more than a dozen trials that
have consumed more than twenty hours of time."

During a winter in the war of 1812, General Jackson's troops,
unprovided for and starving, became mutinous and were going home. But
the general set the example of living on acorns; then rode before the
rebellious line and threatened with death the first mutineer that
should try to leave.

The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to the
strong. Horses are sometimes weighted or hampered in the race, and
this is taken into account in the result. So in the race of life the
distance alone does not determine the prize. We must take into
consideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried, the
disadvantages of education, of breeding, of training, of surroundings,
of circumstances. How many young men are weighted down with debt, with
poverty, with the support of invalid parents or brothers and sisters,
or friends? How many are fettered with ignorance, hampered by
inhospitable surroundings, with the opposition of parents who do not
understand them? How many a round boy is hindered in the race by being
forced into a square hole? How many are delayed in their course
because nobody believes in them, because nobody encourages them,
because they get no sympathy and are forever tortured for not doing
that against which every fibre of their being protests, and every drop
of their blood rebels? How many have to feel their way to the goal,
through the blindness of ignorance and lack of experience? How many go
bungling along from the lack of early discipline and drill in the
vocation they have chosen? How many have to hobble along on crutches
because they were never taught to help themselves, but to lean upon a
father's wealth or a mother's indulgence? How many are weakened for
the journey of life by self-indulgence, by dissipation, by
"life-sappers;" how many are crippled by disease, by a weak
constitution, by impaired eyesight or hearing?

When the prizes of life shall be awarded by the Supreme Judge, who
knows our weaknesses and frailties, the distance we have run, the
weights we have carried, the handicaps, will all be taken into account.
Not the distance we have run, but the obstacles we have overcome, the
disadvantages under which we have made the race, will decide the
prizes. The poor wretch who has plodded along against unknown
temptations, the poor woman who has buried her sorrows in her silent
heart and sewe