To realize this is, they find, a powerful
incentive to a virtuous life. But whether it be true of a future life or
not, it is certainly true of our present existence. If we do our best for
a day, the next morning we shall rise to a higher life; while if we give
way to our passions and temptations, we take with equal certainty a step
downward toward a lower nature.
It is an interesting illustration of the Unity of Man, and an
encouragement to those of us who have no claims to genius, that, though of
course there have been exceptions, still on the whole, periods of progress
have generally been those when a nation has worked and felt together; the
advance has been due not entirely to the efforts of a few great men, but
also of a thousand little men; not to a single genius, but to a national
effort.
Think, indeed, what might be.
"Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year.
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