his subject, he will try: if he
tries, he will soon succeed in doing something which shall open a door.
It does not matter what a man does; so long as he does it with the
attention which affection engenders, he will come to see his way to
something else. After long waiting he will certainly find one door open,
and go through it. He will say to himself that he can never find
another. He has found this, more by luck than cunning, but now he is
done. Yet by and by he will see that there is _one_ more small
unimportant door which he had overlooked, and he proceeds through this
too. If he remains now for a long while and sees no other, do not let
him fret; doors are like the kingdom of heaven, they come not by
observation, least of all do they come by forcing: let him just go on
doing what comes nearest, but doing it attentively, and a great wide door
will one day spring into existence where there had been no sign of one
but a little time previously. Only let him be always doing something,
and let him cross himself now and again, for belief in the wondrous
efficacy of crosses and crossing is the corner-stone of the creed of the
evolutionists. Then after years--but not probably till after a great
many--doors will open up all around, so many and so wide that the
difficulty will not be to find a door, but rather to obtain the means of
even hurriedly surveying a portion of those that stand invitingly open.

I know that just as good a case can be made out for the other side. It
may be said as truly that unless a student is incessantly on the watch
for doors he will never see them, and that unless he is incessantly
pressing forward to the kingdom of heaven he will never find it--so that
the kingdom does come by observation. It is with this as with everything
else--there must be a harmonious fusing of two principles which are in
flat contradiction to one another.

The question of whether it is better to abide quiet and take advantage of
opportunities that come, or to go farther afield in search of them, is
one of the oldest which living beings have had to deal with. It was on
this that the first great schism or heresy arose in what was heretofore
the catholic faith of protoplasm. The schism still lasts, and has
resulted in two great sects--animals and plants. The opinion that it is
better to go in search of prey is formulated in animals; the other--that
it is better on the whole to stay at home and profit by what comes