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the personality is the first step in the making of a writer. The blundering student who really says something which is the outgrowth of his own experience has greater potentialities than the prim miss who has acquired the ability to cover several pages with faultless nothings. Nowhere and never can we get away from what we are.

What an individual makes of himself is the final criterion of the success or failure of his life. In his somewhat raving soliloquy the youth in Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" curses among numerous other things "the gold that gilds the straighten'd forehead of the fool." Yet in the long run no amount of gilding can hide the real man. Education is not to be measured by the amount of knowledge accumulated but, rather, in terms of manhood and womanhood. It is not what we say or what we know or what we can do that counts, but

what we are. One of the world's most comprehensive truths is expressed in the words, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." An individual's thoughts write themselves upon his very person. He who in thought grovels in the sensual mire becomes in his aspect coarse and animalistic. To concern oneself year after year with worthless trifles makes a man puttering and pedantic. The virtue of

economy practiced too faithfully becomes a vice. Thinking in terms of pennies tends to dwarf the mind and soul. Constant concern with things material extirpates the power of spiritual insight. Too dominant an emphasis upon the financial aspects of religion unspiritualizes a church. The preacher who measures success in terms of loaves and fishes becomes a contemptible object. We have it on good authority that there is no place for the moneychanger in the temple of Jehovah. Just as true to-day as when they were first uttered are the words of the wise man of old, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." As we think, we are.

In H. G. Wells's Mr. Britling Sees It Through we find an indirect tribute to Matthew Arnold when one of the characters declares that England's troubles are due to the fact that "we didn't listen to Matthew Arnold." In the writings of this Victorian prophet of "sweetness and light" there is at least one thought that America needs. Arnold laid special stress upon the ancient Hellenic ideal of self-development, which teaches that the highest due of man is to "augment the excellence of his nature and make an intelligent being more intelligent. Some one may object, saying, "Is it not the duty of a Christian

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to do good to others?" This question most certainly deserves an affirmative answer, but before we try to make others better and to reform the world in general, it behooves us to have ourselves attained a reasonable intellectual and moral stature. The world cannot be reformed or evangelized by bunglers. always comes before achievement. alone charity that begins at home. ress starts with the individual. anxious to save souls," a young man said to President Finney, of Oberlin, during an interview in which the youth was trying to justify his plan of entering the ministry without completing his education. "Young man," said the President, "if the Lord had wanted you to go to saving souls a year sooner, he'd have made you a year sooner."

Sometimes we spend so much time cultivating our neighbor's gardens that weeds run riot in our own. But in the words of Thoreau the need is for men who are "not only good, but good for something." Hours used in self-improvement are sometimes spent in a more essentially religious way than some that were passed in distributing tracts. It was Matthew Arnold himself who spoke of Sophocles as being one who "saw life steadily and who saw it whole." In the last analysis it is the strong, well

balanced individual with this broad, clear perspective who carries forward the banner of humanity. Radiant vigor is a grace never attained by those who see but one aspect of truth. It does not fall as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. Like all of the other real attainments of life, it must be paid for with wisdom, tolerance, restraint, and effort. But it is worth the price.

The man who has this dynamic energizing power is as strong as the strongest. He is a real leader of the host of mankind. In the same noble poem, inspired by his father's life and character, the poet in winged words lays his wreath of laurel upon the altar of the captains in the army which fights the battles of truth and light:

"Then, in such hour of need

Of your fainting, dispirited race,
Ye, like angels, appear,

Radiant with ardor divine!
Beacons of hope, ye appear!

Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,

Weariness not on your brow.

Ye alight in our van! At your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.

Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, reinspire the brave!

Order, courage return.
Eyes kindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, on to the bound of the waste,
On, to the city of God."

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