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 OLD TALES 
 
 AND 
 
 MODERN IDEALS 
 
 A SERIES OF TALKS TO 
 HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HERBERT PHILLIPS 
 
 Superintendent of Public Schools, Birmingham, Alabama. 
 
 II 
 
 SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 
 flew HJorfc Btlanta JBoeton Dallas Cbfcago 
 
 FLB 1908
 
 COPYRiaHT, 1905, BY 
 SILVER, BUEDETT AND COMPANY.
 
 WITH 
 
 faith. Dope, and Hofce, 
 
 I dedicate this little volume to the young men 
 and women, who, as students of the Birmingham 
 High School, inspired my unfaltering Faith in 
 youth, strengthened my Hope for the future of 
 my State and Country, and established my Love 
 towards God and all Goodness.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 FOR a number of years, the program of the Birming- 
 ham High School has provided for a brief talk to the 
 assembled students every Monday morning, by the 
 superintendent or some invited speaker. The purpose 
 of these talks has not been entertainment : it has been 
 something more than instruction; the presentation of 
 worthy ideals and the inspiration to nobler living have 
 always been the dominant ends in view. The " Talks " 
 here published are selected from a large number made 
 to the school by the superintendent and are presented 
 substantially as delivered, excepting so far as their 
 reduction to writing after delivery may have marred 
 their effectiveness by making them more pretentious 
 and formal in style. 
 
 Their publication in this form is due to the solicita- 
 tion of friends who believe they may serve to stimulate 
 teachers and others in their efforts to give the students 
 of our high schools more wholesome ethical instruction 
 and richer life ideals. 
 
 JOHN HERBERT PHILLIPS. 
 Birmingham, Ala. 
 January, 1905.
 
 PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 
 
 THIS volume of addresses, delivered to the High 
 School students of Birmingham, Alabama, the Publishers 
 desire to bring to the attention of the general reading 
 public and of teachers. 
 
 As a book of varied essays, in which tales from myth, 
 tradition, and history bear, each with significant illustra- 
 tion, upon the ideals of modern life, it is recommended to 
 readers everywhere. 
 
 To teachers, both in High Schools and in Grammar 
 Schools, it will prove a book of large practical value in 
 aiding them to develop the ethical application of lessons 
 hi literature and history and to guide the daily conduct 
 of the school. It is adapted for use, not merely by the 
 teacher alone, but by teacher and pupils together in the 
 classroom. Chapters, or shorter selections suggested by 
 some topic of the day, may be read aloud by the teacher ; 
 or, in the higher grades, the book may be used as a Sup- 
 plementary Reader in the hands of the pupils themselves.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Janus, the Roman Gate-God 9 
 
 II. The Student's Dividends 18 
 
 III. The Choice of Solomon 26 
 
 IV. Laughter an Index of Character 33 
 
 V. The Philosophy of Want 41 
 
 VI. A Lesson from an Old Roman Coin 47 
 
 VII.. Knowledge and Power 55 
 
 VIII. The Passing of the Fences 63 
 
 IX. A Cloud of Witnesses 71 
 
 X. The Story of the Centuries 78 
 
 XI. Vegetable Sociology 86 
 
 XII. Perseus and Medusa 93 
 
 XIII. Wealth and Poverty 104 
 
 XIV. Historical Ideals 113 
 
 XV. The Kingdom of Man 120 
 
 XVI. Imprisoned Genii 128 
 
 - XVII. Altars of Thanksgiving 138 
 
 XVIII. Work and Recreation 146 
 
 XIX. Work and Character 153 
 
 XX. The Message of Easter 164 
 
 XXI. The Miser of New Orleans 172 
 
 XXII. The Story of Echo and Narcissus 181 
 
 XXIII. The Value of the Ideal 194 
 
 XXIV. The Laws of Development 203 
 
 XXV. Modern Chivalry 217
 
 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 / 7^ 3 9 
 
 I. JANUS, THE ROMAN GATE-GOD. 
 
 Janus am I : oldest of Potentates ; 
 
 Forward I look, and backward, and below 
 
 I count, as god of avenues and gates, 
 
 The years that through my portals come and go. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 IN ancient Rome, beside the Forum, stood the famous 
 temple of Janus Quirinus. In time of war, its gates 
 remained open, a signal to the people that their deity 
 was at the front, opening the gates of new territory 
 for the Roman Empire; when war had ceased, a sel- 
 dom occurrence in Rome, the gates of the temple were 
 closed as a pledge of peace. Janus was the god of 
 gates and doors the guardian divinity of all entrances. 
 As usually represented, he had two faces, because gates 
 and doors look two ways, outward and inward; and in 
 one hand carried a staff and in the other a key, the 
 
 9
 
 10 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 badge of his office. Being keeper of the gates of earth 
 and the gates of life, and janitor of heaven, he opened 
 the year and the seasons and inspired every beginning 
 and every invention. Therefore, he was invoked before 
 every important action; and, as no rites of worship 
 could be undertaken without his aid, he was given 
 precedence over all other Roman deities. Since the 
 time of Numa, the first month of the Roman year has 
 been called January, in his honor; and the name re- 
 mains to this day a lasting memorial to Janus, the 
 " Gate-God." 
 
 I need not apologize for introducing this old mytho- 
 logical deity as the theme of this morning's talk. You 
 have, no doubt, already anticipated my purpose. Many 
 of the old classic myths and fables are rich in fruitful 
 suggestions to thoughtful students. The lessons to be 
 derived from the fabulous gate-god of the ancient 
 Romans are not only interesting, but particularly 
 appropriate for the first day of the term the gateway 
 to the work of a new semester. 
 
 The beginning of anything is always regarded as 
 important. In ancient Rome it was deemed so im- 
 portant that it was put in charge of a special god. 
 The Romans doubtless thought that if their god would 
 help them to begin well, they could manage to carry 
 on the undertaking fairly well without him. This
 
 JANUS, THE ROMAN GATE-GOD. 11 
 
 belief is not uncommon in our own time. There are 
 many young men who think that if some one will only 
 help them get a position, nothing else is necessary. In 
 their own conceit, they are self-sufficient; and the one 
 condition of their success is to get a position. To the 
 average office-seeker in this country, the whole quali- 
 fication for holding office is to be able to get the 
 appointment. No matter how unworthy or how ignor- 
 ant he may be, if he can induce the guardians of the 
 Republic to help him. get an office, his sublime self- 
 confidence is such that he has no question of his abil- 
 ity to hold it without any assistance, human or 
 divine. 
 
 While we of this age do not invoke the aid of the old 
 heathen divinity, we still emphasize the beginning of 
 important undertakings and attach special significance 
 to the first day of the year, to birthday anniversaries, 
 to the inauguration of certain periods, to the laying of 
 corner-stones of public buildings, and to the initiative 
 step in any great work. We still emphasize the old 
 proverb, " Well begun is half done." To begin aright, 
 to enter upon our work fully prepared, in the right 
 spirit and with the proper conception of our own duty 
 and responsibility, is far more important than young 
 people usually imagine. Many a battle has been lost 
 because of poor preparation and a bad beginning; many
 
 12 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 a promising career has been blasted, many a life has 
 ended in disgrace and disaster, because of the failure 
 to begin aright. Today, the one essential to success is 
 right preparation. The nation that wins the battle is 
 the nation that is best prepared and best equipped with 
 trained soldiers and modern munitions. Today, it is 
 not the young man of wealth and luxury and ease who 
 wins the laurels of life, but he who, through patient 
 struggle and obscure toil, becomes fully prepared and 
 completely equipped to do that which he dares in the 
 work of life. It is today literally true that " The race 
 is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." Pre- 
 pare to begin well the work of life. This is the first 
 lesson I would impress upon you today. There are 
 new gates to open, new doors to enter. The world has 
 great work in store for those who are prepared to do 
 it, and great glory for those who succeed. Great duties 
 and great responsibilities confront you. Will you be 
 prepared to meet them? You are naturally eager to 
 find out what is before you : you are mentally on tiptoe 
 of expectation to learn what interesting revelations of 
 life and of nature are reserved for you in the new fields 
 you are about to explore what beauties, what delights, 
 what mental conquests; aye, and also what struggles, 
 what pains, what reverses and disappointments! Ke- 
 solve to begin well ; for the beginning is the condition
 
 JANUS, THE BOMAN GATE-GOD. 13 
 
 and the promise of the end. The struggle must come 
 before the victory. 
 
 " Greatly begin ! though thou have time 
 But for a line, be that sublime." 
 
 Important as it is to begin well, do not imagine that 
 this is all. A continuous line may be conceived as a 
 succession of contiguous points, or a point in continu- 
 ous motion; so life may be regarded as a series of 
 beginnings. The great and noble life is that which 
 begins daily, continuously and persistently. If you 
 would truly succeed, the ardor, purpose, and courage 
 of the beginning of your work must be continued to the 
 very end. " He that persevereth to the end, the same 
 shall be saved." As a rule, most students, when they 
 enter school, are very much alike : they start apparently 
 on an equal footing. It is at the close of school that 
 we find the difference. It is human destiny that gives 
 us the angle of divergence. Most men, as they enter 
 upon the race of life, differ but slightly in their capa- 
 bilities for culture and nobility; but oh, how sad the 
 difference at the close! Most failures in life are due, 
 not to want of intellectual capacity, but to want of 
 perseverance and steady adherence to purpose. It is 
 quiet, diligent work that tells, not spasmodic effort, in 
 school as well as in the larger business of life. Scien-
 
 14 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 tists tell us that it requires the electricity of thirty- 
 seven ordinary lightning flashes to keep one little in- 
 candescent lamp burning for one hour. We want 
 students in our high schools, and men and women in 
 every department of life, who will work purposefully 
 and persistently, not those who flash spasmodically for 
 special occasions, and who cannot be relied upon for 
 continuous effort. 
 
 There is another beautiful lesson suggested by the 
 story of Janus, the old Roman gate-god. You remem- 
 ber that he was usually represented with two faces, so 
 that, while guarding the gates and doors of his wor- 
 shipers, he could look at once both ways outward 
 and inward. This is a significant characteristic and 
 suggests the important thought, that, as we enter the 
 gates of life, we must look within as well as without. 
 Man must deal, not only with the physical world with- 
 out him the world of science, art, and literature, the 
 world of society and of government, but also with the 
 world of thought and of passion, of feeling and of 
 conscience the world of unfathomable mystery that 
 lies within himself. As you stand upon the threshold 
 of life and prepare to enter the open gates of the great 
 untried world before you ; as you look upon the inviting 
 fields and pleasing prospects that stretch out in every 
 department of knowledge and of industry, do not
 
 JANUS, THE ROMAN GATE-GOD. 15 
 
 forget to look within. Your appreciation and mastery 
 of the great world without will depend upon the culti- 
 vation and mastery of the little world within. The 
 extent of your outlook will be proportional to the depth 
 of your inlook. Cultivate the finer feelings and senti- 
 ments of the soul ; banish deceit and dishonesty in word 
 and thought; expel every base motive and unworthy 
 suggestion before it has time to become crystallized 
 into action. Keep your minds full of pure and en- 
 nobling thoughts, and the bad will have no chance to 
 enter. 
 
 Our deadliest enemies lie within ourselves. Many 
 a genius has won signal victories in the world without 
 the world of science and invention, literature and 
 art, industry and finance, only to succumb at last to 
 hidden foes within. Guard well, then, the sacred por- 
 tals of this temple, while you strive for conquest in the 
 larger world without. " Keep thy heart with all dili- 
 gence, for out of it are the issues of life." Enter, then, 
 my young friends, the avenues of knowledge that are 
 opening and widening before you. Like Janus Quiri- 
 nus, keep in one hand the staff that is essential to 
 sustain material life and to provide for your physical 
 needs and comforts; in the other, hold fast the key 
 that shall unlock for you the gates of knowledge and 
 the doors of moral and spiritual power. Look within as
 
 16 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 well as without. Cultivate the power of introspection 
 the habit of self-examination. " Know thyself." 
 This is the first step in true wisdom. Nobility of 
 character, which is true greatness, is due far more to 
 the inner powers and processes of the soul than to 
 conditions and factors that are wholly without. 
 
 The last lesson of the old heathen myth is then the 
 most beautiful of all. Janus, the old Roman gate-god, 
 is simply the personification of conscience the Divine 
 element in the soul. As Janus presided over the gates 
 and doors of Eome and at the beginning of everything, 
 so conscience should guard the gates of life and should 
 be consulted at the beginning of every action. As 
 Janus carried a staff in one hand and a key in the 
 other and faced in two directions at once, so con- 
 science, sustained by the staff of material life and 
 carrying in her hand the key to all the gates of life, 
 has regard both to the world of matter and to the 
 world of spirit, to the present and the future. Janus, 
 the two-faced gate-god of Rome, protected the gates 
 and doors of his worshipers, even as the cherubim of 
 Eden, with a flaming sword which " turned every way," 
 kept the way of the tree of life. Let conscience, then, 
 the presiding monitor that looks within as well as 
 without, guard well the physical senses, the royal 
 gateways of the sacred temple of the soul, that no
 
 JANUS, THE ROMAN GATE-GOD. 17 
 
 impure thought or unworthy desire may enter to defile 
 it. 
 
 The gates of the temple of Janus were open while the 
 Roman people were at war, expanding their territory 
 and extending their power. They were kept open until 
 the campaigns were ended and peace had been restored. 
 So, also, during the warfare of life, while battling for 
 the right against the hosts of ignorance and error; 
 while striving for the increase of knowledge and the 
 growth of moral and spiritual force, swing open all 
 the gates of the temple of the soul and let them be 
 kept open, never to be closed, until the last enemy shall 
 have been conquered, and peace at last shall reign.
 
 II. THE STUDENT'S DIVIDENDS. 
 
 WHEN men establish an institution for business 
 enterprise, the end in view is profit. Time, labor, and 
 capital are combined for the purpose of gain. The 
 successful business corporation is one that is so man- 
 aged as to bring the greatest possible returns to the 
 shareholders. The index to its success is the dividend 
 declared. The dividends received by the shareholders 
 are always determined by two fundamental facts: the 
 successful operation of the business of the firm or cor- 
 poration, and the amount invested by each individual 
 stockholder. If the institution has been successful, 
 and has made any gains in its business, the amount 
 received by each individual shareholder depends upon 
 the investment, the amount he has put into the busi- 
 ness. 
 
 This school, with its nearly four hundred students, is 
 an institution organized for special work and for the 
 benefit of all those who are shareholders. Though its 
 business is conducted for profit, its gains cannot be 
 computed in dollars and cents. The capital stock of 
 this institution includes a great deal more than the 
 
 18
 
 THE STUDENT'S DIVIDENDS. 19 
 
 money investment represented by building and equip- 
 ment. It includes the time and the work that each one 
 of you invests daily; it includes the brain and heart 
 powers of your teachers; it includes assistance of 
 parents and friends, and the encouragement and good- 
 will of all good people in the community and the state. 
 Remember that, in this institution, each one of you is 
 a shareholder. The city and the state are likewise 
 shareholders and, through you, have a right to share 
 in the profits. 
 
 The question I wish to press home to each one of you 
 this morning is an important one : What do you get out 
 of the high school ? What profits do you get from the 
 business in which you are engaged? What dividends 
 do you receive from your investment? What is your 
 investment in the high school? Your time? Yes. 
 " Time is money," we are told ; and if you stop a minute 
 to compute the market value of your time invested 
 in the high school, you will find it an important 
 item. What is your time worth per day? Sup- 
 pose that the entire school is capable of earning 
 daily an average of only fifty cents per pupil. 
 Then the time value of the high school is two 
 hundred dollars per day, one thousand dollars per 
 week, four thousand dollars per month. Import- 
 ant as this time investment is to each of you, it is
 
 20 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 the lowest view that can be taken of your inter- 
 est in the school. Does each student get from the 
 high school adequate returns for the time invested? 
 If you are here to invest nothing but your time, 
 your dividends will not be worth mentioning. To 
 get adequate returns, you must put into the busi- 
 ness your best efforts. You must put in love 
 of work, diligent application, concentrated attention. 
 You must put in daily the exercise of your best intel- 
 lectual and moral powers and the practice of your 
 highest conceptions of right and duty. In return for 
 an investment like this, what benefits may the stu- 
 dent rightly expect? What does the school endeavor 
 to give. 
 
 The first measurable benefit the school aims to give 
 the pupil is an increase of power. Everybody strives 
 for power in some form and in some direction. Many 
 a man strives for the power that comes through the 
 possession of wealth ; but that kind of power is outside 
 the man, not a part of him. If he loses the wealth, he 
 loses the power. Many a man strives for the power 
 that fashion and social leadership give ; but such power 
 is not real or intrinsic. Another seeks power through 
 official position; but this, again, is temporary and 
 external. Too many, indeed, strive to possess instru- 
 mentalities of power that are fleeting and unsubstan-
 
 THE STUDENT'S DIVIDENDS. 21 
 
 tial means of power that are entirely outside their 
 own personality. 
 
 The power that the high school aims to give you is 
 not something apart from your real self, but a con- 
 scious capacity and an inherent strength which you can 
 never lose in the lottery of life. This power includes 
 ability to make money, but it comprehends much more. 
 It includes ability to discharge the duties of official 
 position and the functions of social or political leader- 
 ship, but is not limited to any single channel. Elec- 
 trical energy may be converted into light, heat, sound, 
 or motor power, at will. So with mental and moral 
 power : it is convertible at will into a thousand agencies 
 for the benefit of the individual and of the world. This 
 power includes mastery of the field of knowledge; 
 power to know, and to acquire information. It re- 
 quires a knowledge of science and mathematics, lan- 
 guage and literature, history and politics, music and 
 art. But this is not all. Mere knowledge is not power. 
 Mere information is not dynamic. You must have 
 power to think, to reason for yourself. Real thinking 
 is a difficult task ; it is a power that must be developed 
 by continued, persistent exercise. But it is not enough 
 for the educated man to have intellectual power; he 
 must have also power to do; he must have skill in 
 applying his knowledge to the conditions that surround
 
 22 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 him in the home and in civil and social life. Doing is 
 the proof of knowing; execution is the test of skill. 
 The test of your knowledge of an algebraic problem is 
 the solution ; of a geometrical proposition, the demon- 
 stration; of Latin construction, the correct transla- 
 tion; of good English, correct writing and speaking. 
 The test of right thinking and right feeling is right 
 action. It is not enough to know the rules of polite- 
 ness and good manners ; the test is found in the doing. 
 It is not enough to feel kindly and sympathetically 
 towards the weak, the helpless, and the afflicted. Kind 
 feelings and sympathetic emotions that are not em- 
 bodied in words or deeds recoil upon themselves and 
 harden the heart of the possessor. This power which 
 the high school aims to give to each one of you includes 
 the power to feel, to sympathize, and to express that 
 feeling and sympathy in the daily work of life. It 
 includes self-control and self-direction. The power to 
 master self, to acquire dominion over those passions 
 and prejudices that lie within your own breasts this 
 is the highest form of power you can obtain by the 
 processes of education. 
 
 But power is not the sole index of culture. Mis- 
 directed power may prove a curse to its possessor. It 
 is the aim of the high school to develop the affections 
 and the emotions; to develop love for the good, the
 
 THE STUDENT'S DIVIDENDS. 23 
 
 true, the beautiful. The cultured man not only knows, 
 but loves, the good in nature and in art, in thought and 
 in action. Any work in which the heart is not em- 
 ployed becomes dreary drudgery. The young man that 
 sighs at the very thought of the task assigned him has 
 no joy in his work. There is no sadder picture to me 
 than that of a whole class of young people who come 
 to school under compulsion, who go through their tasks 
 under compulsion, and who look upon their teachers 
 as heartless task-masters. Their school life is joyless, 
 because intellect and desire are working at cross- 
 purposes. To the healthy, normal mind, there is joy 
 in work, and pleasure in exercise. The healthy mind 
 rejoices in the mastery of difficult problems; it is the 
 weak and impotent that frets and sighs and groans. 
 The high school aims to make you happy in your work, 
 to give you joy in every lesson. A joyless task is poorly 
 done, and a heartless student will accomplish but little. 
 Put thought into your work, and let love for study 
 stimulate your activity. 
 
 The high school aims also to give you confidence in 
 your mental powers. What others by work have done, 
 you may achieve. Have faith in yourself. Depend- 
 ence upon others undermines self-reliance and weakens 
 your faith in self. In proportion as you progress in 
 the attainment of true culture, you will grow in faith
 
 24 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 faith in yourself, faith in your fellow-men, and faith 
 in God, the author of all truth and all beauty, the sum 
 and inspiration of all wisdom. And, lastly, the high 
 school aims to give you true ideals of life; yes, it aims 
 to give you life itself. It is not enough that you simply 
 prepare here for ife. Let your school life be real life, 
 in its fullness and its richness, its joy and its sweetness. 
 Reap now the dividends within your reach; power, 
 love, faith, and life itself. Do you remember the old 
 story of Pygmalion and Galatea? Pygmalion was a 
 youth of ancient Greece who thought none of the 
 Grecian maidens beautiful. He could not love, because 
 none reached his ideal of beauty. The life of the youth 
 was loveless and joyless; and he lost faith in himself, 
 in human-kind, and in the very gods. In his lonely 
 abode, he began to chisel from the marble the statue 
 of a woman. As he continued to work, his ideal devel- 
 oped ; " as the marble wasted, the image grew." The 
 more he worked, the more he loved the image he was 
 creating from the heart of the marble. When the 
 statue was completed, it was Pygmalion's ideal of a 
 beautiful woman. He loved it, he adored it; bnt it 
 was only the cold, lifeless marble upon which he 
 lavished his affections. Then he prayed to the goddess 
 of beauty to give life to the statue he loved, that he 
 might truly possess his own creation. His prayer was
 
 THE STUDENT'S DIVIDENDS. 25 
 
 heard; and Galatea sprang into life, the realization in 
 face and figure of his dream of beauty. 
 
 If your education is to culminate in life; if your 
 culture is to be truly possessed as a part of yourself, 
 you must create it for yourself ; you must chisel it out 
 of the lifeless material you find in nature and in books. 
 Your power must form, your heart must love, your 
 faith must inspire. 
 
 To this end, then, do you individually and as a whole 
 work together to the development of power condi- 
 tioned in the possession of knowledge, enthusiasm, con- 
 fidence, and true ideals. And if, in this business, all 
 cooperate, great will be the dividends.
 
 III. THE CHOICE OF SOLOMON. 
 
 " Ask what I shall give thee." % Chron. i. 7. 
 
 AT the beginning of his public career, Solomon was 
 in deep perplexity. He was a young man, with limited 
 experience of life, brought for the first time to consider 
 seriously the obligations entailed by his position. He 
 had succeeded to the throne of his illustrious father; 
 and as he surveyed the great work before him, he was 
 overwhelmed with the sense of responsibility. In this 
 state of serious reflection, with the burdens of a king- 
 dom weighing upon his mind, he went up to the taber- 
 nacle of God at Gibeon, to worship. There God 
 appeared unto him in a vision and said unto him: 
 "Ask what I shall give thee." That is the supreme 
 moment in the life of the young monarch. Upon the 
 choice he now makes hangs not only his own future, 
 but the destiny of a great nation. What shall he ask? 
 A whole realm of possibilities opens up before him. 
 Shall he ask for wealth and riches, for a long life of 
 ease and pleasure? Shall he ask for honor and power 
 and glory among the kings and rulers of the earth? 
 
 26
 
 THE CHOICE OF SOLOMON. 27 
 
 Shall he ask for victory over his enemies and for the 
 expansion of his imperial domain by military conquest? 
 All these alluring possibilities might be included in the 
 dream of an ambitious young monarch; all might be 
 considered legitimate aspirations for a king. But 
 Solomon chose none of them. After considering the 
 entire field, he consulted his own greatest need and 
 preferred the modest request : " Give me now wisdom 
 and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before 
 this people." " And God said to Solomon, because 
 this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches 
 or honor, or the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast 
 asked long life, but hast asked wisdom and knowledge 
 for thyself, that thou mayest judge my people, over 
 whom I have made thee king; wisdom and knowledge 
 is granted unto thee, and I will give thee riches and 
 wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had 
 that have been before thee, neither shall there any after 
 thee have the like." 
 
 This significant and far-reaching choice of Solomon 
 is beautifully paralleled in Greek mythology by the 
 choice of Hercules. As the youthful hero stood upon 
 the threshold of life, uncertain as to the course he 
 should take, he was accosted by two beautiful women 
 representing Vice and Virtue. Each offered her ser- 
 vices as his guide and counselor; each demanded his
 
 28 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 allegiance and insisted that he should immediately 
 choose which he preferred to follow. Vice, enchant- 
 ingly beautiful to the eye, promised him riches and 
 luxury, love and pleasure, if he would but follow her. 
 Virtue urged him to accept her as his guide, but warned 
 him that in her wake he would be obliged to wage 
 incessant war against evil, to endure hardships without 
 number and to suffer toil and privation for the sake of 
 making the world better and life richer for millions 
 of mortals. She promised, as his reward, an immor- 
 tality of fame on earth and a final abode with Jupiter 
 on high Olympus. After pondering awhile in silence 
 over these two dissimilar offers, Hercules turned to 
 Virtue and declared himself ready to follow her guid- 
 ance and to obey whatever command she might choose 
 to give him. 
 
 These two stories, one from Sacred history and the 
 other from heathen mythology, may be regarded as the 
 most significant and suggestive in all literature. The 
 name of Solomon has come down the ages as the 
 synonym of wisdom; and that of Hercules still sym- 
 bolizes physical strength and the application of the 
 powers of nature to the destruction of the evil that is 
 found in the world. In its broadest sense, the choice 
 of Solomon includes that of Hercules. The twelve 
 labors of Hercules symbolize the progress of humanity
 
 THE CHOICE OP SOLOMON. 29 
 
 in overcoming physical obstacles; the wisdom of Solo- 
 mon includes the mental and spiritual conquests of the 
 race. The greater includes the lesser. "Wisdom is a 
 tree of life to them that lay hold of her; and happy is 
 every one that retaineth her." 
 
 Some one has truly said that life is endurable only 
 in the atmosphere of possibility. The great charm of 
 existence, to young men and young women, lies in the 
 fact that all the chances of fortune and all the possi- 
 bilities of human achievement lie before them and are 
 not beyond the scope of realization. Much of the 
 pleasure of youth is found in dreams of future joy or 
 greatness. As we advance in years, the possibilities 
 of life naturally become fewer ; the chances of winning 
 fame or fortune gradually diminish, until old age, at 
 last, finds its greatest pleasure in retrospect. The 
 charm of youth lies in the possibilities of the future; 
 the charm of old age lies in the achievements of the 
 past. 
 
 Each one of you, my young friends, is confronted 
 this morning with the complex possibilities of one life- 
 time; and each one of you is given an opportunity to 
 choose. We may say what we will about the influence 
 of heredity ; we may talk glibly of the force of circum- 
 stances and environment. We still have the power to 
 choose our line of conduct and to shape the conditions
 
 30 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 of our life. This is the first lesson we are taught by 
 the two stories I have selected. To every one God 
 appears in some vision, in some moment of illumination 
 or of spiritual insight, and gives him the opportunity 
 to choose. He says to each of you today, " Ask what 
 I shall give thee." 
 
 Choose. It was never intended that you should be 
 passive spectators in the drama of life. You must 
 make an active choice, a positive election. Jesus said 
 to his followers, " Ask and ye shall receive ; seek and 
 ye shall find." And even of the Pharisees and hypo- 
 crites, he said, " They also receive their reward." What 
 people ask for with all the earnest intensity of the 
 soul they generally receive. Those who set their hearts 
 upon one object in life and sacrifice all else for its 
 attainment are very apt to realize it. If it is a base 
 object, all of life's powers and energies are brought 
 down to the level of that object, and life itself becomes 
 base. If the object is high and noble, all of life is 
 enriched and ennobled. Choose then the best, the 
 greatest thing in the universe that wisdom which 
 perisheth not and that virtue which shall shine forever. 
 Your choice may not be framed in words; the real 
 desire of the soul is expressed in your attitude towards 
 work and in the spirit of your daily conduct. If I 
 were to translate the choice of many young people into
 
 THE CHOICE OF SOLOMON. 31 
 
 words, it would read, " God grant me ease and pleas- 
 ure; save me from all hard work and give me a good 
 time." These young people may attend school or col- 
 lege, they may appear to seek wisdom; but their real 
 choice is unmistakable. When they enter school, they 
 study the curriculum in order to select the easiest 
 course. The curriculum of life has many courses. 
 How many people there are who elect the course that 
 promises the least amount of work ! They forget that 
 all of life is not easy; that in every life there are tragic 
 moments which require the severest discipline to en- 
 dure, and obstacles which require the trained powers 
 of the soul to overcome. Many ask for wealth 
 wealth for its own sake or as an instrument of pleasure 
 or power, a means for the gratification of pride and 
 ambition. Others seek honor and glory by social dis- 
 tinction or political position, forgetting that such 
 honor is temporary and that such glory soon fades 
 away. True wisdom means the highest development of 
 the human soul the highest intellectual, moral, and 
 spiritual culture. Those young people who ask for 
 wisdom need not announce the fact in words; their 
 conduct tells the story. They do not work for praise 
 or glory, for marks or honors. They do not work 
 under compulsion, nor from a sense of duty or obliga- 
 tion, but from a deep soul-desire, and for the life of
 
 32 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. * 
 
 service for which school work is a preparation. The 
 young man who seeks merely to do his duty, to do only 
 that which he is obliged to do, comes far short of his 
 privilege. Men deserve no credit for doing only what 
 duty and obligation prescribe. Credit begins when, in 
 the spirit of love for the work, one goes beyond mere 
 duty; when the heart's desire, the real hunger for 
 culture, is so intense that labor becomes spontaneous 
 service. 
 
 Solomon chose wisdom, and in addition, received 
 wealth and honor and glory and a long life. " Length 
 of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches 
 and honor." True wisdom includes all else that is 
 good and needful. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, 
 and all these things shall be added unto you."
 
 IV. LAUGHTER AN INDEX OF CHARACTER. 
 
 " How much lies in laughter, the cipher-key wherewith we deci- 
 pher the whole man ! " Carlyle, 
 
 "Nothing is more significant of men's character than what they 
 find laughable." Goethe. 
 
 LAUGHTER is characteristic of man alone. The lower 
 animals may share with him the possession of many 
 traits; they may have similar physical structures and 
 similar appetites; they may exhibit a degree of intelli- 
 gence that marvelously approaches human reason, and 
 manifest by their actions definite emotional tones 
 which we readily interpret, in terms of our own mental 
 states, as pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, happiness 
 and distress. But man, and man only, has the power 
 to laugh. 
 
 I have no sympathy with those who would condemn a 
 good, hearty laugh. It is sunshine in the home and in 
 the world. He who cannot enjoy a laugh is an abnor- 
 mal man and suffers from a diseased organism. A 
 bright, happy, genuine laugh is a tonic to the individual 
 and cleanses the atmosphere of the germs of social 
 malaria. A good laugh is both a therapeutic and a 
 
 33
 
 34 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 prophylactic; it not only restores, but also preserves 
 physical and mental health. 
 
 The lesson I would impress upon you this morning 
 is the fact that laughter is an important index to 
 character; it is the involuntary expression of the real 
 man or woman. We judge other people almost uncon- 
 sciously by a variety of little signs. Some people say 
 that they read human nature intuitively. They are 
 simply good interpreters of signs. Everything you 
 have, everything you say, and everything you do, is a 
 sign of character, an index to some trait or peculiarity. 
 You see a stranger for the first time; you can tell but 
 little of his disposition or true character. You observe 
 his eyes, his features, his walk, his gestures; yet you 
 know but little of him. You hear his voice and listen 
 to his words; then you think you know him better. 
 But when you hear him laugh, you feel that you have 
 heard the involuntary expression of his soul. The 
 laugh is the " cipher-key," as Carlyle calls it, to the 
 man's inner life. It is quite obvious that the manner 
 in which you laugh gives other people an opportunity 
 to judge your culture and your politeness. Every 
 laugh, from the sweet, spiritual ripple of gracious sym- 
 pathy, through its various modifications, down to the 
 rude guffaw of boorish ignorance or the stentorian out- 
 burst of uncontrolled animal pleasure, is an involun-
 
 LAUGHTER AN INDEX OF CHARACTER. 35 
 
 tary expression of the man behind it. The manner in 
 which you laugh reveals your inner self: whether it be 
 tainted with sneer or sarcasm, malice or revenge, satire 
 or mockery, conceal it, disguise it as you will, the sting 
 is still there and the poison cannot be mistaken. 
 
