sees there a confession of weakness, a lack of confidence in themselves.

How can one win the confidence of others who says by his eye and his very manner: "Do not take much stock in me; do not believe in me, for I do not believe in myself. You are much mistaken if you think I am capable of doing anything worth while, for I am not."

The man who slinks out of sight, who never thinks he is just the man to do this or that, who thinks that perhaps somebody else could do much better, shows that he has no faith in himself, that he does not really believe in himself, and people take him at his own valuation.

Many people are all the time "queering" their own interests by communicating their doubts to others. It is a very difficult thing to clinch a bargain with a great doubt in your mind. To convince another, you must be convinced yourself. Doubt in yourself can not bring conviction to another.

When you go to a man for a position or a favor or an order look him in the eye and tell him what you want. Approach him fearlessly, with confidence and assurance, with a consciousness of ability and strength, and you will be much more likely to get the thing you desire. Our moods are contagious, and the man you approach will feel your confidence or lack of it very quickly.

Everybody admires the manly man, the one who carries himself with an air of assurance and confi

dence and who radiates force. It is easy to believe in such a man. But the man who crawls into your presence like an Uriah Heep, apologizing for imposing himself upon you and taking your valuable time and asking a favor, almost always gets turned down. We can not make a good impression upon another unless we are self-confident, manly, and courageous ourselves.

It is worth everything to you to have people believe in you, to have faith in your ability to do the thing you undertake, to bank on you. Your own attitude will have more than anything else to do with establishing this condition. The world believes in the man who dares, the man who trusts himself.

If you approach your task with the expectation of winning, with assurance and confidence, you will soon gain a reputation for putting things through, for bringing everything you take hold of to a successful issue; and the very reputation of being master of the situation, equal to the emergency, no matter how formidable, is of priceless value. It will give a momentum almost irresistible, for people get out of the way of a man who makes a program and carries it out against all odds. Such a man becomes a power in any community.

No matter what discouragements confront us, what difficulties oppose us, what obstructions stand in our way, if we hold fast to our courage we can face toward the front and push on to victory.

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.