In the story of Bismarck many ikons have been used by many writers, to account for the puzzle of this great man's complex career. Some call it ambition; others will power; others destiny. Certainly, in his long and adventurous career Bismarck was often close to death. ¶ Now Bismarck himself always had his own peculiar ikon. He called it God. His speeches for many years before Sadowa, his protests in behalf of his King, as against the rising tide of Liberalism, always contained amidst thunders of political consequence, the name God as the one explanation of Bismarck's history and Bismarck's ultimate victory. ¶ If that be true--and it is not for us to say yes or no, for we are reporting the man as he is and not the way we think he should be--then God was at the bloody field of Sadowa, on the side of the 221,000 Germans, armed with needle-guns, and not on the side of the 224,000 Austrians, armed with old-fashioned muzzle-loaders;--and the clash of 445,000 men with tens of thousands left dead on the field, was the final expression of the will of God. ¶ Thus reasoned Bismarck, and surely he should be the best authority on the conclusions of his own mind? As a matter of fact, Bismarck's profound belief that God was on his side but shows Bismarck's excess of faith--the faith that moves mountains. * * * * * ¶ It has been said by eminent historians that Bismarck as the Unifier of Germany had in his mind's eye, for many years, the dream of Empire; and the statement is either true or false. ¶ These writers call Bismarck the man with the vision, the seer, the German patriot who saw in an early dream the stirring plan to which he was to devote his long and arduous life. ¶ You are familiar with the painting by LaFarge, depicting the boy Napoleon, in the school yard at Brien, walking to one side, by himself? On his youthful brow is already an air of strange preoccupation, that cloud of ambition, as an outward sign that the boy's imagination is bodying forth the heroic deeds of the man, many years hence. ¶ Do not believe it! It is only a poetic fancy, not human life. Plans such as Bismarck met and carried forth, empires such as Napoleon founded are not placed constructively before one in a vision, nor are the complex ramifications attendant upon their ultimate achievement a matter of pre-vision. It is only the small mind that plans down to the hair's breadth. Your truly great man, like Bismarck or Napoleon, takes up life as he finds it, and little by little learns the business of compelling other men to do his bidding; and always in this there is a large element left to the hazard of the die; or to use Bismarck's own phrase just before Sadowa, "Now we shall see how the god of battle rolls the iron dice!" Your great man rides forth to the battle, prepared to take instant advantage of circumstances as they may rise.