L, LIBRARY OK THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. T! KT OR Received Accession No. $* . igo Class No. JAN 7 1901 ON THE THRESHOLD. Lectures to Young People. i6mo, $1.00. THE FREEDOM-OP FAITH. Sermons. i6mo,$i.5o. LAMPS AND PATHS Sermons to Children. New Edition. i6mo, $1.00. THE APPEAL TO LIFE. Sermons. i6mo, $1.50. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. ON THE THRESHOLD BY THEODORE T. HUNGER " Many men that stumble at the threshold REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1892 M ?2 26* Copyright, 1880 and 1891, BY THEODORE T. HUNGER. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass.) U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. NOTE TO REVISED EDITION. IT is proper to state that this revised edi- tion is not due to any change of opinion on the subjects treated, but to the exigencies of publication. The demand for the book has been so large and continuous that the plates have become unfit for further use. Advan- tage is taken of this necessity to make a thorough revision of the text, and to add another chapter which seemed to be called for by the plan of the book. The changes consist chiefly in the re- moval of local and temporary allusions, modifications of emphasis on some points, and occasional additions in the main line of thought. It is hoped that the new chapter Number IX. will commend itself to all as a fit treatment of a subject that could iv NOTE TO REVISED EDITION. hardly be passed by. At the Round Table of true knighthood the seat of Sir Galahad should not be left vacant. When this book was first published, the author had no anticipation of the large place it would fill in so many lives ; and he sends forth this new edition with feelings of profound gratitude for what it has been permitted to accomplish, and with the ear- nest hope that it may continue to guide and stimulate the young men of our country along the lines of true living and noble manhood. NEW HAVEN, October 23, 1891. PREFACE. THE object of this little book is to put into clear form some of the main principles that enter into life as it is now opening be- fore young men in this country. Its sugges- tions are more specific and direct than if they had been addressed to older persons ; still, I have aimed to support every point by sound reasons, and to join the authority and inspiration of the greater minds with my own views. I think I may assure my readers that they will not encounter a sim- ple mass of advice, nor the generalities of an essay, but rather a series of hints suitable to the times, and pointing out paths that are just now somewhat obscured. If they find some pages that are strenuous in their sug- gestions, they will find none that are keyed to impossible standards of conduct, or filled 2 PREFACE. with moralizings that are remote from the every-day business of life. It is not pleasant to play the role of Polonius, and I undertake it only because Laertes seems to be quite as much in need of advice as ever. I have not, however, written out of a critical mood, so much as from a desire to bring young men face to face with the inspiring influences which, in a peculiar degree, surround them. The country was never so prosperous, the future never so full of happy assurance, as it is to-day. To point out the way of reaping the double harvest of this prosperity and a noble manhood, is the motive that underlies these pages. CONTENTS. PAGE I. PURPOSE 5 II. FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS ... 33 III. MANNERS 53 IV. THRIFT 77 V. SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE . . . 101 VI. HEALTH 123 VII. READING 155 VIII. AMUSEMENTS r- . . . . 183 IX. PURITY 207 X. FAITH 227 I. PURPOSE. " I long hae thought, my youthfu' friend, A something to have sent you, Tho' it should serve nae ither end Then just a kind memento ; But how the subject theme may gang, Let time and chance determine ; Perhaps, it may turn out a sang, Perhaps, turn out a sermon." BURNS. " Sow an act, and you reap a habit ; sow a habit, and you reap a character ; sow a character, and you reap a destiny." ANON. " So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. ' ' PSALM XC. " Youth is the only time To think and to decide on a great course ; Manhood with action follows ; but 't is dreary To have to alter our whole life in age The time past, the strength gone. ' ' BROWNING. ** The secret of success is constancy to purpose.' 1 BEACONSFIELD. I. PURPOSE. IN entering upon this series of essays, or talks with young men, I wish to have it un- derstood at the outset that I do not under- take to cover or even touch the whole truth of the subject in hand. The philosophical basis and the religious application will not be much regarded ; hence, to some they may seem to lack profound thought, and to others moral earnestness ; but I shall not mind if I can lead my readers to think seriously of what I do say. If I speak the truth, it will have enough philosophy in it ; if it is care- fully heeded, it will of itself grow into the moral and religious. I begin with Purpose, because it naturally underlies the themes that are to follow, and also because it is a matter of special impor- tance. I say special, because I think that just now many young men are entering life without any very definite purpose ; as some 8 PURPOSE. one has put it, " the world is full of purpose- less people." It may be due to the recur- ring phase of alternate prosperity and de- pression in our social life : when the times are prosperous we are not driven to a pur- pose ; when they are depressed, the openings are few and little freedom of choice is left. It is also due to the fact that, during the previous years, large and sudden accumula- tions of property were made by people not accustomed to its use. The consciousness of wealth is always dangerous. When a young man comes to feel that because his father has wealth he has no need of personal exer- tion, he is doomed. Only the rarest natural gifts and the most exceptional training can save the sons of the rich from failure of the true ends of life. They may escape vice and attain to respectability, but for the most part they are hurt in some degree or respect. The possession of wealth in the latter part of life, after one has earned or become pre- pared for it, may be not only not injurious, but healthful, though one ought to be able to live a high and happy life without it. But anything which lessens in a young man the feeling that he is to make his own way in the world is hurtful to the last degree. PURPOSE. 9 As the result of these two causes, with others, doubtless, young men of the pres- ent years, as a class, are not facing life with that resolute and definite purpose which is essential both to manhood and to external success. There is far less of this early measurement and laying hold of life with some definite intent than there was a gen- eration ago. Young men do not so mucF~ choose to go to college as suffer themselves to be sent. They do not push their way\ into callings, but allow themselves to be led into them. Indeed, the sacred word calling seems to have lost its meaning ; they hear no voice summoning them to the appointed field, but drift into this or that as happens. They appear to be waiting, to be floating with the current instead of rowing up the stream toward the hills where lie the trea- sures of life. I mean, of course, that this seems to be the drift, not that it is a delib- erate purpose. My object is to interrupt this tendencjA to induce you to aim at a far end rather than a near one ; to live under a purpose I rather than under impulse ; to set aside the f thought of enjoyment, and get to thinking of attainment; to conceive of life as a race/ instead of a drift. 