“I have not looked through a telescope at a star in a dozen years,” he said. “All the years I have been in the service I have been carrying on certain calculations that were begun before I was a man and that will go on years after I am dead. When they are finished at last, we shall know something worth knowing. Meanwhile, I and the rest of us have been but links in the long chain upon whose trusty work depends the final value of it all. That I have tried to do my part faithfully must be my reward.” What greater reward could any man ask than this—to be a link, however humble, in the chain which links our world of men with God’s kingdom on high and helps prepare this earth for His coming in His own good time? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ II OUR FIGHT FOR THE HOME ------------------------------------------------------------------------ II OUR FIGHT FOR THE HOME WHEN I was preparing these lectures, it happened that I went out of town and, returning, crossed the river to New York in the morning before sunrise. I stood at the bow of the ferry-boat and looked at the city, lying wrapped in gloom, indistinguishable except for a light in some big building, itself unseen, piercing it here and there. But, over and beyond the gloom, the ruddy glow of the morning that was breaking grew steadily as I looked. I knew that soon it would be bright daylight. As I stood and watched it and as one after another the outlines of the old landmarks came out and took shape, I thought that so, at last, the dawn is breaking upon us in this fight for the home upon which all hinges. It is no longer an uphill fight _all_ the time. The other day, I spoke of discouragements that beset the way. They are there in plenty, but there has come into the fight a new note, that was missing before. We know now what the fight means. From other quarters, too, help is coming. Let me sound this note of hope right here; there is enough of the gloom. The critics of my books complain that I am unsystematic, that I “put things in” as I think of them. Perhaps so. I find it somehow easier to put them in when I think of them than when I don’t think of them. Even while I am about to show you how deep we fell, let me remember the forces that are coming to help us out. I think that not only have we turned upon our track and seen the necessity of making the most of this city civilization with its unsolved problems, which is the order of the day; but I believe that we have reached the divide, the point where the population shall be turned back to the soil which it has been deserting.