It is a determining factor, for from it the picture seems to spring. From such a picture as Millet’s _Angelus_, for instance, take the background with its little church from the tower of which the bell is calling to prayer, and you have removed the whole motive and explanation of the picture itself. A natural harmony exists between the picture and its background. The detail cannot appropriately be anything except what its background determines that it shall be. The background of life’s picture is no less determining. One of life’s backgrounds is character. This is an invisible thing, but the fact that a thing is hidden from the eyes of men does not make it in the least less real. There is no means by which it may be measured or weighed as other things are, but there is no more potent factor in the determination of a life. It may be seldom taken into account in human calculations. The practical and workaday world insists that it does not care about vague, mystical things. It is only concerned about the practical questions of definite action. It only asks what a man can really do. This is all very well, but the man himself must not forget that what he can do and what he will do are entirely determined by what he is. Correct conduct of the sustained sort does not come as the result of calculation. One may stand upon artificial good behavior for an hour or a day, but he cannot do it permanently without the staying force of a fixed principle. It takes more than good resolutions to make an ethical life. One must more than have an axe to grind if he expects to deport himself well in any constant way. No matter what the reward may be, the lure of reward alone cannot lastingly elevate life to a high grade of ability and action. Whitewash cannot change the fact of hidden faultiness. The heart of a thing alone reveals the truth. The hands of a clock do not have to stop and figure their course and speed. If they did, they would be forever getting out of harmony with their purpose and with one another. They are moved and regulated by machinery which the ordinary observer does not see. The world only asks to be told what time it is, but the hands of the clock could not give the information were there not maintained a background of mechanism operating according to fixed and permanent principles. In this regard the clock is a very good analogy of a life. Another of life’s backgrounds is preparation. How one really conducts himself is largely a question of whether or not he is prepared to do the right thing. Opportunity does not fail anyone, but a great many people fail opportunity by not being prepared for it when it arrives. They may seize their chances, but they do not perform their part well because they have not gotten themselves ready in mind, hand, or soul. An attempt to play any worthy part in life without proper preparation gives the same general impression as does a picture without a background. The result is unsatisfying.