Manhood, fully developed and symmetrically formed, through the various stages of the world’s history, has been the great conservative element of society, and has been in high request.  Some ages, however, have seemed to make a larger demand for this element than others, and this age of ours is one which yields to none of its predecessors in its call for manliness of character—­for men of the right stamp.  The perils of the times are imminent, and the demand for a high grade of intelligence and great strength of moral principle never was stronger.  New developments of human genius and activity, are constantly arising, and new dangers to the dearest interests of society are calling for vigilance.  This is neither a stagnant nor a tame and quiet age.  It is an age of activity, of enterprise, of speculation, of adventure, of philosophizing and of both real and pseudo reforms.  The age eminently demands vigorous and mature manhood.  Therefore, study, think, investigate, learn.  Remember, however, that it is not knowledge stored up as intellectual fat which is of value, but that which is turned into intellectual muscle.  Out of dull and selfish seclusion go forth.  Regulate with care your basal endowments.  Prove thy strength, and render it sure.  Deliver thy conceptions from narrowness, thy charity from scrimpness, thy purposes from smallness.  Deny thyself and take up thy cross.  Do and dare, love and suffer.  So shalt thou build a character that will abide all the tests which future years or ages may bring.

Bear constantly in mind that you are endlessly improvable.  “It is for God and for Omnipotency to do mighty things in a moment; but degreeingly to grow to greatness is the course that He hath left for man.”  To the conscious human self there belong possibilities of such moment that no one can well study them without being either thrillingly impressed or made to experience unusual emotions.  The conclusion is, therefore, unavoidable, that every soul can become great.  By processes of culture to which it is able to subject itself, it can perpetually increase in wisdom, in strength, and in nobleness.

The soul’s chief capabilities may, for the sake of elucidation, be represented as so many different rooms within itself, each of which can be made to have a spaciousness equaled by no material amplitude ever yet ascertained, and each of which, so long as it is kept in the process of growth, is and will be susceptible of fresh furnishing.  These apartments of the minor man are too wonderful to admit being depicted either by a writer’s pen or by a painter’s brush.  Their most distinguishing characteristics can, at best, only be indicated.  Who can tell how much knowledge can find place in them, or what volumes of feeling they can contain?  Who can declare the magnitude of the grandest traits that, in them, can have freedom to thrive and bear fruit?  Who can estimate the length and breadth, the height and depth of the loftiest inspirations or the noblest