Most lives proceed more evenly, without any such catastrophic change.
And yet, it is none the less true that in a very large proportion of
lives there come, now and then, in the midst of routine and uniformity,
certain flashes of clearer vision, disclosing the aims and ideals of
life, as though one should be traveling in a fog along a hillside, and
now and then the breeze should sweep the mist away, and the road and
its end be clear. {28} Now, loyalty to such a vision is the chief
source of strength and satisfaction in a man's life. Sometimes a young
man comes to an old one for counsel about his calling in life, and the
young man sums up his gifts and capacities and defects. He will be a
lawyer because he has a turn for disputation, or an engineer because he
is good at figures, or a minister because he likes the higher
literature. All such considerations have, of course, their place. But
by no such intellectual analysis is the fundamental question met. Many
men fail in their lives in spite of great gifts, and many men succeed
in spite of great defects. The fundamental question is: "Has this
young man had a vision of what he wants to do? Has a great desire
disclosed itself to his heart? Has the breeze of God blown away the
mists of his confusion and shown him his ideal, very far away perhaps,
yet unmistakable and clear?" Then, with all reasonable allowance for
gifts and faults, the straighter he heads toward that ideal the happier
and the more effective he is likely to be. When he thus follows his
heart, he is working along the line of least resistance; and when his
little work is done, however meagre {29} and unimportant it may be, he
can at least give it back to God, who gave it to him to do, and say: "I
was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."

{30}

XI

THE BREAD AND WATER OF LIFE

_John_ vi. 35. _Revelation_ xxii. 17

Here, in the Gospel, the message of Christ is described as the bread of
life, and, here, again, in the Book of Revelation, as the water of
life. Bread and water--the very plainest, most essential, every-day
needs, the forms of nourishment of which we rarely think with
gratitude, but which on no day we go without.

A great many people seem to think that religion is a kind of luxury in
life, a Sunday delicacy, an educated taste, an unessential food, which
one can, at his discretion, take or go without. But to Jesus Christ
religion is no such super-imposed accessory; it