Such are some of your common trials. They may make you very unhappy, but they are God's way of testing you. Can you, He seems to say, do this and that for Me? Can you give up that bad habit, can you bear ridicule, can you do your duty patiently in spite of failure? Oh! answer boldly, "Yes--with Thy help we can." Never give up hope. Fight on and on. Despair is the devil's triumph. When he sees you throw up your hands and give way, he chuckles; for he knows that you are, or soon will be, at his mercy.
The fact is, we cannot go to heaven in an easy-chair, and these trials are, indeed, the hammer strokes which harden the metal of your character. Shirk and evade them, and you will never be a strong and useful man. Bear them, and you will be able to tackle other and fiercer temptations in the larger battle of life--to be brave and pure in your regiment, honest in business, valiant and self-denying in the Church.
But more than this lies in this little word +Dunámetha+, "We can." For perhaps, as you grow older, you will be called upon to fill some high office of trust and responsibility. Will you, then, at that critical moment, prove worthy of the opportunity, or will you let false modesty, indolence, or nervousness, tempt you to decline it, and let the chance slip by which God has given you of useful service? Will you be one of those contemptible people who say, "No, thank you, it isn't good enough," or, "No, I'm afraid of what others would think or say of me"? Will you not rather rise to the occasion, in a spirit of alacrity, and say, "Yes, I can. I will not be content to lag in the poor-spirited ruck, who die unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. I, too, will take my part in the front rank, and strike as stout a blow as I can for the cause of truth and right"?
But if you are to give such an answer as this (and I trust you will), remember that you must give it relying on that strength which is greater than your own. If you don't, you will be ambitious and selfish, and I daresay successful, and nothing better. Listen to what Christ says: "Without Me ye can do nothing." It is His strength, His spirit, which alone can give the full force and the right direction to our wills. With Him everything, without Him nothing. "I can," said St. Paul in one of his bursts of enthusiasm, "I can do all things," but then he is careful to add, "through Christ which strengtheneth me." There is the secret, that is the only talisman of true success. Let us, then, pray to Him morning by morning, evening by evening, to give us His help.