A Too Easy Task

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 12, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 19.

I WAS watching the plumbers, says Craig S. Thoms, as they worked on the new home. One with a simple little cold-chisel had, by dint of numerous brisk taps in a circle around it, cut in two a large iron pipe. Another was busy with a similar chisel cutting in halves a large piece of lead.

“Easy work,” I said, as I watched the latter drive the chisel into the soft material.

“Yes,” he replied, “but this work spoils the chisel.”

“Lead is not hard enough to spoil a chisel,” I insisted.

“No,” the workman replied, “but it takes all the temper out of it, so that it is good for nothing else. To cut much lead will spoil the finest cold-chisel.”

Soft seats, easy tasks, and pathways strewn with roses, take the temper out of character, and produce good-for-nothing lives. Difficulties impart their own splendid fiber to those who master them.—Young People’s Weekly.