But their lines are soon spoken, and the stage must be cleared for those who have something of more moment to tell. "How much do you really care?" the world is asking. "How ready are you to think intently upon something which has no more fun in it than a page of figures or an array of unyielding facts? How far are you ready to bend all the best energies of body, brain and heart to the gaining of some worthy end? How completely have you set your heart upon that which is vital?" Your answer to these questions will in large measure tell the story of your future achievement. This young man failed because he had not acquired the habit of persistence. His big deeds were all done in a hurry, and they were soon over. He carried off the gates of the city in ten minutes. He tore the young lion apart in an instant. He slaughtered the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass in less time than I am taking in telling it. He tied torches to the tails of the foxes and let them loose in the wheat fields in a careless half hour of thoughtless sport. You do not find the man binding up a lifetime of effort into a moral unit by an all-inclusive and dominant intention. He was never ready to work and to keep on working until achievement of a worthy sort should crown his effort. You cannot drive a long nail in to the head by hammering around all over the board. You must hit the nail on the head and keep on hitting it on the head until you have sent it home. You cannot sink the shaft of a mine by digging all around over the mountainside. You must dig in one place and keep on digging in one place persistently until you have sunk your shaft to the vein of ore. You cannot build a life that is worthy to be the life of a child of God unless you gird yourself for that persistent effort which lies between you and the goal upon which you have set your heart. It cannot be done in an hour, or in a day, or in a year. The hard task of presenting to Him a life which will bear His own eye and win His approval will mortgage the best strength of all your best years. You may have the body of an athlete. You may have a mind with splendid capacity in it for real achievement. You may have a heart which reacts as promptly as gunpowder when a spark of genuine aspiration is applied to it. You may have all these--I hope you have--but unless you have learned the high art of staying by, of holding on, of keeping at it no matter what comes, you are doomed to defeat.