The boy Thorwaldsen, whose father died in the poor-house, and whose education was so scanty that he had to write his letters over many times before they could be posted, by his indomitable perseverance, tenacity, and grit, fascinated the world with the genius which neither his discouraging father, poverty, nor hardship could suppress.

William H. Seward was given a thousand dollars by his father to go to college with; this was all he was to have. The son returned at the end of the freshman year with extravagant habits and no money. His father refused to give him more, and told him he could not stay at home. When the youth found the props all taken out from under him, and that he must now sink or swim, he left home moneyless, returned to college, graduated at the head of his class, studied law, was elected Governor of New York, and became Lincoln's great Secretary of State during the Civil War.

Louisa M. Alcott wrote the conclusion to "An Old-Fashioned Girl" with her left hand in a sling, one foot up, head aching, and no voice. She proudly writes in her diary, "Twenty years ago I resolved to make the family independent if I could. At forty, that is done. Debts all paid, even the outlawed ones, and we have enough to be comfortable. It has cost me my health, perhaps." She earned two hundred thousand dollars by her pen.

Mrs. Frank Leslie often refers to the time she lived in her carpetless attic while striving to pay her husband's obligations. She has fought her way successfully through nine lawsuits, and has paid the entire debt. She manages her ten publications entirely herself, signs all checks and money-orders, makes all contracts, looks over all proofs, and approves the make-up of everything before it goes to press. She has developed great business ability, which no one dreamed she possessed.

Garfield said, "If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible substitute for it." The triumph of industry and grit over low birth and iron fortune in America, this land of opportunity, ought to be sufficient to put to shame all grumblers over their hard fortune and those who attempt to excuse aimless, shiftless, successless men because they have no chance.

The fear of ridicule and the dread of humiliation often hinder one from taking decisive steps when it is plainly a duty, so that courage is a very important element of decision. In a New England academy a pupil who was engaged to assist the teacher was unable to solve a problem in algebra. The class was approaching the problem, and he was mortified because, after many trials, he was obliged to take it to the teacher for solution. The teacher returned it unsolved. What could he do? He would not confess to the class that he could not solve it, so, after many futile attempts, he went to a distant town to seek the assistance of a friend who, he believed, could do the work. But, alas! his friend had gone away, and would not be back for a week. On his way back he said to himself, "What a fool! am I unable to perform a problem in algebra, and shall I go back to my class and confess my ignorance? I can solve it and I will." He shut himself in his room, determined not to sleep until he had mastered the problem, and finally he won success. Underneath the solution he wrote, "Obtained Monday evening, September 2, at half past eleven o'clock, after more than a dozen trials that have consumed more than twenty hours of time."

During a winter in the war of 1812, General Jackson's troops, unprovided for and starving, became mutinous and were going home. But the general set the example of living on acorns; then rode before the rebellious line and threatened with death the first mutineer that should try to leave.

The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to the strong. Horses are sometimes weighted or hampered in the race, and this is taken into account in the result. So in the race of life the distance alone does not determine the prize. We must take into consideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried, the disadvantages of education, of breeding, of training, of surroundings, of circumstances. How many young men are weighted down with debt, with poverty, with the support of invalid parents or brothers and sisters, or friends? How many are fettered with ignorance, hampered by inhospitable surroundings, with the opposition of parents who do not understand them? How many a round boy is hindered in the race by being forced into a square hole? How many are delayed in their course because nobody believes in them, because nobody encourages them, because they get no sympathy and are forever tortured for not doing that against which every fibre of their being protests, and every drop of their blood rebels? How many have to feel their way to the goal, through the blindness of ignorance and lack of experience? How many go bungling along from the lack of early discipline and drill in the vocation they have chosen? How many have to hobble along on crutches because they were never taught to help themselves, but to lean upon a father's wealth or a mother's indulgence? How many are weakened for the journey of life by self-indulgence, by dissipation, by "life-sappers;" how many are crippled by disease, by a weak constitution, by impaired eyesight or hearing?

When the prizes of life shall be awarded by the Supreme Judge, who knows our weaknesses and frailties, the distance we have run, the weights we have carried, the handicaps, will all be taken into account. Not the distance we have run, but the obstacles we have overcome, the disadvantages under which we have made the race, will decide the prizes. The poor wretch who has plodded along against unknown temptations, the poor woman who has buried her sorrows in her silent heart and sewed her weary way through life, those who have suffered abuse in silence, and who have been unrecognized or despised by their fellow-runners, will often receive the greater prize.

"The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them: sloth and folly Shiver and sink at sight of toil and hazard, And make the impossibility they fear."

Tumble me down, and I will sit Upon my ruins, smiling yet: Tear me to tatters, yet I'll be Patient in my necessity: Laugh at my scraps of clothes, and shun Me as a fear'd infection: Yet scare-crow like I'll walk, as one Neglecting thy derision. ROBERT HERRICK.



CHAPTER XI.

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD.

"One ruddy drop of manly blood the surging sea outweighs."

"Manhood overtops all titles."

The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops; no, but the kind of man the country turns out.—EMERSON.

Hew the block off, and get out the man.—POPE.

Eternity alone will reveal to the human race its debt of gratitude to the peerless and immortal name of Washington.—JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Better not be at all Than not be noble. TENNYSON.

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. LOWELL.

Virtue alone out-builds the pyramids: Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall. YOUNG.

Were one so tall to touch the pole, Or grasp creation in his span, He must be measured by his soul, The mind's the measure of the man. WATTS.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. BAILEY.

"Good name in man or woman Is the immediate jewel of their souls."

But this one thing I know, that these qualities did not now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in my grave.—EMERSON.

A Moor was walking in his garden when a Spanish cavalier suddenly fell at his feet, pleading for concealment from pursuers who sought his life in revenge for the killing of a Moorish gentleman. The Moor promised aid, and locked his visitor in a summer-house until night should afford opportunity for his escape. Not long after the dead body of his son was brought home, and from the description given he knew the Spaniard was the murderer. He concealed his horror, however, and at midnight unlocked the summer-house, saying, "Christian, the youth whom you have murdered was my only son. Your crime deserves the severest punishment. But I have solemnly pledged my word not to betray you, and I disdain to violate a rash engagement even with a cruel enemy." Then, saddling one of his fleetest mules, he said, "Flee while the darkness of night conceals you. Your hands are polluted with blood; but God is just; and I humbly thank Him that my faith is unspotted, and that I have resigned judgment to Him."



Character never dies. As Longfellow says:—

"Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still traveling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight.

"So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men."

The character of Socrates was mightier than the hemlock, and banished the fear and sting of death.

Who can estimate the power of a well-lived life? Character is power. Hang this motto in every school in the land, in every home, in every youth's room. Mothers, engrave it on every child's heart.

You cannot destroy one single atom of a Garrison, even though he were hanged. The mighty force of martyrs to truth lives; the candle burns more brilliantly than before it was snuffed. "No varnish or veneer of scholarship, no command of the tricks of logic or rhetoric, can ever make you a positive force in the world;" but your character can.

When the statue of George Peabody, erected in one of the thoroughfares of London, was unveiled, the sculptor Story was asked to speak. Twice he touched the statue with his hand, and said, "That is my speech. That is my speech." What could be more eloquent? Character needs no recommendation. It pleads its own cause.

"Show me," said Omar the Caliph to Amru the warrior, "the sword with which you have fought so many battles and slain so many infidels." "Ah!" replied Amru, "the sword without the arm of the master is no sharper nor heavier than the sword of Farezdak the poet." So one hundred and fifty pounds of flesh and blood without character is of no great value.

Napoleon was so much impressed with the courage and resources of Marshal Ney, that he said, "I have two hundred millions in my coffers, and I would give them all for Ney."

In Agra, India, stands the Taj Mahal, the acme of Oriental architecture, said to be the most beautiful building in the world. It was planned as a mausoleum for the favorite wife of Shah Jehan. When the latter was deposed by his son Aurungzebe, his daughter Jahanara chose to share his captivity and poverty rather than the guilty glory of her brother. On her tomb in Delhi were cut her dying words: "Let no rich coverlet adorn my grave; this grass is the best covering for the tomb of the poor in spirit, the humble, the transitory Jahanara, the disciple of the holy men of Christ, the daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan." Travelers who visit the magnificent Taj linger long by the grass-green sarcophagus in Delhi, but give only passing notice to the beautiful Jamma Masjid, a mausoleum afterwards erected in her honor.

Some writer has well said that David of the throne we cannot always recall with pleasure, but David of the Psalms we never forget. The strong, sweet faith of the latter streams like sunlight through even the closed windows of the soul, long after the wearied eye has turned with disgust from all the gilded pomp and pride of the former.

Robertson says that when you have got to the lowest depths of your heart, you will find there not the mere desire of happiness, but a craving as natural to us as the desire for food,—the craving for nobler, higher life.

