The Investment of Influence | Page 8

uncared for. In such hours garden becomes desert. This is the drama of
man's life. The soul thirsts for sympathy. It hungers for love. Baffled
and broken it seeks a great heart. For the pilgrim multitudes Moses was
the shadow on a great rock in a weary land. For poor, hunted David,
Jonathan was a covert in time of storm. Savonarola, Luther, Cromwell
sheltered perishing multitudes. Solitary in the midst of the vale in
which death will soon dig a grave for each of us stands the immortal
Christ, "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
That Infinite Being who hath made man in his own image hath
endowed the soul with full power to transform the desert into an oasis.
The soul carries wondrous implements. It is given to reason to carry
fertility where ignorance and fear and superstition have wrought
desolation. It is given to inventive skill to search out wellsprings and
smite rocks into living water. It is given to affection to hive sweetness
like honeycombs. It is given to wit and imagination to produce
perpetual joy and gladness. It is given to love in the person of a Duff, a

Judson, and a Xavier to transform dark continents. Great is the power
of love! "No abandoned boy in the city, no red man in the mountains,
no negro in Africa can resist its sweet solicitude. It undermines like a
wave, it rends like an earthquake, it melts like a fire, it inspires like
music, it binds like a chain, it detains like a good story, it cheers like a
sunbeam." No other power is immeasurable. For things have only
partial influence over living men. Forests, fields, skies, tools,
occupations, industries--these all stop in the outer court of the soul. It is
given to affection alone to enter the sacred inner precincts. But once the
good man comes his power is irresistible. Witness Arnold among the
schoolboys at Rugby. Witness Garibaldi and his peasant soldiers.
Witness the Scottish chief and his devoted clan. Witness artist pupils
inflamed by their masters. What a noble group is that headed by Horace
Mann, Garrison, Phillips and Lincoln! General Booth belongs to a like
group. What a ministry of mercy and fertility and protection have these
great hearts wrought! Great hearts become a shelter in time of storm.
All social reforms begin with some great heart. Much now is being said
of the destitution in the poorer districts of great cities. Dante saw a
second hell deeper than hell itself. Each great modern city hath its
inferno. Here dwell costermongers, rag-pickers and street-cleaners;
here the sweater hath his haunts. Huge rookeries and tenements, whose
every brick exudes filth, teem with miserable folk. Each room has one
or more families, from the second cellar at the bottom to the garret at
the top. No greensward, no park, no blade of grass. Whole districts are
as bare of beauty as an enlarged ash-heap. Here children are "spawned,
not born, and die like flies." Here men and women grow bitter. Here
anarchy grows rank. And to such a district in one great city has gone a
man of the finest scholarship and the highest position, to become the
friend of the poor. With him is his bosom friend, having wealth and
culture, with pictures, marbles and curios. Every afternoon they invite
several hundred poor women to spend an hour in the conservatory
among the flowers. Every evening with stereopticon they take a
thousand boys or men upon a journey to Italy or Egypt or Japan. The
kindergartens, public schools and art exhibits cause these women and
children to forget for a time their misery. One hour daily is redeemed
from sorrow to joy by beautiful things and kindly surroundings. Love

and sympathy have sheltered them from life's fierce heat. Bitter lives
are slowly being sweetened. Springs are being opened in the desert.
These great hearts have become "the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land."
The Russian reformer, novelist and philanthropist, had an experience
that profoundly influenced his career. Famine had wrought great
suffering in Russia. One day the good poet passed a beggar on the
street corner. Stretching out gaunt hands, with blue lips and watery
eyes, the miserable creature asked an alms. Quickly the author felt for a
copper. He turned his pockets inside out. He was without purse or ring
or any gift. Then the kind man took the beggar's hand in both of his and
said: "Do not be angry with me, brother, I have nothing with me!" The
gaunt face lighted up; the man lifted his bloodshot eyes; his blue lips
parted in a smile. "But you called me brother--that was a great gift."
Returning an hour later he found the smile he had kindled still