 But there is another way in which laughter may be 
 regarded as an index of character. Goethe expressed 
 a great truth when he said, " Nothing is more signifi- 
 cant of men's character than what they find laugh- 
 able." How you laugh may be important, but what 
 you laugh at is far more important as an index to what 
 you really are. Have you ever felt mortified in com- 
 pany, by suddenly finding yourself laughing im- 
 moderately at something that had been said or done, 
 while the rest of the company were serious and un- 
 moved? The difference is subjective; it is a difference 
 in the culture and the character of the individuals. 
 
 Every laugh is a judgment upon the character of the 
 one who laughs. Many people, when they laugh, un- 
 consciously tell us their secret opinion of themselves. 
 Young people too often imagine that they understand 
 clearly the motives and even the secrets of other people, 
 and that their own are completely disguised. They 
 forget that, whenever they laugh, they proclaim their 
 most secret thoughts by an unmistakable sign to all 
 who choose to observe; they forget that every smile is
 
 36 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 a soul-revealer, that every laugh is a self-judgment. 
 If young people who covet the good opinion of others 
 fully realized this fact, they would be more careful of 
 their laughter in school, in church, on the street, and in 
 public gatherings. 
 
 " Loud laughter," says Chesterfield, " is the mirth 
 of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; it 
 is the characteristic of folly and ill-manners." It is 
 too often the case that the more silly the cause, the 
 louder the laughter and the longer. Have you ever 
 heard the loud, inane, empty, ill-timed laugh that 
 seems to be without cause and without occasion? 
 Have you ever heard what Goldsmith describes as " The 
 loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind"? Such a 
 laugh usually bespeaks either the thoughtlessness of an 
 empty pate or an inherent weakness that excites our 
 pity. Such laughter is as harmless as it is pitiable. 
 Similar to this is the hysterical and meaningless laugh 
 of those who laugh only because others laugh, or be- 
 cause they do not know what else to do. They may 
 feel sad at heart and laugh only to keep from crying. 
 In such a case, the laughter either is without cause, or 
 is a substituted effect, an unnatural expression of a 
 nervous and disordered organism. Then again, we 
 have the familiar type of laugh known as the " giggle." 
 The " giggling " school-girl or school-boy is simply the
 
 LAUGHTER AN INDEX OF CHARACTER. 37 
 
 subject of organic nervous disorder, an example of lack 
 of self-control. It is a species of laughter excited, not 
 by a sense of humor, but by causes largely within the 
 organism itself, for which the laugher should not be 
 held strictly responsible. 
 
 At lecture or play, people applaud what they ap- 
 prove. So, in the class room or in company, your 
 laughter signifies your recognition, and usually your 
 approbation. It matters little what is said in your 
 presence; you cannot control that. It matters much, 
 however, what kind of reception you give it; that is 
 entirely within your own control. A pupil makes an 
 unfortunate mistake in recitation. There is some one 
 void of respect and sympathy, who is ready to laugh. 
 That laugh may or may not confuse the victim; but it 
 reveals the cruel, unsympathetic heart of him who 
 laughs. Some one, by accident, drops a word or a 
 phrase that, by distortion, may suggest a vulgar 
 thought; that coarse snicker or loud guffaw locates 
 unmistakably the distorted mind that received it. In 
 the daily occurrences of any school, innumerable inci- 
 dents will give opportunity for evil and impurity to 
 find expression in the laugh of familiar recognition. 
 Scarcely a day will pass that does not illustrate the 
 adage, " To the pure, all things are pure," as well as 
 " Evil to him who evil thinks." The vulgar word or
 
 38 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 coarse suggestion does not affect the pure-minded. 
 But to the foul mind, it is a fuse that connects with a 
 mine of dangerous and inflammable thoughts; and the 
 loud, explosive laugh that follows proclaims the fact 
 that the connection has been made. It tells the whole 
 story. Every laugh of this kind is your self-condem- 
 nation, your own revelation of your secret thoughts 
 and desires. It is a judgment passed by yourself. 
 " Judge not that ye be not judged." The self-respect- 
 ing man who values the purity of his heart will turn 
 away in disgust from story-mongers who retail filth in 
 vulgar jest, rather than give the stamp of his approving 
 laugh to filth and impurity. The thing you find laugh- 
 able is an index to your character. 
 
 We find also the mocking, irreverent laugh. He who 
 laughs at sacred things and makes mockery of religious 
 creeds, sacred to thousands of souls, may not modify 
 the creed or affect the believer ; but he indicates clearly 
 his own blindness and narrowness. The thing he 
 laughs at reveals his prejudice and his bigotry. A 
 laugh is a very simple thing, but profoundly expres- 
 sive. When used as an instrument for pain, it may 
 express the whole gamut of the malevolent affections, 
 from the coarsest and most savage to the most refined 
 in cruelty. When devoted to the service of love and 
 friendship, it may sweep the entire range of the nobler
 
 LAUGHTER AN INDEX OF CHARACTER. 39 
 
 emotions. Laughter, as an instrument of the soul, is 
 often more effective than words in inflicting pain or 
 conveying pleasure. Let not your laughter be the in- 
 strument of pain; let it not become a winged shaft 
 dipped in the poison of malice and hatred. There is a 
 world-wide difference between laughing at a person and 
 laughing with him. 
 
 Robert Burdette, the famous humorist and lecturer, 
 maintains that all humor has its origin in pain. This 
 seems a paradox, but it is probably true. The Indian 
 is generally supposed to be devoid of the sense of 
 humor. He is grim-visaged and never laughs, we are 
 told. But if he could be observed as he engages in the 
 war-dance, around some hapless pale-face that is being 
 tortured or scalped, it would be seen that his hilarity 
 is immeasurable, and that his laughter knows no 
 bounds. The Indian never laughs except in the pres- 
 ence of physical pain : it requires the dying groans of 
 his victim to excite his humor. In the most primitive 
 stages of humor, pain is an essential factor. A man 
 on the sidewalk slips on a banana peel, and everybody 
 laughs. If the man falls and is seriously hurt, those 
 who laughed a moment since now rush to his assistance. 
 The first action, the laugh at the man's embarrassing 
 situation, is the relic of the savage impulse in us all, a 
 faint echo of the Indian's cruel humor; the second
 
 40 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 action, the proffer of sympathy and help, is the effect 
 of kindness and humanity. Too many men and boys 
 find enjoyment in brutality and amuse themselves by 
 inflicting pain. Their greatest " fun " is found in the 
 torture of some hapless victim, dumb or human. The 
 " tin can tied to a dog's tail " process is as laughable 
 to the boy as the scalping process is to the Indian. 
 The two processes as sources of fun are the same in 
 kind; the difference is only in degree. In both cases, 
 the things found laughable prove the perpetrators to 
 be savages. 
 
 True humor may be an evolution from pain and 
 cruelty, as may the true gentleman of today be an 
 evolution from the savage or cannibal of twenty cen- 
 turies ago ; but the true humor of today should have as 
 little resemblance to cruelty as the true gentleman of 
 today has to the savage. As religion, education, and 
 the various processes of civilization transmute the sav- 
 age into the ideal gentleman, they should change also 
 the humor of pain and the laughter of cruelty into an 
 agency of sympathy and joy.
 
 V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF WANT. 
 
 "And he began to be in want." Lake xv. 14. 
 
 ALL acquisition, individual, state, or national, is 
 governed by one great fundamental law. Underlying 
 every attainment, every success, every growth, every 
 progressive step, is the one essential condition of want. 
 Without want, there can be no real progress. Beneath 
 all the struggles of life, we find want of some kind. 
 Men and women in their various pursuits are not try- 
 ing to eliminate their wants, but to satisfy them. 
 When we see a great effort, involving a long and ter- 
 rible struggle, we know there must be behind it a great 
 persistent want to be satisfied. Without conscious 
 want, no achievement is possible ; no success is attain- 
 able. 
 
 The story of the prodigal son is very suggestive. 
 In that " far country," he had wasted his substance in 
 riotous living; he had spent his all, and we are told 
 that " he began to be in want." This was the first step 
 towards the satisfaction of his real needs, the first 
 condition of his return to his father's house. 
 
 41
 
 42 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 Want is the first step towards attainment, the first 
 condition of accomplishment. Back of every effort 
 lies a sense of need, a conscious want. 
 
 The philosophy of want involves four important 
 facts. First, the essential condition of achievement 
 in any line is want. Second, the character of the need, 
 the direction of the want, indicates the direction of the 
 achievement. Third, the sense of want increases in 
 proportion to the extent of the achievement. Fourth, 
 want is the ultimate measure of achievement. 
 
 When a man is imbued with the want of money, he 
 will get it. If he has a deep-seated, persistent, over- 
 powering want in that direction, he will devote all his 
 talents, all his physical and mental energies to its 
 attainment. If he wants money, and wants it so in- 
 tensely that he will sacrifice all the luxuries, all the 
 comforts, and all the pleasures of life, and will prosti- 
 tute all his physical, mental, and moral energies to 
 its possession, there is no reason why he should not 
 become as rich as Croesus. As his wealth accumulates, 
 his desire for more wealth increases, and the intensity 
 of his want is the measure of the extent of his pos- 
 sessions. If a man aspires to social or political dis- 
 tinction, his success will depend primarily upon the 
 intensity of his want. If he wants learning, the extent 
 of his attainment as a scholar is the correct index to
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF WANT. 43 
 
 the intensity of his want. There are, doubtless, other 
 conditions of success, but all depend upon this primary 
 condition. The man who wants to make money must 
 know the conditions of trade and must become skilled 
 in the various methods of business. He must know 
 how. There are hard circumstances and adverse con- 
 ditions to be overcome. Back of all these is desire, 
 subject to the indomitable " I will " of the man bent 
 on conquest. Henry Ward Beecher says truly that 
 " the elect are those who will ; the non-elect are those 
 who won't." 
 
 The heroes of history and the world's benefactors in 
 all the ages have been men and women of great wants. 
 Those who want the least in life get the least. Alexan- 
 der the Great's desire for conquest was so great that, 
 when the entire world had become subject to his 
 dominion, " he wept for more worlds to conquer." So 
 intense was his desire for conquest, that, it is said, 
 he died of disappointment when he had reached the 
 bounds of human possibility. Columbus followed the 
 lead of an unconquerable desire which guided him to 
 the discovery of new lands beyond the seas. Edison, the 
 "Wizard of Menlo Park," is stimulated by an over- 
 whelming want, a desire to conquer the mysterious 
 realm of electrical science ; and the great achievements 
 that will make his name immortal among men consti-
 
 44 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 tute the measure of his want. In every sphere of life, 
 there are men and women who have devoted themselves 
 to the cause of liberty, religion, and human progress; 
 and the intensity of their motives may be read in their 
 struggles and their sacrifices. Remember that the 
 character of the individual want determines the char- 
 acter of the effort and the achievement. The man who 
 wants merely money, or conquest, or notoriety, is on a 
 low material plane; he who aspires to intellectual and 
 moral excellence stands on a higher plane and will reap 
 results proportionate to his want and on the plane of 
 his desire. 
 
 The application of the lesson I would make this 
 morning is not difficult. Ask yourselves today the 
 simple question, " What is my greatest want, my own 
 dominant desire ? " You are students in the high 
 school; your business is ostensibly to get an edu- 
 cation. Do you really and earnestly want to be 
 educated? Some young men and women attend school 
 without any very definite purpose. In a general way, 
 they would like to be educated; but there is no con- 
 scious want, no burning desire for attainment. Their 
 strongest desire may be to have a " good time " ; all 
 else is secondary. There are others whose strong, 
 steady work in all their studies is an indication of the 
 want and the will which require the sacrifice of ease,
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF WANT. 45 
 
 pleasure, and personal comfort. Do you want to suc- 
 ceed in your Latin? If your want is intense enough 
 and persistent enough, you will succeed. Do you want 
 to master your algebra or geometry? If that want is 
 genuine and becomes dominant enough to command 
 your time and the concentration of all your powers, 
 the domain of mathematics must become yours by the 
 right of mental conquest. Your work in any recita- 
 tion, your accomplishment in any subject of the cur- 
 riculum, is an index to the weakness or the strength 
 of your want. Before there can be a masterful "I 
 will" there must be an overpowering " I want." There 
 are students who go through high school and college 
 to please parents or friends, or simply because it is 
 the fashion. There is no intense, persistent desire for 
 personal attainment, no seriously felt want of culture ; 
 and, in consequence, we have too few really excellent 
 scholars, and too many mediocre ones. Commonplace 
 education is the result of commonplace wants and com- 
 monplace educational efforts. There are too many 
 students in all our schools who are still living in that 
 " far country," wasting their time and their oppor- 
 tunities in " riotous living," who have not yet begun 
 " to be in want " of intellectual culture. The great 
 law that want is the essential condition of attainment 
 is the keynote to human progress. It is true in every
 
 46 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 plane of activity; the material, commercial, political, 
 intellectual and moral planes alike. Wherever we find 
 no want, but absolute contentment, we find no growth. 
 The hope of the moral and spiritual advancement of the 
 race is found in the prevalence of " divine discontent " 
 in the world. When we find an individual, a city, a 
 state, or a nation that is satisfied with present attain- 
 ment and past effort, there is little hope of further 
 development. All nature proclaims this great law. 
 All the universe is a system of wants and partial satis- 
 factions, so adjusted that the best interest of every 
 created thing is subserved; and all give expression to 
 the universal law of development. The aspiration of 
 the humblest of God's creatures for higher moral attain- 
 ment is a prayer that finds its answer in the struggle 
 for a purer, better life.
 
 VI. A LESSON FROM AN OLD ROMAN COIN. 
 
 " Whose is this image and superscription ? "Matt. xxii. 20. 
 
 IN one of the most obscure streets of Rome stands a 
 dilapidated looking building where old Roman coins 
 are burnished and prepared for the market. One day, 
 a traveler enters this building, and seeing in one corner 
 a huge pile of what seem to be fragments of brick and 
 cakes of dried mud, inquires their use. He is much 
 surprised and interested when informed that these frag- 
 ments of burnt clay are in reality valuable gold coins 
 brought from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. 
 The proprietor of the establishment, selecting one of 
 these mud cakes, hands it to a workman, who places it 
 in a rapidly revolving cylindrical brush. During this 
 process, the earthy debris which forms the exterior 
 crust is ground away, until at last the gold within has 
 been reached. Touched by another piece of metal, it 
 gives forth the usual clear, metallic sound. There can 
 be no mistake: it is pure gold. It is now passed on 
 to another workman, who subjects it to another pro- 
 cess. By the use of several acids and the application 
 
 47
 
 48 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 of a series of cleansing agents, there is developed in 
 clear outline on the face of the coin the image of a 
 Caesar, which for ages had been obscured by the ac- 
 cumulated dross. Still another process brings out the 
 superscription about the image ; and at last, that which 
 but a little while before seemed merely a lump of com- 
 mon clay hardened to the consistency of rock, shines 
 forth in the sunlight, the current coin of an imperial 
 realm, representing the power and dominion of a Caesar. 
 This story of an old Koman coin will enable us to 
 appreciate, with more or less clearness, the matchless 
 reply of Jesus to the Pharisees who sought to entangle 
 Him with questions. " Is it lawful to give tribute unto 
 Caesar or not ? " was a question cleverly conceived, and 
 involving a dilemma from which, in their judgment, 
 there could be no logical escape. An affirmative 
 answer would have been equivalent to an abdication of 
 the Kingdom He had come to establish, while a negative 
 answer would have given them the coveted opportunity 
 to proclaim Him a traitor to the Roman power. Hold- 
 ing in His hand a Roman coin, He asked, " Whose 
 is this image and superscription?" When they an- 
 swered, " Caesar's," He replied : " Render therefore unto 
 Caesar, the things that are Caesar's, and unto God, the 
 things that are God's." And we are told that they 
 marveled at His doctrine.
 
 A LESSON FROM AN OLD ROMAN COIN. 49 
 
 By this object lesson, the Master clearly recognized 
 the two phases of human activity, the material and 
 the mental. The duality of man is one of the simplest 
 and most commonplace facts of experience, but one 
 which our greatest philosophers cannot explain. Each 
 of you knows that, through the senses, you are aware 
 of the great illimitable world without, which you call 
 matter; you are aware also of another incomprehen- 
 sible world within, which you call mind, a world of 
 knowledge and emotion, of reason and conscience, a 
 world of inner experience and life of which you alone 
 are conscious. What matter is, or what mind is, we 
 know not; but we do know that both are involved in 
 our earthly life, that both are involved in the processes 
 of education, and that both are essential factors in the 
 development of individual character as well as the 
 advancement of civilization. Jesus was no ascetic. 
 He did not encourage men to withdraw from the duties 
 of the material world to engage in thought and spiri- 
 tual meditation. He did not encourage men to neglect 
 their temporal welfare, but commanded due attention 
 to the material. " Render unto Caesar the things that 
 are Caesar's." Perform your social and civic duties; 
 help to develop your material resources, and to im- 
 prove your physical environment ; but " Render unto 
 God the things that are God's." You have powers and
 
 50 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 capacities that do not bear the impress of matter ; your 
 mind with all its undeveloped possibilities, your desire 
 for knowledge, your respect for right and justice and 
 truth, your longings and aspirations for a nobler and 
 better life " Whose is this image and superscrip- 
 tion?" We are told that "God created man in His 
 own image," not the material body, but the mind, the 
 spiritual element; this is the image of the Divine. 
 
 The divinity of the human soul is the central thought 
 of education as well as of religion. The belief that 
 every mind bears the stamp of the Creator adds dignity 
 and worth to humanity. The highest realization that 
 can be experienced by human consciousness is this kin- 
 ship with God the unity of man in thought and spirit 
 with the divine mind. 
 
 The first lesson I would impress upon young people, 
 as they start their career in high school or college, is 
 this exalted idea of the nature of the mind to be edu- 
 cated. Failure to appreciate the dignity and nobility 
 of the mind itself accounts very largely for the neglect 
 of its cultivation. It was this realization that enabled 
 the old poet to say : 
 
 " My mind to me a kingdom is, 
 Such perfect joy therein I find, 
 As far exceeds all earthly bliss 
 That God or nature hath assigned."
 
 A LESSON FROM AN OLD ROMAN COIN. 51 
 
 The true mission of all right education is the de- 
 velopment of the God-image in the soul. This is the 
 end and the aim of the school. Wherever we meet a 
 human being, whether in the higher and more favored 
 walks of life, or in the dark by-ways of ignorance and 
 the neglected paths of vice and squalor, we may rest as- 
 sured that down deep beneath the external crust lies 
 the true gold. It may be covered over with the dross 
 of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition; it may be 
 encrusted with the cumulative burden of inherited vice 
 and depravity ; it may have passed through the fires of 
 injustice, bitter oppression, and cruel persecution; it 
 may have lain in the darkness of ignorance and in the 
 chill shadows of want and penury, where no ray of 
 love or smile of sympathy had ever penetrated; it 
 may even now be buried in a sepulcher of evil habits 
 that have crystallized into an adamantine rock im- 
 pervious to the sunshine, of love ; but the gold is still 
 there, and the image it bears stamps it as immortal. 
 Through the processes of right education and civiliza- 
 tion, the golden core may be reached; and if touched 
 by the true metal of divine love, it will respond in 
 kind. Little by little, under the right processes, 
 the " image and the superscription " may be developed, 
 and the hard lump of common clay may at last be 
 transformed into the current coin of God's universal
 
 52 OLD TALBS AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 empire. It is within our power so to use our oppor- 
 tunities that the divine image may be developed in 
 our own souls and in the souls of those with whom we 
 come in contact. 
 
 " Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and 'His right- 
 eousness." Seek it in yourselves. Seek the best and 
 the purest thoughts ; seek the most inspiring words and 
 the noblest actions of which you are capable. " The 
 Kingdom of God is within you." Seek it in your 
 friends and associates. In our daily companions we 
 generally find what we are seeking. If we seek mirth 
 and frivolity, we shall find them. If we have no faith 
 in humanity, we shall find duplicity ; it is what we are 
 expecting. If we are looking for hate and prejudice, 
 we shall find them. " Seek and ye shall find ; " but 
 the thing we find will be what we are seeking. The 
 man who goes through the world acting on the theory 
 that every man he meets is a liar and a thief simply 
 proves to the world that he himself at heart is dis- 
 honest. The man that goes through life with faith in 
 his fellow-man, trusting the honor of those with whom 
 he deals, believing others to be honest and truthful, 
 will often be disappointed, will often find his confidence 
 misplaced ; but he has at least proved to the world that 
 he himself is a gentleman, that his own heart is pure. 
 What you yourself are at heart, you expect others to
 
 A LESSON FROM AN OLD ROMAN COIN. 53 
 
 be; what you are capable of doing, you expect others 
 to do. The slanders retailed so fluently by the com- 
 munity gossip usually have their real source in the 
 gossip's mind. 
 
 If we cultivate faith in mankind and let our conduct 
 towards others be inspired by love, how different life 
 becomes ! If the soul be really divine, faith in man is 
 the condition of faith in God ; the love of our neighbor 
 is the test of our love of God. " If a man say I love 
 God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar." " He that 
 loveth not his brother, abideth in death." Love to 
 man is the test of the higher spiritual life; service to 
 God means service to humanity. If we seek with this 
 spirit of love, we shall find God in every man. Let us 
 cast away suspicion and distrust ; let us look for truth 
 and beauty, honor and justice; and, though often dis- 
 appointed, we shall more often find the good that we 
 are seeking. The reason why our friends are not 
 better to us, is because we are not looking for the best 
 that is in them. Draw out the best thoughts, the best 
 moods, the loftiest ideals of those with whom you asso- 
 ciate; in return give them nothing that is not pure and 
 true, that has not stamped upon it the " image and the 
 superscription " of the divine. " Judge not that ye 
 be not judged." Your " judgments " or opinions of 
 others are revelations of your own soul. The cynic
 
 54 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 tells us that there is no truth or honor in the world ; 
 by this judgment he tells us also that he is a cynic. 
 The pessimist tells us that the world is hopelessly bad, 
 and his opinion brands him a pessimist. The man who 
 does not believe in schools or churches, or charities or 
 reform's, who does not believe in the possibility of de- 
 veloping higher moral standards through these agen- 
 cies, proclaims to the world that the " image and super- 
 scription " in his own soul have not developed into 
 consciousness. We need clearer vision, that we may 
 see the true, the beautiful, and the divine in human 
 souls; we need broader sympathies, that we may take 
 upon our hearts the burdens and sorrows of other lives. 
 Narrow is our little life and empty, until, enlarged 
 and enriched by the lives of others, broadened and 
 sweetened in sympathy for others, beautified and glori- 
 fied in love for others, it shall have realized its divine 
 origin and become the current coin of a spiritual em- 
 pire, representing the power and majesty of the Perfect 
 Love and the Perfect Life. 
 
 " He is true to God who is true to man ; 
 Wherever wrong is done 
 To the humblest and the weakest 
 'Neath the all-beholding sun, 
 That wrong is also done to us; 
 And they are slaves most base 
 Whose love of right is for themselves, 
 And not for all their race."
 
 VII. KNOWLEDGE AND POWER. 
 
 THE most difficult task that confronts a young 
 student entering upon his high school course is to 
 learn how to study. Thinking is the hardest work that 
 any one can undertake; and studying is learning how 
 to think, how to use the mind. At the beginning of 
 your work, you are apt to feel that your lessons are 
 too long; the tasks assigned by your teachers, too 
 heavy; and the actual knowledge gained from your 
 books, not worth the expenditure of so much effort. I 
 wish to impress upon you this morning the fact that 
 your success or failure as a student will depend, not 
 upon the amount of information you may get, but upon 
 the power you acquire. The actual amount of useful 
 information that you derive from your study of Latin 
 or German, algebra or geometry, may be very small. 
 The chief aim of school instruction is the development 
 of power; ability to do, to bring things to pass. 
 
 The test of your progress in school is not / think, I 
 believe, I guess. It is not simply 7 know, but 7 CAN. 
 The ability to do effectually to accomplish something 
 is the true test of education. In the old Anglo- 
 
 55
 
 56 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 Saxon, the verbs " know " and " can " have nearly the 
 same meaning. Can is now used simply as an auxiliary 
 verb in the present tense. Originally, it was the past 
 tense of the verb " ken," " to know; " it meant " I 
 have learned " and therefore " / know how/' I can. 
 We have reminders of this origin in the old Anglo- 
 Saxon words "ken" and "con," in the old Scottish 
 word "canny," and in the noun "can," a vessel with 
 capacity to hold. " I can," therefore, means not sim- 
 ply " I know," but " I know how." Knowledge in itself 
 is not a power; it is a means, a condition of power. 
 You can recite your declensions or conjugations, be- 
 cause you have learned how; you can solve your prob- 
 lems in algebra because, by learning, you have acquired 
 the power to do so. The acquisition of power is far 
 more important than the mere acquisition of knowl- 
 edge power to give attention, power to comprehend, 
 power to memorize, power to compare and to reason, 
 power to feel, and power to execute. 
 
 Only a few years ago, you began your work in the 
 primary school. You were then weak and helpless: 
 parents and teachers did most of your work for you. 
 Today you are conscious of some degree of power. You 
 have mastered the elementary processes of reasoning; 
 you have learned to gather knowledge from the printed 
 page and to express yourselves with more or less clear-
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND POWEE. 57 
 
 ness both in speech and in writing. You have grown 
 in mental power as you have in physical strength. No 
 longer can you rely upon parents and teachers to do 
 the work for you ; your success now must depend upon 
 your own efforts, though under the guidance and direc- 
 tion of others. 
 
 Power or skill is not inherited. One may inherit 
 tendencies and favorable conditions, but real power 
 must be acquired by exercise. Some acquire more 
 easily than others; but all must comply with the uni- 
 versal condition of all acquirement, self-effort. You 
 did not inherit ability to ride a bicycle; you acquired 
 that power, not by reading about it, not by seeing 
 others ride, not by being told how, but by trying the 
 exercise yourself, with determination to succeed. 
 
 The first evidence of mental power is ability to con- 
 centrate your thoughts with vigor and force upon the 
 work you have in hand. The manner in which you 
 study affects your character as a student far more 
 than the subject-matter of any text-book. The habit of 
 " day-dreaming " over a text-book is most pernicious in 
 its effect upon character. The student who permits 
 his thoughts to wander over land and sea, who dawdles 
 over his work, wastes his time, dissipates his mental 
 energies and develops mental and moral weakness. 
 This is the young student's chief trouble. You are
 
 58 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 preparing your history lesson; when you reach the 
 bottom of the page, you suddenly awake to the fact 
 that your thoughts have been wandering; you have 
 read every word on the page, but you cannot recall a 
 single thought. You are preparing your Latin lesson ; 
 for a few minutes you may work very diligently, but all 
 at once your thoughts begin to wander and you are 
 carried far away from your Latin, though your eyes 
 may still rest upon the text-book. You are living over 
 again the pleasures of the past vacation or enjoying in 
 anticipation the enchantments of the coming circus or 
 the bewildering effects of that promised new dress. 
 Your mind drifts with the tide of associated thoughts 
 and glides from one sweet vision to another, uncon- 
 scious of the flight of time and of the task you have 
 set out to do. Two hours pass quickly, and fond 
 parents vainly believe you have been studying. The 
 " head-light " oil you have wasted may be measured ; 
 the gas you have burned may be registered by a metre ; 
 but there is no device under heaven to register the 
 fruitless flights of a mind-wandering student. Do not 
 try to delude yourselves or your friends into the belief 
 that this is studying. Guard well the mind; control 
 your thoughts and cast out every beguiling intruder 
 that comes between you and your lesson. " This one 
 thing I do," should be your motto. Concentrate all
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND POWER. 59 
 
 your energies upon your task and do not rest till you 
 have mastered it. Master your own mind. How can 
 this power be developed? I know of no better plan 
 than to try the " time test." Does it take you two 
 hours to get your lesson in Latin, algebra, or geometry? 
 See if you can't get it in an hour and a half. When 
 you have succeeded in saving half an hour, make up 
 your mind to get it in an hour. If you succeed in 
 getting it in half the time formerly required, you have 
 made a great saving of time and have increased your 
 power immensely. Let me give you a few suggestions 
 which I think will prove helpful: 
 
 1. Provide favorable conditions. You cannot do 
 much in the way of studying when hungry, nor imme- 
 diately after eating. Don't try to study rocking in a 
 chair or reclining on a sofa. Such an attitude invites 
 sleep. Use a hard, straight-back chair and sit erect. 
 The body must be wide awake if the mind is to be 
 alert. The body should not be uncomfortable; but, if 
 it is too comfortable, the mind works indifferently. 
 The greatest masterpieces of genius have not come 
 from luxurious parlors, but from poorly furnished gar- 
 rets. 
 
 2. Be ready to legin. Whatever aids are needed 
 pencil, paper, ruler or dictionary should be ready at 
 hand before you begin work. To search for each arti-
 
 60 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 cle as it is needed causes waste of time, distraction of 
 effort, and dissipation of energy. 
 
 3. Be methodical. Have some system in your work. 
 Get your lessons in the same order every day; have 
 the same place to study, the same desk or table, the 
 same chair, the same hours. Train your mind to 
 systematic effort. Don't yield too easily to your 
 " moods." You may say " I don't feel like studying 
 to-night, I'll put it off till to-morrow." It is very true 
 that there are times when mental effort is very diffi- 
 cult; when we may not feel like working. Sometimes 
 postponement may be wise, but it is not a good habit 
 to form. The cause may be physical, or it may be 
 mental. Too much excitement, whether caused by 
 pleasure or by disappointment, is never conducive to 
 mental concentration. By effort, the student may 
 master his moods and make his mental powers obedient 
 to his will. 
 
 4. Be self-dependent. The best and most successful 
 student is he who studies alone. Those who rely upon 
 others are usually weak. The studying done by 'a 
 group of students in one room, if kept up for any 
 length of time, is apt to weaken the power of concen- 
 tration. The work that tells, the work that really 
 pays, is the work done by yourself alone. It requires 
 will-power to work by yourself. Dare to be alone.
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND POWER. 61 
 
 Have faith in yourself; develop confidence in your own 
 power, reliance upon your own resources. If you be- 
 lieve you can, you will; if you think you can't, you will 
 fail. There is much truth in the old Latin motto : 
 " Possunt quia posse videntur." They can, because they 
 think they can. 
 
 5. Cultivate patience. There are many people who 
 will work well so long as they succeed; but when they 
 encounter any difficulty, they lose heart. Learn to per- 
 severe. Newton, the great astronomer and mathema- 
 tician, declared that whatever he had accomplished in 
 life was due not to genius, but to his capacity for 
 patient, persevering work. 
 
 Knowledge is power only when that knowledge can 
 be applied effectively. There are many people who 
 know the rules of mathematics, but they have not the 
 power to apply them effectively in the solution of 
 mathematical problems. They may know the principles 
 of grammar and composition, but they lack the power 
 of applying them in concise and accurate speech or in 
 clear and logical composition. They may know what 
 is right and seemly in conduct; but their behavior in 
 school, in church, or on the street, shows clearly their 
 want of power to act up to their knowledge. Knowl- 
 edge is power only when it issues in habitual and 
 appropriate action, when it results in actual capacity
 
 62 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 to perform. There is a chemistry of the mind that 
 bears a striking analogy to the chemistry of nature. 
 The fuel placed in the furnace is not power; nor does 
 it become power until its latent energies are released, 
 and its hidden forces are transmuted into new com- 
 binations. The water in the engine boiler is not power ; 
 it can have no expansive force until, by the application 
 of heat, its hidden energies are released and converted 
 into a powerful agent. Food is not power; our daily 
 food must be digested and resolved into simpler ele- 
 ments before it becomes a positive living force. Knowl- 
 edge is not power; it is only the raw material of power. 
 It must be disintegrated by the processes of mental 
 digestion and must enter into new forms and combina- 
 tions, before it can become manifest as intellectual and 
 moral power.
 
 VIII. THE PASSING OF THE FENCES. 
 
 " By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." Heb. xi. 30. 
 
 Nor long ago, there was inaugurated here in Bir- 
 mingham an interesting campaign for the removal of 
 fences. " Tear down the fences " was the cry raised by 
 the newspapers and taken up by the people; and, as a 
 result, the fences that once enclosed our city parks and 
 many of our beautiful residences have already disap- 
 peared. The reasons generally given for this move- 
 ment are superficial: we must imitate the larger and 
 older cities; it adds to the beauty of our streets; it 
 is economy. Many people dispense with their fences, 
 merely because it is a fad to do so. 
 
