voices, far stronger and sweeter, are drowned in the laughter of
fools and the mockery of the profane? Truly, I do not know. But I am
sure that I am not moved by egotism or arrogance. It is simply out
of love and pity for suffering human kind that I venture to become
another Voice discarded--a voice which, if heard at all, may only
serve to awaken the cheap scorn and derision of the clowns of the
piece.

Yet, should this be so, I would not have it otherwise, I have never
at any time striven to be one with the world, or to suit my speech
pliantly to the conventional humour of the moment. I am often
attacked, yet am not hurt; I am equally often praised, and am not
elated. I have no time to attend to the expression of opinions,
which, whether good or bad, are to me indifferent. And whatever pain
I have felt or feel, in experiencing human malice, has been, and is,
in the fact that human malice should exist at all,--not for its
attempted wrong towards myself. For I, personally speaking, have not
a moment to waste among the mere shadows of life which are not Life
itself. I follow the glory,--not the gloom.

So whether you, who wander in darkness of your own making, care to
come towards the little light which leads me onward, or whether you
prefer to turn away from me altogether into your self-created darker
depths, is not my concern. I cannot force you to bear me company.
God Himself cannot do that, for it is His Will and Law that each
human soul shall shape its own eternal future. No one mortal can
make the happiness or salvation of another. I, like yourselves, am
in the 'Wilderness,'--but I know that there are ways of making it
blossom like the rose! Yet,--were all my heart and all my love
outpoured upon you, I could not teach you the Divine transfiguring