s difficulty now is the common error that a man's work for his country
should be based on the assumption that it should bear full effect in his
own time. This is most certainly false; for a man's life is counted by
years, a nation's by centuries, and as work for the nation should be
directed to bringing her to full maturity in the coming time, a man must
be prepared to labour for an end that may be realised only in another
generation. Consider how he disposes his plans for his individual life.
His boyhood and youth are directed that his manhood and prime may be the
golden age of life, full-blooded and strong-minded, with clear vision
and great purpose and high hope, all justified by some definite
achievement. A man's prime is great as his earlier years have been well
directed and concentrated. In the early years the ground is prepared and
the seed sown for the splendid period of full development. So it is with
the nation: we must prepare the ground and sow the seed for the rich
ripeness of maturity; and bearing in mind that the maturity of the
nation will come, not in one generation but after many generations, we
must be prepared to work in the knowledge that we prepare for a future
that only other generations will enjoy. It does not mean that we shall
work in loneliness, cheered by no vision of the Promised Land; we may
even reach the Promised Land in our time, though we cannot explore all
its great wonders: that will be the delight of ages. But some will never
survive to celebrate the great victory that will establish our
independence; yet they shall not go without reward; for to them will
come a vision of soul of the future triumph, an exaltation of soul in
the consciousness of labouring for that future, an exultation of soul in
the knowledge that once its purpose is grasped, no tyranny can destroy
it, that the destiny of our country is assured, and her dominion will
endure for ever. Let any argument be raised against one such pioneer--he
knows this in his heart, and it makes him indomitable, and it is he who
is proven to be wise in the end. He judges the past clearly, and through
the crust of things he discerns the truth in his own time, and puts his
work in true relation to the great experience of life, and he is
justified; for ultimately his work opens out, matures, and bears fruit a
hundredfold. It may not be in a day, but when his hand falls dead, his
glory becomes quickly manifest. He has lived a beautiful life, a