They were men, certainly, very much of our own level: but may we not
put that level somewhat too low? They were certainly not what we
are; for if they had been, they would have done no more than we: but
is not a man's real level not what he is, but what he can be, and
therefore ought to be? No doubt they were compact of good and evil,
just as we: but so was David, no man more; though a more heroical
personage (save One) appears not in all human records but may not the
secret of their success have been that, on the whole (though they
found it a sore battle), they refused the evil and chose the good?
It is true, again, that their great deeds may be more or less
explained, attributed to laws, rationalised: but is explaining
always explaining away? Is it to degrade a thing to attribute it to
a law? And do you do anything more by 'rationalising' men's deeds
than prove that they were rational men; men who saw certain fixed
laws, and obeyed them, and succeeded thereby, according to the
Baconian apophthegm, that nature is conquered by obeying her?

But what laws?

To that question, perhaps, the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the
Hebrews will give the best answer, where it says, that by faith were
done all the truly great deeds, and by faith lived all the truly
great men who have ever appeared on earth.

There are, of course, higher and lower degrees of this faith; its
object is one more or less worthy: but it is in all cases the belief
in certain unseen eternal facts, by keeping true to which a man must
in the long run succeed. Must; because he is more or less in harmony
with heaven, and earth, and the Maker thereof, and has therefore