DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 
 
 FRIENDS OF 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Winston Broadfoot 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/fromfifteentotwe01will 
 
From Fifteen to Twenty-Five. 
 
 ii 
 
 A BOOK FOR YOUNG MEN. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. F. WILLING, 
 
 Author of “Diamond Dust,” “ The Only Way Out," &c., £o. 
 
 Quit you like men, be stronu. — Paul. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 McDonald & gill, 
 
 Office of the Christian Witness, 
 36 Beomfield Street. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, 
 By MCDONALD & GILL, 
 
 Is the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
no 
 
 W7S3P 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Boy ajs^d Mak - 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Pilot m Commajstd - - - - ?8 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In School - -- -- -- - 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Out- of School - -- -- -- 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Tour Own Way to Mare - - . - 80 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Rich - 99 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 In Business - - - - . 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Out of Business . - - 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Muscle - - - - - 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 In the Country . - - 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 In the City - - - - 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Under Discipline - - - 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 111 
 
 131 
 
 140 
 
 158 
 
 172 
 
 191 
 
 At Tour Best 
 
 202 
 
Feom Fifteen to Twenty-Five. 
 
 Wheee the St. Lawrence slips out of the 
 arms of Lake Ontario, and starts oif by 
 itself to find the sea, it is difficult to tell just 
 where the lake ends and the river begins; 
 the narrowing is so gradual, and the stream 
 rolls forth so grandly. 
 
 Very beautiful is the brave young river, I 
 playing about through its inland archipelago, 
 rippling around the feet of lichen-tinted 
 rocks, reflecting the pretty pictures of its 
 clumps of greenery, and, in the still night 
 time, its surface sparkling with the brilliants j 
 of the 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BOY AND ItlAN. 
 
 6 
 
6 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 When one is watching a young life, it is 
 not easy to tell just where the gayety and 
 freshness of boyhood give place to the man’s 
 strength and purpose. The boy slips away 
 from the home shelter and is out seeking his 
 fortune, making his way, an independent, 
 responsible being, long before they who 
 guarded his childhood are ready or willing 
 to acknowledge his right to direct himself. 
 We are children to our home people, as long 
 as they can keep their hold upon us, even if 
 our heads are gray. 
 
 One is blind indeed (who does not admire 
 the courage and hopefulness, the breezy, 
 though sometimes bothering jollity, the 
 boundless ambition, the dauntless faith for 
 the future that makes a boy’s life exuberant 
 and fresh, free and glorious.^ 
 
 What fine, smooth sailing, one finds upon the 
 St. Lawrence ! Have you ever taken the 
 tour of the islands on a bright summer day ? 
 The Island Wanderer thrids her way in and 
 out, hither and thither, at her own sweet 
 
BOY AND MAN. 
 
 7 
 
 will, now making good headway over a plain 
 sweep of river, as if she really had business 
 on hand, then idling about through the 
 narrowest, shady lanes, as if her one object 
 was to make her gay tourists forget the busy, 
 outside world, and live forever like some 
 wild, aquatic birds, gliding here and there 
 through lovely solitudes. 
 
 When she brings you back toward your 
 hotel, she is saluted by the leisurely people 
 sitting on their cottage verandahs, or out 
 under their shade trees, and she whistles 
 back her “ How do you do ? ” in a free, neigh- 
 borly way. Canoe loads of merry girls make 
 the waters gay with their glee, while the 
 waves of her wake toss their little boats 
 about like a mimic tempest. 
 
 This, also, is like a boy’s life. All seems 
 “ merry as a marriage bell,” and yet — there 
 are dangers lurking about, even in the 
 smooth, gala-day sailing of the early years. 
 
 We saw a wreck, its bones bleaching on 
 the head of an island. “ That fellow under- 
 
8 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 took to run without a pilot,” said our 
 captain. “He thought he knew the river 
 well enough himself ; and he’d save expense ; 
 but he paid pretty dear for the whistle. 
 A current caught his sloop, and whirled 
 her through that channel, and on to the 
 rocks, before he knew what he was about — 
 and there he had to leave her. Guess he’ll 
 find it cheaper to pay a pilot, if he ever 
 undertakes to run on tliis river again.” 
 
 There are dangers that lie in wait for 
 young men all along the way ; but some that 
 they have to encounter belong specially to 
 the time when they are just gliding out of 
 the home shelter into manhood. It may not 
 be amiss for me to speak of them. 
 
 One about which much ado has been made, 
 and at the door of which many false accusa- 
 tions have been laid, is the over-strictness of 
 parents and guardians. Now and then one 
 grows up knarled, and twisted in the grain, 
 from the ropes that held him from natural 
 growth in childhood ; soured and sickly for 
 
BOY AND IMAN. 
 
 9 
 
 lack of STinsliine ; secretive and tricky from 
 small exactions and tyrannies, or with 
 abnormal development of some faculties 
 because others were cramped into nonentity 
 by somebody’s superstitions. Yet the great 
 risk is from the lack of restraint. Boys are 
 much more unkindly dealt with in this regard 
 than are their sisters. They are allowed to 
 develop themselves in savagery by torment- 
 ing smaller boys, stoning birds, drowning 
 cats, and any other pieces of brutality to 
 which they can screw up their courage. 
 They may gash and mutilate their moral 
 sense by all manner of small villainies, many 
 of them carrying the scars to the end of life.^ 
 They may have contact with all coarse, low, 
 braggadocio people, whose bravado makes 
 them specially charming to the inchoate 
 little man. They may rush to see and hear 
 anything and everything that vile people 
 throw in the way, and thus gratifying a 
 prurient curiosity, they become contamin- 
 ated with taints that the holiest and 
 
10 FEOM FIPTBEN TO TWENTY-BITE. 
 
 best influences fail to sweeten.N People 
 have queer notions about boys. They 
 either believe that they are of so angelic a 
 .nature as to be quite proof against evil 
 contact, or else they think their moral con- 
 dition a matter of no consequence. Boys 
 seem to be expected to be just about so hate- 
 ful, contrary and wicked, and there is no use 
 trying to hold them to purity or probity. 
 
 A young fellow is full of restless activities 
 that prompt him to get out of the beaten 
 lines, just as the friskiness of a colt makes 
 its heels fly over the traces. When he grows 
 rapidly he is quite apt to suffer desperately 
 from what the French call mauvaise Tionte. 
 His body seems to him to have got the start of 
 his soul. He is painfully conscious of hands, 
 feet, and general awkwardness. He is often 
 treated most inconsiderately, and he burns 
 *■ with a sense of injustice and' of indignation. 
 Many mature people act as if boys have no 
 rights that others are bound to respect. They 
 crowd the poor fellows into the most un- 
 
BOY AND MAN . 
 
 11 
 
 comfortable and inconvenient places. They 
 must give up their seat to anybody and 
 everybody, whether any reason can be shown 
 for the courtesy. They must be pushed into 
 the most conspicuous and awkward places; 
 and then, when they reach the “ don’t care ” 
 point, and become a terror by their loud, 
 disagreeable misdemeanors, they have to be 
 ^ put into the pillory of a general fault-finding^ 
 and wholesale reprimand. My soul has 
 blazed with indignation against the per- 
 petrators of small injustices that I have seen 
 practiced upon the outraged sensibilities of 
 bashful, young fellows, who, I knew, were 
 quivering in every nerve, and who would 
 avenge themselves upon their tormentors by 
 becoming coarse, and tough, and hard, just 
 when they ought to be gentle, and sweet, 
 and pure as the Lord’s white saints. 
 
 I have a friend, — yes, I have her yet, 
 though she has passed into the city that lieth 
 four-square. Her class of sixty young men 
 shared with her own son the love of her 
 
12 FBOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 large, motherly heart. i Most of them were 
 strangers in the great city, and she knew how 
 to take hold upon each with the warm, mag- 
 netic hand of a true friend, and steady him 
 by the dangers that beset his path. The last 
 time she called upon me, she turned after 
 she had said “ Good-bye,” and added, all her 
 heart in the earnest words, “ Do n’t forget 
 my boys. Pray for them, please. I must see 
 every one of them converted, and at work 
 for Christ.” While she was ill her “ boys ” 
 sent her rare flowers every day, to let her 
 know how much they cared for her interest 
 in them; and when she went away, they 
 brought the loveliest floral tribute for her 
 casket. They knew that in all the city full, 
 there beat not a warmer, truer heart for 
 them in their need of a friend. 
 
 Hers was a grand work, touching with 
 moulding hand the lives of sixty young men ; 
 yet I can but hope while I seat myself to say 
 a few things to those who are passing through 
 the difficult years from fifteen to twenty-five. 
 
BOY AND MAN. 
 
 13 
 
 out of their turbulent, mischievous boyhood 
 into established, reliable manliness, that I 
 may have a yet larger class. At least twenty 
 thousand ought to read what is given me for 
 them. Tliey come around my desk while I 
 write. I look into their eyes, — brown and 
 grey, deep black and laughing blue, — and I 
 say with Tiny Tim in the Christmas Carol, 
 “ God bless us all, every one.” 
 
 ^ The Breton sailor says in his prayer, “ O 
 Lord, the sea is wide, and my boat is very 
 small.” My twenty thousand have before 
 them a difficult and dangerous voyage. The 
 first thing, I would, if possible, induce each 
 to take on board the one only safe Pilot. He 
 knows every rood of the way. Himself a 
 young man. He has passed through every 
 phase of the strange, mysterious life you are 
 living. Being in all points tempted as you 
 are. He knows how to rescue the tempted. 
 Give Him your heart’s love and confidence. 
 Let Him be to you an Elder Brother, walk- 
 ing hourly by your side, helping you when 
 you most need a friend. 
 
14 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 Some of you have never known Him. 
 You have yet to see Him for the first time, 
 and hear from His lips the blessed word of 
 recognition and fellowship. Let me entreat 
 you, ask the Holy Spirit to show you how 
 to come at once to our Lord. Ask Him to 
 forgive you for staying away so long. Trust 
 Him to take you when you stumble out 
 through the dark, and throw yourself down 
 before Him. He said, “Him that cometh 
 unto me I will in no wise cast out.” He did 
 not say “Him that cometh with sufficient 
 earnestness and love and faith,” “ Him that 
 humbleth himself to do this, or that, or the 
 other duty.” No : “ Him that cometh unto 
 kle.” Jesus Christ is a living, loving, mighty 
 Saviour. He wants you. Offer yourself to 
 Him, just as you are. He will be glad to 
 take you. It is His work to make you what 
 He wants you to he. Believe that He does, 
 and according to your faith it wiU he done 
 unto you. 
 
 If an angel brought you a contract written 
 
BOY AND MAN. 
 
 15 
 
 out in due form, in whicli you, on your part, 
 promise to give the direction of your life to 
 God, doing what He wants you to do the best 
 you know how, and He, on His part, pledg- 
 ing to supply all the grace, the disposition, 
 the strength, happiness here and heaven for- 
 ever, would you not sign it? Just such a 
 contract God passes down to you. ^It is al- 
 ready signed by One whose signature was 
 traced in the blood of the everlasting cov- 
 enant. It is sealed by Him who cannot lie, 
 and the legend on one side of His seal is, 
 “ The Lord knoweth them that are His,” and on 
 the other, “ Let every one that nameth the 
 name of Christ depart from iniquity.” ) Give 
 up your sins and trust the Lord to “ know ” 
 you are His, and you will find very soon that 
 Jesus will be all the world to you. 
 
 Some of my class of twenty thousand have 
 gone away from the Lord, and it seems ten 
 times harder to go back to Him than it was to 
 go at first. No matter how hard it is, you 
 are going to do it, because it is right. That 
 
16 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTF-FIVE. 
 
 determination is the key to success in every 
 good endeavor. You must begin with this 
 most important adjustment of your life, 
 bringing it into line with the will of God. 
 Do not wait to read another line till you lift 
 your heart to Him who stands beside you, 
 confess your sins, and trust Him to take 
 you back into favor. If you had gone away 
 from your mother, nearly breaking her heart 
 with your waywardness, you would have 
 only to let her know that you were sorry 
 and wanted to come back, and instantly 
 her heart would bound toward you, in 
 joy that you were willing to love and 
 trust her once more. Christ loves you infi- 
 nitely better than your mother possibly can 
 do. He has measureless joy to get you back 
 to Himself. 
 
 Some trust the Lord privately, but they 
 have never taken a public stand for Him. 
 Let me entreat you to consider how you rob 
 others of the help toward God that you 
 ought to give them. They think it is your 
 
BOY AND MAN. 
 
 17 
 
 natural goodness that makes you amiable. 
 You would not hide it, selfishly, if you had 
 found a medicine that could cure all diseases. 
 You would want to press it upon the atten- 
 tion of suffering people everywhere. Christ 
 has cured you; now help others come to 
 Him by letting them know who helped you 
 out of your sins. Others follow the Lord, 
 but it is afar off, like poor Peter while his 
 Lord was in the hands of His enemies. He 
 was ashamed of the cross. That is a misera- 
 ble Avay to live. Christ wants the love of 
 your whole heart. God grant that during 
 these hours, while we look together into His 
 truth. He may lead you into the fullness of 
 blessing, so that you may love Him Avith aU 
 your heart. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PILOT IH COMMAIID. 
 
 One pleasant afternoon all were gathered 
 on our steamer’s deck; and tiro ugh the sky 
 above us was fleckless in its summer azure, 
 and the woods along the shore waved brightly 
 in their June gladness, yet every eye was in- 
 tent on the stream below, every lip was 
 drawn, and when one had to speak it was 
 with bated breath. We were nearing the 
 Rapids. An Indian shot out from the shore 
 in his canoe, and was taken on board. A few 
 moments later we saw him at the wheel. Plis 
 muscle was as fine and taut as that of a tiger. 
 His keen eye took in every motion of the 
 turbulent water. We were all glad to obey 
 the order on the pilot house, that seemed 
 now to come to full meaning: “Do not 
 18 
 
THE PILOT m COMIVIAET). 
 
 19 
 
 SPEAK TO THE MAE AT THE 'WHEEL ! ” for 
 in the fight with the rocks that were just be- 
 fore us, everytlhng depended upon his skill 
 and alertness. He was supreme in that ship. 
 It was his for the hour. No one dared say 
 him “ Nay.” 
 
 When a young man feels for the first time 
 the stimulus of independent action ; when he 
 reaches tlie rapids of his tumultuous impulses, 
 on finding himself free, dominant, regnant, 
 he needs, as never before, a strong, sure hand 
 on the helm. The rocks all along that part 
 of his way are strewed with wrecks. Where 
 so many go down it is wise to sail carefully. / 
 I suppose more young men fail in their faith, 
 and swerve from the good and the right way, 
 than any other class of people ; and more be- 
 tween eighteen and twenty-five, than at any 
 other age. This, not because there is special 
 moral infirmity or feebleness in men, or in 
 men at that point in life, but because there 
 are special temptations. 
 
 If boys are imposed upon in an exasperat- 
 
20 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 ing manner, young men are treated with a 
 leniency that is quite as harmful. One ex- 
 treme follows the other. They are the pet- 
 ted members of society ; and like all favor- 
 ites, they are spoiled by indulgence. Many 
 things are allowed them which others would 
 not be permitted to do. There are several 
 reasons for this, the chief, perhaps, is the fact 
 that with youthful courage and spirit, they 
 earn plenty of money, which they are quite 
 ready to spend. So the people who make 
 their living by catering to the public taste, 
 usually consult the preferences of these, their 
 most profitable customers. 
 
 They are eager to know a little of every- 
 thing that is going on, and that curiosity leads 
 them where they not unfrequently receive 
 more harm than good. All these things con- 
 spire to stimulate their appetite for excite- 
 ment, which grows by that it feeds upon. 
 
 Young men have often to work hard, and 
 they claim the relaxation of amusements 
 when they are off duty, that their strength 
 
THE PILOT IN COMMAND. 21 
 
 may be kept up, and tbeir brain rested for 
 tlie next day’s service. Tbeir greatest dan- 
 ger lies along that line. 
 
 One of the most common recreations, and 
 one that tends as certainly to excess as any 
 other, is the reading of fiction. It is quite 
 as fascinating as the opium habit, and, in- 
 deed, the two evils resemble each other de- 
 cidedly. It would be foolish to insist that 
 one’s reading must be held down to plain, 
 simple, actual facts. He would be as much 
 bothered to find out what he might read, and 
 what he must shun, if he were to attempt to 
 five by such a rule, as the Jews were in their 
 hair-splitting distinctions about Sabbath bur- 
 dens, and similar inanities. Since some fic- 
 tion may be read to advantage, you had bet- 
 ter know the symptoms of excess, so that you 
 can properly guard yourself. Story reading 
 tends to an abnormal development of your 
 fancy for the young ladies ; it harps almost 
 entirely on that one passion ; and few young 
 men need special stimulus in that line. They 
 
22 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 do not need to go through book after book to 
 cultivate their interest in “ the girls.” 
 
 Novel reading tends to give its votaries 
 false views of life. The story-people are so 
 much nearer perfection than those with whom 
 we are obliged to live, that we cannot help 
 feeling disgusted with the commonplace ways 
 of the latter. 
 
 In inveterate cases, the victim moves about 
 in a dream, as completely unhinged from ac- 
 tual people, as the opium eater can be. Good, 
 solid, reading becomes distasteful ; the Bible 
 quite a bore. He is never satisfied unless he 
 is straining every nerve, galloping through 
 page after page to find out which fellow suc- 
 ceeded in marrying the heroine. When he 
 gets to the end, and the couples are perma- 
 nently paired off, — a state of things that 
 speedily lapses into the commonplace in real 
 life, — he finds himself in a complete collapse, 
 utterl}'- empty of interest in anybody or any- 
 thing, till another story puts him under the 
 lash and spur of excitement. His appetite 
 
THE PILOT IN COMIIAND. 
 
 23 
 
 foT the sensational grows uncontrolable ; it 
 goads him ever onward, and he has no rest 
 night nor day. 
 
 4;^ You can see that this mental opium eating 
 must ruin body, soul and spirit, and, unless 
 it can be held under tight rein, you had bet- 
 
 What I have said of novel reading, holds 
 true of dancing, card playing, the skating- 
 rink, the base-ball ground, the theatre, the 
 opera, the use of tobacco, and alcoholic in- 
 toxicants. They are all wasteful of money, 
 time, strength, and of the actual character for 
 uprightness and sterling ability. There is 
 much to be said about the unhealthful and 
 immodest dressing of the ball-room, and the 
 promiscuous hugging of round dances, but I 
 can hardly touch upon these lines, and the 
 depths of impurity over which those torches 
 glare. The tendency to excess in all of them 
 is beyond question. A young lady insisted 
 that there could be no harm in a few friends 
 dancing in a parlor. Of course she would 
 
 ter take a pledge of total abstinence. 
 
24 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 never think of going to a public ball. “Yes; 
 but, Laura, if you allow yourself to dance at 
 all, you can hardly hold the lines where you 
 mean to keep them.” It was not many 
 months before she came in with a clouded, 
 discontented face. 
 
 “What is the matter, Laura? Has any- 
 thing gone wrong with you ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, there is going to be the loveliest great 
 ball down town, and mother says I can’t go ; 
 and I’m dreadfully provoked.” 
 
 “ Yes ; that is just what I was sure it would 
 come to. Your quiet, harmless, little parlor 
 dances did very well for a while ; but now 
 you are determined to go to the public ball? 
 Do you see the natural tendency to excess in 
 all these things ? ” 
 
 When one makes up his mind to be a thor- 
 ough Christian, he will have to let the Lord 
 guide him in his amusements, as well as in 
 everything else. A young lady went to a 
 minister, not her pastor, and asked his advice 
 in regard to going to a “ hop.” 
 
THE PILOT IN COmiAND. 25 
 
 “ Our cliurcli people are terribly straight- 
 laced,” she said ; “ but I’m sure there can be 
 no harm in it.” 
 
 He saw that she had made up her mind, so 
 he determined to answer her according to her 
 folly. 
 
 “ Why, certainly,” he said, “ I’d go ; only 
 I’d ask the Lord Jesus Christ to give me His 
 blessing.” 
 
 “Indeed, I’ll do no such thing!” she re- 
 plied, before she thought. “ I’ll not say any- 
 thing to Him about it.” 
 
 Evidently she was in the rapids, and she 
 had not given the Pilot command. 
 
 There is sometliing charming in the grace 
 and rhythmical movement of the dance ; and 
 when for the sake of avoiding the excess, the 
 wastefulness, and the bad associations, one is 
 obliged to give it up, the struggle is some- 
 times severe. Tens of thousands decide for 
 the world, and give up Christ, when this is 
 the test of submission. They do not make 
 it a direct issue, a choice between the salva- 
 
26 FEOM'riFTEBN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 tion of the soul and the dance. The enemy 
 is too subtle to allow that. He puts the case 
 skilfully: “You mean to be good and do 
 
 right, but these saints overdo the matter. 
 You can’t let them dictate to you. As good 
 people as ever lived have indulged moderately 
 in all these delightful, refining amusements, 
 and you’ll do well enough if you are as good 
 as they.” 
 
 The only safety is in committing the mat- 
 ter entirely to the Good Pilot, choosing His 
 will and trusting for His guidance. If you 
 look for wisdom to any but the Lord, you 
 will be sure and go wrong. These principles 
 hold good 'of the other fashionable amuse- 
 ments to which I have referred. 
 
 I glanced in at a skating rink the other 
 evening. It was late; the skaters looked 
 jaded. They had the appearance that one 
 sees always in those who are lashed by an 
 appetite for excitement to seek something yet 
 more exciting. When the band began to 
 . play they spun away again ; though a young 
 
THE PILOT IN COMMAND. 27 
 
 girl who had stopped a moment before within 
 earshot, had given an nnconscions comment 
 on the weariness of the affair. “I’m tired 
 enough to drop,” and her face showed that 
 the speech was within the limit of probabil- 
 ity. Forever and forever the reckless use of 
 time and strength, and all under the plea of 
 resting from serious work ; and also the ten- 
 dency to excess that marks every amusement 
 that excites and gratifies excitement, and be- 
 side, the opportunity of free, general associa- 
 tion that bad men and women are not slow to 
 take advantage of, to the infinite damage of 
 the morals of the unwary. 
 
 Base-ball played on the village green by a 
 company of “ boys ” who have been brought 
 up together, is one thing, and the same game 
 in the city park, where young men rush to- 
 gether by the thousand, many of whom can 
 ill afford the afternoon from work, and the 
 admittance fee, and who cannot with safety 
 take the jostling and crowding among sport- 
 ing men, who are loud, and coarse, and unscru- 
 
28 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 pulous ; drinking, smoking, swearing, betting, 
 — that is quite another thing. Unless you 
 are sure you can stop at the exact point de- 
 manded by economy, uprightness, purity, you 
 had better let it alone altogether. 
 
 I can hardly find an excuse for the late 
 hours, excitements, bad contact and general 
 riskiness of the card table, the theatre, and 
 the opera. Perhaps you can; but I have 
 seen so many wrecks on all these lines,that I 
 am like the nobleman who was trying to hire 
 a coachman, and who questioned a couple of 
 applicants in regard to their skill in driving. 
 The first was sure he could drive within an 
 inch of a precipice, and not go over. “And 
 how near could you go ? ” the gentleman ask- 
 ed the other. “ Sure, your honor,” was the 
 reply, “ I ’d drive as fur from the idge as iver 
 I coidd.” 
 
 There is something in young blood that 
 gives a relish for daring, — a charming sense of 
 superiority when one can do what others fail 
 in, even if the tiling done is not, of itself, 
 
THE PILOT IN COMMANB. 
 
 29 
 
 specially worth while. The crucifixion of a 
 complete surrender to the Lord touches this 
 foolish ambition. One has to acknowledge 
 his incapacity for self-management, which is a 
 bitter thing to do ; and the course in which 
 he knows he will be led, lies at right angles 
 with the opinions and practices of the mass of 
 people around him. They go where they 
 please, and when they are commended it is 
 a flattering unction. He goes where God 
 pleases, and if he escapes loss, and gains good, 
 it is God, and not he, who is thanked. 
 
