hing has happened; nor invent what
are called "final causes," which are not Lady Why herself, but only our
little notions of what Lady Why has done, or rather what we should have
done if we had been in her place. It is not, indeed, by thinking that we
shall find out anything about Lady Why. She speaks not to our eyes or to
our brains, like Madam How, but to that inner part of us which we call
our hearts and spirits, and which will endure when eyes and brain are
turned again to dust. If your heart be pure and sober, gentle and
truthful, then Lady Why speaks to you without words, and tells you things
which Madam How and all her pupils, the men of science, can never tell.
When you lie, it may be, on a painful sick-bed, but with your mother's
hand in yours; when you sit by her, looking up into her loving eyes; when
you gaze out towards the setting sun, and fancy golden capes and islands
in the clouds, and seas and lakes in the blue sky, and the infinite rest
and peace of the far west sends rest and peace into your young heart,
till you sit silent and happy, you know not why; when sweet music fills
your heart with noble and tender instincts which need no thoughts or
words; ay, even when you watch the raging thunderstorm, and feel it to
be, in spite of its great awfulness, so beautiful that you cannot turn
your eyes away: at such times as these Lady Why is speaking to your soul
of souls, and saying, "My child, this world is a new place, and strange,
and often terrible: but be not afraid. All will come right at last. Rest
will conquer Restlessness; Faith will conquer Fear; Order will conquer
Disorder; Health will conquer Sickness; Joy will conquer Sorrow; Pleasure
will conquer Pain; Life will conquer Death; Right will conquer Wrong. All
will be well at last. Keep your soul and body pure, humble, busy,
pious--in one word, be good: and ere you die, or after you die, you may
have some glimpse of Me, the Everlasting Why: and hear with the ears, not
of your body but of your spirit, men and all rational beings, plants and
animals, ay, the very stones beneath your feet, the clouds above your
head, the planets and the suns away in farthest space, singing eternally,

"'Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for
Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were
created."'

CHAPTER II--EARTHQUAKES

So? You have been looking at that beautiful drawing of the ruin of Arica
in the