in nitl mm III \IW ill HI HnHffliffl 1mm HUB 111111 11111 m ilnfflli ""HHH TO HI H IMS ■ ■ ,: ' ;•; mflD mm v HI amm .' A .V 1 J ■ o o N o cv ^-* 1 ■ . >c ^0^ ^ ^ \< v- aV >* #' v v *."< 8 1 \ G ^ o o x PRACTICAL LIFE AND The Study of Man, BY J. WILSON, Ph. D., Author of "Errors of Grammar," "Practical Grammar,"' "Phra- sis : a Treatise on the History and Structure of the Dif- ferent Languages of the "World," " Religion as Seen by the Light of the Nineteenth Century," Etc., Etc. * NEWARK, NEW YORK : J. Wilson & Son, Publishers. 1882. b:q« 3\ .W54 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by J. Wilson & Son, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress. TO His Son, JACOB WILSON, Jr., FOR HIS SUCCESS IN PRINTING AND HIS DEVOTION TO THE ART, THIS WORK is AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY HIS FATHER, THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTORY. The object of this work is neither to amaze nor amuse the reader, but to interest and instruct those who are seek- ing improvement. There is very little in it, perhaps, that is new to every one, but the thoughts and reflections it. embodies are brought forward in such novel connec- tions, and they are presented in such unusual forms, that,, even if the sentiments are found to be old, the application will doubtless appear to be new. The leading object of the writer is to do good to his fellow man, and if he fails in his purpose, he will a£ least claim the credit of having done the best that he could. It has not been his aim, in this book, to appear either original or brilliant. It was- his design simply to bring to the notice of the reader, on the subjects which have been considered, the best thoughts that could be found in the language, and wherever he has discovered his ideas already in print, expressed in language better than he could write, or even as well, he has not deemed it either necessary or proper to write them anew, but has adopted the language of the author without change, believing as he does that we cannot make a thought ours by clothing it in our own words, nor lose our claim to originality by finding that some other writer has been possessed of similar conceptions. Where the author is known, due credit has uniformly been given. The author is quite well aware that he is unfortunate in the title he has been compelled to adopt for the work To make it sell well,, he should have had some such title as this: "Scandals in High Life;" "Experience of a 11 INTRODUCTORY. Detective;" "Success without Effort;" "Adventures of ■Capt. Kidd ;" " Money-making Made Easy ;" " Fun, Frolic and Fashion," &c, &c. But of course the title must have some relation to the contents of the work, and he has not been able to avail himself of any of these " taking titles," or "startling announcements." Indeed, this work has not been written to sell. Of course, he would be glad enough if it proves to be popular and salable, but that was not the primary object for which the work was written. If it is bought, it must be by those who like the plain truth, on plain matters, in plain language, by one who speaks with freedom, candor and independence. The author hopes that the reader will find that this work contains some sound and serviceable philosophy. It is too much to expect that those who read it will en- dorse all it contains, but even where it is not endorsed, he trusts it may be found at least worthy of serious consid- eration. "What is here written will be found to come un- der at least one of the two heads, " Practical Life " or " The Study of Man." The author has endeavored to set forth the motives by which men are governed, so that, under- standing men, those who pass through life may become more successful in their own careers. The author has purposely waited till a late period of life, past fifty years, in order that, with practical experience and a matured judgment, he might speak with confidence, as well as intelligence, on a subject of such grave and lasting importance. Few men have seen more of life in a half century than the writer of this book. He has followed •quite a number of different occupations, and been fairly •successful in all of them. His study from his youth down to the present time has been : Life, and the Nature of Man. If he may seem to have written much on these sub- jects, it is because he feels that he knows much that ought to be written. If he may seem to speak with energy and assurance, it is because he has studied what he says, and has confidence in his statements. PRACTICAL LIFE AXD THE STUDY OF MAN. THE STUDY OF LIFE. We can conceive of no study more important tq man than how to live, : and yet it is almost the last study that men think of. People allow themselves to drift along listlessly through life, and never busy themselves with questions of this kind till death comes with its summons and renders all experience and instruction valueless. In- stead of profiting by the lessons of those who have gone before them, they seldom learn, except from the mistakes they themselves have made. The great subjects, how to prolong life, how to preserve health, how to live happily,, how to live usefully, how to rear strong and intelligent children, how to become independent, how to become in- fluential, — all these, and many kindred subjects, give man- kind very little concern. And yet all would agree that the business of life should never be undertaken except by those who are prepared for the struggle. They should understand the obstacles they are to meet, and know how they are to be overcome. They should know the ways and walks of men, and have learned the best ways of deal- ing with them. PRACTICAL LIFE AND But it is a lamentable fact that men would rather be diverted than instructed; they care more for some trifling amusement, some senseless and useless pastime, than they do about the soundest piece of philosophy or the wisest bit of counsel. CRITICISM. If on Parnassus' top you sit, . You rarely bite, are always bit. Each poet of inferior size On you shall rail and criticise, And strive to tear you limb from limb, While others do as much for him. It is as natural for people to criticise as to eat or breathe, and for aught we know, is as healthy and useful With- out criticism, there can be no excellence. Open, honest and manly criticism, by one who is qualified to decide, is a valuable aid to any one who desires to excel. Without criticism, we should never perceive our faults, and prob- ably should not even appreciate our excellencies. Severe criticism, even if not wholly deserved, is generally found a most useful medicine. Nothing can be more beneficial to any one than to be taught to know his weak points, and this is the office that criticism comes to perform. It helped Wordsworth wonderfully, and it has saved many a young author before and since. Perhaps the critic is unfriendly or envious. If so, that is all the better for us, for then the truth he will speak will be all the plainer. We cer- tain^ need .not look to our friends expecting they will speak in our hearing an unpleasant, though an honest truth. , Harsh criticism is by no means a pleasant remedy to take, but it sharpens many a man's wit and gives a new soul to many a dull body. But criticism may be so severe, so cruel, so undeserved, that it may kill rather than cure. It may be a sharper medicine than the patient can bear. Dr. Hawkesworth died of too much criticism, and the sufferings endured by THE STUDY OF MAX. 3 such men as Pope, Byron and others, at the hands of merci- less critics, who shall measure ? People will criticise, whether they understand the sub- ject or not, for there is nothing in the world that gratifies -a man more than to express his opinion. What he does not know, he usually thinks he knows, and that answers every purpose. A book containing all the blunders and absurdities of critics would be a large, -interesting and per- haps useful volume. The extent and accuracy of knowl- edge on the part of some critics is well illustrated by the following anecdote : A painter who had been censured for not taking good likenesses when he painted portraits, was piqued at the criticisms of his friends, and wished to ascertain whether the fault was really on his side or not. He informed them on one occasion that he had finished a portrait of a person they knew perfectly well, which, as he flattered himself, w r as nature itself. They all hastened, of course, to see the picture, and all, without hesitation, pro- nounced it to be one of the very worst attempts he had ever made at a likeness. " You are mistaken, friends," •said a voice from the head of the picture, ''it is myself." "These words were spoken by the person who had entered into the stratagem of the