Recompense

“ The enterprise in which you are engaged will fill the world with your renown. I am leading you to countries more vast and opulent than European eyes have ever yet beheld. It is a glorious prize which I present to you. But this prize can only be won by hardship and toil. Great deeds are only achieved by great exertions. Glory is never the reward of sloth. I have labored hard and staked my all on this undertaking, for I love that renown which is the noblest recompense of man. ”

“ Truly the philosophy of recompense seems to be little understood. In moral affairs people seem to expect recompense for privileges, as when children, grown and ungrown, are told that they will be rewarded for doing their duty ”

“ In conclusion, permit me to assure your Highness that if the most heart-felt gratitude on the part of a wretch like me, be in any way a recompense for that bounty which has relieved me from the most woeful state of destitution and want,—then that reward is yours—for I am grateful—oh! God only knows how deeply grateful! ”

“ Reward is the great golden key that opens the door of the Temple of Labor, and some form of recompense, here or hereafter, explains all the bustling activity of men. The Apostles themselves acted in obedience to this law, for we find them quarreling among themselves as to place and precedence in the New Kingdom. ”

“ And he who does any duty for the sake of recompense, is he not held fast in the custom of the world, either as one who has done well, hastening to receive a reward, or as an evildoer avoiding retribution? ”

“ Not for gain, not for vainglory, not to be vanquished by partiality, nor enslaved by fear, nor elated by pleasure; but only to reap the salvation of those who read, which he does not at present participate in, but awaiting in expectation the recompense which will certainly be rendered by Him, who has promised to bestow on the labourers the reward that is meet. But he who is enrolled in the number of men [822] ought not to desire recompense. For he that vaunts his good services, receives glory as his reward. ”

“ But your excellency will assuredly receive recompense from our bountiful Lord, for He who promised to give a reward for a little water will doubtless give greater recompense to the givers of greater gifts. ”

“ But let me tell you that you English are not a whit more thankful to fortune than we are; but in your matter-of-fact way you accept a benefit as your just due, while we, more conscious of our deservings, always feel that no recompense fully equalled what we merited. ”

“ How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end. ”

“ The third is, that though the disparity between the present reward and the future recompense will be vast and incalculable, yet will there obtain a most exact rule of correspondence between the one and the other, so that, from the hands of the "righteous Judge" every man will receive "severally, according as his work has been." Nor shall even, "a cup of cold water," given in Christian love, be omitted in that accurate account; the giver shall "by no means lose his reward." ”

“ The same principle of seeking only divine praise is here applied to our approach to God. It seems to require no further notice, but we may consider here a subordinate principle which is applied also to almsgiving and fasting—the principle of recompense—“they have their reward.”
Every kind of conduct gets its reward on the plane of its motive. If you look out for human praise, on the whole you get it. If you aim vigorously at getting on and winning a good position, the chances are you will succeed. On the whole, then, you get the reward on the plane of your motive. ”

“ Stanley and I endeavor that not one reward we bestow, not one gratification we afford, shall be calculated to promote it. Gratifications children ought to have. The appetites and inclinations should be reasonably indulged. We only are cautious not to employ them as the instrument of recompense, which would look as if we valued them highly, and thought them a fit remuneration for merit. I would rather show a little indulgence to sensuality as sensuality, than make it the reward of goodness, which seems to be the common way. ”

“ And thus should we recompense the kindnesses we receive when we are not in a capacity of recompensing them in any other way; and, as this is the only recompence the poor can make, so it is often greatly for the advantage of the rich. ”

“ The man who had done this great thing surely deserved something in this existence, or in some other existence, in return for what he had given to the people among whom he lived. Surely, one likes to think, there must [Pg 136] be, somewhere, at some time or another, a compensation, a recompense, for the tragedy of a life that merited so much success and vanished, or seemed to vanish, in such utter dark. ”

“ By remuneration we mean the price we pay for a service rendered us, no matter what motive may determine a person to render us this service; it is for its utility we pay, and for nothing else. The reward, on the contrary, implies the idea of a certain effort to do good. He who renders us a service from affection and devotion, would refuse being paid for it, and, vice versa, he who sells us his work does not ask us for a recompense, but for an equivalent of what he would have earned for himself if he had applied his work to his own wants. ”

“ Nor will we suffer our hands to lose one jot of their handiness by looking behind to a mean recompense; knowing that our endeavor cannot be thwarted, nor we be cheated of our earnings unless by not earning them. ”

“ Honor makes a great part of the reward of all honorable professions. In point of pecuniary gain, all things considered,” their recompense is, in his opinion, below the average. “Disgrace has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. ”

“ A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth; many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them. ”

“ You, then, have mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I, then, for all my labor?" What reward! a large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and God-a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heavens! what other reward can you ask? "But is it not a reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" ”

“ Y. Book. 'Tis true, madam, I owe it all to fortune; neither your kindness nor my industry had any share in't. Thus am I still as wretched as I was, for this happiness I so much prize had doubtless been refused my want of merit.
Pen. It has very soon, you see, lost what you valued in it; but I find you and I, sir, have a different sense; for, in my opinion, we enjoy with most pleasure what we attain with least merit. Merit is a claim, and may pretend justly to favour; when without it what's conferred is more unexpected, and therefore more pleasing. ”

