Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

cold till morning, when he and his

companions were discovered and taken off, more dead than alive. A

keg of brandy from the cargo just landed was brought, the head

knocked in with a hatchet, and a bowlfull of the liquid presented

to the survivors; and, shortly after, Drew was able to walk two

miles through deep snow, to his lodgings.

 

This was a very unpromising beginning of a life; and yet this same

Drew, scapegrace, orchard-robber, shoemaker, cudgel-player, and

smuggler, outlived the recklessness of his youth and became

distinguished as a minister of the Gospel and a writer of good

books. Happily, before it was too late, the energy which

characterised him was turned into a more healthy direction, and

rendered him as eminent in usefulness as he had before been in

wickedness. His father again took him back to St. Austell, and

found employment for him as a journeyman shoemaker. Perhaps his

recent escape from death had tended to make the young man serious,

as we shortly find him attracted by the forcible preaching of Dr.

Adam Clarke, a minister of the Wesleyan Methodists. His brother

having died about the same time, the impression of seriousness was

deepened; and thenceforward he was an altered man. He began anew

the work of education, for he had almost forgotten how to read and

write; and even after several years’ practice, a friend compared

his writing to the traces of a spider dipped in ink set to crawl

upon paper. Speaking of himself, about that time, Drew afterwards

said, “The more I read, the more I felt my own ignorance; and the

more I felt my ignorance, the more invincible became my energy to

surmount it. Every leisure moment was now employed in reading one

thing or another. Having to support myself by manual labour, my

time for reading was but little, and to overcome this disadvantage,

my usual method was to place a book before me while at meat, and at

every repast I read five or six pages.” The perusal of Locke’s

‘Essay on the Understanding’ gave the first metaphysical turn to

his mind. “It awakened me from my stupor,” said he, “and induced

me to form a resolution to abandon the grovelling views which I had

been accustomed to entertain.”

 

Drew began business on his own account, with a capital of a few

shillings; but his character for steadiness was such that a

neighbouring miller offered him a loan, which was accepted, and,

success attending his industry, the debt was repaid at the end of a

year. He started with a determination to “owe no man anything,”

and he held to it in the midst of many privations. Often he went

to bed supperless, to avoid rising in debt. His ambition was to

achieve independence by industry and economy, and in this he

gradually succeeded. In the midst of incessant labour, he

sedulously strove to improve his mind, studying astronomy, history,

and metaphysics. He was induced to pursue the latter study chiefly

because it required fewer books to consult than either of the

others. “It appeared to be a thorny path,” he said, “but I

determined, nevertheless, to enter, and accordingly began to tread

it.”

 

Added to his labours in shoemaking and metaphysics, Drew became a

local preacher and a class leader. He took an eager interest in

politics, and his shop became a favourite resort with the village

politicians. And when they did not come to him, he went to them to

talk over public affairs. This so encroached upon his time that he

found it necessary sometimes to work until midnight to make up for

the hours lost during the day. His political fervour become the

talk of the village. While busy one night hammering away at a

shoe-sole, a little boy, seeing a light in the shop, put his mouth

to the keyhole of the door, and called out in a shrill pipe,

“Shoemaker! shoemaker! work by night and run about by day!” A

friend, to whom Drew afterwards told the story, asked, “And did not

you run after the boy, and strap him?” “No, no,” was the reply;

“had a pistol been fired off at my ear, I could not have been more

dismayed or confounded. I dropped my work, and said to myself,

‘True, true! but you shall never have that to say of me again.’ To

me that cry was as the voice of God, and it has been a word in

season throughout my life. I learnt from it not to leave till to-morrow the work of to-day, or to idle when I ought to be working.”

 

From that moment Drew dropped politics, and stuck to his work,

reading and studying in his spare hours: but he never allowed the

latter pursuit to interfere with his business, though it frequently

broke in upon his rest. He married, and thought of emigrating to

America; but he remained working on. His literary taste first took

the direction of poetical composition; and from some of the

fragments which have been preserved, it appears that his

speculations as to the immateriality and immortality of the soul

had their origin in these poetical musings. His study was the

kitchen, where his wife’s bellows served him for a desk; and he

wrote amidst the cries and cradlings of his children. Paine’s ‘Age

of Reason’ having appeared about this time and excited much

interest, he composed a pamphlet in refutation of its arguments,

which was published. He used afterwards to say that it was the

‘Age of Reason’ that made him an author. Various pamphlets from

his pen shortly appeared in rapid succession, and a few years

later, while still working at shoemaking, he wrote and published

his admirable ‘Essay on the Immateriality and Immortality of the

Human Soul,’ which he sold for twenty pounds, a great sum in his

estimation at the time. The book went through many editions, and

is still prized.

