It was but a trifling error also that robbed the generations of one of man's divinest pictures. Three hundred years ago the monks made tight and strong the roof above the room where was Da Vinci's "Last Supper." A thousand tiles were fastened down and all save one were perfect. The one hid a secret hole. When months had passed and the driving storm came from the right direction the rain found out that hidden fault and, rushing in, a flood of drops streamed down o'er the wall and made a great black mark across the noble painting, and ruined the central face forever.
Human life is ruined through the absence of humble virtues and the presence of little faults. There is no man so great, no gift so brilliant, but let it be whispered that there is falseness in the life of the hero, and immediately his greatness is dwarfed, his eloquence becomes a trick, his authority is impaired. Reading Robert Burns' poems, he seems wiser than all the scholars, wittier than all the humorists, more courtly than princes. His genius blazes like a torch among the tapers. But watching this son of genius and of liberty weave a net for his own feet, and fashion a snare for his own faculties, with wistful hearts we long, as one has said, "to hear the exulting and triumphant cry of the strong man coming to himself, I will arise." But he loved the barroom more than the library, and so fell on death at seven and thirty, and lost his right to rule as a king o'er men's hearts and lives. Byron, too, and Goethe had gifts so resplendent that in kings' palaces they shine like diamonds amid the pebbles. What a constellation of gifts was theirs! Culture, sanity, imagination, wit, courage, vigor—all these stars were grouped in their mental constellations! Yet little vices dethroned these kings and made them plebeian. It is the absence of little virtues and sweet domestic graces that seem trifling as the two mites that robs the Roman poets and orators of their power over us. They had urbanites indeed, flowers, music, art, oratory, letters, song. The events of each day were executed like a piece of music, and even their sarcophagi were covered with scenes of feasting and revelry. But they were not true; and that false note jars through all their pages. Harshness in the poet and pride in the orator make their refinement and culture seem but skin deep.
We note that Pompeii was a paradise built beside a crater. The traveler tells us if we strike the rocky earth it rings hollow. Close by the calm lake is a boiling spring. In the very heart of the orange groves rises a column of smoke and steam. "The mist of lava jars on the music of summer, the scent of sulphur mingles with the scent of roses." Not for a moment can the traveler forget that beneath all this opulence of color and fragrance rages a colossal furnace. Thus the harshness and selfishness found in the eloquence and poetry of the ancient writers rob us of all joy in their splendid gifts. We yield homage only to the greatness that is also goodness. To ten-talent power the hero must also add tenderness to his own, kindness to the weak, unfailing sympathy to all. No giant is a full giant until he is also gentle, stooping to give his two mites to the weak, bearing to the weary his cup of cold water, ever emulating that hero, Sir Philip Sydney, wounded sorely indeed, but pushing away the canteen because the soldier, suffering great pain, had greater need.
In one of his essays Lowell notes that the great reform monuments are the humble deeds of humble persons, taken up and repeated by an entire people. The final victories for liberty and religion are emblazoned upon monuments and celebrated in song and story, but the beginnings of these achievements for mankind are often given over to obscurity and forgetfulness. Our age makes much of the "Red Cross" movement. Hardly fifty years have passed since two English girls boarded the steamer that was to carry them to the Crimea. Upon the distant battlefields, with their deserted cannon, wounded horses and dying men, at first these gentle girls seemed strangely out of place. The hospitals were full; neglected soldiers were lying in the thickets, whither they had crawled to die. Counseling with none, these brave girls moved across the battlefields like angels of mercy. Many years have passed. Now these nurses bring hope to every battlefield, and minister to every stricken Armenia, for the story of that sweet girl has filled the earth with "King's Daughters." One hundred years ago also England left her orphan babes to grow up in the country poorhouse, midst surroundings often vulgar, profane and brutal. One day two sweet babes, unnamed and unwelcomed, lay in the garret of a county-house in the outskirts of London. Then a poor, half-witted spinster, hearing of the young mother's death, found her way to the garret, brooded o'er the babes with all the dignity of our Mother of Sorrows, took the babes to her heart and planned how, with six shillings a week, she might keep bread in three hungry mouths. Four years passed by, and one day the lord of the manor stayed a moment before this woman's hovel and heard her prayer for the two boys clinging to her skirts. Soon the story of the woman's mercy was heard in every English pulpit, and in every town men and women made their way to the county-houses to take away the orphan babes and found instead some asylum for God's little ones. Now noble men in distant lands plan homes and shelter for little children, and the work of the obscure woman is a part of the history of reform.
