Chicago, he had partaken of that nineteenth century miracle, that
phoenix-like nature of the city which, though she was burned, caused
her to rise from her ashes and become a greater and a grander Chicago,
a wonder of the world. Carter Harrison would not down. He entered the
Democratic Convention and, with an audacity rarely equaled, in spite of
their protest, boldly declared himself their candidate. Every
newspaper in Chicago, save the "Times," his own paper, bitterly opposed
his election: but notwithstanding all opposition, he was elected by
twenty thousand majority. The aristocrats hated him, the moral element
feared him, but the poor people believed in him: he pandered to them,
flattered them, till they elected him. While we would not by any means
hold Carter Harrison up to youth as a model, yet there is a great
lesson in his will-power and wonderful tenacity of purpose.

"The general of a large army may be defeated," said Confucius, "but you
cannot defeat the determined mind of a peasant."

The poor, deaf pauper, Kitto, who made shoes in the almshouse, and who
became the greatest of Biblical scholars, wrote in his journal, on the
threshold of manhood: "I am not myself a believer in impossibilities: I
think that all the fine stories about natural ability, etc., are mere
rigmarole, and that every man may, according to his opportunities and
industry, render himself almost anything he wishes to become."

Years ago, a young mechanic took a bath in the river Clyde. While
swimming from shore to shore he discerned a beautiful bank,
uncultivated, and he then and there resolved to be the owner of it, and
to adorn it, and to build upon it the finest mansion in all the
borough, and name it in honor of the maiden to whom he was espoused.
"Last summer," says a well-known American, "I had the pleasure of
dining in that princely mansion, and receiving this fact from the lips
of the great shipbuilder of the Clyde." That one purpose was made the
ruling passion of his life, and all the energies of his soul were put
in requisition for its accomplishment.

Lincoln is probably the most remarkable example on the pages of
history, showing the possibilities of our country. From the poverty in
which he was born, through the rowdyism of a frontier town, the
rudeness of frontier society, the discouragement of early bankruptcy,
and the fluctuations of popular politics, he rose to the championship
of union and freedom.

Lincoln's