with time at another's command, and that way of individual effort, a break for self, with time at one's own discretion, and he has to choose which he will be. Whether laborer or office fiend, political or business man, the choice has to be made. While at the fork of the road the path of individual effort seemed hedged by thorns of trails, while the path of "working for others" gave every indication of less mental and ambitious effort. He who stands at the fork of the road cannot see far enough into the misty future to look beyond the entrance of either way, unless he be guided by the experience of others who have traveled their respective roads.

If he bodly faced all apparent difficulties, and moved in the path of "individual effort," he will find that his ambitious ingenuity will give him strength to conquer all, to come out triumphant. If he turns to the rose-strewn path because it appears to require less hustle, he soon learns that its roses have thorns, and that the path is irksome, urging him to overtax his physical capacity, thus causing him by gradual process to commit suicide.

Every young man has to stand at the fork of the road, and make his choice. Only a few choose the successful until their feet are pierced with the thorns of hardship, errors and slavery, but they find themselves too late, the opportunity has come and flown. It's tough, but he'll have to like it. Others devote the strength and heat of manhood to the building of and establishing of their own, enjoy life and are prosperous, these do not meet with the buffs and hardships of the other class. They are ignorant of many of life's most wretched struggles, and this ignorance is bliss. The man who says, "I wish I could have the luck to succeed in business like so and so,'

standing at the fork in the road, and unless he quickly determines to make luck and open the door of success to himself, is sure to enter the woeful route; he permits doors to be opened that will, during his life, invite enslavement and death of ambition.

The man who observes, keeps his eyes and ears open, soon cultivates the power to adapt that which will be invaluable to him. It gives him originality and materially increases his creative talent. Stop a moment and study the things you see; look at everything you read in an advertising light. In time your originality will be sharpened; your ideas will come quicker, more frequent and the easier they are the breezier they are.

Fall in love with advertising and you will marry

success.

"Some of your griefs you have cured,

And the sharpest you still have survived; But what torments of pain you've endured From evils that never arrived."

Advertising should be as certain, regular and persistent as the seasons and the season's demands. If I wished to reach the farmers, I would seek out the best medium for that purpose, perhaps the County paper, and would specially advertise some standard, needful implement or articles the farmers used at that season-say spring breaking plows, harrows, culti vators, etc. Then as harvest approached specially note nad set forth the good qualities of mowers, reapers and binders, harvesting machinery, and so on through all the seasons, not forgetting the special wants of the family. I likewise would study the needs of the city people, the different trades and professions and housekeepers generally and specially advertise in the proper channels to reach them, and this I would do. persistently.

Keeping Up Steam

It is a well-known fact that water must boil and register 212 degress of heat before it generates steam. When this temperature is reached it must be maintained if the engine is to drive the machinery to accomplish the work in hand. Every engineer is taught that water will not boil at 205 or 210 degrees, but 212 degrees must be reached before the steam gauge begins to register. If he understands his business he also knows that once this pressure is reached it can be maintained with less fuel and with less wear on the engine.

There are many people trying to accomplish their life work under a low pressure, and they do not understand why they fail to get ahead. Luke-warm water will not run an engine, neither will luke-warm enthusiasm accomplish any greater results. Get your ideas boiling, convert them into steam and then maintain that pressure. Don't waste energy; let your governor (common sense) regulate the control so that you get a uniformity of speed. If you use your energy spasmodically, remember there is something wrong with the governor.

"Of the various kinds of thoughts, those of hatred and revenge are, however, the worst. What these will not do has not yet been recorded. They have kept men in mental agony, they have led men to the gallows and the electric chair. One can never tell what will come of them. Therefore, take heed. Cast such thoughts out immediately upon exhibition. To temporize means to court trouble. They may simply destroy your appetite or they may destroy you and the happiness of many dear ones. Beware, Bacon condensed what I have just said into a very fine and expressive sentence-"He that seeketh revenge keepeth his own wounds green." It were well for you to memorize this saying of his. It may at some later date add to your comfort and your health -if you will heed its implied warning."

"I Go a-Fishing."

