Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-08-22
COST AND WORTH.

In his address at the recent anniver-
sary of Union Theological Seminary,
President Hitchcock said: Everything
costs which has any real worth; costs in
proportion to its worth, and costs all it
is WORTH" That is a sweeping asser-
ton, and yet we believe it is substan-
TALLY true. If we would have any
thing of real value we must earn it, or
must steal it from somebody who has
earned it, or we must receive it as a gift
from somebody who has toiled to Sc
cure it.
This idea that cost and worth are in
%separable is at wal with the impatient
and speculative spirit of the age. The
dream of thousands is to get rich speed
lily, easily, cheaply. Buy a lottery ticket
and draw a prize; court an heiress and
marry a fortune; find an undeveloped
mine and strike a bonanza: get up a
corner in grain and squeeze the millions
who must buy food; organize a joint
stock company and absorb the money of
the stockholders; go into politics and
get a share of the spoils; whitewash an
elephant and exhibit it as a rare and
sacred animal. These are some of the
ways in which Young America hopes to
evade the law of labor, to get worth
without cost. The haste to get rich is
npon us as an epidemic. Its desolating
results are seen in such financial storms
as have recently swept through Wall
street, and visited with greater or less
severity all the money centers of. the
land. While the wrecks of this storm
lie freshly stranded it is we'll for us to
ponder the lesson that they teach.
Cost and Worth. the Siamesc twins
the twain that God hath joined together
the twain that man cannot sever with
out guilt and peril. Let every young
man write this upon the tablet of his
heart. The proclamation: "In the
sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread,n
was uttered for all time. The Anglo
Saxon race is not exempted from it.
The Nineteenth Century, with its
boosted progress, has not outgrown it.
There We're two boys in the writer's
native town. Let us call them John
Smith and Tom Jones. John was a
patient, plodding boy; Tom was smart,
and he knew it. Each received from
his father q fair education, and prop
erty enough to give him a good start in
life. John believed in the Divine law
, OF cost and worth. He determined that
every dollar he gained should represent
q dollars worth OF work that it should
be honestly his, and not stolen from
anybody else, He prospered slowly ;
ne had a plain but pleasant home; he
had the respect and confidence of his
neighbors he was an active and hon.
ored elder in the church his children
grew up to be useful members Of
society: In his old g he cannon boast
OF worldly success, but he en,oys a
moderate competency, and he gathers
around his table on Thanksgiving Dav
mora than a score of sons and dnuob.
tiers, grandsons and granddauyhters.
who lcok up to him with reverence ana
affection. 1t is evening with him now
His days work is done. But the clouds
in his sky are. golden. The scttinu snn
OF life lights them up with a radiance
that heralds Il blessed immorta1ity.
Ion Jones was a brilliant specimen
OF Young America: too brilliant 10 ha y
plodder. He began to speculate when
he WIS a boy. He managed, in snmn
way to get nearly all of our marbles
and our pocket money. He went into
business and made money. lie married