10 PURPOSE. Men may be divided in many ways, but there is no clearer cut division than that between those who have a purpose and those who are without one. It is the character of the purpose that at last determines the character of the man, for a purpose may be good or bad, high or low. It is the strength and definiteness of the purpose that determines the measure of success. It is one of the gracious features of our nature that we are capable of forming high and noble purposes. The mind overleaps its ignorance, and fixes upon what is wisest and best. A child is always planning noble things before its " life fades into the light of common day." There may not always be congruity in these early ambitions, but they are nearly always noble. A friend of mine set out in life with the complex purpose of becoming " a great man, a good man, and a stage-driver." He has not yet achieved greatness, and I doubt if he has ever held a four-in-hand or knows what tandem means, except in its Latin sense; but he has not failed in the other part, being a worthy clergyman presiding over a church with a dignity and wisdom which are the proper outcome of his early conceptions. The PURPOSE. 11 weaker element naturally passed away, and the nobler one took up his expanding powers. Nor does this distinction divide men ac- cording to good and bad ; for while an aim- less man cannot be said to be good, he may cherish a very definite aim without ranking among the virtuous. Few men ever held to a purpose more steadily than Warren Has- tings, having for the dream and sole motive of his youth and manhood to regain the lost estates and social position of his family; but he can hardly be classed among good men. He is, however, a fine example of how a clearly conceived purpose strengthens and inspires a man. The career of Beaconsfield one of the most brilliant figures among modern English statesmen is another il- lustration of how a definite purpose carries a man on to its fulfillment. When the young Jew was laughed and jeered into silence in his first attempt to address the House of Commons, he remarked, "The time will come when you will hear me ; " speaking not out of any pettishness of the moment, but from a settled purpose to lead his compeers. The rebuff but whetted the edge of his already keen ambition. I do not mean to say that a purpose, if 12 PURPOSE. cherished with sufficient energy, will always carry a man to its goal, for every man has his limitations, but rather that it is sure to carry him on toward some kind of success; often it proves greater than that aimed at. Shakespeare went down to Lon- don to retrieve his fortune, a very laud- able purpose ; but the ardor with which he sought it unwittingly ended in the greatest achievements of the human intellect. Saul determined to crush out Christianity ; but the energy of his purpose was diverted to the opposite and immeasurably nobler end. It would be absurd for me to assure you that if you aim and strive with sufficient energy to become great statesmen, or the heads of corporations, or famous poets or artists, or for any other specific high end, you will certainly reach it. For though there are certain rich prizes that any man may win who will pay the price, there are others that are reserved for the few who are peculiarly fortunate or have peculiar claims. The Providence which, blindly to us, en- dows and strangely leads, apportions the great honors of life ; but Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high PURPOSE. 13 and good. A purpose is the eternal condi- tion of success. Nothing will take its place. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men of talent. Genius will not ; unrewarded genius is a proverb ; the " mute, inglorious Milton " is not a poetic creation. The chance of events, the push of circumstances, will not. The nat- ural unfolding of faculties will not. Edu- cation will not ; the country is full of un- successful educated men ; indeed, it is a problem of society what to do with the young men it is turning out of its colleges and professional schools. There is no road' to success but through a clear, strong pur- pose. Purpose underlies character, culture, position, attainment of whatever sort. Shakespeare says : " Some achieve great- ness, and some have greatness thrust upon them ; " but the latter is external, and not to be accounted as success. It is worth while to look injto the reasons of the matter a little. 1. A purpose, steadily held, trains the faculties into strength and aptness. The first main thing a man has to do in this world is to turn his possibilities into powers, or to get the use of himself. Here 14 PURPOSE. t S*Ti we are, packed full of faculties, physical, mental, moral, social, with almost no in- stincts, and therefore no natural use of them ; a veritable box of tools, ready for use. Think what a capability is lodged in the hand of the pianist or of the physician, fairly seeing with his fingers. Or take the mechanical eye, instantly seizing propor- tions ; or the ear of the musician ; or the mind bending itself to mathematical prob- lems, or grouping wide arrays of facts for 1 1 ~ induction, the e very-day work of the pro- l^ fessional man, the merchant, and the manu- facturer. How to use these tools how to get the faculties at work is the main ques- tion. The answer is, steady use under a main purpose. CThe call to-day is not only for educated, but for trained men. The next mightiest event that daily happens in this world of ours, after the sunrise, that " daily mira- cle," as Edjyin Arnold calls it, is the publication of such a newspaper as the " New York Tribune " or " London Times." If it were possible to send to Mars or Jupiter a single illustration of our highest achievements, it should be a copy of a great Daily. I think nothing finer could be PURPOSE. 15 brought back. But what produces this superb and gigantic achievement three hun- dred and more times a year ? Not learning, talent, energy, nor money, but training. From the editor-in-chief, with his frequent leaders, broad, compact, trenchant, and the manager, bringing together the various departments in just proportion and harmony, so that the paper goes from the press almost like the solar system in its adjusted balance, down to the folding and distributing departments, the work through- out is done by men trained to their specific tasks by steady and sympathetic habit. Every man's work should be both an in- spiration and a trade ; that is, he should love it, and he should have that facility in it which comes from use. It is said that Na- poleon could go through the manual of the common soldier better than any man in his armies. He would not have been the great- est general had he not been the best soldier ; his genius would have been weak without the support of the drill and the practical know- ledge of all military details. So of railroad- ing, now one of the great callings ; it has become a nearly universal custom that every higher position shall be filled from below by 16 PURPOSE. promotion, according to excellence, and this excellence turns upon two points : an intelli- gent and sympathetic interest in the work, and consequent handiness in it. One cannot look over a company of railroad men without perceiving that those highest up have the most head for the entire business. I have noticed, in looking at machinery, that