Not because Feter wanted any fish, but because he wanted to escape from himself. Not because he wanted to resume his former calling, but because he wanted to get rid of the ugly thought that was incessantly tormenting his wounded soul. He had left the comparative quietude of Galilee and accompanied his Lord as he faced his last great tragedy at Jerusalem, and in the excitement and tumult, in the confusion and dismay that filled the disciples in the great city, he had denied his Lord. But now he was back again on the old familiar lake side and all that had taken place at Jerusalem seemed like a cruel and impossible dream. But every sight in Galilee hurt him sorely. It was in that spot that the Lord first addressed to him winning words. It was on the hill yonder that he had delivered his great sermon about the meek and pure, and the blessed men who were ready to face death for the sake of the Kingdom of God. It was in that house by the lake side that the great healer had summoned back his mother-in-law from the heated delirium of a merciless fever. Not far away was the spot on the sea where his Master had helped him to walk on the boisterous waves. Galilee was at one and the same time the best and the worst place for Simon to resort to, for every square yard of soil recalled some gracious miracle or help ful word of his Lord. Peter's eager, impulsive, impatient, discomfited soul could not stand it. He said "I must do something or this will kill me. a-fishing."

I'll go

They toiled all night and caught nothing, but it was the toiling rather than the catching that Peter wanted. And when at last morning dawned on the hills of Gadara, Jesus was seen in the gray light on the pebbly shore. Simon on the one hand wanted to rush to his master, but he was both afraid and ashamed, and so he busied himself with the fishing, and we read: "Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes."

If I read the incident aright; Simon Peter sought refuge from his tumultuous and upbraiding thoughts in a spell of hard work. That brings me close to my subject tonight: "Hard work as a fortification against sin."

I know of a Baptist minister who went down to the Inns of Court one day and asked one of the luminaries of the bar how he was feeling, and the unusual and impressive reply was: "Busy, very busy, even too busy to sin." To borrow one of the lawyer's own phrases; "this is not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; but it is rather the truth and

partial truth and when it is supplemented by much else it becomes the whole truth."

In the fishing of Simon Peter and in the rush of the barrister's life there is a great principle which I submit to your consideration tonight. The man who has work to do and is dominated and fascinated by his work, is saved from many disagreeable thoughts and from many violent temptations.

In the first place, hard work occupies the mindit was this that Simon Peter discovered. So long as he was idle in a neighborhood which brought home to him so many beautiful and, on account of his denial, so many bitter memories, he felt that the strain was intolerable. He had to go "a-fishing" in order to occupy his mind and escape from the spectres of his evil thoughts.

Now Central London is as full of evil thoughts as it is of people or germs. I remember not long ago. sitting with a number of people in the house' of a man who was supposed to have great spiritual gifts. One of the visitors, a Colonial, said: "I cannot live in Central London, the air is densely populated with evil spirits." I turned in surprise to a great student of the different religions of the world who was present, and he answered: "He is perfectly right." I suppose what these men meant was this: The thoughts that live in a certain locality give a certain atmosphere to that locality. You go into an ancient Cathedral where prayer and praise has been wont to be made for hundreds of years and you find there is something in the atmosphere which makes it easy for you to worship. The good thoughts of many centuries seem to wander about, along the long aisles, and under the vaulted roof. Now in Central London the air is saturated with so many evil thoughts that it is easy to go wrong. To be more definite; think for a moment of your business life, of the plans that are discussed, of the stories that are told, of the intrigues that are admired, of the compromises that are prevalent and you can easily realize how the air round about you is laden with microbes ready to fasten upon your character and destroy its finer texture. upon another aspect of our city life. It is the pleasure ground of all Europe. Many thousands of men come here not to pursue righteous design, but for undisguised purpose of enjoying themselves and we are unconsciously affected by these butterfly invaders. As, on election day we catch politics, so we in Central London catch pleasure-seeking. The ruling idea is not duty, but enjoyment, not principle, but gratification, is not to please God, but to please self. Then think again of the horrible suggestion of wickedness" that comes to anyone that saunters along our streets.

