with the sense of the infinite. We must
not think that a man has failed because he has not left burdened
warehouses and bonds. We must cease to think that we can tell whether
work be high or lowly by the size of the wage. We need eyes to see the
glory of the least act in the light of the glowing motive.

A new estimate is placed on each act when it is measured not by bread
alone but by the things of the soul. The mother's care of the
children; the father's steady humble toil for them, the faithful
watching over the sick, the ministry of the lowly, all have a new glory
in the light of the love that leads the way and the spirit that guides
those who do the least of these things.

We need to learn for ourselves what is the work that endures. It is a
good thing to lay a course of bricks so that it shall be true, but of
greater value to the world than the wall that stands firm is the spirit
that forces the man to build aright. No man can do even this without
an ideal set in his heart, and when the wall shall have fallen the
world shall still be enriched by his ideal.

Too many of us are fretting because we are not getting on in the world.
Seeing the apparent ease with which some acquire fortune, we become
discontented with our small gains. We talk as though fortunes and
follies, money and lands were the only things worth while. Yet we know
better, for we all find our real joys in other things.

THE BREAD OF LIFE

There are lives that have bread in abundance and yet are starved; with
barns and warehouses filled, with shelves and larders laden they are
empty and hungry. No man need envy them; their feverish, restless
whirl in the dust of publicity is but the search for a satisfaction
never to be found in things. They are called rich in a world where no
others are more truly, pitiably poor; having all, they are yet lacking
in all because they have neglected the things within.

The abundance of bread is the cause of many a man's deeper hunger.
Having known nothing of the discipline that develops life's hidden
sources of satisfaction, nothing of the struggle in which deep calls
unto deep and the true life finds itself, he spends his days seeking to
satisfy his soul with furniture, with houses and lands, with yachts and
merchandise, seeking to feed his heart on things, a process of less
promise and reason than feeding a snapping turtle on thoughts.

It takes many of us altogether too long to learn that you can