- Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/secretofsuccesso01dale The Secret of Success FINGER POSTS UN THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE. By John T. Dale, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN V. FARWELL. "Not what I have, but what I do, is ray kingdom," — Carlyle. FLEMING H. REV ELL, NEW YORK: CHICAGO: 12 Bible House, Astor Place. 148 and 150 Madison Street. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by FLEMING H. REVELL, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. TO ALL THOSE ASPIRING SOULS WHO ARE STRUGGLING TO ATTAIN TRUE DEVELOPMENT OF MIND AND HEART, SUCCESS IN LIFE, AND HAPPINESS HERE AND BEYOND, THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY " It was with profound wisdom that the Romans called by the same name, courage and virtue. There is, in fact, no virtue, properly so called, without victory over ourselves ; and what costs us nothing, is worth nothing." — De Maistre. (Contents. Page. Pass. Have a Purpose „ 7 Kindness to Animals . 2^0 Tact .... 12 The Secret of a Happy Life 2^0 Make Ready for Opportunity l 9 Love of the Beautiful 246 Enthusiasm _ 22 How to Be Beautiful 248 Rely on Yourself 27 Manners and Dress What Minutes Are Worth 3° Mock Modesty . 2 57 The Price of Success 40 Make the Most of Yourself 259 Choice of Companions . 46 Guard the Weak Spot 263 Enjoy Life as You Go 51 How Great Men Have Risen 266 Little Things _ 56 A Literary Life _ 269 Bodily Vigor ... 61 Public Speaking 276 Drink and Its Doings . 64 The Lawyer . 290 Make Home Attractive 71 The Preacher ... 299 The Mission of Music . 78 The Teacher ... 306 A Sunny Temper 84 Your Duty in Politics 312 Be Patient _ 87 True Culture and Progress 317 Building Character _ 93 Good Talkers and Talking . 3 2 3 What Reading Will Do 100 Consolation For the Dull 335 What to Read . 107 Stage Struck _ 34° How to Read _ 115 How Shall We Amuse Our- Perils of Skepticism 120 selves _ 344 Study of the Bible 130 What Shall Be Done with the The Christian Life . 142 Boys? _ 34S A Talk to Boys . 148 What Shall Be Done with the A Talk to Girls 161 Girls? .... 353 Leaving Home _ 168 Shall I Send to College? 357 Female Society 173 What Young Men Have Done 36i Woman's Sphere and Mission 176 What Pluck Can Do . 366 Marriage _ 1S4 Hard Work Better Than The Mother's Influence 190 Genius _ 373 Influence of Children 200 The Perils of Overwork . 378 Training Children . 214 How to Keep Well 383 Be Kind 225 The Sin of Worry . 390 Our Heavenly Home . 394 E? PREFACE. OR many years the author has been gathering from various sources the material for this work, and has had in mind the plan which he has carried out in this volume. This work was not conceived as a mere whim, without a purpose, but was begun with the earnest desire to assist those who are striving to gain character, intellectual power, business suc- cess, and the merited esteem of their fellow men. To the young, it aims to bring radiant hope, wise counsel, and friendly warning ; to those in middle life, practical suggestions and hearty en- couragement ; and to the aged, calm and sooth- ing reflection. The author has not lacked opportunities for observation. Coming from a country home to the great metropolis of the Northwest, he has been for many years in the whirl of a busy life ; he has seen the growth and development of suc- 5 6 PREFACE. cessful careers, the overthrow of great financiers and fortunes, and the accumulation of great wealth by men of humble beginnings. He has had the opportunity of knowing that many men become involved in financial or moral ruin ; not because they lack ability or good intentions, but because, away back, they did not have the word of caution or advice which might have turned the course of their lives, and led them up- ward instead of downward. A wise maxim, or rule of business, has saved many a fortune ; a word of caution has saved many a precious life, and a word of warning many a soul. That such maxims and words may be found within these pages, and that many may take counsel and courage from them, is the sincere desire of The Author. INTRODUCTION. By John V. Farwell. Every young man who is desirous of making his life bud, blossom, and become fruitful in all that is good and sublime, should remember these two things — that goodness is the foundation upon which sub- limity rests, and that he must dedicate every power of body and mind to achieve a result so glorious. In other words, he must make a business of it. This result was never awarded to man simply be- cause he asked for it, nor has it ever fallen out by chance, nor been given as the consequence of unin- telligent labor. It is a great blessing to have inherited a good con- stitution and strong mental characteristics. They make a splendid capital for investment. But after all, it is the labor and the struggle of the man, in their investment and use, that bring the priceless return. General Grant was probably born a soldier. But study the profound mental exertion which he put forth to make those natural gifts crush the most powerful rebellion against constitutional government that ever broke the peace of nations ! See that exhibition of the concentrated energy of his will, when he replied to General Buckner's request for him to name the con- ditions for the surrender of Fort Donelson : " Unconditional surrender, or I will move upon your works!' vi INTRODUCTION. The far-sighted Lincoln beheld in this expression, the revelation of the greatest soldier of the age, and he advanced him as rapidly as possible to the com- mand of all the armies. Such revelations as this, of mental power and pur- pose are always detected by men in commanding posi- tions, and they are ever on the lookout for young men to carry out their plans. There are more great opportunities than there are great men. Some one who has a place of power to bestow, will give it to you, if you have the capacity to fill it. There's always room on the "top shelf. 1 ' The author of this book presents the names of Lincoln, Grant and Garfield, as proofs to all ambitious young men, that they need not be discouraged at find- ing themselves in a lowly position. These heroes worked their way up from obscurity into the most powerful place of usefulness the world has ever known, by carefully and conscientiously using the talents which God had given them. These were eminently self-made men, after God's fiat had made them of the right material. Modest to a fault, they worshiped not themselves as makers of their own fortunes, but the God who had endowed them with the power to do it. These names are given here as cotemporary with the young men who will read this book, while there are hundreds of others of all ages and nations, whose names have been introduced into the pages of history to let the light of their example so shine, that bor- rowed rays may reflect the perfect man upon the minds of to-day's youthful aspirants. INTRODUCTION. Vll That nation has reason for pride and hope which sees a generation of young men growing up who are marked by lofty purposes and a noble character. No nation has had to form the character of her sons under-greater disadvantages than ours. For many years Europe has used America for a dumping ground, into which she has cast her moral and political refuse. At a recent 4th of July celebration in London, where three hundred American delegates to the World's Sunday School Convention met to confess their patriotism, an eminent Englishman said that the strongest proof of our national greatness was in our ability to make good citizens out of such wretched material. I reminded him of the terrible earnestness of our purpose to do this, as revealed in the execution of the Chicago anarchists. The significance of that tragic event lay in the determination to make these men an example to all those who refused to adopt the lofty standard of American citizenship. Beside this great obstacle to the development of a noble generation of young men, we may place an- other, not less difficult to surmount. I refer to that pernicious literature with which American greed for gain is flooding our land, and which panders to all the natural lusts of youth. Yellow covered novels, police expositions of crime, unblushing publications of infidel and atheistic views, are being circulated with enormous rapidity, and are steadily corrupting the rising generation. It is sad and discouraging to see the railroad news agents em- viii INTRODUCTION. ployed in their dissemination, and I trust that this vol- ume may be placed in their hands for sale, and that the same persevering energy which has through this same agency, distributed no less than 100,000 of D. L. Moody's books, may make such works displace the vile trash too often sold to the young and innocent. The author of this work has evidently made a suc- cessful effort to furnish another antidote for this worse than light literature. It is an inspiration itself to read this volume, and to feel, in reading, that it is the prophecy of myriads of other readers among the young, who will catch the inspiration of its pages and lay such a foundation of character as cannot fail to demonstrate the secret of successful living. I often look with pity upon young men who sit reading on the trains, such works as cannot but pro- duce moral and mental corruption. They say they are only " killing time but in re- ality are killing the best things in themselves. Follow that young man over there, who is so ab- sorbed, and whose excited face reveals the inward tumult of his heart — follow him, I say, for the next few years, and you will soon discover that he has be- come an actor in the scenes of folly or vice, about which he is now only a reader. His sallow face, his bleared eyes, his wasted form, will tell you plainer than words, the dreadful experiences through which these books have led him. Just across the aisle from him is another young man who would scorn to read the stories of lust ; but he has seized upon and is devouring a noted infidel's attack upon the Scriptures. He follows the great INTRODUCTION. ix skeptic as he skillfully eliminates the supernatural— the very spinal column — from the frame work of that venerable book, leaving it only a shape- less jellyfish. See him sneer as he reads this ven- omous assault upon the story of Lazarus! He joins Herod, the murderer of Jesus, and again crucifies the Son of God afresh. He is a philosopher ! He be- lieves only what can be seen and heard ! But alas, in a few short years, when trouble comes, the poor fel- low finds himself drifting on life's sea, without chart, compass, or anchor. Our country is full of such vic- tims of pernicious literature. It were well if such young men could read the 1 2th chapter of the Book of Acts, and follow up that reading with a study of the church statistics of to-day. They will be the best answer to speculative infidelity, and show whether the " gates of hell" are prevailing against the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Let me ask you to look at one other young man on this same train. He has in his hand and is greedily devouring it, some standard history* or treatise on some scientific question. All his fac- ulties are awake, and he grapples with great prob- lems. A few short hours ago he opened the door of the old farmhouse where he had been carefully reared, and started out to achieve a career. His mother followed him to the gate, imprinted her fare- well kiss upon his lips and with tearful eyes bade him read good books, associate with good companions, and allow himself only pure amusements. He looks as if he had determined to follow that advice, and if he does, X INTRODUCTION. you may be sure that it will not be many years before he will occupy an enviable place in the world. Good books, good companions, pure amusements and noble purposes ! — Ah, young men, keep them always in your hearts. Above all other books, cherish the old Bible. I often think of the remark of one of England's greatest men : " I have," said he, " objects in life so deeply interesting as they proceed, and so full of promise as to the magnitude of their results, that they ought to absorb my whole being. I would not exchange objects in life with any living man." The author of these words accomplished the abo- lition of slavery in the British colonies by act of Par- liament. Reader, you may never have the opportunity to accomplish results of such magnitude, but you can achieve a noble life. An unseen violet is no less beau- tiful than one which every eye beholds. A work is no less great, although its author is forgotten or un- known. Do your work for God, the author of your being, and he will reward you if it is well done. I hope and I believe that the end which the author of this book so earnestly and so wisely aims at —the ennobling of the moral natures of young men, will be, to a large degree, accomplished by its whole- some, truthful pages, and thus prove a true finger-post to the real secret of success. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. P?AYE A ©UI^POSB. DESCRIPTION has been given of some explorers in the Arctic regions who found a vessel whose crew was frozen into statues of ice. The helmsman was at his post with his hand on the helm; the captain was at his log book, the pen in his fingers, with which he had written the words, " For a whole day the steward has been trying in vain to kindle the lost fire." Below, tjie form of the steward was found, with flint and tinder in his hands, while on the deck, was the watchman, looking off, — his frozen eyes fixed with the gaze of despair. They had the form and attitude of living men, but that only. This might be used as an illustration of those who live without a purpose; they have the forms, the features, the organisms of the living, but their lives are stagnated and petrified by the dead inertia of list- lessness and inaction. 7 8 HAVE A PURPOSE. Samuel Johnson, the great moralist, said: u Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more and better than in past times. The mind is elevated and enlarged by mere purposes, even though they end as they begin, by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not practice. 1 ' There is a saying, " Aim high; but not so high as not to be able to hit anything.''' Some writer has said: "A highly successful career must have some one aim above every other. Jacks-of- all-trades are useful in many ways, but their very ver- satility operates against their winning great success in any line. The specialists succeed best. Whatever the specialty be, the concentration of effort which it demands accomplishes much. True success depends on deciding what really is the highest object in life, and what the relative value of other objects, and on the proportioning of efforts accordingly." It is a sad truth that " The greater part of all the mischief of the world, comes from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.' 7 The scientist, Louis Agassiz, when asked by a friend why, with his ability, he was satisfied with so small an income, said, " I have enough. I have no time to make money. Life is not sufficiently long to enable a HAVE A PURPOSE. 9 man to get rich and do his duty to his fellow-men at the same time. 1 ' His purpose in life was to be a teacher, and an expounder of Nature; and no tempta- tion of mere money getting: could swerve him from his course. Canon Farrar thus forcibly illustrates this thought: " One of the great English writers, when he went to college, threw away the first two years of his time in gossip, extravagance and noise. One morning one of the idle set whom he had joined, came into his room before he had risen, and said, ' Paley, you are a fool. You are wasting your time and wasting your chances. Your present way of going on is silly and senseless. Do not throw away your life and your time. 7 That man did what a friend ought to do, and saved for England and for the Church the genius and services of a great man. 1 I was so struck with what he said,' says Paley, k that I lay in bed till I had formed my plan. I ordered my fire to be always laid over-night. I rose at five, read steadily all day, allotted to each portion of time its proper branch of study, and thus, on taking my bachelor's degree, I became senior wrangler.' It was something to make this intellectual resolve, and so redeem a life from meaningless frivolity; but how infinitely more important is it to do so mor- ally, to rouse ourselves, ere it be too late, from the criminal folly and frivolity of moral indifference ! The means are open to us all. They are seriousness, thought, prayer, a diligent endeavor to obtain and IO HAVE A PURPOSE. rightly use the abounding grace of God. May every one of us who is already trying to walk aright, make his resolve to go straight on. May every one of us who is wavering in his choice, decide at once and for- ever. May every one of us who has gone astray, struggle back, ere it be too late, to the narrow path. " That is the sum of a noble life. To act thus is the loftiest of all objects. And, as it is the loftiest of all objects, so it is likewise the richest of all rewards. It is to serve God here and to enjoy him forever in heaven hereafter." At the battle of the Alma, in the Crimean war, one of the ensigns stood his ground when the regiment re- treated. The captain shouted to him to bring back the colors, but the ensign replied, " Bring the men up to the colors." So in the battle of life, let us plant ourselves on a high, noble purpose, never to abandon it in retreat, but to hold fast our ground to victory. It has been truly said that "great minds have purposes, others have wishes," and that, " The most successful people are those who have but one object and pursue it with great persistence." "The great art," says Goethe, "is to judiciously limit and isolate one's self." Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a man who possessed a loveable heart and one of the finest intellects of any man in his age. He had a descriptive power and a flow of language that was remarkable. Christopher North, his contemporary and critic, speaks of his con- HAVE A PURPOSE. I I versation as "eloquent music without a discord; full, ample, inexhaustible, almost divine." In his loftiest moods he spoke like one inspired. The ear was de- lighted with the melodious words that flowed from " an epicure in sound.' ' But there was little nourish- ment in these musical utterances of one who seemed to have given himself up to u the lazy luxury of poetical outpouring." And this great man with all his marvelous powers was a failure, and disap- pointed the expectations of his friends, because he lacked a purpose in life. He was indolent, became addicted to the use of opium, which destroyed mind and body, and his life went out embittered and cheer- less. Such a life is a warning to all who rely on gen- ius and inspiration for success instead of steady appli- cation and industry. We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our Future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade. The tissue of the life to be We weave with colors all our own; And in the field of Destiny, We reap as we have sown. — Whit tier. <§AGUi. ^yHj priceless discretion which makes the wise ^ man to differ from the fool; that invaluable ACT has been defined "as the judicious use of our powers at the right time." It is that knowledge by which we know how to make the world about us a stepping-stone to our success, and all the conditions around us but so many rounds in the ladder by which we rise. It is said that on one occasion the first Napoleon rode in advance of his army and came to a river over which it was necessary that it should pass. There was no bridge, but the imperious commander was not daunted by this obstacle, and immediately began preparations to cross it. Calling his engineer, he said, u Give me the breadth of this stream." "Sire* I cannot,"" was the reply. "My scientific instruments are with the army, and we are ten miles in advance of it." The great Emperor repeated his command, " Tell me the breadth of this stream instantly. 1 ' " Sire, be reasonable." The indomitable general replied, " Ascertain at once the width of this river, or you shall be deposed from your office." Now comes the triumph of tact, for the en- gineer proved himself equal to the emergency. He drew down the cap piece on his helmet till the edge of I 2 TACT. 15 it just touched the bank on the other side of the river, and then turned around carefully on his heel, and marked the point where the cap piece touched the ground on the side of the river where he stood. He then paced the distance, and turning to the Emperor said, " This is the breadth of the stream, approx- imately." He had tact, and was at once promoted for the success of his ready and simple expedient. That engineer might have had the most profound knowledge of mathematics, and of all the abstruse and complicated details incident to his profession, but with- out tact all would have been of no avail. One of the greatest triumphs of Daniel O'Connell was in the management of a witness, during which he revealed wonderful tact. He was employed by parties interested in a will, which they suspected to be fraudu lent, to investigate the matter at the time it was being proven. He noticed that one of the witnesses repeated several times the words " that life was in the testator when he signed the will. 1 "' " Now," said O'Connell, " will you swear that there was not a live fly in the dead man's mouth when his hand was placed on the will?" The witness, terror-stricken at the discoverv of the in- iquitous scheme, fell on his knees, and confessed that it was so. Precisely the same quality is needed in the practical concerns of life, — a business man comes to an obstacle which appears insurmountable; he must have tact to make use of his resources so as to overcome it, or he TACT. may be overwhelmed with destruction. And not only in business affairs, but in the every-day concerns of life, tact is needed to smooth over difficulties and to make the best of untoward circumstances. Byron, who was not only a great poet, but an acute observer of men and things, says: " A man may have prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, yet, want- ing tact, may and must render those around him un- comfortable, and so be unhappy himself. I consider tact the real panacea of life, and have observed that those who most completely possess it are remarkable for feel- ing and sentiment, while, on the contrary, the persons most deficient in it are obtuse, frivolous or insensible. To possess tact it is necessary to have fine perception and to be sensitive." Tact is one of the qualities of great minds, and makes them master of all situations. No place so awkward but that it puts one at his ease, no combina- tion of circumstances so complex and embarrassing but what it can control and regulate. When the im- mortal Shakespeare was acting in one of his own inim- itable plays before Queen Elizabeth, she occupied a box near the stage, and purposely dropped her hand- kerchief on the stage to see whether the great dramatist would be discomposed. But he had a native tact, and proved himself readier than all the heroes he created, for he saw the fallen handkerchief, and calmly said, as if the words were in the play, " And now, before we further go, we will pick up our sister's handkerchief," TACT. 15 and then advanced, picked it up and presented it to the queen, who bowed, pleased with the tact and presence of mind of the great bard. The late Dr. Guthrie was once preaching in a large church in Edinburgh, which was crowded with a fash- ionable congregation. After the psalm was given out the leader of the music started a tune, but it would not go to the words. He tried another, but with no better success. The poor man was now completely bewildered, but tried a third, and broke down. In this embarrassing dilemma, which threatened to dis- compose the audience and to spoil the entire ser- vice, Dr. Guthrie showed his ready tact, and rising, said, " Let us pray," and the awkward mishap was over. How often, by a single stroke of tact, has an ordi- nary accident or circumstance been made to pave the way for a grand success. Mr. Coutts, the founder of the great bank which has since become so enormously rich, by exercising a little tact, laid the foundation of his extended patronage. He sent word to a distin- guished peer, who, he had heard, had been refused a loan of ten thousand pounds, to call at his office. The peer, much surprised, called, and Coutts offered to make the loan. " But I can give no security," said the nobleman. " Your lordship's note of hand will be quite sufficient," was the prompt reply. The loan was accepted, and five thousand pounds was left on deposit. The story soon became widely circulated, other peers i6 TACT. transferred their funds, and then the king, after a per- sonal interview with the banker, being pleased with his modesty and intelligence, placed the royal funds in the institution, and thus it became the favorite bank of the aristocracy. True, it may be said that this was a bold experiment, and contrary to safe bank- ing rules, but it must be remembered that it is the province of tact to undertake and accomplish that which others think impossible, and it requires as much tact to know what to do, as how to do it. One of the remarkable qualities of Bismarck, the great German statesman, is his ready tact. By this he has managed men and manipulated events, as if the map of Europe was a huge chess board and he the consummate player, making his combinations and moving them about at his will. An incident is narrated of him in the early part of his diplomatic career, which shows his coolness and tact. He was ap- pointed an ambassador to the German Confederation, and the president of the august body was an Austrian, a man of a haughty and arrogant manner, and disposed to make Bismarck feel his relative inferiority. At Bis- marck's first visit of ceremony, the Austrian received him in his shirt sleeves. Bismarck no sooner caught sight of him than he called out, " You are quite right, Excellency, it is awfully hot here," and at once pulled off his own coat, in the coolest manner imaginable. The president was completely taken aback, jumped up anc put on his uniform, and apologized for his inadvertence TACT. 17 How skillfully the man of tact will turn an embar- rassing circumstance to his advantage, and make an awkward event, which would have discomfited others, a fresh victory over opposing forces. The celebrated Lord North was once in the midst of an important speech in Parliament, when he was interrupted by the furious barking of a dog, which had got in the hall. The house roared with laughter, in which the speaker heartily joined. When order was restored, he turned to the chairman and said, " Sir, I was interrupted by a new speaker — was he a member from Barkshire f — (Berkshire), but as his argument is concluded I will resume mine.