The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-05-16

serving maid used them to kindle her
fires of cold winter morning. When
Mills, trembling and stricken, told MS
friend of the loss Of his work, on which
he had staked his all, the great his
torian wept like child, and felt that
his life work was doomed to failure.
One day in brooding misery, he looked
idly on at some brick-masons Work
ing on a house; he watched their care
full work, as it slowly took shape, stone
by stone, and suddenly to him came
the thought that he, too. might build
again, sentence after sentence, In the
same way;
He went back to his study and be-
gan his laborious work all over again.
not only completing the two volumes
destroyed, but others which made him
leading historian of his times.
There are times that come to all of
us when our work meets with disas-
ter: when all for which we have spent
ourselves seems to be OF no avail;
when our ideals are shattered and our
hopes are crushed; when the black
night shuts down and we can see moth
ing ahead of us but darkness.
When Henley was broken Of body.
stricken beyond imagining, he yet had
courage to cry out:
I'm the fell grip Of circumstance
My head is bloody but not bowed"
and to look up and say:
II am the Captain of my Soul"
Before Abraham Lincoln ever became
known beyond the confines of his own
state he was an obscure lawyer, and
was so discouraged with his repeated
failures, that he was strongly tempted
to commit suicide. Had he followed
that weak impulse, who shall say how
differently history might have written
itself.
The inventor Of the Diesel engine,
killed himself, because he was so har-
raised by small debts which he was un-
able to pay. If he had faced his
troubles bravely, today he would be one
of the richest men in the world and one
of the most famous.
The man who knows how to hang on,
who refuses to fail, will win, in the
end He cannot fail, for the law of
averages is bound to prevent failure,
if only we have grit enough to stick
and work at the same time.
Any person who has succeeded in
whether merchandise or
bonds or breakfastfood,
houses or hose, knows that the law Of
averages is as sure and certain as
taxes. You make big sale today and
sales fall off tomorrow and catch up
the next day-there is the rise and
the ebb, always. But if you play the
game and play it squarely, if you do
better work than the other fellow, If
you refuse to be satisfied with medic
Gritty, just as sure as the sun rises,
you will succeed, you will come in on
the top wave, and if you have any en-
durance at all you will get your foot
ing on dry land, and there you will
stay, unless you have suicidal tenden-
cies.
1t is up to each one Of us to make
good. No man can make good for US.
And no one can possibly cheat US, If
we choose to make good for our
selves.
Life is before us; we can take it and
use it's wonderful privileges of duty
and work as tools for our happiness
and achievement, or we can take those
same tools and turn them against our
selves for our own destruction. It is
up to each one of us whether or not,
like Macaulay, we start in all over
again, with nothing to build upon but
our determination to build; or like
Henley, crushed in spirit and body,
refuse to bend before destruction; or
like Lincoln, rise above our weakness,
until out Of it grows strength that
gives health to the world polite;
trying again and again and yet again,
until we make the impossible possible.