solute excellence ; — not to be content with avoiding
positive badness, with doing what will pass muster,
but to aim at accomplishing something unquestiona-
bly good, — something that it is a distinct gain to
have in the world.



ENERGY. 159

This weakness, this failure to come up to anything
more than what is merely passable, seems to be a
want of courage, combined with a want of energy, — in
plain language, a mixture of cowardice and laziness.

Now to charge people with these two faults affects
them very differently. The insinuation, the very hint
of cowardice, is bitter, — it requires a very firm man
not to be " dared " to do almost anything. AYhereas
I do not find most people resent very much being
called lazy. Almost every one will admit he dislikes
work, and wants to avoid it. Besides, it has rather a
creditable sound to be told that we fail to do first-rate
work from laziness ; it rather implies that we are very
able men, — if only we would use our abilities.

To pass over for a moment the question of courage,
it is of the first importance that you, that every-
body, should understand clearly this business of
hard work, — what the real duty of labor is, in the
face of God and man. I cannot think the exact truth
is always told about it.

There is no real virtue in work as work. The
mere fact that one's time is occupied, one's arm in
motion, one's thoughts in action, does not make one
worthy. A busy man may be doing a great deal of
harm, and an idle man a great deal of good, to them-
selves and others. We must consider the motive with
which one is acting, the judgment he apj^lies, and the
results he achieves. A hard worker may be vicious.



160 ENERGY.

or foolish, or Tinprofitable. But the great duty is, after
the good end is chosen from a wise motive, to be will-
ing to work, — and to work as hard as the matter in
hand demands, — to apply to what you do whatever
energy is needed to accomplish it. It is not neces-
sarily a virtue to labor; but it is always a vice to
shirk.

It is, I say, neither hard work nor economy of
labor that deserves credit, but the willingness and the
energy to apply the right amount of work. And the
right amount is generally a great deal. There are
very few things that can be done well without work.
You may be blessed enough to find some of those
things. Your happiness may assign to you tasks
which, when done as they ought to be, and done as
well as possible, leave you plenty of time and
strength, although you can truly say you have given
your might to them, — stood ready to put your whole
soul into them. Very well — what is the next task ?
What is the next duty God sets before you, and how
much w^ork does that entail ? Wliatever it be, " do it
with thy might." You will not have to look very far
in your life before you will find a business which
does need hard work, — all the work you have to
give it, — and then you may be thankful that the
former one needed little, so that you have it to spare.

In fact, the real philosophy and duty of hard work
is like that of bad weather and hard fare. It is not



ENERGY. 161

virtuous, it is sinful, to expose one's self and risk
health and life without good cause. But when some-
thing is to be done, which the law of kindness and
duty and God says should be done, the man of heart
and brains and conscience does it, although all the
storms of ^olus are blowing. So with hard work, —
it is foolish to work harder than duty demands, — it
is wicked not to be always ready to sacrifice one's life
if the allotted task calls for it.

And this willingness, this readiness, can be acquired
only by practice. Hence it is that at this time of life
we so often call on you for work which seems merely
made for labor's sake, — when the end we labor for
does not seem to need such toil. It is because the
power to work, the readiness to labor, the indifference
to toil, is of itself worth working for ; and that you
may be able one day to turn all your energies at an
instant's call to some truly arduous task, we now ap-
peal to you, even if the tasks themselves are easy, to
call up all your energies for a few final wrestles with
the fiend Laziness.

It therefore is no reproach to you, or to any man,
that you shirk from hard work when you have done
enough ; but wliat shall be the test of enough ? It
can only be the result, — it can only be when with
capacity for work still in you, with your powers not
yet exhausted, you can point to your achievement
and say, " I could not improve it, it is ivell done."

11



162 ENERGY.

And this is precisely where so many fail ; — they
have taken a noble old English proverb, "Let ludl
alone," and corrupted it to the miserable one, " Let
well enough alone"; but there is no "well enough"
short of absolutely ivell and good.

