Frailty, thy name is MAN.
The Earth waits for its King?


Yet Man, if not yet fully installed in his powers, has given much
earnest of his claims. Frail he is indeed,--how frail! how impure!
Yet often has the vein of gold displayed itself amid the baser ores,
and Man has appeared before us in princely promise worthy of his
future.

If, oftentimes, we see the prodigal son feeding on the husks in the
fair field no more his own, anon we raise the eyelids, heavy from
bitter tears, to behold in him the radiant apparition of genius and
love, demanding not less than the all of goodness, power and beauty.
We see that in him the largest claim finds a due foundation. That
claim is for no partial sway, no exclusive possession. He cannot be
satisfied with any one gift of life, any one department of knowledge
or telescopic peep at the heavens. He feels himself called to
understand and aid Nature, that she may, through his intelligence, be
raised and interpreted; to be a student of, and servant to, the
universe-spirit; and king of his planet, that, as an angelic minister
he may bring it into conscious harmony with the law of that spirit.

In clear, triumphant moments, many times, has rung through the spheres
the prophecy of his jubilee; and those moments, though past in time,
have been translated into eternity by thought; the bright signs they
left hang in the heavens, as single stars or constellations, and,
already, a thickly sown radiance consoles the wanderer in the darkest
night. Other heroes since Hercules have fulfilled the zodiac of
beneficent labors, and then given up their mortal part to the fire