THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD.
"One ruddy drop of manly blood the surging sea outweighs."
"Manhood overtops all titles."
The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of
cities, nor the crops; no, but the kind of man the country turns
out.--EMERSON.
Hew the block off, and get out the man.--POPE.
Eternity alone will reveal to the human race its debt of gratitude to the
peerless and immortal name of Washington.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Better not be at all
Than not be noble.
TENNYSON.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
LOWELL.
Virtue alone out-builds the pyramids:
Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.
YOUNG.
Were one so tall to touch the pole,
Or grasp creation in his span,
He must be measured by his soul,
The mind's the measure of the man.
WATTS.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
BAILEY.
"Good name in man or woman
Is the immediate jewel of their souls."
But this one thing I know, that these qualities did not now begin to
exist, cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in my grave.--EMERSON.
A Moor was walking in his garden when a Spanish cavalier suddenly fell at
his feet, pleading for concealment from pursuers who sought his life in
revenge for the killing of a Moorish gentleman. The Moor promised aid,
and locked his visitor in a summer-house until night should afford
opportunity for his escape. Not long after the dead body of his son was
brought home, and from the description given he knew the Spaniard was the
murderer. He concealed his horror, however, and at midnight unlocked the
summer-house, saying, "Christian, the youth whom you have murdered was my
only son. Your crime deserves the severest punishment. But I have
solemnly pledged my word not to betray you, and I disdain to violate a
rash engagement even with a cruel enemy." Then, saddling one of his
fleetest mules, he said, "Flee while the darkness of night conceals you.
Your hands are polluted with blood; but God is just; and I humbly thank
Him that my faith is unspotted, and that I have resigned judgment to Him."
[Illustration: John Greenleaf Whittier (missing from book)]
Character never dies. As Longfellow says:--
"Were a star quenched on high,
For ages would its light,
Still traveling downward from the sky,
Shine on our mortal sight.
"So when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men."
The character of Socrates was mightier than the hemlock, and banished the
fear and sting of death.
Who can estimate the power of a well-lived life? _Character is power_.
Hang this motto in every school in the land, in every home, in every
youth's room. Mothers, engrave it on every child's heart.
You cannot destroy one single atom of a Garrison, even though he were
hanged. The mighty force of martyrs to truth lives; the candle burns
more brilliantly than before it was snuffed. "No varnish or veneer of
scholarship, no command of the tricks of logic or rhetoric, can ever make
you a positive force in the world;" but your character can.
When the statue of George Peabody, erected in one of the thoroughfares of
London, was unveiled, the sculptor Story was asked to speak. Twice he
touched the statue with his hand, and said, "That is my speech. That is
my speech." What could be more eloquent? Character needs no
recommendation. It pleads its own cause.
"Show me," said Omar the Caliph to Amru the warrior, "the sword with
which you have fought so many battles and slain so many infidels." "Ah!"
replied Amru, "the sword without the arm of the master is no sharper nor
heavier than the sword of Farezdak the poet." So one hundred and fifty
pounds of flesh and blood without character is of no great value.
Napoleon was so much impressed with the courage and resources of Marshal
Ney, that he said, "I have two hundred millions in my coffers, and I
would give them all for Ney."
In Agra, India, stands the Taj Mahal, the acme of Oriental architecture,
said to be the most beautiful building in the world. It was planned as a
mausoleum for the favorite wife of Shah Jehan. When the latter was
deposed by his son Aurungzebe, his daughter Jahanara chose to share his
captivity and poverty rather than the guilty glory of her brother. On
her tomb in Delhi were cut her dying words: "Let no rich coverlet adorn
my grave; this grass is the best covering for the tomb of the poor in
spirit, the humble, the transitory Jahanara, the disciple of the holy men
of Christ, the daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan." Travelers who visit
the magnificent Taj linger long by the grass-green sarcophagus in Delhi,
but give only passing notice to the beautiful Jamma Masjid, a mausoleum
afterwards erected in her honor.
Some writer has well said that David of the throne we cannot always
recall with pleasure, but David of the Psalms we never forget. The
strong, sweet faith of the latter streams like sunlight through even the
closed windows of the soul, long after the wearied eye has turned with
disgust from all the gilded pomp and pride of the former.
Robertson says that when you have got to the lowest depths of your heart,
you will find there not the mere desire of happiness, but a craving as
natural to us as the desire for food,--the craving for nobler, higher
life.