“ Does the grandeur of the reward establish the value of the service, or is it not true that, in the mysterious cycle of time, the richest field is not seldom sown by hands that have been without honor or recognition in their season? ”

“ He will reward thee openly; they have their reward that do it openly, and thou shalt not lose thine for thy doing it in secret. It is called a reward, but it is of grace, not of debt; what merit can there be in begging? The reward will be open; they shall not only have it, but have it honourably: the open reward is that which hypocrites are fond of, but they have not patience to stay for it; it is that which the sincere are dead to, and they shall have it over and above. ”

“ Honour and dignity are rated high in the king's books. He does not ask, What reward has been given Mordecai? what money? what estate? but only, What honour?—a poor thing, and which, if he had not wherewith to support it, would be but a burden. 4. The greatest merits and the best services are often overlooked and go unrewarded among men. Little honour is done to those who best deserve it, and fittest for it, and would do most good with it. ”

“ As to reward, my profession is its own reward; ”

“ If, in such a moment, someone vested with authority comes forward to offer us a medal or a prize, he is the important destroyer of our real reward—"And who are you?" our vanished illusion shall cry, "Who are you that recalls me to the fact that I am not the first among men? Who stands so far above me that he may give me a prize?" The prize of such a man in such a moment can only be Divine. ”

“ But what form should the reward take? What is the highest form of reward? One finds all manner of answers to this question strung along in an ascending series. We find those who always think of reward in terms of material success. “It pays to be good,” these men say—to be good, at any rate, up to a certain point. “Honesty is the best policy”—in the long run as a method of business procedure it can show more dividends than dishonesty can. “The way of the transgressor is hard,” now in one way, now in another, but always hard at the end. Transgression does not pay when the returns are all in. ”

“ True, true—that lowers at once our mounting pride;
'Tis yours alone our merit to decide;
'Tis ours to look to you, you hold the prize
That bids our great, our best ambitions rise.
A double blessing your rewards impart,
Each good provide and elevate the heart. ”

“ Then let fine gilt books be given as prizes to such boys as distinguish themselves, and excel the others in any branch of learning, making three degrees of comparison: giving the best prize to him that performs best; a less valuable one to him that comes up next to the best: and another to the third. Commendations, encouragement, and advice to the rest; keeping up their hopes, that, by industry, they may excel another time. The names of those that obtain the prize, to be yearly printed in a list. ”

“ For my own part, so far as they affect our studies here, I equally regret both: but competition for money I regret absolutely; competition for praise, only when it sets the reward for too short and narrow a race. I want you to compete, not for the praise of what you know, but for the praise of what you become; and to compete only in that great school, where death is the examiner, and God the judge. ”

“ He understood the novelist, had lent him money on the security of his talent, had enabled him to obtain his well-deserved honours. The benefactor should now have his share in the honour, a share in the immortality. ”

“ And here, daily, the lists are opened, and men contend for success, for station, for power. But these are meretricious and perishable awards. The real prize is a spiritual gain, a crown that "fadeth not away." ”

“ But my honour was saved, and as I have again and again seen in the course of life, money is nothing when compared with honour, a remark which Shakespeare made long ago, though like many other truths this is one of which a full appreciation can only be gained by personal experience. ”

“ He that works for his own gratification already receives his wages: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. [8] But a reward, indeed, which dwindles into a little smoke, or the pleasure of a day that quickly vanishes, and confers no benefit on the soul. ”

“ It is admitted on the part of the captors that their claim rests wholly on the order of council, the proclamation and the prize act. It is not denied that independent of these instruments the whole subject matter is in the hands of the crown as well in point of interest as in point of authority. Prize is altogether a creature of the crown. No man has or can have any interest, but what he takes as the mere gift of the crown. ”

“ My rewards are not drawers, or presents, or holidays, but they are things which I like as much as you do the others. The good behavior and success of my boys is one of the rewards I love best, and I work for it as I want you to work for your cabinet. Do what you dislike, and do it well, and you get two rewards—one, the prize you see and hold ”

“ Seeing, then, that these remunerations of honour have no other value and
estimation but only this, that few people enjoy them, 'tis but to be
liberal of them to bring them down to nothing. And though there should
be now more men found than in former times worthy of our order, the
estimation of it nevertheless should not be abated, nor the honour made
cheap; and it may easily happen that more may merit it; for there is no
virtue that so easily spreads as that of military valour. ”

“ God does, indeed, measure out the reward with exactitude, so that no particle of meritorious labor shall remain unrewarded, but he measures it out in rich and overflowing fulness. He rewards everything, not with princely or royal munificence, but with divine bounty, as becomes His divine majesty. ”

“ Nevertheless the Reward given would be an Instance of a generous Regard in those who had Power to bestow of rewarding Merit, though they were inevitably deceived as to the proper Persons to whom such Reward should have been given. ”

“ Credit him, at a fixed price, for every day’s work he does, and for all above a certain easily accomplished task in a day, at an increased price, so that his reward will be in an increasing ratio to his perseverance. ”

“ The prizes you have to seek consist no longer in books, medals and scholarships, but consist in the gains and honors of literary and professional merit, in the pleasures of an enlightened home; in the rewards of a virtuous and an honorable career in life, and, above all, in the distinction and fame which await those who seek to raise the level of their country in intellectual and moral advancement. ”