n a firmer anchorage. Then it shoots proudly aloft again,
prepared to defy the hurricane. The gales which sport so rudely with
its wide branches find more than their match, and only serve still
further to toughen every minutest fiber from pith to bark.

The acorn planted in the deep forest, on the other hand, shoots up a
weak, slender sapling. Shielded by its neighbors, it feels no need of
spreading its roots far and wide for support.

Take two boys, as nearly alike as possible. Place one in the country
away from the hothouse culture and refinements of the city, with only
the district school, the Sunday-school, and a few books. Remove wealth
and props of every kind; and, if he has the right sort of material in
him, he will thrive. Every obstacle overcome lends him strength for
the next conflict. If he falls, he rises with more determination than
before. Like a rubber ball, the harder the obstacle he meets the
higher he rebounds. Obstacles and opposition are but apparatus of the
gymnasium in which the fibers of his manhood are developed. He compels
respect and recognition from those who have ridiculed his poverty. Put
the other boy in a Vanderbilt family. Give him French and German
nurses; gratify his every wish. Place him under the tutelage of great
masters and send him to Harvard. Give him thousands a year for
spending money, and let him travel extensively.

The two meet. The city lad is ashamed of his country brother. The
plain, threadbare clothes, hard hands, tawny face, and awkward manner
of the country boy make sorry contrast with the genteel appearance of
the other. The poor boy bemoans his hard lot, regrets that he has "no
chance in life," and envies the city youth. He thinks that it is a
cruel Providence that places such a wide gulf between them.

They meet again as men, but how changed! It is as easy to
distinguished the sturdy, self-made man from the one who has been
propped up all his life by wealth, position, and family influence, as
it is for the shipbuilder to tell the difference between the plank from
the rugged mountain oak and one from the sapling of the forest.

When God wants to educate a man, he does not send him to school to the
Graces, but to the Necessities. Through the pit and the dungeon Joseph
came to a throne. We are not conscious of the mighty cravings of our
half divine humanity; we are not aware of the God within us until some
chasm yawns which must be filled, or ti