is exactly what happens when you and I overcome our obstacles. We
develop our light and power. We are rivers of light and power, but it
is all latent and does no good until we overcome obstacles as we go on
south.

Obstacles are the power stations on our way south!

And where the most obstacles are, there you find the most power to be
developed. So many of us do not understand that. We look southward and
we see the obstacles in the road. "I am so unfortunate. I could do
these great things, but alas! I have so many obstacles in the way."

Thank God! You are blessed of Providence. They do not waste the
obstacles. The presence of the obstacles means that there is a lot of
light and power in you to be developed. If you see no obstacles, you
are confessing to blindness.

I hear people saying, "I hope the time may speedily come when I shall
have no more obstacles to overcome!" When that time comes, ring up the
hearse, for you will be a "dead one."

Life is going on south, and overcoming the obstacles. Death is merely
quitting.

The fact that we are not buried is no proof that we are alive. Go along
the street in almost any town and see the dead ones. There they are
decorating the hitching-racks and festooning the storeboxes. There they
are blocking traffic at the postoffice and depot. There they are in the
hotel warming the chairs and making the guests stand up. There they
are--rows of retired farmers who have quit work and moved to town to
block improvements and die. But they will never need anything more than
burying.

For they are dead from the ears up. They have not thought a new thought
the past month. Sometimes they sit and think, but generally they just
sit. They have not gone south an inch the past year.

Usually the deadest loafer is married to the livest woman. Nature tries
to maintain an equilibrium.

They block the wheels of progress and get in the way of the people
trying to go on south. They say of the people trying to do things. "Aw,
he's always tryin' to run things."

They do not join in to promote the churches and schools and big brother
movements. They growl at the lyceum courses and chautauquas, because
they "take money outa town." They do not take any of their money "outa
town." Ringling and Barnum & Bailey get theirs.

I do not smile as I refer to the dead. I weep. I wish I could squirt
some "pep" into them and start them on south.

But all this lecture has been discussing this, so I hur