only far away from man, and
all the works and habitations of man, and all his feeble efforts at the
mitigation of the darkness. Nay, for fullest perception, it may be that
it is necessary for a man to be not only alone in the profundity of
Nature's night, but to be lifted somewhat out of himself and his natural
darkness by extremity of joy, or still more of need.

The milky way was as white as though a mighty brush dipped in glittering
star-dust had been drawn across the velvet dome. The larger stars, many
of which were old acquaintances and known to him by name, seemed to
swing so clear and close that they took on quite a new aspect of
friendliness and cheer. The smaller--I write as he thought--a mighty
host, an innumerable company quite beyond his ken, still spoke to him in
a language that he had never forgotten.

Long ago, when he was quite a little boy, he had come upon a great globe
of the heavens, a much-prized curiosity of his old schoolmaster. Upon it
appeared all the principal stars linked up into their constellations,
the shadowy linking lines forming the figures of the Imaginary Ones
associated with them in the minds of the ancients. There, on the
varnished round of the globe, ranged the Great and Little Bears, and the
Dogs, and the Archer, and the Flying Horse, the Lion, and the Crab, and
the Whale, and the Twins, and Perseus and Andromeda, and Cassiopeia. And
up there, on the dark inner side of the mighty dome, he seemed to see
them all again, and time swung back with him for a moment, and he was a
boy once more.

And, gazing up at them all, their steady shine and many-coloured
twinklings led him to wonder as to the how and the why of them. From the
stars to their Maker was but a natural step, and so he came, simply and
naturally, to thought of the greatness of Him who swung these
innumerable worlds in their courses, and, from that, to His goodness and
justice.

Memories of his mother came surging back upon him, and of all her
goodness and all she had taught him. She had had a mighty, simple trust
in the goodness of God, and had passed it on to her boy, though his
rough contact with the world had overworn it all to some extent.

Still, it was all there, and now it all came back to him through the
hopeful twinkling eyes of those innumerable stars.

"Have courage and hope!" they sang; and though all his little world,
save those two or three who knew him best, was against him, he stood
there with his f