ave to future times. Johnson, Burns, Rousseau, three great
figures from a prior time, from a far inferior state of circumstances,
will suit us better here. Three men of the Eighteenth Century; the
conditions of their life far more resemble what those of ours still are
in England, than what Goethe's in Germany were. Alas, these men did not
conquer like him; they fought bravely, and fell. They were not heroic
bringers of the light, but heroic seekers of it. They lived under
galling conditions; struggling as under mountains of impediment, and
could not unfold themselves into clearness, or victorious interpretation
of that "Divine Idea." It is rather the _Tombs_ of three Literary Heroes
that I have to show you. There are the monumental heaps, under which
three spiritual giants lie buried. Very mournful, but also great and
full of interest for us. We will linger by them for a while.

Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the
disorganized condition of society: how ill many forces of society fulfil
their work; how many powerful are seen working in a wasteful, chaotic,
altogether unarranged manner. It is too just a complaint, as we all
know. But perhaps if we look at this of Books and the Writers of
Books, we shall find here, as it were, the summary of all other
disorganizations;--a sort of _heart_, from which, and to which all other
confusion circulates in the world! Considering what Book writers do in
the world, and what the world does with Book writers, I should say, It
is the most anomalous thing the world at present has to show.--We should
get into a sea far beyond sounding, did we attempt to give account of
this: but we must glance at it for the sake of our subject. The worst
element in the life of these three Literary Heroes was, that they found
their business and position such a chaos. On the beaten road there is
tolerable travelling; but it is sore work, and many have to perish,
fashioning a path through the impassable!

Our pious Fathers, feeling well what importance lay in the speaking of
man to men, founded churches, made endowments, regulations; everywhere
in the civilized world there is a Pulpit, environed with all manner of
complex dignified appurtenances and furtherances, that therefrom a man
with the tongue may, to best advantage, address his fellow-men. They
felt that this was the most important thing; that without this there was
no good thing. It is a right pious work, that of theirs; bea