"Private Benjamin Owen, ---- Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, was found
asleep at his post while on picket duty last night. The court-martial
has sentenced him to be shot in twenty-four hours, as the offense
occurred at a critical time." "I thought when I gave Bennie to his
country," said farmer Owen as he read the above telegram with dimming
eyes, "that no other father in all this broad laud made so precious a
gift. He only slept a minute,--just one little minute,--at his post, I
know that was all, for Bennie never dozed over a duty. How prompt and
trustworthy he was! He was as tall as I, and only eighteen! and now they
shoot him because he was found asleep when doing sentinel duty!" Just
then Bennie's little sister Blossom answered a tap at the door, and
returned with a letter. "It is from him," was all she said.
DEAR FATHER,--For sleeping on sentinel duty I am to be shot. At first,
it seemed awful to me; but I have thought about it so much now that it
has no terror. They say that they will not bind me, nor blind me; but
that I may meet my death like a man. I thought, father, that it might
have been on the battlefield, for my country, and that, when I fell, it
would be fighting gloriously; but to be shot down like a dog for nearly
betraying it,--to die for neglect of duty! Oh, father, I wonder the very
thought does not kill me! But I shall not disgrace you. I am going to
write you all about it; and when I am gone, you may tell my comrades; I
cannot now.
You know I promised Jemmie Carr's mother I would look after her boy; and,
when he fell sick, I did all I could for him. He was not strong when he
was ordered back into the ranks, and the day before that night I carried
all his baggage, besides my own, on our march. Toward night we went in
on double-quick, and the baggage began to feel very heavy. Everybody was
tired; and as for Jemmie, if I had not lent him an arm now and then, he
would have dropped by the way. I was all tired out when we came into
camp; and then it was Jemmie's turn to be sentry, and I could take his
place; but I was too tired, father. I could not have kept awake if a gun
had been pointed at my head; but I did not know it until,--well, until it
was too late.
They tell me to-day that I have a short reprieve,--given to me by
circumstances,--"time to write to you," our good colonel says. Forgive
him, father, he only does his duty; he would gladly save me if he could;
and do not lay my death up against Jemmie. The poor boy is
broken-hearted, and does nothing but beg and entreat them to let him die
in my stead. I can't bear to think of mother and Blossom. Comfort them,
father! Tell them I die as a brave boy should, and that, when the war is
over, they will not be ashamed of me, as they must be now. God help me:
it is very hard to bear! Good-by, father. To-night, in the early
twilight, I shall see the cows all coming home from pasture, and precious
little Blossom standing on the back stoop, waiting for me,--but I shall
never, never come! God bless you all!
"God be thanked!" said Mr. Owen reverently; "I knew Bennie was not the
boy to sleep carelessly."
Late that night a little figure glided out of the house and down the
path. Two hours later the conductor of the southward mail lifted her
into a car at Mill Depot. Next morning she was in New York, and the next
she was admitted to the White House at Washington. "Well, my child,"
said the President in pleasant, cheerful tones, "what do you want so
bright and early this morning?" "Bennie's life, please, sir," faltered
Blossom. "Bennie? Who is Bennie?" asked Mr. Lincoln. "My brother, sir.
They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post," said the little
girl. "I remember," said the President; "it was a fatal sleep. You see,
child, it was a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have
been lost through his culpable negligence." "So my father said; but poor
Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two,
sir, and it was Jemmie's night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and
Bennie never thought about himself,--that he was tired, too." "What is
that you say, child? Come here; I do not understand." He read Bennie's
letter to his father, which Blossom held out, wrote a few lines, rang his
bell, and said to the messenger who appeared, "Send this dispatch at
once." Then, turning to Blossom, he continued: "Go home, my child, and
tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even
when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks
the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or--wait until to-morrow;
Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death, he shall
go with you." "God bless you, sir," said Blossom. _Not all the queens
are crowned._
Two days later, when the young soldier came with his sister to thank the
President, Mr. Lincoln fastened the strap of a lieutenant upon his
shoulder, saying, "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage,
and die for the act without complaining, deserves well of his country."
When telegrams poured in announcing terrible carnage upon battlefields in
our late war, and when President Lincoln's heart-strings were nearly
broken over the cruel treatment of our prisoners at Andersonville, Belle
Isle, and Libby Prison, he never once departed from his famous motto,
"With malice toward none, with charity for all." When it was reported
that among those returned at Baltimore from Southern prisons, not one in
ten could stand alone from hunger and neglect, and many were so eaten and
covered by vermin as to resemble those pitted by smallpox, and so
emaciated that they were living skeletons, not even these reports could
move the great President to retaliate in kind upon the Southern prisoners.
Among the slain on the battlefield at Fredericksburg was the body of a
youth upon which was found next the heart a photograph of Lincoln. Upon
the back of it were these words: "God bless President Lincoln." The
youth had been sentenced to death for sleeping at his post, but had been
pardoned by the President.
David Dudley Field said he considered Lincoln the greatest man of his
day. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and others were great, each in one way, but
Lincoln was great in many ways. There seemed to be hidden springs of
greatness in this man that would gush forth in the most unexpected way.
The men about him were at a loss to name the order of his genius. Horace
Greeley was almost as many-sided, but was a wonderful combination of
goodness and weakness, while Lincoln seemed strong in every way. After
Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation he said, "The promise
must now be kept; I shall never recall one word."
Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury, bears the following testimony to the
influence for good which Gladstone, when a school-fellow at Eton,
exercised upon him. "I was a thoroughly idle boy; but I was saved from
worse things by getting to know Gladstone." At Oxford we are told the
effect of his example was so strong that men who followed him there ten
years later declare "that undergraduates drank less in the forties
because Gladstone had been so courageously abstemious in the thirties."
The Rev. John Newton said, "I see in this world two heaps of human
happiness and misery; now if I can take but the smallest bit from one
heap and add it to the other, I carry a point; if as I go home a child
has dropped a half-penny, and by giving it another I can wipe away its
tears, I feel I have done something."
A holy hermit, who had lived for six years in a cave of the Thebaid,
fasting, praying, and performing severe penances, spending his whole life
in trying to make himself of some account with God, that he might be sure
of a seat in Paradise, prayed to be shown some saint greater than
himself, in order that he might pattern after him to reach still greater
heights of holiness. The same night an angel came to him and said, "If
thou wouldst excel all others in virtue and sanctity, strive to imitate a
certain minstrel who goes begging and singing from door to door." The
hermit, much chagrined, sought the minstrel and asked him how he had
managed to make himself so acceptable to God. The minstrel hung down his
head and replied, "Do not mock me, holy father; I have performed no good
works, and I am not worthy to pray. I only go from door to door to amuse
people with my viol and my flute." The hermit insisted that he must have
done some good deeds. The minstrel replied, "Nay, I know of nothing good
that I have done." "But how hast thou become a beggar? Hast thou spent
thy substance in riotous living?" "Nay, not so," replied the minstrel.
"I met a poor woman running hither and thither, distracted, because her
husband and children had been sold into slavery to pay a debt. I took
her home and protected her from certain sons of Belial, for she was very
beautiful. I gave her all I possessed to redeem her family and returned
her to her husband and children. Is there any man who would not have
done the same?" The hermit shed tears, and said in all his life he had
not done as much as the poor minstrel.
"A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor
than silver or gold."
A gentleman, traveling through West Virginia, went to a house, and
procured food for himself and companion and their horses. He wanted to
make payment, but the woman was ashamed to take pay for a mere act of
kindness. He pressed the money upon her. Finally she said, "If you
don't think I'm mean, I'll take one quarter of a dollar from you, so as
to look at it now and then, for there has been no money in this house for
a year."
Do not take the world's estimate of success. The real height of the
Washington Monument is not measured between the capstone and the earth,
but includes the fifty feet of solid masonry below. Many of the most
successful lives are like the rivers of India which run under ground,
unseen and unheard by the millions who tread above them. But have these
rivers therefore no influence? Ask the rich harvest fields if they feel
the flowing water beneath. The greatest worth is never measured. It is
only the nearest stars whose distances we compute. That life whose
influence can be measured by the world's tape-line of dollars and corn is
not worth the measuring.
All the forces in nature that are the most powerful are the quietest. We
speak of the rolling thunder as powerful; but gravitation, which makes no
noise, yet keeps orbs in their orbits, and the whole system in harmony,
binding every atom in each planet to the great centre of all attraction,
is ten thousand times ten thousand times more powerful. We say the
bright lightning is mighty; so it is when it rends the gnarled oak into
splinters, or splits solid battlements into fragments; but it is not half
so powerful as the gentle light that comes so softly from the skies that
we do not feel it, that travels at an inconceivable speed, strikes and
yet is not felt, but exercises an influence so great that the earth is
clothed with verdure through its influence, and all nature beautified and
blessed by its ceaseless action. The things that make no noise, make no
pretension, may be really the strongest. The most conclusive logic that
a preacher uses in the pulpit will never exercise the influence that the
consistent piety of character will exercise over all the earth.
The old Sicilian story relates how Pythias, condemned to death through
the hasty anger of Dionysius of Syracuse, asked that he might go to his
native Greece, and arrange his affairs, promising to return before the
time appointed for his execution. The tyrant laughed his request to
scorn, saying that when he was once safe out of Sicily no one would
answer for his reappearance. At this juncture, Damon, a friend of the
doomed man, offered to become surety for him, and to die in his stead if
he did not come back in time. Dionysius was surprised, but accepted the
proposition. When the fatal day came, Pythias had not reached Syracuse,
but Damon remained firm in his faith that his friend would not fail him.
At the very last hour Pythias appeared and announced himself ready to
die. But such touching loyalty moved even the iron heart of Dionysius;
accordingly he ordered both to be spared, and asked to be allowed to make
a third partner in such a noble friendship. It is a grander thing to be
nobly remembered than to be nobly born.
When Attila, flushed with conquest, appeared with his barbarian horde
before the gates of Rome in 452, Pope Leo alone of all the people dared
go forth and try to turn his wrath aside. A single magistrate followed
him. The Huns were awed by the fearless majesty of the unarmed old man,
and led him before their chief, whose respect was so great that he agreed
not to enter the city, provided a tribute should be paid to him.
Blackie thinks there is no kind of a sermon so effective as the example
of a great man, where we see the thing done before us,--actually
done,--the thing of which we were not even dreaming.
It was said that when Washington led the American forces as commanding
officer, it "doubled the strength of the army."
When General Lee was in conversation with one of his officers in regard
to a movement of his army, a plain farmer's boy overheard the general's
remark that he had decided to march upon Gettysburg instead of
Harrisburg. The boy telegraphed this fact to Governor Curtin. A special
engine was sent for the boy. "I would give my right hand," said the
governor, "to know if this boy tells the truth." A corporal replied,
"Governor, I know that boy; it is impossible for him to lie; there is not
a drop of false blood in his veins." In fifteen minutes the Union troops
were marching to Gettysburg, where they gained a victory. Character is
power. The great thing is to be a man, to have a high purpose, a noble
aim, to be dead in earnest, to yearn for the good and the true.
"Your lordships," said Wellington in Parliament, "must all feel the high
and honorable character of the late Sir Robert Peel. I was long
connected with him in public life. We were both in the councils of our
sovereign together, and I had long the honor to enjoy his private
friendship. In all the course of my acquaintance with him, I never knew
a man in whose truth and justice I had greater confidence, or in whom I
saw a more invariable desire to promote the public service. In the whole
course of my communication with him, I never knew an instance in which he
did not show the strongest attachment to truth; and I never saw in the
whole course of my life the smallest reason for suspecting that he stated
anything which he did not firmly believe to be the fact."
"The Secretary stood alone," said Grattan of the elder Pitt. "Modern
degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the
features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august
mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so
impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be
relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of
vicious politics, sunk him to the level of the vulgar great; but,
overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his
ambition, fame. A character so exalted, so unsullied, so various, so
authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the
name of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption imagined,
indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of
the inconsistency of his policy, and much of the ruin of his victories;
but the history of his country and the calamities of the enemy answered
and refuted her. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that
could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an
eloquence to summon mankind to united exertion, or to break the bonds of
slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded
authority; something that could establish or overwhelm an empire, and
strike a blow in the world that would resound through the universe."
Pitt was Paymaster-General for George II. When a subsidy was voted a
foreign office, it was customary for the office to claim one half per
cent. for honorarium. Pitt astonished the King of Sardinia by sending
him the sum without any deduction, and further astonished him by refusing
a present as a compliment to his integrity. He was a poor man.
Washington would take no pay as commander-in-chief of the Continental
armies. He would keep a strict account of his expenses; and these, he
doubted not, would be discharged.
Remember, the main business of life is not to do, but to become; an
action itself has its finest and most enduring fruit in character.
In 1837, after George Peabody moved to London, there came a commercial
crisis in the United States. Many banks suspended specie payments. Many
mercantile houses went to the wall, and thousands more were in great
distress. Edward Everett said, "The great sympathetic nerve of the
commercial world, credit, as far as the United States were concerned, was
for the time paralyzed." Probably not a half dozen men in Europe would
have been listened to for a moment in the Bank of England upon the
subject of American securities, but George Peabody was one of them. His
name was already a tower of strength in the commercial world. In those
dark days his integrity stood four-square in every business panic.
Peabody retrieved the credit of the State of Maryland, and, it might
almost be said, of the United States. His character was the magic wand
which in many a case changed almost worthless paper into gold. Merchants
on both sides of the Atlantic procured large advances from him, even
before the goods consigned to him had been sold.
