Page:The Bible of Amiens.djvu/125

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III. THE LION TAMER.
91

a man's soul was given to him, had to be considered under these three heads:—In what climate is he? Of what race? At what time?

He can only be what these conditions permit. With appeal to these, he is to be heard;—understood, if it may be;—judged, by our love, first—by our pity, if he need it—by our humility, finally and always.

4. To this end, it is needful evidently that we should have truthful maps of the world to begin with, and truthful maps of our own hearts to end with; neither of these maps being easily drawn at any time, and perhaps least of all now—when the use of a map is chiefly to exhibit hotels and railroads; and humility is held the disagreeablest and meanest of the Seven mortal Sins.

5. Thus, in the beginning of Sir Edward Creasy's History of England, you find a map purporting to exhibit the possessions of the British Nation—illustrating the extremely wise and courteous behaviour of Mr. Fox to a Frenchman of Napoleon's suite, in "advancing to a terrestrial globe of unusual magnitude and distinctness, spreading his arms round it, over both the oceans and both the Indies," and observing, in this impressive attitude, that "while Englishmen live, they overspread the whole world, and clasp it in the circle of their power."