rock which lies in our way, to represent the possibility of human nature as an ideal, and then to realize that ideal in his life. Little boys in the country, working against time, with stents to do, long for the passing-by of some tall brother, who in a few minutes shall achieve what the smaller boy took hours to do. And we are all of us but little boys, looking for some great brother to come and help us end our tasks.

But it is not quite so easy to recognize the greatest kind of greatness. A Nootka-Sound Indian would not see much in Leibnitz, Newton, Socrates, or Dante; and if a great man were to come as much before us as we are before the Nootka-Sounders, what should we say of him? Why, the worst names we could devise, - Infidel, Atheist, Blasphemer, Hypocrite. Perhaps we should dig up the old cross, and make a new martyr of the man posterity will worship as a deity. It is the men who are up that see the rising sun, not the sluggards. It takes greatness to see greatness, and know it at the first; I mean to see greatness of the highest kind. Bulk, anybody can see; bulk of body or mind. The loftiest form of greatness is never popular in its time. Men cannot understand or receive it. Guinea negroes would think a juggler a greater man than Franklin. What would be thought of Martin Luther at Rome, of Washington at St. Petersburg, of Fenelon among the Sacs and Foxes? Herod and Pilate were popular in their day, - men of property and standing. They got nominations and honor enough. Jesus of Nazareth got no nomination, got a cross between two thieves, was crowned with thorns, and, when he died, eleven Galileans gathered together to lament their Lord. Any man can measure a walking-stick, so many hands long, and so many nails beside; but it takes a mountainintellect to measure the Andes and Altai.

But, now and then, God creates a mighty man, who greatly influences mankind. Sometimes he reaches far on

into other ages.

Such a man, if he be of the greatest, will, by and by, unite in himself the four chief forces of society, -business, politics, literature, and the church. Himself a stronger force than all of these, he will at last control the commercial, political, literary, and ecclesiastical action of mankind. But just as he is greater than other men, in the highest mood of greatness, will he at first be opposed, and hated too. The tall house in the street darkens the grocer's window opposite, and he must strike his light sooner than before. The inferior great man does not understand the man of superior modes of eminence. Sullenly the full moon at morning pales her ineffectual light before the rising day. In the Greek fable, jealous Saturn devours the new gods whom he feared, foreseeing the day when the Olympian dynasty would turn him out of heaven. To the natural man the excellence of the spiritual is only foolishness. What do you suppose the best educated Pharisees in Jerusalem thought of Jesus? They thought him an infidel: "He blasphemeth." They called him crazy: "he hath a devil." They mocked at the daily beauty of his holiness: he had "broken the sabbath." They reviled at his philanthropy: it was "eating with publicans and sinners."

Human nature loves to reverence great men, and often honors many a little one under the mistake that he is great. See how nations honor the greatest great men, — Moses, Zoroaster, Socrates, Jesus-that loftiest of men! But by how many false men have we been deceived,- men whose light leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind! If a preacher is a thousand years before you and me, we cannot understand him. If only a hundred years of thought shall separate us, there is a great gulf between the two, whereover neither Dives nor Abraham, nor yet Moses himself, can pass. It is a false great man often who gets possession of the pulpit, with his lesson for to-day, which is no lesson; and a false great man who gets a throne, with his lesson for to-day,

which is also no lesson. Men great in little things are sure

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of their pay. It is all ready, subject to their order. A little man is often mistaken for a great one. session of office, of accidental renown, of imposing qualities, of brilliant eloquence, often dazzles the beholder; and he reverences a show.

How much a great man of the highest kind can do for us, and how easy! It is not harder for a cloud to thunder, than for a chestnut in a farmer's fire to snap. Dull Mr. Jingle urges along his restive, hardmouthed donkey, besmouched with mire, and wealed with many a stripe, amid the laughter of the boys; while, by his proper motion, swan-like Milton flies before the faces of mankind, which are new lit with admiration at the poet's rising flight, his garlands and singing robes about him, till the aspiring glory transcends the sight, yet leaves its track of beauty trailed across the sky.

