A WORTHY EXAMPLE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 30.

A WORTHY EXAMPLE.

IN the career of Prof. S. P. Brooks, now president of Baylor University, at Waco, Texas, there is a valuable lesson of encouragement in persistence under difficulties. Twenty years ago Professor Brooks was a member of a railway section gang, laying track for the Santa Fe. But he was not content with his humble station. Often there would be whole days when the section gang could not work. On such occasions, when the rest of the company were engaged in frivolous or sinful amusements, this future college president was improving his time preparing for college; and when the day's work was done and his companions were smoking and rollicking over their games, he was poring over his preparatory studies.

By careful saving he had accumulated enough money in a year to pay a year's tuition at Baylor University, and had prepared himself to enter that institution. The persistence, ambition, and determination of the young man attracted the attention of the university president, and an arrangement was made whereby Brooks was enabled to get through his second session at the university. After graduating he was made a member of the faculty, continued in that capacity until two years ago, entered Harvard for a post-graduate course, and has now been chosen president of his own alma mater. Certainly Professor Brooks had no superior advantages to rely upon in accomplishing the object he had in view.

Many a young man under similar circumstances has made up his mind that everything was against him, has become discouraged, and done nothing but squander his time; others have been content to plod along, whatever the condition they may have found themselves occupying, and have never really tried to better either themselves or their condition; while still others have foolishly declared that the world owed them a living, and have proceeded to take it forcibly, or to collect it from door to door in hands that scorned the blister and the callous of toil. How much better, how much nobler, is such a course as that herein referred to!

The grand example is always the example of accomplishment. It is a great thing to be a king; but it is a grand thing to overcome the prohibitive handicap of discouraging conditions and accomplish such a victory as that of Baylor's new president.

Whatever our condition, we are responsible for the right use of our opportunities. They are our talents. We can bury them in the earth; we can hide them under a cloak of half-heartedness; but there is a day coming when demand will be made on us for the increase that would have come with their proper use. We can try to throw the blame on the one who gave the talent; we can berate those who we think should have given us help; or plead the superstitious folly that "luck was against us;" but the verdict is sure to be, "Thou wicked and slothful servant."

Obstacles are our stepping-stones, if we make the use of them which God designed we should. Muscle is increased through the very act of accomplishing difficult feats. Moral fiber is increased, character strengthened and perfected, by the very act of overcoming the obstacles of every kind that we find in our way. Grapple with the situation, whatever it may be. Every obstacle overcome makes us stronger for the next, and so we grow. Look on them as blessings. They may be disguised; but when you have mastered them, the disguise will have vanished, and you will see them as they are. Do not let any circumstance, however forbidding it may appear, become a permanent hindrance to your improvement and usefulness in the world.