Thackeray says, "Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's
faces which is honored wherever presented. You cannot help trusting such
men; their very presence gives confidence. There is a 'promise to pay'
in their very faces which gives confidence, and you prefer it to another
man's indorsement." _Character is credit._
With most people, as with most nations, "things are worth what they will
sell for," and the dollar is mightier than the sword. As good as gold
has become a proverb--as though it were the highest standard of
comparison.
Themistocles, having conceived the design of transferring the government
of Greece from the hands of the Lacedaemonians into those of the
Athenians, kept his thoughts continually fixed on this great project.
Being at no time very nice or scrupulous in the choice of his measures,
he thought anything which could tend to the accomplishment of the end he
had in view just and lawful. Accordingly in an assembly of the people
one day, he intimated that he had a very important design to propose; but
he could not communicate it to the public at large, because the greatest
secrecy was necessary to its success, and he therefore desired that they
would appoint a person to whom he might explain himself on the subject.
Aristides was unanimously selected by the assembly, which deferred
entirely to his opinion. Themistocles, taking him aside, told him that
the design he had conceived was to burn the fleet belonging to the rest
of the Grecian states, which then lay in a neighboring port, when Athens
would assuredly become mistress of all Greece. Aristides returned to the
assembly, and declared to them that nothing could be more advantageous to
the commonwealth than the project of Themistocles, but that, at the same
time, nothing in the world could be more unfair. The assembly
unanimously declared that, since such was the case, Themistocles should
wholly abandon his project.
A tragedy by Aeschylus was once represented before the Athenians, in
which it was said of one of the characters, "that he cared not more to be
just than to appear so." At these words all eyes were instantly turned
upon Aristides as the man who, of all the Greeks, most merited that
distinguished reputation. Ever after he received, by universal consent,
the surname of the Just,--a title, says Plutarch, truly royal, or rather
truly divine. This remarkable distinction roused envy, and envy
prevailed so far as to procure his banishment for years, upon the unjust
suspicion that his influence with the people was dangerous to their
freedom. When the sentence was passed by his countrymen, Aristides
himself was present in the midst of them, and a stranger who stood near,
and could not write, applied to him to write for him on his shell-ballot.
"What name?" asked the philosopher. "Aristides," replied the stranger.
"Do you know him, then?" said Aristides, "or has he in any way injured
you?" "Neither," said the other, "but it is for this very thing I would
he were condemned. I can go nowhere but I hear of Aristides the Just."
Aristides inquired no further, but took the shell, and wrote his name on
it as desired. The absence of Aristides soon dissipated the
apprehensions which his countrymen had so idly indulged. He was in a
short time recalled, and for many years after took a leading part in the
affairs of the republic, without showing the least resentment against his
enemies, or seeking any other gratification than that of serving his
countrymen with fidelity and honor. The virtues of Aristides did not
pass without reward. He had two daughters, who were educated at the
expense of the state, and to whom portions were allotted from the public
treasury.
The strongest proof, however, of the justice and integrity of Aristides
is, that notwithstanding he had possessed the highest employments in the
republic, and had the absolute disposal of its treasures, yet he died so
poor as not to leave money enough to defray the expenses of his funeral.
Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong;
they, and not the police, guarantee the execution of the laws. Their
influence is the bulwark of good government.
It was said of the first Emperor Alexander of Russia, that his personal
character was equivalent to a constitution. Of Montaigne, it was said
that his high reputation for integrity was a better protection for him
than a regiment of horse would have been, he being the only man among the
French gentry who, during the wars of the Fronde, kept his castle gates
unbarred. There are men, fortunately for the world, who would rather be
right than be President.
Fisher Ames, while in Congress, said of Roger Sherman, of Connecticut:
"If I am absent during a discussion of a subject, and consequently know
not on which side to vote, when I return I always look at Roger Sherman,
for I am sure if I vote with him, I shall vote right."
Character gravitates upward, as with a celestial gravitation, while mere
genius, without character, gravitates downward. How often we see in
school or college young men, who are apparently dull and even stupid,
rise gradually and surely above others who are without character, merely
because the former have an upward tendency in their lives, a reaching-up
principle, which gradually but surely unfolds, and elevates them to
positions of honor and trust. There is something which everybody admires
in an aspiring soul, one whose tendency is upward and onward, in spite of
hindrances and in defiance of obstacles.
We may try to stifle the voice of the mysterious angel within, but it
always says "yes" to right actions and "no" to wrong ones. No matter
whether we heed it or not, no power can change its decision one iota.
Through health, through disease, through prosperity and adversity, this
faithful servant stands behind us in the shadow of ourselves, never
intruding, but weighing every act we perform, every word we utter,
pronouncing the verdict "right" or "wrong."
