he passion to do some great thing, to
give to our world some worthy service. To yield to this is to keep the
heart young, is to defy time, to conquer the years. Whether the coming
days shall bend the back with their burdens or shall nerve and
strengthen the life does not depend on whether they have cares or joys
in them, but on whether they find us responsive to the call of noble
things.

No man can afford to let a pure and lofty impulse die, nor, for fear of
failure or of ridicule, to become afraid or ashamed of his ideals.
Living is more than a dull feeding at tables or troughs, more than
shelter and sleep; it is growing, climbing, becoming, finding higher
levels and seeing yet higher before.

Nor is this all; the spirit of greatness finds ample play in daily
duties. The success of the year does not depend on whether you can do
things that shall amaze men to-day or make your name known forever, but
upon whether into all the things you do, lowly, humdrum, commonplace as
they may seem to be, the daily duties of home or shop or store, the
care of the baby, or the running of a typewriter, there shall enter the
great and high motive.

This is what we all need, the high vision of the lowly things, the
sight of the fact that the least piece of work is an essential part of
the service of the whole universe, that a man serves the Divine not by
wearing a black coat but by doing, as in God's name, with high motives
the least duties that may be his. It is not place nor authority nor
wage that makes the work high or low; it is the spirit of the service
and the part it plays in the world's great business of perfecting
humanity.

Would you ward off old age, cherish vitality and give value to your
days, seek the things that are above, the life that serves some worthy
end. One is young as long as his heart leaps responsive to a noble
call. But he who lives to pleasure, to the satisfaction of self, who
has shut his eyes to the high things that call for self-denial, for
toil and loss, is dead already.

VIII

Sources of Strength and Inspiration

_Strength for the Daily Task_
_The Sense of the Infinite_
_The Great Inspiration_

_Living heartily is one secret of living happily._

_Life is early blighted if it knows no clouds._

_You can tell the character of any age by the place it gives to
character._

_There is little danger in the discontent with conditions that is
equalled by discontent with charact