The law of sacrifice is also the law of progress and civilization. When history exhibits as dead the nations that have been pleasure-seekers it declares that the state that saveth its life shall lose it. In our own land the bankruptcy and gloom that have for years overshadowed the South speak eloquently of a national gain that is a loss. One hundred years ago the North freed its slaves. Later, when the constitution was adopted, many statesmen believed that slavery was losing its hold in the South. Jefferson said: "When I think that God is just I tremble for my country." In that hour the statesman prophesied that slavery would soon melt away like the vanishing snow of April. But when Whitney invented his gin and the raising of cotton became very lucrative slavery took on new life. It was Lord Brougham who first said that when slavery brought in 100 percent, while it was seen to be immoral, not all the navies of the world could stop it. Later, when it brought in 300 percent, it became a peculiar institution, patterned after the system of the patriarchs. But when it brought in 300 percent master and slave became a Christian relation, and slavery was baptized with quotations from the Old Testament.

But avarice could not forever blind men's eyes to scenes of sorrow, nor stop their ears to sounds of woe. When the horrors of the slave-market and the infamies of the cotton-field filled all the land with shame reformers arose, declaring that the attempt to compress and confine liberty would end in explosion. In that hour Northern men made tentative overtures looking to the purchase of all slaves. But slavery, Delilah-like, made the southern leaders drunk with the cup of sorcery. They scorned the proposition. In the light of subsequent events we see that in saving her institution the South lost it, and with it her wealth, while in losing her slaves the North gained her wealth. Under free labor the North doubled its population, its manufactories, its riches and waxed mighty. Under slave-labor the South dwindled in wealth and became only the empty shell of a state. The spark fired at Fort Sumter kindled a conflagration that swept through the sunny South like a devastating fire and revealed its inner poverty. When four years had passed by the farmhouses and factories were ruins, the village was a heap, the town a desolation. Graveyards were as populous as cities, each village had its company of cripples, the cry of the orphan and the widow filled all the land.

When Charles Darwin returned from his voyage around the world, he sent a generous contribution to the London Missionary Society. The great scientist had discovered that in lessening her wealth through missions England had saved her treasure through commerce. Traveling in foreign lands, Darwin noticed that the Christian teachers in schools that now touch 3,000,000 of young men and women in India, were really commercial agents for England's trade. In awakening the minds of the darkened millions the teacher had created a demand for books, newspapers and printing-presses. In awakening the sense of self-respect the teacher had created a demand for English clothing and the product of English looms. Also the influence of each home, with its comforts and conveniences, created a demand for English tools and improvements of labor. Summing up his observation, Lord Havelock said that each thousand dollars England had spent upon her missions had brought a return of a hundred thousand dollars through her commerce. Hitherto the interior of China has been closed to English merchants. To that dark land, therefore, England has sent 200 teachers whose homes are centers of light and inspiration. When two-score years have passed English fleets will be taxed to the utmost to carry to China, as now to India, her fabrics of cotton and wool, her presses, looms, sewing-machines, her pictures, her libraries. In giving of her wealth to found these destitute schools England will save it a hundred-fold and find new markets among 300,000,000 people.

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

The history of Holland's greatness is the history of one who saved liberty by losing his own life. William the Silent was a prince in station and in wealth, yet for Holland's sake made himself a beggar and an outlaw. He feared God, indeed, but not the batteries of Alva and Philip. His career reads like one who with naked fists captured a blazing cannon. Falling at last by the dagger of a hired assassin, he exclaimed: "I commit my poor people to God and myself to God's great captain, Christ." When he died little children cried in the streets. He lost his life, said his biographer, but saved his fame. And what shall we more say of Italy's hero, who wore his fiery fagots like a crown of gold; of Germany's hero, who lost his priestly rites, but gained the hearts of all mankind; of England's hero, whose very ashes were cast by enemies upon the River Severn, as if to float his influence out o'er all the world, of India's hero, William Carey, the English shoemaker, who founded for India an educational system now reaching millions of children and youth, who gave India literature, made five grammars and six dictionaries, and so used his commercial genius through his indigo plantation and factories that it made for him a million dollars in the interests of Christian missions? Of this great company, what can we say save that they won renown through self-renunciation! What they did makes weak and unworthy what we say. Just here let us remember that the statue of Jupiter was a figure so colossal that worshipers, unable to reach the divine forehead, cast their garlands at the hero's feet. For this law of sacrifice is the secret of the Messiah. Earth's great ones were taught it by their Master. Jesus Christ, "being rich, for our sakes became poor." Because the law of sacrifice is the law of the Savior, man gains life through death and renown through self-renunciation.



THE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.



"A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies—one may say, simply 'fineness of nature.' This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness, in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no touch of the boughs, but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would have felt a bent rose leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully you will find that his non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature, not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor. Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high-breeding in men generally will be their kindness and mercifulness."—Modern Painters.



