oner can tell you more about the results of bad habits than I
can. To those who to-day may be so unfortunate as to be under the
fascination of any habit, let me say that you can overcome that habit,
and learn to detest it, too. Young man, you desire to be rich and
succeed, but you disregard the fundamental principles of success--hence
fail. Why wouldn't you? You might as well expect to build a fine house
without a foundation. You desire to gain wealth, yet you spend twenty
cents every day on one extravagance or another, which, with interest,
would amount to over $19,000 at the end of fifty years. There is food
for thought for you. When you again wish to yourself that you were rich,
and then take ten cents out of your pocket in the shape of a cigar, and
proceed to burn it up, just let the thought pass through your mind,
"What a fool I make of myself every day."

A man recently told the writer that he spent one dollar every day in
treating and smoking. He is an ice dealer in New York City, and has done
a good business for thirty years. I cannot say how long he has been
spending this dollar a day, but I do know that one dollar earned each
day, with interest, will make a man worth over $475,000 within fifty
years. There is enough wasted by the average person within twenty-five
years to make any family well off. The pennies are wasted in the desire
to get the dollars. The dollars are not half so essential to success as
the pennies. The old saying: "Honesty is the best policy," is surely
true in more ways than one. There is more ways than one to succeed in
this world.

A man may succeed in National honor, and yet have little of this world's
goods. Many a Congressman, who has but little money, who sometimes feel
the need of money, would not exchange places with a Rothschild. But it
is not necessary to be either a Rothschild or a Webster, in order to
succeed. It is a question in my mind, whether that man, who has lived
wholly for self, is happy, even though he be rich as Croesus or as
honored as Demosthenes.

Therefore let us not entirely lose sight of the fundamental law of
success.--"Do unto others as you would have them do to you." "Put
yourself in his place." What is success? It is doing our level best. It
is the making the most of our abilities. If we do not do this we both
sin, and lose the goal of earthly happiness.

"And is it too late?
No! for Time is a fiction, and limits not fate.