must watch for men who can take responsible positions in case the employees holding them leave him. If he can find them in his own office, he will prefer to do so, because he knows his own men. If he cannot, he will go outside, and he is always keeping his eyes open to find men of real ability whom he can use in the best-paid positions in his business. Let your knowledge be acquired for the purpose of making you a marked man. If you will steadily persevere in your quest for wisdom, which is the art of using knowledge as well as getting it, someone will want you for some post that you are fitted for, and probably the call to better things will come sooner than you expect. Opportunity knocks at every man's door, but it forces open the door of the man who possesses knowledge and is aware of his possession.

ON

CHAPTER XII

MENTAL STOCKTAKING

"All our knowledge is ourselves to know."-POPE.

NE of the greatest mental triumphs is to look back over a year and observe an advance in mental power and achievement. To know yourself a better man than you were twelve months ago, to have a finer record of good work done, and to have acquired greater ability for doing things, is a reward that is known only to the earnest worker. The idler, the prevaricator, and the shirker have no conception of this form of reward for labour. It is sweeter than praise, and better than money, inasmuch as power of the mind commands money, and is, therefore, superior to it.

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Some people deliberately blind themselves to their own abilities. 'Happy occasions oft by selfmistrust are forfeited," says Wordsworth. I know a man, with every advantage of brain and commonsense, whose self-mistrust stands like a lion in the path of his material progress. He assimilates knowledge with ease, he is essentially business-like, he

can get right to the heart of a question by stripping it of its side-issues, he is qualified for at least two professions, and he is the kind of person to whom the family immediately repair for help and advice when in difficulty. The only thing that keeps him back is a lack of knowledge of his own powers. Many a clerk in an office is a clerk still because he is afraid to attempt work a little out of his regular routine. The people who succeed in life are those who are not afraid of responsibility, and it must be confessed that too many people are crippled by this unreasonable and degrading bogey.

Man, made in the image of his Creator, was, from the first, given command over everything in the world. He is greater than his work if he will only realise it. Most people who profess to believe in the Bible, for instance, read and hear this truth over and over again, but it never dawns upon them that it applies to themselves. Comparatively few people realise that not only is man given command over all the earth, but that he is also given command over himself. If he only will he can crush his timidity, he can fit himself for responsibility, and clutch it with both hands; and he will be a better and a stronger man for doing so.

Responsibility is the very essence of life. It is the primary rule of existence. No man can be responsible for another's soul or for his misuse of

his talents and opportunities. We are all responsible for our own lives, and in material things we receive our rewards or our punishments, according to the manner in which we accept our responsibilities and act up to them. The punishment for shirking responsibility lies in a stultification of our powers of mind and body. The reward for accepting it lies in the glory of achievement and in the pleasure of discovering new and unsuspected powers. Every fresh task undertaken, every new piece of knowledge acquired, every new power for doing different and better work, marks an advance in mental force that is but another stepping-stone to still greater performances. To-morrow ought to find you a better man than you were yesterday. Next year you ought to be capable of work that was unknown to you twelve months before.

You can only discover what you are capable of by striking out on new lines of endeavour, and to do this successfully you must seize every opportunity for more important work that comes your way. Look carefully into the work of your office and observe what knowledge is necessary to enable you to carry out the work that the men above you are doing. It is your duty to fit yourself for these higher places, and only by doing so can you successfully accept responsibility. Knowledge is power, because it gives a man confidence in himself. If you fit

yourself for the work of the men above you in your office, you will not fear responsibility whenever your good fortune thrusts it upon you. What the world wants, and what the commercial house wants, is men who can do things, who know they can do them, and who, consequently, are not afraid to attempt things. Everything is forgiven to the man of honest action.

It is reported of Andrew Carnegie that he once dismissed a man from his employ after years of work, on the ground that he had never made a mistake. The magnate argued that the man who never made a mistake could never be good for anything. Certainly, the man who makes no mistakes cannot be advancing out of the common ruck of life. Employers do not blame a man for his mistakes if his general work is good, and if they are caused by the responsibility he has accepted. The thing to be sure of is that the same mistake shall not be made twice.

Beware of the policy of "drift." It is a maxim of business that if you are not advancing you are going backwards. You cannot be sure you are advancing if you are content to drift. It will be safe for you to assume that unless you take command of your life's work, and map out a plan for your mental and material progress, you will let yourself be outstripped by the more sagacious runners in life's race. The gospel of life is action. The man