which comes when love is sublimed by death. Browning shows the soul face
to face with the doubt, the denial, the dismay, which are added to the
foes of human peace in an age which has lost the old faith, and shows the
soul victorious over all by its own energy, constancy, and joy. In
Whittier, the dogmatic system of Christianity is transformed into a
spirit of fidelity, brotherhood, and tender trust. Emerson gives that
direct vision of divine reality, seen in nature, in humanity, in the
heart's innermost recesses, which is possible to a soul purified by moral
fidelity, reverent of natural law, and winged by holy desire.

These have been the prophets of hope and of victory. The dark message of
defeat and despair has also had its full expression. Satiety with
material good, disappointment of inward joy, the loss of the old objects
of adoration and trust, have inspired utterances in every key of gloom,
impotence, despondency verging toward suicide. Schopenhauer has
formulated a philosophy of pessimism, and through a host of the minor
story-tellers and versifiers runs the note of discouragement and
abandonment. The most dangerous alliance which besets man is that
between Sensuality and Unbelief, whispering together in his ear, "Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!" Sometimes unbelief is at the
widest remove from sensuality; it may go with pure devotion to truth and
thirst for goodness. There are pathetic and noble voices of seekers
after God, which when they do not gladden yet strengthen and purify, and
which catch at moments an exquisite tone of peace and joy. Such are
Clough and Matthew Arnold. We have one moralist of the Spencerian
school, George Eliot, who unites a strong ethical sense with a wonderful
reading of human nature. Her essential message, told again and again in
every book, is, "Life may be ruined by self-indulgence--beware!" If we
ask, "But may life be saved by fidelity?" her answer is uncertain. And
in her own life we read, with humbled eyes, the defect which marred the
note of triumph and deepened the note of warning.

If, again, as to the Personal Ideal, we revert to the basal elements of
character,--to the homely, every-day aspect,--to the life not only of the
cultivated few but of the mass of humanity,--the new perception has been
reached, that Work is the basis of all personal and social virtue. Toil,
said the old Scripture, is God's punishment for man's sin. Toil, says
the relig