painter, and put his head through the canvass. When Cowper's poems were first published by John- son, the bookseller, they were so fiercely attacked by the ■critics that the public was either frightened or misled, and the sale of the book was practically ended. But, not dis- heartened, this sound bookseller afterwards published the "Task," by the same author. Soon after this poem ap- peared, the whole tone of criticism changed, and Cowper s Poems came to be in great demand. When Pope was first introduced to read his Iliad to Lord Halifax, the noble critic did *not venture to be dis- satisfied with so perfect a composition ; but this passage and that word, this turn and that expression, formed the broken cant of his criticisms. The honest poet was stung with vexation : for, in general, the parts at which his lord- 4 PRACTICAL LIFE AND ship hesitated were those with which he was most satisfied.. As he returned home with Samuel Garth, he revealed to- him his anxiety of mind. " 0," replied Garth, laughing, "you are not so well acquainted with his lordship as my- self; he must criticise. At your next visit, read to him those very passages as they now stand ; tell him that you have recollected his criticisms; and I'll warrant you of his approbation of them. This is what I have done a. hundred times my self/' Pope did as he was advised ; the stratagem took, like the marble dust of Angelo ; and my lord exclaimed, "Dear Pope, they are now inimitable. ' r And so they were. PKECEDENT. The power which precedent exerts over men is simply amazing. The settlement of all cases w T hich is made by appeals to the law is based upon precedent, and hence is not so much a declaration of what is felt to be just and proper in the case in question, as a comparison of the features of that case with one that happened perhaps five hundred years ago, and which is supposed to be similar. Indeed, all law, as we find it in our books, is but little more than a record of accumulated precedents. It is really surprising to see how fearful the wisest and strongest of men are of doing something against precedent, something that nobody ever wished or dared to do before them. "Human reason has so little confidence in itself," to quote the words of De Finod, "that it always looks for a prece- dent to justify its decrees." If a man should go into church and forget to take off his hat, he would be greatly shocked when he came to realize his unfortunate situation. But if he should look around and find one or two others in the same sad predicament, he would find himself greatly relieved, and might possibly be impelled to leave his hat on his head, where it properly belonged. All fashion is merely the following of a precedent, the copying of some THE STUDY OF MAN. O other one's works, the repeating, generally, of some other one's whims. We are doing every day an hundred things only because we have done them before, or seen them done by some- body else. Who shall estimate the power which one crime as a precedent has to induce the commission of the same crime by some other person, at some other time? The breaking of one glass in a building, by some reckless or willful boy, is a strong temptation for a dozen other boys to break another glass when they find an opportunity offers. The best illustration is to be found in the case of the first forged note of the Bank of England. The day on which this note was presented at the bank forms a memorable period in its history. "For sixty-four years the establishment had circulated its paper .with freedom, and during that period no attempt had been made to imi- tate it He who takes the initiative in a new line of wrong-doing has more than the simple act to answer for, and to Kichard William Vaughan, a Stafford linen draper, belongs the melancholy celebrity of having led the van in this new phase of crime, in the year 1758. The records of his life do not show want, beggary, or starvation urging him, but a simple desire to seem greater than he was. By one of the artists employed, and there were several en-" gaged on different parts of the notes, the discovery was made. The criminal had filled up to the number of twenty, and deposited them in the hands of a young lady, to whom he was attached, as a proof of his wealth. There is no calculating how much longer bank notes might have been free from imitation had this man not shown with what ease they might be counterfeited. From this period, forged notes became common." It would seem that one man's doing a thing should have nothing to do with an- other man's doing the same thing, or even something very similar. It would seem that the fact that a thing had been done should never be looked upon as any evidence that it was either proper or necessary, or that it was something that might be repeated again by others with impunity. 6 PRACTICAL LIFE AND And vet nothing is more common at the present day than to sec men justify all sorts of deviltry, and all kinds of villainy, on the plea that such things have been done be- fore, and by men full as good as they are. Satan is ever prompt with excuses, and this is a fair sample of the justi- fication he usually offers. "They all do it," he says, and this is expected to cover a multitude of sins. CURIOSITY. We are too curious about things that really should give us no concern whatever. It might be proper enough for us t o be curious to learn for the sake of learning, or for the sake of improving, but this seeing for the mere sake of seeing, or to say we have seen, so common in all sta- tions and all ranks in this world, is what we would most severely condemn. It is idle and vain to be curious to see simply what a man can do, or to see perhaps what nature herself will do when she happens to go amiss. , Curiosity has brought many a wily fox to a sad and premature end. A fox that is too curious to see and ex- amine what appears to him curious and strange, should 'not complain if he has to suffer the pain that frequently follows such experiments. It is often dearly bought knowledge that we gain by our efforts to satisfy what can only be called a morbid curiosity. Again, many things may do us no harm to know, but they are absolutely use- less. What difference does it make to us how far, for in- stance, Jupiter may be from us, or who inhabits it, or how the people appear, if people there are ? What differ- ence does it make to us how many sands there are upon the sea-shore, or how much clear water there is around the North Pole, or how many fishes there may be in the Black Sea ? Our curiosity to see monsters is of the same sense- less, useless character. Indeed, we suspect that curiosity has done this world thus far more harm than good. If Mother Eve, we know, had not been so curious to see how THE STUDY OF MAX. the apple tasted, and what effect its eating would have, the human race would never have fallen, as it is supposed to have fallen, through the sin which its maternal ancestor committed. STRATEGY. "Palmerston saw what men were in the mood to do, and he did it ; and they were clear that that must be a great leader who led them just whither they felt inclined to go. " — Mc Cavtliy. There are arts by which we reach the hearts of men, and artifices by which we mould them to our purposes. The human heart is an engine to be operated and con- trolled like other engines. No one can tell how the machine is managed, without indicating more or less of the character of its construction and the principles of its action. Art and science go together; science precedes art ; art only follows where science points the way. To show how man acts, or how he is made to act, is to show also what man is. We speak of the art of managing men, and we use the term advisedly. There are at least two ways of passing from the cradle to the grave. If your boat upsets, and tumbles you into the stream, you have one of two courses left. You may paddle a little, keep up your head, and the violence of the current itself will in the end land you at some port ; but whether it will be at the bottom, or on some desert island, or at some place where help may reach you, is a matter which in this case chance alone can deter- mine. On the other hand, if you have a little art, a little training and suitable strength, you may call forth your will, stretch out your arms, exert your muscles, and thus in a brief time, with the requisite exertion and a proper direction, reach the nearest land. He who is content to glide down the river of life as an empty tub, will oftener go down to the bottom, or be dashed against the rocks, than reach a harbor of safety. No, indeed ; he who would S PRACTICAL LIFE AND not be rocked and tossed at the -mercy of chance, must put up his sails, keep watch of the winds, and hold fast to