may not receive our adoption."

"I don't know, sir, but it seems to me very strange, and is very
humiliating, that I should be required to submit to the instructions
of one of whom we know nothing, and who is scarcely older than
myself."

"It may be mortifying to your self-esteem, my son, but self-esteem,
when too active, is compelled constantly to suffer this sort of
mortification. It may be that one man shall not be older in actual
years than another, yet be able to teach that other. Merely living,
days and weeks and months, constitutes no right to wisdom: it is
the crowding events and experience--the indefatigable industry--the
living actively and well--that supply us with the materials for
knowing and teaching. In comparison with millions of your own age,
who have lived among men, and shared in their strifes and troubles,
you would find yourself as feeble a child as ever yet needed the
helping hand of counsel and guardianship; and this brings me back
to what I said before. Your parents have treated you too tenderly.
They have done everything for you. You have done nothing for
yourself. They provide for your wants, hearken to your complaints,
nurture you in sickness, with a diseasing fondness, and so render
you incapable. Hence it is, that, in the toils of manhood, you do
not know how to begin. You lack courage and perseverance."

"Courage and perseverance!" was the surprised exclamation of the
youth.

"Precisely, and lest I should offend you, my son, I must acknowledge
to you beforehand, that this very deficiency was my own."