firm. He had gone to New York, obtained a situation with the house, and made himself so useful that he was wanted as partner. The three partners were selected not for capital but for character. The house was the firm of Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co., for years the largest schoolbook publishing house of the country.

A young man was for several years clerk for the firm in which I was a partner. He learned the business, then went to New York and secured a situation with the house I have named. A while afterward I inquired of the senior partner of that house how well the young man filled his position. The reply was, "He is a pretty good clerk, as clerks go. If young ladies come in, he wants to stop and talk with them, he wants to dress well, he wants to stop work when the clock strikes; he is pretty good as clerks go, but as for being willing to take off his coat, and work as I am willing to work, he does not want to, and there are very few of them who do." I think that young man had as good a chance before him as did the one who came from the West and became a partner, but he failed to improve it and went downward instead of upward.

Some time ago I saw a gang of men at work on the street railroad; only one of them had his coat off, and that was the superintendent of the road.

Young man, if you desire to become superintendent, or proprietor, instead of being only a digger, work with your coat off, and work as if every dollar made in the business was made entirely for you.

Another young man came to us as clerk. After being with us some three or four years, he proposed leaving us, but he had made himself so useful that we could not spare him, and took him into the business as a partner, and now for many years he has been the head of the house, doing a large and profitable business. So it has been in many other instances; a clerk has made himself so useful that he could not be spared, and so must become a partner, but to do so he must put close work of hands and mind into the business, and plenty of it.

There are always instances of prosperous men who have worked hard, are beginning to grow old, and want a young man as partner; they do not want money capital, they have enough of that, they want character, right habits, work, and these are the best capital a young man can have.

A merchant in Boston wanted a boy. One was recommended to him from the country, some twenty miles away. The merchant decided to try him, and sent a dollar to pay his stage fare to the city. On the day when he was expected the boy appeared, at a late hour. The merchant asked somewhat sternly, "Where have you been? The stage was in long ago." The boy meekly replied, "I did not mean to offend you, sır; it was the first dollar I ever had, and I wanted to keep it and so I walked." "You did just right,” said the gentleman emphatically, "now go and get your supper and come to work in the morning"; and he said to a friend who heard it, "I would not take a thousand dollars for that boy." In process of time, the boy became a partner in the business.

Sometimes a single act or a single day shapes a young man's course and prosperity for life.

Many years ago I was traveling on the river St. Lawrence; on Saturday afternoon I stopped at a hotel on one of the Thousand Islands to pass the Sabbath. Several young men, commercial travelers, spent the day there. On Sunday morning all but one of them went out on the river and spent the day there. That one went to church and kept the Sabbath. He made himself known to me, was traveling for a relative of mine. Some time afterwards he applied for a situation to a large manufacturer, who wrote me that the young man had given a reference to me, among others. I replied that my knowledge of him was limited, but I gave the facts about that Sabbath. The young man obtained the situation, and he afterwards told me that he thought my letter decided the matter. The manufacturer's son, upon whom he relied, had died. He took the young man into his family and brought him forward in the business. In a few years the senior died; the young man was elected in

his place as manager of the business, with a fine prospect before him.

Young man, there is abundant room for you in the higher and more responsible positions of life. You are needed. Will you rise to the emergencies and make yourself worthy of confidence and become qualified for responsibility? If so, be willing to do anything and everything that will advance the interest of your employer, and you will soon become too valuable to remain in the lower positions and will be asked to step up higher. Make yourself worthy and the honor will come.

Personal Independence.

M

REV. JAMES W. COLE, B.D.

EN are not, as a rule, self-reliant and independent.

They

need props and aids both to stand and move. What are called the great men and women of any age or nation are the prize beings of the human kind, showing not the average of the race, but rather what can be done under certain conditions. The conditions, as well as the product, may be very exceptional, and so furnish no present wise criterion by which to judge. And he who under ordinary circumstances should attempt to imitate them would inevitably meet with disappointment, and perhaps loss. The times develop great men, and great men modify the times. Each of us has his appointed place and part in the economy of nature, and however insignificant we may be, or however low the place assigned to us, we may be assured that we are not made in vain.

Nature is not constructed or run at haphazard. The wisest of us do not yet know the plan on which nature is built; and the men of any generation can see but a very small part of the design unfolded in their day; so that it is useless for anyone to object to its wisdom, or to find fault with his particular place or time, or the kind of work in this world assigned to him. It is yet far too soon to find fault with anything of nature's handiwork or belongings. The all important question is, What ought I to do in life, and what is the best way to do it? Each of us must fill his own place and do his own work. refuse, or do the work illy, nature casts us aside as rubbish, as the "thorns" and "chaff" whose end is to be burned. Harsh,

If we

perhaps, but who can say it is not just? Now all thorns are perverted growths in nature, abnormal products of the natural world, and as culture increases they are eliminated, sloughed off, from the stock. They may have served a purpose as thorns in the then condition of things. But with the development of the plan of nature, they are then found to be no longer needful, and who can dispute the wisdom that discards them?

It is conceded that humanity is slowly progressing upward, but, however many ages there have already been, they are as nothing to those that await the race. We are as yet in the "first of the things" the Bible says, and nature confirms it, so that it is altogether too early to pronounce concerning "what we shall be" or what anything shall be in the ages ahead of us. But we may rest assured of one thing, that nature's highest and best product is not thorns; that, while the average of the race of men may yet be very low, the exceptionally great and good of the ages show the possibilities of the race even under present conditions. If the conditions improve, what may not the race become, more especially if the best predominates at last? There is infinite variety in nature. All lives do not run in the same channel. Even in the same family what diversity of forms, of features, of mental and moral characteristics are to be found.

Now nature is intensely individualized, and the momentous question before us is this: Is my type of individual to continue or to be sloughed off in the upward reach of the race? History shows that some types have already disappeared from this little planet, and others are now vanishing. Nature, with the advancing culture of the race, throws them aside as unworthy of perpetuation; or, having served their inferior time and place, they are not found adapted to superior conditions, and so disappear. In every age of the world there are seen to appear a few great men; men who tower above their fellows; men who are leaders; men who set the pace for a generation. Now, great men are either great blessings or great curses to their fellow mortals. Of whatever their greatness may consist,