Boys: their Work and Influence. Unknown

that which will make you comfortable here.  Honest work thoroughly done here will be no bad passport for another world.  When you have once chosen your calling stick to it, carry it out thoroughly, and with a determination to get on.  Never be in a hurry to change, and never do so without a good reason.  Never rest satisfied that you have done enough, or think that you cannot do better.  It is told of a celebrated sculptor, that he said, “I shall fail in my next effort, for I am satisfied with this.”

      Aim high and do your best.  Every shop-boy may not become a Lord Mayor, but every one who aims at getting to the top of the tree, and goes steadily at it, will find himself at last a good way from the ground.

      Now supposing you have made your choice and started in work you will find a great difference between this and school life.  You will mix with elder people and a different set; you will have more freedom, and possibly a little more money.

      Don’t think you are a man all at once, because you are nothing of the sort, and nothing makes a lad look more ridiculous than to see him trying to be a man before his time.  You know the story of the toad and the ox.

      You have much to learn yet.  Stick to classes and learn all that you can.  Sunday classes as well as night classes.  There is nothing manly in giving up religious duties; quite the contrary, it is cowardly.  Do your work honestly and thoroughly, even though it be the custom to do otherwise.  Boys are pretty sure to have some hobby of their own, and a very good thing too.  A boy is all the better for a hobby, even if he takes it up and drops it again.  It is a good thing for a lad to have some private interest of his own.  If therefore your hobby is not anything harmful follow it out with a will.

      RELIGION

      I had some doubts about the heading of this chapter: Religion ought not to be a separate thing from daily life, and, therefore, all remarks on the subject ought to come under one or other of the chapters which treat of the different duties of life.  There are, however, certain definite religious duties which may perhaps be spoken of more clearly in a separate chapter.  I would ask you always to bear in mind that no religious duties are of much value that are not a regular part of our daily life, and that there is no line to be drawn between natural and religious duties.  “Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the Glory of God.”

      Prayer, private and public.  What I have said in a former paper holds good now.  No boy can safely neglect his morning and evening prayers and his public worship on Sundays.  Prayer should include daily self-examination: no one can get on in the world unless he looks after his own affairs, and reckons from time to time how he stands.  So with our daily life—we should try it day by day, and see if we are keeping straight.  Each night we should look back over the day, see what has been wrong, what imperfect—seek pardon for the wrong, and determine, by God’s help, to amend it.