A contrast is presented by the famous inventor who, early in life, made
it a rule never to give himself to any activity in which there was no
prospect of financial gain. His first question was not, "Does the public
need this invention?" but "Is there money in it?" Having answered to his
satisfaction, he was ready to go ahead.
The world could not well have spared either of these men, for both
rendered valuable service. But, judging from the stories of their
careers, there was more joy in the life of the naturalist, who,
satisfied to earn a living, thought most of serving his fellows, than in
the life of the inventor before whose eyes the dollar continually loomed
large. The counting-house measure of life is not the most satisfying nor
is it the most useful.
That was the notion of Jacob Riis, of whom a minister who was devoting
his life to the interest of young working men near his church once asked
if such effort was merely thrown away, if he was pocketing himself.
"Pocketing yourself, are you?" Riis replied. "Stick to your pocket. It
is a pretty good pocket to be in. Out of such a pocket, worked in the
way you are working it, will come healing for the ills of the day that
now possess us. I would rather be in such a pocket, working for the
Lord, than in a $1,000,000 church, working for the applause of a
congregation."
Those who are familiar with inside history at Washington say that the
day after Garfield's election as President, a dispatch was sent to
Milton Wells, a Wisconsin preacher, whose vote in the convention had
kept Garfield's name on the list of candidates to the very last, asking
him if he would become governor of Arizona Territory. Mr. Wells
answered: "I have a better office that I cannot leave. I am preaching
here for $600 per year."
There was once a man named Paul who might have enjoyed position and
power, if he had wished, but he chose instead a life of courageous
service of which he was able once to write, without boasting:
"In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly; in stripes above
measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes
save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in
journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils
from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city,
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and
thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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