a mood we feel
that the most definite creed illumines, as it were, but a tiny streak
of the shadowy orb; and we are visited, too, by the fear that the more
definite the creed, the more certain it is that it is only a desperate
human attempt to state a mystery which cannot be stated, in a world
where all is dark.

In such a despairing mood, we can but resign ourselves to the awful
Will of God, who sets us here, we know not why, and hurries us hence,
we know not whither. Yet the very sternness and inexorability of that
dread purpose has something that sustains and invigorates. We look back
upon our life, and feel that it has all followed a plan and a design,
and that the worst evils we have had to bear have been our faithless
terrors about what should be; and then we feel the strength that ebbed
from us drawing back to sustain us; we recognize that our present
sufferings have never been unbearable, that there has always been some
residue of hope; we read of how brave men have borne intolerable
calamities, and have smiled in the midst of them, at the reflection
that they have never been so hard as was anticipated; and then we are
happy if we can determine that, whatever comes, we will try to do our
best, in our small sphere, to live as truly and purely as we can, to
practise courage and sincerity, to help our fellow-sufferers along, to
guard innocence, to guide faltering feet, to encourage all the sweet
and wholesome joys of life, to be loving, tender-hearted, generous, to
lift up our hearts; not to be downcast and resentful because we do not
understand everything at once, but humbly and gratefully to read the
scroll as it is unrolled.

* * * * *

The night grows late. I rise to close my outer door to shut myself out
from the world; I shall have no more visitors now. The moonlight lies
cold and clear on the little court; the shadow of the cloister pillars
falls black on the pavement. Outside, the town lies hushed in sleep; I
see the gables and chimneys of the clustered houses standing in a quiet
dream over the old ivy-covered wall. The college is absolutely still,
though one or two lights still burn in studious rooms, and peep through
curtained chinks. What a beautiful place to live one's life in, a place
which greets one with delicate associations, with venerable beauty, at
every turn! The moonlight falls through the tall oriel of the Hall, and
the armorial shields burn and glow with rich poi