A man, who had by his own unaided exertions become rich, was asked by his friend the secret of his success. "I accumulated," said he, "about one-half of my property by attending to my own business, and the other half by letting other people's entirely alone.”

Never be discouraged by difficulties; depend upon it, how great soever they may be, by dint of patience and perseverance you will surmount them.

Firm determination, especially if exercised by one possessing great and splendid gifts, will accomplish most things that are worth accomplishing in this world. Take earnestly hold of life as capacitated for, and destined to, a high and noble purpose. Study closely the mind's bent for labour or a profession. Adopt it early and pursue it steadily. Means and ways are abundant to every man's success, if will and action are rightly adapted to them. Many of our rich men have carved their paths to fortune.

Wealth is not obtained, as many persons suppose, by fortunate speculations and splendid enterprises, but by the practice of industry and economy, and above all, by the acquisition of sound bodily health. He who relies upon these means will rarely be found destitute, and he who relies upon any other will generally become bankrupt.

To sigh or repine over the lack of inheritance is unmanly. Every man should strive to be creator instead of inheritor, being conscious of the power in him and the Providence over him. Let him feel that it is better to earn a crust than to inherit coffers of gold. When once this spirit of self-reliance is learned, every man will discover within himself the elements and capacities of wealth. Those who commence their career under the most favourable auspices and the most flattering prospects of success do not always obtain the eminence they seek.

"If men were content to grow rich somewhat more slowly, they would grow rich much more surely; and if they would use their capital within reasonable limits, and transact with it only so much business as it could fairly control, they would be far less liable to lose it. Excessive profits always involve the liability of great

risks as in a lottery, in which there are high prizes, there must be a great proportion of blanks."

There is a certain ordeal which all men must undergo in their passage through life; and it is very questionable whether he succeeds the best who commences under the most apparently advantageous circumstances. There is such a thing as a man depending too much upon his means, and too little upon himself; small certainties, it has been observed, are often the ruin of a man. To be thrown upon one's own resources is often to be cast into the very lap of fortune, for our faculties then undergo development, and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible.

The success of individuals in life is greatly owing to their early learning to depend on their own resources.

In early childhood you lay the foundation of poverty or riches in the habits you give your children. Teach them to save everything, not for their own use, for that would make them selfish -but for some use. Teach them to share everything with their playmates, but never allow them to destroy anything. It is possible to observe the most exact economy without either meanness or discomfort. It is the character of true economy to be as comfortable with a little as others can be with much.

Money, or the expectation of it by inheritance, has ruined more men than the want of it ever did. Teach young men to rely upon their own efforts, to be frugal and industrious, and you have furnished them with a productive capital which no man can ever wrest from them.

"Let them work hard and fare hard, and they need not go to California to get rich," said one in speaking of a friend who had left his home for the gold streams of California. "That is the secret of success: only let the people work as hard here as they do when they get to California, and my word for it they'll soon get ahead anywhere."

It is said, and said truly, that setting a young man afloat in the world with money left him by friends and relatives is like tying bladders under the arms of one who cannot swim, and setting him

afloat upon the ocean; ten chances to one he will lose or break his bladders, or go to the bottom. Teach him in the first place to swim, and he has no need of bladders, and he will not depend on them to keep himself afloat. Give children sound moral and literary education, useful learning for sails, and integrity for ballast; set them afloat upon the sea of life, and their voyage will be prosperous and their destiny safe. The only money that does a young man good is what he earns himself. A ready-made fortune, like ready-made clothes, seldom fits the man who comes into possession. Nothing makes a man more economical than living on his own account. A parent may leave an estate to a son, but how soon may it be mortgaged! He may leave him money, but soon it may be squandered. Better leave him a sound constitution, habits of industry, an unblemished reputation, a good education, and an inward abhorrence of vice in any shape or form; these cannot be wrested from him, and are better than thousands of gold and silver.

