A short time after, a
very unpromising-looking young man came and asked me for a place in my
printing establishment. He was hardly a young man, in fact, but just a
half-taught random-looking kind of boy. I asked what he could do. To my
unspeakable astonishment he told me that the place he wanted was that of
foreman. I smiled, and looked on the poor creature as a simpleton. But
though he seemed a little disconcerted, he was not to be abashed. He
told me, that if I would give him a trial, he would let me see whether
he could manage the office or not. "But how can you manage the men?"
said I. Nothing however would satisfy the poor boy but a trial, and I,
under some kind of influence, agreed to give him one. What the men
thought when he took his place, I don't know; but they seemed to act on
the principle, that as I had made him foreman, they must obey his
orders; and obey him they did, and to my agreeable surprise, everything
went on in a satisfactory manner. The youthful foreman, who turned out
to be a sensible, modest, hard-working, honest young man, did well from
the first, and improved every year, and remained with me, giving
satisfaction both to me and to my men, so long as I continued in
business.
I had many fearful trials to pass through after I offended the leading
members of my congregation by giving up singing and prayer at public
meetings, and a heavy loss entailed on me by the dishonesty of one of
those leading members was not the least.
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