GIFT OF 
 
THE GREATEST OF THESE 
 
 A BOOK OF FIVE TO 
 TWENTY MINUTE 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT O. LAWTON 
 
 Chair of English in Lander College 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH COMPANY 
 1913 
 

 
 
 \ W V 
 
 L3 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH 6* COMPANY 
 
TO 
 
 THE THREE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN 
 OF THE SPIRIT I HAVE EVER KNOWN 
 
 MY WIFE MY MOTHER MY SISTER 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY AND GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The readers of The Christian 
 Advocate (the general organ of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South) and the Southern Chris 
 tian Advocate (the official organ 
 of South Carolina Methodism) 
 will recognize practically the en 
 tire contents of this volume as 
 having appeared from time to 
 time in these excellent religious 
 periodicals. This volume is pub 
 lished with the high hope that it 
 may be helpful to my old and my 
 new readers. 
 
 R. O. LAWTON. 
 
 Lander College, 
 
 Greenwood, South Carolina. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I " THE GREATEST OF THESE " . . . 1 
 
 II LARGEST SUCCESS 6 
 
 III WHAT Is RELIGION? 8 
 
 IV PAUL S SOUL POWER 11 
 
 V SERVICE 16 
 
 VI OUR CANARY BIRD 18 
 
 VII HELL AND HEAVEN 26 
 
 VIII THE REWARD OF PREACHING ... SO 
 
 IX THE PREACHER S IDEAL .... 35 
 
 X WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY AND THE LIFE 
 
 OF THE SOUL 38 
 
 XI A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT .... 44 
 
 XII THE CELESTIAL CITY 46 
 
 XIII THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL . . 58 
 
 XIV EASTLAKE PARK 67 
 
 XV THE IDEALIST 69 
 
 XVI OUR PRIVILEGE 75 
 
 XVII BOATS 76 
 
 XVIII JOHN KEATS, THE APOSTLE OF BEAUTY 84 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 Love is life and life is love. Where there is 
 no love there is no life. The loveless life is the 
 Godless life. Where love is, God is, for God 
 is love. Love is the reflection of God, yea it is 
 God Himself. Love is the highest and holiest 
 manifestation of God, the sublimest expression of 
 man. It is impossible to define love in exact 
 terms. Love speaks a language of its own 
 the most beautiful language that the world has 
 ever known but it is a wordless language. 
 And love refuses to be cramped into a few man- 
 made words. The world today dreams of dol 
 lars and yearns quenchlessly for fame and 
 reaches passionately after pleasure, but it is 
 love above all else for which the world uncon 
 sciously hungers. Money and fame and pleas 
 ure may pass away with a passing day, but love 
 lives for all time and all eternity. Whether 
 there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there 
 be prophecies, they shall fail ; whether there be 
 knowledge, it shall vanish away ; but love, se 
 cure in her existence, abides amid the war of 
 1 
 
2 THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 elements, the wreck of matter, the crash of 
 worlds, and the flight of time. Long after the 
 form is bent and long after the brow is wrinkled 
 and the hair is gray, love will cast its shaft of 
 light and spread its halo of beauty. The years 
 come and go, only to make more mellow and 
 render more beautiful the form of love. 
 
 Love is no respecter of persons. It dwells in 
 the hearts of peasants and plebeians as well as 
 in the lives of kings and queens. Like the rain 
 bow, it arches up to meet the God of love, and 
 also reaches its arms down until earth is 
 touched. Love is a world-old aeolian harp 
 upon which the Great Musician strikes divine 
 harmonies that float melodiously over a world 
 of great hurts and infinite pain. Love is a 
 celestially fashioned canvas upon which the 
 Master Painter of the universe splashes such 
 Godlike forms and hues that the world bows its 
 head and wonders awestruck and entranced. 
 The songs of love are the sweetest songs that 
 have ever fallen upon the ears of men. A little 
 child wrapping its arms tenderly, passionately, 
 about its mother s neck, and saying, Mama, I 
 love you! counts more in the lives of tired and 
 toil worn men and women than angel visits. 
 Men have spent their lives carving exquisite 
 forms out of stone, some of which have lived for 
 thousands of years, but love can carve in the 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 3 
 
 human heart an angel form, which will live 
 throughout the aeons and cycles of eternity. 
 We cannot all paint great pictures and carve 
 enduring sculptures, and write beautiful poems, 
 but all of us if we will can so love that we 
 shall produce the stuff out of which paintings 
 and sculptures and poetry and dreams are made. 
 Love suffereth long and is kind. It sweetens 
 natures and purifies hearts and renders as spot 
 less as lilies of the field the souls of sin soiled 
 men. It is the stateliest lily in the garden of 
 the soul. Love is greater than faith because it 
 comprehends and even creates tfaith. If we 
 have love enough, we will keep all of the com 
 mandments, for love will restrain us in our 
 wrong doing and inspire us in our right doing. 
 If we love God, we will not wound Him; if we 
 love man we will not harm him. The command 
 ments are formed upon our relationship to God 
 and man. Hence love is the fulfilling of the 
 law. 
 
 In the last analysis, nothing short of love 
 will cast out of our lives selfishness and sin and 
 ignoble traits, for God is love, and God alone 
 can save us from ourselves and our sin. Out 
 of the heart are the issues of life. The intellect 
 must be the handmaid of the heart, else the 
 house is built upon sand, and the storms of life 
 will sweep it away. It is great to be powerful 
 
4 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 in intellect, but infinitely greater to be grand 
 in soul, and one cannot be grand in soul un 
 less one loves much. When the heart life is 
 cramped and warped and shrunken and shriv 
 elled by education, it were better that a mill 
 stone be tied about the neck of education and 
 that education be cast into the depths of the 
 sea, for what shall it profit a man if he shall 
 gain the whole world of knowledge and lose his 
 own soul? That education which fails to en 
 large the borders of the heart and make more 
 measureless the reaches of the soul, is essentially 
 vicious, for it is merely the development and 
 multiplication of the natural man. An edu 
 cated devil is more potential for evil than a non- 
 educated. The Church which fails to place the 
 supreme emphasis upon love has lost sight of the 
 chief attribute of Him who went about doing 
 good. The home which is built on anything 
 less than love may endure in a degree of peace 
 and harmony as long as the sun shines and the 
 kindly stars look down, but when the clouds 
 cover the sun and the night is dark, the founda 
 tions of the home will be shaken and the build 
 ing will fall. 
 
 The love-life is the great life. Mary Mag 
 dalene rose from an outcast on the streets, 
 houseless by night, to such heights of spiritual 
 excellence that the garments of her soul glis- 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 5 
 
 tened as the morning and the form of her heart 
 was as an angel s form because she loved 
 much. St. John the Divine catching apoca 
 lyptic visions of the golden glories of the new 
 Jerusalem is not so fascinating a figure as St. 
 John the lover of his Lord. Paul the great 
 caught up into the seventh heaven and behold 
 ing celestial realities too excellent for human 
 speech is not so engaging a personality as St. 
 Paul the writer of the 13th chapter of 1st Cor. 
 In the final round up after life s fitful fever is 
 over, I am, thinking that it will not be a ques 
 tion of dollars or fame or high society or 
 prestige or intellectuality or big city churches 
 or any other creature, but the simple question 
 of who loved much, for is not love life and is 
 not love the fulfilling of the law, and is not love 
 greater than all else, and is not God love? If 
 perchance we have so loved and served and 
 dreamed of good here that at the twilight hour 
 a few into whose lives our love has entered as 
 a beam of light may say, Here dies one who 
 loved much, the world s greatest Lover has 
 taught us to believe that in the house not made 
 with hands, our souls shall awake and be satis 
 fied. The greatest of these is love. 
 
II 
 
 LARGEST SUCCESS 
 
 To receive all truth with intellectual hospi 
 tality ; to cling ever to the beautiful and the true ; 
 to entertain as honored guests a few tall dreams 
 from life s morning hours until eventide ; to be 
 known as one possessing sweetness of nature, 
 purity of heart, and spotlessness of soul; to 
 translate the great hurts and disappointments 
 of life into terms of sympathy and tenderness ; 
 to tread softly through the green pastures of 
 love and by the still waters of faith ; to love the 
 Master so much that he will become the ruling 
 passion of our lives, the chief Guest in the pal 
 ace of our souls ; to lift our fallen comrades in 
 gentle sympathy and in the spirit of a brother; 
 to make life sweeter and more worth while for 
 the weak, the tired, and those who have fallen 
 by the way; to make more music on earth by 
 touching the latent, hushed chords in the hearts 
 of at least a few men and women who have 
 grown bitter and callous in the storm and the 
 stress of life ; to trust our Father as little chil 
 dren and follow the Christ all the way, even 
 into the shadows of life ; to press forward each 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 7 
 
 day with high heart and undaunted spirit on 
 and on and on into the measureless regions of 
 larger life and into the shadowless realm of the 
 soul ; to refuse steadily to grow bitter, to whine, 
 or to cry aloud when the Great Teacher leads 
 us through the school of suffering, knowing 
 that the languages we are learning will be the 
 languages we shall speak as celestial citizens ; 
 to feel our hearts stirred and fired and our souls 
 filled and thrilled by every messenger bearing 
 greetings and tidings from the Divine Source 
 of all good; to realize that he who fails to 
 provide for his family should be included in 
 the same category with infidels (nevertheless, 
 making a life is greater than making a living) ; 
 to run the race of life with infinite patience, 
 leaning upon God for results ; to walk with 
 our feet on the ground and our heads among 
 the stars ; to strain every nerve of heart and 
 soul to see the invisible, to hear the inaudible 
 and to feel the intangible, knowing that the 
 real forces of life are the majestic entities that 
 lie back of the visible, the audible, and the 
 tangible; to thrill with divine ecstasy over the 
 messages of the great masters in music, art, and 
 literature ; and, finally, to fashion our lives and 
 our work after the similitude of the master Life 
 and the master Artist this is the largest suc 
 cess. 
 
Ill 
 
 WHAT IS RELIGION? 
 
 To believe vitally in self and man and God; 
 to see something good and true and beautiful 
 in God s manifold creations ; to think kindly 
 and charitably of those who sin and fall; to re 
 joice with them that do rejoice, and weep with 
 them that weep ; to believe in Jesus Christ as 
 a personal Saviour ; to think often of him and 
 accord him a full measure of spiritual hospi 
 tality ; to greet the world of tired men and toil 
 ing women with a smile, which is the child of 
 love ; to refuse to whine or grow bitter or en 
 courage cynicism and doubt because God is in 
 his heaven and on his earth; to extend to men 
 of other creeds and other Churches the right 
 hand of fellowship in the name of him who con 
 demns narrowness and refuses to tolerate big 
 otry; to yearn after and pray for righteous 
 ness in order that we may clothe the spiritually 
 naked with this beautiful garment; to regard 
 our greatest hurts and deepest sorrows in the 
 light of blessed schools through which God 
 leads us to teach us the language of sympathy 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 9 
 
 and love; to believe in our fellow men so 
 strongly that they will begin to believe in them 
 selves and in God; to see God in the blue sky, 
 in the shining stars, in the forms and hues of 
 mountains, in the plenteous grace of ocean tides, 
 and in the life of man; to so love the Master 
 that he shall become the ruling passion in our 
 lives, the chief Guest in the palace of our hearts ; 
 to place the supreme emphasis upon soul power 
 and not upon mentality, for it is better to be 
 grand in soul than powerful in intellect; to be 
 lieve that he who feeds the ravens and watches 
 the sparrow when it falls will likewise give his 
 angels charge concerning us and keep us be 
 neath the shadow of his wing ; to use freely and 
 fully all outward means of grace and para 
 phernalia of creeds, but value more a beautiful 
 fellowship with God and a splendid service 
 rendered to man than Churchism and ecclesi- 
 asticism; to refuse steadfastly to live alone and 
 out of sympathy and contact with the world, 
 but rather dream great dreams of the brother 
 hood of all men and so project ourselves into 
 other lives that they will be enriched by our 
 presence; to strive mightily to be what God 
 would have us be, to do what God would have 
 us do, and to go where God would have us go ; 
 to forget the things which are behind, and, 
 reaching after the things which are before ? 
 
10 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 press forward day after day for the prize of 
 the race and the reward of it all; to run with 
 patience the race that is set before us, remem 
 bering the celestial witnesses, and looking unto 
 our Lord, in whose strength we run and by 
 whose grace we live and move and have our 
 being; to look for the vision beatific when we 
 must stand on our isles of Patmos and refuse 
 to dwell upon our isolation and exile and un 
 desirable lot in life ; to throw ourselves at even 
 tide on the bosom of our Father and believe as 
 a little child that he will give us a resting place 
 in our Father s house this is religion. 
 