 If you choose to give the Lord Jesus Christ 
 the command of your craft, you may as well 
 face the matter fairly, and, as He enjoined, 
 count the cost. 
 
 When you present to Him your body, as a 
 living sacrifice, you will find that He means 
 it to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, and 
 you will have to care for it accordingly. The 
 question will come up, “ Shall I smoke tobac- 
 co and take a ‘ social glass ’ now and then, as 
 the rest of the ‘ boys ’ do ? ” You will be 
 
30 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 obliged to submit the matter to Him. Wbeu 
 it appears, as I think it will, if you consider 
 it fairly, that narcotics and intoxicants, even 
 when used moderately, burn out the brain, 
 and ruin the nerves, you will have to put 
 them aside with a resolute “No;” though 
 you may be hissed as a coward, and “ poky,” 
 “ old deacon,” or what not. 
 
 Henry Wilson, when he was Vice Presi- 
 dent of the United States, said that the hard- 
 est thing he ever said was uttered at the ta- 
 ble of a senator, the first distinguished man 
 who ever paid him special attention. Wine 
 was offered him, and it tested him to the ut- 
 most, to say to his host, “I never drink 
 wine.” 
 
 In glancing again over rocks that make 
 these “ rapids ” so dangerous, let me recapit- 
 idate. They are an extravagance that you 
 cannot afford. You need to invest your 
 money in something beside the frothy false- 
 hoods of the theatre and opera, the excite- 
 ments of the rink and the base-ball park. 
 
THE PILOT IN COMMAND. 31 
 
 tlie card-table and the ball-room, beer fumes 
 and cigar smoke. You need your time for 
 other things. You cannot afford the risk of 
 the associations that are inevitable, if you 
 frequent such places. You do not want to 
 become the man that the majority of those 
 are whom you meet at such places ; and you 
 know that we become like those with whom 
 we are associated. You cannot fail to see 
 that they tend to excess. 
 
 But I have not yet touched the main rea- 
 son why they should be shunned. Paul said, 
 “ If meat make my brother to offend, I will 
 eat meat no more while the world stands.” 
 He knew so certainly that an idol was noth- 
 ing in the world, that it would not have hurt 
 his morals to eat meat that had been offered 
 to an idol; but he knew, also, that there 
 might be some weak brother, who would be, 
 s^by that example, led into idolatry, thus losing 
 his soul, and the blood of his perishing would 
 be on Paul’s skirts^ Giving one’s self for the 
 salvation of others is the most Christly thing 
 
32 TEOM TIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 that can be done. Our Lord gave Himself 
 utterly for us ; and if any man have not the 
 Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. No man 
 liveth to himself. The primal murderer ask- 
 ed God in the dastardly impudence of selfish- 
 ness, “ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ” When 
 the brand touched him he found out how 
 God regards the bond by which his human 
 children are bound to each other. You that 
 are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the 
 weak. There are people who have pleasant, 
 cheerful manners, sitting at your table, and 
 talking about indifferent things, yet from in- 
 herited appetites and tendencies, or bad hab- 
 its, they are in a fight with demons, desperate 
 and dark, and it will take only the weight of 
 a finger to turn the battle against them. I 
 have known brilliant, educated men, who 
 could not taste fermented wine at the sacra- 
 ment of the Lord’s Supper, nor inhale tlie 
 odor of bay rum in a barber’s shop, without 
 becoming wild with the appetite for strong 
 drink. The passion for gaming is but little 
 
THE PILOT IN COMMAND. 33 
 
 less inveteratevand for the other “pleasures,” 
 as they are called, people risk perdition. 
 Noav when one is in such a case as that, daie 
 you add your example to the awfully danger- 
 ous preponderance of evil? No! ten thou- 
 sand times. No I Better that a mill-stone 
 were hanged about your neck, and you 
 drowned in the depths of the sea, rather than 
 you should make one of these little ones of- 
 fend. If it be a self-denial, you must deny 
 yourself, lest, as Paul said, the weak brother 
 perish for whom Christ died. As a follower 
 of the Lord Jesus you liave no right to con- 
 sult your own preference in any of these 
 matters. You gave yourself to Him that He 
 might save you from your sins. You are not 
 your own, you are bought with a price. 
 That, with your voluntary surrender, makes 
 you His, for Him to use, and employ in His 
 service, as He will. By so much as you neg- 
 lect to give Him your whole heart, and the 
 complete obedience that He requires, you rob 
 Him. , Think who you are, — a mere atom 
 
34 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 creeping about on tliis speck of His star- 
 dust for a day and who He is, — the high 
 and holy One who inhabiteth eternity, sitting 
 on the circle of the heavens; and then an- 
 swer the terrible question, “ Will a man rob 
 God ? ” and the fearful accusation, “ But je 
 have robbed Me.” Choosing to follow the Lord 
 wholly, is the only wise course to take. He 
 made you. He only knoAVs hoAV to bring you 
 to your best. He can make infinitely more 
 of you than you can make of yourself. 
 
 It is safe. The adversary tries to make us 
 believe that it is a fearful thing to serve the 
 Lord with the Avhole soul. Under his mis- 
 representations it appears as though if yon 
 place yourself in the Lord’s hands. He Avill 
 take away what you most piize, and leave 
 your life empty, hard, and bare. Yet the 
 word is, “ As a father pitieth his children, so 
 the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” “ He 
 delighteth in the prosperity of His servants.” 
 
 Is it not strange that with the thirty thou- 
 sand promises that the Lord has given us. 
 
THE PILOT nr COMMAND. 
 
 35 
 
 and. though He has exhausted, the language in 
 trjdng to make us see how infinitely He loves 
 ns, yet we are slow of heart to believe that 
 He does actually delight in making us happy. 
 Oh, the wicked perversity of unbelief ! 
 
 We are surer to hold to any enterprise, if 
 we give ourselves to it heartily, than we are if 
 we take it up in an indifferent or gingerly 
 manner. The more earnest and hearty our 
 support of a cause, the less liable are we to be 
 discouraged by the trials that it may bring us. 
 
 A friend of mine was on a Mississippi 
 steamer many years ago, when they came to 
 a place known among river men as the grave- 
 yard, on account of the sawyers that were in 
 that part of the stream, and that had sent 
 many a good boat to the bottom. To my 
 friend’s surprise, as the vessel came to the 
 graveyard all steam was ordered on. When 
 he asked why, he was told that the boat 
 must be put under all the power that she 
 would bear, so that she would obey the helm. 
 Everytlung might depend upon her turning 
 
36 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 at a second’s warning wlien tlie pilot dis- 
 covered a danger. 
 
 Let the Great Pilot take the wheel. Sur- 
 render yourself up to Him for service, and He 
 will fit you up to do His will. A young man 
 who had recently been converted, went to the 
 Young Men’s Christian Association and asked 
 for something to do for the Saviour. They 
 gave him some “ dodgers ” and told him to 
 go out upon the street and invite people to 
 the evening service. In a little while he 
 discovered that when any one who knew him 
 came along, his hand would suddenly go 
 behind him, and he would seem to be waiting 
 for a street-car. “Now, see here, sir,” he 
 said to himself, “ this will never do : you’ll 
 not hold out a mouth, unless you get over 
 being ashamed of being seen at this business,” 
 and he went at once to the Saviour, and had 
 his heart cleansed from the fear of man, so 
 that he was not afraid to stand up for Jesus 
 always and everywhere. 
 
 This victory is not a matter of time. Many 
 
THE PILOT IN COMMAND. 37 
 
 old Cliristians are as mnch fettered as they 
 were the day of their conversion. It is not 
 a matter of growth, hlan}' who have grown 
 a great deal in knowledge, and more or less 
 in grace, since their conversion, are still very 
 far from giving Christ the entire control of 
 their lives. There are only two things 
 necessary to this result ; — submission and 
 trust. They can be done as soon after con- 
 version as one is able, through the Spirit’s 
 help, to apprehend the need. They are very 
 simple when one honestly seeks to do them. 
 You give yourself over to the Lord, body, 
 soul, and spirit, for time and eternity, that 
 you may do His will, and that alone, as far as 
 you are able to find out that will. You ask 
 Him to cleanse you from all sin, so that the 
 element of disobedience may be eliminated 
 from your soul. John said, “ If we confess 
 our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us 
 our sins, and to cleanse us from all un- 
 righteousness.” You say, “ Since I have 
 given myself to Him, I have given Him the 
 
38 FEOM riETEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 chance to save me as He wants me to be 
 saved. He takes me on purpose to cleanse 
 me, and I believe that Pie does now make me 
 clean.” 
 
 If you submit and trust in this manner, it 
 will not be very long till you will know 
 beyond question, that the blood of Christ 
 cleanses you, and that He has supreme con- 
 trol of your life. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 m SCHOOL. 
 
 I BEMEMBEE, an autumn day in Milan, 
 when a note came to the hotel, ashing the 
 Americans to come to the English chapel for 
 a memorial service in honor of their dead 
 President. It was a most interesting occa- 
 sion. The King of Italy was' represented by 
 the Prince of Leghorn. The municipal au- 
 thorities were also present. An American 
 tourist was ashed to speak of our nation’s 
 loss, which he did in a manner never to be 
 forgotten. Among many beautiful things 
 that he said, was a reference to a picture that 
 was on exhibition in the National Exposition 
 of modern Italian art, then in session in the 
 city. It represented a room, empty and bare, 
 a woman sitting there with little children 
 
 39 
 
40 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 clinging to her, and crying for bread, wliile 
 in one corner lay the stone-dead father. 
 “ Out of such a home,” said the gentleman, 
 “ came James A. Garfield ; and that he could 
 come out of such a home, and become the 
 man he was, is possible only in America.” 
 
 In Rome, a few days later, a similar mes- 
 sage brought the Americans together for a 
 similar service. Among other beautiful things, 
 the rector said of Garfield: “A canal-boy 
 trudging along on the tow-path after his slow 
 team. A few years later all the millions of 
 Christendom were listening at his bedroom 
 door for the count of his pulse ; and when at 
 last his brave life went down, all the millions 
 of Christendom followed his bier weeping as 
 mourners. That the canal-boy should reach 
 such a place of honor and trust, is possible 
 only in America.” 
 
 One great day on Bunker Hill the people 
 were crowding to the front, endangering the 
 lives of those on the platform. Daniel Web 
 ster waived them back with his kingly hand. 
 
IN SCHOOL. 41 
 
 “We can’t stand back! *’ cried a man in the 
 crowd. “ It is impossible I ” — “ Impossible I ” 
 exclaimed Mr. Webster, “Nothing is impos- 
 sible on Bunker Hill I ” 
 
 Nothing is impossible in this free, generous 
 America, 
 
 “Heart within, and God o’erhead.” 
 
 The young man who wants to make the most 
 of himself, for good work, is guaranteed full 
 scope and opportunity. All things right and 
 reasonable, are possible to him. If he wants 
 “ an education,” as we call a given amount of 
 school drill, he will find it, extraordinaries 
 excepted, within reach of his ability. It may 
 require a great deal of self-subjugation and 
 perseverance, but it is possible. 
 
 Perhaps you are just now settling the ques- 
 tion of your attempts in that line — whether 
 or not you will “ go through college.” You 
 enjoy study. You love books. You appre- 
 ciate the advantage of being liberally edu- 
 cated ; but the four or five years necessary to 
 
42 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 sucli an undertaking, are packed with self 
 denials ; and tkey seem a long time to spend 
 in preparation for active life. 
 
 Your parents are unable to kelp you, and 
 you will have to “ work your way.” Many a 
 noble fellow has done that; and yet many 
 who have attempted it have given up in dis- 
 couragement. When Bishop Simpson was 
 President of Asbury University, an awkward, 
 poorly-dressed, country boy, came to his office 
 to register as a student. With his usual 
 kindly interest. Dr. Simpson spoke to the 
 young man about the amount of time and 
 hard work it takes to master a college course. 
 
 “ Have you the means to carry you 
 through ? ” he asked. “ What have you to 
 depend upon ? ” 
 
 The young American straightened his mus- 
 cular frame, and extended his snn-browned 
 hands, with the brave reply: “ My two hands, 
 sir.” 
 
 You will not be surprised to know that he 
 got his education, and also, that he became 
 a United States senator. 
 
m SCHOOL, 
 
 43 
 
 You may have only your two hands to de- 
 pend upon, and you shrink from the sacrifices 
 involved in “working your way.” I would 
 be glad to say a word that shall turn the 
 scale in favor of the best possible culture. 
 Other duties may interfere. Your health 
 may prove unequal to the strain. These, 
 however, are the exceptional ' cases. With 
 youtliful courage and vigor, and a spirit con- 
 scious of the dignity of its relation to God, 
 you will find each sacrifice light, as it passes. 
 In later years the trials will be remembered as 
 certificates of “pluck,” in winch you will 
 pride yourself, as soldiers take pleasure in 
 showing their scars. 
 
 The time seems long; but you will find 
 when you get at the work of responsible life 
 that your education is so much capital, enab- 
 ling you to work at just so much better ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 The times demand straight, strong think- 
 ing. Many a good enterprise comes to loss 
 and wreck because they to whom it is en- 
 
44 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 trusted have not the ability to think all the 
 way around and through its interests. There 
 is usually a screw left loose, or a cord flying, 
 and through that carelessness ruin conies to 
 the project. The college is a mental gymna- 
 sium. The most that school work does for 
 one is to teach him to think steadily and 
 thoroughly. Your muscle may have been de- 
 veloped at the plow handles, or in the boat 
 club. It matters little how you get the 
 toughness and strength ; the question is, can 
 you breast the wave when a life is in danger? 
 College emulations and honors are remem- 
 bered only to be laughed over when the years 
 sift snow upon one’s head. The only serious 
 point then will be, did they develop in you 
 strength to think out a helpful plan for a 
 hundred poor fellows who never learned to 
 think for themselves. 
 
 In these days no one is entrusted to do dif- 
 ficult work without long and careful training. 
 Mind needs drill as certainly as muscle. A 
 horse is driven over the track hour after 
 
IN SCHOOL. 
 
 45 
 
 hour, and day after day, when men intend to 
 risk tens of thousands of dollars upon his 
 ability to put his foot down in a given place 
 within a given second. singer who was 
 gifted with a good voice went to an Italian 
 vocal trainer to know what he could do for 
 him in the way of culture. The reply was ; 
 “ If you will study a year I will make you 
 sing well. If two years, you may excel. If 
 you will practice the scales constantly for 
 three years, I wUl make you the best tenore 
 in Italy. If for four years, you may have 
 the world at your feet.” 
 
 Malibran said : “ If I neglect my practice 
 a day, I see the difference in my execution. 
 If for two days, my friends see it ; and if for 
 a week, all the world knows my failure.” 
 
 If drill is essential to the best use of mus- 
 cle, how can we expect good work from un- 
 trained thought ? 
 
 You may forget your mathematical for- 
 mulse, just as you forget the weight of the 
 dumb-bells you use in the gymnasium, or the 
 
46 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 lieiglit and length of the bars ; but in both 
 cases you will have the strength that the ex- 
 ercise gave for the actual work of life. 
 Another may succeed where you fail in some 
 crisis hour, because he was trained as you 
 were not, to track tirelessly a principle 
 through all manner of entanglements and 
 sophistries. . 
 
 Have you ever read Plato’s dialectics ? It 
 is amusing to see how Socrates drives the 
 sophist by a little turn of expression from 
 one point to another, till he makes him give 
 an answer to a question that is directly 
 opposite the one he gave to the same question 
 in the outset. There are plenty of sophists 
 in the world yet, and if we would escape 
 their false conclusions and the consequent 
 mischief, we must be able to follow the trail 
 of a thought as tirelessly as a sleuth-hound 
 scents a track ; and that we are able to do 
 only after long, close drill. 
 
 The difference between studying a subject 
 till you know all about it, and slurring it 
 
IK SCHOOL. 
 
 47 
 
 over, taking in only a few surface facts, may 
 be illustrated by a story tbat is told of Ag- 
 assiz when be was teaching on Penikese Is- 
 land. An entomologist who had some rep- 
 utation in his own line, came to perfect him- 
 self under the great teacher. To his aston- 
 ishment, Agassiz gave him a fish to study, 
 telling him to use his eyes upon it, and be 
 ready for an examination in an hour or so, 
 that he might be properly graded. The gen- 
 tleman looked the fish over carefully, deter- 
 mining its class, genus, species, and peculiar 
 characteristics. He fonnd out everything 
 about the subject that he could think of, and 
 yet Agassiz did not come. There lay the 
 fish, staring at him with its dead eyes, and 
 disgusting him with its odor ; but a full hour 
 passed before the teacher appeared. When 
 the entomologist recited his lesson, to his 
 chagrin, Agassiz shook his head. “You’U 
 have to try again, sir, you have n’t looked at 
 the fish yet.” The student was somewhat 
 out of patience, but his faith in Agassiz held 
 
48 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 him to the work ; and he discovered many 
 tilings that he had before overlooked. Yet 
 he was obliged to wait some time for the pro- 
 fessor after he had found out all that he 
 thought it possible for him to see in that fish. 
 This time, though the examination was a lit- 
 tle more satisfactory, Agassiz said, “ You ’ll 
 have to try once more, sir, you have n’t 
 shown yet that you know how to use your 
 eyes ; and without that you can’t do anything 
 with entomology.” By that time the student 
 was thoroughly aroused, and he went to work 
 in good earnest. When the professor came 
 back he was so deeply interested in points 
 that he had not noticed before, that he did 
 not observe when Agassiz came in. “ That 
 will do,” said the teacher, “ I see you can be 
 made to use your eyes, and I know, now, 
 what to do with you.” 
 
 The main object of your school drill is to 
 help you form a habit of using your faculties. 
 Their daily exercise unfolds them, and devel- 
 ops their strength, so that they will be able 
 to do good work in later years. 
 
m SCHOOL. 
 
 49 
 
 But you ask if you could not get that ex- 
 ercise at home, and so save time and money. 
 Yes, but you wUl not be apt to do so, because 
 other things will claim your attention, and 
 will constantly break in upon your plans. 
 To get the necessary discipline you need to 
 go away from your ordinary avocations, and 
 set apart several years for that special object. 
 Take, for instance, one point that is of prime 
 importance in all the business of life ; punctu- 
 ality, — a habit of doing the proper thing at 
 the proper time. The college bell is the in- 
 structor in that department, and there is not 
 a more useful member of the faculty. If 
 students acquire a habit of presenting them- 
 selves in a given place at a given moment, it 
 will give a reliability of mental action that 
 will be of incalculable value in the years to 
 come. There are other educating influences 
 in college life that are not represented by the 
 number of text-books mastered. Listening 
 to good music develops musical taste. By 
 familiarity with fine pictures the eye is culti- 
 
50 PROM PIPTEEN TO TWENTY-PIVE. 
 
 vated to discern the points that mark a gen- 
 uine work of art. The atmosphere about a 
 college is bookish, and unless one is quite ob- 
 tuse, his taste for books will be thereby devel- 
 oped. 
 
 The personal influence of the college fac- 
 ulty is a matter of no small unportance. Con- 
 tact with a refined, cultured person, educates 
 one. College professors are selected with 
 care, and students have daily association with 
 them. The best they give their classes is not 
 what they find in the text they are teaching, 
 but their own lives — themselves. One can 
 hardly help noticing how even the manner- 
 isms of a strong professor are unconsciously 
 imitated by his students. 
 
 Society work, with the contests and class 
 victories of school life, look like mimic war 
 to those who are handling the world’s serious, 
 actual facts ; but after all, they help develop 
 mental courage, which is, perhaps, the chief 
 factor in every great enterprise. 
 
 When a young man stands on the thresh- 
 
IN SCHOOL. 
 
 51 
 
 old of active life, quivering with, restless en- 
 ergy, it seems like a heavy investment for him 
 to give four years, and the amount of money 
 that represents the difference in value be- 
 tween a consumer and a producer, for the 
 sake of securing a liberal education. Yet he 
 will hardly find an easier way to lay up ten 
 thousand dollars. Aside from the pleasure of 
 knowing something of the classics and the 
 sciences, and the fellowship with bookish peo- 
 ple, his education may have that financial 
 value. His salary may be increased by it 
 eight hundred or a thousand dollars a year ; 
 and that is the interest on ten thousand. Add 
 to this its cumulative value, and also that 
 the higher and better-paid positions are hard- 
 ly open to one who is not liberally educated, 
 and you will see that the investment is a 
 profitable one. 
 
 It may be well for me to remind you of 
 the dangers of your school life, as forewarned 
 may be forearmed. 
 
 Young men sometimes become coarse and 
 
52 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 boorish, in their exile from the refinements of 
 home. Hasty meals in boarding-houses and 
 “ club ” dining-rooms, are apt to mar table 
 manners. The charming accomplishment of 
 table talk that saves the dining-room from 
 becoming a mere feeding place, making it the 
 scene of delightful and helpful domestic re- 
 union, is quite lost. 
 
 A college curriculum is so heavy as to 
 leave the average student little time for 
 legitimate recreation. When he gets away 
 from his books, his bottled-up spirits are apt 
 to find vent in mischievous tricks, that de- 
 pend mainly for their fascination upon the 
 discomfort they occasion some one who has 
 given offense, either by his strictness or his 
 verdancy, — a mild type of savagery that de- 
 velops in the perpetrator anything but no- 
 bleness of soul. A student who is betrajmd 
 into that sort of mischief, is liable to become 
 a cheat in addition to the braggadocio, swag- 
 ger, and deception, that are cultivated by such 
 exercises. If he is out half the night in such 
 
IN SCHOOL. 
 
 53 
 
 adventures, lie will have to cheat his way 
 through the recitation room, or lose his class 
 standing. He cheats his parents, who may he 
 sacrificing heavily to get money to pay his 
 bills. He cheats himself out of a chance to 
 lay a foundation for a strong, useful charac- 
 ter. 
 
 Now and then a wild college boy has come 
 out of his freaks into a noble manhood, and 
 people who are afflicted with “bad boys,” 
 have tried to wheedle themselves into a 
 belief that that wildness is a sign of special 
 mental activity. “Young men must sow 
 their wild oats,” they say, in a ghastly 
 attempt at a cheerful view of the case. Now 
 if by “ wild oats ” they mean infractions of 
 the moral law, doing unto others as you 
 would not have others do to you, we say “ No ! 
 a thousand times, no ! ” Young men are not 
 idiots, that they should be exempt from 
 moral obligation, hlen claim and hold the 
 prerogative of making all civil and ecclesias- 
 tical laws for all the land. They elect our 
 
54 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 rulers. They aspire to fill all our college 
 professorships and presidencies, to he the 
 presbyters and bishops ; and shall we permit 
 such faults in their early training as may 
 leave an unsound place in the foundation of 
 their character ? Do not all teachers know 
 that perfection in any line can be hoped for 
 only from training begun in early childhood? 
 The United States Commissioner of Educa- 
 tion said to me one day, “ I am learning to 
 lay more stress on primary teaching. I am 
 coming to believe that education, to do its 
 best, must begin with the breath.” Dare we 
 say that moral training is exceptional? 
 Holmes says that tampering with sin is like 
 touching nitrate of silver. The stain is there, 
 though it may not show. All that is needed 
 to bring it out is a strong enough light. So 
 I say, if you expect to become a sovereign 
 and law-giver, touch notlfing, even “ in fun,” 
 that has in it a moral taint. 
 
 Ancient Egyptian kings permitted none 
 but persons of noble blood to serve their 
 
IK SCHOOL. 
 
 55 
 
 cliildren as menials^ or be near them, for fear 
 the princes and princesses would become 
 coarse and common by contact with uncul- 
 tured people. If we leave the law-making to 
 men, we must insist that they be kept pure 
 from babyhood, so that their moral sense 
 may be firm, true, and reliable. 
 
 So let us have no more stealing from 
 pantries, petty larcenies upon melon patches 
 and orchards, tricks at the expense of pro- 
 fessors, or hazing of freshmen. What woxild 
 you think if your sister were guilty of such 
 offences? Yet her responsibility in church 
 and state will be light beside yours when 
 you reach maturity. 
 
