f the humble
home labor and love will some day build. Many in middle life, when it
is too late, find themselves in the wrong occupation, but maintain
their usefulness and happiness by surrounding themselves with the
thoughts of the career they love and beyond may yet fulfill. How does
imagination enterprise everywhither! By it what ships are built, what
lands are explored, what armies are led, what thrones are erected in
thought! When the seed sprang up in the prison cell, the scholar
confined there enlarged the little plant until in his mind it became a
vast forest, where all flowers bloomed and spiced shrubs grew and
birds sang, and where brooks gurgled such music as never fell on
mortal ear. Innumerable men endure by seeing things invisible. They
retire from the vexations and disappointments without to their
hidden-vision life. Their inner thoughts contrast strangely with the
outer fact and life. During the Middle Ages, when persecution broke
out against the Jews, these merchants were oppressed and robbed, and
saved themselves from destruction only by living a squalid life
outside and a princely life in hidden quarters. It has been said: "You
might follow an old merchant, spotted and stained with all the squalor
of beggary upon him, through byways foul to the feet and offensive to
every sense, and through some narrow lane enter what looks like the
entrance of an ill-kept stable. Thence opens out a squalid hall of
noisome odors. But ascending the steps you come to a secret passage,
when, opening the door, you are blinded with the brilliancy that
bursts upon you. You are in the palace of a prince. The walls are
covered with adornments. Rare tapestries hang upon the walls. The
dishes that bespread the table are of silver and gold, and the
household, who hasten to receive the parent and strip off his outward
disguise, are themselves arrayed like king's children." Thus the
ideals make a great difference between the man without and the hidden
life within. Seeing unseen things, the heart sings while the hand
works. The vision above lifts the life out of fatigue into the realm
of joy and restfulness.

It is also the office of these divine ideals to rebuke the lower
physical life, and smite each sordid, selfish purpose. The vision hour
is the natural enemy of the vulgar mood. Men begin life with the high
purpose of living nobly, generously, openly. Full of the choicest
aspirations, hungering for the highest things, the youth