Wherever you are, and whoever you maybe, there is one thing in which you
and I are just alike at this moment, and in all the moments of our existence
. We are not at rest; we are on a journey, our life is a movement, a tendency
, a steady, ceaseless progress towards an unseen goal. We are gaining something
, or losing something, everyday. Even when our position and our character
seem to remain precisely the same, they are changing. For the mere advance
of time is a change. It is not the same thing to have a bare field in
January and in July, the season makes the difference. The limitations
that are childlike in the child are childish in the man. Everything that
we do is a step in one direction or another, even the failure to do something
is in itself a deed. It sets us forward or backward. The action of the
negative pole of a magnetic needle is just as real as the action of the
positive pole. To decline is to accept – the other alternative. Are you
nearer to your port today than you were yesterday? Yes, -- you must be
a little nearer to some port or other; for since your ship was first lunched
upon the sea of life, you have never been still for a single moment; the
sea is too deep, you could not find an anchorage if you would. There can
be no pause until you come into port.