LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OF" . *J^, Class une 4, 1883. Price, 25 Cents, No, 9< PN6FE1UPW A/1LBUR F. CRAFTS. ^^^^O^c^O/y /frfidga&S?^: WHITTIER flft eO, TJ FUHK & WAONAL 1O and 12 Dey Street. NUMBERS 1 TO 79. PREVIOUS numbers of this LIBRARY were known by the name STANDARD SERIES. A list of these 79 books will be found on the 3d page of the cover of this volume. They are printed in 4to, 8vo, and 12mo sizes, and are bound in postal card manllla. They are standard books, and are very cheap. SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. By WILBUR F. CRAFTS. The testimony, facts, and incidents in the lives and experiences of five hundred of the most prominent men of America, on the question of Success in life, have been collected by the author of this book. The information obtained comes from Statesmen, Generals, Merchants, Educators, Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, Editors, Manufacturers, etc., and ha* been obtained with great care and diligence. The facts which the author has collected have served as texts from which he educes useful and striking thoughts and lessons, and these are given in a style so fresh and racy that the reader will never tire over the pages. We do not find a dry or uninteresting paragraph in the whole book. It ought especially to be read by every young man in the United States. It is meant for them particularly, while, at the same time, parents should diligently ponder the truths it puts in array before them. The book possesses all the charm of biography of distinguished men, and abounds in witty, humorous, and telling anecdotes and illustrations. NTJJvIBERS. PAXTON HOOD'S LIFE OF CROMWELL. No. 80, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 1, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. BY W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, F.R.S.A., F.C.S. No. 81, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 2, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. AMERICAN HUMORISTS. BY R. II. HAWEIS. No. 82, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 3, 1883 Series).- Price, 15 cents. LIVES OF ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. BY WILLIAM EDWARD WINKS. No. 83, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 4, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. BY THOMAS GIBSON BOWLES. No. 84, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 5, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. THE HIGHWAYS OF LITERATURE ; OR, WHAT TO READ AND How TO READ. BY DAVID PRYDE, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.E., F.S.A., ETC. No. 85, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 6, 1883 Series). Price, 15 cents. COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. A RECORD OF A SUMMER. BY GRANT ALLEN. No. 86, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 7, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. THE ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. COMPLETE. Collected and arranged, with an Introduction on her "Analysis of Motives." Bv NATHAN SHEPPARD. No. 87, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 8,..1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. AN HOUR WITH CHARLOTTE BRONTE ; OR, FLOWERS FROM A YORKSHIRE MOOR. BY LAURA C. HOLLOWAY. No. 88, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 9, 1883 Series). Price, 15 cents. SAM HOBART. BY JUSTIN D. FULTON, D.D. No. 80, STANDARD LIBRARY (No. 10, 1883'Series). Price, 25. cenlG. ' From hundreds of periodicals in all sections of the country we have received the most enthusiastic testimonials, like the following from the Danbury News, Danbury, Conn. : " Had there been an Act of Congress empowering FUNK & WA GNALLS, the "New York Publisher*, 1o drive out bad literature by substituting good, at a price irithin the reach of all, the firm could not have done better than it is doing, . . . There i? (be AMERICAN HUMORIST, the last issue, printed in dear, but' not staring type, on fine paper. It contains one hundred and eighty pages and sells for 15 centsthe prict of a good cigar! " BUSINESS MEN. OF TO-DiY AND WHAT THEY SAY OF SUCCESS BASED ON FACTS AND OPINIONS GATHERED BY LETTERS AND PERSONAL INTERVIEWS FROM FIVE HUNDRED PROMINENT MEN, AND ON MANY MORE PUBLISHED SKETCHES WILBUR F.VCRAETS, A.M., AUTHOB or "HEROES AND HOLIDAYS," '"RESCUE or CHILD-SOUL," "PLAES USES OF THE BLACKBOARD," " THE COMING MAN IS THE PRESENT CHILD," ETC. The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight, , But they, while their companions slept, Were tolling upward in the night." LONGFKLLOW. ays of employing your ftcthritle* , D.D. " In studying others' lives, you will find man that you never thought of before." C. S. ROBINSON " I cannct even hear of personal vigor of any kind, great power of perform- ance, without fresh resolution. This Is the moral of biography; yet it is hard for departed men to touch the quick like our own companions, whose names may not last so long."-EMKR30N. "If th a history of our citizens of wealth were written, we should find that fully three fourth, have risen from comparatively .mall beginning! to their present posf- ion. rioN* WM. lu* DoDGj^MM^BHon^Mta^ FUNK & WAGNALLS 10 AND 12 DEY STREET 0.7? s^ w Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. TO YOUNG MEN, 72V WHOSE OPENING CAREERS I HA VE A GREAT INTEREST, THIS VOLUME 18 DEDICATED IN THE HOPE THAT IT MA T HELP SOME OF THEM TO TRUE SUCCESS. INTEODUOTIOIfr. THESE papers on Success were originally delivered as address- es to young men. I have not thought it necessary to change their form, but would rather cherish the thought that at the firesides where this book is read I am still speaking to young men in friendly conversation about the great problems of life. I do not for a moment expect to agree with all my readers on matters of opinion. The man who seeks a paper or a book or a speaker that merely says " Yes, yes," to his own views had better talk to his mirror. It is a rule with some of our great men to converse much with those who hold different views from themselves, in the hope of learning something new, or at least of understanding their opponents better. This book, however, deals chiefly with facts. If the reader's ready-made theories do not fit the facts he will need to meas- ure the facts for new custom-made theories. It will not do to say that the coat is the proper size but the boy is too small. My cordial thanks arc hereby tendered to the hundreds of our busiest men who have replied to my inquiries * * for the sake of the young men ;" also to Harper's Weekly for the use of its portrait of President White. In another book, "The Rescue of Child-Soul," I have published significant incidents from the lives of fifty great men of the past. To these are now added, in this book, sketches of the boyhood of prominent living men and their steps up the ladder of success. It is my earnest hope that these facts may afford young men some data toward a chart of life's voyage, by showing some of the rocks to be avoided and the channel of safety. WILBUR F. CRAFTS. BEOOKLYN, N. Y., JUNE, 1883. CONTENTS. PAOE INTRODUCTION 7 I. CHOOSING A BIRTHPLACE 13 II. PARENTS AND POVERTY 22 III. WILL AND WORK 31 IV. ENVIRONMENT AND CHARACTER 39 V. COMMERCIAL COURAGE 47 VI. BUSINESS MAXIMS, BAD AND GOOD 55 VII. THE WATCHWORDS OP OUR LEADERS 66 VIII. WHAT CHURCHES MAY LEARN FROM COMMERCE ... 76 IX. BUSINESS MAXIMS APPLIED TO CHURCH WORK 86 X. Is IT NECESSARY TO BE HONEST IN ORDER TO BE POOR? 94 XI. MONEY AND MORALS 105 XII. THE BUSINESS MEN OF THE BIBLE. 112 XIII. "CAN BUSINESS BE CONDUCTED SUCCESSFULLY ON STRICT CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES ?" 116 XIV. COUNTERFEIT SUCCESS 126 XV. WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEN SAY OF SUCCESS 137 . XVI. WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEN SAY OF THE FAILURE OF OTHERS 151 XVII. " POOR IN ABUNDANCE." 159 XVIII. How TO FAIL 168 XIX. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF FAILURE 177 XX. STEALING AS A FINE ART, AND SOME OF ITS MOD- ERN ARTISTS 181 XXI. POLITE PILFERING 191 XXII. LABOR AND LUCK 209 XXIII. RELATION OF WORK TO RANK 219 APPENDIX OF 135 SPECIMEN REPLIES 225 TOPICAL INDEX. . . 261 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PORTRAITS : John Wanamaker Frontispiece. Clem. Studebaker " Lewis Miller " Orange Judd .' " Hon. Geo. F. Edmunds 30 " Alex. H. Stephens 30 " Wm. Windom 30 " John Sherman 30 Judge Noah Davis 65 Geo. G. Reynolds 65 Lyman Abbott, D.D 65 E. P. Roe 65 Joseph Cook 104 Hon. Wm. E. Dodge 104 Gen. Neal Dow 104 Hon. J. P. St. John 104 Mark Hopkins, D.D 141 C. W. Eliot, LL.D 141 Hon. A. D. White, LL.D 141 " J. H. Seelye, LL.D 141 " RICHES TAKE WINGS " 223 AUTOGRAPHS . . 224 AT no time in the world's history, probably, has there been so general an interest in biography as that which has been shown during the past ten or fifteen years. . . . Just here lies a weighty obligation upon those who write, and those who read, about the lives of men and women who have done something in the world. It is not enough for us to know what they have done ; it belongs to us to discover the why of their works and ways, and to get some personal benefit from the analysis of their successes and failures . . . Why was this man great ? What general intentions and what special traits led him to success ? What ideal stood before him, and by what means did he seek to attain it ? Or, on the other hand, what unworthy purpose, what lack of conscience and religious sense, what unsettled method and feeble endeavor, stood in the way of the " man of genius" and his possible achievements ? Henry Clay Trum- bull, D.D. I. \ CHOOSING A BIRTHPLACE. The air we breathe, the house in which we dwell, the very way in which it fronts the sun, the degree of light and of shade that falls upon us with the flying hours, all weave their delicate influences into the tissues of our being. CHAPIN. FOR the sake of the young men whom I might be able to reach from the platform and through the press, I have gathered facts and opinions in regard to the causes of Success and Failure, from a large number of the prominent men of to-day. In harvesting these golden statistics from the fields of ripe experience, I have used, as a reaper, printed circulars contain- ing the following INQUIRIES : 1. Was your boyhood, up to fourteen years of age, spent in the country, in a village, or in a city ? 2. In either case, were you accustomed to engage in some regular work, when out of school, either in the way of self- help or for your parents ? 3. At what age did you begin business life or undertake self-support ? 4. Did you use tobacco previous to the age of sixteen ? 5. What maxims or watchwords, if any, have had a strong influence on your life and helped to your success ? 6. What do you consider essential elements of success for a young man entering upon such a business or profession as yours ? Y. What, in your observation, have been the chief causes of 14 SUCCESSFUL MEN OJ? TO-DAY. the numerous failures in life of commercial and professional men ? 8. Are you a church member ? Replies to these questions have been gathered, by letters and personal interviews, from about five hundred persons, and the list has been increased from published sketches. Of these persons, many are widely known, and the others hold leading positions in their own communities as proprietors of long-established and successful business enterprises, or as tried and proved members of secular professions. The list does not include ministers, except in a few cases where clergy- men have become eminent authors, editors, or publishers. The largest number of replies are from New York, Chicago, and Washington, but every section of the country has been heard from, and there can be no doubt that the replies fairly represent the successful men of the country meaning those who have won both influence and respect to an unusual degree. It should be said that most of my correspondents disclaim the title of " successful men," but reply to the questions " for the sake of the young men" the " Open Sesame " by which I have obtained these golden opinions from men already over- tasked. I did not send the questions to the survivor of the " James Boys," nor to the Eastern jay, nor to the escaped convicts of the whiskey ring. No amount of money can make a highway robber or any other kind successful. If " a fair exchange is no robbery, ' ' what shall we call an exchange of bullets, or bets, or poisons, for a fortune ? Every promissory note keeps be- fore us the great commercial truth that only a fair exchange of money for " value received " is legitimate business. A bet, whether on a fast horse or the price of his grain next month, is not a fair exchange for a thousand or a million dollars, and so can not be said to be " no robbery." Betting is a brother of burglary. It is well and truly said by Henry Ward Beccher : " He who is not willing to give, either in thought, in skill, in CHOOSING A BIKTHPLACE. 15 convenience, by distribution, a fair equivalent for the money which he lays up, wants to steal it." Even millions of plunder does not constitute success, which must include a good name. - The ambitious and covetous Ahab murdered Naboth to get possession of his vineyard. The ambitious and covetous Napo- leon murdered thousands of Naboths to get possession of their vineyards. Was Napoleon less a murderer than Ahab because one killed by retail and the other by wholesale ? New York has Napoleons of wholesale robbery. Does multiplying rob- bery subtract it ? The excess of a virtue is a vice, bat is the excess of a vice a virtue ? Or is it a virtue to make a fortune out of people's vices ? Selling well-known incitements to vice and crime, either in the shape of alcoholic beverages or de- moralizing literature, is no better than selling burglars' tools. The public are beginning to see this and say it, and so the liquor dealers, through the New York Herald, recently cried out for a law that should make their business respectable. As well try to get Judas canonized and the devil vindicated. " Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor." I have aimed to gather statistics only from those who have at least this much of true success, that they have acquired what- ever position or fame or money they possess by ' ' fair exchange' ' of useful commodities or valuable services. In one of these papers (an exception in this respect to all the others), a prominent judge and statesman, in answering the question as to elements of success, says, " Chance and circum- stances do the most. ' ' In this remark we recognize two old foes masked in new faces the Philistine theology, " It was a chance that did it," and the devil's proverb, " Circumstances make men." That is not true, as I have the documents to prove. It is the worst kind of a lie a half truth. It has just enough truth to make it dangerous, as a wolf in sheep's cloth- ing. Let us examine this fleecy wool, that not only hides a de- vouring error but is also pulled over the eyes of young men to prevent them from seeing that no unfavorable circumstances need keep them from true success, and that no favoring cir- 10 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. cumstances are likely to drift them into it without their own earnest efforts. What seems like " chance" has made Presidents by pistol shots and millionaires by mining discoveries. Of the two richest men in the world the wealthiest of the Rothschilds, with his two hundred millions, and Mackey with his I do not know how many millions the last represents sudden wealth gained by fortunate discoveries in the mines, while the first stands for the slower accumulation of industry and honesty. But if instead of two we should take the world's two thousand richest men, excluding those who have simply received wealth by inheritance, we should find that fortune seldom favors fools. Folly and Fortune are not often or long in partnership. For- tune speedily withdraws with all the capital. Where you find honey you may be sure busy bees have been at work. And yet, as one of our foremost Brooklyn judges intimates, surroundings and what is called " luck" do have some in- fluence on success. The statistics I have gathered show clearly that circumstances at least help to make men. For instance, I find by the answer to the first question, that while only forty- seven per cent of our population of working age reside in the country districts, they furnish fifty-seven per cent of our suc- cessful men, while the cities, with twenty per cent of the popula- tion, furnish seventeen per cent. A very large majority of our famous men were farmers' boys. As the cities fall three per cent below their quota, and the country is ten pe cent above its ratio, it appears that the country averages thirteen per cent above the cities in the proportion of its boys who become eminently successful. A writer in the Contemporary Review calls attention to the fact that very few of the prominent men of New York City were born in the city. The great majority came from the country. Rev. Washington Gladden ascertained, by personal investigation, that nearly all the leading men of Springfield were country born and bred, although statistics on a larger scale are more favorable to cities. Even in Boston, considered the place of all the world to be born in, a large ma- CHOOSING A BIRTHPLACE. 17 jority of the leading merchants and professional men came from the country. The first conclusion from these facts is that a man who wishes to succeed should select a country farm for his birth- place, and thus enroll himself among such illustrious farmer boys as Senator Edmunds, General Logan, General Howard, Alexander H. Stephens, Anthony Comstock, Orange Judd, John Jacob Astor, Elihu Burritt, John Wanamaker, Lewis Miller, Jacob Estey, William E. Dodge, D. L. Moody, Joseph Cook, Mark Hopkins, and Henry Martyn Dexter. Our statis- tics suggest that the " Fresh Air Fund " should be increased in its scope and amount, to enable the Tribune and " The Children's Aid Society" to carry out on a larger scale their plan of transporting city boys to permanent homes in the coun- try. A country environment of pure air, plain food, regular out-door work, early sleep, and freedom from cigarettes and saloons, gives the farmer boy an advantage of thirteen per cent when, in young manhood, he comes to the city to enter upon a commercial or professional life. Cigarettes in boyhood are about as useful in building up a strong body as dynamite would be in building a home. " No cigarettes for boys" is a sign in one drug store. Why not in all ? It is a law in Mississippi and in our military schools. It ought to be on the statute-books of every State and among the rules of every school and home. Every boy who would suc- ceed should make and enforce such a prohibitory tobacco law, for himself at least. Our successful men did not feed themselves in boyhood on cigarettes and late suppers, with loafing as their only labor, and midnight parties for their regular evening dissipation. Such city- trained bodies often give out when the strain comes in business, while the sound body and mind and morals of the man from the country hold on and hold out. The replies I have received show that four fifths of the men who now fill positions of large responsibility in our land did not use tobacco before they were sixteen years of age, and even 18 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. those who did, with three exceptions, mention the fact with reg'ret. Whoever may defend the use of tobacco by full-grown men,* no one advocates its use for growing boys. Several years ago Dr. Decaisne, one of the most eminent members of the Societe d' Hygiene in Paris, investigated the influence of tobacco on the circulation of boys from nine to fifteen years of age, and discovered that not only did it pro- duce palpitation of the heart and intermittency of pulse, but also a peculiar condition of the blood itself allied to anaemia. Laziness, stupidity, and indisposition to apply the mind to * In this connection, many of my readers will recall a recent book on " Study and Stimulants " by A. A. Keade, giving the habits of the leading literary men of to-day in regard to the use of alcoholic drinks and tobacco. As would be expected, many of the European authors use wine, and see no more harm in it than our fathers did fifty years ago, before the temperance agitation had fairly begun. As to the use of tobacco by full grown men, the opinions are divided, but no one advocates its use by growing youth, either in this book or any other. It appears from this book that Dr. Holmes does his work without using stimulants of any kind he wants a clear head. In a letter to the editor, Mr. W. D. How ells says he never uses tobacco ex- cept " in a very rare self -defensive cigarette, where a great many other people are smoking ; and I commonly drink water at dinner. When I take wine, I think it weakens my work and my working force the next morning." The late Dr. George M. Beard says that he found that on himself " alcohol has rather a benumbing and stupefy- ing effect, whatever may be the dose employed, whereas tobacco and opium, in moderate doses, tea and especially coffee, as well as cocoa, have an effect precisely the reverse." Mark Twain does not use alco- holic stimulants in writing. He says : " I have never seen the time when I coTild write to my satisfaction after drinking one glass of wine." It is interesting to know that Darwin drank a glass of wine daily at the suggestion of his physician to prevent dizziness, but he thought it did him no good. But he says : "I have taken snuff all my life, and regret that I ever acquired the habit, which I have often tried to leave off, and have succeeded for a time." Professor Tyn- dall thinks it is much better to get on without either wine or tobacco. And Charles Keade says he tried to smoke five or six times, " but it always made me heavy and rather sick ; therefore, as it is not a nee- CHOOSING A BIRTHPLACE. 19 * study were traced, with probable accuracy, to the habit of smoking in many of these lads, and when formed early he found that smoking gradually brought a predisposition to alco- holic stimulants, and that in some instances the starting-point of a criminal career dated from the first secret indulgence of the vice, producing by slow degrees, when acting upon a consti- tution still extremely flexible, a complete moral and intellectual transformation as well as physical degeneracy. From a business standpoint boys should remember that tobacco burns up their future capital. When Admiral Farra- gut's son was ten years old the father said in his hearing that when he was old enough to make a contract and keep it, he had a bargain to offer him. The son rose up and asked the father what the contract was. The admiral said, " The pro- posal I intend to make is this : If you will not smoke or chew tobacco, drink intoxicating or strong wines, till you are twenty- one years of age, I will then give you one thousand dollars." *' I am old enough to make that bargain now," said young Farragut. " I will accept the offer." The bargain was closed, and when young Farragut was twenty-one the cash was handed over to him. A smoking boy can save a thousand dollars in a few years in the same way, besides saving physical energy and moral power. The country boy averages less smoke than his city cousin, but more success. essary of life, and costs money and makes me sick, I spurned it from me. I have never felt the want of it. I have seen many people the worse for it. I have seen many people apparently none the worse for it. I never saw anybody perceptibly the better for 1C' Thomas Hardy has no faith in wine, and never smoked in his life. Dr. Edward A. Freeman tried to smoke when young, but found the habit "nasty, "and gave it up. He has used wine and ale, but thinks a good sleep the best stimulant. The Chicago Tribune, which is certainly not prejudiced in favor of temperance, admits " that the result of all this testimony seems to be that alcohol is an injurious stimulant," while the testimonies in regard to the effect of tobacco on full-grown men seem to vary with temperament. 20 SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. i The superiority of the country boy is the more remarkable because in educational advantages and mental quickening the city boy is far ahead of his country cousin. The intellectual advantages of the city boy are, however, much more than matched by the country boy's physical and moral pre-eminence. ^ Sound morals in a sound body is the watchword of success. Many a city boy's failure may be explained by the ancient say- ing, ' ' The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. ' ' Yet more of the failures come from weak morals. The disadvantages of a city boyhood cut both ways. The statistics show that the city boy is not only less likely to go on to success, but he is more likely to go to jail. Even in the miscalled " City of Churches" in 1881 there was one arrest to every twenty-three persons. (Excise Report, p. 12.) In a recent report (1880) of the superintendent of the New York State Prisons, we find that out of 2662 convicts in the three State prisons, 1599, or more than four sevenths, are from New York City alone, which contains less than one fourth of the population. Nearly all the other prisoners are from other cities. __ And they are not ruined for lack of education, but in spite of it. Only 159 in the three State prisons in 1880 had no educa- tion that is, about six per cent.* In Auburn prison during that year nearly seven per cent of the convicts were graduates of colleges, academies, and high schools. Boys trained in the country learn to paddle their own canoe instead of being u pad- dled " in a prison. They find voluntary working for wages wiser than enforced labor without wages. * In Brooklyn in 1881, out of 28,889 arrests, only 1326 could neither read nor write less than five per cent. Of the Brooklyn arrests in 1880, 79 were under 8 years old, 1409 under 14, 5393 under 21, 12,131 under 30 that is, thirteen regiments of children and young men re- cruited yearly from the " City of Churches" for the devil's army of crime, a sad contrast to its annual Sunday-school parade of the armies of hope. CHOOSING A BIRTHPLACE. 21 According to the Young Men's Christian Association " 1. There are in Brooklyn 2567 licensed liquor-saloons, 14 theatres, 491 licensed billiard and pool tables, 40 bowling- alleys, 10 shooting-galleries, besides hundreds of places where gambling or other vices are indulged in. The vast majority of their patrons are young men. "2. Less than one tenth of our young men are in the churches and Sunday-schools. This statement is made after the most careful investigation. " 3. In one of our largest State prisons two thirds of its in- mates are men, and two thirds of these are under twenty-six years of age. In another State prison, in which 1900 men (no boys) are confined, the average age is twenty-six years, and these are young men from our cities. ' ' Let us give the city boys a chance by closing up the dens of drink as far as our laws allow on Sundays against all, and on all days against the young, whom our minor laws protect. And let city boys, being forewarned of their dangers, be fore- armed against them by following country habits. II. PARENTS AND POVERTY. Every character is the joint product of nature and nurture. GAKFIELD.' Poverty is iincomfortable, as I can testify ; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving. It is the pride of every American that many cherished names, at whose mention our hearts beat with a quicker bound, were worn by the sons of poverty who conquered obscurity and became fixed stars in our firmament. There is no horizontal stratification in this coun- try like the rocks in the earth, that hold one class down below for- evermore, and let another come to the surface to stay there forever. Our stratification is like the ocean, where every individual drop is free to move, and where from the sternest depths of the mighty deep any drop may come up to glitter on the highest wave that rolls. GABFIELD. Average Britons reverence pedigree ; average Americans, perform- ance ; the highest Britons, ancestry ; the highest Americans, achieve- ment. JOSEPH COOK. THE replies speak of other circumstances over which we have no control, besides birthplaces, that help to make men. Two seeds are planted in the same environment of soil and sunlight. One grows into an oak, and the other becomes only a cabbage-head. Shortly after Chief -Justice Chase had gone for the first time to Washington, he was returning to the West. The train stopped at a little station in Virginia, and he was informed that it was the birthplace of Patrick Henry. He immediately left the car and stood upon the platform, admiring the magnificence of the scenery that opens before the travel- ler. He said, " What an atmosphere ! What a view ! What PARENTS AND POVERTY. 22 glorious mountains ! No wonder that Patrick Henry grew here." One of the natives, who was standing by his side, quietly replied, " Yes, sir, but as far as I have heard, that landscape and those mountains have always been here ; but we haven 1 1 seen any more Patrick Henrys." Men differ in nature as well as surroundings. The nature of the seed that is planted - has more to do with its success than the atmosphere in which it grows. We happen to know that in Patrick Henry's favor- able environment his noble mother had a mightier influence than his native mountains. Like mother, like man. Several of our successful men name 1 ' a jgood mother' ' and " faithful training" among the causes of their success. That many others did not do so is due to the tendency that makes us forget to thank God for our commonest and greatest bless- ings, such as air and light. Peter Cooper's success is partly explained in the fact that his mother was ' ' a rare blending of sweetness and fire." If you would be successful, select not only a country birth- place, but also a good grandmother. Heredity is mightier "than homestead. " The just man walketh in his integrity : his children are blessed after him." You are selecting a good grandmother, or the opposite, for the coming man in your wedding of to-day, besides selecting a secret of your own success * or failure, as is intimated in some of these replies for instance, that of a wealthy New Yorker, who says, " To marry early and well I consider one of the sources of success." On the other hand, " selfish and extravagant wives" and " unhappy marriages" are given among causes of failure, and also " post- poning marriage and getting into bad habits." " The man without a home is more dangerous than an asp or a dragon," says the proverb. " A large majority of the criminals are bachelors" echoes every prison report. In Kings County Penitentiary, during the year ending August, 1882, only 369 out of 1000 had been married. In Auburn State Prison, in * Proverbs 1-1 : 1 ; 18 : 22 ; 19 : 14 ; 31 : 10-31. 24 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. 1881, 364 were married persons and 533 unmarried. Marriage is a part of a young man's environment which he can largely control. If he cannot choose his grandmother, he can at least choose a wife. " If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." A good wife is often the little tug behind the ship that makes it go. Another favoring environment of boyhood is a moderate allowance of poverty, which was the trainer of Girard, Stewart, Astor, and Vanderbilt. It is often spoken of in biographies as a disadvantage which was overcome, but when one of the " wealthy curled darlings of our nation" overcomes the perils of early abundance, he is a yet more exceptional victor. Sev- enty-three per cent of our successful men belonged to families so poor that they had to work most of the time out of school hours, which to these boys were generally few. They were not great because they had little schooling, but in spite of it. I regard the putting of children into business before they have a good education, except in cases of necessity, as a piece of rob- bery, cutting off the future income of the man to gain a pit- tance from his boyhood, which is also imperilled by handling money too early, with all its temptations to dishonesty and vice. " Going into business too young" is given by John Wanamaker among the causes of failure in life. Many of our great men went to school but three or six months in the year, and most of them left school altogether before they were sixteen, because of the necessity that they should help their parents or pay their own way. Seventy per cent of all my correspondents entered upon business between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Necessity is the mother of inventors. il Poverty is the mother of all the arts. " " Hunger teaches many things. ' ' Thurlow Weed was so poor in boyhood that on a cold March day he had to wrap pieces of cloth about his bare feet in place of socks and shoes. Thus shod, he walked several miles in the wintry cold to borrow a history of the Reformation. Luxury raises few such men, but many a " barefoot boy" has climbed PARENTS AND POVEKTY. 25 the ladder of success by sheer energy and honesty " Adastra, per aspera. " A fair start in life, as in numerals, is 0. Nelson W. Aldrich, the Senator from Rhode Island, is said to have entered the city of Providence in the same modest manner that the illustrious Whittington entered London on foot, and with his clothes slung over his back. Being a bright, active youth, he soon procured employment in a wholesale grocery house ; but, with a genius superior to his station, he lose in life, till he is now, at forty, the head of one of the largest firms in the State, and a Senator. Elihu Burritt is another typical child of poverty. He was a poor boy, the son of a farmer, the youngest of ten children. He became an apprentice in a blacksmith shop at eighteen. He was eager to study, and so bought some Greek and Latin books, carrying them in his hat or his pocket, and learning from them as he worked at the anvil. From these he went to French, Spanish, and Italian. He always had his book near him, and improved every spare moment. He studied seven languages in one winter.* He taught school for a year, but his health failing, he went into the grocery business. Soon his money was all swept away by losses. He left New Britain, his native town, and walked to Boston, and then to Worcester, where he again took up the anvil, not ashamed to earn an honest though humble living. This lack of success at twenty- seven so shaped his life as to make him a scholar rather than a man of business absorbed in money-making. When he was thirty years of age he had learned all the language of Europe and several of Asia, such as the Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldaic. Governor Edward Everett, of Boston, offered him a course in Harvard University, but he replied that he preferred to work with his hands while he studied. He soon began to lecture, and everybody was eager to hear " The Learned Blacksmith. " He lectured sixty times the first winter, and then went back to his anvil. After this he visited Europe several times ; was our consul at Birmingham, England ; became the warm friend of John Bright, Richard Cobden, and other eminent men ; wrote 2G SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. books, lectured, edited newspapers, and was always foremost in visiting the poor and aiding them. He started a course of " Penny Readings" for the poor in his own town, which a thousand persons attended. He was a most earnest Christian ; built a chapel at his own expense, and often held meetings himself. He was never married, but was devoted to his sister and nieces. He believed that it is not genius that wins places for people, but hard work and a pure life. He always chose the best of associates, believing that a boy's friends make or spoil him. He died recently, at sixty-eight years of age, be- loved by the people of two hemispheres. Where there is a will to be good and great, there is surely a way. These facts about the advantages of poverty in boyhood have a message for the rich, which is well expressed by one of my correspondents, a New York merchant, who says : " I believe one fruitful cause of injury to young men of good standing in society is the lavish amount of pocket-money their parents allow them when they are boys. ' ' In boys of fine fibre it leads to extravagance and ignorance of the true value of money, and in those of a coarse grain it leads to dissipation and the devil. I think all parents, how- ever well to. do, should give a fixed allowance per week to their sons, so long as they support them, and that it should always be small. The possession of money at a time when a tempter comes is often the leaven of hell." Another favoring environment, already hinted at in speaking of poverty, is learning to work regularly, if only for an hour or two a day, at a very early period of life. This habit of early industry is even more powerful than a country environment in preparing a boy for the hard work of winning success, as may be seen from the fact that while only fifty-seven per cent of the successful men come from the country, seventy-three per cent of them, including many of the city and village boys, were accustomed to regular work out of school hours. In several cases boys who were born with a silver spoon in their months had the spade of early and regular labor put in their hands by PARENTS AND POVE11TY. 27 wise parents. It was so with Congressman Darwin R. James. One of our most distinguished college presidents, in replying that he did no regular work out of school hours during his boy- hood, remarks, " I consider this a matter of regret." He recognizes the value of early habits of industry, apart from their relations to poverty, as a preparation for a noble manhood. Milton Bradley, the well-known Springfield publisher, calls attention to the fact that the coming woman needs to be trained to work, as well as the coming man, if his failure is to be pre- vented. He writes : "I think domestic troubles and worry are prominent hindrances to proper work in a great number of cases, and this comes largely from want of proper practical training of the girls in their department of life. The introduc- tion of machinery and the division of labor have robbed the boys of their trades, and the introduction of Irish machines in our homes has robbed the girl of a chance to learn housekeeping. So systematic education in both becomes necessary." The Atlanta Constitution recently described four of its news- boys, brothers in blood arid pluck, whose early habits of indus- try have insured their success : " These four boys started a few years ago selling newspapers. They made ten cents apiece the first morning they went to work, and for two winters thereafter they went barefooted through the snow and sleet in the freezing dawn on their morn- ing rounds. From the very first they saved a certain percent- age of their earnings, which they wisely invested in Atlanta real estate. The oldest of them is now eighteen years of age, and the youngest twelve. They have supported an invalid father and their mother all the time, and now have property worth considerably over $5000, houses from which the rent is $20 a month, and $200 stock in a building and loan associa- tion. They have educated themselves the meanwhile, remain- ing from school this year in order that they might work the harder and build a home for their parents, that is to have a front parlor and a bay window in it. These little fellows have been carriers, newsboys, errand boys, and apprentices about 28 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. the Constitution office, and one of them is now assistant mail- ing clerk. Their net savings from their sales and salaries, ex- clusive of their rents, has been $20 a week for this year. Next year they can do better, and by the time the oldest of the brothers is of age they ought to have a comfortable little fortune. " What these boys have done other boys can do. The whole secret is steadiness, sobriety, industry, and economy. There are few lessons more important for boys than that the smallest income no matter how small will make a man in- dependent if he will only live inside of it, and compound his surplus. It must have been discouraging to these youngsters when it took them a month to lay up a single dollar, and it was heroic in them when they laid this dollar up arid went bare- footed over frozen ground rather than use it to buy shoes with. It is easy now, when they are comfortably clad and housed, and everybody about them is comfortable, and their savings amount to twenty times a week more than they were formerly able to save in a month. They have conquered life almost be- fore they have entered it, and if they will only keep cleanly hearts and genial souls, and broad, hearty impulses, they will be not only rich but useful men. ' ' J EX.GOV, ALEX.H, STEPHENS, U STATESMEN. III. WILL AND WORK. If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible substitute for it. Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up. A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck. Luck is an ignis faluus. You may follow it to ruin, but never to success. GAEFIELD. Wake the strong divinity of soul, That conquers chance and fate. AKENSIDE. THERE is a good deal of truth mixed into the false proverb that " Circumstances make men," which is nevertheless only a wolf in wool. In the ascertained facts as to the larger percentage of men out of jail and in success from the country than the city, from good mothers than bad, from the ranks of the poor than from those of the rich, from those who early learned to work than from all others, there is a good deal of wool to weave into the proverb; and yet it is not "all wool a yard wide," but a damaging half-truth that is, a He. Nine tailors cannot make a man with all this wool, without his own will and work. When a man will, he will. " They can who think they can." " Character is a perfectly educated will." Whether a boy is from farm or city, rich or poor, weak or strong, talented or not, will and work are sure to win. Wishes fail, but wills prevail. Labor is luck. All men are not born equal, the Declaration of Independence to the contrary notwithstanding. But the inequality can be greatly lessened by will and work. The city boy has greater 32 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. odds against him in his physical and moral environment than the country boy, but it is not always the boat that gets the choice of position that wins the race. President Chadbourne put pluck in place of his lost lung, and worked thirty-five years after his funeral had been arranged. Longfellow succeeded without the advantage of an early struggle with poverty or the plough. He was a city boy, as also Neal Dow, Schuyler Col- fax, President Eliot, Peter Cooper, and Charles Francis Adams. Moses was not spoiled by being a cultured city boy in a bad environment. You can win as he did, by loyalty to God, even in a city home. The villages, which include about thirty-three per cent of our population, have been the training- places of only twenty -three per cent of our successful men a less favorable report than even the cities due perhaps to the fact that village boys lack at once the country boy's discipline of work and the city boy's educational opportunities. But even from the villages have come such men as President White of Cornell, President Seelye of Amherst, John Sherman, Governor Charnberlin, and Governor St. John. It is a great disadvantage to have weak or unworthy parents, but even such odds may be overcome. A hare inherits a swifter pace than a snail, but the snail may distance him in the end by slow and sure progress day after day. It is not usually the most brilliant scholar in a college class that wins the vale- dictory or the highest place in after life. His very smartness is his peril, for he depends upon it rather than upon hard work, which is the winning horse in the race of life, much as he seems to lag at the start. Smartness is far behind him on the home-stretch. One of the ablest and noblest lawyers of New York City is the son of an ignorant Irish drayman. One of my schoolmates in early boyhood was the son of a weak-minded donkey-driver of the village. He is now a prominent teacher in Massachu- setts. Many of our eagles had no better nests. On the other hand, a grandson of Patrick Henry recently WILL AND WORK. 33 turned up as a vagrant at Memphis police head-quarters. He possesses a fine education, but is intemperate. Blood will tell sometimes. After all, it is better to make our descendants proud of us than to be proud of our ancestry. Ascent is better than de- scent. Better be the foundation of a new pyramid than the tapering apex of an old one. Too much poverty or riches is an unfavorable environment, but Kitto was born in apoorhouse, and Mayor Low of Brooklyn was not spoiled in a home of wealth. Secretary Brewster also was " reared in comparative affluence." It is a proper subject for regret that every son does not in youth, like the boys of the ancient Jews * the wealthiest as well as poorest learn some whole trade, which he can use, if necessary, in manhood, and which will in any case develop muscle and habits of industry. A boy's studies would be made * " We should especially direct our attention to earning a liveli- hood by a trade or handicraft, by husbandry or tending cattle, as did our forefathers. Even the judges, kings, and prophets in Israel were husbandmen for example, Gideon, Saul, Elisha, etc. The patriarchs, Abraham, etc., were shepherds. The wisest of the Tal- mudists were handicraft men for instance, Rabbi Hillel was a wood- cutter Rabbi Judah was a smith." He who does not let his child learn a trade paves his way to thievery. Talmud Kedushin 29. [From " Doctrines of Faith and Morals for Jewish Schools," et3., pp. 138, 162.] It might also be urged in favor of learning a boy a whole trade that he may thus be saved from the many disadvantages, mental as well as monetary, of the modern machine-shop, whereby the division of labor a man cannot make a whole pin, but spends his life in making heads or points only, having no joy or intellectual exercise in his monotonous work, and being unable to take up any other work when his department has an oversupply. In such places, as Buskin has well said, " We manufacture everything except men." Garfield echoes that sentiment, saying to young men, " Do not, I beseech you, be content to enter upon any business which does not require and compel constant intellectual growth." 34 SUCCESSFUL MEIS T OF TO-DAY. more effective by combining with them at least an hour or two of systematic manual work. If physical education were thus combined with mental and moral culture, we should not have so many sickly ministers, editors, and teachers, whose weak bodies stagger under the work which is put on them by their strong minds " too heavy for the animals they ride." Nor should we have so many criminals, for ** No trade" is the Open Sesame of our jails. Some years ago I found ninety per cent of the convicts in the Massachusetts State prison at Charlestown had come in by that password. But even those who lack the vigor which comes from early habits of labor may win by will and work, in spite of this unfavoring environment. An unmarried man works against great odds, but Alexan- der H. Stephens, Elihu Burritt, and ex-Vice-President Ferry were successful bachelors. More remarkable still, Socrates, Milton, and John Wesley succeeded in spite of bad wives. On this list it will not be safe to enumerate any who are living. It is a great disadvantage to enter upon professional or even business life without a thorough education. I have examined the educational record of the seventy foremost men in Ameri- can politics cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, and gov- ernors of national reputation and I find that thirty-seven of them are college graduates, that five more had a part of the college course but did not graduate, while only twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more than one young man in five hundred goes to college, and as this one five hundredth of the young men furnish four sevenths of our distinguished public officers, it appears that a collegian has seven hundred and fifty times as many chances of being an eminent governor or congressman as other young men. In this connection it may be said incidentally that five sevenths of these public men are lawyers, one seventh are in mercantile life, one tenth are edi- tors, and the other two were professional soldiers. And yet, while a college training is so great an advantage, the non-gradu- ates include Edmunds, Sherman, St. John, Randall, Kelley, Teller, Hiscock, Proctor Knott, Levi P. Morton, Cornell, Fos- WILL AND WORK. 35 ter, Mahone, Hale, Brown, Simon Cameron, James, Windom, and Ferry of Michigan all of them peers of the graduates among the seventy. There is hardly a conceivable disadvantage of birthplace, parentage, poverty, riches, or bodily condition that some of our successful men have not overcome, and, in the language of one of their mottoes, " What man has done man can do." Indeed, can is only another name for will. Will equals can. He that will can. " Strong men have wills ; weak ones have only wishes." Whatever disadvantages you may have, if you have also a will to work, you may checkmate them and win true success. In the battle of life there is a survival of the fittest, but not (among men at least) in the sense in which the materialist uses the term as applying to physical superiority. In the contest of wishes and wills, the wills win not those who are strongest of body or even of intellect. Materialistic evolutionists would make man (as they have God) a mere stick on the tide, that goes wherever it is carried, toward vice or virtue. When I bought pure milk 'of my milk- man yesterday morning, according to this theory of Tyndall and others, I couldn't have bought it of anybody else, nor could my milkman have sold me 'chalk and water instead of pure milk. Our grandmothers, our food, our climate in short, our environment made it impossible for either of us to do otherwise than we did 1 The facts of biography as well as our own consciousness veto this theory by showing that will and conscience make circum- stances instead of being ruled by them. One of America's prominent astronomers is only four feet high, and would hardly outweigh a boy of ten years. But there are few who could outweigh him in intellect and achievement. Alexander H. Stephens with a dwarf's body did a giant's work. With only a broken scythe, by sheer force of will and work, he overmatched in the harvest those who had fine mowing- machines. It might have been said of him, as of Candlish, " There's nae muckle o' him, but there's a deal in him." In- 36 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. diana's greatest governor was Oliver P. Morton, who went on crutches. " It is the mind that makes the man." Chief- Justice Chase in his boyhood gave little promise of his future career. He was near-sighted, had a bad impediment in his speech, and was stoop-shouldered, shambling and slouchy in his appearance and gait. Owing to the death of his father and the poverty of his mother he was adopted by his uncle, Bishop Chase, of Ohio. Estey, of organ fame, was given away at four years of age, and had no schooling worth mentioning, and yet he has won true success not only money but public esteem by will and work. Peter Cooper went to school but one year, and then only half the time because of his parents' pov- erty and the necessity for him to work ; but will and work stored both his safe and his mind. His own struggles led him to found the Cooper Union for other children of poverty. Edmund Driggs, of Brooklyn, who is honored for what he is as well as for what he has, for his double worth, began his climb up the ladder as a common sailor. Senator Brown, of Georgia, was nineteen years old before he learned to read, but such odds did not prevent him from being a judge, governor, and senator. Orange Judd is another triumph of clear grit over environ- ment. Without a dollar of help not earned by himself, or the prospect of any, he started for the school where he was to fit for college ; earned corn by working for neighboring farmers ; carried it himself to the mill to have it ground, and brought back the meal to his room ; cooked it himself as mush ; milked a cow or two daily for his pint of milk per day ; and so lived on mush and milk as his chief subsistence for months together. Afterward he worked his own way through Wesleyan Univer- sity and a three years' post-graduate course at Yale. Professor Townsend, of Boston University, the author of " Credo" and many other books, worked his way in similar fashion through Amherst, boarding himself at a cost of forty-five cents per week. It is related of Congressman W. W. Crapo that he helped to pay his own way through college by doing clerical work. His father before him was too poor when a boy to buy WILL AND WORK. 3? books, and, being in want of a dictionary, prepared a manu- script one, walking from his home in the village of Dartmouth, Mass., to New Bedford to replenish his store of words and definitions from the town library. The father finally became a governor, and the son is likely to have the same title some day. " Who loves his work and knows to spare, May live and flourish anywhere." " Set a stout heart against a stiff hill," or, as the Japanese say in symbol language to their boys in giving them kites in the shape of fish, Be like the carp that swims upstream and jumps the waterfalls. Any one can drift with circumstances. It takes pluck to stem an unfavorable current. There are few circumstances over which a strong will has no control. " A boa-constrictor woke up hungry from a three months' nap and caught a rabbit, which he bolted whole in the usual way. This did not satisfy the cravings of his capacious stomach, and so he went afield in search of further victuals, and presently came to a rail fence, which he essayed to get through. But the lump caused by the defunct though undi- gested bunny stopped him, like a knot in a rope, when his head and a few feet only of his body had passed between the rails. Lying in this attitude, he caught and swallowed another rabbit which had incautiously ventured within his narrow sphere of action. Now, what was the state of affairs ? He could neither go ahead nor astern through the fence, being jammed by his fore-and-aft inside passengers, and in this embarrassing position he was slain with ease. The boa-constrictor was con- trolled by circumstances which should have been controlled by him. He should have bidden the fence ' Good morning ' be- fore swallowing the second rabbit. ' ' A man fails in his plans of life and lays it to unfavoring cir- cumstances. The fact too frequently is that he wrought out his own failure by swallowing liquor or luxuries beyond his means. When he found himself in financial difficulties he completed his ruin by going further into debt and continuing 38 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. his extravagances. As the Oriental proverb says of the proud man in difficulties, " The rat can not squeeze through the hole because he has tied a broom to his tail." " When pride cometh, then cometh shame. " " Poets are born, and not made," says the proverb. Nay, for poets are partly self-made. A boy of ten, replying to the question, " Who made you ?" said, measuring the length of a baby with his hands, 4i God made me so long, and I growed the rest." The mistake of the little deist in leaving out the God of his growth suggests the truth that we are partly self-made men. God and motherhood and birthplace partly make us, but we must make the rest by will and work. " There is a Divinity that shapes our ends," but it makes a difference whether we ourselves hew them rough or smooth. " If you want to fill a round hole, make a ball of yourself." Circum- stances shape putty, but men make circumstances. In the words of Holland, " We build the ladder by which we rise, ***** And we mount to the summit round by round." It has been well said by Henry Ward Beecher, " with regard to the young workingman of America, that if ordinary health is given him. and ordinary mental endowments, if a young man in the community is not above all possible want by the time that he is thirty-five, if by then he does not stand upon a com- - ^potency, it is because he is an immoral man. There is oppor- tunity under our heaven, on our soil, and among our prolific influences for the geneses of life, there is opportunity which no man can miss except he sins in the missing." " Everyman the architect of his own fortune," wrote Presi- dent Carter of W 7 illiams College, as a watchword, in his reply to my inquiries, and then erased it and wrote, " No, I will take that back." It is only half the truth. Every man is a joint architect with God of his own fortune. " God makes " capacity, man makes character." " You can not dream yourself into a character, you must forge yourself one." . .7tTsA*T V 0-- THE U Ni VARSITY IY. ENVIRONMENT AND CHARACTER. x Character is both a result and a cause a result of influences and a cause of results. GAEFIELD. Authors are the creators or the creatures of opinion ; the great form an epoch, the many reflect an age. DISRAELI. TRUE men are neither made nor ruled by circumstances. It is a common fallacy that a man must lower his moral standard to the customs of the community in which he resides. As one follows the multitude to do evil by some trick of trade, he says to his conscience and to his minister, " They all do it, and so I have to do it. A man must live. If I don't do it, somebody else will. ' ' This last, as Dickens reminds us, is the excuse of thieves : " If I don't pick the old cove's pocket, somebody else will ; he will be no better off, and I shall be worse off." A gentleman spoke to a confectioner in regard to his complex offence of breaking both human and divine laws by trading on Sunday, and at the same time tempting children to embezzle for candy the money given them for the Sunday-school collection. He made no defense except that all the other candy stores did it, and that he couldn't make a living without his illegal Sunday trade. Similar excuses are made by grocers, barbers, news- dealers, and other Sabbath-breakers. Postmen are required by the very government of the land to violate the spirit at least of the State Sunday laws and do " servile work" in collecting and sorting mail on the Lord's day. " We have to do it," is their only excuse for Sabbath-breaking. No wonder that men who are robbed of their Sunday sometimes learn to rob the mails. It is not strange that those who are trained to break the fourth 40 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. commandment sometimes go on with the lesson and break the eighth. The petition of the National Temperance Society * against Sunday work in post-offices ought to be widely circu- lated. A reformed man acts as an agent and manager in the sale of starch to beer brewers, not only against his conscience but in constant peril of falling into his old habits by his tempting associations. He does it because no other equally lucrative employment seems available. The worst of it is that his em- ployers are also nominal Christians, and at the same time indi- rect allies of intemperance. The excuse of employer and of employed is, "A man must live." Another man, against his conscience, assists in the manage- ment of a sporting paper, whose influence he would not for a moment defend. He does it because it seems to be the most convenient way of making a living. He makes his business an excuse for not being a Christian, and yet does not abandon it. ^ Better to die in doing right than to get rich in doing wrong, for ** a man must live" FOREVER. " If I don't sell these sensational and corrupting papers," says the poisoner of youth, " somebody else will." Anthony Com stock declares that nearly all the vile publishers whom he arrests make the plea, " A man must live." We should reply as a certain judge did when a thief made this excuse, " I don't see any necessity for it." When Luther's friends attempted to dissuade him from going in a certain path of duty because it might become a path of death, he replied, "It is necessary that I should go ; it is not necessary that I should live." There is nothing a true man must do but die in the path of duty. While we live, let us live. Take as your motto, " I had rather die than be debased." Instead of that, men say, in selfish and cowardly apology for their wrong-doing, " We have to do it, the competition is so strong." On that plea a business house prints " list prices" * 58 Reade Street, N. Y. ENVIRONMENT AND CHARACTER. 41 in which the letters " s t" are superfluous prices far above the real value of the article, far above its real price, far above what the dealers expect to get from intelligent customers partly for the pretense of making a discount and partly to allow agents a chance to cheat those who don't know any better than to pay what is asked. Below " list price," " discount price," "wholesale price," "lowest price," "very lowest price," is the " bottom price," and even that is often a false bottom, like those in too many baskets and boxes. One hundred fruit dealers were arrested at one time in Chicago for selling such boxes of strawberries. " They all did it." Instead of honesty's one unvarying retail price, modified, if at all, only by a uniform discount for cash, and honesty's uni- form wholesale price to all who purchase a like quantity, there are in many of our most respectable firms to-day so many prices that the dealers often show their troubled consciences by apologizing for the fraud. They say, " We have to do it be- cause others do. " How much that sounds like the clanking chain of a slave to circumstances ! We can almost smell the pottage for which Esau sold his birthright. Better lose a morsel of meat or a little money than the birthright of one's honest manhood. " We have to do it," says the barber's assistant who robs his conscience of its weekly food and culture by Sunday labor in violation of the laws of the State and of God, at the bidding of his employer. Why not answer with Peter, " We ought to obey God rather than man." Peter risked his life for princi- ple. Why shouldn't you risk the loss of pay or position ? At Stockholm .Jenny Lind was once requested to sing on Sunday at the King's palace, on the occasion of some great festival. She refused, and the King called personally upon her in itself a high honor and as her sovereign commanded her attendance. Her reply was, " There is a higher King, Sire, to whom I owe my first allegiance." And she refused to be present. I once knew an expressman who refused to carry intoxicating 42 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. liquors. Nor did his fidelity make him poor. But other carriers bury their conscience under the excuse, " They all do it." It was recently ascertained by official inspectors that about 400,000 gallons of milk are brought to New York City every day in the cars, and that it is the custom of the dealers to add a quart of water to a gallon of milk. That means a daily robbery of the people to the extent of $40,000. The excuse which assembled milkmen make for such a crime is that all the whiskey dealers also water their stock. " We have to do it," says the Sunday-school publisher as he binds up worthless books in worthless bindings to meet a senseless demand for cheap books. '* The people are to blame." " They have to do it," says a reviewer, commenting on the fact that most of the American novels of to-day are Frenchy, with some illicit love as their central dish. He lays the blame on the people, saying that when they demand purer fiction the writers and publishers will furnish it, as if literature were only a camp-follower, not a leader. " What the people want in a newspaper is not only news, but intellectual and moral leader- ship. The chief writers for our daily press are brave and scholarly men, but they seem to lack a large proportion of characteristic American courage in their discussion of issues un- popular with great leading parties in both Church and State."