And So He Succeeded…

At a time when some seem overprivileged and some feel underprivileged, and many rebel, and many drop out and don’t prepare themselves, we are reminded that “Abraham Lincoln knew toil… He knew cold and hardship… want and hunger… Nature chastened him. She taught him that she cannot be deceived, or cheated,… [and] gave him an honesty… of his very bone and muscle.”¹ He was born in log cabin without heat, running water, or any modern convenience… ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed… His schooling was limited to a few scattered weeks, under teachers whose own schooling had been meager,” Bruce Barton has reminded us, and further: “…According to a philosophy now widely current, this… should have convinced him… that he was doomed to failure… But no one told him this. Instead, he was told that he was fortunate because he had been born in a country where any boy might properly aspire to even the highest success,… that self-discipline and hard work were his only path to salvation,… that the privilege of self-government involved the responsibility to self-support… He had every excuse for discouragement, self-pity, and revolt… But no one… suggested that it was useless to try”² — and so he succeeded. “In a sense, there never were any simple days.”² There were always problems. There were always reasons, real or otherwise, for the faint of heart to feel sorry for themselves. And to the young of this day, indeed to all of us, this is one of the lessons of Lincoln: that the real chances are not gone, that the real values are within the man — his mind, his heart; that humble beginnings need not be a barrier; that the standard of living may not be so important as the standard of thinking.” With faith, humility, work — courage, character — there are opportunities everywhere. No one, young or old, has right or reason to do other than prepare and improve himself and take his place in self-respect and serve in honor and honesty. This we learn from Lincoln.