{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28875/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28875","id":"gutenberg_28875","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28875","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Character","Self-culture"],"text":"Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Jeannie Howse and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttps://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |\n    | been preserved.                                           |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |\n    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nA Man's Value to Society\n\n\n\n\n    By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS\n\n    _Eighth Edition_\n    GREAT BOOKS AS LIFE-TEACHERS\n    STUDIES OF CHARACTER, REAL AND IDEAL\n    12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50\n\n    _Nineteenth Edition_\n    THE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE\n    A STUDY OF SOCIAL SYMPATHY AND SERVICE\n    12mo, vellum, gilt top, $1.25\n\n    _Eighteenth Edition_\n    A MAN'S VALUE TO SOCIETY\n    STUDIES IN SELF-CULTURE AND CHARACTER\n    12mo, vellum, gilt-top, $1.25\n\n    _Tenth Edition_\n    FORETOKENS OF IMMORTALITY\n    STUDIES FOR \"THE HOUR WHEN THE IMMORTAL HOPE\n    BURNS LOW IN THE HEART\"\n    Long 16mo, 50 cents; art binding, gilt top,\n    boxed, 75 cents\n\n    _Eighth Edition_\n    HOW THE INNER LIGHT FAILED\n    A STUDY OF THE ATROPHY OF THE SPIRITUAL SENSE\n    Quiet Hour Series, 18mo, cloth, 25 cents\n\n    BOOKLETS\n\n    RIGHT LIVING AS A FINE ART\n    A study of Channing's Symphony, 12mo, 50 cents.\n\n    THE MASTER OF THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT LIVING\n    12mo, 50 cents, net.\n\n    ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF THE YEARS\n    16mo, 25 cents, net.\n\n\n\n\nA Man's Value to Society\n\nStudies in Self-Culture\nand Character\n\n\nNewell Dwight Hillis\nAuthor of \"The Investment of Influence,\" \"Foretokens\nof Immortality,\" etc.\n\n\n\"_Spread wide thy mantle while the gods rain gold._\"\n                                  --FROM THE PERSIAN.\n\nTWENTY-FIFTH EDITION\n\n\nChicago New York Toronto\nFleming H. Revell Company\nMCMII\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1896, by\nFleming H. Revell Company\n\nCopyright, 1897, by\nFleming H. Revell Company\n\n\n\n\n_TO MY WIFE_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAP.                                                        PAGE\n\n   I The Elements of Worth in the Individual                    9\n\n  II Character: Its Materials and External Teachers            33\n\n III Aspirations and Ideals                                    55\n\n  IV The Physical Basis of Character                           77\n\n   V The Mind and the Duty of Right Thinking                   99\n\n  VI The Moral Uses of Memory                                 123\n\n VII The Imagination as the Architect of Manhood              143\n\nVIII The Enthusiasm of Friendship                             165\n\n  IX Conscience and Character                                 189\n\n   X Visions that Disturb Contentment                         213\n\n  XI The Uses of Books and Reading                            235\n\n XII The Science of Living with Men                           259\n\nXIII The Revelators of Character                              281\n\n XIV Making the Most of One's Self                            301\n\n\n\n\nTHE ELEMENTS OF WORTH IN THE INDIVIDUAL\n\n\n      \"There is nothing that makes men rich and strong but that\n      which they carry inside of them. Wealth is of the heart,\n      not of the hand.\"--_John Milton._\n\n      \"Until we know why the rose is sweet or the dew drop\n      pure, or the rainbow beautiful, we cannot know why the\n      poet is the best benefactor of society. The soldier\n      fights for his native land, but the poet touches that\n      land with the charm that makes it worth fighting for and\n      fires the warrior's heart with energy invincible. The\n      statesman enlarges and orders liberty in the state, but\n      the poet fosters the core of liberty in the heart of the\n      citizen. The inventor multiplies the facilities of life,\n      but the poet makes life better worth living.\"--_George\n      Wm. Curtis._\n\n      \"Not all men are of equal value. Not many Platos: only\n      one, to whom a thousand lesser minds look up and learn to\n      think. Not many Dantes: one, and a thousand poets tune\n      their harps to his and repeat his notes. Not many\n      Raphaels: one, and no second. But a thousand lesser\n      artists looking up to him are lifted to his level. Not\n      many royal hearts--great magazines of kindness. Happy the\n      town blessed with a few great minds and a few great\n      hearts. One such citizen will civilize an entire\n      community.\"--_H._\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE ELEMENTS OF WORTH IN THE INDIVIDUAL\n\n\nOur scientific experts are investigating the wastes of society. Their\nreports indicate that man is a great spendthrift. He seems not so much\na husbandman, making the most of the treasures of his life-garden, as\na robber looting a storehouse for booty.\n\nTravelers affirm that one part of the northern pineries has been\nwasted by man's careless fires and much of the rest by his reckless\naxe. Coal experts insist that a large percentage of heat passes out of\nthe chimney. The new chemistry claims that not a little of the\nprecious ore is cast upon the slag heap.\n\nIn the fields the farmers overlook some ears of corn and pass by some\nhandfuls of wheat. In the work-room the scissors leave selvage and\nremnant. In the mill the saw and plane refuse slabs and edges. In the\nkitchen a part of what the husband carries in, the wife's wasteful\ncooking casts out. But the secondary wastes involve still heavier\nlosses. Man's carelessness in the factory breaks delicate machinery,\nhis ignorance spoils raw materials, his idleness burns out boilers,\nhis recklessness blows up engines; and no skill of manager in juggling\nfigures in January can retrieve the wastes of June.\n\nPassing through the country the traveler finds the plow rusting in the\nfurrow, mowers and reapers exposed to rain and snow; passing through\nthe city he sees the docks lined with boats, the alleys full of broken\nvehicles, while the streets exhibit some broken-down men. A journey\nthrough life is like a journey along the trackway of a retreating\narmy; here a valuable ammunition wagon is abandoned because a careless\nsmith left a flaw in the tire; there a brass cannon is deserted\nbecause a tug was improperly stitched; yonder a brave soldier lies\ndying in the thicket where he fell because excited men forgot the use\nof an ambulance. What with the wastes of intemperance and ignorance,\nof idleness and class wars, the losses of society are enormous. But\nman's prodigality with his material treasures does but interpret his\nwastefulness of the greater riches of mind and heart. Life's chief\ndestructions are in the city of man's soul. Many persons seem to be\ntrying to solve this problem: \"Given a soul stored with great\ntreasure, and three score and ten years for happiness and usefulness,\nhow shall one kill the time and waste the treasure?\" Man's pride over\nhis casket stored with gems must be modified by the reflection that\ndaily his pearls are cast before swine, that should have been woven\ninto coronets.\n\nMan's evident failure to make the most out of his material life\nsuggests a study of the elements in each citizen that make him of\nvalue to his age and community. What are the measurements of mankind,\nand why is it that daily some add new treasures to the storehouse of\ncivilization, while others take from and waste the store already\naccumulated? These are questions of vital import. Many and varied\nestimates of man's value have been made. Statisticians reckon the\naverage man's value at $600 a year. Each worker in wood, iron or brass\nstands for an engine or industrial plant worth $10,000, producing at 6\nper cent. an income of $600. The death of the average workman,\ntherefore, is equivalent to the destruction of a $10,000 mill or\nengine. The economic loss through the non-productivity of 20,000\ndrunkards is equal to one Chicago fire involving two hundred millions.\nOf course, some men produce less and others more than $600 a year; and\nsome there are who have no industrial value--non-producers, according\nto Adam Smith; paupers, according to John Stuart Mill; thieves,\naccording to Paul, who says, \"Let him that stole steal no more, but\nrather work.\" In this group let us include the tramps, who hold that\nthe world owes them a living; these are they who fail to realize that\nsociety has given them support through infancy and childhood; has\ngiven them language, literature, liberty. Wise men know that the\nnoblest and strongest have received from society a thousandfold more\nthan they can ever repay, though they vex all the days and nights with\nceaseless toil. In this number of non-sufficing persons are to be\nincluded the paupers--paupers plebeian, supported in the poorhouse by\nmany citizens; paupers patrician, supported in palace by one citizen,\ngenerally father or ancestor; the two classes differing in that one is\nthe foam at the top of the glass and the other the dregs at the\nbottom. To these two groups let us add the social parasites,\nrepresented by thieves, drunkards, and persons of the baser sort whose\nbusiness it is to trade in human passion. We revolt from the red\naphides upon the plant, the caterpillar upon the tree, the vermin upon\nbird or beast. How much more do we revolt from those human vermin\nwhose business it is to propagate parasites upon the body politic!\nThe condemnation of life is that a man consumes more than he produces,\ntaking out of society's granary that which other hands have put in.\nThe praise of life is that one is self-sufficing, taking less out than\nhe put into the storehouse of civilization.\n\nA man's original capital comes through his ancestry. Nature invests\nthe grandsire's ability, and compounds it for the grandson. Plato\nsays: \"The child is a charioteer driving two steeds up the long\nlife-hill; one steed is white, representing our best impulses; one\nsteed is dark, standing for our worst passions.\" Who gave these steeds\ntheir color? Our fathers, Plato replies, and the child may not change\none hair, white or black. Oliver Wendell Holmes would have us think\nthat a man's value is determined a hundred years before his birth. The\nancestral ground slopes upward toward the mountain-minded man. The\ngreat never appear suddenly. Seven generations of clergymen make ready\nfor Emerson, each a signboard pointing to the coming philosopher. The\nMississippi has power to bear up fleets for war or peace because the\nstorms of a thousand summers and the snows of a thousand winters have\nlent depth and power. The measure of greatness in a man is determined\nby the intellectual streams and moral tides flowing down from the\nancestral hills and emptying into the human soul. The Bach family\nincluded one hundred and twenty musicians. Paganini was born with\nmuscles in his wrists like whipcords. What was unique in Socrates was\nfirst unique in Sophroniscus. John ran before Jesus, but Zacharias\nforetold John. No electricity along rope wires, and no vital living\ntruths along rope nerves to spongy brain. There are millions in our\nworld who have been rendered physical and moral paupers by the sins of\ntheir ancestors. Their forefathers doomed them to be hewers of wood\nand drawers of water. A century must pass before one of their children\ncan crowd his way up and show strength enough to shape a tool, outline\na code, create an industry, reform a wrong. Despotic governments have\nstunted men--made them thin-blooded and low-browed, all backhead and\nno forehead. Each child has been likened to a cask whose staves\nrepresent trees growing on hills distant and widely separated; some\nstaves are sound and solid, standing for right-living ancestors; some\nare worm eaten, standing for ancestors whose integrity was consumed by\nvices. At birth all the staves are brought together in the infant\ncask--empty, but to be filled by parents and teachers and friends. As\nthe waste-barrel in the alley is filled with refuse and filth, so the\norphan waifs in our streets are made receptacles of all vicious\nthoughts and deeds. These children are not so much born as damned into\nlife. But how different is the childhood of some others. On the Easter\nday, in foreign cathedrals, a beauteous vase is placed beside the\naltar, and as the multitudes crowd forward and the solemn procession\nmoves up the aisles, men and women cast into the vase their gifts of\ngold and silver and pearls and lace and rich textures. The well-born\nchild seems to be such a vase, unspeakably beautiful, filled with\nknowledges and integrities more precious than gold and pearls. \"Let\nhim who would be great select the right parents,\" was the keen dictum\nof President Dwight.\n\nBy the influence of the racial element, the laborer in northern\nEurope, viewed as a producing machine, doubles the industrial output\nof his southern brother. The child of the tropics is out of the race.\nFor centuries he has dozed under the banana tree, awakening only to\nshake the tree and bring down ripe fruit for his hunger, eating to\nsleep again. His muscles are flabby, his blood is thin, his brain\nunequal to the strain of two ideas in one day. When Sir John Lubbock\nhad fed the chief in the South Sea Islands he began to ask him\nquestions, but within ten minutes the savage was sound asleep. When\nawakened the old chief said: \"Ideas make me so sleepy.\" Similarly, the\nwarm Venetian blood has given few great men to civilization; but the\nhills of Scotland and New England produce scholars, statesmen, poets,\nfinanciers, with the alacrity with which Texas produces cotton or\nMissouri corn. History traces certain influential nations back to a\nsingle progenitor of unique strength of body and character. Thus\nAbraham, Theseus, and Cadmus seem like springs feeding great and\nincreasing rivers. One wise and original thinker founds a tribe,\nshapes the destiny of a nation, and multiplies himself in the lives of\nfuture millions. In accordance with this law, tenacity reappears in\nevery Scotchman; wit sparkles in every Irishman; vivacity is in every\nFrenchman's blood; the Saxon is a colonizer and originates\ninstitutions. During the construction of the Suez Canal it was\ndiscovered that workmen with veins filled with Teutonic blood had a\ncommercial value two and a half times greater than the Egyptians.\nSimilarly, during the Indian war, the Highland troops endured double\nthe strain of the native forces. Napoleon shortened the stature of\nthe French people two inches by choosing all the taller of his\n30,000,000 subjects and killing them in war. Waxing indignant, Horace\nMann thinks \"the forehead of the Irish peasantry was lowered an inch\nwhen the government made it an offense punishable with fine,\nimprisonment, and a traitor's death to be the teacher of children.\" A\nwicked government can make agony, epidemic, brutalize a race, and\nreaching forward, fetter generations yet unborn. \"Blood tells,\" says\nscience. But blood is the radical element put out at compound interest\nand handed forward to generations yet unborn.\n\nThe second measure of a man's value to society is found in his\noriginal endowment of physical strength. The child's birth-stock of\nvital force is his capital to be traded upon. Other things being equal\nhis productive value is to be estimated mathematically upon the basis\nof physique. Born weak and nerveless, he must go to society's\nambulance wagon, and so impede the onward march. Born vigorous and\nrugged, he can help to clear the forest roadway or lead the advancing\ncolumns. Fundamentally man is a muscular machine for producing the\nideas that shape conduct and character. All fine thinking stands with\none foot on fine brain fiber. Given large physical organs, lungs with\ncapacity sufficient to oxygenate the life-currents as they pass\nupward; large arteries through which the blood may have full course,\nrun, and be glorified; a brain healthy and balanced with a compact\nnervous system, and you have the basis for computing what will be a\nman's value to society. Men differ, of course, in ways many--they\ndiffer in the number and range of their affections, in the scope of\nconscience, in taste and imagination, and in moral energy. But the\noriginal point of variance is physical. Some have a small body and a\npowerful mind, like a Corliss engine in a tiny boat, whose frail\nstructure will soon be racked to pieces. Others are born with large\nbodies and very little mind, as if a toy engine were set to run a\nmudscow. This means that the poor engineer must pole up stream all his\nlife. Others, by ignorance of parent, or accident through nurse, or\nthrough their own blunder or sin, destroy their bodily capital. Soon\nthey are like boats cast high and dry upon the beach, doomed to\nsun-cracking and decay. Then, in addition to these absolute\nweaknesses, come the disproportions of the body, the distemperature of\nvarious organs. It is not necessary for spoiling a timepiece to break\nits every bearing; one loose screw stops all the wheels. Thus a very\nslight error as to the management of the bodily mechanism is\nsufficient to prevent fine creative work as author, speaker, or\ninventor. Few men, perhaps, ever learn how to so manage their brain\nand stomach as to be capable of high-pressure brain action for days at\na time--until the cumulative mental forces break through all obstacles\nand conquer success. A great leader represents a kind of essence of\ncommon sense, but rugged common sense is sanity of nerve and brain. He\nwho rules and leads must have mind and will, but he must have chest\nand stomach also. Beecher says the gun carriage must be in proportion\nto the gun it carries. When health goes the gun is spiked. Ideas are\narrows, and the body is the bow that sends them home. The mind aims;\nthe body fires.\n\nGood health may be better than genius or wealth or honor. It was when\nthe gymnasium had made each Athenian youth an Apollo in health and\nstrength that the feet of the Greek race ran most nimbly along the\npaths of art and literature and philosophy.\n\nAnother test of a man's value is an intellectual one. The largest\nwastes of any nation are through ignorance. Failure is want of\nknowledge; success is knowing how. Wealth is not in things of iron,\nwood and stone. Wealth is in the brain that organizes the metal. Pig\niron is worth $20 a ton; made into horse shoes, $90; into knife\nblades, $200; into watch springs, $1,000. That is, raw iron $20, brain\npower, $980. Millet bought a yard of canvas for 1 franc, paid 2 more\nfrancs for a hair brush and some colors; upon this canvas he spread\nhis genius, giving us \"The Angelus.\" The original investment in raw\nmaterial was 60 cents; his intelligence gave that raw material a value\nof $105,000. One of the pictures at the World's Fair represented a\nsavage standing on the bank of a stream, anxious but ignorant as to\nhow he could cross the flood. Knowledge toward the metal at his feet\ngave the savage an axe; knowledge toward the tree gave him a canoe;\nknowledge toward the union of canoes gave him a boat; knowledge toward\nthe wind added sails; knowledge toward fire and water gave him the\nocean steamer. Now, if from the captain standing on the prow of that\nfloating palace, the City of New York, we could take away man's\nknowledge as we remove peel after peel from an onion, we would have\nfrom the iron steamer, first, a sailboat, then a canoe, then axe and\ntree, and at last a savage, naked and helpless to cross a little\nstream. In the final analysis it is ignorance that wastes; it is\nknowledge that saves; it is wisdom that gives precedence. If sleep is\nthe brother of death, ignorance is full brother to both sleep and\ndeath. An untaught faculty is at once quiescent and dead. An ignorant\nman has been defined as one \"whom God has packed up and men have not\nunfolded. The best forces in such a one are perpetually paralyzed.\nEyes he has, but he cannot see the length of his hand; ears he has,\nand all the finest sounds in creation escape him; a tongue he has, and\nit is forever blundering.\" A mechanic who has a chest of forty tools\nand can use only the hammer, saw, and gimlet, has little chance with\nhis fellows and soon falls far behind. An educated mind is one fully\nawakened to all the sights and scenes and forces in the world through\nwhich he moves. This does not mean that a $2,000 man can be made out\nof a two-cent boy by sending him to college. Education is\nmind-husbandry; it changes the size but not the sort. But if no amount\nof drill will make a Shetland pony show a two-minute gait, neither\nwill the thoroughbred show this speed save through long and assiduous\nand patient education. The primary fountains of our Nation's wealth\nare not in fields and forests and mines, but in the free schools,\nchurches, and printing presses. Ignorance breeds misery, vice, and\ncrime. Mephistopheles was a cultured devil, but he is the exception.\nHistory knows no illiterate seer or sage or saint. No Dante or\nShakespeare ever had to make \"his X mark.\"\n\nWhen John Cabot Lodge made his study of the distribution of ability in\nthe United States, he found that in ninety years five of the great\nWestern States had produced but twenty-seven men who were mentioned in\nthe American and English encyclopedias, while little Massachusetts had\n2,686 authors, orators, philosophers, and builders of States. But\nanalysis shows that the variance is one of education and ideas. Boston\ndiffers from Quebec as differ their methods of instruction. The New\nEngland settlers were Oxford and Cambridge men that represented the\nbest blood, brain, and accumulated culture of old England. Landing in\nthe forest they clustered their cabins around the building that was at\nonce church, school, library, and town hall. Rising early and sitting\nup late they plied their youth with ideas of liberty and intelligence.\nThey came together on Sunday morning at nine o'clock to listen to a\nprayer one hour long, a sermon of three hours, and after a cold lunch\nheard a second brief sermon of two hours and a half--those who did not\ndie became great. What Sunday began the week continued. We may smile\nat their methods but we must admire the men they produced. Mark the\nintellectual history of Northampton. During its history this town has\nsent out 114 lawyers, 112 ministers, 95 physicians, 100 educators, 7\ncollege presidents, 30 professors, 24 editors, 6 historians, 14\nauthors, among whom are George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley,\nProfessor Whitney, the late J.G. Holland; 38 officers of State, 28\nofficers of the United States, including members of the Senate, and\none President.[1] How comes it that this little colony has raised up\nthis great company of authors, statesmen, reformers? No mere chance is\nworking here. The relation between sunshine and harvest is not more\nessential than the relation between these folk and their renowned\ndescendants. Fruit after his kind is the divine explanation of\nNorthampton's influence upon the nation. \"Education makes men great\"\nis the divine dictum. George William Curtis has said: \"The\nRevolutionary leaders were all trained men, as the world's leaders\nalways have been from the day when Themistocles led the educated\nAthenians at Salamis, to that when Von Moltke marshaled the educated\nGermans against France. The sure foundations of states are laid in\nknowledge, not in ignorance; and every sneer at education, at book\nlearning, which is the recorded wisdom of the experience of mankind,\nis the demagogue's sneer at intelligent liberty, inviting national\ndegeneration and ruin.\"\n\nConsider, also, how the misfits of life affect man's value. The\nsuccessful man grasps the handle of his being. He moves in the line of\nleast resistance. That one accomplishes most whose heart sings while\nhis hand works. Like animals men have varied uses. The lark sings, the\nox bears burdens, the horse is for strength and speed. But men who are\nwise toward beasts are often foolish toward themselves. Multitudes\ndrag themselves toward the factory or field who would have moved\ntoward the forum with \"feet as hind's feet.\" Other multitudes fret and\nchafe in the office whose desires are in the streets and fields.\nWhoever scourges himself to a task he hates serves a hard master, and\nthe slave will get but scant pay. If a farmer should hitch horses to a\ntelescope and try to plow with it he would ruin the instrument in the\nsummer and starve his family in the winter. Not the wishes of parent,\nnor the vanity of wife, nor the pride of place, but God and nature\nchoose occupation. Each child is unique, as new as was the first\narrival upon this planet. The school is to help the boy unpack what\nintellectual tools he has; education does not change, but puts temper\ninto these tools. No man can alter his temperament, though trying to\nhe can break his heart. How pathetic the wrecks of men who have chosen\nthe wrong occupation! The driver bathes the raw shoulder of a horse\nwhose collar does not fit, but when men make their misfits and the\nheart is sore society does not soothe, but with whips it scourges the\nman to his fruitless task. This large class may be counted\nunproductive. John Stuart Mill placed the industrial mismatings among\nthe heavier losses of society.\n\nTo this element of wisdom in relating one's self to duties must be\nadded skill in maintaining smooth relations with one's fellows. Men\nmay produce much by industry and ability, and yet destroy more by the\nmalign elements they carry. The proud domineering employer tears down\nwith one hand what he builds up with the other. One foolish man can\ncost a city untold treasure. How many factories have failed because\nthe owner has no skill in managing men and mollifying difficulties.\nHistory shows that stupid thrones and wars go together, while skillful\nkings bring long intervals of peace. Contrasting the methods of two\nprominent men, an editor once said: \"The first man in making one\nmillion cost society ten millions; but the other so produced his one\nmillion as to add ten more to society's wealth.\" A most disastrous\nstrike in England's history had its origin in ignorance of this\nprinciple. The miners of a certain coal field had suffered a severe\ncut in wages. They had determined to accept it, though it took their\nchildren out of school, and took away their meat dinner. When the hour\nappointed for the conference came, prudence would have dictated that\nevery cause of irritation be guarded against. But the employer\nfoolishly drove his liveried carriage into the center of the vast\ncrowd of workmen, and for an hour flaunted his wealth before the\nsore-hearted miners. When the men saw the footman, the prancing\nhorses, the gold-plated harness, and thought of their starving wives,\nthey reversed their acceptance of the cut in wages. They plunged into\na long strike, taking this for their motto: \"Furs for his footmen and\ngold plate for his horses, and also three meals a day for our wives\nand children.\" Now, the ensuing strike and riots, long protracted,\ncost England L5,000,000. But that bitter strike was all needless.\nThese are the men who take off the chariot wheels for God's advancing\nhosts. When one comes to the front who has skill in allaying friction,\nall society begins a new forward march. Skill in personal carriage\nhas much to do with a man's value.\n\nIntegrity enhances human worth. Iniquities devastate a city like fire\nand pestilence. Social wealth and happiness are through right living.\nGoodness is a commodity. Conscience in a cashier has a cash value. If\narts and industries are flowers and fruits, moralities are the roots\nthat nourish them. Disobedience is slavery. Obedience is liberty.\nDisobedience to law of fire or water or acid is death. Obedience to\nlaw of color gives the artist his skill; obedience to the law of\neloquence gives the orator his force; obedience to the law of iron\ngives the inventor his tool; disobedience to the law of morals gives\nwaste and want and wretchedness. That individual or nation is\nhastening toward poverty that does not love the right and hate the\nwrong. So certain is the penalty of wrongdoing that sin seems\ninfinitely stupid. Every transgression is like an iron plate thrown\ninto the air; gravity will pull it back upon the wrongdoer's head to\nwound him. It has been said for a man to betray his trust for money,\nis for him to stand on the same intellectual level with a monkey that\nscalds its throat with boiling water because it is thirsty. A drunkard\nis one who exchanges ambrosia and nectar for garbage. A profligate is\none who declines an invitation to banquet with the gods that he may\ndine out of an ash barrel. What blight is to the vine, sin is to a\nman. When the first thief appeared in Plymouth colony a man was\nwithdrawn from the fields to make locks for the houses; when two\nthieves came a second toiler was withdrawn from the factory to serve\nas night watchman. Soon others were taken from productive industry to\nbuild a jail and to interpret and execute the law. Every sin costs the\nstate much hard cash. Consider what wastes hatred hath wrought. Once\nItaly and Greece and Central Europe made one vast storehouse filled\nwith precious art treasures. But men turned the cathedrals into\narsenals of war. If the clerks in some porcelain or cut-glass store\nshould attend to their duties in the morning, and each afternoon have\na pitched battle, during which they should throw the vases and cups\nand medallions at each other, and each night pick up a piece of vase,\nhere an armless Venus and there a headless Apollo, to put away for\nfuture generations to study, we should have that which answers\nprecisely to what has gone on for centuries through hatreds and class\nwars. An outlook upon society is much like a visit to Lisbon after an\nearthquake has filled the streets with debris and shaken down homes,\npalaces, and temples. History is full of the ruins of cities and\nempires. Not time, but disobedience, hath wrought their destruction.\nNew civilizations will be reared by coming generations; uprightness\nwill lay the foundations and integrity will complete the structure.\nThe temple is righteousness in which God dwelleth.\n\n\"Have life more abundantly.\" Man is not fated to a scant allowance nor\na fixed amount, but he is allured forward by an unmeasured\npossibility. Personality may be enlarged and enriched. It has been\nsaid that Cromwell was the best thing England ever produced. And the\nmission of Jesus Christ is to carry each up from littleness to\nfull-orbed largeness. It has always been true that when some genius,\ne.g., Watt, invents a model the people have reproduced it times\ninnumerable. So what man asks for is not the increase of birth talent,\nbut a pattern after which this raw material can be fashioned. Carbon\nmakes charcoal, and carbon makes diamond, too, but the \"sea of light\"\nis carbon crystallized to a pattern. Builders lay bricks by plan; the\nmusician follows his score; the value of a York minster is not in the\nnumber of cords of stone, but in the plan that organized them; and the\nvalue of a man is in the reply to this question: Have the raw\nmaterials of nature been wrought up into unity and harmony by the\nExemplar of human life? Daily he is here to stir the mind with holy\nambitions; to wing the heart with noble aspirations; to inspire with\nan all-conquering courage; to vitalize the whole manhood. By making\nthe individual rich within he creates value without. For all things\nare first thoughts. Tools, fabrics, ships, houses, books are first\nideas, afterward crystallized into outer form. A great picture is a\nbeautiful conception rushing into visible expression upon the canvas.\nWake up taste in a man and he beautifies his home. Wake up conscience\nand he drives iniquities out of his heart. Wake up his ideas of\nfreedom and he fashions new laws. Jesus Christ is here to inflame\nman's soul within that he may transform and enrich his life without.\nNo picture ever painted, no statue ever carved, no cathedral ever\nbuilded is half so beautiful as the Christ-formed man. What is man's\nvalue to society? Let him who knoweth what is in us reply: \"What shall\nit profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Northampton Antiquities. Clark.\n\n\n\n\nCHARACTER: ITS MATERIALS AND EXTERNAL TEACHERS\n\n\n      \"Character is more than intellect. A great soul will be\n      strong to live, as well as to think. Goodness outshines\n      genius, as the sun makes the electric light cast a\n      shadow.\"--_Emerson._\n\n      \"What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the\n      small man seeks is in others.\"--_Confucius._\n\n      \"After all, the kind of world one carries about in one's\n      self is the important thing, and the world outside takes\n      all its grace, color and value from that.\"--_James\n      Russell Lowell._\n\n      \"Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you\n      reap a character; sow a character and you reap a\n      destiny.\"--_Anon._\n\n      \"So teach us to number our days that we may apply our\n      hearts unto wisdom.\"--_Psalm 90._\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nCHARACTER: ITS MATERIALS AND EXTERNAL TEACHERS\n\n\nDying, Horace Greeley exclaimed: \"Fame is a vapor, popularity an\naccident, riches take wings, those who cheer to-day will curse\nto-morrow, only one thing endures--character!\" These weighty words bid\nall remember that life's one task is the making of manhood. Our world\nis a college, events are teachers, happiness is the graduating point,\ncharacter is the diploma God gives man. The forces that increase\nhappiness are many, including money, friends, position; but one thing\nalone is indispensable to success--personal worth and manhood. He who\nstands forth clothed with real weight of goodness can neither be\nfeeble in life, nor forgotten in death. Society admires its scholar,\nbut society reveres and loves its hero whose intellect is clothed with\ngoodness. For character is not of the intellect, but of the\ndisposition. Its qualities strike through and color the mind and heart\neven as summer strikes the matured fruit through with juicy ripeness.\n\nOf that noble Greek who governed his city by unwritten laws, the\npeople said: \"Phocion's character is more than the constitution.\" The\nweight of goodness in Lamartine was such that during the bloody days\nin Paris his doors were unlocked. Character in him was a defense\nbeyond the force of rock walls or armed regiments. Emerson says there\nwas a certain power in Lincoln, Washington and Burke not to be\nexplained by their printed words. Burke the man was inexpressibly\nfiner than anything he said. As a spring is more than the cup it\nfills, as a poet or architect is more than the songs he sings or the\ntemple he rears, so the man is more than the book or business he\nfashions. Earth holds many wondrous scenes called temples,\nbattle-fields, cathedrals, but earth holds no scene comparable for\nmajesty and beauty to a man clothed indeed with intellect, but adorned\nalso with integrities and virtues. Beholding such a one, well did\nMilton exclaim: \"A good man is the ripe fruit our earth holds up to\nGod.\"\n\nCharacter has been defined as the joint product of nature and nurture.\nNature gives the raw material, character is the carved statue. The raw\nmaterial includes the racial endowment, temperament, degree of vital\nforce, mentality, aptitude for tool or industry, for art or science.\nThese birth-gifts are quantities, fixed and unalterable. No\nheart-rendings can change the two-talent nature into a ten-talent man.\nNo agony of effort can add a cubit to the stature. The eagle flies\nover the chasm as easily as an ant crawls over the crack in the\nground. Shakespeare writes Hamlet as easily as Tupper wrote his tales.\nOnce an oak, always an oak. Care and culture can thicken the girth of\nthe tree, but no degree of culture can cause an oak bough to bring\nforth figs instead of acorns. Rebellion against temperament and\ncircumstance is sure to end in the breaking of the heart. Happiness\nand success begin with the sincere acceptance of the birth-gift and\ncareer God hath chosen.\n\nSince no man can do his best work save as he uses his strongest\nfaculties, the first duty of each is to search out the line of least\nresistance. He who has a genius for moral themes but has harnessed\nhimself to the plow or the forge, is in danger of wrecking both\nhappiness and character. All such misfits are fatal. No farmer\nharnesses a fawn to the plow, or puts an ox into the speeding-wagon.\nLife's problem is to make a right inventory of the gifts one carries.\nAs no carpenter knows what tools are in the box until he lifts the lid\nand unwraps one shining instrument after another, so the instruments\nin the soul must be unfolded by education. Ours is a world where the\ninventor accompanies the machine with a chart, illustrating the use of\neach wheel and escapement. But no babe lying in the cradle ever\nbrought with it a hand-book setting forth its mental equipment and\npointing out its aptitude for this occupation, or that art or\nindustry. The gardener plants a root with perfect certainty that a\nrose will come up, but no man is a prophet wise enough to tell whether\nthis babe will unfold into quality of thinker or doer or dreamer. To\neach Nature whispers: \"Unsight, unseen, hold fast what you have.\" For\nthe soul is shadowless and mysterious. No hand can carve its outline,\nno brush portray its lineaments. Even the mother embosoming its\ninfancy and carrying its weaknesses, studying it by day and night\nthrough years, sees not, she cannot see, knows not, she cannot know,\ninto what splendor of maturity the child will unfold.\n\nMan beholds his fellows as one beholds a volume written in a foreign\nlanguage; the outer binding is seen, the inner contents are unread.\nWithin general lines phrenology and physiognomy are helpful, but it is\neasier to determine what kind of a man lives in the house by looking\nat the knob on his front door than to determine the brain and heart\nwithin by studying the bumps upon face and forehead. Nature's dictum\nis, \"Grasp the handle of your own being.\" Each must fashion his own\ncharacter. Nature gives trees, but not tools; forests, but not\nfurniture. Thus nature furnishes man with the birth materials and\nenvironment; man must work up these materials into those qualities\ncalled industry, integrity, honor, truth and love, ever patterning\nafter that ideal man, Jesus Christ.\n\nThe influences shaping nature's raw material into character are many\nand various. Of old, the seer likened the soul unto clay. The mud\nfalls upon the board before the potter, a rude mass, without form or\ncomeliness. But an hour afterwards the clay stands forth adorned with\nall the beauty of a lovely vase. Thus the soul begins, a mere mass of\nmind, but hands many and powerful soon shape it into the outlines of\nsome noble man or woman. These sculptors of character include home,\nfriendship, occupation, travel, success, love, grief and death.\n\nLife's first teacher is the external world, with its laws. Man begins\nat zero. The child thrusts his finger into the fire and is burned;\nthenceforth he learns to restrain himself in the presence of fire, and\nmakes the flames smite the vapor for driving train or ship. The child\nerrs in handling the sharp tool, and cuts himself; thenceforth he\nlifts up the axe upon the tree. The child mistakes the weight of\nstone, or the height of stair, and, falling, hard knocks teach him the\nnature and use of gravity. Daily the thorns that pierce his feet drive\nhim back into the smooth pathway of nature's laws. The sharp pains\nthat follow each excess teach him the pleasures of sound and right\nliving. Nor is there one infraction of law that is not followed by\npain. As sharp guards are placed at the side of the bridge over the\nchasm to hold men back from the abyss, so nature's laws are planted on\neither side of the way of life to prick and scourge erring feet back\ninto the divine way. At length through much smiting of the body nature\nforces the youth into a knowledge of the world in which he lives. Man\nlearns to carry himself safely within forests, over rivers, through\nfires, midst winds and storms. Soon every force in nature stands forth\nhis willing servant; becoming like unto the steeds of the plains, that\nonce were wild, but now are trained, and lend all their strength and\nforce to man's loins and limbs.\n\nHaving mastered the realm of physical law, the youth is thrust into\nthe realm of laws domestic and social. He runs up against his mates\nand friends, often overstepping his own rights and infringing the\nrights of others. Then some stronger arm falls on his, and drives him\nback into his own territory. Occasional chastisement through the\nparent and teacher, friend or enemy, reveal to him the nature of\nselfishness, and compel the recognition of others. Thus, through long\napprenticeship, the youth finds out the laws that fence him round,\nthat press upon him at every pore, by day and by night, in workshop or\nin store, at home or abroad. Slowly these laws mature manhood. When\nideas are thrust into raw iron, the iron becomes a loom or an engine.\nThus when God's laws are incarnated in a babe, the child is changed\ninto the likeness of a citizen, a sage or seer. Nature, with her laws,\nis not only the earliest, but also the most powerful, of life's\ninstructors.\n\nTemptation is another teacher. Protection gives innocence, but\npractice gives virtue. For ship timber we pass by the sheltered\nhothouse, seeking the oak on the storm-swept hills. In that beautiful\nstory of the lost paradise, God pulls down the hedge built around Adam\nand Eve. The government through a fence outside was succeeded by\nself-government inside. The hermit and the cloistered saint end their\ncareer with innocence. But Christ, struggling unto blood against sin,\nends His career with character. God educates man by giving him\ncomplete charge over himself and setting him on \"the barebacked horse\nof his own will,\" leaving him to break it by his own strength.\nTravelers to Alaska tell us that the wild berries attain a sweetness\nthere of which our temperate clime knows nothing. Scientists say that\nthe glowworm keeps its enemies at bay by the brightness of its own\nlight. Man, by his love of truth and right, becomes his own castle and\nfortress. Cities no longer depend upon night-watchmen to guard against\nmarauders and burglars. Once men trusted to safes and iron bars upon\nthe windows. Now bankers ask electric lights to guard their treasure\nvaults.\n\nFor centuries Spain's paternal laws have compelled each Spaniard to\nask his church what to think and believe. This method has robbed that\npeople of enduring and self-reliant manhood, and made them a race of\nweaklings. For over-protection is a peril. Strength comes by\nwrestling, knowledge by observing, wisdom by thinking, and character\nby enduring and struggling. Exposure is often good fortune. Every\nLuther and Cromwell has been tempted and tempered against the day of\ndanger and battle. As the victorious Old Guard were honored in\nproportion to the number and severity of the wars through which they\nhad passed, so the temptations that seek man's destruction, when\nconquered, cover him with glory. Ruskin notes that the art epochs have\nalso been epochs of war, upheaval, and tyranny. He accounts for this\nby saying that when tyranny was hardest, crime blackest, sin ugliest,\nthen, in the recoil and conflict, beauty and heroism attained their\nhighest development.\n\nStudying the rise of the Dutch republic, Motley notes how the shocks\nand fiery baptisms of war changed those peasants into patriots. This\nexplains society's enthusiasm for its hero, all scarred and gray. We\nadmire the child's innocence, but it lacks ripeness and maturity; it\nis only a handful of germs. But every heart kindles and glows when the\ntrue hero stands forth in the person of some Paul or Savonarola, some\nLuther or Lincoln, having passed through fire, through flood, through\nall the thunder of life's battle, ever ripening, sweetening and\nenlarging, his fineness and gentleness being the result of great\nstrength and great wisdom, accumulated through long life, until he\nstands, at the end of his career, as the sun stands on a summer\nafternoon just before it goes down. All statues and pictures become\ntawdry in comparison with such a rich, ripe, glowing, and glorious\nheart, clothed with Christlike character.\n\nLife's teachers also includes newness and zest. First, man lives his\nlife in fresh personal experiences. Then, by observation, he repeats\nhis life in the career of his children. A third time he journeys\naround the circle, re-experiencing life in that of his grandchildren.\nThen, because the newness has passed away and events no longer\nstimulate his mind, death withdraws man from the scene and enters him\nin a new school. Vast is the educational value therefore attaching to\nthe newness of life. God is so rich that no day or scene need repeat a\nformer one. The proverb, \"We never look upon the same river,\" tells us\nthat all things are ever changing, and clothes each day with fresh\nfascination. \"Whilst I read the poets,\" said Emerson, \"I think that\nnothing new can be said about morning and evening; but when I see the\nday break I am not reminded of the Homeric and Chaucerian pictures. I\nam cheered by the moist, warm, glittering, budding, melodious hour\nthat breaks down the narrow walls of my soul, and extends its life and\npulsations to the very horizon.\"\n\nThus, each new day is a new continent to be explored. Each youth is a\nnew creature, full of delightful and mysterious possibilities. Each\nbrain comes clothed with its own secret, having its own orbit,\nattaining its own unique experience. Ours is a world in which each\nindividual, each country, each age, each day, has a history peculiarly\nits own. This newness is a perpetual stimulant to curiosity and study.\nGladstone's recipe for never growing old is, \"Search out some topic in\nnature or life in which you have never hitherto been interested, and\nexperience its fascinations.\" For some, once a picture or book has\nbeen seen, the pleasure ceases. Delight dies with familiarity. Such\npersons look back to the days of childhood as to the days of wonder\nand happiness. But the man of real vision ever beholds each rock, each\nherb and flower with the big eyes of children, and with a mind of\nperpetual wonder. For him the seed is a fountain gushing with new\ndelights. Every youth should repeat the experience of John Ruskin.[2]\nSuch was the enthusiasm that this author felt for God's world, that\nwhen he approached some distant mountain or saw the crags hanging over\nthe waters, or the clouds marching through the sky, \"a shiver of fear,\nmingled with awe,\" set him quivering with joy--such joy as the artist\npupil feels in the presence of his noble master, such a kindling of\nmind and heart as Dante felt on approaching his Beatrice. Phillips\nBrooks grew happier as he grew older, and at fifty-seven he said:\n\"Life seems a feast in which God keeps the best wine until the last.