millions needs to remember that his millions are not wholly his own. They are not, they cannot be, the product of his own toil. Life is far too short for him to have earned them unaided. Others have labored, and he has entered into their labors.

He

is their debtor and will ever be. Let no one be startled at this statement. It is easily proved.

Think a moment. The average wages of the toilers in civilized lands is not fifteen cents per day, and even in our own fair country it is not quite a dollar per day, and he who can earn ten dollars a day is a very great exception. Yet, if Adam had lived to this hour, and had earned ten dollars a day, and had worked every day, including Sabbaths, for all of the past six thousand years, and had never spent so much as a farthing of his earnings, either for himself or his family, or for his friends, he would as yet have earned but a quarter of Jay Gould's millions! But this man, and others like him, are said to have earned their scores of millions within a score of years. Preposterous! It can never be honestly done. Why, if you were to toil for fifty years, working every day, Sundays and all, for five dollars per day, a very good wage, and never spent a cent of it for rent, household or personal expenses, or charity, but saved it all, you would earn in those fifty years but ninety-one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. Again, how long do you suppose it would take you to earn Jay Gould's eighty millions, if you were to work for two dollars a day without ever taking a rest on Sabbaths or holidays, and could save every penny of all your earnings? Just one hundred and nine thousand five hundred and eighty-nine years!

Whence, then, come such immense fortunes in so short a time to such men? Ah, largely from the pockets of other men. Listen now. Many a widow's and orphan's inheritance, and many a toiler's hard earned money, have been swallowed up in those depreciated stocks, estates, and bonds, the possession of which by these unprincipled men have given them such great riches. Verily, such are indeed humanity's debtors, for the inheritance and toil of others have enriched them.

He who was called the richest man in the United States recently died, leaving a stupendous fortune, aggregating, it is said, more than fourscore millions, and all accumulated within the brief space of forty years. For he died at fifty-six, and when he was fourteen years of age he sat by the wayside a penniless lad, weeping for lack of a dinner. As boy and man he was a model of industry and thrift. When a lad of thirteen he had invested the first half dollar he could call his own, in a book to fit him for a wished-for course in a village academy; and, entering the academy, he then worked for a blacksmith outside of school hours to pay for his board, often rising at four o'clock in the morning, and studying until time for his tasks at the shop to begin, in order that he might keep up with his studies. His academic career was soon cut short by his pressing poverty, and then he worked hard by day, and afterward studied hard by night, to fit himself for a surveyor.

When fifteen he began to run out village lots and township lines, and to make and sell maps of the surrounding territory. At seventeen he started to build, as a partner, a tannery, and a new town, and two years later he branched out as a local broker, then as a railroad speculator and owner of a line of railroad, buying the road at ten cents on a dollar. When twenty-two he sold out his interest in the town and bank for $80,000 and removed to New York, and was thereafter known throughout the land as a successful stockbroker, and railroad speculator, and, at length, the wizard of Wall street, and owner and operator of vast lines of railways that extended even from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

As a man, he was pure in his outer life, and temperate in his habits, using neither liquors nor tobacco; and in his family life, he is said to "have always been a model of purity and kindly affection." He has been often quoted and will yet be held up as an example of an eminently successful man. And yet truth demands that it should be said of him that he never earned the millions he called his own, nor were they justly gotten. To depreciate the investments of others, forcing them to sell at a

great sacrifice; to enhance the price of gold at the expense of one's country and its starving poor, in order that one may be enriched thereby; to manipulate "corners" and "deals" in the market so as to squeeze out the money from others' purses into your own, may be considered legitimate among men, and be an evidence of one's great ability as a shrewd, sharp, brilliant financier, but such gold fearfully burdens its possessor at the gates of death, where all must pass.

Alas! when this particular man departed from the earth, he left all those millions simply to perpetuate his family name; while his soul entered the eternal realm, leaving no beneficent record to endear his memory to the affections of the world. Jay Gould succeeded in accumulating great wealth, but he did it at the expense of justice to others, and a dishonor to himself. His life was a colossal failure, judged from the standpoint of righteousness, and unworthy of emulation. Are you seeking the highest ambition and true success? Then note carefully these pages, and you will discern clearly the outline and principles of a real successful life. Let your aim be not riches as an end, nor pleasure and ease, for these are but the results of honest industry and application. Let your real purpose be exalted into the realm of righteousness and your goal the kingdom of heaven. To serve God and benefit mankind was the purpose and example of the Christ, which no man has yet exceeded.

The Mainspring of Success.

Τ

HON. FREDERICK ROBIE.

President First National Bank, Portland, Me.

HE supreme agency for gaining success in any calling is the mind. It is sometimes said, and more often thought, that the greatest cause of success is labor — meaning energy of body, strength of muscle. It is often stated that muscular labor produces the wealth of the world. This is a great mistake. Intellect is mightier, and of more importance to success and the highest degree of happiness, than manual labor. Indeed, mere muscular energy does but a very small part of the world's work to-day. It is by no means the greatest or the most efficient agent in the production of wealth, or in gaining success in any worthy calling. The product of a few brains is now doing by far the richest, largest, and most important part of the world's work of this nineteenth century. What wonderful machinery for using the mighty unseen forces of nature the brains of a few men have produced!

We have in this country sixty-five millions of people. Yet in the United States, machinery, the product of brains, is doing an amount of work, day by day, that would require the utmost exertion of the muscles of more than a thousand millions of men to perform. Skill and power are not of the nerve, but of the mind. He, therefore, who teaches a man how to handle a tool effectively, or who produces a labor saving machine, is as much a producer of the world's food and wealth as he who uses them. Indeed, he is much more a benefactor to his fellows than he can be who simply employs his muscle in the production of food and wealth. A teacher, therefore, is, in the highest sense, as much a producer of the world's wealth and food supply as