* " We have to do it," said a reporter of a Chicago daily to General Logan, his personal friend, about whom he had been writing campaign slanders at the bidding of his employers, as if he were but an irresponsible pen in the hands of those who paid him ; as if his employers would have to take the guilt of his lies at the judgment. Edward Everett Hale justly said, in a recent speech to young journalists of Boston : "It is pretty bad to be engaged on Tuesday writing up a revival, and then engaged on Saturday on another paper writing it down. The press of this country has been losing influence for thirty-five * Joseph Cook. ENVIRONMENT AND CHARACTER. 43 years, because the opinion is gaining that writers have sold their swords. ' ' " We have to do it," says the petty lawyer as he uses his position, not to shield his client from injustice, but rather to accomplish injustice by his undeserved acquittal. He forgets that he is first a man, with conscience and responsibility, and second a lawyer. Among cases of conscience, one of the commonest is that of the clerk or runner who asks if it is very wrong for him to tell the lies about prices and goods which his employer requires. One of the leaders of temperance work in New York was once a runner for a mercantile house in that city, by whom he was in- structed to attach himself to country buyers at the hotels, drink with them, take them to theatres and brothels if they wished anything to get their trade. Strange that any employe should for a moment think that his employer's orders can relieve him of the moral responsibility of his own words and deeds ! Runners, reporters lawyers, are first men, responsible to God. When the falsifying runner goes to ** the lake of fire," in which " all liars shall have a part," where will the man be ? This dilemma may be illustrated by a decision of Judge Kent, the well-known jurist. A man was indicted for burglary, and the evidence showed that his burglary consisted in cutting a hole through a tent in which several persons were sleeping, and then projecting his head and arm through the hole and ab- stracting various articles of value. It was claimed by his counsel that, inasmuch as he did not actually enter the tent with his whole body, he had not committed the offense charged, and must, therefore, be discharged. Judge Kent, in reply to this plea, told the jury that if they were not satisfied that the whole man was involved in the crime, they might bring in a verdict of guilty against so much of him as was thus involved. The jury, after a brief consultation, found the right arm, the right shoulder, and the head of the prisoner guilty of the offense of burglary. The judge sentenced the right arm. 44 SUCCESSFUL MEN" OF TO-DAY. the right shoulder, and head to imprisonment with hard labor in the State prison for two years, remarking that as to the rest of his body he might do with it what he pleased. You cannot separate your manhood and your clerkship. If one is guilty, the other must also bear the penalty. " They all do it, and so we have to," says the grocer as he sells his imitations and adulterations, and puts his inferior fruit in the bottom of his short-measure baskets. " The people are to blame, for they will have cheap goods, and if we don't furnish these imitations they will get them elsewhere." It is the old excuse of Aaron for making the golden calf " The people are bent on mischief ' as if that was a reason for helping them on in it. It is the old excuse of Pilate as he washed his hands of all responsibility for the death of Christ, which could not have occurred without his co-operation. ** The people," he said, " are to blame. I have to do it." But such hands won't wash, and through all countries and centuries the Church says of Christ in its creed that He " suffered under Pontius Pilate." So honesty suffers from the practices of all who deceive and defraud under the pretence that the people will have it so. Instead of following Pilate, let us imitate Nehemiah, as he says, in the midst of fashionable wrong-doing, while they all do it, * ' So did not I. ' ' He did not fall into the popular mis- take of supposing that you can subtract the fraud of multiply- ing the thieves. Multitudes are ready to say, " Oh, anything but that : I can't be singular. I must do as others do. I shall be talked about if I don't. Somebody will say something un- pleasant. ' ' A modern Nehemiah, who dared to be singular in his loyalty to principle, was Hon. William E. Dodge, who at a great dinner in Fortress Monroe, where there was not another teetotaller, turned down his wine-glass ; who withdrew from the Union League Club because it sold wine to its members, and gave up his official positions and profitable stock in three railroads because they decided to run Sunday trains. He would not have even as much part in such a wrong as Saul had in the stoning of Stephen, that of a silent " consenting." ENVIRONMENT AND CHARACTER. 45 President Hayes in his banishment of wine from White House dinners was another Nehemiah who would not exchange princi- ple for custom. No matter what the few or many do, " What is that to thee ?" " Enter ye in at the narrow gate.'* " They have to do it," says a New York paper, apologeti- cally, for the moonshiners who distil illicit whiskey in North Carolina. It half excuses them on the ground that they can't afford to pay the taxes, and have no other way to get money. " We have to keep it up for revenue," says the Viceroy of India of the infamous opium traffic. "If we don't do it, somebody else will." " We have to do it," echoes Lord Hartington and the London Times. In many business careers there has been a steady retreat of conscience from breastwork to breastwork. A young man as he starts out in business promises himself that he will be truth- ful in prices and invoices, and eschew all invitations and decep- tions in short, that he will conduct his business and life on Christian principles. After a while he takes the Sunday paper, then advertises in it ; then travels on Sunday for business or pleasure ; then does a little Sunday trading ; and so goes on to deceiving prices, double invoices, false labels, etc. A young merchant of Boston, whose firm for a number of years have been slowly working their way upward toward a commanding position, recently said, in a tone of semi-despair, that he had about come to the conclusion that ** to carry on business their business at least on Christian principles, and make a success of it, was impossible. ' ' To succeed in any other way is to fail. Alas that there are so many who have surrendered the outer breastworks of strict integrity and are flying the flag of the cowardly Erasmus : *' I will not be unfaithful to the cause of Christ at least as far as the age will permit me." A better flag would be, Trust and Truth. HONESTY is not the best policy ; the commonplace honesty of the market-place may be the vulgar honesty that goes no farther than paying debts accurately ; but that transparent Christian honesty of a life which in every act is bearing witness to the truth, that is not the way to get on in life ; the reward of such a life is the Cross. F. W. ROBERTSON. When Regulus was sent by the Carthaginians, whose prisoner he was, to Rome, with a convoy of ambassadors to sue for peace, it was on condition that he should return to his prison if peace was not effected. He took an oath to do so. When he appeared at Rome he urged the senators to persevere in the war and not to agree to the exchange of prisoners. That advice involved his return to captivity. The senators and even the chief priest held that as his oath was wrested from him by force, he was not bound to go. " Have you re- solved to dishonor nie?" asked Regulus. "I am not ignorant that tortures and death are preparing for me ; but what are these to the shame of an infamous action, or the wounds of a guilty mind ? Slave as I am to Carthage, I have still the spirit of a Roman. I have sworn to return. It is my duty to go. Let the gods take care of the rest." Regulus accordingly returned to Carthage and was tortured to death. SMILES. A young man was in a position where his employers required him to make a false statement, by which several hundred dollars would come into their hands that did not belong to them. All depended on this clerk's serving their purpose. To their vexation, he utterly re- fused to do so. He could not be induced to sell his conscience for any one's favor. As the result, he was discharged from the place. Not long after, he applied for a vacant situation, and the gentle- man, being pleased with his address, asked him for any good refer- ence he might have. The young man felt that his character was un- sullied, and so fearlessly referred him to his last employer. " I have just been dismissed from his employ, and you can inquire of him about me." It was a new fashion of getting a young man's recom- mendations, but the gentleman called on the firm, and found that the only objection was that he was " too conscientious about trifles." The gentleman had not been greatly troubled by too conscientious employes, and preferred that those intrusted with his money should have a fine sense of truth and honesty ; so he engaged the young man, who rose fast in favor, and became at length a partner in one of the largest firms in Boston. " A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. " Even unscrupulous men know the worth of good principles that cannot be moved. V. COMMERCIAL COURAGE. If there be one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another it is a brave man it is the man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil. GARFIELD. Certain naouthfuls of articulate wind will be blown at us, and this what mortal courage can front ? CAKLYLE. " Budge," says the Fiend. " Budge not," says my conscience. Launcelot, in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. "Why should we be afraid of anything with Him looking at us who is the Saviour of men ? GEOBGE MAcDoNALD. I KNOW full well by some experience in business life that to " trust in God and do the right" is easier said than done. It is not easy, nor is it impossible. It takes the courage of an Arnold Winkelried to break through the serried spears of a wicked fashion. But are there not brave Winkelrieds in busi- ness life as well as in soldiery, who will break the lines of wrong even if it breaks them ? Who has the courage to abol- ish sham prices and unfair discounts and restore the one-price system which Stewart courageously introduced at a time when it was no more needed than it is to-day in certain circles of business ? I do not believe such honesty leads to any loss in the end, but if it should it would be more than compensated in the saving of conscience to the runners, and the cleanness of the money received. It requires a courage greater than that which faces a cannon to repudiate a business custom that is at the same time dishonest and popular ; but if you as a Christian man do not thus meet the issue, " What do ye more than others ?" Why carry the oars of Christianity if you are going to drift 48 SUCCESSFUL ME2S" OF TO-DAY. with the current ? Such drifting is rebuked by the courage of one of the Chinese converts in New York, who refused to work on Sunday at the peril of losing a lucrative position. There can be no doubt about the genuineness of his conversion, what- ever we may think of those who in such cases obey man rather than God. Goethe says that " for the flowering of the best gifts circum- stances must be propitious, but the paramount function of the gifted is to resist old circumstances and create new ones ; to break through the surroundings and fences of timorous customs and leap toward success. ' ' If it is the privilege of the gifted to resist adverse circum- stances, much more is it the duty of the godly. Oh for a heroic period in this grandest and rarest of heroisms the daring to be right and do right against social or com- mercial fashions and customs the daring to be singular and peculiar in utter loyalty to truth ! What if a man should sacrifice his fortune, or even starve as a martyr to honesty, as others have done for God and home and native land ? The man who should fail, and if need be starve, rather than adulterate his goods for successful competi- tion, might not be canonized in this world, but in the God's-eye view he would be one of " the noble army of martyrs," no less glorious than if he had lost his property and life in the persecu- tions of Nero. Oh for men who would die rather than lie,* who would starve rather than cheat ! We need the Jennie Deans type of integrity, that cannot be bribed to falsehood even by the peril of loved ones. * The catechism of the " reformed " Jews, which is called " Doc- trines of Faith and Morals for Jewish Schools and Families," and is published by Terrell, Dietz & Co., of Louisville, Ky., wisely devotes considerable space to cases of conscience, but discusses them very un- wisely. For instance, it says, " The laws of the Thorah [Pentateuch] must be suspended in case of personal danger, excepting the worship of idols, incest, and murder." See also pp. 123, 138, 148, 157, 162, which permit lying in emergencies, etc. COMMERCIAL COURAGE. 49 Christ said, ll Defraud not." No circumstances or environ- ment can make a man disobey that law. A wealthy lady of Canada, when she became a Christian, felt that she ought to recommend religion to others by speaking in the prayer-meeting. She feared that she would break down, but said, at length, "/ can at least stand up and fail for Christ." Have you courage as a business man to fail toward earth to keep from failing toward heaven ? " The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose seen to be best." But men seldom fail by being too honest. " Godliness has promise of the life that now is." David never saw the right- eous begging bread. We seldom do. Integrity brought no loss to Job, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Daniel, and the three worthies, all of whom dared to maintain a higher moral stand- ard than the people about them. The raising of tobacco, whose influence is only evil and that continually, and the raising of hops or corn or rye directly for the production of intoxicating drinks questions of conscience with many farmers suggest the following story as a partial solution of the difficulties. Senator Voorhees, of Indiana, in a recent speech against the prohibitory amendment, asked the following question : " My farmer friends, what is to become of your great corn crop in this county if prohibition is adopted ?" An old Democratic farmer rose and said, " Do you really want an answer to that question, Mr. Voorhees ?" " Yes, my friend," said the Senator, straightening himself to his full height, "I am seeking for information." "Well, then," replied the farmer, " I will tell you what we will do with our corn crop. We will raise more pork and less hell." That recalls a temperance boy's saying : " If I was as poor as a knit- ting-needle, and hadn't any more money than a hen has teeth, rd never sell rum." Many men have said to rne, " I can't be a Christian in my business, for there are many things we have to do because others do them, that I couldn't do if I was a Christian, and I can't 50 SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. leave the business without running the risk of having nothing to support my family, and a man must live." " For a piece of bread that man will transgress." Yes, a man must live FOREVER. There's the rub. He had better take no risk of ruining that forever by cowardly surren- ders to dishonest customs, which are wrong for him as a man as surely as for a Christian. Religion cuts o2 nothing that U right. Wrong is wrong, regardless of church books. Better a dinner of herbs with a hope for that forever than a stalled ox with a guilty conscience and a dread of judgment to come. " They all do it," perhaps, but '''Every man shall give account of himself to God. ' ' History shows that a true man can be a Christian in the most unfavorable environment, if he cannot escape from it, as Christ, in the corrupt surroundings of Nazareth, " did no sin." 11 Man without religion is the creature of circumstances ; but religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him above them." Samaria was notoriously corrupt, but there were " good Samaritans." Abraham, during nearly all his godly life, was environed by those who worshipped idols. " They all did it," but he didn't. His example led others out of their fashionable sins. Joseph, when he was with the idolatrous Egyptians, did as the Egyptians ought to do, worshipped and proclaimed the true God. His courage brought him gain rather than loss. In the palace of infamous Ahab lived a godly prophet Obadiah. The king ordered the murder of certain good men. Obadiah did not obey, saying, " I have to do it because my employer requires it," but rather he dared to do right at the risk of his life, and saved them. He was a saint in Jezebel's household. If one could be a saint there, it is possible anywhere. Daniel was a saint in the corrupt and idolatrous households of Darius and Belshazzar. He dared to stand alone for princi- ple, and instead of losing his head, crowned it. The boy did not make much of a mistake who read that verse about COMMERCIAL COURAGE. 51 Daniel's spirit, " As for this Daniel, an excellent spine was in him." We need more men of moral backbone. I would like to hang in business establishments, where little or large dishonesties are every day excused because " They all do it," the picture of the three worthies out on the plains of Babylon, refusing to bend with the multitude in the worship of gold, even though the threatening furnace blazed before them. Some would have said in such a case, " A man must live, and we shall lose our political offices if we don't do as others do. We have to do it." How mwch manlier their brave "We will not," and their unbending integrity ! When principle bids us stand upright, it is better to break than to bend. How- ever, they did not lose by their loyalty to principle. Such tried integrity is sure to win promotion at last, even though there is a furnace trial at first. Under that picture I would write the motto of a prominent Bostonian " They are slaves would dare not be In the right with two or three. ' ' I had rather be right alone than wrong with any one or all. In a multitude of counsellors there is safety only when God and Conscience are chief. Add to these saints in heathen households,* Mordecai in the palace of the corrupt Ahasuerus, and Nehemiah in the godless mansion of Artaxerxes, and, most wonderful of all, " Saints in Cesar's, that is, Nero's household." Nero, as you know well, was a human tiger who delighted in blood, especially the blood of Christians, hundreds of whom he butchered in the arena to make a Roman holiday the corrupt people finding as rare sport in the death-agony of the Chris- tians whose purity rebuked them, as did their heartless em- peror. The petty persecutions which Christians had to bear in Caesar's household every day may be inferred from the rough picture on the ruins of the imperial palace at Rome, represent- * Female saints also in such households Esther, and the wife of Chuzas, Herod's steward (Luke 8 : 3). 52 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. ing an ass nailed to a cross and a person kneeling to it, while below are the words, " Cebes worshipping his God." To Ro- mans as well as Greeks the cross was foolishness, and Cebes and other saints in Csesar's household were the butt of ceaseless ridicule for their faith, which doubtless in the end cost them their lives. And yet in the most unfavorable environment they were " saints." * If they did it you can do it, by a " world- and-devil-proof goodness." * Ulhorn, in his " Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, "thus describes the comm'ercial courage of the early Christians of Home : " Not merely at church, but at home also, in their vocations and on the street, Christians desired to appear as Christians. They guarded with the greatest care against any connection with heathenism ; they avoided with the utmost conscientiousness everything which could in any way be construed as a denial of their faith. Difficult, indeed, must have been their task, for their entire life was compassed by a network of heathen customs which a Christian must every moment rend if he would remain true to his God. " Many special relations of life brought the Christians into still more difficult situations. A master would order a Christian slave to do something wholly unobjectionable from a heathen point of view, but sinful according to a Christian standard, and yet the slave was completely in the power of his master, who could have him, if diso- bedient, tortured, and even killed. How should the Christian wife, who had a heathen husband, fulfil her Christian obligations, attend divine worship, visit the sick, entertain strangers, distribute alms, without offending her husband ? How could the officer or the sol- dier perform his duties without denying his faith ? For long the two callings were deemed incompatible, and the officer preferred to re- sign his position, the soldier to leave the ranks, rather than to give up his Christian profession. Those who could not do this were of- ten obliged to purchase fidelity to their Lord with their blood. Many a person also, in order to become and remain a Christian, must have relinquished the trade or employment which brought him a liveli- hood. All who had obtained a support by the heathen cultus, ser- vants, and laborers in the temples, idol-makers, sellers of incense, as well as actors, fencing-masters in the gladiatorial schools, etc., were admitted by the Church to baptism only on condition that they should abandon their occupations, and whoever as a Christian engaged in such employments was excluded from fellowship." COMMERCIAL COURAGE. 53 And now for my last and most important word about envi- ronment. A newspaper editor in Boston said to Wendell Phil- lips, " I will print your address if you will leave off that last sentence." He replied, " I wrote it all just to say that." I have gathered and given these facts about environment in order to say, with all the emphasis they give, that no surroundings, however unfavorable, can keep a true man from true success, that is, from usefulness here and Heaven hereafter. You can win by will and work and the blessing of God, who helps those that help themselves. BUSINESS MAXIMS FEOM THE NEW TESTAMENT. BE not slothful in business. Owe no man anything. Let no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of another. Bear ye one another's burdens. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them. Do good unto all men. FRANKLIN'S MORAL CODE. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself ; avoid trifling conversation. Order. Let all your things have their places ; let each part of your business have its time. Resolution. Eesolve to perform what you ought ; perform without fail what you resolve. Frugality. Make no expense, but do good to others as yourself ; that is, waste nothing. Industry. Lose no time ; be always employed in something useful, but avoid all unnecessary actions. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit ; think innocently and justly ; and if you speak, speak accordingly. Justice. Wrong no one by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderat ion. Avoid ex- tremes ; forbear resenting injuries. Cleanliness. Suffer no unclean- liness in body, clothes, or habitation. Tranquillity. Be not dis- turbed about trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. Hu- mility. Imitate Jesus Christ. BUSKIN'S MOTTOES FOR LABORERS. 1. Do your own work well, whether it be for life or death. 2. Help other people at theirs when you can, and seek to avenge no injury. 3. Be sure you can obey good laws before you seek to alter bad ones. 4. Rather die than make any destroying mechanism or compound. HINDOO SCHOOL-BOOK MOTTOES. "Give charity willingly ; Test, ere thou make a friend ; Give, then dine heartily. Made, hold on to the end. Keep down an angry thought ; Sleep on silk-cotton bed ; Impatiently say not aught. Rest not too long thy head. The giver thou hinder not. Do well whatever you do ; Thine own wealth trumpet not. Enter'd on, carry through. Say not ' 'Tis impossible ' ; Speak not deceitfully, Stout-hearted, thou art able. Hard words, nor angrily. Walk thou most orderly ; Speak not the marvellous ; Study thou steadily. Eschew the gambling-house. Learning do not despise, Waste not thy property ; And in youth become wise. Spoil not thou greedily. In season sow and toil ; Stand in the royal way, Live not on wrested soil. And with the learned stay. Spsak thou to edify ; Cleave to thy kith and kin ; Do what will dignify. A house that's large live not in. Mother and father feed. What you see, that only eay ; Remember a kindly deed. With a serpent do not play."- AVVIAB, a Hindoo Pariah. VI. BUSINESS MAXIMS, BAD AND GOOD. Portia. Good sentences, and well pronounced. Nerisa. They would be better if well followed. SHAKESPEARE. A WELL-KNOWN writer once said to me, " George MacDon- ald's books came into my life like an influence." Everything one reads makes upon him some impression, for good or ill, but there are some authors that enter into his very soul with destiny- shaping power. Thus came Cotton Mather's " Essays to do Good " into the early life of Franklin, and made it his highest ambition to be " a doer of good." Thus came Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into the mind of Schliemann, as he listened in the evenings of boyhood to translations of these works, read aloud by his father, who knew no Greek. The boy's enthusiasm was thus roused to promise that in manhood he would discover (as he has) the ruins of Troy a suggestion of the benefits that may come to many by even such a knowledge of the classics as they can pick up in evenings and by translations, through such a plan of reading as that of the C. L. S. C.* Emerson's book on- Nature came into Tyndall's life like an influence and made him a naturalist. Thus came Ruskin's works to Henry Ward Beecher, to teach him the secret of seeing. Thus " Things New and Old " helped to make D. L. Moody a great expositor. \ Thus the book of Proverbs, used * For particulars write to Kev. J. H, Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn. f Shakespeare's favorite writers were Plutarch and Montaigne. Milton's favorite books were Homer, Ovid, and Euripides. The lat- 56 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. as a first reader in the public schools of Scotland, has made its people terse in speech and industrious in action. It ought to be studied in every business college, that it might come into all commercial life like an influence, and make merchants more universally true in speech and wise in action. On the other hand, the records of crime show that sensa- tional stories of vice have come into many lives as a destroying influence. Such literature stands only second to liquors among the devil's recruiting officers. Shop windows filled with tempting pictures that poison the mind ought to be prohibited as surely as those filled with bottles of alcoholic poison for the body. Not only books and papers, but even single sentences often serve, like a railroad switch, to turn a life into the right or wrong track. A maxim or motto has com.e into many a life like an influence. That watchword of Christian society, " The greatest good of the greatest number," which caught the eye of Jeremy Benthaui in youth, made him a great political economist, seeking to work out that motto in society. Similar illustrations of the power of proverbs are given in the ter book was also the favorite of Charles James Fox, who regarded the study of it as especially useful to a public speaker. On the other hand, Pitt took a special delight in Milton whom Fox did not ap- preciatetaking pleasure in reciting from " Paradise Lost ' ' the grand speech of Belial before the assembled powers of Pandemonium. Another favorite book of Pitt's was Newton's "Principia." Again, the Earl of Chatham's favorite book was " Barrow's Sermons," which he read so often as to be able to repeat them from memory ; while Burke's companions were Demosthenes, Milton, Bolingbroke, and Young's " Night Thoughts. " This last was one of Garfield's favorite books. The books that came into Guthrie's life like an influence, besides the Bible, were Shakespeare, Scott's novels, "Pilgrim's Prog- ress," and Burns's poems. Dante's favorite was Virgil, Corneille's was Lucan, Schiller's was Shakespeare, Gray's was Spenser, while Coleridge admired Collins and Bowles. Dante himself was a favorite with most great poets, from Chaucer to Byron and Tennyson. Lord Brougham, Macaulay, and Carlyle have alike admired and eulogized the great Italian. The former advised the students at Glasgow, that, BUSINESS MAXIMS, BAD AND ftOOI). 57 replies I have received from hundreds of prominent men to the question, " What maxims or watchwords, if any, have had a powerful influence on your life and helped to your success ?" Two thirds of those replying to the circular of inquiries recog- nize no watchword as worthy of being called a special influence in their lives, but from the others a very interesting list of such mottoes has been collected, mostly the old ones, which have been so long the true " common law" of the world prov- erbs that are more powerful than parties ; maxims that are mightier than magistrates. Let Christian wisdom write the watchwords of a nation, and I care little who makes its more formal laws. Many a man appeals daily to some proverb, good or bad, as his supreme court. The proverb is his infallible pope. Some of the maxims to which men thus appeal as the end of con- troversy are false, or, worse than that, half true. The devil, as well as God, has a book of proverbs. Satan is too wise not to utilize the might of maxims. As he fights good songs with bad, pure literature with impure, Christian sermons with in- fidel lectures, the fire of the Holy Spirit with the fires of next to Demosthenes, the study of Dante was the best preparative for the eloquence of the pulpit or the bar. Eobert Hall sought relief in Dante from the racking pains of spinal disease, and Sidney Smith took to the same poet for comfort and solace in his old age. It was characteristic of Goethe that his favorite book should have been Spi- noza's " Ethics," in which he said he had found a peace and conso- lation such as he had been able to find in no other work. It seems odd that Marshal Blucher's favorite book should have been Klop- stock's " Messiah," and Napoleon Bonaparte's favorites Ossian's " Poems" and the " Sorrows of Werther." But Napoleon's range of reading was very extensive. It included Homer, Virgil, Tasso, nov- els of all countries, histories of all time, mathematics, legislation, and theology. He detested what he called the " bombast and tinsel " of Voltaire. The praises of Homer and Ossian he was never wearied of sounding. " Read again," he said to an officer on board the Bel- lerophon " read again the poet of Achilles ; devour Ossian. Those are the poets who lift up the soul and give to a man a colossal great, ness." 58 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. passion, so lie fights good maxims with bad ones. We have to fight not only against his principalities and power*, but also against his proverbs of darkness. As it has been said of a true proverb, that " it is the wisdom of many, the wit of one," so a false proverb is the wickedness of many, the lie of one. A good proverb is concentrated wisdom ; a bad one con- centrated lie. And yet these proverbial lies are many of them so adulterated with truth that good men, as well as bad, are constantly quoting them as if they were established laws of final appeal. " All that a man hath will he give for his life," said Satan, the father of lies, whose very name means slanderer ; but a New York judge, in his charge to the jury at a murder trial, said, " We have the highest authority for saying, * All that a man hath will he give for his life.' ' Evidently there are several of our judges, and not a few juries, who look to the same being as their ' highest authority. ' It is so at least with those who warm over that old saying of Satan into the new saying, " Every man has his price." That proverb is doubt- less true of every man who quotes it as true. A man will not give all that he hath for his life. The lie is erased by the blood of a million martyrs to patriotism and religion, and even by the martyrs of commerce, the railway engineers and steamboat pilots who have sacrificed their own lives to save the passengers. If we sent only true men to conventions and con- gresses, to the bench and jury box, a railroad king would not be able to boast that he " bought his law by the year," nor could political kings buy with patronage the nomination for the governorship of a State as a delicious feast of revenge. Some bipeds have their price, but no men. If the old law maxim is true, " Things are worth what they will sell for," some of our legislators have little worth. There are locks that a golden key will not open. As if to rebuke the proverb " Good as gold," which makes gold the summum bonum, the highest good, the Bible exclaims, " How much better is it to get wisdom than gold !" With some human beings the penny's mightier than BUSINESS MAXIMS, BAD AND GOOD. 59 the sword, sure enough ; but money does not rule the world, only the worldly. Truth is mightier, and prevails in the hearts of all true men. The devil's proverb, " When you are in Rome do as the Romans do," would excuse any vice if one could only find a place where it is fashionable polygamy if he was in Utah, idolatry in China, murder in southern Ireland, licentiousness in India. Doing as the Romans did ruined Rome, and doing as this proverb teaches works the same way. When you are with the Romans, do as the Romans ought to do. That was Paul's practice, if not his proverb. Doing as the Romans did would have ruined him and all who followed his example. Doing as the Romans ought to do saved Romans enough to make a church. That proverb of Satan's crowned satraps, " Might makes right," cannot stand even with the apologies of Carlyle and Ruskin to bolster it up. Let us write over it Lincoln's motto, "Right makes might." That saying, "A promise to heretics need not be kept," was custom-made in hell as a cloak for thieves. Of two evils choose neither. When a negro preacher said, " Dere am two ways tro life one de broad and narrow way dat leadeth to perdition, and de oder de narrow and broad way dat leads to sure destruction," a hearer responded, "Den I takes to de woods." Between two wrong paths or parties, choose neither. God's law is, "Abstain from every form of evil." Honesty is the only policy. Nothing is so hard as to make a fortune dishonestly. "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely ; but he that perverteth his ways shall be known." The materialist is false to the dictionary as well as the Bible when he says, " Seeing is believing." Seeing is knowing. Belief applies only to what we have received on the evidence of others. Even the proverb, " To the pure all things are pure," although quoted from the Bible, is usually applied in such a X 60 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. way as to make it over into proverb of the devil, who can quote Scripture for his purpose. Is a brothel pure to a pure man ? To the pure impurity is doubly impure, as to God all sin is exceedingly sinful. Evil things make evil thinks. How great is the spell of that proverb, " Nothing but good of the dead !" Truer is that other saying, begotten of it, " He lies like a tombstone ;" The Bible says on this subject : " The name of the wicked shall rot;" "When the wicked perish there is shouting" (Prov. 10 : 7 ; 11 : 10). Let the proverb be, " Nothing but truth of the dead, and a good word now and then for the living." " In vino veritas" (that is, true when drunk) cries the wine- bibber. Nay, though wine may reveal secrets, a husband is never so untrue as when alcohol rules him. Instead of crediting slander by the proverb, " Where there is so much smoke there must be some fire," let us say, When the smoke of slander comes from the lips, there must be some fire of envy or jealousy or malice or gossip-mania within. All is not well that ends well. If it were, the devil's work on Job and Judas would be well, since God's overruling made it end well. If it were, the firing on Sumter would have been well, since it ended in emancipation. We are not licensed to do evil that good may come. Good never comes of evil, but sometimes in spite of it, when God makes the wrath of man to praise Him. Nothing but its own justice justifies a deed. In- stead of the false proverb, " The end justifies the means," let us adopt that motto of a prominent Boston professor, " I will lay down my life to save my country ; I will not do a base thing to save it." Spoils do not belong to the victors, but to those from whom they are robbed. So the police believe, and return all the spoils they capture. "Never too late to mend," do you say? Ask the re- formers, two thirds of whose recruits from drunkenness relapse and die intemperate. " Never too old to learn" ? Ask the miser, who tries in vain in his old age to put God and gen- BUSINESS MAXIMS, BAD AND GOOD. 61 erosity in place of gold in the throne of his heart. Habit is second nature, but not second to nature. It rules or ruins, or both. Never put off until to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. There are many things that can be done to-day that ought to be put off forever. "A bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to sing." Indeed ! Try it. One person can put a bird in a cage, but twenty cannot make him sing. Talmage has improved the proverb : "If a man can sing and won't sing he ought to be sent to Sing Sing." The enforced labor of convicts there re- minds us how we may make the proverb really true and serious : the man who can work and won't work must be made to work. " Take the bull by the horns," says a foolish proverb. No man ever obeyed it twice. A better proverb would be, " A mule is tamest in front," to emphasize the importance of be- ginning everything at the right end. There is no easy road to learning, but all its roads are royal. The proper study of mankind is man and his Maker. The betrayed woman loves neither wisely nor well. I care much what a man thinks, for thoughts are the rudders of life. Tell me what a man thinks and I will tell you what his life will be in the long run. It may be worse than his thoughts, but it cannot be better. Enough is better than a feast. True charity never ends at home. "If ye love them that love you, what reward have ye ? Do not even the publicans so ? A bad promise is worse kept than broken, but better not spoken. There are no ill winds that bring good to no one. " All things work together for good to them that love God." Take people as they are, but not without an effort to make them what they should be. It never rains, but God pours out blessings on the earth. It never rains, but God reigns and rains. Blessings do not come 62 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. alone any oftener than misfortunes, and both are blessed as they come in the name of the Lord. A thing of goodness is a joy forever. The best attendant of valor is discretion. When God bids us speak, speech is golden and silence is sin. " An honest man," despite Pope, " is not the noblest work of God," but rather one who adds to honesty Christlike devo- tion to the good of men and the glory of God. Some of the meanest men that breathe are strictly honest because it pays, or because the law compels. Some years ago a drunkard ap- plied to a Connecticut deacon, who kept a grocery, for a pint of whiskey. " Can't sell it to you," said the deacon. " Why ?" '* Because the law won't let me sell less than a quart." The half-intoxicated customer replied promptly and truly, " Deacon, if you ain't any better than the law makes you, you 1 II go to hell sure." An unselfish, Christlike man is the noblest work of God. " Every man for himself really means, Every man against himself, for even in the secular life of this world, " He that saveth his life shall lose it." "There is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty." He that cheats another cheats himself more in his loss of custom and reputa- tion. Of the crowd that cry, " Every man for himself," the devil takes the foremost as well as the hindmost Dives as well as Judas. The proverb of success should be, Every man for the good of all. As several of my correspondents have said, no one can attain true and abiding success except by doing some real service to the public. There is no profounder watch- word for even secular success than those words of Christ, " Whosoever of you will be chiefest shall be servant of all." It is the public servants who most faithfully and skilfully carry our freights and work our grain fields and solve our intellectual problems that win our gold and our respect. " He that loseth his life shall find it." " There is that scattereth and yet in- creaseth. " The golden rule, quoted by more of my corre- spondents than any other motto, much as it is disregarded by many who handle gold, is nevertheless an essential rule of busV- BUSINESS MAXIMS, BAD AND GOOD. 63 ness success. It pays better than a short yardstick or false weights. One very successful young man, who provides the outfit for great museums, works by the golden rule in its new form, "Put yourself in his place." He sits in the new seats pro- vided for museum visitors to make sure they are comfortable ; he tries the effect of the various colors on the eye that he may have the right tint on the borders of his labels, and puts on them such information as he would want if he was an unedu- cated visitor. It is certainly a golden rule for all kinds of business, " Put yourself in your customer's place." The interests of self, of humanity, and of God are all thus com- bined, as the earth has a threefold revolution at the same time first, on its axis ; second, around the sun ; and third, with the whole solar system around the central Pleiades. Every man for God, for humanity, for himself, and God bless the foremost. Away with the devil's false proverbs of selfishness and sin, which make void the law of God by their tradition, as the Jews' trick of Corban was made the pretence of thankless sons for robbing their aged parents of the support which was their due. Such a son would call his property, as an excuse for withholding help from his parents, Corban, that is, conse- crated to God, although he still kept it in his own possession, consecrated only to his selfishness. As Christ swept away such traditions, which were contrary to the Scriptures, so let us sweep out of our shops as rubbish the false proverbs that abound. VII. THE WATCHWORDS OF OUR LEADERS. What is really wanted is, to light np the spirit that is within a boy. In some sense and in some degree, in some effectual degree, there is in every boy the material of good work in the world ; in every boy, not only in those who are brilliant, not only in those who are quick, but in those who are solid, and even in those who are dull, or who seem to be dull. If they have only the good will, the dulness will day by day clear away, under the influence of the good-will. GLAD- STONE. WE must put true proverbs in the place of bad ones. Nature abhors a vacuum. The devil fills vacant lots with his garbage. Right watchwords are as great a power for good as bad ones are for evil. One of my correspondents declares as his opinion that maxims and watchwords, as such, are of little account, and are seldom thought of by boys ; the examples of upright, honorable busi- ness men and the precepts of the Bible being more potent. I answer that, while " example" is " more potent" than any words, yet noble maxims, which are usually outgrowths from the Bible, if not quotations, are also " potent," as the biogra- phies of great men and the replies I have received abundantly prove. To many a man a motto has become the very star by which he has sailed all through the voyage of life, as a terse expression of its true purpose. I do not forget that there is often " smooth talk and bad walk ;" that " Between said and done a long race may be run ;" but the walk would often be worse but for the talk. A motto helps a man as a target does the skill of a marksman. It gives his life a purpose and plan. ' * Have a mark ; aim at -X JUDGE GEO*G. REYNOLDS JUDGE OF THE CITY COURT OT BROOKLYN. LAW AND LITERATURE. THE \VATCHWORDS OF OUR LEADERS. 67 it ; hit it ;" an arrow shot at a venture was never but once known to hit anything. Each of our States and every foreign nation holds up a motto on its coat-of-arras as the aim of its people. Such ideals of life improve the real life. All titled families in foreign lands have such mottoes as incitements to true nobleness. In this country, where every family is royal, such mottoes would be helpful guide-boards to right courses of life. And why not have a motto for all schools as well as colleges ? The old cus- tom of putting mottoes on clocks and watches is also a good one. "Jfugit hora ora" (The hour is flying, pray) said the dial of an old clock in Yorkshire, to all who looked at it for the time of day. "/ hoc memento pendet ceternitas" (On this moment hangs eternity) said another clock. Every time Dr. Johnson turned to his watch he read on its face that timely warning against sluggishness and sin, " EpKera* vv%" (The night cometh). At the Jewish feast of Pentecost, when the young people are received into membership in the synagogue, they are each given a confirmation certificate, inscribed with an appropriate Scripture motto, which they are to cherish and follow through life a good custom for all churches. Several of the prominent men whose mottoes I have received ascribe " great influence" to them. One of the most respect- ed of Brooklyn's citizens quotes, as powers in his life, two verses of Scripture : " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," and " A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." As to the commercial value of a good name I might quote from another reply the words of a father to his son, " My boy, I had rather you would leave your em- ployer when of age without a dollar in your pocket, but with his recommendation, than leave before your time was out, with a thousand dollars in your pocket but without his recommenda- tion." One of Brooklyn's doctors says : " When I was quite a lad I heard a short Sunday-school speech in our little country church, where the speaker took for his text, ' Aim high ; if you don't 68 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. hit the mark you may come somewhere near it.' The speech from that text has, I think, had a strong influence upon my whole life." A New York publisher says : " When a boy of nine years of age my Sunday-school teacher gave me a book entitled, ' No Such Word as Fail.' I have felt the effect of it ever since." A Western ex-governor ascribes similar power to the prov- erbs of Solomon and Franklin, which his father frequently quoted to his children. A clergyman and author names the following mottoes as those that have had a shaping and controlling influence on his life : " I will make the world better for having lived in it." " By something attempted, something done, I'll earn each night's repose." " Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views from thy hand no worthy action done." " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." As a guide in ministerial studies, he has often quoted the proverb, " Know everything of something, and something of everything. ' ' A minister needs to know one thing the Bible thoroughly, and then something of everything, that he may illustrate it to everybody. But a motto which does him more constant service is the old English one, " Doe ye nexte thynge." When many duties press for attention, that motto, like a policeman at a ticket office, makes them stand in line and wait their turn while he does the next thing. This same motto helps John Wanamaker to manage the largest clothing estab- lishment in the country and the largest Sunday-school at the same time a spirited and well-mated span. " Though work may be hard to meet when it charges in a squad, it is easily vanquished if you can bring it into line." In such doing the motto of John Wesley is a good one, '* Always in haste, but never in a hurry. " That helped him to make his life very fruitful, not only in soul-saving but also in money-getting and giving. THE WATCHWORDS OF OUU LEADERS. 69 In one of the replies to my inquiries about mottoes, a pros- porous Brooklyn manufacturer tells how a single watchword made him wealthy, besides helping him in his character. When a young man he started for Australia in a sailing vessel, intending to go into business there ; but he became very weary of the slow and stormy voyage and half determined to leave the ship at a South American port and return home. He asked advice from an old man, who was one of his fellow-passengers. The counsel he got was, " If you undertake to do a thing, do it." He took the advice, and the motto also. In Australia he soon acquired twenty-five thousand dollars, which he brought back to this country and greatly increased by fidelity to the same ever-present watchword. The motto has also helped him as a Christian in holding on and holding out. " If you under- take to do a thing, do it." Mr. Edmund Driggs, of Brooklyn, gives in his reply a motto that came into his life like an influence, and greatly helped him toward success. At the age of fifteen he left home to engage with an older brother in the freighting business on the Hudson River. The first duty he performed on board the vessel was to go aloft to reef the pennant halliards through the truck of the topmast, which was forty feet above the top of the main- mast, without any rigging attached thereto. When the sailing- master had arranged the halliards over his shoulder, with a run- ning bowline under his right arm, he ordered him aloft. The new sailor looked at the sailing-master and then aloft and asked the question, "Did anybody ever do that?" "Yes," you fool," was the answer. " Do you suppose that I would order you to do a thing that w\s never done before ?" The young sailor replied, " If anybody ever did it, I can do it." He did it. That maxim has been his watchword through life. Though he is now over seventy years of age, he is still engaged in active business life, and whatever enterprise he undertakes the watch- word still is, " If anybody ever did it, I can do it." A well-known preacher shows how this principle works in the lowest sphere : " I remember very well when a horse that 70 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. could trot down to 2.40 was thought to be a wonderful ani- mal, and wise men of the turf wondered if they could ever get it lower than that ; and I easily remember when it went down to 35. As soon as one got down to 35, other men said, ' Well, I can trot in 35. What one horse has done, some other horse can do.' Some one got it down to 30, and then there was a host of horses that could go down to 30. Then the example was set them, and they got it down to 25. Soon there was a whole raft of horses that could go down to 25, and when it came down to 20 there was a great drove that followed thorn down there. When they got down from 20 to 19, 18, 17, they said, * W T e have got to the bottom now.' And yet they have got down to 13 and 12, and I do not know how much further they will go only this : we know that the moment the example is set, and men say, * It lies in bone and muscle and nerve to do that,' there will be some who will do it." So in the highest sphere, lives of true men all remind us that we can make our lives, if not sublime, at least greatly useful, by fidelity and perseverance. " W T hat man has done, man can do !" Let me now give, with nothing more than passing comment, many others of the mottoes which I have just gathered. One who has been a governor and general and is now a college president, has the motto, " Fidelity to every trust." Another general of our late war, now a senator, is true to these two watchwords: "All men are equal if upright and honest." " Stick to your friends in adversity as well as prosperity." Among the mottoes of Alexander H. Stephens were these : " Time and tide wait for no man." " Take time by the fore- lock." (A new version of this proverb is, " The time to take pancakes is when they are passing.") " Be just and fear not" is the motto of another. He says of this motto : u I remember my first employer acted wrongly in some of his business transactions. This motto was on a show-card he was looking at. I pointed to it and said, ' That's true. ' He looked with amazement, and ordered the printer to erase it. THE WATCHWORDS OF OUR LEADERS. 71 In six months lie was compelled to give all he possessed to con- done his offence. If he had carried the motto out he would this day have been opulent and happy." Neal Dow's motto is, "JRes non verba ;" that is, Deeds not words. But he is good at both. He has also two other mot- toes : " Always be on the side of right, always against the wrong." " No man has a right to do anything that if the world should follow his example would produce more harm than good." A distinguished professor flies the motto, " Wis- dom is the principal thing." An editor of one of the leading Chicago papers has the motto, " Industrious perseverance and integrity insure suc- cess." Another editor's motto is, " Honest industry and hard work wiil win." Those who "dash off" articles for the papers would do well to ponder these editorial mottoes and save their articles from being " dashed off " into the waste- basket. Another editor takes two mottoes from Horace. One is, " Nocturna versate, versate diurna" that is, Turn your verses over by day, turn them over by night. The other is, " Nulla dies sine linea" No day without a line. The motto of one of our Brooklyn doctors is, " Be cautious, but thorough," which reminds us of the motto of the great Rothschild, "Be cautious, but bold." Several business men have the following mottoes : " Do your best every time, even in small matters." "Do everything well." -"Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well." But a thoughtful professor puts beside such mottoes of well-doing one that he believes and defends, which presents the other half of the same truth, "Never do anything too well." Arctic exploration is a case in point. It is too costly a form of suicide. The game- is not worth the candle. Many books are only worth a rapid reading.* We are not to put as much pains into making a box * Mr. Gladstone is said to have one faculty in a supernatural de- gree that of mastering the contents of the book by glancing through its pages. A friend says of him that he can master any average book 72 SUCCESSFUL MEK OF TO-DAY. as into the statue which it is to contain. Many men waste their lives in doing trifles too well. It is not worth while to butter your cows' hay or throw pearls to swine with their corn. " What can be done with little need not be done with much." Then that kindred motto of business men, " If you want to have a thing well done, do it yourself," is to be limited by that other watchword, "It is better to set ten men to work than to do ten men's work." Among the various calls upon in a quarter of an hour. He has a sort of instinct which leads him straight to its salient points, and after a quarter of an hour's study he will be able to tell more about it, and to argue more conclusively on its thesis, than the average reader who begins "frith the preface and reads through to the last page. Lord Macaulay was a very rapid reader, and he had a very retentive memory. Joseph Cook draws the honey out of a book as a bee does out of a flower. Sometimes he may miss the real meaning ; but there are few men who are his equal in either gathering from literature or preserving and using what they have gathered. I will not go so far as Rufus Choate, who said that he never read a book through, but there are comparatively few books that require to be read through by a proficient reader. There are pages and even chapters that he may skip. There are ideas elabo- rated that he can get from the bare statement of them, others illus- trated that he can understand without delaying for the illustration, others that he is familiar with and does not need to get at all. It is possible to acquire a power to look through a book, discern by a sort of instinct, developed only by practice, what is valuable in it and what not for one's own purpose, seize on that, and leave the rest alone. The first condition of rapid reading is careful reading. Bead only what is worth careful reading. Recall, after you rise from your book or paper, what you have read. Attempt to give account of it, to yourself or to others. Open a journal, and habituate yourself to write down iii it, from memory, an analysis of the last book, or the thoughts it suggested, or the remarkable facts which it contained. To attempt to read rapidly, before you have read slowly and labori- ously, results in reading without thinking, which is no reading at all. If you keep this habit up, if you read thoroughly that is, with thought, and deny yourself all literature that is not worth thoughtful reading when you have exercised yourself in this way for fifteen or twenty years you will gradually find that practice makes perfect. ABBOTT, D.D. THE WATCHWORDS OF OUR LEADERS. 73 our time we are not to do things of even secondary importance to the exclusion of more important ones. " The better is a great enemy of the best. " " All that time is lost which might be better employed." Between good, better, and best, always choose the best. 4 ' Look at those two ragged and vicious>agrants that Murillo has gathered out of the street. You smile at first, because they are eating so naturally, and theip roguery is so complete. But is there anything else than roguery there, or was it well for the painter to give his time to the painting of those repul- sive ancl wicked children ?" * Other mottoes are as follows: " One thing at a time." ' * Business before pleasure. " * * Work, economize, persevere. ' ' 11 A purpose overfixed, and then victory or death." " Never be idle." " While I live I'll crow." " Never give up one job until you get another." The man who flies that last motto was once a school-house sexton. When appointed a teacher he kept the old job until sure of success in the new one, and so on until he is now su- perintendent of schools in one of our largest cities. Yet other mottoes of business men are the following : " Never make a promise that you cannot perform." " Incur no responsibility which you cannot meet without distress." " Never fail to keep a promise." " Meet every engagement to the minute." " When you say you will do a thing, do it" (a motto implying perseverance as well as fidelity). " Always pay a hundred cents on the dollar." " Make every article reliable." "Every tub must stand on its own bottom." "Paddle your own canoe." "Every man's life a plan of God." "Buy nothing unnecessary, however cheap." (The cheapest things are the costliest, especially when bought only because of their cheapness). " Spend less than you earn every year." "Save a portion of every dollar earned." "Be honest, whether the ducats come or go." " A man gets only what he earns." " Eternal vigilance is the price of success." . * Buskin. 74 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. " Faithful in least, faithful also in much." "Make your employer's interests your own." " Make yourself indispen- sable." " Be sure you are right, then go ahead." (Anew version of that proverb is, " Be sure you have a loaf and not a stone before you bite.") " Pay as you go." (John Randolph called that the philoso- pher's stone). " Never spend a dollar until you have it." ' ' Stretch yourself according to your coverlet. ' ' The sign- board of the road to wealth is SPEND LESS THAN You EAKN. These mottoes are fairly modified by the rule of a Syracuse man : " Always have a debt on your house or some other mort- gaged property as an incentive to saving." Henry Ward Beecher says, " If a young man will only get in debt for some land and then get married, these two things will keep him. straight or nothing will." Another gives " Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy" as a business motto. It is a good one, for the success- ful men of our land are mostly those who have strictly and reg- ularly rested in body and mind, as Gladstone does, on the Lord's day. A prominent editor says, " The chief rule of my life for many years has been to do what God gives me to do, whether I like it or not." Yet other business mottoes are : " Be a whole man." " Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." " Commit thy way unto the Lord, and he shall direct thy paths." " Trust in the Lord, and do good." " "Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God." The most powerful, perhaps, of all modern watchwords are the Wardsworth mottoes. A noble mechanic of that name, THE WATCHWORDS OF OUR LEADERS. 