kons, our wealth, and
our time, and our life, to our less fortunate brethren, making them
thus an exceptional gift of a few exceptional hours; but the sage is
not bound to neglect his happiness, and all that environs his life, in
sole preparation for these few exceptional hours of greater or lesser
devotion. The truest morality tells us to cling, above all, to the
duties that return every day, to acts of inexhaustible brotherly
kindness. And, thus considered, we find that in the everyday walk of
life the solitary thing we can ever distribute among those who march by
our side, be they joyful or sad, is the confidence, strength, the
freedom and peace, of our soul. Let the humblest of men, therefore,
never cease to cherish and lift up his soul, even as though he were
fully convinced that this soul of his should one day be called to
console or gladden a God. When we think of preparing our soul, the
preparation should never be other than befits a mission divine. In this
domain only, and on this condition, can man truly give himself, can
there be pre-eminent sacrifice. And think you that when the hour sounds
the gift of a Socrates or Marcus Aurelius--who lived many lives, for
many a time had they compassed their whole life around--do you think
such a gift is not worth a thousand times more than what would be given
by him who had never stepped over the threshold of consciousness? And
if God there be, will He value sacrifice only by the weight of the
blood in our body; and the blood of the heart--its virtue, its
knowledge of self, its moral existence--do you think this will all go
for nothing?

69. It is not by self-sacrifice that loftiness comes to the soul; but
as the soul becomes loftier, sacrifice fades out of sight, as the
flowers in the valley disappear from the vision of him who toils up the
mountain. Sacrifice is a beautiful token of unrest; but unrest should
not be nurtured within us for sake of itself. To the soul that is
slowly awakening all appears sacrifice; but few things indeed are so
called by the soul that at last lives the life whereof self-denial,
pity, devotion, are no longer indispensable roots, but only invisible
flowers. For in truth too many do thus feel the need of
destroying--though it be without cause--a happiness, love, or a hope
that is theirs, thereby to obtain clearer vision of self in the light
of the consuming flame. It is as though they held in their hand a lamp
of whose use they know nothing;