IV 
 PAUL S SOUL POWER 
 
 Paul s soul power is his greatest asset. In 
 this he easily outranks all other men who have 
 ever lived except, of course, the Man of Galilee. 
 By soul power I mean a certain spiritual hospi 
 tality, a certain opening of the upper windows 
 of the soul to divine impressions, a genius for 
 godliness, a passionate and quenchless thirst 
 after righteousness, a full-orbed surrender of all 
 talents, possessions, and possibilities to God, a 
 splendid abandon of spirit resulting in a quick 
 ening of the higher nature, and a more radiant 
 immediate spiritual environment. This fine 
 flavor of soul casts a halo about the form of a 
 man and pervades the whole realm in which he 
 operates. We might call soul power the highest 
 expression of religious life, its choicest, rarest, 
 and richest fruits. We might call it corporate 
 consciousness, divinely inspired altruism, Christ- 
 likeness. 
 
 We may illustrate it best in the life of Paul, 
 the great great not in any single sense that 
 the world calls great, but great in that he so 
 11 
 
12 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 opened himself to God, so emptied himself for 
 God that he walked the earth with more of God 
 in him than any other man since time began. 
 And is not this true greatness? God is all- 
 great, all-good, all-powerful. Our talents, our 
 possessions, our merit are from God. As we 
 partake of the nature of God, we become of 
 value in life. He who is imbued with more of 
 God s spirit and attributes than another be 
 comes logically greater than the other. Faith, 
 love, hope, gentleness, goodness, purity, virtue, 
 knowledge, kindness, long-suffering, sympathy, 
 godlikeness these are the things that make 
 men truly great. And it is not, as many be 
 lieve, money, fame, beauty, blood, prestige, 
 worldly power, high society. 
 
 In proportion as men tap the reservoir of 
 God s power they become powerful. In pro 
 portion as men connect themselves with the re 
 sources of the unseen, they become resourceful. 
 In proportion as men develop within themselves, 
 by divine aid, the attributes of God, they be 
 come like him. And as they become more and 
 more like him they become greater and yet more 
 great. And this is soul power. Paul tran 
 scended the utmost bounds of human achieve 
 ment along this particular line. Paul s faith 
 was not his, but " the faith of the Son of God." 
 Paul s love was not his, but the love of Christ, 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 13 
 
 which constrained him. Paul s goodness was 
 not his, but the goodness of his Lord, which 
 wrapped itself as a rare and beautiful garment 
 about his form. Paul s life was the street car; 
 God was the power house. Paul s life was 
 Niagara; God was the Great Lakes back of 
 Niagara. He was filled with all of the fullness 
 of God. He was stirred by the tides of God s 
 love. He was fired with the passions of God. 
 He was thrilled with the thoughts of God. For 
 him to live was Christ. Into his life had swept 
 the currents of the life of God. Paul was a 
 new man ; Saul of Tarsus was a dead man 
 there was no such man as Saul of Tarsus. 
 With lavish prodigality and a certain divine 
 abandon of self-surrender, he cast away every 
 possible possession of Saul of Tarsus and threw 
 himself empty-handed and empty-souled upon 
 God and his mercy. As usual, God threw him 
 self into Saul s life, and the result was Paul, 
 the greatest man God ever made greatest 
 because of his ability to empty himself and be 
 entirely filled with God, because of his passion 
 for righteousness and thirst for holiness. This 
 is soul power. Some have much, and some have 
 little; Paul had most. 
 
 We try pitifully to be great of our own 
 strength; we might as well whistle. We boast 
 of our little virtues ; they are dross in the sight 
 
14 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 of God. In the last analysis there is none good 
 but God, and logically it is only as God is in 
 us that we approach goodness. Paul was the 
 ambassador of God. Sometimes he was in 
 chains, sometimes in prison ; but he carried on 
 his person and in his soul not only the marks 
 of his Lord, but the credentials of heaven. 
 God spoke through Paul. God worked through 
 Paul. God lived in Paul. Paul s spirit was 
 the candle of the Lord and how far that 
 candle threw its beams ! Paul was a flame of 
 fire, and about this fire was a celestial glow. 
 Men saw God in Paul s face, for his face was 
 as radiant as the morning with the light of God 
 upon it. Men knew that Paul had been with 
 Jesus, for the marks of his Lord were upon 
 him. Paul did not write the thirteenth chapter 
 of First Corinthians ; God wrote that marvelous 
 thing of beauty, that priceless possession of the 
 human race, epic in its sweep, lyric in concep 
 tion, idyllic in expression, and gorgeous in its 
 wealth of wondrously blended words. 
 
 This thing of soul power is the greatest thing 
 in life, because it comprehends all that is best, 
 and, again, because it has its orgin in the unseen 
 realms of life. It is the enduring quality of 
 art, the living element in literature, the eternal 
 note in music, the immortal characteristic of 
 man. Poets may write exquisite poetry, but 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 15 
 
 without soul power it will not live for all time. 
 Painters may paint trans cendently beautiful 
 pictures, but without soul power they will not 
 grip the universal heart and hold it. Musi 
 cians may build beautiful the palace of music, 
 but without soul power it will crumble and fall. 
 Men may carve out of their lives angel forms, 
 but without soul power they will not rise as 
 high as the stars. This is the dominant note, 
 the great message of Paul s life. Over the gulf 
 of the vanished centuries comes this vast message 
 to our age, to us in these modern days who are 
 too full of life s passing treasures to let God into 
 our lives, too rich in the world s goods to clothe 
 ourselves in the livery of heaven, too charmed 
 with the glare and the glitter of materialism 
 and artificiality to accord to God the proper 
 degree of spiritual hospitality. Is not the mes 
 sage of Paul the message we need? 
 
SERVICE 
 
 To refrain from innocent pleasures because 
 perchance they may cause a weaker one to 
 stumble and fall ; to rej oice with them that do 
 rejoice and weep with them that weep; to enter 
 lives more unfortunate than ours like a shaft 
 of light; to catch the outlines of the vision 
 splendid and impart it to those who are under 
 the binding and blinding and grinding influ 
 ences of sin; to dream a few high dreams and 
 project into practical fashion the substance of 
 such dreams ; to reach arms of sympathy and 
 love out into the mists and fogs of life and lift 
 the fallen unto the heights where the sky is 
 clear; to lie down in the quiet of the night and 
 yearn passionately and quenchlessly for the 
 souls of our brother men at home and across the 
 wide seas ; to enlarge the borders of our hearts 
 and widen the confines of our souls by according 
 to all men the privilege of fellowship and com 
 munion ; to lead in childlike faith at least a few 
 of the world s pariahs unto the great altar 
 
 stairs of life which slope through darkness up 
 16 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 17 
 
 to God; to keep our natures sweet, our hearts 
 pure, and our souls unspotted from the world 
 in order that those who touch our lives may go 
 away refreshed in spirit and whitened in soul; 
 to make some conscious sacrifices and experience 
 some great hurts because, forsooth, we would 
 identify ourselves with all of the segments in 
 the vast circle of humanity ; to reach up through 
 the night and beyond the stars for God s great, 
 strong hand and to help others feel the touch 
 of that hand and its uplifting power; to cast 
 aside, as a useless but treasured garment, our 
 little fads and hobbies and idiosyncrasies that 
 men in need may not shun us and thereby lose 
 contact with our better selves ; to think less of 
 our own rights and more of the needs of our 
 brother men ; to follow the Master all the way, 
 even unto the twilight hour, that he may lead 
 us and all who walk with us the dim-lit paths 
 of life into the city not made with hands this 
 is service. 
 
VI 
 OUR CANARY BIRD 
 
 We have a little canary which, I suppose, is 
 no more attractive and winsome than your 
 canary, but it is more so to us. I have noticed 
 several things about our bird, and it is barely 
 possible that you have noticed the same things 
 about your bird. I want to tell you about these 
 things and what lessons I have gotten from 
 them, for you know we may learn lessons from 
 the most insignificant creation of God, pro 
 vided we keep our eyes and ears open and do a 
 little honest thinking. 
 
 Our bird is pretty and attractive and win 
 some. This is not simply because it is our 
 bird. Others have noted the same character 
 istics in this particular bird. He has a per 
 sonality and he has individuality. He is not a 
 lazy bird. He sings too much to be lazy and 
 only a smart bird would take as much exercise 
 as he takes. Then he is very appreciative. He 
 shows his appreciation of any rare bit of food 
 we secure for him by eating it as soon as we 
 put it in his cage and enjoying it. Then 
 18 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 19 
 
 again, this little bird is serviceable. With his 
 good looks, his winning ways, and his rare 
 powers of song he renders a real service in his 
 little realm. And in spite of the fact that he 
 spends his days in a cage and is denied the 
 liberty and the freedom of the open air, he 
 seems perfectly content with his lot in life. He 
 begins the day with a song and at twilight he 
 ends the day with a song, and this whether the 
 day is bright or whether the day is dark. 
 When night comes our little bird closes his eyes 
 and sleeps peacefully until morning, unafraid 
 of the darkness of night. 
 
 It seems to me that we might better our lives 
 and render others happier and brighter by tak 
 ing thought of these things, some of them any 
 way. Of course, all of us cannot be pretty and 
 attractive and winsome and possess personality 
 and individuality. These things are generally 
 given to us, not acquired or developed. But all 
 of us may be smart and ambitious. By smart 
 ness I do not mean intellectuality, but rather 
 responsiveness to labor, a disposition to work, a 
 reasonable amount of fingertipness. There is 
 something wrong, radically wrong, with the man 
 who despises work and longs for permanent re 
 tirement. Energy is force. Laziness is a 
 curse. Lethargy may mean stagnation. Thrift 
 is an essential in success. Work is the measure 
 
20 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 of the man. Genius is sometimes an infinite 
 capacity for hard work. A hopelessly lazy 
 person should be examined for hook worms. 
 The world has no place for a drone, and I am 
 thinking that a drone would experience diffi 
 culty in finding a suitable location in heaven. 
 It is just a little funny to hear the man who 
 toils with his hands berate the man who toils 
 with his head (sitting down, generally) for 
 being so lazy, and equally funny to hear the 
 man who toils with his head disparage the work 
 of the man who toils with his hands. They are 
 both honorable and blessed in the sight of God, 
 and a joy may be found in any sort of toil if 
 we regard our work not in the light of a curse 
 and a misfortune but rather as a privilege and 
 a panacea. As I have watched our little 
 canary s energy and vitality and thrift, I have 
 thought that God does not want any of His 
 manifold creations to rust unburnished, to stag 
 nate in idleness, to bury the talents He has so 
 bountifully bestowed. 
 
 And all of us may be appreciative. In 
 gratitude begets pain. Appreciation is a god 
 like quality. Thanksgiving is a Christian 
 grace. The thankless child makes an unhappy 
 parent. Service is sweetened when apprecia 
 tion is expressed. When we take the goodness 
 and kindness of our friend or loved one for 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 21 
 
 granted, as a mere matter of course, the 
 zest and relish of the kindness are largely lost. 
 The child who accepts his Christmas presents, 
 whether many or few, valuable or simple, in a 
 burnt out, careless, indifferent, and unappre- 
 ciative way (as you and I have seen more than 
 once) presents himself as a puerile abnormality, 
 a youthful monstrosity, or a fit subject for 
 chastisement. The most attractive quality 
 about a dog is appreciation. Too often we ac 
 cept God s goodness and kindness and con 
 sideration without even thanking Him. We do 
 not thank Him enough in our prayers we 
 are too busy asking Him for more gifts for 
 which we also fail to render thanks to the Giver 
 of all good things. As I have watched the ex 
 pressed appreciation of our little bird, I have 
 thought that God meant all of His creations to 
 be grateful for the good things of life and to 
 express in some way this spirit of gratitude. 
 
