I will present it in the following pages. But let me assure you that if
you have the truest courage--the kind that this young man had--you will
not need the quality which I will next take up. Hope rides in a
palace-car, along the railroad, and over the tremendous bridges which
Courage has constructed.

[Illustration]




HOPE.

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers the way:
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.--Goldsmith.


Hope is the best part of our riches. For it alone
reaches further than any other--off into the world which is to come. But
I am speaking to you of the practical advantages of hope. Bacon says:
"Hope is leaf-joy, which may be beaten out to a great extension, like
gold." It has been most beautifully said by Hillard that the shadow of
human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope. Shakspeare
says the miserable have no other medicine. "Hope is a prodigal young
heir, and Experience is his banker, but his drafts are seldom honored,
since there is often a heavy balance against him." Now to make his
account good in the First National Bank of Experience, what should Hope