224. I spoke to you first of Horace's modesty. All piety begins in modesty. You must feel that you are a very little creature, and that you had better do as you are bid. You will then begin to think what you are bid to do, and who bids it. And you will find, unless you are very unhappy indeed, that there is always a quite clear notion of right and wrong in your minds, which you can either obey or disobey, at your pleasure. Obey it simply and resolutely; it will become clearer to you every day: and in obedience to it, you will find a sense of being in harmony with nature, and at peace with God, and all His creatures. You will not understand how the peace comes, nor even in what it consists. It is the peace that passes understanding;--it is just as visionary and imaginative as love is, and just as real, and just as necessary to the life of man. It is the only source of true cheerfulness, and of true common sense; and whether you believe the Bible, or don't,--or believe the Koran, or don't--or believe the Vedas, or don't--it will enable you to believe in God, and please Him, and be such a part of the [Greek: *eudokia*] of the universe as your nature fits you to be, in His sight, faithful in awe to the powers that are above you, and gracious in regard to the creatures that are around. 225. I will take leave on this head to read one more piece of Carlyle, bearing much on present matters. "I hope also they will attack earnestly, and at length extinguish and eradicate, this idle habit of 'accounting for the moral sense,' as they phrase it. A most singular problem;--instead of bending every thought to have more, and ever more, of 'moral sense,' and therewith to irradiate your own poor soul, and all its work, into something of divineness, as the one thing needful to you in this world! A very futile problem that other, my friends; futile, idle, and far worse; leading to what moral ruin, you little dream of! The moral sense, thank God, is a thing you never will 'account for;' that, if you could think of it, is the perennial miracle of man; in all times, visibly connecting poor transitory man, here on this bewildered earth, with his Maker who is eternal in the heavens. By no greatest happiness principle, greatest nobleness principle, or any principle whatever, will you make that in the least clearer than it already is;--forbear, I say, or you may darken it away from you altogether! 'Two things,' says the memorable Kant, deepest and most logical of metaphysical thinkers, 'two things strike me dumb: the infinite starry heavens; and the sense of right and wrong in man.' Visible infinites, both; say nothing of them; don't try to 'account for them;' for you can say nothing wise."