If you think you can lay down the oars, and still make your way upstream, you are mistaken. It is only by earnest effort, by using the oars with all your might, that you can stem the current. How many there are as weak as water, when they have a never-failing Source of strength! Heaven is ready to impart to us, that we may be mighty in God, and attain the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus. But who of you in the past year have been making progress in the way of holiness? ... Who have been enabled to gain one precious attainment after another, until envy, pride, malice, jealousy, and every evil stain have been swept away, and only the graces of the Spirit remain? ... (OHC 310.3) MC VC