Trying to Cheat Others: Cheating Oneself

TRYING TO CHEAT OTHERS— CHEATING ONESELF. But there is flying through the world the story of another builder, a foolish eye-servant, a poor rogue. He and his little ones were wretched and roofless, whereupon a certain good Samaritan said, in his heart, "I will surprise this man with the gift of a comfortable home. So without telling his purpose, he hired the builder at fair wages to build a house on a sunny hill, and then he went on business to a far city. The builder was left at work with no watchman but his own honor. "Ha!" said he to his heart, "I can cheat this man. I can skimp the material and scamp the work." So he went on spinning out the time, putting in poor service, poor nails, poor timbers. When the Samaritan returned, the builder said: "That is a fine house I built you on the hill." "Good," was the reply; "Go, move your folks into it at once, for the house is yours. Here is the deed." The man was thunderstruck. He saw that, instead of cheat- ing his friend for a year, he had been industriously cheating him- self. "If I had only known it was my own house I was building!" he kept muttering to himself. But in a deep sense we are always building our own houses. Each one dwells in the heaven or hell of his own making. I care not what his temples or his creeds, One thing holds sure and fast, — That into his fateful heap of days and deeds The soul of a man is cast. — Edwin Markham in Success.