the proprietor can explain it better than the workman who operates it. All lines of business are conducted more and more upon the principle of promotion. \ Less and less do men step from one occupa- ^tion to another. The demand is for trained men. But life is too short and the standards are too severe for various trainings. Seldom is one found who has thoroughly fitted him- self for diverse pursuits. Our aptitudes are not many. Pick out the successful man in almost any occupation, and nearly without exception he will have been trained to it. / 2. Life is cumulative in all ways. A steady I purpose is "like a river, that gathers volume and momentum by flowing on. The success-' ful man is not one who can do many things indifferently, but one thing in a superior manner. Versatility is overpraised. There is a certain value in having many strings to PURPOSE 17 one's bow, but there is more value in having a bow and a string, a hand and an eye, that will every time send the arrow into the bull's- eye of the target. The world is full of vaga- bonds who can turn their hands to anything. The man who does odd jobs is not the one who gets far up in any job. The factotum is a convenience, but he is seldom a success. The machinist who works in anywhere is not the one who is put to the nicest work. A certain concentration is essential to excel- lence, except in rare cases like Leonardo da Vinci, and Pascal, and Aristotle, and Frank- lin, whose natures were so broad as to cover all studies and pursuits. One of the most extensive wool-buyers in the world says that his success is due to the fact that his father and grandfather handled wool, that his own earliest recollections were of handling wool, and that he has kept on handling it. The largest manufacturer of paper in the country is the son of a paper-maker, born and bred to all the details of the business. There are, indeed, many cases of large success where men have passed from one pursuit to another, but in most you will find a certain unity running through their various occupations. One may begin a stone-cutter and end a ge- 18 PURPOSE. ologist, like Hugh Miller, or a sculptor, like Powers ; or as a machinist, and turn out an inventor ; or as a printer, and become a pub- lisher. A strong definite purpose is many- handed, and lays hold of whatever is near that can serve it ; it has a magnetic power that draws to itself whatever is kindred. 3. A purpose, by holding one down to / some steady pursuit and legitimate occupa- tion, wars against the tendency to engage in I ventures and speculations. The devil of the business world is chance. Chance is chaotic ; it belongs to the period " When eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, held Eternal anarchy amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stood." It is opposed in nature to order and law ; it is the abdication of reason, the enthronement of guess. The chance element in business is not only demoralizing to the man, but in the long run it is disastrous to his fortunes. And if it yields a temporary success, it is a success unearned, and therefore unappreciated; for we must put something of thought and gen- uine effort into an enterprise before we can get any substantial good out of it. The de- falcations, the shoddy of society, the diamonds PURPOSE. 19 gleaming on unwashed hands, the ignorance that looks through plate-glass, and no small part of the crime that looks through iron bars, are the creations of the chance or spec- ulative element in business. No good ever comes from it. If it lifts a man up, it is only to dash him to the earth. In Califor- nia they aptly call it " playing with the ti- ger," and the game always ends by the tiger eating the man. The chances in the stock market are less than in Chinese gambling, at which the Caucasian affects to laugh; but the Mongolian plays to better purpose with his one chance in ten than does the other in the ever-recurring bonanza. Few of the Forty-niners died rich, but almost every one at some time held a fortune in his hands. Their speculations are very like their smelting of quicksilver, going up an ex- pansive vapor, but trickling back solid into a single reservoir. If there is one purpose a young man needs to hold to rigidly and without exception, it is to keep to legitimate methods of business. Don't abjure your rea- son by appealing to chance, nor insult order by taking up that which " by confusion stands." A steady purpose embodied in a substantial pursuit shuts out these chance 20 PURPOSE. forms of business. Question the men of sub- stantial character and fortune, and you will find that they have avoided the illegitimate in business, and have held fast to some steady line of pursuit, busy in prosperous times, and patiently waiting in hard times. The recurring periods of commercial depres- sion witness a bravery and sagacity worthy of highest admiration, men conducting business year after year without profit or at a loss, keeping up their relations with the business world, carrying along their em- ployees, exercising forbearance with less for- tunate creditors, nursing the dull embers of their unremunerative business instead of petulantly suffering them to go out. Former years have shown us the heroism of war ; but these periods reveal the heroism of peace. When these brave, patient waiters upon for- tune reap their reward, those who gave up and turned to this and that will be found out of the ranks of the great army of pros- perity. It may seem from what I have said that I would advise young men to concentrate their entire energies upon a pursuit, and for- get all else. But I am far from doing that. The most fundamental mistake men make PURPOSE. 21 is in not recognizing the breadth of their nature, and a consequent working of some single part of it. One must give play to his whole nature and fill out all his relations,) or he will have a poor ending. He must heed the social, domestic, and religious ele- ments of his being, as well as the single one that yields him a fortune. These should be embraced under a purpose as clear and strong as that which leads to wealth, and be cherished, not out of a bare sense of duty, but for manly completeness. The most piti- able sight one ever sees is a young man doing nothing ; the furies early drag him to his doom. Hardly less pitiable is a young man doing but one thing, his whole being centred on money or fame, forgetful of the broad world of intellectual capacity within him, of the broader and sweeter world of social and domestic life, and of the infinite world of the spirit that enspheres him and holds his destinies, whether he knows it or not. It is not only quite possible, but an easy and natural thing for a young man fronting life to say, I will make the most of myself ; I will recognize my whole nature ; I will neglect no duty that belongs to all men ; I will carry along with an even and 22 PURPOSE. just hand those relations that make up a full manhood. f I find four general purposes that should enter into the plan of every man's life as essential to its completeness. Hereafter I shall speak more definitely ; now only of fundamental or leading purposes. 