\"\nUp to the very end the great preacher grew by leaps and bounds,\nbecause he never lost that enthusiasm for life that makes zest and\nnewness among life's best teachers.\n\nBy a strange paradox men are taught by monotony as well as by newness.\nOurs is a world where the words, \"Blessed be drudgery,\" are full of\nmeaning. Culture and character come not through consuming excitements\nnor the whirl of pleasures. The granary is filled, not by the\nthunderous forces that appeal to the eye and ear, but by the secret,\ninvisible agents; the silent energies, the mighty monarchs hidden in\nroots and in seeds. What rioting storms cannot do is done by the\nsilent sap and sunshine. All the fundamental qualities called\npatience, perseverance, courage, fidelity, are the gains of drudgery.\nCharacter comes with commonplaces. Greatness is through tasks that\nhave become insipid, and by duties that are irksome. The treadmill is\na divine teacher. He who shovels sand year in and year out needs not\nour pity, for the proverb is \"Every man has his own sand heap.\" The\ngreatest mind, fulfilling its career, once the freshness has worn off,\npursues a hackneyed task and finds the duties irksome. It is better\nso. A seer has suggested that the voices of earth are dulled that we\nmay hear the whisper of God; earth's colors are toned down that we may\nsee things invisible.\n\nSolitude is a wise teacher. Going apart the youth grows great. Emerson\nspeaks of sailing the sea with God alone. The founders of astronomy\ndwelt on a plain of sand, where the horizon held not one vine-clad\nhill nor alluring vista. Wearying of the yellow sea, their thoughts\njourneyed along the heavenly highway and threaded the milky way, until\nthe man became immortal. Moses became the greatest of jurists, because\nduring the forty years when his mind was creative and at its best, he\ndwelt amid the solitude of the sand hills around Sinai, and was free\nfor intellectual and moral life. History tells of a thousand men who\nhave maintained virtue in adversity only to go down in hours of\nprosperity. That is, man is stimulated by the crisis; conflict\nprovokes heroism, persecution lends strength. But, denied the exigency\nof a great trial, men who seemed grand fall all to pieces. Triumphant\nin adversity, men are vanquished by drudgery. An English author has\nexpressed the belief that many men \"achieve reputations when all eyes\nare focused upon them, who fall into petty worthlessness amid\nobscurity and monotony. Life's crowning victory belongs to those who\nhave won no brilliant battle, suffered no crushing wrong; who have\nfigured in no great drama, whose sphere was obscure, but who have\nloved great principles midst small duties, nourished sublime hopes\namid vulgar cares, and illustrated eternal principles in trifles.\"\n\nResponsibility is a teacher of righteousness. God educates men by\ncasting them upon their own resources. Man learns to swim by being\ntossed into life's maelstrom and left to make his way ashore. No youth\ncan learn to sail his life-craft in a lake sequestered and sheltered\nfrom all storms, where other vessels never come. Skill comes through\nsailing one's craft amidst rocks and bars and opposing fleets, amidst\nstorms and whirls and counter currents. English literature has a\nproverb about the incapacity of rich men's sons. The rich man himself\nbecame mighty because he began in poverty, had no hand to help him\nforward, and many hands to hold him back. After long wrestling with\nopposing force he compacted within himself the strength and\nforesight, the frugality and wisdom of a score of ordinary men. The\nschool of hard knocks made him a man of might. But his son, cradled in\na soft nest, sheltered from every harsh wind, loving ease more than\nindustry, is in danger of coming up without insight into the secrets\nof his profession or industry.\n\nResponsibility alone drives man to toil and brings out his best gifts.\nFor this reason the pensions given to scholars are said to have\ninjured some men of genius. Johnson wrote his immortal Rasselas to\nraise money to buy his mother's coffin. Hunger and pain drove Lee to\nthe invention of his loom. Left a widow with a family to support, in\nmid-life Mrs. Trollope took to authorship and wrote a score of\nvolumes. The most piteous tragedy in English literature is that of\nColeridge. Wordsworth called him the most myriad-minded man since\nShakespeare, and Lamb thought him \"an archangel slightly damaged.\" The\ngenerosity of his friends gave the poet a home and all its comforts\nwithout the necessity of toil. Is it possible that ease and lack of\nresponsibility, with opium, helped wreck him? What did that critic\nmean when he said of a rich young friend, \"He needs poverty alone to\nmake him a great painter?\" It is responsibility that teaches caution,\nforesight, prudence, courage, and turns feeblings into giants.\n\nThe extremes and contrasts of life do much to shape character. Ours is\na world that moves from light to dark, from heat to cold, from summer\nto winter. On the crest to-day, the hero is in the trough to-morrow.\nMoses, yesterday a deserted slave child, to-day adopted by a king's\ndaughter; David, but yesterday a shepherd boy with his harp, and\nto-day dwelling in the King's palace; men yesterday possessed of\nplenty, to-day passing into penury--these illustrate the extremes of\nlife. These contrasts are as striking as those we find on the sunny\nslopes of the Alps. There the foothills are covered with vineyards,\nwhile the summits have everlasting snow. In Wyoming hot springs gush\nclose beside snowdrifts. During man's few years, and brief, he\nexperiences many reverses. He flits on between light and dark. It is\nhard for the leader to drop back into the ranks. It is not easy for\nhim who hath led a movement to its success to see his laurels fall\nleaf by leaf. After a long and dangerous service men grown old and\ngray are succeeded by the youth to whom society owes no debt. Thus man\njourneys from strength to invalidism, from prosperity to adversity,\nfrom joy to sorrow, or goes from misery to happiness, from defeat to\nvictory.\n\nNot one single person but sooner or later is tested by these\nalterations. God sends prosperity to lift character to its highest\nlevels. It is an error to suppose that the higher manhood flourishes\nin extreme poverty. Watkinson has beautifully said that \"humility is\nnever so lovely as when arrayed in scarlet; moderation is never so\nimpressive as when it sits at banquets; simplicity is never so\ndelightful as when it dwells amidst magnificence; purity is never so\ndivine as when its unsullied robes are worn in a king's palace;\ngentleness is never so touching as when it exists in the powerful.\nWhen men combine gold and goodness, greatness and godliness, genius\nand graces, human nature is at its best.\" On the other hand, adversity\nis a supplement, making up what prosperity lacks. The very abundance\nof Christmas gifts ofttimes causes children to forget the parents who\ngave them. Some are adorned by prosperity as mountains are adorned\nwith rich forests. Others stand forth with the bareness, but also with\nthe grandeur and enduring strength, of Alpine mountains. Character is\nlike every other structure--nothing tests it like extremes.\n\nWhen friendship and love have enriched man, and deepened all the\nsecret springs of his being, when grief hath refined and suffering\nmellowed him, then God sends the ideals to stimulate men to new\nachievements. An ideal is a pattern or plan held up before the man's\neye for imitation, realization and guidance. In the heart's innermost\ntemple of silence, whither neither friend nor enemy may ever come,\nthere the soul unveils its secret ideal. The pattern there erected at\nonce proclaims what man is and prophesies what he shall be. In old age\nmen think what they are, but in youth, what we think, we come to be.\nTherefore must the pattern held up before the mind's eye be of the\nhighest and purest. The legend tells us of the master's apprentice,\nwho, from the small bits of glass that had been thrown away\nconstructed a window of surpassing loveliness. The ideal held up\nbefore the boy's mind organized and brought together these broken\nbits, and wrought them into lines of perfect beauty.\n\nThus by his inner aspirations, man lives and builds. The inner eye\nreveals to the toiler a better tool or law or reform, and the\nrealization of these visions gives social progress. The vision of\nconscience reveals new possibilities of character, and these give\nduty. The vision of the heart reveals new possibilities of\nfriendship, and these give the home. As the sun standing upon the\nhorizon orbs itself, first in each dewdrop, and afterward lifts the\nwhole earth forward, so the ideal repeats itself, first in the\nindividual heart, and afterward lifts all society forward. Thus unto\nman slowly building up his character comes the supreme ideal, when\nJesus Christ stands forth fully revealed in His splendor. He is no\nempty abstraction, no bloodless theory, but bone of our bone, brother\nof our own body and breath, yet marred by no weakness, scarred by no\nsin, tossing back temptations as some Gibraltar tosses back the sea's\nbillows and the bits of drift-wood. Strong, He subdued His strength in\nthe day of battle, and bore Himself like iron. Yet He was so gentle\nthat His white hand felt the fall of the rose leaf, while He inflected\nHis gianthood to the needs of the little child. Nor could He be holden\nof the bands of death, for He clove a pathway through the grave, and\nmade death's night to shine like the day. \"I have but one passion,\"\nsaid Tholuck. \"It is He! it is He!\" As Shakespeare first reveals to\nthe young poet his real riches of imagination, as Raphael first\nunveils to the young artist the possibilities of color, so man knows\nnot his infinite capabilities until Jesus Christ stands forth in all\nHis untroubled splendor. Having Him, man has not only his Teacher and\nSaviour, but also his Master and Model, fulfilling all the needs of\nthe highest manhood and the noblest character.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] Modern Painters, vol. III, pg. 368.\n\n\n\n\nASPIRATIONS AND IDEALS\n\n\n    \"As some most pure and noble face,\n      Seen in the thronged and hurrying street,\n    Sheds o'er the world a sudden grace,\n      A flying odor sweet,\n    Then passing leaves the cheated sense\n    Balked with a phantom excellence.\n\n    'So in our soul, the visions rise\n      Of that fair life we never led;\n    They flash a splendor past our eyes,\n      We start, and they are fled;\n    They pass and leave us with blank gaze,\n    Resigned to our ignoble days.\"\n\n             --_The Fugitive Ideal, by Wm. Watson._\n\n      \"Contentment and aspiration are in every true man's\n      life.\"\n\n      \"No bird can race in the great blue sky against a noble\n      soul. The eagle's wing is slow compared with the flight of\n      hope and love.\"--_Swing._\n\n    \"We figure to ourselves\n    The thing we like, and then we build it up--\n    As chance will have it, on the rock or sand;\n    For time is tired of wandering o'er the world,\n    And home-bound fancy runs her bark ashore.\"\n\n                             --_Taylor._\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nASPIRATIONS AND IDEALS.\n\n\nMan is a pilgrim journeying toward the new and beautiful city of the\nIdeal. Aspiration, not contentment, is the law of his life. To-day's\ntriumph dictates new struggles to-morrow. The youth flushed with\nsuccess may couch down in the tent of satisfaction for one night only;\nwhen the morning comes he must fold his tent and push on toward some\nnew achievement. That man is ready for his burial robes who lets his\npresent laurels satisfy him. God has crowded the world with antidotes\nto contentment and with stimulants to progress. The world is not built\nfor sluggards. The earth is like a road, a poor place for sleeping in,\na good thing to travel over. The world is like a forge, unfit for\nresidence, but good for putting temper in a warrior's sword. Life is\nbuilt for waking up dull men, making lazy men unhappy, and the\nlow-flying miserable. When other incitements fail, fear and remorse\nfollowing behind scourge men forward; but ideals in front are the\nchief stimulants to growth. Each morning, waking, the soul sees the\nideal man one ought to be rising in splendor to shame the man one is.\nColumbus was tempted forward by the floating branches, the drifting\nweeds, the strange birds, unto the new world rich in tropic-treasure.\nSo by aspirations and ideals God lures men forward unto the soul's\nundiscovered country. In the long ago the star moving on before guided\nthe wise men of the East to the manger where the young child lay; and\nstill in man's night God hangs aspirations--stars for guiding men away\nfrom the slough of content to the hills of paradise. The soul hungers\nfor something vast, and ideals lure to the long voyage, the distant\nharbor, and are the stars by which the pilgrim shapes his course.\n\nLife's great teachers are friendship, occupation, travel, books,\nmarriage, and chiefly heart-hungers. These yearnings within are the\nsprings of all man's progress without. Sometimes philosophers say that\nthe history of civilization is the history of great men. Confessing\nthis, let us go on and note that the history of all great men is the\nhistory of their ideal hours, realized in conduct and character.\nWaking at midnight in his bleak garret, the vision splendid rose\nbefore John Milton. The boy of twelve would fain write a poem that\nthe world would not willingly let die. He knew that whoever would\nwrite a heroic poem must first live a heroic life. From that hour the\nyouth followed the ideal that led him on, pursuing knowledge\nunceasingly for seven years, never closing book before midnight,\nleaving Cambridge with the approbation of the good, and without stain\nor spot upon his life. Afterward, making a pilgrimage to Italy for\nstudy in that land of song and story, he heard of the civil wars in\nEngland, and at once returned, putting away his ambition for culture\nbecause he thought it base to be traveling in ease and safety abroad\nwhile his fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home. When he\nresisted a brutal soldier's attack who lifted his sword to say, \"I\nhave power to kill you,\" the scholar replied: \"And I have power to be\nkilled and to despise my murderer.\" Growing old and blind, and falling\nupon evil days and tongues, out of his heroic life he wrote his\nimmortal poem. Dying, he still pursued his ideal, for moving into the\nvalley and shadow, the blind poet whispered: \"Still guides the\nheavenly vision!\"\n\nDid men but know it, this is the secret of all heroic greatness. Here\nis that matchless old Greek, Socrates, sitting in the prison talking\nwith his friends of death and immortality, of the truth and beauty he\nhopes to find beyond. With one hand he rubs his leg, chafed by the\nharsh fetters, with the other he holds the cup of poison. When the sun\ntouched the horizon he took the cup of death from the jailer's hand,\nand with shining face went down into the valley, and midst the thick\nshadows passed forever from mortal sight, still pursuing his vision\nsplendid. And here is that pure-white martyr girl, painted by Millais,\nstaked down in the sea midst the rising tide, but looking toward the\nopen sky, with a great, sweet light upon her face. Here is Luther\nsurrounded by scowling soldiers and hungry, wolfish priests, looking\nupward and then flinging out his challenge, \"I cannot and I will not\nrecant, God help me.\" Here is John Brown, with body all pierced with\nbullets and grievously sore, stooping to kiss the child as he went on\nto the gallows, with heart as high as on his wedding day. And here is\nthat Christian nurse who followed the line of battle close up to the\nrifle-pits, and kindled her fire and prepared hot drinks for dying\nmen; who, when asked by the colonel who told her to build those fires,\nmade answer: \"God Almighty, sir!\" and went right on to fulfill her\nvision. And here is Livingstone, with his grand craggy head and\ndeep-set eyes, found in the heart of Africa, dead beside his couch,\nwith ink scarcely dry on words that interpreted his vision: \"God bless\nall men who in any way help to heal this open sore of the world!\"\nChiefly, there is Christ, who, from the hour when the star stayed by\nHis manger in Bethlehem, and the light ne'er seen on land or sea shone\non the luminous and transfigured mount, on to the day of His uplifted\ncross, ever followed the divine vision that brought Him at last to\nOlivet, to the open sky, the ascending cloud, the welcoming heavens.\n\nBut God, who hath appointed visions unto great men, doth set each\nlesser human life between its dream and its task. Deep heart-hungers\nare quickened within the people, and then some patriot, reformer, or\nhero, is raised up to feed the aspiration. Afterward history stores up\nthese noble achievements of yesterday as soul food for to day. The\nheart, like the body, needs nourishment, and finds it in the highest\ndeeds and best qualities of those who have gone before. Thus the\nartist pupil is fed by his great master. The young soldier emulates\nhis brave general. The patriot is inspired by his heroic chief.\nHistory records the deeds of noble men, not for decorating her pages,\nbut for strengthening the generations that come after. The measure of\na nation's civilization is the number of heroes it has had, whose\nqualities have been harvested for children and youth.\n\nFull oft one hero has transformed a people. The blind bard singing\nthrough the villages of Greece met a rude and simple folk. But Homer\nopened up a gallery in the clouds, and there unveiled Achilles as the\nideal Greek. It became the ambition of every Athenian boy to fix the\nIliad in his mind and repeat Achilles in his heart and life. Soon the\nAchilles in the sky looked down upon 20,000 young Achilles walking\nthrough the streets beneath. With what admiration do men recall the\nintellectual achievements of Athens! What temples, and what statues in\nthem! What orators and eloquence! What dramas! What lyric poems! What\nphilosophers! Yet one ideal man who never lived, save in a poet's\nvision, turned rude tribes into intellectual giants. Thus each nation\nhungers for heroes. When it has none God sends poets to invent them as\nsoul food for the nation's youth. The best gift to a people is not\nvineyards nor overflowing granaries, nor thronged harbors, nor rich\nfleets, but a good man and great, whose example and influence repeat\ngreatness in all the people. As the planet hanging above our earth\nlifts the sea in tidal waves, so God hangs illustrious men in the sky\nfor raining down their rich treasure upon society.\n\nMoreover, it is the number and kind of his aspirations that determine\na man's place in the scale of manhood. Lowest of all is that great\nunder class of pulseless men, content to creep, and without thought of\nwings for rising. Mere drifters are they, creatures of circumstance,\nindifferently remaining where birth or events have started them.\nHaving food and raiment, therewith they are content. No inspirations\nfire them, no ideals rebuke them, no visions of possible excellence or\nadvancement smite their vulgar contentment. Like dead leaves swept\nforward upon the current, these men drift through life. Not really\nbad, they are but indifferently good, and therefore are the material\nout of which vicious men are made. In malarial regions, physicians\nsay, men of overflowing health are safe because the abounding vitality\nwithin crowds back the poison in the outer air, while men who live on\nthe border line between good health and ill, furnish the conditions\nfor fevers that consume away the life. Similarly, men who live an\nindifferent, supine life, with no impulses upward, are exposed to evil\nand become a constant menace to society.\n\nHigher in the scale of manhood are the men of intermittent\naspirations. A traveler may journey forward guided by the light of the\nperpetual sun, or he may travel by night midst a thunder-storm, when\nthe sole light is an occasional flash of lightning, revealing the path\nhere and the chasm there. But once the lightning has passed the\ndarkness is thicker than before. And to men come luminous hours,\nrebuking the common life. Then does the soul revolt from any evil\nthought and thing and long for all that is God-like in character, for\nhonor and purity, for valor and courage, for fidelity to the finer\nconvictions deep hidden in the soul's secret recesses. What heroes are\nthese--in the vision hour! With what fortitude do these soldiers bear\nup under blows--when the battle is still in the future! But once the\nconflict comes, their courage goes! On a winter's morning the frost\nupon the window pane shapes forth trees, houses, thrones, castles,\ncities, but these are only frost. So before the mind the imagination\nhangs pictures of the glory and grandeur and God-likeness of the\nhigher life, but one breath of temptation proves their evanescence.\nBetter, however, these intermittent ideals than uninterrupted\nsupineness and contentment. But, best of all, that third type of men\nwho realize in daily life their luminous hours, and transmute their\nideals into conduct and character. These are the soul-architects who\nbuild their thoughts and deeds into a plan; who travel forward, not\naimlessly, but toward a destination; who sail, not anywhither, but\ntoward a port; who steer, not by the clouds, but by the fixed stars.\nHigh in the scale of manhood these who ceaselessly aspire toward\nlife's great Exemplar.\n\nConsider the use of the soul's aspirations. Ideals redeem life from\ndrudgery. Four-fifths of the human race are so overbodied and\nunder-brained that the mind is exhausted in securing provision for\nhunger and raiment. No to-morrow but may bring men to sore want.\nPoverty narrows life into a treadmill existence. Multitudes of\nnecessity toil in the stithy and deep mine. Multitudes must accustom\nthemselves to odors offensive to the nostril. Men toil from morning\ntill night midst the din of machinery from which the ear revolts.\nMyriads dig and delve, and scorn their toil. He who spends all his\nyears sliding pins into a paper, finds his growth in manhood\nthreatened. Others are stranded midway in life. Recently the test\nexhibition of a machine was successful, and those present gave the\ninventor heartiest congratulations. But one man was present whose face\nwas drawn with pain, and whose eyes were wet with tears. Explaining\nhis emotion to a questioner he said: \"One hour ago I entered this room\na skilled workman; this machine sends me out that door a common\nlaborer. For years I have been earning five dollars a day as an expert\nmachinist. By economy I hoped to educate my children into a higher\nsphere, but now my every hope is ruined.\" Life is crowded with these\ndisappointments. A journey among men is like a journey through a\nharvest field after a hailstorm has flailed off all the buds and\nleaves, and pounded the young corn into the ground. Fulfilling such a\nlife, men need to be saved by hopes and aspirations. Then God sends\nvisions in to give men wing-room, and lift them into the realm of\nrestfulness. Some hope rises to break the thrall of life. The soul\nrises like a songbird in the sky.\n\nDisappointed men find that food itself is not so sweet as dreams. The\nseamstress toiling in the attic stitches hope in with each thread, and\ndreams of some knight coming to lift her out of poverty, and her\nreverie mocks and consumes her woe. The laborer digging in his ditch\nsweetens his toil and rests his weariness by the dream of the humble\nhome labor and love will some day build. Many in middle life, when it\nis too late, find themselves in the wrong occupation, but maintain\ntheir usefulness and happiness by surrounding themselves with the\nthoughts of the career they love and beyond may yet fulfill. How does\nimagination enterprise everywhither! By it what ships are built, what\nlands are explored, what armies are led, what thrones are erected in\nthought! When the seed sprang up in the prison cell, the scholar\nconfined there enlarged the little plant until in his mind it became a\nvast forest, where all flowers bloomed and spiced shrubs grew and\nbirds sang, and where brooks gurgled such music as never fell on\nmortal ear. Innumerable men endure by seeing things invisible. They\nretire from the vexations and disappointments without to their\nhidden-vision life. Their inner thoughts contrast strangely with the\nouter fact and life. During the Middle Ages, when persecution broke\nout against the Jews, these merchants were oppressed and robbed, and\nsaved themselves from destruction only by living a squalid life\noutside and a princely life in hidden quarters. It has been said: \"You\nmight follow an old merchant, spotted and stained with all the squalor\nof beggary upon him, through byways foul to the feet and offensive to\nevery sense, and through some narrow lane enter what looks like the\nentrance of an ill-kept stable. Thence opens out a squalid hall of\nnoisome odors. But ascending the steps you come to a secret passage,\nwhen, opening the door, you are blinded with the brilliancy that\nbursts upon you. You are in the palace of a prince. The walls are\ncovered with adornments. Rare tapestries hang upon the walls. The\ndishes that bespread the table are of silver and gold, and the\nhousehold, who hasten to receive the parent and strip off his outward\ndisguise, are themselves arrayed like king's children.\" Thus the\nideals make a great difference between the man without and the hidden\nlife within. Seeing unseen things, the heart sings while the hand\nworks. The vision above lifts the life out of fatigue into the realm\nof joy and restfulness.\n\nIt is also the office of these divine ideals to rebuke the lower\nphysical life, and smite each sordid, selfish purpose. The vision hour\nis the natural enemy of the vulgar mood. Men begin life with the high\npurpose of living nobly, generously, openly. Full of the choicest\naspirations, hungering for the highest things, the youth enters\ntriumphantly upon the pathway of life. But journeying forward he meets\nconflict and strife, envy and jealousy, disappointment and defeat. He\nfinds it hard to live up to the level of his best moods. Self-interest\nbiases his judgment. Greed bribes reason. Pride leads him astray.\nSelfishness tempts him to violate his finer self. The struggle to\nmaintain his ideals is like a struggle for life itself. Many, alas!\nafter a short, sharp conflict, give up the warfare and break faith and\nfealty with the deeper convictions. They quench the light that shone\nafar off to beckon and cheer them on. Persuading themselves that the\nideal life is impracticable, they strike an average between their\nhighest moods and their low-flying hours. Then is the luster of life\nall dimmed, and the soul is like a noble mansion in the morning after\nsome banquet or reception. In the evening, when making ready for the\nbrilliant feast, all the house is illuminated. Each curio is in its\nniche. The harp is in its place. The air is laden with the perfume of\nroses. But when the morning comes, how vast is the change! The windows\nare darkened and the halls deserted; the wax tapers have burned to the\nsocket, or flicker out in smoke; the flowers, scorched by the heated\nair, have shriveled and fallen, and in the banquet-room only the\n\"broken meats\" remain. Gone is all the glory of the feast! Thus, when\nmen lay aside their heroic ideals and bury their visions, the luster\nof life departs, and its beauty perishes. Then it is that God sends in\nthe heavenly vision to rebuke the poorer, sensuous life and man's\nmaterial mood. Above the life that is, God hangs the glory, and\ngrandeur, and purity of the life that might be, and the soul looking\nup scorns the lower things, and hungers and thirsts for truth and\npurity. Then man comes to himself again, and makes his way back to his\nFather's side.\n\nMoreover, these vision hours come to men to give them hints and gleams\nof what they shall be when time and God's resources have wrought their\npurpose of strength and beauty upon the soul. Man is born a long way\nfrom himself and needs to see the end toward which he moves. He has a\nbody and uses a lower life, but man is what he is in his best hours\nand most exalted moods. The measure of strength in any living thing is\nits highest faculty. The strength of the deer is swiftness, of a lion\nstrength; but to the power of the foot the eagle adds wings, and\ntherefore is praised for its swift flight. To the wing the bee adds\ngenius for building with geometric skill, and its praise lies in its\nrare intelligence. Thus man also is to be measured by his highest\nfaculty, in that he has power to see things unseen and work in realms\ninvisible. We are told that Cicero had three summer villas and a\nwinter residence, but he prided himself not upon his wealth, but upon\nhis oratory and eloquence. The grand old statesman of England has\nskill for lifting the axe upon the tall trees, but he glories in his\nskill in statecraft. Incidentally man reaps treasures from the fields,\nfinds riches in the forests, and wealth in the mountains; yet his real\nmanhood resides in reason and moral sentiment, and the spirit that\nsaith, \"Our Father.\" For him to live for the body is as if one who\nshould inherit a magnificent palace were to close the galleries and\nlibraries and splendid halls, and opening only the eating-room, there\nto live and feed.\n\nHappy the man who is a good mechanic or merchant; but, alas! if he is\nonly that. Happy he who prospers toward the granary and the\nstorehouse; but, alas! if he is shrunken and shriveled toward the\nspiritual realm. To all rich in physical treasure, but bankrupt toward\nthe unseen realm, comes some divine influence arousing discontent.\nThen lower joys are seen to be uncrowned, and sordid pleasures to have\nno scepter. The soul becomes restless and disappointed where once it\nwas contented. Looking afar off it sees in its vision hours the goodly\nestate to which God shall some day bring it. Here we recall the\npeasant's dream. His humble cottage while he slept lifted up its\nthatched roof and became a noble mansion. The one room and small\nbecame many and vast. The little windows became arched and beautiful,\nlooking out upon vast estates all his. The fireplace became an altar,\no'er which hung seraphim. The chimney became a golden ladder like that\nwhich Jacob saw, and his children, living and dead, passed like angels\nbringing treasure up and down. And thus, while the human heart muses\nand dreams, God builds His sanctuary in the soul. The vision the heart\nsees is really the pattern by which God works. These fulfill the\ntransformation wrought in the peasant's dream.\n\nSeeking to fulfill their noble ministry, ideals have grievous enemies.\nAmong these let us include vanity and pride. When the wise man said,\n\"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit, there is more hope of a\nfool than of him,\" he indicated that he had known fools cured of their\nfolly, but never a vain man cured of his vanity. Pliny said: \"It is as\nhard to instruct pride as it is to fill an empty bottle with a cork in\nit.\" Some men are constitutionally vain. They think all creation\nconverges toward one center, and they are that center. The rash of\nconceit commonly runs its course very early in life. With most it is\nlike the prancing and gayety of an untrained colt; the cure is the\nplow and harness. Failure also is a curative agent, and so also is\nsuccess. But chiefly do the ideals rebuke conceit. The imagination is\nGod in the soul, and lifting up the possible achievement, the glory of\nwhat men may become, shames and makes contemptible what men are.\n\nIndolence and contentment also antagonize the ideals. Men bring\ntogether a few generosities and integrities. Soul-misers, men gloat\nover these, as money-misers over their shining treasure, content with\nthe little virtue they have. But no man has a right to fulfill a\nstagnant career; life is not to be a puddle, but a sweet and running\nstream. No man has a right to rust; he is bound to keep his tools\nbright by usage. No man has a right to be paralyzed; he is bound to\nenlarge and grow. So ideals come in to compel men to go forward. It is\neasier to lie down in a thorn hedge, or to sleep in a field of\nstinging nettles, than for a man to abide contentedly as he is while\nhis ideals scourge him upward.\n\nChiefly do the malign elements oppose the ideal life. There is enmity\nbetween vulgarity and visions. If anger comes, mirth goes; when greed\nis in the ascendency, generosity is expelled. If, during a chorus of\nbird-voices in the forest, only the shadow of an approaching hawk\nfalls upon the ground, every sweet voice is hushed. Thus, if but one\nevil, hawk-like note is heard in the heart, all the nobler joys and\naspirations depart. The higher life is at enmity with the lower, and\nthis war is one of extermination.\n\nOh, all ye young hearts! guard well one rock that is fatal to all\nexcellence. If ever you have broken faith with your ideals, lift them\nup and renew faith. Cherish ideals as the traveler cherishes the north\nstar, and keep the guiding light pure and bright and high above the\nhorizon. The vessel may lose its sails and masts, but if it only keeps\nits course and compass, the harbor may be reached. Once it loses the\nstar for steering by, the voyage must end in shipwreck. For when the\nheroic purpose goes, all life's glory departs. Let no man think the\nburial of a widow's son the saddest sight on earth. Let men not mourn\nover the laying of the first born under the turf, as though that were\nman's chiefest sorrow. Earth knows no tragedy like the death of the\nsoul's ideals. Therefore, battle for them as for life itself! The\ncynic may ridicule them, because, having lost his own purity and\ntruth, he naturally thinks that none are pure or true; but wise men\nwill take counsel of aspirations and ideals. Even low things have\npower for incitement. No dead tree in the forest so unsightly but that\nsome generous woodbine will wrap a robe of beauty about its\nnakedness. No cellar so dark but if there is a fissure through which\nthe sunlight falls the plant will reach up its feeble tendrils to be\nblessed by the warming ray. Yet the soul is from God, is higher than\nvine or tree, and should aspire toward Him who stirs these mysterious\naspirations in the heart.\n\nThe soul is like a lost child. It wanders a stranger in a strange\nland. Full oft it is heartsick, for even the best things content it\nfor but a little while. Daily, mysterious ideals throb and throb\nwithin. It struggles with a vagrant restlessness. It goes yearning\nafter what it does not find. A deep, mysterious hunger rises. It would\nfain come to itself. In its ideal hours it sees afar off the vision\nthat tempts it on and up toward home and heaven. The secret of man is\nthe secret of his vision hours. These tell him whence he came--and\nwhither he goes. Then Christ became the soul's guide; God's heart, the\nsoul's home.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PHYSICAL BASIS OF CHARACTER\n\n\n      \"Health is the vital principle of bliss.\"--_Thompson._\n\n      \"Good nature is often a mere matter of health. With good\n      digestion men are apt to be good natured; with bad\n      digestion, morose.\"--_Beecher._\n\n      \"A man so trained in youth that his body is the ready\n      servant of his will, and does with equal ease and\n      pleasure all the work that as a mechanism it is capable\n      of,--whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic-engine, with\n      all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working\n      order, ready like a steam engine to be turned to any kind\n      of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the\n      anchors of the mind.\"--_Huxley._\n\n      \"Finally, I have one advice which is of very great\n      importance. You are to consider that health is a thing to\n      be attended to continually, as the very highest of all\n      temporal things. There is no kind of an achievement equal\n      to perfect health. What to it are nuggets or\n      millions?\"--_Carlyle's Address to Students at Edinburgh._\n\n    \"Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty:\n    For in my youth I never did apply\n    Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood:\n    Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo\n    The means of weakness and debility;\n    Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,\n    Frosty but kindly.\"\n\n             --\"_As You Like It_,\" ii: 3.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE PHYSICAL BASIS OF CHARACTER\n\n\nAncient society looked upon the human body with the utmost veneration.\nThe citizen of Thebes or Memphis knew no higher ambition than a\ncompetency for embalming his body. Men loved unto death and beyond it\nthe physical house in which the soul dwelt. Every instinct of\nrefinement and self-respect revolted from the thought of discarding\nthe body like a cast-off garment or worn-out tool. In his dying hour\nit was little to Rameses that his career was to be pictured on obelisk\nand preserved in pyramid, but it was very much to the King that the\nembalmer should give permanency to the body with which his soul had\ngone singing, weeping and loving through three-score years and ten.\nThe papyrus found in the tombs tells us that the soldiers of that\nfar-off age did not fear death itself more than they feared falling in\nsome secluded spot where the body, neglected and forgotten, would\nquickly give its elements back to air and earth. How noble the\nsentiment that attached dignity and honor to hand and foot! Sacred,\ndoubly sacred, was the body that had served the soul long and\nfaithfully!\n\nThe soul is a city, and as Thebes had many gateways through which\npassed great caravans laden with goodly treasure, so the five senses\nare gateways through which journey all earth's sights and sounds.\nThrough the golden gate of the ear have gone what noble truths,\ncompanying together what messengers of affection, what sweet\nfriendships. The eye is an Appian Way over which have gone all the\nprocessions of the seasons. How do hand and vision protect man?\nHunters use sharp spears for keeping back wild beasts, but\nLivingstone, armed only with eye beams, drove a snarling beast into\nthe thicket, and Luther, lifting his great eyes upon an assassin, made\nthe murderer flee. What flute or harp is comparable for sweetness to\nthe voice? It carries warning and alarm. It will speak for you, plead\nfor you, pray for you. Truly it is an architect, fulfilling Dante's\ndictum, \"piling up mountains of melody.\" Serving the soul well, the\nbody becomes sacred by service. Therefore man loves and guards the\nphysical house in which he lives.\n\nAlways objects and places associated with life's deep joys and sorrows\nbecome themselves sacred through these associations. The flock\npassing through the forest leaves some white threads behind. The bird\nlines its nest with down from its own bosom. Thus the heart, going\nforward, leaves behind some treasure, and perfumes its path. Memory\nhangs upon the tree the whispered confession made beneath its\nbranches. No palace so memorable as the little house where you were\nreared, no charter oak so historic as the trees under which you\nplayed, no river Nile so notable as the little brook that once sung to\nyour sighing, no volume or manuscript so precious as the letter and\nTestament your dying father pressed into your hand. Understanding this\nprinciple, nations guard the manuscript of the sage, the sword of the\ngeneral, the flag stained with heroes' blood. Memorable forever the\nlittle room where Milton wrote, the cottage where Shakespeare dwelt,\nthe spot where Dante dreamed, the ruin where Phidias wrought. But no\nbuilding ever showed such comely handiwork as the temple built by\ndivine skill. God hath made the soul's house fair to look upon. Death\nmay close its doors, darken its windows, and pull down its pillars;\nstill, its very ruins are precious, to be guarded with jealous care.\nHow sacred the spot where lie the parents that tended us, the bosom\nthat shielded our infancy, the hands that carried our weakness\neverywhither. Men will always deem the desecration of the body or the\ngrave blasphemous. The physical house, standing, is the temple of God;\nfalling, it must forever be sacred in man's memory.\n\nScience teaches us to look upon the body as a thinking machine. As a\nmental mechanism it exhibits the divine being as an inventor, who has\nproduced a machine as much superior to Watt's engine, as that engine\nis superior to a clod or stone. In this divine mechanism all intricate\nand enduring machines are combined in one. Imagine an instrument so\ndelicate as to be at once a telescope and microscope, at one moment\nwitnessing the flight of a sun hundreds of millions of miles away,\nthen quickly adjusted for seeing the point of the finest needle!\nImagine a machine that at one and the same moment can feel the\ngratefulness of the blazing fire, taste the sweetness of an orange,\nexperience the aesthetic delights of a picture, recall the events in\nthe careers of the men the artist has delineated, recognize the\nentrance of a group of friends, out of the confusion of tongues lead\nforth a voice not heard for years, thrill with elation at the\nunexpected meeting! The very mention of such an instrument, combining\naudiphone, telephone, phonograph, organ, loom, and many other\nmechanisms yet to be invented, seems like some tale from the \"Arabian\nNights.\" Yet the body and brain make up such a wondrous mental loom,\nweaving thought-textures called conversations, poems, orations, making\nthe creations of a Jacquard loom mere child's play. The body is like a\nvast mental depot with lines running out into all the world.\nEverything outside has a desk inside where it transacts its special\nline of business. There is a visual desk where sunbeams make up their\naccounts; an aural desk where melodies conduct their negotiations; a\nmemory desk where actions and motives are recorded; a logical desk\nwhere reasons and arguments are received and filed. Truly God hath\nwoven the bones and sinews that fence the soul about into a mechanism\n\"fearfully and wonderfully made.\"\n\nTo-day science is writing for us the story of the ascent of the body.\nScholars perceive that matter has fulfilled its mission now that dust\nstands erect, throbbing in a thinking brain, and beating in a glowing\nheart. Ours is a world wherein God hath ordained that acorns should go\non toward oaks, huts become houses, tents temples, babes men, and the\ngenerations journey on to that sublime event \"toward which the whole\ncreation moves.\" In this long upward march science declares the human\nbody has had its place. Professor Drummond, famed for his Christian\nfaith, in his recent volume tells us that man's body brings forward\nand combines in itself all the excellencies of the whole lower animal\ncreation. As the locomotive of to-day contains the engine of Watt and\nthe improvements of all succeeding inventors; as the Hoe\nprinting-press contains the rude hand-machine of Guttenberg and the\nbest features of all the machines that followed it; so the human body\ncontains the special gift of all earlier and lower forms of animal\nlife. In making a reaper the machinist does not begin with the sickle,\nand then unite the hook with the scythe, afterward joining thereto the\nrude reaper and so move on through all the improving types. But in the\ngerminal man, nature does adopt just this method. As the embryo life\ndevelops it passes into and through the likeness of each lower animal,\nand ever journeying upward carries with it the special grace and gift\nof each creature it has left behind, \"sometimes a bone, or a muscle,\nor a ganglion,\" until the excellencies of many lower forms are\ncompacted in the one higher man. In the human body there are now\nseventy vestigial structures, e.g., vermiform appendices, useful in\nthe lower life but worse than useless in man. When an anatomist\ndiscovered an organ in a certain animal he foretold its rudimentary\nexistence in the embryonic man, and we are told his prophecy was\nfulfilled through the microscope, \"just as the planet Neptune was\ndiscovered after its existence had been predicted from the\ndisturbances produced in the orbit of Uranus.\" As some noble gallery\nowes its supremacy to centuries of toil and represents treasures\nbrought in from every clime and country, so the human body represents\ncontributions from land and sea, and members and organs from\ninnumerable creatures that creep and walk and fly.\n\nThus man's descent from the animals has been displaced by the ascent\nof the human body. This is not degradation, but an unspeakable\nexaltation. Man is \"fearfully and wonderfully made.\" God ordained the\nlong upward march for making his body exquisitely sensitive and fitted\nto be the home of a divine mind. How marvelously does this view\nenhance the dignity of man, and clothe God with majesty and glory! It\nis a great thing for the inventor to construct a watch. But what if\ngenius were given some jeweler to construct a watch carrying the power\nto regulate itself, and when worn out to reproduce itself in another\nwatch of a new and higher form, endowing it at the same time with\npower for handing forward this capacity for self-improvement? Is not\nthe wisdom and skill required for making a watch that is\nself-adjusting, self-improving, and self-succeeding vastly more than\nthe wisdom required to construct a simple timepiece? Should science\nfinally establish the new view, already adopted by practically all\nbiologists, it will but substitute the method of gradualism and an\nunfolding progression for a human body created by an instantaneous and\nperemptory fiat. But this is a question for specialists and experts.\nThose scholars who accept this view, including such thinkers as the\nlate President McCosh, of Princeton; Dana, of Yale; such teachers as\nCaird, Drummond, and scores who could be named, all renowned for their\nChristian belief and life, find that these new views do not waste\nfaith, but rather nourish it. Formerly men feared and fought Newton's\ndoctrine of gravity, trembling lest that principle should destroy\nbelief. To-day many are troubled because of the new views of\ndevelopment. But it is possible for one to believe in evolution, and\nstill believe in God with all the mind and soul and strength.\nStrangely enough, some are unwilling to have ascended progressively\nfrom an animal, but quite willing to have come up directly from the\nclod. But either origin is good enough providing man has ascended far\nenough from the clod and the animal, and made some approach to the\nangel. Some there are for whom no descent seems possible--they can go\nno lower; dwelling now with beasts; others seem to have made no ascent\nwhatever, but to be even now upon the plane of things that crawl and\ncreep. Let us leave the question to the scientists. By whatever way\nthe body came, mentality and spirituality have now been engrafted upon\nit. Man is no longer animal, but spiritual; and the wondrous\ndevelopment of man upon this side of the grave is the pledge and\npromise of a long progress beyond the grave, when the divine spirit by\nhis secret resources shall lead forth from men, emotions,\ndispositions, and aspirations as much beyond the present thought and\nlife as the tree is beyond the seed and the low-lying roots.