WHAT IS THE RESULT? by Selected

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 31, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 13.

WHAT IS THE RESULT?

By Selected

UNLESS a man has something to show for his advantages and opportunities, the less he says about them as his possession, the better. If a man's ancestors were noble and eminent, an added responsibility rests on him to evidence his worthiness in the line of that ancestry. The practical question at issue in such a case, is not whether he has reason to be proud of his ancestors, but whether his ancestors would have reason to be proud of their descendant. If he has merely descended from a superior stock, it would be well for him not to call special attention to the fact of his descent. So again in one's education and training. It is of little use for a young man to say that he "served his time" at a trade, or at a certain business, if his attainments and skill give no proof that his time served him. If a young man says that he has studied five languages under the best teachers, it is only to his added discredit if he can neither read nor speak any one of those five languages fluently or critically. It is of less importance that a student goes through college, than that college goes through a student. What a man can show as a result of his advantages and opportunities is worth a great deal more to him than a long list of advantages and opportunities which might have shown him that which he now has not. He who does well in spite of his lack of helps deserves more credit than he who lacks in spite of helps which he had.—Selected.