Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1887 — THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. [ARTICLE]

THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS.

Nature CUt Oui Every Man’s Work! lor Him. I !.' _ ■ i JProyidpnp* Journal If a visible line could he drawn between the successful anil unsuccessful i tavn of our day and generation we | should be surprised in seeing how finch the larger proportion are upon the wrong side. The majority of men are failures. Every profession and avenue jof business is crowded with them. And this is the more surprising "when we see how easily others appear to succeed, as if success w ere really an easy thing to attain. It is easy; if only a few simple laws are obeyed. It is not a matter of luck, but of merit. In the long run a man earns what he gets, and if he fails it-is because he has earned failure. The exceptions to this just law of God are less numerous than they appear. If we could see the hidden causes, we should find that the lucky accident has come to the man who from some peculiar merit deserved it. The unlucky man has always to explain how he happened to he in the way of ill luck, and the explanation is usually an accusation. Nature in the main follows Napoleon’s maxim, and gives the tools to him who can use them, and is not slow' in taking them away from him who cannot. Failure for the most part means that a man is trying to use tools that he was never intended to handle—and that he should lose no time in getting hold of others—sometimes a higher class of implements, but too often very much lower. Nature evidently never meant that Grant should be. a tanner, nor that Richelieu should be a poet, having very different work for both. Precisely so it is through all the departments of life. A man has his work appointed to him before be is born.

The first requisite of success,therefore, is the right choice .of an occupation. Nature makes few mistakes, and she has fitted every one for some special work in life. “What am I fitted for?” is the most essential question a man has to answer. Answered correctly one will have nature’s assistance in everything he does, and his work will be done easily aiid without any needless frietion; answered wrongly, and he will have her continual opposition and protest, until he is an apparent, if not a self-confessed failure. There was a deep truth in the old demand that a candidate for the ministry should be called; but such a call is always a natural one, and consists in fitness. The same call is made from all directions. “Called to be m*. a priest forever,” is hot truer of one than called to be a merchant, general editor or statesman, was of Stewait, Grant, Katkoft or Edmund Burke, and they would have had little success without the call. Even if called to be a hewer of stone or drawer of water, a man’s highest possible success lies in going where he is called. It is for lack of heeding this that we have the incompetence and failure so frequent in life, men vainly trying to do what they were not meant to do, and only learning in the bitter school of experience that no success is possible there. The highest aim of education ought to be to Teach a young man what he is best fitted for. No man is educated until he has learned this. Many never learn it, having to learn, however, by very severe discipline, what they are not fitted for. Another essential element of success is faithfulness.' The practical world puts a premium upon good workmanship. This quality alone is well-nign sufficient to lead any one into the highest positions in life. It may be safely said that every business man is at all times on the watch for persons wboean invariably he trusted to do work well. Especially is this true of positions of honor and trust. They are open to him who in some lower sphere has proved himself trustworthy. Any one who shows even an average capacity for hi 3 work and will do it with absolute faithfulness, equally attentive to small details, will speedily findthedays tooshort j for tlia honorable and remunerative work that men invite him to do. It is at ail times false that there is no work to be found. Only for the there is no employment, and ought to be none. Plenty of work, with good wages and increasing prosperity are the certain rewards of faithfulness. Let any young man start in life with the determination to put the best that he has into the discharge of every duty, and some o! the best things in life will eventually become bis own. There is still “room at the top,'" and faithfulness is one of the essential conditions of ascent. Nor can any one succeed at last in, any sphere of life without a degree of piety, in its older and mqre beautiful sense of iiahitU3.Lre_v_erenee toward nature and her laws. This is not the teaching of the Christian religion only, but equally of all religion and the experience of mankind; The elements of success are moral mainly, and absolute obedience to moral laws is essential to the preservation of a Clear head and sound judgment. Whoever is not obedient will sooner or later find that he has been sowing the wind onlv to reap a will mftr if not srfick. his fortunes when he least expects What the mass of men most need to learn is, that the elements of success and failure both lie in themselves.

Either onte is within our reach; the one hearing immense rewards and the other ; terrible penalties.