\n\nIn this new view of the human body, science not only exhibits the\ngrowth and perfection of man as the goal toward which God has been\nmoving from the first, but also throws light upon the sinfulness of\nman and the conflicts that rage within the soul. Man is seen to be a\ndouble creature. The spirit man rides a man of flesh and is often\nthrown thereby and trampled under foot. There is a lower animal nature\nhaving all the appetites and passions that sustain the physical\norganization; but super-imposed thereon, is a spiritual man, with\nreason and moral sentiment, with affection and faith. The union of the\ntwo means strife and conflict; the doing what one would not do and the\nleaving undone what one would do. The poet describes the condition by\nsaying: \"The devil squatted early on human territory, and God sent an\nangel to dispossess him.\" The animal nature foams out all manner of\npassions and lusts. From thence issue also lurid lights and murky\nstreams. But the under man is not the true man. The soldier rides the\nhorse, but is himself other than his beast. Man uses an animal at the\nbottom, but man is what he is at the top. Sin is the struggle for\nsupremacy between the animal forces and the higher spiritual powers.\nThe passions downstairs must be subordinated to the people upstairs.\nIn some men the animal impulses predominate with terrible force, and\ntheir control is not easy. It is as if a child should try to drive a\nchariot drawn by forty steeds of the sun. When a man finds that he can\nnot dam back the mountain stream, nor stop up its springs, he learns\nto use the stream by building a mill, and controlling the pressure of\nthe flood for grinding his corn. Similarly, the problem of life is for\nthe upper man to educate, control, and transmute the lower forces\ninto sympathy and service. The combative powers once turned against\nhis fellows must be turned against nature and used for hewing down the\nforests, bridging rivers, piercing mountains. Thus every animal force\nand passion becomes sacred through consecration to mental and\nspiritual ends and aims.\n\nSin therefore ceases to be philosophy or mediaevalism; it becomes a\nconcrete personal fact. Daily each one comes under its rule and sway.\nThe mind loves truth, and the body tempts man to break truth. The soul\nloves honor, and passion tempts it to deflect its pathway. Man goes\nforth in the morning with all the springs of generosity open; but\nbefore night selfishness has dammed up the hidden springs. In the\nmorning man goes out with love irradiating his face; he comes back at\nnight sullen and black with hatred and enmity. In the morning the soul\nis like a young soldier, parading in stainless white; at night his\ngarments are begrimed and soiled with self-indulgence and sin. As\nthere is a line along the tropics where two zones meet and breed\nperpetual storm, so there is a middle line in man where the animal man\nmeets the spiritual man, and there is perpetual storm. There clouds\nnever pass away, and the thunder never dies out of the horizon of\ntime.[3] This view, appealing to universal reason, appeals also to\ndivine help. In his daily strife man needs the brooding presence and\nconstant stimulus of the divine being. Man waits for God's stimulus as\nthe frozen roots wait the drawing near of God's sun. The soul looks\never unto the hills whence cometh its help. In the morning, at noon,\nand at night, man longs for a deliverer. God is the pledge of the\nsoul's victory over the body. For men floundering in the slough of sin\nand despond these words, \"Ye may, ye must be born again,\" are sweeter\nthan angel songs falling from the hills of Paradise.\n\nConsider the uses of the body. It is God's schoolmaster teaching\nindustry, compelling economy and thrift, and promoting all the basal\nmoralities. It contains the springs of all material civilization. If\nwe go back to the dawn of history we find that hunger and the desires,\nassociated with the body, have been the chief stimulants toward\nindustrial progress. Indolence is stagnation. Savages in the tropics\nare torpid and without progress. Hunger compels men to ask what food\nis in the river, what roots are in the ground, what fruits are on the\ntrees, what forces are in the air. The body is peremptory in its\ndemands. Hunger carries a stinging scourge. Necessity drives out the\nevil spirits of indolence and torpidity. The early man threading the\nthickets in search of food chanced upon a sweet plum, and because the\nbush grew a long way from his lodge he transplanted the root to a vale\nnear his home. Thence came all man's orchards and vineyards. Shivering\nwith cold, man sought out some sheltered cave or hollow tree. But soon\nthe body asked him to hew out a second cave in addition to the one\nnature had provided. Fulfilling its requests, man went on in the\ninterests of his body to pile stone on stone, and lift up carved\npillars and groined arches. Thence came all homes. For the body the\nsower goes forth to sow, and the harvester looks forward to the time\nof sheaves and shoutings. For strengthening the body the shepherd\nleads forth his flocks and herds, and for its raiment the weaver makes\nthe looms and spindles fly. For the body all the trains go speeding in\nand out, bringing fruits from the sunny south, and furs from the\nfrozen north. All the lower virtues and integrities spring from its\ndesires. As an engine, lying loose in a great ship, would have no\nvalue, but, fastened down with bolts, drives the great hull through\nthe water, so the body fastens and bolts the spirit to field, forest,\nand city, and makes it useful and productive. Material life and\ncivilization may be said to literally rest upon man's bones and\nsinews.\n\nThe body is also the channel of all the knowledges. How scant is the\nchild's understanding of the world-house in which he lives! There are\nshelves enough, but they are all empty. In the interest of\nintelligence his mind is sheathed in this sensitive body and the world\nforces without report themselves to this sensitive nerve mechanism.\nFire comes in to burn man's fingers and teach him how to make the fire\nsmite vapor from water. Cold comes in to nip his ears and pinch his\ncheeks until he learns the economy of ice, snow and rain. Steel cuts\nhis fingers and the blood oozes out. Thenceforth he turns the axe\ntoward the trees and the scythe toward the standing grain. The stone\nfalling bruises him, compelling a knowledge of gravity and the use of\ntrip-hammer, weights and pulleys. Looking downward the eye discerns\nthe handwriting on the rocks and the mind reads earth's romantic\nstory. Looking upward, the vision runs along the milky way for\nmeasuring the starry masses and searching out their movements. The ear\nstrains out sweet sounds, and St. Cecilia hears melodies from the sky.\nBending over the cradle, the parent marvels at God's bounty in the\nface of a babe. When the little one goes away the parent copies its\nface in rude colors, or carves its form in marble. Thus all the arts,\nsciences and inventions are gifts of the body to man's mental and\nmoral life.\n\nThere is a beautiful story of a company of celestial beings, who, in\ndisguise, entered an ancient city upon a mission of mercy. Departing\nhurriedly, in some way a fair young child was left behind and lost. In\nthe morning when men came upon the streets they found a sweet boy with\nsunny hair sitting upon the steps of the temple. Language had he none.\nHe answered questions with streaming eyes and frightened face. While\nmen wondered a slave drew near, carrying a harp. Then the heavenly\nchild signaled for the instrument, for this language he could speak.\nHe threw his arms about the harp as the child about its mother's neck.\nHe touched one string. Upon the hushed air there stole out a note\npure, clear, and sweet as though amethysts and pearls were melted into\nliquid melodies. It was music, but not such music as mortals give to\nmortals. It was such a song as spirit would sing to spirit, signaling\nacross the streets of heaven. It was a hymn to the mother whom he had\nloved and lost. With tearful eye and smiling face the little stranger\nand the harp together wept, and laughed, and sobbed out their grief\nand song. It was the speech of a child homesick for heaven. What that\nharp was to the silent boy, the human body is to man's soul within.\nThe soul teemed with thoughts. Fancies surged and thronged within.\nThen God gave the soul a body, as a harp of many strings. Through it\nthe soul finds voice and pours forth its rich thoughts and varied\nemotions.\n\nConsider, also, how nature has ordained the body as a system of moral\nregistration. Nature has a record of all men's deeds, keeping her\naccounts on fleshly tablets. The mind may forget, the body never. The\nbrain sees to it that the thoughts within do immediately dispose of\nfacial tissue without. Mental brightness gives facial illumination.\nThe right act or true thought sets its stamp of beauty in the\nfeatures; the wrong act or foul thought sets its seal of distortion.\nMoral purity and sweetness refine and beautify the countenance. The\nbody is a show window, advertising and exhibiting the soul's stock of\ngoods. Nature condenses bough, bud and shrub into black coal; compacts\nthe rich forces of air and sun and soil into peach and pear. In the\nkingdom of morals, there are people who seem to be of virtue, truth\nand goodness all compact. Contrariwise, every day you will meet men\nupon our streets who are solid bestiality and villainy done up in\nflesh and skin. Each feature is as eloquent of rascality as an ape's\nof idiocy. Experts skilled in physiognomy need no confession from\nimpish lips, but read the life-history from page to page written on\nfeatures \"dimmed by sensuality, convulsed by passion, branded by\nremorse; the body consumed with sloth and dishonored with selfish\nuses; the bones full of the sins of youth, the face hideous with\nsecret vices, the roots dried up beneath and the branches cut off\nabove.\" It is as natural and necessary for hidden thoughts and deeds\nto reveal themselves through cuticle as for root or bud in spring to\nunroll themselves into sight and observation. Here and now everything\ntends to obscure nature's handwriting and to veil it in mist and\ndisguise. But the body is God's canvas, and nature's handwriting goes\never on. Each faculty is a brush, and with it reason thinks out the\nportrait. Even the wolf may give something to the features, and also\nthe snake and scorpion. Soon will come an hour when men will hear not\nthe voice of the sirens singing praises in the ear, nor the plaudits\nof men of low deeds and conscience, but an hour when men shall stand\nin the presence of the all-revealing light and see themselves as they\nare and review the life they have embodied and emportraited. Happy,\nthrice happy, those who have traversed all life's pathway and come at\nlast to the hour when they stand face to face with themselves, then to\nfind therein a divine image like unto the comeliness and completion of\nHim whose face was transfigured and shone as the light.\n\nAt length has dawned the day when science strengthens the argument for\nimmortality. The dream of the prophet and seer is confirmed in the\nlight of modern knowledge. \"Each new discovery,\" says John Fiske, \"but\nplaces man upon a higher pinnacle than ever, and lights the future\nwith the radiant color of hope.\" Leaving his body behind, man journeys\non toward an immortal destiny. Science has emptied a thousand new\nmeanings into the words of Socrates: \"The destruction of the harp does\nnot argue the death of the harpist.\" Nature decrees that the flower\nmust fall when the fruit swells. If the winged creature is to come\nforth and increase, the chrysalis must perish and decrease. When the\nlong journey is over it is natural that the box in which the richly\ncarved and precious statue is packed should be tossed aside. Swiftly\nyouth goes on toward maturity, age toward old age, and the scythe\nawaits all. But sickness and trouble can do nothing more than dim the\neye, dull the ear, weaken the hand. Dying and death avail not for\ninjuring reason, affection, or hope, or love.\n\nAt the close of a long and arduous career the famous Lyman Beecher\npassed under a mental cloud. The great man became as a little child.\nOne day after his son, Henry Ward, had preached a striking sermon, his\nfather entered the pulpit and beginning to speak wandered in his\nwords. With great tenderness the preacher laid his hand upon his\nfather's shoulder and said to the audience: \"My father is like a man\nwho, having long dwelt in an old house, has made preparations for\nentering a new and larger home. Anticipating a speedy removal, he sent\non beforehand much of his soul-furniture. When later the day of\nremoval was postponed the interval seemed so brief as to render it\nunnecessary to bring back his mental goods.\" Oh, beautiful words\ndescribing those whose strength is declining, whose spirit is ebbing\nand senses failing, because God is packing up their soul-furniture\nthat they may be ready for the long journey that awaits us all. But\nman's journey is not unto the grave. Dying is transmutation. Dying is\nnot folding of the wings; but pluming the pinions for new and larger\nflight. Dying is not striking an unseen rock, but a speedy entrance\ninto an open harbor. Death is no enemy, letting the arrow fly toward\none who sits at life's banquet-table. Death is a friend coming on an\nerrand of release and divine convoy. For God's children \"to be\ndeath-called is to be God-called; to be God-called is to be\nChrist-found; to be Christ-found is hope and home and heaven.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] See Symposium on Evolution, Homiletic Review, May, 1894.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MIND: AND THE DUTY OF RIGHT THINKING\n\n\n      \"All ye who possess the power of thought, prize it well!\n      Remember that its flight is infinite; it winds about over\n      so many mountain tops, and so runs from poetry to\n      eloquence, it so flies from star to star, it so dreams,\n      so loves, so aspires, so hangs both over mystery and\n      fact, that we may well call it the effort of man to\n      explore the home, the infinite palace of his heavenly\n      Father.\"--_Swing._\n\n      \"Men with empires in their brains.\"--_Lowell._\n\n      \"'Tis the mind that makes the body rich.\"--_Taming of the\n      Shrew._\n\n    \"Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof\n    That they were born for immortality.\"--_Wordsworth._\n\n      \"Neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a\n      prejudice then rooted in me that a scholar is the\n      favorite of heaven and earth, the excellency of his\n      country, the happiest of men.\"--_Emerson._\n\n      \"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, for the\n      merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of\n      silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.\"--_Solomon._\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE MIND; AND THE DUTY OF RIGHT THINKING\n\n\nWith fine imagery the seer of old likened the mind unto a tree. The\ntree shakes down its fruits, and the mind sheds forth its thoughts.\nThe boughs of the one will cover the land with forests; the faculties\nof the other will sow the world with harvests that blight or harvests\nthat bless. The measure of personal worth, therefore, is the number\nand quality of thoughts issuing from man's mind. For all the doing\ncalled commerce, and all the speaking called conversation and books,\nbegin with the thinking called ideas. Each thing was first a thought.\nA loom is Arkwright's thought dressed up in iron clothes. Books are\nthe scholar's thoughts caught and fastened upon the white page. As our\nplanet and the harvests that cover it are the thoughts of God rushing\ninto visible expression, so all houses and ships, all cities and\ninstitutions, are man's inner thoughts, taking on outer and material\nembodiment.\n\nWhen thoughts compacted into habits have determined character and\ndestiny for the individual, they go on and secure their social\nprogress. When God would order a great upward movement for society, He\ndrops a great idea into the mind of some leader. Such energies divine\nhave these thoughts that they create new epochs in history. Through\nLuther the thought of liberty in church and state set tyrants\ntrembling and thrones tottering. Through Cromwell the thought of\npersonal rights became a weapon powerful enough utterly to destroy\nthat citadel of iniquity named the divine right of kings. It was a\ngreat moral thought called the \"Golden Rule\" that shotted the cannon\nof the North for victory and spiked the cannon of the South for\ndefeat. Measureless is the might of a moral idea. It exceeds the force\nof earthquakes and the might of tidal waves. The reason why no scholar\nor historian can forecast the events and institutions of the next\ncentury is that none can tell what great idea God will drop into the\nsoul of some man ordained to be its voice and prophet.\n\nNow the omnipotence of thoughts is not without reason. Man is the\nchild of genius because he is the child of God. Those beautiful words,\n\"made in His image,\" tell us that the human mechanism is patterned\nafter the divine. Reason and memory in man answer to those faculties\nin God, as do conscience and the moral sentiments. In creative genius\nman alone is a sharer with God. As the Infinite One passing through\nspace leaves behind those shining footsteps called suns and stars,\nglowing and sparkling upon planets innumerable, so man's mind, moving\nthrough life, leaves behind a pathway all shining with books, laws,\nliberties and homes. Of all the wonderful things God hath made, man\nthe wonderer is himself the most wonderful. No casket owned by a king,\nfilled with gems and sparkling jewels, ever held such treasure as God\nhath put into this casket of bones and sinew. The imagination cannot\npaint in colors too rich this being, who is a miniature edition of\ninfinity. It is not fiction, but fact, to say that reason is a loom;\nonly where Jacquard's mechanism weaves a few yards of silk and satin,\nreason weaves conversation, sympathy, songs, poems, eloquence--textures\nall immortal. And memory is a gallery; only where the Louvre holds a\nfew pictures of the past, memory waving her wonder-working wand brings\nback all faces, living and dead, causing mountains and battle-fields,\nwith all distant scenes, to pass before the mind in solemn procession.\n\nThe Bank of England has indeed a mechanism that tests coins and throws\nout all light weights. But judgment is an instrument testing things\ninvisible, weighing arguments and motives, testing principles and\ncharacters. And the desires, are they not like unto the richly laden\nargosies of commerce? And fancy, hath it not the skill of artist and\narchitect? Imagination, working in the realm of the useful, turns iron\ninto engines. Imagination, working in realms of the beautiful, turns\npigments into pictures. Imagination, working in the realms of thought,\ncan turn things true into sciences, and things good into ethical\nsystems. Well did the philosopher say that the greatest star is the\none standing at the little end of the telescope, the one looking, not\nlooked at nor looked for. When some Agassiz dredging the Atlantic\ntells us what animals lived there a million years ago, the scientist's\nmind seems an abyss deeper than the sea itself; and when Tyndall,\nclimbing to the top of the Matterhorn, reads on that rock-page all the\nevents of the ancient world, the mountain is dwarfed to an ant hill\nand becomes insignificant in the presence of the mountain-minded\nscholar. Hunters tell us that when crossing a swamp they leap from one\nhummock of grass to another. But Herschel and Proctor, exploring the\nheavenly world, step from star to star. The husbandman, squeezing a\ncluster of grapes in his cup, does but interpret to us the way in\nwhich the scholar squeezes planets and suns to brim the cup of\nknowledge for man's thirsting soul. This vast and wondrous world\nwithout is matched by man's rich and various mind within! Well did\nEmerson exclaim, \"Man, thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy\nsenses the nights and mornings, the summers and winters; carrying in\nthy brain the geometry of the City of God, in thy heart all the bowers\nof love, and all the realms of right and wrong.\"\n\nSuch being the nature of the mind, consider its prodigious\nfruitfulness in thought. If all the processes of the mind were reduced\nto material volume, the thoughts of each moment would fill a page, the\nthoughts of each hour would fill a chapter, the thoughts of each day\nwould fill a volume, the emotions of a year would fill a small library\nof many volumes. Value might be wanting, but not bulk. It is given to\nthe eye to behold the harvests wrought by the secret force of roots\nand sunbeams. But if all the products of the soul could be made\nvisible to the eye and ear, how marvelous would be these exhalations,\nrising and filling all the air. Were all the emotions and passions\nand dreams of one single day fully revealed, what dramas would there\nbe beyond all the tragedies man's hand hath ever indicated! Consider\nwhat fertility the mind hath! Consider how many trains of thought\nreason takes up each hour. Consider all that belongs to a man as an\nanimal, his fears and passions, defensory in nature. Consider his\nsocial equipment, with all the possible moods and combinations of\naffections. Consider the vast activities of his reason working\noutward, and the imagination working upward. Sometimes in the morning\nman's thoughts are for number and strength like unto the strength of\narmies. Sometimes in the night his aspirations exhale heavenward with\nall the purity and beauty of the clouds. Consider also how life's\nconflicts and warfare inflame man's faculties and hasten their\nprocess.\n\nConsider how courage, despondency, hope and fear, friendship and\nenmity, increase the activities. Consider man's ambitions--steeds of\nthe sun with incredible swiftness dragging forward the soul's chariot.\nConsider the rivalries among men. What intensities of thought are\ninduced thereby! Consider that toward one's friends the mind sends\nforth thoughts that are almoners of bounty and angels of mercy. But\nconsider that man is over against his enemy, with a mind like unto a\nwalled city filled with armed men. Consider how in life's conflicts,\nthoughts become the swords of anger, the clubs of envy, stings for\nhissing hatred. Consider that in times of great excitement the soul\nliterally blazes and burns, exhaling emotions and thoughts as a planet\nexhales light and heat. Wondrous the power of the loom newly invented,\nthat with marvelous swiftness weaves in silk figures of flowers and\ntrees and birds. But the uttermost speed of those flying shuttles is\nslowness itself compared to the swiftness of the mental loom, that\nwithout noise or clangor weaves fabrics eternal out of the warp and\nwoof of affection and thought, of passion and purpose. Consider that\nevery man is not simply two men, but a score of men. All the climatic\ndisturbances in nature, all distemperatures through heat and cold, wet\nand dry, summer and winter, do but answer in number and variety to the\nmoods in man's brain. Not the all-producing summer is so rich in\nbounty as the mind is rich in thought when working its regnant and\ncreative moods. Vast are the buildings man's hands have reared; sweet\nare the songs man's mind hath sung; lovely the faces man's hand hath\npainted; but the silent songs the soul hears, the invisible pictures\nthe mind sees, the secret buildings the imagination rears, these are\na thousand-fold more beautiful than any as yet embodied in this\nmaterial world.\n\nThe Spanish have a proverb that \"He who sows thoughts will reap acts,\nhabits, and character,\" for destiny itself is determined by thinking.\nLife is won or lost by its master thoughts. As nothing reveals\ncharacter like the company we like and keep, so nothing foretells\nfuturity like the thoughts over which we brood. It was said of John\nKeats that his face was the face of one who had seen a vision. So long\nhad his inner eye been fixed upon beauty, so long had he loved that\nvision splendid, so long had he lived with it, that not only did his\nsoul take on the loveliness of what he contemplated, but the very\nlines of the poet's face were chiseled into beauty by those sculptors\ncalled thoughts and ideals. When Wordsworth speaks of the girl's\nbeauty as \"born of murmuring sound,\" the poet indicates his belief\nthat the girl's long love of the sweet briar and the thrush's song,\nher tender care of her favorite flowers, had ended in the saturation\nof her own face with sweetness. Swiftly do we become like the thoughts\nwe love. Scholars have noticed that old persons who have \"lived long\ntogether, 'midst sunshine and 'midst cloudy weather,\" come at length\nto look as nearly alike as do brother and sister: Emerson explains\nthis likeness by saying that long thinking the same thoughts and\nloving the same objects mould similarity into the features. Nor is\nthere any beauty in the face of youth or maiden that can long survive\nsourness in the disposition or discontent in the heart.\n\nContrariwise, all have seen faces very plain naturally that have\nbecome positively radiant because the beautiful soul that is enmeshed\nin and stands behind the muscles has shone through and beautified all\nof the facial tissues. Two of our great novelists have made a special\nstudy of the architectural power of thoughts. Dickens exhibits Monks\nas beginning his career as an innocent and beautiful child; but as\nending his life as a mass of solid bestiality, a mere chunk of fleshed\niniquity. It was thinking upon vice and vulgarity that transformed the\nangel's face into the countenance of a demon. Hawthorne has made a\nsimilar study of Chillingworth, whose moral deterioration began\nthrough evil thinking when face and physique were fully matured.\nChillingworth stood forth in middle life a thoughtful, earnest, and\njust man; but, during his absence, he suffered a grievous wrong. Not\nknowing the identity of his enemy, the physician came to suspect his\nfriend. By skillful questions he digged into Dimmesdale's heart as\nthe sexton might delve into the grave in search of a possible jewel\nupon a dead man's breast. When suspicion had strengthened into\ncertainty, enmity became hatred. Then, for two years, Chillingworth\ntortured his victim as once inquisitors tortured men by tweaking the\nflesh with red-hot pincers. Soon the face of the physician, once so\ngentle and just, took on an aspect sinister and malign. Children\nfeared him, men shivered in his presence--they knew not why. Once the\nmagistrate saw the light glimmering in his eyes \"with flames that\nburned blue, like the ghastly fire that darted out of Bunyan's awful\ndoorway on the hillside and quivered in the Pilgrim's face.\" All this\nis Hawthorne's way of telling us how thoughts determine character and\nshape destiny. He who thinks of mean and ugly things will soon show\nmud in the bottom of his eye. Ugliness within soon fouls the facial\ntissues. But he who thinks of \"things true and just and lovely\" will,\nby his thinking, be transformed into the image of the ideal he\ncontemplates, even as the rose becomes red by exposing its bosom to\nthe sunbeams and soaking each petal in the sun's fine rays.\n\nNot only are thoughts the builders of character for the individual;\nthey are also the architects of states and nations. All this\nwonderful fabric lying over our land like a beautiful garment is a\nfabric spun and woven out of ideas. Each outer substance was builded\nby an inner sentiment. What the eye sees are stone and brick and iron\nunited by masons and carpenters, but the forces that hold these\nmaterial things together are not iron bands, but thoughts and beliefs.\nDestroy the life-nerve running up through the tree, and the rings of\nwood will soon fall apart. Destroy the thoughts and beliefs of our\npeople, and its homes, colleges and institutions will decline and\ndecay. Thrust a million Mohammedans into our land, and their inner\nthoughts will realize themselves in mosques, minarets, and harems. But\nthrust a million Americans into Asia Minor and straightway their\nthoughts will take on these visible shapes called houses and\nfactories, temples of learning, altars of praise and prayer. For what\nwe call Saxon civilization is only a magnificent incarnation of a\ncertain mental type and a moral character. Not only individuals, but\nnations are such stuff as thoughts are made of.\n\nIn his famous story of archery Virgil represents Acestes as shooting\nhis arrow with such force that it took fire as it flew and went up\ninto the air all aflame, thus opening from the place where the archer\nstood a pathway of light into the heavens. Now it is given to man's\nthoughts to fulfill this beautiful story, in that they open up shining\npathways along which the human steps may move. On the practical side,\nit is by the thinking alone that man solves his bread-winning problem.\nStanding, each in his place, using his strongest faculty and working\nin the line of least resistance, each must conquer for himself food\nand support. To say that society owes us a living or to consume more\nthan we produce is to sink to the level of pauper and parasite. The\nsuccessful man is one whose thoughts about his bread-winning problem\nhave been wise thoughts; paupers and tramps, with their hunger and\nrags, are men who have thought foolishly about how they could best\nearn a livelihood.\n\nHe who has one strong faculty, the using of which would give delight\nand success, yet passes it by, to use a weaker faculty, is doomed to\nmediocrity and heart-breaking failure. The eagle has powerful muscles\nunder the wings, but slender and feeble legs; the fawn lacks the\nweight of the draught horse, but has limbs for swiftness. Now, if an\neagle should become a competitor in a walking race and if the fawn\nshould enter the list of draught horses, we should have that which\nanswers precisely to the way in which some men seek to gain their\nlivelihood, by tying up their strongest gift and using their feeblest\nfaculties. When it is said that only five merchants out of a hundred\nsucceed we perceive that the great majority of men do not think to any\npurpose in choosing an occupation. Recalling his friends who had\nmisfitted themselves, Sidney Smith once said: \"If we represent the\noccupations of life by holes in a table, some round, some square, some\noblong, and persons by bits of wood of like shapes, we shall generally\nfind that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the\noblong into the triangular, while the square person has squeezed\nhimself into the round hole.\" For lack of wise thinking beforehand,\nmultitudes have died of broken hearts midst failure and misery who\nmight have achieved great happiness and success had they used their\nthoughts in choosing their life-work. He who approaches his task with\na leaden heart is out of the race before he is in it. Success means\nthat the heart loves what the hand does. The bread-winning problem is\nthe one that touches us first and most closely, and to wise thoughts\nonly is it given to solve that problem.\n\nThe number and value of our thoughts determine a man's value to\nsociety. No investments bring so high a rate of interest as\ninvestments of brain. Hand work earns little, but head work much. In a\nWestern camp one miner put his lower brain into the pickaxe and earned\n$2.00 a day; another miner put his higher brain into the stamp-mill\nand soon was receiving a score of dollars daily for his work; a third\nyouth, toiling in the same mine, put his genius into an electric\nprocess for extracting ore, and sold his invention for a fortune. It\nseems that wealth was not in the pick, but in the thoughts that\nhandled it. Had God intended man to do his work through the body,\nman's legs would have been long enough to cover leagues at a stride,\nhis biceps would have been strong enough to turn the crank for\nsteamships, his back would have been Atlantean for carrying freight\ncars across the plains.\n\nBut, instead of giving man long legs, God gave him a mind able to make\nlocomotives. Instead of telescopic eyes, he gave man mind to invent\nfar-seeing glasses. Instead of a thousand fingers for weaving, he gave\nman five fingers and genius for inventing a thousand steel fingers to\ndo his spinning. Wealth is not in things, but in the brain that shapes\nraw material. Vast was the sum of gold taken out of California, but\nthis nation might well pay down a hundred Californias for a man to\ninvent a process to make coal drive the engine without the\nintervention of steam. That inventor would enable the street cars for\none cent to carry the people of the tenement-house district ten miles\ninto the country in ten minutes, and thereby, through sunshine and\nfresh air and solitude, would solve a hundred problems that now vex\nthe statesman and the moralist. A young botanist in Kansas has just\nannounced his purpose to cross the milkweed and the strawberry, so\nthat hereafter strawberries and cream may grow upon the same bush. His\ntask may be doomed to failure, but that youth at least understands\nthat thought turned the wild rice into wheat; thought turned the sweet\nbriar into the crimson rose; brains mixed the pigments for Paul\nVeronese, and gave the canvas worth a few florins the value of tens of\nthousand of dollars. Already wise thoughts have turned the barbarian\ninto a gentleman and citizen, and some glad day thoughts will crown\nman with the attributes and qualities of God.\n\nOf old, the Greek philosopher described the origin of man. One day\nCeres, in crossing a stream, saw a human face emerging from the soil.\nIt was the face of a man. Standing by this earth-born creature, the\ngoddess extricated his head and chest; but left his legs fastened in\nthe soil. Now, the invisible friends that free man from his earth\nfetters are those divine visitors called ideas and thoughts. God hath\nmade thoughts to be golden chariots, in which the soul is swept upward\ninto the heavenly heights.\n\nWhen thoughts have sown man's pathway with happiness and peace they go\non to determine character and futurity. Each life memorable for\ngoodness and nobility has for its motive power some noble thought.\nEach hero has climbed up to immortality upon those golden rounds\ncalled good thoughts. Here is that cathedral spirit, John Milton. In\nhis loneliness and blindness his mind was his kingdom. He loved to\nthink of things true and pure and of good report. Oft at midnight upon\nthe poet's ear there fell the sound of celestial music, that afterward\nhe transposed into his \"Paradise Regained.\" Dying, it was given him to\nproudly say: \"I am not one of those who have disgraced beauty of\nsentiment by deformity of conduct, nor the maxims of the freeman by\nthe actions of the slave, but by the grace of God, I have kept my soul\nunsullied.\" Here is the immortal Bunyan, spending his best years in\nBedford jail because he insisted on giving men the message God had\nfirst given him; but he, too, opened his mind only to good thoughts.\nFor him, also, dawned the heavenly vision. As the prison doors opened\nbefore Peter and the angel, so the dungeon walls parted before his\nthoughts. Walking about in glad freedom, he crossed the portals of the\nPalace Beautiful. From its marble steps he saw afar off the Delectable\nMountains. Hard by ran the River of the Water of Life. The breezes of\nthe hills of Paradise cooled his hot temples and lifted his hair. His\nregal thoughts crowned the Bedford tinker and made him king in English\nliterature.\n\nHere also is the carpenter's Son rising before each earthly pilgrim\nlike a star in the night. A man of truly colossal intellect,\nincomparable as He strides across the realms and ages, yet always\nthinking the gentlest, kindliest thoughts; thoughts of mildness as\nwell as of majesty; thoughts of humanity as well as divinity. His\nthoughts were medicines for hurt hearts; His thoughts were wings to\nall the low-flying; His thoughts freed those who had been snared in\nthe thickets; His thoughts set an angel down beside each cradle; His\nthoughts of the incarnation rendered the human body forever sacred;\nHis thoughts of the grave sanctified the tomb. Dying and rising, His\nthoughts clove an open pathway through the sky. Taught by Him, the\npeople have learned to think--not only great thoughts, but good ones,\nand also how to turn thoughts into life.\n\nBringing their thoughts to God, God has turned thinking into\ncharacter. Each spinner who in modesty and fidelity tends his loom,\nspins indeed, garments for others, but also weaves himself invisible\ngarments of everlasting life. Each shipbuilder fastening his timbers\ntogether with honest thoughts will find that his thoughts have become\nships carrying him over the sea to the harbor of God. Each worker\nputting integrity into gold and silver will find that he has carved\nhis own character into a beauty beyond that of gems and sapphires. For\nhis thoughts drag into futurity after them. So deeply was St. George\nMivart impressed by this that he said: \"The old pauper woman whom I\nsaw to-day in the poorhouse, in her hunger saving her apple to give to\nthe little orphan just brought in, and unraveling her stocking and\nbending her twisted old fingers to knit its yarn into socks for the\nblue feet of the child will, I verily believe, begin her life at death\nwith more intellectual genius--mark the words, intellectual\ngenius--than will begin that second life any statesman or prime\nminister or man famed in our day. For I know of none who hath been\nfaithful in his much after the fashion of the pauper woman's fidelity\nwith her little.\"\n\nFor intellect weighs light as punk against the gold of character.\nShould God give us to choose between goodness and genius, we may well\nsay, \"Give genius to Lucifer, let mine be the better part.\" Intellect\nis cold as the ice-palace in Quebec. Heart-broken and weary-worn by\nlife's battle, men draw near to some great-hearted men, as pilgrims\ncrowd close to the winter's fire. Men neither draw their chairs close\naround a block of ice, nor about a brilliant intellect. Our quarrel\nwith the foolish scientist is that he makes God out as infinite brain.\nWe rejoice at the revelation of Christ, because He portrays God as\nheart and not genius.\n\nGod be thanked for great thoughts, but a thousand times more, God be\npraised for good thoughts! They are fuel for the fires of enthusiasm.\nThey are rudders that guide us heavenward. They are seeds for great\nharvests of joy. They fulfill the tale of the fairies who in the night\nwhile men slept bridged chasms, builded palaces, laid out streets and\nlined them with homes, built the city around with walls. For every\nthought is a builder, every purpose a mansion, and every affection a\ncarpenter. As the builders of the Cologne Cathedral were guided by the\nplan and pattern of Von Rile, so man's thoughts are builded after that\nmatchless model, Jesus Christ. And while our thoughts work, His\nthoughts work, also adding beauty to the soul's strength. In the olden\ntale the artist pupil through very weariness fell asleep before the\npicture that disappointed him. While he slept his master stole into\nthe room, and with a few swift touches corrected the errors and\nbrought out the lines of lustrous beauty, kindling new hope within the\nboy's heart. And there are unexpected providences in life, strange\ninfluences, interventions and voices in the night. These events over\nwhich we have no control, these thoughts of the Master above, shape us\nnot less than the thoughts that build from within. It seems that not\none, but two are working upon the soul's structure. As one day in the\npresence of his master Michael Angelo pulled down the scaffolding in\nthe Sistine Chapel, and the workmen cleared away the ropes and plaster\nand litter, and looking up men saw the faces of angels and seraphs,\nwith their lustrous and immortal beauty, so some glad day will that\nangel named Death pull down life's scaffolding and set forever in the\nsunlight that structure built of thoughts, the stately mansion reared\nin the mind, the building not made with hands, the character, eternal\nin the heavens.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MORAL USES OF MEMORY\n\n\n      \"Without memory, man is a perpetual infant.\"--_Locke._\n\n      \"The memory plays a great part in ranking men. Quintilian\n      reckoned it the measure of genius. The poets represented\n      the muses as the daughters of memory.\"--_Emerson._\n\n      \"Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot\n      be turned out.\"--_Richter._\n\n    \"A land of promise, a land of memory,\n    A land of promise flowing with the milk\n    And honey of delicious memories.\"\n                    --_Tennyson._\n\n    \"I have a room wherein no one enters save I myself alone;\n    There sits a blessed memory on a throne.\n      There my life centers.\"\n                    --_C.G. Rosetti._\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE MORAL USES OF MEMORY\n\n\nThe soul is a monarch whose rule includes three realms. Its throne is\nin the present, but its scepter extends backward over yesterday and\nforward over to-morrow. The divinity that presides over the past is\nmemory; to-day is ruled by reason, to-morrow is under the regency of\nhope. In every age memory has been an unpopular goddess. The poet\nByron pictures this divinity as sitting sorrowing midst mouldering\nruins and withering leaves. But the orators unveil the future as a\ntropic realm, magical, mysterious and surpassingly rich. The temple\nwhere hope is worshiped is always crowded; her shrines are never\nwithout gifts of flowers and sweet songs.\n\nBut at length has come a day when man perceives that the vast treasure\nto which the present has fallen heir was bequeathed by that friend\ncalled yesterday. The soul increases in knowledge and culture, because\nas it passes through life's rich fields memory plucks the ripe\ntreasure on either hand, leaving behind no golden sheaf. Philosophy,\ntherefore, opposes that form of poetry that portrays yesterday by the\nfalling tower, the yellow leaf, the setting sun. Memory is a gallery\nholding pictures of the past. Memory is a library holding wisdom for\nto-morrow's emergencies. Memory is a banqueting-hall on whose walls\nare the shields of vanquished enemies. Memory is a granary holding\nbread for to-morrow's hunger, seed for to-morrow's sowing. That man\nalone has a great to-morrow who has back of him a multitude of great\nyesterdays.\n\nAristotle used memory as a measure of genius. He believed that every\ngreat man was possessed of a great memory in his own department. He\nwas the great artist whose mind searched out and whose memory retained\nthe beauty of each sweet child, the loveliness of each maiden and\nmother. He was the great scientist who remembered all the facts,\nforgot no exception, and grouped all under laws. The great orator was\nhe whose memory stood ready to furnish all truths gleaned from books\nand conversation, from travel and experience--weapons these with which\nthe orator faces his hearers in a noble cause, controls and conquers\nthem.\n\nAfter driving through Windsor Park, Dore, the artist, recognized his\ndebt to memory by observing that he could recall every tree he had\npassed, and draw each shrub from memory. We are indebted to the\nmechanical genius of Watt for the steam engine; but, before beginning\nhis work, the inventive faculty asked memory to bring forward all\nobjects, forces and facts suggested by and relating to that steaming\ntea kettle. Genius cannot create without material upon which to work.\nIt is given to the eye and the ear and the reason to obtain the facts;\nmemory stores these treasures away until they are needed; and,\nselecting therefrom, the inventive faculty fashions physical things\ninto tools, beautiful things into pictures, ideas into intellectual\nphilosophies, morals into ethical systems. The architect is helpless\nunless he remembers where are the quarries and what their kinds; where\nthe marbles and what their colors; where the forests and what their\ntrees.\n\nThus all the creative minds, from Phidias to Shakespeare, have united\nstrength of memory with fertility of invention. As the Gobelin\ntapestry, depicting the siege of Troy, is woven out of myriads of\ntinted threads, so each Hamlet and each \"In Memoriam\" is an\nintellectual texture woven out of ideas and aspirations furnished by\nmemory. Indeed, without this faculty there could be no knowledge or\nculture. Destroy memory and man would remain a perpetual infant.\nBecause the mind carries forward each new idea and experience, there\ncomes a day when the youth stands forth a master in his chosen craft\nor profession. It is memory that unifies man's life and thought, and\nbinds all his experiences into one bundle.\n\nIn a large sense civilization itself is a kind of racial memory.\nMoving backward toward the dawn of history, we come to a time when man\nstood forth as a savage, his house a cave, his clothes a leather\ngirdle, his food locusts and berries. But to-day he is surrounded by\nhome, and books and pictures, by looms and trains and ships. Now\nyesterday was the friend that gave man all this rich treasure. We\npluck clusters from vines other generations planted. We ride in trains\nand ships other thinkers invented. We admire pictures and statues\nother hands painted and carved. Our happiness is through laws and\ninstitutions for which other multitudes died. We sing songs that the\npast did write, and speak a language that generations long dead did\nfashion.\n\nWhen De Tocqueville visited our country, he journeyed westward until\nhe stood upon the very frontier of civilization. Before him lay the\nforests and prairies, stretching for thousands of miles toward the\nsetting sun. But what impressed him most deeply was the civilization\nbehind him, reaching to the Atlantic--a civilization including towns\nand villages, with free institutions, with schoolroom and church and\nlibrary. With joy he reflected that the mental and moral harvests\nbehind him were sufficient to sow the vast unconquered land with\ntreasure. Thus each to-day is a frontier line upon which the soul\nstands. It is the necessity of life for man to journey backward into\nthe past for food and seed with which to sow the unconquered future.\nFor each individual yesterday holds the beginnings of art and\narchitecture. Yesterday holds the beginnings of reform and\nphilanthropy. Yesterday contains the rise and victory of freedom.\nYesterday holds the first schoolroom and college and library.\nYesterday holds the cross and all its victories over ignorance and\nsin. Yesterday is a river pouring its rich floods forward, lending\nmajesty and momentum to all man's enterprises. Yesterday is a temple\nwhose high domes and wide walls and flaming altars other hands and\nhearts have built. For the individual, memory is a granary for mental\ntreasure; and, for the race, civilization is a kind of social memory.