Ah, could you crush that ever craving lust For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose your life, Your barren unit life, to find again A thousand times in those for whom you die-- So were you men and women, and should hold Your rightful rank in God's great universe, Wherein, in heaven or earth, by will or nature, Naught lives for self. All, all, from crown to base-- The Lamb, before the world's foundation slain-- The angels, ministers to God's elect-- The sun, who only shines to light the worlds-- The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers-- The fleeting streams, who in their ocean graves Flee the decay of stagnant self-content-- The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe-- The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower-- The flower, which feeds a thousand velvet worms Born only to be prey to every bird-- All spend themselves on others: and shall man, Whose twofold being is the mystic knot Which couples earth with heaven, doubly bound, As being both, worm and angel, to that service By which both worms and angels hold their life, Shall he, whose every breath is debt on debt, Refuse, forsooth, to be what God has made him? No; let him show himself the creatures' Lord By free-will gift of that self-sacrifice Which they, perforce, by Nature's law's endure. My friends, scientific and others, if the study of bio-geology shall help to teach you this, or anything like this, I think that though it may not make you more happy, it may yet make you more wise; and, therefore, what is better than being more happy, namely, more blessed. THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY FOR SOLDIERS {181} Gentlemen: When I accepted the honour of lecturing here, I took for granted that so select an audience would expect from me not mere amusement, but somewhat of instruction; or, if that be too ambitious a word for me to use, at least some fresh hint--if I were able to give one--as to how they should fulfil the ideal of military men in such an age as this. To touch on military matters, even had I been conversant with them, seemed to me an impertinence. I am bound to take for granted that every man knows his own business best; and I incline more and more to the opinion that military men should be left to work out the problems of their art for themselves, without the advice or criticism of civilians. But I hold--and I am sure that you will agree with me--that if the soldier is to be thus trusted by the nation, and left to himself to do his own work his own way, he must be educated in all practical matters as highly as the average of educated civilians. He must know all that they know, and his own art besides. Just as a clergyman, being a man plus a priest, is bound to be a man, and a good man; over and above his priesthood, so is the soldier bound to be a civilian, and a highly-educated civilian, plus his soldierly qualities and acquirements.