*" Afresh burst of laughter followed this allusion, and then the house gave him their undivided attention. Daniel O'Connell was once addressing a large polit- ical meeting, which was held in Covent Garden Thea- tre, in London. There was a disturbance occasioned by the obstinacy of a man who persisted in standing up in the pit. " Sit down, 17 and "Put him out,*" were shouted from all parts of the house, but the fellow was determined to stand. The police interfered, but they did not succeed in quieting the disorder. At last the great orator waved his hand for silence, and then said, " Pray, let the worthy gentleman have his way; he's a tailor and wants to rest himself." The obstinate man sat down immediately, amid thunders of applause from every portion of the vast assembly. The want of tact in such an emergency would have allowed the meeting 2 18 TACT. to be turned to an uncontrollable mob, to the disgrace and mortification of all connected with it; but, with tact, the disorder became a huge wave which bore the orator to greater heights of popularity, and made him more completely the idol of the people. An old Scotch clergyman, when he came to a text too wonderful for him to comprehend or explain, instead of attempting to convince his hearers by a formidable array of words that he was master of its meaning, would say, " Brethren, this is a difficult text, a very difficult text, but do not let us be discouraged by it. Let us look the difficulty boldly in the face, and pass on" And so tact will crumble the stumbling stones and smooth down the obstacles in any of the walks of life, and although it may not have the brilliancy of genius, yet in its practical adaptation to all circum- stances, it has an imperial power to lead its possessor to the grandest success. Bacon has said, " More men advance by the lesser arts of discretion than by the greater adornments of wit and science," and doubtless the great philosopher meant by discretion that invalua- ble tact which can always perceive in any emergency how to do the right thing in the right way. 0}a^b I^bady for Opportunity. HAKESPEARE, that " myriad-minded bard," whose profound knowledge of human r^^t nature and marvelous perception of the phases and incidents of daily life have made his immortal works a store-house of wisdom, has truly said: ' ' There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." What man who has arrived at maturity does not sometimes sadly look back over the departed years, and mark the many opportunities, rich and golden, which presented themselves to him, but which he let pass beyond his grasp forever, because he was not ready to seize them! Here is the difference between success and failure in life; the successful man is ready to be borne onward by the tide of opportune circumstances, — ready for vic- tories when good fortune consents to be his ally and standard bearer. One great secret of success in life is to make ready for opportunity, so that when new preferment and re- sponsibilities come to us, we may be able to accept them, and perform the duties they bring, without abusing the trust reposed in us. How many spend their lives groveling in the mire of conscious in- feriority, because they have utterly failed to take ad- vantage of favorable opportunities. The merchant has *9 20 MAKE READY FOR OPPORTUNITY. a new and important channel of trade opened to him, but his finances are so disordered, or his experience and knowledge of his business so limited, that he can- not secure the prize, and it passes into the hands of his shrewd and enterprising rival. The physician, strug- gling to obtain a foothold in the community, is finally called in an important and critical emergency. Had he been capable, and ready to treat the case successfully, it would have established his reputation, and been a stepping-stone to a lucrative practice and a handsome competence; but, instead of this, the complications and requirements of the case far exceeded his ability to master them, and the very event which should have been an occasion of victory, proved a very Waterloo of defeat. The young lawyer, after waiting patiently for an opportunity to prove to his acquaintances his professional skill, at length is called to an important case. If he comes thoroughly prepared, — his mind sharpened and disciplined by years of careful prepar- atory training, — freighted with the principles and prec- edents which are applicable to the questions at issue, and ready to seize upon the vital and salient points in the case, how skillfully he makes this trial of his skill a sword with which to win fresh victories in his profes- sional arena. But if the occasion finds him unready, not all the mortification and regret that will haunt his mem- ory like a spectre of evil, will ever atone for the defeat, or bring back the golden opportunity forever lost. One of the brightest names in the annals of jnns- MAKE READY FOR OPPORTUNITY. 21 prudence was Lord Mansfield, who raised himself from the quarter-deck of a man-of-war to the exalted position of Lord Chancellor of England. When a young man, just admitted to the bar, and having de- pendent upon him a young family, he was waiting in poverty for patronage, and eagerly looking for some opportunity to show that he was ready for clients, and deserved them. At length, as with most men, his op- portunity came. He was invited to a supper, at which there was an old sea captain who had an important case on hand. During the evening, the merits of the case became the subject for discussion, and young Mansfield threw himself into the debate, and displayed such a warmth of eloquence, and such a conception of the principles applicable to the facts, that before they separated Mansfield had found a client and was en- trusted with the suit. When the case came to trial and Mansfield got on his feet to make his argument, he showed that he had mastered the case in all its bearings. He made a magnificent plea, and astonished the court, his client and all the barristers present by his wonderful forensic ability. From that time he be- came known as one of the foremost lawyers of his age, and honors and wealth poured in upon him. And so there comes a time in the life of every man when a brilliant opportunity is within his reach if he is but ready for it. If not ready, it passes from his sight forever, and leaves him but a stinging recollec- tion of what he has lost. Enthusiasm. Y enthusiasm we do not mean, as Warbur- ton defined it, "a temper of mind in which the imagination has got the better of the judg- ment," but rather an intense earnestness to carry forward the chosen work and purpose of life. An excellent illustration of this has been given by a talented writer in an anecdote he relates of a promising college student, who many years ago made a visit, during his vacation, to the house of a Col. Loring, in Virginia. He proceeds to say that the young guest, who had a powerful intellect and whose morals and manners were irreproachable, became a favorite with the master of the house, Col. Loring, then nearly eighty years of age. One evening, seated around the fire, the New Englander was moved to an unwonted confidence. "Can you tell me, Col. Loring," he said, in his calm monotone, "why I am unpopular in eollege? I rank high in my classes. I think my motives are pure. I am never knowingly guilty of a vice or a rudeness. Yet men with half my ability can carry the college with them in any measure, while I am barely tolerated by the students, and am an object of perfect indifference to the professors." 22 ENTHUSIASM. 23 Col. Loring skillfully evaded the question, being too courteous to reply frankly, but his eye fell upon the lire, which was well built, but covered with gray ashes. kk Stir the fire, Neddy, stir the Are!" he said. The young visitor, a little surprised at the unusual request, took the poker and raked the coals, letting the air freely circulate. The flames broke out, and the heat became so intense that they all drew back. "It is always a good plan to let the Are burn." said the colonel, quietly. The young man shot a keen glance of comprehension at him, but said nothing. " Neddy became in his middle as:e one of the fore- most figures in New England," his old friend would say in ending the story. kk He was a scholar, a states- man, and an orator. All the people admired and were proud of him. Yet I doubt if he ever carried a meas- ure in Congress, or persuaded a single man ever to change his opinion or his course. "I saw him at the age of sixty, delivering an oration which he had repeated over a hundred times. It was faultless in logic and in rhetoric. But it had no more effect upon his hearers than the recital of the Greek alphabet. I felt like calling out to him 'Stir the fire, Neddy, stir the Are/" A thoughtful essayist has remarked : "Like all the virtues, earnestness is sometimes a natural trait, and sometimes one acquired by the healthy graft of moral and religious principle. It is a positive essential in the 2 4 ENTHUSIASM. structure of character; it is one of the main instru- ments in all action that is to benefit others. It gives persistency to the unstable, strength to the feeble, ability and skill to the inefficient, and success to all endeavor. There is a might in it that is magical to the vacillating and irresolute. Its possessors are those who stood in the front ranks of life from the school- room to the forum; from the child with its first "reward of merit," to the matron who presides over the well-ordered household, and gives her blessing to well-trained sons and daughters, as they leave their mother's home for lives of usefulness in wider spheres. Earnestness, also, like other noble qualities, is always making greater gains than it aims at. There is not only the purpose accomplished, but the strength, the skill, and the distance already overcome, that will make the next aim loftier, and more arduous in its accomplishment. Thus there is, naturally and neces- sarily, the attainment of fresh and more inspiring ele- vation. The prospect widens, the objects to be achieved multiply in number and importance, the con- sciousness of the one performance brightens the eye, and steadies the hand, and insures the uncertain step, till success is gained again." Said a critic of Landseer, the famous animal painter, " He seems to become the animal he is painting, — to intermingle his soul for a season with that of the stag, the horse, or the blood-hound." It is suggestive to notice how those who have ENTHUSIASM. 2-5 attained great success in any department of human effort, have been enthusiastic in their calling. This story is told of Oken, the famous German naturalist : " He had a small income, but an intense zeal for scientific discovery. He could not surround himself with the comforts of life, and at the same time obtain the books and instruments needed for his scientific re- searches. He did not hesitate a moment in his choice; but, practicing the strictest economy in furniture, and clothing, and food, spent freely for scientific objects. u An American friend was once invited to dinner, and, to his surprise, found on the table neither meat nor pudding, but only baked potatoes. Oken himself was too proud to make any explanation; but his wife, being more humble and less reticent, apologized to the visi- tor for the scantily-spread table. Her husband, she said, was obliged to give up either science or luxurious living, and he had chosen to surrender the latter. On three days of the week, she added, they lived on potatoes and salt, and though at first it seemed like scanty fare, they had come to enjoy it, and to be per- fectly content with it.'' Beecher remarks that the mind will not work to its average capacity — much less to its highest — without excitement, and Bulwer Lytton, the novelist, has left this eloquent passage to the same effect: "Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it is the real allegory of the lute of Orpheus; it moves stones; it charms 26 ENTHUSIASM. brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.' 7 Said the sturdy and fearless Luther: " If I wish to compose, write, pray, or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood of my veins is stirred; my under- standing is sharpened, and all dismal thought and temptations are dissipated." When Charles James Fox was making one of his magnificent speeches in favor of the abolition of the slave trade, he was charged with betraying an incon- siderate degree of enthusiasm. He turned his blazing eyes upon the speaker, and said: " Enthusiasm, sir! why there was never any good done in the world without enthusiasm. We must feel warm upon our projects, otherwise from the discouragements we are sure to meet with here, they will drop through. 1 ' And it was the steady enthusiasm of him and a little band of kindred spirits, that, like a consuming fire, swept all opposition before it, and brought about the great vic- tory of emancipation. Charles Dickens said that there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent earnestness, and William Wirt gives this advice to the young: " Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance. 1 * With a laudable purpose, enthusiasm, guided by practical good sense, and sustained by tireless in- dustry and perseverance, will lead to the highest round in the ladder of success. I^EIiY ON y0Ur?SELP. HE eagle when teaching her young to fly, as they sit on the edge of the nest, fearful to venture into the abyss below, forces them from the home that has sheltered them so long, and so compels them to use their weak and untried wings, and soon comes strength and courage for the lofty and prolonged flight. Well were it for parents if they would show as much wisdom in the ed- ucation of their children, and early train them to rely on their own unaided powers. Nothing better could happen to the young man who has the right kind of grit, than to be thrown on the world and his own resources. A well-to-do judge once gave his son a thousand dollars, and told him to go to college and graduate. The son returned at the end jf the Freshman year, his money all gone and with sev- eral extravagant habits. At the close of the vaca- tion the judge said to his son, "Well, William, are you going to college this year?" " Have no money, father." "But I gave you a thousand dollars to grad uate on." "It is all gone, father." "Very well, my son; it was all I could give you; you can't stay here; you must now pay your own way in the world." A 27 28 RELY ON YOURSELF. new light broke in upon the vision of the young man. He accommodated himself to the situation; again left home, made his way through college, graduated at the head of his class, studied law, became Governor of the State of New York, entered the Cabinet of the Presi- dent of the United States, and has made a record that will not soon die, for he was none other than William H. Seward. Daniel Webster, about four years before his death, wrote in a letter to his grandson what every student and young person should remember: "You cannot learn without your own efforts. All the teachers in the world can never make a scholar of you, if you do not apply yourself with all your might." If we study the lives of great men, we shall find that many of them were obliged to toil unremittingly in early life, and were unable to go to college, or even avail themselves of any educational advantages, except that which came to them from diligent application to books during odd moments of leisure, and that almost invariably at some period of their career they had to face the battle of life alone, and the strength of mind and character which were thus developed made them great and successful. Truly did they find that "Heaven helps him who helps himself." The men who have become rich are seldom those who started in business with capital, but those who had nothing to begin with but their strong arms and active brains. "A man's best friends are his ten RELY ON YOURSELF. 2g fingers," says that sturdy thinker, Robert Collyer, and " Poor Richard " expressed the same truth when he said : u He that by the plow would thrive, himself must either hold or drive. 11 The men who have always been bolstered up and assisted never amount to anything in a time of emergency; but will look about for some one to lean upon, and if no one comes to their rescue, down they go, out of sight. Whatever maybe your calling, learn to depend on yourself. Fight your own battles, and you will probably win. You are only sure of that being well done which you do yourself. If you trust to others you will most surely be perplexed and disappointed. If you ever mean to do anything in this world, you must take off your coat, set your face like a flint toward the accom- plishment of your purpose, and never give up until the victory is yours. "In battle or business whatever the game — In law 3 or in love, it is ever the same; In the struggle for power, or scramble for pelf, Let this be your motto, " Rely on yourself." For whether the prize be a ribbon or throne, The victor is he who can go it alone." — Saxe. N artist once picked up the scattered pieces of glass after a large stained window had been constructed, and with the fragments he made one of the most exquisite windows of a great cathedral in Europe. So should we use the fragments of time that are scattered through our lives. Moments are like grains of gold. It is said that the gold-room of the United States mint has double floors, the upper of which acts as a sieve, while the lower one catches the minute particles of precious dust which sift through, and that, by this contrivance, about thirty thousand dollars' worth of gold is saved every year. We need some such method to save the priceless but easily wasted moments of our lives. Said Napoleon to the pupils of a military school, " Remember that every lost moment is a chance for future misfortune." The results accomplished by improving these spare moments are quite as surprising as are the accumula- tions of gold dust at the mint. Dr. Schlieman, the Ger- man explorer of the ruins of Troy, began the study of languages after arriving at manhood, and in the midst of an active business. He says: " I never went on an errand, even in the rain, without having my book in my hand, and learning something by heart; and I WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. 31 never waited at the postoffice without reading." By thus improving these odd moments in this way, he ac- quired a thorough knowledge of the English and French languages in six months. By means of the aid and discipline acquired in mastering these two lan- guages, he was able to write and speak fluently, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese by six weeks' study of each. Elihu Burritt, who was called the " learned blacksmith,*" was a wonderful instance of what can be accomplished by improving the smallest fragments of time. While working at the bellows, he had his book fastened where his eye could rest upon it for an instant, and in this way began the study of languages, and be- came one of the most eminent linguists of his day. Some one has remarked, " It was a maxim of the Latins that no one reached the summit of honor, unless he prudently used his time. 1 ' This has been the secret of nearly all who have been noted for extraordinary ability, and have attained wonderful results. The picture of a man with hat and coat off, work- ing at the base of a mountain, while above him is the motto, u Little by little," suggests an important truth. When Prof. Tyndall was a young man, he was in the government service, and although faithful in the performance of his duties, yet had no definite aim in life. One day one of the officials asked him how his leisure hours were employed, saying: " You have five hours a day at your disposal, and this ought to be de- voted to systematic study. Had I, when at your age, 32 WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. had a friend to advise me as I now advise you, instead of being in a subordinate position, I might have been at the head of my department." This good advice fell upon willing ears, for next day young Tyndall be- gan a regular course of study. About seven years after, desiring a more thorough education, he attended a German university, and in a speech made at a ban- quet in New York he thus referred to his student life, and how he improved his time, and thus acquired the habits and discipline by which he became one of the foremost scientific men of Europe. He said: " In 1848, wishing to improve myself in science, I went to the University of Marburg, the same old town in which my great namesake, when even poorer than myself, published his translation of the Bible, I lodged in the plainest manner, in a street which perhaps bore an appropriate name while I dwelt upon it. It was called the Ketzerbach — the heretic's brook — from a little historic rivulet running through it. I wished to keep myself clean and hardy, so I purchased a cask and had it cut in two by a carpenter. Half that cask filled with spring water over night, was placed in my small bed-room, and never, during the years that I spent there, in winter or in summer, did the clock of the beautiful Elizabethe-kirch, which was close at hand, finish striking the hour of six in the morning, before I was in my tub. For a good portion of the time I rose an hour and a half earlier than this, working by lamp- light at the differential calculus, when the world was WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. 33 slumbering around me. And I risked this breach in my pursuits, and this expenditure of time and money, not because I had any definite prospect of material profit in view, but because I thought the cultivation of the intellect important; because, moreover, I loved my work, and entertained the sure and certain hope that, armed with knowledge, one can successfully fight one's way through the world. 1 '' A sensible writer has made this observation: " The true economy of human life looks at ends rather than incidents, and adjusts expenditures to a moral scale of values. De Quincey pictures a woman sailing over the water, awakening out of sleep to find her necklace untied and one end hanging over the stream, while pearl after pearl drops from the string beyond her reach; while she clutches at one just falling, another drops beyond recovery. Our days drop one after an- other by our carelessness, like pearls from a string, as we sail the sea of life. Prudence requires a wise hus- banding of time to see that none of these golden coins are spent for nothing. The waste of time is a more serious loss than the extravagances against which there is such loud acclaim. 1 ' A lady who had the care of a large household, and yet found time to engage in many works of charity, was asked how she was able to do so much. She re- plied: " I never lose sight of the odd minutes. I have so much to do that there is always something I can turn to if I have a minute to spare.' 1 3 34 WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. It is surprising how much can be accomplished by making good use of the early morning hours. It is re- lated of Buffon, the celebrated naturalist, that he was always up with the sun, and he tells us in what way he gained the habit. " In my youth," said he, "I was very fond of sleep; it robbed me of a great deal of my time; but my poor Joseph (his domestic) was of great service in enabling me to overcome it. I promised to give Joseph a crown every time he could make me get up at six. The next morning he did not fail to awake and torment me; but he received only abuse. The day after he did the same, with no better success, and I was obliged at noon to confess that I had lost my time. I told him that he did not know how to man- age his business; that he ought to think of my pro- mise, and not of my threats. The day following he emplo}^ed force; I begged for indulgence, I bade him begone; I stormed, but Joseph persisted. I was, there- fore, obliged to comply, and he was rewarded every day for the abuse which he suffered at the moment when I awoke, by thanks, accompanied with a crown, which he received about an hour after. Yes, I am in- debted to poor Joseph for ten or a dozen volumes of of my work." Sir Walter Scott thus alludes to the freshness of his mind at the opening of the day, and the manner that he took advantage of it in his prodigious literary la- bors. He wrote in his diary: " When I had in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was al- WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. 35 ways when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. I am in the habit of relying upon it, and saying to myself when I am at a loss, ' Never mind, we shall have it all at seven o'clock to- morrow morning. ' " When asked what was the secret of the marvelous fertility of his pen, he said: " I have always made it a rule never to be doing nothing." Milton rose at four in the winter, and five in the sum- mer, or if not disposed to rise, in later years, had some one to sit at his bedside and read to him, and his wife said that often before rising he would dictate twenty or thirty verses to her. Some one says : " One hour lost in the morning will put back all the business of the day; one hour gained by rising early will make one month in the year.*" One of the greatest hindrances to making use of spare moments is the tendency to dally, and to put off to another time what should be done at once. There is no time for indecision, for while we are considering and hesitating the moment is gone. A forcible writer has aptly said: " There is no mo- ment like the present; not only so, but there is no moment at all; that is, no instant force and energy, but in the present. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him, can have no hope from them afterwards; they will be dissipated, lost, and perish in the hurry and skurry of the world, or sink in the slough of indolence." Alexander the Great, on being asked how he had 36 WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. conquered the world replied, " By not delaying." And so with us, if we are to conquer difficulties there must be promptitude of action. There must be also a plan or system of work, if much is to be accomplished. A few moments given one day to one thing, and the next day to something else, will merely fritter away the time and scatter our energies. The value of a plan of systematic reading or study cannot be estimated too highly. Says Hamberton: " Nothing wastes time like miscalculation. It negatives all results. It is the parent of incompleteness, the great author of the un- finished and the unserviceable." These inspiring words to young men apply to all who are striving to reach a higher goal. " Wishing and sighing, imagining and dreaming of greatness," said William Wirt, "will not make you great. But cannot a young man command his energies? Read Foster on decision of character. This book will tell you what is in your power to accomplish. You must gird up your loins and go to work with the in- domitable energy of Napoleon scaling the Alps. It is your duty to make the most of time, talents and op- portunity. "Alfred, King of England, though he performed more business than any of his subjects, found time to study. " Franklin, in the midst of his labors, had time to dive into the depths of philosophy, and explore an un- trodden path of science. WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. 37 " Frederick the Great, with an empire at his direc- tion, in the midst of war, and on the eve of battle, found time to revel in the charms of philosophy, and feast on the luxury of science. " Napoleon, with Europe at his disposal, with kings in his ante-chamber, at the head of thousands of men, whose destinies were suspended on arbitrary pleasure, found time to converse with books. "And young men, who are confined to labor or busi- ness, even twelve hours a day, may take an hour and a half of what is left, for study, and this will amount to two months in the course of the year." What might not be accomplished in the long winter evenings and early summer mornings, in the course of five or ten years, were some high purpose formed and followed, which would spur the mental powers to their utmost endeavor, and inspire the soul with high re- solves. Thousands of dissatisfied lives will bear testi- mony to these words of a modern, talented writer: " There are few people who have not discovered how difficult it is to secure time for any pursuit over and above that required for the daily business of life. For instance, one 'has an ambition to excel in an accom- plishment, or to acquire a language, or one's tastes lie in the direction of geology or mineralogy. The hours which can be found and devoted without interruption to these cherished things are few, so few that often the plans are laid aside, and the attainments regarded as completely beyond the reach of the busy man or 38 WHAT MINUTES ARE WORTH. woman. The demands of a profession, the cares of a household, the claims of society, and the duties of re ligion, so occupy every moment of every day, that it seems idle to try to keep up the studies which once were a joy and delight. If men and women would de- termine to do what they can with their bits of time, to learn what they can in the fragments and uninter- rupted portions of days, which they can alone be sure of, they would be surprised at the end of a season, or at the end of a year, to find how much they had accom- plished. It is better to read one good, strong book through in the winter, than to read nothing but the newspaper, and perhaps not that. A half hour daily devoted to any book, any art, or any esthetic pursuit, would be sufficient to keep it in the possession of the mind, and to give thought something to dwell upon, outside the engrossing and dwarfing cares of every day. That precious half hour would save from the narrowness and pettiness which are inevitable to those whose work is exclusively given to the materialities of life. It would tinge and color the day, as a drop of ruby liquid in the druggist's globe imparts its hue to a gallon of water. A feeling of discouragement comes over us when we compare ourselves and our oppor- tunities with those of some living men, and with those of some who have gone, but whose biographies live. How did they learn so much, do so much, fill so large a space in the story of their times, and illustrate so grandly the possibilities of humanity? If we knew all WHAT MINUTES ARE WO RTF 39 the truth, it was no doubt because the time we spend in fruitless effort, and in doing needless things, was steadily given by them to the things which count up, and make large sums total at the foot of life's balance- sheet. No doubt, too, because they were not con- temptuous of scattered fragments of time, which they filled with honest work, and which paid them by mak- ing their work easier and more successful in the end. If we could make up our minds to accept the situation in which Providence has placed us, and then to do the best we can there, without repining, we might yet evolve some lovely creation out of our broken days/' May these suggestive words inspire you carefully to treasure the precious moments of your lives, and to heed this parting admonition, which, if followed, will rill life with a new measure of satisfaction, and crown it with glorious achievements. " Try what you can make of the broken fragments of time. Glean up its golden dust — those raspings and parings of precious duration, those leavings of days and remnants of hours which so many sweep out into the waste of existence. Perhaps, if you be a miser of moments, if you be frugal, and hoard up odd minutes, and half hours, and unex- pected holidays, your careful gleanings may eke out a long and useful life, and you may die at last, richer in existence than multitudes, whose time is all their own." ©he I^ige of Success. EOPLE generally get what they pay for, and usually value those articles the most which cost them the highest price, and the greatest sacrifice to obtain. There may be now and then a person who stumbles on success by accident, as a man may stumble on a gold mine, but these instances are exceptional, and seldom happen. Those who succeed in any special department of human action are, as a rule, those who carefully plan for it, expect it, and are willing to pay the full price to attain it. Success demands to be bought with a price; it is stern and unyielding in its requirements, inflexible in its terms, and exacts the uttermost farthing. It costs application, diligence, self-sacrifice and enthusiasm; the blandishments of pleasure must be disregarded, the allurements of fashionable society avoided, the quiet and retirement of solitude courted. One of the great- est thinkers and scholars of his age said, "I am as much cut off from the great body of men as if I belonged to a band of pirates." The whirl of giddy pleasure, the sound of intoxicating music, the meas- ures of the dance, and even the frequent occasions of social festivities, all these were denied him, and were 40 THE PRICE OF SUCCESS. 