hey will be unequal to them.

Of course I knew that I should be reproached with indolence and even
cowardice. I knew that I should be supposed to be one of those
consistently impracticable people who insist on going off at a tangent
when the straight course lies before them. That I should be relegated
to the class of persons who have failed in life through some
deep-seated defect of will. The worst of a serious decision of the kind
is that, whichever step one takes, one is sure to be blamed. I saw all
this with painful clearness, but it is better to be arraigned before
the tribunal of other men's consciences than to be condemned before
one's own. It is better to refuse and be disappointed, than to accept
and be disappointed. Failure in the course marked out, in the event of
acceptance, would have been disastrous, not only to myself but to the
institution I was to be set to rule and guide. Far better that the task
should be entrusted to one who had no diffidence, no hesitation, but a
sincere confidence in his power of dealing with the difficulties of the
situation, and an ardent desire to grapple with them.

The only difficulty, if one believes very strongly, as I do, in a great
and wise Providence that guides our path, is to interpret why the
possibility of a great task is indicated to one if it is not intended
that one should perform it. But the essence of a true belief in the
call of Providence seems to me to lie not in the rash acceptance of any
invitation that happens to come in one's way, but a stern and austere
judgment of one's own faculties and powers. I have not the smallest
doubt that Providence intended that this great task should be refused
by me; my only difficulty is to see what to make of it, and why it was
even suggested. One lesson is that one must beware of personal vanity,
another that one should not indulge in the temptation to desire
important posts for any reason except the best: the humble hope to do
work that is useful and valuable. If I had sternly repressed these
tendencies at an earlier stage of life, this temptation would not have
been necessary, nor the humiliation which inevitably succeeds it.

But

that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low no pride.

And there can be now no more chance of these bitter and self-revealing
incidents, which show one, as in a clear mirror, the secret weaknesses
of the heart.

But in setting aside the desire for the crowns and thrones of