There is a weakness that springs from a virtue in excess. Constant pressure destroys elasticity and overbears even rugged strength. There are students who, awake to the priceless value of time, anxious not to lose a moment, neglect rest and open air exercise, abridge meal hours, give up wholesome social relaxations, and, when the earnest work of life begins, the nerves give way; the overexcited brain will not be quiet; sleep will not come; the momentum carries on the mental machinery even when the throttle is closed; and a violated law of nature finally asserts its dignity. These are the well-built cars side-tracked because the journals are overheated. The wild dance of the steel atoms has never ceased; they have broken ranks and are destroying each other in their mad clash.

It would seem a thousand pities to conclude without a few words as to the possibility of avoiding dangers so imminent.

It is wisdom to delay the start until the preparation is complete. Unseasoned timber, untested iron, unguarded strains, may not reveal themselves to the unpracticed eye, but use brings out their real weakness.

Foregather, and discover the special needs of the generation to which you belong. Do not rigidly follow an old plan of campaign. Reconnoiter your special battle-field, learn the ground, the location, and resources of your particular foe. Learn to adapt yourself to varieties of situation. If you strive to do well everything you undertake, you will secure the best possible preparation for an emergency; namely, the ability to give your whole mind to it.

Mistakes are often remediable. Weaknesses can be foreseen and repaired. You find your knowledge defective, your methods antiquated. Do not force obsolete plans, and do not yield to discouragement. Give some of your spare time to supplying defects, and even without overworking you may still hold your right of way. Memory recalls a civil engineer, who, foreseeing opportunities far beyond the scope of the learning which he had brought from college, anticipated every demand by private study, and advanced with the progress of the work to its very

consummation, always as its supreme director. Memory recalls the image of a man of misdirected powers, who in days of feebleness, caused by premature decay, roused his waning energies, held them to unflagging exercise, stayed the very progress of disease, until he had redeemed his past neglect, and had left to his children the heritage of a great name, and to the world the leaven of a great thought. Memory recalls another who by one fatal error hazarded the usefulness of his whole professional life. A wise charity shielded him. The dark secret was buried. The man never repeated his fault, but lives an honored, a trusted, a prudent, and sincere guide to many an earthly pilgrim.

You thought merit alone would succeed. You find envy blocking the way, or opening the switches. You have the right of way, but do not neglect caution, do not needlessly provoke opposition. Learn the supreme strength of great natures, the reserve power of a masterly patience. Heed cautionary signals. Keep up steam, but do not pull out the throttle until you are sure of a clear track.

Above all, remember that character holds attainments in place. It is seasoning, thorough temper, exactness of fit, that subdues all parts to their true function, so that wheel holds to axle; axle to journal-box; journal-box to truck; truck to platform; platform to its load; and all move as one to the single destination. Character is as unobtrusive as cohesion, and is therefore in danger of being slighted, but it is after all the master-force that holds every atom in its true sphere, and subordinates it to the main design. A life so built, so controlled, bides patiently its hour, but when the hour comes it is fully ready for the severest strain of use.

Singleness of Aim.

This chapter is strongly advocated by

REV. GEORGE A. HALL, State Secretary Y. M. C. A. of New York.

UCCESS is a relative term, and varies in its meaning with the nature of one's business in life. In a battle, to win a victory over the foe is success. If you start out on a

journey, to reach the point of destination is success. The physician who saves his patients, the lawyer who gains his case, the political leader who obtains office, the merchant who profitably extends his trade, the manufacturer who widens commerce, the agriculturist who multiplies the product of the soil, the man of science or discovery who enlarges the sum of human knowledge, each, in his own sphere, reaches a success that is relatively, more or less, complete. And none the less surely does he succeed in life, who, it may be as an unknown and humble toiler, earns an honest living by useful labor, and by the uprightness of his life, example, and influence adds to the sum total of private and civic virtue. For to do good, and to become good, is the noblest pursuit of mortals. Goodness is everlasting, and rewards its possessor with its own length of days. He who has done his best to obtain goodness has reached the very highest success that the heavens know. Said Cicero, "Right is not founded on opinion, but in nature." And goodness is not of the earth, but of God, and he who gets it joins himself thereby with the Creator of all things, and must succeed. Not necessarily in this world, but somewhere, he must and will succeed. Here indeed it often happens that man's successful man and God's successful man have no resemblance whatever to each other. So much then as to what is implied by success. The word unfortunately is too often limited to the

mere getting of wealth, or to the winning of a great name among men.

Having chosen your occupation, you of course wish to succeed in it. How can you best do so? By concentration of your efforts upon a single thing. Many persons engaged in business life spread their energies over too wide a field, with the result that while they might succeed handsomely in one venture, by undertaking too many they dissipate their powers of supervision, as well as of capital, and in the end fail to obtain the hopedfor success. And this, too, not because success is not there for them, but their force of time or means, or both, is too feeble at any one point to secure it, whereas, if they would concentrate on any one thing, they might conquer. It is not meant by this, that if a man has at his command more time or capital than he can well employ in his present business, he should not engage in another, but, if he has chosen the present business as the main work of his life, let him have a care that he does not weaken his force at that point. You should mass your force at that part of the line where the brunt of the battle is to come. If you have decided to win success in that particular business, stay there, and conquer. Many persons can make a grand success of one particular thing, but they cannot win in a dozen different undertakings.

In these days of constantly multiplying machinery and appliances, the tendency is to force men more and more into special lines of effort if they would succeed. The all-around physician, who treated man or beast for all their ailments, and as willingly and readily extracted your teeth as administered medicine to you, has departed (unless indeed you may find him on the frontiers of civilization), and in his place is another who gives sole attention to some special bodily organs, or diseases. So also the lawyer, who was once supposed to know and practice all kinds of jurisprudence, now confines himself almost wholly to one particular branch of it. The same thing is true also of almost all the mechanical trades. Garments, tools, machinery, shoes, etc., each go through the hands of many

persons, who are expected to give attention to the making of their particular part. So in mercantile affairs, horticulture, gardening, and to an increasing degree in farming, the constant tendency is to some specialty. Whether this is a wise tendency or not, time alone can determine. One deplorable effect is already manifest, namely, making the operative to be but an adjunct of the machine at which he works, so that his brain too often partakes of the ceaseless, dull monotony of his machine. Many apparently know nothing beyond the apparatus at which they preside, and, alas for the good of the human race! they desire nothing more. If you have chosen to be a mechanic or specialist, you should be on your guard against this tendency to narrow the growth of the mind by this mere mechanical absorption. You should aim to make the very best development of yourself that it is possible to do. Strive to-day to make yourself fit for something better to-morrow. Resolve to grow mentally and morally. Concentrate your energies on it, and you will rise to better and nobler things.

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See what a single aim will do in professional life. "This one thing I do," cried the great Apostle to the Gentiles; and he resolutely and steadily refused to be diverted from it by any possible consideration men might offer him. There were other apostles of the Christ also, but this single aim of Saul of Tarsus led him to "labor more abundantly than they all." But this one thing I do," led him to use means for success, and to send for and make constant use of "books and parchments," and himself "give attention to reading," in order that such "profiting might appear to men," with the result that his influence over the thought of the Christian world to-day is greater than that of any other man that ever lived, save the Christ, whom he served so gloriously. A similar singleness of aim has put many a man in places of honor, or profit, in our land and time, and that, too, in spite of the most forbidding obstacles.

One such eminent American citizen, in one of his public addresses, said of himself and of his early trials, "I was born in poverty; want sat by my cradle. I know what it is to ask a