298 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



But, friends, the man or woman who has a sublime faith and trust 

 in the destiny — the Divine Destiny that "shapes our ends" is the 

 one who can meet every emergency and every obstacle in life's 

 pathway triumphantly. And there is a point which may be gained 

 by mental toil and struggle and faith, from which we can, like the 

 traveler on some lofty mountain height, look down upon storms 

 below, while he is walking in sunshine. 



Human natm-e, however, is so prone to magnify life's little 

 crosses. The State of New York has been obliged to enlarge her 

 asylums, and build new ones, to accommodate her rapidly increasing 

 insane, whose minds were wrecked by financial losses during the 

 panic last fall, and we scarcely pick up a newspaper anymore in 

 which there is not an account of a suicide because of financial 

 trouble. 



In striking contrast to these was the Wall Street broker, who went 

 home one day last winter and said to his wife, "Well, Molly, do you 

 know we are not worth a cent this evening? I couldn't meet the 

 call on copper this morning, and had to let her go, and it simply 

 wiped us out." Woman-like, she began crying, when he said en- 

 couragingly, "Never mind; don't cry; I began life with a shoe string 

 and a barlow knife in my pocket, and can do it again. We'll get 

 along all right; never fear." Now, this is the spirit which all men 

 and women should cultivate. I include women, because I can name a 

 woman whom her friends told was "a raving maniac" because of her 

 husband's losses a few weeks ago. We should not become so en- 

 grossed in our business that if it is not a financial success, we are 

 in despair. It is right to try to better our condition, to make money, 

 if we make it houestlj', but we should not set our hearts upon it, 

 to the exclusion of everything else. In these days, when riches, 

 as never before, are "making themselves wings and flying away as 

 eagles," we should ever remember that fortune is a fickle jade, and 

 that often when we think we have her in our grasp, she gives us 

 the slip. 



These lines from Omar Kyyliam beautifully express the idea I 

 would convev: 



"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon, 

 Oft turns to ashes; or it prospers, and anon, 

 lAKe summer snow upon the desert's dusty face, 

 Lighting a little hour or two, is gone." 



DISCONTENT. 



Another habit that is all too prevalent both among men and 

 women is restless discontent. Persons who have allowed this spirit 

 to take possession of their hearts, are of all people the most miser- 

 able. They are never at rest. They are forever dreaming of what 

 might have been. They look before and after and pine for what is 

 not. They are like the voices of the wind, which moan for rest, but 

 rest can never find. 



We should cultivate a spirit of contentment, and, as Prof. Swing 

 says, "Set up all the higher ideals" — a quiet home, vines of our own 

 planting, a few books full of inspiration, a few friends worthy of 

 being loved, and able to love us in return, innocent pleasures that 

 bring no pain or remorse, a devotion to the right that will never 



