at does this mean?' Then
the black powder is poured in, and with a blast that makes the mountain
echo, the block is blown asunder, and goes crashing down into the
valley. 'Ah!' it exclaims as it falls, 'why this rending?' Then come
saws to cut and fashion it; and humbled now, and willing to be nothing,
it is borne away from the mountain and conveyed to the city. Now it is
chiseled and polished, till, at length, finished in beauty, by block and
tackle it is raised, with mighty hoistings, high in air, to be the
top-stone on some monument of the country's glory."

"It is this scantiness of means, this continual deficiency, this
constant hitch, this perpetual struggle to keep the head above water and
the wolf from the door, that keeps society from falling to pieces. Let
every man have a few more dollars than he wants, and anarchy would
follow."

"Do you wish to live without a trial?" asks a modern teacher. "Then you
wish to die but half a man. Without trial you cannot guess at your own
strength. Men do not learn to swim on a table. They must go into deep
water and buffet the waves. Hardship is the native soil of manhood and
self-reliance. Trials are rough teachers, but rugged schoolmasters make
rugged pupils. A man who goes through life prosperous, and comes to his
grave without a wrinkle, is not half a man. Difficulties are God's
errands. And when we are sent upon them we should esteem it a proof of
God's confidence. We should reach after the highest good."

Suddenly, with much jarring and jolting, an electric car came to a
standstill just in front of a heavy truck that was headed in an opposite
direction. The huge truck wheels were sliding uselessly round on the car
tracks that were wet and slippery from rain. All the urging of the
teamster and the straining of the horses were in vain--until the
motorman quietly tossed a shovelful of sand on the track under the heavy
wheels, and then the truck lumbered on its way. "Friction is a very good
thing," remarked a passenger.

There is a beautiful tale of Scandinavian mythology. A hero, under the
promise of becoming a demi-god, is bidden in the celestial halls to
perform three test-acts of prowess. He is to drain the drinking-horn of
Thor. Then he must run a race with a courser so fleet that he fairly
spurns the ground under his flying footsteps. Then he must wrestle with
a toothless old woman, whose sinewy hands, as wiry as eagle claws in the
grapple, make his very flesh to