If you are satisfied with poor work, because it is
not absolutely bad, — with flimsy work, because it
will last to-day, — with required work, because you
are not accountable for more, — be assured your lazi-
ness is going to bring its own terrible punishment by
entailing harder and harder work in the end. Do just
all that to-day demands, and no more, and where will
your work be to-morrow ? All to do over again, —
you have merely laid one stone, and have got another
and another and another to lay. Work not merely
for to-day, but for to-morrow, — do not only all that is
expected, but all that can be done, — and you have
planted a living seed, that shall bear fruit forever.
ISTo one piece of work ends just there. Every hour
has its claims on that which follows, and its duties to
it ; and he whose natural or whose acquired aversion
to work leads him to be content with the minimum,
will find that his next day's job is the harder, and
the next harder still, because he has lived up to his
income, and saved no capital, — his meanness has
proved extravagance.

On one of the roads to Cambridge you will see a
brick church which has no beauty, or other merit, but



ENERGY. 163

that of being fire-proof. It stands on the site of two
wooden churches, successively burnt to the ground.
For less money than the three have cost, a stone
church might have been built at the outset that
would have possessed every conceivable recommenda-
tion except — cheapness. There is scarcely any cheap
work done that does not possess in it an element of
rottenness that makes it the dearest at last.

But I said I thought the fact that so much poor,
flimsy work was done instead of good work was in part
due to cowardice. This needs explaining. In the first
place, there is that timidity wdiich thinks it is safest
to do exactly what is required, — that if that is done
you cannot do wrong, — whereas if you go beyond
orders, if you try to do otherwise than you are told,
be it in the direction of more or less, you will equally
get blamed. This is precisely the sin of the unprofit-
able servant in the parable. The command, " Occupy
till I come," meant, " Improve, as well as hold," —
invest does not mean literally to wrap up in a gar-
ment. The actual command, the requirement, of any
authority, be it God or man, always has in it some-
thing implied, something that cannot be expressed, —
the understanding that the work is to be done as
well as possible. Nay, the most detailed instruction,
the most precise information, always implies the
further command that the work shall be done with
heart and spirit. There never was a man, whose



164 ENERGY.

orders were ever so precise, that could not appreciate
those rare cases where the servant had done the work
better than his master directed, — when every suc-
cessive performance assures him that the hateful busi-
ness of directino^ what is to be done, and seein<]j that
orders are enforced, may give way more and more to
the pleasure of merely indicating, or scarcely indicat-
ing, what it is well to do, in the assurance that it will
be done, not in the timid spirit of one executing a
command, but with the free confidence which not
only can anticipate wishes, but even suggest them.

Some of you are shortly to go from here to places
where the plan has been very rapidly developing it-
self for the last few years of diminishing requirements
to a minimum, and leaving as much as possible to
good will and freedom. Like most young men, you
probably desire this plan should thorougldy succeed
and become established, — that nothing should cause
a return to strict rule and elaborate commandment.
That it should be so is in the hands of you and such
as you. Show that you understand that where the
least is required, most is expected ; that where au-
thority places the fewest restrictions, it is that the
subject may place the wisest restrictions on himself;
that if the government of a college ceases to treat its
members like boys, it is with the tacit, nay, the avowed
confidence, that they will themselves throw off the
last trace of boyishness; and that if very little is



ENERGY. 165

exacted from a higli-spirited young man, it is to
encourage liim to give his utmost.

And rest assured that if you never went to so pe-
culiar a place as college, rest assured that, wherever
you may be in the world, that timidity which never
ventures to put one's own soul into work, but shrinks
within the letter of the requirement, oscillating be-
tween the two fears of doing too much and doing too
little, may perhaps avoid blame, but it can never win
approval. Whether we are working for ourselves or
others, we must always give a little more than the
law demands, or we shall always get less.

But there is another kind of timidity and w^ant of
courage I had in mind, quite consistent with a great,
nay, morbid conscientiousness, which stands in the
way of doing real positive good, and is the cause of
great feebleness in all our community. It is that
temper which is more anxious to avoid evil, than to
do good, — whose law consists entirely of prohibi-
tions, and never of commands ; that is always content
to say, " This is not wrong," without ever aspiring to
"This is right."