\n\nConsider the task laid upon memory. The activity and fruitfulness of\nthe human mind are immeasurable. Reason does not so much weave\nthoughts as exhale them. Objects march in caravans through the eye\ngate and the ear gate, each provoking its own train of thought. And\nthe unconscious processes of the mind are of even greater number. The\nsilent songs that genius hears, the invisible pictures that genius\npaints, the hidden castles that genius builds--no building of a city\nwithout can compare for wonder and beauty and richness with the\nbuilding processes of the soul within. If some angelic reporter could\nreduce all man's thoughts to physical volume, how vast the book would\nbe! Thoughts do not go single, but march in armies. Feelings and\naspirations move like flocks of caroling songsters. Desires swarm\nforth from the soul like bees from a hive. The soul is a city through\nwhose gates troop innumerable caravans, bearing treasure within,\ncarrying treasure forth without. No Great Eastern ever carried a cargo\nthat was comparable for vastness and richness with that voyaging\nforward in the mind.\n\nNow the power and skill of God is nowhere more manifest than in this.\nHe has endowed the mind with full power to carry forward all its joys,\nits friendships and victories. It is given to man to journey in a\nsingle summer over that pathway along which the human race has\nwalked. For happiness and culture the traveler lingers by some\nRunnymede or Marston Moor; stays by castle or cathedral, remains long\nin gallery or museum. It is the necessity of his body for the traveler\nto leave the mountain behind him when he returns to the city in the\nplain. But it is the privilege of the mind to take up these sights and\nscenes and carry them away as so much treasure made portable by\nmemory. By a secret process mountains and valleys and palaces are\nreduced in size, photographed and put away ready to be enlarged to the\noriginal proportions.\n\nWe have already heard of the inventor who planned an engine that laid\nits track and took it up again while it journeyed forward. But this\nmechanical dream is literally fulfilled in memory. Grown old and\nblind, each Milton may pass before his mind all the panorama of the\npast, to find the events of childhood more helpful in memory than they\nwere in reality. Looking backward, Longfellow reflected that the paths\nof childhood had lost their roughness; each way was bordered with\nflowers; sweet songs were in the air; the old home was more beautiful\nthan king's palaces that had opened to his manhood's touch.\n\nSimilarly, Dante, storm-beaten, harassed, weary of selfishness,\nvoyaged and traveled into that foreign land that he called \"youth.\"\nThere he hid himself until the storms were passed. For him memory held\nso much that was bright and beautiful that it became to him a\nportfolio of engravings, a gallery of pictures, a palace of many\nchambers. Hidden therein, earth's troubles became as harmless as hail\nand snow upon tiled castle roofs. Men wonder oft how statesmen and\ngenerals and reformers, oppressed beyond endurance, have borne up\nunder their burdens. This is their secret: they have sheltered\nthemselves in the past, found medicines in memory, bathed themselves\nin old-time scenes that refreshed and cleansed away life's grime. From\nthe chill of arctic enmity, it is given to the soul through memory to\nrise above the storm and cold and in a moment to enter the tropic\natmosphere of noble friendship, where are fragrance and beauty,\nperpetual warmth and wealth.\n\nIt was a favorite principle with Socrates that the lesser man never\ncomprehends the latent strength in his reason or imagination until he\nwitnesses its skill in the greatest. He implies that the eloquence,\nart, and skill that crown the children of genius exist in rudimentary\nform in all men. In order, therefore, to understand memory in its\nordinary processes, let us consider its functions in those in whom it\nis unique. Fortunately scholars in every age have preserved important\nfacts concerning the power of recollection. The classic orators\ncontain repeated reference to traveling singers, who could recite the\nentire Iliad and Odyssey. In his \"Declamations,\" speaking of the\ninroads disease had made upon him, Seneca remarks that he could speak\ntwo thousand words and names in the order read to him, and that one\nmorning he listened to the reading of two hundred verses of poetry,\nand in the afternoon recited them in their order and without mistake.\n\nMuretus remarks that the stories of Seneca's memory seemed to him\nalmost incredible, until he witnessed a still more marvelous\noccurrence. The sum of his statement is that at Padua there dwelt a\nyoung Corsican, a brilliant and distinguished student of civil law.\nHaving heard of his marvelous faculty of memory a company of gentlemen\nrequested from him an exhibition of his power. Six Venetian noblemen\nwere judges, though there were many other witnesses of the feat.\nMuretus dictated words, Latin, Greek, barbaric, disconnected and\nconnected, until he wearied himself and the man who wrote them down,\nand the audience who were present. Afterward the young man repeated\nthe entire list of words in the same order, then backward, then every\nother word, then every fifth word, etc., and all without error.\n\nSir William Hamilton says that the librarian for the Grand Duke of\nTuscany read every book and pamphlet in his master's library and took\na mental photograph of each page. When asked where a certain passage\nwas to be found, he would name the alcove, shelf, book, page\ncontaining the passage in question. Scaliger, the scholar, who has\nbeen called the most learned man that ever lived, committed the Iliad\nto memory in three weeks and mastered all the Greek poets in four\nmonths. Ben Jonson could repeat all he had ever written and many\nvolumes he had read, as could Niebuhr, the historian. Macaulay\nbelieved that he had never forgotten anything he had ever read, seen,\nor thought. Coleridge tells of an ignorant family servant, who in\nmoments of unconsciousness through fever, recited passages of Greek\nand Hebrew. The explanation was that the servant had been long in the\nfamily of an old clergyman whose habit it was to read aloud the Bible\nin the originals.\n\nPhysicians have noted instances where a foreigner coming to this\ncountry at the age of four or five has completely forgotten his\nnative tongue. Grown old and gray, in moments of unconsciousness\nthrough fever, the aged man has talked in the forgotten language of\ninfancy. Our best students of mental philosophy believe that no\nthought or feeling, no enmity or aspiration, is ever forgotten. The\nsentiments written on clay harden into granite. Dormant memories are\nnot dead. At a touch they return in their old-time power and vigor.\nScience tells us that the flight of a bird, the falling of a leaf, the\nlaughter of a child, the vibration of song, changes the whole\nuniverse. The boy shying a stone from one tree to another alters the\ncenter of gravity for the earth. And if the movements of dead leaves\nand stones are events unchangeably written down in nature, how much\nmore are living hopes and thoughts. The soul is more sensitive than\nthe thermometer, more delicate than the barometer, and all its\nprocesses are registered. Thoughts are events that stain the mind\nthrough in fast colors. Did man but know it, no event falls through\nmemory's net.\n\nIt helps us to understand the immortality of memory to notice the\nprovision made in nature for revealing hidden facts and forces. To-day\nchemistry shows us how events done in darkness shall be revealed in\nlight, and the deeds of the closet be proclaimed from the housetop.\nIn olden times princes communicated with each other by messengers.\nThen it was necessary to guard against the dispatch falling into the\nhands of the enemy, so between the lines of the apparent message was a\ndispatch traced in letters as colorless as water. But when the sheet\nwas held before the blazing fire, the secret writing appeared. Thus in\nthe kingdom of the soul, nature has provided for causing events to\nstand forth from the past. Under stimulus the memory performs the most\nastonishing feats. Excitement is a fire that causes the dim record to\nstand forth in clearness.\n\nA distinguished lawyer of an Eastern city relates that while engaged\nin an argument upon which vast issues depended he suddenly realized\nthat he had forgotten to guard a most important point. In that hour of\nexcitement his faculties became greatly stimulated. Decisions,\nauthorities and precedents long since forgotten began to return to his\nmind. Dimly outlined at first, they slowly grew plain, until at length\nhe read them with perfect distinctness. Mr. Beecher had a similar\nexperience when he fronted the mob in Liverpool. He said that all\nevents, arguments and appeals that he had ever heard or read or\nwritten passed before his mind as oratorical weapons, and standing\nthere he had but to reach forth his hand and seize the weapons as they\nwent smoking by. All public men have had similar experiences--witness\nthe testimony of Pitt, Burke and Wendell Phillips. But what event has\nsuch power to restore the records of memory as that secret excitement\nwhen the soul is like an ambassador returned home from a foreign\nmission to report before the throne of God? Thus, giving in its\naccount, what sacred stimulus will fall upon memory!\n\nIn every age poets and philosophers have made much of associations as\na restorer of dim memories. Porter has a story of a dinner party in\nwhich a reference to Benedict Arnold was immediately followed by\nsomeone asking the value of the Roman denarius. Reflection shows that\nthe question was directly suggested by the topic under discussion.\nBenedict Arnold suggested Judas Iscariot and the thirty pieces of\nsilver given him, and therefore the value of the coin which he\nreceived as reward. Similarly there is a tradition that Peter's face\nwas clouded with sorrow whenever he heard the crowing of a cock.\nBulwer Lytton represents Eugene Aram as scarcely able to restrain a\nscream of agony when a friend chanced to drive in near the spot where\nin murderous hate he had struck a fatal blow.\n\nThus, no sin is ever buried, save as a murderer buries his victim\nunder a layer of thin sand. But let him pass that way, and a skeleton\narm starts up and points to heaven and to the evil doer. The\nphilosopher affirms that the \"memory of the past can never perish\nuntil the tree or the river or the sea\" with which the dark memory is\nassociated has been blotted out of existence. Thus, the law of\nassociation ever works to bring back the ghastly phantom, to chill the\nblood and sear the brain. Nothing is ever forgotten. One touch, one\nsight, one sound, the murmur of the stream, the sound of a distant\nbell, the barking of a dog in the still evening, the green path in the\nwood with the sunlight glinting on it, the way of the moon upon the\nwaters, the candlestick of the Bishop for Jean Valjean, the passing of\na convict for Dean Maitland, the drop of blood for Donatello--these\nmay, through the events associated therewith, turn the heart to stone\nand fill the life with a dumb agony of remorse.\n\nMoreover, Shakespeare indicates how conscience in its magisterial\naspects has skill for reviving forgotten deeds. In the laboratory\nscientists take two glasses, each containing a liquid colorless as\nwater and pour them together, when lo! they unite and form a substance\nblacker than the blackest ink. As the chemical bath brings out the\npicture that was latent in the photographic plate, so in its higher\nmoods events half-remembered and half-forgotten rise into perfect\nrecollection. History tells us of the Oriental despot who in an hour\nof revelry commanded his butler to slay a prophet whom he had\nimprisoned and bring the pale head in upon a charger. Long afterward\nthere came a day when, sitting in the seclusion of his palace, a\nsoldier told those around the banqueting-table the story of a\nwonder-worker whom he had seen upon his journey. When the banqueters\nwere wondering who this man was, suddenly the king arose pale and\ntrembling and cried out. \"I know! It is John the Baptist whom I have\nbeheaded; he is risen from the dead!\"\n\nThis old-time story tells us that dormant memories are not dead, but\nare like hibernating serpents that with warmth lift their heads to\nstrike. It fulfills, as has been said, the old-time story of the man\ngroping along the wall until his fingers hit upon a hidden spring,\nwhen the concealed door flew open and revealed the hidden skeleton. It\ntells us that much may be forgotten in the sense of being out of mind,\nbut nothing is forgotten in the sense that it cannot be recalled.\nEvery thought the mind thinks moves forward in character, even as\nfoods long forgotten report themselves in flesh and blood. Memory is a\ncanvas above and the man works beneath it. Every faculty is a brush\nwith which man thinks out his portrait. Here and now, deceived by\nsiren's song, each Macbeth thinks himself better than he is. But the\ntime comes at last when memory cleanses the portrait and causes his\nface to stand forth ineffaceable in full revelation.\n\nBut memory also hath aspects gracious and most inspiring. \"I have\nlived well yesterday,\" said the poet; \"let to-morrow do its worst.\" To\nthis sentiment the statesman added: \"I have done what I could for my\nfellows, and my memories thereof are more precious than gold and\npearls.\" Thus all they who have loved wisdom and goodness will find\ntheir treasures safe in memory's care. Perhaps some precious things do\nperish out of life. The melody trembling on the chords after the song\nis sung sinks away into silence. The light lingering in the clouds\nafter the day is done at last dies out in darkness. But as the soul is\nconsciously immortal through personality, it has an unconscious\nimmortality through its tool or teaching, through its example or\ninfluence. Time avails not for destroying. God and the soul never\nforget.\n\nWisdom comes to all young hearts who as yet have no past, before whose\nfeet lies the stream of life, waiting to bear them into the future,\nand bids them reflect that maturity, full of successes, is only the\nplace where the tides of youth have emptied their rich treasures. He\nwhose yesterday is full of industry and ambition, full of books and\nconversation and culture, will find his to-morrow full of worth,\nhappiness and friendship. But he who gives his memory no treasure to\nbe garnered, will find his hopes to be only the mirage in the desert,\nwhere burning sands take on the aspect of lake and river. Wisdom comes\nalso to those who in their maturity realize that the morrow is veiled\nin uncertainty, and their tomb is not far distant. It bids them\nreflect that their yesterdays are safe, that nothing is forgotten;\nthat no worthy deed has fallen out of life; that yesterday is a refuge\nfrom conflict, anxiety and fear.\n\nTo patriot and parent, to reformer and teacher, comes the inspiring\nthought that God garners in His memory every helpful act. No good\ninfluence is lost out of life. Are David and Dante dead? Are not\nTennyson and Milton a thousandfold more alive to-day than when they\nwalked this earth? Death does but multiply the single voice and\nstrengthen it. God causes each life to fulfill the legend of the\nGrecian traveler, who, bearing homeward a sack of corn, sorrowed\nbecause some had been lost out through a tiny hole; but, years\nafterward, fleeing before his enemies along that way, he found that\nthe seed had sprung up and multiplied into harvests for his hunger.\nThus yesterday feeds in each pilgrim heart the faith that goodness\nshall triumph. For memory that is little in man is large in God. The\nInfinite One forgets nothing save human frailty and sin. Remembering\nthe great mind, the eloquent tongue, the large purse, God remembers\nalso the cup of cold water, and causes the humblest deed to follow its\ndoer unto the heavenly shores.\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMAGINATION AS THE ARCHITECT OF MANHOOD\n\n\n      \"Imagination rules the world.\"--_Napoleon._\n\n      \"The imagination is the very secret and marrow of\n      civilization. It is the very eye of faith. The soul\n      without imagination is what an observatory would be\n      without a telescope.\"--_Beecher._\n\n      \"In such natures the imagination seems to spire up like a\n      Gothic cathedral over a prodigiously solid crypt of\n      common sense, so that its lightness stands secure on the\n      consciousness of an immovable basis.\"--_Lowell._\n\n      \"Man's reason is overhung by the imagination. It rains\n      rich treasures for fertilizing the barren soul.\"--_Anon._\n\n      \"By faith Abraham went forth, not knowing whither he\n      went.\"--_Hebrews._\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE IMAGINATION AS THE ARCHITECT OF MANHOOD\n\n\nMeasured by whatsoever standard, Moses was the one colossal man of\nantiquity. It may be doubted whether nature has ever produced a\ngreater mind. When we consider that law, government and education took\ntheir rise in his single brain; when we remember that the\ncommonwealths of to-day rest upon foundations reared by this jurist of\nthe desert; when we recall his poetic and literary skill, Moses stands\nforth clothed with the proportions and grandeur of an all-comprehending\ngenius. His intellect seems the more titanic by reason of the obstacles\nand romantic contrasts in his career. He was born in the hut of a\nslave, but so strikingly did his genius flame forth that he won the\napprobation of the great, and passed swiftly from the slave market to\nthe splendor of Pharaoh's palace.\n\nFortunately, his youth was not without the refinements and\naccomplishments of the schools. For then Egypt was the one radiant\nspot upon earth. At a time when Greece was a den of robbers and Rome\nwas unheard of, Memphis was gloriously attractive. Schools of art and\nscience stood along the banks of the Nile. From Thebes Pythagoras\ncarried mathematics into Greece. From Memphis Solon derived his wise\npolitical precepts. In Luxor, architecture and sculpture took their\nrise. From Cleopatra's kingdom men stole the obelisks now in New York\nand London. Moses' opportunities were fully equaled by his energy and\nambition to excel. Even in his youth he must have been renowned for\nhis administrative genius.\n\nBut his moral grandeur exceeded his mentality. When events compelled a\nchoice between the luxury of the court and the love of his own people,\nhe did not hesitate, for he was every inch a hero. In that crisis he\nforsook the palace, allied himself with his enslaved brethren, and\nwent forth an exile of the desert. Nor could any event be more\ndramatic than the manner of his return to Pharaoh's palace.\nSingle-handed, he undertook the emancipation of a nation. Our leaders,\nthrough vast armies, achieved the freedom of our slaves; this soldier,\nsingle-handed, freed three millions of bondsmen. Other generals, with\ncannon, have captured castles; this man beat castles down with his\nnaked fists. And when he had achieved freedom for his people he led\nthem into the desert, and taught the crude and servile slaves the\nprinciples of law, liberty and government. Under his guidance the mob\nbecame an army; the slaves became patriots and citizens; the savages\nwere clothed with customs and institutions. His mind became a\nuniversity for millions. And from that day until now the columns of\nsociety have followed the name of Moses, as of old the pilgrims\nfollowed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.\nGreater name history does not hold, save only the Name that is above\nevery name.\n\nWise men will ask, where were the hidings of this man's power? Whence\ncame his herculean strength? Moses was the father of a race of giants.\nHe was the representative of brave men in every age, who have laid\nfoundations upon which others have builded; he was the prototype of\nnoble leaders who have scattered everywhere the seeds of civilization,\nand left others to reap the harvests; he was the forerunner of\ninnumerable reformers and inventors, to whom it was never given to\nenter into the fruit of their labors; of soldiers and heroes who\nperished on the scaffold that others might be emancipated; of men like\nHuss and Cranmer, whose overthrow and defeat paved the way for others'\nvictories. Dying, no other man has left behind influences that have\nwrought so powerfully or so continuously through the centuries. But\nwhen we search out the springs of his power we are amazed at his\nsecret. We are told that he endured his tremendous burdens and\nachieved the impossible through the sight of the invisible. The sense\nof future victory sustained him in present defeat. Through the right\nuse of the vision faculty he conquered.\n\nImagination was the telescope by which he saw victory afar off.\nImagination was the tool with which he digged and quarried his\nfoundations. Imagination was the castle and tower under which he found\nrefuge from the storms, attacks and afflictions of life. No wing ever\nhad such power for lifting, no spring ever had such tides for\nassuaging thirst. He bore with savages, because afar off he saw the\nslaves clothed with the qualities of patriots. He endured the desert,\nbecause imagination revealed a fruitful land flowing with milk and\nhoney. He survived lawlessness, because he foresaw the day of law and\nliberty. He bore up under weight of cares, discouragements and\nresponsibilities heavy enough to have crushed a score of men, because\nhe foresaw the day of final triumph. Of old, when that legendary hero\nwas in the thick of his fight against his enemies, an invisible\nfriend hovered above the warrior, handing forth spear and sword as\nthey were needed. So for the great jurist imagination reached up even\ninto the heavenly armory and plucked such weapons as the hero needed.\n\nOur intellectual tread will be firmer if we define the imagination and\nconsider its uses. The soul is a city; and the external senses are\ngateways through which sweep all the caravans of truth and beauty.\nThrough the eye gate pass all faces, cities and landscapes. Through\nthe ear gate pass all sweet sounds. But when the facts of land and sea\nand sky have reported themselves to the soul, reason sweeps these\nintellectual harvests into the granary of memory for future sowing.\nBut these harvests must be arranged. In the Orient the merchant who\nkeeps a general store puts the swords and spears upon one shelf; the\ntapestries and rugs upon another; the books and manuscripts upon a\nthird; and each thing has its own shelf and drawer. So judgment comes\nin to sort knowledges, and puts things useful into one intellectual\nshelf, things beautiful upon another shelf, and puts things true apart\nby themselves.\n\nAfterward when the under-servant, called reason, has accumulated the\nmaterials, when memory has taken care of them, and judgment has\nclassified all, then the constructive imagination comes in to create\nnew objects. Working in iron and steel, the imagination of Watt\norganizes an engine; working midst the colors beautiful, the\nimagination paints pictures; working upon marble it carves statues;\nworking in wood and stone it rears cathedrals; working in sound it\ncreates symphonies; working with ideas it fashions intellectual\nsystems; working in morals it constructs ethical principles; working\ntoward immortality, it bids all cooling streams, fruitful trees, sweet\nsounds, all noble friendships, report themselves beyond the grave. For\nfaith itself is but the imagination allied with confidence that God is\nable to realize man's highest ideals. Imagination therefore is a\nprophet. It is a seer for the soul. It toils as artist and architect\nand creator. It plants hard problems as seeds, rears these germs into\ntrees, and from them garners the ripe fruit. It wins victory before\nbattles are fought. Without it, civilization would be impossible. What\nwe call progress is but society following after and realizing the\nvisions, plans and patterns of the imagination.\n\nNow our busy, bustling age is inclined to under-estimate the\nimagination. Men cavil at castle-building. The pragmatist jeers at\nreveries. Men believe in stores, and goods in them; in factories, and\nwealth by them; men believe in houses and horses, but not in ideals.\nNevertheless, thoughts and dreams are the stuff out of which towns and\ncities are builded. We may despise the silent dreamer, but in the last\nanalysis he appears the real architect of states! Immeasurable the\npractical power of the vision faculty! The heroes of yesterday have\nall been sustained--not by swords and guns, but by the sight of the\ninvisible!\n\nHere is the old hero in his dungeon in Florence. While he dozed, the\nnight before he was to be burned, the jailer saw a rare, sweet smile\nupon his face. \"What is it?\" the guard asked. \"I hear the sounds of\nfalling chains, and their clangor is like sweet music in my ears.\"\nThen, with smiling face he went to his martyrdom. And here is Michael\nAngelo. Grown old and blind, he gropes his way into the gallery of the\nVatican, where with uplifted face his fingers feel their way over the\ntorso of Phidias. Lingering by him one day the Cardinal Farnese heard\nthe old sculptor say: \"Great is this marble; greater still the hand\nthat carved it; greatest of all, the God who fashioned the sculptor. I\nstill learn! I still learn!\" And he too went forward sustained by his\nvision of perfect beauty.\n\nAnd here is John Huss, looking between the iron bars of his prison\nupon an army of pikes and spears, massed before his jail; but the\nmartyr endured his danger by the foresight of the day when the swords\nthen wielded for repression of liberty of thought would flash for its\nemancipation. And here is Walter Scott ruined by the failure of his\npublishers, just at the hour when nature whispered that he had\nfulfilled his task and earned his respite. But he girded himself anew\nfor the battle, and sustained his grievous loss through the foresight\nof the hour when the last debt would be paid and his again would be a\nspotless name. And here is that youth, Emerson, looking out upon a\nworld full of noise and strife, full of the cries of slaves and the\nwarfare of zealots. He was sustained by the foresight of a day when\nGod would breathe peace o'er all the scene. With hope shining in his\nface, he began to \"take down men's idols with such reverence that it\nseemed an act of worship.\" And what shall we more say? By the sight of\nthe invisible, Dante endured his scaffold; the heroes, hunted like\npartridges upon the mountains, endured their caves and the winter's\ncold; martyrs endured the scourge and fagot. In every age, the great,\nby the sight of the invisible, have been lifted into the realms of\ntranquillity. Outwardly, there may have been the roar and boom of\nguns, but inwardly men were lutes with singing harps. As the\nhouseholder sitting by his blazing hearth thinks not of the sleet and\nhail falling on the roof of slate, so the soul abides in peace over\nwhich has been reared the castle and covert of God's presence.\n\nHow signal a place does the imagination hold in the realm of science\nand invention! Reason itself is only an under-servant. It has no\ncreative skill. Memory makes no discoveries. But the imagination is a\nwonder-worker. One day, chancing upon a large bone of the mammoth in\nthe Black Forest, Oken, the German naturalist, exclaimed: \"This is a\npart of a spinal column.\" The eyes of the scientist saw only one of\nthe vertebrae, but to that one bone his imagination added frame, limb\nand head, then clothed the skeleton with skin, and saw the giant of\nanimals moving through the forest. In that hour the imagination\nwrought a revolution in the science of anatomy. Similarly, this\ncreative faculty in Goethe gave botany a new scientific basis. Sitting\nin his favorite seat near the castle of Heidelberg one day, the great\npoet was picking in pieces an oak leaf. Suddenly his imagination\ntransformed the leaf. Under its touch the central stalk lifted itself\nup and became the trunk of the tree; the veins of the leaf were\nextended and became boughs and branches; each filament became a leaf\nand spray; the imagination revealed each petal and stamen and pistil,\nas after the leaf type, and gave a new philosophy to the science of\nherbs and shrubs. When a pistachio tree in Paris with only female\nblossoms suddenly bore nuts, the mind of a scientist suggested that\nsome other rich man had imported a tree with male flowers, and careful\nsearch revealed that tree many miles away.\n\nAnd in every department of science this faculty bridges over chasms\nbetween discovered truths. Even Newton's discovery was the gift of\nimagination. When the eyes of the scientist saw the falling apple it\nwas his vision faculty that leaped through space and saw the falling\nmoon. When the western trade winds, blowing for weeks, had cast the\ndrift wood upon the shores of Spain, Columbus' eyes fell not only upon\nthe strange wood but also upon a pebble caught in the crevice. But his\nimagination leaped from the pebble to the Western continent of which\nthe stone was a part, and from the tree to the forest in which it\ngrew.\n\nThis faculty has performed a similar work in the realm of mechanics.\nWatt tells us that his engine worked in his mind years before it\nworked in his shop. In his biography, Milton recognizes the beauty of\nthe trees and flowers he culled from earth's landscapes and gardens,\nbut in his \"Paradise Lost,\" his imagination beheld an Eden fairer than\nany scene ever found on earth. Napoleon believed that every battle was\nwon by the imagination. While his soldiers slept, the great Corsican\nmarshaled his troops, hurled them against the enemy, and won the\nvictory in his mind the night before the battle was fought. Even the\norator like Webster must be described as one who sees his argument in\nthe air before he writes it upon the page, just as Handel thought he\nheard the music falling from the sky more rapidly than his hand could\nfasten the notes upon the musical bars. Thus every new tool and\npicture, every new temple or law or reform, has been the imagination's\ngift to man.\n\nNor has the case been different with men in the humbler walks of life.\nMultitudes are doomed to delve and dig. Three-fourths of the race live\non the verge of poverty. The energies of most men are consumed in\nsupporting the wants of the body. It is given to multitudes to descend\ninto the coal mine ere the day is risen, to emerge only when night has\nfallen. Other multitudes toil in the smithy or tend the loom. The\ndivision of labor has closed many avenues for happiness and culture.\nThe time was when the village cobbler was primarily a citizen, and\nonly incidentally a shoemaker. In the old New England days the cobbler\nowned his garden and knew the orchard; owned his horse and knew the\ncare of animals; had his special duties in relation to school and\nchurch, and, therefore, was a student of all public questions. But\ntending a machine that clinches tacks, cabins and confines the soul.\nThe man who begins as a citizen ends an appendage to a wheel. The life\nof many becomes a treadmill existence. Year in and year out they tend\nsome spindle. Now this drudgery of modern life threatens happiness and\nmanhood. Therefore it was ordained that while the hand digs the mind\nmay soar.\n\nWhile Henry Clay's hands were hoeing corn in that field in Kentucky,\nthrough his imagination the young orator was standing in the halls of\nCongress. What orations he wrote! What arguments he fashioned! Each\ntime his hoe cut down a weed, his mind with an argument hewed down an\nopponent. Never was there a tool for hoeing corn like unto the\nimagination! Christine Nilsson tells that once she toiled as a flower\ngirl at the country fairs in Sweden. But all the time she delved she\nwas dreaming, and by her very dreams making herself strong against\nthe day when she would charm vast audiences with celestial music. What\nbattles the plowboys have fought in dreams! What orations they have\npronounced! What reforms they have achieved! What tools invented! What\nbooks written! What business reared! Thus the imagination shortens the\nhours of labor and sweetens toil. While the body tires, the soul soars\nand sings.\n\nThis young foreigner newly arrived in our city digs downward with his\nspade, but his imagination works upward into the realm of the\ninvisible. He endures the ditch and the spade through foresight of the\nday when his playmate will come over the sea; when together they will\nown a little house, and have a garden with vines and flowers, with a\nlittle path leading down to \"the spring where the water bubbles out\nday and night like a little poem from the heart of the earth;\" when\nthey will have a little competence, so that the sweet babe shall not\nwant for knowledge. By that dream the youth sustains his loneliness\nand poverty; by that dream he conquers his vices and passions; at last\nthrough that dream he is lifted up to the rank of a patriot and worthy\ncitizen. Nor shall you find one hard-worked man caught to-morrow in\nlife's swirl who does not endure the strife, the rivalry and the\nselfishness of the street with this gift divine. It is the noblest\ninstrument of the soul. Thereby are the heavens opened. Imagination is\nthe poor man's friend and saviour. Imagination is God whispering to\nthe soul what shall be when time and the divine resources have\naccomplished their work upon man.\n\nAnd when imagination has achieved for man, his progress, happiness,\nand culture, it goes on to help him to gain personal worth and\ncharacter. Above every noble soul hangs a vision of things higher,\nbetter and sweeter. It causes the best men even in their best moods to\nfeel that better things still are possible. By sweet visions it tempts\nmen upward, just as of old the bees were lured onward by the honey\ndropped through the hunter's hands. The vision of a higher manhood\ndiscontents men with to-day's achievement and takes the flavor out of\nyesterday's victory. In such hours it is not enough that men have\nbread and raiment, or are better than their fellows. The soul is\nfilled with nameless yearnings and longings. The deeper convictions,\nlong hidden, begin to stir and strain, even as in June the seed aches\nwith its hidden harvest.\n\nThough the youth still pursues, he never overtakes his ideal. In the\nprocess of transmutation into life the ideal is injured and dwarfed.\nJust as the poet's vision is transcendently more beautiful than the\nsong he writes upon the page; as the artist's dream is a\nglorious-creation, but his picture is only a photograph thereof; as\nthe musician's song or symphony is but an echo of the ethereal music\nhe heard in his soul, so every purpose and ideal is marred in the\neffort to give it expression and embodiment.\n\nThese children of aspiration hold the secret of all progress for\nsociety. Just as of old artists drew the outline of glowing and\nglorious pictures, and then with bits of colored glass and precious\nstones filled up the mosaic, causing angels and seraphs to stand forth\nin lustrous beauty, so imagination lifts up before the youth its\nglowing plans and purposes, and asks him to give himself to the\ndetails of life in filling it up and perfecting a glorious character.\nThe patterns of life are only given upon that holy mount where, midst\nclouds and darkness, dwell God and the higher imagination.\n\nBut if the imagination has its use, it has its abuse also. If visions\nof truth and beauty can exalt, visions of vice can debase and degrade.\nIn that picture where Faust and Satan battle together for the\nscholar's soul, the angels share in the conflict. Plucking the roses\nof Paradise, they fling them over the battlements down upon the heads\nof the combatants. When the roses fall on Faust they heal his wounds;\nwhen they fall on Satan they turn into coals of fire. Thus the\nimagination casts inspirations down upon the pure, but smites the evil\ninto the abyss. The miseries of men of genius like Burns are perpetual\nwarnings to youth against the riotings of imagination. There are\npoems, also novels and lurid scenes in the city, hanging pictures\nbefore the imagination and scorching the soul like flames of fire. For\nas of old so now, what a man imagineth in his heart that he is. For\nnot what a man does outwardly, but what he dreams inwardly, determines\nhis character.\n\nMost men are better than we think, but some men are worse. As steam in\nthe boiler makes itself known by hisses, so the evil imaginings heave\nand strain, seeking escape. Many forbear vice and crime through fear;\ntheir conscience is cowardice; if they dared they would riot through\nlife like the beasts of the field; if all their inner imaginings were\nto take an outward expression in deeds, they would be scourges,\nplagues and pests. In the silence of the soul they commit every vice.\nBut they who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind; the revealing day\nwill come when the films of life shall be withdrawn, and the\ncharacter shall appear faithful as a portrait, and then all the\nmeanness and sliminess shall be seen to have given something to the\nsoul's picture. Oh, be warned against these dreams, all ye young\nhearts! The indulgence of the imagination is like the sultriness of a\nsummer's day; what began so fair ends with sharp lightnings and\nthunder. How terrible is this word to evil-doers! \"As a man thinketh\nin his heart, so is he.\"\n\nIt is also given to this vision faculty to redeem men out of\noppression and misfortune, and through its intimations of royalty to\nlend victory and peace. Oft the days are full of storms and\nturbulence; oft events grow bad as heart can wish; full oft the next\nstep promises the precipice. There are periods in every career when\ntroubles are so strangely increased that the world seems like an orb\nlet loose to wander widely through space. In these dark hours some\nendure their pain and trouble through dogged, stoical toughness. Then\nmen imitate the turtle as it draws in its head and neck, saying to\nmisfortune: \"Behold the shell, and beat on that.\" But, God be thanked!\nvictory over trouble has been ordained. In the blackest hour of the\nstorm it is given to the vision faculty to lift man into the realm of\ntranquillity. As travelers in the jungle climb the trees at night and\ndraw the ladder up after them, and dwell above the reach of wild\nbeasts and serpents, so the soul in its higher moods ascends into the\nrealms of peace and rest. In that dark hour just before Jesus Christ\nentered into the cloud and darkness, and fronted His grievous\nsuffering, He called His disciples about Him and uttered that\ndiscourse beginning: \"Let not your hearts be troubled.\" Strange wonder\nwords; words of matchless genius and beauty.\n\nMoreover, the vision faculty furnishes man his idea and picture of\nGod. Many suppose that all that is necessary to understand the divine\nnature is that it should be stated distinctly in language. Greater\nerror there could not be. There can be no language for causing a\nlittle child to understand the larger truths of heroism, art or\ngovernment. The unripe cannot understand the mature. Each mind must\npaint its own picture of God. Nature itself is but a palette upon\nwhich God draws her portrait. Reason furnishes the materials and\ntruths about God, and the imagination unites them in some noble\nconception of His all-helpful nature. Everything in nature that has\npower or beauty or benefit has received it from God. Moving along the\nAlpine valleys the traveler sees huge bowlders lying in the stream,\nand, looking to the mountain side, his eye rests upon the very cliff\nfrom which the bowlder fell. Thus discerning the noble qualities in\nmother or patriot, in hero or friend, we trace their beautiful\nqualities back to God, from whom all noble souls borrow their\nexcellence. In the largest sense all the elements of power in sea and\nsky and sun, all the beauty of the fields and forests, of summers and\nwinters, are letters in nature's alphabet for spelling out the name of\nGod. As a diamond has many facets, and every one reflects the sun, so\nthe universe itself is a gem whose every facet reflects the mind and\ngenius of God.\n\nWhen reason has culled out of life and nature everything that excites\nawe or admiration, everything that represents bounty and beauty, then\nimagination lifts up all these ideals and sweeps them together and\nmelts them into one glowing and glorious conception of the God of\npower, wisdom and love. But even then the heart whispers: \"He is that,\nand infinitely more than that, even as the sun is more than the little\ntaper man has made.\" But if the reason and memory, through misuse,\nfurnish but few of the truths about God, and if the imagination has\nbeen weakened in its power, then how poor the picture the soul paints!\n\nWhat scant, feeble portraits of God some men have! What can an Eskimo,\nwhose highest conception of summer is a stunted bush, know of tropical\norchards, of luscious peach, pear and plum? If the student has seen\nonly the broken fragments of Phidias, what can he know of the\nParthenon as it once stood in the zenith of its perfection, in the\nsplendor of its beauty? But if man's reason can cull out all the\nlustrous facts of nature and history, and if his imagination has\nstrength and skill to bring them all together, then how beautiful will\nbe the face and name of God! That name will fill his soul with music.\nThat thought will set his heart vibrating with tumultuous joy. If all\nthe air were filled with invisible bells, and angels were the ringers,\nand music fell in waves as sweet as melted amethyst and pearl, we\nshould have that which would answer to the sweetness that by day and\nnight rains down upon the hearts of those who approach God--not\nthrough the eye nor ear, not through argument nor judgment, but\nthrough the heart, through the imagination, as they endure, beholding\nHim who is invisible.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ENTHUSIASM OF FRIENDSHIP\n\n\n      \"He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.\"--_Solomon._\n\n      \"The only way to have a friend is to be one.\"--_Emerson._\n\n      \"A talent is perfected in solitude; a character in the\n      stream of the world.\"--_Goethe._\n\n      \"It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant\n      carriage is caught as men take diseases, one of another;\n      therefore let men take heed of their\n      company.\"--_Shakespeare._\n\n      \"Beyond all wealth, honor or even health, is the\n      attachment we form to noble souls, because to become one\n      with the good, generous and true, is to become, in a\n      measure, good, generous and true ourselves.\"--_Thomas\n      Arnold._\n\n      \"Cicero said: 'Friendship can make riches splendid.'\n      Friendship can plan many things for its wealth to\n      execute. It can plan a good winter evening for a group,\n      and it can plan an afternoon for a hundred children. It\n      can roll in a Christmas log for a large hearth. It can\n      spread happiness to the right and left. It can spend\n      money most beautifully and make gold to shine.\n      Civilization itself is of the heart.\"--_Swing._\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE ENTHUSIASM OF FRIENDSHIP\n\n\nDestiny is determined by friendship. Fortune is made or marred when\nthe youth selects his companions. Friendship has ever been the\nmaster-passion ruling the forum, the court, the camp. The power of\nlove is God-breathed, and life has nothing like love for majesty and\nbeauty. Civilization itself is more of the heart than of the mind. As\nan eagle cannot rise with one wing, so the soul ascends borne up\nequally by reason and affection. Plato found the measure of greatness\nin a man's capacity for exalted friendship. All the great ones of\nhistory stand forth as unique in some master passion as in their\nintellectual supremacy. Witness David and Jonathan, with love\nsurpassing the love of women. Witness Socrates and his group of\nimmortal friends. Witness Dante and his deathless love for Beatrice.\nWitness Tennyson and his refrain for Arthur Hallam. Witness the\ndisciples and Christ, with \"love as strong as death.\"\n\nSweetness is not more truly the essence of music than is love the very\nsoul of a deep, strong, harmonious manhood. Friendship cheers like a\nsunbeam; charms like a good story; inspires like a brave leader; binds\nlike a golden chain; guides like a heavenly vision. To love alone is\nit given to wrestle victoriously with death.\n\nLord Bacon said: \"He who loves solitude is either a wild beast or a\ngod.\" The normal man is gregarious. He wants companionship. The very\ncattle go in herds. The fishes go in shoals. The bees go in swarms.\nAnd men come together in families and cities. As men go up toward\ngreatness their need of friendship increases. No mind of the first\norder was ever a hermit. Modern literature enshrines the friendships\nof the great and makes them memorable. While letters last, society\nwill never forget Charles Lamb and his companions; Dr. Johnson and his\nimmortal group; Petrarch and his helpless dependence upon Laura; while\nthe letters of Abelard and Heloise enshrine them in everlasting\nremembrance.\n\nIn all literature there is no more touching death-bed scene than that\nof the patriarch Jacob. Dying, the Prince forgot his gold and silver,\nhis herds and lands. Lifted up upon his pillows, in tremulous\nexcitement he took upon his lips two names--God and Rachel. More than\na score of years had passed since her death, but in that memorable\nhour the great man built a monument to her who had fed his joy and\ndeepened his life.\n\nFriendship carries a certain fertilizing force. All biographers tell\nus that each epoch in a hero's life was ushered in by a new friend.\nWhen Schiller met Goethe every latent talent awakened. The poet's\nfriendship caused the youth to grow by leaps and bounds. Once,\nreturning home after a brief visit to Goethe's house, one exclaimed:\n\"I am amazed by the progress Schiller can make within a single\nfortnight!\" Perhaps this explains why the great seem to come in\ngroups. Thrust an Emerson into any Concord, and his pungent presence\nwill penetrate the entire region. Soon all who come within the radius\nof his life respond to his presence, as flowers and trees respond with\nboughs brilliant and fragrant to the sunshine when spring replaces the\nicy winter. After a little time, each Emerson stands girt about with\nHawthornes, Whittiers, Holmeses, and Lowells. The greatness of each\nMilton lingers in his friends, Cromwell and Hampden, as the sun\nlingers in the clouds after the day is done. Therefore the great epics\nand dramas, from the Iliad to the Idylls of the King, are stories of\nfriendships. Take love out of our greatest literature, and it is like\ntaking a sweet babe out of the clothes that cover it. Man listens\neagerly to tales of eloquence and heroism, but loves most of all the\nstories of the heart. God is not more truly the life of dead matter\nthan is love the very life of man.\n\nNow, the secret of eminence in the realm of industry or art or\ninvention is this: that the worker has wrought in his luminous mental\nmoods. In its passive, inert states, the mind is receptive. Then\nreason is like a sheathed sword. Thought must be struck forth as fire\nis struck from flint. But under inspirational moods the mind begins to\nglow and kindle. Then the reason of the orator, the poet or reformer\nceases to be like a taper, needing a match to light it, and becomes a\nsun, blazing with its own radiance. Spencer wrote: \"By no political\nalchemy can we get golden conduct out of leaden instincts.