ed after, because there are unlimited money and plenty of
friends to push you on--if you think that because of these things you
can dispense with the fear of God, and the daily obligations of duty,
and make pleasure and self-indulgence your main ends, and do without
honest, persevering, self-denying toil, you will be miserably
disappointed. God has some hard things to say to you before you get
far on in years. It does not matter how promising one's beginnings, if
there is no steady, conscientious brave self-discipline, and endeavour.

Life is always a failure and a disgraceful thing with a downward
course, if there is no serious purpose in it and no great thoughts.
And if you are ever tempted to say, as many do, that there is no hope
for a life which commences heavily weighted; that all the chances go to
those who are clever, and richly endowed; that if a youth begins with
no money to back him and no friends to push him into promotion, he must
remain chained down to that low condition to the end--then I point you
to this little bit of biography. I could take you round a certain town
and point you to a hundred men who have repeated that bit of biography
in their own lives, and I tell you that even now the chances are
plentiful: waiting at the feet of those who tread life's way, a brave
heart within and God overhead, and that no one need despair, however
unpromising his start, who makes God his guide, and prayer his
inspiration, and duty his chosen companion, and shuns evil, and pursues
that which is good. Faith and loyalty to conscience and a courageous
temper are still the weapons which conquer in the fight. Jabez, the
child of sorrow and misfortune, became more honourable than all his
brethren.

III.

And now I commend this prayer to all of you--the prayer which this
youth offered when he went out carrying his unhonoured name and empty
hand into the rough places of the world. It is a beautiful prayer. It
is on the whole a wise prayer. There are better and more Christian
prayers in the gospels and epistles; but in the Old Testament there are
few prayers more worthy of imitation than this.

He asked that "_God might bless him indeed_," that is, above every
human blessing and favour, that he might, by his life and conduct,
deserve it He asked what we may all safely and humbly ask of God,
provided that we give a large and not a low meaning. He asked that
"_God would enlarge his coast_." If that meant broad