"Private Benjamin Owen, —— Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, was found asleep at his post while on picket duty last night. The court-martial has sentenced him to be shot in twenty-four hours, as the offense occurred at a critical time." "I thought when I gave Bennie to his country," said farmer Owen as he read the above telegram with dimming eyes, "that no other father in all this broad laud made so precious a gift. He only slept a minute,—just one little minute,—at his post, I know that was all, for Bennie never dozed over a duty. How prompt and trustworthy he was! He was as tall as I, and only eighteen! and now they shoot him because he was found asleep when doing sentinel duty!" Just then Bennie's little sister Blossom answered a tap at the door, and returned with a letter. "It is from him," was all she said.

DEAR FATHER,—For sleeping on sentinel duty I am to be shot. At first, it seemed awful to me; but I have thought about it so much now that it has no terror. They say that they will not bind me, nor blind me; but that I may meet my death like a man. I thought, father, that it might have been on the battlefield, for my country, and that, when I fell, it would be fighting gloriously; but to be shot down like a dog for nearly betraying it,—to die for neglect of duty! Oh, father, I wonder the very thought does not kill me! But I shall not disgrace you. I am going to write you all about it; and when I am gone, you may tell my comrades; I cannot now.

You know I promised Jemmie Carr's mother I would look after her boy; and, when he fell sick, I did all I could for him. He was not strong when he was ordered back into the ranks, and the day before that night I carried all his baggage, besides my own, on our march. Toward night we went in on double-quick, and the baggage began to feel very heavy. Everybody was tired; and as for Jemmie, if I had not lent him an arm now and then, he would have dropped by the way. I was all tired out when we came into camp; and then it was Jemmie's turn to be sentry, and I could take his place; but I was too tired, father. I could not have kept awake if a gun had been pointed at my head; but I did not know it until,—well, until it was too late.

They tell me to-day that I have a short reprieve,—given to me by circumstances,—"time to write to you," our good colonel says. Forgive him, father, he only does his duty; he would gladly save me if he could; and do not lay my death up against Jemmie. The poor boy is broken-hearted, and does nothing but beg and entreat them to let him die in my stead. I can't bear to think of mother and Blossom. Comfort them, father! Tell them I die as a brave boy should, and that, when the war is over, they will not be ashamed of me, as they must be now. God help me: it is very hard to bear! Good-by, father. To-night, in the early twilight, I shall see the cows all coming home from pasture, and precious little Blossom standing on the back stoop, waiting for me,—but I shall never, never come! God bless you all!

"God be thanked!" said Mr. Owen reverently; "I knew Bennie was not the boy to sleep carelessly."

Late that night a little figure glided out of the house and down the path. Two hours later the conductor of the southward mail lifted her into a car at Mill Depot. Next morning she was in New York, and the next she was admitted to the White House at Washington. "Well, my child," said the President in pleasant, cheerful tones, "what do you want so bright and early this morning?" "Bennie's life, please, sir," faltered Blossom. "Bennie? Who is Bennie?" asked Mr. Lincoln. "My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post," said the little girl. "I remember," said the President; "it was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost through his culpable negligence." "So my father said; but poor Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie's night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself,—that he was tired, too." "What is that you say, child? Come here; I do not understand." He read Bennie's letter to his father, which Blossom held out, wrote a few lines, rang his bell, and said to the messenger who appeared, "Send this dispatch at once." Then, turning to Blossom, he continued: "Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or—wait until to-morrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death, he shall go with you." "God bless you, sir," said Blossom. Not all the queens are crowned.

Two days later, when the young soldier came with his sister to thank the President, Mr. Lincoln fastened the strap of a lieutenant upon his shoulder, saying, "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act without complaining, deserves well of his country."

When telegrams poured in announcing terrible carnage upon battlefields in our late war, and when President Lincoln's heart-strings were nearly broken over the cruel treatment of our prisoners at Andersonville, Belle Isle, and Libby Prison, he never once departed from his famous motto, "With malice toward none, with charity for all." When it was reported that among those returned at Baltimore from Southern prisons, not one in ten could stand alone from hunger and neglect, and many were so eaten and covered by vermin as to resemble those pitted by smallpox, and so emaciated that they were living skeletons, not even these reports could move the great President to retaliate in kind upon the Southern prisoners.

Among the slain on the battlefield at Fredericksburg was the body of a youth upon which was found next the heart a photograph of Lincoln. Upon the back of it were these words: "God bless President Lincoln." The youth had been sentenced to death for sleeping at his post, but had been pardoned by the President.

David Dudley Field said he considered Lincoln the greatest man of his day. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and others were great, each in one way, but Lincoln was great in many ways. There seemed to be hidden springs of greatness in this man that would gush forth in the most unexpected way. The men about him were at a loss to name the order of his genius. Horace Greeley was almost as many-sided, but was a wonderful combination of goodness and weakness, while Lincoln seemed strong in every way. After Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation he said, "The promise must now be kept; I shall never recall one word."

Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury, bears the following testimony to the influence for good which Gladstone, when a school-fellow at Eton, exercised upon him. "I was a thoroughly idle boy; but I was saved from worse things by getting to know Gladstone." At Oxford we are told the effect of his example was so strong that men who followed him there ten years later declare "that undergraduates drank less in the forties because Gladstone had been so courageously abstemious in the thirties."

The Rev. John Newton said, "I see in this world two heaps of human happiness and misery; now if I can take but the smallest bit from one heap and add it to the other, I carry a point; if as I go home a child has dropped a half-penny, and by giving it another I can wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something."

A holy hermit, who had lived for six years in a cave of the Thebaid, fasting, praying, and performing severe penances, spending his whole life in trying to make himself of some account with God, that he might be sure of a seat in Paradise, prayed to be shown some saint greater than himself, in order that he might pattern after him to reach still greater heights of holiness. The same night an angel came to him and said, "If thou wouldst excel all others in virtue and sanctity, strive to imitate a certain minstrel who goes begging and singing from door to door." The hermit, much chagrined, sought the minstrel and asked him how he had managed to make himself so acceptable to God. The minstrel hung down his head and replied, "Do not mock me, holy father; I have performed no good works, and I am not worthy to pray. I only go from door to door to amuse people with my viol and my flute." The hermit insisted that he must have done some good deeds. The minstrel replied, "Nay, I know of nothing good that I have done." "But how hast thou become a beggar? Hast thou spent thy substance in riotous living?" "Nay, not so," replied the minstrel. "I met a poor woman running hither and thither, distracted, because her husband and children had been sold into slavery to pay a debt. I took her home and protected her from certain sons of Belial, for she was very beautiful. I gave her all I possessed to redeem her family and returned her to her husband and children. Is there any man who would not have done the same?" The hermit shed tears, and said in all his life he had not done as much as the poor minstrel.

"A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor than silver or gold."

A gentleman, traveling through West Virginia, went to a house, and procured food for himself and companion and their horses. He wanted to make payment, but the woman was ashamed to take pay for a mere act of kindness. He pressed the money upon her. Finally she said, "If you don't think I'm mean, I'll take one quarter of a dollar from you, so as to look at it now and then, for there has been no money in this house for a year."

Do not take the world's estimate of success. The real height of the Washington Monument is not measured between the capstone and the earth, but includes the fifty feet of solid masonry below. Many of the most successful lives are like the rivers of India which run under ground, unseen and unheard by the millions who tread above them. But have these rivers therefore no influence? Ask the rich harvest fields if they feel the flowing water beneath. The greatest worth is never measured. It is only the nearest stars whose distances we compute. That life whose influence can be measured by the world's tape-line of dollars and corn is not worth the measuring.

All the forces in nature that are the most powerful are the quietest. We speak of the rolling thunder as powerful; but gravitation, which makes no noise, yet keeps orbs in their orbits, and the whole system in harmony, binding every atom in each planet to the great centre of all attraction, is ten thousand times ten thousand times more powerful. We say the bright lightning is mighty; so it is when it rends the gnarled oak into splinters, or splits solid battlements into fragments; but it is not half so powerful as the gentle light that comes so softly from the skies that we do not feel it, that travels at an inconceivable speed, strikes and yet is not felt, but exercises an influence so great that the earth is clothed with verdure through its influence, and all nature beautified and blessed by its ceaseless action. The things that make no noise, make no pretension, may be really the strongest. The most conclusive logic that a preacher uses in the pulpit will never exercise the influence that the consistent piety of character will exercise over all the earth.

The old Sicilian story relates how Pythias, condemned to death through the hasty anger of Dionysius of Syracuse, asked that he might go to his native Greece, and arrange his affairs, promising to return before the time appointed for his execution. The tyrant laughed his request to scorn, saying that when he was once safe out of Sicily no one would answer for his reappearance. At this juncture, Damon, a friend of the doomed man, offered to become surety for him, and to die in his stead if he did not come back in time. Dionysius was surprised, but accepted the proposition. When the fatal day came, Pythias had not reached Syracuse, but Damon remained firm in his faith that his friend would not fail him. At the very last hour Pythias appeared and announced himself ready to die. But such touching loyalty moved even the iron heart of Dionysius; accordingly he ordered both to be spared, and asked to be allowed to make a third partner in such a noble friendship. It is a grander thing to be nobly remembered than to be nobly born.

When Attila, flushed with conquest, appeared with his barbarian horde before the gates of Rome in 452, Pope Leo alone of all the people dared go forth and try to turn his wrath aside. A single magistrate followed him. The Huns were awed by the fearless majesty of the unarmed old man, and led him before their chief, whose respect was so great that he agreed not to enter the city, provided a tribute should be paid to him.

