whose hardened and uplifted strata future
ages may dig out the relics of so much that has been dear and precious
to us; we fail to notice how every running stream, from the tiniest
mountain rill to muddy Po and fertilizing Nile, is perpetually at work
to carry down the hills into the plains, and to change the world's
familiar face. But so it is, and so, we have some right to conclude, it
has been always. God's chosen ways of working in the physical world are
not wholly of the sudden and violent sort. Storm and earthquake and
flood have undoubtedly played their part; but not more than--perhaps
hardly as much as--the perpetually dropping rain, the wind that seems to
blow as it listeth, the tides that come and go and no man heeds them,
the sun that shines upon barren rock and fertile meadow with serene
impartiality of blessing. God seems to work, by preference, slowly and
in silence. To Him a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is
past, and the dial on which His operations are recorded takes no note of
human thoughts and expectations.

The same is true, I think, in the moral world. It is indeed difficult to
over-estimate the force of a great soul; though it is needful to remark
that not all great souls work in the full light of publicity and have
their path marked by revolution, and equally needful to remember that
not all dislocating and disturbing spirits put forth any true claim to
greatness. We are far too apt to confound the occasions with the causes
of any great change, and to forget that if fire do indeed come out of a
noble heart, it can only kindle other hearts that are already prepared
to burn. Many souls were hot with Luther's indignation, before he
burned the Bull in the market-place of Wittenberg; many spirits had
inwardly rebelled against the deadness of the age, before Wesley told
the Gospel tale to the colliers of Kingswood. One indeed speaks what the
many feel; to him has been given a clearer insight, a diviner ardour, a
more articulate speech; but his word is with power because of the dumb
aspirations stirring in many breasts, and an universal emotion which has
not yet found fit expression. And this is even more the case with regard
to moral operations of a quieter and less signal, though hardly less
important kind; forces which do not so much suddenly change the world,
as keep it (in some poor and imperfect way) sweet and pure, and perhaps,
in the course of ages, urge it a little nearer the throne