The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and Service (2024)

Produced by Al Haines

The Investment of Influence

A Study of Social Sympathy and Service

Newell Dwight Hillis

Author of "A Man's Value to Society," "Foretokens of Immortality," Etc.

Fleming H. Revell Company

LONDON AND EDINBURGH

MCMXII

Copyright 1897

By Fleming H. Revell Company.

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25
Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100
Princes Street

DEDICATION

Many years have now passed since we first met. During all this timeyou have been an unfailing guide and helper. Your friendship hasdoubled life's joys and halved its sorrows. You have strengthened mewhere I was weak and weakened me where I was too strong. You haveborne my burdens and lent me strength to bear my own.

Because I have learned from you in example, what I here teach inprecept, I dedicate this book

TO YOU

—whether toiling in field or forum, in home or market place,

TO YOU—MY FRIEND

FOREWORD.

The glory of our fathers was their emphasis of the principle ofself-care and self-culture. Finding that he who first made the most ofhimself was best fitted to make something of others, the teachers ofyesterday unceasingly plied men with motives of personalresponsibility. Influenced by the former generation, our age hasorganized the principle of individualism into its home, its school, itsmarket-place and forum. By reason of the increase in gold, books,travel and personal luxuries, some now feel that selfness is beginningto degenerate into selfishness. The time, therefore, seems to havefully come when the principle of self-care should receive itscomplement through the principle of care for others. These chaptersassert the debt of wealth to poverty, the debt of wisdom to ignorance,the debt of strength to weakness. If "A Man's Value to Society"affirms the duty of self-culture and character, these studies emphasizethe law of social sympathy and social service.

Newell Dwight Hillis.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I Influence, and the Atmosphere Man Carries

II Life's Great Hearts, and the Helpfulness of the Higher Manhood

III The Investment of Talent and Its Return

IV Vicarious Lives as Instruments of Social Progress

V Genius, and the Debt of Strength

VI The Time Element in Individual Character and Social Growth

VII The Supremacy of Heart Over Brain

VIII Renown Through Self-Renunciation

IX The Gentleness of True Gianthood

X The Thunder of Silent Fidelity: a Study of the Influence of Little Things

XI Influence, and the Strategic Element in Opportunity

XII Influence, and the Principle of Reaction in Life and Character

XIII The Love that Perfects Life

XIV Hope's Harvest, and the Far-off Interest of Tears

INFLUENCE, AND THE ATMOSPHERE MAN CARRIES.

"I do not believe the world is dying for new ideas. A teacher has ahigh place amongst us, but someone is wanted here and abroad far morethan a teacher. It is power we need, power that shall help us to solveour practical problems, power that shall help us to realize a high,individual, spiritual life, power that shall make us daring enough toact out all we have seen in vision, all we have learnt in principlefrom Jesus Christ."—Charles A. Berry.

"And Saul sent messengers to take David: and when they saw the companyof prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as appointed over them,the Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they alsoprophesied. And when it was told Saul, he sent other messengers andthey prophesied likewise. And Saul sent messengers again the thirdtime, and they prophesied also. Then went Saul to Ramah, and he said,Where are Samuel and David? And one said, Behold they be at Naioth.And Saul went thither, and the Spirit of God came on him also and heprophesied. Wherefore man said: Is Saul also among theprophets?"—I. Samuel, xix, 20-21.

CHAPTER I.

INFLUENCE, AND THE ATMOSPHERE MAN CARRIES.

Nature's forces carry their atmosphere. The sun gushes forth lightunquenchable; coals throw off heat; violets are larger in influencethan bulb; pomegranates and spices crowd the house with sweet odors.Man also has his atmosphere. He is a force-bearer and aforce-producer. He journeys forward, exhaling influences. Scientistsspeak of the magnetic circle. Artists express the same idea by thehalo of light emanating from the divine head. Business men understandthis principle, those skilled in promoting great enterprises bring themen to be impressed into a room and create an atmosphere around them.In measuring Kossuth's influence over the multitudes that thronged andpressed upon him the historian said: "We must first reckon with theorator's physical bulk and then carry the measuring-line about hisatmosphere."

Thinking of the evil emanating from a bad man, Bunyan made Apollyon'snostrils emit flames. Edward Everett insists that Daniel Webster'seyes during his greatest speech literally emitted sparks. Had we testsfine enough we would doubtless find each man's personality the centerof outreaching influences. He himself may be utterly unconscious ofthis exhalation of moral forces, as he is of the contagion of diseasefrom his body. But if light is in him he shines; if darkness rules heshades, if his heart glows with love he warms; if frozen withselfishness he chills; if corrupt he poisons; if pure-hearted hecleanses. We watch with wonder the apparent flight of the sun throughspace, glowing upon dead planets, shortening winter and bringingsummer, with birds, leaves and fruits. But that is not half sowonderful as the passage of a human heart, glowing and sparkling withten thousand effects, as it moves through life. The soul, like thesun, has its atmosphere, and is over against its fellows, for light,warmth and transformation.

All great writers have had their incident of the atmosphere their herocarried. Centuries ago King Saul sent his officers to arrest a seerwho had publicly indicted the tyrant for outbreaking sins. When thesoldier entered the prophet's presence he was so profoundly affected bythe majesty of his character that he forgot the commission and hislord's command, asking rather to become the good man's protector.Likewise with the second group of soldiers—coming to arrest, theyremained to befriend. Then the King's anger was exceedingly hotagainst him who had become a conscience for the throne. Rushing forthfrom his palace, like an angry lion from his lair, the King sought theplace where this man of God was teaching the people. But, lo! when theKing entered the brave man's presence his courage, fidelity andintegrity overcame Saul and conquered him unto confession of hiswickedness. Just here we may remember that stout-hearted Pilate, witha legion of mailed soldiers to protect him, trembled and quaked beforehis silent prisoner. And King Agrippa on his throne was afraid, whenPaul lifting his chains, fronted him with words of righteousness andjudgment. Carlyle says that in 1848, during the riot in Paris, the mobswept down a street blazing with cannon, killed the soldiers, spikedthe guns, only to be stopped a few blocks beyond by an old,white-haired man who uncovered and signaled for silence. Then theleader of the mob said: "Citizens, it is De la Eure. Sixty years ofpure life is about to address you!" A true man's presence transformeda mob that cannon could not conquer.

Montaigne's illustration of atmosphere was Julius Caesar. When thegreat Roman was still a youth, he was captured by pirates and chainedto the oars as a galley-slave; but Caesar told stories, sang songs,declaimed with endless good humor. Chains bound Caesar to the oars,and his words bound the pirates to himself. That night he supped withthe captain. The second day his knowledge of currents, coasts and theroute of treasure-ships made him first mate; then he won the sailorsover, put the captain in irons, and ruled the ship like a king; soonafter, he sailed the ship as a prize into a Roman port. If thisincident is credible, a youth who in four days can talk the chains offhis wrists, talk himself into the captaincy, talk a pirate ship intohis own hands as booty, is not to be accounted for by his eloquentwords. His speech was but a tithe of his power, and wrought its spellonly when personality had first created a sympathetic atmosphere. Onlya fraction of a great man's character can manifest itself in speech;for the character is inexpressibly finer and larger than his words.The narrative of Washington's exploits is the smallest part of hiswork. Sheer weight of personality alone can account for him. Happythe man of moral energy all compact, whose mere presence, like that ofSamuel, the seer, restrains others, softens and transforms them. Thisis a thing to be written on a man's tomb: "His presence made bad mengood."

This mysterious bundle of forces called man, moving through society,exhaling blessings or blightings, gets its meaning from the capacity ofothers to receive its influences. Man is not so wonderful in his powerto mold other lives, as in his readiness to be molded. Steel to hold,he is wax to take. The Daguerrean plate and the Aeolian harp do butmeagerly interpret his receptivity. Therefore, some philosophers thinkcharacter is but the sum total of those many-shaped influences calledclimate, food, friends, books, industries. As a lump of clay is liftedto the wheel by the potter's hand, and under gentle pressure takes onthe lines of a beautiful cup or vase, so man sets forth a mere mass ofmind; soon, under the gentle touch of love, hope, ambition, he standsforth in the aspect of a Cromwell, a Milton or a Lincoln.

Standing at the center of the universe, a thousand forces come rushingin to report themselves to the sensitive soul-center. There is a nervein man that runs out to every room and realm in the universe. Only atithe of the world's truth and beauty finds access to the lion or lark;they look out as one in castle tower whose only window is a slit in therock. But man dwells in a glass dome; to him the world lies open onevery side. Every fact and force outside has a desk inside man whereit makes up its reports. The ear reports all sounds and songs; the eyeall sights and scenes; the reason all arguments, judgment each "ought"and "ought not," the religious faculty reports messages coming from aforeign clime.

Man's mechanism stands at the center of the universe withtelegraph-lines extending in every direction. It is a marvelouspilgrimage he is making through life while myriad influences stream inupon him. It is no small thing to carry such a mind for three-scoreyears under the glory of the heavens, through the glory of the earth,midst the majesty of the summer and the sanctity of the winter, whileall things animate and inanimate rush in through open windows. For onethus sensitively constituted every moment trembles with possibilities;every hour is big with destiny. The neglected blow cannot afterward bestruck on the cold iron; once the stamp is given to the soft metal itcannot be effaced. Well did Ruskin say; "Take your vase of Veniceglass out of the furnace and strew chaff over it in its transparentheat, and recover that to its clearness and rubied glory when the northwind has blown upon it; but do not think to strew chaff over the childfresh from God's presence and to bring the heavenly colors back tohim—at least in this world." We are accountable to God for ourinfluence; this it is "that gives us pause."

Gentle as is the atmosphere about us, it presses with a weight offourteen pounds to the square inch. No infant's hand feels its weight;no leaf of aspen or wing of bird detects this heavy pressure, for thefluid air presses equally in all directions. Just so gentle, yetpowerful, is the moral atmosphere of a good man as it presses upon andshapes his kind. He who hath made man in his own image hath endowedhim with this forceful presence. Ten-talent men, eminent in knowledgeand refinement, eminent in art and wealth, do, indeed, illustrate this.Proof also comes from obscurity, as pearls from homely oyster shells.Working among the poor of London, an English author searched out thelife-career of an apple woman. Her history makes the story of kingsand queens contemptible. Events had appointed her to poverty, hunger,cold and two rooms in a tenement. But there were three orphan boyssleeping in an ash-box whose lot was harder. She dedicated her heartand life to the little waifs. During two and forty years she motheredand reared some twenty orphans—gave them home and bed and food; taughtthem all she knew; helped some to obtain a scant knowledge of thetrades; helped others off to Canada and America. The author says shehad misshapen features, but that an exquisite smile was on the deadface. It must have been so. She "had a beautiful soul," as Emersonsaid of Longfellow. Poverty disfigured the apple woman's garret, andwant made it wretched, nevertheless, God's most beautiful angelshovered over it. Her life was a blossom event in London's history.Social reform has felt her influence. Like a broken vase the perfumeof her being will sweeten literature and society a thousand years afterwe are gone.

The Greek poet says men knew when the goddess came to Thebes because ofthe blessings she left in her track. Her footprints were not in thesea, soon obliterated, nor in the snow, quickly melting, but in fieldsand forests. This unseen friend, passing by the tree blackened by athunderbolt, stayed her step; lo! the woodbine sprang up and coveredthe tree's nakedness. She lingered by the stagnant pool—the poolbecame a flowing spring. She rested upon a fallen log—from decay anddeath came moss, the snowdrop and the anemone. At the crossing of thebrook were her footprints; not in mud downward, but in violets thatsprang up in her pathway. O beautiful prophecy! literally fulfilled2,000 years afterward in the life of the London apple woman, whoseatmosphere sweetened bitter hearts and made evil into good.

Wealth and eminent position witness not less powerfully thetransforming influence of exalted characters. "My lords," saidSalisbury, "the reforms of this century have been chiefly due to thepresence here of one man—Lord Shaftesbury. The genius of his life wasexpressed when last he addressed you. He said: 'When I feel agecreeping upon me I am deeply grieved, for I cannot bear to go away andleave the world with so much misery in it.'" So long as Shaftesburylived, England beheld a standing rebuke of all wrong and injustice.How many iniquities shriveled up in his presence! This man,representing the noblest ancestry, wealth and culture, wroughtnumberless reforms. He became a voice for the poor and weak. He gavehis life to reform acts and corn laws; he emancipated the enslaved boysand girls toiling in mines and factories; he exposed and madeimpossible the horrors of that inferno in which chimney-sweeps live; hefounded twoscore industrial, ragged and trade schools; he establishedshelters for the homeless poor; when Parliament closed its sessions atmidnight Lord Shaftesbury went forth to search out poor prodigalssleeping under Waterloo or Blackfriars bridge, and often in a singlenight brought a score to his shelter. When the funeral cortege passedthrough Pall Mall and Trafalgar square on its way to Westminster Abbey,the streets for a mile and a half were packed with innumerablethousands. The costermongers lifted a large banner on which wereinscribed these words: "I was sick and in prison and ye visited me."The boys from the ragged schools lifted these words; "I was hungry andnaked and ye fed me." All England felt the force of that colossalcharacter. To-day at that central point in Piccadilly where thehighways meet and thronging multitudes go surging by, the Englishpeople have erected the statue of Shaftesbury—the fitting mottotherefor; "The reforms of this century have been chiefly due to thepresence and influence of Shaftesbury." If our generation is indeedheld back from injustice and anarchy and bloodshed, it will be becauseShaftesbury the peer, and Samuel, the seer, are duplicated in the livesof our great men, who stand forth to plead the cause of the poor andweak.

But man's atmosphere is equally potent to blight and to shrivel. Nottime, but man, is the great destroyer. History is full of the ruins ofcities and empires. "Innumerable Paradises have come and gone; Adamsand Eves many," happy one day, have been "miserable exiles" the next;and always because some satanic ambition or passion or person enteringhas cast baneful shadow o'er the scene. Men talk of the scythe of timeand the tooth of time. But, said the art historian: "Time isscytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm; we who smitelike the scythe. Fancy what treasures would be ours to-day if thedelicate statues and temples of the Greeks, if the broad roads andmassy walls of the Romans, if the noble architecture, castles and townsof the Middle Ages had not been ground to dust by blind rage of man.It is man that is the consumer; he is moth and mildew and flame." Allthe galleries and temples and libraries and cities have been destroyedby his baneful presence. Thrice armies have made an arsenal of theAcropolis; ground the precious marbles to powder, and mixed their dustwith his ashes. It was man's ax and hammer that dashed down the carvedwork of cathedrals and turned the treasure cities into battle-fields,and opened galleries to the mold of sea winds. Disobedience to law hasmade cities a heap and walled cities ruins. Man is the pestilence thatwalketh in darkness. Man is the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

When Mephistopheles appears in human form his presence falls upon homeslike the black pall of the consuming plague, that robes cities fordeath. The classic writer tells of an Indian princess sent as apresent to Alexander the Great. She was lovely as the dawn; yet whatespecially distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath;richer than a garden of Persian roses. A sage physician discovered herterrible secret. This lovely woman had been reared upon poisons frominfancy until she herself was the deadliest poison known. When ahandful of sweet flowers was given to her, her bosom scorched andshriveled the petals; when the rich perfume of her breath went among aswarm of insects, a score fell dead about her. A pet humming-birdentering her atmosphere, shuddered, hung for a moment in the air, thendropped in its final agony. Her love was poison; her embrace death.This tale has held a place in literature because it stands for men ofevil all compact, whose presence has consumed integrities and exhalediniquities. Happily the forces that bless are always more numerous andmore potent than those that blight. Cast a bushel of chaff and onegrain of wheat into the soil and nature will destroy all the chaff butcause the one grain of wheat to usher in rich harvests.

As a force-producer, man's primary influence is voluntary in nature.This is the capacity of purposely bringing all the soul's powers tobear upon society. It is the foundation of all instruction. Theparent influences the child this way or that. The artist-master plieshis pupil. The brave general or discoverer inspires and stimulates hismen by multiform motives. The charioteer holds the reins, guides hissteeds, restrains or lifts the scourge. Similarly man holds the reinsof influence over man, and is himself in turn guided. So friend shapesand molds friend. This is what gives its meaning to conversation,oratory, journalism, reforms. Each man stands at the center of a greatnetwork of voluntary influence for good. Through words, bearing andgesture, he sends out his energies. Oftentimes a single speech haseffected great reforms. Oft one man's act has deflected the stream ofthe centuries. Full oft a single word has been like a switch thatturns a train from the route running toward the frozen North, to atrack leading into the tropic South.

Not seldom has a youth been turned from the way of integrity by theinfluence of a single friend. Endowed as man is, the weight of hisbeing effects the most astonishing results. Witness Stratton'sconversation with the drunken bookbinder whom we know as John B. Gough,the apostle of temperance. Witness Moffat's words that changed DavidLivingstone, the weaver, into David Livingstone, the savior of Africa.Witness Garibaldi's words fashioning the Italian mob into theconquering army. Witness Garrison and Beecher and Phillips and JohnBright. Rivers, winds, forces of fire and steam are impotent comparedto those energies of mind and heart, that make men equal totransforming whole communities and even nations. Who can estimate thesoul's conscious power? Who can measure the light and heat of lastsummer? Who can gather up the rays of the stars? Who can bringtogether the odors of last year's orchards? There are no mathematicsfor computing the influence of man's voluntary thought, affection andaspiration upon his fellows.

Man has also an unpurposed influence. Power goes forth without hisdistinct volition. Like all centers of energy, the soul does its bestwork automatically. The sun does not think of lifting the mist fromthe ocean, yet the vapor moves skyward. Often man is ignorant of whathe accomplishes upon his fellows, but the results are the same. He issurcharged with energy. Accomplishing much by plan, he does morethrough unconscious weight of personality. In wonder-words we are toldthe apostle purposely wrought deeds of mercy upon the poor. Yetthrough his shadow falling on the weak and sick as he passed by, heunconsciously wrought health and hope in men. In like manner it issaid that while Jesus Christ was seeking to comfort the comfortless,involuntarily virtue went out of him to strengthen one who did buttouch the hem of his garment. Character works with or without consent.The selfish man fills his office with a malign atmosphere; his verypresence chills like a cold, clammy day. Suspicious people fill allthe circle in which they live with envy and jealousy. Moody mendistribute gloom and depression; hopelessness drains off high spiritsas cold iron draws the heat from the hand. Domineering men provokerebellion and breed endless irritations.

Great hearts there are also among men; they carry a volume of manhood;their presence is sunshine, their coming changes our climate; they oilthe bearings of life; their shadow always falls behind them; they makeright living easy. Blessed are the happiness-makers!—they representthe best forces in civilization. They are to the heart and home whatthe honeysuckle is to the door over which it clings. These embodiedgospels interpret Christianity. Jenny Lind explains a sheet of printedmusic—and a royal Christian heart explains, and is more than a creed.Little wonder, when Christianity is incarnated in a mother, that theyouth worships her as though she were an angel. Someone has likened achurch full of people to a box of unlighted candles; latent light isthere; if they were only kindled and set burning they would be lightsindeed. What God asks for is luminous Christians and living gospels.

Another form of influence continues after death, and may be calledunconscious immortality or conserved social energy. Personality isorganized into instruments, tools, books, institutions. Over theseforms of activity death and years have no power for destroying. Theswift steamboat and the flying train tell us that Watt and Stephensonare still toiling for men. Every foreign cablegram reminds us thatCyrus Field has just returned home. The merchant who organizes a greatbusiness sends down to the generations his personality, prudence,wisdom and executive skill. The names of inventors may now be onmoldering tombstones, but their busy fingers are still weaving warmtextures for the world's poor. The gardener of Hampton court, who, inold age, wished to do yet one more helpful deed, and planted with elmsand oaks the roadway leading to the historic house, still lives inthose columnar trees, and all the long summer through distributescomfort and refreshment. Every man who opens up a roadway into thewilderness; every engineer throwing a bridge over icy rivers for wearytravelers; every builder rearing abodes of peace, happiness andrefinement for his generation; every smith forging honest plates thathold great ships in time of storm, every patriot that redeems his landwith blood; every martyr forgotten and dying in his dungeon thatfreedom might never perish; every teacher and discoverer who has goneinto lands of fever and miasma to carry liberty, intelligence andreligion to the ignorant, still walks among men, working for societyand is unconsciously immortal.

This is fame. Life hath no holier ambition. Some there are who,denied opportunity, have sought out those ambitious to learn, and,educating them, have sent their own personality out through artists,jurists or authors they have trained. Herein is the test of thegreatness of editor or statesman or merchant. He has so incarnated hisideas or methods in his helpers that, while his body is one, his spirithas many-shaped forms; so that his journal, or institution, or partyfeels no jar nor shock in his death, but moves quietly forward becausehe is still here living and working in those into whom his spirit isincarnated. Death ends the single life, but our multiplied life inothers survives.

The supreme example of atmosphere and influence is Jesus Christ. Hiswas a force mightier than intellect. Wherever he moved a light ne'erseen on land nor sea shone on man. It was more than eminent beauty orsupreme genius. His scepter was not through cunning of brain or craftof hand; reality was his throne. "Therefore," said Charles Lamb, "ifShakespeare should enter the room we should rise and greet himuncovered, but kneeling meet the Nazarene." His gift cannot be boughtnor commanded; but his secret and charm may be ours. Acceptance,obedience, companionship with him—these are the keys of power. Thelegend is, that so long as the Grecian hero touched the ground, he wasstrong; and measureless the influence of him who ever dwells inChrist's atmosphere. Man grows like those he loves. If great men comein groups, there is always a greater man in the midst of the companyfrom whom they borrowed eminence—Socrates and his disciples; Cromwelland his friends; Coleridge and his company; Emerson and the Bostongroup; high over all the twelve disciples and the Name above everyname. Perchance, in vision-hour, over against the man you are he willshow you the man he would fain have you become; thereby comesgreatness. For value is not in iron, but in the pattern that molds it;beauty is not in the pigments, but in the ideal that blends them;strength is not in the stone or marble, but in the plan of architect;greatness is not in wisdom, nor wealth, nor skill, but in the divineChrist who works up these raw materials of character. Forevermore thesecret of eminence is the secret of the Messiah.

LIFE'S GREAT HEARTS, AND THE HELPFULNESS OF THE HIGHER MANHOOD.

"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves, for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor—
Both thanks and use."—Measure for Measure.

"A man was born, not for prosperity, but to suffer for the benefit ofothers, like the noble rock maple, which, all round our villages,bleeds for the service of man."—Emerson.

"Everything cries out to us that we must renounce. Thou must gowithout, go without! That is the everlasting song which every hour,all our life through, hoarsely sings to us: Die, and come to life; forso long as this is not accomplished thou art but a troubled guest uponan earth of gloom."—Goethe.

CHAPTER II.

LIFE'S GREAT HEARTS, AND THE HELPFULNESS OF THE HIGHER MANHOOD.

The oases in the Arabian desert lie under the lee of long ridges ofrock. The high cliffs extending from north to south are barriersagainst the drifting sand. Standing on the rocky summit the seerIsaiah beheld a sea whose yellow waves stretched to the very horizon.By day the winds were still, for the pitiless Asiatic sun made thedesert a furnace whose air rose upward. But when night falls the windrises. Then the sand begins to drift. Soon every object lies buriedunder yellow flakes. Anon, sandstorms arise. Then the sole hope forman is to fall upon his face; the sky rains bullets. Then appears theministry of the rocks. They stay the drifting sand. To the yellow seathey say: "Thus far, but no farther." Desolation is held back. Soonthe land under the lee of the rocks becomes rich. It is fed by springsthat seep out of the cliffs. It becomes a veritable oasis with figsand olives and vineyards and aromatic shrubs. Here dwell the sheik andhis flocks. Hither come the caravans seeking refreshment. In all theOrient no spot so beautiful as the oasis under the shadow of the rocks.Long centuries ago, while Isaiah rejoiced under the beneficent ministryof these cliffs, his thoughts went out from dead rocks to living men.In his vision he saw good men as Great Hearts, to whom crowded closethe weak and ignorant, seeking protection. Sheltered thereby barrenlives were nourished into bounty and beauty. With leaping heart andstreaming eyes he cried out; "O, what a desert is life but for theministry of the higher manhood! To what shall I liken a good man? Aman shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; a shelterin the time of storm!"

Optimists always, we believe God's world is a good world. Joy is morethan sorrow; happiness outweighs misery; the reasons for living aremore numerous than the reasons against it. But let the candid mindconfess that life hath aspects very desert-like. Today prosperitygrows like a fruitful tree; to-morrow adversity's hot winds witherevery leaf. God plants companion, child, or friend in the life-garden;but death blasts the tree under which the soul finds shelter; thenbegins the desert pilgrimage. Soon comes loss of health; then thewealth of Croesus availeth not for refreshing sleep, and the wisdom ofSolomon is vanity and vexation of spirit. The common people, too, knowblight and blast; their life is full of mortal toil and strife, itsfruitage grief and pain. Temptations and evil purposes are the chiefblights. When the fiery passion hath passed the soul is like a cityswept by a conflagration. Each night we go before the judgment seat.Reason hears the case; memory gives evidence; conscience convicts, eachfaculty goes to the left; self-respect pushes us out of paradise intothe desert; and the angels of our better nature guard the gates withflaming swords.

A journey among men is like a journey through some land after thecyclone has made the village a heap and the harvest fields a waste. Anoutlook upon the generations reminds us of a highway along which theretreating army has passed, leaving abandoned guns and silent cannonwith men dead and dying. Travelers from tropical Mexico describeruined cities and lovely villages away from which civilized menjourney, leaving temples and terraced gardens to moss and ivy. Thedeserted valleys are rich in tropic fruits and the climate soft andgentle. Yet Aztecs left the garden to journey northward into thedeserts of Arizona and New Mexico. Often for the soul paradise is notbefore, but behind.

Shakespeare condenses all this in "King Lear." Avarice closes thepalace doors against the white-haired King. Greed pushes him into thenight to wander o'er the wasted moor, an exiled king, uncrowned anduncared for. In such hours garden becomes desert. This is the dramaof man's life. The soul thirsts for sympathy. It hungers for love.Baffled and broken it seeks a great heart. For the pilgrim multitudesMoses was the shadow on a great rock in a weary land. For poor, huntedDavid, Jonathan was a covert in time of storm. Savonarola, Luther,Cromwell sheltered perishing multitudes. Solitary in the midst of thevale in which death will soon dig a grave for each of us stands theimmortal Christ, "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

That Infinite Being who hath made man in his own image hath endowed thesoul with full power to transform the desert into an oasis. The soulcarries wondrous implements. It is given to reason to carry fertilitywhere ignorance and fear and superstition have wrought desolation. Itis given to inventive skill to search out wellsprings and smite rocksinto living water. It is given to affection to hive sweetness likehoneycombs. It is given to wit and imagination to produce perpetualjoy and gladness. It is given to love in the person of a Duff, aJudson, and a Xavier to transform dark continents. Great is the powerof love! "No abandoned boy in the city, no red man in the mountains,no negro in Africa can resist its sweet solicitude. It undermines likea wave, it rends like an earthquake, it melts like a fire, it inspireslike music, it binds like a chain, it detains like a good story, itcheers like a sunbeam." No other power is immeasurable. For thingshave only partial influence over living men. Forests, fields, skies,tools, occupations, industries—these all stop in the outer court ofthe soul. It is given to affection alone to enter the sacred innerprecincts. But once the good man comes his power is irresistible.Witness Arnold among the schoolboys at Rugby. Witness Garibaldi andhis peasant soldiers. Witness the Scottish chief and his devoted clan.Witness artist pupils inflamed by their masters. What a noble group isthat headed by Horace Mann, Garrison, Phillips and Lincoln! GeneralBooth belongs to a like group. What a ministry of mercy and fertilityand protection have these great hearts wrought! Great hearts become ashelter in time of storm.

All social reforms begin with some great heart. Much now is being saidof the destitution in the poorer districts of great cities. Dante sawa second hell deeper than hell itself. Each great modern city hath itsinferno. Here dwell costermongers, rag-pickers and street-cleaners;here the sweater hath his haunts. Huge rookeries and tenements, whoseevery brick exudes filth, teem with miserable folk. Each room has oneor more families, from the second cellar at the bottom to the garret atthe top. No greensward, no park, no blade of grass. Whole districtsare as bare of beauty as an enlarged ash-heap. Here children are"spawned, not born, and die like flies." Here men and women growbitter. Here anarchy grows rank. And to such a district in one greatcity has gone a man of the finest scholarship and the highest position,to become the friend of the poor. With him is his bosom friend, havingwealth and culture, with pictures, marbles and curios. Every afternoonthey invite several hundred poor women to spend an hour in theconservatory among the flowers. Every evening with stereopticon theytake a thousand boys or men upon a journey to Italy or Egypt or Japan.The kindergartens, public schools and art exhibits cause these womenand children to forget for a time their misery. One hour daily isredeemed from sorrow to joy by beautiful things and kindlysurroundings. Love and sympathy have sheltered them from life's fierceheat. Bitter lives are slowly being sweetened. Springs are beingopened in the desert. These great hearts have become "the shadow of agreat rock in a weary land."

The Russian reformer, novelist and philanthropist, had an experiencethat profoundly influenced his career. Famine had wrought greatsuffering in Russia. One day the good poet passed a beggar on thestreet corner. Stretching out gaunt hands, with blue lips and wateryeyes, the miserable creature asked an alms. Quickly the author feltfor a copper. He turned his pockets inside out. He was without purseor ring or any gift. Then the kind man took the beggar's hand in bothof his and said: "Do not be angry with me, brother, I have nothing withme!" The gaunt face lighted up; the man lifted his bloodshot eyes; hisblue lips parted in a smile. "But you called me brother—that was agreat gift." Returning an hour later he found the smile he had kindledstill lingered on the beggar's face. His body had been cold; kindnesshad made his heart warm. The good man was as a covert in time ofstorm. History and experience exhibit now and then a man as unyieldingas rock in friendships. Years ago a gifted youth began his literarycareer. Wealth, travel, friends, all good gifts were his. One day afriend handed him a telegram containing news of his father's death.Then the mother faded away. The youth was alone in the world. In thathour evil companions gathered around him. They spoiled him of hisfresh innocency. They taught the delicate boy to listen to salacitywithout blushing. Soon coarse quips and rude jests ceased to shockhim. He thought to "see life" by seeing the wrecks of manhood andwomanhood. But does one study architecture by visiting hovels andsqualid cabins? Is not studying architecture seeing the finestmansions and galleries and cathedrals? So to see life is to seemanhood at its best and womanhood when carried up to culture and beauty.

Wasting his fortune this youth wasted also his friendships. One manloved him for his father's sake. For several years every Saturdaynight witnessed this man of oak and rock going from den to den lookingfor his old friend's boy. One day he wrote the youth a letter tellinghim, whether or not he found him, so long as he lived he would belooking for him every Saturday night in hope of redeeming him again tointegrity. What nothing else could do love did. Kindness wrought itsmiracle. Clasping hands the man and boy climbed back again to theheights. At first the integrity was at best a poor, sickly plant. Buthis friend was a refuge in time of storm. A good man became the shadowof a great rock in life's weary land.

Our age is specially interested in the relation of happiness to thestreet, the market and counting-room. We have not yet acknowledged theresponsibility of strength. Not always have our giant minds confessedthe debt of power to weakness; the debt of wisdom to ignorance; thedebt of wealth to poverty; the debt of holiness to iniquity. JesusChrist was the first to incarnate this principle. By so much as theparent is wiser than the babe for building a protecting shield forhappiness and well-being, by that much is the mother indebted to herbabe. Why is one man more successful than another in the street'sfierce conflict? Because he has more resources; is prudent, thrifty,quick to seize upon opportunity, sagacious, keen of judgment. Allthese qualities are birth-gifts. The ancestral foothills slope upwardtoward the mountain-minded. And what do these distinguished mentalqualities involve?

Recognizing the responsibility of men of leisure and wealth, JohnRuskin said: "Shall one by breadth and sweep of sight gather somebranch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb of which heis himself to be the master spider, making every thread vibrate withthe points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the facets ofhis eyes?" Shall the industrial or political giant say: "Here is thepower in my hand; weakness owes me a debt? Build a mound here for meto be throned upon. Come, weave tapestries for my feet that I maytread in silk and purple; dance before me that I may be glad, and singsweetly to me that I may slumber. So shall I live in joy and die inhonor." Rather than such an honorable death, it were better that theday perish wherein such strength was born. Rather let the great mindbecome also the great heart, and stretch out his scepter over the headsof the common people that stoop to its waving. "Let me help you subduethe obstacle that baffled our fathers, and put away the plagues thatconsume our children. Let us together water these dry places; plowthese desert moons; carry this food to those who are in hunger; carrythis light to those who are in darkness; carry this life to those whoare in death."

Superiority is to make erring men unerring and slow minds swift. Then,indeed, comes the better day—pray God it be not far off—when strengthuses its wealth as the net of the sacred fisher to gather souls of menout of the deep.

