The Grandeur of Patience. WILLIAM C. KING, Springfield, Mass. ATIENCE is one of the grandest virtues of the finite being, and to it may be credited greater achievements and nobler results than the world has yet acknowledged. It is that peculiar quality of mind and heart which seals all complaining lips, soothes the wounded heart, and simply abides the time for the accomplishment of a purpose. To act is a noble thing, but to wait patiently exhibits a nobler and a higher power of manhood. It is not always an easy task to wait patiently while we feel that we are approaching the object of our desire, yet seem to see it receding from us. One of the serious barriers to thoroughness in the education of the young men and women of our land is the feeling that the highest triumph of life is to complete their education before reaching twenty. The boy looks out upon life, and, seeing men vigorously engaged in their various pursuits and callings, he feels that the years devoted to study and preparation are largely thrown away. He resolves to hasten through, and take a short cut across the field of knowledge. Consequently he rushes blindly into the arena of life's activities but illy prepared for the great combat. It has been stated that only about seven per cent. of business men succeed in life. No doubt this large percentage of failures is due to the impatience of youthful years. Young men do not appreciate the true value of a thorough preparation for life's work, but enter upon business or professional life before they are sufficiently matured either in education or in years, hence they lack the stamina essential to success. By reading the biography of some great man who won fame and honor, a young man is fired with a desire to become great and honored also, and he at once sets about to reach the goal. He does not stop to analyze the life of this great man and follow him from the cradle of poverty, through long years of hardship and struggle, years of discouragement and thwarted plans, years in which there were, by far, more cloudy days than sunshine, but he sees only the brilliant crown studded with stars of success. He ignores the element of time in reaching the goal of greatness. He sets aside the factor of life's developing hardships and forgets that true greatness is built upon a foundation laid deep, broad, and solid, requiring time and patience. The would-be great man is too impatient to master the elements of his chosen theme, but, on the principle of the greater including the less, he plunges into the very heart of his subject, and soon becomes bewildered, discouraged, and with shame and humiliation abandons his wild notion of leaping upon the platform of greatness. Many great and useful men, it is true, have completed their college course while very young, but nature smiled upon them in a generous manner. Their peculiar aptitude for acquiring knowledge enabled them to pursue their course at a rapid pace, without impatient haste. Some pronounce a man of this class a genius, forgetting that genius consists of a special aptitude for performing great labor,-patient, persistent, incessant labor. Nature furnishes us with the grandest example of patience in the whole realm of the universe. Her patient hand is seen on every side. From the tiny acorn she slowly rears to full stature the mighty oak of the forest. "Through what long and weary ages has nature pounded on the granite doors of giant mountains, pleading for crumbs that fall from rocky tables, that she may bear them down to the vales, to feed the hungry guests that wait in the halls below. Through countless ages she has stood with patient hand and sifted into river beds and ocean depths the fine alluvial morsels that she begged from miser mountains." Patience has produced the grandest results in the achievements of man. As one writer beautifully expresses it: "There is no shining goal of human glory too bright or too remote for patience. No height can tire its wing. Strike from the firmament of human greatness every star that has been placed there by the hand of patience, and you cover that firmament with the veil of midnight darkness. It is patience that has crushed mighty evils and wrought sublime reforms in human history; patience, that dared to stand up and meet the taunts of ignorance and bigotry; patience, that has calmly walked back into the shadow of defeat, with Thy will be done' upon its lips; patience, that has breathed the fiery smoke of torment with upturned brow." Patience is one of the grandest representatives of the Creator. Truly has it been said: "Patience comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny, and above reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking the forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman and approves the man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age." Trading Opportunities for Failure. REV. GEORGE EDWARD REED, D.D., LL.D., President Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. EORGE COOKMAN, one of the most distinguished preachers of the earlier portion of the century,-once chaplain to the Senate, and finally lost in connection with the foundering of the ill-fated "President" in the year 1841,-used to say that were it to be given to him to live his life over again, and were it possible, also, for him to choose the particular portion of the world whereon his re-advent should be made, together with the date thereof, the country which of all others he would select as the theater of his re-appearance would be the United States of America, and the time the latter half of the nineteenth century. Then, as it seemed to him, would life be most worth the living. What man living to-day, what one cognizant of the wonderful progress of an age grander in achievement, more prolific in opportunity, in every realm of human striving, more exacting, too, in its demands, than any similar period of time in history, will for a moment question that George Cookman was right? If, as one of our poets has said, "In an age on ages telling, To be living is sublime," then, surely, is it sublime to be living to-day. Never, certainly, was the march of the human mind more majestic, never opportunities more generous and inspiring, never rewards more ample and satisfactory. Congested as may appear the market for unskilled labor, whether in business, mechanical, or professional life, it yet remains true that nowhere is the market for skilled labor overcrowded; nowhere the supply of competent men, of competent women, men and women who are achievers, who can do things, who can bring things to pass,-equal to the demand. -- The demand, however, let it be observed, is for competent men; of incompetents, the number is legion. A thousand pulpits vacant, in a single religious denomination, a thousand preachers standing idle in the market place, while a thousand church committees scour the land for men to fill those same vacant pulpits, and scour in vain,-is a sufficient indication, in one direction, at least, of the largeness of the opportunities of the age, and also, of the incompetency alleged. Why this state of affairs? Why this splendor of opportunity, coupled with failure, so widespread, and so alarming, to measure up to the height of the same? The heading of the chapter indicates, as fully, perhaps, as any other of this book, the answer,-namely, the trading of opportunities. Of what avail the wealth of openings for successful work, if there be not in men the spirit which induces to the right using of the same? Verily, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; And we must take the current when it serves, Of the truth of these familiar words human life, whether high or low, furnishes ample illustration. Opportunity comes to every man; success only to him who has the wisdom, energy, courage, and determination promptly to grasp and utilize the same. A few years ago in a town of Connecticut, the writer saw a young man driving a dump-cart through the streets, an occupation honorable enough in itself, but to him dishonor |