No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is at
stake will be careless as to his progress. To become

LIKE CHRIST

is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before
which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain.

Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of their
lives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it has seemed
up to this point as if all depended on passivity, let me now assert,
with conviction more intense, that all depends on activity. A religion
of effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel, but never for
a man. Not in the contemplative, but in the active, lies true hope;
not in rapture, but in reality, lies true life; not in the realm of
ideals, but among tangible things, is man's sanctification wrought.
Resolution, effort, pain, self-crucifixion, agony--all the things
already dismissed as futile in themselves, must now be restored to
office, and a tenfold responsibility laid upon them. For what is their
office? Nothing less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, and
place it, and keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it. It
is to rally the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror
bright and ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is to
look at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights are
near.

You have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch him photograph the
spectrum of a star. As you enter the dark vault of the observatory you
saw him begin by lighting a candle. To see the star with? No; but to
adjust the instrument to see the star with. It was the star that was