strength, we are trying to move our machinery by some inferior motive power.  We worship our tools and beg success of them instead of remembering that we are all apprentices to the great Master of our own and every man’s craft.  It is the great ideas of our work that we need, and the laws of its truths.  We shall be more intelligent by and by about making the best of ourselves; our possibilities are infinitely beyond what most people even dream.  Spiritual laziness and physical laziness together keep us just this side of sound sleep most of the time.  Perhaps you think it is a proper season for one at least?”

“Dear me, no!” said Dr. Ferris, who was evidently quite wide awake.  “Do you remember how well Buckle says that the feminine intellect is the higher, and that the great geniuses of the world have possessed it?  The gift of intuition reaches directly towards the truth, and it is only reasoning by deduction that can take flight into the upper air of life and certainty.  You remember what he says about that?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Leslie.  “Yes, it isn’t a thing one easily forgets.  But I have long believed that the powers of Christ were but the higher powers of our common humanity.  We recognize them dimly now and then, but few of us dare to say so yet.  The world moves very slowly, doesn’t it?  If Christ were perfect man, He could hardly tell us to follow Him and be like Him, and yet know all the while that it was quite impossible, because a difference in his gifts made his character an unapproachable one to ours.  We don’t amount to anything, simply because we won’t understand that we must receive the strength of Heaven into our souls; that it depends upon our degree of receptivity, and our using the added power that comes in that way; not in our taking our few tools, and our self-esteem and satisfaction with ourselves, and doing our little tricks like dancing dogs; proud because the other dogs can do one less than we, or only bark and walk about on their four legs.  It is our souls that make our bodies worth anything, and the life of the soul doesn’t come from its activity, or any performance of its own.  Those things are only the results and the signs of life, not the causes of it.”

“Christ in us, the hope of glory,” said the other doctor gravely, “and Christ’s glory was his usefulness and gift for helping others; I believe there’s less quackery in our profession than any other, but it is amazing how we bungle at it.  I wonder how you will get on with your little girl?  If people didn’t have theories of life of their own, or wouldn’t go exactly the wrong way, it would be easier to offer assistance; but where one person takes a right direction of his own accord, there are twenty who wander to and fro.”