Francis Horner, of England, was a man of whom Sydney Smith said, that
"the ten commandments were stamped upon his forehead." The valuable and
peculiar light in which Horner's history is calculated to inspire every
right-minded youth is this: he died at the age of thirty-eight, possessed
of greater influence than any other private man, and admired, beloved,
trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless and the base. No
greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any deceased member. How
was this attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant.
By wealth? Neither he nor any of his relatives ever had a superfluous
sixpence. By office? He held but one, and that for only a few years, of
no influence, and with very little pay. By talents? His were not
splendid, and he had no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition was
to be right. By eloquence? He spoke in calm, good taste, without any of
the oratory that either terrifies or seduces. By any fascination of
manner? His was only correct and agreeable. By what was it, then?
Merely by sense, industry, good principles and a good heart, qualities
which no well constituted mind need ever despair of attaining. It was
the force of his character that raised him; and this character was not
impressed on him by nature, but formed, out of no peculiarly fine
elements, by himself. There were many in the House of Commons of far
greater ability and eloquence. But no one surpassed him in the
combination of an adequate portion of these with moral worth. Horner was
born to show what moderate powers, unaided by anything whatever except
culture and goodness, may achieve, even when these powers are displayed
amidst the competition and jealousies of public life.
"When it was reported in Paris that the great Napoleon was dead, I passed
the Palais Royal," says a French writer, "where a public crier called,
'Here's your account of the death of Bonaparte.' This cry which once
would have appalled all Europe fell perfectly flat. I entered," he adds,
"several cafés, and found the same indifference,--coldness everywhere; no
one seemed interested or troubled. This man, who had conquered Europe
and awed the world, had inspired neither the love nor the admiration of
even his own countrymen. He had impressed the world with his
marvelousness, and had inspired astonishment but not love."
Emerson says that Napoleon did all that in him lay to live and thrive
without moral principle. It was the nature of things, the eternal law of
man and of the world, which balked and ruined him; and the result, in a
million attempts of this kind, will be the same. His was an experiment,
under the most favorable conditions, to test the powers of intellect
without conscience. Never elsewhere was such a leader so endowed, and so
weaponed; never has another leader found such aids and followers. And
what was the result of this vast talent and power, of these immense
armies, burned cities, squandered treasures, immolated millions of men,
of this demoralized Europe? He left France smaller, poorer, feebler than
he found her.
A hundred years hence what difference will it make whether you were rich
or poor, a peer or a peasant? But what difference may it not make
whether you did what was right or what was wrong?
"The 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said George William Curtis, "was sold,
through Dr. Johnson's mediation, for sixty pounds; and ten years after,
the author died. With what love do we hang over its pages! What springs
of feeling it has opened! Goldsmith's books are influences and friends
forever, yet the five thousandth copy was never announced, and Oliver
Goldsmith, M. D., often wanted a dinner! Horace Walpole, the coxcomb of
literature, smiled at him contemptuously from his gilded carriage.
Goldsmith struggled cheerfully with his adverse fate, and died. But then
sad mourners, whom he had aided in their affliction, gathered around his
bed, and a lady of distinction, whom he had only dared to admire at a
distance, came and cut a lock of his hair for remembrance. When I see
Goldsmith, thus carrying his heart in his hand like a palm branch, I look
on him as a successful man, whom adversity could not bring down from the
level of his lofty nature."
Dr. Maudsley tells us that the aims which chiefly predominate--riches,
position, power, applause of men--are such as inevitably breed and foster
many bad passions in the eager competition to attain them. Hence, in
fact, come disappointed ambition, jealousy, grief from loss of fortune,
all the torments of wounded self-love, and a thousand other mental
sufferings,--the commonly enumerated moral causes of insanity. They are
griefs of a kind to which a rightly developed nature should not fall a
prey. There need be no envy nor jealousy, if a man were to consider that
it mattered not whether he did a great thing or some one else did it,
Nature's only concern being that it should be done; no grief from loss of
fortune, if he were to estimate at its true value that which fortune can
bring him, and that which fortune can never bring him; no wounded
self-love, if he had learned well the eternal lesson of
life,--self-renunciation.
Soon after his establishment in Philadelphia Franklin was offered a piece
for publication in his newspaper. Being very busy, he begged the
gentleman would leave it for consideration. The next day the author
called and asked his opinion of it. "Well, sir," replied Franklin, "I am
sorry to say I think it highly scurrilous and defamatory. But being at a
loss on account of my poverty whether to reject it or not, I thought I
would put it to this issue: At night, when my work was done, I bought a
two-penny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then, wrapping myself in
my great coat, slept very soundly on the floor till morning, when another
loaf and mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I
can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my
press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living?"
