in life; endeavor to
achieve something great for yourself and for mankind. You will have
only one life in this world, then make the most of it. Take advantage
of your opportunities. Attend school as long as you can, because
generally the greater your knowledge and learning, your training and
preparation, the higher and wider the career that will open before
you.

All legitimate pursuits of life have been illustrated and adorned by
numberless Christian heroes and heroines, who served God, sanctified
themselves, and brought glory to the Christian name by their fidelity
to duty. Would you be a soldier? Could there be more glorious names
than those of St. Sebastian and St. Martin; the Crusader, Godfrey de
Bouillon, and the Grand Knight of Malta, de la Valette?

Do you long to ride the ocean waves, and brave the tempest? What more
heroic predecessor would you have than the great "Admiral," the
navigator and discoverer, Columbus? If your ambition be to sit in the
councils of State, to steer your country safely through breakers and
shoals, fix your gaze on Sir Thomas More, Daniel O'Connell, Windthorst
or Garcia Moreno--Christian heroes all.

CHAPTER II

AIMING HIGH

In a garden are flowers varying in hue and form and size. The roses
blow red and white and pink, scenting the air with their myriad
petals, the lilies lift up their delicate calyxes to the wandering
bee, the perfumed violets hide their modest heads in beds of green,
and the fuchsias sway from their stems in languid beauty. But varied
as are the flowers in charm, each is perfect of its kind. No artist
could improve their tints nor trace truer curves; no carver chisel
more delicate or finished forms.

And God's Church is a spiritual garden, where bloom souls varying in
every virtue, charm and grace, and all breathing forth the good odor
of Christ. In it are school-boys, gentle maidens, devoted mothers and
fathers of families, rich and poor of every nation and clime, of every
station and calling. God made them all; He loves them all, and on each
He has grafted the bud of faith, which will blossom forth into all
supernatural virtues.

God also wishes each one in His garden to be perfect of his kind.
Jesus, sitting on the Mount of the Beatitudes, and teaching the
multitudes that were ranged on the grass about Him, bade them "be
perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. v: 48.) [1]
This, then, is the perfection Christ expects us to aim at, t