ALONE, OR WITH THE CROWD.
By Sunday-School Times
ENTIRELY apart from the matter of religious belief or Christian living, men are divided according to their likeness to, or difference from, the average man. Perhaps it makes the importance of the distinction clearer to say that men are divided according to their descending to the dead level of the majority-average, or their rising above that level to the prominence attained only by a few. In every profession and occupation under the sun there are the ordinary individuals who take their cue from the crowd, and the extraordinary individuals who refuse to remain with the crowd by accepting its standards, and who in consequence rise above the crowd. Such refusal to do the expected thing is never easy, and must invariably be carried out in the face of earnest majority-counsel to the contrary. But such refusal marks the difference between nine men out of ten, and the tenth man. A young man who was highly esteemed by his employers left his attractive position with them, acting under their advice, to take a position in another city in a business in which they were interested, where he had good reason to believe a bright future lay ahead. The new position to which he was assigned proved to be not the one that he had expected, that having been filled by a relative of the local manager. The work given him was drudgery of the most exhausting sort; his remuneration remained what it had been; and the general treatment he received was apparently intended to discourage the idea of promotion. The firm at the home office could not well interfere, just then, with the local management. What should he do? His majority acquaintances and friends and relatives were prolific in advice as to what they would do. They wouldn't stand it. It was unfair, outrageous. He had no backbone if he submitted to such treatment. Better no work at all than slavish oppression of that sort. Yet this young fellow was not of the ordinary sort, and he got the idea into his head that it took more backbone to stay in that difficult position than it would to resign from it because it was hard. He was earning enough to support himself comfortably, he was in good health, and he was young. He believed that the local managers were, perhaps, trying to tire him out for reasons of their own; but he had entered upon the work under good advice, and he had as yet been called to no other position. So he quietly ignored the sympathy and advice of the many who urged him to "be a man and quit," and he unconsciously enrolled himself as a "tenth man" by going contrary to the opinion of nine men out of ten. Of course it is easy for one looking disinterestedly at that case to forecast the inevitable result. If the exceptional grit and perseverance of that young man are maintained, the day will come when some employer, perhaps even his present employers, looking about for a man to fill a place of exceptional difficulty and responsibility, will turn to this "tenth man" as one who could not be "tired out" or beaten down merely by hardship and oppression. The other nine, who urged his yielding, will not be candidates for the new place.—Sunday-School Times.