 All of us may render some service meet for 
 the Master s use. We may not be able to carve 
 a beautiful sculpture or to write a great poem, 
 or paint a picture that will live for all time, or 
 lead an army into victory; but all of us can 
 touch at least a few hearts to finer issues and 
 move a few souls to loftier purposes. We may 
 not be able to sing in such fashion that men 
 will listen with bowed heads, or preach with such 
 
22 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 power that multitudes will listen spellbound to 
 the eloquent words that fall from our lips, or 
 teach with such wisdom and power as did Soc 
 rates ; but we can so live and so love and so 
 serve in our own way and with our limited 
 power that at least a few of the sons and daugh 
 ters of men will sing and preach and teach in 
 finer fashion because we swept into their lives 
 like the sound of music by night. After all, 
 the tired men and toiling women and gentle 
 children of the world do not need so much of 
 genius and greatness, but rather more light, 
 more love, more service the things we can 
 give them. We may render a high service by 
 living a beautiful life and like a silent shaft 
 of light enter other lives. We may enrich 
 other lives by making out of our own life a 
 poem, the music of which shall enter them like 
 music from some new-found aeolian harp. We 
 may serve beautifully by praying earnestly and 
 faithfully for those we call friend and others. 
 We may lift some lives by simply believing in 
 them. That is all some people need in this 
 world somebody to believe in them in order 
 that they may believe in themselves and in God. 
 And then we may serve others by simply being 
 bright and cheerful and optimistic, by bringing 
 into their lives gladness and joy and the radiant 
 things of life even as the little canary (which 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 23 
 
 is causing all this writing) sings its simple, glad 
 songs on dark days as well as on bright days 
 and thereby renders its service and fulfills God s 
 dream back of its life. 
 
 We said this little bird is content with its 
 lot in life, and I am thinking that we may learn 
 a valuable lesson at this point. We so often 
 fum,e and fret and chafe under our burden 
 and sometimes our burdens are imaginary bur 
 dens, bridges crossed too soon, abnormal sensi 
 tiveness, unmanly suspicious, etc. It is hard 
 to please some of us. We are never content with 
 our lot in life. We would change it. Far off 
 cattle have long horns. We are jealous of our 
 more fortunate fellows. We wonder why others 
 have been given so much more than has been 
 given us, why they are so much happier. We 
 so often forget that the issues of life are from 
 within. We fail to realize that our lot, our 
 life, our destiny are largely wrought out by 
 our own hands. And we miss the prize and 
 the solution of life by failing to let God into 
 partnership with us, which insures contentment, 
 and gain, and peace, and victory. How splen 
 did to be like : 
 
 " The Catholic man who hath mightily won 
 God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain 
 And sight out of blindness and purity out of a 
 stain.* 
 
24 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 It seems to me that it is a reflection upon our 
 Father in heaven for His children to complain 
 continually about their lot in life. 
 
 We said this little bird wakes with a song 
 and closes the day with another. How many of 
 us, think you, wake with a song and a lilt in 
 our hearts? It is so easy to wake in a bad 
 humor and again it is almost as easy to 
 form the habit of beginning the day in good 
 cheer and in gladness. It is one of the fine 
 arts, which is worth cultivating both for our 
 selves and for those we call friend. Our bird 
 sings a soft, rich, mellow song at twilight. It 
 is his vesper song. The loud, gay, glad notes 
 of the day are hushed into a plaintive, almost 
 sad sweetness, and this is the best of all the 
 songs he sings. And should not this be so with 
 us? Our lives should pass out at eventide as 
 a rich, soft, sweet song, after the heat and the 
 burden and the midday glare of life s day. Our 
 vesper songs should be our sweetest songs. As 
 the tendrils that bind us to this life are weak 
 ened, the tendrils that bind us to the other life 
 should be proportionately strengthened. Old 
 age should be rich, and full, and beautiful, and 
 mellow. 
 
 " Grow old along with me ! 
 The best is yet to be." 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 25 
 
 The world does not think straight on the old 
 age question. Our old men should be our seers ; 
 we shelve them and supplant then with young 
 men not half so wise, so worthy, so rich in 
 eternal values. 
 
 From the western porch of life one looks at 
 the golden glories of the sunken sun. From 
 the western porch of life one catches fair 
 gleams of the radiant light of the new Jeru 
 salem. From the western porch of life one 
 steps into the vestibule leading to the house not 
 made with hands. From the western porch of 
 life one reaches trembling hands and grasps the 
 skirts of God. Let us listen with bowed head 
 and chastened reverence and somewhat of child 
 like wonder to the even songs and sunset mes 
 sages of those who stand upon the western porch 
 of life because their songs are sweeter, their 
 messages are fraught with a richer meaning, 
 and about their bowed and spent forms the gar 
 ment of the Lord is wrapped, the halo of the 
 Lord is gathered. 
 
VII 
 HELL AND HEAVEN 
 
 To live from day to day in uncongenial sur 
 roundings and adverse circumstances ; to yearn 
 passionately for life s vast unattainable ; to see 
 our tallest dreams come back to us, flotsam and 
 jetsam ; to be misunderstood and reviled when 
 we lavish our soul treasures upon the unappre- 
 ciative and the faultfinding; to look eagerly 
 across the gray mists of life into the shining 
 stars for something that will satisfy the hunger 
 and quench the thirst of our souls, and find it 
 not; to feel the tidal waves of action and the 
 quenchless passion of service striving passion 
 ately within a soul whose dwelling place is a 
 fragile body and a complex bundle of nerves; 
 to feel the clutch of Satan in a besetting sin 
 and contemplate with infinite remorse his weird, 
 wild-eyed, grim,* gruesome, fiendish triumph; 
 to see the cords of habit bind tighter and 
 tighter the freedom of our souls and cry aloud 
 for help, nor find it anywhere ; to follow the great 
 Captain into the dark, and, losing, find only 
 black night and piteous unrest of soul; to lie 
 26 
 
u THE GREATEST OF THESE " 27 
 
 down at night with a guilty conscience and a 
 soul that has been soiled in the dust of the 
 world; to misspend a life pregnant with vast 
 possibilities and rich in eternal values ; to sur 
 render our inner life, our holy of holies, to the 
 vultures of selfishness, hate, anger, jealousy, 
 malice, and murderous passions ; to live through 
 out the cycles and asons of eternity in sight of 
 the great white throne and the face of Christ, 
 with infinite yearnings unanswered and a re 
 morse of soul that surpasses physical torture; 
 to reach with eager, outstretched hands after 
 the unattainable on the celestial side of the gulf 
 impassable; to cry as infants in the night, with 
 no language but a cry, for surcease from pain, 
 and hear only the gruesome, grotesque, hollow, 
 phantasmagorical echoes and reverberations of 
 the home of the lost; to remember with terrific 
 force every evil act and recall with fearful vivid 
 ness every lost opportunity ; to be consumed and 
 reconsumed and tortured and torn by passions 
 and evil traits, intensified and magnified a thou 
 sandfold by the genius and environment of the 
 place prepared for the devil and his angels ; and 
 to yearn piteously and quenchlessly for the 
 touch of a hand and the sound of voices that 
 were heard long since and lost forever this 
 is hell. 
 
 To live from day to day with those whom we 
 
28 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 love and who love us in turn, bound together by 
 common cords, kindredness of spirit, and goodly 
 fellowship; to enjoy peace of mind, sweetness 
 of nature, purity of heart, and spotlessness of 
 soul ; to be guided by our affections rather than 
 by our passions ; to dream a few great dreams, 
 and, even though all do not come true, to believe 
 with certainty that all things work together for 
 good to us when our hearts are fixed on God ; to 
 wrap the arms of our hearts passionately about 
 the shivering, cheerless, comfortless forms of 
 our more unfortunate brother men and feel the 
 reflex thrill and quiver of Christlike service; 
 to see the form of God in the shining of the 
 stars, in the arch of the rainbow, in the vastness 
 of the moving tides, and in the common clod ; to 
 hear the voice of God in the song of birds, in 
 the running of brooks, in the " Now I lay me " 
 of a little child, and in the discords of sinful 
 men ; to feel the presence of God in the setting 
 sun and the round ocean and the blue sky and 
 the heart of man ; to count that the sweetest 
 music that was ever heard on sea or land, whose 
 theme is the cross of Christ and his matchless 
 gospel ; to know Christ in the power of his resur 
 rection and the fellowship of his sufferings, and 
 to accord to him, the treasures of our souls ; to 
 count ourselves the guests of God, whether we 
 are in the heart of a great city or in the soli- 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 29 
 
 tude of a desert or in the house not made with 
 hands; to grow in grace with the passage of 
 the days and in the knowledge of our Lord, 
 approaching more and more unto the stature 
 of perfect men and perfect women in Christ ; to 
 believe as a little child God s goodness and mercy 
 and to trust him all the way, even into the 
 shadows of life; to lie down to pleasant dreams 
 at eventide and awake in our Father s house ; to 
 hold high and holy fellowship with the Master 
 and the saints of old and those whom we have 
 " loved long since and lost awhile ; " to live un 
 der celestial influences throughout the ages of 
 eternity, working and growing and learning and 
 loving and approaching but never quite attain 
 ing unto the stature and character of God 
 this is heaven. 
 
VIII 
 THE REWARD OF PREACHING 
 
 Great sacrifices are involved in preaching the 
 gospel. A man must forego many of life s 
 pleasures and even normal amusements. In re 
 ality, preachers are men of like passions and 
 temptations with other men, and, as a matter 
 of fact, they may be no better than other men, 
 but they are at least expected to be better. 
 They are chosen vessels of God, set apart to 
 represent him to men, and in turn the world 
 places a premium upon the preacher, requiring 
 of him a life that is hid with Christ in God. It 
 demands that he shall be filled with all of the 
 fullness of God, and thereby rise above the sor 
 did, the soulless, and the sinful. The very fact 
 that he is set apart means isolation, abandon 
 ment, renunciation. He may be a human, so 
 cial, and normal entity; he must be a man of 
 God in a unique, distinct sense. And this very 
 fact involves a certain subtle sacrifice, for in 
 spite of the fact that he is bound to his people 
 in a peculiar, spiritual fellowship, he is thereby 
 separated from them as a human, normal fellow 
 30 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 31 
 
 being. This costs some men more than others. 
 Some preachers delight in it, while others chafe 
 under it. Preachers make great financial sac 
 rifices to preach the gospel, and many of them 
 toil incessantly, suffer infinite hardships, walk 
 the via dolorosa, and renounce the thing their 
 hearts hold most dear, and come out of the 
 battle with scars on their forms. 
 
 These are just the beginnings of the true 
 preacher s sacrifices. But in spite of, and some 
 times by means of, the sacrifices and hardships 
 and great hurts, the preacher s reward is ex 
 ceedingly great beyond the power of words to 
 express, indeed, transcendently greater than any 
 other vocation. In proportion to the dignity 
 and the responsibility of the work is the reward 
 of it all. When a man catches the outlines of a 
 vision vast and purposes in his heart to follow 
 the great Captain even into the shadows and 
 " beyond the sunset and the baths of all the 
 western stars " of service and suffering and love 
 and growth, walking in his footsteps and talking 
 in his language and working after his fashion, 
 then it is that his whole life is invested with a 
 new meaning, and the world is no longer a 
 charnel house filled with specters, but Godlike 
 and his Father s. No man can walk with his 
 head among the stars without feeling the influ 
 ence of the stars. No man can fill his life with 
 
32 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 a great passion without feeling the thrill of 
 such a passion. No man can follow the great 
 Captain without catching somewhat of the 
 Spirit of the Captain. The preacher is God s 
 good man. The preacher is God s ambassador 
 to the courts of earth. The preacher is God s 
 companion in his walks in the cool of the even 
 ing among the children of men. There are 
 scars on his form which were received in the 
 service of his Lord, but they are marks of his 
 Lord, and in the city not made with hands his 
 Lord will know him by his scars. There are 
 great hurts in his heart, but out of his tears 
 and great hurts the God of love is weaving a 
 garment of transcendent beauty, the threads of 
 which he cannot see now; but by and by in the 
 city of God he shall see the garment in all of 
 its beauty, and his soul shall be satisfied. 
 
 Amid the toils and the sacrifices, amid the 
 pain of body and hurt of heart, amid the fearful 
 loneliness and sorrow of soul, comes the voice 
 of the Son of God like the voice of one who has 
 caught the music of the world in one wondrous 
 note and wafted it over a world of sorrow and 
 suffering, saying : " Well done, thou good and 
 faithful servant." " Inasmuch as ye have done 
 it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
 have done it unto me." What care we for the 
 sacrifices and the great hurts and the mockings 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " S3 
 
 of men when the voice of the Galilean falls upon 
 our ears like music from a harp of a thousand 
 strings tuned by the fingers of God and played 
 upon by the angels of God? 
 
