n our
conviction of righteousness as the fundamental law of fife, and broaden
our horizon so as to appreciate varying and opposite points of view.
The only non-resistance that brings this power is the kind which yields
mere personal and selfish considerations for the sake of principles.
Selfish and weak yielding must always do harm. Unselfish yielding, on
the other hand, strengthens the will and increases strength of purpose
as the petty obstacles of mere self-love are removed. Concentration
alone cannot long remain wholesome, for it needs the light of growing
self-knowledge to prevent its becoming self-centred. Yielding alone is
of no avail, for in itself it has no constructive power. But if we try
to look at ourselves as we really are, we shall find great strength in
yielding where only our small and private interests are concerned, and
concentrating upon living the broad principles of righteousness which
must directly or indirectly affect all those with whom we come into
contact.

I

_The Freedom of Life_

I AM so tired I must give up work," said a young woman with a very
strained and tearful face; and it seemed to her a desperate state, for
she was dependent upon work for her bread and butter. If she gave up
work she gave up bread and butter, and that meant starvation. When she
was asked why she did not keep at work and learn to do it without
getting so tired, that seemed to her absurd, and she would have laughed
if laughing had been possible.

"I tell you the work has tired me so that I cannot stand it, and you
ask me to go back and get rest out of it when I am ready to die of
fatigue. Why don't you ask me to burn myself, on a piece of ice, or
freeze myself with a red-hot poker?"

"But," the answer was, "it is not the work that tires you at all, it is
the way you do it;" and, after a little soothing talk which quieted the
overexcited nerves, she began to feel a dawning intelligence, which
showed her that, after all, there might be life in the work which she
had come to look upon as nothing but slow and painful death. She came
to understand that she might do her work as if she were working very
lazily, going from one thing to another with a feeling as near to
entire indifference as she could cultivate, and, at the same time, do
it well. She was shown by illustrations how she might walk across the
room and take a book off the table as if her life depended upon it,
racing and pushing over the floor, gra