this is true of every stage of thought, of every class of action. A
vast distance might seem to divide the labourer who brings up his
children honourably, lives his humble life and honourably does the work
that falls to his lot, from the man who steadfastly perseveres in moral
heroism; but each of these is acting and living on the same plane as
the other, and the same loyal, consoling region receives them both.
And though it be certain that what we say and do must largely influence
our material happiness, yet, in ultimate analysis, it is only by means
of the spiritual organs that even material happiness can be fully and
permanently enjoyed. Hence the preponderating importance of thought.
But of supreme importance, from the point of view of the reception we
shall offer to the joys and sorrows of life, is the character, the
frame of mind, the moral condition, that the things we have said and
done and thought will have created within us. Here is evidence of
admirable justice; and the intimate happiness that our moral being
derives from the constant striving of the mind and heart for good,
becomes the more comprehensible when we realise that this happiness is
only the surface of the goodly thought or feeling that is shining
within our heart. Here may we indeed find that intelligent, moral bond
between cause and effect that we have vainly sought in the external
world; here, in moral matters, reigning over the good and evil that are
warring in the depths of our consciousness, may we in truth discover a
justice exactly similar to the one which we could desire to recognise
in physical matters. But whence do we derive this desire if not from
the justice within us; and is it not because this justice is so mighty
and active in our heart that we are reluctant to believe in its
non-existence in the universe?

35

We have spoken at great length of justice; but is it not the great
mystery of man, the one that tends to take the place of most of the
spiritual mysteries that govern his destiny? It has dethroned more
than one god, more than one nameless power. It is the star evolved
from the nebulous mass of our instincts and our incomprehensible life.
It is not the word of the enigma; and when, in the fulness of time, it
shall become clearer to us, and shall truly reign all over the earth,
there will come to us no greater knowledge of what we are, or why we
are, whence we come or whither we go; but we shall at least have obeye