and I saw myself as I really was. It was not an inviting sight, but it
is one I should have been forced to see, long before.

I reached the end of my journey, a place which, as you would not know
its name then, it is perhaps well that you should never know. I had no
money, and I was hungry. Ordinarily, I should have struck some one for
a loan, but your words rang in my ears, and I would not do it. I
applied for a job of work that I knew I could do. I got it, and did it
as well as I knew how to. I hide my face even now, for very shame, as
I confess that it was the first time, for years, that I had done as
well as I knew how to do. I got my pay, and ate an honestly earned,
though frugal supper, that evening. I think you will understand me
when I tell you that I went to bed happier that night than I had before
for a long time. The "Other Fellow" said, "It is all right, Old Boy!
Stand by!" I did "stand by," and I have been standing by ever since.

And first, as I learn you are still teaching, I want to ask you never
to give up your boys, nor your way of managing them. You can never
know how much you did for me in the Emburg school. Those old days come
back to me almost every hour, and their essence is a part of my being.
I know that you must have thought, ten thousand times, that all your
work was lost, and counted for nothing. You had every reason in the
world for thinking so, and doubtless did think so. But I want to beg
of you now, in the name of the new life that has eventually come to me
through the medium of those old school days, not to be discouraged. I
tell you, my dear teacher, that not one of such words and deeds will
fail, at last, of reaching the purpose for which it was primarily
intended. So please be patient with the boys, and keep on as you were,
years ago, and do not be discouraged because it is long till the
harvest. It will ripen in due time. The reapers shall come also,