One cannot read this anecdote of our American sage without thinking of
Socrates' reply to King Archelaus, who had pressed him to give up
preaching in the dirty streets of Athens, and come and live with him in
his splendid courts: "Meal, please your Majesty, is a half-penny a peck
at Athens, and water I get for nothing!"
During Alexander's march into Africa he found a people dwelling in peace,
who knew neither war nor conquest. While he was interviewing the chief
two of his subjects brought a case before him for judgment. The dispute
was this: the one had bought of the other a piece of ground, which, after
the purchase, was found to contain a treasure, for which he felt bound to
pay. The other refused to receive anything, stating that when he sold
the ground he sold it with all the advantages apparent or concealed which
it might be found to afford. The king said, "One of you has a daughter
and the other a son; let them be married and the treasure given to them
as a dowry." Alexander was surprised, and said, "If this case had been
in our country it would have been dismissed, and the king would have kept
the treasure." The chief said, "Does the sun shine on your country, and
the rain fall, and the grass grow?" Alexander replied, "Certainly." The
chief then asked, "Are there any cattle?" "Certainly," was the reply.
The chief replied, "Then it is for these innocent cattle that the Great
Being permits the rain to fall and the grass to grow."
A good character is a precious thing, above rubies, gold, crowns, or
kingdoms, and the work of making it is the noblest labor on earth.
Professor Blackie of the University of Edinburgh said to a class of young
men: "Money is not needful; power is not needful; liberty is not needful;
even health is not the one thing needful; but character alone is that
which can truly save us, and if we are not saved in this sense, we
certainly must be damned." It has been said that "when poverty is your
inheritance, virtue must be your capital."
During the American Revolution, while General Reed was President of
Congress, the British Commissioners offered him a bribe of ten thousand
guineas to desert the cause of his country. His reply was, "Gentlemen, I
am poor, very poor; but your king is not rich enough to buy me."
"When Le Père Bourdaloue preached at Rouen," said Père Arrius, "the
tradesmen forsook their shops, lawyers their clients, physicians their
sick, and tavern-keepers their bars; but when I preached the following
year I set all things to rights,--every man minded his own business."
"I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand men," said
Mary, Queen of Scotland.
When Pope Paul IV. heard of the death of Calvin he exclaimed with a sigh,
"Ah, the strength of that proud heretic lay in--riches? No. Honors?
No. But nothing could move him from his course. Holy Virgin! With two
such servants, our church would soon be mistress of both worlds."
Garibaldi's power over his men amounted to fascination. Soldiers and
officers were ready to die for him. His will power seemed to enslave
them. In Rome he called for forty volunteers to go where half of them
would be sure to be killed and the others probably wounded. The whole
battalion rushed forward; and they had to draw lots, so eager were all to
obey.
What power of magic lies in a great name! There was not a throne in
Europe that could stand against Washington's character, and in comparison
with it the millions of the Croesuses would look ridiculous. What are
the works of avarice compared with the names of Lincoln, Grant, or
Garfield? A few names have ever been the leaven which has preserved many
a nation from premature decay.
"But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind--
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?--
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die."
Mr. Gladstone gave in Parliament, when announcing the death of Princess
Alice, a touching story of sick-room ministration. The Princess' little
boy was ill with diphtheria, the physician had cautioned her not to
inhale the poisoned breath; the child was tossing in the delirium of
fever. The mother took the little one in her lap and stroked his fevered
brow; the boy threw his arms around her neck, and whispered, "Kiss me,
mamma;" the mother's instinct was stronger than the physician's caution;
she pressed her lips to the child's, but lost her life.
At a large dinner-party given by Lord Stratford after the Crimean War, it
was proposed that every one should write on a slip of paper the name
which appeared most likely to descend to posterity with renown. When the
papers were opened every one of them contained the name of Florence
Nightingale.
Leckey says that the first hospital ever established was opened by that
noble Christian woman, Fabiola, in the fourth century. The two foremost
names in modern philanthropy are those of John Howard and Florence
Nightingale. Not a general of the Crimean War on either side can be
named by one person in ten. The one name that rises instantly, when that
carnival of pestilence and blood is suggested, is that of a young woman
just recovering from a serious illness, Florence Nightingale. A soldier
said, "Before she came there was such cussin' and swearin'; and after
that it was as holy as a church." She robbed war of half its terrors.
