept the
offer was great. The roads were ankle deep in mud, and the stage
rapidly rolling on its way. The only obstacle was his promise to leave
the horse at the appointed place. He declined the friendly offer,
delivered the horse as he had promised, and, shouldering his baggage,
set off on foot through the mud to catch the stage.
At this time he was eighteen years old, but he had learned the lesson
that made him remarkably efficient and dependable through life.
Dr. W. T. Grenfell has told of a hardy trapper in Labrador, the partner
of a man who was easily discouraged; the arrangement was that they
should share equally the hardships and the rewards of the trapping
expeditions. Both were very poor. The stronger man was most unselfish in
his treatment of his associate. One winter their lives were all but lost
during the severity of a storm which burst on them while they were
setting their traps on an ice-girt island. On reaching the mainland the
timid man insisted on dissolving the partnership; he was unwilling to
repeat the risks, even for the sake of his needy family. In a few days
the hardy trapper revisited the traps on the mainland. To his great joy
he found in one trap a magnificent silver fox, whose skin was worth five
hundred dollars--a fortune to the Labrador trapper, especially welcome
during that hard winter. "How glad I am the partnership has been
dissolved, and that the fox is all mine," was his first thought. But
first thought was not allowed to be last thought. There was a struggle.
At length the decision was made that the needy man who had set the trap
with him should share in the prize; the argument that he had forfeited
all right to a share was not allowed to weigh against the unselfish
arguments for division.
A friend of young people has told of an incident which occurred in a
great Boston department store where she sought to match some dress
goods. After turning away from several discourteous clerks she showed
her sample to a salesman who gave respectful attention to her. Glancing
at the slits cut in the side of the bit of goods, he remarked:
"That isn't one of my samples. I will ask the clerk who mailed this
sample to wait on you."
"But I don't want any other clerk to wait on me," responded the women,
hastily, fearing that the sample might have come originally from one of
the discourteous clerks first encountered; "I want you to have this
sale."
"If you had asked for goods of that quality, width and price, without
showing me the sample, I could have found it for you at once," replied
the clerk, with a smile, "but now, this sale belongs to the clerk who
sent out the sample."
"Then I won't give you this sample to hunt it up by," said the woman,
wishing to see if she could carry her point, and she proceeded to tuck
the sample away in her purse.
"But I know that I have seen it, and my conscience knows it," was the
clerk's comment, as he laughingly laid his hand on his heart and turned
to look for the other salesman.
The purchaser went on to tell thus of the salesman's unerring loyalty to
his principles: "In a moment he returned. The other clerk was at lunch.
What a sigh of relief I gave! 'I will make out the sale and turn it over
to him when he comes in,' he said, displaying the shining black folds of
the goods I desired."
A real estate dealer in a Texas city was once tempted to be false to his
principles, "just once," when he felt sure a sale depended on it. His
prospective customer was a foreigner, who wished the salesman to drink
with him after a trip to examine the property on Saturday and then to
promise to make an engagement to continue the search next morning. But
the business man was opposed to the use of liquor, and he had never done
business on Sunday. What was he to do on this occasion? Would it hurt
anything if he should make an exception in favor of this customer who
could not be expected to understand his scruples?
The temptation was acute; but it was conquered. Respectfully but firmly
the buyer was told why the salesman could not join him in taking a
drink, and why he could not go with him again until Monday morning. The
man went away in a rage.
Next morning the real estate man saw the foreigner in the hands of a
rival. "That sale is gone!" he thought. When three days more passed
without the return of the buyer he decided that he had paid heavily for
being true to his better self.
But on Thursday evening the foreigner sought the conscientious real
estate dealer and surprised him by saying:
"Those other fellows showed me lots of farms, but you wouldn't drink
with me, nor show me land on Sunday because you think it wrong. So,
maybe, I think you won't lie to me. I buy my farm of you."
Many times the reward of being true to one's conscience will not come so
promptly--except in the satisfaction the man has in knowing that he has
done the right thing. But the sure result is to bring him a little
nearer to the great reward that must come to a man whose integrity has
stood the test of years--the appreciation of those who know him and
their confidence in his honor.