4r dead to him. For him was the silent library, the in- tense concentration of continuous thought, the attrition with minds like his own, the conflict of ideas; and the world outside was to him as nothing. A political leader in the British Parliament, forty years ago, said, " During the week which followed my taking office, I did not close my eyes for anxiety. I never take exercise now. From my getting up until four o'clock, I am engaged in the business of my office. At four I dine, go down to the House at five, and never stir until the House rises, which is always after midnight." This was the price he paid for his great ness, and compared with such a life of intense strain, the toii of the laborer who works ten hours a day is mere pastime. And yet this is but a fair example of the labor performed by many of our public men, which alas ! often breaks down their constitution and shortens their days. The price of success is unremitting toil. When Edmund Burke was making one of his won- derful speeches in Parliament, one of his brothers was standing by and said, "I always thought that Ned had all the brains in our family," but shortly afterwards remarked, "I see how it is, while we were sleeping and playing, he was working and studying.'" It is said that one of the greatest pieces of acting was by the famous Edmund Kean in the character of the gentle- man villain. Before he would consent to appear in the character, he practiced assiduously before the glass, studying expressions, for a year and a half. Then he 42 THE PRICE OF SUCCESS. said he was ready, and when he came on the stage, Byron, who with Moore was there to hear him, said that he had never looked upon so fearful and wicked a countenance. As the great actor proceeded to de- lineate the terrible consequences of sin, Byron swooned away, and before the play was over the audience had fled in horror from the fearful spectacle. That long year and a half of painstaking preparation, was a costly price to pay for success, but it purchased a full measure of it. It is sad to note that success is often attained at the expense of the kindly qualities of the heart. Many a man of naturally jovial temperament and overflowing spirits, becomes by a continually studious and solitary life a confirmed recluse. That witty yet profound poet and philosopher, Oliver Wendell Holmes, has said, "I won't say the more intellect the less capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the under- standing and reason: but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of wisdom, or sen- timent, or poetry instead of making one other heart happy, I have no question." This sentiment was also well expressed by one of our eloquent divines when he said, " All the great intellectual development which the world has ever seen, has been reached at the cost of the heart. When the intellect weds itself fully to certain paths of study and toil, the heart soon sunders the many sweet and beautiful associations of the wide THE PRICE OF SUCCESS. 43 world. It is written in all history that a life of thought is a constant warfare against a life of sociability and cheerfulness and love." The biographer of that brilliant child of genius, Rufus Choate, says that although he was "forever in the midst of his clients or his household, yet he always seemed lonely and solitary," and though he was pecul- iarly fitted to shine-in society, yet he became averse to it. The celebrated naturalist, Audubon, cut himself aloof for years from the haunts of men, and plunged into the gloomy depths of forests and swamps for the purpose of observing the habits and drawing sketches of American birds, but the result was that he gave to the world the most comprehensive work in this department of natural history ever attempted. But for this he endured exposure, hardships innumerable, hunger and cold, the taunts of strangers, and the pity and distrust of friends. A rough, hard working frontiersman, who had heard that the Emperor of Russia, after examining Audu- bon's splended work, was so much delighted that he presented the author with a signet ring studded with diamonds as a token of his admiration, thus gave vent to his indignation: " So the great, overgrown Emperor of Roosia gave that hateful little bird-shoot- ing, alligator-catching, and rattle-snake sturriing, crazy fellow a goold ring, did he? Well, upon my word, it is just like the Emperors though; plenty to throw away on fellows who never do an honest day's work in their lives, and nothing for the industrious poor man. 44 THE PRICE OF SUCCESS. Audubon is the kind they like. I've seen him loafing about my clearing for a month at a time ; so dreadfully lazy that he would sit all day under a tree, pretending to watch a bird as big as my thumb, build its nest ; and what's more, he'd shoot humming birds with a rifle, and let deer and turkeys (that's game) pass unnoticed. I don't think his picters were worth the paper he made 'em on, nor was he worth , the powder that would blow him up." The rough frontiersman prob- ably expressed the estimate in which the patient labors of the naturalist were held by the great mass of people; and so the price he paid for his success was not only his solitary wanderings and tireless researches, but the indifference with which his work was regarded, and the entire lack of appreciation on the part of even the edu- cated classes with which it was at first received. The multitude little think of what success costs, and would be unwilling to pay the price did they know it. It is only those who are willing to tread the rugged road of self-denial and toil that need expect to suc- ceed in any line of effort. The great mulfitude whose object in life is to gratify their desires, and who live for mere enjoyment, will pass away, and soon their memo- ries will be forgotten. In the immortal allegory of Bunyan, the great dreamer, one stood at the door of a palace, the entrance to which was disputed by armed men, and cried, " Come in, come in! Eternal glory thou shalt win!" THE PRICE OF SUCCESS. 45 and soon the pilgrim saw approaching a resolute man who drew his sword with such effect that the opposing forces gave way, and in triumph he entered the palace. Thus it is in life. The temple of honor is beset with legions of difficulties and obstacles, and he who would enter must draw his sword, and with brave and resolute spirit battle valiantly against each opposing foe. It is related of Alexander the Great that he u de- sired his preceptor to prepare for him some easier and shorter way to learn geometry; but he was told that he must be content to travel the same road as others. kl It is the old route of labor, along which are many landmarks and many wrecks. It is lesson after lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture with the painter, step after step and mile after mile with the traveler, that secures what all desire — success. 11 Then labor on patiently, toiler, whatever may be vour task — whether of the hand or the brain. Work wisely and steadily, and in due time you will be crowned with that success which you have so richly earned. (Shoige of (Companions. POET, showing a profound knowledge of human nature, has well said: "We grow like those with whom we daily blend," and both the deductions of reason and the fruits of experience abundantly verify the assertion. God has created us with such delicate and sensitive natures that we are unconsciously influenced by those around us, — we acquire their eccentricities, we imitate their style of speech, our minds become accustomed to run in the same grooves, and we often even adopt the very tone of voice or manner of expression. A profes- sor in a college will often impress a certain peculiarity of manner upon whole classes of pupils, and how often a great orator will engraft the intonations of his voice, the singularity of his, gestures, or the idioms of his lan- guage upon hundreds who are spell-bound by his elo- quence. We are creatures of imitation, and no effort of the will, however powerful, can wholly free us from this universal principle. We are like a looking-glass, — we reflect back the figures held before us. If a jolly, vivacious acquaintance, who is fairly brimming over with good humor and sprightliness, comes to us, how soon we ourselves become mirthful, and feel our whole being aglow with an infectious enthusiasm; or if : 46 CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. 47 in the company of a sour, complaining person, how quickly our spirits become depressed, and yield to the same fault-finding tendency. And so not only with at- tributes of character, but also in matters of taste, how often do we see the mind largely controlled by the in- fluence of early associates. The love for an art or a profession, or an intellectual pursuit, is often derived from the influence of some cherished friend, to whom one looks up with tender regard and confidence. It is one of the revelations of chemistry, that some substances produce changes in others, by their mere presence; and this is certainly true of our associates. Can we not all call to mind people whom just to meet makes us feel more kindly, earnest and noble ; and for- tunate are we if we do not know others who turn the milk of human kindness sour, and All us with dissatis- faction and distrust. That wise old proverb, " Tell me thy company and I will tell thee what thou art," we unconsciously apply when forming our judgment of others. The maxim, " Keep company with the good and thou wilt be one of them, 11 contains a golden truth. Sir Peter Lely, the great painter, made it a rule never to look at a bad picture,, because he found by experi- ence that whenever he did so, his pencil took a hint from it, which disfigured his own work, so subtile and insidious are the influences of evil association. John B. Gough, that matchless temperance orator, never ceased to lament the evil companionship of his young manhood. Speaking on this subject, he said: "I 4 8 CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. would give my right hand if I could forget that which I have learned in evil society ; if I could tear from my remembrance the scenes which I have witnessed, the transactions which have taken place before me. You cannot, I believe, take away the effect of a single im- pure thought that has lodged and harbored in the heart. You may pray against it, and, by God's grace, you may conquer it ; but it will, through life, cause you bitterness and anguish." Tennyson uttered in a line a thought more powerful than the theories of whole schools of philosophy, " I am a part of all that I have met." Charles Kingsley thus enlarges on the same thought : u Men become false if they live with liars; cynics if they live with scorners; mean if they live with the coveteous; affected if with the affected, and actually catch the expression of each others faces. * * * Whomsoever a young man or a young woman shall choose as their ideal, to him or her they will grow like, according to their power; so much so, that I have seen a man of real genius, stamp not only his moral peculiarities and habits of thought, but his tones of voice and handwriting, on a whole school of disciples of very different characters from himself, and from each other." If, then, our characters are thus moulded by those with whom we associate, how careful should we be in the choice of our company. If we cultivate the society CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. 49 of those who possess superior mind and exalted char- acter, we may hope to become like them. Thackeray has left this excellent advice: "Try to frequent the company of your betters; in books and society, that is the most wholesome society. Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure in life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly.'" Emerson says: "Talk much with any man of vig- orous mind, and we acquire very fast the habit of looking at things in the same light, and on each occurrence we anticipate his thought." And so, if we mingle with those who have lofty views of life, — who are blessed with all the charms which accompany purity of thought and action, we gradually learn to look from the same standpoint; we become animated with the same noble resolves; we see glimpses of their glorious ideals, and we become elevated and purified by the blessed in- fluence which emanates from them. That great preacher, John Wesley, when a student at Oxford, made a resolution that he would have no companions by chance, but by choice, and that he would only choose such as would " help him on his way to heaven; 11 and this resolution he carried out strictly, and a life of honor and usefulness followed, such as but few attain. On the other hand, Charles Lamb, naturally one of the most brilliant and amiable of men, when young, So CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. began to frequent the company of the boisterous, in- temperate and dissipated, who thought themselves witty and jovial, and what were the fruits? A dozen years after, a miserable wreck of manhood, he said: " Be- hold me now, at the robust period of life, reduced to imbecility and decay. Life itself, my waking life, has much of the confusion, the trouble, the obscure per- plexity of an ill dream. In the day time I stumble upon dark mountains. Business, which I used to enter upon with some degree of alacrity, now wearies, af- frights and perplexes me. I fancy all sorts of dis- couragements, and am ready to give up an occupation that gives me bread, from a harrassing conceit of inca- pacity. So much the springs of action are broken. My favorite occupations in times past, now cease to en- tertain. I can do nothing readily. Application for ever so short a time kills me." Such was the fearful retribution which evil brought him, even while yet young, and such will be meted out to all who are deluded enough to follow the same perilous course. The power to choose is placed in our hands, — the good and pure and wise are ever ready to welcome us to their circle, and a long life of honor, use- fulness and blessed influence will attend the choice. The corrupt and abandoned beckon us also to their midst, but through the enchantments and witcheries of their vaunted pleasures may be seen shame and dis- honor, a wasted life, and a premature grave. Gnjoy Lcife as you <3o. Q^jl INHERE is an Eastern legend of a powerful ^^^V genii, who promised a beautiful maiden a gift ^J0) of rare value if she would pass through a field of corn and, without pausing, going backward, or wandering hither and thither, select the largest and ripest ear, — the value of the gift to be in proportion to the size and perfection of the ear she should choose. She passed through the field, seeing a great many well worth gathering, but always hoping to find a larger and more perfect one, she passed them all by, when, coming to a part of the field where the stalks grew more stunted, she disdained to take one from these, and so came through to the other side without having selected any. This .little fable is a faithful picture of many lives, which are rejecting the good things in their way and within their reach, for something before them for which they vainly hope, but will never secure. On a dark night and in a dangerous place, where the foot- ing is insecure, a lantern in the hand is worth a dozen stars. It is well to look beyond the present into the future, and in the season of strength and prosperity, to make 51 52 ENJOY LIFE AS YOU GO. provision for a time when misfortune and old age may overtake us. This is a positive duty that we owe to ourselves and to society, and if we neglect to do this, we must reap the bitter consequences of our indiscre- tion, for every person in his right mind will look at life as a whole, and work for the end as well as for the beginning. But this does not mean that we should ignore the present altogether, nor that our pleasures should consist solely in the anticipation of some future prosperity or expected success. Some one has said that of all the dreary disillusions, the dreariest must be that of the rich old man who has denied himself every pleasure during the years when he had the power to enjoy it, and sits down to partake at the eleventh hour of the feast of life, when appetite is dead, and love has departed. And yet what multi- tudes are doing this very thing, and thus cheating themselves of the most rational enjoyment of their ex- istence. The business man with a moderate compe- tence, instead of enjoying -it, is eager to realize some ambitious dream of a widely extended power and pat- ronage. He lays plans which require half a lifetime to carry out, and then bends all his energies to attain his end, and in the meantime all is worry, bustle and anxiety, home is but a stopping place, and he derives no substantial pleasures from friends, society or intel- lectual recreations. He thinks that he will wait until his scheme is realized, and then he will enjoy life. In a majority of instances his planning ends in disappoint- ENJOY LIFE AS YOU GO. 53 ment, and he becomes embittered in temper and spirit by failure; but if he should succeed, and have the proud satisfaction of seeing the realization of his dreams, he finds that, some way or other, happiness still seems to be somewhere in the future, and is not found just how and where he expected. And so life passes away without affording him day by day as he passes through it, those little pleasures, healthful enjoyments and wholesome recreations which might have brightened his pathway. A popular writer has said, and how often it is veri- fied by observation, " How many men there are who have toiled and saved to make money that they might be happy by and by, but who, by the time they are fifty or sixty years old, have used up all the enjoyable nerve in them? During their early life they carried economy and frugality to the excess of stinginess, and when the time came that they expected joy there was no joy for them.'" A sagacious man has well observed: "How can the eager, driven man of business pause to read and study? how can he command the calmness and quiet necessary to form habits of thought ? how can he acquire a love of literary pursuits when engrossed constantly in far different matters? Here again he admits he is not living now, but only getting ready to live in the future. In the same way he postpones liberality. He cannot afford to be generous now, as every dollar is needed to support and extend his business; after awhile, when 54 ENJOY LIFE AS YOU GO. he is rich enough, he will devote his well earned gains to the good of his fellow men, and the promotion of beneficent enterprises. So he drifts on from year to year, letting slip hundreds of present opportunities of doing good, in the mistaken idea that thus he can bet- ter embrace those of the future." The wife and mother, wearied with unnumbered cares, and ex- hausted by nightly vigils and daily solicitudes, is often well-nigh discouraged, and looks only to the grave for relief from weariness. Would it not strengthen her heart and brighten her way with some gleams of pres- ent joy could she but realize how exalted is the place to which God has called her, and to what blessed min- istry she is appointed. Were that home to be swept away by some unforeseen calamity, or darkened by the shadow of death, how would she look back to former days and wonder that they were not full of praise and thanksgiving. That charming writer, Miss Muloch, has truly said: " Nobody will see his own blessings, or open his heart to enjoy them, till the golden hour has gone forever, and he finds out too late all that he might have had, and might have done." If we cannot have just the things we would like in this world of ours, it is the wisest way to like what we have. There is a pro- found and practical philosophy in the sentiment ex- pressed by a recent writer: " This looking forward to enjoyment don't pay. From what I know of it, I would as soon chase butterflies for a living, or bottle EN'JOY LIFE AS YOU GO. 55 moonshine for a cloudy night.' The only way to be happy is to take the drops of happiness as God gives them to us every day of our lives. The boy must learn to be happy while he is plodding over his lessons ; the apprentice when he is learning his trade; the mer- chant while he is making his fortune, or they will be sure to miss their enjoyment when they have gained what they have sighed for." Let us, then, while plan- ning for the future, beware how we slight the present; the now of life is the only time of which we are sure, and it should be our aim to improve and enjoy, not with a prodigal's waste, or miser's stint, but with the rational purpose of making every hour contribute something to the happiness and value of a lifetime. " There is a good time coining, boys ; " So runs the hopeful song; Such is the poetry of youth, When life and hope are strong; But when these buoyant days are passed Age cries : " How changed are men ! Things were not so when I was young, The best of times was then." " There is a good time coming, boys;" And many a one has passed; For each has had his own good time, And will have to the last. Then do thy work while lingers youth, With freshness on its brow, Still mindful of life's greatest truth, The best of times is now. LnmmiiE (9HING3. Sg^btlCCESS or failure depends in a great de- 2^j|p gree upon the attention given to little things and petty details. It is said that the Duke of Wellington largely owed his victories to the im- portance which he attached to the seemingly unim- portant details of army life. Nothing was too minute to escape his notice, — his soldiers 1 shoes, the camp kettles, rations, horse fodder, and everything pertain- ing to their equipments was subject to his vigorous per- sonal investigation, and the fruits of this attention to little things were successful campaigns and glorious victories. Napoleon attributed his success to his wise use of time, which enabled him to hurl his forces like thunder-bolts in unexpected places. Nelson, the greatest sea warrior of modern times, said that he owed all his success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour before his time, and to his habit of giving the most minute attention to details. A person was once watching the great sculptor Canova, while he was completing one of his marvelous statues. The taps of the artist's mallet were seem- ingly so trivial and meaningless, that the visitor thought that he was making sport of his work, but the artist rebuked him with these words: " The touches 56 LITTLE THINGS. 57 which you ignorantly hold in such small esteem, are the very things which make the difference between the failure of a bungler and the perfection of a master." Poussin, the great painter, accounted for his reputa- tion in these words: " Because I have neglected noth- ing; " and so in all departments of human activity, the meed of highest excellence is awarded to those who have exhibited tireless devotion to the petty details of their calling. To what important results have little things con- tributed. The discovery of printing was suggested by carving some rude letters on the bark of a tree. A boiling tea kettle indicated the power of steam and set in tireless activity a busy brain; and a perfected steam engine was the result. That wonderful force in nature — electricity — was discovered by noticing that a polished surface, when sharply rubbed, attracted small bits of paper. A lamp swinging in a church suggested to the observing mind of Galileo the first idea of a pendulum. A spider's web swinging in the air, stretched from point to point, was all that a fertile brain was waiting for to give birth to the conception of a sus- pension bridge. A little spark, accidentally falling on some ingredients mixed in a mortar, led to the dis- covery of gunpowder, and thus to a complete revolu- tion in the mode of warfare. The falling of an apple, set at work the mighty intellect of Sir Isaac Newton, and the discovery of the law of gravitation was the re- sult. The telescope and all the wonderful revelations 5 8 LITTLE THINGS. it makes known to us of the illimitable universe, we owe to the trifling occurrence of some children looking through several pairs of spectacles at a distant object, and calling the attention of their father to its changed appearance. One of Handel's matchless harmonies was suggested to him by hearing the sounds from a blacksmith's anvil. The change of a comma in a bill which passed through congress several years ago, cost our government a million dollars. The history of France was changed, and a powerful dynasty over thrown by a glass of wine. The Duke of Orleans, the son and prospective successor of King Louis Phillipe, a noble young man physically and mor- ally, while breakfasting with some friends on a convivial occasion, although too elevated a char- acter to be dissipated, yet was tempted by the festivity of the hour to drink a glass of wine too much. On parting from his companions he took a carriage, the horses took fright, he leaped to the ground, and being slightly unbalanced, he lost his footing, his head was dashed against the pavement, and he was carried away bruised and unconscious, soon to die. If it had not been for that extra glass of wine, he would prob- ably have kept his seat, or when springing to the ground would have alighted on his feet. That glass of wine brought about the death of the heir apparent to the throne, the exile of his family, and the confisca- tion of their immense wealth amounting to a hundred million of dollars. LITTLE THINGS. 