Often and often have I seen it so, and others have seen it with me, glittering against clouds, or lit up by a flashing sunbeam. I have always thought it a true symbol of what the Power of the Pen should be--to point upwards. To point to the highest aims of life, the best, the greatest things; to rise clear out of the darkness and point straight to the sunshine! For, if so uplifted, the Power of the Pen becomes truly invincible. It can do almost anything. It can shame the knave--it can abash the fool. It can lower the proud,--it can raise the humble. It can assist the march of Science,--it can crush opposition. Armed with truth and justice, its authority is greater than that of governments,--for it can upset governments. It would seem impossible to dethrone an unworthy king; but it has been done--by the Power of the Pen! It is difficult to put down the arrogance of a county snob,--but it _can_ be done!--by the Power of the Pen! It may seem a terrible task to root up lies, to destroy hypocrisies, shams, false things of every kind, and make havoc among rogues, sensualists, and scoundrels of both high and low degree,--but it can be done, by the Power of the Pen! And to those who are given this power in its truest sense, is also added the gift of prophecy--the quick prescience of things To Be--the spiritual hearing which catches the first sound of the approaching time. And beyond the things of time this spiritual sense projects itself, and hears, and almost _sees_, all that shall be found most glorious after death! With the Power of the Pen we can uphold all noble things; we can denounce all vile things. May all who have that power so deal with it--and point us on--and upward! For as our great poet, Tennyson, says:-- What is true at last will tell; Few at first will place thee well; Some too low would have thee shine, Some too high--no fault of thine! Hold thine own and work thy will! THE GLORY OF WORK Very commonplace and familiar--perhaps too commonplace and familiar is the subject of Work. Every one worthy the name of man or woman is, or desires to be a Worker, and none surely would voluntarily swell the distressed ranks of the Unemployed. For to be unemployed is to be miserable. To find nothing to do,--to be of no use to ourselves or to our fellow-creatures is to be more or less set aside and cast out from the ever-working Divine scheme of labour and fruition, ambition and accomplishment. Among all the blessings which the Creator showers so liberally upon us, there is none greater than WORK. And amid all the evils which Man wilfully accumulates on his own head through ignorance and obstinacy, there is none so blighting and disastrous as Idleness. There are, however, certain people who have persuaded themselves to look upon Work as a curse. Many of these pin their theories on the Third Chapter of the Book of Genesis. There they read: