—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
(148)
The spirit of man is not intended to grovel on low levels or to gravitate downward under carnal influences. Man is the only creature on earth so constructed physically as to be able to gaze upward.
“He died climbing” is the simple inscription on a monument to an Alpine guide, who perished when attempting the ascent of a peak. That record is a noble tribute to a hero. His attitude should be ours—looking upward and pressing forward. He was pressing on in the pathway of duty. Many a splendid career, intercepted at the critical juncture, might be described by the same sententious record. “He died climbing” may be said of many a young and ardent enthusiast—of Mackay, soon cut off in Uganda; of Bishop Hannington, reaching the border of the same land and martyred there; of Patteson, soon slain in Melanesia by islanders who mistook him for a slave-catching captain; of Henry Martyn, who did not live to see any of the results of his mission; of Wyclif, who sent forth the Bible in English but was not permitted to see the beginning of the Reformation. All these “died climbing.” (Text.)
(149)
Theodosia Garrison points out in these verses that aspiration, even when it fails of realization, is good for the soul:
Let me remember that I failed,
So I may not forget