f bread to
the toiler who earns it. Wealth may acquire these things but it cannot
own them.

Therefore the true value of character is something that each must
achieve for himself. It cannot be bought; it cannot be bequeathed to
us; it must be earned by each individual who would possess it. Hence
it is that these great riches may be acquired by all who desire to
possess them.

Where are they to be found? Right here.

When may we obtain them? Right now.

Do you care to learn the only way in which you can come into
possession of them? "Whoever you are--wise or foolish, rich or poor,"
says Rebecca Harding Davis, "God sent you into His world, as He sent
every other human being, to help the men and women in it, to make them
happier and better. If you do not do that, no matter what your powers
may be, you are mere lumber, a worthless bit of world's furniture. A
Stradivarius, if it hangs dusty and dumb upon the wall, is not of as
much real value as a kitchen poker which is used."

So we learn that it is the fine practical spirit, content and willing
to do the humble things which are possible of achievement that is
doing most to lift the world to a higher and better plane. "Have you
never met humble men and women," asks Gannett, "who read little, who
knew little, yet who had a certain fascination as of fineness lurking
about them? Know them, and you are likely to find them persons who
have put so much thought and honesty and conscientious trying into
their common work--it may be sweeping rooms, or planing boards, or
painting walls--have put their ideals so long, so constantly, so
lovingly into that common work of theirs, that finally these qualities
have come to permeate not their work only, but so much of their being,
that they are fine-fibred within, even if on the outside the rough
bark clings."

If we are wisely introspective, we must reach the conclusion that
humble though we may be, we are after all, a component part of the
great expression of being, and that we are well worth while. Then if
we are worth while, it follows that all we do is worth while, for each
of us is, in the end, the sum of all the things he has done. Once we
have this idea that everything stands for something more than the mere
thing itself--that it is correlated in its influences with all the
other things that we and all others are doing, we shall invest all our
tasks, little and big, with more of purpose and importance. Emerson
says:

"The