ransparency from being darkened in any direction or relation.
He who has this loyalty dominant in his nature never pronounces
anything false which subsequent investigation, or the investigation by
others, proves true. He never becomes an obstacle to the spread of any
truth. He is always the first to welcome a new truth and the last to
falter in sustaining it. He is always ready to recognize the same
sincerity and fidelity in others, and to give a kindly welcome to the
labors and discoveries of other followers of truth. As brave men
readily recognize and honor each other, so do the soldiers of truth
meet in quick sympathy and cordial co-operation.

The labors, the discoveries and promulgations of such men ever become
criteria by which to test the loyalty and truthfulness of others, for,
wherever they are presented, all who live in loyalty to truth are at
once attracted and realize their harmony with the truth. As the
magnetized iron attracts the unmagnetized, so does the loyal soul
charged with truth attract all other loyal souls.

But all through human history we find that inventions, discoveries
and, above all, momentous truths uniformly fail to attract the masses,
either of the learned or the unlearned, as was illustrated in our
December number, and hence we must conclude that, in the present early
or juvenile stage of human evolution, loyalty to truth is one of the
rarest virtues of humanity.

And yet, how often do we meet in literature expressions which would
indicate that the writers were entirely loyal. They mistake loyalty to
their own self-esteem, loyalty to their own dogmatic convictions,
mental limitations, prejudices, and prepossessions for loyalty to
truth, which is a passionless, modest, lovely and noble quality.

No doubt the contemporaries of Galileo, Newton, and Harvey indulged in
the same self-gratulations. The bigot and dogmatist in all ages have
entertained no doubt of their own loyalty to truth; but it was loyalty
to their own very limited perceptions, and to their profound
conviction that all outside of their own sphere of perception was
falsehood or nonentity, and should be received with supercilious scorn
or crushing blows whenever presented.

Men's minds are thus narrowed in the base contests of selfishness,
jealousy, and fraud; but of all the demoralizing influences that
darken the mind by closing up permanently its most important inlets,
none have had such a wide-spread and far-reaching po