ere was added a consideration of its essential
nature. Man alone can be poor and rich. The whole world of human
society is a linked chain of inquiring glances, as if each would say to
the other, "Thou hast what I have not."

In external nature, no creature looks to another differently
constituted, no created thing troubles itself about another; each bird
in the wood has its own range for procuring food for its young, and no
other one of the same species builds its nest within that circuit,
obliging it to struggle for insects and grubs to feed its brood. The
animals of a like species, of like characteristics, of like means of
defence and attack, alone live together in one herd, but they have no
union. Man alone comes into a union with beings of a like species,
those who, endowed by nature with the same faculties, are furnished by
destiny with greater force than he himself possesses.

The clattering continued without interruption, the locomotive whistled,
and the thought took hold of Eric's soul, that the grandest idea which
humanity has ever revealed out of the mouth of an individual has been
this: "No one is poor and no one rich, when we direct the thought to
the Eternal. The Fatherhood of God bridges over the abyss."

The wheels upon the iron rails went on beating time, and gave a new
rhythm to Eric's thought, who now opened his eyes, saying to himself,--

"So it is! The children of God are borne along in the first, second,
and third class railway carriages by the same power, the power of
steam, whether they sit upon soft or hard benches; it makes no
difference."

People got in, people got out; Eric took no notice of them, and they
did not disturb his meditation. He quietly smiled upon all, and saw
them as in a dream, wholly forgetful of himself, as one looks upon the
movement hither and thither in an ant-hill, where each may carry its
pine-needle, its little seed-grain.

Eric first waked up when his ticket was called for, as they approached
the university-town, and then he roused himself as if he had just come
out of a deep, dream-disturbed sleep; he composed himself ready to
greet his mother. He got out. No one was awaiting his arrival.

The hills around, which had formerly seemed to Eric so bright and
beautiful, and where he had strolled alone or with his father, engaged
in the contemplation of vast, world-important thoughts, these hills now
appeared so low and so small, and the river so insignificant! His ey