faithlessly over lives cut short, activity suspended, promise
unfulfilled; but we may be sure that in every case God is dealing
faithfully with each soul, and using it as an instrument as far as it
is fitted to be used; and thus for an active man disabled by illness to
mourn over his wasted power is a grievous mistake, and no less a
mistake to mourn over the unprofitableness of our lives, for they have
been as profitable as God willed them to be. We can only be profitable
to those for contact with whom God has prepared both them and us; and
thus our duty in the matter is not to indulge in any anticipations of
what our body may be able to do or unable to do, but simply to
undertake what seems our plain duty; and then we shall find that the
body can often do more than we could have imagined, and especially if
it be directed by a tranquil mind; and if it fails us, that very
failure is but the pressure of God's hand upon our shoulder, saying,
"Continue in weakness and be not dismayed." If it is an error to
increase our own limitations, it is equally an error not to give heed
to them and to profit by them; and, after all, the body is more apt to
rebel in carrying out the duties we dislike than in enjoying the
pleasures on which we have set our mind. The real reason of our
faithlessness is that we are so apt to look upon the one life in which
we find ourselves as our only chance of expression and effectuation. If
it were so, it would matter little what we did or said, if the soul is
to be extinguished as a blown-out flame when the body is mingled with
the dust.

I stood once upon the deck of a ship watching a shoal of porpoises
following us and racing round us: every now and then the brown, sleek,
shining bodies of the great creatures rose from the blue waves and
entered them again with a soft plunge. Our life is like that: we rise
for an instant into the light of life, we fall again beneath the waves;