to which
we need to address ourselves in this world to learn love. Is life not
full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every
day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a
schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one
eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. What makes a man
a good cricketer? Practise. What makes a man a good artist, a good
sculptor, a good musician? Practise. What makes a man a good linguist,
a good stenographer? Practise. What makes a man a good man. Practise.
Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not
get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in
which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm
he develops no biceps muscle; and if he does not exercise his soul, he
acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of
moral fiber nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of
enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression
of the whole round Christian character--the Christlike nature in its
fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are
only to be built up by ceaseless practise.

What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. Tho
perfect, we read that He learned obedience, and grew in wisdom and in
favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do
not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the
vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to
live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be
perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and
ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is your
practise. That is the practise which God appoints you; and it is
having its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and
unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is
molding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more
beautiful, tho you see it not, and every touch of temptation may add
to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate
yourself. Be among men, and among things, and among troubles, and
difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: _Es bildet
ein Talent sich in der Stille, Doch ein Character in dem Strom der
Welt_. "Talent develops itself in solitude; character in the stream of
life." Talent de