his time belonged to Massachusetts and
the nation. Spurgeon would not speak for fifty nights in America at one
thousand dollars a night, because he said he could do better: he could
stay in London and try to save fifty souls. All honor to the comparative
few in every walk of life who, amid the strong materialistic tendencies
of our age, still speak and act earnestly, inspired by the hope of
rewards other than gold or popular favor. These are our truly great men
and women. They labor in their ordinary vocations with no less zeal
because they give time and thought to higher things.

King Midas, in the ancient myth, asked that everything he touched might
be turned to gold, for then, he thought, he would be perfectly happy.
His request was granted, but when his clothes, his food, his drink, the
flowers he plucked, and even his little daughter, whom he kissed, were
all changed into yellow metal, he begged that the Golden Touch might be
taken from him. He had learned that many other things are intrinsically
far more valuable than all the gold that was ever dug from the earth.

The "beggarly Homer, who strolled, God knows when, in the infancy and
barbarism of the world," was richer far than Croesus and added more
wealth to the world than the Rothschilds, the Vanderbilts and Goulds.

An Arab who fortunately escaped death after losing his way in the
desert, without provisions, tells of his feelings when he found a bag
full of pearls, just as he was about to abandon all hope. "I shall never
forget," said he, "the relish and delight that I felt on supposing it to
be dried wheat, nor the bitterness and despair I suffered on discovering
that the bag contained pearls."

It is an interesting fact in this money-getting era that a poor author,
or a seedy artist, or a college president with frayed coat-sleeves, has
more standing in society and has more paragraphs written about him in
the papers than many a millionaire. This is due, perhaps, to the malign
influence of money-getting and to the benign effect of purely
intellectual pursuits. As a rule every great success in the money world
means the failure and misery of hundreds of antagonists. Every success
in the world of intellect and character is an aid and profit to society.
Character is a mark cut upon something, and this indelible mark
determines the only true value of all people and all their work. Dr.
Hunter said: "No man was ever a great man who wanted to be one." Artists
canno