But we must beware whom we make great. When fame is awarded to splendid profligacy it becomes a premium for moral corruption, gilded and burnished and handed down from generation to generation. The greatness ascribed by the world to the names and deeds of Alexander and Napoleon, becomes a lure to lead unprincipled ambition to seek fame in fields wet with human blood. When we see such men seated by public acclamation in the temple of fame, we think of Milton's Pandemonium, where

"On a throne that far

Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Satan exalted sat."

In the deeds of such men, the revolutions they have wrought in empires, and the effects their genius and perverted activity have inscribed on human affairs, we may mark the hand of God chastising nations; we may admire their lofty courage and marvelous achievements; we may recognize a sublimity in the track of wasting and blood which follows their footsteps; we may record their deeds as we chronicle in history the death-march of the tornado, the avalanche and the earthquake, but we will not award them the meed of true greatness. Their birth was a frown of Heaven, their life an anathema, and their fall a triumph to mankind. While they live the world may weep, but when by the course of nature and the grace of God they die, widows and orphans may dry their tears and earth hold a jubilee.

God, the only and perfect model of true greatness, combines strength with purity, power with benevolence. Man, made in his Maker's image, only approximates real greatness, as imitating his Maker, he unites talents with virtue, genius with philanthropy. Great power, prostituted to selfish and evil deeds, is the mirror of man's least littleness, like the ocean labouring to bring forth "mire and dirt." We will then lament no man, simply because he has been endowed with extraordinary talents; we will bewail the loss to earth of no greatness, because it has wrought great effects; we will echo no popular acclamations to lives of brilliant selfishness and profligacy. Especially will we not desecrate our pages

to sanctify the memory of men who have trampled on the virtue and happiness of God's own image in their fellow men. It is time that mere hero-worship should cease. If we are called to weave garlands, we will wreath them for genius consecrated to patriotism or piety. If men will worship at any human shrine, they should ask from their idols some token of a benevolent Divinity.

With this limitation of the idea of human greatness, we may find that the truly great men of earth are "few and far between." In some sense indeed, every village, city and state has its great men, its popular idols; but when we demand in real greatness, the rare combination of genius which shall attract the gaze of the world, united with philanthropy and virtue really to benefit their race, the responses are infrequent.

The world is indulgent on this subject. Such is human weakness in general, and so prevalent the tendency of human nature to be satisfied with the attainments and progress of the mass, that when an individual has genius to rise above the ordinary. level in any department, he is at once styled great. As absolute human perfection is an impossibility, as the division of thought, responsibility and labour is the law of society, it is proper to dignify such as excel in any gifts or attainments. We like, however to see the hand of Providence recognized in all events, whoever or whatever may be the subordinate instruments. With this apprehension we shall perceive, that although the smooth current of ordinary affairs may be moved forward by ordinary agents, yet when great events are to be wrought, great men are raised up to perform them. These master spirits of the world for the time being, are the visible hands by which an unseen Providence is working its will in human affairs. They are invested providentially with the genius, talents, learning, courage, skill and opportunities demanded by the work to which they are called. They are often insensible of their high behest. They are often governed by low, sordid and selfish motives, like the king of Assyria. They are often aiming at results, the very opposite of those which God uses their agency to produce. The world may owe them no gratitude and Heaven avouch them no reward, but they are no less the moral hinges

on which turn the destiny of ages and empires. To us there is a moral sublimity in contemplating the master minds of earth, often like Polyphemus blind as well as strong, working out for good or evil, for human reward or penalty, the grand designs of an Almighty God.

As we have before said, we cannot concede to all such the meed of true greatness. Sometimes, intellectually, they are devoid of all symmetry and proportion. Their prominence

and power may result from some one faculty unusually endowed, and developed into massive strength by the dwarfing of all the rest. Or some opportunity may have occurred to them, denied to all others, by which they have risen to power and fame.

But while we are not compelled to call truly great all who have wrought great results and imprinted their name and influence on after times, we can admire all as the agents of an unseen God, who by them has worked his will among the inhabitants of earth. The point of what we are saying is this: God's great works on earth demand what the world calls great men, and such are provided to meet emergencies as they rise. It is often said, that emergencies make men. Is it not also true that men are made for emergencies?

