Even more wonderful, if that is possible, is the way we are formed and contrived to have intercourse with the Eternal. With all our material furnishings we strangely open out into the infinite and partake of a spiritual nature. God has set eternity in our hearts. We cannot win this better possession nor hold it permanently unless we exercise these spiritual capacities, which expand our being and add the richest qualities of life. “Thou hast made us for thyself,” Augustine acknowledged in his great prayer at the opening of the _Confessions_ and “we are restless until we find thee as our true rest.” It is as true now as in the fourth century. Barns and houses, lands and stocks, mortgages and bonds, do not constitute life unless one learns how to win and possess his soul and to keep that best of all possessions—himself. III THE GREATEST RIVALRIES OF LIFE “After experience had taught me that all things which are encountered in human life are vain and futile.... I at length determined to inquire if there was anything which was a true good.” Those are the words of a great philosopher who says that he found himself “led by the hand up to the highest blessedness.” Not everybody finds the choice of ends so easy as Spinoza did; not all of us are carried along into sustained and unmistakable blessedness. Life is full of rivalries which tend to divide our interest and to dissipate our attention. We wake up, perhaps, with surprise to discover that we are being carried, by the hand or by the hair, straight away from “the highest blessedness.” Not seldom the sternest tragedies of human life are occasioned by success. Failure overtaking one in his aim will often shake him awake and make him see that he was pursuing an end in sharp rivalry with his highest good. But success often dulls the vision for other issues and gives one the specious confidence that he is on the right track and “all’s well.” Christ has a vivid parable which touches upon the rivalries of life. It is the story of a great feast to which many guests are invited. When the critical moment for the dinner comes the other rivalries begin to operate. One man, attracted by his possessions, “begs off,” to use the graphic phrase of the original. Another, occupied with the complex interests of business and busy with the affairs of trade, prays to be excused. A third is immersed in the joys and responsibilities of married life and he abruptly dispatches his “regrets.” It was not that they were unconcerned about the sumptuous feast, but that they were carried along by rival interests.