 College training is supposed to be a way 
 of forming, at large expense, right mental 
 and moral habits. Every hour that the 
 student gives to mischief, defeats, by so 
 much, the purpose of the work. It takes 
 time and strength from legitimate drill, and 
 wastes them upon that which develops the 
 opposite of the refined, modest manners, that 
 characterize the scholarly gentleman. 
 
56 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 “ Oh, but a fellow can’t keep himself laced 
 down to books all the time, — all work and 
 no play, lie has got to have some fun.” 
 To be sure he has. Recreation is just as 
 needful in its place as study. The oil on the 
 axle of a car-wheel is necessary to the wear 
 of the metal, but you have to look out, or a 
 “ heated journal ” will set things on fire. 
 More than one young man takes his parch- 
 ment with a face stained with the smoke of 
 a “ heated journal.” 
 
 “ Oh, but your fiddufine, Miss-Nan cy-ish, 
 button-hole-boquet men, never amount to 
 anything. It is grip and grit that win ; and 
 they are developed by getting into scrapes 
 and then getting out by your wits.’^ I think 
 you have hardly gone to the bottom of this 
 subject, if that last sentence is your conclu- 
 sion. I agree with you that a literary, or 
 scholastic, or professional “ dude, ’’even in tluj 
 pulpit, is as certainly a failure as his 
 ridiculous, fashionable confrere. We are 
 never disappointed in lily-fingered carpet 
 
IN SCHOOL. 
 
 67 
 
 knights, for we never expect them to do any- 
 thing brave or strong. They are what they 
 are, not on account of mental drill and loyalty 
 to moral principle, but in spite of efforts to 
 develop their virility. Webster said his 
 oratorical success was altogether the result 
 of hard study. Alexander Hamilton said, 
 “ People sometimes attribute my success to 
 genius. All the genius I know anything 
 about is hard work.” Agassiz defined genius 
 to be a capacity for an infinity of toil. 
 
 John Wesley moved and is still moving 
 millions toward God. He was like Themis- 
 tocles, who said, “I cannot play the fiddle, 
 but I know how to make a small town become 
 a large city.” Through W esley’s labors many 
 and many a desert place is made to bud and 
 blossom as the rose. When he was in Oxford, 
 instead of spending his nights in taking 
 clappers out of college bells, or tying geese 
 in professors’ chairs, he was visiting the sick 
 and poor, praying with prisoners, and stirring 
 up to good works those whom the others in 
 
58 FEOM riETEEN TO TWENTT-EIVE. 
 
 derision called “the Holy Club,” — practicing 
 the noble works upon which he was to spend 
 his life, and to which he was to move tens of 
 thousands. 
 
 If you mean to make the most of your 
 college life, you must plan for plenty of 
 vigorous out-door sports to give you the 
 necessary nerve and muscle. You must also 
 see to it that your mental work is done in 
 such a way as to produce the best results. 
 It is possible to recite a long lesson accurately 
 by training the memory to carry a heavy load 
 for a short time, and then to throw it down, 
 not to be shouldered again unless for a 
 similar sharp effort. Such work gives very 
 little actual exercise of the other mental 
 faculties. It does not teach thinking, but 
 rather how to escape the drudgery of thought. 
 Few teachers know how to detect and correct 
 this fault. If you have fallen into it, maldng 
 your work mainly mnemonic, and giving but 
 little time and strength to following out and 
 assimilating the thought of your authors, you 
 
r 
 
 m SCHOOL. 59 
 
 must set about an immediate reform, or you 
 will be but little helped by your college work. 
 Of course you understand that the helps to 
 feeble students that are so easily procured, — 
 “ponies,” you college boys call them, — 
 writing Greek case and tense endings on 
 cuffs and thumb-nails, and all that sort of 
 thing, cheats nobody so seriously as it does 
 the perpetrator. Unless he means to be true 
 to himself, honest rmder the lidless eye, his 
 diploma will mean but little, and it will be 
 of small use in the future. 
 
 There is risk that good, honest study may 
 interfere with your spirituality. Not that 
 there is the least incompatibility between the 
 best thinking and the highest spiritual attain- 
 ments. Only shallow thinkers and narrow 
 observers hold that they are opposed to each 
 other. The fact is, they who have done the 
 best intellectual work are the most completely 
 loyal to the Lord. In Him are hid all the 
 treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He 
 has promised to give wisdom liberally. 
 
60 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 Yet there is risk that in using assiduously 
 the means of mental growth you may neglect 
 your spiritual development. A study may 
 be specially difficult for you, or you may be 
 unavoidably hindered in your work, and fall 
 behind your class. In your effort to make 
 up what is lacking, you neglect your Bible 
 and private prayer. You crowd these duties 
 into the last few minutes before going to bed, 
 when you are too tired to do anything well, 
 and you get very little help from them. 
 
 After a while you find yourself haunted all 
 day Sunday with the lessons that you must 
 recite Monday forenoon ; and you allow your- 
 self to slip into the habit of studying, — do- 
 ing week-day work on the Lord’s day. A 
 fatal mistake, — as certainly harmful to the 
 mind that needs its seventh-day rest, as to 
 the soul, that is thus robbed of its day of 
 worship. 
 
 You find yourself growing indifferent to 
 the Lord and His work, and you think it is 
 because you miss the home helps. Not so. 
 
IN SCHOOL. 
 
 61 
 
 You are sinning against God and starving 
 your soul. You are forfeiting your best 
 chance for a useful and happy life. The old 
 home means of grace that you used to enjoy 
 so heartily, will seem tame and insipid enough 
 when you go back to them ; and you will find 
 yourself miserably backslidden in heart, if 
 not in life. This is a matter of the utmost 
 importance. We have a day of prayer for 
 schools and colleges. It ought to find every 
 Christian in the land in earnest supplication 
 for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon 
 our young people who are studying. The 
 men and women who are to do the world’s 
 work a few years hence, are now in school, 
 and upon their integrity depends the future. 
 Now is the time to reach and save them. A 
 little effort now will result more than a great 
 deal put forth by and by. They are sensi- 
 tive, shy; many of them heart-sore, on ac- 
 count of their wrenching loose from home 
 scenes and friends. It would not take much 
 to lead them to trust the Elder Brother. A 
 
62 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 great many are converted to Christ during 
 their school life ; and yet many others lose 
 their hold on God, and become quite formal 
 and careless in their piety. The Christian 
 student who gets away from the Lord, not 
 only harms himself, but he loses his chance 
 to help others whom he may never again find 
 in so susceptible a mood, even if he ever 
 meets them again at all. 
 
 Nothing succeeds without God’s blessing. 
 If one would reach the highest success, he 
 must let the motive for studying be purified 
 by the blood of Christ, so that he can say by 
 faith, “ I am seeking this education that I 
 may the better do His will.” Then he can 
 trust, with tremorless confidence, that he 
 will be taken safely through all hard places. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUT OF SCHOOL. 
 
 I KNOW by bitter personal experience the 
 disappointment that clouds the life when the 
 verdict is finally given, and one has to give 
 up going to school. Attempt after attempt 
 has been made, but the barriers are insur- 
 mountable, — poor health, weak eyes, no 
 money. Many a spirited young fellow has 
 faced these obstacles with throbbing brain 
 and sinking heart. He sees others going 
 right on, though they care very little for 
 what is to him of untold worth. They idle 
 and cheat their way through a college course, 
 prodigal of time, careless about money, indif- 
 ferent to books. The disappointed student 
 quivers in every nerve with a hard hunger to 
 know, a great desire to live above the coarse, 
 
 63 
 
64 FEOM" FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 common level of physical wants, and an am- 
 bition to be able, some day, to help the weak 
 and poor to a better plane of life. 
 
 There is an infinite pathos in what Mr. 
 Lineoln said when Stephen A. Douglas had 
 beaten him in a senatorial campaign. “ Doug- 
 las’ lifft is all success ; mine all failure. I 
 would give all my years and chanees to have 
 the opportunity that has come to him, of do- 
 ing something to hft up the oppressed.” 
 
 The conscientious, thoughtful young man, 
 who has been obliged to give up his school 
 life, can hardly bite back the bitter question, 
 “ Why does n’t God give me a little chance 
 to be somebody? He knows I want to do 
 good. I mean to use all my strength to help 
 others, but I am baulked at every point. I 
 can’t understand it.” Let me whisper a word 
 in your ear. God never blunders, and He is 
 never careless. As a father pitieth his chil- 
 dren, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. 
 He delights in the prosperity of His children. 
 If Pie takes away what seems to you most 
 
OUT OF SCHOOL. 
 
 65 
 
 desirable and essential, it is that He may 
 give you something that He regards far bet- 
 ter for you. 
 
 Which reached the goal of the nation’s 
 love, the world’s honor, and the Christly op- 
 portunity, Douglas or Lincoln ? 
 
 A young man who had been obliged to leave 
 school, was quite rebellious about it. He 
 had to go to work on a farm with his Quaker 
 uncle, to save his health from complete wreck. 
 One day, while they were in the field, he 
 gave expression to his despair over what he 
 regarded the failure of his life. The old man 
 had seen many a dashing fellow shoot up like 
 a rocket, and come down as suddenly, and he 
 knew something of God’s strength and pa- 
 tience. He leaned on his hoe, and pushed 
 back his old straw hat : — 
 
 “Now see here, John,” he said, “ thee ’ll 
 learn in time that God’s ways are right, all 
 right and always' right. When He wants thee 
 to have Greek and Latin, He has ways enough 
 to give thee Greek and Latin. If He 
 
66 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 does n’t want thee to have them, thee ’d bet- 
 ter let them alone, and have no more words 
 about it. Thee ’ll find in the end that God’s 
 way is always the right one.” 
 
 “ But,” you say, “ I am not at all sure that 
 it is the Lord who has put me under these 
 disabilities. If I had taken care of my health 
 when I had it,” or, “ If I had not been led 
 into that folly,” or, “ If my father had been a 
 sober man,” or, “ If my brother had not been 
 so selfishly ambitious, I might have had a 
 chance.” Regrets cannot change the facts. 
 
 “ Let the dead past bury its dead.” The 
 Lord might remove those disabilities, hut He 
 does not choose to do so. The only wise 
 thing for you is to accept the facts as you 
 find them now, using all your strength in 
 making the most of the chances that are left. 
 The only safe thing is to trust the case im- 
 plicitly with the Lord. Pindar says, “ The 
 gods themselves cannot undo the action that 
 is done.” When our God forgives our sins 
 He puts us into the same relation with 
 
OUT OF SCHOOL. 
 
 67 
 
 Plimself tlaat a child ■would have "who had 
 never sinned. When you give yourself fully 
 into His hands, He takes you to make the 
 most possible of you for His service. He 
 may let obstacles come in your way to devel- 
 op your ability to overcome difficulties. We 
 are the better soldiers for every battle, the 
 better sailors for every storm. What you 
 want to gain by a liberal education, is not 
 the privilege of saying, “ I have a piece of 
 parchment given me by the faculty and 
 trustees of such a college, certifying that I 
 spent so much time under their care, and 
 passed examination in such and such text- 
 books.” No ; the result sought is the devel- 
 opment of your mental powers so that they 
 can be relied on for right action in the affairs 
 of life. Natural liistory teaches to observe,as 
 illustrated by Agassiz’ fish lesson ; not alone 
 to observe insects and reptiles, plants and 
 minerals, but facts, phenomena, events, cur- 
 rents of thought, trade, literature, people, 
 hlathematical drill helps to power for sustain- 
 
68 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 ed, continuous thought. If you lose your 
 hold of a problem in the process of solution, 
 you will lose your work, and have it all to do 
 over, as if you had dropped a bucket of wa- 
 ter that you were drawing up cut of a well. 
 The ability to think without letting go till 
 you have mastered a theme, is usually the se- 
 cret of success in any business. It is said of 
 Socrates, though I must confess the story has 
 a mythical smack, that while he was in the 
 army he stood stock-still twenty-four hours 
 in the rain, his comrades marching on, and 
 leaving him while he followed a thought 
 through all its relations and involvements. 
 Languages make one think nimbly. In the 
 steady flow of thought he must catch up the 
 foreign word and fit it to the idea with the 
 quickness of a flash, or he will find himself 
 stupidly at fault. 
 
 The knots and tangles that are thrown in 
 a student’s way, in all departments, are to 
 teach him to concentrate his powers on a 
 given point, that whatever his hands find to 
 
 do, he may do it with his might. 
 
OUT OF SCHOOL. 
 
 69 
 
 Not one in ten of college graduates get 
 this, or any large part of it, out of the course 
 of study. The world would be much wiser 
 than it is, if they did. Many go through in 
 a jolly, easy way, getting over the ground 
 with as little trouble as possible. Others 
 struggle through after a doltish, stupid, wood- 
 en fashion, their objective point being to say 
 they have been through college. 
 
 What you want is the strength for good 
 work that four years of honest, hard study, 
 will give. Since it is denied you to get it in 
 the ordinary way, if you can get it by otlier 
 means all will yet be well. Let us see. God 
 has given you that tliirst for knowledge, that 
 eagerness for books. He has also given you 
 to see the greatness of His work, to desire a 
 part in it, and to fit yourself to do what will 
 be strong and telling. Now, will He not be 
 pleased in some way to supply your lack? 
 If this result of a hberal education is a real 
 need, is it not provided for in the promise, 
 “ My God shall supply all your need accord- 
 ing to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus”? 
 
70 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 What lias been done may be done. I know 
 a woman who bad many a battle, sharp and 
 bitter, because she was hedged by ill health 
 and poverty from the studies in which she 
 delighted. At twenty-eight she gave herself 
 fully to the Lord, and trusted Him to cleanse 
 her from all sin. Then, with purified motives, 
 she asked God to help her get the education 
 for which her heart had always clamored. 
 She asked it for His glory, that she might do 
 more for Him. Everything seemed to be in 
 the way of the answer. Her physician told 
 her that even a light degree of brain work 
 would probably result in paralysis. An ocu- 
 list, one of the best on the continent, told 
 her, after a close examination of her eyes, 
 that if she would give them perfect rest for 
 six months, and then come back to him, he 
 would tell her if there was any hope for her 
 to escape the threatened paralysis of the 
 retina. God did not work any signs or won- 
 ders in answer to her prayer, but He gave 
 her strength for work, day after day. She 
 
OUT 03? SCHOOL. 
 
 71 
 
 began a course of reading, and to write for 
 the papers, in a darkened room, with a little 
 light coming in over one shoulder. She also 
 took up the study of German, though she 
 could not tell a “B” from a “V” without 
 turning the book sidewise. She could not 
 afford a teacher, and she could spare only 
 fifteen minutes a day for her German, because 
 she did her own house-work, light, heavy and 
 all ; the sewing for her family, and everything 
 possible for her in the church and Sunday- 
 school, beside entertaining no end of company. 
 She made one little rule when she began, and 
 she adhered to it rigidly. She held herself 
 under bonds for an actual fifteen minutes 
 of study each day; and if she failed one day 
 she had to make it up as soon as possible. 
 She could read German readily before she 
 was in circumstances to study a single hour 
 without work in her hands. She did not go 
 through all the text-books of a college course, 
 but she had the result of the drill as cer- 
 tainly as she would if she had graduated in 
 
72 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 her youth. At forty she was carrying a 
 heavy benevolent work, editing a monthly 
 paper, and filling a professorship in a uni- 
 versity. She had learned to hold herself in- 
 exorably to a given duty at a given time, as 
 if she obeyed the call of a college bell four 
 years. She could fix her attention on the 
 thing in hand as well, probably, as if she had 
 been under the stimulus of class emulation 
 and professorial influence a given period. 
 She could make the shuttle of her thought 
 fly as nimbly through the web of affairs, as 
 if she had translated the college Greek and 
 Latin, with the German and French thrown 
 in. If many others have tried to do the 
 same thing and failed, it is possibly because 
 they did not trust God as she was driven to 
 do when everything was against her. 
 
 I have a friend who was fettered and held 
 back in his boyhood from the education he 
 was most eager to acquire. At eighteen he 
 succeeded in getting off to a literary institu 
 tion for a few months, and he determined to 
 
OUT OP SCHOOL. 
 
 73 
 
 make the most of his chance. He carried 
 ten studies. By a masterful effort he obliged 
 liimself to throw all his strength upon a given 
 point, and when that was conquered, upon 
 another. By that means he learned his les- 
 sons in the shortest possible time. You may 
 be sure he had no leisure for revery or castle- 
 building, nor for college mischief. In those 
 few months he had more actually helpful 
 drill than most students do in a full course 
 of study. At twenty-six, before most young 
 men are fairly in the saddle, he had built up 
 a heavy business, and he was maldng money 
 by the thousands. His success was the result 
 of a habit formed in his lonely, cramped, 
 home study, and in his short, school drill. 
 When he sat at his desk with a heavy trans- 
 action on hand, he would throw all his 
 strength upon it, quite unconscious of what 
 was passing in the room. A dozen men 
 might be talking around liim, but he knew 
 nothing that they said, till his head clerk 
 gave him to understand that he must attend 
 
74 mOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 to something else that could no longer be 
 neglected. Then, as Dickens used to turn 
 the key of liis room to lock in the characters 
 of the story upon which he was busy, telling 
 them to wait till he could come to them 
 again, so this young man would lay aside the 
 business upon which he was at work, take up 
 the other matter and arrange it, and then go 
 back to the first, losing himself in it as be- 
 fore, holding every thread clearly and with- 
 out entanglement. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was in school only six 
 months of his life, and a little backwoods 
 affair it was at that. When he began to take 
 hold of national questions he used to lie on 
 the lounge in his office, watching the flies on 
 the ceiling, as it seemed, but as he said after- 
 ward, “ bounding the subject in hand, north, 
 south, east and west.” He was tracking out 
 its relation to all other questions, and find- 
 ing the exact principles of right involved. 
 When the hour struck he was ready to take 
 the helm, and hold steady in the storm the 
 
OUT OF SCHOOL. 
 
 75 
 
 sliip in wliich we were all sailing, and that 
 seemed to be driving straight upon the rocks. 
 
 It is certain that the mental strength 
 gained by a college course may be secured in 
 other ways, and in ways from which one with 
 average ability can hardly be hedged. 
 
 The first thing, I would advise you to give 
 your case into the hands of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Tell him that you choose His will in 
 this matter. He may mean you to stay here 
 so short a time that there is none to spare in 
 preparation. He may have some plain, 
 simple work for you that he prefers you to 
 take up at once, deferring your larger 
 intellectual development till you get into 
 the other world. Deliberately lay aside your 
 own plans, and choose His, whatever they 
 may prove to be, no matter how they may go 
 against your inclination. I never shall forget 
 the hour when I made that surrender. One 
 afternoon when the Holy Sphit sent His 
 light into the depths of my soul, I discovered, 
 hidden away, like the wedge of gold in 
 
76 FKOM'rirTEEN TO TWENTY-EIVE. 
 
 Achan’s tent, a determination to work, and 
 study, and make something of myself. Not 
 that I might win the wealth and honors of 
 the world, but I would make for myself a 
 dainty, little snuggery into which I would 
 bring a few fine books and pictures, some 
 good music, and a coterie of choice friends. 
 The loud, rough, coarse, old world might wag 
 its way, and not a whit would I care for its 
 tinsel and show ; nor its troubles, either, — 
 do you see ? The Lord in kindness threw a 
 picture upon the canvas that day, that gave 
 me to see how wickedly selfish was my little 
 scheme. I saw myself in a hospital with 
 scores of people who were dying, and there 
 was no one to give them their medicine, or 
 even a cup of cold water. I had been sent 
 there under orders to help all whom I could 
 possibly reach ; and there I was, planning to 
 fit up my exquisite little room, in one corner, 
 its walls padded to shut out the groans, and 
 to shut in the delicacy and beauty that I 
 hoped to gather about me. I saw that 
 
OUT OF SCHOOL. 
 
 77 
 
 selfishness like that could never get • into 
 Heaven. The word was, “ If any man have 
 not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” 
 “ He came to seek and to save that which was 
 lost.” “ Though he was rich, yet for our sakes 
 He became poor, that we through His poverty 
 might be made rich.” When I saw that, I was 
 enabled to say, “ I give it all up. Henceforth 
 for me, only Thy will, and Thy work.” The 
 pain of the surrender was so severe that a 
 knife seemed to pierce my heart, and the 
 tears leaped from my eyes. Let me add that 
 all these years, just in proportion as I have 
 held myself loyal to that surrender, has God 
 given me richly to enjoy the things that I 
 put aside to accept His will. 
 
 Having given all into His hands, you ask 
 Him to make all your motives pure ; and then 
 you set about making the most of yourself 
 for His sake, and that you may do His work 
 to the best advantage. You will find Him 
 constantly helping you from that hour, and 
 more abundantly as you trust Him more 
 
78 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 implicitly. You surrender without condi- 
 tions, as to a monarch whose claims you had 
 neglected, hut Avhose right to rule, you are 
 forced to acknowledge. To your surprise, 
 you find Him the tenderest, most loving, and 
 helpful Father, tke strongest, truest Friend. 
 
 He may not see fit to give you a collegiate 
 coui’se, but He will help to you the mental 
 drill you need in order to do His Avork 
 properly. In the light that He gives, you 
 will discover your mental defects, and by 
 what efforts you can master them. 
 
 He will probably lead you quite against 
 your natural inclination. One to whom 
 mathematics are easy usuall}^ needs linguistic 
 drill, to teach him quickness of thought. If 
 he prefers the languages, he will probably 
 need mathematics to help him to continuity 
 of thinking. If you are fond of public excite- 
 ment and occasions, the Lord will be very apt 
 to shut you up to quiet and retirement. If 
 you have whims and fancies that make you 
 reserved and exclusive, he Avill be apt to 
 
OUT OF SCHOOL. 
 
 79 
 
 keep yon a great deal before the people. 
 This for your own better development, and 
 because you are more likely to lean on His 
 strength, and so give Him a chance to help 
 you in the line in which you do not feel 
 yourself at home. Be all that as it may, if 
 you put yourself in His hands, and trust 
 Him imphcitly. He will fit you up for the 
 best work and give you the best scope for 
 your ability. 
 
 George Muller, who has been used of God 
 for such a marvelous faith work in England, 
 began while he was a student asldng God to 
 lielp him with his studies. His faith has 
 sent a thrill through the entire Christian 
 church. 
 
 With God’s blessing human perseverance 
 and industry may be almost limitless in results. 
 All things are possible with God, and all 
 things are possible to Him that believeth. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 YOUR OWN WAY TO MAKE. 
 
 What I have to say to my class of twenty 
 thousand under this head, may not just 
 now be applicable to all, but there is no 
 knowing how soon it may be of interest to 
 the richest, in this uncertain America, where 
 we have no entailed estates, and property 
 currents change most readily. 
 
 In talking to young men who are poor, I 
 mean, of course, only in finance. A man 
 may not have a penny in his pocket, 
 and yet have superb muscle. Indeed, the 
 chances in that line are increased by poverty, 
 for we are too indolent to exercise properly 
 unless we are driven to do so for our daily 
 bread ; and only the muscle that is used to 
 the utmost of its capability has full strength. 
 
 80 
 
YOUE OWN WAY TO MAKE. 81 
 
 Feel of a blaeksmitla’s arm, and then take 
 hold of that of a delicate young fellow who 
 has had some easy, indoor avocation. It 
 will not do to let them test their strength in 
 a tussle, for fear the sturdy mechanic will 
 annilulate the dainty little man. It is too 
 palpable to need proof that no muscle is firm 
 and strong, unless it is constantly and vigor- 
 ously used. One may make some dilettant 
 attempts at muscular culture in a boat-club, 
 or gymnastic class, but he is not apt to give 
 himself to the business with sufficient energy 
 and perseverance to bring the result, unless 
 he is obliged to eat his bread by the sweat of 
 his brow. 
 