In overplus of strength we have the measure of a man's greatness.Soul-power is resource for finding and feeding the hidden springs oflife and thought in others. Not all have the same capacity. The Lordof the vineyard still sends into the white fields ten-talent men,two-talent men and one-talent men. Each hath his own task, and eachmust grasp the handle of his own being. Genius is widely distributed.Not many Platos—only one, and then a thousand lesser minds look up tohim and learn to think. Not many Dantes—one, and a thousand poetstune their lyres to his and catch its notes. Not many Raphaels—one,and a thousand aspiring artists look up to him and are lifted by thelook. Not many royal hearts—great magazines of kindness. Few aregreat in heart-power, effulging all sweet and generous qualities.Happy the community blessed with, a few great hearts and a few greatminds. One such will civilize a whole community.

Classic literature charmed our childhood with the story of an Arabiansheik. He dwelt in an oasis near the edge of the desert. Wealth washis, with flocks and herds and wedges of gold. One night sleep forsookhis couch. Yet the gurgle of falling water was in his ear. The odorsof the vineyard were in his nostril; and to-morrow his servants wouldbegin to gather the abundant harvest. Ten miles away ran the track ofthe caravan where his herdsmen had found a traveler dead from thefierce heat of the desert. Yonder the desert and a dying traveler;here an oasis with living water. Then the sheik arose; he bade hisservants fill two leathern water-bottles and bring a basket full offigs and grapes. The next day a caravan came to a booth protecting twowater-bottles sunk in the sand. Beside them were bunches of fruit. Ona roll were these words: "While God gives me life each day shall a manbe—as springs of water in a desert place." This beautiful storyinterprets for us the ministry of the higher manhood, as the greatheart becomes the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

This law of human helpfulness asks each man to carry himself so as tobless and not blight men, to make and not mar them. Besides the greatends of attaining character here and immortality hereafter, we arebound to so administer our talents as to make right living easy andsmooth for others. Happy is he whose soul automatically oils all themachinery of the home, the market and the street. And this ambition tobe universally helpful must not be a transient and occasional one—hereand there an hour's friendship, a passing hint of sympathy, a transientgleam of kindness. Heart helpfulness is to enter into the fundamentalconceptions of our living. With vigilant care man is to expel everyelement that vexes or irritates or chafes just as the husbandman expelsnettles and poison ivy from fruitful gardens.

For nothing is so easily wrecked as the soul. As mechanisms go uptoward complexity, delicacy increases. The fragile vase is ruined by asingle tap. A chance blow destroys the statue. A bit of sand ruinsthe delicate mechanism. But the soul is even more sensitive to injury.It is marred by a word or a look. Men are responsible for the ruinthey work unthinkingly! To-day the engine drops a spark behind it.To-morrow that engine is a thousand miles away. Yet the spark leftbehind is now a column of fire mowing down the forests. And thatdevastating column belongs not to another, but to that engine that hathjourneyed far. Thus the evil man does lives after him. Thecondemnation of life is that a man hath carried friction and stirred upmalign elements and sowed fiery discords, so that the gods track him bythe swath of destruction he hath cut through life. The praise of lifeis that a man hath exhaled bounty and stimulus and joy and gladnesswherever he journeys. To-day noble examples and ten thousand preceptsunite in urging every one to become a great heart. Every individualmust bring together his little group of pilgrim friends, companions,employes, using whatever he has of wisdom and skill for guiding thosewho follow him on their desert march. For happiness is throughhelpfulness. Every morning let us build a booth to shelter someonefrom life's fierce heat. Every noon let us dig some life-spring forthirsty lips. Every night let us be food for the hungry and shelterfor the cold and naked. The law of the higher manhood asks man to be agreat heart, the shadow of a rock in a weary land.

THE INVESTMENT OF TALENT AND ITS RETURN.

"The universal blunder of this world is in thinking that there arecertain persons put into the world to govern and certain others toobey. Everybody is in this world to govern and everybody to obey.There are no benefactors and no beneficiaries in distinct classes.Every man is at once both benefactor and beneficiary. Every good deedyou do you ought to thank your fellowman for giving you an opportunityto do; and they ought to be thankful to you for doing it."—PhillipsBrooks.

"Pity is love and something more; love at its utmost."—T. T. Munger,
"Freedom of Faith."

"The great idea that the Bible is the history of mankind's deliverancefrom all tyranny, outward as well as inward, of the Jews, as the onefree constitutional people among a world of slaves and tyrants, oftheir ruin, as the righteous fruit of a voluntary return to despotism;of the New Testament, as the good news that freedom, brotherhood,equality, once confided only to Judea and to Greece, and dimly seeneven there, was henceforth to be the right of all mankind, the law ofall society—who was there to tell me that? Who is there now to goforth and tell it to the millions who have suffered and doubted anddespaired like me, and turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdomof the just, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come? AgainI ask—who will go forth and preach that gospel and save his nativeland?"—Charles Kingsley, "Alton Locke."

CHAPTER III.

THE INVESTMENT OF TALENT AND ITS RETURN.

In all ages man has been stimulated to sowing by the certainty ofreaping. Tomorrow's sheaves and shoutings support to-day's tearfulsowing. Certainty of victory wins battles before they are fought.Armed with confidence patriots have beaten down stone castles withnaked fists. Uncertainty makes the heart sick, takes nerve out of armand tension out of thought. The mere rumor of war along theborder-lines of nations destroys enterprise and industry. Men will notplow if warhorses are to trample down the ripe grain. Men will notbuild if the enemy are to warm hands over blazing rafters. Why shouldthe husbandman plant vines if others are to wrest away his fruit? Theindividual and the race need the stimulus of hope and a rational basisof security that nothing shall cut the connection between the causessown and the effects to be reaped. Therefore, the divine word: "Sendforth thy gift and talent, and nature and providence shall invest itsecurely and give the talent back with interest and increase."

What a promise for civilization was that of Christ: "Give and it shallbe given unto you!" Let the husbandman give his seed to the furrows;soon the furrows will give back big bundles into the sower's arms. Letthe vintner give the sweat of his brow to the vines; soon the vineswill give back the rich purple floods. Give thy thought, O husbandman!to the wild rice; soon nature will give back the rice plump wheat.Give thyself, O inventor! to the raw ores, and nature will give theethe forceful tools. Give thyself, O reformer! to the desert world;soon the world-desert will be given back a world-garden. Givesparingly to nature, and sparingly shalt thou receive again. Givebountifully, and bounty shall be given back. Give scant thought anddrag but one plank to the stream, and thou shalt receive only a narrowbridge across the brook. Give abundant thought to wires and cables andbuttresses, and nature will give the bridge across the Firth of Forth.Give God thy one talent and, investing it, he returns ten. Give thecup of cold water and thou shalt have rivers of water of life. Sharethy crust and thy cloak, and thou shall have banquet and robe and houseof many mansions. This is the pledge of nature and God: "Give, andgood measure pressed down and shaken together, shalt thou receive ofcelestial reapers." The history of progress is the history of Christ'schallenge and man's response.

Christianity deals in universal. Its principles are not local norracial nor temporary. They are meridian lines taking in all forces,men and movements. Nature, too, saith: "Give and it shall be givenunto you." The sun gives heat to the forests, and afterward theburning coal and tree give heat back to the heavens; the arctics giveicebergs and frigid streams for cooling the fierce tropics, and thetropics give back the warm Gulf Stream. The soil in the spring givesits treasures to the growing tree, and in the autumn the tree gives itsleaves to make the soil richer and deeper. Personal also is thisprinciple. Give thy body food and thy body will give thee mentalstrength. Give thy blow to the ax, and the ax will return the fallentree, with strong tools for thy arm. Give thy brain sleep and rest andthy brain will give thy thought nimbleness. Give thy mind to rocks,and the rock pages will give thee wealth of wisdom. Give thy thoughtto the fire and water, and they will give thee an engine stronger thantamed lions. Give thy scrutiny to the thunderbolt leaping from theeast to the west, and the lightnings shall give themselves back to theeas noiseless and gentle and obedient as the sunlight. Give thy mind tobooks and libraries, and the literature and lore of the ages will givethee the wisdom of sage and seer. Let some hero give his love andself-sacrificing service to the poor in prisons, and society will givehim in return, monuments and grateful memory. Give thy obedience toconscience, and God, whom conscience serves, will give Himself to thee.

Being a natural principle, this law is also spiritual. Standing by hismother's knee each child hears the story of the echo. The boy visitingin the mountains, when he called aloud found that he was mocked by ahidden stranger boy. The insult made him very angry. So he shoutedback insults and epithets. But each of these bad words was returned tohim from the rocks above. With bitter tears the child returned to hismother, who sent him back to give the hidden stranger kind words andaffectionate greetings. Lo! the stranger now echoed back hiskindliness. Thus society echoes back each temperament and each career.Evermore man receives what he first gives to nature and society and God.

History is rich in interpretation of this principle. In every age manhas received from society what he has given to society. This continentlay waiting for ages for the seed of civilization. At length the sowerwent forth to sow. Landing in midwinter upon a bleak coast, thefathers gave themselves to cutting roads, draining swamps, subduinggrasses, rearing villages, until all the land was sown with the goodseed of liberty and Christian civilization. Afterward, when tyrannythreatened liberty, these worthies in defending their institutions gavelife itself. Dying, they bequeathed their treasures to aftergenerations. At length an enemy, darkling, lifted weapons fordestroying. Would these who had received institutions nourished withblood, give life-blood in return? The uprising of 1861 is the answer.Then the people rose as one man, the plow stood in the furrow, thehammer fell from the hand, workroom and college hall were alikedeserted—a half-million men laid down their lives upon many abattle-field. Similarly, the honor given to Washington during theselast few days tells us that the patriot who gives shall receive. Fromthe day when the young Virginian entered the Indian forests withBraddock to the day when he lay dying at Mount Vernon the patriot gavehis health, his wealth, his time, his life, a living sacrifice througheight and forty years. Now every year the people, rising up early andsitting up late, rehearse to their children the story of his life andwork. Having given himself, honor shall he receive through all theages.

To Abraham Lincoln also came the word: "Give and thou shall receive!"Sitting in the White House the President proclaimed equal rights toblack and white. Then, with shouts of joy, three million slavesentered the temple of liberty. But they bore the emancipator upontheir shoulders and enshrined him forever in the temple of fame, wherehe who gave bountifully shall receive bountiful honor through all theages. There, too, in the far-off past stands an uplifted cross.Flinging wide his arms this crowned sufferer sought to lift the worldback to his Father's side. In life he gave his testimony againsthypocrisy, Phariseeism and cruelty. For years he gave himself to thepublican, the sinner, the prodigal, the poor in mind or heart, and socame at length to his pitiless execution. But, having given himself inabandon of love, the world straightway gave itself in return. Everyone of his twelve disciples determined to achieve a violent death forthe Christ who gave himself for them. Paul was beheaded in Rome. Johnwas tortured in Patmos. Andrew and James were crucified in Asia. Therest were mobbed, or stoned, or tortured to death. And as years spedon man kept giving. Multitudes went forth, burning for him in thetropics, freezing for him in the arctics; threading for him the forestpaths, braving for him the swamps, that they might serve his littleones. He gave himself for the world, and the world, in a passion oflove, will yet give itself back to him.

Recently the officials of the commonwealth of Massachusetts and thenoblest citizens of Boston assembled for celebrating the one hundredthanniversary of the birth of George Peabody. For a like purpose thecitizens of London came together in banquet hall. Now, the banker hadlong been dead. Nor did he leave children to keep his name before thepublic. How shall we account for two continents giving him such praiseand fame? George Peabody received from his fellows, because he firstgave to his fellows. To his genius for accumulation he added thegenius of distribution. His large gifts to Harvard and Yale, to Salemand Peabody, made to science and art as well as to philanthropy andreligion, secured perpetual remembrance. When the public credit of theState of Maryland was endangered, he negotiated $8,000,000 in Londonand gave his entire commission of $200,000 back to the State. He whogave $3,500,000 for founding schools and colleges in the South forblack and white, could not but receive honor and praise. Therefore theeulogies pronounced by the legislators in Annapolis. As a banker inLondon he was disturbed by the sorrows of the poor, and for months gavehimself to an investigation of the tenement-house system, developingthe Peabody Tenements, to which he gave $2,500,000, and helped 20,000people to remove from dens into buildings that were light and sweet andwholesome. Therefore when he died in London the English nation thathad received from him gave to him, and, for the first time in history,the gates of Westminster Abbey were thrown open for the funeralservices of a foreigner. Therefore, the Prime Minister of Englandselected the swiftest frigate in the English navy for carrying his bodyback to his native land. His generosity radiated in every direction,not in trickling rivulets, but in copious streams. Bountifully he gaveto men; therefore, through innumerable orations, sermons, editorialsand toasts, men vied with each other in giving praise and honor back toPeabody, the benefactor of the people.

Society, always sensitive to generosity, is equally sensitive toselfishness. He who treats his fellows as so many clusters to besqueezed into his cup, who spoils the world for self aggrandizement,finds at last that he has burglarized his own soul. Here is a man whosays: "Come right, come wrong, I will get gain." Loving ease, helashes himself to unceasing toil by day and night. Needing rest onSunday, he denies himself respite and scourges his jaded body and braininto new activities. Every thought is a thread to be woven into agolden net. He lifts his life to strike as miners lift their picks.He swings his body as harvesters their scythes. He will make himselfan augur for boring, a chisel for drilling, a muck-rake for scratching,if only he may get gain. He will sweat and swelter and burn in thetropics until malaria has made his face as yellow as gold, if therebyhe can fill his purse, and for a like end he will shiver and ache inthe arctics. He will deny his ear music, he will deny his mindculture, he will deny his heart friendship that he may coin concertsand social delights into cash. At length the shortness of breathstartles him; the stoppage of blood alarms him. Then he retires toreceive—what? To receive from nature that which he has given tonature. Once he denied his ear melody, and now taste in return denieshim pleasure. Once he denied his mind books, and now books refuse togive him comfort. Once he denied himself friendship, and now menrefuse him their love. Having received nothing from him, the greatworld has no investment to return to him. Such a life, entering theharbor of old age, is like unto a bestormed ship with empty coal bins,whose crew fed the furnace, first with the cargo and then with thefurniture, and reached the harbor, having made the ship a burned-cutshell. God buries the souls of many men long years before their bodiesare carried to the graveyard.

This principle tells us why nature and society are so prodigal withtreasures to some men and so nigg*rdly to others. What a differentthing a forest is to different men! He who gives the ax receives amast. He who gives taste receives a picture. He who gives imaginationreceives a poem. He who gives faith hears the "goings of God in thetree-tops." The charcoal-burner fronts an oak for finding out how manycords of wood are in it, as the Goths of old fronted peerless templesfor estimating how many huts they could quarry from the statelypile.[1] But an artist curses the woodsman for making the tree foodfor ax and saw. It has become to him as sacred as the cathedral withinwhich he bares his head. It is a temple where birds praise God. It isa harp with endless music for the summer winds. It fills his eye withbeauty and his ear with rustling melodies.

For the poet that selfsame oak is enshrined in a thousand nobleassociations. It sings for him like a hymn; it shines like a vision;it suggests ships, storms and ocean battles; the spear of Launcelot,the forests of Arden; old baronial halls mellow with lights falling onoaken floors; King Arthur's banqueting chamber. To the scientist'sthought the oak is a vital mechanism. By day and by night, the longsummer through, it lifts tons of moisture and forces it into thewide-spreading branches, but without the rattle of huge engines. Withwhat uproar and clang of iron hammers would stones be crushed that aredissolved noiselessly by the rootlets and recomposed in stems andboughs! What a vast laboratory is here, every root and leaf an expertchemist!

For other multitudes the earth has become only a huge stable; its fruitfodder; its granaries ricks, out of which men-cattle feed. Theseestimate a man's value according as he has lifted his ax upon talltrees and ravaged all the loveliness of creation; whose curse is theNebuchadnezzar curse, giving to nature the tongue and hand, andreceiving from nature grass; who are doomed to love the corn theygrind, to hear only the roar of the whirlwind and the crash of thehail, never "the still small voice;" who see what is written inlamp-black and lightning; who think the clouds are for rain, and knownot that they are chariots, thrones and celestial highways; that thesunset means something else than sleep, and the morning suggestssomething other than work. All these give nature only thought forfood, and food only shall they receive from nature, until all theirdeeds are plowed down in dust. Give forth thy gift, young men andmaidens, and according as thou givest thou shalt receive fruit, orpicture, or poem, or temple, or ladder let down from heaven, or angelaspirations going up.

Conscience also receives its gifts and makes a return. Give thy bodyobedience and it will return happiness and health. Give overdrafts andexcesses and it will return sleepless nights and suffering days. Man'ssins are seeds, his sufferings harvests. Every action is embryonic,and according as it is right or wrong will ripen into sweet fruits ofpleasure or poison fruits of pain. Some seeds hold two germs; and viceand penalty are wrapped up under one covering. Sins areself-registering and penalties are automatic. The brain keeps a doubleset of books, and at last visits its punishments. Conscience does notwait for society to ferret out iniquity, but daily executes judgment.Policemen may slumber and the judge may nod, but the nerves are alwaysactive, memory never sleeps, conscience is never off duty. The recoilof the gun bruises black the shoulder of him who holds it, and sin is aweapon that kills at both ends.

In the olden days, when the poisoner was in every palace, the Doge ofVenice offered a reward for a crystal goblet that would break themoment a poison touched it. Perhaps the idea was suggested to thePrince because his soul already fulfilled the thought, for one drop ofsin always shatters the cup of joy and wastes life's precious wine.How do events interpret this principle! One day Louis, King of France,was riding in the forest near his gorgeous and guilty palace ofVersailles. He met a peasant carrying a coffin. "What did the man dieof?" asked the King. "Of hunger," answered the peasant. But the soundof the hunt was in the King's ear, and he forgot the cry of want. Soonthe day came when the King stood before the guillotine, and with muteappeals for mercy fronted a mob silent as statues, unyielding as stone,grimly waiting to dip the ends of their pikes in regal blood. He gavecold looks; he received cold steel.

Marie Antoinette, riding to Notre Dame for her bridal, bade hersoldiers command all beggars, cripples and ragged people to leave theline of the procession. The Queen could not endure for a brief momentthe sight of those miserable ones doomed to unceasing squalor andpoverty. What she gave others she received herself, for soon, bound inan executioner's cart, she was riding toward the place of executionmidst crowds who gazed upon her with hearts as cold as ice and hard asgranite. When Foulon was asked how the starving populace was to livehe answered: "Let them eat grass." Afterward, Carlyle says, the mob,maddened with rage, "caught him in the streets of Paris, hanged him,stuck his head upon a pike, filled his mouth with grass, amid shouts asof Tophet from a grass-eating people." What kings and princes gavethey received. This is the voice of nature and conscience: "Behold,sin crouches at the door!"

This divine principle also explains man's attitude toward his fellows.The proverb says man makes his own world. Each sees what is inhimself, not what is outside. The jaundiced eye yellows all itbeholds. The chameleon takes its color from the bark on which itclings. Man gives his color to what his thought is fastened upon. Thepessimist's darkness makes all things dingy. The youth disappointedwith his European trip said he was a fool for going. He was, for thereason that he was a fool before he started. He saw nothing without,because he had no vision within. He gave no sight, he received novision. An artist sees in each Madonna that which compels a rude mobto uncover in prayer, but the savage perceives only a colored canvas.Recently a foreign traveler, writing of his impressions of our city,described it to his fellows as a veritable hades. But his fellowcountryman, in a similar volume, recorded his impressions of our art,architecture and interest in education. Each saw that for which helooked.

This principle explains man's attitude toward his God. God governsrocks by force, animals by fear, savage man by force and fear, true menby hope and love. Man can take God at whatsoever level he pleases. Hewho by beastliness turns his body into a log will be held by gravity inone spot like a log. He who lives on a level with the animals willreceive fear and law and lightnings. He who approaches God throughlaws of light and heat and electricity will find the world-throneoccupied by an infinite Agassiz. Some approach God through physicalsenses. They behold his storms sinking ships, his tornadoes mowingdown forests. These find him a huge Hercules; yet the Judge who seemscruel to the wicked criminal may seem the embodiment of gentleness andkindness to his obedient children. Man determines what God shall be tohim. Each paints his own picture of Deity. Macbeth sees him withforked lightnings without and volcanic fires within. The pure in heartsee him as the face of all-clasping Love. Give him thy heart and hewill give thee love, effulgent love, like the affection of mother orlover or friend, only dearer than either. Give him thy ways, and hewill overarch life's path as the heavens overarch the flowers, fillingthem with heat by day and yielding cooling dews by night. Give him buta flickering aspiration and he will give thee balm for the bruised reedand flame for the smoking flax. Give him the publican's prayer and hewill give thee mercy like the wideness of the sea. Give his littleones but a cup of cold water and he will give thee to drink of thewater of the river of life and bring thee to the banquet hall in thehouse of many mansions.

[1] Mod. Ptrs., Vol. 5, Chap. 1. The Earth—Veil Star papers: A WalkAmong Trees.

VICARIOUS LIVES AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS.

"Only he that uses shall even so much as keep. Unemployed strengthsteadily diminishes. The sluggard's arm grows soft and flabby. So,even in this lowest sphere, the law is inexorable. Having is using.Not using is losing. Idleness is paralysis. New triumphs must onlydictate new struggles. If it be Alexander of Macedon, the Orontes mustsuggest the Euphrates, and the Euphrates the Indus. Always it must beon and on. One night of rioting in Babylon may arrest the conqueringmarch. Genius is essentially athletic, resolute, aggressive,persistent. Possession is grip, that tightens more and more. Ceasingto gain, we begin to lose. Ceasing to advance, we begin to retrograde.Brief was the interval between Roman conquest of Barbarians, andBarbarian conquest of Rome. Blessed is the man who keeps out of thehospital and holds his place in the ranks. Blessed the man, the lasttwang of whose bow-string is as sharp as any that went before, sendingits arrow as surely to the mark."—Roswell W. Hitchco*ck.

CHAPTER IV.

VICARIOUS LIVES AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS.

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called the picture-gallery ofheroes. These patriots and martyrs who won our first battles forliberty and religion made nobleness epidemic. Oft stoned and mobbed inthe cities they founded and loved, they fled into exile, where theywandered in deserts and mountains and caves and slept in the holes ofthe earth. Falling at last in the wilderness, it may be said that noman knoweth their sepulcher and none their names. But joyfully let usconfess that the institutions most eminent and excellent in our dayrepresent the very principles for which these martyrs died and, dying,conquered. For those heroes were the first to dare earth's despots.They won the first victory over every form of vice and sin. They wovethe first threads of the flag of liberty and made it indeed the bannerof the morning, for they dyed it crimson in their heart's-blood. Inall the history of freedom there is no chapter comparable for a momentto the glorious achievements of these men of oak and rock. Their deedsshine on the pages of history like stars blazing in the night and theirachievements have long been celebrated in song and story. "The angelsof martyrdom and victory," says Mazzini, "are brothers; both extendprotecting wings over the cradle of the future life."

Sometimes it has happened that the brave deed of a single patriot hasrallied wavering hosts, flashed the lightning through the centuries,and kindled whole nations into a holy enthusiasm. The opposing legionsof soldiers and inquisitors went down before the heroism of the earlychurch as darkness flees before the advancing sunshine. Societyadmires the scholar, but man loves the hero. Wisdom shines, butbravery inspires and lifts. Though centuries have passed, these nobledeeds still nourish man's bravery and endurance. It was not given tothese leaders to enter into the fruits of their labors. Vicariouslythey died. With a few exceptions, their very names remain unknown.But let us hasten to confess that their vicarious suffering stayed theonset of despotism and achieved our liberty. They ransomed us fromserfdom and bought our liberty with a great price. Compared to those,our bravest deeds do seem but brambles to the oaks at whose feet theygrow.

Having made much of the principles of the solidarity of society,science is now engaged in emphasizing the principle of vicariousservice and suffering. The consecrated blood of yesterday is seen tobe the social and spiritual capital of to-day. Indeed, the civil,intellectual and religious freedom and hope of our age are only themoral courage and suffering of past ages, reappearing under new andresplendent forms. The social vines that shelter us, the civic boughwhose clusters feed us, all spring out of ancient graves. The redcurrents of sacrifice and the tides of the heart have nourished thesesocial growths and made their blossoms crimson and brilliant. Norcould these treasures have been gained otherwise. Nature grants nofree favors. Every wise law, institution and custom must be paid forwith corresponding treasure. Thought itself takes toll from the brain.To be loved is good, indeed; but love must be paid for with toil,endurance, sacrifice—fuel that feeds love's flame.

Generous giving to-day is a great joy; but it is made possible only byyears of thrift and economy. The wine costs the clusters. The linencosts the flax. The furniture costs the forests. The heat in thehouse costs the coal in the cellar. Wealth costs much toil and sweatby day. Wisdom costs much study and long vigils by night. Leadershipcosts instant and untiring pains and service. Character costs thelong, fierce conflict with vice and sin. When Keats, walking in therose garden, saw the ground under the bushes all covered with pinkpetals, he exclaimed; "Next year the roses should be very red!" WhenAeneas tore the bough from the myrtle tree, Virgil says the tree exudedblood. But this is only a poet's way of saying that civilization is atree that is nourished, not by rain and snow, but by the tears andblood of the patriots and prophets of yesterday.

Fortunately, in manifold ways, nature and life witness to theuniversality of vicarious service and suffering. Indeed, the verybasis of the doctrine of evolution is the fact that the life of thehigher rests upon the death of the lower. The astronomers tell us thatthe sun ripens our harvests by burning itself up. Each golden sheaf,each orange bough, each bunch of figs, costs the sun thousands of tonsof carbon. Geike, the geologist, shows us that the valleys grow richand deep with soil through the mountains, growing bare and beingdenuded of their treasure. Beholding the valleys of France and theplains of Italy all gilded with corn and fragrant with deep grass,where the violets and buttercups wave and toss in the summer wind,travelers often forget that the beauty of the plains was bought, at agreat price, by the bareness of the mountains. For these mountains arein reality vast compost heaps, nature's stores of powerful stimulants.Daily the heat swells the flakes of granite; daily the frost splitsthem; daily the rains dissolve the crushed stone into an impalpabledust; daily the floods sweep the rich mineral foods down into thestarving valleys. Thus the glory of the mountains is not alone theirmajesty of endurance, but also their patient, passionate beneficence asthey pour forth all their treasures to feed richness to the pastures,to wreathe with beauty each distant vale and glen, to nourish allwaving harvest fields. This death of the mineral is the life of thevegetable.

If now we descend from the mountains to explore the secrets of the sea,Maury and Guyot show us the isles where palm trees wave and man buildshis homes and cities midst rich tropic fruits. There scientists findthat the coral islands were reared above the waves by myriads of livingcreatures that died vicariously that man might live. And everywherenature exhibits the same sacrificial principle. Our treasures of coalmean that vast forests have risen and fallen again for our factoriesand furnaces. Nobody is richer until somebody is poorer. Evermore thevicarious exchange is going on. The rock decays and feeds the moss andlichen. The moss decays to feed the shrub. The shrub perishes thatthe tree may have food and growth. The leaves of the tree fall thatit* boughs may blossom and bear fruit. The seeds ripen to serve thebirds singing in all the boughs. The fruit falls to be food for man.The harvests lend man strength for his commerce, his government, hisculture and conscience. The lower dies vicariously that the higher maylive. Thus nature achieves her gifts only through vast expenditures.

It is said that each of the new guns for the navy costs $100,000. Butthe gun survives only a hundred explosions, so that every shot costs$1,000. Tyndall tells us that each drop of water sheathes electricpower sufficient to charge 100,000 Leyden jars and blow the Houses ofParliament to atoms. Farraday amazes us by his statement of the energyrequired to embroider a violet or produce a strawberry. To untwist thesunbeam and extract the rich strawberry red, to refine the sugar, andmix its flavor, represents heat sufficient to run an engine fromLiverpool to London or from Chicago to Detroit. But because naturedoes her work noiselessly we must not forget that each of her giftsalso involves tremendous expenditure.

This law of vicarious service holds equally in the intellectual world.The author buys his poem or song with his life-blood. While travelingnorth from London midst a heavy snow-storm, Lord Bacon descended fromhis coach to stuff a fowl with snow to determine whether or not icewould preserve flesh. With his life the philosopher purchased for usthe principle that does so much to preserve our fruits and foodsthrough the summer's heat and lend us happiness and comfort. AndPascal, whose thoughts are the seeds that have sown many a mental lifewith harvests, bought his splendid ideas by burning up his brain. Theprofessors who guided and loved him knew that the boy would soon begone, just as those who light a candle in the evening know that thelight, burning fast, will soon flicker out in the deep socket. One ofour scientists foretells the time when, by the higher mathematics, itwill be possible to compute how many brain cells must be torn down toearn a given sum of money; how much vital force each Sir William Jonesmust give in exchange for one of his forty languages and dialects; whatpercentage of the original vital force will be consumed in experiencingeach new pleasure, or surmounting each new pain; how much nervetreasure it takes to conquer each temptation or endure eachself-sacrifice. Too often society forgets that the song, law or reformhas cost the health and life of the giver. Tradition says that,through much study, the Iliad cost Homer his eyes. There is strangemeaning in the fact that Dante's face was plowed deep with study andsuffering and written all over with the literature of sorrow.

To gain his vision of the hills of Paradise, Milton lost his vision ofearth's beauteous sights and scenes. In explanation of the early deathof Raphael and Burns, Keats and Shelley, it has been said that fewgreat men who are poor have lived to see forty. They bought theirgreatness with life itself. A few short years ago there lived in awestern state a boy who came up to his young manhood with a great, deeppassion for the plants and shrubs. While other boys loved the din andbustle of the city, or lingered long in the library, or turned eagerfeet toward the forum, this youth plunged into the fields and forests,and with a lover's passion for his noble mistress gave himself to rootsand seeds and flowers. While he was still a child he would tell onwhat day in March the first violet bloomed; when the first snowdropcame, and, going back through his years, could tell the very day inspring when the first robin sang near his window. Soon the boy'scollection of plants appealed to the wonder of scholars. A littlelater students from foreign countries began to send him strange flowersfrom Japan and seeds from India. One midnight while he was lingeringo'er his books, suddenly the white page before him was as red with hislife-blood as the rose that lay beside his hand. And when, after twoyears in Colorado, friends bore his body up the side of the mountainshe so dearly loved, no scholar in all our land left so full acollection and exposition of the flowers of that distant state as didthis dying boy. His study and wisdom made all to be his debtors. Buthe bought his wisdom with thirty years of health and happiness. We arerich only because the young scholar, with his glorious future, for oursakes made himself poor.

Our social treasure also is the result of vicarious service andsuffering. Sailing along the New England coasts, one man's craftstrikes a rock and goes to the bottom. But where his boat sank therethe state lifts a danger signal, and henceforth, avoiding that rock,whole fleets are saved. One traveler makes his way through the forestand is lost. Afterward other pilgrims avoid that way. Experimentingwith the strange root or acid or chemical, the scholar is poisoned anddies. Taught by his agonies, others learn to avoid that danger.

Only a few centuries ago the liberty of thought was unknown. All lipswere padlocked. The public criticism of a baron meant the confiscationof the peasant's land; the criticism of the pope meant the dungeon; thecriticism of the king meant death. Now all are free to think forthemselves, to sift all knowledge and public teachings, to cast awaythe chaff and to save the precious wheat. But to buy this freedomblood has flowed like rivers and tears have been too cheap to count.

To achieve these two principles, called liberty of thought and libertyof speech, some four thousand battles have been fought. In exchange,therefore, for one of these principles of freedom and happiness,society has paid—not cash down, but blood down; vital treasure forstaining two thousand battle-fields. To-day the serf has entered intocitizenship and the slave into freedom, but the pathway along which theslave and serf have moved has been over chasms filled with the bodiesof patriots and hills that have been leveled by heroes' hands. Why arethe travelers through the forests dry and warm midst falling rains?Why are sailors upon all seas comfortable under their rubber coats?Warm are they and dry midst all storms, because for twenty yearsGoodyear, the discoverer of India rubber, was cold and wet and hungry,and at last, broken-hearted, died midst poverty.

Why is Italy cleansed of the plagues that devastated her cities ahundred years ago? Because John Howard sailed on an infected ship fromConstantinople to Venice, that he might be put into a lazaretto andfind out the clew to that awful mystery of the plague and stay itspower. How has it come that the merchants of our western ports sendships laden with implements for the fields and conveniences for thehouse into the South Sea Islands? Because such men as Patteson, thepure-hearted, gallant boy of Eton College, gave up every prospect inEngland to labor amid the Pacific savages and twice plunged into thewaters of the coral reefs, amid sharks and devil-fish and stingingjellies, to escape the flight of poisoned arrows of which the slightestgraze meant horrible death, and in that high service died by the clubsof the very savages whom he had often risked his life to save—thememory of whose life did so smite the consciences of his murderers thatthey laid "the young martyr in an open boat, to float away over thebright blue waves, with his hands crossed, as if in prayer, and a palmbranch on his breast." And there, in the white light, he lies now,immortal forever.

