died at the stake; for by their deaths they bore witness for all time to great moral truths. There are also many men and more women, who are poor, ignorant and obscure, who accomplish but little in the world that anyone can see, who are forgotten very soon after they die, and who yet have not lived unsuccessful lives; because they have gained the victory over themselves, which is the highest victory that any human being can achieve, because they have lived gentle and honorable and stainless lives, and have done what they could to make the world better and happier.

I do not mean to say that these last had achieved a complete success in life, for poverty, to a certain extent implies defeat. It will not do for anyone to enter upon life with a contempt for the value of money. Every dollar that a man earns by honest labor is a trophy of which he has a right to be proud. There are but few things that hinder one more in his career of usefulness than to be in debt or to labor under any serious financial embarrassment. It deadens his finer sensibilities, it destroys his peace of mind, and not unfrequently it undermines his principles. The advice given by the poet Burns to a young friend was perfectly sound, sensible and just when he said:

"To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile

Assiduous wait upon her,

And gather gear by every wile

That's justified by honor;

Not for to hide it in a hedge,

Nor for a train attendant;

But for the glorious privilege

Of being independent."

Wealth, social standing and learning are all very important elements in a successful life; but they are not indispensable elements. The real and indispensable element, without which there can be no success in life, is

the result of that conflict that takes place in every man's bosom between motives that are good and those that are bad, between objects that are high and those that are low. This is the true battle of life. Often you can tell at a glance when you first meet a man how the battle has gone. The haggard look of dissipation, or the furtive look of evil import, tell that the battle has been lost irretrievably. Sometimes you may behold a face that tells you that the contest has been definitively won; but with most men the battle goes on with varying fortunes as long as life lasts.

But the brunt of the battle is fought either in boyhood or when a man is very young. The great probability is that with each one of you it will be fought and will be practically won or lost in a very few years. The great misfortune is that it is very often fought and ended when the youth is not aware that there is any such battle going on. He has vague aspirations for success and for usefulness in life, and he thinks that later on he is really going to do something. In the meantime, without thinking much about it, he is forming first one idle or vicious habit and then another. He does not look on these habits as being anything more than a mere matter of temporary youthful indulgence, which he will quit whenever he thinks proper to do so. If he sometimes reproaches himself with these things, he says to himself that he is going to settle down after a while. He thinks that he is popular, and that no one notices his little faults. And herein he is mistaken. The world is always on the lookout for actual merit; and if a young man has pluck, energy and self control, based on principle, it will soon be found out; and people will repose confidence in him and that confidence is capital in life. Men will be anxious to form business alliances with him. Young ladies will be attracted by those qualities that command esteem; and he will most likely marry

a good and sensible girl, which will be the most sensible thing he ever did, and, in doing so, he will draw the highest prize in the lottery of life.

On the other hand, if a young man has, from simple heedlessness or otherwise, fallen into habits of vice or indolence, he is discounted just in the same proportion. If he thinks that his faults are not noticed, he is like the ostrich which hides its head in the sand and thinks that nobody can see him. If the world has a keen eye for merit, it has a still keener eye for demerit. As hard as it is to break off a bad habit, it is a great deal harder to conceal it. After a while the young man, who probably really possesses talents and some fine traits of character, concludes to reform. Perhaps he thinks that he will marry and do better. He makes himself believe that he is going to do so, and he makes some fair, trusting young girl believe the same thing. When he tries to reform he finds that the tide is against him. People have lost faith in him, and he has lost faith in himself. It is not only that he has formed bad habits; but those habits have sapped away all of his moral strength, and all his powers of self control. He He is like Gulliver, bound down to the ground by the threads of the Lilliputians. He has promised his wife to love and protect her. With a degree of meanness that would have been incredible to him in his better days, he ends by breaking her heart. His children grow up in poverty, ignorance and vice; and probably when at last he comes to die and be buried, and a preacher preaches his funeral, he cannot think of anything better to say of him than that generally he was one of the first men at a fire.

There are a good many men that start out with the idea that a good way to get along is to humbug the world; and they say that the world likes to be humbugged, and they refer to Barnum and other characters. One would think that the effrontery of a man who would

publish a book filled with details as to how he had lied, and deceived, and swindled the public systematically through a long series of years, would not excite much admiration. Occasionally a man of the shrewdness of Barnum obtains at the same time wealth and the contempt of all sensible men by devious tricks; but the most of those who start out on the same path are landed before long in prison; and for one Barnum that succeeds you will find five hundred that have not succeeded and are in the penitentiary. It is in that as it is in other things, you never hear of those who fail. They do not write books. On the other hand, you will find in New York a thousand men who have attained a fortune by honest industry where you will find one Barnum that has succeeded.

There is a man in London by the name of Whitely who is called the "Universal Provider," because he professes to furnish anything in the world that a man wants from an English manorial estate or a ship of the line down to a needle. He has one of the largest mercantile houses in the whole world. With the exception of a similar institution in Paris, I have never seen anything to compare with his establishment, which covers a great many acres. I saw it stated the other day that in the interior of it he has in his employ over 5,000 persons, enough to make a considerable town, besides a great many carriers and others employed outside. In 1863 he started for London from his native village in England with about $7.50 of our money. An uncle of his offered him a check for twenty-five pounds, but he declined it, saying that he was young, and intended to make his own way in the world. He began as a commercial traveller, and eventually set up a small shop for the sale of articles of ladies' wear, with a net capital of $3,500, in London, the wealthiest city in the world. He formed a resolution that he would sell only good goods

and at as low a price as they could be sold, and that all of his business should be conducted on principles of the strictest integrity. It was soon found that his customers could rely on anything that was told them in his house, and that they could send an order to him for any article without fear of being deceived. Today his estate is estimated by millions of pounds, every one of which has been honestly gained.

This is certainly a very extraordinary case; but it illustrates a very important principle, and that is that the man who has the highest skill in his calling and the highest integrity, in any community in which he may be placed, is in no danger of making a failure in life. "Corruption wins not more than honesty."

I have dwelt somewhat at length on the necessity of self control. Without that a man is like a ship without a rudder. There is another quality that needs to be cultivated with extreme care, and that is self reliance. There is one part of Shakespeare's advice to a young man that is extremely valuable. He says:

"Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment."

In Shakespeare's day the word "censure, true to its derivation, meant opinion; so the meaning is: "Take each man's advice, but think for yourself." Decision of character is an extremely valuable quality. A man's friends are to him better than riches; their advice is often of priceless value; but as they can rarely see all that he sees, it is still necessary that a man should be able to form his own judgments, and that he should possess the firmness and the fortitude to act upon them.

I have tried to convey to you the idea that the struggle which we must have in this life is rather with ourselves than with the outside world. A young man is apt to think that he must go to work to get friends and to make money; but if he will only do the work that is