The poet, indeed, restores him in the book; but in life it need not have been so.  He might have died upon his ash-heap as thousands of good men have died, and will die again in misery.  Happiness, therefore, is not what we are to look for.  Our place is to be true to the best which we know, to seek that and do that; and if by “virtue its own reward” he meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring nothing more; then it is true and noble.  But if virtue be valued, because it is politic, because in pursuit of it will be found most enjoyment and fewest sufferings, then it is not noble any more, and it is turning the truth of God into a lie.  Let us do right, and whether happiness come or unhappiness is no very mighty matter.  If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be bitter —­bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.  On such a theory alone is the government of this world intelligibly just.  The well-being of our souls depends only on what we are, and nobleness of character is nothing else but steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil.  The government of the world is a problem while the desire of selfish enjoyment survives, and when justice is not done according to such standard (which will not be till the day after doomsday, and not then), self-loving men will still ask, why? and find no answer.  Only to those who have the heart to say, we can do without that, it is not what we ask or desire, is there no secret.  Man will have what he deserves, and will find what is really best for him, exactly as he honestly seeks for it.  Happiness may fly away, pleasure pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove unkind, and fame turn to infamy; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is never rejected.

Most of us, at one time or other of our lives, have known something of love—­of that only pure love in which no self is left remaining.  We have loved as children, we have loved as lovers; some of us have learnt to love a cause, a faith, a country; and what love would that be which existed only with a prudent view to after-interests.  Surely, there is a love which exults in the power of self-abandonment, and can glory in the privilege of suffering for what is good.  Que mon nom soit fletri, pourvu que la France soit libre, said Danton; and those wild patriots who had trampled into scorn the faith in an immortal life in which they would be rewarded for what they were suffering, went to their graves as beds, for the dream of a people’s liberty.  Shall we, who would be thought reasonable men, love the living God with less heart than these poor men loved their phantom?  Justice is done; the balance is not deranged.  It only seems deranged, as long as we have not learnt to serve without looking to be paid for it.