is a boy before me who will be a
successful merchant, there's one who will be a banker, another will be
a lawyer, others will lead in other lines. But alas! in my presence
now, looking me in the face this minute, there may be a boy, or boys,
who will stain with blood the stony path to despair.

Do you say that no such ignominious possibility hangs over any boy in
this audience? I tell you it is not always the first, but sometimes
the fairest born. I know a man who in his youth drove his father's
fine horses, romped and rested on the richest blue-grass lawn, ate
from spotless linen and lived in luxury, who now eats from the bare
tables of low saloons, and is often given shelter by an old colored
"mammy," who was once his father's slave.

I have in mind a schoolmate, whose father lived in a fine country home
two miles from the schoolhouse. The influence of my schoolmate's
mother was pure as the diamond dew he brushed from the bending grass
in barefoot days. But he left the country home and the last time I saw
him he was a vagabond, begging bread from negro cabin doors. Ah!
mother, you can't tell _which_ boy.

In a large city a few years ago a man stood at the side door of a
saloon at two o'clock in the morning. His clothes were worn and the
matted hair hung about his face. He waited, hoping some one would come
along and give him the price of a drink. Two young men, one of them a
reporter on a leading daily, came down the street. As they neared the
poor fellow, one said to the other: "Did you ever see such an appeal
for a drink? Here, hobo, take this dime and buy you one."

Seizing his hand his friend said: "No, let's do the job like good
Samaritans. Come in, tramp, and have a drink with us."

The three entered the saloon, the glasses were filled and the tramp
took his and draining it, said: "Young men, I'm very thirsty, may I
have another?"

"Yes, help yourself," was the reply, and the tramp took the second
drink. Then lifting his hat he said:

"Young men, you call me a hobo, but I see in you a picture of my lost
manhood. Once I had a face as fair as yours, and wore as good clothes
as you have now. I had a home where love lit the flame on the altar,
but I put out the fire and to-night I'm a wanderer without a home. I
had a wife as beautiful as an artist's dream, but I took the pearl of
her love, dropped it in the wine glass, Cleopatra-like I saw it
dissolve and I quaffed it down. I had a sweet child I fondly love