it will train his strength, and discipline his skill; heartening him for future effort, as the racer, by being trained to run against the hill, at length courses with facility. The road to success may be steep to climb, and it puts to the proof the energies of him who would reach the summit. But by experience a man soon learns that obstacles are to be overcome by grappling with them,—that the nettle feels as soft as silk when it is boldly grasped,—and that the most effective help towards realizing the object proposed is the moral conviction that we can and will accomplish it. Thus difficulties often all away of themselves before the determination to overcome them.
Much will be done if we do but try. Nobody knows what he can do till he has tried; and few try their best till they have been forced to do it. "If I could do such and such a thing," sighs the desponding youth. But nothing will be done if he only wishes. The desire must ripen into purpose and effort; and one energetic attempt is worth a thousand aspirations. It is these thorny "ifs"—the mutterings of impotence and despair—which so often hedge round the field of possibility, and prevent anything being done or even attempted. "A difficulty," said Lord Lyndhurst, "is a thing to be overcome"; grapple with it at once; facility will come with practice, and strength and fortitude with repeated effort. Thus the mind and character may be trained to an almost perfect discipline, and enabled to act with a grace, spirit, and liberty almost incomprehensible to those who have not passed through a similar experience.
Everything that we learn is the mastery of a difficulty; and the mastery of one helps to the