Blackie thinks there is no kind of a sermon so effective as the example of a great man, where we see the thing done before us,—actually done,—the thing of which we were not even dreaming.

It was said that when Washington led the American forces as commanding officer, it "doubled the strength of the army."

When General Lee was in conversation with one of his officers in regard to a movement of his army, a plain farmer's boy overheard the general's remark that he had decided to march upon Gettysburg instead of Harrisburg. The boy telegraphed this fact to Governor Curtin. A special engine was sent for the boy. "I would give my right hand," said the governor, "to know if this boy tells the truth." A corporal replied, "Governor, I know that boy; it is impossible for him to lie; there is not a drop of false blood in his veins." In fifteen minutes the Union troops were marching to Gettysburg, where they gained a victory. Character is power. The great thing is to be a man, to have a high purpose, a noble aim, to be dead in earnest, to yearn for the good and the true.

"Your lordships," said Wellington in Parliament, "must all feel the high and honorable character of the late Sir Robert Peel. I was long connected with him in public life. We were both in the councils of our sovereign together, and I had long the honor to enjoy his private friendship. In all the course of my acquaintance with him, I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I had greater confidence, or in whom I saw a more invariable desire to promote the public service. In the whole course of my communication with him, I never knew an instance in which he did not show the strongest attachment to truth; and I never saw in the whole course of my life the smallest reason for suspecting that he stated anything which he did not firmly believe to be the fact."

"The Secretary stood alone," said Grattan of the elder Pitt. "Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sunk him to the level of the vulgar great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition, fame. A character so exalted, so unsullied, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the name of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his policy, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country and the calamities of the enemy answered and refuted her. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to united exertion, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm an empire, and strike a blow in the world that would resound through the universe."

Pitt was Paymaster-General for George II. When a subsidy was voted a foreign office, it was customary for the office to claim one half per cent. for honorarium. Pitt astonished the King of Sardinia by sending him the sum without any deduction, and further astonished him by refusing a present as a compliment to his integrity. He was a poor man.

Washington would take no pay as commander-in-chief of the Continental armies. He would keep a strict account of his expenses; and these, he doubted not, would be discharged.

Remember, the main business of life is not to do, but to become; an action itself has its finest and most enduring fruit in character.

In 1837, after George Peabody moved to London, there came a commercial crisis in the United States. Many banks suspended specie payments. Many mercantile houses went to the wall, and thousands more were in great distress. Edward Everett said, "The great sympathetic nerve of the commercial world, credit, as far as the United States were concerned, was for the time paralyzed." Probably not a half dozen men in Europe would have been listened to for a moment in the Bank of England upon the subject of American securities, but George Peabody was one of them. His name was already a tower of strength in the commercial world. In those dark days his integrity stood four-square in every business panic. Peabody retrieved the credit of the State of Maryland, and, it might almost be said, of the United States. His character was the magic wand which in many a case changed almost worthless paper into gold. Merchants on both sides of the Atlantic procured large advances from him, even before the goods consigned to him had been sold.

Thackeray says, "Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces which is honored wherever presented. You cannot help trusting such men; their very presence gives confidence. There is a 'promise to pay' in their very faces which gives confidence, and you prefer it to another man's indorsement." Character is credit.

With most people, as with most nations, "things are worth what they will sell for," and the dollar is mightier than the sword. As good as gold has become a proverb—as though it were the highest standard of comparison.

Themistocles, having conceived the design of transferring the government of Greece from the hands of the Lacedaemonians into those of the Athenians, kept his thoughts continually fixed on this great project. Being at no time very nice or scrupulous in the choice of his measures, he thought anything which could tend to the accomplishment of the end he had in view just and lawful. Accordingly in an assembly of the people one day, he intimated that he had a very important design to propose; but he could not communicate it to the public at large, because the greatest secrecy was necessary to its success, and he therefore desired that they would appoint a person to whom he might explain himself on the subject. Aristides was unanimously selected by the assembly, which deferred entirely to his opinion. Themistocles, taking him aside, told him that the design he had conceived was to burn the fleet belonging to the rest of the Grecian states, which then lay in a neighboring port, when Athens would assuredly become mistress of all Greece. Aristides returned to the assembly, and declared to them that nothing could be more advantageous to the commonwealth than the project of Themistocles, but that, at the same time, nothing in the world could be more unfair. The assembly unanimously declared that, since such was the case, Themistocles should wholly abandon his project.

A tragedy by Aeschylus was once represented before the Athenians, in which it was said of one of the characters, "that he cared not more to be just than to appear so." At these words all eyes were instantly turned upon Aristides as the man who, of all the Greeks, most merited that distinguished reputation. Ever after he received, by universal consent, the surname of the Just,—a title, says Plutarch, truly royal, or rather truly divine. This remarkable distinction roused envy, and envy prevailed so far as to procure his banishment for years, upon the unjust suspicion that his influence with the people was dangerous to their freedom. When the sentence was passed by his countrymen, Aristides himself was present in the midst of them, and a stranger who stood near, and could not write, applied to him to write for him on his shell-ballot. "What name?" asked the philosopher. "Aristides," replied the stranger.

"Do you know him, then?" said Aristides, "or has he in any way injured you?" "Neither," said the other, "but it is for this very thing I would he were condemned. I can go nowhere but I hear of Aristides the Just." Aristides inquired no further, but took the shell, and wrote his name on it as desired. The absence of Aristides soon dissipated the apprehensions which his countrymen had so idly indulged. He was in a short time recalled, and for many years after took a leading part in the affairs of the republic, without showing the least resentment against his enemies, or seeking any other gratification than that of serving his countrymen with fidelity and honor. The virtues of Aristides did not pass without reward. He had two daughters, who were educated at the expense of the state, and to whom portions were allotted from the public treasury.

The strongest proof, however, of the justice and integrity of Aristides is, that notwithstanding he had possessed the highest employments in the republic, and had the absolute disposal of its treasures, yet he died so poor as not to leave money enough to defray the expenses of his funeral.

Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong; they, and not the police, guarantee the execution of the laws. Their influence is the bulwark of good government.

It was said of the first Emperor Alexander of Russia, that his personal character was equivalent to a constitution. Of Montaigne, it was said that his high reputation for integrity was a better protection for him than a regiment of horse would have been, he being the only man among the French gentry who, during the wars of the Fronde, kept his castle gates unbarred. There are men, fortunately for the world, who would rather be right than be President.

Fisher Ames, while in Congress, said of Roger Sherman, of Connecticut: "If I am absent during a discussion of a subject, and consequently know not on which side to vote, when I return I always look at Roger Sherman, for I am sure if I vote with him, I shall vote right."

Character gravitates upward, as with a celestial gravitation, while mere genius, without character, gravitates downward. How often we see in school or college young men, who are apparently dull and even stupid, rise gradually and surely above others who are without character, merely because the former have an upward tendency in their lives, a reaching-up principle, which gradually but surely unfolds, and elevates them to positions of honor and trust. There is something which everybody admires in an aspiring soul, one whose tendency is upward and onward, in spite of hindrances and in defiance of obstacles.

We may try to stifle the voice of the mysterious angel within, but it always says "yes" to right actions and "no" to wrong ones. No matter whether we heed it or not, no power can change its decision one iota. Through health, through disease, through prosperity and adversity, this faithful servant stands behind us in the shadow of ourselves, never intruding, but weighing every act we perform, every word we utter, pronouncing the verdict "right" or "wrong."

Francis Horner, of England, was a man of whom Sydney Smith said, that "the ten commandments were stamped upon his forehead." The valuable and peculiar light in which Horner's history is calculated to inspire every right-minded youth is this: he died at the age of thirty-eight, possessed of greater influence than any other private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless and the base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any deceased member. How was this attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth? Neither he nor any of his relatives ever had a superfluous sixpence. By office? He held but one, and that for only a few years, of no influence, and with very little pay. By talents? His were not splendid, and he had no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition was to be right. By eloquence? He spoke in calm, good taste, without any of the oratory that either terrifies or seduces. By any fascination of manner? His was only correct and agreeable. By what was it, then? Merely by sense, industry, good principles and a good heart, qualities which no well constituted mind need ever despair of attaining. It was the force of his character that raised him; and this character was not impressed on him by nature, but formed, out of no peculiarly fine elements, by himself. There were many in the House of Commons of far greater ability and eloquence. But no one surpassed him in the combination of an adequate portion of these with moral worth. Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided by anything whatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, even when these powers are displayed amidst the competition and jealousies of public life.

"When it was reported in Paris that the great Napoleon was dead, I passed the Palais Royal," says a French writer, "where a public crier called, 'Here's your account of the death of Bonaparte.' This cry which once would have appalled all Europe fell perfectly flat. I entered," he adds, "several cafes, and found the same indifference,—coldness everywhere; no one seemed interested or troubled. This man, who had conquered Europe and awed the world, had inspired neither the love nor the admiration of even his own countrymen. He had impressed the world with his marvelousness, and had inspired astonishment but not love."