And why did the representatives of five great nations come together todestroy the slave trade in Africa, and from every coast come thecolumns of light to journey toward the heart of the dark continent andrim all Africa around with little towns and villages that glow likelighthouses for civilization? Because one day Westminster Abbey wascrowded with the great men of England, in the midst of whom stood twoblack men who had brought Livingstone's body from the jungles ofAfrica. There, in the great Abbey, faithful Susi told of the hero who,worn thin as parchment through thirty attacks of the African fever,refused Stanley's overtures, turned back toward Ulala, made his ninthattempt to discover the head-waters of the Nile and search out thesecret lairs of the slave-dealers, only to die in the forest, with nowhite man near, no hand of sister or son to cool his fevered brow orclose his glazing eyes. Faithful to the last to that which had beenthe great work of his life, he wrote these words with dying hand: "AllI can add in my solitude is, may heaven's rich blessings come down onevery one who would help to heal this open sore of the world!" Why wasit that in the ten years after Livingstone's death, Africa made greateradvancement than in the previous ten centuries? All the world knowsthat it was through the vicarious suffering of one of Scotland'snoblest heroes. And why is it that Curtis says that there are threeAmerican orations that will live in history—Patrick Henry's atWilliamsburg, Abraham Lincoln's at Gettysburg and Wendell Philips' atFaneuil Hall? A thousand martyrs to liberty lent eloquence to Henry'slips; the hills of Gettysburg, all billowy with our noble dead, exhaledthe memories that anointed Lincoln's lips; while Lovejoy's spirit,newly martyred at Alton, poured over Wendell Phillips' nature the fulltides of speech divine. Vicarious suffering explains each of theseimmortal scenes.

Long, too, the scroll of humble heroes whose vicarious services haveexalted our common life. Recognizing this principle, Cicero built amonument to his slave, a Greek, who daily read aloud to his master,took notes of his conversation, wrote out his speeches and so lent theorator increased influence and power. Scott also makes one of hischaracters bestow a gift upon an aged servant. For, said the warrior,no master can ever fully recompense the nurse who cares for hischildren, or the maid who supplies their wants. To-day each giant ofthe industrial realm is compassed about with a small army of men whostand waiting to carry out his slightest behests, relieve him ofdetails, halve his burdens, while at the same time doubling his joysand rewards. Lifted up in the sight of the entire community the greatman stands on a lofty pedestal builded out of helpers and aids. Andthough here and now the honors and successes all go to the one giant,and his assistants are seemingly obscure and unrecognized, hereafterand there honors will be evenly distributed, and then how will thegreat man's position shrink and shrivel!

Here also are the parents who loved books and hungered for beauty, yetin youth were denied education and went all their life throughconcealing a secret hunger and ambition, but who determined that theirchildren should never want for education. That the boy, therefore,might go to college, these parents rose up early to vex the soil andsat up late to wear their fingers thin, denying the eye beauty, denyingthe taste and imagination their food, denying the appetite itspleasures. And while they suffer and wane the boy in college growswise and strong and waxing great, comes home to find the parentsoverwrought with service and ready to fall on death, having offered avicarious sacrifice of love.

And here are our own ancestors. Soon our children now lying in thecradles of our state will without any forethought of theirs fall heirto this rich land with all its treasures material—houses andvineyards, factories and cities; with all its treasures mental—libraryand gallery, school and church, institutions and customs. But withwhat vicarious suffering were these treasures purchased! For us ourfathers subdued the continents and the kingdoms, wrought freedom,stopped the mouths of wolves, escaped the sword of savages, turned toflight armies of enemies, subdued the forests, drained the swamps,planted vineyards, civilized savages, reared schoolhouses, buildedchurches, founded colleges. For four generations they dwelt in cabins,wore sheepskins and goatskins, wandered about exploring rivers andforests and mines, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, because oftheir love of liberty, and for the slave's sake were slain with thesword—of whom this generation is not worthy. "And these all died nothaving received the promise," God having reserved that for us to whomit has been given to fall heir to the splendid achievements of ourChristian ancestors.

And what shall we more say, save only to mention those whose earlydeath as well as life was vicarious? What an enigma seems the careerof those cut off while yet they stand upon life's threshold! How proudthey made our hearts, standing forth all clothed with beauty, healthand splendid promise! What a waste of power, what a robbery of love,seemed their early death! But slowly it has dawned upon us that thefootsteps that have vanished walk with us more frequently than do ournearest friends. And the sound of the voice that is still instructs usin our dreams as no living voice ever can. The invisible children andfriends are the real children. Their memory is a golden cord bindingus to God's throne, and drawing us upward into the kingdom of light.Absent, they enrich us as those present cannot. And so the child whosmiled upon us and then went away, the son and the daughter whosetalents blossomed here to bear fruit above, the sweet mother's face,the father's gentle spirit—their going it was that set open the doorof heaven and made on earth a new world. These all lived vicariouslyfor us, and vicariously they died!

No deeply reflective nature, therefore, will be surprised that thevicarious principle is manifest in the Savior of the soul. Rejectingall commercial theories, all judicial exchanges, all imputations ofcharacters, let us recognize the universality of this principle. Godis not at warfare with himself. If he uses the vicarious principle inthe realm of matter he will use it in the realm of mind and heart. Itis given unto parents to bear not only the weakness of the child, butalso his ignorance, his sins—perhaps, at last, his very crimes. Butnature counts it unsafe to permit any wrong to go unpunished. Naturefinds it dangerous to allow the youth to sin against brain or nerve ordigestion without visiting sharp penalties upon the offender. Fireburns, acids eat, rocks crush, steam scalds—always, always.Governments also find it unsafe to blot out all distinctions betweenthe honest citizen and the vicious criminal. The taking no notice ofsin keeps iniquity in good spirits, belittles the sanctity of law andblurs the conscience.

With God also penalties are warnings. His punishments are thornhedges, safeguarding man from the thorns and thickets where serpentsbrood, and forcing his feet back into the ways of wisdom and peace.For man's integrity and happiness, therefore, conscience smites and issmiting unceasingly. Therefore, Eugene Aram dared not trust himselfout under the stars at night, for these stars were eyes that blazed andblazed and would not relent. But why did not the murderer, EugeneAram, forgive himself? When Lady Macbeth found that the water in thebasin would not wash off the red spots, but would "the multitudinousseas incarnadine," why did not Macbeth and his wife forgive each other?Strange, passing strange, that Shakespeare thought volcanic fireswithin and forked lightning without were but the symbols of the stormthat breaks upon the eternal orb of each man's soul. If David cannotforgive himself, if Peter cannot forgive Judas, who can forgive sins?"Perhaps the gods may," said Plato to Socrates. "I do not know,"answered the philosopher. "I do not know that it would be safe for thegods to pardon." So the poet sends Macbeth out into the black nightand the blinding storm to be thrown to the ground by forces that twistoff trees and hiss among the wounded boughs and bleeding branches.

For poor Jean Valjean, weeping bitterly for his sins, while he watchedthe boy play with the buttercups and prayed that God would give him,the red and horny-handed criminal, to feel again as he felt when hepressed his dewy cheek against his mother's knee—for Jean Valjean isthere no suffering friend, no forgiving heart? Is there no bosom wherepoor Magdalene can sob out her bitter confession? What if God were thesoul's father! What if he too serves and suffers vicariously! What ifhis throne is not marble but mercy! What if nature and life do butinterpret in the small this divine principle existing in the large inhim who is infinite! [1] What if Calvary is God's eternal heartache,manifest in time! What if, sore-footed and heavy-hearted, bruised withmany a fall, we should come back to the old home, from which once wefled away, gay and foolish prodigals! The time was when, as small boysand girls, with blinding tears, we groped toward the mother's bosom andsobbed out our bitter pain and sorrow with the full story of our sin.What if the form on Calvary were like the king of eternity, toiling upthe hill of time, his feet bare, his locks all wet with the dew ofnight, while he cries: "Oh, Absalom! my son, my son, Absalom!" What ifwe are Absalom, and have hurt God's heart! Reason staggers. Groping,trusting, hoping, we fall blindly on the stairs that slope throughdarkness up to God. But, falling, we fall into the arms of Him whohath suffered vicariously for man from the foundation of the world.

[1] Eternal Atonement, p. 11.

GENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.

"Paul says: 'I am a debtor.' But what had he received from the Greeksthat he was bound to pay back? Was he a disciple of their philosophy?He was not. Had he received from their bounty in the matter of art?No. One of the most striking things in history is the fact that Paulabode in Athens and wrote about it, without having any impression madeupon his imaginative mind, apparently, by its statues, its pictures orits temples. The most gorgeous period of Grecian art poured its lighton his path, and he never mentioned it. The New Testament is as deadto art-beauty as though it had been written by a hermit in an Egyptianpyramid who had never seen the light of sun. Then what did he owe theGreeks? Not philosophy, not art, and certainly not religion, which wasfetichism. Not a debt of literature, nor of art, nor of civil polity;not a debt of pecuniary obligation; not an ordinary debt. He hadnothing from all these outside sources. The whole barbaric world waswithout the true knowledge of God. He had that knowledge and he owedit to every man who had it not. All the civilized world was, in theserespects, without the true inspiration; and he owed it to them simplybecause they did not have it; and his debt to them was founded on thislaw of benevolence of which I have been speaking, which is to supersedeselfishness, and according to which those who have are indebted tothose who have not the world over."—Henry Ward Beecher.

CHAPTER V.

GENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.

Booksellers rank "Quo Vadis" as one of the most popular books of theday. In that early era persecution was rife and cruelty relentless.It was the time of Caligula, who mourned that the Roman people had notone neck, so that he could cut it off at a single blow; of Nero, whoseevening garden parties were lighted by the forms of blazing Christians;of Vespasian, who sewed good men in skins of wild beasts to be worriedto death by dogs. In that day faith and death walked together.

Fulfilling such dangers, the disciples came together secretly atmidnight. But the spy was abroad, and despite all precautions, fromtime to time brutal soldiers discovered the place of meeting, and,bursting in, dragged the worshipers off to prison. Then a cruelstratagem was adopted that looked to the discovery of those whosecretly cherished faith. A decree went forth forbidding the jailer tofurnish food, making the prisoners 'dependent' upon friends without.

To come forward as a friend of these endungeoned was to incur the riskof arrest and death, while to remain in hiding was to leave friends todie of starvation. Then men counted life not dear unto themselves.Heroism became a contagion. Even children dared death. An oldpainting shows the guard awakened at midnight and gazing with wonderupon a little child thrusting food between the iron bars to its father.In the darkness the soldiers sleeping in the corridors heard therustling garments of some maiden or mother who loved life itself lessthan husband or friend. These tides of sympathy made men strongagainst torture; old men lifted joyful eyes toward those above them.Loving and beloved, the disciples shared their burdens, and those inthe prison and those out of it together went to fruitful martyrdom.

When the flames of persecution had swept by and, for a time, good menhad respite, Apollos recalled with joy the heroism of those without theprison who remembered the bonds of those within. With leaping heart hecalled before his mind the vast multitudes in all ages who so fetteredthrough life—men bound by poverty and hedged in by ignorance; menbaffled and beaten in life's fierce battle, bearing burdens of want andwretchedness, and by the heroism of the past he urged all meneverywhere to fulfill that law of sympathy that makes hard tasks easyand heavy burdens light. Let the broad shoulders stoop to lift theload with weakness; let the wise and refined share the sorrows of theignorant; let those whose health and gifts make them the children offreedom be abroad daily on missions of mercy to those whose feet arefettered; so shall life be redeemed out of its woe and want and sinthrough the Christian sympathy of those who "remember men in the bondsas bound with them."

Rejoicing in all of life's good things, let us confess that in ourworld-school the divine teachers are not alone happiness andprosperity, but also uncertainty and suffering, defeat and death.Inventors with steel plates may make warships proof against bombs, butno man hath invented an armor against troubles. The arrows of calamityare numberless, falling from above and also shot up from beneath. LikeAchilles, each man hath one vulnerable spot. No palace door is proofa*gainst phantoms. Each prince's palace and peasant's cottage holds atleast one bond-slave. Byron, with his club-foot, counted himself aprisoner pacing between the walls of his narrow dungeon. Keats,struggling against his consumption, thought his career that of thegalley-slave. The mother, fastened for years to the couch of hercrippled child, is bound by cords invisible, indeed, but none the lesspowerful. Nor is the bondage always physical. Here is the man whomade his way out of poverty and loneliness toward wealth and position,yet maintained his integrity through all the fight, and stood in life'sevening time possessed of wealth, but in a moment saw it crash intonothing and fell under bondage to poverty. And, here is some HenryGrady, a prince among men, the leader of the new South, his thoughtslike roots drinking in the riches of the North; his speech likebranches dropping bounty over all the tropic states, seeming to be theone indispensable man of his section, but who in the midst of hiscareer is smitten and, dying, left his pilgrim band in bondage.

Here is Sir William Napier writing, "I am now old and feeble andmiserable; my eyes are dim, very dim, with weeping for my lost child,"and went on bound midst the thick shadows. Or here are the man andwoman, set each to each like perfect music unto noble words, and one istaken—but Robert Browning was left to dwell in such sorrow that for atime he could not see his pen for the thick darkness. Here is theyouth who by one sin fell out of man's regard, and struggling upward,found it was a far cry back to the lost heights, and wrote the story ofhis broken life in the song of "the bird with the broken pinion, thatnever flew as high again." Sooner or later each life passes underbondage. For all strength will vanish as the morning dew our joys takewings and flit away; the eye dim, the ear dull, the thought decay, ourdearest die. Oft life's waves and billows chill us to the very marrow,while we gasp and shiver midst the surging tide. Then it is a blessedthing to look out through blinding tears upon a friendly face, to feelthe touch of a friendly hand and to know there are some who "rememberthose in bonds, as bound with them."

Now this principle of social sympathy and liability gives us the secretof all the epoch-making men of our time. Carlyle once called Ruskin"the seer that guides his generation." More recently a prominentphilanthropist said: "All our social reform movements are largely theinfluence of John Ruskin." How earned this man such meed of praise?Upon John Ruskin fortune poured forth all her gifts. He was born thechild of supreme genius. He was heir to nearly a million dollars, andby his pen earned a fortune in addition. At the age of 21, when mostyoung men were beginning their reading, he completed a book that puthis name and fame in every man's mouth. "For a thousand who can speak,there is but one who can think; for a thousand who can think, there isbut one who can see," and to this youth was given the open vision. Inthe hour of fame the rich and great vied to do him honor, and everydoor opened at his touch. But he turned aside to become theknight-errant of the poor. Walking along Whitechapel road he sawmultitudes of shopmen and shopwomen whose stint was eighty hours aweek, who toiled mid poisoned air until the brain reeled, the limbstrembled, and worn out physically and mentally they succumbed to spinaldisease or premature age, leaving behind only enfeebled progeny, untilthe city's streets became graves of the human physique. In that hourLondon seemed to him like a prison or hospital; nor was it given to himto play upon its floor as some rich men do, knitting its straw intocrowns that please; clutching at its dust in the cracks of the floor,to die counting the motes by millions. The youth "remembered men inbonds as bound with them." He tithed himself a tenth, then a third,then a half, and at length used up his fortune in noble service. Hefounded clubs for workingmen and taught them industry, honor andself-reliance. He bought spinning-wheels and raw flax, and made pauperwomen self-supporting. He founded the Sheffield Museum, and placedthere his paintings and marbles, that workers in iron and steel mighthave the finest models and bring all their handiwork up toward beauty.He asked his art-students in Oxford to give one hour each day topounding stones and filling holes in the street. When his health gaveway Arnold Toynbee, foreman of his student gang, went forth to carryhis lectures on the industrial revolution up and down the land.Falling on hard days and evil tongues and lying customs, he worehimself out in knightly service. So he gained his place among "theimmortals." But the secret of his genius and influence is this: Hefulfilled the debt of strength and the law of social sympathy andservice.

This spirit of sympathetic helpfulness has also given us what is called"the new womanhood." To-day our civilization is rising to higherlevels. Woman has brought love into law, justice into institutions,ethics into politics, refinement into the common life. Reforms havebecome possible that were hitherto impracticable. King Arthur'sKnights of the Round Table marching forth for freeing some fair ladywere never more soldierly than these who have become the friends andprotectors of the poor. The movement began with Mary Ware, who afterlong absence journeyed homeward. While the coach stopped at Durham sheheard of the villages near by where fever was emptying all the homes;and leaving the coach turned aside to nurse these fever-striddencreatures and light them through the dark valley. Then came FlorenceNightingale and Mary Stanley, braving rough seas, deadly fever andbitter cold to nurse sick soldiers in Crimea, and returned to findthemselves broken in health and slaves to pain, like those whom theyremembered. Then rose up a great group of noble women like Mary Lyonand Sarah Judson, who journeyed forth upon errands of mercy into theswamps of Africa and the mountains of Asia, making their ways intogarrets and tenements, missionaries of mercy and healing, Knights ofthe Red Cross and veritable "King's Daughters." No cottage so remoteas not to feel this new influence.

Fascinating, also, the life-story of that fair, sweet girl who marriedAudubon. Yearning for her own home, yet finding that her husband wouldjourney a thousand miles and give months to studying the home andhaunts of a bird, she gave up her heart-dreams and went with him intothe forest, dwelling now in tents, and now in some rude cabin, being awanderer upon the face of the earth—until, when children came, sheremained behind and dwelt apart. At last the naturalist came homeafter long absence to fulfill the long-cherished dream of years ofquiet study with wife and children, but found that the mice had eatenhis drawings and destroyed the sketches he had left behind. Then washe dumb with grief and dazed with pain, but it was his brave wife wholed him to the gate and thrust him forth into the forest and sent himout upon his mission, saying that there was no valley so deep nor nowilderness so distant but that his thought, turning homeward, would seethe light burning brightly for him. And in those dark days when ourland trembled, and a million men from the north tramped southward and amillion men from the south tramped northward, and the columns met witha concussion that threatened to rend the land asunder, there, in thebattle, midst the din and confusion and blood, women walked, angels oflight and mercy, not merely holding the cup of cold water to famishedlips, or stanching the life-blood until surgeons came, but teachingsoldier boys in the dying hour the way through the valley and beyond itup the heavenly hills. These all fulfilled their mission and"remembered those in bonds as bound with them."

This principle also has been and is the spring of all progress inhumanity and civilization. Our journalists and orators pour forthunstinted praise upon the achievements of the nineteenth century. Butin what realm lies our supremacy? Not in education, for our schoolsproduce no such thinkers or universal scholars as Plato and histeacher; not in eloquence, for our orators still ponder the periods ofthe oration "On the Crown;" not in sculpture or architecture, for thebroken fragments of Phidias are still models for our youth. The natureof our superiority is suggested when we speak of the doing away withthe exposure of children, the building of homes, hospitals and asylumsfor the poor and weak; the caring for the sick instead of turning themadrift; the support of the aged instead of burying them alive; thediminished frequency of wars; the disappearance of torture in obtainingtestimony; humanity toward the shipwrecked, where once luring shipsupon the rocks was a trade; the settlement of disputes by umpires andof national differences by arbitration.

Humanity and social sympathy are the glory of our age. Society hascome to remember that those in bonds are bound by them. Indeed, theapplication of this principle to the various departments of human lifefurnishes the historian with the milestones of human progress. The ageof Sophocles was not shocked when the poet wrote the story of the childexposed by the wayside to be adopted by some passer-by, or torn inpieces by wild dogs, or chilled to death in the cold. When the wisem*n brought their gold and frankincense to the babe in the manger, menfelt the sacredness of infancy. As the light from the babe inCorreggio's "Holy Night" illumined all the surrounding figures, so thechild resting in the Lord's arms for shelter and sacred benedictionbegan to shed luster upon the home and to lead the state. To-day thenurture and culture in the schools are society's attempt to rememberthe little ones in bonds. Fulfilling the same law Xavier, with hiswealth and splendid talents, remembered bound ones and journeyedthrough India, penetrating all the Eastern lands, being physician forthe sick, nurse for the dying, minister for the ignorant; his facebenignant; his eloquence, love; his atmosphere, sympathy; carrying hismessage of peace to the farther-most shores of the Chinese Sea, throughhis zeal for "those who were in bonds." And thus John Howard visitedthe prisons of Europe for cleansing these foul dens and wiped from thesword of justice its most polluting stain. Fulfilling the debt ofstrength, Wilberforce and Garrison, Sumner and Brown, fronted furiousslave-holders, enduring every form of abuse and vituperation andpersonal violence, and destroyed the infamous traffic in human flesh.

This new spirit of sympathy and service it is that offers us help insolving the problems of social unrest and disquietude. Events will notlet us forget that ours is an age of industrial discontent. Society isfull of warfare. Prophets of evil tidings foretell social revolution.The professional agitators are abroad, sowing discord and nourishinghatred and strife, and even the optimists sorrowfully confess theantagonism between classes. There is an industrial class strong andhappy, both rich and poor; and there is an idle class weak and wickedand miserable, among both rich and poor. Unfortunately, as has beensaid, the wise of one class contemplate only the foolish of the other.The industrious man of means is offended by the idle beggar, andidentifies all the poor with him, and the hard-working but poor workmandespises the licentious luxury of one rich man, and identifies all therich with him. But there are idle poor and idle rich and busy poor andbusy rich. "If the busy rich people watched and rebuked the idle richpeople, all would be well; and if the busy poor people watched andrebuked the idle poor people all would be right. Many a beggar is aslazy as if he had $10,000 a year, and many a man of large fortune isbusier than his errand boy."

Forgetting this, some poor look upon the rich as enemies and desire topillage their property, and some rich have only epithets for the poor.Now, wise men know that there is no separation of rich industriousclasses and the poor industrious classes, for they differ only as dotwo branches of one tree. This year one bough is full of bloom, andthe other bears only scantily, but next year the conditions will bereversed. Wealth and poverty are like waves; what is now crest willsoon be trough. Such conditions demand forbearance and mutualsympathy. Some men are born with little and some with large skill foracquiring wealth, the two differing as the scythe that gathers ahandful of wheat differs from the reaper built for vast harvests andcarrying the sickle of success. For generations the ancestors back ofone man's father were thrifty and the ancestors back of his mother werefar-sighted, and the two columns met in him, and like two armies joinedforces for a vast campaign for wealth. Beside him is a brother, whosethoughts and dreams go everywhither with the freedom of an eagle, butwho walks midst practical things with the eagle's halting gait. Thestrong one was born, not for spoiling his weaker brother, but to guardand guide and plan for him.

This is the lesson of nature—the strong must bear the burdens of theweak. To this end were great men born. Nature constantly exhibitsthis principle. The shell of the peach shelters the inner seed; theouter petals of the bud the tender germ; the breast of the mother-birdprotects the helpless birdlets; the eagle flies under her young andgently eases them to the ground; above the babe's helplessness rise theparents' shield and armor. God appoints strong men, the industrialgiants, to protect the weak and poor. The laws of helpfulness ask themto forswear a part of their industrial rights; and they fulfill theirdestiny only by fulfilling the debt of strength to weakness.

To identify one's self with those in bonds is the very core of theChristian life. Not an intellectual belief within, not a form ofworship without, but sympathetic helpfulness betokens the trueChristian. God, who hath endowed the soul with capacity to endure alllabors and pains for wealth, to consume away the very springs of lifefor knowledge, hath also given it power for pouring itself out in greatresistless tides of love and sympathy. For beauty and royal majestynothing else is comparable to the love of some royal nature. A lovingheart exhales sweet odors like an alabaster box; it pours forth joylike a sweet harp; it flashes beauty like a casket of gems; it cheerslike a winter's fire; it carries sweet stimulus like returningsunshine. We have all known a few great-hearted men and women who havethrough years distributed their love-treasures among the littlechildren of the community and scattered affection among the poor andthe weak, until the entire community comes to feel that it lives inthem and without them will die. Happy the man who hath stored up suchtreasures of mind and heart as that he stands forth among his fellowslike a lighthouse on some ledge, sending guiding rays far out o'er darkand troubled seas. Happy the woman whose ripened affection andinspiration have permeated the common life until to her come the poorand weak and heart-broken, standing forth like some beauteous boweroffering shade and filling all the air with sweet perfume.

In crisis hours the patriot and martyr, the hero and thephilanthropist, die for the public good, but not less do they servetheir fellows who live and through years employ their gifts andheart-treasures, not for themselves, but for the happiness and highestwelfare of others. Richter, the German artist, painted a series ofpaintings illustrating the ministry of angels. He showed us thechild-angels who sit talking with mortal children among the flowers,now holding them by their coats lest they fall upon the stairs, nowwith apples enticing them back when they draw too near the precipice;when the boy grows tall and is tempted, ringing in the chambers ofmemory the sweet mother's name; in the hour of death coming in the garbof pilgrim, made ready for convoy and guidance to the heavenly land.Oh beautiful pictures! setting forth the sacred ministry of each trueChristian heart.

History tells of the servant whose master was sold into Algeria, andwho sold himself and wandered years in the great desert in the merehope of at last finding and freeing his lord; of the obscure man in theEastern city who, misunderstood and unpopular, left a will stating thathe had been poor and suffered for lack of water, and so had starved andslaved through life to build an aqueduct for his native town, that thepoor might not suffer as he had; of the soldier in the battle, woundedin cheek and mouth and dying of thirst, but who would not drink lest heshould spoil the water for others, and so yielded up his life. Butthis capacity of sacrifice and sympathy is but the little in mananswering to what is large in God. Here deep answers unto deep. Thedefinition of the Divine One is, he remembers those in bonds, and it ismore blessed to give than to receive; more blessed to feed the hungrythan starving to be fed; more blessed to pour light on darkenedmisunderstanding than ignorant to be taught; more blessed to open thepath through the wilderness of doubt than wandering to be guided; moreblessed to bring in the bewildered pilgrim than to be lost and rescued;more blessed to forgive than to be forgiven; to save than to be saved.

THE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.

"All that we possess has come to us by way of a long path. There is noinstantaneous liberty or wisdom or language or beauty or religion. Oldphilosophies, old agriculture, old domestic arts, old sciences,medicine, chemistry, astronomy, old modes of travel and commerce, oldforms of government and religion have all come in gracefully orungracefully and have said: 'Progress is king, and long live the king!'Year after year the mind perceives education to expand, art sweepsalong from one to ten, music adds to its early richness, love passesoutwardly from self towards the race, friendships become laden withmore pleasure, truths change into sentiments, sentiments blossom intodeeds, nature paints its flowers and leaves with richer tints,literature becomes the more perfect picture of a more perfectintellect, the doctrines of religion become broader and sweeter intheir philosophy."—David Swing.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.

For all lovers of their kind, nothing is so hard to bear as theslowness of the upward progress of society. It is not simply that therise of the common people is accompanied with heavy wastes and losses,it is that the upward movement is along lines so vast as to makesociety's growth seem tardy, delayed, or even reversed. Doubtless thedrift of the ages is upward, but this progress becomes apparent onlywhen age is compared with age and century with century. It is not easyfor some Bruno or Wickliffe, sowing the good seed of liberty andtoleration in one century, to know that not until another century hathpassed will the precious harvest be reaped. Man is accustomed to briefintervals. Not long the space between January's snowdrifts and June'sred berries. Brief the interval between the egg and the eagle's fullflight. Scarcely a score of years separates the infant of days fromthe youth of full stature. Trained to expect the April seed to standclose beside the August sheaf, it is not easy for man to accustomhimself to the processes of him with whom four-score years are but ahandbreadth and a thousand years as but one day.

To man, therefore, toiling upon his industry, his art, his government,his religion, comes this reflection: Because the divine epochs arelong, let not the patriot or parent be sick with hope long deferred.Let the reformer sow his seed untroubled when the sickle rusts in thehand that waits for its harvest. Remember that as things go up invalue, the period between inception and fruition is protracted.Because the plant is low, the days between seed and sheaf are few andshort; because the bird is higher, months stand between egg and eagle.But manhood is a thing so high, culture and character are harvests sorich as to ask years and even ages for ripening, while God's purposesfor society involve such treasures of art, wisdom, wealth, law,liberty, as to ask eons and cycles for their full perfection.Therefore let each patriot and sage, each reformer and teacher bepatient. The world itself is a seed. Not until ages have passed shallit burst into bloom and blossom.

Troubled by the strifes of society, depressed by the waste of itsforces and the delays of its columns, he who seeks character forhimself and progress for his kind, oft needs to shelter himself beneaththat divine principle called the time-element for the individual andthe race. Optimists are we; our world is God's; wastes shall yetbecome savings and defeats victories; nevertheless, life's woes, wrongsand delays are such as to stir misgiving. The multitudes hunger forpower and influence, hunger for wealth and wisdom, for happiness andcomfort; satisfaction seems denied them. Watt and Goodyear invent,other men enter into the fruit of their inventions; Erasmus andMelanchthon sow the good seeds of learning; two centuries pass bybefore God's angels count the bundles. In a passion of enthusiasm forEngland's poor, Cobden wore his life out toiling for the corn laws.The reformer died for the cotton-spinners as truly as if he had slithis arteries and emptied out the crimson flood. But when the victorywas won, the wreath of fame was placed upon another's brow. One dayRobert Peel arose in the House of Commons and in the presence of anindignant party and an astounded country, proudly said: "I have beenwrong. I now ask Parliament to repeal the law for which I myself havestood. Where there was discontent, I see contentment; where there wasturbulence, I see peace, where there was disloyalty, I see loyalty."Then the fury of party anger burst upon him, and bowing to the storm,Robert Peel went forth while men hissed after him such words as"traitor," "coward," "recreant leader." Nor did he foresee that inlosing an office he had gained the love of a country.

What delays also in justice! What recognition does society withholdfrom its heroes! What praise speaks above the pulseless corpse that isdenied the living, hungering heart! What gold coin spent for themarble wreath by those who have no copper for laurel for the livinghero! How do rewards that dazzle in prospect, in possession, burstlike gaudy bubbles! Honors are evanescent; reputation is a vapor;property takes wings; possessions counted firm as adamant dissolve likepainted clouds; in the hour of depression the hand drops its tool, theheart its task. In such dark hours and moods, strong men reflect thathe who sows the good seed of liberty or culture or character must havelong patience until the harvest; that as things go up in value they askfor longer time; that he is the true hero who redeems himself out ofpresent defeat by the foresight of far-off and future victory; thatthat man has a patent of nobility from God himself who can lay out hislife upon the principle that a thousand years are as one day. Thetruly great man takes long steps by God's side, has the courage of thefuture; working, he can also wait.

For man, fulfilling such a career, no principle hath greater practicalvalue than this one; as things rise in the scale of value the intervalbetween seedtime and harvest must lengthen. Happily for us, God hathcapitalized this principle in nature and life. Each gardener knowsthat what ripens quickest is of least worth. The mushroom needs only anight; the moss asks a week for covering the fallen tree; the humblevegetable asks several weeks and the strawberry a few months; but,planting his apple tree, the gardener must wait a few years for hisripened russet, and the woodsman many years for the full-grown oak orelm. If in thought we go back to the dawn of creation—to that momentwhen sun and planet succeeded to clouds of fire, when a red-hot earth,cooling, put on an outer crust, when gravity drew into deep hollows thewaters that cooled the earth and purified the upper air—and thenfollow on in nature's footsteps, passing up the stairway of ascendinglife from lichen, moss and fern, on to the culminating moment in man,we shall ever find that increase of value means an increase of time forgrowth. The fern asks days, the reed asks weeks, the bird for months,the beast for a handful of years, but man for an epoch measured bytwenty years and more. To grow a sage or a statesman nature asksthirty years with which to build the basis of greatness in the bone andmuscle of the peasant grandparents, thirty years in which to compactthe nerve and brain of parents; thirty years more in which the heir ofthese ancestral gifts shall enter into full-orbed power and stand forthfully furnished for his task. Nature makes a dead snowflake in anight, but not a living star-flower. For her best things nature askslong time.

The time-principle holds equally in man's social and industrial life.To-day our colleges have their anthropological departments and ourcities their museums. The comparative study of the dress, weapons,tools, houses, ships of savage and civilized races gives an outlineview of the progress of society. How fragile and rude the handiwork ofsavages! How quickly are the wants provided for! A few fig leavesmake a full summer suit for the African and the skin of an ox his garbfor winter. But civilized man must toil long upon his loom forgarments of wool and fine silk. Slowly the hollow log journeys towardthe ocean steamer; slowly the forked stick gives place to thesteam-plow, the slow ox to the swift engine; slowly the sea-shell, withthree strings tied across its mouth, develops into the many-mouthedpipe-organ. But if rude and low conveniences represent little time andtoil, these later inventions represent centuries of arduous labor. Inhis history of the German tribes, Tacitus gives us a picture of a day'stoil for one of the forest children. Moving to the banks of some newstream, the rude man peels the bark from the tree and bends it over thetent pole; with a club he beats down the nuts from the branches; with around stone he knocks the squirrel from the bough; another hoursuffices for cutting a line from the ox's hide and, hastily making ahook out of the wishbone of the bird, he draws the trout from itsstream. But if for savage man a day suffices for building andprovisioning the tent, the accumulated wisdom of centuries is requiredfor the home of to-day. One century offers an arch for the door,another century offers glass windows, another offers wrought nails andhinges, another plaster that will receive and hold the warm colors,another offers the marble, tapestry, picture and piano, the thousandconveniences for use and beauty.

