{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_17274/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_17274","id":"gutenberg_17274","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17274","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Conduct of life"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Investment of Influence\n\n\nA Study of Social Sympathy and Service\n\n\n\nNewell Dwight Hillis\n\n\n\n\nAuthor of \"A Man's Value to Society,\" \"Foretokens of Immortality,\" Etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNEW YORK   CHICAGO   TORONTO\n\nFleming H. Revell Company\n\nLONDON AND EDINBURGH\n\nMCMXII\n\n\n\n\nCopyright 1897\n\nBy Fleming H. Revell Company.\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.  Toronto: 25\nRichmond Street, W.  London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100\nPrinces Street\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION\n\nMany years have now passed since we first met.  During all this time\nyou have been an unfailing guide and helper.  Your friendship has\ndoubled life's joys and halved its sorrows.  You have strengthened me\nwhere I was weak and weakened me where I was too strong.  You have\nborne my burdens and lent me strength to bear my own.\n\nBecause I have learned from you in example, what I here teach in\nprecept, I dedicate this book\n\n  TO YOU\n\n  --whether toiling in field or forum,\n  in home or market place,\n\n  TO YOU--MY FRIEND\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD.\n\nThe glory of our fathers was their emphasis of the principle of\nself-care and self-culture.  Finding that he who first made the most of\nhimself was best fitted to make something of others, the teachers of\nyesterday unceasingly plied men with motives of personal\nresponsibility.  Influenced by the former generation, our age has\norganized the principle of individualism into its home, its school, its\nmarket-place and forum.  By reason of the increase in gold, books,\ntravel and personal luxuries, some now feel that selfness is beginning\nto degenerate into selfishness.  The time, therefore, seems to have\nfully come when the principle of self-care should receive its\ncomplement through the principle of care for others.  These chapters\nassert the debt of wealth to poverty, the debt of wisdom to ignorance,\nthe debt of strength to weakness.  If \"A Man's Value to Society\"\naffirms the duty of self-culture and character, these studies emphasize\nthe law of social sympathy and social service.\n\nNewell Dwight Hillis.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAP.\n\n    I  Influence, and the Atmosphere Man Carries\n\n   II  Life's Great Hearts, and the Helpfulness\n       of the Higher Manhood\n\n  III  The Investment of Talent and Its Return\n\n   IV  Vicarious Lives as Instruments of Social Progress\n\n    V  Genius, and the Debt of Strength\n\n   VI  The Time Element in Individual Character\n       and Social Growth\n\n  VII  The Supremacy of Heart Over Brain\n\n VIII  Renown Through Self-Renunciation\n\n   IX  The Gentleness of True Gianthood\n\n    X  The Thunder of Silent Fidelity: a Study\n       of the Influence of Little Things\n\n   XI  Influence, and the Strategic Element in Opportunity\n\n  XII  Influence, and the Principle of Reaction\n       in Life and Character\n\n XIII  The Love that Perfects Life\n\n  XIV  Hope's Harvest, and the Far-off Interest of Tears\n\n\n\n\nINFLUENCE, AND THE ATMOSPHERE MAN CARRIES.\n\n\n\n\n\"I do not believe the world is dying for new ideas.  A teacher has a\nhigh place amongst us, but someone is wanted here and abroad far more\nthan a teacher.  It is power we need, power that shall help us to solve\nour practical problems, power that shall help us to realize a high,\nindividual, spiritual life, power that shall make us daring enough to\nact out all we have seen in vision, all we have learnt in principle\nfrom Jesus Christ.\"--_Charles A. Berry_.\n\n\"And Saul sent messengers to take David: and when they saw the company\nof prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as appointed over them,\nthe Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also\nprophesied.  And when it was told Saul, he sent other messengers and\nthey prophesied likewise.  And Saul sent messengers again the third\ntime, and they prophesied also.  Then went Saul to Ramah, and he said,\nWhere are Samuel and David?  And one said, Behold they be at Naioth.\nAnd Saul went thither, and the Spirit of God came on him also and he\nprophesied.  Wherefore man said:  Is Saul also among the\nprophets?\"--_I. Samuel, xix, 20-21_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nINFLUENCE, AND THE ATMOSPHERE MAN CARRIES.\n\nNature's forces carry their atmosphere.  The sun gushes forth light\nunquenchable; coals throw off heat; violets are larger in influence\nthan bulb; pomegranates and spices crowd the house with sweet odors.\nMan also has his atmosphere.  He is a force-bearer and a\nforce-producer.  He journeys forward, exhaling influences.  Scientists\nspeak of the magnetic circle.  Artists express the same idea by the\nhalo of light emanating from the divine head.  Business men understand\nthis principle, those skilled in promoting great enterprises bring the\nmen to be impressed into a room and create an atmosphere around them.\nIn measuring Kossuth's influence over the multitudes that thronged and\npressed upon him the historian said: \"We must first reckon with the\norator's physical bulk and then carry the measuring-line about his\natmosphere.\"\n\nThinking of the evil emanating from a bad man, Bunyan made Apollyon's\nnostrils emit flames.  Edward Everett insists that Daniel Webster's\neyes during his greatest speech literally emitted sparks.  Had we tests\nfine enough we would doubtless find each man's personality the center\nof outreaching influences.  He himself may be utterly unconscious of\nthis exhalation of moral forces, as he is of the contagion of disease\nfrom his body.  But if light is in him he shines; if darkness rules he\nshades, if his heart glows with love he warms; if frozen with\nselfishness he chills; if corrupt he poisons; if pure-hearted he\ncleanses.  We watch with wonder the apparent flight of the sun through\nspace, glowing upon dead planets, shortening winter and bringing\nsummer, with birds, leaves and fruits.  But that is not half so\nwonderful as the passage of a human heart, glowing and sparkling with\nten thousand effects, as it moves through life.  The soul, like the\nsun, has its atmosphere, and is over against its fellows, for light,\nwarmth and transformation.\n\nAll great writers have had their incident of the atmosphere their hero\ncarried.  Centuries ago King Saul sent his officers to arrest a seer\nwho had publicly indicted the tyrant for outbreaking sins.  When the\nsoldier entered the prophet's presence he was so profoundly affected by\nthe majesty of his character that he forgot the commission and his\nlord's command, asking rather to become the good man's protector.\nLikewise with the second group of soldiers--coming to arrest, they\nremained to befriend.  Then the King's anger was exceedingly hot\nagainst him who had become a conscience for the throne.  Rushing forth\nfrom his palace, like an angry lion from his lair, the King sought the\nplace where this man of God was teaching the people.  But, lo! when the\nKing entered the brave man's presence his courage, fidelity and\nintegrity overcame Saul and conquered him unto confession of his\nwickedness.  Just here we may remember that stout-hearted Pilate, with\na legion of mailed soldiers to protect him, trembled and quaked before\nhis silent prisoner.  And King Agrippa on his throne was afraid, when\nPaul lifting his chains, fronted him with words of righteousness and\njudgment.  Carlyle says that in 1848, during the riot in Paris, the mob\nswept down a street blazing with cannon, killed the soldiers, spiked\nthe guns, only to be stopped a few blocks beyond by an old,\nwhite-haired man who uncovered and signaled for silence.  Then the\nleader of the mob said: \"Citizens, it is De la Eure.  Sixty years of\npure life is about to address you!\"  A true man's presence transformed\na mob that cannon could not conquer.\n\nMontaigne's illustration of atmosphere was Julius Caesar.  When the\ngreat Roman was still a youth, he was captured by pirates and chained\nto the oars as a galley-slave; but Caesar told stories, sang songs,\ndeclaimed with endless good humor.  Chains bound Caesar to the oars,\nand his words bound the pirates to himself.  That night he supped with\nthe captain.  The second day his knowledge of currents, coasts and the\nroute of treasure-ships made him first mate; then he won the sailors\nover, put the captain in irons, and ruled the ship like a king; soon\nafter, he sailed the ship as a prize into a Roman port.  If this\nincident is credible, a youth who in four days can talk the chains off\nhis wrists, talk himself into the captaincy, talk a pirate ship into\nhis own hands as booty, is not to be accounted for by his eloquent\nwords.  His speech was but a tithe of his power, and wrought its spell\nonly when personality had first created a sympathetic atmosphere.  Only\na fraction of a great man's character can manifest itself in speech;\nfor the character is inexpressibly finer and larger than his words.\nThe narrative of Washington's exploits is the smallest part of his\nwork.  Sheer weight of personality alone can account for him.  Happy\nthe man of moral energy all compact, whose mere presence, like that of\nSamuel, the seer, restrains others, softens and transforms them.  This\nis a thing to be written on a man's tomb: \"_His presence made bad men\ngood._\"\n\nThis mysterious bundle of forces called man, moving through society,\nexhaling blessings or blightings, gets its meaning from the capacity of\nothers to receive its influences.  Man is not so wonderful in his power\nto mold other lives, as in his readiness to be molded.  Steel to hold,\nhe is wax to take.  The Daguerrean plate and the Aeolian harp do but\nmeagerly interpret his receptivity.  Therefore, some philosophers think\ncharacter is but the sum total of those many-shaped influences called\nclimate, food, friends, books, industries.  As a lump of clay is lifted\nto the wheel by the potter's hand, and under gentle pressure takes on\nthe lines of a beautiful cup or vase, so man sets forth a mere mass of\nmind; soon, under the gentle touch of love, hope, ambition, he stands\nforth in the aspect of a Cromwell, a Milton or a Lincoln.\n\nStanding at the center of the universe, a thousand forces come rushing\nin to report themselves to the sensitive soul-center.  There is a nerve\nin man that runs out to every room and realm in the universe.  Only a\ntithe of the world's truth and beauty finds access to the lion or lark;\nthey look out as one in castle tower whose only window is a slit in the\nrock.  But man dwells in a glass dome; to him the world lies open on\nevery side.  Every fact and force outside has a desk inside man where\nit makes up its reports.  The ear reports all sounds and songs; the eye\nall sights and scenes; the reason all arguments, judgment each \"ought\"\nand \"ought not,\" the religious faculty reports messages coming from a\nforeign clime.\n\nMan's mechanism stands at the center of the universe with\ntelegraph-lines extending in every direction.  It is a marvelous\npilgrimage he is making through life while myriad influences stream in\nupon him.  It is no small thing to carry such a mind for three-score\nyears under the glory of the heavens, through the glory of the earth,\nmidst the majesty of the summer and the sanctity of the winter, while\nall things animate and inanimate rush in through open windows.  For one\nthus sensitively constituted every moment trembles with possibilities;\nevery hour is big with destiny.  The neglected blow cannot afterward be\nstruck on the cold iron; once the stamp is given to the soft metal it\ncannot be effaced.  Well did Ruskin say; \"Take your vase of Venice\nglass out of the furnace and strew chaff over it in its transparent\nheat, and recover that to its clearness and rubied glory when the north\nwind has blown upon it; but do not think to strew chaff over the child\nfresh from God's presence and to bring the heavenly colors back to\nhim--at least in this world.\"  We are accountable to God for our\ninfluence; this it is \"that gives us pause.\"\n\nGentle as is the atmosphere about us, it presses with a weight of\nfourteen pounds to the square inch.  No infant's hand feels its weight;\nno leaf of aspen or wing of bird detects this heavy pressure, for the\nfluid air presses equally in all directions.  Just so gentle, yet\npowerful, is the moral atmosphere of a good man as it presses upon and\nshapes his kind.  He who hath made man in his own image hath endowed\nhim with this forceful presence.  Ten-talent men, eminent in knowledge\nand refinement, eminent in art and wealth, do, indeed, illustrate this.\nProof also comes from obscurity, as pearls from homely oyster shells.\nWorking among the poor of London, an English author searched out the\nlife-career of an apple woman.  Her history makes the story of kings\nand queens contemptible.  Events had appointed her to poverty, hunger,\ncold and two rooms in a tenement.  But there were three orphan boys\nsleeping in an ash-box whose lot was harder.  She dedicated her heart\nand life to the little waifs.  During two and forty years she mothered\nand reared some twenty orphans--gave them home and bed and food; taught\nthem all she knew; helped some to obtain a scant knowledge of the\ntrades; helped others off to Canada and America.  The author says she\nhad misshapen features, but that an exquisite smile was on the dead\nface.  It must have been so.  She \"had a beautiful soul,\" as Emerson\nsaid of Longfellow.  Poverty disfigured the apple woman's garret, and\nwant made it wretched, nevertheless, God's most beautiful angels\nhovered over it.  Her life was a blossom event in London's history.\nSocial reform has felt her influence.  Like a broken vase the perfume\nof her being will sweeten literature and society a thousand years after\nwe are gone.\n\nThe Greek poet says men knew when the goddess came to Thebes because of\nthe blessings she left in her track.  Her footprints were not in the\nsea, soon obliterated, nor in the snow, quickly melting, but in fields\nand forests.  This unseen friend, passing by the tree blackened by a\nthunderbolt, stayed her step; lo! the woodbine sprang up and covered\nthe tree's nakedness.  She lingered by the stagnant pool--the pool\nbecame a flowing spring.  She rested upon a fallen log--from decay and\ndeath came moss, the snowdrop and the anemone.  At the crossing of the\nbrook were her footprints; not in mud downward, but in violets that\nsprang up in her pathway.  O beautiful prophecy! literally fulfilled\n2,000 years afterward in the life of the London apple woman, whose\natmosphere sweetened bitter hearts and made evil into good.\n\nWealth and eminent position witness not less powerfully the\ntransforming influence of exalted characters.  \"My lords,\" said\nSalisbury, \"the reforms of this century have been chiefly due to the\npresence here of one man--Lord Shaftesbury.  The genius of his life was\nexpressed when last he addressed you.  He said: 'When I feel age\ncreeping upon me I am deeply grieved, for I cannot bear to go away and\nleave the world with so much misery in it.'\"  So long as Shaftesbury\nlived, England beheld a standing rebuke of all wrong and injustice.\nHow many iniquities shriveled up in his presence!  This man,\nrepresenting the noblest ancestry, wealth and culture, wrought\nnumberless reforms.  He became a voice for the poor and weak.  He gave\nhis life to reform acts and corn laws; he emancipated the enslaved boys\nand girls toiling in mines and factories; he exposed and made\nimpossible the horrors of that inferno in which chimney-sweeps live; he\nfounded twoscore industrial, ragged and trade schools; he established\nshelters for the homeless poor; when Parliament closed its sessions at\nmidnight Lord Shaftesbury went forth to search out poor prodigals\nsleeping under Waterloo or Blackfriars bridge, and often in a single\nnight brought a score to his shelter.  When the funeral cortege passed\nthrough Pall Mall and Trafalgar square on its way to Westminster Abbey,\nthe streets for a mile and a half were packed with innumerable\nthousands.  The costermongers lifted a large banner on which were\ninscribed these words: \"I was sick and in prison and ye visited me.\"\nThe boys from the ragged schools lifted these words; \"I was hungry and\nnaked and ye fed me.\"  All England felt the force of that colossal\ncharacter.  To-day at that central point in Piccadilly where the\nhighways meet and thronging multitudes go surging by, the English\npeople have erected the statue of Shaftesbury--the fitting motto\ntherefor; \"The reforms of this century have been chiefly due to the\npresence and influence of Shaftesbury.\"  If our generation is indeed\nheld back from injustice and anarchy and bloodshed, it will be because\nShaftesbury the peer, and Samuel, the seer, are duplicated in the lives\nof our great men, who stand forth to plead the cause of the poor and\nweak.\n\nBut man's atmosphere is equally potent to blight and to shrivel.  Not\ntime, but man, is the great destroyer.  History is full of the ruins of\ncities and empires.  \"Innumerable Paradises have come and gone; Adams\nand Eves many,\" happy one day, have been \"miserable exiles\" the next;\nand always because some satanic ambition or passion or person entering\nhas cast baneful shadow o'er the scene.  Men talk of the scythe of time\nand the tooth of time.  But, said the art historian: \"Time is\nscytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm; we who smite\nlike the scythe.  Fancy what treasures would be ours to-day if the\ndelicate statues and temples of the Greeks, if the broad roads and\nmassy walls of the Romans, if the noble architecture, castles and towns\nof the Middle Ages had not been ground to dust by blind rage of man.\nIt is man that is the consumer; he is moth and mildew and flame.\"  All\nthe galleries and temples and libraries and cities have been destroyed\nby his baneful presence.  Thrice armies have made an arsenal of the\nAcropolis; ground the precious marbles to powder, and mixed their dust\nwith his ashes.  It was man's ax and hammer that dashed down the carved\nwork of cathedrals and turned the treasure cities into battle-fields,\nand opened galleries to the mold of sea winds.  Disobedience to law has\nmade cities a heap and walled cities ruins.  Man is the pestilence that\nwalketh in darkness.  Man is the destruction that wasteth at noonday.\n\nWhen Mephistopheles appears in human form his presence falls upon homes\nlike the black pall of the consuming plague, that robes cities for\ndeath.  The classic writer tells of an Indian princess sent as a\npresent to Alexander the Great.  She was lovely as the dawn; yet what\nespecially distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath;\nricher than a garden of Persian roses.  A sage physician discovered her\nterrible secret.  This lovely woman had been reared upon poisons from\ninfancy until she herself was the deadliest poison known.  When a\nhandful of sweet flowers was given to her, her bosom scorched and\nshriveled the petals; when the rich perfume of her breath went among a\nswarm of insects, a score fell dead about her.  A pet humming-bird\nentering her atmosphere, shuddered, hung for a moment in the air, then\ndropped in its final agony.  Her love was poison; her embrace death.\nThis tale has held a place in literature because it stands for men of\nevil all compact, whose presence has consumed integrities and exhaled\niniquities.  Happily the forces that bless are always more numerous and\nmore potent than those that blight.  Cast a bushel of chaff and one\ngrain of wheat into the soil and nature will destroy all the chaff but\ncause the one grain of wheat to usher in rich harvests.\n\nAs a force-producer, man's primary influence is voluntary in nature.\nThis is the capacity of purposely bringing all the soul's powers to\nbear upon society.  It is the foundation of all instruction.  The\nparent influences the child this way or that.  The artist-master plies\nhis pupil.  The brave general or discoverer inspires and stimulates his\nmen by multiform motives.  The charioteer holds the reins, guides his\nsteeds, restrains or lifts the scourge.  Similarly man holds the reins\nof influence over man, and is himself in turn guided.  So friend shapes\nand molds friend.  This is what gives its meaning to conversation,\noratory, journalism, reforms.  Each man stands at the center of a great\nnetwork of voluntary influence for good.  Through words, bearing and\ngesture, he sends out his energies.  Oftentimes a single speech has\neffected great reforms.  Oft one man's act has deflected the stream of\nthe centuries.  Full oft a single word has been like a switch that\nturns a train from the route running toward the frozen North, to a\ntrack leading into the tropic South.\n\nNot seldom has a youth been turned from the way of integrity by the\ninfluence of a single friend.  Endowed as man is, the weight of his\nbeing effects the most astonishing results.  Witness Stratton's\nconversation with the drunken bookbinder whom we know as John B. Gough,\nthe apostle of temperance.  Witness Moffat's words that changed David\nLivingstone, the weaver, into David Livingstone, the savior of Africa.\nWitness Garibaldi's words fashioning the Italian mob into the\nconquering army.  Witness Garrison and Beecher and Phillips and John\nBright.  Rivers, winds, forces of fire and steam are impotent compared\nto those energies of mind and heart, that make men equal to\ntransforming whole communities and even nations.  Who can estimate the\nsoul's conscious power?  Who can measure the light and heat of last\nsummer?  Who can gather up the rays of the stars?  Who can bring\ntogether the odors of last year's orchards?  There are no mathematics\nfor computing the influence of man's voluntary thought, affection and\naspiration upon his fellows.\n\nMan has also an unpurposed influence.  Power goes forth without his\ndistinct volition.  Like all centers of energy, the soul does its best\nwork automatically.  The sun does not think of lifting the mist from\nthe ocean, yet the vapor moves skyward.  Often man is ignorant of what\nhe accomplishes upon his fellows, but the results are the same.  He is\nsurcharged with energy.  Accomplishing much by plan, he does more\nthrough unconscious weight of personality.  In wonder-words we are told\nthe apostle purposely wrought deeds of mercy upon the poor.  Yet\nthrough his shadow falling on the weak and sick as he passed by, he\nunconsciously wrought health and hope in men.  In like manner it is\nsaid that while Jesus Christ was seeking to comfort the comfortless,\ninvoluntarily virtue went out of him to strengthen one who did but\ntouch the hem of his garment.  Character works with or without consent.\nThe selfish man fills his office with a malign atmosphere; his very\npresence chills like a cold, clammy day.  Suspicious people fill all\nthe circle in which they live with envy and jealousy.  Moody men\ndistribute gloom and depression; hopelessness drains off high spirits\nas cold iron draws the heat from the hand.  Domineering men provoke\nrebellion and breed endless irritations.\n\nGreat hearts there are also among men; they carry a volume of manhood;\ntheir presence is sunshine, their coming changes our climate; they oil\nthe bearings of life; their shadow always falls behind them; they make\nright living easy.  Blessed are the happiness-makers!--they represent\nthe best forces in civilization.  They are to the heart and home what\nthe honeysuckle is to the door over which it clings.  These embodied\ngospels interpret Christianity.  Jenny Lind explains a sheet of printed\nmusic--and a royal Christian heart explains, and is more than a creed.\nLittle wonder, when Christianity is incarnated in a mother, that the\nyouth worships her as though she were an angel.  Someone has likened a\nchurch full of people to a box of unlighted candles; latent light is\nthere; if they were only kindled and set burning they would be lights\nindeed.  What God asks for is luminous Christians and living gospels.\n\nAnother form of influence continues after death, and may be called\nunconscious immortality or conserved social energy.  Personality is\norganized into instruments, tools, books, institutions.  Over these\nforms of activity death and years have no power for destroying.  The\nswift steamboat and the flying train tell us that Watt and Stephenson\nare still toiling for men.  Every foreign cablegram reminds us that\nCyrus Field has just returned home.  The merchant who organizes a great\nbusiness sends down to the generations his personality, prudence,\nwisdom and executive skill.  The names of inventors may now be on\nmoldering tombstones, but their busy fingers are still weaving warm\ntextures for the world's poor.  The gardener of Hampton court, who, in\nold age, wished to do yet one more helpful deed, and planted with elms\nand oaks the roadway leading to the historic house, still lives in\nthose columnar trees, and all the long summer through distributes\ncomfort and refreshment.  Every man who opens up a roadway into the\nwilderness; every engineer throwing a bridge over icy rivers for weary\ntravelers; every builder rearing abodes of peace, happiness and\nrefinement for his generation; every smith forging honest plates that\nhold great ships in time of storm, every patriot that redeems his land\nwith blood; every martyr forgotten and dying in his dungeon that\nfreedom might never perish; every teacher and discoverer who has gone\ninto lands of fever and miasma to carry liberty, intelligence and\nreligion to the ignorant, still walks among men, working for society\nand is unconsciously immortal.\n\nThis is fame.  Life hath no holier ambition.  Some there are who,\ndenied opportunity, have sought out those ambitious to learn, and,\neducating them, have sent their own personality out through artists,\njurists or authors they have trained.  Herein is the test of the\ngreatness of editor or statesman or merchant.  He has so incarnated his\nideas or methods in his helpers that, while his body is one, his spirit\nhas many-shaped forms; so that his journal, or institution, or party\nfeels no jar nor shock in his death, but moves quietly forward because\nhe is still here living and working in those into whom his spirit is\nincarnated.  Death ends the single life, but our multiplied life in\nothers survives.\n\nThe supreme example of atmosphere and influence is Jesus Christ.  His\nwas a force mightier than intellect.  Wherever he moved a light ne'er\nseen on land nor sea shone on man.  It was more than eminent beauty or\nsupreme genius.  His scepter was not through cunning of brain or craft\nof hand; reality was his throne.  \"Therefore,\" said Charles Lamb, \"if\nShakespeare should enter the room we should rise and greet him\nuncovered, but kneeling meet the Nazarene.\"  His gift cannot be bought\nnor commanded; but his secret and charm may be ours.  Acceptance,\nobedience, companionship with him--these are the keys of power.  The\nlegend is, that so long as the Grecian hero touched the ground, he was\nstrong; and measureless the influence of him who ever dwells in\nChrist's atmosphere.  Man grows like those he loves.  If great men come\nin groups, there is always a greater man in the midst of the company\nfrom whom they borrowed eminence--Socrates and his disciples; Cromwell\nand his friends; Coleridge and his company; Emerson and the Boston\ngroup; high over all the twelve disciples and the Name above every\nname.  Perchance, in vision-hour, over against the man you are he will\nshow you the man he would fain have you become; thereby comes\ngreatness.  For value is not in iron, but in the pattern that molds it;\nbeauty is not in the pigments, but in the ideal that blends them;\nstrength is not in the stone or marble, but in the plan of architect;\ngreatness is not in wisdom, nor wealth, nor skill, but in the divine\nChrist who works up these raw materials of character.  Forevermore the\nsecret of eminence is the secret of the Messiah.\n\n\n\n\nLIFE'S GREAT HEARTS, AND THE HELPFULNESS OF THE HIGHER MANHOOD.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,\n  Not light them for themselves, for if our virtues\n  Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike\n  As if we had them not.  Spirits are not finely touched\n  But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends\n  The smallest scruple of her excellence,\n  But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines\n  Herself the glory of a creditor--\n  Both thanks and use.\"--_Measure for Measure_.\n\n\n\"A man was born, not for prosperity, but to suffer for the benefit of\nothers, like the noble rock maple, which, all round our villages,\nbleeds for the service of man.\"--_Emerson_.\n\n\n\"Everything cries out to us that we must renounce.  Thou must go\nwithout, go without!  That is the everlasting song which every hour,\nall our life through, hoarsely sings to us:  Die, and come to life; for\nso long as this is not accomplished thou art but a troubled guest upon\nan earth of gloom.\"--_Goethe_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nLIFE'S GREAT HEARTS, AND THE HELPFULNESS OF THE HIGHER MANHOOD.\n\nThe oases in the Arabian desert lie under the lee of long ridges of\nrock.  The high cliffs extending from north to south are barriers\nagainst the drifting sand.  Standing on the rocky summit the seer\nIsaiah beheld a sea whose yellow waves stretched to the very horizon.\nBy day the winds were still, for the pitiless Asiatic sun made the\ndesert a furnace whose air rose upward.  But when night falls the wind\nrises.  Then the sand begins to drift.  Soon every object lies buried\nunder yellow flakes.  Anon, sandstorms arise.  Then the sole hope for\nman is to fall upon his face; the sky rains bullets.  Then appears the\nministry of the rocks.  They stay the drifting sand.  To the yellow sea\nthey say: \"Thus far, but no farther.\"  Desolation is held back.  Soon\nthe land under the lee of the rocks becomes rich.  It is fed by springs\nthat seep out of the cliffs.  It becomes a veritable oasis with figs\nand olives and vineyards and aromatic shrubs.  Here dwell the sheik and\nhis flocks.  Hither come the caravans seeking refreshment.  In all the\nOrient no spot so beautiful as the oasis under the shadow of the rocks.\nLong centuries ago, while Isaiah rejoiced under the beneficent ministry\nof these cliffs, his thoughts went out from dead rocks to living men.\nIn his vision he saw good men as Great Hearts, to whom crowded close\nthe weak and ignorant, seeking protection.  Sheltered thereby barren\nlives were nourished into bounty and beauty.  With leaping heart and\nstreaming eyes he cried out; \"O, what a desert is life but for the\nministry of the higher manhood!  To what shall I liken a good man?  A\nman shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; a shelter\nin the time of storm!\"\n\nOptimists always, we believe God's world is a good world.  Joy is more\nthan sorrow; happiness outweighs misery; the reasons for living are\nmore numerous than the reasons against it.  But let the candid mind\nconfess that life hath aspects very desert-like.  Today prosperity\ngrows like a fruitful tree; to-morrow adversity's hot winds wither\nevery leaf.  God plants companion, child, or friend in the life-garden;\nbut death blasts the tree under which the soul finds shelter; then\nbegins the desert pilgrimage.  Soon comes loss of health; then the\nwealth of Croesus availeth not for refreshing sleep, and the wisdom of\nSolomon is vanity and vexation of spirit.  The common people, too, know\nblight and blast; their life is full of mortal toil and strife, its\nfruitage grief and pain.  Temptations and evil purposes are the chief\nblights.  When the fiery passion hath passed the soul is like a city\nswept by a conflagration.  Each night we go before the judgment seat.\nReason hears the case; memory gives evidence; conscience convicts, each\nfaculty goes to the left; self-respect pushes us out of paradise into\nthe desert; and the angels of our better nature guard the gates with\nflaming swords.\n\nA journey among men is like a journey through some land after the\ncyclone has made the village a heap and the harvest fields a waste.  An\noutlook upon the generations reminds us of a highway along which the\nretreating army has passed, leaving abandoned guns and silent cannon\nwith men dead and dying.  Travelers from tropical Mexico describe\nruined cities and lovely villages away from which civilized men\njourney, leaving temples and terraced gardens to moss and ivy.  The\ndeserted valleys are rich in tropic fruits and the climate soft and\ngentle.  Yet Aztecs left the garden to journey northward into the\ndeserts of Arizona and New Mexico.  Often for the soul paradise is not\nbefore, but behind.\n\nShakespeare condenses all this in \"King Lear.\"  Avarice closes the\npalace doors against the white-haired King.  Greed pushes him into the\nnight to wander o'er the wasted moor, an exiled king, uncrowned and\nuncared for.  In such hours garden becomes desert.  This is the drama\nof man's life.  The soul thirsts for sympathy.  It hungers for love.\nBaffled and broken it seeks a great heart.  For the pilgrim multitudes\nMoses was the shadow on a great rock in a weary land.  For poor, hunted\nDavid, Jonathan was a covert in time of storm.  Savonarola, Luther,\nCromwell sheltered perishing multitudes.  Solitary in the midst of the\nvale in which death will soon dig a grave for each of us stands the\nimmortal Christ, \"the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.\"\n\nThat Infinite Being who hath made man in his own image hath endowed the\nsoul with full power to transform the desert into an oasis.  The soul\ncarries wondrous implements.  It is given to reason to carry fertility\nwhere ignorance and fear and superstition have wrought desolation.  It\nis given to inventive skill to search out wellsprings and smite rocks\ninto living water.  It is given to affection to hive sweetness like\nhoneycombs.  It is given to wit and imagination to produce perpetual\njoy and gladness.  It is given to love in the person of a Duff, a\nJudson, and a Xavier to transform dark continents.  Great is the power\nof love!  \"No abandoned boy in the city, no red man in the mountains,\nno negro in Africa can resist its sweet solicitude.  It undermines like\na wave, it rends like an earthquake, it melts like a fire, it inspires\nlike music, it binds like a chain, it detains like a good story, it\ncheers like a sunbeam.\"  No other power is immeasurable.  For things\nhave only partial influence over living men.  Forests, fields, skies,\ntools, occupations, industries--these all stop in the outer court of\nthe soul.  It is given to affection alone to enter the sacred inner\nprecincts.  But once the good man comes his power is irresistible.\nWitness Arnold among the schoolboys at Rugby.  Witness Garibaldi and\nhis peasant soldiers.  Witness the Scottish chief and his devoted clan.\nWitness artist pupils inflamed by their masters.  What a noble group is\nthat headed by Horace Mann, Garrison, Phillips and Lincoln!  General\nBooth belongs to a like group.  What a ministry of mercy and fertility\nand protection have these great hearts wrought!  Great hearts become a\nshelter in time of storm.\n\nAll social reforms begin with some great heart.  Much now is being said\nof the destitution in the poorer districts of great cities.  Dante saw\na second hell deeper than hell itself.  Each great modern city hath its\ninferno.  Here dwell costermongers, rag-pickers and street-cleaners;\nhere the sweater hath his haunts.  Huge rookeries and tenements, whose\nevery brick exudes filth, teem with miserable folk.  Each room has one\nor more families, from the second cellar at the bottom to the garret at\nthe top.  No greensward, no park, no blade of grass.  Whole districts\nare as bare of beauty as an enlarged ash-heap.  Here children are\n\"spawned, not born, and die like flies.\"  Here men and women grow\nbitter.  Here anarchy grows rank.  And to such a district in one great\ncity has gone a man of the finest scholarship and the highest position,\nto become the friend of the poor.  With him is his bosom friend, having\nwealth and culture, with pictures, marbles and curios.  Every afternoon\nthey invite several hundred poor women to spend an hour in the\nconservatory among the flowers.  Every evening with stereopticon they\ntake a thousand boys or men upon a journey to Italy or Egypt or Japan.\nThe kindergartens, public schools and art exhibits cause these women\nand children to forget for a time their misery.  One hour daily is\nredeemed from sorrow to joy by beautiful things and kindly\nsurroundings.  Love and sympathy have sheltered them from life's fierce\nheat.  Bitter lives are slowly being sweetened.  Springs are being\nopened in the desert.  These great hearts have become \"the shadow of a\ngreat rock in a weary land.\"\n\nThe Russian reformer, novelist and philanthropist, had an experience\nthat profoundly influenced his career.  Famine had wrought great\nsuffering in Russia.  One day the good poet passed a beggar on the\nstreet corner.  Stretching out gaunt hands, with blue lips and watery\neyes, the miserable creature asked an alms.  Quickly the author felt\nfor a copper.  He turned his pockets inside out.  He was without purse\nor ring or any gift.  Then the kind man took the beggar's hand in both\nof his and said: \"Do not be angry with me, brother, I have nothing with\nme!\"  The gaunt face lighted up; the man lifted his bloodshot eyes; his\nblue lips parted in a smile.  \"But you called me brother--that was a\ngreat gift.\"  Returning an hour later he found the smile he had kindled\nstill lingered on the beggar's face.  His body had been cold; kindness\nhad made his heart warm.  The good man was as a covert in time of\nstorm.  History and experience exhibit now and then a man as unyielding\nas rock in friendships.  Years ago a gifted youth began his literary\ncareer.  Wealth, travel, friends, all good gifts were his.  One day a\nfriend handed him a telegram containing news of his father's death.\nThen the mother faded away.  The youth was alone in the world.  In that\nhour evil companions gathered around him.  They spoiled him of his\nfresh innocency.  They taught the delicate boy to listen to salacity\nwithout blushing.  Soon coarse quips and rude jests ceased to shock\nhim.  He thought to \"see life\" by seeing the wrecks of manhood and\nwomanhood.  But does one study architecture by visiting hovels and\nsqualid cabins?  Is not studying architecture seeing the finest\nmansions and galleries and cathedrals?  So to see life is to see\nmanhood at its best and womanhood when carried up to culture and beauty.\n\nWasting his fortune this youth wasted also his friendships.  One man\nloved him for his father's sake.  For several years every Saturday\nnight witnessed this man of oak and rock going from den to den looking\nfor his old friend's boy.  One day he wrote the youth a letter telling\nhim, whether or not he found him, so long as he lived he would be\nlooking for him every Saturday night in hope of redeeming him again to\nintegrity.  What nothing else could do love did.  Kindness wrought its\nmiracle.  Clasping hands the man and boy climbed back again to the\nheights.  At first the integrity was at best a poor, sickly plant.  But\nhis friend was a refuge in time of storm.  A good man became the shadow\nof a great rock in life's weary land.\n\nOur age is specially interested in the relation of happiness to the\nstreet, the market and counting-room.  We have not yet acknowledged the\nresponsibility of strength.  Not always have our giant minds confessed\nthe debt of power to weakness; the debt of wisdom to ignorance; the\ndebt of wealth to poverty; the debt of holiness to iniquity.  Jesus\nChrist was the first to incarnate this principle.  By so much as the\nparent is wiser than the babe for building a protecting shield for\nhappiness and well-being, by that much is the mother indebted to her\nbabe.  Why is one man more successful than another in the street's\nfierce conflict?  Because he has more resources; is prudent, thrifty,\nquick to seize upon opportunity, sagacious, keen of judgment.  All\nthese qualities are birth-gifts.  The ancestral foothills slope upward\ntoward the mountain-minded.  And what do these distinguished mental\nqualities involve?\n\nRecognizing the responsibility of men of leisure and wealth, John\nRuskin said: \"Shall one by breadth and sweep of sight gather some\nbranch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb of which he\nis himself to be the master spider, making every thread vibrate with\nthe points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the facets of\nhis eyes?\"  Shall the industrial or political giant say: \"Here is the\npower in my hand; weakness owes me a debt?  Build a mound here for me\nto be throned upon.  Come, weave tapestries for my feet that I may\ntread in silk and purple; dance before me that I may be glad, and sing\nsweetly to me that I may slumber.  So shall I live in joy and die in\nhonor.\"  Rather than such an honorable death, it were better that the\nday perish wherein such strength was born.  Rather let the great mind\nbecome also the great heart, and stretch out his scepter over the heads\nof the common people that stoop to its waving.  \"Let me help you subdue\nthe obstacle that baffled our fathers, and put away the plagues that\nconsume our children.  Let us together water these dry places; plow\nthese desert moons; carry this food to those who are in hunger; carry\nthis light to those who are in darkness; carry this life to those who\nare in death.\"\n\nSuperiority is to make erring men unerring and slow minds swift.  Then,\nindeed, comes the better day--pray God it be not far off--when strength\nuses its wealth as the net of the sacred fisher to gather souls of men\nout of the deep.