ike remorse, and all his tears were for others'
sorrows? So is it with his strong and eager disciples: they lay their
breast against the thorn, and would not have it otherwise. And yet they
are happy. If it be happiness to have life filled to the brim with
occupation that never tires and always brings with it its own reward: to
be conscious of the easy movement of power, the strong putting forth of
faculty: to be secure against disappointment in reliance upon the
righteous purposes of God, which must prevail at last: to have a sure
escape from personal grief in the largeness of human sympathy and the
vista of universal hope: to feel, as life wears away, no disenchantment
of purpose, no stealing languor upon the will, no freezing chill upon
the heart, but only a passionate desire to live to the last in the full
glow of service, and an absolute completeness of self-renunciation--then
are these strong souls happy. They cannot but find life good, because
everywhere in it they feel the touch of God's hand; they see the skirt
of Christ's garment as he goes before them in the way.

"He that believeth on me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water."
The privilege of giving life is not Christ's alone, though still his in
the first instance and the greatest degree: it is shared by all who are
truly one with him in spirit and in work. And I am not sure that a large
part of the value to humanity of these bright and strong souls does not
lie in the inspiration which goes out of them. The weaker ones are
always apt to take life in too low a key. They are easily daunted: they
resign themselves, as they say, to the inevitable: they have too keen a
sense of evils to be overborne and difficulties to be confronted: they
learn to distrust, if not to smile at, the ideal, to call acquiescence
common sense, and cowardice prudence. And upon them the presence of a
strong soul, with its carelessness of toil, its contempt of danger, its
faith in the better things that shall be, its trust in God, its generous
self-abandonment to men, passes like a breath of inspiration, bringing
shame at once and strength with it. Before such an one, not only does
selfishness hold its peace, and cynicism forget to be sarcastic, but a
new vigour steals into the irresolute will, a fresh power of
self-sacrifice takes possession of the heart. The kingdom of God no
longer seems a dimly glorious dream, far off in a new strange world, but
an ideal that may be realize