And below this class of men we will find a lower type--the man who is
always waiting for something to turn up, and always missing it when it
does. This is the man whom Dickens has immortalized in fiction in the
familiar figure of Micawber. This class, however, is unmistakably
diminishing in our day, but still there are many who seem to come just
short of the prizes of life. They are always just too late for the
opportunity that should have brought them fame and fortune.

Shakespeare has aptly portrayed that supreme moment in life which we call
opportunity:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

And the annals of human experience are filled and overflowing with
achievements--examples of opportunities that were laid hold upon at just
the critical moment of the tide.

When the armies of Saul and Goliath were encamped in the valley of Elah,
an opportunity was given to every soldier in Israel to meet the Philistine
giant, but the youthful shepherd, David, alone accepted it, and his name
has been praised for thirty centuries.

An unlettered girl, a peasant in France, saw an opportunity to save the
glory of her country, and with a courage that baffles human understanding
Joan of Arc went forth to conquer.