the helm. He who launches out into the broad ocean with- out art and without science, will either learn them by ex- perience and misfortune, or be lost in the first storm that overtakes him. He who imagines that man can pass through this world without effort, without art, without will, without direction, has seen, we are sure, but little of it This life is for us one continual conflict ; everything is opposed to us, everything is at war with us. Every living being must struggle for existence. If it will live, it must eat ; and if it will eat, it must destroy. Two arch enemies are continually on our flanks — starvation on one side, and disease on the other ; we have death in the front, and that bold guerrilla, Satan, in the rear. Nothing can be more aptly named than when we call this the battle of life. It is more terrible than other bat- tles, for it never ends ; it is fiercer than other battles, for it is the struggle for existence. In the forest, in the sea, in the air, this contest is raging. Like the eternal fires of Vesuvius, it sometimes slumbers, but only to break forth at some future time with the greater fury. Those desolat- ing wars which now and then sweep over the earth, are only bloody and noisy stages of this same eternal conflict. Who thinks that tactics and strategy are out of place in such a contest ? It is enough that we find them both here, and better tactics and strategy than we find in some of the battles of our greater wars. If good strategy redounds to the credit of a great general, if it is that which gives him his chief recommendation, we are not able to see why it may not as well pass to the credit of the master and man- ager of the human conduct. BOLDNESS. The first great element in the character of any strategist is boldness. Boldness startles a man with what he least ex-' pects ; it comes upon him when and where he least expects THE STUDY OF MAX. 9 it; it confounds and unnerves him. What did not bold- ness do for General Lee ? He more than once dared to do what no one expected of him, and he accomplished what his enemies never dreamed of. This very boldness and ■daring is just as practicable and just as effective in civil as it is in military life. Who that has read the life of Mahomet, that poor friend- less lounger, who, in the end, became a god, does not know what boldness accomplished for him? And has the au- dacity, the effrontery, of Joe Smith, the Mormon, passed already from your minds? Why, even to-day, if some man should rise up in your town, and say he was a prophet, or the son of a prophet that he had found a Bible, had had a vision, or had become inspired from some source or other, he would certainly find plenty of silly people to fol- low him. And if, in addition, he should persist in it ; if he could get some Mend of his, by bribe or otherwise, to swear it was all so ; and if, above all, by some trick he could make it appear that he had iz>erforined some little miracle on his own account, his success would be certain and his fortune secured. With daring, to be successful, a man must have secrecy and prompt action. And what will not these three accom- plish ? What does it not accomplish in all the affairs of every-day life ; in the court room, in the political struggle, in the legislative hall, in every case where an attack is made and a defense expected? He who heralds forth what he intends to do, who rises long after the sun is up, and proceeds with a slow and cadenced step to meet his foe, will always find that enemy ready to receive him, and in most instances he will march up the hill simply to have the pleasure of marching down again. Napoleon Bona- parte was a great general, and he accomplished mighty re- sults, but it was Napoleon who, above all other men, labored while his enemies slept, who attacked them where they least expected it, and who, when he first began, hurled forth his legions with a suddenness that threw his antagonists mto disorder, and routed them not so much by 10 PRACTICAL LIFE AND the numbers of his hosts, as by the velocity he gave them. It is this daring, this dexterity, this surprise, which we see vxvrx day making the weak triumph over the strong, and the few over the many. Boldness, in some of its transitions, becomes audacity and impudence. Who can be more impudent and au- dacious than the one who demands, with all the assurance of right, what never belonged to him? And how often does he succeed in the trick which he attempts ! And da you feel disposed to dispute the feasibility of his plan — has it not been done in this world a thousand times be- fore, and are you more secure against such knavery than your forefathers before you ? It will succeed, of course it will, from the mere novelty and absurdity of the thing, if from nothing else. How often the knave or the loafer says to you, "He'll stay with you to-night," or "he will dine with you to-mor- row," or "take the loan of five dollars," or "borrow your coat," or " take it as a gift ;" and you, poor fellow, be- fore you know what you are about, answer yes, the fatal yes, and the bargain is struck ? You were not expecting such an attack, you were unused to such sallies, and the very impudenoe and absurdity of the thing has put you, as the Frenchman says, out of condition to fight. These men that thus play upon you are such as yoii of your own accord would never have in your house ; and yet in your confusion you have admitted them to the place of a friend. There are plenty of these scamps in the world, and we have learned to know them at double range. Impudence is the knave's protection, his shield, his armor, his all — and still it is a quality that even the honest man cannot dispense witk Impudence can alone meet impudence. It is surprising what a large quantum of this article is needed to carry a man safely and successfully through the troubles and dangers of this world. A man without im- pudence where impudence is needed, is a poor unfortunate child, one that had better have been born in some honester world. THE STUDY OF MAN. 11 EMINENCE. O happy man. saith he. that lo! I see, Grazing his cattle in the pleasant fields. If he but knew his good. How blessed he That feels not what affliction greatness yields, Other than what he is he would not be. Nor change his state with him that sceptre wields. The possession of eminence is no exception to the rule that great blessings are always associated with great sor- rows, and that advantages and disadvantages, in all things, are pretty nearly equal. Men who stand high above other men are compelled to assume responsibilities which ex- ceed those of other men. One of the misfortunes of emi- nence is the certainty of having every secret exposed and every fault known If the President's wife happens to be cross-eyed, or the President himself have a wart on his face, or there be an unfortunate child in the family, or some other imperfection or misfortune over which envy can rejoice or malice can dilate, it will be only a few days after the inauguration before it is published in the news- papers and known over the whole country. The crime for which many a man has suffered is eminence, or rather pre-eminence over others. It was strikingly so with Marius, and it has been so more or less with every man who has been so fortunate, or unfortunate, as to be placed above his friends and acquaintances. It is something for which the best of men never will forgive "him — certainly not until he is hurled from his summit and brought down to a level with common men. Dr. Johnson once on being told that he had been shamefully caricatured, was not at all surly, as he sometimes was, but remarked : •• I am very glad to hear this. I hope the day will never arrive when I shall neither be the object of calumny nor ridicule, for then I know I shall be neglected and' for- gotten" The saddest illustration of the fact that all men are mortal, and that even the most eminent may draw their last breath under circumstances full as painful as the most 12 PRACTICAL LIFE AND indigent peasant, is to be found in the case of Pitt He died at a solitary house on Wimbledon Common. Not Ear off, by the roadside, stood, and still stands, a small country inn, where the various parties interested in the great statesman's life were accustomed to apply for in- formation, and leave their horses and carriages. On the morning of the 23d of January, 1806, an individual hav- ing called at the inn, and not being able to obtain a satis- factory reply to his inquiries, proceeded to the house of Pitt. He knocked, but no servant appeared; he opened the door and entered, but he found no one in attendance; he proceeded from room to room, and at length entered the sick chamber, where, on a bed, in silence and in perfect solitude, he