THE HEROES OF AFFLICTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7816, 8 June 1909, Page 2

THE HEROES OF AFFLICTION.

To the Editor. ; Sir, —You will, I am sure, pardon me if I add a few words to the thoughts which may be expressed m response to Chas. Turner's letter. Few words h'a^e appealed to ■.' me more strongly. The strength of the appeal lay m the knowledge of the' .facts to which he refers. I do not mean the metaphors employed by the,writer of "Heroes Behind Prison Bars" r these are unhappy, but the fact that he, like so many more, are and have been for years "prisoners of affliction." It does not necessarily follow that these prisoners are heroes; just as it does not follow that because a man is a man that 1 he is therefore great. What is a hero? Many are the definitions given. Carlyle's is perhaps the best that I know of; he says: "A hero is a great man. He is the living light-fountain which it is good' and pleasant to be iiear." I read this definition m the light of another which "imparts soul and spirit to it if the mind be stripped, of all its modern clothing. To appreciate it, however, a man must' approach it, ,as the man of' Plato's fancy', "with a mind free, open, as of a child, and yet with the ripe faculty of a man." If this be done the whole heart ■will kindle by the sight of the meaning of the picture definition given by one infinitely greater than Carlyle, but who spoke of him as the greatest of all heroes. This hero who is worshipped once took a child and set- it m the midst of matured men. The central figure of that picture is declared to be the emblem of true greatness, which is true heroism. The picture'that Plato's man would see is a man with the full I maturity of manhood, who is able, %p\ renounce self and become m spirit as a ljttle child. (Such a one ranks amongst the greatest men. That this is so is seen m ancient records where it is written that "He that 'direoteth" his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." • Popular < applause, therefore, does not always eouiii. For these reasons, our friend. Ch.Bs> Turner may re§t assure^ Vthftt Wo.ny at least of those tP whom he refers as "prisoners! pf affliction,-' but victors withal—to use Oarlyle's words again— "are n.ot as kindled lamps only; but as natural luminaries shining by the gift of heaven. Flowing light-fountain of manhood and heroic nobleness." . I am sending to your correspondent one of the gems of literature: Horace Bushnell's Moral Use of Darls; Thijiga. I am sure that he williprofit by a eafeful study of the chapter on th^ n^oral use of physica] naifl, ; , Goethe's lines committed to mejnory/ and reflected uj>on by those m such confinement inevitably beget thoughts which must bo as the bread cf heaven to the hungry soul: Heard are the Voices, Heard are the Sages, T!ie Worlds and the Ages; Choose, well, your choice is Brief and yet endless,Here eyes do reca,rs 3fQ«, In Eternity'^ $tiimess;Here a)} ia hilnesa, '■ . . Ye brave, to reward you; Work, and despair not. Those who wait, it may be the fourth part of a century, m affliction's chamber arc, sometimes, 'working' most surely the pattern of some mysterious purposo where eyes of jiever-fatling vigilence watch the \mfolding- of tt design, a description of which impoverishes human language. Oh, yes, fair, some, of them nro heroos, BERTIE QRAX^-.