Mr. Bryan stood well in the law school, taking an especial interest in constitutional law. He was also connected with the debating society of the college and took an active part in its meetings. At the age of twenty-three Mr. Bryan finished a collegiate course and started in life for himself, leaving the farm, robust and ambitious, to grow in the knowledge of his profession. His parents were devout Christians and members of the Baptist Church. So Mr. Bryan was early taught those principles of right and wrong, justice, equality, and the advantages of a pure life. His father’s example convinced him that the old saying that “no honest man can become a lawyer” was a myth and a mistake. And on July 4, 1883, William Jennings Bryan began the practice of his profession in Jacksonville, Ill. Stocked with a liberal education, a conscience void of offense, a character unsullied, and an ambition to know the law, and to apply this knowledge for the benefit of the people, he began at the very bottom of the ladder. The drudgery and disappointments, the hardships and jokes common to a beginner without means and alone, in competition with men of gray hairs and wisdom that come from years of toil and practice, was the portion of Mr. Bryan. But he was a courageous man; Napoleon-like he knew no such word as fail, and with that force and enthusiasm so characteristic of the man, he labored on, believing that each disappointment contained its lesson, and that every hardship endured had its counterpart in a triumph. His early practice was not unlike that of other beginners, taking such cases as usually come to the young lawyer. At the close of the first year, and during the fall of 1884, his income was such that he could support a wife; a modest home was planned and built, and in October, 1884, he was married. During the next three years he lived comfortably, though economically, and laid by a small amount. Politics lost none of its charms, and each campaign found Mr. Bryan speaking, usually in his own county.