through it we may have experience of the wider life that surrounds
the material.

Our hearts must be opened to the courage that comes unbidden when we
feel ourselves to be working, growing parts of the universe of God. Then
we shall have no more sorrow and no more joy in the pitiful sense of the
earth, but rather an exaltation which shall make us masters of these and
of ourselves. We shall have a sympathy and charity that shall need no
promptings, but that flow from us spontaneously into the world of
suffering and need.

Beethoven was of a sour temper, according to all accounts, but he wrote
his symphonies in the midst of tribulations under which few men would
have worked at all. When we have felt something of the spirit that makes
work inevitable, it will be as though we had heard the eternal harmonies.
We shall write our symphonies, build our bridges, or do our lesser tasks
with dauntless purpose, even though the possessions that men count dear
are taken from us. Suppose we can do very little because of some
infirmity: if that little has in it the larger inspiration, it will be
enough to make life full and fine. The joy of a wider life is not
obtainable in its completeness; it is only through a lifetime of service
and experience that we can approach it. That is the proof of its divine
origin--its unattainableness. "God keep you from the she wolf and from
your heart's deepest desire," is an old saying of the Rumanians. If we
fully obtain our desires, we prove their unworthiness. Does any one
suppose that Beethoven attained his whole heart's desire in his music?
He might have done so had he been a lesser man. He was not a cheerful
companion. That is unfortunate, and shows that he failed in complete
inspiration and in the ordinary kind of self-control. He was at least
sincere, and that helped not a little to make him what he was. I would
almost rather a man would be morose and sincere than cheerful from a
sense of duty.

Our knowledge of the greater things of life must always be substantiated
and worked out into realities of service, or else we shall be weak and
ineffective. The charity that balks at giving, reacts upon a man and
deadens him. I am always insisting that we must not live and serve
through a sense of duty, but that we must find the inspiration first. It
is better to give ourselves to service not for the sake of finding God,
but because we have found Him and because our souls have grown in the
finding un