Do not patronize any man or he will repulse your approach; you must encourage, which is far different from patronizing. By assuming a patronizing air you assume a superiority which is disliked. This is an age of small things that go to make up big things, and we must fall in with the conditions of the age in which we live and expect to do business. _HOW TO LEARN SELF-CONTROL_ To master the feelings the head and the heart should work together. All of our emotions may be said to come from the heart, and the latter is set in motion by the will power which is the head. There are times when a man feels like “boiling over” as it is called, but policy and good judgment warn him to keep within bounds. It is always our sentiments or feelings and emotions that need a curbing hand, our opinions can take care of themselves. Where our feelings and our mind go together there is no trouble, for then duty and inclination go together. But where our feelings are not regulated and controlled, they become unstable and shifting. Like the winds that blow where they list and whither no man can tell, our lack of self-control may drive us to the most violent acts. We become the sport of chance desires and vagrant impulses. Control is essential because from our ill-regulated acts much injustice and harm may be done, not only to ourselves but to others. A man who stands above whim and caprice is a superior in strength to a man who permits his caprices to direct him. What we call character has its emotions and passions, its affections and intense sympathies, but mastered and controlled into a whole of outward justice and fairness. The true freeman fights himself free from blind feeling and impulse; he is a happy warrior and fights on a battlefield where his convictions and emotions are a unit. The Martyrs possessed such self control that burning at the stake, or limbs torn by savage beast did not wring a note of pain from them. “But,” you say, “that was Divine strength.” Of course, and any one who desires the same Divine strength to aid him control his emotions, may have it for the asking. DON’T BE A DREAMER Waste no Time Dreaming of the Past You are living in the present preparing for the future. The past is dead and you should let the past bury the past. The man who dreams of the past and forgets his future, is like a man who rises in the morning not of today but of yesterday. He is going backward when his face is put in front pointing always forward. Life is too short to be wasted in vain regrets for what has transpired in the past. Even yesterday is ancient history and best forgotten. We have work to do in the present to perfect or accomplish something in the future; it is our time of grace, given us to grasp at opportunities as they come before us. While you are lamenting an opportunity that escaped you yesterday, a better one comes along today and passes us unnoticed.