Now this principle of social sympathy and liability gives us the secret of all the epoch-making men of our time. Carlyle once called Ruskin "the seer that guides his generation." More recently a prominent philanthropist said: "All our social reform movements are largely the influence of John Ruskin." How earned this man such meed of praise? Upon John Ruskin fortune poured forth all her gifts. He was born the child of supreme genius. He was heir to nearly a million dollars, and by his pen earned a fortune in addition. At the age of 21, when most young men were beginning their reading, he completed a book that put his name and fame in every man's mouth. "For a thousand who can speak, there is but one who can think; for a thousand who can think, there is but one who can see," and to this youth was given the open vision. In the hour of fame the rich and great vied to do him honor, and every door opened at his touch. But he turned aside to become the knight-errant of the poor. Walking along Whitechapel road he saw multitudes of shopmen and shopwomen whose stint was eighty hours a week, who toiled mid poisoned air until the brain reeled, the limbs trembled, and worn out physically and mentally they succumbed to spinal disease or premature age, leaving behind only enfeebled progeny, until the city's streets became graves of the human physique. In that hour London seemed to him like a prison or hospital; nor was it given to him to play upon its floor as some rich men do, knitting its straw into crowns that please; clutching at its dust in the cracks of the floor, to die counting the motes by millions. The youth "remembered men in bonds as bound with them." He tithed himself a tenth, then a third, then a half, and at length used up his fortune in noble service. He founded clubs for workingmen and taught them industry, honor and self-reliance. He bought spinning-wheels and raw flax, and made pauper women self-supporting. He founded the Sheffield Museum, and placed there his paintings and marbles, that workers in iron and steel might have the finest models and bring all their handiwork up toward beauty. He asked his art-students in Oxford to give one hour each day to pounding stones and filling holes in the street. When his health gave way Arnold Toynbee, foreman of his student gang, went forth to carry his lectures on the industrial revolution up and down the land. Falling on hard days and evil tongues and lying customs, he wore himself out in knightly service. So he gained his place among "the immortals." But the secret of his genius and influence is this: He fulfilled the debt of strength and the law of social sympathy and service.