Husbandry also represents patience and the labor of generations. Wereit given to the child, tearing open the golden meat of the fruit, totrace the ascent of the tree, he would see the wild apple or bitterorange growing in the edge of the ancient forest. But man, standing bythe fruit, grafted it for sweetness, pruned it for the juicy flow,nourished it for taste and color. Could he who picks the peach or pearhave this inner vision, he would behold an untold company of husbandmenstanding beneath the branches and pointing to their specialcontributions. The fathers labored, the children entered into thefruitage of the labor in his dream; the poet slept in St. Peter's andsaw the shadowy forms of all the architects and builders from thebeginning of time standing about him and giving their specialcontributions to Bramante and Angelo's great temple. Thus many handshave toiled upon man's house, man's art, industry, invention.

In the realm of law and liberty the best things ask for patience andwaiting. Out of nothing nothing comes. The institution thatrepresents little toil but little time endures. Man's early history isinvolved in obscurity, largely because his early arts weremushroomic—completed quickly, they quickly perished. The ideasscratched upon the flat leaf or the thin reed represented scant laborand therefore soon were dust. But he who holds in his hand a modernbook holds the fruitage of years many and long. For that book we seethe workmen ranging far for linen; we see the printer toiling upon hismovable types; we see the artist etching his plate; the author givinghis days to study and his nights to reflection; and because the bookharvests the study of a great man's lifetime it endures throughoutgenerations. The sciences also increase in value only as the timespent upon them is lengthened. Few and brief were the days requiredfor the early astronomers to work out the theory that the earth isflat, the sky a roof, the stars holes in which the gods have hunglighted lamps. The theory that makes our earth sweep round the sun,our sun sweep round a far-off star, all lesser groups sweep round onecentral sun, that shepherds all the other systems, asks for the toil ofGalileo and Kepler, of Copernicus and Newton, and a great company ofmodern students. The father of astronomy had to wait a thousand yearsfor the fruition of his science. Upon those words, called law or love,or mother or king, man hath with patience labored. The word wife ormother is so rich to-day as to make Homer's ideal, Helen, seem poor andalmost contemptible. The girl was very beautiful, but very painful thealacrity with which she passes from the arms of Menelaus to the arms ofParis, from the arms of Paris to those of Deiphobus, his conqueror. Ifone hour only was required for this lovely creature to pack herbelongings preparatory to moving to the tent of her new lord, one dayfully sufficed for transferring her affections from one prince toanother. But, toiling ever upward to her physical beauty, woman addedmental beauty, moral beauty, until the word wife or mother or home cameto have almost infinite wealth of meaning.

In government also the best political instruments ask for longest time.Hercules ruled by the right of physical strength. Assembling thepeople, he challenged all rivals to combat. A single hour availed forcutting off the head of his enemy. Henceforth he reigned anunchallenged king. Because man hath with patience toiled long uponthis republic, how rich and complex its institutions! The modernpresidency does not represent the result of an hour's combat betweentwo Samsons. Forty years ago the eager aspirants began their struggle.A great company of young men all over the land determined to build up areputation for patriotism, statesmanship, wisdom and character. As thetime for selecting a president approached, the people passed in reviewall these leaders. When two or more were finally chosen out, therefollowed months in which the principles of the candidates were siftedand analyzed. "I know of no more sublime spectacle," said Stuart Mill,"than the election of the ruler under the laws of the republic. If thevoice of the people is ever the voice of God, if any ruler rules bydivine right, it is when millions of freemen, after long consideration,elect one man to be their appointed guide and leader." If a singlehour availed for Samson to settle the question of his sovereignty, freeinstitutions ask for their statesmen to have the patience of years;working, they must also wait.

With long patience also man has worked and waited as he has toiled uponhis idea of religion. Rude, indeed, man's hasty thoughts of theinfinite. In early days the sun was God's eye, the thunder his voice,the stroke of the earthquake the stroke of his arm, the harvestindicated his pleasure, the pestilence his anger. In such an age thepriest and philosopher taxed their genius to invent methods ofpreserving the friendship and avoiding the anger of the Infinite.Daily the king and general calculated how many sheep and oxen they mustslay to avoid defeat in battle. Daily the husbandman and farmercalculated how many doves and lambs must be killed to avert blight fromthe vineyard and hailstorms from the harvests. Observing that when theking ascended to the throne the slaves put their necks under his heeland covered their bodies with dust, in their haste the priestsconcluded that by degrading man God would be exalted. Prostratingthemselves in dirt and rags, men went down in order that by contrastthe throne of God might rise up. The mud was made thick upon man'sbrow that the crown upon the brow of God might be made brilliant. Outof this degrading thought grew the idea that God lived and ruled forhis own gratification and self-glory. The infinite throne was unveiledas a throne of infinite self-aggrandizement. Slowly it was perceivedthat the parent who makes all things move about himself as a center,ever monopolizing the best food, the best place, the best things, atlast becomes a monster of selfishness and suffers an awful degradation,while he who sacrifices himself for others is the true hero.

At last, Christ entered the earthly scene with his golden rule and hisnew commandment of love. He unveiled God, not as desiring to beministered to, but as ministering; as being rich, yet for man's sakebecoming poor; as asking little, but giving much; as caring for thesparrow and lily; as waiting upon each beetle, bird and beast, andcaring for each detail of man's life. Slowly the word God increased inrichness. Having found through his telescope worlds so distant as toinvolve infinite power, man emptied the idea of omnipotence into theword GOD; finding an infinite wisdom in the wealth of the summers andwinters, man added the idea of omniscience; noting a certain upwardtendency in society, man added the word, "Providence;" gladdened byGod's mercy, man added ideas of forgiveness and love. Slowly the wordgrew. In the olden time people entering the Acropolis cast their giftsof gold and silver into some vase. Last of all came the prince toempty in jewels and flashing gems and make the vase to overflow. Nototherwise Christ emptied vast wealth of meaning into those words called"conscience," "law," "love," "vicarious suffering," "immortality,""God." Beautiful, indeed, the simplicity of Christ. With longpatience, man waited for the unveiling of the face of divine love.

To all patriots and Christian men who seek to use occupation andprofession so as to promote the world's upward growth comes thereflection that henceforth society's progress must be slow, because itsinstitutions are high and complex. To-day many look into the futurewith shaded eyes of terror. In the social unrest and discontent of ourtimes timid men see the brewing of a social and industrial storm. Intheir alarm, amateur reformers bring in social panaceas, conceived inhaste and born in fear. But God cannot be hurried. His century plantscannot be forced to blossom in a night. No reformer can be too zealousfor man's progress, though he can be too impatient. In these days,when civilization has become complex and the fruitage high, those whowork must also wait and with patience endure.

Multitudes are abroad trying to settle the labor problem. The laborproblem will never be settled until the last man lies in the graveyard.Each new inventor reopens the labor problem. Men were contented withtheir wages until Gutenberg invented his type and made books possible;then straightway every laborer asked an increased wage, that though hedied ignorant his children might be intelligent. When society hadreadjusted things and man had obtained the larger wage, Arkwright came,inventing his new loom, Goodyear came with the use of rubber, andstraightway men asked a new wage to advantage themselves of woolengarments and rubber goods for miners and sailors. On the morrow15,000,000 children will enter the schoolroom; before noon the teacherhas given them a new outlook upon some book, some picture, someconvenience, some custom. Each child registers the purpose to go homeimmediately and cry to his parent for that book or picture; that toolor comfort. When the parents return that night the labor question hasbeen reopened in millions of homes.

Intelligence is emancipating man. Ignorance is a constant invitationto oppression. So long as workmen are ignorant, governments willoppress them; wealth will oppress them; religious machinery willoppress them. Education can make man's wrists too large to be holdenof fetters. In the autumn the forest trees tighten the bark, but whenApril sap runs through the trees the trunk swells, the bark is strainedand despite all protests it splits and cracks. The splitting of thebark saves the life of the tree. The soft, balmy air of April ispassing over the world and succeeding to the winter of man'sdiscontent. Old ideas are being rent asunder and old institutions arebeing succeeded by new ones. God is abroad destroying that he maysave. In every age he makes the discontent of the present to be theprophecy of the higher civilization. Despite all the pessimists andthe croakers, the ideas of manhood were never so high as to-day, andthe number of those whose hearts are knitted in with their kind wasnever so large nor so noble. The movement may be slow, but it isbecause the social organs are complex and intricate. With longpatience man must work and also wait.

In the world of business, also, the time element exerts strikinginfluence. To-day our land is filled with men who have sown the seedof thought and purpose, but whose harvest is of so high a quality thatwith long patience must they wait for the fruition. How pathetic thereverses of the last four years. The condition of our land as to theoverthrows of its leaders answers to the condition in Poland whenKossuth and his fellow patriots, accustomed to life's comforts and itsluxuries, went forth penniless exiles to accustom themselves to menialtoil, to hardship and extreme poverty. His heart must be of iron whocan behold those who have been leaders of the industrial column, whonow stand aside and see the multitude sweep by. Just at the moment ofexpected victory misfortune overtook them and brought their structuredown in ruins. And because the seed they have sown is not physical,but mental and moral, the fruition is long postponed.

Walter Scott tells the story of a wounded knight, who took refuge inthe castle of a baron that proved to be a secret enemy and threw theknight into a dungeon; one day in his cell the knight heard the soundof distant music approaching. Drawing near the slit in the tower, hesaw the flash of swords and heard the tramp of marching men. At lastthe wounded hero realized that these were his own troops, marching byin ignorance of the fact that the lord of this castle was also thejailer of their general. While the knight tugged at his chain, liftedup his voice and cried aloud, his troops marched on, their musicdrowning out his cries. Soon the banners passed from sight, the laststraggler disappeared behind the hill and the captive was left alone.The brave knight died in his dungeon, but the story of his heroismlived. What the knight learned in suffering the poets have taught insong. The captive hero has a permanent place in civilization, thoughthe foresight of his influence was denied him.

Those whose harvest is delayed are a great company. Elizabeth BarrettBrowning exclaiming, "I have not used half the powers God has givenme," poets dying ere the day was half done; the inventors and reformersdenied their ideals; obscure and humble workmen—the mechanic whoemancipates man by his machine; the artisan whose conveniences areendless benefactions to our homes; the smith whose honest anchor holdsthe ship in time of storm—all these labored and died without seeingthe fruitage, but other men entered into their labors.

To parents who have passed through all the thunder of life's battle andstand at the close of life's day discouraged because children areunripe, thoughtless and immature; to publicists and teachers, sowingGod's precious seed, but denied its harvests; to individuals seeking toperfect their character within themselves comes this thought—thatcharacter is a harvest so rich as to ask for long waiting and thecourage of far-off results. Nature can perfect physical processes intwenty years, but long time is asked for teaching the arm skill, thetongue its grace of speech, to clothe reason with sweetness and light,to cast error out of the judgment, to teach the will hardness and theheart hope and endurance.

Four hundred years passed by before the capstone was placed upon theCathedral of Cologne, but no trouble requires such patient toil as thestructure of manhood. For complexity and beauty nothing is comparableto character. Great artists spend years upon a single picture. With atouch here and a touch there they approach it, and when a long periodhath passed they bring it to completion. Yet all the beauty ofpaintings, all the grace of statues, all the grandeur of cathedrals areas nothing compared to the painting of that inner picture, thechiseling of that inner manhood, the adornment of that inner temple,that is scarcely begun when the physical life ends. How majestic thefull disclosure of an ideal manhood! With what patience must man waitfor its completion! Here lies the hope of immortality; it does not yetappear what man shall be.

THE SUPREMACY OF HEART OVER BRAIN.

"Out of the heart are the issues of life."—Prov. IV. 23.

"For out of the heart man believeth unto righteousness."—Paul.

"Heart is a word that the Bible is full of. Brain, I believe, is notmentioned in Scripture. Heart, in the sense in which it is currentlyunderstood, suggests the warm center of human life or any other life.When we say of a man that he 'has a good deal of heart' we mean that heis 'summery.' When you come near him it is like getting around to thesouth side of a house in midwinter and letting the sunshine feel ofyou, and watching the snow slide off the twigs and the tear-drops swellon the points of pendant icicles. Brain counts for a good deal moreto-day than heart does. It will win more applause and earn a largersalary. Thought is driven with a curb-bit lest it quicken into a paceand widen out into a swing that transcends the dictates of good form.Exuberance is in bad odor. Appeals to the heart are not thought to bequite in good taste. The current demand is for ideas—not taste. Iasked a member of my church the other day whether he thought a certainfriend of his who attends a certain church and is exceptionally brainywas really entering into sympathy with religious things. 'Oh, no,' hesaid, 'he likes to hear preaching because he has an active mind, andthe way that things are spread out in front of him.' In the old daysof the church a sermon used to convert 3,000 men, now that temperatureis down it takes 3,000 sermons to convert one man."—Charles H.Parkhurst.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUPREMACY OF HEART OVER BRAIN.

To-day there has sprung up a rivalry between brain and heart. Men arecoming to idolize intellect. Brilliancy is placed before goodness andintellectual dexterity above fidelity. Intellect walks the earth acrowned king, while affection and sentiment toil as bond slaves.Doubtless our scholars, with the natural bias for their own class, arelargely responsible for this worship of intellectuality. When thehistorian calls the roll of earth's favorite sons he causes theseimmortals to stand forth an army of great thinkers, includingphilosophers, scientists, poets, jurists, generals. The great mindsare exalted, the great hearts are neglected.

Artists also have united with authors for strengthening this idolatryof intellect. One of the great pictures in the French Academy ofDesign assembles the immortals of all ages. Having erected a tribunalin the center of the scene, Delaroche places Intellect upon the throne.Also, when the sons of genius are assembled about that glowing center,all are seen to be great thinkers. There stand Democritus, a thinkerabout invisible atoms; Euclid, a thinker about invisible lines andangles; Newton, a thinker about an invisible force named gravity; LaPlace, a thinker about the invisible law that sweeps suns and starsforward toward an unseen goal.

The artist also remembers the inventors whose useful thoughts blossominto engines and ships; statesmen whose wise thoughts blossom intocodes and constitutions; speakers whose true thoughts blossom intoorations, and artists whose beautiful thoughts appear as pictures. Atthis assembly of the immortals great thinkers touch and jostle. But ifthe great minds are remembered, no chair is made ready for the greathearts. He who lingers long before this painting will believe thatbrain is king of the world; that great thinkers are the sole architectsof civilization; that science is the only providence for the future;that God himself is simply an infinite brain, an eternal logic engine,cold as steel, weaving endless ideas about life and art, about natureand man.

But the throne of the universe is mercy and not marble; the name of theworld-ruler is Great Heart, rather than Crystalline Mind, and God isthe Eternal Friend who pulsates out through his world those forms oflove called reforms, philanthropies, social bounties and benefactions,even as the ocean pulsates its life-giving tides into every bay andcreek and river. The springs of civilization are not in the mind. Forthe individual and the state, "out of the heart are the issues of life."

What intellect can dream, only the heart realizes! John Cabot's minddid, indeed, blaze a pathway through the New England forest. But withburning hearts and iron will the Pilgrim Fathers loved liberty, law andlearning, and soon they broadened the path into a highway for commerce,turned tepees into temples and made the forests a land of vineyards andvillages. Mind is the beginning of civilization, but the ends andfruitage thereof are of the heart.

Christopher Wren's intellect wrought out the plan for St. Paul'sCathedral. But all impotent to realize themselves, these plans, lyingin the King's council chamber grew yellow with age and thick with dust.One day a great heart stood forth before the people of London, pointingthem to an unseen God, "from whom cometh every good and perfect gift,"and, plying men with the generosity of God, he asked gifts of gold andsilver and houses and lands, that England might erect a temple worthyof him "whom the heaven of heavens could not contain." The mind of agreat architect had created a plan and a "blue-print," but eager heartsinspiring earnest hands turned the plan into granite and hung in theair a dome of marble.

Thus all the great achievements for civilization are the achievementsof heart. What we call the fine arts are only red-hot ingots ofpassion cooled off into visible shape. All high music is emotiongushing forth at those faucets named musical notes. As unseen vaporscool into those visible forms named snowflakes, so Gothic enthusiasmscooled off into cathedrals.

Our art critics speak of the eight great paintings of history. Each ofthese masterpieces does but represent a holy passion flung forth upon acanvas. The reformation also was not achieved by intellect norscholarship. Erasmus represents pure mind. Yet his intellect was coldas winter sunshine that falls upon a snowdrift and dazzles the eyeswith brightness, yet is impotent to unlock the streams, or bore a holethrough the snowdrifts, or release the roots from the grip of ice andfrost, or cover the land with waving harvests. Powerless as wintersunshine were Erasmus' thoughts. But what the scholar could not do,Luther, the great heart, wrought easily.

Thus all the reforms represent passions and enthusiasms. That citadelcalled "The Divine Right of Kings" was not overthrown by colleges withbooks and pamphlets. It was the pulse-beats of the heart of the peoplethat pounded down the Bastille. Ideas of the iniquity of slaveryfloated through our land for three centuries, yet the slave pen andauction block still cursed our land. At last an enthusiasm for man asman and a great passion for the poor stood behind these ideas of humanbrotherhood, and as powder stands behind the bullet, flinging forth itsweapons, slavery perished before the onslaught of the heart.

The men whose duty it was to follow the line of battle and bury ourdead soldiers tell us that in the dying hour the soldier's handunclasped his weapon and reached for the inner pocket to touch somefaded letter; some little keepsake, some likeness of wife or mother.This pathetic fact tells us that soldiers have won their battles not byholding before the mind some abstract thought about the rights of man.The philosopher did, indeed, teach the theory, and the general markedout the line of attack or defense, but it was love of home and God andnative land that entered into the soldier and made his arm invincible.Back of the emancipation proclamation stands a great heart namedLincoln. Back of Africa's new life stands a great heart namedLivingstone. Back of the Sermon on the Mount stands earth's greatestheart—man's Savior. Christ's truth is enlightening man's ignorance,but his tears, falling upon our earth, are washing away man's sin andwoe.

Impotent the intellect without the support of the heart. How thicklyare the shores of time strewn with those forms of wreckage called greatthoughts. In those far-off days when the overseers of the EgyptianKing scourged 80,000 slaves forth to their task of building a pyramid,a great mind discovered the use of steam. Intellect achieved aninstrument for lifting blocks of granite into proper place. In thathour thought made possible the freedom of innumerable slaves. But theheart of the tyrant held no love for his bondsmen. The poor seemed ofless worth than cattle. Because the King's heart felt no woes to becured, his hand pushed away the engine. A great thought was there, butnot the kindly impulse to use it. Then, full 2,000 years passed overour earth. At last came an era when man's heart journeyed forward withhis mind. Then the woes of miners and the world's burden-bearersfilled the ears of James Watt with torment, and his sympathetic heartwould not let him stay until he had fashioned his redemptive tool.

For generations, also, the thoughts of liberty waited for the heart tore-enforce them and make them practical in institutions. Two thousandyears before the era of Cromwell and Hampden, Grecian philosopherswrought out a full statement for the republic and individual liberty.The right of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness were truthsclearly perceived by Plato and Pericles. But the heart loved luxuryand soft, silken refinements, and Grecian philosophers in their palacesrefused to let their slaves go.

Wide, indeed, the gulf separating our age of kindness from Cicero's ageof cruelty! The difference is almost wholly a difference of heart.This age has oratory and wisdom, and so had Cicero's; this age haspoetry and art, and so had that; but our age has heart and sympathy,and Cicero's had not. Caesar's mind was the mind of a scholar, but hishands were red with the blood of a half-million men slain in unjustwars. Augustus loved refinement, literature and music. He assembledat his table the scholars of a nation, yet his culture did not forbidthe slaying of ten thousand gladiators at his various garden parties.

We admire Pliny's literary style. One evening Pliny returned home fromthe funeral of the wife of a friend and sat down to write that friend anote of gratitude for having so arranged the gladiatorial spectacle asto make the funeral service pass off quite pleasantly. For that age ofintellect was also an age of blood; the era of art and luxury was alsoan era of cruelty and crime. The intellect lent a shining luster tothe era of Augustus, but because it was intellect only it was gilt andnot gold. Had the heart re-enforced the intellect with sympathy andjustice the age of Augustus might have been an era golden, indeed, andalso perpetual.

Great men capitalize the impotency of unsupported intellect.Ten-talent men have often known more than they would do. The childrenof genius have not always lived up to their moral light. Burns' mindran swiftly forward, but his will followed afar off. If the poet'sforehead was in the clouds, his feet were in the mire. How noble,also, Byron's thoughts, but how mean his life! Goethe uttered thewisdom of a sage, as did Rousseau, yet their deeds were often those wewould expect from a slave with a low brow. Even of Shakespeare, it issaid in the morning he polished his sonnets, while at midnight hepoached game from a neighboring estate. Our era bestows unstintedadmiration upon the essays of Lord Bacon. How noble his aphorisms!How petty his envy and avarice! What scholarship was his, and whatcunning also! With what splendor of argument does he plead for theadvancement of learning and liberty! With what meanness does he takebribes from the rich against the poor! His mind seems like a palace ofmarble with splendid galleries and library and banqueting hall, yet inthis palace the spider spins its web and vermin make the foundations tobe a noisome place.

In all ages also the intellect of the common people has discerned truthand light that the will has refused to fulfill. Generations agosociety discovered the doctrine of industry and integrity, and yetthousands of individuals still prefer to steal or beg or starve ratherthan work. For centuries the work of moralists and public instructorshas not been so much the making known new truth as the inspiring men todo a truth already known. As of old, so now, the word is nigh man,even in his mouth, for enabling society to lift every social burden,right every social wrong, turn each rookery into a house, make eachplace wealth, make every home happiness, make every child a scholar, apatriot and a Christian. In Solomon's day wisdom stood in the cornerof the streets but man would not regard, and the city perished. Shouldthe heart now join the intellect, man's feet would swiftly find thesepaths that lead to prosperity and perfect peace.

Fascinating, indeed, the question how feeling and sentiment controlconduct and character. Modern machinery has thrown light upon theproblems of the soul. The engineer finds that his locomotive will notrun itself, but waits for the steam to pound upon the piston. Thegreat ships also are becalmed until the trade winds come to beat uponthe sails. Informed by these physical facts, we now see a noblethought or ambition or social ideal is a mechanism that will not workitself, but asks the enthusiastic heart to lend power divine. Some ofearth's greatest orators, like Patrick Henry, have been unlearned men,but no orator has ever fallen short of being an enthusiastic man. Ageneration ago there appeared in Paris one whose voice was counted themost perfect voice in Europe. Musical critics gave unstinted praise tothe purity of tone and accuracy of execution. Yet in a few weeks theaudiences had dwindled to a handful, and in a few years the singer'sname was forgotten. Obscurity overtook the singer because there was noheart behind the voice and so the tones became metallic. Contrariwise,the history of Jenny Lind contains a letter to a friend in Sweden, inwhich the singer writes: "Oh, that I may live two years longer and bepermitted to save enough money to complete my orphans' home!" As thesun's warm beams lend a soft blush to the rose and pulsate the crimsontides through to the uttermost edge of each petal, so a great, lovingsympathy, sang and sighed, thrilled and throbbed through the tones ofthe Swedish singer, and ravished the hearts of the people and made hername immortal.

History portrays many men of giant minds whose intellect could notredeem them from aimlessness and obscurity. Not until some divineenthusiasm descended upon the mind and baptized it with heroic actiondid these men find themselves. To that young patrician, Saul,journeying to Damascus, came the heavenly vision, and the new impulseof the heart made his cold mind warm, lent wings to his slow feet, madeall his days powerful, made his soul the center of an immense activity.This glowing heart of Paul explains for us the fact that he achievedfreedom of thought and speech, endured the stones with which he wasbruised, the stocks in which he was bound, the mobbings with which hewas mutilated; explains also his eloquence, known and unrecorded;explains his faith and fortitude, his heroism in death. And not onlyhas the zeal of the heart made strong men stronger, turned weak meninto giants, lent the soldier his conquering courage and lent thescholar a stainless life—to men whose will has been made weak byindulgence, the new love has come to redeem intellect and will from thebondage of habit.

No one who ever heard John B. Gough can forget his marvelous eloquence,his wit and his pathos, his scintillating humor, his inimitabledramatisms. He did not have the polished brilliancy of Everett or theelegant scholarship of Phillips, and yet when these numbered thousandsof admirers, Gough numbered his tens of thousands. In hisautobiography this man tells us to what sad straits passion had broughthim; how he reflected upon the injury he was doing himself and others,only to find that his reflections and resolutions snapped like cobwebsbefore the onslaught of temptation. One night the young bookbinderdrifted into a little meeting and, buttoning his seedy overcoat toconceal his rags, in some way he found himself upon his feet and beganto speak. The address that proved a pleasure to others was arevelation to himself. For the first time Gough tasted the joys ofmoving men and mastering them for good. Within a week that love ofpublic speech and useful service had kindled his mental faculties intoa creative glow. The new and higher love of the heart consumed thelower love of the body, just as the sun melts manacles of ice from aman's wrist.

History is full of these transformations wrought by the heart. It wasa new enthusiasm that changed Augustine the epicurean into Augustinethe church father. It was a new enthusiasm that turned Howard thepleasure-lover into Howard the prison-reformer. It was a glowing heartthat lent power to Mazzini and Garibaldi and gave Italy her new hopeand liberty. Indeed, the history of each life is the history of itsnew loves. The enthusiasms are beacon lights that glow in the highwayalong which the soul journeys forward. When the hero's ships werebecalmed Virgil tells us that Aeolus struck the hollow mountain withhis staff and straightway, released from their caves, the winds wentforth to stir the waves and smite upon the sails and sweep the becalmedship on toward its harbor. Oh, beautiful story, telling us how Christtouches the heart with his regenerating hand to release the soul'sdeeper convictions, to sweep man forward to the heavenly haven!

If sentiment working in sound can make music; if working in colors,etc., it can fill galleries with statues and pictures; if sentimentworking in literature can produce poems, it should not seem strangethat the heart, with its affections, furnishes the key of knowledge andwisdom. The time was when authors were supposed to think out theirtruths; now we know that the greatest truths are felt out. MatthewArnold said that mere knowledge is cold as an icicle, but onceexperienced and touched with noble feelings truth becomes sweetness andlight. This author thought that the first requisite for a good writerwas a sensitive and sympathetic heart.

Even in Shakespeare the springs of genius were not in the mind. Theheart of our greatest poet was so sensitive that he could not see anapple blossom without hoping that no untimely frost would nip it; couldnot see the clusters turn purple under the autumn sun without hopingthat hailstones would not pound off the rich clusters; could not see ayouth leave his home to seek his fortune without praying that he wouldreturn to his mother laden with rich treasures; could not see a bridego down the aisle of the church without sending up a petition that manyyears might intervene before death's hand should touch her white brow.Sympathy in the heart so fed the springs of thought in the mind that itwas easy for the poet to put himself in another's place. And so, whilehis pen wrote, his heart felt itself to be the king and also hisservant, to be the merchant and also his clerk, to be the general andalso his soldier. He saw the assassin drawing near the throne with adagger beneath his cloak; he went forth with King Lear to shiverbeneath the wintry blasts; he rejoiced with Rosalind and wept withHamlet, and there was no joy or grief or woe or wrong that ever toucheda human heart that he did not perfectly feel and, therefore, perfectlydescribe. For depth of mind begins with depth of heart. The greatestwriters are primarily seers and only incidentally thinkers. As of old,so now, for a thousand thinkers there is only one great seer.

Having affirmed the influence of the heart upon the intellect andscholarship, let us hasten to confess that the heart determines thereligious belief and creed. It is often said that belief is a matterof pure reason determined wholly by evidence. And doubtless it is truethat in approaching mathematical proofs man is to discharge his mind ofall color. That two and two are four is true for the poet and themiser, for the peaceable man not less than the litigious. But of theother truths of life it is a fact that with the heart man believes. Weapproach wheat with scales, we measure silk with a yardstick; we testthe painting with taste and imagination, and the symphony with thesense of melody; motives and actions are tested by conscience; weapproach the stars with a telescope, while purity of heart is the glassby which we see God. The scales that are useful in the laboratory areutterly valueless in the art gallery. The scientific faculty that fitsSpencer for studying nature unfits him for studying art. In his oldage Huxley, the scientist, wrote an essay forty pages long to provethat man was more beautiful than woman. Imagine some Tyndallapproaching the transfiguration of Raphael to scrape off the colors andtest them with acid and alkali for finding out the proportion of blueand crimson and gold. These are the methods that would give thevillage paint-grinder precedency above genius itself.

In 1837 two boys entered Faneuil hall and heard Wendell Phillips'defense of Lovejoy. One youth was an English visitor who saw theportraits of Otis and Hanco*ck, yet saw them not; heard the words ofPhillips, yet heard them not, and because his heart was in Londonbelieved not unto patriotism. But the blood of Adams was in the veinsof the other youth. He thought of Samuel Adams, who heard the firingat Lexington and exclaimed; "What a glorious morning this is!" Hethought of John Adams and his love of liberty. He thought of the oldman eloquent, John Quincy Adams, in the Halls of Congress, and as helistened to the burning words of the speaker, tears filled his eyes andpride filled his soul. It was his native land. With his heart hebelieved unto patriotism.

What the man is determines largely what his intellect thinks about God.When the heart is narrow, harsh, and rigorous its theology is despoticand cruel. When the heart grows kindly, sympathetic and of autumnalrichness, it emphasizes the sympathy and love of God. Each man paintshis own picture of God. The heart lends the pigments. Souls full ofsweetness and light fill the divine portrait with the lineaments oflove. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.

Happy, indeed, our age, in that the heart is now beginning to color ourcivilization. Vast, indeed, the influence of library and lecture-hall,of gallery and store and market-place, but the most significant fact ofour day is that sympathy is baptizing our industries and institutionswith new effort. Intellect has lent the modern youth instruments manyand powerful. Inventive thought has lent fire to man's forge, toolsfor his hands, books for his reading, has lent arts, sciences,institutions. The modern youth stands forth in the aspect of the Romanconqueror to whom the citizens went forth to bestow gifts, one takinghis chariot, one leading a steed, the children scattering flowers inthe way, young men and maidens taking the hero's name upon their lips.Unfortunately multitudes have declined those high gifts, turning awayfrom the open door of the schoolhouse and college; many young feet havecrossed the threshold of the saloon. Having entered our museum orart-gallery, multitudes enter places of evil resort.

Despising the opportunity offered by music or eloquence, by book ornewspaper, by trade and profession, many choose sloth andself-indulgence. These needy millions, blinded with sin and ignorance,stand forth as a great opportunity for loving hearts. Sympathy ismaking beautiful the pathway of knowledge, that young hearts may beallured along the shining way. By a thousand arts and devices youngpeople of refinement and culture are founding centers of light amongthe poor. The opportunity that William the Silent found in thestarving millions of Holland; that Garrison found in the miserableslaves of the South; that Livingstone found in Africa, the modern herois finding in the tenement-house district. Through sympathy a new hopeis entering into all classes of society.

The heart is also coloring industry. This year it is said that morethan a score of great industrial institutions in our country have, tothe factory, added gymnasium, recreation-hall, schoolroom, library,free musicals and lectures. The intellect has failed to solve thesocial problems by giving allopathic doses from Poor Richard's Almanac.Impotent also those dreamers who have insisted that society must havesocialism—either God's or the devil's. Impotent those who, during thepast week, have proposed to cure economic ills by spitting the heads oftyrants upon bayonets. But what force and law cannot do is slowlybeing done by sympathy and good-will. The heart is taking the rigorout of toil, the drudgery out of service, the cruelty out of laws,harshness out of theology, injustice out of politics. Love has donemuch. The social gains of the future are to be to the gradual progressof sympathy and love.

Unto man who goes through life working, weeping, laughing, loving,comes the heart believing unto immortality. For reason oft theimmortal hope burns low and the stars dim and disappear, but for theheart, never! Scientists tell us matter is indestructible. And theheart nourishes an immortal hope that no doubt can quench, no argumentdestroy, no misfortune annihilate. Comforting, indeed, for reasons,the arguments of Socrates that life survives death. After the death ofhis beloved daughter Tullia, Cicero outlined arguments which haveconsoled the mind of multitudes. But in the hour of darkness andblackness, for a man to put out upon Death's dark sea, upon theargument of Cicero, is like some Columbus committing himself to asingle plank in the hope of discovering an unseen continent.

In these dark hours the heart speaks. In the poet's vision, to blindHomer, falling into the bog, torn by the thorns and thickets and lostin the forest and the night, came the young goddess, the daughter ofLight and Beauty, to take the sightless poet by the hand and lead himup the heavenly heights. Sometimes intellect seems sightless andwanders lost in the maze. Then comes the heart to lead man along theupward path. For even in its dreams the heart hears the sound ofinvisible music. Oft before reason's eye the heart unveils the VisionSplendid. The soul is big with immortality. When the heart speaks itis God within making overtures for man to come upward toward home andheaven.

RENOWN THROUGH SELF-RENUNCIATION.

"To live absolutely each man for himself could not be possible if allwere to live together. In course of time, in addition to utility,certain more sensitive individuals began to see a charm, a beauty inthis consideration for others. Gradually a sort of sanctity attachedto it, and nature had once more illustrated her mysterious method ofevolving from rough and even savage necessities her lovely shapes andher tender dreams. To assert, then, with some recent critics ofChristianity, that that law of brotherly love which is its centralteaching is impracticable of application to the needs of society, issimply to deny the very first law by which society exists."—RichardLe Galliene, in "The Religion of a Literary Man."

