Self-restraint and honesty and independence, if they are the crown upon the head of a benignant despotism, are the very lifeblood in the veins of a self-governing republic. To be calm and serene, and yet to be full of energy and hope of higher things,--this comes to him whose life aims at the absolute. If you cannot argue, live! Be true and pure and lofty and devout, and He who ever seeks the souls of men shall find His way to some of them through you. When a man means to be honest solely because honesty is right, and not because honesty is profitable, there is a perpetual and beautiful tendency of his honesty to refine and deepen itself. Dependence upon God makes the independence of men in which are liberty and courage. [Illustration: Flowers] [Illustration: Flowers] There is a type of universal human life in harmony with the best life of all the ages, in tune with the sublimest and finest spiritual music of the universe, which you can live in your parlor and your shop. No beauty is really beautiful which in any way hinders righteousness or weakens spiritual life. To every heart's experience comes its time of desert-journeyings.... It eats its manna in the wilderness. You can know nothing which you do not reverence. You can see nothing before which you do not veil your eyes. Repentance for safety, even for cleanness, is not complete. The true motive is that God may be glorified in us. [Illustration: Angel] [Illustration: Inside back cover]