shall the virtue of man find more everlasting foundation than in the
seeming injustice of God?

73. Let us not cavil, therefore, at nature's indifference to the
sage. It is only because we are not yet wise enough that this
indifference seems strange; for the first duty of wisdom is to throw
into light the humbleness of the place in the universe that is
filled by man.

Within his sphere he seems of importance, as the bee in its cell of
honey; but it were idle to suppose that a single flower the more
will blossom in the fields because the queen bee has proved herself
a heroine in the hive. We need not fear that we depreciate ourselves
when we extol the universe. Whether it be ourselves or the entire
world that we consider great, still will there quicken within our
soul the sense of the infinite, which is of the life-blood of
virtue. What is an act of virtue that we should expect such mighty
reward? It is within ourselves that reward must be found, for the
law of gravitation will not swerve. They only who know not what
goodness is are ever clamouring for the wage of goodness. Above all,
let us never forget that an act of goodness is of itself always an
act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and
contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest
heights of our soul. No reward coming after the event can compare
with the sweet reward that went with it. The upright man who
perished in the catastrophe I mentioned was there because his soul
had found a peace and strength in virtue that not happiness, love,
or glory could have given him. Were the flames to retreat before
such men, were the waters to open and death to hesitate, what were
righteousness or heroism then? Would not the true happiness of