Let
us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving
the results to the guardianship of the Infinite.
If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any
one who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment,
that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the
revelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the
genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course
of our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us
most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused
us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth
have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among
the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure.
There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and
sincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometime seem to be
wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of "how" to walk; the
secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible
successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in
continuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics
of failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and
commentators may lay at his door.
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