he was born, through the rowdyism of a frontier town, the
discouragement of early bankruptcy, and the fluctuations of popular
politics, he rose to the championship of union and freedom.

Lincoln's will made his way. When his friends nominated him as a
candidate for the legislature, his enemies made fun of him. When
making his campaign speeches he wore a mixed jean coat so short that he
could not sit down on it, flax and tow-linen trousers, straw hat, and
pot-metal boots. He had nothing in the world but character and friends.

When his friends suggested law to him, he laughed at the idea of his
being a lawyer. He said he had not brains enough. He read law
barefoot under the trees, his neighbors said, and he sometimes slept on
the counter in the store where he worked. He had to borrow money to
buy a suit of clothes to make a respectable appearance in the
legislature, and walked to take his seat at Vandalia,--one hundred
miles.

See Thurlow Weed, defying poverty and wading through the snow two
miles, with rags for shoes, to borrow a book to read before the
sap-bush fire. See Locke, living on bread and water in a Dutch garret.
See Heyne, sleeping many a night on a barn floor with only a book for
his pillow. See Samuel Drew, tightening his apron string "in lieu of a
dinner." History is full of such examples. He who will pay the price
for victory need never fear final defeat.

Paris was in the hands of a mob, the authorities were panic-stricken,
for they did not dare to trust their underlings. In came a man who
said, "I know a young officer who has the courage and ability to quell
this mob." "Send for him; send for him; send for him," said they.
Napoleon was sent for, came, subjugated the mob, subjugated the
authorities, ruled France and then conquered Europe.

Success in life is dependent largely upon the will-power, and whatever
weakens or impairs it diminishes success. The will can be educated.
That which most easily becomes a habit in us is the will. Learn, then,
to will decisively and strongly; thus fix your floating life, and leave
it no longer to be carried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, by
every wind that blows. "It is not talent that men lack, it is the will
to labor; it is the purpose."

It was the insatiable thirst for knowledge which held to his task,
through poverty and discouragement, John Leyden, a Scotch shepherd's
son. Barefoot and alone, he walked six or eight miles daily to