"It is only with renunciations that life, properly speaking, can besaid to begin. . . . In a valiant suffering for others, not in aslothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness everlie."—Carlyle.

"You talk of self as the motive to exertion. I tell you it is theabnegation of self which has wrought out all that is noble, all that isgood, all that is useful, nearly all that is ornamental in theworld."—Whyte Melville.

"Jesus said; 'Whosoever will come after Me, let him renounce himself,and take up his cross daily and follow Me.' Perhaps there is no othermaxim of Jesus which has such a combined stress of evidence for it andmay be taken as so eminently His."—Matthew Arnold.

CHAPTER VIII.

RENOWN THROUGH SELF-RENUNCIATION.

History has crowned self-sacrifice as one of the virtues. In all agesselfishness has been like a flame consuming society, like a swordworking waste and ruin, but self-sacrifice has repaired these ravagesand achieved for man victories many and great. The church owes so muchto the company of martyrs whose blood has crimsoned her every page, thestate is so deeply indebted to the patriots who have given their livesfor liberty, man has derived such strength from those who have enduredthe fetter and the fa*got rather than belie their convictions, woman hasderived such beauty from the example of that Antigone who died ratherthan desert the body of her dead brother, as that each modern youthbeholds self-sacrifice standing forth clothed with immeasurableexcellence.

Not large the company of the Immortals whose birthdays societycelebrates. Yet when on these high days, through song or story thepoet or orator draws back the veil and reveals to the assembledmultitude the face of some Garibaldi or Hampden or Lincoln, the belovedone is seen to be clothed with genius and beauty and truth indeed, butalso to be crowned with self-sacrifice. Society makes haste to forgethim who remembers only himself. As there can be no illiterate sage, noignorant Shakespeare, so history knows no selfish hero. For themercenary forehead memory has no wreath. A sentinel with a flamingsword guards the threshold of the temple of fame against thoseaspirants named Ease, Avarice, Self-indulgence.

"Shall I be remembered by posterity?" asked the dying Garfield. Inthis eager, tremulous question the renowned and the obscure alike havea pathetic interest. For the deeply reflective mind oblivion is athought all unendurable. The tool man fashions, the structure herears, the success he achieves, not less than his marble monument,looks down upon the beholder with a mute appeal for recollection. Toeach eager aspirant for everlasting remembrance Christ comes whisperinghis secret of abiding renown. Speaking not as an amateur, but as amaster, Christ affirms that he who would save his life must lose it,that he who would be remembered by others must forget himself, that thesoldier who flees from danger to save his body shall leave that lifeupon the battlefield, while he who plunges his banner into the verythick of the fight and is carried off the field upon his shield shallin safety bear his life away. Hard seem the terms; they rebuke ease,they smite self-indulgence, they deny the maxims of the worldly wise.But in accepting Christ's principle and forsaking their palaces thatthey might be as brothers to beggars, Xavier and Loyola found anexhilaration denied to kings; while each Sir Launfal, in his easedenied the Holy Grail, has in the hour of self-sacrifice discerned theVision Splendid. To each young patriot and soldier looking eagerlyunto the tablets that commemorate the deeds of heroes, to each youngscholar aspiring to a place beside the sages, comes this word: Life isthrough death, and immortal renown through self-renunciation.

This law of self-sacrifice is imbedded in nature. Minot, theembryologist, and Drummond, the scientist, tells us that only by losingits life does the cell save it. The new science exhibits the body as atemple, constructed out of cells, as a building is made of bricks.Just as some St. Peter represents strange marble from Athens, beauteouswoods from Cyprus, granite from Italy, porphyry from Egypt, all broughttogether in a single cathedral, so the human body is a glorious templebuilt by those architects called living cells. When the scientistsearches out the beginning of bird or bud or acorn he comes to a singlecell. Under the microscope that cell is seen to be absorbing nutritionthrough its outer covering. But when the cell has attained a certainsize its life is suddenly threatened. The center of the cell is seento be so far from the surface that it can no longer draw in thenutrition from without. The bulk has outrun the absorbing surface."The alternative is very sharp," says the scientist, "the cell mustdivide or die." Only by losing its life and becoming two cells can itsave its life.

Later on, when each of the two cells has grown again to the size of theoriginal one, the same peril threatens them and they too must divide ordie. And when through this law of saving life by losing it nature hasmade sure the basis for bud and bird, for beast and man, then theprinciple of sacrifice goes on to secure beauty of the individual plantor animal and perpetuity for the species. In the center of each grainof wheat there is a golden spot that gives a yellow cast to the fineflour. That spot is called the germ. When the germ sprouts and beginsto increase, the white flour taken up as food begins to decrease. Asthe plant waxes, the surrounding kernel wanes. The life of the highermeans the death of the lower. In the orchard also the flower must fallthat the fruit may swell. If the young apple grows large, it mustbegin by pushing off the blossom. But by losing the lower bud, thetree saves the higher fruit.

Centuries ago Herodotus, the Grecian traveler, noted a remarkablecustom in Egypt. Each springtime, when the palms flowered, theEgyptians went into the desert, cut off branches from the wild palmsand, bringing them back to their gardens, waved them over the flowersof the date trees. What was meant by this ceremony Herodotus did notknow. The husbandmen believed that if they neglected it the gods wouldgive them but a scanty crop of dates. It was reserved for the scienceof our century, through Drummond, to explain the fact that the one palmsaved its dates because the other palm lost its fertilizing pollen.Should nature refuse to obey this law of losing life in order to saveit, man's world would become one vast Sahara waste, an arcticdesolation.

The law of sacrifice is also industrial law. Great is the power ofwealth. It buys comfort, it purchases travel, it secures instrumentsof culture for reason and taste, it is almoner of bounty for sympathyand kindness. Flowing through man's life, it seems like unto some Nileflowing through Egypt with soft, irrigating flow, bearing man's burdensupon its currents, giving food to bird and beast. But the story ofeach Peter Cooper, each Peabody, each Amos Lawrence, is the story ofthe ease of life lost to-day that the strength of life may be savedto-morrow. Each young merchant loved luxury and beauty, but in theinterests of thrift he denied the eye its hunger, the taste itssatisfaction. When pride asked for dress and show, the youth rebukedhis vanity. When companions scoffed at the young merchant as a nigg*rdhe subdued his sensitiveness and inured himself to rigid economy. Whenincreasing wealth began to lend influence, and society urged him togive his evenings to gayety, the young merchant denied the socialinstinct and gave his long winter evenings to broadening his knowledgeand culture. Having lost the lower good, at last the time came whenthe American merchant and philanthropist had saved for himselfuniversal fame. Having lost ease and self-indulgence during the firsthalf of his life, he saved the higher ease and comfort for the secondperiod of his career.

Similarly of the young men in Parliament who to-day have charge of thedestinies of the English empire, it may be said that they have savedtheir lives, because the fathers lost theirs. One hundred years agothese fathers made exiles of themselves in the interests of their sonsand daughters. The East India merchant exiled himself into the tropicland where heat and malaria made his skin as yellow as the gold hegained. Others braved the perils of the African forests, dared thedangers of Australian deserts, endured the rigor of the arctic cold.Losing the lower and present happiness, they saved the higher ease andcomfort for their sons. The self-denial of yesterday brought theinfluence of to-day. Upon this principle God has organized theindustrial world. Man must take his choice between ease and wealth,either may be his but not both.

Sacrifice is also the secret of beauty, culture and character.Selfishness eats sweetness from the singer's voice as rust eats theedge of a sword. St. Cecilia refused to lend the divine touch to lipssteeped in pleasure. He who sings for love of gold finds his voicebecoming metallic. In art, also, Hitchco*ck has said: "When the brushgrows voluptuous it falls like an angel from heaven." Fra Angelicorefuses an invitation to the Pitti palace, choosing rather his crustand pallet in the cell of the monastery. The artist gave his morningsto the poor, his evenings to his canvas. But when the painter had wornhis life away in kindly deeds, men found that the light divine had beentransferred to the painter's canvas. Eloquence also loves sincerelips. The history of oratory includes few great scenes—Demosthenes'plea for Athenian liberty that resulted in his death, Luther's singlechallenge to the hosts of Pope and Emperor, Wendell Phillips' atFaneuil Hall, Lincoln's at Gettysburg. All these risked life for acause, and were baptized with eloquence, their words being tipped withfire, their minds hurling thunderbolts.

Sacrifice also is the secret of beauty. After a little time the lifeof pleasure and selfishness will make the sweetest fact opaque andrepellent, while self-sacrificing thoughts are cosmetics that at lastmake the plainest face to be beautiful. In the calm of scholarship menhave given up the thought that culture consists of an exquisiterefinement in manners and dress, in language and equipage. The poetlaureate makes Maud the type of polished perfection. She is "icilyregular, splendidly null," for culture is more of the heart than of themind. But as eloquence means that an orator has so mastered the lawsof posture, and gesture and thought and speech that they are utterlyforgotten, and have become second nature, so knowledge becomes culture,and physical perfection becomes beauty, only when it is unconscious.

In the moral realm also, the gains for the soul begin with loss. Inthe hour of temptation he who sacrifices the higher duty to the lowerpleasure will find that ease has shorn away the strength of Samson.

Victor Hugo has pictured a man committing suicide through poverty, anddeserting the duty and dwelling where God has placed him. But wakingin the next world, the man perceives a letter on the way to himselfannouncing a large inheritance which would have been his had he butbeen patient. Therefore the great novelist affirms that God makes sucha man begin over again, only under harder conditions, the existencethat here he has willfully shattered. What a tragedy is his who, tosave the present good, will lose the higher life. Whittier expressedthe fear that Daniel Webster saved his life only to lose it. In hisworks the poet recalls the time when for genius of statesmanship andweight of mentality Webster's like was not upon our earth. But in anevil hour the statesman saw that the presidency was a prize that couldbe gained by giving the fugitive slave law as a sop to the South. Inthat hour his character suffered grievous injury. In the attempt tosave men's votes he lost men's higher respect. In deepest sorrow hisadmirers, abroad and at home, cried out: "O, Lucifer, thou son of themorning, how art thou fallen!"

The law of sacrifice is also the law of progress and civilization.When history exhibits as dead the nations that have beenpleasure-seekers it declares that the state that saveth its life shalllose it. In our own land the bankruptcy and gloom that have for yearsovershadowed the South speak eloquently of a national gain that is aloss. One hundred years ago the North freed its slaves. Later, whenthe constitution was adopted, many statesmen believed that slavery waslosing its hold in the South. Jefferson said: "When I think that Godis just I tremble for my country." In that hour the statesmanprophesied that slavery would soon melt away like the vanishing snow ofApril. But when Whitney invented his gin and the raising of cottonbecame very lucrative slavery took on new life. It was Lord Broughamwho first said that when slavery brought in 100 percent, while it wasseen to be immoral, not all the navies of the world could stop it.Later, when it brought in 300 percent, it became a peculiarinstitution, patterned after the system of the patriarchs. But when itbrought in 300 percent master and slave became a Christian relation,and slavery was baptized with quotations from the Old Testament.

But avarice could not forever blind men's eyes to scenes of sorrow, norstop their ears to sounds of woe. When the horrors of the slave-marketand the infamies of the cotton-field filled all the land with shamereformers arose, declaring that the attempt to compress and confineliberty would end in explosion. In that hour Northern men madetentative overtures looking to the purchase of all slaves. Butslavery, Delilah-like, made the southern leaders drunk with the cup ofsorcery. They scorned the proposition. In the light of subsequentevents we see that in saving her institution the South lost it, andwith it her wealth, while in losing her slaves the North gained herwealth. Under free labor the North doubled its population, itsmanufactories, its riches and waxed mighty. Under slave-labor theSouth dwindled in wealth and became only the empty shell of a state.The spark fired at Fort Sumter kindled a conflagration that sweptthrough the sunny South like a devastating fire and revealed its innerpoverty. When four years had passed by the farmhouses and factorieswere ruins, the village was a heap, the town a desolation. Graveyardswere as populous as cities, each village had its company of cripples,the cry of the orphan and the widow filled all the land.

When Charles Darwin returned from his voyage around the world, he senta generous contribution to the London Missionary Society. The greatscientist had discovered that in lessening her wealth through missionsEngland had saved her treasure through commerce. Traveling in foreignlands, Darwin noticed that the Christian teachers in schools that nowtouch 3,000,000 of young men and women in India, were really commercialagents for England's trade. In awakening the minds of the darkenedmillions the teacher had created a demand for books, newspapers andprinting-presses. In awakening the sense of self-respect the teacherhad created a demand for English clothing and the product of Englishlooms. Also the influence of each home, with its comforts andconveniences, created a demand for English tools and improvements oflabor. Summing up his observation, Lord Havelock said that eachthousand dollars England had spent upon her missions had brought areturn of a hundred thousand dollars through her commerce. Hithertothe interior of China has been closed to English merchants. To thatdark land, therefore, England has sent 200 teachers whose homes arecenters of light and inspiration. When two-score years have passedEnglish fleets will be taxed to the utmost to carry to China, as now toIndia, her fabrics of cotton and wool, her presses, looms,sewing-machines, her pictures, her libraries. In giving of her wealthto found these destitute schools England will save it a hundred-foldand find new markets among 300,000,000 people.

Sacrifice is also the secret of influence. Long ago Cicero noted thattales of heroes and eloquence and self-sacrifice cast a charm and spellupon the people. When men sacrifice ease, wealth, rank, life itself,the delight of the beholders knows no bounds. If we call the roll ofthe sons of greatness and influence we shall see that they are also thesons of self-sacrifice. The Grecian hero who lost his life that hemight save his influence is typical of all the great leaders. Phocionwas a patriot and martyr whose single error in judgment brought down acatastrophe upon his beloved Athens. When the fierce mob surroundedhis house and prepared to beat down his doors, friends offered Phocionescape and shelter, but the hero went calmly forth to meet his death.When the day of execution arrived the cup of poison was handed to theother leaders first. The jailer was careful to see to it that beforehe reached Phocion he had only a few drops of hemlock left in his cup,but the hero drew out his purse and bade a youth run swiftly to buymore poison, saying to the onlookers: "Athens makes her patriots pay,even for dying." Losing his life, Phocion, found immortal influence.

The history of Holland's greatness is the history of one who savedliberty by losing his own life. William the Silent was a prince instation and in wealth, yet for Holland's sake made himself a beggar andan outlaw. He feared God, indeed, but not the batteries of Alva andPhilip. His career reads like one who with naked fists captured ablazing cannon. Falling at last by the dagger of a hired assassin, heexclaimed: "I commit my poor people to God and myself to God's greatcaptain, Christ." When he died little children cried in the streets.He lost his life, said his biographer, but saved his fame. And whatshall we more say of Italy's hero, who wore his fiery fa*gots like acrown of gold; of Germany's hero, who lost his priestly rites, butgained the hearts of all mankind; of England's hero, whose very asheswere cast by enemies upon the River Severn, as if to float hisinfluence out o'er all the world, of India's hero, William Carey, theEnglish shoemaker, who founded for India an educational system nowreaching millions of children and youth, who gave India literature,made five grammars and six dictionaries, and so used his commercialgenius through his indigo plantation and factories that it made for hima million dollars in the interests of Christian missions? Of thisgreat company, what can we say save that they won renown throughself-renunciation! What they did makes weak and unworthy what we say.Just here let us remember that the statue of Jupiter was a figure socolossal that worshipers, unable to reach the divine forehead, casttheir garlands at the hero's feet. For this law of sacrifice is thesecret of the Messiah. Earth's great ones were taught it by theirMaster. Jesus Christ, "being rich, for our sakes became poor."Because the law of sacrifice is the law of the Savior, man gains lifethrough death and renown through self-renunciation.

THE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.

"A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure inthe body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; andof structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicatesympathies—one may say, simply 'fineness of nature.' This is, ofcourse, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness, infact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy.Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel notouch of the boughs, but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would havefelt a bent rose leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, andbehave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgaranimal, but if you think about him carefully you will find that hisnon-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantinenature, not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in theway he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way and in hissensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of piqueon points of honor. Hence it will follow that one of the probablesigns of high-breeding in men generally will be their kindness andmercifulness."—Modern Painters.

CHAPTER IX.

THE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.

History has never known another such an enthusiasm for a hero as themultitude once felt toward Jesus Christ. There have indeed been timeswhen such patriots as Garibaldi, Kossuth and Lincoln have kindled inmen an enthusiasm akin to adoration and worship. Yet let us hasten toconfess that the qualities calculated to quicken men into raptures ofdevotion appeared in these patriots only in fragmentary form, whilethey dwelt in Christ in full-orbed majesty and splendor. The welcomeChicago gave to Grant upon his return from his journey around theworld; the enthusiasm excited by Kossuth when in 1851 he drove throughBroadway, New York; the wave of gratitude that swept over the Italianmultitude when Garibaldi appeared in Florence—all these are eventsthat bear witness to society's devotion to its patriots and heroes.But, be it remembered, these scenes occurred but once in the history ofeach of these great men.

It stirs wonder in us, therefore, that Christ's every journey acrossthe fields took on the aspect of a triumphal procession, while Hispopularity waxed with familiarity and the increasing years. Indeed,full oft the rapture men felt toward Him amounted to an intoxicationand an ecstasy of devotion. True it is that men now look upon Himthrough a blaze of light, and, remembering His achievements for art,liberty and learning, have stained His name through and through withlustrous colors. As at eventide we look out upon the sun through whiteand golden clouds that the sun itself has lifted, so do we behold thecarpenter's son standing forth under the dazzling light of nearly twothousand years of history, while the heart colors His name with allthat is noblest in human aspiration and achievement.

Nevertheless, be it instantly confessed that from the very beginningthis divine Teacher exhibited qualities that kindled in men anenthusiasm that amounted to transcendent delight. The time was whenscholars attempted to explain His influence over the multitude byportraying Him with a halo of light about His head. Fortunately theseideas that robbed men of all fellowship with their divine brother haveperished, and now we know that there was nothing unusual about Hisappearance, nor did any effulgent light blaze forth from His person.Whether or not unique beauty of face and form was His we do not know.Coins and statues portray for us the Roman emperors and the Greekscholars. Yet art has broken down utterly in the attempt to combine inone face Christ's majesty and meekness, strength and gentleness,suffering and victory. All that we can know of His personal appearancemust be gained through imagination, as it clothed Him with those traitsthat alone cannot account for His influence over the multitudes. Whatsweet allurement in the face that made children leap into His arms!What winsome benignity that made mothers feel that His touch wouldreturn the babe with double worth into the parent's bosom!

Purity in others has been cold and chaste as ice. How strange that inHim purity had an irresistible fascination, so that the corruptest andwickedest felt drawn unto Him, and "depravity itself bowed down andwept in the presence of divinity." What all-forgiving love, whatall-cleansing love, in one who by a mere look could dissolve inrepentant tears men long hardened by vice and crime! What anatmosphere of power He must have carried, that by one beam from His eyeHe could smite to the very ground the soldiers who confronted Him!

Did ever man have such a genius for noble friendship? What bosom wordsHe used! What love pressure in all His speech! How were His wordsladen with double meanings, so that hearing one thing, men also heardanother, even as they who hear the sound of the distant sea, knowingthat the sound they hear is but a breath of the great infinite oceanthat heaves beyond in the dim, vast dark. Among all the heroes of timeHe walks solitary by the greatness of His power, His beauty and thewonder of love His personality excited. Standing in the presence ofsome glorious cathedral or gallery, beholding the Parthenon orpyramids, the rugged mountain or the beautiful landscape, emotion andimagination are sometimes so deeply stirred that men lose command ofthemselves and break into transports of admiration. But the enthusiasmevoked by mountain or statue or canvas is as nothing compared to therapturous devotion felt by the multitude for this One, who united infull splendor all those eminent qualities of mind and heart that allthe ages and generations have in vain sought to emulate. High over allthe other worthies He rises like a star riding in untroubled splendorabove the low-browed hills.

In all ages great men have educated themselves by reading the biographyof ancient worthies, and emulating the example of the heroes ofantiquity. Great has been the influence of these reformers andphilosophers, statesmen and poets, hanging in the heavens above men andraining down inspiration upon the human imagination. Yet from all theworthies of the past, and all modern heroes, man has drawn less ofinspiration and personal influence than from the single example of thisideal Christ. Passing by His influence upon institutions, education,art and literature, we shall do well to consider how His example hasinstructed man in the art of a right carriage of the faculties in thehome and market-place. In the last analysis, Jesus Christ is the onlyperfect gentleman our earth has ever known—in comparison with whom allthe Chesterfields seem boors. For nothing taxes a man so heavily asthe task of maintaining smooth, pleasant and charitable relations withone's fellows. And Christ alone was able always to meet storm withcalm, hate with love, scowls with smiles, plottings with confidence,envy and bitterness with unruffled tranquility.

In all His relations with His friends and enemies the quality thatcrowns His method of living and challenges our thought is thegentleness of His bearing. Matchless the mingled strength and beautyof His life, yet gentleness was the flower and fruitage of it all. Forin Him the lion and the lamb dwelt together. Oak and rock were there,and also vine and flower. Weakness is always rough. Only giants canbe gentle. Tenderness is an inflection of strength. No error can begreater than to suppose that gentleness is mere absence of vigor.Weakness totters and tugs at its burden. When the dwarf that attendedIvanhoe at the tournament lifted the bleeding sufferer he staggeredunder his heavy burden. Weakness made him stumble and caused thewounded knight intense pain. When the giant of the brawny arm and theunconquered heart came, he lifted the unconscious sufferer like afeather's weight and without a jar bore him away to a securehiding-place for healing and recovering. He who studies the great menof yesterday will find in the last analysis that gentleness has alwaysbeen the test of gianthood, and fine considerateness the measure ofmanhood and the gauge of personal worth. No other hero moving throughthe crowds has ever been so courteously gentle, so sweetly consideratein his personal bearing as this Christ—who never failed to kindle inmen transports of delight and enthusiasm.

The crying fault of our generation is its lack of gentleness. Our ageis harsh when it judges, brutal when it blames and savage in itsseverity. Carlyle, emptying vials of scorn upon the people of England,numbering his generation by "thirty millions, mostly fools," is typicalof the publicists, authors and critics who pelt their brother man withcontemptuous scorn. The author of "Robert Elsmere" exhibits thatpolished scholar and brilliant student as one who gave up teachingbecause he could find no audience on a level with his ability or worthyof his instruction. Having begun by despising others, he ends bydespising himself. Now the popularity of Elsmere's character witnessesto the fact that our generation includes a large number of cynics whoscorn their fellows and in Elsmere see themselves as "in an openglass." To-day this tendency toward harshness of judgment has becomemore pronounced, and there seems to be no leader so noble as to escapebrutal criticism and no movement whose white flag may not be smirchedby mud-slingers. What epithets are hurled at each new idea! Whattorrents of ridicule are emptied out upon each social movement!

The fact that society has oftentimes destroyed its noblest geniusesavails little for the restraint of harshness. For years England waswildly merry at Turner's expense. The newspapers cartooned hispaintings. Reviews spoke of them as "color blotches." The rich overtheir champagne made merry at the great artist's expense. After awhile men found a little respite from the mad chase for wealth andpleasure and discovered that Turner's extreme examples representedpeculiar moods in nature, seen only by those who had traveled as widelyas had Turner, while his great landscapes were as rich in imaginativequality as those of any artist of all ages. Only when it was too late,only when harshness had broken the man's heart, and scorn had fatallywounded his genius, did scholars begin to adorn their pages byreferences to Turner's fame, did the rich begin to pay fabulous sumsfor the very pictures they had once despised, the nation set apart thebest room in its gallery for Turner's works, while the people wove forhis white tombstone wreaths they had denied his brow and paid his deadashes honors refused his living spirit.

In similar vein we remember the English-speaking world has recentlybeen celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Keats, who is the onlypure Greek in all English literature, for whose imagination "a thing ofbeauty was a joy forever," and whose genius in divining the secrets ofthe beautiful amounted to inspiration. We know now that no poet in alltime, who died so young, has left so much that is precious. Scholarsare not wanting who believe that had he lived to see his maturity Keatswould have ranked with the five great poets of the first order ofgenius. Yet the publication of his volume of verse received from"Blackwood" and the "Quarterly" only contempt and bitter scorn. Waxingbold, the penny-a-liners grew savage, until the very skies rained liesand bitter slanders upon poor Keats. Sensitive, soon he was wounded todeath. After a week of sleeplessness, he arose one morning to find abright red spot upon his handkerchief. "That is arterial blood," saidhe; "that drop is my death-warrant; I shall die." And so, when he wasone-and-twenty, friends lifted above the boy's dust a marble slab, uponwhich was written: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Nowhis name shines like a star, while low down and bespattered with mudare the names of those whose cruel criticisms helped to kill the boyand whose only claim to immortality is their brutality.

Witness also the contempt our age once visited upon Browning, whosemind is slowly becoming recognized as one of the rich-gold minds of ourcentury. Witness the sport over Ruskin's "Munera Pulveris," and thescornful reception given Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." Now that a fewyears have passed, those who once reviled are teaching their childrenthe pathway to the graves of the great. The harshness of the world'streatment of its greatest teachers makes one of the most patheticchapters in history. God gives each nation only a few men of supremetalent. Gives it, for greatness is not made; it is found as is thegold. Gold cannot be made out of mud; it is uncovered. And God giveseach generation a few men of the first order; and when they havecreated truth and beauty they have the right while they live tokindness and sympathy, not harshness and cynicism. No youth winningthe first goal of his ambition was ever injured by knowing that hisfather's face did not flush with pride, while his mother's eyes werefilled with happy tears, in joy of his first victory. No noble loverbut girds himself for a second struggle the more resolutely for knowingthat his noble mistress rejoiced in his first conquest. Frost itselfis not more destructive to harvest fields than harshness is to thecreative faculties. Strange that Florence gave Dante exile in exchangefor his immortal poem! Strange that London gave Milton threats ofimprisonment for the manuscript of "Paradise Lost!" Passing strangethat until his career was nearly run universities visited upon JohnRuskin only scorn and contumely, that ruined his health and broke hisheart, withholding the wreath until, as he said pathetically, his only"pleasure was in memory, his ambition in heaven," and he knew not whatto do with his laurel leaves save "lay them wistfully upon his mother'sgrave." In every age the critics that have refused honor to itsworthies, living, have heaped gifts high upon the graves of its dead.

That generation and individual must be far from perfect that ischaracterized by the presence of harshness and the absence ofgentleness. With a great blare of trumpets our century has beenpraised for its ingenuity, its wealth and comforts, its instruments,refinement and culture. But history tells of no man who has carriedhis genius up to such supreme excellence that society has forgotten hisvice or forgiven the faults that marred his rare gifts. What geniushad De Quincey! Marvelous the myriad-minded Coleridge! Theopium-habit, however, was a vice that eclipsed their fame and robbedthem of half their rightful influence. Voltaire's style was sofaultlessly perfect that if the sentences lying across his page hadbeen strings of pearls they could have been no more beautiful. ButVoltaire's excesses make a black mark across the white page before eachreader's mind. Rousseau's writings are so melodious that, long afterlaying aside the book the ear would be filled with the sound ofdelicious music were it not that the reader seems ever to hear the moanof the four children whose unnatural father, without even giving them aname, placed them in the foundling-asylum.

Early Carlyle wooed and won one of the most brilliant girls of his day,whose signal talent shone in the crowded drawing-rooms of London like asapphire blazing among pebbles. Yet her husband lacked gentleness.Slowly harshness crept into Carlyle's voice. Soon the wife gave up herfavorite authors to read the husband's notes; then she gave up allreading to relieve him of details; at last her very being was placed onthe altar of sacrifice—fuel to feed the flame of his fame and genius.Long before the end came she was submerged and almost forgotten. Oneday two distinguished foreign authors called upon Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.For an hour the philosopher poured forth vehement tirade against thecommercial spirit, while the good wife never once opened her lips. Atlast the author ceased talking, and there was silence for a time.Suddenly Carlyle thundered: "Jane, stop breathing so loud!" Long yearsbefore Jane had stopped doing everything else except breathe. And so,obedient to the injunction, a few days afterward she ceased "breathingso loud."

When a few weeks had gone by Carlyle discovered, through reading herjournal, that his wife had for want of affection frozen and starved todeath within his home like some poor traveler who had fallen in thesnows beyond the door. For years, without his realizing it, she hadkept all the wheels oiled, kept his body in health and his mind inhappiness. Only when it was too late did the husband realize that hisfame was largely his wife's. Then did the old man begin his patheticpilgrimage to his wife's grave, where Froude often found him murmuring:"If I had only known! If I had only known!" For all his supreme giftsand rare talents were marred by harshness. Intellectual brilliancyweighs light as punk against the gold of gentleness and character.Half Carlyle's books, weighted by a gentle, noble spirit, would haveavailed more for social progress than these many volumes with the badtaste they leave in the mouth. The sign of ripeness in an apple, apeach, is beauty, and the test of character is gentleness and kindnessof heart.

One of the crying needs of society is a revival of gentleness and of arefined considerateness in judging others. There is no dispositionthat cuts at the very root of character like harshness, and there isnothing that blights happiness and breeds discord like unlovingness andseverity of judgment. We hear much of industrial strife, socialwarfare and want of sympathy between the classes. Be it remembered,gentleness alone can be invoked to heal the breach. There is a legendthat when Jacob with his family and flocks met Esau with his childrenand herds, the angels of God hovered in the air above the two brothersand began to rain gifts down upon their companies. Strangely enough,each forgetting the gifts falling in his own camp, rushed forth to pickup the gifts falling in that of his brother. There was anger stirred.Epithets and stones began to fly, until all the air was filled withflying weapons. In such a scrimmage the messengers of peace had noplace. Soon the sound of receding wings died out of the air, the giftsceased to fall and all things faded into the light of common day. Thislegend interprets to us how harshness breeds strife and robs man of hisgifts from God and his happiness through his brother man.

Several years ago an industrial war was waged in the coal districts ofEngland that cost that nation untold treasure. It is said that thestrife grew out of harsh words between the leaders of the opposingfactions. It seemed that the industrious and worthy poor menoverlooked the fact that there were industrious and worthy rich men andinsisted on speaking only of the idle and spendthrift rich. Thenfollowed his opponent who, as an industrious and worthy rich man,insisted on ignoring the industrious and worthy poor, but spoke only ofthe idle and thriftless poor, the paupers and parasites. Soongentleness was forgotten and harshness remembered. Soon there came thetrampled cornfields and the bloody streets.

Teachers also need to learn the lesson of Arnold of Rugby. One day thegreat instructor spake harshly to a dull boy, who an hour afterwardcame to him with tearful eyes, and in a half-sobbing voice exclaimed;"But why are you angry, sir? I am doing my best." Then Arnold learnedthat a lesson easy for one mind may be a torture for another. So hebegged the boy's pardon, and recognized the principle of gentlenessthat afterward made him the greatest instructor of his time.

Not war, not pestilence, not famine itself, produces for eachgeneration so much misery and unhappiness as is wrought in theaggregate through the accumulated harshness of each generation.Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they who with humbletalents make themselves like the mignonette, creators of fragrance andpeace! Thrice blessed are they who with lofty talents emulate thevines that climbing high never forget to blossom, and the higher theyclimb do ever shed sweet blooms upon those beneath! No single greatdeed is comparable for a moment to the multitude of little gentlenessesperformed by those who scatter happiness on every side and strew alllife with hope and good cheer.

Life holds no motive for stimulating gentleness in man like the thoughtof the gentleness of God. Unfortunately, it seems difficult for man toassociate delicacy and gentleness with vastness and strength. It wasthe misfortune of Greek philosophers and is, indeed, that of nearly allthe modern theologians, to suppose that a perfect being cannot suffer.Both schools of thought conceive of God as sitting upon a marblethrone, eternally young, eternally beautiful, beholding with quietindifference from afar how man, with infinite blunderings, sufferingsand tears makes his way forward. Yet He who holds the sun in thehollow of his hand, who takes up the isles as a very little thing, whocounts the nations but as the dust in the balance, is also the gentleOne. Like the wide, deep ocean, that pulsates into every bay and creekand blesses the distant isles with its dew and rain, so God's heartthrobs and pulsates unto the uttermost parts of the universe, having aparent's sympathy for His children who suffer.

Indeed, the seer ranges through all nature searching out images forinterpreting His all-comprehending gentleness. "Even the bruised reedhe will not break." Lifting itself high in the air, a mere lead pencilfor size, weighted with a heavy top, a very little injury shatters areed. Some rude beast, in wild pursuit of prey, plunges through theswamp, shatters the reed, leaves it lying upon the ground, all bruisedand bleeding, and ready to die. Such is God's gentleness that, thoughman make himself as worthless as a bruised reed; though by hisignorance, frailty and sin he expel all the manhood from his heart andlife, and make himself of no more value than one of the myriad reeds inthe world's swamps, still doth God say: "My gentleness is such that Iwill direct upon this wounded life thoughts that shall recuperate andheal, until at last the bruised reed shall rise up in strength, andjudgment shall issue in victory."

