Making Excuses

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The dis-believers in opportunity are voluble with excuses. They cannot; they have no leisure; they have not the means. But they can if they will; leisure to improve one's self is never wanting, and they who seek find the means. There is always opportunity to do right though he who does it stand alone, like Abdiel,-

"Among innumerable false, unmoved, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified."

Let a man but have an aim, a purpose, and opportunities to attain his end shall start forth like buds at the kiss of spring. If we do not know what we want, how shall anything be made to serve us? The heedless walk through deserts in which the observant find the most precious things. Little is to be hoped for from the weavers of pretexts, from those who tell us what they should do, if circumstances were other. What hinders helps, where souls are alive. Say not thou lackest talent. What talent had any of the great ones better than their passionate trust in the efficacy of labor?

The important thing is to have an aim and to pursue it with perseverance. What is the aim the wise should propose to themselves? Not getting and possessing, but becoming and being. Man is not only more than anything that can belong to him; he is greater than planets and solar systems. \11/ e easily persuade ourselves that were circumstances more favorable we should be better and happier. It may be so, but the mood is weak and foolish. There is never a question of what might have been where true men think and act. The past is irrecoverable. It is our business to do what we can here and now, and regrets serve but to enfeeble and distract us. The boundless good lies near each one, and though a thousand times it has eluded us, let us believe that now we shall hold it fast. From failure to failure we rise toward truth and love. The ascent is possible even for the lowliest of God's creatures. When, indeed, we look backward through long years of life, lost opportunities rise before us like mocking fiends crying, Too late, too late, Nevermore, nevermore; but the wise heed no voice that bids them lose heart. They look ever forward, they press