se to reign by Lady Why's
laws, and decree justice according to her eternal ideas of what is just,
but only do what seems pleasant and profitable to themselves. On them
Lady Why turns round, and says--for she, too, can be awful, ay dreadful,
when she needs--

"Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and
no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would have
none of my reproof--" And then come words so terrible, that I will not
speak them here in this happy place: but what they mean is this:--

That these foolish people are handed over--as you and I shall be if we do
wrong wilfully--to Madam How and her terrible school-house, which is
called Nature and the Law, to be treated just as the plants and animals
are treated, because they did not choose to behave like men and children
of God. And there they learn, whether they like or not, what they might
have learnt from Lady Why all along. They learn the great law, that as
men sow so they will reap; as they make their bed so they will lie on it:
and Madam How can teach that as no one else can in earth or heaven: only,
unfortunately for her scholars, she is apt to hit so hard with her rod,
which is called Experience, that they never get over it; and therefore
most of those who will only be taught by Nature and Law are killed, poor
creatures, before they have learnt their lesson; as many a savage tribe
is destroyed, ay and great and mighty nations too--the old Roman Empire
among them.

And the poor Jews, who were carried away captive to Babylon?

Yes; they would not listen to Lady Why, and so they were taken in hand by
Madam How, and were seventy years in her terrible school-house, learning
a lesson which, to do them justice, they never forgot again. But now we
will talk of something pleasanter. We will go back to Lady Why, and
listen to her voice. It sounds gentle and cheerful enough just now.
Listen.

What? is she speaking to us now?

Hush! open your eyes and ears once more, for you are growing sleepy with
my long sermon. Watch the sleepy shining water, and the sleepy green
mountains. Listen to the sleepy lapping of the ripple, and the sleepy
sighing of the woods, and let Lady Why talk to you through them in "songs
without words," because they are deeper than all words, till you, too,
fall asleep with your head upon my knee.

But what does she say?

She says--"Be still. The fulness of joy is peace." There, you