Suppose DeWitt Clinton, denounced and ridiculed, had been led into the belief that his idea was a mere phantom, a mystic nightmare, the Erie Canal would not be a reality. Suppose Robert Fulton had accepted the issuing vapor of the tea-kettle as a mere phenomenon without seeking in it the opportunity for a mighty purpose; suppose that Cyrus W. Field or Marconi, or Edison or Ericsson, or the hundreds of others who by their inventive genius have been a blessing to mankind, had been contented with simply dreaming of the stupendous undertakings which they achieved! It is the man who knows his opportunities when he sees them, who grips them as they pass, who stands at the door of his activities ready to welcome and turn to good account each new opportunity that comes, that is the typically successful man. Many young men have had noble ideas, backed by strong convictions, but failing to "strike while the iron was hot," have let their convictions die, the mental picture of their ideals vanish, and to their sorrow have seen them wrought by another into reality. And below this class of men we will find a lower type--the man who is always waiting for something to turn up, and always missing it when it does. This is the man whom Dickens has immortalized in fiction in the familiar figure of Micawber. This class, however, is unmistakably diminishing in our day, but still there are many who seem to come just short of the prizes of life. They are always just too late for the opportunity that should have brought them fame and fortune. Shakespeare has aptly portrayed that supreme moment in life which we call opportunity: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries." And the annals of human experience are filled and overflowing with achievements--examples of opportunities that were laid hold upon at just the critical moment of the tide. When the armies of Saul and Goliath were encamped in the valley of Elah, an opportunity was given to every soldier in Israel to meet the Philistine giant, but the youthful shepherd, David, alone accepted it, and his name has been praised for thirty centuries. An unlettered girl, a peasant in France, saw an opportunity to save the glory of her country, and with a courage that baffles human understanding Joan of Arc went forth to conquer. When George III of England ascended the throne and began to oppress the Colonists, an opportunity was created for the American people to act. With sublime patriotism they arose to the occasion in defense of their rights, and historians allude to the inspiring event as the opening scene in the Revolution.