h and compel all these,--and on the
whole, strike down victoriously the last topstone of that Paul's
Edifice; thy monument for certain centuries, the stamp "Great Man"
impressed very legibly on Portland-stone there!

Yes, all manner of help, and pious response from Men of Nature, is
always what we call silent; cannot speak or come to light, till it be
seen, till it be spoken to. Every noble work is at first "Impossible."
In very truth, for every noble work the possibilities will lie
diffused through Immensity; inarticulate, undiscoverable except to
faith. Like Gideon, thou shalt spread out thy fleece at the door of
thy tent; see whether under the wide arch of Heaven there be any
bounteous moisture, or none. Thy heart and life-purpose shall be as a
miraculous Gideon's fleece, spread out in silent appeal to Heaven; and
from the kind Immensities, what from the poor unkind Localities and
town and country Parishes there never could, blessed dew-moisture to
suffice thee shall have fallen!

Work is of a religious nature;--work is of a _brave_ nature; which it
is the aim of all religion to be. All work of man is as the swimmer's:
a waste ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it
will keep its word. By incessant wise defiance of it, lusty rebuke and
buffet of it, behold how it loyally supports him, bears him as its
conqueror along. "It is so," says Goethe, "with all things that man
undertakes in this world."

Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king,--Columbus, my hero, royalest
Sea-king of all! it is no friendly environment, this of thine, in the
waste deep waters; around thee mutinous discouraged souls, behind thee
disgrace and ruin, before thee the equal, unpenetrated veil of Night.
Brother, these wild water-mountains, bounding from their deep basin
(ten miles deep, I am told), are not entirely there on thy behalf!
Meseems _they_ have other work than floating thee forward:--and the
huge Winds, that sweep from Ursa-Major to the Tropics and Equators,
dancing their giant-waltz through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity,
they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small
shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine! Thou art not
among articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among
immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling, wide as the world here.
Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help
in them: see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt