hannel prepared for them, we may be equally sure
we have taken a wrong turn. We cannot be earnest about anything
which does not naturally and strongly engage our thoughts.

CHAPTER VI

THE IMPORTANCE OF CORRECT HABITS.

As has been stated, habit is the basis of character. Habit is the
persistent repetition of acts physical, mental, and moral. No matter
how much thought and ability a young man may have, failure is sure
to follow bad habits. While correct habits depend largely on self-
discipline, and often on self-denial, bad habits, like pernicious
weeds, spring up unaided and untrained to choke out the plants of
virtue. It is easy to destroy the seed at the beginning, but its
growth is so rapid, that its evil effects may not be perceptible
till the roots have sapped every desirable plant about it.

No sane youth ever started out with the resolve to be a thief, a
tramp, or a drunkard. Yet it is the slightest deviation from honesty
that makes the first. It is the first neglect of a duty that makes
the second. And it is the first intoxicating glass that makes the
third. It is so easy not to begin, but the habit once formed and the
man is a slave, bound with galling, cankering chains, and the
strength of will having been destroyed, only God's mercy can cast
them off.

Next to the moral habits that are the cornerstone of every worthy
character, the habit of industry should be ranked. In "this day and
generation," there is a wild desire on the part of young men to leap
into fortune at a bound, to reach the top of the ladder of success
without carefully climbing the rounds, but no permanent prosperity
was ever gained in this way.

There have been men, who through chance, or that form of speculation,
that is legalized gambling, have made sudden fortunes; but as a rule
these fortunes have been lost in the effort to double them by the
quick and speculative process.

Betters and gamblers usually die poor. But even where young men have
made a lucky stroke, the result is too often a misfortune. They
neglect the necessary, persistent effort. The habit of industry is
ignored. Work becomes distasteful, and the life is wrecked, looking
for chances that never come.

There have been exceptional cases, where men of immoral habits, but
with mental force and unusual opportunities have won fortunes. Some
of these will come to the reader's mind at once, but he will be
forced to confess that he would not give up his manhood and