The Thorny Road of Honor Page #2

								

groove in the stone table. It is the popular king who sits there, once
the ruler of three kingdoms, the friend of the citizen and the
peasant. It is Christian the Second. Enemies wrote his history. Let us
remember his improvements of seven and twenty years, if we cannot
forget his crime.

A ship sails away, quitting the Danish shores. A man leans against
the mast, casting a last glance towards the Island Hueen. It is
Tycho Brahe. He raised the name of Denmark to the stars, and was
rewarded with injury, loss and sorrow. He is going to a strange
country.

"The vault of heaven is above me everywhere," he says, "and what
do I want more?"

And away sails the famous Dane, the astronomer, to live honored
and free in a strange land.

"Ay, free, if only from the unbearable sufferings of the body!"
comes in a sigh through time, and strikes upon our ear. What a
picture! Griffenfeldt, a Danish Prometheus, bound to the rocky
island of Munkholm.

We are in America, on the margin of one of the largest rivers;
an innumerable crowd has gathered, for it is said that a ship is to
sail against the wind and weather, bidding defiance to the elements.
The man who thinks he can solve the problem is named Robert Fulton.
The ship begins its passage, but suddenly it stops. The crowd begins
to laugh and whistle and hiss--the very father of the man whistles
with the rest.

"Conceit! Foolery!" is the cry. "It has happened just as he
deserved. Put the crack-brain under lock and key!"

Then suddenly a little nail breaks, which had stopped the
machine for a few moments; and now the wheels turn again, the floats
break the force of the waters, and the ship continues its course;
and the beam of the steam engine shortens the distance between far
lands from hours into minutes.

O human race, canst thou grasp the happiness of such a minute of
consciousness, this penetration of the soul by its mission, the moment
in which all dejection, and every wound--even those caused by one's
own fault--is changed into health and strength and clearness--when
discord is converted to harmony--the minute in which men seem to
recognize the manifestation of the heavenly grace in one man, and feel
how this one imparts it to all?

Thus the thorny path of honor shows itself as a glory, surrounding
the earth with its beams. Thrice happy he who is chosen to be a
wanderer there, and, without merit of his own, to be placed between
the builder of the bridge and the earth--between Providence and the
human race.

On mighty wings the spirit of history floats through the ages, and
shows--giving courage and comfort, and awakening gentle thoughts--on
the dark nightly background, but in gleaming pictures, the thorny path
of honor, which does not, like a fairy tale, end in brilliancy and joy
here on earth, but stretches out beyond all time, even into eternity!
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