Do you see what I am driving at? I have been talking of our pleasures, the things we want to do and choose to do. These, I say, cost us trouble, and a great deal of care and painstaking. If any boy thinks he can command success, even in his sports, without putting into them all the will and all the brains, as well as all the brawn, he has as his own, he must soon find himself left out in the cold. At best he can only be a second-rate. Now this law of life, namely, that you must work hard to succeed in anything, does not apply to us, who are lords of creation, alone. One of the most wonderful things about our world is that the rules of the game of life are obeyed by the smallest atom that lives as well as by "king man" himself. If any living thing neglects or disobeys those rules, that disobedient being, whether it be common or low, suffers for its disobedience. If it obeys those rules, it grows stronger by obedience, and increases and develops its own power.
Let me tell you one or two instances of obedience by the creatures round us to these hard rules of life.
Have you ever seen a little salmon? A dainty, plucky little fellow he is. It takes him two years to grow from the egg to your finger's length. These two years of babyhood are spent in the quiet waters of his river home. By the time the second summer is passed he is about five inches long, golden-sided, with bright crimson spots, and weighs perhaps two ounces. Then he starts on his first great journey to waters unknown. No one knows where he goes, what lonely places he visits, where in the great sea the little adventurer makes his winter home. Certainly the Arctic Ocean is not too cold for him, for the waters of the far Mackenzie, emptying themselves into the polar sea, swarm with salmon; but wherever the little fellow does winter, the climate, food, and life must agree with him amazingly. He goes seaward in August. Next summer he is back in the same old river; and not only that, but in the very pool in it where he was hatched out. He is the same, but not the same; for now he weighs from three to five pounds. In the river it took him two years to grow five inches and weigh two ounces. In those six months of sea life he has gained at least twenty-four times his own weight. There is a reward for you! He felt he ought to go away and fight it out in the great sea. He went, he fought, he won, and now he revisits the old river a very different fish indeed. There is no longer any reason why he need lurk behind stones and dash aside to avoid the rush of the voracious trout. The very trout that once tried to gobble him must move out of the way, for he is almost a salmon. What has made him the strong beautiful fish he is? One thing, and one only--the struggle with the deep sea, and all the deep sea means. If he had been content to stay behind his fellows in the warm clear river he would be scarcely any bigger than he was last fall. His red spots would not be quite so bright, nor he himself so vigorous. Nature whispered to him to go forth and strive and grow, and since he obeyed her, and did his best, she kept her word with him.