 You who are poor have usually the better 
 physical outfit ; and for the same reasons, 
 you may not be behind in mental vigor; 
 while the probabilities of moral excellence 
 may also be in your favor. Mean, cringing, 
 selfish people, flatter and cajole those who 
 have money, and so are able to help them in 
 the struggle for gain. That develops egotism 
 
82 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 in the rich, and nothing more snrely kills the 
 spiritual life. The offences of the rich are 
 overlooked on account of their moneyed im- 
 portance, and they become careless about 
 moral obligation. The self-indulgence which 
 is so easy and natural when one has wealth, 
 is a deadly enemy to noble, unselfish, 
 Christian character. Please understand, I do 
 not mean that all rich young men have 
 suffered mental and moral loss on account of 
 their difficult surroundings. That is the 
 risk, however, and our Lord must have had it 
 in view when He said, “ How hardly shall 
 they that have riches enter into the kingdom 
 of Heaven.” 
 
 The poor have also their special tempta- 
 tions. They may have physical injury from 
 over-work. They become so weary with 
 their drudgery that they take light, frothy 
 amusements, and even those that are coarse 
 and disgusting, to make them forget their 
 hardships. They do not always use their 
 leisure on good books. They get a false 
 
YOUE OWN WAY TO MAKE 83 
 
 estimate of cliaracter, and look upon getting 
 money as the one thing to be desired. They 
 make haste to be rich, and fall into hurtful 
 and deceitful lusts that drown men in destruc- 
 tion and perdition. 
 
 They are quite apt to succeed in getting 
 “ filthy lucre,” for the currents of wealth 
 move by law as certainly as do the tides of 
 the sea ; and economy and industry usually 
 strike that law, and find the current sought. 
 But in getting money they miss the greater 
 and better things. They find at last that 
 riches fail utterly to feed the hunger of the 
 mind, the cravings of the soul. 
 
 Have you ever noticed how seldom you 
 see a “ successful ” old man with a sweet, 
 beautiful face ? He has either the keen, 
 secretive phiz of a fox, the sharp, dangerous 
 expression of the wolf, or the brow-beating, 
 terrorizing look of a bull-dog. You treat 
 him respectfully, because he holds the purse- 
 strings with a stout grip ; and, as you whisper 
 in the ear of your fiiend, you must keep the 
 
84 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 right side of tire old codger; but you are 
 ahvays relieved when he nods you out of the 
 office. Look in the glass and imagine your- 
 self at sixty carrying about such a face as 
 that ! 
 
 He is a self-made man, he says, with a 
 significant look toward his safe ; and you 
 wonder at his complacency over such a disa- 
 greeable piece of work. He may wax con- 
 fidential, and tell you how he got his start, 
 and how he got ahead of So-and-So in such- 
 and-such a race, and you cannot help think- 
 ing that, after all, the result has hardly paid 
 for the trouble. He is a church member, and 
 is conspicuous on all important occasions ; 
 hut he is the last one to whom you would go 
 to be shown how to get near the Lord. You 
 would as soon think of consulting the ledger 
 or the daily paper to find the Avay of life, as 
 to ask him about it. He is poor, but not in 
 spirit; for he has been made to think that 
 he does pretty well if he pays more to the 
 church than others do; albeit, they give 
 
TOUK OWN WAY TO IVrAKE. 
 
 85 
 
 relatively ten times more than he does ; so he 
 is wretchedly poor, spiritually. 
 
 You have your own way to make, and 
 perhaps I can give you a few suggestions 
 that will be helpful. I would say in the 
 outset, take an objective view of yourself, 
 and decide what you had better be and do. 
 Too many drift with the current, borne tliis 
 way or that, by the strongest influence that 
 strikes them, instead of finding the thing to 
 which they are best adapted, and aiming at 
 excellence in that line. By the time tliey 
 are thirty they can do several things passably 
 well, but they excel in nothing, and they 
 settle down into the mass of the mediocre. 
 They remind one of a certain old Atlantic 
 Monthly article of which I remember only 
 the title, “ Concerning people of whom more 
 might have been made.” These “ might 
 have beens ” are not a comfortable or happ}^ 
 set of people. They are the driftwood of 
 society, and we are continually thinking 
 that they are faihng to meet the purpose of 
 their existence. 
 
86 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 In making a plan of your life, suppose you 
 lay it off in sections of twenty years each. 
 The first section is probably behind you. 
 The first quarter of it, the main business 
 seemed to be to develop your legs and lungs. 
 The second quarter you were running hither 
 and thither on your uncertain feet, as fancy 
 or whim impelled you, picking up an immense 
 deal of information about the me and the 
 not-me ; the chief work being to secure a 
 suitable physical outfit, and to train some- 
 what your five senses. Steps had already 
 been taken toward giving the little animal a 
 systematic, mental drill, and teaching him 
 the bounds of morality. The latter half of 
 your first twenty years have been devoted 
 largely to these things with varying success. 
 You can read, write, and speak your mother 
 tongue with fluency; and you have dipped 
 into another language or so. You have a 
 general idea of the rudiments of the elemen- 
 tary scisnces. 
 
 Being born of Christian parents, and 
 
YOUR OWN WAT TO MAKE. 87 
 
 having studied the Bible more or less, you 
 have an invaluable frame-work of character 
 in the way of moral principles, infinitely 
 better than it was possible for Zoroaster, 
 Aristotle, Socrates, or even “ the divine 
 Plato ” to attempt. ^The ten commandments 
 have been mortised into your life ; and you 
 could not do a false or dishonest thing with- 
 out laying violent hands on your convictions.^ 
 
 The second section, from twenty to forty, 
 will be the active, up-hill part of the way. 
 You must plan it carefully. The third section, 
 from forty to sixty, will be your harvest 
 years. If by reason of strength you reach 
 fourscore, from sixty to eighty you ought to 
 have the broadest usefulness, and the most 
 complete and restful enjoyment. 
 
 In choosing your line of work, you need 
 special Divine guidance. You cannot trust 
 yourself to find the way alone. When 
 Thales was asked, “What is the hardest 
 thing in the world?” his reply was, “To 
 know thyself.” If the old philosopher found 
 
88 FEOM" FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 self-knowledge so difficult, how dares an un- 
 trained boy claim to know his own ability 
 and adaptability so as to take the helm of 
 self-direction? 
 
 The judgment of your friends can no more 
 be trusted than your own. Was it Holmes 
 who said that every calf that bleats in the 
 meadow is a genuine Osiris to its dam ? 
 None but God knows what you are meant 
 for ; and your only hope for a successful life 
 is to find and work to His plan. If you fall 
 below that, you will always have a sense of 
 incompleteness and dissatisfaction. If you 
 aspire above it, failure is inevitable. ,,No 
 matter what that plan may be, its authorship 
 is your patent of nobility. ^ God’s will makes 
 it grand. 
 
 Some one has said that if the Lord were 
 to send an angel down into this world to 
 sweep the street crossings, and another to 
 rule an empire, they could not by any means 
 be induced to exchange. The work of the 
 former would seem to him as noble as that 
 
YOTIR OWN WAT TO MA NE . 
 
 89 
 
 
 of the latter, because it had as certainly tie 
 stamp of the Divine approval. 
 
 When you decide to take God’s plan of 
 your life, and seek with implicit trust to find 
 it. He will see that you make no mistake. 
 Put your hand in His, and He will guide you 
 where He wants you to go. He has promised 
 to lead the blind in paths that they have not 
 known. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, 
 and He shall direct thy paths. This is as cer- 
 tainly true in temporal as in spiritual affairs. 
 Bazaleel, upon whom Moses had to depend 
 for some of the difficult work on the taber- 
 nacle when they were out there in the wilder- 
 ness, was wise-hearted and filled with the 
 Spirit of the Lord; and God taught him a 
 half-dozen different trades^ If our Heavenly 
 Father did that once. He may do it again. 
 One case demonstrates His ability. “ But 
 that was a long time ago.” There are no 
 years with God. ^ If those fugitives from 
 Egyptian slavery, away back there in the 
 twilight of the old dispensation, could get 
 
90 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 near enough to God to be so taught, what 
 may we not hope for in the cumulative light 
 of nineteen Christian centuries ? . “ But Baza- 
 leel had a special work to do.” Yes; and 
 so have you, if you are in God’s hand for 
 service. Quite likely it is not a work that 
 will set a corps ot reporters scribbling every 
 time you turn round ; but it is one that will 
 be forever unwrought unless you set your 
 hand to its accomplishment. Your failure to 
 find and do it, will mar by just so much, 
 God’s perfect plan. Your success will add 
 just so much to His glory. 
 
 The majority of my class of twenty thous- 
 sand have failed to secure a liberal educa- 
 tion. You who are of that number, have 
 given up “going through college,” and you 
 are obliged to turn your attention to the 
 question of getting your own living. The 
 time for the brealdng up of the old home 
 seems to be drawing near. The dear circle 
 will not hold together much longer. Older 
 brothers and sisters are marrying off and 
 
YOUE OWN WAY TO MAKE. 
 
 91 
 
 making homes of their own, and you cannot 
 help thinking of a similar future. You must 
 go to work in earnest to establish yourself in 
 the line that has been marked out for you. 
 
 In the very outset you must form a habit 
 of industry. Be diligent in business. Dili- 
 gence is from the Latin, “ diligentia’’’ ; that is 
 from the verb “ diligo^’’ to love earnestly, and 
 that is from di and lego, to choose. So the 
 command, “ Be diligent,” means that you are 
 to choose and love earnestly what you believe 
 God wants you to do. What your hand finds 
 to do, is to be done heartily, as unto the 
 Lord. Do hot go to your work with a hang- 
 dog look or feeling, nor take hold of it in a 
 gingerly way, as if you felt above it ; but 
 carry it bravely and gladly because you 
 choose to do what is given you, with your 
 might. 
 
 Make up your mind that you are not going 
 to succeed without hard work. No matter if 
 you do not love it naturally, be determined 
 that you will not shirk it, but you will bear 
 
92 FEOJf FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 jour full part manfully. The one who wins 
 is he who prepares most carefully for his 
 work, does it most thorouglily, holding him- 
 self steadily in hand, and who keeps on after 
 the rest have given out and given up. 
 
 Perhaps you have that “ fatal facility of 
 speech ” that makes you think you might dis- 
 tinguish yoiu’self in some avocation where 
 talk seems to be the stock in trade. Easy 
 speaking and shallow thinking usually go to- 
 gether. Cjt is only the deep, sure, strong 
 thought, that takes the prize. Surface talents 
 are usually like fool’s gold, glittering and 
 valueless^ Remember to make haste slowly. 
 
 In Rome, where they build for the centu- 
 ries, they dig down to the living rock to lay 
 the base-stones of their palaces. The foun- 
 dation is sometimes the most expensive part 
 of the building. 
 
 You would not build a pyramid apex down- 
 
 I 
 
 ward. If you lay carelessly or narrowly the 
 foundation of your character or your fortune, 
 it will topple over in the first hurricane. 
 
YOUE OWN WAY TO MAKE. 93 
 
 You want to form a habit of working tire- 
 lessly, faithfully, undiscouragedly. Grant 
 said of himself at Shiloh, “ I thought I was 
 going to fail, but I kept right on.” To form 
 a habit of keeping right on will be worth 
 everytliing to you. 
 
 Ninety-five per eent. of business men fail. 
 You are trying for the twentieth chance, the 
 one that succeeds. If you secure it, it will 
 not be from good luck, but by God’s blessing 
 upon honest, faithful, persistent, hard work. 
 
 You must see to it that you form exact 
 business habits. Learn to be prompt in keep- 
 ing your engagements. Your time and that 
 of the few people with whom you are associ- 
 ated, may not be worth much now, but by and 
 by, if you get on as you hope to do, you will 
 have business with those who can earn five, 
 ten, fifteen dollars an hour. Suppose you 
 keep six of them waiting fifteen minutes ; 
 you were needed to make a quorum, or to 
 complete some transaction. You have wasted 
 an hour and a half of expensive time, besides 
 
94 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 taking the risk of the strain on their temper, 
 and their confidence in your reliability. Let 
 it be understood that when you say you will 
 be at a given place, at a given hour, you can 
 be depended upon to appear at least a half 
 minute before the time. Hold your business 
 so in hand that you can make definite prom- 
 ises with a fair prospect of being able to keep 
 them. Never attempt so much that you are 
 unable to make good your word, and so get a 
 reputation for unreliability. When monetary 
 cyclones sweep over the land, it will be worth 
 thousands to you, if good, solid business men, 
 can say of you, “ He will do as he says. 
 His word can be taken for any amount that 
 he promises.” 
 
 After all, no matter how much money you 
 make, nor how many friends you seem to 
 have, unless you are so honest that you are 
 not afraid to have God inspect your books, you 
 are an unmitigated failure. In^ other words, 
 there is no success worth the name except 
 tliat which strikes root in moral probity. 
 
YOUR OWN WAY TO MAKE. 95 
 
 The Bible says, “ The just man walketh in 
 his integrity.” That sturdy word is from 
 the Latin, meaning untouched. It is first 
 cousin to tlie mathematical term, integer, a 
 whole, or unbroken number. There must be 
 a wholeness of your obedience to the right, 
 yonr loyalty to conscience, even when the 
 currents are heavy, and strong enough to 
 sweep most men from their moorings. 
 
 There is a system of false weights and 
 measures in use in the world. People are 
 marked not at what they are, but at what 
 they possess. Whatever others may say or 
 do, let us see to it that om own standards 
 are right. Otherwise we are not sirre that 
 we will give others their due. Let me give 
 you a test by which you can determine 
 whether or not you have the true standard of 
 values. If you find yourself hanging your 
 head for honest poverty, if you are ashamed of 
 the plainness of your dress, the awkwardness 
 of your manners, or the lack of polish in your 
 speech, you may be sure that you need to 
 
96 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 correct your table of values. Unless you 
 see the nobility of a soul in alliance with 
 God, and respect yourself so much as to be 
 independent of slights and snubs, the proba- 
 bility is that you would be haughty and 
 supercilious, if a change in affairs gave you 
 the opportunity to lord it over others. 
 
 The higher English nobility, with their 
 miles of elegant domain, their castles and 
 palaces, are not half so lofty in bearing, nor 
 so exclusive, as some of their servants. They 
 are so assured in their position, that they can 
 afford to be simple and affable. 
 
 Be sure from the first to plan your business 
 so as to save time for the care of your body 
 and the culture of your mind and soul, ^f 
 what use would it be for you to find your- 
 self rich at fifty, but with broken health, 
 your mind cramped to a knowledge of your 
 ledger and prices current, and your soul so 
 dwarfed that if it could get into heaven at 
 all, it would be a pitiful little weazen thing 
 fit only for the lowest place and the narrowest 
 
 enjoyment. 
 
YOUR OWN WAY TO MAKE. 
 
 97 
 
 Above all, remember that it is the blessing 
 of God that maketh rich, and addeth no 
 sorrow. 
 
 You must not forget the claims of benevo- 
 lence. The only safe plan is to give by rule. 
 A tenth is the Scriptural percentage. 
 
 You win find a rigid system of giving to 
 be economical. You will have to manage 
 carefully each piece of property that comes 
 into your hands, so that you may know its 
 annual profit, in order to be sure that you 
 give your tenth. This will keep you from 
 the slip-shod financiering that is the cause of 
 most of the financial failures. 
 
 God must have control of your business, 
 not only in its principles and management, 
 but in the amount of pressure you will permit 
 to come on you to crowd you to greater 
 effort. 
 
 A young business man who had done un- 
 usual things in the way of Christian work 
 and giving, was asked his rule in this matter. 
 In reply he showed a note in his memoran- 
 
98 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 dum book that read over a given date, “ From 
 this time I will make the service of God 
 my business, and do business only to pay ex- 
 penses.” 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HIGH. 
 
 The rich young men have read what I 
 have said to the poor about the uncertainties 
 and dangers of having wealth ; yet there are 
 other risks of which I wish to speak. 
 
 Wealth gives opportunity for the best cul- 
 ture, and that represents power to do good. 
 Money buys leisure, books, and travel, all of 
 which add to personal influence. Power in- 
 creases obligation. If one knows of another’s 
 need, and has the ability to help, he is culpa- 
 ble if he fails to meet the obligation. 
 
 The world is perishing. Thousands suffer 
 
 1 our money might give shelter to the home- 
 less, medicine to the sick, all manner of com- 
 
 99 
 
100 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE, 
 
 forts to the neglected poor, books and teach- 
 ers to the ignorant, and missionaries to the 
 abandoned. If you spend it on your own 
 pleasures and leave them to perish, their blood 
 may be required at your hand. 
 
 Woe betide the soul on which rests the 
 curse of unwrought good ! There is no 
 “might have been” more unutterably and 
 fatefully sad. The hungry eyes of the un- 
 helped will glare throughout eternity on the 
 one who might have been their benefactor. 
 He never can escape their reproaches. The 
 rich man in hell did not want his five broth- 
 ers to come to that place of torment ; for he 
 knew that liis wealth, morality, and conse- 
 quent influence, might have led them to the 
 Lord for salvation. With his characteristic 
 selfishness he wanted to be spared the lash of 
 their terrible upbraidings. 
 
 There is great danger that the rich will fail 
 in self-denial. Christ’s plan for saving peo- 
 ple begins with the thrusting out of self, and 
 leads to a crucifixion. It was founded in 
 
4 
 
 EICH. 101 
 
 sacrifice. Self-giving is its most cliaracteris- 
 tic expression. The rich have special temp- 
 tations to go in the opposite direction. The 
 world has its wares in the market. The rich 
 are its best customers ; and it spares no pains 
 or ingenuity to get their money for its prod- 
 ucts. One who carries a full purse is tempt- 
 ed on every hand to purchase tilings that ap- 
 peal to the five senses ; and it is easy to form 
 a habit of self-gratification, and consequent 
 indifference to the wants of others. Self-de- 
 nial, always a difficult grace, becomes harder 
 when self is thus pampered. 
 
 Covetousness is cardinal fault even with 
 Christians. One of the twelve, though serv- 
 ing a Master who was dependent for His dai- 
 ly support upon the charity of women who 
 risked all to become His followers, — one of 
 the little body-guard fell, through this sin, 
 and went to his own place by suicide. Few 
 are exempt from this temptation ; but the 
 rich are in more danger than the poor. The 
 tendency of possession is to increase the love 
 
102 TKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 of gain. This is an insidious vice, and it will 
 steal over you like the poison of malari^ 
 You may not be able to tell just when it first 
 touches you; but unless you are divinely 
 guarded, you will yield to its power when 
 riches increase, as certainly as a stranger who 
 sleeps on the Roman Campagna succumbs to 
 malaria. 
 
 Wliile the young are in less danger than 
 those of mature years, yet, as in most phys- 
 ical diseases, probably the trouble begins in 
 the careless habits of youth. At any rate, 
 systematic giving is a safeguard. 
 
 You will find it harder to give a tenth of 
 your income than you would if you were 
 poor. It ought to be easier, for the remain- 
 ing nine-tenths are a far more ample support 
 than they would be if the income were small. 
 If one has a salary of a thousand a year, and 
 gives a hundred dollars, he has only nine hun- 
 dred left for his living ; but if his income is 
 ten thousand a year, he has nine thousand 
 left for himself. His thousand looks large. 
 
EICH. 
 
 103 
 
 but it represents really less sacrifice than the 
 poor man’s hundred. Some, indeed, I fear 
 many, who begin by giving liberally, draw 
 back, and give less proportionately with the 
 Increase of wealth, because the sums begin 
 to look large, and are beyond the average be- 
 nevolence of well-to-do people. I remember 
 a man during the war, who owned a miU that 
 produced an article which came suddenly in- 
 to great demand in the army. He had prom- 
 ised to give the Lord a tenth of his profits ; 
 but when he found that he would clear thir- 
 ty thousand dollars that year, it seemed quite 
 too much to count out three thousand for be- 
 nevolence. He broke his vow. Within a 
 few days his mill was in ashes ; and before it 
 could be re-built, the special demand had cre- 
 ated its own supply, and so cut down his 
 pi ofits to the usual rates. When you make 
 up your mind that it is safe and right to give 
 a tenth to the Lord’s work, let the decision 
 be made for life. Regard it as a debt, and 
 attend to its payment as rigidly and conscien- 
 tiously as you do to that of any other. 
 
104 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 Another temptation to covetousness comes 
 from the fact that the increase of wealth be- 
 comes more rapid, proportionately, as its 
 amount increases. One can invest ten thou- 
 sand more easily, to better advantage, and 
 with hope of larger gain than he can one 
 thousand. It is true, also, that with added 
 increase of importance from ownership, there 
 is a rising ratio of increase in the desire for 
 gain. 
 
 There is something decidedly attractive in 
 becoming a bank president, a railroad mon- 
 arch, a money Idng. People recognize readily 
 the ability to grant favors, and they are de- 
 lighted to reciprocate. Do you remember 
 some lines in one of our old school-readers 
 that ran something like this : — 
 
 “So goes the world ; if you are wealthy, 
 
 You may call 
 This, friend, that, brother. 
 
 Friends and brothers, all.” 
 
 There is no use in denying that this is 
 pleasant and engrossing. One is not in con- 
 
RICH. 
 
 105 
 
 dition to see how empty and hollow it is, till 
 the money takes wings, as it has an awkward 
 habit of doing. ^ These delicate flatteries and 
 attentions are like exquisite music. They 
 drown the cry of the needy. Like palace 
 walls and broad, beautiful grounds, they shut 
 out the ghastly eyes of the starving. They 
 hide, as under a bank of bloom, the chain 
 that binds together all sinning, suffering hu- 
 man souls. They cannot sever that chain, 
 for it is as unbreakable as that which holds 
 the planets in their orbits, as tireless as gravi- 
 tation, as relentless as destiny. \ 
 
 As the years go by you may "lose the fresh- 
 ness and tenderness of youth ; you may be- 
 come worn and hlase with the round of 
 pleasures purchased by your wealth, and the 
 added cares from its increase. You will dis- 
 like to be bored with tiresome stories and 
 petty complaints. Gradually others will 
 come between you and the poor with whom 
 you might come in contact, those whom you 
 employ. You do not mean to be hard and 
 
106 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 unfeeling, but abuses grow up into which it is 
 not convenient nor agreeable for you to look. 
 Subordinates will make everything appear 
 smooth and plausible, but God will hear the 
 sighing of the needy, and you will be the one 
 whom He will hold responsible. Upon you 
 will come the woe. 
 
 When the rich young ruler ran through 
 the crowd and threw himself down before the 
 carpenter’s son, asking to be taught the way 
 
 I of life, our Lord saw {that there were no 
 hoof-marks of vice on his face^ In that dis- 
 solute land and time, amid all the temptations 
 that wealth brings, and the sins that its pos- 
 session makes people condone, that young 
 man could lift a clear, steady eye, to the 
 Teacher, and respond to His question about 
 the commandments. “ All these have I kept 
 from my youth up.” Jesus loved him, for 
 He saw in him the basis of a strong, noble, 
 Christian character. He saw, also, that a se- 
 cret, hidden selfishness, that most obscure and - 
 unyielding disease, had taken possession of 
 
HIGH. 
 
 107 
 
 tlie soul of the young ruler. In Ms child- 
 hood he had been flattered and fawned upon, 
 till he had come to believe himself better 
 than the common herd. “ I belong to anoth- 
 er grade of human beings. Of course I 
 will be kind and helpful, and give sometliing 
 of my surplus means to add to their comfort, 
 but as to giving myself to them in any sense, 
 why, that is not to be thought of.” Christ 
 saw that tMs case must have heroic treatment, 
 or the fine, spiritual young fellow, woMd 
 grow to be a grasping, avaricious, hard-heart- 
 ed, iron-handed, old Jew, with a face as dry 
 and wrinkled as Ms bonds, and as yellow as 
 Ms gold, and a nose as sharp and hooked as 
 the beak of a bird of prey. 
 
 Christ’s command for him to sell all that 
 he had and give to the poor, touched like a 
 lance his hidden, deep-seated selfishness. 
 He started to his feet. What ! give up all 
 his schemes for the spread and improvement 
 of his great possessions ! Turn his grounds 
 and palaces, his wardrobes, jewels, articles of 
 
108 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 \virtu^ all over to others, and distribute their 
 value among the leprous, unwashed poor, 
 while he tramped over the country with 
 this pauper Rabbi, as poverty-stricken as the 
 poorest of those whom he had always held in 
 contempt ! Surely there must be some mis- 
 take about that. There certainly ought to be 
 some way for him to secure eternal life, bet- 
 ter suited to his rank and station, than this 
 hard, unconditional surrender of all. He 
 turned his back on Christ, and walked slow- 
 ly away, while the deep, sad eyes of the 
 Master, followed him lovingly. He knew 
 how that innate selfishness would ruin him, 
 here and hereafter ; and his only chance of 
 salvation was in breaking every tie that held 
 him to his old life, and giving himself with- 
 out stint to the helping of others. 
 
