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BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS 63

it nor walk it for you. You must put forth your own efforts, must achieve by your own strength,
must make his truth your truth by your own unaided exertions; you must implicitly trust yourself.

“This thing is God — to be Man with thy might,
To grow great in the strength of thy spirit,
And live out thy life as the light.”

You are to be master of yourself, lord over yourself, not fawning and imitating, but doing your
work as a living, vital portion of the universe; giving love but not expecting it; giving sympathy but
not craving for it; giving aid but not depending upon it. If men should censure your work, heed
them not. It sufficeth that your work be true: rest you in this sufficiency. Do not ask: “Will my work
please?” but : “Is it real?” If your work be true the criticism of men cannot touch it; if it be false
their disapproval will not slay it quicker than it will die of itself. The words and acts of Truth
cannot pass away until their work is fully accomplished; the words and acts of error cannot
remain, for they have no work to do. Criticism and resentment are alike superfluous.
Free yourself from the self-imposed tyranny of slavish dependence, and stand alone, not as an
isolated unit, but as a sympathetic portion of the whole. Find the Joy that results from well -earned
freedom, the peace that flows from wise self-possession, the blessedness that inheres in native
strength.

“Honour to him who, self-complete, if lone,
Carves to the grave one pathway all his own,
And heeding naught that men may think or say,
Asks but his soul if doubtful of the way.”