wonder that the tradition tells us that for the next hundred years,
at stated periods, all the people in the land came together, while a
reader repeated this chapter on the unwearied God and the fainting
strength of man that had recovered unto hope, men whose hopes had been
baffled and beaten.

The thought of an unwearied God is also the true antidote to
despondency. The ground of optimism is in God. When that great thinker
described certain people as without God and without hope, there was
sure logic in his phrase, for the Godless man is always the hopeless
man. Between no God anywhere and the one God who is everywhere, there
is no middle ground. Either we are children, buffeted about by fate
and circumstances, with events tossing souls about in an eternal game
of battledore and shuttlecock, or else the world is our Father's
house, and God standeth within the shadow, keeping watch above His
own. For the man who believes in God, who allies himself to nature,
who makes the universe his partner, there is no defeat, and no death,
and no interruption of his prosperity. Concede that there is a God,
and it follows as a logical necessity that He will not permit any
enemy to ruin your life and His plans. For a man who holds this faith
it follows that there can be no defeat, or failure. Indeed, the
essential difference between men is the difference in their relation
toward God. Here are the biographies of two great men. Both are men
of genius, both are marvelously equipped, but their end was, oh, how
different. One is Martin Luther, who stood forth alone, affirming his
religious freedom, in the face of enemies and devils thick as the
tiles on the roofs of the houses. The few friends Luther had shut him
up in a fortress to save his life, but Luther mightily believed in
God. With the full consent of his marvelous gifts, he surrendered his
life to the will of God. Knowing that his days were as brief as