Success Wrought from the Chaos of Failure.

PROF. GEORGE S. FOREST, Ellsworth College, Iowa Falls, Iowa.

ENUINE success is not a sudden outburst of what men call genius, but rather the result of continual, patient, common-place toil. The history of how success is missed often proves as instructive as the history of how it is won; and he who is found willing to learn from the experience of others will evade much hard toil, loss of time, and, perchance, escape a deal of trouble, sorrow, and regret. It seems very strange that so many young people are unwilling to profit by the experience of their elders. Though an inevitable result is found to attend a certain course of conduct, yet but few of them seem to There are multitudes who apparently prefer to learn by their own experience of disaster what they might have known without its sorrow and cost.

care.

How often we see men of ripe experience nailing guideboards of warning along the pathway of coming travelers! Yet the great masses of young people rush along with scarcely a glance at the multitude of danger signals waving from every point of contact in our daily experiences.

How much better, wiser, and richer we ought to be than our predecessors, for we have the multiplied experiences, accumulations, and inheritances of unnumbered examples before us. On every hand are brilliant examples of needless failure, and it is our privilege to heed the warning and steer our little craft clear of the shoals and breakers which have wrecked so many lives.

Why is it? When Euclid was explaining to Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, the principles of geometry, his patron inquired

SUCCESS WROUGHT FROM THE CHAOS OF FAILURE.

whether the knowledge could not be obtained easier. "Sir," said Euclid, "there is no royal road to learning." That statement is as true to-day as it was twenty-two centuries ago. There is no royal road to either wisdom or success in business. The path to them is not for kings alone. It is open to you and to me. You may win them, but to win requires a struggle, perhaps many a defeat. It is well it is so, for a victory is often harder to manage than a defeat, as many a noted commander has found.

If success were suddenly to come to you, it might find you wholly unprepared for it. The discipline gained, the habits required, in amassing a fortune, for instance, ought to fit him who has it both to value it properly and to use it rightly; while often experience has shown that the sudden acquisition of wealth utterly ruined its possessor, and what is true of wealth, is equally true of other things. So, then, if you fail in your efforts for success once, or twice, or many times, it is by no means a disgrace, and certainly is no cause for discourage, ment. But if you know the cause of your failure, and can remedy it, or avoid it, then it is a shame if you do not succeed.

When Franklin Pierce was a student at Bowdoin College, he neglected his studies, giving much of his time to athletics and military exercise, with the result that at the end of two years he stood at the foot of his class. Then, stung by shame, he resolved to redeem himself, and for the next two years applied himself constantly to his studies, so that he was able to graduate the third in a class which included such men as H. W. Longfellow, John P. Hale, and others of great fame. After his graduation, and after studying law for some time with somewhat of his old spirit of negligence, he attempted to address a jury for the first time, and broke down completely, making an absurd failure of it. But he knew the cause, and, when a friend. attempted to condole with him over the episode, he replied, "I will try nine hundred and ninety-nine cases if clients continue to trust me, and, if I fail just as I have done to-day, I will try the thousandth one. I shall live to argue cases in this court house

(Amherst, N. H.) in a manner that will mortify neither myself nor my friends." And he did, for he became in a few years one of the most eminent lawyers of his state, and, at length, the President of the United States.

While circumstances do not always make the man (very many persons rising superior to and overcoming the most repressive environments), yet they have much to do with many in determining what the world calls their success. Many a one is counted as a failure, who, under different conditions, would be reckoned a brilliant success. General Grant plodded along, first an unsuccessful farmer, then tanner, then storekeeper, until the breaking out of the late civil war made him a great commander. At its beginning, so distrustful was he of himself that he doubted whether he had ability to command a regiment, but thought he might take charge of a company. The stress and circumstances of that dreadful war developed him. True, he had great natural abilities, but they were dormant, unsuspected even by himself, and it needed certain conditions to make a General Grant. There may be in you powers that can never be used save under the stress of mighty exigencies; and the defeats you now experience in your plans, the constant failure of your efforts, may be but the needed preparation for your final triumph. If there are an hundred steps to your ladder to success, and you have not reached it in traveling ninety-nine of them, do not conclude that the journey is a failure. All the other steps will be failures unless you take this last one. Press on and up. The prizes of life are generally at or near the end of the journey, not at its beginning, and not to go on is to miss them. Be valiant. Fear never gained a triumph. To cherish it is to lose your self-respect and the regard of the good. The most untoward circumstances, the most difficult obstacles, will yield to industry, intelligence, and courage. What seems a barrier to one's progress often proves to be but a new starting point, and may be so to you. Success belongs to him who dares win it; to him who knows that no defeat can be final, save the defeat of wrong.

Selecting an Occupation.

REV. JAMES W. COLE, B.D.

E who starts upon a journey should have a definite idea as

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to his destination, otherwise, he wanders about aimlessly

like a vessel upon the great ocean, without chart or compass, or even a pilot, driven before every wind, and wrecked at last upon the shores of some unknown, barren country. Alas! and how many persons finally discover that life has been spent in vain, their energies and strength have been exhausted for naught; that the tree of life, which should have been laden with fruit, is barren, containing nothing but leaves.

Life is a journey, and he who would succeed should carefully consider its aim and end. Life is also a growth, and it should be developed along natural and noble lines. Every man endowed with the faculties and intelligence accorded to the great mass of people of this country ought to make his life a success, especially in the present enlightened generation, and in this, the best and greatest country of all civilized nations. It would seem that the only real excuse for failure must be either lack of intelligence or pure laziness.

Success is sure to crown the life of any person who possesses an average intellect, a high ideal, a disposition to work, who is ready to sacrifice if necessary and endure without flinching, and is willing to bear needful trials. And yet how few succeed. The world has ever been sharply divided into two classes,— the few who succeed, and the many who fail.

Why is it that so many fail while the opportunities are so great and the possibilities so vast? The answer is obvious. Men are not willing to pay the price of success, they turn a

deaf ear to the warnings of others; they ignore the lessons of experience, and, with eyes wide open, head their course straight for the rocks where thousands have gone down. Failure is the result of disregarding natural law.

Nature is not run on theory, or guess work, but is in accordance with unvariable facts. When our lives are molded in harmony with natural law, success is certain. Nature does not exist in vain. The universe is not a stupendous blunder. Some time, somewhere, God gives to every one a chance to win and wear a crown of victory.

One of the important facts of nature to be considered just here in this volume is that men are made to differ greatly in their natural endowments, in their fitness and aptness for particular pursuits, and, to a lesser degree, in their natural desires. We do not all desire the same things, nor all wish to do the same kind of work. Thus nature secures a variety of laborers for her various fields of toil.

In order, then, to succeed in life, one should early take an account of his stock in hand. For what is he naturally fitted? By this is not meant simply what one desires to do, but what can he do? For what has he an aptitude? Wishes, longings, impulses, however good, are not always the indications of genius, nor are they invariably a forecast of an adaptation for a special pursuit in life. If mere wishes could make men great, or rich, there would not be a poor or an insignificant person on earth. While, therefore, it is always advisable to aspire after the higher, one should not undertake what to him is impossible, nor should he fret out his days aping after the so-called great ones of the earth. Be yourself. You have your own special place and work. Find it, fill it. Do your work well. The world is in need of faithful, loyal workers. If your position is humble and lowly, strive for a higher plane. Larger positions await you as soon as you are prepared to fill them.

Lofty places and great deeds require great courage and great men. If you aspire after such places, make yourself worthy of them. It is always possible for one to lead an honest,