As they sit at the feet of their instructor, what diversity of disposition meets our eye. One is impulsive, ardent, passionate; by his side sits another, of fervent love, gentle mildness, unshaken confidence; another is evidently very skeptical—sometimes doubting the truthfulness of his own vision; by his side is one whose heart is as guileless as that of a little child; while not far off, is another, of calculating mind and heart, as black as night with vile hypocrisy.
What is the question which has so deeply absorbed their thoughts?—It is one which they have been discussing by the wayside—for their cheeks would burn with shame did they think their Master suspected such feelings ever throbbed in their bosoms. It is this:—
“Who shall be the greatest?” (Mark 9: 34.) That this is still an absorbing thought of mankind, may be seen from the anxious brow and hurried step of the merchant, the feeble frame and the hollow cheek of the student, the brawny arm and vigorous tread of the laborer; yea, the skeleton fingers of the lowly seamstress, as she mingles her very life’s blood with her daily toil, and sings alike the “Song of the Shirt,” and the Dirge of the Sewer. Neither is it alone common to the city of the living; its intrusive front has even invaded the solemn silence of the city of the sleeping dead.
Though prattling childhood and hoary-headed age, the lordly rich and the needy poor, there dwell side by side, how great is the contrast between the places of their abode! Over the one rises the proud monument, on whose cold front are written in letters of gold the names and deeds of the dead. The simple rose, with its blushing purity, planted by the hand of affection, and watered by the tears of love, sweetly blooms above the other. In what beautiful numbers has the poet sung:
“Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
“Can storied urn or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?