"God gives to every man

The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,
That lifts him into life; and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordained to fill."

No miracles are wrought in the creation of such master minds, but by the administration of Providence, they rise when and where their work is to be done. Certain combinations of events develop controlling minds, who in turn, mould the events of their age. These master minds are infinitely diversified in natural endowments, in attainments, character and the field of their influence. Some of them only rise above the horizon of mediocrity, and some soar to their zenith and blaze over nations and centuries. Some only influence a village or a single city, and some rock a nation or a continent. An inferior class of these moulding spirits rise frequently, and are found in every city or state. Another class, of the highest

order, appear once perhaps on a continent, and once in three centuries. The fame of the inferior class may be limited to a city or a commonwealth, but the memory of the other class is written on the recollections of a race, and will not be let die till the race itself is annihilated. To the inferior class belong the ordinary political, theological and literary idols of the multitude. To the other belong the intrinsically great in any department, who have comprehended the world in their sympathies and plans, and originated the far-reaching causes, whose effects will bear their names from generation to generation. But, whatever position they hold in regard to each other and to the mass of society, and whatever their character, they must be regarded but as agents of a mightier mind still, which weaves all their achievements into the mysterious web of Divine Providence.

It would be interesting to glance, and we certainly can only glance, along these mountain tops, on which, far above the ordinary level, have sat the intellectual giants of our race, catching the early rays of a light yet hidden to dwellers in the vales, and enacting deeds that seemed miracles of human power.

When Divine mercy designed to break in upon the idolatry of our race, and set up the church as a pillar of light in earth's darkness, Abraham, great in faith, was selected as an agent, to whose far-reaching vision and trusting heart, centuries far distant became present, and blessings covenanted in future ages, a reality.

When those blessings are about to be realized, by the transfer of Israel, a nation of slaves, from the bondage of Egypt to the freedom of "the land flowing with milk and honey," who shall be the leader in the grand enterprize? By his Hebrew birth and perils; by his royal adoption and training in the learning of Egypt; by his musing forty years in the lone desert of Midian; by his piety, meekness, courage and wisdom, Moses stands ready to be Israel's Ambassador to Pharaoh, and her leader, lawgiver, and judge.

When man is to be taught to bear, as well as to do the will of his Maker; to suffer, yet meekly endure life's great evils, the man of Uz rises on the stage of God's Providence, be

reft of wealth and health, honour, friendship and kindred, bleeding at every pore, yet brave and confiding, gazing up to Heaven and crying, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."

When Heaven's music is to be trilled on earth, and human lips permitted to echo back Heaven's melodies, no angel is selected to impart the lesson. David, the shepherd-boy and the king, the monarch-poet and saint; whose heart, tried in every human condition, has been thrilled by every human passion; whose poetic genius is equalled only by his lofty courage and humble faith, is Heaven's Minstrel.

"The harp the monarch minstrel swept,

The king of men, the loved of Heaven,
Which music hallowed while she wept

O'er tones her heart of hearts had given.

It softened men of iron mould,

It gave them virtues not their own ;

No ear so dull, no soul so cold,

That felt not, fired not to the tone,

Till David's lyre grew mightier than his throne."

When the veil of Jewish seclusion and special privilege was to be rent asunder, when the beams of the risen sun of righteousness were to be allowed to blaze over the earth, who is the destined agent to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles? As precursors, great Cæsars have been raised up to subdue the known world under one empire, while a man equally great in genius, enterprize and courage, and made still greater by the grace of God, has been imbued with learning at the feet of Gamaliel and commissioned by Heaven, to bear in the face of peril, shipwreck, persecution and death, the lamp of truth over the earth.

When the world is to be illuminated by the printed page, and the Bible wrested from the cobwebs of convents to give its lessons to mankind, a priest of Germany translates the book, while an artist of Germany invents the magic art of printing, and transmits his name, with his invention, to all after times. When the emancipation of the Bible, and the reformation of the church, and the invention of printing, have made the intel