Even the influence of a great practical example has [[185]]often impressed the mental type of a reformer or patriot on a series of subsequent generations. The Buddhist Calanus, preaching the doctrine of renunciation to an audience of scoffers, deeply affected the most thoughtless of his witnesses by proving his personal convictions in the flames of a funeral pile. “I leave no sons,” were the last words of Epaminondas, “but two immortal daughters, the battles of Leuctra and Mantinea.” Rousseau smiled when he learned the intrigues of his enemies who were trying their utmost to enlist the coöperation of a violent pulpit-orator. “They are busy recruiting their corps of partisans,” said he, “but Time will raise me an ally in every intelligent reader of the next generation.”
B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.
In the simple lives of the lower animals every day may bring the sufficient reward of its toil; but the problem of progress, even from the first dawn of civilization, involves tasks too apt to extend beyond the span of individual existence. The forest-clearing husbandman, the state-founding patriot, the scientific inquirer, all risk to receive the summons of night before the completion of their labor. Before reaching the goal of their hopes their earthly pilgrimage may end at the brink of the unknown river, and education alone can bridge that gulf, and make every day the way-station, of an unbroken road. Children or children’s children will take up the staff from the last resting-place of their pilgrim father; and, moreover, all progress is cumulative. Every laborer works with the experience of his forefathers, as well as his own; [[186]]every son stands on the shoulders of his father. Even the failure of individual efforts contributes a helpful lesson to the success of the next attempt:
Freedom’s brave battle, once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though often baffled, e’er is won.
Persistent adherence to the programme of a traditional policy has often made the work of successive centuries the triumphant execution of a single plan. The empire of Islam sprung from the seed which the prophet of Mecca had planted in the soil of his native land. The storm of the Protestant revolt rose from the anathemas of a poor Wittenberg friar; the unquenchable fire of the French Revolution was kindled by the burning indignation of a Swiss recluse, and his fervid appeals:
Those oracles that set the world aflame,
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more;