violence" (literally, "is gotten by force ") to the method by which astronomers have made conquest of the lower heavens; capturing for human knowledge the infinite spaces hitherto but seeming wastes between the worlds. When Herschel was making the great lens for his telescope, he must walk about it polishing it, without removing his hands. This he sometimes did daily for sixteen consecutive hours, his sister putting his food into his mouth. Oftentimes it happens that, to a more serious degree, there is no one to feed the body of the inventor or discoverer while for fame or for philanthropy he pursues his fate.

It will not be until the old superstition comes true and "dobbies" enter unawares the homes of clever housewives to do the churning for them, that men of thought may depend upon their inspirations to do the task which nature sets before patience and grit.

Many of the most vigorous minds in every department of life have shown tremendous will power, not only by concentrating their thoughts upon given topics, but also by diverting their attention from subjects in which they were intensely interested. Bonaparte could force himself to sleep in the interludes of a battle. Brutus, the day before Pharsalia, though he realized the tremendous issues both to himself and the Republic which hung upon that engagement, spent the time in reading and copying extracts from the

histories of Polybius. Count Cavour, at a most critical juncture for the kingdom of Sardinia, of which he was Prime Minister, journeyed to meet the Emperor Louis Napoleon. Himself a man as yet but little known, he was to play at the game of diplomacy with one famed as the shrewdest and most unscrupulous in Europe, the stake being the war between France and Austria and the enlargement of Italy from the provinces of the defeated. Yet during the journey Cavour was absorbed in reading Buckle's "History of Civilization in England." Before one of the great battles in The Wilderness Grant, having made his preparation for one of his masterly flank movements, by which during the night the entire Federal army should be swung miles to the southward, spent a couple of hours before sundown in "reminiscensing" with an old acquaintance who had gained admission to headquarters. gentleman asserts that Grant was as much at his ease as if the camp had been in the Adirondacks instead of where the midgets were rifle balls and the hedgehogs wore bayonet quills. Dismissing his guest the general offered to provide him a horse for the following day, a promise which he fulfilled at sunrise, with a kindly suggestion of the direction in which to look out for stray shots from the Confederate guns. All men in public life, and those with many private cares of business, have to learn volitional versatility, or their

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interest in one duty will rob them of ability for the next.

The same necessity of prompt and persistent purpose is seen in all moral attainment. Virtue lies primarily not in thought, not in feeling, however noble and pure, but in volition. The feeling "I ought" must be wrought into "I will," as bits of crude iron must be melted and forged into steel.

In saying this we do not undervalue the influence of refined education. Socrates emphasized this. Paul insisted upon it. "Whatsoever things are pure, just, honest, lovely, and of good report, think on these things." But these are the drawing on the etcher's plate; only determination can bite" the lines. Seneca was the purest moralist of the pagan ages. His favorite pupil was that crowned and crowning disgrace of human kind, the emperor Nero. A Roman cartoon represents the career of this infamous man by a chariot, which is being whirled along by a runaway dragon-his passions-while a little bird— Seneca-sits upon the dashboard with the reins in its bill. Aaron Burr spent his early youth in the home of his father, the saintly President of Nassau Hall, with vacations under the roof of that sternest of modern thinkers, Jonathan Edwards. But this did not prevent his becoming a traitor to his country, to society, and to almost every man and woman he touched. He was a

man of tremendous force, but that force was like the strength of a gigantic slave-for it was dominated by his passion. Willfulness is not real will-power; in final analysis it will be found to be the reverse. It is like the fire force in a great conflagration; if nothing without can stop it, neither can it subdue itself. Many a man is thus an outward power who is himself a victim to his own inflamed energy and conceit.

Matthew Arnold speaks of "the power in the world that makes for righteousness." Within the human soul this is the power that can say, "I will do the right." Our Lord understood this; He impressed his generation with the two facts of the perfection of the law He proclaimed and his own perfection as the exponent thereof, and then looked men in the face and said, "Follow me." Righteousness with him was not a matter of either theory or sentiment, but of volition. The Will must act, or the whole spirit remain in that stupor which is the paralysis of virtue.

The method of Jesus is suggested by the statement of Dr. Maudsley, the eminent English physician and alienist, "The Will is the culminating effort of mental development, the final blossom of human education." Consistently with this law of mental science the Great Master taught us that when God touches a man the Divine quickening is first felt at the highest point of his nature, the faculty of the Will, just as the

rising sun gilds the mountain top before it drops its rays upon the plains and valleys. The full work of the Good Spirit is seen in producing the "final blossom of human education," the Will consecrated to all that is right and true.

No novelist ever conceived a finer picture of spiritual heroism than this from the actual experience of Charles Kingsley, romancer, poet, preacher. At the age of twenty-two he was strongly tempted, as many young men of virile passions are, to follow a roving life of adventure and pleasure. He realized that he was at the crisis of his career: "June 12, 1841. My birthnight. I have been for the last hour on the seashore, not dreaming, but thinking deeply and strongly, and forming determinations which are to affect my destiny through time and through eternity. Before the sleeping earth and the sleepless sea and stars I have devoted myself to God; a vow never (if he gives me the faith I pray for) to be recalled.” This determination sent the thrill through all his faculties both of vision and feeling. "Saved-saved from the wild pride and darkling tempests of skepticism, and from the sensuality and dissipation into which my own rashness and vanity had hurried me. Saved from a hunter's life on the prairies, from becoming a savage, and perhaps worse."

The late Admiral Foote, the hero of the West