 Christ required of him simply what he 
 asks of every soul that He saves.* Only so 
 can He cure the cancer of self-love and trust. 
 Only on those terms can one hope for useful- 
 ness here, and life beyond the grave. 
 
RICH. 
 
 109 
 
 Not that you are to deed your property 
 away to some benevolent institution, while 
 you give your entire time to the service and 
 mstruction of the poor ; but you are to hold 
 it simply as God’s steward. The great 
 change is in your spirit. No longer owner, 
 hut steward, ready to disburse on call of the 
 real owner. You are to say, “ Henceforth I 
 will hold every dollar subject to the Divine 
 order, paying never less than ten per cent, of 
 the profits — a light interest, surely — into 
 His treasury. I will invest as carefully 
 the part that He takes, as I do what He leaves 
 for my use. I will look to Him for direction 
 in the management of it all, not venturing to 
 spend so much as five cents without a motive 
 that I dare take to the Judgment. 
 
 “ More than that, I will give the poor a 
 sympathy and fellowship that is worth infi- 
 nitely more than all the wealth I can bestow 
 on them. As Christ came down out of 
 Heaven, making Himself one of us that He 
 
110 PROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 might save us, I will take upon my heart 
 the troubles of the poor, giving my very self 
 for their salvation and help.” 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN BUSINESS. , 
 
 I HAVE already had occasion to tell you 
 that only five per cent, of business men es- 
 cape failure. Many, with a feeble sort of fa- 
 talism, blame their luck when things go 
 wrong with them. They flatter themselves 
 that it is no fault of theirs that they do not 
 get on better. “ A. is a lucky dog. He was 
 born with a silver spoon in his mouth ; but I 
 — somehow things always go against me.” 
 Now the real luck that brings success 
 comes from the skillful management of well- 
 invested capital. 
 
 “ Capital ! ” you exclaim ; “ I have no 
 great capital to invest or manage.” 
 
 The cash, stocks, and real estate that you 
 have on hand, are the least important part of 
 
 111 
 
112 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 yolir capital. Tlie assessor has no scheme 
 for noting the items that are most valuable, 
 and that go furthest toward building up a 
 good business. I have already touched upon 
 some of them, — probity, promptness, benevo- 
 lence, and a careful choice of the line to 
 which you mean to give your life. Let me 
 be a little more definite. If you expect to 
 make a fortune, you must choose a business 
 that can grow. There are some lines of 
 which even Napoleon Bonaparte could not 
 make much, for there is in them no expan- 
 siveness. If you find yourself in one of 
 those little island cages, and believe it is the 
 place you are meant for, go on and do your 
 best, but do not expect to become a great 
 land owner. The land is not there for any- 
 body. You can keep your httle island “ trig 
 and neat ; you may be as contented with it 
 as was Cincinnatus with his plow, or Xim- 
 enes with his books, when he was running 
 away from Isabella’s attempt to make him 
 Primate of Spain V but you will have to let 
 
IN BUSINESS. 
 
 113 
 
 the busy, outside world, manage the greater 
 general interests. 
 
 If your business has in it the possibility of 
 growth, you must study the laws of that 
 growth. Do not look for any fortunate ven- 
 ture that shall give you a sudden tilt toward 
 success. Understand that they only achieve 
 permanent prosperity, who work by the im- 
 mutable laws that underlie any development. 
 Emerson says, “ Hitch your wagon to a star,” 
 which means in plain English, find the forces 
 that God has ordained, and set at work, and 
 move ill harmony with them. 
 
 Get also a knowledge of all the details of 
 your business. You must be willing to sit 
 on the shoemaker’s bench, and pound pegs, if 
 you want to come out a safe and respectable 
 shoe merchant. Learn the business from 
 bottom to top. 
 
 Two men begin trade in that line in equally 
 favorable localities, with about the same cap- 
 ital ; the stock of one as well selected as that 
 of the other, and their clerks of about the 
 
114 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 same grade of honesty and ability. One has 
 worked his way up from the bench ; the other 
 has little practical knowledge of that branch 
 of trade. The former knows a piece of 
 leather so thoroughly that no polish can hide 
 its defects. He knows what goods will hear 
 to be pushed, and Avhich must he recom- 
 mended with the rising inflection. The other 
 has to depend upon the knovdedge of others 
 in keeping up his stock, and in urging it upon 
 liis customers. It takes no prophet to fore- 
 tell the future of the two houses. One 
 builds up a good trade. The other has one 
 piece of bad hick after another, — which 
 means that he blunders for lack of knowledge ; 
 till he finds himself on the down grade, and 
 bankruptcy is inevitable. 
 
 Another item of your capital may he thor- 
 oughness. One may know how to do a given 
 thing, and yet be too careless, indolent, or 
 divided in his attention, to use his knowledge. 
 The successful dealer sees to it that every 
 order that goes out of his house is filled so 
 
IN BUSINESS. 
 
 115 
 
 as to please the customer, if possible. There 
 must he no slackness, no carelessness, no 
 leaving of loose ravelling ends. Every part 
 of the work must be done conscientiously, 
 and so as to stand wear. Your business must 
 not only be managed with a complete know- 
 ledge of its details, but with thoroughness in 
 its execution. It wiU add to the permanency 
 of your profits when it comes to be Imown 
 that you are always truthful and rehable, 
 your goods are always what they are repre- 
 sented to be. 
 
 In the rush and hurry of a large town, 
 there is a great tendency to be crowded into 
 careless and indifferent habits. Workmen 
 are apt to promise more work than it is 
 possible for them to finish in a given time. 
 In Ms anxiety to get on, and do as much as 
 he can, each overrates his own ability. He 
 meant to have the article done when he 
 promised, but he was obliged to let one tlfing 
 lap over the time of another, till some of his 
 work was crowded into time quite beyond 
 
116 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 the limit of the customers’ patience. So it 
 has come to pass that promises are of but 
 little value. They are not worth their face. 
 Monday has come to mean about Wednesday, 
 if not later. The article that was promised 
 for Saturday will be sent around Tuesday 
 noon. If your house was to be ready for 
 occupancy by the first of May, you may be 
 thankful if you are able to move in the first 
 of June. There is no lack of excuses, to be 
 sure. The carpenters failed to get out of 
 the way of the plasterers, who, in turn, lapped 
 over upon the contract of the paper-hangers ; 
 and threw the painters out so far that they 
 began another job that was urgent, and that 
 could not be left after it had been begun. 
 While you are living on promises in a board- 
 ing house during the live-long month of 
 May, your goods in boxes, your plans for the 
 summer all thrown out of line, you can’t help 
 wishing that you had found an architect who 
 could plan his business so thoroughly that all 
 his pledges did not require thirty-days grace. 
 
rtr BUSINESS. 
 
 117 
 
 You could have afforded to pay an extra 
 hundred dollars for such a marvel of relia- 
 bility. 
 
 Having learned one business thoroughly, do 
 not throw all that knowledge into the waste 
 basket, and begin upon another, unless you 
 are sure the first effort was all a mistake, or 
 the second offers extraordinary advantages. 
 You remember the old adage about the 
 rolling stone. The English member of the 
 Rothschild banking house said to some young 
 business men, “ Make up your mind what 
 you are going to do, and then stick to it, 
 through thick and thin. If you are a banker, 
 be that and nothing else. You cannot know 
 thoroughly more than one thing.” 
 
 There is an atmosphere about every busi- 
 ness, which can be mastered only by years of 
 attention. It is as much more essential to 
 success than the common details, as it is more 
 difficult to acquire. 
 
 Glass blowers will not attempt to teach 
 any one their business, unless he has been in 
 
118 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 it from childhood. We were in the steel- 
 rail mills one day, looking at the cauldrons 
 of melted metal. The man in charge had 
 told us,, that there was an exact moment 
 when they must be taken from the fire. A 
 little mistake in time, taking them off too 
 soon, or leaving them on too long, would 
 make them faulty. “ How do you know that 
 exact point ” ? we asked. “ Why, I know by 
 the way it looks.” “But how does it look 
 when it is ready to come off? How does it 
 differ from what it was the moment before, 
 and from what it will be the moment after?” 
 “ I can’t tell you. I only know that there 
 is a difference that is plain enough to me ; 
 but I have been years and years learning it.” 
 No other man about the establishment had 
 that knowledge, that had come to be almost 
 a sixth sense. It made him so necessary to 
 the business, that he could demand any 
 wages that were at all reasonable. It would 
 have been foolish for Inm to go into some- 
 thing else in which that special knowledge 
 
IK BTJSIKESS. 
 
 119 
 
 would have been of no use, and would have 
 had no value. 
 
 Another element that can easily be brought 
 into your business, and that will influence 
 the result far more than you may imagine, is 
 courteousness. 
 
 \ Customers are not always the wisest and 
 moot thoughtful people in the world. Indeed, 
 to tell the truth, they are often so inconsider- 
 ate and provoking as to make it difficult for 
 one .;0 keep from giving them “ a piece of his 
 mind.” Yet you will find that it pays always 
 to ]ye patient and polite ; not only for its 
 effect upon yourself, but for the prosperity 
 of your business. If you allow yourself to 
 be a little rough and short with those who 
 you chink deserve to be plainly dealt with, 
 you will surely make a mistake now and 
 then, and be quite unjust in your harshness. 
 There is a book-store where I was once 
 treated rudely ; and I would walk a mile 
 rather than stop there again, and take the 
 risk of a similar discourtesy. 
 
120 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 The safe and wise way is to be attentive 
 to all, no matter how annoying they may be. 
 Besides, the command, “ Be courteous,” is 
 upon all Christians, a rule of conduct to 
 which no exceptions are given. 
 
 There is plenty of asperity and sourness 
 in the world ; let us not add an iota to its 
 aggregate. There are enough with bruised 
 nerves, and hurt spirits, whom we may help 
 with a land word or even a smUe. Let us 
 proffer that cup of cold water, in the name 
 of our Master, no matter how provoking our 
 customers may be. That man who tumbled 
 your goods about in a nervous, inconsiderate 
 way, finding fault with everything, especially 
 the prices, did not confess to you that he was 
 out nearly all night hunting for his reckless, 
 drunken boy. If he had done so, you would 
 have paid little attention to his rudeness. 
 Give him the benefit of the doubt next time. 
 Always be courteous. 
 
 1 There is one difficult book that you must 
 
IK BUSIKBSS. 
 
 121 
 
 study, if you would succeed. You have 
 ample opportunity. Its leaves rustle at every 
 breath. It is even within you ; yet so many 
 are blinded by egotism, and occupied with 
 their own petty affairs, that they never read 
 aright one of its wonderful, vital pages. 
 You must begin at once to study human 
 nature. You must know people. The 
 principles that govern human action are the 
 same the world over. They are like the 
 axioms of any science, of universal applica- 
 tion. Mungo Park found motherly pity for 
 the sorrows of the stranger precisely the 
 same among African savages, that he had 
 known in his own sweet English home. 
 Find out the laws of mind, and work in 
 harmony with them. None but God can 
 suspend or annul natural law. He can re- 
 make what He made ; but you had better not 
 attempt it. You cannot master gravitation. 
 It will out live or outpuU you. And so also of 
 the laws that govern mind. They are expres- 
 sions of a Will that you cannot conquer. The 
 
122 FIIOM rrPTEEK TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 wreck of many a poor fellow’s life echoes with 
 a hollow moan the dying cry of the apostate, 
 “ Thou hast conquered at last, O Galilean ! ” 
 As certainly as Christ must ultimately 
 conquer. His laws are invincible. So you 
 must make up your mind to work in harmony 
 with them if you woidd succeed. If you 
 dash yourself against them, determined to 
 make a path through them at your own sweet 
 will, you will certainly fail._ 
 
 Watch yourself when you are trying to 
 bring to terms a particularly captious and 
 unmanageable person. How carefully you 
 observe every turn of his thought, and how 
 skillfully you direct it to the points most 
 advantageous for your case. You listen to 
 his tiresome twaddle, as if it were quite 
 Shaksperean. You laugh at his stale jokes 
 in a manner altogether satisfactory. He tells 
 you something that you know a great deal 
 better than he, but you listen as though it 
 were a marvellous bit of news. You are not 
 playing the hyprocrite either. You are only 
 
ESr BUSINESS. 
 
 123 
 
 trying to please him that you may bring hi m 
 to do something that you knew he ought to 
 do. You need skill in managing difficult 
 people in any department of effort. You 
 can teach properly only by observing the 
 laws of mind, and working in harmony with 
 them. ^You may pour a wash of words over 
 the minds of your pupils, so absorbed in your 
 own enjoyment of what you are saying, that 
 you do not seem to know or care whether or 
 not they really take in one thoughtA Much 
 pulpit teaching is done in the same bungling 
 manner. You cannot lead a soul to the 
 Lord unless you work by the laws that 
 govern its action. Some good people who 
 attempt to make bargains, impart truth, and 
 help sinners to Christ, act as though they 
 thought they could ride rough-shod over 
 every preference or prejudice. What they 
 have to say is so weighty, what they have to 
 do ought so certainly to be done, they can 
 but demand and receive attention. Not so ; 
 if we do not find the thoroughfares by winch 
 
124 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 thought is carried into the mind, we waste 
 our time trying to convey truth to other 
 people. 
 
 Others seeing the failure of those who are 
 brusque, abrupt, and assuming, take the 
 opposite extreme, and fawn, and smirk, and 
 overdo the amiable. They try the Machia- 
 velian policy ; and if they do not tell what 
 is untrue, they go to the verge of fancy with 
 their flatteries and sycophancy. It does not 
 take long for people of sense to find them 
 out, and mark them at their real value. 
 Their rates of discount are fixed as certainly 
 as is that of the paper of a house that is 
 dropping into bankruptcy. They forfeit their 
 chance of doing good as certainly as do those 
 who have careless manners and indifferent 
 skill. 
 
 In studying human nature, it may be well 
 to begin with the one most directly under 
 your eye, — yourself. What attitude do you 
 assume toward an abrupt, good man, who 
 attempts to teach you something ? Do you 
 
IK BTJSIKESS. 
 
 125 
 
 see how, by a natural impulse of perverseness, 
 you rise up and shut to the door, leaving 
 him to batter outside ? What right has he 
 to assume to dictate to you? It may be a 
 good thing that he is trying to crowd upon 
 your attention, but you are not going to have 
 it crowded upon you in that rude way. Re- 
 member that, when you get in deadly earnest 
 to make somebody do a given thing. You 
 may defeat your bargain or your lesson as 
 certainly by your over zeal in pushing your 
 point, as by indolence or indifference. 
 
 On the other hand, what effect does it have 
 on you when one of those slippery, slimy, 
 snaky people, come crawling around? Do 
 you not draw your lips together and button 
 up your pockets ? 
 
 How do you enjoy a patronizing air in 
 one who has no right to assume toward you 
 the endearing relation of guardian? You 
 may be sure that a similar course of conduct 
 in you will affect others similarly. 
 
 Humanity knows itself to be a king. 
 
126 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 though dethroned and crownless ; and it will 
 be treated with respect. A lady who under- 
 stood this, accidentally pushed a little street 
 Arab off the sidewalk. She stopped and 
 apologized, saying she hoped she had not 
 hurt him. He stepped back, and gave his 
 rimless hat a jerk. “ My eyes, Jim ! ” he 
 exclaimed, turning to a boy who had heard 
 the whole, “ Ef she don’t speak to me jest 
 like I wore standin’ collars I A feller could 
 ’ford to git pushed off forty times a day, to 
 git spoke to like that I ” 
 
 You discover something similar in yourself, 
 and you may set it down simply as a human 
 trait, and make due allowance for it in your 
 transactions with people. 
 
 Study your nearest friends. We are apt to 
 practice upon them in a manner to bring out 
 human traits, as we dare not do with stran- 
 gers. Discovering in them characteristics sim- 
 ilar to our own, we may conclude that people 
 outside our circle are made of the same st iff. 
 
 A railway car is a good place to study 
 
IN BUSINESS. 
 
 127 
 
 cliaracter. Wlien people tliink tliey are 
 where nobody knows them, they are aj^t to 
 drop their masks, and show their real selves. 
 H. H. said, “ Perhaps the saints do go abroad 
 sometimes, but I never saw one behind a rail- 
 way locomotive.” I have seen beautiful, 
 saintly acts on the cars, but then, I have 
 travelled a great deal. The rule is that peo- 
 ple under such circumstances resist every 
 petty encroachment upon personal preroga- 
 tive as doughtily as the little Greek states 
 used to do, and some of them are in as per- 
 petual a state of warfare. 
 
 I remember a little Frenchman on a train 
 between Florence and Rome, whose phiz and 
 fussiness seemed to be of the rat-terrier order. 
 We were in a fumare ” car; but in the 
 
 next compartment, which was separated from 
 our own by a partition that lacked a few 
 inches of reaching the roof, somebody began to 
 puff a cigar. Instantly our little Frenchman 
 snuffed, and growled, and snapped his eyes 
 in small fury, subsiding only after the guard 
 
128 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 had come and listened to his bristling com- 
 plaint, and had duly enjoined the offending 
 smoker to stop his violation of train etiquette. 
 But it was not long till the tiny, blue shreds 
 of smoke were curling over the top of the 
 partition again, and touching the olfactories 
 of the little Frenchman. Fizz! Fuzz! Bow- 
 wow ! At it he went again, and that bit of 
 history repeated itself till we reached the 
 eternal city; though in all probability the 
 irate Francois would not have objected to a 
 good cigar himself. It was altogether a war 
 for personal prerogative ; a not unusual one 
 everywhere. 
 
 A few months of teaching a country school 
 will give you some good lessons in human 
 nature, especially if you have to “ board 
 around.” You will find the small men and 
 women, under your care, manifesting all the 
 traits that will bother and foil the bargain- 
 makers and preachers, a score of years hence. 
 
 I believe, after all, you can study this 
 strange human book better upon youi' knees 
 
m BUSINESS. 
 
 129 
 
 than in any other way. You can learn most 
 rapidly when you go directly to Him in whom 
 are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge, for He has promised if you lack 
 wisdom, and ask of Him, to give liberally. 
 
 The crowning element of business success, 
 is faith in God. He that believeth need not 
 make haste. One who has a clear, calm, 
 steady faith in the Lord, is in condition to do 
 his best. He knows that while he stays in 
 God’s hand, and uses his little strength to the 
 utmost, he will be guided to the best out- 
 come. 
 
 “He always wins who sides with God, 
 
 To him no chance is lost.” 
 
 His powers of body and mind will be kept 
 in healthful equipoise, unworn by worry. 
 After a hard days’ work he can sleep as 
 soundly as if nothing depended upon his 
 efforts. 
 
 Napoleon believed in his destiny. That 
 was a counterfeit faith, that, for awhile, an- 
 swered the purpose of a genuine trust in 
 
130 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVB. 
 
 God. He could sleep in his saddle, in the 
 midst of the din and danger of battle. No 
 doubt those little naps did much toward 
 keeping even his great tough brain in good 
 working order 
 
 Faith brings into the solution of every 
 problem the power of Infinity. While Ne- 
 hemiah was asking the Persian king to send 
 his Hebrew captives back to their own coun- 
 try, — an unheard-of boldness of petition, — 
 he knew that the good hand of his God was 
 on him, and his request waS granted. 
 
 You may set down your capital as so much 
 muscular vigor, so much mental training, so 
 much spiritual power, a business that can 
 grow, knowledge of its details, thoroughness 
 in their management, reliability, courteous- 
 ness, knowledge of human nature, and faith 
 in God: and it would seem that success is 
 assured. You can say, “ Jehovah is my 
 strength. He will make my feet as hinds’ 
 feet. Pie will make me to walk upon mine 
 high places.” 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OTJT OF BUSINESS. 
 
 No currents are more uncertain than those 
 o:E the monetary world. None more certain- 
 ly illustrate those lines of Robbie Burns 
 about the “ best-laid schemes of mice and 
 men.” Enterprises in wliich the wisest old 
 heads would hardly have hesitated to guaran- 
 tee a fortune, are left high and dry on the 
 rocks to go to pieces, while some insignifi- 
 cant scheme, in which nobody had faith, 
 comes out grandly. 
 
 You may have made one of the losing ven 
 tures. Your ship may have struck the rocks. 
 In plain Saxon, the business you were trying 
 to build up, has failed, and now you must 
 join the innumerable company of the unem- 
 
 131 
 
132 TEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 ployed, and look about till you find some- 
 thing els,^ to do. 
 
 Your position is not an enviable one, 
 and I will be glad if I may make a sugges- 
 tion or so that will help you find your way 
 out. 
 
 First ot all, nil desperandum. Your nerves 
 have had a severe shock, your courage a des- 
 perate wrench ; but while there is life there 
 is hope. You are not the first one that has 
 been tested by failure. Some who have been 
 ultimately most successful have been through 
 that ordeal again and again. So of all things, 
 do not lose heart. Stagger to your feet, and 
 thank God it is no worse. You need not 
 look far from your own door to find multi- 
 tudes who are in an infinitely sadder condi- 
 tion than yourself. 
 
 ^Beware of that drop of fatalism that 
 blames the luck when things go wrong. Do 
 not let it narcotize and paralyze further effort’^ 
 There is no luck about it. Somebody blun- 
 dered, and He who chasteneth whom He 
 
OUT OF BUSINESS. 
 
 133 
 
 loveth, and scourgetli every son whom He 
 receiveth, permitted the blunder to spoil your 
 fine plans, that He might save you from a 
 worse evil than the one that has befallen 
 you. 
 
 ^ Go right on, and ask no questions about 
 the past. Of all the miserable gnats that 
 sting and torment one who is under heavy 
 weather, none are more annoying than those 
 abominable “ Whys.” No matter why about 
 anything just yet. Of all things, do not sit 
 down, and try to think out the reason for 
 this and that, going over every little painful 
 detail of the affair, again and again, instead 
 of gathering together the remnants of your 
 affairs, and spreading your small tattered sails 
 for another effort toward port^ 
 
 One thing is certain, that scheme is dead ; 
 and all your turning it over and over, and 
 talking of “ the particulars ” with your 
 friends, will not bring it to life. ^ 
 
 Another is quite as sure : there is good in 
 the stroke, for “ all things work together for 
 
134 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 good to them that love the Lord.” It is dis- 
 loyalty to God to talk about bad luck while 
 He holds the helm. When you are strong 
 and humble enough to heed Him, He will 
 probably let you know what He meant bjr 
 permitting this trouble to come upon you ; 
 but at present you had better set yourself to 
 learn the lesson of humility, love, and faith, 
 so that it will be safe for your soul to get out 
 again into prosperity. 
 
 You wiU be strongly tempted to depend 
 upon your own vertebral column ; stiffening 
 up with a stout, “ I ’ll show them that I ’m 
 not a dunce ! They ’ll see I ’ll come out all 
 right yet.” That sort of behavior reminds 
 me of a young man whom I saw when his 
 physician was called to prescribe for him in a 
 sudden prostration caused by overwork. 
 
 “Well, doctor, how long are you going to 
 keep me here ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, I guess I ’ll have you on your feet 
 again in a couple of weeks.” 
 
 “ Two weeks ! No, sir ! ” and he straight- 
 
OUT OU BUSINESS. 
 
 135 
 
 ened himself as if he were going to push the 
 foot-hoard out of the bedstead. “I give 
 you notice that I ’ll not stay here two 
 weeks ! ” 
 
 “ Very well, my friend,” said the old doc- 
 tor, “ if that is your spirit, we ’ll have to 
 make it four. You ’ll have to lie there till 
 you get all that sort of thing out of you.” 
 