found to his unspeakable surprise, the dead body of that great statesman who had so lately wielded the power of England, and influenced, if he did not con- trol, the destinies of the world. IGNORANCE AND LEARNING. We would not say broadly and unconditionally that " ignorance is bliss,'" or that "it is folly to be wise," but we do claim that ignorance offers far more advantages, and wisdom brings many more misfortunes, than most people suppose. Perhaps the pleasures and pains of ig- norance, and of wisdom too, will be found to be, when we carefully weigh them, pretty evenly balanced. What we know frequently causes us fears and apprehensions which are often unfounded, and generally afford us not the slightest benefit. Ignorance may lead us into dangers which we might with knowledge and accompanying pru- dence escape, but on the other hand, it gives us confidence, hope and a feeling of composure and satisfaction that can never be found in any amount of wisdom. Certain it is r ignorance affords as much happiness to man as can ever be secured by wisdom. As happy and contented a people as one ever saw were the stupid natives which Captain THE STUDY OF MAN. 13 Alexander found in South Africa. He said he could make nothing out to show they had any, the most im- perfect, religious impressions. "Who made the sun?" he .asked them. "We don't know ; we are a stupid people ; we don't know anything,' 1 was the answer always. " Only let us get plenty to eat — that is all we care f or. " It must not be forgotten that through mere thirst for knowledge comes death as an inheritance. The Greeks tell us "there is a great deal of convenience in not being over- wise." It is said monkeys will not learn to talk for fear of being com- pelled to work. Certain it is, the more a man knows, and the more he can do, the more he is expected to accom- plish. The oldest and best book we have tells us that " in much wisdom there is much sorrow," and that "who gets wisdom, gets labor and sorrow.' 7 St. Paul tells us that "the simple and ignorant raise themselves up to heaven and take possession of it ; and we, with all our knowledge, plunge ourselves into the infernal abyss." The folly of what men conceive to be wisdom may be found in Corin- thians : — " I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and wall bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise ? Where is the scribe ? Where is the disputer of this world ? Hath not God made foolish, the wisdom of this world ? For after that, in the, wisdom of Cod, the world knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Conceit, that is, what men think they know, but do not know, does ten times more damage than was ever done- by ignorance. The wisest man the world ever pro- duced, Socrates, said that "he knew this, that he knew nothing." And Cicero says: "Something I must say, I)ut so as to affirm nothing. I inquire into all things, but for the most part in doubt and distrust of my. self." But as Montaigne truly says: "The ignorance that knows itself, judges and condemns itself, is not an absolute ignorance ; to be such, it must be ignorant of it- self : so that the profession of the fyrrhonians is to waver doubt, and inquire, not to make themselves sure of, or responsible for anything." 14 PRACTICAL LIFE AND Yet wisdom is good — provided always that it really is wisdom, and the right kind of wisdom at that. The mere gratification of a morbid curiosity is not wisdom. Mental culture, as we have it in this, the Nineteeth Century, is- not wisdom. The mere storing of the mind with supposed facts, often untrue and generally useless, is not wisdom. Agesilaus, king of Sparta, being asked what he thought, most proper for boys to learn, replied very properly : " Those things which they ought to practice when they become men." And yet under the prevailing system of education, more particularly as furnished in our high schools and colleges, it is the last thing thought of. This, sort of education, as it is termed, is no recent development. As long ago as 1580, three hundred years since, Michael Montaigne wrote : " We only toil and labor to stuff the memory, and in the meantime leave the conscience and the understanding untrained and void. And like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain, and bring it home in their beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there out of several authors, and hold it at the tongue's end, only to distribute amongst their pupils." There were possibly giants in those days — schoolmasters they certainly had. And even further back, we learn from Seneca, that " they did not learn how to live, but how to dispute." Yet what is, or what should be, the great aim and study of life, if not to learn "how to live"? The same author that we have just quoted above, Montaigne, says: "It is not the proper business of knowledge to enlighten a soul that is dark of itself; nor to make a blind man see. Her business is not to find a man eyes, but to guide, govern and direct his steps, provided he has sound feet, and straight legs to go upon." This we understand to be the end and aim of true education. But mere training of the intellect, as we have it in our schools, does not effect this object To quote the words of Froude : "Intellectual culture does not touch the conscience." Or, as Herbert Spencer expresses it in his late work on Sociology : " All THE STUDY OF MAN. 15 ■see that for social welfare, good character is more impor- tant than much knowledge. And yet the manifest corol- lary is not drawn. What effect will be produced on char- acter by artificial appliances for spreading knowledge is not asked. Of the ends to be kept in view by the legis- lator, all are unimportant compared with the end of char- acter-making, and yet character-making is an end wholly unrecognized." With all our boasted free schools, all our learned men .and our richly endowed colleges all over this country, people are dying every year by thousands, solely for the want of a little knowledge. They have learning, perhaps, but that learning which is not knowledge. Even the poor ■dumb beasts of the forest and field show more wisdom ' than we do, especially in domestic matters. They make better matches when they select their mates, and their young are generally reared and educated more sensibly, more prudently than the children of the present day, in .some of the best families. As a general thing, men know too much and can do too little. What they know is fre- quently a damage to them. Learning, perhaps, has trained and cultivated the mind, but it has made a desert of the heart. Our schools and colleges are constantly sending out from their halls young men by hundreds who are at the same time both ignorant and helpless. Let us introduce here the picture of a learned man as "painted by himself. The writer is a graduate of Ox- ford, and the paragraph we copy is from the New York Herald of a recent date : "After having sunk several thousand dollars in a bad land purchase in New Jersey, I came to this city to make ' earnest exertions ' for a livelihood. My pen has enjoyed a high reputation in both hemispheres. It had achieved success before I left the university. Its productions have received on more than one occasion the most flattering notice both in your editorial and critical columns. It is not a stranger to the columns of the Herald. Every most - earnest exertion ' a man could make I have made to sup- 16 PRACTICAL LIFE AND port my wife and myself. My ' reward ' is that, for the last twelve months, poverty has separated me from a wife I worship, whom I am unable to support — the keenest anguish the heart knows — and I, myself, have throughout this long, sad period of bereavement been continually threatened with starvation, which is now almost at my elbow." Ignorance makes willing subjects ; intelligence breeds arrogance, presumption and discontent, "A soul clear from prejudice has made a marvelous advance toward tranquility and repose. Men that judge and control their judges, do never fully submit to them. How much more docile and easy to be governed, both by the laws of religion and civil polity, are simple and incurious minds than over- vigilant wits, that will still be prating of divine and human causes." — Montaigne. And the same author observes : " Whoever will number us by our actions and deportments, will find many more excellent men amongst the ignorant than among the learned ; aye, in all sorts of virtue." This was written several hundred years ago, but is quite as true to-day. If one will examine into the pri- vate life of the learned men of this or any other country,, he will be sure to find some of the most unprincipled and most narrow-minded of the human family. We might give names, but it