I am frequently reminded, however, that there are countless people who, instead of being purified and sensitized by physical pain, have been destroyed or at least rendered sterile by it. This is undoubtedly true. Whether we are to profit by suffering or not depends entirely on ourselves. How then are we to transmute pain into privilege? Certainly not through resignation, for there is no virtue without action. It may only be the interior travail of the spirit, but to attain even the initial step to spiritual, intellectual or material advancement necessitates labor. So it is with the benefits of suffering. They are there within the reach of all, but can only be obtained as the wage of persistent endeavor. Resignation is not merely inactive, it is positively harmful inasmuch as it is a tacit acknowledgment that pain is in itself an evil, and to believe that is to stultify its possibilities. For what we believe to be evil, no matter how innocent in itself, becomes so by the corrosive power of that belief. It is a dogma of Christianity that disease is one of the punitive consequences of original sin. Now punishment implies correction. Therefore, if disease represents a fall from perfection, it also holds within it the germs of a future perfection. Although theology teaches sin as the inception of disease, yet if we consider only the immediate cause of our physical disabilities we will find that although they are frequently the result of breaking a moral law, they are quite as frequently to be attributed to no fault of our own, and may even be the emblem of sacrifice. If so many fail to benefit through suffering, we must remember that only a few of us are able to sustain the daily test of life. Every experience, especially any great and unusual experience, is a fire through which few pass unscathed. Beauty, charm, riches, personality, even intellect, have each their separate temptation, their different limitations. It is so easy for the spirit to sleep contented within the soft prison of a perfect body. Superabundant health and vitality, unless guided by infinite wisdom, are as likely to cast us into the abyss of life as to raise us to the summit. Power fosters pride, and charm is the twin-sister of vanity. Life is a continuous trial of our strength, but disease is not necessarily the supreme trial. It was George Eliot who said: “There is nothing the body suffers the soul may not profit by.” XIX CONCLUSION Who best can suffer, best can do. —_Milton._ We have seen that as mankind rises in the scale of civilization the body becomes increasingly less important. Nevertheless, I wish it to be clearly understood, that I do not maintain that it is preferable to be ill than well, but only that each state has its own peculiar privileges, which are rarely interchangeable.