or all-round kind. Small things may be pecked at, trifles may be made
mountains of by the disgruntled, but where does he get a clear-sighted,
whole-hearted estimate of himself and his work? Who tells him of his
real virtues, his real faults? Among all his friends, who is there, man
or woman, who is brave enough to be true?

Other men are soon shaken into place. Their personal traits continually
undergo a process of chiselling and adjustment. They are told
uncomfortable things how quickly! At the club, in the university, in
the market, the ploughing-field, the counting-room, they rub up against
each other, and no mercy is shown by man to man until primary signs of
crudeness are worn off. Let a conceited professor get in a college
chair! Watch a hundred students begin their delightful and salutary
process of "taking him down" by the sort of mirth in which college boys
excel! Their unkindness is not right, but the result is, they never
molest a man who is merely eccentric.

Watch a scientific association jump with all fours upon a man who has
just read a paper before their body! How unsparingly they analyze and
criticise! He has to meet questions, opposition, comments, shafts of wit
and envy, jovial teasing and correction. He goes out from the meeting
with a keener love of truth and exactness, and a less exalted idea of
his own powers. Watch the rivalry and sparring that go on in any
business. Men meet men who attack them; they fight and overcome them, or
are themselves overcome.

Human friction is not always harmful. A minister should not be hurt or
angered by disagreement and discussion. No one's ideas are final. Let
him expect to stand in the very midst of a high-strung, spirited, and
hard-working generation. Let him be turned out of doors. Let him travel,