Page images
PDF
EPUB

INTRODUCTION.

THE thunderstorm and the tornado produce great ethereal commotion. There is a terrific war of elements-the heavens are covered with blackness-bolts of livid lightning stream and flash across the horizon-the hoarse thunders bellowthe storm rages-and the passive earth is swept with desolation. With the fertilizing rain it is different. It descends from the calm and quiet clouds with gentle distillation, and a luxuriant vegetation rejoices after it. Yet we gaze with emotions of grandeur and sublimity on the one; and are but little impressed with the dull quiet of the other. So it is with the men who have lived, and acted, and gone to their last resting-place. One class filled the earth with excitement and terror. Their course could have been traced by the stormy commotions around them, and could be readily followed by the cheerless and melancholy desolations after them.

To the eye of the common observer there are the scenes of exciting violence, and the success of brilliant achievements; but on closer investigation, there lie behind these conquests, the destruction of unnumbered ties of kindred and affection, and the desolation of hopes and prospects never estimated. Those of the other class are too quiet to excite much attention, yet their influence is on the side of peace, virtue and happiness. Like the course of the fertilizing shower, their way is strewed with benefactions to the race. The Alexanders, Cæsars and Napoleons employ many pens-fill many volumes, and these give deep interest to millions; while the Luthers, Melancthons, Howards, Judsons and Spensers, the real benefactors of the world, furnish but tame materials for the biographer and the historian.

To this there is an occasional exception. When a moral hero, in fighting the battles of the Lord for truth and righteousness, meets bloody opposition; when persecution lights her fires and brings forth her racks and tortures; and when, in the strength of faith, he triumphs or dies in the contest, then his life assumes poetic interest.

It is also true that men of violence and blood, are rapidly loosing their hold on human admiration. A Havelock must be robed in the white folds of Christianity, as viewed from one standpoint, to get general admiration for his character; while his very profession was that of one well qualified to inflict evil, spread desolation and destroy human life. The very incongruity, like that of another distinguished commander, who required a city under martial law, to observe the forenoon of the Lord's day, shows progress. Most of the world's heroes were prodigies of brutality and crime. Others possessed native and inherent nobleness, which would have made them blessings to their age and ornaments to the human race, had their energies by a proper education been turned in the right direction. Great minds must have some object on which to concentrate their energies, and if one worthy of their powers be not presented or sought, one of evil will necessarily be found and embraced. Had Alexander or Bonaparte lived in different ages, or been educated so as to see and appreciate real greatness, they had stood as high among the world's benefactors as they do amid its scourges; while Paul without his piety might have run the career of Alexander, and wept for another world to conquer.

But the world is changing, all boys are not now encouraged and educated to first glow over the siege of Troy-the conquests of Alexander, or the campaigns of Napoleon. Some get their first and generally lasting views of the true ends of life from the benevolence of a Howard, the piety of a Payson, the self-sacrifice of a Henry Martyn or the consecration of a Judson, a Moffat, a Livingston or a George Thompson. To multiply such characters, we need the numerous biographies

« PreviousContinue »