n extreme poverty. Watkinson has beautifully said that "humility is
never so lovely as when arrayed in scarlet; moderation is never so
impressive as when it sits at banquets; simplicity is never so
delightful as when it dwells amidst magnificence; purity is never so
divine as when its unsullied robes are worn in a king's palace;
gentleness is never so touching as when it exists in the powerful.
When men combine gold and goodness, greatness and godliness, genius
and graces, human nature is at its best." On the other hand, adversity
is a supplement, making up what prosperity lacks. The very abundance
of Christmas gifts ofttimes causes children to forget the parents who
gave them. Some are adorned by prosperity as mountains are adorned
with rich forests. Others stand forth with the bareness, but also with
the grandeur and enduring strength, of Alpine mountains. Character is
like every other structure--nothing tests it like extremes.

When friendship and love have enriched man, and deepened all the
secret springs of his being, when grief hath refined and suffering
mellowed him, then God sends the ideals to stimulate men to new
achievements. An ideal is a pattern or plan held up before the man's
eye for imitation, realization and guidance. In the heart's innermost
temple of silence, whither neither friend nor enemy may ever come,
there the soul unveils its secret ideal. The pattern there erected at
once proclaims what man is and prophesies what he shall be. In old age
men think what they are, but in youth, what we think, we come to be.
Therefore must the pattern held up before the mind's eye be of the
highest and purest. The legend tells us of the master's apprentice,
who, from the small bits of glass that had been thrown away
constructed a window of surpassing loveliness. The ideal held up
before the boy's mind organized and brought together these broken
bits, and wrought them into lines of perfect beauty.

Thus by his inner aspirations, man lives and builds. The inner eye
reveals to the toiler a better tool or law or reform, and the
realization of these visions gives social progress. The vision of
conscience reveals new possibilities of character, and these give
duty. The vision of the heart reveals new possibilities of
friendship, and these give the home. As the sun standing upon the
horizon orbs itself, first in each dewdrop, and afterward lifts the
whole earth forward, so the ideal repeats itself, first in the
individ