59 A cricket once saved an important military expe- dition from destruction. The commanding officer, Cabeza de Vaca, and several hundred of his men were on a great ship going to South America, and, nearing the shore, through the carelessness of the watch, they would have been dashed against a ledge of rock had it not been for a little cricket which a soldier had brought on board. The little insect had been silent during the whole voyage, but scenting the land, it struck up its shrillest note, and by this they were warned of their danger and were saved. An insect is a small creature compared to the huge beasts of the forest, but it has been calculated that the insects upon our globe, if piled in one mass, would exceed in bulk the beasts and birds. We unconsciously form our estimate of people by little things. A word or a look often reveals the inner nature. A pin, says an English writer, is a very little thing in an article of dress, but the way it is put into the dress often reveals to you the character of the wearer. Neglect of little things has ruined many a rich man ; it has scattered many a princely fortune; it has de- stroyed many a prosperous business; it has defeated many an important enterprise; it has damaged many a fine reputation ; it has broken down many a good con- stitution; it has made wretched many a happy life; it has wrecked many a precious soul. Great learning consists in an aggregate of an infinite 6o LITTLE THINGS. number of little facts, which have been separately mastered. That great philosopher, John Locke, said, " The chief art of learning is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights, frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumu- lations of single propositions." Happiness is made up of a succession of pleasing oc- currences, which, though they may be small in them- selves, yet make one's life full of enjoyment. A kind word is but a little thing, but it has changed the aspect of the whole world to many a despairing creature, and saved many a soul. A kind action may cost but a moment's effort and be soon forgotten by the doer and yet it may save a life to usefulness and virtue. We call him strong who stands unmoved — Calm as some tempest-beaten rock — When some great trouble hurls its shock; We say of him, his strength is proved; But when the spent storm folds its wings, How bears he then life's little things ? We call him great who does some deed That echo bears from shore to shore — Does that, and then does nothing more; Yet would his work earn richer meed, When brought before the King of Kings, Were he but great in little things. Bodily Uigof^. 93 ;2^HERE are occasional instances of men whose ^ active, powerful minds seem unfettered by their slight, sickly bodies, and who, in spite of physical weakness, have by their strong will and giant intellect accomplished much, But this is the exception, and not the rule, A large percentage of the ability which is attributed to the brain is really due to a splendid physique. Bodily vigor means activity, enthusiasm, determination and energy, — it means that the mind has at command its best powers, and that all the parts of our nature are in a condition to work together joyously and harmoni- ously. Most of those who have accomplished much in the world have been vigorous in body as well as active in mind, and have been distinguished for their physical strength and endurance. Washington had a splendid physique, and excelled in all the games of his time. One of his relatives said that he had the strongest hands of any man he had ever known. In the latter part of his life he was passing over his estate at Mt. Vernon and stopped to watch three of his workmen who were trying to raise a large stone to ?! certain position. After watching their use- 62 BODILY VIGOR. less attempts for some time, he dismounted, bade them to stand aside, and then with a giant's grasp he lifted it to its place, remounted his horse and passed on. Wesley, whose life was one of astonishing labor,' observed on his eighty-first birthday: u To-day I entered on my eighty-second year, and found myself just as strong to labor, and as fit for exercise in body and mind, as I was forty years ago.' 1 At the age of eighty- three he remarked . U I am a wonder to myself; it is now twelve years since I have felt any such sensa- tion as weariness.'" Prof. Wilson, the "Christopher North' 1 of Blackwood *s Magazine, as might be expected from his exuberant style, was a man fairly overflowing with vitality, and frequently astonished his friends by his wonderful powers of endurance. He thought nothing of a jaunt on foot of twenty or thirty miles in an afternoon, merely for pleasure. Chief Justice Chase was a man of herculean frame, which carried him through the excessive fatigues of his laborious life. While attending the Supreme Court at Washington he walked every day regularly, winter and summer, to and from his residence, which was two miles away. John Quincy Adams had such a strong constitution that he took not only long walks, but bathed in the Potomac in winter as well as summer. It is a matter of astonishment how a long list of English statesmen have kept on the harness of toil and seemed to preserve their powers fresh and unimpaired BODILY VIGOR. 63 even beyond the allotted period of life Palmerstom, Russell, Lyndhurst, Brougham, and many others, worked at the most exhaustive labor for twenty or thirty years after the powers of most men begin to fail. The secret was their bodily vigor, which they retained by their athletic sports, constant exercise, and care of themselves. Some one has said that " a strong mind in a weak body is like a superior knife blade in an infe- rior handle. Its workmanship may be ever so finished, its temper ever so true, its edge ever so keen; but for want of means to wield it properly, it will not cut to much purpose. 11 In these days of fierce competition in every trade and profession, that man has but a poor prospect of success who has not a good stock of vitality; certainly his chances are much impaired without it. In a long and desperate struggle, the man who wins is he with the firmest nerve, the strongest muscle, the best blood; for out of these come the " grit " which is bound to con- quer or die. Young man, if you are fired with a great purpose, and feel your blood throb with the pulse of a resistless ambition, guard jealously the powers of your body : take means to make your frame stronger, your constitution more vigorous, so that when the great strain comes which your ambition, or stern duty, will surely bring, you may not falter and ignominiously sink under the burden, but may show yourself equipped with strength equal to every emergency. Di^in^ and Ims Doings. MOS LAWRENCE, who went to Boston a poor country boy and became one of the most wealthy and successful merchants in the land, when speaking of his resolution never to drink or use tobacco, said: "In the first place, take this for your motto at the commencement of your journey, that the difference of going just right or a little wrong, will be the difference of finding yourself in good quarters, or in a miserable bog or slough at the end of your journey." One of the most important subjects on which to stand "just right " is the matter of drinking, for of all the terrible curses that have destroyed humanity, in- temperance is the most fearful. Sir Matthew Hale, one of the oldest Chief Justices of England and one of the purest of men, declared as the result of his obser- vation during his long experience on the bench, that four-fifths of the crimes and offences which had been committed proceeded from strong drink, and in our own days Charles Kingsley, the celebrated divine and writer, of London, who had unusual opportunities for close observation, said that if dyspepsia and liquors were banished from society, there would be no crime, 6 4 DRINK AND ITS DOINGS 65 or at least so little, that we should not consider it worth mentioning. As much money is spent in our country every twenty years for liquors, as the entire property of the country is worth. How would our earth be redeemed if a vice which causes four-fifths of the crime, and this fearful waste of substance could be removed. A quaint old writer says: " There is no sin which doth more deface Gods image than drunkenness; it dis- guiseth a person, and doth even unman him. Drunk- enness makes him have the throat of a fish, the belly of a swine, and the head of an ass. Drunkenness is the shame of nature, the extinguisher of reason, the shipwreck of chastity, and the murder of conscience. The cup kills more than the cannon; it causes dropsies, catarrhs, apoplexies; it fills the eye with fire, and the legs with water, and turns the body into a hospital/ 1 Drink perverts the appetite, weakens the will, de- bases the moral nature. It makes a man coarse, brutal and repulsive and seems to cast out every ele- ment of manliness, and principle of honor. The only safe rule is to let it alone. If there is not sufficient reso- lution to resist the first glass, what folly to suppose that the tenth or fiftieth can be put away, when the habit of drinking is more or less formed, and an ap- petite created. Samuel Johnson, when dining with Hannah Moore, was requested to take a glass of wine with her. Said he, " I can't drink a little, child, therefore I never 66 DRINK AND ITS DOINGS. touch it. Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult." The sad experience of thousands of ruined men will be but repeated, if their terrible ex- ample of beginning - to drink moderately is followed A talented clergyman, obliged to abandon his church and profession because he was a drunkard, thus spoke in his closing address: " I well remember the time when I thought it strange that others drank and ruined themselves with alcohol. I am glad that there are so many young men here this morning, that I may lift my voice in warning, and beg them to profit by my example. You think now that you are strong, and in no danger, I well remember the time when I believed the same. Twelve years ago, when 1 reached forth my inexperienced hand to take the in- toxicating cup, I thought I was strong; but I developed a habit that now holds me in chains, and in the most abject slavery that humanity was ever subjected to. It holds me in its embrace when I seek my bed for re- pose; it disturbs my dreams during the weary hours of the night, and seizes me as its prey when I rise up in the morning to enter upon the duties of the day," and then looking back at his once bright, but then ruined prospects, he bade them to profit by his ex- ample. Dr. Nott, the venerable president of Union College, made this terrible charge to Christian drinkers: " It is the reputable Christian wine drinkers who are the men who send forth from the high places of society, and DRINK AND ITS DOINGS. 6/ sometimes even from the portals of the sanctuary, an unsuspected, unrebuked but powerful influence, which is secretly and silently doing on every side — among the young, among the aged, among even females — its wo7'k of death" At a religious convention an influential clergyman spoke vehemently in favor of the moderate use of wine, and denounced those who would banish from their tables this token of hospitality. On taking his seat a venerable layman arose, and with a voice trembling with emotion said that he should not attempt to an- swer the argument of the clergyman, but relate an in- cident. He said: " I once knew a father in moderate circumstances, who had a beloved son whom he edu- cated at college at great sacrifice. While at college the son became dissipated, but on his return home he was induced to reform. After several years, when he had completed his professional studies and was about to leave home to enter into business, he was invited to dine with a neighboring clergyman noted for his hos- pitality and social qualities. At this dinner, wine was introduced and offered to him and he refused. It was again offered and refused, but at length the young man was ridiculed for his strictness, and he drank and fell, and from that moment became a confirmed drunkard, and long since has found a drunkard's grave. " Mr. Moderator," continued the old man, with streaming eyes, "I am that father; and it was at the table of the clergyman who has just taken his seat, that his token 68 DRINK AND ITS DOINGS. of hospitality ruined the son I shall never cease to mourn. 1 ' Can anything be more terrible than for a man to be within the remorseless grasp of this debasing appetite, to realize his degradation, and to see his approaching doom! That child of genius, Burns, the Scottish poet, declared that if a barrel of rum were placed in one corner of the room, and a loaded cannon were ready to be fired upon him if he approached it, he had no choice, but must go to the rum. A story is told of a stage-driver on the Pacific Coast who was dying, and who in his last moments kept moving his foot as if feeling for something. On being asked what he wanted, he faintly whispered: " I am going down grade, and cannot get my foot on the brake," and then died. What a striking illustration this is of the drunkard's rapid course down the declivity of life, and his powerlessness to check himself. Said the brilliant Tom Marshall when he came to die, after a dissipated life, "Well, well, this is the end. Tom Marshall is dying, dying, not having a suit of clothes in which to be buried; dying upon a borrowed bed, covered with a borrowed sheet, in a house built for charity. Well, well, it is meet and proper," and thus with his thoughts reviewing the folly of his course, he passed away. The gifted Charles Lamb thus uttered his sad wail of warning and helplessness: u The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard I would cry out to all those who have but set DRINK AND ITS DOINGS. 69 one foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scene of life, or the entering upon some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will — to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, yet feel it all the way emanating from himself; to see all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise, to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own ruin ; could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverishly looking for to-night's repetition of the folly; could he but feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly, with feebler outcry, to be delivered — it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage . to the earth in all its mantling temptation.'" St. Ambrose, one of the early Christian fathers, tells of a drunkard who, being informed that unless he ab- stained from drunkenness and excess, that he would lose his eyes, replied : 1 Farewell, sweet light, then. I must have pleasure in that sin ; I must drink, though I drink out my eyes; then farewell eyes, and farewell light and all." Can any one who reads these sad confessions of great and talented men, who have been addicted to drink, dare hope to follow their example and not reap the harvest of woe which they gathered? That great man, Dr. Guthrie, in describing what he had seen in the DRINK AND ITS DOINGS. drunken homes of Edinburgh, says: " I have heard the wail of children crying for bread, and their mother had none to give them. I have seen the babe pulling breasts as dry as if the starved mother had been dead. I have known a father turn a step-daughter into the street at night, bidding the sobbing girl who bloomed into womanhood earn her bread there as others were doing. I have bent over the foul pallet of a dying lad to hear him whisper, and his father and mother, who were sitting half drunk by the fireside had pulled the blankets off his body to sell them for drink. I have seen the children, blanched like plants growing in a cellar — for weeks they never breathed a mouthful of fresh air for want of rags to cover their nakedness; and they lived in continual terror of a drunken father or mother coming home to beat them. I don't rec- ollect ever seeing a mother in these wretched dwell- ings dandling her infant, or of hearing the little crea- ture crow or laugh. These are some of drink's do- ings; but nobody can know the misery I suffered amid those scenes of wretchedness, woe, want and sin." Young man, as you cherish all the fond hopes and bright promises of your youth; as you value the lofty aspirations of your ambitious manhood; as you would preserve the brain to conceive, the will to direct and the arm to execute in all their might as God has given them to you ; as you would fulfill your obligations to society, and to your family; as you would spare sor- row to the parents who lean upon you, do not tamper with this fearful vice. GQa^e Rome ^jfct^agjfiye. OME one has said that the three sweetest words in our language are, "Mother, Home r^; v and Heaven.'' We may well pity that being so unfortuate as not to have enjoyed the bless- ings of a happy home, for in the battle of life we need to be armed with the counsels and prayers of a mother, and all holy and sweet home influences, if we are to successfully meet the snares and perils which will be- set us. Home is the paradise, in which this wonderful 'world is first revealed to our growing consciousness, and as from its safe shelter we look out upon life we form our estimate of it according to the impressions and teachings we there receive. If the home is brightened with the sunshine of love, its radiance is reflected in all around us, and the whole world appears to us only as one family, — full of kind thoughts, tender sympathies, gentle ministrations and noble deeds. If the home life is sour, gloomy and un- happy, then we see the whole world through the same atmosphere of misery and discontent; and it is to us only a dull, dismal prison, crowded with selfish souls, whose petty strifes and base actions cause perpetual turmoils and unhappiness. A contented heart ; is better than great riches- 7 1 72 MAKE HOME ATTRACTIVE. Many a wealthy man looks back to hours in his early life when he was far happier than now. A millionaire gives a leaf from his own experience: "I'll tell you when was the happiest hour of my life. At the age of one-and-twenty I had saved up eight hundred dollars. I was earning five hundred dollars a year, and my father did not take it from me, only requiring that I should pay for my board. At the age of twenty-two I had secured a pretty cottage, just outside of the city. I was able to pay two-thirds of the value down, and also to furnish it respectably. I was married on Sunday — a Sunday in June — at my father's house. My wife had come to me poor in purse, but rich in the wealth of womanhood. The Sabbath and the Sabbath night we passed beneath my father's roof, and on Monday morning I went to my work, leaving my mother and sisters to help in preparing my home. On Monday evening, when the labors of the day were done, I went not to the paternal shelter, as in the past, but to my own house — my own home. The holy atmosphere of that hour seems to surround me even now in my memory. I opened the door of my cottage and entered. I laid my hat upon the little stand in the hall, and passed on to the kitchen — our kitchen and dining-room were all in one then. I pushed open the kitchen door. The table was set against the wall; the evening meal was ready, prepared by the hands of her who had come to be my help-meet in deed as well as in name; and by the table, with a throbbing, MAKE HOME ATTRACTIVE. 73 expectant look upon her lovely and loving face, stood my wife. " I tried to speak but could not. I could only clasp the waiting angel to my bosom, thus showing to her the ecstatic burden of my heart. The years have passed — long, long years — and wealth has flowed in upon me, and I am honored and envied; but, as true as heaven, I would give it all, every dollar, for the joy of the hour of that June evening in the long, long ago!"' It is the home and its influences that largely mould the character and shape the future destiny of the young. Byron had a miserable home and a passionate mother, and his whole life was blighted and unhappy. He sneered at purity, doubted all goodness, and scoffed at sacred things. His wretched life and profligate career, were but the legitimate consequences of his de- fective home training. Hundreds of illustrious names might be mentioned, of those who were equally exposed to temptation, but who resisted it because they were strengthened by the wise training and tender memo- ries of happy homes. O ye builders of homes, who hold in your hands this great power for good or evil, do not make the fatal mistake of caring for everything else but this; of spending all your time, and exhausting all your ener- gies in pursuit of wealth, society, honor or fame, for- getting that, compared to a happy home, all these are but k> vanity and vexation of spirit/' 74 MAKE HOME ATTRACTIVE. Perhaps you are hoarding your wealth and shorten- ing your days by over-work, in order to secure a com- petence for the future of your children, while your home is so bare, and its life so barren that they will leave it, and yourself, at the first opportunity without regret. Far better for them if they should leave it without a dollar of the store you are gathering up, could they but carry away with them tender memories of its sheltering roof, and a wealth of warm affection for you. Remember that youth comes to us but once ; that it is a season of golden hopes, of overflowing spirits and of joyous anticipations, and that it demands surroundings suited to these emotions. You may require no recre- ation but such as your business and daily toil supply; your mind may be absorbed in your plans and schemes, which appear to you of almost as much importance as the affairs of an empire, and with this you are satisfied ; but, if so, your eyes are not young eyes, and your heart must have long ago been dead to the voices of your youth, to expect that your children will be con- tented and happy, unless you respond to some of the impulses of their joyous natures. If you have not already the refining power of music in your little circle, procure a piano or organ, and encourage your children to sing and play. Adorn your walls with pictures and thus cultivate a love of art; subscribe to a standard magazine or two, and provide them with such books as will give them glimpses of what is going on in the world around them, and make them familiar MAKE HOME ATTRACTIVE. 75 with the best current and standard literature. Encour- age a love for flowers and flower culture; and do not be ashamed, nor too busy, to join them sometimes in their games and sports. Do not keep your boys at work so constantly as to make them hate the old farm, but sometimes let them have part of an afternoon to themselves. Give them some tools with which to exercise their mechanical ingenuity on rainy days and at odd times. Let them have a part of the garden for their own pleasure and profit, and a sheep or colt of their own to care for and manage ; and all these things will be so many anchors to fasten them to home and establish their loyalty to it. Some one has wisely said, u I would be glad to see more parents understand that when they spend money judiciously to improve and adorn the house, and the grounds around it, they are in effect paying their children a premium to stay at home as much as possible and enjoy it; but when they spend money unnecessarily in fine clothing or jewelry for their children, they are paying them a premium to spend their time away from home, — that is, in those places where they can attract the most at- tention, and make the most display.'" Above all, there must be the spirit of kindness and harmony; for without this, all else would be mockery. An old laborer, being remonstrated with by his pastor for not bringing up his boys as he should, said: " I dunno know how 7 tis, sir ; I order them down 7 6 MAKE HOME ATTRACTIVE. to pray every night and morning, and when they won't go down I knock 'em down, and yet they ain't good." Parental authority is indispensable, but it must not degenerate into despotism, for despotism in families, as in nations, ever creates rebellion. Of all tyranny, that in the home is the most odious. Thackeray has said: " In our society there is no law to control the king of the fireside. He is master of property, happi- ness — life, almost. He may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned, than the Grand Seignor who drowns a slave at midnight. He may make slaves or hypocrites of his children, or friends and freemen; or drive them into revolt against the natural law of love. When the annals of each little reign are shown the Supreme Master, under whom we hold sovereignty, histories will be laid bare of household tyrants, cruel as Amurath, savage as Nero, and reckless and disso- lute as Charles/' An attractive home will be ruled by the law of love. Oliver Wendell Holmes has said: " The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer." When your children do well, do not be afraid to tell them so. Thomas Hughes, the hearty, whole-souled author of " Tom Brown at Rugby," says : " You can never get a man's best out of him without praise," and how much more do children need it. It is like sunshine to them, without which there can be neither buds, blossoms, nor fruit. MAKE HOME ATTRACTIVE. 77 This custom of a certain family might be followed with like happy results in other homes. In a certain farm-house, twenty years ago, a great blank-book was kept, and labeled " Home Journal.' 7 Every night some one made an entry in it. Father set down the sale of the calves, or mother the cut of the baby's eye-tooth; or. perhaps. Jenny wrote a full account of the sleighing party last night: or Bob the proceedings of the Phi Beta Club. On towards the mid- dle of the book there was an entry of Jenny's marriage, and one of the younger girls had added a description of the bridesmaids' dresses; and long afterward there was written, " This dav father died/ 1 in Bob's trembling hand. There was a blank of many months after that. But nothing could have served better to bind that family of headstrong boys and girls together than the keeping of this book. They come back to the old homestead now, men and women with grizzled hair, to see their mother, who is still living, and turn over its pages reverently, with many a heart}" laugh, or with tears coming" into their eves. It is their childhood come back again in visible shape. Parents, depend upon it. you have no holier nor higher work to do than to make home attractive. In after years your endeavors will be repaid a hundred fold by the grateful affection, the happy memories, and the noble lives of your children, who, whatever their success elsewhere, will ever turn to the old homestead and its inmates as the Mecca of their earthly pilgrimage. (She CQission op GQusig. one has said that music "washes from the soul the dust of every-day It thus keeps the spirits* fresh and elastic, and better fitted to combat the trials and per- plexities of the daily routine of toil. In the marvelous complex structure of our nature, we are gifted with certain qualities of emotion, imagination and enthusiasm, which wield a power superior to that of the body, and exercise a prerogative all their own. Music is one of the most potent agencies to arouse these powers, and through them to exercise a most important influence o*n our lives. It enables us to forget care and sorrow, and drives away fatigue, and all the fogs of gloomy dejection; it rouses to unwonted activity the latent powers within us, inspires the heart with courage, and nerves it with new resolutions ; it strengthens the will to carry forward its designs, gives to the world about us an aspect of joy and brightness, and often effects a complete transformation in all our surroundings. Martin Luther said, " The devil cannot bear singing," and surely there is nothing like it to cast out the demons of dark foreboding- and discontent. Richard Cceur de Lion, King of England, in one of his crusades 7^ THE MISSION OF MUSIC. 