category as difficulties of the purely
physical kind. Interrupted or insulated efforts, however vigorous,
will be found to be but of little avail. It is to the element of
continuity that you must trust. There is a world of sense in Sir
Walter Scott's favourite proverb, "_Time_ and I, gentlemen, against
any two." But though it be unnecessary, in order to secure success,
that one's efforts in the contest with gigantic difficulties should be
themselves gigantic, it is essentially necessary that they should
employ one's whole strength. Half efforts never accomplish anything.
"No man ever did anything well," says Johnson, "to which he did not
apply the whole bent of his mind." And unless a man keep his head
cool, and his faculties undissipated, he need not expect that his
efforts can ever be other than half efforts, or other than of a
desultory, fitful, non-productive kind. We do not stand here in the
character of a modern Rechabite. But this we must say: Let no young
man ever beguile himself with the hope that he is to make a figure in
society, or rise in the world, unless, as the apostle expresses it, he
be "temperate in all things." Scotland has produced not a few
distinguished men who were unfortunately _not_ temperate; but it is
well known that of one of the greatest of them all--perhaps one of the
most vigorous-minded men our country ever produced--the intemperate
habits were not formed early. Robert Burns, up till his twenty-sixth
year, when he had mastered all his powers, and produced some of his
finest poems, was an eminently sober man. Climbing requires not only a
steady foot, but a strong head; and we question whether any one ever
climbed the perilous steep, where, according to Beattie, "Fame's proud
temple shines afar," who did not keep his head cool during the
process. So far as our own experience goes, we can truly state, that
though we have known not a few working men, possessed some of them of
strong intellects, and some of them of fine taste, and even of genius,
not one have we ever known who rose either to eminence or a competency
under early formed habits of intemperance. These indeed are the
difficulties that cannot be surmounted, and the only ones. Rather more
than thirty years ago, the drinking usages of the country were more
numerous than they are now. In the mechanical profession in which we
laboured they were many: when a foundation was laid, the workmen were
treated to drink; they were treated to dri