CHAPTER IX.

THE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.

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

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

Nevertheless, be it instantly confessed that from the very beginning this divine Teacher exhibited qualities that kindled in men an enthusiasm that amounted to transcendent delight. The time was when scholars attempted to explain His influence over the multitude by portraying Him with a halo of light about His head. Fortunately these ideas that robbed men of all fellowship with their divine brother have perished, and now we know that there was nothing unusual about His appearance, nor did any effulgent light blaze forth from His person. Whether or not unique beauty of face and form was His we do not know. Coins and statues portray for us the Roman emperors and the Greek scholars. Yet art has broken down utterly in the attempt to combine in one face Christ's majesty and meekness, strength and gentleness, suffering and victory. All that we can know of His personal appearance must be gained through imagination, as it clothed Him with those traits that alone cannot account for His influence over the multitudes. What sweet allurement in the face that made children leap into His arms! What winsome benignity that made mothers feel that His touch would return the babe with double worth into the parent's bosom!

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

Did ever man have such a genius for noble friendship? What bosom words He used! What love pressure in all His speech! How were His words laden with double meanings, so that hearing one thing, men also heard another, even as they who hear the sound of the distant sea, knowing that the sound they hear is but a breath of the great infinite ocean that heaves beyond in the dim, vast dark. Among all the heroes of time He walks solitary by the greatness of His power, His beauty and the wonder of love His personality excited. Standing in the presence of some glorious cathedral or gallery, beholding the Parthenon or pyramids, the rugged mountain or the beautiful landscape, emotion and imagination are sometimes so deeply stirred that men lose command of themselves and break into transports of admiration. But the enthusiasm evoked by mountain or statue or canvas is as nothing compared to the rapturous devotion felt by the multitude for this One, who united in full splendor all those eminent qualities of mind and heart that all the ages and generations have in vain sought to emulate. High over all the other worthies He rises like a star riding in untroubled splendor above the low-browed hills.

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

In all His relations with His friends and enemies the quality that crowns His method of living and challenges our thought is the gentleness of His bearing. Matchless the mingled strength and beauty of His life, yet gentleness was the flower and fruitage of it all. For in Him the lion and the lamb dwelt together. Oak and rock were there, and also vine and flower. Weakness is always rough. Only giants can be gentle. Tenderness is an inflection of strength. No error can be greater than to suppose that gentleness is mere absence of vigor. Weakness totters and tugs at its burden. When the dwarf that attended Ivanhoe at the tournament lifted the bleeding sufferer he staggered under his heavy burden. Weakness made him stumble and caused the wounded knight intense pain. When the giant of the brawny arm and the unconquered heart came, he lifted the unconscious sufferer like a feather's weight and without a jar bore him away to a secure hiding-place for healing and recovering. He who studies the great men of yesterday will find in the last analysis that gentleness has always been the test of gianthood, and fine considerateness the measure of manhood and the gauge of personal worth. No other hero moving through the crowds has ever been so courteously gentle, so sweetly considerate in his personal bearing as this Christ—who never failed to kindle in men transports of delight and enthusiasm.

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

The fact that society has oftentimes destroyed its noblest geniuses avails little for the restraint of harshness. For years England was wildly merry at Turner's expense. The newspapers cartooned his paintings. Reviews spoke of them as "color blotches." The rich over their champagne made merry at the great artist's expense. After a while men found a little respite from the mad chase for wealth and pleasure and discovered that Turner's extreme examples represented peculiar moods in nature, seen only by those who had traveled as widely as had Turner, while his great landscapes were as rich in imaginative quality as those of any artist of all ages. Only when it was too late, only when harshness had broken the man's heart, and scorn had fatally wounded his genius, did scholars begin to adorn their pages by references to Turner's fame, did the rich begin to pay fabulous sums for the very pictures they had once despised, the nation set apart the best room in its gallery for Turner's works, while the people wove for his white tombstone wreaths they had denied his brow and paid his dead ashes honors refused his living spirit.

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

Witness also the contempt our age once visited upon Browning, whose mind is slowly becoming recognized as one of the rich-gold minds of our century. Witness the sport over Ruskin's "Munera Pulveris," and the scornful reception given Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." Now that a few years have passed, those who once reviled are teaching their children the pathway to the graves of the great. The harshness of the world's treatment of its greatest teachers makes one of the most pathetic chapters in history. God gives each nation only a few men of supreme talent. Gives it, for greatness is not made; it is found as is the gold. Gold cannot be made out of mud; it is uncovered. And God gives each generation a few men of the first order; and when they have created truth and beauty they have the right while they live to kindness and sympathy, not harshness and cynicism. No youth winning the first goal of his ambition was ever injured by knowing that his father's face did not flush with pride, while his mother's eyes were filled with happy tears, in joy of his first victory. No noble lover but girds himself for a second struggle the more resolutely for knowing that his noble mistress rejoiced in his first conquest. Frost itself is not more destructive to harvest fields than harshness is to the creative faculties. Strange that Florence gave Dante exile in exchange for his immortal poem! Strange that London gave Milton threats of imprisonment for the manuscript of "Paradise Lost!" Passing strange that until his career was nearly run universities visited upon John Ruskin only scorn and contumely, that ruined his health and broke his heart, withholding the wreath until, as he said pathetically, his only "pleasure was in memory, his ambition in heaven," and he knew not what to do with his laurel leaves save "lay them wistfully upon his mother's grave." In every age the critics that have refused honor to its worthies, living, have heaped gifts high upon the graves of its dead.

