wness of
the cases you had to observe in the keenness with which you were able
to observe them. Perhaps the Great Disposer saw that in your case the
pebble got nearly all the polishing it would stand,--the man nearly all
the chances he could improve.

If there be soundness and justice in this suggestion, it may afford
consolation to a considerable class of men and women: I mean those
people who, feeling within themselves many defects of character, and
discerning in their outward lot much which they would wish other than
it is, are ready to think that some one thing would have put them
right,--that some one thing would put them right even yet,--but
something which they have hopelessly missed, something which can never
be. There was just one testing event which stood between them and their
being made a vast deal more of. They would have been far better and far
happier, they think, had some single malign influence been kept away
which has darkened all their life, or had some single blessing been
given which would have made it happy. If you had got such a parish,
which you did not get,--if you had married such a woman,--if your little
child had not died,--if you had always the society and sympathy of such
an energetic and hopeful friend,--if the scenery round your dwelling
were of a different character,--if the neighboring town were four miles
off, instead of fifteen,--if any one of these circumstances had been
altered, what a different man you might have been! Probably many people,
even of middle age, conscious that the manifold cares and worries of
life forbid that it should be evenly joyous, do yet cherish at the
bottom of their heart some vague, yet rooted fancy, that, if but one
thing were given on which they have set their hearts, or one care
removed forever, they would be perfectly happy, even here. Perhaps you
overrate the effect which would have been produced on your character by
such a single cause. It might not have made you much better; it might
not even have made you very different. And assuredly you are wrong in
fancying that any such single thing could have made you happy,--that is,
entirely happy. Nothing in this world could ever make you _that_. It is
not God's purpose that we should be entirely happy here, "This is not
our rest." The day will never come which will _not_ bring its worry. And
the possibility of terrible misfortune and sorrow hangs over all. There
is but One Place where we shall be right; and