BX 9843 .J6 L6 1907 Jones, Jenkin Lloyd, 1843- 1918. Love and loyalty LOVE AND LOYALTY LOVE AND LOYALTY JENKIN LLOYD JONB-S "Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be, The last of life for which the first was made. B CHICAGO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 1907 Copyright 1907 By The University of Chicago Published November 1907 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicifco Press Chicago, Ulinois, U. S, k. TO THE CONFIRMATION CLASS ALUMNI OF ALL SOULS CHURCH, CHICAGO In whose strength I am strong, in "whose failures I am defeated, in whose love I find rest and peace. PRELUDE Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain; in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows shall be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the street; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; yea, they shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors shall be in the way; and the almond- tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets: before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the foun- tain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returneth to the earth as it zvas, and the spirit return- eth unto God who gave it. This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard: vm PRELUDE fear God, and keep his commandments ; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it he good, or whether it he evil. — Ecclesiastes 12:1-7, 13, 14. PREFACE "Printed sermons do not sell!" So say the pub- lishers, and they know. Notwithstanding, here is another "book of sermons;" there is no use trying to disguise the fact — sermons with the inevitable repeti- tions and reiterations. They are published primarily for the benefit of the two hundred or more girls and boys to whom they were first delivered. With the exception of the introductory discourse, they are all of them "class sermons," arranged in the order of their delivery. Thus they represent a cross-section of twenty-five years of a busy city ministry, and the volume is offered as a humble contribution to the quarter-centennial celebration of All Souls Church, Chicago. The text for each of these sermons is the class motto, for which the children sought diligently among the words of poet, prophet, ancient seer, and modern preacher. The search was often prolonged and laborious, but always delightful. No motto was chosen that did not finally represent a unanimity of opinion. Each text thus seemed at the time to be the keynote, not only to the studies but to the lives of those who cheerfully gave up their playtime one after- noon a week, from All Souls Day to Easter Day, that they might talk with their minister of the deep things of religion as discovered in the long story of human- ity and the short story of their own experience. It is X PREFACE thus a book of aspirations and encouragements; it seeks to inspire rather than to analyze the holy life. It is a book of illustrations and not of arguments. To fittingly state is to prove the religious life, for it is a thing of experience and not of doctrine. The conferences that led to these discourses frankly faced and freely discussed creeds and doctrines. The things that divide, the doctrines that provoke contro- versy, do not here obtrude themselves because the fundamentals are the universals; the conditions of nobility are the realities of religion. Many of the boys and girls to w^hom these sermons were first delivered are now^ men and w^omen, know- ing the joys and responsibilities of home-making and parentage. Their junior associates are pressing hard after. They all belong to the larger Confirmation Class, made up of those who would fain confirm their faith in the right, deepen their trust in truth, and make sacred the claims of duty, which rest in the thought of the divine fatherhood and the human brotherhood. What is applicable to one group of youths may prove of value to another, and insofar as these sermons may reach the heart of the young, they will certainly appeal to their elders. Hence they are offered to such "public" as they may reach. Jen KIN Lloyd Jones Abraham Lincoln Centre, Chicago July 17, 1907 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE I. Life's Commencements. IntroductBiy . . i 11. The Supreme Quest (1886) 21 III. An Appeal to Youth (1887) 37 IV. Ideals (1888) 57 V. Helping the Future (1889) 75 VI. Success and Failure (1890) 97 VII. Life's Commission (1891) 115 VIII. The Lite in Common (1892) 133 IX. More Stately Mansions (1893) . . . . 151 X. Into the Light (1894) 173 XL Little Candles (1895) 191 XII. Little Waves (1896) 217 XIII. Victories (1897) 235 XIV. The Game of Life (1898) 257 XV. The Sources of Power (1899) .... 273 XVI. The Rhyme of Things (1900) .... 291 XVII. About Thrones (1901) 309 XVIII. "Lincoln Soldiers" (1902) ;^^^ XIX. The Greatest Gift (1903) 353 XX. A Daring Faith (1904) 371 XXI. Secret Springs (1905) 393 XXII. The Rosary of a Holy Life (1906). . . 415 XXIII. Character-Building (1907) 435 LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS RALLYING SONG Comrades dear, the hour of meeting, Happy meeting, now is here. Hand in hand a cordial greeting Give we to our classmates dear. Golden are the cords which bind us, Truth and Love have made them strong. And our joyous hearts beat lighter As we join in happy song. Refrain: Fling on high our glorious banner, Let its colors sweep the sky, While we sing its noble watchwords, Freedom and Fraternity. Day is breaking! Souls are zvaking! Lovelight glows in eastern heaven; Truth, the sages taught the ages, Unto us — a trust — is given. Great the task that lies before us; We must labor day and night, Drive the dark of doubt before us. Widen swift the skirts of light. Onward ever; fear tve never; Truth is bold and Right is strong. We will climb the heights before us; Gathering courage from our song. Forward then, for time is speeding; Forward comrades, with a zvill. Heaven is near us, God doth hear us; He will guard and guide us still. Kate S. Kellogg LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS June days are full of congratulations to "sweet girl graduates" and "brave boy orators." Every com- munity in these days feels a springlike touch of hope and freshness coming from the schoolroom. Thou- sands of homes are rejuvenated and in a high way reclaimed — that is to say, claimed again to the service of the ideal — by the achievements of the schoolroom. Thousands of people find their lives recommitted to sweet and heroic things by the persuasive words that fall from the inexperienced lips of boys and girls. Inspiring is the thought of preparation years ripening into executive years, as the fragrant hours of the early morning give way to the exacting vigor of the working hours. Metaphors abound. The soldier now fully equip- ped, ready for battle; the sailor with cargo all aboard, ready to hoist his sail ; the farmer with his field plowed and seeded, ready to till and to garner — these and a thousand other figures are being worked and overworked on the graduation platforms of our American schools. I would not detract from this ideality. I do not distrust the song that pulses in the heart of the fledgeling as he stands on the brink of the nest, impa- tient to try his wings, drunk with the glad inspiration that pants to test the joys of flight and to know the 3 4 LOVE AND LOYALTY freedom of the upper air; though I may know what he does not, that the brink of that nest is not the start- ing-point to soaring flight, but that there will be many a tumble before the glad, confident voyage be realized. There is, from the vantage-ground of years, an undertone of sadness in all this congratulation over "the completion of study," "the finishing of the course." There is in these phrases a strange irony, much of which is corrected by the happy old English term "commencement;" for this word suggests a beginning and not an ending of study. In too many lives graduation day does indicate a stopping-place rather than a station upon the road. When the "exercises" are over, the "examinations" ended, "commencement day," with its ephemeral triumphs and unstable honors, passed, there comes the sad disillusion which shows how necessarily imperfect was the work accomplished, how crude and deceptive the power assumed. We are in danger of making too much of the "diploma" in our American schools. The parchment engrossed in ornate text, sometimes worded in bombastic Latin, and signed by faculty and trustee, often misrepresents more than it represents. Life at twenty is of necessity an imma- ture and incomplete thing, however the examinations and gradings may stand. Said Thomas Starr King: "Nobody can become wise in the best college on this planet between twelve and twenty." Let us, then, remember that the graduate is an LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 5 immature being, physically, mentally, and spiritually. The strain of "getting through" overreaches the mark. The "tasks," instead of being behind, are still before. That is a shallow and abnormal estimate of life that encourages the student to struggle through to the end of the school course, then draw a long breath, and, with painful and dangerous complacency, close the books of study with a vast show of relief and forthwith "begin life" on lower levels by vacating the upper stories of the mind. If parents were half as eager to surround their children with incentives to culture and stimulants to study after leaving school as they are to keep them in school long enough to receive a diploma and "finish" a course, there would be less need to bemoan the obvious fact that many sons and daughters who take honors in school disappoint the expectations of graduation day. "My son or daughter can have no more time for preparation; he or she must now go to work" — this is a sad way of putting it. Such a boy or girl is just at Life's commencement, and there is no good reason why the work and the study should not go on together, making of the future years growing years. It is the justifiable boast of the manual-training schools that a systematic use of the hands in technical and practical ways increases the activity of the brain and makes it more ready to grasp the principles hid- den in books and out of which books are made. Work stimulates and emphasizes study. If this is true in school, why should it not be true out of school ? 6 LOVE AND LOYALTY The young man or young woman who assumes that intellectual activities must be forgotten in the so- called practical affairs of life, reasons from very inadequate premises, and bargains for intellectual stagnation and spiritual apathy. In the large estimate of life, it is safe to say that the mind's maximum is not reached on the sunrise side of fifty. Other things being equal, no one prefers the opinion of a physician at twenty-five to that of one at forty-five. The boy lawyer does not carry the weight at the bar that the attorney does who has grown gray in his profession. It is an unconscious confession of the unreality of much of our religion and of the artificiality and conventionality of the life of many churches, that there is often a fancy for young preachers, a prefer- ence for the suavity and glibness that go with youth, rather than for the wisdom and serenity that are born of experience. The great achievements of life have been accomplished by men and women in the gray of life, not in the downy years of youth. The very reasons we offer why study must cease are the reasons which make the acquiring of knowledge not only more imperative but more possible than ever. I would not dampen the enthusiasm or mar the joys of the commencement hour, but I would conse- crate this enthusiasm and perpetuate the joys. It may be useful for graduates to make a thoughtful study of some of those who have preceded them on the graduation platform. A college graduate comes to his high moment at the end of a gracious procession LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 7 of white-robed and garlanded youths that have made streets beautiful, homes sunny, the names of churches blessed. In grammar school, high school and college he has joined in applauding some fourteen or sixteen such classes that have gone before him. With all these happy memories and radiant pictures, let him look back and see how many of the ''graduates" have pushed their studies farther into the science they affected; how many have increased their acquaintance with the poets they quoted in their graduating essays; how many still pursue the culture they eulogized on Commencement Day; how many of them continue to cultivate an acquaintance with the perennial books to which their schools days introduced them. If the result of such an inquiry be disappointing, then let the past graduate be a sacred warning to present graduates. It is evident that the school dis- cipline did not sufficiently strengthen the sinews of the will so that they might contend successfully with the dissipations and frivolities of life. The love of culture, the charm of poetry, the fascinations of science, and, above all, the joy of production, had not penetrated deep enough into the heart to become a ruling passion, a lifelong impelling power. Our first congratulations to the graduate, then, should be, not on account of what he has acquired, but because of that which is yet to be acquired. His past is rich only when it makes his future still richer. The opportunities for developing the intellectual life from twenty-five to fifty, though these years be 8 LOVE AND LOYALTY enmeshed in hard work and severe poverty, are greater than they can possibly be from five to twenty-five. Oh graduate, I congratulate you because you have left behind the hothouse methods, the cramming process, the hurrying strain of the schoolroom; you have completed the training directed by others ; now before you is the opportunity of deliberate acquirement, of soul-development, of painstaking research, of self- directing and self-constructing growth. There is for you a margin of time for study such as will make great intellectual acquirements possible in the next twenty-five or thirty years. Indeed, your dangers lie not in the direction of too much preoccupation. Spiritually speaking, the growth of that boy or girl is most threatened whose future is most choked with privileges, whose life is to be cursed with uncon- secrated leisure, whose strength is to be depleted with too much "means." Are they whose lives are neces- sarily cast amid books, pictures, social ease, and material luxury necessarily the favored ones? The contrary is too often true. From them the world sometimes has least to expect in point of sympathy, self-denial, and helpfulness of hand or heart. If my word could reach all who are about to turn from the schoolroom to hard work and to poor pay, I would say : You will have leisure and opportunity in the next twenty-five years which if not wasted, may make you intelligent in some of the sciences, familiar with a few of the great classics in literature, companions and more or less competent interpreters of some of the LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 9 great master-minds of humanity. This you can accompHsh alongside of, and in spite of, the maxi- mum of cooking and earning, sewing, serving, toil- ing, which the grim years may have in store for you. This you may do if you will, and thus turn grimness into graciousness. But in order to do this you must get rid of the delusion of a "Graduation Day," and make it instead a "Commencement Day." You must learn to despise the diploma that marks a stopping-place, and to prize the diploma that is the hopeful measure of ignorance and an introduction to the advance studies of life. The school house is perhaps not the best place to make brain, albeit a blessed help in the process and the best introduction to the better place. The college has no monopoly of the instruments of culture. The great brain-work of the world, the high achievements in all departments of human thought and research, have been accomplished outside of classrooms and independently of professors. Experience is the best of schoolmasters. The strong thinkers of the world have frequently been the readers of comparatively few books. Culture is never the result primarily of out- ward resources, but of inward energy. It would not be difficult to name one novel, one biography, one poem, and one book of essays, which might be com- passed in a year's time by the busiest man or woman, if possessed of the scholar's devotion to seek the best and the student's fortitude to be willing not to know everything in order to be sure of knowing something lO LOVE AND LOYALTY that would be an unfailing source of strength and joy throughout life. This could be accomplished by simply cutting off the abuses and the wastes of life. But the woman cannot realize this who gives her energies to the perplexities of "society," how to dress, and how to keep up with the procession. The man complacently confesses that he has forgotten what he once learned at college or high school. Then he was interested in geology or physics ; then he liked Homer or Shakespeare; but now he has had to give them all up because his "work is so exacting," his "business is so narrowing," and the "competitions of trade are so tyrannical." Is it this; or may it not be because the restless energy, the divine hunger, of the mind has been smitten with the lethargic fumes of tobacco which he has wooed with such dreamy indolence, or the shallow joys of the card-table through the hours that might have been seasons of delightful study? He has had such a hard time to get along that he has had but little money for lectures, art, books, or church privileges ; but he has had money and time for costly indulgences that do not stimulate the mind or expand the heart. Let such a one count up his own daily investment, the self-assessed tax for the things which have interfered with his growth of mind and expansion of soul, and let him, confronted by his own figures, realize that he has bargained for his own stupidity, that he has defeated life in his quest for success, that he has pauperized the man in order to make prosperous the man's affairs. LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS II All hail the graduates who on Commencement Day enter upon a continuous life-course; who are promoted into the higher university of the world, the curriculum of which includes the study of a woman's heart, the analysis of a husband's wants, a father's strength, a baby's smile, a neighbor's loyalty, a nation's need. You now enter upon a course that will take fifty years, God granting, to complete the undergraduate's work; and at the end of that time there will come another blessed Commencement Day, when the graduate enters into the university of the eternal life, the celestial seminary, where growth is still not only the privilege but the duty of the soul. Expansion must be the demand of heaven, as it is of earth. In pleading for the intellectual life, I plead for the economic life. There is nothing in this world so cheap as intelligence, nothing so inexpensive as cul- ture. The higher life need seldom plead the argu- ment of exhaustion: 'T am too tired to read; I am too sleepy to think when night comes!" Dear soul, do you realize that you are tired because you have partaken of no refreshment? The mind grows emaciated with the hunger which beef cannot appease. The brain grows drowsy for want of thought. There is physical strength in brain-activity. There is money-making power in poetry. The only way to make your own life endurable is to fill it with that which makes life radiant. By thought it is possible to convert pain into inspiration. By thought you may 12 LOVE AND LOYALTY coin poverty into wealth — a wealth which thieves cannot steal, which moth cannot corrupt. "Give me a great thought that I may refresh my- self with it," said the dying Herder. "Read me some- thing, something that has got meat in it, something from Paul," said the faint and hungry Lute Taylor, a Wisconsin poet who died ere his lamp was trimmed to give the clear flame that it was meant for. I remember that once, years ago, a poor, overworked, faded and fagged woman came to me, literally faint- ing under the burdens of life. She had been sorely pinched by circumstances. The hard exactions of life had pushed strength and endurance to the limit. She could not sleep. She could not rest. She could only work. I said: "Can you not read?" "Oh, I have no time or strength. I have not brain enough left at the end of my day's work." "Try it," I said ; "try Emerson; take his essay on 'Compensation.'" She did try, and slowly on the lines of high thinking she won her way back to peace and poise and health. She learned to pillow her head upon the serene thought- fulness of this physician of soul. Many years after- wards, with renewed health and youth, she pointed to the treasured volume as her cure. "This," she said, "is my Bible. It still gives me strength to live." If the brains of the young are immature, their moral natures are necessarily untried and "sappy." Pliant, graceful, susceptible, yielding, they may be like the young sapling emerging from the twig, but not stalwart, resisting, commanding, sublime like the LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 13 towering oak against which the storm strikes in vain, whose deep-seated heart the rifle ball cannot reach. We must correct our unphilosophic theory of the cherubic quality of child-nature; we must get over the sentimental impression that youth needs. but wings to make it angelic, and that, if the "coarse thumb of the world," the dirty-handed world, did not besmirch them, all young men would emerge full-fledged patriots, heroes, prophets, and saints. The contrary is true. It is this very same maligned world that takes the embryo conscience of the young man and young woman, oftentimes vacillating, selfish, greedy, visionless, and tempers it in the heat of conflict and the cold waters of disappointment, so that in due time it may stand the test, hold its edge, and prove a nation's defense. The intellectual life of man began before the moral life. Our schools are more successful in teach- ing theorems of geometry than in teaching the axioms of the moral law. But God has revealed himself in the moral universe in the same way as in the physical universe. Here as there he is discoverable only by observation and investigation. Duty is revealed only to the student of duty. Its assurances come to those alone who test and practice. "I hate that man," said the impulsive Charles Lamb. "Do you know him?" asked a friend. "Of course not. If I did, I could not hate him," was the stammering reply of the tender heart. Profoundly studied, men cannot be hated, for in the meanest soul there is the effulgence of God, 14 LOVE AND LOYALTY as the radiance of heaven is in the farthest star and the heat of the sun in the pebble under our feet. Just so one can be indifferent to the problems of reform and the moral questions of the day only by being ignorant of them. Think of dress reform, labor agitation, or the temperance question, and you can smile at them, "pooh-pooh" them, scorn them only by cuddling your ignorance of them. Look into any of them, touch any one of them intimately, and your heart warms to it, your head yields it atten- tion, and your soul glows with the fires of interest and enthusiasm. Get yourself to studying any problem, and you will find it growing on your hands. Follow the laborer into his union, and note the divine restless- ness of those who have been too long contented with mere existence. Consider the temperance problem. Ask not of the fanatic, but of the physician and the statistician : "What of this muddy stream of beer, this 'little wine for the stomach's sake,' or for 'sociability's sake'?" Let them tell you of the bodily organs bur- dened and stultified by it. Let them tell you of men diverted from nobler channels, of women's lives pauperized, of homes made soggy and shallow. Follow these things into their haunts, the swill pud- dles of our city ; note the fatty degeneracy in bloated faces, and see if you can maintain your genteel indif- ference and your polite complacency concerning these agitations and agitators. You can laugh at the young man's cigar and condone the boy's cigarette only by preserving your ignorance, by keeping your conscience LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 15 in the sophomoric stupidity of Graduation Day con- cerning them. Take a postgraduate course in the ethics of smoking; note the spiritual significance of the cigarette ; trace nicotine in its fell, though sly and slow, journey through the brain; listen' to the testi- mony of the professors in the Paris University, who tell you that their smoking students stand lower in scholarship than others; let the doctors of the Lon- don Dispensary tell you that they cannot apply leeches to tobacco-using patients because the poisoned blood promptly kills the leech; let the wardens of smallpox hospitals give the increased mortality of their tobacco- using patients; let Dr. Hammond, ex-surgeon- general of the United States army, a conservative authority, tell you the pathological effects of tobacco — and then see where you are landed. I call upon you graduates to take up these post- graduate studies in morals, that you may gain the indignations of active consciences and the consola- tions of quickened minds; for religion and morals, like science, find their inspiration in study. The so- called "Revelations" of religion need to be corrected and humanized by the study of subsequent ages. The moral sense needs training and developing. Justice is as complicated as mathematics, duty is as subtle as beauty, and both must be pursued in the same way. The virtue of today may be the wickedness of tomor- row. What was spiritual sensibility in the young man or young woman at eighteen may harden into bigotry at forty. I plead for postgraduate work in i6 LOVE AND LOYALTY morals. Young men and women, strive to bring your knowledge of right and love up to date. Here again let us seek no shelter behind excuses. Let us do our share of sincere thinking and of honest work. No man can be so poor that he cannot afford a clean conscience; and that only is a clean conscience which is an enlightened conscience. There is such a thing as damnable stupidity. Indeed, all stupidity is such when it is deliberately bargained for. The human soul is a climber, and only climbers know the joys of life. But let me not overemphasize the dangers of Graduation Day. Neither the intellectual nor the spiritual life is a thing of years. There is never a time when the soul does not need to be allied to all that is forceful, alive, and progressive. There will never be a time when the price of life is not living, never a time when the soul may not press forward with youth's ardor. One is never too old to learn, never too old to begin again, never old enough to "graduate." There are no "bread-and-butter necessi- ties," no home claims, no obligations to party and to country, that are not enveloped in right, that are not embosomed in duty ; and these again, I say, are dis- covered only by thought, by patient investigation, by persistent study. The soul, like Sarah, is never too old to give birth to Isaac, the child whose name is "Laughter," the child of joy, cheer, and encourage- ment. In Sw^edenborg's heaven the oldest angels are the LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 17 youngest. The Bible says : "There is that which scattereth, yet groweth strong." This is the paradox of the higher Hfe, the secret of the perpetual university, whose curriculum is endless. Let us be sorry for the girl who thinks she has "finished" her studies ; let us be ashamed for the boy who thinks that he has "received an education." Let us discourage the schools, if any there are, that are party to this infatua- tion; let us distrust even the salvation that is finished. The soul cannot be rounded out intellectually or spiritually by the time it is twenty years, or forty years, or ten thousand years old. Culture is practice ever growing. The soul is ever being saved out of lower into higher life. In these graduation days, then, we celebrate, not an ending, but a commencement; days, not of dis- charge, but of enlistment. We do not close life, but we open it. Let souls continue to aspire and struggle, and not accept destiny meekly. In these commence- ment days life takes a new lease on investigation, makes a new escape from dogmatism. Like Angelo at eighty, it dares undertake a new task, the building of a St. Peter's of the soul. I would not be blind to the beauty of the callow birdling. But I remember that the most interesting thing connected with that bit of softness in the moun- tain nest is that it is an eagle's chick, and that some day its pinions will be strong enough to rise above the storm, to soar over the ruggedest crag of the most inaccessible mountain. We will not be blind to the 1 8 LOVE AND LOYALTY great beauty of Commencement Day. I gladly yield myself to the enjoyment of the "sweet girl graduates" and the "brave boy orators;" but the most interesting thing about them is that they do not know much now compared with what they are yet to know. They have been matching rhymes in preparation for the poetry they are yet to be, if not to write. Some day the ideality of these girls will be precipitated into wholesome matrons, and the ambition of these boys will make of the sapling the great tree yielding the toughened and seasoned timber already alluded to. Any other view would make of the white graduation dresses a Chinese funeral garb, a symbol of mourn- ing, because it would mark a pathetic stopping-place. It may be asked : Why are the ideals of the uni- versity so remote from our lives? Why is the promise of our schools so often unfulfilled in our living? Why do graduates so often disappoint us? In reply, every specialist will offer his own explanation. One will point to the awful traffic of rum; another, to the narcotic weed, benumbing and stultifying the finer sensibilities of society; another, to the fact that woman's rightful place in the state is so long and unjustly denied her; another will point to false fash- ion, hampering dress, and social distractions; another will find the trouble in the fact that the rights of labor are trampled upon, and brain and brawn are poorly adjusted; others will plead the perplexities of "Tariff Protection" and the "congestions of trade," and still others the debilitating power of doubt and the invad- LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 19 ing demoralizations of heresy. These are all in the right, and all in the wrong. It is not because any one disjointed and dismembered reform is belated, but because of the slowness of society to realize, on the one hand, that any violation of any law in the world is sin against the God of the universe, from the penalty of which no one can escape on any plea of ignorance or under any "bill of exceptions," and, on the other hand, that all the virtues are of a piece, and that keep- ing one of them demands the keeping of all of them. No college parchment can make a "bachelor of science" or "master of arts" out of a silly girl or a tainted boy, and no culture of book or of laboratory can make a gentleman out of a selfish soul or a teacher out of a shallow woman. This conception of morals, this appreciation of spiritual laws, is slowly dawning upon those who pursue the postgraduate studies of life in the perpetual university of the world. Come forth into life, oh, young man and young woman! Come close to the heart of nature. Find shelter in the shadow of the masters. Find inspira- tion in the quest which inspired them. Wordsworth's "meanest flower that blows," Tennyson's "flower in the crannied wall," Burns's "mountain daisy," and Emerson's "rhodora" bloom for you and for me, and have for us their lesson too deep for tears, too high for doubt. The little sandpiper runs across the sandy beach, and the water-fowl wings its solitary way through the blue above, for you and for me as for 20 LOVE AND LOYALTY Celia Thaxter and William Cullen Bryant; and they may teach us, as them, lessons of trust, lessons of hope, lessons of high emprise, of bold adventure, of tireless quest. Through these and all helps we may "forget the things which are behind, stretch forward to the things that are before, press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God as it was in Christ Jesus," as it is in the vision that glows in your own hearts on this consecrated mount. THE SUPREME QUEST WORSHIP This is he, who felled by foes, Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows: He to captivity zvas sold, But him no prison-bars would hold: Though they scaled him in a rock. Mountain chains he can unlock: Thrown to lions for their meat, The crouching lion kissed his feet; Bound to the stake, no iiames appalled. But arched o'er him an honoring vault. This is he men miscall Fate, Threading dark zmys, arriving late. But ever coming in time to cr'ozvn The truth, and hurl zvrong-doers down. He is the oldest and best knozvn, More near than aught thou callst thy ozvn, Yet, greeted in another's eyes. Disconcerts with glad surprise. This is Jove, zvho, deaf to prayers, Floods with blessings unawares. Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson II THE SUPREME QUEST Truth is the only armor in all passages of^ life and death. — Emerson I have little use for age lines except to ignore them. I am not thinking of the children only, or of the unmarried, who are generally counted among the "young people." I am not thinking of boys and girls begging, in the exuberance of youth, for a postpone- ment of life's serious problems, asking for a little longer respite from the solemnities and responsibili- ties of life, saying: "Age and its perplexities, maturity and its anxieties, will come soon enough. Let us have a little more fun, a little more gaiety, a little longer play-time." I am thinking, rather, of those who are becoming conscious of powers not yet fully developed, energies not yet wholly directed, opportunities not yet appropriated. I am thinking of the young men and women deep in college studies, and the boys and girls in the happy delirium of school days, who are in danger of losing their way among their charts and missing the deep significance of life's sentences in the confusion of their conjugations and their parsings. I am think- ing of young men and women who are already in the battle of life, in some real fashion wage-earners, who have not yet fully realized that privileges mean responsibilities, that protection means obligation, and 23 24 LOVE AND LOYALTY that the opportunities of Hfe are taxable under the statutes of the Eternal. I am thinking of young men and women who have felt, and dared confess, the sweet but awful attractions of love. I am thinking of the young father and mother who have dared assume the responsibility of bringing children into the world, sweet and plastic bits of spiritual wax to be formed or deformed under the molding hand. To all these I would speak of the Supreme Quest of Life; for my text is a spark out of the glowing heart of Emerson's great appeal to youth, his essay on "Worship" in the volume entitled The Conduct of Life, whose very title is an eloquent and searching appeal. Listen to the sweet persuasion of the full sentence : How it comes to us in silent hours that truth is the only armor in all passages of life and death. This is the second exclamation. Note the preceding one: How a man's truth comes to mind long after we have for- gotten all his words ! — So much is text. Note the commentary: Wit is cheap and anger is cheap; but if you cannot argue or explain yourself to the other party, cleave to the truth, against me against thee, and you gain a station from which you cannot be dislodged. The other party will forget the words that you spoke, but the part you took continues to plead for you. I have been careful to indicate the source and sur- roundings of my text, because I am sure the best service my little sermon can render you will be that THE SUPREME QUEST 25 of sending you to the original scripture and helping you to a first-hand acquaintance with this evangel of Emerson, which may well become a fifth gospel in your New Testament. Turn to the pages of the essay on "Worship," read the passages which have been underscored dur- ing previous study, and see how the text grows on you. From the introductory poem to the great climax at the end, it is one great invitation to you to yield to the Supreme Quest, to seek the truth, to trust it when found, to live in its inspirations and die in its consola- tions. This is he men miscall Fate, Threading dark ways, arriving late, But ever coming in time to crown The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. Nor do I fear skepticism for any good soul. I dip my pen in the blackest ink because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot. The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation and the credit of truth and of honesty is as safe. We are born loyal, the whole creation is made of hooks and eyes, of bitumen and of sticking plaster. And whether your community is made in Jerusalem or in California, of saints or of wreckers, it coheres in a perfect ball. We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples. The stern old faiths have all pulverized. 'Tis a whole popu- lation of gentlemen and ladies out in search of religions Yet we make shift to live, men are loyal, nature has self-poise in all her works God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions. 26 LOVE AND LOYALTY When heroes existed, when poems were made, the human soul was in earnest. Shallow men believe in luck, in circumstances Strong men believe in cause and effect. Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.. The dice are loaded, the colors are fast because they are the native colors of the fleece. Nothing for nothing, or things are as broad as they are long, is not a rule for Littleton or Portland, but for the universe. There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated Society is a mask-ball where everyone hides his real character and reveals it by hiding. The divine assessors come up with man into life. What is vulgar and the essence of vulgarity but the avarice of reward? Fear God, and where you go men shall think they walk in hallowed cathedrals. Love, humility, faith, the glory of the human being, are also the intimacy of Divinity in the atoms. With duty for his guide man can face danger for the right ; a poor, tender, painful body can run into flame or bullets or pestilence. The moral .... is the coin which buys all and which all find in their pocket. Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. The weight of the universe is pressed down on the shoulders of each moral agent to hold him to his task. The only path of escape known in all the worlds of God is performance. You must do your work before you shall be released. "There are two things," said Mahomet, "which I abhor : the learned in his infidelities and the fool in his devotions." Honor and fortune exist to him who always recognizes the neighborhood of the great, always feels himself in the presence of high causes. THE SUPREME QUEST 27 These are sample stones, polished and precious, selected by the appreciative, though not always dis- criminating, pencil in some long-since-forgotten read- ing. If the disjointed fragments are so beautiful, how much more so is the balanced and poised column in its glowing completeness! My first and most earnest appeal to the young at this time is that they will read this essay on "Wor- ship" — read it and brood over it until they grow strong enough to live it more and more triumphantly, thus proving that truth is the adequate as well as the sole armor in all the trying passages of life and death. But our text is no sooner stated than we encounter the old question of Pilate: "What is truth?" for, whether born out of honest despair or out of moral cowardice, the New Testament question yet stands, the shield of the flippant, at the threshold of our inquiry. With it the lazy and the selfish parry the thrust of conscience. "What is truth?" "Show it to me, prove it to me, and I follow it; but why tor- ture me with the unattainable, or browbeat me with the unproved, the undiscoverable?" To this question we can safely make a few confi- dent answers that will strip us of our excuses and make plain the portion of the path of duty that lies just before us, however obscured the beginning and remote the end of the path may be. Truth is not a creation of fancy or feeling. Human reason may discover, but cannot create, a 28 LOVE AND LOYALTY single link in that endless chain of reality which is truth. The civil engineer must needs have at least two points outside of and beyond himself before he can start a single measuring line on the face of the earth. If he makes his own standpoint one end of his line, he can run it in any direction and it will prove nothing in the geography of the world. Truth has an objective reality. It belongs, not to your whims, your prejudices or preferences, but to the plans of the universe, the poise of things, the laws of the Eternal, to which we must conform because we cannot change them. Truth is not what you wish or I want, not what you think or I claim, but the order of things, the condition of cause and effect, the sequence of law. Truth, then, is no projection of the human mind. It is an embodiment of the divine order. Humanly speaking, truth is the quest of the human soul; only so much of it is discovered as is incarnated. Truth must be embodied in purpose, in spirit, in love; so truth is always ethical. There is a moral quality in the truth-seeker. Justice is the balance of things. Right is man's way of spelling God's truth. As truth is the supreme quest of life, so right is the superlative test. Duty is a better guide than stars or statutes. Doing is the road to knowing; being is more than thinking; indeed, it is the condition of all thought. Not with the head alone, nor yet with the lieart alone, but with all thy soul and with all thy mind shalt thou love the Lord, who is truth supreme. THE SUPREME QUEST 29 But the young may feel, if they do not urge, the demurrer that truth is anything but an armor in time of battle, or a defense in time of need. Whether you study life at short range and note how it is with your neighbor, or study it at long range and mark the ways of history, you have a right to the suspicion that truth leads to dangers dire and persistent. Truth is a menace to comfort, a handicap in the race of life. Truth is inconvenient in "society," as every ambi- tious wife or mother knows. Truth seems to be well- nigh impossible in trade, as nearly every business man unblushingly confesses. Truth makes one poor and keeps one poor. Truth makes enemies, ostra- cizes her devotees, and has sacrificed her prophets on the scaffold, at the gibbet, and on the cross. Said James Freeman Clarke : "All reformers have been hated and persecuted by those whom they desired to reform." Selfishness is the recognized law of com- merce, and self -protection and self -advancement, rivalry and competition, bloody wars and relentless conquests, have marked the road to national power. They indicate the price paid for dominion, Renan calls attention to the interesting testimony of language to this grim law. He tells us that the old Hebrews had one word for "gentle" and for "poor," and that "unfortunate" and "pious," "oppressed" and "humble," "poor" and "holy," were interchangeable words in the vocabulary of Israel. He adds that, when once in his oriental travels he spoke well of the inhabitants of a certain village. 30 il LOVE AND LOYALTY his dragoman replied: "It is not surprising, they are all poor people." On the other hand, the words "rich" and "strong" came also to mean "cruel" and "exorbitant," in the speech of Jewry. No, it hardly appears that truth is an armor effec- tive in the physical, social, or intellectual warfare of this world. The young mother feels this when she unconsciously becomes more solicitous that her child should learn to dance than that it should know the Decalogue. She may be shocked at this way of put- ting it, but she will contrive to give more personal attention to the former than to the latter. The young husband feels it when he seeks the club and its sanc- tions, rather than the church and its checks and rebukes, its warnings and its inspirations. The man of politics feels it when he serves expediency rather than justice, seeks to lean on public opinion rather than to lead it or defy it, or draws a wide distinction between a "safe leader" and the prophet and reformer. And yet all this is but a superficial and, in the long run, a false reading of the laws of life. Even the coarser and lower interests of life cannot be per- manently served by anything but truth. Society fails in the end to take care of her unscrupulous devotees. The flippant man and the silly woman go to their own place in spite of all their "frills" and "func- tions," their "receptions," their amusements, and their etiquette. Even in business the scales of trade are made of steel ; the stern hand of fate lays ultimate hold of the unscrupulous peculator and the THE SUPREME QUEST 31 reckless speculator, and proves that even here "hon- esty is the best policy." And the time is coming, if it is not already here, when the president and the prophet must stand in the same pair of shoes, and the statesman must lead and not follow public opinion. The masses would fain hail their representatives in the van. rather than beckon them up from the rear. The higher concep- tion of government is a co-ordination of the people in an effort to bring the life of the many more and more to a level with the attainments of the few; in other words, to actualize the ideal. Thus the former must also be the reformer of public morals and ideals. The legislative department must become a school of government; the judicial department must represent the heart as well as the science of justice; and the executive must be, not simply the servant of the people, but the interpreter of the people's life, the guardian of their higher interests, the leader and not the follower of the loyal masses. This theory of government is vindicated by his- tory. No fertility of acres, no prosperity of com- merce, no achievement on the battlefield, has ever yet made a nation honorable; much less made it permanent in the annals of the world. Let the story of Israel once and for all answer as illustration and proof of this statement, and let Renan state the case for me : The thinkers of Israel were the first to revolt against the injustice of the world, to refuse their submission to the inequali- 32 LOVE AND LOYALTY ties, the abuses, and the privileges without which there can neither be an army nor a strong society. They compromised the existence of their petty nationality, but they founded the religious edifice which, under the name of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam- ism, has served as a refuge for humanity down to the present day. Here we have a lesson upon which modern nations cannot reflect too much. The nations which abandon themselves to social questions will perish, but, if the future belongs to such questions, it will be a grand thing to have died for the cause which is destined to triumph. All the plain, sensible people of Jerusalem, about the year 500 b. c, were furious with the prophets, who rendered all military or diplomatic action impossible. What a pity, nevertheless, it would have been if these sublime madmen had been arrested ! Jerusalem, perhaps, would have remained for a littje longer the capital of an insignificant kingdom; but she would not be the religious capital of humanity. Illustrations crowd. The pages of history are resplendent with the names of those who have proved the sufficiency of truth as an adequate armor in all passages of life and death. If ever a man fell on evil times, it was Jeremiah. He had to witness the severest ordeal of a patriot and a prophet. He had to stand by and see his country invaded by a foreign foe, until the capital city was sacked, burned, and left in desolation. He saw his nation grow degenerate under the corrupting influences of alien peoples, and her religious altars neglected and deserted by her own children. He suffered every indignity possible from those high in office and from the servile multitude; he was pilloried in the public square ; the dungeon in the prison keep was not terrible enough for him, and he was lowered by ropes into a THE SUPREME QUEST 33 muddy cistern; and still he persisted in singing clear the hymns of faith, testifying to the truth as he saw it. It was his message, written not upon parchment, but upon the lives of men and women — aye, written in his own enkindling life — that permeated the walls of Babylon, eluded her armies, defied loneliness and death, within half a century brought Israel back to her lost city, and with a new generation rebuilded her temples and made Jesus and his disciples possible. Dropping down through six hundred or more years of troublesome times, we come upon another Jew who, according to his own estimate at least, was weak of body and insignificant of presence, ever with "a thorn in the flesh." He writes of himself: In labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep. In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren ; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. But it is the same joyful story of a glad triumphant life. It was Paul that was the founder of organic Christianity. He, more than any other man the world has ever known, I believe, succeeded 34 LOVE AND LOYALTY in proving that the rehgious instinct is more funda- mental than race inheritance, class distinctions, or intellectual conceptions. He was the great liberty advocate in the story of monotheism ; he was the high bridge over which Asiatic idealism passed and took possession of Europe, over which Hebrew prophecy passed into Christian institutions. His spirit, so loyal to truth as he saw it, made him the first great cosmopolitan in religion. In his hands religion began to be universal in its objective manifestations as well as in its subjective principles. Paul fought and con- quered, suffered and triumphed, with only truth for an armor. I have thus put Jeremiah, the true forerunner of Jesus, and Paul, the greatest apostle of the Christ, before you that we may see standing between the two in truer perspective the great central witness of all history to the vitality and reality of my text. This "man of sorrow," this man born in a peasant home, the child of a carpenter, the consort of fishermen, the missionary of the roadside, the friend of sinners, cast out by the church, outlawed by the state, was poorer than the birds of the air and the foxes of the rocks; for in life he had "no place whereon to lay his head," and in death his head bore a crown of thorns and rested on the upright of a cross to which were nailed his hands and feet. And still it is he, thus despised and defeated, that has been the visible wit- ness of God to man, the representative of the Father of souls to untold millions throuo-h nineteen centuries THE SUPREME QUEST 35 of mortal time. And today that loyal life illuminates parable and beatitude so that they shine in prison cell and in royal courts, rebuking kings on their thrones and upholding beggars in their rags. Yea, verily, truth is the only adequate armor in life!. And so is it in death. Death is the least of the concerns of the truth-lover. Death has no terror to the truth-seeker. Aye, to him there is no death, only a deepening of the mystery that is ever present and that is ever being solved to the loyal. I know not where his islands lift Their f ronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond his love and care. This is the swan-song of the truth-lover. He is incurious as to the beyond, knowing that there is more of mystery and marvel, more of power and beauty, more of God and man, in this present moment than the human soul can fathom. Why, then, be so impatient for more; why so faithless because of the more astounding mystery? Let us seek this satisfying and abiding wealth; let us know the strength that cannot wane, and rejoice in the peace that cannot be taken away from us. Clad with this armor of truth, we can do with- out many things, and the few things that we have will go far. There is no plenty, even of the cheapest and the coarsest kind, without wisdom, and with wis- dom there is no poverty so dire but there will be a margin of time for thought, for love, for duty. 36 LOVE AND LOYALTY Clad in this armor of truth, we are indeed equal to every passage in life or in death; but without it we are indeed inadequate to the simplest duty, weak in the presence of the meanest temptation, peevish and selfish in the presence of the divinest revelations of love and hope and faith. AN APPEAL TO YOUTH RABBI BEN EZRA Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the fifst was made: Our times are in his hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shozvs but half; trust God; see all nor be afraid. Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough. Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe! For thence — a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, — Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And zuas not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage. Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. — Robert Browning Ill AN APPEAL TO YOUTH Grotv old along with me! The best is yet to he, The last of life, for tvhich the first was made. — From Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra" Many think that the genius of Robert Browning achieved its highest results in the poem entitled "Rabbi Ben Ezra." Be that as it may, this poem would certainly stand in almost any possible list of the ten great short poems in the English language. To my mind it stands next to Browning's "Saul" in religious power and ethical insight. It is a great lyric of the thoughtful soul, a hymn of religious philos- ophy. In it is compacted in matchless verse the mature wisdom of a mind trained by observation, sympathy, and study. So rich is it in thought that we forget the poetry and study it as philosophy; so rhythmic is it in its song that we forget its philosophy and delight in it as psalmody. "Rabbi Ben Ezra" was first published in 1864, when the poet was fifty-two years of age. But he had not forgotten the inspirations and aspirations of his youth. It is the mature man's version of the intoxicating vision of the boy as expressed in "Paracelsus," a poem published in 1835, when Robert Browning was twenty-three years of age. In 39 40 LOVE AND LOYALTY "Rabbi Ben Ezra" experience not only justifies the high hopes and the apparently wild purposes of youth, but enlarges upon these, presents with firmer grasp, states with more deliberate accent, and counts in still more rhythmic numbers that conception of the life of man which makes it an integral part of the life of God, and which not only rests upon the hopes of the mortal as a pledge of immortality, but makes of mortal experiences a part of the immortal life already begun. Into the mouth of the great mediaeval rabbi, Robert Browning put his philosophy of life — a philos- ophy that finds the great declarations of Israel's greatest prophets justified and verified in human history and by modern science. This poem cannot be adequately measured in a Sunday sermon. It is not to be mastered in a college classroom or disposed of as an exercise in English literature. It is to be interpreted only by experience. Its power and beauty work upon the soul only when that soul lends itself to profound emotion, is moved by high aspirations, or plowed by deep disappoint- ments. This poem reaches from the ecstasies of the heart to the perplexities of the head, and the anguish and humiliation of conscience. It challenges study in many directions. It baffles the classifications of Browning clubs and Browning interpreters ; you will find it now in the list of Jewish poems, again among religious poems, the poems of evolution, poems of philosophy, or the poems of faith. AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 41 For my present purpose, I shall dwell upon this poem as an appeal to youth — the word of a man in middle life to the young men and women who are following hard after him. The poet on the table- lands of human life, the serene maximum of which is termed middle age, looks back at the feverish life of boys and girls, sees the distraught years of youthful passion and ambition, and speaks to them in the accents of a sage, bidding them be of good cheer, and to push on, "see all nor be afraid." For he sees, what they may not surmise, that life is one continu- ous whole, toward which each event, emotion, and moment contribute — a whole that is planned by the Infinite Mind. Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid. Our poet is no contemner of youth; he would not dampen its enthusiasm, or even stay its restlessness; he sees the hesitation, the distractions, the child-like — or, if you please, the childish — daintiness that knows not which rose to cull, which lily to leave, and, while admiring stars, finds neither Jove nor Mars quite satisfying. Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all. All this is a hopeful sign to our poet; instead of remonstrating, he "prizes the doubt" Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. He would not have youth imitate the stolidity of the "crop-full bird" or the complacency of the "maw- 42 LOVE AND LOYALTY crammed beast." This would indeed be a "poor vaunt of life," which is meant for some higher purpose than "to feed on joy." His cry to the youth is rather: Rejoice we are allied To that which doth provide And not partake, effect and not receive ! A spark disturbs our clod; Nearer we hold of God Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! Be our joys three-parts pain ! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe ! And, though pain end in pain, though the strain may not achieve, and the pang and the throe fail to realize, still he would say: "It is well, very well." Here we come upon one of the most fundamental principles of Browning. His superlative message to youth is that results are of minor importance, and that aim is not only the higher test, but the only true measure of life. In "Saul" he says: 'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do. In the "Inn Album" : Better have failed in the high aim, than vulgarly in the low aim succeed. He would say to young men and women : "The AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 43 things you are least capable of measuring are the alleged failures of life." His cry is: "Beware of alleged successes. Here more than anywhere else you need to take counsel, not of flesh and. blood, but of the spirit within. Earthly failures may and do con- tribute to heavenly successes." All men strive, and who succeed? What hand and brain went ever paired? What heart alike conceived and dared? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen? It is the low man that succeeds, the high man that fails. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred's soon hit : This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. These quotations gleaned from other poems find their climax in the more splendid lines of Ben Ezra : What I aspired to be. And was not, comforts me : A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand. The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice : But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb. So passed in making up the main account; 44 LOVE AND LOYALTY All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount. Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act. Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be. All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. To realize the good in this struggle, we must learn to value the "past profuse" that reveals power and lifts us now to the love that helps perfect us. The poet bids youth rejoice in its flesh, which is the "rose-mesh" of the soul : Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole !" As the bird wings and sings. Let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul !" It is by help of the body, not in spite of the body, that we find A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. Thus it is that through the first twenty-five stanzas of the poem old age vindicates youth, justi- fies its restlessness, rejoices in its passions, sees it enriched by its inheritance and enthroned in nature, the soul set in flesh as the diamond is set in gold. This because it is a preparation for the next thing. AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 45 As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made! So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than -tempt Further. Thou waitedst age : wait death nor be afraid. All this leads up to the cHmax of the poem, which borrows its figure from Isaiah, Paul, and the pagan poet Omar Khayyam. Here the poet sees huinan life shaped by the divine hand as the potter shapes the clay on the flying wheel. Mid the "dance of plastic circumstance" the soul receives its bent, is tried, turned, impressed, decorated, not for the sake of the decoration or the shape, but for the higher uses of the cup in the Master's hand to slake the thirst of infinite being when no longer earth's wheel is needed. Then youth reaches its divinest prayer as it yields itself to the final test in the closing words of our poem: So, take and use Thy work : Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain of the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand ! Perfect the cup as planned ! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! So much for an introduction to the Browning sermon on the text: Grow old along with me ! The best is yet to be. The appeal to youth is found in the invitation to accept the proffered task; not with stoic resignation 46 LOVE AND LOYALTY but with eager enthusiasm; not with calculating resignation, but with that "fierce energy" in which Paracelsus rejoiced as the adequate warrant for the venturesome soul that dares plunge like the diver in his search for pearls. The prize is well worth the adventure. Perhaps I should do well to stop here. Certainly I shall do ill if I divert your minds from the match- less sermon which Robert Browning put into the mouth of the great Jewish sage, Rabbi Ben Ezra, who was born in Toledo, Spain, about the year 1090 A. D., and who died after having been for some seventy-eight years a wanderer on the face of the earth, as the wiser men of those days had to be. He won for himself permanent fame as philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet. Contemporary scholars honored him, and he is described in the old records as having "indefatigable ardor and industry in the pursuit of knowledge." But he was driven with his co-religionists from his native land, which, alas, has been so blighted by a passion for persecu- tion. He drained the cup of failure to its dregs. His lack of "success," as the word goes, was so monu- mental that he said: "The stars are against me. If I sold shrouds, none would die; if candles were my wares, the sun would not set until the day of my death." He wrote of himself: "As a withered leaf, I roved far away from my native land of Spain and went to Rome with a troubled soul." Recent students discover evidence that Robert AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 47 Browning found his own wisdom strikingly phrased in the wise words of this hunted Jew, who wrote out of these humihating faikires : "Man is not a bird or beast to find joy solely in feasting." The divine spark within us is nearer to God than are the recipi- ents of his inferior gifts. So, our rebuffs are stings to urge us on, our strivings are a measure of ulti- mate success; aspiration, not achievement, divides us from the brute. Says a modern biographer: "While this remarkable man was running from east to west and from north to south, his mind remained firm as to principles he had once for all accepted as true; his advocacy of freedom, his views concerning angels, the immortality of the soul, he held to the end." It was his exile, we are told, that led him to write his books, which were so great that his over- shadowing contemporary, Maimonides, who has been called "the light of the Middle Ages," recom- mended them to his son as the exclusive object of his study for some time. But, without changing or adding to the sermon of "Ben Ezra," let us seek for an interpretation in the humbler sources of our own lives. First, I would emphasize the appeal to youth for seriousness. Too long has youth been regarded as only the playtime of life; too often has life been cheapened by youth's mistaking jocularity for joy, hilarity for pleasure, flippancy for happiness. Oh, the years of youth are too few, too precious, to be wasted in mere preparation for usefulness farther 4& LOVE AND LOYALTY along. My youthful friends, the world needs today your young years; great causes languish for your youthful support. Why withhold your service until war's alarms are sounded? When awful bat- tle dangers are pending and physical prowess is in demand, then the nation ever turns to its young men, and they promptly respond. When the "long roll" is beaten, boys become manly and promptly "rally around the flag." Are these the only things worthy your enthusiasm? Can boys be transformed only on the lower levels of life, such as are symbolized by the bayonet and the bullet? Are our girls' services available to the state and the church only when there is lint to be scrape and bandages are to be rolled? I for one will not believe it. Today you are needed, young men and young women, in the army corps of peace ; your service is called for in the battle for purity, for honesty, and for virtue. And, in pleading for this seriousness, I plead for your joy; nay, for some- thing more than joy — for peace, serenity, aye, blessed- ness — a word which finds its picturesque quality in the Welsh of my mother-tongue in gwynfyd, the "white world," the "spotless land," the land which becomes the radiant life. In pleading for seriousness, I plead for your happiness even more than for your usefulness. Among the permanent treasures in American song are the volumes from the pen of Edith M. Thomas, whose guileless spirit has made her the interpreter of flowers and birds. Two of these are AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 49 entitled In Sunshineland and Fair Shadowland. The American people will not spare either of these volumes, for both contain exquisite melodies, dainty conceits, faultless rhythm. But the student of these poems will promptly find that the songs of Shadozv- land have a charm which the carols of Sunshineland miss. Edith Thomas is no unworthy interpreter of Browning, and I will let her echo the wisdom of Rabbi Ben Ezra. Like him, she rejoiced in youth and its hilarity, but with him she recognized the last- ing inspirations in the passing joys of youth. She says : Vex not that impassioned soul Whereupon all issues roll, Fraught with joy or fraught with woe, That our common lot may know. Nay, but as thou canst, assuage The burden of his heritage; For there live within his breast Memory, foresight, all unrest, Whether pain or pleasure hold The heart's recesses manifold. Again, in a poem entitled "The Domino," she describes the soul as "a pilgrim clothed in hodden gray," going forth in quest of love. He encounters in succession Indifference, Pride, and Anger, and on short acquaintance each calls forth the exclama- tion: "You look like love." Yet none of them satisfies. But at the last — I met a fugitive distraught, undone, Who sometimes stayed for dread, and sometimes run. so LOVE AND LOYALTY Though lord of all that sweetest bards have sung. Not one poor word supplied his halting tongue, But all his soul he lavished in a sigh. "So, you are love !" quoth L This is the final exclamation of the soul. It is the halting silence, the brooding life, that finds love. My next appeal to youth is an appeal for democ- racy. Begin early to make common cause with all your kind. The greatest menace to your happiness today and your usefulness tomorrow is the menace of aristocracy. I mean the tendency to take a part for the whole, to be lured by the glamor of lines; a preference for a superficial excellency; a belief, not only in the legitimacy, but in the permanency, of the passing distinctions of society. Unguided youth falls an easy victim to sectionalism, partisanship, to club and society politics. It is "our set" that frequently dominates the youthful ambition. Some Greek-letter-society enthusiasm or class politics too often consumes the devotion meant for diviner ends, and social circle or geographical center asks and receives that fidelity and enthusiasm, that service and support, which belong to something broader and nobler, something more holy, than the cliques and classes of youthful preferences. Remem- ber that all political policies and denominational creeds fade as you approach the highlands of the spirit. Again, Edith Thomas, in the spirit of Rabbi Ben Ezra, has sung the lesson of age to youth: AN APPEAL TO YOUTH $1 Listen, thou child I used to be ! I know what thou didst fret to know — Knowledge thou couldst not lure to thee, Whatever bribe thou wouldst bestow, That knowledge but a way-mark plants Along the road of ignorance. Listen, thou child I used to be ! My soul to wrath 'gainst wrong is used, Where thou wast fed with vanity, The doer and the deed confused. Right wrath the deed stabs soon or late, The doer spares, his deed to hate. Listen, thou child I used to be ! Unproud I move, and yet unbowed. Where thou wast fed Avith vanity. Thy chiefest pride — thou wast not proud ! True lowliness forgets its state. And equal trains with small or great. Listen, thou child I used to be ! I am what thy dream-wandering sense Did shape, and thy fresh will decree, Yet all with subtle difference : Where heaven's arc did seem to end. Still on and on fair fields extend. The next appeal of age to youth, as it comes to me, is that you work on long lines, taking to heart the wisdom of the oid Greek, which Longfellow translated into your favorite song: Art is long and time is fleeting. When in 1882 I visited my birthplace, the wisest kinsman I found in that Welsh countryside was a $2 LOVE AND LOYALTY young cousin who had leased for ninety-nine years a grim, rocky old hill, a barren bluff, on which he was setting out young spruce trees not waist-high. He cal- culated that in thirty years the spruce would yield a few poles to the timber market, and that fifty years hence they would prove a modest fortune to the owner thereof. Intelligent agriculture is reclaim- ing the wasted and now non-productive lands of Mis- sissippi and Alabama by setting out extensive planta- tions of pecan trees, which will begin to yield a prof- itable harvest eighteen or twenty years hence. Invest your lives, oh, young men and young women, on long lines ! Heed the example of the pecan farmers; imitate the adventure of my Welsh cousin and plant spruce trees that fifty years hence will begin to bless the world ; plant that which will make your children's children rich; so invest your youth that your triumphs may be chanted by the winds moaning in tall tops of trees whose roots will find your fertilizing ashes in deep graves. Believe in the future ; let no short-sighted cynicism dampen your con- fidence in the permanence of this old earth of ours, in the unrendered possibilities of the human nature which you now represent for a while on earth, and for the improvement of which you are now trustee. An account of your stewardship you must render to a future that will despise your faithlessness or honor your fidelity. Lose no time in asking who will culti- vate the trees when you are dead. Shame on the mis- giving that plants sunflowers to spring forth, give AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 53 their fruit, and die in a season, rather than pine trees whose virgin boughs will be yet untouched with seed-cones when you are grown gray. Work on long lines, oh, young map and young woman! Believe in the future. Dare to work for it. You must plan big things, if ever you hope to achieve small things. The French poet Beranger gave a parable of the successful life in a poem entitled "Grand Plans," which has been translated by Miss Thomas. In this parable the poet started out in youth to write an epic. Gradually, as life advanced, the epic was abridged to a tragedy, the tragedy gave way to the easier ode, the ode dwindled to a song, the song was abridged to a quatrain. But the quatrain was achieved. Four lines of poetry were realized because an epic was aimed at. Let the young, then, lend themselves to great schemes — not the big things that pass, but the long things that last. Beware how you sell life cheap. Beware lest you cheat the present by discounting the future. Have faith that tomorrow will at least be equal to your best today, and that the present cannot conceive a nobility which the future will not appre- ciate, or lay the foundations of a cathedral so worthy that those who come after will not know how to rear the superstructure. Work on long lines. Have at least as much faith in the future as had the old pagan astronomer poet of Persia, Omar Khay- yam, when he wrote : 54 LOVE AND LOYALTY And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, End in what All begins and ends in — Yes; Think then you are To-day what Yesterday You were — Tomorrow you shall not be less. So when that Angel of the darker Drink At last shall find you by the river-brink, And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul Forth to your Lips to quaff — you shall not shrink. When you and I behind the Veil are past, Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, Which of our Coming and Departure heeds As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast. Lastly, age invites .you to the high task of peace- making. We are entering upon a reconciling cen- tury. ReHgion looks to you for a harmonizing ministry. In this task more than anywhere else will be found your installation into the priesthood of the gwynfa, the white lands, the beautific paradise over which shall float the unstained banners of peace, the white flag of harmony. Let the flag of whatever country or party or sect you choose float over you, but let it always be rimmed with white, witnessing to the fact that we have had fighting enough. The world is weary of war. The patriotism that launches battleships with boom of cannon and blare of trumpet is yet to be followed by the nobler patriotism that with higher psalm, nobler music, and louder acclaim will scuttle the same battle- ships, sending them to their eternal rest in the depths of the deepest sea. AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 55 In religion the cry is reconciliation, not conquest. My young friends, seek the underlying harmonies of love and the overarching rainbow of hope, rather than the surface distinctions of creeds and of sects. Work for peace in religion. '^' Sociology is but the scholar's word for unity, economic harmony, social co-operation. It is mutuality opposed to competition. It is wealth in the plural number, which is commonwealth. No man is wealthy today, no man can reap the benefits of wealth today, who puts his possessive case in the first person singular and says "mine;" nay, who even dares to think "mine" and believe "mine" rather than "ours'' "ours/' and still more. "OURS !" The venerable Bede, the old English bishop of the seventh century, tells in his chronicles that, when a certain priest was sent to Kent to fetch King Edwin's daughter to be married to King Oswin, he so planned his journey as to return with the lady by water; whereupon the bishop got him a pot of oil to cast into the sea, if he should meet with a tempest. This he did when the tempest came, and the sea was calmed. Later science has demonstrated as possible what was long supposed to be a monkish legend. At the Folkstone Ledge in England, and perhaps else- where, permanent machinery has been set up in the region of the most dangerous waters for the distri- bution of oil on turbulent waves in moments of dire extremity. Wise old bishop of Kent! You have furnished 56 LOVE AND LOYALTY the parable, precept, and example to the young- men and women of today. Oh, my young friends, what we need is a spiritual equivalent to this old bishop's cruise of oil — something that will break the chop- ping waves of antagonism; something that will dis- arm the threatening breakers of rivalry ; something that will curb the angry surf of selfishness and make it rhythmical with life-saving love, and not boisterous to the destruction of the human voyagers. Electric lights in the harbor of New York have robbed Hell- gate of its last terrors. Oil and light, patience and wisdom, must help you in your ministry of reconcilia- tion. With these helps go forth, my young friends, to prove that — The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made. IDEALS LONGING Of all the myriad moods of mind That through the soul come thronging. Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, So beautiful as Longing? The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment. Before the Present poor and bare Can make its sneering comment. Still, through our paltry stiri and strife, Glows doivn the wished Ideal, And Longing moulds in clay what Life Carves in the marble Real; To let the new life in, we know. Desire must ope the portal; — Perhaps the longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal. Longing is God's fresh heavenward will With our poor earthivard striving; We quench it that zve may be still Content with merely living; But, would we learn that heart's full scope Which we are hourly wronging, Our lives must climb from hope to hope And realize our longing. Ah! let us hope that to our praise Good God not only reckons The moments zvhen zve tread his zvays, But zvhcn the spirit beckons, — That some slight good is also zvrought Beyond self-satisfaction, When we are simply good in thought, Howe'er we fail in action. — James Russell Lowell IV IDEALS God hides some ideal in every human breast. — Robert Collyer Yes, God does hide some ideal in every human breast, else it would cease to be human. I will not say that an ideal is the distinctive possession of man, that the gift of vision, the inspiration of dreams, the power to see and the purpose to pursue something outside of present life and beyond present enjoy- ment, is the peculiar characteristic of human nature as distinguished from what we sometimes call animal nature; for I believe that this power of longing, this law of pursuit, this pressure from within toward a good that is yet without, is, in some sweet and high fashion, the gift of dog and horse, of bird and worm; and, back of that, could we have eyes to see forces as well as forms, and minds to understand the mysteries we call "attraction" and "gravitation," I think we should see that there is that in crystal that mellows into a cell, that the cell breaks into other cells, and that these in turn group themselves into companionships, organize themselves into co-opera- tive relations, conspire to become grass and worm, and, Emerson tells us — The poor grass shall plot and plan What it will do when it is man; And striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form. 59 6o LOVE AND LOYALTY I may not explain, perhaps no man can under- stand, what it is in the sun that woos the Httle tender shoot through the prison walls of the acorn down in the dark, damp earth up into the light, or what it is in the acorn that persistently pushes through the shell and blindly gropes through the dark toward that light; but it is something that already means the oak, the mighty tree with great branches and stalwart trunk. In summertime it becomes a leafy city, where birds and squirrels, butterflies, insects, and worms innumerable, find a happy home. In wintertime it defies the storms, wearing undaunted its glistening coat of ice and trimmings of icicle, as the old knights carried helmet, shield, and spear; carrying its snow plumage as proudly and defiantly as ever "Henry of Navarre" wore his white plume on his battlefields. There must be an ideal in the heart of the acorn, else there would be no oak; there must be an ideal in the heart of the oak, else there would be no more acorns; and the ideal of the oak tree is no longer another oak tree, but an oak forest, a mountainside of green, an inhabited valley, and sheltered homes for boys and girls, ships for human commerce, schools, libraries, temples for the development of human souls. The ideal that God plants in every human breast is a part of that great creative law which scholars call "evolution;" it is that something which made stars out of star-dust and grouped them into systems, the something which gave suns their habitations and IDEALS 6i swung the planets into fixed pathways, from which they may not stray. This, then, is our first lesson about the ideal, that it is not some special gift to a few good people, an exceptional grace granted to "nice folks," but the necessity of life everywhere, the gift of all beings, an endowment of every human soul because it has begun to be, away back and below the poorest and weakest human soul. It is the law of the ideal that covers the stagnant water with life, that fills the mud with eggs and the very air we breathe with germs. A second lesson : All ideals are good for some- thing. Most of the microbes in the air are friendly to man as he is today; most of the germs in the mud are valuable; they are all friendly to man as he ought to be ; all of them win or drive as far as they may life into greater life. The ideal is not a grim necessity, but the joyful song of the universe, and this song is the chorus of all life. Well does Emerson tell us : 'Tis not in the high stars alone, Nor in the cups of budding flowers, Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, But in the mud and scum of things There alway, alway something sings. Now for a third lesson of the ideal. It does not follow, because all ideals are good, that one ideal is as good as another. If heat and moisture, making common cause with the germ, are able to change 62 LOVE AND LOYALTY earth, air, and water into life-stuff, which your books call "protoplasm," and then again to transform this life-stuff into life, which rises, now into stem, anon into stamens and pistils, and at last into fruit, now green, now yellow, now red, now bitter, now sweet, and at last nourishing, it does not follow that all the boy and girl have to do is to lie in the sun and let the shade and shine work upon them, lending themselves simply to the eating and the drinking that nature prompts them to, that they may be changed into what is fair and good. It does not follow, because the worm has fulfilled its duty when it has woven its cocoon and gone to sleep to wait for its wings, that the boy and girl have nothing to do but yield to the law of their instincts and their passions, and wait for an angel, a winged thing of beauty and of life, to spring therefrom. Out of every realized ideal there must be born a new ideal. Every added power brings added respon- sibility. God's law of the ideal is like the ladder in Jacob's dream, something upon which beings may climb from earth toward heaven. And they may also go the other way. If men may grow up into angelic life, angels may grow down into bestial life. The butterfly came from the grub; now it has wings and must use them, it can lead the life of the grub no longer. The frog came from the tadpole, but the frog is not a thing of gills; it is an air-breather, and it must use its lungs. There comes a place on the ladder of life when IDEALS 63 fins give way to paws, and the living must learn to creep. There comes a place on the ladder of life when paws give way to feet, and the living must learn to walk. There comes a place on the ladder of life when feet change to wings, and the living must learn to fly. There comes a place on the ladder of life when intellect has a home in the brain, and the living must learn to think. There comes a place on the lad- der of life when the soul looks away from self, sees that which is fair as distinguished from that which is foul, knows the difference between right and wrong, and life must learn to love, to choose, to hate the wrong, to love the true, and to serve the right, to live when living serves and to die when death is the higher service. This brings us to our fourth lesson and our first great perplexity. God not only "hides some ideal in every human soul," but many ideals are there imbed- ded; and, within limits, it is for the human soul, however tattered and battered it may be, to choose its ideals. The poorest man is farther along than the highest brute. The Hottentot is higher than the ape; the savage is farther along than the tiger; the saddest tramp is farther along the road, and has graver responsibilities, and higher possibilities, than the noblest of dogs, although the latter may be more lov- able and loving than the former, because the one is a degenerate man and the other a regenerate wolf. Hot- tentot, savage, and tramp have come to speech and voice, 64 LOVE AND LOYALTY to hand and thumb. Given these, we have nature's highest achievement in mechanism. These represent the high-bridge which carried Hfe out of the material into the spiritual, out of the realm of things into the realm of ideas, where soul begins to rule, intellect becomes dominant, and the kingdom of love begins to be. The puniest babe comes into the world with a bundle of ideals woven into his nerves, hid away in his brain like eggs in a nest, waiting to be hatched. Will that babe be governed by the ideals of the worm, the reptile, the wild beast, the bird, the savage, or the saint? All of them are found in his ancestral line; their names are engraved on his pedigree; he has an inheritance from each of them. Let us face the highest task ever set before a boy or girl — the task of choosing an ideal. What must the boy work for? What is the model accord- ing to which the girl may plan her life? Here are three rules that may help : I. An ideal should be sufficiently far away to require a whole lifetime to pursue it. A dog is old at eight years; the child at that age has but begun to live. The horse is decrepit at twenty-one; the youth is just entering his majority. The savage is mature at fourteen, and stops growing before he is yet twenty; but the child of the civilized man is in college at that age ; he is a student at thirty, he is still growing at fifty. In choosing an ideal, then, let it be one that will give a long perspective to your task; let it be far enough away and high enough up IDEALS 65 to keep you at it, so that, when you reach the eighty- five years of Sir Isaac Newton, you may reahze the wisdom of his confession : "I have picked up but a few pebbles on the infinite beach of truth." You will then but have written the preface to the book of an endless life, you will but have begun the career of an endless quest of an ideal still luring you farther on. I remember a story of an ignorant sailor to whom the captain intrusted the tiller of the boat on a clear, starlight night, while he went below for a little rest. Jack was told to keep the prow ever pointing toward a certain star. This he did until he dozed at his post. The ship veered from her course, and Jack awoke to find his star shining brightly over the stern of the boat, whereupon he awoke the captain and asked him for another star, because he had sailed past the one first given him. Let the star of your ideal be such as you cannot overtake and can never leave behind. 2. You should choose the ideal that will enlist all your faculties, and thus ever enlarge the boundaries of your humanity. Alas for the boy whose ideals will make of him chiefly a counting-machine, a money-maker, a digger among the dictionaries, a slave of the violin, the brush, or the chisel, or the captain of a football team. Hurrah for the boy who knows the value of these things and has achieved some degree of competency in each of these realms, but still has large sympathies and energies to spare. Beware of the ideal that paralyzes the sinews of body or mind, leading to aborted organs, like the legs 66 LOVE AND LOYALTY which the snake once possibly had, but has lost from want of use. 3. Lastly, let your ideal be one that will satisfy the highest. Flee the business that offends the con- science; avoid the society that leaves a "bad taste in the mouth," that makes you ashamed of yourself. Beware of that ideal that crucifies your noblest aspir- ations, your gentlest emotions, your tenderest feeling. George Eliot has said: "That religion cannot save sinners that does not satisfy saints." That ideal is inadequate which does not represent the best there is in you, which does not woo you to the highest, which is not sufficiently noble to compel every appetite and every passion in your nature, every faculty of the mind and every muscle of the body, to take their place as servants of the best, helpers of the highest. If these three rules are safe rules, you need never be afraid of following too high an ideal. Never be brow-beaten by the selfish philosopher who would sneer at the "idealist" or intimidate you into some sordid standards of "success," or the narrow measure of life, because it is called "practical." If you are to have an ideal that will last a lifetime and hold good for eternity, that will enlist all your powers and give you a spherical soul, moving like the stars in a God-given orbit; if you are to have an ideal that will satisfy all the longings of your nature, it must be one that cannot be blurred by defeat or distorted by popularity, one that will make you glad to be alone IDEALS 67 with it if need be, or to die for it when the time comes for you best to serve it in that way. Shall we look for illustrations? History is replete with ideals. In youth, at least, embodied ideals are most inspiring. Herein lie the best uses of history, and the purest gold in literature. Boys, what names in history suggest the ideal I have tried to outline? Let us recall some of them. You may think of Moses, the favored young man at the king's court, who stood by his countryman when he was wronged by his Egyptian master, who left the royal palace that he might lead a band of runaway slaves through a wilderness and become to them law- giver and leader; of Daniel, the incorruptible youth, who held to his simple diet of beans at royal tables, who would not bend his knee to a false god, who preferred to live with lions rather than with an out- raged conscience; of Socrates, the homely Athenian, who taught young men their ignorance; and of Bud- dha, the Indian prince, who abandoned the prospect of a throne and became a beggar and a hermit that perchance he might find the way of helpfulness and learn how to make mankind more pitiful, men and women more gentle. And if we come down into modern times, we find Kossuth, Garibaldi, Gladstone, and Lincoln — ideals worthy to be patterned after because they believed in freedom for all and stood up against tyranny. Girls, have you found your ideal of womanhood? Is it Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or George Eliot, 68 LOVE AND LOYALTY who actualized in their lives their heroines of purity and wisdom, and illustrated the lessons of charity and helpfulness that enriched their books? Will you pattern after Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightin- gale, or Dorothea Dix, who gave their lives for the unfortunate? Or will you think of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who accomplished great results in the face of great difficulties and great opposition? Boys and girls, be not ashamed to confess your admiration for such as these. Let no one dis- courage you by saying that they are too beautiful for you to pattern after, too great for you to follow. But.'if they seem too far away, you may look to find the ideal of your life in lesser souls, reflected in humbler ways. Wherever you find a life that is marked by persistency, loyalty, nobility, sacredly put that life into the cabinet that holds your ideals. Wherever you find a woman's hand that is strong and loving, or a man's hand that is loving and strong ; wherever you find a youth that is gentle as well as brave, a maiden that is pure as well as blithe, hold them aloft as ideals, remembering always that embodied nobility is the more potent. The wisdom of my text is best understood when reflected in the radiant face haloed with the white hair of him who wrote it. The best analysis of my text is found in the story of the life of that York- shire lad who read his books while blowing the bel- lows as a blacksmith's apprentice, and thought out the sermons which he preached on the Yorkshire cir- IDEALS 69 cuit while shoeing horses ; who came to America, and worked eight years at the anvil making hammers in Philadelphia, reading the Encyclopedia Britannica through in the evenings of those years; who after- wards came to Chicago to be its patriof-preacher in the dark days of treason and war, and its consolation and inspiration when four or five square miles of Chicago were in ashes ; and who is still, as he has been for many years, a benignant power in the hurried life of New York City. But the ideal of these ideals, the pattern after which most of these men and women I have men- tioned shaped their lives, stands out very clearly before you, my dear boys and girls. There is no sweeter name in all your textbooks than the name of Jesus; there is no pattern more available, more tang- ible, more persistent, in the curriculum of high school or college, than the personality of the Nazarene car- penter, the sweet and yet strong man who took babes in his arms and blessed them, but who defied kings on their thrones and purged the temple of thieves and speculators with a whip of small cords ; the man who could match the beatitudes with a benignant presence that soothed the maniac, reclaimed the Magdalene, and glorified the cross. Here is an ideal that is tang- ible, objective, and at the same time satisfactory to the inward aspirations of the noblest. This is why I think it worth while to seek more and more intimate acquaintance with the life which began in a manger and ended on a cross; this is why yo LOVE AND LOYALTY I would have you seek citizenship in that spiritual movement which, spite of form and dogma, now by help of ritual and again in spite of it, with priest or without priest, has stretched through nineteen cen- turies of mortal time — the movement which men call Christianity. But now, as when Jesus was living, there is danger in names. Now as then, many will confess him in words who deny him in deeds. Altars are desecrated, now as then, by formality and dogmatism. Many and many times down through the centuries those who have been most like him in spirit have had to refuse the so-called Christian formulas and forms. This is why I commend to you no slavish adherence to the letter, no outward conformity that does not strengthen the inward spirit; but I do commend to you the pursuit of the ideal that still seems to find its best literary statement in the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of the New Testament, and its high- est historical embodiment in that life which combined clear thought with consistent action, and independ- ence of spirit with social dependence and human co-operation to a transcendent degree. How is this ideal to be pursued? How is the religious life, thus defined, to be followed? How can you and I be "Christian" as interpreted by the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule, and reflected in the Lord's Prayer and the parable of the Good Samari- tan? This is the greatest question; and herein lies the great, sweet, high and yet humble mystery of the IDEALS 71 ideal, without which you cannot take a step in advance, but which, with all our knowledge and all our time, we can never reach. In answering this question of "How," lies the value of the sermon, the use of worship, the meaning of the church. After all our search, perhaps we shall find no better study of the "How" than in a quaint old story that is one of the deathless treasures in English litera- ture. It was written over two hundred years ago. Your grandfathers and grandmothers, I fear, were better acquainted with it than you are. But it is a story which you will learn to appreciate more and more as you advance in culture as well as in the life of conscience. You may turn away from it as a textbook in theology and think it old fashioned as a handbook of devotion ; but, as a student, you will have to come back to it after awhile as to one of the perennial springs of literature; and as such you will find it all the more valuable as a helper in the pursuit of the ideal. It becomes all the more valuable to our purpose when we learn that it was written by one who was an itinerant tinker and spent nearly twelve years of his life in jail, during which time he wrote most of the book. John Bunyan has written in allegory the story of every pilgrim who travels from the "City of Destruc- tion" toward the "Celestial City." Each of us, like "Christian" in the story, must escape from the town of "Carnal-Policy;" we must carry our burden of 72 LOVE AND LOYALTY sins through the "Slough of Despond" toward the "Wicket Gate." We must, Hke him, avoid the "Wide and Crooked Way," must climb the "Hill of Diffi- culty," though the easier paths to the land of "Vain- glory" and the "Way of Danger" invite us on either side. The "Palace Beautiful" w^ill lure us, but we must not bide there. The "Valley of Humiliation" awaits us. The "Vanity Fair" of the world, with its "Shams" and "Jugglers," its "Titles," its "Games," its "Scandals" and "Preferments," will tempt us. The "Hill of Lucre" is on our way, and "Doubting Castle" on the "Hill of Error" will seek to entrap us; but we are pilgrims, and must push onward toward the "Delectable Mountain," on through the "Enchanted Ground," in which we must not sleep, and still on through Beulah Land on the very borders of Heaven; and even there we shall find tempting ways that lead to the "Gates of Hell." Every pil- grim on this road will meet "Sir Obstinate" and "Mr. Pliable," "Mr. Worldly-Wiseman," "Mr. Legality," and "Mr. Civility," who will try to lure him from his high quest, to retard him on his long journey. "Mr. Self-Presumption," "Mr, Hypocrisy," and "Mr. Timor- ous" will offer their practical suggestions. "Apol- lyon," the horrible monster, stands in the way between you and your ideals, and you must fight him as "Christian" did. The "Lust of the Flesh," the "Lust of the Eyes," and the "Pride of Life" are real tempters on the pilgrim road to the Celestial King- dom. IDEALS 73 Bunyan has personified "Shame," "Discontent," "Pride," "Arrogancy," "Self-Conceit," and "Worldly Glory," as men who meet the pilgrim to discourage and divert him. "Mr. Talkative," the 8on of "Say- Well," and "Lord Hate-Good" try to arrest his atten- tion. "Mr. Envy," "Mr. Superstition," and "Mr. Pick-Thank" testify against him. "Sir Having- Greedy," "Lord Luxurious," "Lord Carnal-Delight," and other friends of "Beelzebub" waylay him and try him before a jury of their peers, among whom are "Mr. Liar," "Mr. Enmity," "Mr. Hate-Light," "Mr. Love-Lust," and the rest of them. "Lord Turn-About," "Lord Time-Server," "Mr. Smooth- Man," "Mr. Facing-Both-Ways," "Mr. Money- Love," and "Mr. Vain-Confidence" are among the men whom the pilgrim encounters, each with his specious argument, each pleading the logic of expedi- ency, popularity, and prosperity. But through the companionship of "Mr. Hope" and "Mr. Great- Grace," and the help of "Mr. Faithful," who fell by the way fighting for his liberty and his conscience, he is able to parry the arguments of "Faint-Heart," "Mistrust," and all the rest. He finds timely help in "Mr. Knowledge," "Mr. Experience," and "Mr. Sin- cerity," the shepherds on the "Delectable Mountain." And so he pushes on until at last he finds himself separated only by the river, the river we must all cross, from the Celestial City. John Bunyan's creed is all too grim for our day, but his humanity was clean and strong, and his 74 LOVE AND LOYALTY genius enabled him to give us this wonderful allegory of the noble life which he called the Christian life. You may call it what you please, but it was the fight against lust and selfishness in the interest of purity and peace. It was the passage out of meanness into love; aye, let us use the old words, for you know what they mean : it was the journey away from hell toward heaven; it was the battle against sin, a strug- gle with devils many; it was the quest of the ideal — that ideal some fragment of which, as Robert Collyer assures us, is hidden in every human breast. The pilgrim's road is not a solitary one. It is peopled thick with enemies to the good, and so also is it populous with the friends of the higher life. You and I can never make the passage to the "Celes- tial City" alone. We must go together and stand together. We must seek companionship and accept helps, or we shall surely sink in the "Slough of Despond," or lose our way farther on. Then let us lay hold of one another's hands and go together even to the river's edge, and never be afraid. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," for "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." HELPING THE FUTURE Dig deep for truth, And when your hands have struck the hidden vein Its waters shall gush up to meet your lips With a most tempting loveliness, whereof Your souls may sate their thirst forevermore. So live, and ye shall flourish; and, perchance. When your green springtime, with its buds and blooms, Passes to the ripe autumn, there shall be Such mellozved plenty of rich-flavored fruit That the old epicure — the world — shall bend And stagger beneath her treasures, as a vine Totters beneath its luscious load of grapes. — Richard Realf in "The Human Statue" HELPING THE FUTURE Let us be such as help the life of the future. — Zoroaster For the origin of our text we must look away back among- the hills of Bactria. Perhaps a thousand miles farther east than Nazareth, and perhaps six hundred or more years before the birth of Jesus, there lived a man named Spitama, whom his people called Zarathushtra, Zoroaster, a priest. Of the events of his life little is known. Tradition has handed down the name of his father and of a daughter, and through the mists we see the dim outlines of a stal- wart old prophet, a vigorous reformer who protested against the dead-and-alive sanctities of conventional religion and insisted on the integrities that spring from a sense of duties near at hand. The ancient Hindus, from whom the prophet descended, glorified the life of a dreamer who idly prayed beneath the palm trees while his flocks grazed the unplowed valleys. But Zoroaster said : "Live no more in tents, but build you houses. Plow the earth and plant the soil with seed." He taught that one of the most pleasing spots to the Creator is the place where corn is cultivated and fruit-bearing trees are grown, and that he is pleasing to Ahura-Mazda, the Holy One, who provides water for unwatered lands and drainage for watery lands. And further he says : 77 78 LOVE AND LOYALTY Whoso cultivates barley cultivates virtue. When the wheat appears the demons hiss, when sprouts come they whine, when the stalks stands up they cry, and when the grain is in the ear they flee in rage and despair. Whoever tills the earth with both hands, to him she bears fruit. Whoever tills her not, to him she says : "Thou shalt stand at another's gate begging food of those who have much." Perhaps Zoroaster was as far removed from Jesus in time as was King Alfred from Abraham Lincoln, and still, out of that remoteness, from the lips of that shadowy sage, come the words: "Do as ye would be done by;" and again: "Be very scrupu- lous to observe the truth in all things." His mes- sage was : Life is a conflict, a battle between the good and the evil, and in this battle every soldier must carry his own arms, win his own laurels, and do the duty which no one can do for him. How like the prophet of Nazareth! Again, Zoroaster, standing on a mount, facing the sacred fire, addressed his followers and neigh- bors, and said : Ye offspring of renowned ancestry, awake, both men and women, choose ye today your creed between the Ahura and the Deva, between the religion of spiritual resistance and the religion of physical indulgence. Choose ye one of the two spirits. Be good and not base. You cannot belong to both of them. Let us be such as help the life of the future. The prudent wishes to be only where wisdom is at home. Wisdom is the shelter from lies, the destroyer of the evil spirit. All spiritual things are garnered up in the splendid residence of the good mind. The wise and the righteous are the best, therefore perform ye the commandments pronounced by the Creator. HELPING THE FUTURE 79 It is not probable that Zoroaster ever wrote down these stalwart sentences. He trusted them to the vigor of the human mind, he planted them in the love of the human heart ; and lo ! here, after more than twenty-six hundred years, and half-way around the globe from where he stood, his words are on our lips today : "Let us be such as help the life of THE future/'' What high purpose was this! Not fame, money, or ease, not social distinction or mental adornment, not influence or renown, did the brave Persian pray for, but rather that he might be such as should help the life of the future. It may seem a long way back across the hills of time to where that grim but kind reformer stood, clad in sheepskins, and living on goats' milk and barley cake; but a still longer stretch is it from the noble Zoroaster back to the real primi- tive age when man was so selfish that he sought but his own food or that of his immediate family or clan, when he counted his enemies more often than he did his friends, and was moved with jealousy and hatred more often than he was inspired to deeds of love and helpfulness. In Zoroaster's prayer we catch a prom- ise of a more beautiful time to come; of an age when there will be less want and more plenty, less hatred and more love, less cruelty and more kindness; of a time when men, instead of trying to live upon each other, will be glad to live for each other, when the great study will be, not how I can get ahead of the others, but how I can best help them along. 8o LOVE AND LOYALTY Back of Zoroaster was the time when conquest was the dream of the strongest and murder the busi- ness of the powerful ; and since the day of Zoroaster such aims have still been the inspiration of too many- people. But he prayed that he might be such as should help the life of the future; and we look back across those years as across a sea, and find that, while thousands of warriors who led their braves to battle, thousands of merchants who sent their caravan trains of laden camels across the desert with their wealth, or sailed their ships across the seas with their luxuries, have gone down out of sight and out of memory, their names forever lost, this simple priest who said, "Adore God by means of sincere actions," and prayed that he might be "such as should help the life of the future," survives to this day to teach us that "God is the reality of the good mind, the good deed, and the good word." How can we bring the lesson of Zoroaster down to date? How can we help the life of the future? My first answer is: By living now. Life, not its belongings, reaches into the future. Life is health; it is something inside, not outside; it is simplicity, it is sobriety, it is earnestness. Anything that inter- feres with our life today will rob the future of much of our helpfulness. If we would help the future, we must be helpful now, live today and not seem to live, never mind the show, but be. Everything that turns our life away from the good — the silly dress, the love of display, the weak HELPING THE FUTURE 8i habit, the social cowardice that now toys with the cigarette and tomorrow dares not say "No" to the glass of wine or mug of beer — all stand between us and the future. The "good time" that leaves us with a headache, the party that leaves us with a heartache or a sense of wasted hours, the dress that has cost undue money and strength, making the light of the eye less beautiful or the love of the heart less mani- fest in the face, lessening the kindly earnestness, the modest self-forgetfulness — all these will darken the future. The foul word, the impure thought, the coarse jest, the profane speech — all reach into the future, all touch and hurt the life that is to come. The dude with his big-headed cane, the belle with her long train, pinched waist, flashing colors, and other vulgarities of dress, are hurting, not helping, the life of the future; but the girl who ornaments herself with intelligence, who adorns her heart with kindness and earnestness, whose spirit is so sweetly modest, kind, and thoughtful that these qualities somehow reach the very hem of her garment, per- vade the ribbon with which she ties her hair, and make gracious and graceful the dress with which she obscures herself, is helping the future, is making more beautiful the lives and homes that are to be. And so the boy who makes his companionship valu- able because he can say "No," whose speech is such as he would never blush to use in the presence of mother and sister ; the boy whose heart is open to kindly impulses, whose mind is trained to think, is 82 LOVE AND LOYALTY surely making the future more blessed to someone because he has lived. There is going to be a home somewhere the more noble, there is going to be a government more pure, there is going to be a world richer, because he has lived; there is going to be a future fuller of heaven, because he rooted out some evil weed that otherwise would have grown, and planted in its place some good seed that grew. Yes, if we would help the life of the future, we must live now, by putting clean hearts into sound bodies. Brave minds must gather helpful thought into the granaries of the soul, so that in time of famine there will be plenty. "Remember that today will never dawn again," is a word of the great Dante. Do not wait for any- thing. Begin now. Every day is confirmation day in the church of the living God. Not enjoyment and not sorrow Is our destined end or way, But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today. Do not wait for graduation. Every day is graduation day in the college of life. The good Buddha, who went off and hid himself in a cave on the margin of a great forest hoping that he might find the truth, waited for light that should show him how to help the world. But no light came to him, and he was grow- ing sick and discouraged, when one day a shepherd boy passed with his flock of sheep. Buddha noticed that this boy was carrying a footsore lamb, and he HELPING THE FUTURE 83 said: "The boy is doing better than I." So he left his cave, sought the world to mingle with men and women; and light came to him, so that he helped the future mightily. How beautiful to thinji of the mil- lions of flowers that are each morning placed upon the bloodless shrines of Buddha, who taught gentle- ness to millions of the human race! The author of "Tip-Cat," "Miss Toosey's Mis- sion," and "Laddie," wrote a story called "Our Little Ann." It is about a brave little girl who had such a hard time of it as one could scarcely think — real sorrow, actual heartache. She did not go off into a corner to pine and grow pale, and break her little heart beyond all possibilities of mending, as so many girls in and out of story-books do when things go wrong with them; but she turned right to and worked the harder, and found that "there is nothing like a little hurry for keeping down sentiment when it threatens to become unmanageable." She learned that A capital recipe for a broken heart is to have no time to think of it, and to be obliged to keep up a bright exterior for the sake of others. After a time the brightness penetrates below the surface, and when you have time to think of your own troubles you find a heart, if not quite mended, still not quite so hope- lessly crushed as it seemed at first. I think little Ann was right. It is selfish hearts that get broken beyond mending. It is lazy lives that are easily crushed. The self-seeking life is a despondent life. 84 LOVE AND LOYALTY In this book of "Little Ann" is the story of a plain old miller for whom, when he came to die, they stopped the mill that it might not disturb him. But in the morning he was very restless. He could not speak, but he listened and pointed to the watch, and seemed to be wanting something. Finally the old mill-hand dis- covered the trouble. "Dash un! — Blest if he ain't listening for she;" and off he went. It was six o'clock in the morning. The cracked old mill-bell rang out, the old mill-wheel with its creaking machin- ery started, and the bedstead in the neighboring house shook; but the old miller rolled over and went to sleep. Keep at it, boys and girls ! Find the music of life in the mill-wheel. Find rest in the toil. If you would help the life of the future, be at it now. This, then is our first rule. Help the life of the future by living in the now. Our second rule will be : Help the life of the future by living for the now. The good Zoroaster did not know of America; he did not think of any Chicago, twenty-five centuries away; but he knew a great deal about the life of Persia; he thought much of the pains, and the still more distressing pleasures of the people about him, and he was anxious to help them. He became pos- sessed of a purpose to improve the life of his time ; and we reap the harvest of his desire. So it is always. The man who thinks of what the world will say of him a hundred years hence will very likely not be heard of at the end of that hundred years. The man who remembers himself too well today will surely be HELPING THE FUTURE 85 forgotten before many days ; but he who forgets him- self today may be remembered in a hundred years. But what if he is not? Never mind about that. Suffi- cient it is to know that self-seeking is mean, self- forgetting is noble. Put yourself out of the way that you may put somebody else in the way. Remem- ber the little girl in Whittier's "In School Days," who said: "I'm sorry that I spelt the word ; I hate to go above you Because" — the brown eyes lower fell — "Because, you see, I love you." Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl ! The grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing. He lives to learn in life's hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her, — because they love him. Have you heard the story of Margaret, the Irish baker-woman who used to give crackers to the hungry little street-urchins of New Orleans? As she prospered in business and rose out of her poverty, she found more ways of helping, until she was known as the friend of the friendless by all the poor in the city. And when she died. New Orleans had a beautiful statue of Margaret cut in marble, with a little plaid shawl over her shoulders, dressed just as she used to dress as a baker-woman, and they put that statue in a public place, which they called the Margaret Square. 86 LOVE AND LOYALTY It stands directly in front of a beautiful home for orphan children which she helped establish. I believe it is the only statue of a woman that graces a public place out of doors in the United States; at least it was so at the time of its erection. Margaret never thought of that statue. She lived for the now, and the future could not spare her. I want to remind you of the story of another woman who, when ''society folk" and the people who lived on "Quality Hill" and went riding on the high-toned avenues, had turned against a good man and were going to put him out of the city — indeed, put him to death, as they finally did — rushed in, bathed his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and anointed them with the only valuable thing she seemed to have — some perfumed ointment which was to prepare her body for the grave. It was costly, and poor people used to save their money while in health, so that they might have the ointment in the house ready for the solemn ceremony. She did not think of the future. That woman forgot herself. She saw that there was a good man abused, a brave man imposed upon, a loving soul hated, and she thought she could do something to stem the tide; at least she would show him that there was one heart that loved him, one soul that had been helped by his words. The people who stood around said : "This is wasteful. Here is three hundred pennies' worth, and the poor might have had it." But the wise man for whom she had poured out her ointment said : HELPING THE FUTURE 87 "Let her alone. She hath wrought a good work. Verily, I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of a^ a memorial of her." She lived for the now, and in that way she helped the life of the future. Let me once again remind you of the tender story of that good man himself. He was born into a car- penter's home, grew up in simple peasant ways, obedi- ent to father and mother; but he learned to pity the people who were restless with selfish passions and excited over unworthy aims, and he began to teach them in a quiet, simple fashion to care less for things and more for thoughts; not to be anxious for show, but to seek after substance. He told them not to hate, but to love. He made them feel how true his lessons were; he showed them how powerful love was by lov- ing them. He had kind words for the people who were considered very wicked. He talked with vulgar foreigners, and he ate with very common people, such as the respectable folks would have nothing to do with. At last these very "proper people" grew very indignant; they misunderstood him; hence they misrepresented him and caused him to be put to death on the cross; but that kind, poor man, that obscure, loving peasant, that carpenter who worked for his time, for his "now," somehow helped the future more than any other man that ever lived. So I might go on to my sermon's end with stories to show that the best way to help the future is by 88 LOVE AND LOYALTY helping the "now," and that you can help the "now" only by living now. But you knew all this before. Your difficulty is to know how to do it. Very right, my children. Let us see if we can find any help here. How can we live now and for the "now" in such a way that we shall help the future? In the first place, we must be con- tent to be ourselves. The frog in the fable came to grief because he tried to make himself as big as an ox. I have seen men — yes, and women too — come to a similar catastrophe because they were so "puffed up;" they filled themselves with "make-believe" until they burst; or, even if they did not burst, they could not hide the fact that their greatness was mostly a bubble. If you have a small head, make the most of it; use it well, my lad, and do not try to make people believe that it is larger than it is; for that will bring on one of the worst diseases, namely, mental dropsy, sometimes called the "big-head." Be yourself! Think your own thought, not mine or anybody's else. Use your own hands, not another's. Pay your own nickel rather than your father's dollar, to help the cause that is worthy your love. In the long-ago, when folks began to build the great cathedral of York, there was not much money to be had, but there was a deal of timber on the mountain-side, and the hills were made of splendid stone, that might be had for the quarrying. So each brought what he could ; and over one of the great HELPING THE FUTURE 89 entrances today there is the image of two knights in armor, one carrying a block of wood, the other a big round stone. It was all they had, but the giving of that made them knightly. So, my little friends, boys and girls though you are, you can bring to the "now" your own little block of wood, though it be only a chip to chink a crack with ; your own unhewn stone, though it be but a pebble to fill a corner behind a big hewn stone. Doing this, you will contribute to the present so well that the future will have noble cathedrals to worship in. The poor widow who had only two mites, which make a farthing, perhaps half a cent in our money, put it into the contribution box. Then the wealthy folks came and threw in out of their abundance; but the good teacher told his pupils that this poor widow had cast in more than they all, for they did cast in of their superfluity; but she cast in all that she had, even her living. How little did she do for her present, how much did she do for our future! It was nearly two thousand years ago that she gave her half -cent, and all the way down the ages life has been made more generous, the world more thoughtful, and men and women more earnest because of her contribution. Two mites, two drops, but all her house and land, Fell from an earnest heart but trembling hand, The others' wanton wealth foamed high and brave. The others cast away; she, only, gave. You must do your own work, not another's. 90 LOVE AND LOYALTY Better the half-made thought of a Httle girl or boy, with a girl or boy handling it, than the big thought of a philosopher, with a little girl or boy trying to handle it and not knowing what to do with it. I remember another story, which has been done into a poem by a great poet. It is about a little wool- carder who was tired of praising God in his simple way and wished he might praise God in the high way in which the pope at Rome praises on Easter Day. Gabriel, hearing his prayer, came down and took his place in the shop, and the boy grew to be the pope. But God missed his little human praise, and the great pope was glad to Go back and praise again The early way. Back to the cell and poor employ : Resume the craftsman and the boy ! My children, your thought may not be as big as the thoughts of the creed or the bishop's or the pope's; but if they are your thoughts, they are better for you, they are better for the world, because you can convert them into deeds. When David, the shepherd boy, went forth to fight the giant, Saul, the tall king, wanted him to take his big sword, and wear his heavy armor; but if he had, he would have been beaten. He could not use the sword of Saul, but he took along his own sling-shot. He sought a little pebble, just the right size, by the brook, and with that he felled the giant. That is the way he "helped the life of the future." HELPING THE FUTURE 91 It is the way you must do it ; you must be yourselves. This cheerful, happy diligence in today, and for today, how are you to realize it so that you may be "such as help the life of the future?" I will try to give you three words that will point the way. 1. The first word is Beauty. Learn to realize that anything should fit into everything; that every fragment is a part of the whole; that harmony gilds your life and all life. Spring buds confirm our aspira- tions, and the songs of the birds encourage our Easter hopes. I have read that the Greek artificers used to sing at their work to lighten the burden. When a boy, I used to watch the raftsmen on the Wisconsin River, as they stood in the cold water, sometimes knee-deep, sometimes waist-deep, pulling at the ropes that would dislodge the raft from its entanglement; and often when the task was hardest they would round their "He-O-Heaves" into a song, thus reduc- ing the strain by rhythm; and the raft would swing by. When a nurse in an army hospital, I once found a soldier boy whistling "Yankee Doodle" while lying on his cot with an angry bullet wound through his thigh. 'Tt is getting better, is it?" I said. "No, it is getting so much worse that I can't stand it any other way." 2. The second word is Love. The world promptly forgets the haters. It is loath to part with its lovers. Zoroaster's ideal, as expressed in our text, can be understood only by realizing that other text, which we find in the Chinese scriptures : "Religions are 92 LOVE AND LOYALTY many and different, but reason is one. We arc all brethren." Here is the secret of that life that is not for self. Some day you will read Romola, a great story written by a very great and noble woman, and in it you will read of the little boy Lillo, who said : "I would like to be something that would make me a great man and very happy besides, something that would not hinder me from having a good deal of pleasure." But the good Romola said: It is only a very poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can have the highest happiness only by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world, and this happiness sometimes brings pain. You could not tell it from pain only that you would choose it before everything else because your soul sees it is good. I know a true story of a boy who, when poor, neglected, and friendless, found himself befriended by a wicked man, by whom he was led to do bad things. He was sent to the state prison. While there he sickened; the prison diet did not agree with him, and the doctor thought he had not long to live. A fellow-convict managed to find a way of stealing some sugar for the benefit of his sick cellmate. The sick boy was detected with it, and, because he would not tell how he got it, he was put into the solitary cell and kept there until he fainted away and was carried out apparently dead. I do not know whom to blame or how to rebuke, but I know there was great blame somewhere. I see also much that was beauti- HELPING THE FUTURE 93 ful in the friendship of those two convicts in the cell, and to think of that beauty is to make it easy to love them and to work for the world. No, we must never lose sight of the inspiring fact that humanity is one, and that the cord that binds it together is not vice, but virtue. 3. Lastly, I come to the beautiful word that holds all the other words. It stands for the great thing that makes all these other things possible, and enables every one of you to become "such as help the life of the future." This third and last word is Trust. We preachers like to call it faith, perhaps; but I think "trust" is a better way of spelling it for children, and we are all children. We have had serious talks together about God, and we have learned that that is faith in God which is trust in the right. Believing that five times five are always twenty-five, we believe in the same way that truth is always better than false- hood ; that honesty always triumphs in the end ; that nothing pays but right. Robert Browning tells a pretty love-story of a beautiful young woman who lived with her aunt, the queen; and this beautiful young woman loved a noble young man ; but the young woman was afraid of the queen and begged her lover not to tell the truth, but to try to win her by a delusion, by some little trick, or sham, or fraud. The story shows how disastrous was the result, how it made the three very miserable, and how much nobler was the position of the young man, who believed that to keep the right end in view 94 LOVE AND LOYALTY was to make all things serve. Now, that young woman represents the infidelity that you ought to be afraid of. Hers was the real atheism — the belief that a lie is better than the truth, distrust in the power of honesty. To believe in God is to believe, with Emer- son, that the world is made for excellence; that all the stars are in league with virtue; that from the daisy to Jesus there is a law which, obeyed, will bless; which, disobeyed, will blight. This is what will make us strong — to find truth in everything and right the winning principle everywhere. "Difference of worship has divided men into many nations. Of all their doctrines I have chosen one — the love of God," said a Persian poet. The love of God is the love of good. To love the good is to believe that duty is the only road to travel on; and, traveling that road, though it be through Persian rose gardens in the name of Zoroaster, along the broad Ganges in the name of Buddha, in humble toil here in America in the name of Jesus, or following in the broadest love which is the spirit of all these, or even groping blindly for it without the help of any of these, is to travel the faith road, is to follow the beckoning finger of God. This is Trust. "The Smalls" is the name of a rock, nearly cov- ered by water, in the British Channel, which was the cause of many shipwrecks and the loss of many lives, until some hundred and forty or fifty years ago, when a band of hardy Cornish miners said : "It shall be so no more. We will go and plant a signal on that HELPING THE FUTURE 95 treacherous rock." They sailed out some twenty miles from the main land on a pleasant day, and began to drill holes in the rock. They had partly soldered one long iron rod into the rpck when the weather suddenly changed, and the cutter on which they came had to bear off to avoid shipwreck. The storm increased, and for two days and two nights those battered men clung to that half-fastened rod of iron in a desperate struggle for life. At last the wind subsided, and the boat returned with nourishment. Did they abandon their task? No. All the more did they cling to it. They sunk iron staples into the rocks and lashed themselves fast while they worked amid the breakers, and erected a light-house that stood for a hundred years on legs of iron, saving life and guiding the commerce of the world, until it was supplanted by a still more lasting one of unyielding granite. I doubt if the names of any of those Cornish miners have been saved. Their names vanished with their faces and were lost with their forms ; but, with the love of man in their hearts and the power of God strengthening their human consciences, they did their duty then and there, though the sea and the sky were arrayed against them. In this high spirit, after this divine fashion, must we reinforce our faith and con- firm our life, if we are to be such as help the life of that future which belongs to the eternity of God. SUCCESS AND FAILURE THE CROWNING DAY The morning hangs its signal Upon the mountain's crestj While all the sleeping valleys In silent darkness fest; From peak to peak it flashes, It laughs along the sky That the crowning day is coming by and by! Chorus: Oh, the croivning day is coming. Is coming by atid by! We can see the rose of morning, A glory in the sky. And that splendor on the hill-tops O'er all the land shall lie In the crowning day that's coming by and by! Above the generations The lonely prophets rise — The truth flings dawn and day-star Within their glowing eyes; From heart to heart it brightens. It draweth ever nigh. Till it crowneth all men thinking, by and by! The soul hath lifted moments Above the drift of days, When life's great meaning breakcth In sunrise on our ways; From hour to hour it haunts us, The vision drazveth nigh, Till it crowneth living, dying, by and by! — W. C. Gannett VI SUCCESS AND FAILURE However things may seem No good thing is failure, No evil thing success. — Samuel Longfellow We have come again to the Easter tide. The Confirmation Class has traveled with me into the life and thought of far-off ages and distant lands. We have gone around the world together in our studies. I have asked you to believe with the poet Longfellow, That in even savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not, That the feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness Touch God's right hand in that darkness And are lifted up and strengthened. We have looked into the bibles of many nations, and I have tried to show you that we found there many phrases for the one reality, many names for the same unspeakable beauty and power. We have caught accents from the teachings of Zoroaster and Confucius, Buddha and Mohammed, and we have found that they, as well as Moses and Jesus, taught men to be truthful and honest, and that they did help, and still do help, men and women to be patient, kind, and reverent. In imagination we have stood before 99 100 LOVE AND LOYALTY the unquenched fires on the altars of the Parsis, we have walked into the temples of Buddhism, visited the porcelain prayer-houses of China as well as Chris- tian cathedral and chapel, and found much that was beautiful, refining, and helpful in all of them. We have looked into Christianity a little, and found, or thought we found it, a curious network of many different threads of different colors; but we found something in each of these threads that was admir- able. The Catholic church has its great cathedrals, its splendid ritual, its brave men and gentle women. The Protestant church has its Luther, its Fox, its Knox, and its Wesley. We have looked into the story of Christian heresies and have not been afraid of the Christian heretics. We have wished we could know more of the story of Arius, of the Socinii, the brave Servetus who endured martyr flames without flinching, the truth-seeking Priestley, the gentle Channing, the God-trusting Hosea Ballou, and the splendidly earnest Theodore Parker. We have listened to some of the songs and committed to memory some of the lines of the forward-looking Lowell, the man-loving Whittier, the clear-eyed Emerson, representative of the round world ; and we have found much to admire in all of these. They have taught us to believe that the world is tending toward a universal faith, that it is yet to discover that there is but one religion and one morality. Now, at the end of our year's study I should like SUCCESS AND FAILURE loi to give you the highest, and perhaps the most diffi- cult, lesson of all — the lesson indicated in the text of your own choosing. It is a familiar text to us. We have often read it together in our Sunday-school service. It is inscribed upon one of our mantels and looks down upon us whenever we are in this church- home of ours. But back of our service-book, back of our American poet, aye, before the high sayings of Jesus were uttered, the good pagan Socrates said the same thing in about the same way : "Know of a truth that no evil can happen to a good man either in life or in death." "Let us take this mantel text and see what Mr. Jones can do with it when he comes to preach our sermon," was the remark of one of your number when you were seeking your motto. So you have given me the text as a sort of challenge. You, with many, many of your elders, have asked me, "Do you really believe that motto ?" If I expect you to believe it, I must try to show how it is true. I must try to make room for all the disappointing facts that seem to contradict it. This is not a text to be settled by argument. The great truths are never proved true by discussion; they are proved true by experience. This is the text to be established by life, not by logic. However things may seem, No good thing is failure, No evil thing success. I wish I could say that no bad man ever succeeds I02 LOVE AND LOYALTY in business, and that no good man eventually fails in business. I wish I could tell you that "honesty is the best policy" to get rich by, that only worth eventually triumphs in trade. But I cannot say this. It may be centuries yet before these things can be truthfully said. I admit the arguments you have urged. The tricky often do get ahead, the selfish do grow wealthy, the dishonest sometimes make money, build great houses, and furnish them with beautiful things. I wish I could tell you that evil ways always bring disease and pain, and that right living gives health, good sleep, and sound digestion; but I cannot even say this, because I know that as yet many men of low moral standards have good digestion and splendid bodies, while many earnest and noble men and women are racked with pain and crippled by disease. I wish I could tell you that goodness always brings happiness in this world, and that the mean man is always miserable; but I cannot, for the very opposite is often true; often the sensitive conscience carries the woes of the world in its heart, and it can- not be happy. Buddha, though surrounded with all the luxuries of a palace, heard everywhere the cry of the suffering. As he rode out in search of pleasure, he saw the aged, the sick, and the overworked. His goodness did not make him happy. Many a wicked man does have a jolly time, his rest is unbroken by duty's calls, and his sleep is undisturbed by pity's darts. SUCCESS AND FAILURE 103 I wish I could tell you that only the good are respected and trusted by their fellows, that excellence is the only condition of fame and respect; but I can- not forget that on every election day .good citizens vote for bad men, and that the halls of our Congress often echo with the voices of those who have won their way there by low tricks and high selfishness. If, then, the good are oftentimes poor, sick, ignored, and despised, while, on the other hand, the bad are rich, healthy, and merry, how can I ask you to believe that No good thing is failure, No evil thing success? If our text is a true one, we must find some other measure of life than money, health, or pleasure. First, let us hold our text off at arm's length and notice how history reverses the decisions of a day. God seems to honor those whom men despise. Most of the healthy, wealthy, and merry people of Athens who lived four hundred years before Jesus seem to have been forgotten and lost; we can only guess at the names of a few of them. But the poor stone- cutter, the homely and serious Socrates, the one man in Athens who seemed at that time to have made a complete failure of himself, lives today, and is loved, honored, and powerful. Nineteen-hundred years ago there were rich men in Jerusalem who had houses, horses, and land, and there was a poor peasant who had tried his hand at I04 LOVE AND LOYALTY carpentry and perhaps a little fishing, and had prob- ably not made much of a success of anything. He was abused and put to death ; and still history points to him as the most successful man that ever walked the hills of Palestine. Today his name is the most powerful name in the world, and his face beams through the centuries as the face of a god. Pilate, Caiphas, and their followers, who seemed to suc- ceed, failed; Jesus, whose life failed, succeeded. Something made triumph for him even on the cross. Martin Luther was so poor that he had to earn money for his education by playing his flute on the streets, and when he became a great preacher he had to eke out a very meager income by trying his hand at gardening, clock-making, and wood-turning; yet he was greater than any crowned head in Europe at that very time. History again says that what seems fail- ure is very often a magnificent success. God measures a deed, not as we do, by the amount of money it brings or the happiness it yields, but by its usefulness, its value to eternity. Life is measured by its service, not by its dollars. Abraham Lincoln is one of the saddest figures in American history. His youth was pinched with poverty, his maturity furrowed with care, his reward cut short by an assassin's bullet; and still, what are Vanderbilt's mil- lions, John L. Sullivan's muscles, or the sound sleep of a thousand selfish athletes compared to the sad suc- cesses of Abraham Lincoln? Was he not one of the splendidly successful men of America? SUCCESS AND FAILURE 105 We find, then, that one way of measuring suc- cess is by applying the long-time rule. Wait awhile before you count that man a success. Wait awhile before you count this man a failure. Ten, twenty, fifty, eighty years are not long enough to test the results of a life. See that mean man go to Congress. "Yes, evil is successful," you say. Wait awhile until you see him drop out of Congress, out of life, as if he had never been, and then re-read your verdict and say: "No evil thing is success." See that good man kept at home, defeated, unknown, unhonored. "There is a good thing that is a failure," you say. See lov- ing tears dropped upon his coffin, see the white shaft of respect that rises to his memory in the hearts of his neighbors. Re-read your decision again and say: "No good thing is failure." See that proud belle, who was never gracious or helpful at home, and whom nobody liked at school; yet she had partners at the dance, she was courted in society, she married well, her husband was rich and indulgent toward her, her home was elegant, and she seemed so fortunate! She may even die happy, as we see happiness; and still that plain girl who plod- ded in school, drudged at home, and died under a burden of disappointment may be more of a success measured by the long tests of time. The little chil- dren taught by this plain but loving girl will win the triumphs she did not reach, will be the beauty she only dreamed of. The patience which cost her pain will bloom into smiles in some other heart. lo6 LOVE AND LOYALTY History seems to have great respect for many people whom their neighbors despised, and very Httle respect for many people whom their neighbors called successful. The universe seems to believe our text and practice it, however it may be with you and me. The world once called Napoleon a great success because he had conquered armies and acquired nations; but, in less than a hundred years, history begins to pronounce him the biggest failure of modern times. But suppose history sometimes fails to prove my text. If the good deed misses not only money and pleasure, but misses also the pages of history, if it abides nowhere outside, it still stays inside. Every good thing builds a little higher that column in the soul which we call character. If it does nothing else, it puts you in line with all that is excellent; while, on the other hand, every evil deed compels you to keep company with all that is despicable. Two boys start out in life, one saying, *T am going to succeed ;" while the other, not daring to dream of success, hopes for a bit of usefulness. Perhaps we should pronounce both their lives fail- ures. One misses the money, and the other misses the usefulness he planned for. But the latter added some goodness to the stock of the world somewhere, while the former introduced a minus quantity into the equation. You know how a flash of light may strike the sensitive plate in the camera for a second, and that. SUCCESS AND FAILURE 107 photographic plate may be put away in the garret, neglected, forgotten among the rubbish. Years after- ward, if that plate is subjected to the proper chemi- cals, the picture comes out strong and clear. So, dear children, I believe there is not a "Thank you, ma'am" or an "If you please, sir," thrown out of the kindly life of a boy or girl but falls upon some sensitive plate which will one day be developed into a touch of gentleness, a bit of beauty. Evil cannot succeed, because it is linked to the forces that hurt. Good cannot fail, for it is in league with what is excellent. The one belongs with the forces that help, the other is allied to the forces that hurt. In the Hindu scripture there is found this parable : Vishnu asked Bal to take his choice, — With five wise men to visit hell. Or with five ignorant visit heaven. Then quick did Bal in heart rejoice, And chose in hell with the wise to dwell : For heaven is hell, with folly's bell. And hell is heaven, with wisdom's leaven. Science tells us that no power is ever lost, and that the blow I now give this table will never stop. The force is communicated from my hand to the atoms in the board, the board transmits it to the floor, and the floor to the earth, and every tremor of the earth will eventually be felt in the moon, in Mars, in the sun — yes, throughout all space. So, my lad, the tune you whistled yesterday is on its way today to yonder planet on the material side, and on the spiritual side Io8 LOVE AND LOYALTY it is on its way to the heart of the infinite God who is the infinite good. If it was a kindly tune, nothing can change its Httle note of praise. "No good thing is failure!" Little girl, the unkind kick you gave the cat yesterday is on its way through the realms of cruelty. It was one little feather-stroke added to the force of unkindness, the bulk of which makes human- ity groan today, and no time or distance will make a kindness out of that blow. You cannot change a fell force into a loving energy. Says Longfellow : I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where ; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. Yes, both the arrow and the song strike somewhere. May we not then believe that "no good thing is failure," because, first, history seems to prove that in the long run "the right comes uppermost and ever is justice done?" There is a power that defeats the tyrant who rides his horse with iron shoes over the writhing bodies of his subjects, a power that reverses the judgment of every iniquitous court, ren-. SUCCESS AND FAILURE 109 ders worthless the coin of unrighteous governments, and brings to hght the hidden mischief and the sly intrigues of a mean man. This is proved so often that I have faith to believe it is true in cases where the evidence does not appear. Secondly, may we not believe that "no good thing is failure" because it stays at home to bless, if it blesses nowhere else. George Eliot has left us a pretty story in verse about good old "Agatha," a pure-minded Catholic peasant, a maiden grandmother living in an Alpine hut. She prays for young Hans gone soldiering, because the prayer "eases her own soul if it goes nowhere else." So the good deed, the good thought, is a success if it does nothing and goes nowhere other than to help build the beautiful white column of character in the soul itself. Nothing is failure that makes for character; nothing is success that hurts it. Millions cannot buy the benediction that lurks in the loving impulse of the poorest laborer who believes in justice and tries to live up to his belief. But, in the third place and chiefly, we may believe that "no good thing is failure," because we believe that God is, now, here, everywhere, taking account of things said and done, posting the books every day and every hour in the day. To think that evil brings success in any true and high sense is to believe that there is no law and that the universe is not dealing fairly with us. I believe in this motto in the same way and for the same reason that I believe in next summer's no LOVE AND LOYALTY strawberries. I would have you trust it as you will trust your flower-seeds in the ground next May. I do not see the June strawberries yet; I cannot prove to you that your seed will grow; but I know that the sun shines today in accordance with a law that will cause it to shine stronger in June. I know the straw- berries ripen when the sun is hot enough, and you feel that flowers reward wise seed-sowing. I said at the outset that honesty is not always rewarded with prosperity, and that success sometimes follows the trickster in trade. But it will not always be so; indeed, it is less so now than it used to be. Every year it is getting harder and harder for a mean man even to make money and keep it. Slowly the country is learning to distrust the demagogue; and the day is coming when men will so understand the laws of the universe that they will respect them, and then they will act as God does toward evil. Every man who cheats is like the baby who plays with the candle, and he will get his fingers burned if he does not look out. In the latter half of the seventeenth century there lived in a little town in northern Italy a quaint maker of violins. He was never seen without his leathern apron. Year after year he brooded upon the myster- ies of his craft. Everything that entered into his art he dwelt upon with loving care. All the woods of the Swiss mountains he tried ; the intestines of all the animals he stretched for strings ; the quality of hairs found in different horses' manes and tails he tried; SUCCESS AND FAILURE HI the number of hairs which it was fitting to put into the bow he counted and experimented with. Every httle piece of wood that entered into the interior he measured, weighed, and pohshed; until at last he lifted his humble craft to the dignity of a fine art, and a Stradivarius violin became as much sought after, and brought almost as much money, as a paint- ing of Raphael's. Content and diligent he toiled, making his last violin at ninety-two years of age, sus- tained in all this diligence, not by the hope of fame, or pay, or success, but simply by the thought of making a perfect violin, that when the great masters came he might give them great instruments to play upon. He toiled with the simple thought that God had chosen him to help him. For him to stop his work would be to rob God, George Eliot has given us his labor song: My work is mine, And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked, I should rob God — since He is fullest good — Leaving a blank instead of violins. I say not God Himself can make man's best Without best men to help Him. I am one best Here in Cremona, using sunlight v^^ell To fashion finest maple till it serves More cunningly than throats, for harmony. 