Emerson says that Napoleon did all that in him lay to live and thrive without moral principle. It was the nature of things, the eternal law of man and of the world, which balked and ruined him; and the result, in a million attempts of this kind, will be the same. His was an experiment, under the most favorable conditions, to test the powers of intellect without conscience. Never elsewhere was such a leader so endowed, and so weaponed; never has another leader found such aids and followers. And what was the result of this vast talent and power, of these immense armies, burned cities, squandered treasures, immolated millions of men, of this demoralized Europe? He left France smaller, poorer, feebler than he found her.

A hundred years hence what difference will it make whether you were rich or poor, a peer or a peasant? But what difference may it not make whether you did what was right or what was wrong?

"The 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said George William Curtis, "was sold, through Dr. Johnson's mediation, for sixty pounds; and ten years after, the author died. With what love do we hang over its pages! What springs of feeling it has opened! Goldsmith's books are influences and friends forever, yet the five thousandth copy was never announced, and Oliver Goldsmith, M. D., often wanted a dinner! Horace Walpole, the coxcomb of literature, smiled at him contemptuously from his gilded carriage. Goldsmith struggled cheerfully with his adverse fate, and died. But then sad mourners, whom he had aided in their affliction, gathered around his bed, and a lady of distinction, whom he had only dared to admire at a distance, came and cut a lock of his hair for remembrance. When I see Goldsmith, thus carrying his heart in his hand like a palm branch, I look on him as a successful man, whom adversity could not bring down from the level of his lofty nature."

Dr. Maudsley tells us that the aims which chiefly predominate—riches, position, power, applause of men—are such as inevitably breed and foster many bad passions in the eager competition to attain them. Hence, in fact, come disappointed ambition, jealousy, grief from loss of fortune, all the torments of wounded self-love, and a thousand other mental sufferings,—the commonly enumerated moral causes of insanity. They are griefs of a kind to which a rightly developed nature should not fall a prey. There need be no envy nor jealousy, if a man were to consider that it mattered not whether he did a great thing or some one else did it, Nature's only concern being that it should be done; no grief from loss of fortune, if he were to estimate at its true value that which fortune can bring him, and that which fortune can never bring him; no wounded self-love, if he had learned well the eternal lesson of life,—self-renunciation.

Soon after his establishment in Philadelphia Franklin was offered a piece for publication in his newspaper. Being very busy, he begged the gentleman would leave it for consideration. The next day the author called and asked his opinion of it. "Well, sir," replied Franklin, "I am sorry to say I think it highly scurrilous and defamatory. But being at a loss on account of my poverty whether to reject it or not, I thought I would put it to this issue: At night, when my work was done, I bought a two-penny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then, wrapping myself in my great coat, slept very soundly on the floor till morning, when another loaf and mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living?"

One cannot read this anecdote of our American sage without thinking of Socrates' reply to King Archelaus, who had pressed him to give up preaching in the dirty streets of Athens, and come and live with him in his splendid courts: "Meal, please your Majesty, is a half-penny a peck at Athens, and water I get for nothing!"

During Alexander's march into Africa he found a people dwelling in peace, who knew neither war nor conquest. While he was interviewing the chief two of his subjects brought a case before him for judgment. The dispute was this: the one had bought of the other a piece of ground, which, after the purchase, was found to contain a treasure, for which he felt bound to pay. The other refused to receive anything, stating that when he sold the ground he sold it with all the advantages apparent or concealed which it might be found to afford. The king said, "One of you has a daughter and the other a son; let them be married and the treasure given to them as a dowry." Alexander was surprised, and said, "If this case had been in our country it would have been dismissed, and the king would have kept the treasure." The chief said, "Does the sun shine on your country, and the rain fall, and the grass grow?" Alexander replied, "Certainly." The chief then asked, "Are there any cattle?" "Certainly," was the reply. The chief replied, "Then it is for these innocent cattle that the Great Being permits the rain to fall and the grass to grow."

A good character is a precious thing, above rubies, gold, crowns, or kingdoms, and the work of making it is the noblest labor on earth.

Professor Blackie of the University of Edinburgh said to a class of young men: "Money is not needful; power is not needful; liberty is not needful; even health is not the one thing needful; but character alone is that which can truly save us, and if we are not saved in this sense, we certainly must be damned." It has been said that "when poverty is your inheritance, virtue must be your capital."

During the American Revolution, while General Reed was President of Congress, the British Commissioners offered him a bribe of ten thousand guineas to desert the cause of his country. His reply was, "Gentlemen, I am poor, very poor; but your king is not rich enough to buy me."

"When Le Pere Bourdaloue preached at Rouen," said Pere Arrius, "the tradesmen forsook their shops, lawyers their clients, physicians their sick, and tavern-keepers their bars; but when I preached the following year I set all things to rights,—every man minded his own business."

"I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand men," said Mary, Queen of Scotland.

When Pope Paul IV. heard of the death of Calvin he exclaimed with a sigh, "Ah, the strength of that proud heretic lay in—riches? No. Honors? No. But nothing could move him from his course. Holy Virgin! With two such servants, our church would soon be mistress of both worlds."

Garibaldi's power over his men amounted to fascination. Soldiers and officers were ready to die for him. His will power seemed to enslave them. In Rome he called for forty volunteers to go where half of them would be sure to be killed and the others probably wounded. The whole battalion rushed forward; and they had to draw lots, so eager were all to obey.

What power of magic lies in a great name! There was not a throne in Europe that could stand against Washington's character, and in comparison with it the millions of the Croesuses would look ridiculous. What are the works of avarice compared with the names of Lincoln, Grant, or Garfield? A few names have ever been the leaven which has preserved many a nation from premature decay.

"But strew his ashes to the wind Whose sword or voice has served mankind— And is he dead, whose glorious mind Lifts thine on high?— To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die."

Mr. Gladstone gave in Parliament, when announcing the death of Princess Alice, a touching story of sick-room ministration. The Princess' little boy was ill with diphtheria, the physician had cautioned her not to inhale the poisoned breath; the child was tossing in the delirium of fever. The mother took the little one in her lap and stroked his fevered brow; the boy threw his arms around her neck, and whispered, "Kiss me, mamma;" the mother's instinct was stronger than the physician's caution; she pressed her lips to the child's, but lost her life.

At a large dinner-party given by Lord Stratford after the Crimean War, it was proposed that every one should write on a slip of paper the name which appeared most likely to descend to posterity with renown. When the papers were opened every one of them contained the name of Florence Nightingale.

Leckey says that the first hospital ever established was opened by that noble Christian woman, Fabiola, in the fourth century. The two foremost names in modern philanthropy are those of John Howard and Florence Nightingale. Not a general of the Crimean War on either side can be named by one person in ten. The one name that rises instantly, when that carnival of pestilence and blood is suggested, is that of a young woman just recovering from a serious illness, Florence Nightingale. A soldier said, "Before she came there was such cussin' and swearin'; and after that it was as holy as a church." She robbed war of half its terrors. Since her time the hospital systems of all the nations during war have been changed. No soldier was braver and no patriot truer than Clara Barton, and wherever that noble company of Protestant women known as the Red Cross Society,—the cross, I suppose, pointing to Calvary, and the red to the blood of the Redeemer,—wherever those consecrated workers seek to alleviate the condition of those who suffer from plagues, cholera, fevers, flood, famine, there this tireless angel moves on her pathway of blessing. And of all heroes, what nobler ones than these, whose names shine from the pages of our missionary history? I never read of Mrs. Judson, Mrs. Snow, Miss Brittain, Miss West, without feeling that the heroic age of our race has just begun, the age which opens to woman the privilege of following her benevolent inspirations wheresoever she will, without thinking that our Christianity needs no other evidence.

"Duty is the cement without which all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, and love itself can have no permanence, but all the fabric of existence crumbles away from under us and leaves us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation." A constant, abiding sense of duty is the last reason of culture.

"I slept and dreamed that life is beauty; I woke and found that life is duty."

We have no more right to refuse to perform a duty than to refuse to pay a debt. Moral insolvency is certain to him who neglects and disregards his duty to his fellow-men. Nor can we hire another to perform our duty. The mere accident of having money does not release you from your duty to the world. Nay, it increases it, for it enables you to do a larger and nobler duty.

If your money is not clean, if there is a dirty dollar in your millions, you have not succeeded. If there is the blood of the poor and unfortunate, of orphans and widows, on your bank account, you have not succeeded. If your wealth has made others poorer, your life is a failure. If you have gained it in an occupation that kills, that shortens the lives of others, that poisons their blood, or engenders disease, if you have taken a day from a human life, if you have gained your money by that which has debauched other lives, you have failed.

Remember that a question will be asked you some time which you cannot evade, the right answer to which will fix your destiny forever: "How did you get that fortune?" Are other men's lives in it; are others' hope and happiness buried in it; are others' comforts sacrificed to it; are others' rights buried in it; are others' opportunities smothered in it; others' chances strangled by it; has their growth been stunted by it; their characters stained by it; have others a smaller loaf, a meaner home? If so, you have failed; all your millions cannot save you from the curse, "thou hast been weighed in the balance and found wanting."

