My dear friends, take my words home with you, and if you wish for the
only true and sound peace, which is the peace of God, do your duty. Try
to be as good as you can, each in his station in life. So help you God.
Take an example from the soldier on the march; and if you do that, you
will all understand what I mean. The bad soldier has no peace, just
because he troubles himself about things outside himself, and not in his
own power. "Will the officers lead us right?" That is not in his power.
Let him go where the officers lead him, and do his own duty. "Will he
get food enough, water enough, care enough, if he is wounded?" I hope
and trust in God he will; but that is not in his own power. Let him take
that, too, as it comes, and do his duty. "Will he be praised, rewarded,
mentioned in the newspapers, if he fights well?" That, too, is not in
his own power. Let him take that, too, as it comes, and do his duty; and
so of everything else. If the soldier on the march torments himself with
these matters which are not in his own power, he is the man who will be
troublesome and mutinous in time of peace, and in time of war will be the
first to run away.
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