75 filled with a Christian enthusiasm for doing good to everybody by word and deed, adopted these mottoes : " Look up and not down. Look forward and not backward. Look out and not in, and lend a hand." At his funeral, ten persons whom he had helped to nobler lives by what he was and by what he had said and done, agreed that they would adopt his mottoes and seek to repeat his spirit and work. Edward Everett Hale told the story, with the spice of fiction added, in " Ten Times One." Thousands of readers of that book have adopted the mottoes for them- selves, and made them also the flag of temperance societies and charitable clubs, until the Wardsworth. mottoes are now the banner of more than ten times ten thousand. Multitudes have been led by these watchwords to." look up" to God, and " not down" to discouragements. Such looking up is faith. They have been led to " look forward " with earnest purpose, and "not backward" in vain regrets. Such looking forward is Hope. They have been led, instead of looking "in" at self, their own aches, their own interests, their own imperfections, to " look out" in earnest search for opportunities to do good, and " lend a hand " to comfort the sorrowing, help the needy, and lift up the sinful. That is Charity. Let us all, in heart at least, unite with these countless Look Up Legions under the banner of the Wardsworth mottoes. VIII. WHAT CHURCHES MAY LEARN FROM COMMERCE. I know the impression is that we do not need to discuss the ques- tion of prohibition, and other moral questions, so much as the ques- tion of the salvation of men, or the question of the divine govern- ment ; but it seems to me that for a hundred years to come the churches could afford to devote themselves to the work of radicating in men the necessity of speaking the truth, the necessity of strict honesty, the necessity of fidelity to trusts. The art of learning how to live with your fellow-men is the art of learning how to live with God and angels ; but that art has been largely left out in the teaching of our churches for years and years. HENBY WAKD BEECHEK. LET us exchange the devil's watchword, " Business is busi- ness," the frequent excuse for Christian conduct, for a new and true watchword, Religion in business, and a business of religion. Religion certainly needs business as a prudent husband that is, church work should be more business-like. Christ bado the Church learn from the methods of business men when he said, " The children of this world are wiser than the children of light." Jesus called Christian work "My Father's busi- ness. ' ' I suppose he had plenty of business to do when he was making the worlds up yonder, " For by him were all things made that were made ;" yet in the midst of the sublime counsels of eternity, he looked down upon this world falling to ruin. His heart was full of love, and he made it his busi- ness to come into the cradle at Bethlehem, to walk along the lanes of Palestine, scattering his gifts of mercy broadcast ; to WHAT CHUBCHES MAY LEAKtf FEOM COMMERCE. 77 go to dark Gethsemane and wrestle there for humanity until the blood-drops stood on his brow ; to hang on the cross while the heavens grew dark at the awful wickedness, until he. could speak of a " finished " business. The first published words of Jesus were, 4 * I must be about my Father's business." His last words on the cross were, "It is finished." During the twenty-one years that intervened between those sentences, Jesus made religion the chief busi- ness of his life. But let it not be forgotten that during eigh- teen of those years he served God as a layman and a carpenter, and during only three as a preacher. As we hear Jesus at twelve saying tenderly to his mother, who was surprised to find him in the temple and busy with re- ligious matters, " Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ?" it should remind the boys and girls and their parents that twelve years of age is not too early for one to be about the great business of serving God and saving souls. Many men gb into secular business at twelve years of age, but how many parents, like Mary, would be surprised to find their chil- dren interested in the " Father's business" so early in life ? As we see Jesus, the young carpenter, sawing boards and doing good, " not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serv- ing the Lord," we are reminded that every other man also has two departments of business to carry on at the same time, two kinds of business that do not interfere with each other. While a man is diligent in business, serving customers or employers, he may at the same time be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord by showing forth honesty, generosity, and Christ-likeness. To do religious work on Sunday, as do many of the business men of our land, is a better rest than idleness, as it more com- pletely separates the mind from thoughts of business, and rests it by a thorough change of theme. As farmers rest soils by change of crops, so minds are rested by change of work.* * " One of our writers has called attention to the fact that bankers have made for themselves quite a place in literature. Here is our 78 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. To every one God has intrusted two branches of business. The two signs over them are : " Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? He shall stand before kings : he shall not stand before mean men." " Wist ye not that I must be about my Fattier* a business?" The latter is the great wholesale department of every man's life, and our earthly business, however large, is but a retail store beside it. That is the meaning of that command, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God. ' ' Over this wholesale depart- ment, our religious work, the proprietor of the great orphanage in Bristol, England, puts this sign, in one of the chapter head- ings of his book : "The Lord's dealings with George Muller." In the early days of San Francisco, Rev. William Taylor, the own Stedman, who as poet and critic comes next to Lowell. Richard H. Dana, Sr., was the poet-banker of Boston, as Rogers was the poet- banker of England. Grote was a banker-historian, and certainly ranks among the best historians of the modern world. And Sir John Lub- bock is the banker-naturalist. His remarkably interesting volume on ' Ants, Bees, and Wasps ' is one of the most fascinating of scientific books, yet he is one of the successful bankers of London and an active member of Parliament. He was a member of the International Coin- age Committee appointed by government, and he is the author of a variety of papers in financial literature. He has made two landmarks in the history of banking which will always be associated with his name. One of these is the bank holiday ; the other is the institution of the clearing-house of country banks, by which the benefits long known in the city of London were extended to all parts of the country. He is president of the Institute of Bankers, with its two thousand mem- bers, and holds the position of honorary secretary of the London As- sociation of Bankers. Yet this banker and Member of Parliament has found time to make a study of the habits of bees and ants and wasps, extending over several years of time, and so careful and minute that its results are an invaluable contribution to natural history." WHAT CHURCHES MAY LEAR^ FROM COMMERCE. 79 famous missionary, who had gone there for Christian work, pat up over the door of his chapel the sign : BUSINESS TBANSACTED HEBE FOB ETEBNITY. During Mr. Moody 's meetings in London a certain business man was converted, and his brother was restored from back- sliding. They had another brother in the south of Ireland who was not a Christian, and they telegraphed him, " Come at once, very important business." He came to London, and they took him into their private office, and with streaming eyes told him of their desire for his conversion. They brought him to the meeting that evening, and into the inquiry-room, and he be- came a Christian. That despatch was truthful, " Very impor- tant business." "If you have done business with the great firm for yourself, become a commercial to bring others into relation with it." It is as if a man had a large wholesale warehouse where he made thousands of dollars a day, and also a temporary toy shop for a holiday season to gather in a few pennies and dimes. Would that man leave his wholesale warehouse wholly with his clerks and spend all his time at the little toy shop ? In the light of that question, look at the two branches of business which are intrusted to every man and woman. One has to do with the body, " what it shall eat, and what it shall drink, and wherewithal it shall be clothed," until some acci- dent or disease shall lay it away in the grave. The other branch of our business has to do with the soul, that shall live as long as God himself how it shall be clothed to appear before the Judge of all, and how- its deep thirstings and longings shall be satisfied. One of these departments of business has to do with time, which may mean to us an hour, a day, a week. At 80 SUCCESSFUL KEN OS TO-DA.Y. most it can be but a few years before to each of us " time shall be no longer,'' The other branch of our business has to do with eternity. One of these departments of business deals with life, which our experience as well as the Bible shows us is but "a step," "a vapor," "a passing cloud," " a fading flower," " a handbreadth, " compared to the whole life of the immortal soul. The other branch of every man's business has to do with immortality, beside which a thousand ages in their flight are only as a singje day ; beside which the added lives of us all 20-j-30-|-40-{-60-}-10-|-'70, etc. would be only as one tick of the clock in the passage of a century. Enoch, who was taken to God in the first years of the world and is now six thousand years old, has only entered the infancy of his im- mortality. Put this proportion on your slates : Time : Eternity : : Life : Immortality : : our Earthly Business : the Father's Business. In earthly business we are * ' hired servants or partners with men ; in our heavenly business we are partners with GOD, " co-workers" and " co- witnesses" with him. It is the firm of "God and sons" that is to save the world. How infinite the honor and gladness and responsibility of such a partner- ship ! How great the guilt of neglecting our assigned part in the work ! God's part is to convict and convert the soul, as he did Saul at the gate of Damascus ; our part is to lead such converts into the light by our words and prayers, as did the good Ananias. Such winning of souls as partners with God is a more important department of our work than winning gold or fame. A profane sea-captain came to a mission station on the Pacific, and the missionary talked with him upon religious sub- jects. The captain said, " I came away from Nantucket after whales ; I have sailed round Cape Horn for whales ; I am now up in the Northern Pacific Ocean after whales. I think of nothing but whales. I fear your labor would be entirely lost upon me, and I ought to be honest for with you. I care for nothing by day but whales, and I dream of them at night. If WHAT CHURCHES MAY LEARN FROM COMMERCE. 81 you should open my heart I think you would find the shape of a sperm-whale there. ' ' Which is dearest to you, your earthly business or your heavenly mansion ? The great evangelist, Finney, was a lawyer prior to his con- version. He was converted and called to the ministry on the same day. One of the deacons of the place came to his office about a suit he desired carried to the courts. Finney's startling reply was, " Deacon, I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause, and so I cannot plead yours." In every earthly business God's claims upon us should take the precedence. True religion means business. It is not a mere sentiment or creed, but working the works of Him that sent us while it is day. We are not only to conduct our earthly business on Christian principles, but also to practise religion on business principles. The church, like Brooklyn under the best of mayors, ought to be managed as a great business corporation, in which men are junior partners with God. Christians need to be more business-like, for one thing, in money matters. It would seem as if many a church member must have held his pocketbook above water when he was im- mersed, as the half-converted savage did his right hand because he wished to keep it unbaptized to execute revenge. The only genuine article is a purse-and-all consecration. " I suppose I might as well destroy this," said a tailor disconsolately, taking up an old bill long due him from one of the deacons of the church to which he belonged. "Not a bit of it," said his wife ; " give it to me." The next Sunday morning, when the plate was passed for subscriptions to pay off the floating debt, she dropped in the bill, and before the middle of the week it was paid. God does not forgive our debts of that sort. A true Christian will pay as well as pray. A man can't be a saint in his heart and a cheat jn his pocket at the same time, until ex- press trains going swiftly in opposite directions can safely pass on the same track. Fie on the religion of the men who pay 4 82 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. political subscriptions and neglect religious ones ; who pay promptly for the pleasure carriage and not at all for their pews ; who put God's bills at the bottom, to be paid last or not at all. In going through the woman's department of our peniten- tiary I saw rosaries in most of the cells. So the gallows is usually adorned with a crucifix. Why does one church furnish most of the criminals ? Because its religion does not mean business ; because sacraments are put in the place of honesty. Romish pilgrims to sacred shrines in Palestine show their thrift by acting as traders at the same time. They combine business with religion. Would that they might be persuaded to com- bine religion with business and not prey with an e and an a on the same journey. But Protestants do not allow Romanists to monopolize this habit of giving God the lips and keeping the pocket for them- selves or for the devil. Christians also need to be more business-like in matters of church business. Why is it that in many communities the churches are the only establishments that do not send collectors after unpaid bills ? Did you ever hear of a church with an " outside credit man" who lost only one twentieth of one per cent a year on its bills, as was the case a year or two since in the second largest dry goods establishment in our land ? Why is it that church yards are kept so much less tidy than private ones ? Why is it harder to get a quorum of church officers than of bank directors ? Certainly no Christian would admit that God's pay is less valuable than man's. The Church needs to be more business-like, not only in han- dling money, but also in winning men to God. A preacher has " great bargains to offer" " mansions" and " robes" and " jewels." Why should he not be as earnest in seeking cus- tomers as if his pulpit were a counter or an auction-block ? " Men ride swift steeds when they hunt for game, and snails when they are on the road to heaven." " They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." One of the most unbusiness-like things that is found in churches is the pro- WHAT CHURCHES MAT LEARX FROM COMMERCE. 83 judice against revivals, by which four sevenths of the ministers and superintendents of America, as I have ascertained by printed inquiries, were brought into a Christian life. Joseph Cook found a similar proportion of his Christian audience were revival con* verts. Strange that the oak should have a prejudice against the sun and rain, to which it is chiefly indebted for its growth ! Men open summer beer-gardens to make the front door of hell attractive. Why should not Christians open a " gospel garden," such as Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., carried on in New York a few years ago ? It consisted of an apartment fitted up with a fountain, floral baskets, urns of plants, and whatever would give it an inviting appearance. To the ceiling were attached long linen fans, which were kept all the time in motion to supply a cool and refreshing atmosphere. We are urged to something of this sort by the fact, stated in the Brooklyn Police Report for 1881, that more arrests are made in the summer than in any time in the year that is, the devil has his revival while the churches take their vacations. Open- air preaching, such as is common in English parks and streets, and tent meetings and gospel gardens, are needed to lessen summer arrests and increase summer conversions. " How can I get children and young people to come to Sunday-school ?" was a question asked at a Sunday-school con- vention. At once the answer came, " Count every Sunday an important election day, the Sunday-school room the voting place, and every boy and girl a voter. " If one tenth as much effort was put forth by Sunday-school teachers and officers, and professed Christians generally, to win outside children and youth to the Sunday-school as is made by politicians to win voters to the polls, there would be such an ingathering of new scholars as has never been dreamed of. A business man wants to know why gospel cars should not be attached to a passenger train as well as smoking cars. A conductor on the Old Colony Railroad answers that the sugges- tion is a perfectly practical one. He says : " There are hun- dreds of Christian men who delight in the worship of God who 84 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. spend from six to twelve hours per week on the railroad be- tween home and business. Now, why not utilize this time by religious exercises ? What a fitting beginning and end for the business of the day ! Instead of card-tables, have an organ or piano ; let the seats be arranged facing the centre of the car. Instead of spittoons, have a carpet ; instead of cards, have Bibles and gospel song-books. I venture, after twenty years of rail- road experience, that the thing is practicable !" Something a lit- tle like this was done by the Plainfield Railroad Normal Class, a company of half a dozen Christians, all laymen save one, who in the two hours a day spent in going to their New York busi- ness and returning, prepared for a year the best outlines on the Sunday-school lessons that were published anywhere. Their minds were more rested by change of thought than if the time had been spent in smoking or reading the crime columns of the daily papers. An oft-quoted secret of success is, " Keeping up with the age by timely novelties." The children of this world often change the arrangements of their show-cases and windows. They have learned the large truth which was expressed in the small joke of the circus clown : " The next thing is some- thing else." A prominent layman once said to me, earnestly quoting the clown's remark, " The churches need to have that watchword thrown in among their stereotyped and unchanging methods of work." With business-like enterprise, a church should occasionally change its ways of working for newer and better ones, or even for methods no better than it had before, except as they are fresher. It is useless to seek for novelty in the old and fixed doctrines. Gravitation in science and the divinity of Christ in theology ; the roundness of the earth as a doctrine of God's world, and the Bible's inspiration as a doctrine of God's word on these proved facts we rest, as established beyond any reasonable doubt. We have no ambition to follow Murray and Miln and other " wanderinor stars," who, breaking away from these old WHAT CHUECHES MAT LEARN FROM COMMERCE. 85 doctrines and seeking novelties, have gone deeper and deeper into the darkness of doubt. But while the doctrines of religion are as old and changeless as gravitation, its methods of work should be as .new and timely as if the Church were the most enterprising of business houses. The next thing in church work is something else. IX. BUSINESS MAXIMS APPLIED TO CHURCH WORK. Be the same in thine own act and valor As thou art in desire. SHAKESPEAKE. ONE of the most frequent replies of our prominent men to my question, " What do you consider essential elements of success ?" is this : "Close attention to business." A man who has " other fish to fry" in business hours, especially if they are fish which he has caught when he should have been minding his business, will find his judgment day in this world, when, in the mercantile agency the books are opened that record against his credit that he " keeps a dog and a gun," but does not keep his shop or his engagements faithfully. " He that loveth pleasure shall not be rich." " Keep thy shop and it will keep thee." In our great business of saving men, churches can have no great success unless pastor and officers, and at least a goodly percentage of the members, " attend closely to their business." Those who have inadequate views of their responsibility in preparing to preach the gospel ought to be impressively re- minded of their failure in this respect, as was a moderate min- ister, who was a keen fisher, when he said to Dr. Andrew Thompson : " I wonder you spend so much time on your ser- mons, with your ability and ready speech. Many's the time I've written a sermon and killed a salmon before breakfast. ' ' To which saying Dr. Thompson replied, " Well, sir, I'd rather have eaten your salmon than listened to your sermon." If a pastor should frequently neglect to be in his place on Sunday when in health, he would soon have his resignation sent BUSINESS MAXIMS APPLIED TO CHURCH WORK. 87 him. That would be business-like. Why should a church not be as business-like with deacons or teachers who frequently absent themselves from their posts ? I could tell you of a church in Arizona or elsewhere in which for a year only three of the seven deacons even frequented the prayer-meetings or the deacons' meetings, and in which one of the deacons held office for a year without attending a single prayer-meeting or deacons' meeting or distributing the elements of a single com- munion season, or even once passing a contribution-box. In- deed he rejected the church's creed, whose acceptance was the condition of eligibility. In that same church and that same year the clerk attended but one meeting of the examining com- mittee, of which he was scribe. And the treasurer of the benevo- lent funds was almost regularly absent when such collections were taken. Where are there any " children of this world " who do business in that fashion ? What bank would keep an officer who was rarely in his place at business hours ? Are God's business hours namely, those of the weekly prayer- meeting and of Sunday services less important ? That a cashier and teller were not feeling pleasantly toward the president of a bank would not make it necessary for them to resign, but neither would it excuse them for holding an office without performing its duties. If, like Stanton in Andrew Johnson's cabinet, an officer feels it his duty to " stick" to an office when unfriendly to his president, he should u stick" to his work also. An old Scotch lady, who disliked her minister but continued her duties to the church, put it tersely, when the pastor asked her how it was that she still came to the church : "My quarrel is with you, man; it no with the gospel." Every Christian, in office or out, should stick to the gospel somewhere, whoever he may like or dislike. Can you tell me of any corporations except the churches that keep on the rolls a lot of dishonorary members who are not at work ? How sad the significance of recent church statistics ! In 1882 there was but one convert to each twenty-nine mem- bers in the Congregational churches of the United States. Tho 88 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. ministers alone ought to have done better than that, for it aver- ages but four to each minister, hardly enough to balance the funerals. Other denominations present similar figures some a little better, but all bad enough. It would be business-like not only to send resignations to neglectful church officers but also to privates who are perpet- ually on a furlough from their duties, doing nothing beyond running an excuse factory. With the watchword, " A busi- ness of religion," each church should thoroughly revise its rolls at least once a year, as Sunday-schools do once a quarter, and business firms oftener still, and make the list include only " practising Christians," lest it should be publicly credited, as so many unpruned churches have been, with keeping in its fel- lowship "practising knaves." The chief of a kraal in Natal, South Africa, gives his con- sent to his people to becoming Christians thus : " If you be- come better men and women by becoming Christians, you may remain so ; if not, I won't let you be Christians at all." That is a good rule for Americans as well as for Africans. If our religion " means business" it will take just as much rain, just as much heat, just as much cold, just as much weari- ness, to keep us from the church and Christian duty as from our daily occupations. What would you think of a man who only went to his business in fair weather ? What success would you expect for a young man who never went to his work when the thermometer was above or below " temperate" ? How long would you employ a man who did not come to his work when lie found himself a little weary or indisposed or not feeling like it? How many of your excuses for absence from meetings on Sunday or on week days, or for other neglects of duty, would stand the analysis of the question, " Would this same excuse be sufficient to keep me from my earthly business or from an expected pleasure ?" That question is a good standard for measuring a Christian's excuses. If an excuse will stand that test, it is doubtless a good one. " A business of religion" that was the idea in the mind of BUSINESS MAXIMS APPLIED TO CHURCH WOKK. 89 a certain boy to whom a preacher said, " Is your father a Christian ?" The lad replied, " Yes, sir ; but he ain't working at it much lately.'' 1 A minister, recently settled in a Connecticut town, called one Saturday upon a photographer to have his picture taken. The artist did not recognize him. He was very busy with the holiday rush, and could not appoint any time for a sitting. After a moment's pause, however, he turned abruptly to the minister with the question, "Are you much of a Christian?" A little surprised at such an unexpected question, the minister said that he was trying to be a Christian. The artist then re- marked that he would be in his rooms the next morning (Sun- day) between the hours of nine and twelve, and would be happy to see him if he would drop in then. ' ' Between those hours I shall be in the pulpit, preaching the gospel," replied the minister, " and will return the compliment and ask you to drop in and see me there instead." " Oh ! good-morning/' said the artist, with a sheepish look upon his face, as he per- ceived his mistake and disappeared in his dark room. That Chicago expressman who advertised at the moving time, " Furniture loaded so as to show to the best advantage," manifested a deep knowledge of one of the most dangerous traits of human nature the desire to seem other than we are. Our Christianity must be as deep as truth, or it is not secure against the epidemic of fraud. As a cure for this sham religion we must cultivate TRUTH. I do not mean merely its surface, veracity, but its depth, reality. We need to introduce the Eastlake style into character-building as well as houses ; that is, instead of seeking outwardness arid show by veneering and varnishing, let us be what we seem. This is TRUTH, for which the man was seeking who prayed, ** Lord, make me real." I had a dream whether day-dream or night-dream matters not that was strangely significant. I was approaching a large city by railroad. I looked from the car- windows and saw upon barns and fences the signs : " Go to 1150 Main Street 90 SUCCESSFUL ME2S T Of TO-DAY. for all kinds of books at lowest prices." Near it in several cases was the picture of a man with a carpet-bag in his hand, walking rapidly, and below the picture were the words, " I'm going to 1151 Main Street for ready-made goods. " Another inscription told of a large assortment of jewelry at 1155 Main Street. I reached the city, and hurried to " 1150 Main Street. " A large sign over the door and handbills in the window an- nounced " Books of all sorts at very low prices." I went in. The bookseller was there, but not a book was to be seen in the store. He said that he was hoping that he might have some. I suppressed my indignation and went into " 1151 Main Street" for ready-made goods. Again I found a storekeeper, but not goods, although the store was covered with placards announc- ing " great bargains." In 1155 I found the same falsehood. Like the others, he expected stock some time. I walked along the street and found many such stores. On the whole street there were about 400 stores, and although every one had its glaring sign, only about two hundred had any goods to show. The king of the country came into the street and entered many of the stores to make purchases, but found so many places where they did not have goods corresponding to their signs and handbills that he ordered his attendants to pass through the street and tear down all the false signs and drive out all the false traders. Then there came the crash of falling signs, and I awoke to find that I had been dreaming over a church record. There were long rows of names with the sign " Christian" over them, but, alas, how many had nothing but a sign : no fruits of the spirit behind the sign, no ' ' love, joy, peace, meek- ness, gentleness, patience" ! None of that activity in Christ- like work, none of that tenderness of Christlike sympathy, none of that unselfish devotion to the salvation of others, that is implied in the name Christian ! Our religion must be some- thing more than a label. Who trusts in labels ? Who thinks that the label " Butter" always means butter, or that " Hon- orable" is applied only to men of honor ? When the King of BUSINESS MAXIMS APPLIED TO CHURCH WORK. 91 kings comes to make up his jewels, what a crash there will be amid these false signs and labels, as many whose profession has said, " Lord, Lord," shall be driven out with the word, " L know you not Depart !" Tear down your sign if you have gone out of the business, and do not delude passers-by with the expectation of finding goods that you have long since sold out. But there is another edge to this thought. It cuts on both sides. Only the man who has goods to sell of which he is ashamed puts out no sign to let the people know what he has. Now there are men who are engaged in the Lord's business in a small way men who are trying to do " about right," who pri- vately claim to be " friends of Christ" that are following just the policy of these secret kinds of business. They put out no sign to let the world know where they stand. They seem at least to be a little ashamed of their business with Christ ; men cannot tell surely whether they arc doing business for God or the devil. No one cries out more than they against those of the church members over the way whose goods do not fully correspond to the signs, and yet they fail to see the same inconsistency and hypocrisy in not having the sign correspond with the goods. Hypocrisy is a discord between the inward and outward life in either direction. It is just as surely hypocrisy if the outward profession does not correspond to the heart's convictions as it is if the inward life does not correspond to the outward pro- fession. Christian man by profession, let your goods be equal to your sign. Moral man, claiming to be a friend of Christ, let your sign correspond to your goods. God bids every friend of Christ put the mark of the blood on his door-post. He cries to every man, " Where art thou ?" We should let our con- victions be known. " If the Lord be God, serve him, or if Baal, serve him." The business man's most frequent test of a new enterprise is, " Will it pay?" Ask that man who has tried all the enjoy- 92 SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. ments of wealth and pleasure and found them empty and unsatisfactory, and who for forty years has tried religion of Christ, " Does it pay ?" and hear his answer, " It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do." Ask that man who is looking death in the face and is about to leave all his property and friends, whom he has already ceased to know, and hear him say, ii Precious, precious, precious Jesus. " Religion pays " a hundredfold in this life, and in the world to come life ever- lasting." In history we see many a man who was diligent in his earthly business standing before kings ; in heaven we shall see all those who were diligent in our Father's business stand- ing before the King of kings. Yes, it pays, it pays to serve God. Another business principle which we would apply to this great business of eternity is this : " Be sure you're right, and then go ahead." That is, be clearly convinced that a certain course is for your interest, and then take it at once. I have often asked business inen who were not Christians but admitted that they ought to be, this question : " If you should see the means of securing a thousand dollars as clearly as you see your duty and opportunity to be a Christian, would you not use the means at once ?" and they would answer, " Yes." They would admit that one thousand dollars was not worthy to be mentioned beside religion, and yet day after day they would see that clear path to the cross and not walk in it. Garfield, in young manhood, said to a revival preacher, " Sir, I have been listening to your preaching night after night, and I am fully persuaded that if these things you say are true, it is the duty and highest interest of every man, espe- cially every young man, to accept of religion and seek to be a man. But really, I don't know whether this thing is true or not. I can't say that I disbelieve it, but I dare not say that I fully and honestly believe. If I were sure that it were true, I would most gladly give it my heart and life." The minister at length showed him that whatever might be the solution of BUSINESS MAXIMS APPLIED TO CHURCH WORK. 93 ten thousand mysteries, there was one assured and eternal alli- ance for every soul in Christ, and that the man who loved and followed him would surely be safe. Garfield, thus assured that he was right, went forward into a Christian life. Be sure you are right, and then go ahead. X. IS IT NECESSARY TO BE HONEST IN ORDER TO BE POOR ? Oh, if religion were a diffusive, practical, every-day reality, there would be a marvellous change in the aspects of life and the condi- tions of humanity around us. The great city, now so gross and pro- fane, would become as a vast cathedral, through whose stony aisles would flow perpetual service ; where labor would discharge its daily offices, and faith and patience keep their heavenward look, and love present its offerings. Yea, the very roll of wheels through its streets would be a litany, and the sound of homeward feet the chant of its evening psalin. CHAPIN. If any one thing was, more than any other, the means of promot- ing his success in life, we should say it was the faculty of command- ing the confidence of others. WILLIAM K. LAWRENCE, in Diary and Correspondence of Amos Lawrence. His religious life was never weakened by his prosperity, and as he became more wealthy he associated himself with more religious societies. New York Tribune on Hon. William E. Dodge. IF religion needs business as a strong and wise husband, surely business needs religion as a restraining and guiding wife. As God is everywhere, religion belongs there. God is in your " busy day" as well as your " still hour." " Religion is the right use of a man's whole self." Many of the evils of to-day are due to the unwarranted par- tition which has been raised between what is called ** secular" and what is labelled " religious," as if they were independent provinces under different rulers. God bombards that wall with the command, "Do all to the glory of God." Thus he teaches us who have profanely called modern history " pro- HONEST IN" ORDER TO BE POOR ? 95 fane" that it is all sacred the newest testament of the provi- dence of God. A pulpit is no more " a sacred desk" than a bookkeeper's. Both are to be used for the good of humanity and in accordance with God's laws. Religion has to do with insurance as well as assurance. " He that provideth not for his own has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." A minister is hardly under more obligation to keep a clean heart, a clean mouth, and a clean hand, than a layman. " Every man shall give account of himself to God." Everyday is "the Lord's day," and every week should be a "holy week." '* There goes the Sunday man," said a child, pointing to a preacher. God wants Monday men as well. Solomon said that God could not be shut up in a temple. He is everywhere, even in Wall Street. " The eyes of the Lord are in every place." The merchant's money should be used as conscientiously as the minister's mind. It was to a general that God said that the Bible " should not depart out of his mouth, but he should meditate therein day and night, that he might observe to do according to all that is written therein, and thus make his way prosperous and have good suc- cess."* The Bible was thus divinely presented as a help to success. It is written in the name of Deity, " I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire." f Of the warriors in the cause of right it is said that " The Spirit of the Lord was upon Samson," and " upon Gideon." The public officer has the same help " The Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel, and he judged Israel." In the prophecy of Isaiah, at the close of a description of the operations of farming, it is written (giving the literal render- ing) : " This also goeth forth from Jehovah of nosts ; He gives wonderful intelligence, high understanding." It is also said, in the. same connection, in regard to the farmer's skill, "His God doth teach him." * Read also Prov. 6 : 22, 23. f Read also Ex. 31 : 2-5. 96 SUCCESSFUL ME^ OF TO-DAY. The Bible here asserts that God is with us continually, as well as individually, even in the every-day business of life to give "intelligence" and "understanding," and "teach us how to act rightly. ' ' The farmer may well realize that God is his senior partner, for he can only plant and reap, while God must water and give the increase, and the harvest is literally the joint product of God and man. But, in other departments of business, when you deal with God in human nature, the Divine nearness is even closer than with those who deal with God in nature, for in a mystic and wonderful way the Father has not only put him- self in us, as light fills the mists of the rainbow, but he has also officially declared himself identical with all those who believe in him. How sacred and noble, then, is all honest work of hand, or head, or heart, as the outcome of this divine illumination ! Handling money or tools faithfully is as glorious as handling the sword of the patriot or the scroll of the prophet. In some of the old towns of Europe a cross used to stand in the market, to teach the buyers and sellers to rule their actions and sanctify their gains by the remembrance of the cross. So God commanded the ancient Jews to wear on the borders of their garments a blue ribbon as their chromatic ticket for heaven, and a little box containing the law of love to God and man " as a sign" upon the right arm these memoranda of their duty and destination being intended to restrain them from living merely for earthly and selfish ends. Even the Chinese recognize a relation between business and religion by setting up idols in their shops.* I fear the idol in many of our shops is that * An amusing anecdote is told by an American authoress in a work on Hindoostan, which, though it refers to the pagan Hindoos, might find its counterpart elsewhere. " At TJlwar the British agent wished to plant an avenue of trees on either side of the road in front of the shops, for the purpose of giving welcome shade. He accordingly made ohpice of peepul-trees, as they are considered sacred by the Hindoos. But so soon as the Bunnyahs, or native shopkeepers, HONEST IN ORDER TO BE POOB ? 97 one whose shrine is the safe that one which a young Ameri- can proudly said was the only God he worshipped, " the almighty dollar." The sacrifices that this deity requires of his worshippers are embezzled trust funds and the spoils of specula- tive stealing. Such frauds as those of the star routes are his anthems of praise. As Dagon was dashed to the ground when the ark of God was brought into his temple, so to-day the only power that can conquer this money-god, who brings on the land, with every decade, a flood of distrust, panic, and hard times from the clouds of fraud which he creates the only power than can checkmate this " covetousness which is idola- try" is the mind of Christ in the hearts of men. What we need is not more paper-money or more gold, but more of God. There is only one place where God is not in the thoughts of the wicked, and they are the only ones who would post up the sign, " No admittance of religion to busi- ness." A certain wheat speculator is quoted as saying, " There is no morality in the Board of Trade. There is no necessity for any." How much more appropriate the motto over the door of the Exchange in London, " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." That motto holds up the right ideal, even if it seldom gets inside the door or the hearts of the place. Let the forgotten and neglected Bible truths be written on all our hearts, that religion is not a thing of the seventh day of each week, but of the seven days ; not of a few hallowed places, but of all places ; not of certain postures and words, but of all situations and conversations. We can no more get away from the sphere of religion than from God. Oxygen unites with all the other sixty-five elements that make up the universe, except one ; so true religion unites and heard of his selection, they one and ail declared that if this were done they would not occupy the shops ; and when asked for a reason, re- plied, it was because they could not tell untruths or swear falsely under their shade ; adding, 'And how can \oe carry on business other- wise?' " 98" frtPOCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. * mingles with every occupation of life except sin. The ignoring; of this truth is at the root of the corruption and inefficiency found with all false and formal religions. The swine merchants of G-adara Jews whose laws forbade them to touch pork, and whose business therefore was illegal when Christ allowed the legion of demons whom he had cast out of the demoniacs to destroy two thousand head of this illegal stock, " besought him to depart out of their coasts." They cared more for pork than for the power of Christ as a healer and saviour in their community. Erase the s in " swine merchants" and you have their successors to-day, who cry out against having humane principles applied to their business. The demons who once inhabited hogs live in bottles to-day ; and the Christ-spirit in the prohibition movement will soon drive them, bottles and all, down a steep place into the sea. Christ drove oxen and sheep and doves from the house of God, but those whose business practices are " crooked " reverse that action and drive all thoughts of God from their places of merchandise. If they were revising hymns they would sing, " Far from my thoughts, O God, be gone, Let all my business hours alone." They do not even allow worship to have the time they spend in church, but while apparently listening to the Bible they are really planning bargains, like the tanner who dreamed that he found himself in church with a pile of leather on his back as he marched up the aisle. To the God's-eye view many a busi- ness man carries a load of leather or cloth or crockery or clocks on his back as he goes to his pew. In some respects it might be a good thing if a man thought over his business plans in the church, and by the light of religion, but it is not well for any man to saut out thoughts of religion from his week-day work. In every legitimate business true religion is a positive helper. It is frequently mentioned as one of the secrets of success in the replies which I have received from prominent men. HONEST IN ORDER TO BE POOR ? 99 Of course I know that there are a few exceptional men who are at once paupers in character and millionaires in wealth. """One of the best known lawyers in the land, who has risen to be judge, author, editor, says, in his reply to my circular, " Of those who have made great fortunes, very few would admit that lying and cheating were the ' chief elements ' of their success. Yet every lawyer knows it to be true." Alas, I might add that many lawyers help to make it so, but these fortunes of muddy money are exceptional and short-lived. It is not neces- sary for a man to be poor to be honest, nor to be poor if he is honest. Wendell Phillips says, " A Christian can not be a millionaire nor a Greek scholar," meaning that a man who has Christ's enthusiasm for saving men cannot devote enough time to either money-getting or knowledge-getting to master a mill- ion or a foreign tongue. If that statement is not wholly true it contains a great truth, namely, that a true Christian will not make his chief aim money or mind, but men. But a devoted Christian, recognizing the power of money in doing good,* may devote himself to such an acquisition as *Long after the grave closes with oblivion over most of the present generation, Harvard will remember with joyful gratitude the nearly $300,000 given to it by Agassiz ; and Princeton will remember the million and over which it got from John C. Green, and the magnificent chapel built by Marquand ; and Wesleyan will recount the repeated donations of Seney ; and Williams will herald the names of William E. Dodge and Governor Morgan ; and Auburn Seminary will bless the splendid liberality of Edwin Morgan ; Union Seminary will dwell with pleasing emphasis upon the benfactions of Messrs. Brown and Morgan and Dodge ; and the seminary of the Reformed Church at New Brunswick will hold in reverent esteem the memories of James Suydam and of Gardner A. Sage, each of whom gave it over $200,000. From the cane brakes of the South, too, will rise through future years songs of blessing upon the head of John F. Slater for hav- ing provided, at a cost of over a million of dollars, a better education, mental and moral, for the neglected colored people, while the " poor whites" of Louisiana will thank Paul Toulane, now of Princeton, for his enormous outlay of two millions of dollars in founding schools for their improvement. To read of these munificent endow. 100 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY, t earnestly as the minister to the getting of knowledge-power, and his sterling Christian integrity will be, not a hindrance but a help to wealth. The wealthy men of our cities, as well as of our farms, are chiefly religious men. I asked a prominent business man of Chicago, who has been active in the very heart of its commercial life for sixteen years, to make a careful list of its one hundred richest men, and then tell me how many of them were church members. His report was, " 70 church members ; 24 attend church, and I think are not members ; 3 I consider dissipated, and 3 are Jews who are good citizens." Although wealth has dulled the piety of some of these, there is no question but that religious principles helped them as young men to save money and themselves. One of the wealthiest manufacturers of Philadelphia told me that the percentage of Christian men among the wealthy of that city was as good as in Chicago. Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden is authority for the statement that about three fourths of the business men in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, are actively engaged in Christian work. These three represent the country at large far better than New York does. Three fourths of the replies to the question, " Are you a church mem- ber ?" were in the affirmative. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." " There are in this loud whirling tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of the everlasting chime ; ments, and to think of the endless good they are designed to accom- plish, fairly makes one envy the rich man his opportunities of sending a new and higher life throbbing through thousands of bosoms. And yet, let us not envy him his good fortune, but rather praise God that he has it coupled with the disposition to use it so fruit- fully and so nobly in the interest of philanthropy, of truth, of goodness, and of all redemptive agencies. Christian at Work. - HONEST IN ORDER TO BE POOR ? 101 Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat."* The orbit of success is from prayer to work and from work to prayer, as Fra Angelico went from prayer to painting and from painting to prayer, and as I have known organists to go from oratory to organ. There are some Christians who do not believe the * 1 holy strain" of prayer at all helps "the busy feet." It does not when the prayer is so loaded with selfishness that it cannot fly higher than the pocket. A Christian broker of New York, who knew Daniel Drew intimately, told me this unpublished story of his effort to use prayer as a " bull " or *' bear" in the stock market. He was spending a Sunday in the country, and heard a sermon on tak- ing God as a partner in business. At the close of the service Mr. Drew said to a Christian business man who was with him, " Do you believe that God will really help a man in his busi- ness if he prays about it ?" " Yes," replied his friend. " I don't know about it," said Mr. Drew, but that night his friend heard him overhead in his room wrestling long and earnestly in prayer. It was like the pagan Greeks selfishly praying to Mercury for successful bargains. The next day Mr. Drew returned to New York early, and went into Erie stock opera- tions with a high hand, but lost heavily. A few weeks after he met his friend again, and said, " You remember that coun- try sermon* about prayer and profits?" "Yes." "Well, there's nothing on to it, Pve tried it. 71 As well might a child say it was no use to ask his father for anything because some selfish and needless request was refused. On the other side of the account stands the fact that Chicago business men, who in large numbers gave the hour from 11 to 12 to a business man's prayer- meeting, during Mr. Moody 's revival meetings in that * Keble. 103 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. city, testified that instead of doing less business they were able to do more, because of the mental quickening and rest of spirit which the meeting gave them. This fact is in harmony with that greater fact that the only nations which are up to the times in arts and industries are Christian nations, and nearly all the great inventions which are revolutionizing the business world were invented by men of prayer. All nations which have not been directly influenced by Christianity are behind the times in business matters, weaving by hand while Christian nations weave by swift-footed steam. REFORMERS. XI. MONEY AND MORALS. The city ! What is it but a vast amphitheatre, filled with racers, with charioteers, with eager competitors, surrounded by an unseen and awful array of witnesses ? And here, daily, the lists are opened, and men contend for success, for station, for power. " If a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive law- fully. ' ' CHAPIN. No statements as to the secrets of success are to be taken as more matter-of-fact than those which relate to character and the inner life. I believe our honored and wealthy men when they name in their replies, among the helps to their success, ' ' Love to God and man, ' ' ' ' Consecration of life to God, " ' ' An underlying motive to please God," " Prayer for direction, sup- port, and success," " Trusting in God to help me, and not trust- ing too much in others. ' ' One of the best-known manufacturers of our country says of his success, " My early connection with the Church did more than all else." And then "honesty," which is the only holiness in market dress, is mentioned in nearly all of the replies as absolutely essential to abiding suc- cess, even in this world. On the other hand, "bad company" and "bad habits," which are other names for the lack of religion, are star per- formers in the list of reasons for failure. Of Mr. Green, of Savannah, Ga., who recently died, full of years and full of honors, Dr. Prime, of the Observer, says this : ." To the young who questioned him as to the secret of success in life, I have heard him at various times assign three distinct reasons for his own : 106 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. " ' First, I was enabled to say No, when asked to join low company or frequent drinking-saloons. ' (Landing at Savannah as an English immigrant at the age of twenty-five, he was wel- comed by six young Englishmen, and asked, by way of hospi- tality, to take something to drink. He said, ' Yes, if I can choose my own drink ;' and, amid their sherry-cobblers and mint-juleps, he chose lemonade. This course he pursued, in spite of jeers and taunts, living to see five of those young men of position and capacity fill drunkards' graves.) " A second reason was * consideration for the poor ' (Psalm 41). He often said that when he came out from England to enter on a salary of six hundred dollars a year, he landed with one dollar in his pocket, and gave away half of it to a man poorer than himself, and the half he gave, not the half he kept, was the secret of his fortune. Giving is the father of getting. " The third reason was his observance of the fifth command- ment. Year by year he went over to see his old father in Eng' land, and to bestow comforts upon him. On the very last occasion of seeing him, the old man pressed him down upon his knees, and, in patriarchal fashion, invoked the blessing of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob upon him, closing with these words : ' As thou hast been a good son, so may God give thee good children, and it shall be well with thee now and forever.' " Who cannot see that religion is a mighty ally of economy, which is one of the essentials of a young man's success ? Vices cost more than virtues. A pew is cheaper than theatre tickets, and water or coffee than wine. Contributions for charity draw more lightly on the purse than the taxes of fast living. When a yonng man's Christianity keeps him from thinning out his body and his pocketbook by tobacco, the saving is still greater. Many a young smoker burns up in advance a fifty- thousand-dollar business. If you doubt it, reckon up the cost of your cigars per year, and then multiply it by forty and add the compound interest on each year's expense. MCW.BY AND MOEALS. 1"0? Religion is also more favorable to the development of a sound body, which is another element of success. Health helps to wealth, and religion, by its restraint of destroying pas- sions, helps to health. "Righteousness tendeth to life."* In recent visits to several prisons I found few gray-haired crim- inals. The officers told me this was not because the young criminals were led by punishment to reform, for very few did so, but because the victims of vice and crime " do not live out half their days. ' ' The grave comes to them before the gray. So true is this that life insurance examiners always feel the moral pulse, which is, of course, chiefly conserved by religion. Every one knows, or ought to know, that for nearly half a century now many of the best life assurance societies of Eng- land have insured moderate drinkers and total ' abstainers in separate sections, and that a bonus has been paid to the sections made up of total abstainers of seven, thirteen, seventeen, and in some cases of twenty-three per cent over that paid to the section of moderate drinkers, because abstainers live so much longer than moderate drinker s.\ Religion helps to business success by its quickening influence on the mind. The stimulation which education without relig- ion gives is apt to be checkmated by vice or selfishness. Of 1518 convicts in the Sing Sing State Prison in 1880, only 45 could not read, and only 70 could not write. In Auburn State Prison in the same year there were 14 college graduates, 25 of academies, 17 from high schools, 412 from common schools, and only 87 out of 897 without any education. In Clinton State Prison there were but 27 with no education, out of 247.J Evidently the mind needs moral education as well as intellect- ual to keep it from failure. Religion helps the mind, not only by quickening it, but also by quieting it. Contentment is not only better than wealth, but leads to it. Haste makes waste, especially haste to be rich. * See also Prov. 7 : 2 ; 10 : 27-30 ; 11 : 19 ; 19 : 23. f Joseph Cook's prelude of February 5th, 1883. j See also- Chapter I. ... . ,.',..-' 108 SUCCESSFUL MEH OF TO-DAY. The very fever of anxiety for wealth interferes with its acquisi- tion. Men who are in mad haste to get to the top of the ladder are pretty sure to fall to the bottom by some mis-step. Contentment, combined Avith wise ambition, carefully climbs to the top. The Christian man's mind is quieted by that won- derful bequest in our Father's last will and " Testament," "All things are yours." It is as if He had said, Your senses are delighted by the fragrance and beauty of the rich man's garden and the music that steals out from his palace, and if you are satisfied that he should have them, he can say no more ; indeed, your unselfish satisfaction is the deepest, for it is only the miser who enjoys only what he owns. That man is richest who can enjoy the luxuries and beauties around him without the vulgar idea of possession. In this deep sense, as well as the more literal one to which I have referred, the words of Christ are true, ' * Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Religion helps to success chiefly by fortifying integrity, which is a man's best " reserve stock." It is the business house that is built on this rock that stands fires and floods. How was it that so many of the great business houses of Chicago, when every dollar of their property was swept away by the great fire, were able at once to resume even wholesale business ? With what coin did penniless men buy their new stock ? With integrity. Their record was their revenue. A good name was in some cases literally worth as much as great riches. Their business biography in the mercantile agency, with its record that they always paid one hundred cents on the dollar, and paid promptly and dealt honorably and worked in- dustriously that biography was as good as a bank account. Character was their capital. That is, not Bible, but Bradshaw ; not Sunday-school morality, but Mercantile Agency truth. One who, like Job, loses his property but retains his integrity, has not 'Most all." It is like losing the frame from one of Raphael's pictures, but retaining the picture itself. One who has lost his good name is a pauper even if he dwells in a palace. MONEY AND MORALS. 109 The positive commercial value of integrity to win and to hold customers may be illustrated by an incident of the fur trade, of which duplicates might be given from every other trade. Indians can be made treacherous, but they can be honest, and who shall say how the dishonesty of others has led to their treachery ? They know when they are cheated, as our Government has found to its cost. An old trader, who had established himself at what happened to be a favorable locality among the northern Indians, tells a good story of his first trials with his red customers. Other traders had located in that same place before, but had not remained long. The Indians, who evidently wanted goods, and had money and furs, flocked about the store of the new trader, and examined his wares, but offered to buy nothing. Finally their chief, with a large number of his tribe visited him. " How do, John ?" said the chief, " show me goods. Ah ! I take that blanket for me and that calico for squaw three otter skins for blanket and one for calico. Ugh ! pay you hy'm by to-morrow." He received his goods and left. On the next day he returned with a large part of his band, his blanket well stuffed with skins of various kinds. " Now, John, I pay." And with this he drew an otter-skin from his blanket and laid it on the counter. Then he drew a second, a third, a fourth. A moment's hesi- tation, as though calculating, and he drew out a fifth skin, a very rich and rare one, and passed it over. " That's right, John." The trader instantly pushed back the last skin, say- ing, " You owe me but four. I only want my just dues." The chief refused to take it, and they passed it back and forth several times, each one asserting that it belonged to the other. At length the dusky chieftain appeared satisfied. He gave the trader a scrutinizing look, and then put the skin back into the blanket. Then he stepped to the door, and gave a yell, and cried to his followers : " Come ! Come and trade with the paleface John. He no cheat Indian. His heart big !" Then, turning to the trader, he said, " Supposing you take last skin I tell my people no trade with you. We drive off others ; 110; SUCCESSFUL- MEN OF TO-DAY. but now you be Indians' friend, and we be yours." Before dark the trader was waist deep in skins and loaded down with cash. He found that honesty had a commercial value with those Indians. ' * The lip of truth shall be established forever : but a lying tongue is but for a moment." Before the era of steam, men used to tow their boats wearily up the lower Ohio, or the Mississippi, with a long line. At niafht it was not always safe for them to fasten their boats on O J the bank while they slept, because there was danger from the wash of the underflowing current that they would find them- selves drifting and pulling a tree after them. Therefore they sought out well planted, solid, enduring trees, and tied to them, and the phrase became popular, "That man will do to tie to." That sort of men are sometimes found outside the church, men who were trained by Christian parents, but they are chiefly seen among the Christian " trees of righteousness" along the river of life. " The great want of this age is men. Men who are not for sale. Men who are honest, sound from centre to circumference, true to the heart's core. Men who will con- demn wrong in a friend or foe, in themselves as well as others. Men whose consciences are as steady as the needle to the pole. Men who will stand for the right if the heavens totter and the earth reel. Men who can tell the truth, and look the world and the devil right in the eye. Men that neither brag nor run. Men that neither flag nor flinch. Men who have courage without shouting to it. Men in whom the current of everlasting life runs still, deep, and strong. Men who do not cry nor cause their voices to be heard on the streets, but who will not fail nor be discouraged till judgment be set in the earth. Men who know their message, and tell it. Men who know their places, and fill them. Men who know their own business. Men who will not lie. Men who are not too lazy to work, nor too proud to be poor. Men who are willing to eat what they have earned, and wear what they have paid for. Those are the men to move the world." In proportion as men are like Christ, the industrious car- MONET AND MORALS. Ill penter and the generous philanthropist, will they meet that want. I believe religion helps a man in business also by direct blessings from God not that Job's " miserable comforters" were right in their theory that adversity is the outward sign of sin, and prosperity of goodness. If a good man's corn always prospered and the fields of his wicked neighbor were as regu- larly blighted, religion would be overrun with that sort of bum- mers that always join the victorious party to get the spoils. The fact that some Christian principles seem to be inconvenient in business life, and that they do not directly and always turn to gold, keeps off these insincere camp-followers, who are too shallow to see that nevertheless the path of the just is the path to success. Most of the suffering poor are the victims of vice. Most of the well-to-do are those who have been in a large de- gree loyal to the laws of God.