Success—A Sermon for Young Men.
By David Wilson
1. WHAT is success? You will have the answer to this question as we go along. 2. How shall success in life be achieved? (1.) Nothing is achieved in life without a beginning. Every man must make a start. Start yourself. Do not wait for your father or your mother to start you in the world, or get you a place. Get it yourself! "Already got a place." Have you? I congratulate you. Let me tell you how to keep it, and how to get higher. Do your work so well that your employer can't spare you. Then, when others are discharged you can keep your place, because you are a necessity; and some day there will be a consultation in the office, and your name will be mentioned, and it will be said, "He is too useful to be down there; we must have him up here," and you will be promoted. (2.) No matter how humble your work may be, do your work well. If it is the first step on the ladder, remember if you fail at the first step you will not set your foot on the topmost round. Aim at the topmost round, but begin at the bottom. "They tell me, sir," said a young man to Daniel Webster, "that the profession is full, that there are more lawyers now than are needed. Do you think there is room for me?" "There is always room at the top, young man; there is always room at the top!" But no man who is now at the "top" ever reached it by going up in an "elevator." He took the stairway, step by step. Dr. Carey, the missionary, when asked the secret of his success, said, "I can plod." Honest, plodding toil is the secret of success; idleness, of failure. I have earnest sympathy for any young man who, from necessity, is out of employment; but if he is determined to find something to do and to do it, for the encouragement of such let me say, He will not be idle long. (3.) To be rich, to be learned, to have power and influence—that is not success. To make character, true nobility, that is success. Not what you have, but what you are, is the true estimate of manhood. Character is what makes the man. A man may win reputation and lose it; but Heaven has ordained that none can rob us of our character without our consent. He may win wealth and lose it; he may secure position and lose it; but character, good or bad, shall last through all time, aye! and through all eternity. (4.) Live not for time alone. Seek Christian character; for that only is the noblest character. Not religion as a sentiment, but religion as a vital power in the heart, giving direction and impulse to the life, that is the noblest coronet of manhood. No man is successful who does not live for eternity. Buy of Christ "gold tried in the fire that thou mayst be rich." (5.) It is necessary to success that there should be an aim. Most men who have hit a mark in this world have had a mark and set it high. If we aim at the curb-stone, we shall land in the gutter. Aim high. Aim as high as Heaven.—David Wilson, in Methodist Recorder.