There are, in the
experience of each one, obstacles, hindrances, and difficulties, which
make it hard to live successfully. Every one has to move onward and
upward through ranks of resistances. This is true of physical life.
Every baby that is born begins at once a struggle for existence. To be
victorious and live, or to succumb and die? is the question of every
cradle, and only half the babies born reach their teens. After that,
until its close, life is a continuous struggle with the manifold forms
of physical infirmity. If we live to be old it must be through our
victoriousness over the unceasing antagonism of accident and disease.
The same is true in mental progress. It must be made against
resistance. It is never easy to become a scholar or to attain
intellectual culture. It takes years and years of study and discipline
to draw out and train the faculties of the mind. An indolent,
self-indulgent student may have an easy time; he never troubles himself
with difficult problems; he lets the hard things pass, not vexing his
brain with them. But in evading the burden he misses the blessing that
was in it for him. The only path to the joys and rewards of
scholarship is that of patient, persistent toil.
It is true also in spiritual life. We enter a world of antagonism and
opposition the moment we resolve at Christ's feet to be Christians, to
be true men or women, to forsake sin, to obey God, to do our duty.
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