After serving more than two years, he one day, out of curiosity, attended a court, in the town where his regiment was quartered.

The presiding judge, an acquaintance, invited Erskine to sit near him, and said that the pleaders at the bar were among the most eminent lawyers of Great Britain.

Erskine took their measure as they spoke, and believed he could excel them.

He at once began the study of law, in which he eventually soon stood alone as the greatest forensic orator of his country.
A.T.Stewart studied for the ministry, and became a teacher, before he drifted into his proper calling as a merchant, through the accident of having lent money to a friend.

The latter, with failure imminent, insisted that his creditor should take the shop as the only means of securing the money.
"Jonathan," said Mr.Chase, when his son told of having nearly fitted himself for college, "thou shalt go down to the machine-shop on Monday morning." It was many years before Jonathan escaped from the shop, to work his way up to the position of a man of great influence as a United States Senator from Rhode Island.
It has been well said that if God should commission two angels, one to sweep a street crossing, and the other to rule an empire, they could not be induced to exchange callings.