\" Thus there\nis no necromancy by which the mind can get superior work out of its\ninferior moods.\n\nWhen, then, reason approaches its task under the inspiration of\nenthusiasm and love, nature yields up all her secrets. Here is the\nauthor sitting down to write. Memory refuses facts, and reason\ndeclines to create fictions. The mind is dull and dead. Suddenly the\nstep of some friend long absent is heard at the door. Then how do the\nfaculties awake! Through all the long winter evening, the mind brings\nforth its treasures of wit, of anecdote, of instructive fact and\ncharming allusion. Here is some Edison, with an enthusiasm for\ninvention, who found his electric lamps that burned well for a month\nhad suddenly gone out, and read in the morning paper the judgment of\nthe scientist that his electric bulb was a good toy but a poor tool.\n\nIn his enthusiasm for his work, the man exclaimed, \"I will make a\nstatue of that professor, and illumine him with electric lamps, and\nmake his ignorance memorable.\" Then Edison went away to begin a series\nof experiments that drove sleep from his eyes and slumber from his\neyelids through five successive days and nights, until love and\nenthusiasm helped reason to wrest victory from defeat.\n\nHere is the boy Mozart, with his love of music, toiling through the\nlong days at tasks he hated, and in the darkening twilight stealing\ninto the old church, where he poured out his very soul over the organ\nkeys, sobbing out his mournful melodies. Here is Lincoln, with his\nenthusiasm for books, coming in at night all aching with cold and wet,\nand rising when parents slept, to roll another log upon the blazing\nhearth, while midst the grateful heat his eager eyes searched out the\ntreasures that lay along the line of the printed page, until his mind\ngrew rich and strong. And here are the Scottish clansmen and patriots,\nfor love's sake, following the noble chieftain, their hearts all\naflame, who, if they had a hundred lives, would gladly have given them\nall for their heroic leader. And here is the orator rising to plead\nthe cause of the savage, and of the slave, before men who feel no\nsympathy, and are as castles locked and barred. But the love for the\npoor shines in Wendell Phillips' eyes, trembles in his voice, pleads\nin his thinking, until the multitude become all plastic to his\nthought, and his smile becomes their smile, his tear their tear, the\nthrob of his heart the throb of the whole assembly. Here is the\nScottish girl, in love with truth, standing midst the sea, within the\nclutches of the incoming tide. She is bound down midst the rising\nwaters. Doomed is she and soon must die. But her eyes are turned\nupward toward the sky, and a great sweet light is on her face that\ntells us enthusiasm and love in her have been victorious over death.\nTruly, that Greek did well to call enthusiasm \"a god within,\" for love\nis stronger than death.\n\nThe historian tells us that all the liberties, reforms and political\nachievements of society have been gained by nations thrilling and\nthrobbing to one great enthusiasm. The Renaissance does not mean a\nsingle Dante, nor Boccaccio, but a national enthusiasm and a \"god\nwithin all minds.\" The Reformation is not a single Savonarola, nor\nLuther, but a universal enthusiasm and \"a god within,\" all heart and\nconscience. If we study these movements of society as typified by\ntheir leaders, these heroes stand forth before us with hearts all\naflame and with minds that grow like suns. In times of great danger\nmen develop unsuspected physical strength, and the force of the whole\nbody seems to rush upward and compact itself with the thumb or fist.\nAnd in the mental world lawyers and orators tell us that at heated\ncrises, when great issues hang upon their words, the memory achieves\nfeats otherwise impossible. In these hours the mind becomes luminous.\nAll the experience of the past passes before the orator with the\nmajesty of a mighty wave or a rushing storm. Similarly, the hero\ninflamed with love or liberty becomes invincible. When some Garibaldi\nor Lincoln appears, and the people behold his greatness and beauty and\nmagnanimity, every heart catches the sacred passion. Then the\nnarrow-minded youth tumbles down his little idols, sets up diviner\nideals, and finds new measurements for the thrones of heaven and\nearth. Then, in a great abandonment of love, the nation pours out its\nheart for the cause it loves.\n\nFroude tells us that self-government has cost mankind hundreds of wars\nand thousands of battle-fields. Tennyson writes of the boy who was\nfollowing his father's plow when the share turned up a human skull.\nThere, where the plow stayed, the patriot had fallen in battle.\nSitting upon the furrow with the child upon his knee, the father\ncaused his boy to see a million men in arms fighting for some great\nprinciple; to see the battle-fields all red with blood; the hillsides\nall billowy with graves; caused him to hear the shrieking shot and\nshell; pointed out the army of cripples hobbling homeward. When the\nchild shivered in fear the father whispered, \"Your ancestors would\nhave gladly died daily for the liberty they loved.\" And if to-day good\nmen brood over the wrongs of Armenia, and breathe a silent prayer for\nthose who struggle against desperate odds and \"the unspeakable Turk,\"\nand if to-morrow and on the morrow's morrow editors and orators unite\nin words of sympathy and encouragement for the patriots fighting in\nsome Cuba, it is because we believe the love of liberty implies the\nright to liberty; that despotism corrupts manhood; that\nself-government is the best for industry, the best for integrity, the\nbest for intelligence. If the red plowshare of war must pass through\nthe soil of the nations, may it bury forever the seeds of oppression\nand injustice, and sow for future generations the seeds of liberty,\nintelligence and religion!\n\nMoreover, an overmastering passion is the secret of all eminence in\nscholarship. Each autumn the golden gates of learning swing wide to\nwelcome the thousands who enter our colleges and universities. If it\nwere possible for each young student to sit down and speak with the\nlibrary and laboratory as with a familiar friend, we would hear\nwisdom's voice uttering one report: \"I love them that love me.\" None\nof those forms of mental wealth called art or science or literature,\nenters the mind unasked or stays unurged. All the shelves are heavy\nwith mental treasure, but only the eager mind may harvest it. Beauty\nsleeps in all the quarries, but only the eager chisel wakens it.\nWealth is in every crack and crevice of the soil, but nature forbids\nthe sluggard to mine it. Those forms of paradise called fame,\nposition, influence, stand with gates open by day and night, but the\ncherubim with flaming swords wave back all idle youth. When the\nGrecian king set forth upon his expedition he stayed his golden\nchariot at the market-place. Lifting up his voice he forbade any man's\nbody to enter his chariot whose heart remained behind. Thus the mind\nis a chariot that sweeps no unwilling student upward toward those\nheights where wisdom and happiness dwell.\n\nTo-day our young men and women stand in the midst of arts, vast,\nbeautiful and useful; they are surrounded by all the facts of man's\nmarvelous history; they breathe an atmosphere charged with refinement.\nBut the youth who hates his books might as well be the poor savage\nlying on the banks of the Niger, whose soul sits in silence and\nstarves to death in a silent dungeon. Should a kind heaven give us the\npower to select some charmed gift to be dropped down upon our youth,\nparents and teachers could ask nothing better than that each young\nheart should storm the gates of learning with such enthusiasm as\nbelonged to Milton or Epictetus. The Roman slave had one leg broken\nand twisted by a cruel master, but in his enthusiasm for knowledge he\nused the dim light of his cell for copying the thoughts of great\nauthors, and lay awake at night reflecting upon the problems of life\nand death with man's mysterious nature, and so made himself immortal\nby his devotion to the truth. For the student, enthusiasm is indeed \"a\ngod within.\" Ignorance is want of mental animation. The scientist\ntells us the Patagonians sleep eighteen hours each day, with a\ntendency to doze through the other six. Their minds are unable to make\nany kind of movement, and the chief once told Sir John Lubbock that he\nwould love to talk were it not that large ideas made him very sleepy.\n\nBut it is all in vain that man has reason or learning or imagination\nif these talents lie sleeping. Not long ago the ruins of an old temple\nwere discovered in Rome. When the spade had turned up the soil, lo,\nseeds long hidden awakened to cover the soil with rich verdure. For\n2,000 years these germs had slept, waiting for the day of warmth and\nquickening. Thus each faculty of man is latent, until some powerful\nenthusiasm passes over it. Indeed, mental power is not in the\nmultitude of knowledge acquired, but in the powerful enthusiasms that\ndrive the informed soul along some noble path. Power is not in the\nengine, but in the steam that pounds the piston; and the soul is a\nmechanism driven forward by those motives called enthusiasm for\nlearning or influence or wealth. Success might be defined as a full\ncasting of the heart into some worthy cause.\n\nIt is high time that our young men should recognize that prosperity\nand wealth are won only when the mind moves enthusiastically along the\npathway of industry. Our young men have been deeply injured by the\nfact that now and then some one stumbles upon sudden wealth, or by\naccident gains great treasure. But for every one such fortunate\nperson, there are ten thousand who have failed of success for want of\na purposeful enthusiasm.\n\nThe Persians have a strange story of the Golconda diamond mines. Once\nAli Hafed sat with his wife looking out upon the river that flowed\nthrough their farm. Soon their children came through the trees\nbringing with them a traveler. In confidence the stranger showed Ali\nHafed a diamond that shone like a drop of condensed sunshine. He told\nhis host that one large diamond was worth whole mines of copper and\nsilver; that a handful would make him a prince; that a mine of\ndiamonds would buy a kingdom. That night wealthy Ali Hafed went to bed\na poor man, for poverty is discontent. When the morning came he sold\nhis farm for gold, and went forth in search of diamonds. Years passed.\nOld and gray he returned in rags and poverty. He found his dear ones\nhad all died in penury. He also found that the peasant who bought his\nfarm was now a prince. One day, digging in the white sand in the\nstream at the foot of the garden, the peasant saw a shining something\nthat sent his heart to his mouth. Running his hands through the sand,\nhe found it sown with gems. Thus were discovered the Golconda mines.\nHad Ali Hafed dug in his own garden, instead of starvation, poverty\nand a broken heart, he would have owned gems that made nations rich.\n\nThis legend reminds us how youth constantly throws away its\nopportunities. Each day some man exchanges a farm in Pennsylvania for\nthe prairies of Dakota, only to find that the hills he despised have\ndeveloped oil that makes his successor rich. Each year purposeful men\ngrow rich out of trifles that the careless cast away. The sewers of\nParis have made one man wealthy with treasure beyond that of gold\nmines. The wastes of a cotton mill founded the fortune of one of the\ngreatest families in England. Peter Cooper used to say that he built\nthe Cooper Institute by picking up the refuse that the butcher shops\nthrew aside. A boy tugging over a shoe-last in Haverhill, Mass., was\ntold by his mother to give himself to making better and stronger\nlasts. Twenty years of enthusiastic study ended, and he was president\nof one of the greatest of our railways. In 1870, a youth sat upon the\nslag heap of a mine in California. But he gave his full mind to each\nclod, and going away for a few weeks he returned with a machine that\nextracted greater treasure from the slag than men had ever gained from\nthe mines. All wise men unite in telling us that ours is a world where\nprosperity is won by fidelity to details, and that wealth comes\nthrough little improvements. But, best of all, a purposeful enthusiasm\ngives mental wealth, and achieves a treasure beyond gold and rubies--a\nworthy character.\n\nNor is there any dross that love will not refine away, nor any vice\nthat love can not expel from the heart. Wordsworth was so impressed\nwith the evil of avarice that he could compare it only to a poisoned\nvine that wrapped itself so tightly about his favorite tree that vine\nand tree became one life, and the removal of the one meant the death\nof the other. But in her most famous story George Eliot tells us that\navarice passes utterly away before the touch of love. Silas Marner was\nthe victim of blackest ingratitude. His friend was a thief, who thrust\nupon him the blame of a black crime. Suddenly, this innocent man found\nall homes closed to his hand, all shops locked to his tools, while\neven the market refused his wares. Through two years and more, right\nbravely he held his head aloft and looked all men in the face. At\nlength hunger and want drove him forth a wanderer. Then he shook off\nthe dust of his feet against his false friends, and cursed their\nfiresides. Kindness in him soured into cynicism, his sweetness became\nbitterness, his faith in God and man fluttered feebly for awhile, then\nlay without a single pulse-beat. In anger he cursed God, but could not\ndie.\n\nJourneying afar, the traveler at length stayed his steps in a distant\nvillage. Then in toil he sought to forget. Rising a great while before\nday, he wrought with the activity of a spinning insect; and while men\nslept, his loom hummed far into the night. When fifteen years had\npassed, he had much gold and was a miser. Under the brick floor he\nsecreted his treasure. Each night he locked the door, shuttered his\nwindows, and poured upon the table his gold and silver. He bathed his\nhands in the yellow river. He piled his guineas up in heaps. Sometimes\nhe slept with arms around his precious money-bags. One evening he\nlifted the bricks of the floor, to find that the hole was empty.\nBenumbed with terror, he went everywhither seeking his treasure. He\nkneaded his bed, swept his oven, peered into each crack and crevice.\nWhen the full truth fell upon the miser, he sent forth a wild, ringing\nscream--the soul's cry of desolation. Then in his grief he rushed into\nthe rain and the wild night, and wandered on and on, stupefied with\npain. Not until morning came did he stagger in out of the storm.\nEntering, he saw the glint of yellow by his hearth. With a wild cry he\nsprang forward and clutched it. But it was not gold; it was something\nbetter--it was the yellow locks of a sleeping child. Broken-hearted,\nwith nothing else to live for, Silas Marner took the deserted babe\ninto his bosom. As the weeks went on, the little creature nestled into\nhis heart. For the child's sake he turned again to his loom; love\ntaught him thrift and industry. For the child's sake he bought books\nand hived knowledge; love made a scholar of him. For the child's sake\nhe planted vines, roses and all sweet flowers; love made him an\nartist. For the child's sake he bought carpets for the bare floors and\npictures for the wall; love had made him generous. For the child's\nsake he knelt one night and recited her prayer; love would fain make\nhim a Christian. But he hated men, and could not forget their\ningratitude. One day a rich man's carriage stopped before his cottage.\nThe lord of the mansion told a strange story--how this beautiful girl\nof eighteen was his daughter. In that hour the girl, tall and\nbeautiful, turned away from palace, lands, position, and, for the love\nshe bore him, put her arms around Silas Marner and refused to leave\nhim. Then something in him gave way, and Silas Marner wept. Then\nconfidence in man and God was his again. Love had destroyed avarice\nand purged away his sin. For love is a civilizer; it makes saints out\nof savages. As an armor of ice melts before the sun, so all vice and\niniquity disappear in the presence of an overmastering affection.\n\nIt remains for us to consider that the absence of an enthusiastic\ndevotion to integrity and the law of God explains the moral disasters\nand shipwrecks that have increased the tears and sorrows of mankind.\nRecently the people of this land opened their morning papers only to\nbe deeply shocked by a rehearsal of grievous disasters, not all of\nwhich were physical. It seems that an awful cyclone had swept through\na Western community, twisting the orchards, destroying houses and\nbarns, and leaving behind a swath wide and black with destruction. In\naddition, the foreign news told of a volcano whose crater had suddenly\npoured forth a river of lurid lava, which, sweeping down the mountain\nside, consumed the homes of the flying multitude. But the saddest\ndisaster was reserved to the last. It told of the shame and sorrow,\nfrom which there is no recovery, that had befallen the parents and\nfriends of three young men, hitherto held in high honor. It seems that\nfor many years these men had been honored by their friends, and\ntrusted by the banks in which they were employed. But in a dark hour\nthey determined to cease to be gentlemen, preferring, rather, to join\nthe ranks of thieves. Despising every principle of honor, the gold\nwhich employers committed to their care was taken, not to the safety\nvault, but distributed among gamblers and evil persons. And our heavy\nsorrow is increased when we read in our commercial reports that last\nyear 625 men went astray as embezzlers, robbing the people in\nforty-five states of $25,234,112. The time seems to have come for this\nnation to sit down in sackcloth and ashes.\n\nTo all good men comes the reflection that either this immorality must\ncease its ravages, or this nation will be irretrievably disgraced.\nWere it possible to search out these unhappy men, some of them wearing\nthe convict's garb, and some wandering as fugitives in foreign lands,\nhenceforth to be men \"without a country,\" and question each for the\ncause of his deep disgrace, from all would come this shameful\nconfession: \"I loved evil and hated the law of God.\" Not one could\nconfess to passionate, enthusiastic devotion to the divine laws. But\nevery tree not rooted goes down before the storm, and every ship\nunanchored midst the rocks will go to pieces when the wind rises.\nWould that we could to-day cause the laws of God to stand forth as\nsharply defined as mountain peaks before the eyes of all young men;\nwould that we could also kindle in each a passionate love and loyal\naffection for these holy laws. If the youth of to-day are to be the\nleaders of to-morrow, and are ever to have power to stir their\nfellows, to correct abuses, revolutionize society, or organize\nhistory, they must, with the enthusiasm of love, ally themselves with\nGod and His law, clothing that law with flesh until it becomes\nvisible, clothing it with voice until it becomes eloquent, thrilling\nit with power until it becomes triumphant. Only love fulfills law!\n\nMost of all does man need the enthusiasm of love toward his God and\nSaviour. In the olden time Plato expressed a wish to have the moral\nlaw become a living personage, that beholding, mankind might stand\namazed and entranced at her beauty. The philosopher felt that\nabstractions were too cold to kindle the soul's enthusiasm. As\nplanets are removed from the sun, their light and heat lessen; their\nflowers fade; their fruits lack luster; their summers shorten. Thus\nNeptune stands in the midst of perpetual ice and winter, without tree\nor bird or human voice. But as our earth approaches the direct rays of\nthe sun, its beauty increases, its harvests grow heavy.\n\nAs if to fulfill Plato's desire, Jesus Christ drew near to our world,\nnot to chill man's heart, but to strengthen his affection, refine his\nreason, enlarge his horizon. How admirable Christ's words, how\nillustrious His work, how divine His character! The philosopher\ndescribes man, but Jesus Christ loves man, weeps for man, dies for\nman. Dante inspires, but Jesus Christ gives life. Shakespeare shines,\nbut Jesus Christ uplifts. History causes the heroes of yesterday to\npass before the mind, surrounded by applauding multitudes. When\nNapoleon entered Paris the people ran together with one accord, and\nthe tides of enthusiasm rose like a mountain freshet. When Garibaldi\nentered Florence, when Kossuth passed up Broadway in New York, when\nGrant, returning homeward, entered our own city, the streets were\nfilled solidly with multitudes who forgot hunger and exhaustion,\nexalted by hero-worship.\n\nBut the divine man never stood forth in full proportion until Jesus\nChrist stepped upon this planet. What strength! What gentleness!\nBehold His exquisite sympathy! Behold the instinct of confidence, that\ndrew little children to His arms! How did men, defiled within and\nwithout, throng round Him, while His presence wrought the miracle of\nmiracles in cleansing them! Then for the first time in history did\ndisheveled ones so feel the beauty of goodness that an irresistible\nenthusiasm drew them about Him to kiss the very hem of His garment.\nAll the excellencies of life, and more, unite in Him; the orator's\npersuasive speech; the artist's love of beauty; the scholar's passion\nfor truth; the patriot's love of country. His also is more than the\nlove of mother, lover, friend, for his is the love of Saviour. To-day\nHe rises over each soul in such majesty of excellence as to include\nthe excellencies of everything in heaven and everything on earth. As\nthe clouds sometimes, after hanging for days and nights in the\natmosphere, at length come together and pour down their refreshing\nshowers, so let all that is deepest and richest and sweetest in man's\nthought and affection pour itself out before Him who is worthy of the\nworld's anthem. For His mind will guide, His mercy forgive, His love\nredeem, His hand lead--not into the abyss of death, but unto the\nheavenly heights. He who with Dante looks upward to-day may behold the\nSaviour's divine chariot \"sweeping along the confines of heaven, a\nsweet light above it, its wheels almost blocked with flowers.\"\n\n\n\n\nCONSCIENCE AND CHARACTER\n\n      \"There is a higher law than the constitution.\"--_Seward._\n\n    \"Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod,\n    Man's conscience is the oracle of God.\"\n                       --_Byron._\n\n      \"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of\n      celestial fire called conscience.\"--_Washington._\n\n      \"Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in\n      everything.\"--_Sterne._\n\n      \"If you can find a place between the throne of God and\n      the dust to which man's body crumbles, where the fatal\n      responsibilities of law do not weigh upon him, I will\n      find a vacuum in nature. They press upon him from God out\n      of eternity and from the earth out of nature, and from\n      every department of life, as constant and all-surrounding\n      as the pressure of the air.\"--_Beecher._\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nCONSCIENCE AND CHARACTER\n\n\nVon Humboldt said that every man, however good, has a yet better man\nwithin him. When the outer man is unfaithful to his deeper\nconvictions, the hidden man whispers a protest. The name of this\nwhisper in the soul is conscience. And never had monarch aspect so\nmagisterial as when conscience terrified King Herod into confession.\nThe cruel, crafty despot had slain John the Baptist to gratify the\nrevenge of the beautiful Jezebel, his wife, reproved of John for her\noutrageous sins. But soon passed from memory that hateful night when\nthe blood of a good man mingled with the red wine of the feast. Luxury\nby day and revelry by night caused the hateful incident to be\nforgotten. Soon a full year had passed over the palace with its silken\nseclusion. One day, when the dead prophet had long been forgotten, a\ncourtier at the king's table told the story of a strange carpenter,\nwhose name and fame were ringing through the land.\n\nWho is He? asked the feasters, pausing over their spiced wine. Who is\nHe? asked the women, gossiping over the new sensation. Suddenly,\nconscience touched an old memory in Herod's heart. In terror the\ndespot rose from the banquet. As in the legend, when the murderer's\nfinger touched the gaping wound the blood began again to flow--a\nsilent witness against the unsuspected but guilty friend, so Herod's\nconscience opened up again his guilty secret. Memory, thrusting a\nhooked pole into \"the ocean of oblivion, brought up the pale and\ndrowned deed.\" The long-forgotten sin was revealed in all its ghastly\natrocity. It availed nothing that Herod was a Sadducee--the agnostic\nof antiquity. For, when conscience spake, all his doubts fell away.\nImmortality and responsibility were clear as noonday. Holding a\nthousand swords in her hand, conscience attacked the guilty king. Then\nwere fulfilled Plato's words: \"If we could examine the heart of a\nking, we would find it full of scars and black wounds.\" For no slave\nwas ever marked by his master's scourge as Herod's heart was lashed by\nhis conscience.\n\nSocrates told his disciples that the facts of conscience must be\nreckoned with as certainly as the facts of fire or wood or water. None\nmay deny the condemnation that weighed upon the soul of Herod or\nJudas, or the approval of conscience that transfigured the face of the\nmartyred Stephen or Savonarola. For all happiness comes only through\npeace with one's self, one's record, and one's God. All the great,\nfrom AEschylus and Sophocles to Channing and Webster, have emphasized\nman's conscience as the oracle divine. Let the witnesses speak. Here\nis the Judge, famous in English history: It became his duty to\nsentence a servant for murdering his master. Suddenly, before the\nastounded onlookers, the Judge arose and took his place in the dock\nbeside the prisoner. He stated that, thirty years before, in a distant\nprovince, he had taken the life and property of his master, and\nthereby gained his present position and influence. Though he had never\nbeen suspected of crime, he now begged his fellow Judges to condemn\nhim to the death unto which his conscience had long urged him. Here is\nthe student of man and things, Dr. Samuel Johnson: In his old and\nhonored age he goes back to Litchfield to stand with uncovered head\nfrom morning till night in the market-place on the spot where fifteen\nyears before he had refused to keep his father's book-stall. Despite\nthe grotesque figure he made, midst the sneers and the rain,\nconscience bade him expiate his breach of filial piety. And here is\nChanning, the scholar and seer: A child of six years, he lifted his\nstick to strike the tortoise, as he had seen older boys do. But in\nthat moment an inner voice whispered loud and clear: \"It is wrong.\" In\nhis fright the boy hastened home to fling himself into his mother's\narms. \"What was the voice?\" he asked. To which his mother answered:\n\"Men call the voice conscience; but I prefer to call it the voice of\nGod. And always your happiness will depend upon obedience to that\nlittle voice.\"\n\nHere also is the great Persian Sadi. One day he found a good man in\nthe jungle, who had been attacked by a tiger and horribly mutilated.\nDespite his dreadful agony, the dying man's features were calm and\nserene. \"Great God,\" said he, \"I thank thee that I am only suffering\nfrom the fangs of the tiger and not of remorse.\" And here is Professor\nWebster, endungeoned for the murder of Dr. Parkman. One morning he\nsent for his jailer and asked to be placed in another cell. \"At\nmidnight,\" he said, \"the prisoners in the next cell tap on the wall\nand whisper, 'Thou art a murderer.'\" Now there were no prisoners in\nthe next cell. The whispers were the echoes of a guilty conscience.\n\nDaniel Webster also testifies: Once he was asked what was the greatest\nthought that had ever occupied his mind. \"Who are here?\" \"Only your\nfriends.\" Then this colossal man answered: \"There is no evil we can\nnot face or flee from but the consequences of duty disregarded. A\nsense of obligation pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity.\nIf we take to ourselves wings of the morning and dwell in the\nuttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still\nwith us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say that darkness\nshall cover us, in the darkness as in the light, our obligations are\nyet with us. We can not escape their power nor fly from their\npresence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close,\nand in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther on\nwe shall find ourselves followed by the consciousness of duty--to pain\nus forever if it has been violated, and to console us so far as God\nhas given us grace to perform it.\" Weighed against conscience the\nworld itself is but a bubble. For God himself is in conscience lending\nit authority.\n\nWe also owe the great dramatists and novelists a debt, in that they\nhave portrayed and analyzed the essential facts of man's moral life.\nThat which Shakespeare does for us in \"Macbeth,\" Victor Hugo does in\nhis \"Les Miserables.\" The latter work, always ranked as one of the\nseven great novels, exhibits happiness and character as fruits of\nobedience to the soul's inner circle. Jean Valjean was an escaped\nconvict. Going into a distant province he assumed a new name and began\nlife again. He invented a machine, amassed wealth, became mayor of the\ntown, was honored and beloved by all. One evening the good mayor heard\nof an old man in another town who had been arrested for stealing\nfruit. The officer apprehending him perceived in the old man a\nstriking resemblance to Jean Valjean. Despite his protests he was\ntried as Jean Valjean, and was about to be remanded to prison--this\ntime for life. Unless some one cleared him he must go to the galleys.\nOnly Jean Valjean himself can clear the stranger. How clear him? By\nconfessing his identity and going himself.\n\nIn that hour the mayor's brain reeled. He retired to his inner room.\nThen the tempest raged in his brain as a cyclone rages through the\ntrees, twisting off the branches and pulling up the roots. Must he go\nback again to the galleys with their profanity and obscenity? Must he\nresign his mayoralty and his wealth? Must he give up his life, so\nuseful and helpful, and all to save a possible year or two of life for\nthis old man? Were not these two young wards whom he was supporting\nmore than this one old wreck? Fate had decided. Let the old man go to\nthe galleys.\n\nThen with muscles tense as steel, with jugular vein all swollen and\npurple, Jean Valjean took the two candlesticks given him by the\nBishop, his thorn cane, the coin taken from the boy, and cast all upon\nthe blazing coals. Soon the flames had licked all up. Then Victor Hugo\nsays: \"Jean Valjean heard a burst of internal laughter.\" What was it\nin him jeering and mocking? At midnight from sheer exhaustion the\nmayor slept. Dreaming, he seemed to be in a hall of justice where an\nold man was being tried. There were roses in the vase, only sin had\nbleached the crimson petals gray. The sunlight came through the\nwindow, only sin had washed the color from the sunbeam and left the\ngolden rays ashen pale. All the people were silent. At length an\nofficer touched the mayor and said: \"Do you know you have been dead a\nlong while? Your body lives, but you died when you slew your\nconscience.\" Suddenly a voice said: \"Jean Valjean, you may melt the\ncandlestick, burn your clothes, change your face, but God sees you.\"\nAfterward came a second burst of internal laughter. Then the mayor\narose swiftly, took his horse, drove hard all night and reached the\ndistant village to enter the courtroom just as the old man was about\nto be sent to the galleys. Ascending the prisoner's dock, he confessed\nhis identity. Victor Hugo tells us that in that hour the judge and the\nlawyer saw a strange light upon the mayor's face, and felt a light\nwithin dazzling their hearts. It was the same light that fell on the\nGerman monk's face when before the Emperor at Worms he said: \"I cannot\nand will not recant!\" and then boldly fronted death. Conscience\nshining through made Luther's face luminous, as it had made the face\nof Moses before him!\n\nAs obedience to the behests of conscience has always yielded happiness\nand formed character, so disobedience has always destroyed manhood.\nThe great novelists have exhibited the deterioration of character in\ntheir hero as beginning with a sin against the sense of duty. In\nRomola, George Eliot exhibits Tito as a gifted and ideal youth. The\norphan child was adopted by the Greek scholar, who lavished upon him\nall the gifts of affection, all the culture and embellishments of the\nschools, all the comforts of a beautiful home; and when the longing\nfor foreign travel came upon the youth the foster-father could not\ndeny him, but took passage for Tito and himself and sailed for\nAlexandria. But the motto of Tito's life was, get all the pleasure\nyou can, avoid all the pain. Soon the old scholar became a clog and a\nburden. One night, conscience battled for its life with Tito. At\nmidnight the youth arose, unbuckled from his father's waist the\nleather belt stuffed with jewels, and fled into the night, leaving the\ngray-haired man among strangers whose language he could not speak.\n\nThen this youth sailed away to Florence. There his handsome person,\nhis Southern beauty, his grace of address, his aptitude for affairs,\nwon him the admiration of the wisest statesmen and the heart of one of\nthe noblest of women. But all the time we feel toward this beautiful\nyouth that same loathing and contempt that we feel toward a beautiful\nyoung tiger. Tito had no conscience toward Romola, no conscience\ntoward her father's priceless library, no conscience toward the\npatriots struggling for the city's liberty; he played the traitor\ntoward all. His soul was, indeed, sheathed in a glowing and beautiful\nbody; but it was the corpse sheathed over with flowers and vines; and\nso conscience becomes an avenger upon Tito. When the keystone goes\nfrom the arch, all must crash down in ruins. Unconsciously but surely\nthe youth moved toward his destruction. The day of doom was delayed,\nbut there came an hour when conscience first drove Tito into the\nArno's swift current, and then became a millstone, that sunk him into\nthe deep abyss. For ours is a world in which nature and God cannot\nafford to permit sin to prosper. Conscience is God's avenger.\n\nOpen all the master books, and they portray the same truth. Three of\nthe seven greatest novels deal with conscience. Seven of the world's\ngreatest dramas are studies of conscience and of duty. The\nmasterpieces of Sophocles and AEschylus, of Dante and Milton, of Goethe\nand Byron, are all studies of the soul's oracle, that, disobeyed,\nhurls man into the abyss, or, followed, becomes wings, lifting him\ninto the open sky.\n\nDemosthenes said that knowledge begins with definition. What, then, is\nconscience? Many misconceptions have prevailed. Multitudes suppose it\nto be a distinct faculty. The eye tests colors for beauty, the ear\ntests sounds for harmony, the reason tests arguments for truth, and\nthere is a popular notion that conscience is a distinct faculty,\ntesting deeds for morality. Many suppose that, when God made man, He\nimplanted conscience as an automatic moral mechanism, a kind of inner\nmind, to act in his absence; but conscience is not a single faculty.\nIt includes many faculties, and is complex in nature. It has an\nintellectual element, and this is distinctly fallible and capable of\neducation. Witness the Indians, believing it to be right to kill aged\npersons. Witness savages of old, sacrificing their children to appease\nthe gods. Just as there has been an evolution in tools, in laws and in\ninstitutions, so has there been an evolution of the intellectual\nelement in conscience. Thucydides tells us that the time was in Sparta\nwhen stealing was right. In that far-off time a boy was praised for\nexhibiting skill and dexterity in pilfering. Stealing was disgraceful\nand wrong only when it was found out, and, if the theft was large and\nskillfully done, it won honor--a condition of things that still\nprevails in some sections.\n\nNever since man stepped foot upon this planet has there been a time\nwhen conscience, the judge, has praised a David when sinning against\nwhat he believed to be the law of right; never once has it condemned a\nDaniel in doing what he believed to be right. In this sense conscience\nis, indeed, infallible and is the very voice and regent of God.\n\nSince, therefore, conscience partakes of this divine nature and speaks\nas an oracle, what are its uses and functions? Primarily, the moral\nsense furnishes a standard and tests actions for righteousness or\niniquity. To its judgment-seat comes reason, with its purposes and\nambitions. When his color sense is jaded the artist uses the sapphire\nor ruby to bring his tints up to perfection. And when contact with\nselfishness or sordidness has soiled the soul's garments, dulled its\ninstruments, and lowered its standards, then conscience comes in to\nfreshen the ideals and to smite vice and vulgarity. In these luminous\nhours when conscience causes the deeper convictions to prevail, how\nbeautiful seem truth and purity and justice! How does the soul revolt\nfrom iniquity, even as the eye revolts from the slough or the nostril\nfrom filth!\n\nConscience has also relations to judgment. It pronounces upon the\ninner motive that colors the deeds, for it is the motive within that\nmakes the actions without right or wrong. When Coleridge, the\nschoolboy, was going along the street thinking of the story of Hero\nand Leander and imagining himself to be swimming the Hellespont, he\nthrew wide his arms as though breasting the waves. Unfortunately, his\nhand struck the pocket of a passer-by and knocked out a purse. The\nouter deed was that of a pickpocket and could have sent the youth to\njail. The inner motive was that of an imaginative youth deeply\nimpressed by the story he was translating from the Greek, and that\ninner motive made the owner of the purse his friend and sent young\nColeridge to college. Thus, the philosopher tells us, the motive made\nwhat was outwardly wrong to be inwardly right.\n\nMemory, too, is influenced by the moral Faculty. Memory gathers up all\nour yesterdays. Often her writing is invisible, like that of a penman\nwriting with lemon juice, taking note of each transgression and\nrecording words that will appear when held up to the heat of fire.\nVery strangely does conscience bring out the processes of memory. Sir\nWilliam Hamilton tells of a little child brought to England at four\nyears of age. When a few brief summers and winters had passed over his\nhead, the language of far-off Russia had passed completely out of the\nchild's mind. Seventy years afterward, stricken with his last illness,\nin his delirium the man spoke with perfect ease in the language of\nchildhood. In moments of extreme excitement, when ships go down or\ndeath is imminent, conscience doth so quicken the mind that all the\ndeeds and thoughts of an entire career are reviewed within a few\nminutes. Scholars have been deeply impressed with this unique fact.\nSeeking to interpret it, Walter Scott takes us into the castle where a\nfoul murder was committed. So deeply did the red current stain the\nfloor that, though the servants scrubbed and scrubbed and planed and\nplaned, still the dull red stains oozed up through the oaken planks.\nThis is the great Scotchman's way of saying that our deeds stain\nthrough the very fiber and substance of the soul.\n\nLooking backward, we see only here and there a peak of remembrance\nstanding out midst the sea of forgetfulness, even as the islands in\nthe West Indies stand out midst the ocean. But each of these island\npeaks represents a submerged continent. Drain off the sea, and the\nmountains ease off toward the foothills and the hills toward the great\nplains that make up the hidden land. Thus the isolated memories of the\npast are all united, and will at length stand forth in perfect\nrevelation. Verily, conscience is a witness, secretly taking notes,\neven as good Latimer in his cell overheard the scratching of the pen\nin the chimney behind the curtain. Conscience is a judge, and, though\njuries nod and witnesses may be bribed, conscience never slumbers and\nnever sleeps. Conscience is a monarch, and, though to-day the soul's\nking be deposed from its throne, to-morrow it will ascend to the\njudgment-seat and lift the scepter. For conscience represents God and\nacts in His stead.\n\nConsider the workings of conscience in daily life. The ideal man is he\nwho is equally conscientious toward intellect and affection, toward\nplan and purpose. But in practical life men are Christian only in\nspots and departments. The soul may be likened unto a house, and\nconscience is the furnace thereof. Sometimes the householder turns the\nheat into the sitting-room and parlor, but in the other rooms he turns\noff the warm currents of air. Sometimes heat is turned into the upper\nrooms, while the lower rooms are cold. Thus conscience, that should\ngovern all faculties alike, is largely departmental in its workings.\nSome men are conscientious toward Sunday, but not toward the week\ndays. On Sunday they sing like saints, on Monday they act like demons.\nOn the morning of St. Bartholomew's massacre, Charles IX was\nconscientious toward the cathedral and attended mass during three\nhours; in the evening he filled the streets of Paris with rivers of\nblood. John Calvin was conscientious toward his logical system. He was\nvery faithful to his theology, but he had no conscience toward his\nfellows, and burned Servetus without a sympathetic throb.\n\nIn the Middle Ages conscience worked toward outer forms. In those days\nthe baron and priest made a contract. The general led his peasants\nforth to burn and pillage and kill, and the priest absolved the\nmurderers for five per cent of the profits. Men were very\nconscientious toward absolution, but not at all toward the neighbor's\nflocks and barns. In others conscience is largely superstition.\nRecently an officer of our army found himself sitting beside his host\nat a table containing thirteen guests. The soldier, who perhaps would\nhave braved death on the battle-field, was pricked by his conscience\nfor sitting at table where the guests numbered thirteen. But he was\nafraid to die at the dinner-table. He believed that the great God who\nmakes suns and stars and blazing planets to fly from His hand as\nsparks beneath the hammer of a smith, the god of Sirius and Orion,\nalways stopped his work at six o'clock to count the guests around each\ntable, and if he found perchance there were thirteen, then would lift\nhis arrow to the bow to let fly the deadly shaft upon these awful\nsinners against the law of twelve chairs or fourteen.\n\nSingularly enough, now and then an individual is conscientious toward\nsome charm, as in the case of a merchant who presently discovered that\nhe had left his buckeye at home. He had carried this for twenty years.\nHad he forgotten to pray he would not have gone home to fall upon his\nknees. Nature and God were in the merchant's counting-room, but not\nthe buckeye. So he hurriedly left his office to bring back the agent\nthat secured all his success and prosperity.\n\nThen, there is a commercial conscience. Some men feel that the law of\nright is chiefly binding upon a man in his business relations. They\nexile themselves from home, break the laws of love and companionship\nwith the wife whom they have engaged to cherish and love, until they\nbecome strangers to her. But conscience does not prick them. Home,\nfriends, music, culture, all these may be neglected--but the business,\nnever. Others there are whose consciences work largely toward the\nhome. When they cross their own thresholds they are genial, kind and\ndelightful. As hosts they are famed for their companionship. Dying,\ntheir fame is gathered up by the expressions, \"good husband, good\nfather, good provider.\" But they have no conscience toward the street.\nThey count other men their prey, being grasping, greedy and\navaricious. They feel about their fellows just as men do about the\ntimber in the forest. When a man wants timber for his house, he says,\n\"That is the tree I want,\" and the woodsman fells it and squares it\nfor the sill. Does he want stone for his foundations or marble for his\nfinishings? There are the rocks; quarry them. Men go into inanimate\nnature and get the materials they need. Nor is it very different in\nthe great world of business and ambition. The giant takes one man for\nthe foundation and cuts him down and builds him into the walls; he\nselects another man and uses him up, building his substance into the\nstructure; he looks upon his fellows as the shepherd upon his\nflocks--so much wool to be sheared.\n\nNor is the work of conscience very different in the moral and\nspiritual realm. Here is one man who is conscientious toward\nyesterday. Ten years ago, he says, \"while kneeling in the field light\nbroke through the clouds\" and he obtained \"a hope.\" And every Sunday\nsince that day he has not failed to recall that scene. He is not\nconscientious about having a new, fresh, crisp, vital experience for\nto-day, but he is conscientiously faithful in recalling that old\nexperience. It is all as foolish as if he should say that ten years\nago he had a bath, or ten years ago he drank at the bubbling spring,\nor ten years ago he met a friend. What about to-day's purity, to-day's\nloaf and to-day's friendships? The heart should count no manna good\nthat is not gathered fresh each morning. Others there are whose\nconscience works largely toward doctrine and intellectual statements.\nWith them Christianity is a function of thought in the brain. These\nare they who want every sermon to consist of linked arguments. The\ngood deacon sits in his pew and listens to the unfolding of proofs of\nelection or foreordination. When the arguments have been piled up to\nsixteen or eighteen, the good man begins to chuckle with delight,\nsaying, \"Verily, this is a high day in Israel; my soul feasts on fat\nthings.\" Other men want some flesh on their skeletons, but he is fed\non the dry bones of logic.