rnational industry of
comparing life. We read to look up references in our own souls. The
immortality of Homer and the circulation of the _Ladies' Home Journal_
both conform to this fact, and it is equally the secret of the last page
of _Harper's Bazar_ and of Hamlet and of the grave and monthly lunge of
_The Forum_ at passing events. The difference of appeal may be as wide
as the east and the west, but the east and the west are in human nature
and not in the nature of the appeal. The larger selves look themselves
up in the greater writers and the smaller selves spell themselves out in
the smaller ones. It is here we all behold as in some vast reflection or
mirage of the reading world our own souls crowding and jostling, little
and great, against the walls of their years, seeking to be let out, to
look out, to look over, to look up--that they may find their possible
selves.

When men are allowed to follow what might be called the forces of nature
in the reading world they are seen to read:

1st. About themselves.

2nd. About people they know.

3rd. About people they want to know.

4th. God.

Next to their interest in persons is their interest in things:

1st. Things that they have themselves.

2nd. Things that people they know, have.

3rd. Things they want to have.

4th. Things they ought to want to have.

5th. Other things.

6th. The universe--things God has.

7th. God.

A scale like this may not be very complimentary to human nature. Some
of us feel that it is appropriate and possibly a little religious to
think that it is not. But the scale is here. It is mere
psychological-matter-of-fact. It is the way things are made, and while
it may not be quite complimentary to human nature, it seems to be more
complimentary to God to believe, in spite of appearances, that this
scale from I to God is made right and should be used as it stands. It
seems to have been in general use among our more considerable men in the
world and among all our great men and among all who have made others
great. They do not seem to have been ashamed of it. They have climbed up
frankly on it--most of them, in full sight of all men--from I to God.
They have claimed that everybody (including themselves) was identified
with God, and they have made people believe it. It is the few in every
generation who have dared to believe in this scale, and who have used
it, who have been the leaders of