o bore, ere Hercules was born,
And is to go on bearing that same load
When Hercules turns ash on Oeta's top.
'Tis the transition-stage, the tug and strain,
That strike men: standing still is stupid-like."

So we get our lesson. There is so much to do in the short days that we
dare not lose a moment. Life is so laden with responsibility that to
trifle at any point is sin. Even on the seizing of minutes eternal
issues may depend. Of course we must take needed rest to keep our
lives in condition for duty. But what shall we say of those strong men
and women who do almost nothing but rest? What shall we say of those
who live only to have amusement, who dance away their nights and then
sleep away their days, and thus hurry on toward the judgment-bar, doing
nothing for God or for man? Life is duty; every moment of it has its
own duty. There is no malfeasance so sad and so terrible in its
penalties as that which wastes the golden years in idleness or
pleasure, and leaves duty undone.

Shall we not seek to crowd the days with most earnest living? Shall we
not learn to redeem the time from indolence, from loitering, from
unmethodicalness, from the waste of precious moments, from
self-indulgence, from impatience of persistent toil, from all that
lessens achievement? Shall we not learn to work swiftly for our Master?

"You must live each day at your very best:
The work of the world is done by few;
God asks that a part be done by you.

"Say oft of the years as they pass from sight,
'This is life with its golden store:
I shall have it once, but it comes no more.'

"Have a purpose, and do with your utmost might:
You will finish your work on the other side,
When you wake in his likeness, satisfied."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SHADOWS WE CAST.

"The smallest bark on life's tumultuous ocean
Will leave a track behind for evermore;
The slightest wave of influence set in motion
Extends and widens to the eternal shore."

Every one of us casts a shadow. There hangs about us a sort of
penumbra,--a strange, indefinable something,--which we call personal
influence, which has its effect on every other life on which it falls.
It goes with us wherever we go. It is not something we can have when
we want to have it, and then lay aside when we will, as we lay aside a
garment. It is something that always pours out from our life, like
light from a lamp, like heat from flame, like pe