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We usually think of the world about us as being the chief arena in which we fight the battle of life, but really our greatest difficulty is with ourselves. Our constitutional temper and bias are the chief matters, and they very largely determine what our trouble shall be both as to its nature and degree.

1. Feebleness of constitution is a limitation of which many are painfully conscious: a frailty of physique which prevents them doing much that they would desire to do, and which betrays itself in nearly all that they manage to do. When Henry Ward Beecher was exhorted to take care of his health and strength, he replied, "I have already more than I know what to do with." Many noble people are far from this enviable state. They take their place in the ranks and attempt their daily work, but with a lack of force that makes life much of a burden, and duty rarely a delight. They do not fulfil their promise, they start well and finish poorly, the outline they strike is beyond the picture, they are spasmodic, uncertain, ineffective. This is not exactly an intellectual defect. And it is just as little to the point to say that these people lack conscience or will; they want neither conscience nor will, they are simply destitute of that constitutional robustness and force of which Beecher had more than he knew what to do with. It is not a mental or moral defect, but purely a bodily infirmity which mars life and work that otherwise would give entire satisfaction. Resolute spirits surprise us with the wonders that can be wrought by frail mechanism, but many know by painful experience that a deficiency of native force has marred their whole life, spoiling thoughts, faculties, opportunities, and purposes which a flush of animal spirits would have converted into splendid achievement.

2. An intensity of constitution is the real infirmity of others. They are alarmingly vehement in speech and action. They flash in ordinary talk, and discharge the common business of life with explosive energy. Science has recently discovered that our hive-bees exhaust themselves prematurely by abnormal industry; they are not native to this country, and not having yet adapted themselves completely to a new environment, expend an excessive amount of force which involves their destruction. It is much the same with human beings of impassioned temperament. They do not so much burn out, as blaze out. No doubt they ought to restrain themselves, to check their rage, and act with becoming moderation; but of what use is advice of this sort? The Pacific Ocean may counsel the tempestuous Atlantic to cultivate stillness, and the Atlantic retort on the stagnation of the Pacific; but each remains true to its character. We can no more change our special constitutional qualities than we can change the colour of our eyes. The ardent temper, of which we are speaking, is attended by sorrows of its own. It is impossible to live an impulsive life without serious mistakes and bitter regrets. That temper also involves painful reactions and dejections. And it has its own subtle temptations and perils.

3. The hyper-sensitive constitution is another organ of martyrdom. Like Cowper, many noble souls are morbidly sensitive and shy. They seem born with a skin short, and feel with grievous acuteness a thousand things of which the ordinary man is positively unconscious, or to which he is practically indifferent. God alone understands what these neurotic, nervous, shrinking souls suffer in a rude world like this.

4. Only One knows all the mysteries of our personality, and we cannot live with Him too much. Let us go to Him for sympathy. Let us seek in His grace the strength to deal with the special need and peril of our nature. He can impart to the will of the delicate a force independent of bodily conditions; He can chasten the self-confident; endow with a saving instinct the impulsive; and the easily-wounded, weeping in secret places, He can sweetly soothe. He can so discipline us that our very defects and excesses may be made to yield the riches and beauty of moral and immortal perfection.

(W. L. Watkinson.)

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KJV: And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

WEB: Then I thought, "I will appeal to this: the years of the right hand of the Most High."