child in a light buggy out of the burning city. He was going down Michigan Avenue, the street was crowded to a jam, and he had to stop and wait for the jam to get loose. All at once there came along behind him a great fellow driving a furniture wagon, who yelled to him with an oath to get out of the way or he would run into him. "I cannot stir," the man said quietly, "and this lady is sick and has a little babe with her not a week old. Now, you must be quiet and stay where you are, and we will all come out together very soon." Then the brute swore a great oath that he would come down and pull him out of that and twist the thing out of his way. He jumped out of his wagon to do it. The young man jumped too. They were both on the ground at the same instant, but before the giant had time to strike him or clutch him, the young man had sent his fist about where the brute's dinner would go if he could get any that day, and that brought him down. But as he was coming down, he caught him with the other fist right under the chin, and that brought him up. "Now," he said, you get on to that wagon and do just as I tell you, or I will give you the greatest licking you ever had since you were born." The fellow swore horribly, mounted the wagon, and drove down the avenue at the back of the buggy when the jam gave way. But the best of the story is this, and I can vouch for its truth, that this young man was a minister in our city, in good standing, a mighty man in

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preaching and prayer, as I know, a man who wouldn't hurt a mouse, and in every way a gentleman. But the Clear Grit in him at that dire moment could only show itself in the one way; and there it was. He cared nothing for himself, only for the helpless woman and the little babe; and as he told me the story in a modest fashion on the train one day after the fire, I clasped his hand and said to him: "My friend, you can preach grand sermons, and you can say noble prayers, and you can do a great many grand things, as I know very well, but let me tell you that you never did a grander or diviner thing than on that day when for the sake of that mother and little child you went for that great brute, left hand first and then followed it with your right, and don't you forget it." Clear Grit, then, never cares for consequences when it's evident the thing has got to be done; you can't crush it, you can't turn it, it goes right on to its purpose, and that purpose is accomplished when the man gets through.

And now it would be very pleasant for me to go right on and talk about Clear Grit as other men have shown it in a grand or good fashion, but this is not my main purpose. I want to make some simple applications of the truth I am trying to tell, that will come right home to your life and mine, and show us how we can all know of what Grit we are made, by instances and evidences like these I want to mention. And so I will divide my lecture into three parts, for the sake of sim

plicity, and go on to say that the first truth of Clear Grit, to me, lies in the power to do a good, honest day's work; second, in the power to make a good home and take care of it, and raise a good family of children; and, third, the power to lose no time about it, but go ahead and see to these things while the bloom and glory and strength of our life beats in our hearts.

And I put the power to do a good, honest day's work first, because eight and twenty years of hard work, first in the factory and then in the forge, as well as such light as comes to me as a minister, convinces me, beyond all question, that this power to do a good, honest day's work lies at the root of every true life. And yet it is just what great numbers of men try not to do, as if they felt that the true thing means to get the most money possible for the least work possible, and very often for the poorest work, too; and that the best success they can attain to in this world is that which comes through what we call "good luck." I think young men begin their life in this new world bewildered by the opportunities that open before them to make a fortune at a stroke. There is no such instant need to do something solid and steady, the moment they are out of school or college, as there is in poorer countries, and so they coquette with the chances that seem as thick as blackberries to get along easily; they will try this and then that, and generally fail at everything they do try, if this is all they want to do, and then wait

for something to turn up. Now, we ought never to forget that Mr. Micawber, after trusting to his luck for all those years, waiting for something to turn up, had to strip at last and turn up something for himself. He failed entirely to do anything until he began to do something in dead earnest, and every dollar he made when he did begin to succeed over there in Australia was, no doubt, a draft honestly endorsed by his brain and muscle and dug out of the solid gold of his own manhood. So waiting for something to turn up is the greatest mistake a young man can make who wants to show his Grit. You know that, of all the adventurers that ever trod the Pacific slope waiting for something to turn up, not a man found the gold that was right there under his feet. It was found at last by a man who was doing good, honest work, digging a mill-race for a mill to grind corn. Mr. Smiles, in one of his capital books, tells the story of a man in the last century who undertook to make a steam engine. He succeeded, so far as you could see, in making a very good engine indeed. The lever lifted to a charm, the piston answered exactly, the wheels turned beautifully, and nothing could be better so far. But when it came to be fairly tried there was one drawback, and it was this: "The moment you tackled anything to it, it stood stock-still. On its own hook it would work beautifully, turn its own wheels faultlessly, but the moment you wanted it to lift a pound beside, then the lever and piston

and wheels struck work, and, as it was made in an age and country in which to do nothing was to be counted a gentleman, the thing was called 'Evans's Gentlemanly Engine.'" Now, who doesn't know men whose action resembles that gentlemanly engine? What little they do, they do for themselves. You can find no fault with their motion, and they may be polished to perfection, especially in those parts that are brass or steel, but they would not raise a blister on their hands to save their souls.

Their one motto is to take care of number one, and in doing this they usually come to one of three things either to depend on the old man, their father, if he has anything to spare, or on their friends, if they have any left, or, as I think, the saddest of all go down to Washington to hunt for an office they know they can't fill, and draw money they know they don't earn, the meanest thing, I think, such a man can do.

They bury their talent in a napkin, like the man in the Gospels; and I think, sometimes, that by the time they're through, they'll be mean enough and selfish enough to be ready to say, when they go to their account, "Lord, there's the talent thou gavest me, but that's my napkin; give me my napkin back."

This is the first proof a man can give that there's no Clear Grit in him to do nothing in particular, or come as near as he can to his own idea of a gentleman by dodging everything that