Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1884 — “Without Earnestness.” [ARTICLE]

“Without Earnestness.”

Without earnestness there is nothing to be done in life; yet even among the people whom we call men of culture but little earnestness is often to be found; in labors and employments, in arts, nay, even in recreations, they plant themselves, if I may say so, in attitude of self-defense; they live, as they read a heap of newspapers, only to be done with them. They remind one of that young Englishman at Borne, who told, with a contented air, one evening in some company, that “today he had dispatched six churches and two g dleries.” They wish to know and learn a multitude of things, and not sel lom those things with which they have the least concern; and they never see that hunger is not appeased by snapping at the air. When I become acquainted with a man my first inquiry is: With what does he occupy himself, and with what degree of perseveram e ? The answer regulates the interest L take in that man for' life.— Goethe. Adam Smith, a philosopher of olden times, defines necessaries of life to include only tho e commodities that are indispensable to our healthful support,

and those things the lack of which, among oreditable people of even the lowest class, is rendered indecent by the customs of the community. All other things he declares to be luxuries.