limitations, but men without faults are generally men without force.
Limitations are like banks to a river; they increase the strength of the
current for a mill wheel. Sumner's concentration made his enemies call
him a narrow man and a fanatic. But Paul was narrow when he said, "This
one thing I do." Luther was narrow when he nailed his theses to the door
of the church in Wittenberg. Garrison was narrow and a fanatic when he
said, "I will not equivocate, I will not retreat a single inch, and I
will be heard." Rushing between the cliffs of its banks, the Rhine has
power through confinement; spreading out over the plains of North
Germany, the Rhine becomes a mere marsh, laden with miasm, blown to and
fro with the winds.

The tallow candle is small, while the summer lightning flashes across
the midnight sky. But for the purpose of studying a guide book in the
dark, one lucifer match is worth a sky full of lightning.

Sumner had the courage of his convictions; he was brave as a lion.
Having no physical fear, he was devoid also of moral fear. He had the
foresight of far-off things, and could look beyond to-day's defeat to
the coming victory for his cause. He had many bitter enemies. His
intolerance and intellectual arrogance offended men. When a friend said
to President Grant, "Sumner is a skeptic; I fear he does not believe in
the Bible," Grant's instant retort was, "Certainly he does not; he did
not write it."

But we can forgive much to a man who sacrificed much, and endured the
murderous cross of cruelty, obloquy and shame. A lonely and
companionless man, at the end, he trod the wine-press of sorrow in
solitude and isolation. He had no woman's love to heal his wounded
spirit. His one support was the cause he loved. To this cause he clung