THE

LIFE AND WORK

OF

EARNEST MEN.

BY

REV. W. K. TWEEDIE, D. D.,
=

AUTHOR OF "THE EARLY CHOICE," ETC.

CINCINNATI:

PUBLISHED BY POE & HITCHCOCK,

CORNER OF MAIN AND EIGHTH STREETS.

R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTER.

1864.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THERE is no substitute for thoruogh-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. "Earnestness alone," says Carlyle, "makes life eternity." Energy, under the guidance of judgment, is, perhaps, the most important of practical qualities. We read somewhere an essay attempting to prove that "genius is energy." A critical examination of history and life would probably show that this quality is more essential to success than most other qualities put together. Without it men of the rarest intellectual gifts often squander their lives, accomplishing but little for themselves or the race; while on the other hand, men possessing none of their extraordinary qualities-men of common abilities and average gifts, but endowed with great energy and earnestness of character, succeed beyond expectation, and become the heroes, the leaders, the inventors, and benefactors of the race. So, too, we often see the bestconceived plans fail entirely for the want of that persevering energy that would push them to successful achievement; while the most indifferent plans, pressed with resolute vigor, achieve triumphant success. The stirring times in which we live bringing many men prominently before the public view, some to succeed and others to fail, furnish us numerous examples and illustrations of these truths. The past also has been fruitful in its exemplifications, and to gather up illustrious

examples of energy and earnestness triumphing over difficulties and achieving success in spite of formidable obstacles, is the object of this work.

It is a reprint of a book very popular in England, written by an author well known as a writer of excellent books for youth, and for the encouragement and inspiration of older persons. This work is a book of this kind; it teaches by examples; it inspires by exhibiting our fellow-men to us, laboring, suffering, sacrificing, and succeeding. It is almost a demonstration of the theory that genius consists chiefly in energy and earnestness. While we read these well-written sketches of men who made themselves eminent in various departments of life, and see them struggling with all kinds of difficulties, and surmounting all kinds of obstacles, we feel that the common trait that runs through them all is energy, indomitable will, resistless perseverance. We feel that the secret of their success and greatness is their decision of character, their changeless. determination of purpose, their promptness, their steadfastness. They determined to succeed, and they succeeded.

Twenty-five illustrious characters are presented to us in this work-heroes for the truth-philanthropists, patriots-men of science and the arts. While it is a work that every youth in the land ought to read, every true and earnest man or woman that will read it will derive strength and inspiration from it.

CINCINNATI, OCTOBER, 1864.

I. W. WILEY.

PREFACE.

A BOOK has been published in our day by a distinguished nobleman, Lord Lindsay, under the title of "Progress by Antagonism." The thought expressed by that title is presented in many lights, and with great fertility of illustration, and embodies what seems to be a general law in our world. It operates in the conduct of moral agents with the universality of gravitation in material things, and the following pages may illustrate the law from many different points of view.

In consequence of its operation, feeble minds are worthless in stirring times, or at any important crisis. What would Cicero, great orator as he was, have been, had he stood alone, wailing and weeping like a woman, when calamities assailed him, or actually hastened to stretch out his neck for his assassins to smite? What would Melancthon, the timid, scholarly trimmer, have been without a bolder nature at hand to uphold him? Or what would Cranmer have been amid the trials which assailed him for the truth, and under which he once drew back, had not a higher power than his own raised him after his fall?

But energy or decision of character may be educated like any other attainment. Those who are familiar

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