Part 19

But to Napoleon kings were pawns, to be moved around and made ridiculous. When he felt like it, he made pawns into kings--the descendant of one of his pawn-kings reigns to-day in Sweden.

Napoleon's game deprived the queen of all power--she was less than a pawn. HIS game sent the bishops hopping back and forth, diagonally or at right angles, as he saw fit. He created knights to his heart's content, and he taught them to move as he wanted.

Napoleon was great because there was nothing of the chess player about him. He did not admit of regular, foreordained moves on the chess-board or on the board of life. HE REFUSED TO CONSIDER ANYTHING IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL HE HAD TRIED IT. He tells us himself that he deserved credit for crossing the Alps, not that he accomplished a difficult feat, but because he refused to believe those who declared the feat impossible.

If anybody said "Check" to Napoleon, he kicked over the chess-board and began a new game of his own--that was what surprised the poor, dull old Austrian generals in Italy.

No; the real great man is no chess player, he has no chess player's mind. And do you, Mr. Reader, waste no time at chess, if you have any idea of being WORTH WHILE in a big or a little way. ----

The Napoleon of the future will be no epileptic. That terrible disease has afflicted many of the noblest intellects, and it is undoubtedly a disease brought on, or at least intensified, by great intellectual activity and a lack of co-ordination between the mental and physical operations of the body. But some great men have been great, not because of that terrible disease, but in spite of it. Science will conquer that trouble, as it has conquered others, and the scientist to do this work will be, himself, one of the world's great men. ----

The Napoleon of the future will be no huge-brained dwarf, with feeble body, carried on an air cushion.

It is true that many great men of to-day are relatively small in body. The gigantic muscle, thick legs, broad shoulders and hairy chests of the successful Viking have nothing to do with modern achievement.

But it is also true that to-day, as always, the healthy mind lives in a healthy body, and lives ON a healthy body.

As well expect to find the most perfect fruit on a withered, half-dead tree, as to find the most able brain in a withered, half-dead body. The blood is the life of the brain, and unless a HEALTHY body supplies HEALTHY blood the brain's chance is small.

Napoleon, it's true, was at one time a physical wreck--BUT DON'T FORGET THAT HIS GREATNESS WAS ALSO A WRECK AT THAT TIME.

The GREAT Napoleon operated in a body tireless and powerful enough to remain thirty consecutive hours on horseback. It was a body so powerful that criminal neglect and stupid ignorance of the laws of health were powerless against it for many years.

The Napoleon that went to St. Helena dwelt in a worn-out body, a fat, degenerate perversion of the Napoleon that conquered the world.

The great conqueror of the future, ladies and gentlemen, will be a splendidly original brain, working through a perfectly developed body, AND WORKING FOR THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THEIR FARE, NOT FOR THEIR CONQUEST AND OPPRESSION.

All of which is respectfully submitted to our readers for discussion and criticism.

A GIRL'S FACE IN THE GASLIGHT AND AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE WORLD'S WORK

On a corner of Rector street, down near the river, a loud drum was beating. A guitar and a tambourine competed shrilly with the drum's dull booming. Slowly a careless crowd gathered round the Salvation Army workers.

There were bare-headed women, little girls holding little babies in their arms, sailors drunk, and one or two sober, 'longshoremen pleased with the sound of the drum, and a few of the thin, hungry faces that disturb our well-fed happiness.

The man beat his drum, standing erect and proud in his army uniform.

The two thin, nervous young women played on guitar and tambourine with all their force, striving to gather the crowd whom they hoped to make better men and women.

Thirty or forty people gathered--glad to accept any noise and excitement in their dull lives.

The music stopped, and a young girl stepped to the centre of the circle.

She was frightened. Her voice was weak at first. Gradually her thin, pale face grew animated.

Her blue eyes dilated. In dull, routine way, doing her best, earning respectful silence from the night crowd, she told her story:

"I was bad. I tried to be good. But I couldn't do it with my own strength. I asked God to save me. He did save me. He will save you, if you will ask Him."

She spoke with a strong German accent. With all her deep, earnest soul, with all her poor, limited mental force, she longed to help the men and women around. As she spoke she bent her head farther and farther back, until her eyes looked up to the sky. There, with perfect faith, she saw the God whose work she was humbly doing in the muddy streets and flickering gaslight of the riverside.

While she could control her voice and her deep emotion she talked on her one theme--the power of God to help the helpless. But she BELIEVED, and she FELT what she said. Soon the tears ran over from her upturned eyes, and she could speak no more.

Then a man began--thickset, earnest, with a strong Scotch accent.