I do not mean such thoughts had never been present to him before;
but to think a thing is only to look at it in a glass; to know it as
God would have us know it, and as we must know it to live, is to see
it as we see love in a friend's eyes--to have it as the love the
friend sees in ours. To make things real to us, is the end and the
battle-cause of life. We often think we believe what we are only
presenting to our imaginations. The least thing can overthrow that
kind of faith. The imagination is an endless help towards faith,
but it is no more faith than a dream of food will make us strong for
the next day's work. To know God as the beginning and end, the root
and cause, the giver, the enabler, the love and joy and perfect
good, the present one existence in all things and degrees and
conditions, is life; and faith, in its simplest, truest, mightiest
form is--to do his will.

Donal was making his way towards the eastern coast, in the certain
hope of finding work of one kind or another. He could have been
well content to pass his life as a shepherd like his father but for
two things: he knew what it would be well for others to know; and he
had a hunger after the society of books. A man must be able to do
without whatever is denied him, but when his heart is hungry for an
honest thing, he may use honest endeavour to obtain it. Donal
desired to be useful and live for his generation, also to be with
books. To be where was a good library would suit him better than
buying books, for without a place in which to keep them, they are
among the impedimenta of life. And Donal knew that in regard to
books he was in danger of loving after the fashion of this world:
books he had a strong inclination to accumulate and hoard; therefore
the use of a library was better than the means of buying them.
Books as possessions are also of the things that pass and