1. A young man should have an employ- ment congenial, if possible, and as near as may be to the line of pursuit he intends to follow. I have anticipated much that might be said here. The choice of a profession or occupation is a hard one to handle practically or speculatively. So many are forced into work, and take that nearest at hand ; so many drift into an occupation because the time has come; so many are set to work too early for choice, that few seem left who can make a careful selection. It is a sad thing that any should be defrauded of this natural prerogative. It may be quite right to train a boy to a calling, but never to the exclusion of his personal choice ; if for the ministry, and he deliberately prefers to be- come a machinist, or a farmer, or an editor, it must be suffered. A call, or calling, is a divine thing, and must be obeyed. Pitt was trained from his earliest years for the PURPOSE. 23 place he filled, but for the most part great men have chosen for themselves. But one should settle the matter only after very thorough consideration. Dr. Bushnell once said to a young man who was consulting him on this point, " Grasp the handle of your being/' a most significant and profound piece of advice. There is in every one a taste or fitness that is as a handle or lever to the faculties ; if one gets hold of it, he can work the entire machinery of his being to the best advantage. Before committing one's self to a pursuit, one should make a very thorough exploration of himself, and get down to the core of his being. The fabric of one V life should rest upon the cen- tral and abiding qualities of one's nature, else it will not stand. Hence a choice should be based on what is within rather than be drawn from without. Choose your employment because you like it, and not because it has some external promise. The " good opening " is in the man, not in cir- cumstances. An ill-adaptation will nullify any good promise, while aptitude creates success. All true life and good fortune are from within. God so made the world and all things in it ; " seed within itself " is the 24 PURPOSE. eternal law. I do not mean that every boy has an inborn taste for some specific work, type-setting, or mining, or editing. Aptitudes are generic ; if one follows his general taste, he will probably succeed in several kindred pursuits. While we cannot well go contrary to nature, there is a certain play and oscillation of our faculties, as of the planets that yet keep to the appointed journey. The mechanical eye covers a large variety of employments. A spirit of minis- tration is fundamental to at least two of the great professions. One of an intensely re- flective disposition should not make existence a long battle by binding himself to a life of external activity ; and many a man pines and shrivels in the study who would exult in a life upon the soil. But having got into some occupation or line of pursuit that is fairly congenial, running in the direction of your inmost taste and aptitude, hold fast to it. If it is altogether distasteful after fair trial, throw it aside, and start again. No one can row against the stream all his life and make a success of it. It is fundamental that there should be in the main accord between the man and his work. I do not mean that one is absolutely to do the same thing shove PURPOSE. 25 the plane, beat the anvil, tend the loom, measure land, sell goods to the end, but that he should continue in the same general department, thus utilizing previous aptness and experience. The work first undertaken may be too restricting ; one should be al- ways looking for its higher forms. One may climb by a steady purpose as well as by a persistent iteration of the same thing, but it must be in a related field of effort. Suc- cessful life is commonly of one piece ; and it comes of intelligent purpose, never by chance. 2. Having thus settled into some fair linei of pursuit, the next main purpose should be 1 to get a home of one's, own. "Every young I man expects' to marry ,,and this expectation ought to carry with it the definite thought of a home, a thing not realized under any boarding or renting system. I put this among the fundamental pur- poses simply because it is such. Character,* happiness, destiny, tllTfl m ** a *pq-l*S It is the main safeguard against immorality. It is essential to a development of the whole nature. It is the chief source of sound and abiding happiness. It is the surest defense against evil fortune. When once a home 26 PURPOSE. has been secured, abject poverty rarely fol- lows. Man is like the animals in that his first need is a place in which to hide his head. Indeed, a home sums up life; outside of it life is meagre and partial. In the home every worthy purpose finds realization. It is the objective point in existence, a home here and a home beyond. Hence it should not only mingle in^ one's dreams las among the probabilities, but should enter in among the distinct purposes. " A home of my own," no phrase of English words is so sweet as that. A bit of ground where you can plant a rose and hope to pluck its blos- soms as the summers come and go ; a roof that shall be your shelter for tender depen- dents ; a spot of earth and a house owned, and so ministering to that deep call for a resting place natural to us all; a home to hold those we most love while they live, and to enshrine their memory when they are gone; the goal of labors, the sanctuary of the affections, the gateway into and out of the world, a thing so central and large as this should enter into one's plans with sharp and strong purpose. 3. Another central purpose should be to become a good citizen. This is not so trite a PURPOSE. 27 point as it may seem. The moralizing on our relation to government that abounds in literature and common speech chiefly refers to subjects rather than to citizens. Obedi- ence and loyalty are old virtues ; citizenship is comparatively a new thing, of which we have yet hardly a full conception. To obey as subjects is a duty well understood ; to govern as citizens is a complex act, involving the two duties of obedience and ruling. The Sovereign People is a vast and signifi- cant phrase. If we were to speculate upon it, we should find that it involves the high- est function of man; for man reaches the perfection of his nature when obedience and sway are perfectly coordinated, that is, when he has learned to obey and to rule, doing each perfectly. To overcome and sit in an eternal throne is the highest glimpse of revealed destiny. It is something very grand and inspiring if we will think of it that our country puts upon us as citizens this sum and end of all duties ; that citizen- ship is in the direct line of eternal destiny. It is an adjustment of the political and the spiritual that marks the coming of the king- dom of heaven. One of the thoughts to which a young man should school himself is 28 PURPOSE. that he is an actual part of the government. Good citizenship thus becomes an inalien- able duty, an obligation springing from the nature of things. When one is so related to the state, he cannot see a law broken, or a public trust abused, or an office perverted, without a sense of personal wrong. The great Louis said, " I am France," but every American citizen can say, " I am the state.'' By good citizenship I do not mean necessa- rily a mingling in what is technically named politics, though one must not hold one's self aloof from its details, but rather that the public welfare should weigh steadily on every man's heart and conscience ; as it was the duty of every Roman to " see to it that no harm came to the republic." I place good citizenship among the fun- damental aims, because it represents a feel- ing that is central to character. One cannot avoid it without self -in jury. It leaves a man exposed to the absorption of his private business, and so to that selfishness and nar- rowness which come from a limited range of interests. Exclusive devotion to the home makes one weak ; to business, selfish. A hearty and practical interest in the state alone can make one strong and large. PURPOSE. 