 There come times in the preacher s life 
 it may be when with passion and power he is 
 telling the old, old story of Jesus and his love, 
 or it may be when with love like unto his Lord s 
 he is sweeping into some life like a great north 
 ern light with the high theme of the gospel upon 
 his lips, or it may be when in the high privilege 
 of prayer he holds beautiful fellowship with 
 his Lord there come times when 
 
 " This earth we walk on seems not earth, 
 This light that strikes our eyeballs is not light, 
 This air that smites our forehead is not air, 
 But vision." 
 
 There come times when 
 
 " There are flashes struck from midnights, 
 There are fire flames noondays kindle, 
 Whereby piled-up honors perish, 
 
 Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle." 
 
 There come times when we stand with the Mas 
 ter upon some mount of transfiguration and the 
 countenance of our faces is changed, and the 
 garments of our souls glisten and shine, and 
 God s gentle voice floats down to us out of the 
 
34 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 clouds, and we become a part of the angel choir 
 of God, and we know that we know. 
 
 Preaching the gospel is the grandest work on 
 earth. It pays better dividends than any other 
 investment. The true preacher builds an abid 
 ing throne in countless human hearts, and he 
 becomes a prince among men, and this through 
 lowly service and Christlike ministrations and 
 love which " takes up the harp of life and smites 
 on all the chords with might, smites the chord 
 of self, which, trembling, passes in music out of 
 sight." We cannot all preach to great metro 
 politan churches, we cannot all hold high places 
 in the eyes of the world, we cannot all preach 
 great and noble sermons, but, according to the 
 measure of ability that has been divinely vouch 
 safed to us, we can all serve and suffer and love 
 and witness for our common Lord. And after 
 we have toiled and wrought and served and 
 suffered and reached the twilight hour, I am 
 thinking that the great Rewarder of men will 
 send his chariot, and when we arrive at the city 
 not made with hands our Lord will lean over 
 the golden bars of the New Jerusalem and lift 
 us into the place he has prepared for us. 
 
IX 
 
 THE PREACHER S IDEAL 
 
 To be guided by love rather than by hate ; to 
 be possessed of sweetness of nature, purity of 
 heart, and spotlessness of soul; to live such a 
 life that all the world will take notice that we 
 have been with Jesus ; to dream a few dreams 
 which shall never lose their freshness and reflex 
 ive power; to hold so high the torch of God s 
 truth and mercy that wayfarers will not lose 
 their way in the mist and the fog of life ; to en 
 mesh in the mystic web of love all whom we 
 touch, and thereby bind them closer to the Man 
 of Galilee; to forget our little malices and ha 
 treds and jealousies against all men, and espe 
 cially against our brethren in the ministry; to 
 press forward day by day beyond the outer con 
 fines of yesterday s attainments, until finally 
 we shall arrive at the stature of perfect men in 
 Christ Jesus, as far as it is possible to be per 
 fect in a world of manifold human limitations ; 
 to feed the flock of the great Shepherd with the 
 bread of life, and lead them beside the still 
 waters of love and through green pastures of 
 35 
 
36 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 hope ; to be stirred and fired by such a passion 
 for souls that, in a beautiful abandon of spirit 
 and forgetfulness of self, we shall lose our lives 
 in the service of the Master of the vineyard ; to 
 be filled and thrilled with the consciousness of 
 the power of the gospel of Christ unto the sal 
 vation of souls ; to count it more worth while 
 to be grand in soul than powerful in intellect, 
 and yet to strive mightily after intellectual ex 
 cellence ; to sweep into at least a few lives like 
 some great northern light with the high theme of 
 the gospel upon our lips ; to follow the Master 
 all the way, even into the shadows of life, hold 
 ing ever to the great truth that the servant is 
 not above his Lord; to tell with passion and 
 power the old, old story of Jesus and his love, 
 and try diligently to live our sermons ; to re 
 frain steadily from unholy dreams of prestige 
 and power and place, cherishing rather the 
 high dream of lowly service and Christlike min 
 istration ; to wrap the arms of our hearts so 
 passionately about the forms of those out of 
 whose lives the light has gone and into whose 
 lives the night has come, that a new light that 
 never was on sea or land will break in upon 
 their souls ; to so touch the silent, dormant 
 chords in callous, indifferent lives that angels 
 and men shall pause and listen to the new note 
 that swells the harmony of the universe ; to love 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 37 
 
 little children and bring into their lives some 
 what of the joy and light that radiated from 
 Him who said, " Suffer little children, and for 
 bid them not, to come unto me; for of such is 
 the kingdom of heaven ; " to be pliable and 
 flexible and self-effacing in matters of policy for 
 the kingdom of heaven s sake, but to refuse 
 courageously to compromise a principle; to 
 preach Christ and him crucified or straightway 
 leave the ministry; to make sure that Christ is 
 the ruling passion of our lives, the chief Guest 
 in the palace of our hearts, and let nothing, 
 whether fortune, fame, or family, separate us 
 from the love of Christ ; and, finally, to dedicate, 
 to consecrate our all upon the altar of the living 
 God this is the preacher s ideal. 
 
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY AND THE 
 LIFE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Viewing it from a material standpoint, wire 
 less telegraphy is possibly the most remarkable 
 conception of the present remarkable age, but 
 it appeals to me as the tangible herald of a 
 larger and richer and higher intangible message 
 and reality. The wireless station registers ex 
 ternal impressions and thereby becomes an in 
 animate receptive objective. We are intellec 
 tually, aesthetically, and spiritually animate 
 receptive objectives, registering upon our re 
 ceptive brain cells, upon the tablets of our 
 hearts, and upon the scrolls of our souls exter 
 nal impressions of various natures. But it is 
 not only this simple platitude that I am reach 
 ing after; it is a yet larger and richer con 
 ception. The material universe is a logical 
 projection of an unseen force or entity, which 
 we call God. Every cause must have an effect. 
 Back of star shine and ocean tide and mountain 
 glory must be a great first cause. Between this 
 logical, tangible, material projection and this 
 38 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 39 
 
 unseen force there must, of necessity, be a bond 
 of fellowship, a vital connection, golden chains 
 of invisible links. Nature obeys blindly; man 
 willingly or not at all. This spiritual entity, 
 this vast leverage that we call first cause, is 
 essentially not only greater than the audible, 
 the visible, and the tangible, but is logically the 
 greatest conception in the realm of the seen or 
 the unseen. The veil separating the seen and 
 the unseen is thin or thick, as we are deli 
 cately wrought spiritual instruments or fleshly 
 screened obtuse receptive objectives. The bor 
 derland between the spiritual and the material 
 is twilight zone or midnight darkness, as we 
 have eyes to see and ears to hear, or have eyes 
 and see not and ears and hear not. According 
 to the evolutionary process of the development 
 of the human race from an imperfect, obtuse, 
 material substructure into a more perfect, com 
 plete, and spiritual superstructure, we conclude 
 that the trend of progress and the march of 
 evolution is from the material to the spiritual, 
 from the tangible to the intangible, from the 
 visible to the invisible. Men are supremely 
 great, not because they can fight valiantly and 
 accomplish marvelous physical feats, but rather 
 because they are grand in soul, and they are 
 grand in soul because they have connected them 
 selves with this vast spiritual leverage that lies 
 
40 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 back of the material, and therefore they project 
 not themselves into the currents of life, but they 
 project this supernatural entity in proportion 
 as they have freely opened themselves as an 
 objective. The greatest man, then, is the most 
 receptive man, the man who is most teachable 
 in the largest sense of the word. 
 
 Now, there is a certain material harmony of 
 " things in general " on the lower planes of life, 
 and there is a constant registering of these har 
 monies and impressions ; but a higher, finer, 
 grander harmony exists, the dominant note of 
 which is spirit and the sound thereof celestial. 
 This larger, richer harmony of " things in gen 
 eral " has to do primarily with the spiritual 
 realm, and therefore is just beyond the wireless 
 stations of our minds and souls, because our 
 human instruments are not delicate enough to 
 register the celestial voices, and the flesh so 
 screens us that we cannot receive the divine 
 impressions. Shakespeare says : 
 
 " How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
 Here we will sit and let the sounds of music 
 Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night 
 Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
 . . . Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: 
 There s not the smallest orb which thou behold st 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 41 
 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims. 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls; 
 But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 
 
 Christ says : " Blessed are the pure in heart : 
 for they shall see God." I take this to mean 
 that we shall not only see him beyond the veil 
 of which we have been speaking, when the fleshly 
 screen is left behind and the soul looks with its 
 own eyes, but that it is possible here to roll 
 back the screen of the flesh and with the eyes 
 of the soul to catch an outline of the vision of 
 God. I take it to mean that we shall not only 
 see him in nature and in the lives of our fellow 
 men, but that we shall through purity of heart 
 and spotlessness of soul transcend the utmost 
 bounds of material entities and establish a visible 
 bond of relationship between the invisible en 
 tity that lies back of the seen. A man with 
 soul on fire with music touches the keys of a 
 great pipe organ. Matchless melodies issue 
 from the organ, and the building is transformed 
 into a vast concord. Thousands of people are 
 listening. Some hear only a rolling noise pleas 
 ing to the physical ear. Others are moved by 
 the splendid technique and the execution of the 
 master musician. Still others hear a deeper 
 note of soul calling unto soul and soul answering 
 unto soul. Some go a step farther and catch 
 
42 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 a gleam or two of the soul of the composer. 
 Others in a single royal leap are lifted into the 
 land of dreams and catch a whiff of the broken 
 dreams of the great composer, of the visions 
 of his life, of the music that was in his soul cry 
 ing passionately for expression, but could not 
 be born on account of the screen of the flesh and 
 the dampening influence of the world. But 
 there are a few only a few who listen, and 
 as they listen the pipe organ, the majestic build 
 ing, the technique of the master musician, the 
 soul of the composer, and the unutterable music 
 of his soul, all are splendidly lost and swallowed 
 up in the larger conception, in a richer melody, 
 in a more wondrous symphony. They feel 
 themselves a part of the vast choir invisible of 
 the inarticulate world of inaudible music, and 
 voices from the tideless seas of celestial sounds 
 float in upon their souls, and they are borne 
 afar, farther and farther into the mystic realms 
 of the vast unseen, losing themselves finally in 
 sight of the New Jerusalem, the great white 
 throne, and the Father s face. They were per 
 fect wireless stations, registering as receptive 
 objectives the whole grand scheme of divine 
 and celestial harmonies, and thereby transcend 
 ing the utmost confines of time and space and 
 place, pitching the tents of their souls " beyond 
 the sunset and the baths of all the western 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 43 
 
 stars," of the tangible, the audible, and the visi 
 ble. 
 
 I am thinking this is the gist of life, our 
 chief business. We are divinely projected into 
 this mundane relationship, and we are divinely 
 expected not only to adjust ourselves harmoni 
 ously with our material and actual environment, 
 but we are divinely expected to establish indi 
 vidual wireless telegraphic stations, which sta 
 tions shall perfectly register inaudible and 
 intangible spiritual messages and thereby be 
 come a vital part of the larger and higher 
 harmony of celestial " things in general." In 
 other words, there is a possibility of our walk 
 ing with our feet on the ground and our heads 
 among the stars. Why not? Is not our na 
 ture dual? Are we not of the race of God as 
 well as of man? The souls of men have been 
 cramped and twisted and warped too long Ac 
 cording to the evolutionary process, why cannot 
 the unborn centuries to come establish a friction- 
 less bond of fellowship between the souls of men 
 and the Oversoul? 
 
XI 
 A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT 
 
 The years and the centuries come and go, 
 only to make clearer to the children of men the 
 memory of the manger cradle and the marvelous 
 Wonder of Galilee. Well may we, His follow 
 ers, celebrate this most wonderful event in the 
 history of the ages; for since the Christ came 
 as a little child and wrapped his arms tenderly 
 about the forms of little children, the world 
 has bowed its head in sacred reverence to the 
 glory of motherhood and the beauty of child 
 hood. To-day a true mother s knee is the 
 purest altar from which prayer ascends to the 
 throne of God, and baby feet making melody 
 in the human heart is the sweetest music that 
 has ever lifted the broken lives of men and 
 women to the heights immortal. In the light of 
 the coming of Christ to a world of sin and dark 
 ness and sorrow, how beautiful, how inspiring 
 is that immortal little prayer : 
 
 " Now I lay me down to sleep, 
 I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 
 If I should die before I wake, 
 I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take ! " 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 45 
 
 There are times when the voice of a little 
 child following brokenly after its mother the 
 words of that little prayer fills and thrills our 
 souls with an inexplicable something that lifts 
 us far above the life of the flesh into the shining 
 tableland of the larger and higher life, into the 
 measureless realms inhabited only by the soul 
 and God. Since Christ was born of a woman, 
 it is not the king on his throne, nor the warrior 
 on fields of battle, nor the statesman in legisla 
 tive halls, but the mother in the home who, un 
 der God, shapes the destiny of the nations. 
 
