them. Now he is one of the firm and is worth considerable money. It was his persistence that won. Not one boy in a hundred would have had the courage to apply a second time after one refusal. Nothing like courage and faith when an object is to be accomplished. One of the partners of the house had only fourteen cents left when he reached New York to seek his fortune.

Ninety per cent. of the best business men of New York and Boston were born upon the farms of the country. A young man brought up to hard work on a farm, trained to the closest economy in his earlier years, has the power of endurance that a city boy does not possess, consequently he will make the best business man.

HOW JOHN MORRISSEY WENT TO CONGRESS.

John Morrissey, the notorious prize fighter, and keeper of gambling hells, when first married could not read or write. His wife taught him these accomplishments. In the day time she would study the lesson and at night teach it to him. The morning after his fight with Heenan, with his head all bandaged up, she made him sit up in bed and recite his lesson. He would often get discouraged in studying fractions and the like, but she told him if he gave up he never would go to Congress. He asked if she meant what she said, and she told him she did; so he would keep at the nightly lessons, and he did go to Congress. It shows what a man can do when he puts himself to the work.

CATCHING THE TRAIN.

We have seen a man start out to take a morning train. He would look at his watch and say, "Well I am a little late this morning, I guess I shall miss the train," and he goes moping along just as though he meant to miss it. He hears the whistle and then begins to quicken his pace. As the train nears the depot he runs lively, with all his might, and arrives at the depot just as the train moves out at the opposite end. All out of breath he exclaims, "That is just my luck. I expected I would miss it when I started." See the difference: His neighbor looks at his watch and says to his wife: "Only three minutes to train time; I'll make it; good bye!" and the way he tears down street is a terror to small boys on the sidewalk,

and he dashes into the street for fear of knocking down half a dozen people or being tripped up by them, and just as the train enters the depot he enters at the opposite end, and remarks to a friend that this is a little the quickest time he ever made; "I told my wife I'd make it, and I am here." This man runs to win, the other runs to miss. Each had the same time and same distance to span.

Resolution is mighty when backed by an unconquerable will to carry it out. Resolution is powerless, worthless, when there is nothing to back it. It was at the starting place where the race was decided.

$10,000 LOST! $10,000 WON!

The man who went on the first train bought the morning paper, and looking over the market reports found that nails had advanced seventy-five cents per keg. As soon as he reached his counting room, he withdrew from sale all the nails he had on hand. He sent out his confidential clerk to buy all the nails he could buy at "yesterday's prices." He drops into the store of the man that missed the morning train, buys his entire stock of nails to be delivered on call, and passes over a check for the same. The next train, three hours later, brings in the man that missed the first train. Clerks are busy, and a large pile of letters from correspondents require his first attention. When lunch time arrives, he steps into the merchants' dining rooms, and while waiting to be served looks over the morning paper, reads the market reports and learns that nails have advaneed seventyfive cents per keg. Bolting his dinner hurriedly down he hurries back to his store to "mark up prices" on nails, and finds that his neighbor has bought him out at "yesterday's prices." He exclaims, "Just my luck; missing the first train, I have missed a clean profit of $10,000 on the stock of nails I had on hand last night." Luck! There was no luck about it! It was the two minutes too late for the first train. Young man remember to take the first train. The first man made $10,000, the last man lost $10,000.

HOW WE LEARNED TO PLAY THE ORGAN.

Our home for twenty-one years was upon one of the high hills of New Hampshire. A farmer's boy, we knew nothing of the outside world, and much less of organs and pianos, and had never seen a

piano. When we were about thirty years of age, we conceived the idea that it would be a good investment to own a cabinet organ and know how to play it. We were employed at the time as a salesman in the largest dry goods establishment in a flourishing manufacturing city in Massachusetts. The proprietor was very exacting. The store must be the first one opened in the morning and the last one to close at night. We could not move the first thing towards shutting up until the city hall clock had struck the hour of nine. Then the goods outside were to be brought in and those displayed in the windows removed, and the curtains hung over all the shelves, and the show cases covered. The floor then had to be carefully and thoroughly swept. We could not reach our boarding-place until after half-past nine o'clock any night. Occasionally on Saturday night the store was kept open until ten o'clock.

one.

