"--MONTAIGNE.
"Work! and thou shalt bless the day,
Ere thy task be done;
They that work not, cannot pray,
Cannot feel the sun.
"Worlds thou mayst possess with health
And unslumbering powers;
Industry alone is wealth--
What we do is ours."
* * * * *
Thought, Imagination, and Affection, combined harmoniously, constitute
a symmetrical Character, and they should manifest themselves in an
external Life of corresponding symmetry. The external Life will always
fall short of the internal, because we can always imagine a degree of
excellence beyond that which we have reached, let our efforts be earnest
and active as they may; and the more we advance in Christian progress,
the wider will the vista open before us of that which we may yet attain.
As we ascend the heights of worldly knowledge, in whatever department,
the horizon widens at every step; and we always know that the horizon,
distant as it may seem, is only an imaginary limit to that which may be
known. The shallow student, in the inflation of self-conceit, may fancy
that his own narrow valley is the limit of the universe; but the wise
man knows that limitation belongs only to his own organization, and not
to the universe of God. So in the training of Character, we may go on in
our progress, not only through time, but through the measureless periods
of eternity, and yet we know that we can never reach that perfection of
development which belongs to the All-perfect.
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