79 to the Holy Land, was taken captive and imprisoned in an unknown dungeon. A favorite servant of his named Blondel, disguised himself as a minstrel and traveled from one dungeon to another playing -familiar airs before the bars, and at length he came to the one where the king was confined, and was answered by the voice of Richard from within. This led to the ran- som of the king, and he was restored to his throne and people. So does music rescue many souls from dark dungeons of despair, and restore them to their right- ful place in the world. During a critical moment in the battle of Waterloo, Wellington discovered to his surprise, that a regiment of Highlanders began to waver. He found that the cause of so unusual an occurrence was, that the band had ceased to play. He ordered at once that the bag- pipes — their own national music — be played with the greatest spirit, and the effect was like magic, — the Highlanders rallied at once, and went forward to the terrible conflict with the most ardent enthusiasm. In the battle of life, when the day seems against us, and we begin to falter, then it is the mission of music to inspire us with fresh courage and enthusiasm, and to lead us to victory. When Elisha Kent Kane and his men were imprisoned by the fearful rigors of an Arctic winter, they were saved from despair, during their months of weary solitude and misery, by the music from an old violin, which one of the men had carried with him. Thus were they aided to keep up their 8o THE MISSION OF MUSIC. spirits and survive the terrible ordeal of dreary isola- tion. By the power of music, wonders have been wrought which seemed simply impossible to perform. When Napoleon was conducting his army across the Alps, they came to a place where they could not get the ammunition wagons over the rocks. He went to the leader of the band, looked over his list of music, se- lected a spirited march, and ordered the whole band to play it with vigor. The result was that in some way or other the ponderous wagons scaled the seem- ingly inaccessible rocks, and the army moved on. But music has not only the power to inspire the heart with heroic daring, and vigorous resolves, but to melt it to pity and tenderness. It is related of a Turkish conqueror that he captured a Persian city and took thirty thousand prisoners; and, although they had submitted to him and laid down their arms, yet he formed the inhuman resolution of putting them all to death. Among them was a musician who asked as a special favor that he might be brought before the con- queror. This was done; and seizing a musical instru- ment he accompanied it with his voice, and sang of the triumphs of the conqueror, the capture of the city, and the incidents that had transpired in connection with it. The harmony was so exquisite, and the recital of the events so touching, that at last the hard heart of the tyrant relented; he changed his purpose, and com- manded that the remainder of the prisoners should be THE MISSION OF MUSIC. 81 set at liberty. Ralph Waldo Emerson relates an in- cident of a poor wretch who was brought up for some offense before a western police court, and fined. He was told that he might go if he would pay his fine, but he had neither money nor friends. He took a flute from his pocket and began to play. The jurors waked up, the officers forgot their duties, the judge began to beat time, and by general consent he was allowed to go on his way. Clara Louise Kellogg, when once visiting a lunatic asylum, after singing for the more quiet patients to their great delight, re- quested that she might sing to the mad people. She was accompanied by the officers and attendants to the wards where the most ungovernable were confined, and in a moment her glorious voice stilled the tumult and discord of that motley throng. The wondrous melody seemed to kindle for a few brief moments in those crazed brains, the withered ashes of long lost reason and consciousness. They smiled, they nodded, they wept, they called her an angel, gazed at her with rapture, and crowded about her, eager to touch her hand, her dress, or her feet. So can music soothe and control beclouded intellects and ungovernable pas- sions, even in those who are farthest removed from human influence. But it is the mission of music especially to make happier, and more attractive the home. It is said that in the time of Alfred the Great, it was the custom to pass the harp to each of the company in turn, to sing 82 THE MISSION OF MUSIC. and play, so universal was the love and practice of music. Well would it be in these later days if there were the same general knowledge and love of song. How many homes now silent or discordant would be joyful if the influence of song was let in. It may be taken as a safe rule generally, that those are happy families in which there is a good deal of music, and if the history of such families could be traced, it would be found that they turn out the least number of black sheep, and the largest proportion of useful men and women. Music is a safeguard against temptation; it is a delightful recreation which refreshes the mind and refines the heart; it is one of the best introductions into cultivated and desirable society, and affords a vast fund of the most delightful enjoyment. The young man who leaves home and has a love of music, is strongly fortified against the incursions of lonesomeness and discontent, when left to his own company, — which loneliness becomes the starting point with many, to bad associations and evil habits. It is interesting to notice how the love of music seems to be one of the inherent impulses of the human heart, an impulse so powerful that it survives even barbarism itself. There is scarcely a savage race but what have their rude musical instruments, and make the attempt to express some phase of experience and emotion in song. As an eloquent writer has beauti- fully observed: " Music is universally appreciated ind practiced. The English plow boy sings as he THE MISSION OF MUSIC. 83 drives his team; the Scotch Highlander makes the glens and gray moors resound with his beautiful song; the Swiss, Tyrolese and Carpathians lighten their labor by music ; the muleteer of Spain cares little who is on the throne or behind it, if he can only have his early carol; the vintager of Sicily has his evening hymn, even beside the tire of the burning mount; the fisherman of Naples has his boat song, to which his rocking boat beats time on that beautiful sea; and the gondolier of Venice still keeps up his midnight sere- nade. 11 Cultivate, then, music - in the home, and let the happy voices blend in sweet song in the family circle on long winter evenings, or in rambles under summer skies. " Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer." Let the household ring with melody, and depend upon it its blessed influences and associations will never, never be forgotten. Sunny Semper. ^MfJF it were possible for us to invoke the aid of O/jML some powerful genii, who, as we passed through tj[^p lif could summon troops of loving friends around us, and make our pathway radiant with their smiles and blessings, we should think no labor too aiduous, no sacrifice too great to procure such in- estimable happiness. If such a beneficent fairy held court and dispensed such favors, though she dwelt in the uttermost parts of the earth, what caravans of eager pilgrims would throng to that favorite realm. We often forget that the priceless charm which will secure to us all these desirable gifts is within our reach. It is the charm of a sunny temper, — a talisman more potent than station, more precious than gold, more to be desired than fine rubies. It is an aroma, whose fragrance fills the air with the odors of Paradise. It is an amulet, at sight of which dark clouds of per plexity and hideous shapes of discord flee away. It wreathes the face with smiles, creates friends, promotes cheerfulness, awakens tenderness, and scatters happi- ness. It fills the heart with joy, it robs sorrow of its pain and makes of earth a very heaven below. It was written of Leigh Hunt: " ,r Tis always sun- rise somewhere in the world. In the heart of Hunt, 84 A SUNNY TEMPER. 35 Orion was always purpling the sky." Would that the world contained more of such sunny natures, whose presence makes joy infectious. A sunny temper makes graceful the garb of poverty. It smooths the rough places in the pathway of life, and like oil on troubled waters, it calms the fierce passions and unruly natures with which it comes in contact. Said Gen. Jackson to a young lady in whose wel- fare he took a great interest: "I cannot forebear pointing out to you, my dear child, the great advan- tages that will result from a temperate conduct and sweetness of temper to all people on all occasions. Never forget that you are a gentlewoman, and let your words and actions make you gentle. I never heard your mother — your dear good mother — say a harsh or hasty thing in my life. Endeavor to imitate her. I am quick and hasty in temper, but it is a misfortune which, not having been sufficiently restrained in my youth, has caused me inexpressible pain. It has given me more trouble to subdue this impetuosity than any- thing else I ever undertook.'" Some one has remarked that, " W e have not fulfilled every duty, unless we have fulfilled that of being pleas- ant.' 1 Alas! that this is so often forgotten, that thous- ands of homes are made gloomy and repulsive by the un- happy exhibitions of ill temper, from a nervous and over- worked mother, or a well-meaning but irritable father. Could we but realize that it is a duty to cultivate a genial disposition, and to restrain those exhibitions of 86 A SUNNY TEMPER. temper which we thoughtlessly display from mere whim and impulse, how much unhappiness would be prevent- ed, and how many hearts and homes made happier. A sunny temper is also conducive to health. A medical authority of highest repute, affirms that " ex- cessive labor, exposure to wet and cold, deprivation of sufficient quantities of necessary and wholesome food, habitual bad lodging, sloth and intemperance are all deadly enemies to human life, but they are none of them so bad as violent and ungoverned passions, — that men and women have frequently lived to an advanced age in spite of these, but that instances are very rare where people of irascible tempers live to extreme old age." As the possession of sound health is one of the greatest blessings of life, it is the highest wisdom to form a habit of looking on the bright side, and of meeting the manifold vexations and annoyances of daily life without worry and friction. Blessed is the child whose opening years and first impressions of life have been unfolded in an atmosphere of love. Better than lordly palace with all the adorn- ments which limitless wealth can procure, or esthetic taste suggest, if love be lacking, is the hovel of poverty if a sunny temper, like an angel of light, illumines its humble surroundings. " To the sunny soul that is full of hope And whose beautiful trust ne'er faileth, The skies are blue and the fields are green, Tho 1 the wintry storm prevaileth. Be ©anient. USKIN, the great art critic, says, " People are always talking of perseverence, and courage, fey^so and fortitude; but patience is the finest and u worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest too/' It has been said that "impatience acts as a blight on a blossom ; it may wound the budding forth of the noblest fruit; relative to the dispensations of Providence, it is ingratitude; relative to our own purposes and attain- ments, it will be found to impede their progress.' 1 This incident has been related of Dr. Arnold, of Rugby : He once lost all patience with a dull scholar, when the pupil looked up in his face and said, " Why do you speak angrily, sir? Indeed, I am doing the best I can. 1 "' Years after, the doctor used to tell the story to his own children, and say, " I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. That look and that speech I have never forgotten." Said one of the wisest and best educators of our age, "If I only had one word to speak to my boys, it should be patience, patience, patience; over and over again." The results of patient instruction in some of our edu- cational institutions are amazing. A writer in a popu- lar periodical, thus describes some of the methods employed to bring about these results: "Here is a 87 88 BE PATIENT. child six or seven years old, unable to walk, stand, talk, or taste, and hardly capable of noticing what happens around her. The superintendent of an institution for the instruction of idiots takes this girl and spends days and weeks and months teaching her to stand in a corner. After five months constant and daily labor he is rejoiced to see that she has moved, of her own accord, one foot a half-inch forward! Therefore this patient teacher announces triumphantly that the child can be cured. And she is cured, for in time she becomes one of the best dancers in the institution! Besides this, her mind and body improve satisfactorily in other respects. Now, if men and women can be found who will thus labor and toil for years, with unremitting attention and care and solicitude, to awaken the dormant ener- gies of poor little idiots, who at first give about as much encouragement to their teachers as might be expected from a lot of clams or oysters, and such sur- prising and happy results are thereby brought about, what might not be expected if our intelligent and sane children were treated with something of that earnest, thoughtful, untiring care which these poor idiots receive."' 1 An old teacher related this incident from his own experience, which illustrates what patient effort will accomplish: I know a boy who was preparing to enter the Junior class of the New York University. He was studying trigonometry, and I gave him three examples for the next lesson. The following day he LE PATIENT. 8 9 came into my room to demonstrate his problems. Two of them he understood, but the third — a very difficult one- — -he had not performed. I said to him, " Shall I help you? " " Xo, sir. I can and will do it, if you give me time.* 1 I said, " I will give you all the time you wish." The next day he came into my room to recite a lesson in the same study. " Well, Simon, have you worked that example? ? ' "No, sir,' 1 he answered; k * but I can and will do it, if you give me a little more time.' 1 " Certainly, you shall have all the time you desire/ 1 I always like these boys who are determined to do their own work, for they make pur best scholars, and men too. The third morning you should have seen Simon enter my room. I knew he had it, for his whole face told the story of his success. Yes, he had it, notwithstanding it had cost him many hours of the severest mental labor. Xot only had he solved the problem, but, what was of infinitely greater importance to him, he had begun to develop mathe- matical powers, which, under the inspiration of "I can and will," he has continued to cultivate, until to-day he is professor of mathematics in one of our largest colleges, and one of the ablest mathematicians of his years in our country. George McDonald gives utterance to these hopeful words: " I record the conviction that in one way or another, special individual help is given to every crea- ture to endure to the end. It has been my own experience, that always when suffering, whether mental 9 o BE PATIENT. or bodily, approached the point where further endur- ance appeared impossible, the pulse of it began to ebb and a lull ensued. You are tender-hearted, and you want to be true, and are trying to be ; learn these two things : Never be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here; and never fail daily to do that good which lies next to your hand. Do not be in a hurry, but be dil- igent. Enter into the sublime patience of the Lord. Trust to God to weave your little thread into the great web, though the pattern shows it not yet. When God's people are able and willing thus to labor and wait, remember that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day; the grand harvest of the ages shall come to its reaping, and the day shall broaden itself to a thousand years, and the thousand years shall show themselves as a perfect and finished day." One of the great hearts of the earth has said: u O, impatient ones ! Did the leaves say nothing to you as they murmured when you came hither to-day? They were not created this spring, but months ago; and the summer just begun, will fashion others for another year. At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it an infant germ; and the winds will rock it, and the birds will sing to it all summer long; and next year it will unfold. So God is working for you, and carrying- forward to the perfect development all the processes of your lives." BE PATIENT. 91 That was a sublime instance of patience which was displayed in the career of the renowned Governor- General of India, Warren Hastings. When a child, seven rears of a°:e. he lar beside a small rivulet which ran through the estate of Daylesford. — once the home of his ancestors. He made a resolution to recover the estate, and passed out into the world. He became a man. went to India, was soldier, financier, and legisla- tor, and became the ruler of fifty millions of people, but amidst all his cares, and toils, and successes, he was patiently working for the consummation of his childish plan, and at last he recorered the lost estate, and in his old age went back to it to die. If rou are roung, and the mountain of knowledge seems so high and steep, and your powers so weak and unsteady, be patient. " Hearen is not reached by a single bound," and only step by step, little by little, can the dazzling heights of human achierement be attained. If you are a parent, and your head aches, and your nerves tingle with the boisterous sports of your irre- pressible brood, be patient. Do not repress their inno- cent mirth, or silence their questionings as to this new. strange world which they have entered. Follow the precept of a wise instructor: k * Bide patiently the end- less questionings of your children. Do not roughlv crush the rising spirit of free inquirv with an impatient word or frown, nor attempt, on the contrarv, a long instructive reply to every casual question. Seek 9 2 BE PATIENT. rather to deepen their curiosity. Convert, if possible, the careless question into a profound and earnest inquiry. Let your reply send the little questioner forth, not so much proud of what he has learned, as anxious to know more. Happy, thou, if in giving your child the molecule of truth he asks for, you can whet his curiosity with a glimpse of the mountain of truth, lying beyond ; so wilt thou send forth a philos- opher, and not a silly pedant, into the world." If age is coming upon you with its shadows, and as you look back through the departed years, they seem but the record of your disappointed hopes, still be patient. Beecher has left these encouraging words: " If you have failed for this life, do not fail for the other, too. There is very much that may yet be done in the afternoon and twilight of men's lives, if they are hopeful and active. " Angel of Patience! sent to calm Our feverish brows with cooling balm; To lay the storms of hope and fear, And reconcile life's smile and tear; The throbs of wounded pride to still And make our own our Father's will! O thou who mournest on thy way, With longings for the close of day ; He walks with thee, that Angel kind, And gently whispers, "Be resigned; Bear ujd, bear on, the end shall tell The dear Lord ordereth all things well." Building ©ha^agtce^. N old man, full of honors, having held many positions of trust and responsibility, said to a young man: " At your age both position and wealth appear enduring things ; but at mine, a man sees that nothing lasts but character." A well-rounded character is a steady growth, the result of years of patient well-doing. Some one has thus beautifully described the process: " Did you ever watch a sculptor slowly fashioning a human coun- tenance? It is not moulded at once. It is not struck out at a single blow. It is painfully and laboriously wrought. It is a work of time; but at last the full likeness comes out, and stands fixed and unchanging in the solid marble. So does a man carve out his own moral likeness. Every day he adds something to the work. A thousands acts of thought, and will and ef- fort shape the features and expressions of the soul. Habits of love, piety and truth, habits of falsehood, passion or hatred, silently mould and fashion it, till at length it wears the likeness of God, or the image of a demon. " Several years ago a party of eminent divines at a dinner table turned their conversation on the qualities of self-made men. They each admitted that they be- longed to that class, except a certain bishop, who re- 94 BUILDING CHARACTER. mained silent, and was intensely absorbed in the repast. The host was determined to draw him out, and so, addressing him, said: "All at this table are self-made men, unless the bishop is an exception." The bishop promptly replied, " I am not made yet," and the reply contained a profound truth. So long as life lasts, with its discipline of joy or sorrow, its opportunities for good or evil, so long our characters are being shaped and fixed. One of the essentials in the building of a good character is to cherish noble thoughts. Milton said: " He who would write heroic poems, must make his whole life an heroic poem." We are responsible for our thoughts, and unless we could command them, mental and moral excellence would be impossible. Said James Martineau: " God insists on having a con- currence between our practice and our thoughts. If we proceed to make a contradiction between them, He forthwith begins to abolish it, and if the will will not rise to the reason, the reason must be degraded to the will." Another essential element in building a good char- acter is an intense love for the right. Charles Kingsley has well said: " Let any one set his heart to do what is right and nothing else, and it will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all that goes to make up the heroic expression, with noble indignation, noble self- restraint, great hopes, great sorrows, perhaps even with the print of the martyr's crown of thorns." Dean Stanley said, speaking to a crowd of children at Westminster Abbey : 4 I knew once a very famous man, who lived to be very old — who lived to be eighty- BUILDING CHARACTER. 95 eight. He was always the delight of those about him. He always stood up for what was right. His eve was like an eagle's when it flashed Are at what was wrong. And how early do you think he began to do this ? I have an old grammar which belonged to him. all tat- tered and torn, which he had when a little boy at school, and what do you think I found written in his own hand on the very first page? Why. these words: ' Still in thy right hand earn' gentle peace, to silence vicious tongues — be just, and fear not/ That was his rule all through life, and he was loved and honored down to the day when he was carried to his grave." Said Plato: "Disregarding the honors that most men value, and looking to the truth. I shall endeavor in reality to live as virtuously as I can. and when I die to die so. And I invite all other men to the utmost of my power; and you too I in turn invite to this contest, which I affirm surpasses all contests here." That was a grand sentiment uttered by Thomas Carlyle, and worth}' to be the watchword of ever}' earnest life: " Let him who gropes painfully in dark- ness of uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into da}', lay this precept well to heart, which to me was of incalculable service, 1 Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a duty: thy second duty will already have be- come clear.' " When Sir Fowell Buxton, who carried through the British Parliament the bill for the abolition of slavery 9 6 BUILDING CHARACTER. throughout the British dominions, was at the height of his philanthropic career, he left on record words worthy to be treasured in every aspiring heart. " I thank God," says he, "that I have pursuits in life so deeply interesting as they proceed, and so full of prom- ise in the magnitude of their results, that they de- serve to absorb my whole being. I would not ex- change objects in life with any living man." Contrast that noble spirit with that of Frederick the Great, who, after suffering reverses and disappointments, thus revealed the bitterness of his heart, in spite of his boasted philosophy: " It is hard for a man to bear what I bear. I begin to feel, as the Italians say, that revenge is a pleasure for the gods. My philosophy is worn out by suffering. I am no saint like those wt read of in the legends, and I will own that I should die content if only I could first inflict a portion of the misery which I endure." When Handel, the great composer, was thanked by an English nobleman for the entertainment he had af- forded the people by his new oratorio, " The Messiah," he replied, " My lord, I should be sorry if I only en- tertained them; I wish to make them better." That was a noble declaration which has come down to us through the centuries from Alfred the Great: " I have striven to live worthily, and left it on record." To build a good character requires a spirit of earn- estness. Said Dr. Arnold, the celebrated instructor: " I feel more and more the need of intercourse with BUILDING CHARACTER. 97 men who take life in earnest. It is painful to me to be always on the surface of things. Not that I wish for much of what is called religious conversation. CD That is often apt to be on the surface. But I want a sign which one catches by a sort of masonry, that a man knows what he is about in life. When I find this it opens my heart with as fresh a sympathy as when I was twenty years younger. 11 On this subject Carlyle writes these earnest words: (k Thy life, wert thou the pitifullest of all the sons of earth, is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thine own! it is all thou hast to front eternity with. Work then like a star, unhasting yet unresting. 11 The building of character requires also manly inde- pendence; the determination to do right even it be unpopular. It requires strength of character to face ridicule and contumely, even if bidden by the unre- lenting voices of conscience and duty. Sidney Smith emphasizes this truth in these words: " I know of no principle which it is of more import- ance to fix in the minds of young people, than that of the most determined resistance to the encroachments of ridicule. If you think it right to differ with the times, and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals or religion, do it, however rustic, however an- tiquated it may appear; do it, not for insolence, but seriously and grandly, as a man wears a soul of his own in his own, and does not wait until it shall be breathed into him by the breath of fashion." 9 S BUILDING CHARACTER. Again, to build character requires a teachable spirit, one that will bear reproof if in the wrong. A pro- found student of human nature observes: "There is perhaps no better test of a man's real strength of character, than the way in which he bears himself un der just reproof. Every man makes mistakes; every man commits faults; but not every man has the honesty and meekness to acknowledge his errors and to welcome the criticism which points them out to him. It is rarely difficult for us to find an excuse for our course, if it's an excuse we are looking for. It is, in fact, always easier to spring to an angry defense of ourselves than to calmly acknowledge the justice of another's righteous condemnation of some wrong ac- tion of ours; but to refuse to adopt this latter course, when we know that we are in the wrong, is to reveal to our own better consciousness, and often to the con- sciousness of others, an essential defect in our charac- ter. He is strong who dares confess that he is weak; he is already tottering to a fall who needs to bolster up the weakness of his personality by all sorts of transparent shams. It is not in vain that Scripture says : ' Reprove one that hath understand- ing, and he will understand knowledge;' for one of the best evidences of the possession of that discreet self- judgment which stands at the basis of moral strength, and one of the best means of gaining it when it is lack- ing, is just this willingness to accept merited reproof, and to profit by it when accepted." BUILDING CHARACTER. 