PATIENCE
What is most to be envied in really religious people of the earlier type
is their intellectual and moral peace. They had obtained certain
convictions, a certain conception of the Universe, by which they could
live. Their horizon may have been encompassed with darkness; experience
sometimes contradicted their faith, but they trusted--nay, they knew--
that the opposition was not real and that the truths were not to be
shaken. Their conduct was marked by a corresponding unity. They
determined once for all that there were rules which had to be obeyed,
and when any particular case arose it was not judged according to the
caprice of the moment, but by statute.
We, on the other hand, can only doubt. So far as those subjects are
concerned on which we are most anxious to be informed, we are sure of
nothing. What we have to do is to accept the facts and wait. We must
take care not to deny beauty and love because we are forced also to
admit ugliness and hatred. Let us yield ourselves up utterly to the
magnificence and tenderness of the sunrise, though the East End of
London lies over the horizon.
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