And as God's gentleness would go one step further, there is added thetender lesson of the smoking flax. Our glowing electric bulbs sufferno injury from blasts, and our lamps have like strength. The time was,when, wakened by the cry of the little sufferer, the ancient mothersprang up to strike the tinder and light the wick in the cup of oil.Only with difficulty was the tinder kindled. Then how precious thespark that one breath of air would put out! With what eagerness didthe mother guard the smoking flax! And in setting forth the gentlenessof God it is declared that, with eyes of love, He searches through eachheart, and if He find so much as a spark of good in the outcast, thepublican, the sinner, He will tend that spark and feed it toward thelove that shall glow and sparkle forever and ever; for evil is to beconquered, and God will not so much punish as exterminate sin from Hisuniverse. His strength is inflicted toward gentleness, His justicetempered with mercy, and all his attributes held in solution of love.No longer should medievalism becloud God's gentle face. Cleanse yourthoughts, as once the artist in Milan cleansed the grime and soot fromthe wall where Dante's lustrous face was hidden.

With shouts and transports of joy and admiration men welcome thepatriot or hero who in times of danger held the destiny of the peoplein his hands and never once betrayed it. And let each intellect soarwithout hindrance, and the heart pour itself out before God in afreshet of divine love. Great is the genius of Plato or Bacon,revealing itself in tides of thought, but greater and richer is thegenius of the heart that is conscious of vast, deep fountains of love,that may be poured forth in generous tides before the God whose throneis mercy, whose face is light, whose name is love, whose strength isgentleness, whose considerateness is our pledge of pardon, peace andimmortality.

THE THUNDER OF SILENT FIDELITY:

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LITTLE THINGS.

"We treat God with irreverence by banishing Him from our thoughts, notby referring to His will on slight occasions. His is not the finiteauthority or intelligence which cannot be troubled with small things.There is nothing so small but that we may honor God by asking Hisguidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own hands; and whatis true of Deity is equally true of His Revelation. We use it mostreverently when most habitually; our insolence is in ever actingwithout reference to it, our true honoring of it is in its universalapplication. I have been blamed for the familiar introduction of itssacred words. I am grieved to have given pain by so doing, but myexcuse must be my wish that those words were made the ground of everyargument and the test of every action. We have them not often enoughon our lips, nor deeply enough in our memories, nor loyally enough inour lives. The snow, the vapour and the strong wind fulfil His word.Are our acts and thoughts lighter and wilder than these, that we shouldforget it?"—Ruskin.

"I expect to pass through this life but once. If there is any kindnessor any good thing I can do to my fellow-beings let me do it now. Ishall pass this way but once."—-William Penn.

CHAPTER X.

THE THUNDER OF SILENT FIDELITY:

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LITTLE THINGS.

Schliemann, uncovering marbles upon which Phidias and his followerscarved out immortality for themselves, has not wrought more effectuallyfor the increase of knowledge than have those excavators in Egypt whohave uncovered the Rosetta stone, with other manuscripts of brick andmarble. Of all these instructive tablets and tombs, none are moreinteresting than one picturing forth a national festival in the Jewishcapital. Upon his canvas of stone the unknown artist portrays for usHerod's temple with its outer courts and columns and its massive walls.

We see the public square crowded with merchants and traders, who havecome in from the great cities of the world to this festival of thefathers. With solemn pageantry, these Jews, who were the bankers andmerchants of that far-off age, march through the streets toward thegate that is called Beautiful. In the vast parade are men notable bytheir princely wealth in Ephesus and Antioch, in Alexandria and Rome.We see one advancing with his retinue of servants, another with thetrain which corresponds to his wealth. One group the artist exhibitsas characteristic. Advancing before their lord and master are fourservants, who lift up in the presence of admiring spectators a platterupon which lies a heap of shining gold. The murmur of admiration thatruns through the crowd is sweeter to the old merchant's ear than anymusic of harp or human voice. Passing by the treasury, what gifts arecast upon the resounding table! How heavy the bars of gold! Whatsilver plate! What pearls and jewels! How rich the fabrics andhangings for the temple! As at St. Peter in the sixteenth century, soin Christ's day it seemed as if the whole world were being swept fortreasures for enriching this glorious temple.

But when the lions of the procession had all passed by, there followedalso the crowd of stragglers. From this post of observation we aretold that Christ saw a poor widow advancing. With falling tears, yetwith exquisite grace and tenderness, she cast in two mites, or onehalf-penny, then passed on to worship him whom she loved, allunconscious of the fact that she had also passed into immortality. Forthe noise of the gold falling into the resounding chest has long sincedied away. Jerusalem itself is in ruins. The old temple with itsmagnificence has gone to decay. The proud thrones and monarchies haveall fallen into dust. But the silent fidelity of this obscure woman isa voice that thunders down the long aisles of time. A thousand timeshath she encouraged heroism in poet and parent. Ten thousand timeshath she been an inspiration to reformers and martyrs! Love andfidelity have embalmed her deed and lent her immortality. In the verycenter of the world's civilization stands her monument. For her Arc deTriomphe has been built in the human heart. Her monument does notappeal to the eye; it is not carved in stone; yet it is more permanentthan gold, and her fame outshines all flashing jewels. While love andadmiration endure the story of her humble fidelity shall abideindestructible!

The great Italian first noted that thrice only did Christ stretch forthhis hand to build a monument, and each time it was to immortalize adeed of humble fidelity. Once a disciple gave a cup of cold water toone of God's little ones, and won thereby imperishable renown. Once awoman broke an alabaster box for her master, and, lo! her deed has beenlike a broken vase, whose perfume has exhaled for two thousand years,and shall go on diffusing sweetness to the end of time. Last of all,after the rich men of Alexandria had cast their rattling gold into thebrazen treasury, a poor widow cast a speck of dust called two mites,and, lo! this humble deed gave her enduring recollection.

It seems that immortal renown is achieved not so much by the solitarydeed of greatness as by humble fidelity to life's details, and thatmodest Christian living that regards small deeds and minor duties.Ours is a world in which life's most perfect gifts and sweetestblessings are little things. Take away love, daily work, sweet sleep,and palaces become prisons and gold seems contemptible. The classicpoet tells of Kind [Transcriber's note: King?] Midas, to whom wasoffered whatsoever he wished, and whose avarice led him to choose thegolden touch. But lo! his blessing became a curse. Rising to dress hefound himself shivering in a coat with threads of gold. Going into hisgarden he stooped to breathe the perfume of the roses, and, lo! thedewy petals became yellow points that pierced his face. Breakfasting,the bread became metal in his mouth. Lifting a goblet the water becamea solid mass. Swinging his little daughter in his arms one kiss turnedthe sweet child into a cold statue. A single hour availed to drivehappiness from Midas' heart. In an agony of despair he besought thegods for simple things. He asked for one cup of cold water, onecluster of fruit and his little daughter's loving heart and hand.

And as with wealth, so wisdom without life's little things is impotentfor happiness. Genius hath its charm; nevertheless, the wisest of menhave also been the saddest of men. The story of literary greatness isa piteous tale. History tells of many beautiful and gifted girls whohave married scholars for their genius, fame and position. When thesehonors were theirs they wakened to discover that all were less thannothing, since tenderness refused its mite and sympathy gave cot itscup of cold water. Home and fame became dungeons in which the soul satand famished for love's little courtesies.

For no palace was ever so beautiful, no royal wine quaffed from vesselsof gold was ever so sweet as to satisfy hearts famishing for one miteof that heavenly manna love prepares, or one cup filled with kindness.

Down in a corner of a window of an English palace may be found faintlines scratched with a woman's diamond. What a tragedy in those words,"My prison!" It seems the sweet girl, Jane Grey, entered her palacewith a leaping heart, but her lord had no time to break upon her whiteforehead the tiny box of life's ointment. Hers was the palace; hersalso a thousand rich gifts called titles, lands, castles, maids ofhonor, dresses, jewels. Yet because the castles held no sweetcourtesies the journal of that beautiful girl reminds us of some youngbird that beats with bloody wings against the bars of an iron cage.For life is made up not of joys few and intense, but of joys many andgentle. Great happiness is the sum of many small drops. God makes thedays that are channels of mighty and tumultuous joys to be few and farbetween. For highly spiced joys exhaust. All who seek intensepleasure will find not enjoyment but yearnings for enjoyment.Happiness is in simple things; a cup of cold water, health and aperfect day; dreamless sleep, honest toil, the esteem of the worthy,the caresses of little children, a love that waxes with the increasingyears.

Our appreciation of the principle that greatness of any form is anaccumulation of little deeds will be freshened by an outlook uponnature's method. The old science unveiled the universe as a divinethought rushing into instant form, stars and suns being sparks struckout on the anvil of omnipotence. The new science has found thatearth's every atom has been slowly polished by an infinite artisan andarchitect. If we descend into the sea we shall find that the reefs andislands against which the tides of the Pacific dash in vain are builtof coral insects, whose every organ exhibits the delicate skill of adiamond or snowflake. If we stand upon the fruitful plain where menbuild cities we shall discern that each flake of the rich soilrepresents the perfect crystallization of drops of melted granite. Ifwe take the wings of the morning and dwell upon the summit of theMatterhorn there also we find that the mountain hath its height andmajesty through particles themselves weak and little. For thegeologist who analyzes the topmost peak of the Alpine ridge must goback to a little flake of mica, that ages and ages ago floated alongsome one of earth's rivers, too light to sink, too feeble to find thefiber of a lichen, therefore dropped into the ooze of mire and decay.Yet hardened by earth's processes, the day came when that flake of micawas lifted up upon the mountain's peak, wrought into the strength ofimperishable iron, "rustless by the air, infusible by the flame,capping the very summit of the Alpine tower. Above it—that littleobscure mica flake—the north winds rage, yet all in vain, belowit—the feeble mica flake—the snowy hills lie bowing themselves likeflocks of sheep, and the distant kingdoms fade away in unregardedblue." [1] Around it—the weak, wave-drifted mica flake—booms all theartillery of storms, when electric arrows with blunted points fall backfrom its front, as it lifts its might and majesty toward the enduringstars.

If ages ago the sages said, God is not in the earthquake, nor in thestorm, but in the still small voice, now science reaffirms thedeclaration that omnipotence is revealed not so much through awfulcataclysms and earthquake forces as through the silent agents andhidden processes that make the plains to be fruitful and hillsides tobe rich in corn. In the past astronomy has been the favorite science,emphasizing the distant stars and suns. The science of the future isto be chemistry, emphasizing atoms and elements. Journeying outward inpursuit of the footsteps of God, advancing upon his distant and dizzymarch, man's vision faints and falls upon the horizon beyond which areindiscernible splendors. Journeying inward upon the wings of themicroscope, we shall find that there is another realm of beauty beyondwhich the utmost vision of man cannot pierce. For before themicroscope "the last discernible particle dies out of sight with thesame perfect glory on it as on the last orb that glimmers in the skirtsof the universe." If God is throned in the clouds He is alsotabernacled in the dewdrop and palaced in the bud and blossom.

The history of nations and individuals teaches us that the greatestgifts are poor and empty and the most signal talents worthless if thesmall things be not done, the two mites be not given. For life ismarred by little infelicities and ruined by little errors. The brokencolumns and marble heaps in lands where once were cities representdestructions not so much through tornadoes and earthquakes as throughsmall vices and unnoticed sins. In modern life also, journeyingthrough city and forest and field, the economist returns to tell usthat life's chief wastes are through little enemies and foes. It is aminute bug that steals the golden berry from the wheat; it is a tinygerm upon the leaf that blights the budding peach and pear, it is arough spot upon the potato that fills all Ireland with fear of famine;it is a worm that bores through the planks of the ship's hull andalarms old seacaptains as approaching battleships could not.

The enemies of human life are not enemies that fill man's streets withbanners and charging cannon. We wage war against the dust moteambushed in the sunbeam; we fight against weapons hurled from thosebattleships called drops of impure water; we wrestle with those hostswhose broadsides invisible rise from streets foul, or fall frompoisoned clouds. Such enemies that lurk in dampness and darkness, athousand fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand. Thatgreat catastrophe that overtook Holland a century ago is not explainedby a tidal wave that pierced through the dikes; the disaster wasthrough the crawfishes that opened tiny holes and, weakening thebulwarks, let in the onrushing sea.

It was but a trifling error also that robbed the generations of one ofman's divinest pictures. Three hundred years ago the monks made tightand strong the roof above the room where was Da Vinci's "Last Supper."A thousand tiles were fastened down and all save one were perfect. Theone hid a secret hole. When months had passed and the driving stormcame from the right direction the rain found out that hidden fault and,rushing in, a flood of drops streamed down o'er the wall and made agreat black mark across the noble painting, and ruined the central faceforever.

Human life is ruined through the absence of humble virtues and thepresence of little faults. There is no man so great, no gift sobrilliant, but let it be whispered that there is falseness in the lifeof the hero, and immediately his greatness is dwarfed, his eloquencebecomes a trick, his authority is impaired. Reading Robert Burns'poems, he seems wiser than all the scholars, wittier than all thehumorists, more courtly than princes. His genius blazes like a torchamong the tapers. But watching this son of genius and of liberty weavea net for his own feet, and fashion a snare for his own faculties, withwistful hearts we long, as one has said, "to hear the exulting andtriumphant cry of the strong man coming to himself, I will arise." Buthe loved the barroom more than the library, and so fell on death atseven and thirty, and lost his right to rule as a king o'er men'shearts and lives. Byron, too, and Goethe had gifts so resplendent thatin kings' palaces they shine like diamonds amid the pebbles. What aconstellation of gifts was theirs! Culture, sanity, imagination, wit,courage, vigor—all these stars were grouped in their mentalconstellations! Yet little vices dethroned these kings and made themplebeian. It is the absence of little virtues and sweet domesticgraces that seem trifling as the two mites that robs the Roman poetsand orators of their power over us. They had urbanites indeed,flowers, music, art, oratory, letters, song. The events of each daywere executed like a piece of music, and even their sarcophagi werecovered with scenes of feasting and revelry. But they were not true;and that false note jars through all their pages. Harshness in thepoet and pride in the orator make their refinement and culture seem butskin deep.

We note that Pompeii was a paradise built beside a crater. Thetraveler tells us if we strike the rocky earth it rings hollow. Closeby the calm lake is a boiling spring. In the very heart of the orangegroves rises a column of smoke and steam. "The mist of lava jars onthe music of summer, the scent of sulphur mingles with the scent ofroses." Not for a moment can the traveler forget that beneath all thisopulence of color and fragrance rages a colossal furnace. Thus theharshness and selfishness found in the eloquence and poetry of theancient writers rob us of all joy in their splendid gifts. We yieldhomage only to the greatness that is also goodness. To ten-talentpower the hero must also add tenderness to his own, kindness to theweak, unfailing sympathy to all. No giant is a full giant until he isalso gentle, stooping to give his two mites to the weak, bearing to theweary his cup of cold water, ever emulating that hero, Sir PhilipSydney, wounded sorely indeed, but pushing away the canteen because thesoldier, suffering great pain, had greater need.

In one of his essays Lowell notes that the great reform monuments arethe humble deeds of humble persons, taken up and repeated by an entirepeople. The final victories for liberty and religion are emblazonedupon monuments and celebrated in song and story, but the beginnings ofthese achievements for mankind are often given over to obscurity andforgetfulness. Our age makes much of the "Red Cross" movement. Hardlyfifty years have passed since two English girls boarded the steamerthat was to carry them to the Crimea. Upon the distant battlefields,with their deserted cannon, wounded horses and dying men, at firstthese gentle girls seemed strangely out of place. The hospitals werefull; neglected soldiers were lying in the thickets, whither they hadcrawled to die. Counseling with none, these brave girls moved acrossthe battlefields like angels of mercy. Many years have passed. Nowthese nurses bring hope to every battlefield, and minister to everystricken Armenia, for the story of that sweet girl has filled the earthwith "King's Daughters." One hundred years ago also England left herorphan babes to grow up in the country poorhouse, midst surroundingsoften vulgar, profane and brutal. One day two sweet babes, unnamed andunwelcomed, lay in the garret of a county-house in the outskirts ofLondon. Then a poor, half-witted spinster, hearing of the youngmother's death, found her way to the garret, brooded o'er the babeswith all the dignity of our Mother of Sorrows, took the babes to herheart and planned how, with six shillings a week, she might keep breadin three hungry mouths. Four years passed by, and one day the lord ofthe manor stayed a moment before this woman's hovel and heard herprayer for the two boys clinging to her skirts. Soon the story of thewoman's mercy was heard in every English pulpit, and in every town menand women made their way to the county-houses to take away the orphanbabes and found instead some asylum for God's little ones. Now noblemen in distant lands plan homes and shelter for little children, andthe work of the obscure woman is a part of the history of reform.

Humble also is the origin of the anti-slavery movement that won itsfinal victory at Appomattox. A century and more ago a young Moravianmade his way to Jamaica as a Herald of Christ and his message ofgood-will. The horrors of slavery in that far-off time cannot beunderstood by our age. Then each week some African slaver landed withits cargo of naked creatures. Slaves were so cheap that it was simplerto kill them with rapid work and purchase new ones than to care for thewants of captives weakened by several summers. What horrors underoverseers in the field! What outrages in slave-market and pen! Sogrievous were the wrongs negroes suffered at white men's hands thatthey would not listen to this young teacher. At last, despairing oftheir confidence, the brave youth had himself sold as a slave andwrought in the fields under the overseer's lash. Fellowship with theirsufferings won their confidence and love. When the day's task was donethe poor creatures crowded about him to receive Christ's cup of coldwater. Long years after the young hero had fallen upon the sugarplantation his story came to the ears of young Wilberforce and armedhim with courage invincible against England's traffic in flesh andblood. Soon Parliament freed the West India slaves and Lincolnemancipated our freedmen. But side by side with the heroes of libertyfamed through monument and solemn oration, let us mention the youngMoravian hero who loved Christ's little ones, and in giving "two mitesand a cup of cold water," lost his life, indeed, but found immortalfame.

This modest deed that bought renown also tells us that enduringremembrance is possible for all. Great deeds the majority cannot do.Two-talent men march in millions, but the ten-talent men are few andfar between. Many scientists—one Newton. Thousands of poets—but theElizabethan eras are separated by centuries. Great is the company ofthe orators—but to each generation only one Webster and one Clay. Aseach continent hath but one mountain range, so the elect minds standisolated in the ages. All greatness is mysterious, and like God'sthrone, genius is girt about with clouds and darkness. If great menare infrequent, the world's need of great men is as occasional.Society advances in happiness and culture, not through striking,dramatic acts, but through myriads of unnumbered and unnoticed deeds.

Even the heroes dying upon the battlefield ask not for Plato nor Bacon,but for a cup of cold water. To Benedict Arnold, dying in his garret,came a physician, who said, "Is there anything you wish?" and heardthis answer; "Only a friend." Traitors sometimes each of us also.Traitors to our deepest convictions and our highest ideals, and in thehours when the fever of discontent burns fiercely within us, and themind seems half-delirious in its trouble, we also ask for a friendbringing a mite of sympathy and a cup of cold water. Let us confessit—we are all famishing for love and the kind word that says: "Inyour Gethsemane you are not alone."

God secures for us our happiness, not through speech about the heavensand firmament, but through the comfort that comes through speech overlittle things. He feeds the birds, adorns the lily, clothes the grass,numbers man's troubles. He is the Shepherd seeking the one sheep, thefather waiting for the lost son. His kingdom is a little leavenworking in the world's meal, His truth being no larger than a grain ofmustard-seed. Above each little one bows some guardian angel beholdingthe face of its heavenly Father. And He who unites grains of sand formaking planets and rays of light for glorious suns, and blades of grassfor the solid splendor of field and pasture and drops of water for theocean that blesses every continent with its dew and rain, teaches usalso that great principles will organize the little words, littleprayers, little aspirations and little services into the full-orbedsplendor of an enduring character and an immortal fame.

Happily none need journey far nor search long for opportunities ofhumble fidelity. Into our midst come each year thousands of boys whoare strangers in the great city. Passing along the streets theselonely lads behold each horse having some friendly hand to care for it.Yea! each sleek dog hath some owner's name engraven on the collar forthe neck. But for the youth, weeks pass by, and no face lifts afriendly smile, no hand is outstretched in gentle kindness, and oft thethought is bitter: "No man careth for my soul." The youth who sits inthe seat beside you asks only that the leaflet be shared inbrotherliness, and you may lift upon the discouraged one a smile thatsaith; "Once the battle went sore with me, also, but be of good cheer,you shall overcome." Such friendliness is the two mites that buyenduring rembrance. For if each must fight his own battles, face forhimself the spectres of doubt, and slay them; if each must be his ownsurgeon and draw the iron from the soul, still sympathy is a preciousboon, and it is given to man to give the cup of tenderness to thewarrior sorely wounded in life's battle. In ancient times when men'scabins were built on the edge of the wilderness, not yet cleared ofwild beasts, sometimes the little ones wandered from the path and werelost in the forest, until the cry of terror revealed the awful dangerthat threatened and caused the mother to speed forth with winged feetand lift her body as a shield against the enemy. Daily these scenesare re-enacted, not in songs and dramas, but through the work of thosewho rescue the city's children from squalor, filth and sin. Whatredemptions' man's little deeds do bring!

For $30,000 Peter Faneuil bought immortality and forever associated hisname with liberty. To-day that amount will erect the social settlementin the needy quarter of some city and give hundreds of young peopleopportunity and field for Bible-schools, kindergartens, nursery,gymnasium, mothers' classes, men's clubs, singing-schools and alsoassociate man's name with the happiness and civilization of an entirecommunity. Mammon will care for the children of strength and goodfortune, and fame will guard the sons of success; let us guard the weakand lowly. In the Roman triumph, when a general came home with hisspoils, many captives went with his chariot up to the capital. Andhappy 'twill be for us if in the hour when the sunset gun shall soundand we pass beyond the flood God's little ones mourn us with tears ofgratitude while all the trumpets sound for us on the other side.

[1] Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. iv., page 284. [Transcriber's note:In the original book, there was no footnote symbol in the page wherethis footnote appeared. I've made a best guess of its intendedlocation.]

INFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.

"And now, gentlemen, was this vast campaign fought without a general?If Trafalgar could not be won without the mind of a Nelson, or Waterloowithout the mind of a Wellington, was there no one mind to lead theseinnumerable armies, on whose success depended the future of the wholehuman race? Did no one marshal them in that impregnable convex front,from the Euxine to the North Sea? No one guide them to the two greatstrategic centres of the Black Forest and Trieste? No one cause them,blind barbarians without maps or science, to follow those rules of warwithout which victory in a protracted struggle is impossible: and bythe pressure of the Huns behind, force on their flagging myriads to anenterprise which their simplicity fancied at first beyond the powers ofmortal men? Believe it who will; I cannot.

"But while I believe that not a stone or a handful of mud gravitatesinto its place without the will of God; that it was ordained, agessince, into what particular spot each grain of gold should be washeddown from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find itat a certain moment and crisis of his life—if I be superstitiousenough (as thank God I am) to hold that Creed, shall I not believe thatthough this great war had no general upon earth, it may have had ageneral in Heaven; and that in spite of all their sins the hosts of ourforefathers were the hosts of God?"—Charles Kingsley.

CHAPTER XI.

INFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.

The history of a Jewish battle includes a dramatic incident. In thethick of the fight an officer brought to one of his soldiers animportant prisoner. "Keep thou this man," said he, "with the utmostvigilance. Upon his person hang the issues of this campaign. Hisskill in leading the enemy, his courage and treachery have cost ourside many lives. If by any means thou shalt suffer him to escape thylife shall be for his life."

Then, straining more tightly the cords knotted around the prisoner'shands and feet, the officer turned and plunged again into the thick ofthe fight. From that moment the soldier's one duty was to guard theprisoner whose escape would work such havoc.

Strangely enough, he became negligent. Careless, he leaned his bow andspear against the tent. Hungry, he busied himself with baking a fewsmall cakes. Weary, he cast himself upon the ground, dozing upon hiselbow. Suddenly a noise startled his nap. He sprang up just in timeto see his prisoner make one leap, then disappear into the thicket.

A concealed knife had cut the thongs. Negligence had let "slip thedogs of war." That night when the general returned to his tent hefound the prisoner had escaped.

Fronting his master the terror-stricken soldier had no excuse to offersave this; "While thy servant was busy here and there the man wasgone." Gone opportunity!—and lightning could not equal its swiftflight. Gone forever opportunity!—and the wings of seraphim could notovertake and bring it back. Gone honor, gone fidelity, gone goodname!—all lost irretrievably. For though dying be long delayed,coming at last death would find the soldier's task unfulfilled. From"It might have been," and "It is too late," God save us all! For notInfinity himself can reverse the wheel of events and bring back lostopportunities.

The genius of opportunity lies in its strategic element. In everyopportunity two or more forces meet in such a way that the one force solends itself to the other as momentarily to yield plasticity. Natureis full of these strategic times. Iron passes into the furnace coldand unyielding; coming out it quickly cools and refuses the mold; butmidway is a moment when fire so lends itself to iron, and iron soyields its force to flame as that the metal flows like water.

This brief plastic moment is the inventor's opportunity, when the metalwill take on any shape for use or beauty. Similarly the fields offer astrategic time to the husbandman. In February the soil refuses theplow, the sun refuses heat, the sky refuses rain, the seed refusesgrowth. In May comes an opportune time when all forces conspire towardharvests; then the sun lends warmth, the clouds lend rain, the airlends ardor, the soil lends juices. Then must the sower go forth andsow, for nature whispers that if he neglects June he will starve inJanuary.

The planets also lend interpretation to this principle. Years ago ournation sent astronomers to Africa to witness the transit of Venus.Preparations began months beforehand. A ship was fitted up,instruments packed, the ocean crossed, a site selected and thetelescopes mounted. Scientists made all things ready for thatopportune time when the sun and Venus and earth should all be in line.That critical moment was very brief. Instinctively each astronomerknew that his eye must be at the small end of the glass when the planetwent scudding by the large end. Once the period of conjunction hadpassed no machinery would offer itself for turning the planet back uponher axis. Not for astronomers only are the opportune times brief. Forall men alike, failure is blindness to the strategic element in events;success is readiness for instant action when the opportune momentarrives. When nature has fully ripened an opportunity man must stretchout his hand and pluck it. Inventions may be defined as great mindsdetecting the strategic moment in nature; Galileo finding a lens in theox's eye; Watt witnessing steam lift an iron lid; Columbus observing anunknown wood drifting upon the shore. To untold multitudes natureoffered these opportune moments for discovery, but only Galileo, Wattand Columbus were ready to seize them. As for the rest, this is ouronly answer to nature: "While thy servant was busy here and there, thestrategic moment was gone."

This majestic principle often appears in history. There is a strategyin Providence. Nations, like individuals, have their crisis hours.Through events God makes all society plastic, and then raises up somegreat man to stamp his image and superscription upon the nation's hotand glowing heart. As scholars move back along the pathway of history,they discern in each great epoch these strategic conditions. Howopportune the moment when Jesus Christ appeared!

Alexander's march had scattered every whither the seeds of learning;the Greek language had turned the whole world into one great whisperinggallery, in which the nations were assembled; all the provinces aroundthe Mediterranean were linked together by the newly completed system ofroads; the Roman judge was in every town to set forth the rights ofcitizens of the empire; the Roman soldier was there to protect all whobrought messages of peace; the long-expected hour had struck. ThenChristianity set forth from Bethlehem upon its errand of love. Alongevery highway ran the eager feet of the messengers of peace andgood-will. Events were fully ripe, and soon Christianity was upon thethrone of the Caesars.

How strategic that epoch called the fourth century! He who sat inCaesar's palace looked out upon a dying empire. The old race was wornout with war and wine and wealth and luxury. Civilization seemed aboutto perish, and society was fast sinking back into barbarism. To thenorth of the Alps were the forest children, ruddy and robust, withtheir glorious youth full upon them. These young giants needed thedying language and literature and religion, and these greatinstitutions needed their young, fresh blood. But between lay thegranite walls builded from sea to sea. Now mark what Charles Kingsleycalled "the strategy of Providence." Suddenly a blind impulse fellupon the forest children. Two columns started southward. The onerested upon the North Sea and marched southeast; the other rested uponthe Ural Mountains and marched southwest; the two met and convergedupon Trieste. Without maps or military tactics or plans, whollyignorant that Napoleon's favorite method of attack was being carriedout by them, these two columns converged toward the Alpine pass, andfor ten years pounded and pounded against the Roman walls until theseyielded and fell. Then the forest children poured down into thevineyards and villages and cities of the dying empire. Multitudesremained to intermarry and preserve the dying race. Other multitudesreturned to their old home to sow the northern forests with those greatideas that were to carry civilization through the long night of thedark ages.

Another strategic hour came in the thirteenth century. Then all Europewas stirred with new and awakening life. It was dawn after darkness.Constantinople had fallen and scholars laden with manuscripts wentforth to sow Europe with the new learning. The times were fully ripefor another great forward movement for society. Only one thing waslacking—great men for leaders. In that strategic crisis six leadersappeared. God gave each wing of the army of civilization a genius forits general. Copernicus overthrew superstition and brought in science;Luther gave religion, Gutenberg the printing-press, Calvinindividualism, Michael Angelo art and the beautiful, Erasmus criticalscholarship; and because the old world was filled with debris, and thenew ideas needed room, Columbus gave the new world, offering whatEmerson calls "the last opportunity of Providence for the human race."Surely this was a strategic moment in history, giving each citizenunique opportunity.

The strategic element enters into the individual career. Destiny isdetermined by our use of our critical hours. It is as if life's greatissues were staked upon a single throw. Not but that the forces weneglect are permanent. It is that the strategic condition has passedout of them. The sluggard driving his plow into the field in July hassun, soil and seed, but the torrid summer refuses to perform the gentleprocesses of April. The man who in youth's strategic days denied tomemory the great facts of nature and history, in maturer years stillhas his memory, but the plasticity has gone. It now refuses to holdthe facts he gives it. The Latin poet interprets our principle by thestory of the maiden in the boat, holding her hand in the water whileshe toyed with a string of pearls until the string snapped and thetreasure sank into the abyss. The miner interprets opportunity lostthrough him who, for a rifle and a blanket, traded a rich copper minethat has since paid its owner millions. The historian interprets it byNapoleon's bitter signal to his General, tardy at Waterloo, "Too late!the critical hour has passed." Froude interprets it through the oldhero bitterly condemning himself over his wife's grave, knowing thathis wild love and fierce outburst of affection were impotent now towarm the heart that froze to death in a home.

Ruskin interprets it through a nation that allowed her noblest todescend into the grave, garlanding the tombstone when they refused tocrown the brow; paying honors to ashes that were denied to spirit;wreathing immortelles only when they had no use save for laying on agrave where was one dead of a broken heart through a nation'singratitude. Above all, Jesus Christ interprets it at midnight inGethsemane, when he saw the torches fluttering in the darkness, heardthe clanking of sabers and soldiers' armor, and in sad, reproachfulirony wakened his disciples with these words: "Sleep on, now; sleepforever if you will! Henceforth no stress of your vigilance can helpme; no negligence of your duty can harm me beyond the harm you havealready wrought. Take your ease now. Sleep; the opportunity hasgone." Then was the disciples' joy turned into mourning, and forgarments of praise did they put on ashes and sackcloth. An irreparableloss was theirs. Yet for all of us each neglected duty means atragedy. It is always now or never. The treasure wrapped up in eachstrategic opportunity is of infinite value. To-morrow can hold no joywhen yesterday holds this memory: "While I was busy here and there myopportunity was gone."

How strategic the period of youth! Then the chiefest forces of lifeflow together in sensitive conjunction. Then four great gifts likefour great rivers unite in one majestic current to bear up the youngman's enterprises, and sweep him on to fame and fortune. Opportune areall the days when health spills over at the eye and ear and laughsthrough the lips. Men worn out are like overshot wheels—the lifetrickles and the buckets are filled slowly by long rests and frequentvacations. Young men are like undershot wheels—always, by day andnight, the water overflows the banks.

Each morning the young soul wakens to the supreme luxury of living.The world is a great beaker brimmed with wine of the gods. The truthand beauty of field and forest and river give a pleasure that isexquisite to a keenly sensitive and perfectly healthy youth. Like anAeolian harp, the slightest breath avails for wakening melody midst itsstrings. But years multiply cares. Age increases heaviness. Timedestroys its own children. The poet says: "In youth we carry the worldlike Atlas; in maturity we stoop and bend beneath it; in age it crushesus to the ground." For the overtaxed and invalided, the dew-drops donot sparkle as diamonds; the wet grass suggests red flannels and coughsirups. For the nervous the bird's song is a meaningless chatter. Forthe sickly the clouds are big black water-bottles, though time was whenthey were chariots for God's angels, curtains for hiding ministeringspirits trooping homeward at night, leaving all the air sweetlyperfumed. It is the body that grants the soul permission to be happy.

To the opportunity offered by health may be added the years lying infront of the young heart like a great estate, as yet unincumbered.Powerful enthusiasms, too, are the inheritance of youth. Noblefeelings, fine aspirations then pass through the mind, as in May theperfumed winds from the South pass over the fields. These motives beatupon the mind as steam upon the iron piston. Workmen excavating atPompeii threw up soil that had been covered for 1,800 years. Exposedto the sun, young trees sprang up. Without the force of light and heatand dew and rain these seeds were dormant or dead. Thus each mind is adead mind until the full warmth of great impulses quickens the dormantenergies. The hopes, the ambitions, the aspirations of youth allconspire to make this a most strategic period. Then all the forces oflife unite in a great gulf stream for bearing the soul up and sweepingit forward to new climes and richer shores.

