But even if it is not so, if we cannot trace in our own lives or the lives of others the beneficent influence of suffering, we can always take refuge in one thought.  We can see that the one mighty and transforming power on earth is the power of love; we see people make sacrifices, not momentary sacrifices, but lifelong patient renunciations, for the sake of one whom they love; we see a great and passionate affection touch into being a whole range of unsuspected powers; we see men and women utterly unconscious of pain and weariness, utterly unaware that they are acting without a thought of self, if they can but soothe the pain of one dear to them, or win a smile from beloved lips; it is not that the selfishness, the indolence, is not there, but it is all borne away upon a mighty stream, as the river-wrack spins upon the rising flood.

If then this marvellous, this amazing power of love can cause men to make, with joy and gladness, sacrifices of which in their loveless days they would have deemed themselves and confessed themselves wholly incapable, can we not feel with confidence that the power, which lies thus deepest in the heart of the world, lies also deepest in the heart of God, of Whom the world is but a faint reflection?  It cannot be otherwise.  We may sadly ponder, indeed, why the love that has been, or that might have been, the strength of weary lives should be withdrawn or sternly withheld, but we need not be afraid, if we have one generous impulse for another, if we ever put aside a delight that may please or attract us, for the sake of one who expects or would value any smallest service—­and there are few who cannot feel this—­we need not then, I say, doubt that the love which we desire, and which we have somehow missed or lost, is there waiting for us, ours all the time, if we but knew it.

And even if we miss the sweet influence of love in our lives, is there any one who has not, in solitude and dreariness, looked back upon the time when he was surrounded by love and opportunities of love, in childhood or in youth, with a bitter regret that he did not make more of it when it was so near to him, that he was so blind and selfish, that he was not a little more tender, a little more kind?  I will speak frankly for myself and say that the memories which hurt me most, when I stumble upon them, are those of the small occasions when I showed myself perverse and hard; when eyes, long since closed, looked at me with a pathetic expectancy; when I warded off the loving impulse by some jealous sense of my own rights, some peevish anger at a fancied injustice; when I stifled the smile and withheld the hand, and turned away in silence, glad, in that poisonous moment, to feel that I could at all events inflict that pain in base requital.  One may know that it is all forgiven, one may be sure that the misunderstanding has faded in the light of the other dawn, but still the cold base shadow, the thought of one’s perverse cruelty, strikes a gloom upon the mind.