 In the beautiful legend of the angel s visit 
 to earth three things were borne on angel wings 
 back to the city not made with hands a 
 mother s love, the smile of a little child, and a 
 beautiful flower. The smile faded on the way 
 and the flower withered, but the mother s love 
 faded not away nor yet did it wither. O Christ, 
 in the divine abandon of thy matchless love and 
 thy marvelous sacrifice, thou hast not only re 
 vealed the face of our Father who is in heaven 
 and reconciled a lost world, but thou hast lifted 
 womanhood out of the night and into the light, 
 out of shame and infinite heartache into exquisite 
 purity and largest life, and with thy pierced 
 hand hast reached out into the fogs of supersti 
 tion and sin and human weakness and saved unto 
 thyself the little children of the world ! 
 
XII 
 THE CELESTIAL CITY 
 
 Mother, home, and heaven are the three words 
 around which cluster the most sacred associa 
 tions. They are invested with tender charm 
 and idyllic sweetness. The idea of home fills 
 and thrills us with higher ideals and larger pur 
 poses. The thought of mother sways the heart 
 and enriches the whole of life. The contempla 
 tion of heaven begets within us more sweetness 
 of nature, more holiness in living, more charity 
 for man, more love for God. The thoughts of 
 good men, though fastened upon the things of 
 earth, wander toward the city not made with 
 hands. The highest dreams of men find lodg 
 ment in the celestial city. Heaven is not a theme 
 to exploit or to use as a medium in playing 
 upon the emotions of people. Much violence 
 has been done to this most sacred subject. A 
 sermon or a harangue on heaven is always lis 
 tened to, because the world knows so little about 
 it and is so vitally interested in it that it would 
 gladly hear more. We may allow our imagina 
 tion to run riot and our fancy full play and 
 46 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 47 
 
 evolve some astonishing theories. But in the 
 last analysis all we know about heaven is what 
 the Bible teaches about heaven. And for some 
 mysterious reason Christ taught far less con 
 cerning heaven than He did about earth and our 
 life here. May not this be because He wants 
 us to work out our destiny here by His help 
 and trust Him to prepare and look after our 
 welfare there? But in spite of the meager 
 definite, detailed knowledge obtainable on this 
 vital subject, there is a good deal that we know 
 about heaven directly and indirectly. 
 
 We know that heaven is a place. Christ said 
 so : "I go to prepare a place for you." We 
 do not know where this place is. Christ, in 
 speaking of it and in addressing His Father, 
 led us to believe that it was above us, in the sky, 
 far-off and cloud-wrapped. But that is very 
 vague and uncertain. Where in the sky is 
 heaven? No man knows, and no man need pre 
 tend that he knows, be he ever so wise, for he 
 cannot know. It seems to have pleased God 
 for us not to know. Some have believed and 
 taught that heaven is only on earth, in good 
 people and good places, but that is not only 
 vague but dangerous and obviously erroneous 
 doctrine. Others believe that heaven will be 
 on earth after the world is destroyed, but that 
 is a wild guess without fact or foundation. 
 
48 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 Still others think that heaven will be located at 
 special places on earth, such as Jerusalem, the 
 garden of Eden, etc., which theory is likewise 
 only a theory. We can only know that it is a 
 place, but it is a place which Christ has pre 
 pared. Therefore heaven is a prepared place 
 for a prepared people. Christ prepares it for 
 the people whom He prepares for it, for none 
 others are ready. A wedding garment must be 
 worn in order to enter the celestial city, and 
 this garment is woven for us by Christ. 
 
 We do not know in definite fashion the nature 
 of this city which hath foundations, whose 
 builder and maker is God, but we know that it 
 is transcendently beautiful beyond the power of 
 words to express. Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
 heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of 
 man what God has prepared for His children 
 in the inheritance to come. In gorgeous lan 
 guage and picturesque conceptions St. John the 
 divine presents a picture of heaven as he caught 
 apocalyptic visions from the Isle of Patmos. 
 His picture has appealed most vitally to the 
 heart of the world. We are finite and human. 
 We are circumscribed by human and finite limi 
 tations. We rarely grasp realities in essence 
 and spirit beyond the tangible and audible and 
 visible. We need something tangible to steady 
 us. St. John materialized heaven in ideal 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 49 
 
 fashion. In doing so he made a tremendous 
 appeal to the human race, for men love gold 
 and pearl and jasper and dazzling beauty. 
 Some good Bible scholars declare that there are 
 no such realities as golden streets, pearly gates, 
 etc. They hold that a marvelous celestial vision 
 was vouchsafed to John on Patmos of spiritual 
 beauties and celestial realities too excellent for 
 human language to utter. They argue that ce 
 lestial conditions can be expressed only in celes 
 tial language, that human speech is hopelessly 
 limited in describing such conditions, and that we 
 can really form no conception of the spiritual 
 glory and heavenly beauty of this city until we 
 see it with the eyes of the soul and speak to its 
 citizens with the voice of the spirit. But John 
 caught this splendid vision and felt impelled to 
 share it. The question was, how to impart the 
 vision. He ransacked the vocabulary of the 
 world for words big and beautiful and pregnant 
 enough, and failing in his effort to express it, 
 he made the city as beautiful and as gorgeous 
 as he could, using language which could be un 
 derstood by men and presented to men as lovely 
 a picture of heaven as the human mind could 
 desire. These commentators contend that 
 heaven is not a material place, that no flesh and 
 blood can enter there, that all is spiritual and 
 enduring throughout the cycles and aeons of 
 
50 THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 eternity. But matter and flesh do not abide 
 changeless with the passage of the years. Hence 
 this picture of John s is figurative, which does 
 not mean that it is false, but rather symbolic of 
 a rarer, larger, richer beauty which no man 
 can describe. On the other hand, another school 
 insists on the literal interpretation, and they 
 believe that we shall some day walk the golden 
 streets of the New Jerusalem, and see the pearly 
 gates of the celestial city, and lean over golden 
 bars, and rest beneath the shade of kindly 
 trees. But we cannot know definitely who is 
 right. We simply know that heaven is a place 
 of incomparable and inexplicable beauty and 
 God has spared no pains in the preparation of 
 such a place for those who love and serve the 
 Lord. 
 
 We know that heaven is a place of high and 
 holy and rich fellowship. We know that holy 
 men of old who wrought and toiled and served 
 and suffered for God will be there; we know 
 that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany and 
 Mary the mother of our Lord will be there ; we 
 know that the good people whom we have known 
 in the flesh will be there ; we know that the apos 
 tles will be there; we know that Christ will be 
 there. We know that the followers of Christ 
 will come up from the east and the west and 
 the north and the south and sit down in heav- 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 51 
 
 enly places. This will be a select, though a 
 tremendous, company. They will be the salt 
 of the earth and the saved in heaven. The con 
 templation of such a host of kindred spirits 
 elevates the soul, for we know that they all will 
 be in one accord and in one place. We know 
 that they will have a community of interests and 
 a single purpose and a common ruling passion, 
 which is the Lamb in the midst. All will be 
 one great family. Christ will be the binding 
 influence. There will be no jealousy there; 
 there will be no envy there; there will be no 
 strife there; there will be no sin there. The 
 companionship of heaven will be one of its chief 
 attractions. We who can form high and holy 
 friendships here are made sad by the separations 
 and partings of life. We would be with our 
 friends more. We do not have the opportunity 
 to cultivate enough friends. The limitations of 
 earth are so narrow. But in heaven friendship 
 will run riot and still be reasonable. Social 
 distinctions will not separate us there as here: 
 money will not be there to cause one citizen to 
 look down on another : and the top-loftical eccle 
 siastic or high functionary who cannot afford 
 to associate with unimportant folks here will 
 either be on a common level there or will be there 
 not at all, for the good Lord is not pleased with 
 the foolishness of men. He has said so. We 
 
52 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 sometimes long to see Shakespeare or Robert 
 Lee or John Wesley or some other giant among 
 the sons of men. But think of seeing Christ 
 face to face, of looking into His eyes with the 
 eyes of our soul, of hearing His voice call us 
 by name and welcome us as a fellow heir into 
 the place He has prepared for us! Heaven 
 without Christ would be hell, for He is the light 
 of the city and the life thereof. Think of meet 
 ing the apostle Paul, with the marks of his Lord 
 upon him, and the privilige of hearing him tell 
 about his work and sufferings and death for his 
 Lord! I imagine most of us would look up 
 Mary Magdalene as soon as possible and ask her 
 to tell us all about how she rose from a woman 
 of the street houseless by night to the sublimest 
 heights of high and holy womanhood, and how 
 it was that she was able to love so trans cend- 
 ently well. And I am thinking that several 
 days would be well spent in listening to old 
 Peter s triumphs and deep humiliations. And 
 all who have ever loved beautifully will be eager 
 to strike hands with the great apostle of love 
 whom Christ loved as man. Heaven will be a 
 place of high and holy and rich fellowship and 
 sanctified friendships than which nothing is more 
 delightful on earth or in heaven. This alone 
 is worth all it costs to get there. 
 
 Heaven is a place of activity and service and 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 53 
 
 growth. Life there is not only ageless but con 
 tinuous. Idleness has no place in the economy 
 of God. In His plan nothing treads with idle 
 feet. The drone in heaven is as much a mon 
 strosity as the drone on earth. Heaven is a 
 place of rest, but stagnation is not rest, and 
 idleness is not rest. If heaven means sitting 
 under shade trees eating milk and honey and 
 playing on golden harps and nothing else 
 some live, robust folks with red corpuscles would 
 not greatly care to go to heaven. It is inter 
 esting to study the opinions of different people 
 concerning the nature of heaven, its employ 
 ments, etc. Generally, people think of heaven 
 as a place where their unfulfilled earthly desires 
 will be gratified ad libitum. For instance, the 
 negro who has to work in the heat of Southern 
 suns and often times suffer hunger, dreams of 
 heaven as a place of shade trees and milk and 
 honey in abundance. The tired house-wife, 
 whose work is never done, dreams of a place of 
 rest. To her nothing is sweeter than rest. 
 She wants rest. She has heard much of 
 heaven as a place of absolute bliss, but for her 
 there can be no bliss where there is no rest. 
 The Indian wants a happy hunting ground 
 and a surfeit of the chase, and that is his 
 dream of heaven. The Mohammedan looks for 
 sensuous pleasures and beautiful maidens for 
 
54 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 constant companions. The painter painting 
 under terrestrial limitations, unable to put upon 
 canvas the immortal children of his soul, 
 dreams of four walls in the New Jerusalem 
 where he may paint under celestial conditions 
 the pictures which he could not paint on earth. 
 The poet with the adverse influences of the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil quenching his 
 high songs and warping his fine spirit, yearns 
 for a heavenly scroll and celestial measures and 
 the Homers of heaven to appreciate his poetry. 
 The musicians with souls on fire with inarticu 
 late music dream of striking divine harmonies 
 from the strings of heavenly harps. The lover 
 whose beautiful dreams of consummated love 
 returned to him flotsam and jetsam hopes to 
 reach a far country across the mystic river 
 where he will find the soul of his soul with 
 whom he shall dwell forever and forever. But 
 all of these are dreams. I believe some of 
 them will be realized, and I believe some will 
 not be realized. We may look for service and 
 work and growth as a certainty. Nowhere does 
 the Bible teach that heaven is stagnation and 
 idleness and selfish ease. Christ has no pa 
 tience with them who are at ease in Zion. 
 Earth s experience prepares us for heaven s 
 larger experience. The service we render here 
 is symbolic of the larger service we shall render 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 55 
 
 there. Our growth in grace and knowledge 
 and wisdom here argues a larger and a wider 
 growth hereafter. We do not complete our 
 education in the school of life. We enter at 
 death into the university of the skies, and we 
 grow and work and attain, learning new les 
 sons of love, gleaning new truths about God, 
 grasping fuller visions of Christ s sacrifice and 
 mission and person, gradually approaching but 
 never attaining unto the perfection and holi 
 ness of God. Heaven is no nursery for idlers, 
 no flesh pots for gluttons, no display of precious 
 gems for the gratification of gold-loving misers, 
 but a place prepared by Christ for all who love 
 and trust and serve Him here a place of 
 opportunity and peace and happiness and serv 
 ice and growth, a place good men and women will 
 recognize as home and bad men and women would 
 consider hell. 
 
