The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1905-09-19
Blessedness Of The Man With The
Hoe.
Sunday School Times.

1T has been rightly objected to
most Of the estimates of the balance
Of happiness and misery in the world,
that they ignore the amount of hap
piness which all thinking creatures
find in activity. People make felicity
70 turn merely upon the possession Or
the want Of enjoyable things, and on
freedom from pain or endurance OF it.
! But in truth the greatest Of our
pleasures lies in the joy of action.
! We are so made that every natural
function, in our normal conditions, is
accompanied with the enjoyment in
its discharge, and the most so when
this involves exertion.
The lower forms Of animal life
show this The bird flies and the
fish swims with manifest pleasure in
the motion, and they prove it by NOT
confining the flying and the swim
ming to what is necessary, but by add
ing to it by way Of frolic The horse
races around the pasture-field with
evident delight in motion; and the
climbing animals, such as the wild
sheep bound with such ecstacy
among the hills as proves that even
that more toilsome form # activity
has it's attendant and compensating
pleasure.
So it is with mans work OF all
degrees. fine and coarse. if it is
rightly chosen and controlled by wis
dom. We are tempted at times to
speak OF the toilers OF the world as
objects of Our pity, and Markham's
Man with the Hoe" embodies a
great deal of superficial opinion on
the subject. But the man most to be
pitied is the man without the hoe or
any equivalent for it, He who has
no honest and useful work to tax his
energies cannot live wholesome and
normal life, and must miss the best
| joys of existence Be he millionaire
or tramp, noble or "hooligan," he is
out Of the line of real enjoyment.
Nor can man satisfy his need by
sport in place Of work. That is we'll
enough for the immature who have
not grown enough to enjoy work
itself The mature man knows that
if he does not get pleasure in his
work he will get it nowhere. Mr..
Cough used to say that he had met
but two persons who were perfectly
happy, and one Of them was a paper
ruler, who said to him: "When I
have fine lot of paper to rule, and
my machine is workink we'll, I am
perfectly happyw That man had
got beyond his boyhood to manhood.
He did not need the useless, half
animal activities of the playground
to make his life endurable. He found
satisfaction in useful work, which
ministered to the needs of the world.
And all wise and experienced peo-
pie have learned to look to their work
for their happiness, as boys look for it
to their play.
Mental activity obeys the same laws
as physical Real enjoyment in the
! things Of the mind comes to lis from
exertion. We may get a sort Of
amusement out OF the books we read
without exertion, but it soon loses
its zest. II we go on with them, it
! will be to kill time which is surely
the worst motive for reading The
books that we look back upon with
pleasure are those which made us
work. which kept Our attention on
the stretch, which reused our antag-
onism possibly, and set us thinking.
He is a good writer who does not
make things so clear to US as to leave
us nothing to chew over, but who
gives the brain wholesome activity.
Such an author will stand high in the
esteem OF thoughtful readers when
the easy. commonplace books have
been forgotten.
Il is the delight OF mental exertion
which has been the great stimulus to
| intellectual activity The true scholar