labors and self-denials are necessary to obtain an education, master a trade, or attain to excellence in any pursuit; but their ignoble indecision, which is a sort of mental and moral debility, disqualifies them for the undertaking. "The will, which is the central force of character, must be trained to habits of decision; otherwise, it will neither be able to resist evil, nor to follow good." It is not an exhibition of manly or womanly character for youth to waste their breath in laments over their present situation; to think if their circumstances, or friends, or talents were different, they might achieve something worth recording. This is indecision, which often leads a person to think that embarrassments are especially numerous in his own ex- · perience, and that he does not have his full share of advantages falling to the common lot of humanity. Nothing can be more unmanly and belittling. Rise above the unmanly view of life! Decide for the best in everything-and then win it. Said Calhoun to his roommate at Yale College: "I am fitting myself for Congress." His roommate laughed. "If I were not "Do you doubt it?" exclaimed Calhoun. convinced that I should be in Congress in six years, I would leave college to-day." John C. Calhoun was not visionary. With the eye of faith he beheld the dome of the capitol in which were spent the proudest and best days of his life. He was there within six years after he was graduated; and there he died in the service. of his country, after forty years of congressional labor. Ability, perseverance, decision, and force of character did it. Decision is more of the head; energy more of the heart. The latter is "the power to produce positive effects." It is recorded of Hezekiah: "And in every work that he did in the service of the house of God and in the law, and in the commandments to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and prospered." Doing "with all the heart" is energy. Without it, no one prospers in anything. It is necessary to maintain decision; it is the force that reduces decision to practice, or supplements it. Success comes to the class who pursue their life work "with all the heart." The motto on the pickaxe well expressed it: "I will find a way, or make it." The Spartan father understood it when he said to his son, who complained that his sword was too short, "Then add a step to it." Another says: "Hence it is that, inspired by energy of pur- pose, men of comparatively mediocre powers have often been enabled to accomplish such extraordinary results. For the men who have most powerfully influenced the world have not been so much men of genius as men of strong convictions and enduring capacity for work, impelled by irresistible energy and invincible determination; such men, for example, as were Mohammed, Luther, Knox, Calvin, Loyola, and Wesley." The hearts of all these reformers were in their work; and "he who has heart has everything." Hence, in the most important of all concerns, this sort of energy is required. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. God does not accept half-hearted work. His servants must throw their whole souls into service they render him, if they would count. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." It would be difficult to state the case more strongly. God knows exactly the measure of human power that we can put into any work and he demands the full measure. The noted Nathaniel Bowditch once said to a young man, "Never undertake anything but with the feeling that you can and will do it." He put the case very much as the Bible does. About seventy years ago, perhaps longer, a youth of eighteen years, residing on Cape Cod, resolved to seek his fortune in Boston. He was bright, enterprising, and honest; and he knew too much about a seafaring life to cast his lot there. He saw a better opportunity in the capital of his native state, and resolved to try there, though he had not a friend to assist him. He had in mind no particular calling, but was ready to accept any honorable position that might offer. So he started for Boston, with only four dollars in his pocket, all the money he could raise. On reaching the city he set himself to work at once to find a situation; and he traveled and traveled, applying in vain here and there for a place, but finding none. A single day satisfied him that there was no opening for him, and he was strongly tempted to return home, but his stout heart rose in rebellion against the thought. He would not return to his native town discomfited. He had too much force of character for that. He was a live boy, and his energy said, "If I can't find a situation, I will make one." And he did. He found a board about the right size, which he converted into an oyster stand on the corner of a street. He borrowed a wheelbarrow and went three miles to an oyster smack, where he purchased three bushels of the bivalves, and wheeled them to his place of business. He was a Boston merchant now. that he could not find. He had made a situation He sold all his oysters on the first day, and was well satisfied with his profits. He continued this method of doing business until he had laid by one hundred and thirty dollars, with which he purchased a horse and cart. He removed his place of business, also, from out of doors, into a convenient room. On the first day in his new place of traffic, he made seventeen dollars; and from that time he continued to enlarge his business rapidly, taking on other departments, adding daily to his property, until he became a Boston millionaire, blessing others with his money, and leaving hundreds of thousands at his death to found the Boston University, where young men and women are educated for usefulness. Such was the career of the late Isaac Rich, an example of energy and perseverance worthy of the highest praise. When Sir Rowell Buxton was a boy, neighbors thought that his great energy, in connection with much waywardness, would be his ruin. But his good mother said, "Never mind; he is self-willed now, but you will see that it will turn out well in the end." Subsequently he became very intimate with the Gurney family, who were highly respected for their social qualities, mental culture, and philanthropy. He married one of the daughters, and entered upon his business career with a will. His mother's prophecy, that his will power and mighty energy would be a blessing in the end, proved true. Some said that he would do more work in a given time than any two men in England. He became wealthy, was a member of Parliament at thirty-two, and a leading spirit of Great Britain thereafter. One of the Gurney family, Priscilla Gurney, entreated him on her deathbed, in 1821, "to make the cause of the slave the great object of his life." He was already engaged in the cause of British emancipation, but her dying words fired his heart anew, and he resolved to give himself no rest until the shackles were broken from the last slave in the British realm. With unsurpassed energy he gave himself to the work year after year, and, on the day of his daughter's marriage, August 1, 1834, he wrote to a friend: "The bride is just gone; everything has passed off to admiration; and there is not a slave in the British colonies." 66 Such men "never strike sails to a fear"; they come into port grandly, or sail with God the seas"; they never join "communities," so-called, where everything is held in common. Their self-reliance, independence, and force of character lifts them high above such dependent relations. "We love our upright, energetic men. Pull them this way and that way and the other, and they only bend, but never break. Trip them down, and in a trice they are on their feet." Ferdinand DeLesseps, who is called the Napoleon of engineering, inherited his tireless energy and indomitable perseverance from his father, Count Mathieu De Lesseps, who was the architect of the Edinburgh cathedral. That the son should possess the talent for undertaking great enterprises, and the force of character to push them forward in spite of difficulties, was as natural as it was to be like his father. He built the Suez canal, valued at fifty million dollars; and to his honor a statue was erected at Port Saïd. HIS PUBLIC OF THE PARIS COMMISSION - PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE E. P. Whipple, the famous essayist, asks and answers this question: "What common quality distinguishes men of genius from other men, in practical life, in science, in letters, in every department of human thought and action? This common quality is vital energy of mind, inherent, original force of thought, and vitality of conception. Men in whom this energy glows seem to spurn the limitations of matter, to leap the gulf which separates positive knowledge from discovery, the actual from the possible. They give palpable evidence of infinite capacity, of indefinite power of growth. This life, this energy, this uprising, aspiring flame of thought, has been variously called power of combination, invention, creation, insight; but in the last analysis it is resolved into vital energy of soul to think and to do." If I were to amend this and state it in fewer words, I should say that the essentials of success are integrity of purpose and persistence in endeavor. W урт ILLIAM PIERCE FRYE was born at Lewiston, Maine, September 2, 1831. His father, Col. John M. Frye, was one of the early settlers of that town, largely interested in developing its manufacturing industries, and one of its most respected citizens. The grandfather of the |