red by his
obedience. This, too, is a universal law, true of the life of
every reformer, who, having had revealed to him a vision of the
great truth, has in obedience to that vision carried it to
humanity. Though at first he holds the truth to himself, and
longs to be lifted up by its power, he soon learns that there is
a giving forth of that which one possesses which enriches the
giver, and that the more he gives of his vision to men the richer
it becomes, the brighter it grows, until it illuminates all his
pathway....

Yet Paul's life was not an idle dream; it was a constant struggle
against the very people whom he tried to save; his greatest foes
were those to whom he was sent. He had learned the lesson all
reformers must sooner or later learn, that the world never
welcomes its deliverers save with the dungeon, the fagot or the
cross. No man or woman has ever sought to lead his fellows to a
higher and better mode of life without learning the power of the
world's ingratitude; and though at times popularity may follow in
the wake of a reformer, yet the reformer knows popularity is not
love. The world will support you when you have compelled it to do
so by manifestations of power, but it will shrink from you as
soon as power and greatness are no longer on your side. This is
the penalty paid by good people who sacrifice themselves for
others. They must live without sympathy; their feelings will be
misunderstood; their efforts will be uncomprehended. Like Paul,
they will be betrayed by friends; like Christ in the agony of
Gethsemane, they must bear their struggle alone.

Our reverence for the reformers of the past is posterity's
judgment of them. But to them, what is that now? They have passed
into the shadows where neither our voice of praise or of blame
disturbs their repose.

This is the hardest lesson the reformer has to learn. When, with
soul aglow with the light of a great truth, she, in obedience to
the vision, turns to take it to the needy one, instead of finding
a world ready to rise up and receive her, she finds it wrapped in
the swaddling clothes of error, eagerly seeking to win others to
its conditions of slavery. She longs to make humanity free; she
listens to their conflicting creeds, and yearns to save them from
the