only the right spark of spiritual life and energy to excite them also
into vigorous action. It is thus that heroic bravery and sublime
self-sacrifice have been manifested in the hour of sudden and
appalling danger, or during seasons of long and dreadful suffering,
by those who were never until then suspected of possessing so great
a spirit, and who, but for such an occasion occurring for its
manifestation, might have been doomed for ever to remain helplessly
among the most commonplace incapables. Had a Grace Darling or a
Florence Nightingale been known only as a sitter or pewholder in a
congregation, they might have been deemed unfit for any work requiring
courage, self-sacrifice, or perseverance. But these noble qualities
were all the while in them. In like manner, have we never seen among
our working classes a man excited by some religious enthusiast or
fanatical Mormonite, who all at once seemed inspired with new powers,
braved the sneers of companions, consented to be dipped in the next
river, turned his small stock of supposed knowledge into immediate
use, exhorted, warned, proselytised among his neighbours, spoke in the
lanes and streets unabashed, and gathered his knot of disciples from
among the crowd of his old comrades, thus giving token of a force
having been lying hid in one who seemed capable only of work on
week-days and of sleep on Sundays. There is not a Hindu fakir, who
swings from a hook in the muscles of his back, or measures with his
body a long pilgrimage to Juggernaut; not a Popish devotee, who
braves the opinion of society with naked feet, comical garment, and
self-imposed "bodily exercise," but demonstrates what a man can and
will do, if the mainspring of his being is touched. There is not a
sailor or soldier who does not, at sea or in battle, shew a greatness
which he seems incapable of when seen in ordinary circumstances. It
is thus, we repeat it, that most undoubtedly there are, in every
congregation, men and women who have in them great powers of some