sometimes is, "Almighty God, condemn them, for they _know_ what they do!" But we cannot forget that there sounds down the ages, from the saddest and most triumphant of all martyrdoms, a different and a diviner prayer,--"Father, forgive them, for they know _not_ what they do!" Indeed, however much we may be struck with the startling immediateness of effect which follows the exercise of practical force, we must not forget the immense agency in human affairs of the ideal powers of the soul. These work creatively from within to mould character, not only inflaming great passions, but touching the springs of pity, tenderness, gentleness, and love,--above all, infusing that wide-reaching sympathy which sends the individual out of the grit-guarded fortress of his personality into the wide plain of the race. The culmination of these ideal powers is in genius and heroism, which draw their inspiration from ideal and spiritual sources, and radiate it in thoughts beautifully large and deeds beautifully brave. They do not merely exert power, they communicate it. If you are overcome by a man of grit, he insolently makes you conscious of your own weakness. If you are overcome by genius and heroism, you are made participants in their strength; for they overcome only to invigorate and uplift. They sweep on their gathering disciples to the object they have in view, by making it an object of affection as well as duty. Their power to allure and to attract is not lost even when their goal is the stake or the cross. They never, in transient ignominy and pain, lose sight and feeling of the beauty and bliss inseparably associated with goodness and virtue; and the happiest death-beds have often been on the rack or in the flame of the hero-martyr. And they are also, in their results, great practical influences; for they break down the walls which separate man from man,--by magnanimous thought or magnanimous act shame us out of our bitter personal contentions, and flash the sentiment of a common nature into our individual hatreds and oppositions. As grit decomposes society into an aggregate of strong and weak persons, genius and heroism unite them in one humanity. Thus, not many years ago, we were all battling about the higher law and the law to return fugitive slaves. It was argument against argument, passion against passion, person against person, grit against grit. The notions advanced regarding virtue and vice, justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, were as different as if the controversy had not been between men and men, but between men and cattle. There were no signs among the combatants that they had the common reason and the common instincts of a common nature. Then came a woman of genius, who refused to credit the horrible conceit that the diversity was essential, who resolutely believed that the human heart was a unit, and whose glance, piercing the mist of opinions and interests, saw in the deep and universal sources of humane and human