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 least you will be able to support your present opinions at once with more grace and more modesty; having conceded the trial it asked for, to the opposite side. Nor in acting temporarily on a faith you do not see to be reasonable, do you compromise your own integrity more, than in conducting, under a chemist's directions, an experiment of which he foretells inexplicable consequences. And you need not doubt the power you possess over your own minds to do this. Were faith not voluntary, it could not be praised, and would not be rewarded.

If you are minded thus to try, begin each day with Alfred's prayer,—fiat voluntas tua; resolving that you will stand to it, and that nothing that happens in the course of the day shall displease you. Then set to any work you have in hand with the sifted and purified resolution that ambition shall not mix with it, nor love of gain, nor desire of pleasure more than is appointed for you; and that no anxiety shall touch you as to its issue, nor any impatience nor regret if it fail. Imagine that the thing is being done through you, not by you; that the good of it may never be known, but that at least, unless by your rebellion or foolishness, there can come no evil into it, nor wrong chance to it. Resolve also with steady industry to do what you can for the help of your country and its honour, and the honour of its God; and that you will not join hands in its iniquity, nor turn aside from its misery; and that in all you do