ted and
the devoted pressed on to victory and honor.

Turn back to the battle of Saratoga. There were two Americans on that
field who suffered under a great personal disappointment: Philip
Schuyler, who was unjustly supplanted in command of the army by General
Gates; and Benedict Arnold, who was deprived by envy of his due share in
the glory of winning the battle. Schuyler forgot his own injury in
loyalty to the cause, offered to serve Gates in any capacity, and went
straight on to the end of his noble life giving all that he had to his
country. But in Arnold's heart the favorite object was not his country,
but his own ambition, and the wound which his pride received at Saratoga
rankled and festered and spread its poison through his whole nature,
until he went forth from the camp, "a leper white as snow."

What was it that made Charles Lee, as fearless a man as ever lived, play
the part of a coward in order to hide his treason at the battle of
Monmouth? It was the inward eating corruption of that selfish vanity
which caused him to desire the defeat of an army whose command he had
wished but failed to attain. He had offered his sword to America for his
own glory, and when that was denied him, he withdrew the offering, and
died, as he had lived, to himself.

What was it that tarnished the fame of Gates and Wilkinson and Burr and
Conway? What made their lives, and those of men like them, futile and
inefficient compared with other men whose natural gifts were less? It
was the taint of dominant selfishness that ran through their careers,
now hiding itself, now breaking out in some act of malignity or
treachery. Of the common interest they were reckless, provided they
might advance their own. Disappointed in that "ever favorite object of
their hearts," they did not hesitate to imperil the cause in whose
service they were enlisted.

Turn to other cases, in which a charitable judgment will impute no
positive betrayal of trusts, but a defect of vision to recognize the
claim of the higher ideal. Tory or Revolutionist a man might be,
according to his temperament and conviction; but where a man begins
with protests against tyranny and ends with subservience to it, we look
for the cause. What was it that separated Joseph Galloway from Francis
Hopkinson? It was Galloway's opinion that, while the struggle for
independence might be justifiable, it could not be successful, and the
temptation of a larger immediate reward under the Br