There is nothing possible that faith and striving can not do; take the road, and it must lead you to the goal, though strewn with difficulties, and cast through pain and shade. If each would strain his energies to gain what he has dared to hope for, he would succeed, for since that which we love and honor is in our nature, it is to be drawn forth, and what is not there we can not wish. Our greatest drawback is, not that we expect too much, but that we do too little; we set our worship low, and let our higher powers lie dormant; thus are we never masters, but blind men stumbling in each other's way. As maturity means self-controlling power, so he who gains not this is childish, and must submit, infant-like, to be controlled by others. This guidance we must feel in our upward course, and be grateful for the check; but as we have each a work to do, we must look beyond help to independence. The school-boy receives aid in learning that he may one day strive with his own power, for if he always depends on help he can never be a useful man. He who seeks for himself no path, but merely follows where others have been before, covering his own want with another's industry, may find the road not long or thickly set, but he does and gains nothing. He who bows to difficulty, settling at the foot of the hill instead of struggling to its top, may get a sheltered place--a snug retreat, but the world in its glory he can never see, and the pestilence from the low ground he must imbibe. We may rest in perfect comfort, but the health that comes of labor will fade away. The trees of the forest were not planted that man might pass round and live between them, but that he might cut them down and use them. The savage has little toil before him, but the civilized man has greater power of happiness. Would a man be powerful, and bid his genius rule his fellow-men? he must toil to gain means; while his thought reads the hearts that he would sway, he must be led into temptation, and pass through pain and danger, ere he can know what another may endure. Would he pour golden truth upon the page of life? he must seek it from every source, weigh the relations of life, and concede to its taste, that he may best apply it, for the proverb must be written in fair round hand, that common men may read it. Would he picture the life of man or nature? he must go forth with heart and eye alive, nor turn from the sorest notes of human woe, or the coarsest tones of vice; he must watch the finest ray of light, and mark the falling of the last withered leaf. Would he be actively benevolent? winter cold, nor summer lassitude must not appall him; in season and out of season he must be ready; injured pride, wounded feeling must not unstring his energy, while stooping to learn from the simplest lips the nature of those wants to which he would minister.