Chatterton. A Poem

142 IMPROVEMENT ERA pure, and our aim high and noble. Mr. Neal Dow, one of the great temperance workers, of the United States, says : "The key to success in any department of life is self-denial. This means living with reference to the future and not for the pleasures of the moment. Idleness, laziness, sensual indulgences involving wasteful expenditures, come from lack of self-denial. Industry, promptitude, economy, followed by thrift, stick-to-it-iveness, and a successful career, come from self-denial. Those fail in life, and must ever fail, who lack self-denial. Drinking, smoking, and other bad habits all come from lack of self-denial. If a man, young or old, lives for present gratifications, he cannot have a successful future. If one desires that, he must aim for it, keep his eye fixed upon it, work for it, and avoid everything that will hinder him in the pursuit of it." Abide with me. Yes! through the joys and sorrows of life; through days of prosperity as well as through the days of trial and misfortune. When we are tempted to do evil and the tempter seems about to conquer, may we realize that God will abide only with the pure in mind and act. As the cigarette or the glass is drawn to the lips, this thought will dash it away. We must always remember that we are not living for today alone, but for tomorrow, next year, fifty years from now, for eternity ; then what do the pleasures of today amount to, when we think of the immensity of the future which can be ruined by our indulging in some of the seeming pleasures of the moment? They are not pleasures but, in reality, are serpents, showing up the loud and gaudy to tempt man's appetite or his vanity. Keep aloof from these and the future will stand out bright and clear with no clouds to mar its beauty and success. Unless this is done, neither the moral, the physical nor the intellectual sides of a person will be properly cultivated, and in order to make a full rounding successful man or woman these three sides must be fully developed. One of the greatest factors in moral and intellectual development is the environment in which we are placed. We are much like plants in that respect that we respond to our surroundings. A Cyprus tree grown in the swamps of the south is a beautiful symmetrical tree, but if it is grown among the hills in the north it becomes bent and knotted and twisted, so that it is hardly recognizable. Man is the same, if he is continually surrounded by