'Tis rare delight : I would not change my skill To be the Emperor with bungling hands, And lose my work, which comes as natural As self at waking. 112 LOVE AND LOYALTY 'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands : He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio. At last the hand and brain that "without haste and also without rest labored for the production of the violin" ceased, and the world was greedy for violins attuned to the ear of Stradivarius. Many lesser workmen hastened to palm off upon the market their imitations, and some of them caught well many of the secrets of Antonio's art. They could imitate the shape, color, and even the tone, so that experts could not distinguish. But at last there came an exi- gency in the life of these instruments such as seems to have come into the life of all the older violins. As they increased in resonance, rising in pitch, neces- sitating an added tension of the strings, the inside post supporting the bridge proved too weak, and the violins had to be opened and a stronger post put in. And behold, when these fiddles were opened the fraud became apparent, for the inner pieces — the little blocks, ribs, and slips of wood — showed a hasty work- man, a careless hand, a callous conscience. Here were lumps of glue, and scratched and unpolished surfaces, where the master left none such. Let us too become artists like Stradivarius, the fiddle-maker, who believed so much that No good thing is failure, No evil thing success, that he was content with nothing less than excellence. SUCCESS AND FAILURE 113 and aimed ever at the perfection which left no scratched blocks on the inside. Like old Antonio of Cremona, let us lend ourselves out to God, make "in- struments for masters to play upon," and let us "wince at false work and love the truth," even though it be apparent failure, aye, though no God is there to watch it. You know what Longfellow says of the old Greek builders, who Wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house where gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean. I like the piety of those artists who wrought well the hidden parts because "the gods see everywhere;" but I like still better the religion of the faithful Welsh stone-mason I know up in Wisconsin, who, when urged to toss off a piece of work roughly because the building would hide it and no one would know how it looked, replied, "Ah, but I would know it!" and so finished the inside pillar with the deliberation and nicety of the loving craftsman. This is the last and highest piety which will not desecrate the sanctities of right and beauty as revealed to one's own soul. Be your own divine authority; let the voice of the infinite God find itself in your voice, if nowhere else in all the universe; let the spirit of 114 LOVE AND LOYALTY eternal beauty work through your hands, if nowhere else; let heavenly love abide in your hearts, even if all the rest of the universe is cruel. Be you just, though injustice reigns supreme. So, dear children, if our walks together through the religious gardens of the world, our attempts to study, boy and girl fashion, the meaning of religion, have brought us what I hoped they would, the lesson bids us do the good and shun the evil, not because it will bring health, wealth, or fame, not because this will bring peace, joy, or heaven, but because it is right, and our souls long for it, because we want to add to the stock of good in the world, to make melody where there is now discord, beauty where there is now blemish. If this quest shall bring with it a measure of power and a degree of plenty, we shall be glad, take heart, and strive the harder. But if pov- erty, weakness, pain, neglect, must come, as they have often come to our betters, still let us try to live as if we believed our text: However things may seem, No good thing is failure, No evil thing success. LIFE'S COMMISSION GOOD SHALL CONQUER, NEVER FEAR Be we the courage-bringers ! Let laugh the bells, O ringers! Earth's hero-hearts and singers Promise peace. Despair and grief why borrow? The world needs joy, not sorrow; Work gladly for the morrow, — Wrong shall cease. Chorus: Never fear! Light is growing! Never fear! Truth is flowing Where humanity shall share it, — Never fear! Never fear! Clouds are fleeing; Never fear! Men are seeing That the good at last shall conquer, — Never fear! With hope and high endeavor Earth's saints have striven ever The bonds of ill to sever, — We may trust! The might of Jesus' preaching. The Prince of India's teaching, All Plato's forzvard reaching — Win they must! Man is still onzvard striving, All happy Art is thriving, The Age of Good arriving, — Give it scope! The heights of being call us; If doubt nor fear appall us Life's splendor shall befall us, — Work and hope. James H. West VII LIFE'S commission" On bravely through the sunshine and the showers. Time hath his work to do, and we have ours. — Emerson How much Time does, and how well he does it! Have you ever tried to catch him at his work, ever looked with curious eyes into h's record? Once all the fields of space from the sun to Neptune were filled with fiery mist, and Time rolled this mist into glowing balls, cooled them into solid planets, gathered the waters together, and built the dry land. Time wore away the flinty spires, filed down the granite heights, and, with the aid of the sea and the rain, the frosts and the snow, laid the rocks in layers and wrote the history of the world in leaves of stone. And all this was done, in the main, quietly, and as slowly as the wearing-away of the rock by the rain- drops or the formation of the sandy beach by the ocean. After the world was rounded, washed, and plowed, Time began to make his garden, and little by little, from the simplest fern and moss, grasses, flowers, and splendid forests came to be. Alongside of this luxuriant vegetation, and dependent upon it, grew animal life. First came the tiniest cells, the simple life-sacks that rose through jelly-fish, oyster, reptile, bird, and mammal, up to man. Forests grew, "7 ii8 LOVE AND LOYALTY decayed, and were submerged and compressed into coal-beds. These coal-beds were raised again into the sunlight by the slow bulging motion of the earth's crust, and again became dry land on which other forests grew. These were in turn submerged, mak- ing another layer of coal; three, four, five, six, ten, and more times in some places, did this globe raise its broad shoulder into the sunlight long enough to grow great forests of fern trees, and then sink back under its watery ooze, making each time a bed of coal — condensed sunlight, preserved fuel — ready for man's use when he should arrive to need it, and covering that with fresh soil in order to grow another garden of trees. And what has Time done with and for man since he came? We are told how man began — so little above the brute; naked, savage, and ignorant; with- out a home; without coat, hat, or gun; without government, family, or tribe; and with few words to express his few thoughts. But Time was patient with him. Time, the diligent schoolmaster, taught him, until very slowly there came to his aid the dog, the loom, the bow and arrow, the gun, and finally the printing-press, the steam-engine, the telegraph, and the telephone. How long it took to make a block of granite! How long it took, again, to teach man how to split that block from its lodgment in the breast of the mountain ; to shape it and build it into a cathedral, and to place within it that other block of stone from the breast of another mountain, the white marble LIFE'S COMMISSION 119 which Michael Angelo shaped into the great statue of Moses ! All this Time has done and is doing; and Time is one way we have of naming that eternal power we find everywhere, always working, never resting, never hasting, always pushing, always leading things and beings on those outgrowing, upreaching, improving, and opening lines which we sometimes call Progress, sometimes Evolution, and sometimes Provi- dence. Sometimes we call this eternal power Law and Order; and again, at other times, when we dimly feel that the power which molded the planets, smoothed out the valleys, planted the oaks, and caused the whale to swim in the sea, the eagle to fly in the air, and the horse to gallop over the plains, is the same power that makes us love the baby, that teaches us to think some things right and other things wrong, and makes us glad when we do the one and sad when we do the other — then we call it God. And all the while we are meaning the same thing; only we approach it in a different way and touch it with a different part of our nature. Time, that works through sunshine and shower; Law, that binds all in sunshine and shower, are but half-way names for that which the Hindu calls Brahm, the Arabian Allah, the Parsee Ahura-Mazda, and we call God. And all of them, like ourselves, feel at times how poor are words, when applied to something so much better and bigger than all our words ; and again, sometimes they — and we too, alas ! — mistake the word for the thing, I20 LOVE AND LOYALTY and imagine that when we have the word we have found all there is. But we will try to remember that the work of Time is being done "through sunshine and through shower," not only in the rock and at the bottom of the sea, but in the heart of man, in the minds of boys and girls, in the soul that sits on a throne, that pilots the ship or rocks the cradle. We will also try to remember that the power that made the rocks is akin to that which speaks in conscience; that that which once created the forest and taught the earliest bird to fly is now making character and teaching men and women to love and do the right; or, as we find it in the great poem of the author from whom we took our text: Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below, — The canticles of love and woe. Now let us look at the last thought in our couplet, which I suspect is the thought that won you : not only has Time his work to do, but we have ours. The sun attends to his own business, not to yours or mine, and every one of us has some little work of his own in this world whose importance must not be measured by its apparent size. One of the smallest of living things that we can study with the naked eye is the little coral creature which lives in the bottom of the sea. So insignificant is he that it has taken us a- LIFE'S COMMISSION I2i long time to find out how he works, and yet by quietly attending to his business, he has built up for us great islands. Most of the oranges we delight in are raised in Florida, and Florida was built by the little coral animal. And he is still busy at work on the outer rim, building the bulwark that keeps the waves from tear- ing up and carting away our orange gardens. And so we come to the thought that we have a work to do just as much as Time has. The sun did not build the Parthenon. Time could never have carved the splendid frieze on that glorious temple, if Phidias had not lent him a hand. The political geography of the world is as interesting, to say the least, as the physical geography. Time made fertile the valley of the Nile, and built it up at a rate of about five inches of soil in a hundred years ; but it was Rameses that built the great pyramids, and some mighty Pharaoh built the walls of Thebes and caused the great halls of Karnak to rise. Perhaps Alexandria is the most interesting thing in the valley of the Nile today, and it was built, not by Time, but by the great, though often wicked, conqueror, the mighty Alexander. Have you ever heard the story of Giordano Bruno, the brave Italian student who, after languishing seven years in prison under the charge of heresy, walked with steady step to his place amid the fagots? He was burned to death, and it would seem that, if any- one ever lived in vain, it was Giordano Bruno. The world almost forgot him. But four hundred years 122 LOVE AND LOYALTY after the smoke enveloped him, the free people of Italy with song and cheer and waving banners unveiled a bronze statue on the very spot where the martyr fires consumed him, in sight of the Pope's chamber in the Vatican. When John Howard went from capital to capital in Europe, compelling kings and parliaments to see how cruel were their prison systems; when Dorothea Dix went from state legislature to state legislature, pleading for insane asylums and better treatment for the unfortunate, they were helping God, they were piecing out Providence, they were doing their work as Time was doing his. And so it was with Moses and Confucius, Zoroaster and Mohammed, Buddha and Jesus. They had a work to do, and they did it. And the grateful world honors them today with song and temple, procession and ritual. You must not be discouraged, children, by these illustrations of great men. You may be tempted to say: "They, the noble, did have work to do; but that does not imply that we stupid and silly little chil- dren can do anything that will help God. We cannot piece out Providence and make the world better." The little shepherd dog of Colorado, who left her warm nest and dependent family of little pups and went out into the tangles and mountain gorges, hunting all night for the lost sheep and bringing them back in the morning, did not think in this way. The faithful horse that I saw the other day did not think thus. He put his sore shoulder to the pinching collar and tugged- LIFE'S COMMISSION 123 away at the load of flour until he fell upon the stony pavement. He then got up and struggled some more, fell again, and tried the third time, in a., way that only infuriated still further the swearing and whipping driver. At last he succeeded in getting a firm foot- ing and went on with his load of flour, which ere this has been made into toothsome biscuits for some boys and girls to devour in what I fear may be thoughtless ingratitude. He had his work to do. Certainly, then, you have yours. I like to tell the story of "Bunny," a drummer boy that I knew in the army. He was the smallest bunch of a drummer boy I ever saw — a little stubby German, not more than twelve years old, the son of a St. Louis washerwoman. When his brigade made a forced march to Memphis, through nearly a hundred miles of December slush and mud, in order to bring supplies to the starving army cut off by the surrender of Holly Springs, they reached Memphis during the Christmas days of 1862. They were hungry, poorly clad, and had been a long time without pay. Here they found the troops well fed, clothed, and comfort- able, as it seemed to them; and when, the very next morning after their arrival, they were ordered to turn around and escort the provision train back to their hungry comrades in the interior, they rebelled. They said: "It isn't fair. Let the other soldiers go while we rest. We must have clothing and pay before we leave." And so, when the order was given to fall in, nobody moved, the brigade band would not 124 LOVE AND LOYALTY turn out; the drum major would not call out his fifers and drummers, and they would not have moved if he had. The officers went up and down the line, expostu- lating with the men; but nobody moved until "Bun- ny," the wee mite of a drummer, seized his drum, took his place at the head where the line ought to form, and began beating the long roll; and how the little dirty hands made the snare drum rattle! At first the men jeered, then they laughed, then they began to grow silent and ashamed, and one by one they seized their muskets and sneaked into line; and still "Bunny's" drum rolled. After a few minutes a big wheezy fifer, who had substance enough to cut up into three or four "Bunny's," waddled out with his fife and joined in with the drum. Then there was a cheer, a rush for the ranks, and in less than half an hour the tattered regiments and the two pieces of artillery were moving out with quick and elastic step with wagon-loads of hard-tack for the hungry boys sixty miles away. Some time in the afternoon, as the column was picking its way through the mud and rain in a dismal Mississippi swamp, with the boys going "at will," I noticed "Bunny" plodding along a mile or more behind his regiment with a limp in his foot. I put the boy and the drum on the horse which it was my business to ride, and I tried to get him to talk ; but his was the silent doggedness of his Teutonic race. All he would say was: "I schvore I vould help United LIFE'S COMMISSION 125 States ven I enlisted, and I'm shust goin' to do't." In the war reports of that campaign you will read of the exploits of major generals, brigadiers, colonels, and perhaps a few captains, but you will never find a word about "Bunny;" and still who will say that the rattle of his little drum was not the most valuable as well as the most heroic contribution made by the Western army to the cause of liberty that week? Once along the lagoons of Louisiana, under the gray festoons of Spanish moss that hung from the cypress bough, and once in the awful dust and heat of a forced march in the rear of Vicksburg, when the troops were hurrying into line of battle, I saw "Bunny" limping along as usual behind his regiment, with his drum on his shoulder. And then he disap- peared. Did his bad ankle grow worse, and did he go home, as the adjutant advised on the day of the mutiny at Memphis ; or did he lie down one day at the root of a tree, unable to go farther, and was his little body laid away in a wee, small soldier's grave? I never knew. He was not of sufficient importance to have a name other than "Bunny," so far as I could ever learn; but still he, and not the general with gold lace, brass buttons, and silver stars on his shoulder, represents the little work that most of us have to do in life. And we do it, children, by plodding along, though we may never reach the goal. We do not know what is big or what is small. .We do know that what we call results are oftentimes 126 LOVE AND LOYALTY very deceptive. And never, I suspect, do we know the measure of worth as estimated by God. The private soldier walks his solemn beat at mid- night in lonely self -depreciation. If the silent bullet finds him out, it will not make any apparent difference. If he survives, the result will be the same to all appearances. Yet, because he walked his silent beat the general slept the more soundly and his brain was the clearer for the morrow's action. And, though he was only a private, and his life went out in obscurity, he was one of the hundred thousand whose bodies formed the bridge over which the emancipated mil- lions passed out of bondage into freedom, singing jubilee songs. Only a private — and who will care When I may pass away, Or how, or why I perish, or where I mix with the common clay? They will fill my empty place again With another as bold and brave ; And they'll blot me out ere the autumn rain Has freshened my nameless grave. Only a private — it matters not That I did my duty well, That all through a score of battles I fought, And then, like a soldier, fell. The country I died for never will heed My unrequited claim ; And history cannot record the deed, For she never has heard my name. Only a private, and yet I know When I heard the rallying call LIFE'S COMMISSION 127 I was one of the very first to go, And — I'm one of the many who fall : But as here I lie, it is sweet to feel That my honor's without a stain, — That I only fought for my country's weal, And not for glory or gain. Only a private — yet he who reads Through the guises of the heart. Looks not at the splendor of the deeds But the way we do our part ; And when he shall take us by the hand, And our small service own, There'll a glorious band of privates stand As victors around the throne ! Four children went out one day to gather flowers for the king. The mountain-side was gorgeous with the yellow blossoms of the broom and the pink of the heather. One climbed the rugged sides, and succeeded in gathering a bouquet from the hardy shrubs which were more beautiful in the distance than close at hand. The second sought low, and picked a nosegay of the daisies and violets that grew in the grass at the foot of the mountain. The third sought diligently, but his little feet were weak, and the little hands could not hold the blossoms he plucked. The fourth said : "I cannot scale the crags, I cannot reach the broom, and I will not insult my king with a meaner offering." This one alone displeased the king. The empty hands, though torn, were welcome, and the daisies were beautiful as well as the broom. We are meas- ured by what we are rather than by what we bring. 128 LOVE AND LOYALTY What you are aiming at, little one, not what you accomplish, determines your service to man. I would not dissuade you from high enterprise. Strive for large things; but never forget that the striving is larger than the thing you strive for. "You can not rivet a nail in a boiled potato," says a Japa- nese proverb. You cannot do high work with a low purpose. You must not expect to do good with a selfish intent. "He that takes a raven for his guide shall light upon carrion," said the Persian poet. This is true all the world around. There can be no exception in your favor or mine. Nobility comes only to the noble. Never mind what folks think, or say, or do; you try to do your work, not theirs. You attend to your own business, not any- body's else. It is not your business to succeed. It is your business to live worthy success. Said Henry Thoreau: "Be not simply good, but be good for something." In order to accomplish this, little chil- dren, you must "lay the face low on the threshold of truth," as a Persian proverb says. I cannot tell you what your work is to be. How can I? You yourself do not yet know. Perhaps you never will know. Why should you? But I can tell you that the only work that will tell in character, the only way you can help time and co-operate with God, is to enlist for the war, as "Bunny" did. Put yourself in the line whether the rest c'.^ ^r not. Do you beat your drum though you are hungry and cold. Be simple and direct, like the sunlight. Be persist- LIFE'S COMMISSION 129 ent as gravitation; be as honest as the daylight, as earnest as nature, and reverent as befits one who every night may look up into the stars and send his mind up where the planets are. Yes, one thing more. If you have a work to do, use the tools that nature has given you. Become skilled workmen in the shop God has provided you. Would you find truth? You have reason, a little experience, a few insights which have come to you from all of your forerunners, like the color of your eyes and the texture of your hair. Do you want to be loved? Set your own heart at work. Meet the world with a smile. Greet every day with a kiss. Would you know the right, do it. And, still further, if you would do your work in the world, you must take care of your body that has been matured to you by all the processes of life, and is without doubt the most wonderful, beautiful, and complicated machinery that is known to the human mind. Use the body and do not abuse it. Learn to go to sleep when you ought, if you would wake up as you ought. He who abuses his stomach insults his God and is guilty of an act of irreverence. The young person who brings on dyspepsia ought to be ashamed of himself. Every time you are sick it is certain that somebody has sinned, and it very likely is yourself. Would you be beautiful, let good habits be your complexion- maker. Good air, fresh water, plenty of them, will paint your cheeks so that the color will not rub ofif. If you have a work to do, no matter what, keep your 130 LOVE AND LOYALTY tools in order. Let there be no tampering with any of these splendid instruments that Time, God's great exponent, has been so long in fitting to your need. Keep the corns off your toes and jealousy out of your heart. Avoid tight shoes, tight lacing, and mean thoughts. Breathe deeply of truth, as of pure air. And then your work will be God's work, and you will accomplish it, whether it be making horseshoes or chiming rhymes, making bread or making laws. On bravely through the sunshine and the showers ; Time hath his work to do and we have ours, — our own work, not somebody's else. Let us beware of the temptation to attend to our neighbor's garden patch more than to our own. I heard a young woman scolding the other day about the sparrows, "those murderous English sparrows that drive away our robins," while at that very minute there was a robin's wing on her own hat. I once heard, in a colored women's prayer-meet- ing away down in Florida, an "old mammy" wrestle with the Lord in prayer. Judging from information derived from the prayer, she was a hard-working washerwoman, oftentimes neglectful of her duties and unappreciative of her privileges. But slowly she rose on the ladder of confession to great confidences with the Eternal, and at last she reached a spiritual as well as a rhetorical climax, the sincerity of which was attested by abundant tears : "Oh, Lawd, help us keep ou' own do'h-steps clean, an' den ou' neighbo's will keep dere's clean f'om very shame." LIFE'S COMMISSION 131 This hints at the central citadel of morals, the headquarters of the spiritual life. From within come Life's commissions, and from within must come the truest inspirations, the safest leadings. There are no infallible guides, but there are splendid stays, noble helps, divine encouragements to him who is in league with time, who joins hands with the universe, who becomes a partner with God and a fellow-laborer with Socrates, Buddha, and Jesus. To thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Yes, if you would do your work, be true to your- self; true in the prosperity which I hope may await you ; true none the less in the adversity which doubt- less will sometimes overtake you all. Never mind results ; devote yourself to principles. God will take care of consequences. He knows how to use the weak and to preserve the humble. On to your work! Let that work be truly done, and then no time, opposition, defeat, or unpopularity can crush either you or your work. THE LIFE IN COMMON ALL ARE NEEDED BY EACH ONE Sow thy seed nor heed the reaper, Each one is his brother's keeper; If we strive not for his zvinning, Sharers lue in all his sinning. Chorus: All are needed by each one. All are needed by each one, Naught is fair or good alone. All are needed by each one. Seek for good the zvhole world over; That we search for zve discover. Children of one mother, Nature, Kin of ours each fellow-creature. Strength zve lend some load may lighten; Others' smiles our paths may brighten; Linked be all in one endeavor, Love shall rule the world forever. Althea a. Ogden VIII THE LIFE IN COMMON All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone. — Emerson The poem from which you have selected your text is the text's most adequate sermon. You have selected the heart of what is perhaps Emerson's best known poem, whose title, "Each and All," is appeal, argument, and conclusion. In this poem the poet has shown us that the red-shirted workman in the field, the lowing heifer on the upland farm, the sparrow's note, the delicate shell on the sea-shore, the ground pine curling its pretty wreath, the violet's breath, pine cones, and acorns, all are necessary in order to give any one of them its meaning or its beauty. The great Napoleon at the head of his army stops to listen to the noon-day bell, which rings in response to the sex- ton's tugging at the rope. All are needed by each one. Once this lily-growing earth of ours was bare and dry, and enveloped in poisonous gases. Little, quiet, and silent things have worked away to make it what it now is. Darwin has shown us how the earth was prepared for man by the humble diligence of earth- worms. They were the first plowmen ; they were the 135 136 LOVE AND LOYALTY first farmers; they helped make the soil which they afterward so successfully tilled, I cannot stop in the fairyland of science to tell how the wind and the rain, the dews and the sunshine, first gave the lichens and the mosses, and how these prepared the way for grasses and trees, or how the falling leaves, through unnumbered thousands of years, made the rich mold out of which grows the wheat that makes the bread for our daily food, and the cotton that makes the cloth for our daily wear, because I want to think with you chiefly of our large human relations. Last week, somewhere in Kansas, perhaps, a tired, unhappy farmer boy, unhappy because he had to leave his school before it was out, tired because those Kan- sas farms are so large and the furrows so long, plowed, and plowed, and plowed. This week the same boy will plant some corn or sow some wheat in that field that the flour may be made which next winter will make your breakfast attractive and your dinner splendid ; but between that farmer boy in Kansas and the bread in your pantry there are many little links, each so unimportant, apparently, that you can scarcely find it, or finding it, you scarcely give it a thought; but destroy any one of these human links and your chain will be broken, your beefsteak will be delayed, or your bread will be wanting altogether. Think of the reaping, the threshing, the grinding of wheat, the grading and tunneling of railroads, the vigilant watch- man at the switches, the sweating firemen on the engines, the iron grasp of the engineer's hand on the THE LIFE IN COMMON 137 throttle-valve as the monster goes puffing, roaring, blazing, into the night, over dizzy bridges, through weird forests, thus bringing you your breakfast biscuit. But you are needed by the farmer boy as much as the farmer boy is needed by you. He plows that the farm may be paid for. He sows the seed that some day he may go to school again ; or, perchance, that he may have money to build a house, white and small, on the great Kansas prairie, where he may bring a little wife who will plant hollyhocks in the front yard and sun- flowers, squashes, and tomatoes in the back yard, a little wife who will put eggs under the setting hens, and feed and love the chickens when they are hatched. And when, with this farmer boy grown man, the little wife begins to welcome babes into the home, the two will toil harder than ever in order that the new little boy may have better schooling than the father had and that the new little girl may see more of the world of life than the little mother ever did. The new little boy may go to college, though the father never went beyond the fourth reader in the district school house, built at the crossing of the roads on the wide, wide prairie, and the new little girl may see Europe, with its great buildings and noble pictures, though the little mother never but once went out of the county in which she lived, and then only as far as Topeka to visit the State Fair, where she saw such beautiful horses, such , splendid cows, such wonderful patch-work quilts, such pianos, such great 138 LOVE AND LOYALTY machines, and lovely pottery, such pretty engravings and costly books, and such crowds of people, that she never more could get them all out of her head, or better still, out of her heart. And the farm home, with the farmer husband, and the farmer children had a new meaning in her eyes. It was such a blessed week that it helped her do her churning, cook- ing, and scrubbing ever afterward. I say, this farmer boy could not build his house so white and small on the big prairie, and the farmer's wife could not find money to go to Topeka, if you were not at this end of the line needing the corn, the wheat, and the beef, the chickens, and the eggs they toiled for. Yes, "all are needed by each one," not only on the bread-and-butter, shoes-and-stockings-side of life, but on the love and thought side of life. Many gentle things come from far-off and humble sources. How we like the legends and stories, the myths and fables from the older world of fancy and miracle, which tell us how the trees and the flowers, the birds and the beasts, are all linked and locked with us in what is beautiful and tender. We like, with Whittier and his "old Welsh neigh- bor over the way," the story of the merciful bird, who, drop by drop, carries the water to quench some bit of the fire that consumes the souls of sin ; whence the robin is called "Bron rhuddyn," the "breast- burned bird." We like, too, that other legend, given us by Longfellow, of the little bird who tried with his THE LIFE IN COMMON 139 little bill to pull out the cruel nails that fastened Jesus to the cross, and ever since that time the cross-bill has worn the crossed beak and carried marks of blood upon his little body. And we like the still older story how, when all the world was in the water, it was a dove that went out and found the olive branch that gave hope to Noah, riding in his ark. The woods of Indiana, southern Illinois, and Ken- tucky, are splendid every springtime with the dog- wood in bloom, great tree bouquets, blazing like a fragrant fire with most beautiful and delicate red. The old missionaries of the Catholic church used to try to interest the Indians in the Christian story by telling them that the dogwood once bore milk-white blossoms, but that on Crucifixion Day, which, accord- ing to tradition, occurred in the early spring, it blushed with shame over the cruel act, and has borne red blossoms ever since. Have you ever noticed how the poplar leaf and the leaves of all the aspen family are forever quiver- ing? Even in the stillest day of midsummer, there is a tremble and a flutter of the leaves of the poplar tree. Botany teaches that this is because of the peculiar shape of the petiole and the way the leaf is fastened to the tree, but the old monks used to teach that the cross was made of the wood of this tree, and that, on account of the cruel deed, all the poplars in the forest shuddered, and the sympathy had continued ever since. Lowell, our brave American poet, rational and radical in his thought, sings the same truth of I40 LOVE AND LOYALTY universal sympathy in a grander fashion in that great poem, "The Present Crisis," which was one of the earliest bugle calls of our great war for freedom. Thirteen years before Abraham Lincoln issued his call for the first troops to free the slave, Lowell echoed the cry of the bondsman and proclaimed terror to the slave-holder in these lines : When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To that awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe. When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart. For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame; In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. My dear children, there are many things to indicate that this is a cold, selfish world, and many people will tell you that life is a scramble, a rush for the best THE LIFE IN COMMON 1 41 places, and that he who can get a front seat is best off; but don't you beheve it, for all these beautiful legends and a whole world full of rn,ore beautiful facts go to prove the truth, that All are needed by each one, Nothing is fair or good alone. This is a truth which the great Herbert Spencer, a man who has done more, perhaps, to give the present generation foundation for great and inspiring thoughts concerning man and religion than any other person of our times, states in this way: "No one can be perfectly free till all are free. No one can be perfectly moral till all are moral. No one can be per- fectly happy till all are happy." Now the most beautiful thing about it all is, when we come to think of it, that we are glad it is so. We do not want to be happy, do we, until all are happy? We would be ashamed to suffer no shame with the disgraced. We love the story of Jesus because he chose to share the lot of the unhappy. In our studies we gloried in the triumphs of Giordano Bruno, of Michael Servetus, and the Socinii, because they despised the freedom that left others in bonds; because they were glad to die that others might be more free. And we felt that Priestley, driven to the wilds of Pennsylvania, was more fortunate than the mob who felt free to drive him there. There is a deathless story told of one Androcles, a Roman slave, who fled from bondage and hid himself in a cave. While there, to his horror, he saw the cave 142 LOVE AND LOYALTY darkened by a lion whose den he had unwittingly entered. Trembhngly he awaited his fate, ready to accept the death he nevertheless preferred to slavery; but, to his surprise, the lion, instead of pouncing upon him, as he expected, crawled to him and held up a sorely inflamed foot, moaning piteously. The slave discovered, deeply embedded within the paw, a cruel thorn, which had caused great inflammation and much festering. Androcles extracted the thorn to the great relief of the poor beast, who showed every sign of gratitude within his power. Weeks after, the slave was recaptured, and, according to the cruel customs of Rome, he was to be given to the lions for the amusement of the multitude in the amphitheater. The crowd was assembled, the signal given, and the door of the lion's den thrown open ; the lion made one fierce bound toward his victim ; but suddenly his man- ner changed, and, instead of pouncing upon the astonished man, he licked his hands and feet, rubbing against him with all the delight which a dog shows on finding its master. Androcles recognized the lion of the cave, and the lion recognized the friend who had helped him in his extremity. There is deep philosophy in this story. The world, that seems so cruel and unkind, recognizes its helpers. It is helpful to the helping, tender to the tender. It is cruel only to the selfish; the unselfish find themselves paid from within. A miser was offered as much gold dust as he could hold in his two hands. He, anxious to get as much THE LIFE IN COMMON 143 as possible, spread wide his fingers so as to get big handfuls, and lo ! all the gold dust ran through, and he got nothing at all. So does this world treat the selfish. The envious are suspicious, the greedy go hungry, the selfish are lonely, the self-indulgent are miserable, though they count their wealth by millions and lie down and rise up in luxury. I wish I could make you understand not only that you need everybody and everything, but also that you are needed by everybody and everything. Robert Browning has a pretty poem which tells of a bard who was singing for a prize to the accompaniment of his lyre. Suddenly, in the midst of his contest, one of the strings of his lyre snapped, and disgrace and defeat were imminent, when a cricket alighted upon the instrument and, With her chirrup, low and sweet, Sav'd the singer from defeat, by sustaining the note which his broken string failed to give. At the close of the contest, so grateful was the poet to his little helper that he had a life-size statue of himself with his lyre cut in marble, and on the lyre he perched his cricket partner, ever to keep a memorial of the service. How often such a service is rendered by the little ones, the weak ones, we can never tell. One of the curiosities at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago was a full-sized reproduction of La Rabida, the mon- astery near Palos, where the weary and almost dis- couraged Columbus once happened unexpectedly to 144 LOVE AND LOYALTY find the good monk Juan Perez, who became inter- ested in his scheme and promptly interested Queen Isabella and others. John Fiskc is inclined to accept the account which says that Christopher Columbus knocked at the gates of this monastery for the sake of asking for some bread and water for his little twelve- year-old boy. If this story is true, little Diego Columbus was the cricket perched on the lyre of the explorer, that saved the music and won the prize. He helped discover America. Great streams flow from little springs. We all have a note to carry. If we refuse to sound it, there is somewhere a chord incomplete. I like a short story, published not long ago, of a little child in Arkansas, who, in trying to teach another little child how to make a peculiar kind of brown bread, reconciled two angry fathers, prevented an ugly duel, and made friends and neighbors of those who were deadly enemies. It is a good story, but nothing compared to what the author of that story, a woman of Iowa, has done in real life. She read of the hungry thousands in Russia, the grim famine that threatened to starve whole communities before the new crop would come, and her woman heart said, "I can do something." So she started out among the farmers of Iowa and said to them, "You have no money, but give me corn, give me wheat, give me flour, give me potatoes." She went to the railroads and said, "Give me cars to carry these provisions to the seacoast." She went to the government and said, ;;.< THE LIFE IN COMMON 145 "Give me a ship to carry this food to the starving men and women of Russia." And the Iowa farmers filled the freight cars with corn, the railroads hauled it to the sea, the good ship "Indiana" carried it across the ocean, and they had a great thanksgiving service at the Russian fort of Libau. When the first train-load of food started out for the hungry district it was covered with the American and Russian flags, the bands were playing, and there were shouts and sobs, prayers and songs. The work that was begun in Iowa was taken up in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and elsewhere. All this was due to the lone woman who wrote "The Arkansas Story" and "The Loaf of Peace," over the pen name of Octave Thanet. It is thought that enough corn was sent to Russia in this way to keep fifty thousand people alive until the crops came to their help. How little it was, for each one to do, and how easy it would be to keep the world from want if only we all remembered that All are needed by each one, and that Nothing is fair or good alone. All these things seem big things when they are done. I want you to believe that the little things are worth doing, because they, too, are "needed by each one," even when they remain little, so little that they are never heard of, so little that men can never dis- cover any results, good or bad. We all have an offer- 146 LOVE AND LOYALTY ing of some kind that we might make, Hke the old man in this poem which I found in a child's magazine : An old man wheeling a heavy cart, Pausing oft to rest on his weary way, While western sunbeams in show'r of gold, O'er the wrinkled features in glory play : Fair as a sunbeam across his path Darts a merry child in his boyish glee. Pausing abruptly at figure bent With the tottering step and trembling knee. Poor old man ! And the wee boy stopped. Sorrowfully shaking his curly head; Then a happy thought to the baby came — "Just take a bite of my apple," he said. The old man stopped at the boy's request. Whilst blessing the dear little hand for aye; Then took up his load with a lighter heart As the child went singing back to his play. You can give "a bite of your apple" and make the load a little lighter all day long to some weary worker. If we would all give "a bite of our apple," there would be no starving children in Russia or anywhere else, and there would be very much more contented- ness and kindliness in the world everywhere. Turgenieff, a Russian poet, in one of his poems in prose, tells of meeting a beggar who asked for alms. The poet looked for a penny in all his pockets and could find none, and then in his confusion took the beggar's dirty hand and said, "Don't be vexed with me, brother, I have nothing with me, brother." The beggar raised his blood-shot eyes, his blue lips smiled, THE LIFE IN COMMON 147 and he returned the pressure of the chilled finders as he stammered, ''Never mind, brother, thank you for li t'thl T """" " ^'''■" ^^^^^P^ ^' ^-^ ^ better fck t t" P^'V'' P"^' "^'^^^ ^^- had in his pocket The gift of a kindly word, the gift of a cordial smile, of a kind heart, is a benediction. A genial face, a kindly voice, a willing hand, a helpful soul make one a millionaire, though he be as poor as the Raggedy Man," the boys' friend, that Whitcomb Kiley has helped the boy to describe: W'y, The Raggedy Man-he's 'ist so good He sphts the kindlin' an' chops the wood, An' nen he spades in our garden too,— An' does most things 'at boys can't do. He clumbed clean up in our big tree An' shook a' apple down fer me— An' nother'n too, fer 'Lizabuth Ann— An' nother'n, too, fer The Raggedy Man.- Am't he a' awful kind Raggedy Man? Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!" I Wish I could make you believe that our beautiful ext grows more and more beautiful as we go from things to thoughts, as we think less of body and more of mind and forget the hunger of stomach in trying to satisfy the hunger of heart. He does well who shares an apple, but he does better who shares a thought. It IS easier to go without a coat than with- out a friend. Better have a sore foot than a sore heart. And the noblest truth in this noble motto of yours is that not a thought is lost, not a wish is wasted. 148 LOVE AND LOYALTY Thus we come to think of prayer, of God, and of the never-ending Hfe. Every wish helps to make a will. To seek is to half find. To hope is to begin already to live that life. If we are "needed by each one," we are also needed by that all we call God. The cricket and the bard belong to his orchestra, and the one no more than the other can neglect his notes with- out marring the great music. I have not talked to you much about heaven and the beyond, in our lessons, not because I have not great hopes, but because I have, because all my hopes rest on the thought of the value and the beauty of the Now. The heaven that is to be is the heaven that begins when the boy gives "a bite of his apple." The heaven that I believe in is the heaven whose near gate is through that which a "Raggedy Man" may enter, when He's the goodest man ever you saw. I believe in the high hopes of Easter Day. There is a link that binds the life beyond to the life here. When we cease to be here, we shall begin to be there, where our dear ones have gone already. But now we are here, and so we will believe that we are needed here. And there, as here, Nothing is fair or good alone, for everything is linked over there as here. Indeed there is no there or here, for all is one. We have talked of John the Baptist, that weird, wild man who called himself a "voice crying in the THE LIFE IN COMMON 149 desert." It was a voice soon silenced, but Jesus heard it, and he took up the strain and sounded the note John tried for and could not reach. I wonder if you can understand the following parable. I know not whether it is more science or more poetry, for it is both. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, crying out in lone despair, seen only by the hard blue sky, by the sands lying parched and glazed in the unchecked glare of the sun. The sands heeded not. Verdureless, ragged, abrupt, defiant, stood the mountains round about. In mocking, uncompleted fragments, they echoed back. The desert was still again. All was desolate, unchanged, silent, and the one who had raised his protest against the world sank exhausted into the dreamless slumber we call Death. The stars came out, cold, unpitying, hard as diamonds, and looked down upon him. Had he cried out in vain? Is anything created out of nothing, to no purpose, and only to be resolved back into nothing? The vibration of his voice died not away. The reverberation loosened a grain of sand from the moun- tain side. Another followed it, and others. A mighty stone slipped away. An avalanche was started. From beneath the foundation of the mountain burst forth a spring of water, which before had gone silent, unknown to the sea. Was it there for naught? And where the stream flowed down into the desert, there came greenness and birds and beasts. Men came, and they passed jestingly by the white bones of him who had cried out. And they reclaimed the land, and with the waters they drove ISO LOVE AND LOYALTY back the waves of sand, as men with dikes of earth drive back the waves of the sea. And the desert blossomed as the rose. The white bones of him who had long ago cried out in the wilderness, lost their semblance in the Chemistry of Change. But had he lived in vain? Come, dear children, again give me your hands, for I need you more than you need me. Childhood endows age. Youth enriches the gray hairs of the old. We all have a voice, weak and small though it may be, and life to each of us at times seems a desert. I say seems, because there is no place where we may not loosen the sands which will give way to another and another, and eventually find the spring and make room for the brook that shall cause the wilderness to bloom. MORE STATELY MANSIONS This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that Hings On the sweet summer wind its purple wings In gulfs enchanted, wher^e the Siren sings. And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the nezv. Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door. Stretched in his last-found home, and kneiv the old no more. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the szvift seasons roll! Leave thy loiv-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. Till thou at length art free. Leaving thine outgrozvn shell by life's unresting sea! -Oliver Wendell Holmes, in "The Chambered Nautilus" IX MORE STATELY MANSIONS Build thee more stately mansions, O my Soul. — Oliver Wendell Holmes I remember your delight in the story of the Httle creature who, as fast as he outgrew the dimensions of the biggest house he had been able to build for him- self at any given time, was willing to crawl quietly out of his cramped quarters, close up the door of the home that now fettered him, and proceed to build for himself a new house more adequate to his present needs; and it was your pleasure in the study of this marvelous little animal that led you to select this line from Holmes's "Chambered Nautilus" as your class motto and as a text for my class sermon. In 1880 the school children of Cincinnati held an Oliver Wendell Holmes birthday celebration, and the genial doctor wrote them a letter in which he said, "If you will remember me by 'The Chambered Nauti- lus,' 'The Promise,' and 'The Living Temple,' your memories will be a monument I shall think more of than bronze or marble." It was this letter of the poet that led us to explore the beauties of the poem, and the still greater beauty of the thing. The lines of Holmes are so polished that they stand out clear and bright, but not so polished are they as the glistening walls of this house of the little mollusk from tropic ^53 154 LOVE AND LOYALTY sea which I hold in my hand. The stanzas of Holmes are thought-laden, but more suggestive still is this poem of the deep sea, for it represents thoughts too deep for words. Let us first try, then, to go back of the poem to the thing, and then back of- the thing to that mystery of life which runs through all nature and is back of all things, linking your life and mine not only with sea- shells but with sunshine, stars, poets, and the mystery which we revere as God; the power from whom all things come, in whom all things are, to whom all things tend. Our Pearly Nautilus has always appealed to the fancy of the poet and challenged the admiration of the naturalist. His name, which means mariner, or sailor, holds a pretty myth, which we will not pursue, because the plain scientific facts are still prettier and more curious. In youth this little creature finds him- self a soft lump of unprotected jelly-like material, lying at the mercy of every prowling creature of the deep. There is nothing for him to do but lie quiet and cautious in some sheltered cove while he goes to work to build, out of minute particles of matter, little stores secreted from the salt water, cemented by air and sunshine, a pearl house over his back into which he may retreat from danger, and at the door of which he may sit (if that is the way a little "mouth-foot," or cephalopod, takes his ease) and gather his dinner from whatever toothsome thing passes within reach of his toothless mouth, eating and growing until, in MORE STATELY MANSIONS 155 due time, he has hterally grown too big for his house. But, insteaid of abandoning it entirely, he slips out, walls up the little room which he has left, and builds on a new main part in front which he enjoys for a season; and, when age brings size and strength too great for the second house, he again slips out, walls it up, and constructs for himself a third; and thus the process goes on until the beautiful spiral shell is com- pleted. On the outside it is all symmetry and unity; and not until the scientist, years hence, perchance, picks up the beautiful shell and splits it through the middle, does he discover that the shell is not one, but many houses, and that the little builder in the sea never occupied but one at a time, in each case withdrawing for the sake of more ample quarters, the last being always the noblest house. But, as if the little animal were grateful for the service rendered by the smaller dwellings, a line of communication, the purpose of which science is as yet scarcely able to tell, runs like a slender thread of memory through all the apart- ments. I have said the rooms were empty, but they are not wholly so; for these sealed chambers, once the home of the little sailor, seem to be charged with a gas that makes more buoyant the httle life-boat. The earlier books used to say that these chambers could be filled and emptied at pleasure, and thus the little house could rise to the surface or sink to the bottom at the will of the captain on the forecastle; this little thread of tissue which runs from fore to aft 156 LOVE AND LOYALTY being supposed to answer to the tube running through a series of railroad cars, by means of which the con- ductor can open or shut the valves of the air-brake at will. But the later books are not so sure about this, and scientists are now inclined to regard this story as a relic of that larger one in which the earlier poets delighted : how this little sailor, when the weather was fine and the water smooth, could come to the surface, spread his little sail, and travel by the help of the wind. So here we have that which stirred Oliver Wen- dell Holmes to write in the short meter of song what I have clumsily and inadequately told in the long meter of prose. Beautiful are the verses, but not so beautiful or wonderful as the thing. Here we have another illustration of what I never tire of saying, especially to children, that science is beautiful poetry, more beautiful than anything we find in the books. Nature is the great Poet; indeed, the word "poet" originally meant maker, creator, and, of course, the most wonderful poems are those produced by the great Maker, the Infinite Creator. This "ship of pearl," which the "wandering sea''" has "cast from her lap forlorn," is neither more nor less marvelous than millions of other things that tempt your interest and are anywhere and everywhere ready to reward your studies, enrich your minds, and sweeten your lives. From the little fly upon the wall to the twinkling star in the sky are scattered the wonder- poems, so simple and so easy that little children need MORE STATELY MANSIONS 157 never tire of them, so profound and so great that the wise philosophers grow gray without exhausting them. This "house of pearl" is the product of a stupid little animal, very stupid indeed. He is a sort of cousin to the oyster, and probably the oyster is the smarter of the two; and still how wonderful and inter- esting the Nautilus is. You have read Kingsley's "Water Babies," I hope, and you may be sure that the more wonderful half of the book is the "really-truly" half. The most interesting things that Tom saw in his journey to the world's end were such as the scient- ists have found at the bottom of the sea and in the earth; and Charles Kingsley was able to write such a delightful book for children because he was a man who had eyes to see the marvels about him, or who was, at least, willing to learn of those who had open eyes. He has been able to tell us things quite as inter- esting in almost as delightful a way about a piece of chalk, the coal in the grate, a piece of slate-pencil, as about the water babies, because he thought it worth while to study those things which most people are glad to step on, avoid, or get rid of. Many years ago, when I used to travel much as a missionary, I had to drive all one dark Saturday night through the pine woods of Michigan in order to get to my Sunday morning appointment. The liveryman gave me as a driver a little German boy about fourteen years old, by the name of "Gus." I was assured that he was a good driver and a smart 158 LOVE AND LOYALTY little chap, who would get there all right. It was a long night's ride through thirty miles of pine woods, and we talked of many things in order to keep our- selves awake. Once Gus said he thought a fire-bug was the "most curiousest thing in the world;" and a little while after, as the stars came out through the high tops of the trees, between the cracks of the wild, scudding clouds still higher up, he was inclined to change his mind and think that a star was the "most curiousest thing in the world;" and he wanted me to explain to him how it was that the stars did not fall down, or fall up, or get all mixed up somehow. And when I could not tell him, he wondered if it might not be that they were all mixed up, anyway, all a going which-way, and we did not know enough to know the difference. Fortunately, I could assure him that this is not the case; that the stars do not get mixed up, but all keep their right places. Then Gus and I, in the dark grim woods, fell to wondering, until I think we were both almost afraid, so solemn was the great mystery. Perhaps to drive away this sense of awe, so heavy for a little boy to carry whose business it was to keep the track in the dark woods at midnight, he asked me what was the "most stupidest thing in the world." I did not know, but he thought it was a calf ; "they are so stupid that if you try to drive a lot of them, even to get a drink of milk, no two of them will go the same way at the same time." I was not very bright that night, not so bright as Gus, and I did MORE STATELY MANSIONS 159 not know what to say to him when he asked me if I knew of anything "any more stupider than a calf." But since then I have thought of many things more stupid than a calf; for instance, a boy or girl who goes through the world never looking for curious things, never asking strange questions, never trying to get acquainted with bugs and stars, trees and birds, and all kinds of things, as Gus did. And I think grown up men and women who are afraid of science, who do not know that this pearl-building Nautilus and all his "mouth-footed" and "stomach-footed" relatives are little texts in some of the chapters of God's great book of revelation, are more stupid than the calf, because they have minds to tell them just such things if they would only use them, and the calf has not, so of course it is not his fault. The wisest men are those who study near things and who remember that all the poems of the great Maker are worth studying. The knowledge of these nature-poems makes men gentle and kind, truthful and noble, like Agassiz or Darwin, or like Owen, the wise scientist who wrote the first careful study of our chambered Nautilus. It was fifty years ago In the pleasant month of May, In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, A child in its cradle lay. And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying: "Here is a story-book Thy Father has written for thee. i6o LOVE AND LOYALTY "Come wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God." And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe. And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvelous tale. So she kept him still a child, And would not let him go, Though at times his heart beat wild For the beautiful Pays de Vaud; Though at times he heard in his dreams The Ranz des Vaches of old, And the rush of mountain streams From glaciers clear and cold; And the mother at home said, "Hark! For his voice I listen and j'earn; It is growing late and dark. And my boy does not return!" So says Longfellow, in his story of Agassiz. But let us get back to our little poem in pearl, that we may be ready for "the conclusion of the whole matter," as the preachers say, before my sermon gets too long for it. This foolish little mollusk should not receive too much credit, for he but obeyed the impulse, strong in all of us, to get to the front, the desire to see and hear all that is going. He yielded to the law that is MORE STATELY MANSIONS i6i back of everything, the same law that makes a butter- fly out of a grub, a frog out of a tadpole; the law that impels the chick to break the egg ; the law that taught man first to build his wigwam, then his cabin, then his cottage, and at last a mansion or a palace. You read something of this law in the polished pebble as in the beautiful shell. The acorn teaches it, the oak exemplifies it. It is as great as the universe, as old as time. It is gentle enough to color a rose, mighty enough to make a world. I love to think of it as God's beautiful law working in our own bodies, shap- ing our own minds as everywhere else. It is the beautiful law of evolution, the law of unfolding, that which makes things grow from weak to strong, from simple to complex, from good to better everywhere. All living things must grow thus or die and fall to pieces, to be made up again after a better pattern and for better uses. I said this law works everywhere; but sometimes man is stupidly afraid of it and tries to avoid it, or even to change it or put an end to it altogether, and then comes trouble. Especially does trouble in religion often come in this way. Men have sometimes found themselves in what at the time seemed a beautiful temple, or a beautiful book has been given them, or they have been taught by a noble leader, and they have said : "There can never be a better temple than this; this is the holiest place in all the universe; there can never be any wiser book than this ; this is the most sacred page ever written or that ever will be written ; i62 LOVE AND LOYALTY and this is the best teacher, the only true one." They have been so sure that they have determined never to look any farther, never to change their minds about any of these things. You know they used to be so sure of these matters that they would put people to death if they suggested anything different. That is why they burned Giordano Bruno at Rome and Mi- chael Servetus at Geneva, and many others. This is what we call superstition; it is trying to stand still, as the word implies, in a world that is on the move. Everything is going, and we must go too, or else get out of the way; otherwise we become a stumbling- block, a hindrance to others, a misery to ourselves. Men not heeding this law of the universe, forget- ting the lesson of the chambered Nautilus, have gone to work to build them a thought-house to their liking, one that fitted them in every respect just as the earlier shell-house of the Nautilus fitted him. And then they have said, "This is good enough. Do not trouble us more about building thought-houses." They have tried to stay inside the little thought-house in spite of growth, in spite of the beautiful outside world and the abundance of new material for building new houses. This kind of thought-house which people want to remain in unchanged forever is called a "creed." Can you think how curious a place for us to live in would be the pentagonal or five-cornered thought-house of John Calvin, or, still worse, the wild jumble of words in the Athanasian creed? And. yet men try to stay in these houses by doubling up, MORE STATELY MANSIONS 163 twisting, packing, and squeezing themselves in every way possible. A creed is last year's cell made to do duty this year. A man who tries to live inside of an old creed is a chicken who means always to enjoy life inside the eggshell. It was good enough once; why not good enough all the time? If it was big enough last week, it is big enough this week. No, not if you have had a week's healthy growth meantime. When I tell you that all the Presbyterians, Trini- tarians, Unitarians, and all the other kinds of "arians" came into the world in this way and are trying to stay in the world largely in this way, living not only in last-year houses but in last-century houses, shells many hundred years old, and that the Methodists, Baptists, Universalists, and all the other "ists" have their little shells in which they are sometimes uncom- fortably crowded, being determined to stay in them because they were once good places, large, roomy, and beautiful, and they are afraid that it is cold and wild outside and they will never get other places as good, you will understand why it is that I wanted you to get clear in your minds the difference between "creed," as used by the churches, and conviction. One is the belief of yesterday, the other the belief of today; one is a last year's shell, the other a this year's house; one, to come back to our chambered Nautilus, is closed up in front, is a dead cell; the other is open in front, ready to catch fresh breezes, note changes, and welcome new growth. This is why 1 64 LOVE AND LOYALTY the line from Holmes is a worthy motto for your class and a fitting climax for your confirmation studies. And now are we ready for the full text of the last stanza ? Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift season's roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past ! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at lengh art free. Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! How shall we build these "more stately mansions," and by what method shall we make each new "temple nobler than the last?" The first lesson I would urge is a lesson of courage; when you are older we will call it "trust," when in the glory of old age we will call it "faith," but all these words mean the same thing; they all mean that which dares because it believes there are better things farther on. Do not be foolish enough to think that you have the ocean in your little pint measure, or that the sky has come down to arch your little cell alone, or that the sun has given all its brightness to paint your little pearl; beautiful as it is, there is more pearl-stuff left outside. Believe me, life and growth, to you as to this mollusk, are on the outer line of being. Keep your minds out of doors. "There are new truths yet to break upon you from God's word," said Parson Rob- inson to our pilgrim forefathers as they were about MORE STATELY MANSIONS 165 to sail from Leyden to Plymouth. "The continent is farther on," said Columbus to his discontented sailors who wanted to stop and hunt for land when they came to green weeds in the Sargasso Sea. "Forget- ting the things that are behind, pressing forward to the things that are before," said Paul. These are all youth's commissions to be brave in the search for truth. Have courage, my dear children! Live for the future, trust it. It has a place for you, a work for you to do, a house for you to live in, but you must build it like the Nautilus — of earth, air, water, and sunshine; you must build it through your own nature, out of the secretions of your own being; and as to the empty cells, the air-chambers wherein once the living creature dwelt, they are of some use to a mol- lusk, perhaps, but they seem to be of less use as life gets along into higher forms. There are many more chambered cells among fossils than now belong to living species. There are things which are useful, beautiful, indispensable one day, which another day may find as useless as a broken eggshell is to the chicken. The chief thing for the chicken to believe in is its beak, the important thing to trust is the leg-and- wing instinct ; let him peck away, and, when the time comes, let him stretch his little legs, and spread his little wings, and some time he will prove that through all his cramped and narrow life there ran a holy meaning; over his darkness, loneliness, and apparent thrall there brooded a purpose, a providence, a love which in due time demonstrated that it was both love 1 66 LOVE AND LOYALTY and wisdom. A friend sent me the other day some rhymes of a Massachusetts high-school girl seven- teen years old. I thought them good enough to print in Unity, and I give them to you to close my plea for courage as the first condition of growth. Three long weeks had the mother hen Sat on her nest in the hay; Now she turns her eggs with tender care, For the chickens will hatch today. Little chick in the egg is not very old, Of course he's not very wise; And he views what little life he's had, With discontented surprise. "Surely this is not my proper sphere ; I've no room to grow ! I, a chicken with wings and feet — To be cramped in a hard shell, so ! "Of what possible use are beak and eyes To me, doubled up like a ball? 'Tis torture to know that I have the things When I cannot use them at all. "Never was any creature, I'm sure, So sorely fettered and pressed." How should he know that a dozen more Lay under his mother's breast? His murmurings end with a lusty peck At the shell which holds him fast, When lo ! the wondrous light breaks in, And he finds himself free at last. Balancing on his feeble claws. He gazes above and below, — MORE STATELY MANSIONS 167 "Was it for such a world as this That I was shut up to grow?" ..