nfluential man, who
became a friend to him. In 1798 this poor boy's oratorio, "The
Creation," came upon the musical world like the rising of a new sun
which never set. He was courted by princes and dined with kings and
queens; his reputation was made; there was no more barbering, no more
poverty. But of his eight hundred compositions, "The Creation"
eclipsed them all. He died while Napoleon's guns were bombarding
Vienna, some of the shot falling in his garden. The greatest creations
of musicians were written with an effort, to fill the "aching void" in
the human heart.

Frederick Douglass, America's most representative colored man, born a
slave, was reared in bondage, liberated by his own exertions, educated
and advanced by sheer pluck and perseverance to distinguished positions
in the service of his country, and to a high place in the respect and
esteem of the whole world.

When a man like Lord Cavanagh, without arms or legs, manages to put
himself into Parliament, when a man like Francis Joseph Campbell, a
blind man, becomes a distinguished mathematician, a musician, and a
great philanthropist, we get a hint as to what it means to make the
most possible out of ourselves and opportunities. Perhaps ninety-nine
out of a hundred under such unfortunate circumstances would be content
to remain helpless objects of charity for life. If it is your call to
acquire money power instead of brain power, to acquire business power
instead of professional power, double your talent just the same, no
matter what it may be.

A glover's apprentice of Glasgow, Scotland, who was too poor to afford
even a candle or a fire, and who studied by the light of the shop
windows in the streets, and when the shops were closed climbed the
lamp-post, holding his book in one hand, and clinging to the lamp-post
with the other,--this poor boy, with less chance than almost any boy in
America, became the most eminent scholar of Scotland.

Francis Parkman, half blind, became one of America's greatest
historians in spite of everything, because he made himself such.
Personal value is a coin of one's own minting; one is taken at the
worth he has put into himself. Franklin was but a poor printer's boy,
whose highest luxury at one time was only a penny roll, eaten in the
streets of Philadelphia. Richard Arkwright, a barber all his earlier
life, as he rose from poverty to wealth and fame, felt the need of
correcting the defects of his early education