phere of neglect. Without power to sustain itself in and of itself, it shrinks in abasement beneath the weight of unjust calumny. Slights and sneers and innuendoes torture it with keenest pain. It goes down in the dust before the hot shafts of ridicule.

It is not well that any soul should be thus defenseless and exposed to all adversity.

But there are yet greater perils; more to be dreaded than the things which are merely disagreeable, or aggravating, or painful to the sensibilities are the things which bring some moral defilement to the touch, or inflict some ugly wound in the fair fabric of the soul's integrity.

Enticements to evil courses beset every pathway. They lie in wait for the careless and timid. They even dare to meet the self-confident and the strong. More especially do they challenge to life combat every generous, high spirited, ambitious youth. We may exalt in our thought "the power that makes for righteousness." We cannot overestimate the magnitude or the might. of that power. But in order that the race máy triumph, the individual must suffer. "To him that overcometh," is the word of holy writ. "The gods sell everything at a price," is the reflection of a pagan philosopher. We may ponder the universal scheme of all human life and see that the "Eternal Goodness" is ever at work toward beneficent ends. We cannot paint the picture too beautiful or too true. But to make it beautiful and to make it true, the individual life must fight its way through, or go down in an ignominious failure to an inglorious fate.

For this omnipresent conflict is there not some armor of truth and righteousness that will protect the wearer, or enable him to ward off the destroying agencies that are aimed at his life? Is there no defensive weapon with which to meet the enticements to evil, the trend to idleness, to greed, to rapacity, to unjust dealing, to low living, and foul thinking? We do not mention here that supreme moral awakening that enthrones man's higher powers, and makes all the beatitudes regnant within him. There is a sentiment, a force, within us and upon us; a force, a sentiment, sometimes but dimly felt. It is the

consciousness of selfhood. It is an enlargement of the feeling of personal identity. It is a recognition of the soul within us as being not our own but ourselves, not as being wise, or rich, or great, or strong, but as being our very selves, to be defended and kept if large and mighty, to be no less defended and kept if small and weak. The soul is its own armor. To the enthronement of this feeling as an active agency in the protection of character, we give the name of self-respect, a name that by light and trivial applications has lost some of its force. Let us revivify its import, while we are kept by its gentle, invisible power.

Self-respect, that clothes the soul as with a panoply, is an endowment within the reach of all. It is the native covering of every soul, sensitive and tender, but strong and defensive. It increases in protecting power through its own use, or it may be weakened by the carelessness of the wearer, if he allow some secret arrow of evil to pierce between the joints of his armor. It is not self-appreciation, for it may exist in the highest degree, with a distrustful undervaluation of one's self. It is not respect for one's self as the possessor of great riches. That is the worship of wealth, an abject sentiment. It is not respect for one's self as the possessor of great beauty. That is vanity. It is not respect for one's self as being finely or fittingly dressed. That may be a proper feeling, but it does not rise to the dignity of moral quality. It is not respect for great learning. It is not respect for excellent endowments of mind. That is pride of intellect, the most unlovely of all pride. It is not respect for lofty position, for offices, for honors, for notoriety, or for fame. That is to grasp the shadow and disregard the substantial entity. In proportion as feelings like these gain the mastery, in that proportion all true self-respect shrivels and withers and dies.

In the earliest days of man's earthly existence, his infant thought looks upon everything, even his own form, as external and foreign. He gazes in mute wonder at his hands, but does not know these are a part of himself. Evidently he thinks they are foreign bodies. But, into the frail palace of the infant soul come unnumbered messages of pleasure, or of pain. From

hand and foot and face and finger-tip come messages of joy or pain, that by some mute, mysterious logic, are traced to their source. By some experiences of pain or pleasure, the infant man has grasped the idea of externality and self. The frail network of nerve and filament and interlacing fiber that enfolds his body has become a monitor and a guide. Even through its frailness and sensibility to pain, it becomes a protection and a defense. The infant man learns to avoid danger, and, after a while, even to ward off peril by sturdy blows.