Strategic the hour of prosperity. Men discount the speech of poverty,but the rich man's words weigh a ton each. It has been said that thepoor man's dollar is just as good as the rich man's only when both areanonymous, for the dollar with a million behind it will go further thanthe dollar with a thousand behind it. This is a proverb: "A bid fromRothschild electrifies the market." Each new achievement and successbuilds higher the tower of observation that lifts the great man intothe presence of the nation. All eyes are upon the prosperedindividual, all ears are alert to his whisper. Prosperity's voice isthe voice of an oracle, all her words are winged. Every successfulventure in the world of commerce or statecraft quadruples influenceover the nation's youth. This principle interprets the curiosity ofthe boy in store or bank, asking a thousand questions about hissuccessful employer. It explains why the eager aspirant for politicalinfluence searches all the journals for some word from Gladstone orCastelar or Bismarck. A sentence from these great champions hathsufficed for reversing the policy of a government. The memory of manytriumphs lies back of the great leader's words and lends them weight.

Success is an orator; it charms multitudes. Full oft one who is averitable genius for making homely truths beautiful has accomplishedless for his age than some prosperous man whose few stumbling wordshave sufficed for shaping national policies and guiding his generation.All the young are drawn into the wake of the successful. Wealthfulfills the story of Orpheus, whose sweet voice made the very stonesand trees follow after him. Truly wealth is an evangelist, the almonerof bounty toward college and library and art gallery and liberty andreligion. But its chief use is in this: It enables its possessor torepeat his industry, integrity and thrift in the children of a nation.All youthful hearts do well to covet wealth, wisdom and leverage power!But man should remember that the chief value of prosperity is in itscapitalization of personality, and the rendering of others sensitive toexample and precept. Should man forget this, earth will hear no saddercry than his when, closing the life career, he exclaims: "While thyservant was busy here and there the opportune moment was gone."

Friendship yields these plastic moments and unique opportunities. Forthe most part the soul dwells in a castle locked and barred againstoutsiders. No man can keep open-house for every passer-by. Butfriendship is an open sesame, drawing every bar and bolt. How theheart leaps when the friend crosses the threshold! His shadow alwaysfalls behind him. His coming is summer in the soul; his presence ispeace. Friendship glorifies everything it touches. When on a stormynight our friend comes in he seems to warm the very fire upon thehearth; he sweetens the sweet singer's voice; lends new meaning to thewise man's words; gives reminiscence an added charm; makes old storiesnew; makes the laughter and smiles come twice as often and stay twiceas long. Friendship lies upon the heart like a warm fire upon thehearth. By reason of friendship history exhibits every great man asleaving his school of thought and a group of disciples behind him. Hisspirit lingers with men long after his form has disappeared from thestreets, as the sun lingers in the clouds after the day is done, as themelody lingers in the ear long after the song is sung. Longfellow,after a day and a night with Emerson, literally emitted poems andplays. He was stimulated by friendship as bees by rose liquor and thesweet pea wine. Friendship always makes the heart plastic. Then themental furrows are all open and mellow; sympathy falls like dew andrain; then the heart saith to its friend: "Here am I, all plastic toyour touch; work upon me your will; for good or ill—I am thine."Therefore, friendship imposes frightful responsibilities; in asking andreceiving it we assume charge of another's destiny. This is the verygenius of the teacher's influence over his pupil, the parent's over hischild, the general's over his soldier, the patriot's over his people.Better a thousand times never open the furrow than to leave itunfertilized.

How strategic life's better hours! One of God's precious gifts is theluminous hour that denies the lower animal mood. Mind is not always atit* best. Full oft our thought is sodden and dull. Then duty seems amaze without a clew and life's skeins all a tangle. The mind isuneasy, confused and troubled. Then men live to the eye and the earand physical comforts; they live for houses and beautiful things inthem; for shelves and rich goods upon them; for factories and largeprofits by them. Responsibility to God seems like the faint shadow ofa vaguely remembered dream. The voice of conscience is in the ear likethe far-off murmuring of the sea. The soul is sordid and the finersenses indurated. The angel of the better nature is bondslave to theworst. Then enters some element that nurtures the nobler impulse.Some misfortune, earthquake-like, cleaves through the hard crust. Orsome gentle event, like the coming of an old friend or the returning tothe old homestead, stirs old memories and kindles new thoughts.

Slowly the heart passes out of the penumbra. The mind, too longobscured like a sun eclipsed by clouds, searches out some rift.Suddenly reason comes into the clear. God rises like an untroubled sunupon the soul's horizon. How crystalline life looks! The mindliterally exhales fancies and pictures, and each stick and stone is asfull of suggestions and ideas as the forest is full of birds. Oldproblems become clear as noonday. Difficult questions lie clearlyrevealed before the mind like landscapes from which the fogs arelifted. Once the mind crawled tortoise-like through its work. Now itsoars like an eagle. The soul seems a sweet-spiced shrub, and everyleaf is perfumed. If in dull, obscure hours the soul was like a woodenbeehive drifted o'er with snow, in its vision-hours the soul is like aglass hive out of which the bees go singing into sweet clover-fields.In these hours how unworthy the material life! How insubstantial thethings of iron, wood and stone! Bodily things seem evanescent, asfrost pictures on the window on a winter's morn. Then honor,integrity, kindness, generosity alone seem permanent and worth one'swhile. How easy then to do right. All habits that fettered thefaculties like iron cuffs are now felt to be but ice fetters, quicklymelting. Then the nobler self, using no whip of cords, looks uponmeanness and selfishness, and by a look drives them from the heart andlife.

Then years are fulfilled in a single hour. Then from its judgment-seatthe soul reviews its past career, searches out secret sins and scornsthem. How unworthy are vanity and pride and selfishness. In whatgarments of beauty and attraction are truth and purity clothed. Thesoul looks longingly unto the heavenly heights, as desert pilgrims longfor oases and springs of water. Unspeakably precious are thesestrategic hours of opportunity. God sends them; divineness is in them;they cleanse and fertilize the soul; they are like the overflowingNile. Men should watch for them and lay out the life-course by them,as captains ignore the clouds and headlands and steer by the stars fora long voyage and a distant harbor.

INFLUENCE, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION IN LIFE AND CHARACTER.

"So each man gets out of the world of men the rebound, the increase anddevelopment of what he brings there. Three men stand in the same fieldand look around them, and then they all cry out together. One of themexclaims, 'How rich!' another cries, 'How strange!' another cries, 'Howbeautiful!' And then the three divide the field between them, and theybuild their houses there, and in a year you come back and see whatanswer the same earth has made to each of her three questioners. Theyhave all talked with the ground on which they lived, and heard itsanswers. They have all held out their several hands, and the sameground has put its own gift into each of them. What have they got toshow you? One cries, 'Come here and see my barn,' another cries, 'Comehere and see my museum;' the other says, 'Let me read you my poem.'That is a picture of the way in which a generation, or the race, takesthe great earth and makes it different things to all its children.With what measure we mete to it, it measures to us again. This is therebound of the hard earth—sensitive and soft, although we call ithard, and feeling with an instant keen discrimination the differenttouch of each different human nature which is laid upon it. Reactionis equal to action."—Phillips Brooks.

CHAPTER XII.

INFLUENCE, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION IN LIFE AND CHARACTER.

To the mystery of life and death must be added the mystery of growth.When Demosthenes exclaimed: "Yesterday I was not here; I shall not behere to-morrow; to-day I am here," he suggested a hard problem. Havingsolved the enigma, what went before life, and answered that mystery,what follows after death, there still remains this question: "How can ababe in twenty years take on the proportions of the great orator andreformer?" Rocks do not grow, nor diamonds, nor dirt, but a shrunkenbulb does become a lily, and a tiny seed a mustard tree. In vain doesthe scientist struggle with this problem—how an acorn can expand intoan oak; how in a single summer a grain of corn can ripen a thousandgrains, like that from which the cornstalk sprang.

Men are indeed familiar with the bursting of buds, the cracking of eggsand the growth of children; yet familiarity robs these facts of no whitof their mystery. No jeweler ever goes into the field with a basket ofwatches to plant them in rows, expecting when autumn hath come to picktwo or three wagon-loads of stem-winders from iron branches; yet, werethis possible, it would be no more strange than that in the autumn thehusbandman should stand under the branches to fill his basket withpeaches or bunches of figs. For wise men it is no more difficult tothink of a growing engine than of a growing oak. What if to-morrow anengineer should plant a cannon ball. Having watered it well and keptthe ground loose through hoe or spade, suppose that when a few weekshave passed the outline of a smokestack should push through the soil,to be followed a little later by a rudimentary steam whistle, theoutlines of a boiler, and, rising through the sod, rude drive-wheels,piston-rods and cylinders, until after six months the great engineshould stand forth in full completion. This phenomenon would be nomore wonderful than that which actually goes on before man's blindeyes, when a tiny seed enlarges into the big tree of California andconstructs a vegetable engine that lifts thousands of hogsheads ofwater up to the topmost boughs without any rattle of chains or the dinof machinery.

With difficulty man constructs that musical instrument called amouthharp, but nature, in six weeks, out of a little blue or brown eggconstructs a feathered music-box that automatically conveys itself fromtree to tree. But the mystery that has gone on in that tiny blue egglying in the nest is just as great as if some housewife had planted anold spinning-wheel in the full expectation of reaping a Jacquard loom,or had buried a jew's-harp in the garden expecting in the fall to picka grand piano. To the mystery that is involved in enlargement bygrowth must be added the mystery of intelligence. It is not an easything for an expert housewife, using the same formula, always toachieve the same happy results in the white loaf. He who plants astrawberry seed will find that the tiny seed will construct a plant,lay in the red tints according to rule and mix the flavor of the berryto a nicety that is the despair of the chef. In the tropic foreststhere is a flower with a deep cup and the pollen at the bottom. Thispollen lies upon a little platter, and underneath the platter is thatform of trap known as a figure four, much loved by boys. When the bee,creeping down into the flower, touches that platter, it springs thetrap that throws the fertilizing pollen upon the legs of the bee, to beconveyed to the next flower. Wise men can, indeed, imitate thisdevice, but a single seed will in a few months construct many scores ofthese mechanical devices. To-morrow morning the embryologist in hislaboratory will place an egg under a glass cylinder in an atmosphere of98 degrees. Four hours pass and suddenly the scientist perceives anatom in the heart of that egg give a quick lashing movement. Anothermoment witnesses two quick throbs. Growth has begun and in fourmonths' time the young eagle with firm strokes will lift itself intothe soft air. From the chamber of life and the chamber of death Godhath never drawn the curtains. The chamber of growth is another mostholy place in which God alone doth stand.

Deeply impressed by the fact of growth, scientists have also marveledat the principle that controls the harvest. Rocks enlarge byaccretion, but from what a rock is at the beginning, the geologistscannot tell what will be the shape of that rock when all deposits arefinally made. As to growth in seed and shrub, like produces like. Hewho sows wheat reaps wheat, not tares. He who plants a grape receivesa purple cluster, not a bunch of thorns or thistles. He who sows honorshall reap confidence. He who sows frankness shall reap openness. NoPeabody sowing industry and thrift reaps the harvest of indolence andidleness. Theodore Parker, loving knowledge and for it denying himselfsleep and exercise, reaped wisdom, and also wan and hollow cheeks,while the iron frame and ruddy cheek are for the child of the woods wholoves exercise in the open air. He who aspires to leadership and wouldhave the multitude cheer his name, he who longs for the day when hisappearance upon the street shall mean an ovation from the people, mustmake himself the people's slave, defy all demagogues, brave the fury ofparty strife, oft be execrated by politicians and sometimes be hated bythe multitude. Having sown self-sacrifice and love, he shall reap fameand adulation. For nature's law is universal and inexorable—likeproduces like. The sheaf is simply the seed enlarged and multiplied.The sowing contains the germ of all the harvests to be reaped.

The new biography of Benedict Arnold tells us of the despair of thetraitor's final days, the remorse that gnawed his heart, the agony thatfilled his life. Yet no arbitrary degree was imposed upon Arnold. Heplotted the surrender of the interests committed to him as a general,planned the stratagem that ended in the capture and execution of Andre,and received $30,000 in gold for his treachery. Having gone over tothe enemy, he placed himself at the head of a band of English troopsand went forth to destroy the towns and villages of his boyhood andpillaged the homes of his old friends. He sowed avarice, and ofavarice he reaped $30,000. He sowed distrust in America; he reapeddistrust from the Englishmen who had bought his honor. He sowedtreason; he reaped infamy. He sowed contempt for the colonists, and,dying, he reaped the contempt from his old friends, who counted hisbody carrion. For the harvests of the soul represent not arbitrarydegrees, but the workings of natural law. If Ceres, the goddess ofharvests, makes the sheaf to reap the seed, conscience, recalling man'scareer, ordains that like produces like. What a man soweth that shallhe also reap is the law of nature and of God.

The heroes of the Old Testament are common people capitalized. What isunique in the experience of these sons of greatness holds true of allof lesser rank. The career of one of these giants is a pictorialexhibition of this principle of the spiritual harvest. Young Jacob wasshrewd, crafty and full of foresight. If Esau, his brother, was a"hail fellow well met," the child of his impulses, Jacob was a diplomatand very wily. One day, when the father, Isaac, was blind and old,Esau grew restless, and at last went away with his companions, for hedearly loved to hunt. In that hour ambition tempted Jacob and avariceled him away. Advantaging himself of his brother's absence, Jacob usedthe skin of a kid to make his hands hairy, like the hands of Esau, and,simulating the brother's voice, he extorted from his dying father thosetokens that, according to the Eastern custom, made him the successor tohis father's title, wealth and power. Full twoscore years passedswiftly by and the deceit seems to have brought is large money returnsto crafty Jacob.

But silently nature was working out the harvest of retribution, throughthat law of heredity that makes sons repeat the qualities of theirfather. When Jacob was now advanced in years his ten sons began, todevelop craftiness, and soon they plowed great furrows of care in thefather's face. In those days of care his young son Joseph stole intoJacob's heart like a sweet sunbeam, and, with his open, loving ways,filled his father's heart with gladness. When the elder brothers knewJacob had given Joseph a coat of many colors they remembered the craftof their father in his early career. One evening, when the herds andflocks were scattered widely over the hills, Simeon sent out messengersand called his brothers together for a conference. In that hour hesaid: "Wist ye not how our father, being a younger son, supplanted hiselder brother, Esau? And behold his craft will now make his youngerchild, Joseph, to supplant his elder brothers! Do ye not remember howour father, Jacob, took a kid and made his hands like unto the hands ofEsau? Let us now take a kid and make its blood represent the blood anddeath of Joseph. What Jacob did for his father, Isaac, let his sons doto their father, Jacob." Thus, with subtle irony, nature made theman's sins to come back to him. A boy, Jacob deceived his father, now,grown gray and old, his boys brought their father an armful of deceits.In that hour when Reuben and Simeon held up the coat of many colors,all red with blood, great nature might have whispered to Jacob: "It isthe blood of the kid that you slew for deceiving your father returningto enable your sons to deceive you." For, having sowed deceit, deceitalso and stratagem Jacob reaped. Himself a son, he thrust a dart intohis father's heart. Become a father, his ten sons became archers,skilled with darts that filled their father's heart with agony. Fornature loves justice; her rule is law, sometimes her rod is iron.

The principle that every deed is a seed that contains the germ of itsown reward or punishment has received full interpretation by the poetsand dramatists. In his "Paradise Lost," Milton has made a detailedstudy of the principles of the spiritual harvests. The poet representsSatan as an angel, fallen indeed, and sadly battered by his fall, yetstill an archangel glorious for strength and beauty. Having visitedParadise and accomplished the destruction of Eve's innocence and Adam'shappiness, Satan returns home, passing over a bridge of more prodigiouslength than now arches the gulf between earth and hell. When theprince arrived at Pandemonium, the capital of Lucifer's realm, he foundthat the leaders of the fallen host had arranged a reception in thegreat banquet-hall of the palace. In the presence of the applaudingthrong, the prince told the story of how he had succeeded in openingthe earth as a place to which these exiled angels might retreat fromthe prison in which they had been so long confined, and pointed to thegreat bridge spanning the abyss 'twixt earth and hell. When the loudcheerings and rejoicings over this fact had ceased, Satan told by whatstratagem he had succeeded in inducing man to break friendship withGod. It was not by disguising himself as an angel of light. But,affirmed Satan, man cared so little for the laws of God that, althoughdisguised as a serpent, he induced man to sin.

"Then awhile Satan stood, expecting their universal
shout and high applause
To fill his ear, when contrary he hears
On all sides from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn. He wondered, but not long
Had leisure. Wondering at himself no more,
His visage drawn, he felt; too sharp and spare
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining
Each the other, till supplanted down he fell,
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,
Reluctant, but in vain. A greater power
Now ruled him, punished in the shape he sinned,
According to his doom."

Also when Satan attempted to speak, Milton says, only a hiss went forth"from forked tongue to forked tongue." When many days had passed byand their hunger was very sore because these fallen angels had seducedman by an apple, it came about that when, fierce with hunger, theyseized the fruit ripe upon the branches, the apples were found to befilled with soot and ashes. By these striking suggestions Milton givesus his idea how angels and men reap what they sow. Should the literarycritic seek an appropriate heading for the tenth book of "ParadiseLost," he could hardly find one more appropriate than this: "What ManSoweth, That Shall He Also Reap."

This law of the spiritual harvest that visits retribution uponunrighteousness or visits reward upon integrity seems to have cast aspell of fascination upon all great writers. Even those who havewritten upon liberty, law, patriotism, or love have not been content toend their task until they have, through song or story, illustrated thislaw of the soul's seedtime and harvest. The ancient poet who wrote ata time near to the dawn of history makes a strong man go forth to seizehis neighbor's flocks and herds, but returning the prince found that inhis absence enemies had looted his palace and carried off not only histreasure, but his wife and children. In ending the tale the writeradds the reflection that "God is just!"

Later on the Grecian threw this moral principle into a tale forchildren, a story that still lives under the title "Baucis andPhilemon." One day two travelers entered a village, but as they drewnear, each housewife slammed her door, while rude boys threw clods atthe wayfarers and let loose their dogs, who snapped and snarled afterthe travelers. Passing quite beyond the village the pilgrims came to ahumble cottage. As they approached his door Philemon came forth tooffer refuge, and apologized for the rudeness of his neighbors. Theold man prepared for them seats in the grateful shade and hurried tobring them fresh water from the cool spring. Baucis also hastened tobring the loaf, with her one small honeycomb and her pitcher of milk.When the glasses were filled twice and thrice and still the rich milkfailed not, the old housewife marveled, until she found that in thebottom of the pitcher there was a fountain from which the rich milkgushed so long as it was needed. Nor did the honeycomb fail, nor didthe sharp knife make the wheaten loaf to be less. Having told us thatthe morning brought disaster to the inhospitable villagers, but broughtassurance from these angels who had been entertained unawares thatBaucis and Philemon should never more want for earthly goods, thewriter of the olden times sets forth for us the principle that good manand bad alike reap what they sow, since each deed contains a harvestlike unto itself. Indeed, literature and life teem with exhibitions ofthis principle. Haman, the rich ruler, builds a gallows for poorMordecai, whom he hates, and later on Haman himself is hanged upon hisown scaffold. David sets Uriah in the front of the battle and robs himof his wife, and when a few years have passed, in turn David is robbedof his wife, his palace also, and his city.

Walter Scott believes in moral retribution. He tells us of a youth whodeftly split an arrow at the point where it fitted the bow-string, thatwhen his brother, whom he hated, should bend his bow the arrow mightsplit and, rebounding, pass through his eye. Now it happened that thebrother returned from the hunt without using his weapon. That night,alarmed at a commotion without, the youth seized his bow, and, chancingto strike upon that very arrow, was himself slain by the stratagem thathe had wickedly planned for his brother. George Eliot, too, hasdedicated her greatest volume to the study of this principle. Theorphan child, Tito, is received into the arms of an adopted father, wholavishes upon him all his wealth. But when the youth was grown to fullstrength and beauty, one night Tito left his adopted father in slaveryand fled with his gold and gems into a foreign land. Years passed byand, with his stolen wealth, Tito bought wife, palace, position, fame.He had sown falsehood and cruelty, and nothing seemed so unlikely asthat he would reap a similar harvest. But one day the peoplediscovered his falsehood and attacked Tito. A mob pursued him throughthe streets, and, knowing his strength as a swimmer, the youth casthimself into the River Arno. When Tito had swum far down the river tothe other side, and, in his exhaustion, would go ashore, he looked up,and, lo! he discerned the gray-haired father whom he had injuredtrotting along the shore side by side with the swimmer. In the oldman's eyes blazed bitter hatred, in his hand flashed a sharp knife.What the youth had sown years before now at last he was to reap. Whenincreasing weakness compelled him to approach the shore he lookedbeseechingly to his father for mercy, but found only justice. With awild and bitter cry Tito reaped his harvest. Soon the mud of thatriver filled the eyes and ears of him who years before had receiveddefilement into his heart. What seed he had sown, that Nature gave himas a harvest—good measure, heaped up, and shaken together.

History permits no man to escape the reflection that if, for the timebeing, individuals have escaped this moral law, nations have felt itsfull force. Nature does, indeed, walk through the fields withfootsteps so gentle as to disturb no drop of dew hanging upon the bladeof grass. Nature also hath her sterner aspect, and for the sons ofiniquity her footsteps are earthquakes, her strokes are strokes of warand of pestilence. When Sophocles worked out the law of moralretribution for King Oedipus and Antigone, his daughter, the poet mightwell have gone on to note that if the Grecian army had sacked theTrojan cities the time would come when the Roman fleet would sack hercities and make her sons to toil as captives. Later on, if the Romanconquerors swept the East for corn and wheat, looted stores and shops,pillaged palaces for treasure for triumphal processions, the time camewhen Nature and God decreed that the vast wealth piled up in the Romancapital should excite the cupidity of the Goths, until at last thestreets of that great city were swept with flame and store-houses werepillaged by marauders. In reviewing the history of Venice Ruskin wasso impressed with this principle of the moral harvest that he affirmsthat the history of palace and cathedral, of fleets and navies, issimply the story, written by a pen dipped in fire and blood, of how thechildren reaped what the fathers had sown.

For many months past the statesmen of England have been sending forthdiscussions reviewing the career of their country. In the light of theEastern problem one of these authors reflects that whenever England hassown injustice to a weaker nation she has reaped injustice andretribution for herself. He notes that in the last century thegovernors of England—for example, Lord Hastings—went through the landrobbing rajahs, despoiling the people by false weights and measures,until they had turned the whole country into one vast desert. The hourcame when before the House of Commons Burke impeached Hastings for highcrimes and misdemeanors, as the enemy of India and England and all men.But England was content to impose a trifling fine upon her wickedofficial. How could she give up the treasure she had filched forherself? Years passed and an injured people brooded upon its wrongs,and the time came when what England had sown in tears she reaped inblood. One day the Indian soldiers mutinied. The next day the wellswere filled with the bodies of English officers, their wives andchildren; then merchants and missionaries and travelers wereslaughtered. For weeks the strife went on. If once the Englishsoldier had pillaged the Indian villages, now, in turn, the Englishquarters were pillaged. "Blind of eye and hard of heart," said thesage statesman. "Retribution hath been visited upon us," said thegreat leader. "Our jealousy and greed hath ended with that sword beingsharpened against ourselves." The note of conviction is in the voiceof this statesman, but what saith be save this: "What a man soweth,that also shall he reap!"

All young hearts may well remember that it is safe to do right, butdangerous to sow wrong! No matter how smooth, how soft and sweet, seemthe paths of sin, know that beneath every flower there lurks a spider,beneath every silken couch of indulgence there broods a nest ofserpents, and the scene that begins with flowers shall end midst thornsand thickets. For the moment, indeed, the judge may seem unobservantand the watchman may seem asleep; but he who yields to any deflectionfrom honor shall find at last that God never slumbers, that his lawsnever sleep. Go east or go west. Nature is upon the track of thewrong-doer. Could the sage of old sit down to converse with each youthwho to-day walks on the street, perchance he would find many who,through excess, are draining away the rich forces of nerve and brainand blood.

Daily they deny reason its book, taste its music, love its noblecompanionship. At last, when the harp of the physical senses begins togive way, and they fall back upon the mental faculties for pleasure,then these faculties that have been starved shall, in turn, make mensuffer. In that hour reason or memory shall say: "Because I called andye refused; because I stretched out my hand and no man regarded,therefore I will laugh at your calamity. I will mock at yourdesolation when your fear cometh as destruction and your desolation aswhirlwind." In Daniel Webster's words of disappointed ambition, "Istill live," we see that a statesman sows what he reaps. In Goethe'sfearful cry for "more light" we see that the poet who sows darknessshall reap darkness. In Lord Byron's piteous "I must sleep now" we seethat he who sows morbidness and passion reaps feverishness and shame.The law is inexorable. He who sows foul thoughts shall reap the foulcountenance of a fiend. He who sows pure thoughts shall reap thesweetness and nobility of the face of Fra Angelico. He who sowsreflection shall reap wisdom. He who sows sympathy shall reap love.The good Samaritan who sows tenderness to the man wounded by thewayside shall reap tenderness when angels stoop to bind up his brokenheart.

THE LOVE THAT PERFECTS LIFE.

"Love is the fulfilling of the law."—Romans, xiii, 10.

"Men may die without any opinions, and yet be carried into Abraham'sbosom, but if we be without love, what will knowledge avail? I willnot quarrel with you about opinions. Only see that your heart be rightwith God. I am sick of opinions. Give me good and substantialreligion, a humble, gentle love of God and man."—John Wesley.

"Therefore, come what may, hold fast to love. Though men should rendyour heart, let them not embitter or harden it. We win by tenderness,we conquer by forgiveness. O, strive to enter into something of thatlarge celestial charity which is meek, enduring, unretaliating, andwhich even the overbearing world cannot withstand forever! Learn thenew commandment of the Son of God. Not to love merely, but to love asHe loved. Go forth in this Spirit to your life duties, go forth,children of the Cross, to carry everything before you, and winvictories for God by the conquering power of a love likehis."—Frederick W. Robertson.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LOVE THAT PERFECTS LIFE.

The purpose of Christ's mission to earth was the development of idealmanhood. The instruments he fashioned and the agents he ordained allwrought unceasingly toward a manhood that was ample in faculty, fertilein resource and ripe in those qualities that make for maturity ofcharacter. He sought to teach men how to carry their faculties throughall the strife, collisions and rivalries of life, without damaging menor being damaged by them.

Always to the children of good fortune right living has seemed easy,for these live midst sheltered conditions and exhibit goodness asnaturally as the sheltered southern nooks have grass and flowers whenall the northern hillsides are brown with death or white with snow.But Christ came teaching the children of weakness and misfortune how tobear up midst adversity, how to sing songs at midnight and how, throughdefeat, to march to final victory. So beautiful was the manhood heunveiled before men that, beholding it, men low and men high, thepublican and prodigal, the centurion and ruler also, quivered withhope, as the harp quivers under the touch of the harper.

For his ideal includes every quality that kindles admiration anddelight; all gentleness, all goodness, all simplicity, the refinementof the scholar, the insight of the seer, the courage that makes theyouth a hero. In luminous hours men behold visions of ideal perfectionhanging like stars in a midnight sky. Unfortunately for many, thesevisions burst like bubbles and soon pass away. Artists and sculptorslook forward to an hour when, by a touch here and a touch there, thestatue shall be perfected and the portrait completed; so Christ pointedforward to an hour when, having been wrought upon by darkness and bylight, by defeat and by victory, by sorrow and by joy, at last wisdomshall be made perfect, judgment know no error, love have fulldisclosure and the soul enter into unhindered perfection.

Great are the achievements of the chisel upon the block of marble,marvelous the skill with which a master turns a dead canvas intolustrous life and beauty. Matchless the power that turns a clod into arosy apple, a seed into a sheaf of wheat, a babe into a sage; yetneither nature nor art knows any transformation like unto that wonderof time when, by slow processes, God develops man out of rude and lowconditions of life unto those high and spiritual moods when selfishnessgives place to self-sacrifice, coarseness to sweetness, hardness togentleness and love, and perfection dwells in man as ripeness dwells infruit, as maturity dwells in harvests.

The mainspring of all progress, individual and social, is the desire tofulfill in character all one has planned in thought. Man's life is onelong pursuit of the visions of possible excellence which disquiet,rebuke and tempt him upward. "As to other points," said John Milton,"what God may have determined for me I know not, but this I know—thatif he ever instilled an intense love of moral beauty into the breast ofany man, he has instilled it into mine. Ceres, in the fable, pursuednot her daughter with a greater keenness of inquiry than I, day andnight, the idea of perfection." Haunted by his dream of excellence,the poet likened himself to one born beside the throne and reared inpurple, yet by some mischance left to gypsies, midst poverty andneglect, while thoughts of the glory he has known and that imperialpalace whence he came, are never out of mind. In picturing forth theseconceptions of sweetness and light, philosophers have found it hard tosummarize the qualities that make up ideal manhood.

Conceding that the Christian is the perfect gentleman, who does for hisfellows what an easy chair does for a tired man, what a winter's fireis to a lost traveler, we may also affirm that Newman's definition isinadequate and fragmentary. As the ideal portraits of Christ, fromPerugino to Hoffman, divide the kingdom of beauty—and must be unitedin one new conception in order to approach the perfect face—so thepoets and the philosophers, with their diverse conceptions of idealmanhood, divide the kingdom of character. "The true man cannot be afragmentary man," said Plato. Is he not one-sided who masters theconventional refinement and the stock proprieties, yet indulges indrunkenness and gluttony? "Pleasure must not be his sole aim," saidthe accomplished Chesterfield. "I have enjoyed all the pleasures ofthe world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regrettheir loss. Those who have no experience are dazzled with there[Transcriber's note: their?] glare, but I have been behind the scenesand have seen all the coarse pulleys, which exhibit and move all thegaudy machines that excite the admiration of the ignorant audience."

Nor is scholarship enough. From Solomon to Burke, the wisest men havebeen the saddest of men. The Scottish physician who ordered hissecretary to select from his library all the books upon medicine andsurgery that were printed prior to 1880 and sell them, tells us howfutile is the pursuit of wisdom and how rapidly the systems of to-daybecome the cast-off garments of to-morrow. Nor must the perfect manrepresent power and wealth alone, for "the wealth of Croesus cannotbring sleep to the sick man tossing upon his silken couch, and all theAlexanders and Napoleons have shed bitter tears, conquering orconquered." He who is merchant or scholar or ruler, and only that,climbs his pillar like Simeon Stylites.

All such know not that the world itself is a pillar all too small forthe soul to stand upon. This life-chase after bubbles, this fightingfor trifles, this pursuit of false grails, reminds us of the story ofthat Grecian boy lured to his death by the enchantress. Going into thepalace garden to pluck a rose, the youth beheld the form of a younggirl standing in the edge of the glimmering woods. With soft words andsweet, she called him. Forgetting his dear ones in the palace, theyouth ran after his enchantress. Along a pathway of flowers she dancedbefore him, sometimes sweeping the strings of her harp, sometimessinging, and shaking her curls at his haste, ever shooting arrows fromher eyes, yet ever just eluding his embrace. On and on she led himinto the bog, that covered his garments with mud, through the thornsand brambles that tore his white skin, over rocks steep and sharp.Ever and anon the youth stopped to pluck the thorns from his hands andbind up his bleeding feet; then, gathering his torn purple about him,he plunged on, in the hope of drinking at last the sweet cup of hersorcery. When, at the end of the day, the desire of his heart wasgiven him, the illusion fell away, for the youth embraced not abeautiful maiden, but an old hag, who had led him into the desert to ahut whose stones were darkness and whose walls were confusion.

As the term genius includes all those forms of culture termed poetry,music, eloquence, leadership, so love is a term that includes all thoseshapes of human welfare known as education, refinement, liberty,happiness. Properly defined, love is that exalted state of mind andheart when reason is luminous, when judgment and imagination glow underits influence just as the electric bulb glows under the living current.There are three possible states and moods under which the mind mayfulfill its functions. There is a dull and quiescent condition whenreason and judgment act, but act without fervor. Power is there, butit is latent, just as heat is in the unkindled wood lying on the grate,but the heat is hidden.

Then there is a higher mood of the mind, when, under the influence ofconversation or reading, the mind emits jets and flashes of thought,through witticism or story; but this creative mood is intermittent andspasmodic. Last of all is that exalted mood when the mind glows andthrobs, when reason emits thoughts, as stars blaze light; when thenimbus that overarches the brows of saints in ancient picturesliterally represents the effulgence of the mind. Work done in thelower moods is called mediocre; work done by the mind in the secondstage is associated with talent, but when, through birth or ancestry,the mind works ever in regnant and supernal moods, it is called genius.Affirming that all minds rise into this higher mood at intervals, wemay also affirm that all the best work in literature or art or commercehas been wrought during these exalted states when love for the work inhand has rendered the mind luminous and crystalline.

