WILL. 679 



and function in the game of human life. He can staTid tliis 

 Universe. He can meet it and keep up his faith in it in 

 presence of those same features which lay his weaker breth- 

 ren low. He can still find a zest in it, not by ' ostrich-like 

 forgetfulness,' but by jjure inward willingness to face the 

 w^orld with those deterrent objects there. And hereby he 

 becomes one of the masters and the lords of life. He must 

 be counted with henceforth ; he forms a part of human 

 destiny. Neither in the theoretic nor in the practical 

 sphere do we care for, or go for help to, those who have 

 no head for risks, or sense for living on the perilous edge. 

 Our religious life lies more, our practical life lies less, than 

 it used to, on the j)erilous edge. But just as our courage 

 is so often a reflex of another's courage, so our faith is apt 

 to be, as Max Miiller somewhere says, a faith in some one 

 else's faith. "We draw new life from the heroic example. 

 The prophet has drunk more deeply than anyone of the cup 

 of bitterness, but his countenance is so unshaken and he 

 speaks such mighty words of cheer that his will becomes 

 our will, and our life is kindled at his own. 



Thus not only our morality but our religion, so far as 

 the latter is deliberate, depend on the efibrt which we can 

 make. " Will you or ivonH you have it so ? " is the most prob- 

 ing question we are ever asked ; we are asked it every hour 

 of the day, and about the largest as well as the smallest, 

 the most theoretical as well as the most practical, things. 

 We answer by consents or non-coiisents and not by words. 

 What wonder that these dumb responses should seem our 

 deepest organs of communication with the nature of things ! 

 What wonder if the effort demanded by them be the meas- 

 ure of our worth as men ! What wonder if the amount 

 which we accord of it bo the one strictly underived and 

 original contribution which we make to the world ! 



THE EDUCATION OP THE ^WILL. 



The education of the will may be taken in a broader or a 

 narrower sense. In the broader sense, it means the whole 

 of one's training to moral and prudential conduct, and of 

 one's learning to adapt means to ends, involving the ' asso- 

 ciation of ideas,' in all its varieties and complications, to- 