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

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

When a few weeks had gone by Carlyle discovered, through reading her journal, that his wife had for want of affection frozen and starved to death within his home like some poor traveler who had fallen in the snows beyond the door. For years, without his realizing it, she had kept all the wheels oiled, kept his body in health and his mind in happiness. Only when it was too late did the husband realize that his fame was largely his wife's. Then did the old man begin his pathetic pilgrimage to his wife's grave, where Froude often found him murmuring: "If I had only known! If I had only known!" For all his supreme gifts and rare talents were marred by harshness. Intellectual brilliancy weighs light as punk against the gold of gentleness and character. Half Carlyle's books, weighted by a gentle, noble spirit, would have availed more for social progress than these many volumes with the bad taste they leave in the mouth. The sign of ripeness in an apple, a peach, is beauty, and the test of character is gentleness and kindness of heart.

One of the crying needs of society is a revival of gentleness and of a refined considerateness in judging others. There is no disposition that cuts at the very root of character like harshness, and there is nothing that blights happiness and breeds discord like unlovingness and severity of judgment. We hear much of industrial strife, social warfare and want of sympathy between the classes. Be it remembered, gentleness alone can be invoked to heal the breach. There is a legend that when Jacob with his family and flocks met Esau with his children and herds, the angels of God hovered in the air above the two brothers and began to rain gifts down upon their companies. Strangely enough, each forgetting the gifts falling in his own camp, rushed forth to pick up the gifts falling in that of his brother. There was anger stirred. Epithets and stones began to fly, until all the air was filled with flying weapons. In such a scrimmage the messengers of peace had no place. Soon the sound of receding wings died out of the air, the gifts ceased to fall and all things faded into the light of common day. This legend interprets to us how harshness breeds strife and robs man of his gifts from God and his happiness through his brother man.

Several years ago an industrial war was waged in the coal districts of England that cost that nation untold treasure. It is said that the strife grew out of harsh words between the leaders of the opposing factions. It seemed that the industrious and worthy poor men overlooked the fact that there were industrious and worthy rich men and insisted on speaking only of the idle and spendthrift rich. Then followed his opponent who, as an industrious and worthy rich man, insisted on ignoring the industrious and worthy poor, but spoke only of the idle and thriftless poor, the paupers and parasites. Soon gentleness was forgotten and harshness remembered. Soon there came the trampled cornfields and the bloody streets.

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

Not war, not pestilence, not famine itself, produces for each generation so much misery and unhappiness as is wrought in the aggregate through the accumulated harshness of each generation. Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they who with humble talents make themselves like the mignonette, creators of fragrance and peace! Thrice blessed are they who with lofty talents emulate the vines that climbing high never forget to blossom, and the higher they climb do ever shed sweet blooms upon those beneath! No single great deed is comparable for a moment to the multitude of little gentlenesses performed by those who scatter happiness on every side and strew all life with hope and good cheer.

Life holds no motive for stimulating gentleness in man like the thought of the gentleness of God. Unfortunately, it seems difficult for man to associate delicacy and gentleness with vastness and strength. It was the misfortune of Greek philosophers and is, indeed, that of nearly all the modern theologians, to suppose that a perfect being cannot suffer. Both schools of thought conceive of God as sitting upon a marble throne, eternally young, eternally beautiful, beholding with quiet indifference from afar how man, with infinite blunderings, sufferings and tears makes his way forward. Yet He who holds the sun in the hollow of his hand, who takes up the isles as a very little thing, who counts the nations but as the dust in the balance, is also the gentle One. Like the wide, deep ocean, that pulsates into every bay and creek and blesses the distant isles with its dew and rain, so God's heart throbs and pulsates unto the uttermost parts of the universe, having a parent's sympathy for His children who suffer.

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

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

With shouts and transports of joy and admiration men welcome the patriot or hero who in times of danger held the destiny of the people in his hands and never once betrayed it. And let each intellect soar without hindrance, and the heart pour itself out before God in a freshet of divine love. Great is the genius of Plato or Bacon, revealing itself in tides of thought, but greater and richer is the genius of the heart that is conscious of vast, deep fountains of love, that may be poured forth in generous tides before the God whose throne is mercy, whose face is light, whose name is love, whose strength is gentleness, whose considerateness is our pledge of pardon, peace and immortality.