 While your courage stands like a rock, see 
 to it that you let the Lord take all the ego- 
 tism out of you. Your symptoms indicate 
 self-trust ; and Ke wUl not tolerate that in 
 one of His children. In its very incipiency 
 it is harmful ; in its strength it is fatal. 
 
 You will probably find that your changed 
 circumstances will scatter your summer 
 friends; and you will be tempted to indulge 
 in all manner of bitter misanthropies. The 
 probability is that your friends have been 
 about at faithful to you as you would have 
 been to them. We forget that we ourselves 
 are human, when we get to railing against 
 the infirmities of humanity. No doubt there 
 
136 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 are palliating facts in each, case ; at any rate, 
 the love that beareth all things, must give 
 each the benefit of the doubt, for it also 
 hopeth all things. You set about getting all 
 the good you can out of this chastisement ; 
 but, after all, there stands the ugly fact, — 
 you are out of business, — now, what ? 
 
 You will not think of sitting down idly to 
 “ wait for something to turn up.” One thing 
 is always sure to “ turn up,” — bills for your 
 living. You must go to work at something 
 right away; but you had better go quietly 
 and carefully. You do not know which way 
 to turn. Be sure God has not forgotten you 
 for a moment. He will open a way for you. 
 When the Israelites were at the Bed Sea 
 with their retreat cut off, they were told, 
 “ The Lord will fight for you ; ” their part 
 was to “hold their peace.” Yet the next 
 moment Moses was ordered to speak to them 
 that they go forward. You must set yourself 
 bravely, thoughtfully, resolutely, to find the 
 thing you are to do next. 
 
OUT or BUSINESS. 
 
 137 
 
 You will not think for a moment of falling 
 back on your friends. As already intimated, 
 you will find them scarcer than they were 
 formerly. Ordinary friendships are not to he 
 depended upon when most needed. You 
 need not plan for full moonlight in “ the 
 dark ” of that orb of steady habits ; neither 
 can you order up moonlight when it is not 
 promised in the almanac, no matter how in- 
 convenient the darkness may be. You can- 
 not count upon friends to help you when you 
 most need them. To be sure the Lord has 
 now and then a Great Heart who will stand 
 by, no matter how heavy the gale. They are 
 the ones of whom Shakespeare says ; — 
 
 “ The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
 Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.” 
 
 You will find, as a rule, that each has all 
 he can do to take care of his own affairs. 
 Few have any time or strength to spare for 
 pulling other people’s loads uphill. 
 
 While you are looking for a place to begin 
 
138 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 again, yon want to take in sail to suit your 
 altered circumstances. Do not try to “ keep 
 up appearances.” You have probably debts 
 enough to carry without adding another dol- 
 lar. Better a thousand times come down at 
 once to the simplest fare, reducing by so 
 much the probabilities of your being misun- 
 derstoood in the matter, and lightening by 
 even a little, the burden of the uphill tug. 
 
 It may be well to consider carefully whether 
 or not you are adapted to the business in 
 which you failed. Your judgment is more 
 mature than when you chose it first ; per- 
 haps a change would be better ; though in 
 considering such an alternative, you must re- 
 member that your knowledge of that busi- 
 ness is a part of your capital, and it ought 
 not to be lightly put aside. 
 
 It will gall your pride to go down and be- 
 gin again at the foot of the hill, doing work 
 .that you have been giving only to common 
 day laborers ; but your humility must be 
 equal to that test. Sure of your own integ- 
 
OUT OF BUSINESS. 
 
 139 
 
 rity, Christ in you the hope of glory, you 
 cannot long be depressed by your troubles. 
 You will find yourself saying, “ I am as good 
 in the eyes of the Lord, and His people, in 
 my rough, working clothes, and at my coarse, 
 hard labor, as I was when I rode about in my 
 carriage, and could entertam my friends 
 handsomely.” 
 
 Do not shy anybody on account of your 
 changed exterior. Give good people credit 
 for common sense and Christianity enough to 
 know that “ a man’s a man for a’ that.” 
 
 Above all, trust God to teach you the les- 
 son that your altered fortunes are intended 
 to give. Get the honey out of the carcass of 
 the lion. Let the sweet lesson in this body 
 of bitterness give your soul strength ; and be 
 sure that it will be one of the things for 
 which you will thank God most fervently in 
 later years. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MUSCLE. 
 
 Mind has power over matter mysterious 
 and measureless, yet matter sometimes gets 
 the better of mind. There are people even 
 in this enlightened nineteenth century, who 
 believe so fully in the dominance of matter, 
 that they look for depravity in the stomach 
 or liver ; and they are ready to prescribe blue 
 mass or podophyllin for feeble thinking, dis- 
 turbed conscience, or disordered morals. 
 They forget that some of the finest intellect- 
 ual work of the world has been done by 
 men and women with a slender physical life ; 
 and some of the sweetest and mightiest 
 saints live in the frailest tenements^ Imper- 
 fectly housed, or even disembodied, spirits, 
 may play a part, now and then, in the affairs 
 140 
 
MUSCLE. 
 
 141 
 
 of the ■world ; yet the rule holds that souls 
 need good, sound bodies, for the tug and 
 strain of bringing things to pass. Not un- 
 frequently the last ounce of physical endur- 
 ance takes the prize. <^One whose white soul 
 touches the stars, may lie gasping and dying 
 by the wayside, while another with feebler 
 and more selfish spirit, but better muscle, 
 holds out to touch the goal. ; 
 
 The body is the soul’s servant, and it must 
 be cared for accordingly. You take the best 
 care of a horse if you would make him do 
 the best work. When men risk thousands 
 of money upon an animal’s muscle, they 
 spare no pains to keep him at his best. T am 
 told that a certain New Yorker who invests 
 heavily in the turf, keeps his racers in a 
 stable with a groom sleeping beside them. 
 The man has insufficient bedding, so that he 
 will he wakened by a dull in the atmosphere. 
 Then he will get up and give the horses extra 
 blankets. If a man will keep his race-horse 
 so carefully, how ought you to keep your 
 
142 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 body in condition to render your soul the 
 very best service ? 
 
 The old Greeks carried muscular culture 
 to the extreme. The highest honors of the 
 state were given to the man who won in the 
 gctmes. When he returned to his city the 
 walls near his house were taken down for 
 him to enter ; as much as to say, “ The city 
 who has such sons for her defense, has no 
 need of walls.” 
 
 Plato saw the folly of this, and swung to 
 the opposite extreme, teaching that the body 
 is the enemy of the soul ; and until the latter 
 is set free from the burdensome, dominant 
 clay, it cannot have so much as a thought. 
 
 Christian ascetics have wrought by the rule 
 of the old pagan philosopher, and have 
 starved and otherwise maltreated their bodies, 
 hoping thus to get rid of their sins. Paul 
 said, “ I keep my body under ” ; — as the lit- 
 tle boy rendered it, “ my soul on top.” Paul 
 said, also, that our bodies are the temples of 
 the Holy Ghost, therefore we must glorify 
 God with them. 
 
]VITJSCLE. 
 
 143 
 
 The hody has rights and it can assert them. 
 The nerve of a tooth is a small affair, bnt it 
 can drive one out of his wits with pain. The 
 sick headache is a simple indisposition. No- 
 body wastes pity upon it, for it cannot kill 
 you. Yet while it lasts you are deaf to all 
 harmony, and blind to all beauty, knowing 
 nothing in the universe but that tormenting 
 pain and horrid nausea. 
 
 Since the body has such power over the 
 soul, it stands to reason that it is wise to keep 
 it in good condition. This can ordinarily be 
 done, if you study and obey hygienic law. 
 Like all rules, this one has exceptions. One 
 who is supposed to be authority was asked if 
 all diseases could not be cured if taken in 
 time. He replied, “ Yes ; but to take them 
 in time may meail to begin two hundred years 
 back.” 
 
 You may have inherited diseases that no 
 medicines can reach. You may have been 
 hopelessly injured by an accident ; yet the 
 rule is that you may have health if you will 
 take care of your body. 
 
144 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 To begin, you must have the main-spring 
 of motive right in all your efforts at manag- 
 ing this delicate and complex machinery. 
 Seek to be in health, not that you may be 
 saved the annoyance of suffering, and have 
 the pleasure oh*feeling well and strong ; not 
 even that you may be of service to your 
 friends, your country, your race. Noble as 
 this last motive is, it is poor and cheap beside 
 the higher one of pleasing God, and doing 
 something to add to His glory. For His sake 
 to whom your body belongs, and that it may 
 be strong for His service, you must do what 
 you can to keep it in health, purity, and 
 vigor. 
 
 Its outward appearance is not a matter of 
 indifference. It must be clothed with agree- 
 able manners and proper deportment. You 
 may see some great man who is so engrossed 
 with matters of importance, as to quite for- 
 get the “ small, sweet courtesies.” Do not 
 allow yourself to imitate any of his uncouth 
 ways, thinking thus to catch something of 
 
MUSCLE. 
 
 145 
 
 his greatness. Diamonds may have flaws, 
 but flaws do not make diamonds. The world 
 may overlook the eccentricities of one whose 
 hands are full of good work, because he is 
 not supposed to have leisure for all the minu- 
 tiie of decorum; but it is quite another 
 thing with you, whose time is known to be 
 far less valuable. You cannot be excused 
 from giving due attention to the code of pro- 
 prieties. He may wear an ill-fitting coat, but 
 it will be better for you to have your clothing 
 so made that it will give the impression that 
 you still have leisure to attend to such mat- 
 ters, and you have a desire to please by your 
 personal appearance. Not that you are to be 
 dandyish, your garments indicating what one 
 of that insipid tribe was honest enough to 
 admit. 
 
 “ I say, Fwed, youah necktie is just per- 
 fectly splendid ! It ’s magnificent ! ” 
 
 “ It ought to look pretty well, I give my 
 mind to it.” 
 
 Your great man may let his hair grow to 
 
146 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 an awkward length, brushing it only occa- 
 sionally. He may neglect his nails, cutting 
 and scraping them only when he is obliged 
 to do so. It is to be hoped that you will not 
 spend time trimming and polishing yours, on 
 account of any silly fashion, yet you must 
 not forget to keep your hands tidy, even to 
 your fingers’ ends. 
 
 Many neglect their teeth, which is a costly 
 carelessness. You may think you are too 
 busy to stop and brush them daily. You 
 save five minutes a day by your neglect, but 
 presently you lose twenty-four hours with 
 tooth-ache, — two hundred and eighty-eight 
 times five minutes, of torture, and that multi- 
 plied indefinitely, and ending with a wrench 
 that threatens to unroof the brain, and a good 
 dentist’s bill in the bargain. 
 
 Proper care of the skin, not only adds to 
 the tidiness of one’s appearance, but it is de- 
 cidedly conducive to health. The skin helps 
 largely at the scavenger work of the body, 
 carrying off out-worn particles, and other 
 
MUSCLE. 
 
 147 
 
 waste matter. This is of more importance 
 than you may at first think. In a large city, 
 where sanitary conditions are violated by the 
 clogging of sewers, and the lack of proper 
 street cleanmg, people need not expect to be 
 well. It is quite as necessary to keep open 
 and clear the channels by which waste mat- 
 ter is thrown out of the system. You cer- 
 tainly do not want to breathe it into the faces 
 of your friends ; and yet that is just what 
 you do when you neglect other methods of 
 disposing of it. It is loaded upon the breath, 
 and thrown out through the lungs. Even 
 when an offensive breath proclaims publicly 
 your negligence, that is not sufficient pen- 
 ance. Enough of the poison remains behind 
 to make you liable to serious diseases. Many 
 a man lies for weeks, tossing with fever, los- 
 ing any amount of time and money, and 
 drifting down toward death, when a daily 
 bath and vigorous use of the flesh-brush, 
 would have kept his skin in condition for its 
 work, and saved him the loss and suffering. 
 
148 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 We are often strangely at fault in regard 
 to tlie circulation of the blood. We know 
 that the blood goes out through the arteries, 
 vitalizing every part of the body, and comes 
 back, through the veins, to the lungs, to be 
 re-vitalized by contact with outside air. The 
 measure of our breathing, and the quality of 
 the air we breathe, is usually the measure of 
 our vitality and vigor. Yet, strange as it 
 seems, we put ourselves on short allowance 
 of air, wliich means, defective vitality, and 
 failure in all good work, for lack of endu- 
 rance and strength ; and that when we are 
 (valking on the bottom of a sea of it, at least 
 fifty miles deep. We shut ourselves in tight 
 boxes, and kindle fires in them, to burn out 
 trhat may crowd in at the cracks, around the 
 doors and windows. For our weekly wor- 
 ship, we build boxes large enough to hold four 
 or five hundred of us, where we sit, breathing 
 each others’ breaths, and trying to be devo- 
 tional. Our efforts are often a failure, for 
 the lack of pure air, though it is presssng at 
 
MUSCLE. 
 
 149 
 
 the rate of fifteen pounds to the square inch, 
 upon the shell in which we shut ourselves. 
 You inaj not be to blame for the wretch- 
 ed ventilation of house, or lecture-hall, or 
 church, but you can certainly cure yourself 
 of the habit of only half-inflating your lungs 
 in your ordinary breathing, thus only half 
 vitalizing your blood, and keeping yourself 
 feeble, when you ought to be full of vigor. 
 
 It is a question whether you have yet 
 learned to breathe at all as you ought. Most 
 people lift the entire frame-work of the chest, 
 shoulder-bones, arms and all, every time they 
 fill the lungs. The result is that they do not 
 fill the lungs completely, and much of the 
 blood staggers back in a feeble way, to do the 
 great work of supplying with vigor, muscle, 
 nerve, and brain. Feeble circulation, feeble 
 vitality, feeble thinking, feeble moral pur- 
 pose ; — all feeble together, and for the lack 
 of air, though the Lord has supplied it for us 
 by the oceanful. Thoughtful people are just 
 beginning to learn how to take in large, deep. 
 
150 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 breaths, using mainly, the muscles of the dia- 
 phragm, and the lower part of the chest. In 
 a recent sangerfest, a lady who teaches in the 
 public schools, gave an exercise in abdominal 
 breathing, in which two or three thousand 
 children participated. No one spoke or 
 sung. The hour was given to exercises that 
 develop the chest muscles, and fix a habit of 
 deep, full breathing, making the muscles that 
 are used in abdominal breathing, as firm and 
 manageable as those of the hand, and training 
 the will to use them as if they were the han- 
 dles of a bellows. 
 
 This system not only provides for abundant 
 vitality, but it gives erectness and grace to 
 the form. Curb your chin as you would bit 
 a colt, to make him move with a sure, taut 
 step. Let your heels strike the pavement, so 
 as to stiffen the muscles back of your knees, 
 and you will find yourself standing in an 
 erect position. 
 
 “ Oh, but,” you say, “ I despise lofty airs. 
 Anything in the world but these people who 
 
MUSCLE. 
 
 151 
 
 go stepping around as if the earth, were not 
 quite good enough for them to walk on ! ” I 
 join you in. that disgust ; and yet you want 
 your bearing to represent honestly what you 
 are, — an “upright, downright, straight-for- 
 ward,” self-respecting. God-fearing man, any- 
 body’s peer in the line the Lord has given 
 you to walk in. 
 
 A crawling, cringing, weak-kneed move- 
 ment, like that of Dickens’ Uriah Heep, will 
 not make you “ an ’umble person ” ; neither 
 will it make anybody believe that you are 
 “ ’umble.” It will do one thing for you : it 
 will set all the growlers, canine and human, 
 snarling at your heels ; while if you have the 
 bearing of a prince of the blood, “ a child of 
 the King,” you can go through many a diffi- 
 cult place unchallenged. An erect carriage, 
 and steady, firm step, will help your mental 
 operations. Your mind will be apt to be 
 shambling, slouching, slovenly, in its move- 
 ment, if your will has not the sense and grip 
 to hold your muscles to direct, dignified ac- 
 
152 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 tion. And your soul, also, — easy-going, self- 
 indulgent, shirking; — what Mrs. Stowe 
 characterizes as “shiftlessness,” will, mark 
 your spiritual life. On the other hand, grace 
 will help strengthen your muscles. 
 
 In one of the Salvation Army meetings 
 in London, I heard a man speak who had evi- 
 dently been rescued from that class of the 
 lowest of all low people, — the English 
 tramps and paupers. Some one has said, 
 “ No one has heart or hope for them but John 
 Bright and Charles Spurgeon.” He would 
 have to add now, “ and the Booths ” ; for the 
 meeting to which I refer was made up m?th iiy 
 of decently dressed, respectable-looking men 
 and women, evidently gathered from the 
 ranks of the outcasts; and that particular 
 man had been fished out of the deepest mud 
 of a London slum. 
 
 “ Do you know what religion does for a 
 body ? ” he asked. “ I ’ll tell you. Before I 
 was converted they called me ragged Jim; 
 and that ’s just what I was, and no mistake. 
 
jrUSCLE. 
 
 153 
 
 Now what do you think was the first thing I 
 did when the Lord spoke peace to my soul ? 
 I borrowed a pin to fasten my old ragged 
 coat together. I did n’t know till that min- 
 ute how shabby I was. Now, that ’s what 
 the grace of Jesus will do for a poor fellow. 
 It ’ll show him first, how ragged he is, and 
 then it ’ll put a decent coat on his back.” 
 There is nothing like the enlightening 
 grace of God to make one feel his physical 
 and mental, as well as spiritual, need. The 
 prayer of the ritual — 
 
 “ Enable ‘with perpetual light 
 The dullness of our blinded sight,” 
 
 applies to the necessities of the whole com- 
 plex being. Sq, if you have run rapidly over 
 these pages, only half thinking of what I 
 have been saying, passing the most of what 
 you read over to some miserable consunjp- 
 tive or dyspeptic of your acquaintance, who 
 is “ evidently in need of this fresh-air lec- 
 ture,” and have taken none of it to yourself. 
 
154 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 let me ask you to stop, right here, and ask 
 Him, whose temple your body is, if you are 
 doing all in your power, as He would have 
 you, to keep it strong and beautiful for Him. 
 
 No unclean bird would be allowed to make 
 its nest in the forest of statuary that adorns 
 the roof of the Milan Cathedral. The word 
 in regard to the human body is, “ Him that 
 defileth the temple will God destroy.” The 
 birds may fly over that wonderful roof, but 
 they are not allowed to rest there. Impure 
 thoughts may throw their loathsome shadow 
 over your mind ; unclean words may be whis- 
 pered in your ear ; but your will, loyal to the 
 holy Christ, stands with its scourge of small 
 cords, to drive them away.' You have said to 
 the Lord : — 
 
 “ Take my lips, and let them be 
 Filled with messages for Thee.” 
 
 After that consecration you can never lower 
 yourself to utter a syllable that will express 
 or suggest a vile thought, no matter how 
 
MUSCLE. 
 
 155 
 
 free, or careless, or merry your mood. You 
 can uever forget that lips that are kept for 
 the Master’s use, must not be defiled by un- 
 clean speech. 
 
 I remember a little fairy story about two 
 girls whose godmother gave each a gift ac- 
 cording to her disposition. Whenever one 
 spoke, gems fell from her lips, and the little 
 children ran to gather them up. When the 
 other opened her lips, reptiles slid from them, 
 so that the children ran off in terror, to 
 escape the horrid things. You do not want 
 to drop poison from your lips, that will burn 
 and blister long after the good you tried to 
 say is forgotten. 
 
 Keep your ear-gate closed against what 
 ought not to be said. It will take but a mo- 
 ment for a drop of the venom of hell to get 
 into your thoughts, and it may take years to 
 restore you perfectly from its pollution. You 
 would not stay in the presence of a leper, for 
 fear of contracting the terrible disease. 
 Would you trust yourself to associate with 
 
156 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 one who is leprous in soul? The latter is in 
 finitely the greater danger. Shun such a 
 young man, as you would one from a pest- 
 house, dripping with contagion. In the care 
 of the body, as in everything else, it is the 
 blessing of the Lord that maketh rich, and 
 addeth no sorrow. It is the Sun of Eight- 
 eousness that has healing in His wings. 
 When you learn to rejoice evermore, pray 
 without ceasing, in everytliing give thanks, — 
 “for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus 
 concerning you,” — you will find that you 
 can “ mount up on wings as eagles, you can 
 run, and not be weary, walk, and not faint.” 
 Christianity has added, fifteen years to the 
 average life of the race. When its privileges 
 are fully understood and enjoyed, it will 
 bring us, in spirit, at least, into possession of 
 perennial youth. 
 
 You need never fret; for all things work 
 together for good to them that love the Lord. 
 You need have no care ; for you may cast all 
 your care on Him. God is able to take the 
 
MUSCLE. 
 
 157 
 
 very best care of whatever is committed to 
 Him. You may feel free to ask Him to do 
 all that needs to be done to keep your body 
 in good working condition, as long as you can 
 say, “For Thy glory, because it belongs to 
 Thee.” 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 IN THE COTJNTKY. 
 
 It is not difficult to see a difference be- 
 tween those who live in the city and those 
 whose home is in the country, though that 
 difference is mainly external and supenlcial. 
 It is not in dress, for that is a matter of per- 
 sonal taste. Some have a certain style about 
 them, as we say; and they will look well- 
 dressed in the coarsest, plainest clothing, 
 while others pay extravagant tailors’ bills, 
 and yet fail altogether of the elegant appear- 
 ance they so much desire. One who has 
 natural taste will make a pretty bouquet of 
 dandelions and a mullein stalk ; another who 
 is deficient in that quality, may have all the 
 flowers of a conservatory, and he will put 
 them together with an awkward, constrained 
 158 
 
IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 159 
 
 air, minus the grace that is as natural to the 
 other, as song is to the nightingale. 
 
 As a rule, however, city people are more 
 stylishly dressed than those who live in the 
 country. They see well-dressed people every 
 *day, because many of them are showy and 
 extravagant ; besides, country people gener- 
 ally wear their best when they go to the city. 
 So city people get a “ habit of good clothes,” 
 as it is sometimes called. This holds also of 
 their manners, which are a secondary cloth- 
 ing. They of the city have no time for rude- 
 ness. Jostled and crowded as they are con- 
 stantly by strangers, they find that they pass 
 for more and get on better if they are polite. 
 In the country, everybody knows everybody, 
 and there is little temptation to attempt to pass 
 one’s self off for more than he is. One may 
 be a little rough and careless in his exterior, 
 but they all know his real worth, and they 
 say, “ It’s his way, you know ” ; and it makes 
 little difference with his standing. 
 
 In the city, nobody knows you, and they 
 
160 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 take you, up to certain risks, according to 
 your appearance. That, of itself, will give 
 one a habit of “putting the best foot for- 
 ward.” 
 
 A prime difference between the people 
 who live in the country and those who are in ■* 
 the city, lies in their use of time. In the 
 country the chief values depend upon growth, 
 and growth takes time, and time is the most 
 plentiful commodity. 
 
 A farmer becomes rich, not so much from 
 personal work, as from the increase of popula- 
 tion around him, and the development of the 
 resources of the land. His slow enrichment 
 goes right on, whether he sleeps or wakes. It 
 may fluctuate with atmospheric and general 
 financial changes ; but the rule is, steady in- 
 crease. He may drive early and late, crowd 
 in larger crops, and take advantage of the 
 market, but the main factor in his problem of 
 success is time. 
 
 When any product is abundant it is used 
 carelessly. Near the oyster beds of Chesa- 
 
IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 161 
 
 peake Bay, they use the very bast “ counts ” 
 as commonly as people elsewhere do eggs. 
 
 Time, the best country product, is used 
 wastefully. That habit may give a young 
 man a leisurely, hesitating, sometime slouch- 
 ing gait. City people live by trade. Every- 
 body has something to sell ; and the profits 
 of the business are usually determined by the 
 number of times one can turn his capital in 
 a year. That makes him alert, exact, direct. 
 It gives him a not-a-moment-to-waste air. 
 
