Proverb, text, homily,--happy the youth whose
purse is stored with these broad pieces, current, in every country and
for every good, like fairy gifts of which the occasion only when it
arises shows the use. It is with truth as with beauty,--familiarity
endears and makes it more precious. What is common is for that very
reason in danger of neglect, and from it often flashes that divine
surprise which most enkindles the soul. Why must Prometheus bring fire
from heaven to savage man? Did it not sleep in the flint at his feet?
How often, at the master stroke of life, has some text of Holy
Scripture, which lay in the mind from childhood almost like the debris
of memory, illuminated the remorseful darkness of the mind, or
interpreted the sweetness of God's sunshine in the happy heart! Common
as light is love, sang Shelley; and equally common with beauty and truth
and love is all that is most vital to the soul, all that feeds it and
gives it power; if aught be lacking, it is the eye to see and the heart
to understand. Grain, fruit and vegetable, wool, silk and cotton, gold,
silver and iron, steam and electricity,--were not all, like the spark,
within arm's reach of savage man? The slow material progress of mankind
through ages is paralleled by the slow growth of the individual soul in
laying hold of and putting to use the resources of spiritual strength
that are nigh unto it.
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