 Has it ever occurred to you that there is a deeper 
 meaning and a more far-reaching significance in this 
 simple fact of the removal of the fences in our city? 
 The facts of our lives are effects ; even the passing of the 
 fences is an evolution. What is the real significance of 
 this fact? What is its logical relation to history? 
 
 To me, there is an air of serene confidence and trust- 
 fulness about a residence without a fence around it. 
 
 63
 
 64 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 It implies a great deal of faith in the honesty and good- 
 will of the neighborhood, and is a very high compliment 
 to the children of the next-door neighbors. It suggests 
 that the owner of that residence is at peace with all 
 his neighbors, and that the children of that neighbor- 
 hood are not considered rogues and vandals. I am 
 pleased every time I pass that beautiful unfenced resi- 
 dence across the street. The owner of that residence 
 seems to say to me and to every other passer-by : " You 
 are a very decent, respectable man; I trust you. You 
 and I do not need fences." An unenclosed residence 
 suggests friendliness and community of feeling. It 
 suggests unselfishness and large-heartedness. 
 
 In the cities of Europe, the residences of the wealthy 
 are generally enclosed with high stone walls so that 
 the passer-by cannot get even a glimpse of the green 
 lawns, the flowers, and the beautiful shrubbery within. 
 There is an air of distrust and selfish exclusiveness 
 about those forbidding stone walls. As I pass them, 
 they seem to say to me : " You are not to be trusted. 
 These flowers and these lawns are not for you; you 
 cannot, you shall not enjoy them." But an unfenced 
 residence gives me an assurance of welcome. It seems 
 to convey this message from the man within to the man 
 without : " I trust you ; look at my gardens and my 
 flowers and enjoy them with me."
 
 THE PASSING OF THE FENCES. 65 
 
 The residence of the middle ages was a castle with 
 high stone walls ten feet or more in thickness. There 
 were windows to let out arrows rather than to let in 
 light. There was the moat filled with water, the draw- 
 bridge and the portcullis. In the watch-towers were 
 sentinels to keep a sharp lookout for approaching ene- 
 mies. It does not take the reader of mediaeval history 
 or the traveler in Europe long to find out what the 
 people of those days thought of each other. Every 
 home was a fort indicating suspicion, fear, and war. 
 The people had little love for their neighbors, little 
 faith in mankind. 
 
 From the fortified dwelling of the fourteenth century 
 down to the fenceless residence of today is a long, long 
 story a story of bloodshed and revolution, a story of 
 human tragedy and world suffering, yet a story of the 
 gradual development of brotherly love and of faith in 
 man. The cities of the old world in ancient times 
 were enclosed with high stone walls for the protection 
 of the inhabitants. Some of the oldest cities of the 
 new world also were surrounded with walls. When the 
 French settled in Quebec, the first thing they did was 
 to build a wall around the town to protect themselves 
 against the Indians and against the English. The rem- 
 nants of this old wall may still be seen, as may 
 remnants of the town-walls in St. Augustine and Santa
 
 66 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 F6. The old walls serve no purpose today : the progress 
 of brotherly love, faith, and good-will has rendered 
 them useless. They stand only as silent witnesses to 
 the suspicion, the hate, and the faithlessness of other 
 days. Fences and walls suggest a wild land filled with 
 wild beasts and barbarians, a primeval forest filled 
 with bloodthirsty savages. 
 
 The growth of faith in humanity during the last half 
 century has swept away international barriers. Nation 
 trusts nation more and more as the years pass, and 
 the whole world is rapidly becoming a community of 
 nations without walls or fences. The nation that iso- 
 lates itself from the rest of humanity by a great wall, 
 will soon find itself in the condition of China. It must 
 tear down its walls and enter the great community of 
 nations, or suffer the humiliation of defeat and dis- 
 grace. 
 
 St. John, in his vision, caught a glimpse of the good 
 time coming, when he prophesied, " There shall be no 
 more sea." The great oceans that once kept the nations 
 apart are today great highways of commerce and 
 friendly intercourse. There shall be no more sea as a 
 barrier to brotherhood ; and, with the increase of faith 
 upon the earth, we may hope for realization of Tenny- 
 son's dream, " The parliament of man, the federation 
 of the world."
 
 THE PASSING OF THE FENCES. 67 
 
 In the temple at Jerusalem, a row of marble pillars 
 called " the wall of partition " fenced off the court of 
 the Gentiles. On this wall was the inscription in Latin 
 and in Greek, " No foreigner may go further on pen- 
 alty of death." This hatred of foreigners is charac- 
 teristic of all nations and peoples who have fenced 
 themselves in from the rest of the world by ignorance 
 and selfishness. It was characteristic even of the most 
 enlightened nations of antiquity. The moral ideals of 
 Greece and Rome made it as much a duty to hate 
 foreigners as to love fellow-citizens. Even Plato, the 
 wisest of the ancient philosophers, congratulated the 
 Athenians that, in their dealings with the Persians, 
 " they had shown a pure and heartfelt hatred of the 
 foreign nature." There are many countries today 
 where the foreigner is still subjected to suspicion, 
 hatred, and persecution. There are many countries 
 where hereditary caste and arbitrary social distinc- 
 tions stand as impassable barriers, separating man 
 from fellow-man. The Christians are still menaced in 
 Armenia, and the Jews are still persecuted in France 
 and in Russia. The political barriers that have separ- 
 ated states and sections in our own country have been 
 almost eliminated, and the high barbed-wire denomi- 
 national fences which have so long divided the religious 
 world into hostile camps are rapidly disappearing.
 
 68 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 Every great charity, every organized effort for the 
 relief of human suffering and the uplifting of the race, 
 demolishes whole sections of our sectarian fences. 
 Only a short time ago in Galveston, a Roman Catholic 
 priest, a Jewish rabbi, and a Protestant minister served 
 together on the same committee to relieve the suffering 
 of a stricken people. In the presence of that great 
 calamity, theological distinctions and differences of 
 creed were forgotten ; and all were united in one great 
 faith, one great hope, and one great charity. 
 
 " By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." It was 
 not by the use of battering rams or dynamite, but by 
 the silent progress of the army of Joshua around the 
 walls. By faith, also, the walls about the cities of the 
 old world fell down ; by faith, the castles of the middle 
 ages have disappeared; and by faith. the barriers that 
 have so long separated the nations of the earth have 
 been eliminated. The greatest lesson in all history is 
 the lesson of faith. Faith in man is the corner-stone 
 of all progress : credit is the basis of modern trade and 
 the key-note of our entire commercial system. Faith 
 in mankind is the basis of government, the foundation 
 of democracy. Without faith there could be no organ- 
 ization, no combination of labor and capital, no trades- 
 unions and no trusts. Nowhere is this principle so 
 conspicuously demonstrated as in our own country.
 
 THE PASSING OF THE FENCES. 69 
 
 Here, the fences separating the Jew from the Gentile 
 have almost disappeared; and the Irishman and the 
 Anglo-Saxon dwell together as brethren. By faith, 
 arbitrary race and social distinctions are passing away ; 
 and in an atmosphere of fraternity and equal oppor- 
 tunity, each individual stands or falls by his own 
 merit. In the public schools, there are no educational 
 fences restricting the opportunities of knowledge and 
 culture to the favored few. The doors of opportunity 
 are open for all who, through faith, will enter. To 
 meet with success in any vocation today, a man must 
 trust and be trusted. The men who get themselves and 
 their friends into the most serious troubles in the 
 business world are the men who cannot be trusted; 
 the boys who get into constant trouble in school or 
 college are the boys who cannot be trusted. Faith is 
 the corner-stone of the school, of business, of govern- 
 ment, and of civilized society. 
 
 " To tear down the fences " is the mission of educa- 
 tion, of science, and of religion. It is the mission of 
 democracy. Every advance in true culture, every deed 
 of heroism and of charity, every invention and every 
 discovery in science, knocks out a stone from some 
 partition wall. And as the walls of Jericho fell by 
 faith, so shall the social and industrial barriers that 
 still impede the progress of the race soon disappear,
 
 70 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 and the glorious dream of universal brotherhood be- 
 come a realization. 
 
 " It's coming yet, for a' that, 
 That man to man, the warld o'er, 
 Shall brothers be for a* that." 
 
 Faith in man is the great spiritual force, the batter- 
 ing-ram that is slowly but surely breaking down the 
 walls of the ages; and faith in man is the index of 
 faith in God.
 
 IX. A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 
 
 " Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a 
 cloud of witnesses." Heb. xii. 1. 
 
 THERE is a classic charm about the picture which the 
 sacred writer here presents us. Paul had evidently 
 attended some of the great festivals for which both 
 Greece and Rome were famous. Perhaps he had seen 
 the Circensian games in the Circus Maximus at Rome. 
 It is more likely, however, that he had in mind the 
 scene presented in the amphitheater, during the cele- 
 bration of one of the four great national festivals of 
 Greece. The description of the chariot race in Wal- 
 lace's " Ben-Hur " is no doubt familiar to many of you. 
 That scene is represented as having occurred during 
 the time of Christ, in the wealthy city of Antioch. It 
 is perhaps the most vivid picture of its kind in all 
 literature and gives us an excellent idea of the manner 
 in which these classic festivals were conducted. The 
 most celebrated of the Grecian festivals was the Olym- 
 pic held at Elis once every four years. During the 
 celebration of the Olympic games, a sacred truce was 
 declared : war was suspended throughout the states of 
 
 71
 
 72 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 Greece. In the great amphitheater, gallery above gal- 
 lery, sat assembled Greece, tens of thousands and even 
 hundreds of thousands of people, terraced like clouds 
 in the heavens, looking down upon the exciting scene 
 in the arena below. Fifty brawny contestants are 
 about to begin the foot-race ; they represent the various 
 states and cities of Greece, and, in anticipation of this 
 contest, have been for years under the instruction of a 
 " lanista " or special trainer. As they lean forward 
 eagerly awaiting the signal for the start, each has his 
 eyes fixed upon the course ; every muscle is contracted, 
 every nerve is tense, and all the physical energies are 
 concentrated upon the work in hand. Flashing eye, 
 dilating nostril, and heaving breast show intense but 
 controlled excitement. It is no time for idle talk, it is 
 no time for playful jest. It is to them the most serious 
 crisis of a lifetime. A slight advantage gained or lost 
 may decide the victory. Every unnecessary weight has 
 been laid aside : everything that might impede progress 
 or endanger success has been removed. The prize itself 
 is insignificant: it has no money value; it is only a 
 laurel wreath from the sacred grove of Olympia. But 
 they know that the honor of victory is inestimable. 
 The winner of the prize not only honors himself, but 
 honors his family and friends and confers distinction 
 upon his city and state. He is carried home in a
 
 A CLOUD OP WITNESSES. 73 
 
 triumphal procession and enters his native city, not 
 through the usual gates, but through a breach made in 
 the wall. He is henceforth to occupy a place of high- 
 est honor in bis city and state. He has immortalized 
 himself, and his praises are spread abroad in story and 
 in song. The hope of such distinction must nerve to 
 his best efforts each contestant. More than this, he is 
 conscious of the fact that around him and above him 
 in that vast amphitheater is a " great cloud of wit- 
 nesses." Not for one moment can he take his eyes 
 from the course to look at that vast assemblage. But 
 he knows that his family and friends are there; he 
 knows that the representatives of his city and state are 
 there; he knows that he is the center upon which a 
 thousand anxious hearts are focused. When the signal 
 at last is given, he " runs with patience the race that 
 is set before him." The consciousness of the fact that 
 " so great a cloud of witnesses " attends him gives 
 courage and strength; their hopes and their prayers 
 give wings to his feet. Always, it is joy to perform an 
 heroic deed in the presence of a great multitude. Hob- 
 son at Santiago and Dewey in the Bay of Manila 
 were applauded even by the whole civilized world. 
 "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with 
 so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every 
 weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and
 
 74 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 let us run with patience the race that is set before 
 us." 
 
 When I look into the faces of the four hundred 
 students before me, I cannot help thinking of that vast 
 congregation of parents and relatives and friends whose 
 interests are represented here. We are not alone in 
 our work ; every life involves other lives. Teachers and 
 students are compassed about with a great cloud of 
 interested witnesses. Every single life that enters here 
 is the focus upon which are converged the hopes and 
 affections of a whole domestic circle. Each life before 
 me has its own " cloud of witnesses " to inspire and 
 encourage its highest endeavor. Fathers are working 
 and saving, mothers are praying and sacrificing, that 
 you may be able " to run with patience the race that 
 is set before you." 
 
 Interest in your life and work here is not confined 
 to the members of your domestic circle and your imme- 
 diate friends. You are here the representatives of your 
 city and your state ; you are the elect among thousands 
 to represent and demonstrate the culture and the train- 
 ing of our social and civil society. In this " cloud of 
 witnesses," we find the city and the state, the church 
 and society, all interested spectators with eyes fixed 
 upon this arena. 
 
 You are to represent the scholarship and the culture
 
 A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 75 
 
 of the past; you have received as a heritage, the 
 achievements and the wisdom of those who have served 
 their generation and passed to their reward. Poets 
 have sung, authors have written, and painters have 
 spread their canvases for you. But without your per- 
 sonal effort to realize and possess your heritage, their 
 work is incomplete. The Apostle says that " they 
 without us should not be made perfect." Our faith 
 and our labor are essential to the perfection of those 
 who have served before us: the past is complete only 
 in the present; the work of parents is completed and 
 perfected only in the lives of their children. 
 
 " Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that doth 
 so easily beset us." As you enter upon the course 
 before you, do you still insist upon carrying weights 
 to retard your progress? Many young students try to 
 carry along with them other interests, which must 
 hamper them in the race. Lay them aside. Is it the 
 weight of greed for money, of selfishness, of idleness 
 and indifference, of frivolity and social pleasure? Lay 
 them aside. Every year, there are hundreds of young 
 girls and boys whose physical constitutions are 
 wrecked, not by hard study, but by imprudence in 
 eating and dressing, late hours and social dissipation. 
 With these weights, you will be hopelessly handicapped ; 
 lay them aside. The contestants in the race not only
 
 76 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 laid aside every obstructing weight, but also faced 
 with courage all the hardships and difficulties neces- 
 sary to the victory. In their training, they did not 
 seek exemption from toil and trial. The young man or 
 woman who searches the curriculum for the easiest 
 course ; who asks to be excused from this study or that, 
 because it is difficult, will never win the prize. 
 
 This great cloud of witnesses with which we are 
 compassed imposes upon us a great responsibility. If 
 only our own life, our own destiny, were involved, it 
 would be serious enough. But oh, how serious becomes 
 our work, when we remember that the past, the present, 
 and the future are involved in our success or failure! 
 We are to make perfect the heritage of the past by 
 using it to the advantage of the present, and we are to 
 transmit it unimpaired to the future. Great is our 
 responsibility. The cloud of witnesses gave courage 
 and inspiration to the contestant in the Olympic 
 games. The interest and solicitude of loved ones 
 should inspire and encourage us to do our best, "to 
 run with patience the race that is set before us." It 
 is not the one who frets and chafes; it is not the one 
 who loses control of self in the excitement of the race, 
 or who runs spasmodically, who wins the victory. 
 Patience is essential to success. It is not always the 
 brilliant and the clever student that gets the most out
 
 A CLOUD OP WITNESSES. 77 
 
 of school, or out of life. The slow plodder, by patience 
 and perseverance, often outstrips the swift. 
 
 " It is not strength but art obtains the prize, 
 And to be swift is less than to be wise."
 
 X. THE STOEY OF THE CENTURIES. 
 
 THE passing of the nineteenth century and the dawn- 
 ing of the twentieth are without significance, save 
 to the thoughtful few. For the masses of men and 
 women who are not familiar with the logic of history, 
 no serious reflection is provoked, no important lesson 
 is emphasized. Days, months, and years are marked 
 off by natural boundaries which all may recognize. 
 These divisions of time impress us because they affect 
 the routine of physical existence and enter into the 
 business calculations of our lives. There are no lines 
 of demarcation no natural events to signalize the 
 transitions of centuries. The stream of time glides 
 silently on, passing one century mark after another, 
 with no series of cataracts to register the stages of its 
 rapid descent. Days, months, and years are necessary 
 to the business of the bank and the workshop. Cen- 
 turies are of interest only to the historian and the 
 philosopher. 
 
 While we review the progress of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury and praise its marvelous achievements, it is well 
 to remember that every century of the past has been 
 
 78
 
 THE STORY OF THE CENTURIES. 79 
 
 regarded as a wonderful era, when compared with its 
 predecessor. The progress of each succeeding century 
 is made possible by the achievements of all that have 
 preceded it. No great character or great event in his- 
 tory stands alone. Each is the product of a thousand 
 contributing influences. The great discoveries and in- 
 ventions of our age are due not exclusively to the men 
 whose names are associated with them. Whitney 
 utilized the results of a score of failures before he gave 
 the cotton-gin to the world; it took more than one 
 brain to produce the sewing-machine; and Edison and 
 Bell have profited by the scientific investigations and 
 inventions of thousands who have preceded them. 
 
 The progress of civilization is rhythmic. The lines 
 of development are neither continuous nor parallel. 
 There is definite progress, however; and one great 
 purpose runs through all the centuries of the world. 
 All lines of thought and human activity are related 
 and interdependent. Perfection in any one line is 
 impossible without corresponding development in all 
 related lines. Much of history is valueless, except as 
 it serves for scaffolding in the development of some 
 portion of the structure of civilization. 
 
 In order that we may form an unbiased judgment of 
 the achievements of the nineteenth century, let us 
 briefly review the most striking contributions of its
 
 80 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 immediate predecessors. Emerging from the darkness 
 of the middle ages, we enter upon an era of awakening 
 in the fifteenth century the dawn of the Renaissance. 
 The permanent contributions of this century may be 
 summed up in a few words: it gave the world gun- 
 powder which made the peasant equal to the knight 
 on the field of battle ; it contributed the printing-press, 
 destined to become the world's most powerful agency 
 for enlightenment, and the mariner's compass, which 
 enabled man to become lord of the ocean. On the 
 practical side of life, these three contributions consti- 
 tute the sum of the progress of all preceding centuries, 
 and the foundation of all that should follow. But, 
 important as these contributions have proven to be, the 
 glory of the fifteenth century consists in the discovery 
 of unknown lands beyond the seas. The kings, em- 
 perors, and popes, who ruled Europe during that 
 century, are almost forgotten ; but the names of Colum- 
 bus, Magellan, Vasco de Gama, and the Cabots are 
 immortal, because of their imperishable contributions 
 to civilization. It was the fifteenth century that 
 gathered up the scattered treasures of preceding ages 
 and laid the foundation for modern civilization. Its 
 lines of progress, however, were material rather than 
 intellectual or moral. Its energies were concentrated 
 upon matter rather than upon man. It gave hitherto
 
 THE STORY OF THE CENTURIES. 81 
 
 unknown continents to civilization, but it accomplished 
 little for man as a moral and social being. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, we find a marked departure 
 from the material plane of the fifteenth. In this cen- 
 tury, history turns upon the pivot of human interest. 
 It was an era of religious and spiritual awakening, 
 and the emotional element of the individual manifested 
 itself in sentimental literature and in fanaticism; in 
 the inquisition, in persecution and martyrdom, and in 
 a series of cruel, religious wars. It was the era of that 
 religious upheaval in Europe known as the Reforma- 
 tion ; and the events of its history are clustered about 
 such names as Luther and Zwingli, Erasmus, Melanc- 
 thon, Calvin, John Knox, and scores of other names 
 associated with the great religious movements of the 
 century. It was also the beginning of the era of 
 colonization, a movement prolific in its results to the 
 individual and to society. The sixteenth century de- 
 veloped the individual on the emotional side. 
 
 The seventeenth century was ushered in by the Eliza- 
 bethan age of literature in England, and was made 
 illustrious by the names of Shakespeare, Milton, Dry- 
 den, and Pope, Addison and Steele, Bacon, Locke, and 
 Newton. In France it included the classical age of 
 Louis XIV and the founding of the French Academy, 
 and among its immortal names are those of Moliere
 
 82 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 and Racine, Fenelon and Descartes. All Europe ex- 
 perienced an intellectual awakening; and the masses, 
 through the dissemination of general knowledge, were 
 brought to a consciousness of their intellectual powers 
 and .of their needs and rights as men. The seventeenth 
 century developed the individual on the intellectual 
 side. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, the dominant idea was the 
 positive assertion of political rights by the individual. 
 The masses of the people, having developed a conscious- 
 ness of their selfhood, now turned under the heel of 
 tyranny. Emotion and intellect find expression in 
 will. It was the era of popular demand for civil and 
 religious freedom. It culminated in the liberation of 
 the American Colonies, the birth of the American 
 Republic, and the French Revolution. It abolished 
 feudalism, gave the death-blow to absolute monarchy, 
 established the principle of political equality, and sub- 
 stituted the modern for the mediaeval state. The 
 eighteenth century developed the individual on the 
 executive side, and the cycle of dominant individualism 
 was complete. 
 
 In the nineteenth century, civilization returned to 
 the material plane of the fifteenth century. A new 
 cycle began, and history repeated itself. The fifteenth 
 century was characterized by great inventions, and was
 
 THE STORY OF THE CENTURIES. 83 
 
 an era of unprecedented geographical discovery and 
 territorial expansion. The nineteenth century gave us 
 a very striking parallel. Its discoveries and expansion 
 movements eclipsed those of all the preceding centuries. 
 The increased powers of the individual were concen- 
 trated upon the conquest of man's material environ- 
 ment. The spirit of industrialism and of commercial- 
 ism dominated all of the activities of the century. But 
 the extraordinary progress of invention, the applica- 
 tion of machinery to wealth production, and the rapid 
 increase of cheap transportation facilities, developed 
 entirely new economic conditions. As a result of this 
 development, we find enormously increased capital and 
 production, the concentration of large masses of people 
 in cities, and the growth of social and commercial or- 
 ganizations, and of combinations of labor and capital. 
 The material development of the nineteenth century 
 was based upon individualism, but the results and ten- 
 dencies of this development were distinctively social. 
 The progress of the century consisted in laying the ma- 
 terial foundation for the social development of the race, 
 and its economic problems were the natural and logical 
 results of its industrial activities. The nineteenth cen- 
 tury prepared the way for the social reorganization of 
 the race, as the fifteenth century did for the uplifting 
 of the individual.
 
 84 OLD TALES AND MODEBN IDEALS. 
 
 In this new cycle of progress, what is to be the mis- 
 sion of the twentieth century? The orderly sequence 
 of history would naturally lead us to expect that the 
 twentieth century should be the historical analogue of 
 the sixteenth ; that human interests should prevail over 
 material development; that emotional activity should 
 be expanded into aesthetic and ethical life. From the 
 character of nineteenth century progress, the inference 
 is also justifiable, that individualism, as a motive force, 
 will be superseded by socialism. While the individual 
 must still be emphasized, it will be the individual as a 
 social and institutional being, as a member of the state 
 and of society, and, as such, in sympathetic touch with 
 all mankind. Egoism must yield to altruism, and 
 selfishness in individuals and in organizations must be 
 sacrificed for the well-being of the race. 
 
 An industrial and manufacturing era like the nine- 
 teenth century had to deal with the problems of ma- 
 terial wealth production, and with questions relating to 
 the economics of daily existence. Physics, chemistry, 
 and political economy, naturally and properly, became 
 the popular sciences of the schools, because the ethical 
 and sociological problems involved could not be antici- 
 pated. But these new problems developed by the 
 industrialism of the century are already pressing for 
 solution. In the twentieth century, economic thought
 
 THE STORY OP THE CENTURIES. 85 
 
 will be directed chiefly, not to wealth production, but 
 to wealth distribution. The old science of political 
 economy will be largely superseded in its hold upon 
 the popular mind by the new science of sociology. 
 Physics and chemistry will yield their supremacy in 
 the curricula of our schools to psychology, ethics, and 
 aesthetics. The study of man will be esteemed more 
 highly than that of matter; and the ethical adjustment 
 of human relations will be deemed more deserving of 
 man's deepest study than the mechanical adjustment of 
 material means and ends, for the gratification of selfish 
 desires. As the nineteenth century has given man a 
 new material environment, the twentieth century must 
 develop for him a higher ethical and spiritual environ- 
 ment; as the sixteenth century began the evolution of 
 human interest from the standpoint of the individual, 
 the twentieth century must emphasize the ethical and 
 moral aspects of life through social and economic 
 organization.
 
 XI. VEGETABLE SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 THERE are many facts of vegetable life that are 
 wonderfully suggestive of the laws and conditions of 
 human society. The biologist, with his microscope and 
 his imagination, finds that much of the prose and the 
 poetry of human life has been anticipated in garden, 
 field, and forest; that even the social and ethical rela- 
 tions of mankind are faintly typified in the vegetable 
 kingdom. Natural laws are universal, and the penal- 
 ties for their infraction must be uniform throughout 
 the realm of nature. 
 
 Idleness is abnormal everywhere. With the members 
 of the vegetable family, the normal state is that of 
 labor. Even the modest little plant by the wayside is 
 an incessant worker. If we could read aright its life 
 history, we would find its career to be one of continuous 
 endeavor to fulfill its life mission the primary purpose 
 of its existence. The microscope has revealed to us the 
 fact that the plant is provided with an exquisite labora- 
 tory, equipped with the most ingenious, delicate, and 
 costly aparatus imaginable. Not only is the plant 
 required to use these tools skillfully in the accomplish- 
 
 86
 
 VEGETABLE SOCIOLOGY. 87 
 
 ment of its work, but it is also intrusted with their 
 complete construction and their maintenance. So 
 complex and so costly is this equipment of the plant 
 workshop that human ingenuity, with all the wealth 
 of the Rothschilds, could never have devised or con- 
 structed its elaborate machinery. 
 
 Root, stem, and leaf are three separate departments 
 of the plant laboratory, in each of which are conducted 
 the delicate processes essential to plant work. The 
 roots grow downward into the earth to gather up and 
 prepare the raw material ; they take up in solution the 
 various food substances necessary for the body of the 
 plant and accumulate a store of plastic material to be 
 worked up in the laboratory as necessity demands. The 
 leaves grow heavenward and exercise functions of the 
 highest importance to the welfare of the plant. They 
 contain that mysterious substance known as chloro- 
 phyll the green coloring matter which enables the leaf 
 to absorb the energy of the sunlight and to assimilate 
 the carbon dioxide of the air into the plant system. By 
 its power, the sunbeam that falls upon the leaf yields 
 its vital energy, which, by some mysterious process, un- 
 known to human science, is transmuted into life. This 
 process the manufacture of plant life is difficult, ex- 
 pensive, and mysterious. In vain, science has tried to 
 learn the secret; and though the microscope has made
 
 88 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 wonderful revelations in regard to the conditions and 
 processes of life, life itself remains a mystery. In 
 the work of the plant, we know that the roots deal 
 with the earth and provide the material element; that 
 the chlorophyll of the leaf, by its affinity for the 
 sunlight, provides for the higher life; and that the 
 function of the stem is to serve as a channel of com- 
 munication between the roots and the leaves, and to 
 support the higher organs of the plant in such a way 
 that all may do their assigned work to the best advan- 
 tage. 
 
 Human society is divided into various classes, ac- 
 cording to the capacity of its members for work or 
 according to their attitude towards the great ends of 
 human life. Since intelligent and purposeful work is 
 accepted as the normal state, we have various abnormal 
 social states or classes. We thus speak of the defective 
 classes, the criminal classes, the idle classes, et cetera. 
 So, also, among the members of plant society, the biol- 
 ogist finds abnormal classes, determined primarily by 
 their attitude towards the work assigned them the 
 ends of vegetable being. 
 
 When dissimilar members of the plant family live 
 together, one or each dependent upon the other, they 
 are said to be symbiotic ; and biologists have discovered 
 among the members of the plant family three kinds of
 
 VEGETABLE SOCIOLOGY. 89 
 
 symbiosis, or " living together " : mutualism, helotism, 
 and parasitism. 
 
 1. Mutualism. In this condition, two organisms of 
 different species or genera live together in a state of 
 mutual dependence. The members may be of equal 
 rank, but each does only a part of the work. This 
 division of labor may be productive of mutual benefit, 
 but inevitably it results in corresponding loss to each 
 individual. Neglected powers lapse, and unused organs 
 gradually disappear for want of exercise. The fungus 
 growth on the roots of clover and some orchids and 
 club mosses are examples of this abnormal condition of 
 mutualism in plant life. 
 
 2. Helotism. This condition is named from the 
 word helot, which signifies serf or slave and was ap- 
 plied to the serving class among the Spartans. As the 
 term implies, we find a species of servitude existing in 
 the vegetable kingdom. Some plants possessing simple 
 organisms, like the algae, live in intimate relation with 
 plants of a higher development, like the fungi. The 
 former serve in the capacity of slaves to the latter. 
 The lower plant does all the hard labor, absorbing the 
 simple elements from the soil and from the air and 
 working them up into complex substances which nour- 
 ish the higher plant. The lichen, for example, instead 
 of being a simple organism, is in reality a double
 
 90 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 plant, consisting of an alga and a fungus living to- 
 gether. The latter is the aristocratic master. It 
 profits by the toil of its little slave and lives a life of 
 luxury and indolent ease. But this genteel and idle 
 master, though free from hard labor, is far from being 
 strong and prosperous. Through continued idleness, 
 it has lost the power to work, to produce the essential 
 chlorophyll, and has degenerated into a helpless crea- 
 ture dependent upon the generous support of its faith- 
 ful servant. 
 
 3. Parasitism. Perhaps the most interesting and 
 instructive class of symbiotic plants are the parasites. 
 These are found in two divisions, the true parasites 
 and the saprophytes. The first class attach themselves 
 to some living organism some industrious hard-work- 
 ing plant. The parasite does very little work on its 
 own account ; it escapes part of the toil and the strug- 
 gle of earning its livelihood, by absorbing from its 
 host the necessaries of life already prepared. To this 
 class belong the dodder, which is completely parasitic, 
 and the mistletoe, which is partially so; the rusts and 
 the smuts, which attach themselves to cereals ; and the 
 useless but audacious suckers, which sap the strength 
 of the fruit-bearing plants and torment the farmer boy. 
 Some of these parasites are very choice as to the 
 host that shall sustain them, while others are indiffer-
 
 VEGETABLE SOCIOLOGY. 91 
 
 ent and will accept entertainment from any convenient 
 source. The twining dodder with its yellowish or red- 
 dish stems will coil around any plant that it meets; 
 and, in most cases, it stealthily and cruelly strangles its 
 unsuspecting host. The mistletoe selects a tree, often 
 a fruit-tree, as its host; and, for this reason, it was 
 called by the Greeks, Phoradendron, the " tree-thief." 
 The saprophytes differ from the true parasites only in 
 one particular. Instead of attaching themselves to 
 living plants, they feed on dead and decaying organ- 
 isms. In this class may be found the moulds, the toad- 
 stools, the mushrooms, the puffballs, and numerous 
 animal and vegetable germs. 
 
 The results of parasitism are worthy of notice. We 
 shall mention only a few of the more obvious: 
 
 1. What the true plant does in different stages of its 
 existence, the parasite continues to do throughout its 
 entire life. There is no alternation of sleep and wake- 
 fulness, rest and labor, seed time and harvest. There is 
 no progress, no development. It continues its monoto- 
 nous round of dependence, until its host has been 
 exhausted and death ends its career. 
 
 2. Another result of parasitism is the loss of the 
 power of protective adaptation. True plants are capa- 
 ble of a variety of spontanepus or induced movements, 
 which are quite suggestive of voluntary activities. For
 
 92 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 protection and preservation, they adapt themselves 
 automatically to light, temperature, and moisture. 
 Leaves turn their faces towards the sunlight, and tiny 
 rootlets shoot out in the direction of moisture. When 
 the parasitic habit is complete, the plant loses the 
 power of self-protection: it can no longer respond to 
 external stimuli. It is incapable of originating any 
 activity of its own and is helplessly dependent for life 
 and protection upon the host to which it is attached. 
 
 3. Another consequence of the parasitic habit is the 
 degeneration of special organs. While the parasite 
 secures its livelihood by absorption from its host with- 
 out work or worry, it sacrifices the delicate mechanism 
 which the true plant must build up for itself at such 
 great expense. 
 
 4. Perhaps the most conspicuous and the most fatal 
 consequence of parasitism is the loss of the chlorophyll, 
 that mysterious substance that is so essential to the 
 highest welfare of vegetable being. It has no power to 
 absorb and assimilate the energy of the sunlight. 
 Without chlorophyll, the plant has no direct affinity 
 with the source of life. This is the primal cause of its 
 degeneration. In the plant world, as in the human 
 world, degeneration is the price of indolence.
 
