If The sense of power which comes from self-development can only be fruitful for good if it be directed by the profound sense of responsibility, which the perpetual consciousness of life as lived in God's sight alone can give.1
(3) But the Greeks had a stern proverb to the effect that a position of leadership shows what a man is. The real drift of the saying was that in practice it too often shows what he is not. It implies that too generally the discovery would be unfavourable ; that the test of high office would, in a majority of cases, bring to light something weak or rotten in the character, which in private life might have escaped detection. History is strewn with illustrations of this truth; the virtuous though weak Emperor,
1 Lift and Letters of Mandell Crcigldon, i. 1 85.
i CORINTHIANS m. 11-13 109
who was floated to power on the surf of a revolution, is by no means the only man of whom it might be written that all men would have judged him capable of ruling others, had he only never been a ruler. How often does manhood open with so much that seems promising — intelligence, courage, attention to duty, good feeling, unselfishness, all that looks like high principle — and then a man is put into a position of authority. It is the fire which tests the work he has done in his character. Suddenly he betrays some one defect which ruins everything. It may be vanity; it may be envy; it may be untruthfulness; it may be some lower passion which emerges suddenly, and as if unbidden, from the depths of the soul, and gains over him a fatal mastery. All his good is turned to ill, all is distorted, discoloured; he might have died as a young man, amid general lamentations that so promising a life had been cut short. He does die, as did Nero or Henry viil, amidst the loudly expressed or muttered thanksgiving of his generation that he has left the world. The fact was, that the position in which he found himself exposed him to a pressure which his character could not bear.
Tf After the Council the King [George iv.] called me and talked to me about racehorses, which he cares more about than the welfare of Ireland or the peace of Europe.1
U You remember how the old Tay bridge, before that fatal winter night, was believed to be equal to its purpose ; no one of us who had travelled by it high in the air, over what was practi- cally an arm of the sea, thought that it could but do its work for many long years to come, in all winds and weathers. It needed, no doubt, a mighty impact, a terrific rush of wind from a particular quarter, to show that the genius and audacity of man had presumed too largely on the forbearance of the elements ; but — the moment came. We, many of us, remember something of the sense of horror which that tragic catastrophe left on the public mind — the gradual disappearance of the last train, as it moved along its wonted way into the darkness, the suddenly observed dislocation and flickering of the distant lights, the faint sound as of a crash, rising for a moment above the din of the storm, and then the utter darkness, as all — train and bridge together sank into the gulf of waters beneath, and one moment of supreme agony was followed by the silence of death.2
1 The Greville Memoirs, i. 144. 1 H. P. Liddon, 59.
no THE TEACHER'S GREAT TEXT
Not alone in pain and gloom Does the abhorred tempter come; Not in light alone and pleasure Proffers he the poisoned measure. When the soul doth rise Nearest to its native skies, There the exalted spirit finds, Borne upon the heavenly winds, Satan, in an angel's guise, With voice divine and innocent eyes.1
1 Richard Watson Gilder.
Yet Possessing all Things.
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