Finally, in the quotation from the Collect, we ask that we may be made ready both in body and in soul, that we may cheerfully accomplish those things that we are commanded to do. Ready both in body and in soul; that means that we must fit ourselves physically and mentally, fit ourselves to work with the weapons necessary for dealing with this life no less than with the higher, spiritual weapons; fit ourselves thus to do the work commanded; and moreover, to do it cheerfully. Small is our use for the man who individually helps any of us and shows that he does it grudgingly. We had rather not be helped than be helped in such fashion. A favor extended in a manner which shows that the man is sorry that he has to grant it is robbed, sometimes of all, and sometimes of more than all, its benefit. So, in serving the Lord, if we serve him, if we serve the cause of decency, the cause of righteousness, in a way that impresses others with the fact that we are sad in doing it, our service is robbed of an immense proportion of its efficacy. We have a right to ask a cheerful heart, a right to ask a buoyant and cheerful spirit among those to whom is granted the inestimable privilege of doing the Lord’s work in this world. The chance to do work, the duty to do work is not a penalty; it is a privilege. Let me quote a sentence that I have quoted once before: “In this life the man who wins to any goal worth winning almost always comes to that goal with a burden bound on his shoulders.” The man who does best in this world, the woman who does best, almost inevitably does it because he or she carries some burden. Life is so constituted that the man or the woman who has not some responsibility is thereby deprived of the deepest happiness that can come to mankind, because each and every one of us, if he or she is fit to live in the world must be conscious that responsibility always rests on him or on her—the responsibility of duty toward those dependent upon us; the responsibility of duty toward our families, toward our friends, toward our fellow-citizens; the responsibility of duty to wife and child, to the state, to the church. Not only can no man shirk some or all of those responsibilities, but no man worth his salt will wish to shirk them. On the contrary, he will welcome thrice over the fortune that puts them upon him.