 XII. PERSEUS AND MEDUSA. 
 
 THE mythology of the ancient world gives prominence 
 to a group of popular stories known as " Sun Myths." 
 To this group belong the stories of Hercules, Theseus, 
 CEdipus, Phaeton, Endymion, Perseus, and other solar 
 heroes. In all these stories, the hero represents the 
 sun or the light. Born of the darkness or of the dawn, 
 he is exposed to the dangers of mountain wilds or ocean 
 wastes, because some oracle has predicted that he would 
 slay his parent the darkness from which he has 
 sprung. After a season of perilous wandering, he is 
 finally rescued, and is forced upon a long journey into 
 distant lands to perform some difficult and hazardous 
 task. He represents the light of the sun, journeying 
 northward to the solstice, dispelling the darkness and 
 the mist, overcoming the power of the frost king, and 
 giving new life to the forces of nature. 
 
 The story of Perseus and the Gorgon is a typical 
 solar myth. Perseus is the son of Jupiter, the god of 
 the sky, and Danae, the Dawn, daughter of King 
 Acrisius, the representative of darkness. Like other 
 solar heroes, he is cast adrift shortly after his birth, in 
 
 93
 
 94 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 the hope that he may perish, because the oracle has 
 predicted that King Acrisius will some day be slain by 
 his grandson. Perseus and his mother are placed in a 
 chest and, for a long time, float upon the sea. At last 
 they are cast ashore in the kingdom of Polydectes, 
 where Perseus develops into a sturdy, manly youth, a 
 favorite of men and of gods. The king woos the fair 
 Danse; and Perseus is sent to the distant land of the 
 north, the home of the mist and the darkness, with the 
 injunction that he must find and slay the terrible 
 Medusa and bring her head as a bridal gift to grace 
 the nuptials of his mother and his guardian king. 
 
 This Medusa was one of three famous sisters who 
 lived in the far north where the sun never shone, and 
 where the earth was mantled in unbroken darkness and 
 covered with perpetual snow. As a girl, Medusa had 
 been far-famed for the beauty of her comely face, her 
 shapely form, and her long curling tresses. Her som- 
 ber brow was crowned with the storm-cloud, and her 
 dark eyes flashed forth a fire that illumined the dreary 
 region of the Pole. But Medusa was unhappy and 
 dissatisfied with her home. She wished to live in the 
 land of the south, where the sun always shone and the 
 flowers ever bloomed, and where, moreover, her beauty 
 could be seen and admired by gods and mortals. Vain 
 of her beauty and conceited, as some beautiful girls are
 
 PERSEUS AND MEDUSA. 95 
 
 too apt to be, she besought Minerva to permit her to 
 visit the sunny southland. When Minerva declined, 
 she reviled the goddess and declared that she envied 
 and feared Medusa's beauty; that, if men once beheld 
 her own comely face and beautiful locks, they would 
 no longer consider the goddess beautiful. Minerva was 
 so incensed by Medusa's insolent slanders that she 
 decided to punish her for her arrogance and presump- 
 tion. Accordingly she changed her long, beautiful 
 locks into hissing snakes, which writhed and coiled and 
 twisted about her neck and body ; and, though she per- 
 mitted her face to retain its beauty, she declared that 
 one glance into it should change the unfortunate 
 beholder into stone. 
 
 The task assigned to Perseus as a test of his valor 
 and devotion was the finding and slaying of this ter- 
 rible Medusa with her snaky locks and face of fatal 
 beauty. He at once began to prepare for his dangerous 
 enterprise. The gods who had so carefully watched 
 over his childhood and youth were interested in his suc- 
 cess and offered their aid. Pluto, the god of the under- 
 world, who controls the unknown treasures embosomed 
 in land and sea, gave him the magic helmet, which had 
 the power of making the wearer invisible at will. Min- 
 erva, the goddess of wisdom, armed him with her won- 
 derful aegis, her polished, mirror-like shield, which
 
 96 
 
 would enable him to see things by their reflection upon 
 its surface without looking at the objects themselves. 
 Mercury, the patron deity of speech and of music, the 
 embassador of high Olympus, put upon Perseus's feet 
 his own winged shoes, that he might be endowed with 
 great power of flight ; and he gave him, besides, a short 
 curved sword for defense or attack. 
 
 Thus equipped by the gods, he proceeded to that 
 mysterious region inhabited by the " Gray Maids of 
 the Mist," who guarded the approaches to the land of 
 the Gorgon. By strategy, he extracted from these an- 
 cient maidens many valuable secrets; he learned from 
 them the way to the abode of the nymphs, who placed 
 at his service their richest possessions and directed him 
 to the hiding-place of the Gorgon. Perseus, aided by 
 the winged shoes of Mercury, proceeded in his north- 
 ward flight to the land of perpetual darkness and dis- 
 covered the secret dwelling-place of Medusa. The floor 
 of her cave was strewn with the petrified bodies of 
 those who had been lured to gaze upon her fatal beauty, 
 and the air was filled with the weird lullaby of the 
 hissing serpents as they sang the horrible Gorgon to 
 sleep. But the magic helmet of Pluto made him in- 
 visible; the mirror-like shield of Minerva enabled him 
 to see the reflection of the fatal face of the sleeping 
 Medusa; and a well-directed blow with the sword of
 
 PERSEUS AND MEDUSA. 97 
 
 Mercury severed from the body the terrible head, which 
 he carried home in triumph to his king. 
 
 Such is the mythical story of Perseus and Medusa. I 
 shall not attempt to give a critical analysis of the 
 story, or to unravel the mystic message that its sym- 
 bolism conveyed to the people of the ancient world. I 
 am concerned only with the practical lessons it con- 
 tains for us. Considered as an allegory, the story is 
 richly instructive. It is a prophecy of the individual's 
 career and destiny in modern life. The true hero of 
 today is endowed with wondrous powers, and is sent 
 out into the world to mitigate the wrong, to dispel the 
 darkness and superstition, and to destroy the Medusas 
 that lure men to destruction. Every young man and 
 young woman in school or college is a modern Perseus 
 endowed with mighty powers and intrusted with a 
 great mission. You are here, today, undergoing pre- 
 paration for the serious purposes of the life that lies 
 before you. The gods that aided in the equipment of 
 Perseus are ready to assist in your preparation. In 
 ancient myth and fable, the forces and powers of na- 
 ture, the elements of knowledge, and the various arts 
 and sciences were personified and deified. Pluto was 
 the god of the underworld, the personification of the 
 wonderful wealth that lies beneath the earth's surface, 
 the marvelous energies and mysterious agencies that
 
 98 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 are revealed to modern life by mathematics and the 
 natural sciences. The magic helmet of Pluto is here 
 placed at your service. Physics gives you the mastery 
 of matter and its laws, electrical science equips you with 
 a giant's power, chemistry and biology introduce you 
 into the secret chambers of creative power, and geology 
 enables you to read the handwriting of God in the 
 strata of the earth. Fundamental to all science is the 
 science of mathematics : all nature is based upon exact 
 mathematical laws. The mastery of these sciences 
 will make you the possessor of the magic helmet of 
 Pluto, which we are told has the power to make the 
 wearer invisible at will. The greatest factors of mod- 
 ern life are invisible; the most potent influences are 
 impersonal. The progress of civilization involves per- 
 sonal elimination. Ignorance cannot extend its in- 
 fluence in time or space very far beyond the personal 
 presence of the individual. Knowledge and skill and 
 the power of invention make possible the operation of 
 beneficent forces and influences that are far removed 
 from the creative personality. The most telling forces 
 in our daily life are impersonal. As we read a book, a 
 magazine or a daily paper, we may not see the active 
 personality behind it. The great lights of literature 
 from Homer to Shakespeare and Tennyson wear the 
 magic helmet of Pluto, because the printing-press has
 
 PEESEUS AND MEDUSA. 99 
 
 multiplied and extended their impersonal power. The 
 personalities of Morse and Bell, Edison and Howe, are 
 merged in their great inventions. The individuals are 
 invisible, but time and space cannot limit their in- 
 fluence. The man dies and is forgotten, but he leaves 
 an invention which will multiply his power for good 
 throughout all the ages of the future. Every inven- 
 tion of the nineteenth century illustrates the power of 
 an invisible personality. The inventor wears the magic 
 helmet of Pluto. 
 
 Wealth also makes possible the impersonal and in- 
 visible power of the individual. The coal and the iron, 
 the silver and the gold of the underworld belong to 
 the realm of Pluto, and are at the disposal of man for 
 the suppression of evil and the elevation of the race. 
 It is not the possession, but the abuse of wealth that is 
 ignoble. Riches used to gratify selfishness and to dis- 
 play the personal element, are invariably condemned 
 as mean and vulgar. The wealthy philanthropist may 
 live in obscurity, unobserved of men; but the hospitals 
 and asylums, libraries and colleges he has builded are 
 powerful impersonal influences that will go down 
 through the ages, alleviating pain, succoring the unfor- 
 tunate and dispelling the darkness of ignorance, long 
 after he is dead and his name and habitation are for- 
 gotten among men. George Peabody, John McDonough
 
 100 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 and Peter Cooper, John Harvard, Ezra Cornell and 
 Paul Tulane are mouldering in the earth, but their 
 impersonal influence will long continue to bless man- 
 kind. They wear the magic helmet of Pluto. The first 
 great lesson taught us by the sun-myth is the secret of 
 power through eliminated personality. It is the lesson 
 taught by Christ when he says : " He that loseth his 
 life for my sake, shall find it." 
 
 The mirror-like shield of Minerva enabled Perseus to 
 destroy the Medusa merely by looking at the reflection 
 of the fatal face. He had faith in the power of the 
 shining surface to reflect the reality. Too many young 
 people are not wise and cautious enough to profit by 
 the experience of others. The boy is skeptical and has 
 no faith in his father's judgment; he must see things 
 for himself; he must bring the follies and vices of the 
 world within the range of his own senses he must 
 gaze upon the fatal beauty of the Medusa. No wonder 
 the caverns of politics, business, and society are paved 
 with petrified lives ! Listen to the voice of experience ; 
 read the records of the ages. History is the wonderful 
 aegis of Minerva that reflects upon polished surface the 
 vices and follies of the world and serves for protection 
 to its possessor. The old adage, " The young man must 
 sow his wild oats," is without justification, for what 
 he sows he must invariably reap. Young people need
 
 PEBSEUS AND MEDUSA. 101 
 
 not see for themselves the vices of the great city in 
 order to avoid them or to destroy them. In the morn- 
 ing paper they may behold the image of life's fatal 
 illusions without leaving their own firesides. The habit 
 of " slumming " indulged in by many good people is 
 utterly inexcusable. Let them turn their backs on 
 Medusa and keep their eyes upon the shield of Minerva. 
 With your eyes fixed upon history and literature as 
 your shield, and your backs turned to the follies 
 and vices of the world, you will escape the heart- 
 hardening and conscience-searing effects of life's Med- 
 usas. 
 
 But your preparation requires not only the mastery 
 of mathematics and natural science, but also of lan- 
 guage and music, the vehicles of intellectual and emo- 
 tional expression. These are the "winged shoes" of 
 Mercury, the god of speech and of music. Words have 
 been fittingly called the wings of thought. Upon the 
 pinions of language, Homer and Virgil, Plato and 
 Aristotle, have come down through the ages ; and their 
 invisible personalities are still potent in the life of the 
 world. Luther and Wesley, Chaucer and Shakespeare, 
 Bacon and Descartes, are a millionfold more powerful 
 today than when they lived upon the earth. The 
 music of Mendelssohn and Handel still wings its flight 
 through the years ; and though far removed from their
 
 102 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 limited personalities, its ever-increasing volume multi- 
 plies its blessings to the world. 
 
 The equipment of Perseus typifies practically the 
 entire curriculum of the school. When you are truly 
 the possessor of this equipment, you may, like Perseus, 
 force the " Gray Maids of the Mists " to give up their 
 secrets and discover the path that will lead you to the 
 rich possessions of the nymphs that live in the rocks, 
 the woods, and the meadows ; in river, ocean, and cloud- 
 land. Like the great and good of all ages, you will be 
 endowed with the power of an invisible personality, 
 conferred by the magic helmet of Pluto; the aegis of 
 recorded truth will protect you by revealing to you the 
 image of the wrong to be overcome ; and the " winged 
 shoes " of Mercury will carry your faith and your in- 
 fluence down the years of the future, until at last the 
 head of the Gorgon shall be severed by the sword of 
 Eternal Truth. " Put on the whole armor of God, 
 that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the 
 devil." Paul doubtless had in mind the old pagan 
 sun-myth of Perseus, when he exhorted the Ephesians 
 to have their feet "shod with the preparation of the 
 gospel of peace," to take the "shield of faith," the 
 " helmet of salvation," and the " sword of the Spirit " 
 the word of Truth. Resolve, then, to do something 
 while you live that will be an influence for good in the
 
 PEESEUS AND MEDUSA. 103 
 
 world when you are gone; and remember that a great 
 mission in life requires great preparation. All the 
 powers of earth and heaven are ready to assist you; 
 all the gods are ready to contribute to your success.
 
 XIII. WEALTH AND POVERTY. 
 
 " The ferns loved the mountains, 
 The mosses the moor ; 
 The ferns were the rich, 
 The mosses the poor." 
 
 THESE suggestive lines I found by accident, while 
 spending an idle hour in a quaint old book-shop rich 
 in curious volumes, many of them published before the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century. These lines of 
 poetry embody the conclusion of an interesting old 
 legend which runs in this fashion : In the long, long 
 ago, the ferns and the mosses dwelt together in peace 
 and amity. They lived in a broad fertile plain where 
 all the conditions of life were favorable : the sun shone 
 brightly by day, and the dews of evening provided 
 abundant moisture ; the air was balmy, and the breezes 
 that swept over the plain brought health and happiness 
 to the mosses and the ferns alike. The ferns became 
 tall, stately trees, stretching their graceful trunks to- 
 wards heaven; and their richly colored foliage drank 
 in the dew and the sunshine. On account of their thrift 
 and prosperity, their richly colored dress and their 
 splendid proportions, they were envied by all the other 
 
 104
 
 WEALTH AND POVEETY. 105 
 
 vegetable inhabitants of that land. The mosses at their 
 feet kept their roots supplied with abundant moisture 
 and thus gave life and energy and beauty to their 
 stately companions. The mosses themselves were like- 
 wise benefited, and prospered by their mutual sym- 
 pathy and association. The roots of the fern gave 
 them warmth and energy through the soil, and the 
 leafy foliage protected them from the scorching heat of 
 the midday sun. The mosses grew large in size and rich 
 in verdure and rejoiced in the beauty and munificence 
 of their stately protectors. But, alas, there came an 
 unfortunate day when the ferns and the mosses had a 
 quarrel; they could no longer live together in sweet 
 sympathy and helpfulness; they could no longer dwell 
 together in that beautiful plain, each enriching the life 
 of the other; and they agreed to part. Hereafter each 
 would live to himself and go through life alone. So we 
 are told : 
 
 " The ferns loved the mountains, 
 The mosses the moor." 
 
 The ambitious ferns climbed up the steep mountain 
 side, and some of the more ambitious planted them- 
 selves on the very summit, so th.it they might look down 
 from a greater height upon their former companions 
 in the plain.
 
 106 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 The mosses, on the other hand, wandered downward 
 to the low marshland and the moor. But after the 
 lapse of time, the ferns and the mosses both came to 
 grief. Each class sadly missed the other and grew 
 unhappy in its loneliness. The ferns no longer had 
 the mosses to retain the moisture about their roots, and 
 gradually they became less thrifty and less prosperous. 
 In time they lost their stateliness and their leafy 
 luxuriance and dwindled away, until they became mere 
 shrubs. The stately trees of the plain now had become 
 mere dwarfs in stature, as compared with their forest 
 companions. Those that climbed the nearest to the 
 crest of the mountain were the greatest sufferers; the 
 higher they climbed, the greater their loss in stature 
 and in verdure, because of the thinness, of the soil and 
 the scarcity of moisture. 
 
 The mosses were likewise unfortunate. They missed 
 the sheltering shade and grateful protection of the 
 stately fern trees of the plain. They lost in vigor and 
 in richness of verdure and dwindled into mere colorless 
 lichens and other homely parasitic forms. Their soli- 
 tary lives became joyless and hopeless; they must now 
 submit to a dreary existence in the desolate moor, 
 amidst the dead and the dying of the vegetable king- 
 dom. 
 
 The legend suggests lessons of importance in social
 
 WEALTH AND POVERTY. 107 
 
 economy. The ferns and the mosses typify two great 
 classes of human society, and the legend illustrates 
 their interdependence. 
 
 " The ferns were the rich, 
 The mosses the poor." 
 
 No man liveth unto himself. He is part of a social 
 organism. Every member of society is dependent upon 
 every other member. The welfare of all depends upon 
 the prosperity of each; and the success of the indi- 
 vidual in any sphere is, in an important sense, the con- 
 tribution of the society of which he is a member. The 
 wealth of the few depends upon the productive power 
 of the many. The poor contribute to the wealth of the 
 rich ; they may make or unmake the laws that protect 
 this wealth; they become the soldiers who fight the 
 battles, when home and country are threatened with 
 marauders or with the invasion of a foreign foe. The 
 rich need the help of the poor. 
 
 In a large measure, the rich are indebted for their 
 wealth to the laws and institutions of society. Our 
 laws, our society, our social and civil institutions that 
 make our wealth possible, are not of our own making ; 
 they are our inheritance from the past, and we are 
 under obligations to transmit them to those who come 
 after us. The opportunities and the talents we have
 
 108 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 received as gifts from the past, we should turn over 
 with interest to the future. The rich are under obliga- 
 tions to the poor, and the presence of the poor gives 
 the opportunity for the discharge of these obligations. 
 A man by himself alone cannot become rich. 
 
 The cultured man likewise is indebted to society 
 as a whole. The conditions that have enabled him to 
 acquire an education are largely inherited from the 
 past. Our culture is the accumulation of the ages, 
 which has been entrusted into our hands. It is our 
 duty to transmit it to the future with interest. Indi- 
 vidual culture is enhanced in value by sharing it with 
 the world. The individual alone, isolated from the life 
 of the people, cannot be truly cultured. 
 
 The individual by himself cannot develop a high 
 state of morality. Morality is a social affair ; the indi- 
 vidual must develop into a social being, which is the 
 higher self, by contact and interchange with his fellows. 
 The hermit who hides in his cell to escape the temp- 
 tations of life can never become morally strong. If 
 we search the pages of the past, we will find that the 
 men of the greatest moral strength, the noblest types 
 of spirituality, were the friends of the poor. From 
 Socrates to Emerson, from Christ to Tolstoi, the great- 
 est philosophers and reformers of the world have lived 
 close to the hearts of the people. The presence of pov-
 
 WEALTH AND POVERTY. 109 
 
 erty is an essential condition in the development of the 
 soul's divinest qualities. The rich man who turns a 
 deaf ear to the cry of poverty and closes his heart to 
 the needs of the people shuts out from his soul the dew 
 of heaven and in the end becomes a spiritual dwarf. 
 The higher he climbs his mountain of greed, the farther 
 away he gets in his selfish exclusiveness, the more 
 stunted his development, the smaller the dimensions 
 of his soul. The poor, on the other hand, need the 
 protection that wealth can give; they need the op- 
 portunity that wealth can provide to save them from 
 discouragement; they need the hope that wealth can 
 inspire to keep them from despair. Removed from the 
 opportunity and the hope inspired by the heart-beats 
 of wealth, they wander into the moors and the marshes 
 of life and become serfs or criminals. All wealth is 
 not bad; all poverty is not mean. Wealth may be a 
 blessing to its possessor and to the world, if used for 
 the relief and the uplifting of the race. It may prove 
 a curse and a soul-destroyer if hoarded for selfish grati- 
 fication. Poverty may be useful and honorable so long 
 as it provides life-giving moisture at the very roots 
 of humanity; it may be useless and degrading as a 
 colorless lichen, feeding upon the decaying branches of 
 society. The rich and the poor in this world have been 
 made for each other. From sympathy and cooperation
 
 110 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 and harmony must develop blessing and happiness 
 to all. From separation and selfish isolation will 
 result, on the one hand, a class of stunted para- 
 lytics and spiritual decrepits, and, on the other hand, 
 a class of physical and moral degenerates. Life is 
 one ; humanity is one ; God is One ; and we all are His 
 children. 
 
 Wealth in itself has no intellectual, moral, or spir- 
 itual values. It is good only to the degree that it is 
 convertible into noble uses and provides the condi- 
 tions of individual and social betterment. To reach 
 its highest value, wealth must modify the environment 
 and provide physical conditions that are favorable to 
 the production of higher values in the individual and 
 in the state. It may be transformed into schools and 
 libraries, museums and parks that will disseminate 
 intellectual and aesthetic culture; it may be trans- 
 formed into books and newspapers, magazines and 
 paintings, and a thousand forms that will elevate the 
 race. Coal and iron ore and clay may be transmuted 
 into ideas, and the raw material of earth may be spirit- 
 ualized into noble ideals. The- possibilities of wealth 
 are beyond human calculation; the responsibilities 
 of wealth can scarcely be realized. The problem 
 that confronts the rich man, is the transformation of 
 his wealth into blessings for humanity ; the transmuta-
 
 WEALTH AND POVERTY. Ill 
 
 tion of mud, by the alchemy of the soul, into golden 
 bricks for the pavement of the New Jerusalem. The 
 law of transmutation is the most mysterious and yet 
 the most universal law in all nature. Inorganic matter 
 is changed into vegetable matter; and this in turn, is 
 changed into animal tissue, blood, and brain, and all 
 that makes up the body of man. But the law does not 
 stop here. We do not understand the process; but 
 blood and tissue and brain cells are transmuted into 
 thought and feeling, intellect and will, and these in 
 turn may become spiritual powers that lift humanity 
 into the atmosphere of the divine. This is indeed the 
 kingdom of Heaven within us, built up from the raw 
 material of earth, through a series of transmutations. 
 This is the mystery of conversion. That soul is itself 
 unconverted, that has not learned the secret of con- 
 verting its material possessions into spiritual forces. 
 True conversion must begin with the material ; he who 
 would convert human souls must begin by converting 
 his wealth, his talents, his physical and intellectual 
 powers, into spiritual forces. 
 
 This is the great law of being to which all nature 
 is subject. Every plant and shrub, every leaf and 
 flower, every animal that breathes the air, finds its 
 destiny and its glory in rendering obedience to this 
 universal law. Each transforms the lower elements
 
 112 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 of its life into higher forms, and all nature, by this 
 unending series of transmutations, attests for man 
 
 "One God, one law, one element, 
 And one far-off divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves."
 
 XIV. HISTORICAL IDEALS. 
 
 " I will make all my goodness pass before thee." Exodus xxxiii 
 19. 
 
 THE ideal is the real measure of the character of an 
 individual, of a nation, and of civilization. What we 
 call progress in the individual consists in his passage 
 through a succession of ideals, each in turn lifting him 
 to a higher plane, and each, for the time, dominating 
 his life and directing his activities. To the boy of six 
 years, the acme of human glory is to sit on the cab- 
 man's box and wield those suggestive instruments of 
 power, the whip and the reins. Then, perhaps, in rapid 
 succession, he is a street-car motorman, a locomotive 
 engineer, a policeman, a western detective, a great 
 preacher, doctor, or lawyer. While each ideal may 
 vanish before it is realized, it exercises a potent in- 
 fluence in shaping the life of the man. At every stage 
 of his development, the measure of his actual life is 
 found in his dominant ideal. 
 
 Progress in a nation's history consists in the sub- 
 stitution of higher and broader ideals for those that 
 are low and narrow. These ever-shifting standards 
 
 113
 
 114 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 of national achievement mold the character of the 
 people and determine the activities of the nation, both 
 at home and abroad. The character of a nation at any 
 period in its history may be determined by the study 
 of its dominant ideal. 
 
 The progress of civilization as a whole is likewise 
 marked by a succession of ideals. The student of his- 
 tory may trace in the course of the centuries that are 
 past the rise and fall of ideals which have provided 
 the motive forces of human endeavor, and which have 
 given shape and direction to the destinies of nations. 
 That is a very suggestive incident given us in the life 
 of Moses. He had been on the mountain, as you will 
 remember, where he had seen wondrous manifestations 
 of the great attributes of Jehovah ; he had seen the 
 most startling expressions of God's power, wisdom and 
 justice; but, still dissatisfied, he asked, "Now, Lord, 
 show me thy glory." " And the Lord answered and said 
 unto him, I will make all my goodness pass before 
 thee." The lesson is very direct and very simple; the 
 glory of God consists not in His power, not in His 
 justice, not in His wisdom, but in His goodness " I 
 will make all my goodness pass before thee." 
 
 In every age, the ideals of a people are embodied in 
 the object of their worship. The attributes of their 
 gods are the qualities most admired in men. In the
 
 HISTORICAL IDEALS. 115 
 
 world's early civilizations, physical power was ideal- 
 ized. The greatest man was the man of muscle and 
 brawn, the man who could conquer his enemies by 
 physical power. Such men were selected to lead their 
 armies and to rule as kings and emperors. The su- 
 preme attribute of their deity was power, and their 
 governments were absolute monarchies. Physical 
 power was the object of worship and the ideal of social 
 and civic life. 
 
 In the Hebrew theocracy, we find the attribute of 
 justice idealized. The laws of the people required " eye 
 for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 
 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for 
 stripe." Strict justice, untempered by mercy, is not 
 the noblest attribute of God, nor the highest ideal of 
 man. Later, as in the civilization of the Greeks, we 
 find the element of wisdom idealized. Art and phil- 
 osophy are elevated to the loftiest pedestals. Minerva, 
 the goddess of wisdom, is worshiped; and the knowl- 
 edge and culture characteristic of Greek civilization 
 still challenges the admiration of the world. 
 
 The attributes of power, justice, and wisdom still 
 continue as elements in our modern ideals. The ele- 
 ment of power still holds a dominant place power 
 through physical strength, through the influence of 
 wealth and possessions, or through the opportunities
 
 116 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 of social standing or official position. But this ideal 
 of power is modified and held in check today by the 
 ideals of justice and humanity and of the constantly 
 expanding conception of wisdom. 
 
 These ideals, however, singly or combined, do not 
 constitute the highest or the noblest reach of indi- 
 vidual, social, or national endeavor. It is not 
 to these that we must look for the glory of a 
 nation or of civilization. " Now, Lord, show me 
 thy glory." " I will make all my goodness pass 
 before thee." Goodness is the most glorious attri- 
 bute of Jehovah, and the noblest ideal of man and of 
 civilization. 
 
 Goodness as an ideal involves wisdom and justice 
 and power, but it gives reason for their being. It is not 
 necessarily the negative saintly quality characterized 
 by the drooping eye-lid and the cheerless face. Good- 
 ness is an active, not a negative trait; it does not con- 
 sist in the bad things that you have not done, but rather 
 in the constant stream of good things that flow out of 
 your life. It is the spirit that animates your sense of 
 justice, that guides your power, that directs your wis- 
 dom. It is that quality which gives tendency and direc- 
 tion to all your powers and activities, and determines 
 your attitude towards all the difficult questions of 
 human life. It is the oxygen that purifies the atmos-
 
 HISTORICAL IDEALS. H7 
 
 phere of social and civil institutions, the sunlight that 
 gives life and joy and happiness to the world. 
 
 The real test of your moral character is not your 
 power, your sense of justice, or your wisdom, but your 
 attitude towards those elements that constitute good- 
 ness. Many people think it a mark of superior wit to 
 ridicule goodness, and to speak lightly of truth and 
 honor and righteousness. The young man who treats 
 lightly these qualities in private and social life, can- 
 not be trusted with the responsibilities of official sta- 
 tion in the state or the municipality. Too often, the 
 press of our country is responsible for much of the cor- 
 ruption in public life by its attitude of tolerance 
 towards vice, and of ridicule and sneer towards re- 
 form. Whatever your position in life may be, I trust 
 that you may ever place yourselves in fullest accord, 
 and in active cooperation, with the elements of good- 
 ness in your environment ; that you may cultivate sym- 
 pathy with truth and righteousness, and consecrate 
 your lives to the establishment, in social conduct and 
 civic affairs, of this noblest ideal of life. 
 
 The process of education involves the development 
 of right ideals; it means the abandonment of childish 
 illusions and contact with the stern realities and re- 
 sponsibilities of existence. It is natural for the child 
 to look upon his father's farm as a kingdom whose
 
 118 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 wealth and resources can nowhere be surpassed. The 
 boy thinks his father greater than Alexander, wiser 
 than Solomon and richer than Croesus. The hills his 
 youthful feet have trod are to him the highest in the 
 world, his father's forest trees are the tallest, his 
 meadows are the greenest, and the winding stream that 
 flows past his father's house is the most beautiful and 
 enchanting in all the earth. To him, that mysterious 
 circle on the outskirts of his father's wide domain, 
 where earth and sky seem to meet in one unending 
 kiss, is the boundary line of the universe. But, by and 
 by, there comes a time when these sweet and happy 
 illusions of youth must pass away; when the dreams 
 and ideals of childhood, one by one, must vanish and 
 yield to other dreams and other ideals. As we rise 
 step by step to a higher plane, the circle which forms 
 our visible horizon gradually recedes and discovers to 
 our astonished view a world of beauty and of splendor 
 far beyond, of which we had never dreamed in child- 
 hood. The process of education thus means the dis- 
 sipation of old ideals as well as the formation of new. 
 Some one has wisely said that the end of education 
 is to lift us above the spirit of the age in which we live ; 
 to enable us to form an ideal of life higher and nobler 
 than that of our own generation. This does not mean 
 that we are to be out of touch with life as it is; the
 
 HISTORICAL IDEALS. 119 
 
 higher does not bar us from the lower, but enables us to 
 pass through it and beyond it. Man's horizon, intel- 
 lectual and moral, should be wider than his home, 
 wider than his business or profession, wider than his 
 church, his city or state, his race or nationality, 
 your education does not extend your field of vision, 
 widen the circle of your influence and sympathy be- 
 yond the present and the immediate, and develop within 
 your soul ideals that are higher and nobler than those 
 of the commercial age in which you live, it has failed 
 to achieve its highest purpose. 
 
 As you leave the school room and enter the service 
 of life, you will have opportunities to give expression 
 to your highest ideals. You will manifest to the world 
 the knowledge and the wisdom you have acquired ; your 
 power will be tested and your ideal of justice will 
 find its adequate expression. But, when the challenge 
 comes, as come it will, " Show me now thy glory," may 
 you promptly respond in word, in deed, in life, " I 
 will make all my goodness pass before thee."
 
 XV. THE KINGDOM OF MAN. 
 
 " Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom." Carlyle. 
 
 A KINGDOM presupposes a king, and the real test of 
 a king is his power to govern his kingdom. His wealth 
 and wisdom and skill may be valuable aids, but the 
 measure of the king is his ability to rule. Not his pos- 
 session, but his activity, is the test of his sovereignty. 
 
 The test of a machine is not what it has, but what it 
 does. Its value depends not upon the material out of 
 which it is made ; not upon its external ornamentation 
 or its beautiful polished surface, but upon the power to 
 accomplish effectually the specific work for which it 
 was designed. If you want to buy a watch, your first 
 concern is about its ability to keep good time. The 
 " movement " of the works comes first ; the style of the 
 case and the material out of which it is made are sec- 
 ondary considerations. Accuracy and reliability in the 
 measurement of time is the realm in which the watch 
 is expected to exercise dominion. Not what it has, 
 but what it does is its kingdom. 
 
 The wonderful forces of nature within us and with- 
 120
 
 THE KINGDOM OF MAN. 121 
 
 out us have very little significance for us, apart from 
 their specific fields of operation. The latent energies 
 of matter and of life are of value only because of their 
 kinetic possibilities, their power to work for some 
 specific end. Steam has been known for ages as a 
 powerful physical agent; but it remained valueless to 
 man until it was imprisoned in the steam-engine by 
 Watt, in the locomotive by Stevenson, and in the steam- 
 boat by Fulton. Steam was discovered, not by analyz- 
 ing it, but by finding out what it could do. Electricity 
 had been vaguely known for centuries ; but it was only 
 a mysterious and an uncontrolled evil genius to be 
 feared and shunned, until men such as Franklin and 
 Morse and Edison succeeded in finding what it could 
 do for the benefit of man. They discovered the kingdom 
 of electricity. The true measure of nature's forces is 
 not their composition; not what they have, but what 
 they do. Steam is not more powerful as an agent of 
 civilization because we have learned that it consists of 
 oxygen and hydrogen in a vapor state ; nor is electricity 
 any the less powerful because we know neither its na- 
 ture nor the source of its power. In the organic world, 
 every plant and every animal has its allotted field in 
 which it exercises its peculiar functions. When we dis- 
 cover its uses, we discover its kingdom. " By their 
 fruits ye shall know them." This is the universal test.
 
