avie, "because they were made right to begin with?"

"There is much in that, Davie; but there is a better reason than that.
It is because things are alive, and the life at the heart of them, that
which keeps them going, is the great, beautiful God. So the sun for
ever returns after the clouds. A doubting man, like him who wrote the
book of Ecclesiasties, puts the evil last, and says 'the clouds return
after the rain;' but the Christian knows that

One has mastery
Who makes the joy the last in every song."

"You speak like one who has suffered!" said Arctura, with a kind look
in his face.

"Who has not that lives?"

"It is how you are able to help others!"

"Am I able to help others? I am very glad to hear it. My ambition would
be to help, if I had any ambition. But if I am able, it is because I
have been helped myself, not because I have suffered."

"Will you tell me what you mean by saying you have no ambition?"

"Where your work is laid out for you, there is no room for ambition:
you have got your work to do!--But give me your hand, my lady; put your
other hand on my shoulder. You stop there, Davie, and don't move till I
come to you. Now, my lady--a little jump! That's it! Now you are
safe!--You were not afraid, were you?"

"Not in the least. But did you come here in the dark?"

"Yes. There is this advantage in the dark: you do not see how dangerous
the way is. We take the darkness about us for the source of our
difficulties: it is a great mistake. Christian would hardly have dared
go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, had he not had the shield
of the darkness all about him."

"Can the darkness be a shield? Is it not the evil thing?"

"Yes, the dark that is within us--the dark of distrust and
unwillingness, but not the outside dark of mere human ignorance. Where
we do not see, we are protected. Where we are most ignorant and most in
danger, is in those things that affect the life of God in us: there the
Father is every moment watching his child. If he were not constantly
pardoning and punishing our sins, what would become of us! We must
learn to trust him about our faults as much as about everything else!"

In the earnestness of his talk he had stopped, but now turned and went
on.

"There is my land-, or roof-mark rather!" he said, "--that
chimney-stack! Close by it I heard the music very near me indeed--when
all at once the darkness and the wind came together so thick that I
could d