cool, while all outside is burning sun, and burning sand, and dancing
mirage.

Oh! the weariness felt by us all, of plod, plod, plodding across the
sand! That fatal monotony into which every man's life stiffens, as far
as outward circumstances, outward joys and pleasures go! the depressing
influence of custom which takes the edge off all gladness and adds a
burden to every duty! the weariness of all that tugging up the hill, of
all that collar-work which we have to do! Who is there that has not his
mood, and that by no means the least worthy and man-like of his moods,
wherein he feels not, perhaps, that all is vanity, but--'how infinitely
wearisome it all is.'

And so every race of man that ever has lived has managed out of two
miseries to make a kind of shadowy gladness; and, knowing the weariness
of life and the blackness of death, has somewhat lightened the latter by
throwing upon it the thought of the former, and has said, 'Well, at any
rate, if the grave be narrow and dark, and if outside "the warm
precincts of the cheerful day" there be that ambiguous night, at least
it is the place for sleep; and, if we cannot be sure of anything more,
we shall rest then, at any rate.' So the hope of 'long disquiet merged
in rest' becomes almost bright, and man's weariness finds most pathetic
expression in his thinking of the grave as a bed where he can stretch
himself and be still. Life is hard, life is dry, life is dangerous.

II. But another thought suggested by these words is--The Mysterious Hope
which shines through them.

One of ourselves shall deliver us from all this evil in life. '_A man_
shall be a refuge, rivers of water, the shadow of a great rock.' Such an