. The flower growing by the way-side, the
picture or the poem, the works of God's own hand, or the works of the
genius which he has breathed into his creature Man, may all alike bear
you messages of love, of warning, of assistance.

Listen attentively, and you will hear--clearer still and clearer--every
day and hour. It is not by chance you take up that book, or gaze upon
that picture; you have found, because you are on the watch for it, in
the first, a suggestion that exactly suits your present need, in the
latter an excitement and an inspiration which makes some difficult
action you may be immediately called on to perform comparatively easy
and comparatively welcome.

There is a deep and universal meaning in the vulgar[63] proverb, "Strike
while the iron is hot." If it be left to cool without your purpose being
effected, the iron becomes harder than ever, the chains of nature and of
habit are more firmly riveted.

There are some other features of self-control to which I wish, though
more cursorily, to direct your attention. They have all some remote
bearing on your moral nature, and may exercise much influence over your
prospects in life.

Like many other persons of a refined and sensitive organization, you
suffer from the very uncommon disease of shyness. At the very time,
perhaps, when you desire most to please, to interest, to amuse, your
over-anxiety defeats its own object. The self-possession of the
indifferent generally carries off the palm from the earnest and the
anxious. This is ridiculous; this is degrading. What you wish to do you
ought to be able to do, and you will be able, if you habitually
exercise control over the physical feelings of your nature.

I am quite of the opinion of those who hold that shyness is a bodily as
well as a mental disease, much influenced by our state of health, as
well as by the constitutional state of the circulation; but I only put
forward this opinion respecting its origin as additional evidence that
it too may be brought under the authority of self-control. If the grace
of God, giving efficacy and help to our own exertions, can enable us to
resist the influence of indigestion and other kinds of ill-health upon
the temper and the spirits, will not the same means be found effectual
to subdue a shyness which almost sinks us to the level of the brute
creation by depriving us of the advantages of a rational will? Even this
latter distinguishing feature of humanity is prostrat