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merely aspiring politican, whether dependent on the sovereign or the sovereign people. Wolsey spoke for many of his fellows when he said:

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Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!"

And I suppose that one who should comprehend all the cares and burdens of wealth, to say nothing of its uncertainties, would estimate riches as lightly as did Agur in his prayer, unless riches stand for something more. For one need not, for the moral, even call to mind such men as he who twenty years ago was boasting of his twenty millions, was holding in subjection nearly every official not only in the commercial metropolis of the country but of the great state itself, and was hurling out the defiant inquiry: "What can you do about it?" but who, in less than a decade, occupied a felon's cell and died in a jail.

Let all these externals be the best of their kind, yet from Solomon to Chesterfield they alone have proved hollow and empty. On the other hand, there is no honest condition or calling in which the true man does not carry dignity and find opportunity. Said the highland chieftain: "Where the McGregor sits is the head of the table." But the poet better:

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High worth is elevated place; 't is more,

It makes the place stand candidate for thee."

For success does not lie in the place we fill, but in the filling of the place. Character fills it, and to

overflowing; not instantaneously: it is a growth and time is an element in all genuine achievement. "Time and I," said the first Napoleon. "God and time and I," says the true Israelite. His patient waiting even is often one of the silent forces indomitable. indomitable. "It is good," says the good Book, "that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." So waited Job and the aged Simeon; and so waited Wilberforce and Carey and Howard and Washington and Lincoln waited till they saw. Such a man can afford to wait; it is in "hope." He knows that he follows where God leads. He knows that all chance is law, the best luck is pluck, and God makes the majority. If he does not command the ocean, he rides it in his lifeboat.

It is because of this harmony with the universal harmony. Lead sinks, cork floats, water flows, light shines, character wins. The hindrances may be many, the tendency is sure. If life were longer, the result would be clearer. For while passion so commonly makes the fool, how does the right heart make the simple wise! Character poises every faculty and gives momentum to every stroke. It makes talent and genius effective. In a world even as imperfect as this the most stupendous failures and the most signal triumphs have hinged on the moral pivot. Thus the stream of history is lined with wrecks stranded by moral delinquency. Why was it that the most brilliant debater, perhaps, that ever spoke in the House of Commons was so fruitless and so powerless? Men lacked confidence

in a spendthrift, an inveterate gambler, a hard drinker, and a falsifier. How did the grandson of Edwards and the all but successful rival of Jefferson throw away all his hopes and himself, but by his political unscrupulousness and his grossly immoral life? But for Burns' bottle and Coleridge's opium, what might not those men have done that they left all undone! But it is a sad and weary task to enumerate such instances of which the world is full, emphasizing the truth that no weakness of intellect is half so fatal as moral weakness.

For see how solid worth makes its way worth even when founded on the ordinary virtues of patience, perseverance, truth, integrity. The clerk becomes partner and the agent principal. The trustiness of the broker and the fair dealing of the trader make their fortunes. The just, candid, and honest man gains weight in the community with every year he lives. Many an enterprise of great pith and moment is carried by the sheer character of its advocates. "I can take his word, I can follow his lead," tell the story.

And when the higher elements enter, the result is higher too. See it in such a statesman as Hampden, by his candor, self-sacrifice, self-command, and transparent rectitude of judgment and intention, controlling "a fierce and turbulent parliament as easily as he controlled his family." See it in the great governorgeneral, Lord Lawrence, who by his vigilance, coolness, energy, and reliance on God became "the savior of India and of hundreds of thousands of periled lives.

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See it in the great preacher F. W. Robertson, with his manly simplicity, broad sympathies, and intense directness, throwing his whole life into his sermons and giving to many other lives an impulse that will endure throughout all the future. See it in the great Arctic explorer, Elisha Kane, who by his undaunted courage, prompt decision, and firm discipline, nourished by the regular morning prayers, pushed on to the sight of an open Polar Sea, and through hardships horrible and an Arctic night in which his very dogs died of brain disease brought fifteen of his men safely home. See it in the last great African explorer, his exhaustless selfcontrol and self-reliance in the darkest hour in the awful, interminable forest, worn, sick, and wan with anxiety, calling on God for his lost companions, as one "helpless without God's help," and again, when awaiting an attack of intended extermination, reading the words of Moses to Joshua, till not only was his own heart fired, but of the men who had basely fled, though four to one, not a coward was left in the camp then pressing on undaunted to his goal to rouse Europe to the wrongs of Africa. See it in the great teacher Arnold and his moral transparency, his intense and fearless love of the truth and the right, and behold its effect on a generation of noble thinkers and doers, like Stanley, Kingsley, and Maurice. Read it in the career of the great missionary Schwartz in his forty-seven years of labor, indifferent to money, regardless of power and renown, frank, devout, indefatigable, undaunted, and cheerful when overwhelmed with cares

and toils, revered by British soldiers, beloved by their officers, resorted to by the government, listened to by Hyder Ali, procuring supplies from the natives for Tanjore by his simple word, and leaving some thousand converts behind him. How touching the tribute placed on his tomb in the old church where he had so often preached, by the heathen Rajah of Tanjore - poor in style, but rich in love:

"Firm wast thou, humble and wise,
Honest, pure, free from disguise;
Father of orphans, the widows' support,
Comfort in sorrow of every sort.

To the benighted, dispenser of light,
Doing and pointing to that which is right;
Blessing to princes, to people, and me.
May I, my father, be worthy of thee,
Wisheth and prayeth thy Sarabojee."

But it is the misfortune of such illustrations that they are of necessity drawn from lives before the public. For though it is not quite true that "the greater part of the good work of the world is anonymous," it certainly is done in less conspicuous stations. For, alas! the high station too often proves dangerously high. But the world is blessed with a great company of those who in humbler spheres do a work that will not soon be forgotten on earth and will surely be remembered in heaven. The sacred Word shows us not only such as Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, Paul and John, but the widow with her two mites, the good Samaritan with his two pence,

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