Yet in truth, during the years that followed, whenever he was not under
the influence of recurrent attacks of melancholia, Isaac did again
derive much comfort from the aspirations and self-abasements of
religion. No human life would be possible if there were not forces in
and round man perpetually tending to repair the wounds and breaches that
he himself makes.

Misery provokes pity; despair throws itself on a Divine tenderness. And
for those who have the 'grace' of faith, in the broken and imperfect
action of these healing powers upon this various world--in the love of
the merciful for the unhappy, in the tremulous yet undying hope that
pierces even sin and remorse with the vision of some ultimate salvation
from the self that breeds them--in these powers there speaks the only
voice which can make us patient under the tragedies of human fate,
whether these tragedies be 'the falls of princes' or such meaner,
narrower pains as brought poor Bessie Costrell to her end.