as a result, we must note the enlargement of his life, the increased development of his faculties, the growth of physical skill, of brain power, and of moral enlightenment; in a word, the result is man educated from animalism into a civilized and ethical being. The obstacles, the hardships, have been the anvils on which his faculties have been sharpened and shaped to larger uses, and personal character has been hammered to a firmer strength and tempered with spiritual refinement.

Adverse circumstances

are not man's eneIt depends on how But, leaving history,

All this history tells us. - that is, seemingly adverse mies, but may be his friends. he adjusts himself to them. do you not know of men and women, contemporary with yourselves, who have harmoniously and successfully made that adjustment? men and women who have converted the very obstacles in their careers into stepping-stones to some higher success? men and women in whose experience trial and tragedy may seem to have had a larger place than joy, but who from all their conflicts, from their baptisms as if with fire, have only come forth stronger and purer for useful deeds, the serenity of their faith unshaken, their humane sympathies quickened, their goodness heightened and glorified? How can such persons have any fear of evil circumstances? They know the Eternal to be with them, a Power stronger than circumstance or fate; and the Eternal is, indeed, with them, the very sustenance and life of their goodness and of their

noble serenity and spiritual beauty. Again I ask, Have not you known such persons? And have you not at times been conscious of the same Power moving and working within your own minds, to transform some hardship or sorrow in your experience into moral goodness and a deepening of character? The way of life, which is the way of righteousness, often must pass through a valley of shadows, dark, dispiriting, deathly. Yet it is the way of life still, and the way of safety, for all who have learned faithfulness to the law of life, which is righteousness. For them the very difficulties create in the soul a more robust fibre, and they emerge from the valley of darkness into light with a clearer vision and a firmer step for ascending life's heights. In their hearts they carry the very presence-chamber of the Eternal, with his sceptre and his staff; and their lives are adjusted to organic unity with his ways and for arriving at his high results.

It would be easy to fill large space with special illustrations of this truth of the transformation of hard circumstances into noble character. But I must limit myself to two or three that are freshest in my notice. And I retain those that were freshest at the time of my writing. The morning paper of the day on which I wrote brought two despatches, which in opposite ways hint the lesson. The first is a telegraphic despatch from Texas telling the story of four suicides there, in the same town, on the same day. Two young women and

ate act.

two young men, their lovers, had done this desperOne of the four lived long enough after the suicidal deed to say that they had taken a pledge to one another to end life together at their separate homes, but within the same twenty-four hours; that they had tried to live true and honest lives, but the world was against them, and the harder they tried the worse things became; that they were too poor for marriage, yet felt that life was not worth living apart, and so they resolved to end it all, together. This was a case of lamentable failure to make right adjustment to life's conditions. These young people lacked those qualities of high courage and confidence which are able to convert failures into success and to wrest from calamities the materials of moral victory. Instead of facing difficulties and conquering them, they slipped unsummoned ignominiously from the field. The other item was the story of the painful catastrophe which has befallen a young professor in Michigan University. Bending over a chemical experiment he was conducting in his laboratory, an accidental explosion so injured his eyes that both of them had to be removed at once. Only twentyeight years old, with already a high reputation as a chemist and a brilliant promise before him! We can hardly conceive of a greater calamity befalling an eager student of natural science. Yet he is likely to prove himself of the stuff from which heroic character as well as science comes. He has before him for inspiration the noble, well-rounded

life of England's late postmaster-general and distinguished political economist and reformer, Henry Fawcett, who at twenty-five years totally lost his sight by an accident, but who thereby turned his retirement into studies which have blessed his country and the world. Yet the greatest blessing

of his life comes from the example he has left of a man undaunted by such a catastrophe, pursuing his life-purposes firmly and calmly against such difficulties, and, withal, achieving a character as beloved as his abilities and usefulness were honored. Our own honored countryman and brilliant historian, Francis Parkman, against similar almost insurmountable obstacles, followed unswervingly a purpose formed at seventeen years and achieved his world-famous life career.

Another illustration is brought to my memory. Some of you here may recall that touching incident which happened at the visiting committee's reception at the Massachusetts Kindergarten for the Blind last year. Helen Keller, a girl of then eleven years, whose name is becoming as well known in Boston and Massachusetts as was that of Laura Bridgman,—a girl who is blind and was a deaf-mute, but who has been taught to speak, though she hears no sound, and who has a genius for sympathy and love,— was the most impressive speaker of the occasion. She had taken a most active interest in the forlorn condition of Tommy Stringer, a little fellow of five years, a deaf-mute and blind like herself, who had recently been

brought to the institution, but whose parents had no means to provide a special teacher for him. Helen has taken it upon herself to raise the funds for his education; and, in her little speech appealing for his needs, this girl who hears no sound, who sees no object in this fair world, said: "Life is sweet and beautiful when we have the wonderful key of language to unlock all its secrets. Educate Tommy, and give him this key." But this was not all. Dr. Edward Everett Hale followed, saying, at close, "Let every man and woman, every boy and girl, give something." Then there was a pause, broken by a sob from a little boy, one of the littlest of them all, who could not repress his feelings. A teacher, who was his shepherding crook and staff, gathered the little lamb in her arms to comfort him. He buried his blind eyes against her neck, but he was only blind. He had heard the speeches, and he could tell his trouble; and, when the teacher coaxed it from him, it was that he "had no money to give for little Tommy." Thus this blind baby, scarcely able to talk plainly, made the most eloquent appeal of all. When the meeting broke up, and it was told from one to another what was the cause of the child's grief, his sob was converted into subscriptions; and one lady from a distant Western city, a stranger to most of the people there, a Hebrew woman, asked the privilege of being an annual subscriber to the kindergarten in behalf of Tommy Stringer, and in response to his still smaller companion in blind