Hand in hand the homeless orphan pair walked out of the court room together, Jimmy Rome to make his mark in the business world and his sister to be the wife of a merchant prince.

Boys, be industrious, be honest, be sober.  “I will” fluttered from the worm-eaten ships of Columbus; “I will” blazed upon the banners of Washington and Grant; “I will” stamped the walls of Hudson river tunnel, and dug the canal of Panama.  Young man, write “I will” upon your brow, give your heart to God and hope will herald your way to victory as the reward of a well spent life.  Keep your eye upon the star of ambition.  Don’t be like the owl, who when daylight comes hides himself within the shadows of the ivy-bound oak and moans and moans the days of his life away; but rather be like the proud eagle that leaves its craggy summit, starts on its pinion flight through the clouds, rides upon the face of the storm, then on beyond bathes its plumage in the “sunlight of the day god, and laughs in the face of the coming morrow.”

Some one said, and trifled with the secret of success and happiness when he said it:  “There’s only a dollar’s difference between the man who works and the man who pays, and the man who pays, gets that.”  There is an old superstition that somewhere on the earth, under the earth or in the sea, there is a stone called the “philosopher’s stone” and whoever finds it will be “chiefest among ten thousand.”  The same superstition prevails with many today; only the name of the stone is turned to “luck,” and thousands of young men are waiting for luck to come along and turn up something for them.  There is a rule of life, young men, more reliable than luck.  It is called an ancient law and runs thus:  “By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”  It is the foundation of more sweet bread and pure enjoyment than all your luck.  On it the feet of Abraham Lincoln rested, while he wedged his way to the highest office in the gift of the American people.  On it Shakespeare stood, driving a shuttle through the warp and woof of a weaver’s loom and wove out for himself a name and fame immortal.  On it Elihu Burrett wielded a sledge hammer, while developing a mind that mastered many different languages.  On it Henry Clay made his way from the mill-sloshes of Virginia to the United States Senate, and on it James A. Garfield tramped his toe-pathway from driving a mule, to presiding over the destinies of seventy-five millions of people.

Boys, don’t be idle.  I know a man to-day who always looks so lazy it really rests me to look at him.  A boy working for a farmer was asked by his employer if he ever saw a snail.  The boy answered that he had.  “You must have met it, for you surely did not overtake it,” said the farmer.  I know an old man who seems to take pride in saying he never worked.  The first time I saw this man was in my youth.  While his father was husking corn in a field, he was seated by a fire reading a novel.  Often after that, when I would go to the postoffice in the winter, he would be there by the fire.  He moved to the city thirty years ago, where he spends his winters sitting around a fire.  He doesn’t drink or gamble.  I don’t think he will have many sins of commission for which to answer; he never commits anything; he sits by the fire.  When he dies an appropriate epitaph for his tomb will be: