of the human will.
Read over the dismal record of a year's suicides, and you will find
that in nine cases out of ten the causes which lead unhappy men and
women to quench their own light of life are absolutely trivial to the
sane and steadfast soul. Let those who are heavy of heart when
ill-fortune seems to have mastered them remember that our Master is
before all things just. He lays no burden that ought not to be borne
on any one of His children, and those who give way to despair are
guilty of sheer impiety. The same Power that sends the affliction
gives also the capability of endurance, and, if we refuse to exert
that capability, we are sinful. When once the first inclination toward
weakness and doubt is overcome, every effort becomes easier, and the
sense of strength waxes keener day by day. Who are the most serene and
sympathetic of all people that even the most obscure among us meet?
The men and women who have come through the Valley of the Shadow of
Tribulation. By a benign ordinance which is uniform in action, it so
falls out that the conquerors derive enhanced pleasure from the memory
of difficulties beaten down and sorrows vanquished. Where then is the
use of craven shrinking? Let us rather welcome our early failures as
we would welcome the health-giving rigour of some stern physician.
Think of the heroes and heroines who have conquered, and think
joyfully also of those who have wrought out their strenuous day in
seeming failure. There are four lines of poetry which every
English-speaking man and woman should learn by heart, and I shall
close this address with them. They were written on the memorial stone
of certain Italian martyrs--

"Of all Time's words, this is the noblest one
That ever spoke to souls and left them blest;
Gladly we would have rested had we won
Freedom. We have lost, and very gladly rest."

XVIII.

"VANITY OF VANITIES."

Those who have leisure to explore the history of the past, to peer
into the dark backward and abysm of Time, must of necessity become
smitten with a kind of sad and kindly cynicism. When one has travelled
over a wide tract of history, and when, above all, he has mused much
on the minor matters which dignified historians neglect, he feels much
inclined to say to those whom he sees struggling vainly after what
they call fame, "Why are you striving thus to make your voice heard
amid the derisive silence of eternity? You are fretting and frowning,
wit