CONTENTS.


PAGE.
Napoleon Bonaparte[1]
Horatio Nelson[87]
John Bunyan[123]
Thomas Arnold[149]
Wendell Phillips[175]
Henry Ward Beecher[217]
Charles Kingsley[261]
General William Tecumseh Sherman[288]
Charles Haddon Spurgeon[333]
Phillips Brooks[368]

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.


"The series of Napoleon's successes is absolutely the most marvellous in history. No one can question that he leaves far behind the Turennes, Marlboroughs, and Fredericks; but when we bring him up for comparison an Alexander, a Hannibal, a Cæsar, a Charles, we find in the single point of marvellousness Napoleon surpassing them all....

"Every one of those heroes was born to a position of exceptional advantage. Two of them inherited thrones; Hannibal inherited a position royal in all but the name; Cæsar inherited an eminent position in a great empire. But Napoleon, who rose as high as any of them, began life as an obscure provincial, almost as a man without a country. It is this marvellousness which paralyzes our judgment. We seem to see at once a genius beyond all estimate, a unique character, and a fortune utterly unaccountable."