By a process equally slow, in years a little later, we rise to the moral consciousness of selfhood, and attain the instinct of the self-preservation of the soul. Not through feelings hardened to the stroke of evil, but by a supersensitiveness to the pain of injustice and untruth, we become strong to resist, and firm to oppose. The day of our defenselessness is the day of our power.

In the daily strife between truth and falsehood, in the daily contest between the good and evil side, in the face of the cowardly suggestion to do a little wrong that great good may come at last, in the still more cowardly suggestion to do wrong for a little while because the supreme good is unattainable, in the covert and insidious approaches of evil as well as in the fierce onsets of temptation, the soul that has arrived at a consciousness of its own supremacy, that has come into the feeling of fidelity to itself, stands,-firm, erect, and true.

Time would fail to tell, how, without arrogance or pride, the native covering of self-respect is broadened and brightened, made lustrous and strong, when, to the native vision of selfhood and its instinctive protecting power, there is added some transcendent vision of moral excellence and beauty in the soul itself, self-seen.

For now in every moral conflict no less than in every physical conflict of tournament and battle in the olden time,

"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;

And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

Adapting Self to Circumstances.

"B

HON. EDWIN F. LYFORD, State Senator of Massachusetts.

E independent of circumstances, adapt them to yourselves, make them for yourselves," is the boastful advice of the self-made man.

There is in this, however, no great encouragement to the average citizen, who, like the unfortunate Mr. Dolls, is sure to feel that there are circumstances over which he has no control. For his comfort be it said, that it is not always safe to rely implicitly upon the statements of the man of self-manufacture, especially with reference to his own mode of construction and operation.

It is true that in a sense we may often be said to control and alter our circumstances, but the change is rather in, than outside, ourselves. He who moves into a new house alters his surroundings, but he it is who has changed position, while the house has neither burned down nor moved away. We enter into different circumstances rather than alter the circumstances themselves, and it is worthy of note that any advancement and improvement we may thus make, is due very largely to a careful adaptation to our present surroundings and a ready and judicious use of the opportunities about us. While, then, the stubborn facts may not be altered, we can conform to them, and by so doing make them serve our ends. He who thus adjusts himself to circumstances makes them his friends that hasten to help at every turn, while he who fails so to do is surrounded by enemies that continually annoy and attack.

In society, that man "gets on," is popular, and makes a success who knows how to adapt himself to the people whom he

meets. This does not require him to be two-faced or double in his dealing, nor that when "among the Romans, he should do as the Romans do," without regard to his own sense of right, but it does demand the use of good sense in rendering his conduct appropriate to the places and people in which and among whom he is for the time placed. He who should wear crape at a wedding or crack jokes at a funeral, would very soon have no weddings to attend and no funeral but his own to enjoy. On the other hand, he who is ever quick to respond to the feelings of those about him, becoming a child with children and a man among men, possesses not only the strongest element of popularity, but a means of accomplishing untold good.

The business man must continually adapt himself to his surroundings. As the nature of trade changes, as times are good or bad, as customers are easy or hard to please, and as the numerous chances of business are every day presented to him, he must be ever on the alert and quick to adjust himself to all these and the thousand other circumstances of his business world. The exercise of this power of adaptation or, in other words, business sagacity, insures success; to neglect it, means failure. The manufacturer who should still insist on turning out flintlock guns, instead of conforming to the changed condition of affairs, would find no market for his wares, and he who should undertake to run a line of stages from Boston to New York would be quickly taught that he had failed to understand the requirements of the present day.

The teacher, the lawyer, the doctor, and the minister must learn to adapt themselves to the characters with whom they come in contact. The teacher who instructs all his scholars in the same unvarying manner, without regard to their individual peculiarities, fails to understand the first principles of his vocation. The lawyer and doctor are obliged to suit themselves to their cases, their clients, and their patients, and even the minister must deal differently with the lambs and sheep of his flock, and preach very different sermons on Thanksgiving and Fast day.