ul as when they seem made up altogether of
little, necessary details. Our planting and reaping, building and
buying, all the half-mechanical operations that absorb our thought and
time, seem sometimes little better than the bustle of a colony of ants.
When we look down upon it all from the height of some quiet, meditative
hour, are we not at times oppressed with a sense of its triviality and
worthlessness? Trivial and worthless it is, except as amidst it all we
are working out something higher. But to a man whose heart is set on
noble ends; one whose great aim is, not to get his bread and butter, but
to be a man; one who wants, not just to make a profit out of his
neighbors, but to serve them and help them, these details are no more
trivial or degrading than the rough dress and homely tools of a sculptor
are unworthy of the marble beauty that is growing under his hands. The
high purpose consecrates and transfigures all, the want of purpose
degrades all. I have stood in Switzerland upon the Gorner Grat, looking
upon the grandest scene in Europe. On every side a circle of towering
heights look down; against the sky rise dazzling snowy summits,
celestially pure, celestially tender; the Matterhorn frowns in awful
majesty; vast ice-rivers sweep down toward the valley in solemn, silent
march. If there be upon earth a spot that of itself has power to hush
the soul with noblest emotion, it should be that. Yet there I have seen
a company of travelers spend their half-hour in senseless gabble and
banter and the laughter of fools. Amid the squalid surroundings of a New
York tenement-house, I have seen a poor Irish woman living with such
fortitude and faith and generosity that it was a comfort and inspiration
to meet her. That brave soul ennobled its mean surroundings with a glory
which not the Alps and the sky could flash in upon a heart made blind and
dull by ignoble thoughts.

If there dwells in us the spirit of life we shall be freed from the
bondage of doubt. On how many earnest and aspiring lives does doubt
throw its chill shadow! The world is crossing the flood that divides the
old form of faith from the new. The rising water strikes cold to many a
heart. Here and there the waves sweep men off from all moral footing. I
know not that for the resolute and thoughtful there is any escape from
some suffering in the transition. Could we be always sure that it is
only a transition,--could we know always that a bett