“But did you not just admit that the world was benefited by all active labour, even if the worker toiled selfishly?  How, then, can the labour be misapplied?”

“Can you not see that, if every man worked with the love of benefiting the world in his heart, more good would be effected than if he worked only for himself?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And that he would have a double reward, in the natural compensation that labour receives, and in the higher satisfaction of having done good.”

“Yes.”

“To work for a lower end, then, is to misapply labour, so far as the man is concerned.  He robs himself of his own highest reward, while Providence bends the efforts he makes, and causes them to effect good uses to the neighbour he would, in too many cases, rather insure than benefit.”

“You have a curious way of looking at things, or, rather, into them,” said Mr. Markland, forcing a smile.  “There is a common saying about taking the conceit out of a man, and I must acknowledge that you can do this as effectually as any one I ever knew.”

“When the truth comes to us,” said the old gentleman, smiling in return, “it possesses the quality of a mirror, and shows us something of our real state.  If we were more earnest to know the truth, so far as it applied to ourselves, we would be wiser, and, it is to be hoped, better.  Truth is light, and when it comes to us it reveals our true relation to the world.  It gives the ability to define our exact position, and to know surely whether we are in the right or the wrong way.  How beautifully has it been called a lamp to our path!  And truth possesses another quality—­that of water.  It cleanses as well as illustrates.”

Mr. Markland bent his head in a thoughtful attitude, and walked on in silence.  Mr. Allison continued: 

“The more of truth we admit into our minds, the higher becomes our discriminating power.  It not only gives the ability to know ourselves, but to know others.  All our mental faculties come into a more vigorous activity.”

“Truth!  What is truth?” said Mr. Markland, looking up, and speaking in a tone of earnest inquiry.

“Truth is the mind’s light,” returned Mr. Allison, “and it comes to us from Him who said ‘Let there be light, and there was light,’ and who afterward said, ‘I am the light of the world.’  There is truth, and there is the doctrine of truth—­it is by the latter that we are led into a knowledge of truth.”

“But how are we to find truth?  How are we to become elevated into that region of light in which the mind sees clearly?”

“We must learn the way, before we can go from one place to another.”

“Yes.”

“If we would find truth, we must first learn the way, or the doctrine of truth; for doctrine, or that which illustrates the mind, is like a natural path or way, along which we walk to the object we desire to reach.”

“Still, I do not find the answer to my question.  What or where is truth?”