that the critical moment had arrived, that the racers were nearing the goal, the old father looked up through eyes that were a little dim as he realized that truly Sotiri was leading the way.  He was “returning a victor.”  How the crowd surged about the young peasant when the race was fairly won!  Wild with excitement, they knew not how to shower upon him sufficient praise.  Ladies overwhelmed him with flowers and rings; some even gave him their watches, and one American lady bestowed upon him her jewelled smelling-bottle.  The princes embraced him, and the king himself saluted him in military fashion.  But the young Sotirios was seeking for other praise than theirs.  Past the ranks of royalty and fair maidenhood, past the outstretched hands of his own countrymen, past the applauding crowd of foreigners, his gaze wandered till it fell upon an old man trembling with eagerness, who resolutely pushed his way through the excited, satisfied throng.  Then the young face lighted, and as old Loues advanced to the innermost circle with arms outstretched to embrace his boy, the young victor said, simply:  “You see, father, I have obeyed.”

MENTAL DISCIPLINE.

The athlete trains for his race; and the mind must be put into training if one will win life’s race.

“It is,” says Professor Mathews, “only by continued, strenuous efforts, repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything else.  The process of obtaining this self-mastery—­this complete command of one’s mental powers—­is a gradual one, its length varying with the mental constitution of each person; but its acquisition is worth infinitely more than the utmost labor it ever costs.”

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education,” it was said by Professor Huxley, “is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson which he learns thoroughly.”

DOING THINGS ONCE.

When Henry Ward Beecher was asked how it was that he could accomplish so much more than other men, he replied: 

“I don’t do more, but less, than other people.  They do all their work three times over:  once in anticipation, once in actuality, once in rumination.  I do mine in actuality alone, doing it once instead of three times.”

This was by the intelligent exercise of Mr. Beecher’s will-power in concentrating his mind upon what he was doing at a given moment, and then turning to something else.  Any one who has observed business men closely, has noticed this characteristic.  One of the secrets of a successful life is to be able to hold all of our energies upon one point, to focus all of the scattered rays of the mind upon one place or thing.