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, with your eyes fixed on your own petty fortunes, while all the gigantic ages mock you.  Day by day you give pain to your own mind and body; you hope against hope; you trust to be remembered, and you fancy that you may perchance hear what men will say of you when you are gone.  All in vain.  Be satisfied with the love of those about you; if you can get but a dog to love you during your little life, cherish that portion of affection.  Work in your own petty sphere strenuously, bravely, but without thought of what men may say of you.  Perhaps you are agonised by the thought of powers that are hidden in you—­powers that may never be known while you live.  What matters it?  So long as you have the love of a faithful few among those dear to you, all the fame that the earth can give counts for nothing.  Take that which is near to you, and value as naught the praises of a vague monstrous world through which you pass as