for the
past cannot become the source of great and far reaching action. The
present alone gives opportunity; and the face of hope turns to the
future, and the wise are busy with what lies at hand, with immediate
duty, and not with schemes for bringing back the things that have passed
away. Leaving their dead with the dead, they work for life and for the
living.

As in each individual there is a better and a worse self, so in each age
there are conflicting tendencies; but it is the part of enlightened
minds and generous hearts to see what is true, and to love what is good.
The fault-finder is hateful both in life and in literature; and it is
Iago, the most despicable of characters, whom Shakespeare makes say, "I
am nothing if not critical." A Christian of all men is without excuse
for being fretful and sour, for thinking and acting as though this were
a devil's world, and not the eternal God's, as though there were danger
lest the Almighty should not prevail. We know that God is, and therefore
that all will be well; and if it were conceivable that God is not, it
would still be the part of a true man to labor to make knowledge and
virtue prevail. The criticism of the age which gives a better
understanding of its needs is good; all other is baneful.

Opinion rules the world, and a right appreciation of the influences by
which opinion is molded is the surest guide to a knowledge of the time.
In ignorant and barbarous ages the notions and beliefs of men are crude,
and are controlled by a few, for only a few possess knowledge and
influence; and even in the age of Pericles and Augustus, the thought of
mankind means the thoughts of some dozens of men. A few vigorous minds
founded schools of opinion and style, became intellectual dictators, and
asserted their authority for centuries. As the art of printing was yet
unknown, and books were rare, the teacher was the speaker; orators held
sway over the destiny of nations; and the Christian pulpit became the
world's university. But the printing-press in giving to thought a
permanent form which is placed under the eyes of the whole world has
made the passion, the splendor, the majestic phrase of oratory seem
unreal as an actor's speech, evanescent as a singer's tones; and hence
the pulpit and the rostrum, though they still have influence, can never
again exercise the control over opinion which belonged to them when all
men had not become readers.

What is true of eloquence may be