LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

At eleven this slight boy was holding the plow;
strange work for a child much smaller than boys
of his age, but children do not hesitate at impos-
sible undertakings when love rules the home. It
was the next.year, I think, that a Sunday-school
was started in the little Georgia town, and Alexan-
der — this was the name of our child plowman —
who had read no books excepting the New Tes-
tament and spelling-book, was invited to attend,
He undertook to read Genesis by the light of a
pine-knot fire, after the aay’s work was over, and
soon sat up till midnight fascinated with the story
of Moses and Joseph. The taste for reading was
formed those nights—the delight, the solace of a
long lifetime.

Three years later, the father and the step-mother
both died within the same week, and the family
was broken up and scattered. Alexander went to
the home of his mother’s brother. His father had
been a good, kind man but with no genius for
making money, yet his death was a sad blow for
his helpless flock. Intelligent and sympathetic,
his pure life had been a great moral force in the
home. The actual work for each child would be
no harder now than it had been, perhaps; the
great woe of it was that each must go his own way,
alone. Alexander knew that he should not be
strong enough for farm work. He hoped to obtain
education sufficient to enable him to become a
merchant’s clerk. For nearly a year, by means of
the pittance left by his father, he attended school,
and then at fifteen regretfully bade good-by to the
schoolroom and carried home his books. The
next week he was to set forth. He meant to go
to a neighboring town and seek a place in a store,

Sabbath morning, with a heavy heart, he started
for his last day in the Sunday-school class. The
superintendent, Mr. Mills, asked how he was pros-
pering in his studies.

‘“‘T have finished school,” was the low answer.

“ What are you going to do?”

“Try to find a place in a store, and save some
money, if I can, for further study.”

Mr. Mills asked whether he would not like to go
to college, and study Latin.

If a great hope stole into the lad’s heart for a
moment, he resolutely put it away. ‘‘ I should like
it,” he said quickly, “ but I have no means.”

And then came the unexpected words:

“T will lend you the money.”

Alexander was too astonished to accept the pro-
posal. He said, at last, that he would talk the
matter over with his uncle and aunt. He went home
heart and brain in atumult. The uncle said little.
The aunt argued how much he could accomplish
in the world with an education; she said he ought
to accept at once, thankfully. She made the boy
a few new clothes, freshened up his old ones, and
with a woman’s enthusiasm encouraged him, as he
started into the untried life.

=00)

Young Alexander pondered much the first few
days. He could not bear to be dependent but
since it séemed to be needful, he would strive to
make friends, to be manly, to give Mr. Mills rea-
sons to be proud ofhim. The Sabbath-school had
turned his mind toward the pleasures and benefits
of reading, furnished him a benefactor, and opened
his way, perhaps, toward usefulness and greatness.
Doubtless years after when, as Horace Greeley said,
Stephens stood the most eloquent man in Congress,
he would have said with Senator Frelinghuysen :
“Zo go from the Sunday-school to the Senate of the
Onited States, I consider no promotion.”

College life covered a happy, joyous period in
the life of this earnest Southern boy. He boarded
with a clergyman by the name of Webster, who,
he afterwards learned, had made the suggestion to
Mr. Mills to advance the money for his education ;
and so fond did he become of this man that he
adopted his middle name, and ever after wrote his
own, Alexander Hamilton Stephens.

His first Latin book was fistorie Sacre, and
here his Bible study so helped him, that he soon
stood at the head of his class. He became exceed-
ingly popular with both his instructors and his fel-
low-students. A letter to a friend shows how well
he deserved it:

During the four years that I spent at college, I was never
absent from roll-call without a good excuse; was never fined ;
and, to the best of my belief, never had a demerit mark
against me. No one in my class, at any examination, ever
got a better circular than I did. . In my rooms we
talked, laughed, told stories, more than in any room in col-
lege. But there was never any dissipation in it; neither liq-
uor nor cards were ever introduced; nor were indecent
stories or jests ever allowed. I“ treated” as much in the way
of fruit, melons, and nicknacks in season as any other boy
in college; and yet my average annual expenses were only
two hundred and five dollars. ‘Tobacco was not on my list.
What I saved in hats, shoes and clothes, I spent in this
way. It was not to gain popularity, only to give pleasure
to those about me.

These are helpful suggestions to boys that have
an ambition to stand well with their fellows, while
they also push ahead, and a boy without ambitions
rarely comes to true greatness.

College days ended at last, and now came the
struggle with the world. Everybody comes to this
struggle in one way or another, Perhaps it is to
secretly overcome various temptations; perhaps it
is to openly earn bread; perhaps to patiently seek
chances to earn.

Young Stephens had already engaged as assist-
ant in an academy. ‘Teachers, patrons, students,
were strangers to him. He missed the college
friendships. The work wore upon his nerves.
He had no money and was of course in debt for his
education. He walked his two miles in the early
morning before the principal was awake. He
wrote in his journal :