HERO WORSHIP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 444, 16 October 1869, Page 3

HERO WORSHIP.

(From the Corn/till Magazine.)

I am quite sure that if half of Avhat is said at public dinners with the tacit understanding thnt it is to be returned in kind, were even approximately true, the world would be in possession of more Solons and Platos and Lope de Vegas than ever flourished simultaneously at any known epoch; yet it would be rather difficult to make out in cold blood a long list of contemporaries who are already secure of immortality. The disposition to this particular branch of idolatry is, I presume, the practical application of the doctrines of hero-worship; though I fancy that the nmn of genius to whom the popularity of that name is due, would repudiate most of the images set up for our reverence. The hero-worshippers, whether their idols be of timber or of gold, are inclined to arrogate a certain moral superiority to the outside world. We, they say in effect, recognise merit generously and freely ; you carp and sneer from a mean jealousy. We love to do honour to a great man while he is yet amongst us; you keep your incense till he is dead and buried. We hold that the world is made better by mighty teachers of thought and action, whose shoe iatchets it is an honour to unloose; and nothing is a clearer proof of a cold heart and narrow spirit than an unwillingness to hail the advent of the coming reformer and regenerator of mankind. You would have criticised the warts on Cromwell's nose and the specks of blood on his collar, and have found out, only when it was too late, that a man with a wart on his nose may lead a good charge of cavalry on duo occasion. To this, it might, of course, be replied that nothing is more antagonistic to the true faith than the prevalence of the sham articl j . If you fire off all your rockets to announce the mayor of Little Pcdlington, what are you to do when a true king of men makes his appearance ? A habit of gushing on all occasions deprives genuine emotion of all its charms. It is not the worship of heroes, I might say, that is objectiouable ; but the Egyptian practice of worshipping tame cats under the singular delusion that they are roaring lions. But I will venture to go a step further; I will confess that, personally, I entertain a rooted aversion to hero-worship, and have no extravagant love for heroes; that I don't find that there are many giants in the world, and that those who actually exist are only some twenty-four inches taller than their neighbours, and frequently owe their apparent height to mounting their neighbours' shoulders. Is this view of the world less accurate or less generous than that which divides all mankind into heaven-sent heroes on one side and mere helpless dummies on the other ? which assumes that half-a--dozen men can see, and everybody else is stone-blind, or good enough at best to follow their leaders by some vague canine instinct ?