\n\nIn overplus of strength we have the measure of a man's greatness.\nSoul-power is resource for finding and feeding the hidden springs of\nlife and thought in others.  Not all have the same capacity.  The Lord\nof the vineyard still sends into the white fields ten-talent men,\ntwo-talent men and one-talent men.  Each hath his own task, and each\nmust grasp the handle of his own being.  Genius is widely distributed.\nNot many Platos--only one, and then a thousand lesser minds look up to\nhim and learn to think.  Not many Dantes--one, and a thousand poets\ntune their lyres to his and catch its notes.  Not many Raphaels--one,\nand a thousand aspiring artists look up to him and are lifted by the\nlook.  Not many royal hearts--great magazines of kindness.  Few are\ngreat in heart-power, effulging all sweet and generous qualities.\nHappy the community blessed with, a few great hearts and a few great\nminds.  One such will civilize a whole community.\n\nClassic literature charmed our childhood with the story of an Arabian\nsheik.  He dwelt in an oasis near the edge of the desert.  Wealth was\nhis, with flocks and herds and wedges of gold.  One night sleep forsook\nhis couch.  Yet the gurgle of falling water was in his ear.  The odors\nof the vineyard were in his nostril; and to-morrow his servants would\nbegin to gather the abundant harvest.  Ten miles away ran the track of\nthe caravan where his herdsmen had found a traveler dead from the\nfierce heat of the desert.  Yonder the desert and a dying traveler;\nhere an oasis with living water.  Then the sheik arose; he bade his\nservants fill two leathern water-bottles and bring a basket full of\nfigs and grapes.  The next day a caravan came to a booth protecting two\nwater-bottles sunk in the sand.  Beside them were bunches of fruit.  On\na roll were these words: \"While God gives me life each day shall a man\nbe--as springs of water in a desert place.\"  This beautiful story\ninterprets for us the ministry of the higher manhood, as the great\nheart becomes the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.\n\nThis law of human helpfulness asks each man to carry himself so as to\nbless and not blight men, to make and not mar them.  Besides the great\nends of attaining character here and immortality hereafter, we are\nbound to so administer our talents as to make right living easy and\nsmooth for others.  Happy is he whose soul automatically oils all the\nmachinery of the home, the market and the street.  And this ambition to\nbe universally helpful must not be a transient and occasional one--here\nand there an hour's friendship, a passing hint of sympathy, a transient\ngleam of kindness.  Heart helpfulness is to enter into the fundamental\nconceptions of our living.  With vigilant care man is to expel every\nelement that vexes or irritates or chafes just as the husbandman expels\nnettles and poison ivy from fruitful gardens.\n\nFor nothing is so easily wrecked as the soul.  As mechanisms go up\ntoward complexity, delicacy increases.  The fragile vase is ruined by a\nsingle tap.  A chance blow destroys the statue.  A bit of sand ruins\nthe delicate mechanism.  But the soul is even more sensitive to injury.\nIt is marred by a word or a look.  Men are responsible for the ruin\nthey work unthinkingly!  To-day the engine drops a spark behind it.\nTo-morrow that engine is a thousand miles away.  Yet the spark left\nbehind is now a column of fire mowing down the forests.  And that\ndevastating column belongs not to another, but to that engine that hath\njourneyed far.  Thus the evil man does lives after him.  The\ncondemnation of life is that a man hath carried friction and stirred up\nmalign elements and sowed fiery discords, so that the gods track him by\nthe swath of destruction he hath cut through life.  The praise of life\nis that a man hath exhaled bounty and stimulus and joy and gladness\nwherever he journeys.  To-day noble examples and ten thousand precepts\nunite in urging every one to become a great heart.  Every individual\nmust bring together his little group of pilgrim friends, companions,\nemployes, using whatever he has of wisdom and skill for guiding those\nwho follow him on their desert march.  For happiness is through\nhelpfulness.  Every morning let us build a booth to shelter someone\nfrom life's fierce heat.  Every noon let us dig some life-spring for\nthirsty lips.  Every night let us be food for the hungry and shelter\nfor the cold and naked.  The law of the higher manhood asks man to be a\ngreat heart, the shadow of a rock in a weary land.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INVESTMENT OF TALENT AND ITS RETURN.\n\n\n\n\n\"The universal blunder of this world is in thinking that there are\ncertain persons put into the world to govern and certain others to\nobey.  Everybody is in this world to govern and everybody to obey.\nThere are no benefactors and no beneficiaries in distinct classes.\nEvery man is at once both benefactor and beneficiary.  Every good deed\nyou do you ought to thank your fellowman for giving you an opportunity\nto do; and they ought to be thankful to you for doing it.\"--_Phillips\nBrooks_.\n\n\n\"Pity is love and something more; love at its utmost.\"--_T. T. Munger,\n\"Freedom of Faith._\"\n\n\n\"The great idea that the Bible is the history of mankind's deliverance\nfrom all tyranny, outward as well as inward, of the Jews, as the one\nfree constitutional people among a world of slaves and tyrants, of\ntheir ruin, as the righteous fruit of a voluntary return to despotism;\nof the New Testament, as the good news that freedom, brotherhood,\nequality, once confided only to Judea and to Greece, and dimly seen\neven there, was henceforth to be the right of all mankind, the law of\nall society--who was there to tell me that?  Who is there now to go\nforth and tell it to the millions who have suffered and doubted and\ndespaired like me, and turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom\nof the just, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come?  Again\nI ask--who will go forth and preach that gospel and save his native\nland?\"--_Charles Kingsley, \"Alton Locke._\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE INVESTMENT OF TALENT AND ITS RETURN.\n\nIn all ages man has been stimulated to sowing by the certainty of\nreaping.  Tomorrow's sheaves and shoutings support to-day's tearful\nsowing.  Certainty of victory wins battles before they are fought.\nArmed with confidence patriots have beaten down stone castles with\nnaked fists.  Uncertainty makes the heart sick, takes nerve out of arm\nand tension out of thought.  The mere rumor of war along the\nborder-lines of nations destroys enterprise and industry.  Men will not\nplow if warhorses are to trample down the ripe grain.  Men will not\nbuild if the enemy are to warm hands over blazing rafters.  Why should\nthe husbandman plant vines if others are to wrest away his fruit?  The\nindividual and the race need the stimulus of hope and a rational basis\nof security that nothing shall cut the connection between the causes\nsown and the effects to be reaped.  Therefore, the divine word:  \"Send\nforth thy gift and talent, and nature and providence shall invest it\nsecurely and give the talent back with interest and increase.\"\n\nWhat a promise for civilization was that of Christ: \"Give and it shall\nbe given unto you!\"  Let the husbandman give his seed to the furrows;\nsoon the furrows will give back big bundles into the sower's arms.  Let\nthe vintner give the sweat of his brow to the vines; soon the vines\nwill give back the rich purple floods.  Give thy thought, O husbandman!\nto the wild rice; soon nature will give back the rice plump wheat.\nGive thyself, O inventor! to the raw ores, and nature will give thee\nthe forceful tools.  Give thyself, O reformer! to the desert world;\nsoon the world-desert will be given back a world-garden.  Give\nsparingly to nature, and sparingly shalt thou receive again.  Give\nbountifully, and bounty shall be given back.  Give scant thought and\ndrag but one plank to the stream, and thou shalt receive only a narrow\nbridge across the brook.  Give abundant thought to wires and cables and\nbuttresses, and nature will give the bridge across the Firth of Forth.\nGive God thy one talent and, investing it, he returns ten.  Give the\ncup of cold water and thou shalt have rivers of water of life.  Share\nthy crust and thy cloak, and thou shall have banquet and robe and house\nof many mansions.  This is the pledge of nature and God: \"Give, and\ngood measure pressed down and shaken together, shalt thou receive of\ncelestial reapers.\"  The history of progress is the history of Christ's\nchallenge and man's response.\n\nChristianity deals in universal.  Its principles are not local nor\nracial nor temporary.  They are meridian lines taking in all forces,\nmen and movements.  Nature, too, saith: \"Give and it shall be given\nunto you.\"  The sun gives heat to the forests, and afterward the\nburning coal and tree give heat back to the heavens; the arctics give\nicebergs and frigid streams for cooling the fierce tropics, and the\ntropics give back the warm Gulf Stream.  The soil in the spring gives\nits treasures to the growing tree, and in the autumn the tree gives its\nleaves to make the soil richer and deeper.  Personal also is this\nprinciple.  Give thy body food and thy body will give thee mental\nstrength.  Give thy blow to the ax, and the ax will return the fallen\ntree, with strong tools for thy arm.  Give thy brain sleep and rest and\nthy brain will give thy thought nimbleness.  Give thy mind to rocks,\nand the rock pages will give thee wealth of wisdom.  Give thy thought\nto the fire and water, and they will give thee an engine stronger than\ntamed lions.  Give thy scrutiny to the thunderbolt leaping from the\neast to the west, and the lightnings shall give themselves back to thee\nas noiseless and gentle and obedient as the sunlight.  Give thy mind to\nbooks and libraries, and the literature and lore of the ages will give\nthee the wisdom of sage and seer.  Let some hero give his love and\nself-sacrificing service to the poor in prisons, and society will give\nhim in return, monuments and grateful memory.  Give thy obedience to\nconscience, and God, whom conscience serves, will give Himself to thee.\n\nBeing a natural principle, this law is also spiritual.  Standing by his\nmother's knee each child hears the story of the echo.  The boy visiting\nin the mountains, when he called aloud found that he was mocked by a\nhidden stranger boy.  The insult made him very angry.  So he shouted\nback insults and epithets.  But each of these bad words was returned to\nhim from the rocks above.  With bitter tears the child returned to his\nmother, who sent him back to give the hidden stranger kind words and\naffectionate greetings.  Lo! the stranger now echoed back his\nkindliness.  Thus society echoes back each temperament and each career.\nEvermore man receives what he first gives to nature and society and God.\n\nHistory is rich in interpretation of this principle.  In every age man\nhas received from society what he has given to society.  This continent\nlay waiting for ages for the seed of civilization.  At length the sower\nwent forth to sow.  Landing in midwinter upon a bleak coast, the\nfathers gave themselves to cutting roads, draining swamps, subduing\ngrasses, rearing villages, until all the land was sown with the good\nseed of liberty and Christian civilization.  Afterward, when tyranny\nthreatened liberty, these worthies in defending their institutions gave\nlife itself.  Dying, they bequeathed their treasures to after\ngenerations.  At length an enemy, darkling, lifted weapons for\ndestroying.  Would these who had received institutions nourished with\nblood, give life-blood in return?  The uprising of 1861 is the answer.\nThen the people rose as one man, the plow stood in the furrow, the\nhammer fell from the hand, workroom and college hall were alike\ndeserted--a half-million men laid down their lives upon many a\nbattle-field.  Similarly, the honor given to Washington during these\nlast few days tells us that the patriot who gives shall receive.  From\nthe day when the young Virginian entered the Indian forests with\nBraddock to the day when he lay dying at Mount Vernon the patriot gave\nhis health, his wealth, his time, his life, a living sacrifice through\neight and forty years.  Now every year the people, rising up early and\nsitting up late, rehearse to their children the story of his life and\nwork.  Having given himself, honor shall he receive through all the\nages.\n\nTo Abraham Lincoln also came the word: \"Give and thou shall receive!\"\nSitting in the White House the President proclaimed equal rights to\nblack and white.  Then, with shouts of joy, three million slaves\nentered the temple of liberty.  But they bore the emancipator upon\ntheir shoulders and enshrined him forever in the temple of fame, where\nhe who gave bountifully shall receive bountiful honor through all the\nages.  There, too, in the far-off past stands an uplifted cross.\nFlinging wide his arms this crowned sufferer sought to lift the world\nback to his Father's side.  In life he gave his testimony against\nhypocrisy, Phariseeism and cruelty.  For years he gave himself to the\npublican, the sinner, the prodigal, the poor in mind or heart, and so\ncame at length to his pitiless execution.  But, having given himself in\nabandon of love, the world straightway gave itself in return.  Every\none of his twelve disciples determined to achieve a violent death for\nthe Christ who gave himself for them.  Paul was beheaded in Rome.  John\nwas tortured in Patmos.  Andrew and James were crucified in Asia.  The\nrest were mobbed, or stoned, or tortured to death.  And as years sped\non man kept giving.  Multitudes went forth, burning for him in the\ntropics, freezing for him in the arctics; threading for him the forest\npaths, braving for him the swamps, that they might serve his little\nones.  He gave himself for the world, and the world, in a passion of\nlove, will yet give itself back to him.\n\nRecently the officials of the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the\nnoblest citizens of Boston assembled for celebrating the one hundredth\nanniversary of the birth of George Peabody.  For a like purpose the\ncitizens of London came together in banquet hall.  Now, the banker had\nlong been dead.  Nor did he leave children to keep his name before the\npublic.  How shall we account for two continents giving him such praise\nand fame?  George Peabody received from his fellows, because he first\ngave to his fellows.  To his genius for accumulation he added the\ngenius of distribution.  His large gifts to Harvard and Yale, to Salem\nand Peabody, made to science and art as well as to philanthropy and\nreligion, secured perpetual remembrance.  When the public credit of the\nState of Maryland was endangered, he negotiated $8,000,000 in London\nand gave his entire commission of $200,000 back to the State.  He who\ngave $3,500,000 for founding schools and colleges in the South for\nblack and white, could not but receive honor and praise.  Therefore the\neulogies pronounced by the legislators in Annapolis.  As a banker in\nLondon he was disturbed by the sorrows of the poor, and for months gave\nhimself to an investigation of the tenement-house system, developing\nthe Peabody Tenements, to which he gave $2,500,000, and helped 20,000\npeople to remove from dens into buildings that were light and sweet and\nwholesome.  Therefore when he died in London the English nation that\nhad received from him gave to him, and, for the first time in history,\nthe gates of Westminster Abbey were thrown open for the funeral\nservices of a foreigner.  Therefore, the Prime Minister of England\nselected the swiftest frigate in the English navy for carrying his body\nback to his native land.  His generosity radiated in every direction,\nnot in trickling rivulets, but in copious streams.  Bountifully he gave\nto men; therefore, through innumerable orations, sermons, editorials\nand toasts, men vied with each other in giving praise and honor back to\nPeabody, the benefactor of the people.\n\nSociety, always sensitive to generosity, is equally sensitive to\nselfishness.  He who treats his fellows as so many clusters to be\nsqueezed into his cup, who spoils the world for self aggrandizement,\nfinds at last that he has burglarized his own soul.  Here is a man who\nsays: \"Come right, come wrong, I will get gain.\"  Loving ease, he\nlashes himself to unceasing toil by day and night.  Needing rest on\nSunday, he denies himself respite and scourges his jaded body and brain\ninto new activities.  Every thought is a thread to be woven into a\ngolden net.  He lifts his life to strike as miners lift their picks.\nHe swings his body as harvesters their scythes.  He will make himself\nan augur for boring, a chisel for drilling, a muck-rake for scratching,\nif only he may get gain.  He will sweat and swelter and burn in the\ntropics until malaria has made his face as yellow as gold, if thereby\nhe can fill his purse, and for a like end he will shiver and ache in\nthe arctics.  He will deny his ear music, he will deny his mind\nculture, he will deny his heart friendship that he may coin concerts\nand social delights into cash.  At length the shortness of breath\nstartles him; the stoppage of blood alarms him.  Then he retires to\nreceive--what?  To receive from nature that which he has given to\nnature.  Once he denied his ear melody, and now taste in return denies\nhim pleasure.  Once he denied his mind books, and now books refuse to\ngive him comfort.  Once he denied himself friendship, and now men\nrefuse him their love.  Having received nothing from him, the great\nworld has no investment to return to him.  Such a life, entering the\nharbor of old age, is like unto a bestormed ship with empty coal bins,\nwhose crew fed the furnace, first with the cargo and then with the\nfurniture, and reached the harbor, having made the ship a burned-cut\nshell.  God buries the souls of many men long years before their bodies\nare carried to the graveyard.\n\nThis principle tells us why nature and society are so prodigal with\ntreasures to some men and so niggardly to others.  What a different\nthing a forest is to different men!  He who gives the ax receives a\nmast.  He who gives taste receives a picture.  He who gives imagination\nreceives a poem.  He who gives faith hears the \"goings of God in the\ntree-tops.\"  The charcoal-burner fronts an oak for finding out how many\ncords of wood are in it, as the Goths of old fronted peerless temples\nfor estimating how many huts they could quarry from the stately\npile.[1]  But an artist curses the woodsman for making the tree food\nfor ax and saw.  It has become to him as sacred as the cathedral within\nwhich he bares his head.  It is a temple where birds praise God.  It is\na harp with endless music for the summer winds.  It fills his eye with\nbeauty and his ear with rustling melodies.\n\nFor the poet that selfsame oak is enshrined in a thousand noble\nassociations.  It sings for him like a hymn; it shines like a vision;\nit suggests ships, storms and ocean battles; the spear of Launcelot,\nthe forests of Arden; old baronial halls mellow with lights falling on\noaken floors; King Arthur's banqueting chamber.  To the scientist's\nthought the oak is a vital mechanism.  By day and by night, the long\nsummer through, it lifts tons of moisture and forces it into the\nwide-spreading branches, but without the rattle of huge engines.  With\nwhat uproar and clang of iron hammers would stones be crushed that are\ndissolved noiselessly by the rootlets and recomposed in stems and\nboughs!  What a vast laboratory is here, every root and leaf an expert\nchemist!\n\nFor other multitudes the earth has become only a huge stable; its fruit\nfodder; its granaries ricks, out of which men-cattle feed.  These\nestimate a man's value according as he has lifted his ax upon tall\ntrees and ravaged all the loveliness of creation; whose curse is the\nNebuchadnezzar curse, giving to nature the tongue and hand, and\nreceiving from nature grass; who are doomed to love the corn they\ngrind, to hear only the roar of the whirlwind and the crash of the\nhail, never \"the still small voice;\" who see what is written in\nlamp-black and lightning; who think the clouds are for rain, and know\nnot that they are chariots, thrones and celestial highways; that the\nsunset means something else than sleep, and the morning suggests\nsomething other than work.  All these give nature only thought for\nfood, and food only shall they receive from nature, until all their\ndeeds are plowed down in dust.  Give forth thy gift, young men and\nmaidens, and according as thou givest thou shalt receive fruit, or\npicture, or poem, or temple, or ladder let down from heaven, or angel\naspirations going up.\n\nConscience also receives its gifts and makes a return.  Give thy body\nobedience and it will return happiness and health.  Give overdrafts and\nexcesses and it will return sleepless nights and suffering days.  Man's\nsins are seeds, his sufferings harvests.  Every action is embryonic,\nand according as it is right or wrong will ripen into sweet fruits of\npleasure or poison fruits of pain.  Some seeds hold two germs; and vice\nand penalty are wrapped up under one covering.  Sins are\nself-registering and penalties are automatic.  The brain keeps a double\nset of books, and at last visits its punishments.  Conscience does not\nwait for society to ferret out iniquity, but daily executes judgment.\nPolicemen may slumber and the judge may nod, but the nerves are always\nactive, memory never sleeps, conscience is never off duty.  The recoil\nof the gun bruises black the shoulder of him who holds it, and sin is a\nweapon that kills at both ends.\n\nIn the olden days, when the poisoner was in every palace, the Doge of\nVenice offered a reward for a crystal goblet that would break the\nmoment a poison touched it.  Perhaps the idea was suggested to the\nPrince because his soul already fulfilled the thought, for one drop of\nsin always shatters the cup of joy and wastes life's precious wine.\nHow do events interpret this principle!  One day Louis, King of France,\nwas riding in the forest near his gorgeous and guilty palace of\nVersailles.  He met a peasant carrying a coffin.  \"What did the man die\nof?\" asked the King.  \"Of hunger,\" answered the peasant.  But the sound\nof the hunt was in the King's ear, and he forgot the cry of want.  Soon\nthe day came when the King stood before the guillotine, and with mute\nappeals for mercy fronted a mob silent as statues, unyielding as stone,\ngrimly waiting to dip the ends of their pikes in regal blood.  He gave\ncold looks; he received cold steel.\n\nMarie Antoinette, riding to Notre Dame for her bridal, bade her\nsoldiers command all beggars, cripples and ragged people to leave the\nline of the procession.  The Queen could not endure for a brief moment\nthe sight of those miserable ones doomed to unceasing squalor and\npoverty.  What she gave others she received herself, for soon, bound in\nan executioner's cart, she was riding toward the place of execution\nmidst crowds who gazed upon her with hearts as cold as ice and hard as\ngranite.  When Foulon was asked how the starving populace was to live\nhe answered: \"Let them eat grass.\"  Afterward, Carlyle says, the mob,\nmaddened with rage, \"caught him in the streets of Paris, hanged him,\nstuck his head upon a pike, filled his mouth with grass, amid shouts as\nof Tophet from a grass-eating people.\"  What kings and princes gave\nthey received.  This is the voice of nature and conscience: \"Behold,\nsin crouches at the door!\"\n\nThis divine principle also explains man's attitude toward his fellows.\nThe proverb says man makes his own world.  Each sees what is in\nhimself, not what is outside.  The jaundiced eye yellows all it\nbeholds.  The chameleon takes its color from the bark on which it\nclings.  Man gives his color to what his thought is fastened upon.  The\npessimist's darkness makes all things dingy.  The youth disappointed\nwith his European trip said he was a fool for going.  He was, for the\nreason that he was a fool before he started.  He saw nothing without,\nbecause he had no vision within.  He gave no sight, he received no\nvision.  An artist sees in each Madonna that which compels a rude mob\nto uncover in prayer, but the savage perceives only a colored canvas.\nRecently a foreign traveler, writing of his impressions of our city,\ndescribed it to his fellows as a veritable hades.  But his fellow\ncountryman, in a similar volume, recorded his impressions of our art,\narchitecture and interest in education.  Each saw that for which he\nlooked.\n\nThis principle explains man's attitude toward his God.  God governs\nrocks by force, animals by fear, savage man by force and fear, true men\nby hope and love.  Man can take God at whatsoever level he pleases.  He\nwho by beastliness turns his body into a log will be held by gravity in\none spot like a log.  He who lives on a level with the animals will\nreceive fear and law and lightnings.  He who approaches God through\nlaws of light and heat and electricity will find the world-throne\noccupied by an infinite Agassiz.  Some approach God through physical\nsenses.  They behold his storms sinking ships, his tornadoes mowing\ndown forests.  These find him a huge Hercules; yet the Judge who seems\ncruel to the wicked criminal may seem the embodiment of gentleness and\nkindness to his obedient children.  Man determines what God shall be to\nhim.  Each paints his own picture of Deity.  Macbeth sees him with\nforked lightnings without and volcanic fires within.  The pure in heart\nsee him as the face of all-clasping Love.  Give him thy heart and he\nwill give thee love, effulgent love, like the affection of mother or\nlover or friend, only dearer than either.  Give him thy ways, and he\nwill overarch life's path as the heavens overarch the flowers, filling\nthem with heat by day and yielding cooling dews by night.  Give him but\na flickering aspiration and he will give thee balm for the bruised reed\nand flame for the smoking flax.  Give him the publican's prayer and he\nwill give thee mercy like the wideness of the sea.  Give his little\nones but a cup of cold water and he will give thee to drink of the\nwater of the river of life and bring thee to the banquet hall in the\nhouse of many mansions.\n\n\n[1] Mod. Ptrs., Vol. 5, Chap. 1.  The Earth--Veil Star papers: A Walk\nAmong Trees.\n\n\n\n\nVICARIOUS LIVES AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS.\n\n\n\n\n\"Only he that uses shall even so much as keep.  Unemployed strength\nsteadily diminishes.  The sluggard's arm grows soft and flabby.  So,\neven in this lowest sphere, the law is inexorable.  Having is using.\nNot using is losing.  Idleness is paralysis.  New triumphs must only\ndictate new struggles.  If it be Alexander of Macedon, the Orontes must\nsuggest the Euphrates, and the Euphrates the Indus.  Always it must be\non and on.  One night of rioting in Babylon may arrest the conquering\nmarch.  Genius is essentially athletic, resolute, aggressive,\npersistent.  Possession is grip, that tightens more and more.  Ceasing\nto gain, we begin to lose.  Ceasing to advance, we begin to retrograde.\nBrief was the interval between Roman conquest of Barbarians, and\nBarbarian conquest of Rome.  Blessed is the man who keeps out of the\nhospital and holds his place in the ranks.  Blessed the man, the last\ntwang of whose bow-string is as sharp as any that went before, sending\nits arrow as surely to the mark.\"--_Roswell W. Hitchcock_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nVICARIOUS LIVES AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS.\n\nThe eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called the picture-gallery of\nheroes.  These patriots and martyrs who won our first battles for\nliberty and religion made nobleness epidemic.  Oft stoned and mobbed in\nthe cities they founded and loved, they fled into exile, where they\nwandered in deserts and mountains and caves and slept in the holes of\nthe earth.  Falling at last in the wilderness, it may be said that no\nman knoweth their sepulcher and none their names.  But joyfully let us\nconfess that the institutions most eminent and excellent in our day\nrepresent the very principles for which these martyrs died and, dying,\nconquered.  For those heroes were the first to dare earth's despots.\nThey won the first victory over every form of vice and sin.  They wove\nthe first threads of the flag of liberty and made it indeed the banner\nof the morning, for they dyed it crimson in their heart's-blood.  In\nall the history of freedom there is no chapter comparable for a moment\nto the glorious achievements of these men of oak and rock.  Their deeds\nshine on the pages of history like stars blazing in the night and their\nachievements have long been celebrated in song and story.  \"The angels\nof martyrdom and victory,\" says Mazzini, \"are brothers; both extend\nprotecting wings over the cradle of the future life.\"\n\nSometimes it has happened that the brave deed of a single patriot has\nrallied wavering hosts, flashed the lightning through the centuries,\nand kindled whole nations into a holy enthusiasm.  The opposing legions\nof soldiers and inquisitors went down before the heroism of the early\nchurch as darkness flees before the advancing sunshine.  Society\nadmires the scholar, but man loves the hero.  Wisdom shines, but\nbravery inspires and lifts.  Though centuries have passed, these noble\ndeeds still nourish man's bravery and endurance.  It was not given to\nthese leaders to enter into the fruits of their labors.  Vicariously\nthey died.  With a few exceptions, their very names remain unknown.\nBut let us hasten to confess that their vicarious suffering stayed the\nonset of despotism and achieved our liberty.  They ransomed us from\nserfdom and bought our liberty with a great price.  Compared to those,\nour bravest deeds do seem but brambles to the oaks at whose feet they\ngrow.\n\nHaving made much of the principles of the solidarity of society,\nscience is now engaged in emphasizing the principle of vicarious\nservice and suffering.  The consecrated blood of yesterday is seen to\nbe the social and spiritual capital of to-day.  Indeed, the civil,\nintellectual and religious freedom and hope of our age are only the\nmoral courage and suffering of past ages, reappearing under new and\nresplendent forms.  The social vines that shelter us, the civic bough\nwhose clusters feed us, all spring out of ancient graves.  The red\ncurrents of sacrifice and the tides of the heart have nourished these\nsocial growths and made their blossoms crimson and brilliant.  Nor\ncould these treasures have been gained otherwise.  Nature grants no\nfree favors.  Every wise law, institution and custom must be paid for\nwith corresponding treasure.  Thought itself takes toll from the brain.\nTo be loved is good, indeed; but love must be paid for with toil,\nendurance, sacrifice--fuel that feeds love's flame.\n\nGenerous giving to-day is a great joy; but it is made possible only by\nyears of thrift and economy.  The wine costs the clusters.  The linen\ncosts the flax.  The furniture costs the forests.  The heat in the\nhouse costs the coal in the cellar.  Wealth costs much toil and sweat\nby day.  Wisdom costs much study and long vigils by night.  Leadership\ncosts instant and untiring pains and service.  Character costs the\nlong, fierce conflict with vice and sin.  When Keats, walking in the\nrose garden, saw the ground under the bushes all covered with pink\npetals, he exclaimed; \"Next year the roses should be very red!\"  When\nAeneas tore the bough from the myrtle tree, Virgil says the tree exuded\nblood.  But this is only a poet's way of saying that civilization is a\ntree that is nourished, not by rain and snow, but by the tears and\nblood of the patriots and prophets of yesterday.\n\nFortunately, in manifold ways, nature and life witness to the\nuniversality of vicarious service and suffering.  Indeed, the very\nbasis of the doctrine of evolution is the fact that the life of the\nhigher rests upon the death of the lower.  The astronomers tell us that\nthe sun ripens our harvests by burning itself up.  Each golden sheaf,\neach orange bough, each bunch of figs, costs the sun thousands of tons\nof carbon.  Geike, the geologist, shows us that the valleys grow rich\nand deep with soil through the mountains, growing bare and being\ndenuded of their treasure.  Beholding the valleys of France and the\nplains of Italy all gilded with corn and fragrant with deep grass,\nwhere the violets and buttercups wave and toss in the summer wind,\ntravelers often forget that the beauty of the plains was bought, at a\ngreat price, by the bareness of the mountains.  For these mountains are\nin reality vast compost heaps, nature's stores of powerful stimulants.\nDaily the heat swells the flakes of granite; daily the frost splits\nthem; daily the rains dissolve the crushed stone into an impalpable\ndust; daily the floods sweep the rich mineral foods down into the\nstarving valleys.  Thus the glory of the mountains is not alone their\nmajesty of endurance, but also their patient, passionate beneficence as\nthey pour forth all their treasures to feed richness to the pastures,\nto wreathe with beauty each distant vale and glen, to nourish all\nwaving harvest fields.  This death of the mineral is the life of the\nvegetable.\n\nIf now we descend from the mountains to explore the secrets of the sea,\nMaury and Guyot show us the isles where palm trees wave and man builds\nhis homes and cities midst rich tropic fruits.  There scientists find\nthat the coral islands were reared above the waves by myriads of living\ncreatures that died vicariously that man might live.  And everywhere\nnature exhibits the same sacrificial principle.  Our treasures of coal\nmean that vast forests have risen and fallen again for our factories\nand furnaces.  Nobody is richer until somebody is poorer.  Evermore the\nvicarious exchange is going on.  The rock decays and feeds the moss and\nlichen.  The moss decays to feed the shrub.  The shrub perishes that\nthe tree may have food and growth.  The leaves of the tree fall that\nits boughs may blossom and bear fruit.  The seeds ripen to serve the\nbirds singing in all the boughs.  The fruit falls to be food for man.\nThe harvests lend man strength for his commerce, his government, his\nculture and conscience.  The lower dies vicariously that the higher may\nlive.  Thus nature achieves her gifts only through vast expenditures.\n\nIt is said that each of the new guns for the navy costs $100,000.  But\nthe gun survives only a hundred explosions, so that every shot costs\n$1,000.  Tyndall tells us that each drop of water sheathes electric\npower sufficient to charge 100,000 Leyden jars and blow the Houses of\nParliament to atoms.  Farraday amazes us by his statement of the energy\nrequired to embroider a violet or produce a strawberry.  To untwist the\nsunbeam and extract the rich strawberry red, to refine the sugar, and\nmix its flavor, represents heat sufficient to run an engine from\nLiverpool to London or from Chicago to Detroit.  But because nature\ndoes her work noiselessly we must not forget that each of her gifts\nalso involves tremendous expenditure.\n\nThis law of vicarious service holds equally in the intellectual world.\nThe author buys his poem or song with his life-blood.  While traveling\nnorth from London midst a heavy snow-storm, Lord Bacon descended from\nhis coach to stuff a fowl with snow to determine whether or not ice\nwould preserve flesh.  With his life the philosopher purchased for us\nthe principle that does so much to preserve our fruits and foods\nthrough the summer's heat and lend us happiness and comfort.  And\nPascal, whose thoughts are the seeds that have sown many a mental life\nwith harvests, bought his splendid ideas by burning up his brain.  The\nprofessors who guided and loved him knew that the boy would soon be\ngone, just as those who light a candle in the evening know that the\nlight, burning fast, will soon flicker out in the deep socket.  One of\nour scientists foretells the time when, by the higher mathematics, it\nwill be possible to compute how many brain cells must be torn down to\nearn a given sum of money; how much vital force each Sir William Jones\nmust give in exchange for one of his forty languages and dialects; what\npercentage of the original vital force will be consumed in experiencing\neach new pleasure, or surmounting each new pain; how much nerve\ntreasure it takes to conquer each temptation or endure each\nself-sacrifice.  Too often society forgets that the song, law or reform\nhas cost the health and life of the giver.  Tradition says that,\nthrough much study, the Iliad cost Homer his eyes.  There is strange\nmeaning in the fact that Dante's face was plowed deep with study and\nsuffering and written all over with the literature of sorrow.\n\nTo gain his vision of the hills of Paradise, Milton lost his vision of\nearth's beauteous sights and scenes.  In explanation of the early death\nof Raphael and Burns, Keats and Shelley, it has been said that few\ngreat men who are poor have lived to see forty.  They bought their\ngreatness with life itself.  A few short years ago there lived in a\nwestern state a boy who came up to his young manhood with a great, deep\npassion for the plants and shrubs.  While other boys loved the din and\nbustle of the city, or lingered long in the library, or turned eager\nfeet toward the forum, this youth plunged into the fields and forests,\nand with a lover's passion for his noble mistress gave himself to roots\nand seeds and flowers.  While he was still a child he would tell on\nwhat day in March the first violet bloomed; when the first snowdrop\ncame, and, going back through his years, could tell the very day in\nspring when the first robin sang near his window.  Soon the boy's\ncollection of plants appealed to the wonder of scholars.  A little\nlater students from foreign countries began to send him strange flowers\nfrom Japan and seeds from India.  One midnight while he was lingering\no'er his books, suddenly the white page before him was as red with his\nlife-blood as the rose that lay beside his hand.  And when, after two\nyears in Colorado, friends bore his body up the side of the mountains\nhe so dearly loved, no scholar in all our land left so full a\ncollection and exposition of the flowers of that distant state as did\nthis dying boy.  His study and wisdom made all to be his debtors.  But\nhe bought his wisdom with thirty years of health and happiness.  We are\nrich only because the young scholar, with his glorious future, for our\nsakes made himself poor.\n\nOur social treasure also is the result of vicarious service and\nsuffering.  Sailing along the New England coasts, one man's craft\nstrikes a rock and goes to the bottom.  But where his boat sank there\nthe state lifts a danger signal, and henceforth, avoiding that rock,\nwhole fleets are saved.  One traveler makes his way through the forest\nand is lost.  Afterward other pilgrims avoid that way.  Experimenting\nwith the strange root or acid or chemical, the scholar is poisoned and\ndies.  Taught by his agonies, others learn to avoid that danger.\n\nOnly a few centuries ago the liberty of thought was unknown.  All lips\nwere padlocked.  The public criticism of a baron meant the confiscation\nof the peasant's land; the criticism of the pope meant the dungeon; the\ncriticism of the king meant death.  Now all are free to think for\nthemselves, to sift all knowledge and public teachings, to cast away\nthe chaff and to save the precious wheat.  But to buy this freedom\nblood has flowed like rivers and tears have been too cheap to count.\n\nTo achieve these two principles, called liberty of thought and liberty\nof speech, some four thousand battles have been fought.  In exchange,\ntherefore, for one of these principles of freedom and happiness,\nsociety has paid--not cash down, but blood down; vital treasure for\nstaining two thousand battle-fields.  To-day the serf has entered into\ncitizenship and the slave into freedom, but the pathway along which the\nslave and serf have moved has been over chasms filled with the bodies\nof patriots and hills that have been leveled by heroes' hands.  Why are\nthe travelers through the forests dry and warm midst falling rains?\nWhy are sailors upon all seas comfortable under their rubber coats?\nWarm are they and dry midst all storms, because for twenty years\nGoodyear, the discoverer of India rubber, was cold and wet and hungry,\nand at last, broken-hearted, died midst poverty.\n\nWhy is Italy cleansed of the plagues that devastated her cities a\nhundred years ago?  Because John Howard sailed on an infected ship from\nConstantinople to Venice, that he might be put into a lazaretto and\nfind out the clew to that awful mystery of the plague and stay its\npower.  How has it come that the merchants of our western ports send\nships laden with implements for the fields and conveniences for the\nhouse into the South Sea Islands?  Because such men as Patteson, the\npure-hearted, gallant boy of Eton College, gave up every prospect in\nEngland to labor amid the Pacific savages and twice plunged into the\nwaters of the coral reefs, amid sharks and devil-fish and stinging\njellies, to escape the flight of poisoned arrows of which the slightest\ngraze meant horrible death, and in that high service died by the clubs\nof the very savages whom he had often risked his life to save--the\nmemory of whose life did so smite the consciences of his murderers that\nthey laid \"the young martyr in an open boat, to float away over the\nbright blue waves, with his hands crossed, as if in prayer, and a palm\nbranch on his breast.\"  And there, in the white light, he lies now,\nimmortal forever.\n\nAnd why did the representatives of five great nations come together to\ndestroy the slave trade in Africa, and from every coast come the\ncolumns of light to journey toward the heart of the dark continent and\nrim all Africa around with little towns and villages that glow like\nlighthouses for civilization?  