ere then is the highest kind of strength, and it is a strength within
the reach of all. Bodily strength some of us can never attain. We are
born with weakly bodies, we have grown up delicate and frail, we could
no more transform ourselves into strong, powerful men, than we could
make ourselves into elephants.

There was a man who lived in Greece long before Hezekiah, who was
determined to make his nation the strongest nation on earth; he was
resolved that it should consist of mighty giants in strength, and that
not one delicate or weak man should be found amongst them. But what did
Lycurgus find himself obliged to do in order to secure his end? He was
compelled to have every infant carefully examined as soon as it was
born, and if a child had the least appearance of delicacy, he took it
from its mother, and sent it to some lonely cave on the hill-side, where
it was left to die of cold and hunger. He found that it was not possible
to turn a puny delicate child into a strong man.

Bodily strength then is beyond the reach of many men; weak they were
born, weak they live, and weak they will die, nothing will alter or
improve them.

Nor can strength of mind be attained by many. They were born with no
power of memory, no aptitude for learning, no gift for study; you may
teach them, and labour with them, and they may work hard themselves, but
no application can instil into them what was not born in them; they came
into the world with second-rate intellects, and they will die with the
same.

But, thank God, the highest form of strength, strength of soul is, in
this respect, not like strength of body or strength of mind. No one is
born with it, we are all by nature weak as water, an easy prey for
Satan; but there is not one of us who may not acquire this spiritual
power. If we will take the lost sinner's place, and claim the lost
sinner's Saviour, we shall be filled by that Saviour with joy, joy
because sin is forgiven, and with the joy will come the strength of
soul.

In Greece, in that city in which all the weakly babies were murdered,
those children who were spared and who were pronounced to be strong,
were looked upon from that time as belonging not to their parents but to
the state, and they were trained and brought up with this one object in
view, to make them strong and powerful men. They were taught to bear
cold, wearing the same clothing in winter as in summer; they were
trained to bear fatigue, being accustomed t