would die, man's talent and skill waste away, and the hope of the race
would vanish.

Opportunity is the good angel that reveals the true issues of life,
unfolding the bud of possibility into the full-blown flower of progress.
It is the remorseless foe of sleepy monotony, awakening the passions in
the soul, rousing our powers to action. At the door of your life and mine
comes this silent, veiled figure, its hands laden with wealth, knocking
for admission. But, alas! it has been too often with us as George Eliot
with such tragic pathos has put it: "The golden moments in the stream of
life rush past us and we see nothing but sand. The angels come to visit us
and we know them only when they are gone."

There has been no period of time since God whirled out of chaos this
universe of wonders whose every moment did not hold for some one,
somewhere, some kind of opportunity. Man is the only creature under heaven
that has been privileged to walk with his face skyward to gaze upon the
stars, to behold the opportunities of life as they surge along his
pathway. In her wisdom, nature has given our eyes the power of both the
telescope and the microscope, that we may see our opportunities afar and
rightly discern them when they come within our reach.

Do not regard your opportunities as mere visages floating in the horizon
of your life, or autumn leaves driven by the winds of chance across your
path. Every opportunity far from being a thing of chance, is a product of
definite causes. Opportunity is unrealized possibility supplemented by
conditions favorable for the execution of a purpose. And the power lies
within you to create circumstances. That skillful artist, the human brain,
draws a mental picture--an idea, the judgment approves, the will renders
a decision to create that idea into actual being; in other words, gives it