Because one day Westminster Abbey was\ncrowded with the great men of England, in the midst of whom stood two\nblack men who had brought Livingstone's body from the jungles of\nAfrica.  There, in the great Abbey, faithful Susi told of the hero who,\nworn thin as parchment through thirty attacks of the African fever,\nrefused Stanley's overtures, turned back toward Ulala, made his ninth\nattempt to discover the head-waters of the Nile and search out the\nsecret lairs of the slave-dealers, only to die in the forest, with no\nwhite man near, no hand of sister or son to cool his fevered brow or\nclose his glazing eyes.  Faithful to the last to that which had been\nthe great work of his life, he wrote these words with dying hand: \"All\nI can add in my solitude is, may heaven's rich blessings come down on\nevery one who would help to heal this open sore of the world!\"  Why was\nit that in the ten years after Livingstone's death, Africa made greater\nadvancement than in the previous ten centuries?  All the world knows\nthat it was through the vicarious suffering of one of Scotland's\nnoblest heroes.  And why is it that Curtis says that there are three\nAmerican orations that will live in history--Patrick Henry's at\nWilliamsburg, Abraham Lincoln's at Gettysburg and Wendell Philips' at\nFaneuil Hall?  A thousand martyrs to liberty lent eloquence to Henry's\nlips; the hills of Gettysburg, all billowy with our noble dead, exhaled\nthe memories that anointed Lincoln's lips; while Lovejoy's spirit,\nnewly martyred at Alton, poured over Wendell Phillips' nature the full\ntides of speech divine.  Vicarious suffering explains each of these\nimmortal scenes.\n\nLong, too, the scroll of humble heroes whose vicarious services have\nexalted our common life.  Recognizing this principle, Cicero built a\nmonument to his slave, a Greek, who daily read aloud to his master,\ntook notes of his conversation, wrote out his speeches and so lent the\norator increased influence and power.  Scott also makes one of his\ncharacters bestow a gift upon an aged servant.  For, said the warrior,\nno master can ever fully recompense the nurse who cares for his\nchildren, or the maid who supplies their wants.  To-day each giant of\nthe industrial realm is compassed about with a small army of men who\nstand waiting to carry out his slightest behests, relieve him of\ndetails, halve his burdens, while at the same time doubling his joys\nand rewards.  Lifted up in the sight of the entire community the great\nman stands on a lofty pedestal builded out of helpers and aids.  And\nthough here and now the honors and successes all go to the one giant,\nand his assistants are seemingly obscure and unrecognized, hereafter\nand there honors will be evenly distributed, and then how will the\ngreat man's position shrink and shrivel!\n\nHere also are the parents who loved books and hungered for beauty, yet\nin youth were denied education and went all their life through\nconcealing a secret hunger and ambition, but who determined that their\nchildren should never want for education.  That the boy, therefore,\nmight go to college, these parents rose up early to vex the soil and\nsat up late to wear their fingers thin, denying the eye beauty, denying\nthe taste and imagination their food, denying the appetite its\npleasures.  And while they suffer and wane the boy in college grows\nwise and strong and waxing great, comes home to find the parents\noverwrought with service and ready to fall on death, having offered a\nvicarious sacrifice of love.\n\nAnd here are our own ancestors.  Soon our children now lying in the\ncradles of our state will without any forethought of theirs fall heir\nto this rich land with all its treasures material--houses and\nvineyards, factories and cities; with all its treasures mental--library\nand gallery, school and church, institutions and customs.  But with\nwhat vicarious suffering were these treasures purchased!  For us our\nfathers subdued the continents and the kingdoms, wrought freedom,\nstopped the mouths of wolves, escaped the sword of savages, turned to\nflight armies of enemies, subdued the forests, drained the swamps,\nplanted vineyards, civilized savages, reared schoolhouses, builded\nchurches, founded colleges.  For four generations they dwelt in cabins,\nwore sheepskins and goatskins, wandered about exploring rivers and\nforests and mines, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, because of\ntheir love of liberty, and for the slave's sake were slain with the\nsword--of whom this generation is not worthy.  \"And these all died not\nhaving received the promise,\" God having reserved that for us to whom\nit has been given to fall heir to the splendid achievements of our\nChristian ancestors.\n\nAnd what shall we more say, save only to mention those whose early\ndeath as well as life was vicarious?  What an enigma seems the career\nof those cut off while yet they stand upon life's threshold!  How proud\nthey made our hearts, standing forth all clothed with beauty, health\nand splendid promise!  What a waste of power, what a robbery of love,\nseemed their early death!  But slowly it has dawned upon us that the\nfootsteps that have vanished walk with us more frequently than do our\nnearest friends.  And the sound of the voice that is still instructs us\nin our dreams as no living voice ever can.  The invisible children and\nfriends are the real children.  Their memory is a golden cord binding\nus to God's throne, and drawing us upward into the kingdom of light.\nAbsent, they enrich us as those present cannot.  And so the child who\nsmiled upon us and then went away, the son and the daughter whose\ntalents blossomed here to bear fruit above, the sweet mother's face,\nthe father's gentle spirit--their going it was that set open the door\nof heaven and made on earth a new world.  These all lived vicariously\nfor us, and vicariously they died!\n\nNo deeply reflective nature, therefore, will be surprised that the\nvicarious principle is manifest in the Savior of the soul.  Rejecting\nall commercial theories, all judicial exchanges, all imputations of\ncharacters, let us recognize the universality of this principle.  God\nis not at warfare with himself.  If he uses the vicarious principle in\nthe realm of matter he will use it in the realm of mind and heart.  It\nis given unto parents to bear not only the weakness of the child, but\nalso his ignorance, his sins--perhaps, at last, his very crimes.  But\nnature counts it unsafe to permit any wrong to go unpunished.  Nature\nfinds it dangerous to allow the youth to sin against brain or nerve or\ndigestion without visiting sharp penalties upon the offender.  Fire\nburns, acids eat, rocks crush, steam scalds--always, always.\nGovernments also find it unsafe to blot out all distinctions between\nthe honest citizen and the vicious criminal.  The taking no notice of\nsin keeps iniquity in good spirits, belittles the sanctity of law and\nblurs the conscience.\n\nWith God also penalties are warnings.  His punishments are thorn\nhedges, safeguarding man from the thorns and thickets where serpents\nbrood, and forcing his feet back into the ways of wisdom and peace.\nFor man's integrity and happiness, therefore, conscience smites and is\nsmiting unceasingly.  Therefore, Eugene Aram dared not trust himself\nout under the stars at night, for these stars were eyes that blazed and\nblazed and would not relent.  But why did not the murderer, Eugene\nAram, forgive himself?  When Lady Macbeth found that the water in the\nbasin would not wash off the red spots, but would \"the multitudinous\nseas incarnadine,\" why did not Macbeth and his wife forgive each other?\nStrange, passing strange, that Shakespeare thought volcanic fires\nwithin and forked lightning without were but the symbols of the storm\nthat breaks upon the eternal orb of each man's soul.  If David cannot\nforgive himself, if Peter cannot forgive Judas, who can forgive sins?\n\"Perhaps the gods may,\" said Plato to Socrates.  \"I do not know,\"\nanswered the philosopher.  \"I do not know that it would be safe for the\ngods to pardon.\"  So the poet sends Macbeth out into the black night\nand the blinding storm to be thrown to the ground by forces that twist\noff trees and hiss among the wounded boughs and bleeding branches.\n\nFor poor Jean Valjean, weeping bitterly for his sins, while he watched\nthe boy play with the buttercups and prayed that God would give him,\nthe red and horny-handed criminal, to feel again as he felt when he\npressed his dewy cheek against his mother's knee--for Jean Valjean is\nthere no suffering friend, no forgiving heart?  Is there no bosom where\npoor Magdalene can sob out her bitter confession?  What if God were the\nsoul's father!  What if he too serves and suffers vicariously!  What if\nhis throne is not marble but mercy!  What if nature and life do but\ninterpret in the small this divine principle existing in the large in\nhim who is infinite! [1]  What if Calvary is God's eternal heartache,\nmanifest in time!  What if, sore-footed and heavy-hearted, bruised with\nmany a fall, we should come back to the old home, from which once we\nfled away, gay and foolish prodigals!  The time was when, as small boys\nand girls, with blinding tears, we groped toward the mother's bosom and\nsobbed out our bitter pain and sorrow with the full story of our sin.\nWhat if the form on Calvary were like the king of eternity, toiling up\nthe hill of time, his feet bare, his locks all wet with the dew of\nnight, while he cries: \"Oh, Absalom! my son, my son, Absalom!\"  What if\nwe are Absalom, and have hurt God's heart!  Reason staggers.  Groping,\ntrusting, hoping, we fall blindly on the stairs that slope through\ndarkness up to God.  But, falling, we fall into the arms of Him who\nhath suffered vicariously for man from the foundation of the world.\n\n\n[1] Eternal Atonement, p. 11.\n\n\n\n\nGENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.\n\n\n\n\n\"Paul says: 'I am a debtor.'  But what had he received from the Greeks\nthat he was bound to pay back?  Was he a disciple of their philosophy?\nHe was not.  Had he received from their bounty in the matter of art?\nNo.  One of the most striking things in history is the fact that Paul\nabode in Athens and wrote about it, without having any impression made\nupon his imaginative mind, apparently, by its statues, its pictures or\nits temples.  The most gorgeous period of Grecian art poured its light\non his path, and he never mentioned it.  The New Testament is as dead\nto art-beauty as though it had been written by a hermit in an Egyptian\npyramid who had never seen the light of sun.  Then what did he owe the\nGreeks?  Not philosophy, not art, and certainly not religion, which was\nfetichism.  Not a debt of literature, nor of art, nor of civil polity;\nnot a debt of pecuniary obligation; not an ordinary debt.  He had\nnothing from all these outside sources.  The whole barbaric world was\nwithout the true knowledge of God.  He had that knowledge and he owed\nit to every man who had it not.  All the civilized world was, in these\nrespects, without the true inspiration; and he owed it to them simply\nbecause they did not have it; and his debt to them was founded on this\nlaw of benevolence of which I have been speaking, which is to supersede\nselfishness, and according to which those who have are indebted to\nthose who have not the world over.\"--_Henry Ward Beecher_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nGENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.\n\nBooksellers rank \"Quo Vadis\" as one of the most popular books of the\nday.  In that early era persecution was rife and cruelty relentless.\nIt was the time of Caligula, who mourned that the Roman people had not\none neck, so that he could cut it off at a single blow; of Nero, whose\nevening garden parties were lighted by the forms of blazing Christians;\nof Vespasian, who sewed good men in skins of wild beasts to be worried\nto death by dogs.  In that day faith and death walked together.\n\nFulfilling such dangers, the disciples came together secretly at\nmidnight.  But the spy was abroad, and despite all precautions, from\ntime to time brutal soldiers discovered the place of meeting, and,\nbursting in, dragged the worshipers off to prison.  Then a cruel\nstratagem was adopted that looked to the discovery of those who\nsecretly cherished faith.  A decree went forth forbidding the jailer to\nfurnish food, making the prisoners 'dependent' upon friends without.\n\nTo come forward as a friend of these endungeoned was to incur the risk\nof arrest and death, while to remain in hiding was to leave friends to\ndie of starvation.  Then men counted life not dear unto themselves.\nHeroism became a contagion.  Even children dared death.  An old\npainting shows the guard awakened at midnight and gazing with wonder\nupon a little child thrusting food between the iron bars to its father.\nIn the darkness the soldiers sleeping in the corridors heard the\nrustling garments of some maiden or mother who loved life itself less\nthan husband or friend.  These tides of sympathy made men strong\nagainst torture; old men lifted joyful eyes toward those above them.\nLoving and beloved, the disciples shared their burdens, and those in\nthe prison and those out of it together went to fruitful martyrdom.\n\nWhen the flames of persecution had swept by and, for a time, good men\nhad respite, Apollos recalled with joy the heroism of those without the\nprison who remembered the bonds of those within.  With leaping heart he\ncalled before his mind the vast multitudes in all ages who so fettered\nthrough life--men bound by poverty and hedged in by ignorance; men\nbaffled and beaten in life's fierce battle, bearing burdens of want and\nwretchedness, and by the heroism of the past he urged all men\neverywhere to fulfill that law of sympathy that makes hard tasks easy\nand heavy burdens light.  Let the broad shoulders stoop to lift the\nload with weakness; let the wise and refined share the sorrows of the\nignorant; let those whose health and gifts make them the children of\nfreedom be abroad daily on missions of mercy to those whose feet are\nfettered; so shall life be redeemed out of its woe and want and sin\nthrough the Christian sympathy of those who \"remember men in the bonds\nas bound with them.\"\n\nRejoicing in all of life's good things, let us confess that in our\nworld-school the divine teachers are not alone happiness and\nprosperity, but also uncertainty and suffering, defeat and death.\nInventors with steel plates may make warships proof against bombs, but\nno man hath invented an armor against troubles.  The arrows of calamity\nare numberless, falling from above and also shot up from beneath.  Like\nAchilles, each man hath one vulnerable spot.  No palace door is proof\nagainst phantoms.  Each prince's palace and peasant's cottage holds at\nleast one bond-slave.  Byron, with his club-foot, counted himself a\nprisoner pacing between the walls of his narrow dungeon.  Keats,\nstruggling against his consumption, thought his career that of the\ngalley-slave.  The mother, fastened for years to the couch of her\ncrippled child, is bound by cords invisible, indeed, but none the less\npowerful.  Nor is the bondage always physical.  Here is the man who\nmade his way out of poverty and loneliness toward wealth and position,\nyet maintained his integrity through all the fight, and stood in life's\nevening time possessed of wealth, but in a moment saw it crash into\nnothing and fell under bondage to poverty.  And, here is some Henry\nGrady, a prince among men, the leader of the new South, his thoughts\nlike roots drinking in the riches of the North; his speech like\nbranches dropping bounty over all the tropic states, seeming to be the\none indispensable man of his section, but who in the midst of his\ncareer is smitten and, dying, left his pilgrim band in bondage.\n\nHere is Sir William Napier writing, \"I am now old and feeble and\nmiserable; my eyes are dim, very dim, with weeping for my lost child,\"\nand went on bound midst the thick shadows.  Or here are the man and\nwoman, set each to each like perfect music unto noble words, and one is\ntaken--but Robert Browning was left to dwell in such sorrow that for a\ntime he could not see his pen for the thick darkness.  Here is the\nyouth who by one sin fell out of man's regard, and struggling upward,\nfound it was a far cry back to the lost heights, and wrote the story of\nhis broken life in the song of \"the bird with the broken pinion, that\nnever flew as high again.\"  Sooner or later each life passes under\nbondage.  For all strength will vanish as the morning dew our joys take\nwings and flit away; the eye dim, the ear dull, the thought decay, our\ndearest die.  Oft life's waves and billows chill us to the very marrow,\nwhile we gasp and shiver midst the surging tide.  Then it is a blessed\nthing to look out through blinding tears upon a friendly face, to feel\nthe touch of a friendly hand and to know there are some who \"remember\nthose in bonds, as bound with them.\"\n\nNow this principle of social sympathy and liability gives us the secret\nof all the epoch-making men of our time.  Carlyle once called Ruskin\n\"the seer that guides his generation.\"  More recently a prominent\nphilanthropist said: \"All our social reform movements are largely the\ninfluence of John Ruskin.\"  How earned this man such meed of praise?\nUpon John Ruskin fortune poured forth all her gifts.  He was born the\nchild of supreme genius.  He was heir to nearly a million dollars, and\nby his pen earned a fortune in addition.  At the age of 21, when most\nyoung men were beginning their reading, he completed a book that put\nhis name and fame in every man's mouth.  \"For a thousand who can speak,\nthere is but one who can think; for a thousand who can think, there is\nbut one who can see,\" and to this youth was given the open vision.  In\nthe hour of fame the rich and great vied to do him honor, and every\ndoor opened at his touch.  But he turned aside to become the\nknight-errant of the poor.  Walking along Whitechapel road he saw\nmultitudes of shopmen and shopwomen whose stint was eighty hours a\nweek, who toiled mid poisoned air until the brain reeled, the limbs\ntrembled, and worn out physically and mentally they succumbed to spinal\ndisease or premature age, leaving behind only enfeebled progeny, until\nthe city's streets became graves of the human physique.  In that hour\nLondon seemed to him like a prison or hospital; nor was it given to him\nto play upon its floor as some rich men do, knitting its straw into\ncrowns that please; clutching at its dust in the cracks of the floor,\nto die counting the motes by millions.  The youth \"remembered men in\nbonds as bound with them.\"  He tithed himself a tenth, then a third,\nthen a half, and at length used up his fortune in noble service.  He\nfounded clubs for workingmen and taught them industry, honor and\nself-reliance.  He bought spinning-wheels and raw flax, and made pauper\nwomen self-supporting.  He founded the Sheffield Museum, and placed\nthere his paintings and marbles, that workers in iron and steel might\nhave the finest models and bring all their handiwork up toward beauty.\nHe asked his art-students in Oxford to give one hour each day to\npounding stones and filling holes in the street.  When his health gave\nway Arnold Toynbee, foreman of his student gang, went forth to carry\nhis lectures on the industrial revolution up and down the land.\nFalling on hard days and evil tongues and lying customs, he wore\nhimself out in knightly service.  So he gained his place among \"the\nimmortals.\"  But the secret of his genius and influence is this: He\nfulfilled the debt of strength and the law of social sympathy and\nservice.\n\nThis spirit of sympathetic helpfulness has also given us what is called\n\"the new womanhood.\"  To-day our civilization is rising to higher\nlevels.  Woman has brought love into law, justice into institutions,\nethics into politics, refinement into the common life.  Reforms have\nbecome possible that were hitherto impracticable.  King Arthur's\nKnights of the Round Table marching forth for freeing some fair lady\nwere never more soldierly than these who have become the friends and\nprotectors of the poor.  The movement began with Mary Ware, who after\nlong absence journeyed homeward.  While the coach stopped at Durham she\nheard of the villages near by where fever was emptying all the homes;\nand leaving the coach turned aside to nurse these fever-stridden\ncreatures and light them through the dark valley.  Then came Florence\nNightingale and Mary Stanley, braving rough seas, deadly fever and\nbitter cold to nurse sick soldiers in Crimea, and returned to find\nthemselves broken in health and slaves to pain, like those whom they\nremembered.  Then rose up a great group of noble women like Mary Lyon\nand Sarah Judson, who journeyed forth upon errands of mercy into the\nswamps of Africa and the mountains of Asia, making their ways into\ngarrets and tenements, missionaries of mercy and healing, Knights of\nthe Red Cross and veritable \"King's Daughters.\"  No cottage so remote\nas not to feel this new influence.\n\nFascinating, also, the life-story of that fair, sweet girl who married\nAudubon.  Yearning for her own home, yet finding that her husband would\njourney a thousand miles and give months to studying the home and\nhaunts of a bird, she gave up her heart-dreams and went with him into\nthe forest, dwelling now in tents, and now in some rude cabin, being a\nwanderer upon the face of the earth--until, when children came, she\nremained behind and dwelt apart.  At last the naturalist came home\nafter long absence to fulfill the long-cherished dream of years of\nquiet study with wife and children, but found that the mice had eaten\nhis drawings and destroyed the sketches he had left behind.  Then was\nhe dumb with grief and dazed with pain, but it was his brave wife who\nled him to the gate and thrust him forth into the forest and sent him\nout upon his mission, saying that there was no valley so deep nor no\nwilderness so distant but that his thought, turning homeward, would see\nthe light burning brightly for him.  And in those dark days when our\nland trembled, and a million men from the north tramped southward and a\nmillion men from the south tramped northward, and the columns met with\na concussion that threatened to rend the land asunder, there, in the\nbattle, midst the din and confusion and blood, women walked, angels of\nlight and mercy, not merely holding the cup of cold water to famished\nlips, or stanching the life-blood until surgeons came, but teaching\nsoldier boys in the dying hour the way through the valley and beyond it\nup the heavenly hills.  These all fulfilled their mission and\n\"remembered those in bonds as bound with them.\"\n\nThis principle also has been and is the spring of all progress in\nhumanity and civilization.  Our journalists and orators pour forth\nunstinted praise upon the achievements of the nineteenth century.  But\nin what realm lies our supremacy?  Not in education, for our schools\nproduce no such thinkers or universal scholars as Plato and his\nteacher; not in eloquence, for our orators still ponder the periods of\nthe oration \"On the Crown;\" not in sculpture or architecture, for the\nbroken fragments of Phidias are still models for our youth.  The nature\nof our superiority is suggested when we speak of the doing away with\nthe exposure of children, the building of homes, hospitals and asylums\nfor the poor and weak; the caring for the sick instead of turning them\nadrift; the support of the aged instead of burying them alive; the\ndiminished frequency of wars; the disappearance of torture in obtaining\ntestimony; humanity toward the shipwrecked, where once luring ships\nupon the rocks was a trade; the settlement of disputes by umpires and\nof national differences by arbitration.\n\nHumanity and social sympathy are the glory of our age.  Society has\ncome to remember that those in bonds are bound by them.  Indeed, the\napplication of this principle to the various departments of human life\nfurnishes the historian with the milestones of human progress.  The age\nof Sophocles was not shocked when the poet wrote the story of the child\nexposed by the wayside to be adopted by some passer-by, or torn in\npieces by wild dogs, or chilled to death in the cold.  When the wise\nmen brought their gold and frankincense to the babe in the manger, men\nfelt the sacredness of infancy.  As the light from the babe in\nCorreggio's \"Holy Night\" illumined all the surrounding figures, so the\nchild resting in the Lord's arms for shelter and sacred benediction\nbegan to shed luster upon the home and to lead the state.  To-day the\nnurture and culture in the schools are society's attempt to remember\nthe little ones in bonds.  Fulfilling the same law Xavier, with his\nwealth and splendid talents, remembered bound ones and journeyed\nthrough India, penetrating all the Eastern lands, being physician for\nthe sick, nurse for the dying, minister for the ignorant; his face\nbenignant; his eloquence, love; his atmosphere, sympathy; carrying his\nmessage of peace to the farther-most shores of the Chinese Sea, through\nhis zeal for \"those who were in bonds.\"  And thus John Howard visited\nthe prisons of Europe for cleansing these foul dens and wiped from the\nsword of justice its most polluting stain.  Fulfilling the debt of\nstrength, Wilberforce and Garrison, Sumner and Brown, fronted furious\nslave-holders, enduring every form of abuse and vituperation and\npersonal violence, and destroyed the infamous traffic in human flesh.\n\nThis new spirit of sympathy and service it is that offers us help in\nsolving the problems of social unrest and disquietude.  Events will not\nlet us forget that ours is an age of industrial discontent.  Society is\nfull of warfare.  Prophets of evil tidings foretell social revolution.\nThe professional agitators are abroad, sowing discord and nourishing\nhatred and strife, and even the optimists sorrowfully confess the\nantagonism between classes.  There is an industrial class strong and\nhappy, both rich and poor; and there is an idle class weak and wicked\nand miserable, among both rich and poor.  Unfortunately, as has been\nsaid, the wise of one class contemplate only the foolish of the other.\nThe industrious man of means is offended by the idle beggar, and\nidentifies all the poor with him, and the hard-working but poor workman\ndespises the licentious luxury of one rich man, and identifies all the\nrich with him.  But there are idle poor and idle rich and busy poor and\nbusy rich.  \"If the busy rich people watched and rebuked the idle rich\npeople, all would be well; and if the busy poor people watched and\nrebuked the idle poor people all would be right.  Many a beggar is as\nlazy as if he had $10,000 a year, and many a man of large fortune is\nbusier than his errand boy.\"\n\nForgetting this, some poor look upon the rich as enemies and desire to\npillage their property, and some rich have only epithets for the poor.\nNow, wise men know that there is no separation of rich industrious\nclasses and the poor industrious classes, for they differ only as do\ntwo branches of one tree.  This year one bough is full of bloom, and\nthe other bears only scantily, but next year the conditions will be\nreversed.  Wealth and poverty are like waves; what is now crest will\nsoon be trough.  Such conditions demand forbearance and mutual\nsympathy.  Some men are born with little and some with large skill for\nacquiring wealth, the two differing as the scythe that gathers a\nhandful of wheat differs from the reaper built for vast harvests and\ncarrying the sickle of success.  For generations the ancestors back of\none man's father were thrifty and the ancestors back of his mother were\nfar-sighted, and the two columns met in him, and like two armies joined\nforces for a vast campaign for wealth.  Beside him is a brother, whose\nthoughts and dreams go everywhither with the freedom of an eagle, but\nwho walks midst practical things with the eagle's halting gait.  The\nstrong one was born, not for spoiling his weaker brother, but to guard\nand guide and plan for him.\n\nThis is the lesson of nature--the strong must bear the burdens of the\nweak.  To this end were great men born.  Nature constantly exhibits\nthis principle.  The shell of the peach shelters the inner seed; the\nouter petals of the bud the tender germ; the breast of the mother-bird\nprotects the helpless birdlets; the eagle flies under her young and\ngently eases them to the ground; above the babe's helplessness rise the\nparents' shield and armor.  God appoints strong men, the industrial\ngiants, to protect the weak and poor.  The laws of helpfulness ask them\nto forswear a part of their industrial rights; and they fulfill their\ndestiny only by fulfilling the debt of strength to weakness.\n\nTo identify one's self with those in bonds is the very core of the\nChristian life.  Not an intellectual belief within, not a form of\nworship without, but sympathetic helpfulness betokens the true\nChristian.  God, who hath endowed the soul with capacity to endure all\nlabors and pains for wealth, to consume away the very springs of life\nfor knowledge, hath also given it power for pouring itself out in great\nresistless tides of love and sympathy.  For beauty and royal majesty\nnothing else is comparable to the love of some royal nature.  A loving\nheart exhales sweet odors like an alabaster box; it pours forth joy\nlike a sweet harp; it flashes beauty like a casket of gems; it cheers\nlike a winter's fire; it carries sweet stimulus like returning\nsunshine.  We have all known a few great-hearted men and women who have\nthrough years distributed their love-treasures among the little\nchildren of the community and scattered affection among the poor and\nthe weak, until the entire community comes to feel that it lives in\nthem and without them will die.  Happy the man who hath stored up such\ntreasures of mind and heart as that he stands forth among his fellows\nlike a lighthouse on some ledge, sending guiding rays far out o'er dark\nand troubled seas.  Happy the woman whose ripened affection and\ninspiration have permeated the common life until to her come the poor\nand weak and heart-broken, standing forth like some beauteous bower\noffering shade and filling all the air with sweet perfume.\n\nIn crisis hours the patriot and martyr, the hero and the\nphilanthropist, die for the public good, but not less do they serve\ntheir fellows who live and through years employ their gifts and\nheart-treasures, not for themselves, but for the happiness and highest\nwelfare of others.  Richter, the German artist, painted a series of\npaintings illustrating the ministry of angels.  He showed us the\nchild-angels who sit talking with mortal children among the flowers,\nnow holding them by their coats lest they fall upon the stairs, now\nwith apples enticing them back when they draw too near the precipice;\nwhen the boy grows tall and is tempted, ringing in the chambers of\nmemory the sweet mother's name; in the hour of death coming in the garb\nof pilgrim, made ready for convoy and guidance to the heavenly land.\nOh beautiful pictures! setting forth the sacred ministry of each true\nChristian heart.\n\nHistory tells of the servant whose master was sold into Algeria, and\nwho sold himself and wandered years in the great desert in the mere\nhope of at last finding and freeing his lord; of the obscure man in the\nEastern city who, misunderstood and unpopular, left a will stating that\nhe had been poor and suffered for lack of water, and so had starved and\nslaved through life to build an aqueduct for his native town, that the\npoor might not suffer as he had; of the soldier in the battle, wounded\nin cheek and mouth and dying of thirst, but who would not drink lest he\nshould spoil the water for others, and so yielded up his life.  But\nthis capacity of sacrifice and sympathy is but the little in man\nanswering to what is large in God.  Here deep answers unto deep.  The\ndefinition of the Divine One is, he remembers those in bonds, and it is\nmore blessed to give than to receive; more blessed to feed the hungry\nthan starving to be fed; more blessed to pour light on darkened\nmisunderstanding than ignorant to be taught; more blessed to open the\npath through the wilderness of doubt than wandering to be guided; more\nblessed to bring in the bewildered pilgrim than to be lost and rescued;\nmore blessed to forgive than to be forgiven; to save than to be saved.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.\n\n\n\n\n\"All that we possess has come to us by way of a long path.  There is no\ninstantaneous liberty or wisdom or language or beauty or religion.  Old\nphilosophies, old agriculture, old domestic arts, old sciences,\nmedicine, chemistry, astronomy, old modes of travel and commerce, old\nforms of government and religion have all come in gracefully or\nungracefully and have said: 'Progress is king, and long live the king!'\nYear after year the mind perceives education to expand, art sweeps\nalong from one to ten, music adds to its early richness, love passes\noutwardly from self towards the race, friendships become laden with\nmore pleasure, truths change into sentiments, sentiments blossom into\ndeeds, nature paints its flowers and leaves with richer tints,\nliterature becomes the more perfect picture of a more perfect\nintellect, the doctrines of religion become broader and sweeter in\ntheir philosophy.\"--_David Swing_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.\n\nFor all lovers of their kind, nothing is so hard to bear as the\nslowness of the upward progress of society.  It is not simply that the\nrise of the common people is accompanied with heavy wastes and losses,\nit is that the upward movement is along lines so vast as to make\nsociety's growth seem tardy, delayed, or even reversed.  Doubtless the\ndrift of the ages is upward, but this progress becomes apparent only\nwhen age is compared with age and century with century.  It is not easy\nfor some Bruno or Wickliffe, sowing the good seed of liberty and\ntoleration in one century, to know that not until another century hath\npassed will the precious harvest be reaped.  Man is accustomed to brief\nintervals.  Not long the space between January's snowdrifts and June's\nred berries.  Brief the interval between the egg and the eagle's full\nflight.  Scarcely a score of years separates the infant of days from\nthe youth of full stature.  Trained to expect the April seed to stand\nclose beside the August sheaf, it is not easy for man to accustom\nhimself to the processes of him with whom four-score years are but a\nhandbreadth and a thousand years as but one day.\n\nTo man, therefore, toiling upon his industry, his art, his government,\nhis religion, comes this reflection: Because the divine epochs are\nlong, let not the patriot or parent be sick with hope long deferred.\nLet the reformer sow his seed untroubled when the sickle rusts in the\nhand that waits for its harvest.  Remember that as things go up in\nvalue, the period between inception and fruition is protracted.\nBecause the plant is low, the days between seed and sheaf are few and\nshort; because the bird is higher, months stand between egg and eagle.\nBut manhood is a thing so high, culture and character are harvests so\nrich as to ask years and even ages for ripening, while God's purposes\nfor society involve such treasures of art, wisdom, wealth, law,\nliberty, as to ask eons and cycles for their full perfection.\nTherefore let each patriot and sage, each reformer and teacher be\npatient.  The world itself is a seed.  Not until ages have passed shall\nit burst into bloom and blossom.\n\nTroubled by the strifes of society, depressed by the waste of its\nforces and the delays of its columns, he who seeks character for\nhimself and progress for his kind, oft needs to shelter himself beneath\nthat divine principle called the time-element for the individual and\nthe race.  Optimists are we; our world is God's; wastes shall yet\nbecome savings and defeats victories; nevertheless, life's woes, wrongs\nand delays are such as to stir misgiving.  The multitudes hunger for\npower and influence, hunger for wealth and wisdom, for happiness and\ncomfort; satisfaction seems denied them.  Watt and Goodyear invent,\nother men enter into the fruit of their inventions; Erasmus and\nMelanchthon sow the good seeds of learning; two centuries pass by\nbefore God's angels count the bundles.  In a passion of enthusiasm for\nEngland's poor, Cobden wore his life out toiling for the corn laws.\nThe reformer died for the cotton-spinners as truly as if he had slit\nhis arteries and emptied out the crimson flood.  But when the victory\nwas won, the wreath of fame was placed upon another's brow.  One day\nRobert Peel arose in the House of Commons and in the presence of an\nindignant party and an astounded country, proudly said: \"I have been\nwrong.  I now ask Parliament to repeal the law for which I myself have\nstood.  Where there was discontent, I see contentment; where there was\nturbulence, I see peace, where there was disloyalty, I see loyalty.\"\nThen the fury of party anger burst upon him, and bowing to the storm,\nRobert Peel went forth while men hissed after him such words as\n\"traitor,\" \"coward,\" \"recreant leader.\"  Nor did he foresee that in\nlosing an office he had gained the love of a country.\n\nWhat delays also in justice!  What recognition does society withhold\nfrom its heroes!  What praise speaks above the pulseless corpse that is\ndenied the living, hungering heart!  What gold coin spent for the\nmarble wreath by those who have no copper for laurel for the living\nhero!  How do rewards that dazzle in prospect, in possession, burst\nlike gaudy bubbles!  Honors are evanescent; reputation is a vapor;\nproperty takes wings; possessions counted firm as adamant dissolve like\npainted clouds; in the hour of depression the hand drops its tool, the\nheart its task.  In such dark hours and moods, strong men reflect that\nhe who sows the good seed of liberty or culture or character must have\nlong patience until the harvest; that as things go up in value they ask\nfor longer time; that he is the true hero who redeems himself out of\npresent defeat by the foresight of far-off and future victory; that\nthat man has a patent of nobility from God himself who can lay out his\nlife upon the principle that a thousand years are as one day.  The\ntruly great man takes long steps by God's side, has the courage of the\nfuture; working, he can also wait.\n\nFor man, fulfilling such a career, no principle hath greater practical\nvalue than this one; as things rise in the scale of value the interval\nbetween seedtime and harvest must lengthen.  Happily for us, God hath\ncapitalized this principle in nature and life.  Each gardener knows\nthat what ripens quickest is of least worth.  The mushroom needs only a\nnight; the moss asks a week for covering the fallen tree; the humble\nvegetable asks several weeks and the strawberry a few months; but,\nplanting his apple tree, the gardener must wait a few years for his\nripened russet, and the woodsman many years for the full-grown oak or\nelm.  If in thought we go back to the dawn of creation--to that moment\nwhen sun and planet succeeded to clouds of fire, when a red-hot earth,\ncooling, put on an outer crust, when gravity drew into deep hollows the\nwaters that cooled the earth and purified the upper air--and then\nfollow on in nature's footsteps, passing up the stairway of ascending\nlife from lichen, moss and fern, on to the culminating moment in man,\nwe shall ever find that increase of value means an increase of time for\ngrowth.  The fern asks days, the reed asks weeks, the bird for months,\nthe beast for a handful of years, but man for an epoch measured by\ntwenty years and more.  To grow a sage or a statesman nature asks\nthirty years with which to build the basis of greatness in the bone and\nmuscle of the peasant grandparents, thirty years in which to compact\nthe nerve and brain of parents; thirty years more in which the heir of\nthese ancestral gifts shall enter into full-orbed power and stand forth\nfully furnished for his task.  Nature makes a dead snowflake in a\nnight, but not a living star-flower.  For her best things nature asks\nlong time.\n\nThe time-principle holds equally in man's social and industrial life.\nTo-day our colleges have their anthropological departments and our\ncities their museums.  The comparative study of the dress, weapons,\ntools, houses, ships of savage and civilized races gives an outline\nview of the progress of society.  How fragile and rude the handiwork of\nsavages!  How quickly are the wants provided for!  A few fig leaves\nmake a full summer suit for the African and the skin of an ox his garb\nfor winter.  But civilized man must toil long upon his loom for\ngarments of wool and fine silk.  Slowly the hollow log journeys toward\nthe ocean steamer; slowly the forked stick gives place to the\nsteam-plow, the slow ox to the swift engine; slowly the sea-shell, with\nthree strings tied across its mouth, develops into the many-mouthed\npipe-organ.  But if rude and low conveniences represent little time and\ntoil, these later inventions represent centuries of arduous labor.  In\nhis history of the German tribes, Tacitus gives us a picture of a day's\ntoil for one of the forest children.  Moving to the banks of some new\nstream, the rude man peels the bark from the tree and bends it over the\ntent pole; with a club he beats down the nuts from the branches; with a\nround stone he knocks the squirrel from the bough; another hour\nsuffices for cutting a line from the ox's hide and, hastily making a\nhook out of the wishbone of the bird, he draws the trout from its\nstream.  But if for savage man a day suffices for building and\nprovisioning the tent, the accumulated wisdom of centuries is required\nfor the home of to-day.  