There is everything in our keeping up the appearance of victory, in never raising the white flag as long as there is a breath of life in us, because hope leaves us when the flag goes down. Hope goes down with our colors and when hope has gone all has gone.

How often it happens in battle that the bearer of the colors is wounded. Time and again these brave color bearers will not drop the flag, even when they fall. They must be wounded to the death before they will lay down the colors. As long as there is life in them they will keep them floating.

In our Civil War a drummer boy was commanded to beat a retreat. "I don't know how to beat a retreat," he said, "but I can beat an advance," and he did beat an advance lustily, and the contagion of fearless enthusiasm spread throughout the army and the result was a glorious victory.

We must not know how to beat retreats. We must keep our banner flying until death overtakes us.

Remember that when you allow yourself to become discouraged or morbid, when you think you are a nobody and doubt whether you ever will be anybody, you are hauling down your colors and you are hoisting the white flag, and will soon be in the hands of your enemies.

The first step to failure is the first doubt of yourself. If you would succeed up to the limit of

your possibilities, hold constantly to the belief that you are success-organized, and that you will reach your goal, no matter what opposes. Never allow a shadow of doubt to enter your mind, to dim your courage. Regard every suggestion of failure as a traitor, and expel it from your mind as you would a thief from your house. What matters it if you are poor, or if your environment is unfavorable? Such conditions should incite you to greater effort, arouse you to a more indomitable determination to conquer. Stoutly deny the power of adversity or poverty to keep you down. Constantly assert your superiority to your environment; believe that you are to dominate your surroundings, that you are to be the master and not the slave of circumstances. This very assertion of belief in your ability to succeed, the mental attitude that claims success as an inalienable birthright, will strengthen the whole man and give power to the combination of faculties which doubt, fear and lack of confidence undermine.

Guard your faith in yourself as your most precious possession; take no chances with it. Should you get into an environment which suggests your inferiority in any way, whether by a partner who does not believe in you or your ability, and is constantly trying to poison others' faith in you, or by people who do not understand you, get out of it. Make a change, get freedom at any cost. One of the most pitiable sights in the world is

that of a human being with real ability but who has ceased to believe in himself.

Outside of character itself, there is no loss so great as that of self-confidence; for, when this is gone there is nothing to build upon. It is impossible for a man to stand erect without a backbone with plenty of lime in it.

There are many people in the failure army today who could yet do wonders if they could only be made to believe in themselves, to get back their courage and see their possibilities.

A stalwart faith in God, and in the happy outcome of life, will do more to stimulate courage and self-confidence and to lubricate the creaking machinery of our daily affairs than anything else.

Faith in God means faith in ourselves, and is the basis of all courage. We can cultivate it by aspiring to all that is noble and true, by using every possible method to improve ourselves, and by constantly thinking that we can do what we desire to do, and can be what we aspire to be. To think you can is to create the force that can.

THE WILL THAT FINDS A

WAY

"I will find a way or make one."

The barriers are not yet erected which can say to aspiring genius: "Thus far and no further."—Beethoven.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that tenacity of purpose which through all changes of companions, or parties, or fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but wearies out opposition and arrives at its port.—Emerson.

E have two natures, and the tendency of

WE

one of them is to backslide, to go down hill, unless constantly watched and prodded. Like a child left to itself, it will not only become indolent, lazy, shiftless, but will deteriorate morally, unless constantly controlled and guided. Our higher, diviner self is the parent, the schoolmaster that lives in the great within of us. This is always encouraging, inspiring, trying to uplift the other nature, which clings to the brute.

By a single supreme effort of the will, a wholehearted, unreserved response to the prompting of the higher self, multitudes of careers have been reversed as if by magic.

The many reformed lives that have traced their turning-point to a sudden self-discovery resulting

from the reading of an inspiring book or the encouragement of some friend who believed in them, show that radical character changes are possible without long years of training. The reversal is a simple question of turning about, facing in the other direction and shutting out the enemies, which have deflected one's life course from the right path. The shock of finding one's self in a vicious or disgraceful condition has often brought an individual to himself, and he has then and there resolved that his life should be changed.

There is no human being that can not, if he wills it, turn about face and walk in the opposite direction. It is just a question of will power, of right self-training, of forming a new habit to drive out the old; repeating the reverse action until a brain path for the new thought, the new act, has been formed.

How often we hear people with disagreeable dispositions or unhappy temperaments say they were born that way and their whole lives have been spoiled by their inherited fault. But, how shall we account for the instantaneous transformation of character, which often takes place after a tragic occurrence; the making and carrying out of a resolution to stop drinking, to quit an evil life, or the sudden determination to break up one's lazy, indolent, or negative habits? How shall we account for the sudden reversal of the character of a young man who has been regarded as a good-for-nothing