Every man has the secret of becoming rich who resolves to live within his means; and independence is one of the most effectual safeguards of honesty. Let your food, living, and equipage be plain and not costly; avoid expensive clothing; do not sink your capital by purchasing plate or splendid furniture. It is hard for a man to amass riches by toiling in his shop, while there is a leakage at home in his kitchen.

"What a small kitchen!" exclaimed Queen Elizabeth, after going through a handsome mansion. "It is by having so small a kitchen," replied the owner, "that I am enabled to keep so large a house." Don't buy what you don't want think twice before you throw away a shilling; remember you will have another to make for it.

Curran used to say that the first desideratum for a man's success at the bar was to be not worth a shilling. His own career was an apt illustration of his saying; and in the career of many a man besides, equally distinguished with himself, it has been amply corroborated.

Cobbett says:

"Look not for success to favour, to partiality, to

friendship, or to what is called interest; write it on your heart that you will depend solely on your own merit and on your own exertions. For that which a man owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is constantly liable to be taken from him."

Don't rely upon friends. Don't rely upon the name of your ancestors. Thousands have spent the prime of life in the vain hope of aid from those whom they called friends, and thousands have starved because they had rich fathers. Rely upon the good name which is made by your own exertions; and know that better than the best friend you can have is unquestionable deter mination, united with decision of character.

There is no greater obstacle in the way of success in life than trusting to something to turn up, instead of going to work and turning up something, if it be only a potato. It is a curious trait in the character of mankind, and one worth the metaphysician's best consideration, that there is some hidden propensity in the mind of man that prompts a reliance on chances rather than on certainties. He is continually trusting to what may rather than to what will happen, and there are few, perhaps, who have sufficient self-denial to resist the exchange of a scanty certainty for a more alluring uncertainty. Wouldn't you call a man a fool who should spend all his time fishing up oysters, with the expectation of finding a pearl; but is he really more unwise than hundreds who, with their hands in their pockets and cigars in their mouths, are waiting for something to turn up, or turn over, that will throw them at once into business and fortune?

If you are poor, do not let folks know it, or they will discover in you a thousand blemishes, a host of defects, which would never be discovered, or at least talked about, if you kept a stiff upper lip, and carried yourself as if you had a thousand pounds at your command. It is as natural for the world to hold poor folks in contempt as it is for a rat to steal cheese.

It was a rule with the historian Gibbon to tell no man what he was worth. "If it is much," he said, "I shall excite envy; if it is little, and I let it be known, I shall thereby bring on contempt.”

He who expends money properly is its master; he who lays it up is its keeper; he who loses it, a fool; he who fears it, a slave; and he who adores it, an idolator.

Two men have laboured fruitlessly and exerted themselves to no purpose. One is the man who has gained wealth without enjoying it; the other, he who has acquired knowledge, but has failed to make use of it.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of his wishes is, therefore, destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession. He who teaches another to long for what he can never obtain is no less an enemy of his quiet than if he had robbed him of patrimony.

It cannot be too early or too deeply instilled into the minds of the young and inexperienced, that the means of happiness and riches are, in a great degree, in every man's power. A blind belief in destiny or fortune acts as a powerful stimulus to indolence and indecision, and makes men sit down and fold their hands in apathy. Nothing is more common in the world than for people to excuse their own indolence by referring the prosperity of others to the caprice of fortune. Success, every experienced man knows, is as generally a consequence of industry and good conduct as disappointment is the consequence of indolence and indecision. The difference in the progress which men make in life, who start with the same prospects and opportunities, is a proof that more depends upon conduct than fortune; and if a man, instead of envying his neighbour's fortune and deploring his own, should inquire what means he has employed, or that he has neglected, he would secure a result to his wishes. But the great misfortune is, few have courage to undertake, and fewer candour to execute such a system of self-examination. Thousands thus pass through life, angry with fate, when they ought to be angry with themselves; too fond of the enjoyments which riches procure ever to be happy without them, and too indolent and unsteady ever to pursue the legitimate means by which they are attainable.

The best way to gain property is by degrees. If you can save but two shillings a week above all your expenses, it is better than