First of all, then, we must admit that happiness does not consist in the sense of virtue alone. This idol of the incorruptible Robespierre will not serve us. For virtue in its completeness dwells in no human heart. One must have but a meagre conception of virtue, or else a very limited intellectual capacity, who finds himself always self-contented. Even the vainest of men are not in reality contented; their vanity itself is in large degree only a sense of uncertainty about their worth, so that they need the constant endorsement of others to satisfy them. The maxim says that a good conscience makes a soft pillow, and he who has this unfailing sense of duty done no doubt has happiness; but I have not, as yet, fallen in with such a man. My impression is that there is not one of us who has ever, even for a single day, done his whole duty. Beyond this, I need not go. If one of my readers says to me: “I am the man who has thus done his duty,”--well, he may be quite right, but I do not care for that man’s nearer acquaintance. The farther a man advances in the doing of his duty, so much the more his conscience and perception grow refined. The circle of his duties widens continually before him, so that he understands the Apostle Paul, when, with perfect sincerity, and without false humility, he speaks of himself as the “chief of sinners.” Are, then, I ask again, philanthropy and the good deeds--public and private--which it suggests, the secret of happiness? Love is a great word, and the Apostle is altogether justified when in the familiar passage of his letters he says that among the many things which perish, love abides. But when in the same passage he says that it is possible to speak with the tongues of angels, and give all one’s goods to feed the poor, and even give one’s body to be burned, and yet not have love,--then we comprehend without further explanation what he means by love. For love is a part of God’s own being, which does not originate in the hearts of men. One who possesses it knows well enough that it is not his own. Even the pale human reflection of this Divine love brings happiness, but it is a temporary happiness; and always with the perilous uncertainty of a love which anticipates return, so that the happiness depends upon the will of others. He, then, who yields his heart absolutely to others, and stakes his happiness on their affection, may some day find the terrible words of the Jewish prophet true: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” All this may be one day a spiritual experience, which may convert his love into hate. That apotheosis of hate which marks the talk of many a social agitator in our day is but the evidence of those bitter disillusions of affection which millions have been called to feel.