nd think how vain and inglorious is the life I lead. Nor am I the
only one that weeps like a child and despairs of himself. Many
others are affected in the same way."

These men are the real kings. Their power for good, and sometimes
for evil, is inestimable. And the great advantage of social life, as
a means of conforming to environment, is the medium which it
furnishes to conduct the power of such men. Man's last effort toward
conformity to environment, the struggle for existence in its last
most real form, is the life and death grapple between good and evil.
For here good and evil, righteousness and sin, come face to face in
spiritual form; "we wrestle not with flesh and blood." Life is more
than a game of chess or whist; it is a great battle; every man must,
and does, take sides; he must fight or die. And the real kings of
society are, as a rule, on the side of truth, and aid its triumph.
For one essential condition of such leadership is the power to
inspire confidence in the love of the king for his willing subject.
A suspicion of selfish aims in the leader breaks this bond. The hero
must be self-forgetful. This is one reason for man's hero-worship,
and the magnetic, dominant power of the hero. But evil is
essentially selfish and can gain and hold this kingship only as long
as it can deceive. And these kings "live forever." Dynasties and
empires disappear, but Socrates and Plato, Luther and Huss, Cromwell
and Lincoln, rule an ever-widening kingdom of ever more loyal
subjects.

And society will have leaders; men may set up whatever form of
government they will, they are always searching for a king. And this
is no sign of weakness or credulity. Man's desire for leadership is
only another proof of the vast future which he knows is before him,
and into which he longs to be guided. The wiser a man is, the more
he desires to be taught; the nobler he becomes, the more
whole-souled is the homage which he pays to the noblest. Is it a
sign of weakness or ignorance in students, of adult age and ripe
manhood, to flock to some great university to hear the wisdom and
catch the inspiration of some great master? When Jackson fell Lee
exclaimed, "I have lost my right arm." Was Jackson any the less for
being the right arm to deal, as only he could, the crushing blows
planned by the great strategist?

But is not man to be independent and free? Certainly. But he gains
freedom from the petty tyranny of robber-baron or boss, and fro