 122 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 The same law applies to men and women. The true 
 measure of our life is not found in our wealth, our 
 learning, or our social position. It is found in the 
 sphere of our activities. Conduct is the sum total of 
 life. Learning may direct it, and wealth and social 
 position may enlarge its influence; but these are after 
 all only accessories. It is not our possessions, but our 
 actions, that count. " Not what I have, but what I do, 
 is my kingdom." Your kingdom is the realm in which 
 you rule, the domain in which you exercise power and 
 authority. There are many things in your life over 
 which you have no authority; there is a wide domain 
 in which you can exercise no choice. You did not 
 choose your parents or the place of your birth. You 
 are an American citizen, not by choice, but by force of 
 circumstances over which you had no control. In those 
 matters, you are neither blameworthy nor praise- 
 worthy ; you are not responsible. You deserve no credit 
 whatever for the social position, the good clothes, and 
 the many superior opportunities with which you are 
 blest. For what you have, you may not be responsible ; 
 but what you do is your own exclusive domain over 
 which you are sole ruler, and in which there is none 
 to dispute your authority. In this realm of conduct 
 you sit an absolute sovereign, a king by divine right. 
 None can dethrone you or share your kingdom, and
 
 THE KINGDOM OF MAN. 123 
 
 there is none in whose favor you can abdicate your 
 power. 
 
 There are many who pride themselves upon the su- 
 perior gifts they have inherited, whether they be lands 
 or wealth or natural powers, forgetful of the fact that 
 they are gifts, in the mere receiving of which there is 
 no particular merit, and unmindful of the fact that the 
 possession of these gifts entails greater obligation and 
 increased responsibility. Sometimes, we find students 
 boasting of their native wit and glorying in their 
 ability to shirk all hard study. They rely upon luck 
 and inherited shrewdness to carry them through school 
 and through life without work. The most valuable 
 talent you can possess is the talent for work. This 
 includes all other gifts. It is not an inheritance, but 
 a power that each must develop for himself; and the 
 test of this power is achievement. As a student, not 
 what you have, but what you do, is your kingdom. 
 
 The test of your power to know and feel the truth is 
 your power to express it in language. The test of your 
 power to know and desire the right is your power to 
 express it in conduct. An old classic story tells us that 
 once upon a time the boys of Sparta visited Athens, and, 
 as the guests of the Athenian boys, were assigned to 
 seats of honor in the great amphitheater. Near by were 
 the benches on which sat the Athenian boys. The great
 
 124 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 circular hall is crowded, and it is nearly time for the 
 play to begin, when an old man comes limping down the 
 aisle. His hair is gray, his form is bent, and he leans 
 heavily upon his staff. In vain he looks on either side 
 for a vacant seat and stops at last opposite the boys of 
 Athens. They laugh and jeer at the poor old man, 
 ridicule his bent form and halting gait ; but there is not 
 one so civil as to offer him a seat. The Spartan boys 
 beckon the old man to come to them ; and all rise up as 
 one man, each offering his seat and standing with un- 
 covered head until the old man is seated. Seeing this, 
 the Athenian boys break out in loud applause and cheer 
 the generous act of the Spartans. The old man, slowly 
 rising to his feet, faces the vast assemblage, and, with 
 a gesture of his hand, cries out in a loud voice, " The 
 Athenian boys know what is right, but the Spartan 
 boys do what is right." It is not what we know or 
 what we desire that really counts, but what we actually 
 do. Conduct is the index of conscience, the register of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Christ uttered a divine truth when he said, " A man's 
 life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which 
 he possesseth." The greatest danger of our age is 
 the greed for material possession, at the sacrifice of the 
 higher and nobler elements of life. Wealth may buy a 
 corner lot and build a costly mansion, but it cannot buy
 
 THE KINGDOM OF MAN. 125 
 
 hope and faith and happiness. Wealth may buy a great 
 library and costly works of art, but it cannot buy the 
 love of good literature or the power to appreciate 
 and enjoy a Wagner opera or a Beethoven symphony, 
 as interpreted by the Thomas Orchestra. Such power is 
 not a purchasable quantity. A wealthy English woman 
 once said to the great artist Turner, by way of com- 
 ment on one of his paintings, " I never saw anything 
 like that in nature." " Madam," was the reply, " what 
 would you give if you could?" The power to appreci- 
 ate and appropriate the true and the beautiful in na- 
 ture and in life is not for sale in the department store. 
 It is to be obtained only upon the condition of personal 
 effort and individual work and is within the reach of 
 the poorest and the humblest. 
 
 We need today to emphasize the doctrine that man is 
 a free agent, that the individual is sovereign within the 
 limits of his kingdom. Whatever we may say of the 
 power of heredity, the shaping of our own life is our 
 own work. Whether it shall be a thing of beauty and 
 of honor, or of shame and infamy, will be as we our- 
 selves determine, because that is our dominion. " Not 
 what we have, but what we do, is our kingdom." 
 
 We have too long accepted the theory that the condi- 
 tions of social and civic life which we have received as 
 a heritage cannot be changed; that the ignorance and
 
 126 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 the vice inherited from the past cannot be remedied. 
 Many good people act upon the theory that heredity 
 is omnipotent, and that the ills of the state and of so- 
 ciety cannot be cured. This doctrine of fatalism leads 
 to hopeless skepticism. We must make the world better 
 by creating better conditions; we must improve the 
 next generation by bequeathing to it a heritage of better 
 conditions and higher opportunities. By raising the 
 standard of intellectual and moral life in the state, we 
 raise the standard of individual and social life. Too 
 many people are satisfied with their heritage. " What 
 was good enough for my grandfather is good enough 
 for me and my children," is a remark too often heard 
 in this day of railroads and machinery. 
 
 The life of the State consists not in the abundance 
 of its taxable values and bank deposits, nor yet in its 
 history and cherished traditions; but in the facilities 
 it provides for the development of a noble, intelligent, 
 and virtuous citizenship. The life of the Church con- 
 sists not in the venerable creeds and forms and archi- 
 tectural piles it has inherited from a mediaeval age, but 
 in those higher elements of spiritual life and activity 
 which shall elevate the race and redeem humanity. Not 
 what it has, but what it does, is the kingdom of the 
 State, of the Church, and of man. 
 
 The relation of the individual to inheritance on the
 
 THE KINGDOM OF MAN. 127 
 
 I 
 
 one hand and to environment on the other is very con- 
 cisely stated by Mr. Jenkyn Lloyd Jones of Chicago, in 
 his final examination of a class in philosophy. The last 
 question propounded is as follows : " Two children are 
 born on the same day, one in the home of a Harvard 
 professor, the other in the wigwam of a Dakota chief. 
 By some chance, the two children exchange homes in 
 early infancy ; the child of the savage chief is educated 
 in the atmosphere of Harvard, while the Cambridge 
 child is reared on the Indian reservation. At the age 
 of forty, which would you rather be, and why?" I 
 shall leave you to solve this problem as you may. 
 Remember, however, that it deals with two kingdoms, 
 one of society, the other of the individual. Society is 
 responsible for the two civilizations. The individual 
 is responsible for his career within the limits of his 
 civilization. 
 
 The philosophy of right living is strikingly expressed 
 by Zoroaster, the old Persian sage. " I was in dark- 
 ness," he says, "but I took three steps and found 
 myself in paradise; the first step was a good thought, 
 the second a good word, and the third a good deed." 
 These three steps indicate the boundary lines of human 
 responsibility, the domain of individual sovereignty, 
 the kingdom of man.
 
 XVI. IMPRISONED GENII. 
 
 AN interesting old Arabian legend relates that Radib, 
 one of the most versatile and powerful of the genii, 
 resolved that he would render his services to mankind 
 only upon the condition that they were won by toil 
 and perseverance. Accordingly he provided himself 
 with a secret retreat, an insignificant little black bot- 
 tle, for which he contrived a curious spring stopper. 
 He then succeeded in reducing his gigantic proportions, 
 so that he could conceal himself in the little black 
 bottle. As soon as he entered, the mysterious spring 
 stopper securely closed the door of his little prison. 
 
 " I will now go to sleep," said the giant ; " and he 
 who needs me may wake me up and let me out." 
 
 Hundreds of years had elapsed, and many genera- 
 tions of men had come and gone. The little black bottle 
 still lay in the valley, unopened and unheeded. Some 
 had observed it, only to kick it from their path with 
 scorn and contempt, because it had no beauty nor come- 
 liness in their eyes. Some had picked it up, only to cast 
 at away again. They had neither the skill nor the 
 patience to undo the spring stopper; they heard no 
 
 128
 
 IMPRISONED GENII. 129 
 
 voice from within, nor could they see the concealed 
 divinity which waited only to be released to do them 
 inestimable service. To the many thousands who had 
 passed that way, in search of wealth or fame or pleas- 
 ure or power, the little black bottle was an object too 
 trivial to attract attention. 
 
 One day came a poor peasant. By chance he stum- 
 bled upon the little black bottle. He picked it up and 
 resolved to carry it to his home, that his children might 
 use it as a toy. As the poor man scrutinized the little 
 black object he had found, he observed its peculiar form 
 and the strange device which closed the opening. While 
 reflecting upon the possible use of so trivial an object, 
 he heard from within a faint voice, scarcely audible at 
 first, but more distinct as he bent his ear to listen. 
 
 " Let me out, let me out," said the voice. 
 
 " What will you give me if I let you out? " said the 
 peasant. 
 
 " Whatever you desire," was the reply. 
 
 " Then," said the peasant, " give me a beautiful palace 
 and fill it with gold." 
 
 " I will," replied the voice ; " let me out, let me out." 
 
 Immediately the peasant went to work to learn the 
 secret of the spring stopper. His zeal was unflagging ; 
 his energy was tireless. The more difficult seemed his 
 task, the stronger grew his faith in the voice. He bent
 
 130 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 all his energies to his task and consecrated all his 
 powers to its accomplishment. Days, months, years 
 passed, but the mystery was still unsolved; the little 
 black bottle was still unopened. Time and labor, pleas- 
 ure and comfort all were sacrificed to his one life 
 purpose. Though sometimes his ardor grew cold and 
 his hopes became faint, he did not despair. He had 
 .heard the "still small voice" from within, and that 
 voice had found a response in his own heart. At last, 
 after years of toil and privation, his object was at- 
 tained : he discovered the secret of the spring stopper, 
 and the little black bottle was opened. Immediately, 
 there came forth a little cloud, a vapory substance that 
 seemed to possess neither form nor beauty. For the 
 moment, the peasant's heart sank within him. Was 
 this to be the reward of all his toil? Must his faith 
 and sacrifice end at last in vapor? But as he watched, 
 the vapory substance slowly expanded and gradually 
 assumed the form of a stupendous giant, whose head 
 towered far above the trees of the forest. He picked 
 up the peasant's modest little hut, threw it in mid-air; 
 and it came down to earth transformed into a marble 
 palace of gorgeous beauty, fit for a king to inhabit. 
 The giant blew his breath upon the forest trees, and the 
 leaves in falling were changed into showers of golden 
 coins. Hundreds of little dwarfs were soon upon the
 
 IMPRISONED GENII. 131 
 
 scene, carrying into the marble palace bags of glittering 
 gold. Each little dwarf, as he threw down his bag of 
 gold, threw himself upon it and was instantly changed 
 into another bag of gold, until every nook and every 
 chamber in the capacious palace was closely packed 
 with gold. When the giant had fulfilled his promise, 
 he said to the peasant : 
 
 " Whenever you need me again, you know where to 
 find me." Then he squeezed himself once more into 
 the little black bottle, and the mysterious spring stop- 
 per again securely closed his prison door. 
 
 This old Arabian tale is not so fantastic as it seems. 
 The truth it illustrates has been verified in the lives 
 of thousands of men and women. Civilization is the 
 sum total of little things, and history is but the record 
 of great events born of obscure beginnings. Yet most 
 people despise small things. The unlettered and the 
 ignorant in all ages have overlooked the commonplace. 
 Our estimates of our surroundings are too often based 
 upon external appearances. We are too apt to judge 
 people by the clothes they wear, and to value citizen- 
 ship in dollars and cents. But truth does not go 
 abroad, heralded by a trumpeter and a brass band, nor 
 do we find the best commodities of life in a full-page 
 newspaper advertisement. 
 
 The ancients delighted to represent their heroes
 
 132 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 and divinities with a plain exterior. The gods of 
 Olympus seldom visited the earth with the pomp and 
 splendor of their imperial home. They often appeared 
 in low disguises, living on common terms with mortals. 
 The Homeric legends represent Apollo, when banished 
 from heaven, as a herdsman pasturing the flocks of 
 Admetus on the banks of " Thessalian Amphrysus," 
 and Jove, the " father of gods and of men," as de- 
 lighted to rusticate with the sons of toil. Odin, in 
 the legends of the North, was a fisherman; and the 
 chief hero of Hindu mythology was a peasant dwelling 
 among peasants. So, also, in sacred history, Jesus, 
 the carpenter's son, was born in a stable and trod the 
 shores of Galilee with unlettered fishermen as His priv- 
 ileged associates. True greatness has always been re- 
 presented with a plain and humble exterior. True 
 worth is veiled from vulgar eyes. It is the great mis- 
 sion of education to lift the curtain from the common- 
 place and to enable us to see the divinity that lies 
 within, in all its splendor and beauty. 
 
 The world is beginning to appreciate the common- 
 place. It is learning the lesson of Michael Angelo, 
 that " trifles make perfection." The waste products in 
 manufacture are turned into articles of commerce, and 
 those things that were despised by our ancestors are 
 attracting new interest. Much of the silver and gold
 
 IMPRISONED GENII. 133 
 
 mined in our western states today is obtained from 
 the dumps of twenty years ago. Swamps are drained, 
 arid plains are irrigated, and neglected fields in science 
 and literature are beginning to bring forth rich fruit- 
 age for mankind. 
 
 " It is the very principle of science," says Emerson, 
 " that nature shows herself best in leasts." The great 
 discoveries and inventions of the world may generally 
 be traced to obscure beginnings. Men were readily 
 attracted by the glitter of gold, but failed to see the 
 value of the mountains of iron ore that so long re- 
 mained about them untouched; they were dazzled by 
 the ruby and the diamond, but gave no heed to the 
 useful " black diamonds " that lay at their feet. Until 
 the close of the eighteenth century, a lump of coal was 
 a veritable " black bottle," within which dwelt a power- 
 ful giant, waiting to be released to serve humanity. A 
 drop of water is an insignificant thing, a little " black 
 bottle," whose latent possibilities were undreamed of 
 through the long ages of the world. Men heard the 
 faint voice within crying for release; thousands toiled 
 to master the secret of the mysterious " spring stop- 
 per." At last, a century and a half ago, the giant was 
 freed. Today, he grinds our corn, weaves our cloth, 
 saws our timber. He has belted states and kingdoms 
 with iron highways, and sends the iron horse thunder-
 
 134 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 ing and shrieking through the valleys and over the 
 plains, laden with life and the products of toil. He 
 carries the majestic ship across the ocean, and, through 
 the midst of the wildest sea mountains, guides her safe 
 to port, while 
 
 " The pulses of her iron heart 
 Go beating through the storm." 
 
 Earth and air have always been the common property 
 of man; but generations trod the earth and breathed 
 the air, unconscious of the marvelous powers they 
 contained, until men like Franklin, Morse, and Cyrus 
 Field touched the magic spring that imprisoned the 
 giant within. The little black bottle yields its secret, 
 and the stupendous giant called electricity is brought 
 into the service of man. Jupiter-like, it cleaves seas 
 and continents with one gigantic stride and flashes 
 from state to state and from continent to continent, 
 bearing the thoughts and desires of men. This wonder- 
 ful giant writes our letters and delivers them, too; he 
 is at once the world's stenographer and mail carrier; 
 he is ready for any service and can speak any language 
 known to man. He pulls our cars and carriages, turns 
 the wheels of our machinery, and lights our streets and 
 our houses. Science today is rapidly realizing Emer- 
 son's prophetic vision : " Hitch your wagon to a star,
 
 IMPRISONED GENII. 135 
 
 and let your chores be done by the gods themselves ! " 
 Thousands of scientists are trying to learn the 
 secrets of the spring stoppers that conceal so many 
 powerful giants. Thousands of others are at work 
 harnessing the powerful genii of earth and air and 
 water for the service of the race. These giant forces 
 of nature, concealed in the simplest things around us, 
 stand ready to do our bidding; they will perform all 
 the drudgery of the world if only we can learn the 
 secret and " let them out." Thousands of young men 
 and women in our schools and colleges are striving to 
 master the secrets of the spring stoppers which confine 
 the genii within their prisons. In physiology, physics, 
 chemistry, and geology, you have " little black bottles " 
 that you alone must open, if the giants within are to 
 serve you. Mathematics is the common key that un- 
 locks the door of every science. It is a " little black 
 bottle " that conceals a stupendous giant, one that has 
 at his command a whole army of lesser giants, which 
 he brings into the service of man. Mathematics tells 
 the astronomer where to look for a new star in the 
 heavens, and enables him to describe with accuracy 
 the courses of the planets. Mathematics had inferred 
 the existence of the vibrations which produce the 
 Roentgen ray long before it was discovered, just as it 
 had established for Newton the law of gravitation .be-
 
 136 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 fore it was accepted as a principle of physics. You 
 are struggling with Latin and with science, with 
 history and with English composition. They seem 
 unattractive and insignificant to you now. They are 
 " little black bottles," concealing within the most 
 powerful genii. You must learn for yourselves the 
 secret of the magic stopper ; you cannot do it by proxy. 
 Listen to the voices of these genii, though you hear 
 them yet but faintly ; let them out and they will enrich 
 you by their service. If you would succeed you must 
 exercise faith, humility, and self-denial. Give heed to 
 the commonplaces of life. The gods do not always 
 dwell in the heights of Olympus; they are waiting at 
 our feet to do our bidding. The world is full of genii, 
 but their powers cannot be obtained unasked. Their 
 favor and assistance will not come to us unsought. 
 Worship is the condition of all blessing; and worship 
 consists of faith, prayer, and labor unceasing. 
 
 The average life consists of commonplace events. 
 The test of true living is not to be sought in the bril- 
 liant episodes or the dramatic incidents of a career, 
 but in the ordinary everyday experiences of life. We 
 need not fold our hands and wait for the occasional or 
 the exceptional incidents of life to bring us a revelation 
 of truth and duty; we need not wait for a midday 
 vision to bring us the divine message. " The word is
 
 IMPRISONED GENII. 137 
 
 very nigh thee." In daily trial and homely joy, in 
 honest toil and simple service, there are spiritual genii 
 waiting to be released to inspire us to the truer life. 
 The greatest needs and the greatest blessings of human 
 life are found in commonplace experience and common- 
 place endeavor. When we learn to find inspiration in 
 the commonplace routine duties of life, we may realize 
 the poet's aspiration and 
 
 " make this forenoon sublime, 
 This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, 
 And time is conquered, and the crown is won."
 
 XVII. ALTARS OF THANKSGIVING. 
 
 " I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving." Psalm cxvi. 
 17. 
 
 IN ancient Greek mythology we are told that the 
 king of Calydon issued a thanksgiving proclamation. 
 His empire had flourished, his people had prospered. 
 The fields of Calydon had brought forth abundant 
 harvests, and the vineyards had yielded a rich fruitage. 
 His enemies had been conquered in war, and his people 
 rejoiced in the spoils of victory. Commerce by land 
 and sea had been richly profitable, and peace and 
 happiness reigned throughout Calydon. In order that 
 this thanksgiving festival should be elaborate, he di- 
 rected that altars be constructed throughout the realm 
 to the lesser divinities as well as to the mighty gods 
 who dwelt on the summit of Mount Olympus. Accord- 
 ingly, altars were erected in honor of Ceres, the goddess 
 of corn; Bacchus, the god of vineyards; Mars, the god 
 of war; Neptune, the god of the sea; Apollo, the god 
 of music; Mercury, the god of speech and eloquence; 
 and all the other divinities that had contributed to the 
 prosperity of Calydon. To each divinity, appropriate 
 
 138
 
 ALTARS OF THANKSGIVING. 139 
 
 thank-offerings and sacrifices were made; and to each, 
 homage was paid proportionate to his supposed contri- 
 bution to the prosperity of Calydon. At the close of 
 this great harvest-home, when the fires upon the altars 
 burned low, and the odors of the sacrifices had been 
 wafted by fair winds to mingle with the clouds of far- 
 away Olympus, the people returned to their homes, 
 rejoicing in the thought of the pious duties they had 
 performed. 
 
 But alas ! one deity had been neglected. While doing 
 homage to the gods of far-off Olympus, they had for- 
 gotten Diana, the mighty huntress, the queen of the 
 woods and of the chase, who hunted the wild beasts in 
 the Calydonian forest. On account of her vigilance, 
 the wolves and the foxes and other wild beasts of the 
 forests had not molested the flocks, the fields, or the 
 vineyards of Calydon; yet in this great thanksgiving 
 festival, no altar had been raised in her honor, no 
 homage had been paid to her power. The king of 
 Calydon had intended no slight to the goddess; he 
 simply did not think of her. All went well until it 
 was nearly time for another harvest. The prospects 
 were even brighter than those of the year before; and 
 believing that it paid to celebrate thanksgiving, the 
 king was thinking of another proclamation, when sud- 
 denly a great disaster fell upon his people. Out of
 
 140 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 the great Calydonian forest came an enormous wild 
 boar, whose terrible tusks and foaming mouth made the 
 people dumb with fear. He ravaged the ripening grain 
 fields, laid waste the vineyards, destroyed the herds 
 and flocks and killed the people that ventured beyond 
 the city walls. For a season the domains of Calydon 
 were devastated, and thanksgiving and joy were 
 changed into sorrow and lamentation. At last Mele- 
 ager, the king's son, came forth and summoned to his 
 aid all the heroes of Greece. They organized the 
 famous Calydonian hunt, chased the terrible beast to 
 his lair in the forest, where he was killed by Meleager, 
 who himself afterwards lost his life on account of the 
 envy of his companions. 
 
 This interesting story of a mythological age intro- 
 duces to us the oldest thanksgiving festival of litera- 
 ture. Mythical as it is, the human element of the 
 legend is universal ; and its lessons may be useful to 
 us today as we prepare to celebrate the first thanks- 
 giving festival of the twentieth century. 
 
 On Thanksgiving Day, we are apt to catalogue our 
 blessings and enumerate our individual successes. The 
 direction of our gratitude depends largely upon the 
 direction of our prosperity, while the intensity of our 
 emotion of thankfulness depends upon our sense of 
 personal obligation. The farmer is thankful for rain
 
 ALTARS OF THANKSGIVING. 141 
 
 and a good crop of corn or cotton ; the merchant, for 
 a successful business year; the lawyer or the doctor, 
 for professional success; the mechanic, for plenty of 
 work and good wages; and the politician, for a* good 
 office and influence enough to hold it. Such blessings 
 as life, health, food, clothing, and shelter, are more or 
 less common to all and appeal to our common sense of 
 gratitude. All our personal life equations have these 
 blessings as common factors. If we analyze our own 
 emotions, however, we will find that each of us, like the 
 king of Calydon, issues his own thanksgiving proclama- 
 tion ; and the thanksgiving altars we raise are as varied 
 as our dispositions and our personal interests. Cain 
 was a tiller of the soil and " brought of the fruit of the 
 ground, an offering unto the Lord " ; but Abel was a 
 keeper of sheep and " brought of the firstlings of his 
 flock." Our altars may not be consciously dedicated 
 to the heathen divinities of Greece and Rome, like the 
 altars of the old myth ; but if we remember that these 
 mythical divinities of. ancient mythology are personi- 
 fications of nature and may be regarded as symbols of 
 natural forces working within us and without us, we 
 may conclude that many of the thanksgiving altars of 
 today are dedicated in honor of the same old heathen 
 divinities. The thank-offerings of many are still sym- 
 bols of particular occupations sacrifices to Ceres,
 
 142 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 Bacchus, or Mars; to Mercury, Apollo, or Minerva; to 
 Venus, Mammon, or the goddess of Fortune. 
 
 The word " thank " comes from the same root as the 
 word " think." To be thankful is to be thoughtful 
 thoughtful not only of our benefactors, but also of 
 those who need our benefactions ; not only of our bless- 
 ings, but also of those who are without them ; not only 
 of our abundance, but also of the want of others. 
 Thankfulness in its broad sense is thoughtfulness, 
 and Thanksgiving Day is thought sgiving day. Our 
 thoughts constitute the self, the inner and real part 
 of us, and a thank-offering is the sacrifice of that self 
 to supply the needy. The hungry and the naked, the 
 sick, the afflicted, and the sorrowful, are the thanks- 
 giving altars upon which the truly thankful man makes 
 his thank-offering to God. Upon these altars he sacri- 
 fices himself by being thoughtful. He is thoughtful 
 of the hungry and converts himself into bread; he is 
 thoughtful of the naked and converts himself into 
 clothing; he is thoughtful of the sick and afflicted 
 and converts himself into comfort and relief; he is 
 thoughtful of the sorrowful and converts himself into 
 sympathy. The true altars of thanksgiving are the 
 suffering and the needy ; and the truly thankful man is 
 the one who thinks, and who converts his thoughts for 
 the relief of suffering and distress, thus offering a
 
 ALTARS OP THANKSGIVING. 143 
 
 sacrifice "well pleasing and acceptable unto God." 
 " For inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of 
 these little ones, ye have done it unto me." 
 
 But the king of Calydon neglected to pay homage to 
 Diana, the mighty huntress; and, in consequence of 
 that neglect, his fields were devastated by a terrible 
 wild beast from the forest. If Diana in the fable is 
 the symbol of temperance and self-denial, the moral 
 lesson is obvious at once. In the forests of our nature 
 are the lairs of many dangerous beasts, which we must 
 chase and destroy. Faults and foibles, weaknesses and 
 self-indulgences, soon grow into confirmed habits. If 
 we forget them and neglect them, they will some day 
 become our masters and will wreck our lives as the 
 Calydonian boar devastated the fields of Calydon. 
 Many a young man with a promising outlook, with a 
 bright prospect for a useful career, has had his life 
 wrecked by the wild beast of intemperance. Malice 
 and envy and avarice, passion and prejudice, are Caly- 
 donian boars, which, if neglected, will some day come 
 out of the forest into the open fields and defy your 
 power to check their disastrous course. The State 
 may pay homage on this thanksgiving festival to all 
 the virtues, social, civic, and moral ; but there is grave 
 danger that some day, on account of neglect and in- 
 difference, the Calydonian boars of ignorance and
 
 144 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 political corruption may stalk forth from her forests 
 and lay waste her fair fields. Our country may erect 
 altars to all the powers in the universe ; but unless the 
 wild beasts of greed and anarchy and commercialism 
 are chased and destroyed, she will pay the penalty of 
 neglect, as did the king of Calydon. 
 
 What does thanksgiving signify to you today? Is 
 it merely a sentiment of gratitude for benefits received ? 
 A pleasing sensation resulting from the possession of 
 gifts not possessed by others? Is it the vocal expres- 
 sion of that sentiment in song or in prayer the giving 
 thanks to God on one special day in the year? To many, 
 no doubt, thanksgiving means just this and nothing 
 more. There can be no real thanksgiving in the heart, 
 unless the sentiment of gratitude involves a sense of 
 obligation obligation to use the benefits given to us as 
 a trust for the relief of others. " The hand of Provi- 
 dence is a human hand," and the truly thankful man 
 feels that he and his gifts are but the instruments of 
 that Providence. Thanksgiving thus becomes thanks- 
 living, not for one day in the year, but for the three 
 hundred and sixty-five days. If the man you have 
 benefited thanks you profusely one day and slanders 
 you the next, he is not grateful. If your father 
 showed mercy to a neighbor who was sick and penni- 
 less, fed him, clothed him, and nursed him back to
 
 ALTABS OF THANKSGIVING. 145 
 
 health, and that neighbor afterwards rudely turned 
 you from his door when you appealed for a small favor, 
 you would pronounce that neighbor a despicable in- 
 grate. Yet, your merciful Father continues to shower 
 His blessings upon you daily; while some of His little 
 children at your doors are crying for bread, for cheer 
 or for sympathy, and you deny them the relief which it 
 is in your power to give. You may not have money to 
 give, but you can contribute a kind word or a smile, 
 often much more needed than food or money. A cheer- 
 ful face, a pleasant greeting and a kindly, helpful word, 
 often serve to dispel the gloom and sadness of life, 
 when bread and meat are not needed. Truly " man 
 cannot live by bread alone." The test of thanksgiving 
 is thanksliving.
 
 XVIII. WORK AND RECREATION. 
 
 IN many of our large cities, a movement has been 
 started which has for its purpose the beautifying of the 
 backyards as well as of the frontyards of residences. 
 It is found that many people who, from motives of 
 decency and respectability, keep their frontyards in 
 good order, will neglect their backyards and permit 
 them to become a menace to health and good morals. 
 As a result, societies have been organized, and prizes 
 are offered for the cleanest and most beautiful back- 
 yards. In our own city, we might profit by such a 
 movement. 
 
 The backyard of a residence in a crowded city block 
 may be made an influence of great moral value in the 
 life of the people. If covered with slime, ash-heaps, and 
 piles of unsightly rubbish, it begets an influence that 
 cannot be counteracted by the well-kept lawn in front. 
 It is not the frontyard, but the backyard, that fur- 
 nishes us with the surest index to the sanitary and 
 moral condition of the household. 
 
 In the large cities of the country, the backyard is the 
 playground of the family. Here, amidst growing vines 
 
 146
 
 WORK AND RBCEEATION. 147 
 
 and fragrant flowers, they find relief from the din and 
 clamor of the street and gather strength for the duties 
 of the library, the parlor, or the shop ; here, the children 
 find in their games and sports that recreation which 
 enables them to meet with cheerfulness the tasks of the 
 school or of the household. The diversion of the beau- 
 tiful and well-equipped backyard of a city home is the 
 best safeguard of childhood and the best protection 
 against the temptations of evil companionships in the 
 street. 
 
 The beautiful backyard of the city residence is a 
 symbol of the larger pleasures and diversions of life. 
 Men and women cannot endure the unbroken round of 
 toil: the perpetual din of the street dulls the ear; the 
 continuous glare of the avenue wearies the eye; the 
 monotonous rush and drive of the thoroughfare racks 
 the nerves; and we are forced to find relaxation and 
 recreation. Artists who paint continuously on a back- 
 ground of white rest the eyes by placing before them 
 colors mixed with blue and green. The white glare of 
 strenuous work drives men and women to seek relief 
 in somber colors. A boy in one of the social settle- 
 ments of Chicago, when reproved for wrong-doing, re- 
 marked, " How can you expect a fellow to be good 
 when he's got no backyard ? " The boy's homely 
 phrase contains a bit of wholesome philosophy. Say
 
 148 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 what we will, the backyard idea in life is an important 
 element of individual and social progress. I sympa- 
 thize with that Chicago boy. It is hard indeed to be 
 good, physically, mentally, or morally, without definite 
 periods of relaxation and recuperation; efficiency can- 
 not be kept at a high standard without refreshment 
 and recreation. The business man must seek rest and 
 recreation in the solitude of his summer home, to keep 
 himself from being ground to death under the wheels 
 of his business; the professional man must seek recrea- 
 tion in fishing or hunting, to keep himself from becom- 
 ing a physical and mental wreck. Workers in every 
 field of duty must have their backyards for play and 
 relaxation, and for the recuperation of energy, to 
 endure the severe strain of modern life. This is the 
 simple explanation and justification of the legitimate 
 athletic sports of school and college. The boy who 
 devotes all his time to hard study can never hope to 
 equal in real power and efficiency that other boy who 
 knows how to alternate hard work and rational recrea- 
 tion. " All work and no play " does indeed tend to 
 make Jack a dull boy, and will probably make him a 
 duller man. The best all-around student is the one 
 who has learned so to adjust his life, that all his 
 powers, physical and mental, shall get their best and 
 most harmonious development.
 
 WORK AND RECREATION. 149 
 
 I don't believe in the theory of some philosophers 
 that baseball, football, and other forms of college ath- 
 letics are merely relics of barbarism and indicate the 
 tendency of man to revert to savagery. I prefer to 
 regard them as forms of physical and mental relaxa- 
 tion, just as essential to the well-being of the student 
 as fishing and hunting to that of the business or pro- 
 fessional man. Ethically, they may be no better; they 
 are certainly no worse. 
 
