k
but he procures new applications.' Gentlemen, there's but one
answer to this question. There is a great gulf between the man
who is in earnest and works persistently every day and the man
who seems to be in earnest and makes believe he is working
persistently every day.

"One of the most successful personal producers said to the
writer the other day: 'No wonder certain agents do not write
more business. I couldn't accomplish very much either if I did
not work longer hours than they do. Some insurance agents live
like millionaires and keep bankers' hours. You cannot expect
much business from efforts like that.' This man speaks from
practical knowledge of the business. He has written

$147,500 _in personal business in the last six weeks_.

"It does seem rather strange, sometimes, that half of the men in
the Eastern Department should be writing twice as much business
as the other half. They are representing the same company;
presenting the same propositions; are supposed to be talking to
practically the same number of men; have the same rates, same
guarantees, and the same twenty-four hours in each day, and yet
are doing twice the business. In other words, making more money.
What really makes this difference? I will tell you. They put
heart into their work. There is an enthusiasm and earnestness
about them that carries conviction. They are business through
and through, and everybody knows it.

"Are you getting your share of applications? If some other agent
is up early, wide-awake and alert, putting in from ten to
fifteen hours per day, he is bound to do business, isn't he?
This is a plain, every-day horse-sense business fact. No one has
a patent on time or the use of it. To work and to succeed is
common property. It is your capital, and the use of it will
determine your worth."

I think, really, this is one of the most remarkable documents that could
be produced in evidence of the character of American civilisation. There
is all the push, initiative, and enterprise on which they justly pride
themselves; there is also the reduction of all values to terms of
business, the concentration of what, at other times, have been moral and
religious forces upon the one aim of material progress. In such an
atmosphere it is easy to see how those who care for spiritual values are
led to protest that these