all the energy that should express itself in achievements. But
the secret of joy is hidden in pain.

"For what God deigns to try with sorrow
He means not to decay to-morrow;
But through that fiery trial last
When earthly ties and bonds are past."

An experience that receives this test must hold deep significance. Let
one accept it,--not only with patience and trust, but triumphantly,
radiantly, as in the exquisite realization of the divine words: "For ye
have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye shall
receive the promise." And the promise is sure if the conditions have
been fulfilled. It is only a question of time. Even heaven itself is but
"the perfect sight of Christ," and why shall not this radiant vision
flash upon us, now and here in the earthly life, and make heaven of
every day? It is not merely by the change called death that we enter
into the spiritual world. The turn of thought, the thrill of love and
sacrifice and generous outgoing, carries one, at any instant, into the
heavenly life. It is only the qualities that find there their native
atmosphere which give beauty, depth, and significance to this human
life. It is only as one lives _divinely_ that he lives at all,--only as
one recognizes "the perfect sight of the Christ" that he recognizes the
full scope of his responsibility and enters on his truest experiences.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Conduct and Beauty.]

Matthew Arnold dwells often upon "our need for conduct, our need for
beauty;" and he finds the springs of the supply to be, not in the
"strenuous" life, always at high pressure and extreme tension, but in
the thoughtful leisure, in the serenity of repose, in the devotion to
poetry and art. "How," he questions, "are poetry and eloquence to
exercise the power of relating the modern results of natural science to
man's instinct for conduct, his instinct for beauty? And here again I
answer that I do not know _how_ they will exercise it, but that they can
and will exercise it I am sure. I do not mean that modern philosophical
poets and modern philosophical moralists are to come and relate for us,
in express terms, the results of modern scientific research to our
instinct for conduct, our instinct for beauty. But I mean that we shall
find, as a matter of experience, if we know the best that has been
thought and uttered in the world, we shall find that the art and poetry
and eloquence of men w