man constantly asks
another the question regarding a third, How has he succeeded?

What is success in life? It may perhaps be defined in this way: It is
to obtain the greatest amount of happiness possible to us in this world.

There are two things to be borne in mind in estimating what success is:

I. Lives which according to some are successful must in the highest
sense be pronounced failures.--The idea of many is that success
consists in the gaining of a livelihood, or competency, or wealth; but
a man may gain these things who yet cannot be said to have succeeded.
If he gets wealth at the expense of health, or if he gets it by means
of trickery and dishonest practices, he can hardly be said to have
succeeded. He does not get real happiness with it. If a man gains the
whole world and loses his own soul, he cannot be said to have
succeeded. True success in life is when a fair share of the world's
good does not cost either physical or intellectual or moral well-being.

II. Lives which according to some are failures must in the highest
sense be pronounced successful.--The life of our blessed Lord, from one
point of view, was a failure. It was passed in poverty, it closed in
darkness. We see Him crowned with thorns, buffeted, spit upon; yet
never was Christ so successful as when He hung upon the cross. He had
finished the work given Him to do. He "saw of the travail of His soul
and was satisfied."

Milton completed his _Paradise Lost_ and a bookseller only gave him
fifteen pounds for it, yet he cannot be said to have failed.

Speak, History, who are life's victors? unroll thy long
annals and say,
Are they those whom the world calls victors, who won
the success of the day,
The martyrs or Nero? The Spartans who fell at
Thermopylae's tryst
Or the Persians or Xerxes? His judges or Socrates?
Pilate or Christ?

What may seem defeat to some may be in the truest sense success.

_There are certain things which directly tend to success in life:_

The first is Industry.--There can be no success without working hard
for it. There is no getting on without labor. We live in times of
great competition, and if a man does not work, and work hard, he is
soon jostled aside and falls into the rear. It is true now as in the
days of Solomon that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."

(_a_) There are some who think they can dispense with hard work because
they possess great natural