instrument is going to be employed. Temper the iron; sharpen the blade; and rest assured that the world will use you by and by. Good workmen eager for a part in the building of civilization will not worry much about where they are to be sent; they will desire only to be sent where they can be used most effectively. And they will not, for example, foolishly set off the "service" of a good missionary against the usefulness of a good dressmaker. A really skilful dressmaker, I fancy, could wipe away as many tears from human eyes as any sister of charity.
The opposite of a life of service is not any form of happy activity, but a slack, idle, joyless, half-hearted, shrinking life. There are numerous so-called good-people who go about to do good in such a crabbed, peevish, and melancholy fashion that contact with them makes the day bitter and burdensome. There are, on the other hand, persons gay and nonchalant, who never seem to give a thought to the "still sad music of humanity"; and yet one feels in their presence something better than a sermon, better than medicine, better than alms—one feels a current of energy and joy, one feels new power and incentive within oneself. Such persons confer a favor on mankind merely by
