That
will rested unmelted amid the boiling sea of passion, waiting its hour
of renewed sway. He walked the room for hours, and then sat down to his
Bible, and roused once or twice to find his head leaning on its pages,
and his mind far gone in thoughts from which he woke with a bitter
throb. Then he determined to set himself to some definite work, and,
taking his Concordance, began busily tracing out and numbering all the
proof-texts for one of the chapters of his theological system! till, at
last, he worked himself down to such calmness that he could pray; and
then he schooled and reasoned with himself, in a style not unlike, in
its spirit, to that in which a great modern author has addressed
suffering humanity:--
"What is it that thou art fretting and self-tormenting about? Is it
because thou art not happy? Who told thee that thou wast to be happy?
Is there any ordinance of the universe that thou shouldst be happy? Art
thou nothing but a vulture screaming for prey? Canst thou not do
without happiness? Yea, thou canst do without happiness, and, instead
thereof, find blessedness.
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