29 4. After one has well settled himself in these three main relations, employment, home, country, all other general purposes may be summed up in the one word culture ; or as this is a somewhat derided and over- used word at present, I will put it otherwise : resolve to make the most of yourself. Still that word culture is the best. Cu]J^aie yourself ; I do not mean in the sense of put- ting "on a finish, but of feeding the roots of your being, strengthening your capaci- ties, nourishing whatever is good, repress- ing whatever is bad. Determine that not a power shall go to waste ; that every fac- ulty shall do its utmost and reach its high- est. I say to you with all carefulness, the noblest sight this world offers is a young man bent upon making the most of himself. Alas that so many seem not to care what they become ; men in stature, but not yet born into the world of purpose and attain- ment, babes in their comprehension of life ! A cigar, a horse, a flirtation, a suit of clothes, a carouse, a low play or dance, and just enough work to attain such things, or got without work, how the spirits of the wise, sitting in the clouds, laugh at them ! What an introduction to manhood and manly 30 PURPOSE. duties ! One cannot thus start in life, and make himself master of it, or get any real good out of it. A part of his folly may ooze out as the burdens of life press on him, and necessity may drive him to sober labor, but he will halt and stumble to the end. It is a sad thing to begin life with low conceptions of it. There is no misfortune comparable to a youth without a sense of nobility. Better be born blind than not see the glory of life. It is not, indeed, possible for a young man to measure life, but it is possible to cherish that lofty and sacred enthusiasm which the dawn of life awakens. It is possible to say, I am resolved to put life to its noblest and best use. If I could get the ear of every young man for but one word, it would be this : Make the most and the best of yourself. There is no tragedy like wasted life, life failing of its end, life turned to a false end. The true way to begin life is not to look off upon it to see what it offers, but to take a good look at self. Find out what you are, how you are made up, your capacities and lacks, and then determine to get the most out of yourself possible. Your faculties are PURPOSE. 31 avenues between the good of the world and yourself ; the larger and more open they are, the more of it you will get. Your ob- ject should be to get all the riches and sweetness of life into yourself ; the method is through trained faculties. You find your- self a mind : teach it to think, to work broadly and steadily, to serve your needs pliantly and faithfully. You find in your- self social capacities : make yourself the best citizen, the best friend and neighbor, the kindest son and brother, the truest husband and father. Whatever you are capable of in these directions, that be and do. Let nothing within you go to waste. You also find in yourself moral and religious facul- ties. Beware lest you suffer them to lie dormant, or but summon them to brief peri- odic activity. No man can make the most of himself who fails to train this side of his j nature. Deepen and clarify your sense of God. Gratify by perpetual use the inborn desire for communion with Him. Listen PYfirrn^ to p/wiB/nAnnA. Keep the heart soft and responsive to all sorrow. Love with all love's divine nnpacit^and^uality^ And above all let your nature stretch itself to- wards that sense of infinity that comes with 32 PURPOSE. \~7 the thought of God. There is nothing that so deepens and amplifies the nature as the use of it in moral and spiritual ways. One cannot make the most of one's self who leaves it out. If these general purposes are resolutely followed, they are sure to yield as much of success as is possible in each given case. A pursuit followed in its main drift ; a home to contain the life ; good citizenship as the sum of public duties ; culture, or making the most of one's self, as the sum of personal and religious duties, these are the four winds of inspiration that should blow through the heart of a young man ; these are the foundations of that city of character and destiny which, when built, lies four-square, Work, Home, Humanity, and Self, as made in the image of God and for God. II. FBIENDS AND COMPANIONS. " God divided man into men that they might help each other." SENECA. " A man that hath friends must show himself friendly." SOLOMON. " A talent is perfected in solitude ; a character in the stream of the world.' ' GOETHE. " Live with wolves, and you will learn to howl." SPANISH PROVERB. " Although unconscious of the pleasing charm, The mind still bends where friendship points the way ; Let virtue then thy partner's bosom warm, Lest vice should lead thy softened soul astray." THEOGNis,/row Xenophon. " Beyond all wealth, honor, or even health, is the at- tachment we form to noble souls ; because to become one with the good, generous and true, is to become in a mea- sure good, generous, and true ourselves." DR. ARNOLD. /7 II. FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. WITHOUT doubt, home and companions are the chief external influences that de- termine character. One is almost always good, because it is charged with divine in- stincts ; the other is uncertain in its char- acter, because it springs out of the chances of the world. The main feature of the home is love which " worketh no ill ; " hence its natural influence is favorable to good char- acter. Parents for the most part inculcate truth, purity, honesty, and kindness. With abundant allowance for mistake and neglect, the influence of parents and brother and sis- ter is good, but outside of the home there is no such certainty. When John bids father and mother good- by amongst the Berkshire hills, and goes to Boston or New York to make his way in the world, his future depends with almost math- ematical certainty upon the character of his 36 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. associates. He may have good principles and high purposes ; tender words of advice are in his ears ; his Bible lies next his heart, and love follows him with unceasing prayers ; but John will do well or ill as he falls among good or bad companions. Ed- ucation, ingrafted principles and tastes, re- membered love, ambition, conscience, all these will do much for him, but they will not avail against this later influence. There are many turning-points when the question of success or failure is decided again and again. Life is a campaign, in which a series of fortresses are to be taken ; all pre- vious victories and advances may be thrown away by failure in the next. Nearly the last of these is companionship ; if one Avins the victory here, the reward of a prosperous manhood is within his reach. At the risk of logically inverting my sub- ject, I will speak first of friendship ; and I must beg your patience while I put a foun- dation under my suggestions. If there were but one general truth that I could lodge in the mind of any one or of all men, it would be this : that true life consists in the fulfillment of relations. We are born into relations ; we never get out of them ; all FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 37 duty consists in meeting them. The family, the church, the state, humanity at large, these