The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and ServiceHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and Service
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Conduct of life
Our art critics speak of the eight great paintings of history. Each of
these masterpieces does but represent a holy passion flung forth upon a
canvas. The reformation also was not achieved by intellect nor
scholarship. Erasmus represents pure mind. Yet his intellect was cold
as winter sunshine that falls upon a snowdrift and dazzles the eyes
with brightness, yet is impotent to unlock the streams, or bore a hole
through the snowdrifts, or release the roots from the grip of ice and
frost, or cover the land with waving harvests. Powerless as winter
sunshine were Erasmus' thoughts. But what the scholar could not do,
Luther, the great heart, wrought easily.
Thus all the reforms represent passions and enthusiasms. That citadel
called "The Divine Right of Kings" was not overthrown by colleges with
books and pamphlets. It was the pulse-beats of the heart of the people
that pounded down the Bastille. Ideas of the iniquity of slavery
floated through our land for three centuries, yet the slave pen and
auction block still cursed our land. At last an enthusiasm for man as
man and a great passion for the poor stood behind these ideas of human
brotherhood, and as powder stands behind the bullet, flinging forth its
weapons, slavery perished before the onslaught of the heart.
The men whose duty it was to follow the line of battle and bury our
dead soldiers tell us that in the dying hour the soldier's hand
unclasped his weapon and reached for the inner pocket to touch some
faded letter; some little keepsake, some likeness of wife or mother.
This pathetic fact tells us that soldiers have won their battles not by
holding before the mind some abstract thought about the rights of man.
The philosopher did, indeed, teach the theory, and the general marked
out the line of attack or defense, but it was love of home and God and
native land that entered into the soldier and made his arm invincible.
Back of the emancipation proclamation stands a great heart named
Lincoln. Back of Africa's new life stands a great heart named
Livingstone. Back of the Sermon on the Mount stands earth's greatest
heart--man's Savior. Christ's truth is enlightening man's ignorance,
but his tears, falling upon our earth, are washing away man's sin and
woe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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