So it is that many of our best and richest blessings come to
us in some form of rugged hardness.
Take what we call drudgery. Life is full of it. It begins in
childhood. There is school, with its set hours, its lessons, rules,
tables, tasks, recitations. Then, when we grow up, instead of getting
away from this bondage of routine, this interminable drudgery, it goes
on just as in childhood. It is rising at the same hour every morning,
and hurrying away to the day's tasks, and doing the same things over
and over, six days in the week, fifty-two weeks in the year, and on and
on unto life's end. For the great majority of us, there is almost no
break in the monotonous rounds of our days through the long years.
Many of us sigh and wish we might in some way free ourselves from this
endless routine. We think of it as a sore bondage and by no means the
ideal of a noble and beautiful life.
But really, much that is best in life comes out of this very bondage.
A recent writer suggests a new beatitude: "Blessed be drudgery." He
reminds us that no Bible beatitude comes easily, but that every one of
them is the fruit of some experience of hardness or pain. He shows us
that life's drudgery, wearisome and disagreeable as it is, yields rich
treasures of good and blessing. Drudgery, he tells us, is the secret
of all culture. He names as fundamentals in a strong, fine character,
"power of attention; power of industry; promptitude in beginning work;
method, accuracy, and despatch in doing work; perseverance; courage
before difficulties; cheer under straining burdens; self-control;
self-denial; temperance"; and claims that nowhere else can these
qualities be gotten save in the unending grind and pressure of those
routine duties which we call drudgery.
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