inward foes whose sinister power is of their
own cultivation? For one man who goes down before an outward enemy,
there are a score who lay themselves in the dust and keep themselves
there by acts that become habits, and habits that become character, and
character that hardens into something that looks like destiny.

This, therefore, suggests a closing word to you younger people. Many
of you to whom I speak are in the making. You are on the threshold of
your manhood, with practically the future in your own hands.

I often recall my faltering energies in thought of a remark I once
heard the revered principal[2] of my college make to a body of students
who were about to enter upon their ministry: "Gentlemen," said he; "you
may be able to offer twenty good reasons in after life for your
failure, if fail you do. People will not concern themselves about your
reason, they will simply look at the fact that you have failed." The
truth in this remark is preeminently a truth for young people. The
world, on one side of it, is very hard and cruel. It will apologize
for failure in the abstract under tricks of speech, and cant about
charity, but for individual failure it has no mercy.

Listen to one who has to fight bitterly his own self-made enemies, when
I counsel you to begin straight from the beginning. Beware of making
to-day the enemy of to-morrow. The present, says a wise man, has
always got to pay the purchase price of the past. Never let the
temptation overcome you, to take a "short and shady" cut to the
gratification of desire, or in the achievement of what is sought as
success. Nothing in life is unrelated, and everything you do which
cannot pass the bar of your higher self is not only sin, but also a
blunder. It may sleep to-day, but it sleeps to wake. When you can
least afford it, it will be more than awake, it will be hungry.
Educate and cultivate your conscience, and never disregard its voice.
Keep your heart with all diligence; keep your heart, and always have in
it room for God.

In the open, and in the secret of your life, watch and pray that day by
day you may say with Spurgeon: "Write, if you like, all you know about
me across the heavens." And while you may have your enemies in men and
circumstances, they will be as nothing and vanity compared with the
friend you have in God and yourself. Never seek to refer your moral
responsibility for actions to influences outside you. Settle it once
and for