suppose it is so," said Valencia.

"Why does one admire a soldier? Not for his epaulettes and red coat, but
because one knows that, coxcomb though he be at home here, there is the
power in him of that same self-sacrifice; that, when he is called, he
will go and die, that he may be of use to his country. And yet--it may
seem invidious to say so just now--but there are other sorts of
self-sacrifice, less showy, but even more beautiful."

"Oh, Mr. Headley, what can a man do more than die for his countrymen?"

"Live for them. It is a longer work, and therefore a more difficult and
a nobler one."

Frank spoke in a somewhat sad and abstracted tone.

"But, tell me," she said, "what all this has to do with--with the deep
matter of which you spoke?"

"Simply that it is the law of all earth, and heaven, and Him who made
them.--That God is perfectly powerful, because He is perfectly and
infinitely of use; and perfectly good, because he delights utterly and
always in being of use; and that, therefore, we can become like God--as
the very heathens felt that we can, and ought to become--only in
proportion as we become of use. I did not see it once. I tried to be
good, not knowing what good meant. I tried to be good, because I thought
it would pay me in the world to come. But, at last, I saw that all life,
all devotion, all piety, were only worth anything, only Divine, and
God-like, and God-beloved, as they were means to that one end--to be
of use."

"It is a noble thought, Headley," said Claude: but Valencia was silent.

"It is a noble thought, Mellot; and all thoughts become clear in the
light of it; even that most difficult thought of all, which so often
torments good people, when they feel, 'I ought to love God, and yet I do
not love him.' Easy to love Him, if one can once think of Him as the
concentration, the ideal perfection, of all which is most noble,
admirable, lovely in human character! And easy to work, too, when one
once feels that one is working for such a Being, and with such a Being;
as that! The whole world round us, and the future of the world too, seem
full of light even down to its murkiest and foulest depths, when we can
but remember that great idea,--An infinitely useful God over all, who is
trying to make each of us useful in his place. If that be not the
beatific vision of which old Mystics spoke so rapturously, one glimpse
of which was perfect bliss, I at least know none nobler, desire none
more blesse