bound to win success; no other fruit grows in that soil. That boy, now a man in middle life, is a leading manufacturer in a New England city. There is no mystery about it. "Whatsoever a man soweth that (that only) shall he also reap."

Success! What is this thing all desire, few comprehend, and less are willing to pay for? Many young men think, or seem to think, the coveted prize will fall to them without effort, but it will not. If it were something external to the man, it might be so. Possibly men might then wander aimlessly, drifting with the tide, shifting with every changing breeze, and gather success as a sort of side issue while lounging along the highway of life. But it cannot be so acquired; it is not for sale upon those terms; it is no accident, but a result; it does not come by chance, but as a reward of long and patient effort.

Success in its highest expression is making the best of one's self; it is doing with steadfast, unremitting fidelity the homely duties of everyday life; it follows closely upon an unwavering recognition of the fact that the surest guarantee of advancement is the faithful discharge of the duties of the lower place, the filling the subordinate position so full of honest service that in the nature of things promotion must ensue. It was the man faithful over a few things who was made a ruler over many. In a word, success is character. Young man, make the best of your talents, your opportunities, yourself. Beware of false standards in your conduct and methods of life. Imitate not him whose moral life has the slightest taint either by associations or personal conduct. Follow not the example of anyone whose methods of business are at all questionable. Keep your life and character free from blemish or stain. Aim high. Low motives, inferior aspirations, any attainment less than the best you are capable of, are all unworthy of you. The world was not called into being for your exclusive benefit, others have rights as well as you. Believe, and let the belief have expression in your life, that when the Saviour of men said, "I am among you as one that serveth," he was an abiding example to all who should come after him. That is a miserably false

standard in life, a low and utterly unworthy view of its possi bilities and its importance, that, moved by no high purpose, walks blindly and with ill-considered steps along the King's highway. That life alone fulfills its obligations that is earnest and helpful, strong and true.

Rare Use of Common Sense.

REV. JAMES W. COLE, B.D.

HE fish in the waters of the Mammoth cave have places for

TH

eyes but no eyes, their eyes having been lost through disuse, due to the absence of light. Nature gave them eyes, but they found themselves in conditions where the eyes could not be used, and so perished by inactivity. Use would have saved to them the faculty of sight. Three-fourths of the days of the average civilized man must be spent in work for the support of himself and society. Work is as necessary to his welfare as morality. Yet many men take work as they take bitter medicine, under protest or with a grimace. But it is work that develops manhood, and the perfected state of man will appear when each individual of the race does his appropriate work. There is more work done in the world to-day than ever before; more work of brain and more of muscle. Just as fast as men become Christianized they must work; for to a Christian, work is as much a duty and a privilege as is worship. By means of work and worship, God is developing the perfect man. Laziness and sainthood never dwell together.

All our faculties are given us to be used. Use strengthens and develops them. Misuse and neglect will weaken and ultimately destroy them. The absence of light will destroy your eyes. You must use them if you would keep them. So as to this faculty of "common sense," you must use it if you would keep it. Many persons seem to think that the business of all others can be and ought to be carried on according to the dictates of common sense, but successfully to manage affairs like their own requires extraordinary sense, and so, by neglecting to use

this faculty, they fail. The majority of men are not deficient by nature in this sense; else how can it be "common" to men? It would be a misnomer to speak of the existence of " common sense" if it is only possessed by a few individuals of the race. The famous aphorism of Rev. Dr. Emmons, that "common sense is the most uncommon kind of sense," is very wide of the mark. The good doctor is often quoted as an example of the absence of the faculty, because though a very learned man of his time he did not know how to do so commonplace a thing as to harness a horse; nor would he ever undertake it though having several horses on his farm; nor would he even unharness them, and when at an unfortunate time he was obliged to get his faithful old family horse from the chaise, unaided, he did it by taking the harness entirely to pieces by unbuckling every strap he could find. He was not an "unfortunate," lacking common sense, but was simply one of the very numerous class who neglect to make proper use of the sense God has given them. His ignorance of common things was due not to a lack of ability to learn them, but to a lack of inclination to use that ability. Negligence or laziness made him, as it has made many others, the butt of their fellow men. He could have learned, and with his abundant opportunities he ought to have learned, and not to do so was a disgrace. He who stumbles at the head of the stairs is very apt to go to the bottom, and the worthy and learned parson, by refusing to use the faculty God gave him wherewith to know common things, came dangerously near being classed as a fool by the average man. But as the combined folly of all fools never yet resulted in wisdom, but only served to make wisdom the greater contrast, so the very general neglect to use this sense called common sense" has so magnified it that when a man does by its aid accomplish his purposes, others who at the first derided him for what they called his folly, end by admiring what they call his genius; whereas genius is nothing in the world but common sense at work for noble ends, and refusing to be discouraged.

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Charles Goodyear was for the greater part of ten years gen

erally considered woefully lacking in common sense because he persisted at the task which he had set for himself, namely, to discover how to vulcanize rubber. Friend and foe alike dubbed him "the India rubber maniac." But neither the ridicule of friends nor the worse suffering of his family, reduced by his constant experiments to the direst poverty, and to the necessity at one time of selling even the children's schoolbooks to provide them food, could deter him. Hungry and well-nigh naked, penniless and well-nigh friendless, he toiled on, and succeeded at last because his common sense had been so developed as to notice the trivial accident of a fragment of his compound falling upon a hot stove, and the change produced in it by the heat. Noticing that gave him his great discovery and fame. But he would not have noticed it if his sense had not been educated. He lived to see his discovery applied to more than five hundred different uses, and giving employment to more than sixty thousand persons, and greatly adding to the comfort and welfare of mankind on sea and land, in war and peace. And although at his death, in 1860, he was yet in debt, he had made a multitude of men rich by his unrequited toil, and came to be acknowledged as one of the world's benefactors, and was at last given medals and decorated with honors as one whose good sense had enriched and ennobled mankind. But if he had not succeeded, the common herd would yet be calling him a fool. Was he?

Inventions have produced the great bulk of wealth of this wealthiest age of the world (nine-tenths of it, it is claimed) and have added immensely to the well-being of man; but the great majority of those inventions were due, not to the use of extraordinary sense, but to common sense. It was a plain common sense woman who nailed some shears to the edge of a board by one of their blades, and then, connecting their loose blades by a wire, showed the operation to the elder McCormick. Out of that common sense device came the present mowing and reaping machines, to lighten toil and increase the food supply and wealth of the nations. The common sense of Ames put an