* Some years ago, a country preacher who had been appointed chaplain of the prison at Sing Sing, clumsily began his work by patting a prisoner on the back and saying, ** Do you love the Lord ?" The convict replied sharply, " What do you take me for ? If I had loved the Lord I shouldn't be here." Most of those in the almshouses could say the same. Those who love the Lord do not dwell in prisons or often in poorhouses, but mostly in comfortable homes. In some way they get a hundredfold in this life, either of land or houses or children or influence or joy, and in the world to come life everlasting. * Prov. 10 : 3 ; 11 : 28, 31 ; 12 : 21 ; 13 : 6, 21 ; 14 : 11, 22. XII. THE BUSINESS MEN OF THE BIBLE. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy month ; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein : for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. JOSHUA 1 :8. RELIGION is especially an aid to success because the Bible is full of helpful hints to the man of business. All through its pages we see Religion walking in the market-place as the guide and helper of busy men. Business success and failure is one of its chief topics. At the very outset the Bible shows that Adam, the first farmer, failed because he had too much devil and too little religion in his business. The secret of Abraham's success as an honest emigrant is seen to be his integrity and avoidance of bad company, which last, together with a passion for fine real estate, made his nephew, " the Hon. Mr. Lot, of Sodom," a bankrupt. Lot allowed financial attractions to settle him in a bad neighbor- hood, and for a fine piece of land mortgaged the morals of his family, and lost both at last. " Abraham," it is said, " was a gentleman, but Jacob was a Jew." The latter made money by imitations, by false pretences, by a " corner" in pottage on Esau, and by tricks in stock-raising ; but he found as little comfort in his ill-gotten gains as his successors of to-day. Like some of the latter, he was continually afraid that some of those whom he had cheated would kill him. The Bible points us also to the bad bargain of Joseph's THE BUSINESS MEN OF THE BIBLE. 113 brethren in selling their brother to the Ishmaelites, and them- selves to future remorse for fifteen dollars. Twenty years afterward they bitterly recalled that transaction in prison, and said, " We are verily guilty concerning our brother." No bargain is a good one that is not pleasant to remember. " Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, it is the gall of asps within him."* Many a modern Joseph has been sold by his brethren through some of the advertisements in the papers that offer to fools a fortune for a few days or dollars. In Joseph as a man we see a model commissioner of agricult- ure, laying up store for unrainy days. In Exodus we are shown the wickedness of holding souls as property. The Bible books from Joshua to Job are a series of sermons on the secrets of success and failure, illustrated by the brief biographies of fifty rulers, all negatively or positively enforcing that text which is the key verse of all Old Testament history : " As long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper." In the heart of the Bible lies the business man's own book Proverbs. There is hardly a maxim of business success that was not suggested by it. The father who has in mind only the worldly success of his sons and daughters, and the merchant who wishes only to give the secret of temporal prosperity to his clerks and employes, cannot do a more appropriate thing than to give each of them the Book of Proverbs for their guid- ance a pocket edition for constant use.f Where can you find better mottoes for shops and stores and farms than are given in its pages ? ' ' The hand of the diligent shall bear rule. " ' ' The hand of the diligent maketh rich." "The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness. " " Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds." "He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread." * Bead Job 20 : 12, etc. ; Prov. 20 : 17. f American Bible Society, Bible House, N. Y., issue sucK an edition at 4 cents each. 114 SUCCESSFUL MEX OF TO-BAT. 4 ' Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? He shall stand before kings : he shall not stand before mean men." The sluggard, the idler, and the spendthrift find no hiding- place amid its chapters. "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand." ** As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him." Like the sharp clear ring of the rising bell sounds that verse : " Love not sleep lest thou come to povert} r : open thine eyes and thou shalt be satisfied with bread."* This Book of Proverbs, as a guide to industry, surpasses all other collections of maxims. The Book of Ecclesiastes shows us how to prevent secular success from producing moral failure, as it did in the case of Solomon. Several of my correspondents enumerate among the causes of failure, " success." It takes a strong man to bear success. Weak men are led by it to vices which destroy prop- erty or character, or both. The keeper of a toll-gate near a cemetery says that business is now " very good" with him, and that funerals are much more numerous in times of national prosperity than in " hard times." As failure often leads to success, success often leads to failure. Hon. William E. Dodge, in the recent quarter-centennial of the Fulton Street Prayer-meeting, said that the business men of New York were " really in more danger inthe present year of unparalleled pros- perity (1882), when the crops of the world are larger than they have ever been before, than they were in the hard times of 1857, in which the prayer-meeting originated." " Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. " " Before I was afflicted, I went astray." " Hear the conclusion of the whole matter," says Ecclesi- astes (that is, Solomon, who had enjoyed all forms of worldly success and found them insufficient for the aching void in his heart that was made for God's Spirit to fill) : " Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." * Bead Prov. 10 : 4, 5 ; 11 : 20, 29 ; 12 : 11, 22, 24 ; 13 : 4, 18 ; 20 : 4, 13-16 ; 21 : 6 ; 22 : 4, 29 ; 27 : 23 ; 29 : 19. THE BUSINESS MEtf OF THE BIBLE. 115 The prophetic books have much to say to the robber-nations of those times about the curse of stolen lands. Then in the Gospels, more than half of Christ's parables are about business life, and have their first and direct application there. Matthew is the book of God's reckonings with men, written by a converted tax collector. It is a sermon on the text, " The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth : much more the wicked and the sinner." (Romans is also a book of reckoning God's reckoning with us in grace.) Of nothing did Christ have more to say, outside of personal salvation, than of the right use of money. He uttered his woes of warn. ing against the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees of the temple, but the only ones he whipped out of it, as too wicked to endure, were the traders. The Book of Acts is full of applications of God's law to money matters the generous giving of the early Church to their poor until there was none among them that lacked ; the indirect suicide of Ananias and his wife, who poisoned them- selves with " the root of all kinds of evil ;" Paul making tents and sermons at the same time, and acting as the heroic An- thony Comstock of his age in exposing and suppressing frauds, such as the sorcerer of Cyprus, the sorcerer of Philippi, the idol-makers and corrupting publishers of Ephesus. Paul's pathway as a conqueror was marked by bonfires of bad books, and mobs indignant that the hope of corrupt gains was gone. The Epistles, including Revelation, are also largely devoted to displacing in human hearts the root of all kinds of evil, by planting there the love of man, which is the root of all kinds of goodness. That man then is a true successor to the apostles who seeks to import more of religious principles into modern business life. XIII. "CAN BUSINESS BE CONDUCTED SUCCESSFULLY ON STRICT CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES?" It has been the plan of my life to follow my convictions at what- ever personal cost to myself. GABFTELD. THAT an importation of principles into trade is greatly needed is significantly shown by the fact that the Congrega- tional Club of New York recently and seriously discussed the question, " Can business be conducted successfully on strict Christian principles ?" The question reminds me of a young man who proposed to conduct his business in that way in New York City. He was assured by an old merchant that there was no city in the land where he would have so little competition in that line. The conclusion of the debate was that it was practicable to conduct business on Christian principles, but very hard work.* * The true story of long-ago experience in a high-toned Boston house might have been told, but was not, to show how one youth early learned the art of doing a successful business on principles of a certain sort. The head of the house was a strenuous defender and shining example of the piety that keeps up one's lofty self- respect. He held that a man is not going to be saved by what he be- lieves or experiences, but by the honest and honorable things he does. Of all things he scouted lying. Even the second in command was one day reprimanded before all hands, and nearly lost his place, for swerving a little from the straight line to effect a sale. Not long after, a job lot of heavy, durable unbleached shirtings was found at a very low price, and an unusually large stock was laid in. They were offered at eight cents a yard, and were worth more money. The good Bostonians read the advertisements, looked at the open bales PRINCIPLES IN" BUSINESS. 117 t have found not a few men who frankly declared it was harder work than they were willing to uridertake. A member of a Baptist church in Miami County, Itid., while giving his experience not long ago, said : " Brethren, I've been a tryin' this nigh on to forty years to serve the Lord and get rich both at onct, and I tell yer it's mighty hard sleddin'." An English correspondent states that a paper was read before the Barnet Y. M, C. A. on " Conventional Falsehoods," which led to a discussion as to whether, under any circumstances, evasion, deceit, or absolute untruth, were morally defensible. Eight voted on the affirmative and six on the negative side, while a large number abstained from voting. This, if correct, would indicate that the Barnet Association should for the pres- ent eliminate the word " Christian" from its title. A young man who works in a large mill said to a Christian worker who had spoken to him about religion, " That's all very well, but in the factories you could not be a Christian." Others have expressed the opinion that one cannot be a Chris- tian in the fruit business, in the livery business, in the profes- sion of law, etc. I don't believe that is true in any legitimate business. If a man is in any other kind, such as trading in filling the floor, but didn't buy. Scarcely a piece was sold, and the boys said, " The old man is stuck on that lot." High tides at that time had flooded many cellars in the lower parts of the city where this store was not and *' damaged goods" were plenty at low prices. A few days later, the high-toned old man sent two of the boys to buy a washtub, had them take it to the cellar, fill it with water, pass the pieces of shirting slowly through the bath, and pile them again on the bale cloths on the salesroom floor. Next morning's papers flamed with advertisements of extra heavy brown shirting, " wet in the cel- lar," to be sold by the piece, uncut, at (the Yankee) sixpence a yard eight and one third cents. And how they did sell ! The boys were kept busy below in supplying the salesmen, till not a piece was left. The goods " wet in the cellar" brought a handsome advance on the price asked for them when dry ; the buyers got good bargains, and the seller (who scorned to tell a lie) made a satisfactory profit by only acting one. Wasn't that a successful business done on princi- -A. H. C. 118 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. vices by a saloon or a sporting paper, he had butter promote himself into the position of an honest scavenger, with a dollar a day of clean money, than get ten times as much as the price of blood. Not only in the Bible, but in many such disgraceful careers as Tweed's and James Fisk's, God has written, "Riches of wickedness profit nothing. " Such gains bring pains. Even if they make rich, they add sorrow with it. A blood stain is )n all the gold won by selling alcoholic or literary incitements to vice and crime. A curse is on the bottles and sensational story papers of the devil's shop-windows, and also on selling cigar- ettes to growing boys. Whether it is right or not to sell a thing as injurious as tobacco to anybody, it is certainly wicked to sell it to boys, and every tobacco dealer who does this may fairly be counted with Joseph's brethren and Pharaoh and Herod among boy-destroyers, who slaughter the innocents. No true man will engage in any business on which he cannot ask God's blessing that it may be a blessing to the community. Mr. Moody, speaking in a Scottish church, whose steeple had been given by a rich distiller, denounced the whole liquor busi- ness ; whereupon the distiller wrote him a note asking his objections. The reply was characteristic of the common -sense evangelist : " We are commanded, whatever we do, whether we eat or drink, to do it to the glory of God. If you can distil a barrel of whiskey and then kneel over it and say, * Oh God, bless this whiskey, and send it forth to be a blessing to thy name,' all right." But in every proper business a man can be a true Christian and succeed. Sin is not the winning horse in the long run, even in the livery business. I know of livery men who keep the Sabbath and also keep their hearts from animalism, and yet prosper even in money matters. As of old, they put " holiness on the bells of horses," perhaps they may be able, in the good time coming, as Kentucky's Buford sought to do, to sanctify horse-racing, after divorcing it from gambling. No fruit dealer can make me believe that honest measure CHRISTIAN" PRINCIPLES IN BUSINESS. and fruit as good at the bottom as the top is not the best policy in the end. Even a lawyer may refuse to aid knaves to escape from justice and not die in the poorhouse. In all these cases it does not lessen the guilt of dishonesty or disobedience that one's name is not on the church book. God expects every man to do his duty. Church membership does not one whit increase his duties, but helps him to perform them. Alas that so many in the Church and out of it do many things of whose Tightness they are in doubt ! When there is suspense of conscience there ought to be suspense of action. God and conscience should be given the benefit of the doubt. Men talk of being " average honest," which means dishonest. They speak of doing " about right." About right is all wrong. Try it in a sum of long division by making a mistake on the first figure of the quotient. . " Please, father, is it wrong to go pleasuring on the Lord's day ? My teacher says it is." " Why, child, perhaps it is not exactly right." 11 Then it is wrong, isn't it, father ?" " Oh, I don't know that, if it is only once in a while." " Father, you know how fond I am of sums ?" " Yes, John, I'm glad you are. I want you to do them well, and be quick and clever at figures ; but why do you talk of sums just now ?" " Because, father, if there is one little figure put wrong in a sum it makes it all wrong, however large the amount is." " To be Hire, child, it does." " Then, father, don't you think that if God's day is put wrong now and then, it makes it all wrong ?" 11 Put wrong, child how ?" " I mean, father, put to a wrong use." " That brings it very close," said the father, as if speaking to himself, and then he added : " John, it is wrong to break God's holy Sabbath. He has forbidden it, and your teacher was quite right. We will hereafter ' remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' " 120 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAT. There are no evangelists who could do so much for a reviva. as business men can do by courageous loyalty to religion in business matters. It was proposed to the Duke of Wellington to purchase a certain farm in the neighborhood of his estate at Strath ft* el d- saye. Ee assented. When the transfer was completed, his steward, who had made the purchase, congratulated him upon having made a great bargain, as the seller was in difficulties, and forced to part with his farm. " What do you mean by a bargain ?" said the duke. The steward replied, " It was valued at 5500, and we got it for 4000. " " In that case, " said the duke, " you will please to carry the extra 1500 to the late owner, and never talk to me of cheap land again. ' ' An unfair bargain and a Bible don't mate well as a span. You can't drive both along the same road. Christians whose religion is not shown by their Monday bargains as well as their Sunday songs are counterfeits. " Religion is good for nothing one day in the week unless it is good for all the seven." Christianity is not a Sabbatic spring that flows only one seventh of the time. God doesn't split up our lives into slices and say, if In this church building you must obey God, but in yonder store it doesn't matter if the devil is king. On this Sunday you must mind the Bible, but to-morrow you may sell stale poultry as fresh, and pile inferior fruit upon the false bottoms of your fruit baskets, or help knaves out of jail by law quibbles. By and by if you join the church, all these will be wrong. Such men will not do to tie to. You might as well anchor a ship to a floating log. But there are thousands of true Christian men in our busy marts, who substitute trust in truth for tricks of trade. They do not, like Esau, profane their manhood, and sell their birth- right of a good name for the pottage of immediate gratification. They are longer in winning money than some of the godless Esaus of to-day, but they also keep it longer. CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES a' BUSINESS. 121 Religion does get into business and let its light shine there in cases not a few. One of those incidents on which Diogenes would have de- lighted to turn his lighted lantern happened recently at Milford, Mass. Mr. Hiram A. Goodrich, a leading grocer, who was selling out his stock preparatory to leaving town, in looking over his old accounts found that when he bought his stand of Mr. Samuel Rockwood, a mistake of forty-six dollars had been made in his favor in carrying out the price of some flour. The mistake was made fifteen years ago by the man who took an inventory of the stock, but Mr. Goodrich figured up the inter- est, and found that with the original amount he owed Mr. Rockwood about one hundred and fifty dollars. This was ten- dered him, but Mr. Rockwood would accept only the principal. Such a case of honesty should be put on record by people who are continually lamenting the deterioration of morals. The world is not growing worse, though it is. far from the best. The former times were not better than these, but " there are a good many hard days' work between this and the millennium." The Plymouth Congregational Church, of Cleveland, Ohio, recently built themselves a beautiful church edifice. The con- tractor drew the money due for work done, and instead of paying his workmen, left for parts unknown, carrying the funds with him. These workmen had not a shadow of a claim upon the trustees, and expected nothing from them. But thirteen hundred dollars were due them from the absconded contractor, and they needed the money. The pastor, Rev. Mr. Collins, said to his people : " True, we do not owe these men a farthing ; still, let us make an effort to give them what their dishonest employer owes them, and never let it be said that unrequited toil went into the rearing of this temple of the Most High. ' ' And all the people said, Amen. The laborers went that night to their homes rejoicing, carrying their lost and found pieces of silver with them. The genuineness of the burglar's conversion, who placed his entire " kit" in Jerry McAuley's hands, at his Cremorne Mis- 122 SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. sion recently, is sufficiently well attested, and is matched by the painter who declared in a prayer-meeting that he knew he was converted, " for now," ho said, " I always paint the tops of the doors ;" and also by the house- servant, whose conversion made her sweep under the mats. One day, when the subject under consideration in a prayer-meeting was the " Practical effect of religion in daily life," a man got up and said, " I can't say much about it, but I know that since I was converted I put better work into my shoes than I did before. 7 ' During the Moody meetings in Boston a lady said to a Boston storekeeper, " Is this real English lace ?" " It was, madam, previous to the tabernacle meetings, but it isn't now : it's simply imitation." An English woman came into one of Mr. Moody 's meetings, and four or five bottles of wine came up before her soul. She said, " I stole them from my master, and he is dead." Mr. Moody said, "Has he no heirs?" " Yes, he has a son." She was advised to give the value of the wine to his son. She took a $25 note to him, and insisted on his taking it. Then she came back telling what light and praise filled her heart. Another man gave about $1500 resti- tution-money before he could receive Christ. Beethoven, when he had completed one of his grand musical compositions, was accustomed to test it on an old harpsichord, lest a more perfect instrument might flatter it or hide its defects. The old harpsichord on which to test our religious life, our new song, is the market-place. A man, like muddy water, may be very peaceful when he is quietly " settled," not shaken up by temptation. That proves nothing about his religious life. But if a man's patience and peace and princi- ples can stand the test of business his religion is genuine, and will " Make life, death, and the vast forever, One grand, sweet song." " It is laughable to see one hunting high and low for his spectacles when they have been only shoved up over his fore- head. But it is not laughable to see Christians hunting for CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES IN BUSINESS. 123 what they call opportunities to honor God, while overlooking such opportunities which they carry with them wherever they go. A slovenly carpenter was once heard at a weekly prayer- meeting to pray with great fervency for the spread of Christ's cause a cause which he disgraced and hindered in his sphere every time he stood at his work-bench. When he ended his prayer, a hearty ' Amen !' came from a servant who put her mistress out of temper a hundred times a day by her careless- ness. A clerk also was there, who, although he taught a class in the mission-school on Sundays, was always late at his employer's store week-days. He whispered ' Amen ! ' too and meant it, so far as he knew himself. A lady hearer, as she listened, resolved to join the church missionary society, and then wen* home and found unreasonable fault with her cook. And others also felt warmed to do something for Christ, who never seemed to have thought that religion, like charity, begins at home. The mechanic who is powerful in class-meeting and weak at his trade is no credit to the cause he professes. The servant who drops tears feelingly at religious services and drops dishes unfeelingly in the kitchen has her tenderness altogether too much on one side. And it is a poor kind of religion which seeks opportunities to set others straight, but overlooks its own crookedness. ' ' * " I once read a story f of a holy man, some say it was St. Anthony, which had been a long season in the wilderness, eating nor drinking nothing but bread and water ; at length he thought himself so holy that there should be nobody like unto him. Therefore he desired of God to know who should be his fellow in heaven. God made him answer, and com- manded him to go to Alexandria ; there he should find a cob- bler which should be his fellow in heaven. So he went thither and sought him out, and fell acquainted with him, and tarried with him three or four days to see his conversation [i.e., in the * Sunday-School Times. f Latimer, fifth sermon on Lord's Prayer, 1552. 124 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. sense of Heb. 12 : 7, ' manner of life ']. In the morning his wife and he [the cobbler] prayed together, then they went to their business, he in his shop, and she about her housewifery. At dinner-time they had bread and cheese, wherewith they were well content, and took it thankfully. Their children were well taught to feare God, and to say their pater noster [the Lord's Prayer], and the Creede, and the Ten Commandments, and so he spent his time in doing his duty truely. I warrent you [this is a side-winder of practical application] he did not so many false stitches as cobblers doe now adayes. St. Anthony perceiving that, came to the knowledge of himself, and layed away all pride and presumption." The most devout of medi- tative Christians may find his peer in piety in the busy marts of trade. No Christian should for a moment fall into the monkish mistake that he must retreat into the devil's market- place of idleness before his piety can be fully developed. Devotion and action God has joined together, and let no man put them asunder. In Christ's miracles this wedding of faith and works is often pictured. It is said of Peter's mother-in- law, "The fever left her, and she ministered unto them." After healing, housekeeping (Mark 1 : 31). So when Jairus's daughter was raised to life Christ " commanded that some- thing should be given her to eat" (Mark 6 : 43).* Many would sympathize with the remark of the Duke of Alva when he was asked by the King of France if he had ob- served the eclipses that had just been occurring. " No, / have so much business on earth that I have no time to look up to heaven." Both may be united, the working and the uplooking, as in the case of Moses, who was a Gladstone in the multiplicity of his work the oversight of the temporal and spiritual interests of millions of people. The blending of his earthly and heavenly business are thus described : " He endured as seeing the invis- ible." We all have time for whatever we feel must be done. The time is here. The only question is, What shall we do with it ? * See also Acts 9 : 34. CHRISTIAN" PRINCIPLES IN BUSINESS. 125 Some want all the time for themselves. Some share it with their beloved ones. Some devote a portion of it to the needy. " Blessed are they," says Thomas & Kempis, " who are glad to have time to spare for God, and who shake off all worldly hindrances." As the water drops of the storm-clouds are transfigured by the sunlight into rainbows, so the lowliest work is transfigured by thoughts of God shining through it. So it was with the old negro washerwoman who sang, as she climbed the stairs wearily at night after her hardest day, " One more day's work for Jesus." So it was with the Christian child in the mission Sunday-school, who was asked, " What are you doing for Jesus?" and replied, "I scrubs." It is especially to hired laborers that it is said, ** Whatsoever ye do, work heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men, for ye serve the Lord Christ." With Carlyle, work, whether of devising brain or helping hand, is the escape from evil ; with Ruskin it is the doorway of good. There was sound philosophy and true religion in the negro's rebuke to his lazy associate, ** Do you expect to go to Heaven? Then take hold and lift." There is small chance of a lazy or idle man entering there. If you will go to the banks of a little stream and watch the flies that come to bathe in it, you will notice that they plunge their bodies in the water but keep their wings above it, and after swimming about a little while they fly away with their wings unwet through the sunny air. So when we are immersed in the cares of the world, let us keep the wings of our faith and love above them, that with these unclogged we may often fly in thought to heaven. Surely Christ is fitted to be the business man's helper and adviser. Note well the morning when the unsuccessful fisher- man took his advice as to casting their nets and came to the shore with an unusual catch of fish. Through the power of prayer the same Christ can help us in business to-day. XIV. COUNTERFEIT SUCCESS. Tis only noble to be good. TENNYSON. " To win and to wear, To have and to hold, Is the burden of dream and of prayer, The hope of the young And the hope of the old, The prize of the strong and the fair. All dream of some guerdon life's labor to bless, All winning that guerdon have named it SUCCESS."* BUT it is often a false name. The accomplishment of one's purpose is not necessarily success. It is sometimes the worst kind of failure, as in the case of Ahab, who obtained the real estate of Naboth which he wished for, but at the cost of his honor. Many another has won a selfish gratification of appe- tite or covetousness by sacrificing his purity or generosity. Achieving one's wish, with more loss than profit, is surely not success. If wishes were horses, beggars would often ride to ruin. " Success to humbug," says a French proverb. But humbug is always failure. The moral loss exceeds the money gain, and " leaves one poor indeed." On the other hand, to fail of one's aim may be a prelude of true success, as when Peter Cooper lost ten dollars in gambling and was forever cured of it at the very beginning of his career, and as in the case of Judge Tourgee, the author of u A Fool's Errand," whose failure as a legal reconstructionist led to his * Kev. D. H. Ela, D.D. COUNTERFEIT SUCCESS. 127 success as a reconstruction author. In a letter to me he attributes his success, " such as it is," chiefly to " an aptitude for folly. ' ' But it takes something more than folly to organize defeat into victory, to build success upon failure, as he has done. Men worship success, but oftener in false images of it than in the reality. True success has been as much misrepresented as the true God. The word success is as often misapplied as liberty. Oh, Success, how many crimes have been committed in thy name ! A man obtains thousands or millions of dollars by legal or illegal thieving, and society, instead of sending him to prison, receives him into its parlors. Men bow low when he passes, as in the fable the people bowed to the golden idols that were strapped on the back of a donkey, who was ass enough to swell with pride in the thought that all this rever- ence was for him. Mere wealth is no more success than fools' gold is real gold. Collaterals do not take the place of character. Many successful men, like Agassiz, " have no time to make money." " Wis- dom is better than rubies." * It is not success for a man to turn his heart into a money-vault by driving out all his nobler sentiments. It is not success to win wealth by such means that the winner is always fearing the pistol-shot of revenge. For one to be the richest man in a State, but so bankrupt of refine- ment that he finds his pleasures in beastly walking-matches and horse-races, no more constitutes success than a jewel in a swine's snout. Indeed, if we believed in Darwinism it would not be hard to trace the pedigree of those who keep* for them- selves millions more of money than they can use, even on the costliest food and clothes millions more than they can safely or justly leave to their children, while thousands are suffering with hunger and cold and ignorance and sin all over the world, for lack of that very money. These richest men will not even cease to grasp for more. * The sea cries for water." Just here we see the failure of * Bead Prov. 3 : 13-14 ; 8 : 11, 18-21. 128 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. many rich men, who in seeking money as a good servant have really won a despotic taskmaster. Instead of having money, money has them. Wealth has proved to them a man-stealer. It has kidnapped their manhood. Slavery is not success. There is need of Patience on the monuments that glorify Dives. There is no virtue in being a Lazarus. Poverty is not a pass- port to heaven, nor wealth the key to hell. Christ's parable means that it is better to be one of God's rich poor than one of the devil's poor rich. But it is better still to be a good Dives, rich for both worlds, like Abraham and Job. But " riches without wisdom are food without salt !" The man who is so mismanaging his life that when he passes into the other world, where all save " a handbreadth" of his existence is to be spent; he will leave all he has and enter there a bankrupt, with no treasure laid up in heaven, is not a success, even though he may be a millionaire. I make no crusade against wealth in itself. The lever that was to move the world we find to be a lever of gold, and the place which Archimedes could not find on which to place it is the Rock of Ages. We would not, then, condemn wealth, but convert it to the truth. We would not destroy it, but employ it for humanity. Christ did not condemn those who sold oxen and sheep and doves because they were merchants, but because they made his Father's house " a house of merchandise" and " a den of thieves." Consecrated talents of gold as well as of genius are blessed by the Saviour's words and win the applause of Heaven's" Well done." But the man who puts his trust in gold and deposits his heart in the bank, and thinks money means success, is like the starving traveller in the desert, who, seeing a bag in the dis- tance, found in it, instead of food which he sought, nothing but gold, and flung it from him in disappointment, and died for want of something that could save his life. The soul will starve if gold alone administers to its needs. Better to be a man than merely a millionaire. Better to have a head and heart than merely house and lands. Success COUNTERFEIT SUCCESS. 129 in the sense of satisfaction is not found even in palaces of wealth, if Christ does not dwell with us there. Worldly men are only satisfied with a little more than they have. " He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver." Columbus and his followers, when they had landed on this continent, at once asked the Indians for the land of gold, of which they long had dreamed. They were pointed over the mountains, and when they had crossed them they were pointed beyond yet other mountains, and so day after day they climbed the hills in vain. " So," says Irving, u the land of gold is ever beyond the mountains." As young men especially, we are apt to think that the cata- logue of happiness and success is all written on the back of bank-bills, and some are willing to coin their hearts to increase their wealth. You look upon the rich man as the incarnation of satisfaction, the embodiment of success, but happiness is the gift of God and cannot be purchased with money. The man who dies in the midst of bank-books, unless his treasure and his heart are in Heaven, really dies poor, for he goes to the other world bankrupt, taking nothing with him, not even a hope. Men whisper, "How much did he leave?" One answers, " A. million." Another says, "He left two mill- ions." But God and angels answer more truly, " He left all he had." Wealth consecrated to the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is twice blest ; the poor rise up to call it blessed, and it has the blessing of the Lord, which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow with it ; but gold without God, and bank- notes which have not beneath their rustle the throbbing of a Christian heart, are like a millstone hanged about the soul to sink it in the depths of despair. That man who walks with a merry song to his work in the morning with his dinner-pail in his hand, and walks back at night when his work is done with happy heart and an approv- ing conscience, has attained success more certainly than the man who rides in his carriage to his bank and comes back 130 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. again with a discontented heart and a reproving conscience. He who loses his character in winning money has lost more than he has gained, and is therefore not a success. Another man steals an office, or receives one that was stolen for him, trying to forget that the partaker is as bad as the thief. The robes of office cover his wrong, and people bow before his political power. They mistake Satanic smartness for success. Well said a prominent Englishman, who was travelling in our country, " That word * smart ' will break America's back yet." It will, unless we break its back. The man who wins office by sacrificing honor is no more successful than Gehazi, who won money by the loss of health and truth. " The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's a man for a' that." That man is not a success who gives the gold for the stamp. Nor is the achievement of great reputation in the world of art and literature a proof of success. I am reminded of snake- worship when I read of the attentions paid to such crawling things as Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde, who dip their pens in the sewers of vice and gild obscenity with rhythm. No degree of skill or fame can make such men a success. Their losses are more than their gains. How often fame is bought too dear, as in the case of the warrior who fights not for native land but for personal glory, as described by Richelieu : " From rank showers of blood And the red light of blazing roofs You build the rainbow, Glory, And to shuddering conscience cry, Lo ! the bridge to heaven ! " That reminds us of the other lines : " The drying of a single tear has more Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore." Parhassius, the painter, racking a slave to death in order that he may get a true model of death-agony for the picture COUNTERFEIT SUCCESS. 131 which he expects will make him famous, is himself an abject slave to fame as he cries, "I'd rack thee though I knew a thousand lives were perishing in thine ; What were ten thousand to a fame like mine ?" Such fame is not success, but only a leprous Naaman covered with robes of distinction. No one is successful who wins fame by paying more than it is worth. Such an one is a loser, and therefore a failure. Those who are dazzled with the seeming success of godless men, who have wealth or office or literary eminence, would do well to listen to their wails over their bankruptcy of heart and soul, as found so abundantly in the pages of biography. David Hume, the infidel historian, in a work on " Human Nature," says : " I seem affrighted and confounded with the solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When I look abroad, on every side I see dispute, contradiction, and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. Where am I ? From what cause do I derive my existence ? To what condition shall I return ? I am confounded with these questions. I begin to fancy myself in a most deplorable condition environed with the deepest darkness on every side." Voltaire, another infidel who drank deeply from the cup of literary fame, said : " The world abounds with wonders, and also with victims. In man is more wretchedness than in all other animals put together. Man loves life, yet he knows he must die ; spends his existence in diffusing the miseries which he has suffered cutting the throats of his fellow-creatures for pay, cheating and being cheated. The bulk of mankind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches, equally criminal, equally unfortunate. I wish I had never been born." Boswell gives us these dying messages of Dr. Johnson : " The approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to think of that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look 132 SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. round and round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and fancy that he who has lived to-day may live to- morrow. ' ' The infidel Buckingham, in a letter to Barrow from his death-bed, did not talk like a successful man, although he had wealth and rank and fame : " The world and I may shake hands, for I dare affirm that we are heartily weary of each other. What a prodigal I have been of the most valuable of all possessions time ! I have squandered it away with a per- suasion it was lasting, and now when a few days would be worth a hecatomb of worlds, I cannot flatter myself with a prospect of a half-dozen hours." The accomplished Chesterfield, counting over his gains and losses in the darkness of approaching death, did not find him- self successful : ** I have been under the powers and influences of all the pleasures of this world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their real value, which, in truth, is very low. I look upon all that is past as one of those romantic dreams that opium commonly occasions, and I do by no means desire to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive dream. ' ' And who has not read the laments of the bankrupt heart of Byron, who, despite his rank and wealth and fame, was a failure : " Nay, for myself, so dark my fate Through every turn of life hath been, Man and the world so much I hate, I care not when I quit the scene. " My days are in the yellow leaf, The flowers and fruit of love are gone The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone." Theodore Hook made all nations laugh while he was living, and yet on a certain day, when in the midst of his revelry he caught a glimpse of his own face and his own apparel in the mirror, he said, ** That is true. I look just as I am lost, COUNTERFEIT SUCCESS. 133 body, mind, soul and estate lost." And so it was with Shenstone. He sat down amid all the beauty of his garden and wrung his hands and said, " I have lost my way to happi- ness ; I am frantic ; I hate everything ; I hate myself as a mad- man ought to." Madame Maintenon, in a letter to a friend, writes as follows : " Why cannot I give you my experience ? Why cannot I make you sensible of that uneasiness which preys upon the great, and the difficulty they labor under to employ their time ? Do you not see that I am dying with melancholy, in the height of fortune which once my imagination could scarce have conceived ? I have been young and beautiful, have had a high relish of pleasures, and have been the universal object of love. In a more advanced age I spent years in intellectual pleasures. I have at least risen to favor, but I protest that every one of these conditions leaves in the mind a dismal vacuity. ' ' And the famous Lacordaire, of Paris, said, at last : ' ' I am feeble, discouraged solitary in the midst of 800,000 men. I feel little attachment to existence ; my imagination has taken the color out of it. I am satiated of all, without having tasted anything. If you only knew how sad I am becoming ! I love Sorrow, and live much with her. They speak to me of literary fame and public employment. I have occasionally certain desires that way ; but, frankly, I despise fame, and can scarcely conceive why people should take so much trouble to run after such a little fool. Where is the soul that shall under- stand mine ?' ' The trouble in all these sad cases was that mere wealth or office or fame were mistaken for success, and found at last to be counterfeits. Winning these at the cost of purity and faith, more was lost than gained. Real success was sacrificed to win its imitation. The dying moments of these famous people were thus filled with chagrin of having cheated them- selves by their bad bargains, paying faith for fame, religion for riches, honor for office. All these things are desirable as 134 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. elements of power, but it is not success to buy them thus too dear. " The world has nothing left to give, It has no new, no pure delight ; Oh, try the life which Christians live ; Thou wouldst be saved why not to-night?" As men turn from idols to the living God, let us turn from these false images of success to true ones. THE rich man's wealth is his strong city. SOLOMON. The world is his who has money to go over it. EMEBSON. Eeason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words health, peace, and competence. POPE. He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends. SHAKESPEARE. The great satisfaction coming from wealth is a consciousness of power. Besides this, it opens up the way to a higher delight, meet- ing one's desires for education and art. The crowning joy of wealth is in the service of society and of mankind. " It is more blessed to give than to receive." K. HEBEK NEWTON. The best way to settle the quarrel between capital and labor is by allopathic doses of Peter-Cooperism. TALMAGE. They should own who can administer ; not they who hoard and conceal. He is rich in whom the people are rich, and he is poor in whom the people are poor : and how to give all access to the master- pieces of art and nature is the problem of civilization. EMEKSON. The great privilege of possession is the right to bestow. GEOEGE MACDONALD. Be charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them ; and think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent. Diffuse thy beneficence early and while thy treasures call thee master ; there may be an atropos of thy fortunes before that of thy life, and thy wealth be cut off before that hour when all men shall be poor. SIB THOMAS BKOWNE. " Thou hadst an industry in doing good, Restless as his who sweats and toils for food." COWPEB. I do not think that human nature lays one under a higher stress of temptation through riches than it does through poverty. I know that riches make men proud. Is there no pride among the poor ? I know that rich men are self-seeking and vain. Are poor people free from this ? I know that rich men may be envious of those in their company, and have ambition to excel each other in mere outward display of riches and amassing the riches themselves. Is there no avaricious desire among the poor ? no discontent ? no coarse, envious squabbles ? I tell you it is not riches, and it is not poverty it is human nature that lies back of both of them that is dangerous, and that is the trouble. HENRY WARD BEECHEB. XV. WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEN SAY OF SUCCESS. WHAT is success ? Christ beautifully defines it in commending Mary of Beth- any : "She hath done what she could." Success is coming up to the level of our best. It is making the most of our abilities and opportunities. It is the best I am blossoming into the best I can do the firstlings of the heart becoming the firstlings of the hand. To measure success by comparing ourselves among ourselves is not wise. The frog is not called to swell himself into an ox, nor to do the work of an ox. A preacher's success is not to be measured in comparison with other men of differing age and talents, but in comparison with his own capacity. We should ask, What is the level of my best, and how near do I come to it ? So, in every department of life, we are to ask, not, How does that man compare with the greatest man in his line ? but, How near does he come to making the most of himself and of his opportunities ? Each man should ask himself, How does what I am compare with what I might be ? Success is doing your best every day. One is not to excuse himself because he has but one talent. To double that is as surely success in the God's-eye view as for another, whose nat- ural abilities and opportunities are five times as good, to carry his talents up to ten. How few come up to the level of their best, and thus win true success ! * ' The land of promise, ' ' as deeded by God to Abra- ham and Moses, was three times as large as the land possessed by the Israelites in the days of Joshua. They did not by two 138 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. thirds come up to the level of their best. So, what you might be is three times as large as what you are. In Solomon's day all the land of promise was possessed. In the * * greater than Solomon" we see a man in whose life what was corresponded to what should be. In our lives, by His divine help, what is may at least closely approach what might be. When Francis Joseph Campbell, a blind man, becomes a dis- tinguished musician and mathematician and a great philanthro- pist, we get a hint of what it means to make the most of our capacities and opportunities. Many another blind person would be content to be a helpless object of charity for life. When he was complimented as " a very clever man," his noble wife replied, " No, he is not cleverer than other men. But the difference between him and all other people I know is this he makes use of all his opportunities.'' 1 In most of our lives much of our possibilities is yet to be possessed. Leaving the sad " it might have been," let us reach forward to what may be and what should be in our lives. If God calls you to preach, do your best. That is success, even if you are never heard of outside of a little country parish. If you are called as God's stewards to acquire money -power instead of mental power, to use for the good of humanity, do your best in that. " Make all you can honestly ; Save all you can prudently ; Give all you can possibly."* " The good, like clouds, receive only to give away." " The riches of the good are like streams turaed into a rice- field." If God has called you to make money, your success is not to be measured by the richest good man you know, but by your own opportunities. Doing your best is success. So, in public service, a good mayor is more successful than a bad President. Every officer who does his best is a success. The quiet mother who is never heard of outside of her home and Sunday-school * Mottoes of John Wesley. WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEtf SAY OF SUCCESS. 139 claas may be on God's list of successes, although everything in her realm seems to consist of trifles. " Little things are little things, but to do little things faithfully is a great thing. " Only eternity can tell how true is the success, how far-reaching the result of doing our best, even in the quietest spheres of life. Such successes will be inscribed on God's roll of honor if not on earth's scroll of fame. But how can this true success be obtained ? What are the secrets of success that mature and prominent men offer, from their own history and observation, to young men, to save them the necessity of learning them all in the hard school of experi- ence ? Dr. Dexter, chief editor of the Congregationalist, gives these three secrets of success : " First, piety, to get all and keep all in position ; second, patience, to master all details ; third, perseverance, to carry all through." Ex-Governor Dingley, of Maine, also gives three essential prerequisites to success : ' ' First, character ; second, industry ; third, perseverance." A prominent Brooklyn manufacturer gives these five condi- tions of success : First, sterling integrity as God's steward ; second, strict attention to business ; third, do what you under- take to do ; fourth, punctuality ; fifth, secrecy. (Don't tell anybody what you are going to do until you have done it or even then)." The secrets of success as given by a successful New York publisher are : " Sterling integrity in all things ; rigorous adherence to every promise ; deal with every person as if you were certain you would meet him again, even though he is a passing stranger ; be temperate in body ; broaden your mind and become pure in heart." A Chicago editor gives the following helps to success : " Early to bed, early to rise ; plain food ; good conscience ; good humor ; honest work ; self-help ; and prayer." A leather dealer in California, whose firm has achieved a large success, attributes jto to these five principles : " First, per- 140 SUCCESSFUL MEK OF TO-DAY. sonal integrity of its founders and managers ; second, prompt payment of all bills before noon of collection day ; third, the use of courtesy and tact in dealing with all men ; fourth, close attention to business and employment of the best agents ; fifth, constantly maintained reliability of goods." The manager of a large manufactory in Connecticut gives the following secrets of success : " An unbending purpose to suc- ceed ; strict integrity and conscientious fairness in all business relations ; firmness and affability ; systematic methods ; an underlying motive to please God. ' ' One of the leading whole- sale merchants of Chicago gives the secrets of success concisely as, " Self-reliance and moral responsibility to a higher power." John Wanamaker's answer gives four steps to success : ** Close application ; integrity ; attention to details ;* discreet advertising. ' ' (It has been well said that a little advertising, like a little learning, is a dangerous thing.) President Andrew D. White, of Cornell, also gives four conditions of success : " First, soundness of mind and heart ; second, clear judgment ; third, fair knowledge of men ; fourth, great devotion to some one purpose or study, but with breadth of view." Dr. J. H. Vincent's secret of success is given in a single sentence : " An entire surrender of impulse and inclination to the demands of duty, as expressed and made possible in the life of Christ." Hon. William E. Dodge, in a pamphlet of personal reminis- cences sent to me with his reply, names open, frank, upright dealing with customers as the way to secure their confidence and trade, and through that success. This theory he illustrates by the following incident : " I will venture to relate an inci- dent, as I think it may be of service to some who are looking forward to mercantile life. A few weeks after we started, and when our stock of goods was small, three young men stepped into the store, each having two large tin trunks which he * " For want of a nail the shoe was lost ; for want of a shoe the horse was lost." C.W ELIOT L.L.D. PREsT.or HARVARD o COLLEGE PRESIDENTS. WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEN SAY OF SUCCESS. 143 carried in his hands, aided by a large strap over the shoulders. I saw at once they were Connecticut peddlers, for I had often dealt with such when a clerk. They were attracted by some article in the window. After giving them its price, and while they set down their loads to rest and talk, I said pleasantly, * I see you are, like myself, just starting in business. Now, let me make you a proposition : there is plenty of room in our store ; each of you take one of these pigeon-holes under the shelves, put your trunks there in place of carrying them around while you are picking up your goods, and just order all you buy to be sent here. We will take charge of your purchases, pack and ship them, and you can come here and examine your bills, write letters, and do as you like, whether you buy a dollar of us or not. I want to make at least a show of doing busi- ness, and it will really be an advantage to us as well as a con- venience to you.' They were pleased with the offer, and accepted it at once, and left in search of such things as they wanted. My young partner waited till they got out, and then, with considerable excitement and wounded pride, said, * Well, are those what you call customers ? ' I said, * Yes, you know that tall oaks from little acorns grow. We shall see by and by what they will make. ' Suffice it to say, that for the six years I remained in the dry-goods business, they were among my most attached customers." A successful physician was asked by an unsuccessful one, who had been his equal as a classmate in college, to explain th difference in their practice. He replied, " Look out of my office window and notice the first twenty persons that pass on the street, and tell me how many of them you would like to have as patients. Would you want that man ? That woman ? There are only two in the twenty that are ' tony ' and ' styl- ish ' enough for you, with your ideas of a practice among * nice people ' only, but I go for the other eighteen, for the people. ' ' Other secrets of success are the following : " Ambition to excel in whatever I undertake." (False contentment is worse than poverty.) " A definite object in life not drifting," 144 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. " Habits favorable to bodily health." " Plain living and high thinking. " * ' A good stomach. " " Careful obedience to orders." " Early responsibility." (This last is given as one of his own helps to success by John Sherman, who at fifteen years of age was put in charge of an engineering enterprise in- volving an expense of $300,000.) " Strict truthfulness, with religion as its root." "Carefulness." " Honor." "Con- scientiousness." "Good company." "A good boarding- place and the society of modest Christian young women on coming to the city." " Reliability." " Courage, not only to say No, but to surmount obstacles." (" It takes a live fish to swim up stream.") " Mastering all the details of one's busi- ness." "Concentration of one's whole attention and ability on the matter in hand." (" He who follows two hares catches neither.") " Forecast." " Win unlimited credit, but use it in a very limited way." " Have several things ahead all the while as a stimulus to constant effort, and that you may rest by change of work." One man attributes his success to his promptness, to being always ten minutes ahead at his appointments. (How would that do for the business of religion also on a Sunday morning ?) Promptness in seizing opportunities is yet more important. " The art of getting rich," says Emerson, " consists not, in in- dustry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot. ' ' Carpe diem. Thirty years ago Mr. H., a nurseryman in New York State, left home for a day or two. It was rainy weather, and not the season for sales, but a customer arrived from a distance, tied up his horse, and found his way to the kitchen of the farm- house, where two of Mr. H.'s sons were cracking nuts. "Mr. H. at home?" " No, sir," said the eldest, Joe, hammering at a nut. "When will he be back ?" " Dunno, sir. Mebbe not for a week." The other boy, Jem, jumped up and followed the man out. " The men are not here, but I can show you the stock," he WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEtf SAY OF SUCCESS. 145 said, with such a bright, courteous manner that the stranger, who was a little irritated, stopped, and followed him through the nursery, examined the trees, and left his order. " You have sold the largest bill that I have had for this sea- son, Jem," said his father, greatly pleased, on his return. " I'm sure," said Joe, sullenly, " I'm as willing to help as Jerm if I'd thought in time." /'A few years afterward these two boys were left by their father's failure and death with but two or three hundred dollars each. Joe with them bought an acre or two near home. The land was poor, the crops scanty, the market low. He has worked hard and faithfully, but is still a poor, discontented man. Jem bought an emigrant's ticket to Colorado, hired as a cattle driver for a couple of years, with his wages bought land at forty cents an acre, built himself a house, and married. His herds of cattle are numbered by the tho'usand, his land has been cut up for town lots, and he is ranked as one of the wealthiest men in the State. The difference between these two brothers, and between the successful and unsuccessful generally, is the difference between seizing or missing opportunities. ' ' Jump while the wave is on the swell. " * ' Now or never. ' * " No sooner said than done." tf There is a tide in the affairs of men that takea at the flood leads on to fortune." " Strike while the iron's hot." " He that would not when he may, "When he would he shall have nay." That is true of religious decisions as well as in business. For every department of life we might appropriately adopt the motto which Ruskin has ever before him, inscribed on a mass- ive piece of chalcedony : TO-DAY. 146 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. Temperance is recognized in a large number of the replies I have received, as an absolute prerequisite of abiding success. The most probable and scholarly theory of the origin of the precious minerals is that they were carried into the crevices in the rocks in solution by streams, and then deposited by elec- tricity passing through the water. So a cold-water career de- posits gold and silver, while a drinking life seldom leaves any gold. " In a certain manufacturing town an employer one Saturday paid to his workmen $700 in crisp new bills that had been secretly marked. On Monday $450 of those identical bills were deposited in the bank by the saloon-keepers. When the fact was made known, the workmen were so startled by it that they helped to make the place a no-license town: The times would not be so ' hard ' for the workmen if the saloons did not take in so much of their wages. If they would organize a strike against the saloons, they would find the result to be better than an increase of wages, and to include an increase of savings. ' ' " Sticktoitiveness" is often mentioned as one of the most essential conditions of success. " Good luck," says Emerson, " is only another name for tenacity of purpose." " Holdfast is a better dog than Brag." " Rome was not built in a day." " Behold we count them happy that endure."