e worth dying in poverty
and misery. Ambition might well choose to be remembered with
gratitude by succeeding generations and to have an immortal name,
even if to attain it everything were sacrificed that is counted
desirable in life. Who would not surrender wealth and ease and
luxury, if in exchange for them he could leave such a name as
Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, John Brown, Livingstone or Howard?
Posthumous glory counts for something in the reckoning. And this is
often attained by self-sacrifice. Revile the world as we may, it does
not forget the men who have done it service. The men who have
forgotten themselves, who have not striven after their own advantage,
but have devoted their lives to the good of humanity, achieve
immortality. They get on in the world in the sense of receiving a
crown that cannot fade and a glory outshining that of kings and
millionaires. The hero has a reward all his own and he may well
renounce the lower rewards of riches and ease to gain it. But his
qualities must be heroic or he will make his sacrifices to no
purpose. He must be true to himself at all cost. Washington was a
brilliant example of this fidelity to his ideal. Sparks tells us that
when he clearly saw his duty before him, he did it at all hazards,
and with inflexible integrity. He did not do it for effect; nor did
he think of glory, or of fame and its rewards; but of the right thing
to be done, and the best way of doing it.

Yet Washington had a most modest opinion of himself; and when offered
the chief command of the American patriot army he hesitated to accept
it until it was pressed upon him. When acknowledging in Congress the
honor which had been done him in selecting him to so important a
trust, on the execution of which the future of his country in a great
measure depended, Washington said: "I beg it may be remembered, lest
some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, that I
this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself
equal to the command I am honored with."

And in his letter to his wife, communicating to her his appointment
as commander-in-chief, he said: "I have used very endeavor in my
power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you
and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too
great for my capacity; and that I should enjoy more real happiness in
one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of
finding abroad, if