The Investment of Influence | Page 6

civilization. They are to the heart and home
what the honeysuckle is to the door over which it clings. These
embodied gospels interpret Christianity. Jenny Lind explains a sheet of
printed music--and a royal Christian heart explains, and is more than a
creed. Little wonder, when Christianity is incarnated in a mother, that
the youth worships her as though she were an angel. Someone has
likened a church full of people to a box of unlighted candles; latent
light is there; if they were only kindled and set burning they would be
lights indeed. What God asks for is luminous Christians and living
gospels.
Another form of influence continues after death, and may be called
unconscious immortality or conserved social energy. Personality is
organized into instruments, tools, books, institutions. Over these forms
of activity death and years have no power for destroying. The swift
steamboat and the flying train tell us that Watt and Stephenson are still
toiling for men. Every foreign cablegram reminds us that Cyrus Field
has just returned home. The merchant who organizes a great business
sends down to the generations his personality, prudence, wisdom and
executive skill. The names of inventors may now be on moldering
tombstones, but their busy fingers are still weaving warm textures for
the world's poor. The gardener of Hampton court, who, in old age,
wished to do yet one more helpful deed, and planted with elms and
oaks the roadway leading to the historic house, still lives in those
columnar trees, and all the long summer through distributes comfort
and refreshment. Every man who opens up a roadway into the

wilderness; every engineer throwing a bridge over icy rivers for weary
travelers; every builder rearing abodes of peace, happiness and
refinement for his generation; every smith forging honest plates that
hold great ships in time of storm, every patriot that redeems his land
with blood; every martyr forgotten and dying in his dungeon that
freedom might never perish; every teacher and discoverer who has
gone into lands of fever and miasma to carry liberty, intelligence and
religion to the ignorant, still walks among men, working for society and
is unconsciously immortal.
This is fame. Life hath no holier ambition. Some there are who, denied
opportunity, have sought out those ambitious to learn, and, educating
them, have sent their own personality out through artists, jurists or
authors they have trained. Herein is the test of the greatness of editor or
statesman or merchant. He has so incarnated his ideas or methods in his
helpers that, while his body is one, his spirit has many-shaped forms; so
that his journal, or institution, or party feels no jar nor shock in his
death, but moves quietly forward because he is still here living and
working in those into whom his spirit is incarnated. Death ends the
single life, but our multiplied life in others survives.
The supreme example of atmosphere and influence is Jesus Christ. His
was a force mightier than intellect. Wherever he moved a light ne'er
seen on land nor sea shone on man. It was more than eminent beauty or
supreme genius. His scepter was not through cunning of brain or craft
of hand; reality was his throne. "Therefore," said Charles Lamb, "if
Shakespeare should enter the room we should rise and greet him
uncovered, but kneeling meet the Nazarene." His gift cannot be bought
nor commanded; but his secret and charm may be ours. Acceptance,
obedience, companionship with him--these are the keys of power. The
legend is, that so long as the Grecian hero touched the ground, he was
strong; and measureless the influence of him who ever dwells in
Christ's atmosphere. Man grows like those he loves. If great men come
in groups, there is always a greater man in the midst of the company
from whom they borrowed eminence--Socrates and his disciples;
Cromwell and his friends; Coleridge and his company; Emerson and
the Boston group; high over all the twelve disciples and the Name

above every name. Perchance, in vision-hour, over against the man you
are he will show you the man he would fain have you become; thereby
comes greatness. For value is not in iron, but in the pattern that molds it;
beauty is not in the pigments, but in the ideal that blends them; strength
is not in the stone or marble, but in the plan of architect; greatness is
not in wisdom, nor wealth, nor skill, but in the divine Christ who works
up these raw materials of character. Forevermore the secret of
eminence is the secret of the Messiah.

LIFE'S GREAT HEARTS, AND THE HELPFULNESS OF THE
HIGHER MANHOOD.

"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for
themselves, for if our virtues Did not go forth of us,