is not necessary. We do not pretend that this is the rule, but the exceptions are unpleasantly numerous. We have the word of so candid a man as. Samuel Smiles, in Character, that u intellectual capacity is sometimes found associated with the meanest moral character." And G-eorge Herbert tells us that "a handful of good life is worth a bushel of learning." THE BARBARITIES AND BRUTALITIES OF MAN.. We live in an enlightened age — at least so everybody says, and so almost everybody believes. We have had the light of the gospel for over eighteen hundred years. THE STUDY OF MAX. 17 We call ourselves, we the people of America and Europe alike — Christians : we claim to love Christ, and follow the teachings of Christ ; we are a sanctified people ; we spread abroad the light of our benign countenance and the influ- ence of our holy example, not only in our own country, but far away in distant heathen lands. But let us see what sort of folks these highly cultured and dearly beloved children of the Most High prove to be by their works. Let us see wherein they surpass the poor pagan whom they despise, and just how much purer and more perfect they are than those low barba- rians of the earth who have neither churches nor school houses, and whose early education therefore has been so sadly neglected. We will not take up individual cases, as these might seem to be phenomenal or exceptional, and hence, as evidence, objectionable. Let us, on the contrary, take men as they appear in the lump, and as they act in masses. Let us take whole nations, — not the wild Turk, or the Moldavians, or the Wallachians, or even the rude Cossacks of the Don. We will take Grermany or France, or better still, because nearer home, we will take England or America for illustration. The English are, perhaps, the most cultured, enlightened and Christian-like people on the globe. But what has been their history for the last hundred years, to go back no further ? Have they not swept over the whole earth like spirits of evil, desolating, destroying or devouring, burning or burying whatever came in their way ? They found the poor Indians in peaceable possession of the New World, something over three hundred years ago, and they, or their descendants, have waged an exterminating war against these children of the earth every hour since. They have done the same thing in every instance wherever they have found a feeble race unable to contend with them. They did so in Australia ; they did so in China, and more particularly so in India. Was there ever anything done, either by an individual or a nation, that was more villain- ous than what England did, when by sheer force of 18 PRACTICAL LIFE AND arms she compelled the Chinese to buy and eat opium, merely for the profits that might accrue to her from the commerce which the article afforded? The Chinese government protested, but protested in vain. England was strong, and her strength prevailed, as strength generally prevails. Within the last hundred years she has taken from China by the continued sale of this poison no less a sum than $800,000,000. What cares she what misery she causes, provided suitable dividends are real- ized? What does any man or any people care, who have the power, how much harm they do, if they can only secure the profits? We might dwell upon her course in the slave trade. We might refer to her treatment of the Afghans and Zulus ; but the limits of the arti- cle forbid. Let us quote what Justin McCarthy says of the treat- ment of the Sepoys of India by their English conquerors. " It is painful/' says this author, in referring to English feeling in regard to the rebellion, "that the talk was not of repression, but revenge. Public speakers and writers were shrieking out for the vengeance which must be inflicted on India when the rebellion had been put down." And what had these sensitive and superstitious Sepoys done ? Why, they had tried to become free, and endeavored to shake off the yoke of oppression that held them down to the dust, and were endeavoring to assert their manhood. Were they, with all their barbarities, all their crimes, worse than their English oppressors ? No, nor half so bad. They had some excuse for what they did — the English had none. But the English are no exception to the rule among en- lightened nations. The same spirit would^have manifested itself, and always has done so under similar circumstances, in France, in Germany, in America. It is not security that is demanded in such cases, but justice — a term which generally, with conquerors, is a synonym of vengeance. We might add in this connection that one distinguished officer went a little further than the rest, or rather ex- pressed his feelings more boldly, and was clamorous for THE STUDY OF MAN. 19 authority from the English government to impale, burn alive, and flay the mutineers whenever they fell into his hands. He said that they had murdered English women, but even that was not proved. And how did the English treat Nana Sahib ? Of him McCarthy remarks, "It is a painful thing to say, but it is necessary for the truth of this history, that the wrongs of which he complained were genuine. He had been treated with injustice." This Nana Sahib was hunted, and when -caught, treated as a hyena — and all this for no other crime than his daring to contend for his rights, and - his strug- gling to secure the crown to which, by all rules of justice, he was fairly entitled. To continue Indian history a little further, let us refer to officer Hodgson. This English gentleman captured the royal princes of Delhi, and when he had them in his power, he tried, condemned and executed them himself, without either hesitation or ceremony. This was a mur- der as cold-blooded as any villain ever committed, and vet the historian informs us, apologetically, that officer Hodgson was a " brave and clever soldier." That might t>e said of many rascals of even higher standing than officer Hodgson. Where in the history of beings, whether brute or hu- man, shall we find atrocities so shocking as those commit- ted under English authority in the unfortunate island of Jamaica ? The negroes were hunted as if they were wild swine. Men, women and children were whipped or shot down at the option of the soldier or his commanding officer. Houses were burned everywhere, and desolation fell like a funeral pall wherever the English standard was unfurled. In the words of one historian, " the history of events in Jamaica, told in whatever way, must form a sad and shocking narrative. The history of this generation has no such tale to tell, where any race of civilized and Christian men was concerned." We have taken our illustrations thus far from the En- glish people, not assuming or believing that they are any 20 PRACTICAL LIFE AND worse than other enlightened people, but we give them as a fair -sample of what any race of men would do with a. helpless, benighted and ignorant people writhing under their feet. Such acts of barbarity and brutality can be found in the history of every race, and in every age, from the days of Cain down to the present time. Let us come still nearer home. Let us see what America, the land of churches and free schools, can properly boast of. She has, it is true, not carried the sin of conquest quite as far as the mother country, but there is time enough left. Yet, on a limited scale, her petty barbarities and re- fined rascalities will compare favorably with those of the most enlightened Christian countries in Europe. For many years she connived at the slave trade ; and for many years longer she held in most shameful bondage a feeble and oppressed raee. It is true she abolished slavery some time since, but not as a mark of repentance on her part, or an evidence of remorse for the sins already committed. The abolishing of slavery was not a deliberate act. It. was merely an incident of the late war. The treatment of the American Indians by the Ameri- can people for at least a full hundred years, has rarely had, in the whole history of the world, its parallel for savage- ness and outrage. They have pursued these unfortunate aborigines with all the ferocity of tigers, and in doing so they seem to have been animated by but one single pur- pose, and that is the extermination of the Indian race. These barbarities, long continued and inhuman as they were, have not been the exceptional work of a few men. They have been the work of a nation. The government has legalized all sorts of atrocities and justified and en- dorsed all sorts of crimes. It has put the seal of approval on certain acts of its agents, which if done by individuals on their own responsibility, would have sent them either to the penitentiary or the gibbet. From the time of the first formation of our