The decisive test, in other words, comes when a man deals, in patience and
fidelity, with the task which is set before him. Up to this point his
life, however rich and varied, has been a preparation; now comes that
final trial of strength which is to bring into clear light whatever power
is in him, be that power great or small. If work had no other quality, the
fact that it settles a man's place among men would invest it with the
highest dignity; for a man's place can be determined only by a complete
unfolding and measurement of all the powers that are in him, and this
process of development must have all the elements of the highest moral
process. So great, indeed, is the importance of work from this point of
view that it seems to involve, under the appearance of a provisional
judgment, the weight and seriousness of a final judgment of men. Such a
judgment, as every man knows who has the conscience either of a moralist
or of an artist, is being hourly registered in the growth which is
silently accomplished through the steady and skilful doing of one's work,
or in the gradual but inevitable decline and decay which accompany and
follow the slovenly, indifferent, or unfaithful performance of one's task.

We make or unmake ourselves by and through our work; marring our material
and spiritual fortunes or discovering and possessing them at will. The
idle talk about the play of chance in the world, the futile attempt to put
on the broad back of circumstances that burden of responsibility which
rests on our own shoulders, deceives no man in his saner moments. The
outward fruits of success are not always within our reach, no matter how
strenuous our struggles to pluck them; but that inward strength, of which
all forms of outward prosperity are but visible evidences, lies within the
grasp of every true worker. Fidelity, skill, energy--the noble putting
forth of one's power in some worthy form of work--never fail of that
unfolding of the whole man in harmonious strength which is the only