We have all met the parallel drawn between man and the pottery fashioned by the moulder from the clay. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the helplessness of the human being in the hands of the power that fashioned and shaped him, even ages before his birth,—the uncontrollable force that determined the length of his body, the color of his hair, the size and shape of his brain and the contour of his face. But the comparison made in the beautiful stanza wrought by Omar, and retouched and gilded by the magic of FitzGerald, is wondrously powerful and fine. The poet ranges his poor pieces of pottery in line, each representing a man; each imperfect in structure or form, like all the other creatures ever made. These poor, imperfect vessels, fresh from the potter, each pleads its cause and makes excuses for its faults. After a momentary silence spake Some vessel of a more ungainly Make: “They sneer at me for leaning all awry: What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?” When will humanity be great enough and good enough to distinguish between the fault of the potter and the fault of the pot! When can it look over the myriads of human beings, each with his flaws and limitations, and pity instead of blame! The history of the past is a record of man’s cruel inhumanity to man; of one imperfect vessel accusing and shattering another for the faults of both. In ancient times and amongst savage tribes, the old, the infirm, and the diseased were led out and put to death; even later, the maniac and imbecile were fettered, chained, beaten, and imprisoned because they were different from other men. The world has grown a little wiser, and perhaps humaner, as the centuries have passed away. We have learned to build asylums, and treat the afflicted with tenderness and care. We have learned not to blame the dwarf for his stature; the hunchback for his load; the deaf because they cannot hear, and the blind because they cannot see. We do not expect the midget to carry the giant’s load, or the cripple to triumph in a contest of speed. We establish a regulation size for policemen and soldiers, but we do not put a man to death because his stature is below the standard fixed. We forgive the size of the foot, the length of the arm, the shade of the hair, the color of the eye, and even the form of the skull. But, while we do not blame a man because he has an ill-shaped head, we punish him because the brain within conforms to the bone which molds its form. The world has made guns and swords, racks and dungeons, chains and whips, blocks and gibbets, and to these have dragged an endless procession thro’ all the past. It has penned and maimed, tortured and killed, because the potter’s work was imperfect and the clay was weak. During all the ages it has punished mental deformity as a crime, and without pity or regret has crushed the imperfect vessels beneath its feet. Every jail, every