Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/177

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popular impression, after the examination was over, was that Mr. Morgan's modest disavowals were justified by all the testimony, and that there was no one person, or any group of individuals, in this country who possessed so much power as was supposed to reside in the hands of a little company of men.

Now, at the best, there was no question of creating or producing anything. Nobody thought of asking Mr. Morgan whether he could create a grain of wheat, or heal a disease, or bring into existence anything that was not already here. The main question was how much of something that was here already was he, or any other man, able to control. As one read the testimony, the one dominant impression it made on his mind was how small and weak and ineffectual even the strongest human life was, and how little was the effect that it could produce in what it was able to do in behalf of others.

How weak does even the strongest personality appear when contrasted with One Who can say such words as these I have just quoted! Suppose some great man now living were to say to us: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. I am come that they may have life, and may have it abundantly," how startled we should be! But