- A good begin- ning plus a good continuance makes a good ending. Another essential to success in business as well as religion is self-denial. The man who would win must deny himself in morning naps, in pleasure trips, in needless luxuries. Pie who forgets himself in doing public service is the very man whom the public will not forget. " He that loseth his life shall find it." From these replies, and hundreds of others, we may tabu- late a decalogue, giving ten laws of success from the newest testament of God in modern history and experience. In order for a man to succeed that is, to make the most of himself and his opportunities he should bind himself to nn- WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEtf SAY OF SUCCESS. 147 flinching obedience to these true and proved laws of success : First, never misrepresent ; second, let your spoken word be as reliable as your written note or contract, but never take any one's word for it in business matters except in black and white ; third, never pay a bill without taking a receipt in full ; fourth, treat a customer as a friend, and never allow him to be disap- pointed ; fifth, keep down expenses ; sixth, invest profits safely ; seventh, live within your income ; eighth, if hard run for money, let your wife know it. (There were invitations out for a splendid party on the very night Professor Webster killed his friend and burned him up for the sake of money) ; ninth, don't boast of your business. (Said a man one day to the elder Astor, " Why is it that you have made so much money, and I none, although I have been as temperate, as industrious, and as economical as you?" "You talk too much,"* replied the millionaire) ; tenth, courage to say " No" or " Yes" at the right time, and to overcome obstacles. I would not for a moment have any one suppose that the same causes or rules will in different men produce the same effects, f I do not even believe that men can fully analyze and * " Do not hunt partridges with a band of music." " Speech is silver, and silence is golden." " Speak one word while you listen to a thousand." One newspaper recently said, " People who wonder why men's hair turns gray before their whiskers, should reflect that there is about twenty years' difference in their respective ages." Another paper adds, " But then, the fact that men exercise their jaws so much more than they do their brains, ought to make up that difference. So the question is still open." Kead also Prov. 12 : 23 ; 13 : 3 ; 14 : 23 ; 17 : 27 ; 18 : 7 ; James 1 : 19. f Judge Tourgee, author of " A Fool's Errand, by One of the Fools," in his reply to my circular, emphasizes some of the dangers connected with the study of success : " MY DEAR SIR : I would be glad to answer the inclosed inquiries if I did not regard them as misleading, vague, and if published, harmful, especially to the young. These rules for success in life are like formularies for breaking the bank at faro. In my judgment very 148 SUCCESSFUL MEN" OF TO-DAY. describe the reasons for their own success. But out of the many facts and experiences of commercial life we can as surely deduce some laws of success as we can formulate laws of nature, such as gravitation, from the study of creation. It is at least as important to know the moving principles in the world of commerce as to know the modes of motion in the skies above us. The saddest certainty of all is thai so many young men will refuse to learn by the painful experiences of their predecessors, few men know why they have succeeded, and if they did, the same causes would not bring success to others. Again your idea of suc- cess and mine might be different. Of those who have made great fortunes very few would admit that lying and cheating were the c chief elements ' of their success. Yet every lawyer knows it to be true. Take my own case. I think my success is due (such as it is) chiefly to a good stomach and an aptitude for folly. Yet you would not commend bull-headed, blind-eyed foolishness to your young inquirers for the short cut to the top of the hill. Again such statis- tics are mischievous because they are the wrong kind of data. What we call success is always exceptional. Usually in such cases, the men, the means and the opportunity are exceptional. Very rich men are simply monsters. So are great statesmen and generals and authors. We may trace their growth and find out some of its causes, but you cannot deduct therefrom the elements of a posset that shall make others to grow up like them. Again, I don't know your idea of what constitutes failure' numerous failures. ' If you mean busi- ness collapse I should say it generally resulted from carrying too big a load. From your use of the term ' professional ' I suppose you mean more, though I don't know about a professional man failing if he works, keeps sober, and sleeps at home. Lawyers, ministers and doctors live on the sins of the people, and of course grow fat with reasonable exertion unless the competition is too great. It requires real genius to fail in either of these walks of life. But the failure itself is almost as often success as otherwise. Every man who makes a fortune has been more than once a bankrupt, if the truth were known. Grant's failure as a subaltern made him commander-in- chief , and for myself, my failure to accomplish what I set out to do led me to what I never had aspired to. Yours respectfully, "A. W. TOURGEE." WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEtf SAY OP SUCCESS. 149 and insist on working out every sad lesson by their own dis- tress or defeat, as a child must burn his own fingers before he will believe what his father tells him about the stove. It isn't enough that your father has done wrong and " seen the folly of it." You want to see it for yourself. You want to " see the lions," forgetting that the lions may come out to see you. But some will heed the sign-boards I am putting up to show, by the experience of our wisest men, the path of success. Let us not forget that we are called to success, not only in that department of our business which relates chiefly to this world, but also in that wholesale department of every man's business which relates to the soul and eternity. In this also we are successful if we do our best every day. That woman is successful in Christian work of whom Jesus can say, " She hath done what she could." That man is successful as a Chris- tian who comes up to the level of his best. When Nelson signalled from his flagship to every person in his fleet, ' ' England expects every man to do his duty, ' ' it did not mean the same to all. To the captains it meant that they should do their best as commanders ; to the marines, that they should do their best at the guns ; to the sailors, that they should do their best in sailing the ships ; to the cabin-boys, that they should do their best as messengers. Every one succeeded who did what he could. Let not the Church of Christ be like Cole- ridge's phantom ship, with a dead man at the helm, dead men on the deck, dead men in the rigging ; but like Nelson's fleet, where every man does his best for the sake of his country and his God.* Over both departments of our business, the earthly and the heavenly, in each of which we are called to glorify God and do good to men, let us write, GOD EXPECTS EVERY ONE TO DO HIS BEST. * Bom. 12 : 6-8. THE men who gain riches, and really enjoy them, are the men that have to sweat for them. The industrj' that acquired them ; the patience that is required obtaining them ; the reserved self-control ; the measurings of values ; the sympathy felt for fellow-toilers ; the knowledge of what a dollar costs to the average man ; the memory of it all these things are preservative ; but woe to the young man who hates farming, does not like sowing and reaping, is impatient with the dilatory and slow path to a small though secure fortune in the neighborhood where he was born, and comes to the city hoping to become suddenly rich, and thinking that he can break into the palace of wealth and rob it of its golden treasures ! HENEY WABD BEECHEE. The working-classes in the agricultural districts in France are, as a rule, much more provident than the same class in England. Multi- tudes of our highly-paid workmen make not the slightest provision to meet a period of adversity. SIB THOMAS BBASSEY. One of the most painful things, to my mind, to be seen in England is this, that among the great body of those classes which earn their living by their daily labor, there is an absence of that hope which every man ought to have, if he be industrious and frugal, of a com- fortable independence as he advances in life. JOHN BBIGHT. The habit of saving, so as to be beforehand with the world, if it is to be acquired at all, must be acquired early. THE EABL OF DERBY. National thrift means national prosperity. EMILY FAITHFULL. The only sound and healthy description of assisting is that which teaches independence and self-exertion. GLADSTONE. If principles of self-reliance and thrift were thoroughly observed by the working-classes, the prosperity of the country would be won- derfully increased. THE EABL OF SHAFTESBUBY. Economy is half the battle of life. SPUBGEON. The perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. The fool shall be servant to the wise of heart. The wicked are overthrown and are not ; but the house of the righteous shall stand. Proverbs of Solomon. Prosperity is a more severe ordeal than adversity, especially sud- den prosperity. P. T. BAENUM. For one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity. CAELYLE. XYI. WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEN SAY OF THE FAILURE OF OTHERS. EACH parable of Christ is a kaleidoscope, picturing not one truth but many. This is especially the case with the parable of the prodigal. At first you behold in it a divine picture of the Heavenly Father's love for the penitent sinner. Turn the parable about and look at it in another way, and you see a picture of the two kinds of true conversion. Every one needs to be born of the Spirit, but there is diversity of operations. The younger son represents those who have sown their wild oats, and in reaping them have been led to bitter repentance, and then to the exciting joy of pardon. The elder son represents the greater number in the Church, who never wandered into immorality < who cannot even remember the time when they did not pray ; who chose Jesus as their King and Saviour when he was first presented to them ; and though they have sinoe transgressed God's law, like other Christians, they have never dethroned Christ in their hearts. To such the Father says, "Son, thou art ever with me." To this class nearly all who are trained in Christian homes would belong, as did Jeremiah and John the Baptist and Samuel and Timothy, but for the strange, unbiblical tradition that one must be bad before he can be good, that he must be apprenticed to the devil and learn to sow wild oats before he can " bear precious seed " for God and humanity. The parable of the prodigal assures us that one need not wander at all from the Father's house, but may abide with him from the first. Turn the parable again, and get one of the views that is 152 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. seldom noticed its literal application to the failures and sue-* cesses of young men. In this connection it will be appropriate to quote the replies that I have received from leading men of our country to the question, " What, in your observation, have been the chief causes of the numerous failures in life of business and profes- sional men ?" Governor St. John answers, " Idleness, intemperance.'* Alexander H. Stephens answers, " Want of punctuality, honesty, and truth. ' ' Hon. Darwin R. James, Brooklyn's Congressman, answers, " Incorrect views of the great end and aim of life. Men are not contented to live plain lives of integrity and uprightness. They want to get ahead too fast, and are led into temptation." President Bartlett, of Dartmouth College, names as causes of failure : " Lack of principle, of fixed purpose, of perseve- rance." President Eliot, of Harvard, replies, "Stupidity, laziness, rashness, and dishonesty." Dr. H. M. Dexter answers : " 1. Want of thoroughness of preparation. "2. Want of fixedness of purpose. " 3. Want of faith in the inevitable triumph of right and truth." Anthony Comstock's answers are : " Unholy living and dis- honest practices ; lust and intemperance ; living beyond one's means. ' ' The fullest answer to this question about failures, which is from a Brooklyn man of long experience in business life, is as follows : " I would name, first, a lack of special preparation on the part of young men for a special occupation or profession. Most boys get a fair general education, and when that is done take hold of the thing which promises the most immediate return for their labor, not stopping to look forward to the end or to consult their adaptability to the business or profession. Some look only to see what standing it will give them in WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEN" SAY OF FAILURE. 153 society ; others consider if it will enable them to dress in fine clothing and make a good appearance. Next stands the mis- take of young men in being in too much of a hurry to spend money as fast as others, a desire to be considered in better circumstances than they really are, and a pressure to get ahead faster than they learn their business. In this way one often climbs a ladder before the foundation is made secure, and after- ward, when he has to take the responsibility, does not know all his business, and has to intrust a part of it to others, and does not know whether they are doing it right or not. By and by, when he thinks he is safe and beyond danger, the foundation corner which he trusted to some one else has given way and he is overthrown. He needs to know his whole business, so that he can tell when it is done right. Another great mistake is that when a young man sees his name on a sign he is apt to think that his fortune is made, and so begins to spend money as if he had already got beyond any chance of failure. An- other common mistake is that men, old as well as young, are too ready to use their credit, not realizing that the goods bought on credit are not theirs and that a pay-day is coming. When they find their notes coming due and have not the money to pay them, they are tempted to sell goods without a profit for the sake of getting the money or a note which they can turn into money. Just the moment a man is obliged to do that, he is not master of his own business, and as a rule it is only a matter of a little time when he will have to go down. Many are ruined by starting on too much expense, and then must do a large business to be able to cover expenses, and in order to do that they give credit to parties who are not worthy of it. Let a young man fear God, be industrious, know his business, spend a little less than he earns, and success is sure." Mr. H. E. Simmons, manager of tfie American Tract Soci- ety, gives as the chief causes of failure in life : " Fast living, mental, spiritual and bodily ; lack of attention to the details of business." General O. O. Howard answers, "Breaking the divine laws of the body by vice ; those of the mind by 154 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. overwork or idleness ; and those of the heart by making an idol of self." (This tallies with the words of Emerson : " Suc- cess consists in close appliance to the laws of the world.") Professor Homer B. Sprague, of Boston, answers : "1. Ill-health. "2. Mistake in the choice of employment. " 3. Lack of persistent and protracted effort. "4. A low ideal, making success to consist in personal aggrandizement rather than in the training and development of a pure and noble character." Dr. Lyman Abbott answers, " The combined spirit of lazi- ness and self-conceit that makes a man unwilling to do any- thing unless he can choose just what he will do." A. W. Tenney, district attorney for Brooklyn, replies, " Outside of intemperance, failure to grasp and hold ; scattering too much ; want of integrity and promptness ; unwillingness to achieve success by earning it in the old-fashioned way. ' ' The attorney- general of a neighboring State replies, " Living beyond one's income, and speculating with borrowed funds. Unwillingness to begin at the foot of the ladder and work up. Young men want to be masters at the start, and assume to know before they have learned." Another answers, " Giving money-making a first place and right-doing a second place. ' ' Judge Tourgee, author of " A Fool's Errand," considers the most frequent cause of business collapse to be, " Trying to carry too big a load." As to others he says, " I don't know about a prof essional man's failing, if he works, keeps sober, and sleeps at home. Lawyers, ministers, and doctors live on the sins of the people, and of course grow fat under reasonable exertion, unless the competition is too great. It requires real genius to fail in either of these walks of life. ' ' Joseph Medill, ex-mayor of Chicago and present editor of the Chicago Tribune, names the following causes of failure : " Liquor-drinking, gambling, reckless speculation, dishonesty, tricky conduct, cheating, idle- ness, shirking hard work, frivolous reading, lack of manhood in the battle of life, failure to improve opportunities." That WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEK SAY OF FAILUKE. 155 list very nearly covers the case of the prodigal, into whose story I shall weave yet other answers. Look into his father's home that day when the restless young fellow attained his majority. There are two sons. The elder son is one of those naturally good boys who find it easy to do right. The younger son is one of the sort who find it much easier to do wrong. The elder son, if living to-day, would be content to take a farm in Kansas and earn his money slowly, surely, honestly, quietly. The younger one would push on to Colorado to made a sudden fortune in the excitement of min- ing, taking the risk of ruining his character by bad associates and haste to be rich. The younger son, having become of age, is unwilling to stay on the farm, where he is sure of a moderate competence. He wants more money, more excitement, more pleasures, and less of restraint and labor. " Father, give me the share of property that you intend to will to me, and let me go to the great city and make my for- tune." The father would fain detain him, but neither an earthly father nor the heavenly Father can save a man from the responsibility of his own free acts. Tho younger son gets his half of the property and turns it into money and clothes, and hurries away to his castles in Spain, where he expects to be wondrously rich and happy. This episode in the young man's life represents the unwise spirit of changefulness in business employments, by which much experience is lost and failure is brought to many lives. In the country on his father's farm, the prodigal would probably have succeeded in getting money and saving his morals. Hastening to the city before he was prepared in character for its tempta- tions, led to moral and financial bankruptcy. So the cobbler goes beyond his shoes and fails. He might have made a suc- cess on shoes, but he fails on sermons. He thought, or his parents thought, that he had a call to preach, but he "must have heard some other noise." " A chicken, trying to swim with some ducks, complained of the world. ' The world is all right, ' replied the ducks, ' if 156 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. you adjust yourself to it. Keep in your element (the land), and not ours, which is satisfactory to us ' " a parable for the warning of parents who crowd into the professions sons who ought to be mechanics. Rolling stones, in the shape of New England pilgrims, have gathered golden moss all over our land, but the proverb about rolling stones is nevertheless largely true. Those who hurry from bush to bush seeking better chances do not usually get the most berries. lt Do not put your fingers into every hole." " Unstable .as Reuben, thou shalt not excel." Sticktoitiveness wins more than changeful ness. " Look before you leap." " Be sure you are right, and then go ahead." He that waver- eth, let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord or of men. Among the causes of failure given by my correspondents, many may be classified under the general fault of wavering, such as " Lack of determined purpose," "Wavering purposes," " Nonsticktoitiveness," "Failure to grasp and hold," " Scattering too much," ** Trying to do too many things, rather than sticking to the one thing one knows most about. ' ' A young man spends seven years in a grocery, and when he has just learned the business he concludes to go into dry goods. By failing to choose that first, he has thrown away seven years' experience. Probably after learning the dry-goods business he will conclude to become a watchmaker, and so at last become a jack-at-all-trades, good at none. A prominent merchant says, " Nearly all failures in legitimate business come from not serving an apprenticeship to it" that is, from leaving a business that one knows for another which he does not understand. In the prodigal's departure from his country home we see also the common disposition to escape hard work and get rich in haste " desiring the success another man has, without being willing to work as that man does," and begin, as he did, at the foot of the ladder. The prodigal did not like manual work any better than American boys of to-day, who WHAT SUCCESSFUL MEN SAY OF FAILURE. 15? take six dollars a week for measuring tape when they might have twenty-five as mechanics. The prodigal wanted a short cut to wealth and an easy path. He was * * unwilling to achieve success by earning it in the old-fashioned way, by hard work." How many who were thus in haste to be rich, " to reap with- out patient industry in sowing, ' ' have learned the truth of the old proverb, " The more haste, the worse speed 1" " Great greediness to reap Helps not the money heap." The prodigal failed partly because he started out with " a low and selfish idea of success, ' ' with * ' false views of the great end and aim of life, as pleasure, show, money." A leading manufacturer in Philadelphia, who has lived fifty- two years in that city, says, u I never knew a business man among all those whose lives are failures, who gave his heart to God in his youth. " WHILE we are not to denounce riches, while we are at liberty to seek them as normal, falling in with the providence of God, and run- ning in the line of grace itself when rightly used, we are to beware of using them for anything except love love to our household and love to our fellow-men. We are to hold them as a power put into our hands as power is put into the hands of a Christian sovereign, not that the throne may be a centre and seat of selfishness, but that they may be employed for distribution, and for the comfort and protec- tion of the whole people. Biches acquired and held for selfish pur- poses suffocate men. They kill our best instincts. They put them on false views. They disjoin them from the proper sympathy of man with man. They are mischievous, deadly. But riches in the hands of true benevolence exalt men. How must a rectified spirit in heaven rejoice to look down on that which upon earth he honestly earned and invested for charity and beneficence, and to see it work- ing for mankind, age after age, and generation after generation ! No man's riches are subject of envy where he uses them properly. If a man's life is devoted to doing good ; if on whichever side men touch him he throws upon them his sympathy, and manifests toward them an eager desire for their welfare, nobody wants him to be less rich. There be multitudes of men that have renowned wealth whose fail- ure, if they were to stumble and fall to-morrow, legions of men would rejoice over, saying, " Served him right ! Served him right !" But there are some rich men whose loss, when they depart, all men lament. HENEY WABD BEECHES. Each soul is worth so much on 'change, And marked like sheep with figures. MBS. BBOWNING. How many rich dwellings there are, crowded with every appoint- ment of luxury, that are only glittering caverns of selfishness and dis- content ! " Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." CHAPIN. For aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. SHAKESPEABE. Honor and wealth are illusory : come, Happiness dwells in the temple of home. SCHTLLEB. Not the wealthy, but the bonnie. BUBNS. What thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily. SHAKESPEARE. XVII. 1 < POOR IN ABUNDANCE. THE prodigal at first seemed to be successful. For a young man he was counted rich. He was at once received into " the best society" of the city to which he had gone. In his own home he entertained with the rarest of wines and the choicest of viands. At this period he represents the poor rich. " Poor in abundance, famished at a feast."* Ill-gotten wealth only counterfeits success, for bankruptcy of honor is worst of fail- ures. u A poor man is better than a liar." \ " Never value anything as profitable to thyself, " said Marcus Aurelius, u which shall compel thee to lose thy self-respect." What matters it to have much on earth and little in heaven ? Money does not answer all things. Hear the godless rich man, when in health, saying to his minister, " I have thought about religion, and I have come to the conclusion that I have no need of Christ." Hear that same man, dying and leaving all he has, exclaim, " Who will carry me over the river?" Reach- ing the river of death, he has nothing to pay his ferriage. Time is money, but money is not time. All her gold could not purchase for the dying queen ' ' a moment of time. ' ' Time destroyed in selfishness and sin is suicide where more than blood is spilt. il How is your old classmate, F., doing ?" " Not very well, I'm sorry to say." * Young's "Night Thoughts." t Prov. 13 : 7 ; 15 : 16, 17 ; 16 : 8 ; 17 . 1 ; 28 : 6 ; Eccl. 4:6; Psa. 37 : 16 ; Phil. 4 : 11-13. 1GO SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. * ' Why, I thought I heard he was at about the top of the profession. ' ' "So he is." " And growing rich fast." " Yes, that is true." '* Well, what do you mean, then ?" " I mean that he is running down hill every day is almost at the bottom ; and the prospect is darker the longer he lives. lie seemed to be a noble fellow in college, with something of almost Christian principle in him. But he has sagged away into a mean ambition, grown harder and colder with every year, is getting more tightly hide-bound in his selfishness, and, for aught I see, is already virtually a lost man." " This is a new way you have of looking at men like him." " Perhaps so ; but possibly we may find, by and by, that other eyes up yonder see him in about the same light." When a man fills his pocket to the neglect of his mind and soul, his wealth becomes the silver bridle of an ass. That rich man is a failure who is " living the life of the flesh, whether in low, sensual gratification, or that which is refined, aesthetic, and selfish." Alas that there are still in the world, as in the time when Christ spoke his parables, rich fools, whose lives are so sensual and selfish that they really do not know what else to do with wealth than to use it for bodily enjoy- ment. All that it says to them is, " Eat, drink, and be merry. ' ' God calls such a man a * * fool ' ' for caring more for his store than his soul. A twenty-thousand-dollar picture or charity has no charms for such, but they delight in a twenty- thousand-dollar spree. There are many such men in our min- ing States and some in New York animals loaded with ingots. Every rich man whose money is not clean is a failure, whether found out or not. " Those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, think you that they were offenders above all the men that dwell at Jerusalem ?" Those rehypothecators of trust funds for private speculations who are now in jail, or in exile as fugitives from justice, think you they "POOH IN ABUNDANCE. " 161 are offenders above all the men that, as bank presidents and public treasurers and trustees, make millions of dollars a year out of a salary of eight or ten thousand ? I tell you, Nay. How significant in these days is that verse of the Bible which literally means, ' ' I know whom I have made my Trustee, and am persuaded that he will keep what I have committed to him against that day !" How " many kinds of evil " have been rooted in " the love of money" in all countries and in all centuries ! By covetous- ness more than by perverted conscience the persecutions of the Jews have been caused in all ages. It is Judas who cries out against " Christ-killers," that he may get their confiscated gold. Greed in American whalemen, aided by lust, has almost depopulated the Sandwich Islands Christianity coming too late to do more than delay the result. Greed in the Portu- guese traders, aided by Romanism, caused the banishment of Christianity for two centuries from Japan. Greed in English merchants carried the opium curse into China. Greed's in- justice and trickery have provoked most of our Indian wars. Greed has corrupted our national politics. Greed is the insti- gator of the most destructive diseases of America to-day those that come from penurious plumbing ! What is the meaning of the new laws on this latter subject ? They mean that many a contractor has built death-traps, and many a landlord has rented them, rather than spend a few dol- lars more in proper plumbing. Money thus saved is foul with the slaughter of the innocents. What is the advantage of your grand mirrors if you see a miser or a murderer every time you look into them ? " Mr. A. has just died worth ten millions. When he meets God he will have two hard questions to answer : First, How did you get that money ? second, What did you do with it ?" That man is a failure who has gained wealth by the sacrifice of greater things. It is not success to give two millions for one, nor to exchange character for cash. That man has done this who has acquired wealth to be his good servant and then 162 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. has allowed it to become his despotic master. Freedom is better than gold. That man has made a bad bargain, giving the greater for the less, who has allowed " money-making the first place, and right-doing only the second place in his heart." Millions of young men in our land are ambitious to be mill- ionaires. Let them consider well what that ambition is likely to cost. Some years ago the following suggestions were made in The Radical to candidates for the rank of millionaire : " Assuming that you do not propose to yourself to be a member of a society ( where all the men are brave and all the women virtuous,' but that you do propose to yourself to belong to one where ' every man is a millionaire, ' you will see from what I have written below what is necessary : " You must be a very able man, as nearly all millionaires are. " You must devote your life to the getting and keeping of other men's earnings. " You must eat the bread of carefulness, and you must rise early and lie down late. " You must care little or nothing about other men's wants or sufferings or disappointments. " You must not mind it, that your great wealth involves many others' poverty. " You must not give away money except for a material equivalent. " You must not go maundering about nature, nor spend your time enjoying air, earth, sky, and water ; for there is no money in it. " You must not distract your thoughts from the great pur- pose of your life with the charms of art and literature. " You must not let philosophy or religion engross you dur- ing the secular time. " You must not allow your wife or children to occupy much of your valuable time or thoughts. " You must never permit the fascinations of friendship to inveigle you into making loans, however small. "POOR IN ABUNDANCE." 163 " You must abandon all other ambitions or purposes ; and, finally " You must be prepared to sacrifice ease and all fanciful notions you may have about tastes and luxuries and enjoyments, during most, if not all, of your natural life. " If you think the game is worth the candle, you can die rich some of you can. But here comes in an unfortunate fact, which, if disagreeable, must be ascribed to Omnipotence, not to me. It is this : The surplus yearly production of all these United States amounts to but one thousand millions. It is clear, then, that only one thousand of our people can by any possibility grasp a million a year." If one can get a million only in that way, he gives more than he gets. It costs more than it comes to. That man is a fail- ure who sacrifices a two-million palace of manhood for a one- million prison of covetousness, even though it has golden locks. It is the aside remarks that let in light upon men's charac- ters. A worldly-minded Sunday-school superintendent, being about to go to Europe on business, addressed the school on the Sunday before his departure. He waxed fervent as he depicted the horrors of the sea voyage, the risk of life, the separation from friends and home, and the possibility that he would never see them again. " Oh, children," said he, " it is dreadful to think of. Nothing but MONEY would induce me to do it." Lest any one should think such selfishness monopolized by the rich, let me give the twin of that " money" story from the annals of the poor : " Oh, Kitty, look here ! The Greyfriars' Church is on fire !" " Is that a', miss ? What a fricht ye geed me ! I thought ye said the parlor fire was out. ' ' I reckon that man among the failures who forgets that he controls property only as a trustee for humanity. No one should count aught of the things that he possesses as his own, except his sins. Each man of property is God's trustee to dis- pense what he has to every man as he has need. Hear Job rendering the report of his trusteeship : " I delivered the poor 164 SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." * Joaquin Miller says of such a philanthropist : j- " I reckon him greater than any man That ever drew sword in war ; I reckon him nobler than king or khan, Braver and better by far. '* And wisest he in this whole wide land Of hoarding till bent and gray ; For all you can hold in your cold dead hand Is what you have given away." " Whoso hath the world's goods and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion- from him, how doth the love of God abide in him ?" Chanty was solicited from a rich man as a loan to the Lord. He replied, " The security, no doubt, is good, and the interest liberal ; but I cannot give such long credit." Within two weeks he heard the summons, " Thou fool ! this night thy soul shall be required of thee." The rich man's charity, in many cases, needs to begin at home, in giving living wages to his employes. \ Let a railroad king pay his workmen enough to live on before he shows off his generosity in the transportation of obelisks from land to land. New York merchants who subscribe hundreds of dollars for districts devastated by fire or famine or cyclone might well turn their attention to their own half-starved, ill-clad seam- stresses, who are paid (according to the Examiner and Chron- icle) thirty-five cents for making the best and heaviest of over- coats, twenty-eight cents for handsome spring overcoats, six to ten cents a pair for pants, seventy-five cents a dozen for * Job 29 : 12, 13. See also Lev. 35 : 35 ; Deut. 15 : 7, 8, 10 ; 24 : 6 ; Ps. 41 : 1 ; Prov. 3 : 27 ; 14 : 31 ; 17 : 5 ; 25 : 1 ; 29 : 7. f Peter Cooper, j Prov. 14 : 21, 31 ; 22 : 22. "POOH Itf ABUKDAKCE." 165 calico wrappers, and about a dollar and a half for complete suits for ladies ; while cash -girls get from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half per week, and " must come neatly dressed." In a recent : senuon, Dr. Lorrimer, of Chicago, said that " there are employers who, by fines and other tortuosities of trade, rob shop-girls of what they have really earned. They have no appeal. Law is too expensive a luxury for them. To such a height had this systematic plundering of poor shop-girls grown in Neio York, several years ago, that a protection society was formed by some benevolent people, and in the first year of its ex- istence $5000 was restored to the victims ofuvarice. Since then it has proved an inestimable blessing to these defenseless ones. It is also well known that in some pursuits, and in some where the girls are expected to dress well, their wages are totally inade- quate to the necessities of life. If they live decently at all, means must come from other sources." What is that but refined cannibalism, the strong devouring the weak, killing them by inches ? There are millionaires who are only Robin Hoods in disguise, believing " That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." The prodigal seems at first sight to have the virtue ot gen- erosity, whatever else he may lack, but he is really first cousin to the miser. Both use their money for selfish gratification. The miser's selfishness is less harmful than the prodigal's, for it destroys no one but himself. Real generosity would not have impoverished, but rather enriched the prodigal.* " He that giveth to the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and He will pay him again. ' ' A Christian young man married on $300 a year, and lived economically in one room. During that year he subscribed $300 toward building a church. His penurious father shook his head disapprovingly, but the son said that he could and * Prov. 3 : 9, 10 ; 11 : 25 ; 14 : 21 ; 22 : 9 ; Isa. 32 : 8 ; 58 : 10, 11. 166 SUCCESSFUL MEK OF TO-DAY. should pay it, not in one year, of course, but in time, by rigid economy. The next year his wages were doubled, and by liv- ing on the same scale as before he paid his subscription in one year. His conscientious fidelity was soon heard of, and he got $1500 salary, and at length $4000, but kept on giving as gen- erously as at first. This is not an exception, but a specimen. True generosity is one of the secrets of financial success. * ' The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also him- self." " He that saveth his life shall lose it." Unconsciously a leading Chicago merchant echoes that Bible verse by giving as one of the chief causes of business failures, " The willing- ness to sacrifice everything for self." Get, save, give. The prodigal also illustrates the fact that success is one of the frequent causes of ultimate failure. All are familiar with the frequent ruin wrought by inherited wealth. " Easy come, easy go." A young German in Pennsylvania went through a for- tune of $26,000 in five months. Most of those who die rich were born poor, and most of those who were born rich do not die rich. " Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished ; but he that gathereth by labor shall increase." " The invari- able condition of safety for riches," says Mr. Beecher, ** is that you shall have earned them by an equivalent, and by such patience as involves discipline and education." Acquired wealth also turns all except strong heads and hearts. " Success is often a cause of failure," says a prominent Brooklyn merchant. You can find a hundred men who can stand up manfully under adversity to one that can bear pros- perity and resist its destroying extravagances and its tempta- tions to neglect business. * ' The prosperity of fools shall de- stroy them." * " His plenty made him poor." " The bun- dle was pressed hard, but the knot was left loose." The lamp was well lighted, but was not kept filled. The field was care- fully watched until the harvest, and then left to the jackals. * Bead also Ps. 49 : 10-13. "POOR IN ABUNDANCE. " 167 " However easy it may be found to make money, " says P. T. Barnum, "it is the most difficult thing in the world to keep it." Fortune often leads to folly. Only eagles' eyes can bear the full blaze of the sun unharmed. Money often makes the mare run away with you. Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like it. John Tobin, ex-president of the Hudson River Railroad, and at one time a power in Wall Street, was arrested recently near the Staten Island Ferry for drunkenness. Formerly a million- aire and a man whose operations set the Stock Exchange in an uproar and influenced speculation all over the country, he has become an utter wreck physically as well as financially. In the days of his prosperity his speculative schemes were on the scale of those of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew, and he dealt in shares by the hundred thousand. Now he is little better than a beggar, and the police say that he is rarely seen sober. The prodigal story over again a full purse, a full glass, failure. It is well said by one of our college presidents, in naming ele- ments of success, that " a man should act on the principle that devotion and application to duty are as essential after success is secured as before. ' ' XVIII. HOW TO FAIL. Take this for your motto at the commencement of your journey, that the difference of going just right or a little wrong will be the differ- ence of finding yourself in good quarters or in a miserable bog or slough at the end of it. AMOS LAWKENCE. I never was canny for hoarding o' money, Or claughtint together at a', man ; I've little to spend, and naething to lend, But deevil a shilling I awe, man. BURNS. THE beginning of the prodigal's ruin was bad company, one of the most frequent roots of failure to-day. " He that fol- loweth vain persons shall have poverty enough." * " First harlots, then husks. ' ' f One needs to exercise great care, first of all, in making up his business " company," that he may secure honest, efficient, congenial partners. " An owl and an eagle, starting on a hunting expedition, the owl wanted to hunt by night and the eagle by day. They concluded, at last, that by separating they could cover both day and night, and both hunt better. ' ' J It is quite as important that a man have the right kind of company outside of business hours. It is written of the im- prisoned apostles, " Being let go, they went unto their own company." When a man is " let go" from business, he always goes to " his own company." You can tell what kind of a man he is by the company he keeps in his free hours. Every Judas " goes to his own place," even in this world. * Bead also Prov. 23 : 20, 21 ; 12 : 11 ; 13 : 20 ; 28 : 19. f Prov. 6 : 26, 27 ; 13 : 25 ; 7 : 22, etc.; 9 : 18 ; 23 : 34. Austin Bierbroweiii HOW TO FAIL. 169 A man is not merely revealed by the company he keeps. He is made more and more like it. " Who lies down with dogs rises with fleas." They forget this who allow innocent boys and girls to work in our prison-shops side by side with the convicts. Law should say to Greed, " Thou shalt not." Strange that rich young men do not see more clearly the purpose of the flattering rascals who spaniel them at heels. " Dogs wag their tails not so much in love of you as of your bread."* The prodigal's ruin was of course hastened by gambling, for who ever became a victim of wine and women and not of gambling also ? The record of nearly all gamblers and specu- lators since the world began may be put in four words : Every- thing ventured, nothing had. Treasures of wickedness profit 0, in a very literal sense in most cases, and in a spiritual sense always. How many firms that have been doing a good busi- ness haVe suddenly and surprisingly collapsed ! Why ? Every- body knows before the particulars are given that some of the firm have been secretly gambling in stocks. " One of the firms involved by the failure of Follett, the note-broker, is reported to have been clearing a hundred thou- sand dollars a year on stoves and heaters, but it appears that notes to twice this amount had been put into the broker's hands to cover some operations of one of the firm in the grain market. A man has a right to do what he will with his own, but the tendency to miscellaneous speculation akin to gambling is so general among Americans that sooner or later all business men should exact of their customers a pledge that none of the capital claimed in statements made for the purpose of obtaining credit shall be diverted from the business, either directly or by loan, to any member of the firm, for use in outside operations. Such pledges would sometimes be broken, but not without per- manent disgrace to the business reputation of those making them." f * Prov. 14 : 20 ; 19 : 4, 6. f New York Herald. 170 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. Bad habits of other sorts co-operate with gambling in accom- plishing a man's failure. Almost every reply to the question about causes of failure gives " bad habits" a leading part. On those who catch " larks" the sky falls. 11 Would you like to know how I was enabled to serve my country ?" said Admiral Farragut on one occasion. " It was all owing to a resolution I formed when I was ten years of age. My father was sent down to New Orleans, with the little navy we then had, to look after the treason of Burr. I accompanied him as cabin- boy. I had some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt, could drink a stiff glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards, and fond of gaming in every shape. At the close of the dinner one day, my father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, and said to me : " ' David, what do you intend to be ? ' " ' I mean to follow the sea.' u ' Follow the sea ! Yes, be a poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime.' " ' No,' I said, * I'll tread the quarter-deck and command, as you do. ' " ' No, David, no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with such principles as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. You'll have to change your whole course of life, if you become a man.' " My father left me and went on deck. I was stung by the rebuke and overwhelmed with mortification. ' A poor, miser- able, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and to die in some fever hospital ! ' That's my fate, is it ? I'll change my life, and change it now. I will never utter another oath ; I will never drink another drop of intoxicating liquors ; I will never gamble. And, as God is my witness, I have kept those vows to this hour. ' ' Side by side with Farragut's greatest victory over himself HOW TO FAIL. 171 which led to his other triumphs, glance at the wreck of the great pianist and composer, Alfred H. Pease, who was unex- celled in his department, and yet died of intemperance in St. Louis, where he had been concealing himself and living in a continual drunken debauch for a long time. Alas that even such a red light of awful warning as that will deter only a few young men from taking the same route to ruin ! Only along the track whose rails are God's laws for the body and mind, can any one ride to success. One day, about five o'clock, Mr. H. B. Claflin was sitting alone in his private office, when a young man, pale and care- worn, timidly knocked and entered. " Mr. Claflin," said he, "I am in need of help. I have been unable to meet certain payments because certain parties have not done as they agreed by me, and I would like to have ten thousand dollars. I come to you because you were a friend to my father, and I thought you might be a friend to me." " Come in," said Claflin ; " come in and have a glass of wine." " No," said the young man ; " I don't drink." " Have a cigar, then ?" " Well," said the joker, " I would like to accommodate you, but I don't think I can." " Very well," said the young man, as he was about to leave the room ; " I thought perhaps you might. Good-day, sir." " Hold on," said Mr. Claflin. " You don't drink ?" "No." 44 Nor smoke ?" "No." " Nor gamble, nor anything of the kind ?" " No, sir ; I am superintendent of the Sunday-school." u Well," said Mr. Claflin, with tears in his eyes, too, " you shall have it, and three times the amount if you wish. Your father let me have five thousand dollars once, and asked me the 172' SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. same questions. He trusted me, and I will trust you. No thanks. I owe you for your father's trust." Bad habits interfere with success by weakening and shorten- ing life, and also because they lead to crime rather than indus- try. " Can one go on hot coals and his feet not be burned ?" * Of 1518 prisoners in Sing Sing in 1880, only 269 claimed to be total abstainers, and only 150 did not use tobacco. It is a great wrong that the State allows even its youngest prisoners a paper and plug of tobacco per week, and thus be- comes itself a teacher of bad habits. That which killed Del- monico and Hill and Carpenter is given by the State to its prisoners. The Sing Sing prison report for 1880 shows that beer ranks only second to whiskey as a recruiting officer of crime, for the prison contained 115 Germans and 138 Irishmen. Bad habits impede success also by their expensiveness. " He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich." A Chicago clerk, complaining of his small salary ($60 per month), declared that he was not able to live and dress decently upon that sum. That same evening he invited three men to drink with him at the bar of a prominent hotel, where he paid sixty cents for whiskey without a moment's hesitation or a word of complaint. That young man had learned the secret of becoming a nobody. "It is easy to be nobody, and we will tell you how to do it. Go to the drinking saloon to spend your leisure time. You need not drink much now : just a little beer or some other drink. In the mean time play dominoes, checkers, or something else to kill time, so that you will be sure not to read any useful books. If you read anything, let it be the dime novel of the day. Thus go on, keeping your stomach full and your head empty, and yourself playing time-killing games, and in a few years you'll be nobody, unless you should turn out a drunkard or a professional gambler, either of which is worse than nobody." * Bead Prov. 8 : 35, 36 ; 13 : 14. HOW TO FAIL. 173 The bad habit of unpunctuality is almost a vice, and alto- gether a millstone on one's business prospects. Better late than never, but best of all to be never late ; worst of all to be always behind. Dishonesty is only second to dissipation among causes of failure. Want of character leads to want of cash and cus- tomers. A greenbacker declares, in speaking of failures, that the nation needs a change of pecuniary diet. What we really need is to make a wise and honest use of the money that we have. Among the mice that nibble away success are " little tricks of trade," " dishonesty in little things," * ' untruthf uluess. " " To lie is to jump from a house-top." What blindness to save a dollar and lose a customer. There was pathos in the Scotchman's word to his son, " Honesty is the best policy ; I hae tried baith. ' ' Honesty is the only policy, or as the thief said, after years of eating the ashen apples of dishonesty, " God Almighty has lixed things in this world so that it pays to do right." Let us prevent rather than repent. It is as natural to go by degrees from the " tricks of trade" to the frauds of trade, as from childhood to manhood. The Christian man whose conscience surrenders to the common deceptions is on the straight road to uncommon rascalities. " Tricks of trade" are the seed of which frauds are the fruit. " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?" Of course debt helped the prodigal out of his palace into the swine pasture. He lacked courage to say " No" when a drinking friend wanted him to endorse a note for a larger amount than he was able to lose. He remembered but dis- regarded God's warning, " He that hateth suretyship is sure. " * " He'll soon be a beggar that canna say Na. " " The borrower is servant to the lender. " When his income decreased his style did not. He was stranded by seeking to be a big fish still after his ocean had * Head Prov. 6 : 1-5 ; 11 : 15 ; 22 : 22, 28. 174 SUCCESSFUL MEN" OF TO-DAY. shrunk to a pond. He bought on the security of future hopes, his assets being unhatched chickens and castles in Spain. It is wise sometimes to have a debt, a mortgaged home, for instance, as an incentive for saving, but as a rule it is better to go supperless to bed than to rise in debt. " He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing. ? ' There is at least a grain of wholesome warning in the cruel proverb, " He who lends money to a friend loses both." At any rate it is a good rule, Never indorse a note for more than you can afford to lose. Always hope for the best, but be ready for the worst. A wise young man will refuse to let his parents or employers set him up in business and in debt. He will learn the value of money by earning it and avoid "the rock of excessive credit," on which, says Amos Lawrence, *' so many business men are broken. ' ' While debt was hurrying the prodigal out of his fine home, extravagance pushed him on the faster. " Extravagance in family living," through pride that goeth before destruction, was one of his causes of failure. " We are taxed twice as heavily by our pride as by the state." " The table robs more than the thief." " It is the eyes of others, not our own, that ruin us. ' ' The candle is soon consumed that is burned at both ends by neglect of both income and outcome. " Wilful waste makes woeful want." "Waste not, want not." A man of sixty begged fifty cents of a friend to pay for a day's food for his family. A few years before he was in receipt of $2500 per year, but spent all he made. " Store is no sore." Little and often fills the safe. Young men especially should economize to get a little capital so that they may be able to do business for themselves. " He that hath a sword let him take it ; and he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one. " There is one servant that can work seven days a week with- out breaking the fourth commandment, and seven nights as well, and that does not even take a summer vacation, namely, invested money. To exceed your income a dollar per month is misery ; to save a dollar a month from it is progress. * i The HOW TO FAIL. 175 secret of success," says Emerson, "lies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to outgo." Some of the causes of failure given in the replies I have received, besides those already mentioned, are the following : "Lack of independence of character and self-reliance." " Lack of will power and application." " Lack of managing power." "Depending on others and waiting for opportuni- ties. " " Neglect of details. " " Want of watchfulness in the whole sphere of personal action." "Self-conceit." " Pre- suming on one's own smartness." "Undertaking more than one has capacity for." " Fickleness." " Weakness of body and mind." " Lack of education." [I know of a man in Brooklyn who would have been promoted to the management of the business where he had long worked faithfully, but for the fact that he could neither read nor write. He had been kept from school as a boy to earn three dollars a week and is now paying for his parents' mistake twenty-five dollars a week by the loss of this position.] Other causes of failure are "Lack of definite purpose." "Unreliability." "Lack of good judgment." "Lack of capacity, knack, adaptation." " Indolence." " An easy temporizing disposition." " Care- lessness and rashness." " Lack of enterprise to keep pace with improved methods." " Not studying human nature and adapting business to it." "Lack of system." "Trusting others too much and trusting too much to others." (" Confi- dence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth and a fgot out of joint.") "Lack of faithfulness in humble places," which last reminds me that Rev. John Hall has said that the best way out of a lowly position is to make your- self conspicuously efficient in it. The boy or man that is wanted is the one who " can't be spared." Many a man has taken the highest seat too soon and so at length has been called to change places with some one who more humbly began at the lowest room and worked up. " Before honor is humility." The prodigal's bad company, bad habits, debts, and extrava- gance at length made him a pauper, and he who had been the 176 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. Oscar Wilde of city parlors, hired himself out to herd swine. Even they were better fed than he. ' ' The way of trans- gressors is hard." He had sowed his wild oats merrily, but harvesting them in loathsome diseases and hunger of body, in remorse of conscience, in loneliness and disgrace, was not quite so pleasant. ''Be sure your sin will find you out." Then you will understand what was said by a prisoner who had suffered much in body, but more in mind, " My worst punishment is in being what I am." The prodigals of to- day learn by the same painful object lessons of experience the unutterable stupidity of wicked and dishonest ways, which ruin body, mind, credit, reputation, and the soul. XIX. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF FAILURE. Tu ne cede malis sed contra audientor vite. VIKGIL. Content takes shelter in his cottage. SHAKESPEARE. His best companions Innocence and Health, And his best riches ignorance of wealth. GOLDSMITH. I do believe God wanted a grand poem from that man, and so blinded him that he might be able to write it. GEOKGE MACDONALD on Milton, BUT there is a hopeful side even to failure. As success is one of the ways to failure, so failure is one of the ways to suc- cess not referring to those who get rich by dishonest bank- ruptcies. The prodigal was nearer true success when he sat in the swine pasture, a ragged bankrupt, than when he revelled in his costly vices. " If they had not perished," said a man of his business enterprises, "I should have perished." It had cost him his money to save his morals, but " the life is more than meat." It was money or your life, and he had saved his soul-life in the loss of his money. But even in a worldly point of view, failure often leads to success, by rousing a man to greater energy, or leading him to greater watchfulness, or putting him in a more suitable place. A man who weighs one hundred and fifty pounds on the earth would weigh only two pounds on the planet Mars, and so could hardly stand ; while on the sun he would weigh two tons and so would sink, like a stone in the sea, into its hot marshes. Each man is too light for some places, too heavy for others, and just right for others. Failing in a work for which he is unfitted often brings him to his true place. Judge Tourgee's 178 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. failure as a reconstruction lawyer, as I have said, led to his success as a great novelist and editor. Bankruptcies are very rare in our prosperous land, only 1 out of each 128 dealers in 1881=3597 out of 869,000.* There are failures and failures. We need to note clearly tho difference between the man who fails because of unforeseen panics or embezzlements, and the man who fails through neg- lect, or of set purpose. ' ' ' Extremes meet, ' said the stump to the top of a tree, as the latter was blown down. ( It is true, ' replied the top, ' that we are both on the ground ; but I am still the whole length of the tree removed from you.' " f " Go ahead, and if you fall, up and at it again with a will and determination to succeed. " " The place to find your money is where you lost it." Take the motto of Alexander H. Ste- phens, tl Nil desperandum," or its equivalents, " Never say die,'* " Hope ever," " Try, try again." A leading publisher in Chicago told me that he had been helped through many a dark hour in business by the old Greek motto, " The gods look on no grander sight than an honest man struggling with adver- sity," and another motto of his own, "It is better to deserve success than to have it." " Our greatest glory," says another business man, " is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." "A just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again. ' ' Another prominent man says, after answering the questions about success, " When I think what ' might have been,' if 1 had only obeyed my own rules, I am mortified and depressed beyond measure. Oh, the comforting thought that we serve a forbearing, long-suffering Master, who knoweth our frame, remembereth we are dust, and pitieth our infirmities." So thought the prodigal as he arose out of his failure and went to his father. All was not lost, for hope and home and a father's love remained. * New York Tribune. f Austin Bierbrower. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF FAILURE. 179 But it should be said that a life reformed, as was the prodi- gal's, is not thus made as good as new. The prodigal was par- doned, but that did not restore his shattered health, his wasted hours, his squandered property. The brother who remained obediently at home had a fine farm, while the prodigal had nothing but the clothes and food that were given him. A ring, a robe, a pair of shoes, a fatted calf that was all he had, while the brother, who had not ruined his life with vices, had a great estate. Mercy could not blot out the penalties of the sinful past, but only its guilt. It could not even whiten his reputation. Credit lost is like Venice glass broken. No stra- tina of reform will make it as good as new. People will keep their eyes on the crack. u Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound ? God forbid. ' ' Better than all the songs over returning prodigals is the quiet assurance of our Heavenly Father to those who go not astray, but serve him from childhood, " Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." A prominent officer of Brooklyn says in his reply to the ques- tions about success : " There is no failure in this country with those whose personal habits are good and who follow any honest calling industriously, unselfishly, and purely. " ' * There's place and means for every man alive/' No real failure is possible for faithfulness. Let men of all ranks, whether they seem to be successful or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not at first, let them do their duty and rest satisfied. 