It was exactly what I needed to do--to endure hardness--to take it--to bear it--to be more of a man for it. Moreover, the idea was a new suggestion. I had not understood before that to the conquest of fear the hardening of the inner man is an auxiliary. My object had been to ward off fear so that it shouldn't touch me; but to let it strike and rebound because it could make no impact was an enlarging of the principle. Viewing the experience as a strengthening process enabled me not only to go through it but to do so with serenity. This, I imagine, is the main thing we are to get out of the struggle brought on us through living in a world of men such as men are to-day. It is a pity they are not better, but being no better than they are we can get that much from the fact--the inner hardening. When, justly or unjustly, others attack or hurt or worry or anger or annoy me, the knowledge that through the very trial I am toughening within, where so often I am without moral muscle, can be a perceptible support. XVI C. Of the two main trials we bring on ourselves I suppose it would be only right to put sickness first. Under sickness I include everything that makes for age, decay, and the conditions commonly classed as "breaking up." It is becoming more and more recognised, I think, that physical collapse has generally behind it a mental cause, or a long series of mental causes too subtle for tabulation. I shall not dwell on this, for the reason that during the past fifty years so much has been written on the subject. A number of movements for human betterment have kept the whole idea in the forefront of the public mind. It is an idea only partially accepted as yet, arousing as much opposition among the conservative as hope on the part of the progressive. Since, however, science and religion are both, in their different ways, working on it together, some principle which can no longer be questioned is likely to be worked out within the next few generations. All I shall attempt to do now is to re-state what seems to me the fact--stated by others with knowledge and authority--that God, rightly understood, is the cure of disease and not the cause of it. There is something repugnant in the thought of Universal Intelligence propagating harmful bacteria, and selecting the crises at which we shall succumb to their effects. The belief that God sends sickness upon us amounts to neither less nor more than that. The bacilli which we try to destroy He uses His almighty power to cultivate, so that even our efforts to protect ourselves become defiances of His Will. Surely the following incident, which gives our Lord's attitude toward disease, affords a reasonable basis for our own.