We have had Carlyle’s words quoted to us a thousand times about heroes and hero-worship—­how it is part of human nature to go after heroes and make them—­how the world has always been given up to this worship, and always will be.  We all revere and follow great men, or those whom we deem great, which is not quite the same thing.  And it is a beautiful feature in human nature if it is wisely directed, if we can only set our hearts on the true heroes and follow them.  It is not beautiful at all when we make our gods of clay, and shout ourselves hoarse in exalting to the skies creatures as undivine and quite as small as we are.

Heroes are sometimes easily made to-day, and martyrs too.  Modern martyrdom of the popular sort is about the least costly thing going.  It calls for no tears and blood, it can be gained on very easy terms.  You have only to break a law which you do not like, or your conscience does not approve, and to be brought up for it with an admiring crowd accompanying you, and to have a fine imposed, which is paid for, perhaps, by popular subscription—­and lo, you are a martyr.  I am not calling in question the thing itself.  It may be both right and Christian to refuse obedience to a law on extreme occasions; but to call this martyrdom is extravagant and almost humorous.

It was not so in the olden time when the real martyrs were made.  No, those martyrs were not delicately handled, but stripped and stoned to pieces, and burned, and there were no crowds to greet them with bravoes and caresses, but furious mobs clamouring for their blood.  We have changed all that indeed, thank God:  but they were heroes and martyrs indeed, and it sounds to me somewhat like a desecration of the word to apply it to men and even women who are good, probably brave in a way, but who win their crown of glory very cheaply indeed.  If we are to have heroes, let us make sure that they possess some heroic stuff.

There is a vast amount of hero-worship to-day which reminds us too much of that shout for Barabbas.  We are glorifying the wrong people; at least, most of us are.  It is one of the deplorable weaknesses of the times, or if you like it better, it is one of the fashions or crazes to which human nature at times gives itself up.  The heroes of the crowd, of the great mass of people, are not the good men, not the men of light and leading, not the men who are morally great or even intellectually great, not the men who are the strength and salt of a nation, but the men who minister to its pleasures, and lead the way in sports.  No one can have any doubt of that.  No one can have any doubt about the sort of persons whom the vast majority of young people, and some older people too, delight to honour.  With some it is the star of the music hall or opera.  With a great many more it is the winner of a race, or the champion player in a successful football team, or the most effective bowler, or the highest scorer in cricket.  The crowd goes mad about these heroes.  There is no throne high enough to place them on.  Money and favours are lavished at their feet, and all the newspapers are full of their glorious triumphs.