**-•■ He nestled under his mother's wing, Thinking little enough, I ween. That her love had hovered him all the while With only a shell between. And so, dear friends, when things are wrong, And seem to go ill — not well ; Just think of the love that is brooding o'er all And wait till you've chipped your shell. I have urged upon you this lesson of courage, because I am not afraid it will lead you to reckless- ness or land you in flippant irreverence. Would you "build more stately mansions" for the soul, you must never forget that your little bark floats in an infinite sea, and that your little dome is built out of measure- less sky-stuff and painted with the long and swift pencils of light shot out of the heart of the central sun, whose brilliancy dazzles the mind as it does the eye. Let our mansions be ever domed with reverence. When the great Agassiz met his pupils for the first time on the island of Penikese, in that great summer- school, where they were to study the mysteries of the beach, the marvels of land and water, he began his work by asking the class to bow their heads with him in reverent awe in the thought of the mighty source of all these marvels, the Giver of life and all its teem- ing possibilities of thought. The poet Whittier has interpreted this occasion to us, and I would you might l68 LOVE AND LOYALTY know this poem well, for it would, perhaps, help you remember that never were stately mansions built by the undevout. The thought of the philosopher, as well as that of the child, ends with the thought of God. Said the Master to the youth : "We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery; We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment-hem of Cause, Him, the endless, unbegun, The Unnamable, the One Light of all our light the Source, Life of life, and Force of force. As with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen, What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise, What it is that hides beneath Blight, and bloom and birth and death. By past efforts unavailing, Doubt and error, loss and failing. Of our weakness made aware, On the threshold of our task Let us light and guidance ask. Let us pause in silent prayer!" Then the Master in his place Bowed his head a little space, And the leaves by soft airs stirred, Lapse of wave and cry of bird Left the solemn hush unbroken MORE STATELY MANSIONS 169 Of that wordless prayer unspoken, While its wish, on earth unsaid, Rose to heaven interpreted. , As, in life's best hours, we hear By the spirit's finer ear His low voice within us, thus The All-Father heareth us; And his holy ear we pain With our noisy words and vain. Not for Him our violence Storming at the gates of sense; His the primal language, his The eternal silences ! But the last and best thing I have to say about "building a more stately mansion" is what the life of the mollusk never reached. He builded for himself only; but a stately soul-mansion must be builded for service, not to self but to others. My dear children, be of use in this world, and its infinite resources are at your disposal ; be selfish and mean, and the world is barren, a narrow, stingy place that withholds from you what you most crave. My little friend Gus, the boy driver in the pine woods of Michigan, bemoaned his lack of education ; he had never got beyond the second reader in school, he said. But when, in the pitchy darkness of midnight, the horses lost their way, struck a tree and broke a tug, the little fourteen-year- old boy succeeded in taking the check-rein from one part of the harness and repairing the damage to the other part, and thus we were enabled to continue our way. I thought he had an education which many a lyo LOVE AND LOYALTY college graduate misses, and with the humble tool of service he was all unconsciously building a statelier mansion for his soul. One day as Tamberlik, a famous tenor, was walk- ing through a bird market at Madrid, he suddenly stopped, and, for a bank note of a thousand francs, or about two hundred dollars, bought up the entire twittering colony. He then opened the doors of the cages, and as the astonished songsters found their wings and sought their home in the air, he cried, "Go and be free, my brothers!" Edith Thomas has celebrated this act in song : Cage-door is open — sing! Pure gladness ! fly southward, fly northward, Each one in your turn carry spring, Faithful, unbribed, undelaying, Alike to peasant and king. Cage-door is open — fly ! Whistler, twitterer, warbler, And you that but sob or cry, You, the slumber-smooth ringdove, Out, to the sun and the sky! It is not birds alone that are doomed to live in cages, and not all cages are made of iron wires. The human soul finds its saddest imprisonment when it is helpless in the presence of cruelty, when it cannot right a wrong. It finds its highest freedom when it can secure justice to others. A poor woman was dying a miserable death in her miserable little room on the top floor of a big tene- MORE STATELY MANSIONS I71 ment house in the city of New York, when a good Methodist missionary woman found her and sought to help her. But the dying woman said, "My time is short. I ask for nothing for myself, but I can- not die in peace while a miserable little child is being cruelly beaten night and day in the next room. I have been hearing her screams for months." The missionary tried to secure justice to the child, but twenty years ago in New York City there were no laws under which such a case could be brought to court. The police said, "It is a dangerous thing to interfere between parent and child." As a last resort the missionary appealed to Henry Bergh, the holy man who befriended the dog, the horse, and all dumb animals. He said, "The child is an animal. It shall have the rights of the stray cur in the streets;" and the starved, half-naked, and bruised little girl was brought into court wrapped in a horse-blanket. A cry of horror went through the city of New York. Little Mary Ellen was rescued, and became a farmer's happy wife in central New York. Jacob Riis tells this story in The Children of the Poor, as the origin of the formation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which, under one form or another, now exists in nearly all the great cities of Europe and America. How happy and glori- ous was the death of the poor consumptive woman in the tenement house! How stately a mansion did that soul create for itself ! Any act that serves, whether it be mending a 172 LOVE AND LOYALTY broken tug, giving a bird its freedom, or standing between a little child and its wrongs, suggests the highest art of mansion-making. Courage, reverence, helpfulness, these are the three simple rules of the character-builder. Dear children, we have had good times together over high themes; we have tasted the sweets of thought, the fellowship of free minds, the communion of love. I pray that your lives may bring you much health, prosperity, and peace. For these we dare not always hope, but we can so live that each day may find us dwelling in a "new temple, nobler than the last." Live on the front line. Fear not the out-of- doors of God when the mind is crowded on the inside. Give your minds room to think great things; give your hearts room to love high things, nay, to love low things, to love everything; give your wills and consciences room to do true things, and you will always dwell in noble mansions. Build, build, build! Not for time, but for eternity! Build out of thoughts and loves the holy temple of usefulness, and your little temples will become sacred chapels, altar places in the infinite temple of God, "the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," in which you may dwell forever. Amen. INTO THE LIGHT THE TABLES TURNED Up! up! my Friend, and quit your hooks; Or surely you'll grow double: Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? The sun, above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow Through all the long green fields has spread. His first sweet evening yellow. Books! 't is a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet. How sweet his music! on my life. There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless — Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health. Truth breathed by cheerfulness. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good. Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That zvatches and receives. — William Wordsworth X INTO THE LIGHT Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. — Wordsworth There are three ways in which men have esti- mated nature. According to the first way, it was regarded as an enemy, antagonistic to the higher Hfe of man, a snare to entrap the soul, a force to be resented, with interests ahen to those of the spirit. This view makes it the business of rehgion to get away from nature as soon as possible. It led the devotee into the anchorite's cell. It produced the piety which sought caves and deserts, and it encour- aged the flagellants to torture the flesh. This view of nature looked upon the world as accursed, God-for- saken, devil-possessed. It taught that the bodies we occupy are prison-houses of the soul, ever pulling it downward, entangling the spirit, endangering its future, and polluting its present. This estimate springs from the thought that God is far off, that heaven is in some other realm, that the spirit receives its illumination and revelation through miracle. The story of Adam and Eve in Eden seemed to justify this estimate: Once the world was beautiful and holy, but the serpent came into it and tempted Eve, and she did eat of the forbidden fruit and give it to Adam to eat. And for this the world was cursed ; I7S 176 LOVE AND LOYALTY thorns were put upon the rose; briars grew in the fields that henceforth yielded reluctantly her grains and her fruits and from which man must win his bread by toil and sweat. A second estimate of nature regards it with indifference except as a storehouse of material com- forts. According to this estimate, nature is a cup- board from which we draw with more or less suc- cess the necessities of life. A pine tree is so many thousand shingles in possibility; an oak suggests a certain number of feet of building timber; a prairie, the possibility of so many' bushels of corn per acre. Land is divided into two kinds, useful and useless; the first is to be cut up into farms; the latter tempts the invention, and men try to find some use for it. Here in Chicago, men organize their Calumet clubs to secure control of thousands of acres of what they call waste land, in order that they may control the fishing and the shooting thereon. The Calumet swamps and the Kankakee marshes are of use because they harbor wild ducks and make good shooting- ground. This estimate of nature is the estimate of ignorance, the estimate of business, the estimate which measures life by its possessions, by dollars and cents. The third estimate of nature regards it as a friend, beautiful, inspiring, exhaustless. It looks upon nature as the teacher of mind, the wonder-home of man, the house of God, exhaustless in its bounty,, the great book of revelation ordered and orderly. INTO THE LIGHT I77 This is the view of poetry, of science, and of art. This is the view of universal reHgion, which regards God as the hfe of the universe, the hght of history, the love in all our loves, the joy in all our joys. It is this view of nature that brings cheer to the discour- aged, inspiration to the student, patience to the toiler, glad trustfulness to all. It led Jesus to find God's revelation in the lilies of the field and to discover the parables of the higher life by the roadside, in the fields, and on the beach. But this view of nature is in the main a modern view. It has remained for these later centuries of the world's history to teach men what a friend they have in nature, how comforting are her ways. And the two great aids in this direction have been art and science. When Millet, that brave French peasant painter, was borne down with care and anxiety, his great heart toiling to teach reluctant eyes to see beauty in things near, poetry in the beauties of the field and the home, he exclaimed, "Come, let us go and see the sunset; it will make me feel less forlorn." There is a beautiful story told of the great Ole Bull when he was stretched on his bed of pain and life was ebbing away. He was too sick to speak, but his friends saw that he wanted something. They brought him his favorite violin, his diamonded bow, the crown of gold he had won. To all these he shook his head, but when someone wiser than the others brought him a handful of heather from the hillside, he smiled and pressed it to his bosom, and was 178 LOVE AND LOYALTY soothed and comforted. This great master of art died a loving child of nature, pressing to his bosom one of its most familiar flowers. Poetry has done much in these days to help us to an appreciation of what is best in nature. I dare not begin to quote from the great measures of Shakes- peare and Goethe, of Wordsworth and Emerson, Tennyson and Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant, for the delightful task would tempt me too far away from my purpose. But all of them say in ever vary- ing notes, Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. And what a beautiful story is that of the heroes of science, of the men enamored of nature. How brave and tender, how diligent and joyous the lives of those who have accepted nature's invitation and gone "forth into the light of things." Brave Columbus sailing unknown seas in search of hidden continents; Von Humboldt climbing the solitudes of the Andes; Livingstone penetrating the depths of unexplored con- tinents ; Darwin sailing amid tropic seas in the "Beagle," studying coral and mollusk; Agassiz exploring the tropic glories of the Amazon or bat- tling with the Alpine glaciers; not to mention the names of those who have found great peace in study- ing the midnight stars in the solitude of fireless obser- vatories, or those other devotees of the lens who, by means of the microscope, explore the palaces of little- ness and study the inhabitants of a raindrop. To INTO THE LIGHT 179 think of Wallace, Proctor, Huxley, and Tyndall, of Pasteur and Koch, is to enlarge one's mind, clear one's vision, warm one's heart, ennoble the ideals of life, because all of these went "forth into the light of things;" they accepted nature as a teacher, and it made them not only wise but noble. It gave them not only skill of intellect but warmth of heart. In seek- ing truth they learned to serve the right also, and in becoming wise they grew loyal. Dear friends, it is well to know much of books, to master foreign languages, to study remote ages, and, when possible, to travel into foreign lands. I wish you might all sail up the Nile, visit Palestine, and sit amid the ruins of Persepolis, but these are privileges which come to only a few. So it is well to remember that the lapping waves of Lake Michigan murmur the same gospel that the "ripple-wash of Galilee" taught Jesus. The rose of Illinois reflects the same glory as the rose of Sharon. The same sun rose over Chi- cago this morning that shone upon Jerusalem when the name of Solomon made it famous and glorious. Aye, the little sparrow on your housetop, held more cheaply than the sparrow of Judea, two of which were sold for a farthing, may, if your heart is not hardened, testify to the same inclusive power and love that numbers the hairs of your head. It is well to read the charming books of Thoreau and John Burroughs, for they tell much about the robins, the squirrels, the buttercups, and the clouds. But it is a great deal better to do what Henry Thor- i8o LOVE AND LOYALTY eau and John Burroughs did ; go and interview the robins for yourselves, note the habits of the thrush and the woodpecker as they did, cultivate the squir- rels, and learn of the pine cones as they did. Henry Thoreau noted in his diary from year to year the first day of spring on which he could lay off his coat. In 1854 it was on April 5. On that day he noticed a buff-edged butterfly and hawks flying over the meadow, and, he adds, "Hark! while I was writ- ing down that field note, the shrill peep of the hylodes was borne to me from afar through the woods." On the same date nine years afterward, the tree spar- rows and the pewees were heard. One day later in the year 1853 he wrote: "One cowslip shows the yellow, though it is not fairly out but will be by tomorrow. How they improve their time. Not a moment of sunshine is lost. One thing I may depend on : there has been no idling with the flowers ; nature loses not a moment, takes no vacation. They advance as steadily as a clock." And so on through the year he went with his eyes open, his ears alert, and the fine sense of touch open at every pore to the benign invasion of God, who came to him with his message of peace, riding on the rays of light ; who spoke to him his gospel of progress in the never- failing seasons ; who preached to him a religion of independence in the saucv bark of the squirrel. He worshiped in the great Saint Peter's of nature, the sacred cathedral we call "out of doors." domed by the sky, illumined by the stars, an architec- INTO THE LIGHT l8l ture compared with which the great triumph of Angelo, the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, is but a bubble. Let me be a Httle more specific. What are the lessons which nature teaches us when we come "into the light of things?" At least she teaches us the high lesson of regularity. The preachers talk about "faith" until sometimes the listeners lose patience and say, "Faith in what ? What can we trust in these days when everything is being doubted? How can we know what is true, or what to believe? All the great fundamentals of religion, so called, seem to be in question. The preachers themselves are in dispute. The denominations are full of heretics. Heresy is in the air. Not 'faith' but doubt seems to be every- where. We can be certain of nothing." Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher, and you may at least be certain that the sun is shining somewhere; you will look for it in the east every morning, and you will set your watches by it when it comes. You may always know where to look for the North Star. You know on which trees to expect the apples, and you know that pumpkins do not grow on oak trees or acorns on pumpkin vines. In short, you know that nature works in an ordered way, that you live in a world governed by law, that your life is cradled in law, that birth and death are alike produced by law, that there is a cause for every effect, that one thing is related to all things, or, as Emerson says. 1 82 LOVE AND LOYALTY A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings. And more than this, when you "come forth into the hght of things," you see that this order is a grow- ing one. Nature is not a finished cabinet of curios put away on shelves where they will always stay, but it is a procession, a moving column; a great army; there is a place for colonel, captain, and corporal, and every private has his place in the ranks, and, best of all, the column is moving. Nature is marching on. It is going somewhere. To change the figure, nature is a great river flowing onward, yes, "onward" is the word. Nature is improving. John Fiske says of the early Jurassic period : The real lords of creation were the giant reptiles stalking over the earth, splashing through the sea, and flying on swift bat-like wings overhead. The Iguanodon, from fifty to seventy feet in length, was supposed to be the largest, but Professor Marsh has discovered the Atlantosaurus of Colorado, nearly one hundred feet in length and thirty feet in height, the largest animal yet known. But all those clumsy giants are gone, and in their stead have come nimble squirrels, beautiful thrushes, intelligent boys and girls. Fancy a squirrel teasing and shaming an Iguanodon, and telling him there is no virtue in size; that not bigness but adaptation is valual)le. What has happened in the animal world has hap- pened in the world of plants and in human history. The pippin was once a crab apple. Shakespeare and INTO THE LIGHT 183 Emerson have descended from ancestors as low as the Hottentot and as savage as the Indian. The world is growing finer, and mankind is getting better. "Come forth into the light of things," and nature will teach you that progress is a part of her order, development her method, evolution her motto. Again in the light of things, we are taught the lesson of patience. Nature is diligent but never hasty. She is persistent, but never impatient. She has been at work for a long time, and there is every indication that she will continue for a long time to come. The old-fashioned books used to tell us that the world was created about six thousand years ago, but in the "light of things" we see that six thousand years is but a tick of the clock. That clumsy Iguanodon, sixty feet long, lived before the mammals appeared on the earth, and the mammals go back only about one-twentieth of the period in which there are fossil evidences of life upon the earth. Sir William Thompson has estimated that this solid earth of ours, once a fiery mass of vapor, has been solidify- ing for perhaps four hundred million years, and that vegetable and animal life have been on the earth from one to two hundred million years. Perhaps man has been on the earth from one to two million years. All this time he has been learning his lesson slowly, very slowly, but very surely. A million years! Mr. Croll, a clever student of nature, has tried to help us to some idea of the extent of a million years. This is his illustration : Take a 184 LOVE AND LOYALTY strip of paper eighty-three feet and four inches in length, and mark off one tenth of an inch on the end of this strip to represent a hundred years; the whole strip will represent a million years, and one tenth of an inch will count a hundred years in that space. Mark off your own age in that inch-space and see how short is your life in this long story. Nature is deliberate. She has taken a long while to accomplish her task. It is believed that there are trees in India still alive that were growing when Buddha went about teaching gentleness and it is quite probable that there are cedars in Palestine that are as old as Jesus. In the light of things we grow patient. Again, all this order, progress, and patience are somehow allied with beauty. Nature loves color. The rose is the child of her bosom, the lily the pride of her garden. Starlight and daisy woo us into the palace beautiful, and the palace beautiful abounds in cheerful song. There is a blending of notes as there is of color in nature. Nature soothes us, sings to us. makes us laugh. Primitive man was morose, gloomy ; civilized man is sunny, happy. Smiles go with intel- ligence; genial laughter is the fruit of culture. The older books, like the earlier science, were much given to classification, and ignorant people are still very anxious about their labels. There is a silly curiosity as to what church, creed, or race the stranger may belong to, as if knowing these you would know the man. "Come forth into the light of things," and learn that variety is the law of nature. INTO THE LIGHT 185 Even the flowers baffle the classifying botanist. Nature teaches us that no two leaves on the tree are alike. There is not a grain of sand but has an indi- viduality all its own. How much more must every soul be itself, unlike every other self! Amber is the fossil gum of a tree that grew away back in the earlier eras of the tertiary period, before mammals were. A German entomologist has made a collection of insects that have been preserved to us in this gum where they stuck when they foolishly went to it for a sweet sip millions of years ago. Here are gnats, mites, mosquitoes, sucking flies of great variety, in all eight hundred and twenty different kinds of insects. Only thirty of these kinds are now found in Europe; about a hundred of them are found in America; not one is found in Africa. Much of this amber is found in comparatively small districts of Asia Minor. If nature delighted in making such a variety of flies several million years ago, you may be sure she has not lost her passion for diversity or the trick of variation. If there are such varieties in flies why should there not be greater varieties in human souls ? Why should you care to think, act, or believe like another? "Come forth into the light of things," think, act, and believe according to the guidance of your own nature. Be true to yourself; beware of uniforms; nature has little use for them. Harmony is not uniformity, but the blending of diversity. Beauty rests in variety. Here, then, we have the certainties of nature, the i86 LOVE AND LOYALTY blessed realities of natural religion. We have learned in the light of things to believe in law, in progress, to work patiently for beauty, which blooms more and more into variety. We began in law, we end in freedom. We began with things, we end with spirit. Patience is no longer endurance, but inspira- tion. For the last and dearest lesson of it all is that we are a part of this order. The noblest thing in nature is human nature. The highest work of the God of nature is that which he accomplishes through the human hand, the matchless mechanism of nature; through the human heart, the divinest love in nature; through the human mind, the most Godlike power that we can study in nature. Emerson tells us that the earth "wears the Parthenon as the best gem upon her zone," that the morning "welcomes the pyra- mids," and that the English abbeys belong to nature as do the Andes and Ararat. There is no break between the violet and the Christ-child, between mother robin and Mother Mary. Royal man is not only a god to his dog, but he is regal in the realms of nature. For him the lightning runs on errands, for him fire preserves and protects what it once destroyed. Man reduces the thorn and increases the rose; he prunes the vine, enriches the grape; he plows up the sod, and raises wheat where weeds flourished. He destroys the forest and builds a city, makes a shepherd dog out of a wolf, a friend out of the lion, catches the note of the mocking-bird, and reproduces it on the violin with improvements INTO THE LIGHT 187 and variations. What is the skylark compared to Patti as a member of nature's orchestra? "Come forth into the Hght of things," and realize how bountiful nature is toward mind; how she dotes on a loving soul, opens up her innermost cabinets, and gives him her choicest secrets. A few years ago the city of Memphis was contin- ually threatened with pestilence on account of the meager quantity and inferior quality of the water. Its citizens communed more closely with nature. The man of science bade them bore their wells deeper. Down they went through gravel and clay, through the bad water of surface and sewage, through the clay waterproof cap hundreds of feet down, and lo! they touched exhaustless cisterns of purest water, which hurried into every hydrant and every house in the city that would give it admission. So is it everywhere in regard to all the needs of man. Nature is as bountiful as she is beautiful, as generous as she is exacting. A quart of water a day will satisfy the needs of a savage. A civilized man living in the country, needs for domestic uses from fifteen to twenty gallons per day. In the city, with its complex needs for manufacturing purposes, street- cleaning, park fountains, and extinguishing fires, sixty gallons a day for each person is the estimate. Where nature seems most hungry and thirsty, she is only waiting for the intelligent prayer of man to enable her to meet his wants. Nature conspires for the triumph of excellence. i88 LOVE AND LOYALTY Nature begins by pleading with us for the open mind ; she ends by helping us to the joyous and enthusiastic life. The true in science is the good in religion. The tints of the rose call for virtue in the maiden. The stalwartness of the pine demands its counterpart in the integrity of the boy. As the meadows yield grass, so society should yield grace. Men used to teach, perhaps they do yet in some places, of a fallen race, of corrupt human nature, total depravity, eternal hell, a man-cursing devil, and a God of wrath and vengeance, but you have escaped such hurting thoughts. Go out of doors, be it day or night, clear weather or cloudy, sunlight or star- light, they all alike deny the black theology and reaffirm the ethical dignity of nature, the moral sanctity of human nature. Atom and planet, cell and cathedral, alike preach the cheerful gospel that the God of nature is law and this law is love. In this law his creatures find liberty and not tyranny. When men would teach you to seek in a far-off past for a golden age of peace and purity, or in a far-off future in some cloudy realm beyond death a heaven where alone love is dominant, virtue possible, and joy a reality, go out "into the light of things" where you will find that here and now, "all is harmonious, united, and fair." The bird on her nest crooning to her mate on the bough is a better and safer teacher. Believe that the love-life in your own heart, mak- ing melodious your silent moments, making calni your most toilful hours, making your burden-bearing INTO THE LIGHT 189 joyful, is God's life in your soul, and that the call to duty, the thirst for usefulness, the passion to serve which rises in your heart as you stand on the thresh- old of life with the morning sunrise upon your brow, is God's voice within seeking to accord with God's voice without, thus bringing about that higher harmony between the human nature in man and the God of and in nature. To you as to Wordsworth, now as then and always, One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. But the "vernal wood" is no more nature's field than are the evergreen fields of literature, the forest solemnities of history, the mountain peaks of genius when they are allied to nature's forces. Beware how you force an antagonism between nature without and nature within. Emerson saw more clearly than Wordsworth the identity of matter and mind. Body and soul are allied, united in the sanctity of being. An indignity to one is an indignity to the other. A joy to the one is a joy to the other. Let us treat both as sacred from the hand of God, and go forth into life sustained by the religion of nature, the immutable law which is unfailing love, unceasing progress through the measureless ages of eternity, beauty ripening into duty, variety into freedom, and all into character, realized by the open mind and the devoted life. LITTLE CANDLES Like the beacon lights in harbors, which, kindling a great blase by means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, himself content with little, effects great blessings for his fellow-citizens. — Epictetus XI LITTLE CANDLES How far that little candle throws his beams! . So shines a good deed in a naughty world. — Shakespeare A pretty text chosen from a pretty story daintily told by the greatest of poets. Portia, the heroine of Shakespeare's drama, The Merchant of Venice, gentle as she was wise, loving as she was brave, tender as she was strong, approaches her palace in the dead of midnight, at the end of a long walk with her com- panions, and as she discovers the light burning in the window of her hall, she exclaims. How far that little candle throws his beams ! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. How far a little light penetrates the darkness ! A tallow candle no bigger than my finger has thrown its ray through storm and darkness many a time from the window of a prairie cottage, a sod cabin in Nebraska, or a pine shanty in Dakota to cheer the heart of the belated traveler a mile away. How far a little light goes, and how welcome a thing is a light in darkness, a light that shows where life is, where love is! Let us travel from our text toward our sermon. In one way this story of The Merchant of Venice is itself a little candle. It would make a book of only about fifty pages. One can read it through in two hours. It was written about three hundred years ago. 193 194 LOVE AND LOYALTY How much trouble and noise, pain, sickness, sorrow, and death has the world seen during these three hundred years! Since these lines were written, the "Mayflower" landed at Plymouth Rock; the Pil- grims wrestled with the rugged soil of New England ; Miles Standish had his battles with wild Indians; witches were hanged at Salem farms; Boston patriots threw English tea into the harbor rather than submit to unjust taxation; the seven-year war of the Revo- lution followed; Washington spent the dreary winter at Valley Forge, and made the perilous voyage amid the floating ice at Trenton. After that, with Adams, Jefferson, and others, he laid the foundations of the United States. The stars and stripes became the flag of a great republic. During those three hundred years the great West has been opened up; gold has been found in Cali- fornia, and thousands have lost their lives in crossing the plains in search of it. During that time the anti- slavery struggle has come and gone. Men said, "It is not right to buy and sell human beings, to beat them and chain them like cattle;" hence the awful war of the Rebellion in which a million or more people lost their lives. In Europe, these three hundred years have seen the wild, mad times of the French Revolu- tion, where people, crushed by cruelty, became them- selves fearfully cruel. Napoleon fd Wellington fought the great battle of Waterloo. The Crimean war and many another bloody, bloody scene have been enacted since these two little lines were written. Only LITTLE CANDLES I95 seventeen words, but they shine down through tem- pest and storm, through bitterness and cruelty, through ignorance and hatred, through the noise and rush and scramble of the centuries to please the fancy, kindle the imagination, and light the consciences of some little boys and girls in Chicago. Here is a little candle lit three hundred years ago and three thousand miles away, still burning, and you and I see the light of it. And if we look back of the candle, the hand that lit it was at that time obscure enough. A humble fel- low was William Shakespeare then. His father was probably a butcher; he himself seems to have learned the trade of a wool-comber. After that he became a recorder's clerk and perhaps a not very successful play actor, and still his candles shine. He put one of them into the hand of the noble Portia, who in the same play repeats these wonderful lines about mercy: The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath ; it is twice blest ; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes : 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself ; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. 196 LOVE AND LOYALTY This candle has thrown a hght into cruel hearts, made people more tender, less selfish, more noble. And in the same play this butcher's son has given us a pitiful picture of the poor old Jew, nagged for his religion's sake, spit upon and hated, abused because of the race to which he belonged, until at last he was stung to severity and meanness. For most of the three hundred years since Shakespeare lit this candle, people have thought Shylock a character to be hated, to be ridiculed, to be despised. But somehow the light of this candle grows clearer as we get farther away from it. Or rather it is our eyes that grow clearer to see the beauty of the light and the direction in which it travels. And now people are learning to pity poor old Shylock, who has been so abused, and to say, no wonder he grew hard and at last indignant ; we too would be as bad had we received such treat- ment. But let us leave Shakespeare, the great candle- lighter who has made the heavens of thought and feeling bright with lights that shine like stars, and see if we can find other illustrations of this beautiful text to help us remember and appreciate it. It is good to recall some of the now famous lights, which were once but humble candles lit in the dark. I wonder if you have heard of John Pounds, the Portsmouth cobbler, who lived more than one hun- dred and fifty years ago, and who for twenty years gathered in his shop the little ragged outcasts of the- streets to teach them to read and write, tempting them LITTLE CANDLES 197 thither with hot potatoes which he baked in the ashes in his little chimney corner. Thus he laid the founda- tion of a great system of schools known in England as the "ragged schools," which spread all over the land until there was scarcely a town of importance in England without one. We read of one person who in ten years fed and taught four thousand different children. These schools grew until they became what is now the free-school system of England. How that little deed of kindness "shines in a naughty world." "How far that little candle throws his beams!" You have heard the beautiful story about Sir Philip Sidney, perhaps the most famous of the noble stories in the English language to illustrate our text, and the best thing about it is that it is true. Sir Philip was a courtier with eminent titles and vast estates. He was a poet, and he wrote beautiful stories, but it is not for his poems or his stories that he is best remembered. When fighting with the Hollanders who were struggling for their freedom at Ziitphen, he fell, mortally wounded. As they were carrying him from the field, he complained of intense thirst. When the canteen was put to his lips, he noticed a private soldier looking wistfully toward the water. The titled officer put the untasted water from his lips, and, handing it to the dying soldier, said, "Thy neces- sity is yet greater than mine." For this good deed the name of Sir Philip Sidney remains as a type of the true gentleman, the noble Christian knight, a 198 LOVE AND LOYALTY soldier without guile and without cruelty. A small act, a great deed ; a little candle, a great light. I hope you will some day read a little book published by the American Tract Society, called The Story of Mary Jones and her Bible. It tells of a little girl in North Wales who, over a hundred years ago, saved her pennies through long years, and they came very slowly, in order that she might buy a Bible of her own; but when she had walked twenty-five miles, barefooted, to make the purchase of the good Dr. Charles of Bala, she found that the limited number of Welsh Bibles which had been brought into that part of the country had been all sold months ago, and the London Society said they could print no more. The little girl broke down with deep disappointment and wept bitterly, and the learned doctor, the professor of Bala College, said, "You shall have my copy. I can read it in other languages." From that experience started the impulse to organize the British Foreign Bible Society, which now publishes the Bible in every language on the globe. At Bala there is a fine monument to Rev. Thomas Charles, one of the three founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and there is carefully pre- served in a glass case, in the rooms of the British and Foreign Bible Society in London, an old Welsh Bible published in 1799. On the blank leaf between the Old and New Testaments is the inscription, in her own handwriting, which states that this book was bought by Mary Jones in the sixteenth year of her age with LITTLE CANDLES 199 her own money, of Dr. Thomas Charles. A Httle candle, Ht by a peasant girl, is the light that has pene- trated the darkness and created the Bible Society which now publishes the Bible in two hundred and ninety-one languages and distributes about four mil- lion copies annually, many of them gratuitously. When you remember that this book is the book above all others that best teaches the law of love, the rule of righteousness, and the thought of the one God, universal in his love, just in his dealings with men, you must see indeed "how far that little candle throws his beams !" The story is told of Velasquez, the great Spanish painter, that when he was a little boy his father led him by the hand through a noble picture gallery, and he saw great paintings for the first time in his life. These pictures so moved his little heart that he said, with tears in his eyes, "Father, I too am a painter!" So when boys and girls see "how far the little candle throws his beams," how full, how great are the results of a good deed, a kind act, a thoughtful word, they also, like the little boy in the story, find their hearts thrilled, and they say, "I too can be noble, I too will be gentle, I too must be true." The Arabs have a pretty proverb which says, "A fig tree look- ing upon figs becometh fruitful." So the soul look- ing upon excellence becomes excellent ; the heart in the presence of nobility becomes noble. Let us think of these great stories, and learn how possible it is for each one of us to do something that may become a 200 LOVE AND LOYALTY little candle, throwing- a beam into the darkness of a naughty world. When Robert Bruce, the brave Scotchman, died, he bequeathed his heart to Douglas, his gallant suc- cessor. This brave soldier had the heart of his hero prepared and sealed in a silver casket, which he wore around his neck on his crusade to the Holy Land. When hard pressed by foes, and his courage began to flag, he seized the silver case from his neck, threw it far forward into the enemy's lines, and then rushed forward to regain it. He fell, following his ideal, pushing forward where his purpose lay. He fell in trying to live up to a noble example. He died, fol- lowing the light of a little candle, lit far away and far back by Robert Bruce. Ziska was a Bohemian patriot, a leader of poor Bohemia when it was hard pressed by tyrants, and its life threatened by the forces that at length cruelly destroyed it. Hoping to inspire his fellow country- men with valor to fight for the losing cause, to stand by their liberty and their country, this chieftain ordered that after his death his skin should be pre- pared and used to cover the drumhead which should sound the call for other patriots to die a patriot's death. Such deeds of valor stir others to valiant deeds. But there is a higher valor than the valor of the battlefield. I deplore the appeal to the martial spirit on the part of the churches and in the name of religion. Perhaps some of you boys have already LITTLE CANDLES 201 been invited to join the "military brigades" in some of the churches. We sometimes see church parlors converted into armories, boys marching to church in uniforms, and muskets, bayonets, and cartridge boxes made a part of the equipment of the battalions that seek to develop character. I like courage. I believe with Emerson when he says in his poem that there are times when 'Tis man's perdition to be safe When for the truth he ought to die. Life is too cheap to be preserved when honor is gone, and there have been times, there may yet come times, when, for the sake of peace, awful blows must be struck. But the captain of war is no longer the type of the noblest hero. The cannon's roar is not the voice of the God we worship. It is possible to be braver with lilies than with muskets in our hands. The flag we honor is a flag of peace and not of war. It represents a country whose power is measured not by its standing armies, but by its industrial armies whose defense consists not in its muskets, batteries, or floating navies, but in the smile of liberty, the grace of justice, and the far-off but ever-pursued dream of equity. So let us look for the candles, the "good deeds that shine in a naughty world," lit by gentle- ness and meekness, not by war's alarums or the soldier's exploits. I like to tell the story of a miserable little group of children whom I found one chilly night many years ago, on a belated train out on an Iowa prairie. 202 LOVE AND LOYALTY It was near midnight when I boarded the train. The car was lonely for want of passengers, for it carried only two or three reluctant campaigners like myself, and, in the far corner, a little group of unaccompanied children. The oldest was a boy of fourteen, the youngest a babe not six months old, and between these were an unhappy little brother and two sisters. All were coarsely dressed, unwashed, and uncombed. The oldest brother made an awkward nurse for the puny little babe who so needed care, while the others, silenced by a misery too deep for tears, too long drawn out for wails, clustered around his knees. I heard the poor brother-mother try to croon with dis- cordant throat a little lullaby. He hummed in under- tone the old Sunday-school song of my childhood: I want to be an angel And with the angels stand, A crown upon my forehead, A harp within my hand. But the baby did not want to be an angel ; it wanted food and care. I took the pale little thing in my arms, and, profiting by an experience which at that time was fresh, I succeeded in bringing sleep to the little tired bit of humanity. I soon learned their story from the foster-mother. The father, a shoemaker, had gone out to Kansas to make a home for his family, but in a year's time he was so smitten by malaria and pioneer hardships that his hands grew weak, and he lay down and died. Sfx months afterward the mother yielded the battle and LITTLE CANDLES 203 left five little orphans away out on the prairie. Good friends bought the newly made cabin aad the bit of land, and with the sixty dollars that remained when the debts were paid, this fourteen-year old brother was taking his helpless charges back to "Grandpap's" in Wisconsin. In twenty-four hours, if all went well, they would be sheltered in the safe haven of love. The boy's lullaby probably suggested to him the picture of angels with wings, white wings with long feathers, airy, fairy angels that float in the sky, that can sit upon clouds and not fall off; angels with harps, whose strings are not affected by moisture, but which forever and always yield heavenly music. I do not know much about such angels. I believe there are many fair and beautiful creatures of God with whom I am not acquainted. I am sure there are brighter be- ings in heaven and earth than our philosophers dream of, and I expect beautiful lives with beautiful accom- paniments in store for the struggling children of men after this life is lived. I know not of angels with feathers, but I do know the angels of God; the dvjeXoL^ the messengers, as the old Greeks used to call them, that belong to this world; who go up and down the earth bearing messages of good-will ; who run on God's errands of mercy and helpfulness. I do know angels of God who wear clothes and eat bread and drink milk ; angels, who, when full grown, weigh one hundred and more pounds. I do know angels of love that make our lives sweet, that break the hard knocks which would otherwise fall upon our unpro- 204 LOVE AND LOYALTY tected heads, the angels that soothe and shelter, purify and help. I know not what has become of the little babe of my story. He may have grown up to sing the cradle song that failed to soothe him during that miserable night on the Iowa prairie, and he may "want to be an angel" with wings, but it will be sad if no one tells him of the real angel, God's true messenger, a verit- able member of the dvyeXoc , who bore him when a babe all the way from his orphan home in Kansas to the sheltering arms of "Grandpap" and "Grand- ma'am" in Wisconsin. Be it as it may, dear children, about the angels in the sky, or whatever beautiful life the great bye-and- bye may hold in store for us, be assured that you can be angels of love and beauty, of joy and duty, here and now. When you speak the words of kindness and do the deeds of helpfulness, you are in truth, in sober fact, what your mothers sometimes call you, "little angels." I may never know the sequel to the story of that little group of orphan children, but this I know, that the clumsy tenderness, the precocious forethought of that awkward boy has been a candle, to me, at least, shining in a naughty world through many, many years. It was nearly twenty years ago, and still that boy's face shines before my eyes with a radiance which Raphael was never able to give to his angels. It shines with a benediction which I look for in vain LITTLE CANDLES 205 among the rapt faces of Fra Angelico, the master painter of angel bands. That face suggests the good deeds that inspire a valor higher than is known on field of battle, holier than those represented by the uniforms, the guns, and the music of our warlike Christians who are today being marshaled in the name of Jesus, the lowly and the loving, the gentle and the submissive, who died without resisting cruelty, while uttering the words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Not long ago I spent a day at Santa Fe, the capital city of the Territory of New Mexico, a curious, quaint old Mexican town only partially American- ized. I can scarcely accustom myself to the thought that away out there on the arid plains of New Mexico, seven thousand feet above the sea, with endless miles of dry, parched, uninhabited plains studded with cacti, sage grass, soap weed, and dwarf cedars, stands what is probably the most ancient city in the United States. St. Augustine, of Florida, boasts of having been founded by the Spaniards in 1595, but the records claim that Coronado, the old Mexican pathfinder, founded here a village in 1540, fifty-five years before the founding of St. Augustine, and that he took possession of it then and there in the name of Christ and in the interests of Spain. Be this as it may, it is certain that in 1605, fifteen years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the Spaniards planted a colony which they named La Ciiidad Real 2o6 LOVE AND LOYALTY de La Santa Fe de San Francisco, "The True City of the holy faith of St. Francis," the name which has been shortened by our practical Yankee people into Santa Fe, Holy Faith. Here I visited what is asserted to be the oldest house of worship in this country, the church of San Miguel, built soon after the occupation of the town in 1605. The old original adobe walls, built of unburnt brick, still stand. Inside is seen the old copper bell sent from far-off Spain, bearing the date of 1350 in its battered rim, making it about five hundred and fifty years old. And now at certain times it strikes the call for the children who attend the parish school near by to come to their religious lessons. I entered the larger, more modern, but far less interesting cathedral near by, and there I found the good father, the holy monk, teaching his confirmation class an Easter les- son. There were from fifty to sixty children present, Indian, Mexican, American, and perhaps Irish and German. The good old priest talked in Spanish. I knew he was talking to them of God, of duty, of heaven, of father, of love, of honor and righteous- ness, not because I know Spanish, but because in all modern languages the great words are very much alike. I was interested in seeing how closely those children of what we call the "wild West," listened, without whisper or murmur. Some of the faces were rapt with attention while the good father gave them their Easter lesson. In the afternoon I rode on horseback out on the LITTLE CANDLES 207 dry, dusty, alkali, desert-like hills away beyond the city, out of sight of habitations, passing now and then some Mexicans bringing into town bundles of dried wood, vegetables, or cans of milk strapped to the backs of their burros, the little dwarf donkeys not much bigger than sheep. Nine miles out I came upon the Tesuque Pueblo, a village of old-fashioned Indians related to the curious cliff-dwellers of Colorado, who lived in holes carved in the face of the upright rock, story upon story, like swallows in the bluff. I spent an hour with those simple people, who were clad for the most part in blankets and moccasins. I went into their curious mud houses built two stories high, the upper tiers of which were entered by ladders on the outside. As I stepped into the doorways I received the courteous greeting Entre, which is the Spanish for "Come in," but there their speech ended. They could talk little English, and I could talk no Indian and little Spanish. Their houses in the main were cleanly. Most of the people were busy in the simple industry of making baskets, molding and decorating crude pottery, tanning leather, and shaping it into slippers and moccasins adorned with bead ornaments. There I saw the grinding-stones of the primitive mill, rude contrivances by means of which they reduced their corn into meal between two stones, one fixed, the other moved by the hands of the women. In one of the houses where the women wore modern clothes, calico dresses and "boughten" shoes, I asked the usual question, "Can you speak English?" 2o8 LOVE AND LOYALTY ^ They smiled intelligently, and one of the women lifted a trap-door and called down through it. Presently from the lower story popped the head of a bright- faced boy looking strangely familiar, dressed in knee- pants, shoes, and woolen stockings, and wearing a white collar and a necktie. When I asked him if he could talk English, he promptly replied, "Yes, sir." "Where did you learn it?" "At school." "Where did you go to school?" "Santa Fe." "Why are you not at school now?" "It is vacation, Easter time." "When did you come home?" "Today. School closed at noon." Then it all came back to me. This was the very face I had noticed at Santa Fe that morning, as being so deeply interested in the story which the good Catholic priest was telling the children in his confirmation class. And then I thought of my own confirmation class, and I remembered your motto : How far that little candle throws his beams ! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. I took much comfort in the thought that the good teacher's word was bringing a light into the simple homes of the Tesuque pueblos. This boy had come home perhaps to teach the mother and father how to read, and gradually he will lift some of the simple-minded pueblos into more comfort and larger life. LITTLE CANDLES 209 But your motto carried me still farther back. The teacher-priest belonged to the Jesuit order, and I was reminded of that Spanish soldier whose leg was shattered at Pampeluna, just about the time that the old church of San Miguel was being builded in Santa Fe. That impulsive, ambitious soldier, while tossing with the fever of impatience in the Spanish hospital, took to reading the Lives of the Saints, and as the story of their goodness and self-denial sank into his heart, there dawned in his mind visions of nobler things than being a soldier, seeking to take life with carnal weapons. He saw great moral battle-fields where there were needed heroes of love. He heard a call for warriors for truth, soldiers of the cross, and the crippled soldier became the great Loyola, who founded the great teaching order in the Catholic church. These Jesuits became the schoolmasters of Christendom; they went everywhere, and taught, and taught, and taught, until now their colleges are in every part of the world, and their work extends from the Indian schools in the West to the great College of the Propaganda at Rome, where it is said that every language and every dialect of the world is taught. Brave soldier! The bravest act of his life was when he voluntarily turned from guns and bayonets, painfully to take up the spelling book and the arith- metic, first mastering them himself and then enlisting an army vowed to teach them to others. All the way from the hospital in Spain down through three hun- dred and fifty years, streams the light that shone upon 2IO LOVE AND LOYALTY me that day in the pueblo of the Tesuques in far-off New Mexico. But there was a candle back of that. Nearly three hundred years before the fiery Spanish soldier lay in the hospital reading the lives of the saints, an Italian babe was born into a wealthy home. He grew up to love gaiety, to be prodigal of wealth, to love the exercise of arms, and to delight in the enthusiasms and pleasures of the chivalry of the day, in fine horses, handsome equipages, sword exercises, and gallantry. In one of the forays of his boyhood he was taken prisoner. For a year he languished as a captive. Illness came, he began to read and to be touched by the story of the excellences and kindnesses farther back, and he vowed himself to helpfulness and poverty. When he returned to the world, he laid aside the soldier's arms and the trappings of pride, and clothed himself with a gray garment fastened around the waist with a rope. He was touched with a marvelous gentleness. He loved the birds and joined with them in their chorals. He made a little neglected lamb his companion, taking it with him on a journey to Rome. He studied the grasshoppers, and they used to come and sing on his fingers. He preached to the flowers and fishes. He became the gentle St. Francis of Assisi, who founded the order of Franciscans. His story must have fired the heart of Loyola, the guide and inspiration of the priest who taught the Indian boy that talked English with me in the pueblo of the Tesuques in the far West, and more LITTLE CANDLES 21 1 than that, as I have said already, the fair town of Santa Fe was first named "The True City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis." All the way from the little village in Italy, through seven hundred years of time, shine the good deeds of St. Francis in the naughty world of New Mexico. And still we have not reached our first candle. What was it that sank deep into the life of this gay young Italian cavalier as he lay tossing with fever on a prison bed? It was the story of another life, a story that had traveled thither from Asia through eleven hundred years of time, the story of a peasant boy who was the pride of his mother, the helper of his father, who grew into manly earnestness, who spoke words of such holy simplicity that fishermen left their nets and followed him, and the water-carriers at the well stopped to ask him questions. The tax-collector and the politicians ceased to wrangle over party issues and listened to what he had to say about the great things of love and duty. The higher dignitaries of the church wondered at his audacity, but listened to him notwithstanding. He taught people in simple stories. He showed them the difference between pretension and reality. He taught them to measure the value of a deed by the intentions and not by the accomplish- ments. The widow's mite was worth more to God, he said, than the wealthy man's eagles, because she gave out of her needs while he gave out of his plenty. The infidel who took care of the wounded man, and not the priest who passed him by, was most acceptable 212 LOVE AND LOYALTY to God. Such stories as these were told by a man whose Hfe was so kind that children clustered about him, and lonely, discouraged, and grief-stricken women trusted him. This life of a Judean peasant kindled in the heart of St. Francis the light which penetrated the darkened spirit of Loyola, crossed the seas in the caravels of Columbus, and traveled on through the wilderness of North America, on into the great val- leys of Mexico, on with the explorers who laid the foundations of the city of the "Holy Faith" of St. Francis. This light established the school at Santa Fe, which brightened the face of the Indian boy in the pueblo. Surely, How far that little candle throws his beams ! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. And still, there are candles back of this candle. We have not yet come to the beginning of the light. What did Mother Mary teach the boy Jesus? What were the stories she had to tell him? She could not tell him of the fiery boy Loyola or the gentle St. Francis, for they were yet to come; but she could tell him of the heroic Maccabean kings, of the valiant Daniel who would not bow the knee to a false God, of the great king David who, before he was king, played on his harp the tunes which the quails loved and which soothed the melancholy spirit of the grim king Saul. She could tell him of little Samuel and his good mother Hannah, who gave him as a babe to serve at the altars of Yahveh, the great God. She LITTLE CANDLES 213 could tell him of the brave old prophets of Israel who went up and down among- the people pr^?iching right- eousness, telling them the Lord their God required of them only that they "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God." I am sure Mother Mary loved the great poets of her people. She loved to quote to the little boy the sweet hymns of the temple, such as, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; or, The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, The world and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and estab- lished it upon the rocks ; or, The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech. Night unto night showeth knowledge; or again, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The judgments of the Lord are true and right- eous altogether ; More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. Sometimes when she was not tired and had a little time, she would perhaps read from the great drama of Job, written by some great Hebrew Shakespeare, 214 LOVE AND LOYALTY the story of a brave old hero, who, though plagued, perplexed, and bereft, "held fast unto his integrity." Though he was smitten with disease, though he lost his property, and though his family died one by one he stood up under it like a man, and would not be cast down and profane the thought of God because of his adversity. And then, once in a while, for bed- time stories, Mother Mary would tell little Jesus the fairy stories of her people, the beautiful legends of creation, the Adam and Eve story, the deluge story, the story of Joseph and the spotted coat, of little Moses and his boat of bulrushes, and of the great wandering in the wilderness. Of course these beauti- ful stories, these great hero stories, as well as the splendid speeches of the orators of Jewry, helped to kindle the light in the home of Nazareth where Jesus grew up. Thus it is that the world is illumined with candles lit by humble hands in obscure places, whose light never goes out but passes on around the world and down the long centuries. Dear children, may each one of you be a little candle that will burn here on earth for earthly purposes in earthly homes, to give light to earthly pilgrims. Never mind the feather-winged angels. Let us be angels with willing feet and ready hands, and, when we cannot run, let us walk upon the errands of helpful- ness. We will not aspire to be "soldiers of the cross ;" we will not carry guns even in play, but we will learn the manual at arms of love. Better a kiss than a blow. Better a smile than a frown. Better a LITTLE CANDLES 215 citizen than a soldier. Better a home than a fort. Better a good deed than a great deed, if there must be a distinction; that is to say, better do a kind thing than a big thing. A smile is oftentimes the most precious of gifts. Every one of these good deeds will become a candle that will "shine in a naughty world." TJTTLE WAVES A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER A noiseless patient spider, I niark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd hozv to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my soul, where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them. Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold. Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. —Walt Whitman XII LITTLE WAVES No rock so hard but that a little wave May beat admission in a thousand years. — Alfred Tennyson, in "The Princess" Water would seem, at first thought, to be the weakest of things, unstable, changing, and fleeting. ''Weak as water" is a saying familiar. Poor, down- hearted Keats, dying with his great hopes unrealized and his aching soul unsatisfied, asked his friends to inscribe on his tombstone, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Yet water is one of the mighty forces of the world. Water is the great architect that has builded our solid continents. Rock strata after strata have been laid, cemented, and solidified by water. Water is the great sculptor that has hollowed the caves, scooped the valleys, dug out the wild gorges, and rounded the majestic pillars of mountains. Water was the cradle and early home of all life. Water is today the great highway of the world's com- merce. It fertilizes our fields, it gives us fruits, it is the mother of grains and the nurse of flowers. With- out water all life would cease, and our world would shrivel like the moon into a lifeless planet. And water has accomplished most of this great work through its weakness. It has been the "little waves" and not the big ones, it has been the little rills and not the great torrents, that have done most 219 220 LOVE AND LOYALTY of this work. Not the terrible freshets or the roaring cataracts, but the gentle shower, the quiet dews, the patient and still rivers working silently have changed the face of the globe and are still changing it. I once spent much of one night and all of the next day in Mammoth Cave, traveling through its wonderful halls and avenues. Our walk was some eighteen or twenty miles long. The cave has winding archways, great halls, echoing chambers, mystic rivers, and silent lakes in which eyeless fish live in perpetual darkness. And this great silent realm has been hollowed out by a little stream of water which in most places a child can step across. There you see splendid pendants of stalactites twenty or thirty feet long, white as alabaster, hanging like rocky icicles from lofty ceilings. These are matched below by rising pillars of stalagmite, the one growing down from the point the drop leaves, the other growing up from the point the drop reaches. Sometimes these points meet, stalactite and stalagmite join, and they still continue to grow into fantastic pillars. All these are made by the slow and patient toil of the water. It is only by the slow work of drop after drop that the little line particles from the dripping water are ranged in order and these beautiful stone growths realized. In many parts of the cave, when you stop and hold your breath to listen, you hear the drip, drip, drip, incessantly going on. Tick, tick, tick, goes the cave clock, counting off the moments of that sunless world, measuring the eternal night where light never is. LITTLE WAVES 221 Thus the water works, not only hollowing out the great cave, but beautifying, decorating, ^festooning it with alabaster, and carving its pillars into a thou- sand grotesque shapes and fantastic images. Tourists imagine they see old men, cats, owls, eagles, angels, elephants, roses, dahlias, pine trees, and Gothic cathedrals, all worked out in this mammoth cave by water in the form of little waves, smaller rills, and still smaller drops, and water still more divided and subdivided until you could neither see nor feel it, except as imperceptible moisture continually busy at its exquisite molding and painting. Once I visited the less extensive but world-famous caves of Bellamar, Cuba, that some years later gave shelter to the hard-pressed Cubans in their struggle for liberty. There I saw stalactites which were said to be the largest in the world, some of them measur- ing forty feet in circumference. At another time I went through what seemed to me, in some respects, the most beautiful cave of all, the Luray cave of Vir- ginia, with its great halls lighted by hundreds of elec- tric lights which the guide turns on or off to increase the mystic power of the weird formations. Once, in my army days, a little squad of us, hard pressed with hunger, and thirsty and weary, found shelter in the mouth of Nick-a-Jack Cave, a few miles from Chattanooga. Out from under the heart of old Lookout Mountain, there comes a beautiful pearly stream of water, cool, sweet, and clear. Near by, under the shadow of a great old rock, we came upon 222 LOVE AND LOYALTY a box of hardtack, left, lost, or forgotten, weeks, perhaps months before. The crackers were water- soaked and green with mildew, but they were delight- fully welcome all the same, and half an hour trans- formed us from tired, discouraged, almost despairing soldiers into cheerful and hopeful explorers. We followed the cave river up into the darkness, clam- bered over the rocks, tried the echoes, and well nigh lost ourselves in the mystic night that never was broken. Some day you will visit these and other caves elsewhere, and you will remember that they are all made by the "little waves," whose persistence for many, many thousand years at length "beat admis- sion" through the rocks. But it is not necessary to visit caves in order to see what the little waves may accomplish in a thou- sand years. Some of you have visited the Dells of the Wisconsin River, and have seen "Cold Water Canon," "Steamboat Rock," "Diamond Rock," "Witches' Gulch," "Cave of the Dark Waters," "Swallow Rock," "The Navy Yard," "Stand Rock," "Hornets' Nest," "Sugar Bowl," and a great many other strange, beautiful, and fantastic forms scooped, molded, and scraped by the Wisconsin River out of the rocky walls that press its sides and would fain obstruct its passage; but great as were the solid rocks, notwithstanding they had been hardened by pressure and by heat, the water, the slow, patient water has worked its way through, and every summer thousands of tourists go a long way for the sake of LITTLE WAVES 223 a ride on the little steamer "Dell Queen," that ven- tures up and down this six- or eight-mil^_ wonder-ride. But this is small work, this is river-play, com- pared with what the Colorado River has done, carv- ing out its Grand Cafion three hundred miles long, walled in by perpendicular rocks in some places six thousand feet high. Away down at the bottom runs the wild little river that has done it all. It began its work away up there thousands of feet above the highest wall, and it keeps carving away, making more and more magnificent what is already the most won- derful gorge in the world. But you need not go to Wisconsin or to Arizona to see what water does. Every bluff you see, all the valleys you visit, are the works of rivers. Geologists tell us that the Catskill Mountains once reached to Massachusetts Bay, that the Cumberland Mountains stretched one hundred and fifty miles farther west than they now do; that where the city of Nashville now stands was once a level land one thousand feet above the present site; that one-half of Tennessee has been scraped away, and carried into the Gulf of Mex- ico, piecing out Alabama and Mississippi on the south. The Alleghanies are old and wasted ; once, when there were no human eyes on earth to see them, they were three thousand feet higher than they are now; their summits have mostly gone down into the Gulf of Mexico. The sand on the lake shore is powdered rock, powdered by water. Most pebbles, particularly the 224 . LOVE AND LOYALTY smaller ones, have been rounded and polished by- water. The mud, which in springtime is so unat- tractive but in summer time is so fertile, has been made and brought thither by water. I repeat, water is the great architect; water is the beautiful painter; water is one of God's tools in mak- ing, shaping, and changing the world. And this it is able to do, not because it is strong, but because it is persistent. "Weak as water?" Yes, water is weak. But "strong as water," because water is tireless, diligent, persistent. Water works, and works, and works and never ceases to work. Did you think of all this and more when you selected for your motto the beautiful lines of Tennyson taken out of the heart of his beautiful poem, "The Princess?" No rock so hard but that a little wave May beat admission in a thousand years. I think you chose it because you knew something of what I have been hinting at, and you saw how it might apply to your lives and mine. It was the "thousand years," the suggestion of persistency, that appealed to your imagination and pleased your fancy. Man is one of the weakest of animals. In infancy he is the most helpless, and in old age the most pathetic. Nature leaves him in a very pitiable plight. The past winter has not been a hard one, but it has been cold enough to freeze to death every man, woman, and child living north of the Ohio river if they were left as nature leaves them; and the sum- LITTLE WAVES 225 mer will be hot enough to kill with sunstroke or prostration, most of the people in our gountry who live south of the Ohio river unless they avail them- selves of protection and help other than that which nature provides. Man's body is by nature unpro- tected from the cold of winter and the heat of sum- mer, and inadequate to contend with the wild beast and the still wilder storms. But man has mind, by the use of which, slowly, through many, many thousand years, working like the "little wave," he has gained admission into com- fort, competency, power. By the use of his brain he has made him a coat warmer than the bear's, and weapons stronger and more formidable than the claws of the tiger or the jaws of the lion. By means of his brain he has changed his enemies into friends, won into his service his natural foes. He has con- verted the dog, whose instinct was to prey upon the sheep and to devour flesh, into a protector of the sheep and the best companion of man. Little by little, like the waves working upon the rock, man has worked his way through ignorance, violence, and weakness. He has shaped the iron in such a way that it floats on water and carries him and his handi- work to remote parts of the globe. He has changed water into steam, and thus added to its power so that it draws him over the mountains or through them. He has felled forests, harnessed rivers, made dry the swamps and fertile the deserts. All the great achievements of history represent 226 LOVE AND LOYALTY the power of the "Httle wave" beating against the rock of obstacles. Progress comes by the beating of Httle waves against the sohd rocks of difficulties and opposition. Someone has said, "When God would educate a man, he puts him to the school of adver- sity." We know that Milton was quite blind, Dante became almost blind in the later years of his life, and legend tells us that Homer, the great singer of the Greeks, was also blind. Henry Fawcett, when an ambitious young man in his college years, was acci- dentally deprived of sight by the unforeseen dis- charge of his father's gun. "Never mind, father, blindness shall not interfere with my success in life," said the boy, and by persistency like that of the "little wave," he won admission not only into learning, but into power and usefulness. He became a prominent member of the English Parliament, a great debater, and finally the great English postmaster-general under Gladstone. Arthur Kavanagh, a man born without arms and legs, became a