One century offers an arch for the door,\nanother century offers glass windows, another offers wrought nails and\nhinges, another plaster that will receive and hold the warm colors,\nanother offers the marble, tapestry, picture and piano, the thousand\nconveniences for use and beauty.\n\nHusbandry also represents patience and the labor of generations.  Were\nit given to the child, tearing open the golden meat of the fruit, to\ntrace the ascent of the tree, he would see the wild apple or bitter\norange growing in the edge of the ancient forest.  But man, standing by\nthe fruit, grafted it for sweetness, pruned it for the juicy flow,\nnourished it for taste and color.  Could he who picks the peach or pear\nhave this inner vision, he would behold an untold company of husbandmen\nstanding beneath the branches and pointing to their special\ncontributions.  The fathers labored, the children entered into the\nfruitage of the labor in his dream; the poet slept in St. Peter's and\nsaw the shadowy forms of all the architects and builders from the\nbeginning of time standing about him and giving their special\ncontributions to Bramante and Angelo's great temple.  Thus many hands\nhave toiled upon man's house, man's art, industry, invention.\n\nIn the realm of law and liberty the best things ask for patience and\nwaiting.  Out of nothing nothing comes.  The institution that\nrepresents little toil but little time endures.  Man's early history is\ninvolved in obscurity, largely because his early arts were\nmushroomic--completed quickly, they quickly perished.  The ideas\nscratched upon the flat leaf or the thin reed represented scant labor\nand therefore soon were dust.  But he who holds in his hand a modern\nbook holds the fruitage of years many and long.  For that book we see\nthe workmen ranging far for linen; we see the printer toiling upon his\nmovable types; we see the artist etching his plate; the author giving\nhis days to study and his nights to reflection; and because the book\nharvests the study of a great man's lifetime it endures throughout\ngenerations.  The sciences also increase in value only as the time\nspent upon them is lengthened.  Few and brief were the days required\nfor the early astronomers to work out the theory that the earth is\nflat, the sky a roof, the stars holes in which the gods have hung\nlighted lamps.  The theory that makes our earth sweep round the sun,\nour sun sweep round a far-off star, all lesser groups sweep round one\ncentral sun, that shepherds all the other systems, asks for the toil of\nGalileo and Kepler, of Copernicus and Newton, and a great company of\nmodern students.  The father of astronomy had to wait a thousand years\nfor the fruition of his science.  Upon those words, called law or love,\nor mother or king, man hath with patience labored.  The word wife or\nmother is so rich to-day as to make Homer's ideal, Helen, seem poor and\nalmost contemptible.  The girl was very beautiful, but very painful the\nalacrity with which she passes from the arms of Menelaus to the arms of\nParis, from the arms of Paris to those of Deiphobus, his conqueror.  If\none hour only was required for this lovely creature to pack her\nbelongings preparatory to moving to the tent of her new lord, one day\nfully sufficed for transferring her affections from one prince to\nanother.  But, toiling ever upward to her physical beauty, woman added\nmental beauty, moral beauty, until the word wife or mother or home came\nto have almost infinite wealth of meaning.\n\nIn government also the best political instruments ask for longest time.\nHercules ruled by the right of physical strength.  Assembling the\npeople, he challenged all rivals to combat.  A single hour availed for\ncutting off the head of his enemy.  Henceforth he reigned an\nunchallenged king.  Because man hath with patience toiled long upon\nthis republic, how rich and complex its institutions!  The modern\npresidency does not represent the result of an hour's combat between\ntwo Samsons.  Forty years ago the eager aspirants began their struggle.\nA great company of young men all over the land determined to build up a\nreputation for patriotism, statesmanship, wisdom and character.  As the\ntime for selecting a president approached, the people passed in review\nall these leaders.  When two or more were finally chosen out, there\nfollowed months in which the principles of the candidates were sifted\nand analyzed.  \"I know of no more sublime spectacle,\" said Stuart Mill,\n\"than the election of the ruler under the laws of the republic.  If the\nvoice of the people is ever the voice of God, if any ruler rules by\ndivine right, it is when millions of freemen, after long consideration,\nelect one man to be their appointed guide and leader.\"  If a single\nhour availed for Samson to settle the question of his sovereignty, free\ninstitutions ask for their statesmen to have the patience of years;\nworking, they must also wait.\n\nWith long patience also man has worked and waited as he has toiled upon\nhis idea of religion.  Rude, indeed, man's hasty thoughts of the\ninfinite.  In early days the sun was God's eye, the thunder his voice,\nthe stroke of the earthquake the stroke of his arm, the harvest\nindicated his pleasure, the pestilence his anger.  In such an age the\npriest and philosopher taxed their genius to invent methods of\npreserving the friendship and avoiding the anger of the Infinite.\nDaily the king and general calculated how many sheep and oxen they must\nslay to avoid defeat in battle.  Daily the husbandman and farmer\ncalculated how many doves and lambs must be killed to avert blight from\nthe vineyard and hailstorms from the harvests.  Observing that when the\nking ascended to the throne the slaves put their necks under his heel\nand covered their bodies with dust, in their haste the priests\nconcluded that by degrading man God would be exalted.  Prostrating\nthemselves in dirt and rags, men went down in order that by contrast\nthe throne of God might rise up.  The mud was made thick upon man's\nbrow that the crown upon the brow of God might be made brilliant.  Out\nof this degrading thought grew the idea that God lived and ruled for\nhis own gratification and self-glory.  The infinite throne was unveiled\nas a throne of infinite self-aggrandizement.  Slowly it was perceived\nthat the parent who makes all things move about himself as a center,\never monopolizing the best food, the best place, the best things, at\nlast becomes a monster of selfishness and suffers an awful degradation,\nwhile he who sacrifices himself for others is the true hero.\n\nAt last, Christ entered the earthly scene with his golden rule and his\nnew commandment of love.  He unveiled God, not as desiring to be\nministered to, but as ministering; as being rich, yet for man's sake\nbecoming poor; as asking little, but giving much; as caring for the\nsparrow and lily; as waiting upon each beetle, bird and beast, and\ncaring for each detail of man's life.  Slowly the word God increased in\nrichness.  Having found through his telescope worlds so distant as to\ninvolve infinite power, man emptied the idea of omnipotence into the\nword GOD; finding an infinite wisdom in the wealth of the summers and\nwinters, man added the idea of omniscience; noting a certain upward\ntendency in society, man added the word, \"Providence;\" gladdened by\nGod's mercy, man added ideas of forgiveness and love.  Slowly the word\ngrew.  In the olden time people entering the Acropolis cast their gifts\nof gold and silver into some vase.  Last of all came the prince to\nempty in jewels and flashing gems and make the vase to overflow.  Not\notherwise Christ emptied vast wealth of meaning into those words called\n\"conscience,\" \"law,\" \"love,\" \"vicarious suffering,\" \"immortality,\"\n\"God.\"  Beautiful, indeed, the simplicity of Christ.  With long\npatience, man waited for the unveiling of the face of divine love.\n\nTo all patriots and Christian men who seek to use occupation and\nprofession so as to promote the world's upward growth comes the\nreflection that henceforth society's progress must be slow, because its\ninstitutions are high and complex.  To-day many look into the future\nwith shaded eyes of terror.  In the social unrest and discontent of our\ntimes timid men see the brewing of a social and industrial storm.  In\ntheir alarm, amateur reformers bring in social panaceas, conceived in\nhaste and born in fear.  But God cannot be hurried.  His century plants\ncannot be forced to blossom in a night.  No reformer can be too zealous\nfor man's progress, though he can be too impatient.  In these days,\nwhen civilization has become complex and the fruitage high, those who\nwork must also wait and with patience endure.\n\nMultitudes are abroad trying to settle the labor problem.  The labor\nproblem will never be settled until the last man lies in the graveyard.\nEach new inventor reopens the labor problem.  Men were contented with\ntheir wages until Gutenberg invented his type and made books possible;\nthen straightway every laborer asked an increased wage, that though he\ndied ignorant his children might be intelligent.  When society had\nreadjusted things and man had obtained the larger wage, Arkwright came,\ninventing his new loom, Goodyear came with the use of rubber, and\nstraightway men asked a new wage to advantage themselves of woolen\ngarments and rubber goods for miners and sailors.  On the morrow\n15,000,000 children will enter the schoolroom; before noon the teacher\nhas given them a new outlook upon some book, some picture, some\nconvenience, some custom.  Each child registers the purpose to go home\nimmediately and cry to his parent for that book or picture; that tool\nor comfort.  When the parents return that night the labor question has\nbeen reopened in millions of homes.\n\nIntelligence is emancipating man.  Ignorance is a constant invitation\nto oppression.  So long as workmen are ignorant, governments will\noppress them; wealth will oppress them; religious machinery will\noppress them.  Education can make man's wrists too large to be holden\nof fetters.  In the autumn the forest trees tighten the bark, but when\nApril sap runs through the trees the trunk swells, the bark is strained\nand despite all protests it splits and cracks.  The splitting of the\nbark saves the life of the tree.  The soft, balmy air of April is\npassing over the world and succeeding to the winter of man's\ndiscontent.  Old ideas are being rent asunder and old institutions are\nbeing succeeded by new ones.  God is abroad destroying that he may\nsave.  In every age he makes the discontent of the present to be the\nprophecy of the higher civilization.  Despite all the pessimists and\nthe croakers, the ideas of manhood were never so high as to-day, and\nthe number of those whose hearts are knitted in with their kind was\nnever so large nor so noble.  The movement may be slow, but it is\nbecause the social organs are complex and intricate.  With long\npatience man must work and also wait.\n\nIn the world of business, also, the time element exerts striking\ninfluence.  To-day our land is filled with men who have sown the seed\nof thought and purpose, but whose harvest is of so high a quality that\nwith long patience must they wait for the fruition.  How pathetic the\nreverses of the last four years.  The condition of our land as to the\noverthrows of its leaders answers to the condition in Poland when\nKossuth and his fellow patriots, accustomed to life's comforts and its\nluxuries, went forth penniless exiles to accustom themselves to menial\ntoil, to hardship and extreme poverty.  His heart must be of iron who\ncan behold those who have been leaders of the industrial column, who\nnow stand aside and see the multitude sweep by.  Just at the moment of\nexpected victory misfortune overtook them and brought their structure\ndown in ruins.  And because the seed they have sown is not physical,\nbut mental and moral, the fruition is long postponed.\n\nWalter Scott tells the story of a wounded knight, who took refuge in\nthe castle of a baron that proved to be a secret enemy and threw the\nknight into a dungeon; one day in his cell the knight heard the sound\nof distant music approaching.  Drawing near the slit in the tower, he\nsaw the flash of swords and heard the tramp of marching men.  At last\nthe wounded hero realized that these were his own troops, marching by\nin ignorance of the fact that the lord of this castle was also the\njailer of their general.  While the knight tugged at his chain, lifted\nup his voice and cried aloud, his troops marched on, their music\ndrowning out his cries.  Soon the banners passed from sight, the last\nstraggler disappeared behind the hill and the captive was left alone.\nThe brave knight died in his dungeon, but the story of his heroism\nlived.  What the knight learned in suffering the poets have taught in\nsong.  The captive hero has a permanent place in civilization, though\nthe foresight of his influence was denied him.\n\nThose whose harvest is delayed are a great company.  Elizabeth Barrett\nBrowning exclaiming, \"I have not used half the powers God has given\nme,\" poets dying ere the day was half done; the inventors and reformers\ndenied their ideals; obscure and humble workmen--the mechanic who\nemancipates man by his machine; the artisan whose conveniences are\nendless benefactions to our homes; the smith whose honest anchor holds\nthe ship in time of storm--all these labored and died without seeing\nthe fruitage, but other men entered into their labors.\n\nTo parents who have passed through all the thunder of life's battle and\nstand at the close of life's day discouraged because children are\nunripe, thoughtless and immature; to publicists and teachers, sowing\nGod's precious seed, but denied its harvests; to individuals seeking to\nperfect their character within themselves comes this thought--that\ncharacter is a harvest so rich as to ask for long waiting and the\ncourage of far-off results.  Nature can perfect physical processes in\ntwenty years, but long time is asked for teaching the arm skill, the\ntongue its grace of speech, to clothe reason with sweetness and light,\nto cast error out of the judgment, to teach the will hardness and the\nheart hope and endurance.\n\nFour hundred years passed by before the capstone was placed upon the\nCathedral of Cologne, but no trouble requires such patient toil as the\nstructure of manhood.  For complexity and beauty nothing is comparable\nto character.  Great artists spend years upon a single picture.  With a\ntouch here and a touch there they approach it, and when a long period\nhath passed they bring it to completion.  Yet all the beauty of\npaintings, all the grace of statues, all the grandeur of cathedrals are\nas nothing compared to the painting of that inner picture, the\nchiseling of that inner manhood, the adornment of that inner temple,\nthat is scarcely begun when the physical life ends.  How majestic the\nfull disclosure of an ideal manhood!  With what patience must man wait\nfor its completion!  Here lies the hope of immortality; it does not yet\nappear what man shall be.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUPREMACY OF HEART OVER BRAIN.\n\n\n\n\n\"Out of the heart are the issues of life.\"--_Prov. IV. 23_.\n\n\n\"For out of the heart man believeth unto righteousness.\"--_Paul_.\n\n\n\"Heart is a word that the Bible is full of.  Brain, I believe, is not\nmentioned in Scripture.  Heart, in the sense in which it is currently\nunderstood, suggests the warm center of human life or any other life.\nWhen we say of a man that he 'has a good deal of heart' we mean that he\nis 'summery.'  When you come near him it is like getting around to the\nsouth side of a house in midwinter and letting the sunshine feel of\nyou, and watching the snow slide off the twigs and the tear-drops swell\non the points of pendant icicles.  Brain counts for a good deal more\nto-day than heart does.  It will win more applause and earn a larger\nsalary.  Thought is driven with a curb-bit lest it quicken into a pace\nand widen out into a swing that transcends the dictates of good form.\nExuberance is in bad odor.  Appeals to the heart are not thought to be\nquite in good taste.  The current demand is for ideas--not taste.  I\nasked a member of my church the other day whether he thought a certain\nfriend of his who attends a certain church and is exceptionally brainy\nwas really entering into sympathy with religious things.  'Oh, no,' he\nsaid, 'he likes to hear preaching because he has an active mind, and\nthe way that things are spread out in front of him.'  In the old days\nof the church a sermon used to convert 3,000 men, now that temperature\nis down it takes 3,000 sermons to convert one man.\"--_Charles H.\nParkhurst_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE SUPREMACY OF HEART OVER BRAIN.\n\nTo-day there has sprung up a rivalry between brain and heart.  Men are\ncoming to idolize intellect.  Brilliancy is placed before goodness and\nintellectual dexterity above fidelity.  Intellect walks the earth a\ncrowned king, while affection and sentiment toil as bond slaves.\nDoubtless our scholars, with the natural bias for their own class, are\nlargely responsible for this worship of intellectuality.  When the\nhistorian calls the roll of earth's favorite sons he causes these\nimmortals to stand forth an army of great thinkers, including\nphilosophers, scientists, poets, jurists, generals.  The great minds\nare exalted, the great hearts are neglected.\n\nArtists also have united with authors for strengthening this idolatry\nof intellect.  One of the great pictures in the French Academy of\nDesign assembles the immortals of all ages.  Having erected a tribunal\nin the center of the scene, Delaroche places Intellect upon the throne.\nAlso, when the sons of genius are assembled about that glowing center,\nall are seen to be great thinkers.  There stand Democritus, a thinker\nabout invisible atoms; Euclid, a thinker about invisible lines and\nangles; Newton, a thinker about an invisible force named gravity; La\nPlace, a thinker about the invisible law that sweeps suns and stars\nforward toward an unseen goal.\n\nThe artist also remembers the inventors whose useful thoughts blossom\ninto engines and ships; statesmen whose wise thoughts blossom into\ncodes and constitutions; speakers whose true thoughts blossom into\norations, and artists whose beautiful thoughts appear as pictures.  At\nthis assembly of the immortals great thinkers touch and jostle.  But if\nthe great minds are remembered, no chair is made ready for the great\nhearts.  He who lingers long before this painting will believe that\nbrain is king of the world; that great thinkers are the sole architects\nof civilization; that science is the only providence for the future;\nthat God himself is simply an infinite brain, an eternal logic engine,\ncold as steel, weaving endless ideas about life and art, about nature\nand man.\n\nBut the throne of the universe is mercy and not marble; the name of the\nworld-ruler is Great Heart, rather than Crystalline Mind, and God is\nthe Eternal Friend who pulsates out through his world those forms of\nlove called reforms, philanthropies, social bounties and benefactions,\neven as the ocean pulsates its life-giving tides into every bay and\ncreek and river.  The springs of civilization are not in the mind.  For\nthe individual and the state, \"out of the heart are the issues of life.\"\n\nWhat intellect can dream, only the heart realizes!  John Cabot's mind\ndid, indeed, blaze a pathway through the New England forest.  But with\nburning hearts and iron will the Pilgrim Fathers loved liberty, law and\nlearning, and soon they broadened the path into a highway for commerce,\nturned tepees into temples and made the forests a land of vineyards and\nvillages.  Mind is the beginning of civilization, but the ends and\nfruitage thereof are of the heart.\n\nChristopher Wren's intellect wrought out the plan for St. Paul's\nCathedral.  But all impotent to realize themselves, these plans, lying\nin the King's council chamber grew yellow with age and thick with dust.\nOne day a great heart stood forth before the people of London, pointing\nthem to an unseen God, \"from whom cometh every good and perfect gift,\"\nand, plying men with the generosity of God, he asked gifts of gold and\nsilver and houses and lands, that England might erect a temple worthy\nof him \"whom the heaven of heavens could not contain.\"  The mind of a\ngreat architect had created a plan and a \"blue-print,\" but eager hearts\ninspiring earnest hands turned the plan into granite and hung in the\nair a dome of marble.\n\nThus all the great achievements for civilization are the achievements\nof heart.  What we call the fine arts are only red-hot ingots of\npassion cooled off into visible shape.  All high music is emotion\ngushing forth at those faucets named musical notes.  As unseen vapors\ncool into those visible forms named snowflakes, so Gothic enthusiasms\ncooled off into cathedrals.\n\nOur art critics speak of the eight great paintings of history.  Each of\nthese masterpieces does but represent a holy passion flung forth upon a\ncanvas.  The reformation also was not achieved by intellect nor\nscholarship.  Erasmus represents pure mind.  Yet his intellect was cold\nas winter sunshine that falls upon a snowdrift and dazzles the eyes\nwith brightness, yet is impotent to unlock the streams, or bore a hole\nthrough the snowdrifts, or release the roots from the grip of ice and\nfrost, or cover the land with waving harvests.  Powerless as winter\nsunshine were Erasmus' thoughts.  But what the scholar could not do,\nLuther, the great heart, wrought easily.\n\nThus all the reforms represent passions and enthusiasms.  That citadel\ncalled \"The Divine Right of Kings\" was not overthrown by colleges with\nbooks and pamphlets.  It was the pulse-beats of the heart of the people\nthat pounded down the Bastille.  Ideas of the iniquity of slavery\nfloated through our land for three centuries, yet the slave pen and\nauction block still cursed our land.  At last an enthusiasm for man as\nman and a great passion for the poor stood behind these ideas of human\nbrotherhood, and as powder stands behind the bullet, flinging forth its\nweapons, slavery perished before the onslaught of the heart.\n\nThe men whose duty it was to follow the line of battle and bury our\ndead soldiers tell us that in the dying hour the soldier's hand\nunclasped his weapon and reached for the inner pocket to touch some\nfaded letter; some little keepsake, some likeness of wife or mother.\nThis pathetic fact tells us that soldiers have won their battles not by\nholding before the mind some abstract thought about the rights of man.\nThe philosopher did, indeed, teach the theory, and the general marked\nout the line of attack or defense, but it was love of home and God and\nnative land that entered into the soldier and made his arm invincible.\nBack of the emancipation proclamation stands a great heart named\nLincoln.  Back of Africa's new life stands a great heart named\nLivingstone.  Back of the Sermon on the Mount stands earth's greatest\nheart--man's Savior.  Christ's truth is enlightening man's ignorance,\nbut his tears, falling upon our earth, are washing away man's sin and\nwoe.\n\nImpotent the intellect without the support of the heart.  How thickly\nare the shores of time strewn with those forms of wreckage called great\nthoughts.  In those far-off days when the overseers of the Egyptian\nKing scourged 80,000 slaves forth to their task of building a pyramid,\na great mind discovered the use of steam.  Intellect achieved an\ninstrument for lifting blocks of granite into proper place.  In that\nhour thought made possible the freedom of innumerable slaves.  But the\nheart of the tyrant held no love for his bondsmen.  The poor seemed of\nless worth than cattle.  Because the King's heart felt no woes to be\ncured, his hand pushed away the engine.  A great thought was there, but\nnot the kindly impulse to use it.  Then, full 2,000 years passed over\nour earth.  At last came an era when man's heart journeyed forward with\nhis mind.  Then the woes of miners and the world's burden-bearers\nfilled the ears of James Watt with torment, and his sympathetic heart\nwould not let him stay until he had fashioned his redemptive tool.\n\nFor generations, also, the thoughts of liberty waited for the heart to\nre-enforce them and make them practical in institutions.  Two thousand\nyears before the era of Cromwell and Hampden, Grecian philosophers\nwrought out a full statement for the republic and individual liberty.\nThe right of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness were truths\nclearly perceived by Plato and Pericles.  But the heart loved luxury\nand soft, silken refinements, and Grecian philosophers in their palaces\nrefused to let their slaves go.\n\nWide, indeed, the gulf separating our age of kindness from Cicero's age\nof cruelty!  The difference is almost wholly a difference of heart.\nThis age has oratory and wisdom, and so had Cicero's; this age has\npoetry and art, and so had that; but our age has heart and sympathy,\nand Cicero's had not.  Caesar's mind was the mind of a scholar, but his\nhands were red with the blood of a half-million men slain in unjust\nwars.  Augustus loved refinement, literature and music.  He assembled\nat his table the scholars of a nation, yet his culture did not forbid\nthe slaying of ten thousand gladiators at his various garden parties.\n\nWe admire Pliny's literary style.  One evening Pliny returned home from\nthe funeral of the wife of a friend and sat down to write that friend a\nnote of gratitude for having so arranged the gladiatorial spectacle as\nto make the funeral service pass off quite pleasantly.  For that age of\nintellect was also an age of blood; the era of art and luxury was also\nan era of cruelty and crime.  The intellect lent a shining luster to\nthe era of Augustus, but because it was intellect only it was gilt and\nnot gold.  Had the heart re-enforced the intellect with sympathy and\njustice the age of Augustus might have been an era golden, indeed, and\nalso perpetual.\n\nGreat men capitalize the impotency of unsupported intellect.\nTen-talent men have often known more than they would do.  The children\nof genius have not always lived up to their moral light.  Burns' mind\nran swiftly forward, but his will followed afar off.  If the poet's\nforehead was in the clouds, his feet were in the mire.  How noble,\nalso, Byron's thoughts, but how mean his life!  Goethe uttered the\nwisdom of a sage, as did Rousseau, yet their deeds were often those we\nwould expect from a slave with a low brow.  Even of Shakespeare, it is\nsaid in the morning he polished his sonnets, while at midnight he\npoached game from a neighboring estate.  Our era bestows unstinted\nadmiration upon the essays of Lord Bacon.  How noble his aphorisms!\nHow petty his envy and avarice!  What scholarship was his, and what\ncunning also!  With what splendor of argument does he plead for the\nadvancement of learning and liberty!  With what meanness does he take\nbribes from the rich against the poor!  His mind seems like a palace of\nmarble with splendid galleries and library and banqueting hall, yet in\nthis palace the spider spins its web and vermin make the foundations to\nbe a noisome place.\n\nIn all ages also the intellect of the common people has discerned truth\nand light that the will has refused to fulfill.  Generations ago\nsociety discovered the doctrine of industry and integrity, and yet\nthousands of individuals still prefer to steal or beg or starve rather\nthan work.  For centuries the work of moralists and public instructors\nhas not been so much the making known new truth as the inspiring men to\ndo a truth already known.  As of old, so now, the word is nigh man,\neven in his mouth, for enabling society to lift every social burden,\nright every social wrong, turn each rookery into a house, make each\nplace wealth, make every home happiness, make every child a scholar, a\npatriot and a Christian.  In Solomon's day wisdom stood in the corner\nof the streets but man would not regard, and the city perished.  Should\nthe heart now join the intellect, man's feet would swiftly find these\npaths that lead to prosperity and perfect peace.\n\nFascinating, indeed, the question how feeling and sentiment control\nconduct and character.  Modern machinery has thrown light upon the\nproblems of the soul.  The engineer finds that his locomotive will not\nrun itself, but waits for the steam to pound upon the piston.  The\ngreat ships also are becalmed until the trade winds come to beat upon\nthe sails.  Informed by these physical facts, we now see a noble\nthought or ambition or social ideal is a mechanism that will not work\nitself, but asks the enthusiastic heart to lend power divine.  Some of\nearth's greatest orators, like Patrick Henry, have been unlearned men,\nbut no orator has ever fallen short of being an enthusiastic man.  A\ngeneration ago there appeared in Paris one whose voice was counted the\nmost perfect voice in Europe.  Musical critics gave unstinted praise to\nthe purity of tone and accuracy of execution.  Yet in a few weeks the\naudiences had dwindled to a handful, and in a few years the singer's\nname was forgotten.  Obscurity overtook the singer because there was no\nheart behind the voice and so the tones became metallic.  Contrariwise,\nthe  history of Jenny Lind contains a letter to a friend in Sweden, in\nwhich the singer writes: \"Oh, that I may live two years longer and be\npermitted to save enough money to complete my orphans' home!\"  As the\nsun's warm beams lend a soft blush to the rose and pulsate the crimson\ntides through to the uttermost edge of each petal, so a great, loving\nsympathy, sang and sighed, thrilled and throbbed through the tones of\nthe Swedish singer, and ravished the hearts of the people and made her\nname immortal.\n\nHistory portrays many men of giant minds whose intellect could not\nredeem them from aimlessness and obscurity.  Not until some divine\nenthusiasm descended upon the mind and baptized it with heroic action\ndid these men find themselves.  To that young patrician, Saul,\njourneying to Damascus, came the heavenly vision, and the new impulse\nof the heart made his cold mind warm, lent wings to his slow feet, made\nall his days powerful, made his soul the center of an immense activity.\nThis glowing heart of Paul explains for us the fact that he achieved\nfreedom of thought and speech, endured the stones with which he was\nbruised, the stocks in which he was bound, the mobbings with which he\nwas mutilated; explains also his eloquence, known and unrecorded;\nexplains his faith and fortitude, his heroism in death.  And not only\nhas the zeal of the heart made strong men stronger, turned weak men\ninto giants, lent the soldier his conquering courage and lent the\nscholar a stainless life--to men whose will has been made weak by\nindulgence, the new love has come to redeem intellect and will from the\nbondage of habit.\n\nNo one who ever heard John B. Gough can forget his marvelous eloquence,\nhis wit and his pathos, his scintillating humor, his inimitable\ndramatisms.  He did not have the polished brilliancy of Everett or the\nelegant scholarship of Phillips, and yet when these numbered thousands\nof admirers, Gough numbered his tens of thousands.  In his\nautobiography this man tells us to what sad straits passion had brought\nhim; how he reflected upon the injury he was doing himself and others,\nonly to find that his reflections and resolutions snapped like cobwebs\nbefore the onslaught of temptation.  One night the young bookbinder\ndrifted into a little meeting and, buttoning his seedy overcoat to\nconceal his rags, in some way he found himself upon his feet and began\nto speak.  The address that proved a pleasure to others was a\nrevelation to himself.  For the first time Gough tasted the joys of\nmoving men and mastering them for good.  Within a week that love of\npublic speech and useful service had kindled his mental faculties into\na creative glow.  The new and higher love of the heart consumed the\nlower love of the body, just as the sun melts manacles of ice from a\nman's wrist.\n\nHistory is full of these transformations wrought by the heart.  It was\na new enthusiasm that changed Augustine the epicurean into Augustine\nthe church father.  It was a new enthusiasm that turned Howard the\npleasure-lover into Howard the prison-reformer.  It was a glowing heart\nthat lent power to Mazzini and Garibaldi and gave Italy her new hope\nand liberty.  Indeed, the history of each life is the history of its\nnew loves.  The enthusiasms are beacon lights that glow in the highway\nalong which the soul journeys forward.  When the hero's ships were\nbecalmed Virgil tells us that Aeolus struck the hollow mountain with\nhis staff and straightway, released from their caves, the winds went\nforth to stir the waves and smite upon the sails and sweep the becalmed\nship on toward its harbor.  Oh, beautiful story, telling us how Christ\ntouches the heart with his regenerating hand to release the soul's\ndeeper convictions, to sweep man forward to the heavenly haven!\n\nIf sentiment working in sound can make music; if working in colors,\netc., it can fill galleries with statues and pictures; if sentiment\nworking in literature can produce poems, it should not seem strange\nthat the heart, with its affections, furnishes the key of knowledge and\nwisdom.  The time was when authors were supposed to think out their\ntruths; now we know that the greatest truths are felt out.  Matthew\nArnold said that mere knowledge is cold as an icicle, but once\nexperienced and touched with noble feelings truth becomes sweetness and\nlight.  This author thought that the first requisite for a good writer\nwas a sensitive and sympathetic heart.\n\nEven in Shakespeare the springs of genius were not in the mind.  The\nheart of our greatest poet was so sensitive that he could not see an\napple blossom without hoping that no untimely frost would nip it; could\nnot see the clusters turn purple under the autumn sun without hoping\nthat hailstones would not pound off the rich clusters; could not see a\nyouth leave his home to seek his fortune without praying that he would\nreturn to his mother laden with rich treasures; could not see a bride\ngo down the aisle of the church without sending up a petition that many\nyears might intervene before death's hand should touch her white brow.\nSympathy in the heart so fed the springs of thought in the mind that it\nwas easy for the poet to put himself in another's place.  And so, while\nhis pen wrote, his heart felt itself to be the king and also his\nservant, to be the merchant and also his clerk, to be the general and\nalso his soldier.  He saw the assassin drawing near the throne with a\ndagger beneath his cloak; he went forth with King Lear to shiver\nbeneath the wintry blasts; he rejoiced with Rosalind and wept with\nHamlet, and there was no joy or grief or woe or wrong that ever touched\na human heart that he did not perfectly feel and, therefore, perfectly\ndescribe.  For depth of mind begins with depth of heart.  The greatest\nwriters are primarily seers and only incidentally thinkers.  As of old,\nso now, for a thousand thinkers there is only one great seer.\n\nHaving affirmed the influence of the heart upon the intellect and\nscholarship, let us hasten to confess that the heart determines the\nreligious belief and creed.  It is often said that belief is a matter\nof pure reason determined wholly by evidence.  And doubtless it is true\nthat in approaching mathematical proofs man is to discharge his mind of\nall color.  That two and two are four is true for the poet and the\nmiser, for the peaceable man not less than the litigious.  But of the\nother truths of life it is a fact that with the heart man believes.  We\napproach wheat with scales, we measure silk with a yardstick; we test\nthe painting with taste and imagination, and the symphony with the\nsense of melody; motives and actions are tested by conscience; we\napproach the stars with a telescope, while purity of heart is the glass\nby which we see God.  The scales that are useful in the laboratory are\nutterly valueless in the art gallery.  The scientific faculty that fits\nSpencer for studying nature unfits him for studying art.  In his old\nage Huxley, the scientist, wrote an essay forty pages long to prove\nthat man was more beautiful than woman.  Imagine some Tyndall\napproaching the transfiguration of Raphael to scrape off the colors and\ntest them with acid and alkali for finding out the proportion of blue\nand crimson and gold.  These are the methods that would give the\nvillage paint-grinder precedency above genius itself.\n\nIn 1837 two boys entered Faneuil hall and heard Wendell Phillips'\ndefense of Lovejoy.  One youth was an English visitor who saw the\nportraits of Otis and Hancock, yet saw them not; heard the words of\nPhillips, yet heard them not, and because his heart was in London\nbelieved not unto patriotism.  But the blood of Adams was in the veins\nof the other youth.  He thought of Samuel Adams, who heard the firing\nat Lexington and exclaimed; \"What a glorious morning this is!\"  He\nthought of John Adams and his love of liberty.  He thought of the old\nman eloquent, John Quincy Adams, in the Halls of Congress, and as he\nlistened to the burning words of the speaker, tears filled his eyes and\npride filled his soul.  It was his native land.  With his heart he\nbelieved unto patriotism.\n\nWhat the man is determines largely what his intellect thinks about God.\nWhen the heart is narrow, harsh, and rigorous its theology is despotic\nand cruel.  When the heart grows kindly, sympathetic and of autumnal\nrichness, it emphasizes the sympathy and love of God.  Each man paints\nhis own picture of God.  The heart lends the pigments.  Souls full of\nsweetness and light fill the divine portrait with the lineaments of\nlove.  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.\n\nHappy, indeed, our age, in that the heart is now beginning to color our\ncivilization.  Vast, indeed, the influence of library and lecture-hall,\nof gallery and store and market-place, but the most significant fact of\nour day is that sympathy is baptizing our industries and institutions\nwith new effort.  Intellect has lent the modern youth instruments many\nand powerful.  Inventive thought has lent fire to man's forge, tools\nfor his hands, books for his reading, has lent arts, sciences,\ninstitutions.  The modern youth stands forth in the aspect of the Roman\nconqueror to whom the citizens went forth to bestow gifts, one taking\nhis chariot, one leading a steed, the children scattering flowers in\nthe way, young men and maidens taking the hero's name upon their lips.\nUnfortunately multitudes have declined those high gifts, turning away\nfrom the open door of the schoolhouse and college; many young feet have\ncrossed the threshold of the saloon.  Having entered our museum or\nart-gallery, multitudes enter places of evil resort.\n\nDespising the opportunity offered by music or eloquence, by book or\nnewspaper, by trade and profession, many choose sloth and\nself-indulgence.  These needy millions, blinded with sin and ignorance,\nstand forth as a great opportunity for loving hearts.  Sympathy is\nmaking beautiful the pathway of knowledge, that young hearts may be\nallured along the shining way.  By a thousand arts and devices young\npeople of refinement and culture are founding centers of light among\nthe poor.  The opportunity that William the Silent found in the\nstarving millions of Holland; that Garrison found in the miserable\nslaves of the South; that Livingstone found in Africa, the modern hero\nis finding in the tenement-house district.  Through sympathy a new hope\nis entering into all classes of society.\n\nThe heart is also coloring industry.  This year it is said that more\nthan a score of great industrial institutions in our country have, to\nthe factory, added gymnasium, recreation-hall, schoolroom, library,\nfree musicals and lectures.  The intellect has failed to solve the\nsocial problems by giving allopathic doses from Poor Richard's Almanac.\nImpotent also those dreamers who have insisted that society must have\nsocialism--either God's or the devil's.  Impotent those who, during the\npast week, have proposed to cure economic ills by spitting the heads of\ntyrants upon bayonets.  But what force and law cannot do is slowly\nbeing done by sympathy and good-will.  The heart is taking the rigor\nout of toil, the drudgery out of service, the cruelty out of laws,\nharshness out of theology, injustice out of politics.  Love has done\nmuch.  The social gains of the future are to be to the gradual progress\nof sympathy and love.\n\nUnto man who goes through life working, weeping, laughing, loving,\ncomes the heart believing unto immortality.  For reason oft the\nimmortal hope burns low and the stars dim and disappear, but for the\nheart, never!  Scientists tell us matter is indestructible.  And the\nheart nourishes an immortal hope that no doubt can quench, no argument\ndestroy, no misfortune annihilate.  Comforting, indeed, for reasons,\nthe arguments of Socrates that life survives death.  After the death of\nhis beloved daughter Tullia, Cicero outlined arguments which have\nconsoled the mind of multitudes.  But in the hour of darkness and\nblackness, for a man to put out upon Death's dark sea, upon the\nargument of Cicero, is like some Columbus committing himself to a\nsingle plank in the hope of discovering an unseen continent.\n\nIn these dark hours the heart speaks.  In the poet's vision, to blind\nHomer, falling into the bog, torn by the thorns and thickets and lost\nin the forest and the night, came the young goddess, the daughter of\nLight and Beauty, to take the sightless poet by the hand and lead him\nup the heavenly heights.  Sometimes intellect seems sightless and\nwanders lost in the maze.  Then comes the heart to lead man along the\nupward path.  For even in its dreams the heart hears the sound of\ninvisible music.  Oft before reason's eye the heart unveils the Vision\nSplendid.  The soul is big with immortality.  When the heart speaks it\nis God within making overtures for man to come upward toward home and\nheaven.