glory departs. Let no man think the
burial of a widow's son the saddest sight on earth. Let men not mourn
over the laying of the first born under the turf, as though that were
man's chiefest sorrow. Earth knows no tragedy like the death of the
soul's ideals. Therefore, battle for them as for life itself! The
cynic may ridicule them, because, having lost his own purity and
truth, he naturally thinks that none are pure or true; but wise men
will take counsel of aspirations and ideals. Even low things have
power for incitement. No dead tree in the forest so unsightly but that
some generous woodbine will wrap a robe of beauty about its
nakedness. No cellar so dark but if there is a fissure through which
the sunlight falls the plant will reach up its feeble tendrils to be
blessed by the warming ray. Yet the soul is from God, is higher than
vine or tree, and should aspire toward Him who stirs these mysterious
aspirations in the heart.

The soul is like a lost child. It wanders a stranger in a strange
land. Full oft it is heartsick, for even the best things content it
for but a little while. Daily, mysterious ideals throb and throb
within. It struggles with a vagrant restlessness. It goes yearning
after what it does not find. A deep, mysterious hunger rises. It would
fain come to itself. In its ideal hours it sees afar off the vision
that tempts it on and up toward home and heaven. The secret of man is
the secret of his vision hours. These tell him whence he came--and
whither he goes. Then Christ became the soul's guide; God's heart, the
soul's home.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF CHARACTER

"Health is the vital principle of bliss."--_Thompson._

"Good nature is often a mere matter of health. With good
digestion men are apt to be good natured; with bad
digestion, morose."--_Beecher._

"A man so trained in youth that his body is the ready
servant of his will, and does with equal ease and
pleasure all the work that as a mechanism it is capable
of,--whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic-engine, with
all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working
order, ready like a steam engine to be turned to any kind
of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the
anchors of the mind."--_Huxley._

"Finally, I have one advice which is of very great
importance. You are to consider that health is a thing to
be attended to continually, a