Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/60

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and reservoirs of power that had been withheld came unexpectedly into play and he did better than he had done before, what he had never been able to do before. That is an absolute truth of experience all through life. In our great crises, any one of many forces may unlock these energies and let them loose. And the present needed appeal of the world is to men and women that they should not be content to draw upon these reservoirs in crises alone. The tragic crises come because these powers are not drawn forth and used. The great wealth of the nations and of the world that needs now to be unsealed is just this wealth of moral capacity lying latent and dormant within.

What I have been saying is certainly true in the realm of our physical energies. I remember a story of John Lawrence, who went out to India a raw, uninfluential Irish boy in the service of the East India Company, resolved to do his work well and make himself a name. Very early in his career he was assigned to the collectorship of the Jullundur Doab, on what was then the frontier of India. He made himself perfectly at home among his people, entering into their life, mastering their vernaculars, learning their secrets, until at last men came to think of "Jans Larens" as a demi-god with powers beyond the knowledge of common men. One day as he was sitting in his house a messenger came in from one of his