99 One of the most brilliant intellects of this century has given this masterly exposition of the true strength of character: " Strength of character consists of two things; power of will and power of self-restraint. It requires two things, therefore, for its existence; strong feelings and strong command over them. Now, it is here we make a great mistake; we mistake strong feelings for strong character. A man who bears all before him, before whose frown, domestics tremble, and whose bursts of fury make the children of the household quake, because he has his will obeyed and his own way in all things, we call him a strong man. The truth is, that is the weak man; it is his passions that are strong; he, mastered by them, is weak. You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those which subdue him. And hence composure is very often the highest result of strength. Did we never see a man receive a flagrant insult, and only grow a little pale and then reply quietly? That was a man spiritually strong. Or did we never see a man in anguish, stand as if carved out of solid rock, mastering himself? Or one bearing a hopeless daily trial remain silent and never tell the world what cankered his home-peace? That is strength. He who with strong passions re- mains chaste; he who, keenly sensitive, with manly power of indignation in him, can be provoked, and yet restrain himself and forgive — these are the strong men, the spiritual heroes." O^hat Reading QJill Do. O for a Booke and a shadie nooke, eyther in-a-door or out; With the grene leaves whisp'ring overhede, or the Streete cryes all about. Where I maie Reade all at my ease, both of the Newe and Olde; For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke, is better to me than Golde. — Old English Song. HE habit of reading good books affords one of the greatest enjoyments of life. By reading, j^M we can transcend time and space, and bring before us in review, the peoples and dynasties of the misty past. We can summon before us their great men, we can listen to their words of wisdom, and learn the story of the achievements which made them immortal. Says an eloquent writer: u I go into my library, and, like some great panorama, all history unrolls before me; I breathe the morning air of the world, while the scent of Eden's roses lingers in it. I see the pyramids building. I hear Memnon murmur as the first morn- ing sun touches him. I see the Sphinx when she first began to ask her eternal question. I sit as in a thea- ter; the stage is time, the play is the play of the world. ioo WHAT READING WILL DO. IOI What a spectacle it is! What kingly pomp! What processions pass by! What cities burn to heaven! What crowds of captives are dragged at the wheels of conquerors! Across the brawling centuries of blood and war that lie between, I can hear the bleating of Abraham's sheep, the tinkling of the bells of Rebekah's camels. O men and women, so far separated, yet so near, so strange, yet so well known, by what miracu- lous power do I know you all? What king's court can boast such company? What school of philosophy such wisdom? All the wit of all the world is glanc- ing and floating there. There is Pan's pipe, there are the songs of Apollo. Sitting in my library at night, and looking in the silent faces of my books, *I am oc- casionally visited by a strange sense of the super- natural. They are not collections of printed pages, they are ghosts. I take one down, and it immediately speaks with me, — it may be in a tongue not now heard on earth, it may be of men and things of which it alone possesses knowledge. I call myself a solitary, but sometimes I think I mis- apply the term. No man sees more company than I do. I travel with mightier cohorts around me than ever did Tamerlane or Genghis-Khan in their fiery marches. I am a sovereign in my library, but it is the dead, not the living, that attend my levees." Said the accomplished Madame de Genlis, one of the most brilliant literary celebrities in her day : " How I pity those who have no love of reading, of study or 102 WHAT READING WILL DO. of the fine arts. I have passed my youth amidst amusements and in the most brilliant society, but yet I can assert with perfect truth, that I have never tasted pleasures so true as those I have found in the study of books, in writing and in music. The days that suc- ceed brilliant entertainments are always melancholy; but those which follow days of study are delicious: we have gained something; we have acquired some knowl- edge, and well recall the past days, not with disgust and regret, but with consummate satisfaction." Rufus Choate, who had an extraordinary attachment to books, and almost lived amongst them, once said in an address: " Happy is he who laid up in his youth, and held steadfast in all fortunes, a genuine and pas- sionate love of reading, the true balm of hurt minds, of surer and more healthful charms than poppy or mandragora or all the drowsy syrups in the world."' 1 With books we can, by a single bound, leave the cares and anxieties of daily life, and be in the peaceful realm of delightful study. No matter what may be our condition — without wealth, without social standing, with rude surroundings and with poverty at the threshold, we can call to us the most gifted and illustrious of all ages. At our bid- ding Milton will come and sing to us, Shakespeare will disclose the world's imagination and the inner work- ings of the human heart, Demosthenes, Webster and Burke will repeat again the sonorous measures of their incomparable eloquence. Lord Bacon, one of the intellectual giants of the WHAT READING WILL DO. 103 world, thus places his estimate on what reading will do : " Reading serves for delight, for ornament, and for ability. The crafty contemn it; the simple admire it; the wise use it. Reading makes a full man ; conference, a ready man; and writing, an exact man. He that writes little, needs a great memory; he that confers little, a present wit ; and he that reads little, much cun- ning to seem to know that which he does not." Said that great astronomer, Sir John Herschel: " Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me dur- ing life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history — with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages". The world has been created for him!" Goldsmith said: " The first time I read an excellent book, it is just to me as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one. 7 ' But reading can not only bring to- us the best company, 104 WHAT LLAULXJ WILL DO. but it can fill us with great thoughts ; it can inspire us with noble aspirations, and it can give a bent to the mind which will mould the whole life and exert an influence on us forever. Many a career has been shaped by reading. When Benjamin Franklin was a boy, part of a little book called " Essays to do Good,''' by Cotton Mather, fell into his hands, and he says: " It gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life, for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than any other kind of reputation; and if I have been a useful citizen, the public owes all the advantages of it to that little book."" William Chambers, one of the famous publishers of Edinburgh, who did so much to bring literature within the reach of the people, and brought to himself a repu- tation by doing so, attributed a great measure of his success to his love for, and study of, good books, in his early life. He said in a public address: " I stand be- fore you a self-educated man. My education was that which is supplied by the humble parish schools of Scotland, and it was only when I went to Edinburgh, a poor boy, that I devoted my evenings, after the labors of the day, to the cultivation of that intellect that the Almighty has given me. From seven to ten in the morn- ing to nine or ten at night, I was at my business as a bookseller^ apprentice, and it was only in hours after these that I could devote myself to study. I as- sure you I did not read novels; my attention was de- voted to physical science." WHAT READING WILL DO. I05 The young aspirations of John Wesley were directed by reading Thomas a Kempis 7 u Imitation of Christ. 11 Jeremy Bentham mentions that the current of his thoughts and studies on political economy was directed through life by a single phrase that caught his eye at the end of a pamphlet: " The greatest good of the greatest number." On the other hand, the influence of bad books has sw r ept countless numbers to destruction. From be- hind prison bars, and from the gallows, have come in- numerable confessions that pernicious books were the causes which led to an evil and abandoned life. An officer of the British government, who made the matter a study, declares that nearly all the boys brought before criminal courts, may. largely ascribe their downfall to impure reading. And even when the morals remain uncontaminated, how reading can per- vert the judgment and instill poisonous sentiments which will darken the life and destroy one 7 s usefulness ever after. It is said that Voltaire, when young, committed an infidel poem to memory, and the sentiment colored his whole after life. David Hume, when a boy, was a believer in the Scriptures, but in studying the works of infidels to prepare for a debate, the seeds of doubt were sown which ripened into avowed infidelity. William Wilberforce, the noble philanthropist and statesman, when 3-oung had the curiosity to read an io6 WHAT READING WILL DO. infidel book, and when he had partly read it, he cast it away, in terror of its insidious influence, for he noticed that although he detected its sophistries, his mind was entangled and hurt. But if we confine our choice to good books, a love of reading will yield us the most unalloyed pleasure. Said Milton: "A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up to a life beyond life/' and Martain Farquhar Tupper has somewhere said: "A good book is the best of friends — the same to-day and forever." Friends may fail us, prosperity may vanish, care and trouble may come like an overwhelming flood, — age may advance and we be left in solitude, but the pleasure derived from books will survive all, and prove a most welcome and ready consolation. Washington Irving has writ- ten: u When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, books only retain their steady value. When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates lan- guishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of better days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never de- ceived hope, nor deserted sorrow." Reading can thus shape a career, adorn a life, and assuage care and grief. It can take the place of friends and society, and lead us to the companionship of the good and great of all ages. Cultivate, then, this great gift, carefully, wisely and systematically, and it will yield you a rich harvest of invaluable instruction and abiding pleasure. Wkaw mo I^EAD. The true university of these days is a collection of books. — Carlyle. ^^^EoME one has said, kt The art of reading is to skip judiciously. 11 The number of books is legion, and even a whole life-time would be too short to master more than a small proportion of them. When we consider that most persons can de- vote only the moments of leisure, or the scraps of time snatched from sleep or from their daily toil, how im- portant it is that the few books which can be read, should be of sterling worth, and should contain food for thought which will stimulate the mind and enrich the character. 11 The words of that eminent man. Sir William Hamilton, cannot be too well considered: " Read much, but not many works. For what pur- pose, with what intent do we read? We read not for the sake of reading, but we read to the end that we may think. Reading is valuable only as it may sup- ply the materials which the mind itself elaborates. As it is not the largest quantity of an}" kind of food taken into the stomach that conduces to health, but such a quantity of such a kind as can be best digested ; so it 107 io8 WHAT TO READ. is not the greatest complement of any kind of informa- tion that improves the mind, but such a quantity of such a kind as determines the intellect to most vigfor- ous energy. The only profitable kind of reading is that in which we are compelled to think, and think in- tensely; whereas, that reading which serves only to dissipate and divert our thoughts is either positively hurtful, or useful only as an occasional relaxation from severe exertion. But the amount of vigorous thinking is usually in the inverse ratio to multifarious reading." Prof. Blackie, of Edinburgh University, gives most excellent advice on this subject: " Keep in mind, 7 ' he says, " that though the library shelves groan with books, whose name is legion, there are in each depart- ment only a few great books, in relation to which others are but auxiliary, or it may be sometimes para- sitical, and, like the ivy, doing harm rather than good to the pole round which they cling. Stick, therefore, to the great books, the original books, the fountain heads of great ideas and noble passions, and you will learn joyfully to dispense with the volumes of accessory talk by which their virtue has been as frequently ob- scured as illuminated. 7 ' A wise man adds: " It would have been better, in my opinion, for the world and for science, if, instead of the multitude of books which now overlay us, we possessed but a few works, good and sterling, and which, as few, would be therefore more diligently and profoundly studied." WHAT TO READ. Bulwer, who had a great knowledge of books, gives this suggestion: " In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern. New books revive and re-decorate old ideas; old books suggest and invigor- ate new ideas. 1,1 And yet it must be borne in mind that while the ad- vice of these great men is eminently sound, and cannot be too closely followed by mature readers, yet it is necessary with many young people to first awaken a taste and love for reading in order to cultivate the habit. With such it is necessary often to begin with popular tales and works of fiction, but these can be selected so as to awaken an appetite for more substan- tial works. Much of the best literary talent of the age has been engaged in popularizing and presenting, in a fascinating style, history, science, incidents of travel, and the lives of great men, bringing all within the grasp of the child's mind, and making these subjects as interesting as the fairy tales of the old story books. With such books a love of reading can be created, and they will prove a pleasing introduction to the study of the great master-pieces in literature. But, perhaps, the greatest danger to be avoided in the selection of books, is the undue importance given to works of fiction. Novels, like an army of locusts, penetrate everywhere, and with thousands they dis- place entirely the study of all higher forms of litera- ture. As they are often written to sell, without any no WHAT TO READ. moral object in view, they pander to unworthy tastes and base passions, and have a corrupting influence wherever they go. A gifted divine, in speaking of novels, said: " The ten plagues have visited our literature ; water is turned into blood; frogs and lice creep and hop over our most familiar things, — the couch, the cradle and the bread-trough; locusts, murrain and fire are smiting every green thing. I am ashamed and outraged when I think that wretches could be found to open these foreign seals, and let out their plagues upon us; that any satanic pilgrim should voyage to France to dip from the Dead Sea of her abominations a baptism for our sons." Goldsmith, himself a novel-writer, said: " Above all, never let your son touch a novel or romance. How delusive, how destructive, are these pictures of con- summate bliss ! They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness that never existed, to des- pise the little good that Fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave." George Augustus Sala has thus depicted the evils of novel reading on girls, and the effect on boys is equally pernicious: " Girls learn from such books to think boldly and coarsely about lovers and marrying; their early modesty is effaced by the craving for admiration; their warm affections are silenced by the desire for selfish triumphs ; they lose the fresh and honest feel- ings of youth while they are yet scarcely developed; WHAT TO READ. they pass with sad rapidity from their early visions of Tancred and Orlando to notions of good connections, establishments, excellent matches, etc.. and yet they think, and their mammas think, that they are only ad- vancing in • prudence ' and knowledge of the world — that bad. contaminating knowledge of the world which I sometimes imagine must have been the very apple that Eve plucked from the forbidden tree. Alas, when once tasted, the garden of life is an innocent and happy Paradise no more." If a person is fed on sweetmeats and highly seasoned food he soon loses his appetite for plain wholesome diet : and so with the mind. When the imagination is excited by highly colored pictures of wonderful char- acters, and marvelous combinations of circumstances, the mind rejects the plain and wholesome nutri- ment of solid reading. Dr. Francis Wayland, the eminent professor on moral philosophy, relates of him- self how-, when about eighteen years of age, his taste for reading was completely changed. Before that time he had devoured novels, stories, travels and ad- ventures, and wondered how people could take so much pleasure in didactic essays and become so much charmed with what they called " the beauty of the style." One day he happened to take up a volume of the " Spectator" and read one of Addison's papers on Milton. He enjoyed it. and found he understood it perfectly. He turned to other papers of like charac- acter, and from that time enjoyed solid and instructive 112 WHAT TO READ. books, lost his relish for novels, in which he had de- lighted before, and scarcely read one afterwards. As we unconsciously become like the company we associate with, so we grow like the books we read. Bishop Potter said: "It is nearly an axiom that people will not be better than the books they read," and we safely judge of a person's tastes and character by inspecting his library. An old writer applies this wise rule to the worth of books: " Where a book raises your spirit and inspires you with noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the event by; it is good, and made by a good workman. 11 How important, then, that our selections be carefully made. " Knowledge From what book shall I read? " ,k And you ask?" said Scott. " There is but one. " ; 'I chose,' 1 said Lockhart, k> the 14th chapter of St. John. He listened with mild devotion, and said, when I had done, ' Well, this is a great comfort. I have followed you distinctly, and I feel as if I was to be myself again.' 11 A popular writer has finely brought out the influence which the Bible had on the intellect of Daniel Webster, the manner in which it inspired his eloquence, and his astonishing familiarity with the Scriptures. He says that, •'While a mere lad he read with such power and expres- sion that the passing teamsters, who stopped to water their horses, used to get £ Webster's boy ' to come out beneath the shade of the trees and read the Bible to them. Those who heard Mr Webster, in later life, recite passages from the Hebrew prophets and Psalms, say that he held them spellbound, while each passage, even the most familiar, came home to them in a new meaning. One gentleman says that he never received such ideas of the majesty of God and the dignity of man as he did one clear night when Mr. Webster, standing in the open air, recited the eighth Psalm. Webster's mother observed another old fashion of Xew England in training her son. She encouraged him to memorize such Scriptural passages as im- pressed him. The boy's retentive memory and his sensitiveness to Bible metaphors and to the rhythm of the English version, stored his mind with Scripture. 138 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. On one occasion the teacher of the district school offered a jack-knife to the boy who should recite the greatest number of verses from the Bible. When Webster's turn came he arose and reeled off so many verses that the master was forced to cry, 4 enough.' It was the mother's training and the boy's delight in the idioms and music of King James's version that made him the ' Biblical Concordance of the Senate.' But these two factors made him more than a £ concordance.' The Hebrew prophets inspired him to eloquent utter- ances. He listened to them until their vocabulary and idioms, as expressed in King James's translations, became his mother-tongue. Of his lofty utterances it may be said, as Wordsworth said of Milton's poetry, they are ' Hebrew in soul.' Therefore they project themselves into the future. The young man who would be a writer that shall be read, or an orator whom people will hear, should study the English Bible. Its singular beauty and great power as litera ture, the thousand sentiments and associations which use has attached to it, have made it a mightier force than any other book." Horace Bushnell, one of the brightest intellects of this century, said of himself: "My own experience is that the Bible is dull when I am dull. When I am really alive and set in upon the text with a tidal pleas- ure of living affinities, it opens, it multiplies, discovers and reveals depths even faster than I can note them." Rev. DeWitt Talmage thus expresses his attachment THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 139 to the sacred Word: "We open our Bibles, and we feel like the Christian Arab who said to the skeptic, when asked by him why he believed there was a God, ' Hew do I know that it was a man instead of a camel that went past my tent last night? Why, I know him by the tracks.' Then, looking over at the setting sun, the Arab said to the skeptic, ' Look there! that is not the work of a man. That is the track of a God." We have all these things revealed in God's Word. Dear old book! My father loved it. It trembled in pay mother's hand when she was nigh fourscore years old. It has been under the pillows of three of my brothers when they died. It is a very different book from what it once was to me. I used to take it as a splendid poem, and read it as I read John Milton. I took it up sometimes as a treatise on law, and read it as I did Blackstone. I took it as a tine history, and read it as I did Josephus. Ah ! now it is not the poem: it is not the treatise of law; it is not the history. It is simply a family album that I open, and see right before me the face of God, my Father, of Christ, my Saviour: o: heaven, my eternal home. M Coleridge has said, " As the Xew Testament sets forth the means and condition of spiritual convales- cence, with all the laws of conscience relative to our future state and permanent being, so does the Bible present to us the elements of public prudence, instruct- ing us in the true causes, the surest preventions, and the only cure of public evils. I persist in avowing my 140 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. conviction that the inspired poets, historians, and sen- tentiaries of the Jews, are the clearest teachers of political economy; in short, that their writings are the "Statesman's Best Manual, 1 '' not only as containing the first principles and ultimate grounds of state policy, whether in prosperous times or in those of danger and distress, but as supplying likewise the details of their application, and as being a full and spacious repository of precedents and facts in proof.' 1 We have thus presented tributes and testimonies from some of the greatest divines, scientists, jurists, statesmen and critics of modern times, showing the influence of the Bible on personal character, literature, oratory, statesmanship and national progress, and such testimony might be multiplied by volumes. Is it not worth while to accept the opinions of these great men, and like them make the Bible a careful and continuous study? What book is so worthy of our earnest perusal? As has been eloquently said, "Cities fall, empires come to nothing, and kingdoms fade away as smoke. Where are Numa, Minos, Lycurgus ? Where are their books? and what has become of their laws? But that this book no tyrant should have been able to consume, no tradition to choke, no heretic maliciously to corrupt; that it should stand unto this day amid the wreck of all that was human, without the alteration of one sentence so as to change the doctrine taught therein — surely this is a very singular providence, claiming our attention in a very remarkable manner." THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. It furnishes invaluable counsel in all the practical emergencies of life, its influence will strengthen and purifv the character, and exalt the motives of life and conduct. It has been the source of strength and hope to millions of despairing souls, who have triumphed over troubles and temptations which else would have overwhelmed them. It has been a shelter from the storms of life, a consolation in times of affliction, and a light in the darkness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Among the dead on one of the battle-fields before Richmond, was found a soldier beneath whose pulse- less hand was an open Bible, and his fingers were pressed upon these precious words of the 23d Psalm: "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Such has been and is its power and influence in life and in death. ; ' Thou truest friend man ever knew, Thy constancy I've tried ; When all were false, I found thee true. My counsellor and guide. The mines of earth no treasures give That could this volume buy; In teaching me the way to live, It taught me how to die." <£>HE (sH^ISJPIAN IXIPB. 