that for each exertion we are responsible; that what we do is held
against us in strict account, not only by fate, which builds our destiny
for us out of our own deeds, but by every other person with whom we come
in contact. Our fellows check off daily against us so much vitality, so
much magnanimity, so much idleness, cruelty, spite, goodness,
selfishness, meanness, or loving-kindness. Life holds a record of our
every deed, and from no least responsibility can we make our escape. We
are the prisoners of events which we ourselves have brought about.

The discipline of ethics, of home-training, of the Church, and of
religious teaching is addressed fundamentally to this social
consciousness of ours, this responsibility which we cannot evade. To
bear rule aright is to go forth into the world to build up, in
authority, talent, and influence, the kingdom of God.

1. There is the agricultural phase of social rule. A man tills a farm.
It has upon it trees, streams, woodland, and meadow-land. He may
rule--to what end? If he rules it for his own personal ends--merely to
fill his granaries, and lay up gold--he rules it for miserliness, with a
sort of thrift that is as passing in inheritance as the flying
April rain.

Or he may say: I will keep my land in trust for God. I will hold rain
and frost, heat and cold, storm and sun, in fee simple for the race. My
grain shall pass out into the world's mart, sent forth with love and
prayer. Such a farmer is the incarnation of moral grandeur. Let men
laugh, if they will, at his overalls and plough, his wide-brimmed hat,
his simple manners, and his homely, racy speech. His feet are by the
furrow, but his heart is in heaven, and his treasure is there also. Says
the author of _Nine Acres on the Hillside_, "The agriculturist walks