Useful life

“ Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become a beautiful success, in spite of poverty." ”

“ I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life—that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living. ”

“ What contribution are you going to make of your strength, your time, your influence, your money, your self, to make a cleaner, fuller, happier, larger, nobler life possible for some of your fellow-men? I do not ask how you are going to do it. You may do it in business, in the law, in medicine, in the ministry, in teaching, in literature. But this is the question: What are you going to give personally to make the human life of the place where you do your work, purer, stronger, brighter, better, and more worth living? ”

“ But when we rightly apprehend the nature of life, and what makes life worth living, we find the chief gain of the kindly, not in these material opportunities, but in the pleasanter ways along which their life's work leads them. ”

“ I have preached upon this—that to each individual man, woman and child, there comes—there must and will come a time, when material success, health, wealth and happiness are non-important, and when moral issues, when duty, character and conduct are the great essential facts of life to be met and grappled with. ”

“ Every claim of duty, the employment of each minute, the daily vexations or trials we are called upon to bear, the momentary decisions that must be made, the casual interview, the contact with sin or sorrow in every-day dress—all, these and many others as small and as constant, are the real opportunities of life. These we are continually embracing or neglecting, and out of them we are forming a character that is fast consolidating into the shape we gave it for good or for evil. ”

“ We must begin to build up the ornamental part of life—its pleasures, bodily and mental, scientific and artistic, social and individual—on the basis of work undertaken willingly and cheerfully, with the consciousness of benefiting ourselves and our neighbours by it. ”

“ May we be taught to know and feel, and rejoice in the knowledge and the feeling, that of Thee is our true freedom, from Thee is bur true happiness, unto Thee is our true progress! Thus may our lives ever tend and grow toward Thee, and in Thee alone may we find our home, station, place, position—the only success and reward of life! ”

“ To feed them, to clothe them, to educate them, to make them better than ourselves, to do for them all that has hitherto been so scandalously neglected, and in doing it to find our own life and our own satisfaction—that is our task and our privilege, ours of the new generation. ”

“ And thus, gentlemen, did the last act of this illustrious man’s existence accord with that leading principle of his well-spent life—the desire to promote the universal happiness and welfare of mankind. ”

“ This is the only measure of our application to any worldly business; let it be what it will, or where it will, it must have no more of our hands, our hearts, or our time, than is consistent with an hearty, daily, careful preparation of ourselves for another life. ”

“ Why and wherefore, I ask, this perpetual toil, these ceaseless vigils, and this intense application to study? You will answer, perhaps, that you seek to find out what is profitable for life. But you have long since learned what is needful for life and for death. ”

“ It is this and this only, which can enable us to meet as we should, all the changes and chances of this mortal life—to carry along with us into whatever calling or profession we may choose, all the requisite knowledge, ability and will, to render it most conducive not only to our own subsistence, comfort and happiness, so far as these are dependant thereon, but to the general good of the whole community in which we live. ”

“ Until then, we think, you may make life bearable here, by diligent application to business, a devotion to your family, to home duties and affections, and to careful improvement of your mental capacity, and of such opportunities as God may furnish you for doing good. ”

“ But my idea is that everybody ought, without fail, to know solidly what he is living for. Is it possible that a man is born to toil, accumulate money, build a house, beget children, and—die? No; life means something in itself. ”

“ How to make or save more money, how to do our work more easily, how to maintain our physical well-being, how to improve ourselves mentally and morally, how to enjoy life more fully—that is what we all want to know. ”

“ First, manhood; the manhood His Son disdained not to wear; worldly gifts, such as rank, riches, influence, things which others have to spend half an existence in earning; life in its best prime, with much of youth yet remaining—with grief endured, wisdom learnt, experience won. ”

“ Hitherto the life-blood has been gradually chilling in your veins, as you sat aloof within your circle of gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out its battle with one kind of necessity or another. Henceforth you will at least have the sense of natural and healthy effort for a purpose, and of lending your strength—be it great or small—to the united struggle of mankind. ”

“ They would offer its would-be victims, such a tempting array of the meanings, purposes and opportunities, for gaining wisdom, which may crown every rightly conducted, harmoniously environed life; making it so busy, so absorbing, and so happy ”

“ Is it well, is it favorable to the development of the individual and his happiness, and to the development and happiness of society, that man should have a multitude of needs, and bend his energies to their satisfaction? ”

“ Therefore, to apply our own knowledge to the restoration or maintenance of life demands that we avoid that which is injurious, and that we joyously, gladly accept that which is helpful.
Life is a sacred gift, a privilege, and an opportunity to be enjoyed, it is to be lifted up, and filled with high experiences. ”

“ I was convinced that they knew better than anyone else the art of increasing the comforts, and diminishing the difficulties, of life by the intelligent use of the means furnished by nature, fortune, and preceding generations. ”

“ Those perpetual cares in which you have passed your days, those trifling cares and thoughts for every-day necessities, which are so opposite to your own nature, are they then so pleasant, so captivating? ”

“ We must learn to order our lives, not as machines to be driven at the top of their efficiency in the money mill, but as part of the great life of the spiritual world, as inheritors of things divine, sublime, and glorious, as possessors of the joy that made the morning stars sing together and the beauty that paints the evening red. ”

“ I hope you think of me often, and if you could know how earnestly I desire your true happiness, how ardently I pray you may be directed to every good and saved from every evil, you would as sincerely strive for its accomplishment. Now in your youth you must be careful to discipline your thoughts, words, and actions. Habituate yourself to useful employment, regular improvement, and to the benefit of all those around your. ”

