p. 7 | An Unsung Hero by Roy L. Smith

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 10, 1914

An Unsung Hero

By Roy L. Smith

A LECTURER had been speaking in a town in northern Iowa to a large company of people, and his remarks for the most part had been an appeal to young people for effective service in the home community. During the lecture he emphasized various things that made for success, and among them the fact that it did not make very much difference in what line of work a man busied himself, the important thing being the manner in which he worked.

At the conclusion of the lecture, an old man, stooped and bent with years, came up to the rostrum with slow and trembling gait. He reached up his hand and said to the lecturer, “Young man, I have something I want to say to you,” and his voice shook with ill-concealed emotion. “The things you said tonight have touched me in a wondrous way. I came to this community forty years ago with an ambition to help make it a great country. It was all new then, and we were just settling it up. I hoped that I might be able to preach or teach, and at times I even dreamed of some political prestige. Years sped by, and it seemed that I was not educated enough to preach, and there was no room for me as a teacher. Somehow it never occurred to the people to elect me to any office in all these forty years. As I looked about me I found that there was one thing that needed to be done, and I could do it. No one else seemed to be doing it, either. I could make good butter and cheese. At once I started in, and from that day to this I have been doing that one thing. No pound of butter and no bit of cheese has ever left my establishment that was not the best I could produce. Perhaps there are others who could have done better, but I could not. For forty years this town has been getting my best service. It hasn’t been much of a business, but it has been my life work.”

It has been said that success is “doing something that no one else is doing, and doing it in such a manner that it does not need to be done over.” This must be true, and the old man in Iowa had achieved success. Perhaps it was not in the line which he might have chosen, but it was at least in the line of his fitness. There are many in that community who have been enjoying the results of his labor for these many years, and it may be they never thought of him as having a vision as he worked; but the old man was happy because he had given his best. Was it not a calling? Who will say that he was not as much called to his work as the minister was to his? or who can say that his work was not as acceptable if he was as faithful? — Roy L. Smith.