oul, we can make it into an
instrument of our development. We can curb it when it is headstrong, we
can goad it when it is indolent, and when it fails and thwarts us, as
sooner or later it must do to all of us, the soul can sit beside it,
neither heeding it nor compassionating it, but just triumphing over it
in hope and patience.

There are seasons in the lives of most of us when the soul is full of
zeal and insight, when it would like to work joyfully, to cheer and
console and help others, to utter its song of praise, to make a happy
stir in the world, when the body is morose and feeble and ill at ease,
checks our work and utterance, makes us timid when we should be bold,
and mournful when we wish to be amiable and genial; but these are the
very hours when the soul grows most speedily and surely, if we do not
allow the body to check and restrain us; we must perhaps husband its
resources, but we can stifle our complaints, we can be brave and
cheerful and kind.

And even if the disasters of the body have been in a sense our own
fault; if we have lived prodigally and carelessly, either yielding to
base desires or recklessly overworking and overstraining the mortal
frame, for however high a motive, we can still triumph if we never
yield for a moment to regret or remorse, but accept the conditions
humbly and quietly, using such strength as we have to the uttermost.
For here lies one of our strongest delusions, our belief in our own
effectiveness. God's concern with each of us is direct and individual;
the influences and personalities he brings us into contact with are all
of his designing; and we may be sure of this, that God will make us
just as effective as he intends, and that we are often more effective
in silence and dejection than we are in activity and courage. We mourn
faithlessly over lives cut short, activity suspended, promise
unfulfilled; but we may be sure that in every case God is dealing
faithfully with each soul, and using it as an instrument as far as it
is fitted to be used; and thus for an active man disabled by illness to
mourn over his wasted power is a grievous mistake, and no less a
mistake to mourn over the unprofitableness of our lives, for they have
been as profitable as God willed them to be. We can only be profitable
to those for contact with whom God has prepared both them and us; and
thus our duty in the matter is not to indulge in any anticipations of
what our body may be able to do or unabl