p. 302 | I Will Do It

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 4, 1877

“I Will Do It.”

John Corson was a tall, stout boy for his years. He was as full of life and spirit as ever a boy could be, running over with frolic and good feeling and restless energy. Any out-of-door business was his delight. He could skate, fish, row, hoe garden, and drive horses as well for his age as the best. He was manly and truthful, too—a noble fellow in his boyish style, that his mother loved, and his father was very proud of. Everybody liked him; I don’t know indeed why it should not be so, for he was my ideal of a boy. Only he was not quite perfect, just as nobody in this world is. He had a quick, passionate temper; but that is no fault if it is not allowed to get the mastery of a man. John’s temper did sometimes rule him; he had not learned to say “Down!” to the tyrant.

John liked to read. “Robinson Crusoe,” all sorts of war histories, tales of adventure and heroism, and wild, exciting stories were devoured as greedily as a lunch at recess. Oh, how his boy imagination reveled in all dangerous exploits and longed for the dash and the daring of a soldier or a savage!

He went to school, as most boys do; but that was the place he never appeared to the best advantage. He was a favorite in the school-yard, and was admired for many fine qualities by his teachers; but he did not like to apply himself to a book; his out-door nature rebelled against the confinement of the school-room and the discipline of close, earnest thinking. He was not much of a scholar; I should say, perhaps, such was his reputation, since many boys younger and weaker and less talented than he stood above him in every class study. But really John had all the capacities of a true student, and if he were only diligent, he could have been as far ahead of the majority of the school in mathematics and classics as he was in archery and horsemanship.

Well was it for the boy that his preceptor was a judicious man; he opened no contest with his pupil, but he took with a true eye the measure of his capacity, and resolved to inspire him with an ambition he had never felt. For a day or two he waited, watching closely the boy’s habits and moods, not as one determined himself to subdue, but whose purpose it is to lead the offender, through his own sense of honor and right, to self-mastery.

There he sat holding his grammar, and feeling as a bird fresh from the wood does the first day in a cage, and putting himself into ill-humor because he could not go off on some rollicking expedition with horse or dog. He was dreaming of Crusoe life, and wishing there were no such things as school-masters and Latin verbs.

The bell struck, and John’s class was called for recitation. John’s lesson was the least understood and the worst recited of the whole. Such a failure was common to John’s case. He had been reproved, assisted, and encouraged, but his impatience of discipline left him always far below the standard of his fellows.

The master looked stern; the boy, bright, noble and beautiful, stood before him, with his one great failing uppermost over all his young manliness. Mr. L. felt that the hour was a crisis in that young life. He could no longer allow in him the self-indulgence which should leave him weak and superficial in mental requirement; he must teach him to control his restless spirit, and to train his mind to think closely, and reason exactly, and act within itself in a way to become efficient in all worthy uses.

“John Corson,” said Mr. L., “do you want to be a man?”

John smiled, and answered promptly, “Yes, sir.”

“A whole, true, finished man, John, that can always do whatever he finds to do, being a power in himself—that can fight the bad with the good, and be always a victor?”

“Why, yes, sir,” said John.

“I thought so; will you please tell me now what makes just such a man?”

John had a pretty good idea of a man; he looked as though he had some pretty strong independent thoughts about it, but he did not know just how to express his thoughts.

“Speak right out, John,” said the master; “tell us what you think.”

“Why, sir,” said John, “a man is noble; he don’t do anything mean; and he is somebody.”

“Not a bad definition, my lad; a man, you suppose, does his duty, comes right up to the mark, whether it is pleasant to him or not, and makes as much of himself as he can?”

“Yes, sir.”

“John, who do you suppose does the most for one toward making a man of him—a man, as you say, that is somebody?”

“I don’t know, sir, unless it is his father.”

“A good father helps a great deal—a good teacher also; good companions and good books very much; but the work is done chiefly by the man himself. It is self-work, such as none other can do for him—more than everything else together. God gives one a being full of capacities to be developed and strengthened and enlarged; all good and right, you know; but they must be very carefully guarded and educated so as to do the best work and the most of it, and in the best manner. Some have more in themselves upon which to build a fine manhood than others; but it is for every one to say for himself how much of a man he shall be—whether little or noble—nobody or somebody. Did you ever think of this, John?”

“Not very much, I guess.”

“So I suppose. You see how it is—one must work upon himself constantly if he would grow into somebody worth being. His too strong points, like a hasty, disagreeable temper, he must subdue and keep down, because it is not noble to be overcome of a harsh and hateful passion; the weak places he must teach and train and strengthen as much as he can, or there will be great defects to shame and hinder him. The slack places he must take special care of. If there is anything in his duties of learning or training he does not like to do, he must gird his will and his resolution right up to see that he does not lose his chance of being a man just then.”

“You have some nice accomplishments, John, and I am glad for it; they will help you to be a man; and you can be as brave and noble in many things as any boy I know, and that makes me proud and happy. But, oh, the slack spot, John! do you know where it is?”

“It is about the lesson, I suppose,” said John.

“Yes. Here you are, a bright, strong boy, ready to walk right up to a true, finished manhood if you will; but you come here day after day and sit restlessly and idly, with your hands full of true and important and beautiful work, which you leave half done because you are too slack to do it; you don’t want to grow strong and large in intellect; to learn the best ideas of the noblest minds; to reason and compare and calculate, because it costs an effort you are not fond of now. And I never feel that my pupil, with all his talent for being somebody, is sure to become a noble man, full grown in mind and soul, because he does not take his work with a right manly courage and say, I will do it!”

“You see, the battle is all to yourself, John, and nobody can fight it out but you—the battle between duty and discipline on one side and ill-tempered slackness on the other. How shall it be?—will you conquer the lessons, and so grow efficient in mind and manly in will? or shall the lessons conquer you while your intellect lies weak and untrained, and your manhood becomes only a dwarf to the strong, brave character it can as well grow to as not? In this great life-battle will you be a common soldier, or an officer fit to command yourself and to lead other men?”

John could not bear to think of being less than a man; he saw and was ashamed of his weakness. But he did not say much that day, and Mr. L. left him to his own meditations.

The next day John came to school and sat down to his duties.

“Well, my lad,” said the master, very kindly, “have you decided who shall conquer?”

“I will do it!” answered John, promptly and nobly; “please, sir, see if I don’t!”

“That is the point to be gained, John; hold to it, and I expect you to be a man.”

Oh, it was hard work, sometimes—up-hill work for a while, but John Corson persevered and conquered. All the boy’s better nature was enlisted; the new motive, the manly aim, accomplished the master’s ideas. Mr. L. became proud of his pupil.

I wish you could see John now that ten years are added to his age—ten years of close study and earnest thinking and doing. He has been looking carefully to the weak places and the slack places, for which he has reaped an honorable and glorious reward. He is somebody, and whoever looks upon his intelligent face and manly figure acknowledges it.

John Corson will never forget that school-master; he loves him with a noble friendship, and thanks God that there was one to inspire him at the right moment with a right ambition. I think, also, that Mr. L. was never more grateful that God had given him some true work to do than when a few years ago John called on his old teacher to express his gratitude for the few kind words that startled him out of his indolence, and set before him a true and noble endeavor.

“Conquer or be conquered, as you spoke the word that afternoon,” said he, “has stood by me ever since.”

“Rather say,” replied Mr. L., “that the ‘I will do it!’ you uttered the next morning has carried you through.”

Boys, take up the “I will do it,” fill out the pattern of your best, noblest being, and see if that is far different from, or much less than genius!