not take place all at once:  the potter’s wheel goes on turning for a while, says an old Hindoo poem, after that the foot of the artisan is withdrawn from it.  But the darkening takes place gradually with time:  such at least is the general rule.  There are exceptional men who seem to escape this law, and to bear in their bosom a God veiled from their own consciousness.  Such men may be found, and even in considerable numbers, in a time like ours, when doubt is, in many cases, a prejudice which current opinion deposits on the surface of minds without penetrating them deeply.  There are men all whose convictions have fallen into ruins, while their conscience continues standing like an isolated column, sole remaining witness of a demolished building.  The meeting with these heroes of virtue inspires a mingled feeling of astonishment and respect.  They are verily miracles of that divine goodness of which they are unable to pronounce the name.  If there is a man on earth who ought to fall on both knees and shed burning tears of gratitude, it is the man who believes himself an atheist, and who has received from Providence so keen a taste for what is noble and pure, so strong an aversion for evil, that his sense of duty remains firm even when it has lost all its supports.  But the exception does not make the rule; and that which is realized in the case of a few is not realized long, and for all.  You know those crusts of snow which are formed over the crevasses of our glaciers.  These slight bridges are able to bear one person who remains suspended over the abyss, but let several attempt to pass together,—­the frail support gives way, and the rash adventurers fall together into the gulf.  Such is the destiny of those schools of philosophy in which the notion of God disappears, and of those civilizations in which the sense of God is extinguished; they fall into dark regions where the light of goodness shines no longer.

After the mind and conscience, it remains for us to speak of the heart.  Man, an intelligent and free being, has in his reason an instrument of knowledge, and in his conscience a rule for his will.  But man is not sufficient for himself, and cannot live upon his own resources.  If you inquire what the word heart expresses, in its most general acceptation, you will find that it always expresses a tendency of the soul to look, out of itself, in things or persons, for the support and nourishment of its individual life.  Does the question concern the relations of man with his fellows?  The heart is the organ of communication of one soul with another, for receiving, or for giving, or for giving and receiving at the same time, in the enjoyment of the blessing of a mutual affection.  The heart is in each of us what those marks are upon the scattered stones of a building in course of construction which indicate that they are to be united one to another.  The philosopher suffices for himself, the stoics used to say; the heart is the negation of this haughty maxim.