To those who take part with all their heart and all their might in the struggle, there comes, at last, a great peace, a purified gladness. Gladness, in some instances, springs from a natural buoyancy of temperament, and is quite consistent with shallowness and superficiality of character. In other cases it is coincident with the swift flow of the currents of the blood, and ceases when the stream flows more slowly and begins to stagnate. Or it is due to gifts which an exceptional good fortune showers into the laps of favoured mortals. Gladness of this sort comes with happiness and departs with it. But the purified gladness of which I speak is not dependent on these accidents. It is the mark of the ripest wisdom, and is based on the conviction, gained through experience, that life is worth living, that the victory is assured, and that the ends we pursue are of such excellence as to be incapable of ultimate defeat. The moral ideal would embrace the whole of life. In its sight nothing is petty or indifferent. It touches the veriest trifles and turns them into shining gold. We are royal by virtue of it, and like the kings in the fairy tale, we may never lay aside our crowns. The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth. We call him a hero who maintains himself, single-handed, against superior numbers. We call him a master-horseman who sits a fiery and vicious steed, guiding him at will. And in like manner, we call him a moral hero who conquers the enemies within his own breast--and we admire and revere the soul which can ride its own passions and force them into obedience to the dictates of reason. The legend of St. Christopher, who undertook to carry the Christ-child on his shoulders across a stream, is applicable in a wider sense to us all. The deeper he entered into the water the heavier became the burden which he had assumed so lightly in the beginning, until it pressed upon him like a mountain, and he threatened to succumb beneath its weight. Such likewise is the case of him who, in the sanguine days of youth, has assumed the moral task of reforming himself, or others. The deeper he enters into the stream of life the heavier becomes the burden, and there is no salvation for him unless his strength increases in proportion as the load increases. Do not court temptation. You cannot know whether you will be strong enough to resist it. But prepare yourself to deal valiantly with those temptations that are sure to come to you unsought, especially if you are a “live” man. The marks of evil upon the soul are like the lines left by the glaciers of the ice-age on the ancient rocks. The glaciers have retreated, the ice-age has past, a warmer climate has succeeded, but the marks remain. Morality does not mope in corners, is not sour or gloomy. It loves to convert our meanest wants into golden occasions for fellowship and happy communion.