It may not be in a day, but when his hand falls dead, his
glory becomes quickly manifest. He has lived a beautiful life, and has
left a beautiful field; he has sacrificed the hour to give service for
all time; he has entered the company of the great, and with them he
will be remembered for ever. He is the practical man in the true sense.
But there is the other self-styled practical man, who thinks all this
proceeding foolish, and cries out for the expedient of the hour. Has he
ever realised the promise of his proposals? No, he is the most
inefficient person who has ever walked the earth. But for a saving
consideration let him go contemplate the wasted efforts of the
opportunist in every generation, and the broken projects scattered
through the desert-places of history.
IV
Still one will look out on the grim things of the hour, and hypnotised
by the hour will cry: "See the strength of the British Empire, see our
wasted state; your hope is vain." Let him consider this clear truth:
peoples endure; empires perish. Where are now the empires of antiquity?
And the empires of to-day have the seed of dissolution in them. But the
peoples that saw the old empires rise and hold sway are represented now
in their posterity; the tyrannies they knew are dead and done with. The
peoples endured; the empires perished; and the nations of the earth of
this day will survive in posterity when the empires that now contend for
mastery are gathered into the dust, with all dead, bad things.
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