d and draw into the current of his soul those whose condition
is one of stagnancy or arrest. Now courage and belief are streamings
forward; skepticism and timidity are stagnancies; panic, fear, and
destructive denial are streamings backward. True, now, it is, that any
swift flowing, forward or backward, attracts; but progressive or
affirmative currents have this vast advantage, that they are health, and
therefore the healthy humanity in every man's being believes in them and
belongs to them; and they accordingly are like rivers, which, however
choked up temporarily and made refluent, are sure in the end to force
their way; while negative and backward currents are like pestilences and
conflagrations, which of necessity limit themselves by exhaustion, if
not mastered by happier means.

We may, indeed, note it as a nicety, that the membrane must be moist
through which this transudation is to take place; and I admit that there
are men whose enveloping sheath of individualism and egotism is so hard
and dry, so little interpenetrated by candor and the love of truth, as
to be nearly impervious to noble persuasion; and were whole Missouris of
tidings from the highest intelligence rushing past them, they would
still yawn, and say, "Do you get any news?" as innocently as ever.

Nevertheless, history throbs with the mystery of this influence. A
little girl slumping by her mother's side awoke in a severe
thunder-storm, and, nestling in terror near to the mother, and shrinking
into the smallest possible space, said, trembling, "Mother, are you
afraid?" "No, my dear," answered the lady, calmly. "Oh, well," said the
child, assuming her full proportions, and again disposing herself for
sleep, "if you're not afraid, I'm not afraid," and was soon slumbering
quietly. What volumes of gravest human history in that little incident!
So infinitely easy are daring and magnanimity, so easy is transcendent
height of thought and will, when exalted spiritually, when imperial
valor and purpose breathe and blow upon our souls from the lips of a
living fellow! Not, it may be, that anything new is said. That is not
required. What another now thrills, inspires, transfigures us by saying,
we probably knew before, only dared not let ourselves think that we knew
it. The universe, perhaps, had not a nook so hidden that therein we
could have been solitary enough to whisper that divine suggestion to our
own hearts. But now some childlike man stands up and spe