ourage any one from seeking that knowledge
which is good, or from availing himself of the benefits to be derived
from the arts and sciences; but if this knowledge and these benefits
are sought and gained only for worldly ends, only to add to worldly
accomplishments or worldly treasure, they are dangerous for time and
ruinous for eternity. What support can the soul have in its deep
conflict with temptation, or in the dark hour of affliction or
bereavement, when stayed on this world only? In all the tenderness of
a father's heart I turn to the youth of our land and say to them in
the words of the best Friend that God himself could give: "Seek FIRST
the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and all earthly blessings
will be added unto you.

In the following pages you may see what one man may do by "patient
continuance in well doing." Brother Kline was a man "subject to like
passions as we are." He was once an infant just as you were, and lay
at his mother's breast. He very well remembered, when an old man, how
he felt when she made for him his first pair of "_pants_." When that
kind mother put them on him, pleased and smiling in the tenderness of
her nature, "the first use that I made of my hands," said he to me
shortly before his death, "was to feel for the pockets." "We incline,"
continued he, "to carry this feature of our boyhood into youth and
age. The pocket never ceases to be a very important appendage to our
dress, and the hand inclines to put into it every valuable thing it
can."

Brother Kline never went to school very much. He learned to read and
write both German and English; and he also studied arithmetic. Further
than this he never went in school. He did not have the advantages of
free schools as young people now have. But you may learn from this
that one may carry on his education after leaving school. In fact,
schools only _open the way_ for acquiring an education.

When a boy I was very fond of reading the lives of great men. I did
not then know very much about poetry, but I surely did feel something
of the fire that Longfellow has made to glow with so much heat and
light in his "Psalm of Life." I am glad to add, by means of this book,
one more name to the list of great men, so that in the lines which
follow he too may be included.

"Lives of GREAT MEN all remind us
We can make our lives sublime;
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of Time:
Footprints, that perhaps a