Perhaps this timidity may be a wdse beginning for
a noble life; perhaps, as a first ste^^, the resolve to
avoid all evil, or break away from whatever w^e are
already involved in, is well ; but if we are ever to
advance, — if we are ever to gain honor and love,
to win our own true respect, to gain our Father's



166 ENERGY.

smile, — we must cast off this coward virtue and
engage in the virtue of enterprise, — the determina-
tion, if we would not be overcome of evil, to over-
come evil with good. For it is perfectly plain that
we might avoid all the evil in the world, and never
achieve one stroke of positive good ; — we should
attain, not the Christian's heaven, but the annihila-
tion, the nothingness, which the religion of Buddha
promises to its votaries.

You remember that parable in which Christ de-
clares that, when tlie unclean spirit is gone out, he
wanders for a time, and then returns to his old home,
taking with him seven other spirits, so that the man
ends worse than before. That is a true picture of any
one, old or young, who believes duty has its claims
satisfied merely by avoiding evil. Man has desires,
ambitions, hopes, that must be satisfied. It is not
enough to turn our thoughts away from wrong objects,
unless we set them positively, strongly, keenly, on
something right. The cold, hollow, heartless virtue
of one who repeats no line of the prayer except those
against evil and temptation, is as chilling and repul-
sive to the warm-hearted Christian as it is to the hot-
headed sinner. " Thy kingdom come," and " Thy will
be done," are petitions without limit in the fire and
strength and life they show in the aspirations of those
who breathe them.

You are now at a critical, an anxious period of life.



ENERGY. 167

In a few weeks every one of you will change this
scene, some of you change it forever. More people
than you are the least aware of are watching what
you do with interest of the truest and most respectful
kind. They are speculating as to your future life,
and often w^ondering if what you have learnt here
will help you to resist temptation and flee from evil.
It will not, it cannot, unless it has taught you — un-
less you have the will yourselves — to strike for the
good, to resolve that you will make each one a dis-
tinct, undoubted, permanent addition to the treasures
of your country, — some piece of work of which no
one can help saying that it is an advance on anything
of its kind that has been done before.

No sordid toiling for toil's sake, no timid eye-ser-
vice for fear of punishment, no monkish shrinking
from temptation, but manly Christian energy, — that
is the duty for us all. Courage to take up what-
ever lies before us in the spirit of faith and hope, and
to do it v:ell, so that the very idea of censure is ex-
cluded by the praise of men, of conscience, of God,
which is sure to attend on him who does with his
might whatever hand, head, or heart find to do.



T



XVIII.

FEIENDSHIP.

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."
Proverbs xviii. 24.

HE age at which one attends school or college
is particularly the age when friendship seems
most delightful, and is most eagerly cultivated. A
young man is in a state of transition between the
animal selfishness of childhood and the crafty selfish-
ness of maturity. His instincts are for society, and
he begins to feel the intense delight there is in letting
one's life be absorbed in the life of others, — in form-
ing one of those unions, impossible with matter, but
perfectly possible with mind, where the whole is greater
than the sum of all its parts. And in college espe-
cially, there are such a quantity of classes and sets
and clubs and associations, that it seems at first as
if choosing, sifting, organizing, and enjoying compan-
ionships was the beginning and end of college life, —
though parents do not always think so.

But presently there comes a change. Many of
these acquaintances, entered into so eagerly, prove
to be mistakes, — either mistakes from the outset, or



FEIENDSHIP. 169

made so by some unforeseen occurrence, which comes
down and snaps what was meant to be an eternal
band. Misunderstanding and harshness and unkind-
ness and treachery spring up as rank and poisonous
weeds in what seemed to be the very home of sweet
flowers. So, when a young man is leaving college
and going into a profession, he gets very cynical, —
declares that true friends are uncommonly scarce, —
that he only knows two or three, — and that most
men are slandering those whom they pretend to help ;
and perhaps he leads for years a morose, uncomforta-
ble life, till the world, in the natural course of things,
restores its own balance in his mind. Of course the
truth is between the two notions. That young man
is a fool who believes he can put faith and hope and
love in every classmate and club member; but he
is worse than a fool, he is a villain, who believes the
majority of such to be false and cruel, and that a true
friend is as rare as a diamond. The mistake is in
supposing friendship to be a mysterious kind of
thing, not governed by the ordinary rules of sense
and virtue.

