BILLY AND HANS 



if a little fact had revealed to me, as 

 the fall of the apple had to Newton 

 the law of gravity, the great law of 

 love which binds the God of our rev- 

 erence to the last and lowest of His 

 creatures, and makes Creation but one 

 great fabric of spiritual affinities of 

 which He is the weaver, and over the 

 furthest threads of which come to Him 

 the appeals of all His creatures: — 



" That thread of the all-sustaining beauty 

 Which runs through all, and does all unite," 



and through which we are conscious 

 of the Divinity in and around us. 

 Then I felt how it is that no sparrow 

 falls without His knowledge, and how 

 Billy and I were only two links of the 

 same chain in which this eternal love 

 bound us both to union in a common 

 existence, if not a common destiny. 

 There flashed on me, like a vision, 



33 



