“The Great Architect of the universe never placed his greatest creation at the mercy of petty trifles”

"Failure is, in a sense," says Keats, "the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid."

 

No man is a failure who is upright and true. No cause is a failure which is in the right. There is but one failure, and that is not to be true to the best that is in us.

 

All the great work of the world has been accomplished by courage, and the world's greatest victories have been born of defeat. Every blessing that we enjoy”personal security, individual liberty, and constitutional freedom”has been obtained through long apprenticeships of evil. The right of existing as a nation has only been accomplished through ages of wars and horrors. It required four centuries of martyrdom to establish Christianity.

 

It is defeat," says Henry Ward Beecher, That turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic natures that are now in ascendancy in the world. Do not, then, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.

 

"I always watch with great interest a young man's first failure," says Dr. Marden. "It is the index of his life, the measure of his success-power. The mere fact of his failure does not interest me much; but how did he take his defeat? What did he do next? Was he discouraged? Did he slink out of sight? Did he conclude that he had made a mistake in his calling, and dabble in something else? Or, did he get up and go at it again with a determination that knows no defeat?"

 

It has been said that Wellington was considered a dunce by his mother. At Eton he was called dull, idle, slow, and was about the last boy in school of whom anything was expected. He showed no talent, and had no desire to enter the army. His industry and perseverance were his only redeeming characteristics, in the eyes of his parents and teachers. But at forty-six he had defeated the greatest general living, except himself.

 

Genius has been well defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains.

 

The best tools receive their temper from fire, their edge from grinding; the noblest characters are developed in a similar way. The harder the diamond, the

more brilliant the lustre, and the greater the friction necessary to bring it out. Only its own dust is hard enough to make this most precious stone reveal its full beauty.

 

Difficulties call out great qualities, and make greatness possible. The man who has triumphed over difficulties bears the signs of victory in his face. An air of triumph is seen in every movement.

 

The great men who have lifted the world to a higher level were not developed in easy circumstances, but were rocked in the cradle of difficulties and pillowed on hardships.

 

Success is failure turned inside out.

 

Uninterrupted successes at the beginning of a career are dangerous. Beware of the first great triumph. It may prove a failure. Many a man has been ruined by over-confidence born of his first victory. The mountain oak, tossed and swayed in the tempest until its proud top sweeps the earth, is all the stronger for its hundred battles with the elements if it only straightens up again. The danger is not in a fall, but in failing to rise.

 

James Whitcomb Riley, the "Hoosier" poet, was once asked for his idea of the prime requisites for success in the field of letters, to which Mr. Riley replied: "The most essential factor is persistence”the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragements that must inevitably come. I believe that he is richer for the battle with the world, in any vocation, who has great determination and little talent, rather than his seemingly more fortunate brother with great talent, perhaps, but little determination."

 

No man fails who does his best, for if the critical world ignore him, his labor is weighed in the scales of Omniscient Justice. As there is no effect without cause, no loss of energy in the world, so conscientious persistence cannot fail of its ultimate reward.

 

It was Charles Sumner, speaking about success in life, who said, "Three things are necessary: first, backbone; second, backbone; third, backbone."

 

Even brains are second in importance to will. The vacillating man is always pushed aside in the race of life. It is only the weak and vacillating who halt before adverse circumstances and obstacles. A man with an iron will, with a determination that nothing shall check his career, if he has perseverance and grit, is sure to succeed.

 

There is something which everybody admires in an aspiring soul, one whose tendency is upward and onward, in spite of hindrances and in defiance of obstacles.

 

Columbus was dismissed as a fool from court after court, but he pushed his suit against an incredulous and ridiculing world. Rebuffed by kings, scorned by queens, he did not swerve a hairsbreadth from the overmastering purpose which dominated his soul. The words "New World" were graven upon his heart; and reputation, ease, pleasure, position, life itself if need be, must be sacrificed. Threats, ridicule, ostracism, storms, leaky vessels, mutiny of sailors, could not shake his mighty purpose.

 

You cannot keep a determined man from success. Place stumbling blocks in his way and he takes them for stepping-stones, and on them will climb to great

ness. Take away his money, and he males spurs of his poverty to urge him on. Cripple him, and he writes the UTaverley Novels. Lock him up in a dungeon, and he composes the immortal "Pilgrims Progress." Put him in a cradle in a log cabin in the wilderness of America, and in a few years you will find him in the Capitol at the head of the greatest nation on the globe.

 

The man who succeeds has a program: he fixes his course, and adheres to it; he lays his plans, and axes cutes them; he goes straight to his goal. He is not pushed this side and that every time a difficulty is thrust in his vvay. If he can't go over it, he goes through

 

Into man can rise to anything very great who allows himself to be tripped or thwarted by obstacles which we meet up with on life's highways. His achievement will be in proportion to his ability to make stepping stones out of these stumbling blocks which trip others.

 

We too often hear the weak-minded whine and complain that they don't have a chance”fate has doomed them to mediocrity”they can never get a start for themselves, but must always work for others; if somebody would only help them”they could do this or that if they could only get a start; these are the people that will never make it until they change their thinking. It is us who create our own circumstances and it is us alone who can rise above them. We are the masters of our own fate. Never acknowledge that you are not equal to the emergencies of life that will confront -you from time to time. To do so would be to admit of your weakness”we are not weaklings”we have power and strength to rise above any of life's emergencies, if we will only use that power that has been given to us.