e and take into account the sweep of the ages, we
sometimes find ourselves depressed with the thought that these human
lives of ours mean so little. It sometimes seems as though nature cared
nothing for us, and swept us away as the first cold and the frost sweep
away the millions of flies that had been buzzing their little hour of
sunshine.

We need to feel, then, if we are to live manly, womanly lives, that
there is some plan, or may be some purpose in our being born, in our
little struggle of a few years, in our being thwarted, in our
succeeding, in our being sick or well, in our being rich or poor, in
our being learned or ignorant. Does it make any difference how we live
these lives of ours? Is there significance in them, any purpose, any
plan, any outcome, to make it worth while for us to struggle and
strive? We need to know this; and what do the investigation and the
doubt and the struggle of the world say to us concerning these? If
there is anything which science teaches us, it is that the infinite
God, the Power, whatever we name it, that is the thought and life of
this universe, is expressed just as perfectly in the tiniest atom as in
the most magnificent galaxy. There is no such thing as an imperfect
atom in this universe. The infinitesimal atoms below us, and the tiny
orbits through which these atoms and molecules sweep, are as much in
the grasp of the Eternal Law as the movements of the stars over our
heads.

Things are not lost in this universe out of the eternal purpose because
they are little. So our apparent littleness, the weakness, feebleness
of our lives, need not disturb the grandeur of our trust in this
direction.

Then as we study ourselves, as we see the good that has been growing
through the ages, and as we note the fact that I hinted at a moment
ago, that we can plant ourselves in the way, and hinder the working of
the Divine, so far as our tiny strength goes, or that we can study the
conditions of this growth and co-operate and help it on, and so be just
as truly a builder of the highest and finest humanity of the future as
God is himself, as we note this, are not our little lives raised into
dignity and touched with glory? And why should I cringe and humiliate
myself in the presence of a planet a thousand times larger than our
earth, or a sun a million and a half times larger than the planet that
shakes to its centre as I stamp my tiny foot? I, or one like me, has
measured the sun, weighed