 It is a well-established principle of science that all 
 movement in the universe is rhythmic. From mole- 
 cules to stars and suns, movement is never steady and 
 continuous. In the processes of growth, rest follows 
 activity; and all life is a succession of intermittent 
 pulsations. The resultant of these backward and for- 
 ward movements is a form of progress, which is better 
 described by the spiral than by the straight line. 
 
 The successful life conforms to this universal law of 
 rhythm. It is a perpetual swing between lower and 
 higher forms of activity. It is this swing of life's 
 pendulum, as of that in the clock on the wall, that gives 
 energy and efficiency to the whole human machine. It 
 is the movement of the wave from trough to crest and 
 from crest to trough again that keeps the ocean from 
 becoming a stagnant pool ; it is the intermittent motion 
 of the winds that purifies the atmosphere and makes
 
 150 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 the air we breathe sweet and wholesome. This per- 
 petual swing between toil and pleasure, work and 
 relaxation, saves labor from becoming drudgery, keeps 
 life pure and sweet, and re-creates the vital forces for 
 more efficient service. The swing from the axe-handle 
 to statecraft and philosophy made the life of Gladstone 
 a power in British politics; the swing from the fishing- 
 rod to affairs of state has given our own country more 
 than one notable example of power and efficiency. 
 The greatest workers in the history of the race have 
 had their backyards of play or recreation. 
 
 But the most serious phase of this subject is the 
 fact that too many people spend all their lives in back- 
 yards. The cook, the porter, and the stableboy live in 
 our backyards ; and their doors open into the alley and 
 not into the street. The young man who enters school 
 or college for the purpose of having a good time, or 
 whose highest ambition is to excel in football; who 
 neglects his studies and fails to cultivate the nobler 
 powers of his mind and soul such a man lives in his 
 backyard, and the doors of his soul open out upon the 
 alleys of life. I fear there are too many young men 
 that are content to live in the backyards of our colleges 
 and universities. 
 
 The young woman whose sole purpose in life is to 
 be a society belle and to win favor by the external
 
 WORK AND RECREATION. 151 
 
 graces of dress and artificial acquirement, still lives 
 in a backyard, and makes selfish enjoyment the serious 
 end of life. I have no idea of denouncing the dance, 
 the theater or the card table ; but when men and women 
 sacrifice the highest and most imperative duties of life 
 for these continued and uninterrupted pleasures, then, 
 indeed, they stamp themselves unmistakably as resi- 
 dents by choice of the backyards of human life. Life, 
 to be worth living, must be pitched on a higher plane 
 than that of amusement and recreation; the circle of 
 life must have a higher aim for its center than the 
 pleasures and relaxations that are intended as mere 
 accessories. 
 
 Let me repeat what I said at the beginning. Your 
 backyard is a better index to your real condition than 
 your frontyard. If we would elevate life, we must 
 elevate the pleasures of life, not destroy them. If we 
 would purify our lives, we must begin by purifying and 
 beautifying our recreations and our amusements. 
 
 Build your houses on the busy avenues of life, if you 
 will; build your career and your life work where you 
 can be most useful to the world, and where your life 
 will count for something in the world's progress. But 
 let your backyard your pleasures and your recrea- 
 tions, purified of dross and all selfishness serve as 
 accessory and aid in your life of thought and achieve-
 
 152 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 ment. You will thus preserve the harmony and equili- 
 brium of all life's forces and be able to consecrate 
 not only your business, but also your pleasure, not 
 alone your residence on the avenue, but likewise your 
 purified and beautified backyard, to the service of 
 God and humanity.
 
 XIX. WORK AND CHARACTER. 
 
 IN the crypt of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London 
 lies buried the body of Christopher Wren, the famous 
 architect who designed that splendid structure. Above 
 his resting place, upon a marble slab, is the inscription : 
 "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice " If you ask 
 for his monument, look around. In Saint Paul's 
 Cathedral, Christopher Wren has a monument more 
 magnificent than any marble shaft or royal mausoleum. 
 The most impressive thing about that monument is, 
 however, not its massive proportions nor its costly 
 material, but the simple fact that he built it himself. 
 Man's only true monument is his own work. As we 
 walk through a beautiful cemetery, we see many costly 
 monuments and read the inscriptions, which, in loving 
 phrases, recite the virtues of the departed. But these 
 monuments are built by other hands; and, in many 
 instances, the reflection is forced upon us, that this 
 magnificent post-mortem exhibit is but a sad mockery 
 of the life commemorated. Our real monuments will 
 not be found in graveyards, but in the actual work of 
 our own hands and brains during life. Saint Paul's 
 
 153
 
 154 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 Cathedral is an appropriate monument because it sym- 
 bolizes the character of the builder and reflects the 
 patient toil, the marvelous skill, and the noble ideals 
 of the man who conceived and executed that stupen- 
 dous edifice. Christopher Wren put into that great 
 structure the best that was in him; his greatest 
 thoughts, his noblest purposes, and his best knowledge 
 and skill. Saint Paul's Cathedral was not dishonored 
 by defective material nor shoddy workmanship; in its 
 construction, there were neither crafty stratagems nor 
 cunning evasions, shrewd deceptions nor cheap subter- 
 fuges. The man put himself into his work ; and while 
 his body still sleeps within those walls, Christopher 
 Wren continues to live in Saint Paul's Cathedral. 
 
 Goethe once declared that all his works constituted 
 one great confession. Every man's work is his public 
 confession, his revelation of himself: all labor is self- 
 expression, self-realization. Man lives in his works: 
 they not only perpetuate his memory, but also reveal 
 his character. The flint spear-head, the carved image, 
 and the bits of broken pottery in the museum are prized 
 by the student of anthropology, because they enable 
 him to read the history of a vanished race. It is said 
 that, if every vestige of Greek art and literature had 
 been destroyed and only the Parthenon had been pre-
 
 WORK AND CHARACTER. 155 
 
 served, from its walls alone the story of the race could 
 be substantially reproduced. 
 
 Work is a confession of weakness as well as a revela- 
 tion of strength; it becomes an index to the purposes 
 and the methods of the worker. In the work of each 
 individual may be read the outward expression of his 
 inner moral being. The order of the world is essen- 
 tially moral; but this order is sadly disturbed by the 
 shirker and the trifler. The progress of civilization 
 is impeded by the carelessness and shiftlessness, the 
 ignorance and incompetence of many who profess to 
 do the work assigned to them. The world's cry today 
 is for better service and more competent servants. In 
 Church and State, in business and professional life, 
 there is a growing demand for greater efficiency. A 
 large proportion of the losses and calamities of life 
 may be traced directly to ignorance and incompetency. 
 Nine-tenths of the railroad disasters, reported in the 
 newspapers as accidents, are not accidents at all, but 
 the natural consequences of culpable ignorance or 
 criminal negligence. The most frightful railroad wreck 
 may be traced to the forgetfulness of a switchman, the 
 carelessness of a train dispatcher, the ignorance of a 
 man at the telegraph table, the negligence of an en- 
 gineer, or the failure of a conductor to read aright or 
 to obey his orders. Possibly, it may be traced farther
 
 156 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 back, to the ignorance of a bridge builder, the careless- 
 ness of a blacksmith who left a defective link in a chain 
 cable, or even to the venality and greed of corporation 
 officials. In every line of business, there are men who 
 practice intrigue and deception for personal gain ; who 
 do not scruple, for their own advancement, to take ad- 
 vantage of the ignorance and simplicity of those less 
 fortunate. Business sharks and professional fakirs 
 abound everywhere; in every town and city, there are 
 men whose principal stock in trade is the credulity of 
 ignorance. Such men build monuments so transparent 
 that they can scarcely conceal the shriveling souls 
 revealed in their works. 
 
 In every trade and profession, we hear complaints of 
 shiftlessness and inefficiency. The roof of your house 
 leaks, the unseasoned timbers warp, and the badly hung 
 doors and windows cause discomfort and annoyance, 
 because some contractor or carpenter has failed to give 
 you honest work. The plumber, the plasterer, the tin- 
 ner, and the paper hanger, each has an opportunity to 
 express himself in his work; and too often that work 
 bears the impress of incompetency or of dishonesty. 
 Business men complain of clerks who are shiftless and 
 untrustworthy; of employees who shirk and neglect 
 their duties in the absence of employers; of stenogra- 
 phers who cannot read their own notes, and who are
 
 WORK AND CHARACTER. 157 
 
 unable to write and spell correctly. Scores of young 
 men and women today rush into positions for which 
 they are unqualified, and are eager to undertake duties 
 for which they have neglected to prepare themselves. 
 Their weakness of character is invariably reflected in 
 their work. 
 
 But the sins of negligence and shiftlessness are by 
 no means confined to employers and wage earners. 
 The lawyer, by idolence or stupidity, abuses the in- 
 terests of a trusting client; the superintendents and 
 directors of a large enterprise, by indifference to de- 
 tails, may cause injustice and oppression to labor, or 
 bankruptcy to their business. The master is often 
 responsible for the failures and shortcomings of em- 
 ployees, and the ordinary household servant too often 
 reflects the shiftlessness of the lady in the parlor. 
 
 What is the cause of these various symptoms? 
 Doubtless, in many instances, necessity and compul- 
 sory ignorance are responsible. But by far the deeper 
 and more universal cause is moral weakness. The 
 man who palms off shoddy goods for the genuine, who 
 sells by short weights and measures or fails to give 
 an equivalent in service or commodity for the price he 
 receives, is essentially a dishonest man and is guilty of 
 immorality. Commerce today is predominantly moral 
 in its tendency. Organized business is based upon
 
 158 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 moral assumptions and presupposes ethical standards. 
 Commerce is a great school of morality. Business, in 
 its organized relations, compels elementary morality 
 and tends to develop the higher and nobler ethical 
 qualities of life. Business requires men to be sober, 
 honest and industrious; it requires promptness, pa- 
 tience, accuracy and courtesy; it demands honor, 
 truthfulness and fidelity to trust. Vast business 
 interests depend upon the fidelity of some obscure ser- 
 vant who moves the complex machinery by a word or 
 a sign. The man who serenely lies down to sleep in 
 the Pullman palace car that travels at the rate of fifty 
 miles an hour has implicit faith in the loyalty of the 
 man at the switch and the skill of the man at the 
 throttle. All business and all labor is essentially 
 moral : and the exceptions, after all, are only the more 
 conspicuous by contrast. We live each day by faith 
 in the goodness of men we have never seen, and excep- 
 tional treachery or baseness should not shake our faith 
 in the moral order of the world nor in the essential 
 goodness of mankind. 
 
 The world today requires of its servants higher 
 qualifications than it did twenty-five years ago; the 
 next generation will be required to show greater effi- 
 ciency than the present. As commercial and industrial 
 methods increase in complexity, there is a definite
 
 WORK AND CHARACTER. 159 
 
 advance in intellectual and ethical standards. More 
 is required of the motorman than of the horse-car 
 driver, who shares with the horse the responsibility 
 for efficiency. The intellectual and moral qualifica- 
 tions of the man who handles a machine must be higher 
 than those of the mere hand-worker. In proportion as 
 science frees men from dependence upon brute force 
 and substitutes higher forms of energy for lower, it 
 creates higher ethical and intellectual demands upon 
 man himself. The more complex the machine, the 
 greater must be the skill and knowledge of the oper- 
 ator; the higher the servant, the greater must be the 
 responsibility of the master. The more complex the 
 organization of labor and of capital, the greater the 
 need of delicate mechanical adjustments, and the more 
 pressing the demands of ethical considerations. Organ- 
 ization promotes altruism. As a member of an or- 
 ganization, the individual tends to become less selfish, 
 because he is compelled to respect the welfare of every 
 other member and of the organization as a whole. The 
 man who will join no lodge, no union, no church, but 
 resolves to go through life alone, is the embodiment of 
 selfishness. 
 
 There is a natural and inevitable relation between 
 honest labor and its just rewards. Honest service 
 demands adequate remuneration. But the man who
 
 160 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 measures the reward before he considers the character 
 of the service reverses the logical order. The success- 
 ful worker is the man who first considers his work. 
 Too many young men begin at the wrong end of the 
 line. "What will it pay me?" "How much is there 
 in it for me?" "Where do I come in?" These are 
 the questions too often asked by the man who faces a 
 possible service to his employer, to the city, to the 
 state, and to humanity. The magnified self obstructs 
 the vision of the larger and more distant benefits. 
 " Virtue is its own reward " is true in every sphere of 
 life. The young man who bounds his duties and re- 
 sponsibilities within the circumference of a silver 
 dollar limits the possibilities of success. When invited 
 to step beyond this small circle, he will smilingly tell 
 you, " That is not my work. There is no money in that 
 for me ; I am not paid for doing somebody else's work." 
 We have too many people who are afraid of doing some- 
 thing for nothing, but are not at all sensitive about 
 receiving something for nothing. Some years ago, a 
 sixteen-year-old boy left his father's farm and went to 
 New York to look for work. He had neither money 
 nor friends; but he had industry, pluck, and a good 
 common school education. He applied for work in a 
 railroad office and was employed to sweep the office 
 and attend to the fires. In this capacity, he proved
 
 WORK AND CHARACTER. 161 
 
 that he was not afraid of work, whether stipulated in 
 the agreement or not; and he was soon promoted to 
 service as a messenger boy. His willingness, prompt- 
 ness, and efficiency soon won for him a more remunera- 
 tive position in the office. Here, he not only dispatched 
 his own work with efficiency, but put in overtime to 
 help those who were behind and asked no questions 
 about pay. He soon became familiar with the duties 
 of his superiors and rapidly climbed the ladder of pro- 
 motion, because he regarded the service rather than 
 the pay. That boy was Edwin Hawley, the New York 
 millionaire, who recently astonished the financial world 
 by declining the presidency of the Southern Pacific 
 Railroad system and a salary of forty thousand dollars 
 a year. When asked the secret of his wonderful suc- 
 cess, he replied : " I have always made it a rule to put 
 the best that is in me into the work of my employer, 
 regardless of the pay. I am sufficiently a believer in 
 the law of compensation to think that we draw pay 
 for every bit of work that we do. All extra work 
 brings its compensation. It may not come at once; it 
 may not always come in money ; but it is sure to come 
 at some time and in some form. In the long run, no 
 work ever goes unpaid." These words should be 
 burned into the hearts of all young men and women 
 who expect to occupy positions of service and trust.
 
 162 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 If there is any merit in your work, the world will find 
 it out and will pay for it. All over this country today, 
 business men are searching for efficiency. Look well 
 to your work, and you will worry less about the pay. 
 The wages are only the symbol; the merit lies in the 
 work itself. The man who degrades his work to the 
 level of his low wages, degrades himself. Improve the 
 character of your work, and you will elevate yourself ; 
 the symbol must in time adjust itself to the reality. 
 
 Labor is self-expression. Every art, every trade, and 
 every business is a language that reveals the man 
 behind it. You may have command of a noble lan- 
 guage, but it will prove valueless unless you have 
 something to say in it. Knowledge and skill are valu- 
 able to the world only as they become the expression 
 of a noble character and the revelation of the divine 
 element in the soul. 
 
 There is a tradition that in ancient Rome, one of the 
 great temples suddenly collapsed before it was com- 
 pleted, burying in its ruins many of the workmen. An 
 investigation revealed the fact that the disaster was 
 due to the use of broken blocks of marble cemented 
 with wax. The polished surface of the marble did not 
 reveal the defect; but under the weight of the super- 
 structure, the waxed blocks gave way, and the temple 
 fell. Thereafter, so runs the story, the builders of the
 
 WOBK AND CHARACTER. 163 
 
 city were required to enter a contract to use marble 
 blocks that were "Integra et sine cera" whole and 
 without wax. Integrity and sincerity, the character- 
 istics required in the work, soon became the virtues 
 required in the workmen. The real defects were not 
 in the marble blocks placed in the temple walls, but 
 in the Roman workmen who lacked integrity and sin- 
 cerity. Wholeness of the self will become wholeness 
 in the work. If your work is to be integral, the self 
 behind it must not be fractional. On the other hand, 
 unsoundness in the work tends to develop unsoundness 
 in the man. Dishonest service will make a dishonest 
 servant. The work reacts upon the character. The 
 mechanical law that action and reaction are equal is 
 true also in morals and religion. Our own deeds be- 
 come instruments in the building of that temple not 
 made with hands, eternal in the heavens, that monu- 
 ment of which Saint Paul's Cathedral is but the symbol 
 and the shadow.
 
 XX. THE MESSAGE OF EASTER. 
 
 THE annual festival of Easter is perhaps the oldest 
 and most generally observed of all the festivals of 
 Christendom. The English name is derived from 
 " Ostera " or " Eastre," the Teutonic goddess of spring, 
 who is supposed to be identical with Astarte, the old 
 Semitic divinity of Syria and Phoenicia, the personifi- 
 cation of the springtime, providing for the seeds and 
 the beginnings of things. Though today Easter is 
 generally regarded as a Christian institution com- 
 memorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is, as 
 a matter of fact, much older than the Church ; and its 
 real origin antedates Christianity by more than two 
 thousand years. The old Teutonic festival of Ostera 
 and the Jewish Feast of the Passover occurred about 
 the same time of the year. The former celebrated 
 with numerous pagan rites the renewing power of 
 nature; and the latter, the wonderful deliverance of 
 the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. The early 
 Church combined the two into one great feast day, 
 which was made commemorative of the resurrection of 
 
 Christ. 
 
 164
 
 Tin; MESSAGE OF EASTER. 165 
 
 I do not ask you this morning to formulate a defini- 
 tion of Easter as a church festival, nor to tell me its 
 place and significance in Christian creed or ecclesias- 
 tical history. Most of us have been accustomed from 
 childhood to attach to Easter a sacred significance and 
 to regard it as commemorative of the risen Christ. To 
 some, it is sacred because of its association with the 
 ancient feast of the Passover; and in most of the 
 eastern countries it is still known as the " Pasch," or 
 the Paschal Feast. For many people, unfortunately, 
 the day still retains some of its old heathen usages and 
 pagan associations and is deemed the proper time for 
 frivolity and selfish extravagance. Too often on this 
 annual festival, side by side with the sacred rites of 
 the Church, we may find the worship of Fashion, the 
 modern goddess of spring. 
 
 Aside from its purely ecclesiastical character, Easter 
 brings to the thoughtful many beautiful and inspiring 
 lessons. The memorial feature of the festival signifies 
 sacrifice, suffering, and death. The central theme of 
 its prophetic message may be read in garden, field, and 
 forest. The resurrection is an actual fact. Nature 
 spreads out her volume of testimony so that even the 
 youngest may read. There is no sorrow out-of-doors, 
 to-day. The earth, released from the bondage of winter, 
 rejoices in the sunshine and bursts forth into exuberant
 
 166 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 life, with the fragrance of the budding flower and the 
 soulful note of the caroling bird. As we walk among 
 the trees, on this glad spring morning, we feel the tonic 
 effect of the buoyant air ; we inhale the sweet fragrance 
 of the flowers ; we delight in the varying tints of grass 
 and foliage. The awakening of the old from the long 
 sleep of winter into a new and larger life, is proclaimed 
 by every flower, tree, and shrub. The modest violet 
 corns forth into the sunlight. The unattractive cater- 
 pillar, freed from the limitations of its lowly larval 
 state, emerges into a higher and more beautiful life in 
 the form of a gilded butterfly. It is resurrection day 
 everywhere in the organic world. Life is sweeter, earth 
 is fairer and heaven is nearer, as the windows of the 
 soul are opened to the beauty of the world, and the 
 heart is attuned to the sublime harmony of nature's 
 resurrection anthem. 
 
 But what practical lessons for us are contained in 
 these manifestations of the Eastertide? What is the 
 meaning of the prophetic voice that speaks to us 
 through elaborate ceremonial and beautiful symbolism? 
 What special message does the Easter spirit breathe to 
 man ? What inspiration to higher thinking and nobler 
 living? What generous impulses, larger hopes, and 
 loftier aspirations? 
 
 All true progress is conditioned upon sacrifice. This
 
 THE MESSAGE OF EASTER. 167 
 
 is the primary lesson of the Easter festival. Nothing 
 is complete in itself. All things are correlated. There 
 is no day without a preceding night, no spring without 
 a winter, no life without death. There can be no resur- 
 rection anywhere without a crucifixion. Throughout 
 the realm of nature, the development of the higher and 
 nobler forms of life is invariably conditioned upon 
 struggle and sacrifice. From the death and decay of 
 the old pldnt springs the larger life of the new. The 
 birth of the better things to be is amidst the ruins of 
 the things that were. Within the grain of wheat lies 
 the possibility of countless other grains, yea, of the 
 vast harvest fields of the future. But this grain must 
 lie buried in the earth and suffer death and decay 
 before it can ever be more than a single grain. It 
 must lose its own identity in the present, before it can 
 be fruitful in the future; it must sacrifice self, if it 
 would benefit posterity. The tree, stripped of its pro- 
 tecting foliage, must endure the frost and the wintry 
 blast, if it would bud and blossom and bear fruit. 
 Sacrifice is the law and condition of all physical 
 progress; without a cross, nature finds no resurrection. 
 The tragic is everywhere incomplete. In fiction and 
 in dramatic literature, the tragedy comes at the end of 
 the story ; but, in nature's story, tragedy is the begin- 
 ning, not the ending. The better literature of the
 
 108 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 future will follow nature's suggestion, and the larger 
 life born in tragedy will be idealized. No destruction 
 is final : the tree dies and decays, but its elements pass 
 on into other forms of life. All tragedy is a condition 
 of a larger life beyond : every death has the potency of 
 an eternal future. 
 
 The law of sacrifice is inflexible and universal in 
 human life. They that sow not shall not reap; the 
 spendthrifts will never grow rich; the prodigal sons 
 must sooner or later feed upon husks. Self-denial is 
 a fundamental condition of health and wealth; it is 
 the law of all growth and progress; it is the first 
 essential in every act of chivalry and in every deed of 
 heroism. Sacrifice is the price of knowledge and the 
 only path to culture. The frivolous devotee of pleasure 
 can never obtain true wisdom ; without toil and strug- 
 gle and the sacrifice of selfish interests, the rewards 
 of scholarship are unattainable. Without a cruci- 
 fixion, there can be no intellectual resurrection. 
 
 What is true of nature is likewise true of the higher 
 life of the soul. The deluded slave of fashion can never 
 taste the joys of a spiritual Easter; the self-centered, 
 self-seeking man or woman can never reach a high 
 degree of moral excellence. " He that loseth his life 
 for my sake, shall find it." " Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." In all
 
 THE MESSAGE OF EASTEE. 169 
 
 the ages, pain has been the choice of the truly magnani- 
 mous; martyrdom has ever been the seal of earth's 
 noblest heroes. In the sorrow of daily sacrifices, they 
 found the joy of daily resurrections. In the tragedies 
 of life's brief story, they found the gates of the life 
 immortal. In every great soul, in every heroic life, is 
 illustrated the truth, 
 
 " That men may rise on stepping stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 It is said of one of the old Scottish martyrs, that on 
 his crest he had inscribed as his motto, " 8ub pondere 
 cresco." Above this motto was the figure of a palm 
 tree with suspended weights. The palm tree, when left 
 alone, it is said, is in danger of becoming crooked; 
 but under heavy weights, it will grow straight as an 
 arrow. The palm tree is a fit emblem of human char- 
 acter. When left alone in ease and luxury, it is in 
 danger of becoming crooked; when weighted with the 
 crosses and burdens of life, it will grow heavenward 
 straight as an arrow. 
 
 But the most beautiful lesson of the Easter festival 
 is its prophecy of immortality. While it looks back 
 upon the cross and the grave, it also points forward 
 to the crown of immortal life. Only the true, the pure, 
 and the good are worthy of immortality. Truth alone
 
 170 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 is eternal. There can be no immortality for envy and 
 hatred, error and falsehood. The idle gossipings of 
 society, the empty rounds of pleasure, and the thousand 
 vanities of daily existence are, in their very nature, 
 temporary and vanishing. If we wish to live the life 
 immortal, we must cultivate something that is worthy 
 of immortality. The ribald jest and the tainted story 
 are not the stuff to live forever. The trashy novel and 
 the vaudeville play can last scarcely through a decade 
 of years. Can you imagine these as the nutriment of 
 the soul throughout eternity? But truth and love and 
 charity these have within them the undying essence 
 of divinity. 
 
 The great practical lesson of Easter is the value of 
 sacrifice in human life. This does not mean that kind 
 of sacrifice which yields without gain, or abandons 
 without hope. It is the sacrifice that makes all life 
 sacred and holy; that lifts our commonplace tasks and 
 daily duties out of the mechanical and conventional 
 order and invests them with a noble spirit and a holy 
 purpose. Such sacrifice dignifies the personality and 
 exalts the commonplace drudgery of life into the realm 
 of the heroic. It involves the lesson that behind the 
 pleasure of achievement lies the effort; behind the joy 
 of the task performed lies the toil ; behind the bliss of 
 moral victory lies the temptation and the struggle.
 
 THE MESSAGE OF EASTER. 171 
 
 The spirit of Easter teaches us that our individual life 
 may be daily renewed through trial and struggle; that 
 every task performed and every difficulty overcome 
 tends to make life richer and larger. With every 
 Easter festival we should join in nature's universal 
 resurrection, and, with a higher conception of duty and 
 destiny, keep step with the divine spirit of progress 
 in the universe. 
 
 " Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
 As the swift seasons roll ! 
 Leave thy low vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."
 
 XXI. THE MISER OF NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 IN Lafayette Square, in the city of New Orleans, 
 there stands a beautiful monument. It consists of a 
 polished Greek column of Istrian stone, rising from a 
 similar base, which rests on a series of octagonal bases. 
 The capital of the column is worked out artistically in 
 leaves and floral decorations; and the whole is sur- 
 mounted with an heroic bust in bronze, the central 
 theme of the artist's design. A little below and in 
 front of this majestic statue, standing upon projecting 
 ledges of the pedestal, are the bronze figures of two 
 children, a boy and a girl. The boy, with one hand, is 
 laying his tribute at the feet of the hero and, with 
 the other, is grasping the hand of the girl, who seems 
 to support him in his difficult position. 
 
 This monument is remarkable for two reasons. In 
 the first place, it commemorates the life of a man, who, 
 at the time of his death, nearly half a century ago, 
 was accounted by the people of New Orleans mean and 
 penurious, and who was reputed to be the richest old 
 miser in Louisiana. It is remarkable, in the second 
 place, because it was built entirely at the expense of 
 
 172
 
 THE MISER OF NEW ORLEANS. 173 
 
 the public school children of New Orleans, in grateful 
 remembrance of the city's greatest benefactor and no- 
 blest philanthropist. 
 
 These apparently contradictory statements may be 
 reconciled only by telling the life story of John Mc- 
 Donough, the great educational philanthropist, who, 
 for more than thirty years, lived the life of a miser, 
 so that at his death he might bequeath a fortune for 
 the education of the children of two cities, Baltimore 
 and New Orleans the former the city of his birth and 
 childhood, the latter the scene of his business success, 
 declining years, and death. 
 
 One of the most impressive scenes it has ever been 
 my pleasure to witness was the unveiling of this 
 monument in December, 1898. The most enthusiastic 
 portion of the vast throng that had gathered to witness 
 this interesting ceremony consisted of fifteen thousand 
 children from the McDonough schools of New Orleans. 
 They had a right to be interested on that occasion; 
 because it was through their instrumentality that the 
 monument had been erected, and the name and the 
 worth of John McDonough had thus received tardy 
 recognition. They were honoring the name of a man 
 who, as the benefactor of childhood, had stamped his 
 impress for all time upon two great American cities. 
 
 The record of John McDonough's earthly life, like
 
 174 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 that of many of the world's great benefactors, is brief 
 and uneventful. His biography may be comprised in 
 three brief chapters, each covering a distinct era in his 
 career. The first tells us of his birth, childhood, and 
 young manhood, in the city of Baltimore. This period 
 is uninteresting save as it gives evidence of the strong 
 purpose and earnest endeavor which were to mature 
 later into the indomitable character of a successful 
 man of affairs. His school education was meager ; but 
 it gave him the foundation upon which he erected, 
 through self-instruction, a substantial superstructure 
 of wide knowledge and sympathetic learning. Through 
 habits of systematic self-improvement and painstaking 
 attention to duty, he soon attained a conspicuous place 
 among his associates. His early apprenticeship in the 
 mercantile business was characterized by industry, 
 accuracy, intelligence, and integrity. These virtues of 
 the youth constitute the corner stones of the remark- 
 ably successful business career of the man. 
 
 The second period of his life comprises his wonderful 
 success as a man of business in the city of New Or- 
 leans. Undaunted by commercial reverses, he forged 
 to the front and laid the solid foundation of his fortune 
 by large purchases of land at low prices, from the 
 French and Spanish governments. In 1803, the pur- 
 chase of the Louisiana Territory by the United States
 
 THE MISER OP NEW ORLEANS. 175 
 
 government gave a fresh impetus to southern trade 
 and brought increased commercial prosperity to New 
 Orleans. Already the wealthiest man in the territory, 
 and the largest individual landowner in the world, he 
 enormously increased his wealth, as his vast estates 
 multiplied in value. So rapid had been the growth of 
 his fortune that, in 1806, he was forced to retire from 
 active business in order that he might devote himself 
 exclusively to the management of his landed interests. 
 During this period, McDonough did no live the life 
 of an ascetic, but took an intelligent interest in the 
 social and political life of the people among whom he 
 lived. He enjoyed the comforts and pleasures of life 
 to which he was entitled by his wealth and social 
 standing. His extensive establishment on the corner 
 of Chartres and Toulouse streets was the center of 
 fashion and gayety. His entertainments were lavish, 
 and among his guests were the leaders of fashion and 
 society in the old French-American city. With horses 
 and carriages and a great retinue of servants, he lived 
 the life of a man of the world and dazzled the elegant 
 French society of the time with the splendor and grace 
 of his social triumphs. 
 
 But suddenly, a mighty change occurred in John 
 McDonough's manner of life; and we enter upon the 
 third chapter of his career, in many respects a striking
 
 176 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 contrast to the one just given. He was now in his 
 fortieth year. His elegant mansion was vacated; 
 his furniture, horses and carriages were sold ; he aban- 
 doned the social gayeties of which he had been the 
 center and separated himself completely from the life 
 of the world. Society wondered, and friends remon- 
 strated ; but, grimly and persistently, John McDonough 
 followed his chosen manner of life and declined to give 
 any reason for the change that seemed utterly inexpli- 
 cable to his friends. He moved to his plantation across 
 the river at McDonoughville, where he occupied a small, 
 unpretentious, simply furnished house. Here, removed 
 from the noise and din of the city, he lived a simple, 
 frugal life. He had a scow rowed by two negroes, 
 which carried him across the river every morning to 
 his business office, and back again to his home late in 
 the evening. For more than thirty years, he continued 
 without interruption this quiet mode of life, devoting 
 himself with increasing energy to the task of accumu- 
 lating wealth. As time wore on, his name became 
 a byword throughout the territory. His fabulous 
 wealth, peculiar habits, and unique personality were 
 the topics of conversation among all classes of people. 
 He seemed to live apart from the world and to be 
 laboring under the burden of a great task. Some 
 thought he was insane, and others thought his love of
 
 THE MISER OP NEW ORLEANS. 177 
 
 gold had made him selfish and miserly. On the streets 
 he was jeered and taunted by the thoughtless youth of 
 the day; and his name was the subject of jest and 
 ridicule in the social circles of the city. Still he 
 continued unmoved, in his own quiet, simple way, 
 regardless alike of jest and jeer, bent upon some great 
 purpose hidden in his soul from the view of an un- 
 sympathizing world. Much did he suffer, not alone 
 from sneer and incivility, but also from injustice and 
 oppression. But he moved steadily onward without 
 faltering and without murmuring, until his seventy- 
 first year of age, when death, the great revealer of life, 
 came to make manifest to the world the mission of the 
 miser of New Orleans. 
 
 So far as mortal eye could see, John McDonough had 
 lived to little purpose : to the multitudes who read the 
 news of his death, his life had been mean and selfish. 
 But the real life of this mysterious man was not re- 
 vealed until he was gone. The greatest and most 
 significant period of his life began with his death. 
 With the perspective of half a century, the people of 
 New Orleans have learned to love and honor Old John 
 McDonough, as one of the best and noblest men .that 
 ever walked the streets of that southern metropolis. 
 