\n\n\n\n\nRENOWN THROUGH SELF-RENUNCIATION.\n\n\n\n\n\"To live absolutely each man for himself could not be possible if all\nwere to live together.  In course of time, in addition to utility,\ncertain more sensitive individuals began to see a charm, a beauty in\nthis consideration for others.  Gradually a sort of sanctity attached\nto it, and nature had once more illustrated her mysterious method of\nevolving from rough and even savage necessities her lovely shapes and\nher tender dreams.  To assert, then, with some recent critics of\nChristianity, that that law of brotherly love which is its central\nteaching is impracticable of application to the needs of society, is\nsimply to deny the very first law by which society exists.\"--_Richard\nLe Galliene, in \"The Religion of a Literary Man._\"\n\n\n\"It is only with renunciations that life, properly speaking, can be\nsaid to begin. . . .  In a valiant suffering for others, not in a\nslothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness ever\nlie.\"--_Carlyle_.\n\n\n\"You talk of self as the motive to exertion.  I tell you it is the\nabnegation of self which has wrought out all that is noble, all that is\ngood, all that is useful, nearly all that is ornamental in the\nworld.\"--_Whyte Melville_.\n\n\n\"Jesus said;  'Whosoever will come after Me, let him renounce himself,\nand take up his cross daily and follow Me.'  Perhaps there is no other\nmaxim of Jesus which has such a combined stress of evidence for it and\nmay be taken as so eminently His.\"--Matthew Arnold.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nRENOWN THROUGH SELF-RENUNCIATION.\n\nHistory has crowned self-sacrifice as one of the virtues.  In all ages\nselfishness has been like a flame consuming society, like a sword\nworking waste and ruin, but self-sacrifice has repaired these ravages\nand achieved for man victories many and great.  The church owes so much\nto the company of martyrs whose blood has crimsoned her every page, the\nstate is so deeply indebted to the patriots who have given their lives\nfor liberty, man has derived such strength from those who have endured\nthe fetter and the fagot rather than belie their convictions, woman has\nderived such beauty from the example of that Antigone who died rather\nthan desert the body of her dead brother, as that each modern youth\nbeholds self-sacrifice standing forth clothed with immeasurable\nexcellence.\n\nNot large the company of the Immortals whose birthdays society\ncelebrates.  Yet when on these high days, through song or story the\npoet or orator draws back the veil and reveals to the assembled\nmultitude the face of some Garibaldi or Hampden or Lincoln, the beloved\none is seen to be clothed with genius and beauty and truth indeed, but\nalso to be crowned with self-sacrifice.  Society makes haste to forget\nhim who remembers only himself.  As there can be no illiterate sage, no\nignorant Shakespeare, so history knows no selfish hero.  For the\nmercenary forehead memory has no wreath.  A sentinel with a flaming\nsword guards the threshold of the temple of fame against those\naspirants named Ease, Avarice, Self-indulgence.\n\n\"Shall I be remembered by posterity?\" asked the dying Garfield.  In\nthis eager, tremulous question the renowned and the obscure alike have\na pathetic interest.  For the deeply reflective mind oblivion is a\nthought all unendurable.  The tool man fashions, the structure he\nrears, the success he achieves, not less than his marble monument,\nlooks down upon the beholder with a mute appeal for recollection.  To\neach eager aspirant for everlasting remembrance Christ comes whispering\nhis secret of abiding renown.  Speaking not as an amateur, but as a\nmaster, Christ affirms that he who would save his life must lose it,\nthat he who would be remembered by others must forget himself, that the\nsoldier who flees from danger to save his body shall leave that life\nupon the battlefield, while he who plunges his banner into the very\nthick of the fight and is carried off the field upon his shield shall\nin safety bear his life away.  Hard seem the terms; they rebuke ease,\nthey smite self-indulgence, they deny the maxims of the worldly wise.\nBut in accepting Christ's principle and forsaking their palaces that\nthey might be as brothers to beggars, Xavier and Loyola found an\nexhilaration denied to kings; while each Sir Launfal, in his ease\ndenied the Holy Grail, has in the hour of self-sacrifice discerned the\nVision Splendid.  To each young patriot and soldier looking eagerly\nunto the tablets that commemorate the deeds of heroes, to each young\nscholar aspiring to a place beside the sages, comes this word: Life is\nthrough death, and immortal renown through self-renunciation.\n\nThis law of self-sacrifice is imbedded in nature.  Minot, the\nembryologist, and Drummond, the scientist, tells us that only by losing\nits life does the cell save it.  The new science exhibits the body as a\ntemple, constructed out of cells, as a building is made of bricks.\nJust as some St. Peter represents strange marble from Athens, beauteous\nwoods from Cyprus, granite from Italy, porphyry from Egypt, all brought\ntogether in a single cathedral, so the human body is a glorious temple\nbuilt by those architects called living cells.  When the scientist\nsearches out the beginning of bird or bud or acorn he comes to a single\ncell.  Under the microscope that cell is seen to be absorbing nutrition\nthrough its outer covering.  But when the cell has attained a certain\nsize its life is suddenly threatened.  The center of the cell is seen\nto be so far from the surface that it can no longer draw in the\nnutrition from without.  The bulk has outrun the absorbing surface.\n\"The alternative is very sharp,\" says the scientist, \"the cell must\ndivide or die.\"  Only by losing its life and becoming two cells can it\nsave its life.\n\nLater on, when each of the two cells has grown again to the size of the\noriginal one, the same peril threatens them and they too must divide or\ndie.  And when through this law of saving life by losing it nature has\nmade sure the basis for bud and bird, for beast and man, then the\nprinciple of sacrifice goes on to secure beauty of the individual plant\nor animal and perpetuity for the species.  In the center of each grain\nof wheat there is a golden spot that gives a yellow cast to the fine\nflour.  That spot is called the germ.  When the germ sprouts and begins\nto increase, the white flour taken up as food begins to decrease.  As\nthe plant waxes, the surrounding kernel wanes.  The life of the higher\nmeans the death of the lower.  In the orchard also the flower must fall\nthat the fruit may swell.  If the young apple grows large, it must\nbegin by pushing off the blossom.  But by losing the lower bud, the\ntree saves the higher fruit.\n\nCenturies ago Herodotus, the Grecian traveler, noted a remarkable\ncustom in Egypt.  Each springtime, when the palms flowered, the\nEgyptians went into the desert, cut off branches from the wild palms\nand, bringing them back to their gardens, waved them over the flowers\nof the date trees.  What was meant by this ceremony Herodotus did not\nknow.  The husbandmen believed that if they neglected it the gods would\ngive them but a scanty crop of dates.  It was reserved for the science\nof our century, through Drummond, to explain the fact that the one palm\nsaved its dates because the other palm lost its fertilizing pollen.\nShould nature refuse to obey this law of losing life in order to save\nit, man's world would become one vast Sahara waste, an arctic\ndesolation.\n\nThe law of sacrifice is also industrial law.  Great is the power of\nwealth.  It buys comfort, it purchases travel, it secures instruments\nof culture for reason and taste, it is almoner of bounty for sympathy\nand kindness.  Flowing through man's life, it seems like unto some Nile\nflowing through Egypt with soft, irrigating flow, bearing man's burdens\nupon its currents, giving food to bird and beast.  But the story of\neach Peter Cooper, each Peabody, each Amos Lawrence, is the story of\nthe ease of life lost to-day that the strength of life may be saved\nto-morrow.  Each young merchant loved luxury and beauty, but in the\ninterests of thrift he denied the eye its hunger, the taste its\nsatisfaction.  When pride asked for dress and show, the youth rebuked\nhis vanity.  When companions scoffed at the young merchant as a niggard\nhe subdued his sensitiveness and inured himself to rigid economy.  When\nincreasing wealth began to lend influence, and society urged him to\ngive his evenings to gayety, the young merchant denied the social\ninstinct and gave his long winter evenings to broadening his knowledge\nand culture.  Having lost the lower good, at last the time came when\nthe American merchant and philanthropist had saved for himself\nuniversal fame.  Having lost ease and self-indulgence during the first\nhalf of his life, he saved the higher ease and comfort for the second\nperiod of his career.\n\nSimilarly of the young men in Parliament who to-day have charge of the\ndestinies of the English empire, it may be said that they have saved\ntheir lives, because the fathers lost theirs.  One hundred years ago\nthese fathers made exiles of themselves in the interests of their sons\nand daughters.  The East India merchant exiled himself into the tropic\nland where heat and malaria made his skin as yellow as the gold he\ngained.  Others braved the perils of the African forests, dared the\ndangers of Australian deserts, endured the rigor of the arctic cold.\nLosing the lower and present happiness, they saved the higher ease and\ncomfort for their sons.  The self-denial of yesterday brought the\ninfluence of to-day.  Upon this principle God has organized the\nindustrial world.  Man must take his choice between ease and wealth,\neither may be his but not both.\n\nSacrifice is also the secret of beauty, culture and character.\nSelfishness eats sweetness from the singer's voice as rust eats the\nedge of a sword.  St. Cecilia refused to lend the divine touch to lips\nsteeped in pleasure.  He who sings for love of gold finds his voice\nbecoming metallic.  In art, also, Hitchcock has said: \"When the brush\ngrows voluptuous it falls like an angel from heaven.\"  Fra Angelico\nrefuses an invitation to the Pitti palace, choosing rather his crust\nand pallet in the cell of the monastery.  The artist gave his mornings\nto the poor, his evenings to his canvas.  But when the painter had worn\nhis life away in kindly deeds, men found that the light divine had been\ntransferred to the painter's canvas.  Eloquence also loves sincere\nlips.  The history of oratory includes few great scenes--Demosthenes'\nplea for Athenian liberty that resulted in his death, Luther's single\nchallenge to the hosts of Pope and Emperor, Wendell Phillips' at\nFaneuil Hall, Lincoln's at Gettysburg.  All these risked life for a\ncause, and were baptized with eloquence, their words being tipped with\nfire, their minds hurling thunderbolts.\n\nSacrifice also is the secret of beauty.  After a little time the life\nof pleasure and selfishness will make the sweetest fact opaque and\nrepellent, while self-sacrificing thoughts are cosmetics that at last\nmake the plainest face to be beautiful.  In the calm of scholarship men\nhave given up the thought that culture consists of an exquisite\nrefinement in manners and dress, in language and equipage.  The poet\nlaureate makes Maud the type of polished perfection.  She is \"icily\nregular, splendidly null,\" for culture is more of the heart than of the\nmind.  But as eloquence means that an orator has so mastered the laws\nof posture, and gesture and thought and speech that they are utterly\nforgotten, and have become second nature, so knowledge becomes culture,\nand physical perfection becomes beauty, only when it is unconscious.\n\nIn the moral realm also, the gains for the soul begin with loss.  In\nthe hour of temptation he who sacrifices the higher duty to the lower\npleasure will find that ease has shorn away the strength of Samson.\n\nVictor Hugo has pictured a man committing suicide through poverty, and\ndeserting the duty and dwelling where God has placed him.  But waking\nin the next world, the man perceives a letter on the way to himself\nannouncing a large inheritance which would have been his had he but\nbeen patient.  Therefore the great novelist affirms that God makes such\na man begin over again, only under harder conditions, the existence\nthat here he has willfully shattered.  What a tragedy is his who, to\nsave the present good, will lose the higher life.  Whittier expressed\nthe fear that Daniel Webster saved his life only to lose it.  In his\nworks the poet recalls the time when for genius of statesmanship and\nweight of mentality Webster's like was not upon our earth.  But in an\nevil hour the statesman saw that the presidency was a prize that could\nbe gained by giving the fugitive slave law as a sop to the South.  In\nthat hour his character suffered grievous injury.  In the attempt to\nsave men's votes he lost men's higher respect.  In deepest sorrow his\nadmirers, abroad and at home, cried out: \"O, Lucifer, thou son of the\nmorning, how art thou fallen!\"\n\nThe law of sacrifice is also the law of progress and civilization.\nWhen history exhibits as dead the nations that have been\npleasure-seekers it declares that the state that saveth its life shall\nlose it.  In our own land the bankruptcy and gloom that have for years\novershadowed the South speak eloquently of a national gain that is a\nloss.  One hundred years ago the North freed its slaves.  Later, when\nthe constitution was adopted, many statesmen believed that slavery was\nlosing its hold in the South.  Jefferson said: \"When I think that God\nis just I tremble for my country.\"  In that hour the statesman\nprophesied that slavery would soon melt away like the vanishing snow of\nApril.  But when Whitney invented his gin and the raising of cotton\nbecame very lucrative slavery took on new life.  It was Lord Brougham\nwho first said that when slavery brought in 100 percent, while it was\nseen to be immoral, not all the navies of the world could stop it.\nLater, when it brought in 300 percent, it became a peculiar\ninstitution, patterned after the system of the patriarchs.  But when it\nbrought in 300 percent master and slave became a Christian relation,\nand slavery was baptized with quotations from the Old Testament.\n\nBut avarice could not forever blind men's eyes to scenes of sorrow, nor\nstop their ears to sounds of woe.  When the horrors of the slave-market\nand the infamies of the cotton-field filled all the land with shame\nreformers arose, declaring that the attempt to compress and confine\nliberty would end in explosion.  In that hour Northern men made\ntentative overtures looking to the purchase of all slaves.  But\nslavery, Delilah-like, made the southern leaders drunk with the cup of\nsorcery.  They scorned the proposition.  In the light of subsequent\nevents we see that in saving her institution the South lost it, and\nwith it her wealth, while in losing her slaves the North gained her\nwealth.  Under free labor the North doubled its population, its\nmanufactories, its riches and waxed mighty.  Under slave-labor the\nSouth dwindled in wealth and became only the empty shell of a state.\nThe spark fired at Fort Sumter kindled a conflagration that swept\nthrough the sunny South like a devastating fire and revealed its inner\npoverty.  When four years had passed by the farmhouses and factories\nwere ruins, the village was a heap, the town a desolation.  Graveyards\nwere as populous as cities, each village had its company of cripples,\nthe cry of the orphan and the widow filled all the land.\n\nWhen Charles Darwin returned from his voyage around the world, he sent\na generous contribution to the London Missionary Society.  The great\nscientist had discovered that in lessening her wealth through missions\nEngland had saved her treasure through commerce.  Traveling in foreign\nlands, Darwin noticed that the Christian teachers in schools that now\ntouch 3,000,000 of young men and women in India, were really commercial\nagents for England's trade.  In awakening the minds of the darkened\nmillions the teacher had created a demand for books, newspapers and\nprinting-presses.  In awakening the sense of self-respect the teacher\nhad created a demand for English clothing and the product of English\nlooms.  Also the influence of each home, with its comforts and\nconveniences, created a demand for English tools and improvements of\nlabor.  Summing up his observation, Lord Havelock said that each\nthousand dollars England had spent upon her missions had brought a\nreturn of a hundred thousand dollars through her commerce.  Hitherto\nthe interior of China has been closed to English merchants.  To that\ndark land, therefore, England has sent 200 teachers whose homes are\ncenters of light and inspiration.  When two-score years have passed\nEnglish fleets will be taxed to the utmost to carry to China, as now to\nIndia, her fabrics of cotton and wool, her presses, looms,\nsewing-machines, her pictures, her libraries.  In giving of her wealth\nto found these destitute schools England will save it a hundred-fold\nand find new markets among 300,000,000 people.\n\nSacrifice is also the secret of influence.  Long ago Cicero noted that\ntales of heroes and eloquence and self-sacrifice cast a charm and spell\nupon the people.  When men sacrifice ease, wealth, rank, life itself,\nthe delight of the beholders knows no bounds.  If we call the roll of\nthe sons of greatness and influence we shall see that they are also the\nsons of self-sacrifice.  The Grecian hero who lost his life that he\nmight save his influence is typical of all the great leaders.  Phocion\nwas a patriot and martyr whose single error in judgment brought down a\ncatastrophe upon his beloved Athens.  When the fierce mob surrounded\nhis house and prepared to beat down his doors, friends offered Phocion\nescape and shelter, but the hero went calmly forth to meet his death.\nWhen the day of execution arrived the cup of poison was handed to the\nother leaders first.  The jailer was careful to see to it that before\nhe reached Phocion he had only a few drops of hemlock left in his cup,\nbut the hero drew out his purse and bade a youth run swiftly to buy\nmore poison, saying to the onlookers: \"Athens makes her patriots pay,\neven for dying.\"  Losing his life, Phocion, found immortal influence.\n\nThe history of Holland's greatness is the history of one who saved\nliberty by losing his own life.  William the Silent was a prince in\nstation and in wealth, yet for Holland's sake made himself a beggar and\nan outlaw.  He feared God, indeed, but not the batteries of Alva and\nPhilip.  His career reads like one who with naked fists captured a\nblazing cannon.  Falling at last by the dagger of a hired assassin, he\nexclaimed: \"I commit my poor people to God and myself to God's great\ncaptain, Christ.\"  When he died little children cried in the streets.\nHe lost his life, said his biographer, but saved his fame.  And what\nshall we more say of Italy's hero, who wore his fiery fagots like a\ncrown of gold; of Germany's hero, who lost his priestly rites, but\ngained the hearts of all mankind; of England's hero, whose very ashes\nwere cast by enemies upon the River Severn, as if to float his\ninfluence out o'er all the world, of India's hero, William Carey, the\nEnglish shoemaker, who founded for India an educational system now\nreaching millions of children and youth, who gave India literature,\nmade five grammars and six dictionaries, and so used his commercial\ngenius through his indigo plantation and factories that it made for him\na million dollars in the interests of Christian missions?  Of this\ngreat company, what can we say save that they won renown through\nself-renunciation!  What they did makes weak and unworthy what we say.\nJust here let us remember that the statue of Jupiter was a figure so\ncolossal that worshipers, unable to reach the divine forehead, cast\ntheir garlands at the hero's feet.  For this law of sacrifice is the\nsecret of the Messiah.  Earth's great ones were taught it by their\nMaster.  Jesus Christ, \"being rich, for our sakes became poor.\"\nBecause the law of sacrifice is the law of the Savior, man gains life\nthrough death and renown through self-renunciation.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.\n\n\n\n\n\"A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in\nthe body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and\nof structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate\nsympathies--one may say, simply 'fineness of nature.'  This is, of\ncourse, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness, in\nfact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy.\nElephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no\ntouch of the boughs, but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would have\nfelt a bent rose leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and\nbehave itself like iron.  I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar\nanimal, but if you think about him carefully you will find that his\nnon-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine\nnature, not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the\nway he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way and in his\nsensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique\non points of honor.  Hence it will follow that one of the probable\nsigns of high-breeding in men generally will be their kindness and\nmercifulness.\"--_Modern Painters_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.\n\nHistory has never known another such an enthusiasm for a hero as the\nmultitude once felt toward Jesus Christ.  There have indeed been times\nwhen such patriots as Garibaldi, Kossuth and Lincoln have kindled in\nmen an enthusiasm akin to adoration and worship.  Yet let us hasten to\nconfess that the qualities calculated to quicken men into raptures of\ndevotion appeared in these patriots only in fragmentary form, while\nthey dwelt in Christ in full-orbed majesty and splendor.  The welcome\nChicago gave to Grant upon his return from his journey around the\nworld; the enthusiasm excited by Kossuth when in 1851 he drove through\nBroadway, New York; the wave of gratitude that swept over the Italian\nmultitude when Garibaldi appeared in Florence--all these are events\nthat bear witness to society's devotion to its patriots and heroes.\nBut, be it remembered, these scenes occurred but once in the history of\neach of these great men.\n\nIt stirs wonder in us, therefore, that Christ's every journey across\nthe fields took on the aspect of a triumphal procession, while His\npopularity waxed with familiarity and the increasing years.  Indeed,\nfull oft the rapture men felt toward Him amounted to an intoxication\nand an ecstasy of devotion.  True it is that men now look upon Him\nthrough a blaze of light, and, remembering His achievements for art,\nliberty and learning, have stained His name through and through with\nlustrous colors.  As at eventide we look out upon the sun through white\nand golden clouds that the sun itself has lifted, so do we behold the\ncarpenter's son standing forth under the dazzling light of nearly two\nthousand years of history, while the heart colors His name with all\nthat is noblest in human aspiration and achievement.\n\nNevertheless, be it instantly confessed that from the very beginning\nthis divine Teacher exhibited qualities that kindled in men an\nenthusiasm that amounted to transcendent delight.  The time was when\nscholars attempted to explain His influence over the multitude by\nportraying Him with a halo of light about His head.  Fortunately these\nideas that robbed men of all fellowship with their divine brother have\nperished, and now we know that there was nothing unusual about His\nappearance, nor did any effulgent light blaze forth from His person.\nWhether or not unique beauty of face and form was His we do not know.\nCoins and statues portray for us the Roman emperors and the Greek\nscholars.  Yet art has broken down utterly in the attempt to combine in\none face Christ's majesty and meekness, strength and gentleness,\nsuffering and victory.  All that we can know of His personal appearance\nmust be gained through imagination, as it clothed Him with those traits\nthat alone cannot account for His influence over the multitudes.  What\nsweet allurement in the face that made children leap into His arms!\nWhat winsome benignity that made mothers feel that His touch would\nreturn the babe with double worth into the parent's bosom!\n\nPurity in others has been cold and chaste as ice.  How strange that in\nHim purity had an irresistible fascination, so that the corruptest and\nwickedest felt drawn unto Him, and \"depravity itself bowed down and\nwept in the presence of divinity.\"  What all-forgiving love, what\nall-cleansing love, in one who by a mere look could dissolve in\nrepentant tears men long hardened by vice and crime!  What an\natmosphere of power He must have carried, that by one beam from His eye\nHe could smite to the very ground the soldiers who confronted Him!\n\nDid ever man have such a genius for noble friendship?  What bosom words\nHe used!  What love pressure in all His speech!  How were His words\nladen with double meanings, so that hearing one thing, men also heard\nanother, even as they who hear the sound of the distant sea, knowing\nthat the sound they hear is but a breath of the great infinite ocean\nthat heaves beyond in the dim, vast dark.  Among all the heroes of time\nHe walks solitary by the greatness of His power, His beauty and the\nwonder of love His personality excited.  Standing in the presence of\nsome glorious cathedral or gallery, beholding the Parthenon or\npyramids, the rugged mountain or the beautiful landscape, emotion and\nimagination are sometimes so deeply stirred that men lose command of\nthemselves and break into transports of admiration.  But the enthusiasm\nevoked by mountain or statue or canvas is as nothing compared to the\nrapturous devotion felt by the multitude for this One, who united in\nfull splendor all those eminent qualities of mind and heart that all\nthe ages and generations have in vain sought to emulate.  High over all\nthe other worthies He rises like a star riding in untroubled splendor\nabove the low-browed hills.\n\nIn all ages great men have educated themselves by reading the biography\nof ancient worthies, and emulating the example of the heroes of\nantiquity.  Great has been the influence of these reformers and\nphilosophers, statesmen and poets, hanging in the heavens above men and\nraining down inspiration upon the human imagination.  Yet from all the\nworthies of the past, and all modern heroes, man has drawn less of\ninspiration and personal influence than from the single example of this\nideal Christ.  Passing by His influence upon institutions, education,\nart and literature, we shall do well to consider how His example has\ninstructed man in the art of a right carriage of the faculties in the\nhome and market-place.  In the last analysis, Jesus Christ is the only\nperfect gentleman our earth has ever known--in comparison with whom all\nthe Chesterfields seem boors.  For nothing taxes a man so heavily as\nthe task of maintaining smooth, pleasant and charitable relations with\none's fellows.  And Christ alone was able always to meet storm with\ncalm, hate with love, scowls with smiles, plottings with confidence,\nenvy and bitterness with unruffled tranquility.\n\nIn all His relations with His friends and enemies the quality that\ncrowns His method of living and challenges our thought is the\ngentleness of His bearing.  Matchless the mingled strength and beauty\nof His life, yet gentleness was the flower and fruitage of it all.  For\nin Him the lion and the lamb dwelt together.  Oak and rock were there,\nand also vine and flower.  Weakness is always rough.  Only giants can\nbe gentle.  Tenderness is an inflection of strength.  No error can be\ngreater than to suppose that gentleness is mere absence of vigor.\nWeakness totters and tugs at its burden.  When the dwarf that attended\nIvanhoe at the tournament lifted the bleeding sufferer he staggered\nunder his heavy burden.  Weakness made him stumble and caused the\nwounded knight intense pain.  When the giant of the brawny arm and the\nunconquered heart came, he lifted the unconscious sufferer like a\nfeather's weight and without a jar bore him away to a secure\nhiding-place for healing and recovering.  He who studies the great men\nof yesterday will find in the last analysis that gentleness has always\nbeen the test of gianthood, and fine considerateness the measure of\nmanhood and the gauge of personal worth.  No other hero moving through\nthe crowds has ever been so courteously gentle, so sweetly considerate\nin his personal bearing as this Christ--who never failed to kindle in\nmen transports of delight and enthusiasm.\n\nThe crying fault of our generation is its lack of gentleness.  Our age\nis harsh when it judges, brutal when it blames and savage in its\nseverity.  Carlyle, emptying vials of scorn upon the people of England,\nnumbering his generation by \"thirty millions, mostly fools,\" is typical\nof the publicists, authors and critics who pelt their brother man with\ncontemptuous scorn.  The author of \"Robert Elsmere\" exhibits that\npolished scholar and brilliant student as one who gave up teaching\nbecause he could find no audience on a level with his ability or worthy\nof his instruction.  Having begun by despising others, he ends by\ndespising himself.  Now the popularity of Elsmere's character witnesses\nto the fact that our generation includes a large number of cynics who\nscorn their fellows and in Elsmere see themselves as \"in an open\nglass.\"  To-day this tendency toward harshness of judgment has become\nmore pronounced, and there seems to be no leader so noble as to escape\nbrutal criticism and no movement whose white flag may not be smirched\nby mud-slingers.  What epithets are hurled at each new idea!  What\ntorrents of ridicule are emptied out upon each social movement!\n\nThe fact that society has oftentimes destroyed its noblest geniuses\navails little for the restraint of harshness.  For years England was\nwildly merry at Turner's expense.  The newspapers cartooned his\npaintings.  Reviews spoke of them as \"color blotches.\"  The rich over\ntheir champagne made merry at the great artist's expense.  After a\nwhile men found a little respite from the mad chase for wealth and\npleasure and discovered that Turner's extreme examples represented\npeculiar moods in nature, seen only by those who had traveled as widely\nas had Turner, while his great landscapes were as rich in imaginative\nquality as those of any artist of all ages.  Only when it was too late,\nonly when harshness had broken the man's heart, and scorn had fatally\nwounded his genius, did scholars begin to adorn their pages by\nreferences to Turner's fame, did the rich begin to pay fabulous sums\nfor the very pictures they had once despised, the nation set apart the\nbest room in its gallery for Turner's works, while the people wove for\nhis white tombstone wreaths they had denied his brow and paid his dead\nashes honors refused his living spirit.\n\nIn similar vein we remember the English-speaking world has recently\nbeen celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Keats, who is the only\npure Greek in all English literature, for whose imagination \"a thing of\nbeauty was a joy forever,\" and whose genius in divining the secrets of\nthe beautiful amounted to inspiration.  We know now that no poet in all\ntime, who died so young, has left so much that is precious.  Scholars\nare not wanting who believe that had he lived to see his maturity Keats\nwould have ranked with the five great poets of the first order of\ngenius.  Yet the publication of his volume of verse received from\n\"Blackwood\" and the \"Quarterly\" only contempt and bitter scorn.  Waxing\nbold, the penny-a-liners grew savage, until the very skies rained lies\nand bitter slanders upon poor Keats.  Sensitive, soon he was wounded to\ndeath.  After a week of sleeplessness, he arose one morning to find a\nbright red spot upon his handkerchief.  \"That is arterial blood,\" said\nhe; \"that drop is my death-warrant; I shall die.\"  And so, when he was\none-and-twenty, friends lifted above the boy's dust a marble slab, upon\nwhich was written: \"Here lies one whose name was writ in water.\"  Now\nhis name shines like a star, while low down and bespattered with mud\nare the names of those whose cruel criticisms helped to kill the boy\nand whose only claim to immortality is their brutality.\n\nWitness also the contempt our age once visited upon Browning, whose\nmind is slowly becoming recognized as one of the rich-gold minds of our\ncentury.  Witness the sport over Ruskin's \"Munera Pulveris,\" and the\nscornful reception given Carlyle's \"Sartor Resartus.\"  Now that a few\nyears have passed, those who once reviled are teaching their children\nthe pathway to the graves of the great.  The harshness of the world's\ntreatment of its greatest teachers makes one of the most pathetic\nchapters in history.  God gives each nation only a few men of supreme\ntalent.  Gives it, for greatness is not made; it is found as is the\ngold.  Gold cannot be made out of mud; it is uncovered.  And God gives\neach generation a few men of the first order; and when they have\ncreated truth and beauty they have the right while they live to\nkindness and sympathy, not harshness and cynicism.  No youth winning\nthe first goal of his ambition was ever injured by knowing that his\nfather's face did not flush with pride, while his mother's eyes were\nfilled with happy tears, in joy of his first victory.  No noble lover\nbut girds himself for a second struggle the more resolutely for knowing\nthat his noble mistress rejoiced in his first conquest.  Frost itself\nis not more destructive to harvest fields than harshness is to the\ncreative faculties.  Strange that Florence gave Dante exile in exchange\nfor his immortal poem!  Strange that London gave Milton threats of\nimprisonment for the manuscript of \"Paradise Lost!\"  Passing strange\nthat until his career was nearly run universities visited upon John\nRuskin only scorn and contumely, that ruined his health and broke his\nheart, withholding the wreath until, as he said pathetically, his only\n\"pleasure was in memory, his ambition in heaven,\" and he knew not what\nto do with his laurel leaves save \"lay them wistfully upon his mother's\ngrave.\"  In every age the critics that have refused honor to its\nworthies, living, have heaped gifts high upon the graves of its dead.\n\nThat generation and individual must be far from perfect that is\ncharacterized by the presence of harshness and the absence of\ngentleness.  With a great blare of trumpets our century has been\npraised for its ingenuity, its wealth and comforts, its instruments,\nrefinement and culture.  But history tells of no man who has carried\nhis genius up to such supreme excellence that society has forgotten his\nvice or forgiven the faults that marred his rare gifts.  What genius\nhad De Quincey!  Marvelous the myriad-minded Coleridge!  The\nopium-habit, however, was a vice that eclipsed their fame and robbed\nthem of half their rightful influence.  Voltaire's style was so\nfaultlessly perfect that if the sentences lying across his page had\nbeen strings of pearls they could have been no more beautiful.  But\nVoltaire's excesses make a black mark across the white page before each\nreader's mind.  Rousseau's writings are so melodious that, long after\nlaying aside the book the ear would be filled with the sound of\ndelicious music were it not that the reader seems ever to hear the moan\nof the four children whose unnatural father, without even giving them a\nname, placed them in the foundling-asylum.\n\nEarly Carlyle wooed and won one of the most brilliant girls of his day,\nwhose signal talent shone in the crowded drawing-rooms of London like a\nsapphire blazing among pebbles.  Yet her husband lacked gentleness.\nSlowly harshness crept into Carlyle's voice.  Soon the wife gave up her\nfavorite authors to read the husband's notes; then she gave up all\nreading to relieve him of details; at last her very being was placed on\nthe altar of sacrifice--fuel to feed the flame of his fame and genius.\nLong before the end came she was submerged and almost forgotten.  One\nday two distinguished foreign authors called upon Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.\nFor an hour the philosopher poured forth vehement tirade against the\ncommercial spirit, while the good wife never once opened her lips.  At\nlast the author ceased talking, and there was silence for a time.\nSuddenly Carlyle thundered: \"Jane, stop breathing so loud!\"  Long years\nbefore Jane had stopped doing everything else except breathe.  And so,\nobedient to the injunction, a few days afterward she ceased \"breathing\nso loud.\"\n\nWhen a few weeks had gone by Carlyle discovered, through reading her\njournal, that his wife had for want of affection frozen and starved to\ndeath within his home like some poor traveler who had fallen in the\nsnows beyond the door.  For years, without his realizing it, she had\nkept all the wheels oiled, kept his body in health and his mind in\nhappiness.  Only when it was too late did the husband realize that his\nfame was largely his wife's.  Then did the old man begin his pathetic\npilgrimage to his wife's grave, where Froude often found him murmuring:\n\"If I had only known!  If I had only known!\"  For all his supreme gifts\nand rare talents were marred by harshness.  Intellectual brilliancy\nweighs light as punk against the gold of gentleness and character.\nHalf Carlyle's books, weighted by a gentle, noble spirit, would have\navailed more for social progress than these many volumes with the bad\ntaste they leave in the mouth.  The sign of ripeness in an apple, a\npeach, is beauty, and the test of character is gentleness and kindness\nof heart.\n\nOne of the crying needs of society is a revival of gentleness and of a\nrefined considerateness in judging others.  There is no disposition\nthat cuts at the very root of character like harshness, and there is\nnothing that blights happiness and breeds discord like unlovingness and\nseverity of judgment.  We hear much of industrial strife, social\nwarfare and want of sympathy between the classes.  Be it remembered,\ngentleness alone can be invoked to heal the breach.  There is a legend\nthat when Jacob with his family and flocks met Esau with his children\nand herds, the angels of God hovered in the air above the two brothers\nand began to rain gifts down upon their companies.  Strangely enough,\neach forgetting the gifts falling in his own camp, rushed forth to pick\nup the gifts falling in that of his brother.  There was anger stirred.\nEpithets and stones began to fly, until all the air was filled with\nflying weapons.  In such a scrimmage the messengers of peace had no\nplace.  Soon the sound of receding wings died out of the air, the gifts\nceased to fall and all things faded into the light of common day.  This\nlegend interprets to us how harshness breeds strife and robs man of his\ngifts from God and his happiness through his brother man.\n\nSeveral years ago an industrial war was waged in the coal districts of\nEngland that cost that nation untold treasure.  It is said that the\nstrife grew out of harsh words between the leaders of the opposing\nfactions.  It seemed that the industrious and worthy poor men\noverlooked the fact that there were industrious and worthy rich men and\ninsisted on speaking only of the idle and spendthrift rich.  Then\nfollowed his opponent who, as an industrious and worthy rich man,\ninsisted on ignoring the industrious and worthy poor, but spoke only of\nthe idle and thriftless poor, the paupers and parasites.  Soon\ngentleness was forgotten and harshness remembered.  Soon there came the\ntrampled cornfields and the bloody streets.\n\nTeachers also need to learn the lesson of Arnold of Rugby.  One day the\ngreat instructor spake harshly to a dull boy, who an hour afterward\ncame to him with tearful eyes, and in a half-sobbing voice exclaimed;\n\"But why are you angry, sir?  I am doing my best.\"  Then Arnold learned\nthat a lesson easy for one mind may be a torture for another.  So he\nbegged the boy's pardon, and recognized the principle of gentleness\nthat afterward made him the greatest instructor of his time.\n\nNot war, not pestilence, not famine itself, produces for each\ngeneration so much misery and unhappiness as is wrought in the\naggregate through the accumulated harshness of each generation.\nBlessed are the happiness-makers!  Blessed are they who with humble\ntalents make themselves like the mignonette, creators of fragrance and\npeace!  Thrice blessed are they who with lofty talents emulate the\nvines that climbing high never forget to blossom, and the higher they\nclimb do ever shed sweet blooms upon those beneath!  No single great\ndeed is comparable for a moment to the multitude of little gentlenesses\nperformed by those who scatter happiness on every side and strew all\nlife with hope and good cheer.\n\nLife holds no motive for stimulating gentleness in man like the thought\nof the gentleness of God.  Unfortunately, it seems difficult for man to\nassociate delicacy and gentleness with vastness and strength.  It was\nthe misfortune of Greek philosophers and is, indeed, that of nearly all\nthe modern theologians, to suppose that a perfect being cannot suffer.\nBoth schools of thought conceive of God as sitting upon a marble\nthrone, eternally young, eternally beautiful, beholding with quiet\nindifference from afar how man, with infinite blunderings, sufferings\nand tears makes his way forward.  Yet He who holds the sun in the\nhollow of his hand, who takes up the isles as a very little thing, who\ncounts the nations but as the dust in the balance, is also the gentle\nOne.  