ess wrought its
miracle. Clasping hands the man and boy climbed back again to the
heights. At first the integrity was at best a poor, sickly plant. But
his friend was a refuge in time of storm. A good man became the shadow
of a great rock in life's weary land.

Our age is specially interested in the relation of happiness to the
street, the market and counting-room. We have not yet acknowledged the
responsibility of strength. Not always have our giant minds confessed
the debt of power to weakness; the debt of wisdom to ignorance; the
debt of wealth to poverty; the debt of holiness to iniquity. Jesus
Christ was the first to incarnate this principle. By so much as the
parent is wiser than the babe for building a protecting shield for
happiness and well-being, by that much is the mother indebted to her
babe. Why is one man more successful than another in the street's
fierce conflict? Because he has more resources; is prudent, thrifty,
quick to seize upon opportunity, sagacious, keen of judgment. All
these qualities are birth-gifts. The ancestral foothills slope upward
toward the mountain-minded. And what do these distinguished mental
qualities involve?

Recognizing the responsibility of men of leisure and wealth, John
Ruskin said: "Shall one by breadth and sweep of sight gather some
branch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb of which he
is himself to be the master spider, making every thread vibrate with
the points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the facets of
his eyes?" Shall the industrial or political giant say: "Here is the
power in my hand; weakness owes me a debt? Build a mound here for me
to be throned upon. Come, weave tapestries for my feet that I may
tread in silk and purple; dance before me that I may be glad, and sing
sweetly to me that I may slumber. So shall I live in joy and die in
honor." Rather than such an honorable death, it were better that the
day perish wherein such strength was born. Rather let the great mind
become also the great heart, and stretch out his scepter over the heads
of the common people that stoop to its waving. "Let me help you subdue
the obstacle that baffled our fathers, and put away the plagues that
consume our children. Let us together water these dry places; plow
these desert moons; carry this food to those who are in hunger; carry
this light to those who are in darkness; carry this life to those who
are in death."

Superiori