Walk When You Begin

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 12, 1882

Walk When You Begin.

It is said that when Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth commenced the practice of his profession, he was accustomed to walk to and from his office, while a merchant of the same city rode a much less distance in grand style. Once, pausing and proffering a ride, he questioned Ellsworth as to why he did not also sport a carriage, and received for answer, “Because I have found that persons must walk at some period of their lives, and I choose to walk when I begin.” The sequel proved the truth of the assertion, for later in life, when the dashing merchant had failed, and was forced to go afoot, the Chief Justice rode in his carriage, and bore the honors of Minister Plenipotentiary to France.

The wisdom of the answer is apparent to all who have watched the fluctuations of business life, and reflected upon the causes of disaster. Walking when he began, would have saved many a man from wreck; many a home from the iron grasp of the law; many a family from the poor-house. It is the launching out into extravagance that cuts to the core. Carriages and fast horses are the premonitory symptoms of failure in the great majority of cases. Money taken from business for such purposes, is like draining the life-blood from the veins, as cupping the heart, upon the healthy movements of which all the functions depend. There is a sturdy manhood shown in the young by walking, that commands respect and justifies confidence, while foolish and luxuriant outlay creates suspicion as to stamina and distrust as to credit.

Walking at the beginning shows strength of will, independence of character, and that the foundation is laid upon something less shifting than sand. It gives practical assurance that there is nerve and muscle behind, capable of enduring the strain, and meeting the troubles of life without flinching. The sturdy pedestrian commands respect even from the snob who rolls by in a carriage, and his bread tastes ten times more sweet, his digestion remains unimpaired, and his slumber is indeed rest. Putting all other phases of the question aside for the moment, walking pays a very large interest on the investment in health. There is no exercise that can compare with it, when judiciously employed. To one confined in an office, to one whose hours are mostly passed at a desk, to one whose labor is especially that of the head, it stands before all others, and is the best possible training for the mental prize ring.

But we attempt not to discuss it from a medical stand-point. It is with the effect upon business relations that we would enforce the lesson taught by the little story heading this article; and that is, if we correctly understand it, that man must not scorn little beginnings if he would triumph in the end; and the word “walking,” in this connection, is fraught with a far wider and deeper meaning than the simple stretching of the muscles of the limbs; it embraces a thousand littles that go to make up the sum total of prosperity. Granting that the simile of going on foot and in a carriage is a forcible one of the whole, yet the idea must be carried out through all the various shades of a business life if the “true inwardness” of the matter is understood.

You must walk before you can safely indulge in any other means of getting over space. You must be content to accomplish littles, to be saving of the littles, to accumulate by the penny, before you can expect the pound. Expenditure for style, for show, for luxury, to save the use of your legs, is a dangerous experiment for the beginners in business. The cost must be closely estimated, and it must be demonstrated with mathematical precision that it will pay before the risk is taken. Pleasure is rarely, if ever, an institution that returns golden sheckels. It may be gratifying to pride, may be convenient, agreeable, lessen labor, and help to avoid dust and mud, to keep a carriage; it is “nice to see your wives and daughters keep up with the neighbors;” may be in some cases beneficial to their health; but upon the opposite side of the ledger stands the paramount consideration of the drain upon the cash account, and the inability to sustain it without such sacrifices as will leave the arm of business paralyzed, and the chance of riding and lolling upon velvet cushions very slim when age has come, the steps feeble, and the powers to accomplish greatly weakened, if not entirely gone.

Better walk when you are young and vigorous, than to be forced to creep on with a staff in old age. Better begin at, than come out of, the little end of the horn; better be guided by you “can,” than be driven by the tyrant “must;” better wear out sole-leather, than credit and independence and manhood; better be your own master while young, than the slave of another when your hair is thin and white with the frosts of many winters.

Of the truth and wisdom of this, the world is so full of striking examples that you cannot shut your eyes to them if you would. The ranks of aged and dependent poverty are so thronged with those who rode when they should have walked, that the lesson should need no further impressing. It stands full-faced before us in every class and condition of life; it is as the light-house flaming through the stormy darkness upon a rocky coast, and bidding all beware of approach. The records of bankruptcy, the imprisonment of the debtor, the law to collect, the books filled with mortgages, the closed doors of many a once fair mart of trade, the sacrifice of the property under the hammer of the auctioneer, all point to the same cause—to the rolling in carriages when one should have walked; to the squandering of means for luxury when it was unjustified by the resources.