he pack, except by an arbitrary
rule--and in all the better games at cards, the joker is thrown out.
When all is said and done, life is serious business. The humour, the
amusement, the recreation are only the sauce on the table to give an
added zest and relish--they are not the roast beef and potatoes. You
cannot live on them nor by them. The man who laughs and laughs loudly
and laughs at everything will have the laugh turned on him. The very
fact that he has never brought his life under the power of a serious,
definite, compelling purpose will cause him to be left far in the rear
by those men who waken up early to the fact that the world is not to be
taken as a joke.

There was a certain joy no doubt in carrying off the gates of Gaza. I
can recall certain episodes on the evening of the thirty-first of
October when the carrying off of the gates of some neighbour seemed to
me to fill the cup of life to the brim. There is a certain joy in
getting a cow up into the pulpit of the College Chapel or into the
belfry of some church on a dark night--the young fellow who has never
helped to solve that problem in physics has missed something. There is
a time to read the paper we call "Life," and to see some man on the
stage who can be as funny as William Collier. Where all these are the
diversions of a mind devoted to serious ends, where they are only the
by-product of human interest, they have a rightful place in our regime.

But their lines are soon spoken, and the stage must be cleared for
those who have something of more moment to tell. "How much do you
really care?" the world is asking. "How ready are you to think
intently upon something which has no more fun in it than a page of
figures or an array of unyielding facts? How far are you ready to bend
all the best energies of body, brain and heart to the gaining of some
worthy end? How completely have you set your heart upon that which is
vital?" Your answer to these questions will in large measure tell the
story of your future achievement.

This young man failed because he had not acquired the habit of
persistence. His big deeds were all done in a hurry, and they were
soon over. He carried off the gates of the city in ten minutes. He
tore the young lion apart in an instant. He slaughtered the
Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass in less time than I am taking
in telling it. He tied torches to the tails of the foxes and let them
loose in the wheat fields