When Walter Scott's publisher and printer failed and $600,000 of debt stared them in the face, friends came forward and offered to raise money enough to allow him to arrange with his creditors. "No," said he proudly, "this right hand shall work it all off; if we lose everything else, we will at least keep our honor unblemished." What a grand picture of manliness, of integrity in this noble man, working like a dray-horse to cancel that great debt, throwing off at white heat the "Life of Napoleon," "Woodstock," "The Tales of a Grandfather," articles for the "Quarterly," and so on, all written in the midst of great sorrow, pain, and ruin. "I could not have slept soundly," he writes, "as I now can under the comfortable impression of receiving the thanks of my creditors, and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a man of honesty. I see before me a long, tedious, and dark path, but it leads to stainless reputation. If I die in the harness, as is very likely, I shall die with honor."

One of the last things he uttered was, "I have been, perhaps, the most voluminous author of my day, and it is a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles, and that I have written nothing which, on my deathbed, I would wish blotted out."

Although Agassiz refused to lecture even for a large sum of money, yet he left a greater legacy to the world, and left even more money to Harvard University ($300,000) than he would have left if he had taken the time to lecture for money.

Faraday had to choose between a fortune of nearly a million and a life of almost certain poverty if he pursued science. He chose poverty and science, and earned a name never to be erased from the book of fame.

Beecher says that we are all building a soul-house for eternity; yet with what differing architecture and what various care!

What if a man should see his neighbor getting workmen and building materials together, and should say to him, "What are you building?" and he should answer, "I don't exactly know. I am waiting to see what will come of it." And so walls are reared, and room is added to room, while the man looks idly on, and all the bystanders exclaim, "What a fool he is!" Yet this is the way many men are building their characters for eternity, adding room to room, without plan or aim, and thoughtlessly waiting to see what the effect will be. Such builders will never dwell in "the house of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Some people build as cathedrals are built, the part nearest the ground finished; but that part which soars towards heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.

Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise—the head and heart are stuffed with goods. Like those houses in the lower streets of cities which were once family dwellings, but are now used for commercial purposes, there are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship; but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with material things.



CHAPTER XII.

WEALTH IN ECONOMY.

Economy is half the battle of life.—SPURGEON.

Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty and ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.—DR. JOHNSON.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them one's self?

As much wisdom can be expended on a private economy as on an empire.—EMERSON.

Riches amassed in haste will diminish; but those collected by hand and little by little will multiply.—GOETHE.

No gain is so certain as that which proceeds from the economical use of what you have.—LATIN PROVERB.

Beware of little extravagances: a small leak will sink a big ship.—FRANKLIN.

Better go to bed supperless than rise with debts.—GERMAN PROVERB.

Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.—H. W. SHAW.

Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen pence a day; but for phantasy, planets and solar systems will not suffice.—MACAULAY.

Economy, the poor man's mint.—TUPPER.

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out; but the disease is incurable.—SHAKESPEARE.

Whatever be your talents, whatever be your prospects, never speculate away on the chance of a palace that which you may need as a provision against the workhouse.—BULWER.

Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant, But for the glorious privilege Of being independent. BURNS.

"We shan't get much here," whispered a lady to her companion, as John Murray blew out one of the two candles by whose light he had been writing when they asked him to contribute to some benevolent object. He listened to their story and gave one hundred dollars. "Mr. Murray, I am very agreeably surprised," said the lady quoted; "I did not expect to get a cent from you." The old Quaker asked the reason for her opinion; and, when told, said, "That, ladies, is the reason I am able to let you have the hundred dollars. It is by practicing economy that I save up money with which to do charitable actions. One candle is enough to talk by."

* * * * * *



"The Moses of Colonial Finance."

"Poverty is a condition which no man should accept, unless it is forced upon him as an inexorable necessity or as the alternative of dishonor."

"Comfort and independence abide with those who can postpone their desires."

* * * * * *

Emerson relates the following anecdote: "An opulent merchant in Boston was called on by a friend in behalf of a charity. At that time he was admonishing his clerk for using whole wafers instead of halves; his friend thought the circumstance unpropitious; but to his surprise, on listening to the appeal, the merchant subscribed five hundred dollars. The applicant expressed his astonishment that any person who was so particular about half a wafer should present five hundred dollars to a charity; but the merchant said, "It is by saving half wafers, and attending to such little things, that I have now something to give."

"How did you acquire your great fortune?" asked a friend of Lampis, the shipowner. "My great fortune, easily," was the reply, "my small one, by dint of exertion."

Four years from the time Marshall Field left the rocky New England farm to seek his fortune in Chicago he was admitted as a partner in the firm of Coaley, Farwell & Co. The only reason the modest young man gave, to explain his promotion when he had neither backing, wealth, nor influence, was that he saved his money.

If a man will begin at the age of twenty and lay by twenty-six cents every working day, investing at seven per cent. compound interest, he will have thirty-two thousand dollars when he is seventy years old. Twenty cents a day is no unusual expenditure for beer or cigars, yet in fifty years it would easily amount to twenty thousand dollars. Even a saving of one dollar a week from the date of one's majority would give him one thousand dollars for each of the last ten of the allotted years of life. "What maintains one vice would bring up two children."

Such rigid economy, such high courage, enables one to surprise the world with gifts even if he is poor. In fact, the poor and the middle classes give most in the aggregate to missions and hospitals and to the poor. Only frugality enables them to outdo the rich on their own ground.

But miserliness or avariciousness is a different thing from economy. The miserly is the miserable man, who hoards money from a love of it. A miser who spends a cent upon himself where another would spend a quarter does it from parsimony, which is a subordinate characteristic of avarice. Of this the following is an illustration: "True, I should like some soup, but I have no appetite for the meat," said the dying Ostervalde; "what is to become of that? It will be a sad waste." And so the rich Paris banker would not let his servant buy meat for broth.

A writer on political economy tells of the mishaps resulting from a broken latch on a farmyard gate. Every one going through would shut the gate, but as the latch would not hold it, it would swing open with every breeze. One day a pig ran out into the woods. Every one on the farm went to help get him back. A gardener jumped over a ditch to stop the pig, and sprained his ankle so badly as to be confined to his bed for two weeks. When the cook returned, she found that her linen, left to dry at the fire, was all badly scorched. The dairymaid in her excitement left the cows untied, and one of them broke the leg of a colt. The gardener lost several hours of valuable time. Yet a new latch would not have cost five cents.

Guy, the London bookseller, and afterward the founder of the great hospital, was a great miser, living in the back part of his shop, eating upon an old bench, and using his counter for a table, with a newspaper for a cloth. He did not marry. One day he was visited by "Vulture" Hopkins, another well-known miser. "What is your business?" asked Guy, lighting a candle. "To discuss your methods of saving money," was the reply, alluding to the niggardly economy for which Guy was famous. On learning Hopkins's business he blew out the light, saying, "We can do that in the dark." "Sir, you are my master in the art," said the "Vulture;" "I need ask no further. I see where your secret lies."

Yet that kind of economy which verges on the niggardly is better than the extravagance that laughs at it. Either, when carried to excess, is not only apt to cause misery, but to ruin the character.

"Lay by something for a rainy day," said a gentleman to an Irishman in his service. Not long afterwards he asked Patrick how much he had added to his store. "Faith, nothing at all," was the reply; "I did as you bid me, but it rained very hard yesterday, and it all went—in drink."

"Wealth, a monster gorged 'Mid starving populations."

But nowhere and at no period were these contrasts more startling than in Imperial Rome. There a whole population might be trembling lest they should be starved by the delay of an Alexandrian corn-ship, while the upper classes were squandering fortunes at a single banquet, drinking out of myrrhine and jeweled vases worth hundreds of pounds, and feasting on the brains of peacocks and the tongues of nightingales. As a consequence, disease was rife, men were short-lived. At this time the dress of Roman ladies displayed an unheard-of splendor. The elder Pliny tells us that he himself saw Lollia Paulina dressed for a betrothal feast in a robe entirely covered with pearls and emeralds, which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, and which was known to be less costly than some of her other dresses. Gluttony, caprice, extravagance, ostentation, impurity, rioted in the heart of a society which knew of no other means by which to break the monotony of its weariness or alleviate the anguish of its despair.

The expense ridiculously bestowed on the Roman feasts passes all belief. Suetonius mentions a supper given to Vitellius by his brother, in which, among other articles, there were two thousand of the choicest fishes, seven thousand of the most delicate birds, and one dish, from its size and capacity, named the aegis or shield of Minerva. It was filled chiefly with the liver of the scari, a delicate species of fish, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, and the tongues of parrots, considered desirable chiefly because of their great cost.

"I hope that there will not be another sale," exclaimed Horace Walpole, "for I have not an inch of room nor a farthing left." A woman once bought an old door-plate with "Thompson" on it because she thought it might come in handy some time. The habit of buying what you don't need because it is cheap encourages extravagance. "Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths."

"Where there is no prudence," said Dr. Johnson, "there is no virtue."

The eccentric John Randolph once sprang from his seat in the House of Representatives, and exclaimed in his piercing voice, "Mr. Speaker, I have found it." And then, in the stillness which followed this strange outburst, he added, "I have found the Philosopher's Stone: it is Pay as you go."