4< Your labor is not in vain." YE shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure. Thou shalt not have divers weights, and divers measures, a great and a small. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. A just weight and balance are the Lord's. If thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest aught of thy neighbor's hand, thou shalt not oppress one another. Eemember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days thou shalt labor. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. Old Testament. Defraud not. I will that thou affirm constantly that they who have believed in God be careful to maintain good works [i.e., honest occupations]. These things are good and profitable unto men. Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor ; for we are members one of another. Let him that stole steal no more ; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need. New Testament. Place a dollar on the opposite bank of the bottomless pit, and the true Yankee will make a spring for it. WENDELL PHILLIPS. Sharp dealing and distrust Charles Dickens thought the worst vices of American commercial, political, and even social life. Every man here is his own manager ; every man his own protector. It is characteristic of our pushing, fairly well-educated, shrewd American that the look of his eye is : " Cheat me if you can. " Far more often do you find this look here than abroad. It is charged against us that we are more shrewd than conscientious in the collisions of trade and politics. It is affirmed, and with some truth, I fear, that there is among Americans a tendency to sharp dealing in little things that is not found in British and German society. It is very humiliating to be obliged to make these confessions ; but, for one, I have come home with the conviction that we are capable of a good deal of improve- ment in the matter of honesty in little things. An American may be, and usually is, the soul of honor in great things ; but we allow an amount of sharp dealing in little things that would disgrace a man in many circles abroad. Give the American as much conscientiousness as he has will and finesse, and I regard him as incomparably the no- blest human creature on earth. But there are many things that de- velop our will and our tendency to sharp dealing more rapidly than our conBcientiousnesB. JOSEPH COOK. XX. STEALING AS A FINE ART, AND SOME OF ITS MODERN ARTISTS. The Tempter has an Ally in the world of traffic, wherever bad things are stamped with respectable names when, for instance, swindling is called "smartness," and robbery "percentage." CHAPIN. The spirit of the Jewish rulers is rife in the world to-day, but the method of its expression is less honest now than then. Then the rulers said plainly, that they wanted nothing spoken or taught in the name of Jesus. Now it is common for the enemies of Christ to say that they don't object to the " pure gospel ;" but they do wish re- ligious teachers would let politics alone, and wouldn't be always harp- ing on temperance, or applying the Bible teachings to the treatment of the Indian, or the African, or the Chinaman, and to habits of ly- ing, and of dishonesty in business, and all that sort of thing. HENBY CLAY TRUMBULL, D.D. Who draws his sword for empire or for glory, Deserves a robber's, not a hero's name. SCHILLEB. WHEN Paul said, " Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor," he was only consolidating two of the ten commandments the fourth and eighth. One of these has been too superficially studied. A workman was dismissed for breaking the fourth commandment. He answered in surprise, "I always keep the Sabbath." ** Yes," said his employer, " but the fourth commandment says also, ' Six days shalt thou labor,' and you have not done that." The idler disobeys God's law as surely as the idolater or adulterer. In ancient Greece and Rome it was considered more honor- able to get money by stealing than by labor. The popular 182 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. forms of stealing then were war and piracy. War is still pop- ular. France spends ten times as much on armies as schools. But in our land, where we spend ten times as much for schools as on soldiers, those old forms of robbery have been succeeded by the more refined and more extensive robberies of monopoly and speculation. Stealing has become a fine art. As in ancient times the warrior and pirate won popular ad- miration, while farmers and mechanics were despised, so to- day many young men bestow their admiration upon the man who can seize the property of others by commercial manoeuvres without rendering any equivalent, and despise the slow growth of honest industry. The clumsier forms of stealing are of course despised as much as ever. A petty thief who robs a lady of her jewelry in the Fourth Avenue Tunnel in New York is sent to State Prison for twelve and a half years, for lack of artistic talent in his profession. If he had robbed three banks by embezzlements he might have escaped with half as long a sentence, as Boice, of Jersey City, did on that same day. Or if he had been a con- summate artist, like tbe thieves of the Whiskey Ring, who stole in " free hand style" by the million, he might have kept not only his money but his social standing. When the New York Times recently exposed a great conspiracy of New York mill ionaires to defraud the public, not one of them was tabooed from " the best society" for being caught stealing, in consid- eration for the fact that it was done on a Napoleonic scale. It is only to God and the godly that a theft by any other name will smell as bad. The decalogue has been revised to suit this phase of public sentiment by Arthur Hugh Clough : " Thou shalt have one God, only ; who Would be at the expense of two ? No graven images may be Worshipped, save in the currency : Swear not at all ; since for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse : STEALING AS A FINE ART. 183 At church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend : Honor thy parents ; that is, all From whom advancement may befall : Thou shalt not kill ; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive : Adultery it is not fit Or safe (for woman) to commit : Thou shalt not steal, an empty feat, It is more lucrative to cheat : Bear not false witness ; let the lie Have time on its own wings to fly : Thou shalt not covet ; but tradition Approves all forms of competition." There are few highway robberies to-day because public senti- ment is against them, unless they are done by wholesale and spiced with numerous murders, after the fashion of Missouri's deceased " St. James." It is easier and safer for a robber to disguise himself as a hotel-keeper, a cab-driver, a shoddy manu- facturer, or a borrower. Between Jerusalem and Jericho travellers used to fall among thieves. Now the chief of those same Arabs robs you in a less clumsy fashion by taking your money in advance and artisti- cally calling it a charge for escorting you safely through his own tribe. So in our land stealing has taken on new forms. These are so deceivingly labelled that many do not recognize stealing when they see it. It is my business as one of the moral board of health to ex- pose these disguised crimes in society, and so I propose to give a brief catalogue of the more refined forms of stealing, to put true labels in place of false ones premising, however, that stealing is no more common than in " the good old times, " but more refined. Speaking for a moment of the clumsier thieves who get into jail, let me protest against the sentimentality which has lately encouraged mutinies in jails because prisoners, who are better fed, better clothed, and better housed than most of them were 184 SUCCESSFUL MEK OF TO-DAY. when at large, are compelled to do two thirds as much work as free operatives perform in the same trade. If prison regula- tions are so severe, how is it that prisoners come back again and again as long as they live, asking for a six months' sentence as the pleasantest way to get through a Winter ? In my judgment the prisons err on the side of leniency rather than severity. The sentences are too short and the privileges in prison too many to keep prisoners from returning. In 1880, 147 out of 897 in Auburn State Prison were there on a second visit. In 1880, there were 215 persons confined in our State pris- ons for murder and killing, but only 115 were in for life. The State gives the rest a chance to go out and kill again. Of 1518 in Sing Sing that year 581 were in for less than three years. Men who are known to make crime a profession and have no other means of support are, by short sentences, sent out again and again from the prisons to renew their trade. Nor after a fifth offence but after a second should a man be declared an ** habitual criminal," and locked up for life in mercy to society. We can hardly sympathize with most that is said about prison severity when such men get coffee three times a day (in Sing Sing), meat daily, with buns extra on Sunday, and all the dainties their friends care to send them. The only real punish- ment these men get, as the warden said to me, is separation from wine and women. When a boy was asked by his teacher why lightning never struck the same place twice he answered, " It never needs to." If punishment were as swift and severe as it ought to be, it would never need to strike the same man six times, as it does in many cases nowadays. Of 28,889 arrested in Brooklyn in 1881, 17,795 about two thirds were dismissed by the judges with no punishment at all. Either the police should be pun- ished for making needless arrests or the judges for criminal leniency. The only way in which this leniency of the courts seems to be working together for good is in showing what sort of a world we should have if a Judge too merciful to punish sat on the throne of the universe. STEALING AS A FINE ART. 185 Betting, pools, policies and lotteries all of them forms of gambling are unfair exchanges of nothing for something, and therefore robbery. The only explanation of the unceasing- prosperity of these transparent frauds is in Carlyle's concise census of the population " mostly fools." There is no fact which may be more solidly relied on in commercial arrange- ments than that. He who caters for people of common-sense deals with the minority. The quack has the crowd. " The spirit of the age," says Samuel Smiles, " is not that of the trader, but the gambler. ' ' Anthony Comstock raided one lot- tery shop in New York where 1750 letters a day were received, including an average of $5 1*7 6 per day of money. That was the knaves' harvest from the fools. Wherever a fortune is offered for nothing there is sure to be a snake in the grass. A wise dog doesn't leave a bone for a shadow. One spring chicken in hand is worth a whole flock of wild geese on the wing. The short-cut of gambling is the longest way around after all. Better go about than fall in the ditch. Better a donkey that carries you than a horse that throws you. Gaming is the son of avarice and the father of despair. Sub rosa, thorns. The innocent loses his own bird in hand and beats the bush that the sharper may get all the birds. A great many old birds as well as young ones are caught by the gambler's chaff. The embezzler is usually first a gambler. The devil, without a foot of ground of his own, offered Christ all the kingdoms of the world as a bribe for his worship. Napoleon at a later day accepted the same offer, and died in exile. To-day the devil makes the same lying offer to the gambler, and so gets him to cast himself down to destruction. This gambling phase of robbery makes money enough to bribe telegraph companies to become its accomplices in law-breaking, and policemen into allowing violations of the laws, and it controls 30,000 votes in New York City. But it cannot buy off the curse of God which rests on all winning of money by the fascination of chances, without an exchange of services or goods, from church 186 SUCCESSFUL MEN" OF TO-DAY. fairs to gambling in stocks. The Roman Catholic Church, which originated the African slave-trade, has also a fearful responsibility for increasing the passion for gambling by estab- lishing lotteries on a large scale to build its cathedrals. Prot- estant churches also, in a smaller way, have shared in the guilt of encouraging this mad passion for unearned money. We need to crush this crocodile in the egg, to suppress every form of winning money by chances. The leading merchants in Chicago have determined to dis- charge any clerk who gambles in " pools," believing that no person can long follow the practice without becoming a gam- bler and a swindler. Gambling is as fascinating as a rattlesnake to those who once begin it. " The best throw of the dice is to throw them away." Let us avoid the beginnings of the evil, and even its more respectable forms. That reminds me that when gamblers were generally arrested in Chicago, they retaliated by causing the arrest of stock oper- ators on the Board of Trade, claiming that the latter were fellow-gamblers in the same condemnation. The consequent legal proceedings showed that more grain was sold in Chicago annually than is raised in all the world, and that most of the operators never handle any merchandise at all, but only bet on next month's stock prices how they will be affected by the death of a Garfield or a railroad war. The editor of the New York Journal of Commerce said to me recently that in prosperous times ninety-seven per cent of all the transactions in the New York Produce Exchange are not legitimate business but pure gambling. Even in dull times the percentage of mere betting on prices is ninety. The New York correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin says that of the 14,000 brokers in New York not more than 340 really sell any stocks. There are two Wall Streets. One of them does the country real service by legitimate speculations. In the other and larger one, vultures of a feather flock together. The thief of the STEALING AS A FINE ART. 187 wheat " corner" is no better than the thief of the saloon cor- ner.* Why do people smile when told who lives in a home on the Hudson that was raised in honor of honesty ? To count it more respectable to bet on prices than races is a distinction without a difference, or if there be a difference, one would think it a lower business to bet on a dead vegetable than on a live animal. A stock gambler, being unsuccessful, committed suicide, and left on his table a written copy of Jer. 17 : 11 : "As the part- ridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not ; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. 7 ' f Were it not for the strength of the gambling passion, men would be deterred from speculation by the large proportion who fail in it. William H. Vanderbilt recently said to a legislative committee, " Not one man in ten who goes into Wall Street is not a loser in the long run.'* In Chicago a man entered the Board of Trade with $50,000, and in sixty days left it penni- less. And yet, such is the fascination of chance and hope, that the man who has reaped the whirlwind often continues to sow the wind, looking for a better crop next time. The wickedness of the whole system of stock gambling ap- pears in the fact that it does not allow both parties in the trans- action to profit by it (as must be the case in all legitimate business), but one's gain is simply another's loss. " To one whose beard was on fire another said : * Here ! let me light my pipe. ' ' We hear little of the failures, but there are ten times as many as of the boasted successes. Many go out for wool and come back shorn. " A fish, being caught on a hook, reproached the angler for his cruelty. * Reproach yourself, rather,' said the angler, * f or your intended cruelty to the worm/ "J Scientific professors make hydrogen bubbles and then by a * See Bible description of corners and blind pools, Prov. 1 : 10-19. f Prov. 15 : 6. \ Austin Bierbrower. 188 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. touch of fire cause them to explode with a bang as they fly through the air. Mark the bubbles " Options/' "Futures," and you have a picture of Wall Street, where men are forever chasing the bursting bubbles of great expectations. Many a history of Wall Street investments might be put into this little fable : " This is a Picture of Freddy's Rabbits. But it is the Picture of a Fox. The Fox is very Fat. Where are Freddy's Rabbits ?" Dishonest speculation is worse than useless. It is wrong. Only fair exchange is no robbery. What a crowd of well-dressed, thieves are just now living by tricks and swindles ! * " When there are five e^gs for the penny, four of them are rotten." That looks simple enough for everybody to understand. But thousands do not under- stand it, and so respond to every swindler's offer to make them rich for a dollar. It requires a page per month in the Ameri- can Agriculturist to give a brief mention of the new humbugs that are robbing the people. The department is fitly headed with the picture of a lighted lamp to which the moths are flocking, and around which they are falling in death. How much it costs to learn tha one sentence, The good mines never go begging for stockholders. The most popular and perennially successful device of swin- dlers is to pretend an acquaintance with some stranger who has just reached the city, and at last get him to exchange some bogus check for the cash. Even the Concord School of Phi- losophy people were duped to the extent of a thousand dollars by this old trick. Would it not be well for them to pause in studying " the thingness of the here" long enough to learn some" of the ordinary tricks of unphilosophical swindlers ? One of the worst forms of modern stealing is known as the rehypothecating of trust funds that is, the secret use of trust funds for speculation. The New York Telegram calls this " The Era of Defaulters." The New York Tribune recently * Prov. 14 : 15, 16. STEALING AS A FINE ART. 189 published the record of five great embezzlements, in one day. If a man is unsuccessful in this style of stealing and so is found out, he gets a short term in jail ; but if he succeeds in his rob- bery and puts back what he stole, no questions are asked about how he got rich so fast with so little money of his own. The man who speculates, however carefulty, with money which was confided to him as a trustee to keep safely, not to use, is the pal of the burglar only more wicked, because he betrays a trust. " An ape is an ape, a varlet's a varlet, Though they be clad in silk or scarlet."* Not only our courts but public opinion should condemn more severely this aggravated crime. Thorold Rogers' has said, " The costliest unclean beast that society can keep in its menagerie, is an unpunished commercial rogue." Such a rogue should certainly be caged behind prison bars. But well-dressed thieves are soon released by the petitions of sentimental women and soft-hearted merchants to soft-headed governors, and so they become once more wild steers to spread A * " Where are yon going ?" said a gentleman one Sunday to a prison chaplain. "I'm" going to preach to the prisoners in the peniten- tiary," was the reply. " A hard audience," said the first speaker. " Not so different from your pastor's fashionable audience as you think," said the chaplain. " For instance, there is a laundress in the prison who was sent there for rehypothecating two shirts at a pawn-shop to raise a little money to buy food for her family. She intended to redeem the shirts in a day or two and send them to the owner at the usual time, but the illegal act was discovered, and she was sent to prison. If every man in your pastor's rich audience who has illegally borrowed money on the security of trust funds was sent to jail, don't you think it would thin out his audience somewhat ? And then there is a man in the prison for selling cigars that had not paid the revenue tax. Suppose all the rich ladies in your pastor's audience that, on returning from Europe, have smuggled in laces and silks that were liable to duty, were sent to the penitentiary, don't you think it would rather crowd the woman's department ?" 190 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. commercial distrust through society. If we made it hard times for defaulters there would be none for the people. Ingenious political economists attribute the periodical depression of busi- ness to the increase of spots on the sun. The real trouble is the lack of stripes on the defaulters. " The shameful record of the administration of the insurance receivers of New York, as laid bare by the New York Herald, shows that sometimes the receiver is a good deal worse than the thief." A father said to his son : " Now, my boy, I've been making my will, and I've left a very large property in trust for you. I merely wish to ask if you've any suggpsti n to offer?" The son replied, " Well, I don't know that I have, sir unless hum as things go nowadays, wouldn't it be better to leave the property to the other boy, and appoint me the trustee ?" A shrewd business man being asked recently, " Where is the best place to put a small amount of trust funds ?" replied, " In the vaults of a good safe deposit company." " Ah, but you get no interest." " True ; but you know where to find your principal when it is wanted ; and of what other place can you say that, nowadays ?" The statement is too strong at present, but the defalcations and embezzlements of the last three months have undoubtedly brought many to the same opinion. XXL POLITE PILFERING. Through tattered clothes small vices do appear ; Kohes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. SHAKESPEARE. The national Constitution and the Constitution of most of the States were formed before the locomotive existed, and, of course, no special provision was made for its control. Are our institutions strong enough to stand the shock and strain of this new force ? I fail to believe that the genius and energy that have developed these new and tremendous forces will fail to make them, not the masters, but the faithful servants of society. GABFIELD. THE Himalayas of American robbery are called monopolies, t which mean that one or more rich men, by buying up all com- petitors or crushing them out of existence, get the control of some commodity a perpetual " corner" and then compel all the nation to " stand and deliver" whatever price they may ask in the way of plunder. It is a highway robbery of the whole nation at once. For instance, according to J. R. Keene, the coal monopoly is just now robbing the people of one dollar per ton compelling us to pay that much more than the normal price. Our commercial life is an oligarchy. A dozen men dictate what we shall pay for oil, for coal, for wheat, for stocks of every kind. Francis A. Walker showed in the Tribune of December 14th, 1882, that business establishments are every decade concentrating in larger shops and factories. The great- est political contest of the future is to be between the * ' robber 192 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. barons" of monopoly and the people, as to which shall rule.* Anti-monopoly is a good cause, whatever any one may think of its leaders. The only fear is that the trodden worm will turn into a snake. " General, come in here a moment ; we have something for you to solve. If a man brings his watch to be fixed, and it costs me ten cents to do it, and I keep it a week, and charge him six dollars, what per cent do I make ? We have been figuring, and make it nine hundred per cent, and have only got up to one dollar. How much do you say it will be at six dol- lars?" 11 Well," replied the general, " I do not wonder at your perplexity ; for it is well known, and the celebrated Babbit calculating machine has demonstrated, that at certain points in progressive numbers the law governing them changes. In this case the law would change, and long before it would reach the six dollars it would run out of per cent and into what is known as larceny !" Condemnation of petty stealing comes with bad grace from these monopolists. The ass brays at the dog for barking. A lion, feasting on a deer, upbraids the cat for mouse-catching. When the government keeps a constant look-out against watered milk and none against watered railway-stock, it is straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. So also when it controls the transit of the Panama Canal and not our trans-con- tinental railways. The monopolist grows only through the commercial death of small competitors whom he unfairly crushes by underselling. Selling men is bad, but so is underselling. One robs of liberty, the other of a living. We call these wholesale robbers " smart." You had rather be a smart knave than a fool. But the knave is a fool. " The folly of fools is deceit." Nothing in the long run is so great a * Prov. 11 : 21, 26 ; 16 : 19. " Power," says Emerson, " is what theBe rich men want not candy." POLITE P1LFEIUNG. 193 blunder as wrong-doing. * ' I had rather be right than Presi- dent." " Your hoards are great, your walls are strong, But God is just ; The gilded chambers built by wrong Invite the rust. " What ! know ye not the gain of crime In dust and dross ? It ventures on the way of time, Foredoomed to loss ! "* But, alas, the rich are not allowed to monopolize monopoly. In a " Trade and Labor Convention" held a few months ago at Philadelphia, and presided over by President Jarrett, a resolu- tion was passed asking that it should be made ' ' a penal offence to import foreign labor under contract for the purpose of reducing the wages of American labor." The New York Tribune describes this as an attempt at " the most outrageous monopoly ever conceived in the interest of the men who happen to have migrated to this country already." There should be no conflict between labor and capital. They are as necessary to each other as to the bow the cord is, useless each without the other. This resolution is a timely reminder that the root of all evil needs to be weeded out of 1he poor man's potato patch as well as the rich man's garden. It will hardly do for the shop-keeper who has half a dozen prices for the same article, to denounce railroads for charging a lower freight to some monopoly than to other companies which it wishes to crush. Let us all, rich and poor, join the Society of the Royal Law and love our neighbors as ourselves. Another instance of poor men stealing from each other is found in the violations of the Sunday law. It was in the inter- est of poor workmen, and especially slaves, that Constantino enacted the first civil law against Sunday labor, except works JMVhittier. 194 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. of necessity and mercy. Alfred the Great enacted a similar law for the same reason, as a breakwater for the poor against the oppressions of the rich. Thus the workingmen got seven days' wages for six days' labor, and a rest day extra. Now it is largely the workingmen themselves that cry out against Sun- day laws, and require other laboring men to give up their Sun- days in ministering to their pleasures, forgetting that they are thus opening the way for employers to compel them all at length to work seven days for six days' wages. Even now those who break the Sabbath steal from those in the same trade who keep it. For instance, two candy stores close on Sunday in obedience to law. Another in the same neighborhood keeps open and takes nearly all the trade which would have been divided on Saturday evening if all had kept the law. The only profits taken on Sunday that could not have been taken without the loss of a seventh-day rest are the missionary pennies which the Sunday-school children embezzle. We may expect unparalleled embezzlements when these chil- dren, so early led to steal and break the Sabbath, shall be- come our treasurers and trustees. Every superintendent should use the law to close these Sunday-schools of the devil when funds are embezzled and children corrupted. No wonder that fifty horse-car conductors were recently dis- missed in Philadelphia for stealing fares (from two to five dollars per day), since they had themselves been first robbed of their Sunday culture of conscience. A state that robs its creditors by repudiation need not wonder if its own treasurer profits by the lesson. The railroad riots of a few years ago are but a whisper of warning as to what men may do who are robbed of their Sunday lessons in good morals. A boy of thirteen came to the city to seek his livelihood. The first opportunity that offered was a position in a drug store. For a few days everything seemed satisfactory, but after a few weeks' experience he exclaimed, earnestly, ** I can- not stay in that place. I am willing to work all day, to work nights, and to work hard ; but to work Sundays, that's what I POLITE PILFERING. 195 won't do. If people only came in to buy medicine, that would be one thing ; but to stay there and sell perfumery, and soda water, and mineral water, things they don't need at all ! I never felt so mean in all my life." The brave little fellow felt that his moral nature had received a shock and his sense of i-ight had been outraged. It would simplify the Sunday ques- tion if there were more of such heroes. Stealing by false weights and measures is far more common than is generally known. The report for 1882 of the Sealer of Weights and Measures for Boston showed that in one year 6536 weights and measures were found incorrect. That makes us half believe Theodore Parker's remark : " Let the right be given a Boston merchant to sell out the Atlantic Ocean by the quart, and he will cheat in the measurement." It is also a symptom of something amiss that the papers contain so many small jokes about false measures, such as the following : " The son of a butcher experienced great difficulty in com- prehending fractions, although his teacher did his best to make him understand their intricacies. " Now let us suppose," said the teacher, " that a customer came to your father to buy five pounds of meat, and he only had four to sell what would he do ?" " Keep his hand on the meat while he was weighing it, and then it would weigh more than five pounds, ' ' was the can- did response. * ' How is it, Mr. Brown, ' ' said a miller to a farmer, l ' that when I came to measure those ten barrels of apples I bought from you I found them nearly two barrels short ?" " Singu- lar, very singular ; for I sent them to you in ten of your own flour barrels." " Ahem ! Did, eh ?" said the miller, " well, perhaps I made a mistake." ' ' It seems to me your loaves are not of the same weight, ' ' muttered a fault-finding housewife to a baker, as she poised a couple of loaves from his basket ; " do you suppose you can cheat me ?" " I don't want to cheat you," replied the man of bread, not relishing such an insinuation ; " I know the loaves were weighed, every soul of them, and one weighs just 196 SUCCESSFUL HEtf OF TO-DAY. as much as t'other, by gracious ! and more too, I dare say, if the truth was known !" The lecturer began, " There is a fortune lying in wait " Up jumped a bullet-headed fellow in the north-east corner to remark, " Well, I guess you're 'bout right there, mister. There's Bill, the butcher. Three years ago, he wasn't wuth a dollar. He's got a fortin' now. Got it as you say by lying in weight. ' ' " When all de half bushels gits do same size, you may look out for the millenicum." " Do you want to know," said a customer to a grocer, " how you could sell a good deal more than you do ?" " Yes. How can I ?" "Fill up your measures," Such jokes, even if not facts, are signs of a truth. They are straws which show the current. Why is it that a coal dealer, opening business recently, adver- tised that he would give full weight ? Why did he not adver- tise that he would not steal any of the coal sold to his custom- ers ? Whoever steals two hundred or one hundred pounds of coal out of his customers' ton blackens all his gold. " They all do it" will not whiten a theft. Custom cannot make two and one equal four. The man who sent a four-gallon jug for molasses and received it back with a bill for five gallons, said that he didn't mind the extra gallon of molasses, but that he was afraid of the stress on the jug. What we are afraid of is the stress on the conscience of those who weigh their goods by the false balance that is called an abomination to the Lord. It is hardly fair to represent Justice any longer with a pair of scales in her hands. Put the blindfolding on the customer and call the picture Injustice. Buskin is right in saying that cheating should be punished more severely than stealing. In one of Mr. Moody's meetings I knelt for an hour beside a repentant grocer who had cheated his customers by false weights and false entries. He found no peace of conscience until he made lestitution, which is the bet" POLITE PILFERING. 197 ter half of penitence. Let your pocket weep forth its ill-gotten gains. Let your money repent, that is, turn again to its right- ful owners. Perhaps stealing never appears so fully as a fine art as in the role of adulterations. Obtaining money by false pretenses has a wider range than is commonly thought. It includes all ob- taining of money by selling goods for what they are not in kind or quantity or quality. In a report on the " Adulteration of Food " presented to the House of Representatives of the 46th Congress at its third ses- sion (Report 199) by Mr. Casey Young, from the Committee on Epidemic Diseases, it was stated that '* the adulteration of arti- cles used in the every-day diet of vast numbers of people has grown to and is now pra-cticed to such an extent as to seriously endanger the public health and to call loudly for some sort of legislative correction. Drags, liquors,* articles of clothing, * I have seen in the hands of a temperance lecturer a wonderful tin box, such as is used by runners for wholesale liquor dealers, con- taining drugs and recipes for making all kinds of wine without grapes, cider without apples, etc. The box came into his hands through the suicide of a druggist, all the facts being certified to by Rev. Mr. Halsey of Brooklyn. He has also a pile of books purchased in England, France, Australia, Sandwich Islands, California and New York, giving directions for making (not importing) all kinds of foreign liquors out of the spirits of wine, by the use of these poison- ous drugs ; also directions for making new barrels look old, etc. He has offered large sums of money again and again to liquor dealers in public audiences for a single pint of pure wine, or pure gin, or pure brandy from their stores which would stand chemical analysis, but without success. At the close of one of these lectures, on March 27th, in Brooklyn, a reliable gentleman of my acquaintance, who is in the drug business in New York, said that the lecturer's statements as to its being well nigh impossible to get pure liquors even for medicinal purposes were the simple truth. " I do not believe," he added," that there are five gallons of pure brandy in all New York City. ' ' The London Times, commenting on the facts given to the public by the American Consul at Kochelle in France, about the falsification of brandy not only by merchants but by the very proprietors of the vineyards, calls atten- 198 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. wall paper, and many other things seem to be subjected to the same dangerous processes. " The report shows that adultera- tions are especially common in spices and groceries. We are horrified when we hear of some exceptional fiend try- ing to poison a whole family at once in their food, or when we read of a city being poisoned by infected clothing. What shall we say of the men who deliberately sit down with -their chemis- tries and pick out cheap poisons, which they can secretly ad- minister to a whole nation in its food and drinks and clothing, for their own gain ? What matters it if there is a slaughter of the innocents by these " doctored goods," if the manufac- turers' pockets are filled ? Even when the adulteration or imi- tation is not a poison, as when glucose is sold for sugar, or oleomargarine for butter, it is a lie and a theft. " For ways that are dark and for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is not peculiar." Some of the eccentricities of modern adulteration are deli- cately disclosed to the consumers by a contemporary German satirist in the folio wing neat and pregnant little fable : " There were once four flies, and, as it happened, they were hungry one morning. The first settled upon a sausage of singularly appe- tizing appearance, and made a hearty meal. But he speedily died of intestinal inflammation, for the sausage was adulterated with aniline. The second fly breakfasted upon flour, and forth- with succumbed to contraction of the stomach, owing to the inordinate quantity of alum with which the flour had been adulterated. The third fly was slaking his thirst with the con- tion to the alarming increase of adulterated beverages, and says in closing : "Not only in France, but in other countries, and even in the United States, these liquors are producing a condition of national alcoholism of the worst kind. " Those who take whiskey for whiskey, or brandy for brandy, or wine for wine, in these days when the uni- versal habit of adulterating liquors is so well known, " shut their eyes when they open their mouths," but do not get what will maka them either " healthy or wealthy or wise." POLITE PILFERING. 199 tents of the railk jug, when violent cramps suddenly convulsed his frame, and he soon gave up the ghost, a victim to chalk adulteration. Seeing this, the fourth fly, muttering to him- self, ' The sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,' alighted upon a moistened sheet of paper exhibiting the counterfeit presentment of a death's head, and the inscription, * Fly Poison.' Apply- ing the tip of his proboscis to this device, the fourth fly drank to his heart's content, growing more vigorous and cheerful at every mouthful, although expectant of his end. But he did not die. On the contrary, he throve and waxed fat. You see, even the fly-poison was adulterated !" In the long run such adulterations rob the pocket as well as the character. " Consul Shaw, at Manchester, sends home a statement concerning the cotton imported from this country to England, which is disgraceful to the South. Sand, it is stated, is packed in the cotton, shovelled in or blown in, to so large an amount that thousands of tons of it are bought and paid for as cotton in the course of a year. Water is also thrown into the bales, to increase the weight ; and not satisfied with that, the greedy planter in some cases cunningly hides stones and lumps of iron in the cotton. As a natural consequence, Egyptian and Indian cottons, * although not so easy or pleasant to spin,' are gaining favor in the market because they are honestly packed, while the adulterated American is steadily losing value. Consul Shaw proposes that growers and packers should be required to stamp their names and addresses on each bale. The raw cotton which we export has a precisely opposite history from our manufactured muslins, prints and ducks, as they have begun to thrust the fraudulent English cotton goods out of the Asiatic, and even out of the British markets, because they are wholly free from adulteration. It takes the average manufacturer and trader a long time to learn that honesty is actually the best policy in business in the long run. Our con- suls unceasingly urge this fact on American expoiters of sugar, butter, beef, pork, machines, and canned goods ; and now it comes to light that we have been cheating in cotton. It is a 200 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. pity that the Southern agriculturist, with his one important crop, should have to learn at this late date how senseless and impolitic is dishonesty, and should destroy his one chance in a manner so stupidly shameless and ruinous."* Men say, u Others adulterate, and I must or fail." Better fail that way than a worse one. Since imprisonment for debt has ceased, one of the most popular methods of stealing is borrowing without the proba- bility of paying. Some years ago a Highlander, being in the city of Glasgow for the first time, one fine morning was amazed at the stream of people flocking from all quarters toward the end of the green, where criminals were hung. He asked a passenger what the folks expected to see down there. " A man is to be hanged this morning, sir," was the answer. " Oh, poor man ! and what are they going to hang him for ?" " Sheep-stealing, sir." " Tut, tut ! poor stupid man ! Why did he not buy them and never pay for them ?' ' There is a class of men in every community who live for years by this form of petty thieving making small loans and incurring small bills which they never pay. They do no other business, and yet are able to enjoy all the luxuries of life. Every business which gives credit, charges the paying customers extra to cover these losses, so that every honest consumer is robbed by them. A German shoemaker, having made a pair of boots for a gentleman of whose financial integrity he had considerable doubt, made the following reply to him when he called for the articles : " Der poots ish not quite done, but der beel ish made out." The Methodist Discipline brands this tl borrowing without the probability of paying" as a crime against God and man. Let public opinion put the same criminal stripes upon it. * New York Tribune. 301 " I stand, " said a stump orator, " on the broad platform of the principles of '98, and palsied be my arm if I desert 'em." " You stand on nothing of the kind," interrupted a little shoe- maker in the crowd ; u you stand in my boots that you never paid me for, and I want the money. ' ' It would be wholesome if these small-debt thieves were often thus exposed. I pity the man who for such petty thieving will sell out his power and right to look every man straight in the eye. His resources of credit soon run out. " A wooden pot cannot often be put on the fire. ' ' A Scotch nobleman, seeing an old gardener of his establish- ment with a very ragged coat, made some passing remarks on its condition. "It's a verra guid coat," said the honest old man. " I cannot agree with you there," said his lordship. " Ay, it's just a verra guid coat," persisted the old man ; " it covers a contented spirit, and a body that owes no man any- thing, and that's mair than mony a man can say of his coat." But the great artists of refined stealing incur debts on a large scale, and then take advantage of the "new way to pay old debts' ' bankruptcy laws. " The world is a goose : to succeed, you must pick The feathers off nicely by buying on tick. The vulgar pickpocket is sent off to jail : Be polite ; give your note ; and gracefully fail." The skilled artist will see to it that while he goes through the bankruptcy court his fine horse is driven round by his wife, with most of the valuables. It has become a proverb, " He who never fails will never grow rich." It is easier to rob by bankruptcy than by burglary. This is a ground where every critic should tread with justice and carefulness, since honest misfortune and dishonest rascality have fled to the same city of refuge the bankrupt law. I have only sympathy for the man who, in spite of economy, fidelity, and diligence, has fallen before the simoon of financial disaster, through the power of influences beyond his control, but since robbers have fled to tho 202 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. same sanctuary it is but justice to every bankrupt who is on a church record, as well as to the church, to have, as in former times, a church committee appointed to investigate whether the bankruptcy is really a failure or fraud, thus separating the wheat from the tares, the unfortunate from the unprincipled. Where is conscience during all these respectable robberies ? There is a strange custom said to exist among thieves in China. They prepare a composition of some medicated ingredient, sup- posed to be aconite, and lighting it, blow it into the room to be robbed by means of a tube, through a hole previously made not a difficult thing in a Chinese house with paper windows and doors. The inmates are thus anaBstheticized, or at least deprived of the power of speech and locomotion, and the thieves enter and do their work. In vain does the proprietor being robbed see the burglars. He cannot move limb or tongue. It is said that water absorbs this poison, and so for this purpose it is not uncommon for wealthy people to sleep with a basin of water at their heads. In this country the thieves stupefy their own consciences with covetousness and excuses as a preparation for stealing by wholesale. The best we can wish for such men is that they may some day run for office. Then they will hear from the public conscience, which requires a candidate for political office to be more honest than most of his constituents. Or they will find their judgment day, when, needing credit, " the books are opened" at the Mercantile Agency, which records the com- mercial biography of every merchant, and it is shown that they were once negligent about their debts, and paid them at last by dishonest bankruptcy. And what shall I more say of the varied forms of refined stealing ? for the time would fail to speak in detail of the bribery * of public officers and commercial buyers by monopo- * Dent. 16 : 19 ; Prov. 15 : 27 ; 17 : 23. The bribery of commercial buyers is rapidly growing into a national evil. The runner for an oil company, for instance, enters a wool establishment where a great deal of oil is used, and being re- POLITE PILFERIXG. 203 lists and jury fixers and merchants ; of hubbelling, by which government employes are blackmailed for party purposes ; of liquor-selling, which robs the public by adulterations, by trans- gressing its legal rights in selling on Sundays, and to children, and by taking money without returning a fair equivalent ; of some lawyers, who, unlike physicians, have not given up bleed- ing their patients, and rob the public by legislative lobbies to prevent the simplifying of the unjust insurance laws, and by f erred to the foreman, says to him confidentially : " We call the price of this oil twenty-five cents a gallon, but all I want to get is twenty cents, and we will divide the five cents a gallon between us if you will buy of me." If the foreman is dishonest, he buys not of the man who will furnish the best oil, but rather of the one who will pay him the largest bribe. A recent investigation of the senatorial barber-shop of the Pennsylvania Legislature, as described by the New York Tribune, will further illustrate the dark ways of this commercial bribery : " We regret to observe that second-rate articles were ' rung in ' on the able Senators in several instances. The barber let out his patron- age by contract, and some of the contractors made handsome profits by supplying inferior goods. Thus the sponge contractor agreed to supply sponges at $15 a pound. Those he furnished were subse- quently estimated as being worth no more than $2 a pound. Of course, the State was the pecuniary loser in the transaction, but what ignominy it was for the august senatorial head to be swabbed with a sponge of so low a quality. Then boxes containing only sixty bars of soap were paid for as if containing one hundred. Second-rate, and possibly second-hand, combs and brushes were furnished in the same way, and there were suggestions that the man who supplied the towels and chamois-skins had a 'divy' with the barber by which he furnished poor supplies and made a 50 per cent profit on his contract. This shows how corruption is gnawing at the very vitals of our institutions. Nothing is too sacred for its polluting touch. Think of the Pennsyl- vanian senatorial bald head, scrubbed with laundry soap, washed off with a sponge bought on a street corner at ten cents the dozen, pol- ished up with a towel which may have been a discarded dishcloth, and finally whitened with a nasty chalk preparation deceitfully called powder ! No wonder free institutions are tottering ! If this is the kind of treatment which a great modern statesman experiences when he submits himself to be shaved and bathed at the public expense, our system of government is a miserable failure." 204 SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. needless delays in the courts, which verify the proverb, " The more law the less justice ;" of stealing by pa-inters and me- chanics, who prolong one job until they get another ; of rich men stealing from the public by withholding their taxes or pay- ing them in some place where they do not really reside, thus indirectly making their poor neighbors pay their tax ; of em- ployers stealing from their employes by keeping back their wages or unjustly cutting them down ; of stealing by false signs, false advertisements, false statements, false bills, false labels ; by giving better meat to rich customers than to the poor at the same charge ; and by sham prices, " charging what is unjust that you may get what is just" from those who ask for a discount, and more than is just from those who do not. Before you cast a stone of condemnation at these refined forms of stealing, be sure that you are not yourself at least as far as the hallway of a glass house. It will hardly do for those who steal half-price rides for their " scooching" children that are beyond the half-price age, to criticise the grocer for giving short measure. " The steam-cars run so rapidly that they get way ahead of a child's age, so that the boy or girl who was fifteen when he entered them is no more than six or eight by the time the con- ductor comes along. Boast of our progress as you may, there's no denying that the children are behind the age on rail- ways and at the entertainment ticket offices." It is estimated that the government loses over a million dol- lars a year by the second use of postage stamps the ink being washed off. Whoever steals a postage stamp is at least a dis- tant relative to him who robs a mail-bag. And how many people send writing through the mails in newspapers or rolls at printed matter rates ! The Postmaster-General of Great Britain says that 14,000 newspapers were detected doing this illegal service between England and the "United States and Canada last year. Another phase of petty dishonesty is tardiness in meeting POLITE PILFERING. 205 engagements by which one robs others of time, which is money to them. A man promises to pay a bill on the first day of tho month, but carelessly lets it run on to the tenth, to the great in- convenience or loss of his creditor, who depended on his prom- ise. Tardiness is dishonesty. Stealing time may be even worse than stealing money. Bad work is yet another common form of stealing that needs a true label. A man pays for work of a certain grade, and does not get it. His money has been obtained by false pretences. All bad work is lying, stealing, and sometimes murder, for in- stance the bridges and tunnels that fall in and destroy property and life, and in the defective plumbing which produces disease and death. A convict says he was sent to prison for being dishonest, and yet he is compelled every day to cut out pieces of paste- board, which are put between the soles of the cheap shoes made there and palmed off on the innocent public as leather. Let labor unions strike against doing bad or dishonest work, and so acquit themselves of the charge of being as much actu- ated by selfishness as their employers. Let them dismiss idle and incompetent men, and seek to raise the grade and quality of their work as well as its price. Let us hear of strikes for honest work by those engaged in base and useless occupations, and for better work by those who are in right employments that are badly conducted. Three removes are as bad as a fire, but a dozen are better than doing a dishonest business. As we have accomplished emancipation from the slavery that forced men to do unpaid work, let us save ourselves from the slavery of organizations that force men to be idle ; that strike against wages that wrong themselves, but not against work that wrongs the public. I must not omit from these refined specimens of stealing that to which the Bible refers when it says : " Will a man rob God? In tithes and in offerings have ye robbed me." The early teachings of God to the human race, as far back as the days of Abraham, before there was a Jewish people, I under- 206 SUCCESSFUL HEX OF TO-DAY. stand to indicate that a tenth of our income belongs to God as our Father and King. The rule is as appropriate now as it ever was. We ought to give beyond that, but one tenth of our income, I take it, is not ours to keep. Withholding it, we shall corne to see by aiid by is embezzling trust funds. That church member in Connecticut who recently gave five dollars to Foreign Missions, ten dollars for pew rent, and thirty thousand dollars for his own monument, has raised a monument of his unchristian character. As one labels poisons that they may not be mistaken for food, so it will be profitable for us to examine the questionable practices of to-day and label the various forms of stealing, as I have sought to do. If all thieves were punished, as in some lands, by having their hair cut short and smeared with pitch and a pillow-full of feathers emptied over their heads, what a horde of savages we should have, and how it would put up the price of feathers ! Some bankers and trustees and treasurers would not look quite so fine and trim as they pass up the avenues to their palaces built of fraud. As a nation is deeply affected by the atmosphere of the country in which it lives, so I believe that the commercial atmosphere of some great cities has unconsciously lowered the standard of integrity in many once good men. Now the only sentence in Ecclesiastes that they believe is, " Be not righteous overmuch.'* They are content to be " average honest," which means anything between the highest Christian and the lowest knave. They sympathize with the little girl who, being asked if she had been good, answered, ** Not veddy good, not veddy bad just a comferable little girl." But there is no comfort in being " average honest." As well die for an old sheep as a lamb. Let our honesty be " o' and o' " out and out. The old road of integrity seems a long way round, but in the end it is shorter than the short cut of fraud that leaves you in the swamp. He who seeks to destroy others wrongs himself yet more. Don't let any one POLITE PILFEKIKQ. 207 see you do a mean thing, especially not the man you are always with yourself. Then you will never be afraid of being found out. Only the black fear they will be blackmailed. " The honest man, though ne'er so poor, Is king o' men for a' that." " He that walketh uprightly walketh surely." In the language of Dr. Cuyler's motto, " No one was ever lost on a straight road." As a godly merchant lay upon his dying bed, he spoke to his children of the little property which he had acquired and was leaving behind him. "It is not much, but there is not a dirty shilling in it." " Perish policy and cunning, Perish all that fears the light ; Whether losing, whether winning, 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. " * * Dr. Norman MacLeod. LABOR rids us of three evils tediousness, vice, and poverty. CABLYLE. It may be proved with much certainty that God intends no man to live in this world without working ; but it seems to me no less evi- dent that he intends every man to be happj^ in his work. It is writ- ten, ' In the sweat of thy brow, ' but it was never written, ' In the breaking of thy heart ' thou shalt eat bread. BUSKIN. To be satisfied, or at all events reconciled with our occupation, whatever it may be, is the first essential of mental health. It is of the utmost importance for a man to choose such a profession or occupa- tion as his education and mental qualities best fit him to pursue, and having made his choice, to recognize the fact that he is working for some fixed and definite purpose. Let a man so school and discipline himself that when misfortune or disaster comes it shall find him with sufficient reserve force, with enough mental or nervous stamina, to make the best of what remains and not be overcome by an unlooked- for and unexpected stroke of misfortune. The habit of doing one thing at a time and doing it well ; the power of concentration, which is the outgrowth of this habit, and a resolution to make the best of life and the work one has chosen, are the surest defence against mis- fortune and the best safeguard against disease. DB. EDWABD E. JANEWAY. There is no secret of success but work. TUENEE. Genius is capacity for an extraordinary degree of application. AGASSIZ. A somewhat varied experience of men has led me. the longer I live, to set the less value on mere cleverness ; to attach more and more im- portance to industry and physical endurance. Indeed, I am much disposed to think that endurance is the most valuable quality of all ; for industry, as the desire to work hard, does not come to much if a feeble frame is unable to respond to the desire. No life is wasted unless it ends in sloth, dishonesty or cowardice. No success is worthy of the name unless it is won by honest industry and brave breasting of the waves of fortune. HUXLEY. XXII. LABOR AND LUCK. " LET him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor. " There is no other safe road. Rev. Washington Gladden investigated the early history of eighty-eight of Springfield's leading men. Of these, only five were not in early life trained to regular work. Ninety-four and a half per cent of these successful men were either farmers' boys or poor, hard-working town boys. Only five and a half per cent of that company of successful men came from the class of boys who have " nothing in particular to do." From this latter class, however, come most of the thieves and jail-birds, who would not work for pay, and so had to work without pay. Howard found that even prisoners grew worse if not set to work. u O then we bring forth weeds when our quick minds lie still." Young loafers first read their fate, " Steal or work ;" then in prison they re-read it, " Steal and work." Henry Ward Beecher tells a story of a man in the Canadian backwoods, who, during the summer months, had procured a stock of fuel sufficient for the winter. This man had a neigh- bor who was very indolent, but not very honest, and who, hav- ing neglected to provide against the winter storms, was mean enough to avail himself of his neighbor's supplies without the latter' s permission or knowledge. Mr. Beecher states that it was found, on computation, that the thief had actually spent more time in watching for opportunities to steal, and labored more arduously to remove the wood (to say nothing of the risk and penalty of detection) than the man who in open daylight, and by honest means, had gathered it- 210 SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-DAY. " The latest gospel in the world," says Carlyle, " is, Man, know thy work, and do it. " If the stage route is discontinued, strike for the cars. If no whales, try an oil-well. A City Hall sign aptly says, "Gentlemen will not, and others must not loaf on these steps." Gentlemen " will not loaf," but labor. Fireflies shine only when in motion. It is only the active who can hope to shine. The bicycle falls when it ceases its activity. Doing nothing is an apprenticeship to doing wrong. The man who stands with his hands in his pockets through the morning will have them in other folks' pockets before night. " When the field was sown without being ploughed, it yielded without being reaped." " A young man idle, an old man needy." " He that will eat the kernel must crack the nut." " A lazy man is of no more use in the world than a dead man, and he takes up more room." " Sloth is the key to poverty." " He that would thrive must rise at five." He who waits for something to turn up is likely to turn up in jail. The rich reproach the poor for idleness that is, the sieve reproves the needle for having a hole in it. Fathers should early teach their boys that ** if any one will not work, neither shall he eat." Mr. Beecher has well said that every idle man has to be sup- ported by some industrious man. Rich as England is, all her wealth would only support the population in idleness for one year. What a picture of a sluggard is that in Proverbs : " A sloth- ful man putteth his hand in his dish, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again." * He is " born tired." If he ever saw a snail, he must have met him, for he never overtook one. While avoiding idleness as one extreme, overwork is to be shunned as the other. A man overworks to gain $200, and then pays out $500 in recovering his health. That is like the * Read Prov. 6 : 6-11 ; 18 : 9 ; 19 : 15, 24 ; 21 : 13, 25 ; 22 : 13 ; 24 : 30-34 ; 26 : 13. LABOR AND LUCK. 211 progress of the little girl, who explained her lateness at school one winter day by saying that for every step she took forward she slipped back two. " How, then, did you ever get here ?" said the teacher. " Oh, " said the quick-witted child, ' ' I turned around and went the other way. ' ' Overwork puts one back two steps for every one gained. It is better to go the other way. It is the early worm that falls a victim to the early bird. One should not be early to rise unless he is early to bed. Only for such does " the morning hour have gold in his mouth." " The man who is to keep other folks awake must sleep a great deal himself." What a haste looks through the eyes of Americans ! We are gluttons of work. " People should shine as lights in the world, but not put the candle in a draught or doorway." " Every American, so Europe thinks, is born half an hour too late, and is trying all his life to make up lost time." Between idleness and overwork lios the happy valley of healthy industry. As we read of Adam before the fall put into the garden " to dress it and to keep it," we see that a life of business activity is consistent and appropriate to the highest rank, the fullest pleasure, the noblest purity. Let us magnify our office, and be happy in whatever work we have to do, in the spirit of the organ-blower, who said he could pump any tnno the organist could play. The test of honor is achievement. " What hast thou that thou didst not receive ?" Amor et labor omnia vincit. The mountain of success does not come to us. We must go to it step by step. Persever- ance removes mountains or tunnels them. " Would you live long, work hard," said Rowland Hill, and proved it. Hard labor prevents " hard luck." I suggest that when the " Thir- teen Club" have proved that is not an unlucky number, they further prove that labor is luck. Rufus Choate believed in hard work. When some one said to him that a certain fine achievement was the result of acci- dent, he exclaimed, " Nonsense ! You might as well drop the Greek alphabet on the ground and expect to pick up the Iliad." SUCCESSFUL MEi* OF TO-DAY. The Paris correspondent of the London Times once said to Thiers, "It is marvellous, M. le President, how you deliver long improvised speeches about which you have not had time to reflect." "You are not paying me a compliment," he replied : u it is criminal in a statesman to improvise speeches on public affairs. The speeches you call improvised, why, for fifty years I have been rising at five in the morning to prepare them." A new book which has been warmly commended for its thoroughness and finish, is said to have been rewritten nine times, and portions of it fifteen times, before it was committed to the printer. A man who is very rich, when asked how he got his riches, replied, " My father taught me never to play till all my work for the day was finished, and never to spend money till I had earned it. If I had but half an hour's work to do in a day, I must do that the first thing, and in half an hour. After this was done I was allowed to play. I early formed the habit of doing everything in its time, and it soon became perfectly easy to do so. It is to this habit that I now owe my pros- perity." Don't take your work as a dose. Rather say, as Christ did of his appointed work no easy task " I delight to do thy will, OGod." " Hard work" is frequently mentioned by our prominent men among the secrets of success. ' * No sweat, no sweet. ' ' This secret of success is variously expressed : " Plodding per- severance," " Unceasing labor," " Willingness and ability to work, " * ' No shrinking from hard work, " " Hard study, ' ' 4 'Persistent study." " Lack of hard study" is given as a reason why so many lawyers fail ; also " Impatience of irksome details." Among the general reasons for failure are the following which connect with this question of work : " Disposition of young men to take life easy and willingness of parents to let them." u Antipathy of young men to learning a trade." LABOR AND LUCK. 213 '' Shirking drudgery." (" THe horse opens his mouth when one says, Oats, and shuts it when he says, Bridle.") A rich man in Ohio said, u I'm proud of my boys. As soon as they were old enough to work, I bethought myself that riches had spoiled many boys, and also that rich boys might be poor men. So I gave to every boy his work. Some of them carried on a garden, from which I purchased supplies for the kitchen, requiring them to be posted on market reports and keep their accounts in proper style. Others managed a car- penter's shop, and were paid for making repairs. In this way they all learned to work and to use money, and were happier than if they had been left in idleness. ' ' Most of the men who are now at the top of the ladder in financial success began at the bottom and mastered every detail of their trade step by step. Franklin Fairbanks and Orange Judd each told me they could take the place of any workman in their employ except the blacksmith. Hon. William E. Dodge began by sweeping out the store which he afterward owned. Moen of Worcester also mastered his business from the bottom. An eminent merchant says that "most of the failures in any business come from not thus serving an appren- ticeship to it." Haste is slow. Things slowly obtained are long retained. Speculators, who make money rapidly, gen- erally lose it with equal rapidity. It is the patient, steady plodders who gain and keep fortunes. William H. Webb, the great shipbuilder of New York, is a good example for the young men of the United States in this re- spect. His father had won a fortune in shipbuilding, and, like many loving fathers, wished an easier life for his favorite boy. But the young man preferred his father's trade, and determined to master it. He went into the shipyard like a common workman, beginning at the foot of the ladder, and acquired great skill in the use of all the tools. Soon, even the experienced hands did not equal him in nicety of work. He was still a young man when his father died, but he continued the business, and won in it a high reputation. He was the first man in the yard in the morning, SUCCESSFUL MEtf OF TO-BAY. and the last to leave it at night. With his own hand he drew the model of every vessel built therein, wrote in a book every specification, and marked on the frame the place for every stick of timber. No better vessels, either for war or com- merce, were built in the world than came from Webb's yard. Of the one hundred and forty built under his own eye, not one proved a failure. Sir Titus Salt, the great English manufacturer of alpaca, used to boast, when he was a millionaire, that he could at a moment's notice take the place of any workman in his vast factory. He was master not only of the financial but of the mechanical part of his business. Prof. W. A. Mowry gives the following incident : " A few years ago a young man went into a cotton factory and spent a year in learning the work in the cardi fig-room. He then de- voted another year to the spinning-room, still another in learn- ing how to weave. He boarded with the weaver of one of these rooms, and was often asking questions. He picked up all sorts of knowledge. He was educating himself in a good school, and was destined to graduate high in his class. He became superintendent of a small mill at a salary of about $1500 a year. He was sought for a higher place. It hap- pened in this way : One of the large mills in Fall River was running behindhand. Instead of making money, the corpora- tion was losing. They wanted a first-class man to direct the affairs of the mill. They applied to a gentleman in Boston well acquainted with the leading men engaged in the manufact- ure of cotton. He told them he knew of a young man that would suit them, but they would have to give him a good salary. * ' * What salary will he require ? ' 1 I cannot tell, but I think you would have to pay him ;6000 a year.' ' That is a very large sum ; we have never paid so much. ' " * No, probably not, and you have never had a competent LABOR AND LUCK. 215 maji. The condition of your mill and the story you have told me to-day show the result. I do not think he would go for less. I should not advise him to ; but I will advise him to ac- cept if you offer him that salary ; and I think he will save you thirty per cent of the cost of making your goods. ' " The salary was offered, the man accepted, and he saved nearly forty per cent of the cost the first year. Soon he had a call from one of the largest corporations in New England, with whom he engaged as superintendent for five years, at a salary of $10,000 a year. He had been with this company only about one year before he had an offer of another position, with a salary of $15,000 a year. But he declined the offer, saying that he had engaged where he was for five years, and he should not break his contract even for $5000 a year margin." The neglect of trades" by young Americans is becoming a subject for reform agitation. Judge Wylie, of Washington, in sentencing a young man to the penitentiary for larceny, took occasion to say that he could not see how a young man can get a trade now because the trades-unions control the matter of apprenticeship. He attributed " the universal idleness" of the American boy to the bars which these trades-unions have raised against apprenticeships. But the real difficulty lies deeper. When a mechanic or " greasy operative" who earns thirty dol- lars a week by honest and useful and skilled toil is considered the social equal of a clerk who gets one third as much for measuring tape ; when our public schools, by an industrial de- partment, honor and encourage manual work ; when parents are willing their sons should be trade -seekers instead of office- seekers, then these bars will be quickly broken down by public sentiment and legislative action. Then we shall have more Americans in the trades and fewer in the jails. The " steal or starve" brigade will be transferred to the ranks of industry. There is always work enough for skilled hands. " To him that hath shall be given." " There are too many dogs," said a cur to a setter. " We 216 SUCCESSFUL MEN" OF TO-DAY. are not in demand." " There are not too many good ones," replied the setter.