The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-05-09
PECULIAR TO AMERICANS.
HENRY WARD BEEcHER's VIEWS OF
CERTAIN FAULT.
lie Says That Young Wen of America
10 Not Know what They are Fit
For and Want 20 do Everything.

For and Want 20 do Everything.
In the course Of recent sermon, the
Rev. Henry Ward Bcecher says: Men do
not know when they begin what they are
lit for. They are very apt to follow the
ways of their fathers. They are black
smiths simply because the father was
They are professional men, simply be-
cause the father was. There are some
good reasons for the presumption in that
direction, and some very poor. One
thing you will notice all the way through
life, however, and that is, that the
troubles of men largely arise from their
want Of fitness, adaptation, to their
business. One man is trying a profession
which requires thoughtfulness, and he
doesn't know how to think Another
mans business requires perceptive facul-
ties, instant recognition of facts, a sense
Of statistics, and he is as smooth across
the forehead as valley. He has no
adaptation to that business. Another
man is in place which requires firmness
and sense of command. He has not
these qualities, and he fails utterly. There
are men who are good for organization;
but when they get the organization they
do not know what to do with it.
You will find this all the way through
our profession. Our courts are crowded
with poor lawyers, and our pulpits with
poor ministers. Our business men are
failing. Ninety-six per cent. of them
fail once in their life. Men are not
adapted to the position they occupy,
partly from the conformity of their men
tai nature, and partly because of the
waste of life, the waste of opportuni-
ties, incidence, self-seeking, vanity and
what not.
Here is a man that is immensely ambi-
tious. He never will reach the goal of
what he thinks he ought to have, for his
sense of his own desert is universal and
infinite. He is worrying all the time be-
cause he does not succeed What he
means by not succeeding is that he docs
not get what he Sc his ambition on
Here is person that wants to be rich,
by which he docs not mean being in such
easy circumstances that he can maintain
family and supply all their wants.
and educate his children, and
live in comforts what he means
by being ''rich'' is having a million dol
lars; and a million dollars with poor
human nature is nothing but yeast set to
work 10 raise five millions When men
once have the ambitious idea OF riches.
they are always worrying and always un-
easy. Here are men running all about
Brooklyn and wondering how under the
sun they can meet the rent that is coming
due next Monday There are men on
the Heights who are anxious about the
interest that is coming due next Monday
on their bonds and mortgages, and won
dering what under heaven they can in
vest it in. They arc both worrying and
both fools.
Some men attempt to be great in
literary riches. They would be good
practical factors if they would consent to
be subordinate in life and serve their
God while in that limited sphere. They
might do well; but no, they are not con-
tent to make good practical men; they
want to make eminent literary men; and
they fail. The world is full of them. A
good many of them are writing poetry.
Lots Of them send it to me. There are
many men that want to be great ora
tors, just as there are Others
who want to be great poets. Now, any
body that Is great poet does not have
to pump. 1t is the nature in him that
rules him. and he can't help himself. He
does not need 10 send out to see what
this man thinks of it. 1t is the necessity
of expressing ones self that makes man
poet. And man that is an orator is
simply a man that has something to say.
1t rules him, and rides him. He never
runs painting along the dusty way of in
dustry, trying to hunt for cloquence.
Whoever does that never catches it.
Men are installing all the time what
they are fit for. Shall q weak man 90 into
the ring to wrestlel Shall a dull and
heavy man 90 on the road to racer Shall
an unskillcd man undertake to carry on
the most sliliul shop. Men are all the
time miscarrying and miscarrying; it i:
the collision between impotence and de
sire that is all the time putting
them back; and they are worry,
ing and flctting, and anxious
This peculiarly an American fault
suppose that nineteen out of every twenty
of our young men think there is nothing
in the world they could not do if they
only had the chance. was talking with
Secretary Stanton once. He was speak
ing of a prominent individual who was al
able man; and he said to me- THAI
man, if all the offices of the whole world
were offered to him tomorrow, would
accept them. and he would think hC
could conduct them all" 1t was sub
lime specimen of that which runs through
nearly everything. Many man think:
that he is fit to be representative, and
when he has been in Congress, in the
House, he thinks he will be fit to enter
the Senate, and after he has been in the
Senate he thinks he will be fit to entel
the cabinet; and he thinks after he ha.
been in the cabinet he will be tit to 90 tC
the White House; and in the end he
goes to the penitentiary or the poor
house. He is not fit for any higher
places and never gets them; he is ;
dreamer.
But there is the swelling consciousness
the feeling, that what one man has done
you can do. Well, that does a great
deal Of good in one way; but, in another
see how perpetually men ar,
aiming higher than they can fly