THE THUNDER OF SILENT FIDELITY:

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LITTLE THINGS.



"We treat God with irreverence by banishing Him from our thoughts, not by referring to His will on slight occasions. His is not the finite authority or intelligence which cannot be troubled with small things. There is nothing so small but that we may honor God by asking His guidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own hands; and what is true of Deity is equally true of His Revelation. We use it most reverently when most habitually; our insolence is in ever acting without reference to it, our true honoring of it is in its universal application. I have been blamed for the familiar introduction of its sacred words. I am grieved to have given pain by so doing, but my excuse must be my wish that those words were made the ground of every argument and the test of every action. We have them not often enough on our lips, nor deeply enough in our memories, nor loyally enough in our lives. The snow, the vapour and the strong wind fulfil His word. Are our acts and thoughts lighter and wilder than these, that we should forget it?"—Ruskin.

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



CHAPTER X.

THE THUNDER OF SILENT FIDELITY:

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LITTLE THINGS.

Schliemann, uncovering marbles upon which Phidias and his followers carved out immortality for themselves, has not wrought more effectually for the increase of knowledge than have those excavators in Egypt who have uncovered the Rosetta stone, with other manuscripts of brick and marble. Of all these instructive tablets and tombs, none are more interesting than one picturing forth a national festival in the Jewish capital. Upon his canvas of stone the unknown artist portrays for us Herod's temple with its outer courts and columns and its massive walls.

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

But when the lions of the procession had all passed by, there followed also the crowd of stragglers. From this post of observation we are told that Christ saw a poor widow advancing. With falling tears, yet with exquisite grace and tenderness, she cast in two mites, or one half-penny, then passed on to worship him whom she loved, all unconscious of the fact that she had also passed into immortality. For the noise of the gold falling into the resounding chest has long since died away. Jerusalem itself is in ruins. The old temple with its magnificence has gone to decay. The proud thrones and monarchies have all fallen into dust. But the silent fidelity of this obscure woman is a voice that thunders down the long aisles of time. A thousand times hath she encouraged heroism in poet and parent. Ten thousand times hath she been an inspiration to reformers and martyrs! Love and fidelity have embalmed her deed and lent her immortality. In the very center of the world's civilization stands her monument. For her Arc de Triomphe has been built in the human heart. Her monument does not appeal to the eye; it is not carved in stone; yet it is more permanent than gold, and her fame outshines all flashing jewels. While love and admiration endure the story of her humble fidelity shall abide indestructible!

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

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

And as with wealth, so wisdom without life's little things is impotent for happiness. Genius hath its charm; nevertheless, the wisest of men have also been the saddest of men. The story of literary greatness is a piteous tale. History tells of many beautiful and gifted girls who have married scholars for their genius, fame and position. When these honors were theirs they wakened to discover that all were less than nothing, since tenderness refused its mite and sympathy gave cot its cup of cold water. Home and fame became dungeons in which the soul sat and famished for love's little courtesies.

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

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

Our appreciation of the principle that greatness of any form is an accumulation of little deeds will be freshened by an outlook upon nature's method. The old science unveiled the universe as a divine thought rushing into instant form, stars and suns being sparks struck out on the anvil of omnipotence. The new science has found that earth's every atom has been slowly polished by an infinite artisan and architect. If we descend into the sea we shall find that the reefs and islands against which the tides of the Pacific dash in vain are built of coral insects, whose every organ exhibits the delicate skill of a diamond or snowflake. If we stand upon the fruitful plain where men build cities we shall discern that each flake of the rich soil represents the perfect crystallization of drops of melted granite. If we take the wings of the morning and dwell upon the summit of the Matterhorn there also we find that the mountain hath its height and majesty through particles themselves weak and little. For the geologist who analyzes the topmost peak of the Alpine ridge must go back to a little flake of mica, that ages and ages ago floated along some one of earth's rivers, too light to sink, too feeble to find the fiber of a lichen, therefore dropped into the ooze of mire and decay. Yet hardened by earth's processes, the day came when that flake of mica was lifted up upon the mountain's peak, wrought into the strength of imperishable iron, "rustless by the air, infusible by the flame, capping the very summit of the Alpine tower. Above it—that little obscure mica flake—the north winds rage, yet all in vain, below it—the feeble mica flake—the snowy hills lie bowing themselves like flocks of sheep, and the distant kingdoms fade away in unregarded blue." [1] Around it—the weak, wave-drifted mica flake—booms all the artillery of storms, when electric arrows with blunted points fall back from its front, as it lifts its might and majesty toward the enduring stars.

