"Why not?" asked Valencia, looking up. "Are we so very naughty as to be unworthy to listen?" "And are these mountains," asked Claude, "so ugly and ill-made, that they are an unfit pulpit for a sermon? No; tell me what you mean. After all, I am half in jest" "Do not courtesy, pity, chivalry, generosity, self-sacrifice,--in short, being of use,--do not our hearts tell us that they are the most beautiful, noble, lovely things in the world?" "I suppose it is so," said Valencia. "Why does one admire a soldier? Not for his epaulettes and red coat, but because one knows that, coxcomb though he be at home here, there is the power in him of that same self-sacrifice; that, when he is called, he will go and die, that he may be of use to his country. And yet--it may seem invidious to say so just now--but there are other sorts of self-sacrifice, less showy, but even more beautiful." "Oh, Mr. Headley, what can a man do more than die for his countrymen?" "Live for them. It is a longer work, and therefore a more difficult and a nobler one." Frank spoke in a somewhat sad and abstracted tone. "But, tell me," she said, "what all this has to do with--with the deep matter of which you spoke?" "Simply that it is the law of all earth, and heaven, and Him who made them.--That God is perfectly powerful, because He is perfectly and infinitely of use; and perfectly good, because he delights utterly and always in being of use; and that, therefore, we can become like God--as the very heathens felt that we can, and ought to become--only in proportion as we become of use. I did not see it once. I tried to be good, not knowing what good meant. I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay me in the world to come. But, at last, I saw that all life, all devotion, all piety, were only worth anything, only Divine, and God-like, and God-beloved, as they were means to that one end--to be of use." "It is a noble thought, Headley," said Claude: but Valencia was silent. "It is a noble thought, Mellot; and all thoughts become clear in the light of it; even that most difficult thought of all, which so often torments good people, when they feel, 'I ought to love God, and yet I do not love him.' Easy to love Him, if one can once think of Him as the concentration, the ideal perfection, of all which is most noble, admirable, lovely in human character! And easy to work, too, when one once feels that one is working for such a Being, and with such a Being; as that! The whole world round us, and the future of the world too, seem full of light even down to its murkiest and foulest depths, when we can but remember that great idea,--An infinitely useful God over all, who is trying to make each of us useful in his place. If that be not the beatific vision of which old Mystics spoke so rapturously, one glimpse of which was perfect bliss, I at least know none nobler, desire none more blessed. Pray forgive me, Miss St. Just! I ought not to intrude thus!" "Go on!" said Valencia.