\n\nSometimes conscience affects only the feelings. Fifty years ago there\nwas a type numbering hundreds of thousands of persons whose religion\nwas largely emotional. In great camp-meetings filled with a warm\natmosphere men showed at their best. The sunny spot of all the year\nwas the month of revival meetings. Then they experienced the luxury of\nspiritual enjoyment. They lived on the top of some Mount of\nTransfiguration, while the world below was thundering with wickedness\nand tormented with passion. Men became drunk with emotions. Religion\nwas an exquisite form of spiritual selfishness. Afterward came an era\nwhen men learned to transmute feelings into thoughts and fidelities\ntoward friendships and business and duty. At other times conscience\nhas had unique manifestations in fidelity toward creeds. Now one\ndenomination and now another, forgetting to be conscientious in\nmeeting together for days and weeks to plan in the interests of the\npauper, the orphans, the tenement house or the foreign district in the\ngreat city, will through months of excitement exhibit conscience\ntoward some doctrinal symbol. Witness the recent upheaval about\ninspiration. As water bubbling up through the spring was once rain\nthat fell from the sky, so the truth coming through the lips of poet\nor prophet was first breathed into the heart by God. Recently a good\nprofessor thought more emphasis should be laid upon the human spring.\nBut his opponents thought the emphasis should be placed upon the sky,\nfrom which the rain fell. In the broil about the nature of the water,\nthe spring itself was soiled, much mud stirred up, until multitudes\nwholly forgot the spring, and many knew not whether there was any\nwater of life.\n\nBut conscience in some, means fidelity to what man and God did--not\nwhat God is doing or will do. When the flowing sap under the stimulus\nof the sun causes the tree to grow and splits the bark, men rejoice\nthat the bark is rent and that new and larger growths must be\ninserted. Sometimes a child, long feeble and sickly, enters upon a\nperiod of very rapid growth. Soon the boy's old clothes are too small,\nand so is his hat. But what if the parents should remember only that\nthe clothes and hat came from some famous pattern? What if in their\nzeal to preserve the hat they should put an iron band about the boy's\nforehead and never permit it to increase so that the hat would not\nfit? What if they should put a strait-jacket about the chest to\nrestrain the stature? This would show great zeal toward the hat and\nthe coat, but meanwhile what is to become of the boy? Strange that men\nshould be so conscientious toward an intellectual symbol, but forget\nto give liberty to other men's consciences who day and night seek to\nplease God and be true to their beliefs. Thus in a thousand ways\nconscience is partial and fragmentary in its workings. Only one\nfull-orbed man has ever trod our earth!\n\nGod's crowning gift to man is the gift of conscience. Reason is a\nnoble and kingly faculty, turning reveries into orations and\nconversations into books. Imagination is a stately and divine gift,\nturning thoughts into poems and blocks of stone into statues. Great is\nthe power of an eloquent tongue instructing men, restraining,\ninspiring, stimulating vast multitudes. Great are the joys of memory,\nthat gallery stored with pictures of the past. But there is no genius\nof mind or heart comparable to a vigorous conscience, magisterial,\nclear-eyed, wide-looking. He who gave all-comprehending reason,\nall-judging reason, reserved his best gift to the last--then gave the\ngift of conscience.\n\nMan is a pilgrim and conscience is the guide, leading him safely\nthrough forests and thickets, restraining from the paths of wrong,\npointing out the ways of right. Man is a voyager and conscience is his\ncompass. The sails may be swept away, and the engines stopped, but the\nvoyager yet may be saved if only the compass is kept. In time of\ndanger man may be careless about his garments, but not about his hand\nor foot or eye. It is possible to sustain the loss of wealth, friends\nand outer honors, but no man can sustain the loss of conscience. It is\nthe soul's eye. Afar off it sees the face of God. Instructed, guided,\nloved, and redeemed by Jesus Christ, he who while living is at peace\nwith his Master and with his conscience will, when dying, find himself\nat peace with his God.\n\n\n\n\nVISIONS THAT DISTURB CONTENTMENT\n\n      \"Like other gently nurtured Boston boys, Wendell Phillips\n      began the study of law. Doubtless the sirens sang to him,\n      as to the noble youth of every country and time. Musing\n      over Coke and Blackstone, perhaps he saw himself\n      succeeding Ames and Otis and Webster, the idol of\n      society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of\n      the elegant ease, and the cultivated conservatism of\n      Massachusetts. * * * But one October day he saw an\n      American citizen assailed by a furious mob in the city of\n      James Otis for saying with James Otis that a man's right\n      to liberty is inherent and inalienable. As the jail doors\n      closed upon Garrison to save his life, Garrison and his\n      cause had won their most powerful and renowned ally. With\n      the setting of that October sun, vanished forever the\n      career of prosperous ease, the gratification of ordinary\n      ambition, which the genius and the accomplishments of\n      Wendell Phillips had seemed to foretell. Yes, the\n      long-awaited client had come at last. Scarred, scorned\n      and forsaken, that cowering and friendless client was\n      wronged and degraded humanity. The great soul saw and\n      understood.\"--_Oration on Wendell Phillips by George Wm.\n      Curtis._\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nVISIONS THAT DISTURB CONTENTMENT\n\n\nEvery community holds a few happy and buoyant souls, that are so\nsustained by inner hope and outer prosperity as to seem the elect\nchildren of good fortune. These are they who are born only to the best\nthings, for whom, as life goes on, the years do but increase happiness\nand success. For other men happiness is occasional, and life offers\nnow and then a bright interval, even as an open glade is found here\nand there in the dark forest. Among these sunny souls, dwelling midst\nconstant prosperity, let us hasten to include that youth to whom\nChrist made overtures of friendship. His was a frank and open nature,\nhis a fresh and unsullied heart. He had also a certain grace and\nindescribable charm that clothed him with rare attraction. Wealth,\ntoo, was his, and all the advantages that go therewith. Yet ease had\nnot enervated him, nor position made him proud. He had indeed passed\nthrough the fierce fires of temptation, but had come out with\nspotless garments.\n\nBeholding him, Christ loved him; nor could it have been otherwise.\nSome men we force ourselves to like. For reasons of finance or social\nadvantage, men ignore their faults, while cherishing a secret dislike.\nBut others are so attractive, they compel our friendship by a certain\nsweet necessity. The eye must needs like the rich red rose, and the\near can not but enjoy the sweet song. And this youth stood forth\nclothed with such rare attraction that it is said Christ cast one long\nlingering look of affection upon him; then widening the circle of\nfriendship, he offered the young ruler a place therein. It was an\noverture such as Socrates made to the boy Plato; it was a proffer such\nas Michael Angelo made to the poor young artist who knocked at his\ndoor. Recalling the day when he met Goethe, Schiller was accustomed to\nsay his creative literary career began with Goethe's proffer of\nfriendship.\n\nCarlyle tells us that each new epoch in his life began with the\nacquaintance of some great man. For it is not given to books nor\nbusiness, to landscapes nor clouds nor forests, to have full power\nover the living man. Only mind can quicken mind, only heart can\nquicken heart. What would the youth of genius not give for the\nfriendship of some Bacon or Shakespeare? But when this youth won\nChrist's regard, it was as if all the children of genius had come\ntogether in Christ's single person, to proffer intimacy and\ncompanionship. His great soul overhung his friends as the harvests\noverarch the fields, \"filling the flowers with heat by day, and\ncooling them with dews by night.\" His friendship is like a mother's, a\nlover's, a friend's, but larger than either, and deeper than all. The\nrising of a star, that glows and sparkles with ten thousand effects,\ncan alone be compared to this Son of Man, who flamed forth upon his\nfriends such majesty of beauty, such royalty of kindling influences.\n\nFor centuries scholars have spoken of this interview between Christ\nand the young ruler as \"the great refusal.\" Dante, wandering with\nVirgil through the Inferno, thought he saw this young ruler searching\nfor his lost opportunity. For this ruler was the Hamlet of the New\nTestament. Like the Prince of Denmark, he stood midway between his\nconscience and his task, and indecision slew him. It has been said\nthat Hamlet could have been happy had he remained in ignorance of his\nduty, or had he boldly obeyed the vision which called him to action.\nIt was because he knew more than he had the courage to do that a\ndiscord arose, which destroyed the symmetry and sanity of his mind.\nHis madness grew out of the breach between his enlarged and haunting\nsense of right and his faltering ability to face and fulfill it. Thus\nalso the tragedy of this young ruler's life grew out of the fact that\nthe new aspiration made his old contentment impossible, and compelled\nhim either to go on with boldness to better things, or to go back to\nemptiness and misery. Beholding him, Christ loved him for what he was,\nand pointed out what he might become. He knew that the better was a\ngreat enemy of the best. For Christ had the double vision of the\nsculptor.\n\nBefore him was the mass of marble, rude and shapeless. But the outer\nshapelessness concealed the inner symmetry. Only the flying chips\ncould let loose the form of glowing beauty hidden within. And before\nthat youth he lifted up a vision of still better things. He set the\nyouth midway between the man he was and the man he might become. He\nhad achieved so much that Christ would fain lead him on to perfection\nitself. When the husbandman beholds his vines entering into leafage\nand blossom, he nurtures them on into fruitage. When Arnold finds some\nyoung Stanley ready to graduate, he whispers: \"One thing thou\nlackest; let all thy life become one eager pursuit of knowledge.\" And\nto this youth who had climbed so high came the vision of something\nfairer and better still.\n\nGoing on before, Christ lured him forward, even as of old the goddess\nlured the Grecian boy forward by rolling rosy apples along the path.\nBut the interview ended with the \"great refusal.\" And the youth went\naway, not angry nor rebellious, but sad and deeply grieved at himself.\nFor now he knew how far his aspiration outran performance. Like\nHamlet, indecision palsied action. Contentment perished, for the\nvision of perfection ever haunted him. At first Christ's words and\nlook of earnest affection filled his heart with a tumult of joy: but\nhaving fallen back into the old sordid self, the very memory of his\nmaster's face became a curse and torture. And so the vision blighted\nthat should have blessed.\n\nNow, the lives of great men tell us that God has always used visions\nfor disturbing contentment, destroying ease, and securing progress.\nWitness the life of that young patrician, Wendell Phillips. His\ncollege mates love to describe him as they first saw him in the halls\nof Cambridge. His elegant person, his accomplished manners, his\nrefined scholarship, made him the idol of the Harvard boys. Even in\nhis youthful days he excelled as an orator, and was the easy master of\nthe platform. But to him came the sirens singing of leisure, of\nopulence, and ambition. Full oft he looked forward to the day when he\nwould be the champion of \"elegant repose and cultivated conservatism\"\nof the patrician element in his patrician state. But suddenly the\nChrist, in the person of one of his little ones, crossed the young\nscholar's path. One golden October afternoon, while Wendell Phillips\nwas sitting in his office, he heard the noise of a strange disturbance\nin the street. Looking out he saw the mob maltreating Garrison, as,\nwith blows and kicks, they dragged him toward the jail. All that night\nyoung Phillips lay tossing on his couch, thinking ever of this man who\nhad been mobbed in the city where Otis had said \"Liberty of speech is\ninalienable.\"\n\nAll that night the vision of the slave, scarred and scorned and\nforsaken, stood before his mind, while ever he heard a voice\nwhispering: \"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of\nthese my brethren, ye have done it unto me.\" In that vision hour\nperished forever all his dreams of opulence and ease. He decided to\nturn his back upon all preferment and ambition, all comfort and\nleisure, and follow his vision whithersoever it led. Soon the vision\nled him to the platform of Faneuil Hall, where an official was\njustifying the murderers of Lovejoy. \"Mr. Chairman,\" he said, \"when I\nheard the gentleman lay down principles which placed the murderers of\nAlton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I\nthought those pictured lips would have broken into voice to rebuke the\nrecreant American, the slanderer of the dead.\" And that vision lent\nhis words such burning eloquence that Wendell Phillips' speech in\nFaneuil Hall ranks with Patrick Henry's at Williamsburg and Abraham\nLincoln's at Gettysburg--and there is no fourth. His vision led him\nunto obloquy also. What revilings were his! What bitter hatred! What\ninsults and scoffs! At last the vision led him unto fame. The very\ncity that would have slain him builded his monument, and men who once\nwould not defile their lips with his name taught their children the\npathway to his tomb. It was that vision splendid that saved Phillips\nfrom sodden contentment. Had Christ never crossed his path, his\nimagination would have lost its brightest picture, his life its\nnoblest impulses, its most energetic forces.\n\nAnd not only have visions power to shape young men's lives. To the\nmature and the great also come dreams of ideal excellence, smiting\nselfishness, rebuking sin, taking the sweetness out of sordid success,\nand urging men on to higher achievements. The biographers have never\nbeen able to fully account for the pathetic sadness and gloom of the\nclosing days of Daniel Webster. Horace Greeley once said that\n\"Webster's intellect is the greatest emanation from the Almighty mind\nnow embodied.\" For picturesque majesty and overpowering mentality he\nis doubtless our most striking figure. That enormous and beautiful\nhead, those wonderful eyes, that stately carriage, that Jove-like\nfront, led men to call him \"the godlike Daniel.\" When he appeared upon\nthe Strand in London a great crowd followed him, and a British\nstatesman described Webster as one describes a majestic landscape or\nthe sublimity of a mountain. But during the last years of his life his\nface took on a strangely pathetic sorrow. With the language of a Dante\nhis biographer has pictured for us an Inferno, in which we see one,\nsublime of reason, walking in the very prime and strength and grandeur\nof full manhood, yet walking in a round of night, in a realm of\nbitterness, ever gnawed by disappointment and consumed by fierce\nambition. He sank into his grave, says the historian, \"under a\nheart-crushing load of political despair.\"\n\nBut disappointed ambition cannot account for Daniel Webster's sadness\nand woe. Strength was his for supporting the loss of a nomination. He\nknew that his title, \"Defender of the Constitution,\" was fully equal\nto the title of President. He was too great a man to have his heart\nbroken by the loss of political honor. What was his woe? Let us\nremember the young ruler who was sad and grieved after he met Christ,\nand had refused to obey the heavenly vision. Let us remember the dream\nthat came to Pilate, and how, afterward, the great Roman was uneasy\nand restless. And to Daniel Webster there came the memory of his\nspeech in favor of a law compelling men in the North to send fugitive\nslaves back to their masters; and there also came the words of Christ,\nwho said: \"I am come to give deliverance to the captive.\" And looking\nforward, Webster anticipated the judgment of the generations upon the\nbreach between his duty and his performance. That vision of higher\nthings haunted him. Oft he heaved sighs of bitter regret. Daniel\nWebster was saddened and deeply grieved at what he himself had done.\nFor the hope of the Presidency he sacrificed his convictions as to the\nslave. The heavenly vision bade him deliver the captives, not send\nthem back into slavery. No political disappointment crushed Daniel\nWebster. The consciousness of duty performed would have sustained him\nunder any sorrow. It was the consciousness of having sinned against\nthe heavenly vision that broke his heart, and brought Webster's gray\nhairs down with sorrow to the grave!\n\nPlutarch tells us that the finest culture comes from the study of men\nin their best moods. But always life's best moods come through these\nheavenly visions. George Eliot makes the destiny of each hero or\nheroine to turn upon the use of those critical hours when some ideal\nfronts the soul for acceptance or rejection. To Maggie Tulliver came a\ndelicious moment when her lover offered her honorable marriage, and\nwould have led her into a perfumed garden of perfect happiness. But\njust in that hour when joy bubbled like a little spring in her heart,\nthere came the memory of the crippled boy, to whom years before in her\nchildhood she had plighted her troth. And the vision of her duty and\nthe thought of his disappointment led her to refuse pleasure's spiced\ncup, and choose self-renunciation and a life for others. That heavenly\nvision saved her from plunging into the abyss of selfishness, even as\nthe lightning's flash in the dark night reveals the precipice to the\nstartled traveler.\n\nAnd when the visions divine have rebuked selfishness, they go on to\nconquer sin. Hawthorne uses the vision for redeeming his hero. To\nArthur Dimmesdale, pursued by his enemy, came the dream of freedom,\nwhen, journeying to a foreign land with Hester and Pearl, he might\nregain health and happiness and find peace again in walking in the\ndear old paths of wisdom and study. But the day before his ship sailed\ncame the vision splendid, bidding him mount the scaffold, confess his\nwrong, and free his conscience of its guilt. And it was obedience\nthereto that redeemed his life from hypocrisy.\n\nAnd, having saved men from wrong, the vision goes on to secure their\nservice for the right. Here is that colored woman, Harriet Tubman,\nwhom John Brown introduced to Wendell Phillips as the best and bravest\nperson upon our continent. If Frederick Douglass wrought in the day,\nHarriet Tubman toiled at night; for when the man had praise and honor,\nthe black woman had only obscurity and neglect. When this bravest of\nher race escaped from slavery in 1850 and reached Canada she exclaimed\nexultingly, \"I have only one more journey to make--the journey to\nheaven.\" But in that hour when the tides of joy rose highest there\ncame the vision calling her back to danger and service. She was not\ndisobedient thereto, but turned her face again toward the cotton\nfields. Between 1850 and 1860 she made nineteen trips into the South,\nand rescued over three hundred slaves. One day while lying in a swamp\nwith her band of fugitives, a black man brought her word that a reward\nof $40,000 had been offered by the slave dealers of Virginia for her\napprehension. Hard pressed by her pursuers, she sent her fugitives on\nby a secret route and went herself to the train. But when she saw in\nthe car advertisements for her arrest she left the Northern train and\ntook the next one going south, thinking by her fearlessness to escape\ndetection, and also to collect a new band of fugitives. And so her\npeople came to call Harriet Tubman the Moses of the black race. And,\nfollowing on, the vision lifted her to a place among those whom the\nworld will not willingly let die.\n\nWhen the vision has redeemed bad men to good deeds it goes on to\nredeem good ones unto perfection. Here is Channing, with his cultured\nscholarship, his refined manners, his gentle goodness. So heavy were\nthe drafts study made upon his strength that at length came a day when\nthe mere delivery of his sermons and orations left him physically\nexhausted. But he went smilingly and forever from the pulpit, and gave\nup also the use of his pen. In that hour, when sorrow and gloom rested\nheavily upon those who loved him, the vision shone clearly for\nChanning. He determined to turn his whole life into a sermon and poem.\nWith pathetic eloquence he said, \"It is, indeed, forbidden me to write\nor speak, but not to aspire and be. To live content with small means;\nto seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than\nfashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to do\nall cheerfully, bear all bravely; to listen to stars and birds, to\nbabes and sages, with open heart; to study hard, think quietly, act\nfrankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never--in a word, to let\nthe spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the\ncommon--this is to be my symphony.\"\n\nInto our nation also has come the disturbing vision. Ours is called an\nage of unrest. We hear much about social discontent. Beneath all the\nouter activity and bustle there is an undertone of profound sadness.\nNeither wealth, pleasure, nor politics has availed to conceal the\nworld's weariness. Strangely enough, just at a time when prosperity is\ngreatly increased, when our homes are full of comforts and\nconveniences, when all the forces of land and sea and sky have lent\nthemselves to man as willing servants, to carry his messages, run his\nerrands, reap his harvests, pull his trains, and push his ships; in an\nage when a thousand instruments that make for refinement and culture\nhave been invented, just at this time, strangely enough, unrest and\ndisquietude have fallen upon our people. Why is our age so sad? Has\nSchopenhauer carried the judgment of mankind by his favorite motto,\n\"It is safer to trust fear than faith?\" Is it because our age has lost\nfaith in God? Have doubt and skepticism burned the divine dew off the\ngrass, and left it sere and brown? Nay, a thousand times nay!\n\nThe world is sad because it has found God, not lost him. Man is weary\nin the midst of his wealth and pleasures for the same reason that the\nyoung ruler was grieved and sad in the midst of his great possessions.\nOur age has seen the vision splendid, but halts undecided, being yet\nunwilling to go on and fulfill its new ideals. For those who have eyes\nto see, Jesus Christ stands again in the market and the street. He has\ngiven society a new vision of the earth as a possible paradise, filled\nwith the fruits of peace and plenty where none know surfeit, and none\nknow want. He has given a vision of the brotherhood of man and the\nfatherhood of God, and that vision has destroyed the old contentment.\nOur fathers were happy because what they did kept pace with what they\nsaw. And we are unhappy because we are unwilling to do what we see.\n\nThis vision of possible excellence will continue to haunt our\ngeneration until performance shall have overtaken the ideal promise.\nAll the processes of buying and selling without must be carried up to\nmeet the requirements of the vision within. Just as in Luther's day\nthe vision divine disturbed Germany and filled the land with unrest\nuntil the people achieved spiritual freedom; just as in Cromwell's day\nthe vision of freedom in political relations came to England and gave\ndisturbance until the doctrine of the divine right of kings was\noverthrown; just as in our own day the vision of liberty for all,\nwithout regard to race or color, disturbed our land and filled our\ncouncil chambers with conflict and strife, and turned the South into\none immense battle-field, until the laws of the Nation matched the\nideals of God--so to-day, the vision of the brotherhood of man in\nJesus Christ has fallen upon the home, the market, and the forum, and\nbrought restlessness and discontent to our people.\n\nOur colleges are restless, and by the university extension plans are\nseeking to fulfill their vision of wisdom for all. The church hath\nseen the heavenly vision, and, restless and grieved at its own\nfailures, is rewriting its creeds, inventing new methods of social\nsympathy and social help, and is seeking eagerly to fulfill its\nvision. Wealth too, is discontented, and by manifold gifts is becoming\nthe almoner of universal bounty toward school and college, and gallery\nand church. Looking toward the council chamber, society is becoming\nrestless, and feeling that the council chamber should be as sacred as\na temple, and that as of old so now evil men have turned the temple\ninto a place for money-changing, and made the house of God a den of\nthieves. Good men are again lifting the scourge of small cords. The\ndiscontent is becoming universal. This vision of a new order will\ncontinue to haunt and disturb men, until at length society will make\nall its activities without correspond to the heavenly vision within.\n\nThe tradition tells us that when the young ruler who made the \"great\nrefusal\" had returned home he found the old zest of life had gone.\nGone forever his contentment in fields and flocks, in houses and\nhorses and goods; in books and pictures! He himself seemed but a\nshadow moving through a phantom world. Struggle as he would, he could\nnot forget the new vision, nor find the old joy. At last he ceased\nstruggling, and, fulfilling his vision, he found the cross was the\nmagic key that opened the door of happiness.\n\nAnd to the youth of this far-off day, the vision splendid doth come\nagain. In strange ways come these luminous hours and exalted moods.\nSometimes they come through memory, and then the tones of a voice long\nstill fall softly upon the ear like celestial bells calling us\nheavenward. Sometimes these luminous hours come through the\naffections, when anticipations of joy are so bright that it seems as\nif the youth reaching forward had plucked beforehand the fruit from\nthe very tree of life. For some they come through sorrow, when the\nsoul stands dissolved in tears, even as some perfumed shrub stands in\nthe June morning making the very ground wet with falling raindrops.\nThen the soul wanders here and there, all dumb with grief, seeking\ncomfort, yet finding none. Then sitting near the much-loved grave, the\nsoul hears the night winds whispering, \"Not here, not here!\" to which\nthe murmuring sea replies, \"Not here,\" while the weeping vines and the\nmournful pines ever answer, \"Not here, not here!\" But softly falling\nthrough the pathless air comes a voice murmuring, \"Here! Here! Come\nup hither!\"\n\nOh, these luminous hours! These hours of deeper conviction are life's\nreal hours! Summer is sunshine and beauty, not storm and snow. There\nare dark and wintry days in March, when spring seems a delusion. There\nare days in April so cold that summer seems a snare. But between the\nstorms there are brief warm intervals when the sun falls soft on the\nsouth hillsides, and the roots begin to stir and the seeds to ache\nwith harvests, and all the air is vocal. The fitful snows in April are\nbut reminders of what the dying winter was; but these occasional sunny\ndays are prophecies of what summer hath accomplished in its full\nministry upon the fields and forests.\n\nAnd after long periods of sodden selfishness and clouded sin, suddenly\nthe vision of better things breaks through the cloud and storm. Then\nthe vision strikes clarity into reason, memory and imagination. In\nthese hours the soul scoffs at sordid things. As the flower climbs\nupward to escape from the slough, as the foot turns away from the\nmire, as the nostril avoids the filth, as the ear hates discord, so in\nthese hours the soul scoffs at selfishness and sin. Oh, how beautiful\nseem purity and gentleness, and sympathy and truth! And these hours\nare big with prophecy. They tell us what the soul shall be when time\nand God's resources have wrought their will upon man. They are to be\ncherished as the mariner cherishes the guiding star that stands upon\nthe horizon; they are to be cherished as some traveler, lost in a\nclose, dark forest, cherishes the moment when the sun breaks through a\nrift in the clouds and he takes his bearings out of the swamp and\ntoward his home. Visions are God within the soul. They come to lead\nman away from sin and sorrow. They come to guide him to his heavenly\nhome.\n\n\n\n\nTHE USES OF BOOKS AND READING\n\n\n      \"Bring with the books.\"--_Paul._\n\n      \"A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit\n      embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond\n      life.\"--_Milton._\n\n      \"God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the\n      distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual\n      life of past ages. In the best books great men talk to\n      us, give us their most precious thoughts and pour their\n      souls into ours.\"--_Channing._\n\n      \"All that mankind has done, thought or been is lying as\n      in magic preservation in the pages of books. They are the\n      chosen possession of men.\"--_Carlyle._\n\n      \"We need to be reminded every day how many are the books\n      of inimitable glory, which, with all our eagerness after\n      reading, we have never taken into our hands. It will\n      astonish most of us to find how much of our very industry\n      is given to the books which have no worth, how often we\n      rake in the litter of the printing press, whilst a crown\n      of gold and rubies is offered us in vain.\"--_F.\n      Harrison._\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE USES OF BOOKS AND READING\n\n\nPaul was at once a thinker, a theologian, and a statesman, because he\nwas always a scholar. One duty he never neglected--the duty of\nself-culture through reading. Certain companions were ever with\nhim--his favorite authors. Imprisoned in Rome, the burden of his\nletters to his young friend in Ephesus was books and the duty of\nreading. Himself a Hebrew, by much study he became a cosmopolitan and\na citizen of the wide-lying universe. Like Emerson, he believed that\n\"the scholar was a favorite of heaven and earth, the excellency of his\ncountry, and the happiest of men.\" Saner intellect than his never trod\nthis earth, and could he speak to our age, with its fret and fever,\nhis message would certainly include some words about the companionship\nof good books.\n\nThe supreme privilege of our generation is not rapid transit, nor the\nincrease of comforts and luxuries. Modern civilization hath its flower\nand fruitage in books and culture for all through reading. Should the\ndream of the astronomer ever come true, and science establish a code\nof electric signals with the people of Mars, our first message would\nnot be about engines, nor looms, nor steamships. Not the telephone by\nwhich men speak across continents, but the book by which living men\nand dead men converse across centuries, would be the burden of the\nfirst message. President Porter once said that the savage visiting\nLondon with Livingstone appreciated everything except the libraries.\nThe poor black man understood the gallery, for the face of his child\nanswered to that of Raphael's cherub and seraph. He understood the\ncathedral, with its aisles and arches, for it reminded him of his own\naltars and funeral hymns. He understood the city, for it seemed like\nmany little towns brought together in one. But the great library,\ncrowded from floor to ceiling with books, the strange, white pages\nover which bowed the reader, while smiles flitted across his face as\none sun-spot chases another over the warm April hills, the black marks\ncausing the reader's tears to flow down upon the open page, made up a\nmystery the poor savage could not understand. No explanation availed\nfor the necromancy of the library.\n\nFor wise men the joys of reading are life's crowning pleasures. Books\nare our universities, where souls are the professors. Books are the\nlooms that weave rapidly man's inner garments. Books are the\nlevelers--not by lowering the great, but by lifting up the small. A\nbook literally fulfills the story of the Wandering Jew, who sits down\nby our side and like a familiar friend tells us what he hath seen and\nheard through twenty centuries of traveling through Europe. Newton's\n\"Principia\" means that at last stars and suns have broken into voice.\nAgassiz's zoology causes each youth to be a veritable Noah, to whom it\nis given to behold all insects and beasts and birds going two by two\ninto the world's great ark. God hath given us four inferior teachers,\nincluding travel, occupation, industry, conversation, and four\nteachers superior, including love, grief, death--but chiefly books.\n\nWisdom and knowledge are derived from sources many and various. Like\nancient Thebes, the soul is a city having gates on every side. There\nis the eye gate, and through it pass friends, a multitude of\nstrangers, the forests, the fields, the marching clouds. There is the\near gate, and therein go trooping all sweet songs, all conversation\nand eloquence, all laughter with Niobe's woe and grief. There is\nconversation, and thereby we cross the threshold of another's mind,\nand wander through the halls of memory and the chambers of\nimagination. But these faculties are limited. The ear was made for one\nsweet song, not for a thousand. Conversation is with one friend\nliving, not with Pliny and Pericles. The vision stays upon yonder\nhorizon; but beyond the line where earth and sky do meet are distant\nlands and historic scenes; beyond are battle-fields all stained with\nblood; beyond are the Parthenon and the pyramids. So books come in to\nincrease the power of vision. Books cause the arctics and the tropics,\nthe mountains and hills, all the generations with their woes and wars,\ntheir achievements for liberty and religion, to pass before the mind\nfor instruction and delight. And when books have made men\ncontemporaneous with Socrates and Cicero, with Emerson and Lowell,\nwhen they have made man a citizen of every clime and country, they go\non to add advantages still more signal. When the royal messenger\nbrought Newton the announcement of the honor bestowed upon him by the\nQueen, the astronomer was so busy with his studies relating to the\n\"Principia\" that he begrudged his visitor even an hour of his time.\n\nThe great man was too busy writing for thousands to talk long with a\nsingle individual about his discoveries of light and color and his\nproofs of the moon ever falling toward the earth. Not even to his best\nfriends could the astronomer unfold through conversation what he gives\nus in his \"Principia.\" When an American author called upon Carlyle he\nfound him in a very peevish mood. Through two hours he listened to\nthis student of heroes and heroism pour forth a savage tirade against\nall men and things. Never again was the American poet able to\nassociate with Carlyle that fine poise, sanity, and reserve power that\nbelong to the greatest. In his books Carlyle gives his friends, not\nthe peevishness of an evening, but the best moods of all his life,\nwinnowing his intellectual harvests.\n\nRecently an author has given the world reminiscences called \"Evenings\"\nwith Browning and Tennyson, with Bright and Gladstone. Yet an evening\navails only for a few pleasantries, a few anecdotes, a few\nreminiscences. As well speak of spending an afternoon with Egypt or\nmaking an evening call upon Rome. Yet a volume of \"In Memoriam\" or\n\"The Idylls of the King\" enables one to overhear the richest and most\nmasterly thoughts that occupied Tennyson through the best creative\nyears in his career. So striking are the advantages books have over\nconversation that the brief biography of the Carpenter's Son makes us\nbetter acquainted with Jesus Christ than the citizens of Samaria or\nBethlehem could possibly have been. To some Nicodemus it was given to\nhear Him discourse on the new heart; some lawyer heard His story of\nthe good Samaritan; others midst the press and throng caught a part of\nthe tale of the prodigal son. But the momentary glimpse, the\nfragmentary word, the rumors strange and contradictory, yielded only\nconfusion and mental unrest. But this brief biography exhibits to us\nHis entire career, sets each eager listener down beside Christ while\nHe unrolls each glowing parable, each glorious precept, each call to\ninspiration and the higher life. Thus books acquaint us with the best\nmen in their best moods.\n\nBooks have two advantages. Chiefly they are tools for the mind. The\nfoot's step is short, but the engine lengthens the stride and hastens\nit. The smith's blow is weak, but the trip-hammer multiplies the might\nof man's hand. Thus books are mental machines, enabling the mind of\nman to reap in many harvest fields and multiply the mental treasures.\nIt takes years for Humboldt to search out the wonders of the Andes\nMountains and other years for Livingstone to thread his way through\nthe jungles of Africa. But a book, during two or three evenings by the\nfireside, enables man to journey through the Dark Continent without\nthe dangers of fever, without experiencing the pain from the lion\nleaping out of the thicket to mutilate the arm of Livingstone. With a\nbook we tramp over the mountains of two continents without once\nsuffering the heavy fall over the precipice that weakened Humboldt.\nBooks enable us to visit climes, cities, civilizations ancient and\nmodern, that without them could never be seen during man's years, so\nfew, and by man's strength, so insufficient. Great men and rich\nincrease their influence by surrounding themselves by servants who\nfulfill their commands.\n\nEach president and prime minister strengthens himself by a cabinet.\nBut what if the peasant or workman could surround himself with a group\nof counselors and advisers that included a hundred of the greatest\nintellects of his generation? What if some Herschel should approach\nthe youth to say, \"You need your night's rest for sleep; but for you I\nwill give the years for studying the stars and their movements?\" What\nif some Dana should say, \"For you I will decipher the handwriting upon\nthe rocks, trace the movement of the ice plows, search out the\ninfluence of the flames as they turn rocks into soil for vineyards?\"\nWhat if some Audubon should say, \"For you I will go through all the\nforests to find out the life and history of the winged creatures, from\nthe humming-bird to hawk and eagle?\" What if Niebuhr should say, \"For\nyou I will decipher the monuments, all ruins and obelisks, all man's\nparchments and manuscripts for setting forth man's upward progress\nthrough the centuries?\" But this is precisely what books do for us.\n\nSaving man's time and strength, books also increase his manhood and\nmultiply his brain forces. With them, a man of fourscore years ends\nhis career wiser than, without them, he could have been, though he had\nlived and wrought through ten thousand summers and winters. This is\nwhat Emerson means when he says, \"Give me a book, health and a June\nday, and I will make the pomp of kings ridiculous.\" When the Athenian\nyouth, beloved of the gods, went forth upon his journey, one friend\nbrought him a wondrous armor, proof against arrows; another brought a\nhorse of marvelous swiftness; another brought a bow of great size and\nstrength. Thus armed, the youth conquered his enemies. But when books\nhave armed man against his foes, they go on to change his enemies into\nfriends; they shield him against ignorance; they free him from\nsuperstition; they clothe him with gratitude. Thank God for books,\ncheering our solitude, soothing our sickness, refining our passions,\nout of defeat leading us to victory! That youth can scarcely fail of\ncharacter, happiness and success who, day by day, goes to school to\nsages and seers; who by night hears Dante and Milton discourse upon\nParadise; who has for his mentors in office and counting-room some\nFranklin or Solomon. Experience, supplemented by books, teaches youth\nmore in one year than experience alone will teach him in twenty.\n\nBooks also preserve for us the spirit of earth's great ones, just as\nthe cellar of the king holds wines growing more precious with the\nlapse of years. From time to time God sends to earth some man with a\nsupreme gift called genius. Passing through our life and world, he\nsees wondrous sights not beholden of our eyes, hears melodies too fine\nfor our dulled hearing. What other men behold as bits of coal, his\ngenius transmutes into diamonds. In the darkness he sleeps to see some\n\"Midsummer Night's Dream;\" in the day he wakens to behold the tragedy\nor comedy in his friend's career. While he muses, the fires of\ninspiration burn within him. When the time comes, the inner forces\nburst out in book or song or poem, just as the tulip bulb when April\ncomes publishes its heart of fire and gold. The book he writes is the\nchoicest wine in life, \"the gold made fine in the fires of his\ngenius.\" Seldom come these elect ones, just as the bush burned only\nonce during Moses' many years in the desert. Many foot hills must be\nunited to produce one vast mountain. Only one range of Rockies is\nneeded to support many states. One Mississippi also can drain a\ncontinent.\n\nThinking of these great ones, Milton said: \"The book is the life-blood\nof the master spirit.\" Just as the wisdom spoken into the phonograph\nmakes marks there to be reproduced at will, so books preserve and\nrepeat the eloquence of the greatest. Through his \"Excursion,\" when\nWordsworth says, \"I go to the fields to-day,\" the youth may whisper,\n\"and I go with thee.\" He may also accompany Layard, going forth to\nstudy the old tablets and the monuments; with Scott he may ride with\nIvanhoe to castle and tournament; with Virgil and Dante he may shiver\nat the brink of the inky river or exult over the first glimpse of\nParadise.\n\nWell did Charles Lamb suggest that men should say grace--not only over\nthe Christmas festival, but also over the table spread with good\nbooks. For man has no truer friends, Earth offers no richer banquet.\nWhen Southey grew old and dim of vision, he was seen to totter into\nhis library. Moving about from shelf to shelf the aged scholar laid\nhis hand upon one favorite book and then upon another, while a rare\nsweet smile passed over his face, just as we lay hand tenderly upon\nthe shoulder of some dear friend. Through their books his old friends,\nthe heroes of the past, had told Southey of their innermost dreams,\ntheir passions, their aspirations, what braced them in hours of\nbattle, how they endured when death robbed them of their best. Poor\nand lonely, full oft the poet had talked with these volumes as with\nfamiliar friends. So before he died Southey said to his books \"Good\nnight,\" ere in that bright beyond he said \"Good morning\" to their\nauthors.\n\nThis divine injunction as to the companionship of books bids us search\nout the use and purpose of reading. Primarily, books are to be read\nfor information and mental strength. The hunger of the body for bread\nand fruit is not more real than the hunger of the intellect for facts\nand principles. Knowledge stands in as vital relation to the growth of\nreason as iron and phosphate to the enrichment of the blood. Ignorance\nis weakness. Success is knowing how. Ours is a world in which the last\nfact conquers. In addition to his own experience and reflection, the\nyoung artist must stand in some gallery that brings together all the\nbest masters. Standing beside the Elgin marbles in the British Museum,\nthe sculptor must bathe and soak himself in the Greek ideal and\nspirit, until the Greek thought throbs in his brain, and he feels the\nGreek enthusiasm for strength in round, lithe arms, and limbs made\nready for the race.\n\nBut in a large, deep sense, books are the galleries in which spirits\nare caught and fastened upon the pages. Books are storehouses into\nwhich facts and principles have been harvested. Just as a bit of coal\ntells us what ferns and flowers grew in the far-off era, so the book\ngives us the very quintessence of man's thoughts about life and duty\nand death. Nor is there any other way of gaining these vital\nknowledges. Life is too short to obtain them through conversation or\ntravel. Nor is any youth ready for his task until he has traced the\nrise and growth of houses, tools, governments, schools, industries,\nreligions. He must also compare race with race, land with land, and\nstar with star. Asked about his ideas of the value of education, a man\ndistinguished in railway circles answered: \"I have learned that each\nnew fact has its money value. Other things being equal, the judgment\nof the man who knows the most must always prevail.\" But books alone\ncan supplement experience, and give the information that makes man\nready against his day of battle.\n\nIt has been said, \"For a thousand men who can speak, there is only one\nwho can think; for a thousand men who can think, there is only one who\ncan see.\" Since, then, the greatest thing in life is to have an open\nvision, we need to ask the authors to teach us how to see. Each\nKingsley approaches a stone as a jeweler approaches a casket to unlock\nthe hidden gems. Geikie causes the bit of hard coal to unroll the\njuicy bud, the thick odorous leaves, the pungent boughs, until the bit\nof carbon enlarges into the beauty of a tropic forest. That little\nbook of Grant Allen's called \"How Plants Grow\" exhibits trees and\nshrubs as eating, drinking and marrying. We see certain date groves in\nPalestine, and other date groves in the desert a hundred miles away,\nand the pollen of the one carried upon the trade winds to the branches\nof the other. We see the tree with its strange system of water-works,\npumping the sap up through pipes and mains; we see the chemical\nlaboratory in the branches mixing flavor for the orange in one bough,\nmixing the juices of the pineapple in another; we behold the tree as\na mother, making each infant acorn ready against the long winter,\nrolling it in swaths soft and warm as wool blankets, wrapping it\naround with garments impervious to the rain, and finally slipping the\ninfant acorn into a sleeping bag, like those the Esquimos gave Dr.\nKane.\n\nAt length we come to feel that the Greeks were not far wrong in\nthinking each tree had a Dryad in it, animating it, protecting it\nagainst destruction, dying when the tree withered. Some Faraday shows\nus that each drop of water is a sheath for electric forces sufficient\nto charge 800,000 Leyden jars, or drive an engine from Liverpool to\nLondon. Some Sir William Thomson tells us how hydrogen gas will chew\nup a large iron spike as a child's molars will chew off the end of a\nstick of candy. Thus each new book opens up some new and hitherto\nunexplored realm of nature. Thus books fulfill for us the legend of\nthe wondrous glass that showed its owner all things distant and all\nthings hidden. Through books our world becomes as \"a bud from the\nbower of God's beauty; the sun as a spark from the light of His\nwisdom; the sky as a bubble on the sea of His Power.\" Therefore Mrs.\nBrowning's words, \"No child can be called fatherless who has God and\nhis mother; no youth can be called friendless who has God and the\ncompanionship of good books.