If ages ago the sages said, God is not in the earthquake, nor in the storm, but in the still small voice, now science reaffirms the declaration that omnipotence is revealed not so much through awful cataclysms and earthquake forces as through the silent agents and hidden processes that make the plains to be fruitful and hillsides to be rich in corn. In the past astronomy has been the favorite science, emphasizing the distant stars and suns. The science of the future is to be chemistry, emphasizing atoms and elements. Journeying outward in pursuit of the footsteps of God, advancing upon his distant and dizzy march, man's vision faints and falls upon the horizon beyond which are indiscernible splendors. Journeying inward upon the wings of the microscope, we shall find that there is another realm of beauty beyond which the utmost vision of man cannot pierce. For before the microscope "the last discernible particle dies out of sight with the same perfect glory on it as on the last orb that glimmers in the skirts of the universe." If God is throned in the clouds He is also tabernacled in the dewdrop and palaced in the bud and blossom.

The history of nations and individuals teaches us that the greatest gifts are poor and empty and the most signal talents worthless if the small things be not done, the two mites be not given. For life is marred by little infelicities and ruined by little errors. The broken columns and marble heaps in lands where once were cities represent destructions not so much through tornadoes and earthquakes as through small vices and unnoticed sins. In modern life also, journeying through city and forest and field, the economist returns to tell us that life's chief wastes are through little enemies and foes. It is a minute bug that steals the golden berry from the wheat; it is a tiny germ upon the leaf that blights the budding peach and pear, it is a rough spot upon the potato that fills all Ireland with fear of famine; it is a worm that bores through the planks of the ship's hull and alarms old seacaptains as approaching battleships could not.

The enemies of human life are not enemies that fill man's streets with banners and charging cannon. We wage war against the dust mote ambushed in the sunbeam; we fight against weapons hurled from those battleships called drops of impure water; we wrestle with those hosts whose broadsides invisible rise from streets foul, or fall from poisoned clouds. Such enemies that lurk in dampness and darkness, a thousand fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand. That great catastrophe that overtook Holland a century ago is not explained by a tidal wave that pierced through the dikes; the disaster was through the crawfishes that opened tiny holes and, weakening the bulwarks, let in the onrushing sea.

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

Human life is ruined through the absence of humble virtues and the presence of little faults. There is no man so great, no gift so brilliant, but let it be whispered that there is falseness in the life of the hero, and immediately his greatness is dwarfed, his eloquence becomes a trick, his authority is impaired. Reading Robert Burns' poems, he seems wiser than all the scholars, wittier than all the humorists, more courtly than princes. His genius blazes like a torch among the tapers. But watching this son of genius and of liberty weave a net for his own feet, and fashion a snare for his own faculties, with wistful hearts we long, as one has said, "to hear the exulting and triumphant cry of the strong man coming to himself, I will arise." But he loved the barroom more than the library, and so fell on death at seven and thirty, and lost his right to rule as a king o'er men's hearts and lives. Byron, too, and Goethe had gifts so resplendent that in kings' palaces they shine like diamonds amid the pebbles. What a constellation of gifts was theirs! Culture, sanity, imagination, wit, courage, vigor—all these stars were grouped in their mental constellations! Yet little vices dethroned these kings and made them plebeian. It is the absence of little virtues and sweet domestic graces that seem trifling as the two mites that robs the Roman poets and orators of their power over us. They had urbanites indeed, flowers, music, art, oratory, letters, song. The events of each day were executed like a piece of music, and even their sarcophagi were covered with scenes of feasting and revelry. But they were not true; and that false note jars through all their pages. Harshness in the poet and pride in the orator make their refinement and culture seem but skin deep.

We note that Pompeii was a paradise built beside a crater. The traveler tells us if we strike the rocky earth it rings hollow. Close by the calm lake is a boiling spring. In the very heart of the orange groves rises a column of smoke and steam. "The mist of lava jars on the music of summer, the scent of sulphur mingles with the scent of roses." Not for a moment can the traveler forget that beneath all this opulence of color and fragrance rages a colossal furnace. Thus the harshness and selfishness found in the eloquence and poetry of the ancient writers rob us of all joy in their splendid gifts. We yield homage only to the greatness that is also goodness. To ten-talent power the hero must also add tenderness to his own, kindness to the weak, unfailing sympathy to all. No giant is a full giant until he is also gentle, stooping to give his two mites to the weak, bearing to the weary his cup of cold water, ever emulating that hero, Sir Philip Sydney, wounded sorely indeed, but pushing away the canteen because the soldier, suffering great pain, had greater need.