 Ask one in the country to direct you to a 
 given point, and he tells you to go on till you 
 come to a red barn. Widow Beasley lives 
 there. Turn down past her house, and on, 
 till you come to the bridge over the run ; 
 you mustn’t take the road that bears off to 
 your left hand, up the branch. It will bring 
 you put at old Squire Putnam’s, a good four 
 miles from where you want to go, etc., etc., 
 etc. I remember asking a London policeman 
 the way to the submarine telegraph office. 
 “ Top of the third turning ” ; and before 1 
 
162 ¥KOM FLFTEElSr TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 could make up my mind wlietlier or not be 
 bad answered me in my motber tongue, and 
 wbat tbe “ top of a turning ” could be, be 
 was in tbe middle of the street, helping a 
 cripple out of a crush of hansoms and omni- 
 buses. 
 
 There are many advantages in country life, 
 that one ought to make tbe most of while he 
 has the chance. Fresh air, sunshine, rough 
 riding, make the best possible muscle. More 
 than one battle in later life turns on the 
 ability to endure muscular strain and wear. 
 Farmer boys usually get a magnificent phys- 
 ical outfit without boating or base-ball, which 
 are expensive of time and opportunity, and 
 often of morals. This muscle stands them 
 in good stead upon occasion, and it is always 
 serviceable. Do you remember the story of 
 the countryman from the south of France, 
 who was raised from the ranks to the em- 
 peror’s staff within five minutes, by his muscle 
 and wit? During a review in Paris, Napo- 
 leon’s horse had become unmanageable, and 
 
IN THE COUNTKY. 
 
 lo3 
 
 the emperor was in imminent danger. No- 
 body dared attempt a rescue, till the vicious 
 animal had plunged down the ranks to where 
 this countryman was standing. The man 
 had handled more than one dangerous horse 
 before, and he knew the strength of his own 
 muscle. He seized the bit with both hands, 
 and brought the frantic beast to a stand-still. 
 “ Thanks, captain,” said the autocrat. The 
 man showed instantly that quickness of 
 thought that comes from sudden encounters 
 with the forces of nature, and the stealthy, 
 dangerous creatures of the forest. In a flash 
 he responded, “ Of what regiment. Sire ? ” 
 The emperor recognized the shrewdness and 
 quickness, that with the marvelous strength, 
 would make the man invaluable in his ser- 
 vice, and rephed at once, “ On my staff.” 
 The countryman’s fortune was made, as this 
 world goes. 
 
 City people can do a few things well and 
 gracefully ; but the country gives more time 
 f(U' broad general thinking, a seeking of pri- 
 
164 FBOM fiftee:^ to twenty-five. 
 
 mal principles, and unflinching loyalty to 
 truth. The long, still days, with the broad 
 sweep of wood and field, the calm meadow 
 slopes, the great, old hills, and the deep, pure 
 azure sky arched over all, must bring wide, 
 quiet thought, to the soul. 
 
 On the other hand, it is easy where there is 
 so little stir, so few excitements, to let the 
 weeks and months slip by unimproved, and 
 to come to the last, carrying the burden of 
 wasted opportunities, undeveloj^ed, crippled 
 faculties, and unwrought good. Think of 
 the long winter evenings that are dozed or 
 dawdled away, the stormy days when you 
 are shut in from work, and you ride over to 
 the store or shop, and sit around, whittling a 
 pine stick, and telling, or listening to stories, 
 — some of them not the most elevating. 
 How many books might have been read, 
 and pondered, — how many studies master- 
 ed, if you had set yourself resolutely to 
 use every moment, and fill it with the 
 work of satisfying your hunger to know. 
 
nsr THE COUNTRY. 
 
 165 
 
 Farmer boys are apt to put off the time of the 
 commencement of their study till they get 
 out of the grind of "work, and have more 
 congenial, bookish surroundings. 
 
 That will never do ; for you are not at all 
 sure that such a time will come, “ this side 
 Heaven.” The thing to do is to begin at 
 once a course of reading. It is also well 
 always to have a study on hand, a language 
 or a science, to be learned, little by little, 
 but all the more prized, when once acquired. 
 
 Thank the Lord for the fine muscle He has 
 given you ; and train it to hold you erect and 
 gracef'rl in your bearing, as certainly as your 
 bit does the colt you intend to sell in the 
 city. Your neighbors may give you a sar- 
 castic fling now and then ; but never mind. 
 You can let them see by your gentle thought- 
 fulness and patience, that as kind and meek 
 a heart beats in your big chest as ever 
 throbbed for another man’s trouble ; and it 
 will come to pass after a while that when 
 then.’ eyes rest on you they will involuntarily 
 
166 FEOM FITTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 straighten up, and throw back their own 
 shoulders ; and the next thing you know 
 some of the boys, who had been “getting a 
 little wild,” will come to you for advice 
 about books. It always make me wonder to 
 see a farmer riding to market on a board 
 across the top of his wagon box, and his back 
 bent like a rainbow, when it would be so easy 
 to have a seat with a back to it, and sit up 
 straight, instead of violating hygienic law in 
 that careless fashion. 
 
 There has been no end of jokes about 
 “ book-farming,” but it is coming to be seen 
 that thought is as good on a farm as any- 
 where else. If farmers were mere animals, 
 and wrought by instinct, like bees and 
 beavers, making the first cell or house as 
 perfect as the fiftieth, there would be no use 
 in trying to teach them anything. The utter 
 inefficiency of those who fail at other things, 
 and go into the country, thinking that “ any- 
 body can manage a farm,” illustrates the 
 need of practical training in this, as in other 
 
nr THE COHNTEY. 
 
 167 
 
 avocations. It is possible that they who 
 know the most about the subject in hand, 
 are not the ones who write the books, and 
 edit the papers, yet the fact holds that think- 
 ing and study will pay on a farm, as certainly 
 as anywhere ; and it had better be done by 
 educated young farmers, rather than left to 
 cheap writers in back attics who have not so 
 much as two square yards of sky in sight, to 
 say notlhng of a patch of ground where any- 
 thing could grow. 
 
 So I say, if you expect to spend your days 
 on a farm, make your place a model of thrift 
 and neatness for all that country. Have 
 your barns carefully and economically built, 
 your house as tasteful and commodious as 
 your purse will permit. Have books, music, 
 pictures, and above all, sweet, pure charity 
 and friendliness. 
 
 Malce up your mind to have as much labor- 
 saving machinery in doors as out. I have 
 seen jnen riding about on their “cultivators,” 
 enjoying all the modern improvements, while 
 
168 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTT-FIVB. 
 
 their wives were breaking their backs over 
 the washboard, and wringing their clothes by 
 hand, just as their great-grandmothers did. 
 I have thought I would like to reverse the 
 order a little while, set the “ weaker vessel ” 
 riding about, and let the “ sterner stuff ” 
 take a few rounds at the unhelped, hand- 
 to-hand fight with dirt. I think the house 
 would soon be stocked with washing- 
 machines and wringers, patent churns and 
 sweepers, and all other needed apparatus for 
 the economy of muscle. 
 
 Be sure and plan to save your minutes, so 
 as to ‘make the most of them for your books. 
 Have refined and elevating table talk. 
 Discuss needed reforms, church benevolences, 
 the interests of the Lord’s kingdom, rather 
 than the flavor of a pie, or the toothsomeness 
 of a dumpling. I know of nothing under 
 the broad, blessed skies, lovelier or more rest- 
 ful than an intellectual, Christian home in 
 the country. You can make such a one, if 
 it please God to give you the true help-meet, — 
 
nr THE COUNTRY. 
 
 169 
 
 and you must ask Him for her, — but you 
 win have to be very wise in the use of your 
 time and money. It is as easy to overwork 
 the body, and starve the soul, for the sake of 
 adding to one’s possessions, in the country, as 
 it is in the city. In such homes, the old go 
 down gently under the weight of years, and 
 the young come up sweet and true, sound in 
 health and morals, ready for the bravest and 
 best work. From such homes, not only 
 “ Auld Scotia’s grandeur springs,” but also 
 that of every enlightened Christian land. 
 
 There seems to be a gregarious hnpulse on 
 Americans to draw them into the cities. At 
 the beginning of the century only one twenty- 
 fifth of them were in large towns, now there 
 is one-fifth of them there. It will not be 
 strange, if you yield to the currents, and are 
 carried thither also. That will be a far more 
 exhausting life than the one you now live. 
 So you must improve these days in laying 
 by you in store a fund of strength for those 
 trying years. You will find in the city 
 
170 TEOM riFTKEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 that they who put their brawny shoulders 
 under the world’s burdens, lifting towards 
 the light, are country born and country bred. 
 
 hloses lived his first forty years in a palace ; 
 but the next forty had to be spent in the 
 back side of the desert, to bring him to the 
 clear, strong insight that would enable him 
 to see and do the Divine will. Luther, 
 Washington, Lincoln, those broad, brave, 
 vital men, all spent their early years in the 
 country. 
 
 But of all, we love most to think of the 
 Young Man of Nazareth, walking alone 
 under that Syrian sky, going to the hill on 
 the side of which the little village was set, 
 and looking off toward the Mediterranean, 
 kneeling all night with the wind tossing His 
 dew-dampened hair, His head bowed under 
 our burdens, or His forehead raised toward 
 His own stars, and His heavenly throne, in 
 pleadings for us. Keep ever before you that 
 lone, deep-eyed, sorrowful young man, who 
 lived his secluded country life, and then was 
 
IN THE COTJNTKT. 
 
 171 
 
 manifested and offered for our sins. He 
 said, “ I am with you alway, even to the end 
 of the world.” Let Him walk by your side, 
 and talk with you as you journey by the 
 way. Unconsciously to yourself you will 
 grow like Him in character, and some day 
 you will be recognized as His brother and 
 friend, and honored by good people, by the 
 angels, and God. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN THE CITY. 
 
 City people have advantages of which it 
 may be well for ns to take an inventory ; 
 though this has already been suggested in 
 what I have said to young men in the 
 country. 
 
 You are so constantly among people, it 
 has become second nature for you to be well- 
 dressed, polite, erect and self-possessed. 
 
 You have also learned directness of address, 
 and a corresponding directness of mental 
 action. Your answer to a question is as 
 straight and economical as a telegraph dis- 
 patch. 
 
 To a given extent, you are thoroughly au 
 fait in the ways of the world. You have 
 been jostled by thousands, and sometimes 
 172 
 
IN THE CITY. 
 
 173 
 
 not by any means agreeably, so that you 
 have seen as many phases of tliis myriad- 
 minded microcosm, this queer, cranky, mys- 
 terious human nature, as you would have 
 done if you had lived in the country a hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 You have already seen quite as much 
 wickedness as it is profitable for a young 
 man to know about. You have acquired a 
 habit of demanding proof, and you are not 
 in the least offended when strangers require 
 you to prove your identity. You have seen 
 so many frauds that you suspect everybody 
 till he proves himself genuine. When a 
 stranger asks a favor of you, you require him 
 to show his credentials in as business-like a 
 way as a conductor asks to see a passen- 
 ger’s ticket. This is a part of the edu- 
 cation that the world gives, and you who 
 live HI the city graduate early in that de 
 partment. 
 
 Within given lines your powers of observa- 
 tion are well developed. When you go to 
 
174 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 tile country for your summer vacation, you 
 see a tliousand things that pass unnoticed 
 under the very eyes of your country friends; 
 though candor compels me to acknowledge 
 that you may be behind them in solidity of 
 opinion, and breadth of outlook. 
 
 You are tired of the monotony of the piles 
 of brick and mortar within which you trudge 
 your treadmill round, day after day, and the 
 freshness and freedom of the country charm 
 you. ■ Your eyes take in hungrily the filmy 
 clouds of tender green that catch in the 
 branches of the trees in early spring ; the 
 vista of forest avenues, the autumnal glory 
 when the woods blaze forth in scarlet and 
 gold.^ After your being shut up so long 
 to glimpses of the azure between rows of 
 buildings, a whole June sky is superb, an 
 unveiled sunset is magnificent. Some of the 
 finest bits of rural description have been 
 written by the dwellers in cities who go 
 into the country with fresh, prying eyes. 
 
 You have your five senses under good drill ; 
 
Uf THE CITY. 
 
 175 
 
 and just there lies one of your greatest dis- 
 advantages. You grow superficial in your 
 judgment, you have a consequently feeble 
 hold of affairs. That may account for the 
 fact that very few people who manage the 
 world’s great interests, are born and brought 
 up in the city. Country people permit days 
 to slip by with little systematic effort at men- 
 tal culture. City people live a condensed 
 life ; yet they squander time on an infinity of 
 affairs that have to be handled in a hasty 
 manner. This superficial work quite spoils 
 one for the calm, slow, steady, deep thought 
 that only can strike the core of things. City 
 people have usually three-ply engagements 
 for every evening. They try to choose be- 
 tween a half dozen things that they would 
 like to do, and it usually ends in their dip- 
 ping into each, and doing none thoroughly, 
 till they lose the habit of doing anything as 
 it ought to be done. You start up from the 
 dinner-table, and rush to a committee meet- 
 ing, to help make a quorum, and get business 
 
176 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 under way. Then you slip out and drop in 
 upon a lectui’e that you ought to have heard 
 from beginning to end. You glance over at 
 the reporters’ table and say to yourself, “ I ’ll 
 get the substance of it in the morning paper, 
 so I ’ll just run over and show myself at 
 Smith’s reception.” While you are tossing 
 on your pillow at midnight, trying to get the 
 better of the strong coffee you were foolish 
 enough to imbibe, you congratulate yourself 
 that after all, you have done a good even- 
 ing’s work. Better go down in sackcloth 
 and ashes, for attempting the ubiquitous, and 
 fastening upon yourself the habit of doing 
 everything in a hasty, shallow way, that will 
 leave you altogether hors du combat when 
 the time comes for strong, telling strokes. 
 When the people are looking for a man to 
 give the heavy, steady pull at the oar, that 
 will bring the boat through the surf, they 
 will see that you are of too light a weight. 
 
 ^ _ You are mortgaging your future ; and na- 
 ture is a hard creditor; she always exacts 
 
 / 
 
I 
 
 IN THE CITY. 177 
 
 compound interest. You are exhausting 
 your capital ; and when the hour strikes for 
 the grand opportunities of life, you will be 
 found unequal to the strain^ and the prize 
 will be taken by some plaiii, hard-working 
 man from the country, who has been think- 
 ing, thinking, thinking, as Grant and Lincoln 
 used to do. 
 
 I hope you will begin at once to remedy 
 this mischief. Plan to do less, and do it bet- 
 ter. ,^^^ive yourself a mental sub-soiling. ' 
 You have turned over the surface stratum of 
 thought till it is quite worn out. Fields have 
 to be left fallow to gather strength.^ There 
 has to be a change of crops, to give one ele- 
 ment a chance to come up while another is 
 being exhausted. The soil must be fed and 
 enriched. How much good, solid, mental 
 food have you taken in, digested, and assimi- 
 lated, during the past year ? 
 
 Of the old statesmen who are playing the 
 game on the great European chess-board, 
 they only are full of vigor, and able to keep 
 
178 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 pace with the surge of events, who hold their 
 minds fresh and strong, by rest, and change, 
 and study. 
 
 But you say you are just beginning life ; 
 you have not come to the pressure of which 
 I have been speaking. True ; yet you are on 
 the train, headed in that direction. Even 
 the little children in the city, unless they are 
 carefully guarded, have an old, out- worn look. 
 Did you ever notice the faces of the street 
 Arabs that steal street-car rides ? Eight and 
 ten years old, and yet they seem tp have 
 been beaten upon by the storms of half a 
 century. While I am writing, a quartette of 
 city young folks sit across the aisle from me, 
 in a railway car. Two young men and two 
 young ladies ; they have turned a seat, and 
 the couples sit facing each another. Fair, 
 average, young people ; from their talk it is 
 evident that they all belong to the same Sun- 
 day-school class. They are hlase^ nervous, ex- 
 citable, superficial. Now they begin to blow, 
 back and forth, the chaff of small talk, and 
 
rfr THE CITY. 
 
 179 
 
 so far, I discover not tlie first grain of wlieat 
 in the whole of it. Indeed, the most of it 
 hardly rises to the dignity of language. It 
 is mainly adjectives, interjections, slang, and 
 light laughing. The girls are a little guarded 
 on the slang part of the talk ; yet they evi- 
 dently enjoy it, and they encourage the boys 
 by laughing at their queer speeches. There 
 is something in the whole performance that 
 reminds me of what Solomon says about 
 the crackling of thorns under a pot. 
 
 Now is the time for you to fix your habits 
 so that you can stand steady in the currents 
 that bear the majority of city young men 
 into that careless, foolish, superficial life. 
 
 Make up your mind now, that you will not 
 live in thathap-hazard, drifting way. Where 
 there is so much to claim your attention, you 
 will choose the best, and learn to shut off the 
 rest with a resolute “ No.” Avoid dipping 
 into this and that, just to say that you were 
 there ; you saw this celebrity, you heard that 
 lion roar. Unless you learn his secret of sue- 
 
180 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 cess, what is the use of giving him one of 
 your preeious hours? Of one thing you may 
 be certain : he did not heeome famous 
 
 through the dissipating round of eity sociality. 
 It takes time to make a character, as well as 
 an oak ; and city people are bankrupt in that 
 priceless commodity. They never have time 
 for anything. 
 
 I would not advise you to attempt yet, to 
 do as one who has been a crowned king of 
 men for nearly half a century, would sayj 
 “ Put into the fire all the irons that you can 
 get hold of, shovel, tongs, poker and all.” I 
 would say, rather, try to do only what you can 
 do to advantage. When you find you can 
 manage safely and surely the interests in 
 hand, and you have a little surplus energy, 
 then thrust another iron into the fire, but not 
 till then. At the beginning make rigid rules 
 for your amusements, your social life, even 
 your work. Economize your resources. 
 While you allow yourself to be crowded to 
 your full strength, keep enough reserve pow- 
 
nr THE CITY. 
 
 181 
 
 er to enable you to meet any emergency that 
 may arise. Above all things, cultivate a habit 
 of excellence. Build your character like 
 that marvellous roof of Milan cathedral, — 
 away up there out of sight of the crowds 
 that surge along the pavements below, “ for 
 the eyes of the angels,” as they say : “ For 
 the gods see everywhere.” 
 
 I saw it illuminated one night, by chemi- 
 cals that brought out, now in one brilliant 
 color, then in another, every spire and statue. 
 It was like a dream of Paradise, — lying 
 there under that Italian sky, it is seen only 
 by the tourists who are at the pains of climb- 
 ing stairs to look at it, except upon occasions 
 when its marvellous beauty is illuminated 
 for the crowd. It made me think of the 
 character of Lincoln, our great emancipator. 
 We passed him on the street, and jostled him 
 in the political thoroughfares,(little di’eaming 
 of the calm, high soul that was there, under 
 God’s pure heavens, till the lurid lights of the 
 nation’s peril brought out, through the gloom, 
 
182 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 its majestic proportions, its perfect harmony, 
 its exquisite finish. Build your character so 
 that it will bear a calcium lightly 
 
 Everybody knows that a great city is full 
 of dangers to young men who come in from 
 the country. You can hardly he too cautious 
 where you know there are many gins and pit- 
 falls. 
 
 When we were in Mammoth Cave, Mat, our 
 old guide, would call out, now and then, 
 “ Keerful ! Pit on de right ! ” If we stray- 
 ed ever so little from the path in those slip- 
 pery places, we might fall, nobody could tell 
 how many feet — 
 
 “ Deep among disjointed stones.” 
 
 The true path was hardly discernible by com- 
 mon eyes. Though thousands had trodden it, 
 their footfall left no track. I found, how- 
 ever, that when I kept near old Mat, I saved 
 many steps, and my way was safer and surer. 
 
 You know of some of the pits beside this 
 path; and I need hardly remind you of them. 
 
m THE CITY. 
 
 183 
 
 You have been warned against confidence 
 men and kindred decoys who would lure you 
 into houses of death. You have heard of 
 those who live by the vices of others, and 
 who gloat on the dying agonies of the inno- 
 cent who fall into their traps. Yet you can- 
 not be too watchful, for nothing can exceed 
 the ingenuity with which they devise new 
 methods to catch the thoughtless. 
 
 Where so many have lost their way and 
 their life, your only safety is to keep near 
 your Guide, setting your feet in His very 
 footsteps. 
 
 In the quiet, steady habits of your coun- 
 try life, you have laid up a store of health 
 and vigor ; now you will be tempted to squan- 
 der it in late hours, and the many excite- 
 ments that lie in wait for you. 
 
 You will also be in danger of mental star- 
 vation. People who write and print cheap, 
 wishy-washy literature, are specially active in 
 crowding it upon the attention. It seems, 
 sometimes, that the facility with which it is 
 
184 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FI\T3. 
 
 “ pushed ” is in exact ratio with its light- 
 ness. 
 
 The daily papers carry to perfection the art 
 of selling “ sensations.” From the competition 
 that is rife among them, they get the trick of 
 saying things in a style as sharp as the crack 
 of a minie-rifle, chiming exactly with the 
 stir and dash of young blood. You can see 
 how it will help you get rid of your country 
 moderateness ; but you must set a “ thus far ” 
 to this spirited daily editor, or he will spoil 
 your appetite for solid food. He will also 
 teach you to forget, for he is a great gossip 
 who tells to-day what he may have to contra- 
 dict to-morrow; and he expects you to un- 
 load your memory each twenty-four hours, so 
 as to be ready for a new budget. 
 
 The English talk about “ walking up an 
 appetite.” Your best chance to keep your 
 mental appetite good, is to take a “ consti- 
 tutional ” in the shape of at least a few min- 
 utes good hard study of a language or a sci- 
 ence daily. That, with your Bible study, 
 will keep you from learning to forget. 
 
m THE CITY. 
 
 185 
 
 ^ You can tell when you begin to decline in 
 physical strength; but mind shows its pallor 
 and attenuation only to close observers. 
 Others will feel your mental emaciation long 
 before you are conscious of it yourself. 
 Your only safety is to establish your prin- 
 ciples of mental hygiene, and live by them 
 loyally. 
 
 Your greatest danger will come from the 
 breaking up of your home religious habits. 
 In your old home church, if you were 
 tempted to neglect the regular services, you 
 knew you would be missed, and your absence 
 would be inquired into and commented upon. 
 In the city, as soon as you turn the first cor- 
 ner, on a Sunday morning, you are as 'cer- 
 tainly lost to observation, as if you were in 
 the wilderness. Nobody knows how you 
 spend your Sabbath. The braces are gone. 
 You are left to your own responsibility. 
 When you are thus cut loose from your moor- 
 ings, you are apt to drift with wind and tide 
 till you lose your reckoning. 
 
186 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 “ Oil, wliat’s tlie use of being so narrow 
 and bigoted ! One cburcb is just as good as 
 another. It broadens a man’s horizon to 
 hear all sides of a question. You’ve always 
 been tied up to one church ; now look around 
 awhile ; they are all alike to you here.” If 
 you take that advice, they will soon be all 
 alike to you, sure enough ; for you will care 
 for none of them. Another set of influences 
 more pungent and sensational will take you 
 captive. 
 
 They say that in India a diseased liver is in- 
 dicated by an increased appetite for sharp 
 condiments in the curry. The poorer the di- 
 gestion the more pepper and mustard. There 
 is something like this in morals. When we 
 are near God we relish plain, simple, substan- 
 stantial food ; but when we get spiritual dys- 
 pepsia and torpidity, we must have a highly 
 flavored, sensational style of preaching and 
 teaching. Thousands have fallen into this 
 snare, and you are no stronger than they. 
 
 I never Imew a young man come to the 
 
nr THE CITY. 
 
 187 
 
 city, and drift about liitber and thither, in- 
 stead of selecting a steady place of worship, 
 who did not fall into a habit of spending his 
 Sabbath afternoons calling upon young ladies, 
 and talking all manner of nonsense. The 
 hier garten and Sunday theatre are a not un- 
 usual ending of such a course of careless 
 living. 
 
 The position you take in regard to the 
 church will do much toward determining 
 your social standing. 
 
 While society in the city seems free and 
 unfenced, it is, after all, a conglomerate of 
 little communities, each of which is clearly 
 defined in its limitations. Ordinarily, when 
 one is admitted to a guild he is entitled to all 
 its rights and privileges. When he takes a 
 decided stand for religion by connecting him- 
 self with a church, the other members recog- 
 nize their obligation to look after him so- 
 cially. The exclusive few may be remiss in 
 their duties, but the more earnest and effi- 
 cient look after strangers in the congrega- 
 
188 TKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 tion, especially young men, wlio are more 
 easily entrapped by Satan, and are conse- 
 quently rarer in cliurcli circles. 
 
