onquests have been achieved
after they themselves were dead. "Never," says Michelet, "was Caesar
more alive, more powerful, more terrible, than when his old and worn-out
body, his withered corpse, lay pierced with blows; he appeared
then purified, redeemed,--that which he had been, despite his many
stains--the man of humanity." [1016] Never did the great character of
William of Orange, surnamed the Silent, exercise greater power over his
countrymen than after his assassination at Delft by the emissary of the
Jesuits. On the very day of his murder the Estates of Holland resolved
"to maintain the good cause, with God's help, to the uttermost, without
sparing gold or blood;" and they kept their word.

The same illustration applies to all history and morals. The career of
a great man remains an enduring monument of human energy. The man
dies and disappears; but his thoughts and acts survive, and leave
an indelible stamp upon his race. And thus the spirit of his life is
prolonged and perpetuated, moulding the thought and will, and thereby
contributing to form the character of the future. It is the men that
advance in the highest and best directions, who are the true beacons of
human progress. They are as lights set upon a hill, illumining the moral
atmosphere around them; and the light of their spirit continues to shine
upon all succeeding generations.

It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the
nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their
time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the
common heritage of their race; and their great deeds and great thoughts
are the most glorious of legacies to mankind. They connect the present
with the past, and help on the increasing purpose of the future; holding
aloft the standard of principle, maintaining the dignity of human
character, and filling the mind with traditions and instincts of all
that is most worthy and noble in life.

Character, embodied in thought and deed, is of the nature of
immortality. The solitary thought of a great thinker will dwell in the
minds of men for centuries until at length it works itself into their
daily life and practice. It lives on through the ages, speaking as a
voice from the dead, and influencing minds living thousands of years
apart. Thus, Moses and David and Solomon, Plato and Socrates and
Xenophon, Seneca and Cicero and Epictetus, still speak to us as from
their tombs. T