What Is Success?

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 4, 1913

“WHAT a foolish man!” exclaimed a lady on the train the other day, as a foolhardy fellow attempted to ride one horse and lead another in the face of a puffing locomotive. It was foolish, for it was unnecessary. It only increased the nervousness of the horses. After several attempts he succeeded, and the same lady who had condemned his folly, remarked, “Well, he is a courageous fellow.”

Such, thought we, is the way of the world. If the fellow had been defeated, he would have been foolish still. But success, in the eyes of the world, vindicated his act. The petty thief is caught, punished, and execrated. The railway king, the coal baron, the wheat broker, the gigantic swindler, carry to success their nefarious schemes, ruin hundreds financially, and rob the poor of their bread. But they are feted, flattered, and honored. If they had made a failure, they would have been considered fools or knaves, but success crowns them as heroes.

Such is the apparent, the human. The worldling sees only what is near. But God measures by a different rule. The apparent earthly issue is not always the real. In fact, it is seldom so. The earth-mission of Christ was a success when the Rome-sealed stone was rolled to His tomb. The life of John, His forerunner, was a success when he entered the prison of Herod, and his head fell at the axman’s block. And so was the life of Paul, when beheaded at Rome; of Peter, when crucified; and of James, and Philip, and Thomas, and Jude, who met death in various forms. They were victors. Their heroism was not the heroism stimulated by victory; but heroism developed by duty, by the love of the pure, the good, the true. Success in the eyes of the world is frequently the greatest failure; for that success has been purchased at the expense of honor, loyalty, truth, purity, and freedom. The man is successful in the eyes of the world, but in verity he is an absolute slave.

The only true way to view the issues of life is not from their apparent triumph or defeat, success or failure, but what is their effect upon eternal issues. Many a worldly success means eternal failure. If the light of eternity could be allowed to shine upon the enterprises of this world, what a change it would make!

We may not always know the far-reaching effect of our work here; but this we may know: Any work, enterprise, or scheme which, to engage in, compromises honor, integrity, truth, or purity, which leads us to think more of self, and of temporary gain, and of what the world may say, than of the approval of God and a good conscience, is an eternal failure, and only failure, whatever it may seem to be here.