t moment of time
what will last through eternity.'

. . . This great message Knox did deliver, with a man's voice and
strength, and found a people to believe him. Of such an achievement,
were it to be made once only, the results are immense. Thought, in
such a country, may change its form, but cannot go out; the country
has attained _majority_; thought, and a certain spiritual manhood,
ready for all work that man can do, endures there. The Scotch
national, character originated in many circumstances; first of all,
in the Saxon stuff there was to work on; but next, and beyond all
else except that, in the Presbyterian Gospel of John Knox."

Washington left behind him, as one of the greatest treasures of his
country, the example of a stainless life--of a great, honest, pure,
and noble character--a model for his nation to form themselves by in
all time to come. And in the case of Washington, as in so many other
great leaders of men, his greatness did not so much consist in his
intellect, his skill and his genius, as in his honor, his integrity,
his truthfulness, his high and controlling sense of duty--in a word,
in his genuine nobility of character.

Men such as these are the true life-blood of the country to which
they belong. They elevate and uphold it, fortify and ennoble it, and
shed a glory over it by the example of life and character which they
have bequeathed. "The names and memories of great men," says an able
writer, "are the dowry of a nation. Widowhood, overthrow, desertion,
even slavery cannot take away from her this sacred inheritance . . .
Whenever national life begins to quicken . . . the dead heroes rise
in the memories of men, and appear to the living to stand by in
solemn spectatorship and approval. No country can be lost which
feels herself overlooked by such glorious witnesses. They are the
salt of the earth, in death as well as in life. What they did once,
their descendants have still and always a right to do after them;
and their example lives in their country, a continual stimulant and
encouragement for him who has the soul to adopt it."

It would be well for every young man, eager for success and anxious
to form a character that will achieve it, to commit to memory the
advice of Bishop Middleton:

Persevere against discouragements. Keep your temper. Employ leisure
in study, and always have some work in hand. Be punctual and
methodical in business, and never procrastinate. Never be in a
hurry. P