 A few days after his death, the provisions of his
 
 178 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 will were made public. His fortune, at that time con- 
 sidered fabulous, was bequeathed in trust for the 
 education of the poor children of Baltimore and New 
 Orleans. As Caesar's will, published by Marc Antony, 
 changed the hearts of the Roman mob, so did the pub- 
 lication of the will of John McDonough change the 
 verdict of the people regarding his life and character. 
 During those silent years he had toiled and sacrificed 
 that he might serve the future. Misunderstood and 
 reviled by his fellow-men, he had consecrated himself to 
 the task of building free schools for those who were 
 without educational advantages. He considered him- 
 self merely as the agent, " the steward of God," in 
 accumulating a fortune for a noble purpose. Thus, 
 at his death, the selfish old miser of the McDonough 
 plantation became the noble philanthropist of New 
 Orleans. 
 
 The world is too often premature in its judgments 
 of men and unjust in its verdicts upon human life. It 
 condemned John McDonough while he lived, as a 
 sordid miser ; but, after his death, it built a monument 
 to commemorate his life as that of a great philan- 
 thropist. There are some human lives that cannot be 
 appreciated at close range. So it was with John 
 McDonough. His contemporaries stood too near his 
 great soul and unique personality to understand the
 
 THE MISEE OF NEW ORLEANS. 179 
 
 man; it required the perspective of half a century to 
 comprehend fully the purpose of his life. 
 
 For thirty years, John McDonough lived a life of 
 sadness, silence, and seclusion. In the solitude of his 
 own thoughts, he cherished a noble purpose which was 
 to be revealed only after his death. In the center of 
 his being, he erected a " holy of holies," which could 
 not be entered by his contemporaries. But today the 
 sadness of his life has been converted into joy and sun- 
 shine for the twenty thousand children who attend the 
 McDonough Schools of New Orleans; the silence of 
 those long years finds twenty thousand youthful voices 
 singing his praises and preaching the gospel of peace 
 and good-will to men through personal sacrifice; and 
 the wealth he gathered is being daily transmuted into 
 virtue and intelligence, truth and justice. During 
 those thirty years of silent endeavor, John McDonough 
 regarded himself as, in the highest sense, a minister of 
 God, consecrated to the one unselfish purpose of pro- 
 viding for the intellectual and spiritual upbuilding of 
 future generations. He sought no reward in the praises 
 of men ; he asked for no approval save that of his own 
 conscience. In his will, he asked but one favor of the 
 future; and that request reveals the pathetic loneliness 
 of his life and the yearning of his soul for that simple 
 recognition which comes from the heart of childhood.
 
 180 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 " I have still one small request to make," he says, " one 
 small favor to ask, and it shall be the last, it is that 
 it may be permitted annually to the children of the free 
 schools situated nearest to the place of my interment, 
 to plant and water a few flowers around my grave. 
 This little act will have a double tendency ; it will open 
 their young and susceptible hearts to gratitude and 
 love to their Divine Creator, for having raised up, as 
 the humble instrument of His bounty to them, a poor 
 worm of the dust, like me, and teach them at the same 
 time what they are, whence they came, and whither 
 they must return." 
 
 The silence and the sadness of the past are forgotten ; 
 the sacrifice and the suffering of life are crowned with 
 victory; and the miser New Orleans knew for thirty 
 years lives immortal, as the philanthropist, while 
 generation after generation of children rise up to call 
 him blessed.
 
 XXII. THE STORY OF ECHO AND 
 NARCISSUS. 
 
 THE childhood of the race was entertained by inter- 
 esting stories. Some of these creations seem fantastic 
 and meaningless to us today, while many of them 
 teach lessons that are still helpful and elevating to the 
 childhood and youth of the present age. 
 
 Among these mythical tales, we find the story of a 
 beautiful oread or mountain nymph. This mythical 
 maiden was lithe and graceful; and her beauty had 
 attracted the attention of Jupiter and Juno, who made 
 frequent excursions from the heights of Olympus to 
 visit the nymphs of earth. But this fair maiden had 
 one grievous fault : like many other beautiful maidens, 
 she talked too much. In addition to her disagreeable 
 habit of mimicking others, she seems to have been par- 
 ticularly fond of talking of herself and of her beauty, 
 and in every conversation she would always have the 
 last word. Her vanity became intolerable to Juno, 
 and she talked so much and so fast that the goddess 
 could not even get a chance to give her a word of ad- 
 vice. At last, the offended goddess decided to punish 
 
 181
 
 182 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 her; so she decreed that she should henceforth con- 
 tinue to have the last word, but never the first; she 
 should be allowed to talk, but only after other people. 
 So this airy maiden, henceforth called Echo, had no 
 power to begin a conversation; she had to wait until 
 others had spoken, before she could speak. She wan- 
 dered about through the forest, over the mountains, 
 and among the rocks and the trees, waiting for some- 
 body to speak, so that she could have a chance to say 
 a word. One day, Echo saw a proud and handsome 
 youth called Narcissus, as he bounded through the 
 forest engaged in the chase. Instantly she fell in love 
 with him and longed to enter into conversation; but 
 alas, she had no power to address him. She must wait 
 for him to speak the first word. So long and wearily 
 she followed him, waiting for him to speak. One day, 
 when Narcissus had wandered away from his com- 
 panions in the hunt and become lost in the woods, 
 he cried out as loud as he could, " Ho there ! " 
 " There ! " immediately answered Echo, glad at last to 
 have a chance to speak to Narcissus. " Why don't you 
 come to me?" again cried Narcissus. "Come to me," 
 answered Echo. " Let us get together," said Narcissus. 
 " Get together," replied Echo. Then she rushed for- 
 ward to embrace him, but Narcissus recognized her and 
 fled, " I am determined you shall not have me," he
 
 THE STORY OF ECHO AND NARCISSUS. 183 
 
 said. " Have me ! Have me ! " cried Echo, almost in 
 despair. But Narcissus would not speak to her again, 
 and ran away as fast as he could, leaving poor Echo to 
 hide her blushes, her grief and disappointment, in the 
 shades of the forest. She pined away through grief 
 and shame. Her flesh disappeared, and her bones 
 changed into rocks that formed a part of the rugged 
 mountain cliffs, leaving nothing of Echo but her voice, 
 which still wanders aimlessly among the groves and 
 mountain glens, repeating snatches of songs and con- 
 versations that she hears from others. 
 
 But the proud Narcissus fared no better. He had 
 been cruel to other nymphs besides Echo and had dis- 
 dained all their efforts to attract his interest. He was 
 supremely selfish and loved nothing on earth but him- 
 self. One day, a nymph prayed to the goddess of 
 beauty that Narcissus might some time know what it 
 was to love and not have that love requited; and the 
 avenging goddess answered the prayer. It chanced one 
 day that Narcissus, hot and thirsty from the chase, 
 came to a beautiful fountain in the forest; the grass 
 was green around it, and the rocks protected it from 
 the wild beasts. Its limpid waters shone like silver 
 and reflected the image of Narcissus as he stooped to 
 drink. At once he fell in love with his own reflected 
 image, thinking that he had found some beautiful water
 
 184 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 spirit in its fountain home. Long he gazed with ad- 
 miration upon the rounded cheeks, the curly locks, and 
 the beautiful eyes, and loved himself to distraction. 
 He leaned over to kiss the image and stretched forth 
 his arms to embrace it. The image fled for a moment, 
 but returned again to mock him with its fascinating 
 presence. He could not leave the fountain ; he lost all 
 desire for food or rest and thought of nothing but the 
 image, gazing upon it long and tenderly and calling 
 to it in endearing terms. The image came and went, 
 disturbed by his falling tears; but Narcissus still re- 
 mained. The flame of passion at last consumed him 
 so that he lost his strength and his beauty ; and, in his 
 despair, he cried out, " Alas ! Alas ! " Echo, who 
 hovered near him, mockingly replied : " Alas ! Alas ! " 
 After many days of weary watching, Narcissus pined 
 away and died of love of self. The sympathetic nymphs 
 prepared a funeral pile and would have burned the 
 body, but it was nowhere to be found. It had mysteri- 
 ously disappeared; and in its place had grown a little 
 flower of purple and white, which still preserves the 
 name and memory of Narcissus. 
 
 Few of the stories of classical literature are so re- 
 plete with human interest as this simple tale of primi- 
 tive life. It is a mirror held up to nature, reflecting 
 human frailties and their consequences as clearly as
 
 THE STORY OF ECHO AND NARCISSUS. 185 
 
 the forest fountain reflected the features of Narcissus. 
 It is a story that tells its own moral, and its lessons 
 are applicable to any age or country. 
 
 Echo was not the first nor the last to bring upon her- 
 self the direful results of talking too much. The gar- 
 rulous individual is never highly esteemed by his asso- 
 ciates. Volubility is never accepted as an evidence 
 of real worth. The incessant talker passes judgment 
 upon himself, and he is accepted as a person of little 
 weight. People who give themselves little time to 
 think, can scarcely be expected to have anything worth 
 while to say. There must be much golden silence 
 before we can expect speech that is silver. When to 
 talk and how much to say, only the wise understand. 
 Young people who talk during sermon or lecture 
 advertise their own emptiness of thought and want of 
 judgment. 
 
 You will observe that the original cause of poor 
 Echo's downfall was not simply the fault of talking 
 too much, but the unfortunate habit of talking back at 
 people. This very human habit of talking back has 
 brought ruin to millions of beings more substantial 
 than the airy maiden of the ancient myth and has 
 brought sorrow and disgrace to many millions more. 
 The little boy who found for the first time that his loud 
 and angry words came back to him in the same tones
 
 186 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 had made an important discovery in social philosophy. 
 It is the talking back, the hot and hasty retort, that 
 lies at the bottom of most of life's troubles. When 
 frown responds to frown and angry words are echoed 
 back, the seeds of hate and strife and murder take root 
 and grow in human hearts. Friendship is shattered, 
 love is blasted, family life is ruined, and the peace of 
 communities, states, and nations is continually jeo- 
 pardized by this commonplace habit of talking back. 
 Echo is ever sensitive, ever responsive. The girl who 
 allows herself to become a spitfire among her com- 
 panions, and the boy who is so quarrelsome that none 
 can get along with him, are suffering from Echo's 
 trouble; they reflect too easily the anger and hate 
 they find in their associates. I asked two high-strung 
 brothers the secret of their peaceful companionship: 
 " We never get angry at the same time," was the reply. 
 If one was angry the other did not talk back ; neither 
 was an echo. I met a street-car conductor the other 
 day who, for five years, has performed his arduous 
 duties in rain and sunshine and has never quarrelled 
 with a passenger. I asked him the secret. " It is very 
 simple," he said: "when I see a passenger is angry, I 
 answer in a quiet, kindly tone, or hold my tongue; I 
 never talk back, and it always takes two to make a 
 quarrel." This is good common sense as well as sound
 
 THE STORY OF ECHO AND NARCISSUS. 187 
 
 philosophy. Truly, " A soft answer turneth away 
 wrath." Echo's impulse to talk back grew into a habit 
 so strong that at last she dared to talk back to the very 
 gods; and for punishment, she was condemned to talk 
 back through all eternity. 
 
 But Echo's voice is not always angry. She is often 
 flippant, often frivolous. 
 
 Light and trivial conversation always involves imita- 
 tion. The average person is content with mere repeti- 
 tion. The themes of social intercourse seldom rise 
 above the plane of the shop, the daily market, the new- 
 est novel, or the latest newspaper sensation. Too often 
 they descend to the level of scandal or the spicy 
 personal gossip of the street. The discussion seldom 
 passes beyond the rehearsal of what was said by some- 
 body about something or somebody, and what some- 
 body else thought about it. Repetition is the keynote 
 to a large part of the social intercourse of the day. 
 
 The result of persistent imitation is invariably the 
 loss of power. This was Echo's punishment. She lost 
 her power of initiative. She could only repeat what 
 others had said. She finally dwindled away until she 
 was nothing but a voice, an empty sound. The student 
 who is content to repeat from memory the words of the 
 text-book, who rides his way through his Latin text
 
 188 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 with the aid of a " pony/' or copies his mathematical 
 solutions from his neighbor, is in serious danger of 
 bringing upon himself the curse of Echo, and will 
 eventually lose the power of original thought and in- 
 dependent effort. The young men and women in school 
 and college, who will copy pages of encyclopedias or 
 magazine articles and hand them to their teachers as 
 original compositions, must very soon be as devoid of 
 thought power aa they are of common honesty. The 
 scores of young men and women who pose before the 
 public as the authors of beribboned essays written by 
 somebody else are so many powerless voices repeating 
 the thoughts of others ; they are the Echoes of modern 
 school life. 
 
 The world is full of human parrots, people who never 
 grow beyond the stage of imitation and repetition. 
 The average joke recited with such keen relish at the 
 corner grocery store or in the hotel lobby is usually as 
 old as human nature, and has probably been repeated, 
 in some form, by every generation of mankind. The 
 professional jester, however, will tell it again and again 
 as new, and will often claim credit for its invention. 
 
 The parrot really believes he is original. His habit 
 of imitation has become his normal state. The lack of 
 power today in press, pulpit, and platform, is due
 
 THE STORY OF ECHO AND NARCISSUS. 189 
 
 largely to that servile imitation which results in the 
 loss of originality and independent thought. 
 
 Another result of imitation is uselessness. Echo 
 wanders about in a helpless and useless state of de- 
 pendence upon others. The most inefficient people in 
 the world are those who can only follow the crowd; 
 they are useful only as the phonograph is useful, to re- 
 produce what others have created. Such people never 
 have any political principles until the party leaders 
 have spoken or the party platform has been written. 
 They never can tell you their religious beliefs until they 
 have refreshed their memories by reading anew the 
 articles of their church creed. They have no views or 
 opinions upon any subject until some one else has 
 spoken ; then you are likely to hear their empty voices 
 resounding from every hill and hollow. The phono- 
 graph is a very interesting invention; but it has no 
 creative genius, no power of originality. You have only 
 to turn the crank and it will give you abundance of 
 sound; but it is all second-hand, it is all imitation. 
 We want fewer phonographs and more original think- 
 ers and courageous leaders. 
 
 In the character of Narcissus, we have the extreme 
 counterpart of Echo. If the latter is dependent and 
 wanting in creative and initiative power, the former is 
 narrow in his independence and self-limited in his re-
 
 190 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 sources. Narcissus is proud, haughty, and self-cen- 
 tered, the embodiment of egotism and self-conscious- 
 ness. An ardent worshiper of self, he sees nothing 
 else in the universe worthy of his respect and admira- 
 tion. There is no beauty or excellence anywhere, un- 
 less it contributes in some way to his own pride and 
 self-esteem. His house, his children, his dogs and his 
 horses, are incomparably superior to those of his neigh- 
 bor, simply because they form a part of himself. The 
 supremely selfish man even excludes his family, and 
 worships self in the narrow personal sense. He is ex- 
 clusive in his love and admiration and limits his in- 
 terests to the narrow sphere of the personal self. The 
 unselfish man is he who enlarges the self by taking into 
 it his family, his community, his state, and his country. 
 This larger self has larger interests, larger emotions, 
 and wider sympathies. Narcissus limits his affections 
 to the personal self. He scorns love and sentiment and 
 recognizes no obligations to his neighbors. His social 
 development has not even reached the tribal state of a 
 barbaric race. His personal virtues are large in his 
 own eyes ; they are viewed at such close range that they 
 obscure the virtues of others. He is always looking 
 at his own image and loves himself to distraction. 
 How wretched is the man who can see in earth and 
 sky, in literature and art, in State and in Church, in
 
 THE STORY OP ECHO AND NARCISSUS. 191 
 
 the very fountains of life, no abiding beauty, no en- 
 trancing visions, nothing but the poor reflection of his 
 impotent self! 
 
 Where self becomes the center of our thought and 
 activity, and the fabric of our visions, it is natural that 
 we should see all things only in their relation to that 
 self. Then our wealth, our culture, our government, 
 our religion, and even heaven itself, are of worth and 
 value only as they contribute to our personal comfort 
 and selfish enjoyment. 
 
 Narcissus is unconscious of the cruelty that, by his 
 thoughtlessness and selfishness, he is daily inflicting 
 upon others. He scorns love and patriotism, faith and 
 charity, as well as the common courtesies and graces 
 of life, except so far as they may magnify his self- 
 esteem and personal glory. If he is a business man, he 
 adopts as his motto, "Business is business"; if a sol- 
 dier, " War is war " ; if a politician, " Politics is poli- 
 tics." These epigrammatic formulas, if they have any 
 meaning for him at all, are simply subterfuges for dis- 
 honesty, cruelty, and injustice. He recognizes no ob- 
 ligation to introduce into his sphere of action the broad 
 principles of universal justice and humanity. 
 
 Narcissus is a too familiar character everywhere. 
 We find him frequently on our street cars, occupying 
 a whole seat by himself, absorbed in a newspaper per-
 
 192 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 haps, and oblivious to the presence in the aisle of a 
 feeble old man or woman struggling to stand. We 
 find him on a crowded railway car, apparently asleep, 
 occupying two seats, one for himself and one for his 
 baggage and his feet, while the men and women in 
 the aisle must get along without seats as best they can. 
 We find him in the church, holding fast to the end of 
 the pew, while those who may come in later must 
 squeeze their way beyond him. We find him in the 
 school, thoughtless, heartless, and cruel, ever seeking 
 his own comfort, his own pleasure, trying to get the 
 best of everything and of everybody, regardless of the 
 rights or the feelings of his fellows. 
 
 But the end of Narcissus is no more enviable than 
 that of Echo. " Seest thou a man wise in his own con- 
 ceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him." He 
 pines away for the love of self, and loses all desire for 
 intellectual and spiritual nourishment. He starves his 
 better nature, dwarfs his own soul, and dies a wretched 
 death, bequeathing to the world nothing but a little 
 flower, the emblem of mental torpor and spiritual sleep. 
 
 Cultivate originality in thought and work ; do not be 
 content to remain through life, a mere echo of some- 
 body else. Enlarge your personality by taking into it 
 the best interests of other persons; ennoble your life 
 by taking into it the best influences of other lives; en-
 
 THE STORY OF ECHO AND NARCISSUS. 193 
 
 rich your own work by sympathetic aid in the work of 
 others. Then will your larger, richer, nobler self be- 
 come a potent influence for good in the world; and 
 when you are gone, your memory will not be a mere 
 Echo, nor your monument a Narcissus.
 
 XXIII. THE VALUE OF THE IDEAL. 
 
 "Your young men shall see visions." Joel ii. 28. 
 
 THE ideal has value as well as the practical; the 
 dream is as essential as the reality. In the forge of 
 life, the ideal becomes the mold of the actual. In this 
 material age, we are apt to over-estimate the practical 
 phase of life and to neglect the ideal; we are apt to 
 stress the culture of the reason and the will and ignore 
 the imagination. We need to be reminded that the 
 unity and the completeness of life require the ideal as 
 well as the practical. The idealist has always been the 
 prophet of his generation, the seer of better things to 
 come. Without him, there could be no poetry, no art, 
 no science; without him, there could be no invention, 
 no enterprise, no progress. He is the propelling force 
 that moves society onward. All the great forward 
 movements of civilization were born of idealism. In 
 every age, the leaders of human thought and activity 
 have been men of creative imagination ; they have been 
 the poets and the philosophers, the moral and social re- 
 formers, the prophets and seers of their time, who, 
 during life, were contemptuously called dreamers and 
 
 194
 
 THE VALUE OP THE IDEAL. 195 
 
 idealists by their now forgotten practical contempora- 
 ries. 
 
 The practical man is not without his value, but that 
 value is negative rather than positive. He is the social 
 and industrial brake ; he keeps the car of progress from 
 danger by holding it back. A brake is an excellent 
 thing to have, but it has no motor force; it has no 
 power to propel. The man who has no ideals is hope- 
 lessly stranded; he can never accomplish any lasting 
 good, either for himself or for others. The man who 
 never dreams by day nor sees visions by night is chained 
 like Prometheus to the rock of materialism ; he has lost 
 the power of spiritual insight because he is unable to 
 project himself beyond the limitations of the actual. 
 
 The saddest of life's tragedies is the death of the 
 soul's ideals. Let us not think it unmanly to indulge 
 in day-dreams. That hour spent in speechless reverie 
 is not altogether an idle hour ; that hour of vague long- 
 ing and of silent communion with your soul is not an 
 hour altogether lost. Have you never, in some moment 
 of illumination, journeyed upon the subtle wings of 
 imagination, far beyond the petty cares of the little 
 world in which you live, into a new and splendid uni- 
 verse of which you were the creator and the ruler? 
 Such excursions into the unseen, though laughed at by 
 the unthinking, possess an inestimable educational
 
 196 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 value. The dreams of childhood are more potent than 
 we think in shaping human destiny. 
 
 "What entered into thee, 
 That was, is, and shall be." 
 
 Some of the greatest masterpieces of art have had their 
 beginning in the reveries of a child, wandering along 
 the banks of a forest stream ; some of the greatest works 
 of literature have had their inspiration in the day- 
 dreams of a boy behind the plough. Many of the heroic 
 characters of history have been the realized dreams of 
 youth. It was as a shepherd, alone in the solitude of 
 the desert, that Moses heard in the burning bush the 
 voice of the angel and received his commission to de- 
 liver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage ; and we are 
 told that " He endured as one seeing the Invisible." 
 David was only a shepherd boy when he was anointed 
 leader of the armies of Israel and bore away in triumph 
 the head of the Philistine giant. In the stone quarries 
 of Scotland, Hugh Miller dreamed out his remarkable 
 career as a geologist; and Webster's matchless oratory 
 was the realization of his day-dreams on his father's 
 farm. Christine Nilsson, while attending the country 
 fairs of Sweden as a little flower girl, was longing for 
 mastery in the art of music and dreaming of the day 
 when she should charm great audiences with her gift
 
 THE VALUE OP THE IDEAL. 197 
 
 of song. The air castles of childhood have often be- 
 come models for the more substantial creations of man- 
 hood. 
 
 It is noble indeed to have great dreams, and to prove 
 our faith in them by converting them into great real- 
 ities. Our desires, our prayers, our longings these 
 are the necessary forerunners of attainment. As 
 Lowell so beautifully says: 
 
 " The thing we long for, that we are 
 For one transcendent moment." 
 
 Who can estimate the influence of childhood's day- 
 dreams upon the world's history? The boys who 
 ploughed in rooty ground and dreamed between roots 
 of great things to come, have written great books, 
 painted great pictures, sung great songs, and estab- 
 lished great business enterprises, because in their boy- 
 hood days they were fortunate enough to have a chance 
 to be alone and to dream in the solitude of the farm. 
 Country-bred boys and girls have ever been the great- 
 est dreamers. The lives of city-bred youth are too 
 busy and too full of the petty, material cares of the 
 present, for dreams and visions of the future; their 
 souls are too much disturbed by the rude jostle and dis- 
 cordant din of the city's social whirl to enjoy an hour 
 of splendid dreaming. This is the glorious privilege of
 
 198 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 life in the country. Here, nature by her magic spell 
 transports the soul to Pisgah's height, and, lifting the 
 veil from the promised land beyond, reveals to the en- 
 raptured youth visions of beauty and power. This is 
 the real secret of the success of country-bred youth in 
 business and professional life. Their life work is but 
 the realization of childhood dreams and boyhood visions 
 in the solitude of the farm. 
 
 The quest for the impossible is not always vain ; the 
 search for the unattainable is not always fruitless. 
 The sailor who steers toward a star brings his ship 
 into port. Some of the greatest attainments in life 
 have been unexpected discoveries on the road to the 
 ideal; some of the world's greatest inventions have 
 been incidental. The alchemists of the middle ages 
 sought the philosopher's stone which would produce the 
 elixir of life and transmute base metal into gold. Their 
 quest for the ideal was vain, but they discovered the 
 science of chemistry. 
 
 Arkwright set out early in life to discover perpetual 
 motion ; he found compensation for his disappointment 
 in the invention of his spinning machine which, before 
 his death, had revolutionized cotton manufacturing in 
 Europe. Most of the thousand inventions patented by 
 Mr. Edison were developed from incidental clues; they 
 were simply accidental discoveries upon which he
 
 THE VALUE OF THE IDEAL. 199 
 
 stumbled while pursuing some ideal. The north pole 
 has never been discovered, but new lands and valuable 
 geographical knowledge have been given to the world 
 as the rewards of heroic effort. 
 
 Sometimes the unexpected attainment is greater than 
 the ideal; the realization often exceeds the anticipa- 
 tion. Sometimes a Saul sets out in search of his 
 father's asses and finds a kingdom; sometimes a Col- 
 umbus sails in search of a passage to India and dis- 
 covers a new world. The world has stumbled upon 
 some of its most valuable discoveries, while following 
 some vain illusion; it has found some of the greatest 
 truths of science and philosophy, while pursuing some 
 impossible chimera. 
 
 It is far better to seek the unattainable than to go 
 through life without an ideal ; it is better to dream the 
 impossible than never to dream at all. The longings 
 and aspirations of the soul help to redeem labor from 
 drudgery, and to invest human life with dignity and 
 glory. 
 
 " What I aspired to be 
 And was not, comforts me." 
 
 Unrealized hopes and unanswered prayers help to 
 mold the soul into a diviner form. Although the 
 secret thoughts and purposes, the hopes and aspira- 
 tions of the soul may never crystallize into words and
 
 200 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 deeds, they must still exert a potent influence upon that 
 mysterious complex we call character. 
 
 " All instincts immature, 
 
 All purposes unsure, 
 That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount; 
 
 Thoughts hardly to be packed 
 
 Into a narrow act, 
 Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; 
 
 All I could never be, 
 
 All men ignored in me, 
 This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped." 
 
 There can be no absolute failure for him who stead- 
 ily pursues a high and noble ideal. He may not reach 
 the distant goal upon which his eye is fixed, but the 
 joy of the unexpected attainments by the way often 
 transcends the bliss of complete realization. Apparent 
 failure may prove to be our greatest blessing; some- 
 times it proves to be the lens that corrects our dis- 
 torted vision; sometimes, the curative agent that re- 
 stores the equilibrium of our spiritual powers. The 
 apparent failures of life are often grand successes, and 
 what the world pronounces success may in the end 
 prove to be an ignoble failure. All depends upon the 
 viewpoint. 
 
 " Not failure but low aim is crime." 
 
 But it is not enough to dream. The soul that sleeps 
 and dreams and never wakes to action has no place in
 
 THE VALUE OF THE IDEAL. 201 
 
 the category of life. The man who dreams and never 
 acts, who is " disobedient to the heavenly vision," can 
 never hope for realization. The other day, a little boy 
 in a primary class was asked by his teacher to tell his 
 dream. It was a beautiful dream; there was to be a 
 great party, with plenty of ice cream and cake and flow- 
 ers, and his teacher had been invited to the party. The 
 next morning he brought to the teacher an invitation 
 from his mother to attend a reception at her residence. 
 It is beautiful to dream; it is glorious to make your 
 dreams come true. 
 
 " Our lives must climb from hope to hope 
 And realize our longing." 
 
 That is a pathetic story told of the old French peasant 
 who, all his life, had longed to see the beautiful city 
 of Carcasonne, some five leagues away. At last, he was 
 grown old and gray; his form was bent, and his limbs 
 were unsteady as he climbed one day the hillside near 
 his native village to catch a glimpse of castle tower and 
 cathedral spire, as they rose from the heart of Oarca- 
 sonne, against the sky, beyond the blue mist of the 
 mountains. With quivering voice he crooned the sad 
 refrain : 
 
 " I never shall see Carcasonne ; I never shall see Carcasonne." 
 
 " One sometimes sees beyond his reach, 
 From childhood to his journey's end."
 
 202 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 A stranger who overheard the old man's crooning, re- 
 solved to gratify his life's desire. " On the morrow," 
 said he, " thon shalt journey with me to Carcasonne." 
 Early they set out upon the journey. But alas, that 
 night the bells tolled the death of the old peasant; 
 
 " The old man died upon the road, 
 He never gazed on Carcasonne. 
 Each mortal has his Carcasonne." 
 
 Who doubts that the Carcasonne of the old man's 
 dreams was far more beautiful and enchanting than 
 the reality he had longed to see? There may be aspira- 
 tions too noble for words and longings too deep for 
 expression ; there may be promises too fair and beauti- 
 ful for earthly fulfillment and prayers too sublime for 
 answer this side of heaven. The Carcasonne of the 
 heart may be too glorious for material realization. 
 
 " In the globule of dew, in the heart of the rose, 
 Lies a story untold, like the tragical close 
 Of a promising life, or a song unsung, 
 Or a stifled cry from the heart whence it sprung."
 
 XXIV. THE LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 THE world today accepts the theory that creation is 
 a process of development with matter as a basis. In 
 an important sense, education is the analogue of crea- 
 tion, and may be described as a process of development 
 with mind as a basis. Nature's processes in creation 
 are progressive and involve the development of matter 
 from lower to higher forms, from the simple to the com- 
 plex. In the vast accumulations of mineral treasures 
 stored in the earth, the geologist recognizes the prin- 
 ciple of progressive development operating towards a 
 beneficent end. Human skill takes the raw material 
 thus provided by Nature and, through a series of in- 
 dustrial processes, accomplishes a second creation. 
 The manufacturer develops this raw material progress- 
 ively into higher and more valuable forms that shall 
 meet the requirements of civilization. But the pro- 
 cesses of development are expensive. Higher forms can 
 be evolved from lower only through toil, struggle, and 
 sacrifice. This law of development is universal and 
 inflexible. Whether we examine nature's processes in 
 creation, the mechanical agencies of furnace and fac- 
 
 203
 
 204 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 tory, or turn our attention to the processes of the in- 
 tellectual and spiritual realms, everywhere we shall 
 find the element of sacrifice as the one essential condi- 
 tion of development into higher and nobler states of 
 being. 
 
 The third great law of universal development in- 
 volves the purpose towards which these expensive pro- 
 cesses are directed. Nature may not be economical in 
 the use of her material; she has plenty of time and is 
 never in haste; but her processes are never aimless, 
 never vain or purposeless. Wherever we find develop- 
 ment in the world of matter or of man, we find also 
 that unerringly 
 
 "Through the ages, 
 
 One increasing purpose runs." 
 
 The great purposes of nature and of providence are 
 always expressed in terms of usefulness and helpful- 
 ness to others. The great end of all development is 
 service. 
 
 The method of all development then is progress; its 
 condition, sacrifice; its end, service. But, in order to 
 illustrate more clearly and forcibly these great laws 
 of development, I shall give you a bit of material sym- 
 bolism, which may suggest a few practical lessons. I 
 shall, therefore, ask you to follow me patiently as I
 
 THE LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT. 205 
 
 give you briefly a simple story of development the 
 story of a homely, commonplace bit of matter a story 
 with a bit of local coloring. 
 
 One day, somewhat over sixty years ago, Professor 
 Michael Tuoruey, a celebrated British scientist, who 
 afterwards became the first State Geologist of Alabama, 
 stood alone on the top of Red Mountain. The trained 
 eye of the eminent scientist recognized at once the 
 wonderful possibilities of the commonplace red dirt 
 which he found in such profusion about him. He 
 recognized, at a glance, the wonderful capacities with 
 which nature had endowed that raw material, and un- 
 derstood the nature of the processes necessary for its 
 conversion into a higher state of value and usefulness. 
 He measured with his practical eye the rich hematite 
 deposits stored away in that mountain range, for fu- 
 ture development ; he saw, in the valley below, the lime 
 rock running parallel with the iron; and beyond the 
 valley, the vast Warrior coal fields with their exhaust- 
 less treasure of " black diamonds." His creative im- 
 agination quickly combined these raw materials, and 
 there arose before him a remarkable vision of the future 
 of the wonderful valley. In that vision, he projected 
 himself into the future; he saw the smoke ascending 
 from a thousand industries by day, and the night made 
 lurid by the flames from as many furnaces, rolling
 
 206 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 mills and factories; and a teeming population pursu- 
 ing the various avocations of a great and prosperous 
 city. Descending to the valley below, the inspired 
 scientist directed his footsteps towards the quiet vil- 
 lage of Elyton. To a crowd of farmers and villagers 
 in the old court square, he related his wonderful vision. 
 They listened to his strange story with compassionate 
 interest, but laughed his predictions to scorn. The 
 enthusiastic geologist was ridiculed as an impractical 
 theorist and a visionary fanatic. Such has always been 
 the reception accorded the man who lives in advance of 
 his contemporaries and proclaims truths beyond the 
 daily experience of the multitude. Such has always 
 been the fate of the prophet and the seer. 
 
