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THE INVESTMENT OF TALENT AND ITS RETURN.
In all ages man has been stimulated to sowing by the certainty of reaping. Tomorrow's sheaves and shoutings support to-day's tearful sowing. Certainty of victory wins battles before they are fought. Armed with confidence patriots have beaten down stone castles with naked fists. Uncertainty makes the heart sick, takes nerve out of arm and tension out of thought. The mere rumor of war along the border-lines of nations destroys enterprise and industry. Men will not plow if warhorses are to trample down the ripe grain. Men will not build if the enemy are to warm hands over blazing rafters. Why should the husbandman plant vines if others are to wrest away his fruit? The individual and the race need the stimulus of hope and a rational basis of security that nothing shall cut the connection between the causes sown and the effects to be reaped. Therefore, the divine word: "Send forth thy gift and talent, and nature and providence shall invest it securely and give the talent back with interest and increase."
What a promise for civilization was that of Christ: "Give and it shall be given unto you!" Let the husbandman give his seed to the furrows; soon the furrows will give back big bundles into the sower's arms. Let the vintner give the sweat of his brow to the vines; soon the vines will give back the rich purple floods. Give thy thought, O husbandman! to the wild rice; soon nature will give back the rice plump wheat. Give thyself, O inventor! to the raw ores, and nature will give thee the forceful tools. Give thyself, O reformer! to the desert world; soon the world-desert will be given back a world-garden. Give sparingly to nature, and sparingly shalt thou receive again. Give bountifully, and bounty shall be given back. Give scant thought and drag but one plank to the stream, and thou shalt receive only a narrow bridge across the brook. Give abundant thought to wires and cables and buttresses, and nature will give the bridge across the Firth of Forth. Give God thy one talent and, investing it, he returns ten. Give the cup of cold water and thou shalt have rivers of water of life. Share thy crust and thy cloak, and thou shall have banquet and robe and house of many mansions. This is the pledge of nature and God: "Give, and good measure pressed down and shaken together, shalt thou receive of celestial reapers." The history of progress is the history of Christ's challenge and man's response.
Christianity deals in universal. Its principles are not local nor racial nor temporary. They are meridian lines taking in all forces, men and movements. Nature, too, saith: "Give and it shall be given unto you." The sun gives heat to the forests, and afterward the burning coal and tree give heat back to the heavens; the arctics give icebergs and frigid streams for cooling the fierce tropics, and the tropics give back the warm Gulf Stream. The soil in the spring gives its treasures to the growing tree, and in the autumn the tree gives its leaves to make the soil richer and deeper. Personal also is this principle. Give thy body food and thy body will give thee mental strength. Give thy blow to the ax, and the ax will return the fallen tree, with strong tools for thy arm. Give thy brain sleep and rest and thy brain will give thy thought nimbleness. Give thy mind to rocks, and the rock pages will give thee wealth of wisdom. Give thy thought to the fire and water, and they will give thee an engine stronger than tamed lions. Give thy scrutiny to the thunderbolt leaping from the east to the west, and the lightnings shall give themselves back to thee as noiseless and gentle and obedient as the sunlight. Give thy mind to books and libraries, and the literature and lore of the ages will give thee the wisdom of sage and seer. Let some hero give his love and self-sacrificing service to the poor in prisons, and society will give him in return, monuments and grateful memory. Give thy obedience to conscience, and God, whom conscience serves, will give Himself to thee.
Being a natural principle, this law is also spiritual. Standing by his mother's knee each child hears the story of the echo. The boy visiting in the mountains, when he called aloud found that he was mocked by a hidden stranger boy. The insult made him very angry. So he shouted back insults and epithets. But each of these bad words was returned to him from the rocks above. With bitter tears the child returned to his mother, who sent him back to give the hidden stranger kind words and affectionate greetings. Lo! the stranger now echoed back his kindliness. Thus society echoes back each temperament and each career. Evermore man receives what he first gives to nature and society and God.
History is rich in interpretation of this principle. In every age man has received from society what he has given to society. This continent lay waiting for ages for the seed of civilization. At length the sower went forth to sow. Landing in midwinter upon a bleak coast, the fathers gave themselves to cutting roads, draining swamps, subduing grasses, rearing villages, until all the land was sown with the good seed of liberty and Christian civilization. Afterward, when tyranny threatened liberty, these worthies in defending their institutions gave life itself. Dying, they bequeathed their treasures to after generations. At length an enemy, darkling, lifted weapons for destroying. Would these who had received institutions nourished with blood, give life-blood in return? The uprising of 1861 is the answer. Then the people rose as one man, the plow stood in the furrow, the hammer fell from the hand, workroom and college hall were alike deserted—a half-million men laid down their lives upon many a battle-field. Similarly, the honor given to Washington during these last few days tells us that the patriot who gives shall receive. From the day when the young Virginian entered the Indian forests with Braddock to the day when he lay dying at Mount Vernon the patriot gave his health, his wealth, his time, his life, a living sacrifice through eight and forty years. Now every year the people, rising up early and sitting up late, rehearse to their children the story of his life and work. Having given himself, honor shall he receive through all the ages.
To Abraham Lincoln also came the word: "Give and thou shall receive!" Sitting in the White House the President proclaimed equal rights to black and white. Then, with shouts of joy, three million slaves entered the temple of liberty. But they bore the emancipator upon their shoulders and enshrined him forever in the temple of fame, where he who gave bountifully shall receive bountiful honor through all the ages. There, too, in the far-off past stands an uplifted cross. Flinging wide his arms this crowned sufferer sought to lift the world back to his Father's side. In life he gave his testimony against hypocrisy, Phariseeism and cruelty. For years he gave himself to the publican, the sinner, the prodigal, the poor in mind or heart, and so came at length to his pitiless execution. But, having given himself in abandon of love, the world straightway gave itself in return. Every one of his twelve disciples determined to achieve a violent death for the Christ who gave himself for them. Paul was beheaded in Rome. John was tortured in Patmos. Andrew and James were crucified in Asia. The rest were mobbed, or stoned, or tortured to death. And as years sped on man kept giving. Multitudes went forth, burning for him in the tropics, freezing for him in the arctics; threading for him the forest paths, braving for him the swamps, that they might serve his little ones. He gave himself for the world, and the world, in a passion of love, will yet give itself back to him.
Recently the officials of the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the noblest citizens of Boston assembled for celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Peabody. For a like purpose the citizens of London came together in banquet hall. Now, the banker had long been dead. Nor did he leave children to keep his name before the public. How shall we account for two continents giving him such praise and fame? George Peabody received from his fellows, because he first gave to his fellows. To his genius for accumulation he added the genius of distribution. His large gifts to Harvard and Yale, to Salem and Peabody, made to science and art as well as to philanthropy and religion, secured perpetual remembrance. When the public credit of the State of Maryland was endangered, he negotiated $8,000,000 in London and gave his entire commission of $200,000 back to the State. He who gave $3,500,000 for founding schools and colleges in the South for black and white, could not but receive honor and praise. Therefore the eulogies pronounced by the legislators in Annapolis. As a banker in London he was disturbed by the sorrows of the poor, and for months gave himself to an investigation of the tenement-house system, developing the Peabody Tenements, to which he gave $2,500,000, and helped 20,000 people to remove from dens into buildings that were light and sweet and wholesome. Therefore when he died in London the English nation that had