Like the wide, deep ocean, that pulsates into every bay and creek\nand blesses the distant isles with its dew and rain, so God's heart\nthrobs and pulsates unto the uttermost parts of the universe, having a\nparent's sympathy for His children who suffer.\n\nIndeed, the seer ranges through all nature searching out images for\ninterpreting His all-comprehending gentleness.  \"Even the bruised reed\nhe will not break.\"  Lifting itself high in the air, a mere lead pencil\nfor size, weighted with a heavy top, a very little injury shatters a\nreed.  Some rude beast, in wild pursuit of prey, plunges through the\nswamp, shatters the reed, leaves it lying upon the ground, all bruised\nand bleeding, and ready to die.  Such is God's gentleness that, though\nman make himself as worthless as a bruised reed; though by his\nignorance, frailty and sin he expel all the manhood from his heart and\nlife, and make himself of no more value than one of the myriad reeds in\nthe world's swamps, still doth God say: \"My gentleness is such that I\nwill direct upon this wounded life thoughts that shall recuperate and\nheal, until at last the bruised reed shall rise up in strength, and\njudgment shall issue in victory.\"\n\nAnd as God's gentleness would go one step further, there is added the\ntender lesson of the smoking flax.  Our glowing electric bulbs suffer\nno injury from blasts, and our lamps have like strength.  The time was,\nwhen, wakened by the cry of the little sufferer, the ancient mother\nsprang up to strike the tinder and light the wick in the cup of oil.\nOnly with difficulty was the tinder kindled.  Then how precious the\nspark that one breath of air would put out!  With what eagerness did\nthe mother guard the smoking flax!  And in setting forth the gentleness\nof God it is declared that, with eyes of love, He searches through each\nheart, and if He find so much as a spark of good in the outcast, the\npublican, the sinner, He will tend that spark and feed it toward the\nlove that shall glow and sparkle forever and ever; for evil is to be\nconquered, and God will not so much punish as exterminate sin from His\nuniverse.  His strength is inflicted toward gentleness, His justice\ntempered with mercy, and all his attributes held in solution of love.\nNo longer should medievalism becloud God's gentle face.  Cleanse your\nthoughts, as once the artist in Milan cleansed the grime and soot from\nthe wall where Dante's lustrous face was hidden.\n\nWith shouts and transports of joy and admiration men welcome the\npatriot or hero who in times of danger held the destiny of the people\nin his hands and never once betrayed it.  And let each intellect soar\nwithout hindrance, and the heart pour itself out before God in a\nfreshet of divine love.  Great is the genius of Plato or Bacon,\nrevealing itself in tides of thought, but greater and richer is the\ngenius of the heart that is conscious of vast, deep fountains of love,\nthat may be poured forth in generous tides before the God whose throne\nis mercy, whose face is light, whose name is love, whose strength is\ngentleness, whose considerateness is our pledge of pardon, peace and\nimmortality.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THUNDER OF SILENT FIDELITY:\n\nA STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LITTLE THINGS.\n\n\n\n\n\"We treat God with irreverence by banishing Him from our thoughts, not\nby referring to His will on slight occasions.  His is not the finite\nauthority or intelligence which cannot be troubled with small things.\nThere is nothing so small but that we may honor God by asking His\nguidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own hands; and what\nis true of Deity is equally true of His Revelation.  We use it most\nreverently when most habitually; our insolence is in ever acting\nwithout reference to it, our true honoring of it is in its universal\napplication.  I have been blamed for the familiar introduction of its\nsacred words.  I am grieved to have given pain by so doing, but my\nexcuse must be my wish that those words were made the ground of every\nargument and the test of every action.  We have them not often enough\non our lips, nor deeply enough in our memories, nor loyally enough in\nour lives.  The snow, the vapour and the strong wind fulfil His word.\nAre our acts and thoughts lighter and wilder than these, that we should\nforget it?\"--_Ruskin_.\n\n\n\"I expect to pass through this life but once.  If there is any kindness\nor any good thing I can do to my fellow-beings let me do it now.  I\nshall pass this way but once.\"---_William Penn_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE THUNDER OF SILENT FIDELITY:\n\nA STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LITTLE THINGS.\n\nSchliemann, uncovering marbles upon which Phidias and his followers\ncarved out immortality for themselves, has not wrought more effectually\nfor the increase of knowledge than have those excavators in Egypt who\nhave uncovered the Rosetta stone, with other manuscripts of brick and\nmarble.  Of all these instructive tablets and tombs, none are more\ninteresting than one picturing forth a national festival in the Jewish\ncapital.  Upon his canvas of stone the unknown artist portrays for us\nHerod's temple with its outer courts and columns and its massive walls.\n\nWe see the public square crowded with merchants and traders, who have\ncome in from the great cities of the world to this festival of the\nfathers.  With solemn pageantry, these Jews, who were the bankers and\nmerchants of that far-off age, march through the streets toward the\ngate that is called Beautiful.  In the vast parade are men notable by\ntheir princely wealth in Ephesus and Antioch, in Alexandria and Rome.\nWe see one advancing with his retinue of servants, another with the\ntrain which corresponds to his wealth.  One group the artist exhibits\nas characteristic.  Advancing before their lord and master are four\nservants, who lift up in the presence of admiring spectators a platter\nupon which lies a heap of shining gold.  The murmur of admiration that\nruns through the crowd is sweeter to the old merchant's ear than any\nmusic of harp or human voice.  Passing by the treasury, what gifts are\ncast upon the resounding table!  How heavy the bars of gold!  What\nsilver plate!  What pearls and jewels!  How rich the fabrics and\nhangings for the temple!  As at St. Peter in the sixteenth century, so\nin Christ's day it seemed as if the whole world were being swept for\ntreasures for enriching this glorious temple.\n\nBut when the lions of the procession had all passed by, there followed\nalso the crowd of stragglers.  From this post of observation we are\ntold that Christ saw a poor widow advancing.  With falling tears, yet\nwith exquisite grace and tenderness, she cast in two mites, or one\nhalf-penny, then passed on to worship him whom she loved, all\nunconscious of the fact that she had also passed into immortality.  For\nthe noise of the gold falling into the resounding chest has long since\ndied away.  Jerusalem itself is in ruins.  The old temple with its\nmagnificence has gone to decay.  The proud thrones and monarchies have\nall fallen into dust.  But the silent fidelity of this obscure woman is\na voice that thunders down the long aisles of time.  A thousand times\nhath she encouraged heroism in poet and parent.  Ten thousand times\nhath she been an inspiration to reformers and martyrs!  Love and\nfidelity have embalmed her deed and lent her immortality.  In the very\ncenter of the world's civilization stands her monument.  For her Arc de\nTriomphe has been built in the human heart.  Her monument does not\nappeal to the eye; it is not carved in stone; yet it is more permanent\nthan gold, and her fame outshines all flashing jewels.  While love and\nadmiration endure the story of her humble fidelity shall abide\nindestructible!\n\nThe great Italian first noted that thrice only did Christ stretch forth\nhis hand to build a monument, and each time it was to immortalize a\ndeed of humble fidelity.  Once a disciple gave a cup of cold water to\none of God's little ones, and won thereby imperishable renown.  Once a\nwoman broke an alabaster box for her master, and, lo! her deed has been\nlike a broken vase, whose perfume has exhaled for two thousand years,\nand shall go on diffusing sweetness to the end of time.  Last of all,\nafter the rich men of Alexandria had cast their rattling gold into the\nbrazen treasury, a poor widow cast a speck of dust called two mites,\nand, lo! this humble deed gave her enduring recollection.\n\nIt seems that immortal renown is achieved not so much by the solitary\ndeed of greatness as by humble fidelity to life's details, and that\nmodest Christian living that regards small deeds and minor duties.\nOurs is a world in which life's most perfect gifts and sweetest\nblessings are little things.  Take away love, daily work, sweet sleep,\nand palaces become prisons and gold seems contemptible.  The classic\npoet tells of Kind [Transcriber's note: King?] Midas, to whom was\noffered whatsoever he wished, and whose avarice led him to choose the\ngolden touch.  But lo! his blessing became a curse.  Rising to dress he\nfound himself shivering in a coat with threads of gold.  Going into his\ngarden he stooped to breathe the perfume of the roses, and, lo! the\ndewy petals became yellow points that pierced his face.  Breakfasting,\nthe bread became metal in his mouth.  Lifting a goblet the water became\na solid mass.  Swinging his little daughter in his arms one kiss turned\nthe sweet child into a cold statue.  A single hour availed to drive\nhappiness from Midas' heart.  In an agony of despair he besought the\ngods for simple things.  He asked for one cup of cold water, one\ncluster of fruit and his little daughter's loving heart and hand.\n\nAnd as with wealth, so wisdom without life's little things is impotent\nfor happiness.  Genius hath its charm; nevertheless, the wisest of men\nhave also been the saddest of men.  The story of literary greatness is\na piteous tale.  History tells of many beautiful and gifted girls who\nhave married scholars for their genius, fame and position.  When these\nhonors were theirs they wakened to discover that all were less than\nnothing, since tenderness refused its mite and sympathy gave cot its\ncup of cold water.  Home and fame became dungeons in which the soul sat\nand famished for love's little courtesies.\n\nFor no palace was ever so beautiful, no royal wine quaffed from vessels\nof gold was ever so sweet as to satisfy hearts famishing for one mite\nof that heavenly manna love prepares, or one cup filled with kindness.\n\nDown in a corner of a window of an English palace may be found faint\nlines scratched with a woman's diamond.  What a tragedy in those words,\n\"My prison!\"  It seems the sweet girl, Jane Grey, entered her palace\nwith a leaping heart, but her lord had no time to break upon her white\nforehead the tiny box of life's ointment.  Hers was the palace; hers\nalso a thousand rich gifts called titles, lands, castles, maids of\nhonor, dresses, jewels.  Yet because the castles held no sweet\ncourtesies the journal of that beautiful girl reminds us of some young\nbird that beats with bloody wings against the bars of an iron cage.\nFor life is made up not of joys few and intense, but of joys many and\ngentle.  Great happiness is the sum of many small drops.  God makes the\ndays that are channels of mighty and tumultuous joys to be few and far\nbetween.  For highly spiced joys exhaust.  All who seek intense\npleasure will find not enjoyment but yearnings for enjoyment.\nHappiness is in simple things; a cup of cold water, health and a\nperfect day; dreamless sleep, honest toil, the esteem of the worthy,\nthe caresses of little children, a love that waxes with the increasing\nyears.\n\nOur appreciation of the principle that greatness of any form is an\naccumulation of little deeds will be freshened by an outlook upon\nnature's method.  The old science unveiled the universe as a divine\nthought rushing into instant form, stars and suns being sparks struck\nout on the anvil of omnipotence.  The new science has found that\nearth's every atom has been slowly polished by an infinite artisan and\narchitect.  If we descend into the sea we shall find that the reefs and\nislands against which the tides of the Pacific dash in vain are built\nof coral insects, whose every organ exhibits the delicate skill of a\ndiamond or snowflake.  If we stand upon the fruitful plain where men\nbuild cities we shall discern that each flake of the rich soil\nrepresents the perfect crystallization of drops of melted granite.  If\nwe take the wings of the morning and dwell upon the summit of the\nMatterhorn there also we find that the mountain hath its height and\nmajesty through particles themselves weak and little.  For the\ngeologist who analyzes the topmost peak of the Alpine ridge must go\nback to a little flake of mica, that ages and ages ago floated along\nsome one of earth's rivers, too light to sink, too feeble to find the\nfiber of a lichen, therefore dropped into the ooze of mire and decay.\nYet hardened by earth's processes, the day came when that flake of mica\nwas lifted up upon the mountain's peak, wrought into the strength of\nimperishable iron, \"rustless by the air, infusible by the flame,\ncapping the very summit of the Alpine tower.  Above it--that little\nobscure mica flake--the north winds rage, yet all in vain, below\nit--the feeble mica flake--the snowy hills lie bowing themselves like\nflocks of sheep, and the distant kingdoms fade away in unregarded\nblue.\" [1]  Around it--the weak, wave-drifted mica flake--booms all the\nartillery of storms, when electric arrows with blunted points fall back\nfrom its front, as it lifts its might and majesty toward the enduring\nstars.\n\nIf ages ago the sages said, God is not in the earthquake, nor in the\nstorm, but in the still small voice, now science reaffirms the\ndeclaration that omnipotence is revealed not so much through awful\ncataclysms and earthquake forces as through the silent agents and\nhidden processes that make the plains to be fruitful and hillsides to\nbe rich in corn.  In the past astronomy has been the favorite science,\nemphasizing the distant stars and suns.  The science of the future is\nto be chemistry, emphasizing atoms and elements.  Journeying outward in\npursuit of the footsteps of God, advancing upon his distant and dizzy\nmarch, man's vision faints and falls upon the horizon beyond which are\nindiscernible splendors.  Journeying inward upon the wings of the\nmicroscope, we shall find that there is another realm of beauty beyond\nwhich the utmost vision of man cannot pierce.  For before the\nmicroscope \"the last discernible particle dies out of sight with the\nsame perfect glory on it as on the last orb that glimmers in the skirts\nof the universe.\"  If God is throned in the clouds He is also\ntabernacled in the dewdrop and palaced in the bud and blossom.\n\nThe history of nations and individuals teaches us that the greatest\ngifts are poor and empty and the most signal talents worthless if the\nsmall things be not done, the two mites be not given.  For life is\nmarred by little infelicities and ruined by little errors.  The broken\ncolumns and marble heaps in lands where once were cities represent\ndestructions not so much through tornadoes and earthquakes as through\nsmall vices and unnoticed sins.  In modern life also, journeying\nthrough city and forest and field, the economist returns to tell us\nthat life's chief wastes are through little enemies and foes.  It is a\nminute bug that steals the golden berry from the wheat; it is a tiny\ngerm upon the leaf that blights the budding peach and pear, it is a\nrough spot upon the potato that fills all Ireland with fear of famine;\nit is a worm that bores through the planks of the ship's hull and\nalarms old seacaptains as approaching battleships could not.\n\nThe enemies of human life are not enemies that fill man's streets with\nbanners and charging cannon.  We wage war against the dust mote\nambushed in the sunbeam; we fight against weapons hurled from those\nbattleships called drops of impure water; we wrestle with those hosts\nwhose broadsides invisible rise from streets foul, or fall from\npoisoned clouds.  Such enemies that lurk in dampness and darkness, a\nthousand fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand.  That\ngreat catastrophe that overtook Holland a century ago is not explained\nby a tidal wave that pierced through the dikes; the disaster was\nthrough the crawfishes that opened tiny holes and, weakening the\nbulwarks, let in the onrushing sea.\n\nIt was but a trifling error also that robbed the generations of one of\nman's divinest pictures.  Three hundred years ago the monks made tight\nand strong the roof above the room where was Da Vinci's \"Last Supper.\"\nA thousand tiles were fastened down and all save one were perfect.  The\none hid a secret hole.  When months had passed and the driving storm\ncame from the right direction the rain found out that hidden fault and,\nrushing in, a flood of drops streamed down o'er the wall and made a\ngreat black mark across the noble painting, and ruined the central face\nforever.\n\nHuman life is ruined through the absence of humble virtues and the\npresence of little faults.  There is no man so great, no gift so\nbrilliant, but let it be whispered that there is falseness in the life\nof the hero, and immediately his greatness is dwarfed, his eloquence\nbecomes a trick, his authority is impaired.  Reading Robert Burns'\npoems, he seems wiser than all the scholars, wittier than all the\nhumorists, more courtly than princes.  His genius blazes like a torch\namong the tapers.  But watching this son of genius and of liberty weave\na net for his own feet, and fashion a snare for his own faculties, with\nwistful hearts we long, as one has said, \"to hear the exulting and\ntriumphant cry of the strong man coming to himself, I will arise.\"  But\nhe loved the barroom more than the library, and so fell on death at\nseven and thirty, and lost his right to rule as a king o'er men's\nhearts and lives.  Byron, too, and Goethe had gifts so resplendent that\nin kings' palaces they shine like diamonds amid the pebbles.  What a\nconstellation of gifts was theirs!  Culture, sanity, imagination, wit,\ncourage, vigor--all these stars were grouped in their mental\nconstellations!  Yet little vices dethroned these kings and made them\nplebeian.  It is the absence of little virtues and sweet domestic\ngraces that seem trifling as the two mites that robs the Roman poets\nand orators of their power over us.  They had urbanites indeed,\nflowers, music, art, oratory, letters, song.  The events of each day\nwere executed like a piece of music, and even their sarcophagi were\ncovered with scenes of feasting and revelry.  But they were not true;\nand that false note jars through all their pages.  Harshness in the\npoet and pride in the orator make their refinement and culture seem but\nskin deep.\n\nWe note that Pompeii was a paradise built beside a crater.  The\ntraveler tells us if we strike the rocky earth it rings hollow.  Close\nby the calm lake is a boiling spring.  In the very heart of the orange\ngroves rises a column of smoke and steam.  \"The mist of lava jars on\nthe music of summer, the scent of sulphur mingles with the scent of\nroses.\"  Not for a moment can the traveler forget that beneath all this\nopulence of color and fragrance rages a colossal furnace.  Thus the\nharshness and selfishness found in the eloquence and poetry of the\nancient writers rob us of all joy in their splendid gifts.  We yield\nhomage only to the greatness that is also goodness.  To ten-talent\npower the hero must also add tenderness to his own, kindness to the\nweak, unfailing sympathy to all.  No giant is a full giant until he is\nalso gentle, stooping to give his two mites to the weak, bearing to the\nweary his cup of cold water, ever emulating that hero, Sir Philip\nSydney, wounded sorely indeed, but pushing away the canteen because the\nsoldier, suffering great pain, had greater need.\n\nIn one of his essays Lowell notes that the great reform monuments are\nthe humble deeds of humble persons, taken up and repeated by an entire\npeople.  The final victories for liberty and religion are emblazoned\nupon monuments and celebrated in song and story, but the beginnings of\nthese achievements for mankind are often given over to obscurity and\nforgetfulness.  Our age makes much of the \"Red Cross\" movement.  Hardly\nfifty years have passed since two English girls boarded the steamer\nthat was to carry them to the Crimea.  Upon the distant battlefields,\nwith their deserted cannon, wounded horses and dying men, at first\nthese gentle girls seemed strangely out of place.  The hospitals were\nfull; neglected soldiers were lying in the thickets, whither they had\ncrawled to die.  Counseling with none, these brave girls moved across\nthe battlefields like angels of mercy.  Many years have passed.  Now\nthese nurses bring hope to every battlefield, and minister to every\nstricken Armenia, for the story of that sweet girl has filled the earth\nwith \"King's Daughters.\"  One hundred years ago also England left her\norphan babes to grow up in the country poorhouse, midst surroundings\noften vulgar, profane and brutal.  One day two sweet babes, unnamed and\nunwelcomed, lay in the garret of a county-house in the outskirts of\nLondon.  Then a poor, half-witted spinster, hearing of the young\nmother's death, found her way to the garret, brooded o'er the babes\nwith all the dignity of our Mother of Sorrows, took the babes to her\nheart and planned how, with six shillings a week, she might keep bread\nin three hungry mouths.  Four years passed by, and one day the lord of\nthe manor stayed a moment before this woman's hovel and heard her\nprayer for the two boys clinging to her skirts.  Soon the story of the\nwoman's mercy was heard in every English pulpit, and in every town men\nand women made their way to the county-houses to take away the orphan\nbabes and found instead some asylum for God's little ones.  Now noble\nmen in distant lands plan homes and shelter for little children, and\nthe work of the obscure woman is a part of the history of reform.\n\nHumble also is the origin of the anti-slavery movement that won its\nfinal victory at Appomattox.  A century and more ago a young Moravian\nmade his way to Jamaica as a Herald of Christ and his message of\ngood-will.  The horrors of slavery in that far-off time cannot be\nunderstood by our age.  Then each week some African slaver landed with\nits cargo of naked creatures.  Slaves were so cheap that it was simpler\nto kill them with rapid work and purchase new ones than to care for the\nwants of captives weakened by several summers.  What horrors under\noverseers in the field!  What outrages in slave-market and pen!  So\ngrievous were the wrongs negroes suffered at white men's hands that\nthey would not listen to this young teacher.  At last, despairing of\ntheir confidence, the brave youth had himself sold as a slave and\nwrought in the fields under the overseer's lash.  Fellowship with their\nsufferings won their confidence and love.  When the day's task was done\nthe poor creatures crowded about him to receive Christ's cup of cold\nwater.  Long years after the young hero had fallen upon the sugar\nplantation his story came to the ears of young Wilberforce and armed\nhim with courage invincible against England's traffic in flesh and\nblood.  Soon Parliament freed the West India slaves and Lincoln\nemancipated our freedmen.  But side by side with the heroes of liberty\nfamed through monument and solemn oration, let us mention the young\nMoravian hero who loved Christ's little ones, and in giving \"two mites\nand a cup of cold water,\" lost his life, indeed, but found immortal\nfame.\n\nThis modest deed that bought renown also tells us that enduring\nremembrance is possible for all.  Great deeds the majority cannot do.\nTwo-talent men march in millions, but the ten-talent men are few and\nfar between.  Many scientists--one Newton.  Thousands of poets--but the\nElizabethan eras are separated by centuries.  Great is the company of\nthe orators--but to each generation only one Webster and one Clay.  As\neach continent hath but one mountain range, so the elect minds stand\nisolated in the ages.  All greatness is mysterious, and like God's\nthrone, genius is girt about with clouds and darkness.  If great men\nare infrequent, the world's need of great men is as occasional.\nSociety advances in happiness and culture, not through striking,\ndramatic acts, but through myriads of unnumbered and unnoticed deeds.\n\nEven the heroes dying upon the battlefield ask not for Plato nor Bacon,\nbut for a cup of cold water.  To Benedict Arnold, dying in his garret,\ncame a physician, who said, \"Is there anything you wish?\" and heard\nthis answer; \"Only a friend.\"  Traitors sometimes each of us also.\nTraitors to our deepest convictions and our highest ideals, and in the\nhours when the fever of discontent burns fiercely within us, and the\nmind seems half-delirious in its trouble, we also ask for a friend\nbringing a mite of sympathy and a cup of cold water.  Let us confess\nit--we are all famishing for love and the kind word that says:  \"In\nyour Gethsemane you are not alone.\"\n\nGod secures for us our happiness, not through speech about the heavens\nand firmament, but through the comfort that comes through speech over\nlittle things.  He feeds the birds, adorns the lily, clothes the grass,\nnumbers man's troubles.  He is the Shepherd seeking the one sheep, the\nfather waiting for the lost son.  His kingdom is a little leaven\nworking in the world's meal, His truth being no larger than a grain of\nmustard-seed.  Above each little one bows some guardian angel beholding\nthe face of its heavenly Father.  And He who unites grains of sand for\nmaking planets and rays of light for glorious suns, and blades of grass\nfor the solid splendor of field and pasture and drops of water for the\nocean that blesses every continent with its dew and rain, teaches us\nalso that great principles will organize the little words, little\nprayers, little aspirations and little services into the full-orbed\nsplendor of an enduring character and an immortal fame.\n\nHappily none need journey far nor search long for opportunities of\nhumble fidelity.  Into our midst come each year thousands of boys who\nare strangers in the great city.  Passing along the streets these\nlonely lads behold each horse having some friendly hand to care for it.\nYea! each sleek dog hath some owner's name engraven on the collar for\nthe neck.  But for the youth, weeks pass by, and no face lifts a\nfriendly smile, no hand is outstretched in gentle kindness, and oft the\nthought is bitter: \"No man careth for my soul.\"  The youth who sits in\nthe seat beside you asks only that the leaflet be shared in\nbrotherliness, and you may lift upon the discouraged one a smile that\nsaith; \"Once the battle went sore with me, also, but be of good cheer,\nyou shall overcome.\"  Such friendliness is the two mites that buy\nenduring rembrance.  For if each must fight his own battles, face for\nhimself the spectres of doubt, and slay them; if each must be his own\nsurgeon and draw the iron from the soul, still sympathy is a precious\nboon, and it is given to man to give the cup of tenderness to the\nwarrior sorely wounded in life's battle.  In ancient times when men's\ncabins were built on the edge of the wilderness, not yet cleared of\nwild beasts, sometimes the little ones wandered from the path and were\nlost in the forest, until the cry of terror revealed the awful danger\nthat threatened and caused the mother to speed forth with winged feet\nand lift her body as a shield against the enemy.  Daily these scenes\nare re-enacted, not in songs and dramas, but through the work of those\nwho rescue the city's children from squalor, filth and sin.  What\nredemptions' man's little deeds do bring!\n\nFor $30,000 Peter Faneuil bought immortality and forever associated his\nname with liberty.  To-day that amount will erect the social settlement\nin the needy quarter of some city and give hundreds of young people\nopportunity and field for Bible-schools, kindergartens, nursery,\ngymnasium, mothers' classes, men's clubs, singing-schools and also\nassociate man's name with the happiness and civilization of an entire\ncommunity.  Mammon will care for the children of strength and good\nfortune, and fame will guard the sons of success; let us guard the weak\nand lowly.  In the Roman triumph, when a general came home with his\nspoils, many captives went with his chariot up to the capital.  And\nhappy 'twill be for us if in the hour when the sunset gun shall sound\nand we pass beyond the flood God's little ones mourn us with tears of\ngratitude while all the trumpets sound for us on the other side.\n\n\n[1] Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. iv., page 284.  [Transcriber's note:\nIn the original book, there was no footnote symbol in the page where\nthis footnote appeared.  I've made a best guess of its intended\nlocation.]\n\n\n\n\nINFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.\n\n\n\n\n\"And now, gentlemen, was this vast campaign fought without a general?\nIf Trafalgar could not be won without the mind of a Nelson, or Waterloo\nwithout the mind of a Wellington, was there no one mind to lead these\ninnumerable armies, on whose success depended the future of the whole\nhuman race?  Did no one marshal them in that impregnable convex front,\nfrom the Euxine to the North Sea?  No one guide them to the two great\nstrategic centres of the Black Forest and Trieste?  No one cause them,\nblind barbarians without maps or science, to follow those rules of war\nwithout which victory in a protracted struggle is impossible: and by\nthe pressure of the Huns behind, force on their flagging myriads to an\nenterprise which their simplicity fancied at first beyond the powers of\nmortal men?  Believe it who will; I cannot.\n\n\"But while I believe that not a stone or a handful of mud gravitates\ninto its place without the will of God; that it was ordained, ages\nsince, into what particular spot each grain of gold should be washed\ndown from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find it\nat a certain moment and crisis of his life--if I be superstitious\nenough (as thank God I am) to hold that Creed, shall I not believe that\nthough this great war had no general upon earth, it may have had a\ngeneral in Heaven; and that in spite of all their sins the hosts of our\nforefathers were the hosts of God?\"--_Charles Kingsley_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nINFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.\n\nThe history of a Jewish battle includes a dramatic incident.  In the\nthick of the fight an officer brought to one of his soldiers an\nimportant prisoner.  \"Keep thou this man,\" said he, \"with the utmost\nvigilance.  Upon his person hang the issues of this campaign.  His\nskill in leading the enemy, his courage and treachery have cost our\nside many lives.  If by any means thou shalt suffer him to escape thy\nlife shall be for his life.\"\n\nThen, straining more tightly the cords knotted around the prisoner's\nhands and feet, the officer turned and plunged again into the thick of\nthe fight.  From that moment the soldier's one duty was to guard the\nprisoner whose escape would work such havoc.\n\nStrangely enough, he became negligent.  Careless, he leaned his bow and\nspear against the tent.  Hungry, he busied himself with baking a few\nsmall cakes.  Weary, he cast himself upon the ground, dozing upon his\nelbow.  Suddenly a noise startled his nap.  He sprang up just in time\nto see his prisoner make one leap, then disappear into the thicket.\n\nA concealed knife had cut the thongs.  Negligence had let \"slip the\ndogs of war.\"  That night when the general returned to his tent he\nfound the prisoner had escaped.\n\nFronting his master the terror-stricken soldier had no excuse to offer\nsave this; \"While thy servant was busy here and there the man was\ngone.\"  Gone opportunity!--and lightning could not equal its swift\nflight.  Gone forever opportunity!--and the wings of seraphim could not\novertake and bring it back.  Gone honor, gone fidelity, gone good\nname!--all lost irretrievably.  For though dying be long delayed,\ncoming at last death would find the soldier's task unfulfilled.  From\n\"It might have been,\" and \"It is too late,\" God save us all!  For not\nInfinity himself can reverse the wheel of events and bring back lost\nopportunities.\n\nThe genius of opportunity lies in its strategic element.  In every\nopportunity two or more forces meet in such a way that the one force so\nlends itself to the other as momentarily to yield plasticity.  Nature\nis full of these strategic times.  Iron passes into the furnace cold\nand unyielding; coming out it quickly cools and refuses the mold; but\nmidway is a moment when fire so lends itself to iron, and iron so\nyields its force to flame as that the metal flows like water.\n\nThis brief plastic moment is the inventor's opportunity, when the metal\nwill take on any shape for use or beauty.  Similarly the fields offer a\nstrategic time to the husbandman.  In February the soil refuses the\nplow, the sun refuses heat, the sky refuses rain, the seed refuses\ngrowth.  In May comes an opportune time when all forces conspire toward\nharvests; then the sun lends warmth, the clouds lend rain, the air\nlends ardor, the soil lends juices.  Then must the sower go forth and\nsow, for nature whispers that if he neglects June he will starve in\nJanuary.\n\nThe planets also lend interpretation to this principle.  Years ago our\nnation sent astronomers to Africa to witness the transit of Venus.\nPreparations began months beforehand.  A ship was fitted up,\ninstruments packed, the ocean crossed, a site selected and the\ntelescopes mounted.  Scientists made all things ready for that\nopportune time when the sun and Venus and earth should all be in line.\nThat critical moment was very brief.  Instinctively each astronomer\nknew that his eye must be at the small end of the glass when the planet\nwent scudding by the large end.  Once the period of conjunction had\npassed no machinery would offer itself for turning the planet back upon\nher axis.  Not for astronomers only are the opportune times brief.  For\nall men alike, failure is blindness to the strategic element in events;\nsuccess is readiness for instant action when the opportune moment\narrives.  When nature has fully ripened an opportunity man must stretch\nout his hand and pluck it.  Inventions may be defined as great minds\ndetecting the strategic moment in nature; Galileo finding a lens in the\nox's eye; Watt witnessing steam lift an iron lid; Columbus observing an\nunknown wood drifting upon the shore.  To untold multitudes nature\noffered these opportune moments for discovery, but only Galileo, Watt\nand Columbus were ready to seize them.  As for the rest, this is our\nonly answer to nature: \"While thy servant was busy here and there, the\nstrategic moment was gone.\"\n\nThis majestic principle often appears in history.  There is a strategy\nin Providence.  Nations, like individuals, have their crisis hours.\nThrough events God makes all society plastic, and then raises up some\ngreat man to stamp his image and superscription upon the nation's hot\nand glowing heart.  As scholars move back along the pathway of history,\nthey discern in each great epoch these strategic conditions.  How\nopportune the moment when Jesus Christ appeared!\n\nAlexander's march had scattered every whither the seeds of learning;\nthe Greek language had turned the whole world into one great whispering\ngallery, in which the nations were assembled; all the provinces around\nthe Mediterranean were linked together by the newly completed system of\nroads; the Roman judge was in every town to set forth the rights of\ncitizens of the empire; the Roman soldier was there to protect all who\nbrought messages of peace; the long-expected hour had struck.  Then\nChristianity set forth from Bethlehem upon its errand of love.  Along\nevery highway ran the eager feet of the messengers of peace and\ngood-will.  Events were fully ripe, and soon Christianity was upon the\nthrone of the Caesars.\n\nHow strategic that epoch called the fourth century!  He who sat in\nCaesar's palace looked out upon a dying empire.  The old race was worn\nout with war and wine and wealth and luxury.  Civilization seemed about\nto perish, and society was fast sinking back into barbarism.  To the\nnorth of the Alps were the forest children, ruddy and robust, with\ntheir glorious youth full upon them.  These young giants needed the\ndying language and literature and religion, and these great\ninstitutions needed their young, fresh blood.  But between lay the\ngranite walls builded from sea to sea.  Now mark what Charles Kingsley\ncalled \"the strategy of Providence.\"  Suddenly a blind impulse fell\nupon the forest children.  Two columns started southward.  The one\nrested upon the North Sea and marched southeast; the other rested upon\nthe Ural Mountains and marched southwest; the two met and converged\nupon Trieste.  Without maps or military tactics or plans, wholly\nignorant that Napoleon's favorite method of attack was being carried\nout by them, these two columns converged toward the Alpine pass, and\nfor ten years pounded and pounded against the Roman walls until these\nyielded and fell.  Then the forest children poured down into the\nvineyards and villages and cities of the dying empire.  Multitudes\nremained to intermarry and preserve the dying race.  Other multitudes\nreturned to their old home to sow the northern forests with those great\nideas that were to carry civilization through the long night of the\ndark ages.\n\nAnother strategic hour came in the thirteenth century.  Then all Europe\nwas stirred with new and awakening life.  It was dawn after darkness.\nConstantinople had fallen and scholars laden with manuscripts went\nforth to sow Europe with the new learning.  The times were fully ripe\nfor another great forward movement for society.  Only one thing was\nlacking--great men for leaders.  In that strategic crisis six leaders\nappeared.  God gave each wing of the army of civilization a genius for\nits general.  Copernicus overthrew superstition and brought in science;\nLuther gave religion, Gutenberg the printing-press, Calvin\nindividualism, Michael Angelo art and the beautiful, Erasmus critical\nscholarship; and because the old world was filled with debris, and the\nnew ideas needed room, Columbus gave the new world, offering what\nEmerson calls \"the last opportunity of Providence for the human race.\"\nSurely this was a strategic moment in history, giving each citizen\nunique opportunity.\n\nThe strategic element enters into the individual career.  Destiny is\ndetermined by our use of our critical hours.  It is as if life's great\nissues were staked upon a single throw.  Not but that the forces we\nneglect are permanent.  It is that the strategic condition has passed\nout of them.  The sluggard driving his plow into the field in July has\nsun, soil and seed, but the torrid summer refuses to perform the gentle\nprocesses of April.  The man who in youth's strategic days denied to\nmemory the great facts of nature and history, in maturer years still\nhas his memory, but the plasticity has gone.  It now refuses to hold\nthe facts he gives it.  The Latin poet interprets our principle by the\nstory of the maiden in the boat, holding her hand in the water while\nshe toyed with a string of pearls until the string snapped and the\ntreasure sank into the abyss.  The miner interprets opportunity lost\nthrough him who, for a rifle and a blanket, traded a rich copper mine\nthat has since paid its owner millions.  The historian interprets it by\nNapoleon's bitter signal to his General, tardy at Waterloo, \"Too late!\nthe critical hour has passed.\"  Froude interprets it through the old\nhero bitterly condemning himself over his wife's grave, knowing that\nhis wild love and fierce outburst of affection were impotent now to\nwarm the heart that froze to death in a home.\n\nRuskin interprets it through a nation that allowed her noblest to\ndescend into the grave, garlanding the tombstone when they refused to\ncrown the brow; paying honors to ashes that were denied to spirit;\nwreathing immortelles only when they had no use save for laying on a\ngrave where was one dead of a broken heart through a nation's\ningratitude.  Above all, Jesus Christ interprets it at midnight in\nGethsemane, when he saw the torches fluttering in the darkness, heard\nthe clanking of sabers and soldiers' armor, and in sad, reproachful\nirony wakened his disciples with these words: \"Sleep on, now; sleep\nforever if you will!  Henceforth no stress of your vigilance can help\nme; no negligence of your duty can harm me beyond the harm you have\nalready wrought.  Take your ease now.  Sleep; the opportunity has\ngone.\"  Then was the disciples' joy turned into mourning, and for\ngarments of praise did they put on ashes and sackcloth.  An irreparable\nloss was theirs.  Yet for all of us each neglected duty means a\ntragedy.  It is always now or never.  The treasure wrapped up in each\nstrategic opportunity is of infinite value.  To-morrow can hold no joy\nwhen yesterday holds this memory: \"While I was busy here and there my\nopportunity was gone.\"\n\nHow strategic the period of youth!  Then the chiefest forces of life\nflow together in sensitive conjunction.  Then four great gifts like\nfour great rivers unite in one majestic current to bear up the young\nman's enterprises, and sweep him on to fame and fortune.  Opportune are\nall the days when health spills over at the eye and ear and laughs\nthrough the lips.  Men worn out are like overshot wheels--the life\ntrickles and the buckets are filled slowly by long rests and frequent\nvacations.  Young men are like undershot wheels--always, by day and\nnight, the water overflows the banks.\n\nEach morning the young soul wakens to the supreme luxury of living.\nThe world is a great beaker brimmed with wine of the gods.  