instance, can still accomplish much by the aid of self-denial; while
many, with hearts as warm in charities, as overflowing as your own, have
not more to give than the "cup of cold water," that word of mercy and
consolation.

You may still further, perhaps, complain that you have no object of
exciting interest to engage your attention, and develop your powers of
labour, and endurance, and cleverness. Never has this trial been more
vividly described than in the well-remembered lines of a modern poet:--

"She was active, stirring, all fire--
Could not rest, could not tire--
To a stone she had given life!
--For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife,
Never in all the world such a one!
And here was plenty to be done,
And she that could do it, great or small,
She was to do nothing at all."[3]

This wish for occupation, for influence, for power even, is not only
right in itself, but the unvarying accompaniment of the consciousness of
high capabilities. It may, however, be intended that these cravings
should be satisfied in a different way, and at a different time, from
that which your earthly thoughts are now desiring. It may be that the
very excellence of the office for which you are finally destined
requires a greater length of preparation than that needful for ordinary
duties and ordinary trials. At present, you are resting in peace,
without any anxious cares or difficult responsibilities, but you know
not how soon the time may come that will call forth and strain to the
utmost your energies of both mind and body. You should anxiously make
use of the present interval of repose for preparation, by maturing your
prudence, strengthening your decision, acquiring control over your own
temper and your own feelings, and thus fitting yourself to control
others.

Or are you, on the contrary, wasting the precious present time in vain
repinings, in murmurings that weaken both mind and body, so that when
the hour of trial comes you will be entirely unfitted to realize the
beautiful ideal of the poet?--

"A perfect woman, nobly plann'd
To warn, to counsel, to command:
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill."[4]

Then, again, I would ask you to make use of your powers of reflection
and memory. Reflect what trials and difficulties are, in the common
course of events, likely to assail you; remember former difficulties,
former days or weeks