For a dozen years he thus toiled, reading, he says, "everything I could lay my hands on, except novels."

He became proficient in the classics. He devoured all the books of science and of travel he could get. He studied practically geology and botany, roaming for miles in search of specimens. Becoming a Christian, he then resolved on being a missionary. When nineteen years of age, he was promoted to "cotton spinning," a kind of toil, he adds, that "was excessively severe on a slim, loose jointed lad; but it was well paid for, and it enabled me to support myself while attending medical and Greek classes in Glasgow in winter, as also the divinity lectures of Dr. Wardlaw, by working with my hands in summer."

The record of his life and labors as a missionary and explorer in Africa is a household tale. The story of how half the hearts of the world were moved to learn of his fate, the sending of the Stanley expedition to find him, and the opening up of Africa to civilization, as a result, form the now familiar romance of the nineteenth century. It was hard, persistent work that made David Livingstone famous. Concerning it, he said, "Looking back now on that life of toil, I cannot but feel thankful that it formed such a material part of my early education, and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over again in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training." That is the kind of spirit that makes heroes. Do not, then, shrink from your work, nor despair because of your lowly surroundings. Sterile soil, fierce storms, and rough winds develop the strong, toughened fiber of the oak.

God designed us for noble purposes, and put us in this trialworld to develop the best that is in us by giving each a work to do. Do not disappoint him and shame yourself by asking for easier tasks, but do the work now at your hand and do it well. Thus, step by step, you will be led up to nobler tasks and greater usefulness, with a name worthy of rank among the immortals.

Meaning of Success.

CHARLES MORTIMER GATES, M.S.,

President of the Creamery Package Manufacturing Co., Chicago.

N these days of struggle and toil, of success and failure, in the midst of competition and strife, it is well for young men to pause at the threshold of their calling and ask "What is the meaning of success in life?" Yea, and far more important, indeed, is it for the man well started on life's mission, surrounded with all the temptations of business life and the immeasurable power of money and all its entangling forces, to ask frequently, "What is true success?" Shall these questions be answered according to the usual standard of the world, "Seek wealth and amass a large fortune, and you will never be lacking for friends and enjoyment," or shall they rather be answered from a higher and broader standard, which has its foundation in righteousness and its end and purpose in the well-being of man and his eternal welfare? Shall we enter and pursue life's mission for an altogether selfish purpose, which seeks to acquire all things by any means which may accomplish the end, or shall our dealings with men be tempered with justice and kindness, with some regard to what is right and fair, man with man? Shall our lives be measured altogether by the dollars we have gained or by the general good we have done in the world? Having been blessed with the good things of life, shall we appropriate them all unto self and its belittling ends, or shall we generously and wisely appropriate a portion at least to the needs and benefits of the thousands less prospered than ourselves? Shall not our lives be centered in a greater and a more far reaching end than self aggrandizement? Aye. Shall

we not live that we may bless; gain that we may give; love that we may benefit mankind?

Who is not fond of life's stories when we think of the countless numbers of them that have been told, as well as the vast numbers unworthy to be mentioned since the advent of man? All history is but a story of human life. But what of the forty or more trillions of human beings that history has never deigned to mention, and whose names and life records have long since passed from the annals of time, their memorials having perished with themselves? Yet none would say that any of these vast numbers of human beings have lived in vain, but rather to no great end or purpose. 'Tis but the few names out of all those countless millions that have lived in the memory till our time. Not less than an hundred millions of men and women have lived and died in the United States since the discovery of America, yet out of this vast number the experts who compiled that extensive and most valuable "Encyclopedia of American Biography" could find, after a most careful and exhaustive research, but fifteen thousand one hundred and fortytwo names among them all, and that, too, after taking in those now living who were, by inheritance or ancestral prestige, considered worthy of being so much as mentioned. Shall you and I be enrolled among the few or the many? If among the few, shall it be because of noble achievements, righteous deeds, and honorable acquirements, where the merits of our own worthiness make pre-eminence, or shall we be swallowed up in that innumerable horde of common oblivion?

'Tis a pitiful comment on human vanity and weakness that so few are found worthy to be mentioned, and that out of that number so few attain eminence through their own personal efforts, but shine from some borrowed light of inheritance. Some most noble names, indeed, are in the galaxy, names destined to glow with increasing brightness as the ages move on, names that the world will not willingly let die. But of others it can only be said that they serve as beacons to warn us, rather than as models by which we can build.

The Roman historian, Tacitus, that learned story-teller, says "The principal office of history, I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity." He is right. Woe unto him who seeks eminence by dishonorable means. The success gained by evil doing forever endangers him who thus attains it.

There were tens of thousands of noble men in Rome in the days of Nero and Borgia; men who went unrecorded to their graves, while the names of those two persons stand out through the centuries livid with their owners' infamy. Better, a thousand times better, the waters of a Lethe, than such an immortality of shame.

What does success mean? To many, perhaps to most, it means the gathering of much of gold, of stocks, of lands. America has a multitude of such successful men. A half century ago there were but two millionaires in the United States. Now, New York alone has more than three thousand such persons. Thrice that number are said to be in this country,-some of whom reckon their wealth by scores of millions, while there are whole brigades, and even great armies of men in this fair land of plenty, who count their gold by the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nearly all of them began life in poverty, and, reckoned by a commercial standard, they have been eminently successful men. Very many of them are noble specimens of Christian manhood, and are bravely carrying on the world's philanthropies, and in its best sense are successful men. Yet the experience of ages has demonstrated that it is never wise to take the mere accumulation of wealth as the standard of true success in life.

There are very many other things, much more valuable than riches, for which men ought to strive. The getting of great estates, the eager grasping after money, may ruin him who gets it. It is infinitely better to die poor than to get riches by any unjust means, however popular such means may be. For individuals who, like those of many empires of the past, gain

wealth by despoiling others, like them, will sooner or later sink beneath the weight of their spoils.

He who gets riches as spoil taken from others, rather than as the product of his own honest efforts and skill, must always develop the baser elements of his nature, at the expense of his better and nobler faculties. And in such case his wealth is woefully expensive to him. What a curse money becomes to its owner, when it causes him to sacrifice all honor, all gratitude, all friendship, and love! In the sight of heaven, what consummate folly it is to seek to perpetuate a name by building up glittering piles of gold in a world of much ignorance, vice, and suffering, without ever lifting a hand to help, or giving a dollar to relieve earth's wretchedness. Do not understand me as decrying wealth. Not so! It is not in itself an evil but a good. It can only become an evil when its possessor hoards it, to his own and others' hurt. Wrong use will make of everything an evil.

The vices popularly ascribed to riches are due, not to wealth itself, but to the uses to which it is placed, and to the character and habits of those who acquire and possess it, or to the mode of its acquisition. He who makes his wealth a blessing to his fellow men can never have too much of it, while he who would use it solely for his own self-aggrandizement dwarfs his manhood and degrades the purpose for which he was created.

Experience has amply shown that the ambition to be enormously wealthy is as dangerous as the ambition to rule an empire. Both involve great temptations and tremendous responsibility to God and man. Either may be acquired by determination and long perseverance, but woe unto them who do not seek or use either end aright. He who has received the most of the products of his fellow men's toil is their greatest debtor. Happily, in this country, the man of many millions frequently carries on vast business enterprises, thereby giving employment to many men, and in this way becomes, to a greater or less extent, a benefactor. Men are always in need of work, and the great enterprises of the world supply it. Nevertheless, the man of