Many of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if
they could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the
baser metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are
individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment
who fail utterly in life because they lack the one element,--self-
reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus them into
strength and power.

The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all
he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure,
because he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not
act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his
conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is "not
appreciated," "not recognized," he is "kept down." He feels that in
some subtle way "society is conspiring against him." He grows almost
vain as he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such
affliction, such failure as have come to him.

The man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the
weakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds
dearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all
outside influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history,
in every phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight
against the odds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no
more than passing through a tunnel is to a traveller,--he knows he must
emerge again into the sunlight.

The nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the
one that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If,