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A California stage driver had held the lines for many years; and when he began to grow old, his hands were crooked into hooks and his fingers were stiffened in that shape so that they could not be straightened out.
There is a similar process that goes on in men’s souls when they continue to do the same things over and over. If you are trained, and train yourself, from childhood, to be gentle and patient, to control your temper, to resist wrong, your life will grow into beauty, and the peacefulness of your heart will at length shine upon your very face. On the other hand, if you give way from childhood to all ugly tempers, resentful feelings, all bitterness and anger, your life will grow into permanent disfigurement.
One who accustoms himself to think of pure and holy things, who sets his affections on things above, and strives to reach whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are lovely, will grow upward toward the things he loves and thinks upon. but one who lets his mind turn habitually to debasing things, things unholy, unclean, sensual, will find his whole soul bending downward and growing toward the earth.