claiming, "Here stand I and will not
move, so help me God!"--a Howard making a tour of the jails of Europe,
and dying alone and neglected on the shores of the Black Sea--a Henry
Martyn leaving the cloistered halls of Cambridge, abandoning the golden
prospects opening around him, and abandoning what is dearer still, the
evils of youth, to preach Christ, and Him crucified, beneath the burning
and fatal sun of the East--or a Hebrew maiden, like Jepthah's daughter,
dying for her country or her country's good,--are sights rare and
blessed, and beautiful and divine. All true teachers are the same, and
are glorious to behold. For a time no one regards their testimony. The
man stands by himself--a reed, but not shaken by the wind--a voice crying
in the wilderness--a John the Baptist nursed in the wilds, and away from
the deadening spell of the world. Then comes the influence of the
solitary thinker on old fallacies; the young and the enthusiastic rush to
his side, the sceptic and the scoffer one by one disappear, and the world
is conquered; or if it be not so, if he languishes in jail like Galileo,
or wanders on the face of the earth seeking rest and finding none, like
our Puritan forefathers; or die, as many an hero has died, as the Christ
did, when the power of the Prince of Darkness prevailed, and the veil of
the Temple was rent in twain; still there is for him a resurrection, when
a coming age will honour his memory, collect his scattered ashes, and
build them a fitting tomb. Yet even this kind of heroism has come to be
but a monotonous affair.

Now-a-days the thing can be done, and in one way--a meeting at Exeter
Hall, a dinner at Freemasons' tavern, Harker for toast-master, a few
vocalists to sing between the pieces, and for chairman a lord by all
means; if possible, a royal duke. The truest thing about us is our
appetite. Our appreciation of a hero is as our appreciation of a coat; a
saviour of a nation and a Soyer we class together, and do justice to both
at the same time. We moderns eat where our fathers bled. Our powers we
show by the number of bottles of wine we can consume; our devotion is to
our dinners; the sword has made way for the carving-knife; our battle is
against the ills to which gluttonness and wine-bibbing flesh is heir; the
devil that comes to us is the gout; the hell in which we believe and
against which we fight is indigestion; our means of grace are blue pill
and black draught. All art and s