4; HERE are few who do not believe in a life beyond the grave, and that our happiness or $JSij misery there, will depend on our character and conduct here. There are few who do not also be- lieve in the existence of a God, and that He has placed within us something, which we call conscience, by which we approve what is right, and condemn what is wrong. If we believe in the existence of right and wrong, our natural instinct teaches us that there exists a principle of justice, by which, somehow, wrong-doing will be punished, and well-doing rewarded. These are obvious truths which suggest themselves to our natural understanding, and even heathen races have an intuitive belief in the same doctrines. If, then, we be- lieve in a future life, in the existence of God, and in a principle of justice, and all beyond that seems dark, what attitude should reason and common sense con- strain us to take in reference to Christianity, and what judgment shall we pass upon the Bible? Here is a book which purports to come from God through di- vinely inspired men. It reveals to us our origin, our destiny, and the existence and character of God, and of his moral government. "W ithout it, we should grope 142 THE CHRISTIAN" LIFE. 143 in darkness, and have no light except the dim and un- certain glimmer which proceeds from the natural world and our dim and unaided intuitions. The wonderful revelations of modern science are found to coincide with its account of the creation of the world, and in all other particulars; the recent dis- coveries of records which have been hidden for thous- ands of years, as well as profane history, all attest its historic accuracy: the oldest book in the world, it has strangely survived empires and dynasties, and has come down to us through seas of blood, and devastat- ing famines and plagues which time and again have threatened to depopulate the earth. Its prophecies have been fulfilled to the very letter, although thev were uttered by men of diverse temperament and sur- roundings, through a period extending over thousands of vears. Its most malignant enemies have confessed that the system of morals which it teaches is without parallel elsewhere. The doctrines and precepts which it inculcates have swept over continents and the isl- ands of the sea, and wherever they go they establish peace, happiness, refinement and intelligence. The Bible is the massive pillar on which rests happy homes, orderly communities, institutions of learning, noble charities and free governments. Millions have died with its words on their lips. — torn by wild beasts in Roman amphitheatres, in the thick darkness of the catacombs, at the stake and gibbet, and under every conceivable condition of bodily anguish, — and yet thev 144 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. have triumphed even in their tortures, and often their grand lives went out with a song and a shout of vic- tory. Thousands of the brightest intellects and most comprehensive minds of all ages have left testimony of their unalterable faith in its truth and inspiration, as well as their personal acceptance of its teachings. Millions of living voices, of every nation and tongue would joyfully add their testimony to the same ef- fect, and now, in the face of all this, what course can a rational, sensible, fair-minded person take, except to receive the Bible for what it assumes to be, — the re-, vealed will of God. If the Bible be thus accepted, then the personal obligation is admitted to diligently study it and conform to its requirements. Christianity is adapted to the highest development of character and life. A writer has strikingly said: a It is too little considered what a breadth there is to Christianity in its -relations to human wants. It is adapted to man's entire constitution. It addresses his reason. It enlarges his understanding and gives act- ivity to thought. It stimulates the instinctive aspira- tions of the soul, awakens high desires, enkindles and purifies the imagination, and directs to the best ends. It refines the sensibilities, and imparts warmth and tenderness to the affections, and tends to produce the enthusiasm which is essential to all great action." Religion thus tends to the harmonious growth of all the faculties; it is so suited to human needs that it ele- vates man to the highest degree of perfection, whether THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. H5 considered as to his physical, mental, or spiritual nature. Sir Matthew Hale, one of the purest and greatest jurists of any age, who was a devout Christian, said: " A man, industrious in his calling, if without the fear of God, becomes a drudge to worldly ends; vexed when disappointed, overjoyed in success. Mingle but the fear of God with business, — it will not abate a man's industry, but sweeten it ; if he prosper, he is thank- ful to God who gives him power to get wealth: if he miscarry, he is patient under the will and dispensa- tion of the God he fears. It turns the very employ- ment of his calling into a kind of religious duty and ex- ercise of his religion, without damage or detriment to it.' 1 What a fine example was that of applying religion to the affairs of life, when the young Victoria, then a maiden of eighteen, on being aroused at midnight and informed that she was Queen of England, requested the venerable councilor who conveyed the message, to pray with her ; and they both knelt in prayer together, asking God to endow her with strength to perform Ir- responsible duties, and to bless her reign. There is no other refuge like this, for those burdened with great trials and anxieties which well-nigh over- power them. Charles Lamb wrote of the woes of life, which few had felt more keenly than himself: " For ills like these, Christ is the only cure. Sav less than this, and say it to the winds." The famous Patrick Henry wrote in his will : " I have now disposed of all my property to my family; 146 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.'" Among the last words of Sir Walter Scott were these to his son-in-law: " Lockhart, I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man; be virtuous; be religious; be a good man; nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here." In the hour of death there is no hope or consolation except in the exercise of a religious faith. How lamenta- ble the cry of the poor Roman Emperor Adrian as he felt the approach of death: u O my poor wandering soul! alas! whither art thou going? where must thou lodge this night? Thou shalt never jest more, never be merry more. 1 ' How different the words of a Chris- tian woman, who had been shipwrecked, and whose voice was heard singing in the darkness as she was lashed to a spar: "Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly, While the billows o'er me roll, While the tempest still is high." When George III., King of England, was an old man, and nearly blind, he stood over the death-bed of his favorite daughter, the Princess Amelia, and said: " My dear child, you have ever been a good child to your parents. Your conduct has been above reproach. But I need not tell you that it is not by the excellen- THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 147 cies of your character alone that you can be saved. Your acceptance with God must depend on your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. " " I know it," replied the dying princess, " and I can wish for no better trust." A few days before Coleridge, the poet, died, he wrote to his god-child: " On the eve of my departure, I declare to you that health is a great blessing; com- petence, obtained by honorable industry, a great bless- ing; and a great blessing it is to have kind, faithful and loving friends and relatives; but that the greatest bless- ing, as it is the most ennobling of all privileges, is to be indeed a Christian." Such is religion, — the gracious power which can dig- nify and ennoble the character, develop the whole be- ing, exalt the life, and fill it with rational enjoyment, and in the presence of death afford a hope and consola- tion more valuable than the whole universe beside. Church of the living God! in vain thy foes Make thee, in impious mirth, their laughing stock, Contemn thy strength, thy radiant beauty mock; In vain their threats, and impotent their blows — Satan's assault — Hell's agonizing throes! For thou art built upon th' Eternal Rock, Nor fear'st the thunder storm, the earthquake shock, And nothing shall disturb thy calm repose. All human combinations change and die, Whate'er their origin, form, design ; But firmer than the pillars of the sky. Thou standest ever by a power Divine; Thou art endowed with immortality, And can'st not perish — God's own life is thine? Wm. Lloyd Garrison, f{ <5aij^ mo the Boys. ORACE MANN, one of the best friends to boys that ever lived, drew a picture of a young man over whom angels and demons were hovering, and contending for the mas- tery of his soul. The conception is not a flight of fancy, but is a terrible reality. Fortunately, however, you are not passive spectators, but have the power within your- selves to choose which of the two shall take possession of your lives. That line of Wordsworth's, " The child is father to the man," is worth thinking about. It means that the habits, the principles, and the drift of life which you choose while you are boys, will go with you into manhood, and will determine what kind of a man you will be. It has been said of Benedict Arnold, the traitor, that he " was the only general in the American Revolution who disgraced his country. He had superior military talent, indomitable energy, and a courage equal to any emergency. The capture of Burgoyne's army was due more to Arnold than to Gates; and in the fatal expedition against Quebec, he showed rare powers of leadership. Had his character been equal to his talents, he would have won a place beside Washington and Green, inferior only to them in ability and achievements. But he began life badly, 148 A TALK TO THE BOYS. 149 and it is not surprising that he ended it in disgrace. When a boy, he was detested for selfishness and cru- elty. He took delight in torturing insects and birds, that he might watch their sufferings. He scattered pieces of glass and sharp tacks on the floor of the shop he tended, that the barefooted boys who visited it might have sore and bleeding feet. The selfish cruelty of boyhood grew stronger in manhood. It went with him into the army. He was hated by the soldiers, and distrusted by the officers, in spite of his bravery, and at last became a traitor to his country." What a contrast to this picture is that of the gal- lant old Christian hero, Admiral Farragut. Listen to what he said of his boyish life, and of how he started to be a man: " When I was ten years old, I was with my father on board a man-of-war. I had some quali- ties that, I thought, made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt, could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards, and fond of gaming in every shape. At the close of dinner, one day, my father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, and said to me, ' David, what do you mean to be?' 'I mean to follow the sea.' ' Follow the sea! Yes, to be a poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast; be kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital in a foreign land. No, David ; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with such principles as you have, and such habits as you A TALK TO THE BOYS. exhibit. You will have to change your whole course of life if you ever become a man.'' My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke, and overwhelmed with mortification. ' A poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast ! Be kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital! That is to be my fate,' thought I. ' Til change my life, and change it at once. I will never utter another oath; I will never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor; I will never gamble.'' I have kept these three vows ever since. Shortly after I had made them I became a Christian. That act was the turning-point in my destiny." If you have the impression that people admire an impudent boy, who thinks it is smart and manly to drink, or smoke, or swear, you are greatly mistaken. Some one has drawn a picture of him, and we ask you whether you think it is worth while to try to be like him: "He may be seen any day, in almost any street in the village; he never makes room for you on the sidewalk, looks at you saucily, and swears smartly if asked anything; he is very impudent, and often vulgar to ladies who pass; he delights in frightening, and sometimes does serious injury to, little boys and girls ; he lounges at the street corners, and is the first arrival at a dog-fight, or any other sport or scrape; he crowds into the postoffice in the evening, and multi- plies himself and his antics at such a rate that people having legitimate business there are crowded out. A TALK TO THE BOYS, And bethinks himself very sharp; he is certainly very noisy; he can smoke and chew tobacco now and then, and rip out an oath most any time.' 1 You must remember that if you amount to anything in the world, it will be mainly through your own efforts. You may have good friends, but they cannot make your character or habits, — these are of your own fashioning. Some one, in an excellent talk to boys, says that a boy is something like a bar of iron, which in its natural state is worth about five dollars; if made into horseshoes, twelve dollars; but by being worked into balance springs for watches, it is worth two hundred r zd fifty thousand dollars, and then adds: u But the iron has to go through a great deal of hammering and beating, and rolling and pounding, and polishing, and so, if you are to become useful and educated men, you must go through a long course of study and training. The more time you spend in hard study, the better material you will make. The iron doesn \ have to go through half as much to be made into horseshoes as it does to be converted into delicate watch-springs, but think how much less valuable it is. Which would you rather be, horseshoes, or watch-springs? It depends on yourselves. You can become whichever you will. This is your time of preparation for manhood. 11 A wise man has said that " When forenoons of life are wasted, there is not much hope of a peaceful and fruitful evening. Sun-risings and sun-settings are closely connected in every experience/ 1 152 A TALK TO THE BOYS. Youth is the golden time in life for acquiring knowl- edge. Your minds are free from harassing care and anxiety, and you have the time to read the best books as you will never have again. It is worth while to be a boy, to read some good books for the first time. There is Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Schonberg Cotta Family, School Days at Rugby, and many others, which afford the greatest pleasure to any boy who has a healthy, boyish nature. If you are working hard during the day, you have still the long evenings and rainy days, and the fact that your reading has to be done during your odd moments of leisure, gives it a relish that an idle boy can never understand. A writer has given some excellent suggestions as to the use of one's evenings, and happy the boy who lays them to heart and profits by them : ' ' The boy who spends an hour of each evening lounging idly on the street cor- ners, wastes in the course of a year three hundred and six- ty-five precious hours, which, if applied to study, would familiarize him with the rudiments of almost any of the familiar sciences. If, in addition to wasting an hour each evening, he spends ten cents for a cigar, which is usually the case, the amount thus worse than wasted would pay for ten of the leading periodicals of the country. Boys, think of these things. Think of how much time and money you are wasting, and for what? The gratification afforded by the lounge on the corner, or the cigar, is not only temporary, but positively hurtful. You cannot indulge in them with- A TALK TO THE BOYS 153 out seriously injuring yourself. You acquire idle and wasteful habits, which will eling to you with each suc- ceeding vear. You may in after life shake them off. but the probabilities are. that the habits thus formed in early life will remain with you till your dying da}". Be warned, then, in time, and resolve that, as the hour spent in idleness is gone forever, you will improve each passing one, and thereby lit yourself for usefulness and happiness. " It is well for you to learn early in life the value of money, As long as you spend what some one else has earned, you do not realize what it is worth, but probably the time will come when you will find out how much hard work a dollar represents. It is said that *'A silver dollar represents a day's work of the laborer. If it is given to a boy. he has no idea of what it has cost, or of what it is worth. He would be as likely to give a dollar as a dime for a top or any other toy. But if the boy has learned to earn his dimes and dollars by the sweat of his face, he knows the difference. Hard work is to him a measure of values that can never be rubbed out of his mind. Let him learn by experience that a hundred dollars means a hundred weary days' labor, and it seems a great sum of money. A thousand dollars is a fortune, and ten thousand is almost inconceivable, for it is far more than he ever expects to possess. When he has earned a dollar he thinks twice before he spends it. 1 ' Another good thing to remember is the importance *54 A TALK TO THE BOYS. of things which seem to you but trifles. Nothing is a trifle which tends to promote careful habits or build character. This story is told of the eccentric Phila- delphia millionaire, Stephen Girarcl: u He once tested the quality of a boy who applied for a situation, by giving him a match loaded at both ends and ordering him to light it. The boy struck the match, and after it had burned half its length threw it away. Girard dismissed him because he did not save the other end for future use. The boy's failure to notice that the match was a double-ended one was natural enough," considering how matches are generally made; but haste and heedlessness (a habit of careless observation) are responsible for a greater part of the waste of prop- erty in the world."" Said one of the most successful merchants of a west- ern city, to a lad who was opening a parcel, " Young man, untie the strings; do not cut them." It was the first remark he had made to a new em- ploye. It was the first lesson the lad had to learn, and it involved the principles of success or failure in his business career. Pointing to a well-dressed man be- hind the counter, he said: " There is a man who al- " ways whips out his scissors and cuts the strings of the packages in three or four places. He is a good sales- man, but he will never be anything more. I presume he lives from hand to mouth, and is more or less in debt. The trouble with him is, that he was never taught to save, I told the boy just now to untie the strings, not A TALK TO THE BOYS. 155 so much for the value of the string, as to teach him that everything is to be saved and nothing wasted." I would say to every boy: " Be courteous. 11 It costs nothing but a kind thoughtfulness and regard for the feelings of others, and it makes the atmosphere around you genial and sunny, and invariably wins friends. You owe it to yourselves as well as to others, to constantly practice the little courtesies of life. Many a situation has been secured, or lost, through courtesy, or the lack of it. It is related that a boy once applied at a store for a situation. He was asked: " Can you write a good hand?" " Yaas," was the answer. "Are you good at figures? 11 " Yaas, 1 ' was the answer again. " That will do — I do not want you, 1 '' said the merchant. After the boy had gone, a friend, who knew him well, said to the merchant, " I know that lad to be an hon- est, industrious boy. Why don^ you give him a chance? 11 "Because he hasn't learned to say 'Yes, sir, 1 and 'No, sir, 1 11 said the merchant. " If he answers me as he did when applying for a situation, how will he answer customers after being here a month. 11 A willingness to work faithfully, though in the humblest capacity, has oftentimes proved a stepping- stone to positions of honor and trust. Sir Humphrey Davy was once asked to give a list of the greatest discoveries which he had made. He re- plied that his greatest discovery was Michael Faraday. He found him, a poor boy, washing bottles in his 1 5 6 A TALK TO THE BOYS. laboratory, and aided him, until he became one of the world's greatest men. If Michael had been at play in- stead of washing bottles, however, Sir Humphrey prob- ably would not have become interested in him, and if he had not been faithful in his humble duties he would have failed when given greater work. It is the boy who washes a bottle honestly, who is most likely to have large success as a man. Every boy who has any ambition is anxious to suc- ceed in life. You may not have decided just what your life work shall be, but you feel a consuming de- sire to do something, and to do it well. Be sure and master some occupation or calling that will afford you, by industry, sobriety and frugality, a livelihood, and in time, a competence. Do not make the mistake of those deluded creatures who despise honest labor and seek some genteel employment, and finally drift into that large class who live by their wits, and their petty meannesses and deceptions. Live so as to look every man or woman squarely in the face, not in brazen im- pudence, but in the consciousness of an upright life. A wise man has given these rules, which, if followed, will do much toward the formation of worthy .character and good business habits: " Attend carefully to de- tails. Best things are difficult to get. Cultivate promptness, order and regularity. Do not seek a quar- rel where there is an opportunity of escaping. Endure trials patiently. Fight life's battles bravely. Give when you can, but give from principle, not because it A TALK TO THE BOYS. 1 57 is fashionable. He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither. Injure no one's reputation or business. Join hands only with the virtuous. Keep Your mind from evil thoughts. Learn to think and act for your- self. Make new friends. Never try to appear what you are not. Question no man's veracity without cause. Respect your word as you would your bond. Say "no " firmly and respectfully when necessary. Touch not. taste not. handle not the cup which intox- icates. Use your own brains rather than those of others." There are special temptations which will come to you with overwhelming power. One of these is the use of tobacco in some of its forms. It may seem to you a manly thing to puff a cigar, but depend upon it you will lower yourself in the estimation of your best friends by so doing. There are good physical reasons also why you should let it alone. A writer says of it : ••It has utterly ruined thousands of boys. It tends to the softening of the bones, and it greatly injures the brain, the spinal marrow, and the whole nervous fluid. A bov who smokes early and frequently, or in any way uses large quantities of tobacco, is never known to make a man of much energy, and generally lacks muscular and physical, as well as mental power. We would warn boys, who want to be anything in the world, to shun tobacco as a most baneful poison. 71 " Then, too. it will be a daily leak in your pocket. Before you begin to imitate the boy or man who is fascinating to you, simply because he has in his mouth I58 A TALK TO THE BOYS. a disgusting weed, or a few leaves rolled up, just stop and make an estimate of what this habit costs him daily. Multiply that by three hundred and sixty- five, and then by the number of years between your age and the good old age you hope to at- tain, and see if it does not look a little less worthy of your admiration and approval. Of how many com- forts must the laborer and his family be denied that the father may have his pipe. If it is a desirable habit, then it is time that your mother and sisters shared it with you. Above all, boys, you who so en- joy your freedom that you are sometimes almost tempted to be impatient of the home control, which love makes only as a silken cord, consider well before you let this, or any other habit, forge its links about you day by day, until, instead of the God-given free- dom which should be } T ours to exercise, you find yourself a slave." And so, too, of the intoxicating cup. Let nothing persuade you to touch, taste, or handle it. Take warning from the fate of others, who once were as strong and promising as yourself. Gough, the great temperance orator, once related this incident to show to what depth our poor humanity could fall when in the power of this debasing vice: A young wife and mother lay in an ill-furnished and comfortless room, dying. Years before she had stood at the marriage altar, beside the man of her choice, as fair and hopeful a bride as ever took a vow. Her young husband A TALK TO THE BOYS. 159 loved her, at least so he said, and he solemnly vowed to love her to the end; but he loved liquor more than he loved his young and beautiful wife. It soon began to dawn upon her mind that she was in that most hor- rible of all positions — a position a thousand times worse than widowhood or the grave, — a position than which there are only two worse possible, — Hell, and that of a drunkard's husband, — I mean the heart- rending, degrading position of a drunkard's wife, She u^ed every means to reform him, but, like too many ethers, fcund her efforts useless. His cruelty and debauchery soon brought her to the grave. A little before she died, she asked him to come to her bed-side, and pleaded with him once more for the sake of their children, soon to be motherless, to drink no more. With her thin, lon^ fingers she held his '.00 hand, and as she pleaded with him he promised in this terribly solemn way: " Mary^ I will drink no more till I take it out of this hand which I hold in mine/ 1 That very night he poured out a tumbler of brandy, stole into the room where she lay cold in her coffin, put the tumbler into her withered hand and then took it out and drained it to the bottom. This is a scene from real life, and is not more revolting than hundreds of others which are happening in miserable, drink-cursed homes. In this matter do not be content w:.ch merely saving yourself, but work to save others. Take sides against this evil, and be a champion for purity, sobriety and a high manhood. A TALK TO THE BOYS. Learn early to value your good name, and guard it as you would your life. Your character is your best capital and fortune. During the war of the rebellion the most decisive movement of the whole campaign, depended on the character of a boy. It is said that the Confederate General, Robert E. Lee, while in conver- sation with one of his officers, was overheard by a plain farmer's boy to remark that he had decided to march upon Gettysburg instead of Harrisburg. The lad watched to see if the troops went in that direction, and then telegraphed the fact to Governor Curtin. The boy was sent for at once, by a special engine, and as the Governor and his friends stood about, the former remarked anxiously, " I would give my right hand to know that this lad tells the truth." A cor- poral promptly replied, " Governor Curtin, I know that boy. I lived in the same neighborhood, and I know that it is impossible for him to lie. There is not a drop of false blood in his veins," In fifteen minutes from that time the Union troops were pushing on towards Gettysburg, where they gained the victory. There is one safeguard against all the allurements and pitfalls which are set to entrap the young, — and that is to take upon yourself the Christian life and pro- fession, accepting the Bible as your guide and teacher. With your feet firmly established on the " Rock of Ages," you will have that strength and courage which will enable you to overcome the evil which assails you, and make the most of life both for yourself and others A^^^^^OU desire to be a lady. Did you ever ^NHffe'' take time to think how much this involves, JL£§ft and how you are to become one? This is a picture of her: "A lady must possess per- fect refinement and intelligence. She must be gracious, affable and hospitable, without the slightest degree of fussiness. She must be a Christian, mild, gentle and charitable, unostentatious, and doing good by stealth. She must be deaf to scandal and gossip. She must possess discrimination, knowledge of human nature, and tact sufficient to avoid offending one's weak points, steering wide of all subjects which may be disagreea- ble to any one. She must look upon personal cleanli- ness and freshness of attire as next to godliness. Her dress must be in accordance with her means, not flashy. Abhorring everything like soiled or faded finery, or mock jewelry, her pure mind and clear conscience will cause the foot of time to pass as lightly over the smooth brow as if she stepped on flowers, and, as she moves with quiet grace and dignity, all will accord her instinctively the title of lad} 7 .'" Is it not worth while to strive to become such a be- ing as the one we have described? Like her, you must be gentle and kind to others. 161 l62 A TALK TO THE GIRLS. Queen Victoria once opened a large hospital with imposing ceremonies. Afterwards she passed through it, tenderly inquiring about the sufferers. One of them, a little child four years old, had said: "If I could only see the Queen, I would get well." Im- mediately the motherly Queen requested to be led into the little children's ward. Seating herself by the bed of the little sufferer, she said, in gentle tones: "My darling, I hope you will be a little better now." It was a simple act, but it was worthy of the queenly woman. A charming story is told of Jenny Lind, the great Swedish singer, which shows her noble nature. Once when walking with a friend, she saw an old woman tottering into the door of an almshouse. Her pity was at once excited, and she entered the door, ostensibly to rest for a moment, but really to give something to the poor woman. To her surprise, the old woman be- gan at once to talk of Jenny Lind, saying, — " I have lived a long time in the world, and desire nothing before I die but to hear Jenny Lind." " Would it make you happy?" inquired Jenny . " Ay, that it would; but such folks as I can't go to the play-house, and so I shall never hear her." " Don't be so sure of that," said Jenny. " Sit down, my friend, and listen." She then sung, with genuine glee, one of her best songs. The old woman was wild with delight and wonder, when she added, — " Now you have heard Jenny Lind." A TALK TO THE GIRLS. 