Look

I have walked sometimes late at night along our thoroughfares and have stood at the street corners appalled and shamed by the effrontery, the awfulness and the mysteriousness of London thoroughfares. I have seen. young fellows with unspoiled faces, faces yet unmarked by the stain of evil, standing on the edge of the pavement as though they were on the edge of some great precipice. I have seen innocent girls hurrying along as if they were blinding their eyes to the glare of Vanity Fair. I have called again and again, "did God ever mean such a thing as this to exist, were children to be brought up in it, were the pick of the young men and women intended to be cast down at the heart of it?"

Every stall is laden with the devil's wares, and each of these wares suggest temptations which never come to people in more protected places. The only safeguard against this is that a man has some bus:ness to do, that he has set an aim before him and refuses to be turned out of his way by any taunt or distraction. It is well for us to remember our Lord's first visit to the great city and the motto of the Nazareth boy in the midst of Jerusalem, "Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?" I have come into contract with not a few students, and I am thankful to say that some of them have to work so hard that they have no time to think about the sin of the city. There are two science colleges close together. Into one the scholarship boys come from the North, into the other the sons of rich men. There is all the difference in the world between the character and honours of these two colleges. In the one the students can afford to idle away their time and then play the fool; in the other the students are compelled to work, and that compulsion is their salvation. In business life as well as in school life the condition exists. I remember one, a young man teling me (who is now nevertheless, a noble fellow) that his chief desire to come to a London firm was to be able to "go-the-pace." Compare with him another young man who showed me the other day a course of business study which he had received from a correspondence school in Oxford street. I think it was the PageDavis school. Outside his leisure hours he had made up his mind to improve himself in every possible way. Such conduct is much more far-reaching than it at present appears, for that study will not only make him a more practical worker but also a better man. makes him impervious to the temptations that encircle him.

It

Yes, hard work is a great disinfectant. I am profoundly thankful to God that all throughout my college career I had to fight every step of the way to secure a scholarship. That strenuous fight kept me and the world apart and spared me temptations that would otherwise have beguiled and attacked me.

This may not be the highest gospel to preach, but yet I would say to every young man and woman,

"make up your mind definitely and irrevocably to be something." Don't permit anything to turn you out of your way. Let that be your goal and your path, your loadstar and your compass. Think about it, pray about it, dream about it, let it drive at you when on duty, let it cleave to you when you are off duty, for it is a potent charm that will effectively keep away many evils and many a sorrow. It is good to see a young man walk straight and swift through the streets of London. It is ominous of disaster when he begins to saunter and delay. The devil is afraid of muscle that is tensed, of nerves that are braced, of a will that is set and of a mind that is made up. It is when a man is in a waking mood, hungry to do and achieve, delighting in movement and activity, that his mind is most wholesome and his heart most simple and clean. But as I said this is not the highest gospel, so let me hasten on to preach it. A man is safest of all when his work and religion are one, when he has consecrated himself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and in consecrating himself has consecrated his business also; when he is not only a student, but God's student; not a draper, but God's draper; not only a grocer and clerk, but God's grocer and God's clerk. This is the happy task that the glorious privilege of having our daily business shed through and through with the religion of Jesus Christ. I think I can prove that this is pcssible by the means of a very simple illustration. We are all engaged in some branch of daily work, maybe it is not congenial, maybe it is hard and exacting, maybe it tires and worries us beyond measure, but it is redeemed by one gracious consideration, it is for the sake of the dear one, the image of wife and little children come into it and makes it tolerable and even delightful. Some asked Erskine, the advocate, how it was that he preached so eloquently. "My wife and children were tugging at my gown." Now as every man's work is transfigured by the thought of home, so it can be more effectually transfigured by the thought of God. We do it for his sake. We keep at it for it is His will; we do our best at it because it deserves nothing less than our best; it is His way of training us and not only brings wages in money, but wages in character.

Now let me carry the thought one step further by pointing out the protecting value of what is known as definite religious service. As you know, I contend that business is religous service, too, but if I might make a convenient distinction, there is wordly work for God, and Church work for God. Surely one effective way of outmaneuvering the devil is to enlist in the army that fights him. If you want to overcome the taste for drink, fight the traffic; if you want to chase all unholy thoughts out of your mind, wage war against impurity; if you seek to escape from the spell of the world, the flesh and the devil, enter as a volunteer of the Kingdom of God. I cannot overrate the (Continued on page 22.)