The Investment of Influence Part 6

Losing the lower and present happiness, they saved the higher ease and comfort for their sons. The self-denial of yesterday brought the influence of to-day. Upon this principle G.o.d has organized the industrial world. Man must take his choice between ease and wealth, either may be his but not both.

Sacrifice is also the secret of beauty, culture and character.

Selfishness eats sweetness from the singer's voice as rust eats the edge of a sword. St. Cecilia refused to lend the divine touch to lips steeped in pleasure. He who sings for love of gold finds his voice becoming metallic. In art, also, Hitchc.o.c.k has said: "When the brush grows voluptuous it falls like an angel from heaven." Fra Angelico refuses an invitation to the Pitti palace, choosing rather his crust and pallet in the cell of the monastery. The artist gave his mornings to the poor, his evenings to his canvas. But when the painter had worn his life away in kindly deeds, men found that the light divine had been transferred to the painter's canvas. Eloquence also loves sincere lips. The history of oratory includes few great scenes--Demosthenes'

plea for Athenian liberty that resulted in his death, Luther's single challenge to the hosts of Pope and Emperor, Wendell Phillips' at Faneuil Hall, Lincoln's at Gettysburg. All these risked life for a cause, and were baptized with eloquence, their words being tipped with fire, their minds hurling thunderbolts.

Sacrifice also is the secret of beauty. After a little time the life of pleasure and selfishness will make the sweetest fact opaque and repellent, while self-sacrificing thoughts are cosmetics that at last make the plainest face to be beautiful. In the calm of scholars.h.i.+p men have given up the thought that culture consists of an exquisite refinement in manners and dress, in language and equipage. The poet laureate makes Maud the type of polished perfection. She is "icily regular, splendidly null," for culture is more of the heart than of the mind. But as eloquence means that an orator has so mastered the laws of posture, and gesture and thought and speech that they are utterly forgotten, and have become second nature, so knowledge becomes culture, and physical perfection becomes beauty, only when it is unconscious.

In the moral realm also, the gains for the soul begin with loss. In the hour of temptation he who sacrifices the higher duty to the lower pleasure will find that ease has shorn away the strength of Samson.

Victor Hugo has pictured a man committing suicide through poverty, and deserting the duty and dwelling where G.o.d has placed him. But waking in the next world, the man perceives a letter on the way to himself announcing a large inheritance which would have been his had he but been patient. Therefore the great novelist affirms that G.o.d makes such a man begin over again, only under harder conditions, the existence that here he has willfully shattered. What a tragedy is his who, to save the present good, will lose the higher life. Whittier expressed the fear that Daniel Webster saved his life only to lose it. In his works the poet recalls the time when for genius of statesmans.h.i.+p and weight of mentality Webster's like was not upon our earth. But in an evil hour the statesman saw that the presidency was a prize that could be gained by giving the fugitive slave law as a sop to the South. In that hour his character suffered grievous injury. In the attempt to save men's votes he lost men's higher respect. In deepest sorrow his admirers, abroad and at home, cried out: "O, Lucifer, thou son of the morning, how art thou fallen!"

The law of sacrifice is also the law of progress and civilization.

When history exhibits as dead the nations that have been pleasure-seekers it declares that the state that saveth its life shall lose it. In our own land the bankruptcy and gloom that have for years overshadowed the South speak eloquently of a national gain that is a loss. One hundred years ago the North freed its slaves. Later, when the const.i.tution was adopted, many statesmen believed that slavery was losing its hold in the South. Jefferson said: "When I think that G.o.d is just I tremble for my country." In that hour the statesman prophesied that slavery would soon melt away like the vanis.h.i.+ng snow of April. But when Whitney invented his gin and the raising of cotton became very lucrative slavery took on new life. It was Lord Brougham who first said that when slavery brought in 100 percent, while it was seen to be immoral, not all the navies of the world could stop it.

Later, when it brought in 300 percent, it became a peculiar inst.i.tution, patterned after the system of the patriarchs. But when it brought in 300 percent master and slave became a Christian relation, and slavery was baptized with quotations from the Old Testament.

But avarice could not forever blind men's eyes to scenes of sorrow, nor stop their ears to sounds of woe. When the horrors of the slave-market and the infamies of the cotton-field filled all the land with shame reformers arose, declaring that the attempt to compress and confine liberty would end in explosion. In that hour Northern men made tentative overtures looking to the purchase of all slaves. But slavery, Delilah-like, made the southern leaders drunk with the cup of sorcery. They scorned the proposition. In the light of subsequent events we see that in saving her inst.i.tution the South lost it, and with it her wealth, while in losing her slaves the North gained her wealth. Under free labor the North doubled its population, its manufactories, its riches and waxed mighty. Under slave-labor the South dwindled in wealth and became only the empty sh.e.l.l of a state.