1 63 One who could go out of her way to do such a kind- ness to a poor old woman, must have had a noble na- ture, worthy of her grand success. Cultivate a sweet voice. Some one has said : " There is no power of love so hard to get and keep as a kind voice. A kind hand is deaf and dumb. It may be rough in flesh and blood, yet do the work of a soft heart, and do it with a soft touch. But there is no one thing that love so much needs as a sweet voice to tell what it means and feels, and it is hard to get it and keep it in the right tone. One must start in youth, and be on the watch night and day, at work, at play, to get and keep a voice that shall speak at all times the thoughts of a kind heart. But this is the time when a sharp voice is most apt to be got. You often hear boys and girls say words at play with a quick, sharp tone, as if it were the snap of a whip. Such as these get a sharp home voice for use, and keep their best voice for those they meet elsewhere. I would say to all boys and girls, " Use your guest voice at home. 1 ' Watch it by day as a pearl of great price, for it will be worth to you, in the days to come, more than the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is a lark's song to a hearth and home. It is to the heart what light is to the eye.'" Thoreau said: " Be not simply good, but good for something.'" Aim to acquire a thorough knowledge of housekeep- ing, and to this end cheerfully take upon yourself such 164 A TALK TO THE GIRLS. parts of it as are suited to your age and strength. Is it not a pitiful sight to see a strong and naturally capa- ble girl assume the indolent airs of a lady of ease, while her poor mother is nearly exhausted by the hard work of the kitchen. If your mother, from mistaken indulg- ence, would permit such conduct on your part, do not, for your own sake as well as hers, allow yourself to follow such a selfish course, but take some share in the toils and cares of the household, and you will then have the happy consciousness of doing your duty and living to some purpose. Learn to be self-reliant by fitting yourself for some occupation by which you can earn, if need be, a livelihood by your own efforts. Madame de Stael, that brilliant French authoress, said: "It is not of these writings that lam proud, but of the fact that I have facility in ten occupations, in any one of which I could make a livelihood." The wheel of fortune never revolved more swiftly than now, and the rich to-day are poor to-morrow. The most pitiable instances of suffering and destitution are among those who have fallen from opulence, and are incapable of earning their own living. A practical writer, in referring to this subject, thus alludes to the sensible girl : u She is not merely a doll to be petted, or a bird to be supported; but, though she may be blessed with a father, able and willing to care for her every want, she cultivates her capabilities. She seeks to prepare herself for possibilities, and, though she may not need to, she qualifies herself to A TALK TO THE GIRLS. I6 5 feed and clothe herself, so that, if left alone, she can stand upon her own feet, dependent upon no human being. With the multiplied ways of honest toil now open for young women, it seems quite excuseless for any one of them to be helpless. There are few nobler sights than that of a young woman who, though she may have a good home with father and mother who are willing to indulge her to the utmost, realizing the limitation of their means, and their hard self-denial, says, ' Father shall not be burdened by me; I will be self-reliant and clothe myself; yea, I will help him pay for the farm, help him educate the younger children.'' Such an one is a thousand times superior to the pale- fingered, befrizzled, bejeweled substitutes for young women, who are good for nothing but to spend a father's hard-earned money. 1 ' The field of woman's work has been wonderfully widening, and there are now many pursuits in which she can profitably engage. Try to find out what you can do best, and then spare no pains to perfect yourself in it. There will always be a place for those who can do the right work in the right way. Treasure your good name as your most precious jewel. Remember that your conduct now is the basis of your reputation, and you cannot guard it too care- fully. A person of excellent judgment has well said : " When a young lady, no matter how innocent of any- thing worse than a determination to amuse herself at all hazards, condescends to flirt with gentlemen, or to A TALK TO THE GIRLS. indulge in boisterous behavior in public places with other girls, she must not be surprised if, before long, she becomes aware of less heartiness in the greetings of the acquaintances whose society she prizes most, receives fewer invitations from anybody, and at last per- ceives, with painful clearness, that she is actually, even if undemonstratively, avoided, except by those whom she now does not wish to meet. 1 '' A lady is scrupulously particular as to the company she keeps, and scorns to associate with those who are unworthy of her. If you allow yourself to be indiffer- ent in this regard, your good name will become tarnished. Besides, you expose yourself to the most terrible dangers, for thousands of wicked, miserable lives have been made so by a fatal lack of carefulness * in this respect. There are two excellent rules which, if followed, would save thousands of young lives from ruin. One is, to make of your mother, or some one who stands in her place, a confidant and adviser, for you will never need the counsels of wisdom and experi- ence more than now. The other is, if you are ever about to take a step, and have some doubts in your mind whether it is prudent or proper, stop short and refuse to go farther. You would say that the man was a lunatic who would step off boldly and confi- dently in the darkness, in a region full of pitfalls, but he would not be more so than you would be, if you entered dangerous and forbidden ground in spite of the warnings of your friends and your own better judg- A TALK TO THE GIRLS. ment. Perhaps you are discontented with your home, and are longing to go out intp the world to engage in some great and noble work. Beware! for many a heart, as pure and aspiring as yours, has gone forth from a loving home to pluck the tempting fruit of honor and renown, and found it like the apples of Sodom, bitter to the taste, and as dry as ashes. Your life, beautiful as it is, and shielded by all that loving care can suggest, is yet open to temptation and dangers. Cling close to the home, and your parents' sheltering love, and give your lives into the keeping of Him who alone can make them rich, beautiful and blessed. " There blend the ties that strengthen Our hearts in hours of grief, The silver links that lengthen Joy's visits when most brief! Then, dost thou sigh for pleasure? O! do not widely roam! But seek that hidden treasure At home, dear home." LCEAVING I7OMB. HEN the period of life comes that you must turn from the dear and familiar scenes of childhood, and seek new friends and surroundings, though you may have longed for it, and fondly dreamed of its pleasures and advantages, yet, when the moment comes, what bitter tears are shed, and how the heart aches. Perhaps you are going away to school or college. For years you have longed for the day to arrive which should bear you away, in order that your ambition to obtain a good education might be gratified. Or, per- haps, you are going away to make your fortune in a business career, as thousands have done before you ; it may be to a large city, or to a remote part of the country, where you will be thrown amongst new in- fluences and associates. Hitherto you have been un* der parental restraint, and your love for them and your own personal pride, have withheld you from doing any thing of which they would not approve ; but hereafter you will be removed from this restraint, and left to act solely on your own judgment and impulses. If you have been accustomed to do right from principle, simply because it was right, then you will be likely to con- tinue from the same motive; but if you have done so 1 68 LEAVING HOME. 169 merely to keep the respect of your friends, call a halt, for you are in clanger of a downward course. It may be that among new scenes and friends you may sometimes rind yourself almost forgetting the old home, and the loved ones there who are still- following you with their thoughts and prayers. Do not grieve their true hearts by neglect or ingratitude, which will embitter your after life with remorse. Cherish in your heart all the pure and holy associations of your earl}* years. They will be as a shield to protect you from the temptations which are ever ready to destroy the unwary and thoughtless. Never may it be your experience to echo the pathetic song of Hood, as he recalled his early, happy home . '* I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn: He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day, But now I often wish the night Had borne my breath awav!" Said a most successful business man, who was sur- rounded with all the appointments that wealth could command: " These fortunate days of my life are all the results of incidents in my youth that I deemed un- important at the time. My mother, in her letters, urged me to go to prayer meeting, and I used to pay close attention to that and the meetings, in order to write her what was said; and these habits gave me the confidence of my employers, and I was rapidly ad- vanced over others in position of trust and responsibility." 170 LEAVING HOME. Amos Lawrence, the eminent Boston millionaire and philanthropist, said of his habit of writing home regu- larly: " My interest in home, and my desire to have something to tell to my sisters to instruct and improve them, as well as to have their comment on what 1 communicated, was a powerful motive for me to spend a portion of my time each evening in my boarding house, the first year I came to Boston, in reading and study. n So, then, write frequently and regularly to the old home, keep up your interest in all that pertains to it, as well for your own sake as for those who wel- come your letters, as more precious than gold. How- ever busy you may be, you can spare time enough to scratch off, with pencil, if need be, a long letter at least once a week, in which you can interest them in all the little details concerning yourself, your work, associates and surroundings. It will give you, besides, a facility in the ready use of words, which of itself is a valuable discipline. Another invaluable rule to form on leaving home is to keep holy the Sabbath. Thousands of young men leave home who have had excellent moral and religious training, who have been accustomed to observe the Sabbath strictly, and who intend to live exemplary lives, but, in their new homes, they are invited to take a ride, or a walk, to make calls, or go on some little excursion, and having no acquaintances in any church, and finding the day rather tedious, they consent, and little by little they get in the habit of thus spending LEAVING HOME. 171 the day, until all relish for the observance of religious exercises becomes distasteful. Aside from any religious considerations, and looking at it from a mere worldly point of view, no young man who has any regard for his future can afford to make the fatal and irreparable mistake of desecrating the Sabbath day, either by openly violating its sanctity, or by neglecting to attend its sacred ordinances. Many years ago, an awkward young man went to New York city to engage in business as a shoemaker. He was in the habit of regularly attending church. So on the Sabbath day he sought the house of God, and in looking for a seat, happened to be noticed as a stranger by a Mr Robert Lennox, then a man very promi- nent and much esteemed, and was invited by him into his pew. The next morning he started out to buy a stock of goods for his new establishment, and being obliged to buy on credit, took his references, with which he had provided himself, with him. Said the leather merchant to whom he applied: " Did ; not see you yesterday at church in the pew of Robert Lennox? 77 lk I do not know, sir, 77 said the young man, lk I was at church yesterday, and a kind gentleman invited me to sit in his pew. 77 Said the proprietor: " I 7 11 trust any one that Robert Lennox invites into his pew. You need not trouble yourself about y r our references. When the goods are gone, come and get some more. 77 The young man, as might be expected, became a success- ful and eminent merchant, and always considered that 1/2 LEAVING HOME. he owed his success to attending church the first Sun- day he went to New York. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has said: " The man or woman cannot utterly sink, who, on every seventh day is obliged to appear in decent apparel, and to join with all the standing and respectability of the com- munity in a united act of worship. " So make it a fixed resolution, that as soon as you get to your new home, or even a temporary stopping place, you will attend church, and if circumstances make it practicable, not only attend, but make yourseli use- ful in some way. Take a Sabbath-school class, or if you cannot do that, assist in the library, or act in any other capacity where you can be of use. If you are not needed in any of these, join a Bible class, and identity yourself with the school. This will bring you into contact with refining and elevating influences, with people whose friendship will be of the greatest value to you, and, better than all else, will lead you on in that life whose " ways are pleasantness and whose paths are peace." Avoid all company ^ habits and associa- tions that you would wish to conceal from your par- ents, or that you cannot write about freely in your home letters; and you will escape the shoals upon which hundreds of thousands of lovely and promising youths have made shipwreck of their bodies and souls. To do this, you must exercise a firm resolution, and you will need every day, and continually, divine guid- ance and help. Female Society. NE of the most marked men of this cen- tury, Disraeli, who achieved distinction in many different lines of thought and action, toward the close of a career of extraordinary success, made the remarkable statement that " a female friend, amiable, clever and devoted, is a possession more valu- able than parks and palaces, and without such a nurse, few men can succeed in life, — none be content.*' 1 The reason why multitudes of gifted and brilliant men fail in their career, is for want of the very traits of charac- ter which female society would impart. How many men are intellectual, well informed, and possess a com- plete practical knowledge of the pursuit they enter upon, but they are brusque, imperious, and over-bear- ing; they lack the urbanity of demeanor, the consider- ation of other 1 s feelings, the gracefulness of expression, which are necessary to conciliate men and to draw them to themselves ; and for the need of these qualities their progress is impeded, or they fail m their plans altogether- The female character possesses those qualities in which most men are deficient, — the delicate instincts, the acute perceptions, the ready judgment, the wonderful intuitions, — these all belong to her by native right, and are usually acquired by men through ! 73 174 FEMALE SOCIETY. her influence. The same brilliant author already quoted, in his " Lothair," makes one of his characters to say to a promising young man: " You have been fortunate in your youth to become acquainted with a great woman. It develops all a man's powers and gives him a thousand talents." That young man is in a perilous position who sneers at the society of pure and sensible women, and who turns aside from them to mingle with the coarse and depraved of his own sex. Thackeray, who was a keen observer of the world about him, and whose profound knowledge of human nature was truly remarkable, said: "All men who avoid female society have dull perceptions, and are stupid, and have gross tastes and revolt against what is pure. All amusements of youth to which virtuous women are not admitted, rely upon it, are deleterious in their nature." That young man who can inspire the respect of a good and sensible woman, who by his powers of conversation can make the time pass agreeably to her, and who can convince her that he is pru- dent, well informed and honorable, is a man that can make men respect him also, and will be likely to make his way in the world in such a manner as to find and fill its best places. One of the old English poets relates in charming verse a pretty story of a nobleman who had a son who, in his younger years, was so uncouth, so dull and averse to learning and society, that he despaired of FEMALE SOCIETY. 175 ever making him worthy of his name, and sent him out of his sight to be brought up with the swineherd. But the awkward, boorish youth happened one day to see a beautiful and noble maiden, and was at once smitten with admiration at her charms of person and manner. From that time he was another being; he was filled with a strong and unquenchable desire to make himself worthy of her notice, and to his father's surprise and delight he appeared before him and in- formed him that he was now ready to take up the tasks and books he had before despised. He was inspired by a new purpose, and changed as if by miracle, and in course of time, under the stimulus of his awakened aspiration, he became graceful in his de- meanor, gallant in his conduct, learned and pleasing in his discourse, one of the most noble and accom- plished of young men, — the favorite of his father and of the household, and at last won the fair lady who had been the cause of this wondrous change. This is romantic, but it is the romance of real life, and thousands of young men have been awakened in a similar manner to noble aims and lofty aspirations. In this world we need all the aids we can command to lift us from the low plane on which we stand to more exalted heights of purpose and achievement ; and rely upon it, young man, that if you possess one spark of a manly and chivalrous spirit, the society of pure and exalted women will fan it to a flame of more earnest endeavor. Roman's Sphere and CQission. URING the last fifty years a radical change has been effected in public sentiment, in regard to women's work in the world. It is only within a comparatively recent time that colleges and the learned professions have been opened to her, and a thousand occupations promise her fair remuneration, and an honorable place in the great cat- alogue of industrial pursuits. This sphere of woman's activity is continually widening, and new fields of labor are constantly inviting her to enroll herself in the great army of wage winners. In the olden time she was consigned to one of two places — either that of drudge or lady — either to do the most menial and dependent service, for a totally inadequate compensation, or to occupy an idealized place, where a few superficial accomplishments only, were allowable, and any exhibi- tion of a cultivated intellect would be stigmatized as audacious and manlike. It is not strange that with ■ CD such a transition, there has come a tendency to the other extreme — to ignore sex, and womanly instincts, and to regard men and women alike as on the same plane. But nature is more powerful than reformers, and while it is wise that ever} 7 daughter should have 176 woman's sphere and mission. 177 the ability to earn an honorable and independent liveli- hood in case of any emergency, yet it is the fiat of Providence, nevertheless, that it is the destiny of most women to become wives and mothers, and their training should recognize this great fact. But we must not forget that woman, when a wife and mother, is not belittled, but ennobled, and her influence vastly enlarged. What her influence may be in national affairs, is thus stated by that keen and sagacious states- man, De Tocqueville: " 1 do not hesitate to say that the women give to every nation a moral temperament, which shows itself in its politics. A hundred times I have seen weak men show real public virtue, because they had by their sides women who supported them, not by advice as to particulars, but by fortifying their feelings of duty, and by directing their ambition. More frequently, 1 must confess, I have observed the domestic influence gradually transforming a man, naturally generous, noble and unselfish, into a cow- ardly, common-place, place-hunting, self-seeker, think- ing of public business only as a means of making himself comfortable — and this simply by contact with a well-conducted woman, a faithful wife, an excel- lent mother, but from whose mind the grand notion of public duty was entirely absent." Many of the greatest statesmen have had wives who co-operated with them in their labors, and helped to conduct diplomacies and mould the destiny of nations. The book which, more than any other of modern times, l 7 8 woman's sphere and mission. aroused public sentiment as to the nature of a great na- tional evil, was written by a woman ; much of it in her kitchen with her child in her lap, in snatches between household duties. And yet Webster and Clay, with all the flights of their impassioned eloquence, amid listening senates, and applauding multitudes, never shaped public opinion, moved men's souls, or had as potent an influence in shaping our future as a nation, as the story of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." And its mission did not end there; for, translated into nearly all languages, it has worked like leaven over nearly the whole world, to arouse in all nations a love for justice and universal freedom. Harriet Beecher Stowe as an orator or leg- islator might have been a total failure, but the whole world inclined its ear to listen to the voice of her womanly sympathy and pleadings for justice, as she spoke out of her own heart, and from her own hearth- stone. Those women who affect to despise their womanly instincts, and long for a public career, gen- erally reap a bitter harvest of disappointed hopes. Nearly a generation ago there was in an eastern academy a bright young girl, full of theories as to how to uplift humanity, and longing to go out in the world as a reformer to revolutionize society. She was the daughter of a wealthy man, and scorning marriage as a condition too contracted for her powers, she went out to fulfill her life mission. About thirty years after, her former teacher called on her and found her a sharp, petulant and disappointed woman. She thus made her woman's sphere AND M1SSI A. 179 complaint: "There is no high career open to our sex. I tried lecturing, but did not catch the public ear. I have written two or three books ; they did not sell, and my publishers cheated me. I studied law, and for years tried in vain to light my way into the courts. I am making no effort now. I was born a century too soon. The world is not yet ripe for women of my kind." Thus embittered against the world, her life was going out in failure and regret, and it was because she was not willing to lay hold of the work within her reach. This young lady had a classmate, the daughter of a poor farmer. She also went out into the world, without any exalted theories of benefiting the race, but found no difficulty in rinding something that she could do. With her warm sympathy and sturdy good sense, she ministered to the needs of those about her. She took a course of study at a training school for nurses, watched by sick beds, and became a very angel of mercy. Afterwards she took charge of an orphan asylum, and then, hastening to the relief of stricken sufferers at the height of a terrible epidemic, she gave up her life for others, and thus became a noble martyr to duty and to humanity. Here are two examples, the one of theory, the other of action. — the one thirst- ing for distinction, the other actuated by a simple desire to do good. There is no greater fallacy than to suppose that a woman can not be well read, possess a broad cul- ture and a well disciplined mind, and at the same i8o woman's sphere and mission. time be a capable housewife. Mary Somerville, who in her day was the foremost woman of the world in scientific attainments, was also an excellent house- keeper, and one of her friends thus speaks of her home life: u Her friends loved to take tea at her house. Everything was in order; the walls were hung with her fine drawings; her music stood in the corner, her table was spread with good things, and she herself as ready to play the affable hostess, as though she had never worked out an astronomical problem." Hawthorne has said: "It should be woman's office to move in the midst of practical affairs, and to gild them all, the very homeliest, — were it even the scouring of pots and kettles, — with an atmosphere of love- liness and joy.'" One of the greatest needs of women is more education, not merely of the schools, but a general knowledge which will enable them to obtain a broader view of the world and its ac- tivities. Thousands of women have so much leis- ure that they become lonely, discontented and com- plaining. Why should they not go through the enchanting field of literature, and pluck the fairest flowers of thought and sentiment, or look back through the vistas of the past and familiarize themselves with its chief actors and events? Why should they not keep informed as to what is going on in the world, in science, philosophy, politics, inventions and general progress; and especially in the vital issues and perplex ing problems which our own country is called upon to woman's sphere and mission. 181 face and . to solve? Surely such training and culture would make woman better fitted to be the companion of her husband, and the instructor of her children, and a whole horde of petty and frivolous and often imagin- ary cares and annoyances would be dispelled. Says that spicy and brilliant writer, Gail Hamilton: " Natural tact will do much, but it cannot supply the place of education. When a woman has learned to make a pudding she has learned but the smallest part of her duty. She needs to know how to sit at the ta- ble and dispense a hospitality so cordial and enlivening that the pudding shall be forgotten. There are a thousand women who can make a pudding, where there is one who is mistress of her servants, of her children, of her husband, of her home, of her position." A woman who is all such a description implies, is one who must fit herself for it by cherishing great thoughts, and a noble appreciation of her responsibility. She must be mistress of a store of ideas and an ex- haustless fund of general knowledge. The sphere of the woman is to preside over the home as its light and inspiration. No charms so cap- tivating, no grace so irresistible, no spirits so exuber- ant, no wit so cheery, no conversation so fascinating, no culture so varied, but can find in the home fit place for their varied charms. A gifted writer has thus beautifully described the gentle, modest, unassuming and self-sacrificing mother, who, thank God, can be recognized in multitudes of 1 82 woman's sphere and mission. happy homes as she moves about quietly in the duties of her home life, — and where can be found a more de- serving tribute to the worth and mission of woman: " She never dreamed that she was great ; or that she was specially useful; or that she had achieved any- thing worth living for. Sometimes, when she read the stories of historic heroines, she, too, had her 1 dreams of fair women,' and looked with a sigh upon her life, made up of little deeds, so little that even she who did them was not conscious of the doing. Her monument was her home. It grew up quietly, as quietly as a flower grows, and no one knew — she did not know herself — how much she had done to tend and water and train it. Her husband had absolute trust in her. He earned the money; she expended it. And as she put as much thought in her expenditure as he put in his earning, each dollar was doubled in the expending. She had inherited that mysterious faculty which we call taste ; and she cultivated it with fidelity. Neither man nor woman of the world could long re- sist the subtle influence of that home; the warmth of its truth and love thawed out the frozen proprieties from impersonated etiquette; and whatever circle of friends sat on the broad piazza in summer, or gathered around the open fire in winter, they knew for a time the rare joy of liberty — the liberty of perfect truth and perfect love. Her home was hospitable because her heart was large; and any one was her friend to whom she could minister. But her heart was like the old woman's sphere and mission. 183 Jewish temple — strangers only came into the court of the Gentiles; friends into an inner court; her husband and her children found a court yet nearer her heart of hearts; yet even they knew that there was a Holy of Holies which she kept for her God, and they loved and revered her the more for it. So strangely was com- mingled in her the inclusiveness and the exclusiveness of love, its hospitality and its reserve.' 5 Thus far we have spoken only of wives and mothers as home-makers; but far be it from us to lose sight of that noble company of unwedded home-builders who. as daughters, and sisters have been the omardian angels of the homes they have created, or maintained for those who otherwise must have been in their helpless- ness forced to depend upon strangers, or seek an uncertain foothold in homes not their own. Who would withhold the homage due to such women as Caroline Herschel, Mary Lamb. Miss Mit- ford, Louisa Alcott. the Cary sisters, and the thousands of other gifted and noble women, who. though neither wives nor mothers, have made the world richer and better for the homes they have cre- ated and adorned? and, beautiful for all time will be the picture of that home of the sisters in Bethany toward which He — the greatest and best who ever trod this earth — loved to turn his weary feet, and which he so often blessed with his presence. " Either sex tflone Is half itself, and in true marriage lies Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfills Defect in each, and always thought in thought, Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow."