Text of the meditation
Exert yourself ceaselessly in decreasing evil and accumulating good. Victory of all kinds is preceded by a season of preparation. It can no more appear spontaneously and erratically than can a flower or a mountain. Like them, it is the culminating point in a process of growth, in a series of causes and effects.
No mere wishing, no magic word, will produce worldly success; it must be achieved by an orderly succession of well-directed efforts. No spiritual victory will be achieved by one who imagines that it does not begin until the hour of temptation arrives. All spiritual triumphs are gained in the silent hour of meditation, and through a series of successes in lesser trials.
The time of great temptation is the climax of a conquest that long preparation has made certain and complete. Fix your minds on the practice of virtue, and on the comprehension and application of fixed and noble principles.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
