g, he crawled into the
sunlight; but he had conquered the demon which had almost killed him.
Gough used to describe the struggles of a man who tried to leave off
using tobacco. He threw away what he had, and said that was the end of
it; but no, it was only the beginning of it. He would chew camomile,
gentian, tooth-picks, but it was of no use. He bought another plug of
tobacco and put it in his pocket. He wanted a chew awfully, but he
looked at it and said, "You are a _weed_, and I am a _man_. I'll master
you if I die for it;" and he did, while carrying it in his pocket daily.

There was an abbot that desired a piece of ground that lay conveniently
for him. The owner refused to sell; yet with much persuasion he was
contented to let it. The abbot hired it and covenanted only to farm it
for one crop. He had his bargain, and sowed it with acorns--a crop that
lasted three hundred years. So Satan asks to get possession of our souls
by asking us to permit some small sin to enter, some one wrong that
seems of no great account. But when once he has entered and planted the
seeds and beginnings of evil, he holds his ground.

"Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable," says Walter
Scott, "and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever
issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer."

Thomas A. Edison was once asked why he was a total abstainer. He said,
"I thought I had a better use for my head."

Byron could write poetry easily, for it was merely indulging his natural
propensity; but to curb his temper, soothe his discontent, and control
his animal appetites was a very different thing. At all events, it
seemed so great to him that he never seriously attempted self-conquest.
Let every youth who would not be shipwrecked on life's voyage cultivate
this one great virtue, "self-control." There is nothing so important to
a youth starting out in life as a thoroughly trained and cultivated
will; everything depends upon it. If he has it, he will succeed; if he
does not have it, he will fail.

"The first and best of victories," says Plato, "is for a man to conquer
himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful
and vile."

"Silence," says Zimmerman, "is the safest response for all the
contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy."

"He is a fool who cannot be angry," says English, "but he is a wise man
who will not."

Seneca, one of the greatest of the ancient phi