 If you go to the church sociable, you will 
 find some sweet-faced “ old maid,” or genial 
 matron, coming to introduce herself with an 
 air of cordial interest, and taking special 
 pains to make you feel acquainted and at 
 home. You must appreciate her kindness, 
 and make the most of it ; for she has left her 
 pretty home, her books and magazines, that 
 have lain on the table for weeks, waiting for 
 the leisure hour that never eomes, besides a 
 choice coterie of delightful friends, for this 
 noisy, clattering crowd, that she may make 
 just such strangers as you are pass an agree- 
 able evening, and learn to look toward the 
 church as their social as well as religious 
 home. If she asks you to call, do not hesi- 
 tate to accept the invitation. She is sincere ; 
 for she knows your danger a thousand times 
 better than you do yourself; and for her 
 Master’s sake she wants to help you to a safe 
 
m THE CITY. 189 
 
 standing place in tlie whirl in which you find 
 yourself. 
 
 Select your church. Present your letter. 
 Go to your class and prayer meetings, even if 
 they do not seem exactly like those of the 
 dear old home church. You will get used to 
 the new ways in a little while, and feel quite 
 at home in them; for you will find the Lord’s 
 cliildren are the same at heart the world 
 over. 
 
 Do not shy any one ; but make up your 
 mind to accept and return courtesies, and to 
 do your part toward making others, who 
 come in later than you, feel happy in their 
 new associations. You will find yourself 
 helped more by the little effort you put forth 
 for others, than in any other means of grace. 
 And you will also find, if you take the right 
 course, that these new surroundings help you 
 far more than the old ones did. But, above 
 all, you must be careful of your private re- 
 ligious habits. You must spend some time, 
 daily, in the study of the Bible, and have at 
 
190 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 least three seasons of private prayer each 
 day. 
 
 Spurgeon said that when he went away to 
 school, and the older boys tormented him, he 
 found in Christ a friend who was never too 
 busy to listen to him ; one who never made 
 fun of him, and never told. 
 
 As careful hygienic habits as are necessary 
 to keep the body in health, will keep the 
 mind and soul safe and sound. The greater 
 the temptation, resisted in God’s strength, 
 the more rapid the growth. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 trUDEB DISCrPLnSTB. 
 
 Ip you were enrolled as a student in a 
 literary institution, and no difficult lessons 
 were given you, no exercises prescribed, tliat 
 were meant to correct bad mental habits, you 
 would say, “ I do n’t see what good all this 
 is going to do me. I came here to learn. 
 These people try hard enough to make me 
 have a pleasant time, but they are not teach- 
 ing me anything.” 
 
 If lessons were given you, so difficult that 
 jmur brain reeled under the tug, you would 
 say, “ I need them : and the harder they are, 
 the sooner I will be through, and ready for 
 the actual work of life.” 
 
 In Christ’s school we have everything to 
 learn, and yet we wonder, sometimes, at the 
 
 191 
 
192 FE05I FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 severity of the lessons. We dread the disci- 
 pline, though we know that our seasons of 
 prosperity are our times of greatest danger. 
 In the old story, the wind and storm strove 
 in vain to steal the traveller’s cloak. The 
 more they raved, the more closely he drew it 
 about him ; but the sunshine made him loosen 
 its fastenings, and let it slip from liis shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 When all is bright, we become so occupied 
 with the Lord’s gifts that we forget the Giv- 
 er. We sin against Him in our ingratitude, 
 and are betrayed into that most hidden and 
 baneful sin, self-trust. 
 
 The Lord told Saul, when he was little in 
 his own sight he was made ruler over the 
 tribes of Israel. We feel our weakness, and 
 lean on God for help. He does the work, 
 and lets us stand by and see the result. W e 
 rejoice in the success. Friends flatter us, and 
 we forget that God did it all, — we, nothing. 
 We begin to trust our own strength, and just 
 in proportion as we do that, we cripple our- 
 
inSlX)ER DISCIPLINE. 
 
 193 
 
 selves, and lose our chance to be workers 
 together with God. 
 
 We attribute our unsuccess to this and 
 that, blaming circumstances, opportunities, 
 our friends and co-workers, anybody, any- 
 thing, except our own perverse self-trust. 
 Our fault is like an obscure disease that the 
 physician tracks with difficulty. It hides it- 
 self under a drawl or whine of self-depreci- 
 ation, and tries to pass itself off for hu- 
 mility. “Oh, “I’m so unworthy, — such a 
 weak and feeble instrument for the Lord to 
 use !” though we know very well that worthi- 
 ness and strength, per se, are not in us ; nei- 
 ther are they requirements of the Lord for 
 His workers ; for He has said He chooses the 
 weak things of the world to confound the 
 things that are mighty. 
 
 This counterfeit humility covers self-asser- 
 tion as a wet cloth does the face of a dead 
 man, and it is a most unsightly thing. 
 
 We need to see the infirmity, that we may 
 ■ ask God for its cure. 
 
194 FEOM FrFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 You have not succeeded in the Lord’s 
 work of late as you used to do. Competent 
 judges have pronounced you strong for your 
 years. Your powers have been acknowledged, 
 your services sought after. Lately nobody 
 seems to care for your help, because you fail to 
 bring to pass the things that ought to be 
 done. You prepare yourself more carefully 
 than ever. You try to reinforce your courage 
 by thiiddng over the commendatory things 
 that have been said of your efforts. All 
 this time you are doing the very opposite of 
 the thing that is the secret of success. Paul 
 says, “ When I am weak, then I am strong.” 
 When one feels his weakness, then he leans 
 on God, and the work is done. You do not 
 care to be regarded weak. Indeed, if any- 
 one hints at your inadequacy for the work 
 in hand, you are offended. Of course you 
 know you are very weak and unworthy, but 
 you have been trusted to do some things, and 
 they generally came out about right. You 
 have the word of God in your mind and on 
 
UNDER DISCIPLINB. 
 
 195 
 
 jDur tongue, but like one who has let slip 
 the syllable by wbicb the combination lock 
 of his safe was fastened, you have lost the 
 key by which to open the promises, and make 
 available their resources. 
 
 If you would ask God, and believe for the 
 answer, He would whisper again into your 
 soul the word of power ! He lets the tempter 
 loose on you a little, to drive you to feel 
 your need of grace. I think the Lord uses 
 Satan as a shepherd does his dog, to start up 
 the sheep that are straying out of the way. 
 
 You hear him growl and bark, and yon 
 are terrified. Like a silly sheep, you run 
 this way and that, as if you had quite lost 
 your head. 
 
 You redouble your zeal. You dash into 
 this and that Christian work. You try to 
 make up in energy what you seem to lack in 
 skill ; yet your efforts are unavailing. 
 
 You increase your knowledge of holy 
 tactics ; but results are nothing at all what 
 they were when you knew much less than 
 
196 'FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 you do now. Trials come. Friends fail. 
 Your way seems hedged on every hand. 
 You cry to God for deliverance, yet the 
 burdens seem to grow heavier. You say 
 with the Psalmist, “ Lover and friend hast 
 thou put far from me. All thy waves and 
 thy billows are gone over me.” You begin 
 to question God’s love and power, — to 
 doubt His care for His own work. You 
 have given yourself wholly to Him. You 
 have sacrificed everything that you knew 
 to give for His cause. You cannot under- 
 stand His apparent indifference. You cer- 
 tainly pray enough. Whole nights are spent 
 in restless, importunate prayer. Please permit 
 me a few suggestions. The Lord make them 
 helpful to you in these days of discipline. 
 
 Cast not away your confidence. God’s 
 interest in His own children is above 
 challenge. You dare not think the opposite 
 of that. Hold steadily your faith in Him, 
 though the heavens fall. Use your common 
 sense. Settle it that your trials are disciplin- 
 
in>rDER DISCIPLINE. 
 
 197 
 
 ary. They are meant to correct your faults. 
 Now search for the unsoundness. It lies far 
 beneath the surface, else you would have had 
 it set right long ago. It takes deep, severe 
 probing to find it; but God has taken you 
 in hand in answer to that prayer of yours, 
 “ Cleanse Thou me from secret faults : ” 
 and He is not going to let you go with 
 a half healing. When we desire it. He 
 makes thorough work. Ask the Holy Spirit 
 to search you, and see if there be any wicked 
 way in you. Bring your motives to the 
 straight-edge of the Word of God. Sur- 
 render unconditionally every controverted 
 point. Choose the Divine Will unflinching- 
 ly, because you know it is right, always and 
 only right. You seem to be losing what 
 property you have, and your chance to make 
 more. If God sees you can do more for Him 
 without a dollar, choose to have Him take it 
 all. Oh, but he lets others, who are better 
 than you hope to be, keep their property. 
 “ What is that to thee ? ” Christ says, 
 
198 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 “ follow thou Me.” He had not where to 
 lay His head ; and He may mean to promote 
 you by placing you on His staff, in this war ; 
 — giving yo;i the fare He chose for Himself. 
 The disciple is not above his Lord. 
 
 “ But I had so many plans for His work.” 
 Pie makes His own plans. The Captain of 
 our Salvation orders the campaign. Who are 
 you to dare touch His part of the work? 
 “ But it hurts to give all this up.” Then you 
 have found one unsound spot. Let the blood 
 of healing so cure you that there will be no 
 pain in choosing the Lord’s will in every- 
 thing. 
 
 You have often sung : — 
 
 “ Perish every fond ambition, 
 
 All I’ve sought, or hoped, or known.” 
 
 The Lord has taken you at your word, and is 
 answering the prayer. You have asked Him 
 to help you 
 
 “ Learn to scorn the praise of men. 
 
 And learn to lose with God. 
 
 For Jesus won the world through shame. 
 
 And beckons us that road.” 
 
iraDEE DISCrPLENE. 
 
 199 
 
 That is fine devotional sentiment; it seems 
 quite another thing when it comes into every 
 day life. These losses and crosses, property 
 taking whigs, and friends turning the cold 
 shoulder, are meant to teach you the mock- 
 ing poverty of worldly gain and honors. 
 
 You think you have learned the lesson, 
 and yet the rod is not removed. As long as 
 the discipline continues you may be sure its 
 purpose is not yet accomplished. God is 
 infinitely more anxious to have you relieved 
 from chastisement than you are to be free 
 from the pain. Scrutinize yet more carefully 
 your motives. Choose the will of God, even 
 at your own cost, yet more resolutely. And, 
 after all, you most overcome inner as well 
 as outer enemies by faith. Ask the Holy 
 Spirit to teach you what you need to know, 
 what the chastening is meant to drive you to 
 learn. Trust Him to answer the prayer. 
 Believe that He works in you to will and to 
 do of His own good pleasure. Thank Him for 
 the discipline, and for the lesson. Trust 
 
200 FEOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIO:. 
 
 Him to deliver you from the trial when Ho 
 sees it best, and go on like a happy child, 
 rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, 
 and in every thing giving thanks. 
 
 We are in a hostile land, on an enemy’s 
 shore. The world is in revolt against our 
 King, and it is the one thing to be done by 
 those who are loyal, to bring all the rest 
 back to their allegiance. War is not a holi- 
 day business, nor a gala day amusement. 
 We must learn to endure hardness as good 
 soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must 
 stand, and, having done all, stand. 
 
 Clan Grant in Scotland furnished for the 
 Napoleonic and Crimean wars, soldiers who 
 seemed invincible. Wellington said of his 
 Highlanders, “ They can run beside a trooper 
 all day, live on a handful of meal, sleep in 
 the snow, and fight always for victory.” The 
 device on the banner of Clan Grant was 
 a crag rising out of a moor ; and over it was 
 the legend, “ Stand fast. Crag Allache I ” And 
 that was the battle-cry of the clan, “ Stand 
 
tOSTDER DISCIPLmE. 
 
 201 
 
 fast, Crag Allache ! ” Euskm says of it, 
 “ Though mortised iuto the backbone of the 
 earth, Crag Allache might give way, but Clan 
 Grant, never ! ” The cry comes ringing down 
 the lines of Christ’s war-worn veterans, 
 “ Stand fast in the Lord I 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AT YOUE BEST. 
 
 We dare not question the fact that God 
 would have us at our best, every hour of 
 every day of every year. There never will 
 come a time when we can relax our hygienic 
 habits, and let our bodies grow weak and 
 heljjless for lack of care, our minds nerveless 
 and inactive, and our souls feeble and sickly, 
 without knowing that we are living, not ac- 
 cording to the will of God, but against its 
 declared dicta. The word must always be, 
 “No step backward, but always onward,^ 
 steadily, right on ! ” 
 
 Growth is one of the basal laws, that repre- 
 sent to us the Divine will. When we cease 
 to grow we begin to die. 
 
 Spiritual growth underlies the prosperity 
 202 
 
AT YOUR BEST. 
 
 203 
 
 of mind and body. We seldom feel the 
 “ ought ” holding us to the care of our physi- 
 cal life till we understand that this is a relig- 
 ious duty. Our best intellectual quickenings 
 and uplifts come to us through the direct illu- 
 mination of the Holy Spirit, stirring us to 
 know and do that we may the better glorify 
 God. 
 
 Hence, if we would be at our best in body 
 and mind, we must keep near the Lord, grow- 
 ing ahvays in His grace and knowledge. 
 
 One indication of spiritual growth is the mas- 
 tery of our prejudice, that seems an infirmity 
 that hardly has moral quality, because quite 
 out of our reach ; — like the color of our eyes, 
 determined by the constitution of things, and 
 altogether changeless. Not so. If we have 
 a prejudice against one, we prejudge him. 
 From some unfortunate act of his that has 
 come to our knowledge, some misinterpreta- 
 tion that has been given by a careless ac- 
 quaintance, we pass judgment upon him ; 
 and, though we may be too well trained to 
 
204 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 speak ill of liim, in our private tliinking he is 
 always a person not to be loved, or trusted, 
 or honored. Now this is a violation of a di- 
 rect command, “Judge not.” It is, also, al- 
 together out of harmony with the charity 
 that thinketh no evil. Much of our disci- 
 pline is meant to cure us of this, and similar 
 infirmities. The only remedy is in a direct 
 Divine healing touch, and that may be had 
 in answer to believing prayer. 
 
 If we keep at our best it must be indicated 
 by constant improvement in spiritual things ; 
 and in nothing is this more manifest than in 
 the increase of our faith. We must learn 
 directness in prayer. I have known Protes- 
 tants who went over their daily “ subjects of 
 prayer,” as formally as any Romanist could 
 do. When they became earnest in some re- 
 quest they were moved to present, they seem- 
 ed to rack their rhetoric to find forms in 
 which to present the petition, and yet avoid 
 using exactly the same words every time. 
 
 As you grow in faith you come to understand 
 
AT TOUR BEST. 
 
 205 
 
 tliat God is a Person, to be addressed accord- 
 ingly. You will learn to state your requests 
 in plain, simple, direct speech ; believing that 
 He prompted the prayer, that it is according 
 to His will, that He hears, and that conse- 
 quently you have the petitions. Tennyson 
 says, “More things are wrought by prayer 
 than this world dreams of.” More things 
 might be wrought by prayer than we have 
 ever dreamed of. What about the removing 
 of mountains, the subduing of kingdoms, the 
 putting to flight the armies of the aliens? If 
 we are at our best, we will be growing 
 toward the ability to do valiantly in God’s 
 strength. There is an active, as well as pas- 
 sive, attitude, for the believer. It takes se- 
 vere discipline to teach him to lie quietly in 
 the hands of the Lord ; and when He is once 
 completely subdued, it seems to take as sharp 
 a goading to make him use his strength on 
 the enemy. He must learn to be like the 
 shng, and also like the slinger’s arm. The 
 waves had to wash over the pebble, back and 
 
206 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 fortli, back and forth, year in and year out, 
 to bring it to sufficient smoothness, so that it 
 would go straight to the mark. At last one 
 whirl of the sling, and one jerk of the sliug- 
 er’s arm, sent it crashing through the skull of 
 the giant. 
 
 You little know your own possibilities. 
 Steam, when left to itself, floated out upon 
 the air in clouds, pretty, and useless; but 
 when caught, and held, and turned upon ma- 
 chinery, it was found to be equal tp the work 
 of the world. When Watt watched the lift- 
 ing of the tea-kettle lid, little did he dream 
 that he was on the track of a principle that 
 would, one day, draw millions of tons over 
 seas, across continents, through mountains, 
 never tiring, never resting, leaving human 
 brain and muscle with leisure for higher 
 achievements. 
 
 We are sent to school to learn the use of 
 speech, — in the Lord’s school we learn the 
 power of silence. They only are strong 
 who can rule their own spirit, holding their 
 
AT TOUR BEST. 
 
 207 
 
 strength till the Lord gives the word to 
 speak. 
 
 When the soul is full of indignation 
 against wrong, burning words will slip their 
 leash and dart forth, in spite of judgment 
 and will, unless one has himself well in hand. 
 I remember a scene on a convention floor 
 where a strong advocate of a*good cause was 
 thrown off his guard by the tantahzing 
 questions of one who was evidently deter- 
 mined to drive him from his position by fair 
 means or foul. He fenced well for a little 
 while, till his sensibilities were stung by a 
 specially provoking question. Then he for- 
 got liimself, and gave the rein to his sarcasm. 
 He gave his opponent a sharp, well-deserved 
 rebuke, but he lost his cause. If he had 
 held steady under that last galling fire, he 
 would probably have won. 
 
 Do you know how WiUiam of Orange 
 came to be called “the Silent?” A gay 
 young nobleman, he was riding one day with 
 a French prince, when the latter laid open to 
 
208 FKOM FEb'TEEN TO TWENTT-FrVB. 
 
 him a scheme that the kings of southwestern 
 Europe had on the tapis for the destruction 
 of the Protestants in Holland. The iron 
 entered William’s soul ; but he did not betray 
 himself by so much as the twitch of a 
 muscle. From that hour, however, his will 
 was set as a flint to save his country. He 
 stood like a Gibraltar against the storm of 
 persecution that burst upon the Netherlands. 
 He is recognized not only as a fearless, self- 
 sacrificing patriot, but a statesman of the 
 first rank. We associate his greatness with 
 his power over himself, keeping silence when 
 another would have spoken, and, by speak- 
 ing, ruined the cause for which he stood. 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ gave us an example 
 of self-control. The impulsive and erratic 
 Peter resented the indignities heaped upon 
 the Master, and striking about with his 
 sword, he eut off a man’s ear. Christ, though 
 staggering under the load of that awful, 
 redemptive agony, stopped, and by miracle 
 repaired the damage that His servant had 
 
AT YOTJE BEST. 
 
 209 
 
 done, reminding Mm that He could bring 
 twelve legions of His own strong angels upon 
 the field by a wave of the hand. 
 
 In bringing us to our best, God gives us 
 easier or heavier lessons according to the 
 stuff of wMch we are made, and the work He 
 has for us to do. The lapidary gives weeks 
 to the polisMng of a diamond, while a 
 cheaper stone can be finished in far less time. 
 
 Before He puts into our hands the best 
 work of wMch we are capable. He tests our 
 strength to the utmost, and also our reliabili- 
 ty. In the testing-room of a watch factory, 
 I saw watches that were being proved before 
 they were allowed to “ time ” railway trains, 
 where the loss of a minute might destroy a 
 hundred lives. They had to stand on their 
 heads and lie on their faces, to be shut up in 
 ice-chests, and then in hot ovens. Their 
 value depended upon their unvarying relia- 
 bility. When we ask God to use us fcr large 
 work, the first question is, “ Can you drink of 
 the cup, and be baptized with the baptism? ” 
 
210 FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 If we answer, “We are able,” we may expect 
 sucb testings as will give ample exercise for 
 our faith, till we have shown that we are 
 dead, and our lives hid with Christ in God. 
 
 Peter had an energetic, fiery soul, capable 
 of taking in so much of God, that under his 
 first sermon after the Pentecostal baptism, 
 three thousand were converted. With his 
 natural leadership, he must have come to 
 think himself somewhat essential to the im- 
 perilled infant church. The Lord had to 
 teach him that the excellency of the power is 
 not of men, but of God, and no fiesh can glo- 
 ry in His presence. So the first thing Bishop 
 Peter knew, he was in prison, with a strong 
 probability of losing his head. No doubt he 
 had something of a struggle to get the care 
 of the church back where it belonged, in the 
 hands of the Lord. He reached the point of 
 perfect submission and rest in God, for he lay 
 asleep between two soldiers, when the angel 
 touched him, and led him out of the prison, 
 the great iron gate swinging open before liim 
 of its own accord. 
 
AT YOTJE BEST. 
 
 211 
 
 Only through the infinite grace of God 
 can one learn to be so submissiye that for 
 Christ’s sake he will become the servant of 
 all, never asserting himself, or “ standing up 
 for his rights ” ; and at the same time using 
 every power to its utmost in aggressive 
 war for the conquest of the world for his 
 Master. The two roles seem utterly incom- 
 patible ; and so they are except by the power 
 of the Lord Jesus. The only way that one 
 can master this paradox, is to be dead to self 
 and sin, and alive unto God. He will find 
 the more completely “ dead ” he is, the more 
 fully “ alive ” he will be. He will seek noth- 
 ing for himself, but every dollar, every hour, 
 every ounce of strength, will be made to do 
 its utmost for the Lord. 
 
 A successful preacher was asked how he 
 prepared and preached Ins sermons. He said, 
 “ I prepare as carefully as if I had it all to 
 do ; then I trust God as completely as if I 
 had made no preparation at all.” That may 
 illustrate your consecration to the Lord. 
 
212 FROM FITTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 You use your powers as carefully and skill- 
 fully as if all depended upon your efforts ; and 
 at the same time, you trust Him as if you 
 never expected to do another stroke of work, 
 and had actually done nothing. 
 
 This seems like giving you who are just 
 fairly beginning the earnest work and study 
 of life, advanced lessons, such as are under- 
 stood only by those in whose hair the pelting 
 snowballs have caught. Yet I believe in 
 holding before each a high ideal, from the 
 first. (^Read only the best authors, if you 
 would learn to express yourself properly. 
 Listen often to classical music, if you would 
 form a correct musical taste. Study the best 
 pictures, if you would learn to discriminate 
 in works of art. , • 
 
 So in spiritual things: instead of looking 
 into the life of a frail, selfish, average profes- 
 sor of piety, and thinking that is as well as 
 you need ever hope to do, associate in thought 
 with the best and highest. Better still, keep 
 before your mind the Model Young Man of 
 
AT YOUE BEST. 
 
 213 
 
 Galilee. As He was in tlie world, so are you. 
 Your Elder Brother, — study Him, imitate 
 Him, and let Him dwell in your heart by 
 faith. You can do all things through His 
 strength. You can be more than conqueror 
 through Him that hath loved you and given 
 Himself for you. His gift of love to you is, 
 not only eternal life beyond the grave, but 
 the privilege of representing Him even in this 
 life where people are so crooked and perverse. 
 
 I remember a legend of a prince who had 
 promised to send the princess whom he was 
 to marry, a valuable betrothal present. When 
 it came, and was taken from the box, behold 
 it was only an iron egg. She was displeased 
 and threw it down. When it struck the 
 marble floor, it burst open, showing a silver 
 case. She took it up and began to examine 
 it, and presently she touched a spring that 
 opened the case, and disclosed a golden yolk. 
 After a little that was opened by another 
 spring, and within it was a crown of rubies, 
 and within that a diamond ring — the be- 
 
214 FKOM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 trotlial ring. Christ’s token of love to us 
 is in the form of severe discipline, testing our 
 trust in Him, or plain, simple, hard work, 
 which we may do from love to Him. If we 
 receive the gift, and make the most of it for 
 His sake, we shall find within it the crown of 
 our royalty, — kings and priests unto God, — 
 and the ring that makes us His own forever. 
 
 May the Lord give each one of my class of 
 twenty thousand an inhpitance incorruptible, 
 undefiled, and that fadeth not away. 
 
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