the world as to the true value of free institutions, one little New
England community, where all the citizens were patriots and heroes,
scholars and Christians, where vulgarity and crime were unknown, where
the jail was empty and the church was full, where all young lives
moved toward the school-house--one such community has a value beyond
our present millions.

What the world needs is not multitudes, but examples and ideals. If
one Plato can be produced, he will lift the world. Our citizens ask
artists to paint their pictures--not bootblacks. We ask architects to
erect our public buildings--not chimney sweeps. Loving their city, our
citizens have lined the avenues with beautiful homes and streets with
stores and factories. But here their self-love stops. When great men
have created the city, they ask saloon-keepers to govern it. Well did
the sage say, it was as if we had passed by Daniel Webster and asked
an African ape to speak in his stead. Strange--passing strange--that
our nation and city should forget that all love for others begins with
a wise love for self.

We return from our survey with the conviction that Jesus Christ did
well to make individual worth the genius of Christianity. Having moved
backward along the pathway of history, we have found the streams of
civilization taking rise in some one enriched mind and heart, even as
mighty rivers issue from isolated springs. Looking backward we see
Moses building the Hebrew temple; we see Pericles and Plato fashioning
many shapes of truth and beauty for Athens; we see Dante laying the
foundations of Florence; we see Carlo Zeno causing Venice to rise out
of the sands of the sea; we see Bacon and Luther rearing the
cathedrals of thought and worship, under which the millions find their
shelter. Oppressed by a sense of human ignorance and human sin, a
thousand questions arise. Can one poorly born journey toward greatness
of stature? The Cremona violin of the sixteenth century is a mass of
condensed melody. Each atom was soaked in a thousand songs, until the
instrument reeks with sweetness. But can a human instrument, long out
of tune and sadly injured, e'er be brought back to harmony of being?
In the studio of the sculptor lie blocks of deserted marble. Out of
one emerges a hand, another exhibits the outlines of a face. But for
some reason the artist has forsaken them. It seems that as the chisel
worked inward, it uncovered some crack or revealed a dark stain.
There