274 THE ACCIDENTS OF LIFE. 



in darkness along the ground, like the course of the mousing 

 owl. We have all seen another thing, which baffles our 

 philosophy, while it proves the truth of the theory of which 

 I am speaking. We have seen men, and see them every 

 day, who, from no quality of heart or mind seem fitted to 

 rise in the world, occupying commanding positions to which 

 accident has lifted them ; whose genius commands no admi- 

 ration, whose virtues are of a doubtful character, and who 

 possess no one quality which entitles them to our respect or 

 the respect of the world. As the former are the victims of 

 circumstance, these latter are its creatures. Both are the 

 sport of fortune ; the one class its victims, and the other its 

 favorites. How is all this to be accounted for ? And where 

 rests the responsibility of failure, and where the credit of 

 success ? Are there accidents floating about among the 

 paths marked out on the chart of life by the Deity, which 

 jostle his creatures from the destiny intended for them ? 

 Or were men thrown loose upon the currents of life, to take 

 their chances of good and evil, to be virtuous or vile, 

 according to the influences among which they were floating, 

 to be fortunate or otherwise, as the means of advancing 

 themselves drifted within their reach ? If so, where rests 

 the responsibility, I ask again, of failure, and where the 

 credit of success ? Children are born into the world under 

 strangely different influences. One first sees the light in the 

 haunts of vice and crime, amidst the corruptions which fester 

 away down in the depths of a great city. The influences 

 which surround it are only and always evil. They are such 



