minute he could steal without
detection, until he surprised the great players and composers of Europe
by his wonderful knowledge of music. He was very practical in his work,
and studied the taste and sensitiveness of audiences until he knew
exactly what they wanted; then he would compose something to supply the
demand. He analyzed the effect of sounds and combinations of sounds upon
the senses, and wrote directly to human needs. His greatest work, "The
Messiah," was composed in Dublin for the benefit of poor debtors who
were imprisoned there. The influence of this masterpiece was tremendous.
It was said it out-preached the preacher, out-prayed prayers, reformed
the wayward, softened stony hearts, as it told the wonderful story of
redemption, in sound.

A. T. Stewart began life as a teacher in New York at $300 a year. He
soon resigned and began that career as a merchant in which he achieved a
success almost without precedent. Honesty, one price, cash on delivery,
and business on business principles were his invariable rules. Absolute
regularity and system reigned in every department. In fifty years he
made a fortune of from thirty to forty million dollars. He was nominated
as Secretary of the Treasury in 1869, but it was found that the law
forbids a merchant to occupy that position. He offered to resign, or to
give the entire profits of his business to the poor of New York as long
as he should remain in office. President Grant declined to accept such
an offer.

Poor Kepler struggled with constant anxieties, and told fortunes by
astrology for a livelihood, saying that astrology as the daughter of
astronomy ought to keep her mother; but fancy a man of science wasting
precious time over horoscopes. "I supplicate you," he writes to
Moestlin, "if there is a situation vacant at Tuebingen, do what you can
to obtain it for me, and let me know the prices of bread and wine and
other necessaries of life, for my wife is not accustomed to live on
beans." He had to accept all sorts of jobs; he made almanacs, and served
anyone who would pay him.

Who could have predicted that the modest, gentle boy, Raphael, without
either riches or noted family, would have worked his way to such renown,
or that one of his pictures, but sixty-six and three-quarter inches
square (the Mother of Jesus), would be sold to the Empress of Russia,
for $66,000? His Ansedei Madonna, was bought by the National Gallery for
$350,000. Think of Michael Angelo work