Beside the Still Waters

dutifulness; while over all constantly broods the presence of God, who gives and who denies the power of active service; who bids this child toil and struggle, while from that He asks only that she should "stand and wait." So in the weakness of one many are made strong; and the activities of earth are bathed and freshened in the airs of heaven.

Such lives are rarely counted happy; the world pities, while it admires them; and there is often a note of commiseration even upon the lips of those who know them best. I cannot think that it ought to be so; that it is so, arises from the fact, that when we speak of happiness, we use the word in some shallow and conventional sense which does not answer to our best and deepest knowledge. For although one who lives so narrowed a life as I have described, and, like a caged lark, praises God in clear strains and out of a full heart, might well desire, were such a thing yet possible, a restored activity and an enlarged power of service, it would almost always be for