Now, I am going to take a particular messenger because his character and life are very carefully described to us in detail by one of our great poets. I think it will come home to us more if I can describe the picture of the messenger of Athens given us by Browning in that wonderful poem "Pheidippides." It may be more familiar to some than it is to others. I will just sketch Browning's picture. Pheidippides tells how he started on a mission of absolutely vital importance, and the whole problem was to get to Sparta in time to get help. He dashes off, and stands before the Spartan Senate. "Persia has come! Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; Razed to the ground is Eretria; but Athens, shall Athens sink, Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas utterly die, Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by?" It is a matter of absolute life and death, and that is the first thing about the messenger I want you to notice. Either he got there or he did not; either he persuaded them or he did not. He gave his message, though he did not succeed in persuading Sparta to undertake the needed help. The fate of his country depended entirely upon his effort. There is something glorious in his absolute devotion to his country. Then, when he had given his message, he waited for the answer, and he is described as quivering with eagerness: "The limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood." That expresses the keenness with which he waited for the answer. And the answer, which, as you remember, was an evasive one, counselling delay, is thus characterised by Pheidippides: "Athens, except for that sparkle--thy name, I had mouldered to ash." Then, having done everything he could, he dashed back to tell them at Athens that Sparta was not coming. We see the utter abandonment of the messenger: "Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile! Yet 'O Gods of my land!' I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again." Then comes the moment of his life. In the midst of the hurry and race he suddenly comes face to face with his god--the great god Pan. In all his hurry and haste and keenness he hushes himself in a moment, to listen to what the god has to say. Very touchingly described that is. Then, when he has received the message for himself, for his nation, once again he is off. "I ran no longer, but flew." And he stands before his people, and he gives them the full message which the god had given him, with all its warning and all its comfort and hope and good news. When that is done he fights on the Marathon day. And then, when the victory is won, he thinks of what the god has promised him, and he thinks to "Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave," and live with her for the rest of his life.