.
Experience has taught me that one human life has its limits of direct
impetus, but that its most lasting value is its indirect influence.
The greatest Life ever lived was no smaller for being in a carpenter's
shop, and largely spent among a few ignorant fishermen. The Scarabee
had a valid _apologia pro vita sua_ in spite of Dr. Holmes. Tolstoy on
his farm, Milton without his sight, Bunyan in his prison, Pasteur in
his laboratory, all did great things for the world.

There is so much that is manly about the lives of those who follow the
sea, so much less artificiality than in many other callings, and with
our fishermen so many fewer of what we call loosely "chances in life,"
that to sympathize with them was easy--and sympathy is a long step
toward love. Life at sea also gives time and opportunity for really
knowing a man. It breaks down conventional barriers, and indeed almost
compels fellowship and thus an intelligent understanding of the
difficulties and tragedies of the soul of our neighbour. That rare
faculty of imagination which is the inspiration of all great lovers of
men is not alone indispensable. Hand in hand with this inevitably goes
the vision of one's own opportunity to help and not to hinder others,
even though it be through the unattractive medium of the collection
box--for that gives satisfaction only in proportion to the sacrifice
which we make.

In plain words the field of work offered me was attractive. It seemed
to promise me the most remunerative returns for my abilities, or, to
put it in another way, it aroused my ambitions sufficiently to make me
believe that my special capacities and training could be used to make
new men as well as new bodies. Any idea of sacrifice was balanced by
the fact that I never cared very much for the frills of life so long
as the necessities were forthcoming.

The attention that Harold Begbie's book "Twice-Born Men" received, was
to me later in life a source of surprise. One forgets that the various
religions and sects which aimed at the healing of men's souls have
concerned themselves more with intellectual creeds than material,
Christ-like ends. At first it was not so. Paul rejoiced that he was a
new man. There can be no question but that the Gospels show us truly
that the change in Christ's first followers was from men, the slaves
of every ordinary human passion, into men who were self-mastered--that
Christ taught by what he was and did rather than by insistence