He stopped for a minute, and I could see that his eyes were full of tears.

“It is no good giving up the game!” he said.  “We are in the devil of a mess, no doubt:  and even if we try our best to avoid it, we dip into the slime sometimes!  But we must hold fast to the beautiful things, and be on the look-out for them everywhere.  Not shut our eyes in a rapture of sentiment, and think that we can: 

  “’Walk all day, like the Sultan of old, in a garden
       of spice!’

“That won’t do, of course!  We can’t get out of it like that!  But we must never allow ourselves to doubt the beauty and goodness of God, or make any mistake about which side He is on.  The marvel of dear old Mrs. Chetwynd is just that beauty has triumphed, in spite of everything.  With every kind of trouble, every temptation to be dispirited and spiteful and wretched, that fine spirit has got through—­and, by George, I envy her the awakening, when that sweet old soul slips away from the cage where she is caught, and goes straight to the arms of God!”

He turned away from me as he said this, and I could see that he struggled with a sob.  Then he looked at me with a smile, and put his arm in mine.  “Old man,” he said, “I oughtn’t to behave like this—­but a day like this, when the world looks as it was meant to look, and as, please God, it will look more and more, goes to my heart!  I seem to see what God desires, and what He can’t bring about yet, for all His pains.  And I want to help Him, if I can!

  “’We too!  We ask no pledge of grace,
    No rain of fire, no heaven-hung sign. 
  Thy need is written on Thy face—­
    Take Thou our help, as we take Thine!’

“That’s what I mean by worship—­the desire to be used in the service of a Power that longs to make things pure and happy, with groanings that cannot be uttered.  The worst of some kinds of worship is that they drug you with a sort of lust for beauty, which makes you afraid to go back and pick up your spade.  We mustn’t swoon in happiness or delight, but if we say ‘Take me, use me, let me help!’ it is different, because we want to share whatever is given us, to hand it on, not to pile it up.  Of course it’s little enough that we can do:  but think of old Mrs. Chetwynd again—­what has she to give?  Yet it is more than Solomon in all his beauty had to offer.  We must be simple, we mustn’t be ambitious.  Do you remember the old statesman who, praising a disinterested man, said that he was that rare and singular type of man who did public work for the sake of the public?  That’s what I want you to do—­that is what a writer can do.  He can remind the world of beauty and simplicity and purity.  He can be ’a messenger, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness!’ That’s what you have got to do, old boy!  Don’t show unto man his nastiness—­don’t show him up!  Keep on reminding him of what he really is or can be.”