fe is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. Our
instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to man, of the presence
of the soul, and not of its absence, the brave man is greater than the
coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a man and not less,
than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the good of virtue, for
that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence, without any
comparative. Material good has its tax, and if it came without desert or
sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind will blow it away. But all
the good of nature is the soul's, and may be had if paid for in nature's
lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the head allow. I no
longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example to find a pot of
buried gold, knowing that it brings with it new burdens. I do not wish
more external goods,--neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor
persons. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no
tax on the knowledge that the compensation exists and that it is not
desirable to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal
peace. I contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the
wisdom of St. Bernard,--"Nothing can work me damage except myself; the
harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer
but by my own fault."

In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of
condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction of
More and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel indignation
or malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less faculty, and
one feels sad and knows not well what to make of it. He almost shuns
their eye; he fears they will upbraid God. What should they do? It
seems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly and these mountainous
inequalities vanish. Love reduces them as the sun melts the iceberg in
the sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, this bitterness of His
and Mine ceases. His is mine. I am my brother and my brother is me. If I
feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet love; I can
still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves.
Thereby I make the discovery that my brother is my guardian, acting for
me with the friendliest designs, and the estate I so admired and envied
is my own. It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. Jesus
and Shakspeare are fragments of the