this at least can never appear just or merciful." But God, like a
wise and perfect artist, foresees the end in the beginning. We, who
live in time and space, can merely see the rough, crude tints flung
fiercely down, till the thing seems nothing but a frantic patchwork
of angry hues; but God sees the blending and the softening; how the
soft tints of face and hand, of river and tree, will steal over the
coarse background, and gain their strength and glory from the
hidden stains. Perhaps we have sometimes the comfort of seeing how
some old and ugly experience melted into and strengthened some
soft, bright quality of heart or mind. Staring mournfully as we do
upon the tiny circumscribed space of life, we cannot conceive how
the design will work itself out; but the day will come when we
shall see it too; and perhaps the best moments of life are those
when we have a secret inkling of the process that is going so
slowly and surely forward, as the harsh lines and hues become the
gracious lineaments of some sweet face, and from the glaring patch
of hot colour is revealed the remote and shining expanse of a
sunlit sea.



May 14, 1889.


There used to be a favourite subject for scholastic disputation:
WHETHER HERCULES IS IN THE MARBLE. The image is that of the
sculptor, who sees the statue lie, so to speak, imbedded in the
marble block, and whose duty is so to carve it, neither cutting too
deep or too shallow, so that the perfect form is revealed. The idea
of the disputation is the root-idea of idealistic philosophy. That