Wisdom Vault — onlinknow.co.za

should be vigorously resisted, since it tends to weaken the intellectual faculties and paralyze the judgment. The struggle with circumstance has, on the contrary, a bracing and strength- ening effect, like that of the pure mountain air on an enfeebled frame.

It puts us, so to speak, into training ; it is like ' the wrestling of two athletes. All difiiculties come to us, as Bun- yan says of temptations, like the lion which met Samson ; at the first encounter they roar and gnash their teeth, but once subdued, we find a comb of honey in them.

There can be no victory where there has been no battle. It is peril which calls forth the highest qualities of a man. Hence Pythagoras said, " Ability and necessity dwell near each other." He who has battled," says Carlyle, " were it only with poverty and hard toil, will be found stronger and more expert than he who could stay at home from the battle, concealed among the provision waggons, or even rest unwatchfully 'abiding by the stuff.'"

We have' need of an occasional failure to quicken our vigilance, sharpen our insight, and confirm our discretion. THE BILL OF DIFFICULTY. 11/ To grow strong by suffering seems the mystery of life. Goodness , itself is nothing unless pfoved by temptation.

There is more joy in heaven over the sheep that returns to the fold after it has strayed afar, returns torn with briar and bramble, with wounded sides and bleeding feet, than over the ninety and nine who have never quitted the green pastures.

Genius, in like manner, is developed and character tested by the rude sway of experience. It is up the Hill of Difficulty that the brave heart climbs to happiness or sorrow. The path of duty is not only steep but thorny ; and it is well for men that it should be so.

Shelley tells us that "most wretched men" — meaning thereby the world's great singers — ' ' Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; They learn in suffering what they teach in song. '' and we know that the crushed flower gives forth the rarest fragrance.

It is not always true that sorrow loosens the fount of poetic inspiration ; but in many instances the highest powers of genius seem to have been evoked by disappointment, pain or trouble. It was not until his heart was overcharged with public sorrows and private grievances, until he had drunk the dregs of the cup of bitterness, that Dante composed his won- derful Christian epic.

It was while the shadow of coming death brooded over him that Mozart wrote his immortal " Everybody knows the anguish of passion which Tasso poured out in his " Gerusalemme Liberata." A profound sorrow inspired the "Lycidas" of Milton, the "Adonais" of Shelley, the "In Mem- moriam" of Tennyson.

Let us not lose heart, then, when beset by difficulties, or sharply tried, or oppressed with failure ; for these things are designed to stimulate us to higher and purer effort, and to teach us the great and glorious lesson of self-reliance. 1 1 8 B USINESS HABITS.