In one of his essays Lowell notes that the great reform monuments are the humble deeds of humble persons, taken up and repeated by an entire people. The final victories for liberty and religion are emblazoned upon monuments and celebrated in song and story, but the beginnings of these achievements for mankind are often given over to obscurity and forgetfulness. Our age makes much of the "Red Cross" movement. Hardly fifty years have passed since two English girls boarded the steamer that was to carry them to the Crimea. Upon the distant battlefields, with their deserted cannon, wounded horses and dying men, at first these gentle girls seemed strangely out of place. The hospitals were full; neglected soldiers were lying in the thickets, whither they had crawled to die. Counseling with none, these brave girls moved across the battlefields like angels of mercy. Many years have passed. Now these nurses bring hope to every battlefield, and minister to every stricken Armenia, for the story of that sweet girl has filled the earth with "King's Daughters." One hundred years ago also England left her orphan babes to grow up in the country poorhouse, midst surroundings often vulgar, profane and brutal. One day two sweet babes, unnamed and unwelcomed, lay in the garret of a county-house in the outskirts of London. Then a poor, half-witted spinster, hearing of the young mother's death, found her way to the garret, brooded o'er the babes with all the dignity of our Mother of Sorrows, took the babes to her heart and planned how, with six shillings a week, she might keep bread in three hungry mouths. Four years passed by, and one day the lord of the manor stayed a moment before this woman's hovel and heard her prayer for the two boys clinging to her skirts. Soon the story of the woman's mercy was heard in every English pulpit, and in every town men and women made their way to the county-houses to take away the orphan babes and found instead some asylum for God's little ones. Now noble men in distant lands plan homes and shelter for little children, and the work of the obscure woman is a part of the history of reform.

Humble also is the origin of the anti-slavery movement that won its final victory at Appomattox. A century and more ago a young Moravian made his way to Jamaica as a Herald of Christ and his message of good-will. The horrors of slavery in that far-off time cannot be understood by our age. Then each week some African slaver landed with its cargo of naked creatures. Slaves were so cheap that it was simpler to kill them with rapid work and purchase new ones than to care for the wants of captives weakened by several summers. What horrors under overseers in the field! What outrages in slave-market and pen! So grievous were the wrongs negroes suffered at white men's hands that they would not listen to this young teacher. At last, despairing of their confidence, the brave youth had himself sold as a slave and wrought in the fields under the overseer's lash. Fellowship with their sufferings won their confidence and love. When the day's task was done the poor creatures crowded about him to receive Christ's cup of cold water. Long years after the young hero had fallen upon the sugar plantation his story came to the ears of young Wilberforce and armed him with courage invincible against England's traffic in flesh and blood. Soon Parliament freed the West India slaves and Lincoln emancipated our freedmen. But side by side with the heroes of liberty famed through monument and solemn oration, let us mention the young Moravian hero who loved Christ's little ones, and in giving "two mites and a cup of cold water," lost his life, indeed, but found immortal fame.

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

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

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

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

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

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



INFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.



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

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



CHAPTER XI.

INFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.

The history of a Jewish battle includes a dramatic incident. In the thick of the fight an officer brought to one of his soldiers an important prisoner. "Keep thou this man," said he, "with the utmost vigilance. Upon his person hang the issues of this campaign. His skill in leading the enemy, his courage and treachery have cost our side many lives. If by any means thou shalt suffer him to escape thy life shall be for his life."

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

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

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

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

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

This brief plastic moment is the inventor's opportunity, when the metal will take on any shape for use or beauty. Similarly the fields offer a strategic time to the husbandman. In February the soil refuses the plow, the sun refuses heat, the sky refuses rain, the seed refuses growth. In May comes an opportune time when all forces conspire toward harvests; then the sun lends warmth, the clouds lend rain, the air lends ardor, the soil lends juices. Then must the sower go forth and sow, for nature whispers that if he neglects June he will starve in January.

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

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

Alexander's march had scattered every whither the seeds of learning; the Greek language had turned the whole world into one great whispering gallery, in which the nations were assembled; all the provinces around the Mediterranean were linked together by the newly completed system of roads; the Roman judge was in every town to set forth the rights of citizens of the empire; the Roman soldier was there to protect all who brought messages of peace; the long-expected hour had struck. Then Christianity set forth from Bethlehem upon its errand of love. Along every highway ran the eager feet of the messengers of peace and good-will. Events were fully ripe, and soon Christianity was upon the throne of the Caesars.

How strategic that epoch called the fourth century! He who sat in Caesar's palace looked out upon a dying empire. The old race was worn out with war and wine and wealth and luxury. Civilization seemed about to perish, and society was fast sinking back into barbarism. To the north of the Alps were the forest children, ruddy and robust, with their glorious youth full upon them. These young giants needed the dying language and literature and religion, and these great institutions needed their young, fresh blood. But between lay the granite walls builded from sea to sea. Now mark what Charles Kingsley called "the strategy of Providence." Suddenly a blind impulse fell upon the forest children. Two columns started southward. The one rested upon the North Sea and marched southeast; the other rested upon the Ural Mountains and marched southwest; the two met and converged upon Trieste. Without maps or military tactics or plans, wholly ignorant that Napoleon's favorite method of attack was being carried out by them, these two columns converged toward the Alpine pass, and for ten years pounded and pounded against the Roman walls until these yielded and fell. Then the forest children poured down into the vineyards and villages and cities of the dying empire. Multitudes remained to intermarry and preserve the dying race. Other multitudes returned to their old home to sow the northern forests with those great ideas that were to carry civilization through the long night of the dark ages.

