* * * * * [Sidenote: Unacknowledged motives.] No, she did not say it. It would be well for us all if we _did_ put into words, plain and explicit, many instinctive resolves and purposes that arise in our hearts, and which, for want of being so expressed, influence us undetected and unchallenged. If we would say out boldly, “I don’t care for right or wrong, or good or evil, or anybody’s rights or anybody’s happiness, or the general good, or God himself,—all I care for, or feel the least interest in, is to have a good time myself, and I mean to do it, come what may,”—we should be only expressing a feeling which often lies in the dark back-room of the human heart; and saying it might alarm us from the drugged sleep of life. It might rouse us to shake off the slow, creeping paralysis of selfishness and sin before it is forever too late. BETTY’S BRIGHT IDEA. [Sidenote: Aspiration.] That noble discontent that rises to aspiration for higher things. DEACON PITKIN’S FARM. [Sidenote: The lesson of faith.] “Well, daughter,” said the deacon, “it’s a pity we should go through all we do in this world and not learn anything by it. I hope the Lord has taught me not to worry, but just do my best, and leave myself and everything else in his hands. We can’t help ourselves,—we can’t make one hair white or black. Why should we wear our lives out fretting? If I’d a known _that_ years ago, it would a been better for us all.” * * * * * [Sidenote: “All for the best.”] “She’s allers sayin’ things is for the best, maybe she’ll come to think so about this,—folks gen’ally does when they can’t help themselves.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Sympathy.] Eyes that have never wept cannot comprehend sorrow. * * * * * [Sidenote: Trust.] “Leave it!” These were words often in that woman’s mouth, and they expressed that habit of her life which made her victorious over all troubles, that habit of trust in the Infinite Will that actually could and did _leave_ every accomplished event in his hand without murmur and without conflict. AGNES OF SORRENTO. [Sidenote: Power of sympathy.] Such is the wonderful power of human sympathy that the discovery even of the existence of a soul capable of understanding our inner life often operates as a perfect charm; every thought and feeling and aspiration carries with it a new value, from the interwoven consciousness that attends it, of the worth it would bear to that other mind; so that, while that person lives, our existence is doubled in value, even though oceans divide us. * * * * * [Sidenote: Difficulty of inspiring others.]