Text of the meditation
The price of life is effort. Every successful accomplishment, even in worldly things, is repaid with its own measure of joy; and in spiritual things the joy that follows the perfection of purpose is sure, deep and abiding. Great is the heartfelt joy (though inexpressible) when, after countless and apparently unsuccessful attempts, some ingrained fault of character is at last cast out, to trouble its former victim and the world no more.
The striver after virtue, the one engaged in the holy task of building up a noble character, tastes at every step of conquest over self a joy that does not leave them again, but becomes an integral part of their spiritual nature. The reward of accomplishment is joy.
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.