n who in any way help to heal this open sore of the world!"
Chiefly, there is Christ, who, from the hour when the star stayed by
His manger in Bethlehem, and the light ne'er seen on land or sea shone
on the luminous and transfigured mount, on to the day of His uplifted
cross, ever followed the divine vision that brought Him at last to
Olivet, to the open sky, the ascending cloud, the welcoming heavens.

But God, who hath appointed visions unto great men, doth set each
lesser human life between its dream and its task. Deep heart-hungers
are quickened within the people, and then some patriot, reformer, or
hero, is raised up to feed the aspiration. Afterward history stores up
these noble achievements of yesterday as soul food for to day. The
heart, like the body, needs nourishment, and finds it in the highest
deeds and best qualities of those who have gone before. Thus the
artist pupil is fed by his great master. The young soldier emulates
his brave general. The patriot is inspired by his heroic chief.
History records the deeds of noble men, not for decorating her pages,
but for strengthening the generations that come after. The measure of
a nation's civilization is the number of heroes it has had, whose
qualities have been harvested for children and youth.

Full oft one hero has transformed a people. The blind bard singing
through the villages of Greece met a rude and simple folk. But Homer
opened up a gallery in the clouds, and there unveiled Achilles as the
ideal Greek. It became the ambition of every Athenian boy to fix the
Iliad in his mind and repeat Achilles in his heart and life. Soon the
Achilles in the sky looked down upon 20,000 young Achilles walking
through the streets beneath. With what admiration do men recall the
intellectual achievements of Athens! What temples, and what statues in
them! What orators and eloquence! What dramas! What lyric poems! What
philosophers! Yet one ideal man who never lived, save in a poet's
vision, turned rude tribes into intellectual giants. Thus each nation
hungers for heroes. When it has none God sends poets to invent them as
soul food for the nation's youth. The best gift to a people is not
vineyards nor overflowing granaries, nor thronged harbors, nor rich
fleets, but a good man and great, whose example and influence repeat
greatness in all the people. As the planet hanging above our earth
lifts the sea in tidal waves, so God hangs illustrious men in the sky
for raining down