It will be easy now to distinguish between those who are merely memorable in the world's annals and those. who are truly great. If we pass in review the historic names to whom flattery or a false appreciation of character has expressly awarded this title, we shall find its grievous inaptitude. Alexander, drunk with victory and with wine, whose remains, after death at the early age of thirty-two, were borne on a golden car through conquered Asia, was not truly great. Cæsar, the ravager of distant lands, and the trampler upon the liberties of his own country, with an unsurpassed combination of intelligence and power, was not truly great. Louis the Fourteenth of France, the magnificent spendthrift monarch, prodigal of treasure and of blood, and panting for renown, was not truly great. Peter of Russia, the organizer of the material prosperity of his country, the murderer of his own son, despotic, inexorable, unnatural, vulgar, was not truly great. Frederic of Prussia, the heartless and consummate general, skilled in the barbarous art of war, who played the game of robbery with "human lives for dice," was not truly great. Surely, there is no Christian grandeur in their careers. None of the Beatitudes showered upon them a blessed influence. They were not poor in spirit, or meek, or merciful, or pure in heart. They did not hunger and thirst after Justice. They were not peacemakers. They did not suffer persecution for Justice's sake.

It is men like these, that the good Abbé St. Pierre, of France, in works that deserve well of mankind, has termed Illustrious, in contradistinction to Great. Their influence has been extensive, their power mighty, their

names famous; but they were grovelling, selfish, and inhuman in their aims, with little of love to God and less to man.

There is another and a higher company, who thought little of praise or power, but whose lives shine before men with those good works which truly glorify their authors. There is Milton, poor and blind, but "bating not a jot of heart or hope;" in an age of ignorance, the friend of education; in an age of servility and vice, the pure and uncontaminated friend of freedom; tuning his harp to those magnificent melodies which angels might stoop to hear; and confessing his supreme duties to Humanity in words of simplicity and power. "I am long since persuaded," was his declaration,* "that to say or do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect should sooner move us than love of God and mankind." There is St. Vincent de Paul, of France, once in captivity in Algiers. Obtaining his freedom by a happy escape, this fugitive slave devoted himself with divine success to labors of Christian benevolence, to the establishment of hospitals, to visiting those in prison, to the spread of amity and peace. Unknown, he repaired to the galleys at Marseilles, and, touched by the story of a poor convict, personally assumed his heavy chains, that he might be excused to Ivisit his wife and children. And when France was bleeding with war, this philanthropist appears in a different scene. Presenting himself to her powerful minister, the Cardinal Richelieu, on his knees he says, "Give us peace; have pity upon us; give peace to

* Tract on Education.

France."* There is Howard, the benefactor of those on whom the world has placed its brand, whose charity -like that of the Frenchman, inspired by the single desire of doing good - penetrated the gloom of the dungeon, as with angelic presence. "A person of more ability," he says,† with sweet simplicity, "with my knowledge of facts, would have written better, but the object of my ambition was not the Fame of an author. Hearing the cry of the miserable, I devoted my time to their relief." And, lastly, there is Clarkson, who, while yet a pupil of the University, commenced those life-long labors against slavery and the slavetrade, which have embalmed his memory. Writing an essay on the subject as a college exercise, his soul warmed with the task, and at a period when even the horrors of the "middle passage " had not excited condemnation, he entered the lists, the stripling champion of the Right. He has left a record of the moment when this duty seemed to flash upon him. He was on horseback, on his way from Cambridge to London. "Coming in sight of Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire," he says, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the road-side, and held my horse. Here a thought came over my mind, that, if the contents of my Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end." Pure and noble impulse to a beautiful career!

* Biographie Universelle, article, Vincent de St. Paul.

+ Howard's State of the Prisons, p. 469.

Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Vol. I.

p. 171.

Such are some of the exemplars of True Glory. Without rank, office, or the sword, they accomplished immortal good. While on earth, they labored for their fellow-men; and now, sleeping in death, by their example and their works, they continue the same sacred office. To all, in whatever sphere or condition of life, they teach the same commanding lessons of magnanimous duty. From the heights of their virtue, they call upon us to cast out the lust of power, of office, of wealth, of praise, of a fleeting popular favor, which "a breath can make, as a breath has made;" to subdue the constant, ever-present suggestions of self, in disregard of those neigbors, near or remote, whose happiness should never be absent from our mind; to check the madness of party, which so often, for the sake of success, renounces the very objects of success; and, finally, to introduce into our lives those lofty sentiments of Conscience and Charity which animated them to such godlike labors. Nor should these be mere holiday virtues, marshalled on great occasions only. They must become a part of us, and of our existence; ever present in season and out of season, in all the amenities of life; in those daily offices of conduct and manner which add so much to its charm, as also in those grander duties whose performance evinces an ennobling self-sacrifice. The first are as the flowers, whose odor is pleasant, though fleeting; the latter are like the precious ointment from the box of alabaster poured upon the head of the Lord.

To the supremacy of these principles let us all consecrate our best purposes and strength. So doing, let us reverse the very poles of the worship of past ages.

Men have thus far bowed down before stocks, stones, insects, crocodiles, golden calves, graven images, often of cunning workmanship, wrought with Phidian skill, of ivory, of ebony, of marble, but all false gods. Let them worship in future the true God, our Father as he is in heaven, and in the beneficent labors of his children on earth. Then farewell to the Syren song of a worldly ambition! Farewell to the vain desire of mere literary success or oratorical display! Farewell to the distempered longings for office! Farewell to the dismal, blood-red phantom of martial renown! Fame and Glory may then continue, as in times past, the reflection of public opinion; but of an opinion, sure and steadfast, without change or fickleness, enlightened by those two suns of Christian truth, love to God and love to man.

From the serene illumination of these duties, all the forms of selfishness shall retreat, like evil spirits at the dawn of day. Then shall the happiness of the poor and lowly, and the education of the ignorant, have uncounted friends. The cause of those who are in prison shall find fresh voices; the majesty of Peace other vindicators; the sufferings of the slave new and gushing floods of sympathy. Then, at last, shall the Brotherhood of Mankind stand confessed; ever filling the souls of all with a more generous life, ever prompting to deeds of Beneficence; conquering the Heathen prejudices of country, color, and race; guiding the judgment of the historian; animating the verse of the poet and the eloquence of the orator; ennobling human thought and conduct, and inspiring those good works by which alone we may attain to the heights of