Strength does not consist only in the _more_ or the _less_. There are different sorts of strength as well as different degrees:—The strength of marble to resist; the strength of steel to oppose; the strength of the fine gold, which you can twist round your finger, but which can bear the force of innumerable pounds without breaking. [Illustration] 38. Goethe used to say, that while intellectual attainment is progressive, it is difficult to be as good when we are old, as we were when young. Dr. Johnson has expressed the same thing. Then are we to assume, that to _do_ good effectively and wisely is the privilege of age and experience? To _be_ good, through faith in goodness, the privilege of the young. To preserve our faith in goodness with an extended knowledge of evil, to preserve the tenderness of our pity after long contemplation of pain, and the warmth of our charity after long experience of falsehood, is to be at once good and wise—to understand and to love each other as the angels who look down upon us from heaven. [Illustration] We can sometimes love what we do not understand, but it is impossible completely to understand what we do not love. I observe, that in our relations with the people around us, we forgive them more readily for what they _do_, which they _can_ help, than for what they _are_, which they _cannot_ help. [Illustration] 39. “Whence springs the greatest degree of moral suffering?” was a question debated this evening, but not settled. It was argued that it would depend on the texture of character, its more or less conscientiousness, susceptibility, or strength. I thought from two sentiments—from _jealousy_, that is, the sense of a wrong endured, in one class of characters; from _remorse_, that is, from the sense of a wrong inflicted, in another. [Illustration] 40. The bread of life is love; the salt of life is work; the sweetness of life, poesy; the water of life, faith. [Illustration] 41. I have seen triflers attempting to draw out a deep intellect; and they reminded me of children throwing pebbles down the well at Carisbrook, that they might hear them sound. [Illustration] 42. A bond is necessary to complete our being, only we must be careful that the bond does not become bondage. [Illustration] “The secret of peace,” said A. B., “is the resolution of the lesser into the greater;” meaning, perhaps, the due relative appreciation of our duties, and the proper placing of our affections: or, did she not rather mean, the resolving of the lesser duties and affections into the higher? But it is true in either sense. [Illustration] The love we have for Genius is to common love what the fire on the altar is to the fire on the hearth. We cherish it not for warmth or for service, but for an offering, as the expression of our worship. [Illustration]