Most of us have failed or gone astray in one fashion or another, at one time or another. But we need not become despondent at such times. We should resolve to reap the full benefit of the discovery of our weakness, our folly.

All in the dark we grope along,
And if we go amiss
We learn at least which path is wrong,
And there is gain in this.

We do not always win the race
By only running right,
We have to tread the mountain's base
Before we reach its height.

* * * * *

But he who loves himself the last
And knows the use of pain,
Though strewn with errors all his past,
He surely shall attain.

Some souls there are that needs must taste
Of wrong, ere choosing right;
We should not call those years a waste
Which led us to the light.

Etta Wheeler Wilcox.

From "Poems of Power."