are the sources of our primary and abiding duties, as well as of our happiness, the sum-total of ethics and religion. The relation of friends, though not so sharply defined as that of the family or the state, is as real and as essential to a full life. Emerson says : " Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an ele- ment of love like a fine ether." To get this ensphering love into form and expression, is the office of friendship. Bacon goes so far as to say that " a principal fruit of friend- ship is the ease and discharge of the full- ness of the heart." He goes on in his noble and wise way to name its other points, and nothing on the subject is better than his threefold statement of its uses : " Peace in the affections, support of the judgment, and bearing a part in all actions and occasions." It is not enough to love only our own family. Love is a great and wide passion, demanding various food and broad fields to range in. When one is only "a family man " he may have a sound nature, but it will not be a large or generous one ; and he 88 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. will shrink rather than expand with years, and sink into the inevitable sadness that attends old age. Nor is Bacon's second point of less impor- tance, to aid one's judgment. Advice can hardly come from any other than a friend when the question involves grave is- sues. (A stranger is not sufficiently inter- ested, a relative is blinded by excess of love, but a friend's advice is tempered by affec- tion^ while it is not overruled by the im- perativeness of natural instinct. There is much wisdom in the every-day words, 4 V a friend I advise you," for no other can ad- vise so well.} Bacon's third point friends as helpers on all occasions does not have its full weight until we learn the late lesson that man is not equal to life. There is more to do than one can do alone, and an unfriended life will be poor and meagre. It is an old saying that " a friend is another self." If, as a mere matter of strength and resource, I were to face life with the choice of either a fortune or friends, I should be wiser to choose the latter as more helpful. Of course I regard friendship as a real and abiding thing, and not as that other thing FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 39 that comes and goes with fortune. I have no faith in the miserable notions that the poor are friendless because they are poor, and that friends desert on the approach of poverty. Poverty may winnow the false from the true, but it does not destroy the wheat. The poor may be friendless, and even poor because they are friendless, never having won friends. This fine relation does not turn upon poverty, but upon disposition, or temper, or the chances of life. Happy is he who wins friends in early life by true affinities ! He multiplies himself ; he has more hands and feet than his own, and other fortresses to flee into when his own are dismantled by evil fortune, and other hearts to throb with his joy. Friendship is of such a nature that it is difficult to name rules for it ; it is its own law and method. So ethereal a thing can- not be brought under choice or rule. It is rather a matter of destiny. If one is born to have friends, he will have them. Emer- son says that one need not seek for friends ; they come of themselves. But Solomon goes deeper in his proverb : " A man that hath friends must show himself friendly." Let one offer to the world a large, generous, 40 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. true, sympathetic nature, and, rich or poor, he will have friends, and he will never be friendless whatever catastrophes befall him. Not as given rules, but rather touching* the matter in the way of suggestion, I will name a few points that it is well to think of : 1. Cultivate the friendly spirit. If one would have friends he must be worthy of them. The bright plumage and the songs of birds are designed to win their mates. It is in vain for one to say, I want friends ; I will go seek them. Go within, rather, and establish yourself in friendly sympathy with your fellow-men ; learn to love ; get the helpful spirit, and above all the respon- sive temper, and friends will come to you as birds fly to their beautiful singing mates. 2. Make friends early in life, else you will never have them. Youth is often moody, and keeps by itself. The very in- tensity with which it wakes up to individ- uality drives, it into solitariness, where it morbidly feasts on the wonderful fact of selfhood. There is danger also lest we be caught by entertaining companions instead of winning congenial friends, and so start in life with a set of mere associates. It is in the earliest part of our threescore and FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 41 ten that life-long friends are made. Agree- able associations may be formed later, and now and then a friendship when there is great congeniality and freshness of spirit ; but friendship is a union and mingling, a shaping of plastic substances to each other that cannot be effected after the mould of life has hardened. We may touch here- after, but not mingle. 3. Hold fast to your friends. It is one of the commonest regrets in after-life that early friendships were not kept up. Change of residence, neglect of correspondence or of holiday courtesies, some divergence of taste or belief or outward condition, for some such cause a true friendship is often suffered to languish and die out. Shakespeare well says : ' ' I count myself in nothing- else so happy As in a soul reinemb'ring my good friends. 1 ' And again in " Hamlet : " ** The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel." 4. Make a point of having friends among your elders. Friendship between those of the same age is sweeter, but friendship with elders is more useful ; they supplement each 42 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. other. One is the wine of life ; the other is its food. The latter balances life, and brings the good of all periods down into one. It is one of the divinest features of human life that in this way there is no such thing as solitary youth or solitary age. Youth may get the value, if not the reality, of the wisdom of age, and age keep forever young. Theology and poetry assert eternal youth; it is neither a dogma of one nor a dream of the other, but a logical realization of human sympathy and love. It is one of the mistakes in American society that the young people draw off into a society of their own. There is not only a strong flavor of vulgarity in it, but positive loss on both sides. 