*

*

*

Of heroes and hero-worship we hear much. But there is a spiritual heroism, little known; that of the man who resolves to conquer himself-hardest of all conquests. Impatience, envy, rage, selfishness, eager for success or sullen at defeat, passions of the flesh and passions of the spirit,--these are his enemies. In the silent depths of the heart, he fights his battle. What he does and what he suffers no man knoweth; God only knows. Not one bloody day does he fight,-at Waterloo or Yorktown,and win fame forever; but all through his life does he wage the war and wins no fame. Not to lift himself to honor, but to forget himself, to still the throbs of self-conscious disquiet and all selfish passion,—this is his endeavor. the midnight and in the morning, in the throng and in the silent hour, ever is it his holy care and prayer to keep all right within him, to keep all just and true, to keep all pure. Loneliness and neglect and sorrow may be upon his path, even as they were upon the path of Christ.

[Dewey.]

In

O Lord, I yield unto thy will, and cheerfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. Only thus much let me crave of thee (let my craving, O Lord, be accepted of thee, since even that proceeds from thee)-let me crave, even by the noblest title, which in my greatest affliction I may give myself, that I am thy creature, and by thy goodness (which is thyself) that thou wilt suffer some beam of thy majesty so to shine into my mind that it may still depend confidently on thee.-[Sir Philip Sidney.]

The thoughts of souls that would aspire are all prayer.

Creator, yes! Thy wisdom and thy word.
Thou Source of life and good!

Created me!
Thou spirit of my spirit and my Lord!
Thy light, thy love, in their bright plenitude
Filled me with an immortal soul, to spring
Over the abyss of death; and bade it wear
The garments of eternal day, and wing
Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere,
Even to its source,-to Thee, its author there.
[Derzhavin.]

Of nothing may we be more sure than this: that if we cannot sanctify our present lot, we could sanctify no other. Our heaven and our Almighty Father are there or nowhere. The obstructions of that lot are given for us to heave away, by the concurrent touch of a holy spirit, and labor of strenuous will; its gloom for us to tint with some celestial light; its mysteries are for our worship; its sorrows for our trust; its perils for our courage; its temptations for our faith. Soldiers of the cross! it is not for us, but for our Leader and our Lord, to choose the field; it is ours, taking the station which he assigns, to make it a field of truth and honor, though it be the field of death. [Martineau.]

6

"The great secret of spiritual perfection is expressed in the words of Loyola, Hoc vult Deus!' God wishes me to stand in this post, to fulfil this duty, to suffer this disease, to be afflicted with this calamity, this contempt, this vexation. God wishes this, whatever the world and selflove may dictate,-Hoc vult Deus. His will is my law."

* * *

All doubt comes from living out of habits of affectionate obedience to God. By idleness, by neglected prayer, we lose our power of realizing things not seen. Let a man be religious and irreligious at intervals,-irregular, inconsistent, without some distinct thing to live for,-it is a matter of impossibility that he can be free from doubts. He must make up his mind for a dark life. To gain mastery over self and sin and doubt and fear, that is our calling. * Victory is by faith; but, O God, who will tell us what this faith is that men speak of as a thing so easy, and how are we to get it? Faith is a deep impression of God's love, and personal trust in it. * * Let us be in earnest. Let us not mind what is past. Perhaps it is all failure and useless struggle and broken resolves. What then? Are you in earnest? If so, though your faith be weak and your struggles unsatisfactory, you may begin the hymn of triumph now,—for victory is pledged. "Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."-[Robertson.]

*

*

The essential characteristic of the eternal life in the soul is the love of truth and good, and thus of God who is the true and the good, and of Christ in whom God is manifest. This is the life of the angels, which inspires them in their ministries. It is the heavenly life. * * He who hath in him the eternal life, though a beggar naked and maimed and blind,-before him heaven's gates open of themselves. He is no stranger there, for the life that is in him finds there its true sphere and companionship.

[E. Peabody.]

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting place?

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin?
May not the darkness hide it from my face?

You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labor you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

Yes, beds for all who come.

[Christina G. Rossetti.]

Take it not grievously if some think ill of thee, and speak that thou wouldst not willingly hear. Thou oughtest to be the hardest judge of thyself, and to think no one weaker than thyself. If thou dost walk spiritually, thou wilt not much weigh fleeting words.

It is no small wisdom to keep silence in an evil time, and in thy heart to turn thyself to God and not to be troubled by the judgment of men. Let not thy peace depend on the tongues of men; for whether they judge well or ill of thee, thou art not on that account other than thyself. Where are true peace and glory? Are they not in God? [The Silent Hour.]

God's love to us in this world is not a feeble indulgence of our inclinations and humoring of our childish desires, but it is an eternal principle. It dispenses not only smiles and gladness, but, for our good, darkness and frowns; so that we, in some of its manifestations, call it wrath, though it is still love, perfect and alone. We should pitch our affections, our esteem and effort, on the same holy key, and lift it into the same godlike strain, as we contemplate the condition, and strive for the perfection of ourselves or our fellow-men. We should enter into the sublime sympathy with our Father in the tasks and sufferings he appoints; in the hard, long scourging he lays on the impenitent and impure, that he may open to them a better fate. [Dr. Bartol.]

"Whoever can so look into my heart as to tell whether there is anything which I revere, and if there be, what thing it is, he may read me through and through, and there is no darkness wherein I may hide myself. This is the master-key to the whole moral nature. What does a man secretly admire and worship? What haunts him with the deepest wonder? What fills him with the most aspiration? What should we hear in the soliloquies of his most unguarded mind? * Every man's highest,

* *

nameless though it be, is his living God'; while oftener. than we can tell, the being on whom he seems to call, whose history he learned in the catechism, of whom he hears at church-with open ear, perhaps, but with thick, deaf soul,-is his dead God.' And many a man's worship is an idolatry of self-of himself easy, himself rich, himself grand and famous.'"

H