p. 186 | The Next Duty

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 16, 1875

The Next Duty.

THIS is an epoch of elevators. We do not climb to our rooms in the hotel; we ride. We do not reach the upper stories of Stewart’s by slow and patient steps; we are lifted there. The Simplon is crossed by a railroad, and steam has usurped the place of the alpenstock on the Rhigi. The climb which used to give us health on Mount Holyoke, and a beautiful prospect, with the reward of rest, is now purchased for twenty-five cents of a stationary engine.

If our efforts to get our bodies into the sky by machinery were not complemented by our efforts to get our lives up in the same way, we might not find much fault with them; but, in truth, the tendency everywhere is to get up in the world without climbing. Yearnings after the infinite are in fashion. Aspirations for eminence—even ambitions for usefulness—are altogether in advance of the willingness for the necessary preliminary discipline and work. The great amount of vaporing among young men and young women who desire to do something which somebody else is doing—something far in advance of their present powers—is fearful and most lamentable. They are not willing to climb the stairway; they must go up in the elevator. They are not willing to scale the rocks many weary hours under a broiling sun; they would go up in a car with an umbrella over their heads. They are unable or unwilling to recognize the fact that, in order to do that very beautiful thing which some other man is doing, they must go slowly through the discipline, through the maturing process of time, through the patient work, which has made him what he is, and fitted him for his sphere of life and labor. In short, they are not willing to do their next duty and take what comes of it.

No man now standing on an eminence of influence and power, and doing great work, has arrived at his position by going up in an elevator. He took the stairway, step by step. He climbed the rocks, often with bleeding hands. He prepared himself by the work of climbing for the work he is doing. He never accomplished an inch of his elevation by standing at the foot of the stairway with his mouth open, and longing. There is no “royal road” to anything good—not even to wealth. Money that has not been paid for in life is not wealth. It goes as it comes. There is no element of permanence in it. The man who reaches his money in an elevator does not know how to enjoy it; so it is not wealth to him. To get a high position without climbing to it; to win wealth without earning it; to do fine work without the discipline necessary to its performance; to be famous, or useful, or ornamental, without preliminary cost, seems to be the universal desire of the young. The children would begin where their fathers leave off.

What exactly is the secret of true success in life? It is to do without flinching, and with utter faithfulness, the duty that stands next to one. When a man has mastered the duties around him, he is ready for those of a higher grade, and he takes naturally one step upward. When he has mastered the duties of the new grade, he goes on climbing. There are no surprises to the man who arrives at eminence legitimately. It is entirely natural that he should be there, and he is as much at home there, and as little elated, as when he was working patiently at the foot of the stairs. There are heights above him, and he remains humble and simple.

Preachments are of little avail, perhaps; but when one comes into contact with so many men and women who put aspiration instead of perspiration, and yearning for earning, and longing for labor, he is tempted to say to them: “Stop looking up, and look around you! Do the work that first comes to your hands and do it well. Take no upward step until you come to it naturally, and have won the power to hold it. The top in this little world is not so very high, and patient climbing will bring you to it ere you are aware.”—Scribner’s Monthly.