rality must spring into life; for here, as everywhere, man is
never so strong with his own native strength as when he realises that
he stands entirely alone. As we consider the crowning injustice of
fate, it is the negation of high moral law that disturbs us; but from
this negation there at once arises a moral law that is higher still. He
who no longer believes in reward or punishment must do good for the
sake of good. Even though a moral law seem on the eve of disappearing,
we need have no cause for disquiet; its place will be speedily filled
by a law that is greater still. To attribute morality to fate is but to
lessen the purity of our ideal; to admit the injustice of fate is to
throw open before us the ever-widening fields of a still loftier
morality. Let us not think virtue will crumble, though God Himself seem
unjust. Where shall the virtue of man find more everlasting foundation
than in the seeming injustice of God?

73. Let us not cavil, therefore, at nature's indifference to the sage.
It is only because we are not yet wise enough that this indifference
seems strange; for the first duty of wisdom is to throw into light the
humbleness of the place in the universe that is filled by man.

Within his sphere he seems of importance, as the bee in its cell of
honey; but it were idle to suppose that a single flower the more will
blossom in the fields because the queen bee has proved herself a
heroine in the hive. We need not fear that we depreciate ourselves when
we extol the universe. Whether it be ourselves or the entire world that
we consider great, still will there quicken within our soul the sense
of the infinite, which is of the life-blood of virtue. What is an act
of virtue that we should expect such mighty reward? It is within
ourselves that reward must be found, for the law of gravitation will
not swerve. They only who know not what goodness is are ever clamouring
for the wage of goodness. Above all, let us never forget that an act of
goodness is of itself always an act of happiness. It is the flower of a
long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and
days on the sunniest heights of our soul. No reward coming after the
event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it. The upright
man who perished in the catastrophe I mentioned was there because his
soul had found a peace and strength in virtue that not happiness, love,
or glory could have given him. Were the flames to retreat be