The spark fired at Fort Sumter kindled a conflagration that swept through the sunny South like a devastating fire and revealed its inner poverty. When four years had pa.s.sed by the farmhouses and factories were ruins, the village was a heap, the town a desolation. Graveyards were as populous as cities, each village had its company of cripples, the cry of the orphan and the widow filled all the land.

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

Sacrifice is also the secret of influence. Long ago Cicero noted that tales of heroes and eloquence and self-sacrifice cast a charm and spell upon the people. When men sacrifice ease, wealth, rank, life itself, the delight of the beholders knows no bounds. If we call the roll of the sons of greatness and influence we shall see that they are also the sons of self-sacrifice. The Grecian hero who lost his life that he might save his influence is typical of all the great leaders. Phocion was a patriot and martyr whose single error in judgment brought down a catastrophe upon his beloved Athens. When the fierce mob surrounded his house and prepared to beat down his doors, friends offered Phocion escape and shelter, but the hero went calmly forth to meet his death.

When the day of execution arrived the cup of poison was handed to the other leaders first. The jailer was careful to see to it that before he reached Phocion he had only a few drops of hemlock left in his cup, but the hero drew out his purse and bade a youth run swiftly to buy more poison, saying to the onlookers: "Athens makes her patriots pay, even for dying." Losing his life, Phocion, found immortal influence.

The history of Holland's greatness is the history of one who saved liberty by losing his own life. William the Silent was a prince in station and in wealth, yet for Holland's sake made himself a beggar and an outlaw. He feared G.o.d, indeed, but not the batteries of Alva and Philip. His career reads like one who with naked fists captured a blazing cannon. Falling at last by the dagger of a hired a.s.sa.s.sin, he exclaimed: "I commit my poor people to G.o.d and myself to G.o.d's great captain, Christ." When he died little children cried in the streets.

He lost his life, said his biographer, but saved his fame. And what shall we more say of Italy's hero, who wore his fiery f.a.gots like a crown of gold; of Germany's hero, who lost his priestly rites, but gained the hearts of all mankind; of England's hero, whose very ashes were cast by enemies upon the River Severn, as if to float his influence out o'er all the world, of India's hero, William Carey, the English shoemaker, who founded for India an educational system now reaching millions of children and youth, who gave India literature, made five grammars and six dictionaries, and so used his commercial genius through his indigo plantation and factories that it made for him a million dollars in the interests of Christian missions? Of this great company, what can we say save that they won renown through self-renunciation! What they did makes weak and unworthy what we say.

Just here let us remember that the statue of Jupiter was a figure so colossal that wors.h.i.+pers, unable to reach the divine forehead, cast their garlands at the hero's feet. For this law of sacrifice is the secret of the Messiah. Earth's great ones were taught it by their Master. Jesus Christ, "being rich, for our sakes became poor."

Because the law of sacrifice is the law of the Savior, man gains life through death and renown through self-renunciation.

THE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.

"A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies--one may say, simply 'fineness of nature.' This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness, in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy.

Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no touch of the boughs, but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would have felt a bent rose leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully you will find that his non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature, not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor. Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high-breeding in men generally will be their kindness and mercifulness."--_Modern Painters_.

CHAPTER IX.

THE GENTLENESS OF TRUE GIANTHOOD.

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

But, be it remembered, these scenes occurred but once in the history of each of these great men.

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

Nevertheless, be it instantly confessed that from the very beginning this divine Teacher exhibited qualities that kindled in men an enthusiasm that amounted to transcendent delight. The time was when scholars attempted to explain His influence over the mult.i.tude by portraying Him with a halo of light about His head. Fortunately these ideas that robbed men of all fellows.h.i.+p with their divine brother have perished, and now we know that there was nothing unusual about His appearance, nor did any effulgent light blaze forth from His person.

Whether or not unique beauty of face and form was His we do not know.

Coins and statues portray for us the Roman emperors and the Greek scholars. Yet art has broken down utterly in the attempt to combine in one face Christ's majesty and meekness, strength and gentleness, suffering and victory. All that we can know of His personal appearance must be gained through imagination, as it clothed Him with those traits that alone cannot account for His influence over the mult.i.tudes. What sweet allurement in the face that made children leap into His arms!

What winsome benignity that made mothers feel that His touch would return the babe with double worth into the parent's bosom!

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

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

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

In all His relations with His friends and enemies the quality that crowns His method of living and challenges our thought is the gentleness of His bearing. Matchless the mingled strength and beauty of His life, yet gentleness was the flower and fruitage of it all. For in Him the lion and the lamb dwelt together. Oak and rock were there, and also vine and flower. Weakness is always rough. Only giants can be gentle. Tenderness is an inflection of strength. No error can be greater than to suppose that gentleness is mere absence of vigor.

