of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.  Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall reinforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know.  This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all.  “The second maxim is:  Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life.  Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.  The need of securing success at the outset is imperative.  Failure at first is apt to dampen the energy of all future attempts, whereas past experience of success nerves one to future vigor.  It is surprising how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be never fed.  “A third maxim may be added to the preceding pair:  Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain.  It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects that resolves and aspirations communicate the new ‘set’ to the brain.”]

(2) It is an excellent thing to do a little gratuitous spiritual exercise every day, just to keep in training, to get the habit of conquering impulse, of doing disagreeable things.  Nothing is more useful to a man than that power.  We must not let our lives get too easy and our wills too soft.  To jump out of bed when the whistle blows, instead of dawdling just for a minute more in indolent comfort, to make one’s self take the cold bath that is abhorrent to the flesh, to deny one’s self the cigar or the candy that may not be in itself particularly harmful-by some means or other to keep one’s self in the saddle and riding one’s desires, may enable one when some crisis comes to thrust aside a man too fatally accustomed to doing things in the easiest way.