* Would that there were more public school teachers like William Dimmock, principal of Adams Academy, of Quincy, who aimed more to form character than to crowd the memory. Over his desk was a picture of the cross entwined with two lines from the poet Herbert : * ' Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, Makes that and the action fine." About the cross was yet another motto from Carlyle : " What hast thou to do with happiness, except the happiness of getting thy work well done ?" All of us owe the world, in return for God's gift of life, our best work. We are " debtors both to the wise and un- wise, ' ' to use all our opportunities for doing them good. * Austin Bierbrower. THERE'S always a river to cross, Always an effort to make, If there's anything good to win, Any rich prize to take ; Yonder' s the fruit we crave, Yonder the charming scene ; But deep and wide, with a troubled tide, Is the river that lies between. For the treasures of precious worth We must patiently dig and dive ; For the places we long to fill We must push, and struggle, and drive ; And always and everywhere We'll find in our onward course, Thorns for the feet, and trials to meet, And a difficult river to cross. The rougher the way that we take, The stouter the heart and the nerve ; The stones in our path we break, Nor e'er from our impulse swerve ; For the glory we hope to win, Our labors we count no loss ; 'Tis folly to pause and murmur because Of the river we have to cross. So, ready to do and to dare, Should we in our places stand, Fulfilling the Master's will, Fulfilling the soul's demand ; For though as the mountains high The billows may rear and toss, They'll not overwhelm if the Lord's at the helm- One more river to cross. JOSEPHINE POLLABD. XXIII. RELATION OF WORK TO RANK. Of all the grand developments of this grand age, none is grander than the dignity with which womanly efforts at self-support have come to be invested, and yet we occasionally meet with expressions of the fossilized idea that work is derogatory to a lady, or at least that her avocations, if she have such, are to be kept as secret as pos- sible, and put, so far as may be, in an ambiguous light. " My daugh- ter cannot content herself with humdrum home duties, and so em- ploys her superfluous energies in teaching." " My sister spends all her time in societies and the like." " We are lonely at home, and therefore have asked a few friends to live with us for company, " etc., etc. How false and mean such statements sound ! Would we not all ridicule a man who said that he entered into business to occupy his leisure time, or who gave out that he was not obliged to work, but did so from caprice, taste, or benevolence ? Why should a differ- ent standard be applied to woman's work ? M. E. WINSLOW. Not a truth has to art or to science been given, But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven. LYTTON. The word king is derived from a word that means, both in Scotch and German, " I can' ' and " I know." The kingliest of men, there- fore, are those who both know how to do and who can do. C. S. ROBINSON, D.D. THERE is not a trade or profession, except that of the soldier, that has not been considered in some age and country, as shep- herds were in Egypt, " an abomination." In countries not leavened by Christianity, war and robbery have commonly been considered the only paths to honor. The Spartans left agriculture to their slaves. Kleon the tanner and Hyperbolus the lampmaker are satirized by Aris- tophanes for presuming to engage in politics, Savage tribes SUCCESSFUL MEN" OF TO-DAY. usually leave manual work to their women, while the " braves" themselves, smoke, sleep, hunt, and fight the only occupa- tions that they deem becoming for a man. To the Persians, buying and selling was a mean practice, as it was thought impossible to carry it on without lying or cheat- ing, an opinion in which I find that some business men of to- day avowedly agree. When Cyrus learned that the Lacede- monians kept a market, he despised them. When the Lydians revolted he was advised by Croesus to enforce upon them as a punishment the wearing of effeminate clothing, the practice of music, and shopkeeping . Ulhorn says that the Greeks and Romans despised all who worked for money except those engaged in medicine, architecture, and commerce. War was still more honorable than these. In the first act of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar a carpenter and cobbler are reproved because, " being mechanical, they ought not to walk upon a laboring day without the sign of their profession" the leather apron, rule, etc. In the caste distinc- tions of India, Egypt (of the past), and other countries, the priests usually occupy the first rank, soldiers the second, and mechanics of different kinds the third, fourth, and fifth. Our caste distinctions that exalt a clerkship above a trade, and make domestic service less honorable for a girl than work in a manu- factory, are quite as foolish. " The employes of a mill-owner or a merchant are as much his * servants ' as any housemaid is the servant of her employer, and in precisely the same sense. Any one who takes wages for work is a servant of the one who employs and pays him ; and no woman can escape being a ser- vant if she earns money by honest labor." Literary workers have also been as lightly esteemed. In Rome there was a class of slaves who did the studying and writing for their masters. They were called the literati, then by no means a term of honor. Even in modern times Walter Scott was obliged to conceal his business partnership in the publishing house of Constable Brothers in order to preserve his social standing. A relic of RELATION OF WORK TO RANK. 221 this barbarism still lingers, and prevents many a young lady of talent among the wealthy from using her pen, lest she suffer in the estimation of her associates. " Why is he called a ' working-man ' who uses a spade or a plane or a heavy hammer, in distinction from him who uses a pen ? Why is he a ' working-man ' who uses his hands for ten hours a day, any more than he who uses his hands and, what is more, his head, too, for fifteen hours of the twenty- four ?" It is refreshing to turn from such man-made follies to God's original plan, and see man in honor, man in bliss, man in pu- rity, AT WORK. " The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. ' ' " When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman ?" Look along the catalogue of God's greatest servants, and see how universally they come from the busy walks of life. Abel, Joseph, Moses, David, Amos were shepherds, called from their flocks to thrones on earth and in glory. Noah was a ship- builder ; Abraham and Jacob were stock-raisers ; Isaac, Job, and Elisha were farmers ; Peter, James, and John were fishermen ; Matthew was a tax-collector, Luke a physician, and Christ a carpenter. Among God's chosen people, instead of a contempt of labor, even the children of wealth and the sons of literary men, as I have said, were accustomed to learn a trade. For instance, Saul or Paul, though a member of Israel's supreme court or Sanhedrim, had learned the trade of a tentmaker. The parables of Christ unconsciously put the same honor upon honest labor. The Father is " The Husbandman ;" the Son is the Shepherd, the Lord of the Vineyard, and the Advocate. The kingdom of heaven, grand and glorious as it is, is li- kened to a housekeeper putting leaven in her meal ; to a farmer sowing and reaping ; to a fisherman sorting his fish ; to a mer- chant seeking goodly pearls. SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. The whole Bible is thus interwoven in the closest sympathies with active business life, and that too in an age when in all other lands work was despised. It is to the shepherds of Horeb and Bethlehem that God re- veals Himself in the burning bush and the Heavenly light. The shepherd to-day, as he looks on the bushes and trees glowing with flowers or autumn leaves, as if the heavenly flame was in their midst again, or looking into sunset skies when the " glory of the Lord shines upon them," should feel that the God of Horeb and Bethlehem is nigh at hand and not afar off, and that He is saying once more, " Certainly I will be with thee," and whispering again the message of " Peace." The housekeeper, as she remembers amid her cares the widow's cruse and who kept it from failing, and the miraculous supply at the wedding-feast of Cana, should realize the sym- pathy of God in her work, and gild her labors with songs and thoughts of Him who has bidden us pray, " Give us this day our daily bread," and who has given the promise, '* God will provide. ' ' The fisherman amid his labors and his perils should remem- ber joyfully who walked the seas of old and made the storm a calm. " Tossed upon the raging billow, Sweet it is, Lord, to know Thou didst press a sailor's pillow, And canst feel a sailor's woe." It is a false and unchristian sentiment that in some places makes peculiarity of employment rather than excellence of achievement the badge of honor ; that asks where we work, not how, as the test of our position. An absurd instance of this folly was given in the suicide of a young man who left a note saying that he was made by God to be a man, but doomed by man to be a grocer. It is not the mark or prerogative of high position to have nothing to do. Ninety out of every hundred on the RELATION OF WORK TO RANK. 223 Massachusetts State prison record of a recent year had the words " no trade" against their names. Men of leisure are not always men of rank. Thank God for a nation of workmen, a nation where the pro- fessional man and the merchant, as well as the day laborer, " by something attempted, something done, have earned a night's repose." Away with the folly that idleness is kingliness. It is the diligent in earthly and heavenly work to whom is given the promise to stand before kings in this world, and that they shall before THE KING in the next, as did Joseph, David, Dan- iel, Mordecai, and Paul. " Be thou faithful over a few things, and I will make thee ruler over many things." Some one has aptly said, " When you can dig fields with toothpicks, blow ships along with fans, and grow bread in flower-pots, then it will be a fine time for dandies. There is plenty to do in this world for every pair of hands placed upon it, and we must so work that the world will be the richer be- cause of our having lived in it." FINIS. ISICHES xSCe ivmos. A FEW AUTOGRAPHS. APPENDIX. WE subjoin here a few representative specimens of the re- plies received from prominent and representative men to the questions on page 1, which are as follows : INQUIRIES. [FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOUNG MEN.] 1. Was your boyhood, up to fourteen years of age, spent in the country, in a village, or in a city ? 2. In either case, were you accustomed to engage in some regular work, when out of school, either in the way of self- help, or for your parents ? 3. At what age did you begin business life or undertake self- support ? 4. Did you use tobacco previous to the age of sixteen ? 5. What maxims or watchwords, if any, have had a strong influence on your life and helped to your success ? 6. What do you consider essential elements of success for a young man entering upon such a business or profession as yours ? 7. What, in your observation, have been the chief causes of the numerous failures in life of business and professional men ? 8. Are you a church member ? ANSWERS. MARK HOPKINS, D.D., LL.D., ex- President of Williams College : 1. Country. 226 APPENDIX. 2. Yes. 5. None. 6. Capacity and determined purpose. 7. Want of above. FRANKLIN CARTER, LL.D., President of Williams College : 1. Village. 6. Concentration of mind. 7. Want of the above quality and of devotion to truth. HON. ANDREW D. WHITE, LL.D., ex-ambassador to Ger- many, President of Cornell University : 1. Village. 2. No ; and I consider this as a matter of regret. 5. Such maxims as inculcate a kindly contempt for purpose- less men, or men who through their own fault become failures. 6. Soundness of heart and mind ; clear judgment ; fair knowledge of men ; great devotion to some one purpose or study, but with breadth of view. 7. Want of will ; over-smartness ; unwillingness to labor and wait. CHARLES W. ELIOT, LL.D., President of Harvard University : 1. City. 2. No. 5. I do not remember any. 6. Intelligence, alacrity, energy, good judgment, and up- Tightness. Y. Stupidity, laziness, rashness, and dishonesty. HON. J. H. SEELYE, LL.D., ex-Congressman, President of Amherst College : 1. In a country village. 2. Yes. 5. Never to seek work, and never to refuse it. 6. Patiently to wait for it. 7. Undue haste. APPENDIX. 227 PRESIDENT S. C. BARTLETT, D.D., of Dartmouth College : 1. Village. 2. Not regularly. 5. The simple purpose to do well all I had to do. 6. Conscientious diligence. 7. Lack of principle, of fixed purpose, of perseverance. C. N. SIMMS, D.D., Chancellor of Syracuse University : 1. Country. 2. Worked on the farm twelve to fourteen hours a day. 6. Conscientiousness, systematic industry, heart in his work. 7. Lack of self-forgetful work, insincerity, indolence. PRESIDENT JOSEPH MOORE, of Abingdon College, Richmond, Ind. : 1. Spent in country on farm. 2. Worked for parents year round when not in school, and then early and late evenings and mornings. 5. Remember no special maxims. A Christian mother, plenty of work, the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and another plain book or two made me early see that life was too serious for trifling. 6. That he take care of his health ; that he act on the principle that devotion and application to duty are essential after success is secured as truly as before. 7. I believe one of the most common causes of failure to be, acting from policy rather than from Christian principle ; (2) undertaking the wrong pursuit. JOSEPH COOK : 1. In the country up to fourteen ; afterward in villages and cities. 2. Yes ; but I was never overworked physically ; perhaps six hours a day is a high average. 3. Not until about thirty-five years of age. My father gave me twenty -five years of education, including foreign travel. 5. Clear ideas at any cost ; obedience to God, the organ of spiritual knowledge ; total self -surrender to conscience. 228 APPENDIX. 6. Complete self -surrender to God, clear thought, varied and accurate learning. 7. Dishonesty, cowardice, indolence. HON. WILLIAM WINDOM, ex-Secretary of Treasury, ex-Senator : 1. Country. 2. Yes. 3. Sixteen. JUDGE NOAH DAVIS, Chief Justice, of New York : 1. In a village. 2. I was accustomed to regular work, both for my parents and for self-help. 5. I do not recall any particular maxim or watchword which I can say has had a strong influence on my life, or helped me to success. 6. The profession of the law requires, to achieve complete success, great industry, strict integrity, and exclusive devotion to its duties and labors. 7. Impatience, or the inability " to labor and to wait.' 9 It is the misfortune of our country and age that riches are deemed the chief source of honor. The haste to get rich pervades and controls all business and professions, and leads to rash and ill- advised efforts, risks and speculations, which result in failure oftener than in success. It leads into temptations, fraud, crime, and despair. JUDGE GEORGE G. REYNOLDS, of the City Court of Brooklyn : 1. On a farm. 2. Brought up to work, going to school only winters until college days. Even in school days did chores night and morn- ing and worked Saturdays and vacations. 6. A stubborn determination to succeed, and some enthusiasm both in the anticipation and pursuit of the profession which I chose. Secrets of success in general : Capacity and adapts- APPENDIX. 229 tion ; tlien industry, perseverance, pluck as well as good luck and emphatically integrity and a high sense of honor. HON. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, ex-Vice-President of South- ern Confederacy, ex-Congressman, ex-Governor of Georgia (de- ceased since sending reply) : 1. Country. 2. Always at work' when not at school. 5. *' Time and tide wait for no man." " Take time by the forelock." "Labor omnia vincit." "Nil desperandum." 6. Truth, honesty, uprightness, honor, conscientiousness. 7. Want of punctuality, honesty, and truth. HON. J. P. ST. JOHN, ex-Governor of Kansas : 1. Mostly in a village. 2. Engaged in regular work. 5. The good advice, prayers, and example of a noble Chris- tian mother have had a good influence on all my life. Though long since dead, she has been a beacon light to me. 6. Honesty, industry, sobriety, Christianity. 7. Idleness, intemperance. HON. DARWIN R. JAMES, Member of Congress from Brook- lyn : 1. In the country all of the time until twelve years old ; then at boarding-school most of time. 2. Although my father, who came to Williamsburg (now Brooklyn) when I was twelve years old, was well to do, yet he brought his boys up to work when out of school. We had plenty of play, but we were taught to be industrious, diligent, and economical. 5. I set out, when a young man, with two texts of Scripture as mottoes : " A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches," etc., and " Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." These had a great influence upon me. At the age of eighteen I commenced in mission Sunday-school 230 APPENDIX. work in what is now the Throop Avenue Mission Sunday-school. I have continued steadily at it in that field for thirty years next month. 6. This is a very hard question to answer. What is suc- cess ? What kind of success do you mean ? True success is the building up of a strong Christian character and the using of one's faculties for the glory of God. Religion which in- fluences the daily life is the basis ; strict truthfulness, which is an outgrowth of it ; integrity of character, industry, per- severance, temperate and simple habits, correct views of life and mankind, humility, etc., etc. 7. Incorrect views of the great end and aim of life. Men are not contented to lead plain lives of integrity and upright- ness. They want to get ahead too fast, and are led into temp- tation. I am glad you are working up this subject. I wish you great success. If young men only would study their Bibles ! Pleasure, show, money, is the aim of the crowd. HON. NELSON DINGLE Y, ex-Governor of Maine, M. C., editor of Lewiston Journal : 1. Village. 2. Worked on farm. 6. Character, industry, perseverance. 7. Lack of the power of -practical adaptation. HON. C. B. FARWELL, M. C., Chicago : 1. In the country. 2. Worked on my father's farm until I was past twenty years of age. 5. Spend less than you earn each year, and practice economy. Buy nothing unless needed. 6. Integrity with money, but integrity without ; integrity even as a policy. 7. Want of integrity first, and of capacity second. APPENDIX. 231 HON. WILLIAM ALDRICH, M. C., Chicago : 1. Country. 2. Yes, and was kept out of school in busy seasons to help upon the farm before I was ten years old. 5. Absolutely to drink nothing that could intoxicate. In- dustry, integrity, and to spend less than I earned, were taught me by both my parents. 6. To adopt the maxims above, and make himself master of his business by a thorough comprehension of it. 7. First, trusting dishonest, incompetent, and importunate men ; second, a want of sufficient industry to comprehend and thoroughly understand their own business ; third, intemperance beats everybody. HON. RIPLEY ROPES, Superintendent of Brooklyn Public Works : 1. Seaport town. 2. My parents were poor, and insisted upon my forming habits of industry, beginning with ten years of age. 5. To avoid idleness, and to be so faithful to my employers in the discharge of all duties imposed that my help would be- come a necessity. 6. Industry, economy, and strict integrity. Without these, few succeed in any business or profession. 7. Not pursuing industriously and contentedly the calling which they originally adopted. Making haste to be rich by seeking to follow those supposed to be gaining faster and easier, thus dividing time and energy. The great highway of life is strewn with wrecks of this character. There is no failure in this country with those whose personal habits are good, and who follow any honest calling industriously, un- selfishly, and purely. To such, success is sure. HON. JOSEPH MEDILL, proprietor of Chicago Tribune, ex- Mayor of Chicago : 1. Mainly on a farm. 232 APPENDIX. 2. I worked hard at farm labor for my parents. 5. " Poor Richard's" maxims ; the Golden Rule, and " Honesty is the best policy." 6. Sobriety, avoidance of intoxicating drinks and all forms of gambling, a virtuous life, fidelity to employers or clients, close study, hard work, honesty. 1. Liquor-drinking, gambling, reckless speculation, dishon- esty, tricky conduct, cheating, idleness, shirking hard work, frivolous reading, lack of manhood in the battle of life, failure to improve opportunities. HON. WILLIAM BROSS, ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois, and editor of Chicago Tribune : 1. Village. 2. In daily farm and other labor in the village of Milford, Pa., and lumbering along the Delaware River. Always in regular work for my parents till past eighteen, then in teaching, and working my way through college as best I could. 5. The proverbs of Solomon and other Scriptures, and Frank- lin's Poor Richard's preface to his almanacs. They were quoted a thousand times by my honored father, and caused an effort to do my whole duty each day, under a constant sense of my duty to my Maker and my fellow-men. 6. Sterling, unflinching integrity in all matters, public and private. Let every one do his whole duty each day both to God and man. Let him follow earnestly the teachings of the Scriptures and eschew infidelity in all its forms. 7. Want of integrity, careless of the truth, reckless in thought and expression, want of trust in God and disregard of the teachings of his Word, bad company, bad morals in any of their phases. HON. BENJAMIN DOUGLAS, ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Con- necticut, and manufacturer of pumps, Middletown, Ct. : 1. Country. 2. When not in school, I worked on the farm, doing gen- APPENDIX. 233 eral farm work and chores, as our Connecticut farmers' boys had to do fifty years ago. 5. "A rolling stone gathers no moss. ' ' Have one good business, and stick to it. 6. Be honest in all your dealings ; abstain from the use of all intoxicating drinks ; Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy ; be a Christian. 7. Rum, idleness, and neglect of business ; entering into operations outside of their regular business. DAVID M. STONE, editor of the New York Journal of Com- merce : 1. Country. 2. I left home at thirteen years and eleven months, and have supported myself ever since. 5. Do faithfully what is next to your hand. 6. A purpose and determination to make one's self of use in the world in the way prudence seems to point out, and a knowledge of the fact that success comes only to those who can do three days' work in one day and keep it up through life. 7. Laziness, indisposition to work hard, a desire to take things easy. W. K. SULLIVAN, editor of Chicago Journal : 1. In a city. 2. Never did regular work, but played all I could until I was sixteen, when I began to earn my own living. 5. First, the Golden Rule ; second, An honest man is the noblest work of God ; third, Contentment is better than riches (and I am glad of it, for I never had the riches) ; fourth, Be just and fear not ; fifth, What man has done, man can do ; sixth, Never say die. 6. General knowledge of men and things, an itch for writ- ing, a "nose for news," courage, enterprise, honesty, so- briety, patience, perseverance, industry, good judgment ; a 234 APPENDIX. sound mind in a sound body ; to be born to the profession, for journalists, like poets, are *' born, not made." 7. Intemperance and immorality (wine and women) ; a desire to become suddenly rich, which leads to speculation and gam- bling ; a wrong start in life. (By the way, every boy should have a trade be a producer, not a consumer. The next gen- eration promises to contain an alarming number of genteel loaf- ers, who don't want to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, but by their wits. Idleness produces vice, etc.) A. G. LANE, Superintendent of Schools, Chicago : 1. Chicago. 2. Yes. 5. Never give up one job till you get another. 6. Unswerving fidelity to God and the right, study and work. 7. Laziness, pride, and dishonesty in little things. GENERAL O. O. HOWARD : 1. Country. 2. When out of school, worked regularly at farm work. Taught several schools in winter and fall to help in securing college education. 5. First remembered maxim, Obey your parents in the Lord ; second, Seek first the kingdom of God ; third, The Lord is my Shepherd ; fourth (and help in conversion), The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin ; fifth, BushnelPs subject, " Every man's life a plan of God ;" sixth, Love God and man. 6. For complete success, cheerful obedience, diligence, fear- lessness ; readiness at all times for complete self sacrifice ; un- reserved confidence in the Ruler of all things, so as to be able to bear victory or defeat ; to rise high enough in nobility of character to be without the fear, hatred, envy, or jealousy of a rival or an enemy. GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN, IT. S. Senator : 1. Country. 2. I worked on a farm for my parents. APPENDIX. 235 5. All men are equal if upright aud honest. Stick to your friends in adversity as well as prosperity. 6. Unceasing labor. 7. Trying to do too many things, instead of sticking to the thing one knows most about. GENERAL NEAL Dow, ex-May or of Portland, Me., and author of Maine Law : 1. In my native city Portland. 2. Not until I left school ; then in regular employment. 5. Res non verba. Always try to be on the side of the right, always against the wrong. Always be prompt, and true to en- gagements and to well-founded expectations. Never to shrink from a just share of work or responsibility. 6. To be industrious, steady, faithful, prompt, true. Busi- ness always before pleasure. Never put off until to-morrow what can be well done to-day. Incur no responsibility that cannot be met without distress. 7. A want of knowledge of the business, or of ability, or of a character and habits to inspire confidence and respect. To be true to one's word is to a business or professional man what the compass is to the mariner. That implies integrity and a real love of right. HON. LEVI TAYLOR, banker and ex-Mayor of Haverhill, Mass. : 6. A taste for the calling which one intends to pursue. Honesty of purpose and strict integrity in dealing I regard as essential elements of success in any calling or profession. 7. Want of a thorough knowledge of the business, lack of application, and undue haste to accumulate, which usually leads to great risk, are among the principal causes of failure. HON. J. E. BOYD, Mayor of Omaha : 2. In regular work and helping niy parents. 5. " Take advantage of none, and give every man his due." Never fail to keep a promise. 236 APPENDIX. 6. Punctuality, industry, integrity, temperance. 7. Intemperance and the inordinate gratification of their pas- sions. (I am not a Prohibitionist.) SAMUEL BURNS, merchant. Omaha, Neb. : 1. City. 2. Always. 5. Work, economize, persevere ; commit thy ways unto the Lord, and He WILL direct thy paths. " A purpose once fixed, and then victory or death." " Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed. ' ' 7. Vacillation, want of sticktoitativeness, becoming surety for a stranger. GENERAL A. C. McCLURG, of the firm of Jansen & McClurg, Chicago : 1. Altogether in a city. 2. Did no regular work, but was fond of reading. 5. First, It is better to deserve success than to have it ; second (for times of depression and adversity), the doctrine of the Greek tragedians that the gods see no nobler sight than an honest man contending with adversity. 6. Integrity, embracing perfect truthfulness, absolute hon- esty, and general trustworthiness ; good judgment, willingness and ability to work. HON. GEORGE R. WENDLING, lawyer and lecturer : 1. Village. 2. When out of school, engaged in work about home. 5. A strict observance of the fourth commandment has been iny nearest approach to singling out some one maxim or rule in business. 6. An entire consecration and concentration of one's whole attention and ability on the matter in hand, and habits which do not injure physical health, and prayer. 7. Living beyond one's means, and intemperance. APPENDIX. 237 ANTHONY COMSTOCK, agent of the Society for the Suppres- sion of Vice : 1. Country. 2. Was trained to industry, and obliged to work, and thank God for it. 5. "Faithful in least, faithful also in much." "God's will." " Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not. ' ' 6. Consecration to the service of God ; perfect faith and trust in Him ; moral courage and untiring zeal. A good text : " Wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." 7. Unholy living and dishonest practices ; lust and intem- perance ; living beyond one's means. JOHN WANAMAKER, clothing merchant : 1. Country. 2. During school days worked before school ; left country school early, and went to work. 5. " He is a re warder of them that diligently seek Him." " Doe ye nexte thynge." 6. Close application, integrity, attention to detail, discreet advertising. 7. Going into business too young, overcrowding of business ranks. S. E. HOLDEN, leather dealer of the firm of B. F. Sawyer & Co., Napa, Cal. : 5. "Be sure you are right, then go ahead." " Make every article reliable." 6. Experience and education ; then courage and application, with honor and reliability. 7. Among professional men in California, intemperance ; among business men, lack of enterprise and often lack of ability. THOMAS J. HILL, manufacturer, Providence, R. I. : 1. Village. 238 APPENDIX. 2. Out of school worked to help support the family. 5. To be honest and industrious ; to put whatever I saw out of place in its proper place ; and above all, not to spend my money before I had earned it. 6. To be very prompt in meeting engagements, and not put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day. 7. Lack of system and attention to business ; trusting too much to others, and not looking after the small details of busi- ness ; dissipation, extravagance, and idleness. Indorsing ac- commodation paper makes a failure many times in business. LEWIS MILLER, manufacturer, Akron, O. : 1. On a farm close to a village. 2. Working on a farm for my father. 5. My early connection with the church did more than all else ; Henry Funk, a man I loved, was my model of goodness. 6. Determination, pluck, and perseverance. 7. Fluctuation of the national currency, our credit system, the popular notion of making a fortune in a short time. F. F. ELMENDORF, President of National Law and Order League : 1. Village. 2. Light farm work outside of school hours. 6. First, study to know what you are adapted to ; second, sticktoitiveness ; third, cultivate a healthy body, and thus get a healthy brain also. 7. First, bad habits ; second, insufficient training for one's business ; third, extravagance ; fourth, speculation ; fifth, passion to be rich without work ; sixth, postponing marriage on account of style of living ; then Just and other vices. HON. D. F. BEATTY, Mayor of Washington, N. J., and manufacturer of organs, etc. : 1. Country. 2. On a farm. APPENDIX. 239 6. First of all, remember God ; second, enterprise look ahead, never backward. 7. Neglect of business, rum, and women. JACOB ESTEY, organ manufacturer : 1. In the country. 2. I was given away by my parents at four and a half years of age, and was obliged to work hard on a farm from eight years old, with little schooling. 6. I commenced business at twenty years of age, with a de- termination to succeed, and by economy and trusting God, praying for wisdom and strength to do every duty, and with good health, have been as successful as I could have expected. Secrets of success : Economy, avoid the use of tobacco and all stimulants, and bad company. 7. Extravagance in living beyond one's means. CHARLES SCOTT, manufacturer, Philadelphia : 1. Philadelphia. 2. From my thirteenth year I was always engaged in some regular work when out of school, either for my parents or others. 5. I joined the church when thirteen years old, and always considered it a duty to be doing something to help others. 6. Consecration of life to God ; a determination to be useful in the world, so that the world may be better for his having lived in it ; always to be faithful and honest in all matters and under all circumstances. 7. Bad company, bad habits, dishonesty in little things as well as great. J. E. WILSON, senior member of the firm of Wilson Brothers, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis : 1. Country. 2. Yes, for parents. 5. tl Do as y&u wish to be done by. 11 " Honesty is the best 240 APPENDIX. policy." "Save a portion of every dollar earned. 11 "Meet all engagements at the minute." 6. First, adaptation ; second, industry ; third, unlimited credit with very limited use. 7. Laziness, truthlessness, drunkenness, dishonesty. H. E. SIMMONS, business manager of American Tract Society : 1. In a small village. 2. Always at work for my parents until I was twenty-one years old. 5. " Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.'* 6. Strict honesty, diligent application to business, and no fear of hard work. 7. Fast living, mental, spiritual, and bodily ; lack of atten- tion to the details of one's business. LEW. E. D ARROW, banker, Corning, Iowa : 1. Country. 2. Regular work on farm, with school only in winter taught country school when seventeen. 5. Depend on self and not on others. Take the Holy Spirit for a Guide and Helper. I will do my utmost each day. 6. A fixed determination to do all he can, every day ; a firm reliance upon God, and a fixed purpose to serve Him. 7. Lack of energy, failure to improve every moment, lack of strict integrity. MILTON BRADLEY, publisher, Springfield, Mass. : 1. Country village till ten ; city later. 2. To a considerable extent evenings and vacations. 5. " Trust in God, and keep your powder dry." 6. Good moral and religious character ; gumption, GUMPTION, GU MPTION ; a practical and industrial education. V. Want of backbone, rum, lack of adaptability and proper training, anticipating prospective income, and living beyond one's means. APPENDIX. COLONEL WESTON FLINT, U. S. Patent Office : 1. In the country on a farm. 2. Steady work always for iny parents ; educated myself, and paid my way through college. 5. " Honesty is the best policy." "Never be idle." A. great, longing desire for an education, I think, had much to do with my success, and this I owe to my dear mother. 6. First, honesty ; second, industry ; third, patience, simple habits, having definite objects in life not drifting. J. H. VINCENT, D.D., author, editor, lecturer : 5. " Live near to God " a counsel given me by my mother when I left home at sixteen. It was illustrated by my mother's daily life, and has kept me from much evil, and has had a measure of influence in holding me to general faith in Provi- dence and grace. 6. An entire surrender of impulse and inclination to the demands of duty, as expressed and made possible in the life of Christ. 7. Living the life of the flesh, whether in low, sensual, or refined, esthetic, and merely selfish gratification. HON. A. W. TENNEY, U. S. District Attorney for Brooklyn : 1. In the country, on a farm. 2. Yes, for my parents, until twenty-two years of age, con- stantly ; after that, until twenty-eight years of age, part of the time. . 5. None. 6. Integrity, truthfulness, promptness, sobriety, patience, and hard work. 7. Outside of intemperance, failure to grasp and hold, scat- tering too much, want of integrity and promptness, unwilling to achieve success by earning it in the old-fashioned way. E. P. ROE, author : 1. Country. 24:2 APPENDIX. 2. My father kept me busy in a large garden and on a small farm (see my book, " Play and Profit in my Garden"). 5. When a schoolboy I pasted the following in my books : " Perseverando vincam." 6. First, ability to write correctly, and clearly, acquired by patient, well-directed training ; secotid, ability to write inter- estingly and freshly ; third, sympathy with the subject we are writing about ; fourth, careful study of real men and women ; fifth, have some worthy purpose. 7. First, little inaccuracies ; second, obscurity ; third, dul- ness ; fourth, lack of sympathy with one's themes ; fifth, self- conceit and self-satisfaction ; sixth, imitation of others ; seventh, a proud or selfish aim. J. R. NICHOLS, LL. D. , editor of Journal of Chemistry : 1. In the country. 2. Always at work between school hours on a farm ; school term, ten weeks in winter. All the school I attended. 5. Constant industry, dependence on my own unaided self, never to be discouraged, strict integrity, keeping promises, and saving earnings ; constant reading. 6. Brains, industry, study, honesty, total abstinence, deter- mination. 7. First, want of natural capacity (education alone does not fit a man for success) ; second, indolence and credulity ; third, lack of moral strength. DANIEL GOODRICH, manufacturer, Haverhill, Mass. : 1. Country. 2. Regular work out of school from very early boyhood. 5. Stick resolutely to one pursuit, and put heart into every- thing you do. 6. A practical knowledge of its details, and a strict oversight of the minutiaB of business, not leaving it to disinterested parties. 7. First, engaging in speculations outside of one's legitimate business ; second, indulging in immoral and vicious habits. APPENDIX. 243 " Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." HENRY MARTYN DEXTER, D.D., editor of the Congrega- tionalist : 1. In a country town. 2. To some extent. 5. I think, as to good books, u Nocturna versale, versate diurna ;" and as to work, "Nulla dies sine linea." 6. These three : First, piety to get all and keep all in posi- tion ; second, patience to master all details ; third, persever- ance to carry all through. 7. These three : First, want of thoroughness of preparation ; second, want of fixedness of purpose ; third, want of faith in the inevitable triumph of right and truth. W. C. GRAY, D.D., editor of the Interior : 1. In the country on a farm. 2. Always hard at work when out of school, mostly on the farm. 5. My father impressed upon me the idea that industry, perseverance, and integrity would certainly give me success. 6. Fair talents, a thorough understanding of the business, and devotion to it. 1. Aside from vices which are always ruinous the cause of nearly all the failures in legitimate business is the failure to serve an apprenticeship to it. A man is sure to" fail in a busi- ness which he does not understand divinity, law, medicine, or anything else. LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D., editor of Christian Union: 1. Village and boarding-school. 2. No ; my time was spent in study. 5. " Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might." 6. Study how to do the most good, and let the pay take care of itself. 244 APPENDIX. 7. The combined spirit of laziness and self-conceit that makes a man unwilling to do anything unless he can choose just what he will do. ROBERT WEST, D.D. , publisher and editor of the Advance : 1. In the country. 2. I worked on a farm fourteen hours a day in summer and twelve in winter. 6. Early to bed, early to rise ; plain food, good conscience, good humor, honest work at anything one has to do, self-help, and prayer. 7. Idleness, carelessness, waiting for opportunities, expect- ing some one to help them to a place, and lack of faithfulness in humble places. WILLIAM HAYES WARD, D.D., editor of the Independent : 1. Village. 2. Worked in garden, etc., but most of time studying at home. 5. None in particular ; as much as any, the phrases, " Don't be afraid of work or suffering," " Endure hardness as a good soldier." 6. Miscellaneous and accurate knowledge ; well-founded opin- ions on as many subjects as possible, and absolute candor ; poverty. 7. Intemperance, self-gratification in pleasure, unwillingness to work persistently and " endure hardness." JOHN M. FERRIS, D.D., editor of the Intelligencer : 1. Cities. 2. My father brought my brother and myself up to work at whatever was to be done about the house. 5. Do with your might what God gives you to do, 6. A godly character above everything ; to do his work thoroughly, intelligently ; a high and constant regard for the interests of others. APPENDIX. 245 7. A want of high moral and religious character, a lack of hard work, wasting effort on illegitimate pursuits. EBEN TOURJEE, Mus.D., New England Conservatory of Music, Boston : 1. Country. 2. Began work at eight years ; not one third of the time in school ; went to a " trade" at fourteen. 4. Once ; that was enough for all time ! 5. To honor God was the first, and has been the supreme law of my life from my earliest years. 6. Consecration to God, consecration to work, consecration to study. 7. Absence of principle, leading to dishonesty and dissipa- tion. HON. FRANCIS HENDRICK, ex-Mayor of Syracuse, N. Y. : 1 . Country. 2. Farm work. 6. Character, industry ; to be born right. 7. A desire to get rich fast, speculation, and overreaching. Half fail on account of vices. E. B. JUDSON, President of First National Bank of Syracuse, N. Y. : 1. Village. 2. At twelve years began self-support. 6. Prudent and saving, industrious, honest. 7. Living beyond income, speculation, vices. R. M. BINGHAM, Rome, N. Y,, carriage manufacturer : 1. Country. 2. Yes, at farm work. 3. Sixteen. 5. Aim to excel. 6. Thorough knowledge of business, attention to detail, severance, and economy, 246 APPENDIX. 7. Bad habits ; disposition to float down stream being easier than to row up ; lack of appreciation of the opportunities of life ; courage and effort are required to go to the front, while the cowardly and self-indulgent easily fall to the rear, and then have a harder time than would be necessary to maintain the front. The " rear," easiest to get, is the most uncomfortable and the MOST CROWDED. ELLIS H. ROBERTS, editor of Utica Herald : 1. In Utica. 2. From nine years old until eighteen, at least twelve hours a day. 3. Nine years. 0. Excelsior. 6. Integrity, diligence, courtesy. 7. Drink, extravagance, shiftlessness. DR. EDMUND ANDREWS, Chicago : 1. I was bred in the country. 2. Worked every summer on a farm. 3. Came to self-support gradually. 5. I used maxims somewhat to vent niy ideas (to myself) in a condensed form, but attribute much more effect to the ideas themselves than to the expression in maxim form. 6. Righteousness, sound judgment, industry. (However, these three things are reciprocally parts of each other. To speak of them as separate things would be erroneous.) HON. W. C. DE PAUW, New Albany, Ind. : 1. Village, 2. From my earliest recollection, I was taught and required to labor. 6. Golden Rule ; touch not, taste not,> handle not whis- key or tobacco ; promptness, with intelligent, regular applica- tion. APPENDIX. 247 7. Whiskey and licentiousness, gaming and idleness, want of truthfulness in business, especially in buying and selling. DR. N. S. DAVIS, Chicago : 1 . On a farm. 2. Always employed in doing work on the farm when not in school. 5. "It is more blessed to give than to receive.'' " What- soever thy hand findethto do, do it with thy might." "Perse- verantia omnia vincit." 6. A thorough knowledge of the profession itself ; a strong and honest desire to do good to others ; steadiness of purpose, with promptness and fidelity in all work. 7. Narrow selfishness and haste to be rich ; unsteadiness of purpose and lack of knowledge ; deficient in both moral integ- rity and industry. GEORGE H. CORLISS, inventor of Corliss Engine, Provi- dence, R. I. : 1. In a village. 2. Was accustomed to helping ray parents from very early life, and taking upon myself some small cares and responsibili- ties, which occupied me more or less out of school hours. 3. At the age of sixteen years. 6. Brains, habitual and persistent industry, self-reliance. 7. Self-indulgence, want of a steady and definite purpose, lack of brains. G. W. PACH, photographer, New York. : 1. For the most part in a city. 2. Worked out of school hours. 3. Fifteen years. 5. "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." 6. Thorough study, close observation, and doing work on a cash basis. 7. Inattention to business, giving credit, indorsing for " friends," negligence of business, 248 APPENDIX. CLEMENT STUDEBAKER, wagon manufacturer, South Bend, Ind. : 1. In the country. 2. When out of school I was always at work, to provide for myself and aid in the support of the family ; when in school, which I could only attend during the winter season, I worked for some farmer mornings and evenings to pay for my board. 5. I was early familiar with the leading maxims of the day, and always felt inspired by them, but kept no particular one especially in view. It was my ambition to succeed, and the essentials to which I particularly pinned my faith in striving to this end were, entire abstinence from the use of either tobacco or liquor, industry, persistence of effort, patience, and economy of time and money. 6. First, let him thoroughly acquaint himself with the busi- ness engaged in, not merely in its general outlines, but in its details ; second, let him determine to make good goods, the reputation of which will be cumulative as the years go by ; third, let him give his affairs his undivided personal attention ; fourth, let him, while at all times exercising reasonable conser- vatism, be on the alert to take advantage of opportunities for increasing and enlarging his business ;' fifth, let him look well to the character of the assistants with which he surrounds him- self ; sixth, let him guard well against wastefulness ; seventh, let him live well within his income. 7. Inattention to business ; extravagance in living, especially dissipation in the matter of strong drink, which depletes the pocket and ruins the brain ; and anxiety to get rich too fast, which finds outgrowth in wild and illegitimate speculation. PROFESSOR HOMER B. SPRAGUE, of Boston : 1. Country. 2. Yes. 5. " Wisdom is the principal thing." " They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three." APPENDIX. 249 11 I will lay down my life to serve my country : I will not do a base thing to save it." 6. For true success in teaching, there is need of first, a love of knowledge ; second, a love of mankind ; third, a spirit of consecration and self-sacrifice. 7. Ill-health ; mistake in the choice of employment ; lack of persistent and protracted effort ; a low ideal, making success to consist in personal aggrandizement rather than in the training and development of a pure and noble character. 0. G. PETERS, of Columbus Buggy Company, Columbus, 0. : 1. City. 2. Accustomed to sawing wood, carrying coal, and doing chores about half the time ; balance of the time could play around home. 3. Began business about sixteen years of age, but was eigh- teen before I was able to support myself. 6. The birth-given qualities, such as ambition, prudence, caution, fear of bad results ; also thoroughness. Most impor- tant of all, conversion at the early age of seventeen. About this period lies the turning point for better or worse in a young man's life. 7. Lack of birth-given qualities, or lack of training ; not being well balanced ; lack of thoroughness and depth of thought ; neglect of Christian influence, which results in bad associations and prevents the development of the religious and thereby the manly character. HON. GEORGE F. EDMUNDS, Acting Vice-President : My boyhood was spent in the country, and I was engaged in work on my father's farm, when I was not fishing or hunting, during intervals between schools. , Ex-Vice-President : 1. City. 2. Yes. 5. My favorite mottoes, oft-repeated to others : 250 APPENDIX. " Count that day lost whose low-descending sun Views from thy hand no worthy action done." Also : " Spare moments the gold-dust of time." 6. Principle. Energy, in which I include persistent applica- tion. Total abstinence, both from intoxicants and from gam- bling. Economy, including avoidance of debt. Study, till every detail is mastered. 7. Extravagance, including buying on expectations what can- not be paid for promptly. Pride and desire for show beyond one's means or sphere. Instability, and lack of persistent ap- plication and industry. Lack of appreciation of the value of time. Too many irons in the fire equally injudicious. Tip- pling and gambling and the evils born of them profanity, Sab- bath-breaking, etc. Cynicism, backbiting, and lack of suaviter in modo. HON. JOHN D. LONG, ex-Governor of Massachusetts : 1. Village. 2. Some. 3. At graduation, eighteen years of age. HON. HENRY B. PIERCE, Secretary of State of Massachu- setts : 1. Village. 2. Parents being poor, worked in shop sum- mers from twelve years of age, and went to school winters. . 5. Political affairs should be conducted on business prin- ciples. % HON. DAVID A. GLEASON, Massachusetts State Treasurer : 1. City. 2. Parents being well to do, time was devoted to education until graduation from college. HON. W. F. SPAULDING, Prison Commissioner of Massa- chusetts : 1. City. 3. Had my time for study until sixteen, when I went into a store as a clerk. APPENDIX. 251 DR. WOLCOTT, of Massachusetts State Board of Health : 1. Country. 2. Parents being wealthy, spent time in study and recreation until graduation from college. HON. C. CURRY, Bank Commissioner of Massachusetts : 1. Country. 2. Parents being in comfortable circumstances, did no work except a little gardening and chores. 3. Entered business at fifteen, beginning at the bottom and working up. 6. Integrity, promptness, and attention to business. HON. CHARLES E. RUSSELL, Secretary of Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture : 1. Village. 2. No. Parents being wealthy, had time for study and recreation. HON. ROBERT R. BISHOP, President of Massachusetts State Senate : ]. Country. 2. Yes, always. 3. At twenty -one. HON. GEORGE A. MARDEN, Speaker of Massachusetts House of Representatives : 1. Village. 2. Yes; shoemaking about all the extra time there was. 3. Went to Dartmouth College at sixteen, and paid my way. 6. Industry, honesty, persistence, and courage. 7. Intemperance, want of application, misfortunes for which men are not responsible. HON. JOHN D. PAGE, ex-Governor of Vermont : 1. Village. 2. Worked on a farm. HON. ENOCH L. FANCHER, lawyer, New York : 1. Country. 2. Worked for parents. W. E. GOULD, banker, Portland, Me. : 1. City. 2. Yes, after thirteen years old. 3. Sixteen. 252 APPEHDIX. J. B. WEBSTER, of the firm of R. H. Macy & Co., N. Y. : 1. Village. 2. Yes. 3. Fifteen. HON. AMOS BARSTOW, bank president, Providence, R. I. : 1. Village. 3. Went into business at fourteen. 5. Get your rest by change of work. PHILO PARSONS, bank president, Detroit, Mich. : 1. Country. 2. Worked from the age of eight years most of the time. 5. '* Live generously within your means." HON. W. W. THOMAS, bank president (oldest bank president in the State), Portland, Me. : 1. City. 3. Began business life in a store at fourteen. H. J. LIBBY, bank- president, Portland, Me. : 1. Village. 2. Yes ; in a large garden out of school hours. 3. Went into store at eighteen. HON. GEORGE F. MAGOUN, D.D., President of Iowa College, Grinnell : 1. Village. 2. Yes. 3. Twenty-three. A. L. CHAPIN, D.D., President of Beloit College, Wis. : 1. City. 2. Yes. 3. Have mostly supported myself since I entered college at sixteen. AVILLIAM BROOKS, President of Tabor College, Iowa : 1. Country. 2. Worked on a farm. 5. The fact that my parents consecrated me to God in in- fancy and expressed a desire that I should get a liberal educa- tion had a great influence upon me. REV. DR. HILL, Portland, Me., ex-President of Antioch College and Harvard University : APPENDIX. 1. City. 2. Being an orphan, had to work early as an ap- prentice to a printer. FRANKLIN FAIRBANKS, manufacturer of standard scales, St. Johnsbury, Vt. : 1. Country. 2. Worked when out of school, and vacations. 3. Began business at seventeen, at the bottom, at five dollars per month and expenses. Learned every part of the business except blacksmithing. 5. Do well whatever you do. PHILIP L. MOEN, wire manufacturer, Worcester, Mass. : 1. Country. 3. Went into a store at seventeen, and began at the bottom. J. N. HARRIS, bank president, New London, Conn. : 1. Country. 2. Worked on a farm. 5. I'll never work Sunday. T. W. HARVEY, ex-President of Chicago Y. M. C. A. : 1. Village. 2. Worked from six years old until this day. 3. Eleven. 5. Faithful service when employed ; no work too hard ; no hours or day too long ; no work too menial, if honorable ; live within income ; never borrow of or use money of my employer under any circumstances. 6. Work, love work, work systematically, both in school and in business. The crying demand in all business houses is for men who will cheerfully get under the burdens and eventually take the busi- ness. 7. Failure to work when young and master the details of business. Little tricks in trade. Deceiving customers and friends. Be so honest and plucky that when hard times come your creditor or banker will not go back on you. PROFESSOR (T. BROWN GOODE, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. : 1. Country. 2. No. 254 APPENDIX. 5. " Put yourself in his place." " Never do anything too well." " Never do yourself what you can get some one else to do. " "Be short, or else you will be tiresome. " " There are people beyond the mountains. " " Never start upon an under- taking until you are sure it is practicable and ought to be done, and then let nothing stand in the way of completing it. ' ' 6. First, a power of minute observation and of broad gen- eralization from facts observed ; second, a strong vitality and power of work coupled with a natural bent for science ; third, special scientific training. V. First, inherited weakness of body and mind ; second, lack of education (not meaning lack of schooling) ; third, lack of definite purpose and of power to direct one's own energies or those of others. J. S. SMITHSON, Chicago, 111. : 1. City. 2. I had to do what my parents ordered, and was taught self-help. 5. "Be just, and fear not." 6. Steady application, or, as your late President Lincoln said, " Pegging at it. " The constant habit of prayer, seek- ing God's wisdom and guidance, submitting the smallest trans- action to God : for years I have always carried this out, and let my clerks know I did, asking them to do so with me. I can vouch that even vessels that were anxiously wanted and were out beyond their time have frequently come just at the right time, I believe because God heard prayer. Want of steady applica- tion, yielding to the world's way of doing business. " Get money ; honestly if you can, but get money" is as complete a " will-o'-wisp" as the devil ever invented. The dishonoring of God's day, I have noticed, is visited with disapproval on God's part. Drink has been a fruitful source of failure. They who honor God, God will honor them. JOHN DOUGALL, publisher of the Witness, New York : 1. In the country, near a town in Scotland. 