Depend upon it, the heart's operations are very
closely connected with the mind and the soul. A
true friend, a friend to keep, to enjoy, and to trust,
cannot easily be made out of him whose nature is
either silly or wicked ; he will fail you in the one
case, and cheat you in the other. I know well what



170 FRIENDSHIP.

a peculiar power liking or inclination has, — I know
liow, when once we feel drawn strongly to anybody,
so that we can truly say he is dear to us, it is not
only hard, but the voice of all nature says it is ago-
nizing, to have the affection broken, and that if we
break it off ourselves it is wrong. Fidelity in friend-
shi]3 counts as a virtue of virtues. And just for that
very reason, just because an attachment once formed
must be kept for love and honor's sake, are we bound
to be careful about forming it. We do not become
dear friends all at once; we rarely find ourselves
closely connected witli anybody till we have had a
full and fair chance to study him and find out whether
he is worth knowing; or not.

Especially on entering college, a young man is
thrown into a sea of new faces. Every one of these
he has a chance, a right, to make a friend's, if he will ;
he is bound to intimacy and love with none. Those
who plunge deepest into this sea, instead of floating
on the surface and spreading their arms farthest, no
doubt make attachments for life much sooner ; but
often these are really entanglements, from whose deadly
folds they never can get disengaged, but with sad loss.
I know that some of the noblest and truest friend-
ships ever known have been formed in college ; but
those formed in the earlier stages of college life have
very often ended in the bitterest disappointment ;
unfortunate connections, broken with great suffering,



FRIENDSHIP. 171

or hanging on with scarcely less. It is natural
enough that one should be carried away with the
excitement of forming acquaintance with a score or
two of high-spirited men, whose age and occupations
and expectations are the same as our own, and who
are all going round for some months, with hands put
out as it were, asking for friendship, and apparently
carrying their hearts in them. There is a singular
fascination and pleasure to each one of two hundred
in feeling that he is a person of some consequence, —
a hero, — partly for his own sake, and partly for all
his classmates' sake as well. It is not only natural,
but right, to go into this sea of fellowship boldly
and cheerfully. There may be many comrades whom
you would not make your dear friends ; but there are
very few whom it would be even decent to regard
as enemies. There will be no doubt some treachery
and meanness ; but the staple of your intercourse will
be sincerity and generosity. As I said before, so I
repeat it, — there is no more hateful, more unfounded
state of mind than that which goes about disbelieving
in everybody, — thinking every one has some scheme
or plot, and that we are all knaves together, except
the fools. The great majority of your classmates are
good materials for friends, if they are not friends
ready made.

There is a natural and a reasonable dislike of ex-
clusiveness, — for that temper which stands off and



172 FRIENDSHIP.

wraps itself up in fastidious solitude, informing every-
body who is not up to a certain standard, often a
very queer and unreasonable one, that he is not good
enough to associate w^ith you. Very likely he is
not. You are very likely right in considering your-
self better born, or better bred, or better educated, or
better principled, than many of your companions.
But you have not proved it; your name, or your
school, or your dress, or your language, tells nothing,
till you have proved that your thoughts and actions
and feelings are worthy of those great claims. If you
feel conscious that only a limited number cf your
classmates are fit to be your intimate friends, you will
never get them by sitting at home, and waiting for
them to come to you. You must go out into the
great arena, and have an open hand and kind voice
for everybody. The sacred twelve to whom our Lord
gave the regeneration of the world, the three wlio
shared his inmost secrets, were chosen out of the
great multitudes that followed him as he walked in
the way, and taught by the lake-side. I entreat you,
imitate him in your intercourse with those among
whom 3^ou go ; and however careful you may be in
admissions to the inner chambers of your friendship,
let all whom you have not distinctly proved un-
worthy have free access to the outer courts of your
acquaintance.

