our spiritual life in the degree of the desire and expectation of
advancement in which we might long have been living. The formula
would be the same for all men, yet would each one benefit only in
the proportion of the eagerness, purity, unselfishness, knowledge,
that he had stored up in his soul. All morality, all study of
justice and happiness, should truly be no more than preparation,
provision on the vastest scale--a way of gaining experience, a
stepping-stone laid down for what is to follow. Surely, desirable
day of all days were the one when at last we should live in absolute
truth, in immovable logical certitude; but in the meantime it is
given us to live in a truth more important still, the truth of our
soul and our character; and some wise men have proved that this life
can be lived in the midst of gravest material errors.

3. Is it idle to speak of justice, happiness, morals, and all
things connected therewith, before the hour of science has sounded--
that definitive hour, wherein all that we cling to may crumble? The
darkness that hangs over our life will then, it may be, pass away;
and much that we do in the darkness shall be otherwise done in the
light. But nevertheless do the essential events of our moral and
physical life come to pass in the darkness as completely, as
inevitably, as they would in the light, Our life must be lived while
we wait for the word that shall solve the enigma, and the happier,
the nobler our life, the more vigorous shall it become; and we shall
have the more courage, clear-sightedness, boldness, to seek and
desire the truth. And happen what may, the time can be never ill-
spent that we give to acquiring some knowledge of self. Whatever our
relation may become to this world in which we have being, in our
soul there will yet be more feelings, more passions, more secrets
unchanged and unchanging, than there are stars that connect with the