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the work of God is going forward. Science hints to me that probably
every star that hangs in the sky has its own ring of planets, and that
in every one of these some strange drama of life and death is
proceeding. It is a dizzy thought! But if it be true, is it not
better to face it? The mind shudders, appalled at the immensity of the
prospect. But do not such thoughts as these give us a truer picture of
ourselves, and of our own humble place in the vast complexity of
things, than the excessive dwelling upon the wistful dreams of ancient
law-givers and prophets? Or is it better to delude ourselves?
Deliberately to limit our view to the history of a single race, to a
few centuries of records? Perhaps that may be a more practical, a more
effective view; but when once the larger thought has flashed into the
mind, it is useless to try and drown it.

Everything around me seems to cry aloud the warning, not to aim at a
conceit of knowledge about these deep secrets, but to wait, to leave
the windows of the soul open for any glimpse of truth from without.

To beguile the time I took up a volume near me, the work of a much
decried poet, Walt Whitman. Apart from the exquisite power of
expression that he possesses, he always seems to me to enter, more than
most poets, into the largeness of the world, to keep his heart fixed on
the vast wonder and joy of life. I read that poem full of tender
pathos and suggestiveness, _A Word out of the Sea_, where the child,
with the wind in his hair, listens to the lament of the bird that has
lost his mate, and tries to guide her wandering wings back to the
deserted nest. While the bird sings, with ever fainter hope, its
little heart aching with the pain of loss, the child hears the sea,
with its "liquid rims and wet sands" breathing out the low and
delicious word _death_.

The poet seems to think of death as the loving answer to the yearning
of all hearts, the sleep that closes the weary eyes. But I cannot rise
to this thought, tender and gentle as it is.

If indeed there be another life beyond death, I can well believe that
death is in truth an easier and simpler thing than one fears; only a
cloud on the hill, a little darkness upon Nature. But God has put it
into my heart to dread it; and he hides from me the knowledge of
whether indeed there be another side to it. And while I do not even
know that, I can but love life, and be fain of the good days. All the
religion in the