MEDITATIONS AND CRITICISMS 197 



only such things as put us in communication with the 

 natural, universal, and perennial that gives the work 

 a lasting value. Things that appeal to Christians 

 alone are soon left behind. The natural man, as 

 much as we may profess to despise him, is the main- 

 stay after all in religion as well as in science. Eeli- 

 gious poetry, as such, has little value. In fact, the 

 only thing that will keep a religious book at all is the 

 salt of the natural man. If this has lost its savor, the 

 work is shortlived. It keeps the Bible itself fresh and 

 makes it appeal to all hearts. What does the world 

 value in Cowper's poetry ? His discernment of 

 spiritual truths, or rather his poetic discernment 

 of natural universal truths ? The religious idolaters 

 who throw themselves under the wheels of Jugger- 

 naut, or offer themselves as victims at the altar of 

 sacrifice, are heroic, without doubt, yet the world 

 does not heed and does not remember them, but it 

 does heed and remember the three hundred Spartans 

 who laid down their lives at Thermopylse. This 

 appeals to and shows the stuff of the natural man. 



"In our early days," says Schopenhauer, "we 

 fancy that the leading events of our life, and the 

 persons who are going to play an important part in 

 it, will make their entrance to the sound of drums 

 and trumpets ; but when, in old age, we look back 

 we find that they all came in quietly, slipped in, as 

 it were, by the side door, almost unnoticed." The 

 great men of a race or people, the real heroes and 