“ They lose sight of the fact that God rules above them, and a thousand influences work around them, partly, at least, beyond their control. They have not determined to accept life cheerfully in whatever form it may come, and seek for good under all circumstances.
{494} We must seek for happiness in heaven-appointed ways, in study, duty, labor, exalted pleasures, with a constant effort to find it. We must seek it in domestic and business life, in the relations we hold to our fellow-men, and in the daily opportunities afforded us for discipline and self-sacrifice. ”

“ A RIGHT PURPOSE IN LIFE. In order to the realization of any true and practical life-purpose, three great elements seem to be necessary: to inquire for yourself, to act for yourself, and to support yourself. ”

“ Your life is worth, not what you have, but what you are, and what you are is determined by that to which you dedicate yourself. Is it creature comforts, pleasure, selfish privilege, or the largest life and the fullest service of humanity? What you have is merely the condition, the important question is, what do you do with it? Is it wealth, prosperity: do you sit down comfortably on the fact of it, to secure all the selfish pleasures possible; or do you regard your fortunate circumstances as so much more opportunity and obligation of leadership and service? ”

“ What is the most important thing in life? What shall be our aim and purpose, as we look about us, observing our fellows—what they have accomplished and what they are—what commends itself to us as best worth while? ”

“ And it is the right apportionment of time to these various duties which constitutes its true economy.
In deciding respecting the rectitude of our pursuits, we are bound to aim at the most practical good as the ultimate object. With every duty of this life our benevolent Creator has connected some species of enjoyment, to draw us to perform it. ”

“ But imagine my astonishment when his first question was, ‘Do you believe life is worth living?’ asked in an earnest but calm manner. I confess this question from lips so young alarmed me and went to my heart like a thrust. ‘Why, certainly,’ was my reply, ‘life is worth living, and living good. How do you come to ask a question that sounds so strange from the lips of a young man? ”

“ And yet we do not provide for the greatest good of life. We take care of our health; we lay up money; we make our roof tight, and our clothing sufficient; but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all, — friends? ”

“ Every man knows that the chief business of life, whether through commerce, toil, study, recreation, or worship, is to develop the best life, to make of himself a true, full grown man, who shall render to this world a full man's service. ”

“ Money and pleasure more valuable than manhood.—We have seen what man has accomplished among the vegetables, fruits and domestic animals, now let us study his wisdom in the application of these agencies in the human family. When we study man in relation to the world about him, his physical, mental and moral possibilities, and from Revelation, we get a glimpse of what the human race ought to be. In both sacred and profane history we find some specimens of noble, ideal manhood. ”

“ They must become part of us, and of our existence,—present on every occasion, small or great,—in those daily amenities which add so much to the charm of life, as also in those grander duties which require an ennobling self-sacrifice. ”

“ Was it that the struggle of things to survive produced as a sort of necessary by-product these intense preferences and appreciations, or was it that some mystical outer thing, some great force, drove life beautyward, even in spite of expediency, regardless of survival value and all the manifest discretions of life? ”

“ Working for Something.—At various times we have emphasized the necessity of having definite plans, of "knowing exactly what you want," of "beginning wedded life with ideals"; in other words, we believe that to combine [Pg 396] the maximum efficiency with the greatest degree of happiness it is necessary for all of us to "work for something." ”

“ But if by due care and thought of self, by reasonable enjoyment of the bright and pleasant things which life brings to most, I in some degree or wholly counterpoise such pains and sorrows as life brings to all, and at the same time help to brighten the lives of those around, and those also of generations as yet unborn, how shall I doubt what answer to give to the question. Is life worth living? Not sad is the answer, but bright and cheering.
There is still not a little to be said respecting the due care of personal well-being. ”

“ Thus we meet with a fundamental philosophy of life in which it is not the satisfaction of needs, appetites, and desires, but the opposite theory which is thought to lead to welfare. Renounce what you want; do what you do not want to do; pursue what is repugnant ”

“ But when we find that a certain person does beneficial acts which the general experience of life did not warrant us in counting upon—acts which would not have been done by everybody, or even by most people, in his place; we associate the pleasure which the benefit gives us, with the character and disposition of that individual, and with the act, conceived as proceeding 324 from that specially beneficent disposition. ”

“ Carry the Universal Life with you as much as possible into your everyday life. It belongs there as much as anywhere, and will prove to be a tower of strength and refuge to you in the perplexing situations of your busy life. ”

“ Think of a life with nature; of those wonderful moments when, as lord and fructifier, man drives the plough through the earth, and with kingly gesture scatters the seed of the future harvest; see his justifiable awe before the destructive power of the elements, his joy in the fruitfulness of his wife, who gives him daughters and sons, who mean to him increased working power and enhanced prosperity. ”

“ I already said something of this in speaking of the constructive impulse, and I must not repeat myself. Moreover, you fully realize, I am sure, how important for life,—for the moral tone of life, quite apart from definite practical pursuits,—is this sense of readiness for emergencies which a man gains through early familiarity and acquaintance with the world of material things. ”

“ To come back home after every stage of life’s journeying with a wider horizon—more in sympathy with men and nature, knowing ever more of the righteous and [73] eternal laws which govern them, and of the righteous and loving will which is above all, and around all, and beneath all, this must be the end and aim of all of us, or we shall be wandering about blind-fold, and spending time and labor and journey-money on that which profiteth nothing. ”