influence through his eyes. The human voice, as shown by the orator, has its effect in producing emotions in the listener. The very expression plays its part, as a sympathetic look can take the place of volumes of words. All these things are directly influenced by the mind, and the stronger your mind is the more forcibly will you impress your will and your personality upon the people with whom you come into contact.

Start at once upon the preliminary training of the intellect, because its force in daily life depends upon the power with which you can exercise it, and that power can only be developed by careful study. First of all, you should strengthen your intellect by reading good literature, and whenever you come across a fine passage you should memorise it.

It was said of Macaulay that if every copy of Milton's "Paradise Lost" were accidentally destroyed, he could replace it from his memory down to each comma. He trained his wonderful memory in the following way: When he was reading a book, he would stop at the end of each page and endeavour to recollect what that page was about. He did this so carefully that gradually he trained himself to such a pitch that by merely reading a passage, a page, or a poem, or even an article, he could repeat it word for word.

If you will follow this practice you will find

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that your memory will be wonderfully strengthened. More than this, you will lay up in your mind a vast store of literary treasure that will reflect itself in your speech and writing, and influence your thought in the most desirable manner. Take the best literary models and commit the passages to memory. John Bright, one of the most famous orators that ever lived, took the Bible for his model, and became so familiar with its style that his speeches, reflecting that style, were remarkable for the purity, grace, and splendour of their diction. The example of Demosthenes, whose name will ever live as an orator, is a shining light to the struggling man. He had an impediment in his speech, of which he cured himself by putting pebbles in his mouth and declaiming on the seashore. If you have a talent, you can develop it even if you possess some physical or mental disqualification. How much less should you be discouraged if you have no such drawback?

Start training your memory with poetry, and learn it by reading it aloud. If you read it merely, you have only the eye to help you recall it. If you speak it, the sound of the words helps you to remember them. Blank verse is more difficult to memorise, but by choosing good models you acquire a nobility of diction and thought at the time that you are further strengthening your mind. Moreover, you will learn how to express your

thoughts, both in words and writing, tersely and succinctly. Prose is harder still to learn, but when you can learn it easily, you will know that you have a cultivated memory which will serve you well by enabling you to remember what you read, what you hear, and what you see. Your mind will be active and receptive. You will observe keenly, and you will be better fitted for success in every way.

Do not try to do too minutes a day at first. Master a small poem, even if it takes you several days. In that way you will not get tired of your exercises, and as you go on you will learn more in the time you allow yourself. I

much at the start. Give ten

would recommend Addison's " Spectator " for your

prose memorising, Shakespeare's sonnets for your poetry. Dr. Ginsburg, the eminent Hebrew scholar, once described the "Spectator," in my hearing, as the finest prose writing in the language. I will give you one passage from it to memorise. The subject is "Superstition":

"I know but one way of fortifying my soul against these gloomy presages and terrors of mind, and that is, by securing to myself the friendship and protection of that Being Who disposes of events, and governs futurity. He sees, at one view, the whole thread of my existence, not only that part of it which I have already passed through, but that which runs forward into all the depths of eternity.

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When I lay me down to sleep, I recommend myself to His care; when I awake, I give myself up to His direction. Amidst all the evils that threaten me, I will look up to Him for help, and question not but He will either avert them, or turn them to my advantage. Though I know neither the time nor the manner of the death I am to die, I am not at all solicitous about it; because I am sure that He knows them both, and that He will not fail to comfort and support me under them."

Reading the "Spectator" lately, I came across a quotation from "Paradise Lost," which gives an excellent example for memorising:

"Nor think, though men were none,

That heav'n would want spectators, God want praise:
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep;
All these with ceaseless praise His works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other's note,
Singing their great Creator? Oft in bands,
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heav'nly touch of instrumental sounds,
In full harmonic number join'd, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heav'n."

Now, it is essential to mind-training that you do not learn without thinking. If you are content merely to memorise the finest passages of our litera

ture you are making a lumber-room of your mind and nothing more. You must understand what you read. I would recommend you to read "Sesame and Lilies," by Ruskin, and you will understand what I mean.

So much for the theory of elementary mind culture. It is worth your while to practise it. The strengthening of your memory is the first step towards the cultivation of your mind, which will have far-reaching effects upon your will-power and upon your whole life. Your life is yours to make You have inherited a glorious gift. It is your duty to use it well, and in fulfilling that duty be sure you will gain your reward in increased capacity for getting the utmost out of all that life has to offer.

or mar.