JAMES J. HILL 237 There is no surer way of bringing reproach upon ourselves and opening our judgment to the ridicule of coming genera- tions than through failing to perceive the existence among us of one of the world's truly great men. Li the history of mankind there has been perceptible always a definite and steady movement toward better things. Sometimes the march has gone on slowly and painfully as man has climbed the rough and rugged path of progress. Again it has been a triumphal advance, under a smiling sun, with every circumstance propitiously assisting the pilgrim of the years. As humanity, in the consciousness of unsatisfactory con- ditions, in the realization of its imperfect social and economic arrangements has pushed forth towards the higher and more equitable conditions, two great forces have always been oper- ative. Many times we are prone to exaggerate the motive power of lust for material gain in the movement of the race out of old conditions into the larger field of the new. Along with this undoubtedly powerful motive of material gain has ever gone the inspiring power of an ideal. We underesti- mate the devotion of men to their dreams ; we fail to realize what a tremendously important factor in the life of nations has been their devotion to the things which cannot be reduced to money; the things without any suggestion of pecuniary value ; those indefinable, ineffable, yet all-moving, omnipotent forces in human life, which for want of better terms we call ideals, visions, dreams. Think back over history and measure if you can the force of that ideal which called the Trojan prince out from the lux- ury of the great Phoenician city, led him to sacrifice every personal consideration, and to trust his weary barks once more to the ragings of an unkind sea as he turned their prows northward to a strange land that he might there build up a new nation, and there work out a new destiny for his home- less race, the dream of whose future was the dearest treasure of his heart. Consider, if you will, the religious heroism of the martyrs of all ages who have met dungeon, fire, and sword, and have clung to their visions, though stripped of every ma-
