e may be in his heart a king, as the other may be a
slave. Life is for the most part but the mirror of our own individual
selves. Our mind gives to all situations, to all fortunes, high or low,
their real characters. To the good, the world is good; to the bad, it
is bad. If our views of life be elevated--if we regard it as a sphere of
useful effort, of high living and high thinking, of working for others'
good as well as our own--it will be joyful, hopeful, and blessed. If,
on the contrary, we regard it merely as affording opportunities for
self-seeking, pleasure, and aggrandisement, it will be full of toil,
anxiety, and disappointment.

There is much in life that, while in this state, we can never
comprehend. There is, indeed, a great deal of mystery in life--much that
we see "as in a glass darkly." But though we may not apprehend the full
meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best have to pass,
we must have faith in the completeness of the design of which our little
individual lives form a part.

We have each to do our duty in that sphere of life in which we have
been placed. Duty alone is true; there is no true action but in its
accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the
truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of
its fulfilment. Of all others, it is the one that is most thoroughly
satisfying, and the least accompanied by regret and disappointment. In
the words of George Herbert, the consciousness of duty performed "gives
us music at midnight."

And when we have done our work on earth--of necessity, of labour, of
love, or of duty,--like the silkworm that spins its little cocoon and
dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay in life may be, it is
the appointed sphere in which each has to work out the great aim and
end of his being to the best of his power; and when that is done, the
accidents of the flesh will affect but little the immortality we shall
at last put on:

"Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
Half that we have
Unto an honest faithful grave;
Making our pillows either down or dust!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 101: Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, Lord High Treasurer under Elizabeth and
James I.]

[Footnote 102: 'Life of Perthes,' ii. 217.]

[Footnote 103: Lockhart's 'Life of Scott.']

[Footnote 104: Debate on the Petition of Right, A.D. 1628.]

[Footnote 105: The