tral power of thought and influence, at least, in his
own day and generation. We can understand the truth of this through a
study of the aims and life purposes of Harold Bell Wright as expressed
through his books and the circumstances under which they were written.
The wonderful popularity of this author is well estimated by the
millions of copies of his books that have been sold. This is also the
greatest testimonial that can be given to the merit of his work. The
great heart of the reading public is an unprejudiced critic. "Is not
the greatest voice the one to which the greatest number of hearts listen
with pleasure?"

When a man has attained to great eminence under adverse circumstances we
sometimes wonder to what heights he might have climbed under conditions
more favorable. Who can tell? It is just as easy to say what the young
man of twenty will be when a matured man of forty. The boy of poverty
makes a man of power while the boy nursed in the lap of luxury makes
a man of uneventful life, and, again, a life started with a handicap
remains so through its possible three score years and ten and the life
begun with advantages multiplies its talents ten and a hundred fold.

So, after all, is not the heart of man the real man and is it not
the guiding star of his ambition, his will, his determination, his
conscience?

Harold Bell Wright, the second of four sons, was born May 4, 1872, in
Rome, Oneida County, New York. From an earlier biographer we quote the
following:

"Some essential facts must be dug from out the past where they lie
embedded in the detrital chronicles of the race. Say, then, that away
back in 1640 a ship load of Anglo-Saxon freedom landed in New England.
After a brief period some of the more venturesome spirits emigrated to
the far west and settled amid the undulations of the Mohawk valley
in central New York. Protestant France also sent westward some
Gallic chivalry hungering for freedom. The fringe of this garment of
civilization spread out and reached also into the same valley. English
determination and Huguenot aspiration touched elbows in the war for
political and religious freedom, and touched hearts and hands in
the struggle for economic freedom. Their generations were a genuine
aristocracy. Mutual struggles after mutual aims cemented casual
acquaintance into enduring friendship. William Wright met, loved
and married Alma T. Watson. To them four sons were born. A carpenter
contractor, a man