The M. I. A. Cause

VITAL PROBLEMS OF LIFE 1019

come deities without God to guide us, and our free agency determines the way we shall go. The fall of man and the plan of redemption furnish the opportunity for the inner struggle between the higher and the lower self. Strong passions and appetites become adversity levers, in the hand of temperance. Greed wrestles with generosity and the latter becomes strong through the contest, and a victor through the agency of man. In the following verses we hear the wail of the weaklin*: to

"I would not live always, "I would not live always I ask not to stay Thus fetttered by sin, Where storm after storm Temptation without, Rises dark o'er the way. And corruption within." How withering is that wail! Listen now to the shout of the strong: "Thank God for the passion within me, Thank God for the lure from without. It is heaven to conquer an impulse, And to put an error to rout." In the outer world, we lift ourselves through combating with the elements. In zones where bread-fruit grows, and climate is clothing, civilization has to be imported. Individually and in groups we increase our intelligence; we add to our courage by agitating, educating, and legislating against mobilized iniquity. Through disappointment ones practice is measured; through pain we gain fortitude; in fact, "we learn obedience through the things we suffer," and make of our misfortunes "stepping stones to higher things." As to poverty it is such a universal adversity that it will be made the topic of a subsequent lesson. Standing in the light of adversity, as an uplifting force, we naturally turn to a consideration of how to get the most uplift out of adversity: ,.

Meet adversity with seriousness. "Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, bear't that the opposer may beware of thee."

Meet adversity cheerfully. Pessimism always pulls down. "It is easy enough to be pleasant When life flows by like a song, But the man worth while is one who will smile When everything goes dead wrong." Ella Wheeler Wilcox.