A great warfare, I think, with a history as old as the world, and not without its pathos.
It has its slain.

Men and women, lean-jawed, crippled in the slow, silent battle, are in your alleys, sit beside you at your table; its martyrs sleep under every green hill-side.
You must fight in it; money will buy you no discharge from that war.
There is room in it, believe me, whether your post be on a judge's bench, or over a wash-tub, for heroism, for knightly honour, for purer triumph than his who falls foremost in the breach.

Your enemy, Self, goes with you from the cradle to the coffin; it is a hand-to-hand struggle all the sad, slow way, fought in solitude,--a battle that began with the first heart-beat, and whose victory will come only when the drops ooze out, and sudden halt in the veins,--a victory, if you can gain it, that will drift you not a little way upon the coasts of the wider, stronger range of being, beyond death.
Let me roughly outline for you one or two lives that I have known, and how they conquered or were worsted in the fight.

Very common lives, I know,--such as are swarming in yonder market-place; yet I dare to call them voices of God,--all! My reason for choosing this story to tell you is simple enough.
An old book, which I happened to find to-day, recalled it.

It was a ledger, iron-bound, with the name of the firm on the outside,--Knowles & Co.