sign
of which our little individual lives form a part.

We have each to do our duty in that sphere of life in which we have
been placed. Duty alone is true; there is no true action but in its
accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the
truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of its
fulfillment. Of all others, it is the one that is most thoroughly
satisfying, and the least accompanied by regret and disappointment.
In the words of George Herbert, the consciousness of duty performed
"gives us music at midnight."

And when we have done our work on earth--of necessity, of labor, of
love, or of duty--like the silk-worm that spins its little cocoon
and dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay in life may be,
it is the appointed sphere in which each has to work out the great
aim and end of his being to the best of his power; and when that is
done, the accidents of the flesh will affect but little the
immortality we shall at last put on.

CHAPTER X

SELECTING A CALLING.

In reading the lives of great men, one is struck with a very
important fact: that their success has been won in callings for
which in early manhood they had no particular liking. Necessity or
chance has, in many cases, decided what their life-work should be.
But even where the employment was at first uncongenial, a strict
sense of duty and a strong determination to master the difficult and
to like the disagreeable, conquered in the end.

In these days of fierce competition, no matter how ardent the desire
for fame, he is a dreamer who loses sight of the monetary returns of
his life-efforts.

There have been a few men whose wants were simple, and these wants
guarded against by a certain official income, who could afford to
ignore gain and to work for the truths of science or the good of
humanity. The great English chemist Faraday was of this class. Once
asked by a friend why he did not use his great abilities and
advantages to accumulate a fortune, he said: "My dear fellow, I
haven't time to give to money making."

It is, perhaps, to be regretted that in nearly every case the efforts
of to-day, whether in commerce, trade, or science, have for their
purpose the making of fortunes. Nor should this spirit be condemned,
for fortune in the hands of the right men is a blessing to the world
and particularly to those who are more improvident.

Peter Cooper, Stephen Girard, George Peabody, and many other e