the infinite spiritual gains which
remain in store.

This element in Eucken's personality draws him to everybody he comes in
contact with, and draws everybody to him. He has drunk so deeply of the
experiences of Plato and Plotinus, of the great Christian mystics and
moralists of the centuries, that he sees the value of every soul that
comes to him for help. It is far from Eucken's wish for these matters to
be published. And the present writer will only state the fact that
nobody, however ignorant and obscure, has failed in Eucken to find a
father and guide. Hundreds of men who had either lost or had never found
their moral and spiritual bearings in life have succeeded in doing so
through coming into contact with him. The present writer remembers well
many a conversation among students of six or more different
nationalities, concerning the secret of Eucken's teaching [p.233] and
influence. Imagine Servians, Poles, Swedes, Scotch, English, and Welsh
meeting together after a philosophical lecture to discuss the question
of the spiritual life and wondering how to discover it! Eucken's
personality had created in their deepest being a need which could never
more be filled until the Divine entered into it. In the class-room the
great prophet makes it impossible for us to content ourselves with
merely preparing for examinations. The teacher's exposition and
inspiration are creating a deep uneasiness in us. We feel how limited
and shallow our nature has been when we are face to face with a man who
reveals to us the eternal values of the things of the spirit; and who
reveals them not as they have merely been revealed by the great thinkers
of the world, but as he himself has felt and lived them. We all become
impressed with the fact that we are in the presence of a power above the
world; and the feeling of pain is changed into a feeling of strong
optimism in regard to the possibilities of our own nature. We feel that
we, too, in spite of our limitations, can become the possessors of
something of the very nature akin to that which our great teacher
possesses. Eucken works a change in every man and woman who remain with
him for a length of time. Many of us understand something of what Jesus
Christ meant to his disciples; how he created an affection within their
souls which all the obstacles of the world [p.234] could never
obliterate. Eucken has done something of the same kind, on a smaller
scale, for hundreds of his old pupils.