A Definite Purpose Necessary to Success.
By Rev. S. S. Cassady
SUCCESS is never an accident. In whatever department of effort it is achieved, it is always the result of a definite purpose. The thousand failures which are made all around us show very forcibly that more than splendid dreaming is necessary to success in any cause. Men come not to the results of wealth, learning, or fame in the world by the mere caprice of fortune. The man who desires wealth, if he would have desire culminate in success, must intelligently plan and earnestly work for it. He who aspires after the palm of learning is but the merest visionary, unless he is animated by a longing for its acquisition that will brook no defeat in the execution of his deliberate purpose. And only he may hope to have his name entered upon the roll of distinction, who feels the consciousness that the end is to be reached through the means necessary thereto, and who is, therefore, intelligently and determinately resolved on success. Energy, directed by a plan to a given object, must succeed. The proverb, "By persevering we conquer all things," has its striking illustrations in every department of life. We have only to look around and see how many have acquired wealth, learning, position, and fame, in fact every thing by it, to teach us that "Perseverance is a Roman virtue,
That wins each Godlike act, and plucks success
Even from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger." A definite, earnest purpose, embodied properly in action, can do any thing in the practical world—can almost work miracles. "Where there is a will, there is a way." A great purpose is always the antecedent of a great action. Napoleon had never scaled Alpine hights with his veteran soldiery, had not a great purpose sustained the Herculean enterprise. Demosthenes had never made his fame immortal and world-wide, had not an all-conquering purpose made him equal to a triumph over almost insuperable natural defects in speaking. Franklin had never risen to proud eminence as a philosopher and statesman, had not a great purpose marked out for him, and then nerved him with the energy to fill his true niche on the record of human greatness. And thus we might continue to cite names to show that an earnest purpose is a necessary condition of success. Living examples of this truth are all around us. The men of our day who have won the prize of their ambition in the varied spheres of life, have done so by embodying a well-defined purpose in earnest, living action. If there are any exceptions to this rule, they are very few and unimportant. Intelligently-directed energy pays everywhere by an absolute law in the very constitution of things. It can not possibly fail of success, since the means are only necessary to the end, as the cause is to the effect. And the reason why so many fail in the several objects of their pursuit is easily accounted for—they have no definite plan of action before them. What they do sustains no specific relation to the result sought for. Their energy—and many who fail in their several pursuits have energy—tends to the wrong point; it is zeal in a good cause, but not according to knowledge. They work hard for nothing, because there is no actual result possible to their mode of action. In logic the conclusion must lie in the premises, otherwise the argument is worth nothing. So the result of a man's work in any cause must lie in his plan of action, otherwise he works for nothing. So work thousands of our race—literally for nothing; and all for the want of well-defined purpose in what they do. The means are not adjusted to the end; therefore failure is inevitably the result. We conclude, then, that a definite purpose is necessary to success on any field of effort. Without it a man can neither be great nor good; with it he can be most any thing in mental power and moral might. One of your best contributors, a doctor, has well said, "The will is not a sentiment, but a soldier. It pants for foes to battle with and has them. And when the issue is at hand, it knows not how to parley or to make a truce, but bravely faces the enemy, aims, fires, thunders, and then waves the bright palm of victory, shouts over and celebrates it. Understand me, I speak of the true soul. That is no soul which lacks this will. It drivels and dreams too much. It never feels the birth of an original thought. It is cowardly, sneaking, sniveling—nay,
"The most unprofitable sign of nothing." But the true man recognizes and gives practical enforcement to a better and higher philosophy. In relation to his calling in life, the improvement of his mind, or the cultivation of his heart, to him a definite purpose, energetically followed out into action, is a matter of pre-eminent importance. Such a man does more than merely breathe, move and live. He acts, and leaves behind him the record of vigorous and enviable manhood. Ere he quits the stage of action, he puts the seal of his intellectual and moral individuality upon the world's history that posterity may know that he once lived and acted among men. Live, then, reader, for actual, positive results. Have a deliberate purpose before you in all you do. We live but once on earth; how important, then, that we live for objects which are harmonious with our welfare and immortality! As your highest interests lie in religion, let your purposes and activities work out a true result for yourself and the world. "Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storms of time can never destroy. Write your name by kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of those you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of evening. Great deeds will shine as brightly on the earth as the stars of heaven." To the young man before whom life is just opening up, and who has his fortune to make both in this world and the world to come, we would especially utter a word of counsel, and that word is, have a definite purpose before you. Noble is that spirit and grand is that philosophy that dares to say,
"I would not waste my spring of youth,
In idle dalliance. I would plant rich seeds
To blossom in my manhood, and bear fruit
When I am old."