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

The strategic element enters into the individual career. Destiny is determined by our use of our critical hours. It is as if life's great issues were staked upon a single throw. Not but that the forces we neglect are permanent. It is that the strategic condition has passed out of them. The sluggard driving his plow into the field in July has sun, soil and seed, but the torrid summer refuses to perform the gentle processes of April. The man who in youth's strategic days denied to memory the great facts of nature and history, in maturer years still has his memory, but the plasticity has gone. It now refuses to hold the facts he gives it. The Latin poet interprets our principle by the story of the maiden in the boat, holding her hand in the water while she toyed with a string of pearls until the string snapped and the treasure sank into the abyss. The miner interprets opportunity lost through him who, for a rifle and a blanket, traded a rich copper mine that has since paid its owner millions. The historian interprets it by Napoleon's bitter signal to his General, tardy at Waterloo, "Too late! the critical hour has passed." Froude interprets it through the old hero bitterly condemning himself over his wife's grave, knowing that his wild love and fierce outburst of affection were impotent now to warm the heart that froze to death in a home.

Ruskin interprets it through a nation that allowed her noblest to descend into the grave, garlanding the tombstone when they refused to crown the brow; paying honors to ashes that were denied to spirit; wreathing immortelles only when they had no use save for laying on a grave where was one dead of a broken heart through a nation's ingratitude. Above all, Jesus Christ interprets it at midnight in Gethsemane, when he saw the torches fluttering in the darkness, heard the clanking of sabers and soldiers' armor, and in sad, reproachful irony wakened his disciples with these words: "Sleep on, now; sleep forever if you will! Henceforth no stress of your vigilance can help me; no negligence of your duty can harm me beyond the harm you have already wrought. Take your ease now. Sleep; the opportunity has gone." Then was the disciples' joy turned into mourning, and for garments of praise did they put on ashes and sackcloth. An irreparable loss was theirs. Yet for all of us each neglected duty means a tragedy. It is always now or never. The treasure wrapped up in each strategic opportunity is of infinite value. To-morrow can hold no joy when yesterday holds this memory: "While I was busy here and there my opportunity was gone."

How strategic the period of youth! Then the chiefest forces of life flow together in sensitive conjunction. Then four great gifts like four great rivers unite in one majestic current to bear up the young man's enterprises, and sweep him on to fame and fortune. Opportune are all the days when health spills over at the eye and ear and laughs through the lips. Men worn out are like overshot wheels—the life trickles and the buckets are filled slowly by long rests and frequent vacations. Young men are like undershot wheels—always, by day and night, the water overflows the banks.

Each morning the young soul wakens to the supreme luxury of living. The world is a great beaker brimmed with wine of the gods. The truth and beauty of field and forest and river give a pleasure that is exquisite to a keenly sensitive and perfectly healthy youth. Like an Aeolian harp, the slightest breath avails for wakening melody midst its strings. But years multiply cares. Age increases heaviness. Time destroys its own children. The poet says: "In youth we carry the world like Atlas; in maturity we stoop and bend beneath it; in age it crushes us to the ground." For the overtaxed and invalided, the dew-drops do not sparkle as diamonds; the wet grass suggests red flannels and cough sirups. For the nervous the bird's song is a meaningless chatter. For the sickly the clouds are big black water-bottles, though time was when they were chariots for God's angels, curtains for hiding ministering spirits trooping homeward at night, leaving all the air sweetly perfumed. It is the body that grants the soul permission to be happy.

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

Strategic the hour of prosperity. Men discount the speech of poverty, but the rich man's words weigh a ton each. It has been said that the poor man's dollar is just as good as the rich man's only when both are anonymous, for the dollar with a million behind it will go further than the dollar with a thousand behind it. This is a proverb: "A bid from Rothschild electrifies the market." Each new achievement and success builds higher the tower of observation that lifts the great man into the presence of the nation. All eyes are upon the prospered individual, all ears are alert to his whisper. Prosperity's voice is the voice of an oracle, all her words are winged. Every successful venture in the world of commerce or statecraft quadruples influence over the nation's youth. This principle interprets the curiosity of the boy in store or bank, asking a thousand questions about his successful employer. It explains why the eager aspirant for political influence searches all the journals for some word from Gladstone or Castelar or Bismarck. A sentence from these great champions hath sufficed for reversing the policy of a government. The memory of many triumphs lies back of the great leader's words and lends them weight.

