Secrets of beauty shaping in the mind.
Yet he who takes the lower room, and tries To make his cattle-trough with honest heart,
And could not frame the god with gleaming eyes. As nobly plays the more ignoble part.
And maybe, as the higher light breaks in And shows the meaner task he has to do,
He is the greater that he strives to win Only the praise of being just and true.
For who can do no thing of sovran worth
Which men shall praise, a higher task may find,
Plodding his dull round on the common earth, But conquering envies rising in the mind.
And God works in the little as the great A perfect work, and glorious over all —
Or in the stars that choir with joy elate, Or in the lichen spreading on the wall.1
(2) Besides seventy thousand men to bear burdens for the Temple, there were told off eighty thousand men to hew stone and wood in the mountains. These men had a task both laborious and uninviting. Although the Temple | could never have been built without them, yet the pleasure was denied them of seeing, while they worked, the great and glorious edifice arise on Mount Moriah. And so, to-day, the Lord has His hewers of wood and stone in the mountains. To them is given hard and unresponsive tasks. They labour all the day, and catch no
1 Walter C. Smith, "Work and Spirit."
74 GOD'S FELLOW-WORKERS
glimpse of the House that is being built for Jehovah, helped by their labour. But still, without them, the House could never have been built.
U The close sympathy between the Scotch people and the Scotch gentry in most of the national struggles has been one great cause of that admirable firmness of national character which learnt at last to dispense with leadership. In Ireland, in spite of adverse circumstances, this attachment between land- lord and tenant in many particular instances was undoubtedly formed, but in general there could be no real confidence between the classes. When the people awoke to political life, they found their natural leaders their antagonists ; they were compelled to look for other chiefs, and they often found them in men who were inferior in culture, in position, and in character, who sought their suffrages for private ends, and who won them by fulsome flattery, false rhetoric, and exaggerated opinions.1
If From Bellinzona (after a day or two's excursion to Locarno) Kuskin drove to the head of the lake, and took the steamer for Baveno and the Isola Bella. Writing thence to his father (July 8), Kuskin mentions a political observation which made a great impression on him, for he used it more than once as an illustration in his economic writings : —
" No pity nor respect can be felt for these people, who have sunk and remain sunk, merely by idleness and wantonness in the midst of all blessings and advantages : who cannot so much as bank out — or in — a mountain stream, because, as one of their priests told me the other day, every man always acts for himself : they will never act together and do anything at common expense for the common good ; but every man tries to embank his own land and throw the stream upon his neighbours; and so the stream masters them all and sweeps its way down all the valley in victory. This I heard from the curate of a mountain chapel at Bellinzona, when I went every evening to draw his garden." 2
(3) There were men skilful to work in gold and silver, brass, iron, stone, linen, purple, and crimson, and to grave all manner of gravings and devise all manner of devices. These were the outstanding men of genius, of whom only a few were needed.
If To Sir Christopher Wren belongs the undying honour of having designed the great cathedral of St. Paul, with its world- famous dome, in London. But Sir Christopher Wren could never
1 W. E. H. Lecky, A History of Ireland, i. 280. a E. T. Cook, The Life of Buskin, i. 517,
i CORINTHIANS in. 9 75
in a million years have built the dome alone. He was dependent upon the humblest labourers who toiled upon the hidden base, or reared the turrets of the mighty structure, as they were dependent upon him. In so far as they used to the uttermost their talents and opportunities, to them is due a full share of the glory.1
If One day at Perth Bishop Wilkinson (late of Truro) noticed a thin-faced boy looking as if he wanted to speak to him, and he went up to him, asking if the boy wished to speak to him. " No, sir," said the boy, " only I sing in the same choir as you are in." The Bishop's friends laughed at the boy's idea of his association with the Bishop in the Church, but the boy was not laughed at by the Bishop.2
•[f The world itself might be redeemed by hopefulness and organized co-operation. Kuskin may have lacked the practical gift ; but he was possessed by the vision : —
{To his Mother) " Verona, June 18. — Yesterday, it being quite cool, I went for a walk, and as I came down from a rather quiet hillside a mile or two out of town, I passed a house where the women were at work spinning the silk off the cocoons. There was a sort of whirring sound as in an English mill ; but at intervals they sang a long sweet chant, all together, lasting about two minutes, then pausing a minute, and then beginning again. It was good and tender music, and the multitude of voices prevented any sense of failure, so that it was all very lovely and sweet, and like the things that I mean to try to bring to pass." 3