nt, and
half of unutterable lovingness. The angelic host! This was one of that
bright company indeed, going about the Father's business, bringing a
joyful peace into the hearts of those among whom he moved. And of all
the worshippers in that crowded church he had singled out the humblest
and simplest for his friend and sister. I saw no more that day, for
the lines of that presence faded out upon the air in the gleams of the
frosty sunshine that came and went among the pillars. But if I could
have painted the scene, the pure, untroubled face so close to the old
worn features, the robes of light side by side with the dingy human
vesture, it would be a picture that no living eye that had rested on it
should forget.

Alas, that one cannot live in moments of inspiration like these! As
life goes on, and as we begin perhaps to grow a little nearer to God by
faith, we are confronted in our own lives, or in the life of one very
near us, by some intolerable and shameful catastrophe. A careless sin
makes havoc of a life, and shadows a home with shame; or some generous
or unselfish nature, useful, beneficent, urgently needed, is struck down
with a painful and hopeless malady. This too, we say to ourselves, must
come from God; He might have prevented it if He had so willed. What are
we to make of it? How are we to translate into terms of love what seems
like an act of tyrannous indifference, or deliberate cruelty? Then, I
think, it is well to remind ourselves that we can never know exactly the
conditions of any other human soul. How little we know of our own! How
little we could explain our case to another, even if we were utterly
sincere! The weaknesses of our nature are often, very tenderly I would
believe, hidden from us; we think ourselves sensitive and weak, when
in reality we are armed with a stubborn breastplate of complacency
and pride; or we think ourselves strong, only because the blows of
circumstance have been spared us. The more one knows of the most
afflicted lives, the more often the conviction flashes across us that
the affliction is not a wanton outrage, but a delicately adjusted
treatment. I remember once that a friend of mine had sent him a rare
plant, which was set in a big flower-pot, close to a fountain-basin.
It never throve; it lived indeed, putting out in the spring a delicate
stunted foliage, though my friend, who was a careful gardener, could
never divine what ailed it. He was away for a few weeks, and the