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

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

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

Slowly the heart passes out of the penumbra. The mind, too long obscured like a sun eclipsed by clouds, searches out some rift. Suddenly reason comes into the clear. God rises like an untroubled sun upon the soul's horizon. How crystalline life looks! The mind literally exhales fancies and pictures, and each stick and stone is as full of suggestions and ideas as the forest is full of birds. Old problems become clear as noonday. Difficult questions lie clearly revealed before the mind like landscapes from which the fogs are lifted. Once the mind crawled tortoise-like through its work. Now it soars like an eagle. The soul seems a sweet-spiced shrub, and every leaf is perfumed. If in dull, obscure hours the soul was like a wooden beehive drifted o'er with snow, in its vision-hours the soul is like a glass hive out of which the bees go singing into sweet clover-fields. In these hours how unworthy the material life! How insubstantial the things of iron, wood and stone! Bodily things seem evanescent, as frost pictures on the window on a winter's morn. Then honor, integrity, kindness, generosity alone seem permanent and worth one's while. How easy then to do right. All habits that fettered the faculties like iron cuffs are now felt to be but ice fetters, quickly melting. Then the nobler self, using no whip of cords, looks upon meanness and selfishness, and by a look drives them from the heart and life.

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



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



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



CHAPTER XII.

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

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

Men are indeed familiar with the bursting of buds, the cracking of eggs and the growth of children; yet familiarity robs these facts of no whit of their mystery. No jeweler ever goes into the field with a basket of watches to plant them in rows, expecting when autumn hath come to pick two or three wagon-loads of stem-winders from iron branches; yet, were this possible, it would be no more strange than that in the autumn the husbandman should stand under the branches to fill his basket with peaches or bunches of figs. For wise men it is no more difficult to think of a growing engine than of a growing oak. What if to-morrow an engineer should plant a cannon ball. Having watered it well and kept the ground loose through hoe or spade, suppose that when a few weeks have passed the outline of a smokestack should push through the soil, to be followed a little later by a rudimentary steam whistle, the outlines of a boiler, and, rising through the sod, rude drive-wheels, piston-rods and cylinders, until after six months the great engine should stand forth in full completion. This phenomenon would be no more wonderful than that which actually goes on before man's blind eyes, when a tiny seed enlarges into the big tree of California and constructs a vegetable engine that lifts thousands of hogsheads of water up to the topmost boughs without any rattle of chains or the din of machinery.

With difficulty man constructs that musical instrument called a mouthharp, but nature, in six weeks, out of a little blue or brown egg constructs a feathered music-box that automatically conveys itself from tree to tree. But the mystery that has gone on in that tiny blue egg lying in the nest is just as great as if some housewife had planted an old spinning-wheel in the full expectation of reaping a Jacquard loom, or had buried a jew's-harp in the garden expecting in the fall to pick a grand piano. To the mystery that is involved in enlargement by growth must be added the mystery of intelligence. It is not an easy thing for an expert housewife, using the same formula, always to achieve the same happy results in the white loaf. He who plants a strawberry seed will find that the tiny seed will construct a plant, lay in the red tints according to rule and mix the flavor of the berry to a nicety that is the despair of the chef. In the tropic forests there is a flower with a deep cup and the pollen at the bottom. This pollen lies upon a little platter, and underneath the platter is that form of trap known as a figure four, much loved by boys. When the bee, creeping down into the flower, touches that platter, it springs the trap that throws the fertilizing pollen upon the legs of the bee, to be conveyed to the next flower. Wise men can, indeed, imitate this device, but a single seed will in a few months construct many scores of these mechanical devices. To-morrow morning the embryologist in his laboratory will place an egg under a glass cylinder in an atmosphere of 98 degrees. Four hours pass and suddenly the scientist perceives an atom in the heart of that egg give a quick lashing movement. Another moment witnesses two quick throbs. Growth has begun and in four months' time the young eagle with firm strokes will lift itself into the soft air. From the chamber of life and the chamber of death God hath never drawn the curtains. The chamber of growth is another most holy place in which God alone doth stand.

Deeply impressed by the fact of growth, scientists have also marveled at the principle that controls the harvest. Rocks enlarge by accretion, but from what a rock is at the beginning, the geologists cannot tell what will be the shape of that rock when all deposits are finally made. As to growth in seed and shrub, like produces like. He who sows wheat reaps wheat, not tares. He who plants a grape receives a purple cluster, not a bunch of thorns or thistles. He who sows honor shall reap confidence. He who sows frankness shall reap openness. No Peabody sowing industry and thrift reaps the harvest of indolence and idleness. Theodore Parker, loving knowledge and for it denying himself sleep and exercise, reaped wisdom, and also wan and hollow cheeks, while the iron frame and ruddy cheek are for the child of the woods who loves exercise in the open air. He who aspires to leadership and would have the multitude cheer his name, he who longs for the day when his appearance upon the street shall mean an ovation from the people, must make himself the people's slave, defy all demagogues, brave the fury of party strife, oft be execrated by politicians and sometimes be hated by the multitude. Having sown self-sacrifice and love, he shall reap fame and adulation. For nature's law is universal and inexorable—like produces like. The sheaf is simply the seed enlarged and multiplied. The sowing contains the germ of all the harvests to be reaped.