sincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometime seem to be
wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of "how" to walk; the
secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible
successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in
continuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics
of failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and
commentators may lay at his door.

High ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they
need not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The
rocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds
cannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in
calm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts.

The alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly
transmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of
higher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant and
untiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies
fate to its worst while he does his best.




VI

Doing Our Best at All Times



Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some