This legend reminds us how youth constantly throws away its opportunities. Each day some man exchanges a farm in Pennsylvania for the prairies of Dakota, only to find that the hills he despised have developed oil that makes his successor rich. Each year purposeful men grow rich out of trifles that the careless cast away. The sewers of Paris have made one man wealthy with treasure beyond that of gold mines. The wastes of a cotton mill founded the fortune of one of the greatest families in England. Peter Cooper used to say that he built the Cooper Institute by picking up the refuse that the butcher shops threw aside. A boy tugging over a shoe-last in Haverhill, Mass., was told by his mother to give himself to making better and stronger lasts. Twenty years of enthusiastic study ended, and he was president of one of the greatest of our railways. In 1870, a youth sat upon the slag heap of a mine in California. But he gave his full mind to each clod, and going away for a few weeks he returned with a machine that extracted greater treasure from the slag than men had ever gained from the mines. All wise men unite in telling us that ours is a world where prosperity is won by fidelity to details, and that wealth comes through little improvements. But, best of all, a purposeful enthusiasm gives mental wealth, and achieves a treasure beyond gold and rubies—a worthy character.
Nor is there any dross that love will not refine away, nor any vice that love can not expel from the heart. Wordsworth was so impressed with the evil of avarice that he could compare it only to a poisoned vine that wrapped itself so tightly about his favorite tree that vine and tree became one life, and the removal of the one meant the death of the other. But in her most famous story George Eliot tells us that avarice passes utterly away before the touch of love. Silas Marner was the victim of blackest ingratitude. His friend was a thief, who thrust upon him the blame of a black crime. Suddenly, this innocent man found all homes closed to his hand, all shops locked to his tools, while even the market refused his wares. Through two years and more, right bravely he held his head aloft and looked all men in the face. At length hunger and want drove him forth a wanderer. Then he shook off the dust of his feet against his false friends, and cursed their firesides. Kindness in him soured into cynicism, his sweetness became bitterness, his faith in God and man fluttered feebly for awhile, then lay without a single pulse-beat. In anger he cursed God, but could not die.
Journeying afar, the traveler at length stayed his steps in a distant village. Then in toil he sought to forget. Rising a great while before day, he wrought with the activity of a spinning insect; and while men slept, his loom hummed far into the night. When fifteen years had passed, he had much gold and was a miser. Under the brick floor he secreted his treasure. Each night he locked the door, shuttered his windows, and poured upon the table his gold and silver. He bathed his hands in the yellow river. He piled his guineas up in heaps. Sometimes he slept with arms around his precious money-bags. One evening he lifted the bricks of the floor, to find that the hole was empty. Benumbed with terror, he went everywhither seeking his treasure. He kneaded his bed, swept his oven, peered into each crack and crevice. When the full truth fell upon the miser, he sent forth a wild, ringing scream—the soul's cry of desolation. Then in his grief he rushed into the rain and the wild night, and wandered on and on, stupefied with pain. Not until morning came did he stagger in out of the storm. Entering, he saw the glint of yellow by his hearth. With a wild cry he sprang forward and clutched it. But it was not gold; it was something better—it was the yellow locks of a sleeping child. Broken-hearted, with nothing else to live for, Silas Marner took the deserted babe into his bosom. As the weeks went on, the little creature nestled into his heart. For the child's sake he turned again to his loom; love taught him thrift and industry. For the child's sake he bought books and hived knowledge; love made a scholar of him. For the child's sake he planted vines, roses and all sweet flowers; love made him an artist. For the child's sake he bought carpets for the bare floors and pictures for the wall; love had made him generous. For the child's sake he knelt one night and recited her prayer; love would fain make him a Christian. But he hated men, and could not forget their ingratitude. One day a rich man's carriage stopped before his cottage. The lord of the mansion told a strange story—how this beautiful girl of eighteen was his daughter. In that hour the girl, tall and beautiful, turned away from palace, lands, position, and, for the love she bore him, put her arms around Silas Marner and refused to leave him. Then something in him gave way, and Silas Marner wept. Then confidence in man and God was his again. Love had destroyed avarice and purged away his sin. For love is a civilizer; it makes saints out of savages. As an armor of ice melts before the sun, so all vice and iniquity disappear in the presence of an overmastering affection.