Intellect and conscience are conversant with ideas, with absolute truth and absolute right, as the norm of conduct. But, with most men, the affections are developed in advance of the intellect and the conscience; and the affections want a person. In his actions, a man of great intellect embodies a principle, good or bad; and, by the affections, men accept the great intellectual man, bad or good, and with him the principle he has got.

As the affections are so large in us, how delightful is it for us to see a great man, honor him, love him, reverence him, trust him! Crowds of men come to look upon a hero's face, who are all careless of his actions and heedless of his thought; they know not his what, nor his whence, nor his whither; his person passes for reason, justice, and religion. They say that women have the most of this affection, and so are most attachable, most swayed by persons, least by ideas. Woman's mind and conscience, and her soul, they say, are easily crushed into her all-embracing heart; and truth, justice, and holiness are trodden under foot by her

affection, rushing towards its object. "What folly!" say men. But, when a man of large intellect comes, he is wont to make women of us all, and take us by the heart. Each great intellectual man, if let alone, will have an influence in proportion to his strength of mind and will,—the good great man, the bad great man; for as each particle of matter has an attractive force, which affects all other matter, so each particle of mind has an attractive force, which draws all other mind.

How pleasant it is to love and reverence! To idle men how much more delightful is it than to criticize a man, take him to pieces, weighing each part, and considering every service done or promised, and then decide! Men are continually led astray by misplaced reverence. Shall we be governed by the mere instinct of veneration, uncovering to every man who demands our obeisance? Man is to rule himself, and not be over-mastered by any instinct subordinating the whole to a special part. We ought to know if what we follow be real greatness or seeming greatness; and of the real greatness, of what kind it is, eminent cunning, eminent intellect, or eminence of religion. For men ought not to gravitate passively, drawn by the bulk of bigness, but consciously and freely to follow eminent wisdom, justice, love, and faith in God. Hence it becomes exceedingly important to study the character of all eminent men; for they represent great social forces for good or ill.

But

It is true, great men ought to be tried by their peers. "a cat may look upon a king," and, if she is to enter his service, will do well to look before she leaps. It is dastardly in a democrat to take a master with less scrutiny than he would buy an ox.

Merchants watch the markets: they know what ship brings corn, what hemp, what coal; how much cotton there is at New York or New Orleans; how much gold in the banks. They learn these things, because they live by the

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market, and seek to get money by their trade. Politicians watch the turn of the people and the coming vote, because they live by the ballot-box, and wish to get honor and office by their skill. So a minister, who would guide men to wisdom, justice, love, and piety, to human welfare, he must watch the great men, and know what quantity of truth, of justice, of love, and of faith there is in Calhoun, Webster, Clay; because he is to live by the word of God, and only asks, "Thy kingdom come!"

What a great power is a man of large intellect! Aristotle rode on the neck of science for two thousand years, till Bacon, charging down from the vantage-ground of twenty centuries, with giant spear unhorsed the Stagyrite, and mounted there himself; himself in turn to be unhorsed. What a profound influence had Frederick in Germany for half a century! Napoleon in Europe for the last fifty years! What an influence Sir Robert Peel and Wellington have had in England for the last twenty or thirty years! Jefferson yet leads the democracy of the United States; the dead hand of Hamilton still consolidates the several States. Dead men of great intellect speak from the pulpit. Law is of mortmain. In America it is above all things necessary to study the men of eminent mind, even the men of eminent station; for their power is greater here than elsewhere in Christendom. Money is our only material, greatness our only personal nobility. In England, the influence of powerful men is checked by the great families, the great classes, with their ancestral privileges consolidated into institutions, and the hereditary crown. Here we have no such families; historical men are not from or for such, seldom had historic fathers, seldom leave historic sons. Tempus ferax hominum, edax hominum. Fruitful of men is time; voracious also of men.

Even while the individual family continues rich, political unity does not remain in its members, if numerous, more than a single generation. Nay, it is only in families of remarkable stupidity that it lasts a single age.