If I Rest, I Rust¹

The significant inscription² found on an old key---“If I rest, I rust”---would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted³ with the slightest bit of idleness. Even the most industrious⁴ person might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder⁵ that, if one allows his faculties⁶ to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust and, ultimately, cannot do the work required of them.

Those who would attain⁷ the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their faculties polished by constant use, 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 treasury⁸ of achievement. If Hugh Miller⁹, after toiling¹⁰ all day in a quarry¹¹, had devoted¹² his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist¹³. The celebrated¹⁴ mathematician¹⁵, 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 Scotch¹⁶ 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 beads¹⁷, he would never have become a famous astronomer¹⁸.

Labor vanquishes¹⁹ all---not inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor; but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success.