It remains for us to consider that the absence of an enthusiastic devotion to integrity and the law of God explains the moral disasters and shipwrecks that have increased the tears and sorrows of mankind. Recently the people of this land opened their morning papers only to be deeply shocked by a rehearsal of grievous disasters, not all of which were physical. It seems that an awful cyclone had swept through a Western community, twisting the orchards, destroying houses and barns, and leaving behind a swath wide and black with destruction. In addition, the foreign news told of a volcano whose crater had suddenly poured forth a river of lurid lava, which, sweeping down the mountain side, consumed the homes of the flying multitude. But the saddest disaster was reserved to the last. It told of the shame and sorrow, from which there is no recovery, that had befallen the parents and friends of three young men, hitherto held in high honor. It seems that for many years these men had been honored by their friends, and trusted by the banks in which they were employed. But in a dark hour they determined to cease to be gentlemen, preferring, rather, to join the ranks of thieves. Despising every principle of honor, the gold which employers committed to their care was taken, not to the safety vault, but distributed among gamblers and evil persons. And our heavy sorrow is increased when we read in our commercial reports that last year 625 men went astray as embezzlers, robbing the people in forty-five states of $25,234,112. The time seems to have come for this nation to sit down in sackcloth and ashes.
To all good men comes the reflection that either this immorality must cease its ravages, or this nation will be irretrievably disgraced. Were it possible to search out these unhappy men, some of them wearing the convict's garb, and some wandering as fugitives in foreign lands, henceforth to be men "without a country," and question each for the cause of his deep disgrace, from all would come this shameful confession: "I loved evil and hated the law of God." Not one could confess to passionate, enthusiastic devotion to the divine laws. But every tree not rooted goes down before the storm, and every ship unanchored midst the rocks will go to pieces when the wind rises. Would that we could to-day cause the laws of God to stand forth as sharply defined as mountain peaks before the eyes of all young men; would that we could also kindle in each a passionate love and loyal affection for these holy laws. If the youth of to-day are to be the leaders of to-morrow, and are ever to have power to stir their fellows, to correct abuses, revolutionize society, or organize history, they must, with the enthusiasm of love, ally themselves with God and His law, clothing that law with flesh until it becomes visible, clothing it with voice until it becomes eloquent, thrilling it with power until it becomes triumphant. Only love fulfills law!
Most of all does man need the enthusiasm of love toward his God and Saviour. In the olden time Plato expressed a wish to have the moral law become a living personage, that beholding, mankind might stand amazed and entranced at her beauty. The philosopher felt that abstractions were too cold to kindle the soul's enthusiasm. As planets are removed from the sun, their light and heat lessen; their flowers fade; their fruits lack luster; their summers shorten. Thus Neptune stands in the midst of perpetual ice and winter, without tree or bird or human voice. But as our earth approaches the direct rays of the sun, its beauty increases, its harvests grow heavy.
As if to fulfill Plato's desire, Jesus Christ drew near to our world, not to chill man's heart, but to strengthen his affection, refine his reason, enlarge his horizon. How admirable Christ's words, how illustrious His work, how divine His character! The philosopher describes man, but Jesus Christ loves man, weeps for man, dies for man. Dante inspires, but Jesus Christ gives life. Shakespeare shines, but Jesus Christ uplifts. History causes the heroes of yesterday to pass before the mind, surrounded by applauding multitudes. When Napoleon entered Paris the people ran together with one accord, and the tides of enthusiasm rose like a mountain freshet. When Garibaldi entered Florence, when Kossuth passed up Broadway in New York, when Grant, returning homeward, entered our own city, the streets were filled solidly with multitudes who forgot hunger and exhaustion, exalted by hero-worship.
But the divine man never stood forth in full proportion until Jesus Christ stepped upon this planet. What strength! What gentleness! Behold His exquisite sympathy! Behold the instinct of confidence, that drew little children to His arms! How did men, defiled within and without, throng round Him, while His presence wrought the miracle of miracles in cleansing them! Then for the first time in history did disheveled ones so feel the beauty of goodness that an irresistible enthusiasm drew them about Him to kiss the very hem of His garment. All the excellencies of life, and more, unite in Him; the orator's persuasive speech; the artist's love of beauty; the scholar's passion for truth; the patriot's love of country. His also is more than the love of mother, lover, friend, for his is the love of Saviour. To-day He rises over each soul in such majesty of excellence as to include the excellencies of everything in heaven and everything on earth. As the clouds sometimes, after hanging for days and nights in the atmosphere, at length come together and pour down their refreshing showers, so let all that is deepest and richest and sweetest in man's thought and affection pour itself out before Him who is worthy of the world's anthem. For His mind will guide, His mercy forgive, His love redeem, His hand lead—not into the abyss of death, but unto the heavenly heights. He who with Dante looks upward to-day may behold the Saviour's divine chariot "sweeping along the confines of heaven, a sweet light above it, its wheels almost blocked with flowers."