But the beneficent influence of health’s fever does not end here, for it is also the secret of spiritual development. We have all experienced these seasons of holy manifestation. Our friends said that we had the fidgets; the physician diagnosed our case as one of nervousness; we insisted that we had the blues; but all were wrong. The restlessness was a sign of health. We were not satisfied with ourselves but longed for nobility. The dust-made body was refusing to grovel in the dust. The spiritual life was beginning to assert itself through these tissues of flesh. The chrysalis had lost its desire to crawl along the ground, for new life within claimed its right to rise upon joyous wing and cleave the sunlit air. It was not a thing to be despised, to mar and gnaw the budding leaf, but something to be admired and loved of man, something sylphlike to sip from chalices of gold and silver, porphyry and lapis-lazuli. The old man of sin was dying, and through the power of Christ a new man was coming into life; from now on he can never be satisfied with things as they were. One of the hopes of the world’s salvation is the fact that sin never satisfies the soul. Its promises are never fulfilled. Its obligations are never met at maturity. Men become restless in their sin, and through their restlessness are being led to God. Here alone can satisfaction be found, for only Christ supplies the soul with what it needs for the journey set before it. He offers guidance, saying, “I am the way.” Following him no soul has ever been lost amid the bewildering maze of sin. He offers sustaining power saying, “I am the bread of life” and “I am the water of life.” The dusty ashes of sin no longer choke, but for the hunger there is life-giving bread, and for the parched lip there is water. He gives illumination, saying, “I am the light,” and the terrors of darkness and the dangers of the night flee away. He offers an open way, saying, “I am the door,” and through him one passes out of the cramped prison house of past sins into untrammeled, unmeasured freedom. He offers immortality, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” The deadening power of sin loses its hold, and one tastes the unspeakable joy of living a life that is life indeed. Then be not confounded by the feeling of restlessness that ever creeps upon the healthy soul. What a tragedy our lives would be had we been satisfied with our first achievements! How terribly pathetic it is to become satisfied with ourselves now, while we are so far short of what we might be, and so lamentably short of what God meant our lives to be! Curb not the spirit of restlessness as though it were a fever of death. It is health’s fever. It is the call of the soul for its Creator who longs to lead us into better things. To-morrow will be a beautiful day because to-day is so restless. XIII