e hills of Paradise, Milton lost his vision of
earth's beauteous sights and scenes. In explanation of the early death
of Raphael and Burns, Keats and Shelley, it has been said that few
great men who are poor have lived to see forty. They bought their
greatness with life itself. A few short years ago there lived in a
western state a boy who came up to his young manhood with a great, deep
passion for the plants and shrubs. While other boys loved the din and
bustle of the city, or lingered long in the library, or turned eager
feet toward the forum, this youth plunged into the fields and forests,
and with a lover's passion for his noble mistress gave himself to roots
and seeds and flowers. While he was still a child he would tell on
what day in March the first violet bloomed; when the first snowdrop
came, and, going back through his years, could tell the very day in
spring when the first robin sang near his window. Soon the boy's
collection of plants appealed to the wonder of scholars. A little
later students from foreign countries began to send him strange flowers
from Japan and seeds from India. One midnight while he was lingering
o'er his books, suddenly the white page before him was as red with his
life-blood as the rose that lay beside his hand. And when, after two
years in Colorado, friends bore his body up the side of the mountains
he so dearly loved, no scholar in all our land left so full a
collection and exposition of the flowers of that distant state as did
this dying boy. His study and wisdom made all to be his debtors. But
he bought his wisdom with thirty years of health and happiness. We are
rich only because the young scholar, with his glorious future, for our
sakes made himself poor.

Our social treasure also is the result of vicarious service and
suffering. Sailing along the New England coasts, one man's craft
strikes a rock and goes to the bottom. But where his boat sank there
the state lifts a danger signal, and henceforth, avoiding that rock,
whole fleets are saved. One traveler makes his way through the forest
and is lost. Afterward other pilgrims avoid that way. Experimenting
with the strange root or acid or chemical, the scholar is poisoned and
dies. Taught by his agonies, others learn to avoid that danger.

Only a few centuries ago the liberty of thought was unknown. All lips
were padlocked. The public criticism of a baron meant the confiscation
of the peasant's land; the critici