elight in the mysteries of life--for not by
prudence can we draw near to God--but in a childlike mood, valuing the
kindly word, the smile that lights up the narrow room and enriches
the austere fare, and paying no heed at all to the jealousies and the
covetous ingathering that turns the temple of the Father into a house of
merchandise.

For here, deepest of all, lies the worth of the symbol; that this life
of ours is not a little fretful space of days, rounded with a sleep, but
an integral part of an inconceivably vast design, flooding through and
behind the star-strewn heavens; that there is no sequence of events as
we conceive, that acts are not done or words said, once and for all, and
then laid away in the darkness; but that it is all an ever-living thing,
in which the things that we call old are as much present in the mind of
God as the things that shall be millions of centuries hence. There is no
uncertainty with Him, no doubt as to what shall be hereafter; and if we
once come near to that truth, we can draw from it, in our darkest hours,
a refreshment that cannot fail; for the saddest thought in the mind of
man is the thought that these things could have been, could be other
than they are; and if we once can bring home to ourselves the knowledge
that God is unchanged and unchangeable, our faithless doubts, our
melancholy regrets melt in the light of truth, as the hoar-frost fades
upon the grass in the rising sun, when every globed dewdrop flashes like
a jewel in the radiance of the fiery dawn.

XVI. OPTIMISM

We Anglo-Saxons are mostly optimists at heart; we love to have things
comfortable, and to pretend that they are comfortable when they
obviously are not. The brisk Anglo-Saxon, if he cannot reach the grapes,
does not say that the grapes are sour, but protests that he does not
really care about grapes. A story is told of a great English proconsul
who desired to get a loan from the Treasury of the Government over which
he practically, though not nominally, presided. He went to the Financial
Secretary and said: "Look here, T----, you must get me a loan for a
business I have very much at heart." The secretary whistled, and then
said: "Well, I will try; but it is not the least use." "Oh, you
will manage it somehow," said the proconsul, "and I may tell you
confidentially it is absolutely essential." The following morning the
secretary came to report: "I told you it was no use, sir, and it wasn't;
the Boa