 Heaven is a home without night, for there 
 shall be no night there, without tears, for God 
 shall wipe away all tears from our eyes, and 
 with perpetual light, for Christ is the light of 
 that home. This is certain. We may rest 
 upon these promises: Heaven is home; heaven 
 is full of light ; there can be no night there ; God 
 will wipe away all tears. Earth has nothing 
 like this to offer. Earth s treasures dazzle us, 
 but earth is poor in eternal values. The desire 
 
56 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 of home is strong in the human heart. Even 
 a home on earth, which may be swept away in 
 a moment of time, is sweet to us. It is symbolic 
 of our home in heaven. The home idea of 
 heaven is the strongest and most beautiful ap 
 peal it makes to the children of men. And it 
 is a nightless home, and it is a tearless home. 
 And God is the Father of the home, and none 
 of His children shall suffer or weep or grow 
 weary or endure great hurts. Men have re 
 nounced father and mother and sisters and 
 brothers and houses and lands for such an in 
 heritance. Men have lived in caves and en 
 dured infinite hardships for such a prize. Men 
 have crossed rivers and seas of fire and climbed 
 great mountains of difficulty for such a home. 
 Men have turned their backs upon the glare 
 and the glitter and the glory of the world, and 
 followed the great Captain out into the night, 
 for such a reward. The far country beckons 
 us on and on and on, and its charm is ever 
 fresh and fragant, and its gestures are ever 
 beautiful and eloquent. We are not to serve 
 God and man simply to get to heaven, but the 
 fact that at eventide our Father will call His 
 tired children home is a wonderful incentive to 
 right living and fine deeds. I do not know that 
 the streets are gold and the gates are pearl. I 
 do not know just what the celestial citizens will 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 57 
 
 do and how they will do it. I do not know just 
 where the heavenly home is. I do not know the 
 details and the nature of this wonderful city. 
 But I know that my Lord is there and I would 
 be where He is forever and forever. I know 
 that He is preparing a home for us, which 
 fadeth not away. I know that if we trust Him 
 and serve Him and give our life to Him here, 
 He will receive us into that home. I know that 
 there will be perfect peace and perfect happiness 
 and perfect fellowship. I know that there shall 
 be no night there and God shall wipe away all 
 tears from our eyes and we shall grow into the 
 image of our Lord. 
 
XIII 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 
 
 The instinct of immortality dates back to the 
 gray dawn of history and thought. John Fiske 
 says, " The idea of death is something impossible 
 for the primitive mind to entertain," and Emer 
 son says, " In the minds of all men, or wherever 
 man appears, this belief appears with him, in 
 the savage, savagely ; in the pure, purely." 
 The Egyptians believed in a future existence. 
 Scholars have read inscriptions on monuments 
 and writings on papyri written over forty cen 
 turies ago, and they testify to this belief. On 
 one papyrus are these words, "His soul is living 
 eternally." Zoroaster taught a general resur 
 rection and a judgment day, and Homer, who 
 lived nearly one thousand years before Christ, 
 taught in that marvelous poem, " The Odyssey," 
 that the future life is but a shadow of the present. 
 Socrates, the most splendid human embodiment 
 of the highest heathen civilization, who was 
 born about five hundred years B. C., said: " But 
 those who are found to have lived an eminently 
 
 holy life, these are they who being freed and set 
 58 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 59 
 
 at large from these regions in the earth, as from 
 a prison, arrive at the pure abode above . . . 
 since our soul is certainly immortal." In one 
 form or another, highly developed or imper 
 fectly conceived, the idea of a future life has 
 engaged the attention of all nations and peoples 
 of earth. " Nations have been found without 
 cities, without the arts and sciences, without the 
 mechanical inventions or any of the refinements 
 of civilized life, but a nation without the pre 
 sentiment of the existence of a future state we 
 shall search for in vain." How do we account 
 for this, if we claim that there is no immortality 
 of the soul? Can a universal idea be false? 
 What is this if not the voice of God speaking in 
 the souls of men? Cicero long since said: " In 
 everything the consent of all nations is to be 
 accounted the law of nature, and to resist is to 
 resist the voice of God." A lie cannot perpetu 
 ate itself. Why then has the thought of age 
 less life entered into the universal mind if it be 
 but a lie? Universal ideas are essentially 
 founded upon truth. Error is sectional; truth 
 universal. 
 
 " If then all men,, both good and bad, do teach 
 With general voice, that souls can never die, 
 
 "Pis not man s flattering gloss, but nature s speech, 
 Which, like God s oracles, can never lie." 
 
60 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 This belief is not the fruit of education, but 
 rather intuitive, instinctive knowledge. We do 
 not find instincts falsified in the plan of nature. 
 Instinct teaches a bird to wing its flight across 
 the seas in quest of a milder clime. Why should 
 not the instinct of the soul be even superior to 
 physical impulses? All of the other instincts 
 in man are provided for, therefore why should 
 the reaches of the soul be despised by the 
 Creator, or Over-soul? These noble lines of 
 Addison s bear quoting in this connection: 
 
 " It must be so. Plato, thou reasonest well, 
 
 Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire; 
 
 This longing after immortality! 
 
 Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 
 
 Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
 
 Back on herself and startles at destruction? 
 
 Tis the divinity that stirs within us, 
 
 Tis heaven itself that points out a hereafter 
 
 And intimates eternity to man." 
 
 An atheist requested on his death-bed to be 
 buried by the side of his Christian wife and 
 daughter. When asked why, he replied : " If 
 there be a resurrection of the righteous, they 
 will get me up somehow or other and take me 
 with them." 
 
 Man s restless spirit is a proof of his immor 
 tality. Wealth can not satisfy the soul. Said 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 6l 
 
 a man to Rothschild, " You must be a thor 
 oughly happy man." Said he: "Happy? 
 Me happy? Happy, when just as I am going 
 out to dine a man sends me a note saying, * If 
 you don t send me five hundred pounds before 
 to-morrow night I will blow your brains out. 
 Me happy? " 
 
 Wm. H. Vanderbilt was so annoyed because 
 he and Robert Garret could not come to an 
 agreement that he fell to the floor and died in 
 a fit of apoplexy. 
 
 From the dying bed of Queen Elizabeth comes 
 the cry, " Millions of money for an inch of 
 time." 
 
 Fame cannot satisfy the soul. Charles Lamb 
 enjoyed the applause of men, but says he, " I 
 walk up and down thinking I am happy, but 
 feeling I am not." Was Samuel Johnson 
 happy ? " No ; I am afraid I shall some day 
 go crazy." The famous Edmund Burke was 
 the author of this sentence : " I doubt whether 
 in these hard times I would give a peck of refuse 
 wheat for all that is called fame in the world." 
 
 After a dozen successful campaigns and lay 
 ing half of Europe under his feet, Napoleon 
 was still unsatisfied, and in his ambitions to con 
 quer the world he lost all and was banished 
 to St. Helena, a broken-hearted man. When 
 Alexander had conquered the known world, he 
 
62 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 was not satisfied, but wept because there were 
 no more worlds to conquer. Cyrus, the con 
 queror, wrote this pathetic epitaph for his mon 
 ument: " I am Cyrus. I occupied the Persian 
 empire. I was king over Asia. Begrudge me 
 not this monument}." 
 
 Learning cannot satisfy the soul. When 
 Archimedes discovered the mode of determining 
 the relative quantities of gold and silver in 
 Hiero s crown, through sheer ecstasy he leaped 
 from the bath and ran naked through the streets 
 of Syracuse, shouting, "I have found it ! " But 
 this ecstasy soon died away and he pressed for 
 ward in search of new truth. Newton said: 
 " I feel like a little child amusing itself, finding 
 here a smooth pebble and there a brilliant shell, 
 while the great ocean of truth lies unexplored 
 before me." Why is it the world cannot quench 
 the thirst of man or satisfy his restless spirit? 
 Is it not that man was made for that which the 
 world cannot give ? St. Augustine says : " The 
 soul of man was made for God, therefore it can 
 never rest until it rests in Him alone." 
 
 This is the chief dignity of man, that none 
 or all of the things which pass away with the 
 tide of years can really satisfy him. The soul 
 is godlike, therefore its thirst can only be 
 quenched in the springs of eternity. The im 
 mortality of the soul is not a wild dream nor yet 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 63 
 
 a cunningly devised fable. It is really the only 
 substantial thing in life or death. Art perishes, 
 architecture crumbles away, literature is muta 
 ble, knowledge shall vanish away, the treasures 
 of earth are corrupted by moth and rust; the 
 soul alone lives throughout the cycles of time. 
 
 " The soul., secure in her existence, smiles 
 
 At the drawn dagger and defies its pain. 
 
 The stars may fade away, the sun himself 
 
 Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; 
 
 But she shall flourish in immortal youth, 
 
 Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
 
 The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds." 
 
 Were there no immortality of the soul, life 
 would indeed be full of inequalities, of meaning 
 less dreams, of hopeless ideals, and of a certain 
 harshness of divine government, which would 
 prove fearfully discouraging to human effort, 
 to high hoping, to beautiful dreaming, and to 
 the ceaseless following of a high ideal " in spite 
 of the stare of the wise and the world s derision." 
 To man, with his broken dreams and unrealized 
 ideals, the thought of heaven as a realization 
 of his ideals and a consummation of his dreams 
 is a splendid conception and a rare inspiration. 
 All that we dreamed of being here, but could 
 not be because of the " twist and cross " of 
 things, we shall be in the ageless life ; all of the 
 rare deeds of love that we would do here, but 
 
64 THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 could not quite accomplish because of the myriad 
 quenching voices of the world, we shall do on 
 the other side this is a thought to call forth 
 the very best and biggest in us. Even after 
 we have wrought well here, and toiled as men 
 fashioned after God s likeness, and done many 
 fine things in life s great workshop, still our 
 lives are wofully incomplete and hopelessly im 
 perfect in spite of the doctrines of extreme 
 holiness. Shall we not have another chance un 
 der more auspicious circumstances? I do not 
 mean a chance to repent of our sins and thereby 
 escape hell, but a place where the soul shall 
 speak in its own language and have full play to 
 enlarge her borders by a frictionless fellowship 
 with the Over-soul. Henry Ward Beecher said : 
 
 " I am like a man that takes the first canvas 
 to paint a picture. He does not know what he 
 will do. He lays in forms in all sorts of ways 
 without coming to any satisfactory result. At last 
 he says, I cannot make anything of that picture, 
 but I have a conception. Bring me a fresh can 
 vas, and I will try again, when I think I shall 
 have better success. I have long been trying to 
 paint true life, and have only partially succeeded; 
 but if God will give me another canvas I think I 
 can paint better, and He will." 
 
 Said Victor Hugo, the author of one of the 
 greatest novels ever written: 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 65 
 
 " For half a century I have been writing my 
 thoughts in prose, verse, history, philosophy, 
 drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, song I 
 have tried all. But I feel that I have not said 
 the thousandth part of what is in me. When I 
 go down to the grave, I can say, like so many 
 others, I have finished my day s work ; I cannot 
 say, I have finished my life. My day s work 
 will begin the next morning. The tomb is not 
 a blind alley, it is a thoroughfare. It closes in 
 the twilight to open with the dawn. My work 
 is only beginning. My monument is hardly above 
 its foundation. I would be glad to see it mount 
 ing and mounting forever. The thirst for the in 
 finite proves infinity." 
 
 Browning s " Andrea del Sarto," the flaw 
 less painter, who had failed here for lack of 
 soul-power, asked for one more chance to try 
 his brush under new conditions upon one of the 
 four walls of the New Jerusalem. Who shall 
 say it was not a splendid request? That very 
 request proved that he had soul-power, even 
 though he could not quite reach the goal here. 
 
 But the man who has risen with Christ from 
 the old life into the new does not need these or 
 any other proof of ageless life. Why? Be 
 cause he knows and he knows that he knows. A 
 child wraps its arms about its mother s neck and 
 says, " Mamma, I love you." Philosophers 
 and scientists and cynics and rationalists might 
 
66 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 argue until they were green in the face, but they 
 could never persuade that mother that she did 
 not love the little child. How does she know? 
 She knows that she knows. That were an idle 
 question. Likewise, the man who has been born 
 into the wondrous life of the soul through the 
 mystic power of the operation of the Holy Spirit 
 knows that he knows. The Christian knows that 
 this corruptible must put on incorruption and 
 this mortal must put on immortality. 
 