The truth\nand beauty of field and forest and river give a pleasure that is\nexquisite to a keenly sensitive and perfectly healthy youth.  Like an\nAeolian harp, the slightest breath avails for wakening melody midst its\nstrings.  But years multiply cares.  Age increases heaviness.  Time\ndestroys its own children.  The poet says: \"In youth we carry the world\nlike Atlas; in maturity we stoop and bend beneath it; in age it crushes\nus to the ground.\"  For the overtaxed and invalided, the dew-drops do\nnot sparkle as diamonds; the wet grass suggests red flannels and cough\nsirups.  For the nervous the bird's song is a meaningless chatter.  For\nthe sickly the clouds are big black water-bottles, though time was when\nthey were chariots for God's angels, curtains for hiding ministering\nspirits trooping homeward at night, leaving all the air sweetly\nperfumed.  It is the body that grants the soul permission to be happy.\n\nTo the opportunity offered by health may be added the years lying in\nfront of the young heart like a great estate, as yet unincumbered.\nPowerful enthusiasms, too, are the inheritance of youth.  Noble\nfeelings, fine aspirations then pass through the mind, as in May the\nperfumed winds from the South pass over the fields.  These motives beat\nupon the mind as steam upon the iron piston.  Workmen excavating at\nPompeii threw up soil that had been covered for 1,800 years.  Exposed\nto the sun, young trees sprang up.  Without the force of light and heat\nand dew and rain these seeds were dormant or dead.  Thus each mind is a\ndead mind until the full warmth of great impulses quickens the dormant\nenergies.  The hopes, the ambitions, the aspirations of youth all\nconspire to make this a most strategic period.  Then all the forces of\nlife unite in a great gulf stream for bearing the soul up and sweeping\nit forward to new climes and richer shores.\n\nStrategic the hour of prosperity.  Men discount the speech of poverty,\nbut the rich man's words weigh a ton each.  It has been said that the\npoor man's dollar is just as good as the rich man's only when both are\nanonymous, for the dollar with a million behind it will go further than\nthe dollar with a thousand behind it.  This is a proverb: \"A bid from\nRothschild electrifies the market.\"  Each new achievement and success\nbuilds higher the tower of observation that lifts the great man into\nthe presence of the nation.  All eyes are upon the prospered\nindividual, all ears are alert to his whisper.  Prosperity's voice is\nthe voice of an oracle, all her words are winged.  Every successful\nventure in the world of commerce or statecraft quadruples influence\nover the nation's youth.  This principle interprets the curiosity of\nthe boy in store or bank, asking a thousand questions about his\nsuccessful employer.  It explains why the eager aspirant for political\ninfluence searches all the journals for some word from Gladstone or\nCastelar or Bismarck.  A sentence from these great champions hath\nsufficed for reversing the policy of a government.  The memory of many\ntriumphs lies back of the great leader's words and lends them weight.\n\nSuccess is an orator; it charms multitudes.  Full oft one who is a\nveritable genius for making homely truths beautiful has accomplished\nless for his age than some prosperous man whose few stumbling words\nhave sufficed for shaping national policies and guiding his generation.\nAll the young are drawn into the wake of the successful.  Wealth\nfulfills the story of Orpheus, whose sweet voice made the very stones\nand trees follow after him.  Truly wealth is an evangelist, the almoner\nof bounty toward college and library and art gallery and liberty and\nreligion.  But its chief use is in this: It enables its possessor to\nrepeat his industry, integrity and thrift in the children of a nation.\nAll youthful hearts do well to covet wealth, wisdom and leverage power!\nBut man should remember that the chief value of prosperity is in its\ncapitalization of personality, and the rendering of others sensitive to\nexample and precept.  Should man forget this, earth will hear no sadder\ncry than his when, closing the life career, he exclaims: \"While thy\nservant was busy here and there the opportune moment was gone.\"\n\nFriendship yields these plastic moments and unique opportunities.  For\nthe most part the soul dwells in a castle locked and barred against\noutsiders.  No man can keep open-house for every passer-by.  But\nfriendship is an open sesame, drawing every bar and bolt.  How the\nheart leaps when the friend crosses the threshold!  His shadow always\nfalls behind him.  His coming is summer in the soul; his presence is\npeace.  Friendship glorifies everything it touches.  When on a stormy\nnight our friend comes in he seems to warm the very fire upon the\nhearth; he sweetens the sweet singer's voice; lends new meaning to the\nwise man's words; gives reminiscence an added charm; makes old stories\nnew; makes the laughter and smiles come twice as often and stay twice\nas long.  Friendship lies upon the heart like a warm fire upon the\nhearth.  By reason of friendship history exhibits every great man as\nleaving his school of thought and a group of disciples behind him.  His\nspirit lingers with men long after his form has disappeared from the\nstreets, as the sun lingers in the clouds after the day is done, as the\nmelody lingers in the ear long after the song is sung.  Longfellow,\nafter a day and a night with Emerson, literally emitted poems and\nplays.  He was stimulated by friendship as bees by rose liquor and the\nsweet pea wine.  Friendship always makes the heart plastic.  Then the\nmental furrows are all open and mellow; sympathy falls like dew and\nrain; then the heart saith to its friend: \"Here am I, all plastic to\nyour touch; work upon me your will; for good or ill--I am thine.\"\nTherefore, friendship imposes frightful responsibilities; in asking and\nreceiving it we assume charge of another's destiny.  This is the very\ngenius of the teacher's influence over his pupil, the parent's over his\nchild, the general's over his soldier, the patriot's over his people.\nBetter a thousand times never open the furrow than to leave it\nunfertilized.\n\nHow strategic life's better hours!  One of God's precious gifts is the\nluminous hour that denies the lower animal mood.  Mind is not always at\nits best.  Full oft our thought is sodden and dull.  Then duty seems a\nmaze without a clew and life's skeins all a tangle.  The mind is\nuneasy, confused and troubled.  Then men live to the eye and the ear\nand physical comforts; they live for houses and beautiful things in\nthem; for shelves and rich goods upon them; for factories and large\nprofits by them.  Responsibility to God seems like the faint shadow of\na vaguely remembered dream.  The voice of conscience is in the ear like\nthe far-off murmuring of the sea.  The soul is sordid and the finer\nsenses indurated.  The angel of the better nature is bondslave to the\nworst.  Then enters some element that nurtures the nobler impulse.\nSome misfortune, earthquake-like, cleaves through the hard crust.  Or\nsome gentle event, like the coming of an old friend or the returning to\nthe old homestead, stirs old memories and kindles new thoughts.\n\nSlowly the heart passes out of the penumbra.  The mind, too long\nobscured like a sun eclipsed by clouds, searches out some rift.\nSuddenly reason comes into the clear.  God rises like an untroubled sun\nupon the soul's horizon.  How crystalline life looks!  The mind\nliterally exhales fancies and pictures, and each stick and stone is as\nfull of suggestions and ideas as the forest is full of birds.  Old\nproblems become clear as noonday.  Difficult questions lie clearly\nrevealed before the mind like landscapes from which the fogs are\nlifted.  Once the mind crawled tortoise-like through its work.  Now it\nsoars like an eagle.  The soul seems a sweet-spiced shrub, and every\nleaf is perfumed.  If in dull, obscure hours the soul was like a wooden\nbeehive drifted o'er with snow, in its vision-hours the soul is like a\nglass hive out of which the bees go singing into sweet clover-fields.\nIn these hours how unworthy the material life!  How insubstantial the\nthings of iron, wood and stone!  Bodily things seem evanescent, as\nfrost pictures on the window on a winter's morn.  Then honor,\nintegrity, kindness, generosity alone seem permanent and worth one's\nwhile.  How easy then to do right.  All habits that fettered the\nfaculties like iron cuffs are now felt to be but ice fetters, quickly\nmelting.  Then the nobler self, using no whip of cords, looks upon\nmeanness and selfishness, and by a look drives them from the heart and\nlife.\n\nThen years are fulfilled in a single hour.  Then from its judgment-seat\nthe soul reviews its past career, searches out secret sins and scorns\nthem.  How unworthy are vanity and pride and selfishness.  In what\ngarments of beauty and attraction are truth and purity clothed.  The\nsoul looks longingly unto the heavenly heights, as desert pilgrims long\nfor oases and springs of water.  Unspeakably precious are these\nstrategic hours of opportunity.  God sends them; divineness is in them;\nthey cleanse and fertilize the soul; they are like the overflowing\nNile.  Men should watch for them and lay out the life-course by them,\nas captains ignore the clouds and headlands and steer by the stars for\na long voyage and a distant harbor.\n\n\n\n\nINFLUENCE, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION IN LIFE AND CHARACTER.\n\n\n\n\n\"So each man gets out of the world of men the rebound, the increase and\ndevelopment of what he brings there.  Three men stand in the same field\nand look around them, and then they all cry out together.  One of them\nexclaims, 'How rich!' another cries, 'How strange!' another cries, 'How\nbeautiful!'  And then the three divide the field between them, and they\nbuild their houses there, and in a year you come back and see what\nanswer the same earth has made to each of her three questioners.  They\nhave all talked with the ground on which they lived, and heard its\nanswers.  They have all held out their several hands, and the same\nground has put its own gift into each of them.  What have they got to\nshow you?  One cries, 'Come here and see my barn,' another cries, 'Come\nhere and see my museum;' the other says, 'Let me read you my poem.'\nThat is a picture of the way in which a generation, or the race, takes\nthe great earth and makes it different things to all its children.\nWith what measure we mete to it, it measures to us again.  This is the\nrebound of the hard earth--sensitive and soft, although we call it\nhard, and feeling with an instant keen discrimination the different\ntouch of each different human nature which is laid upon it.  Reaction\nis equal to action.\"--_Phillips Brooks_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nINFLUENCE, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION IN LIFE AND CHARACTER.\n\nTo the mystery of life and death must be added the mystery of growth.\nWhen Demosthenes exclaimed: \"Yesterday I was not here; I shall not be\nhere to-morrow; to-day I am here,\" he suggested a hard problem.  Having\nsolved the enigma, what went before life, and answered that mystery,\nwhat follows after death, there still remains this question: \"How can a\nbabe in twenty years take on the proportions of the great orator and\nreformer?\"  Rocks do not grow, nor diamonds, nor dirt, but a shrunken\nbulb does become a lily, and a tiny seed a mustard tree.  In vain does\nthe scientist struggle with this problem--how an acorn can expand into\nan oak; how in a single summer a grain of corn can ripen a thousand\ngrains, like that from which the cornstalk sprang.\n\nMen are indeed familiar with the bursting of buds, the cracking of eggs\nand the growth of children; yet familiarity robs these facts of no whit\nof their mystery.  No jeweler ever goes into the field with a basket of\nwatches to plant them in rows, expecting when autumn hath come to pick\ntwo or three wagon-loads of stem-winders from iron branches; yet, were\nthis possible, it would be no more strange than that in the autumn the\nhusbandman should stand under the branches to fill his basket with\npeaches or bunches of figs.  For wise men it is no more difficult to\nthink of a growing engine than of a growing oak.  What if to-morrow an\nengineer should plant a cannon ball.  Having watered it well and kept\nthe ground loose through hoe or spade, suppose that when a few weeks\nhave passed the outline of a smokestack should push through the soil,\nto be followed a little later by a rudimentary steam whistle, the\noutlines of a boiler, and, rising through the sod, rude drive-wheels,\npiston-rods and cylinders, until after six months the great engine\nshould stand forth in full completion.  This phenomenon would be no\nmore wonderful than that which actually goes on before man's blind\neyes, when a tiny seed enlarges into the big tree of California and\nconstructs a vegetable engine that lifts thousands of hogsheads of\nwater up to the topmost boughs without any rattle of chains or the din\nof machinery.\n\nWith difficulty man constructs that musical instrument called a\nmouthharp, but nature, in six weeks, out of a little blue or brown egg\nconstructs a feathered music-box that automatically conveys itself from\ntree to tree.  But the mystery that has gone on in that tiny blue egg\nlying in the nest is just as great as if some housewife had planted an\nold spinning-wheel in the full expectation of reaping a Jacquard loom,\nor had buried a jew's-harp in the garden expecting in the fall to pick\na grand piano.  To the mystery that is involved in enlargement by\ngrowth must be added the mystery of intelligence.  It is not an easy\nthing for an expert housewife, using the same formula, always to\nachieve the same happy results in the white loaf.  He who plants a\nstrawberry seed will find that the tiny seed will construct a plant,\nlay in the red tints according to rule and mix the flavor of the berry\nto a nicety that is the despair of the chef.  In the tropic forests\nthere is a flower with a deep cup and the pollen at the bottom.  This\npollen lies upon a little platter, and underneath the platter is that\nform of trap known as a figure four, much loved by boys.  When the bee,\ncreeping down into the flower, touches that platter, it springs the\ntrap that throws the fertilizing pollen upon the legs of the bee, to be\nconveyed to the next flower.  Wise men can, indeed, imitate this\ndevice, but a single seed will in a few months construct many scores of\nthese mechanical devices.  To-morrow morning the embryologist in his\nlaboratory will place an egg under a glass cylinder in an atmosphere of\n98 degrees.  Four hours pass and suddenly the scientist perceives an\natom in the heart of that egg give a quick lashing movement.  Another\nmoment witnesses two quick throbs.  Growth has begun and in four\nmonths' time the young eagle with firm strokes will lift itself into\nthe soft air.  From the chamber of life and the chamber of death God\nhath never drawn the curtains.  The chamber of growth is another most\nholy place in which God alone doth stand.\n\nDeeply impressed by the fact of growth, scientists have also marveled\nat the principle that controls the harvest.  Rocks enlarge by\naccretion, but from what a rock is at the beginning, the geologists\ncannot tell what will be the shape of that rock when all deposits are\nfinally made.  As to growth in seed and shrub, like produces like.  He\nwho sows wheat reaps wheat, not tares.  He who plants a grape receives\na purple cluster, not a bunch of thorns or thistles.  He who sows honor\nshall reap confidence.  He who sows frankness shall reap openness.  No\nPeabody sowing industry and thrift reaps the harvest of indolence and\nidleness.  Theodore Parker, loving knowledge and for it denying himself\nsleep and exercise, reaped wisdom, and also wan and hollow cheeks,\nwhile the iron frame and ruddy cheek are for the child of the woods who\nloves exercise in the open air.  He who aspires to leadership and would\nhave the multitude cheer his name, he who longs for the day when his\nappearance upon the street shall mean an ovation from the people, must\nmake himself the people's slave, defy all demagogues, brave the fury of\nparty strife, oft be execrated by politicians and sometimes be hated by\nthe multitude.  Having sown self-sacrifice and love, he shall reap fame\nand adulation.  For nature's law is universal and inexorable--like\nproduces like.  The sheaf is simply the seed enlarged and multiplied.\nThe sowing contains the germ of all the harvests to be reaped.\n\nThe new biography of Benedict Arnold tells us of the despair of the\ntraitor's final days, the remorse that gnawed his heart, the agony that\nfilled his life.  Yet no arbitrary degree was imposed upon Arnold.  He\nplotted the surrender of the interests committed to him as a general,\nplanned the stratagem that ended in the capture and execution of Andre,\nand received $30,000 in gold for his treachery.  Having gone over to\nthe enemy, he placed himself at the head of a band of English troops\nand went forth to destroy the towns and villages of his boyhood and\npillaged the homes of his old friends.  He sowed avarice, and of\navarice he reaped $30,000.  He sowed distrust in America; he reaped\ndistrust from the Englishmen who had bought his honor.  He sowed\ntreason; he reaped infamy.  He sowed contempt for the colonists, and,\ndying, he reaped the contempt from his old friends, who counted his\nbody carrion.  For the harvests of the soul represent not arbitrary\ndegrees, but the workings of natural law.  If Ceres, the goddess of\nharvests, makes the sheaf to reap the seed, conscience, recalling man's\ncareer, ordains that like produces like.  What a man soweth that shall\nhe also reap is the law of nature and of God.\n\nThe heroes of the Old Testament are common people capitalized.  What is\nunique in the experience of these sons of greatness holds true of all\nof lesser rank.  The career of one of these giants is a pictorial\nexhibition of this principle of the spiritual harvest.  Young Jacob was\nshrewd, crafty and full of foresight.  If Esau, his brother, was a\n\"hail fellow well met,\" the child of his impulses, Jacob was a diplomat\nand very wily.  One day, when the father, Isaac, was blind and old,\nEsau grew restless, and at last went away with his companions, for he\ndearly loved to hunt.  In that hour ambition tempted Jacob and avarice\nled him away.  Advantaging himself of his brother's absence, Jacob used\nthe skin of a kid to make his hands hairy, like the hands of Esau, and,\nsimulating the brother's voice, he extorted from his dying father those\ntokens that, according to the Eastern custom, made him the successor to\nhis father's title, wealth and power.  Full twoscore years passed\nswiftly by and the deceit seems to have brought is large money returns\nto crafty Jacob.\n\nBut silently nature was working out the harvest of retribution, through\nthat law of heredity that makes sons repeat the qualities of their\nfather.  When Jacob was now advanced in years his ten sons began, to\ndevelop craftiness, and soon they plowed great furrows of care in the\nfather's face.  In those days of care his young son Joseph stole into\nJacob's heart like a sweet sunbeam, and, with his open, loving ways,\nfilled his father's heart with gladness.  When the elder brothers knew\nJacob had given Joseph a coat of many colors they remembered the craft\nof their father in his early career.  One evening, when the herds and\nflocks were scattered widely over the hills, Simeon sent out messengers\nand called his brothers together for a conference.  In that hour he\nsaid: \"Wist ye not how our father, being a younger son, supplanted his\nelder brother, Esau?  And behold his craft will now make his younger\nchild, Joseph, to supplant his elder brothers!  Do ye not remember how\nour father, Jacob, took a kid and made his hands like unto the hands of\nEsau?  Let us now take a kid and make its blood represent the blood and\ndeath of Joseph.  What Jacob did for his father, Isaac, let his sons do\nto their father, Jacob.\"  Thus, with subtle irony, nature made the\nman's sins to come back to him.  A boy, Jacob deceived his father, now,\ngrown gray and old, his boys brought their father an armful of deceits.\nIn that hour when Reuben and Simeon held up the coat of many colors,\nall red with blood, great nature might have whispered to Jacob: \"It is\nthe blood of the kid that you slew for deceiving your father returning\nto enable your sons to deceive you.\"  For, having sowed deceit, deceit\nalso and stratagem Jacob reaped.  Himself a son, he thrust a dart into\nhis father's heart.  Become a father, his ten sons became archers,\nskilled with darts that filled their father's heart with agony.  For\nnature loves justice; her rule is law, sometimes her rod is iron.\n\nThe principle that every deed is a seed that contains the germ of its\nown reward or punishment has received full interpretation by the poets\nand dramatists.  In his \"Paradise Lost,\" Milton has made a detailed\nstudy of the principles of the spiritual harvests.  The poet represents\nSatan as an angel, fallen indeed, and sadly battered by his fall, yet\nstill an archangel glorious for strength and beauty.  Having visited\nParadise and accomplished the destruction of Eve's innocence and Adam's\nhappiness, Satan returns home, passing over a bridge of more prodigious\nlength than now arches the gulf between earth and hell.  When the\nprince arrived at Pandemonium, the capital of Lucifer's realm, he found\nthat the leaders of the fallen host had arranged a reception in the\ngreat banquet-hall of the palace.  In the presence of the applauding\nthrong, the prince told the story of how he had succeeded in opening\nthe earth as a place to which these exiled angels might retreat from\nthe prison in which they had been so long confined, and pointed to the\ngreat bridge spanning the abyss 'twixt earth and hell.  When the loud\ncheerings and rejoicings over this fact had ceased, Satan told by what\nstratagem he had succeeded in inducing man to break friendship with\nGod.  It was not by disguising himself as an angel of light.  But,\naffirmed Satan, man cared so little for the laws of God that, although\ndisguised as a serpent, he induced man to sin.\n\n\n  \"Then awhile Satan stood, expecting their universal\n          shout and high applause\n    To fill his ear, when contrary he hears\n  On all sides from innumerable tongues\n    A dismal universal hiss, the sound\n  Of public scorn.  He wondered, but not long\n    Had leisure.  Wondering at himself no more,\n  His visage drawn, he felt; too sharp and spare\n    His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining\n  Each the other, till supplanted down he fell,\n    _A monstrous serpent_ on his belly prone,\n  _Reluctant, but in vain_.  A greater power\n    Now ruled him, _punished in the shape he sinned_,\n  According to his doom.\"\n\n\nAlso when Satan attempted to speak, Milton says, only a hiss went forth\n\"from forked tongue to forked tongue.\"  When many days had passed by\nand their hunger was very sore because these fallen angels had seduced\nman by an apple, it came about that when, fierce with hunger, they\nseized the fruit ripe upon the branches, the apples were found to be\nfilled with soot and ashes.  By these striking suggestions Milton gives\nus his idea how angels and men reap what they sow.  Should the literary\ncritic seek an appropriate heading for the tenth book of \"Paradise\nLost,\" he could hardly find one more appropriate than this: \"What Man\nSoweth, That Shall He Also Reap.\"\n\nThis law of the spiritual harvest that visits retribution upon\nunrighteousness or visits reward upon integrity seems to have cast a\nspell of fascination upon all great writers.  Even those who have\nwritten upon liberty, law, patriotism, or love have not been content to\nend their task until they have, through song or story, illustrated this\nlaw of the soul's seedtime and harvest.  The ancient poet who wrote at\na time near to the dawn of history makes a strong man go forth to seize\nhis neighbor's flocks and herds, but returning the prince found that in\nhis absence enemies had looted his palace and carried off not only his\ntreasure, but his wife and children.  In ending the tale the writer\nadds the reflection that \"God is just!\"\n\nLater on the Grecian threw this moral principle into a tale for\nchildren, a story that still lives under the title \"Baucis and\nPhilemon.\"  One day two travelers entered a village, but as they drew\nnear, each housewife slammed her door, while rude boys threw clods at\nthe wayfarers and let loose their dogs, who snapped and snarled after\nthe travelers.  Passing quite beyond the village the pilgrims came to a\nhumble cottage.  As they approached his door Philemon came forth to\noffer refuge, and apologized for the rudeness of his neighbors.  The\nold man prepared for them seats in the grateful shade and hurried to\nbring them fresh water from the cool spring.  Baucis also hastened to\nbring the loaf, with her one small honeycomb and her pitcher of milk.\nWhen the glasses were filled twice and thrice and still the rich milk\nfailed not, the old housewife marveled, until she found that in the\nbottom of the pitcher there was a fountain from which the rich milk\ngushed so long as it was needed.  Nor did the honeycomb fail, nor did\nthe sharp knife make the wheaten loaf to be less.  Having told us that\nthe morning brought disaster to the inhospitable villagers, but brought\nassurance from these angels who had been entertained unawares that\nBaucis and Philemon should never more want for earthly goods, the\nwriter of the olden times sets forth for us the principle that good man\nand bad alike reap what they sow, since each deed contains a harvest\nlike unto itself.  Indeed, literature and life teem with exhibitions of\nthis principle.  Haman, the rich ruler, builds a gallows for poor\nMordecai, whom he hates, and later on Haman himself is hanged upon his\nown scaffold.  David sets Uriah in the front of the battle and robs him\nof his wife, and when a few years have passed, in turn David is robbed\nof his wife, his palace also, and his city.\n\nWalter Scott believes in moral retribution.  He tells us of a youth who\ndeftly split an arrow at the point where it fitted the bow-string, that\nwhen his brother, whom he hated, should bend his bow the arrow might\nsplit and, rebounding, pass through his eye.  Now it happened that the\nbrother returned from the hunt without using his weapon.  That night,\nalarmed at a commotion without, the youth seized his bow, and, chancing\nto strike upon that very arrow, was himself slain by the stratagem that\nhe had wickedly planned for his brother.  George Eliot, too, has\ndedicated her greatest volume to the study of this principle.  The\norphan child, Tito, is received into the arms of an adopted father, who\nlavishes upon him all his wealth.  But when the youth was grown to full\nstrength and beauty, one night Tito left his adopted father in slavery\nand fled with his gold and gems into a foreign land.  Years passed by\nand, with his stolen wealth, Tito bought wife, palace, position, fame.\nHe had sown falsehood and cruelty, and nothing seemed so unlikely as\nthat he would reap a similar harvest.  But one day the people\ndiscovered his falsehood and attacked Tito.  A mob pursued him through\nthe streets, and, knowing his strength as a swimmer, the youth cast\nhimself into the River Arno.  When Tito had swum far down the river to\nthe other side, and, in his exhaustion, would go ashore, he looked up,\nand, lo! he discerned the gray-haired father whom he had injured\ntrotting along the shore side by side with the swimmer.  In the old\nman's eyes blazed bitter hatred, in his hand flashed a sharp knife.\nWhat the youth had sown years before now at last he was to reap.  When\nincreasing weakness compelled him to approach the shore he looked\nbeseechingly to his father for mercy, but found only justice.  With a\nwild and bitter cry Tito reaped his harvest.  Soon the mud of that\nriver filled the eyes and ears of him who years before had received\ndefilement into his heart.  What seed he had sown, that Nature gave him\nas a harvest--good measure, heaped up, and shaken together.\n\nHistory permits no man to escape the reflection that if, for the time\nbeing, individuals have escaped this moral law, nations have felt its\nfull force.  Nature does, indeed, walk through the fields with\nfootsteps so gentle as to disturb no drop of dew hanging upon the blade\nof grass.  Nature also hath her sterner aspect, and for the sons of\niniquity her footsteps are earthquakes, her strokes are strokes of war\nand of pestilence.  When Sophocles worked out the law of moral\nretribution for King Oedipus and Antigone, his daughter, the poet might\nwell have gone on to note that if the Grecian army had sacked the\nTrojan cities the time would come when the Roman fleet would sack her\ncities and make her sons to toil as captives.  Later on, if the Roman\nconquerors swept the East for corn and wheat, looted stores and shops,\npillaged palaces for treasure for triumphal processions, the time came\nwhen Nature and God decreed that the vast wealth piled up in the Roman\ncapital should excite the cupidity of the Goths, until at last the\nstreets of that great city were swept with flame and store-houses were\npillaged by marauders.  In reviewing the history of Venice Ruskin was\nso impressed with this principle of the moral harvest that he affirms\nthat the history of palace and cathedral, of fleets and navies, is\nsimply the story, written by a pen dipped in fire and blood, of how the\nchildren reaped what the fathers had sown.\n\nFor many months past the statesmen of England have been sending forth\ndiscussions reviewing the career of their country.  In the light of the\nEastern problem one of these authors reflects that whenever England has\nsown injustice to a weaker nation she has reaped injustice and\nretribution for herself.  He notes that in the last century the\ngovernors of England--for example, Lord Hastings--went through the land\nrobbing rajahs, despoiling the people by false weights and measures,\nuntil they had turned the whole country into one vast desert.  The hour\ncame when before the House of Commons Burke impeached Hastings for high\ncrimes and misdemeanors, as the enemy of India and England and all men.\nBut England was content to impose a trifling fine upon her wicked\nofficial.  How could she give up the treasure she had filched for\nherself?  Years passed and an injured people brooded upon its wrongs,\nand the time came when what England had sown in tears she reaped in\nblood.  One day the Indian soldiers mutinied.  The next day the wells\nwere filled with the bodies of English officers, their wives and\nchildren; then merchants and missionaries and travelers were\nslaughtered.  For weeks the strife went on.  If once the English\nsoldier had pillaged the Indian villages, now, in turn, the English\nquarters were pillaged.  \"Blind of eye and hard of heart,\" said the\nsage statesman.  \"Retribution hath been visited upon us,\" said the\ngreat leader.  \"Our jealousy and greed hath ended with that sword being\nsharpened against ourselves.\"  The note of conviction is in the voice\nof this statesman, but what saith be save this: \"What a man soweth,\nthat also shall he reap!\"\n\nAll young hearts may well remember that it is safe to do right, but\ndangerous to sow wrong!  No matter how smooth, how soft and sweet, seem\nthe paths of sin, know that beneath every flower there lurks a spider,\nbeneath every silken couch of indulgence there broods a nest of\nserpents, and the scene that begins with flowers shall end midst thorns\nand thickets.  For the moment, indeed, the judge may seem unobservant\nand the watchman may seem asleep; but he who yields to any deflection\nfrom honor shall find at last that God never slumbers, that his laws\nnever sleep.  Go east or go west.  Nature is upon the track of the\nwrong-doer.  Could the sage of old sit down to converse with each youth\nwho to-day walks on the street, perchance he would find many who,\nthrough excess, are draining away the rich forces of nerve and brain\nand blood.\n\nDaily they deny reason its book, taste its music, love its noble\ncompanionship.  At last, when the harp of the physical senses begins to\ngive way, and they fall back upon the mental faculties for pleasure,\nthen these faculties that have been starved shall, in turn, make men\nsuffer.  In that hour reason or memory shall say: \"Because I called and\nye refused; because I stretched out my hand and no man regarded,\ntherefore I will laugh at your calamity.  I will mock at your\ndesolation when your fear cometh as destruction and your desolation as\nwhirlwind.\"  In Daniel Webster's words of disappointed ambition, \"I\nstill live,\" we see that a statesman sows what he reaps.  In Goethe's\nfearful cry for \"more light\" we see that the poet who sows darkness\nshall reap darkness.  In Lord Byron's piteous \"I must sleep now\" we see\nthat he who sows morbidness and passion reaps feverishness and shame.\nThe law is inexorable.  He who sows foul thoughts shall reap the foul\ncountenance of a fiend.  He who sows pure thoughts shall reap the\nsweetness and nobility of the face of Fra Angelico.  He who sows\nreflection shall reap wisdom.  He who sows sympathy shall reap love.\nThe good Samaritan who sows tenderness to the man wounded by the\nwayside shall reap tenderness when angels stoop to bind up his broken\nheart.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LOVE THAT PERFECTS LIFE.\n\n\n\n\n\"Love is the fulfilling of the law.\"--_Romans, xiii, 10_.\n\n\n\"Men may die without any opinions, and yet be carried into Abraham's\nbosom, but if we be without love, what will knowledge avail?  I will\nnot quarrel with you about opinions.  Only see that your heart be right\nwith God.  I am sick of opinions.  Give me good and substantial\nreligion, a humble, gentle love of God and man.\"--_John Wesley_.\n\n\n\"Therefore, come what may, hold fast to love.  Though men should rend\nyour heart, let them not embitter or harden it.  We win by tenderness,\nwe conquer by forgiveness.  O, strive to enter into something of that\nlarge celestial charity which is meek, enduring, unretaliating, and\nwhich even the overbearing world cannot withstand forever!  Learn the\nnew commandment of the Son of God.  Not to love merely, but to love _as\nHe loved_.  Go forth in this Spirit to your life duties, go forth,\nchildren of the Cross, to carry everything before you, and win\nvictories for God by the conquering power of a love like\nhis.\"--_Frederick W. Robertson_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE LOVE THAT PERFECTS LIFE.\n\nThe purpose of Christ's mission to earth was the development of ideal\nmanhood.  The instruments he fashioned and the agents he ordained all\nwrought unceasingly toward a manhood that was ample in faculty, fertile\nin resource and ripe in those qualities that make for maturity of\ncharacter.  He sought to teach men how to carry their faculties through\nall the strife, collisions and rivalries of life, without damaging men\nor being damaged by them.\n\nAlways to the children of good fortune right living has seemed easy,\nfor these live midst sheltered conditions and exhibit goodness as\nnaturally as the sheltered southern nooks have grass and flowers when\nall the northern hillsides are brown with death or white with snow.\nBut Christ came teaching the children of weakness and misfortune how to\nbear up midst adversity, how to sing songs at midnight and how, through\ndefeat, to march to final victory.  So beautiful was the manhood he\nunveiled before men that, beholding it, men low and men high, the\npublican and prodigal, the centurion and ruler also, quivered with\nhope, as the harp quivers under the touch of the harper.\n\nFor his ideal includes every quality that kindles admiration and\ndelight; all gentleness, all goodness, all simplicity, the refinement\nof the scholar, the insight of the seer, the courage that makes the\nyouth a hero.  In luminous hours men behold visions of ideal perfection\nhanging like stars in a midnight sky.  Unfortunately for many, these\nvisions burst like bubbles and soon pass away.  Artists and sculptors\nlook forward to an hour when, by a touch here and a touch there, the\nstatue shall be perfected and the portrait completed; so Christ pointed\nforward to an hour when, having been wrought upon by darkness and by\nlight, by defeat and by victory, by sorrow and by joy, at last wisdom\nshall be made perfect, judgment know no error, love have full\ndisclosure and the soul enter into unhindered perfection.\n\nGreat are the achievements of the chisel upon the block of marble,\nmarvelous the skill with which a master turns a dead canvas into\nlustrous life and beauty.  Matchless the power that turns a clod into a\nrosy apple, a seed into a sheaf of wheat, a babe into a sage; yet\nneither nature nor art knows any transformation like unto that wonder\nof time when, by slow processes, God develops man out of rude and low\nconditions of life unto those high and spiritual moods when selfishness\ngives place to self-sacrifice, coarseness to sweetness, hardness to\ngentleness and love, and perfection dwells in man as ripeness dwells in\nfruit, as maturity dwells in harvests.\n\nThe mainspring of all progress, individual and social, is the desire to\nfulfill in character all one has planned in thought.  Man's life is one\nlong pursuit of the visions of possible excellence which disquiet,\nrebuke and tempt him upward.  \"As to other points,\" said John Milton,\n\"what God may have determined for me I know not, but this I know--that\nif he ever instilled an intense love of moral beauty into the breast of\nany man, he has instilled it into mine.  Ceres, in the fable, pursued\nnot her daughter with a greater keenness of inquiry than I, day and\nnight, the idea of perfection.\"  Haunted by his dream of excellence,\nthe poet likened himself to one born beside the throne and reared in\npurple, yet by some mischance left to gypsies, midst poverty and\nneglect, while thoughts of the glory he has known and that imperial\npalace whence he came, are never out of mind.  In picturing forth these\nconceptions of sweetness and light, philosophers have found it hard to\nsummarize the qualities that make up ideal manhood.\n\nConceding that the Christian is the perfect gentleman, who does for his\nfellows what an easy chair does for a tired man, what a winter's fire\nis to a lost traveler, we may also affirm that Newman's definition is\ninadequate and fragmentary.  As the ideal portraits of Christ, from\nPerugino to Hoffman, divide the kingdom of beauty--and must be united\nin one new conception in order to approach the perfect face--so the\npoets and the philosophers, with their diverse conceptions of ideal\nmanhood, divide the kingdom of character.  \"The true man cannot be a\nfragmentary man,\" said Plato.  Is he not one-sided who masters the\nconventional refinement and the stock proprieties, yet indulges in\ndrunkenness and gluttony?  \"Pleasure must not be his sole aim,\" said\nthe accomplished Chesterfield.  \"I have enjoyed all the pleasures of\nthe world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regret\ntheir loss.  Those who have no experience are dazzled with there\n[Transcriber's note: their?] glare, but I have been behind the scenes\nand have seen all the coarse pulleys, which exhibit and move all the\ngaudy machines that excite the admiration of the ignorant audience.\"\n\nNor is scholarship enough.  From Solomon to Burke, the wisest men have\nbeen the saddest of men.  The Scottish physician who ordered his\nsecretary to select from his library all the books upon medicine and\nsurgery that were printed prior to 1880 and sell them, tells us how\nfutile is the pursuit of wisdom and how rapidly the systems of to-day\nbecome the cast-off garments of to-morrow.  Nor must the perfect man\nrepresent power and wealth alone, for \"the wealth of Croesus cannot\nbring sleep to the sick man tossing upon his silken couch, and all the\nAlexanders and Napoleons have shed bitter tears, conquering or\nconquered.\"  He who is merchant or scholar or ruler, and only that,\nclimbs his pillar like Simeon Stylites.\n\nAll such know not that the world itself is a pillar all too small for\nthe soul to stand upon.  This life-chase after bubbles, this fighting\nfor trifles, this pursuit of false grails, reminds us of the story of\nthat Grecian boy lured to his death by the enchantress.  Going into the\npalace garden to pluck a rose, the youth beheld the form of a young\ngirl standing in the edge of the glimmering woods.  With soft words and\nsweet, she called him.  Forgetting his dear ones in the palace, the\nyouth ran after his enchantress.  Along a pathway of flowers she danced\nbefore him, sometimes sweeping the strings of her harp, sometimes\nsinging, and shaking her curls at his haste, ever shooting arrows from\nher eyes, yet ever just eluding his embrace.  On and on she led him\ninto the bog, that covered his garments with mud, through the thorns\nand brambles that tore his white skin, over rocks steep and sharp.\nEver and anon the youth stopped to pluck the thorns from his hands and\nbind up his bleeding feet; then, gathering his torn purple about him,\nhe plunged on, in the hope of drinking at last the sweet cup of her\nsorcery.  When, at the end of the day, the desire of his heart was\ngiven him, the illusion fell away, for the youth embraced not a\nbeautiful maiden, but an old hag, who had led him into the desert to a\nhut whose stones were darkness and whose walls were confusion.\n\nAs the term genius includes all those forms of culture termed poetry,\nmusic, eloquence, leadership, so love is a term that includes all those\nshapes of human welfare known as education, refinement, liberty,\nhappiness.  Properly defined, love is that exalted state of mind and\nheart when reason is luminous, when judgment and imagination glow under\nits influence just as the electric bulb glows under the living current.