life there are truly two lives--does not of necessity mean that we
save him from death and disaster; but indeed that we render him
happier, inasmuch as we try to improve him. Moral salvation is the
greatest salvation; and yet, what a trifle this seems, as everything
seems that is done on the loftiest summits of soul. Was the penitent
thief not saved; and that not alone in the Christian sense of the
word, but in its fullest, most perfect meaning? Still had he to die,
and at that very hour; but he died eternally happy; because at the
very last moment he too had been loved, and a Being of infinite
wisdom had declared that his soul had not been without value; that
his soul, too, had been good, and had not passed through the world
unperceived of all men.

35. As we go deeper down into life we discover the secret of more
and more sorrow and helplessness. We see that many souls round us
lead idle and foolish lives, because they believe they are useless,
unnoticed by all, unloved, and convinced they have nothing within
them that is worthy of love. But to the sage the hour must come when
every soul that exists claims his glance, his approval, his love--if
only because it possesses the mysterious gift of existence. The hour
must come when he sees that falsehood and weakness and vice are but
on the surface; when his eye shall pierce through, and discover the
strength, and the truth, and the virtue that lie underneath. Happy
and blessed hour, when wickedness stands forth revealed as goodness
bereft of its guide; and treachery is seen to be loyalty, for ever
astray from the highway of happiness; and hatred becomes only love,
in poignant despair, that is digging its grave. Then, unsuspected of
any, shall it be with all those who are near the good man as it was
with the penitent thief; into the humblest soul that will thus have
been saved by a look, or a word, or a silence, shall the true