and give the higher interests room. The industrious
man will do thorough work, and produce a good article, cost what it may.
He will not suffer his arm to rest until it has done his bidding; nor
will he let nature go until her resources and forces have been made to
serve his purpose. This mastery over ourselves and over nature is the
mark of virtue and manliness always and everywhere.

THE REWARD.

+Industry works; and the fruit of work is wealth.+--The industrious man
may or may not have great riches. That depends on his talents,
opportunities, and character. Great riches are neither to be sought nor
shunned. With them or without them the highest life is possible; and on
the whole it is easier without than with great riches. A moderate amount
of wealth, however, is essential to the fullest development of one's
powers and the freest enjoyment of life. Of such a moderate competence
the industrious man is assured.

THE TEMPTATION.

+Soft places and easy kinds of work to be avoided.+--Work costs pain and
effort. Men naturally love ease. Hence arises the temptation to put ease
above self-support. This temptation in its extreme form, if yielded to,
makes a man a beggar and a tramp. More frequently the temptation is to
take an easy kind of work, rather than harder work; or to do our work
shiftlessly rather than thoroughly.

Young men are tempted to take clerkships where they can dress well and
do light work, instead of learning a trade which requires a long
apprenticeship, and calls for rough, hard work. The result is that the
clerk remains a clerk all his life on low wages, and open to the
competition of everybody who can read and write and cipher. While the
man who has taken time to learn a trade, and has taken off his coat and
accustomed himself to good hard work, has an assured livelihood; and
only the few who have taken the same time to learn the trade, and are as
little afraid of hard work as himself, can compete with him. This
temptation to seek a "soft berth," where the only work required is
sitting in an office, or talking, or writing, or riding around, is the
form of sloth which is taking the strength and independence and
manliness out of young men to-day faster than anything else. It is only
one degree above the loafer and the tramp. The young man who starts in
life by seeking an easy place will never be a success either in business
or in character.

THE VICE OF DEFECT.

+The slavery of laziness.+--L