\nThere are three possible states and moods under which the mind may\nfulfill its functions.  There is a dull and quiescent condition when\nreason and judgment act, but act without fervor.  Power is there, but\nit is latent, just as heat is in the unkindled wood lying on the grate,\nbut the heat is hidden.\n\nThen there is a higher mood of the mind, when, under the influence of\nconversation or reading, the mind emits jets and flashes of thought,\nthrough witticism or story; but this creative mood is intermittent and\nspasmodic.  Last of all is that exalted mood when the mind glows and\nthrobs, when reason emits thoughts, as stars blaze light; when the\nnimbus that overarches the brows of saints in ancient pictures\nliterally represents the effulgence of the mind.  Work done in the\nlower moods is called mediocre; work done by the mind in the second\nstage is associated with talent, but when, through birth or ancestry,\nthe mind works ever in regnant and supernal moods, it is called genius.\nAffirming that all minds rise into this higher mood at intervals, we\nmay also affirm that all the best work in literature or art or commerce\nhas been wrought during these exalted states when love for the work in\nhand has rendered the mind luminous and crystalline.\n\nIt was love of nature that lent Wordsworth his power to divine nature's\nsecret.  When the poet approached Chamouni and the mountains that gird\nit round he tells us he was conscious of a shivering from head to foot,\nwith mingled awe and fear; his mind glowed with an indescribable\npleasure; his body thrilled as if in the presence of a disembodied\nspirit; his heart approached nature with an intensity of joy comparable\nonly to that joy which Dante felt when approaching Beatrice.  But when\nthe cares of this world gained upon him and the love of nature faded\ngradually away in the manner described by him in his \"Intimations of\nImmortality,\" then also his power to describe nature faded away.  For\nonly when the heart loves can intellect do great work.\n\nHis biographer tells us that when Angelo grew old and blind he was\naccustomed to ask his servant to lead him to the torso of Phidias.\nPassing his hands slowly over the broken marble, the sculptor entered\ninto the thought of the great Grecian, and with love for his art\nglowing in his face and thrilling in his voice, he mused aloud upon the\ngenius of Phidias.  Love of his art made all his days bright and all\nhis moons honeymoons.  When Wyatt Eaton, the artist, was in Millet's\nhome he noticed that when the wife called the artist from his task to\nhis noonday meal, the artist's whole being had so gathered itself into\nthe eye that there was no life left with which to hear.  Love lent\ngenius skill.  No other sentiment is so universal or so powerful in its\ninfluence as love that energizes the mind and heart.  Love lent\nswiftness to the feet of Sir Galahad; lent his heart courage; lent his\nsword victory.  Entering the palace, love, said Cicero, \"makes gold\nshine.\"  Love for the birds lent fame to Audubon; just as love for the\nbees lent fortune to Huber.  Love of knowledge hived all the wisdom in\nthe libraries; love of beauty adorned all the galleries; love of\nservice organized all the philanthropies.  To-morrow, at the behest of\nlove, and in the interests of dear ones at home, all the wheels will\nbegin to revolve; all the trains go out and all the ships come in.\nWhen a man of real force and worth passes upward into that high state\nof purity and sweet reasonableness called love, he becomes almost\nsacred and exhales an ineffable and mysterious atmosphere.  Great is\nthe power of trade; wonderful the influence of fortune and force;\nmarvelous the hundred instrumentalities and institutions of society,\nbut above all of them is man, whose love can indeed \"make riches\nsplendid,\" whose wisdom love can make mellow, whose strength love can\nmake gentle, whose defeats love can turn into victories.  In that hour\none hundred men dwell in one man.\n\nLove also perfects morality and fulfills all ethical laws.  What health\nis to the body, what sweetness is to the lark's song, what perfume is\nto the rose, that morality is to culture and character.  Drunkenness\nand gluttony have not more power to blear the eye than immorality to\ndegrade the soul.  When Homer tells us that Ulysses escaped unharmed\nfrom the enchanted palace, but suffered injury from his unfaithfulness\nto a friend, the poet wishes us to know that it is easier to recover\nfrom the poison of Circe's cup than to escape the effect of\ndisobedience to the laws of God.\n\nFortunately nature is so organized as to keep the consequences of\nill-doing ever before man's eyes.  Disobeying the law of fire man is\nburned; disobeying the law of steam man is scalded; disobeying the law\nof honor friends avert their faces, or the door of the jail closes\nbehind the wrongdoer.  So few are these laws and so simple that they\ncould not be plainer were they emblazoned upon the sky as an\never-present scroll.  There is the law of reverence.  Conscious of\nvastness and sublimity, in the presence of mountains, man, frail,\nignorant, passing swiftly to his grave, is asked to bow his head in the\npresence of the Eternal One.\n\nThere is also the law of truth in speech, the law of purity in thought,\nthe laws that forbid theft and covetousness and killing.  But all these\nlaws are gathered up and fulfilled in love, just as the seven colors of\nnature are gathered up and fulfilled in the one white sunbeam.  And he\nwho loves will fulfill all these laws.  Loving himself, man will not\nwaste his physical treasure.  As it was vandalism for the iconoclasts\nto pass through the cathedrals of Europe whitewashing the frescoes and\nbreaking down the statues, much more is it vandalism for men to destroy\nthat temple of God called the body.  If man loves his mind he will,\nthrough culture, lead what is germinal and latent forth into full\nblossom and fruitage.  He who loves scholarship will make haste to\ndouble the books in his library.  He who loves sweetness will double\nthe sweetness of his melody.  He who loves friends will double their\nnumber and strengthen their affection.  He who loves industry will\nstrengthen his toil and lend it influence.  Looking toward the home,\nlove fulfills the law of helpfulness.  Looking toward the weak and\npoor, love fulfills the law of service and sympathy.  Looking toward a\ngreat crisis for humanity, love fulfills the law of martyrdom.\n\nJust as summer fulfills all ripeness and growth for seed and root and\ntree, so love fulfills all laws for self and man and the all-loving God.\n\nAfter thirty-six years of tireless toil Herbert Spencer has brought to\na conclusion the labors of a lifetime.  His final volume places the\ncapstone on the structure of his philosophy.  In reading these pages no\nthoughtful mind can fail to perceive that for science also has dawned\nthe vision splendid.  If history began with an era of force, its last\nand crowning achievement will be the era when love, organized into laws\nand institutions, will lend perfection to civilization.  The upward\nmarch of mankind has been slow and accompanied by tremendous losses.\nAt the beginning strength prevailed and weakness went to the wall; the\nbird with the swiftest wing first reached the fountain, the deer with\nthe swiftest foot reached the place of shelter, the ox with the\nstrongest thrust reached the richest fodder.  Pushed back, weakness\nperished, while strength prevailed and propagated.\n\nThis law of violence received its first check through the parental\ninstinct.  Parenthood built a fortress with walls and bulwarks about\nthe babe.  Love of offspring caused a weakness to survive.  At last an\nera dawned when many parents united to construct a shield for weak\nchildren indeed, but also for weak adults.  The state lifted the shield\nbetween weakness and its oppressor.  The widow and the orphan were\npermitted to glean after the harvesters.  The traveler, passing through\nthe field, might pluck a handful of corn or pull a bunch of figs.  The\ncreditor must not take the blanket or coat from the laborer nor the\nboat from the poor fisherman, nor the plane or saw from the poor\ncarpenter.  Stimulated by Christ's example and teachings, society began\nto multiply the bulwarks against tyranny and selfishness.  Looking\ntoward the child, for the protection of weakness and unripeness, the\nstate built these shields called the school and library, looking toward\nthe unfortunate and those weak in body or mind, the state built\nbulwarks called asylum and hospital.  Looking toward the chimney-sweep,\nthe factory boys and girls, the state began to soften pain and mitigate\nthe distress of labor.  Looking toward the serf and the slave and the\nprisoner, the novelist and poet constructed song and story as shields\nfor the protection of the weak and the oppressed.\n\nOne hundred years ago a man was as a beast of the field, and the\nslaughter of men in Italy, by the tyrant who ruled over them, stirred\nno more thought in England than the news of the slaughter of so many\nbeasts.  But fifty years ago the state had become so gentle toward the\nweak that when Mr. Gladstone made a protest against the savagery and\ninfuriated cruelty wrought upon the inmates of the dungeons of Italy,\nthen the heart of Europe turned toward Rome, the throne trembled upon\nits foundations.  Formerly when any foreign government wished to\ncolonize Africa, they sent out a regiment of soldiers, cut off a slice\nof the country and annexed it.  Now public sentiment forbids such\ntyranny.  The only way the aggressive nations can obtain possession of\nnew territory is to do it under the name of a protectorate,\nsugar-coating, as has been said, the deeds of tyranny.  If the dungeon\nhas been rifled of its prey, if cruelty has been scourged out of the\nland, if despotism tottered, it is because society was slowly climbing\nup that stairway, of which the first step is fear and the last is love.\n\nIn these January days our earth, snow-clad and frost-bound, seems like\na huge ball of ice.  Yet all unconsciously to itself, the earth is\nbeing swept on into spring and summer.  Unconsciously, but none the\nless truly, society, under the silent and secret impulse of the great\nGod, has been journeying upward toward the time when love shall fulfill\nevery law; when kindness and sympathy shall be organized in manners and\ncustoms.  All the revolutions of the past, all the clangor of war, all\nthe tumbling down of Bastilles, all the piling up of cities, is as\nnothing to the advance of the world toward that era when love shall\nperfect man's institutions and civilization.\n\nLove also perfects religion.  It is the glory of Christ that he unveils\nthe sovereignty of character and crowns manhood with all-maturing and\nall-perfecting love.  Looking backward, man finds that all religions\nfall into four classes: There is the religion of fear and force, when\nman offers sacrifices to appease the gods and conciliate justice.\nThere is the religion of law, when men reduce life to formal rules, and\nthe Pharisee rigorously fulfills his duty as chief, or trader, or\nfriend.  There is the religion of romanticism, when men of powerful\nintellect and strong imagination evolve their ideal and, withdrawing to\nsome cave, give themselves to reverie.  In all such self becomes an\norb, so large as to eclipse brother man and God.  Last of all there is\nthe religion of Christ, in which love is root, blossom and fruitage.\nIt aims at the development and unfolding of everything that is gracious\nin life, whatever strikes at admiration, whether it is in school, in\nart, in song, in wit, in travel, in books; whatever is praiseworthy in\ncourage or endurance, whatever has fineness and sweetness and nobility;\nall that belongs to the hero and patriot; all that belongs to the seer\nand scholar; all that belongs to leadership in trade and commerce--all\nthese elements are to be united and carried upward into the sweetness\nand purity of life, until the full man, standing apart and standing\nabove life, seems to have been informed with divine love, as with a\npresence.\n\nAnd when love has made the most of the man himself it overflows to\nbless others.  Christ's disciples are not here to be ministered unto,\nbut to minister.  Religion, says Christ, is love, and love is gentle\ntoward those with hollow eyes and famine-stricken faces.  Love is\nkindly toward those who have a tragedy written in the sharpened\ncountenance.  Love is patient toward those who have lost fidelity, as a\nman loses a golden coin; who have lost morality as one who flounders in\nthe Alpine drifts.  And this religion of love takes on a thousand\nmodern forms.  If it is not rowing out against the darkness and storm,\nas did Grace Darling to save the shipwrecked, it is going forth to\nthose tossed upon life's billows, to succor and to save.  For love is\nmaking the individual life beautiful, making the home beautiful, and\nwill at last make the church and state beautiful.  Men will not bow\ndown to crowned power nor philosophic power nor esthetic power; but, in\nthe presence of a great soul, filled with vigor of inspiration and\nglowing with love, man will do obeisance.  There is no force upon earth\nlike divine love in the heart of man, and at last that force will\nsweeten and regenerate society.\n\nLove also fulfills immortality.  Of late science has reduced the number\nof things that endure.  The astronomer tells us the sun is burning up,\nand will be a dying ash-heap as truly as the coal in man's cellar will\nbe exhausted.  The geologists tell us the flowing of \"the crystal\nsprings wearies the mountain's heart as truly as the beating of the\ncrimson pulse wearies man's; that the force of the iron crag is abated\nin its time, like the strength of human sinews in old age.\"  The\neverlasting mountains are doomed to decay as surely as the moth and\nworm.  It seems that the shining texture of stars and suns must wax\nold, like a garment, and decay.  If now youth is eager to master all\nknowledge, plunge into the thick of life's battle, forge some tool,\nenact some law, right some wrong, the time will speedily come when the\nman will sit down amid the ruins of his life and confess that his idols\nhave been shivered, one by one.\n\nHe who loves endures.  For him always all is well.  That youth with a\ngreat love for nature's treasures that promised fame, but who found his\nopen book crimson with the life-current, may dry his tears, for love is\nimmortal and beyond he will fulfill the dreams denied here.  Because he\nloves the slave, Livingstone, falling in the African forest, need not\nfear, for love will make his work immortal.  The sweet mother, whose\nlove overarches the cradle with thoughts that for number are beyond the\nstars, need not fear to leave behind the gentle babe, for everlasting\nlove will encircle it.  Falling into unconsciousness and putting out\nupon the yeasty sea midst the falling darkness, man may call back: \"I\nstill live.\"  For God is love and God is eternal.  Therefore man who\nloves is immortal also.\n\n\n\n\nHOPE'S HARVEST, AND THE FAR-OFF INTEREST OF TEARS.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,\n  Let Darkness keep her raven gloss;\n  Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,\n  To dance with Death to beat the ground!\"--_Tennyson_.\n\n\n  \"Soul, rule thyself.  On passion, deed, desire,\n  Lay thou the laws of thy deliberate will.\n  Stand at thy chosen post.  Faith's sentinel:\n  Though Hell's lost legions ring thee round with fire,\n  Learn to endure.  Dark vigil hours shall tire\n  Thy wakeful eyes; regrets thy bosom thrill;\n  Slow years thy loveless flower of youth shall kill;\n  Yea, thou shalt yearn for lute and wanton lyre.\n  Yet is thy guerdon great; thine the reward\n  Of those elect, who, scorning Circe's lure,\n  Grown early wise, make living light their lord.\n  Clothed with celestial steel, these walk secure,\n  Masters, not slaves.  Over their heads the pure\n  Heavens bow, and guardian seraphs wave God's sword.\"--_V. A. Symonds_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nHOPE'S HARVEST, AND THE FAR-OFF INTEREST OF TEARS.\n\nThe soul is monarch of three kingdoms.  Man lives at once in the\npresent, the past and the future.  Memory presides over yesterday;\nto-day is ruled by reason; to-morrow is under the sway of hope.  The\nancient seer who stood by the historic vine reflecting how the rain of\nyesterday had disappeared to give its sweet liquors to the roots only\nto reappear to-morrow in purple clusters, gave us a beautiful image of\nhimself.  Each human life is like unto a vine--its trunk manifest in\nthe present; its roots deeply buried in the past; its branches throwing\nthemselves forward, ripening fruit for days to come.  Life is a solid\ncolumn of days all compacted together.  To-day's usefulness is in the\nnumber of wise, happy and helpful yesterdays, whose accumulated\ntreasures crowd forward the soul's present activities.  But for his\nyesterdays stored up in memory man would be impotent for any heroic\nthought or deed.  He would remain a perpetual infant.  As the child\njourneys away from the cradle memory gathers up and carries forward\nfaces, words, books, arts, sciences, literatures, and these\nrecollections are embalmed and transmitted as soul-capital, legacies\nunspeakably precious.\n\nYesterday, therefore, is no mausoleum of dead deeds; no storehouse of\nmummies.  Memory is a granary holding seed for to-morrow's sowing;\nmemory is an armory holding weapons for to-morrow's battles, memory is\na medicine-chest with balms for to-morrow's hurts; memory is a library\nwith wisdom for to-morrow's emergency.  Yesterday holds the full store\nof to-day's civilization, contains our tools, conveniences, knowledges;\ncontains our battlefields and victories; above all gives us Bethlehem\nand Calvary.  But alone man's yesterday is impotent; his to-morrow\ninsufficient.  The true man binds all his days together with an\nearnest, intense, passionate purpose.  His yesterdays, to-days and\nto-morrows march together, one solid column, animated by one thought,\nconstrained by one conspiracy of desire, energizing toward one holy and\nhelpful purpose, to serve man and love God.\n\nGod governs man through the regency of hope.  The reasons thereof are\nself-evident.  Man is born a long way from home.  No cradle rocks a\nfull-orbed manhood.  The babe begins a mere handful of germs; a bough\nof unblossomed buds.  It is a weary climb from nothing to manhood, at\nits best.  As things rise in the scale of being the distance between\nbirth and maturity widens.  Mollusks are born close up to their full\nestate, sandflies mature in two days, butterflies in two weeks,\nhumming-birds in as many months.  But let no man think the vast\nall-shadowing redwood trees of California grew in a mushroomic night.\nWhen the seed first thrust its rootlets down into the soil and its\nplumule up to the sunshine it entered upon a long career.  Saved by\nhope after 800 years of growth it gives shade to myriads of birds;\nbeams for lath and loom and ship in the service of industry; lends pen\nand pencil to poet and artist in the service of beauty; through desk\nand pew enters into man's intellectual and moral life; through\ninstruments of convenience strengthens the sweet amenities of the home;\nworking, it also waited and is saved by hope.\n\nMan stands at the very summit of creation.  He is at the head of all\nthat creep and swim and walk and fly.  Preparatory to his dominion he\nbegins with the lowest and runs the whole gamut of experience of all\nliving things below him.  And hope alone can save him as he journeys\nupward through all the intermediate stages on his way to his throne and\nhis God.  Big with destiny, he is saved by hope.  Not to-day and not\nyesterday can suffice.  The present offers only standing\nroom--four-and-twenty hours.  Memory is a bin banked with snowdrifts,\nnot the waving harvest-fields.  Man's life is all in front of him.  His\nlarge endowment asks for an extended period of time, asks seventy years\nfor skill toward his body; asks an immortal destiny for mind and heart.\nHe is saved by hope and futurity.\n\nConsider the scope and functions of hope and aspiration.  Man is\ngoverned from above and within; while rocks, birds, beasts are governed\nfrom below and without.  Gravity holds the bowlder in its place.  The\nchannel saith to the river: \"Thus far and no farther.\"  The fawn that\nis struck, the lion that strikes, the eagle dwelling above both, are\ncontrolled by fear.  The charioteer drives his steeds from behind and\ncontrols by rein and scourge.  But man is controlled from within and in\nfront.  God does not scourge his children forward through whips of\nfear.  Hopes moving on before him lure him onward.  The Italian artist\nshows us the child passing near the precipice.  Then drew near a gentle\nguardian spirit.  The unseen friend rolled along the pathway apples of\nParadise and the child, following after with shouts of glee, was lured\nfrom danger.  To the beauty of the artist's thought Homer's story adds\nelements of instruction.  When the Grecian boy was pursued by a giant\nwhose breath was fire, whose hand held a huge club, two invisible\nbeings lent help.  One took the boy's hand and lifted him forward, the\nother casting an invisible cord over him flew before him until his\nspeed was doubled and the palace gates gave shelter.  Oh, beautiful\nstory of God's gentle rule o'er men!  When troubles sweep over the\nworld like sheeted storms, when men fear exceedingly and strong men\ncower and shrink and little ones believe the next step to be the\nprecipice, then God smiles.  Striking some sweet bell he sends forth\nmessengers to lure men forward; they hang stars in man's night; they\nwhisper that the twilight is nothing, since it is morning twilight;\nthat fears are bats and owls hooting at the dawn; that hope is a lark\nsinging the new day; that God reigns and all is well.  Then depart all\nfears and superstitions.  The courage of the future comes; the columns\nbegin a forward march.  These upward movements of society are the\nyearnings of God's heart lifting his children forward by hope.\n\nHope and aspiration also furnish the secret springs of civilization.\nAll things useful and beautiful were once only hopes and ideas.  Free\ninstitutions are ideals of liberty, crystallized into word forms.\nTools and instruments are ideals dressed up in iron clothes.  The early\nforest man dwelt in a cave; ached with cold and moaned with hunger.\nGoing into the forest to dig roots he found honey hived by the bees and\nnuts stored up by squirrels against the winter.  Straightway hope\nsuggested to him a larger granary, whence hath come all man's bins and\nstorehouses.  Man plucked a large plum and found it sour, and another\nplum small, but sweet.  Hope suggested that he unite the two and strike\nthrough the abundant acid juices of the one with the sugar of the\nother.  Thence came all vineyards and orchards.  Digging in the soil\ntired him, but hope suggested that his pet ox might pull his forked\nstick; when the wooden stick wore blunt hope replaced it with an iron\npoint; when the iron point refused to scour hope suggested steel; when\nthe steel made his burden light and doubled the pace of his steeds,\nhope suggested a seat on the plow; when the riding-plow gave him time\nto think, hope suggested he could increase the harvest by doubling the\ndepth, when the weight was overheavy for his beasts, hope suggested a\nsteam-plow.  The Kensington Museum exhibits the growth of the plow\nidea, as it moved from the forked stick to the \"steam gang.\"  If in\nthis procession of material plows we could see the procession of ideal\nplows we would find that thoughts and hopes are a thousandfold more\nthan material things.\n\nBy hope also do the people increase in wisdom and culture and\ncharacter.  Millions of men are digging and toiling twelve hours each\nday; and God hath sent forth hope to emancipate them from drudgery.\nThe man digging with his pick hath a far-away look as he toils.  Hope\nis drawing pictures of a cottage with vines over the doorway, with some\none standing at the gate, a sweet voice singing over the cradle.  Hope\nmakes this home his; it rests the laborer and saves him from despair.\nMultitudes working in the stithy and deep mines sweeten their labor and\nexalt their toil by aspiring thoughts.  Thinking of his little ones at\nhome, the miner says: \"My children shall not be as their father was; my\ndrudgery is not for self, but for love's sake; the sweat of my brow is\noil in the lamp of love; I will light it to-night on the sacred altar\nof home.\"  Here is the secret of the rise and reign of the people.\nThis explains all man's progress in knowledge and culture.  As the\nfruits and flowers rise rank upon rank in response to the advancing\nsummer, so all that is most refined and exalted in man's mind or heart\nbursts forth in new ideals, reforms, revolutions, in response to the\nrevelation of that personal presence from whom all hope and aspiration\nincessantly proceed.\n\nHope's noble ministry hath grievous enemies.  Among these let us\ninclude a false use of the past.  Yesterday contains sins and mistakes,\nbut multitudes err in dwelling too much upon their wrongs.  Each man\nhath had his temptations, each his fierce conflicts and defeats, each\nbears grievous scars from the battle-field.  Yet if one constantly\nrevives all his old sins life will be filled with hideous specters.\nMemory will become a place of torment and a ghastly chamber of horrors.\nWe shall be the children of despondency and wretchedness.  Memory will\nbe a graveyard; the past will give no light save the \"will-o-the-wisp\"\nlight from putrescence and decay.  All the springs of joy will be\npoisoned by morbid griefs that keep open old wounds.  The city hath its\noffal heap where refuse matter is destroyed; each home its garret, the\ncontents cast out at regular intervals; the individual throws away his\nold clothes, old tools, old vehicles.  Why should not the soul have its\nrefuse valley--where the past is cast out of life and memory?\n\nFarmers' boys sometimes set steel traps by shocks of corn whither come\nquail and prairie chickens.  Stepping upon the traps, the cruel jaws\nclose upon foot or wing and the bleeding bird beats out its life upon\nthe frozen ground.  Memory often with cruel jaws holds men entrapped.\nA single error wrecks the whole life.  But once forgiven of God let the\nsin go.  Reflection upon past sins is good only so long as it produces\nrevulsion from sin, and like a bow shoots the soul toward God and\nrighteousness.  God is like a mother who forgives the child's sin into\neverlasting forgetfulness.  Man should be ashamed to remember what God\nforgets.  \"I will cast your sins into the depth of the sea.\"  Someone\nsays: \"God receives the soul as the sea the bather, to return it\ncleansed--itself unsoiled.\"  Gather up, therefore, all thy sins--old\nwrongs, old hatreds, burning angers, memories of men's treachery; stuff\nthem into a bag and heave them into the gulf of oblivion.  Your life is\nnot in the past, but in the future.  \"We are saved by hope.\"\n\nMultitudes may embitter their new year by undue reflections over\nopportunities neglected and lost in the past and denied in the present.\nProfessor Agassiz tells of a friend who sold his farm in Pennsylvania\nfor $5,000 to invest it in Dakota, and after losing all in the new home\nreturned to find the German who purchased the homestead had found oil\nand great wealth in a swamp which he had tried to drain off.  An old\ngentleman recently told of his refusal in 1840 to accept as payment of\na small note a lot on a corner in Chicago now worth a million dollars,\nand he shed bitter tears over the loss of property he never owned.\nWhen Ali Hafed heard of the diamonds in India he sold his estate and\nwent forth to seek his fortune.  His successor, watering his camel in\nthe garden, saw the gleam of gems in the white sand and discovered the\nGolconda mines.  Had Ali Hafed had eyes to see his would have been\nboundless treasure at home instead of poverty, starvation and death.\nThese and similar legends stand for the opportunities that have gone\nforever.  How many neglected their opportunities for education; how\nthey knocked unbidden at every door and no man opened.  Others were\ndenied culture, and now feel they are unfulfilled prophecies.  Many by\none error have injured eye or ear or lung or limb or nervous system.\nThey grievously handicapped themselves.  Others by ingratitude,\ninfidelity to trusts, treachery to friends, have poisoned happiness.\nRepentance is theirs, and also forgiveness, but not forgetfulness.  The\npast is full of bitterness.\n\nLet the dead past bury its dead.  The future is still ours.  The trees\nin October willingly let go their leaves to fall into the ditch.  Their\nlife is not in last year's leaves, but in the infant buds that crowd\nthe old leaves off.  Put forth new activities.  Open new furrows.  Sow\nnew seed.  All the tomorrows are thine; but they are few and short.\nFulfill his dictum who said: \"I am as one going once across this vast\ncontinent; I would lean forth and sow as far as hand can scatter my\nseed.  Let the angels count the bundles.\"  No man should be discouraged\nin whom God believes, preserving him in life.  Let hope in God sweeten\nlife's bitterness.\n\nAnother enemy of hopefulness is found in nervous excesses and overwork.\nMen drain away their vitality.  Ambitions unduly stimulate the brain.\nMany break the laws of sleep and the laws of digestion and the laws of\nnerve sobriety.  They spend their brain capital.  Then they grow\nhopeless toward home and business.  Ill-health spreads a gloom over all\nlife.  Every judgment is pessimistic; it could not be otherwise.  The\njaundiced eye yellows the landscape.  The sweetest music rasps like a\nfile upon the nervous ear.  Thomas Carlyle's pessimism was largely\nphysical.  He overworked upon his life of Oliver Cromwell.  Maurice\nonce said: \"Carlyle believed in God down to the time of Oliver\nCromwell.\"  Once, in a moment of depression, Lyman Beecher prayed:\n\"Lord, keep us from despising our rulers, and help them to stop acting\nso we cannot help despising them.\"  Poor, nerve-racked Pascal, grew\nfearful lest his affection for his sister, who had nursed him through a\nlong illness, was sinful.  One day he wrote in his journal: \"Lord,\nforgive me for loving my dear sister so much!\"  Afterward he drew his\npen through the word \"dear.\"  Hope and trust toward God go with health.\nSickliness is not saintliness.  God cannot save by hope what man\ndestroys by ill-health.\n\nDean Stanley used hopefulness as a test of all systems of truth.\nRightly so.  God is the God of hope, and his truth, like himself,\ncarries the atmosphere of good cheer.  The falsity of medievalism\nappears in this--it robbed men of joy and gladness.  God was the center\nof darkness.  His throne was iron.  His heart was marble.  His laws\nwere huge implements of destruction.  His penalties were red-hot cannon\nballs crashing along the sinner's pathway.  Repentance toward God was\nmoving toward the arctics and away from the tropics.  Christianity was\nanything but \"peace on earth, good will to men.\"\n\nPhilosophers destroyed God's winsomeness.  The reformers came in to\nlead men away from medievalism back to God himself.  Men found hope\nagain in redemptive love.  They saw that any conception of God that\ndispirited and depressed men was perverted and false.  No man hath done\nmore to establish this fact than him who long ago said: \"Any\npresentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ that does not come to the\nworld as the balmy days of May comes to the unlocked northern zones;\nany way of preaching the love of God in Christ which is not as full of\nsweetness as the voice of the angels when they sang at the advent; any\nway of making known the proclamation of mercy which has not at least as\nmany birds as there are in June and as many flowers as the dumb meadows\nknow how to bring forth; any method of bringing before men the doctrine\nof salvation which does not make everyone feel, 'There is hope for me\nin God--in the divine plan, in the very nature of the organization of\nhuman life and society,' is spurious--is a slander on God and is\nblasphemy against his love.\"\n\nHope hath her harvest also for teachers and reformers.  Often men think\ntheir work is squandered.  They seem to be sowing seed not upon the\nNile, to find it again abundantly, but in midocean, to sink and come to\nnaught.  Parents and teachers break their hearts, fearing their\nwatchfulness and instruction have failed.  Men sow wheat and wait six\nmonths for a harvest; but they sow moral seed Sunday and on Monday whip\ntheir children because the seed has not ripened.  They forget that\napples bitter in July may be sweet in August.  To-day's vice in the\nchild is often to-morrow's virtue, as acid juices through frost become\nsaccharine.  Yesterday the mother rocked a little angel in the cradle;\nto-day she moans: \"Alas, that I should have rocked a little fox, a\nlittle serpent, a little wolf!\"  To-morrow the child becomes a model of\ntruth and integrity.\n\nThe sage might have said: \"It is good that woman should hope and wait.\"\nTruth's errand has always been a successful errand.  Not a single\nsocial truth or civic truth or moral truth has ever been lost out of\nthe world.  Secrets of cruelty and fraud, secrets of oppression and sin\nperish, but nothing that makes life happier or better hath been\nforgotten.  We do not have to keep God and truth alive, they keep us\nalive.  Vegetable seeds can be killed, but not moral seeds.  When God\nissues his silent command to the earth flying into winter and wheels it\nback toward summer, it is given to no man to put a brake upon warmth;\nnor can he go up against the spring with swords and banners.  But\neasier this than staying the upward march of mankind.  God is abroad\nupon a mission of recovery.  Open thy hand, O publicist! and sow thy\nseed.  The seed shall perish, but not the harvest.\n\nOur childhood was pleased with the story of the old monk who was\nshipwrecked alone on a desert isle.  He always carried with him a few\nroots and seeds.  Planting these, he died, but sailors coming twenty\nyears later found the isle waving with fruit trees.  To the beauty of\nthis legend let us add the truth of one who has made all this land his\ndebtor.  In 1801 a youth passed through western Pennsylvania.  He was\ncollecting apple seeds with which to found orchards in the then\nunbroken states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.  When he came\nto an open, sunny spot in the forest he would plant his seeds and\nprotect them with a brush fence.  Years afterward new settlers found\nhundreds of these embryo orchards in the forests.  Thrice he floated\nhis canoe laden with seeds down the Ohio to the settlers in Kentucky.\nTo this brave man, called by our Congressional Record \"Johnny\nAppleseed,\" whole states owe their wealth and treasure of vineyards and\norchards.  This intrepid man is a beautiful type of all those who,\npassing through life's wastes, sow the land with God's eternal truths,\nwhose leaves and fruits heal nations.  If God remembers the roots in\ndark forests he will not forget his truths in human hearts.  Therefore,\nsow thy seed.  Ye are saved by hope.\n\nThe ground and basis of all hope whatsoever is God.  It is his good\nprovidence and redemptive love in Jesus Christ that make us optimists.\nHope is not within the scope of our wisdom or culture or skill; and\nhope is not in our health or tool or treasure.  We journey into an\nunknown future.  It is not given to us to know what a day or an hour of\nthe new year may bring forth.  How impotent are the wisest and\nstrongest in the hour when we hear the sound of the ocean and in\ndarkness ford the deep and dangerous river, beyond which is high and\neternal noon.  What can the child on some great ocean steamer caught in\na winter's storm do to overcome the tempest?  Can it drive the fierce\nblasts back to their northern haunts?  Can its little hand hold the\nwheel and guide the great ship?  Can its voice still the billows that\ncan crush the steamer like an egg-shell?  Can its breath destroy the\nicy coat of mail that covers all the decks?  What the child can do is\ntrust the Captain who has brought this same ship through a hundred hard\nstorms.  It can rest and trust and hope.  And all we upon this great\nearth-ship have been caught, not in a storm, but in the gulf stream of\nGod's providence.  The warm tropic currents sweep us on to the heavenly\nharbor.  The trade winds above aid the forward flight.  More than all\nelse is the larger planetary movement that sweeps gulf stream, winds\nand ship onward towards the infinite.  Soon shall we enter into quiet\nwaters and cast out our anchor.\n\nLooking forward, let us hope and cleanse all fear out of life--trust\nGod, love him and rejoice.  Even our largest problems need not dispirit\nus.  Problems are not to be analyzed, but accepted.  He who analyzes a\nflower loses it.  He who cracks a diamond to see what it is, is without\nboth gem and knowledge.  Life's great questions are seeds.  Plant a\nseed, then wait.  Some day the flower and fruit will explain the seed.\nIt is well to lay aside difficult questions to be asked some day at the\nthrone of God.  Then we will look back to smile at what now disturbs us\nexceedingly.  Remember the Russian Cathedral--travelers tell us the din\nand noise of the crowds thronging under the dome to those above the\ndome become a strain of soft music.  It is good to hope and wait.\nBecause God lives and loves, man should enter the future as he enters\ntemple or cathedral--to dedicate all its days to hope and aspiration.\n\n\n\n\n  INDEX.\n\n\n  Anti-slavery movement, the, Wilberforce, 211\n  Arnold, Benedict, 243\n  Arnold of Rugby, 189\n  Audubon, wife of, 98\n\n  Bacon; Pascal, 75\n  \"Baucis and Philemon\", 249\n\n  Caesar, the value of personality, 16\n  Carey, William, 171\n  Carlyle, wife of, 186\n  Christ, coming of, 122\n  Christian manhood, the, 259\n  Christ the supreme example, 30\n  Civilization, achievements of, 136\n  Civilization, Christ's promise for, 52\n  Classic writer, tale of a, 24\n  Culture, Character, Beauty, the secret of, 163\n\n  Darwin on Christian teachers, 168\n  Desert, oases of, 35\n  Divine Teacher, the, 177\n\n  England, career of, 253\n  England, orphan babes of, 210\n  English visitor, the, 148\n\n  Fame a holy ambition, 29\n  Faneuil, Peter, 215\n  Fathers, the; uprising of 1861, 55\n  Feeling and sentiment, 142\n  Forest, a--differing conceptions of, 60\n  Fourth century, the, 223\n  France--king of; Marie Antoinette; Carlyle, 63, 64\n  Friendship an open sesame, 231\n\n  Garfield, 158\n  Genius marred by absence of humble virtues, 207\n  Gentleness, lack of, 181\n  God, erroneous conception of, 191\n  God, man's attitude toward, 65\n  God, punishments of, 85\n  God the ground and basis of all hope, 194\n  God's world a good world, 36\n  Gough, John B., 144\n  Great hearts, 134\n  Greatness an accumulation of little deeds, 202\n  Grey, Jane, 201\n  Growth by accretion; from seed, 242\n\n  Heart and intellect, 138\n  Heart and the age of cruelty, 139\n  Heart transformations, 145\n  Heroism--the Divine Teacher; Henry Grady; Napier;\n    Browning; Ruskin, 92-95\n  Holland, greatness of; William the Silent, 170\n  Homer's ideal, Helen, 119\n  Hope and aspiration, functions of, 282\n  Hope, enemies of, 286\n  Hope long deferred, 112\n  Howard; Goodyear; Patteson, 79, 80\n  Hugo, Victor, 165\n  Human life, enemies of, 205\n  Humanity and social sympathy, 100\n\n  Industrial law the law of sacrifice, 161\n  Intelligence, ignorance, 125\n\n  Keats, 183\n  \"Keep thou this man\", 219\n  King Saul and the seer, 14\n\n  Labor, problem of, 124\n  Labor, fruition of, 127\n  Law of violence, the, 270\n  Life a column of days, 279\n  Life, problem of, 239\n  Life's better hours, 233\n  Lincoln, Abraham, 56\n  Livingstone, 180\n  Love, definition of, 264\n  Love and immortality, 275\n  Love the fulfillment of all ethical laws, 268\n  Lowly woman, career of a, 19\n\n  Man governed through hope, 280\n  Man, influence of for good or evil, 13\n  Man, the great destroyer, 23\n  Man, a force-producer, 25\n  Man, unpurposed influence of, 27\n  Moral retribution, 251\n\n  Nature, favors of, 71\n  Nature, mysterious workings of, 241\n  New womanhood, the, 98\n  Nerve and brain force, drain of, 255\n  \"No man careth for my soul\",  214\n\n  Opportunity, genius of, 220\n  Orations--American; humble heroes; parental sacrifice;\n    suffering of ancestors; a tribute to the early dead, 81-84\n\n  Patriot, the; scholar, the, 70\n  Peabody, George, 57\n  Phocion, patriot and martyr, 170\n  Pompeii, 229\n  Progress and civilization, law of, 166\n  Progress, mainspring of, 261\n  Prosperity, 230\n\n  Religion, man's idea of, 121\n  Religion perfected by love, 273\n  Retribution, harvest of, 245\n  Rosetta Stone, the, 197\n\n  Science and God, 204\n  Seas, secrets of, 73\n  Secret springs of civilization, 283\n  Self-sacrifice, law of, 159\n  Society, 58\n  Society, crying need of, 188\n  Society, progress of, 123\n  Spencer, Herbert, 270\n  Spiritual harvests, Milton's study of, 247\n  Strategic element, the, 225\n\n  The Christian the perfect gentleman, 262\n  The heart and religious belief, 147\n  The heart in industry, 151\n  The heart in civilization, 149\n  Thirteenth century, the, 224\n  Thought, liberty of, 78\n  Time-element, the; Robert Peel; honors are evanescent;\n    man's social and industrial life; realm of law and\n    liberty, 113-119\n  Time-element in business, 126\n  Turner, 182\n  Tyndall, 74\n\n  Unsupported intellect, impotency of, 140\n\n  Wealth and position--Lord Shaftesbury, 21\n  Wealth and poverty, 103\n  Webster, Daniel, 165\n  Widow's mite, the, 198\n  Wisdom, culture, character increased by hope, 285","title":"The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and Service","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":57438}