ur lives hollow, but to be sound in
character through and through."

TWO MEN
--Ideals
--Error

Know Your Man Before You Trust and Follow Him--Our Ideals.

THE LESSON--That we cannot safely choose an example of true living
from among those about us, without knowing their real character.

The accompanying illustration is offered for occasions in which
children--especially boys--above the primary age are interested.

~~The Talk.~~

"There are a good many boys and girls who make a great mistake in
trying to imitate older people; and there are a good many older people
who make a great mistake when they try blindly to make a success of
things just because other people have been successful in doing
them. It is a splendid thing to want to have in our lives the same
great governing principles which rule the lives of people who stand
before us as splendid models of character; but it is not always a good
thing to try to do the very same things that these people do. Why?
Because it is likely that we are not cut out to do their kind of work.
The Lord may have intended that we should follow an entirely different
line of effort. Let us, therefore, cultivate in our own lives the
great and true principles which we find in other people, but let us
also try to find out what the Lord wants us to do, and then let us
learn to do it just the very best we can."

"'Blessed is he,' says Thomas Carlyle, 'who has found his work; let
him ask no other blessing.' The surest way to find what our life work
is to be is to '_do the common things uncommonly well_.' If we do
this, our life-work will be pointed out to us clearly and plainly.
Therefore, in selecting our ideals in life, let us be careful how we
choose."

[Illustration: Fig. 116]

"A boy, whom we will call John, worked in a certain downtown
office. Two men used to pass the window of his place of employment
very frequently. These two men were never together--in fact, they were
not even acquainted with each other. Here is one of the men who passed
John's window. [Draw Fig. 116, complete.] He was evidently a laboring
man, as John judged from his clothing, which showed the effects of
hard work of a rather rough character. He carried a dinner
bucket. John merely noticed that this man passed and repassed his
window every day, but gave him very little thought. But there was
another man who did attract John's attention. Here he is: [Draw the
second man, completing Fig. 117.