5. Avoid having many confidants. It is weak ; it breeds trouble. Secrets are not in themselves good things, but when of ne- cessity they exist their nature should be respected. Having them, it is well to keep them. Avoid also the effusive habit. It is pitiable to see a man pouring himself out into every listening ear, mind and heart inverted, the girdle of selfhood thrown aside, and all the secret ways of the being laid open for the common foot. It is a violation FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 43 of identity, a squandering of personality. The secretive temper is to be criticised, but it is not so fatal to character and dignity as its opposite. There may be times when one must speak all one's thought and emotion, self is too small to hold the joy or grief; but, having done it, get back into your cita- del of selfhood. We never quite respect the man who tells us everything. Take your friends into your heart, but not into your heart of hearts ; reserve that for yourself and God. 6. Avoid absorbing and exclusive friend- ships. They are not wise ; they are selfish, ( ' and not of the nature of true friendship, forming a sort of common selfhood that is but a double selfishness. They commonly breed trouble, and end in quarrel and heart- break. This matter of friendship is often regarded slightingly, as a mere accessory of life, a happy chance if one falls into it, but not as entering into the substance of life. No mistake could be greater. It is not, as Emerson says, a thing of " glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know." " There is in friendship " as Evelyn writes in the " Life of Mrs. Godolphin " " some- 44 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. thing of all relations and something above them all. It is the golden thread that ties the hearts of all the world." It is not pleasant to touch such a subject on its utilitarian side, still it is well to know that it is one of the largest factors of suc- cess not only in the social, but also in the commercial and political worlds. Many a merchant is carried through a crisis by his friends when the strict laws of business would have dropped him into ruin. It was Lin- coln's immeasurable capacity for friendship that made his splendid career possible. It is no idle thing. Happiness, success, character, largely turn upon it. I shall know more of a man from knowing his friendships, than I can gain from any other single source. Tell me if they are few or many, good or bad, warm or indifferent, and I will give you a reliable measure of the man. Companionship logically goes before friendship, but I put it last, as the larger and more important relation for you to con- sider. One shapes itself by a law of affinity ; the other is made. Choose your companions wisely, and your friendships will come about naturally. Young men are often told that conceit and FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 45 willfulness are their most marked qualities. I do not believe it. Their largest capability is that of inspiration. They do not readily take advice ; they resent scolding, and ut- terly rebel against force, but they yield with the certainty of gravitation to personal in- fluence. Through this capability all good and evil get into us. Youth is its period. Then heart and mind are open for all winds to blow through, " airs from heaven or blasts from hell." A great part of the ad- vantage of a college course is the contact for four years with a set of men who are scholars and gentlemen. It is impossible to overestimate the inspiring influence of con- tact with such men as those college Presi- dents, now passed away, Woolsey and Hop- kins and Wayland. "The strongest influ- ence I took away from Yale," said an able graduate, " was the spirit of the president." " Something in President Hopkins's letter drew me to Williams," said Garfield. The healthiest influence at work to-day in Eng- lish society runs back to Dr. Arnold, of Rugby. He made the men who are now making England. Dean Stanley says of him, " His very presence seemed to create a new spring of health and vigor within them, 46 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. and to give to life an interest and elevation which dwelt so habitually in their thoughts as a living image, that, when death had taken him away, the bond appeared to be still unbroken, and the sense of separation almost lost in the still deeper sense of a life and a union indestructible." It is often hard to tell where the good that is in us comes from, but most of it is inspired, caught by contact with the good. " It is astonishing," says Mozley, " how much good goodness makes." Old John Brown said, " For a settler in a new country, one good believing man is worth a thousand without character," It is not the teaching of the pulpit nor of the schools, but the men who walk up and down the streets, that deter- mine the character of a community. If the leaders of society are not noble, no drill of teaching nor pungency of exhortation will arouse high thoughts in the young. I hesitate to touch the subject more closely, because it takes us into a field where it is nearly impossible to say anything that is not trite ; but if the subject does not admit of originality, it admits of earnestness. I ask you to look well to this matter of com- panions. Evil influences are not resistible ; FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 47 they may not always overcome, but they inevitably hurt. For the sake of distinctness, let us put the matter into the form of rules. Resolutely avoid all companionship that falls below your taste and standard of right. If it offends you, reject it with instant deci- sion ; a second look is dangerous. The wise lines of Pope cannot be quoted too often : " Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace." Familiarity with evil, the familiarity of contact or intimate knowledge, never ceases to be dangerous to any one. It is the glory and perfection of female virtue that it does not know evil. The difficulty in securing an honest and decent police is due to their close contact with vice and crime. It is not in human nature to endure such contact and remain pure. Whenever you meet a person whose knowledge of evil ways is full and close and exact, you may be sure he is not sound at heart. Such knowledge is not knowledge, for knowledge pertains to order. A philosopher in chaos would have no voca- tion. If an associate swears, or lies, or 48 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. drinks, or gambles ; if he is tricky, or las- civious, or vile in his talk ; if his thoughts easily run to baseness, put a wide space be- tween him and yourself ; give room for the pure winds of heaven to blow between you. But a closer distinction is to be made. Get at the temper of your associate ; or, in your own sensible phrase, find out the kind of a fellow he is, before you make a friend of him. On the first show of meanness or lack of honor, let him go. If he is without a high ambition, beware of him. If his thoughts run strongly to some one thing, like money, or dress, or society, or popularity, he can do little for you. If he is cruel or negligent of duty to his family, if he is quick to take un- due advantage, if he is penurious, if he scoffs at religion, if he derides the good, if he is skeptical of virtue, if he is scornful of good custom, you cannot afford to class yourself with him. But one cannot always choose his asso- ciates. I do not forget how many of you are thrown together in the same office, or store, or shop, or mill or class. But this does not necessitate intimate and sympa- thetic relations. Here is where you are to choose, and stand firm in your choice. The FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 49 attitude of a mean or bad man is, Come to my level if you would be my friend ; and he is right. Companionship must be on a level morally, though it need not be intel- lectually. An ignorant person may be a harmless and even pleasant friend. Sam Lawson, in Mrs. Stowe's u Oldtown Folks," was a very good companion for man or boy, despite his general good - for - nothingness. Men may associate, and waive almost all other differences but that of character. The moral line reaches up to heaven and down into eternal depths. It cannot be passed and repassed. If you make companions of the bad, you will end in being bad. " Live with wolves," says the Spanish proverb, " and you will learn to howl." It is the beginning of