ay's absence and another. I sent the little girl
to see if she were ill. The little girl was gone the full afternoon. All
I ever got from that afternoon was this sentence:

"... She is going to be a nurse."

I have wondered many times if she would have become a nurse had I
allowed her to sit unexpressed for a month instead of a week; permitting
her surely to find her ease and understanding of us.... Still we must
have nurses.

* * * * *

... And then the Columbia young man--a big fellow and a soul. I had
talked to him for many nights in an Upper Room class in the city. He
took a cottage here through part of the first summer, before the Chapel
began; then, through the months of Chapel and story work in the evening,
I had good opportunity to become acquainted with the processes of his
mind and heart. Of the last, I have nothing but admiration; invincible
integrity, a natural kindness, a large equipment after the manner of the
world's bestowal--but Inertia.

Now Inertia is the first enemy of the soul. It is caused by pounds. I do
not mean that because a body is big, or even because a body is fat, that
it is of necessity an impossible medium for the expression of the
valuable inner life. There have been great fat men whose spiritual
energy came forth to intensify the vibrations of the race, to say
nothing of their own poundage. It is less a matter of weight after all
than texture; still their fat was a handicap.

These facts are indubitable: Sensuousness makes weight in bulls and men;
all the habits that tend to put on flesh tend to stifle the expression
of the inner life. All the habits which tend to express the human spirit
bring about a refinement of the body. More spiritual energy is required
to express itself through one hundred and ninety pounds than through one
hundred and forty pounds. Accordingly as we progress in the expression
of the spiritual life, the refinement of our bodies takes place. As a
whole, the great servers of men carry little excess tissue; as a whole
in every fabrication of man and nature--the finer the work, the finer
the instrument.

The body is continually levitated through spiritual expression and
continually the more responsive to gravitation by sensuous expression.

The exquisite blending of maiden pink and sunlight gold that is brought
forth in the Clovelly tea-rose could not be produced upon the petals of
a dahlia or a morning-glory. That ineffable hu