Warren sheaf., 1899-06-08
GETTING ON in THE WORLD.

GEl ling ON In The WORLD.
Commencement Grafton by Charles E. John
johnson, June 2, 1897
Success is the end to which all men
aspire. Everyone who embarks up
on the voyage of life sails away with
the hope in his breast of anchoring
some day in the harbor of success.
But he can only hope for such an
end. The mysteries of the voyage
lie hidden. No kind prophecies fore
tells to him the future events, or re-
veals to his eye the hidden byways.
He knows not upon what seas he first
must sail or to what ports he must go.
The perils he must meet, the sunken
reefs, the hidden shoals, the stormy
capes-are all unknown. Furious
tempests and treacherous Gains must
be sailed through; many Scylla
and Charybdis must be braved and
passed before he may cast his anchor
in the harbor of success. He may
have to encounter hardships in all
forms and shapes, - hunger, cold,
sleeplessness, and countless others
sometimes sinking, then rising, and
sinking again, till at length he may
reach the longed-for port.
And we have often, in the daily
surge of human souls, met success
full ones who have passed through
these vicissitudes. We have seen
them on the dizzy heights of opu-
lence and fame, their hunger convert
ed into safety; their pinching cold
into refreshing coolness; their Sleep
less nights to repose on holland and
damask.
When we look about us upon all
those whose finale has been one of
success, while others, who have been
endowed with like talents and like
abilities, have gone down in mid
ocean, or stranded upon reefs and
shoals at a greater or less distance
from the goal, we are prone to ask
ourselves, how did they get on in
the world; to what do they attribute
their victory? Is it to noble paren-
tage? Not necessarily, for we have
multiplied examples of high-born
outcastsS and human wrecks. Is it
to wealth? When Astor, the million
=aire, lay upon his ath-bed, he said,
my life has been a failure !" Is it
to the smoothness of their life's path?
Read the history of the great men of
all ages. Whence come the great
lights of the intellectual fimament,
whose brightness never fades? Have
not the great majority of them risen
from the chilly depths of obscurity
and want? They have all encounter
ed the rugged experiences of life,-
it's trials, it's storms, and it's tenn
pests; it is through these that they
have risen. ''Kites," says John
Neal, ''rise against, not with the
wind, no man ever worked
his way anywhere in a dead calm"
Difficulty alternating with ease, storm
with sunshine, sorrow with joy, are
the disciplines of life.
It is not, then, that they have been
exempt from all these inconveniences.
Indeed, they have encountered them
in all their native fury. But when
we read the biographies of our great
men, it dawns upon our minds that
it is the way in which they endured
life's vicissitudes that made them
great. Behold the dauntless hearts
they bore; the firm faith they had in
themselves; the desperate tenacity
with which they clung to their pur-
pose,-the united force of these es-
sentials made their possessors
mighty.
"Woe unto him that is faint-heart-
ed," says the son of Sirach, and truly
there is no treasure equal to stout
heart. Without it no good purpose
can be carried out, for drudgery, and
toll beset the way, and they must be
met with unAinching courage if they
be made to yield.
He of the dauntless heart cannot
be thwarted; when he has fought
with adversely till he is manned and
bleeding, he still moves forward,
borne upon his courage. When you
have fought till your feet fail you,
fight upon your kneesl And fight
ing must be done before we reach
our destination. ''In life," says
AIRY Scheffer, ''nothing bears fruit
..,:&Lo,,4 toll If mind op1 br>1r IT,