bilities, which we shall be ashamed to neglect; we can, so to
speak, diet our minds and hearts, avoiding unwholesome food and
debilitating excesses. To a certain extent, I say, for the old fault
has a horrid pertinacity, and even when felled in fair fight, has a
vile trick of recovering its energies and leaping on us from some
ambush by the way, as we saunter, blithely conscious of our victory. It
may be a discouraging and an oppressive thought, but the only hope lies
in good sense and patience. There are no short cuts; we have to tread
every inch of the road.

But we may at least do one thing. We may speak frankly of our
experiences, without either pose or concealment. It does us no harm to
confess our failures, and it puts courage into other pilgrims, who know
at least that they are not alone in their encounters with the
hobgoblins. And no less frankly, too, may we speak of the fine things
that we have seen and heard by the way, the blue hills and winding
waters of which we have caught a glimpse from the brow of the windswept
hill, the talk and aspect of other wayfarers whom we have met, the
noble buildings of the ancient city, the stately avenue which the dull
road intersects unaware, the embowered hamlet, the leafy forest dingle,
the bleat of sheep on the dewy upland, the birds' song at evening--all
that strikes sharp and clear and desirable upon our fresh or tired
sense.

For one thing is certain, that the end is not yet; and that there is
something done for the soul both by the morning brightness and the
evening heaviness which can be effected in no other way. And in this
spirit we may look back on our mistakes, sad as they were, and on our
triumphs, which are sometimes sadder still, and know that they were not
mere accidents and obstacles which might have been otherwise--they were
rather the very stuff and essence of the soul showing through its
enfolding garb.

And then, too, if we have suffered, as we all must suffer if we have
any heart or blood or brain at all, we can learn the blessed fact of
the utter powerlessness of suffering to hurt or darken us. Its horror
lies in the continuance of it, in the shuddering anticipation of all we
may yet have to endure; but once over, it becomes instantly either like
a cloud melting in the blue of heaven, or, better still a joyful memory
of a pain that braced and purified. No one ever gives a thought, except
a grateful one, to past suffering. If it leaves its handwritin