\"\n\nBooks also advantage us in that they exhibit the unity of progress,\nthe solidarity of the race, and the continuity of history. Authors\nlead us back along the pathway of law, of liberty or religion, and set\nus down in front of the great man in whose brain the principle had its\nrise. As the discoverer leads us from the mouth of the Nile back to\nthe headwaters of Nyanza, so books exhibit great ideas and\ninstitutions, as they move forward, ever widening and deepening, like\nsome Nile feeding many civilizations. For all the reforms of to-day go\nback to some reform of yesterday. Man's art goes back to Athens and\nThebes. Man's laws go back to Blackstone and Justinian. Man's reapers\nand plows go back to the savage scratching the ground with his forked\nstick, drawn by the wild bullock. The heroes of liberty march forward\nin a solid column. Lincoln grasps the hand of Washington. Washington\nreceived his weapons at the hands of Hampden and Cromwell. The great\nPuritans lock hands with Luther and Savonarola.\n\nThe unbroken procession brings us at length to Him whose Sermon on the\nMount was the very charter of liberty. It puts us under a divine\nspell to perceive that we are all coworkers with the great men, and\nyet single threads in the warp and woof of civilization. And when\nbooks have related us to our own age, and related all the epochs to\nGod, whose providence is the gulf stream of history, these teachers go\non to stimulate us to new and greater achievements. Alone, man is an\nunlighted candle. The mind needs some book to kindle its faculties.\nBefore Byron began to write he used to give half an hour to reading\nsome favorite passage. The thought of some great writer never failed\nto kindle Byron into a creative glow, even as a match lights the\nkindlings upon the grate. In these burning, luminous moods Byron's\nmind did its best work. The true book stimulates the mind as no wine\ncan ever quicken the blood. It is reading that brings us to our best,\nand rouses each faculty to its most vigorous life.\n\nRemembering, then, that it is as dangerous to read the first book one\nchances upon as for a stranger in the city to make friends with the\nfirst person passing by, let us consider the selection and the\nfriendship of books. Frederic Harrison tells us that there are now\n2,000,000 volumes in the libraries, and that every few years the press\nissues enough new volumes to make a pyramid equal to St. Paul's\nCathedral. Lamenting the number of books of poor quality now being\npublished, this author questions whether or not the printing press may\nnot be one of the scourges of mankind. He tells that he reads but few\nbooks, and those the great ones, and describes his shipwreck on the\ninfinite sea of printer's ink, and his rescue as of one escaping by\nmercy from a region where there was water, water everywhere but not a\ndrop to drink. Let us confess that books by their very multitude\nbewilder, and that careless and purposeless reading destroys the mind.\nLet us admit, too, that books no more mean culture than laws mean\nvirtues.\n\nDoubtless, individuality is threatened by the vast cataract of\nliterature. As children, we trembled needlessly when the nurse told us\nthat skies rained pitchforks, but as men we have a right to fear when\nthe skies rain not pitchforks but pamphlets. Multitudes are in the\ncondition of the schoolboy who, when asked what he was thinking about,\nanswered that he had no thoughts, because he was so busy reading he\nhad no time to think. Like that boy, multitudes to-day cannot see the\nwood for the trees. Many stand before the vast abyss of literature as\nBunyan's pilgrim stood before the Slough of Despond, crying: \"What\nshall I do?\" The necessity of severe selection is upon us, but certain\nthings all must read.\n\nFirst of all, every year each young man and woman should take a fresh\nlook about the world house in which all live. When Ivanhoe waked to\nfind himself a prisoner in a strange castle he straightway explored\nthe mansion, passing from chamber to banquet hall, and from tower to\nmoat, and the high walls that shut him in. If, indeed, God did so\ndearly love this star as to use its very dust for making man in His\nown image, we ought to love and study well this world house, wherein\nis enacted the drama of man's life and death. Longfellow thought of\nour earth as a granite-sheathed ship sailing through air, with plate\nof mail bolted and clamped by the Almighty mechanism, the throbbings\nof Vesuvius hinting at the deep furnaces that help to drive her\nforward upon the voyage through space. But God's name for this earth\nhouse was Paradise. And a veritable paradise it is, with its vegetable\ncarpet, soft and embroidered, beneath man's feet; with its valleys\ncovered with corn until they laugh and sing; with its noble\narchitecture of the mountains covered with mighty carvings and painted\nlegends. Verily, it would be an ungracious thing for us to go on\nliving here without taking the trouble to look upon this earth's\nfloor, so firm and solid, or study the beauteous ceiling lighted with\nstar lamps by night. And the evenings of one week with Geikie or Dana\nwill tell us by what furnaces of fire the granite was melted, by what\nteeth of glaciers and weight of sea-waves the earth's surface was\nsmoothed for the plow and the trowel. How long it has been since the\nglacier was a mile thick upon the very spot where we stand, how long\nsince the waters of Lake Michigan, now flowing over Niagara, ceased\nflowing into the Mississippi.\n\nThe evenings of another week with Professor Gray or Grant Allen will\ntell us how all the trees and plants live and breathe and wax great;\nhow the lily sucks whiteness out of the slough, and how the red rose\nuntwists the sunbeam and pulls out the scarlet threads. The evenings\nof another week with Ball or Proctor or Langley will exhibit the sun\npulling the harvests out of our planet, even as the blazing log pulls\nthe juices out of the apples roasting before the hot coals; how large\na house on the moon must be in order to be seen by the new telescope\nat Lake Geneva; whether or not the spots on the sun represent great\nchunks of unburned material, some of which are a full thousand miles\nacross, materials thrown up by gaseous explosions. While Maury will\ntake us during another week, in a glass boat that is water-tight,\nupon a long cruise more than three thousand leagues under the sea,\nshowing us those graveyards called sea shells, those cities called\ncoral reefs, those strange animals that have roots instead of feet,\ncalled sponges.\n\nHaving journeyed around the earth house, each should study himself;\nhis body as an engine of mental thought, an instrument of conduct and\ncharacter; the number and nature and uses of the forty and more\nfaculties of mind and heart with which he is endowed. From the study\nof the soul the mind moves easily to the upward movement of the race,\nas man journeys from hut to house, from tent to temple, from force to\nself-government and education and literature, from his flaming altar\nto the rising hymn and aspiring prayer. This tells us what\ncontribution each race, Hebrew and Greek, Roman and Teuton, has made\nto civilization. Then come the books of life, wherein the qualities to\nbe emulated are capitalized in the lives of the great, for biography\nis one of man's best teachers. Therein we see how the hero bore up\nagainst his wrongs, his sorrows and defeats, and how he sustained\nhimself in times of triumph. Phillips Brooks thought that the basis of\nevery library should be biography, memoirs, portraits and letters. Nor\nshould we forget the books of art, wherein the facts of life are\nidealized and carried up to beauty. Witness the dramas, poems, or the\nseveral great novels.\n\nBut apart from and above all others is the book, the Bible. Alone it\nhas civilized whole nations. Be our theories of inspiration what they\nmay, this book deals with the deepest things in man's heart and life.\nRuskin and Carlyle tell us that they owe more to it in the way of\nrefinement and culture than to all the other books, _plus_ all the\ninfluence of colleges and universities. Therein the greatest geniuses\nof time tell us of the things they caught fresh from the skies, \"the\nthings that stormed upon them, and surged through their souls in\nmighty tides, entrancing them with matchless music\"; things so\nprecious for man's heart and conscience as to be endured and died for.\nIt is the one book that can fully lead forth the richest and deepest\nand sweetest things in man's nature. Read all other books, philosophy,\npoetry, history, fiction; but if you would refine the judgment,\nfertilize the reason, wing the imagination, attain unto the finest\nwomanhood or the sturdiest manhood, read this book, reverently and\nprayerfully, until its truths have dissolved like iron into the blood.\nRead, indeed, the hundred great books. If you have no time, make time\nand read. Read as toil the slaves in Golconda, casting away the\nrubbish and keeping the gems. Read to transmute facts into life, but\nread daily the book of conduct and character--the Bible. For the book\nDaniel Webster placed under his pillow when dying is the book all\nshould carry in the hand while living.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SCIENCE OF LIVING WITH MEN\n\n\n      \"There is an art of right living.\"--_Arthur Helps._\n\n      \"The supreme art life above all other arts is the art of\n      living together justly and charitably. There is no other\n      thing that is so taxing, requiring so much education, so\n      much wisdom, so much practice, as the how to live with\n      our fellow-men. In importance this art exceeds all\n      productive industries which we teach our children. All\n      skill and knowledge aside from that is as nothing. The\n      business of life is to know how to get along with our\n      fellow-men.\"--_H.W. Beecher._\n\n      \"As all the stars are pervaded by one law, in one law\n      live and move and have their being, so all minds that\n      reason and all hearts that beat, act in one empire of one\n      king; and of that vast kingdom, the law the most\n      sweeping, the most eternal, is the law of loving\n      kindness.\"--_Swing._\n\n      \"The nations have turned their places of art treasure\n      into battle-fields. Fancy what Europe would be now if the\n      delicate statues and temples of the Greeks--if the broad\n      and massive walls of the Romans, if the noble and\n      pathetic architecture of the Middle Ages, had not been\n      ground to dust by mere human rage. You talk of the scythe\n      of time and the tooth of time; I tell you time is\n      scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the\n      worm, we who smite like the scythe. All these lost\n      treasures of human intellect have been wholly destroyed\n      by human industry of destruction; the marble would have\n      stood its 2,000 years as well in the polished statue as\n      in the Parian cliff; but we men have ground it to powder\n      and mixed it with our own ashes.\"--_Ruskin._\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nTHE SCIENCE OF LIVING WITH MEN\n\n\nThe great writers of all ages have held themselves well away from any\nformal discussion of the art of right living and the science of a\nskillful carriage of one's faculties. Government, war and eloquence\nhave indeed received full scientific statement, and those arts called\nmusic and sculpture have obtained abundant literary treatment. But,\nfor some reason, no philosopher has ever attempted a formal treatise\nteaching the youth how to carry his faculties so as to avoid injuring\nhis fellows and secure for them peace, happiness and success.\nNevertheless, the art of handling marble is nothing compared to the\nart of handling men. Skill in evoking melody from the harp is less\nthan nothing compared to skill in allaying discords in the soul and\ncalling out its noblest impulses, its most energetic forces.\n\nNor is there any science or any productive industry whatsoever that is\nat all comparable to the science of just, smooth and kindly living.\nFor the business of life is not the use and control of winds and\nrivers; it is not the acquisition of skill in calling out the secret\nenergies contained in the soil or concealed in the sky. The business\nof life is the mastery of the art of living smoothly and justly with\none's fellows and the acquisition of skill in calling out the best\nqualities of those about us. Indeed, the home and the market do but\nfurnish practice-ground for developing expertness in carrying one's\nfaculties. Sir Arthur Helps first coined the expression, \"the art of\nright living,\" and society can never be sufficiently grateful to this\ndistinguished scholar for reminding us that when every other art has\nbeen secured, every other science achieved, there still remains for\nmastery the finest of all the fine arts, the science of a right\ncarriage of one's faculties midst all the duties and relations of home\nand school, of store and street.\n\nSearching out for some reason why scientists have discussed\nfriendship, reform, or patriotism, but have passed by the science of\nright living, we shall find the adequate explanation in the fact that\nthis is the largest subject that can possibly be handled. It concerns\nthe right carriage of the whole man, the handling of the body, and the\nmaintenance of perfect health; the control of the temperament, with\nits special talent or weakness; the use of reason, its development\nand culture; the control of judgment, with the correction of its\naberrations; it involves such a mastery of the emotions as men have\nover winds and rivers; it concerns conscience and conversation,\nfriendship and commerce, and all the elements affectional and social,\ncivic and moral.\n\nFor man stands, as it were, in the center of many concentric circles.\nAbout himself, as a center, sweeps the home circle; his immediate\nneighborhood relations describe a wider circle; his business career\ndescribes one larger still; then come his relations to the community\nin general, while beyond the horizon is a circle of influence that\nincludes the world at large. When the tiny spider standing at the\ncenter of its wide-stretching and intricate web, woven for\ndestruction, chances to touch any thread of the web, immediately that\nthread vibrates to the uttermost extremity. And man stands at the\ncenter of a vast web of wide-reaching influence, woven not for\nblighting, but for blessing, and every one of these out-running lines,\nwhether related to friends near by or to citizens afar off, thrills\nand vibrates with secret influences; and there is no creature in God's\nuniverse so taxed as man, having a thousand dangers to avoid, and\nfulfilling ten thousand duties. He who would adequately discuss the\nscience of right living must propose a method that will enable man to\ncarry his faculties midst all the conditions of poverty or riches, of\nsickness or health, of the friendship of men or their enmity.\n\nDiscerning the largeness of this theme, many question whether right\nliving can be reduced to a science, and, if so, whether it ever can be\nacquired as an art. We know that there is a science of government, a\nscience of wealth, a science of war, and mastery in each department\nseems possible. Moreover, long practice has lent men skill in the\narts. Even Paganini was born under the necessity of obtaining\nexcellence in his art through practice. Titian also was a tireless\nstudent in color, and Macaulay himself toiled hard over his alphabet.\nPrinters tell us that practice expels stiffness from the fingers and\nmakes type-setting an automatic process. Daniel Webster was counted\nthe greatest orator of his time; but there never lived a man who\ndrilled himself in solitude more scrupulously, and his excellence, he\nsays, was the fruit of long study.\n\nHenry Clay had a great reputation as a speaker; but when the youth had\nthrough years practiced extemporaneous speech in the cornfields of\nKentucky, he went on to train himself in language, in thought, in\nposture, in gesture, until his hand could wield the scepter, or beckon\nin sweet persuasion, until his eye could look upon his enemies and\npierce them, or beam upon his friends and call down upon them all the\nfruits of peace and success. Nor has there been one great artist, one\ngreat poet, one great inventor, one great merchant, nor one great man\nin any department of life whose supremacy does not, when examined,\nstand forth as the fruit of long study and careful training. Men are\nborn with hands, but without skill for using them. Men are born with\nfeet and faculties, but only by practice do their steps run swiftly\nalong those beautiful pathways called literature or law or\nstatesmanship. Man's success in mastering other sciences encourages\nwithin us the belief that it is possible for men to master the science\nof getting on smoothly and justly with their fellow men. In importance\nthis knowledge exceeds every other knowledge whatsoever. To know what\narmor to put on against to-morrow's conflicts; how to attain the ends\nof commerce and ambition by using men as instruments; how to be used\nby men, and how to use men, not by injuring them, not by cheating\nthem, not by marring or neglecting them; but how through men to\nadvance both one's self and one's fellows--this is life's task. For\nskill in getting on with men is the test of perfect manhood.\n\nNo other knowledge is comparable to this. It is something to know how\nto sail a vast ship; it is important to understand the workings of a\nCorliss engine; man does well to aspire to the mastery of iron and\nwood, and the use of cotton and wool; most praiseworthy the ambition\nto master arguments and ideas; but it is a thousand times more\nimportant to understand men. To be able to analyze the underlying\nmotives; to attain skill in rebuking the worst impulses in men, and\nskill in calling forth their best qualities; to distinguish between\nselfishness and sincerity; to allay strife and promote peace; to\nmaintain equanimity midst all the swirl of passion; to meet those who\nstorm with perfect calm; to meet scowling men with firm gentleness; to\nmeet the harshness of pride with a modest bearing; to be\nself-sufficing midst all the upheaval and selfishness of life--this is\nto be a follower of Christ, and He is the only gentleman our world has\never seen. Oh, for some university for teaching the art of right\nliving! Oh, for some college teaching the science of attaining the\npersonal ends of life without marring one's ideals! For life has only\none fine art--the art of getting along smoothly with ourselves and our\nfellows.\n\nLet us confess that man easily masters every other art and science.\nHis discoveries as to stars and stones and shrubs provoke ever fresh\nsurprise. His inventions, who can number? He easily masters winds and\nrivers. He takes the sting out of the thunderbolt and makes it\nharmless. Afterward with electric lamps he illumines towns. With\ninvisible sunbeams he paints instantaneous pictures of faces, palaces,\nmountains, and landscapes. With the dark X-rays he photographs the\nbone incased in flesh, the coins contained in the purse. With his\nmagnet the scientist throws a rope around the cathode rays and drags\nthem whithersoever he will. In the field the inventor uses an electric\nhoe to kill the germs of the thistle and deadly nightshade. Strange\nthat he cannot invent an instrument for killing the germs of hatred\nand envy in his own heart! The gardener easily masters the art of\ncultivating roses and violets, but breaks down in trying to produce in\nhimself those beauteous growths called love, truth, justice--flowers,\nthese, that are rooted in heaven, but blossom here on earth.\n\nAn expert driver will hold the reins over six fiery steeds, or even\neight, but he descends from his coach to find that his own passions\nare steeds of the sun that run away with him, bringing wreckage and\nruin. Man has skill for turning poisons into medicines. He changes\ndeadly acids into balms, but he has no skill for taking envy's poisons\nout of the tongue, or sheathing the keen sword of hatred. As to\nphysical nature, man seems rapidly approaching the time when all the\nforces of land and sea and sky will yield themselves as willing and\nobedient servants to do his will. But, having made himself monarch in\nevery other realm, man breaks down utterly in attempting the task of\nliving peaceably with his friends and neighbors. Sublime in his\nintegrity and strength, he is most pitiable in the way he wrecks his\nown happiness, and ruins the happiness of others. Pestilence in the\ncity, tornado in the country, the fire in the forest--these are but\nfeeble types of man as a destroyer. One science is as yet unmastered\nby man--the science of right living and the art of getting along\nsmoothly with himself and his fellows.\n\nTo-day the new science explains the difficulty of right living, by the\nlargeness of man's endowment. There are few failures in the animal or\nvegetable world. Instinct guides the beast, while the shrub attains\nits end by automatic processes. No vine was ever troubled to decide\nwhether it should produce grapes or thorns. No fig tree ever had to\ngo to school to learn how to avoid bearing thistles. The humming bird,\nflying from shrub to shrub, hears the inner voice called instinct.\nThese instincts serve as guide books. The animal creation that moves\nthrough the air or water or the forests experiences but little\ndifficulty in finding out the appointed pathway. But the problem of\nrose, lark or lion is very simple and easy, compared with the problem\nof man. If the oak must needs bear acorns, man is like a vine that can\nat will bring forth any one of a hundred fruits. He is like an animal\nthat can at its option walk or fly, swim or run. The pathway opened\nbefore the brute world is narrow and its task therefore is very\nsimple, while the vast number of pathways possible to man often\nembarrasses his judgment and sometimes works bewilderment.\n\nAfter thousands of years man is still ignorant whether it is best for\nhim to eat flesh or confine himself only to fruit; whether the juice\nof the grape is helpful or harmful; whether the finest culture comes\nfrom confining one's study to a single language, as did Socrates and\nShakespeare, or through learning many languages, as did Cicero and\nMilton; whether a monarchy or democracy is better suited for securing\nthe people's happiness and prosperity; whether the love of God in\nfront is a motive sufficient to pull a man heavenward, or whether fear\nand fire kindled in the rear will not lend greater swiftness to his\nfootsteps. It is wonderful how many problems yet remain to be solved.\n\nNor could it be otherwise. As things increase in size and complexity\nthe difficulty of handling them increases. It is easy to manage a\nspinning-wheel, but difficult to handle a Jacquard loom having\nhundreds of delicate parts. It is easy to use a boy's whistle, but\nhard to master the pipe organ with keys rising bank upon bank. Out of\nan alphabet numbering six and twenty letters all the sciences and arts\ncan be fashioned; but the alphabet of man's faculties numbers four and\nforty letters. Who shall measure the divine literatures possible to\nall these combinations of thought, feeling and aspiration?\n\nThe scientist tells us that all of the instruments and excellences\ndistributed among the animals are united in man.\n\nMan has the beaver's instinct for building, the bee's skill for\nhiving, the lion's stroke is less than man's trip-hammer, the deer's\nswift flight is slowness to man's electric speed, the eagle itself\ncannot outrun his flying speech. It is as if all the excellences of\nthe whole animal creation were swept together and compacted in man's\ntiny body, with the addition of new gifts and faculties; but this\nconcentration of all the gifts distributed to the animal world in man\nmeans that the dangers and difficulties that are distributed over all\nthe rest of the animal creation will also be concentrated upon his\nsingle person. The increase of his treasure carries with it the\nincrease of danger and difficulty. The vastness of his endowment opens\nup the possibilities of innumerable blunderings and stumblings and\nwanderings from the way. By so much, therefore, as he is above the\nbird and the beast, by that much does the task of carrying aright his\nfaculties increase in magnitude.\n\nMoreover, smooth living with men is difficult because of the continual\nconflict with evil. Integrity can never be good friends with iniquity,\nnor liberty with tyranny, nor purity and sweetness with filth and\nfoulness. There is no skill by which John can ever live in peace with\nHerod. Paul, the author of the ode to love, was always at war with\nNero, and at last had his head shorn off. William Tell could not get\nalong smoothly with Gesler, the tyrant who robbed the Swiss of their\nrights. When doves learn to live peaceably with hawks, and lambs learn\nhow to get along with wolves, good men and true will learn how to\nlive in peace with vice and crime. Wickedness means warfare, not\npeace.\n\nDeviltry cannot be overcome by diplomacy. Not embassies, but\nregiments, overcome intrenched oppression. Men of integrity and\nrefinement can have but one attitude toward corruption, drunkenness,\nparasitism, gilded iniquity--the attitude of uncompromising hostility.\nLanguorous, emasculated manhood may silently endure great wrongs for\nthe sake of peace and quiet; but robust manhood never. One of the\ndangers of our age and nation is a tendency to conciliate wrong and\nsmooth over wickedness through a spurious sense of charity. Genius\ngilds vice, and wit and brilliancy transform evil into an angel of\nlight. Only expel dullness and make evil artistic, and it is condoned;\nbut vice attired in the garb of a queen is as truly vice as when\nclothed in rags and living in squalor. To become accustomed to evil,\nto garnish sin, to dim and deaden sensibility to what is right and\nbeautiful, is to extirpate manhood and become a mere lump of flesh. No\nman has a right to be good friends with iniquity. In a wicked world\nthe only people who are justified in peaceable living are the people\nin graveyards. In an age and land like ours only men of mush and\nmoonshine can be friends with everybody.\n\nIn view of the crime, poverty and ignorance of our age, for a man to\nlive so that his friends can truthfully write on his tombstone, \"He\nnever had an enemy,\" is for him to be eternally disgraced. Such a man\nshould never be guilty of showing his face in heaven, for he will find\nthat the angels, at least, are his enemies. Looking toward integrity,\nChrist came to bring peace. Looking toward iniquity, Christ came to\nbring the sword. Not until every wrong has been turned to right, not\nuntil every storm has been stilled into peace, not until the\nfatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man have been incarnated in\ninstitutions, will conflict cease and smooth living toward all men\nbecome an actuality.\n\nAmbition and the clashing of interests also mitigate against smooth\nliving. Perhaps no age has offered more powerful stimulants to\nambition. The field is open to all, and the rewards are great.\nTherefore Emerson's phrase, \"infinite aspiration and infinitesimal\nperformance.\" Contentment is the exception, aspiration is universal.\nIndeed, the national temptation is ambition. An American merchant\nlives more in a year than an Oriental in eighty years; more in an hour\nthan an Indian merchant in twenty-four. So powerful are the\nprovocatives to thinking and planning that cerebral excitement is\nwell-nigh continuous. Moving forward, the youth finds every pathway\nopen and is told that every honor and position are possible\nachievements; the result is that the individual finds himself\ncompeting with all the rest of the nation. How fierce the strife! What\nintense rivalries! What battles between opponents! What conflicts in\nbusiness!\n\nIn politics, coveting national honors, men spend months in laying out\na campaign. A vast human mechanism is organized with ramifications\nextending through the nation. As in the olden times in the court of\nKing Arthur, knights entered the tournament and some Lancelot clothed\nin steel armor rode forth to meet some Ivanhoe in mortal combat; so it\nis to-day when one plumed knight meets another in the political\narena--one conquers, and one is killed, in that he suffers a broken\nheart.\n\nIn commerce the strife is not less fierce. Men literally stand over\nagainst each other like gunboats, carrying deadly missiles. If\nto-morrow conflict and strife should spring up in each garden--if the\nrose should strike its thorn into the honeysuckle; if the violet from\nits lowly sphere should fling mire upon the lily's whiteness; if the\nwheat should lift up its stalk to beat down the barley; if the robin\nshould become jealous of the lark's sweet voice, and the oriole\norganize a campaign for exterminating the thrush, we should have a\nconflict in nature that would answer to the strife and warfare in\nsociety. The universality of the conflicts in society is indicated by\nthe fact that England's national symbol is not a dove, but a lion;\nAmerica's is an eagle, and other nations' are the leopard and the\nbear. In national wars, where men by years of toil have planted\nvineyards, reared orchards, builded houses and cities, they proceed to\nburn up the homes, destroy the granaries, cut down the vineyards and\norchards; and these periodic public quarrels do but typify the equally\ndestructive private feuds and troubles. Darwin thought that men have\ndescended from animals, and some men have so literally descended. Some\nseem to have come through the wolf; some have the fox's cunning; some\nhave the lion's cruelty, and some are as combative as bull-dogs. Now,\nit is not easy to maintain one's dignity when a little cur nips your\nheels behind, and a mastiff threatens you before. And some men seem to\nunite both elements; they run behind you and nip, they go before to\nbark and threaten. Under such circumstances it is not easy to live\nsmoothly and charitably. It is easy to tame lions, but to tame men is\nnot easy. It is easy to breast the current of rivers, but to stand\nagainst the full force of public opinion is hard. But midst all life's\nconflicts and clashings this task is upon us. We are to maintain\npeace, love our enemies, and ultimately master the art of right living\nwith our fellows.\n\nTo all persons interested in the betterment of society comes the\nreflection that getting on with men is life's abiding aim and end.\nSchools can teach no other knowledge comparable to this. It is\nimportant to train the child in music, to drill him in public speech,\nto teach him how to handle the horse and dog, how to swim and ride,\nthe use of tools and engines, the nature and production of wealth; but\nit is of far greater importance that youth should be given a knowledge\nof men, and become a skillful student of human nature; to learn how to\nread the face as an open book. If the jurist studies men and their\nmotives to find out the truth; if the physician studies men for\nreasons of diagnosis; if the merchant studies thinking of his profit,\nand the politician thinking of preferment, the citizen must understand\nhis fellows in the interest of securing their happiness and highest\nwelfare. Incidentally, it is important that a man should be well\ngroomed and well kept; should be educated and refined, just as it is\nproper that the pipes of an organ should be decorated on the outside.\n\nNevertheless, the test of an organ is the melody and harmony within.\nAnd the test of manhood is not outer polish, but inner skill in\ncarrying his faculties. Man is only a rudimentary man when in those\nstages he blunders in all his meetings with his fellows, and cannot\nbuy nor sell, vote nor converse, without harming, marring, depressing,\ndiscouraging his fellow men. In our age many books have been written\nsimilar to Lyman Abbott's volume called \"The Study of Human Nature,\"\nand the time has fully come when each child should be made ready for\nlife's battle beforehand, and taught how to armor himself against the\ntournament. When the schools have trained the child to the use of\ntools, given the tongue skill in speaking and the mind skill in\nthinking, it remains to teach him the study of men, the peculiarities\nof each of the five temperaments; the nature and number of the animal\nimpulses; the use of the social and industrial impulses; the control\nof the acquisitive and the spiritual powers. For man's carriage of\nhimself in the presence of fire and forest is the least of his duties.\nThat which will tax him and distress, and perhaps destroy him, will be\nthe carriage of his faculties midst all the clash and conflict, the\ndin and battle of market and street. And midst all the strife, this is\nto be his ideal--to bear himself toward his enemies and toward his\nfriends, after the pattern of Him who \"makes His sun to shine upon the\nevil and the good, His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust.\"\n\nThe measure of manhood is the degree of skill attained in the art of\ncarrying one's self so as to pour forth upon men all the inspirations\nof love and hope, and to evoke good even from the meanest and\nwickedest of mankind. Passing through life, the soul is to be a\nhappiness producer and a joy distributer. Without conscious thought\nthe violets pour forth perfume; without volition the magnet pulls the\niron filings; with no purpose the candle pushes its beams of light\ninto the darkness; and such is to be the weight of goodness in each\nman, that its mere presence will be felt. For the soul carries power\nto bless or blight; it can lift up its faculties for smiting, as an\nenemy lifts the hammer above the fragile vase or delicate marble;\nthrough speech man can fill all the sky with storms, or he can sweep\nall clouds from the horizon. The soul can take the sting out of man's\nanger, or it can stir up anger; it can allay strife or whet the keen\nedge of hatred. The thermometer is not so sensitive to heat, the\nbarometer to weight, the photographer's plate to light, as is the soul\nto the ten thousand influences of its fellow men.\n\nFor majesty and beauty of subtle influence, nothing is comparable to\nthe soul. Not the sun hanging upon the horizon has such power for\nflower and fruitage as has a full-orbed Christian heart, rich in all\ngood influences, throbbing with kindness and sympathy, radiant as an\nangel. Great is man's skill in handling engines of force; marvelous\nman's control of winds and rivers; wondrous the mastery of engines and\nideas. But man himself is greater than the tools he invents, and man\nstands forth clothed with power to control and influence his fellows,\nin that he can sweeten their bitterness, allay their conflicts, bear\ntheir burdens, surround them with the atmosphere of hope and sympathy.\nJust in proportion as men have capacity, talent and genius, are they\nto be guardians, teachers, and nurses for men, bearing themselves\ntenderly and sympathetically toward ignorance, poverty and weakness.\nAll the majesty of the summer, all the glory of the storms, all the\nbeauty of galleries, is as nothing compared to the majesty and beauty\nof a full-orbed and symmetrical manhood. Should there be in every\nvillage and city a conspiracy of a few persons toward this refinement\nand culture, this beauty and sweet Christian living, the presence of\nthese Christ-formed persons would transform the community. One such\nharvestful nature carries power to civilize an entire city. We no more\nneed to demonstrate the worth of the sane, sound, Christ-like\ncharacter than we need to prove the value of the all-glorious summer,\nwhen it fills the earth with fragrance, the air with blossoms, and all\nthe boughs with luscious fruit. Each Christian youth is to be a\nman-maker and man-mender. He is to help and not hurt men. This is to\nwalk in love. This is to overcome evil with good. This is to be not a\nprinted but a living gospel. This is to be a master of the art of\nright living and a teacher of the science of character building.\n\n\n\n\nTHE REVELATORS OF CHARACTER\n\n\n      \"Some men move through life as a band of music moves down\n      the street, flinging out pleasure on every side through\n      the air, to every one far and near, that can\n      listen.\"--_Beecher._\n\n      \"Truth tyrannizes over the unwilling members of the body.\n      No man need be deceived who will study the changes of\n      expression. When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of\n      truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has\n      base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy, and\n      sometimes asquint.\"--_Emerson._\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nTHE REVELATORS OF CHARACTER\n\n\nIn ancient times personal property bore the owner's trademark. All\nflocks and herds fed together upon the common. That each might know\nhis own, the herdsman slit the ears of his sheep, or branded his oxen\nwith the hot iron. Afterward, as wealth increased, men extended the\nmarks of ownership. The Emperor stamped his image into the silver\ncoin. The Prince wrought his initial into the palace porch. The\npeasant moulded his name into the bricks of his cottage. One form of\nproperty was slaves. Athens had 80,000 free citizens and 400,000\nbondmen. As these slaves were liable to run away, their owners branded\nthem. Sometimes a circle was burned into the palm, or a cross upon the\nforehead; and often the owner's name was tattooed upon the slave's\nshoulder. One of the gifts of antiquity to our modern life is the use\nof the trademark. To-day manufacturers blow their initials in the\nglass; they mould the trademark in steel, and weave it in tapestries.\n\nLying in his dungeon, everything reminded Paul of these marks of\nownership. His chains bore the Emperor's initials. The slaves that\nbrought him food carried Nero's brand. The very bricks of his dungeon\nfloor were stamped with the tyrant's name. But, moving out from these\nmarks of servitude, his vision swept a wider horizon. He, too, was\nproperty. A freeman, indeed, was he, yet he was not his own. Mind and\nheart were stamped with God's image and superscription. No hot iron\nhad mutilated him, but trouble had wrought refinement, and love divine\nhad left its indelible stamp. Gone indeed the fresh, bright beauty\nthat was his when he sat a boy at Gamaliel's feet! Since the day when\nthe mob in Lystra had lifted stones upon him; since the time of his\nscourging at Philippi, he had carried the marks of martyrdom.\nSuffering had plowed deep furrows in his face. But honorable were all\nhis scars. They bore witness to his conquest over ease and\nself-indulgence. Dear to him these marks--they bound him to his\nMaster, the Lord Jesus. They filled him with high hopes, for the same\nmarks that made him a bond slave to God and immortality freed him from\nearth and earthly things. Musing, in kingly mood, the scarred hero\nexclaimed: \"Let not hunger nor cold, let not the scourge nor the\ntyrant's threat trouble me, for I bear about in my body the marks of\nthe Lord Jesus.\"\n\nNow, God hath ordained that, like Paul's, every human body shall\nregister personal history, publishing a man's deeds, and proclaiming\nhis allegiance to good or evil. The human face and form are clothed\nwith dignity in that the fleshly pages of to-day show forth the soul's\ndeeds of yesterday. Experience teaches us that occupation affects the\nbody. Calloused hands betray the artisan. The grimy face proclaims the\ncollier. He whose garments exhale sweet odors needs not tell us that\nhe has lingered long in the fragrant garden. But the face and form are\nequally sensitive to the spirit's finer workings. Mental brightness\nmakes facial illumination. Moral obliquity dulls and deadens the\nfeatures. There never was a handsome idiot. There never can be a\nbeautiful fool. But sweetness and wisdom will glorify the plainest\nface.\n\nPhysicians tell us that no intensity of disease avails for expelling\ndignity and majesty from a good man's countenance, nor can physical\nsuffering destroy the sweetness and purity of a noble woman's. It is\nsaid that after his forty days in the mount Moses' face shone. All the\ngreat artists paint St. Cecilia with face uplifted, listening to\ncelestial music, and all glowing with light, as though sunbeams\nfalling from above had transfigured the face of the sweet singer.\nThose who beheld Daniel Webster during his delivery of his oration on\nthe Pilgrim Fathers say that the statesman's face made them think of a\ntransparent bronze statue brilliantly lighted from within, with the\nluminosity shining out through the countenance.\n\nBut the eyes are the soul's chiefest revelators. Tennyson spoke of\nKing Arthur's eyes as \"pools of purest love.\" As there is sediment in\nthe bottom of a glass of impure water, so there is mud in the bottom\nof a bad man's eye. Thus, in strange ways, the body tells the story of\nthe soul. Health hangs its signals out in rosy cheeks; disease and\ndeath foretell their story in the hectic flush, even as reddening\nautumn leaves foretell the winter's heavy frost; anxious lines upon\nthe mother's face betray her secret burdens; the scholar's pallor is\nthe revelation of his life, while the closely knitted forehead of the\nmerchant interprets the vexing problems he must solve.\n\nThinking of the pathetic sadness of Lincoln's face, all seamed as it\nwas and furrowed with care and anxiety, Secretary Stanton said that\nthe President's face was a living page, upon which the full history\nof the nation's battles and victories was written. We are told that\nwhen the Waldenses could no longer bear the ghastly cruelty of the\ninquisitors, they fled to the mountain fastnesses. There, worn out by\nsuffering, the brave leader was stricken by death. Coming forth from\ntheir hiding-places, the fugitives gathered around the hero's bier.\nStooping, one lifted the hair from the forehead of the dead youth and\nsaid: \"This boy's hair, grown thin and white through heroic toil,\nwitnesseth his heroism. These, the marks of his fidelity.\" Thus, for\nthose who have skill to read the writing, every great man's face is\nwritten all over with the literature of character. His body condenses\nhis entire history, just as the Declaration of Independence is\ncondensed into the limits of a tiny silver coin.\n\nCalm majesty is in the face of Washington; pathetic patience and\ndivine dignity in that of Lincoln; unyielding granite is in John\nBrown's face, though sympathy hath tempered hardness into softness;\nintellect is in Newton's; pure imagination is in Keats' and in\nMilton's; heroic substance is in the face of Cromwell and in that of\nLuther; pathetic sorrow is found in Dante's eyes; conscience and love\nshine in the face of Fenelon. Verily, the body is the soul's\ninterpreter! Like Paul, each man bears about in his body the marks,\neither of ignorance and sin, of fear and remorse, or the marks of\nheroism and virtue, of love and integrity. To the gospel of the page\nlet us add the gospel of the face.\n\nBut let none count it a strange thing that the soul within registers\nits experiences in the body without. God hates secrecy and loves\nopenness. He hath ordained that nature and man shall publish their\nsecret lives. Each seed and germ hath an instinctive tendency toward\nself-revelation. Every rosebud aches with a desire to unroll its\npetals and exhibit its scarlet secret. Not a single piece of coal but\nwill whisper to the microscope the full story of that far-off scene\nwhen boughs and buds and odorous blossoms were pressed together in a\nsingle piece of shining crystal. The great stone slabs with the bird's\ntrack set into the rock picture forth for us the winged creatures of\nthe olden time. When travelers through the Rocky Mountains behold the\nflaming advertisements written on the rocks, the reflection comes to\nall that nature also uses the rock pages for keeping her private\nmemoranda of all those events connected with her history of fire and\nflood and glacier. When we speak of a scientific discovery, we mean\nthat some keen-eyed thinker has come upon a page of nature's diary and\ncopied it for his printer. The sea shells lying upon the crest of the\nhigh hills make one chapter in the story of that age when the ocean's\nwaves broke against the peaks of the high mountains.\n\nJourneying in his summer vacation into the region about Hudson Bay,\nthe traveler brings back pieces of coal containing tropic growths.\nThese carbon notebooks of nature tell us of a time when the regions of\nice and snow were covered with tropical fruits and flowers, and\nsuggest some accident that caused our earth to tip and assume a new\nangle toward the sun. Indeed, our earth bears about in the body the\nmarks of its entire history, so that the scientist is able to tell\nwith wondrous accuracy the events of a hundred thousand years ago.\nAlready the Roentgen ray foretells the time when \"nothing shall be\ncovered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be\nknown; when that which was done in secret shall be proclaimed from the\nhousetops.\" Professor Babbage, the mathematician, has said that the\natmosphere itself is becoming one vast phonograph upon whose sensitive\ncylinder shall be written all that man hath said, or woman whispered.\nNot a word of injustice spoken, not a cry of agony uttered, not an\nargument for liberty urged, but it is registered indelibly, so that\nwith a higher mathematics and a keener sight and sense, the future\nscientist may trace each particle of air set in motion with as much\nprecision as an astronomer traces the pathway of a moving star or a\ndistant planet.\n\nRecently the story has been told of a burglar who accidently\ndischarged a magnesium light connected with a kodak on the shelf. The\nhour was midnight and everyone in the house was asleep. But the kodak\nwas awake and at work. Frightened by the sudden light, the thief fled,\nleaving his spoil behind. But he also left his face. The next day in\nthe court the kodak convicted him. Thus the new science is causing\neach man to stand in the center of an awful photographic and\ntelegraphic system which makes an indelible record of man's words and\ndeeds. No breath is so faint that it can escape recording itself; no\nwhisper so low, no plan so secret, no deed of evil so dark and silent.\nMemory may forget--but nature never. Upon the pages of the physical\nuniverse the story of every human life is perpetually before the judge\nof all the earth.\n\nIt is deeply interesting to see how each living thing bears about in\nits body the story of its degradation, or the history of its rise and\nexaltation. Even in things that creep and crawl, the whole\nlife-history is swept together in the animal body. The ship barnacle\nbegan its career with two splendid eyes. But it used its vision to\nfind an easy place upon the side of pier or ship. Giving up\nlocomotion, it grew sleek and fat, and finally its big eyes grew dull\nthrough misuse, and now they are dead. When the squirrels left the\nforests in the west and journeyed out upon the open prairies, they\nbegan to burrow in the ground. Finally, for want of use, they lost all\npower of climbing. Among the birds the lazy cuckoo began by stealing\nthe nest another bird had built. But it paid a grievous price for its\ntheft, for now when the cuckoo is confined by man and wants a nest of\nits own it toils aimlessly, and has lost all power to make for itself\na soft, warm nesting-place.