It was love of nature that lent Wordsworth his power to divine nature'ssecret. When the poet approached Chamouni and the mountains that girdit round he tells us he was conscious of a shivering from head to foot,with mingled awe and fear; his mind glowed with an indescribablepleasure; his body thrilled as if in the presence of a disembodiedspirit; his heart approached nature with an intensity of joy comparableonly to that joy which Dante felt when approaching Beatrice. But whenthe cares of this world gained upon him and the love of nature fadedgradually away in the manner described by him in his "Intimations ofImmortality," then also his power to describe nature faded away. Foronly when the heart loves can intellect do great work.

His biographer tells us that when Angelo grew old and blind he wasaccustomed to ask his servant to lead him to the torso of Phidias.Passing his hands slowly over the broken marble, the sculptor enteredinto the thought of the great Grecian, and with love for his artglowing in his face and thrilling in his voice, he mused aloud upon thegenius of Phidias. Love of his art made all his days bright and allhis moons honeymoons. When Wyatt Eaton, the artist, was in Millet'shome he noticed that when the wife called the artist from his task tohis noonday meal, the artist's whole being had so gathered itself intothe eye that there was no life left with which to hear. Love lentgenius skill. No other sentiment is so universal or so powerful in itsinfluence as love that energizes the mind and heart. Love lentswiftness to the feet of Sir Galahad; lent his heart courage; lent hissword victory. Entering the palace, love, said Cicero, "makes goldshine." Love for the birds lent fame to Audubon; just as love for thebees lent fortune to Huber. Love of knowledge hived all the wisdom inthe libraries; love of beauty adorned all the galleries; love ofservice organized all the philanthropies. To-morrow, at the behest oflove, and in the interests of dear ones at home, all the wheels willbegin to revolve; all the trains go out and all the ships come in.When a man of real force and worth passes upward into that high stateof purity and sweet reasonableness called love, he becomes almostsacred and exhales an ineffable and mysterious atmosphere. Great isthe power of trade; wonderful the influence of fortune and force;marvelous the hundred instrumentalities and institutions of society,but above all of them is man, whose love can indeed "make richessplendid," whose wisdom love can make mellow, whose strength love canmake gentle, whose defeats love can turn into victories. In that hourone hundred men dwell in one man.

Love also perfects morality and fulfills all ethical laws. What healthis to the body, what sweetness is to the lark's song, what perfume isto the rose, that morality is to culture and character. Drunkennessand gluttony have not more power to blear the eye than immorality todegrade the soul. When Homer tells us that Ulysses escaped unharmedfrom the enchanted palace, but suffered injury from his unfaithfulnessto a friend, the poet wishes us to know that it is easier to recoverfrom the poison of Circe's cup than to escape the effect ofdisobedience to the laws of God.

Fortunately nature is so organized as to keep the consequences ofill-doing ever before man's eyes. Disobeying the law of fire man isburned; disobeying the law of steam man is scalded; disobeying the lawof honor friends avert their faces, or the door of the jail closesbehind the wrongdoer. So few are these laws and so simple that theycould not be plainer were they emblazoned upon the sky as anever-present scroll. There is the law of reverence. Conscious ofvastness and sublimity, in the presence of mountains, man, frail,ignorant, passing swiftly to his grave, is asked to bow his head in thepresence of the Eternal One.

There is also the law of truth in speech, the law of purity in thought,the laws that forbid theft and covetousness and killing. But all theselaws are gathered up and fulfilled in love, just as the seven colors ofnature are gathered up and fulfilled in the one white sunbeam. And hewho loves will fulfill all these laws. Loving himself, man will notwaste his physical treasure. As it was vandalism for the iconoclaststo pass through the cathedrals of Europe whitewashing the frescoes andbreaking down the statues, much more is it vandalism for men to destroythat temple of God called the body. If man loves his mind he will,through culture, lead what is germinal and latent forth into fullblossom and fruitage. He who loves scholarship will make haste todouble the books in his library. He who loves sweetness will doublethe sweetness of his melody. He who loves friends will double theirnumber and strengthen their affection. He who loves industry willstrengthen his toil and lend it influence. Looking toward the home,love fulfills the law of helpfulness. Looking toward the weak andpoor, love fulfills the law of service and sympathy. Looking toward agreat crisis for humanity, love fulfills the law of martyrdom.

Just as summer fulfills all ripeness and growth for seed and root andtree, so love fulfills all laws for self and man and the all-loving God.

After thirty-six years of tireless toil Herbert Spencer has brought toa conclusion the labors of a lifetime. His final volume places thecapstone on the structure of his philosophy. In reading these pages nothoughtful mind can fail to perceive that for science also has dawnedthe vision splendid. If history began with an era of force, its lastand crowning achievement will be the era when love, organized into lawsand institutions, will lend perfection to civilization. The upwardmarch of mankind has been slow and accompanied by tremendous losses.At the beginning strength prevailed and weakness went to the wall; thebird with the swiftest wing first reached the fountain, the deer withthe swiftest foot reached the place of shelter, the ox with thestrongest thrust reached the richest fodder. Pushed back, weaknessperished, while strength prevailed and propagated.

This law of violence received its first check through the parentalinstinct. Parenthood built a fortress with walls and bulwarks aboutthe babe. Love of offspring caused a weakness to survive. At last anera dawned when many parents united to construct a shield for weakchildren indeed, but also for weak adults. The state lifted the shieldbetween weakness and its oppressor. The widow and the orphan werepermitted to glean after the harvesters. The traveler, passing throughthe field, might pluck a handful of corn or pull a bunch of figs. Thecreditor must not take the blanket or coat from the laborer nor theboat from the poor fisherman, nor the plane or saw from the poorcarpenter. Stimulated by Christ's example and teachings, society beganto multiply the bulwarks against tyranny and selfishness. Lookingtoward the child, for the protection of weakness and unripeness, thestate built these shields called the school and library, looking towardthe unfortunate and those weak in body or mind, the state builtbulwarks called asylum and hospital. Looking toward the chimney-sweep,the factory boys and girls, the state began to soften pain and mitigatethe distress of labor. Looking toward the serf and the slave and theprisoner, the novelist and poet constructed song and story as shieldsfor the protection of the weak and the oppressed.

One hundred years ago a man was as a beast of the field, and theslaughter of men in Italy, by the tyrant who ruled over them, stirredno more thought in England than the news of the slaughter of so manybeasts. But fifty years ago the state had become so gentle toward theweak that when Mr. Gladstone made a protest against the savagery andinfuriated cruelty wrought upon the inmates of the dungeons of Italy,then the heart of Europe turned toward Rome, the throne trembled uponits foundations. Formerly when any foreign government wished tocolonize Africa, they sent out a regiment of soldiers, cut off a sliceof the country and annexed it. Now public sentiment forbids suchtyranny. The only way the aggressive nations can obtain possession ofnew territory is to do it under the name of a protectorate,sugar-coating, as has been said, the deeds of tyranny. If the dungeonhas been rifled of its prey, if cruelty has been scourged out of theland, if despotism tottered, it is because society was slowly climbingup that stairway, of which the first step is fear and the last is love.

In these January days our earth, snow-clad and frost-bound, seems likea huge ball of ice. Yet all unconsciously to itself, the earth isbeing swept on into spring and summer. Unconsciously, but none theless truly, society, under the silent and secret impulse of the greatGod, has been journeying upward toward the time when love shall fulfillevery law; when kindness and sympathy shall be organized in manners andcustoms. All the revolutions of the past, all the clangor of war, allthe tumbling down of Bastilles, all the piling up of cities, is asnothing to the advance of the world toward that era when love shallperfect man's institutions and civilization.

Love also perfects religion. It is the glory of Christ that he unveilsthe sovereignty of character and crowns manhood with all-maturing andall-perfecting love. Looking backward, man finds that all religionsfall into four classes: There is the religion of fear and force, whenman offers sacrifices to appease the gods and conciliate justice.There is the religion of law, when men reduce life to formal rules, andthe Pharisee rigorously fulfills his duty as chief, or trader, orfriend. There is the religion of romanticism, when men of powerfulintellect and strong imagination evolve their ideal and, withdrawing tosome cave, give themselves to reverie. In all such self becomes anorb, so large as to eclipse brother man and God. Last of all there isthe religion of Christ, in which love is root, blossom and fruitage.It aims at the development and unfolding of everything that is graciousin life, whatever strikes at admiration, whether it is in school, inart, in song, in wit, in travel, in books; whatever is praiseworthy incourage or endurance, whatever has fineness and sweetness and nobility;all that belongs to the hero and patriot; all that belongs to the seerand scholar; all that belongs to leadership in trade and commerce—allthese elements are to be united and carried upward into the sweetnessand purity of life, until the full man, standing apart and standingabove life, seems to have been informed with divine love, as with apresence.

And when love has made the most of the man himself it overflows tobless others. Christ's disciples are not here to be ministered unto,but to minister. Religion, says Christ, is love, and love is gentletoward those with hollow eyes and famine-stricken faces. Love iskindly toward those who have a tragedy written in the sharpenedcountenance. Love is patient toward those who have lost fidelity, as aman loses a golden coin; who have lost morality as one who flounders inthe Alpine drifts. And this religion of love takes on a thousandmodern forms. If it is not rowing out against the darkness and storm,as did Grace Darling to save the shipwrecked, it is going forth tothose tossed upon life's billows, to succor and to save. For love ismaking the individual life beautiful, making the home beautiful, andwill at last make the church and state beautiful. Men will not bowdown to crowned power nor philosophic power nor esthetic power; but, inthe presence of a great soul, filled with vigor of inspiration andglowing with love, man will do obeisance. There is no force upon earthlike divine love in the heart of man, and at last that force willsweeten and regenerate society.

Love also fulfills immortality. Of late science has reduced the numberof things that endure. The astronomer tells us the sun is burning up,and will be a dying ash-heap as truly as the coal in man's cellar willbe exhausted. The geologists tell us the flowing of "the crystalsprings wearies the mountain's heart as truly as the beating of thecrimson pulse wearies man's; that the force of the iron crag is abatedin its time, like the strength of human sinews in old age." Theeverlasting mountains are doomed to decay as surely as the moth andworm. It seems that the shining texture of stars and suns must waxold, like a garment, and decay. If now youth is eager to master allknowledge, plunge into the thick of life's battle, forge some tool,enact some law, right some wrong, the time will speedily come when theman will sit down amid the ruins of his life and confess that his idolshave been shivered, one by one.

He who loves endures. For him always all is well. That youth with agreat love for nature's treasures that promised fame, but who found hisopen book crimson with the life-current, may dry his tears, for love isimmortal and beyond he will fulfill the dreams denied here. Because heloves the slave, Livingstone, falling in the African forest, need notfear, for love will make his work immortal. The sweet mother, whoselove overarches the cradle with thoughts that for number are beyond thestars, need not fear to leave behind the gentle babe, for everlastinglove will encircle it. Falling into unconsciousness and putting outupon the yeasty sea midst the falling darkness, man may call back: "Istill live." For God is love and God is eternal. Therefore man wholoves is immortal also.

HOPE'S HARVEST, AND THE FAR-OFF INTEREST OF TEARS.

"Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
Let Darkness keep her raven gloss;
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with Death to beat the ground!"—Tennyson.

"Soul, rule thyself. On passion, deed, desire,
Lay thou the laws of thy deliberate will.
Stand at thy chosen post. Faith's sentinel:
Though Hell's lost legions ring thee round with fire,
Learn to endure. Dark vigil hours shall tire
Thy wakeful eyes; regrets thy bosom thrill;
Slow years thy loveless flower of youth shall kill;
Yea, thou shalt yearn for lute and wanton lyre.
Yet is thy guerdon great; thine the reward
Of those elect, who, scorning Circe's lure,
Grown early wise, make living light their lord.
Clothed with celestial steel, these walk secure,
Masters, not slaves. Over their heads the pure
Heavens bow, and guardian seraphs wave God's sword."—V. A. Symonds.

CHAPTER XIV.

HOPE'S HARVEST, AND THE FAR-OFF INTEREST OF TEARS.

The soul is monarch of three kingdoms. Man lives at once in thepresent, the past and the future. Memory presides over yesterday;to-day is ruled by reason; to-morrow is under the sway of hope. Theancient seer who stood by the historic vine reflecting how the rain ofyesterday had disappeared to give its sweet liquors to the roots onlyto reappear to-morrow in purple clusters, gave us a beautiful image ofhimself. Each human life is like unto a vine—its trunk manifest inthe present; its roots deeply buried in the past; its branches throwingthemselves forward, ripening fruit for days to come. Life is a solidcolumn of days all compacted together. To-day's usefulness is in thenumber of wise, happy and helpful yesterdays, whose accumulatedtreasures crowd forward the soul's present activities. But for hisyesterdays stored up in memory man would be impotent for any heroicthought or deed. He would remain a perpetual infant. As the childjourneys away from the cradle memory gathers up and carries forwardfaces, words, books, arts, sciences, literatures, and theserecollections are embalmed and transmitted as soul-capital, legaciesunspeakably precious.

Yesterday, therefore, is no mausoleum of dead deeds; no storehouse ofmummies. Memory is a granary holding seed for to-morrow's sowing;memory is an armory holding weapons for to-morrow's battles, memory isa medicine-chest with balms for to-morrow's hurts; memory is a librarywith wisdom for to-morrow's emergency. Yesterday holds the full storeof to-day's civilization, contains our tools, conveniences, knowledges;contains our battlefields and victories; above all gives us Bethlehemand Calvary. But alone man's yesterday is impotent; his to-morrowinsufficient. The true man binds all his days together with anearnest, intense, passionate purpose. His yesterdays, to-days andto-morrows march together, one solid column, animated by one thought,constrained by one conspiracy of desire, energizing toward one holy andhelpful purpose, to serve man and love God.

God governs man through the regency of hope. The reasons thereof areself-evident. Man is born a long way from home. No cradle rocks afull-orbed manhood. The babe begins a mere handful of germs; a boughof unblossomed buds. It is a weary climb from nothing to manhood, atit* best. As things rise in the scale of being the distance betweenbirth and maturity widens. Mollusks are born close up to their fullestate, sandflies mature in two days, butterflies in two weeks,humming-birds in as many months. But let no man think the vastall-shadowing redwood trees of California grew in a mushroomic night.When the seed first thrust its rootlets down into the soil and itsplumule up to the sunshine it entered upon a long career. Saved byhope after 800 years of growth it gives shade to myriads of birds;beams for lath and loom and ship in the service of industry; lends penand pencil to poet and artist in the service of beauty; through deskand pew enters into man's intellectual and moral life; throughinstruments of convenience strengthens the sweet amenities of the home;working, it also waited and is saved by hope.

Man stands at the very summit of creation. He is at the head of allthat creep and swim and walk and fly. Preparatory to his dominion hebegins with the lowest and runs the whole gamut of experience of allliving things below him. And hope alone can save him as he journeysupward through all the intermediate stages on his way to his throne andhis God. Big with destiny, he is saved by hope. Not to-day and notyesterday can suffice. The present offers only standingroom—four-and-twenty hours. Memory is a bin banked with snowdrifts,not the waving harvest-fields. Man's life is all in front of him. Hislarge endowment asks for an extended period of time, asks seventy yearsfor skill toward his body; asks an immortal destiny for mind and heart.He is saved by hope and futurity.

Consider the scope and functions of hope and aspiration. Man isgoverned from above and within; while rocks, birds, beasts are governedfrom below and without. Gravity holds the bowlder in its place. Thechannel saith to the river: "Thus far and no farther." The fawn thatis struck, the lion that strikes, the eagle dwelling above both, arecontrolled by fear. The charioteer drives his steeds from behind andcontrols by rein and scourge. But man is controlled from within and infront. God does not scourge his children forward through whips offear. Hopes moving on before him lure him onward. The Italian artistshows us the child passing near the precipice. Then drew near a gentleguardian spirit. The unseen friend rolled along the pathway apples ofParadise and the child, following after with shouts of glee, was luredfrom danger. To the beauty of the artist's thought Homer's story addselements of instruction. When the Grecian boy was pursued by a giantwhose breath was fire, whose hand held a huge club, two invisiblebeings lent help. One took the boy's hand and lifted him forward, theother casting an invisible cord over him flew before him until hisspeed was doubled and the palace gates gave shelter. Oh, beautifulstory of God's gentle rule o'er men! When troubles sweep over theworld like sheeted storms, when men fear exceedingly and strong mencower and shrink and little ones believe the next step to be theprecipice, then God smiles. Striking some sweet bell he sends forthmessengers to lure men forward; they hang stars in man's night; theywhisper that the twilight is nothing, since it is morning twilight;that fears are bats and owls hooting at the dawn; that hope is a larksinging the new day; that God reigns and all is well. Then depart allfears and superstitions. The courage of the future comes; the columnsbegin a forward march. These upward movements of society are theyearnings of God's heart lifting his children forward by hope.

Hope and aspiration also furnish the secret springs of civilization.All things useful and beautiful were once only hopes and ideas. Freeinstitutions are ideals of liberty, crystallized into word forms.Tools and instruments are ideals dressed up in iron clothes. The earlyforest man dwelt in a cave; ached with cold and moaned with hunger.Going into the forest to dig roots he found honey hived by the bees andnuts stored up by squirrels against the winter. Straightway hopesuggested to him a larger granary, whence hath come all man's bins andstorehouses. Man plucked a large plum and found it sour, and anotherplum small, but sweet. Hope suggested that he unite the two and strikethrough the abundant acid juices of the one with the sugar of theother. Thence came all vineyards and orchards. Digging in the soiltired him, but hope suggested that his pet ox might pull his forkedstick; when the wooden stick wore blunt hope replaced it with an ironpoint; when the iron point refused to scour hope suggested steel; whenthe steel made his burden light and doubled the pace of his steeds,hope suggested a seat on the plow; when the riding-plow gave him timeto think, hope suggested he could increase the harvest by doubling thedepth, when the weight was overheavy for his beasts, hope suggested asteam-plow. The Kensington Museum exhibits the growth of the plowidea, as it moved from the forked stick to the "steam gang." If inthis procession of material plows we could see the procession of idealplows we would find that thoughts and hopes are a thousandfold morethan material things.

By hope also do the people increase in wisdom and culture andcharacter. Millions of men are digging and toiling twelve hours eachday; and God hath sent forth hope to emancipate them from drudgery.The man digging with his pick hath a far-away look as he toils. Hopeis drawing pictures of a cottage with vines over the doorway, with someone standing at the gate, a sweet voice singing over the cradle. Hopemakes this home his; it rests the laborer and saves him from despair.Multitudes working in the stithy and deep mines sweeten their labor andexalt their toil by aspiring thoughts. Thinking of his little ones athome, the miner says: "My children shall not be as their father was; mydrudgery is not for self, but for love's sake; the sweat of my brow isoil in the lamp of love; I will light it to-night on the sacred altarof home." Here is the secret of the rise and reign of the people.This explains all man's progress in knowledge and culture. As thefruits and flowers rise rank upon rank in response to the advancingsummer, so all that is most refined and exalted in man's mind or heartbursts forth in new ideals, reforms, revolutions, in response to therevelation of that personal presence from whom all hope and aspirationincessantly proceed.

Hope's noble ministry hath grievous enemies. Among these let usinclude a false use of the past. Yesterday contains sins and mistakes,but multitudes err in dwelling too much upon their wrongs. Each manhath had his temptations, each his fierce conflicts and defeats, eachbears grievous scars from the battle-field. Yet if one constantlyrevives all his old sins life will be filled with hideous specters.Memory will become a place of torment and a ghastly chamber of horrors.We shall be the children of despondency and wretchedness. Memory willbe a graveyard; the past will give no light save the "will-o-the-wisp"light from putrescence and decay. All the springs of joy will bepoisoned by morbid griefs that keep open old wounds. The city hath itsoffal heap where refuse matter is destroyed; each home its garret, thecontents cast out at regular intervals; the individual throws away hisold clothes, old tools, old vehicles. Why should not the soul have itsrefuse valley—where the past is cast out of life and memory?

Farmers' boys sometimes set steel traps by shocks of corn whither comequail and prairie chickens. Stepping upon the traps, the cruel jawsclose upon foot or wing and the bleeding bird beats out its life uponthe frozen ground. Memory often with cruel jaws holds men entrapped.A single error wrecks the whole life. But once forgiven of God let thesin go. Reflection upon past sins is good only so long as it producesrevulsion from sin, and like a bow shoots the soul toward God andrighteousness. God is like a mother who forgives the child's sin intoeverlasting forgetfulness. Man should be ashamed to remember what Godforgets. "I will cast your sins into the depth of the sea." Someonesays: "God receives the soul as the sea the bather, to return itcleansed—itself unsoiled." Gather up, therefore, all thy sins—oldwrongs, old hatreds, burning angers, memories of men's treachery; stuffthem into a bag and heave them into the gulf of oblivion. Your life isnot in the past, but in the future. "We are saved by hope."

Multitudes may embitter their new year by undue reflections overopportunities neglected and lost in the past and denied in the present.Professor Agassiz tells of a friend who sold his farm in Pennsylvaniafor $5,000 to invest it in Dakota, and after losing all in the new homereturned to find the German who purchased the homestead had found oiland great wealth in a swamp which he had tried to drain off. An oldgentleman recently told of his refusal in 1840 to accept as payment ofa small note a lot on a corner in Chicago now worth a million dollars,and he shed bitter tears over the loss of property he never owned.When Ali Hafed heard of the diamonds in India he sold his estate andwent forth to seek his fortune. His successor, watering his camel inthe garden, saw the gleam of gems in the white sand and discovered theGolconda mines. Had Ali Hafed had eyes to see his would have beenboundless treasure at home instead of poverty, starvation and death.These and similar legends stand for the opportunities that have goneforever. How many neglected their opportunities for education; howthey knocked unbidden at every door and no man opened. Others weredenied culture, and now feel they are unfulfilled prophecies. Many byone error have injured eye or ear or lung or limb or nervous system.They grievously handicapped themselves. Others by ingratitude,infidelity to trusts, treachery to friends, have poisoned happiness.Repentance is theirs, and also forgiveness, but not forgetfulness. Thepast is full of bitterness.

Let the dead past bury its dead. The future is still ours. The treesin October willingly let go their leaves to fall into the ditch. Theirlife is not in last year's leaves, but in the infant buds that crowdthe old leaves off. Put forth new activities. Open new furrows. Sownew seed. All the tomorrows are thine; but they are few and short.Fulfill his dictum who said: "I am as one going once across this vastcontinent; I would lean forth and sow as far as hand can scatter myseed. Let the angels count the bundles." No man should be discouragedin whom God believes, preserving him in life. Let hope in God sweetenlife's bitterness.

Another enemy of hopefulness is found in nervous excesses and overwork.Men drain away their vitality. Ambitions unduly stimulate the brain.Many break the laws of sleep and the laws of digestion and the laws ofnerve sobriety. They spend their brain capital. Then they growhopeless toward home and business. Ill-health spreads a gloom over alllife. Every judgment is pessimistic; it could not be otherwise. Thejaundiced eye yellows the landscape. The sweetest music rasps like afile upon the nervous ear. Thomas Carlyle's pessimism was largelyphysical. He overworked upon his life of Oliver Cromwell. Mauriceonce said: "Carlyle believed in God down to the time of OliverCromwell." Once, in a moment of depression, Lyman Beecher prayed:"Lord, keep us from despising our rulers, and help them to stop actingso we cannot help despising them." Poor, nerve-racked Pascal, grewfearful lest his affection for his sister, who had nursed him through along illness, was sinful. One day he wrote in his journal: "Lord,forgive me for loving my dear sister so much!" Afterward he drew hispen through the word "dear." Hope and trust toward God go with health.Sickliness is not saintliness. God cannot save by hope what mandestroys by ill-health.

Dean Stanley used hopefulness as a test of all systems of truth.Rightly so. God is the God of hope, and his truth, like himself,carries the atmosphere of good cheer. The falsity of medievalismappears in this—it robbed men of joy and gladness. God was the centerof darkness. His throne was iron. His heart was marble. His lawswere huge implements of destruction. His penalties were red-hot cannonballs crashing along the sinner's pathway. Repentance toward God wasmoving toward the arctics and away from the tropics. Christianity wasanything but "peace on earth, good will to men."

Philosophers destroyed God's winsomeness. The reformers came in tolead men away from medievalism back to God himself. Men found hopeagain in redemptive love. They saw that any conception of God thatdispirited and depressed men was perverted and false. No man hath donemore to establish this fact than him who long ago said: "Anypresentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ that does not come to theworld as the balmy days of May comes to the unlocked northern zones;any way of preaching the love of God in Christ which is not as full ofsweetness as the voice of the angels when they sang at the advent; anyway of making known the proclamation of mercy which has not at least asmany birds as there are in June and as many flowers as the dumb meadowsknow how to bring forth; any method of bringing before men the doctrineof salvation which does not make everyone feel, 'There is hope for mein God—in the divine plan, in the very nature of the organization ofhuman life and society,' is spurious—is a slander on God and isblasphemy against his love."

Hope hath her harvest also for teachers and reformers. Often men thinktheir work is squandered. They seem to be sowing seed not upon theNile, to find it again abundantly, but in midocean, to sink and come tonaught. Parents and teachers break their hearts, fearing theirwatchfulness and instruction have failed. Men sow wheat and wait sixmonths for a harvest; but they sow moral seed Sunday and on Monday whiptheir children because the seed has not ripened. They forget thatapples bitter in July may be sweet in August. To-day's vice in thechild is often to-morrow's virtue, as acid juices through frost becomesaccharine. Yesterday the mother rocked a little angel in the cradle;to-day she moans: "Alas, that I should have rocked a little fox, alittle serpent, a little wolf!" To-morrow the child becomes a model oftruth and integrity.

The sage might have said: "It is good that woman should hope and wait."Truth's errand has always been a successful errand. Not a singlesocial truth or civic truth or moral truth has ever been lost out ofthe world. Secrets of cruelty and fraud, secrets of oppression and sinperish, but nothing that makes life happier or better hath beenforgotten. We do not have to keep God and truth alive, they keep usalive. Vegetable seeds can be killed, but not moral seeds. When Godissues his silent command to the earth flying into winter and wheels itback toward summer, it is given to no man to put a brake upon warmth;nor can he go up against the spring with swords and banners. Buteasier this than staying the upward march of mankind. God is abroadupon a mission of recovery. Open thy hand, O publicist! and sow thyseed. The seed shall perish, but not the harvest.

Our childhood was pleased with the story of the old monk who wasshipwrecked alone on a desert isle. He always carried with him a fewroots and seeds. Planting these, he died, but sailors coming twentyyears later found the isle waving with fruit trees. To the beauty ofthis legend let us add the truth of one who has made all this land hisdebtor. In 1801 a youth passed through western Pennsylvania. He wascollecting apple seeds with which to found orchards in the thenunbroken states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. When he cameto an open, sunny spot in the forest he would plant his seeds andprotect them with a brush fence. Years afterward new settlers foundhundreds of these embryo orchards in the forests. Thrice he floatedhis canoe laden with seeds down the Ohio to the settlers in Kentucky.To this brave man, called by our Congressional Record "JohnnyAppleseed," whole states owe their wealth and treasure of vineyards andorchards. This intrepid man is a beautiful type of all those who,passing through life's wastes, sow the land with God's eternal truths,whose leaves and fruits heal nations. If God remembers the roots indark forests he will not forget his truths in human hearts. Therefore,sow thy seed. Ye are saved by hope.

The ground and basis of all hope whatsoever is God. It is his goodprovidence and redemptive love in Jesus Christ that make us optimists.Hope is not within the scope of our wisdom or culture or skill; andhope is not in our health or tool or treasure. We journey into anunknown future. It is not given to us to know what a day or an hour ofthe new year may bring forth. How impotent are the wisest andstrongest in the hour when we hear the sound of the ocean and indarkness ford the deep and dangerous river, beyond which is high andeternal noon. What can the child on some great ocean steamer caught ina winter's storm do to overcome the tempest? Can it drive the fierceblasts back to their northern haunts? Can its little hand hold thewheel and guide the great ship? Can its voice still the billows thatcan crush the steamer like an egg-shell? Can its breath destroy theicy coat of mail that covers all the decks? What the child can do istrust the Captain who has brought this same ship through a hundred hardstorms. It can rest and trust and hope. And all we upon this greatearth-ship have been caught, not in a storm, but in the gulf stream ofGod's providence. The warm tropic currents sweep us on to the heavenlyharbor. The trade winds above aid the forward flight. More than allelse is the larger planetary movement that sweeps gulf stream, windsand ship onward towards the infinite. Soon shall we enter into quietwaters and cast out our anchor.

Looking forward, let us hope and cleanse all fear out of life—trustGod, love him and rejoice. Even our largest problems need not dispiritus. Problems are not to be analyzed, but accepted. He who analyzes aflower loses it. He who cracks a diamond to see what it is, is withoutboth gem and knowledge. Life's great questions are seeds. Plant aseed, then wait. Some day the flower and fruit will explain the seed.It is well to lay aside difficult questions to be asked some day at thethrone of God. Then we will look back to smile at what now disturbs usexceedingly. Remember the Russian Cathedral—travelers tell us the dinand noise of the crowds thronging under the dome to those above thedome become a strain of soft music. It is good to hope and wait.Because God lives and loves, man should enter the future as he enterstemple or cathedral—to dedicate all its days to hope and aspiration.

INDEX.

Anti-slavery movement, the, Wilberforce, 211
Arnold, Benedict, 243
Arnold of Rugby, 189
Audubon, wife of, 98

Bacon; Pascal, 75
"Baucis and Philemon", 249

Caesar, the value of personality, 16
Carey, William, 171
Carlyle, wife of, 186
Christ, coming of, 122
Christian manhood, the, 259
Christ the supreme example, 30
Civilization, achievements of, 136
Civilization, Christ's promise for, 52
Classic writer, tale of a, 24
Culture, Character, Beauty, the secret of, 163

Darwin on Christian teachers, 168
Desert, oases of, 35
Divine Teacher, the, 177

England, career of, 253
England, orphan babes of, 210
English visitor, the, 148

Fame a holy ambition, 29
Faneuil, Peter, 215
Fathers, the; uprising of 1861, 55
Feeling and sentiment, 142
Forest, a—differing conceptions of, 60
Fourth century, the, 223
France—king of; Marie Antoinette; Carlyle, 63, 64
Friendship an open sesame, 231

Garfield, 158
Genius marred by absence of humble virtues, 207
Gentleness, lack of, 181
God, erroneous conception of, 191
God, man's attitude toward, 65
God, punishments of, 85
God the ground and basis of all hope, 194
God's world a good world, 36
Gough, John B., 144
Great hearts, 134
Greatness an accumulation of little deeds, 202
Grey, Jane, 201
Growth by accretion; from seed, 242

Heart and intellect, 138
Heart and the age of cruelty, 139
Heart transformations, 145
Heroism—the Divine Teacher; Henry Grady; Napier;
Browning; Ruskin, 92-95
Holland, greatness of; William the Silent, 170
Homer's ideal, Helen, 119
Hope and aspiration, functions of, 282
Hope, enemies of, 286
Hope long deferred, 112
Howard; Goodyear; Patteson, 79, 80
Hugo, Victor, 165
Human life, enemies of, 205
Humanity and social sympathy, 100

Industrial law the law of sacrifice, 161
Intelligence, ignorance, 125

Keats, 183
"Keep thou this man", 219
King Saul and the seer, 14

Labor, problem of, 124
Labor, fruition of, 127
Law of violence, the, 270
Life a column of days, 279
Life, problem of, 239
Life's better hours, 233
Lincoln, Abraham, 56
Livingstone, 180
Love, definition of, 264
Love and immortality, 275
Love the fulfillment of all ethical laws, 268
Lowly woman, career of a, 19

Man governed through hope, 280
Man, influence of for good or evil, 13
Man, the great destroyer, 23
Man, a force-producer, 25
Man, unpurposed influence of, 27
Moral retribution, 251

Nature, favors of, 71
Nature, mysterious workings of, 241
New womanhood, the, 98
Nerve and brain force, drain of, 255
"No man careth for my soul", 214

Opportunity, genius of, 220
Orations—American; humble heroes; parental sacrifice;
suffering of ancestors; a tribute to the early dead, 81-84

Patriot, the; scholar, the, 70
Peabody, George, 57
Phocion, patriot and martyr, 170
Pompeii, 229
Progress and civilization, law of, 166
Progress, mainspring of, 261
Prosperity, 230

Religion, man's idea of, 121
Religion perfected by love, 273
Retribution, harvest of, 245
Rosetta Stone, the, 197

Science and God, 204
Seas, secrets of, 73
Secret springs of civilization, 283
Self-sacrifice, law of, 159
Society, 58
Society, crying need of, 188
Society, progress of, 123
Spencer, Herbert, 270
Spiritual harvests, Milton's study of, 247
Strategic element, the, 225

The Christian the perfect gentleman, 262
The heart and religious belief, 147
The heart in industry, 151
The heart in civilization, 149
Thirteenth century, the, 224
Thought, liberty of, 78
Time-element, the; Robert Peel; honors are evanescent;
man's social and industrial life; realm of law and
liberty, 113-119
Time-element in business, 126
Turner, 182
Tyndall, 74

Unsupported intellect, impotency of, 140

Wealth and position—Lord Shaftesbury, 21
Wealth and poverty, 103
Webster, Daniel, 165
Widow's mite, the, 198
Wisdom, culture, character increased by hope, 285