Well Begun

In view of the issue of this book, I wrote to Mr. GEorGE WILLIAMS, so well known and so much beloved by young men, and he, with characteristic sympathy, greatly encouraged me by the following

reply : — “Sept. 20, 1890.

“Dear Dr. ParRKER, — I am gratified to hear of your proposed book for the help and guidance of young men.

“With your insight into human character, your appreciation and recognition of their special needs, and your wide and manifold experience of life, we may, I am persuaded, confidently anticipate a book which will encourage and stimulate young men in their aspirations after true nobility.

“It is upon the threshold of manhood that the faithful warning, the wise counsel, and the sympathetic admonition is especially valuable. Many a young man fails in life from the want of a kindly guiding word at the outset; and many a man now occupying a good and honourable position owes and attributes his success to the timely counsel, at the start, of some friend practically interested in his welfare.

“Thus it is a privilege to help deserving young men. Such actions yield a splendid interest, and effect results, the issue ‘of which it is impossible to over-estimate. I trust that your book may be the means of much practical usefulness to thousands, and wish for it a wide and growing circulation.

“Believe me,
“Dear Dr. PARKER,
“Yours sincerely,
“GEORGE WILLIAMS.”

To the best of my ability I want to tell young men how to start in life, and how to act in all that comes and goes in the daily course of things. I will simply tell what I have seen, heard, and made a note of in the ups and downs of life. My own life has been a hard and varied one from first to last, so that I ought to know how to help young men. Whatever I have, be it much or little, has all been taken at the spear-point. I owe nothing to wealth, nothing to the rich, nothing to the great. I am a working-man, and the son of a working-man, and I am not ashamed to say

so. I am not aware that I have ever known any A period of idleness in the whole course of my life. Having first praised God for His pity and love and aid, I praise hard work — the hardest ever done by any man of my acquaintance — as the cause of any useful position I may have acquired. That I am not either in the workhouse or in the madhouse is an escape for which prayer and toil have alone to be credited. To patrons I owe nothing. The young man who depends upon patrons will probably have a smooth way down to failure and nothingness. As a boy I had a capital schooling in letters and in service. I thought it hard at the time, but as a man, I am thankful for all the drill, Many boys brought up on plum-cake and barley-sugar have come to me for help. They began too well. They began at the wrong end. Some of them even smoked in their teens, and contradicted their elders before coming of age. I never smoked. I saved my pennies and bought books with them. Premature manliness, so-called, often means premature old age, or, as the proverb puts it, ‘Soon ripe, soon rot.”

At first there was a good deal of difficulty in deciding how I was to start the world. Most boys want to begin as cabmen. I never felt the thrill of that delight. At fourteen years of age I thought I should like to succeed my father in his business as a builder. He employed men, working amongst them himself, doing more than any two of them, and had gathered a constituency which he thought might be worth preserving for his only son. Yet the kind old heart could not take easily to the idea. He would rather work for me than that I should work for myself. But he compromised the matter by engaging for me a private tutor in architecture. He thought it would be better for me to begin at the high end of the work, and to come down little by little if I should feel it necessary or desirable to do so. This did not suit me. If I was to be a builder, I must know the whole art and mystery of the craft from end to end. Like William Denny, the noted shipbuilder, nothing would satisfy me, but at the age of fourteen I must join my father’s men. I would work during the day, and study architecture in the evenings. I was to work with my father. I was to be no man’s servant, nor was I ever the servant of any man. I was to do everything that any other boy would do. No favour would I accept. Remember, I was fourteen years old, and do not be shocked when I tell you that before I was fifteen I was back at school, where I remained until I was nineteen. In a few months the building vision vanished without my having laid one stone upon another. If ever I did lay two stones together, I cannot but wonder what has become of them! Yet some kind and sensitive souls — so rejoiced to see me a minister — so delighted with my success in life, thinking it is such a great credit to me — never allow an opportunity to pass without telling the world that I have worked my way up from humble beginnings! It would be amusing but for the malignant bitterness which they clumsily and vainly try to conceal.

When I was nineteen, then, I continued at school, partly as scholar, and partly as assistant. I was appointed usher of the school, principally in the mathematical department. The first money I saved amounted to three half-sovereigns. These I stowed away in the secret drawer of a rosewood writing-desk (value two guineas) presented to me by my father. I often stole a glance at them. In fact, I often counted them. I knew there were only three; yet it seemed that they invited me to count them, and looked grateful for the attention. I moved them from one place to another in the little drawer with my finger-tip; then turned them over and moved them back again; and thus did my duty by the little golden store. I have the same desk now, and sometimes I touch the secret spring and look into the drawer; but, alas! the three half-sovereigns have made unto themselves wings and flown away! Tam thankful that I was early taught the value of money. I was not brought up in the harum-scarum way which does not distinguish between a sovereign or a shilling, or that thinks it grand to take no count of copper. We had in one way or other to work for every penny we had, so every penny was accounted and appraised. ‘This was not the result of covetousness, but of wise and honest thrift. There was no greed in our house. On the contrary, what. local repute that house had, turned upon the unvarying kindness of its occupants, whose hearts literally glowed with generosity. It is possible to be both economical and benevolent. As a boy, in my early teens, I do not remember ever sitting down to my own Sunday dinner without first taking a plateful of smoking refreshment to a poor widow who lived not far away. Having deposited the little gift with her, I ran back and enjoyed my own dinner all. the more for this little recreation. If this is breaking the Sabbath, I hope it will be broken more and more. This is not a bad training for boys: it brings them face to face with actual poverty; and I am glad to say that in this instance I was brought face to face with actual gratitude.

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