and let every penny tell in the way of interest and compound interest; but know that, if this be done with detriment to others, or with violence to your own conscience, the whole thing will turn to an engine of destruction, and consume you like a burning fire. The most wretched man on this earth is he whose pursuit of wealth has become a passion; for to him the world has become a mere den of thieves, and the beauty of life is gone forever.

Whoso takes the world's life on him, and his own lays down, He, dying so, lives.

The reason why stock-speculations are wrong, is because with every gain one makes, another loses. This is why it is mere gambling; making money, not earning it. There is no production of anything for the world's use in it; it is simply taking money from one man's pocket and putting it into that of another. Now, he who tries to do this, or, in other words, to rise on the ruin of another, is simply selling his soul for money. That's the English of it. Judge, therefore, O my young friend, whether such a man is deserving of esteem or not. "The darkest day in the life of any young man," says Horace Greeley, "is that day in which he tries to make a dollar without earning it." Be sure you steer clear, therefore, of that devil's maelstrom, the Stock Exchange.

I am awfully afraid that you may be led astray by seeing what a great rôle the rich play in our social and political life, and what an apparently insignificant position the poor occupy in it. There is nothing more

seducing, nothing more tempting, than this spectacle; but he who gives way to this temptation, who makes up his mind to become rich at all hazards, will soon become lost to all noble impulses, and take for his motto, "Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost." The chances are, that the devil will take him anyway; for "the mills of God grind slow but

sure."

Wealth is the god of the vulgar, the craze of the multitude; while peace, honor, culture, and character, are the aims of the wise. Every wise man tries to enjoy the beauty of the world, the treasures of art and literature, the joys of love and friendship, the peace of home with all its comforts, and to make his life a blessing to others as well as to himself. That grand sentence of Dr. Marden's, " Character is success, and there is no other," ought to be written over the door of every workshop, every school, every business house in the land. Mark Twain, by setting out at sixty, after failure in business, on a round-the-world lecturing tour, in order to gain means enough to pay his creditors in full, has won the respect of mankind and the proud consciousness of rectitude for his own soul. What immortal honor Sir Walter Scott earned by similar conduct! His unselfishness, like Washington's, has shed a luster of glory, not only over his own name, but over that of his nation. He would rather die a thousand deaths than live for one hour a hopeless bankrupt. Keep the conduct of such men constantly before you; make them your bosom friends; and you will never become a mere money-maker. All

material things perish; but honor, character, and conduct live forever.

If I had the power, I would make every man who had secured an independent fortune,-say $20,000 a year, devote a part of his time to the service of others, in some way. Why should any man go on making more than he needs to live comfortably? Why should he not make room for others, less fortunate than he? The younger Pitt wanted to make every Englishman with £10,000 a year a peer. I would make an American Peerage, which might be entered by every American who had honestly earned, and was willing to live on, $20,000 a year, a peerage in which the merit would consist, not in the amount of money he had earned, but in the amount of good for his fellow-men he had accomplished. We want some finer incentive for our young men than that of merely becoming a millionaire.

Finally, I would like you to learn by heart, as I did years ago, Burns's excellent "Epistle to a Young Friend," and mark especially this characteristically strong verse:

To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile,

Assiduous wait upon her;

And gather gear by every wile

That's justified by honor;
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train attendant;

But for the dopivBUÒ LBRARY
Of being independent!
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