s Polish, 15 names of
stars, 10 hours' forging. Wednesday, June 20, 25 lines Hebrew, 8 lines
Syriac, 11 hours' forging." He mastered 18 languages and 32 dialects.
He became eminent as the "Learned Blacksmith," and for his noble work
in the service of humanity. Edward Everett said of the manner in which
this boy with no chance acquired great learning: "It is enough to make
one who has good opportunities for education hang his head in shame."

The barefoot Christine Nilsson in remote Sweden had little chance, but
she won the admiration of the world for her wondrous power of song,
combined with rare womanly grace.

"Let me say in regard to your adverse worldly circumstances," says Dr.
Talmage to young men, "that you are on a level now with those who are
finally to succeed. Mark my words, and think of it thirty years from
now. You will find that those who are then the millionaires of this
country, who are the orators of the country, who are the poets of the
country, who are the strong merchants of the country, who are the great
philanthropists of the country,--mightiest in the church and
state,--are now on a level with you, not an inch above you, and in
straightened circumstances.

"No outfit, no capital to start with? Young man, go down to the
library and get some books, and read of what wonderful mechanism God
gave you in your hand, in your foot, in your eye, in your ear, and then
ask some doctor to take you into the dissecting-room and illustrate to
you what you have read about, and never again commit the blasphemy of
saying you have no capital to start with. _Equipped_? _Why, the
poorest young man is equipped as only the God of the whole universe
could afford to equip him_."

A newsboy is not a very promising candidate for success or honors in
any line of life. A young man can't set out in life with much less
chance than when he starts his "daily" for a living. Yet the man who
more than any other is responsible for the industrial regeneration of
this continent started in life as a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railway.
Thomas Alva Edison was then about fifteen years of age. He had already
begun to dabble in chemistry, and had fitted up a small itinerant
laboratory. One day, as he was performing some occult experiment, the
train rounded a curve, and the bottle of sulphuric acid broke. There
followed a series of unearthly odors and unnatural complications. The
conductor, who had suffered long and patiently,