ow that there is no separation of rich industrious
classes and the poor industrious classes, for they differ only as do
two branches of one tree. This year one bough is full of bloom, and
the other bears only scantily, but next year the conditions will be
reversed. Wealth and poverty are like waves; what is now crest will
soon be trough. Such conditions demand forbearance and mutual
sympathy. Some men are born with little and some with large skill for
acquiring wealth, the two differing as the scythe that gathers a
handful of wheat differs from the reaper built for vast harvests and
carrying the sickle of success. For generations the ancestors back of
one man's father were thrifty and the ancestors back of his mother were
far-sighted, and the two columns met in him, and like two armies joined
forces for a vast campaign for wealth. Beside him is a brother, whose
thoughts and dreams go everywhither with the freedom of an eagle, but
who walks midst practical things with the eagle's halting gait. The
strong one was born, not for spoiling his weaker brother, but to guard
and guide and plan for him.

This is the lesson of nature--the strong must bear the burdens of the
weak. To this end were great men born. Nature constantly exhibits
this principle. The shell of the peach shelters the inner seed; the
outer petals of the bud the tender germ; the breast of the mother-bird
protects the helpless birdlets; the eagle flies under her young and
gently eases them to the ground; above the babe's helplessness rise the
parents' shield and armor. God appoints strong men, the industrial
giants, to protect the weak and poor. The laws of helpfulness ask them
to forswear a part of their industrial rights; and they fulfill their
destiny only by fulfilling the debt of strength to weakness.

To identify one's self with those in bonds is the very core of the
Christian life. Not an intellectual belief within, not a form of
worship without, but sympathetic helpfulness betokens the true
Christian. God, who hath endowed the soul with capacity to endure all
labors and pains for wealth, to consume away the very springs of life
for knowledge, hath also given it power for pouring itself out in great
resistless tides of love and sympathy. For beauty and royal majesty
nothing else is comparable to the love of some royal nature. A loving
heart exhales sweet odors like an alabaster box; it pours forth joy
like a sweet harp; it flashes beauty