If I Rest, I Rust
The significant inscription found on an old key---“If I
rest, I rust”---would be an excellent motto for tho
who are afflicted with the slightest bit of idleness. Even
the most industrious person might adopt it with
advantage to rve as a reminder that, if one allows his
faculties to rest, like the iron in the unud key, they
will soon show signs of rust and, ultimately, cannot do
the work required of them.
Tho who would attain the heights reached and kept by
great men must keep their faculties polished by
constant u, so that they may unlock the doors of
knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the
professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture---
every department of human endeavor.
Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury
of achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a
quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation,
he would never have become a famous geologist. The
celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never
have published a mathematical dictionary, never have
found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given
his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad,
Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he
tended sheep on the hillside instead of calculating the
position of the stars by a string of beads, he would
never have become a famous astronomer.
Labor vanquishes all---not inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-
directed labor; but faithful, unremitting, daily effort
toward a well-directed purpo. Just as truly as eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry
the price of noble and enduring success.
