cially. A music dealer had failed in whose affairs two Boston firms were interested. Each had instruments on consignment; one of them pianos, the other parlor organs. Some one that knew something about music was wanted to take the instruments and sell them; some one who was responsible. Our reputation stood investigation and we took charge of the instruments although not in our line. However, it paid us well. Our struggle over our "first lessons" resulted in a profit of more than two thousand dollars in cash to us.

Young man do not lose an opportunity to improve every talent you have. It will pay you sometime, and that well. No young man could have learned music under greater discouraging circumstances than we did. To be able to play common church music, and that was about the extent of our attainments, will pay a hundred fold more than all the cost in money and time devoted to it. In fact the time devoted to it counts nothing. Every one has spare time am ple for the practice. A few minutes at a time is far better than ten hours a day. When the mind is fresh and active, more can be accomplished in a few minutes than in a whole day.

We were spending a few days in a city in Texas, recently, and going to church on a Sabbath afternoon we, being a stranger, were singled out by the minister and he came and shook hands with us, and inquired if we could not sing or play the organ. We admitted we did play sometimes, and as the regular organist was unable to be there, we were pressed into the service. Every one noticed the "stranger," and had to shake hands with him. Well, it was not very much that we did but it made it very pleasant for us in a strange city to meet with such a cordial welcome. It will be treasured up as a bright memory of our trip. Had we been destitute of the knowledge in special demand just then we should not have had any such attention paid to us. We probably would have gone away without a kind expression from any one. Young men often ask: "What good will this or that do me if I learn it." There is no danger of a young man acquiring too much useful knowledge. He never will know just when or how his services may be wanted to fill some position requiring special talent or experience. If you have any taste for music develop it. It will be a great benefit to you individually. Nothing is more restful, when tired, perplexed or discour

tunes.

aged, than to sit down at the organ and play some of the grand old It will relieve many a tedious hour. No one can get up from an instrument without being made better. Our advice is free; what use will you make of it?

Hark! We hear voices-telephonic messages-coming from one, ten, a hundred, from thousands, "We will at once commence to practice upon this advice." In one year from now nothing would please us more than to hear from the thousands who have been improving their musical powers by learning to play the organ or piano, and to have such write us of their proficiency, and if they have any regrets to offer for having commenced to carry out our recommendation. Who will do it? We have so much faith in this one article that we verily believe it to be as good, yes, better to every one who will practice its teachings, than a present of a THOUSAND DOLLARS IN GOLD would be.

EXPERIENCE MUST BE PAID FOR.

It has been and always will be with hundreds of young men, however enthusiastic or however hard they may work to win success in a business they never have learned, they will find by the bitterest experience that they will have to pay liberally to learn any business, and possibly they may make a miserable failure at last. It is a very absurd idea that a person can enter into a business without the least knowledge of it, to compete with old and experienced men who have been trained up to it from boyhood, and thoroughly educated to it. Suppose some foolhardy fellow should step up to the engineer of a passenger train some dark and stormy night and say to him: "Mr. Engineer, allow me to take your place at the engine. I have seen how you pull those levers. I can do that as well as you." Do you think that there would be a single passenger who would remain on the train with such a fellow to hold the throttle valve? Do you think a pilot of one of the great Long Island Sound steamers coming into New York Harbor, in a raging storm, or even in a clear moonlight night, would stand aside and allow a stranger who never was on a steamer before in his life, to take the helm? Would not the passengers rise and hurl the fellow from the wheel? Every passenger's life would be in fearful peril, liable to death every moment. An indignation meeting would be held at

once. The pilot, captain and all hands would be condemned as guilty of the grossest carelessness and utterly unworthy of the positions they occupied. The idea of allowing an ignoramus to act as engineer or pilot where lives and property are in constant jeopardy, would bring down the anathemas of every one, simply because the fellow is unskilled, ignorant of the requirements of the position he assumes to fill. It is precisely so with a young man who thinks he can run any kind of business he may wish to engage in, when he knows not the first requisites to make it a success. Not one in a hundred will succeed who makes the trial. In England it requires. seven long years of apprenticeship before one can set up in business for himself. So you can write it down as one of your maxims that "It costs money to learn how to do business successfully."

HOW SOME MEN HAVE SUCCEEDED.

• ECONOMY THE SECRET.

