92.  It avails us nothing unduly to bemoan our errors or losses.  For happen what may to the man of simple faith, still, at the last minute of the sorrow-laden hour, at the end of the week or year, still will he find some cause for gladness as he turns his eyes within.  Little by little he has learned to regret without tears.  He is as a father might be who returns to his home in the evening, his day’s work done.  He may find his children in tears perhaps, or playing dangerous, forbidden games; the furniture scattered, glasses broken, a lamp overturned; but shall he therefore despair?  It would certainly have been better had the children been more obedient, had they quietly learned their lessons—–­this would have been more in keeping with every moral theory; but how unreasonable the father who, in the midst of his harsh rebuke, could withhold a smile as he turned his head away!  The children have acted unwisely, perhaps, in their exuberance of life; but why should this distress him?  All is well, so long as he return home at night, so long as he ever keep about him the key of the guardian dwelling.  As we look into ourselves, and pass in review what our heart, and brain, and soul have attempted and carried through while we were away, the benefit lies far more in the searching glance itself than in the actual inspection.  And if the hours have not once let fall their mysterious girdle on their way past our threshold; if the rooms be as empty as on the day of departure, and those within have but sat with folded arms and worked not at all—–­still, as we enter, shall something be learned from our echoing footsteps, of the extent, and the clearness, and the fidelity, of our home.

93.  No day can be uneventful, save in ourselves alone; but in the day that seems most uneventful of all, there is still room for the loftiest destiny; for there is far more scope for such destiny within ourselves than on the whole continent of Europe.  Not by the extent of empire is the range of destiny governed, but, indeed, by the depth of our soul.  It is in our conception of life that real destiny is found; when at last there is delicate balance between the insoluble questions of heaven and the wavering response of our soul.  And these questions become the more tranquil as they seem to comprise more and more; and to the sage, whatever may happen will still widen the scope of the questions, still give deeper confidence to the reply.  Speak not of destiny when the event that has brought you joy or sadness has still altered nothing in your manner of regarding the universe.  All that remains to us when love and glory are over, when adventures and passions have faded into the past, is but a deeper and ever-deepening sense of the infinite; and if we have not that within us, then are we destitute indeed.  And this sense of the infinite is more than a mere assemblage of thoughts, which, indeed, are but the innumerable steps that thither lead.  There is no happiness in happiness itself,