ctice, and no
racing--boat or other. Leave the river quiet for the naturalist, the
angler, and the weary student like me.

You may think all these matters of no consequence to your studies of art
and divinity; and that I am merely crotchety and absurd. Well, that is
the way the devil deceives you. It is not the sins which we _feel_
sinful, by which he catches us; but the apparently healthy ones,--those
which nevertheless waste the time, harden the heart, concentrate the
passions on mean objects, and prevent the course of gentle and fruitful
thought.

296. Having thus cultivated, in the time of your studentship, your
powers truly to the utmost, then, in your manhood, be resolved they
shall be spent in the true service of men--not in being ministered unto,
but in ministering. Begin with the simplest of all ministries--breaking
of bread to the poor. Think first of that, not of your own pride,
learning, comfort, prospects in life: nay, not now, once come to
manhood, may even the obedience to parents check your own conscience of
what is your Master's work. "Whoso loveth father and mother more than me
is not worthy of me." Take the perfectly simple words of the Judgment,
"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto
me:" but you must _do_ it, not preach it. And you must not be resolved
that it shall be done only in a gentlemanly manner. Your pride must be
laid down, as your avarice, and your fear. Whether as fishermen on the
sea, plowmen on the earth, laborers at the forge, or merchants at the
shop-counter, you must break and distribute bread to the poor, set down
in companies--for that also is literally told you--upon the green
grass, not crushed in heaps under the pavement of cities. Take Christ at
His literal word, and, so sure as His word is true, He will be known of
you in breaking of bread. Refuse that servant's duty because it is
plain,--seek either to serve God, or know Him, in any other way: your
service will become mockery of Him, and your knowledge darkness. Every
day your virtues will be used by the evil spirits to conceal, or to make
respectable, national crime; every day your felicities will become baits
for the iniquity of others; your heroisms, wreckers' beacons, betraying
them to destruction; and before your own deceived eyes and wandering
hearts every false meteor of knowledge will flash, and every perishing
pleasure glow, to lure you into the gulf of your grave.

297. But obey the