Economizing one's resources is the true secret of success. It is the only foundation upon which every successful business man has built his fortune. A young man, a stranger in the city of Boston, travelled up and down the streets seeking for employment, but unsuccessful in finding what he wanted, stumbled upon a load of coal lying on a sidewalk, and took the job of shoveling it into the cellar for a York shilling (12%1⁄2 cents). He saved the shilling, and it was the first step towards the acquisition of a magnificent fortune he afterwards secured.

We know a young man who started business on his own account with a small capital in a city among strangers. At first trade came to him slowly. Profits were small, and he was compelled to cut down his expenses to the lowest cent. Did he board at a first class hotel at $60 or $70 per month, and treat the acquaintances he made with cigars and the drinks? Did he come out with a new suit every six days? Did he spend his Sundays behind a fast horse? No! He lived with his business, slept with it and set his own table. His

regular diet consisted of baker's bread and fruit, apples, raw tomatoes, etc., at the cost of ten cents a day. Did he succeed? Yes. Every young man can and will succeed when he makes up his mind to it. The trouble is they will not make up their mind, and don't half try. A thousand good resolutions are but a waste of paper and ink, when not backed up with an invincible spirit to carry them out, or die in the effort.

To any of our readers who have not been to St. Louis, we will say that should you ever go there you will find two very remarkable attractions over which St. Louis prides itself. One is the great bridge across the Mississippi River, a wonderful piece of engineering skill surpassing anything on this continent. The other will be Shaw's Botanical Gardens, where the choicest and rarest of every flower, shrub, plant, or tree in the known world can be seen growing in perfection. It comes, to our idea, the nearest to Paradise of anything seen or read of on earth. If you have anything that grows in soil that Mr. Shaw has not a duplicate of he will pay you handsomely for it. Mr. Shaw is nature's nobleman. His generosity reaches to the ends of the earth in securing every variety of nature's works, for which he has spent thousands of dollars, bringing together the entire product of this globe within his garden walls, and no expense or labor is withheld to bring everything to perfection; and yet, after all this immense outlay, and many years of toil and labor, the whole world is invited to come in and enjoy it with him, and the great iron gate swings wide open to admit the humblest, the poorest man, woman, or child, that knocks at its portals. One naughty woman strayed in and was so charmed with its beauty, she thought it so delightful a place she wanted to live there, and as Mr. Shaw was a bachelor, she wanted to be his wife; but Mr. Shaw objected, (he probably remembered how Adam lost his place in the Garden of Eden), so the would be wife, for her terrible and bitter disappointment, asked Mr. Shaw to just hand over a little money to pacify her with. She only wanted forty thousand dollars-that was all. Although Mr. Shaw is a generous man, and had the money, yet he refused to comply with her demands. She sued him and brought him into court, and in the presence of twelve good men she sighed and told how she expected to become Mrs. Shaw, and for the bitter disappointment she sighed for just $40,000; and not a dollar less

could cure her broken heart. She may have been honest in her demands but the jury sighed for her, and their verdict was that Mr. Shaw must pay her damages-and a round sum it should be, all in hard money; the total amount was ONE CENT!" Oh, how she must have sighed then and there!

How did Mr. Shaw become so wealthy? Was it left to him by some rich uncle in the old country? Not much. When St. Louis was simply a little trading post, Mr. Shaw lived in a log hut on the banks of the river, and sold jack-knives, fish-hooks, etc., and as he could spare a little money from the profits of his jack-knife sales, he invested it in land around St. Louis, which the government was sell. ing at $1.25 per acre, and as the city increased in population his lands increased in value, and Mr. Shaw was made immensely rich by the rise on his land investments. Mr. Shaw practiced the strictest economy until he secured a fortune.

EMMA ABBOTT

Was born in poverty, and deprived of every advantage for improvement. Some ladies and gentlemen of Moline, Ill., heard her sing on the streets, and they were pleased. They heard her childish wish to become a singer, and they helped her. Miss Clara Louise Kel. logg also heard her sing and was delighted. She gave her some instructions and advice and assisted her to a situation in a church choir in New York city. A wealthy gentleman was charmed with her fine musical talents and sent her to Europe to finish her education and furnished the money to pay all her expenses.

Young men have been helped into good situations, to become business men eventually, and partners in the largest establishments in the country, who spent their best days on a farm. Ninety out of every one hundred successful business men in the large cities were brought up in the country as farmers, with perhaps not more than three months of schooling in the winter, while rich men's sons fail for the want of the early discipline of hard work.

WORKING TO WIN.

Two young men entered into a partnership and bought a manufacturing establishment in the vicinity of Davenport, expecting with an ordinary amount of diligence to succeed. They very soon learned