I

Foreword

WISH that this little book might be placed in

the hands of every boy and young fellow

throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. Here we have practical guidance in the essential secrets which lie behind and beneath all Social Reconstruction: even the fashioning of character and the nourishing of life. I once wrote to Henry Drummond inviting him to speak to my congregation in Newcastle-onTyne. He very graciously declined, and he did so for this very characteristic reason: "I do not know the species." Drummond knew University men, he knew them through and through; he professed he had no intimacy with the mixed congregation. Mr. Porritt knows the species when he seeks to be the friendly counsellor of boys and young men. He is not a spectator, looking upon their life from the outside. He knows it from within. His work among them, and his friendship with them, has made him familiar with their ground. He looks out of their windows, and he sees their world, and he sets the noblest ideals upon their horizon, luring them in pursuit of the better and the best. He champions an ample and symmetrical life. He opens doors on

every side, and every avenue is lit up with the light of the supreme relationship to Christ. There is a central Altar and everything looks towards it, but "the bells upon the horses are also holiness to the Lord. His spiritual world is a wide realm and its sanctities embrace all the activities, of body, mind, and soul. It is a healthy and wholesome book, and I heartily hope it will be given to tens of thousands of boys throughout the English-speaking world. J. H. JOWETT.

Westminster Chapel,

London.

I

MAKING A LIFE

NLY within prescribed limits can we claim to be the architects of our own lives; but

we are free to make some most momentous decisions, and one of these challenges a young man very early in his career. He has to decide what shall be his goal in life, the aim and object of his ambition-whether all the driving force of his energy shall be thrown into money-making or into making a worthy life. Ambition, in the best sense of the word, is wholly commendable; but ambition ruthlessly pursued and directed to the single object of making wealth spells the destruction of a man's finest qualities. For ambition men will

"Wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.”

We are witnessing a sharp recoil from the hard individualistic commercialism of the Victorian age, and a revolt from the gospel of "Self-Help" which Dr. Samuel Smiles preached to his receptive generation. The reaction has perhaps gone too far. We may need to clear our minds from some cant. Success in life is worth the wrestle. Wealth acquired honestly is a boon. Prosperity is not an evil. These things are among the rewards of effort and the incentives to effort. They stir men to enterprise, energy, and

NYPL