One of the most valuable assets which we can possess is the ability to mold from the adverse circumstances about us our opportunities. And "a wise man," says Bacon, "will make more opportunities than he finds." When Michael Angelo takes the castaway rock which he finds in his path and carves from it "The Young David;" when Herschel at the midnight hour, after playing his violin for a living, goes out and studies the star-lit skies, the field of his immortal conquest; when Elihu Burritt, working at the forge, grapples with mathematics, and masters several languages; when obstacles are overcome, and adversity yields to the invincible wills of men, then has opportunity by this self-made principle been hewn out of the very stumbling blocks which were in the way. Every man is a treasury of untold wealth. He is not great merely for what he is, but for the greatness of his possibility--that undreamed grandeur which opportunity is ever seeking to reveal. True greatness does not emanate from the power of genius so much as it does from the wise discrimination which we exercise in the choice of our opportunities, and the intelligence with which we lay hold upon them. It is a fine art in life to know just the thing to do, and the opportune moment for doing it. Eternal vigilance is the price we must pay, and the constant whetting of our faculties. Our life is a succession of opportunities. Yet however numerous they may be, or however bright, they are not availing until placed into the crucible of experience. Gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds--all the precious jewels imbedded in the treasure-house of nature, become valuable to us only when we dig them out, polish and shape them for our use. Likewise our opportunities enrich us only as we reach out after them and make them an abiding element in our life. But to know one's opportunity when he sees it, is the secret of life's great problem. "Know thy opportunity," is the motto of Pittacus of Mitylene, one of the seven wise men. It is inscribed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. And each day, in the temple of our memory, we should write it anew. For the practical question is not whether we are making the most of our opportunities, but whether we are conscious of them at all. Moreover, to know them _instantly_ as well as to know them instinctively is essential to our well-being. When Victor Hugo charges us to take all reasonable advantage of that which the present offers, he reveals the true character of opportunity. It lives only in the present tense, it knows no to-morrows, and makes a record of the yesterdays only when it has found lodgment in our lives.