It seemed to Hugh, when the sad rites were done, and he was left alone, that there was but one solution possible; the thought shaped itself dimly and wistfully out of the dark--that there was one element that was out of place, one element over which the mind had a certain power, that one must resolve to exorcise and cast out--the element of fear. And yet fear, that unmanning, abominable thing, that struck the light out of life, that made one incapable of energy and activity alike, was that too not a dark gift from the Father's hand? Had it a purifying, a restoring influence? It seemed to Hugh that it had none. Yet why was it made so terribly easy, so insupportably natural, if it had not its place in the great economy of God? Was not this the darkest of dark dilemmas? Slowly reflecting on it, Hugh seemed to see that fear had one effect of good about it; it was one of those things, and alas they were many, that seemed strewn about us, only that we might learn to triumph over them. For one who really believed in the absolutely infinite and all-embracing Will of God, there was no room for fear at all. If the things of life were sent wisely, tenderly, and graciously, not care, not suffering, not even death admitted of any questioning; and yet fear seemed a deeper, more instinctive thing than reasoning itself. The very fear of non-existence, in the light of reason, seemed a wholly unreal thing. No shadow of it attached to the long dark years of the world, which had passed before one's own conscious life began. One could look back in the pages of history to the ancient pageant of the world in which one had no part, and not feel oneself wronged or misused in having had no share in those vivid things. Why should we regard a past in which we had had no conscious part with such a blithe serenity, and yet look forward to that future, in which, for all we knew, we could have no part either, with such an envious despair? The thought was unreasonable enough, but it was there. But it was possible, by thus boldly and tranquilly confronting the problem, to diminish the pressure of the shadow. A man could throw himself, could he not, in utter confidence before the feet of God, claiming nothing, demanding nothing but the sense of perfect acquiescence in His Will and Deed? The secret again was, not to forecast and forebode, but to live in the day and for the day, practising labour, kindliness, gentleness, peace. That was a true image, the image of those old pilgrims who gathered the manna for their daily use; little or much, it sufficed; and no one might, through indolence or prudence, evade the daily labour by laying up a store; the store vanished in corruption. So it was with all ambitious dreams, all attempts to lay a jealous hand on what might be; it was that which poisoned life. Those far-reaching plans, those hopes of ease and glory, that wealth laid up for many years, they were the very substance of decay.