“If the thing done were the same, I should allow it,” answered the curate; “but the things done will prove altogether different.  And another thing to be noted is, that, while the need of help might indicate a lower nature, the capacity for receiving it must indicate a higher.  The mere fact of being able to live and act in more meager spiritual circumstances, in itself proves nothing:  it is not the highest nature that has the fewest needs.  The highest nature is the one that has the most necessities, but the fewest of its own making.  He is not the greatest man who is the most independent, but he who thirsts most after a conscious harmony with every element and portion of the mighty whole; demands from every region thereof its influences to perfect his individuality; regards that individuality as his kingdom, his treasure, not to hold but to give; sees in his Self the one thing he can devote, the one precious means of freedom by its sacrifice, and that in no contempt or scorn, but in love to God and his children, the multitudes of his kind.  By dying ever thus, ever thus losing his soul, he lives like God, and God knows him, and he knows God.  This is too good to be grasped, but not too good to be true.  The highest is that which needs the highest, the largest that which needs the most; the finest and strongest that which to live must breath essential life, self-willed life, God Himself.  It follows that it is not the largest or the strongest nature that will feel a loss the least.  An ant will not gather a grain of corn the less that his mother is dead, while a boy will turn from his books and his play and his dinner because his bird is dead:  is the ant, therefore, the stronger nature?”

“Is it not weak to be miserable?” said the doctor.

“Yes—­without good cause,” answered the curate.  “But you do not know what it would be to me to lose my faith in my God.  My misery would be a misery to which no assurance of immortality or of happiness could bring any thing but tenfold misery—­the conviction that I should never be good myself, never have any thing to love absolutely, never be able to make amends for the wrongs I had done.  Call such a feeling selfish if you will:  I can not help it.  I can not count one fit for existence to whom such things would be no grief.  The worthy existence must hunger after good.  The largest nature must have the mightiest hunger.  Who calls a man selfish because he is hungry?  He is selfish if he broods on the pleasures of eating, and would not go without his dinner for the sake of another; but if he had no hunger, where would be the room for his self-denial?  Besides, in spiritual things, the only way to give them to your neighbors is to hunger after them yourself.  There each man is a mouth to the body of the whole creation.  It can not be selfishness to hunger and thirst after righteousness, which righteousness is just your duty to your God and your neighbor.  If there be any selfishness in it, the very answer to your prayer will destroy it.”