system into a state of lassitude, neutralizing the energies so
essential to success in business. Verily, "wine is a mocker." The use of
intoxicating drinks as a beverage, is as much an infatuation, as is the
smoking of opium by the Chinese, and the former is quite as destructive
to the success of the business man as the latter. It is an unmitigated
evil, utterly indefensible in the light of philosophy; religion or good
sense. It is the parent of nearly every other evil in our country.

DON'T MISTAKE YOUR VOCATION

The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man
starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial
to his tastes. Parents and guardians are often quite too negligent in
regard to this. It very common for a father to say, for example: "I have
five boys. I will make Billy a clergyman; John a lawyer; Tom a doctor,
and Dick a farmer." He then goes into town and looks about to see
what he will do with Sammy. He returns home and says "Sammy, I see
watch-making is a nice genteel business; I think I will make you a
goldsmith." He does this, regardless of Sam's natural inclinations, or
genius.

We are all, no doubt, born for a wise purpose. There is as much
diversity in our brains as in our countenances. Some are born natural
mechanics, while some have great aversion to machinery. Let a dozen boys
of ten years get together, and you will soon observe two or three are
"whittling" out some ingenious device; working with locks or complicated
machinery. When they were but five years old, their father could find
no toy to please them like a puzzle. They are natural mechanics; but
the other eight or nine boys have different aptitudes. I belong to
the latter class; I never had the slightest love for mechanism; on the
contrary, I have a sort of abhorrence for complicated machinery. I never
had ingenuity enough to whittle a cider tap so it would not leak.
I never could make a pen that I could write with, or understand the
principle of a steam engine. If a man was to take such a boy as I
was, and attempt to make a watchmaker of him, the boy might, after an
apprenticeship of five or seven years, be able to take apart and put
together a watch; but all through life he would be working up hill and
seizing every excuse for leaving his work and idling away his time.
Watchmaking is repulsive to him.

Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and
best suited to his