with traditions and instincts of all that is most worthy and
noble in life.

Character, embodied in thought and deed, is of the nature of
immortality. The solitary thought of a great thinker will dwell
in the minds of men for centuries until at length it works itself
into their daily life and practice. It lives on through the ages,
speaking as a voice from the dead, and influencing minds living
thousands of years apart. Thus, Moses and David and Solomon,
Plato and Socrates and Xenophon, Seneca and Cicero and Epictetus,
still speak to us as from their tombs. They still arrest the
attention, and exercise an influence upon character, though their
thoughts be conveyed in languages unspoken by them and in their
time unknown. Theodore Parker has said that a single man like
Socrates was worth more to a country than many such states as
South Carolina; that if that state went out of the world to-day,
she would not have done so much for the world as Socrates. (17)

Great workers and great thinkers are the true makers of history,
which is but continuous humanity influenced by men of character--
by great leaders, kings, priests, philosophers, statesmen, and
patriots--the true aristocracy of man. Indeed, Mr. Carlyle has
broadly stated that Universal History is, at bottom, but the
history of Great Men. They certainly mark and designate the
epochs of national life. Their influence is active, as well as
reactive. Though their mind is, in a measure; the product of
their age, the public mind is also, to a great extent, their
creation. Their individual action identifies the cause--the
institution. They think great thoughts, cast them abroad, and the
thoughts make events. Thus the early Reformers initiated the