Well, we are all here for a great work, not merely to
grow up and eat and drink, to have estates called after us and children born in our name. We are all here to be
men; to do the most of human duty possible for us, and
so to have the most of human right and enjoy the most of
human welfare. Religion is a good thing in itself; it is
the betrothed bride of the spirit of man, to be loved for
her own sweet sake ; not a servant, to be taken for use
alone. But it is the means to this end,—to strength of
character, enlarging the little and greatening the great.
You and I shall have enough to suffer, most of us; enough to do. We shall have our travail, our temptation, perhaps our agony, but our triumph too.
O smooth-faced youths and maids! your cheek and brow yet innocent of stain, do you believe you shall pass through life and suffer naught? Trial will come on you;—you shall have your agony and bloody sweat. Seek in the beginning for the strength which religion brings you, and you shall indeed be strong, powerful to suffer, and mighty also to do. I will not say your efforts will keep you from every error, every sin. When a boy, I might have thought so; as a man, I know better, by observation and my own experience too. Sin is an experiment that fails ; a stumble, not upright walking. Expect such mishaps, errors of the mind, errors of the conscience, errors of the affections, errors of the soul. What pine tree never lost a limb? The best mathematician now and then misses a figure, must rub out his work and start anew. The greatest poet must often mend a line, and will write faulty verses in the heat of song. Milton has many a scraggy line, and even good Homer sometimes nods. What defects are there in the proud works of Raphael and Angelo! Is there no failure in Mozart? In such a mighty work as this of life, such a complication of forces within, of circumstances without, such imperfect guidance as the world can furnish in this work, I should expect to miss the way sometimes, and with painful feet, and heart stung by self-reproach, or grief, or shame, retread the way shamefaced and sad. The field that is ploughed all over by Remorse, driving his team that breathe fire, yields not a faint harvest to the great Reaper's hand. Trust in God will do two things. It will keep you from many an error; nobody knows how