\n\nIn northern climes the mistletoe has a healthy normal taproot. But in\nour rich soil it became too dainty for dirt, and chose the life of a\nparasite. So the little seed struck its outer roots into the bark of\nthe oak, and lazily sucked away the tree's rich sap. Soon luxury and\nliving upon another's life ruined the mistletoe, just as the\ngeneration of young Romans was ruined by the father's wealth; just as\nan active and healthy boy is wrecked when he begins to be a sluggard\nand goes to the aunt--some rich aunt--and waits for her to die. And\nsince all the lower creatures bear about in the body the marks of the\nfull life-history, it seems natural to expect that man's body, through\nits health and beauty, or weakness and decay, should tell the story of\nhow the soul within has lived and wrought. A short journey through our\nstreets will prove to us that iniquity sets its mark in the face.\nDickens describes Fagin as a man who was solid bestiality and villainy\ndone up in bone and tissue. Each feature was as eloquent of rascality\nas an ape's of idiocy. Contrariwise, in the kingdom of morals there\nare men who seem solid goodness, kindness, and virtue, bound together\nwith fleshly bands. Even distant ancestors leave their marks in man's\nbody.\n\nIt has recently been discovered that the handwriting of one of our\npresidents was almost exactly that in his grandfather's will. The\nBourbon family has always been distinguished by the aquiline nose. One\nof the oldest New England families is known for its singular length\nand strength of arm. Beauty is a mark in one family, and size is a\nmark in the other. Because man is made in the image of God we\nnaturally look for those divine trademarks in man's body called\ncomeliness and complexion, just as we look for the artist's name on\nthe corner of his picture, or the sculptor's name on the pedestal of\nhis statue. By so much as a babe's cheek is higher than the blushing\npeach, it ought to be more beautiful. And because the trees of the\nforest go forward toward October and death arrayed in their brightest\nrobes, we have a right to expect that man in his old age also will\nreach the highest beauty and perfection.\n\nBut not so. Man's history has been a history of selfishness and sin,\nand his body bears the marks thereof. His features are \"seamed by\nsickness, dimmed by sensuality, convulsed by passion, pinched by\npoverty, shadowed by sorrow, branded by remorse.\" Men's bodies are\nconsumed by sloth, broken down by labor, tortured by disease,\ndishonored by foul uses, until beholding the \"marks\" of character in\nthe natural face in a glass multitudes would fain forget what manner\nof men they are. For the human face is a canvas, and nature's writing\ngoes ever on. But as the wrong act or foul deed sets its seal of\ndistortion on the features, so the right act or true thought sets its\nstamp of beauty. There is no cosmetic for homely folks like character.\nEven the plainest face becomes beautiful in noble and radiant moods.\nHe who ever beholds the vision of Christ's face will at last so take\non the likeness of his Master as to bear about in his body also \"the\nmarks of the Lord Jesus.\"\n\nConsider the habits and the unconscious desires as marks of character.\nWhen Arnold of Rugby took his boys for a holiday to London he found\nthe revelators of personality in the objects which they first visited.\nThe youth who had spent each spare moment in sketching made his way\nimmediately to the gallery. Young Stanley, even then brooding upon\nmoral themes, turned his face toward the abbey, whose fame he was to\naugment. The eager aspirant for political honors rushed toward the\nhouses of Parliament. Thus also the students of physiognomy try to\ncatch the subject off his guard, when the unconscious and habitual\nlines appear in the face. The kind of books one loves to read, the\namusements one seeks, the friends he chooses, are all revelators.\nRecently an English traveler published a volume of impressions\nconcerning America. Finding little to praise, the traveler finds much\nto criticise and blame. During his two or three weeks' sojourn in our\ncities, he tells us that he found sights and scenes that would shame\nSodom and Gomorrah, and bemoans the fact that in this young, fresh\nland things should be as bad as in London and Paris, whither the scum\nand wrecks of society have drifted.\n\nWhat a revelation! not of the city, but of the critic himself. But\nbecause he was interested in other things, the editor of an English\nReview found here material for a fruitful discussion of \"The Higher\nLife of American Cities.\" Multitudes have sojourned here during a\nscore of years and have not so much as heard of orgies and excesses.\nYet if the bee is blind to all save flowers; if the worm cares only\nfor rotten wood; if the mole bores downward, so there are natures that\ncannot rest until they have ferreted out that which they lovingly seek\nand eagerly desire to find. Habits also reveal personality. First the\nriver digs the channel, then the channel controls the river, and when\nthe faculties, by repetition, have formed habits, those habits become\ngrooves and channels for controlling the faculties. What grievous\nmarks were in poor Coleridge! Once this scholar spent a fortnight upon\nan annual address. But while the audience was assembling Coleridge\nleft his friends and stepped out the rear door of the hall to go in\nsearch of his favorite drug, leaving his audience to master its\ndisappointment as best it could.\n\nAnd here is Robert Burns, bearing about in his body also the marks of\nhis ownership. For this matchless genius was wrecked and ruined not by\nthe wiles of him of the cloven foot, but by temptations that have been\ncalled \"godlike.\" This glorious youth was not beguiled from the path\nby a desire to be a cold and calculating villain in his treatment of\nJean, or to die of drink in his prime, or to leave his widow and\norphans in poverty. Burns loved upward, loved noble things and\nbeautiful; and his very love of beauty and grace, his love of good\ncompany, of wit, laughter and song, and all the stormy splendors of\nyouth at springtide--these are the snares and wiles that caught his\nbeautiful genius and led it away captive.\n\nTo-day, for him who hath eyes to see, the marks of a like immoderation\nare upon our generation also. What a revelation of the taste of our\nage is found in the new love of highly spiced literature! All history\nholds no nobler literature than that in the English tongue. Our poetry\nfurnishes nectar for angels! Our philosophies bread for giants! The\nessayists furnish food for the gods! Nevertheless, a multitude have\nturned from this glorious feast to the highly spiced literature of\nfiction.\n\nA traveler tells of watching bees linger so long beside the vats of\nthe distillery that they became maudlin. And the love of high\nstimulants in literature is one of the character marks of our\ngeneration. Excess threatens our people. Men are anxious to be\nscholars and hurry along a pathway that leads straight to the grave.\nMen are anxious to find pleasure, but they find the flowers were grown\nin the church-yard. Men are feverishly anxious for wealth, and,\ncoining all time and strength into gold, they find they have no health\nwith which to enjoy the gathered sweetness. Haste in cooking the\ndinner has destroyed the appetite. We are told that \"moderation and\npoise are the secrets of all successful art,\" as they are of all\nsuccessful life. Give the rein to appetite and passion, and satiety,\ndisenchantment, and the grave quickly come. Health, happiness, and\ncharacter are through restraint. Thus truly, habit and trait in the\nindividual or the generation become a mark in the body that is the\nrevelator of character.\n\nWhat men call character to-day is really another one of the marks of\nthe Lord Jesus. Now and then a man appears in society from whose very\npresence there emanates an atmosphere and a sense of power--power that\nseizes upon the imagination of the beholder and holds him breathless,\neven as one stands breathless when overtaken by some sense in nature\nof overmastering sublimity. These strangely gifted men have appeared\nonly at intervals of centuries. If an ordinary man is attacked in a\nlonely spot by armed footpads, he finds himself helpless. But history\ntells of a man who carried such reserves that, bound and unaided, he\ncould deliver himself from an entire band of robbers. Surprised one\nday by a company of bandits, he was knocked down, robbed, and bound.\nBut when he recovered consciousness, he argued the ropes off his\nwrists, talked his purse and rings out of the robbers' pockets back\ninto his, bound his enemies--not with cords, but with linked\nwords--led them back to the city instead of away from it, and landed\nthe waylayers in jail.\n\nSimilarly, history tells us of half a score of men during the past two\nthousand years who have carried this same all-commanding atmosphere.\nFor over a century students of oratory have been endeavoring to\nexplain the eloquence of Whitefield. Such power had this man that the\nstatesmen and philosophers of London used to leave the metropolis on\nSaturday and journey far into the country to join the crowds, often\nnumbering twenty thousand people, that followed this preacher from\nvillage to village. David Hume, the skeptic, explained Whitefield's\ncharm by saying that the preacher spake to his audience with the same\npassionate abandon with which an ardent lover speaks to his sweetheart\nwhen he pleads for her hand. But Benjamin Franklin tells us that the\ncharm in Whitefield's speech was not his musical voice, not his stream\nof thought running clear as crystal, not his sudden electric\noutbursts, when the great man seemed on fire; the something that men\nhave tried in vain to analyze, was his character--goodness and\nsincerity glowing and throbbing in and through words, just as the\nelectric current glows and throbs through the connecting wires.\nAnother such man, but lesser, was Lamartine. During the French\nRevolution, when the mob poured through the streets, sweeping before\nit the soldiers who opposed its progress, Lamartine made his way to\nthe middle of the street and stood before the brutal leaders. So\npowerful was the influence of the good man's character, that, when the\nleader said, \"Soldiers, we are in the presence of a man who represents\nseventy years of noble living,\" the rude mob uncovered. Afterward,\nwhen the insurgents laid down their arms, it was as a tribute to the\nsuperiority of character to guns and brute force.\n\nBut when we read of these all-commanding natures, we are not to think\nthat these inspirational beings had their influence through some\nstrange magnetic power, nor that they cast a spell over people like\nunto the spell that the cat casts over the mouse with which it plays.\nTheir might has, for the most part, been the might of goodness. The\nchief mark that Paul and Wesley and Wilberforce, and all the great\nhave carried about in the body has been the mark of character. What\nbeauty is to the statue; what ripeness is to the fruit; what strength\nis to the body; what wisdom is to the reason--that character is to the\nsoul!\n\nGreat is the power of bonds and gold! Mighty the influence of customs\nand institutions! But the greatest force that can exist in society is\nthe presence and power of good men. As rain and soil and sunbeams are\nonly raw materials, to be brought together and condensed into the ripe\nfruit, so tools, knowledge, goods, are but raw materials, to be\nwrought up into the fine substance of character. Happy all who have\nsubordinated the animal impulses and the industrial faculties to the\nmoral sentiments. Thrice happy they who have carried all their\nfaculties up unto harmony and symmetry. All such, like Paul, bear\nabout in the body the marks of the Lord Jesus.\n\n\n\n\nMAKING THE MOST OF ONE'S SELF\n\n\n      \"Till we all come unto the perfect man.\"--_St. Paul._\n\n      \"_Every soul is a seed._ It does not yet appear what it\n      shall be.\"--_H._\n\n      \"'Very early,' said Margaret Fuller, 'I perceived that\n      the object of life is to grow.' She herself was a\n      remarkable instance of the power of the human being to go\n      forward and upward. Of her it might be said, as Goethe\n      said of Schiller: 'If I did not see him for a fortnight,\n      I was astonished to find what progress he had made in the\n      interim.'\"--_James Freeman Clarke._\n\n      \"Persons who are to transform the world must be\n      themselves transformed. Life must be full of inspiration.\n      If education is valuable, the age must double it; if art\n      is sweet and high, we must double its richness and might;\n      if philanthropy is divine, we must double its quantity\n      and tenderness; if religion is valuable, double its\n      truths and hasten with it unto more firesides; if man's\n      life is great, let him count more precious all its\n      summers and winters. The one duty of life is, lessen\n      every vice and enlarge every virtue.\"--_David Swing._\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nMAKING THE MOST OF ONE'S SELF\n\n\nTwo great principles run through all society. First comes the\nprinciple of self-care and self-love. Each man is given charge of his\nown body and life. By foresight he is to guard against danger. By\nself-defense he is to ward off attack. By fulfilling the instincts for\nfood, for work and rest he is to maintain the integrity of his being.\nUpon each individual rests the solemn obligation to make the most\npossible of himself, and to store up resources of knowledge and\nvirtue, of friendship and heart treasure. But when a man has treated\nhis reason as a granary and stored it with food, his memory as a\ngallery, and filled it with pictures of a beautiful past, his reason\nand will as armories, and stored them with weapons against the day of\nbattle, then a second principle asserts itself. Responsible for his\nown growth and happiness, man is made equally responsible for the\nhappiness and welfare of those about him. By so much as he has secured\nhis own personal enrichment, by that much he is bound to secure the\nenrichment and social advantage of his fellows. To love one's self at\nthe expense of one's fellows is for selfness to become malignancy. To\nlove one's neighbors more than one's self is foolishness and\nself-destruction.\n\nWhatever of value the individual has, comes from fidelity to the first\nof these principles. Self-love working toward reason makes a man a\nscholar; working toward his imagination, makes him artist and\ninventor; working toward his gift of speech, makes him an orator;\nworking with pride makes him self-reliant and self-sufficing. And when\nthe principle of love for others asserts itself, this love, working\ntoward poverty, transforms man into a philanthropist; working toward\niniquity, makes man a reformer; working toward freedom, makes him a\npatriot and a hero; working toward God, makes him a saint and a seer.\n\nThe new astronomy makes much of the three cosmic laws. Our earth, by a\nform of self-love called molecular attraction, ceases to be scattered\ndust, and takes on the shape of a rich and beautiful planet. But\nself-loved, our earth is also sun-loved, and drawn by invisible bands\nit is swept forward out of winter into summer. Then enters in a third\nprinciple, by which Neptune and Uranus, lying upon the edge of space,\nseek fellowship with our planet and hold it at a fixed distance from\nthe sun's fierce heat. Thus self-love has given the earth\nindividuality, the love of other planets secures stability, while the\nsun's love gives movement and wealth. Working together, these three\nprinciples secure the harmony and stability of the planetary world.\nSimilarly, each individual is part of a great social system. Each\nmoves forward under the embrace of three laws, called love to God,\nlove to neighbor, and love to self. Upon obedience to these laws rests\nall social wealth and civilization.\n\nWe hear little of individualism, and much of the solidarity of\nsociety. A bloodless and selfish destruction of the rights of the many\nhas threatened the very foundations of human happiness and compelled\nthe recognition of the fact that the weakness and injury of one are\nthe weakness and injury of all. Ours is a world in which the law of\nthe survival of the fittest not only works, but works very rapidly.\nThus the more wealth a man has the more he can achieve. To-day, it is\nsaid, the various members of the Rothschild family in the different\ncapitals of Europe control nine billions of dollars. This sum is\naccumulating like a rolling snowball, and will soon surpass, and\nperhaps absorb the wealth of several of the smaller European nations.\nSimilarly, in the realm of wisdom, the more a man knows the more he\ncan know. Sir William Jones tells us that he gave five years to\nmastering his first language, while six weeks were sufficient for\nacquiring his fortieth dialect. Thus, too, in the realm of inventive\nskill, each tool becomes the parent of a score of other tools. The\nstudies preparatory to Edison's first mechanism covered a long period\nof years; but, gaining momentum, his inventive skill increased in\ngeometric ratio, until to-day the famous electrician holds nearly a\nthousand patents; but, as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing is\nso ruinous as failure. The weaker a man is, the weaker he must become.\nWhen a man who seeks employment is shabby and gaunt and nerveless, his\npoverty lessens his chances, but to-morrow he will be weaker and\nshabbier, and day by day the rapidity of his declension will increase.\n\nStartled by these considerations, our generation perceives that\nsuccess feeding upon its gains will soon drink up all the energies of\nthe earth, while failure, growing more ruinous, will sweep multitudes\ninto the abyss. Therefore, society has come to fully recognize the\nimportance of a mutual love and mutual service. When a man falls we\nare less and less ready to kick him. If the poorly born drops behind\nin life's race, society is increasingly ready to set him upon some\nbeast. If some man's brain is spongy, and his mental processes slow,\nthe stronger minds are belting his faculties to their swifter\nenergies. If a man's moral springtime is slow, says one of our social\nreformers, society fits up for him a little ethical conservatory, with\nsteam heat and southern exposure, where the buds are given a little\njudicious stimulating and pushing.\n\nSociety is recognizing the debt of strength to weakness. The man who\nhas skill in speech is becoming a voice for the dumb. Those who have\nskill toward wealth are becoming the almoners of bounty toward art,\neducation and morals. Men who selfishly get much and give little, who\nhave become Dead Seas of accumulated treasure, are losing their\nstanding in society. More and more cities are bestowing their honors\nand esteem upon those who serve their fellows. Men are becoming\nmagazines, sending out kindness everywhither. Men are becoming\ngardens, filling all the air with pungent fragrance. Men are becoming\ncastles, in which the poor find protection. The floods of iniquity\nhave long covered the earth, but love is the dove bringing the olive\nbranch of peace. Love sings the dawn of a new day.\n\nOur generation does well to emphasize the principle of social sympathy\nand social liability. But, because individual worth is being\nthreatened, the time seems to have fully come for also emphasizing\nman's duty to love and make the most of himself. Of late, self-care\nand self-enrichment, as a principle of life, have been berated and\nharshly condemned. Yet Christ recognized selfness as a principle most\nproper and praiseworthy and one to be used as the basis and measure of\nall moral worth. By so much as man loves and secures for himself the\nphysical benefits and social incitements of life, by that much he is\nto love his fellows. And the failure to love one's self wisely and\npassionately ends by making it impossible for man to love his fellows.\nPlato's thought is ever with us: \"The granary must be filled before\nthe poor are fed; knowledge must be gained before knowledge is given.\"\nHappy the philanthropist whose generosity has founded school or\nlibrary. But this gift of to-day is made possible only by the industry\nand thrift of yesterday. Happy the surgeon whose skill in a crisis\nhour has saved some valuable life. But the hand that performs what\nseems a miracle of surgery has back of it twenty years of vigilant\nstudy and practice.\n\nOurs is a world in which the amount of wisdom or wealth or friendship\nto be distributed is predetermined by the amount required. The flow of\nthe faucet is determined by the fullness of the reservoir. The speed\nof the electric car is fixed by the energy stored in the power house.\nThe power of the piston is in the push of the accumulated steam. The\nNile has force to feed civilizations, because there are a thousand\nstreams and rivers, a thousand hills and mountains lying back of the\nNile's current, and crowding it forward. If we could sit down by the\nfamous Santa Barbara vine, and speaking with it as with a familiar\nfriend, ask how it came to give man a half-ton of purple treasure in a\nsingle summer, the reply would be that this rich treasure was grown\nand given in one summer because two hundred summers were given to\ngrowing a vast root and trunk, to large stems and stalks.\n\nWhen Nestor stood forth before the Greek generals and counseled attack\nupon Troy, he said: \"The secret of victory is in getting a good\nready.\" Wendell Phillips was once asked how he acquired his skill in\nthe oratory of the lost arts. The answer was: \"By getting a hundred\nnights of delivery back of me.\" Shakespeare tells us all that the\nclouds give in rain what they get in mist, which is the poet's way of\nsaying that what he gave in inspiration he got by way of\nperspiration. Some years ago a young man asked a distinguished scholar\nand writer what he thought of the higher education. \"If I were twenty,\nand had but ten years to live,\" answered the publicist, \"I would spend\nthe first nine years accumulating knowledge and getting ready for the\ntenth.\" Indeed, the measure of influence in any man is the measure of\nhis reserves. The youth who will rule to-morrow is the youth who\nto-day is storing up resources of knowledge and wisdom, of\nself-reliance and courage.\n\nAll history does but repeat the principle. Surveying the past, we note\nthat the nations that have made great contributions to civilization\nhave been isolated. Our historians tell us that the Hebrew gave\nconscience and morals, the Greek reason and culture, the Roman law and\ngovernment, the Teuton liberty and the rise of woman. But, singularly\nenough, not one of these nations lived in an open, extended country.\nEach forceful race has dwelt upon some island or peninsula. The Hebrew\nwas shut in between the desert and the sea, and there restrained until\nhe accumulated his moral treasure. He was compelled to fall back upon\nhis own resources. By practice he found out that it was not best to\nsteal; that society lived more happily and peacefully when the\nproperty of each individual was respected. Similarly, God gave him the\nwork of formulating each of the ten commandments. Slowly the moral\ntreasure grew. The jurist gave law, the poet sang songs, the prophet\npoured out his rhapsody, the patriot and martyr died for principle,\nand the roll of the heroes lengthened. At last the pages of Jewish\nhistory were filled with names glowing and glorious as the nights with\nstars.\n\nThen came Jesus Christ, filling all the land with spiritual energies.\nSoon the pressure of moral forces was so strong as to break through\nall restraints. Then these moral treasures poured forth over all the\nearth. Having given the two thousand years before Christ to\naccumulating its moral energies, the Hebrew race acquired momentum\nenough to continue the civilizing tide through the two thousand years\nafter Christ. Similarly Greece, the mother of the arts and sciences,\nwas shut in between the mountains and the sea until the intellectual\ntides grew deep and strong.\n\nBut not alone does history urge us to make the most of ourselves. All\nour great men illustrate the same principle. Of late attention has\nbeen called to the fact that our cities are being ruled by men whose\nchildhood and youth were spent in the country. Isolated, brooding for\nyears in the fields and forests, these boys developed a forceful\nindividuality. A recent canvass of the prominent men in New York City\nshowed that eighty-five per cent were reared in the villages and rural\ndistricts. Seventeen of our twenty-three presidents came from the\nfarm. A census of the colleges and seminaries in and about Chicago\nshowed that the country is furnishing eighty per cent of our college\nstudents. The chances of success seem one hundred to one in favor of\nthe country boy. Many explain this by saying that there is a\nmathematical relation between a fine physique and a firm, intellectual\ntread. Good thinking rests upon fine brain-fiber. But this is only\nhalf the truth.\n\nThese giants from the country learned in youth not to depend upon\nbooks and newspapers, but upon their eyes and ears. Having no external\nresources, they turned their thoughts inward and led forth their own\nfaculties. They did not wait until they opened the journal to find out\nwhat they thought about some important subject, but, unaided, they\nwrought out their own opinions, and through self-reliance grew great.\nShould any sower go forth to sow in the streets of the city, he would\nreap but a small harvest. The hard, beaten roadway would give the\ngrain no lodgment; but sown on the open furrows, the seed roots and\ngrows. Thus the mind of the city youth is a roadway beaten down by the\nmyriad events of life. His individuality is a root having little\nchance to grow.\n\nThe mornings rain newspapers, the evenings increase events, the very\nskies rain pamphlets. Individuality is overwhelmed with many things.\nSoon the mind ceases to develop its own mental treasure, and is\ncontent to receive its incitements from without. Because schools and\ncolleges are multiplied, the youth who has never gone to the bottom of\na single subject imagines that he is a fine student. Because his\nshelves are crowded with books, the man deceives himself into thinking\nthat he has read them all. Because our age is rich in mechanical\nappliances and inventions, many who cannot drive a nail straight\nimagine that they have been really instrumental in ushering in this\nmagnificent epoch. Many sing peans of exultation over this wondrous\ncivilization who are mental and industrial paupers, whose chief ground\nof congratulation is that they got themselves born into this\nparticular century. But power does not come that way. Moses will\ncontrol all our jurists to-morrow because he spent forty years in the\ndesert reflecting upon the principles of justice. Paul had the honor\nto fashion our political institutions because he gave twelve years of\ngeneral preparation and three years of special application to the\nstudy of individual rights. Milton tells us that he spent four and\nthirty years of solitary and unceasing study in accumulating his\nmaterial for a heroic poem that the world would not willingly let die.\n\nHomer wrote the \"Iliad\" because he was blind and driven in upon his\nown resources. Dante wrote his \"Inferno\" because he was exiled, and in\nisolation had time to store up his mental treasure. Webster and\nLincoln spent years in the forests and fields, reflecting and\nbrooding, analyzing and comparing. Many a long summer passed while\nthey sowed and garnered their mental treasure. Pasteur gave our\ngeneration much, because for thirty years he isolated himself and got\nmuch to give. When Lowell speaks of the attar of roses, he reminds us\nof the whole fields of crimson blossoms that have been swept together\nin one tiny vial. When Starr King saw the great trees of California\nstanding forth twenty-five feet in diameter and lifting their crowns\nthree hundred feet into the sunshine, he was so impressed by their\ndignity and beauty as to be touched into tears; but the size of the\ntrees did not explain his emotion. It was the thought of the reserve\nenergies that had been compacted into them. The mountains had given\ntheir iron and rich stimulants, the hills had given their soil, the\nclouds had given their rain and snow, a thousand summers and winters\nhad poured forth their treasure about the vast roots. Thus the authors\nand statesmen who will help the next generation are to-day engaged in\nloving themselves and making the most of their talents. Not until they\nhave compacted within themselves a thousand knowledges and virtues\nwill they be able to love others.\n\nWith sadness let us confess that our age is sinning grievously against\nthis principle of self-care and self-love. Individual worth is being\nsorely neglected. An age is great not through a large census roll, but\nthrough a multitude of great souls, just as a book is valuable not by\nhaving many pages, but by containing great ideas. The paving-stones in\nour streets are very different from sapphires. The bringing together\nof 65,000,000 small granite blocks will not turn these stones into\ndiamonds. It is only when each stone is a gem that the increase of\nnumber means the increase of beauty. No nation is moving forward\ntoward supremacy merely because the weak individuals began to go in\ndroves. In our education we are singing peans and praise about our\nschools and new methods of education. Meanwhile Frederic Harrison\ninsists that in fifty years the public schools of Great Britain have\nturned out not one mind of the first order. Some of those who have\nachieved renown in literature or statecraft were self-educated. The\nrest enjoyed the help of some parent or friend, who very early in the\nchild's career took the pains to search out the child's strongest\nfaculty, and then asked some tutor or teacher to assist in nourishing\nthe special talent toward greatness.\n\nAt home, President White is telling us that our authors and poets are\ndead, and have no successors. Nor could it be otherwise. When a\nskillful driver wishes to develop the speed of a thoroughbred colt, he\nspecializes upon this one animal. No sensible horseman would put forty\ncolts upon a track and try to develop their speed by driving them\naround in a drove. It remains for the parents of this country to adopt\nthe method of training their children in droves, and educating them in\nherds. Our common-school system began in the necessity for the\ndivision of labor. Settling in the wilds of New England, the men went\ninto the forests with axes, or to the field with their hoes. The\nmothers went into the garden or to the loom. Rather than that their\nchildren should have no education, many parents came together and\nasked some one man or woman to do the work for all. Thus our common\nschools were born out of poverty and emergency.\n\nBut at length has come a time when parents, in blind worship of a\nsystem, have farmed their children out to intellectual wet-nurses.\nMany children who possess talent of the first order in the realm of\npoetry or literature are compelled during the most precious period of\nlife to spend years upon subjects that yield them no culture effect.\nMeanwhile their enthusiasm is wasted, and their strongest faculties\nstarved. Only when it is too late do they discover the cruel injustice\nthat has been wrought upon them, and recognize that they must remain\nunfulfilled prophecies. Our common schools have wrought most\neffectively for our civilization. They are the hope of society. But\nnot until our parents become enthusiastic teachers, and our homes\nassist the school rooms, will men cease complaining that the nation's\ngreat men have no successors, and that genius has departed from our\npeople.\n\nThe time has fully come for the nation also to begin to love itself.\nAll perceive that the individual has no right to be so generous\nto-day as to have nothing to bestow to-morrow. Wisdom guards to-day's\nexpenditures lest to-morrow's capital be impaired. He is a poor\nhusbandman who so overtaxes his fields or vineyards as to exhaust the\nsoil or destroy the vine. Yet many events seem to prove that our\nnation has sorely injured itself by over-kindness. It has forgotten\nthat only God can love everybody. In trying to help the many it has\nthreatened its power to help any. It has been like a man who on a\nJanuary day opens his windows and tries to warm all out of doors, only\nto find that he has frozen his family within the house, and warmed no\none without. If we journey into the factory towns in New England,\nwhere the youthful Whittier and Longfellow were trained, we find the\nschool-houses with windows boarded over. The little churches also are\ndeserted and the doors nailed up. Listening to the \"reformers\" in our\nparks on a Sunday afternoon, we are amazed by the virulent attacks\nupon our institutions. Conversing with the foreman of a large group of\nmen laying water-pipes, we are astonished at his statement that he has\nnot a single man who can write well enough to keep the time and hours\nof these toilers. Standing in Castle Garden, where the emigrant ship\nunloads its multitudes, we hear the physician exclaim: \"It will take\nthis nation a hundred years to expel this vice and scrofula from its\nblood.\"\n\nAs some railways water their stock, and for each dollar issue bonds\nfor five, in the hope that only one of the five will ever know enough\nto ask for their dollar, so the intelligence of the nation has been\nwatered and diluted. Sometimes a whole ballot-box full of voters'\ntickets does not contain the common sense of a single vote of the days\nof Hamilton. Our nation often seems like a householder who has given\nhis night-key to an enemy who has threatened his home with firebrands.\nOur nation has loved--not wisely, but too well. The time has come when\nit must choose between loving itself and becoming bankrupt in\nintelligence and morality. For purposes of educating the nations of\nthe world as to the true value of free institutions, one little New\nEngland community, where all the citizens were patriots and heroes,\nscholars and Christians, where vulgarity and crime were unknown, where\nthe jail was empty and the church was full, where all young lives\nmoved toward the school-house--one such community has a value beyond\nour present millions.\n\nWhat the world needs is not multitudes, but examples and ideals. If\none Plato can be produced, he will lift the world. Our citizens ask\nartists to paint their pictures--not bootblacks. We ask architects to\nerect our public buildings--not chimney sweeps. Loving their city, our\ncitizens have lined the avenues with beautiful homes and streets with\nstores and factories. But here their self-love stops. When great men\nhave created the city, they ask saloon-keepers to govern it. Well did\nthe sage say, it was as if we had passed by Daniel Webster and asked\nan African ape to speak in his stead. Strange--passing strange--that\nour nation and city should forget that all love for others begins with\na wise love for self.\n\nWe return from our survey with the conviction that Jesus Christ did\nwell to make individual worth the genius of Christianity. Having moved\nbackward along the pathway of history, we have found the streams of\ncivilization taking rise in some one enriched mind and heart, even as\nmighty rivers issue from isolated springs. Looking backward we see\nMoses building the Hebrew temple; we see Pericles and Plato fashioning\nmany shapes of truth and beauty for Athens; we see Dante laying the\nfoundations of Florence; we see Carlo Zeno causing Venice to rise out\nof the sands of the sea; we see Bacon and Luther rearing the\ncathedrals of thought and worship, under which the millions find their\nshelter. Oppressed by a sense of human ignorance and human sin, a\nthousand questions arise. Can one poorly born journey toward greatness\nof stature? The Cremona violin of the sixteenth century is a mass of\ncondensed melody. Each atom was soaked in a thousand songs, until the\ninstrument reeks with sweetness. But can a human instrument, long out\nof tune and sadly injured, e'er be brought back to harmony of being?\nIn the studio of the sculptor lie blocks of deserted marble. Out of\none emerges a hand, another exhibits the outlines of a face. But for\nsome reason the artist has forsaken them. It seems that as the chisel\nworked inward, it uncovered some crack or revealed a dark stain.\nTherefore the sculptor passed it by, preferring the flawless block of\nsnowy marble. Is the soul soiled by sin, to be cast off by the divine\nSculptor?\n\nJourneying across the plains, travelers looking through the car\nwindows behold the California trail. The wagon ruts have become\nditches, and the old route is marked by human graves. But long ago men\nexchanged the ox cart, the deep wagon ruts, and the wearisome journey,\nfor palace cars. Thus there are many paths of sin worn deep by\npressure of human feet. Many would fain forsake them. But is there any\ndivine power to cast up some divine highway? Is there a happiness?\nNature is kind to her grains and sweeps them forward toward harvests;\nis kind toward her apple seeds and bids them journey unto orchards; is\nkind unto the March days, and bids them journey into perpetual summer.\n\nAnd man would fain find some divine friend who will lead him unto\ngreat personal worth. As if to fulfill man's deepest needs, Jesus\nChrist enters the earthly scene. He comes to hasten man's step along\nthat pathway that leads from littleness unto largeness. Before our\nadmiring vision the Divine Teacher seems like some sacred husbandman,\nHis garden our earth, good men and great earth's richest fruit. He\nasks each youth to love and make the most of himself, that later on he\nmay be bread to the hungry, medicine to the wounded, shelter to the\nweak. He bids each love his own reason, getting wisdom with that eager\npassion that Hugh Miller had for knowledge. He bids each make the most\nof friendship, emulating Plato in his love for his noble teacher. He\nasks each to love industry, emulating Peabody, whose generosity gushed\nlike rivers. He asks each to make the most of courage and\nself-reliance, emulating Livingstone in self-denying service. He bids\neach emulate and look up to Jesus Christ, as Dante, midst the pitchy\nnight, looked up toward the star. He bids each move heaven and earth\nto achieve for himself a worthy manhood. For thus only can earth ever\nbe moved back unto heaven.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAbelard, 166\n\nAbraham, influence on posterity, 16\n\nAbundant Life, 29\n\nAEschylus, 198\n\nAgassiz, 102, 237\n\nAristotle, 124\n\nArkwright, 99\n\nArnold, 135, 216, 292\n  Thos., 164\n\nAspirations and Ideals, 53\n  number and kind, 61\n  power to lift life, 58\n  the use of, 63\n  rebuke lower life, 66\n  enemies of, 70\n\n\nBabbage, 287\n\nBancroft, Geo., 10\n\nBeatrice, 44\n\nBeecher, 19, 95, 134, 142, 188, 258\n\nBible, 32, 98, 142, 164, 255\n\nBody, a thinking machine, 80\n  delicacy of sensation, 80\n  evolution, 81\n  its needs as stimuli, 88\n  channel of knowledges, 88\n  system of moral registration, 92\n\nBooks and reading, 233\n  increase of power of vision, 238\n  show men at their best, 239\n  tools for the mind, 240\n  multiply brain forces, 242\n  preserve the spirit of great men, 243\n  give information, 246\n  show unity of progress, 249\n  choice of books, 250\n\nBrooks, Phillips, 44, 254\n\nBrown, John, 58\n\nBrowning, Mrs., 248\n\nBulwer Lytton, 135\n\nBunyan, 114\n\nBurns, 158, 294\n\nByron, 48, 188, 198, 250\n\n\nCadmus, 16\n\nCaird, 84\n\nCapital, original, 13\n\nCarlyle, 76, 214, 234, 239, 255\n\nCastelar, 40\n\nChanning, 192, 225, 234\n\nCharacter, 31, 44\n  defined, 34\n  materials of, 34\n\nCharles IX., 203\n\nClay, 154, 262\n\nClimate, effect on race, 16\n\nColeridge, 47, 132, 200, 293\n\nColumbus, 56, 152\n\nConfucius, 32\n\nConscience and Character, 187\n  working of conscience, 191, 201\n  uses and functions, 199\n  standard, 199\n  relation to judgment, 200\n  influence on memory, 201\n  in daily life, 202\n  commercial, 205\n  emotional, 208\n  to the past, 209\n\nContrasts and extremes, teachers, 47\n\nCooper, Peter, 177\n\nCranmer, 145\n\nCromwell, 39, 40, 100\n\nCurtis, Geo. Wm., 23\n\n\nDana, 84\n\nDante, 21, 78, 129, 150, 165, 198, 215, 312, 318\n\nDavid, 48, 165\n\nDeath, 95\n\nDemosthenes, 198\n\nDe Tocqueville, 126\n\nDickens, 106\n\nDistribution of ability in U.S., 22\n\nDore, 124\n\nDouglass, Frederick, 223\n\nDreams, 64\n\nDrummond, 82, 84\n\nDwight's dictum, 15\n\n\nEdison, 169, 304\n\nElements of worth in individual, 9\n\nEliot, Geo., 178, 196, 222\n\nEmerson, 13, 31, 34, 42, 98, 103, 122, 150, 164\n\nEnthusiasm, 168\n  of friendship, 165\n\nEpictetus, 174\n\nEvolution, 82\n\nExternal world a teacher, 37\n\n\nFaraday, 248\n\nFiske, 94\n\nFriendship, 163\n  secret of eminence, 173\n  refining, 178\n\nFroude, 172\n\n\nGaribaldi, 171, 184\n\nGladstone, 43, 69\n\nGoethe, 151\n\nGrant, 184\n\nGreeley, 33\n\nGuttenberg printing press, 82\n\n\nHamilton, 133, 201\n\nHandel, 153\n\nHarrison, Frederic, 234, 250, 314\n\nHawthorne, 107\n\nHealth, 75\n\nHelps, Arthur, 253\n\nHeredity, 130\n\nHerod, 189\n\nHeroes raised up to teach men, 58, 59\n\nHoe, printing press, 82\n\nHolland, J.G., 23\n\nHolmes, O.W., 13\n\nHomer, 60, 312\n\nHugo, 193\n\nHuss, 145, 150\n\nHuxley, 76\n\n\nIdeals, teachers, 49\n\nIgnorance, 19, 31\n\nImagination, 141\n  defined, 147\n  sustains men, 149\n  place in science and invention, 157\n  mechanics, 152\n  helps character, 156\n  abuse of, 157\n  lifts above misfortune, 159\n  reveals God, 160\n\nIntegrity, 27\n\nIron, value of raw and manufactured, 20\n\n\nJacob's vision, 70, 166\n\nJesus, 14, 29, 30, 31, 40, 51, 59, 115, 118, 183, 189, 210, 215, 271,\n  309, 318, 319\n\nJohn, 14\n\nJohnson, 47, 166\n\nJones, Sir Wm., 304\n\nJudas Iscariot, 135\n\n\nKeats, 106\n\nKing, Starr, 312\n\nKnowledge, 20\n\nKossuth, 184\n\n\nLamartine, 34\n\nLamb, 47, 166, 244\n\nLecky, 45\n\nLee, inventor of loom, 47\n\nLincoln, 34, 41, 169, 219, 284, 312\n\nLivingstone, 58, 78, 236, 241\n\nLiving with men, 257\n  the largest subject, 259\n  training necessary, 262\n  the most important act, 264\n  the most difficult, 266\n  aim and end of life, 274\n  test of manhood, 275\n\nLocke, 122\n\nLodge's study of distribution of ability, 22\n\nLongfellow, 129, 252\n\nLowell, 31, 98, 142, 312\n\nLubbock's inquiry of Indian chief, 16, 175\n\nLuther, 40, 41, 58, 78, 100, 171\n\n\nMacaulay, 132, 262\n\nMaking the most of one's self, 299\n  self-care and self-love, 301\n  debt of strength to weakness, 305\n  examples from history, 309\n  examples from great men, 309\n  duty of the nation, 316\n  teaching of Christ, 318\n\nMan a double creature, 85\n\nMann, Horace, 17\n\nMassachusetts, education, 22\n\nMcCosh, 84\n\nMichael Angelo, 118, 149, 214\n\nMill, John Stuart, 12, 25\n\nMillais, Martyr, 58\n\nMillet's Angelus, 20\n\nMilton, 34, 56, 79, 114, 129, 153, 167, 174, 198, 234, 312\n\nMind and the duty of right thinking, 97\n  its wonderfulness, 101\n  its fruitfulness, 103\n  determines character, 114\n\nMisfits in life, 13\n\nMivart, 116\n\nMonotony, a teacher, 43\n\nMoral uses of the memory, 121\n  basis of civilization, 125\n  power, 131\n  examples, Macaulay, Niebuhr, etc., 131\n  influenced by conscience, 201\n\n\nNapoleon, 17, 142, 153, 184\n\nNewness as a teacher, 42\n\nNewton, 84, 237, 238\n\nNestor, 307\n\nNiebuhr's memory, 131\n\nNilsson, 154\n\nNorthampton, noted men, 23\n\n\nObedience to law, 27\n\nOken, 151\n\n\nPaganini, 14, 262\n\nPasteur, 312\n\nPaul, 12, 41, 234, 235, 282\n\nPaupers, plebeian and patrician, 12\n\nPeter, 135\n\nPetrarch, 166\n\nPhillips, 135, 170, 217, 307\n\nPhidias, 79, 125\n\nPhocion, 34\n\nPhysical basis of character, 74\n\nPitt, 135\n\nPlato, 13, 163, 183, 189, 214, 306\n\nPliny, 70\n\nProctor, 103\n\nPtolemy, 45\n\nPythagoras, 144\n\n\nRacial elements, 15\n\nRameses, 77\n\nRaphael, 51\n\nRasselas, 47\n\nResponsibility a teacher, 46\n\nRevelators of character, 279\n  the face, 283\n  instances, 285\n  body, 285\n  habits and unconscious desires, 292\n  power of pure character, 297\n\nRichter, 121\n\nRosetti, 121\n\nRuskin, 41, 43, 255, 258\n\n\nSavonarola, 41, 171,191\n\nScaliger's memory, 131\n\nSchopenhauer, 227\n\nSchiller, 167, 214\n\nScott, 150, 201\n\nSeneca's memory, 131\n\nServetus, 203\n\nSeward, 188\n\nShakespeare, 22, 47, 51, 53, 79, 97, 125, 136, 164, 193, 307\n\nSilas Marner, 178\n\nSin, a personal fact, 87\n\nSkill in handling men, 25\n\nSmith, Adam, 12\n  Sidney, 111\n\nSocrates, 14, 57, 92, 130, 165, 190, 214\n\nSolon, 144\n\nSophocles, 198\n\nSophroniscus, 147\n\nSouthey, 244\n\nSpencer, Herbert, 50, 168\n\nStanley, 217, 292\n\nSterne, 188\n\nStupidity of sin, 25\n\nStrength, physical, 17\n\nStrikes, 25\n\nSwing, 97, 164, 212, 258\n\n\nTaylor, 212\n\nTeachers in life external world, 37\n  temptation, 39\n  newness and zest, 42\n  monotony, 44\n  responsibility, 46\n  contrasts and extremes, 47\n  ideals, 49\n\nTemptation, 39\n\nTennyson, 121, 165, 172, 284\n\nThemistocles, 23\n\nTheseus, 16\n\nTholuck, 51\n\nThomson, Sir Wm., 248\n\nThompson, 75\n\nThoughts affect face's expression, 109\n\nThucydides, 199\n\nTitian, 262\n\nTrademarks, 281\n\nTubman, Harriet, 223\n\nTupper, 35\n\nTyndall, 101\n\n\nValue of man, financial, 11\n  acc. to race, 16\n    thoughts determine, 111\n\nVeronese, 113\n\nVirgil, 110\n\nVision hours, 50, 62, 68, 230\n\nVisions that disturb, 211\n  shape great lives, 217\n  bring life's best moods, 222\n  conquer sin, 223\n  secure service for right, 223\n  make good men perfect, 224\n  for our nation, 225\n\nVon Humboldt, 189\n  Moltke, 23\n  Rile, 118\n\n\nWastes of Society, 9\n  through ignorance, 19\n  hatred, 28\n\nWashington, 34, 188\n\nWatson, Wm., 212\n\nWatts, 29, 80, 125, 152\n\nWebster, 153, 192, 220, 256, 262, 284, 312\n\nWhite, Pres., 314\n\nWhitney, Prof., 23\n\nWordsworth, 47, 97, 106, 178\n\n\nZeno, 318\n\nZacharias, 14\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Page  27: Obedince replaced with Obedience                |\n    | Page  40: sweetnees replaced with sweetness               |\n    | Page  83: miscroscope replaced with microscope            |\n    | Page  88: civilzation replaced with civilization          |\n    | Page 133: provison replaced with provision                |\n    | Page 164: Goethe replaced with Goethe                     |\n    | Page 237: eloqunce replaced with eloquence                |\n    | Page 325: M'Cosh replaced with McCosh                     |\n    | Page 327: Thunistocles replaced with Themistocles         |\n    | Page 327: Thesnes replaced with Theseus                   |\n    |                                                           |\n    | The following words are correct:                          |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Page  63: stithy, noun meaning 1. an anvil, 2. a forge    |\n    |           or smithy.                                      |\n    | Page 161: bowlder, an obsolete spelling for boulder       |\n    | Page 288: accidently, alternate spelling for accidentally |\n    | Page 311: peans, noun meaning 1. any song of praise, joy, |\n    |           or triumph. 2. a hymn of invocation or          |\n    |           thanksgiving to Apollo or some other ancient    |\n    |           Greek deity.                                    |\n    |                                                           |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *","title":"A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and Character","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":64644}