ellectual confidence and conviction.

As a matter of experience, we find at every turn on the road of life we
have to do things we do not want to do, to secure the things we want to
have. Necessity does not humour us, and that is the reason the world
owes so much to necessity. We may be very "superior" about dogmatism
in theology, but well for us that dogmatism will have no such nonsense
in life. It is just doing the duty that tasks us most, whatever our
feeling about it, which makes the difference between the worthy and the
unworthy in character; between the numerals and the ciphers in the
human world. It is doing, not what we would, but as we ought which
changes reluctance into interest, and the sense of futility into the
joy of achievement. It is doing what we know to be true which
illumines its ever-lasting significance. "You could write stories
which people would read," said Lecky repeatedly to George Eliot. She
did not believe him, and, strange as it may seem, she had almost a
morbid shrinking from making the attempt. But she did make it, and we
know with what results. The attempt to write a story had not only to
precede the belief that she could write one, it had to reveal the gift.

And so Jesus, who came to manifest God, says to you and me: My brother,
My sister, there is that in you which, brought out and cultivated, can
achieve in you the highest order and quality of life in this world, and
fit you for whatever environment lies beyond. Believe me. Just take
me at my word when I say to you, will to do my will, and doing it you
shall come to love it--and that is to be saved; for it is to be at one
with the Father in me. Leave your past, however unworthy it may be.
What I have done and suffered for you has atoned for all. Do your
part, and you, too, shall testify: "I live, and yet not I, but Christ
that liveth in Me."

This, then, is my position; and whether or not it answer to fact and to
Scripture, I leave with your judgment. I ought to have accomplished
something if I have made myself understood. It probably overlooks much
that many of you hold to be integral to the nature and meaning of
salvation. I have only to repeat, that what has been advanced is a
setting of this great subject; and I venture to urge it upon your
consideration. It now remains for me to notice very briefly one or two
further questions as I draw to a close.

What, I may be asked, are we expected, as young people, to und