have chosen no vocation, they have entered on no walk of life in which to realise a character. When a man identifies himself with a worthy cause, he ceases to harp on his right of self-assertion. His energies have found a socially valuable outlet: they are devoted to the service of his vocation. It is thus, and thus alone, that the self is really asserted.
Loyalty to vocation—this unites the attitudes of self-denial and self-assertion; and this harmonises duty and inclination. In loyal devotion to vocation the self attains its highest development. But this self-assertion depends on the fact that at every stage in its moral progress the interests of the lower aspects of the self have been denied.
It is a man's duty to be loyal to his vocation. He can do no more than this; but he should never do less. To be loyal to his vocation is a man's highest duty; and it is a duty that every man may attempt to perform, whether he be scavenger or king. It is at once the supreme duty and the universal duty. And if the man has himself chosen his vocation, his inclinations will be consonant with his duty: it will be his truest pleasure and surest happiness to respond to the claims made upon him by the vocation which he has himself chosen.
But the completest loyalty to vocation can be rendered only by those who not only know that they have chosen their vocation, but feel that they have been chosen by it and for it. In all that we have said about vocation no reference has yet been made to this most important point. A man's vocation is not merely what he has chosen, it is also that to which he has been called. A man, then, should feel
