Call you that greatness which Pizarro achieved when, seizing a sword and drawing a line upon the sand from east to west, he himself facing south, he said to his band of pirates:--“_Friends, comrades, on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its richness; here Panama with its poverty. Choose, each man what best becomes a brave Castillian. For my part I go to the south_;”--suiting the action to the word? So do I,--but look ye, this is merely the greatness of overwhelming energy and concentrated purpose, not illuminated by a single ray of light from the Divine. See here, how Placido dwarfeth Pizarro when he thus prayeth, “God of unbounded love, and power eternal! To Thee I turn in darkness and despair; Stretch forth Thine arm, and from the brow infernal Of calumny the veil of justice tear! * * * * * O, King of kings!--my father’s God!--who only Art strong to save, by whom is all controlled,-- Who giv’st the sea its waves, the dark and lonely Abyss of heaven its light, the North its cold, The air its currents, the warm sun its beams, Life to the flowers, and motion to the streams: All things obey Thee; dying or reviving As thou commandest; all, apart from Thee, From Thee alone their life and power deriving, Sink and are lost in vast eternity! * * * * * O, merciful God! I cannot shun Thy presence, For through its veil of flesh, Thy piercing eye Looketh upon my spirit’s unsoiled essence, As through the pure transparence of the sky; Let not the oppressor clap his bloody hands, As o’er my prostrate innocence he stands. * * * * * But if, alas, it seemeth good to Thee That I should perish as the guilty dies, Still, fully in me, Thy will be done, O God!” Placido had a symmetrically developed character. All great men have this. His intellectual and moral nature blended harmoniously as “Kindred elements into one.” An ancient philosopher hath said that the passions and the soul are placed in the same body, so that the passions might have ready opportunity to persuade the soul to become subservient to their purpose. A terrible conflict. And yet through it Placido passed triumphantly.