As he groped his way up in his singing, he felt them in spirit, perhaps, the lonely wandering minstrels in little closed-in valleys, or on the vast quiet hills, filling the world with his voice when he was dead, going about with his singing, breaking it in upon the souls of children, of the new boys and girls, and building new worlds and rebuilding old worlds in the hearts of men. Homer had the spirit of hearing his own voice forever, but the technique of it, the important point of seeing how the thing could really be done, of seeing how people, instead of listening to imitations or copies or awkward echoes of Homer, should listen to Homer's voice itself--the timbre, the intimacy, the subtlety, the strength of it--the depth of his heart singing out of it. All this has had to wait to be thought out by Thomas A. Edison. Man has not only for thousands of years had the spirit of immortality, of keeping his voice filed away if any one wanted it on the earth, forever, but he has had all the other spirits or ghosts of his mightier self. He has had the spirit of being imperious and wilful with the sea, of faring forth on a planet and playing with oceans, and now he has worked out the details in ocean liners, in boats that fly up from the water, and in boats which dive and swim beneath the sea. For thousands of years he has had the spirit of the locomotive working through, troops of runners or of dim men groping defiantly with camels through deserts, or sweeping on on horses through the plains, and now with his banners of steam at last he has great public trains of cars carrying cities. For hundreds of years man has had the spirit of the motor-car--of having his own private locomotive or his own special train drive up to his door--the spirit of making every road his railway. For a great many years he has had the spirit of the wireless telegraph and of using the sky. Franklin tried using the sky years ago but all he got was electricity. Marconi knew how better. Marconi has got ghosts of men's voices out of the clouds, has made heaven a sounding board for great congregations of cities, and faraway nations wrapped in darkness and silence whisper round the rolling earth. Man has long had the spirit of defying the seas. Now he has the technique and the motor-boat. He has had the spirit of removing oceans and of building huge, underground cities, the spirit of caves in the ground and mansions in the sky, and now he has subways and skyscrapers. For a thousand years he has had the spirit of Christ and now there is Frederick Taylor, Louis Brandeis, Westfield Pure Food, Doctor Carrel, Jane Addams, and Filene's Store. Vast networks--huge spiritual machines of goodness are crowding and penetrating to-day, fifteen pounds to the square inch, the atmosphere of the gospel into the very core of the matter of the world, into the everyday things, into the solids of the lives of men.