Many a young man seems to think that when he sees his name on a sign he is on the highway to fortune, and he begins to live on a scale as though there was no possible chance of failure; as though he were already beyond the danger point. Unfortunately Congress can pass no law that will remedy the vice of living beyond one's means.

"The prosperity of fools shall destroy them." "However easy it may be to make money," said Barnum, "it is the most difficult thing in the world to keep it." Money often makes the mare—run away with you.

Very few men know how to use money properly. They can earn it, lavish it, hoard it, waste it, but to deal with it wisely, as a means to an end, is an education difficult of acquirement.

After a large stained-glass window had been constructed an artist picked up the discarded fragments and made one of the most exquisite windows in Europe for another cathedral. So one boy will pick up a splendid education out of the odds and ends of time which others carelessly throw away, or gain a fortune by saving what others waste.

It has become a part of the new political economy to argue that a debt on a church or a house or a firm is a desirable thing to develop character. When the young man starts out in life with the old-fashioned idea strong in his mind that debt is bondage and a disgrace, that a mortgage is to be shunned like the cholera, and that to owe a dollar that you cannot pay, unless overtaken by misfortune, is nothing more or less than stealing, then he is bound in so much at least to succeed, and save his old age from being a burden upon his friends or the state.

To do your best you must own every bit of yourself. If you are in debt, part of you belongs to your creditors. Nothing but actual sin is so paralyzing to a young man's energies as debt.

The "loose change" which many young men throw away carelessly, or worse, would often form the basis of a fortune and independence. The earnings of the people of the United States, rich and poor, old and young, male and female, amount to an average of less than fifty cents a day. But it is by economizing such savings that one must get his start in business. The man without a penny is practically helpless, from a business point of view, except so far as he can immediately utilize his powers of body and mind. Besides, when a man or woman is driven to the wall, the chance of goodness surviving self-respect and the loss of public esteem is frightfully diminished.

"Money goes as it comes." "A child and a fool imagine that twenty years and twenty shillings can never be spent."

Live between extravagance and meanness. Don't save money and starve your mind. "The very secret and essence of thrift consists in getting things into higher values. Spend upward, that is, for the higher faculties. Spend for the mind rather than for the body, for culture rather than for amusement. Some young men are too stingy to buy the daily papers, and are very ignorant and narrow." "There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." "Don't squeeze out of your life and comfort and family what you save."

Liberal, not lavish, is Nature's hand. Even God, it is said, cannot afford to be extravagant. When He increased the loaves and fishes, He commanded to gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.

"Nature uses a grinding economy," says Emerson, "working up all that is wasted to-day into to-morrow's creation; not a superfluous grain of sand for all the ostentation she makes of expense and public works. She flung us out in her plenty, but we cannot shed a hair or a paring of a nail but instantly she snatches at the shred and appropriates it to her general stock." Last summer's flowers and foliage decayed in autumn only to enrich the earth this year for other forms of beauty. Nature will not even wait for our friends to see us, unless we die at home. The moment the breath has left the body she begins to take us to pieces, that the parts may be used again for other creations. Mark the following contrast:—

1772. 1822. Man, to the plow; Man, tally-ho; Wife, to the cow; Wife, piano; Girl, to the sow; Miss, silk and satin; Boy, to the mow; Boy, Greek and Latin; And your rents will be netted. And you'll all be gazetted. Hone's Works. The Times.

More than a lifetime has elapsed since the above was published, but instead of returning to the style of 1772, our farmers have out-Heroded Herod in the direction of the fashion, of 1822, and many a farmhouse, like the home of Artemas [Transcriber's note: Artemus?] Ward, may be known by the cupola and the mortgage with which it is decorated.

It is by the mysterious power of economy, it has been said, that the loaf is multiplied, that using does not waste, that little becomes much, that scattered fragments grow to unity, and that out of nothing or next to nothing comes the miracle of something. It is not merely saving, still less, parsimony. It is foresight and arrangement, insight and combination, causing inert things to labor, useless things to serve our necessities, perishing things to renew their vigor, and all things to exert themselves for human comfort.

English working men and women work very hard, seldom take a holiday, and though they get nearly double the wages of the same classes in France, yet save very little. The millions earned by them slip out of their hands almost as soon as obtained to satisfy the pleasures of the moment. In France every housekeeper is taught the art of making much out of little. "I am simply astonished," writes an American lady stopping in France, "at the number of good wholesome dishes which my friend here makes for her table from things, which at home, I always throw away. Dainty little dishes from scraps of cold meat, from hard crusts of bread, delicately prepared and seasoned, from almost everything and nothing. And yet there is no feeling of stinginess or want."

"I wish I could write all across the sky, in letters of gold," says Rev. William Marsh, "the one word, savings-bank."

Boston savings-banks have $130,000,000 on deposit, mostly saved in driblets. Josiah Quincy used to say that the servant girls built most of the palaces on Beacon Street.

"So apportion your wants that your means may exceed them," says Bulwer. "With one hundred pounds a year I may need no man's help; I may at least have 'my crust of bread and liberty.' But with five thousand pounds a year I may dread a ring at my bell; I may have my tyrannical master in servants whose wages I cannot pay; my exile may be at the fiat of the first long-suffering man who enters a judgment against me; for the flesh that lies nearest my heart some Shylock may be dusting his scales and whetting his knife. Every man is needy who spends more than he has; no man is needy who spends less. I may so ill manage, that with five thousand pounds a year I purchase the worst evils of poverty,—terror and shame; I may so well manage my money, that with one hundred pounds a year I purchase the best blessings of wealth,—safety and respect."

Edmund Burke, speaking on Economic Reform, quoted from Cicero: "Magnum vectigal est parsimonia," accenting the second word on the first syllable. Lord North whispered a correction, when Burke turned the mistake to advantage. "The noble lord hints that I have erred in the quantity of a principal word in my quotation; I rejoice at it, sir, because it gives me an opportunity of repeating the inestimable adage,—'Magnum vectigal est parsimonia.'" The sentiment, meaning "Thrift is a good income," is well worthy of emphatic repetition by us all.

Washington examined the minutest expenditures of his family, even when President of the United States. He understood that without economy none can be rich, and with it none need be poor.

"I make a point of paying my own bills," said Wellington.

John Jacob Astor said that the first thousand dollars cost him more effort than all of his millions. Boys who are careless with their dimes and quarters, just because they have so few, never get this first thousand, and without it no fortune is possible.

To find out uses for the persons or things which are now wasted in life is to be the glorious work of the men of the next generation, and that which will contribute most to their enrichment.

Economizing "in spots" or by freaks is no economy at all. It must be done by management.

Learn early in life to say "I can't afford it." It is an indication of power and courage and manliness. Dr. Franklin said, "It is not our own eyes, but other people's, that ruin us." "Fashion wears out more apparel than the man," says Shakespeare.

"Of what a hideous progeny of ill is debt the father," said Douglas Jerrold. "What meanness, what invasions of self-respect, what cares, what double-dealing! How in due season it will carve the frank, open face into wrinkles; how like a knife it will stab the honest heart. And then its transformations,—how it has been known to change a goodly face into a mask of brass; how with the evil custom of debt has the true man become a callous trickster! A freedom from debt, and what nourishing sweetness may be found in cold water; what toothsomeness in a dry crust; what ambrosial nourishment in a hard egg! Be sure of it, he who dines out of debt, though his meal be a biscuit and an onion, dines in 'The Apollo.' And then, for raiment, what warmth in a threadbare coat, if the tailor's receipt be in your pocket! What Tyrian purple in the faded waistcoat, the vest not owed for; how glossy the well-worn hat, if it covers not the aching head of a debtor! Next, the home sweets, the outdoor recreation of the free man. The street door falls not a knell in his heart, the foot on the staircase, though he lives on the third pair, sends no spasm through his anatomy; at the rap of his door he can crow 'come in,' and his pulse still beats healthfully. See him abroad! How he returns look for look with any passenger. Poverty is a bitter draught, yet may, and sometimes can with advantage, be gulped down. Though the drinker makes wry faces, there may, after all, be a wholesome goodness in the cup. But debt, however courteously it may be offered, is the Cup of Siren; and the wine, spiced and delicious though it be, is poison. My son, if poor, see Hyson in the running spring; see thy mouth water at a last week's roll; think a threadbare coat the only wear; and acknowledge a whitewashed garret the fittest housing-place for a gentleman; do this, and flee debt. So shall thy heart be at rest, and the sheriff confounded."

"Whoever has sixpence is sovereign over all men to the extent of that sixpence," says Carlyle; "commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to mount guard over him,—to the extent of that sixpence."

If a man owes you a dollar, he is almost sure to owe you a grudge, too. If you owe another money, you will be apt to regard him with uncharitable eyes. Why not economize before getting into debt instead of pinching afterwards?

Communities which live wholly from hand to mouth never make much progress in the useful arts. Savings mean power. Comfort and independence abide with those who can postpone their desires.

"Hunger, rags, cold, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable," says Horace Greeley, "but debt is infinitely worse than them all."

Many a ruined man dates his downfall from the day when he began borrowing money. Debt demoralized Daniel Webster, and Theodore Hook, and Sheridan, and Fox, and Pitt. Mirabeau's life was made wretched by duns.

