And when life has wounded you, cut you, torn you almost limb from limb, and you feel and see yourself only an almost dismembered trunk, Nature will soothe and heal you. Your wounds will soon be scarred over and the trees, the ferns, the birds, the grasses, the squirrels, the bees, the buds, the blossoms, and the butterflies,--all--will associate with you on equal terms. They will neither laugh at you nor repel you, but as loving friends come and associate with you in sweet and dear kinship. You will walk through the aisled forest temples of God repentant and forgiven for sins of the past, and shame and sorrow will flee away, replaced by the calm joy of the peace that flows into the receiving heart like a river. You will undress and bathe in the sunshine and the pools, the creeks and the rivers, fearless and unabashed, for you will have exposed your soul to the soul of things; real shame has nothing to do with externals. But, you ask, how am I to begin to observe and thus absorb the good gifts of God into my very life in order that I may live and radiate them to others? Let me help you to begin! To be satisfied is to stagnate and petrify. In his _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, Robert Browning has three pregnant lines: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. The aspiring soul is the one reaching out to absorb. One might be a satisfied brute by closing all the avenues of aspiration and high ambition, but it is immeasurably better to be an unsatisfied, aspiring man rather than the satisfied low-minded brute. Aspiration is the hunger of the soul. Hunger implies need. So foster--cultivate--your hunger. The hungry seek for food, and food gives new life, new growth, new strength, new power. The Universe of God is full of food for man's mind and soul. And it is of infinite variety, capable of nourishing myriads of soul-powers that now lie dormant in your nature. Awaken to your needs. Be on the lookout every moment for the free gifts of God that hang from the trees of life that grow in every back yard as well as on high mountains and in every fertile orchard.