government until the present time, the Indian has been hunted as legitimate game. It was only necessary to show that the victim w T as a wild Indian THE STUDY OF MAN. 21 to justify shooting him on sight. The Indians driven to despair and desperation as they were, really were bad enough themselves. But their white persecutors have always proved more than a match for them in wickedness and crime. Sitting Bull, Capt. Jack or King Philip never conceived anything half so savage and atrocious as the Chivington Massacre, which was conducted by enlightened Christian white men. Treaties, solemn and sacred as treaties ever were, have been made with the Ked Men, but made only to be broken at will. Step by step they have been forced back till they stand to-day upon the very shores of the Pacific. They have gone from one reserva- tion to another, only to be driven, after a brief pause, still nearer to destruction. Disease has been spread amongst them merely to gratify lust, and poisoned whiskey dealt out to them from no other motive than the profits which the traffic would afford. The Indians have been both starved and robbed. What is an Indian agent but a licensed bandit? The government officials know what he is, and share in the spoils. The government connives at these outrages, and justifies them on the ground that the sufferer is nothing but an Indian. It will not answer to argue that intelligence makes men better. Neither does religion seem to elevate, to any ap- preciable extent, the standard of a man's morality. It is well known that the American people have more intelli- gence and religion than usually falls to the lot of man, and yet their sense of justice, propriety, fairness and decency is hardly up to the average. Their history shows baser conduct as a people than ever disgraced either the Turk or the Hottentot, They are humane, it is true, but hu- mane only by spells. Such is man the world over. All he wants is an op- portunity. Give a man the power, and he is always a tyrant, and generally a savage. It is restraint alone that makes the deportment of men both civil and proper. If the history of men in the treatment of their families could be laid open to the public, what chapters of cruelties and 22 PRACTICAL LIFE AND injustice it would be found to contain! How blind and unobserving is benevolence and pliilanthrophy ! We wee}) bitter tears of anguish for the enslaved black man, but the cries of oppressed women and children, who stops to notice ? And the sorrows and sufferings of the Ked Men of the west, who stops to give them attention ? We are liberal with our sympathies, but are rather partic- ular upon whom they are bestowed. The tiger and' hyena are both harmless enough when hampered and confined in a cage, but once again at liberty, in the limitless area of their own forest, the old nature of the tiger and hyena is sure to reappear. So it is with man even in his best estate. When restrained by laws and awed by the club of the policeman, by the bay- onet of the soldier, or perhaps the dread of public opinion, he is as meek and manageable as need be ; but give him liberty and power, give him the opportunity, and the original savage and brute is certain again to reappear and replace the enlightened man. History illustrates and proves this fact in every age of the world and in every land on the globe. Under the ordinary rules of civilization, savageness and brutalhy are kept suppressed, but these features sometimes make their appearance even under very unfavorable conditions. If we were to look for individual illustrations, we might refer to Cat-aline, the Roman, as described by Cicero, who made away with his own wife, that he might marry Aurelia, a woman as wicked as she was beautiful ; and his own child he killed, because Aurelia objected to a step- son. But this, Cicero adds, was common enough in those days. "Boys of ten years old had learned the art of poisoning their fathers, and adultery and incest had be- come familiar excitements." No brutes, or savages, even in their ignorance and stupidity, ever did worse or more than this. Yet this was in Rome, enlightened, powerful and brilliant Rome ! The character of the Romans may be best understood by considering their pastimes and the things that gave THE STUDY OF MAN. 23 them pleasure. Nothing delighted the aristocratic and enlightened Eoman so much as slaughter. Blood, blood and suffering, always afforded a feast to him. The lead- ing structure, wherever the Komans held rule, was the amphitheatre. Here wild beasts were placed, to fight and destroy* each other. Here captives were thrown to be devoured by lions and tigers, to delight the Eoman eye. The Komans had about the same spirit and tendency as that indicated by the French novelist in speaking of the English. Their leading thought was : " Let us go out and kill something." Let us turn from Rome in 70 B. C, to France in the eighteenth century. The picture given is that of Napo- leon, and the painter is Herbert Spencer. " He got an- tagonists into his power by promises of clemency, and then executed them. To strike terror, he descended to barbar- ities like those of the blood-thirsty conquerors of old, of whom his career reminds us, as in Egypt, when, to avenge fifty of his soldiers, he beheaded two thousand fellah, and threw their corpses into the Nile ; or as at Jaffa, when 2,500 of the garrison, who finally surrendered, were at his order deliberately massacred. Indeed, the instincts of the savage were scarcely at all qualified in him by what we call moral sentiments, as we see in his proposal to burn • two or three of the larger Communes ' in La Yendee. Contemplate now the greater crimes and then motives; Year after year he went on sacrificing, by tens of thous- ands and hundreds of thousands, the French people and the people of Europe at large, to gratify his lust of power and his hatred of opponents. In the Russian campaign alone, out of 552,000 men in Napoleon's army, but few ever returned home, while the Russian force of 200,000 was reduced to less than 40,000." This was Napoleon, whom the world to-day admires and calls the greatest of men ! In the name of mercy and reason, if such a man stands at the head, what shall we think of the rest of mankind ? Some people place no value at all on another man's life. 24 PRACTICAL LIFE AND They kill without thinking, and are totally devoid of feel- ing and sympathy. During the war of 1796 a sailor went to Mr. McLaren, a watchmaker, and presenting a small French watch to him, demanded to know what the repair of it would come to. The watchmaker, after examining it, said : "It will be more expensive repairing it than its original cost." "I don't mind that," said the tar coolhy, " I will even give you double the original cost, for I have a veneration for the watch." "What might you have given for it ?" asked Mr. McLaren. " Why," rejDlied the sailor, " I gave a fellow a blow on the head, and if you will repair it I will give you two" We might stop here to notice the enormities of which Scotch missionaries, and doubtless many other mission- aries, were guilty in their management of the poor blacks in Africa, whipping them, and even murdering them, for the smallest offences, sometimes real and sometimes im- aginary, but let us rather dwell upon some of the brutal practices that prevail in Prussia. The following is taken from the London Times, and the writer is a well-known scholar of Cambridge : " To-day I have seen vivisection ; but' it was voluntary vivisection — I mean some 'German students fighting duels and making butcher's meat of each other's faces. We went into a beer garden, in which was a shed used for music. Groups of students and other men and boys were seated about under the trees at tables; the students of the fighting corps, known by their little colored caps, were in the house or sauntering about, for there had been one duel and their faces were being sowed up. Presently a crowd walked out of the house, and every one ran to the shed and looked in. The combatants were not corps students, and therefore not much practiced hands. They came forward, bandaged up, with great ugly shields over their bodies, spectacles over their eyes, and the right arm twice the natural size by reason of the wrappings. They looked extremely uncomfortable, pale and trembling. The students hold up their right arm before starting, for thev THE STUDY OF MAX. 25 may never lower them below the shoulder. Everything is now ready. A couple of seconds stand behind and hold their swords. " On guard I" " Let loose I" They begin to slash. They fight very badly, slashing at one another as hard as they can ; the swords are old hacked, soft iron things. After some four strokes, " Halt I" is cried. Blood is drawn ; then they go at it again, after every four or five hits, fresh blood being drawn and the swords being straightened afresh. So they go on, and the spectacle gets more and more horrible. The blood at 'first comes trick- ling down the face on to the collar, a great hairy thing which soon becomes sopping ; then it falls on to the shirt, the breast of which becomes also sopping. On and on they go, getting very nervously excited, so that one man can scarcely gulp in the water which they give him where- with to wash, his mouth. There are a hundred or more spectators, among whom are two or three women and a little girl and boy. A lot of corps students stand around with ugly, seamed faces. One tall, small-headed fellow with face covered with scars, keeps the time. At last it is decided that they have fought enough, and they go out; but there are five more to follow, so we stop for another bout. This time they are two corps students, practiced fighters — one with a red, the other with a green cap. They have never known one another, but they soon get worked up into frenzy. This duel is even more horrible than the last. One of the combatants is a big vulgar-looking fellow, his face already nastily scarred. The other, a little lame man with a half -sized mustache. These slash away some dozen times before they hit. It is announced that the duel is to last thirty minutes, unless a bad hit is made. Again a few small cuts come first, and then more, and more. The big man has his lip cut again and again, and his forehead and cheek; the little man is even worse. Soon after each round, the doctor has to sop up their faces with a sponge. The blood pours down ; some students standing by, drink beer and eat bread and sausage. They get so tired, that after each round they 26 PRACTICAL LIFE AND lean down or sink into chairs, their right arms being still held out They slash so fearfully hard that their swords- strike lire and get bent into semicircles. It is so hideous that I cannot look, but turn away, squeeze tight my eyes, and only hear the continual cries, " On guard !" " Make ready !"' " Off I" And then the clashing of swords, until a dull thump is heard and the men cry " Halt !" This goes on for more than half an hour. I can only see the face of the big man ; its ugliness surpasses anything I have ever seen ; his big lips open, the lower one purple, very bloated and hanging ; the nose swollen and bloated ; the face a dull red color, save where it was streaked with the dark red blood. His eyes were goggly, staring and bloodshot, and his hair had been brought over the forehead to stick together the gashes. With such a face, he stood limp against a chair, with drooping shoulders, slouching figure, and blood dropping all about him from his matted hair to the blood dripping nose, the streaming mouth and the red shirt. At last the little man gave the other what they call a deep cut on the forehead and the end is announced ; the small fellow was beaten, for he was too weak to go on. I now, for the first time, saw his face; I never saw any- thing so dreadful. Supported by some students he hob- bled off, more than half his face literally one sheet of blood : the mustache crimson, the black hair rinsed, the collar and breastplate covered with wet and half -congealed blood, and, underneath, the remains of "former contests. As he walked off, I felt such disgust as I never remember feeling before. There were two more to come, but I could stand it no longer, and came away. But I am glad to have seen this dueling. No doubt it requires a consider- able amount of pluck ; but anything so utterly and un- speakably hideous, I have never seen before. And this is manly and chivalrous, they say ! The unpleasant ac- companiments of chivalry intensified, and without a spark of its beauty." Our next illustration is from the peasantry of Brittany, in the north-west of France, a peculiar people with strange THE STUDY OF MAN. 27 customs, hut after all pretty well civilized. The account is taken from the Cornhill Magazine: — •• There must be a strain of tiger in a population which could amuse itself as lately as 1847 in cutting the life out of friends with a whip made after this fashion : Lash eighteen feet long, swelling a little distance from the handle to the thickness of a man's arm, from whence it tapered to a twisted and strongly-knotted end, made more like a knife by the help of a mixture of glue. This plaything was fixed upon a strong stiff stick, and often not only cut a man into steaks, but sometimes cut out the life of him at a single stroke. Yet a local historian gives an account of a fete which he attended in 1847, at which the chief at- traction was a contest between twelve men, six on a side, with these deadly weapons. The smack of these whips made, he says, much more noise than a gun-shot ; they could be heard at the distance of two and a half miles, and when several smack their whips in concert, the noise is so terrible that one must either run aAvay or stop up one's ears. These twelve men were ranged opposite to one another at a distance almost corresponding to the length of the lashes of their whips. They stood up hav- ing for protection in the shape of dress, only short felt breeches, and shirts made of stout sail-cloth. Like all Breton peasants of the old style, their hair hung down their backs in long tresses, but was cut square across the forehead, after the fashion of Gainsborough's "Blue Boy."" They wore no hats or head covering. The left arm was naked, but the right arm which held the whip was pro- tected from the fist to the neck by an armlet or shield of thick leather. The sides were distinguished by the color of the tufts of their whips ; the one being white, the other- red. These men, thus standing face to face, w T ere there to be wounded almost to death for the glory thereof, and also for the prize, which consisted of half a dozen striped pocket handkerchiefs and a pound of tobacco. The signal given by an old peasant, the combatants put themselves into an attitude of defence, the whip raised, while the 23 PRACTICAL LIFE AND lash was held in the left hand. "Strike!" said the same voice, and the twelve cables were let loose in an instant, but no smack was heard as they met, twisted and struggled in mid-air. Those most renowned quickly disengaged their lashes, and dealt the second and dreadful blow upon the persons of their antagonists, opening up long seams of livid or bleeding flesh ; on the third stroke, all the faces except two were seamed and flowing with blood. Those two were the leaders — one tall, the other short ; one heavy, the other light ; one all flesh, the other, although only five feet high, all nerves and sinews. An outsider would have backed the giant, but the boys of Pipriac knew too well the prowess of the dwarf to risk their money against him. The contest now raged with fury ; men disdained to parry, they were only eager to strike. The sound was that of a volley of musketry. The lashes soften into tow, but harden again and glue themselves together with blood. The faces are no longer human ; the long hair hangs down in front, bathed in perspiration and blood. Bat not one blow has fallen on either champion. They have reserved themselves ; they have guarded and parried, knowing that upon them the issue of the fight did depend. But now the tall man has hit home. A long, blue, spiral mark, which here and there squirts blood, twists round the left arm of the little Joseph, and makes him stagger with pain. He recovers himself ; .launches his whip at his foe, and but six inches intervened between its deadly point and the face of Joseph the great. Animated by his first success, Kaer stepped forward and bent his whole strength to the blow which he aimed at Josille. The little man never parried the blow, but pirouetted as it were ; while, without any effort, he threw out his lash softly. The blow of Kaer missed ; but when Josille sharply drew back his lash, the whole face of Kaer was cut in half — a gigantic gap opened up the very bones. These two stood alone in the lists ; the rest had made a truce, and were engaged in attending to their grievous wounds. Kaer, blinded by the shock, put his armlet of leather before his face and paused. Jo- THE STUDY OF MAN 29 sille, so far from profiting by the occasion and pressing his advantage, coolly took out his pocket-handkerchief and loudly blew his nose, to the great amusement of his backers, who thought it an excellent joke. The laughter made Kaer mad, threw him out of his sang froid, and made him wild. He struck, stamped, and made wonderful points ; but Josille was calm ; and at the end of ten min- utes the giant, covered wfth wounds, his shirt cut into ribbons, his mouth foaming, his eyes blinded, fell