I shall always bless the memory of this poor, timid creature for saving that dear remembrance of “Matchless Mitchel.”  How many, like him, have thought they were preaching a new gospel, when they were only reaffirming the principles which underlie the Magna Charta of humanity, and are common to the noblest utterances of all the nobler creeds!  But spoken by those solemn lips to those stern, simpleminded hearers, the words I have cited seem to me to have a fragrance like the precious ointment of spikenard with which Mary anointed her Master’s feet.  I can see the little bare meeting-house, with the godly deacons, and the grave matrons, and the comely maidens, and the sober manhood of the village, with the small group of college students sitting by themselves under the shadow of the awful Presidential Presence, all listening to that preaching, which was, as Cotton Mather says, “as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice”; and as the holy pastor utters those blessed words, which are not of any one church or age, but of all time, the humble place of worship is filled with their perfume, as the house where Mary knelt was filled with the odor of the precious ointment.

—­The Master rose, as he finished reading this sentence, and, walking to the window, adjusted a curtain which he seemed to find a good deal of trouble in getting to hang just as he wanted it.

He came back to his arm-chair, and began reading again

—­If men would only open their eyes to the fact which stares them in the face from history, and is made clear enough by the slightest glance at the condition of mankind, that humanity is of immeasurably greater importance than their own or any other particular belief, they would no more attempt to make private property of the grace of God than to fence in the sunshine for their own special use and enjoyment.

We are all tattoed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.  You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n’y crois pas, mais je les crains,—­“I don’t believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless.”

—­As people grow older they come at length to live so much in memory that they often think with a kind of pleasure of losing their dearest blessings.  Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem when remembered.  The friend we love best may sometimes weary us by his presence or vex us by his infirmities.  How sweet to think of him as he will be to us after we have outlived him ten or a dozen years!  Then we can recall him in his best moments, bid him stay with us as long as we want his company, and send him away when we wish to be alone again.  One might alter Shenstone’s well-known epitaph to suit such a case:—­