It was true then, it is infinitely more true now, that what is called virtue in the common sense of the word, still more that nobleness, godliness, or heroism of character in any form whatsoever, have nothing to do with this or that man’s prosperity, or even happiness.  The thoroughly vicious man is no doubt wretched enough; but the worldly, prudent, self-restraining man, with his five senses, which he understands how to gratify with tempered indulgence, with a conscience satisfied with the hack routine of what is called respectability, such a man feels no wretchedness; no inward uneasiness disturbs him, no desires which he cannot gratify; and this though he be the basest and most contemptible slave of his own selfishness.  Providence will not interfere to punish him.  Let him obey the laws under which prosperity is obtainable, and he will obtain it; let him never fear He will obtain it, be he base or noble.  Nature is indifferent; the famine, and the earthquake, and the blight, or the accident, will not discriminate to strike him.  He may insure himself against those in these days of ours:  with the money perhaps which a better man would have given away, and he will have his reward.  He need not doubt it.

And again, it is not true, as optimists would persuade us, that such prosperity brings no real pleasure.  A man with no high aspirations who thrives and makes money, and envelops himself in comforts, is as happy as such a nature can be.  If unbroken satisfaction be the most blessed state for a man (and this certainly is the practical notion of happiness) he is the happiest of men.  Nor are those idle phrases any truer, that the good man’s goodness is a never-ceasing sunshine; that virtue is its own reward. &c. &c.  If men truly virtuous care to be rewarded for it, their virtue is but a poor investment of their moral capital.  Was Job so happy then on that ash-heap of his, the mark of the world’s scorn, and the butt for the spiritual archery of the theologian, alone in his forlorn nakedness, like some old dreary stump which the lightning has scathed, rotting away in the wind and the rain?  Happy! if happiness be indeed what we men are sent into this world to seek for, those hitherto thought the noblest among us were the pitifullest and wretchedest.  Surely it was no error in Job.  It was that real insight which once was given to all the world in Christianity; however we have forgotten it now.  He was learning to see that it was not in the possession of enjoyment, no, nor of happiness itself, that the difference lies between the good and the bad.  True, it might be that God sometimes, even generally, gives such happiness in, gives it as what Aristotle calls an epigignomenon telos, but it is no part of the terms on which He admits us to His service, still less is it the end which we may propose to ourselves on entering His service.  Happiness He gives to whom He will, or leaves to the angel of nature to distribute among those who fulfil