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STARTING POINTS IN LIFE.

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lament with intense bitterness, and apparently with perfect sincerity, that they have been born into the world too late. We suppose that they would have written "Hamlet" before Shakespeare, or discovered the steam-engine before James Watt. Nonsense! The present is our time, not the past or future; and the question of all questions is, What shall we do with it?

"Stay, stay the present instant;

Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings!
Oh, let it not elude thy grasp, but, like
The good old patriarch upon record,

Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee!"

It may be accepted as a proposition capable of irrefragable demonstration, that the men who fail now would have failed in the past and would fail in the future, because they are the men who do not see their duty, or, seeing it, do not perform it.

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Secondly, We sometimes read about "starting-points in life,” about" opportunities," and the necessity of being on the alert to avail ourselves of them. "Here is your chance," people say; if you miss it, do not think that, like the swallow, it will reappear. We do not believe in chance, nor in starting-points, nor in opportunities, except in this sense, that at particular times our duty may be put before us in a special and conspicuous manner. Seizing our opportunity," when carefully examined into, means nothing more than seizing an occasion of doing our duty. It is true, therefore, to some extent, that to every man his opportunity comes once in his life, and that if he permit it to glide by it will never return; because it is certain that, if we once neglect any obvious duty, we shall never again be in a position to retrieve the laches. But do not let the reader sit down by the wayside and wait for his "opportunity," as for some miraculous boon to descend suddenly and unexpectedly from the blue heavens above him. Energy makes its own opportunities, because energy is always prompt to detect and ready to execute the work that has to be done. An engine-driver in charge of a crowded train saw lying across the rails at some distance in front of him a piece of timber which menaced his freight with wounds and death. Quick as thought he crept along the side of the engine, and leaning forward, by a supreme effort swung the log out of the way just as the iron wheels were upon it. He risked his life,

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EVERY MAN IN HIS PLACE.

but he did his duty. Afterwards he was rewarded with promotion and handsome gifts; he had found his opportunity, his starting-point, his chance. Yes; but it was in doing his duty that he found it. "There are things," says Goethe, “which you do not notice only because you do not look at them;" and so there are duties which we never recognise because we will not look for them. It is related of a Mr. Godfrey, Governor of the Bank of England, that he made his appearance on the battlefield of Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington remonstrated with him on the danger he was incurring. The gentleman answered that the Duke himself ran an equal risk. "Yes," said the Duke, "but I am doing my duty." He had scarcely spoken when a ball struck the rash intruder dead. There was no glory in his death; it was a melancholy failure. He was outside the sphere of his duty. The opportunity at Waterloo was not for him, but for the Duke and the men who

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conquered with him. "Though a battle," said Napoleon, may last a whole day, there are generally some ten minutes in which its issue is practically decided." And so, though a life may last fifty, or sixty, or seventy years, there is always a moment when our duty is clearly presented to us, and according as we seize or neglect it, will be our success or failure. Only let us not be led astray by any fancied "opportunity," any imaginary" chance." Let us, like the Duke of Wellington, before we enter the thick of the fire, be sure that duty calls us thither. To quote Goethe again-" We are not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what we have to do, and to confine ourselves within the limits of our power of comprehension,"-and, we may add, of action. Our duty plainly is, not to attempt what we cannot complete: not to thrust ourselves forward into positions which we cannot fill:

"They also serve who only stand and wait."

Failure is certain if we allow ourselves to be deluded by the mirage of an imaginary opportunity.

And, lastly, If we would turn to advantage the Secret of Success, if we would not miss our duty, we must be careful to cultivate not only our physical and mental faculties, not only those admirable business habits on which our parents and guardians wisely enlarge, but the higher moral faculties. On this point a few remarks have been made in a preceding chap

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY.

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ter; but it seems desirable to enforce it upon the reader emphatically and solemnly, before our pen inscribes at the bottom of the page the melancholy word "Finis." In a book now lying before us, the following "business qualities" are carefully enumerated:- Integrity, enterprise, energy, perseverance, courage, shrewdness, punctiliousness, prudence, ambition, gratitude, benevolence, generosity, and economy. Well, we have already commented upon Mr. Freedley's "six" business qualities, and the qualities conspicuous by their absence. In this more extended list is not the reader sensible of omissions? Does he not look in vain for these three Christian graces, faith, hope, and charity? Benevolence and generosity, it is true, are included; but we refer to that broader benevolence, that loftier generosity, the Christian ideal of charity, which extends its sympathies to the sinner as well as to the sufferer, and gives its hand to the man who fails as well as to the pauper. "Among the Greeks," says Lord Lytton, "the charities were synonymous with the graces. Admitted into the heathen religion, their task was to bind and unite; their attribute was the zone, without which even love lacked the power to charm. 'Without the graces,' say Pindar, the gods do not move either in the chorus or the banquet; they are placed near Apollo.' Prescribed to us by a greater creed than the heathen's, they retain their mission as they retain their name. It is but a mock charity which rejects the zone. Wherever the true and heaven-born harmoniser struts into the midst of discord, it not only appeases and soothes as charity-it beautifies, commands, and subjugates as grace."

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The influence of charity is essential to the peace and prosperity of human life. But not less essential is the influence of hope, which supports us in the hour of trial and darkness, and encourages us with the promise of a golden dawn; or that of faith, which enables us to endure in calmness, and adds conviction to the sanguineness of hope. Unless we had hope for ourselves, our fellows, our race, unless we had faith in humanity and in the Divine benediction which attends it in the future, how could we bear the burden and the mystery of this unintelligible life? Let us believe and hope, so that we may do our duty patiently and gladly. Let us believe and hope, so that out of the apparent failure which the world derides we may gain

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that success which Heaven blesses. Let us believe and hope, so that we may bear uncomplainingly the burden of to-day, looking forward with calm, clear vision to the rest of to-morrow. Let us believe and hope in the sure and certain conviction cf the utility of virtues for which there is no earthly reward, of the grandeur of duties which are not enforced by any human law, of the nobleness of the impulse to deeds which annihilate even the care for self-preservation, and conduct to noble, yet perhaps to fameless graves, thus invigorating and recruiting the life of races by millions of "crownless martyrs and unrewarded heroes." Oh, cultivate the virtues of charity, faith, and hope, and so will you learn to apply, with the approval of God and His angels, and to the eternal happiness of yourself and your brothers, the SECRET OF SUCCESS!

FINIS.

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Ancilon, Madam, saying of, 315

Anecdotes, some miscellaneous, 21, 24, 32, 52, 60, 61, 69,

78, 79, 107, 115, 116, 126, 138, 225.

Angelo, Michael, 64, 277.

Arnauld, quoted, 105.

Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 43, 273.

Arnold, Dr., quoted, 88.

Astor, J. J., 166, 201; anecdote of, 202.

Astor, William, 66, 209.

Athletic habits of the English, the, 252.

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