Thoroughness of work is honesty, and honesty is the best policy even for this life. If God had made it otherwise, He would have introduced constant confusion into our lives. Hence, what you do, do with a will; put your best thought and skill into your work, and try early to acquire the habit of doing this. It is not easy to fix yourself in that, but nothing is more worth your while. The cheapest thing you can do is to pay your debts and do good work. Your best is what you owe to the world, and to yourself even more, no matter how humble the work may be.

Therefore, value your work for the work's sake, and not for the reward or success it is to bring you. The laborer is worthy of his hire, but he is a poor creature if he works only for the wages he is to get; and he will never do good work on that condition alone. A man, if he is really a man, values and honors his work, takes pride in it, and does it well and thoroughly for its own sake, and for his own sake, and not for the wages. Hence, a good mechanic, or farmer, is always an intelligent man-very often the most intelligent and the wisest man in the community. He has found it needful for his own satisfaction to know one thing thoroughly; and to do that he has necessarily to know something of a good many others. No kind of work is so low that this

is not true of it. I knew a gardener's laborer who earned his daily bread with a spade, but who had made himself a good florist, and no mean botanist.

Nor is any work so high in the scale but that he who does it for the reward alone, be this money, or place, or power, will become a narrow and stupid soul.

XVII.

CONDUCT OF LIFE (Continued).

TAKE care to do all in the spirit of love and goodwill to your fellow-men: whatever is done in the spirit of hatred, malice, or envy must fail. It cannot and does not succeed in the long-run, and it will surely injure him who does it.

Teach yourself to despise ambition; it is one of the meanest of the passions. Human society needs all the help it can get from its bravest and ablest members; if you have somewhat of capacity for good, do not be impatient or fearful lest the world should not discover it. Do your work, and train yourself to be content with that.

This is not easy, for young people hunger for recognition; but it is your only wise and manly course. If you have ability you will be found out, never fear. Men say of a young fellow that he is "ambitious," and the foolish world counts it a merit in him; and he presently, under this vulgar stimulus, thinks it legitimate and even honorable to push his own fortunes; comes to regard success as the main

object, and thinks he has done well when, by dint of vigorous elbowing and scheming he has contrived to push himself into a place much too big for him, where he rattles around like a pea in a tin pot.

Personal success is a matter of very minor consequence. The success of a noble cause, of a great and beneficent idea-that is another thing; but even that its supporters can but rarely hope to see victorious. It is theirs, as true men feel, to do what they can, to suffer such obloquy as such men are pretty sure to encounter in a good cause, and to be content with the consciousness that they have done their duty. Nor is it too much to say that, whatever they may suffer, they have their sufficient reward in the development and training of their own souls, which those receive who rightly and wisely, not in hatred or fanatically, but with a loving spirit, combat error, or uphold the truth against oppression.

Whether you win or not is not the real question, but whether you have lived unselfishly and done your best for your fellow-men in that place, however humble, in which you are cast.

'Magnify your office," which means that you shall think highly of your work. I know an errandman who has been the most faithful and intelligent of errand-men for thirty years. I know no one who is prouder, or more justly proud of his work; and I

have known Presidents and cabinet ministers who were far less worthy of respect, and, in fact, far less respected than this humble servitor, who does his daily drudgery with the pride and enthusiasm of a king.

It may seem to you a hard saying, but it is nevertheless true, that only that wealth or that fame which comes to you without your own seeking can possibly be useful to you, or even in any high sense creditable to you. No good work perishes or remains unknown. You will always receive all the fame and credit in the world to which your ability and work entitle you; and if you should not, so much the better. The world will owe you something, and of that you may think with just pride— but not with discontent.

Do not, therefore, aim to be rich, or to be famous, or to be in high places, or to be fashionable, or a favorite in what is called society Aim to be just, cheerful, patient, hopeful, and to do your duty well towards others.

Do not allow yourself to become a mere machine. In the present condition of what we call civilization it is difficult to avoid this. The whole tendency of our social arrangements is more and more to divide the community into two unequal parts—the few capitalists, employers, and the multitude who are their ser