Its felicities often seem
to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the
national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory
of the dead passes into it, The potent traditions of childhood are
stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials
of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of
his best moments, and all that has been about him of soft, and
gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him for ever
out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt
has never dimmed and controversy never soiled. In the length
and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one
spark of religiousness about him whose spiritual biography
is not in his Saxon Bible." (4)
It would, indeed, be difficult to overestimate the influence which
the lives of the great and good have exercised upon the elevation
of human character. "The best biography," says Isaac Disraeli,
"is a reunion with human existence in its most excellent state."
Indeed, it is impossible for one to read the lives of good men,
much less inspired men, without being unconsciously lighted and
lifted up in them, and growing insensibly nearer to what they
thought and did. And even the lives of humbler persons, of men of
faithful and honest spirit, who have done their duty in life well,
are not without an elevating influence upon the character of those
who come after them.
Pages:
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357