Harry Thaw had everything wealth and refinement could bring into a young life, but he sacrificed all upon unhallowed altars, and with the brand of Cain upon his brow, he was cast into a madman’s cell.  He could not stand the test.

Lord Byron was Britain’s brilliant bard.  He could have lived in England’s glory and then slept with England’s buried greatness in Westminster Abbey, if he had stood the test; but at the age of thirty-seven, when he should have been on an upward flight to greater fame, he drew the “strings of his discordant harp” about him and over them sent the bitter wail: 

  “My days are in the yellow leaf;
    The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
  The worm, the canker, and the grief
    Are mine alone!”

Younder in a cabin a babe was born.  When eleven years of age he helped his mother clear out a patch and raise a garden.  Later on he lay in front of a wood fire, studying lessons for the morrow.  Later in life he went to college, with only a few cents in his pocket.  He went to church and there gave part of his little all in a collection for missionary work.  The next Saturday he earned a dollar with a jack-plane; at the end of his college term he had paid his way and had seven dollars left.  At twenty-eight this young man was in the senate of his state, at thirty-six he was in Congress, and twenty-seven years from the time James A. Garfield rang the bell of Hiram College for his board he went into the White House as President of the United States.  He could stand the test.  Boys, can you stand the test?

During the Spanish American war there was a regiment called the “Rough Riders.”  It was made up of picked young men from different states of the Union.  It was this regiment that made the famous charge up San Juan Hill.  At the close of the war, the regiment was mustered out of service.  The Colonel, giving his farewell address, said:  “You have made an honorable record in war, now go back to your homes and make honorable record in peace.”

Sixteen years of that record is made.  The Colonel has been President of the United States for seven years of that time.  General Leonard Wood has gone to the front of the army, and others of the regiment have become successful professional and business men; but some have gone to jails and penitentiaries, one died not long since in the streets of New York City and was buried in a pauper’s grave; some are fugitives from justice.

What is true of that regiment, is in some measure true of every body of young men and boys I meet.  In my presence are boys who will be leaders of thought and action twenty years from now in whatever community they dwell.  There is a boy before me who will be a successful merchant, there’s one who will be a banker, another will be a lawyer, others will lead in other lines.  But alas! in my presence now, looking me in the face this minute, there may be a boy, or boys, who will stain with blood the stony path to despair.