A week later, when the friends came, he was there again, and the short seven days of new resolve and high endeavor had so changed him in appearance that no one knew him again. A job had been found for him, and this was done in a remarkable way. Without seeing him, a gentleman, filled with the helpful spirit, and desirous of being good "for something," at my friend's request interested himself in finding him occupation. His capacity was so quickly proven that he was put into a responsible position where a two-thousand-dollar bond was required, which he supplied. He worked so thoroughly and efficiently that he was soon promoted, and ere many months had gone by his family, so long separated from him, was with him in happiness and content. Before a year of service he gained the special reward of $1,000 given each year by the firm that employed him for the highest general efficiency shown in any department, and is to-day honored, respected, back again in the high estate from which he had fallen, but a far wiser, nobler, and better man.
Through tribulation and sorrow, pain and woe, wretchedness and despair, sin and its consequences he had learned the lesson, that you cannot shirk the moral multiplication table--that there is no short cut to goodness, except to accept at once, instead of later, the will of the Divine.
Go back for a few moments to the first outcast, who brought this second one to my friend. Had he gone away with the thought that now he must make some money, he must take care of himself _first_, the second man might have filled a suicide's grave. He started out right--to be Divine-willed--to be unselfish, to be helpful to the rest of the world, and those worse off than himself. Muir didn't want to study medicine to become a great physician for the purpose of making money, but to relieve the pain of unfortunate sufferers. He willed to be good "for something." This is the spirit, the life, I would radiate on every hand, every day. I do not mean that all endeavor for self-improvement, self-culture, self-benefit is undesirable. By no means. But the nearer it approximates to the unselfish ideal, the better it will be. When Walt Whitman was a young man, he was a house-builder. He happened to strike a "building boom," and made money so fast that, said he, "I was in danger of becoming rich." And he decided to go and be an unpaid nurse in the Union Army, rather than spoil himself by becoming rich. To gain riches is good as far as it goes--but it goes a very short way in the road to manhood, character, nobleness of life. So whatever you will to do and be, put a high ideal before you, something immeasurably better than mere money-getting. Make your profession a means of grace, of character-building, of enabling you to benefit and bless the world. Mere financial success can easily be attained, but you will surely not be content with that. Hitch your wagon to a star, and soar upwards. Aim at the high things. Will to do great, noble, beneficent things and that will be willing to be good "for something."