Humble also is the origin of the anti-slavery movement that won its final victory at Appomattox. A century and more ago a young Moravian made his way to Jamaica as a Herald of Christ and his message of good-will. The horrors of slavery in that far-off time cannot be understood by our age. Then each week some African slaver landed with its cargo of naked creatures. Slaves were so cheap that it was simpler to kill them with rapid work and purchase new ones than to care for the wants of captives weakened by several summers. What horrors under overseers in the field! What outrages in slave-market and pen! So grievous were the wrongs negroes suffered at white men's hands that they would not listen to this young teacher. At last, despairing of their confidence, the brave youth had himself sold as a slave and wrought in the fields under the overseer's lash. Fellowship with their sufferings won their confidence and love. When the day's task was done the poor creatures crowded about him to receive Christ's cup of cold water. Long years after the young hero had fallen upon the sugar plantation his story came to the ears of young Wilberforce and armed him with courage invincible against England's traffic in flesh and blood. Soon Parliament freed the West India slaves and Lincoln emancipated our freedmen. But side by side with the heroes of liberty famed through monument and solemn oration, let us mention the young Moravian hero who loved Christ's little ones, and in giving "two mites and a cup of cold water," lost his life, indeed, but found immortal fame.
This modest deed that bought renown also tells us that enduring remembrance is possible for all. Great deeds the majority cannot do. Two-talent men march in millions, but the ten-talent men are few and far between. Many scientists—one Newton. Thousands of poets—but the Elizabethan eras are separated by centuries. Great is the company of the orators—but to each generation only one Webster and one Clay. As each continent hath but one mountain range, so the elect minds stand isolated in the ages. All greatness is mysterious, and like God's throne, genius is girt about with clouds and darkness. If great men are infrequent, the world's need of great men is as occasional. Society advances in happiness and culture, not through striking, dramatic acts, but through myriads of unnumbered and unnoticed deeds.
Even the heroes dying upon the battlefield ask not for Plato nor Bacon, but for a cup of cold water. To Benedict Arnold, dying in his garret, came a physician, who said, "Is there anything you wish?" and heard this answer; "Only a friend." Traitors sometimes each of us also. Traitors to our deepest convictions and our highest ideals, and in the hours when the fever of discontent burns fiercely within us, and the mind seems half-delirious in its trouble, we also ask for a friend bringing a mite of sympathy and a cup of cold water. Let us confess it—we are all famishing for love and the kind word that says: "In your Gethsemane you are not alone."
God secures for us our happiness, not through speech about the heavens and firmament, but through the comfort that comes through speech over little things. He feeds the birds, adorns the lily, clothes the grass, numbers man's troubles. He is the Shepherd seeking the one sheep, the father waiting for the lost son. His kingdom is a little leaven working in the world's meal, His truth being no larger than a grain of mustard-seed. Above each little one bows some guardian angel beholding the face of its heavenly Father. And He who unites grains of sand for making planets and rays of light for glorious suns, and blades of grass for the solid splendor of field and pasture and drops of water for the ocean that blesses every continent with its dew and rain, teaches us also that great principles will organize the little words, little prayers, little aspirations and little services into the full-orbed splendor of an enduring character and an immortal fame.
Happily none need journey far nor search long for opportunities of humble fidelity. Into our midst come each year thousands of boys who are strangers in the great city. Passing along the streets these lonely lads behold each horse having some friendly hand to care for it. Yea! each sleek dog hath some owner's name engraven on the collar for the neck. But for the youth, weeks pass by, and no face lifts a friendly smile, no hand is outstretched in gentle kindness, and oft the thought is bitter: "No man careth for my soul." The youth who sits in the seat beside you asks only that the leaflet be shared in brotherliness, and you may lift upon the discouraged one a smile that saith; "Once the battle went sore with me, also, but be of good cheer, you shall overcome." Such friendliness is the two mites that buy enduring rembrance. For if each must fight his own battles, face for himself the spectres of doubt, and slay them; if each must be his own surgeon and draw the iron from the soul, still sympathy is a precious boon, and it is given to man to give the cup of tenderness to the warrior sorely wounded in life's battle. In ancient times when men's cabins were built on the edge of the wilderness, not yet cleared of wild beasts, sometimes the little ones wandered from the path and were lost in the forest, until the cry of terror revealed the awful danger that threatened and caused the mother to speed forth with winged feet and lift her body as a shield against the enemy. Daily these scenes are re-enacted, not in songs and dramas, but through the work of those who rescue the city's children from squalor, filth and sin. What redemptions' man's little deeds do bring!
For $30,000 Peter Faneuil bought immortality and forever associated his name with liberty. To-day that amount will erect the social settlement in the needy quarter of some city and give hundreds of young people opportunity and field for Bible-schools, kindergartens, nursery, gymnasium, mothers' classes, men's clubs, singing-schools and also associate man's name with the happiness and civilization of an entire community. Mammon will care for the children of strength and good fortune, and fame will guard the sons of success; let us guard the weak and lowly. In the Roman triumph, when a general came home with his spoils, many captives went with his chariot up to the capital. And happy 'twill be for us if in the hour when the sunset gun shall sound and we pass beyond the flood God's little ones mourn us with tears of gratitude while all the trumpets sound for us on the other side.