The Golden Censer Part 12

EXAMPLES.

Lives of great men all remind us We may make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us, Footprints on the sands of time.--Longfellow.

It is hard to follow in the tracks of giants, but nevertheless the sands of our time are filled with that kind of footprints. The present century has beholden some of the most astonishing elevations of all history. Slaves have become Roman Emperors, but we hardly know what "slave" meant in those days. Within the last hundred years we see a poor old dame with three sons called Joseph, Napoleon and Jerome. We see a cooper's son called Michel Ney, an inn-keeper's son called Joaquin Murat, a lawyer's son named Jean Bernadotte, a military cadet named Louis Davout, and a lame boy called Charles Talleyrand. Behold them mounting the ladder until, at the end of thirty years, the roster stands thus. Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain; Napoleon Bonaparte, greatest warrior of modern times and Emperor of France, which meant dictator of Europe; Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia; Michel Ney, Prince of the Moskwa and Bravest of the Brave; Joaquin Murat, King of Naples; Jean Bernadotte, King of Sweden, and founder of the present dynasty; Louis Davout, Prince of Eckmuhl, and, in 1811,

COMMANDER OF NEARLY 600,000 MEN;

Charles Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, and perhaps the greatest diplomat in history. We have Ben Franklin learning to ink type in his youth and in his maturity teaching the world how to subdue our favorite slave, the lightning. We have Daniel Webster ploughing on a farm and afterward delighting two worlds with the magic of his voice. We see John Jacob Astor arrive in America scarcely able to speak English, and die in 1848 worth more than any other man in America at that time. We see George Peabody at work in a grocery at Danvers. Years afterward, as a London banker, we chronicle his charities, almost fabulous in their extent: To Danvers, Ma.s.s., two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; to the Baltimore Inst.i.tute, one million four hundred thousand dollars; to the poor of London, two million five hundred thousand dollars; to the southern negroes, three million five hundred thousand dollars; to eight inst.i.tutions, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars; to his relatives, five million dollars; We see A.T. Stewart hard pressed for a dollar, and we find him worth thirty millions when he dies. We watch

THE WIFE OF ANDREW JOHNSON

teaching him the alphabet, and we listen to his proclamations as President of the United States. We tell Abraham Lincoln where he can borrow a book that will benefit him, and we pa.s.s by his great dust in numbers almost like the stars in heaven. We see Phineas T. Barnum first humbugging the people with a lemonade-stand worth all told two dollars, and we next see him humbugging the people with the greatest show on earth, worth a million. We lend Leland Stanford a quarter and he next buys up three or four high-priced legislatures and defies the Const.i.tution of the United States to prevent him levying a tax on "his people" of a million dollars with a stroke of his pen. We see

ULYSSES S. GRANT

working by the day in a tanyard, and then receiving the sword of a warrior whose name will also echo far out into the "corridors of time,"

and then again accepting as the representative of America, the pent-up admiration of the Old World for the New. We see Jay Gould investing a thousand dollars in a country store and then in turn dictating to all the railroads and controlling all the telegraphs in the greatest empire that has ever existed. We watch Cornelius Vanderbilt, Sr., begin as a poor lad, save, build, command, and die, leaving to his favorite son

EIGHTY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!

We see that son, beginning on that paltry patrimony, already the possessor, in a few short years, of seventy millions in addition. We help Elihu Burritt to say his letters at noon-time in a blacksmith shop, and afterward, lo! he converses in thirty languages. We see Edgar Poe, dying as poor as man ever died, yet leaving to the world a name as a writer that Europeans persist is as yet the brightest in American literature. See Horace Greeley, trudging across a State, anxious to get a job for his board and clothes; then listen to his voice in the councils of the President and in the hearts of the people. Remember Salmon P. Chase, a poor Ohio boy, Governor, Secretary of the Treasury, author of the best currency system so far conceived, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

JAMES A. GARFIELD

is now at work driving a ca.n.a.l-boat, now Republican leader of the House, now Senator, now President, and now the object of a weeping world's affection. See the poor boy Sherman, born in Lancaster, O. A short s.p.a.ce flies past us, and he has cut his own communications and marched with his army into the enemy's country. The London _Times_ says if he emerges from the unknown country with his army, he will be "the greatest captain of modern times." Soon his banners float on the coast, soon the cities are blazing behind his fearful stride, and soon the cruel war is over.

We behold the third son of a very large family of

TENNYSONS

begin writing verses. He writes trash at first, but by and by he is proclaimed the greatest living poet, and his art of writing (all that part of his work which was difficult) is p.r.o.nounced the greatest the world has ever seen. We see the boy Lee, studying hard to sustain the ill.u.s.trious name he bore, advancing in science to the great study of astronomy, becoming the intellectual credit of his surroundings, the tutor of the scholarly. We behold him clasping the sword put in his hands by the greatest unsuccessful insurrection of all past time, and, seated on his horse, smiling at the awful repulse of

PICKETT'S IMMORTAL CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG,

saying, simply: "We cannot always expect to have our own way in an attack," when down in his great heart he knows that the proudest people ever defeated have cast the final die, and lost. We stand over his ashes and feel that they are the ashes of a truly great man whom "unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster." We see James Gordon Bennett, the jibe of all the printers because of his crooked eyes. Yet he dies the owner of the greatest money-making newspaper of all newspaper history, a journal which sends expeditions to Africa and squadrons to the north pole. We see a "canny" Scotch boy at study. He "takes wonderfully to German," and soon the English world is hailing him as the "literary Columbus." He has shown them the greatness of Frederick, of Schiller, and Goethe. He writes a history of the French Revolution, and calls it the "truth clad in h.e.l.l-fire." He reads a library in a few hours, or, rather, he reads what he has not read--and finally he lies down, hating the world, hating freedom, but full of genius, and men say "Carlyle is dead."