member of Parliament, elo- quent and influential, a good rider, and a lover of sport. In the Antwerp Cathedral in 1882, I saw the man who has won fame and wealth by copying Rubens' great pictures that hang in the noble cathedral, and this man had no arms, but was busy painting with his toes. Surely, No rock so hard but that a little wave May beat admission. Edison says that he spent seven months working from eighteen to twenty hours a day before he could LITTLE WAVES 227 get the phonograph to say "specia." Back and back again — the phonograph would only say ".pecia." He could not make it report the 'V-sound. Says the great discoverer, "It was enough to drive one mad, but I held firm and I succeeded." The "little wave" "had beat admission" through the hard rock. Said Ole Bull, "If I practice one day I can see the result. If I practice two days, my friends can see it. If I practice three days, the great public can see it." Kitto, a great biblical scholar, was a deaf pauper who used to patch shoes in the almshouse. But he studied and studied, and wrote and wrote, and he gained admission. The little wave must beat often against the rock of difficulty before it gains admis- sion even in the name of genius. It is easy to find stories of those who have become great through patience and diligence. I would like to tell how Elias Howe, while perfecting the sewing- machine in London, lived on beans which he cooked himself; how Titian, the great artist, used to crush flowers in order to make his colors, because he had no money to buy them. And you will think for your- selves of the story of our Abraham Lincoln who, from the log cabin in Indiana, worked his way to the White House and into the hearts of the civilized world, until his name has become the best-loved name of the nineteenth century. Green's History of the English People is perhaps the best history of England yet written. He wrote 228 LOVE AND LOYALTY it when fighting with a mortal disease. He dictated some of his great works while lying on a bed of suffering, day by day awaiting death; too weak to lift a book or hold a pen, but so anxious to do it well that he redictated some of the chapters five times and kept at it and at it, and not until he was actually dying did he say, "I can work no more." It is safe to say that all great triumphs have been won by diligence, by the patience and persistency of the little wave beating against the rock that must ultimately crumble before it. You all know how much of Bunker Hill is above ground ; you can tell how tall it is, but you may not stop to think that there are fifty feet of Bunker Hill under ground. The engineer knew that that tall granite shaft could not stand unless it rested on a foundation deeper than frosts, mud, shifting sands, and yielding soils. He planted it on the backbone of old Mother Earth. So our achievements must rest on foundations out of sight, upon slow persistency, quiet diligence, tireless industry. A pianist about whom great crowds were accustomed to gather once said that he never ventured to perform one of his pieces in public until he had played it over at least fifteen hundred times. It was the little wave beating continuously against awkwardness and ignorance that finally gained admission into the temple of music. I have been using great names, my children, but I have been talking about what affects your lives artd mine. We common people, we little folk, have in us LITTLE WAVES 229 the power of the "Httle wave," and we can win admis- sion, not to great mental achievements, perhaps, for they are for the few, and probably not to great wealth, for only a few become wealthy, but to that success which will make you wealthy without money and happy even without what the world calls popu- larity or influence. I ask you to remember this beauti- ful text of Tennyson's as being true in regard to the common, obscure, and blessed life of usefulness and kindliness which is within the reach of all, and is often the lot of those who never become great. There are many things I would like to say to you, my children, but the chief lesson of the text you have chosen is "persistence." Stick to it! Do not give up! Do not get discouraged ! Said Charles Sumner, the great senator, "Only three things are necessary in life: First, backbone; second, backbone; third, back- bone." Said William Lloyd Garrison, when he started his little Liberator, a bit of a sheet printed in a Boston attic, a sheet at which gentlemen and scholars sneered, "I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch — and I will be heard." This was the splendid printer who became the friend of the friendless, the champion of the slave, and who, more than any other man I can think of, helped to make human slavery repugnant to every civilized man. This was the man for whose head the governor of Georgia offered a bounty of five thousand dollars. This was the man around whose neck a Boston mob threw a rope and dragged 230 LOVE AND LOYALTY " him to jail. They erected a gallows in front of his house as a warning, but he lived up to his motto. And at last his word "Freedom" became the song of the nation. You may not be a Lloyd Garrison, but you may learn from him the price of admission into your usefulness and into your happiness. I do not expect you to win eminence, but I want you to learn from those who have become eminent what road you common boys and common girls must travel if you would reach your best, which is as good for you as their best is for them. Remember the boy's rule for learning to skate — "Get up every time you fall down." Louisa Alcott, whose books you love, was once very poor. When she offered the manuscript of her first book to the publishers, they sent it back and advised her to stick to her teaching. We are told that she wrote An Old Fashioned Girl with her "left hand in a sling, one foot up, head aching, and no voice." But she worked away until she had earned two hundred thousand dollars by her pen, it is said, and lifted her family out of poverty into independence. The waves had gained admission by constant beating. My little friends, the kite flies high because the string holds it down. The bird is able to fly because the air offers resistance to its wings. If there were no resisting air, the bird would drop. So we must learn to rise by virtue of difficulties, to get ahead by climbing over obstacles, to succeed by using the tools that are near. A few months ago there was a great LITTLE WAVES 231 deal of sickness in Pittsburg. Typhoid fever and diphtheria were raging. A young maji trained by science, who beheved, as most scientists now do, that the germs of diseases are conveyed in drinking-water, came to think that they might be filtered out of the water by passing it through sand of a cer- tain grade and in a certain fashion. Ac- cordingly, he and some other young men raised seven or eight hundred dollars and erected a house in the corner of a church lot where they constructed an experimental filter. They looked about and found the right kind of sand right there in Pittsburg, arranged their reservoir according to the most ap- proved pattern, and then turned in the water and let the people in the neighborhood carry it away for drinking purposes as it came out below. Every day these young men would go to their little laboratory and examine the raw water as it went in and the filtered water as it came out, and carefully note how large a percentage of the microbes were taken out in the process of filtration. At first the papers made fun of them, and citizens laughed at them. But statistics proved the sound- ness of their theory, and poor people came daily to carry away the pure water. Then the doctors became interested, the board of health looked into the matter, and the common council began to consider the problem of building great sand filters to purify the water for the citizens of Pittsburg. These young men did not go to Palestine for their 232 LOVE AND LOYALTY sand, no more did they try to bring" Jordan water to Pittsburg; but they took the common, muddy water of the Ohio or the Alleghany, and they ran it through home sand, Pittsburg sand, thereby proving how close within their reach was the means of health. So let your quest be to utilize the things that are near at hand. Do not try to evade the solid rock, and do not despise the "little wave," but let it beat against the great obstacles, and you will find admission there. I have talked about the wave and the rock, but I have not dwelt upon the "thousand years." Let us take this thought for our "lastly." Oh, children, it is great to work on long lines, great to think long thoughts, great to be able to act independently of "quick returns" or cheap success. Robert Browning, in his "Grammarian's Funeral," sang of a patient scholar who died before he had accomplished his task, one who seemed to have failed because he worked for ends so high that they were beyond his reach : Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, Bad is our bargain ! That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it : This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred's soon hit : LITTLE WAVES 233 This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. IT- ■ That, has the world here — should he need the next, Let the world mind him ! This, throws himself on God, and unperplext Seeking shall find him. The same poet said, "Better fail in the high aim than vulgarly succeed in the low aim." Live for high things. Work on long lines. Do not spend your pre- cious life for cheap things and near success. One day, many years ago, as I w^as sitting at my table, soon after my arrival in Chicago, there came through the window the clear notes of a bugle, than which there are none more inspiring. It sounded some of the old calls which I had learned to obey in army days. It brought before my mind's eye pic- tures that had well nigh faded away; I saw moving columns, waving banners. I heard the clatter of cavalry sabers and the rattle of artillery wheels, and my heart was big with memories of the great strug- gle and its high results. Once more the notes came, now farther down the street, and I thought, "There is some battalion moving, a military column is pass- ing by, some parade or escort." I seized my hat, and, like a boy, hurried around the corner in quest of marching men. But I saw no army, I could catch no glimpse of a flag. Again the bugle sounded, now around another corner I pursued it, when, lo ! I found that the bugle was being blown by a popcorn man. How often have I been reminded of the popcorn 234 LOVE AND LOYALTY bugler. When I hear an appeal to high sentiments for cheap things, great phrases used to justify small purposes, the inspiration of high principles invoked for petty ends, as when selfish and scheming poli- ticians appeal to the American flag in justification of their "ward tricks" and partisan schemes ; when the great words of religion, God, spirit, soul, and duty are used to justify bigotry, narrowness, and selfish- ness; when in the name of religion and morality, men and women work for little sects and selfish church schemes, excuse loyalty to small things and petty names because large things and great hopes are so far away, let us prefer to work rather for the things that seem impossible, for the good that seems out of reach. Let us believe in the impracticable and work for what is called the impossible, resting secure in the truth of our motto. No rock so hard but that a little wave May beat admission in a thousand years. VICTORIES ARMAGEDDON Marching down to Armageddon — Brothers, stout and strong! Let us cheer the way we tread on With a soldier's song! Faint we by the weary road, Or fall we in the rout. Dirge or Paean, Death or Triumph! — Let the song ring out! We are they who scorn the scorners — Love the lovers — hate None within the world's four corners — All must share one fate ; We are they whose common banner Bears no badge nor sign, Save the Light which dyes it white — The Hope that makes it shine. We are they whose bugle rings. That all the wars may cease; We are they will pay the Kings Their cruel price for Peace; We are they whose steadfast watchword Is what Christ did teach, — "Each man for his Brother first — And Heaven, then, for each." We are they who will not falter — Many sivofds or few — Till we make this Earth the altar Of a worship new; We are they who will not take From palace, priest, or code, A meaner law than "Brotherhood" — A lower Lord than God. — Edwin Arnold XIII VICTORIES Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. — Horace Mann These were the closing words in the baccalaureate address of the great Horace Mann to the last class which was graduated at Antioch College under his administration. It was in 1859. The next day after the notable address, the great teacher lay almost speech- less in a darkened room. The fire of the brain had blazed up into a consuming agony. In a few days he lay tossing in a fever that was to be his last. The weather was hot and dry. Everything lay parched and thirsting. When the rain came he called it "heav- enly music," and whispered, "I am making agricul- tural calculations. I cannot help it." The silence deepened. The college gate was tied back that its swing might not disturb him, but the end was fast approaching, and with his head "hot as a cannon ball" he gathered about him his faithful friends and stu- dents. His great words were, "Man, Duty, God!" To his friend and pastor. Rev. Eli Fay, he said, "Preach God's laws ! Preach them! Preach them.' ! PREACH THEM ! ! !" And so the candle that was lit at both ends early in life, that had burned intensely with the light that penetrated dark places, flickered and went out. On the humble granite shaft that rises in the 237 238 LOVE AND LOYALTY campus of Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, Ohio, there is engraved the simple inscription, Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. It is my purpose to indicate a few ways in which it is possible for us all to win victories for humanity; for these victories are not alone for the masterful, the great conquerors who rise above the common levels as the peaks of the Rocky Mountains rise above our western plains. There are victories for the weak, triumphs for the humble, achievements pos- sible to common men and common women, splendid conquests within reach of boys and girls. The first victories I would speak of are the victor- ies over nature, the conquests of matter. The forces of nature may be likened to wild and fiery horses, which man may harness, train, and drive. They bear us along in the ways we should go, they serve us, they help us, they are indispensable. So long as we can drive and guide them, they are the allies of civiliza- tions, the servants of religion, the helpers of morality, but when we lose control of them we are in danger of being trampled under their feet, or mangled by the wheels of the chariot they draw. Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard University, in his delightful book entitled The Domestication of Animals, shows that man's progress has been largely dependent upon the co-operation which he has received from our poor relations of the farmyard. Man's victory over the animal world has brought him VICTORIES 239 the service of the dog, the ox, the horse, the sheep, the camel, and the elephant. One of his greatest and earliest victories was that of converting some sly, thieving enemy of man, an animal probably akin to the wolf and the fox, into the dog, the friend of man, the companion of children, the guardian of the home and the flocks. This victory over nature was won so early in the career of the race that science scarcely finds any trace of primitive man where he does not also find evidence that the dog was his companion, "He who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a benefactor of the race." This is an old, good, and true saying. Perhaps the first sug- gestion of such wisdom came to us through the great Zoroaster, the prophet of labor, the man who in the name of religion first insisted on the piety of tilling the soil, of house-building, and settled home-making. There is a wild rice that grows in our shallow lakes, and there are grasses that produce seed somewhat related to the oats, barley, rye, and wheat which the farmer raises, but they produce no more than a limited supply of food for the birds. Man can scarcely thrive on wild rice and wild millet, the wild plum and the crab apple, even when such meager fare is eked out with fish caught in the stream, deer entangled in the snare, and birds brought down by the arrow. It took human skill and industry to domesti- cate and develop the wild grasses until they should yield the grain that may be manufactured into flour and converted into bread. The possibilities of nature 240 LOVE AND LOYALTY are still unexhausted, there are great fields uncon- quered, splendid forces untamed. Franklin and Morse captured the lightning and tamed and harnessed it so that we drive it and force it to draw our loads, run upon our errands, and carry our messages. Watt and Stevenson conquered the force in the tea-kettle, and we compel it to drive our great iron ships across the ocean in the face of wind and tide and drag the great railroad trains from shore to shore. And do we not now stand on the brink of mystery land? From laboratory and observa- tory, from college and workshop, from the careful observer in the orchard to the learned professor in the college, there runs a hushed whisper of new marvels about to be discovered, new forces almost within reach, fresh surprises almost ready. It is but yester- day that Roentgen enabled us to look at the bones in our own hands and to see through an oak plank or a book. Today the electrician is ready to send a mes- sage to a friend in mid-ocean, spelling the message on the instrument at this end of the line, while the great, throbbing responsive heart of the air carries and delivers it to the instrument, letter to letter and sign to sign as it is spelled here. Oh, there are still great victories to be won over nature in the interest of humanity. Some time ago I attended the commencement exer- cises of one of the great technical schools of the country. Here one of the graduates exhibited and explained an apparatus constructed by himself and a VICTORIES 241 classmate for measuring the electric "permeability" of various substances. What is that? You do not know. Neither do I, but I could see by the liglit on the boy's face and the pride of the teachers that a victory had been won over nature in the interests of humanity, a victory that would help man climb into the saddle and save himself from being trampled underfoot and run over by the giant forces of this world. Next came a young woman who gave us the result of a study of the different yeast cakes obtain- able in the market. For three months she had worked with solvent and microscope over the seven different kinds of yeast with which the women of that town made bread, and she told these mothers and house- keepers of the dangerous bacteria that she found in the yeast cakes, all of which tended to make sour bread, sick stomachs, bad tempers, and discouraged spirits. I could not understand all the terms which this bright as well as sweet girl graduate used; I could not always tell what she was talking about; but I could see very clearly that there in her laboratory she had been winning victories for humanity, and when the time comes for her to die she need not be ashamed, because she has conquered some ignorance, she has won a victory over filth and fraud. Surely the good Father of us all has living laurels to deck the brow of the school girl who wins a triumph in the interests of good bread, healthy digestion, a cheerful temper, and the high courage that springs therefrom. Another graduate told us about the polluted waters 242 ^ LOVE AND LOYALTY of the Wabash River after it has flowed through what ought to be the clean and wise as well as beauti- ful city of Lafayette. Above the city he had found the water unpolluted, fresh, clean, health-giving; but many careful analyses and months of work with the microscope had enabled him to demonstrate, with the aid of charts, that the water, below the city was charged with the germs of disease and pestilence, and that typhoid, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and cholera journey in the waters between the beautiful banks of the Wabash below the city of Lafayette; and he showed further that this is because the citizens empty their sewage, unload their filth-carts, deposit the sweepings of their streets, and tumble their dead dogs and horses into the Wabash. That boy, fresh in his young manhood, in the glory of his first graduation, stood confirmed as one of the helpers of mankind. He had wrung from nature her secret; he had achieved a "victory for humanity." If need be he could die without a blush, for he had not lived in vain. If it is not for you to raise colts and train them, to cause orchards to grow where before were under- brush and thicket; if it is not for you to change swamps into clover fields and drive Jersey cows into a paradise for cattle, thus helping feed the world with sweet butter and fresh milk; if you cannot add to the petals of the wild rose the reduplication and intensified color of the American Beauty; if you can- not supplant bad bread with good, or improve the VICTORIES 243 quality of v/ater in your hydrants; if there are no victories over material nature which you may con- sciously win for humanity, there remam the possibili- ties of still nobler victories over human nature; for it is as true now as in the Bible days that — He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Every victory over self is a victory for humanity. No exaltation is more fine or more needed than an exaltation of the will over one's desires and passions. We need to conquer fashion, false custom, and bad habits. A breach made into the walls behind which lurk these great enemies of progress and purity weak- ens the fortress and hastens the day when humanity will triumph over them. What are the great foes which threaten society today? Conventionality, big- otry, pride, and love of ease. While these rule we are always poor, when these are conquered we are always rich. When a wealthy man begged of Socrates to accept the permanent hospitality of his elegant home, asking, "why need you continue to live in this meager way, with these few comforts and humble surroundings?" Socrates replied, "Meal can be pur- chased at half a peck for a penny. There is good water in the brook free to all. These give to me the needed sustenance. Why should I not continue to teach the youths of Athens?" When Benjamin Franklin was a poor printer in Philadelphia, fighting a hard battle to keep his first newspaper alive, a gentleman called with an article 244 LOVE AND LOYALTY for whose publication he promised to pay liberally, at the same time hinting of further pay for further service of this kind. "Call tomorrow morning and I will give you my answer," said the young and strug- gling printer. At the time appointed the man came in the pride of his wealth and confident that he was needed by the printer. "I have read your article, sir," said young Franklin. "It is a scurrilous article. It will do no good to anyone, not even to yourself, and it will do much harm by stirring up bad feeling and injuring the innocent. Last night I bought a loaf of bread for a penny upon which with a mug of water I supped bountifully, after which I rolled myself in my overcoat and slept on the floor of my printing-office. This morning with a fresh mug of water and what was left of the loaf, I breakfasted, and am in good health and strength. I see no reason why I should dirty my hands with your dirty money. I decline the article, sir." When a young man, Stonewall Jackson, the hero of the Confederacy, lived a whole year on buttermilk and stale bread, and thereby conquered his great enemy dyspepsia. The power of Von Moltke, the great German general, was explained by a friend by the fact that "he could hold his tongue in seven languages." Said Samuel J. May to a man who fain would justify his drinking habit, "If it is a small sacrifice to do without your wine, you ought to do it for the sake VICTORIES 245 of others. If it is a great sacrifice to do without your wine, you ought to do it for your own sake." Said Agassiz, "I have no time to make money." When a youth, Faraday had to choose between a fortune and a studious Hfe. He chose poverty. When a young rival, in a moment of jealousy and anger, struck Michael Angelo in the face with such force that, as the young man himself expressed it later to Cellini, he felt bones and cartilage crush under his fist like a biscuit, Michael Angelo retorted with the statement, "You will be remembered only as the man who broke my nose." "Oh, Diamond, Diamond, you little know the mis- chief you have wrought!" said Sir Isaac Newton to his pet dog who, by upsetting a taper, had set fire to a sheet containing the results of most laborious calcu- lations; and then he quietly sat down to go over again the tedious and painful mathematical toil. You see how easy it is to pile illustration on illus- tration to show that a victory over self is a victory for humanity. The only triumphs that bring permanent strength are the triumphs over self. How it behooves us, then, to struggle for the victories of Sir Galahad, Whose strength was as the strength of ten Because his heart was pure, to seek the triumphs of Felix Holt in George Eliot's story, who dared "follow those who did not follow fashion." Boys, dare you do the simple brave things for which the other boys will laugh at you — refuse the 246 LOVE AND LOYALTY cigarette, renounce the expensive habit, wear the plain clothes that you can pay for and be satisfied with the plain speech that is sanctioned by the dic- tionary and that brings no blush to the cheek of mother or sister? Girls, dare you live on that high plane where the dress is sensible, the speech simple, the habit non-con- ventional and unfashionable, when common sense so requires? The girl who today gives room in her shoes for her toes and does not insult the dignity and beauty of her brow with the dead bird's wing, wins a victory for humanity which will help make death beds comfortable. My young friends, "be ashamed to die until you have won some victory" over self for humanity's sake! But I want to place the emphasis where Horace Mann placed it, on the word "humanity," and ask you, my young friends, to begin early to cultivate that consciousness of humanity which will make the plural pronoun "we" and "ours" more familiar to your aspirations and your purposes than the singular pronouns "I" and "mine." "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory" — not for yourself, not for your family, not for your church, your city, state, or country, but for humanity. The religious advice under which Horace Mann grew up was emphatically, "Save your own soul, make your own salvation and calling sure. Escape hell and win heaven for your- self; that is your first business, your primal thought." VICTORIES 247 But Horace Mann mellowed and ripened under the larger inspirations that taught Whittier to say, The soul is lost that's saved alone. Horace Mann helped to develop the piety in which the truly devout most delight, the piety which says : "There is no individual salvation. There is no heaven for the foremost soul while there is left a solitary soul in that outer darkness where 'there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.' " No matter how well folded the ninety-and-nine may be, the Master is out wander- ing among the hills in search of the one stray sheep, and his heart is unsatisfied until it is found. The bars will be kept open until the last comes in. Horace Mann's great message must be interpreted at its high- est. It can mean nothing meaner or smaller than the great principles taught by Sally Pratt McLean Greene in the simple dialect poem which we have all learned to love: De Massa ob de Sheepfol', Dat guard de sheepfol' bin, Look out in de gloomerin' meadows, Whar de long night rain begin — So he call to de hirelin' Shepa'd, Is my sheep, is dey all come in? O, den says the hirelin' Shepa'd, Dey's some, dey's black and thin. And some, dey's po' ol' wedda's But de res' dey's all brung in, But de res' dey's all brung in, Den de Massa of de sheepfol, Dat guard the sheepfol' bin, 248 LOVE AND LOYALTY Goes down in the gloomerin' meadows Whar de long night rain begin — So he le' down de ba's ob de sheepfol', Calling sof, Come in, Come in, Calling sof, Come in. Come in, Den up t'ro de gloomerin' meadows T'ro de col' night rain and win'. And up t'ro de gloomerin' rain'paf, Whar de sleet fa' pie'cin' thin, De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol' Dey all comes gadderin' in ; De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol' Dey all comes gadderin' in. The message of Horace Mann calls upon you, young men and women, to put a nobler meaning into the word "society ;" it summons you out of the "Soci- ety" that delights in a capital "S," the "Society" that is the cause of so much fever among women and so much financial anxiety among men, into society in the higher sense, the original sense, that of socius — sharing, partaking, a partner, a fellow, an ally. This is the society which is the fabric of civilization, woven with the web of law and the woof of experience, a fabric in which you and I and everybody are indi- vidual threads, weak and inadequate when taken alone, but taken together, forming the priceless tex- ture into which are woven the great figures of history and the divine element in humanity. Let us be ashamed to die until we have won some victory for humanity. When war was raging in the Crimea and cholera VICTORIES 249 was adding its devastation to the work of the cannon, Florence Nightingale went with her thirty-four assist- ant women nurses, caused the pestilential swamps where the hospitals were located to be drained, estab- lished her laundries and invalid kitchens, arranged for the entertainment of the convalescents, and changed that hell into a heaven. This is the testimony of a private soldier : "Before she came there was such cussin' and swearin' and after that it was as holy as a church." But not all this represents the highest victory won by Florence Nightingale for humanity. When she came back, a grateful English people showed their gratitude by presenting to her a large purse of money which she immediately used in establishing what was, I believe, the first regular school for the training of women nurses in the world. In these graduation days, women are numbered by the hundreds who receive their diplomas from training-schools for nurses, and go out into the world to represent the true "Christian science," for in them science joins hand with religion, knowledge comes into partnership with piety, and the trained hand lends itself to the enlightened mind as well as to the consecrated heart of the trained nurse, the woman whose very garb is a badge of honor, carrying with it a grace and winsomeness which the self-seeking lady of the drawing-room and the club has not money enough to buy from a Parisian mil- liner. Her greatest victory for humanity is found in the establishment of these schools, which repre- 250 LOVE AND LOYALTY sent the topmost buds on the great tree of evolution, at whose roots is the "medicine man" with his super- stitious mummery and his mystical black art. Following in this holy line of the unvowed sister- hood of mercy comes the irrepressible Mother Bicker- dyke of own Civil War, who out-generaled the gen- erals and became at once the friend and counselor of the humblest private and the commander-in-chief. She won a victory for humanity because she worked not for herself but for others. And there is still another woman to be mentioned in this connection. Clara Barton, the demure little nurse in the Army of the Potomac, lived to win the greatest diplomatic victory of her generation when in the Geneva Convention she did so much in organizing the International Association of the Red Cross and securing for it official recognition from the great powers of Europe and America. The time was when the lovers of nature and of beauty were content with urging the farmer to plant shade trees in his front yard, to beautify his own garden with fruit trees and blossoming shrubs; but now it is a mean and poor farmer who stops here. The public demand is that he plant shrubs and flowers along the highway for the benefit of the public, and for this alone will the public give thanks. A mean man will put a water tank in his barnyard for the benefit of his own stock, but the noble man carries the water to the roadside and there erects his water-, ing-trough for the benefit of the other man's horse VICTORIES '251 that pants feverishly under his heavy load, going from, the farmer knows not where, to the farmer knows not whither. Thus far the quest for wealth has enlisted the energies of our young men and women. Let this go on, but to you, young friends, let me say that your place in the world and your peace of mind in life or death will not be determined by the amount of wealth you accumulate for yourself, but by your contribu- tions to the commonwealth of the world. You should hold in highest esteem your title to those things that you own in common with all others. The school house, from the humblest log building in the clear- ings up to the noblest building of the state university, the post-office, the public library, the museum, the parks, the highways and the streets, belong to you and to me. This is "property" which makes the poor- est rich, and without which the richest would be poor and helpless indeed. Let our struggle be to increase this commonwealth, to guard its interests, and conse- crate its resources. Under the old ethics it was left for individual enterprise and speculation to span the river with the bridge for the use of which the public would evermore pay toll to private capitalist. But under the new ethics, the public builds the bridge for the benefit of the public, and it becomes a free highway to humanity for evermore. Our immediate forefathers traveled along turnpikes and plank roads owned by private corporations and paid their toll for every mile they 252 LOVE AND LOYALTY traveled. Now the toll gates have, for the most part, become a thing of the past, and wealth invested in turnpikes has become common wealth. The tramp travels the highways as freely as the millionaire. In the future we must tremendously augment this com- mon wealth; and may the dying message of Horace Mann inspire you, my young friends, to make vic- tories in the interest of humanity in this direction. I believe that the time is coming when steam cars and electric ways will represent a part of the common wealth of the world as much as the reclaimed turn- pikes of the present, and when winter halls and other places of indoor rendezvous shall become as much a part of the public provision for the comfort of the public as our summer parks and boulevards are today. You must help win these victories for humanity. The old ethics made us zealous for "Presbyterianism" or "Unitarianism," developed a "Christian" or a "Budd- hist" consciousness. The new ethics teaches us to despise the "isms" that divide, to respect the prin- ciples that unite, and to honor the church of the people, built by the people and for the people, the Cathedral of Love, however humble the architecture, the Min- ister of Humanity, worthy of the noblest form and most permanent interest. Let my last and most potent illustration be from the great prophet of the public schools of America, who has already given us text and inspiration for our sermon. In the address in which we found our text, he said, "Nothing today prevents this earth from VICTORIES 253 being a paradise but error and sin." And again, "The judge may condemn an innocent man, but posterity will condemn the judge." It was Horace Mann who, on the threshold of a brilliant career, after having sat in the legislature of Massachusetts for eight years, during two of which he was the presiding officer of the upper house, when wealth, honor, and ease were within his reach, gave them all up, tacked on his office door in Boston the words "to let," and adver- tised his law library "for sale" in order that he might accept the secretaryship of the Board of Education for the state of Massachusetts, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. The office was a new one, the first of the kind in the United States, and the "Board of Education" was created through his own influence. He said in explanation, "I have changed venue; I appeal from this generation to the next. Men and women are cast iron. Children are wax. Henceforth I work for the children." And so, single handed and alone, he went into the great work that called into being the public-school "system" of America, for, although there were public schools before the days of Horace Mann, there was no public-school system. Normal schools, teachers' institutes, district libraries, blackboards, globes, and other apparatus he called into being. He lifted public-school teaching into a liberal profession. He opened a great door to woman, and compelled wealth, culture, and even social pretension to rejoice in the schools that were indeed common schools. 254 LOVE AND^LOYALTY At the end of twelve years of untiring work, John Quincy Adams, tne great and noble, fell in his seat in Congress, and Horace Mann was called to occupy the chair that had never been dishonored by boodle or self-seeking. For four years in Washington he made himself the friend of the friendless, and cham- pioned the cause of the down-trodden. He became the orator of the slave. At the end of these four years, on September 15, 1852, he was nominated as a candidate for governor of Massachusetts, and the same day elected president of an unorganized college in an obscure district in what was then the "Far West." On the one hand were the unquestioned honor and high position of governor of the great state of Massachusetts; on the other hand the obscu- rity, uncertainty, and poverty of an untried venture in the backwoods. Which would he take? How would he choose? In the choice itself was a great victory for humanity. He chose the harder, the more uncertain task. He said, "Other people will be glad to be governors of the state of Massachusetts, but not many will care to go to Ohio and try to realize these ideals which I have so much at heart." And so, with tears running down his manly cheeks, he left his Massa- chusetts home to become the president of Antioch College, then but a great hope planted amid the stumps and malaria of a new country. Here he wel- comed his first class before the roof was yet on the college building. Here for seven years he worked in VICTORIES 255 the interest of the college where for the first time many great interests of humanity were experiments, a college where men and women were admitted to equal privileges, where black and white had equal rights, and where no creed or lack of creed could con- dition the welcome, the fellowship, or the standing of a student. Horace Mann died with Antioch College but a struggling school in the wilderness. Antioch College is still living from hand to mouth, a school poorly sus- tained and little known, but his triumph is written in the triumph of Cornell, Leland Stanford, and every non-sectarian, co-educational and inter-racial college in America, for they represent the public spirit that at the expense of the public would make a free highway for all the children of the state to travel on from the kindergarten to the highest education American insti- tutions can give. Horace Mann died gloriously because he had lived to win many a victory for humanity. I can wish you no higher good than that his story may interpret our text and that the text may become a guiding inspira- tion to the end of life. THE GAME OF LIFE 10 VICTIS I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the Battle of Life, — The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife ; Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim Of nations was lifted in chorus, ivhose brows wore the chaplet of fame. But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart, Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part ; Whose youth bore no flower on its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes azvay. From whose hand slipped the prize they had grasped at, who stood at the dying of day With the wreck of their lives all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone. With Death szvooping down o'er their failure, and all but their faith overthroivn. While the voice of the zvorld shouts its chorus, — its paean for those who have won ; While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breeze and the sun Glad banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet Thronging after the laurel-crozvned victors, I stand on the Held of defeat. In the shadow, with those who have fallen, and wounded, and dying, and there Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted brows, breathe a prayer, Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, "They only the victory win. Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within; Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds on high; Who have darsd for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight, — if need be, to die." Speak, History! who are life's victors? Unroll thy long annals and say. Are they those zvhom the world called the victors — who won the success of a day? The Martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans, zvho fell at Thermopylae's tryst, Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges or Socrates? Pilate or Christ? — William Wetmore Story XIV THE GAME OF LIFE Not failure but low aim is crime. — James Russell Lowell To the imagination of the young, life presents itself as a game, a happy contest, a competitive strug- gle to win a prize. Paul compares life to a foot-race such as was witnessed in the Olympic contests of Greece, where the runners, stripped of all incum- brances, strained every nerve in the great race for which they had spent months in training and in which they hoped to win national renown. So important seemed these contests, and so severe was the train- ing required, that they came but once in four years, thus marking the length of the Greek Olympiad. In common speech, the words of familiar games are unconsciously used to describe life and its experiences. The technical terms of sport have become the slang terms of social life; men talk about politicians hav- ing their "innings," of men being made to "knuckle down" in business, of the successful man as "holding a full hand," of the cheated man as having been "euchered," of a baffled man as being "checkmated," and of a sudden defeat as a "knockout." In accordance with this unconscious habit of the mind, James Russell Lowell, in the poem entitled "An Autograph," compares life to a game in archery. We are all sportsmen shooting at a mark. Our arrow 259 26o LOVE AND LOYALTY may not reach the target, but our target should be a worthy one, and we should aim high enough to reach it. "Not failure but low aim is crime." Whether on the playground or in life, whether in the short hours of a vacation or the long years of a life time, the aim is for success. We struggle to win. We strain every nerve, and use all our wits and strength in order to succeed. This is as it should be. Life is a struggle. It is given us as an opportunity, and the boy or girl is only half alive that is not stirred with an ambition to achieve, to "hit the mark," to accomplish something in life as on the playground. But, we must learn early that there are not prizes for all the runners. All cannot win the game. Often in life as in checkers, the success of one means the defeat of another. Of a hundred runners there is but one to come out ahead. Many may aim at the mark, but few arrows will strike the bull's-eye in the target. The slightest defect in the arrow will defeat the clear- est eye and the steadiest hand. The arrow-head may be a little unbalanced, the shaft a little bent, the feather tip a little imperfect, or, even if the arrow be perfect and the bow well strung, an unexpected whiff of wind or a sudden glint of sunlight just at the critical moment, may send the arrow a fraction off the line that means success. Or, even if arrow and bow and sun and breeze be right, there may be a twinge of the nerve, a defect of the muscle, a weakness of eye for which the archer was not responsible, and he misses the mark, the crown is not his. The twitching nerve THE GAME OF LIFE 261 may have been a bequest from his grandfather, the Winking eye may have come from his grandmother; the weakened muscle may have been caused by malaria or typhoid, the bacteria of scarlet fever or diphtheria, which the archer could not have avoided and for which he must not be held responsible, but defeat is his, notwithstanding. The first lesson, then, of our Lowell motto, is that failure is not necessarily a crime. Failure may be no disgrace, indeed failure in one sense or another is the lot of all. Failure may be honorable. Failure is oftentimes complimentary. Failure is always rela- tive. Oftentimes what man calls failure God calls success. The defeat of today may bargain for the success of tomorrow. Of this game of life, Brown- ing, using the archery figure also, has told us, Better fail in the high aim than vulgarly succeed in the low aim. Indeed we have learned in our studies how beauti- ful failure may be, how grand often have been the successes of the defeated men and women of the world. Zoroaster and Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus were all "failures," judged by the stand- ards of the world. Zoroaster probably became an outcast, the truth he tried to teach was rejected, and the little band of Parsis were compelled to move away from their native land into the northwestern corner of Asia. And when the near defeat seemed about to grow into success, and the new religion was advancing westward at the head of a great army, it 262 LOVE AND LOYALTY met defeat at the hands of the Greeks and latterly at the hands of the Mohammedans in spite of its great truth. And today the followers of Zoroaster com- prise but a little handful, most of them constituting a little colony of two hundred thousand souls in far- off Bombay. The beautiful prince Siddartha, though he left the palace and gave up a throne in order that he might be a helper, becoming a mendicant that he might become a teacher, was so much a failure that all his followers were driven out of their own land within two or three hundred years after his death, and the prophet-prince of India, the gentle teacher who taught his people to be pitiful, has but few followers in his native India today, for it is in China and Japan and Ceylon and Siam that most of the four hundred and seventy million souls live that call Buddha blessed. Socrates was forced to drink the poison. Jesus was crucified. Giordano Bruno and Servetus were burned. These are only a few of the illustra- tions that might be given to show how glorious some kinds of failure are, how splendid it may be to be beaten in the game of life. But I do not want you to think that no failures are honorable except the famous failures. The world has been blessed with little neighborhood Zoroasters, local Buddhas, village Pauls, men who have preferred to aim high and fail rather than aim low and succeed; who have tried to do the right, and in trying have seemed to do little or nothing; who have preferred THE GAME OF LIFE 263 being noble to being popular, preferred being gener- ously poor to being selfishly rich, preferred the right to success. On the other hand, I might remind you of suc- cesses that have been sad, of triumphs that have been pitiable. Marcus Aurelius was a noble pagan em- peror. On the Capitoline Hill in Rome, one of the most ancient bronze statues in the world represents him on a splendid horse, with right arm mercifully extended as if to protect his prisoners of war from the insults of his own legions. While he was ruling so benignly he wrote down some of his high thoughts. His book has since been called The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. In this book there is evidence that he thought a great deal about the different kinds of successes possible to man, the successes that are disap- pointing as well as the successes that are glorious. In this book we read : A spider is proud when it has caught a poor fly, and some- one else when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears, and another when he has taken the Sarmatians. Are not these rob- bers, if thou examinest their principles? Oh, how shameful are the spider successes among men. Even boys, in these days, if they are thought- ful, pause before they wantonly draw the shining fish out of his watery home to gasp for life and perish painfully in the sunlight. But what about the able- bodied men who in the game of life ruthlessly catch 264 LOVE AND LOYALTY the little fishes in their net, sell out their own con- sciences, and trample upon the right in order to suc- ceed. All success is not dishonorable, but many successes are pitiable failures. After election day, when the votes are counted, those who have been elected through the purchasing power of money or favor, or who have sought and obtained office for the purpose of trafficking in the people's rights and advancing their own interests, have been miserably defeated, for they have bargained for dishonor ; they succeeded into ignominy, they triumphed into shame and disgrace, while those who were defeated because they were independent of money and favor, because they sought only to serve their city, to elevate and ennoble their state, they in their defeat will have nobly succeeded. Andrew Marvell, scholar, poet, and patriot, was in the English Parliament when the wicked Charles II was on the throne. The reckless king needed a great deal of money, and he tried to secure it by brib- ing the members of Parliament. The lord treasurer at the king's instigation called upon Marvell, who was then living in a garret, and, after a friendly visit, placed a check for a thousand pounds in his hands. "Come back, my lord," exclaimed the haughty com- moner. He then called his servant boy and said to him, "Jack, what had I for dinner yesterday?" "A shoulder of mutton, sir, that you ordered m.e to bring from a woman in the market." THE GAME OF LIFE 265 "Jack, what have I for dinner today?" "You told me, sir, to lay by the blade-bone to boil for soup today." "My lord," said Marvell, turning to the lord treasurer, "you see that my dinner is provided for. Take back your paper." A biographer tells us that Sir Robert Walpole once sent a famous minister to hire the poor poet Goldsmith to write a political screed that should help defeat the lovers of freedom by heaping ridicule upon them. The poor poet — and ah, how poor Goldsmith was — scorned the offer, saying he "preferred to write the tale of 'Goody Two Shoes' for the amusement of children than become the hack pamphleteer of politi- cal prostitutes." No, failure is not necessarily crime, and success is not necessarily a virtue. Columbus went in search of India. He found only a few little islands, but there was the American continent farther on, of which he had not even dreamed. The prince Siddartha wanted to bring happiness to his people, to relieve them from the woes of life. In trying to do this he made the world more kind and taught gentleness and pity to humanity. Jesus sent his disciples out to seek the "lost sheep of Israel." In so doing he sent a message that has encircled the earth, and his beatitudes and the parable of the good Samaritan are now taught in every language. If, then, the low aim is crime, what should the aim be? 266 LOVE AND LOYALTY Shall we say happiness? Certainly the world should be happy. The earth is tremulous every springtime with Easter beauty and joy. The boughs dance with happiness. The birds chant their happy songs. In the country the lambs gambol and the cows stand knee deep in fragrant clover. God must have meant this for a happy world, but happiness is a poor thing to go in search of, for in seeking our own happiness we often make others miserable. Kings seek for happiness when they oppress their subjects. Warriors seek for happiness when they destroy their foes and fill the land with widows and orphan;-. We must aim higher than happiness. Shall it be usefulness, shall we try to be of service to our kind? Yes, but who can tell what is useful- ness? Sometimes in trying to serve we hurt. Some- times mothers are unkind in their great desire to help their children. Fathers are cruel to their sons and daughters by shielding them from the struggle and the toil, the responsibility and the discipline through which they themselves have passed. We may not be able to tell what is useful. Let us aim higher. Shall it be truth ? Certainly we must ever remem- ber that the truth alone can make us free. How splendid it is to give our lives in a quest for truth, to brave the wilds of Africa in search of the head waters of the Nile, as Livingstone did; to lose one's self in the desolate fields of snow in polar realms in search of a North Pole, as Nansen did; to steal away from friends, from country, from native land, and spend THE GAME OF LIFE 267 years in far-away India, as Anquetil du Perron, the young French student did, in search of a lost Bible, in the study of a dead language, and to bring back, as he did, the Zend-Avesta, the Bible of the Parsis; to prefer study to wealth like Faraday, and thus be able to create a new science and to discover so many of the marvels of chemistry. Think of Galileo's joy as he looked through his newly made telescope. Think of the delights of Edison in the electric light and the phonograph. Yes, it is great to aim at truth. But Pilate asked Jesus at his trial, "What is truth?" and Jesus did not answer. We may not know it when we discover it; we may not even know in what direction to go in search of it. Let us try again for a higher aim. Shall it be honesty? We can at least be true to ourselves. We can at least think what we say and say what we think in this world. We can at least aim at honesty, and in that we may do what will bring use- fulness and happiness to others if not to ourselves. They used to say, "There is no God west of the Mis- sissippi," meaning by that that on the border of civili- zation and beyond it there was no honesty. But now we know that there is a God beyond the Mississippi and beyond the outermost reach of civilization, a God that reveals himself where dishonest folk are proving any aim below honesty to be a crime which the world will at last discover and despise. No matter whether your business in life is selling sugar or preaching the gospel, whether you are a tailor or a philosopher, a 268 LOVE AND LOYALTY cook or an artist^ you can and must be honest in the office, at the home, on the farm, in the church, or you are aiming low. Tell the truth as you see it; be loyal to your own best nature, follow the little light you have, and it will lead evermore to nobler light. There is a great story told of a German peasant during the war of 1760. A captain of cavalry drag- ged the poor old man from his cabin and said, "Take us to a field where we can find forage for our horses." "Very well," said the old man, and he led them through a little valley until they came to a fine field of barley, and the captain said, "This will do." But the old man said, "Not this, please sir. Come a little farther on, and I will show you another field." They followed, and the troops dismounted and began to mow the growing grain and bind it in sheaves for their horses. "But," said the captain, "why did you lead us here? The other field was just as good." "Yes," said the peasant, "but that is not mine." Let there be the same honesty in regard to the barley fields of thought, the corn fields of mind. Another's thought is not yours to give. Deal in your own. Be honest. Is honesty, then, the highest mark to aim at ? No, not the highest. Honesty deals with yourself, but there is a higher word that represents your relation to your kind, and that word is justice. Usefulness, truth, honesty, all are servants of this greatest of words and noblest of things. All the virtues and all the graces wait upon justice. Justice is of God, whose name is Equity, whose spirit is fair-" THE GAME OF LIFE 269 ness. Justice is love at work. Justice is ap- plied truth. Justice is corporate honesty. Hon- esty may make the hermit; justice makes the citizen. Honesty may make a partisan and a patriot; justice makes a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world, a humanitarian, a loyal member of humanity. This is the aim. How shall we pursue it in such a way that, however we may fail, there can be no crime in it? I am not much of a marksman. But did you ever think why it is that he who would hit the mark shuts one eye? Is it not to shut out all but the rays that come straight from the mark and return straight to the mark? He who would take true aim must beware of double vision. Jesus talks about the "single eye" and Paul about "singleness of heart." They must have meant the straight vision, the one purpose, a loyalty to the all-sufficient aim. There is an old saying, "He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither." A wag once advertised that for twenty-five cents he would tell how to prevent any shot-gun from scattering, and when he received his quarter he was wont to reply, "Dear Sir: To keep your gun from scattering, put in a single shot at a time." Englishmen say, "The Yankee sailor can splice a rope in a dozen ways; an English sailor has only one way of splicing a rope, but that is the best way." Boys, if you would be just, you must be clean, pure, noble. Whoever vitiates the pure air with tobacco fumes, whoever mars his face with drink or 270 _ LOVE AND LOYALTY fouls his speech with coarseness is so far unjust to his kind, unjust to the world, unjust to God. And the girl that mars simplicity with frivolity, economy with spendthrift habits, is cruel and unjust to herself and others, blighting and marring the lives she ought to beautify. Does this seem a hard message to the young? Ought I not in these spring days to speak a message of love and of beauty rather than of stern justice? But, my children, justice is stern only to the wrong- doer. To the pure and good, justice is love, is enthu- siasm, is helpfulness, is joy. Men talk of "cold jus- ice," and "hard justice." There is no such thing, for either of these is injustice. In The Coming Peo- ple, by Charles F. Dole, I find the following motto: "Show us whatever is good for mankind, and we will try to bring it about. Tell us whatever means will bring good, and we are pledged to use them." This is an aim high enough to enlist all the energies of love, and this is simple justice. Thus runs an old story : There were three roses in a florist's window, each "weighed down with love- liness as with a crown." One of these roses was bought by a lover for his sweetheart's breast, another by a widow to place in the icy hand of her dead child, and the third went to decorate the hair of a wanton woman. Edwin Arnold, in his poem "The Three Roses," discusses the question which of these roses fulfilled the highest mission. And in the thought of the past, not the rose that strengthened the lovers' THE GAME OF LIFE 271 ties was most blessed, nor yet the rose that threw a light upon the coffin lid, but rather the one that gave back to the wayward woman the memory of the long ago when in innocence she plucked the clean spring roses, the flower that brought the sense of shame and the prayer of repentance, the flower that led the wayward soul to exclaim, O Christ ! I am thy wilted rose, Renew me ! Thou renewest those ! And the angels gathered at that cry "to help this soul that strove aright." The last rose was the rose of greatest love because it was the rose of justice. For only the loving are just, and only those who pur- sue justice pursue an aim that ever lifts the pursuers above crime, however disappointed, however de- feated, however, they may fail. So after all, my motto is a motto of cheer, and my message is a message of joy. These days of the returning sun call for a new interpretation of a sun- beam. It is the life giver. Let Lucy Larcom give the closing word, answering the question, "What would you do if you were a sunbeam?" If I were a sunbeam, I know what I'd do : I would seek white lilies Rainy woodlands through; I would steal among them, Softest light I'd shed. Until every lily Raised its drooping head. 272 LOVE AND LOYALTY If I were a sunbeam, I know where I'd go : Into the lowliest hovels, Dark with want and woe; Till sad hearts looked upward, I would shine and shine; ,Then they'd think of heaven, Their sweet home and mine. Art thou not a sunbeam, Child, whose life is glad, With an inner radiance Sunshine never had? Oh, as God has blessed thee. Scatter rays divine! For there is no sunbeam But must die, or shine. THE SOURCES OF POWER Hast thou not knoivn? hast thou not heard? The everlast- ing God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and he weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not he weary; they shall walk, and not faint. — Isaiah 40: 28-31 XV THE SOURCES OF POWER Not knowledge but purpose is power. — Source unknown What one wants to know is of more value than what one does know, and what one wants to do is worth more than what one has done. The places you have not visited interest you more than the places you have seen. You who live in Chicago want to see Boston. The Boston children yearn for a sight of Chicago. Europeans spend long years in work and economy that they may visit America. Americans do the same thing that they may go to Europe. It is what we want, not what we have, that measures us. What I aspired to be, and was not, Comforts me, said Browning ; and in the same poem he said : All I could never be. All men ignored in me, That I was worth to God. You may have mastered the rules of arithmetic; you may have learned to read in several languages and to recite many poems; you may have seen many wonderful sights, heard many eminent men and women, and be very "smart," as school children say, and yet be peevish when children, petulant when men and women; yes, in spite of all this knowledge you may be uninteresting, ungracious, and weak. There are 275 276 LOVE AND LOYALTY many graduates of high schools without friends and without influence. Every week I meet young men and women who have gone through college, yet have not power enough to earn a living, and cannot find a place in the world ; while, on the other hand, Abraham Lin- coln without school, without library, without money, and at one time without friends, climbed to be the noblest American. And a poor boy whose father was a stone mason and whose mother was a profes- sional nurse, grew to be the great and noble Socrates. But it will not do to make too easy a lesson from so great a text. You must not accept it too readily. It is true that knowledge without purpose is of but little avail ; that no matter how many rules we master, how many books we read, how many accomplish- ments we acquire, or how many places we may visit, we are weak without a purpose, and our acquirement is of little use to us unless we have a commanding motive. But it is also equally true that a purpose without knowledge oftentimes brings weakness and defeat. When Sir George Stevenson appeared before the committee of the House of Commons to urge the passage of an act permitting the construction of a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester, the commit- tee cross-questioned him for three days. One of the wise men said to him, "If a cow was to get on the track of the engine and it was traveling at the rate of ten miles an hour, would it not be an awkward situa- tion?" THE SOURCES OF POWER 277 "Yea — very awkward indeed for the coo," replied the young engineer. And, like Stevenson's "coo," thousands of people are constantly putting themselves into awkward situations simply for want of knowl- edge. No high purpose can save a fool who persists in his folly from the consequences of his foolishness. No high purpose will enable one to play the piano successfully without practice, to survey a hill without a knowledge of mathematics, or to make a successful garden without a knowledge of seeds and soils. Two great English engineers to whom Steven- son's railroad project was referred gave it as their opinion that the only way steam could be made to draw railway cars was by establishing stationary engines perhaps one and a half miles apart, to pull the cars from one station to another with ropes and pulleys. Their purpose was good, but their knowl- edge was defective. If it is true that there must be a purpose before knowledge becomes a power, it is also true that pur- pose must find knowledge before it can become powerful. Perhaps the best way for us to find our sermon is to try to answer these three questions : ( i ) What is knowledge? (2) What is purpose? (3) What is power? What is knowledge? It certainly is not an acquaintance with mere facts. It is not familiarity with names. Knowledge does not come from the die- 278 LOVE AND LOYALTY tionary or the encyclopaedia. You may know the multipHcation table, the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence, and the Golden Rule, without knowing mathematics, morals, patriotism, or religion. To know the names or even the color and forms, of all birds in your neighborhood will not make an ornithologist of you; to know all the stones in the cabinet by their scientific names will not make a geologist of you. To know all the notes in the gamut, or even to be able to read them in their combination on the musical staff, will not make a musician of you. To know the bird you must know its relation to other birds, its habit throughout the year, what it feeds upon, where it nests, and where it spends its winter. You must know the bird in its relations. To know geology, you must know something of the formation of the strata, their place in the history of the world, how long they were forming, and their connection with the strata below and the strata above. To know morals, you must know the Ten Command- ments in their relation to life, how they apply to conduct on the playground, in the school, in the home, in business. Knowledge is ordered information. Bread and milk is not strength. It becomes strength only when digested. So the facts of life are only the materials out of which knowledge is made. Knowl- edge is always the combination of the fact and the thought. The more facts and thinking combine, the more knowledge. What is knowledge, then? It is not memory. THE SOURCES OF POWER 279 It is not familiarity with facts. It is not observation. It is not even experience. It is all these put to soak in the human mind. It is all these digested by the human brain. Knowledge is memory changed to convictions, familiarity transformed into ideas. The bird has much keener sight than man. The dog can smell more acutely. I notice that my good horse Roos will hear a man beating a carpet on a side street when I hear nothing. But you know more than the bird; boys have more knowledge than the dog; and I hope I have more sense, take it all around, than my horse. At least I am not afraid of a carpet-beater, as she is. Men put wheat into the hopper, and it comes out flour. Women bake the flour, and it becomes bread. Children eat the bread, and it becomes bodily strength. So we put facts into the thought hoppers of boys and girls. These facts are ground in the think-mill of life, and they come out as knowledge, ideas which can be baked into the bread of wisdom. This alone is the stuflf out of which comes strength, purpose, and power. Now to our second question: What is purpose? It certainly is not mere impulse, it is surely more than ambition, it is more than desire. The baby wants the candle to play with. It reaches out for the moon. It does not know that the moon is beyond its reach. It has not yet learned to judge of distances. The boy who in his anger vows to revenge himself upon his playmate, the girl who thinks she is passionately fond 28o LOVE AND LOYALTY of music and wishes she could study in Paris, are both wanting in purpose unless they are willing to move on long lines and make these vows and passions delib- erate. Purpose is at least a thing of silent if not of slow growth. There is an element of justice in it. It is pressure towards a goal not reached, and the farther away the goal, generally the higher the purpose. The purpose of the boy or girl, if it is to become power- ful, must take counsel of the power of God by being persistent. Patience is the secret of genius. Patience brings the crown to the real conquerors. Patience will surely bring us, if not what we work for, then some- thing better. Persistency is always one element of the great man. That is a good old story of Demos- thenes, the greatest orator of antiquity, who stam- mered so that he was hissed from off the stage when he made his first speech. But he filled his mouth with pebbles and talked in the face of the storm as it beat the ocean into noisy tumult, and so cured him- self of stammering and acquired the power of sway- ing multitudes. Purpose before it becomes power must make com- mon cause Vv^ith knowledge; nay, more, it must make common cause with the universe. You can not find that out about things which is not in things. No purpose can get maple sugar out of a basswood tree. No purpose, however diligently pursued, can success- fully raise peaches in Alaska or reindeer in Cuba. No amount of purpose can make water run up hill, THE SOURCES OF POWER 281 neither can it make truth out of falsehood, right out of wrong, or happiness out of cruelty. The purpose that lands in power must be a purpose -planted, not in the changing law of man, but in the eternal law of God. There is no luck. It is all order. There is no chance. It is all law. Next to patience must come concentration, another element in a masterful purpose. There is force enough in the boiling tea-kettle to run a dynamo, but without the aid of the steam engine it is dissipated and lost. There must be a cylinder to confine the steam until it is strong enough to move the piston that turns the wheel that pulls the train. A Boston manufacturer said to a young inventor who had been puzzling his brains over a knitting machine, "Why don't you make a sewing-machine?" "It cannot be done," said the inventor. A clumsy workman in the shop overheard the remark. It was a new thought. It aroused a new purpose, and Elias Howe began to brood over it. Years and years he wrestled with the idea, supporting himself and three children on nine dollars a week. The merry boy became a brooding man. Model after model he built and broke, until at last, in 1845, he stitched himself a suit of clothes with his own machine. His purpose had become not only a power to him but to all the world. Millions of sewing machines now relieve the hand of man, and every one of them rests on Elias Howe's invention. Prescott and Parkman, two of the most eminent 282 LOVE AND LOYALTY historians of the United States, achieved their work under the greatest of difficulties. Prescott was Wind in one eye, and Parkman so nearly blind in both eyes that he could use them not more than five minutes at a time, yet both made rich contributions to American history, a work which necessitated the mastery of many books and the deciphering of thousands of per- plexing documents. Linnaeus, one of the early botan- ists, was so poor that he had to beg his meals. David Livingstone, the great African traveler, began work in a cotton factory at ten years of age. Out of his earliest wages he bought a Latin grammar and studied it in the night schools. Frederick Douglass, in a speech to some colored children, once said : I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was but six years old. He was a slave, and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal-bag head fore- most, and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat. That boy did not wear pantaloons, as you do, but a tow-linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book, and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became presidential elector. United States marshal, United States recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth, and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Doug- lass. What was possible for me is possible for you. Don't think THE SOURCES OF POWER 283 because you are colored you can't accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to your knowledge. So long as you remain in ignorance, so long will you fail to command the respect of your fellow-men. Now to our third point: What is power? Power is that which enables man to co-operate with God. Power is a noble word because it enables us to achieve noble things, and, above all, to be noble. The illus- trations of power make the study of science delight- ful, the reading of history valuable, poetry and fic- tion helpful. This is why biography is such a valu- able source of inspiration to children, aye, to children of all ages. The mathematician figures out the path of the stars and says to the man at the telescope, "There is another star hidden out there in yonder section of space— look for it." And he looks and finds it. This is the power that comes to the man who works along the lines of God, the man who, in good Bible phrase, "enters into the secrets of the Almighty." I like the story of Caleb West, Master Diver, writ- ten by F. Hopkinson Smith. In this book is described the hard, brave life of the builders and sailors who construct lighthouses along shore and carry on the dangerous traffic with seaport towns of the Atlantic coast. "Captain Joe" and his men were raising on the edge of the sea ledge four great derricks with which to handle the tremendous blocks of granite that were to be laid in the walls of the lighthouse, walls that must stand the tempest for centuries and hold 284 LOVE AND LOYALTY aloft the beacon that would save life and property for generations to come. These derricks must be high enough to carry the stones to the top of the new lighthouse, fifty-eight feet above the water line. Three of the mighty derricks were already up. On a damp, foggy, windy day in August, the fourth was going up. The steady "Heave, Ho ! Heave, Ho !" of the man tugging at the tackle line brought the fourth a little nearer and nearer to the position where the chain could be fastened in the hook, making all four derricks safe. The men were standing ankle deep in water and the tide was rising, when suddenly one of the men slipped and tripped the one next to hmi, who also fell, and soon the whole line was floundering among the rocks. The big fourth derrick swung like a tree that was doomed, and all four were in momentary danger of falling and crushing the men. "Every man o' ye as ye were," shouted Captain Joe. One guy rope had held, but at last it seemed to give way. "Stand by on that watch tackle, every man o' ye. Don't one o' ye move." And not one of them did move, but all stood by. But another jerk, another break, and Captain Joe shouted, "Down between the rocks. Heads under, every one o' ye." This command was as promptly obeyed as the others, and no man had been hurt though all the derricks came tumbling down. The tide was rising. No time was to be lost. THE SOURCES OF POWER 285 "All hands to the derricks again. We have got to get them up, boys, if it takes all night." Again the men sprang to their tasks. For five consecutive hours they worked without pause. One after another the derricks rose again and the guy ropes were once more fastened. It was now six o'clock at night. The four der- ricks were again almost erect. The same gang was tugging at the watch tackle. The distance between the hook and the ring was now reduced to five feet, and again it was, "Heave, Ho! Heave, Ho!" until inch by inch the distance was lessened. But the tide had now risen until the men were standing three feet deep in the water, and the wind was blowing so that the boat, the only means of leaving the ledge upon which they were working, broke from its moorings and was in danger of being beaten to pieces upon the rocks. But no man could leave his rope to save the little boat. The waves were rolling higher and higher. Captain Joe held the hook. Then he cal- culated how long it would be before the water would be above their heads and the wind would crush the boat, but he flinched not and cheerily cried, "Heave, Ho! Heave, Ho!" and the ring was within two feet of the hook. Captain Joe was now waist deep in the sea. "Hold fast, men! Hold fast, men!" came a cry from the shore, as a great curler rolled headlong over the ledge wetting the men to their armpits, and the wave rolled completely over the head of Captain Joe. 286 LOVE AND LOYALTY But he rose to his task, shook the water from his mouth and cried, "Heave, Ho! men!" It was a fight between the rising sea and the men at the tackle. One inch more, another inch, and still another. It was now within six inches of the hook, but the water was up to Captain Joe's shoulders. "Give it to her, men! All hands now! Pull, men! Once more — altogether! Heave Ho! All to — " and again the sea buried him out of sight before the cry was out of his lips. The man on the shore said, "The boat is pounding itself to pieces." "Let her pound," replied Captain Joe. "Heave, Ho! men! Pull ye — ." Another wave went over him. He rose now with no breath to be wasted in cry- ing. Every man knew the crisis had arrived. One more pull. "One— "One— "Two— "Hold hard! Hold hard!" All eyes were fixed on the captain, every man held his breath. "Let Go! Let Go!" and the big derrick quiv- ered for an instant and then steadied on its feet. The Hook Had Slipped into the Ring. The guys were all taut, the mighty suspension bridge under which the life-saving lighthouse would rise, was firm. After twelve hours of battling with the sea the men- THE SOURCES OF POWER 287 scrambled onto the little ledge, and the cheery voice of Captain Joe cried, "All ye men what is going in the 'Screamer' look to the life-boat. Pick up your tackles. It will be awful soapy around here 'fore morning." This is the power of a man who was tempered by the sea, who had studied the tides, whose will and mind and heart beat together. This is a power that in fighting with nature becomes strong with the strength of nature. Captain Joe represents the kind of purpose you must have if you are to win in life's battle. You must learn of the elements how to fight them, for once you conquer them, they will evermore be your friends. I like again the story of the English fireman who, seeing five men on the top of a burning building beyond the reach of the tallest ladder, carried up a short ladder to form an extension, but it was too short to reach the men whose lives were in danger. Stand- ing on the top of the lower ladder, gradually he lifted the short one from knee to hip, from hip to shoulder, and braced himself against the building, while the men above reached down and descended to life and safety on the ladder of which the height of the fireman's own body was the necessary extension. But not all power is allied to muscle or is found in battling with the outer forces of nature. I find another story which suits my purpose in Westcott's David Hariim. On Christmas morning, the rough but kind-hearted country banker prepared to lift the mort- 288 LOVE AND LOYALTY gage from the house of a poor widow. He told her the story how, forty years before, a young man who sub- sequently became the husband of this woman, took him, a barefooted, shockheaded, bashful country lad to a circus and gave him ten cents to buy anything he liked. That ten cents was the capital with which David Harum started out in life. He had computed the interest through forty years, and was now ready to pay it back by paying the thousand-dollar mort- gage upon the home of the widow of the man who took him to the show. The kind-hearted young man had disappeared. David never saw him again, and all through life he was haunted by the fear that he had not said "Thank you," and that his benefactor had never known how great a kindness he had bestowed upon the homeless boy. He said to the dazed widow: I never had a kind word said to me, nor a day's fun. Your husband, Billy P. Cullom, was the fust man that ever treated me human up to that time. He gave me the only enjoy'ble time 't I'd ever had, an' I don't know't anythin's ever equaled it since. He spent money on me, an' he give me money to spend — that had never had a cent to call my own — an', Mis' Cullom, he took me by the hand, an' he gin me the fust notion't I'd ever had that mebbe I wa'n't only the scum o' the earth, as I'd ben teached to believe. I tell ye that day was the turnin' point of my life. Wa'al, it wa'n't the lickin' I got, though that had somethin' to do with it, but I'd never have had the spunk to run away's I did if it hadn't ben for the heartenin' Billy P. gin me, an' never knowed it, an' never knowed it," he repeated, mournfully. "I alius allowed to pay some o' that- THE SOURCES OF POWER 289 debt back to him, but seein' 's I can't do that, Mis' Cullom, I'm glad an' thankful to pay it to his widdo'." "Mebbe he knows, Dave," said Mrs. Cullom, softly. And David continued: "Wa'al, I thought that mebbe, long's you got the int'rist of that investment we ben talkin' about, you'd let me keep what's left of the princ'pal. Would ye like to see it?" Mrs, Cullom looked at him with a puzzled expression with- out replying. David took from his pocket a large wallet, secured by a strap, and, opening it, extracted something enveloped in much faded brown paper. Unfolding this, he displayed upon his broad fat palm an old silver dime black with age. There's the cap'tal," he said. There is that in the story t>f Captain Joe that may stir the boys and girls more than the story of David Harum, but perhaps, after all, the spirit that caused the wealthy young gentleman to take notice of a shock-headed, barefooted, ragged boy, and "take him by the hand" v^hile they studied together the elephant and the rhinoceros, was a finer, higher power than that which enabled Captain Joe to fight the waves and the men to stand by the tackle. Be that as it may, the power we need is the power which brings love, helpfulness, and holiness, and such power comes through knowledge and ripens in the wisdom that enters into the counsels of the Almighty. THE RHYME OF THINGS Perfect paired as eagle's wings, Justice is the rhyme of things; Trade and counting use The self-same tuneful muse; And Nemesis, Who with even matches odd. Who athwart space redresses The partial wrong. Fills the just period. And finishes the song. — From Emerson's "Merlin" XVI THE RHYME OF THINGS Justice is the rhyme of things. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Given the best blood of Puritan New England, an ancestry that reaches back through seven genera- tions of ministers of religion, close contact v^ith nature and life, familiarity with the best of books, all the training of Harvard College, all the discipline necessitated by economy, thrift, and diligence, all that love of noble men and women and an interest in the rights of the poor and down-trodden could give, with that "something more" that comes, we know not how and we know not whence, that heaven- born plus we call genius, and lo, Ralph Waldo Emer- son, who has given to you your motto and to me my text. The writings of Emerson are such as might be expected from such a source, wise and witty, clear and earnest, full of information, and sparkling with originality. He wrote out of his own heart to his own time and people, and yet he did this so well that his books are interesting anywhere, and true to all times. He was an American of the Americans, and yet he belonged to no country, no party, and no sect. Wherever he is known he is beloved. He is found in the libraries of the noble from Italy to Iceland, from San Francisco to Bombay. Russian and Frenchman, 293 294 LOVE AND LOYALTY Spaniard and Turk love Emerson. The gentle fol- lowers of Buddha, the wise children of Confucius, the little band of Parsis who revere as holy the word of Zoroaster, the Mohammedan who rides the Arabian desert on his camel, all are glad of Emerson. They love his words, they understand his message, because truth is true everywhere. Justice and love, like the multiplication table, belong to no country, because they belong to all countries. Of the twelve volumes of Ralph Waldo Emer- son's writings, as arranged in the final edition of his works, there is not one to spare, and I hope you will eventually learn to love them all. On Easter Day, at our recognition service, I shall hand to each of you his Conduct of Life. Here you will find the simple but difficult rules of the higher life, such as you can never know too early and can never study too long. You may need more schooling in this great university we call the "world" before you can under- stand the first essay, the one entitled "Fate," but I think you can already discover some of the gold in the essays on "Power," on "Wealth," on "Culture," on "Behavior," on "Worship" and on "Beauty." After these you will be ready for his other books con- taining the great essays on "Compensation," the "Over-Soul." and "Friendship;" his books entitled Representative Men, Society and Solitude, Letters and Social Aims, and the others. Through all this time you will, I hope, be learning to love the contents of the one volume of Emerson's poems ; indeed, you must THE RHYME OF THINGS 295 already have begun to study his thought-stirring and picture-making Hnes. I trust that no child can pass through the public schools of this country without knowing something, aye, much, of Emerson's poetry, for it includes "The Mountain and the Squirrel," the "Titmouse," the "Rhodora," "Each and All," and the "Concord Hymn," which contains his perhaps most famous lines, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. This volume includes, also, the poem entitled "Mer- lin," in which you have found your motto, Justice is the rhyme of things. The preachers are finding out that before they can interpret justly any Bible text, they must under- stand the context, must know something about the time, place, and purpose that gave the text being. So with our text from Emerson ; we must know some- thing about the context. Merlin was the legendary father of Keltic poetry. Perhaps there was an original Merlin, an old British bard, living in the sixth century of the Christian era, who harped so delightfully, sang so wisely, prophe- sied so grandly, that after-ages surrounded him with a halo of myth, legend, and miracle. For twelve hun- dred years or more all the generations of Welsh boys and girls have held him half in terror and half in love. According to the legends, he had a demon for a father and a Welsh princess for a mother. From his 296 LOVE AND LOYALTY earliest youth he had the power of conjuring up weird presences and of making himself invisible. He used to sail in a ship of glass, and, instead of dying, he fell into a magic sleep from which he is some day to awake and help his people back into freedom, power, and glory. He was reputed to have been the adviser of four great kings, indeed, according to some of the legends, he was the father of the noble and great King Arthur himself, who gathered about him the Knights of the Round Table, the leaders of an ideal democracy where freedom was the only badge of nobility and service the only condition of honor. You may have read the story of King Arthur and the achievements of his knights in Tennyson's beauti- ful Idyls of the King; or you may find it in the Mahinogion, as compiled by Lady Charlotte Guest and delightfully edited for boys by Sidney Lanier, the gentle poet of the South, whose name today lends beauty to Johns Hopkins University and fame to Baltimore. You will find many of the stories delight- fully told in William Henry Frost's book called Stories from the Land of the Round Table, and Professor John Rhys of Oxford has told the story critically in his book entitled the Arthurian Legend. But wher- ever you find them they all cluster around the name of Merlin — and this is only another way of saying that they all come out of poetry-land, that they are made of the same stuff as hopes and prophecies. Some will tell you they are "dreams." Very well, but such dreams are made of the most solid material in the' THE RHYME OF THINGS 297 world. Marble palaces and stone monuments crum- ble, but the fancies of the human heart, the passions of men and women, the love of children for father and mother, the patriot's love for his country, these abide, because they are made of the solid stuff out of which the human soul is made and in which poetry deals. So when Emerson wanted to write a poem about poetry, to analyze its elements, to state its character- istics, and study its power, he naturally took Merlin as the representative poet. In the first part of the poem he tells us : The trivial harp will never please Or fill my craving ear; Its chords should ring as blows the breeze. Free, peremptory, clear. No jingling serenader's art, Nor tinkle of piano strings. Can make the wild blood start In its mystic springs. The kingly bard Must smite the chords rudely and hard, As with hammer or with mace. He further intimates that poetry must not be tyran- nized over by mere form, that there is more than one way of writing it, that one must not be too exacting about style. Good poetry must Mount to Paradise By the stairway of surprise. After having thus discounted rhyme, he describes 298 LOVE AND LOYALTY the power reached by the great poets because their words are "like strokes of fate," strong With the pulse of manly hearts ; With the voice of orators; With the din of city arts; With the cannonade of wars; With the marches of the brave; And prayers of might from martyrs' cave. Such poets, he says, belong to "Merlin's mighty line." These are able to Bereave a tyrant of his will, And make the lion mild. Songs can the tempest still Scattered on the stormy air, Mould the year to fair increase, And bring in poetic peace. Thus in the first part he discovers strength as an element of poetry, and he hastens to assure us, in the second part, that beauty also must belong to poetry; that poetry has use for melody, rhythm, and rhyme. He says : The rhyme of the poet Modulates the king's affairs ; Balance-loving Nature Made all things in pairs. To every foot its antipode; Each color with its counter glowed; To every tone beat answering tones, Higher or graver; Flavor gladly blends with flavor; Leaf answers leaf upon the bough; And match the paired cotyledons. THE RHYME OF THINGS , 299 But this rhythm must be the rhythm of nature, and the rhyme must be the rhyme of things, because nature goes in pairs, hfe is social, the universe is ordered, the stars are regular in their orbits, the sea- sons move with precision. Now we are ready to see the rhyme that belongs to great poetry. Not mere lilting syllables, not the tinkling melodies of a guitar, or the jinglings of a tamborine, but the far-reaching tones of the cornet, the searching voice of the flute, the soarings of the violin, accentuated, it may be, by the deep notes of the bassoon and the startling accents of the drum. All rhyme is not poetry, but all poetry has in it a rhythm of one kind or another. This is a distinction which grown-up folks oftentimes fail to recognize, and so I will illustrate. There is perfect rhyme and win- ning melody in this lilt of "Staggerdodgy," but you will hardly think it poetry : In the bleck of Clything danders Some one sliffed some smole sorroy, Ankdecastory sminched with slanders, Clincht the girl and spole the boy. At the dradgeley dreeling droolers Diffit flipped a tazvish sponge; But the skernlet imingation Smeeled a spinge — to flinkly munge. Soon a miffled grig befluzed hur, Said she zapped a morcus vase Until rawking wrikes confused her, When she spooched in bleep amaze. 300 LOVE AND^LOYALTY Drizzly, crilly, flippish ondrugs Vautch a richly raspoke Clythe; So the merry, rimpish vice bugs Die primpsorply ere they writhe. But here is rhyme and poetry, nay, rhyme in poetry, because the beauty of the sound is wedded to the reahties of nature; music and fact blend in these stanzas from Shelley's "Cloud" : I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail. And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain. And laugh as I pass in thunder. Now we begin to understand what Emerson means when he says, "Justice is the rhyme of things." It is his way of saying that justice is the true relation of things — not the whim of human courts, but the law of the universe. Justice is not the enactment of legis- latures and congresses, but it is the law of God. The universal symbol of justice is the balance, the scales that show the perfect poise. The stars move in rhythm; they keep their orbit and move on their bended path. Justice so balances attraction and repul- sion, the centripetal and centrifugal forces of nature," THE RHYME OF THINGS 301 that they hold the planets in their paths and guide the comets in their wanderings. Could you destroy the balance, this earth of ours would go diving blindly into the sun or flying wildly into space, as the jus- tice was on the one side or the other. Were it possible to change the proportions of oxygen and hydrogen in our air i per cent., we should smother or burn, and confusion would reign where order now holds in per- fect poise the balance of vegetable and animal life. So in the moral world, justice is not only that which secures for us life and property, but it is that which brings love, joy, and peace. Are there any sick, any lonely, any discouraged ones in the world, you may be sure they are thus because they or some- body else has tampered with the rhyme of things. Hence instead of harmony we have discord, instead of co-operation we have antagonism, instead of poetry, which is truth, we have the hard contentions of error. Justice is balanced in the world of spirit as in the world of matter. Sooner or later, everything topples over that overreaches, that leans beyond its center of gravity. The leaning tower of Pisa used to be con- sidered one of the seven wonders of the world. It was supposed that it defied the law of gravitation, and was held in its place by a miracle, but careful surveys show that the architect who designed the quaint tower knew what he was about; he built it leaning, but he kept the center of gravity within the base, and the law of gravitation holds the tower in place. Had it by accident or intent been made to lean beyond the 302 LOVE AND LOYALTY line established by gravitation, the leaning architec- ture would have fallen. Think of the great captains of war and industry, who in their ambition have for- gotten this line of justice; great as has been their superstructure, it has fallen over. In 1789 the humble French scientist Cuvier waited upon the great Bonaparte, presenting his report on the progress of natural science, and begging his fostering care. Napoleon was able to patronize him then, but now Napoleon's column has toppled over, while Cuvier's, like a noble pillar, stands firm and clear against the sky. In Napoleon's building plans there were lines of selfish ambition, reckless disregard of other lives, cruel destruction of other's property; he violated the "rhyme of things," and his column has fallen; while Cuvier built in truth and love according to the plumb- line of justice. A quaint old Jewish legend says that Balaam, the false prophet, was "blind in one eye." The legend is true, for all false things are "blind in one eye." They fail to realize that "justice is the rhyme of things;" they violate the balance, and they go wrong. They spoil the rhyme of justice, and over they go. Justice is particular about trifles. Up to 1840, the Bank of England found it very difficult to protect itself from the gold coins that, through wear and tear or through robbery, were of light weight. In that year a machine was invented for the detection of such coins. By this machine thirty-five thousand sov- ereigns can be tested in a day. They pass down THE RHYME OF THINGS 303 through a tube until they come to the critical spot. If they are of full weight they pass on, but if they are a fraction of a grain short, the machine kicks them aside, and before they ever see the light of day again, they are defaced by a heavy stamp and sent back to the mint for another coinage. So is it in this world of ours. There is a machine through which we are all passing every day uncon- sciously, where we are weighed to the weight of a hair, and, if we are found wanting, ''insulhciency" is stamped upon our faces. We may not read the marks, but the power that passes on our place in the universe, that determines our hold upon life and usefulness, recognizes and heeds the stamp. We doubt the effi- ciency of this weighing-machine at our peril. From it there is no escape. The Talmud tells the story of a lame man and a blind man set to watch an orchard of fig trees. Both coveted some ripe fruit; both feared the master's wrath. "But," said the blind man to the lame man, "let me take you on my shoulders, and I will bear you to where the figs are and neither of us will be responsible," When the master missed his figs he summoned the two thieves to trial, and the lame man pleaded: 'T could not have done it, I am lame;" and the blind man said, "I could not have done it, I am blind." Whereupon the master caused the lame man to be placed upon the shoulders of the blind man and he passed his judgment upon the two together. We are all responsible for our share of 304 LOVE AND LOYALTY whatever mischief we are involved in, so exact is the book-keeping of God. Justice is indifferent to size; it does not care for big things ; indeed nature oftentimes has contempt for mere bigness. The wallowing reptiles of the prehis- toric ages were big but clumsy. They disappeared to make room for man. You will remember Emerson's fable that tells how "the mountain called the squirrel little prig," to which the squirrel replied. If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut. Sir Isaac Newton wore a magnet in his ring which weighed only three grains, but it had the power of lifting a weight of seven hundred and forty-six grains, or nearly two hundred and fifty times its own weight; while the best of the common magnets cannot lift more than five or six times their weight. I have read of a glow-worm which threw a light from its little body so strong that the photographer saw its reflection upon the leg of his tripod three feet away. Could you so illuminate your face that it would throw a proportionate light, one could read by the light of your countenance a mile away. A frog four inches in length can, it is said, easily jump two feet on level ground. A boy five feet, four inches high, jumping in the same proportion, would be able to make a leap of thirty-two feet under similar conditions. The Kearton brothers of England, in a delightful book called Wild Life at Home, say the mole is probably the strongest and most ferocious animal on the face THE RHYME OF THINGS 3^5 of the whole earth in proportion to its size. They say : *'It is appalhng to think what terrible monsters for mischief these moles would be if they had been created as large as elephants Give the mole a chance to bury his head and forefeet in the ground, and he can drag after him a lump of lead as big as himself." A cruel experimenter in England, testing the mole's strength, tied a string to its hind leg and placed the other in a running noose around a dog's neck, and the powerful little mole unwittingly hung the poor dog, to the shame and disgrace of the cruel- hearted man. No, there is no virtue in size. It is not the big things that are great, but the great things are big. Two great Jewish masters, Shammai and Hillel, taught in Jerusalem when Jesus was a little boy. A Gentile went to Shammai and said, "Teach me the whole law while I stand upon one leg, and I will fol- low you." And Shammai drove him off with a rod for his levity. Then the Gentile went to Hillel. And Hillel promptly answered : "That which is hateful to thyself do not do to thy neighbor. This is the whole law, and the rest is commentary." And forth- with the inquirer was converted. The Chinese teacher Confucius succeeded even better than Hillel, for when a disciple asked him if he could state the whole demand of life in one word, he replied, "Yes, is not Reciproc- ity that word?" Both of these anticipated the Golden Rule of Jesus, which is a short but far-reaching rule. Justice knows no trifles. Justice neglects nothing, 3o6 LOVE AND LOYALTY throws nothing away. Everything is important. Omit anything, and the "rhyme of things" is broken, and justice is marred. Says the Tahiiud : Not one single thing has God created in vain. He created the snail as a remedy for the blister; the fly for the sting of a wasp; the gnat for the bite of a serpent; the serpent itself for healing the itch (or the scab) ; and the lizard (or the spider) for the sting of a scorpion. A poor way of saying what Emerson said well : All are needed by each one. Here is another story from the Talmud : A Jewish judge, crossing the river in a ferry boat, was pre- vented from falling in by a man who had a lawsuit before him, whereupon the judge refused further to sit upon the case for fear he would be biased in favor of his benefactor. Justice is not partial. Justice accepts no favors. And justice acts now. The balances are poised every day. "One pepper-corn today is better than a basketfull of pumpkins tomorrow," said another old Jewish rabbi. It is not the good you are going to do some day; it is the good you are doing now. Each day is judgment day at the bar of justice. And again, justice is not only between man and man, but between men and men. We cannot play alone in this world. We cannot go to heaven alone, and we cannot go to hell alone; there is no joy or misery that can be separated from the joy or misery of others. This principle brings justice down among our poor relations. It teaches us our obligation to THE RHYME OF THINGS 307 our humble friends, the rights of the dog and the horse, of the deer and the partridge. Read Ernest Thompson Seton's Wild Animals I Havf Known, or his Trail of the Sand-Hill Stag, and see how much companionship is possible, nay, how much is fitting between us and the wild animals, even between us and the wild flowers of the field, what joy there is in the "new hunting" of which he writes, and what misery in the "old hunting." Among the delightful pictures he shows, the one most to my liking was that of the doe and her two little fawns unwittingly taking their own picture by the flashlight trap with a camera back of it. How full of surprise, of light, of beauty it was. Another impressive picture was that of a wild goat that had finally wasted away from the awkward shot of the hunter in a lonely cabin. The shivering starv- ing little kid stood piteously over the dead body of the mother that would nevermore lead it to the green grass or the refreshing brook. The hunter had marred the rhyme of nature with an injustice. My sermon has reached its length, but it is not finished. A good sermon is never finished. The closing paragraph must always be furnished by the listener; the final peroration always comes when thought is converted into action. That only is a good sermon which ripens into effort on the part of those who listen to it, and that only is a poor sermon which moves no one to action and stirs no one to nobility. Let me end by going back to Emerson, who tells 3o8 LOVE AND LOYALTY us that the house of life is full of subtle rhymes sung to us by the fateful sisters that spin our lives. They sing in perfect time and measure. Let our lives keep time with that song. Nay, let us go back of Emerson to Merlin, the prophetic bard who "followed the gleam," the ideal, the reflection of the real in which all things rest, out of which all things spring, which holds sun, moon, and stars ; father, mother, and babe ; Moses, Paul, and Jesus ; Socrates and Lincoln, aye, boy and girl, horse and dog, roses and grasses, all in its embrace. All of these have their place and their right to life and love guaranteed by the justice that is "the rhyme of things." ABOUT THRONES It is for service you are here; Not for a throne. You have been called^ you know, to suffer and to zvork, And not to gossip and to dose. As in the burning furnace gold is tried. Here are men tried: And no one's feet are firm, Unless with all his heart he strives to live Willingly humble for the love of God. — Thomas a Kempis XVII ABOUT THRONES It is for service you are here; Not for a throne. — Thomas a Kempis Your predecessors of the Confirmation Class alumni have found their texts in the words of Emer- son, Browning, Zoroaster, Wordsworth, Oliver Wen- dell Holmes, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Lowell, Horace Mann, Robert Collyer, and that prolific source which the books call "anonymous," in notes from songs that have survived the singers, words that have outlived the name and date of the spirit that gave them birth. I was interested in your quest and am happy in your choice. I was touched in a way you cannot understand when I found that one of your number had been hunting for a motto in his christening book, for it put meaning and a certain amount of justifica- ton into these whitening locks of mine. It meant that my Donald, whom I had held in my arms as a babe and into whose baby hands I had placed a copy of Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ on his chris- tening day, was now grown old enough to be in my Confirmation Class, to take interest in our talks about God, duty, and destiny, and in our study of religion as revealed in humanity's search for truth, love, and life. I am so glad you have found a text in this book 3" 312 LOVE AND LOYALTY that I am going to take quite a bit of my sermon time to tell you about the book and its writer, for in this way I shall give the best interpretation of your motto and preach the most valuable part of the sermon that belongs to this text : It is for service you are here; Not for a throne. The text is taken from a little book written about five hundred and fifty years ago by a dumpling-like Dutch monk, described in the Encyclopedia Britan- nica as "a little fresh-colored man, with soft brown eyes, who had a habit of stealing away to his cell whenever the conversation became too lively." It is on record that "he stood upright when the psalms were chanted, and even rose on his tiptoes with his face turned upward; genial, if shy, and occasionally given to punning, as when he said that he preferred psalms to salmon." He lived a quiet life in a stormy time. Europe was torn with wars, scholars were quarreling over doctrines, and the church was torn by contending bishops and even by rival popes. France and England were engaged in hostile war. Huss and Jerome of Prague had been put to death for their heresies. There was one pope at Rome, a rival pope at Avig- non in France, and a third who would like to be pope, at Ravenna. The Mohammedans were gathering around Constantinople ready to supplant the cross of the Christian with the crescent of Islam. But all this excitement does not seem to have disturbed the quiet ABOUT THRONES 31 3 of the home of John and Gertrude Hammerken, then Hving fifteen miles from the city of Dusseldorf, between the rivers Rhine and Meuse, in the princi- pahty of Cologne, situated in what is now the border of Holland. The father was an honest peasant cob- bler, the mother kept a "dame school," where she taught little children not only their letters but their manners. Her son described her in quaint Latin as being "an attentive custodian of domestic things, who worked with alacrity, was sober in her diet, abstemi- ous in her drink, careful of her words, and modest in behavior." There were two sons, John and Thomas. They had heard much of the great preacher, John Tauler, and the parents had probably heard him preach. He belonged to a new order of monks who called them- selves "The Friends of God." When the great plague of the "Black Death" visited his native city, Stras- burg, and all who could fled beyond its gates, leaving the city to the dead and the dying, Tauler, the great man of God, remained with thd terror stricken people, nursed them while living, com- forted them while dying, and helped to bury them when dead. So you see these little boys were well started, born into a simple, earnest home. They had an industrious father and a bright mother, both of whom believed it possible to lead a quiet and silent life with God in a hurried and noisy world. John, the elder brother, went ofif to school and joined a community known as 314 LOVE AND LOYALTY "The Brothers of Common Life," a company who tried to combine the Hfe of the church and the life of the world in a practical community where all worked and did their share. Little Thomas was anxious to follow his brother John. At thirteen years of age he was allowed to go to the same school. Here he indulged his passion for books — Latin, Greek, mathe- matics, and possibly a little science, and a little logic. He found a delightful way of paying his way at school. It was before the day of printing, and young Thomas loved to copy manuscript. He learned to do it very beautifully. It became his business through life. He copied Bibles, prayer books, sermons, and poems, and there is a tradition of one complete and very beautiful Bible copied entirely by his hand, still preserved in some European library. He lived to be ninety-one years of age, and most of his long life he spent in copying. There is said to be a quaint portrait of him still extant, and under the picture is written, "I have sought everywhere for peace, but I found it not save in a little nook and in a little book." When he presented himself at school he was regis- tered according to the custom of the time as "Thomas of Kempen," and so the father's name of "Littleham- mer" was neglected and almost forgotten, while the school name of "Thomas a Kempis" took its place. The love of quiet and of study drove him to the only sure retreat of the scholar in those days. Again he followed his brother John to the convent of Mount St. Agnes. Here he was admitted as a student when ABOUT THRONES 315 nineteen, and eight years later, at the age of twenty- seven, he took the vows of a monk. He was ordained a priest at thirty-three, and became sub-prior at forty- five. At one time his brethren so trusted him that they appointed him to some kind of office, making him something between a steward and a treasurer, but the books tell us that he was "too simple in worldly affairs" and "too absent-minded for the post," and they had to let him go back to his cell and to the sub- priorship, where he continued diligently to copy and write until he was ninety-one years of age, dying on July 25, 1471. According to one authority, the convent of Mount St. Agnes was poor, and all the inmates were obliged to work. It had a large trade in manuscripts, and Thomas was the most laborious and profitable copyist of them all. Besides the books which he copied he wrote several, to which his name is appended. These are some of his titles : The Monk's Alphabet, The Dis- cipline of the Cloister, The Life of the Good Monk, The Monk's Epitaph, Sermons to Novices, The Soli- tary Life, On Silence and On Poverty, Humility and Patience. He wrote tracts for young people and a manual for children. He wrote little books on such topics as these: The Garden of Roses, The Valley of Lilies, The Consolation of the Poor and the Sick, The Soul's Soliloquy, and The Hospital of the Poor. Indeed, he is credited with so much work that many have thought he could not have written this one book 3i6 LOVE AND LOYALTY more. It is one of the unquestioned great little books of the world, and, although there are known copies of the little book written in the hand of this quiet son of a cobbler, he himself never claimed it as his own, and until 1872 it seems not to have been settled that this copyist of other people's books was himsef the author of a book greater than any he ever copied for the market except the Bible itself. It was one of the delightful exercises required of this little company of copyists that they should make selections for them- selves of the noble texts, bright things, and happy thoughts that impressed them in the books they copied, or that were awakened in their own minds while copying. It is probable that in some such way as this the beautiful book grew. It grew like a pine tree, so quietly, so unconsciously, that evidently the author himself did not know it was a great tree. He perhaps did not know that he did it, and modestly withheld any claims to its authorship. Perhaps it was such an honest reflection of everybody's troubles, such a revelation of the aspirations of all noble souls, perhaps it was drawn so directly from the wisdom of the ages, that he did not think it belonged to him. It is a simple little book, so plain that little chil- dren can understand much of it, and tired women can find rest in the reading; and yet statesmen and philos- ophers have loved it. So universal is it that it is loved by people of all races and religions. It was written in Latin, but has been translated int6 nearly all languages. The author was a Catholic, but Protestants and non- ABOUT THRONES 3^7 Christians love the book as well as Catholics. A Moorish prince once showed a Christian missionary a Turkish version of the book, saying that he prized it above all other books in his possession except the Koran. George Eliot, the wise woman who under- stood Darwin and believed in Herbert Spencer's teachings, and who loved Tennyson and Browning, tells, in her beautiful story of Maggie Tulliver, how Maggie, when distressed and unhappy, was given by Bob the peddler "a little, old, clumsy book that had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since brown by time." It was a copy of Thomas a Kempis, and Maggie's tired heart read the passages marked by the hand long since dead : "Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice that soundeth outwardly but unto the truth which toucheth inwardly." A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism, but this voice out of the far-off middle ages came with an unquestioned message to Maggie. Thus has it come with its message to many impul- sive girls and passionate boys, to tired men and feeble women, to the poor and the rich, to the well and the sick, to the young and the old. The explanation is always the same, and George Eliot has stated it so much better than I can, that I quote further from her story, which some day will come to you with its high, 31 8 LOVE AND LOYALTY sweet lessons from this old book that has survived the centuries, a book still new and up to date. I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweet- ness : while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart's prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph — not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consola- tions : the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced — in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours — but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. So simple and plain is this book that only learned men detect how wide were the sources of the little monk's inspiration. A recent student tells us that, besides much from the Bible, the author drew from the writings of Saint Gregory the Great, of Saint Bernard and Saint Francis of Assisi, of Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventura, and the Roman Catholic prayer-book. The book shows that the author was acquainted with Aristotle, Ovid, and Seneca, and that he knew something of Dante and the early legends of the Holy Grail, which Tennyson so beautifully used half a thousand years afterward in his Idyls of the King. Let us stay a little longer with the author and the ABOUT THRONES 319 book, and see how he sought service and not a throne, and how, by diHgent serving, he unconsciously found a throne. Says one of his brothers ei the order, "When he was walking abroad with some of the brotherhood or with some of his other friends, he would suddenly feel an inspiration come upon him and would say, 'My beloved, I must now leave you,' and meekly beg to be excused, saying, 'Indeed it behooves me to go. There is one expecting me in my cell'." It was his book that was expecting him, the thoughts that wanted to be written down drove him to his work, "and the brethren," says the old writer, "took well his excuse and were much edified thereby." I have spoken of his simple life. In his book he tells us, By two things a man is lifted up above things earthly, namely, by simplicity and purity. Simplicity ought to be in our intention, purity in our affections. Simplicity doth tend towards God, purity doth apprehend and taste him If the world were sincere and upright, then would every creature be unto thee a living mirror and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and abject that it representeth not the goodness of God. If thou wert inwardly good and pure, then wouldst thou be able to see and understand all things well with- out impediment. A pure heart penetrateth heaven and hell. This was his way of preaching a sermon from the beatitude — "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And it was thus that he anticipated the story of Sir Galahad, of whom Tennyson sings: His strength was as the strength of ten, Because his heart was pure. 320 LOVE AND LOYALTY Thomas Littlehammer was not afraid of himself. He loved to "loaf and invite his soul," as Walt Whit- man would say. He was happy to be alone, for being alone meant to him being with God, that is, with the source of high thought, pure feeling, and kindly pur- poses. The philosophers call Thomas a Kempis a mystic. This word has many significations, but in its best sense, it means one who strives to be in harmony with all good things, who wants to feel God within, and to see God without, who feels as another has said, "a striving of the soul after union with divinity," who rests in the belief that one can find the truth by being true and know love by loving. Our author says: Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing vi^ider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth; because Love is born of God, and can rest but in God above all created things. Although this book has been so loved and cherished for five hundred years, its real form and original pur- pose seem to have been lost sight of for the last four hundred years. In 1872 Dr. Hirsche, a Dutch scholar, made the discovery that this book was a book of poetry and not of prose, that it was written metrically, and that in the Latin it lends itself readily to chanting. Indeed its real title seems to be Musica Ecclesiastica, church music. It was meant to be in- toned in church or in private. It is a book of hymns ABOUT THRONES 321 and prayers, as well as a book of meditations. Dr. Hirsche was the first of modern scholars to under- stand the significance of some peculiar punctuation marks in the old manuscripts. They were evidently meant to indicate the inflections of the reader or the singer, to serve the purpose of musical notations, and when similar notations were found in the other known writings of the shy little monk, his author- ship to this disowned book was practically estab- lished. The common English version of this book, such as the christening copy in which you looked for your text, is printed, like the New Testament, as prose, and is divided into verses, but in a later and better English translation it is printed in lines and looks like the poetry it is. This revised version tries to pre- serve the Latin terseness and its measured lines. In the common version, the four books into which the work is divided are arranged as follows : Book I. Admonitions Useful for a Spiritual Life. Book II. Admonitions Concerning Inward Things. Book III. Of Internal Consolation. Book IV. Concerning Communion. But in the revised version, which follows the best manuscripts, the order of the third and fourth book is changed, and we have the following arrangement and titles : Book I. Warnings Useful to a Spiritual Life. Book II. Warnings to Draw Us to the Inward life. 322 LOVE AND LOYALTY Book III. A Pious Encouragement to the Holy Communion. Book IV. A Book of Inward Consolation. In my copy of the revised version the translator has indicated by marginal dates how the whole book may be read through in a year by reading from twelve to thirty lines a day, according to the paragraphs. This is a good suggestion. It is not a book to read through at one sitting. Probably those who like it best have never read it through as you read a story. It is a book to snatch a few sentences from when you are tired and sleepless, a book to look into when you arise in the morning fresh and hopeful, a book to pick a sentence from when you are cross and peevish, a book to quiet yourself by when you are very happy or very sad. Much of it is beyond childhood and behind old age, but there is in it something for every life and for every mood of life. All this is true of the book because it is not a book about the things that we may get and lose. It is not a description of things that we can go to and then go away from. It is not about clothes, or money, or lands. Here is no gos- sip about good or bad people. It is not a descrip- tion of stars or flowers, of country or of city, but it is a book about love and virtue, honesty and indus- try. It is a book about life. It is a book about things within, a book of the heart and the mind. But you ask me about the text : It is for service you are here; Not for a throne. ABOUT THRONES 323 Or, as you have it in your version — Thou earnest to serve, not rule. We are here to be servants, not masters. Everything that has a permanent place in the world must be a servant. The earthworm, as Darwin has shown us, is the great farmer of nature. It not only plows the soil, but it makes the soil. The cactus prepares the way for the grass, the grass for the tree, the tree for corn and wheat, for apples and grapes, and these give to the life of the beast, the beast to the life of man, and man to the life of the world. How serve? I do not know. In any way, only so that it is giving of ourselves. If the story of Thomas Littlehammer and his great little book teaches us anything, it teaches us that we cannot choose our service. The best service is that which we cannot help doing. It is doing the next thing in the most willing way that we can, doing it quickly, doing it gladly, doing it simply. Brother Thomas probably wrote the book for his pupils, the children of his Confirmation Class. He did not think it was much of a book, and the world rated it no higher than he did. The world neglected to sing it, forgot how to use it. The book even lost its name, and was called after the title of the first chapter. The Imitation of Christ. It is not for you or for me to write a book that will live five hundred years. It is not for us to copy the books of the masters, to make precious, costly, beauti- 324 LOVE AND LOYALTY ful volumes when the printing press can make them so cheaply. We may never know how to pray either with hand or with heart in any great and noble fash- ion. But we may always be like the little child in the song: By Alpine lake, 'neath shady rock, The herd boy knelt beside his flock. And softly told, with pious air, His alphabet as evening prayer. Unseen, his pastor lingered near. "My child, what means the sound I hear? May I not in the worship share, And raise to heaven my evening prayer? "Where'er the hills and valleys blend, The sounds of prayer and praise ascend. My child, a prayer yours cannot be: You've only said your A B C." "I have no better way to pray: All that I know, to God I say; I tell the letters on my knees : He makes the words himself to please." The scholars have found a curious old story writ- ten about two hundred years before the little monk wrote the great little book that gives us our text, a story which teaches in a pretty way the truth that our service is a matter not of "what" but of "how," not of the thing we do but of the way we do it, not of the amount of our doing, but of our willingness. Hear the story of "Our Lady's Tumbler." A min- strel who used to go up and down the world playing on his lute, dancing before proud people's houses, and ■ ABOUT THRONES 325 tumbling in the public square for the amusement of the crowd, grew tired of his frivolity and ashamed of his tumbling, leaping, and dancing, and sought admission into the holy house, where the praying monks stayed. He joined the Holy Order of Clair- vaux, but when he was admitted, he found to his great sorrow that he did not know how to chant. He could not say the creed or sing the "Ave Maria." He did not even know the Lord's Prayer. He knew only how to tumble, leap, and dance, and when he saw the pious men at their high prayers and heard them sing their beautiful hymns, he was sore dis- tressed, for he knew not how to serve his Lord and Master in such a way. So he hid himself in shame in the dark crypt of the monastery. There to his delight he came upon the image of Holy Mary neg- lected in the dim shadows of the lower arches, in what you might call the cathedral cellar. In his despair he threw aside his robe and said, "I will not be like a tethered ox doing nought but browse. I can- not serve thee by chanting; I will serve thee in tum- bling. Sweet lady, despise not what I know, for I would fain serve you in good faith and without guile." So the tumbler began his leaps before the Virgin. He leaped low and he leaped high, first under, then over. He threw himself on his knees. He vaulted the French vault, and the Spanish vault. He strained himself as dancers did in Brittany, as they did in Lorraine, until the sweat rolled down his brow; and 326 LOVE AND LOYALTY he said, "Lady, despise not your slave. I adore you with heart, body, and feet, for I cannot other- wise." Then a great peace came into his Hfe, and day by day as the other brethren went to their chant- ings, he went below, laid aside his vestments, and danced and vaulted, sprang and tumbled at the feet of the heavenly queen. At last one of the brethren, curious to know how this converted minstrel wor- shiped, followed and watched him, and reported the dreadful scandal to the abbot. But the abbott was a wise man. He cautioned the monk to speak to no one, and went and concealed himself and watched this novice at his worship. And as he looked he was astounded, for he saw, or thought he saw, the holy mother in actual presence come down from heaven to fan the exhausted tumbler. And the abbot knew that even the minstrel's poor service was acceptable, because it was the sincere service of his heart, the offering of the only thing he could do in the best way he could do it. And when he came to die, the abbot caused the monks to sing at his bedside, and when dead to bury him with honor. Then the abbot told the brethren what he had seen in the crpyt. "Of a truth, he worshiped well. God grant that our service may be as acceptable," said the holy man. This reminds me of one of Tolstoy's stories about a great archbishop who visited three mendicants upon an island, who spent their days in simple kindness and loving helpfulness. The archbishop asked them how they prayed, and was shocked to find that they ABOUT THRONES 327 knew only one prayer, and it was simply this : "You three have mercy on us three." The archbishop was sorry that they had no more knowledg-e of religion than this, and so with great labor he taught them the Lord's Prayer. They were not apt scholars. They would forget the first part while they were reciting the last, and when they had gone through the first part they would forget the last. But finally they acquired the whole of the Lord's Prayer, and the good bishop, encouraged, took ship and left them, thinking he had advanced them far in the holy life. But the ship had sailed only a little way when lo, hurrying over the water came a little boat with the three mendicants. The bishop's big ship hove to, and the hermits climbed to the deck and said, "Good bishop, we have forgotten the prayer; please teach it us again." Then the bishop crossed himself and said, "Acceptable to God is your own prayer. Go back to your simple and loyal life, and pray for us." The next morning there seemed to be a shining place on the ship where the simple mendicants had come aboard. It is not the "prayers" we say, but the praying life that lasts the longest and goes the farthest. When Berengaria, the noble queen of Richard Coeur de Lion, came to die, so runs the legend, she called the mother superior of the nunnery to her side and asked for the jeweled blade which King Richard had worn when he fought for his Savior's grave in Palestine. She then with his sharp blade 328 LOVE AND LOYALTY cut off her long tresses of golden hair, and asked the faithful sisters to braid it into twelve slender chains and weave them into one shining rope, "soft as silk and strong as hempen cable." The sisters wrought all night, and brought the chain to her with the morning light. She pressed it with her two white hands, and said with her dying breath : My liege lord sleeps in Fontevraud, and there Above his tomb hang ye a jeweled lamp Swinging from this fair chain — sole part of me That age can wither not, nor time deface! Let the lamp burn with ever-during flame. The hair of the head is said to be the most imperish- able part of the human body, but helpful deeds, kindly thoughts, loving service, outlast the very hairs of our head, and from them may be woven a chain to suspend the swinging sanctuary lamp that shall give light and sanctity to many when we are gone. But better than these quaint legends, these old stories wrought into beautiful poems, are the joy and light that are shed by the humble and willing ones here today, the good things that are being done, the kind things that are being said, the pure loves that sweeten the life of our own day. A few months ago in Alabama I saw unfor- tunate men cleaning the streets of a proud city, with ball and chain fastened to their ankles. I saw men hobbled with chains, carrying lumber and working in coal mines. This seems to the judges and legisla- tors of Alabama the best way to deal with what they ABOUT THRONES 329 call "criminals." College graduates, men who have been in Congress, and preachers of religion looked on approvingly day by day and said, "There is nothing else to do!" But a colored man whose parents had been slaves, who earned his living by giving baths to sick people, said to the mayor and the police justice of that city, "Give to me your convict women, those that are now lying in idle corruption in your jails, surrounded by degradation, and I will see what I can do with them." Mayor and Judge said, in their imbecility and incredulity, "What can you do with these degraded women?" He replied, "Let me try, I only ask you to give me your washing and help me get the dirty clothes of your neighbors." And they in their despair consented. The young man then bought a rickety old laundry on the outskirts of the town and furnished it in a primitive way. He and his intelligent young wife went out there to live, and they said to these colored women, "Come and live with us. We will give you work and pay you for it. We will give you home, advice, sympathy, and protection." The young color- ed man, who had to earn the daily bread for wife and three children by hard toil each day, said, "I will become sponsor for you before the law." All this had happened only a few weeks pre- vious to my visit. This colored man took me to see his laundry, and the judge of the police court went out with us for the first time to see those whom he had originally sentenced to prison and then recom- 330 LOVE AND LOYALTY mitted to the laundry. We found there twelve or fifteen women, sober and obedient, attentive to their work, law abiding, unguarded, and willing to stay, though they might escape. The women ceased their washing and gathered around the ironing-tables to listen while we talked. I told them they were "good enough for God," though the world cast them out, and that "beneath the troubled surface of their crime there lies a depth of purity immovable." The judge with tear-dimmed eyes confessed his delight, and said to them: "This man ']im has solved the problems that our statute books have failed to solve. I am a college graduate ; I have studied law ; I have a commission from the governor of the State of Ala- bama ; but 'Jim' has taught me what I have not found in my law books." And then "Jim" bore his testi- mony to the faithful service, the temperate lives, the willing labor of those women, whose chief anxiety now was that they might not be thrust back into the bondage of the street when their sentences expired. They want to stay with honest people where high purposes, Bible thoughts, kind words, and brotherly and sisterly contact may continue to sweeten their wretchedness and sanctify their work at the washtub. It is for service you are here; Not for a throne. But what of "Jim?" Did he look tired under this load of responsibility which included the heavy money debt necessary to inaugurate and carry oh ABOUT THRONES 331 this work? Not in the least. He does not need our pity, though he does deserve our help. He had the joy of a good work. He knew the strength of the old colored servant whose young mistress pitied him because he had to carry her in his arms from the boat to the dry land. "I am so heavy," she said. "Don't you mind me, missis, I done gone toted ba'ls o' sugar befo'." If we can only interpret our load, whatever it may be, in terms of helpfulness, turn our burdens into sweetness, we can carry them more easily and for a longer time. My sermon is preached. The text, I trust, will stay with you and help you to emulate the life of the carpenter's son, the life that made the cross more beautiful than the crown, converted sorrow into something higher than joy, and, through pain and opposition, found the truth that is light and the life that is grace. "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" Lincoln soldiers were our fathers, in the name of Liberty. As Christ died to make men holy, as they died to make men free, We would live to crown that dying with a grandeur yet to he, As Love goes marching on. Chorus: Glory, glory hallelujah, etc. Lincoln soldiers were our fathers, Lincoln soldiers would we he. We would live for Truth and Justice as they died for Liberty, We would learn today's new duties from each fresh occasion's plea. As Right goes marching on. We would stop the mouths of cannons booming over land and sea. We would crown the hero's priceless gift with gentler ministry, We would rim with white the banner that they flung above the free. As Peace goes marching on. Lincoln soldiers marching omvard in the morning's golden glow, We would pluck the wayside thistle and lay its proud head low, We would plant a flower wherever there is room for flower to groiv. As Youth goes marching on. Evelyn H. Walker XVIII "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow. — Abraham Lincoln Let me tell you of the circumstances under which the good Abraham Lincoln spoke the words of your class motto. In a little book recently published, entitled Lin- coln in Story, by Silas G. Pratt, a book which I wish you all might own and which you can certainly all read, Mr, Pratt tells us that these words were spoken to Lincoln's early friend, Joshua R. Speed, who kept a store in Springfield in the early days of Illinois. When Abraham Lincoln, the awkward young man from New Salem, came with his saddle bags to Springfield on a borrowed horse for the purpose of opening a law office, Joshua Speed invited him to share his bed in the vacant loft above the store, because it made Lincoln so sad when he thought he should have to go in debt to the extent of sixteen dollars and some odd cents, the sum which a bed and bedding would cost him if he undertook to furnish a room for himself. This good and wise friend was in Washington about ten days before Lincoln's second inauguration. The closing days of Congress were making great 335 336 LOVE AND LOYALTY demands upon the President. There were many bills to sign. The great war was at its full height. Per- haps a million men were under arms, and awful issues were pending. Washington was full of visitors — politicians seeking appointments for themselves or their friends, contractors and speculators pushing their business, unhappy mothers, discouraged wives, and forlorn fathers, seeking furloughs, discharges, or pardons for soldiers that were sick, weak, or in disgrace. This great tide of complaints, grievances, and petitions surged through the President's room from morning till night, until he was worn down in health and spirit. Mr. Speed in his descripton of the occasion says : The hour had arrived to close the door against all further callers. No one was left in the room excepting the President, myself, and two ladies, dressed in humble attire, who had been sitting near the fireplace, modestly waiting their turn. The President turned to them and said : "Well, ladies, what can I do for you?" Then both began to speak at once. One was the wife and the other the mother of a man who was in prison for having resisted the draft in Pennsylvania. "Give me your petition," said the President. "We have got no petition. We could not write one and had no money to pay for writing it, and we thought it best to come and see you," said the aged mother. "Oh," said the President, "I understand your case." Then he rang his bell and sent a messenger to the proper officer asking him to bring a list of those who were in prison for this offense. Mr. Lincoln asked if there were any differences in the charges or degrees of guilt. The officer replied, "None." "Well," said the President, "these fellows have suffered long enough. I have thought so for some time. Now my mind -is "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 337 made up on the subject. I believe I will turn out the whole flock. So draw up the order, General, and I will sign it." This was done, and the general left the room. Turning to the women, the President said : "Now ladies, you can go ; 3'our man will be home to meet you." The younger of the two ran forward and knelt in thankfulness. "Get up," he said, "don't kneel to me, but thank God and go." The old lady seized his big hand in both of hers and said, "Good-bye, Mr. Lincoln, I shall probably never see you again till we meet in heaven." The President was deeply moved. He instantly took her right hand in both his own and said : "I am afraid with all my troubles I shall never get to the resting-place you speak of, but if I do I am sure I shall find you. That you wish me to get there is, I believe, the best wish you could make for me. Good-bye." Said Mr. Speed: "Lincoln, with my knowledge of your nervous sensibility, it is a wonder to me that such scenes do not kill you." With a languid voice the President replied : "Yes, you are to a certain degree right ; I ought not to undergo what I often do. I am very unwell now. My feet and hands of late seem to be always cold, and I ought, perhaps, to be in bed; but things of the sort you have just seen do not hurt me. To tell the truth, that scene is the only thing today that has made me forget my condition or given me any pleasure. I have in that way made two people happy and alleviated the distress of many a poor soul whom I never expect to see. That old lady was no counterfeit. The mother spoke out in all the features of her face. It is more than one can often say, that in doing right he has made two people happy in one day. Speed, die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I ahvays plucked a thistle and planted a Aower when I thought a -flower would grow. Surely you have chosen a beautiful motto, and the motto grows more beautiful when it is placed in its proper setting and we know the conditions under 338 LOVE AND LOYALTY which it was spoken. Can we reaHze the circum- stances? The White House, beset by the influential, the wealthy, the cultured, and the beautiful; the floors of Congress teeming with excited life; the great armies of Grant, Sherman, and the others forming a great battle line reaching from Maryland to Texas; and here, at the close of the fatiguing day, were two unlettered women from Pennsylvania, too simple or too ignorant to write a petition or to know the proper way of approaching a President. They did not know enough, or were not rich enough, to secure the services of a lawyer, a congressman, or an ''influen- tial friend," such as represent the usual way of reaching the President. He was too tired and too busy to look into details, but he was too just to be partial. He knew there were others in prison as the result of the same rash act, the same mistake; and he knew further that men are not made better by imprisonment. His tender heart had for some time felt that "these fellows have suffered long enough," hence he gave the order, "Turn out the whole flock," so as to be sure the son and husband of these poor women "in humble attire," as Mr. Speed put it, was among them, and sent the women home rejoicing. My dear children, you do not need any further help from me to find a sermon in this beautiful text which you have chosen and the more beautiful story that enshrines it, but let us try to think it out together. First, we will think of the man who gave us our text; then of the "Lincoln soldiers" whom he led and "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 339 inspired; and after that we will think of the "thistles" and the "flowers" which you and I may pluck or plant. First, the man. Oh, how the story tempts us. What a great story it is of this man, born in the log cabin with clay floor, in the wild woods of Kentucky — the man whose father held him on his knee while he told the sad story of a grandfather shot dead by the lurking Indian in sight of his three little boys. He told how the elder ran to the cabin, seized the musket, and laid the Indian low, while the second ran to the fort, three miles off, to give the alarm. And little Thomas, only six years old, was spared to be the father of Abraham Lincoln. "God bless my mother," Lincoln once said to a friend, "To her I owe all that I am or hope to be in the world." But when the boy was nine years old, in another cabin, deep in the forests of Indiana, the little mother sickened. With her hand upon his head she asked him to remember the Bible stories she had taught him, to keep God's day holy, to tell no lies, to say no wicked words, to read the Bible which had been her comfort and strength; and then she died, and when the neighbors came little Abe sobbed, "I haven't any mother now." About this time Abe was learning to write, and he wrote for his father to the good old elder they had known in Kentucky, asking him to come and say a word over his mother's grave. It took three months for the letter to go and the preacher to come, but he came at last, the neigh- 340 LOVE AND LOYALTY bors gathered under the trees around the grave, and the heart of Httle Abe was sweetened and strengthened. I cannot dwell on this story. You know a part of it already, but there is much more of it to learn. You may be sure that the trees and the wild woods had much to do in making noble the heart of Abra- ham Lincoln, for in lonely places is the soul com- panioned with great thoughts and high purposes, and in the solitudes does God oftentimes most consciously dwell in the hearts of his children. You know of the good stepmother, who "always understood him." You know how he used to ride on horseback with his bag of corn through the deep woods to the mill ; how he earned his first dollar by rowing two passengers to the middle of the Ohio River to catch the steamer, and how they each threw half a dollar back into the bottom of his boat. When he was a great President he said : "It seems a very little thing in these days, but that trifle was an impor- tant incident in my life. I could hardly think that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a hopeful boy from that day." I like the other story, how, when a clerk in a country store in Illinois, counting his cash one even- ing, he found that he had made a mistake in change, and had taken six cents too much from a woman who lived three miles away. And after the store was closed that night, he walked the six miles to return the sixpence. "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 341 You know the story of the flatboat that was built on the Sangamon by the help of him who was already "Honest Abe," and how he helped take the boat down the Sangamon, down the Illinois, down the Mississippi, all the way to New Orleans. The best part of this story is that when he saw a slave auction block and heard a man sell a colored woman as he would a horse, the tall raftsman exclaimed, "My God, see that! If the chance is ever given me, I will hit that thing hard !" Dear and familiar stories crowd upon me: The story of Lincoln, the land surveyor, lending his horse to the poor man who must hurry to the land office fifteen miles away to save his homestead before the speculator should arrive to buy it from under his feet; of the young lawyer dismounting and wading into the mud to free a poor pig that had become hope- lessly imprisoned under the fence because there was a look in that pig's eye that seemed to say to him, "There goes my last chance," and he could not stand it; and a story told by Mr. Speed of an occasion when he was traveling across country with Lincoln in com- pany with a party of lawyers. Missing him in a thicket of wild plum and crab trees where the others had stopped to water their horses, Speed asked, "Where is Lincoln ?" "Oh," replied one, "the last I saw of him he was hunting a nest to put back two young birds that had been blown out." This he did because, as he said, the cry of the birds would have disturbed him all night, and he wanted to sleep. And so the narra- 342 LOVE AND LOYALTY tive grows richer and deeper. "Honest Abe" becomes the loved and trusted adviser of the poor and the defender of the wicked, for they also have rights and need of pity; then he becomes the congressman, the great debater, the President, the emancipator, the martyr. Now we come to the "Lincoln soldiers." How they did sing — I ought to say, How we did sing, for I was one of them. We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more, From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore; We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear, With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear, We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before ; We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more ! Oh, the terrible war, four years long ! More than 2,000,000 soldiers, first and last, were under his leadership, and perhaps half as many earnest, honest, deluded men on the other side, for whom he also yearned with a father's love and a mother's pity. "Linkum soldiers," the colored people called the northern men, and the colored people that flocked by the thousands to the camps of those "Linkum soldiers" were called in turn "contrabands" — con- trabands of war — because they were property, owned by those who were in rebellion against the govern- ment, and our government confiscated them under the articles of war, as it confiscated cotton or mules, corn or steamboats. "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 343 Some of these Lincoln soldiers were your fathers, uncles, and grandfathers. You know many of them. I well remember the circumstances under which I first heard that name applied to me. It was when I lay in a Corinth cornfield with a crushed ankle. A "contraband" had brought some water from a distant spring, and another was bathing my painful ankle. A great-hearted old aunty was fanning me and chafing my brow. Solicitous for her patient, she called to the gathering crowd : "Stand back there ! It am a Linkum soldier who has done gone an' got run over. Stand back, I say; give 'm air." The phrase "Linkum soldier" went through me with a thrill. I was proud of the title then; I am more proud of the title now. "Lincoln soldier" then meant one who believed in liberty for all men; one who thought that a black man was a man loved of God and that he should be respected by all the children of God. "Lincoln soldier" then meant loyalty to the stars and stripes, reverence for the Declaration of In- dependence, fidelity to the Constitution of the United States. "Lincoln soldier" then meant that, if need be, one would die for these things. It meant then carrying a sword, using a musket, or, as was my task, serving the cannon, with its loud-mouthed terrors. But, even then, "Lincoln soldier" meant a love for a President whose heart yearned for the enemies of his country, who respected their feelings, who recog- nized their rights, who remembered that they had inherited not only slaves but slavery, that they were 344 LOVE AND LOYALTY brought up to believe that slavery was right, that, as Lincoln said in his second great inaugural : Both armies read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invoked his aid against the other Let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered, that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes to fulfil. Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in— to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widows and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Even then, to be a "Lincoln soldier" was to be led by one who has been called the "prince of par- doners." His was a forgiving heart. The word "amnesty" means forgetting. Presi- dent Lincoln never wearied of issuing his proclama- tions of amnesty. One, two, three, four, and more of such proclamations he issued, promising to forget and forgive everything to those who would come back, relent, and pledge themselves anew to the Union and trust themselves once more to the law of kindness and the gospel of liberty and love. "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 345 One of the important books concerning Abraham Lincoln is a large book of five hundred pages, entitled Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction. It reveals as no other one book does, how great was his for- giving heart, how far-reaching was his mercy, how divine was his patience and his tender- ness. How he hated hatred, and how in love with love was he; how he pitied the beaten, how he regretted violence. He would have saved the coun- try from war by having the government pay full value for every slave claimed in the southern states, only so that thereafter there should be no more slaves. Now everybody sees how wise and just was the sug- gestion, and how cheap a way out of the trouble that would have been. We have gone far enough now to see something of what it means for you to take upon yourselves the title of "Lincoln soldiers." Little boys and girls, mem- bers of a church Confirmation class thirty-seven years after the gracious President has been laid to rest, with the nation, aye, the modern world, in tears as it never was before or after, over the death of any other man, you can be Lincoln soldiers ! How is that possible? What can you do, and, still more, how can you be worthy the name? First, you can, like the Lincoln soldiers on the first roll, love liberty. You can love freedom, and, if necessary, you can die for it. You can hate with a divine hatred all kinds of slavery, and there are many kinds that still remain. You have read Uncle Tom's 346 LOVE AND LOYALTY Cabin. You know of the Emancipation Proclama- tion. I told you of Lincoln's oath when he saw the slave auction. I want you to believe that the Declara- tion of Independence is a sacred document, that Lincoln was right, that your fathers were right when they fought against slavery. Oh, how bad it was, how sad it was! How glad we ought to be that it is all over. And I want you to believe that the results of freedom are all good. I want you to know more and more the story of Frederick Douglass, of Booker T. Washington, Paul Dunbar, and the many other colored men and women that have risen out of slavery and ignorance, obscurity and opposition, to be great and good, to be wise and useful, to be noble and helpful. Last month I was in Alabama. While there I found on the Gulf of Mexico a colored village which is still called "Afriky-Town." The basis of this community was a shipload of Congo negroes who were captured in Africa and brought to America to serve as slaves just before the war. They landed as late as 1859, and their captors, after clothing their naked bodies with American calico and coarse can- vas, put them to work on their steamboats and plan- tations on the Alabama river, where they continued to work for their captors away up to the end of the war in 1865. Some fifteen of the original fifty-three stolen negroes are still alive. I shook hands and talked with four of them. One of them could spell his name, Osia Keeby, the name which he said his "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 347 mother gave him in Dahomey. He was nineteen years old when he came. As I talked to him he pointed to a white man driving by on the road, and, drop- ping his voice said. 'Thar's the nephey of the man what brung us over." Aunt Zuma had the tribal scars on her face, the brand which was put upon her when a babe. Uncle Peter Lee could remember well the old country, though he thought he must now be a hundred years old. He raised his withered old hand to heaven, and looking up devoutly as if he could see beyond the skies, said, "I thank God I am free." Aunt Zuma said, "Oh, it is great to be free!" And then she crooned for me a native hearth-song which her mother had taught her. She hoped her mother had heard that they were free before she died. Lincoln soldiers must love freedom, and you Lin- coln soldiers of the second roll must realize that there are other slaveries than the slavery of body. It is great to be free in mind, to be free in conscience, to be free from bad habits, coarse desires, and selfish motives. Lincoln soldiers must love freedom. But, freedom, like money, wealth, or beauty, is good only when you do good with it. It is always in order to ask, "What are you going to do with your freedom, as with any other good thing?" All these things have been a curse to many, and may be a curse to you. There is a higher word than freedom in the dic- tionary of the true Lincoln soldier, and that is service. The Lincoln soldier seeks not his own ease, 348 LOVE AND LOYALTY culture, or safety. He is a member of society, a citizen of the nation and of the world. He is not like the old negro peddler whom I overtook not far from "Afriky-Town" with a basket full of tin- ware on his head. He had cooked in both armies, he said, and they were both good to him, for all soldiers like good cooking, and he was a good cook. So far so good. But when I asked : "Are you sorry that we came down here and set you free? Do you wish you were back where you were before the war?" he replied, "I jes' soon. I never had to pay no taxes or buy no clothes then, and I didn't have to work no harder nor now." He had freedom, but he did not know how to use it. He had not learned the next word — service. Again, as Lincoln soldiers, you must live for an ideal. Your lives must be swayed with great pur- poses. And yet you must be gentle, pitiful, and help- ful. How ? Now we come to our motto. First, by plucking thistles. Why pluck thistles? Because the thistle is a coarse plant, that multiplies with great rapidity. Unless plucked, one thistle this year will sow a garden full next year, and in a few years it will fill the fields and make barren the farm. The thistle offers food and shelter to but few animals. And so persist- ent is it that the law of most states declares it a "noxious weed" and inflicts a penalty upon the farmer who permits it to grow. A little more than six hundred years ago a great "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 349 preacher named John Tauler, who was connected with the Strasburg Cathedral in Germany, compared the slaves of passion, and appetite, the weak and silly- men of his time, to foolish asses, which never learn any other forms of speech than their own braying, or seek any other comfort or sweet- ness, but only rough, tasteless thistles, while they have to endure scorn and many a hard and cruel blow, which they really do not deserve. These, then, are the thistles to be plucked. First, out of our own hearts and lives, the coarse and crowding selfishness, the silly habits that take posses- sion of the garden plots in our hearts. Next, the thistles in the community, the narrow creeds, the habits that make men selfish, make lives exclusive, make boys proud and girls silly. Oh, my children, pluck these thistles in order that you may have room to plant the flowers. "Plant a flower." You know the flowers that I would speak of. You know the flowers that grow in the Lincoln garden. You know the flowers which it is the business of the "Lincoln soldier" to cultivate. The flowers of kindliness, of helpfulness; the flowers of the spirit, that bloom into the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments; the flowers that will naturally grow in your hearts if you do but give them an opportunity. I will ask John Tauler to preach to us again. He says : Know this, dear children, that if all our teachers were buried and all our books were burned, we should still find 350 LOVE AND LOYALTY enough teaching and contrast to ourselves in the life and example of our Lord Jesus Christ, wherever we might need it, if we only diligently and earnestly learn how he went before, in silent patience, in gentleness, in adversity, in temptations, in resignation, in scorn, in poverty, and in all manner of bitter suffering and pain. For, if we wish to attain to great and fruitful peace in God, in nature, but not of this world, we must first diligently and earnestly learn to make the best of things, and to endure, kindly and meekly, the behavior of all kinds of men, their ways and customs : for they will often try to afflict us. The behavior of other men and their ways will often vex and displease us ; it will seem to us as though one person talked too much, another too little; one was too indolent, another too energetic; one err- ing in one way, another in another. Customs and fashions are so many and so various that they assail us in many secret and unsuspected ways. We must learn to withstand them all vigor- ously, that they may take no root in us. My dear children, I wish I could say in closing some things that you can remember. I have loved you on account of your open minds, your warm hearts, your earnest spirits. I know better than you can, for I speak from the vantage ground of my gray hairs, how the thistles may lodge in the garden of your souls. I want you to be good gardeners, worthy the name of Lincoln soldiers. I would have you prompt to pluck thistles and to plant flowers in their stead. I mean, boys, the careless words on your tongues, the coarse pictures in your minds, the idle habit in your lives; I mean the cigarette and cigar, the oath; "LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 351 the indifference to Sunday sanctities that prefers the woods or the golf field to the regular habit at church and its many kindred associations that vvill help you keep out the thistles and plant the flowers, that will make you clean men, happy citizens, whether you be rich or poor. I fear, girls, that I see better than you can the thistle-down now floating through the air around you that may take root in your hearts ; the love of display, the giddy relish for shallow companionship, the pas- sion for dress, the wastefulness of money, of time, and of talent that will take you away from the dear love of books, the high inspiration of usefulness, the gentle, simple sweetness of service. But I will trust you. I believe in you. I am sure that in one way or another you will overcome the thistles, or pluck them out of the heart even if they should get lodgment, and that flowers of your own and of others' planting will grow there. I am glad that you have found a new song to the old tune. May your class song inspire a new cam- paign in the old spirit, a campaign of peace, a war against war. May you so fight this bloodless battle that peace may indeed "go marching on." THE GREATEST GIFT Stern daughter of the voice of God.' O Duty! if that name thou love Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove; Thou who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free ; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth. Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad hearts! without reproach or blot; Who do thy work, and know it not; May joy be theirs while life shall last! And thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast! Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be. When love is an unerring light. And joy its own security. And blest are they who in the main This faith, even now, do entertain: Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet find that other strength, according to their need. — From Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" XIX THE GREATEST GIFT The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God.— William Ellery Channing This text interests us, first, because it has been selected as the motto of the Confirmation Class of 1903. It is always interesting to watch the move- ments of young minds. It is a pleasure to discover thoughtfulness in playful children, to find seriousness increasing the joys of youth. Nature has meant that the young should be very happy. It has sur- charged the beginning of life with energy; here there is vitality and to spare. It is natural for lambs to gambol, for colts to kick up their heels, for little dogs and kittens to frisk and run, and it is as natural for boys and girls to play. It is quite right that child- hood should be full of fun. I like to watch you at your sports. I stopped last week to see a boy of the Confirmation Class practice the high jump with the long pole with a half dozen associates in a vacant lot on the boulevard. The cross-bar was put up higher than the heads of the jumpers. I thought he could not vault over that; it looked dangerous. How he squared himself for the race! How he threw himself into the run ! How confidently he planted his pole at the right place and at the right moment! Then, straining every nerve, up he rose. How gracefully he 355 356 LOVE AND LOYALTY cleared the bar and alighted on his feet. "Raise the bar another notch !" Again the run was made and the desperate venture taken. But that last inch was too much. Down came the cross-bar, pole, boy, and all, in a tumble on the sand. I was scared. I thought of broken bones and sprained ankles. But it was fun for the boys — most of all for the defeated bundle of boyhood that scratched himself out of the sand. He tried it again. This time he did it. It is splendid to be a boy — not to be afraid ; to have energy enough to throw one's self away up over the high cross-bar. It is splendid to have sound muscle, steady nerve, and strengthening bones. So splendid is it that a gray- beard like myself is tempted to say that health, with the buoyancy and courage that belong to it, is the very best gift of God, at least to youth. But this jump- ing boy was one of those who voted to take as the motto of the class the text that says, not health, youth, muscle, nerve, and the fun that goes therewith, but conscience, the sense of duty, is the best gift of God to man. And this class, from October to April, denied themselves the fun of their Friday afternoons, and absented themselves from the coasting, skating, tobogganing and snow-balling, all so delightful to childhood, in order that they might attend the Con- firmation Class where they would learn about the things of religion and of morals. They came to study the story of man's mind; the growth of the church; the hopes and fears of the soul ; and particularly to learn of the great and good men who preferred to do THE GREATEST GIFT 357 hard things, who dared suffer for the truth and die for the right. One of these men was Wilham Ellery Channing, who gave the class its motto and me my text — "The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God." The next sentence amphfies the text. It reads, "The idea of right is the primary and the highest revelation of God to the human mind, and all higher revelations are founded on and addressed to it. All mysteries of science and theolog}^ fade away before the grandeur of the simple perception of duty which dawns on the mind of the little child." Our next interest in the text, then, lies in the man who said it. William Ellery Channing was one of the great and good men we delighted to study. He was born at Newport, R. I., one hundred and twenty-three years ago — 1780. He too was a jolly boy. He loved to play and was good at a game. He was a good wrestler and loved to do the daring things. He was a fearless boy. I find no record of his jumping, but I do find it recorded that he loved to climb the ship- masts in the harbor, and that once at least he slipped down the ropes with dangerous rapidity. He wanted to go with some other boys to spend the night on board an old vessel that was said to be haunted. Mr. Chadwick, his last and most interesting biographer, suggests that the report was true, for the ship was probably haunted by rats. But I will not let Mr. Chadwick, though a good friend of mine, spoil a boy's story. Rats are spooky enough to try any boy's 358 LOVE AND LOYALTY nerves when they run around in the dark, are they not? WilHam Ellery Channing was a good boy, though not a "goody" boy. There is a tradition of one fight in his boy Hfe, when he gave a good trouncing to a bully much bigger than himself, because he was impos- ing on a smaller boy. But his playmates called him "the peace-maker," and sometimes "the little min- ister." An old relative said he was "the most splen- did child she ever saw." Some of his associates mocked the young idealist because "he wanted better bread than could be made of wheat." But their teacher said to the mockers, "I wish in my heart you were like William Channing," He could say, "Thanks to my stars, I can say I never killed a bird; I would not crush the meanest insect that crawls upon the ground." One of the remembered days in his life was when the tragedy of a bird's nest occurred — when he found the little ones which he had fed killed and mutilated by some cruel hand. William never learned to swim, much to his regret, because he would not, like his comrades, dis- obey the home orders that forbade him the water. Of course this tender-hearted boy grew up to be a man with a great conscience. At college he loved to be alone. He read high books, and had such high dreams that at times the world seemed an inadequate place for him to live, and he wished he might die. Before he graduated from college his father died, and THE GREATEST GIFT 359 in order to help his widowed mother raise his little brothers and sisters, he went to Richmond, Virginia, as a tutor. Here he worked hard, lived poorly, slept in an outhouse, and wore inadequate clothing that he might help his mother the more. He loved the Vir- ginians because "they talked and thought less about money than the prudent Yankees," but he hated slavery. He wrote, "The one object here which always depresses me is slavery. Language cannot express my detestation of it. Nature never made such a distinction nor established such a relation." He said, "To describe it I should be obliged to show you every vice heightened by every meanness and added to every misery. The influence of slavery on the whites is almost as fatal as on the blacks them- selves." This was the man who became the great preacher of Boston, the inspirer of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the forerunner of Theodore Parker, the man who was "always young for liberty;" the pale, sick man upon whose words governors, college pro- fessors, and presidents hung, and in whom the poor, the sick, and the neglected of Boston found a true friend; the man who, among the Green Mountains of Vermont, could say with his dying breath, "I have received many messages from the spirit." This interest in the man who gave us the text makes us ask. Where do we find the text? Under what circumstances and in what connection did he say, "The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God"? Channing was the great prophet of the Unitarian 360 LOVE AND LOYALTY faith. In 18 19, in Baltimore, in preaching the ordi- nation sermon of Jared Sparks, the man who after- ward wrote the most dehghtful books of history and the lives of Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen, Father Marquette, and George Washington, which so inter- est boys and girls, he preached the first of the four great sermons which mark the growth of orthodox Christianity through Unitarianism into the breadth of the universal faith that is the quest and the joy of our Confirmation Class studies. In 1837, eighteen years after Channing's great disturbing, mind-quickening, heart-enlarging sermon on "Unitarian Christianity," Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his Divinity School Address to the young min- isters at the Cambridge Divinity School, in which he sang the beautiful hymn of faith in and praise to the God that now reveals himself, as always, in the beauty of nature around us, in the life of the soul within. Four years after this, in 1841, Theodore Parker preached his sermon on "The Transient and the Per- manent in Christianity," in which he showed that there are some things in the New Testament more true than others; that God works through law, not through miracles; that we need not believe that Jesus could or would kill a fig tree by cursing it or that there were devils which he could drive into a herd of swine and drive the swine into the sea, because we believe with all our hearts in the Golden Rule and the Beatitudes. THE GREATEST GIFT 361 Then, forty- four years later, in 1885, William C. Gannett preached his sermon on "The Faith of Ethics," in which he showed that the essential thing in religion is character; that the true test is the deed versus the creed; that duty is the measure of devout- ness; that every faith is measured by its faithfulness, and that whoever lives a faithful life, faithful to duty, faithful to head and heart, — be he Pagan, Christian or Jew, be he orthodox or liberal, Methodist or Pres- byterian — belongs to the one true church of God, the great Catholic Church of Humanity. The fundamental message of Channing, then, was this belief that men, all men, being the children of a good God, are themselves good, in essence if not good now, good in the making. One of his great sermons is entitled, "Honor Due to All Men." It is in this beautiful sermon that you found your text, "The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God." In this sermon he argues that the only way to make one a lover of man is to reveal to him something great and inter- esting in human nature. All men, all kinds of men, even the poor, tattered, ragged, drunken men, have in them something admirable; something that boys and girls can revere and that wise men and women must love. It has been said that "There is nothing great in nature but man, and nothing great in man but mind." But we will not say that, for nature is full of greatness outside of man. Her daisies and her roses, her torrents and her mountains, her forests and her stars, are all wonderful, all sublime. And the 362 LOVE AND LOYALTY little child that can hold the daisy in its hand and reach out for the moon can enjoy something of this nature. And in man everything is wonderful. The splendid mechanism of the body, arms, legs, and eyes, muscle, nerve, and brain, all are wonderful and all are admirable. A mind that can draw the lily, weigh the star and measure the mountain is wonderful, and the heart that pets the dog, that companions the horse, that nestles the babe, that makes men and women cling to one another, build homes and establish gov- ernments, is wonderful. The power that writes poetry and sings it to great tunes accompanied by noble organ tones, built in great churches, is all won- derful. But Channing tells us in this sermon on the "Honor Due to All Men," that greater than all these is "the power of discerning and doing the right, is the higher monitor which speaks in the name of God to the capacity of virtue, of excellence, the sense of duty, this is the greatest gift of God." And do you not, young as you are, know that this is true ? Does not every child know, what the philoso- pher cannot explain, that happiness, power, useful- ness, surely come only by doing right? The sense of ought first asks and then compels us to do what we do not want to do ; to do hard things ; to suffer for an idea and to die for a principle. Says Immanuel Kant, "Two things command my reverence: the starry heavens above and the sense of ought within." Of these two things, do you children THE GREATEST GIFT 3^3 not know that the "sense of ought" in the heart of a child is more wonderful, more sublime, than a great ball of blazing matter flying through space? For this sense of duty is that which makes of the child and the philosopher, the babe and the prophet, co-workers with God, helpers in the world. It is that which calls upon men to set things right, to keep things straight, to make things plumb, to keep the balance, to "play fair" in the world. "The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God." Let me try to illustrate what needs no proving, make bright what we already know, thereby perhaps help- ing us to better love the text which we already believe, and, still better, to practice the motto we have already adopted. Over on the street-corner the other day I saw a little sparrow in great luck. It had found a beautiful straw, over a foot long, a clean, nice, strong straw, suitable to become a great timber in the little spar- row's home. To the little bird it was as big as an iron beam is to the builder of a great Chicago block. The sparrow looked at it from end to end. He jumped from one side to the other; he took hold of it to see if he could lift it. He shifted his position several times so as to get a good hold of it. At last he had it balanced ; he cleared the ground with it, but the wind twisted his little neck and the straw fell to the ground. He gave it up and dropped it. And still he needed that fine piece of timber for his house. And so he tried it once more; balanced it; braced his little body against the 364 LOVE AND LOYALTY wind and ventured. He made his spring and rose with his heavy load to the ledge of the sign-board, above the first story, but he could not get it to the place where he was building his house, and bird and straw came down to earth again. But he was not dis- couraged; he tried once more, and this time he man- aged it. I could not follow him in his construction act. I am sure it was hard work to bend the straw, to fit it in, and brace it and cement it where it belonged, but I believe he succeeded. But when the straw house is finished, then come the eggs and the long brooding, the laborious feeding, the vigilant watching, days and nights of loyalty. What a foolish little bird! Why bother with straws and nests and little ones? Why not live and be happy, take the sunshine, gather seed for himself, take some comfort in the world, have some of the pleasures of life, instead of all the while doing hard things, all the while carrying risks, run- ning dangers, seeking to be burdened with care and responsibility? Why? I cannot tell you why, except that in doing the hard things, in yielding to this- — yes, I will call it the sense of duty — this groping for usefulness, this something that makes of the bird a nest-builder, a bird-feeder, it thereby becomes a creator with God, making the bird more than the straw, as the straw is more than the dust out of which it grew, and the dust which nourished the wheat more than the rocks out of which it was crumbled. So it is that this sense of duty which calls upon THE GREATEST GIFT 365 you and upon me, which guides you and guides me, which pushes you and pushes me to do the things we do not want to do, to stand in the strain, to hft heavy burdens, to go without comforts, to seek weariness and not rest, to sweat and not sleep, is the greatest gift of God to us because it makes us creators with God, makers of something, and through this making we prove our divinity, we estabHsh our kinship with God, become indeed the children of God. It is not easy to keep this text in mind. You will often be reminded, even by those who ought to know better, that you will have to "take care of yourselves, for nobody else will;" that "one is a fool who works too hard for others, for he will get no thanks for it." Many men and many forces are ready to teach you that money, position, style, beauty, good clothes, and many of them, nice houses, with the books, horses, and automobiles that go therewith are the things most worthy of your quest; that these are the things that make living worth while. Don't you trust them. Believe me, they are lying forces. All these things are desirable, but only when they come in the line of duty and when they are forever subordinated to duty. Be- lieve me, children, there is more costly and elegant agony in the world than you can possibly understand. Oh, there is such misery in luxury, such weariness in wealth, such dreariness in style when duty is ignored or slighted in order to secure them. On my recent trip to the Pacific Coast there was a bright little boy on the train, going with his parents 366 LOVE AND LOYALTY to find a new home in the sunny land of California. He had been to school but one summer, but it was an old-fashioned country school and he had learned many things. He knew all the states and their capitals; he could spell words of three and four syllables ; he could tell of the curious things that he was going to see in California — of the boats with glass bottoms that revealed sea-trees and sea-horses and the great fish and the curious coral that live at the bottom of the sea. He knew about the big orange orchards, the eucalyptus groves, and the hedges of calla lilies. He said he was going to Los Angeles, a fine big city. One day I asked him if he knew the meaning of that name. I told him that California was covered all over with such beautiful names as Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento and that these names meant the City of Angels, the City of Saint Ann^e, Saint Barbara, Saint Bernard, Saint Francis, Saint James, and the Place of Sacraments. The little boy stood with open eyes and ears; he was silent for a moment, and then with an awe in his voice he said, "I never heard any folks talk about these things; no one ever told me about that before." This was in the forenoon. Along toward supper time I again visited the tourist car where the little boy was traveling, and I found that he had filled the car with this new talk. They were ready to tell me what Thomas had found out — that he was going to the "City of Angels," and that the cities of California were named after good men and THE GREATEST GIFT 367 good women, because good priests, missionaries of the Christ, had taken possession of that country many, many years ago in the interest of God and humanity. Is not this the lesson we need to learn everywhere? Let us talk and think of this world as fit for angels, of this country as the home of saints, for wherever, on farm or in the city, in the alley or on the boule- vard, the hard thing is done, the unpleasant task accomplished, right served and duty done, by girl or woman, by boy or man, there is saintliness, there is the greatest gift of God made manifest. When that is done the doer is Saint Anne, Saint Mary, Saint Margaret, Saint William, Saint John, or Saint James, no matter what the name. Following these missionaries have come the men of science and the men of trade, the missionaries of commerce. Southern California is being crowded with millionaires. They have established their River- sides and their Pomonas (The Place of Apples,) and many another new town in the new spirit, and what we sometimes boastingly call the "new man" and the "new woman" are there. Bless them all, but these names will mar the language and the towns, and will spoil the beautiful landscapes of California, if the dwellers forget to seek the saintliness which realizes that duty, not beauty, or pleasure, or plenty, is the greatest gift of God to man in California as in Boston, in America as in Judea. One more and last evidence that "The sense of 368 LOVE AND LOYALTY duty is the greatest gift of God." Those who have it most are not only those who are most beloved in life but those who stay with us after death, those whom the ages revere, whose birthdays become national holi- days, whose centennials are more honored than their anniversaries, and whose millenaries are celebrated with still greater gratitude and reverence, because one hundred years are richer than one year, and ten hun- dred more glorious than one hundred. Recently I spent four days at the foot of what is called the highest mountain in the United States out- side of Alaska. The Indians called it Tacoma, the "nourishing breast." Vancouver, the English navi- gator, called it Rainier, after an English general. The city of Tacoma, near its base, loves to call it by its Indian name. The rival city of Seattle, thirty miles farther away, jealous of its power and attraction, insists on calling it Rainier. But it is the same moun- tain by whichever name it is called. All the time I was there this mountain was hidden in clouds. One day I saw its great knees, thighs and loins, wrapped in a white blanket. At another time I caught a glimpse of its topmost peak, glistening like a perfect "gem of purest ray serene" nearly fifteen thousand feet above the sea. I was told that it is always capped with white, and that when it reveals itself it is a spectacle of surpassing beauty. I did not see it but I believe all I heard, because the mountain was reflected in the faces of the citizens when they talked about it; it glistened in the eyes of those who attempted to describe it. I , THE GREATEST GIFT 369 had to take it for granted, which I was glad to do, but those who loved it and continually studied it told me how every day in the year it catches the moisture of the sea, stores it in great glaciers that slowly slip down the mountain side to meet the softer, warmer air which converts the snow and ice into torrents, and how these torrents gather themselves into great streams, which now turn mighty mills and are about to be harnessed to great dynamos that will give light by night and transportation by day to the growing cities all along Puget Sound. They told me how in June they could climb through the great forests up into Paradise Valley where thousands of flowers are in bloom, and where one can stand and place one hand on the snow and pick daisies with the other. Thus the grim strength of the mighty mountain is softened into beauty, carpeted with luxury, and clothed upon with usefulness. Such is the quality and character of a man who through a long lifetime has realized that "The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God," and who has bent his energies, consecrated his days and nights, dedi- cated his years in and to the divine service of the right. Think of the great man whom the ages love and the generations honor. There are those who, like Mount Tacoma,have accumulated the moisture of the sea, conserved it on its high places and given it back again through the help of the kissing sun to the waiting earth, causing flowers to bloom, trees to grow, wheels to turn and civilization to be. 370 LOVE AND LOYALTY Such were Channing and Emerson, Luther and St. Francis, Socrates and Moses, Buddha, and, most of all, the benign Man of Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph, the Christ of history, the Jesus of our love. Such in a greater or less degree were the Santa Anas, the Santa Barbaras, the San Diegos, and San Franciscos of Christian history. Thus each, in his own degree, children or men and women, young or old, weak or strong, in proportion as we seek the right and avoid the wrong, do the hard thing, welcome the unwelcome task, we shall know that duty is the best gift of God, we shall know it in the joy of our own souls, in the peace of conscience, and, what is better, in service rendered, we shall find our own lives justi- fied in the fuller lives of others. Thus alone can we know the peace that passeth understanding, the peace that abideth now and evermore. Amen. A DARING FAITH THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE What fairer seal Shall I require to my authentic mission Than this fierce energy? — this instinct striving Because its nature is to strive f Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart! Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once Into the vast and unexplored abyss, What full-grown power informs her from the first, Why she not marvels, strenuously beating The silent boundless regions of the sky! Be sure they sleep not whom God needs! 'T is time Nezv hopes should animate the world, new light Should dazmi from nezv revcalings to a race Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus shall The heaven reserved for us at last receive Creatures whom no unwonted splendors blind, But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze. Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage. Not seldom glorified their life below. I go to prove my soul! I see my zvay as birds their trackless zuay. I shall arrive! what time, zvhat circuit first, J ask not: but unless God send his hail Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snozv, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. — From Browning's "Paracelsus" XX A DARING FAITH Let us have faith that right makes might. — Abraham Lincoln I want first to show that the text which the class has offered me for my sermon is found in a very great speech, was spoken by a very great man, and contains a very great truth. I cannot hope to give an adequate conception of how intensely men, women and children in the United States were interested in political issues in the winter of 1859-60, when every interest centered in the ques- tion of slavery. John Brown had been hung at Harper's Ferry late in the preceding autumn. Uncle Tom's Cabin had been a classic in the homes of the North and a terror in the homes of the South for seven years. Elijah Lovejoy had been martyred at Alton for publishing an abolitionist paper; his printing press had been thrown into the Mississippi River and the building burned twenty-two years before. At a meet- ing in Boston, called to protest against this martyr- dom, Wendell Phillips, a brilliant young lawyer, had made his maiden speech, and William Ellery Chan- ning, the saintly preacher of Boston, had for the first time taken his stand and been counted for liberty. Under this inspiration James Russell Lowell had written his "Present Crisis" in which he said : 373 374 LOVE AND LOYALTY Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side. Theodore Parker had defied the Fugitive Slave Law and had helped to conceal and otherwise protect fugi- tive slaves from the "owners" who pursued them. In the South there was well-grounded fear, anxiety, and indignation. For this intense feeling at the North against slavery not only menaced the commercial prosperity of the southern people and threatened to rob them of their "property," but, what was harder to bear, impugned the honest motives of well-meaning men and women, charging with brutal propensities and inhuman conduct those who for the most part were really, many of them, sensitive, honest, religious citi- zens. They had inherited from the past an evil insti- tution which they did not create and from the entanglements of which they could not, as they thought, escape. Smarting with this insecurity and sense of wrong, the people of the South turned to the Democratic party for protection and vindication, on the theory that Democracy afforded the largest amount of per- sonal liberty, the least governmental interference. They asked to be "let alone." In the North a new party which called itself "Republican" undertook to organize the growing sense of justice and legalize the safeguards of freedom. This party said in effect : "This evil must not grow ; to it no new territory must be granted." And so, back of the great moral ques- A DARING FAITH 375 tion, "Is it right to own slaves?" lay the political questions, "Is it right to interfere with those who do own slaves?" "Is it a national duty to circumscribe its boundaries and prevent its extension?" Hence "The Missouri Compromise," "Squatter Sovereignty," "Mason and Dixon's Line," "States' Rights," "Dough-faces," "Mud-sills," "Black Republicans," and "Secession," were the familiar words to be seen on the front page of every newspaper; to be heard wherever men and women met to talk; to be discus- sed everywhere on the platform and in the pulpit. In the autumn of 1858 Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, two popular lawyers in the state of Illinois, had met in a series of debates to discuss these great questions. Both of these men aspired to a seat in the United States Senate. But what began as a battle between candidates promptly outgrew such limitation and became a great discussion of prin- ciples, the greatest public debate of a great moral question on political platforms the world has ever known. One of these men was eastern-born and college- bred, already successful, wealthy, fashionable, a gifted judge widely known. The other was a child of the backwoods ; his tongue knew no speech but Eng- lish, and that was spoken with a quaint accent. He was an awkward, unschooled child of the West. "Backwoodsman," "raftsman," "rail-splitter," were the familiar words already used concerning him — spoken, now in derision, and now in loving admira- 376 LOVE AND LOYALTY tion. The Illinois farmers who took off their hats and bowed respectfully to "Judge Douglas" slapped his opponent on the shoulder as they greeted "Abe Lincoln," whom they had already learned to love and to call "Honest Abe." But he also had a reputation on the circuit; he was a power in Illinois; he had served one term in Congress, and his oldest boy was in Harvard College. The fame of the great debate had traveled east- ward, and some young men in Henry Ward Beecher's church in Brooklyn ventured to invite the curious Westerner, the Illinois rail-splitter, to deliver a lec- ture before them. It was a challenge that flattered and frightened the self-distrusting lawyer of the Illi- nois prairie, but, on condition that he might speak on a political subject, he accepted, and the date was fixed for February 27, i860. Some months were to inter- vene between the acceptance and the deliverance, and the untried giant, like a mighty Samson, bent him- self to the task. The resources of the libraries within his reach were exhausted; he knocked the dust from old pamphlets, studied original documents, and turned his face eastward with fear and trembling. On his arrival in New York he was still further alarmed when he found that the place of speaking had been transferred from Plymouth Church in Brooklyn to the hall of the Cooper Union in New York in order to accommodate the throng that was to meet him. He arrived two days ahead of time ; entertainment was offered him at the home of an eminent citizen, but he A DARING FAITH 377 declined; he must work on his lecture, which he feared would be a disappointment and a failure. He was anxious lest the young men who had assumed the risk should lose money on the venture. At last the terrible hour arrived, and he found himself confronted by an audience that filled the great hall to overflowing. It was an audience of cultured men and women, such as had not been convened in New York City, the papers said, since the days of Clay and Webster. William Cullen Bryant, the ven- erable poet and editor, presided, and men whose names were national household words sat on the plat- form. Much has been made by biographers of the awkward figure, the ill-fiting and wrinkled garments of the speaker. Some of the young men on the com- mittee confessed they felt dismayed when first they saw the lecturer. They were ashamed of his rustic appearance and wished they might avoid the humilia- tion of appearing with him on the platform in the presence of such a polite and fashionable audience. He himself confessed to his old law partner and sub- sequent biographer, "Billy" Herndon, that for once he was greatly abashed over his personal appearance. He knew that the new suit of clothes which he bought in Chicago on his way east had become badly wrinkled in his valise; the collar of his coat would not stay down, and this consciousness of the difference between his clothes and the neatly fitting suits of the chairman and the other gentlemen on the platform disturbed him as he began to speak. 378 LOVE AND LOYALTY It is a grateful office that I perform in introducing to you an eminent citizen of the West, hitherto known to you only by reputation, was Mr. Bryant's introduction. Next day in his paper, the Evening Post, Mr, Bryant said : For the publication of such words of weight and wisdom as those of Mr. Lincoln, the pages of this journal are indefi- nitely elastic. And Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune said : He is one of nature's orators. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience. A Connecticut minister was reported by the Neiv York Tribune as saying to Mr. Lincoln next day : Your speech was the most remarkable I ever heard Your illustrations were romance and pathos, fun and logic, all welded together. Says another, as quoted in Noah Brooks's Life: When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall — oh, how tall, and so angular and awkward that I had, for an instant, a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man. His clothes were black and ill-fitting, badly wrinkled, as if they had been jammed carelessly into a small trunk. His bushy head, with the stiff black hair thrown back, was balanced on a long and lean head-stalk, and when he raised his hands in an opening gesture, I noticed that they were very large. He began in a low tone of voice as if he were used to speaking out-doors, and was afraid of speaking too loud. I said to myself : "Old fellow, you won't do; it's all very well for the wild West, but this will never go down in New York." But pretty soon he began to get into his subject; he straightened up, made regular and graceful gestures; his face lighted as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured. I forgot his clothes, his personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Presently, A DARING FAITH 379 forgetting myself, I was on my feet with the rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering this wonderful man. In the close parts of his arguments you could hear the gentle sizzling of the gas- burners. When he reached a climax, the thunders of applause were terrific. It was a great speech. When I came out of the hall, my face aglow with excitement and my frame all a-quiver, a friend, with his eyes aglow, asked me what I thought of Abe Lincoln, the rail-splitter. I said: "He's the greatest man since St. Paul." And I think so yet. Said Henry M. Field, one of New York's great citizens, whom the nation honored : What manner of man is this lawyer from the West who has set forth these truths as we have never had them before? Forty years after, Hon. Joseph M. Choate, then Ambassador to Great Britain, described his impres- sions of the occasion to a great audience in Edin- burgh. He said: The impression left on my mind is ineffaceable He appeared in every sense of the word like one of the plain people among whom he loved to be counted. At iirst sight there was nothing impressive or imposing about him, except that his great stature singled him out from the crowd; his clothes hung awk- wardly on his giant frame, his face was of a dark pallor, without the slightest tinge of color; his seamed and rugged features bore the furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep- set eyes looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave little evidence of that brain-power which had raised him from the lowest to the highest station among his countrymen. As he talked to me before the meeting he seemed ill at ease, with that sort of apprehension which a young man might feel before presenting himself to a new and strange audience whose critical disposition he dreaded He was equal to the occasion. When he spoke he was 380 LOVE AND LOYALTY transformed; his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. For an hour and a half he held his audience in the hollow of his hand. His style of speech and manner of delivery were severely simple. What Lowell called "the grand simplicities of the Bible," with which he was so familiar, were reflected in his discourse. With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric, without parade or pretence, he spoke straight to the point It was marvelous to see how this untutored man, by mere self -discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious arts, and found his way to the grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity. Lincoln did not underestimate his audience, and he appreciated the significance of his theme. Next morning the lecture was printed in full in four of the New York dailies, and in due time thousands and tens of thousands of copies were distributed in pamphlet form, the editorial committee stating in their preface that it had taken them weeks to verify some of the statements which had seemed to fall so easily from his inspired lips. But the investigation justified the state- ments. He had spoken carefully and had spoken the truth. He had studied the relation of slavery to the history of the United States from the beginning to that time, and had forecast its future. He had made what will probably stand as the greatest speech of his life; he had brought history, fact, logic, poetry, con- science, all to the mighty climax in which we found our text embedded : Let us not be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have A DARING FAITH 381 faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end do our duty as we understand it. I think I have said enough to prove my first point, that our text is found in a very great speech. Judged by the painstaking labor, the careful research and scholarly use of historic material, it was undoubtedly the greatest speech Lincoln ever made; judged by its results also, it must be ranked as probably his greatest speech. It changed Abraham Lincoln of the West to Abraham Lincoln of the nation; it made him Presi- dent. As one of his biographers said : "It came near being an inaugural address." I need take little time in establishing my second point, that the text was spoken by a very great man. Every year adds to the already extensive Lincoln literature; every year adds to his world-wide fame, pushing his name into the dark and far corners of the world. "Abraham Lincoln" has become a household word in the cabin and in the palace. Italy, Russia, and the far-off islands of the seas love him; peasants sing his praises; philosophers quote his words, and patriots grow more noble in thinking of him. Without further delay, then, let us consider my third proposition, that the text contains a very great truth — "Let us have faith that right makes might." Right is might, because right is of God and not of man. The perpendicular column stands because the laws of gravitation hold it in place. Tilt your column, and it falls because nature lets go of it; or rather, nature pulls it down. The properly constructed arch 382 LOVE AND LOYALTY holds the tower up; the more the weight the more secure it stands, because the arch is made according to the principles of mathematics. It is as firm as the multiplication table. Introduce a false element into the arch, let the circle deviate from Tightness, and the arch falls by its own weight. You have tried to crush an Ggg between your hands. If you bring the press- ure to bear at the ends, you will fail ; turn it the other way and press on the sides, and "brittle as an egg- shell" is verified in your hands. So powerful is right because it is a part of the construction of the uni- verse. It is ordained by the same power that has fixed the laws of nature. The laws of right are as fixed, sure, and inevitable as the laws which boil water at a high temperature and freeze it at a low tempera- ture ; as the laws which make water run down hill and steam to rise in the air. Right makes might. History is simply a verifica- tion of it. What has become of the great powers, the mighty cities, the dreaded conquerors, that you read of in your books? Where are Nineveh and Babylon? Where are Alexandria and the crowding cities that once made the shores of the Mediterranean more populous and more commercial than the shores of Lake Michigan now are? They were mighty; they were populous; they were rich; they were terrible. Xerxes, Alexander, the haughty Pharaohs, and the bloody Caesars — they had all the strengths but one necessary to perpetuity, to fame, and the glory that fades not, and that was the strength of right. The^ A DARING FAITH 3^3 names of those far-off merchants, presidents, and mayors, the bankers and manufacturers, are lost, and their work and possessions are forgotten, save a few antiquities, broken rehcs, scattered fragments, that are left to tell us how the mighty have fallen. They had not the might of the right. Over against the names that are forgotten or remembered only in pity or contempt, put the name of a far-off prince who renounced the glory of a court, became a beggar for truth's sake. The latter suggests the devotions and gratitudes, the aspirations and the ideals, of five hundred and more millions of men, for it is the name of Buddha, the pitiful, the name of him who taught men to be kind, merciful, and for- giving. Over against the name of Alexander, who made the banners of Macedonia terrible, write the name of Socrates, who walked barefooted in the snow as a private soldier in the Grecian army. His father was a stone-cutter; his mother was a nurse. He spent his time in talking with the youths in the market place; he was put to death because of his impiety. But his impiety represented his love for truth, his devotion to right, and after twenty-four centuries his name is the greatest name in Grecian lore. His was the miglit of the right. The Bible of Christendom, the most sacred of books, the textbook of the higher life, contains in the main the words of humble men — shepherds, vine-dressers, scribes, and fishermen — but they spoke the truth, and 384 LOVE AND LOYALTY their words survive pyramids and overlay dynasties. Jeremiah in exile, Paul in prison, Jesus on the cross — these represent the mighty ones of history, and their might lay in the right which they championed. But we need no better illustration of my third point than that offered in the first and second parts of my sermon. I have said that our text is taken from a great speech. Why great? Those who went expecting to be swayed by some quaint oratory called "western" were disappointed; those who went expecting to be amused by the humor of the "sad man of the Sangamon," or to be aroused by brilliant rhetoric or impassioned zeal, were mistaken. They heard instead close reasoning, careful analysis of history, kind words for enemies, earnest, sober appeal to friends. The Cooper Union lecture was great because it was unanswerable; it was true, and conse- quently it was powerful; it was an appeal to the right, and consequently it was mighty. As with the address, so with the man. At that time nobody feared Abraham Lincoln. The friends of his opponents were almost ashamed to ask the accomplished Judge Douglas, the courteous college graduate, the wealthy land-owner, who went about in his private car, to stoop to answer this rustic with- out polish and without position ; a rail-splitter, a county surveyor, a country postmaster, and at his largest, only a congressman defeated for re-election, and a country lawyer. But because Abraham Lincoln saw the right and dared stand for it, because he declared the truth A DARING FAITH 385 and stood up to be counted for it, he became the mighty, and there is but one name in the honor-roll of the United States to dispute with him the glory of being the "foremost American." We will not make rivals of Washington and Lincoln; we will rejoice rather that both of them have the might that belongs to the right. They share the affections of school chil- dren and philosophers, black and white, rich and poor, because they stood for the right. But we need not appeal either to history or to biography. Happily, the stories of Lincoln, Wash- ton, Socrates, Buddha, Paul, Jeremiah, and Jesus are so familiar to us all that we cannot help thinking of them when we think of our text, "Right makes might." But if we had never heard of any of these, there is that within us which testifies to the beautiful truth that right makes might. The little child that respects the wish, follows the teaching, obeys the behest of those whom God and man have placed over him — teacher, father, and mother — the child that has kept faith with his parents and with his conscience, who has said "No" when a "Yes" seemed so much easier and so much pleasanter, is the child that is not ashamed to look you in the eye; who is not afraid to meet father or mother, and who is not alarmed when summoned into the presence of teacher or friend. The honest man is not afraid of the policeman. The true workman has no occasion to evade the boss. Right alone gives the might that is lasting; the might 386 LOVE AND LOYALTY that brings the pleasure that lasts and the peace that abides. Emerson closes his searching essay on "Courage" ■ — an essay which every boy and girl should read early in life and reread on every occasion of tempta- tion, at every crisis where cowardice beckons — with a poem-story, the "Ballad of George Nidiver," the California hunter who, with his Indian boy compan- ion, found himself confronted in a mountain gorge by two grizzly bears which Rushed at them unawares Right down the narrow dell. The hunter with his one ball saved the fleeing boy from the bear that pursued him, then unarmed turned to met face to face the other beast: I say unarmed he stood, Against those frightful paws The rifle butt, or club of wood, Could stand no more than straws. George Nidiver stood still And looked him in the face; The wild beast stopped amazed. Then came with slackening pace. Still firm the hunter stood. Although his heart beat high; Again the creature stopped, And gazed with wondering eye. The hunter met his gaze Nor yet an inch gave way; The bear turned slowly round, And slowly moved away. A DARING FAITH 387 What thoughts were in his mind It would be hard to spell; What thoughts were in George Nidiver I rather guess than tell. Be sure that rifle's aim, Swift choice of generous part. Showed in its passing gleam The depths of a brave heart. This poem indicates the might that goes with the right — the right that seeks the safety of others rather than its own; the right that puts the pleasure of others above one's own; that finds companionship on the road of self-denial, and comfort in service. Robert Browning tells the story of the "Threaten- ing Tyrant" who used all his ingenuity to insult, to degrade, to frighten, to crush, a subject. But the man Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed, and lo! it was the tyrant who was afraid; he with all his armies and his might trembled, while the helpless, friendless, unarmed victim "stood erect in the strength of God.-" What had he to fear? "Strike if you will, but hear," said Themistocles to Eurybiades. This is always the conquering word of the man who stands in the right. Oh, my young friends, be not too anxious for "company," too solicitous for "good society," too anxious lest you be counted out from something that is going on, in too great a hurry to fence yourselves off in sects, parties, clubs, cliques, and coteries, fra- 388 LO\'E AND LOYALTY temities and sororities, that you may have more good times. Think more often of the saying of Frederick Douglass, the black man and the chattel. "One with God is in the majority!'' Think of the time that came to that black man when, honored in tvvo continents, respected by the noble, a leader of the excellent and in the interest of excellence, he went to see his bed-rid- den, pitiable, degenerate old master who, in his humili- ation and his shame, begged the privilege of shaking hands with his former slave, knowing that the black slave towered above the white master in all that goes to make the might that is desirable and permanent. My young friends, we have communed together over high things and are not afraid of sacred words. Our text deserves the help of the noblest words that human speech can utter. Right makes might because right is another name for God, and to have faith in the right is to have faith in things eternal; faith in the power that holds the worlds together; the power that makes mathematics exact and the multiplication table permanent; the power that makes love forever lovely and hate forever hateful. That is most right that is most God-like : that is most just that gives the widest justice to all. He is most powerful who is in sympathy with and has companionship for the widest range of life. On the Sunday following the lecture at the Cooper Union, when all the country was pondering over the words of wisdom there spoken, a stranger appeared at the Mission Sunday School at Five A DARIXG F-\ITH 389 Points, then the slum center of New York, the home of the miserable and the degraded. He seemed so much interested, his face beamed with so much kind- liness, that the superintendent approached and asked him if he would like to say something to the poor little boys and girls there gathered, the ragged urchins of the alleys. The strange, curious man ac- cepted, but even the gamins soon stopped laughing. They were charmed by his voice, touched by his tenderness, and when he was about to stop, apologiz- ing for the intrusion, the little ragged children cried "Go on! Go on! Please go on!"' And when at last the stranger stopped, there was an awed silence throughout the crowded room. Said the superin- tendent as the stranger passed out, "Please, sir, may I know your name?" "I am Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois," was the reply. The tender heart and the true conscience that on Friday night thrilled poets and statesmen and charmed cultured ladies and gentlemen, on Sunday morning held spell-bound the boys and girls of the slums, the children of the miserable. In the dark days of the horrible war. when asked by the superintendent of the Christian Mission to pre- side at a meeting to be held in \^'ashington, he declined for what he called "sufficient reason." but he wrote : Whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unrea- soning and uncharitable passions, prejudices, and jealousies inci- dent to a great national trouble such as ours, and to fix them on 390 LOVE AND LOYALTY the vast and long-enduring consequences, for weal or for woe, which are to result from the struggle, and especially to strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph of the right, can not but be well for us all. In one of his messages to Congress he said : We cannot escape history; no personal significance or insig- nificance can spare one or another of us. The very trial through which we pass will hold us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation We shall nobly save or meanly lose the best hope of earth The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just, — a way which, if followed, the world will for- ever applaud and God must forever bless. It was a dark and chilly day in February when he left his Springfield home for the last time as he was about to take up the work of President. From the platform of the rear car he spoke to his old friends and neighbors. He there revealed his devout heart and his religious spirit. He spoke of the "task more difficult than that which devolved on Washington," and his belief that the Almighty arm that protected Washington would support him and that he should succeed. He said : Let us pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us. To him I commend you all. With equal sincerity and faith, I ask you to invoke his wisdom and goodness for me. It is this faith in God, which is faith in goodness and faith in right, that enabled him to "put his foot down firm," and which made him such a worthy model, such an inspiring leader. Your motto is as applicable to school children as to senators; it is as true in the nursery as it is in A DARING FAITH 391 Congress; it applies to the playground and the class- room as it does to the church and the university. You and I, my children, have found much pleas- ure in the legends of the monks and in the mediaeval lore of the church. Let the fancy of some pious monk of the long ago help us to apply tYie high maxim of the martyred President. A rustic, hoping to en- courage the activities of his bees, placed a bit of com- munion bread — the body of the Christ as he thought — in the hive, whereupon the little bees did homage to the sacred presence and proceeded with curious art to build a little waxen church to shelter the sacred crumb. They reared its columns and shaped its altars into wondrous beauty. But when the sordid rustic came, hoping to gather his added stock of honey, the bees set upon him and he was glad to escape with his life. But when a holy priest approached, the little bees rose out of the hive and soared above him, making sweet and curious melody; and the priest took the noble structure, the little church of the bees, and placed it upon the high altar of the cathedral, and all the communicants in the country around grew more diligent in their service, more simple in their faith, stronger in the trust that right makes might, when they looked upon it. We may at least simulate the little bee, and, weak and small though we may be, who knows how beauti- ful the altar we may rear over this sacred crumb, the communion bread, representing the blood and body 392 LOVE AND LOYALTY of one of earth's martyrs, one of history's saviors and God's children? "Let us have faith that right makes might," and in that faith let us go forth to live, to serve, — not the few, but the many; to rejoice, not in the pride of aristocracy, but in the humility of democracy; not in the service of self, but in the service of others. SECRET SPRINGS Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; Who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, And hath not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, And righteousness from the God of his salvation. — Psalm 24 : 3-5 XXI SECRET SPRINGS Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. — Proverbs 4 : 23 The Bible is full of heart texts. The heart was a favorite figure of the Hebrew writers. Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Let mine heart be sound in thy statutes. Let the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord. The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God. These are some of the Psalmist's texts. Why doth thine heart carry thee away? says the writer of Job. My son give me thy heart. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life, says the Book of Proverbs. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, said the writer of Ecclesiastes. "Blessed are the pure in heart," said Jesus; while Paul exclaims, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness;" and he further speaks of "the veiled and unveiled heart of man." Now the people of Israel were not peculiarly emo- tional. Indeed, the prophets are suspected, wrong- 395 396 LOVE AND LOYALTY fully perhaps, of not doing justice to the love side of relisfion. So "heart," in the Bible sense, must have a broader meaning than that given to it in modern speech — the home of the affections, the organ of love. The "heart" in the Bible sense is the source of thought as well as of feeling; the fountain of action as well as of love. It is the core of being, the hidden citadel out of which come, unbidden and often- times uncontrollable, thoughts, feelings, actions. These writers antedate the modern metaphysics, convenient but treacherous, which divides the soul into parts or compartments like a modern post-office, putting the will into one, the heart into another, and the mind into still another; assuming that the power of thought and the power of love and the power of action repre- sent distinct elements, and occupy separate compart- ments of the soul. The ancient Hebrews apprehended the profounder truth that the soul is one and that this unity is concerned in every act. According to this thought, the heart is the sum total of one's spiritual possessions; it is the subterranean source of the foun- tain we call "life;" it is a central citadel of being. When wisdom pleads with the young man for his heart, it asks him for the consecration of all his ener- gies. Our text pleads with the youth to "keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." And so the word "heart" here means what we mean by "affection" and more; what we mean by "intellect" and more; what we call the "will" and more. It means all these. It would be well for us SECRET SPRINGS 397 in these days of science if we would profit by the insight of the old Hebrew and remember that the religion of the heart means something more than emotions, however noble. Love languishes without ideas. Ideas are to be distrusted when not clarified by love. When the prophet used the word "heart," I think he meant something very nearly like what we mean when we say "character." The "I do believe" of the creeds, the largest conclusions of philosophy, the greatest doctrines, rattle like dry peas in a pod in the more capacious chambers of the devout heart. The heart is more than the intellect, and so the rites, sacra- ments and ceremonies may be important helps. But the religious heart knows that these represent but a small section of the holy life. The heart says, "Mis- take not means for ends. Forms are beautiful, but religion is larger than any or all forms." And again, when the advocate of the religion of emotion breaks into his "Hallelujahs" and ecstatic "Aniens," the "heart" protests against this unthink- ing rhapsody; it realizes that unreasoning love is always in danger of becoming unlovely. A religion of the heart that ignores the religion of the head weak- ens the heart. The central forces of life cannot be satisfied with shouting; rhapsody is not an excuse for lack of reason. The religion of the heart is something larger even than "duty." Life is more than action; more than the courage to do; more than high achievement. 398 LOVE AND LOYALTY Duty must be changed into joy, and effort must rise into serenity. The great soul achieves much, but it halos the highest achievement with an atmosphere of trust, of peace, and serenity. The monks of the olden time tortured the flesh ; their rehgion called for severe sacrifices. The religion of the heart protests and says, "Cheerless duty is undutiful. Grim integ- rity represents a spiritual defaulter." The religion of the heart represents man in his wholeness. It teaches him to love what is fair with an ardor that requires all the strength of reason to discover and all the power of the will to interpret. