Inspiration and Opportunity

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every righteous cause. Here in America, above all, the new age approaches offering opportunity. Here only a beginning has been made; we have but felled the forest, and drained the marsh, and bridged the river and built the road; but cleared the wildwood and made wholesome the atmosphere for a more fortunate race, whom occasion shall invite to greater thoughts and more godlike deeds.

We stand in the front rank of those who face life, dowered with all the instruments of power which the labors of the strongest and wisest in all time and place have provided.

We might have been born savages or slaves, in a land of cannibals or tyrants; but we enter life welcomed by all that gives worth and joy, courage and security to man. There is inspiration in the air of America. Here all is fresh and young, here progress is less difficult, here there is hope and confidence, here there is eagerness to know and . to do. Here they who are intelligent, sober, industrious and self-denying may get what money is needed for leisure and independence, for the founding of a home and the right education of children,-the wealth which strengthens and liberates, not the excess which undermines and destroys. The material is good but in so far as it is a means to spiritual good. The power to think and appreciate the thoughts of others, to love and to be happy in the joy, the courage, the beauty, and the goodness of others, lifts us above our temporal environment, and endows us with riches of which money can never be the equivalent. A great thought or a noble love, like a beautiful object, bears us away from the hard and narrow world of our selfish interests, dips us in the clear waters of pure delight, and makes us glad as children who lie in the shade and catch the snowy blossoms as they fall.

No true man ever believes that it is not possible to do great things without great riches. When, therefore, we say with Emerson, that America is but a name for opportunity, we do not emphasize its material resources or the facility with which they may be made available. He who knows that the good of life lies within and that it is infinite, capable of being cherished and possessed more and more by whoever seeks it with all his heart, understands that a little of what is external is sufficient and is not hard to acquire. He, therefore, neither gives himself to the pur-