It was winter; we had no fire in our room and could not afford We sat down to the organ, wearing hat and overcoat with collar turned up around our ears. The ivory keys and the air coming up beside them benumbed our fingers. By the time we read the notes for a "chord," and pressed the keys down and "sounded the chord," our fingers ached with pain. We would hold them over the lamp to "warm up." Then another chord would be "figured out," and "played." We practiced this way all winter. It was no easy task. We had hard work before us, and stubborn opposition. The strongest kind of a combination, worse than a printer's union or any other union we have any knowledge of, was working against us. The battle was with our stubborn fingers; they must be conquered or we must give up trying to learn to play the organ. It was a doubtful problem which would succeed. Our will was strong, and we waged a constant war with the enemy. They had had their own way for thirty years, and proposed to have it forever. They were very harmonious in their movements; if one moved, they all moved in unison on the same line. We could not play good music in that way. The union movement must be overcome. It was will versus muscle, chords, ligaments and joints. The will was unconquerable. The aching and swollen fingers showed how severely the battle raged and how terribly they suffered. To move them separately was the great thing to be accomplished. Too long had they grasped the plow handles and swung the axe to adjust themselves to an entirely

new business, to work independent of each other. Slowly, but not very gracefully they yielded. We had, however, excellent encouragement, aside from our own gratification over our ability to "hold on to a chord to the fullest extent allowable, when we were sure we had it. Also from the compliments by the boarders at the breakfast table, as to how they laid awake all the time we were playing, listening to the ravishing strains of music as they rose and swelled through the corridors of the house. They wondered whether we had the power of continuance; and whether we would and could continue to bring out such harmonies; surpassing Haydn, Mozart, and those great composers, for ever and ever. Well, we could not do it. For those who had no ear for music, and could not distinguish the pealing notes of the organ from the cats that performed nightly in the back yard, we had supreme contempt. They never seemed to have any more love for our music than the solemn catawaulings outside. They preferred to sleep. We cannot now recall all the high compliments we were daily the recipient of; but if they slept they missed the greatest opportunity of their lives, and we ever had pity for them. Many of these compliments were of a so decided personal character that it would look too much for our modesty to have them appear in print.

Several times we came near giving up in despair. Probably we should have done so had we not run across the following lines, which we cut out of a paper and pasted over one of our hardest lessons, and it sticks to that lesson to-day, and we now occasionally read them with great satisfaction: "The longer I live' the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy-invincible deter mination. A purpose once fixed, and then—death or victory. That quality will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature a man without it."-Buxton. As Charles Lamb once said about an oyster pie dinner, "That did the business for us.'

It is wonderful what power there is in half a dozen lines to rouse up the latent, dormant and undeveloped energies of the mind. Words that never have been heard by mortal ears, silently entering into the windows of the soul, how they will ring loud and clear upon our inner perceptions. Often times when we strive the hardest to

drive them out of mind, louder and still louder they ring out and deeper down in our minds they plant themselves, there to remain. Is there anything more difficult than trying to forget what we dislike to remember; to forget an unkind remark or a questioning of motives. Bury it if you can. No grave has yet been sunk deep enough to keep it down. Banquo's ghost" will keep coming up just when we want it to "keep down." Read the above lines! Every word is worth a dollar; every line a hundred dollars. Complete, they are worth a thousand dollars to every young man who will engrave them upon the tablets of his memory. To some young man it will bring untold wealth; honors that will not die with the vanishing breath of vain lamentations. Good words well spoken never die.

book and when you are Hold on one day more. They will be your talis

There are many young men who will commence business without a dollar in money. All their capital will be in the good use they make of the lines above quoted. They will lay the foundation to a magnificent fortune-to be counted by millions. It has been done by many living millionaires. It will be done by some young man perhaps now chopping wood for his board. Young man it may be you! Read them carefully! Write them in a about ready to give up, read them again. Make one more effort with all your might. man to success, to a glorious victory if you are on the "right track." Well, did it pay us? We surpassed our first teacher, and at his request we took his seat at the pipe organ in church. We were very soon wanted in another church at a much better salary. Owing to the state of our finances we needed the change and accepted the "call." We always thought it was our financial situation that made it so LOUD A CALL. After a time we came West. Our talents could not be hid. We had four more calls to play in church than we could possibly fill. We were called upon for a great many gratuitous services, which we most cheerfully rendered. We did not do it for advertising purposes, yet it did advertise us nevertheless. A new man at the organ had all eyes upon him, while we might have sat with the congregation six months and not six persons known us by name. Sabbath school conventions, picnics, social clubs all wanted our services, much more than we had time to give. Did it pay? Yes; it paid the best kind of a dividend. It gave us an acquaintance that we never could have secured in any other way. And it paid finan