Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: where our life lies and our work in the world. And again we shall do this for our own sakes, because, as the hand we never see and always see clasps the oil, the glass, and the flame the man must mind in that low-lying light-house on the coast, or he loses his rank and number, so we must let our light shine, God’s hand clasps, lest we lose ours. And as the man ordained by the Republic to mind the light can never quite tell what worth lies in the clear shining, no more can we, save by faith in his faithful endeavor and as we stand true to this trust. THE GOSPEL OF CHEERFULNESS We read the books or hear the discourses of those who are forever looking in toward the shadows,?but there is no rest in them, or help in trouble, or light, or joy. We seek bread and find a stone; break the egg, and it holds a scorpion. We do not take such things to our sick that they may be healed, or pick the kernel out of them for our children. We know where to find the helpful things in the words of those who have seen the light strike through the mystery, and take these for theneed we all strike soon or late. The men and women who stand in the front rank of our religious teachers and thinkers?not to sects alone but to the nations?are those always who look out toward the light and hold it in their hearts. Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Channing, Parker, Bellows, Beecher, Clarke, and a host besides, to speak only of the noble dead,?it is one golden chain from Alpha to Omega. The words which bring their own benediction come home to us from those who have stood in the holy place and seen the light strike through, to find this as the last great word: God is light, and in him is no darkness at all; and God is love. SILENT TESTIMONY We can live so nobly, not in despite of the great s…