ing. At the
hotel were three young men, and to see the girls of the college, these
young men went to the lecture. One was the only son of a wealthy
widow. He had not seen his mother for months. She had begged him to
come home, but he was sowing his wild oats and ashamed to face his
mother. That evening you made an earnest appeal to young men in the
name of home and mother. The arrow went to the heart of the wild young
fellow. On returning to the hotel he said to his companions: 'Come up
to my room, let's have a talk.' On entering the room he closed the
door and said: 'Boys, I want to open my heart to you. I am overwhelmed
with a sense of wrong-doing. I am done with the saloon, done with the
gambling table, done with evil associations. I am going home to-morrow
and make mother happy. Boys, let's join hands and swear off from drink
and evil habits; let's honor our manhood and our mothers.'

"Now for the sequel that I think will rest you. That wild boy is now a
wealthy man. I give you his name, though I would not have you call it
in public. He is a Christian philanthropist, and has never broken his
pledge. The second boy holds the highest office in the gift of this
government in a western territory, and the third stands before you
now, an humble minister of the gospel."

It did rest me. I would rather have been the humble instrument in
turning those three young men to a righteous life, than to wear the
brightest wreath that ever encircled a stateman's brow.

For such men as Sylvester Long, Roland A. Nichols, Robert Parker Miles
and Bishop Robert McIntyre to tell me my lectures helped to shape
their lives, fills my soul with joy as I face the setting sun.

Chance, the noted English engineer, built a thousand sea-lights,
shore-lights and harbor-lights. When in old age he lay dying, a wild
storm on the sea seemed to revive him by its association with his
life-work. He said to the watchers: "Lift me up and let me see once
more the ocean in a storm."

As he looked out, the red lightning ripped open the black wardrobe of
the firmament, and he saw the salted sea driven by the fury of the
hurricane into great billows of foam. Sinking back upon his pillows
his last words were: "Thank God, I have been a lighthouse builder, and
though the light of my life is fast fading, the beams of my lighthouse
are brightening the darkness of many a sailor's night."

When my life-work closes, and my platform experiences are ended, I
would a