The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-02-26

plished great things have been men who had great ideals. The man whose notion is simply that of getting a dollar will never become any bigger than a dollar. Then. too, the life is often in danger of becoming one-sided.
 He who has an ideal always before him is as a ship well ballasted. that sits trim ly in the water and cuts it's way in swift est fashion with least resistance. But it is more than ballast, this ideal is, 1t is an inspiration. It Is something to look forward to the accomplishing of, and through the dull days and dark days and the days of disappointment and the days of unexpected misfortune that come to every one in life there is still this ideal to hold to and work for the attainment Of and so 1t brings light and comfort as well enlargement to life.
 Ideal of Character.
 Besides the ideal of attainment must be the ideal of character. The man who simply reaches the end of a journey with out bringing a spirit sufficiently devel- oped to appreciate what he finds at the end of that journey has made his journey in vain. He would have known quite as much had he stayed at home.
 Hence whatever good attachments might be, if there is not the ideal of character the attainment will profit us nothing We are then to hold before ourselves the highest life. The Master says: Be ye therefore perfect and we are to be sat isfied with no ideal that is less than the highest" Suppose we do not attain unto perfection. the fact of our honest striving will carry us further along than if we had some lesser ideal before our eyes The cry of Guinevere when she is in the convent is at last the true cry.
 "Ah my God. what might I not have
 made of thy fair world.
 Had I but loved thy highest creature
 here?
 It was my duty to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known; It would have been my pleasure had I
 seen.
 We needs must love the highest when we
 see 1t,
 Not Lancelot nor another"
 It is at last love of the highest that makes us what we ought to be. Here then we reach the true value of an ideal. May we not say that an ideal is some thing higher than our present self, or than our present attainment. which we are striving to reach. Or, as St. Paul says, Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward unto things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" As great as he is, he does not consider that he has reach- ed the summit of greatness. Something lies beyond, and this, he is endeavoring to reach with the earnestness of a run ner for prize.
 believe, young gentlemen. that the need of an ideal of character is far greater than an ideal of attainment. Success has almost become fetich in our day. If a man has succeeded in his enterprise we are not apt to ask either what is his undertaking. Or how did he succeed, the fact that he did succeed stares us in the face, and the whole world is invited to come and see the house of this mans building.
 The True Man.
 The greatest thing, however. that a man makes Is what he makes of himself What sort of a building is the house of your soul? Does there dwell enshrined within it first of all the man. Is the supremest desire of the life to become in the highest sense a man? So to live day by day that the manliness of you can be felt. and must be recognized by all whose lives you touch.
 Is it not far greater thing to have men feel you than to have them feel your money or your social position, or your political influence? Is it not a far higher thing to make a man whom even God can honor out of the material you have than to coin dollars out of the very hearts blood of you, so that all you shall