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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1877)
w--i. , i Mm-. iL,7-f.ig-j. i g uk f v... v 122 Pi'cci-:s8 steps, With whatever wo have done then wo must rest content. There is no help, ing the past. Tlio past is of value only as it has heen Instrumental in forming the present; the present is valuahlo only as it may shape the future. The future, then, we make what we will. To this let every eye ho turned, ami for this let every nerve he strung. For life ib too short to while away. A single ellort may result in the conversion of the woild. If this single effort should not he put lorth, the world ma go on in the same manner for ages. Few men perform all of which they are papahle. If they should, we would have a very different kind of a world. Think of the John 11. Goughs and the IJradlaughs that have died without a circumstance to call them forth. The human race is lazy. Tt is hack ward because each man has not made the most of himself. If we have a faculty, so much are we intended to influ ence our fellows. If we have a talent, let it hear the gieatest possible rate of inter est. God expects it. Our success do lands it. Oio Lewis said his book on walking should contain only four words. An ex huiibtivg treatise might also bu written on that long walk of life yes, crowning sue ccsss, in four sentences. Upon the first page 1 would write, Have a well defined purpose; upon the second, In selecting that purpose follow tho strongest legili mate impulse of your being; third, Lot that object bo such as will be ennobling to your nature; then, Cling to your pur pose with all the power Hint is within you. In defense of tho first we bring the unan imous experience of tho world. No man can work successfully without an aim. "Without an object men make cabmen, temporary clerks, cobblers, third-rate pet tifoggers, and our shifting pedagogues. "With an object thoso samo men, with the same work would turn out Stephonsons, "Walts, "Whitnoys, Choates, Websters, Em ersons. Think of the toil and drudgery wo go through, and die unheard of and poor, when we have no purpose, while if tho samo ellons were applied with ref. oronce to an object, every ellort would toll for perfection, for wealth, for fame! Only a few men follow tin rules laid down. Only a few attain to success. No man can accomplish tho whole work of his generation, lie would be a fool who would undertake it. A single man can accomplish only a small pari. Yet by selecting this part as his life purpose, he can make it, if he will, a step in the stair way of the ages over which future gener ations must climb. Such a man was Morse. Such was he who invented mov able type. It is plain that our work should have a particular direction. Yet it is no less plain that that direction should receive Ihe approval of our inward being. Every man, it is said, plays his own tunc. Hut no tune should have u discord. You ask me then, what is suc cess? 1 answer, making the most possible of your powers. "We see this exemplified fu.ly in nature. The acorn makes a sue cess of life when from a mere germ it towers into the giant oak. The drop of wafer, also, when it runs from the moun tain top to the sea. Tho Phoenix made a success of life when it wound up Us das by building its own pyre in tho temple of the Sun. Man is the only crea'ure, the only object that does not always make success in life. Success, 1 repeat, is fol lowing the law of ur being, and making tho most possible of ourselves. This for inula expresses with precision the good wo do oursolves, tho largest amount of mental cultivation and purity, the great est possible physical vigor for which we are capnble, and the greatest amount of good we can do the woild, as well as fit ling ourselves in Ihe best possible manner for an everlasting existence. How com prehensive then does our term become 1 Yet how can we make it less You a.k me then, who has made a micccss of life? Very few. Did Napoleon? Apply the formula. Did Huron? Do the same. Few men have reached it. Rooratcs did. Others partially; Newton, Liulur, T- '1' PWW