To court trial is to tempt God. At bottom, the God of
justice veils from me the God of love. I tremble instead of trusting.
Whenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed
voice, it is not yet the voice of God. Descend still deeper into
yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear and undivided voice, a
voice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light
and serenity. Happy, says the apostle, are they who are at peace with
themselves, and whose heart condemneth them not in the part they take.
This inner identity, this unity of conviction, is all the more difficult
the more the mind analyzes, discriminates, and foresees. It is
difficult, indeed, for liberty to return to the frank unity of instinct.
Alas! we must then re-climb a thousand times the peaks already scaled,
and reconquer the points of view already won, we must _fight the fight_!
The human heart, like kings, signs mere truces under a pretence of
perpetual peace. The eternal life is eternally to be re-won. Alas, yes!
peace itself is a struggle, or rather it is struggle and activity which
are the law. We only find rest in effort, as the flame only finds
existence in combustion. O Heraclitus! the symbol of happiness is after
all the same as that of grief; anxiety and hope, hell and heaven, are
equally restless.
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