ve misfortunes come, and be brave to
meet them, than to be afraid of them all your life, even if they never
come.

Gloom and doubt and fear paralyze the soul and sow it thick with the
seeds of defeat. No man is a failure until he admits it himself.

Tramps have a way of marking gateposts so that their companions who may
come along afterwards may know exactly what sort of people live inside,
and whether it is worth while to ask them for a meal. A certain sign
means "Easy people--no questions"; another sign means "Nothing
stirring--don't go in"; another means "Beat it or they'll give you a
job with lots of advice!" and still another means "Dog." Every doubt
and fear that enters your heart, or tries to enter, leaves its mark
upon the gatepost of your soul, and it serves as a guide for every
other doubt and fear which may come along, and if they once mark you
"Easy," that signal will act as an invitation for their twin brother
"Defeat," who will, without warning, slip into your heart and make
himself at home.

Doubts and fears are disloyalty to God--they are expressions of a want
of confidence in Him, but, of course, that's what is wrong with our
religion. We have not got enough of it. Too many of us have just
enough religion to make ourselves miserable--just enough to spoil our
taste for worldly pleasures and not enough to give us a taste for the
real things of life. There are many good qualities which are only an
aggravation if we have not enough of them. "Every good and perfect
gift cometh from above." You see it is not enough for the gift to be
"good"--it must be "perfect," and that means abundant. Too long we
have thought of religion as something in the nature of straight life
insurance--we would have to die to get the good of it. But it isn't.
The good of it is here, and now we can "lift" it every day if we will.
No person can claim wages for half time; that's where so much
dissatisfaction has come in, and people have found fault with the
company. People have taken up the service of God as a polite little
side-line and worked at it when they felt like it--Sunday afternoons
perhaps or rainy days, when there was nothing else going on; and then
when no reward came--no peace of soul--they were disposed to grumble.
They were like plenty of policy-holders and did not read the contract,
or perhaps some agent had in the excess of his zeal made it too easy
for them. The reward comes only when you put your whole