to tell me what their vocation is. They seem ashamed of what they are doing. One young man I met some time ago very reluctantly told me that he was a bartender in a large saloon. I asked him how long he had been there, and he said about six years. He said he hated the business; it was degrading; but that he was making pretty good money, and just as soon as he could get enough laid up, so that he could afford it, he was going to quit and go into something else. Now, this young man had been deceiving himself for years by thinking that he was doing pretty well, and that he would soon leave the business.
There is something very demoralizing to the whole nature in doing that against which the better self protests. An effort to reconcile the ideal with that which we cannot respect is fatal to all growth. This is the reason why men shrivel and shrink, instead of expanding, when they are out of place. A man does not grow when a large part of him is entering its protest against his work. A volunteer makes a better soldier than a drafted man.
A great many young men try to justify themselves and check inward protests by the perpetual self-suggestion that it is better to keep on, for the present, in questionable occupations, because the great financial reward will put them in position to do better later. This is a sort of sedative to the conscience to keep it quiet until they can afford to listen to it.
Do not deceive yourself by the expectation of making clean money in a dirty occupation. Do not deceive yourself, either, by thinking that you can elevate a bad business, or make it respectable. Many a man has been thus dragged down to his ruin. Some occupations are so demoralizing, brutalizing, and hardening that even a Lincoln could not make them respectable. If what you are doing is wrong, stop it. Have nothing to do with it. If you are in doubt, or if you suspect that you are warping your conscience, give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Take no chances with it. Leave it before it is too late.
Long familiarity with a bad business will make it seem right to you. If it is very profitable, it will at last hush your doubts and blunt your moral faculties. It will make you feel that there is compensation in pursuing it,—at least until capital is accumulated for something else. Besides, the philosophy of habit is that every repetition of an act makes it more certain that it will be repeated again and again, quickly making the doer a slave. In spite of the protests of your weakened will, the trained nerves continue to repeat the acts even when you abhor them. What you at first choose, at last compels you. You are as irrevocably chained to your deeds as the atoms are chained by gravitation.
So, my friends, when you are thinking of engaging in an occupation which is a little questionable, and which does not get the complete consent of your faculties, do not forget this tremendous gripping power of habit, which, when you may wish to change, will pull like a giant to get you back into the old rut.
You have no right to choose an occupation which calls, into play your inferior qualities,—the lying, cunning, overreaching, scheming, long-headed, underhanded qualities,—those which covet and grasp and snatch, and never give, while all that is noblest in you shrivels and dies.
If you have already made a wrong choice, why should you remain in an occupation which does not have your unqualified approval, or in one of which you are ashamed, and in which you have to stretch your conscience every day to make deceitful statements and false representations to influence purchasers unduly; to induce them by a smooth manner and a lying tongue to do that which you know is not for their advantage, and for which you will reproach yourself afterwards?
Why should you desecrate your manhood and pervert your ability in a contemptible occupation, when there are so many clean, respectable vocations which are searching for your ability and hunting for your talent?
You say that it is hard for you to change. Of course it is hard to jog along in humdrum toil for the sake of being honest when acquaintances all around are getting rich by leaps and bounds. Of course it takes courage to refuse to bend the knee to questionable methods, lies, schemes, and fraud, when they are so generally used. Of course it takes courage to tell the exact truth when a little deception or a little departure from the right would bring great temporary gain. Of course it takes courage to refuse to be bribed when it could be covered up by a little specious mystification. Of course it takes courage to stand erect when by bowing and scraping to people with a pull you can get inside information which will make you win what you know others must lose. Of course it takes courage to determine never to put into your pocket a dirty dollar, a lying, deceitful dollar, a dollar that drips with human sorrow, or a dollar that has made some poor gullible wretch poorer, or has defeated another’s cherished plans, or robbed him of ambition or education. But this is what character is for. This is what manhood means. This is what backbone and stamina were given us for,—to stand for the right and oppose the wrong, no matter what the results.
Wear threadbare clothes, if necessary; live on one meal a day in a house with bare floors and bare walls, if you must; but under no circumstances ever consent to prostitute your manhood, or to turn your ability to do an unclean thing. Dig trenches; carry a hod; work as a section-hand on a railroad; shovel coal,—anything rather than sacrifice your self-respect, blunt your sense of right and wrong, and shut yourself off forever from the true joy of living, and the approbation which comes only from the consciousness of doing your level best to reach the highest that is possible to you.
Do not choose that occupation which has the most money in it, the greatest promise of material reward, notoriety, or fame, even; but choose that which will call out the man in you, and which will develop your greatest strength and symmetry of manhood, personal nobility. Manhood is greater than wealth and grander than fame. Personal nobility is greater than any calling, or any reward that it can bring.
Chapter X.
Stand For Something
THE greatest thing that can be said of a man, no matter how much he has achieved, is that he has kept his record clean.
Why is it that, in spite of the ravages of time, the reputation of Lincoln grows larger and his character means more to the world every year? It is because he kept his record clean, and never prostituted his ability nor gambled with his reputation.
Where, in all history, is there an example of a man who was merely rich, no matter how great his wealth, who exerted such a power for good, who was such a living force in civilization, as was this poor backwoods boy? What a powerful illustration of the fact that character is the greatest force in the world!
A man assumes importance and becomes a power in the world just as soon as it is found that he stands for something; that he is not for sale; that he will not lease his manhood for salary, for any amount of money or for any influence or position; that he will not lend his name to anything which he cannot indorse.
The trouble with so many men to-day is that they do not stand for anything outside their vocation. They may be well educated, well up in their specialties, may have a lot of expert knowledge, but they cannot be depended upon. There is some flaw in them which takes the edge off their virtue. They may be fairly honest, but you cannot bank on them.
It is not difficult to find a lawyer or a physician who knows a good deal, who is eminent in his profession; but it is not so easy to find one who is a man before he is a lawyer or a physician; whose name is a synonym for all that is clean, reliable, solid, substantial. It is not difficult to find a good preacher; but it is not so easy to find a real man, sterling manhood, back of the sermon. It is easy to find successful merchants, but not so easy to find men who put character above merchandise. What the world wants is men who have principle underlying their expertness—principle under their law, their medicine, their business; men who stand for something outside of their offices and stores; who stand for something in their community;