 The iron ore in the Red Mountain Range had lain 
 there for ages, unappreciated, until the trained eye of 
 Professor Tuomey fell upon it. The savage Indian who 
 hunted his prey and so long resisted the white man's 
 progress in North Alabama knew of its existence and 
 used it as war paint. The pioneer residents of the 
 valley were familiar with it, and often climbed the 
 mountain-side in search of the " dye-rock," as they 
 called it. Instead of using it to color bows and ar- 
 rows and to paint their bodies, as the Indians had 
 done, they used it to dye the cloth from which their 
 garments were made; but the vast iron ore deposit of
 
 THE LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT. 207 
 
 Bed Mountain was still without money value in the 
 markets of the world. 
 
 Today, we see the vision of the scientist realized, and 
 the prophecy fulfilled. The crude " dye-rock " of sixty 
 years ago is now being daily transmuted, by a series of 
 developing processes, into higher forms of matter and 
 into ever-increasing powers of value. The crude ma- 
 terial is taken from the mountain-side and, by the pro- 
 cess of roasting, is freed from its sulphur and water 
 and converted into an oxide. This oxide is placed in 
 the blast furnace, with lime and coke in alternate lay- 
 ers ; and, by the severe process of smelting, it is purged 
 of its dross and impurities and reduced to a molten 
 stream of liquid iron. The molten matter is allowed 
 to crystallize into bars of pig-iron; and, in this form, 
 the crude " dye-rock " for the first time becomes a mer- 
 chantable product, with a positive money value in the 
 markets of the world. The " dye-rock " has completed 
 the primary stage of its development; it has finished 
 the elementary process of its education. 
 
 But that unattractive " dye-rock " was originally en- 
 dowed with capacity to become something more than 
 mere pig-iron. Its native powers have not yet been 
 fully developed. 
 
 The pig-iron is carried to the rolling-mill, where it 
 is subjected to the trying processes of puddling and
 
 208 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 rolling and hammering, until it is transformed into a 
 still higher and more valuable product. It is now 
 ready for a wider range of service to civilization and 
 is prepared to perform higher duties in the world. The 
 native " dye-rock " of the pioneer has completed the 
 secondary process of its development; it has finished 
 the high school stage of its education, and stands ready 
 to serve civilization as wrought iron. It is richer in 
 value because of its increased power for service. 
 
 But the inherent powers of the raw material are 
 capable of still further development, and we find the 
 same original " dye-rock " undergoing the severe train- 
 ing processes of the steel mill. Here, it is converted 
 into steel ingots, and now stands forth prepared to serve 
 the highest purposes of the world's civilization. It has 
 at last completed the college curriculum of the iron 
 manufacturer, and commands the highest prices in the 
 world's iron markets. 
 
 The next stage, and the last in its development, is 
 that of specialization. The uses to which it may now 
 be applied are as varied as the wants of man ; the forms 
 it is capable of assuming are as diverse and interesting 
 as human skill and ingenuity may devise. It is pre- 
 pared to enter any department of the world's great 
 university of applied arts. It may enter a factory 
 where it becomes specialized into steel wire, nails, or
 
 THE LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT. 209 
 
 needles; it may be placed in an establishment where it 
 is converted into fine cutlery and costly surgical in- 
 struments, or into steel pens or hairsprings for watches. 
 When the " dye-rock " of Red Mountain has passed 
 through this course of training and has become special- 
 ized in one of the great departments of industry, it is 
 prepared to render the highest possible service to the 
 world. Its capacity for efficient service to man has 
 increased in proportion to its development. As crude 
 iron ore, its utility was practically nothing. As cast 
 iron, it was capable of only a limited service, on ac- 
 count of its extreme brittleness, its want of tenacity 
 and elasticity. It was useful, it is true, for many of 
 the lower purposes of life; but we should never have 
 expected to make razors or surgical instruments out 
 of pig-iron. As wrought iron, it was adapted for a 
 wider field of usefulness; but no one would have un- 
 dertaken to convert it into a Damascus blade or a hair- 
 spring for a Waltham watch. 
 
 The higher the development of the iron, the greater 
 becomes its commercial value. The " dye-rock " is 
 practically valueless in itself. Its price, as raw ma- 
 terial, is determined by its potential value. It may 
 be worth one dollar per ton, not for what it is now, but 
 for what it may become. As pig metal, it may be worth 
 ten times, or even twenty times as much; but a large
 
 210 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 part of this value even is based upon its anticipated 
 development. As the product of the rolling-mill, its 
 actual value has been largely enhanced; and, as steel 
 ingots, it may be worth ten times the value of the pig- 
 metal. If this ton of steel is suitably prepared for the 
 manufacture of Esterbrook pens, it is worth one thou- 
 sand dollars; and the pens will sell at wholesale for 
 more than five thousand dollars. If this ton of steel is 
 made into a high grade of needles, these needles will 
 sell in the market for one hundred thousand dollars; 
 if it is made into hairsprings for watches, the value of 
 these hairsprings, at wholesale prices, will exceed five 
 million dollars. This enormous increase in value is the 
 result of the development processes through which the 
 raw material has passed. Experts tell us that ninety 
 per cent, of the value of any finished product repre- 
 sents the labor involved in the processes of its produc- 
 tion. The increasing value of the iron, then, as it 
 passes through the several stages of progress, from the 
 native " dye-rock " to the polished steel instrument, is 
 due very largely to the intelligent labor expended upon 
 it. 
 
 If the " dye-rock " of Red Mountain were endowed 
 with reason and power of choice, we may imagine it 
 protesting against being torn from its native surround- 
 ings and carried through the disagreeable processes of
 
 THE LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT. 211 
 
 the blast furnace. It is entirely satisfied and happy 
 as it is, and knows nothing of its native capacities or 
 future possibilities. Why disturb its calm repose in 
 the bosom of that mountain? Why not let it rest on 
 in contented uselessness and comfortable worthless- 
 ness? If it is incapable of much good, it is likewise 
 incapable of much harm. The mishaps and crimes of 
 the world are chargeable very largely to the developed 
 product. The pig-iron may smile at the helplessness 
 and utter insignificance of the " dye-rock." It may 
 ridicule the idea of developing the worthless red dirt 
 of the mountain into pig-iron like itself; it may boast 
 of its own comparative superiority in the industrial 
 world, and decry that worthless mass of undeveloped 
 red rock as incapable of improvement and unworthy of 
 attention. So easy is it to forget one's origin. 
 
 The pig-iron may be imagined protesting also against 
 continuing its course in the rolling-mill or steel mill. 
 Is it not already worth ten dollars a ton? Is it not 
 already fitted for a great variety of life's duties? Why 
 waste so much time and labor upon further develop- 
 ment, when it can enter at once upon so many of life's 
 activities? While it is undergoing a course of train- 
 ing and preparation in these higher industrial institu- 
 tions, it might be usefully exercising its earning capa- 
 city in the great busy world at the rate of ten dollars a
 
 212 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 ton. It has all the training it wants ; it has no desire, 
 no ambition to be anything in life but pig-iron. The 
 pig-iron may argue also that many of its pig-metal ac- 
 quaintances are prospering very well without this addi- 
 tional sacrifice of time and labor; bars of pig-metal have 
 been converted into edged tools and have succeeded, ap- 
 parently, as well as if made of steel. The bar of pig- 
 metal is vain enough and conceited enough to think that 
 it can accomplish as much in the world as tempered 
 steel; it is presumptuous enough to enter into the 
 highest and most delicate of life's vocations. The mass 
 of red dirt in the world may not know the difference 
 between a cast-iron and a steel implement; so long as 
 the pig-metal does not come in contact with the true 
 steel, its imposition may never be detected, and its 
 inefficiency may never be suspected. Why may it not 
 enter upon the higher duties of the industrial world in 
 the form of a keen-bladed knife or a high-grade sur- 
 gical instrument without being melted in a converter, 
 oxidized by high pressure air currents and passed 
 through the tortures of the whole Bessemer process? 
 But the lessons of actual experience are most convinc- 
 ing; and not even the skill of an expert is required to 
 detect the difference between the edge of a piece of 
 cast-iron sharpened by hard usage and the keen edge of 
 the tempered steel. In the world of matter, the law of
 
 THE LAWS OP DEVELOPMENT. 213 
 
 development is exacting, and will admit of no pretense, 
 sham, or evasion. The highest development of the raw 
 material requires sacrifice and subjection to definite 
 processes. 
 
 Again, we observe, that, in the world of matter, the 
 higher the development the wider the obligation. The 
 steel has greater responsibilities than the pig-iron, be- 
 cause it has to deal with more delicate processes and 
 serve more important purposes in the world. What- 
 ever of value the pig-iron has acquired is due to the 
 skill and the labor that have constructed the intricate 
 mechanism of the blast furnace. Its debt to the world 
 is greater than that of the " dye-rock " or of the pig- 
 iron, because it has received more. It has been 
 " bought with a price," it has been " redeemed by sac- 
 rifice," and it must repay the debt by service and sacri- 
 fice. It owes this service, not only in life's higher and 
 more fashionable circles, but in its lower and humbler 
 walks as well. The true steel should never forget its 
 origin. It must lend assistance in the elevation of the 
 " dye-rock " from its subterranean slumber. The steel 
 plow and the steel hammer are not degraded by working 
 side by side with cast-iron pick and crowbar, in lifting 
 the red dirt to a higher state of value and usefulness. 
 The higher product is under obligation to elevate the 
 lower.
 
 214 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 This simple story of the " dye-rock " of Red Mountain 
 is rich in its suggestiveness. But I am not unconscious 
 of the fact that, as a material illustration of the laws 
 of universal development, it comes far short of the pur- 
 pose for which it is used. The mechanical processes re- 
 quired for the development of crude matter into higher 
 forms of value and usefulness can indicate to us only 
 in an imperfect way the transcendent importance of 
 those principles and processes which pertain io the 
 development of immortal mind. Education is not an 
 act, but a series of related processes. Conforming to 
 the laws of universal development, its methods must 
 be progressive; its essential condition must be sacri- 
 fice; and its one supreme end, service to the world. 
 
 If the processes of education were merely mechani- 
 cal ; if the mind could be subjected to methods similar 
 to those applied to inert matter, the work of the school 
 and the college would be simple indeed. The processes 
 of spiritual development require the mastery, not only 
 of the fields of formal knowledge and of the material 
 environment, but also of the impulses and the ten- 
 dencies, the motives and the powers, of that delicate 
 structure we call the human soul, that self-conscious, 
 self-acting, and self-determining essence whose actions 
 and reactions mysteriously result in that form of 
 development which we call education. The educational
 
 THE LAWS OF DEVELOPMENT. 215 
 
 elements which need the emphasis today are not the 
 material and the mechanical, but the ethical and the 
 spiritual. Elegant buildings, expensive libraries and 
 laboratories, and costly mechanical equipment, however 
 valuable and necessary, may prove not only inadequate, 
 but positively obstructive, to the higher ethical ideals 
 of education, if they exclude those nobler and more 
 spiritual elements essential to the highest processes 
 of soul-development. 
 
 The plastic human material placed under the care 
 of the teacher and subjected to the processes of the 
 school are not so many bars of pig-iron to be treated by 
 the same invariable mechanical laws and the same uni- 
 form processes, but bundles of delicate nerves, tied 
 up with mere breaths and heart-beats, enveloping the 
 beautiful soul within. Handle them carefully lest you 
 injure the sensitive structure; touch them gently and 
 with no unskillful hand, if you would make the soul 
 within to vibrate in unison with the divine purpose in 
 universal development. 
 
 " Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; 
 Break but one of a thousand keys, 
 And the paining jar through all will run." 
 
 Our State has only within the past two decades fully 
 realized the great value of her undeveloped material 
 resources. Today, as never before, she is beginning to
 
 216 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 realize the fact that her greatest wealth lies in the un- 
 told possibilities of her human " raw material," if I 
 may use the expression the too long neglected social 
 " dye-rock " of her mountains and her valleys. The 
 greatest problem that can confront any commonwealth 
 is the development of its young men and women into 
 higher forms of power and of service to society; the 
 transformation of crude ignorance and helpless use- 
 lessness into economic factors, moral regenerators, and 
 social redeemers. The solution of such a problem re- 
 quires the lofty enthusiasm of an inspired optimism 
 and the moral heroism of a disinterested patriotism.
 
 XXV. MODERN CHIVALRY. 
 
 THE age of chivalry is the most picturesque and 
 dramatic period in the world's history. The stage of 
 action of this world-drama was mediaeval Europe, with 
 the dense ignorance, social chaos, and moral darkness 
 of a feudal state as a background. 
 
 No period in history is richer in dramatic character 
 and poetic incident. It has given us Charlemagne and 
 his Paladins, the Troubadours and the Trouveres, the 
 Niebelungen Lied and the themes of the Wagner 
 Operas, the Arthurian Legends and a whole library of 
 romances in poetry and in prose. To this dark age of 
 the world, illumed by meteoric flashes of human senti- 
 ment and the garish dawn of a coming light, our 
 modern literature, music, and art are indebted for 
 their richest treasures. As we study the genius of the 
 feudal state, with the perspective of the centuries, we 
 cannot fail to penetrate its pomp and pageantry and 
 note the spirit of self-sacrifice and unselfish devotion 
 to a cause, which dominated the order of knighthood. 
 The mission of the chevalier was held in such esteem 
 that his preparation required long and severe training. 
 
 217
 
 218 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 Many there were who wished to enter the school of 
 chivalry, but few there were who could stand the tests 
 necessary to win the degree of knighthood. 
 
 Come with me in imagination for a few minutes and 
 witness the " commencement " of a knightly career. 
 It is one of the most dramatic and impressive scenes 
 in the life of the period. In the spacious court of the 
 baronial castle, we see a brilliant assemblage of brave 
 knights and beautiful ladies, the flower of ancient 
 chivalry, awaiting the arrival of the candidate who 
 this day is to be invested with the honors and dignities 
 of knighthood. Shining shield and glistening armor 
 reflect the sunshine and make the barren courtyard a 
 blazing sea of light. At last, we hear the trumpet 
 signal and see the " eandidatus," a white-robed youth, 
 with a knightly sword suspended from his neck, emerg- 
 ing from the castle hall. His manly form and noble 
 bearing indicate strength of mind and body, while his 
 modesty and gentle courtesy attest his moral worth 
 and careful training. His period of education, cover- 
 ing fourteen years, is now completed, and he stands, a 
 youth of twenty-one, ready to graduate and to receive 
 the degree that will win him consideration and honor 
 among his fellows and entitle him to enter the lists as 
 a knight, valiant and true. While he thus stands in 
 the presence of the brilliant assemblage, the priest
 
 MODERN CHIVALEY. 219 
 
 takes his sword and blesses it in the name of religion ; 
 the feudal lord, in the name of his sovereign, propounds 
 the usual questions in the catechism of knighthood, 
 regarding his habits, his motives, and the principles 
 that are to be the guide of his future conduct. Then, 
 kneeling, with one hand uplifted and the other grasp- 
 ing the hilt of his sword, the " candidatus " recites, 
 with ringing voice, the " confession of faith " of knight- 
 hood, in which he solemnly vows " to tell the truth, to 
 succor the weak and the defenseless, and never to turn 
 back from an enemy." He then rises, and the white 
 robe of the candidate is exchanged for the armor of 
 the chevalier. With becoming ceremony, he is pre- 
 sented with the coat of mail, the shield, the gauntlet, 
 and the rest of his knightly equipment. Lastly, the 
 sword is buckled to his side, his superior lord presents 
 him with a lance, and suddenly gives him a stinging 
 blow on the cheek with his own the last insult he 
 shall ever permit to pass unavenged. The young 
 chevalier again kneels, and the impressive accolade is 
 now administered. His superior lord gives three light 
 strokes with the flat of his sword upon his head and 
 shoulders and reverently pronounces the significant 
 formula of investiture : " In the name of God, Saint 
 Michael, and Saint George, I create thee a knight. Be 
 valiant, be courteous, be loyal." The ceremony of
 
 220 
 
 investiture is ended; the young knight puts on his 
 helmet ; and, mounting his richly caparisoned horse, he 
 rides forth to battle, if need be, to die for the principles 
 he has espoused. 
 
 The old age of chivalry has long since passed away. 
 Knighthood with all its glory and splendid pageantry 
 is now classed with a vanished " dark age " of history. 
 The halberd, the shield, and the coat of mail are still 
 prized, however, not merely as objects of curiosity in 
 our museums, but also as symbols of the spiritual 
 weapons of a new order of chivalry. The spirit of the 
 old chivalry still remains in the new; the body has 
 changed its form, but its soul lives on. The virtues of 
 the old chivalry belong exclusively to no age or period ; 
 they have been transmitted to us, freed from the 
 glamour of arms and the limitations of caste, and con- 
 stitute the virtues of a new age and of a modern chiv- 
 alry that incomparably outranks the old. 
 
 " The old order changeth, * * * 
 And God fulfills himself in many ways." 
 
 The spirit of the old order of chivalry is just as po- 
 tent today as it was in the days of Richard the Lion- 
 Hearted; the personal virtues of the old order are in- 
 cluded in the requirements of the new ; the duties and 
 obligations of truth and loyalty, temperance and pur-
 
 MODERN CHIVALRY. 221 
 
 ity, courtesy and generosity are even more binding 
 upon us today than they were upon the plumed knight 
 who rode forth from his castle gate 
 
 " With eager hope and valor high, 
 And the proud glow of chivalry 
 That dared to do and die." 
 
 He who would be a chevalier of the modern order 
 must first " tell the truth, do justice, succor the weak 
 and the defenseless, and never turn back from an 
 enemy " of righteousness. 
 
 Charles Kingsley aptly says that " The Age of 
 Chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left 
 unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, 
 ' I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the 
 attempt.' " The wrongs to be redressed today may not 
 be the same as those of the days of Arthur and Sir 
 Galahad; but there are still wrongs to be redressed, 
 just as real, just as pressing. 
 
 The knight of old put his trust in his sword and his 
 good right arm. Might too often made right, and 
 muscle made morality. Physical force and material 
 weapons decided the victory. The modern knight must 
 use intellectual, moral, and spiritual forces. Intel- 
 lectual power and spiritual insight, faith in man and 
 faith in God these are the weapons of modern chiv- 
 alry.
 
 222 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 The duties of modern knighthood are far broader and 
 more comprehensive than those of the old. The duties 
 of the mediaeval knight were personal duties to indi- 
 viduals of his own or of a superior rank, never to those 
 of a lower. The wrongs he avenged were personal 
 wrongs; the enemies he fought were men like himself. 
 He knew no society but that of the castle hall and 
 recognized no laws but those of his own order. His 
 soul never felt the thrill of a lofty patriotism, and his 
 heart never beat with a noble enthusiasm for humanity. 
 The genius of the old chivalry was individualism, its 
 keynote was personality. It developed the individual, 
 but did little directly for the State or for society. Its 
 code of honor was restricted by caste; its code of 
 ethics was tribal and superficial; its courtesy and hu- 
 manity did not include the helpless horde of vassals 
 that supplied the needs of camp and castle hall. Such 
 a code is too narrow for the modern age; the duties 
 of modern knighthood must extend beyond the personal 
 and the individual. We live in organized society, and 
 our work must be done largely through organized forces 
 and institutional agencies. The personal element must 
 still be effective ; but it must be made effective through 
 the school, the Church, the State, and other social and 
 institutional forces. The modern knight must fight 
 organized evil through organization. There are social
 
 MODERN CHIVALRY. 223 
 
 diseases to be healed and civic wrongs to be righted. 
 The weak and the defenseless are today appealing for 
 help and succor; legalized injustice and rank oppres- 
 sion walk along the highways of life unreproved; per- 
 jury and dishonesty too often invade our halls of justice 
 and sear the civic conscience. There are children today 
 deprived of the rights of childhood; some are sent to 
 the factory instead of the school ; some are condemned 
 to associate with hardened criminals in our mines 
 and prisons till hope is killed and the bloom of life 
 fades away. Many of our own race are doomed to 
 face the duties of life and the obligations of citizenship 
 without the light of education or the inspiration of 
 knowledge. 
 
 The crusades of the old chivalry represented a great 
 upheaval of the people for the purpose of delivering 
 from the hands of the Moslems the tomb of the Christ. 
 We need today a crusade of modern chivalry to recover 
 from the forces of ignorance and superstition the tomb 
 of humanity. Christ is still buried wherever His 
 brother man is shrouded in ignorance and superstition. 
 We need another Peter the Hermit, to lead the flower 
 of modern chivalry in a crusade for the deliverance of 
 children of tender years from that slavery which dwarfs 
 soul and body in mine and factory, to satisfy the greed 
 of heartless capital. We need a new knight errantry
 
 224 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 that will bravely face the social, political, and indus- 
 trial problems of our time, and never turn back from 
 the organized forces of injustice and oppression. 
 
 The ancient chevalier was ready to suffer death, if 
 need be, in defense of a noble cause. The modern 
 chevalier may not be called upon to suffer physical 
 death, but he is and will be called upon to do something 
 far more difficult to live for the truth. But never 
 was a great cause triumphant without sacrifice; and 
 the modern knight will be required to sacrifice social 
 or political life, to face social death or political martyr- 
 dom, which is a far sterner test of valor, loyalty, and 
 true patriotism than any form of physical death. It re- 
 quires more true courage today to practice the truth 
 at home, among our own friends, than to preach it to 
 the heathen beyond the seas ; it requires greater heroism 
 today to champion an unpopular cause at home, in our 
 own city or county, than to die for the flag on a foreign 
 shore. The highest test of heroism is not on the battle- 
 field amidst the roar of cannon and the music of 
 musketry, but in the quiet fields of everyday life; in 
 business, in society, in municipal, state, and national 
 politics, or in the commonplace duties of the home, and 
 the humble associations of the farm and the workshop. 
 The boy who stoops to pick a banana peel off the side- 
 walk, or shuts a neighbor's gate, by accident left ajar,
 
 MODBEN CHIVALRY. 225 
 
 by these simple, thoughtful acts shows the heroic spirit 
 of a modern chevalier. 
 
 " Who puts back in place a fallen bar, 
 
 Or flings a rock from the traveled road, 
 His feet are moving toward the central star, 
 His name is whispered in the God's abode." 
 
 The times call loudly today for knights and ladies, 
 valiant and true, to enter the lists of a new knight 
 errantry at home, in the cause of education, social 
 betterment, and civic righteousness. Young ladies and 
 gentlemen of the High School, this call comes to you 
 today, as the successors of the brave knights of old, and 
 the representatives of modern knighthood. You are 
 heirs of all the chivalry, of all the ages of the past. By 
 your opportunities and privileges, you are created 
 knights and ladies of this new order of chivalry. Upon 
 you rests the obligation to battle for the truth, " to 
 succor the weak and the defenseless, and never turn 
 back from an enemy." Be valiant, be courteous, be 
 loyal. 
 
 A generation ago, commencement sermons and col- 
 lege addresses emphasized the fact that school life is 
 a preparation for the future. This is true as far as 
 it goes; but, today, we recognize the larger truth that 
 the school course is not a preparation for life, it is life 
 itself. We must not impair the unity and the integrity
 
 226 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 of life by dividing it into segments and transferring 
 the realities and responsibilities of the present to the 
 unseen future. Life, as an ethical entity, is not meas- 
 ured by years or periods, but by the realities compressed 
 into the present moment, the eternal now. 
 
 " The past and the time to be are one, 
 And both are now." 
 
 Upon the coat-of-arms of one of the most powerful of 
 the ancient ducal families of France was inscribed the 
 motto, " Noblesse Oblige " Nobility obligates. The 
 nobility conferred by birth or culture, by wealth or 
 power, by talent or opportunity, imposes corresponding 
 obligations. The proof of your excellence is the bene- 
 fit you confer upon others ; the test of your nobility is 
 your recognition of the obligation it imposes. The 
 true scholar imparts his wisdom to others ; the scientist 
 recognizes his obligation to give the world the benefit 
 of his discoveries; and today, there is no more sig- 
 nificant fact in modern life than the increasing recogni- 
 tion of the obligations of wealth, as illustrated by the 
 many munificent contributions to the cause of educa- 
 tion and of popular culture. The most hopeful sign of 
 the twentieth century is the practical application of the 
 old French motto, " Noblesse Oblige." 
 You belong to the noblest and proudest race under
 
 MODERN CHIVALRY. 227 
 
 the sun a race that has won, through sacrifice and 
 blood, the right of empire among the nations of the 
 earth; a race that, by its genius, has stored in the 
 temple of wisdom the richest fruits from the fields of 
 literature, science, and art. You are justly proud of 
 the achievements of your race and of the nobility of 
 your ancestors. But remember, young ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, all this obligates : " Noblesse Oblige." 
 
 You are enjoying opportunities of culture today, 
 perhaps through the struggles and sacrifices of fathers, 
 who, because of the storm and stress of civil strife a 
 generation ago, were denied the advantages of school 
 or college; opportunities obligate "Noblesse Oblige." 
 You are here today, perhaps, because of the loving sacri- 
 fice of a devoted mother, who works a little harder, 
 stints herself each day a little more, and manages to 
 live with plainer clothes for herself and fewer comforts 
 for the home, that her son or daughter may get the ad- 
 vantage of a high school education ; a mother's devotion 
 and sacrifice obligate : " Noblesse Oblige." 
 
 The possession of wealth or power or learning im- 
 plies obligations to society; and the glory of human life 
 consists in the discharge of these obligations. What 
 a revelation of the divine do we find in those wonderful 
 words of Christ, " The glory that thou hast given me, 
 I have given unto them." The glory of the Christ was
 
 228 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 not that of receiving, but of giving; not that of posses- 
 sion, but of transmission. We are too apt to look upon 
 our wealth, our power, our fame, our culture, and say, 
 " This is mine, my success, my pride, my honor, my 
 glory." We forget that there is nothing glorious in 
 mere possession. Indeed it may be even mean and in- 
 glorious. The glory of it all lies in our ability to say, 
 " The glory that thou hast given me, I have given unto 
 them." The true worth of human life lies in its trans- 
 missive capacity. In that wonderful miracle of modern 
 science, the telephone, there is a little metallic film 
 called the transmitter. Into this, the message is de- 
 livered; and the mysterious vibrations are repeated 
 hundreds of miles away. The real worth of the tele- 
 phone lies, not merely in its power to receive, but in its 
 transmissive capacity. Take away from the telephone 
 that capacity, and you take away the great purpose of 
 its existence. Take away from human life the power 
 to transmit to others God's messages, through wealth 
 and culture, literature and art, and you take away from 
 it God's great purpose in creation. Your inheritance 
 of gentle birth, civil liberty, and cultured environment, 
 are messages transmitted to you from the distant past. 
 Upon you rests the solemn obligation to transmit them 
 unimpaired to others who are wearily waiting here at 
 home or, it may be, far away, for these messages of
 
 MODERN CHIVALRY. 229 
 
 light and knowledge, love and peace. The truly cul- 
 tured man today is he who recognizes the fact that 
 every good and perfect gift from science, from litera- 
 ture, and from human experience, is a trust for the 
 benefit of humanity. It is our obligation to use these 
 gifts, not to glorify ourselves, but for the purpose of uplift- 
 ing and ennobling other lives. Be not content with mere 
 possession ; cultivate the power of transmission. 
 
 There are two dangers of modern life against which 
 we need to raise a note of warning. The first is that 
 tendency to exclusive specialization which narrows the 
 life of the individual to one trade or one profession. 
 However necessary this may seem in the lower mechan- 
 ical avenues of trade and industry, it limits the possi- 
 bility of sympathetic interest in the great concerns of 
 life about us. The man must be larger than his trade 
 or profession ; larger than his city or state ; larger than 
 his church or denomination. The man of greatest per- 
 sonality, widest vision, and largest sympathies, is he 
 who has the widest range of human interests. We are 
 often reminded of the political maxim, " Public office 
 is a public trust." We need to realize today that pri- 
 vate life is also a public trust, and that, in proportion 
 to its privileges and opportunities, it has duties and ob- 
 ligations to the community, the State, the Church, and 
 to humanity at large.
 
 230 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 The second danger to which I allude is the tendency 
 to accept the present conditions in politics, economics, 
 and even in religion, as permanent and unchangeable. 
 Do not, I pray you, join in the pessimistic cry that 
 things must go on forever as they are ; that " purity in 
 politics must ever remain an irridescent dream," and 
 that social reforms must be relegated to the realm of 
 impractical idealism. Such doctrine is cowardly, per- 
 nicious, and irreligious. The new chivalry is dominated 
 by faith in man and hope for the future. The opera- 
 tions of enlightened philanthropy are widening and 
 broadening our sympathies; constructive sociology has 
 become a recognized principle of government and of 
 religion ; and formation rather than reformation is the 
 key to human betterment. The new chivalry proves its 
 faith in God by its faith in man, and realizes its highest 
 conception of divine worship in human service. 
 
 You doubtless recall that beautiful story of ancient 
 chivalry, the Holy Grail. It has been sung over and 
 over again by Tennyson, and still more sweetly by our 
 own poet, Lowell. You recall how Sir Launfal had re- 
 solved to devote himself to a pious quest for the Holy 
 Grail. His armor was burnished, his steed was in readi- 
 ness, and all his preparations were complete for his 
 departure on the morrow. He laid himself down to 
 rest and sleep; and, while he slept, there came to him
 
 MODERN CHIVALRY. 231 
 
 the wonderful vision that transformed his life. He 
 dreamed that the eventful morn had come, and 
 
 " Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, 
 To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail." 
 
 As he rode forth from the castle gate upon his noble 
 charger, a loathsome leper clad in filthy rags stretched 
 forth his hands and begged for bread to eat. With 
 condescending pity, Sir Launfal cast at his feet a 
 golden coin and proudly rode away, thinking he had 
 done a deed of charity. But the beggar scorned to 
 touch the gold, when the love he craved was denied. 
 
 "Better to me the poor man's crust, 
 Better the blessing of the poor, 
 Though I turn me empty from his door; 
 That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 
 He gives nothing but worthless gold 
 
 Who gives from a sense of duty ; 
 But he who gives but a slender mite, 
 And gives to that which is out of sight, 
 
 That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
 Which runs through all and doth all unite, 
 The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
 The heart outstretches its eager palms." 
 
 In his unavailing search for the Holy Grail, Sir 
 Launfal has ridden around the world, and after many, 
 many years, returns again, at the sweet Christmas time, 
 but now an old man, worn and poor and bent in form. 
 His gilded mail, too heavy for his weary limbs to bear,
 
 232 OLD TALES AND MODERN IDEALS. 
 
 has been laid aside ; his sword and his charger are gone ; 
 and in yonder castle lives another who tells him that 
 Sir Launfal is long since dead. Shivering in his rags, 
 the old man sits by the frozen stream to eat his last 
 crust of bread, when, lo ! there stands before him again 
 the self-same leper that accosted him years before 
 on the proud morn of his departure. Again the poor 
 leper begs for bread to eat. Now, Sir Launfal looks 
 upon him not with loathing, but with love and rev- 
 erence : 
 
 "The heart within him was ashes and dust; 
 He parted in twain his simple crust, 
 He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
 And gave the leper to eat and drink." 
 
 It was only a moldy crust of bread that he gave the 
 leper to eat; it was only water from a wooden bowl 
 that he gave the leper to drink; but the brown crust 
 became fine wheaten bread, and the water became red 
 wine. Changing the water into wine was the first 
 miracle of our Lord's ministry to man; to change the 
 water of earthly poverty into the wine of heavenly 
 mercy this is always and everywhere the first miracle 
 of the divine life. As Sir Launfal gazes, lo ! The bread 
 becomes the flesh, and the water the blood, of the Son of 
 God; and the leper stands before him the embodied 
 Christ!
 
 MODERN CHIVALRY. 233 
 
 " The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
 But stood before him glorified, 
 Shining and tall and fair and straight 
 As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, 
 Himself the Gate, whereby men can 
 Enter the temple of God in Man." 
 
 Thus are we taught the truest and noblest lesson of 
 human life. The " Vision of Sir Launfal " is not simply 
 a beautiful dream, but a vital reality in the true life 
 of the soul. Not in pomp or wealth or power, not in 
 weary journeys through distant lands, are we to find 
 our Holy Grail, but in poverty, or sacrifice, at home, at 
 our very gates. 
 
 The story of Sir Launfal's Vision is the ideal of 
 Modern Chivalry, and its spirit of sacrifice is the test 
 of Modern Knighthood. 
 
 " The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
 In whatso we share with another's need ; 
 Not what we give, but what we share, 
 For the gift without the giver is bare ; 
 Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
 Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me." 
 
 To you, young ladies and gentlemen, I can bring no 
 nobler message, no loftier ideal. To you, who are thus 
 ennobled by race and exalted by glorious opportunity ; 
 to you, who are the recipients of the richest intellectual 
 and spiritual treasures of the past, to you let me give 
 the parting injunction, " Noblesse Oblige." " Be val- 
 iant, be courteous, be loyal."

 
 
 
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