he hasn't the courage to let that little alone. He says he can take it or leave it, but we know he can't, because he sometimes takes it. The man who says "I can take it or leave it alone" never leaves it alone. No young man expects to become a drunkard, but, lacking the courage to refuse the stuff absolutely, he decides to follow in the footsteps of his friend who seems none the worse for the drinks he has taken, but nine times out of ten he lands in the ditch and in a drunkard's grave, all because he lacked a little courage at the beginning. Courage to begin with is what is needed.

Every young man knows all about the evil effects of drink, but thinks he will quit by and by. If he can't control himself when he is clean, upright, and pure, how can he expect to after the habit has been formed? Give us more courage and we will have more men who can say no. "Men who will not lie; men who will not steal; men who will not flinch; men who can look the world or the devil right in the eye and say NO; men through whom the current of everlasting life runs still and deep and strong."

In business and in every walk of life lack of

courage keeps thousands in the background. Another place where moral courage is needed. is by the thousands of employés and employers who are entrusted with business secrets. It is wrong for such people to say they don't know, and, besides, it is a useless excuse, for every one knows they do know. But how they rise in the majesty of their own greatness when they truthfully and courageously say, "that is a business secret, a matter I cannot talk about." That is courage as great as was ever displayed on the field of battle. It is a principle that ought to be emblazoned in letters of gold on the walls of every office in Christendom, and in characters as permanent as the everlasting hills stamped into the lives of the millions yet to be.

Give us the courage that will enable us to own up to our mistakes when we make them; that is another virtue that should be written in letters of fire across the sky. It isn't so bad to make a mistake, but to try to cover it up is fatal. Give us the courage to withhold the hasty reply or the stinging blow. Anyone can engage in a fist fight; it is a mere animalism; it takes ten times the courage for a man to

maintain his dignity and scorn to stoop to the level of an unworthy antagonist.

Give us the courage to be frank, absolutely frank, fearless, honest, and true. It will lighten the heart, glorify the soul, and bring into the face a glow of beauty and righteousness that grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.

GIVE THE BOY A CHANCE.

If a man does anything worth while it is because he first did something when he was a boy. A boy who is always pampered and made to believe that he is only a little boy, and given nothing to do, is the boy who will do nothing when he grows up. To be successful requires long preparation-it won't do to begin at maturity. We hear a great deal of talk about the city boy not being able to cope, in after-life, with his country brother, and the statement can hardly be made too emphatic. The man who was a country boy leads, as a rule, in nearly every race that requires strength of mind or of muscle. The city boy is just as honest, just as anxious, just as deserving as the country boy, but he has not been brought up right. He usually misses a great education; not schooling-he spends three days in school where the country boy spends one, but he does nothing else. He has unfortunately missed the real education that makes school education worth while. The

average city boy of well-to-do parents doesn't know how to dress himself until he is six or seven years old. He has never found out that he can. It is "mamma" this and "mamma" that, and he grows up without knowing that he is supposed to do anything. If there is any work to be done about the place someone is employed to do it, and the boy naturally concludes that he was intended for something better than just ordinary work. On such a boy his parents have placed the stamp of doom, and they don't all live in the city; yet the environment of the country is against idlers, and as long as there are chores to do it will be pretty hard to bring up, in the country, a boy who doesn't at times have the satisfaction of knowing that he is useful.

He

Doing chores is a boy's salvation. A country boy is useful and earns his living about as soon as he is big enough to wear trousers. becomes a full-fledged farmer and a levelheaded, practical man before the city boy knows how to do anything but play. He has developed good common sense before he is six; he knows when things are going all right and when they aren't. If a pig gets through the fence he