2. I did considerable work in errands, chores, and in a gar- APPENDIX. 255 den, but most of the time out of school was spent in " running about the braes" and reading. 6. A great taste for reading books, periodicals, and news- papers, and a desire to write prose and poetry for them, with frequent efforts at authorship. 7. Drinking, immorality, extravagance, gambling, fickleness, and unreliability. Also overtrading and lack of judgment in giving credit. J. N. HALLOCK, publisher and editor of Christian at Work : 1. Country. 2. Yes, for my parents. 5. "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." 6. A liberal education, temperance, honesty, promptness, and careful attention to business. HORACE WATERS, piano manufacturer, New York : 1. Country. 2. Worked on the farm. 3. At sixteen. 5. Work and vote as you talk and pray. 6. Strict integrity, close attention, sticktoitiveness. 7. Drinking and tobacco, lack of integrity. W. J. BACON, lawyer, Utica, New York : 1. Village. 2. No. 3. At twenty-one. 6. Hard study, discipline in extemporaneous speaking, con- scientious business pursuits. 7. Bad habits, idleness and evil associates, corrupting litera- ture. DR. J. RUSSELL TABER, Brooklyn : 1. Country. 2. Yes, generally eight to nine hours per day. 3. I taught school at sixteen, and afterward to earn money to get my professional education ; began practice at twenty- two. 5. " Never say fail." 6. Thorough preparation, tact, perseverance, and economy. 7. Inefficiency, immoral habits and conduct, unwise choice of business or profession. 256 APPENDIX. EDMUND TITUS, Brooklyn : 1. Country. 2. Worked regularly on the farm for my father ; had an interest and traded a little in stock. 3. At twenty-one. 6. Close attention to business ; always live within your in- come ; a good Christian and practical wife. 7. Not keeping abreast with knowledge and conviction ; ex- travagance in living, intemperance, and worldly pursuits. J. M. PHILLIPS, of Phillips & Hunt, publishers, New York : 1. Country. 2. Not regularly. 3. At fifteen. 5. None. But my dead mother's influence kept me from evil places by the thought that she might see me in wrong- doing. 6. Common-sense, attention to business. 7. Lack of patience to work and wait. 5. HUNT, D.D. (of Phillips & Hunt), New York : 1. Country. 2. Farm work. 3. At twenty-one. 6. Honesty, intelligence, piety. 7. Spending more than one has to spend. J. N. STEARNS, Corresponding Secretary of National Tem- perance Society, New York : 1. Country. 2. On the farm, from five in the morning till nine at night in summer. 5. " Toil and hope," in early life. " Do all you can for the blessed Redeemer" was my father's dying message. 6. Courage to say " No," close application, " sticktoitive- ness," love for the work, and faith in God. 7. Lack of early piety, laziness, smoking and drinking habits, reading story-books, fault-finding at home. CAPTAIN C. C. DUNCAN, U. S. Commissioner, Brooklyn, N. Y. : 1. Early in a village, later at sea. 2. Had to work to sup- port parents, and didn't go to school much. APPENDIX. 257 5. To make myself so useful that my employers couldn't do without me. 6. Self-dependence, living within the income, honesty, tem- perance, industry, good companions. 7. Want of care in selecting occupation, lack of application, shirking drudgery, evil companions, extravagance, intemper- ance. DR. OSCAR C. DsWoLF, Health Commissioner, Chicago : 1. Country. 2. Worked regularly at farm labor, when not at school, until seventeen years old. 6. Adaptability, culture, industry, good habits. Success can never be of high order if either is wanting. (By " cul- ture" I mean general and special education). 7. Mistake in choosing occupation. All boys farmers ex- cepted should learn a trade and be capable of supplying skilled labor if necessity comes. Such labor is always in de- mand, while a thousand classically educated men can be found in this city who would be glad to labor for two dollars and a half per day. Many of them are in real need. L. C. TABER, Syracuse, N. Y. : 1. Country. 2. Farm work. 3. At nineteen. 6. Good moral habits, honesty ; seek a business for which he is adapted, and not change often. 7. Bad habits, frequent changes. 0. H. SWAN, lumber-dealer, Chicago : 1. Village. 2. Yes. 5. " Keep every promise.' 11 " As you are at forty years, so you will be to the end of life." " Fear God, and keep his commandments. ' ' 6. Punctuality and truthfulness. 7. Anxiety to become suddenly rich. Z. C. KEITH, manufacturer, Campello, Mass. ; J, Village. 2, Yes, for my parents, 258 APPENDIX. 5. " A rolling stone gathers no moss," oft repeated by my mother, fixed the danger of changefulness in my mind ; hence my eighteen years' steady application without change of loca- tion. 6. Square, honest dealing ; strict attention to business ; a pleasant address, and perseverance. 7. Expensive habits, intemperance, and speculation. ZINA CASE, manufacturer, Brockton, Mass. : 1. Country farm. 2. Yes. 5. Spend less than you make. 6. Never extend your business beyond your means, but as your means increase extend your business. Economy and dili- gence, it seems to me, are the mainsprings to success. 7. When men begin to accumulate money, outside specula- tions seem to offer great inducements to a more sudden fortune, and by this one cause, I think, more men fail than by almost any other. GORDON BURCHARD, Brooklyn : 1. Village. 2. Was always helpful to my parents, as they were of limited means. 5. A favorite maxim of my father, lt Boys, always pay a hundred cents on the dollar." He did that during the em- bargo of 1812-15. Another one, " Every tub must stand on its own bottom." 6. Sobriety, industry, fixedness not a rolling stone, which gathers no moss ; determination for success ; good company. Find a pleasant home and the society of modest and Christian young women on coming to the city. 7. First, drink ; scores of young men in my employ, besides a number of my business associates, have gone upon this rock. In its train follow the theatre, houses of ill-fame, etc., all con- nected. I have been an eye-witness to this for over forty years of active business life in Brooklyn and New York. I am now seventy. APPENDIX. 259 JOHN L. WEBSTER, lawyer, Omaha, Neb. : 1. Country. 2. In farm work for parents. 6. Close attention to business and hard study. 7. Want of attention to business, want of integrity, and Jack of hard study. DR. O. S. WOOD, Omaha : 1. Partly in a village, and partly in the country. 2. I had to earn my own living after eight and a half years old, and all the schooling I got up to sixteen was three months in Winter in a country school. Father died when I was eight ; after that I made my own home. 6. Strict integrity ; to understand his profession, and stick to it. 7. Lack of stability and application. FRANK FOXCROFT, literary editor of Boston Journal : 1. Most of it in the city. 2. No. 3. Twenty-one. 6. Conscience, brains, tact. 7. Intemperance, worry, overwork, and hurry. PROFESSOR THEODORE F. SEWARD, editor of Tonic Sol Fa Advocate, N. Y. : 1. Country. 2. Worked on the farm for my father. 3. At twenty-one. 5. "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much." 6. Faith in God, the strictest honesty, a consideration for the feelings and interests of others. 7. Lack of faith in God ; selfishness, which dwarfs the nature, and blinds one to his own best interests ; a lack of downright, through-and- through honesty. NOTE. Answers to questions 4 and 8 are mostly omitted for reasons, and other answers also in some cases. Only a small pioportion of the replies are given. EXTRACTS FROM OTHER REPLIES. GEO. B. LEONAED, banker, Syracuse : Starting without a definite idea of what is to be done. C. A. RICHABDSON, Asst. Ed. of Conyrega- tionalist : 5. Honest industry and hard work will win. HON. D. WAED NOKTHEUP, ex-Probate Judge, Middletown, Ct. : 6. In the legal profes- sion I believe that patient industry, thorough application to details, and fairness are superior to brilliancy and sharpness. CHAPLAIN C. C. McCABE, Chicago : 5. Time enough to rest in heaven. HON. , ex-Dist. Attorney : 6. Thoroughness in all prep- aration ; courage in maintaining and acting on judgments deliber- ately formed (not obstinacy or rashness). , Civil Engineer : 5. Improve upon usual methods. , Lowell : 6. Prayer, pluck, prudence. 7. Neglect, show, immorality. , Publisher, Boston : 6. Love for his business, and close attention to it. 7. Laziness and bad habits. W. H. WHITEHEAD, Chicago : 7. Being governed by impulses instead of business prin- ciples. HON. - , Brooklyn : 5. A devoted mother's deep interest helped me in my boyhood struggles ; also a good Sunday-school teacher's kindness. 7. A disregard to expenses com- pared to the income, which is often the fault of the wife and daughters of the family, who will have what they want, without regard to consequences. SAMUEL WILDE, New York : 5. " He that hasteth to be rich shall not be innocent." " He that loveth pleasure shall not be rich." 7. A man, like a ship at sea, well managed, may be overwhelmed with disaster ; but leaving out such cases, my observation has been that ambition to do too much, despising the day of small things, has wrecked many. Living beyond one's means and outside speculations have wrecked yet others. DEACON FAENS- WOETH, Boston : Prudence, determination, and faith in God. , Banker, Chicago : 6. Watchful limiting of indebtedness. 7. Negligent bookkeeping, drawing too largely for personal use. BEE- NAED PETEBS, Journalist : 5. Liberal, but cautious ; enterprising, but careful. THOMAS GILL, Manufacturer of Borax Soap, New York : 6. Keep no clock-watchers as clerks or workmen. HON. JOHN SHEBMAN : 6. Early responsibility. At fifteen years of age was put in charge of a job of railroad engineering, involving $300,000- a developing responsibility. Self-improvement by reading during leisure hours. Thorough study of the subject in hand, and at the same time keep- ing up with questions of the day. HON. WM. E. DODGE : 1. In the country until thirteen. 2. Then at work in the store of which I finally became proprietor. (For further facts, see topical index.) , Wholesale Merchant, Chicago : 6. Self-reliance and moral responsibility to a Higher Power. 7. Willingness to sacrifice everything for self. JUDGE : 7. Indolence, self-con- ceit, extravagance, evil habits, natural lack of adaptation. HON. , State Attorney-Gen. : 6. Upon whatever income, always to save something every year, and attend to business regardless of amusements or discussions. 7. Unwillingness to begin at the foot of the ladder and work up. Young men want to be masters at the start, and assume to know before they have learned. TOPICAL INDEX. Abbott, Lyraan, G5, 154, 243. Adulterations, 197. Aldrich, Nelson W., 25. Aldrich, William, 231. Andrews, Edmund, 246. Authors, favorite, of great men, 55. Autographs of prominent men, 224. B Bachelors, 23, 34. Bacon, W. J., 255. Bankers, as artists, scientists, etc., 77. Bankruptcy, 201. See Failures. Bargains, unfair, 120. Barstow, Amos, 252. Bartlett, C. S., 152, 227. Beatty, D. F., 238. Betting, 14, 185, 187. Bible, business references in, 112. Bim>;ham, R. M., 245. Bioirraphy, value of, 3, 12. Birthplace, influence of, 13. Bishop, R. R., 251. Board of trade, 97. Boyd, J. E.,235. Bradley, Milton, 27, 240. Bi-ibery of commercial buyers, 202. Brooks, William, 252. Bross, William, 232. Brown, Senator, 36. Burchard, Gordon, 258. Burns, Samuel, 236. Burritt, Elihu, 25. C Campbell, Francis Joseph, 138. Cars, gospel, 83. Carter, Franklin, 226. Case, Zina, 258. Chadbourne, P. A., 32. Changefulness, perils of, 155. Chance as relates to success, 15, 31, 37, 48. Chapin, A. L., 252. Character, not subject to environ rnent, 39, 50. Chase, Chief Justice, incidents of, 22, 36. Chicago business men after great fire, 108. Choate, Rnfus, 211. Christ in business as carpenter, 76. Cigarettes for boys, 17, 118. City, proportion of successful men from, 16 ; boys from, v- r ho have succeeded, 32. Claflin, H. B., incident of, 171. College presidents, pictures of, 142; education of public men, 34. Company, bad, 168. Comstock, Anthony, 40, 152, 185, Conscience, stupefied, 202. Cook, Joseph, 104, 227. Cooper, Peter, 36, '164. Corliss, George H., 247. Country, boyhood in the, a help to success, 16. Courage, 44, 46. Crapo', W. W., 36. Curry, C., 251. D Darrow, C. E., 240. Davis, N. S., 247. Davis, Noah, 65, 228. Debt injurious, 81, 173, 200; some- times advantageous, 74. De Pauw, W. C., 246. DeWolf, O. C., 257. Dexter, H. M., 141, 243. Dimmock, William, 216. Dingley, Nelson, 141, 230. Dishonesties, 39, 173, 180. See Hon- esty. Doctors' secret of success, 71, 145. Dodge, William E., 44, 94, 104, 144, 213, 260. Dougall, John, 254. Douglass, Benjamin, 232. Dow, Neal, 71, 104, 235. Drew, Daniel, story of, 101. Driggs, Edmund, 36, 69. Duncan, C. C., 256. E Economy, 27, 150. Editors' mottoes, 71. Edmunds, George F., 30, 249. Education, lack of, 24, 175 ; of our public men, 34. Eliot, C. W., 142, 226. Elmendorf, F. F., 238. Engineer, faithful to the death, 232. Erasmus, 45. Estey, Jacob, 36. Evolution vs. will, 35. Kxtravigance, 174. F Failures, 49, 151 ; leading to good results, 126, 177. 262 TOPICAL INDEX. Fairbanks, Franklin, 213, 253. Fame, unsatisfactory, 130. Farmers' cases of conscience, 59. Farmers' boys, list of illustrious, 17. Fancher, Enoch L., 251. Farnsworth, Deacon, 260. Farragut, stories of, 19, 170. Farwell, C. B., 230. Ferris, J. M., 244. Finney, story of, 81. Flint, Weston, 241. Franklin's maxims, 54. Foxcroft, Frank, 259. G Gambling, 169. Garn'eld, incident of, 92. Gill, Thomas, 260. Girls trained to work, 27. Giving, 138, 164, 165. Gleason, D. A., 250. Goode, G B., 253. Goodrich, Daniel, 242. Gould, W. E., 251. Gray, W. C., 243. Green, of Savannah, 105. Grocers' adulterations, 44. H Hallock, J. N., 255. Harris, J. N., 253. Harvey, T. W., 253. Hendrick, Francis, 245. Henrv, Patrick, 22, 32. 'Heredity, 22, 32. Hill, Rev. Dr., 252. Hill, T. J., 237. Holden, S. E., 237. Honesty, 46, 62, 96, 108, 116, 121, 173, 180, 207. Hopkins, Mark, 142, 225. Howard, O. O., 234. Hunt, S., 256. Hypocrisy, 88. Idleness, 210, 230. Infidels, 131. Intemperance, 60, 107, 146. J James, Darwin R., 152, 229. Judd, Orange, 2, 36, 213. Judson, E. B., 245. K Keith, Z. C., 257. Kent, Judge, story of, 43. L Labor and luck, 209, 211. Laborers, Ruskin's mottoes for, 54 ; lack of thrift of, 150 ; wronged, 165 ; monopolies by, 194. Lane, A. G., 234. Lawrence, Amos, 94, 168. Lawyers, 43, 65. Laziness, 210. Leonard, G. B., 260. Libby, II. J., 252. Literature, men of, pictured, 05. Logan, John A., 234. Long, J. D., 250. Lotteries, 1 85. Luck and chance as related to suc- cess, 15, 31, 37, 48, 209, 211. M Magoun, George F., 252. Harden, George R., 251. Marriage as related to success, 23 24. Martyrs to honesty, 48, 58. Maxims, 54. McCabe, C. C., motto of, 260. McClurg, A. C., 236. Medill, Joseph, 231. Merchants and manufacturers, pict- ures of, 2. Milk, adulterated, 42. Miller, Lewis, 2, 238. Millionaires, 99, 127, 129, 101. Moen, of Worcester, 213, 253. Money, love of, root of evils, 161. Monopolies, 191. Moore, Joseph, 227. Moral and physical as well as intel- lectual education needed, ?;?0, 107. Mottoes, 66. Mothers as helpers to success, 23. N Nelson, incident of, 149. Newsboys, 27. Newspaper writers, 42. New York, successful men of, 16. Nichols, J. R., 242. Northru p, D. W., 260. Novels, Frenchy, 42. O Opportunities, seizing, 146. Options, dealing in, 14. Overwork, 210. P Pach, G. W., 247. Page, J. D.,251. Papers, corrupting, 15, 40, 56, 118. Parental influence, 22, 32. Parsons, Philo, 252. Partners, selecting right, 168. Peters, B., 260. Peters, O, G., 249. Philanthropists, 99, 164. Phillips, J. M., 256. Physical training, 34. Pierce, H. B., 250. Pluck, 27, 32, 37. TOPICAL INDEX. Pocket money for boys, dangerous, 26. Politicians, statistics of the educa- tion and professions of, 34. Poverty, 22, 24, 111. Prices, false, 40, 41. Prison, statistics, etc., 20, 34, 107, 111, 172, 184, 189. Promptness, 146, 173. Prosperity, perils of, 114, 150, 166. Proverbs, false and true, 56 ; book of, 55, 113. R Reading rapidly, 71, 72. Reformers, pictures of, 104. Rehypothecating, 188. Religion, in business, 76, 100 ; to be business-like, 76. Restitution, 122, 196. Reynolds, Geo. G., 65, 228. Richardson, C. A., 260. Riches, a disadvantage in boyhood, 33 ; uses and abuses of, 127, 136, 159; "take wings," 223. Robbery, in various forms, 14, 181. Roberts, E. H., 246. Roe, E. P., 65, 241. Ropes, Ripley, 231. Rothschild, 71. Rumsellers, 15, 98, 118, 146, 197. Runners, 43. Ruskin's mottoes for laborers, 54 ; for himself, 145. Russell, C. E., 251. S Sabbath observance, 39, 41, 89, 119. Saloons, see Rumsellers. Salt, Titus, 214. Scott, Charles, 239. Seelye, J. H., 142, 226. Self-denial, 146. Self-made men, 38. Seward, T. F., 259. Sherman, John, 30, 260. Simmons, H. E., 153, 240. Smartness, perils of, 32, 130, 180, 192. Smithson, J. S., 254. Spaulding, W. F., 250. Speculation, 14, 169, 186. Sprague, Homer B., 248. Springfield, statistics of, 16, 209. Statesmen, pictures of, 30. Stealing in many forms, 181 ; harder than honest work, 209. Steams, J. H., 256* Stephens, Alexander H., 17, 30, 34, 35, 152, 229. St. John, J. P., 104, 152, 229. Stone, David M., 233. Studebaker, Clem. Sullivan, W. Sunday, 39, 41, 89, 119, 181, 193. Success, causes of, as given by suc- cessful men, 105, 141, 212; false ideas of, 126 ; denned, 137. Swan, O. H.,257. Swindles, 188. T Taber, J. R., 255. Taber, L. C.,257. Taylor, Levi, 235. Temperance. See Intemperance, and Rumsellers. Tenney, A. W., 241. Tent, gospel, 83. Thiers, 212. Thomas, W. W., 252. Titus, Edmund, 256. Tobacco, 17, 106, 118, 172; what great men say of, 18. Tourje'e, Eben. 245. Tourgee, A. W., letter of, 147. Townsend, L. T., 36. Trades for boys, 33, 34, 157, 215. Vanderbilt, Wm. H., quoted, 187. Villages, proportion of successful men from, 32. Vincent, J. H., 144, 241. W Wanamaker, John, 2, 144, 237. Ward, Wm. Hayes, 244. Wardsworth mottoes, 74. Watchwords, 66. Waters, Horace, 255. Wealth, see Riches. Webb, William H., 213. Webster, J. B., 252. Webster, J. ., 259. Weed, Thurlow, 24. Weights and measures, false, 195. Wendling, G. R., 236. West, Robert, 244. Whaler, story of a, 80. White, Andrew D., 142, 144, 226. Whitehead, W. H., 260. Wilde, Samuel, 260. Will and work, 31, 35, 37. Wilson, J. E., 239. Windom, Wm., 30, 228. Wives, wise and otherwise, 23, 24, 34. Wolcott, Dr., 251. Woman's work, 27, 219, 224. Wood,O. S.,259. Work, manual, disliked, 156; ad- vantages of regular, in boyhood, 26, 27; for girls, 27, 219; and will, as secrets of success, 31, 208 ; and worship, 123 ; bad, dishonest, 205 ; relation of, to rank, 218. Young men, 14, 21. 264 BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS VOLUME PUBLISHED BY FUNK & WAGNALLS, 10 AND 12 DEY STREET, N. Y. TALKS TO BOYS AND GIRLS ABOUT JESUS. 12mo, cloth, 382 pp., 75 cents ; with illustrations, $1.50. " Taken together they furnish a good opportunity for the study of style and method and matter in preaching to children ; and they will prove helpful to those who are teaching the little folks." Sunday-School Times. TALKS AND STORIES OF HEROES AND HOLIDAYS. 12mo, 460 pp., illustrated, paper, 60 cents ; cloth, $1.25. This volume includes short illustrated sermons to children not only by Mr. Crafts, but also by Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D.D., Rev. Richa'rd Newton, D.D., Rev. J. G. Merrill, Rev. Eli Corwin, D.D., Rev. Richard Cordley, D.D., Rev. B. T. Vincent, etc. The sermons are on the heroic portions of the Bible in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Acts, the portions selected as International Lessons for 1883 (but no less interesting for other years), for mothers to read to the children, and for the children themselves, as well as for preachers aud teachers. Sermons also for Palm Sunday, Easter, Christmas, and other holidays. The lessons for August to December and the Holidays, in paper, as "Part II.," only 30 cents by mail prepaid. TEACHERS' EDITION OF REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. With American Appendix inserted in the margins, marginal references printed at length, appendix of lists, tables, index, etc. Cloth, $1.50. " The best help even for those who use the old version. Its text, translated by forty of the foremost of modern scholars, with the marginal readings of the regular edition, and also of the American appendix introduced on every page, make it the best critical commentary on the New Testament. The marginal references, averag- ing two to a verse, printed at length to save time in turning, make it also a Biblical commentary. Its appendix of helps contains the best things of the Oxford, Bagster, and Spottiswoode Bibles that are many times as costly, and also many new tables, notes, lists, etc., never before included in Teachers' Bibles. " For the clergyman and the Sabbath-school teacher, as a working instrument, this edition is the best of the many editions which have been put upon the market." Christian Union. " With all its attractive features of references, in full, maps, tables, etc., your edition will be one of the most valuable available to merely English readers." WM. M. TAYLOK, New York City. "Your edition of the Revised New Testament is admirably suited to teachers." JAMES McCosn, D.D., LL.D., Pt'inceton, N. J. " I do not see how it can fail of being only short of indispensable to every minister, teacher, and Bible etudent." GKO. F. PENTECOST, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. " Many of its features are improvements over any other edition I have seen." Rev. HKNRT WARD BEECHER, Brooklyn, N. Y. " More help in the right understanding of the sacred text than is given in many a voluminous commentary." LKONARD BACON, D.D., LL.D., New Haven, Ct. NEW TESTAMENT HELPS FOR ANY VERSION OR EDI- TION. Paper, 20 cents. (Being Appendix of "Teachers' Edition of Revised New Testament.") " A miracle of condensation." Christian Advocate. SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY, AND WHAT THEY SAY OF SUCCESS. (Standard Library.) Paper, 25 cents; cloth, 50 cents ; extra cloth, $1. 285 FUNK & WAGNALLS' 1883 Series. CITILOGUE. Description of the Books. 1. They are all new books, either original American works, or are the very latest and choicest English books not heretofore published in this country. 2. Each book is 12mo in size, clear type, good paper, and bound in signatures (not inset) the same as cloth books are bound. 3. The books are bound in thick, stout cover paper, with artistic design printed in two colors, making each book an ornament for any parlor table. 4. The book stands erect on the library shelf the same as a cloth-bound book. The title is printed on the back, also on the side. 5. The Library includes no work of fiction not that all works of fiction are bad, but the fiction class of books is already sufficiently cheap. 6. The Library will be made up of Travel, History, Biog- raphy, Popular Science, Miscellany all New, Standard and Popular, and is known as STANDARD LIBRARY, 1883 SERIES. PRICES. Our prices are 15 cents to 25 cents each ; the average about 20 cents ; in all about $5.20, The subscription price for the year [26 books] is $5.00. Read and ponder the suggestive words on the next several pages. 266 Tjje "dheap (Jood Boo\" problem, THIS PROBLEM MUST BE SOLVED IF THE MASSES IN AMERICA ARE TO BE HELD TO VIRTUE AND TRUE MANLINESS, The Demoralizing Effects of Bad Books. A man's associates determine his character. Our most intimate compan- ions are the authors of the books we read ; they are with us when others are denied our presence; they enter our homes, and, unquestioned, cross the threshold of our most private cham- bers. The parent can guard his daugh- ter against the wrong comrade, but how watch the author with whom she communes ? The comrade can be seen : the author in his book is easily con- cealed and communed with, in her chamber, when she is thought to be alone. What suggestive words, what descriptions of deception, of betrayal, of plots and counterplots, what hot words of passion she reads without a thought of wrong which, if she heard spoken, would crimson her face with blushes ! This is true, not of those books only that have a bad reputation, but of hundreds of books that pass as respect- able. Boys and girls, men and women, of the better families, all over the country, are reading daily descriptions that would not dare be uttered aloud in their presence : not now, but by and by, when the evil communication has wrought its perfect work in the cor- ruption of manners, they will be heard and repeated without a blush. There are fathers men of the world, who would shoot dead the villain who dared speak in the presence of their daughters words one-tenth as black as these same daughters often read. Tot a thought read is a thought thought and as a man tbinketh so he is. O foolish parents and educators 1 why are ye so careful of what enters tho ear and so heedless of what enters tho eye ? The secret of the failure of many a faithful ministry, of the waywardness and final destruction of thousands of the most promising of boys and girls the mentally active is concealed be- tween the covers of the books they read. See to what monstrous proportions this evil has grown 1 la New York City alone over 200,000 books of fiction, mostly trashy and hurtful, are printed every week. These books, by circulating libraries or pri- vate lending, pass from family to fami- ly, so that many read the same book. Besides over a million copies of the sensational story papers are issued from the New York presses each week that is, about one such paper to every ten families I Then, what vast quantities are supplied by other cities ! Now, think of the class of men and women who are, usually, the authors of these flashy stories, and who are securing actually a more universal and a closer hearing than our preachers of all denominations. Representatives of this class can often be seen on the streets of New York with blear eyes and tangled hair and lecherous looks- beings from whom you instinctively recoil. You had rather see a daughter of yours, just budding into woman- hood, clasp the hand of a smallpox patient, than, in social equality, the hand of such an one. Yet, believe it. 70 doting fathers, ye thoughtless, coo* fiding clergyman, ye educators, pliilan-- 267 thropists, these beings from whom you so recoil are boon companions of four- fifths of the mentally awakened boys and girls of America. Is this an exaggeration ? Look at a single fact. A publisher of populir books in New York recently said : " Some time since I inserted in [a popular religious New York journal] at a cost of $60.00, a large display adver- tisement of good standard books. In the same issue cf this p;per I inserted at a cost of $1.25 a small advertisement of a flash sensational boo;c. What do you think was the result ? Well, my $60.00 advertisement brought me six orders for my good books, while my $1.25 advertisement brought me one hund ed and ihirty orders for my bad book. Yet this was a relipious paper, and the readers presumably church members 1 " This incident throws a flash of elec- tric light revealing (1) the wide spread- ing of this evil of pernicious reading. (2) A reason why it is so much easier to publish the sensational book at low rates than it is to publish the standard book: $1.25 invssted in advertising brings over one hundred orders for the one; and $60.00, similarly invested, brings but six orders for the other. These facts make plain why we must have the co-operation of the clergy and others if good literature is to be pub- lished permanently at low rates. Bad literature will run itself. It is water going down-hill. Some other force than gravity must pull water up-hill. The force that will make cheap good literature permanently possible must be generated in the hearts of the true educators and philanthropists, devel- oped Christians. The Educational Effect of Good Books. Books beyond anything else are edu- cators of the people. The intellectual, social and moral character of a people must be largely an outgrowth of their reading. The character of the books already issued in the Standard Library, and of those now announced for future issue, is a sufficient guarantee that the educa- tional effect of a general reading of the books comprising this Library must prove most satisfactory. In the warfare against bad literature our motto has been "CONQXJKB BY RE- PLACING." Mere denunciation is of little avail. The mind must be filled. To prove to the people that the books that they are reading are worthless, and often vicious, will not be of any permanent advantage unless you place in their hands interesting books of positive value. Give them something else to think about, and they will be easily weined from worthless trash. The quality of the matter in our library is always standard. Science, History, Biography, Essays, and Travels are included in this series. The educa- tional result in a popular distribution of such books cannot be overesti- mated. Good books are needed at low prices to stimulate the masses to higher attainments. The question is Shall the manhood and womanhood of our country sink to the standard of the Dime Novel, or rise to that of the choi:est literature in the English lan- guage? Why should any waste their spare hours over third-rate books, when they might spend them with the great- est and best th.nkers of the world ? None but absolutely new books get into this Library. Hence a great feature is freshness. Thus there is no danger that a subscriber will receive a duplicate of a book he already has. 268 How the Advocates of Good Cheap Books Can Help Us. If vigorously sustained, a good and lasting result will be secured. Unassisted wa can do little. "We can, at most, but supply ammunition ; the fighting must ba done by the clergy and the advocates of good reading throughout the country. There is most urgent need for this reform. If net, why would such men as Drs. Hall, Ezra Abbott, Mark Hop- kins, Wm. M. Taylor, and scores of others of representative men in differ- ent spheres of life and parts of the country, so unanimously and enthusi- siastically send us words of God- speed ? Is not this enthusiastic support most reasonable ? Bead and act at once. To accomplish the work this enterprise is fitted to do, we must have your enthusiastic and persistent co-operation. Hundreds cf the ablest preachers in the land are giving us their hearty support. Many of them have not deemed it out of place to attack the bad book in the pulpit and commend the good. You can do us effective work by the distribution of descriptive circulars ; ui'ging your friends to purchase the books ; organizing reading circles in your neighborhoods, and in many other ways that will readily suggest them- selves to your mind. The price of subscription for the entire 2S books is $5.00 $2.60 now. and $2.50 July 2, when the first half of the series will be completed. Can you not secure for us some sub- scribers? Try it. Representative Clergymen Heartily Indorsing this Plan. J. P. Newman, D.D., New York, Chas. H. Hall D. D., Holy Trinity Euiscopal Church, Brooklyn, says : "In tho great strife for the greatest good of tho largest number, put me down as on tbe side of this plan. Place my name on your subscription list." Pres. Mark Hopkins, 13. D., of Williams College, says : " The attempt is worthy of all commendation and encouragement. It will be a great boon to the country." Ezra Abocov 1, D.D., First I re ^byterian Church, Piitsburg, Pa., says : " Your plan deserves a place in the category of moral reforms." 'I recommend my friends to sub- scribe for 1 he twenty-six books to be issued within the coming year. ' Geo. C. Lio-im'r, D.D., Baptist Church, Chicago, says : " I sincerely hope your endeavors to circulate a wholesome and elevating class of books will prove successful. Certainly, clergymen cannot afford that it should fail." Charles W. rushing, D.D., First M. E. Church, Rochester, N. Y., says : " I have been deeply interested in your effort to make good books as cheap as lad ones I mentioned the matter from my pu ? pit. Asa result I at ouce got fi"ty-four t-ubscribers for the full set, and rnoro to come." J. ". Pck, D 11.4 First M. E. Cburch, Brooklyn N V., says: " Yourefforc is c jmrnenuable You ought to have tlie co operation of all good men. It is a moral, heroic and humane enterprise." 269 .A. O-IRIE.A.I? Young's Analytical Concordance ItJE&UCJED TO $2.50, IF-OIR, .A. ILiXiMIITIEID Dr. Young cannot endure to have this, the great work of his life, Judged by the un- authorized editions with which the American market Is flooded. These editions, ne feels, do hla work and the American public great Injustice. That Americans may he able to see the work as printed under his eye and from his own plates, he will cell gome thousands of copies at ..... A Great Pecuniary Sacrifice. The Bale at the reduced prices will begin March 1, 1883, and will continue until the thousands of copies set apart for this sale are exhausted. This fv the authorized, latest reviied and unabridged edition in every respect the same type, paper, binding, etc., as we have sold at the higher prices. It Is a burning shame that the great life-work of one of the most eminent scholars, a work pronounced In both Europe and America as one of the most laborious and important that this century has produced, embracing nearly 1100 large quarto pages, each larger and containing more matter than Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, should prove a great financial loss to its author ! This great work is selling in England at $9, and ia now Imported and sold in America Orders will be filled in the order received up to the time of the exhaustion Of the stock. YOUNG'S GREAT CONCORDANCE. BO HOT BE DECEIVER. There is but one authorized and correct edition of Young's Concordance cold in America. Evvry copy of this edition has on the title-page the words "Authorized Edition," aud at the bottom of the page the imprint NEW YORK : FUNK & WAGNALLS. EDINBURGH : GEORGE ADAM YOUNG & COMPANT. All copies, no matter by whom Bold, that have not these words printed on the title-page are printed on ttie bungling plates made by the late American Hook Exchange. Dr. YOTTXG Bays : " This unauthorized American edition is an outrage on the American public, and on ine, containing gross errors." Rev. DR. Jonx HALL eays : " Dr. Robert Young's Analytical Concordance is worthy of the lifetime of labor he has epent upon it. I deeply regret that his natural and just expectation of some return from its sale on this side or the ocean Is not realized ; and 1 hope the sense of justice to a most painstaking author will lend to the choice by many purchasers of the edition which Dr. loung approves that of Messrs. FUNK & WAGNALLS, with whom Dr. Young co- operates in bringing out here the best edition. JXEWYouK. JOHN HALL." Do not be deceived by misrepresentations. Insist that your bookseller furnish you the Authorized edition. REDUCED PRICES: 2100 quarto pages (each larger than a page in Webster'd Unabridged Dictionary), Cloth, $2 50 Sheep 4 08 French im. morocco 4 50 Sent post-free. FUNK & WAGNALLS, 10 & 12 Dey Street, New York. 210 PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK & WAGNALLS, NEW YORK. TALKS TO FARMERS. BY CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 300 pp., 12mo, Cloth, $1.00. This is the last, and one of the best, of the wonderful productions of the fertile pen and prolific brain of Mr. Spurgeon. It consists of a series of Talks to Farmers. Each Talk is a short sermon from a text on some subject concerning agriculture. Mr. Spurgeon is as much at home in, and as familiir with, the scores of nature as he is with the stores and business of mighty London. WHAT IS THOUGHT OF IT. Canadian Bapt's*. eays : " Our readers need no information about Mr. Spurgeon. His name is a household word. They read his sermons con- stantly. They have only to be told that something new of his has appeared, and they are eager to procure and read. In nothing, pernaps, does Mr. Spurgeon's greatness manifest itself mere con- spicuously than in his wonderful power of adapting his discourses to the needs of thuse to whrm he speaks. 'John Ploughman's Talks ' and ' John Ploughman's Pictures' are admirable illustrations of this power. So is the "book before us. It will be especially interesting to farmers, but all will en- joy the practical common sense, the abundance of illustrative anecdoto, the depth of spiritual insight, the richness of ,niagery, that prevail in the volume. The subjects of the different chapters are: 'The Sluggard's Farm,' -The Broken Fence,' 'Frost and Thaw,' 'The Corn of Wheat Dying to Bring Forth Fruit,' 'The Ploughman,' 'Ploughing the Bock,' 'The Parable of the Sower,' ' The Principal Wh^at,' ' Spring in the Heart,' ' Farm Labor- er .,' 'What the Farm Laborers Can Do and What They Cannot Do,' ' The S'.ieep before the Shearers,' 'In tha Hay Field/ 'Spiritual Gleaning,' 'Meal Time in the Cornfield,' 'The Leading Wagon,' 'Threshing,' 'The Wheat in the Barn.' Every farmer ehould read this book." The Christian Monitor, St. Louis, Mo., eays : "Most interesting and unique. The arguments in favor of Christianity are able and convincing, and there is not a dry .uninteresting line in the book; the distinguished author presents the principles of religious life in a novel but instructive manner, and the garniture of truth and earnestness in hi3 competent hands makes the book eminently readable. ' Codet's Commentary on Homans. This American edition is edited by TALBOT W. CHAMBEKS, D.D. 544 large octavo pages. Cloth, $2.50. Howard Crosby, D.O., says : s I consider Godet a man of soundest learning and purest orthodoxy." Thomas Armitage, D.D., says: "Especially must I commend the fair, painstaking, thorough and devout work of Dr. Godet. All his works are wel- come to every true thinker." Arthur Brooks, D.D., says : " Any one acquainted with Godet 'a other works will congratulate himself that the same author's clear logic and deep learning, as brought to bear upon the difficulties of the Epistle to the Ro- mans, are to be made accessible through this publication." The above w >rks will be sent by mj.il, postage paid, on receipt PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK < WAGNALLS, NEW YORK. 271 ' The most important and practical work of the age on tlie Psalms/' SCHAFF. SIX VOLUMES NOW READY. -SPURGEON'S GREAT LIFE WORK- THE TREASURY OF DAVID! To be published in seven octavo volumes of about 470 pages each, uniformly bound, and making a library of 3,300 pages, in handy form for reading and reference. It is published simultaneously with, and contains the exact matter of, the English Edition, which has sold at $4.00 per volume in this country $28.00 for the work when com- pleted. Our edition is in every way pref- erable, and is furnished at ONE-HALF THE PRICE OF THE ENGLISH EDITION. Price, Per Vol. $2X0. "Messrs. Funk &* Wagnalls have entered into an arrangement with me to reprint THE TREASUR Y OF DA VID in the United States. I have every confidence in them that they -will issue it correctly and worthily. It has been the great literary work of my life, and I trust it will be as kindly received in America as in England. I wish for Messrs. Funk sue- eess in a venture which must involve a great risk and much outlay. "Dec. 8, iSSf. C. H. SPURGE ON." Volumes I., II., HI., IV., Y. and VL are now ready; volume VII., which completes the great work, is now under the hand of the author. Subscribers can consult their convenience by ordering all the volumes issued, or one volume at a time, at stated intervals, until the set is completed by the delivery of Volume VII. From the brge number of hearty commendations of this import- ant work, we give the following to indicate the value set upon the same by EMINENT THEOLOGIANS AND SCHOLARS. Philip Schaff, O..,the Eminent Commentator and the President of the American Bible Revision Committee, ays: " The moat important and prac- tical work of the age on the Psalter ia ' The Treasury of David,' by Charles H Spurgeon. It is full of the force and genius of this celebrated preaoher, and (OVER.) 'The above work* -will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the prite. 272 PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK & WAGNALLS, NEW YORK. rich in selections from the entire range of literature." Wi liam M. Taylor, .D. New York says: ' In the exposition of the heart 'THE TBEASUBy OF DAVID' is *tu gentris, rich in experience and pre- eminently devotional. The exposition is alwa\s fresh. To the preacher it is especially suggestive." Jolm Hall, D.O., New York, says: -'There are two questions that must interest every expositor of tha Divine Word. What does a particular passage mean, and to what use is it to be applied in public teaching? In the department of the latter Mr. Spur- geon's great work on the Psalms is without an equal. Eminently practical in his own teaching, he has collected in these volumes the best thoughts of the best minds on the Psalter, and espe- cially of that great bod y .loosely grouped together as the Puritan divines. I am heartily glad that by arrangements, satisfactory to all concerned, tl e Messrs. Funk & Wa^nalls are to bring mis great work within the reach ot ministers everywhere, as the English edition is necessarily expensive. I wish the highest success to the enterprise." William Ormiston, O.TJ., New York, says: " I consider ' THE TREASURY OF DAVID' a work of surpassing excel- lenee,of inestimable valus to every stu- dent of the salter. It will prove a standard work on the Psalms for all time. The instructive introductions, the racy original expositions, the numerous qiaint illustrations gath- ered from wide and varied fields, and the suggestive sermonio hints, render the volumes invaluable to allpreacheis, and indispensable to every minister's library. All who delight in reading the Psal-jus and what Christian does not? will prize this wsrk. It is a rich cyclopaedia of the literature of these ancient odes." Theo. Li. rwyler, D.D.. Brook- lyn, says: " I have use 1 Mr. Spurgeon's THE TREASURY OF DAVID' for three yeara, and iound it worthy of its name. Whoso goe^hin there will find 'rich spoils.' At both my visits to Mr. S he spoke with much euthusiasm of this undertaking as one of his favor. te methods of enriching himself and others." Jes*eB. Thomas, D.D , Brook- lyn, says: " I have the highest concep- tion of the sterling worth of all Mr. Spurgeon's publications, and I incline to regard his TBEASURY OF DAVID* as having received more of his loving labor than any other, I regard its publication at a lower price as a great service to American Bible Students." New York Observer says: " A rich compendium of suggestive com- ment upon the richest devotional poetry ever given to mankind. ' The Congregationalist, Eos- ton, says: " As a devout and spiritually suggestive work, it is meeting with the warmest approval and receiving the hearty commendation of the most distinguished divines." United Presbyterian, Pitts- burg, Pa., says: "It is unapproached as a commentary on the Psaluis. It is of equal value to ministers and lay- mena quality that works of the kind rarely possess." North American, Philadelphia, Pa.: says: "Will find a place in the library of every minister who knows how to appreciate a good thing." New York Independent says: " He has ransacked evangelical litera- ture,and comes forth, like Jessica from her father's house, 'gilded with ducats' and rich plunder in the shape of good and helplul quotations.' New York Tribune says: "For the great majority of readers who seek in the Psalms those practical lessons in which they are so rich, and those wonderful interpretations of heart-life and expression of emotion in which they anticipate Ihe New Testament, we know of no book like this, nor as good. It is literally a Treasury.' " S. S. Times sa-s: "Mr. Fpurgeon's style is simple, direct and perspicuous, otten reminding one of the matchless prose of Bunyan." West* rn Christian Advo~a*e, Cincinnati, O., says: "The price is ex- tremely moderate for so large and im- portant a work. * * * W-j have ex- amined this volume with care, and we are greatly pleased with the plan of execution." Christian Herald says: " Con- tains more felicitous iliustrations, more valuable sermonic hints, than can be found in all other worka on the same book put together." The above -works will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of tht price. PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK & WAGNALLS, NEW YORK, 273 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fr^m the Writings of Dr. Guthrie, arranged under the subjects which they illustrate. By an American Clergyman. Price, in Cloth, $1.50. This book abounds in picturesque similes. Dr. Guthrie has rarely, if ever, been equaled either in the number, beauty or force of the illustrations with which his sermons and writings abound. They have been collected by an American clergyman, a great admirer of the author, and the book forms a perfect storehouse of anecdotes, comparisons, examples and illustrations. It contains the choicest of his illustrations, arranged under the subjects which they illustrate. Ike L >ndon Times says: " Dr. Guthrie is the most elegant orator in Europe." Dr. Candliah says: "Dr. Guthrie's genius has long since placed him at the head of all the gifted and popular preachers of our day." Dr. James W. Alexander says : "I listened to him for fifty minutes, but they passed like nothing." The Wea'ern Christian Ad- vocate says : "Dr. Guthrie was pe- culiarly happy in the use of brilliant and forcible illustrations in his ser- mons and writings. An American has selected many of these gems of thought and arranged them under the subjects which they illustrate. Headers and preachers will enjoy them, and will find many beautiful sentiments and seed- thoughts for present and future use." The Bo!>tnn Sunday Globe Bays : "Dr. Guthrie's illustrations are rich and well chosen and give great force to his ideas. Love, faith, hope, charity are the pillars of his belief." The Lutheran. Observer, Phila- delphia, says: "The power of illustra- tion should be cultivated by preachers of the Gospel, anrt this volume o: speci- mens, if used aright, will furnish valu- able suggestions. A good illustration in a sermon awakens the imagination, helps the memory and gives the barb to truth that it may fasten in the heart." The Christian Jnf ellignc<>r says : " It is a large repository full of stirring thoughts set in those splendid forms of ' spiritualized imagination,' of which Dr. Guthrie was the peerless master. * The Chris* Ian Observer, Louis- ville. says: ' No words of ours could add to its value." The Brtgt n P >*t says: "A rare mine of literary wealth." ThoOb4>rvr, New York, says: "It was not given to every generation to haveaGutnrie." TheChrsi York, says: "This book will be read with interest by the religious world." The Zion's Heral ', Boston, says: "Preachers will appreciate this vol- ume." The Christian Guardian. To- ronto, says: "An exceedinglyinteresting and valuable work." The above works will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the price. 274 PUBLICATIONS OF FUNK &* WAGNALLS, NEW YuRfC. What Our Girls Ought to Know. -BY- MARY J. STUDLEY, M. D. 261 pp., 12 mo. Cloth $1.00. A most practical and valuable book; should bo placed in the hands of every girl. Intelligently read, it will accomplish much in the elevation of the human race. It is full of information which every girl ought to know. Parents, Teachers, Clergymen and others who have tha education of children, or who have occasion to address, in sermon or lecture, girls, will find this book crammed vrith suggestiveness." The authoress, Mary J. Btudley, M. D., was a physician of large practice and great success. She was a graduate, resident physician and teacher ot the Natural Sciences ia the State Normal School, Framingham, Mass.: also graduate of the Woman's Medical College, New York; Dr. Emily Blackwell, Secretary of the Faculty, and Dr. Willard Parker. Chairman of the Board of Examiners. IS THOUGT OF IT. Sensi- ng *vr York World says: able essays on subjects which the au- thor has taught in the schoolroom, written in a style that IB clear and pro- perly chosen for girls." Boston Woman's says: "It derives its principal value from the fact that Dr. Studley was a firm believer in the possibility and duty of so regulating the details of every-day life as to secure and preserve physical health and rigor, and that such a course is essential as a foundation for the bigher moral and intellectual develop- ment." Union Argus, Brooklyn, says: "It is a practical book, and will do good if thoughfully read." Montreal Paily Witness says: " It is a valuable book for girls." Methodist Recorder, Pittsburg, rays: "It should be placed in the hands of every girl." Commercial, Cincinnati, says: ' Dr. Mary Studley was a gifted woman. Her knowledge was ripe. The book is a good one." School Journal, New York, says: "Every sensible mother will wish to place a book like this in her daughter's Lands." Journal of Commerce, New York, says: " This is a capital book." TJUIS ASD STORIES ABOUT HEROES ASD HOLIDAYS. Price, cloth, illustrated, $1.25.; paper, 60 cents. This book contains most interesting talks to boys and girls by many well-known men, such as Drs. Cuyler, Storrs, Newton, and others, and is richly illustrated by forty new cuts and many inci- dent and object-illustrations, making it a beautiful gift book. The addresses are nearly all written in a cheerful and happy style. WHAT IS S*&II> OF IT. Illustrated Christian Weekly says: "A good many bright and suggest- ive things will be found herein." Central Presbyt*rin says: "A beautiful present for a child, a parent, a teacher, or a preacher.' The Advance says: "The ser- mons are plain, practical, easily under- stood and full of illustration. " Bible 'JVachr says: "A very interesting book for the home circle." American Literary Church- man says: "Are well adapted to ar- rest attention." Consrregntionalist says: "Spec" imens of the work which many pastors are doins week by week for the children of their congregations." National Gazette says: "Both edifying and entertaining." Gospel in All T*nd says: " Brief, racy sermons full of the Gospel and common sense." Tht above works will be sent by mail t postage paid, on receipt of the priee. .275 THE STANDARD LIBRARY, WHAT REPRESENTATIVE CLERGYMEN SAY OF IT. Chas. K. Hall, D.D., Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, says : " Great book monopolies, like huge railroad syndicates, are now the mo* narchical relics against which the benevolence and radicalism of the age, from different standpoints, are bound to wage war. Each source will have its own motives and arguments, but each will resolve to conquer in the long run. At one end of the scale we have the Life of Dickens otf ered for $800, that some one wealthy man may enjoy the comfort of his proud privilege of wealth in having what no other mortal possesses ; at the other, we lind the volume offered at 10 or 20 cents, which any newsboy or thoughtful laborer uses in common with thousands. In the great strife for the great- est good of the largest number, put me down as on the side of the last. I enclose my subscription order for a year." Rev. Chas. W. Cashing, D.D., First M. E. Church, Rochester, N. Y., says : "One of the most pernicious sources of evil among our young people Is the books they rend. When I can get a young man interested in substan- tial books, I have great hope of him. For this reason 1 have been deeply interested in your effort to make good books as cheap as bad ones. I men- tioned the matter from my pulpit. As a result I at once got fifty -four sub- scribers for the full set, and more to come." J. O. Peck, D.D., First M. E. Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., says: " Your effort is commendable. You ought to have the co-operation of all good men. It is a moral, heroic, and humane enterprise." Pres. Mark Hopkins, D.D., of Williams College, says: "The attempt of Messrs. Funk and Wagnalls to place good literature within reach of the masses is worthy of all commendation and encourage- ment. If the plan can be successfully carried out, it will be a great boon. to the country." Geo. C. Lorrimer, D.D., Baptist Church, Chicago, says : " I sincerely hope your endeavors to circulate ft wholesome and elevat- ing class of books will prove successful. Certainly, clergymen, and Chris- tians generally, cannot afford that it should fail. "In proof of my personal interest in your endeavors, I subscribe for a year." J. P. Newman, D.D., New York, says: " I have had faith from the beginning in the mission of Messrs. Funk fe Wagualls. It required great faith on their part, and their success is in proof that all things are possible to him that believeth. They have done for the public what long was needed, but what other publishers did not venture to do." Henry J. Van Dyke, D.D., Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., says: " Good books are great blessings. They drive otit darkness by letting In light. Your plan wight not to fail for labk of support. Put my name on tne liat of subscribers." 276 T. W. Chambers, D.D., Collegiate Reformed Church, New York, says: " The plan seems to me both praiseworthy and feasible. I trust it will meet with speedy and abundant success." Sylvester F. Scovel, D.D., First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa., says : "Your plans deserve a place in the category of moral reforms. The foes they meet, the width of the battle-ground they can be expanded to cover, tiie manifold incidental blessings they may convey to thousands of households, the national and international currents of thought they may set in motion, entitle them beyond all question to prompt and efficient aid from clergy mea and the whole Christian Church." Ezra Abbot, D.D., JLL.D., of Harvard College, says: "I heartily approve of your project. I shall be glad to receive and commend the volumes to buyers. I send you my subscription." Thos. Armitage, D.D., Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York, eays : " Your plan is grand and philanthropic. I wish you success, and ask you to put me down for one set, with the assurance that I will aid you by every kind word which opportunity suggests." William M. Taylor, D.D., Broadway Tabernacle, New York, says : " The success of the plan depends very much on the character of th books selected ; but if you are wise in that particular, as I have no doubt, you will be benefactors to many struggling readers in whose experience a new book is one of the rarest treats. I am glad to see, too, that you are making arrangements with the English publishers, BO that in conferring a boon upon readers here you will not be doing injustice to authors across the sea." James Eells, D.D., Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, O., says : " From the reputation of your house I am ready to believe that you will publish only worthy books. I heartily wish you success." E. J. Wolf, D.D., of the Lutheran Seminary, Gettysburg, Pa., says: " A more laudable project I can hardly conceive of. Vicious literature has long had the advantage in that it was put within easy reach of the masses. The poverty of many who fain would use the very best books has often distressed me. I feel in my heart that the noble enterprise of your housti is deserving of the most liberal encouragement." Bishop Samuel Fallows, Reformed Episcopalian Church, Chicago, says : "Your plan for supplying the masses with the best reading at such a nominal price cannot be too highly commended." J. L. Barrows, D.D., Baptist Church, Norfolk, Va., says : " Every endeavor to supersede poison by food for the people deserves encouragement." Rev. W. F. Crafts, Lee Avenue Congregationalist Church, Brooklyn, suys : "In the West they displace the worthless prairie grass by sowing blue grass. The soil is too rich to be inactive. It will have a right or wrong activity. So about the love of reading in the young. It is prime soil and will heVtall wire grass if vro do not give it blue grass. It will have bad reading, if the good, equally cheap and attractive, is not provided." THE STANDARD SERIES. Best Books for a, Trifle. THESE books are printed in readable type, on fair paper, and are bound in postal card manilla. These books are printed wholly without abridgment, except Canon Farrar's "Life of Christ " and his "Life of Paul." No. Price. 1. John Ploughman's Talk. C. H. Spurgeon. On Choice of Books. Thomas Carlyle. 4to. Both $012 2. Manliness of Christ. Thomas Hughes. 4to 10 3. Essays. Lord Macaulay. 4to... 15 4. Light of Asia. Edwin Arnold. 4to. 15 5. Imitation of Christ. Thomas a Kempis. 4to 15 6-7. Life of Christ. Canon Farrar. 4to 50 8. Essays. Thomas Carlyle. 4fo.. 20 9-10. Life and Work of St. Paul. Canon Farrar. 4to 2 parts, both 50 11. Self-Culture. Prof . J. 8. Blackie. 4to. 2 parts, both 10 12-19. Popular History of England. Chas. Knight. 4to 280 20-21. Raskin's Letters to Workmen and Laborers. 4to. 2 parts, both 30 22. Idyls of the King. Alfred Tenny- son. 4to 20 23. Life of Rowland Hill. Rev. V. J. Charlesworth. 4t o 15 24. Town Geology. Charles Kings- ley. 4to 15 25. Alfred the Great. Thos. Hughes. 4to 20 26. Or f door Life in Europe. Rev. E. P.Thwing. 4to 20 27. Calamities of Authors. I. D'ls- raeli. 4to 20 28. Salon of Madame Necker. Part I . 4to 15 29. Ethics of the Dust. JohnRuskin. 4to 15 20-31. Memories of My Exile. Louis Kossuth. 4fo 40 32. Mister Horn and His Friends. Illustrated. 4to 15 33-34. Orations of Demosthenes. 4to. 40 35. Frondes Agrestes. John Rus- kin. 4to 15 36. Joan of Arc. Alphonse de La- martine. 4to 10 37. Thoughts of M. Aurelius Anto- ninus. 4to 15 38. Salou of Madame Necker. Part II. 4to 15 39. The Hermits. Chas. Kingsley. 4tn. 15 40. John Ploughman's Pictures. C. H. Spnnreon. 4to 15 41. Pulpit Table-Talk. Dean Ram- pny. 4to 10 42. Bible and Newspaper. C. H. Rpurgeon. 4to 15 43. Lacon. Rev. C. C. Colton. 4to. 20 No. Price. 44. Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 4to $0 20 45. America Revisited. George Au- gustus Sala. 4to 20 46. Life of C. H. Spurgeon. 8vo.... 20 47. John Calvin. M. Uuizot. 4to... 15 48-49. Dickens' Christinas Books. Illustrated. 8vo 50 50. IShnirp's Culture and Religion. 8vo. 15 51-52. Godot's Commentary on Luke. Ed. by Dr. John Hall. 8vo,2parts, both 2 00 53. Diary of a Minister's Wife. Part I. Bvo 15 54-57. Van Doren's Suggestive Com- mentary on Luke. New edition, enlarged. 8yo 3 00 58. Diary of a Minister's Wife. Part II. 8vo 15 59. The Nutritive Cure. Dr. Robert Walter. 8vo 15 60. Sartor Resartue. Thomas Car- lyle. 4to 25 61-62. Lothair. Lord Beacousfleld. 8vo 50 63. The Persian Queen and Other Pictures of Truth. Rev. E. P. Thwing. 8vo 10 64. Salon of Madame Necker. Part III. 4to 15 65-66. The Popular History of Eng- lish Bible Translation. H.P.Co- nant. 8vo. Price both parts ... 50 67. Ingersoll Answered. Joseph Par- ker, D.D. 8vo 15 68-69. Studies in Mark. D. C. Hughes. 8vo, in two parts 60 70. Job's Comforters. A Religious Satire. Joseph Parker, D.D. (Lon- don.) 12mo 10 71. The Revi-ers' English. G. Wash- ington Moon, F.R.S.L. 12mo.. 20 72. The Conversion of Children. Rev. Edward Payson Hammond. 12mo 30 73. New Testament Helps. Rev. W. F. Crafts. 8vo 20 74. Opium England's Coercive Poli- cy. Rev. Jno. Liggins. 8vo 10 75. Blood of Jesus. Rev. Wm. A. Reid. With Introduction by E. P. Hammond. 12mo 10 76. Lesson in the Closet for 1883. Charles F. Deems. D D. 12mo. . 20 77-78. Heroes and Holidays. Rev. W. F. Crafts. 12mo. 2 pts., both 30 79. Reminiscences of Rev. Lyman I Beecher, D.D. 8vo 10 FUNK & WAGNALLS, 10 and 12 Dey St., NEW YORK. PERNICIOUS BOOKS. The following are forcible arguments in favor of our cheap STAND- ARD BOOKS nearly every newspaper chronicles similar ones : A boy in Ohio went into the yard and blew out his brains with a shotgun after the manner described " in a sensational novel he had been reading." A half-dozen boys in New York formed themselves into a gang of "Road Agents," fully armed with pistols and revolvers, but were lucidly arrested before they had opportunity to rob and murder on the model of the 1 Road Agents" on the Western frontier, so graphically pictured in the popular " blood and thunder" fiction of the day. Another boy shot his stepmother. He said : I don't see anything wrong in that kind of It's dead sure to make me the hero of a novel, with my picture We might multiply these incidents ad infinitum. Read what Anthony Comstock has printed about the evil wrought by bad books. Tens of thousands of boys and girls are growing into a worthless man- hood and womanhood, the victims of misdirected reading. Books fit for the young to read must be made as cheap and of as easy access as are worthless books. THE HOYT-WARD CYCLOPAEDIA OF QUOTATIONS 90,000 QUOTATIONS, 5O,OOO LINES OF CONCORDANCE. THE STANDARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS. ~AS!fi ( ?* er wh - ch wehav t often grown wrathy enough) and TMisWioni^^ H n the U k?n^ E " EDMUNDS ' U * S Senator: " The moet complete and best work of OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: "A massive and teeming volume." WENDELL PHILLIPS: "It is of rare value to the scholar." Ge "kind E ' WART L ' WOODFORD: " The most complete and accurate book of the Ex-Speaker RANDALL: "I consider it the best book of qHotations." GEO. WASHINGTON CHILDS: "Any one who dips into it will at once make a place for it among his well-chosen books." HENRY WARD BEECHER: "Good all the way through." Maj.-Gen. McCLELLAN: "A work that should be in every Hbrary." ABRAM 8. HEWITT: "The completeness of its indices is simply astonishing." GEORGE W. CURTIS: "A moet serviceable companion." HE vokm W " LONGFELLOW ' " Can nardl y f a 'l to be a very successful and favorite Prices: Royal Svo, over BOO pp., Heavy Paper and Cloth Binding, $5 ; Sheep, $6.SOf Half Morocco, $S ; full Morocco, $1O. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: Tel. No. 642-3405 ' Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due. > f ^ Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. /i u t'l -3 PM .7 ?. NOV181979 CD AH/C f\ 1Q*ffl RBCBNVft i.ov CIRCULATION DE DtU ^ *