XIV 
 EASTLAKE PARK 
 
 Eastlake Park appeals to me peculiarly. In 
 many respects it is one of the most beautiful 
 things in the city of Los Angeles, but it is a 
 beauty that appeals to the inner eye. I love to 
 go there just before sunset and stay until the 
 stars come out. This is the best time because 
 at that hour there are very few people around 
 and, again, because a soft stillness is in the air, 
 a blessed calm pervades all things, the world 
 around is hushed into silence, and the garment 
 of peace is wrapped about the form of things. 
 As I sit by the lake my heart is strangely 
 warmed by a mystical sense of the beautiful bond 
 that connects all created things into a certain 
 oneness of fellowship, made fast by the golden 
 chain of divine love and Fatherhood. In front 
 is the beautiful lake, calm and peaceful, save 
 now and then a ripple created by the noiseless 
 swimming of a stately swan. Upon the lake 
 is reflected in brilliant colors the golden glory 
 of the setting sun. In the distance are the " ev 
 erlasting hills " silhouetted against the evening 
 67 
 
68 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 sky. On either side and to the rear are luxu 
 riant trees and shrubbery and a profusion of 
 exquisite flowers. After a while the stars come 
 out, one by one, silent messengers from God to 
 the children of men. A swan swims out of a 
 rather muddy, isolated side issue of a lake with 
 its milk white feathers somewhat soiled by the 
 mud, but when it reaches the main body of 
 water its feathers are once more spotless, and 
 with stately bearing it swims out upon the lake 
 and on into the gathering darkness. As it 
 passes out of sight the thought comes to me that 
 though we get our garments soiled in the mud 
 and scum of life s inland sea, at eventide when 
 we launch out upon the boundless ocean of eter 
 nity our garments shall once more become spot 
 less. From this entrancing experience I come 
 back to the din and the noise and the glare and 
 the glitter of the city, with its vast throng of 
 hurrying, rushing, sinning, and soiled men and 
 women, and while it is almost like coming down 
 from a transfiguration mountain experience into 
 the valley below, still I realize that there is a 
 value attached to men and women in sin and 
 soil transcendently greater than that of the 
 combined brotherhood of lake and swan and tree, 
 starshine and sunset and mountain glory, be 
 cause of the divine superscription written immor 
 tally upon the soul of man. 
 
XV 
 
 THE IDEALIST 
 
 Emerson hitched his wagon to a star. He 
 was a man of ideals and he was a man of 
 action. Before Shakespeare could write his 
 plays, which are among the marvels of the world, 
 he must needs allow his immortal characters to 
 flit through his imagination. Milton dreamed 
 of " Paradise Lost " before the world read it in 
 wonder and amazement. Dante was in hell be 
 fore the " Inferno " broke upon the world with 
 such colossal effect. No supremely great man 
 reaches the heights before he has dreamed of 
 them. We are no greater than our ideals, and 
 generally not as great. " A man s reach should 
 exceed his grasp." Ideals are distant objects, 
 far-off points, cloud-wrapped realities. Like a 
 mirage, they vanish as we approach them, and 
 reform farther in the distance. We should not 
 attain unto our ultimate ideal. There would be 
 no more worlds to conquer. We would rust un- 
 burnished, lapse into lethargy, stagnate. Hope 
 springs eternal in the human breast. Our ideals 
 
 continually elude our grasp, but to-morrow we 
 69 
 
70 < THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 are sure of reaching the goal. But suppose we 
 never reach the mark, suppose the golden dream 
 never comes true, what then? Are we not 
 stronger, wiser, better for having dreamed and 
 reached and followed the white ideal? The prize 
 of life is often in the race, not the goal. Our 
 realized ideals are not so sweet to us as the new- 
 formed unattained ideals. The little child 
 dreams of the time when he will be able to climb 
 up on a table ; then to ride a pony ; then to shoot 
 a gun ; then to be a man and wear long pants ; 
 then to sprout a mustache ; then to play the man 
 in the world s work. And so it goes from age 
 to age we are fired with new ambitions, filled with 
 new ideals, rising and falling and falling and 
 rising, until finally nothing that this world holds 
 will satisfy us ; with St. Augustine, we would 
 rest in God. 
 
 The value of an ideal is in its inspirational 
 effect. We are swayed by our ideals. A con 
 scientious man makes a desperate effort to live 
 up to his ideals. A man of low ideals is a man 
 of poor character. This is a logical conclusion, 
 for as a man thinketh in his heart so is he. Out 
 of the heart are the issues of life. The dreamers 
 of the world have been the world s favored chil 
 dren Joseph, Moses, David, St. John, Paul, 
 Francis Xavier, Milton, Browning, and a thou 
 sand others. The world holds nearest to its 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 71 
 
 heart the idealists of the world. It reserves the 
 privilege of ridiculing them at times and at 
 other times allowing them to live in a garret and 
 almost beg for a living; nevertheless she loves 
 them more than she loves her so-called practical 
 men. But we should draw a sharp distinction 
 between idealists proper and practical men 
 proper. The greatest dreamers are they who 
 do most of the world s work. They are seers. 
 They catch visions. They dream dreams. 
 They look years and even centuries ahead. And 
 they do not stop here. They clinch their 
 dreams. They execute their plans. They ren 
 der to the world a man s work well done. 
 This is the type of idealist which is engag 
 ing my attention, and not the impractical vi 
 sionary and the ineffectual sky gazers. They 
 are abnormalities in the eternal fitness of things. 
 They are to be pitied; not admired and not 
 canonized. Now, the intensely practical man, 
 the man who prides himself on never dreaming 
 a dream, never catching the outlines of a great 
 vision, never indulging in a single lofty ideal, 
 this man presents himself as one who sleeps. 
 He sees about one inch beyond his nose, pro 
 vided his is a short nose. He is wrapped 
 up in realities. He never sees beyond the visi 
 ble ; he never hears beyond the audible ; he never 
 reaches beyond the tangible. He lauds to the 
 
72 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 sky such practical men as Harriman, Morgan, 
 etc., and regards with withering contempt such 
 dreamers as Livingstone, Luther, and Savona 
 rola, forgetting that all great achievements grow 
 out of ideals and visions. The great captains 
 of industry are dreamers before they are " prac 
 tical men." Some men use their powers and 
 their ideals to amass fortunes ; some to conquer 
 worlds ; some to write books ; and some to help 
 the Master of men save the world by placing 
 their lives at His disposal. But the root idea is 
 the same. All are idealists. The difference is in 
 the manifestation, in the expression of the ideal. 
 I want to say in this connection that the typical 
 visionary and the typical practical man are 
 both failures. The world s heroes are men who 
 dream dreams and see visions, and then bend 
 their selfish ambitions into an expression of 
 their best selves for the good of men and for the 
 glory of God. Then failure may mean largest 
 success, even as success in some men may mean 
 failure. Sometimes a man must face certain 
 defeat and failure in order to be true to the 
 highest ideals. The world s greatest men and 
 women have walked the via dolorosa. The way 
 of the idealist is hard. But out of defeat and 
 disappointment and shattered hopes and broken 
 dreams may grow largest success, richest at 
 tainment, beautiful character, and eternal gain. 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 73 
 
 My thoughts are traveling toward the land that 
 is called Holy and the Man of Galilee 
 the most marvelous dreamer the world has ever 
 known and yet the most practical man the world 
 has ever loved. The world lay before Him. 
 He enjoyed all power on earth and in heaven. 
 Men wanted Him for their king. How easy 
 for Him to unite the whole world and establish 
 a harmonious, homogeneous empire of righteous 
 ness ! It seemed reasonable, good, natural. But 
 He turned His back upon it all. He set His 
 face toward defeat, toward humiliation, toward 
 the cross, toward apparent loss and oblivion. 
 His dreams seemed mockeries to His followers; 
 His ideals ironies. They had hoped that He 
 would deliver Israel, but it seemed as if it was 
 only a dream, a dream too bright to last. And 
 this dreamer had said that He would draw all 
 men unto Him, that He would found a kingdom 
 greater than that of Charlemagne or Napoleon 
 or Alexander because their kingdoms were 
 founded on force, while His would be founded 
 on love. Small wonder that the cynics laughed, 
 the heathen raged, the hypocrites rejoiced, the 
 scorners mocked. Small wonder that His fol 
 lowers grew faint and lost hope and lapsed back 
 into somewhat of their old life. But the dreamer 
 rose and walked the earth and ascended into 
 heaven and to-day the nations of the earth 
 
74 " THE GREATEST OF THESE 
 
 worship Him, and the islands of the sea rever 
 ence Him, and the kings of men call Him Lord. 
 This world dreamer is world victor. In lesser 
 degree, according to our talents, we shall con 
 quer the world by dreaming beautiful dreams, 
 by catching splendid visions, by cultivating lofty 
 ideals, and by doing our utmost best to project 
 into practical fashion these intangible, invisible 
 children of the spirit. 
 
XVI 
 OUR PRIVILEGE 
 
 We cannot always hear the bells of Easter 
 morn or walk the shining heights of glorified 
 manhood; we cannot always touch the seamless 
 robe of Christ or think the thoughts of God; 
 we cannot always do the Master s bidding in the 
 hard school of life or find the altar stairs which 
 slope through darkness up to God. But we 
 can always strive to listen amid the din and the 
 noise of life for the still, small voice of God; 
 we can always throw our lives in childlike trust 
 upon the bosom of God and lean on Him for re 
 sults ; we can always make some high effort to 
 touch at least a few hearts to finer issues and 
 move a few souls to loftier purposes; we can 
 always follow the Master of men, even though 
 sometimes our vision is dim and our step is 
 faltering, and even though it seems at times 
 that He is leading us out into the night ; we can 
 always hide ourselves beneath the shadow of 
 His wing when the storms of life beat upon us 
 and the tides of life sweep us from our mooring. 
 
XVII 
 BOATS 
 
 As far back as I can remember I have been 
 interested in boats. The toy boat engaged my 
 most youthful attention, but since then other and 
 larger boats and ships have made their appeal 
 and I never grow tired of a boat of any de 
 scription. I have extracted peculiar pleasure 
 from observing toy boats, fishing smacks, sail 
 boats, ocean liners, and battle-ships and my 
 interest in submarines and airships is strong. 
 These boats appeal to me as boats and again 
 as symbols or ideals, parables or allegories. 
 Somehow they are representative, or at least 
 very suggestive, of the Christian life of various 
 types of people. 
 
 1. The toy-boat Christian is that individual 
 whom the devil can treat as a toy and lead 
 around with a string, even as a small boy pulls 
 his little boat on a pond with a string attached. 
 It is strange and sad to observe that this class 
 of Christians exists even among preachers, who 
 allow themselves to be treated as toys and led 
 about by popular applause, fame, money, fear 
 of sacrificing their Conference record by 
 
 preaching the truth to a few godless but power- 
 76 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE 77 
 
 ful members of their churches, an unholy ambi 
 tion. In Sam Jones s picturesque phraseology 
 this class of apparently well-meaning folks 
 won t be in hell ten minutes before the devil 
 will have them bridled and saddled and riding 
 them all over hell. 
 
 2. Fishing smacks are little boats used by 
 fishermen on the coast. They are shallow-water 
 boats, boats afraid to go out too far lest a squall 
 come upon them suddenly and upset them. 
 When they see a squall coming they pull for 
 the shore. The churches are full of fishing- 
 smack Christians. They refuse to venture out 
 upon God s great ocean, preferring to remain 
 in sight of the shore for fear they may per 
 chance encounter a storm or a little danger. 
 They miss the best and the biggest in life be 
 cause they do not launch out into the deep. 
 They forget that he who dares most for God 
 gains most. He that loseth his life on God s 
 ocean shall find a larger life in God s haven 
 of rest. A shallow-water, shore-boat, fishing- 
 smack Christian will never do much in the way 
 of advancement and growth. 
 
