peak the truth--the courage to be what we really are, and not to
pretend to be what we are not--the courage to live honestly within our
own means, and not dishonestly upon the means of others.

A great deal of the unhappiness, and much of the vice, of the world is
owing to weakness and indecision of purpose--in other words, to lack
of courage. Men may know what is right, and yet fail to exercise the
courage to do it; they may understand the duty they have to do, but
will not summon up the requisite resolution to perform it. The weak and
undisciplined man is at the mercy of every temptation; he cannot say
"No," but falls before it. And if his companionship be bad, he will be
all the easier led away by bad example into wrongdoing.

Nothing can be more certain than that the character can only be
sustained and strengthened by its own energetic action. The will,
which is the central force of character, must be trained to habits of
decision--otherwise it will neither be able to resist evil nor to
follow good. Decision gives the power of standing firmly, when to yield,
however slightly, might be only the first step in a downhill course to
ruin.

Calling upon others for help in forming a decision is worse than
useless. A man must so train his habits as to rely upon his own powers
and depend upon his own courage in moments of emergency. Plutarch tells
of a King of Macedon who, in the midst of an action, withdrew into the
adjoining town under pretence of sacrificing to Hercules; whilst his
opponent Emilius, at the same time that he implored the Divine aid,
sought for victory sword in hand, and won the battle. And so it ever is
in the actions of daily life.

Many are the valiant purposes formed, that end merely in words; deeds
intended, that are never done; designs projected, that are never begun;
and all for want of a little courageous decision. Better far the silent
tongue but the eloquent deed. For in life and in business, despatch is
better than discourse; and the shortest answer of all is, DOING. "In
matters of great concern, and which must be done," says Tillotson,
"there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution--to be
undetermined when the case is so plain and the necessity so urgent. To
be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set
about it,--this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and
sleeping from one day to another, until he is starved and destroyed."

There needs