country, one good believing man is worth a
hundred, nay, worth a thousand men without character." His example is so
contagious, that all other men are directly and beneficially influenced
by him, and he insensibly elevates and lifts them up to his own standard
of energetic activity.

Communication with the good is invariably productive of good. The good
character is diffusive in his influence. "I was common clay till roses
were planted in me," says some aromatic earth in the Eastern fable.
Like begets like, and good makes good. "It is astonishing," says Canon
Moseley, "how much good goodness makes. Nothing that is good is alone,
nor anything bad; it makes others good or others bad--and that other,
and so on: like a stone thrown into a pond, which makes circles that
make other wider ones, and then others, till the last reaches the
shore.... Almost all the good that is in the world has, I suppose,
thus come down to us traditionally from remote times, and often unknown
centres of good." [125] So Mr. Ruskin says, "That which is born of evil
begets evil; and that which is born of valour and honour, teaches valour
and honour."

Hence it is that the life of every man is a daily inculcation of good
or bad example to others. The life of a good man is at the same time the
most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice. Dr.
Hooker described the life of a pious clergyman of his acquaintance as
"visible rhetoric," convincing even the most godless of the beauty of
goodness. And so the good George Herbert said, on entering upon the
duties of his parish: "Above all, I will be sure to live well, because
the virtuous life of a clergyman is the most powerful eloquence, to
persuade all who see it to reverence and love, and--at least to desire
to live like him. And this I will do," he added, "because I know we live
in an age that hath more need of good examples than precepts." It was a
fine saying of the same good priest, when reproached with doing an
act of kindness to a poor man, considered beneath the dignity of his
office,--that the thought of such actions "would prove music to him at
midnight." [126] Izaak Walton speaks of a letter written by George Herbert
to Bishop Andrewes, about a holy life, which the latter "put into his
bosom," and after showing it to his scholars, "did always return it to
the place where he first lodged it, and continued it so, near his heart,
till the last day of his life."

Great is the