consolation

In the exhaustless catalogue of Heaven's mercies to mankind, the power we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever occupy the foremost place; not only because it supports and upholds us when most require to be sustained, but because in this source of consolation there is something, we have reason to believe, of the divine spirit; something of the goodness which detects amidst our own evil doings, a redeeming quality; something which, even in our fallen nature, we possess in common with the angels; which had its being in the old time when they trod the earth, and lingers on yet, in pity.

Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge Ch 47
Don't quite agree with his whole theology here but like the central idea. I also appreciate this fine example of a paragraph-long sentence. Perhaps I should show something like this to my profs when they accuse me of being too wordy.