a tragedy sad beyond thought when a young man enters a set of a lower moral tone than his own, the set that drinks a little, and gambles a little, and discusses female frailty a little ; some of whom take a little from their employers on the score of a small salary, and drink a little more than the rest on the ground of a steadier head, and affect a little deeper knowledge of the world, and lie with less hesitation, and scoff with a louder accent ; 50 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. it is not a pleasant sight to see a young man cast by chance, or drawn by persua- sion, into such a set as this. Superiority of mind is not proof against it. It was the wild smuggler boys of Kirkoswald who led Burns astray. It is one of the worst features of modern society that such sets as these are every- where taking an actual organization, with membership and rooms and fees. Society, from top to bottom, is running to clubs. It is a matter not easily disposed of, having a good and a bad side. In a complex state of society, such forms of social life will spring up. But when the clubs are organized on a basis of dissipation, however mild and however veiled, there is little question as to their influence. They destroy more than moral principles ; they wreck manhood and health and high purpose and self-respect. A young man may enter such a club, but no man comes out of it ; manhood evaporates under this organized pressure of inanity and vice, and leaves something fitter to creep than to walk, " beastly transformations," who kt Nor once perceive their foul disfigurement, But boast themselves more comely than before." FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 51 But let us get over to the positive and better side of our subject. I make as a last suggestion that you associate as much as possible with persons of true worth and nobility of character. The main use of a great man is to inspire others. There is a truth parallel to the doctrine of Apostolic Succession through the laying on of hands, which, to my mind, is better than the doc- trine. The succession of all high and noble life is through personality. Seek always the superior man. If you are already in a calling, get among those who excel in it. Every professional man will tell you that he cannot associate with one of low grade in his calling without injury, nor with one high up without fresh stimulus. It is well to get near men of reputed energy and worth. The fascination that draws us to the great is deep and divine ; it is a call to share their greatness, the divine way of distributing it to all. Get close to men of energy, and see how they work, to men of thought, and catch their spirit and method ; get near the refined and cultivated in mind and man- ners, and feel their charm. The most trans- forming influence upon a young man is that of a noble, intelligent, refined woman ; not 52 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. one who may become his wife, but one older and out of all such question. The friend- ship of such a woman, Steele says, is equal to a liberal education. But if you are cut off from this world of inspiring influence, if those about you are dry and dull and commonplace, seek the companionship you need in books ; fellow- ship with the great spirits of history ; clream with the poets ; think with the philosophers ; exult with martyrs; triumph with heroes; overcome with saints, v^ndeed, books are among the best of companions ; but of that hereafter. in. MANNERS. "Manners are the shadows of virtue." SYDNEY SMITH. "High thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy." SIDNEY. "The compliments and ceremonies of our hreeding should recall, however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny." EMERSON. "Love as brethren, he pitiful, he courteous." ST. PAUL. " Who misses or who wins the prize ? Go, lose or conquer as you can ; But if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman." THACKERAY. " How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy ! Wholesome as air and genial as the light, Welcome in every clime as hreath of flowers, It transmutes aliens into trusting friends, And gives its owner passport round the globe." J. T. FIELDS. " The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behavior in them. For this reason I shall ever, as far as I am able, give my nephews such impressions as shall make them value themselves rather as they are useful to others, than as they are conscious of merit in themselves." THE TAT- LER, No. 207. III MANNERS. PERHAPS there is no better starting-point in this subject than the one most remote from its real centre, our national manners. The foreign critics tell us that we are rap- idly improving in our behavior ; we are too conscious of the need to resent the patroniz- ing comment, and eagerly wait for the sure coming of that type of manners higher than has yet been realized when our in- stitutions have fully ripened the character of the people. In the externals of behavior we are in j advance of the last generation. The im-i mense development in taste and art that has come about through foreign travel and world-expositions has a corresponding de- velopment in manners. Uncouthness of dress, roughness of speech, arid the general barbarity of manners that once prevailed in large sections of the country have largely 56 MANNERS. passed away. The salutations, respect for another's personality, the care of the person, the tones of the voice, and the use of lan- guage, all are better than they were. Is there also an improvement in feeling and mu- tual relation ? The external, in the main, is^ indicative of what is within. Great masses of people are not hypocrites. The kindlier address shows a kipder spirit and a truer The deference of a cen- ""tary ago was the offspring of aristocracy ; \ that, indeed, has passed away with the dy- \ ing out of its source. But if we no longer bow down before our fellows, we entertain for them a morel rational respect^ To go a little closer Tnto the matter, the niasses_ have^ greatly improved in manners,but the class which used to be regarded as aristo- ___ _ cratic and especially well-bred has deterio- ,. rated, as was to be expected^ The~with- drawal of the deference of the Tower classes, I as our institutions began to be felt, threw it into confusion. The old-time aristocrat and a noble figure he was is con- sciously out of place and relations ; his man- ners suffer in consequence, and now, like Portia's English suitor, he "gets his behar vior everywhere." MANNERS. 57 But we must not infer that we are yet a people of refined manners. Dr. Bushnell, s ago, said that emigration tended to barbarism. We are a nation ot emi- grants ; the greater part ofn^iofTwoTiun-^ dred years, have lived in the woods, and the shadows of primeval forests still overhang us. There must be more intelligence, more culture, a more evenly distributed wealth, a denser population, and a fuller realization r of^our national idea, which is also thV ||/t Christian idea, personality, before we can claim to be a welCBred people. In Europe, the good manners of the great per- colate down to the masses. One conse- quently hears and sees there a delicacy of behavior and gentleness of address not com- mon here. It is, however, largely external and a matter of imitation. We have few such outstanding examples, and whatever of attainment we have is genuine and from within. We are destined to see on this con-^H . ; tinent a form of manners more genuinely / / refined and noble than the world has yet \