October 3

A doctor has no prescription for growth. He can tell me how growth may be stunted or impaired, but the process itself is recognized as beyond control—one of the few, and therefore very significant, things which Nature keeps in her own hands. No physician of souls, in like manner, has any prescription for spiritual growth. It is

the question he is most often asked and most often answers wrongly. He may prescribe more earnestness, more prayer, more self-denial or more Christian work. These are prescriptions for something, but not for growth. Not that they may not encourage growth; but the soul grows as the lily grows, without trying, without fretting, without ever thinking. There can indeed be no other principle of growth than this. It is a vital act. And to try to make a thing grow is as absurd as to help the tide to come in or the sun rise.