This outlook and aspect question is important when you are building a
house, but it is vastly more important when you are building a character.
The soul has eyes. The deadliest monotony is that of a dull soul. Life is a
poor affair for any man who looks out upon the blind walls of earthly
circumstance and necessity, and cannot see from his soul's dwelling-place
the pink flush of the dawn that men call hope, and who has no garden where
he may grow the blossoms of faith and sweet memory, the fair flowers of
holy human trusts and fellowships. Only the divinity of life can deliver us
from the monotony of living. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' This man
has an infinite outlook. It matters not whether he looked out through
palace windows or lived in the meanest house in Jerusalem's city. It is the
eye that makes the view. This man had a fairer prospect than ever man had
who looked seaward from Carmel or across the valleys from the steeps of
Libanus. It was his soul that claimed the prospect. From the window of the
little house of life he saw the light of God lying on the everlasting
hills. That is the real deliverance from the monotony of things. The man
who is weary of life is the man who has not seen it. The man who is tied to
his desk sometimes thinks everything would be right if only he could
travel. But many a man has done the Grand Tour and come back no better
contented. You cannot fool your soul with Mont Blanc or even the Himalayas.
So many thousand feet, did you say?--but what is that to infinity! The cure
for the fretful soul is not to go _round_ the world; it is to get _beyond_
it.

_Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord._ That is the view we want. We gaze
contemptuously on the little one-story lodge just inside the park gates,
and fail to get a glimpse of the magnificent mansion, with its wealth of
adornment and treasure, that lies a mile among the trees. No wonder that
men grow discontented or contemptuous when they mistake the porch for the
house. If a man would understand himself and discover his resources and put