Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1916 — Cultivate Persistence [ARTICLE]

Cultivate Persistence

“If St. Paul had lived a couple of thousand years later he would have been a captain of industry.” This is the remark attributed to John D. Rockefeller after hearing a sermon in Cleveland in which St. Paul was held up as a model of power an<i forcefulness. Mr. Rockefeller said that Paul's virtue was that he was persistent and that persistent men got to the top; that natural leaders are rare and reap rich rewards in business and industrial life, for every line of commercial effort offers them big opportunities. These are simple, plain, truthful words from the mouth of the most successful captain of industry the world has known. Persistence, patience and assiduity have as great rewards today for the young man who possesses these virtues as they had fifty years ago, when Mr. Rockefeller was working sixteen hours a day in a country store for a salary of $3 a week.

Be Yourself. Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, hut of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin or Washington or Bacon or Newton? Every great man is unique. Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.—Emerson.