Your selfish man to-day only asks for a yacht and some race horses, mild forms of dissipation. A thousand years ago the vicious man demanded and exercised the power of life and death over those who surrounded him, and his mildest fit of irritation cost the life of some helpless human being.
Men are ill-paid to-day, but their condition is Paradise compared to the slavery of their predecessors. ——
You should daily criticise yourself and others, and do what you can in your little sphere as preacher, politician, editor or private individual to help along humanity's progress.
But remember always for your encouragement that the world is improving steadily. It never stands still; it never goes backward. And there are no limits to our future improvement, thanks to our inborn love of what is right and to the steady influence of EDUCATION.
A WHISKEY BOTTLE
How should a whiskey drinker talk to his son? If he talked as he feels he would hold up the flat, brown bottle and say:
"My boy, you know that I am a poor man and have nothing to leave to you or your mother.
"The difference between myself and the successful men who have passed me is this:
"I have gone through life with this bottle in my hand or in my pocket. They have not."
A man comes into the world prepared to do his share of the world's work, well or ill, as his brain and his physical strength may decide. Of all his qualities the most important practically is BALANCE.