ual activity, not of stagnation and
idleness. "It might almost be said that there happens to one only that
which he desires," says Maeterlinck: "it is time that on certain
external events an influence is of the feeblest, but we have
all-powerful action on that which these events shall become in
ourselves--in other words on their spiritual part, on what is radiant,
undying within them.... There are those with whom this immortal part
absorbs all; these are like islands that have sprung up in the ocean;
for they have found immovable anchorage whence they issue commands that
their destiny must needs obey.... Whatever may happen is lit up by their
inward life. When you love, it is not your love that forms part of your
destiny, but the knowledge of self that you will have found, deep down
in your love--this it is that will help you to fashion your life. If you
have been deceived, it is not the deception that matters, but the
forgiveness whereto it leads, and the loftiness, wisdom, completeness of
this forgiveness--by these shall your life be steered to destiny's haven
of brightness and peace; by these shall your eyes see more clearly....
Let us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of the nature
of ourselves. There comes no adventure but means to our soul the shape
of our every-day thoughts.... And none but yourself shall you meet on
the highway of fate.... Events seem as the watch for the signal we hoist
from within."

The inner life that is lived--the life of thought, purpose, aspiration,
and prayer--dominates and determines the outer life. It creates it. And
when one feels helplessly drifting, at the mercy of events, his only
safety lies in a more positive and abounding energy; in deeper purpose
and a firmer grasp on his work, a higher and diviner trend to his
thought, and a closer clinging to the divine promises.

"In man," says Balzac, "culminates a visible finite universe; in him
begins a universe invisible and infinite,--two worlds unknown to each
other." But one's life always belongs far more to his future than to his
past. He is more closely and truly related to that which he shall be
than to that which he has been; as the flower, the plant, the tree, is
in more intimate and vital relation with the air and sunshine than with
the dark ground in which the seed germinated. It retains its hold on the
kingdom of the earth, but it has achieved a new and a higher relation
with the kingdom of the air. Man's re