Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1893-04-27
SUCCESS IN LIFE.
There are two things to be borne
in mind in estimating what success

IN mind IN estimating Wnat success
is:
1. Lives which, according to some
are successful, must in the higbes
sense be pronounced failures. Th
idea Of many is that success consist
in the gaining Of a livelihood, o
competency, or wealth, but a mai
may gain those things who yet can
not be said to have succeeded. l
he gets wealth at the expense o
health, OF if he gets it by means G
trickery, or dishonest practices, h'
can hardly be said to have sue
ceeded.
9. Lives which, according to some
are failures, must in the highest sense
be pronounced successful. The lif'
of our blessed Lord, from one poin
of view, was failure. 1t was passet
in poverty, it closed in darkness. w
see him crowned with thorns, buf
fetted, spit upon; yet never wa:
Christ so successful as when he hung
upon the cross. He had finished the
work given him to do. He "saw o
the travail of his soul, and was salts.
fed"
Milton completSsS his "Paradist
Lost" and s-ne Her only gave
him fifteen pounus- for it, yet he can
not be said to have failed.
What may seem defeat to some
may be in the truest sense success
There are certain things which di
rectly tend to success in life.
The first is industry. There car
be no success without working h-Tl
for it. There is no getting on with.
out labor We live in times of great
competition, and if a man does no,
work, and work hard, he is soon jos.
tied aside and falls into the rear
1t is true now, as in tie days Of Solo,
mon, that "the hand of the diligent
maketn rich"
There are some who think they
can dispense with hard work because
they possess great natural talent and
ability-that cleverness or genius
ca, he substitute for diligence
Here the old fable of the hare and
the tortoise applies. They both
started to run race. The hare,
trusting to her natural gift of fleet
ness, turned .. ~ and took sleep
the tortoise plodded on and won the
prize. Constant and well sustained
labor carries one through, where
cleverness apart from this fails. His
tory tells US that the greatest genius
is most diligent in the cultivation oil
its powers. The cleyerest men have
been men of great industry and un-
finching perseverance. No truly
eminent man was ever other than an
industrious man.
There are some who think that
success is, in the main, a matter OF
what they call "iuck," the product OF
circumstances over which they have
little or no control. Ii circumstances
are favorable, they need not work
if they are unfavorable, they need
not work. SO far from man being the
creature of circumstances, he should
rather be termed the architect of cir
cumstances. From the same mate
rial one man builds palaces and ano-
ther novels. Bricks and mortar are
mortar and bricks till the architect
makes something of them. In the
same way, out of the same circum-
stances, one man rears stately ed!-
fee, while another, idle and incompe-
tent, lives for ever amid ruins. Cir
cumstances rarely conquer a strong
man; he conauers them.
Against all sorts of opposing ob-
stacles the great workers of the world
fought their way to triumph. Milton
wrote "Paradise Lost" in blindness
and poverty. Luther, before he
could establish the Reformation, had
to encounter the prestige of a thou
sand years, the united power of an
imperious hierarchy, and the ban OF
the German empire. Llnnaeus,
studying botany, was so poor as to
be obliged to mend his shoes with
folded paper, and often to beg his
meals Of his friends. Columbus, the
discoverer of America, had to besige
and importune in turn the States OF
Genoa, Portugal, Venice, France,
England and Spain, before he could
get the control of three small YES
sells and one hundred and twenty
men. Hugh Miller, who became one
of the first geological writers OF hls
time, was apprenticed to stone
mason, and while working in the
quarry had already begun to study
the stratum of red sandstone lying
below one of red clay. George Ste
phenson, the inventor of the locomo-
tive engine, was a common colllel
working in the mines. James Watt
the inventor of the steam-engine, was
poor, sickly child, not strong
enough to go to school. John Cal
vim, who gave theology to the sew
enteenth and eighteenth centuries
which has not yet been outgrown
was tortured with disease all hi:
days. When were circumstance
favorable to any great or good at
tempt, except as they were compelled
by determination and industry to be
come favorable?
Evea if circumstances seem IL
every way favorable, industry is nee
essary to success. Though we b.
born, as the saying is, "with silve
spoon in our mouth" we canno
afford to dispense with work. Tn
less we are hard-working, life vii
become WEAKNESS 70 us. Worl
keeps life full and happy; it drive
all diseased fancies out of the mind
it gives balance and regularity to al
movements of the soul.
#, then, we expect TO succeed Il
life, we must make up our mind t
work hard. We must not let 1t b
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