It seems to me that this spirit of openness, of can-



FEIENDSHIP. 173

dor, goes very far to solve the difficult questions of
intimacy in college life and everywhere. Be ready
to admit that this or that man is worthy or unworthy
to be your friend, without making up your mind in
advance. You will find college life divided into sets,
which are, on the whole, very fair and equitable helps
to making a reasonable choice of friends. They have
not been formed, but have formed themselves and
grown up out of those whose means, tastes, and asso-
ciations naturally bring them together, — who are
happy together, and would be unhappy if otherwise
grouped. If used simply as convenient groupings,
as helps to acquaintance, till you can choose friends,
college sets and societies are thoroughly useful and
pleasant. But to make them in themselves mean
anything more is a serious and sometimes a cruel
mistake. I have known men deliberately shut them-
selves out of acquaintances which might have grown
into the truest and best of friendships ; I have known
them refuse to know old schoolmates and townsmen,
merely because it would be stepping out of their set
OT their club ; thus making sets and societies stand in
the way of the very things for which such connec-
tions are formed. But it is still worse to regard the
club, the set, as a kind of sacred institution, which
has a right to make rules for conduct, telling us what
to do and what not to do. Of late some of the so-
cieties at college have arrogated to themselves privi-



174 FRIENDSHIP.

leges unknown in their earlier days, compelling their
members to do indecent and ungentlemanly acts that
under no other circumstances would they do, and do
them in the face of the college authorities, and of old
friends and ladies, who do not belong to these juntos,
who have nothing to do with their whims and fancies,
and have older and truer claims on their members.
Good sense as well as good feeling demands that such
claims should always be resisted ; and they have
been again and again resisted successfully. Let any
one chosen to a society put his foot down that he will
do nothing ill-mannered or indecent or untrue, and
the so-called wall of iron has dissolved into mist
before him.

It only requires a little resolution to take such a
ground against the claims of mere acquaintance. It
is far harder when acquaintance has passed into inti-
macy, and intimacy into friendship, — when the league
has been formed which it seems shame, and is cer-
tainly torture, to break, — to maintain the standard
of sense and purity and truth against what seem the
claims of one dearer than life. And yet it must be
done, or we must forfeit self-respect, and God's respect.
There are no more sad stains on the characters of pub-
lic men than where they have let their honor and their
principle go for the sake of a friend.

Perhaps I can make the rigid law seem less stern
by a few thoughts. In the first place, no one friend



FEIENDSHIP. 175

or DO ten friends are everything. Every one of us is
pulled by other claims of those who employ us, trust
us, cling to us, — no one, perhaps, so fascinating or
entrancing as that of our few chosen comrades, but
every one righteous, and twisted all together like a
chain cable for strength. To satisfy all of these, —
to be sure that family and country and teachers and
business companions all get their rights, — only the
strict rule of duty, only obedience to God, only un-
broken truth and courage and purity, can settle the
conflicting claims. If for friendship we break the
cord to-day, we cannot fasten it again to-morrow with
due success ; another and another blow will weaken
it, until we are devoid of principle forever.

But in point of fact the truest friendship demands
the strictest sense of duty. Our friends have a right
to claim that we shall be an example to them, that
they never may think of us as having misled
them, or lowered their standard of right. The pleas-
ures of friendship and companionship were not given
us that, like Cyrus's tricky general, we should gain
our friends' services by associating them in vice and
crime ; but that they should feel that, when they are
reclining on the soft green bank of love, there is the
solid rock of character beneath, and that the ground
will not give way and plunge them in the mire of
baseness.

It is very rare that the character of two friends is



176 FRIENDSHIP.

equally strong, — that, as Horace says of M?ecenas and
himself, they are built like two houses with but one
thickness of party wall, so that each depends upon the
other, and they will fall with one crash. In almost all

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