Many people distress themselves about matters which are of very slight importance. A proper sense of proportion would reduce many troubles to infinitesimal dimensions. We are apt to let our mind dwell on any source of sorrow or anxiety, and to overlook the many blessings by which we are surrounded, or to take them as a matter of course. Small troubles loom great, and great blessings seem small.

Pain is not always, or even generally, an evil. It is often a warning and safeguard. Indeed, but for pain we should soon lose our lives. This will be generally admitted; but we do not so readily acknowledge that the same is true of mental troubles-that care is a safeguard from disaster, and sorrow from despair.

It is foolish to make ourselves miserable about troubles which may never happen. According to the old saying, it is no use jumping till you come to the ditch. It is, of course, very difficult to avoid worrying ourselves if things go wrong, and yet it is foolish. Either we can change them or we cannot. If we can change them, of course we shall do so, and it is unnecessary to orry; if we cannot change them, it is clearly useless.

troubles in life are in reality trials or opportunities.

And if we so often exaggerate our troubles, we constantly fail to appreciate our blessings. Those that come every day pass unnoticed, whereas we ought on that very account to be all the more grateful for them. We should enjoy what we have, and not fret for what we have not.

Sin is the main source of sorrow. It is a mistake to suppose that by repentance we can escape punishment for wrong-doing. "Remorse," says Joubert, "is the punishment of crime, and repentance is the expiation." "Not that which produces happiness is good; but that only which is good produces happiness."*

As Ruskin said of a beautiful picture: "As I myself look at it, there is no fault nor folly in my life—and both have been many and great-that does not rise up against me, and take away my joy, and shorten my power of possession, of sight, of understanding. And every past effort of my life, every gleam of rightness or good in it, is with me now, to help me in my grasp of this, and of all other beautiful things."

Peace and happiness do not depend upon luck. "It is," says Sir Frederick Treves, "a common plea of

* Fichte.

We are

the faint-hearted that success depends mainly on luck. I do not believe at all in luck, and the man who is content to wait for a stroke of good fortune will probably wait until he has a stroke of paralysis." I do not say that there is no such thing as luck. told that Timotheus, the Athenian, after he had, in the account he gave to the state of his government, often interlaced in his speech "And in this fortune had no part," never prospered in anything he undertook afterwards.* But a belief in one's own star is no slight help. "Good Fortune, what a force it is! It imparts courage. It is the feeling that fortune is with us that gives us the hardihood to dare. Not to dare is to do nothing of moment, and one never dares except in the confidence that fortune will favour us.' "** Yet sooner or later, so far as fortune is concerned, things average themselves.

We live in a very beautiful world; but few good things are to be had in it without hard work. It is not a world in which anyone can expect to be prosperous if he is easily discouraged. Perseveranceearnest, steady perseverance—is necessary to success.

He that by the plough would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive.*

This is no drawback.

Good solid work is as neces

sary to peace of mind as it is for the health of the body; in fact, the two are inseparable.

Sleep, we know, is one of our greatest blessings, but like others it must be used with judgment and moderation. Taken in excess it becomes a curse. "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.'

But rest and leisure do not imply sloth.. Sloth is quite different. The object of rest and leisure is to prepare for energy and progress; the object of sloth is to avoid any exertion.

If health, or rather want of health, or any other cause shuts us out from a life of energy, and deprives us of a career of success, it opens one of resignation and heroism. Everyone may make his life one of moral grandeur, and the triumph over suffering is often more noble than victory over difficulties. Any life, in fact, may be a triumph and a joy. "The body," said

Cicero, "may be disordered without our fault, but the mind cannot." Two feelings should be always with us -gratitude for the past, and hope for the future. But without faith and charity there can be no hope, at least no hope that has any firm foundation. We must not, indeed, trust in our own strength; we all need, like Prometheus, fire from heaven.

It is a deadly error to suppose that idleness is a privilege and work a penalty. "Work is no disgrace,” says Hesiod, "but idleness is." His countrymen did not, however, appreciate this view. Indeed, it was perhaps the very absence of this material training which led to the ultimate fall of Greece. Art was carried to its highest development; constant wars and athletic exercises led to splendid bodily development, but the Greeks had not the inestimable advantage of the discipline of steady industry: they wanted perseverance, self-control, and patient endurance. Regular work and steady industry is a great moral power, and this they lacked. They were no doubt a wonderful race, but they were not justified in their contempt for others-in looking down on them as barbarians.

White men often now look down with ignorant con