ost to a certainty where they will come
out. They may be delayed by head winds and counter currents, but they
will _always head for the port_ and will steer straight towards the
harbor. You know to a certainty that whatever else they may lose, they
will not lose their compass or rudder.

Whatever may happen to a man of this stamp, even though his sails may
be swept away and his mast stripped to the deck, though he may be
wrecked by the storms of life, the needle of his compass will still
point to the North Star of his hope. Whatever comes, his life will not
be purposeless. Even a wreck that makes its port is a greater success
than a full-rigged ship with all its sails flying, with every mast and
every rope intact, which merely drifts along into an accidental harbor.

To fix a wandering life and give it direction is not an easy task, but
a life which has no definite aim is sure to be frittered away in empty
and purposeless dreams. "Listless triflers," "busy idlers,"
"purposeless busy-bodies," are seen everywhere. A healthy, definite
purpose is a remedy for a thousand ills which attend aimless lives.
Discontent and dissatisfaction flee before a definite purpose. What we
do begrudgingly without a purpose becomes a delight with one, and no
work is well done nor healthily done which is not enthusiastically done.

Mere energy is not enough; it must be concentrated on some steady,
unwavering aim. What is more common than "unsuccessful geniuses," or
failures with "commanding talents"? Indeed, the term "unrewarded
genius" has become a proverb. Every town has unsuccessful educated and
talented men. But education is of no value, talent is worthless,
unless it can do something, achieve something. Men who can do
something at everything and a very little at anything are not wanted in
this age.

What this age wants is young men and women who can do one thing without
losing their identity or individuality, or becoming narrow, cramped, or
dwarfed. Nothing can take the place of an all-absorbing purpose;
education can not, genius can not, talent can not, industry can not,
will-power can not. The purposeless life must ever be a failure. What
good are powers, faculties, unless we can use them for a purpose? What
good would a chest of tools do a carpenter unless he could use them? A
college education, a head full of knowledge, are worth little to the
men who cannot use them to some definite end.

The man without a purpo