ge, let him keep that pledge, be
industrious and honest; my word for it, in twenty years from now he
will walk the streets of the city in which he dwells, honored,
respected, loved, and the world can't keep him down. I rejoice we live
in a land where I can encourage a boy, a land where rank belongs to
the boy who earns it, whether he hails from the mansion of a
millionaire or the "old log cabin in the lane;" a land where a boy can
go from a rail cut, a tan yard, or a toe-path, to the presidency of
the United States; a land where I can look the humblest boy in the
face and say:

"Never ye mind the crowd, my boy, or think that life won't tell;
The work is the work for aye that, to him that doeth it well.
Fancy the world a hill, my boy; look where the millions stop;
You'll find the crowd at the base, my boy; there's always room at
the top."

Have you a trade? Go learn one. Do you know how to do things? Go try;
you may make mistakes, but do the best you can like the boy who joined
the church. At his uncle's table soon after he was asked to say grace.
He didn't know what kind of a blessing to ask, but he did know he was
very hungry, so bowing his head he said: "Lord, have mercy on these
victuals." I have faith in the boy who will try to do a thing. I
believe in a boy like that one in a mission Sabbath school in New
York, who though he had but little knowledge of the Bible, had a way
of reasoning about Bible lessons. The teacher of his class said to
him: "James, who was the strongest man of whom we have any account?"

He quickly replied: "Jonah."

"How do you make that out?" said the teacher.

Promptly the answer came: "The whale couldn't hold him after he got
him down."

Boys, are you poor? Columbus was a weaver; Arkright was a barber;
Esop, a slave; Bloomfield, a shoemaker; Lincoln, a rail-splitter;
Garfield tramped a toe-path with no company but an honest mule; and
Franklin, whose name will never die while lightning blazes through the
clouds, went from the humble position of a printer's devil to that
height where he looked down upon other men. If you would win in the
battle of life, take the right side of life and build a righteous
character. The saddest scene on the streets at night is the young man,
whose clothes are finest in quality and fittest in fashion, but whose
principles sadly need "patching." I dare say there are young men
before me now who would not go into refined company indecently dressed