Weakness totters and tugs at its burden. When the dwarf that attended Ivanhoe at the tournament lifted the bleeding sufferer he staggered under his heavy burden. Weakness made him stumble and caused the wounded knight intense pain. When the giant of the brawny arm and the unconquered heart came, he lifted the unconscious sufferer like a feather's weight and without a jar bore him away to a secure hiding-place for healing and recovering. He who studies the great men of yesterday will find in the last a.n.a.lysis that gentleness has always been the test of gianthood, and fine considerateness the measure of manhood and the gauge of personal worth. No other hero moving through the crowds has ever been so courteously gentle, so sweetly considerate in his personal bearing as this Christ--who never failed to kindle in men transports of delight and enthusiasm.

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

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

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

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

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

Early Carlyle wooed and won one of the most brilliant girls of his day, whose signal talent shone in the crowded drawing-rooms of London like a sapphire blazing among pebbles. Yet her husband lacked gentleness.

Slowly harshness crept into Carlyle's voice. Soon the wife gave up her favorite authors to read the husband's notes; then she gave up all reading to relieve him of details; at last her very being was placed on the altar of sacrifice--fuel to feed the flame of his fame and genius.

Long before the end came she was submerged and almost forgotten. One day two distinguished foreign authors called upon Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.

For an hour the philosopher poured forth vehement tirade against the commercial spirit, while the good wife never once opened her lips. At last the author ceased talking, and there was silence for a time.

Suddenly Carlyle thundered: "Jane, stop breathing so loud!" Long years before Jane had stopped doing everything else except breathe. And so, obedient to the injunction, a few days afterward she ceased "breathing so loud."

When a few weeks had gone by Carlyle discovered, through reading her journal, that his wife had for want of affection frozen and starved to death within his home like some poor traveler who had fallen in the snows beyond the door. For years, without his realizing it, she had kept all the wheels oiled, kept his body in health and his mind in happiness. Only when it was too late did the husband realize that his fame was largely his wife's. Then did the old man begin his pathetic pilgrimage to his wife's grave, where Froude often found him murmuring: "If I had only known! If I had only known!" For all his supreme gifts and rare talents were marred by harshness. Intellectual brilliancy weighs light as punk against the gold of gentleness and character.

Half Carlyle's books, weighted by a gentle, n.o.ble spirit, would have availed more for social progress than these many volumes with the bad taste they leave in the mouth. The sign of ripeness in an apple, a peach, is beauty, and the test of character is gentleness and kindness of heart.

One of the crying needs of society is a revival of gentleness and of a refined considerateness in judging others. There is no disposition that cuts at the very root of character like harshness, and there is nothing that blights happiness and breeds discord like unlovingness and severity of judgment. We hear much of industrial strife, social warfare and want of sympathy between the cla.s.ses. Be it remembered, gentleness alone can be invoked to heal the breach. There is a legend that when Jacob with his family and flocks met Esau with his children and herds, the angels of G.o.d hovered in the air above the two brothers and began to rain gifts down upon their companies. Strangely enough, each forgetting the gifts falling in his own camp, rushed forth to pick up the gifts falling in that of his brother. There was anger stirred.

Epithets and stones began to fly, until all the air was filled with flying weapons. In such a scrimmage the messengers of peace had no place. Soon the sound of receding wings died out of the air, the gifts ceased to fall and all things faded into the light of common day. This legend interprets to us how harshness breeds strife and robs man of his gifts from G.o.d and his happiness through his brother man.

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

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

Not war, not pestilence, not famine itself, produces for each generation so much misery and unhappiness as is wrought in the aggregate through the acc.u.mulated harshness of each generation.

Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they who with humble talents make themselves like the mignonette, creators of fragrance and peace! Thrice blessed are they who with lofty talents emulate the vines that climbing high never forget to blossom, and the higher they climb do ever shed sweet blooms upon those beneath! No single great deed is comparable for a moment to the mult.i.tude of little gentlenesses performed by those who scatter happiness on every side and strew all life with hope and good cheer.

Life holds no motive for stimulating gentleness in man like the thought of the gentleness of G.o.d. Unfortunately, it seems difficult for man to a.s.sociate delicacy and gentleness with vastness and strength. It was the misfortune of Greek philosophers and is, indeed, that of nearly all the modern theologians, to suppose that a perfect being cannot suffer.

Both schools of thought conceive of G.o.d as sitting upon a marble throne, eternally young, eternally beautiful, beholding with quiet indifference from afar how man, with infinite blunderings, sufferings and tears makes his way forward. Yet He who holds the sun in the hollow of his hand, who takes up the isles as a very little thing, who counts the nations but as the dust in the balance, is also the gentle One. Like the wide, deep ocean, that pulsates into every bay and creek and blesses the distant isles with its dew and rain, so G.o.d's heart throbs and pulsates unto the uttermost parts of the universe, having a parent's sympathy for His children who suffer.

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