for what we are best fitted. "The tastes of the boy foreshadow the occupations of the man. Ferguson's clock carved out of wood and supplied with rudest mechanism; Faraday's tiny electric machine made from a common bottle; Claude Lorraine's pictures in flour and charcoal on the walls of the bakers' shops; Canova's modelling of small images in clay; Chantrey's carving of his school-master's head in a bit of pine wood,—were all indications clear and strong of the future man."

(b) Whatever you resolve upon, keep to it. "One thing I do," is a great rule to follow. It is much better to do one thing well than many things indifferently. It may be well to have "many strings to our bow," but it is better to have a bow and string that will every time send the arrow to the target. A rolling stone gathers no moss. He that is everything by turns and nothing long comes to nothing in the end.

  If thou canst plan a noble deed
  And never flag till it succeed,
  Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,
  Whatever obstacles contend,
  Thine hour will come, go on, thou soul!
  Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal.
        CHAS. MACKAY.

(c) The higher our purpose is, the greater our attainment is likely to be. The nobler our ideal, the nobler our success. It seems paradoxical to say it, but it is true, that no one ever reached a goal without starting from it; no one ever won a victory without beginning the battle with it; no one ever succeeded in any work without first finishing it in his own mind.

  Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high,
    So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be.
  Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky
    Shoots higher much than he who means a tree.
        G. HERBERT.

When we go forward to life we should make up our mind what we intend to make of life. Make up your mind after prayer to God, and work for that.

The third essential to success in life is Moral Character, in its various elements of honesty, truthfulness, steadiness, temperance. "Honesty is the best policy" is one of those worldly maxims that express the experience of mankind. A small leak will sink a great ship. One bad string in a harp will turn its music into discord. Any flaw in moral character will sooner or later bring disaster. The most hopeless wrecks that toss on the broken waters of society are men who have failed from want of moral character. There are thousands of such from whom much was expected but from whom nothing came. It is told of a distinguished professor at Cambridge that he kept photographs of his students. He divided them into two lots. One he called his basket of adled eggs: they were the portraits of men who had failed, who had come to nothing though they promised much. What brought most of them to grief was want of character, of moral backbone. Some of them—a good many of them—went to drink, others to love of pleasure, others to the bad in other ways. Good principle counts for more than can be expressed; it is essential. Many things may hinder a man from getting on—slowness, idleness, want of ability, trifling, want of interest in his vocation. Many of these faults may be borne with long by others, and may be battled with earnestly by ourselves; but a flaw in character is deadly. To be unsteady, dishonest, or untruthful is fatal. Before God and man an unfaithful servant is worthless. We may have other qualifications that go to command success, such as those we have noticed,—industry and a distinct aim,—but want of principle will render them useless. Slow and sure often go together. The slow train is often the safest to travel by, but woe be to it and to us if we do not keep upon the rails.

The last essential to success in life is Religious Hopefulness.—(a) Our industry, our purpose, our principles may be all they ought to be, yet the "race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong." But when we find the race going from us and the battle going against us, if we have trust in God and the hopefulness that comes from religion, we will find heart to try again: we will not be utterly cast down. Christian faith keeps men in good heart amid many discouragements. (b) Even if a man or woman become rich or clever and have life pleasant around them, they cannot feel at the close of life that they have succeeded if the future is dark before them. When Cardinal Wolsey, who had been the favorite of the king and had long held the government of England in his hand, fell from power, he said, "If I had served my God as truly as I served my king He would not have forsaken me in my gray hairs." The world is a poor comforter at the last. No man or woman has become successful until their essential happiness is placed beyond the reach of all outward fluctuation and change. Faith in Christ, the faith that penetrates the future and brings down from heaven a bright and blessed hopefulness, which casts its illumination over the present scene and reveals the grand object of existence, is essential to true success.

We cannot sum up the teachings of this chapter better than in the words of a poem of which we should try to catch the spirit: they express the very philosophy of success in life:

  Courage, brother! do not stumble,
    Though thy path be dark as night;
  There's a star to guide the humble;—
    Trust in God, and do the right.

  Let the road be rough and dreary,
    And its end far out of sight,
  Foot it bravely! strong or weary,
    Trust in God, and do the right.

  Perish policy and cunning,
    Perish all that fears the light!
  Whether losing, whether winning,
   Trust in God, and do the right.

  Trust no party, sect, or faction;
    Trust no leaders in the fight;
  But in every word and action
    Trust in God, and do the right.

  Trust no lovely forms of passion,—
    Fiends may look like angels bright:
  Trust no custom, school, or fashion—
    Trust in God, and do the right.

  Simple rule, and safest guiding,
    Inward peace and inward might,
  Star upon our path abiding,—
    Trust in God, and do the right.

  Some will hate thee, some will love thee,
    Some will flatter, some will slight:
  Cease from man, and look above thee,—
    Trust in God, and do the right.
        NORMAN M'LEOD.

That is the way to succeed in life.

CHAPTER III.

PERSONAL INFLUENCE.

We are all of us in close relations to one another. We are bound together in numberless ways. As members of the same family, as members of the same community, as members of the same Church—we are bound so closely together that what any one of us does is certain to tell upon others. It is out of this close connection with others that influence comes. Just as one man in a crowd sends by his movements a certain impulse throughout the whole, just as the stone thrown into a pond causes waves that move far away from where the stone fell and that reach in faint ripples to the distant shore, so our very existence exercises influence beyond our knowledge and beyond our calculation.

Influence is of two kinds, Direct and Indirect—Conscious and Unconscious,—The first is influence we deliberately put forth, as when we meet a man and argue with him, as when the orator addresses the multitude, or the politician