 3. Where is the man, and especially the 
 preacher, who has not seen sail-boat Christians? 
 The sail-boat is dependent upon winds, affected 
 vitally by storms, and subject to external con 
 ditions and circumstances. If the weather is 
 
78 < THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 good and the sky is clear, the boat moves with 
 perfect ease and a degree of velocity, but not 
 so when the wind changes and things go wrong. 
 Some Christians are mightily affected by the 
 wind. Their religion on Monday is not quite 
 up to the standard of Sunday because the wind 
 has changed. They failed to get the office they 
 craved, or a place on some committee, or per 
 chance their " ideas " were not followed in the 
 quarterly conference and straightway the 
 wind changes. An east wind springs up. 
 Their sail-boat stands still on the waters. 
 They no longer see their way clear to run on 
 schedule time at least until the pastor 
 changes the wind. Then again storms have a 
 way of beating against us in this old world 
 which is so rough and so gentle, so ugly and so 
 beautiful, so false and so true, so mean and so 
 good. There are storms of adversity and de 
 feat and sorrow and disappointment. Sail 
 boats are affected by storms. Like sail-boats, 
 so many people are seemingly good Christians 
 as long as the sun is shining and the sky is clear 
 and no adversity has befallen them, but when 
 they are beat upon and buffeted by a strong 
 wind of defeat or struck by some mighty storm 
 of sorrow, they are swept far out of their course 
 and sometimes even wrecked upon the great 
 ocean of life. Like the wife of Job, some very 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 79 
 
 good Christians are ready to curse God and die 
 when they experience a great sorrow or disap 
 pointment. Our religion is not real and strong 
 and abiding until we are ready to know Christ 
 in the fellowship of His suffering as well as in 
 the power of His resurrection. 
 
 4. Ocean liners are exceedingly interesting 
 boats, because they confidently move out upon 
 the ocean for a definite, distant point regardless 
 of wind or wave, and go to that point, and 
 again because the propelling power of the ship 
 is out of sight. The ocean liner is not buffeted 
 by winds or affected by ordinary storms. She 
 sails on, because of the power that drives her. 
 It is passing pleasant to remark the large num 
 ber of ocean liners in the Church of God. They 
 are steadfast, unmovable, unaffected by winds 
 of afflictions and waves of criticism. They 
 move toward something definite, and they attain. 
 And the secret of it all is the fact that their 
 lives are impelled by unseen forces it is a 
 question of the propulsive power of divine 
 dynamics. After all, the unseen forces are the 
 real forces of life the great lakes back of 
 Niagara, the power house back of the street car, 
 the hand of God back of the lives of men. It 
 is this which counts for most in our voyage 
 over the chartless ocean of life. 
 
 5. Battle-ships are often more picturesque 
 
80 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 than useful, but the ideal battle-ship lives a 
 militant life and fights the battles of its coun 
 try. The Church needs more battle-ships. 
 The choir in the city churches, according to 
 Billy Sunday, is the war department of the 
 Church. But it is not that idea which is meant 
 to be conveyed when we speak of battle-ship 
 Christians. It is fighting God s battles, fight 
 ing the devil in high places and around the 
 corner, fighting sin and not sinners. It is the 
 Christian who puts on the whole armor of God 
 and with the Son of God goes forth to war for 
 God and for good. It is the man who is not 
 afraid to stand by and with the right for Christ s 
 and conscience s sake even though, like Atha- 
 nasius of old, he stand alone against the world. 
 The Church of God is an army and it should be 
 a militant army whose ideal and work is to 
 usher in the kingdom and reign of the Prince 
 of Peace. A namby-pamby, wishy-washy, weak- 
 kneed, half-hearted Christian cannot hasten the 
 reign of righteousness on earth. 
 
 6. Submarine boats are quite suggestive. 
 They have a way of going down beneath the 
 surface and sounding the deeps. A surface 
 Christian is of necessity shallow, lacking in 
 great passions, and given to instability and in 
 consistencies. The deeps of life are the sources 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 81 
 
 and forces of life. So many of us are not will 
 ing to get down beneath the surface in 
 thought, in emotions, in experience, etc. It 
 costs something. We pray for an outpouring 
 of God s Spirit in revivals and a baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost, but we are not willing to pay the 
 price. Privilege means projection. Power 
 means responsibility. Talent means service. 
 God is wiser than men. He selects for divine 
 baptisms men and women who are ready to go 
 with Him down, down, down, until the nether 
 springs of life are reached, until we stand upon 
 the foundations of God. Then and only then 
 are we in position to rise with Him as high as 
 the stars. The world needs more submarine- 
 boat Christians. 
 
 7. This is a day of airships. Man s skill and 
 daring have invaded the regions above the earth. 
 The airship idea is a beautiful conception. 
 The ethereal is ever winsome in its appeal. The 
 skies make us look up, and by looking up we 
 sometimes see a hill or a star, whence come our 
 help and inspiration. The airship is a scorner 
 of the ground. It rises above the earth. It 
 loses itself in the sky. The airship Christians 
 are tall among the sons and daughters of men. 
 We must stand on the heights at blessed inter 
 vals if we would enrich the valleys and plains 
 
82 < THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 with the benediction of our lives. There are no 
 fogs nor mists up there, and the sky is clear. 
 From the heights we catch outlines of the vision 
 of God. From the heights we hear the rustling 
 of angel wings. From the heights we breathe 
 the breath of God. People are prone to live 
 too much on the earth. We are citizens of two 
 worlds. Our lives are dual. We fail too often 
 to nourish our souls, while we feed fat our bodies 
 and train our minds. Materialism with its 
 blighting, dampening, binding influences has 
 gripped our country and our age. Where 
 there is no vision the people perish. We must 
 leave the ground, the earth, the sordid, the ma 
 terial, at intervals, and stand with God on some 
 tall Transfiguration mountain, and hold high 
 fellowship with Christ, and lose our lower lives 
 in the higher life, and let the Son of God invest 
 us with divine dignity, clothe us with celestial 
 raiment, write upon our hearts and faces new 
 messages, and breathe into our souls the breath 
 of new life. Airship Christians get so much 
 more out of life and they give so much more 
 to life. This does not mean that we must be 
 come hopeless dreamers, impractical visionaries, 
 and star-gazing idealists. The second state of 
 the man would be worse than the first. But 
 even a fish has to rise to the surface at intervals 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 83 
 
 to catch a whiff of air and how much more 
 is a man than a fish! I am thinking that the 
 soul would utterly perish did it not rise from the 
 ground ever and anon and catch a whiff or so 
 of celestial air. 
 
XVIII 
 
 JOHN KEATS, THE APOSTLE OF 
 BEAUTY 
 
 Byron, Shelley, and Keats are linked together 
 in the golden chain of English poets stretching 
 from Chaucer to Kipling. All died young. 
 All wrote with passion and power and rare 
 beauty. There was a note of sadness and soli 
 tude in the life of each. But here the com 
 parison ends, for Byron and Shelley were 
 revolutionists, looking into the dim-lit future for 
 a better social state, while Keats caught splen 
 did visions of the past and was satisfied to revel 
 in a certain sheer poetic phrensy of delight. 
 In " Sleep and Poetry " he exclaims : 
 
 " O for ten years, that I may overwhelm 
 Myself in poesy! So I may do the deed 
 That my own soul has to itself decreed." 
 
 Then Byron and Shelley were aristocratically 
 descended, while Keats was of humble origin, 
 his father being a livery stable keeper. Limited 
 in birth, limited in education, limited in health, 
 limited in friends, limited in number and vari 
 ety of poems, dying at twenty-five, he felt that 
 
 his life was a failure, his work not worth while. 
 84 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 85 
 
 He desired that the following line should be en 
 graved upon the stone erected to mark his rest 
 ing place : 
 
 " Here lies one whose name was writ in water." 
 
 But the world has not accepted this verdict. 
 On the contrary, Keats stands today in the 
 foremost ranks of English poets, and the heart 
 of the English-speaking race is strangely, ten 
 derly, abidingly drawn to him. This meed of 
 praise and tender love for Keats has grown out 
 of the fact that he fought so finely against cer 
 tain defeat, that he rose so handsomely above 
 adverse conditions, that his death was so un 
 timely, so tragic, such a loss, such a loss, to the 
 world of poetry. But aside from this, Keats 
 wrote in small compass some of the rarest, rich 
 est, most beautiful poetry that England ever 
 produced. Much of his work was well-nigh 
 faultless and perfect, and for sheer beauty of 
 verse he has not been surpassed. Beauty with 
 Keats was a passion, the ruling passion of his 
 life. He held that 
 
 "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." 
 
 According to his somewhat narrow philosophy of 
 life, " Beauty is truth, truth, beauty that is 
 all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." 
 
86 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 Being possessed with such a passion for the 
 beautiful, naturally his poetry is shot through 
 with the element of beauty, so much so that, 
 like Lanier, his poetry sometimes cloys with sheer 
 beauty. 
 
 At sixteen Keats read " The Faerie Queen," 
 and straightway a poet was born to the world. 
 In the golden lines of Spenser s beautiful poem, 
 he caught the outlines of a vision of his own 
 poetry. When he read Chapman s " Trans 
 lation of Homer," he was lost even as in a deli 
 cious dream, and he was fairly swept off his feet 
 by the tides of a new music, a melodious force, 
 that had never before touched his life. We, 
 in our lesser passion for poetry and beauty and 
 music, can form no adequate conception of this 
 mystic influence upon Keats. He records his 
 feelings in a magnificent sonnet : 
 
 " Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken; 
 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
 He star d at the Pacific and all his men 
 Looked at each other with a wild surmise 
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien." 
 
 Keats wrote four exquisite odes unsurpassed for 
 sheer beauty, marvelous melody, rich music, and 
 noble expression in the whole vast sweep of the 
 entrancing realm of poetry, viz : To a Nightin- 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 87 
 
 gale; On a Grecian Urn; To Psyche; On Melan 
 choly. 
 
 I wish space would permit an extended quota 
 tion from each, but this being out of the ques 
 tion, we shall quote the seventh stanza of the 
 " Ode to a Nightingale " : , 
 
 " Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird ! 
 No hungry generations tread thee down; 
 The voice I hear this passing night was heard 
 In ancient days by emperor and clown: 
 Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for 
 
 home, 
 
 She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 
 The same that oft times hath 
 Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." 
 
 We have already alluded to the death of 
 Keats at twenty-five, which was full of high 
 tragedy, pathos, and untimeliness. He was 
 just coming into his full-orbed birthright as a 
 great poet. Considering his age, opportunities, 
 environment, and the excellency of his poetry, 
 his accomplishment was as great, if not greater, 
 than any other English poet. We can only 
 conjecture, with infinite regret, what exalted 
 place would have been his in the high places of 
 song. We know he felt the divine movement 
 
88 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 and melodies of unsung songs crying passion 
 ately for utterance in his high soul, but because 
 of his fragile body and early death these chil 
 dren of his soul were never born in this world 
 and we know how great the loss is to the 
 world. But in our larger, rarer faith do we 
 believe that those high dreams of unsung songs 
 were wasted upon " the naked shingles of the 
 world " ? Do we believe that his work ended at 
 twenty-five, with all his matchless talents and 
 possibilities buried in oblivion? Surely our 
 faith rises higher than this. It teaches us that 
 the music that Beethoven composed, which no 
 earthly instrument could play, will not be lost 
 in the divine economy of the universe, and we 
 believe he will be accorded the privilege of hear 
 ing the music of his soul on heavenly harps in 
 the city not made with hands. God is good, 
 and God is just, and God is all powerful. And 
 God never suffers a talent to atrophy, if we do 
 our part. Why could not, why should not, the 
 great Rewarder of men bid some tall angel 
 stretch a canvas on the walls of the New Jeru 
 salem for Andrea del Sarto to paint the things 
 that he could not quite attain unto here on ac 
 count of the tangled skein of the world and the 
 flesh? Is not the far country across the mystic 
 river, of which we dream and preach, and for 
 which we yearn quenchlessly, measureless 
 
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " 89 
 
 enough and kindly enough for John Keats to 
 have room to write his unsung songs under 
 celestial conditions without the limitations of 
 this life? Whether or not all of us agree on 
 this, the fact remains that our Father rewards 
 us not as the world does, according to our ac 
 tual productions, but as we have dreamed and 
 hoped and aspired, as well as actually accom 
 plished. And it is our belief that no tall dream 
 falls to the ground ; no splendid reach of the soul 
 comes back to us flotsam and jetsam; no beau 
 tiful aspiration loses itself in the mists and the 
 fogs of an unrewarding world. All that we 
 would do is recorded in the city not made with 
 hands, as well as all we do. Every high thought, 
 every beautiful motive, every handsome inten 
 tion, all are marked by the Watcher of men. 
 
 " All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good 
 
 shall exist; 
 Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, 
 
 nor power 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for 
 
 the melodist 
 
 When eternity affirms the conception of our hour. 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for 
 
 earth too hard, 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in 
 
 the sky, 
 
90 " THE GREATEST OF THESE " 
 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the 
 
 bard; 
 Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by 
 
 and by." 
 
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