So it is in civil life. Real success consists in doing one’s duty well in the path where one’s life is led. Of course, you must remember that to do your duty you must in the first place do it to yourself and to those that are nearest you. There is no use whatever in having lofty ambitions or great schemes for helping mankind if you are not able in the first place to keep yourself and your own family decently fed, clothed, and housed. You must pull your own weight first before you can do more than be a passenger in the boat. You must do what is right to your family and your neighbors before you can help the State. If, however, you have the ordinary humdrum qualities, the workaday qualities, you can win real success; for real success in civil life means that the man is able to make a living for himself and his family, to educate his children, to do his duty by his neighbors, and when the end of his life comes, to be able to feel that the world has been a little better and not a little worse off because he has lived. When it comes to the great prizes of life there must always be more or less accident in winning. No man who has made what the world at large calls a great success can fail to recognize, if he is sincere with himself, that there has been much of chance, of fortune, in his triumph; and surely this should prevent arrogance on his part, and should also prevent any feeling of mean envy toward him on the part of others. Carry yourself so that if accident puts great opportunities in your way you will be able to take advantage of them, and so that, at any rate, even if the exceptional opportunities do not come, you can do the things that count most for real happiness in life, the things that in their sum mean the life that is successful, because they make up a happy and healthy home. No amount of skill, perseverance, energy, or genius can win either the great or the small prizes of life unless back of them lie character and the courage of moral convictions. With this character, whether the great opportunity comes or not, you can count upon so bearing yourselves that your children will bless you for having done all that was in your power to bring them up to an honored name.