sober, frugal, energetic and able
mechanic, to the educated youth, to the office boy and to the
clerk--avenues through which they can reap greater successes than ever
before within the reach of these classes in the history of the world.
A little while ago there were only three or four professions--now there
are fifty. And of trades, where there was one, there are a hundred now.

"What is its name?" asked a visitor in a studio, when shown, among many
gods, one whose face was concealed by hair, and which had wings on its
feet. "Opportunity," replied the sculptor. "Why is its face hidden?"
"Because men seldom know him when he comes to them." "Why has he wings
on his feet?" "Because he is soon gone, and once gone, cannot be
overtaken."

"Opportunity has hair in front," says a Latin author; "behind she is
bald; if you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her, but, if
suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again."

But what is the best opportunity to him who cannot or will not use it?

"It was my lot," said a shipmaster, "to fall in with the ill-fated
steamer _Central America_. The night was closing in, the sea rolling
high; but I hailed the crippled steamer and asked if they needed help.
'I am in a sinking condition,' cried Captain Herndon. 'Had you not
better send your passengers on board directly?' I asked. 'Will you not
lay by me until morning?' replied Captain Herndon. 'I will try,' I
answered 'but had you not better send your passengers on board _now_?'
'Lay by me till morning,' again shouted Captain Herndon.

"I tried to lay by him, but at night, such was the heavy roll of the
sea, I could not keep my position, and I never saw the steamer again.
In an hour and a half after he said, 'Lay by me till morning,' his
vessel, with its living freight, went down. The captain and crew and
most of the passengers found a grave in the deep."

Captain Herndon appreciated the value of the opportunity he had
neglected when it was beyond his reach, but of what avail was the
bitterness of his self-reproach when his last moments came? How many
lives were sacrificed to his unintelligent hopefulness and indecision!
Like him the feeble, the sluggish, and the purposeless too often see no
meaning in the happiest occasions, until too late they learn the old
lesson that the mill can never grind with the water which has passed.

Such people are always a little too late or a little too early in
everything they