pent, the foot of man treads
them by thousands in the dust, the yelping hounds burst upon their
trail, the bullet speeds, the knives are heating in the den of the
vivisectionist; or the dew falls, and the generation of a day is blotted
out. For these are creatures, compared with whom our weakness is
strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span eternity.

And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror and under the
imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the erected, the
reasoner, the wise in his own eyes--God forbid it should be man that
wearies in welldoing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the
language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole
creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy:
Surely not all in vain.

IX

A CHRISTMAS SERMON

By the time this paper appears, I shall have been talking for twelve
months;[30] and it is thought I should take my leave in a formal and
seasonable manner. Valedictory eloquence is rare, and death-bed sayings
have not often hit the mark of the occasion. Charles Second, wit and
sceptic, a man whose life had been one long lesson in human incredulity,
an easy-going comrade, a manoeuvring king--remembered and embodied all
his wit and scepticism along with more than his usual good humour in the
famous "I am afraid, gentlemen, I am an unconscionable time a-dying."

I

An unconscionable time a-dying--there is the picture ("I am afraid,
gentlemen,") of your life and of mine. The sands run out, and the hours
are "numbered and imputed," and the days go by; and when the last of
these finds us, we have been a long time dying, and what else? The very
length is something, if we reach that hour of separation undishonoured;
and to have lived at all is doubtless (in the soldierly expression) to
have served. There is a tale in Tacitus of how the veterans mutinied in
the German wilderness; of how they mobbed Germanicus, clamouring to go
home; and of how, seizing their general's hand, these old, war-worn
exiles passed his finger along their toothless gums. _Sunt lacrymae
rerum_: this was the most eloquent of the songs of Simeon. And when a
man has lived to a fair age, he bears his marks of service. He may have
never been remarked upon the breach at the head of the army; at least he
shall have lost his teeth on the camp bread.

The idealism of serious people in this age of ours is of a noble
character. It n