heavily upon his knees. " Don't give in," cried some voices still ; but the effort to rise was vain. Josille, apparently incap- able of pity, like a true Breton peasant, again blew his nose and prepared to give the falling man his coup de grace. A shiver ran through the crowd ; but Josille was better than he seemed, for, instead of cutting the poor flesh, he dexterously drew the whip out of the hands of the victim, ;and folded his arms upon his breast. Kaer shut his eyes, and laid his burning head upon the sand. The whites were proclaimed the victors. Each subaltern had a pocket handkerchief worth six pence, and Josille the pound of tobacco. I know not whether any of these scenes are en- acted now, but this account is so recent that it throws light on the Breton peasant as I find him." As strong, and at the same time as true a picture, as we ever saw, illustrative of the brutality of man, is to be found in Johnson's "Idler." The conversation there given is between two vultures, a young one and its mother, who is giving it instruction in the ways of life. " Two herds unt. certainly has not had that experience in under- takings which time will be sure to give him. TVhat men have who succeed, and what men have not who fail, is persistence and endurance. Little can be accomplished without them. The history of every great man, and the •success of every great enterprise, is a lesson to prove the truth of these propositions. You have only to recall Grant in his terrible siege around Vicksburg. or in his long and bloody road to Richmond, if you wish to see what delays and reverses a great man can endure, and besides what labor, patience and perseverance can accom- plish, when guided and directed by prudence and genius. 'The history of the Atlantic cable must be fresh in the minds of every one. Its projectors had that kind of faith of which Christ tells us. and they triumphed; in the face of the ridicule of the world, of the learned quite as well 32 PRACTICAL LIFE AND as the ignorant, who were able to see that such an enter- prise was equally absurd and impracticable, they triumphed; but not until the experiment had been tried five times, three times fully and twice partially, and with the ex- penditure of several millions of dollars. Once they had laid the cable across the whole ocean, but after a few hours it refused to do its work ; once again the attempt was made, but when far out on the stormy deep, the wires proved defective, the cable parted, and the projectors were compelled to abandon the work, sad as they were, if not disheartened. Again it was tried, and this time the work was crowned with complete success, and the Atlantic cable is to-day a proud and enduring monument of the final triumph of science, energy, patience and perseverance, over obstacles almost universally believed to be quite insurmountable. When Napoleon desired to pass the Alps, he sent an officer to examine all the passes of that mighty wall, in order to determine whether it was possible to take an army across that barrier. On the return of the officer, his answer was: "It is barely possible." "Then w T e will start to-morrow," was Napoleon's prompt rejoinder.. He that is turned away by straws will seldom succeed in finding anything more than straws to reward his efforts- Strong and brave men who fail once try again, try some other way, adopt some other plan and 'support themselves with other means. Such efforts as these make men rich,, make men great, make orators and statesmen, celebrated authors and renowned commanders. The biography of every good and great man is a lesson for those to read who have high aspirations and fond hopes of renown. "The more I am beaten down, the more I am lift up," was the remark of Prynne while undergoing the torture measured out to him by his enemies. This is the spirit of a man that cannot be conquered, and that so long as he feels that he is right, refuses to yield. Such men usually triumph, as the unfortunate Prynne finally triumphed over his enemies. We find a different illustration of the power of persistence in the case of Mr. Busby, the barris- THE STUDY OF MAX. 33 ter. As the coach was about starting, the modest gentle- man, then a young man, approached the landlady, a very handsome Quakeress, who was seated by the fire, and said he could not think of leaving without giving the sweet lady a kiss. " Friend," said she, " thee must not do it." " Oh, by heavens, I will !" replied the persistent bar- rister. •' Well, friend, as thou hast sworn, thee may do it, but thee must not make a practice of it." Perhaps i:o general suffered more defeats than William, Prince of Orange, but he triumphed in the end, for he was one cf those who could turn defeat into victory. When the Duke of Buckingham, who had come to him to negotiate at the Hague, asked him if he did not see that his country was lost, William's answer was : " There is a sure way never to see it lost, and that is to die in the last ditch." The best thing that can be reasonably said of Charles the Second is, that he was strongest when defeated. Energy is one thing, industry is another ; but persistence is different from either. The men who succeed are not those who are strong simply, even if they exercise their strength. Neither are they those who labor hard, but, perhaps, not to good purpose. Success belongs chiefly to those who persist in what they undertake, and who, if they fail to-day, try again to-morrow, and so continue until success crowns the efforts they have made. It is persistence that gives history its great names, and supplies it with the miraculous deeds of all ages. EXPERIENCE. It is said that experience is a dear school, and that fools will learn in no other. But the fact is, the lessons taught by experience must be learned by wise men quite as well as fools. As no man can learn to do business by mere study, so a man can never fully understand amy of the realities of life, until he has tested them in his experience. Theory is one thing, and practice something entirely differ- 34 PRACTICAL LIFE AND ent. What we conceive life to be, and what, on trial, we find it to be, are almost always two separate and distinct matters. We can never know the value of the things we have, until we have by actual trial compared them with things we do not have. If, for example, we have lived in the east, we shall never know how good or poor a location the east is, until we have actually tried the south or west. A man can never full}' understand what pinching poverty is, unless at some time in his life he has really been poor himself. We can never fully sympathize with others in their misfortunes, unless at some former period we have found ourselves suffering from similar afflictions. If we have never lost near relatives, we can- not properly appreciate the sorrows of those who have re- cently buried their beloved dead. It is one matter to see a thing done, and quite another matter to 2:0 and do it ourselves. REVERENCE. The steady decline in the matter of reverence, as seen in the progress and development of the American people, is really one of the most alarming symptoms. It begins in the cradle, and ends only with the grave. All through the different stages of American life is witnessed a growing disregard for age and authority, and a steadily increasing tendency to rely upon the omnipotence of man, instead of the omnipotence of God. The conceit of the present day is absolutely amazing ; it obstructs all progress and destroys all subordination. Carried to its ultimate and inevitable limit, it ends in anarchy, social demorali- zation and political ruin. " The Romans ceased to believe," says Froude, in his "Life of Julius Caesar," and "in losing their faith, they became as steel becomes when it is demag- netized, the spiritual quality was gone out of them, and the high society of Rome itself became a society of powerful animals with an enormous appetite for pleasure." Caesar THE STUDY OF MAX. 35 himself defied the auguries, and it is not strange at all that he met the tragic and untimely death which is recorded in history. Men. no matter how great, who depend upon themselves, are certain either to fall eventually, or to die early. It was Xapoleon's fate ; it was Alexander's as well ; It has been the fate of every man who finally came to forget God and depend entirely upon his own counsel and ability. The French abandoned God and worshiped reason, which is only another name for man, and it is well known how soon the structure reared upon that basis went tumbling to the aTound. This was true of France at an -earlier date, but it was equally true of France for a consid- erable period just preceding the disastrous war of 1870. Col. Stoffel, the French representative at Berlin, as late