"Annual income," says Micawber, "twenty pounds; annual expenditure, nineteen six, result—happiness. Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, twenty pounds ought and six, result—misery."

"We are ruined," says Colton, "not by what we really want, but by what we think we do. Therefore never go abroad in search of your wants; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want will soon want what he cannot buy."

The honorable course is to give every man his due. It is better to starve than not to do this. It is better to do a small business on a cash basis than a large one on credit. Owe no man anything, wrote St. Paul. It is a good motto to place in every purse, in every counting-room, in every church, in every home.

Economy is of itself a great revenue.—CICERO.



CHAPTER XIII.

RICH WITHOUT MONEY.

Let others plead for pensions; I can be rich without money, by endeavoring to be superior to everything poor. I would have my services to my country unstained by any interested motive.—LORD COLLINGWOOD.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. GOLDSMITH.

Pennilessness is not poverty, and ownership is not possession; to be without is not always to lack, and to reach is not to attain; sunlight is for all eyes that look up, and color for those who choose.—HELEN HUNT.

I ought not to allow any man, because he has broad lands, to feel that he is rich in my presence. I ought to make him feel that I can do without his riches, that I cannot be bought,—neither by comfort, neither by pride,—and although I be utterly penniless, and receiving bread from him, that he is the poor man beside me.—EMERSON.

To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.—CICERO.

There is no riches above a sound body and no joy above the joy of the heart.—ECCLESIASTES.

Where, thy true treasure? Gold says, "Not in me;" And "Not in me," the Diamond. Gold is poor; India's insolvent: seek it in thyself. YOUNG.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.—SOCRATES.

A great heart in a little house is of all things here below that which has ever touched me most.—LACORDAIRE.

My crown is in my heart, not on my head, Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: my crown is called content; A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy. SHAKESPEAKE.

Many a man is rich without money. Thousands of men with nothing in their pockets, and thousands without even a pocket, are rich.

* * * * * *



"The Sage of Concord."

"I revere the person who is riches: so I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy."

* * * * * *

A man born with a good, sound constitution, a good stomach, a good heart and good limbs, and a pretty good headpiece, is rich.

Good bones are better than gold, tough muscles than silver, and nerves that carry energy to every function are better than houses and land.

"Heart-life, soul-life, hope, joy, and love, are true riches," said Beecher.

Why should I scramble and struggle to get possession of a little portion of this earth? This is my world now; why should I envy others its mere legal possession? It belongs to him who can see it, enjoy it. I need not envy the so-called owners of estates in Boston and New York. They are merely taking care of my property and keeping it in excellent condition for me. For a few pennies for railroad fare whenever I wish I can see and possess the best of it all. It has cost me no effort, it gives me no care; yet the green grass, the shrubbery, and the statues on the lawns, the finer sculptures and the paintings within, are always ready for me whenever I feel a desire to look upon them. I do not wish to carry them home with me, for I could not give them half the care they now receive; besides, it would take too much of my valuable time, and I should be worrying continually lest they be spoiled or stolen. I have much of the wealth of the world now. It is all prepared for me without any pains on my part. All around me are working hard to get things that will please me, and competing to see who can give them the cheapest. The little I pay for the use of libraries, railroads, galleries, parks, is less than it would cost to care for the least of all I use. Life and landscape are mine, the stars and flowers, the sea and air, the birds and trees. What more do I want? All the ages have been working for me; all mankind are my servants. I am only required to feed and clothe myself, an easy task in this land of opportunity.

A millionaire pays thousands of pounds for a gallery of paintings, and some poor boy or girl comes in, with open mind and poetic fancy, and carries away a treasure of beauty which the owner never saw. A collector bought at public auction in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a schoolboy can read and absorb the riches of "Hamlet."

Why should I waste my abilities pursuing this will-o'-the-wisp "Enough," which is ever a little more than one has, and which none of the panting millions ever yet overtook in his mad chase? Is there no desirable thing left in this world but gold, luxury, and ease?

"Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover." "A man may as soon fill a chest with grace, or a vessel with virtue," says Phillips Brooks, "as a heart with wealth."

Shall we seek happiness through the sense of taste or of touch? Shall we idolize our stomachs and our backs? Have we no higher missions, no nobler destinies? Shall we "disgrace the fair day by a pusillanimous preference of our bread to our freedom"?

In the three great "Banquets" of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch the food is not even mentioned.

What does your money say to you: what message does it bring to you? Does it say to you, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die"? Does it bring a message of comfort, of education, of culture, of travel, of books, of an opportunity to help your fellow-man, or is the message "More land, more thousands and millions"? What message does it bring you? Clothes for the naked, bread for the starving, schools for the ignorant, hospitals for the sick, asylums for the orphans, or of more for yourself and none for others? Is it a message of generosity or of meanness, breadth or narrowness? Does it speak to you of character? Does it mean a broader manhood, a larger aim, a nobler ambition, or does it cry "More, more, more"?

Are you an animal loaded with ingots, or a man filled with a purpose? He is rich whose mind is rich, whose thought enriches the intellect of the world. It is a sad sight to see a soul which thirsts not for truth or beauty or the good.

A sailor on a sinking vessel in the Caribbean Sea eagerly filled his pockets with Spanish dollars from a barrel on board while his companions, about to leave in the only boat, begged him to seek safety with them. But he could not leave the bright metal which he had so longed for and idolized, and was prevented from reaching shore by his very riches, when the vessel went down.

"Who is the richest of men," asked Socrates? "He who is content with the least, for contentment is nature's riches."

In More's "Utopia" gold was despised. Criminals were forced to wear heavy chains of it, and to have rings of it in their ears; it was put to the vilest uses to keep up the scorn of it. Bad characters were compelled to wear gold head-bands. Diamonds and pearls were used to decorate infants, so that the youth would discard and despise them.

"Ah, if the rich were as rich as the poor fancy riches!" exclaims Emerson.

Many a rich man has died in the poorhouse.

In excavating Pompeii a skeleton was found with the fingers clenched round a quantity of gold. A man of business in the town of Hull, England, when dying, pulled a bag of money from under his pillow, which he held between his clenched fingers with a grasp so firm as scarcely to relax under the agonies of death.

Oh! blind and wanting wit to choose, Who house the chaff and burn the grain; Who hug the wealth ye cannot use, And lack the riches all may gain. WILLIAM WATSON.

Poverty is the want of much, avarice the want of everything.

A poor man was met by a stranger while scoffing at the wealthy for not enjoying themselves. The stranger gave him a purse, in which he was always to find a ducat. As fast as he took one out another was to drop in, but he was not to begin to spend his fortune until he had thrown away the purse. He takes ducat after ducat out, but continually procrastinates and puts off the hour of enjoyment until he has got "a little more," and dies at last counting his millions.

A beggar was once met by Fortune, who promised to fill his wallet with gold, as much as he might please, on condition that whatever touched the ground should turn at once to dust. The beggar opens his wallet, asks for more and yet more, until the bag bursts. The gold falls to the ground, and all is lost.

When the steamer Central America was about to sink, the stewardess, having collected all the gold she could from the staterooms, and tied it in her apron, jumped for the last boat leaving the steamer. She missed her aim and fell into the water, the gold carrying her down head first.

In the year 1843 a rich miser lived in Padua, who was so mean and sordid that he would never give a cent to any person or object, and he was so afraid of the banks that he would not deposit with them, but would sit up nights with sword and pistol by him to guard his idol hoard. When his health gave way from anxiety and watching he built an underground treasure-chamber, so arranged that if any burglar ever entered, he would step upon a spring which would precipitate him into a subterranean river, where he could neither escape nor be heard. One night the miser went to his chest to see that all was right, when his foot touched the spring of the trap, and he was hurled into the deep, hidden stream.

"One would think," said Boswell, "that the proprietor of all this (Keddlestone, the seat of Lord Scarsfield) must be happy." "Nay, sir," said Johnson, "all this excludes but one evil, poverty."

John Duncan, the illegitimate child of a Scottish weaver, was ignorant, near-sighted, bent, a miserable apology for a human being, and at last a pauper. If he went upon the street he would sometimes be stoned by other boys. The farmer, for whom he watched cattle, was cruel to him, and after a rainy day would send him cold and wet to sleep on a miserable bed in a dark outhouse. Here he would empty the water from his shoes, and wring out his wet clothes and sleep as best he might. But the boy had a desire to learn to read, and when, a little later, he was put to weaving, he persuaded a schoolgirl, twelve years old, to teach him. He was sixteen when he learned the alphabet, after which his progress was quite rapid. He was very fond of plants, and worked overtime for several months to earn five shillings to buy a book on botany. He became a good botanist, and such was his interest in the study that at the age of eighty he walked twelve miles to obtain a new specimen. A man whom he met became interested at finding such a well-stored mind in such a miserable body, poorly clad, and published an account of his career. Many readers sent him money, but he saved it, and left it in his will to found eight scholarships and offer prizes for the encouragement of the study of natural science by the poor. His small but valuable library was left for a similar use.

Franklin said money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. A great bank account can never make a man rich. It is the mind that makes the body rich. No man is rich, however much money or land he may possess, who has a poor heart. If that is poor, he is poor indeed, though he own and rule kingdoms. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.

