o deeply rooted to be in any danger
from the revolution.

I have, I suppose, made it clear that I do not consider myself specially
fortunate in having been born in 1860, and that I look forward with
great anxiety to the journey through life which my children will have to
make. But, after all, we judge our generation mainly by its surface
currents. There may be in progress a storage of beneficent forces which
we cannot see. There are ages of sowing and ages of reaping: the
brilliant epochs may be those in which spiritual wealth is squandered,
the epochs of apparent decline may be those in which the race is
recuperating after an exhausting effort. To all appearance, man has
still a great part of his long lease before him, and there is no reason
to suppose that the future will be less productive of moral and
spiritual triumphs than the past. The source of all good is like an
inexhaustible river; the Creator pours forth new treasures of goodness,
truth, and beauty for all who will love them and take them. 'Nothing
that truly _is_ can ever perish,' as Plotinus says; whatever has value
in God's sight is safe for evermore. Our half-real world is the factory
of souls, in which we are tried, as in a furnace. We are not to set our
hopes upon it, but to learn such wisdom as it can teach us while we pass
through it. I will therefore end these thoughts on our present
discontents with two messages of courage and confidence, one from
Chaucer, the other from Blake.

That thee is sent, receyve in buxomnesse,
The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fall.
Her is non hoom, her nis but wildernesse:
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stall!
Know thy contree, look up, thank God of all:
Weyve thy lust, and let thy gost thee lede;
And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede.

And this:--

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine;
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Safely through the world we go.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Times Literary Supplement_, July 18, 1918.

[2] Hearnshaw, _Democracy at the Crossroads_, p. 63.

[3] Miss M. Loane. Mr. Stephen Reynolds has said the same.

[4] Professor Hearnshaw quotes: 'Il y a opposition evidente
et irreductible entre les principes socialistes et les
principes democratique