and heard the tramp of marching men. At last
the wounded hero realized that these were his own troops, marching by
in ignorance of the fact that the lord of this castle was also the
jailer of their general. While the knight tugged at his chain, lifted
up his voice and cried aloud, his troops marched on, their music
drowning out his cries. Soon the banners passed from sight, the last
straggler disappeared behind the hill and the captive was left alone.
The brave knight died in his dungeon, but the story of his heroism
lived. What the knight learned in suffering the poets have taught in
song. The captive hero has a permanent place in civilization, though
the foresight of his influence was denied him.

Those whose harvest is delayed are a great company. Elizabeth Barrett
Browning exclaiming, "I have not used half the powers God has given
me," poets dying ere the day was half done; the inventors and reformers
denied their ideals; obscure and humble workmen--the mechanic who
emancipates man by his machine; the artisan whose conveniences are
endless benefactions to our homes; the smith whose honest anchor holds
the ship in time of storm--all these labored and died without seeing
the fruitage, but other men entered into their labors.

To parents who have passed through all the thunder of life's battle and
stand at the close of life's day discouraged because children are
unripe, thoughtless and immature; to publicists and teachers, sowing
God's precious seed, but denied its harvests; to individuals seeking to
perfect their character within themselves comes this thought--that
character is a harvest so rich as to ask for long waiting and the
courage of far-off results. Nature can perfect physical processes in
twenty years, but long time is asked for teaching the arm skill, the
tongue its grace of speech, to clothe reason with sweetness and light,
to cast error out of the judgment, to teach the will hardness and the
heart hope and endurance.

Four hundred years passed by before the capstone was placed upon the
Cathedral of Cologne, but no trouble requires such patient toil as the
structure of manhood. For complexity and beauty nothing is comparable
to character. Great artists spend years upon a single picture. With a
touch here and a touch there they approach it, and when a long period
hath passed they bring it to completion. Yet all the beauty of
paintings, all the grace of statues, all the grandeur of cathedrals are