Who would not choose to be a millionaire of deeds with a Lincoln, a Grant, a Florence Nightingale, a Childs; a millionaire of ideas with Emerson, with Lowell, with Shakespeare, with Wordsworth; a millionaire of statesmanship with a Gladstone, a Bright, a Sumner, a Washington?

Some men are rich in health, in constant cheerfulness, in a mercurial temperament which floats them over troubles and trials enough to sink a shipload of ordinary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, and friends. There are some men so amiable that everybody loves them; some so cheerful that they carry an atmosphere of jollity about them. Some are rich in integrity and character.

One of the first great lessons of life is to learn the true estimate of values. As the youth starts out in his career, all sorts of wares will be imposed upon him, and all kinds of temptations will be used to induce him to buy. His success will depend very largely upon his ability to estimate properly, not the apparent but the real value of everything presented to him. Vulgar Wealth will flaunt her banner before his eyes, and claim supremacy over everything else. A thousand different schemes will be thrust into his face with their claims for superiority. Every occupation and vocation will present its charms in turn, and offer its inducements. The youth who would succeed must not allow himself to be deceived by appearances, but must place the emphasis of life where it belongs.

No man, it is said, can read the works of John Ruskin without learning that his sources of pleasure are well-nigh infinite. There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a tree, nor a mountain, nor a star; not a bird that fans the air, nor a creature that walks the earth; not a glimpse of sea or sky or meadow-greenery; not a work of worthy art in the domains of painting, sculpture, poetry, and architecture; not a thought of God as the Great Spirit presiding over and informing all things, that is not to him a source of the sweetest pleasure. The whole world of matter and of spirit and the long record of human art are open to him as the never-failing fountains of his delight. In these pure realms he seeks his daily food and has his daily life.

There is now and then a man who sees beauty and true riches everywhere, and "worships the splendor of God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny."

Phillips Brooks, Thoreau, Garrison, Emerson, Beecher, Agassiz, were rich without money. They saw the splendor in the flower, the glory in the grass, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. They knew that the man who owns the landscape is seldom the one who pays the taxes on it. They sucked in power and wealth at first hands from the meadows, fields, and flowers, birds, brooks, mountains, and forest, as the bee sucks honey from the flowers. Every natural object seemed to bring them a special message from the great Author of the beautiful. To these rare souls every natural object was touched with power and beauty; and their thirsty souls drank it in as a traveler on a desert drinks in the god-sent water of the oasis. To extract power and real wealth from men and things seemed to be their mission, and to pour it out again in refreshing showers upon a thirsty humanity. They believed that man's most important food does not enter by the mouth. They knew that man could not live by estates, dollars, and bread alone, and that if he could he would only be an animal. They believed that the higher life demands a higher food. They believed in man's unlimited power of expansion, and that this growth demands a more highly organized food product than that which merely sustains animal life. They saw a finer nutriment in the landscape, in the meadows, than could be ground into flour, and which escaped the loaf. They felt a sentiment in natural objects which pointed upward, ever upward to the Author, and which was capable of feeding and expanding the higher life until it should grow into a finer sympathy and fellowship with the Author of the beautiful. They believed that the Creation thunders the ten commandments, and that all Nature is tugging at the terms of every contract to make it just. They could feel this finer sentiment, this soul lifter, this man inspirer, in the growing grain, in the waving corn, in the golden harvest. They saw it reflected in every brook, in every star, in every flower, in every dewdrop. They believed that Nature together with human nature were man's great schoolmasters, that if rightly used they would carve his rough life into beauty and touch his rude manner with grace.

"More servants wait on man than he'll take notice of." But if he would enjoy Nature he must come to it from a higher level than the yardstick. He must bring a spirit as grand and sublime as that by which the thing itself exists.

We all live on far lower levels than we need to do. We linger in the misty and oppressive valleys, when we might be climbing the sunlit hills. God puts into our hands the Book of Life, bright on every page with open secrets, and we suffer it to drop out of our hands unread. Emerson says, "We have come into a world which is a living poem. Everything is as I am." Nature provides for us a perpetual festival; she is bright to the bright, comforting to those who will accept comfort. We cannot conceive how a universe could possibly be created which could devise more efficient methods or greater opportunities for the delight, the happiness, and the real wealth of human beings than the one we live in.

The human body is packed full of marvelous devices, of wonderful contrivances, of infinite possibilities for the happiness and riches of the individual. No physiologist nor scientist has ever yet been able to point out a single improvement, even in the minutest detail, in the structure of the human body. No inventor has ever yet been able to suggest an improvement in this human mechanism. No chemist has ever been able to suggest a superior combination in any one of the elements which make up the human structure. One of the first things to do in life is to learn the natural wealth of our surroundings, instead of bemoaning our lot, for, no matter where we are placed, there is infinitely more about us than we can ever understand, than we can ever exhaust the meaning of.

"Thank Heaven there are still some Matthew Arnolds who prefer the heavenly sweetness of light to the Eden of riches." Arnold left only a few thousand dollars, but yet was he not one of the richest of men? What the world wants is young men who will amass golden thoughts, golden wisdom, golden deeds, not mere golden dollars; young men who prefer to have thought-capital, character-capital, to cash-capital. He who estimates his money the highest values himself the least. "I revere the person," says Emerson, "who is riches; so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy."

Raphael was rich without money. All doors opened to him, and he was more than welcome everywhere. His sweet spirit radiated sunshine wherever he went.

Henry Wilson was rich without money. So scrupulous had he been not to make his exalted position a means of worldly gain, that when this Natick cobbler, the sworn friend of the oppressed, whose one question as to measures or acts was ever "Is it right; will it do good?" came to be inaugurated as Vice-President of the country, he was obliged to borrow of his fellow-senator, Charles Sumner, one hundred dollars to meet the necessary expenses of the occasion.

Mozart, the great composer of the "Requiem," left barely enough money to bury him, but he has made the world richer.

A rich mind and noble spirit will cast a radiance of beauty over the humblest home, which the upholsterer and decorator can never approach. Who would not prefer to be a millionaire of character, of contentment, rather than possess nothing but the vulgar coins of a Croesus? Whoever uplifts civilization is rich though he die penniless, and future generations will erect his monument.

Are we tender, loving, self-denying, and honest, trying to fashion our frail life after that of the model man of Nazareth? Then, though our pockets are often empty, we have an inheritance which is as overwhelmingly precious as it is eternally incorruptible.

An Asiatic traveler tells us that one day he found the bodies of two men laid upon the desert sand beside the carcass of a camel. They had evidently died from thirst, and yet around the waist of each was a large store of jewels of different kinds, which they had doubtless been crossing the desert to sell in the markets of Persia.

The man who has no money is poor, but one who has nothing but money is poorer than he. He only is rich who can enjoy without owning; he who is covetous is poor though he have millions. There are riches of intellect, and no man with an intellectual taste can be called poor. He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove. He is rich as well as brave who can face poverty and misfortune with cheerfulness and courage.

We can so educate the will power that it will focus the thoughts upon the bright side of things, and upon objects which elevate the soul, thus forming a habit of happiness and goodness which will make us rich. The habit of making the best of everything and of always looking on the bright side of everything is a fortune in itself.

He is rich who values a good name above gold. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans honor was more sought after than wealth. Rome was imperial Rome no more when the imperial purple became an article of traffic.

This is the evil of trade, as well as of partisan politics. As Emerson remarks, it would put everything into market,—talent, beauty, virtue, and man himself.

Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold as a slave. His purchaser released him, and gave him charge of his household and of the education of his children. He despised wealth and affectation, and lived in a tub. "Do you want anything?" asked Alexander the Great, forcibly impressed by the abounding cheerfulness of the philosopher under such circumstances. "Yes," replied Diogenes, "I want you to stand out of my sunshine and not to take from me what you cannot give me." "Were I not Alexander," exclaimed the great conqueror, "I would be Diogenes."

Brave and honest men do not work for gold. They work for love, for honor, for character. When Socrates suffered death rather than abandon his views of right morality, when Las Casas endeavored to mitigate the tortures of the poor Indians, they had no thought of money or country. They worked for the elevation of all that thought, and for the relief of all that suffered.

"I don't want such things," said Epictetus to the rich Roman orator who was making light of his contempt for money-wealth; "and besides," said the stoic, "you are poorer than I am, after all. You have silver vessels, but earthenware reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom is, and it furnishes me with abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you; mine seem great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied."

"Do you know, sir," said a devotee of Mammon to John Bright, "that I am worth a million sterling?" "Yes," said the irritated but calm-spirited respondent, "I do; and I know that it is all you are worth."

A bankrupt merchant, returning home one night, said to his noble wife, "My dear, I am ruined; everything we have is in the hands of the sheriff." After a few moments of silence the wife looked into his face and asked, "Will the sheriff sell you?" "Oh, no." "Will the sheriff sell me?" "Oh, no." "Then do not say we have lost everything. All that is most valuable remains to us,—manhood, womanhood, childhood. We have lost but the results of our skill and industry. We can make another fortune if our hearts and hands are left us."