A BOY CALLED VICTOR HUGO

is born in France. At thirty he is famous. Then for fifty years he wields an influence through the literatures of all nations second only to Shakspeare's. We see the sailor-boy Garibaldi, the commander-in-chief and savior of Uruguay in South America, the idol and king-maker of Italy, and the stern patriot without rank or gew-gaw on

THE ROCK OF CAPRI,

a joining of the characters of such men as Socrates and Washington. We see Disraeli, a poor boy and we see Disraeli more powerful than any other man on earth. We look at Gladstone as a boy starting in life, determined to be a scholar. We hear his glorious voice, we read his books, we study the laws he has framed, we watch the empire he governs, and we feel he succeeded in his boyish ambition. Everywhere--in the lives of Aga.s.siz, Humboldt, Proctor, Seward, Farragut, Nelson, Abercrombie, Joseph E. Johnston, Longstreet, Stanton, Aspinwall, Lorillard, Ayer, Helmbold, Scott, Garrett, Ralston, Garner, Watson, Howe, Singer, Steinway, McCormick, Morse, Edison, Bell, Gray, Applegarth, Hoe, Thomas, Wagner, Verdi, Jurgensen, Picard, Stephenson, Fulton, Rumsey, Fitch, Lamb, Fairbanks, Corliss, Dahlgren, Parrot, Armstrong, Gatling, Pullman, Alden, Crompton, Faber, Remington, Sharp, Colt, Daguerre, Bessemer, Goodyear, Yale, Keene, Gould, Villard,--and

IN THE LIVES OF THE THOUSANDS

which my limits exclude me from mentioning, there is the example of the hard worker, the promise of results that will follow a well-directed effort. "In order to do great things, it is necessary to live as if one was never to die"--that is, pay attention only to the object aimed at. I remember a man of success who meant to break up housekeeping and go to Europe on a matter of business. This was the first of January. The fact that the weather suddenly turned cold to the extent of thirty degrees below zero did not seem to attract his attention. He was absent-minded on that question! When it came to going out to hire an expressman to haul his effects to a storehouse he found no one would venture out with his horse until the thermometer should rise, and his astonishment knew no bounds! He had been

SO IN THE HABIT OF RIDING OVER OBSTACLES

that his distress was very noticeable when he was compelled to wait in idleness for three days. Never allow obstacles to stop you. When the waters meet an obstacle they run around it. So do the ants. Read the lives of successful men. Watch successful men. "We are less convinced by what we hear than what we see," said Herodotus thousands of years ago.

Said Seneca, nineteen hundred years ago: "Men trust rather to their eyes than to their ears; the effect of precepts, is, therefore, slow and tedious, while that of example is summary and effectual." Says Franklin: "None teaches better than the ant, and she says nothing." "Not the cry"

say the Chinese, "but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow."

"CHRIST NEVER WROTE A TRACT,"

says Horace Mann. "The people look at their pastor six days in the week," says Cecil, "to see what he means on the seventh." Says Dr.

Johnson: "Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one common pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier grounds,"

and the examples of a majority of the successful men will show this to be true. It seems to me, in conclusion, that

LIFE IS LIKE THE SYSTEM

upon which gamblers often stake their money. If they lose one, they stake two; if they lose, they stake four; if they lose, they stake eight; if they still lose, they stake sixteen; now if they win, they have, of course, won one more than they have lost altogether. The banker guards against this system by limiting their progression to a certain figure and thus breaking it down. But in the game of life we have no limit put upon our enterprises. We may redouble our efforts after every failure, and we find, upon the first success, that we have, in one stroke of prosperity, more than made ourselves whole for failures which may have extended behind us indefinitely. You cannot fail in life if you will stake an effort on each succeeding attempt twice as great as the effort which lost you your last desire.

MAN

A combination and a form, indeed, Where every G.o.d did seem to set his seal To give the world a.s.surance of a man.

His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him, that nature might stand up And say to all the world "This was a man!"--Shakspeare.

"What a piece of worke is a man? How n.o.ble in Reason? how infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and admirable? in Action how like an Angel? in apprehension how like a G.o.d? the beauty of the world, the Paragon of Animals?" This is the exalted panegyric of the greatest mind so far vouchsafed to our race--this, then, was Shakspeare's ideal of a true man. Says Emerson: "O rich and various man!

thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night, and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the city of G.o.d; in thy heart the power of love and the realms of right and wrong." "Man was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless force," says Chapin; "the world was spread out around him to be seized and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, inviting him to to tread those shining coasts along which Newton dropped his plummet, and Herschel sailed,

A COLUMBUS OF THE SKIES."

"Man," says Carlyle, "has reflected his two-fold nature in history. 'He is of earth,' but his thoughts are with the stars. Mean and petty his wants and his desires; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims, with immortal longings, with thoughts which sweep the heavens and 'wander through eternity.' A pigmy standing on the outward crust of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite, and there finds rest." Then turning to the combined effects of individual lives, the same great writer says: "History is a reflex of this double life. Every epoch has two aspects--one calm, broad and solemn--looking towards eternity; the other agitated, petty, vehement, and confused looking towards time." "Man," says Sir William Hamilton, one of the greatest of true philosophers, "is not an organism: he is an intelligence, served by organs." Says Whately: "The heavens do indeed 'declare the glory of G.o.d,' and the human body is 'fearfully and wonderfully made;' but man, considered, not merely as an organized being, but as a rational agent, and as a member of society, is perhaps the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting, specimen of divine wisdom that we have any knowledge of."

MAN'S FAULTS.