p. 166 | DOMINIC by D. Wise

The S.D.A. Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1880

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 14

DOMINIC

By D. Wise

I HAVE somewhere read an old legend, which, however false in fact, contains a precious lesson. It states that, some centuries ago, a man, resident in Egypt, became a convert to the Christian faith. The spirit of the times favored asceticism; and he, being of a contemplative mind, conceived the unnatural idea that if he could retire from human society, and spend his days in solitary contemplation, he should attain to the perfection of human happiness on earth. Filled with this thought, he bid adieu to the abodes of men, wandered far into the desert, selected a cave, near which flowed a living spring, for his home, and subsisting on the scanty crop of roots and herbs which sprang up spontaneously in the adjacent glens and valleys, began his life of meditation and prayer.

He had not spent many seasons in his hermitage before his solitary heart grew miserable beyond endurance. The long, weary hours of the day, and the dreary, interminable night, oppressed and crushed his listless soul. In the extremity of his wretchedness, he fell upon his face, and cried, “Father, call home thy child! Let me die! I am weary of life!”

Thus, stricken with grief, he fell asleep; and in his vision an angel stood before him, and spake, saying: “Cut down the palm-tree that grows beside your spring, and of its fibres construct a rope!”

The vision passed away, and the hermit awoke with a resolution to fulfil his mission. But he had no axe, and, therefore, journeyed far to procure one. On his return, he felled the tree, and diligently labored until its fibres lay at his feet, formed into a coil of rope. Again the angel stood before him and said, “Dominic, you are no longer weary of life, but you are happy. Know, then, that man was made for labor; and prayer also is his duty. Both are essential to his happiness. Go, therefore, into the world, with this rope girded about thy loins. Let it be a memorial to thee of what God expects from man!”

This beautiful legend illustrates a truth which every young man should engrave on his heart—that industry is essential to the enjoyment of life. It is a law of the human constitution that mankind shall find their happiness and their development in action. And it were as easy to grasp the forked lightning, or to stay the fiery waves of the volcano, as to contravene this law. Nay! it cannot be; for He who said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground,” has established this inseparable connection between industry and enjoyment. Industry implies regular and habitual devotion to a useful pursuit. It is covetous of moments, and guards them as a miser his grains of gold. Moments, to the industrious man, are as flowers to bees; they furnish him with the opportunity of accomplishing his ends. He beholds in them the fractional parts of his life, and applies the maxim of the economist to their expenditure. His rule is: “Take care of the moments, and the years will take care of themselves.” He is assiduous, not as “a hen over an addled egg,” but to bring benefit out of his assiduity. He knows that it is possible to be always “busy about nothing,” like Procopius, the Macedonian king, who wasted his life while busy in making lanterns! or, like Prince Bonbennin, in Goldsmith’s “Citizen of the World,” who was never more idle than when traversing his kingdom, searching after a pretty “white mouse with green eyes.”

Behold yon graceful and sprightly “swallow” zigzagging over the clover-field, skimming the limpid lake, whisking round the steeple, or dancing gayly in the sky! Behold him in high spirits, shrieking out his ecstasy, as he has bolted a dragon-fly, or darted through the arrow slits of an old turret, or performed some other feat of hirundine agility? And notice how he pays his morning visits—alighting elegantly on some house-top, and twittering politely, by turns, to the swallow on either side of him; and after five minutes’ conversation, off and away, to call for his friend at the castle. And now he has gone upon his travels—gone to spend the winter at Rome or Naples, to visit Egypt or the Holy Land, or perform some more recherche pilgrimage to Spain or to the coasts of Barbary. And when he comes home next April, sure enough he has been abroad: charming climate—highly delighted with the cicadas in Italy, and the bees on Hymettus—locusts in Africa rather scarce this season; but, upon the whole, much pleased with his trip, and returned in high health and spirits.”

Such is the severe satire which the popular Rob’t Hamilton employs to chastise that large class of busy idlers which abound in Europe, and which is fast multiplying in America. How degraded a thing is life thus spent by a fashionable young man of the world, whose “chief end” seems to consist in puffing cigars, and in conforming as near as may be to the example of the swallow in the above picture. No wonder that long before such young men attain meridian, they exclaim, with “Croaker,” in Goldsmith’s “Good-natured Man,” that “Life at the greatest and best is but a froward child, that must be humoured and coaxed a little, till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.” Shame on such young men! Beside them, the twittering swallow is honorable and elevated. The bird was made for such a life, and thus fulfils its destiny; but that silly youth was made to be a MAN!—to commune with God, to labor in the holy charities and sublime duties of life.

To be industrious, then, a young man must have a useful pursuit and a worthy aim. He must follow that pursuit diligently. Rising early and economizing his moments, he must earnestly persist in his toil, adding little by little to his capital stock of ideas, influence or wealth. He must learn to glory in his labor, be mechanical, agricultural, or professional. He must impress himself deeply with the idea that a life of idleness is one of the direst of all curses. The doctrine that labor, even of the humblest character, is dishonorable, he must resolutely trample in the dust, as false and dangerous; and contend that an industrious, honest scavenger is really a more honorable man than the most fashionable dandy, who idles away his time on the pavements of Broadway, in ladies’ drawing-rooms, in cafes, and in theatres. Thus, eschewing false ideas, and making every moment fruitful of some good to mind or body, to himself or to others, he cannot fail of a plenteous harvest of advantages as life advances. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean men.” “The hand of the diligent shall rule.”

—Rev. D. Wise.