The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New
Series, Jan. 17, 1852, by Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852

Author: Various

Release Date: January 5, 2005 [EBook #14603]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 420. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d_.

HOW IS THE WORLD USING YOU?

This is a very common question, usually put and answered with more
or less levity. We seldom hear of any one answering very favourably
as to the usage he experiences from the world. More generally, the
questioned seems to feel that his treatment is not, and never has
been, quite what it ought to be. It has sometimes occurred to me,
that a great oversight is committed in our so seldom putting to
ourselves the co-relative question: What have I done to make the
world use me well? What merit have I shewn--by what good intention
towards the world have I been animated--what has been the positive
amount of those services of mine on which I found my pretensions to
the world's rewards? All of these are interrogations which it would
be necessary to answer satisfactorily before we could be truly
entitled to take measure of the world's goodness to us in return;
for surely it is not to be expected that the world is to pay in mere
expectancy: time enough, in all conscience, when the service has
been rendered, or at soonest, when a reasonable ground of hope has
been established that it will not be withheld or performed
slightingly. Only too much room there is to fear that, if these
questions were put and faithfully answered, the ordinary result
would be a conviction that the world had used us quite as well as we
deserved.

Men are of course prevented from going through this process by their
self-love. Unwillingne