 

Drew was in no wise puffed up by his success, as many young authors

are, but, long after he had become celebrated as a writer, used to

be seen sweeping the street before his door, or helping his

apprentices to carry in the winter’s coals. Nor could he, for some

time, bring himself to regard literature as a profession to live

by. His first care was, to secure an honest livelihood by his

business, and to put into the “lottery of literary success,” as he

termed it, only the surplus of his time. At length, however, he

devoted himself wholly to literature, more particularly in

connection with the Wesleyan body; editing one of their magazines,

and superintending the publication of several of their

denominational works. He also wrote in the ‘Eclectic Review,’ and

compiled and published a valuable history of his native county,

Cornwall, with numerous other works. Towards the close of his

career, he said of himself,—“Raised from one of the lowest

stations in society, I have endeavoured through life to bring my

family into a state of respectability, by honest industry,

frugality, and a high regard for my moral character. Divine

providence has smiled on my exertions, and crowned my wishes with

success.”

 

The late Joseph Hume pursued a very different career, but worked in

an equally persevering spirit. He was a man of moderate parts, but

of great industry and unimpeachable honesty of purpose. The motto

of his life was “Perseverance,” and well, he acted up to it. His

father dying while he was a mere child, his mother opened a small

shop in Montrose, and toiled hard to maintain her family and bring

them up respectably. Joseph she put apprentice to a surgeon, and

educated for the medical profession. Having got his diploma, he

made several voyages to India as ship’s surgeon, {19} and

afterwards obtained a cadetship in the Company’s service. None

worked harder, or lived more temperately, than he did, and,

securing the confidence of his superiors, who found him a capable

man in the performance of his duty, they gradually promoted him to

higher offices. In 1803 he was with the division of the army under

General Powell, in the Mahratta war; and the interpreter having

died, Hume, who had meanwhile studied and mastered the native

languages, was appointed in his stead. He was next made chief of

the medical staff. But as if this were not enough to occupy his

full working power, he undertook in addition the offices of

paymaster and post-master, and filled them satisfactorily. He also

contracted to supply the commissariat, which he did with advantage

to the army and profit to himself. After about ten years’

unremitting labour, he returned to England with a competency; and

one of his first acts was to make provision for the poorer members

of his family.

 

But Joseph Hume was not a man to enjoy the fruits of his industry

in idleness. Work and occupation had become necessary for his

comfort and happiness. To make himself fully acquainted with the

actual state of his own country, and the condition of the people,

he visited every town in the kingdom which then enjoyed any degree

of manufacturing celebrity. He afterwards travelled abroad for the

purpose of obtaining a knowledge of foreign states. Returned to

England, he entered Parliament in 1812, and continued a member of

that assembly, with a short interruption, for a period of about

thirty-four years. His first recorded speech was on the subject of

public education, and throughout his long and honourable career he

took an active and earnest interest in that and all other questions

calculated to elevate and improve the condition of the people—

criminal reform, savings-banks, free trade, economy and

retrenchment, extended representation, and such like measures, all

of which he indefatigably promoted. Whatever subject he undertook,

he worked at with all his might. He was not a good speaker, but

what he said was believed to proceed from the lips of an honest,

single-minded, accurate man. If ridicule, as Shaftesbury says, be

the test of truth, Joseph Hume stood the test well. No man was

more laughed at, but there he stood perpetually, and literally, “at

his post.” He was usually beaten on a division, but the influence

which he exercised was nevertheless felt, and many important

financial improvements were effected by him even with the vote

directly against him. The amount of hard work which he contrived

to get through was something extraordinary. He rose at six, wrote

letters and arranged his papers for parliament; then, after

breakfast, he received persons on business, sometimes as many as

twenty in a morning. The House rarely assembled without him, and

though the debate might be prolonged to two or three o’clock in the

morning, his name was seldom found absent from the division. In

short, to perform the work which he did, extending over so long a

period, in the face of so many Administrations, week after week,

year after year,—to be outvoted, beaten, laughed at, standing on

many occasions almost alone,—to persevere in the face of every

discouragement, preserving his temper unruffled, never relaxing in

his energy or his hope, and living to see the greater number of his

measures adopted with acclamation, must be regarded as one of the

most remarkable illustrations of the power of human perseverance

that biography can exhibit.