Since her time the hospital systems of all the nations during war have
been changed. No soldier was braver and no patriot truer than Clara
Barton, and wherever that noble company of Protestant women known as the
Red Cross Society,--the cross, I suppose, pointing to Calvary, and the
red to the blood of the Redeemer,--wherever those consecrated workers
seek to alleviate the condition of those who suffer from plagues,
cholera, fevers, flood, famine, there this tireless angel moves on her
pathway of blessing. And of all heroes, what nobler ones than these,
whose names shine from the pages of our missionary history? I never read
of Mrs. Judson, Mrs. Snow, Miss Brittain, Miss West, without feeling that
the heroic age of our race has just begun, the age which opens to woman
the privilege of following her benevolent inspirations wheresoever she
will, without thinking that our Christianity needs no other evidence.
"Duty is the cement without which all power, goodness, intellect, truth,
happiness, and love itself can have no permanence, but all the fabric of
existence crumbles away from under us and leaves us at last sitting in
the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation." A constant,
abiding sense of duty is the last reason of culture.
"I slept and dreamed that life is beauty;
I woke and found that life is duty."
We have no more right to refuse to perform a duty than to refuse to pay a
debt. Moral insolvency is certain to him who neglects and disregards his
duty to his fellow-men. Nor can we hire another to perform our duty.
The mere accident of having money does not release you from your duty to
the world. Nay, it increases it, for it enables you to do a larger and
nobler duty.
If your money is not clean, if there is a dirty dollar in your millions,
you have not succeeded. If there is the blood of the poor and
unfortunate, of orphans and widows, on your bank account, you have not
succeeded. If your wealth has made others poorer, your life is a
failure. If you have gained it in an occupation that kills, that
shortens the lives of others, that poisons their blood, or engenders
disease, if you have taken a day from a human life, if you have gained
your money by that which has debauched other lives, you have failed.
Remember that a question will be asked you some time which you cannot
evade, the right answer to which will fix your destiny forever: "How did
you get that fortune?" Are other men's lives in it; are others' hope and
happiness buried in it; are others' comforts sacrificed to it; are
others' rights buried in it; are others' opportunities smothered in it;
others' chances strangled by it; has their growth been stunted by it;
their characters stained by it; have others a smaller loaf, a meaner
home? If so, you have failed; all your millions cannot save you from the
curse, "thou hast been weighed in the balance and found wanting."
When Walter Scott's publisher and printer failed and $600,000 of debt
stared them in the face, friends came forward and offered to raise money
enough to allow him to arrange with his creditors. "No," said he
proudly, "this right hand shall work it all off; if we lose everything
else, we will at least keep our honor unblemished." What a grand picture
of manliness, of integrity in this noble man, working like a dray-horse
to cancel that great debt, throwing off at white heat the "Life of
Napoleon," "Woodstock," "The Tales of a Grandfather," articles for the
"Quarterly," and so on, all written in the midst of great sorrow, pain,
and ruin. "I could not have slept soundly," he writes, "as I now can
under the comfortable impression of receiving the thanks of my creditors,
and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a man of honesty. I
see before me a long, tedious, and dark path, but it leads to stainless
reputation. If I die in the harness, as is very likely, I shall die with
honor."
One of the last things he uttered was, "I have been, perhaps, the most
voluminous author of my day, and it is a comfort to me to think that I
have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles,
and that I have written nothing which, on my deathbed, I would wish
blotted out."
Although Agassiz refused to lecture even for a large sum of money, yet he
left a greater legacy to the world, and left even more money to Harvard
University ($300,000) than he would have left if he had taken the time to
lecture for money.
Faraday had to choose between a fortune of nearly a million and a life of
almost certain poverty if he pursued science. He chose poverty and
science, and earned a name never to be erased from the book of fame.
Beecher says that we are all building a soul-house for eternity; yet with
what differing architecture and what various care!
What if a man should see his neighbor getting workmen and building
materials together, and should say to him, "What are you building?" and
he should answer, "I don't exactly know. I am waiting to see what will
come of it." And so walls are reared, and room is added to room, while
the man looks idly on, and all the bystanders exclaim, "What a fool he
is!" Yet this is the way many men are building their characters for
eternity, adding room to room, without plan or aim, and thoughtlessly
waiting to see what the effect will be. Such builders will never dwell
in "the house of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Some people build as cathedrals are built, the part nearest the ground
finished; but that part which soars towards heaven, the turrets and the
spires, forever incomplete.
Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise--the head and heart are
stuffed with goods. Like those houses in the lower streets of cities
which were once family dwellings, but are now used for commercial
purposes, there are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by
taste, and love, and joy, and worship; but they are all deserted now, and
the rooms are filled with material things.