“Never allow yourselves to think or speak of the poor, of condemned criminals, or social outcasts as the dangerous classes. Your nativity forbids. Justice and mercy forbid. If there is a class which can truly be called dangerous to heavenly order and all that is noblest in life, it is that great stall-fed, sluggish, self-complacent mass which makes a god of its own ease and tranquillity, shuts its eyes to wrongs that it will not right, and cares not what power may rule as long as its own household is protected. It praises the hero of a thousand years ago, and is itself a skulking coward. It calls out a regiment if its sleeve is but brushed against, and steps upon a human neck to reach a flower. Seek not their friendships, nor their praises, and follow not their counsels. Be courteous, sincere, and inflexible. Be loyal, and fear not!
‘Non è il mondan rumor altro che un fiato
Di vento, che or vien quindi ed or vien quinci,
E muta nome perchè muta lato.’
“Do right, and trust in God. Remember that Christianity is heroism. We are not given the spirit of cowardice, says Saint Paul. An Arabian proverb goes farther. ‘There is no religion without courage,’ it says.
“This life of ours is woven as the weaver makes his tapestry. He stands behind the frame, seeing the wrong side only of his web, and having but a narrow strip of the pattern before him at a time. And with every strip the threads that it requires are given. It is all knots and ends there where he works; but he steadily follows the pattern. All the roughnesses that come toward him testify to the smoothness of the picture at the other side.
“So we see but a few steps in advance, and the rough side of our duty is ever before us. But weave on, weave faithfully on in the day that is given you. Be sure that when, your labor done, you pass to the other side, if you have been constant, you will find the most glowing and beautiful part of your picture to be just that part where the knots were thickest when you were weaving.
“I wish to tell you a little incident of to-day that clings to my mind. It is but a trifle; but you may find a thought in it.
“As I sat aloft at dawn, thinking of you and of what I would say to you, I saw an ant in the path at my feet carrying a stick much longer than himself. He ran lightly till he came to two small gravel stones, one at either side of his path. The stick struck on both stones and stopped him. He dropped it, and ran from side to side trying to drag it through.
“For a while I watched the little creature’s distress; then with a slender twig I carefully lifted the stick over the obstacles, and laid it down on the other side.