tly advise all young men
to choose a calling, become thoroughly master of that calling, then
pursue that vocation to success, avoiding all outside operations.
Another man who has dealt in stocks all his life may be able to succeed,
but your business is to stick to your vocation until, if necessary, you
fairly wring success from it.

Moses Taylor was a successful merchant, he had long deposited with the
City Bank, and was finally made its president. The late Commodore
Vanderbilt often tried to induce him to enter into his grand
speculations, but of no avail. At last the crash of '57 came. The
bankers called a meeting to discuss the situation. One bank after
another reported drafts of from sixty to even ninety per cent. of their
specie. When Mr. Taylor was called he replied: "The City Bank contained
this morning $400,000; to-night we had $480,000." This was the kind of a
bank president such principles made him.

Hardly anything is more fatal to success than a desire to become
suddenly rich. A business man now counts his wealth by the thousands,
but he sees a grand chance to speculate. This is a little risky, of
course, but then the old adage: "Never venture, never have." I admit I
may lose, but then all men are subject to loss in any business, but I am
reasonably sure of gaining an immense amount. Why! what would folks
think? I would be a millionaire. I would do so and so. Thus he indulges
in this sort of reasoning, goes into a business of which he knows
nothing and loses all. Why wouldn't he? Men who have made a study of
that business for years, and who have amassed a fortune in it, are daily
becoming bankrupt. What an idiot a man makes of himself when he leaves a
calling in which he has been eminently successful to embark in a calling
which is, at best, uncertain, and of which he knows nothing. Once for
all, let me admonish you: If you would succeed never enter outside
operations, especially if they be of a speculative nature. Select a
calling, and if you stick to your calling, your calling will stick to
you.

Frequent changes of business is another cause of failure, but we have
treated this subject quite thoroughly elsewhere in this work. Therefore
it seems to us that to add more here would be superfluous. True it is
that some men have succeeded who have seemingly drifted about. Dr. Adam
Clark has said: "The old adage about too many irons in the fire conveys
an abominable lie. Keep them all agoing--poker, tongs and