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." This text, rightly under- stood, asks for something more than high passions and noble sentiment, for unenlightened passion ends in passionless lives. The religion of the heart is related to the religion of creed, of form, of emotion, of conduct, not as a part opposed to a part, but as the whole related to a part. To find the beautiful, the good, the true, requires all the resources of our nature. True religion is the all-of-man permeated through and through with an all pervading sense of God. This great heart is interpreted by Browning's lines in Saul : How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy. The pure heart, the sound core, the strong spirit, finding good within, dares look the universe in the face, recognizing therein the features of the Divine. SECRET SPRINGS 399 Feeling this pulsing power within, the heart dis- covers the Omnipotent everywhere; having faith in the least things one dares not distrust the greatest, and so the soul continues to sing: Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt my own love can compete with it? When, in the language of my text, I plead that the heart be kept with all diligence, I plead for soundness at the core. The love between man and woman not founded in thought and justified by judgment, will bring disappointment and defeat; on the other hand, no thinker can travel far on any lines of the universe unless he be also a lover. A good thinker must be a loving spirit. John Stuart Mill, one of the great thinkers of his age, marked a new epoch in his life when he discovered that the page before him was moistened by tears that fell in sympathy with the sorrows of another, though the sorrowing one was but a character in the pages of a novel. That service is irksome to the laborer and unacceptable to the employer which is not illumi- nated by thought and love. "Keep thy heart with all diligence." You cannot do it, unless you keep your head also; and both thought and feeling prove unprofitable and unreli- able if they are not harnessed to action, if they do not lead to conduct. Acts are the counters that repre- sent the currency deposited in the bank of character. The heart, then, represents accumulations as well as inheritance; the great gift bestowed at birth aug- 400 LOVE AND LOYALTY mented by the accumulated experience, the acquired aptitudes, the interest on the capital invested. The effort and thought of your fore-elders plus the effort, thought, and love of your own lives, represent your heart capital. The father's struggles underlie the daughter's peace. The mother's tears make pos- sible the son's smiles. Whatever, then, increases the dimensions of your being, adds to your capacity of enjoyment, enlarges your vision, or deepens your love, preserves and enriches your heart. After the great Chicago fire in 1871 the students of Cornell, wishing to do something to renew the life of the stricken city and to encourage the noble men and women who were demonstrating that spirit was more powerful than any fire that can burn up material things, offered the great blacksmith- preacher, Robert Collyer, a thousand dollars for a horseshoe made by his own hand. The now vener- able Mr. Collyer tells how he went into a friend's smithy on the North Side, with misgivings. For twenty years he had been a stranger to the anvil and he was afraid that his hand had lost its cunning. But the nerves and muscles had preserved their train- ing; the eye had not lost its commanding accuracy. The shoe was readily formed, and the blacksmith neighbor in whose smithy it was forged pronounced it good. The name was stamped into the iron, and a notary witnessed to the genuineness of the article. In due time the Cornell boys sent their check for a thousand dollars, and that horseshoe is now one of the SECRET SPRINGS 401 coveted treasures of the Cornell Museum. The horseshoe became so famous that in due time it led to bringing across the sea the little old bell that used to hang over the Yorkshire shop and summon the 'prentice boy, "Bobbie Collyer," to his tasks. And now the bell summons hundreds of Ithaca students to their shop-work day by day, reminding them of the poetry of the crafts, the culture that lies in skilled hands, and the dignity and fraternity of labor. Not every man who can turn a horseshoe can sell the same to university boys for a thousand dollars, but every man who can make a good horseshoe is in possession of a power that has cost more than a thousand dollars and is worth immeasurably more than the cost; for this trained skill is an "issue" that proves the well-furnished heart. "Keep thy heart with all diligence," said the old Hebrew. Jesus called this very heart-keeping the "Gospel" — the good news. In modern phrase we call this heart-keeping "character," which, as Dr. Bartol said, is the "stone that cuts all other stones," the diamond, the most useful as well as the most beautiful of gems. Robert Collyer's horseshoe is not a solitary or exceptional product. See the pioneer on Dakota's bleak prairie, building a house into which he is soon to bring a blushing bride; see half-naked men moving to and fro in front of the various furnaces filled with iron as white and as fluid as milk ; see grimy miners turning the creaking winch at the 402 LOVE AND LOYALTY mouth of the murky coal pit; see the colored men in Mississippi, singing while they plant and cultivate the cotton ; see the shepherds of Arizona, in grim seriousness guarding their flocks from the depreda- tions of wolves, with no time to be jolly over a cap- tured wolf, dead or alive; see the quarrymen wrest- ling with granite blocks, the builder with bird-like poise walking the dizzy beam above; see the farmer tending his cattle, his children feeding the chickens, his wife watching her babes. In all these you see a sacramental offering. In all this work there is a pre- cipitation of heart. All this output comes out of the unfathomable depths of being that give individuality and personality. Out of these offerings little ones are fed, clothed, and schooled. The grimy sweat of coarsest labor is related to the sacrificial drops of bloody sweat that fell from the Master's brow on Gethsemane, for, as Lewis Morris sings : Well has it been said that Toil is the law of life. It is the medicine of grief, The remedy wherefrom Life giveth his beloved sleep. The lowest labor honestly rendered has in it more of religion than the highest indolence, because it draws from the hidden fountain of life, wliich the old Bible calls the "heart." Something of that heart goes into every effort; something of saving grace is in every projection of life. The arm, however lowly, that wields the ax, uses the shovel, holds the plow, or drops the seed, is engaged in a priestly function. SECRET SPRINGS 403 But there is something more to be said about this labor. Not Robert Collyer's horseshoe but his lecture on "Clear Grit" is the best interpreter of Collyer's heart. The highest issue from that fountain, so diligently kept, has been his output at the pulpit, not at the forge. They who delve for truth render higher service than they who bring up the coal and iron out of the shallower shafts of nature. God's bravest mariners sail on seas more lonely than the Atlantic. They are the diviner cultivators who plant beauty and grow thought; they who Midst misery and foul infected air befriend the friendless, best represent that ritual of love; they are the issues of the well-kept heart. "Laborare est orare" sang the monk of St. Bene- dict — "To labor is to pray," but the higher labor makes the higher prayer. So we may well continue the lines of Lewis Morris in his "Ode of Life" : Aye, labor, thou are blest, From all the earth thy voice a constant prayer Soars upward day and night; A voice of aspiration after right; A voice of effort yearning for its rest; A voice of high hope conquering despair. When we think of these issues of the human heart as the offerings of religion, we realize how much more piety there is in the world than our churches make exhibit of. More hymns of praise are daily wafted heavenward than are in our hymn- 404 LOVE AND LOYALTY books. There is more religion, more holiness, aye, more Christianity in the world than the census report would indicate. In rare moments the heart knows that all reality is a revelation of God, all beauty is heavenly, all truth divine, all love sacred. How are you to guard this fountain of life, to "keep the heart with all diligence" that the issues thereof may be more worthy? We, in Chicago have recently had an opportunity of witnessing a beautiful rendition of Wagner's great religious drama, Parsifal. In this drama of the soul the greatest musician of modern times, if not the most synthetic artist of all times, made all the fine arts — architecture, painting, sculpture, poetry, and music — combine in a supreme effort to reveal to the heart the ideal, to move the spirit with a holy pas- sion, to kindle the will with a divine purpose. This drama that fascinated the eye and the ear, builds on the beautiful legends of the Middle Ages which sought through story to teach the soul the high les- sons of life. The Holy Grail was the cup that passed from lip to lip at the farewell supper of Jesus and his dis- ciples; it was the same cup that caught the blood that a few hours later flowed from the pierced side of the Crucified One. This cup and the spear that pierced the innocent heart were the holy relics entrusted to a fraternity of holy men dwelling on Mont Salvat in Spain. These sanctities fed body and soul and kept the sacred brotherhood joyful, serene, triumphant. SECRET SPRINGS 405 But Klingsor, the evil-minded, being refused admis- sion into the holy brotherhood, reared on the adjoin- ing mountain his palaces and gathered his followers in the spirit of evil. In his dominion, black magic triumphed, as on the adjoining mount white magic obtained. Through his wiles, Amfortas, the King of the Mount of Salvation, yielded, and the spear was lost. The Holy Grail lost its power, and Amfortas suffered from a wound in his side that would not heal. He sought far and near for remedies, but no healing fountain, no soothing balm, no potent simple, could heal the wound. There was no help save in regaining the holy spear, and this recovery could come only by the hand of one whose heart was pure, a guile- less soul. The brotherhood looked far and waited long, until at last Parsifal came, a youth whom his mother had sequestered in a far off desert-land lest he might hear the call to knighthood and go forth and be lost to her as his father had done before him. But the pageantry of knighthood passed by; he heard the triumphant blast; he saw the gallant riders; his heart bounded for action, and he strayed far away in search of adventure. He appears within the boundaries of Mont Salvat, rejoicing in the triumph of his bow that brought down a spotless swan. Unwittingly he had taken a life that was esteemed sacred by the holy brotherhood, but when his heart realized the sacri- lege, he was moved with pity and broke his bow and flung it away. He passed on his way to serve his apprenticeship, to learn the role of the true knight, 4o6 LOVE AND LOYALTY by enduring hardships like a good soldier and resist- ing the temptations of passion. At last he ripens into full knighthood, with guileless heart, and recap- tures the sacred spear. This restoration heals the flowing wound in Amfortas' side, the domain of the wicked Klingsor crumbles, and the regnancy of Mont Salvat is triumphantly restored. The story of Parsifal is the story of every youth who seeks to "keep his heart with all dili- gence." The lessons of this song-drama are many; we will try to count a few of them. The mother of Parsifal, though a holy woman, was not wise. She could not keep her son to her- self or to purity by exclusion. Purity of heart comes not through isolation; ignorance is not innocence. Richard Wagner derives the name "Parsifal" from the Arabic "Fal"— a fool; "Parsifal"— the foolish pure one. A truer derivation is from the "Peredur" of the Welsh tales of King Arthur, a name which means the pure, not the silly or the simple. True innocence is based on wisdom. Knowledge is the most efficient shield of the pure heart. Therefore, if you would "keep your heart with all diligence," go forth into the world, take your place in life. Every new word is a new weapon to fight away the evil forces. Foolishness is irreverence ; ignorance is impiety; indifference rests in stupidity. Train the powers nature has endowed you with. However much abused, "culture" is still an indispensable word in the vocabulary of youth. The schoolroom is one SECRET SPRINGS 407 of the vestibules of the temple of the Most High. The true teacher is prophet and priest to the grow- ing mind. If you would "keep your heart with all diligence," increase your store of knowledge, widen your vision. "The learned eye is still the loving one," and "Growing thought makes growing reverence," says Robert Browning. Do not mistake the simplicity of ignorance for the single-mindedness of one who at the market of life has invested in the priceless treasure, who, in the multiplicity of opportunities and claims, has chosen the better part. Again, Parsifal must needs not only sec the world but he must face it. He cannot escape tempta- tion; he must meet it. The sacred spear can be held only by the developed arm. Religion is not a spasm but a struggle; not the confession of an hour, but the travail of years. Conversion? Yes. Not once, but many times you must turn and go in the other direc- tion, and after you have faced the right way, you must climb. Nothing great comes easily; few bless- ings happen. The powers of the soul — of the "heart," as the Bible would call it — are more in danger of crumbling from inactivity or dying from dry rot than of being wearied by a great effort or wasted by high endeavor. My young friends, do not be deceived. It is not easy for anyone to be good. Neither virtue nor ex- cellence comes without struggle. Goodness comes high 4o8 LOVE AND LOYALTY in the world's market. Self-control and world-control come through self-denial and self-discipline. "Keep thy heart with all diligence." This is not a matter of hoarding, but of investing. It is easier to make money than to make character. It is a shorter road to wealth than to nobility. There are more good mathematicians, skilful chemists, ready botanists, turned out of our schools than there are high-minded young men and women. Effort, effort, effort, and more effort, alone brings Parsifal to the holy mount. Jesus had to carry his own cross to Gethsemane, and it is very much the same price that you and I, the young and the old, must pay for the Christly attain- ments. After knowledge and after struggle comes the cumulative power which we call "habit." The knights of the world serve long apprenticeships. The vener- able guardian on Mont Salvat lost his hope in Parsi- fal when he saw that the boy was unmoved by the holy mysteries of the sacred Communion. He cast him out, for he reckoned not on the power of growth. We hear none too much about the power of a bad habit, but not nearly enough about the power of a good habit. When did the musician gain his skill? Which one of the ten thousand strokes of the ham- mer broke the cannon's trunnion? The musician's skill came all the way along. Every stroke of the hammer contributed to the broken trunnion. Says E. P. Powell, "Instead of man being created by God, he has had for the most part to create himself, SECRET SPRINGS 409 and this he does by slow accumulation of efforts, by steadily piling up attempts, until at last success blooms." Habit is the penny saving-s-bank which will surely accumulate a fund equal to the great emergency. Oh, my young friends, if you would "keep the heart with all diligence" you must become habitual, not in your indulgences but in your self-control. We talk of "confirmed" drunkards. Let us talk more of "con- firmed" abstainers. You read about the boy of eighteen who is "addicted" to the tobacco habit, as a warning; let us look at the man of sixty who is addicted to doing without the dirty weed, as an inspiration. There is a holy side to routine, a saving grace in repetition. Let us make the Golden Rule a habit, sympathy a custom, truth-telling auto- matic. Let us habituate ourselves to the details of grace — the heaven-making "thank you," the recon- ciling "if you please," spoken so often that they come to be the armor and the weapons of the heart. Would you "keep the heart with all diligence?" Learn to transfigure the commonplaces. Experience alone will teach you that simple things are the great things; that near things are the most divine. This sermon is dedicated to the twentieth Confir- mation Class of All Souls Church. For twenty years the children of these classes have turned responsive faces up to mine. I have seen the pure light of high intentions, of clear purposes, of human and humane sympathies, shine 4IO LOVE AND LOYALTY in their eyes. I have watched them grow into young manhood and womanhood. Many of them have asked me to speak the word that consecrated them to the high tasks of home-making ; some have brought their children to me for the christening of the church and the dedications of rehgion. I have stood with many of them in their griefs beside open graves and have tried to speak words of hope and consolation over the silent forms from which the spirit had flown; I have watched the majority of my pupils go out into the world of haste and hurry, of social anxieties and ambitions; I have seen them bargain for too many "preoccupations," too many "previous engagements," too many things to see and to have, to leave a margin of time for the routines of their childhood — the Sunday habit, the church relation, the periodic invitations to the soul, the weekly inflowing of the tides of the spirit. I have mourned over the loss of what I must believe to be a benign habit, and I wonder if the citadel of the heart has not suffered for want of the "diligent" keeping of such helping and holy habits. It is sad to see men and women in middle life grow indifferent to instru- mentalities that were life-forming in their childhood and that will again, as they hope and intend, prove life-giving in old age. There is saving power in a gracious habit, and I can think of no one habit that carries more benignity, safety, and inspiration than the systematic attendance and systematic support of the co-operative SECRET SPRINGS 41 1 life of the soul, the consecrations of self-denial on the part of the individual in the interest of the larger self — the church of the devout life. I fear that the menace of the heart which brings about this laxity of conduct, this indifference to routine, this spasmodic and chaotic administration of one's spiritual interests, is the result of unthinking explosions which make of Kundry the most weird and pathetic character in Wagner's great drama. She is the Wandering Jewess of the Christian legend. She was the happy, beautiful, winsome Jewish girl who laughed at the cross-burdened Master on his way to Calvary. That wanton laugh exiled her from the communion of heaven and made of her a wandering witch throughout the ages. How many lives are thus ostracized by the laughing demon, youth's pas- sion for amusement, the love of fun that drives out the love of truth, the tantalizing appetite for a "good time," that never is satisfied, that never can be satis- fied. It will never bring peace to the soul, but rather it makes joy forever a stranger to the heart. Oh, let the undercurrent of your lives be serious, young men and women, if you would "keep the heart with all diligence." Beware of the "fraterni- ties" and the "sororities" that undertake to fill your lives with joyous fellowship by ostracizing from your chosen circles the uncongenial, the poor, the stupid, the over-serious, aye, even those you may deem coarse and vicious. Beware, lest like Kundry you become a grewsome wanderer, an embodied 412 LOVE AND LOYALTY ghost, always yearning for the love and companion- ship that are driven away by the haunting laugh. A longing to serve and to help rather than a desire to avoid and evade unpleasant duties and persons will alone save you from the damnation of Kundry, who was doomed to become and remain at once a laughing fiend and a sobbing penitent, throughout unnumbered alternations of hope and despair, of flippancy and shame. Let me name one more safeguard to the citadel of the heart. The most fatal diseases are atmo- spheric. The sewer-gas that rises impalpable from the sewer, the malaria that lurks in the balmy air of mid- summer evenings, the bacteria of smallpox and the great white plague, assail us without note of warning to any of our senses. Thus also are we assailed by the diseases of the spirit. Look well to the drainage, the ventilation, the atmosphere of the heart. Oh, my young friends, beware of the mephitic poison that blights without warning, weakens without giving alarm, debilitates the source of life! Oh, the sick spirits that droop around us, for causes hard to deter- mine because they are so near, so persistent, so silent! I have just pleaded for the sanitary value of a church habit. I close by pleading with you to seek the vital- izing atmosphere of the best. Make friends with the noblest. Let the young seek the old, as the aged and honored seek the young. Good health is contagious. Frequent the uplands of the spirit; seek the mountain air. Health is, to say the least, as contagious as dis- SECRET SPRINGS 413 ease. Bask in the sunshine of the noble. You can- not attend to the moral drainage, the spiritual ventila- tion, you cannot control the atmosphere of the soul by yourself any more than you can alone secure those sanitary conditions for the body. Keeping the heart is more and more a social problem. Morals and religion are more and more things of the plural num- ber. This, then, is my last plea — "Keep your heart with all diligence" by seeking wisdom, by facing the problems of duty, by the regularity of your quest, by sober earnestness, and by a bracing environment, the companionship of nobility. THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE spake our Lord: "If one draw near Unto God — with praise and prayer — Half a cubitj God will go Twenty leagues to meet him so. He who walketh unto God, God will run upon the road. All the quicklier to forgive One who learns at last to live." — From Edwin Arnold's "Adam Quitting Eden" XXII THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE He needs no other rosary whose thread of life is strung with beads of love and thought. — From the Persian Six hundred and ninety-four years ago this very day (April 8, 1906), the Httle Itahan town of Assisi was beautiful with flowers. The streets were gay with bright costumes. Nobles and peasants were dressed in their very best. The ladies were decked in all their jewelries and fineries, and the girls marched in procession, dressed in white, wearing their pretty gilt crowns, to the churches to celebrate Palm Sun- day. In this procession was little eighteen-year old Clara, the oldest daughter of Favorino and Ortolano Sciffo, one of the most famed and famous families in the town. She was a petted child, reared amidst palatial elegance, already famous for her beauty. She was courted by the accomplished and eminent; suitors many sought her hand, and her doting parents urged the claims of their favorites. But the stately tones of the organ, the sonorous intonations of the priests at the altar, the solemn prayers and the mystic communion, failed to comfort the troubled heart of Clara. When, at the close of the solemn mass, the pretty procession of girls arose, each to receive a palm branch to carry down the cathedral aisle in 417 4i8 LOVE AND LOYALTY token of the triumphal entry of the Man of Nazareth into Jerusalem on the first day of the week which was to end in the mock trial, the loneliness of the garden and the agony and disgrace of the cross, Clara remained kneeling. She had no heart for the pretty festival. The kind old bishop, touched by the humility and bashfulness of the beautiful girl, descended the altar steps and with his own hand put into her hand her palm branch. That evening Clara slipped away from the ele- gance, the comforts, the privileges, the love, and the flattery, and what her playmates would have called the splendid times and the high chances, and quietly sought the simple friar, the friend of the poor, whose searching words had touched her heart with a sense of reality and filled her soul with a hunger for useful- ness, a thirst for sincerity. Two years before she had heard him preach, and his words had awakened in her young heart a thirst for righteousness that seemed to make real the Golden Rule and pos- sible the Beatitudes. During these two years she had watched his work, and her soul grew more and more dissatisfied with the shows, the jollities and the selfishness of the life she saw about her. With this good man she had conferred, and he had promised to welcome her and to help her. To this little known and unpopular missionary of the simple life, this advocate of the down-trodden, this enemy of sham and opponent of tyranny, the child fled. The good brothers sang their evening hymns, and THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 419 Francis, for such was the name of this humble preacher, read the words of Jesus to his disciples. The young girl promised to try to conform her life to these teachings. She laid aside her golden crown and, at her request, the good preacher cut off her golden locks and conducted her to a nunnery an hour's walk away. The next morning her knightly father pursued her in hot indignation ; he begged her to return, coaxed her, threatened her, but she was immovable. But the Benedictines in whose nunnery she had found shelter were frightened, and she was moved to another convent. Two weeks later her little sister Agnes followed her and begged the privilege of join- ing her in the quiet life of usefulness which she had chosen. This time the father's fury knew no bounds. With a band of relatives he burst into the convent, seized the child of fourteen and, in spite of her cries, they roughly dragged her away, but when she fainted in their arms they were alarmed and dropped the limp body in the field, leaving kind laborers to carry her back to the arms of Clara. There were other women in the town who were sick of the style, the show, and the wickedness about them, and one after another came to join Clara and Agnes. The good Francis helped them form a com- munity, provided quarters for them, and .set apart some of his fellow-workers to provide for their bodily needs. Meanwhile, under the leadership of the beau- tiful Clara, the women set themselves to work to 420 LOVE AND LOYALTY visit the miserable, to nurse the sick, to keep clean the altar cloth, and to spin the flax for more linen, until they unconsciously grew into an order. They called themselves the "Sisters of the Poor," but the world loved and still loves to know them by the endearing name of the "Little Clares." Clara survived the good pastor, Francis, twenty- seven years. She lived long enough to see his prin- ciples of poverty and submission distrusted by the Pope and ridiculed by the other organizations of the church. She lived to take the place of the great leader — St. Francis of Assisi — in defending the principles of simple living and high service. Popes and bishops begged of her to accept property, to accu- mulate riches, in order that she might do more good, but she steadfastly refused such offers, and they dared not oppose her judgment or over-ride her con- science. In her gray gown, fastened at the waist with a rope, deeply hooded and with sandaled feet, she went about blessing the suffering, inspiring the poor, rebuking, when need be, and, as she could, leading the rich into the higher riches. Francis was the great reformer in the church of the Middle Ages. The church soon canonized him; he became "Saint Francis" while Clara was still alive. But alongside of the story of Francis stands in his- tory the story of "Santa Clara," the "Little Sister of the Poor," who found freedom by escaping from the gilded bars of wealth, an imprisonment which she compared to that of the poor larks that are THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 421 "kept away from the blue sky, which is their home." When she exchanged her silken gown for the gray serge, her act was not renunciation but freedom; the vow was not one of poverty but of hberty — hber- ty to think high thoughts, to do good deeds, to seek the right, and to enjoy the companionship of the truly noble. Clara did not seek salvation by wearing a thorny crown of mortification and prayer; she sought the flowery path of service, of daily useful- ness, of humble tasks that were worth doing. Says Paul Sabatier in his beautiful Life of St. Francis : Under the shade of the olive trees of these Sisters Francis composed his finest work — that which Ernest Renan called the most prophetic utterances of modern religious sentiment — "The Canticle of the Sun." Beautiful is the story of Sister Clara, the wealthy child who chose to be the "Sister of the Poor," and found her freedom and joy in loving deeds and high thoughts. But Clara does not stand alone. About one hundred years later, in another Italian town — Sienna — there was born a daughter named Catherine into the home of a dyer, one famed for the- fine quality of his woolen fabrics, which were washed at the village fountain by his skillful daughters. The youngest of these was Catherine, and she became to the Dominican Order what Clara was to the Francis- can — the Mother Superior of saintly women. Early she saw visions; gladly she vowed herself to silence and to service; she chose to sleep on a pine board 422 LOVE AND LOYALTY with a log for a pillow. In a vision she took a crown of gold and jewels from her head and placed instead thereon a crown of thorns. To her was given the gift of tongues. Perhaps she was the first of that long line of women who have swayed people by public speech. She became an ambassador at royal courts. She faced bishops and popes and compelled them to square their lives by their pretensions. She won her power by renunciation, and art and poetry joined with history in glorifying the life of Saint Catherine of Sienna, the poor girl who rose to be a power in kings' palaces and to be a bishop of bishops, now a guide and anon a terror to cardinals and popes. But not all the saints of history wore serge robes, lived in nunneries, and renounced home joys. Thir- teen years after Clara was born in Assisi, Italy, there was born into the home of the king of Hungary a daughter, Elizabeth. She entered into the joys and delights of a palace. She had a royal lover and became a happy bride and a devoted mother, and, through all this, not in spite of it, became the Mother Bountiful, the benignant hand, the willing feet that carried sunshine into hovels, that nursed the plague- smitten, cheered the dying, sheltered the orphan, and encouraged the lonely, in such a fashion that she is known in history as "Saint Elizabeth." Church lore abounds in stories of her. Charles Kingsley made her the heroine of his "Saint's Tragedy," and Edwin Markham has made her the theme of one of THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 423 his beautiful poems called "Christmas Banqueting Time." He tells us how From the towers came snatch of song and many a ruddy shout. Elizabeth was there above, among her maiden band, Spinning the new-cut wool to warm the naked of her land. And at the festal board, while others reveled in wine, she rejoiced in simple fare and water from the spring. Her husband thus proudly drank to her health: "Now," cried the Duke : "Not all the saints have felt the wind of death; Come, drink to one who walks the earth, my wife, Elizabeth; And I will pledge her beauty with this water in her cup." So stooping down he caught and swung her golden goblet up, And tasted — paused — tasted again, for lo, it was rare wine ! More strangely sweet than any juice pressed from an earthly vine. "Ho, varlet, from what pipe this wine and from what cellar shelf?" "From good Saint Kilian's well, sire, and I drew it up myself !" She flushed; the table stared; the Duke looked foolishly about, The hall so still they heard far bells breaking the night without. Then up spoke Helias the Seer : "I saw the water poured — Saw too, an angel bending by our lady at the board. Pouring with courteous gesture from a flagon of red wine, Then fading in the brightness of the fire-light's dancing shine." She heard in glad amaze : he wins God's favor unawares Who, self-forgot in brother love, a brother's burden bears. The legends tell us that this lovely queen in her childhood collected what remained from the table, saved from her own repasts, and carried it in her 424 LOVE AND LOYALTY basket to the poor children of the town. She, too, was led from very shame to lay off her golden crown as she knelt in devotion in the presence of the thorn- crowned Master. Once on a severe winter day as she was carrying bread, meat and eggs in the skirts of her robe to a poor family, she met her husband returning from the chase, and when, half -indignant at her exposure, he demanded, "What have you there?" she blushingly opened her mantle, and lo! he saw naught but white and red roses, fragrant and beautiful in mid-winter. The proud husband took one from her lap, pinned it to his bosom and said, "I wear a rose of Paradise." When she moved through the pest-smitten hospital, little children clung to her robes, crying "Mutter! Mutter!" When at last her beloved husband, as a Crusader, died far from home, she faded away; no sooner had she breathed her last than her very couch was seized and divided into fragments as holy relics, and her burial place became a shrine to which German peasants still go on holy pilgrimages — so blessed is the life of charity and kindness. But not all the saints of the church are women. Beautiful as is the story of Clara, the humble, of Catherine, the eloquent, and of Elizabeth, the charit- able, the story of the Mother Church is rich with manly saints, masculine heroes, whose stories out- shine the stories of warriors, whose weapons were more powerful than swords. Travelers in France frequently come upon images THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 425 and paintings of an amiable saint carrying little foundlings in his arms or perhaps giving them shelter and care as they cluster at his feet. Here in Chicago, as in most large cities, there is a Catholic charitable organization whose special business it is to care for neglected and helpless orphans, under the title of "The Society of St. Vincent de Paul." Vin- cent was born in Gascony at the foot of the Pyrenees three hundred and thirty years ago. His father was a poor farmer, and the child began life as a shepherd lad. From his childhood he was marked with sweet- ness and gentleness. At twenty he donned the serge robe and the knotted cord and became a Franciscan. For ten years he studied for the priesthood, and at the end of this time, while on a voyage to Marseilles, he was captured by some African pirates and for two years served as a galley slave, sold from one master to another until he became the possession of one whose wife had pity on his gentle face and recog- nized his superiority and his training. She asked him to sing for her. He choked down his tears and chanted, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." Master and mistress accompanied him to Rome and gave him his liberty. He had known the wretchedness of slavery's chains, he had known what it was to be sick, friendless, and forlorn. He returned to Marseilles and began his hfe of helpful- ness, visiting the criminals in the prisons and the ruffians on the docks. He sought the wretched girls, the abandoned women, and, in the interest of such, 426 LOVE AND LOYALTY instituted the benignant order of the Sisters of Char- ity, whose business it was to visit the sick, the poor, and the wicked. At last this man who gave his life to the lowest was sought in the counsels of the mighty and at the bedside of kings. The proud Cardinal Richelieu consulted him, and Louis XIII when dying, summoned him from the bedside of galley slaves. He established hospitals for foundlings, and when war and turmoil raged he preached peace. Of course such a one was soon canonized, and he became "Saint Vincent de Paul" in 1747, having died in the eighty- fourth year of his age, eighty-four years before. In Paris there is a great church now which bears his name. It contains an authentic por- trait of the old man "with bright, clear eye, broad forehead, silver hair and beard, which fill up the out- line suggested by the imagination," says Mrs. Jame- son. But the Catholic church holds no monopoly of saints. Before the Catholic church was, and outside of its pale in Christian history, there have been gentle men and strong women who have strung the thread of their lives with beads of love and thought. We have but to think of John Howard giving his life for prisoners, of Dorothea Dix growing old in the service of the insane, of Lydia Maria Child, who gleaned our text for us in the writings of the Persians, learned in the religions of the world, loving poetry, no mean poet herself, sacrificing everything in the interest of the slave, willing to leave her place THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 427 among the most cultured in the city to nurse John Brown in his prison, when he was under sentence to be hanged. And then think of her who was a few weeks ago laid to rest, — mourned by the nation, hon- ored the round world over, who devoted her life to an unpopular cause, who in her youth was spurned, scorned, arrested, under sentence of imprisonment — all for an ideal, an ideal not yet realized. Susan B. Anthony argued well for the enfranchisement of women, but Susan B. Anthony herself was a vindi- cation of her theory, a justification of her claim, more powerful than anything she ever wrote or said. Think of our own Jane Addams — with a little patri- mony that would have enabled her to live her life com- fortably, quietly, easily, among her friends, but choos- ing to live among the foreign-born, the unlettered, the uncleanly, and perhaps the coarse, finding happi- ness in the company of peddlers, scrub-women, sales- women, draymen, and mechanics; finding delightful companionship with Bohemian, Italian, Russian-Jew, and modern Greek, over there on Halsted Street, making of an old dilapidated, neglected, abandoned mansion the center of a group of buildings that radi- ate life, cheer, and joy; that attract the cultured, the wealthy, the traveled — the most conspicuous glow- point in the city of Chicago. Do not these non-Catholics deserve the halo? Shall we not say "Saint Howard," "Saint Dorothea," "Saint Lydia," "Saint Susan," and "Saint Jane?" Shall we not crown these, aye, many more, whose 428 LOVE AND LOYALTY names have never appeared in the newspapers, who have not written themselves into our history, but who have "strung the thread of Hfe with beads of love and thought" — the patient mothers, the thought- ful uncles, the tender aunts, the honest, honorable, happy men and women ? Let us today crown them all with a chaplet of roses. All of them should have their palm branches today. But how does all this apply to the pretty verse from the Persian scripture which our St. Lydia Maria Child gleaned for us and which we found, among other great texts, in her book entitled The Aspira- tions of the World? The Rosary first meant "a wreath of roses" used in decorating the loved and the lovely. Greek, Egyp- tian, Mohammedan, as well as Catholic, were wont to count their prayers by the help of beads. Perhaps it was St. Dominic, the friend of St. Catherine, who first used the rosary as a systematic help to devo- tion. He organized it and made it a part of the church ritual. A complete rosary contains one hun- dred and fifty small beads separated into groups of ten or fifteen by larger beads, and the devout Catho- lic, when he goes to his prayers, recites the Pater Noster, the "Our Father," for each large bead and the Ave Maria, the "Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee; Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death," for each small one. Before beginning the rosary, the devout make the sign of the cross three times — once THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 429 to ward off the devil, once to implore the help of the Holy Trinity, and once to bring to mind the cross of man's salvation. Again, the rosary of one hundred and fifty beads is divided into three parts: The first fifty prayers are to fix the mind on the joyous mysteries — the gladness of life; the next fifty on the dolorous mys- teries — the sins and sorrows of life; and the last on the glorious mysteries — the hopes and triumphant immortality that await us. We will not say that there is no value in these repetitions. Words do suggests thoughts. Reitera- tion deepens mental impressions. What the figures, lines, and signs on the blackboard are to geometry and algebra, that the words, the notes, the intona- tions, the associations, the bended knee, the bowed head and the counted beads may be to the awaken- ing of conscience, the deepening of love, the strengthening of the will. The wise men of the world, the great teachers as well as the great priests and prophets, have appreciated the value of lepeti- tion. The old Jew at the close of the Sabbath, the Talmud tells us, would repeat the name of Elias, the prophet, over and over again, arranging the letters in as many different ways as possible. In the Hebrew the name is spelled with five letters, and these can be arranged in one hundred and twenty different ways. The devout Jew found peace and strength, perhaps ecstasy, in pronouncing the name in these 430 LOVE AND LOYALTY one hundred and twenty ways, such as EHas, Ehsa, Elsai, Esail, Lesai, and the rest. The Mohammedan has a rosary of ninety-nine beads, each one of which stands for a name of Deity, some favorite synonym of Allah. Some of these are "The Merciful," "The Compassionate," "The Help in Peril," "The Creator," "The Dominant," "The Provider," "The All-Knower," "The Loving," "The All-Glorious," "The Truth," "The Firm," "The Nearest Friend," "The Ever Living," "The Guide," "The Patient," "The Right," etc. And these the devout Moslem repeats over and over again. It is well; it is their way of chanting their Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, Who wert and art, and evermore shalt be ! But, my children, these repetitions have their dangers. Jesus cautioned his disciples against the use of vain repetitions in their prayers. It was this danger that the Persian poet saw, perhaps, when he broke out in the words of my text, He needs no other rosary whose thread of life is strung with beads of love and thought. A loving deed is the best call to prayer, and a high thought brings God near. Our St. Lydia in finding this text found many others teaching the same les- son. Her beautiful little book. Aspirations of the Soul, is open before me at the page where we found our text. On the same page I read : THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 431 One came to Mohammed, saying, "My mother has died; What shall I do for the good of her soul?" and the prophet replied, "Dig a well, that the thirsty may have water to drink." On the opposite page I read a text from the Koran which says : One hour of justice is worth seventy years of prayer. And again from the Hindu Bible I read: The Lord of Life should not be worshiped with faded flowers; rather with those that grow in thine own garden; reverence is itself a flower. Thus I have thought it best to try to illustrate rather than to analyze our text; to prove its beauty and power by the example of men and women who have lived the life of love and thought. Only such have entered into the peace and joy of worship. There are many things we want, few things we need. Things — much clothing, much jewelry, the silks and the ribbons, the carriages and the pianos, the com- forts and the luxuries — may imprison us as they did sweet Clara of Assisi, and the only escape from this prison is through the gates of love, through the por- tals of thought. The hfe of trust, of joy, of reverence, is beauti- ful. If the beads of the rosary help us, let us use them, but the beads of love and thought can never fail. What we love and what we think — these shape our prayers. Midas, the old king of Phrygia, begged of Bac- chus that whatever he touched might be turned to gold, and Bacchus, like a true god, granted the 432 LOVE AND LOYALTY prayer. And alas ! bread and wine, corn and apples, all turned at his touched into the cold, hard, yellow metal that would not appease hunger or satisfy thirst. He was starving in his golden house, and he prayed his Lord to take back the boon. Father Bacchus said, "Go plunge in the stream that flows by the city of Sardis, and thou shalt be delivered of thy curse." And Midas was cured of his greed. Now hating wealth, he served Pan, the shepherd god; he loved him who could play upon the reeds, and when even Apollo played upon his lyre, Midas claimed that Pan on his pipes yielded sweeter music, and Apollo punished his folly by giving him the ears of an ass. He sought to hide his shame by wearing a purple turban to conceal his long ears. But the barber, when he cut his hair, discovered the long ears; he dared not make public the scandal lest the king might behead him, but he could not keep the secret, so he dug a hole in the ground and, stoop- ing down, whispered softly, "King Midas has the ears of an ass," and then he filled up the hole. But rushes grew up out of the spot and whenever the wind blew the reeds whispered softly, "King Midas has the ears of an ass." So again he was the victim of his thoughts, the slave of his loves. How important, then, my children, is it for you who would be truly devout, peaceful, joyful, helpful, if you would become Claras, Janes, Francises, Vin- cents, and Howards in the world, to see to it that you string your lives with "beads of love and THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 433 thought," and thus fashion for yourselves the rosary of the holy life, which is now, always was and always will be the helpful life, the joyous, cheerful life. So may it be! CHARACTER-BUILDING POLONIUS' ADVICE TO HIS SON LAERTES There; my blessing with thee! And these few precepts in thy memory See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unAedg'd comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in. Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not cxpress'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy ; For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station Are most select and generous, chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day. Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell; my blessing season this iti thee! — From Shakespeare's Hamlet, (Act I, Scene iii) XXIII CHARACTER-BUILDING Above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day. Thou canst not then be false to any man. — Shakespeare Polonius was a garrulous old man; he narrowly escapes being a bore; but his advice to his son, Laer- tes, has long since become a classic in the literature of youth. No lines in Hamlet, the greatest drama of the greatest poet, are better known than those which you have given me for a text this morning. It is more than text, it is a sermon, complete in itself, rounded and symmetrical as an egg. To break an egg is to spoil its beauty and symmetry, but it makes the meat more available. You have laid the necessity upon me this morn- ing of breaking this Shakespeare egg. The result will be a sermon omelet, which, if properly cooked and digested, may prove nourishing. I am glad that the old man reminded the young lad of his responsibility to others; that he recognized promptly the boy's obligation to the "other man." If we are true to our text, whatever we do we must not invade the rights of others; we must not prove false to the interests of our associates; we must not crowd in the game of life, or poach on another's pre- 437 43^ LOVE AND LOYALTY serves. Our interests are identical with the interests of the community. My young friends, you must play fair; you must not get in the way. It is mean to block the wheels of the wagon in which others must ride. It is bad to play tricks. It is dishonorable to snatch. Happily this is no hardship. There is no fun unless you observe the rules of the game; there is no joy worth having that is born out of another's sorrow. The triumph built on another's defeat soon or late proves to be a failure. All fortune that brings misfortune to others is most unfortunate to the possessor thereof; all such gains are sure losses. Here, then, is the first point of our sermon : The true interests of the individual are identical with the interests of the community. As Emerson says, "That can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive." The mean man is always poor; selfish wealth is a curse; unkind power is a blight which aggravates the misery of the possessor. The wealth, whether of body or of mind, of dollars or of ideas, that is unmindful of the well-being of others, unkind to the other man, adds to the possessor's poverty, leads to a misery that over and over again ends in despair. Let him who doubts this statement note the record of the suicides in the daily papers. Above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. How can this be so ? Why should it be so ? Why CHARACTER-BUILDING 439 should not John have the whole apple though James have none, if John gets there first? Why should not Jane have all the silks she wants while Betty has nothing but calico, if Jane's father has money enough and Betty's father runs a wheelbarrow by the rail- road track which Jane's father owns and over which he rides in his private car? This is a big question — too big to be solved by young heads. But sometimes young unspoiled hearts may feel the truth that is confusing to the sagacity dnd sophistry of older heads. You can at least real- ize that the man with the wheelbarrow has had much to do in making the railroad which furnishes the money to buy Jane's silks ; and you can understand that without the man with the wheelbarrow the rail- road would soon become unsafe for the private car to run over; and perhaps the father of the girl in silks has not played the game fair with the father of the girl in calico. However that may be, you can understand that the man in the palace car and the man at the wheelbarrow are necessary to one another, and that a false note in the one life is an injury to the other life; and that the highest efficiency, the greatest truthfulness in one brings greatest profit to the other. You can also understand that this is because we are so made that we must live in com- munities. We have so many wants, so many dangers, as well as so many pleasures, so many and such high powers of enjoyment, that we cannot get along alone. The vulture which feeds on carrion flies by 440 LOVE AND LOYALTY himself and gorges himself in solitude. But the song birds fly in flocks. The wild ducks and geese fly in squadrons. The savage man wanders off alone in search of his prey; he is content with a small home and a narrow tribe. But civilized man wants straw- berries in winter and ice cream in mid-summer; the northern boy likes South American bananas ; the Cuban girl loves Michigan apples, and there must be an exchange for their mutual benefit. Shakespeare in our text meant the same thing that Paul did when he said, "None of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself." And they both meant the same thing that Emerson did when he said, All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone. There is great comfort, then, is there not, in the first point of our sermon — that our own interests are identical with the interests of others; that there is no antagonism between our real interests and those of the other man ; that what is best for us is best for him? Or, put it the other way: The very best thing for him is also the very best thing for us. If we only knew enough, there is no difference between trying to make the most of ourselves and giving the most to others, for it amounts to the same thing. But we do not always know enough to do this, and oftentimes we make a mistake when we say, "Never mind the other fellow ; I am going to do all I can for myself, get all the good I can, know all the CHARACTER-BUILDING 441 pleasures I may." So we are thrown back on the next point of our sermon — How can I be true to myself? How may I know what truth is? John Ruskin, one of the best teachers of youth, one of the highest preachers of the true life that ever wrote English, says, "There is great likeness between the virtue of man and the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits." He was always comparing the build- ing of a soul to the building of a house. Architec- ture to him was akin to character-building. One of his Seven Lamps of Architecture is "The Lamp of Truth," and among the lies that most menace the integrity of the house and the integrity of life, he puts, not the big falsehoods, but the little ones. He tells us : It is not calumny nor treachery that do the largest sum of mischief in the world But it is the glistening and softly spoken lie; the amiable fallacy; the patriotic lie of the his- torian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partisan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, through vi^hich we thank any man who pierces, as we should thank one who dug a well in a desert; happy, that the thirst for truth still remains with us, even when we have wilfully left the fountains of it. The three primary "instruments of precision" in the hands of the builder, the tools that are absolutely necessary, the fundamental tools of integrity, with- out which the building cannot go up true, are the "square," the "plumb-line" and the "level." These are the instruments that determine the integrity of 442 LOVE AND LOYALTY every structure. In the builder's bands tbe words "true" and "rigbt" are intercbangeable. Is the column plumb? Is the sill level ? Are the angles accur- ate? Then the building is right; it is true. True to what? True to the geometry of nature. A level consists of just a few drops of water in a glass; but it will quickly detect any falsehood in the line. The plumb-line is simply a weight at the end of the string, and the column must run with it or the build- ing falls. A slight variation distresses the eye; con- tinue the variation and the building cracks from the abnormal strain; continue it enough, and the building falls. The great monument in Washington to the first President lifts its point five hundred and fifty feet into the air. The last stone rests as solidly as the first course; the man looks out from the top window as confidently and safely as he does from the lower opening, because every stone was laid to the level and every perpendicular joint runs parallel with the plumb-line. So, if "to thine own self" you would be true, every line must be squared, every act must be plumbed, and every motive be . levelled, not by your whim, by the artificial demand of society, by arbitrary convention, by what "they do" or by what "I wish," but by the everlasting geometry of the uni- verse. Honesty is a thing of the multiplication table; the multiplication table is the primary formula of nature; it is the arithmetic of the stars, the geometry CHARACTER-BUILDING 443 of the "God of things as they are." Any attempt to tamper with this is dangerous; any variation from its standard is lying. The Greek column has become classic because it was strong; it was real; it was created for a purpose and served the purpose for which it was created. It is true, and consequently beautiful. But when you see the workmen on the new county building in Chi- cago creating what seem massive granite columns out of thin stone slabs and putting them in a position where there is no weight to be sustained, you are looking upon what is to be a hollow sham, a granite lie, a false bid for admiration that will eventually be withheld. It is a pretense of solidity and reality which will strike inward. It will affect the witness in the box, the jury in the panel, the lawyer behind the bar, the very judge on his bench. Do you ask, "How is one to know what is right, how to detect the true?" There are complications in architecture and in conduct requiring complex cal- culations and specifications drawn by an expert, but in the main the verdicts of the plumb-line, the level, and the square are easily rendered. The eye is so made that it detects any variation from the straight line. The child stands out from under a leaning wall. The very horses shy at a crooked building. My horse Roos does not like a leaning telephone pole by the roadside. Bring your conduct up to the dictum of the eye, the level of the heart; trust the 444 l-OVE AND LOYALTY square of conscience persistently, and you will be "true to thine own self." Says Ruskin again in his chapter on "The Lamp of Truth": Do not think of one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as unintended. Cast them all aside : they may be light and accidental; but they are an ugly soot from the smoke of the pit, for all that; and it is better that our hearts should be swept clean of them, without ever care as to which is largest or blackest. Speaking truth is like writing fair, and comes only by practice; it is less a matter of will than of habit, and I doubt if any occasion can be trivial which permits the practice and formation of such a habit. How curious is this interlocking of things and deeds, of stuffs and acts. The same words are used whether the carpenter means his intentions or his door. Of the one he says, "I tell the truth;" of the other he says, "It hangs true." The mason says, "That joint is right," and he also says, "My bill is right." The architect talks about "erecting" a building; your preacher pleads with you for a "rectitude of char- acter." The young husband saves his money that he may build a house. The Free Masons talk of deal- ing with the brethren "on the square," and President Roosevelt pleads for a "square deal." Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, says the poet. Does it not all mean that somehow the eye with- in has been tutored by the same forces that have fixed the center of gravity; that the conscience has been squared by the great Geometer who has ordained the CHARACTER-BUILDING 445 formulas of the triangle and the circle? The prin- ciples of geometry and of ethics are so allied that they can use the same diagrams. The laws of logic, the theorems of algebra, and the "Rule of Three" which we used to have in the arithmetic when I went to school, all come from the same source. They are somehow ordained by the same power; they prove each other. We can understand this relation better if we remember that the universe is alive; that it is still growing; that it is not finished. Astronomy is an older science than sociology. The planets had fixed their orbits and were regular before man began to grope and stumble, to fall and rise and fall again, and still again to rise. The scientist can calculate to a second the coming of an eclipse, but the best we can do in politics is to guess at the result of an election, and we often guess wrong. Boys and girls lead a more uncertain and pre- carious life than do calves and colts, and in the life of the boy and girl the latest developments are those of conscience and will. So you must ask what self you are going to be true to — the old, the lower, the meaner, or the newer, the higher, the nobler, and on that account the self that is most difficult to sustain. The body has its "appendix," a useless reminis- cence of the lower life that is gone. It is often in the way. Modern surgery finds it best oftentimes to cut it out. So there is often a moral "appendix" which allies us to the savage, to our brute ancestry, which 446 LOVE AND LOYALTY must be eliminated as soon as possible. Not only are there traces of the wolf and the bear in our natures, but of the crayfish which always travels backwards — the cowardly conservatism in our natures. Let us not be true to that self but rather true to the forward-looking instincts of the man, the pro- phetic yearnings; true to the scientist, the philoso- pher, and the psalmist, that is beginning to start in our souls, the investigator, the thinker and the wor- shiper; true to that which asks questions; to that which broods over great problems; to that which feels the mystery of life, the divine presence within and without. The claws are gone but the nails remain. To be true to our growing selves, we must resist the temptation to scratch our associates. We have outgrown horns and hoofs, but the doubled fist and the booted foot are still weapons all too convenient. "To thine own self be true!" This we can do only by being true to our best inheritance. Be worthy the blue or black eyes that have been handed down to us ready-made, clarified by the tears of our fore- elders, lit by the love of our grandmothers and our grandfathers. Friends, let us be true to the spiritual inheritance handed down to us by generations of discoverers, conquerors, and martyrs; be true to the splendid tribal and national bequests that are ours; live up to the heroic of our nation. Are you Irish? Be true to CHARACTER-BUILDING 447 the spirit of Emmet and O'Connor; be as lyrical as Moore; as gentle as Goldsmith. Are you Scotch? Remember your plaid ; do not disgrace the Camerons, the MacDonalds, or whatever clan you represent. Remember Scott and Burns and Carlyle; they are a part of you. "To thine own self be true." If Ger- man, rejoice in the fatherland, in the uncrowned kings of the Rhine-land — Schiller, Lessing, and Goethe. It was a French noble who carried upon his crest, ''Noblesse oblige!" — "Nobility compels!" Scandinavia had her Vikings; England has her Shakespeare; the United States has her Washington and her Lincoln. Discover thy lineage and "to thine own self be true." ''Within me there is more!'' is the legend inscribed on the beams of an old mansion of Bruges. "Within me there is more," is written on the beams of the humblest soul-mansion — more than ancestry, more than the venerable descent from monad through monkey to man, the record of which is indisputable. If you would be true "to thine own self," you must be true to this "plus," this spring propulsion; you must remember the oak in the acorn, the apple- tree in the apple seed, the harvest of July in the sow- ing of April. To refuse to yield to this push is to cheat the other man. Because this is the hardest thing to do, it is the highest loyalty to the other man. The mere hoarding of the treasures of the past is not the accumulation of wealth. The mere accu- 448 LOVE AND LOYALTY mulator, the piler-up of things, or the collator of facts, the miser, whether he accumulates gold or lore, whether his accumulations be represented by dollars or by books, is untrue to himself, to the "plus" in his own soul. Says David Starr Jordan in his last book. The College and the Man — I know a dog that has buried more than a hundred bones in his master's garden, and he is not on the whole very much of a dog. The old value of an education was based on the fact that it helped one to make a living. The boy went to school that he might get along. In the light of a newer thought, that is a poor boy or a weak girl who only manages to "get along," who is content with making a living, and the more elaborate the "living" the meaner the inspiration, if it stop there. In the same book of David Starr Jordan's, he says that the chancellor of the State University of Kansas asked each of the graduates of that institu- tion to state the advantages that came to them from their university life, as taught by experience. Several of the answers are given ; I like this one much : The gratifying feeling that I know at least a little more than is absolutely necessary for making a living. In so far, the one who gave that answer had been true to his higher self. This is probably what we mean by the higher education. Out of that "little more than is needed to make a living" comes the joy and the power of life, comes the test of excellence; CHARACTER-BUILDING 449 therein lies character. That "a little more than is needed for a living" is what makes the prophet and the bard, aye, the patriot and the martyr. In that "little more" we find the power of personality. Again in this same lecture Starr Jordan tells of his own experience as an undergraduate in the then new Cornell University. Over forty years ago there was a small circle of boys who met together at stated times to tell one another "what they had seen and what they had tried to see," not for the purpose of getting their lessons, increasing their standing, or capturing a degree. Out of these forty boys he calls the roll of twenty or more who are now living, teaching, inspiring, in college halls and elsewhere. Those who in the '70's showed each other "birch blossoms, bacteria, blue-bottle flies" etc., etc., are now presidents and professors in universities, scattered from Brazil to California. "To thine own self be true." You cannot do this unless you give wings to the "something more" with- in you. Take heed of the beckonings of your better nature; try your wings; learn the inspirations of love. The power to soar, the gift of flying, comes not by nature but by nurture. It is hard work to keep ahead of the line. But he only is true to himself who seeks it. Oh, it is wicked, very wicked, to kill a good pur- pose, to strangle a noble impulse. He who with his own hand runs a dagger into the heart of a fellow- being or into his own heart is cowardly. But he 4SO LOVE AND LOYALTY who stabs a great purpose to its death, who kills noble intentions in his own or other lives, is the basest of murderers. In the Arabian Nights is the story of a king who was about to buy live beautiful maidens. They were allowed to plead their own cause. One of them told of two brothers in Israel, one of whom asked the other : "Of all the deeds thou hast done, which was the most wicked ?" "This," replied the brother. "I passed by a hen roost one day; I stretched out my arm, seized a chicken, and strangled it, and then flung it back into the roost. This is the wickedest deed of my life. What is thy wickedest action, O brother?" And the second brother replied : "I prayed to Allah one day to demand a favor of him, for it is only when the soul is simply uplifted on high that prayer can be beautiful." And another of the maidens said : "Learn to know thyself, O King. Do thou not act until then, and then do thou act in accordance with all thy desires, having great care always that thou do not injure thy neighbor." Now we are coming into the higher realms where the truer self lives. To be true to this alone is the only way of escaping disloyalty to other men. Here is another story from the Arabian Nights, as told by Maeterlinck: Khali f Omar, with his venerable teacher, Abou-Zeid, walked forth in the darkness of the night, far from his palace gate, where he saw a feeble fire burning. He sought it and found a CHARACTER-BUILDING 451 poor woman trying to bring a caldron to the boiling point while two wretched children clung to her, piteously moaning. "Peace unto thee, O woman ! What dost thou here alone in the night and the cold?" said the khalif. "I am trying to make this water boil that my children may drink, who perish of hunger and cold; but for the misery we have to bear, Allah will surely one day ask reckoning of Omar, the khalif." "But," said the disguised khalif, "dost thou think, O woman, that Omar can know of thy wretchedness?" She answered : "Wherefore, then, is Omar the khalif if he be unaware of the misery of his people and of each one of his subjects?" The khalif was silent. "Let us go hence," he said to Abou-Zeid. He hastened to the store-houses of his kitchen, drew forth a sack of flour and a jar of sheep fat. "O Abou-Zeid, help thou me to charge these on my back," said the khalif. "Not so," replied the attendant ; "suffer that I carry them on my back, O Commander of the Faithful." Omar said calmly: "Wilt thou also, O Abou-Zeid, bear the weight of my sins on the Day of Resurrection?" And Abou-Zeid was obliged to lay the jar of fat and the sack of flour on the back of the khalif, who hastened to the woman by the fire, and with his own hands did he put the flour and the fat into the caldron over the fire, which fire he quick- ened with his breath, and the smoke whereof filled his beard. When the food was prepared, with his own breath did he cool it that the children might eat. Then he left the sack and the jar and went his way saying: "O Abou-Zeid, the light from this fire that I have beheld today has enlightened me also." After all, my young friends, that is the highest 452 LOVE AND LOYALTY illumination, the clearest light, which will guide us into the usefulness which is the reward of the high- est loyalty. It is not far away from any of us ; it is a short walking distance from the king's palace to the widow's fire and the orphan's pot of thin soup, but it is a walking distance; we cannot ride; we cannot fly to the illuminations of disinterestedness ; we must go and carry our own bag of flour, our own pot of fat. "Always room at the top," do they say? Yes, but, as President Jordan quotes from someone, "The elevator is not running." We must climb; we must keep going; safety is in motion, not in standing. A few weeks ago I rode on the top of a four- horse stage over a giddy mountain road in Arizona, which was carved out of the side of the ledge of Fish Creek Canon. The road was precipitous and winding. A few feet, and, at times, a few inches of deviation from the beaten track would have precipi- tated horses, stage, driver, and riders into the bottom of the cafion, seven hundred or a thousand feet below. To halt, to hold back, to stop there to test wheels or to tighten a girth, would have been peril- ous, might have been calamitous. But the driver cracked his whip; the horses trotted gaily down the royal road amid the inspiring scenery, which filled this rider, who sat on the box with the driver, with songs and hurrahs. The wheels had been tested and the girths tightened before the critical point was reached. The horses knew their olaces; the driver CHARACTER-BUILDING 453 knew the road; we were all safe if we kept going; safety was in motion. Courage is in the forward look. Keep going when you come to the precipitous places in life; whip up and ride merrily along. "It is looking down that makes us dizzy," says Browning. Look up and go ahead. This glow, this courage, this safety, this power, can be represented by no other word so well as by the word "enthusi- asm," a word coined by the unerring insight of the Greek — "eu Oeo'^ — "God within." Young John Ruskin, to please his lady-love, wrote "The King of the Golden River," a delightful bit of fairy tale which surprised his friends and delights all readers. But the younger John Ruskin, to right the wrongs of a maligned artist, to befriend a friend- less genius, undertook the far greater task of writing his Modern Painters, which made Turner famous and John Ruskin the master art-critic in the English language. It is only by earnest and high service that we can be true to that self that is enriched by all the past and enkindled by the unmeasured future. Above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. POSTLUDE And the child Samuel ministered unto Jehovah before Eli. And the word of Jehovah was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision. And it came to pass at that time zvhen Eli was laid dozvn in his place (nozv his eyes had begun to zva.v dim, so that he could not see), and the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel zvas laid down to sleep, in the temple of Jehovah, where the ark of God zvas; that Jehovah called Samuel: and he said. Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said. Here am I; for Thou calledst me. And he said, J called not; lie down again. And he zvent and lay dozvn. And Jehovah called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and zvent to Eli, and said. Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he anszvered, I called not, my son; lie dozvn again. Now Samuel did not yet knozv Jehovah, neither zvas the zvord of Jehovah yet revealed unto him. And Jehovah called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am J; for thou calledst me. And Eli per-ceived that Jehovah had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie dozvn: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shall say. Speak, Jehovah; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel zvent and lay dozvn in his place. And Jehovah came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, Speak, for thy servant heareth. — I Samuel 3 : i-ii 454 Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01248 8153 Date Due iii)