No, he is not too young--none are too young to carry a light in this dark
hour."

The speaker was William's mother.

"And thus, strange to say," wrote William McKinley, years afterward, "the
usual order of things was in my case reversed: my father would have held
me back from the mighty struggle that was to ensue, on the ground that I
was only eighteen years old; and my mother was the one to say 'Go!' For
she had, and still has, a strong and passionate patriotism. Next to God,
she loves her country. She believed in freedom, and was ready to offer up
even a woman's most priceless jewel--her child--to save her country's
flag. She had convictions, and the intellectual powers to impress those
around her--impressing most of all her son."

McKinley's mother was still living at Canton, Ohio, at the age of
eighty-seven, at the time of her son's first inauguration as President.
That day a seemingly trifling incident endeared the new President in the
hearts of the mothers of the country. For William McKinley, as soon as he
had taken the oath of office, went to his mother and kissed her.

Levi P. Morton.

Levi P. Morton once established a dry-goods house in New York, and failed.
But to his creditors he gave all he possessed, settling for fifty cents on
the dollar. Years afterward he made a great success as a banker, and then
he again gave thought to those whom he had not paid in full as a merchant.

One day all his former creditors received invitations to a banquet. His
guests took their seats at the table, and as each opened his napkin he
found a check for the full amount of his claim, with interest.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Morton, "the one who deserves the credit for
the--shall we say favors of the evening?--is not your host, but the
mother who, by her early influence, has guided him through life. My
father's salary as the village parson was not sufficient for all the
household expenses; so I went to clerking in the village store for a few
dollars a month. When I brought my wages to my mother she said:

"'Levi, do you owe any of this money to anybody? Yes? Then go at once and
pay it, if it takes every dollar. If you owe money, you are not a free
boy.'

"My emancipation to-night, gentlemen, is the direct result of that
mother's early counsel."

Rockefeller and Rogers.

"My mother," says John D. Rockefeller, "taught me to make everything
count. When I became partner in a grocery, I got some barrels of
beans--cheap,