beasts, preying on them, and being preyed on.
But the Younger Brother shook his golden locks,
and rushed upon them; and the giants were no
match for the active boy. He was to win his
way on, to follow the hero-sun, and no hills
could bar his path, no foes could stop him.

The waters of the Hellespont were cleft, and
he came to a glorious land, where forms of
beauty and thoughts of godlike greatness rose
upon him; and there he left traces of his work
which will teach the world throughout all time.

By the shores of the Adriatic, he travelled on
and came to Rome, whence, for a while, he ruled
the world, and gave forth laws of justice such as
have never been surpassed.

Onward he urged his way until all Europe lay
at his feet, and only here and there a few wild
men remained: who were not worth driving from
the rocky north, or from the little nooks to
which they had fled in the south.

Here, then, for a while, he found the limit to
his wanderings; hemmed in by the great Atlantic,
his steps could go no farther. Still, the sun
rose and set; but now he knew that the hero
never rested; that when he left him in darkness
it was to bring life and joy to other lands, and
to teach all who would listen, even as he had
taught the Younger Brother, that there is no
room for idleness in this world. Now, too, the
Younger Brother knew that there is One
mightier than the sun, whose bidding he and all
must do. At Athens and at Rome he had met
the children of an ancient race, and from them
he had learnt to know Him whose will it is that
men should work on earth: who Himself had
come to earth to set an example of such high
self-forgetting work for man, that men at an
humble distance might follow after, and strive
to do like Him.

So the Younger Brother never rested. For a
long time he knew of no lands beyond the sea;
but, though his journeyings had ceased for
a while, he had hard work at home—to train
himself to seek out all knowledge, to frame new
laws, to think great and vigorous thoughts—to
carry out, though seldom consciously, the will
of Him who is Ruler of all.

But a time came when voices were sent up
to Heaven from the Far West, from the company
of fair islands south and east, from all the
lands where men can live and breathe, whence
rose the common cry of help, "Save us from
ourselves!"

Among them was a voice he had heard long
ago, before he had left his father's hearth;
he answered it as he answered all other cries
for help, but he knew not the voice. Whose
was it?

Come back to the land of the tillers and
rearers of the earth. Come back to that fair
morning of promise which brought those great
glad thoughts to the Younger Brother. Another
looks on at that gorgeous sight, and he also is
moved by it to the one only action of his life.
Rest, ease, a life of thought—these were what
he sought as his highest good; and when he
saw the sun shake off his slumber, he read no
lesson there of struggle and of toil; he only
thought of the couch of ease whence the sun
had arisen. He coveted that splendid ease; he
thought that by going back but a little way, he
would reach that gorgeous repose, and there
dream away his life. So he set out some time
after his brother had gone; for, sloth clogged his
steps, and he had no need to hurry, since it was
but a little way he meant to go.

But woe to him who would go back in this
world; woe to him whose eyes are blinded that
he cannot see the onward upward path which all
should follow! Turning his back upon the sun,
he went forth.

For a little while he showed the true spirit of
his race, fought bravely with the giant hunters
on their wild steeds, and strode sturdily across
the mountains; but on the other side, finding few
difficulties, he sank back into his natural sloth,
and, folding his hands, slept the sleep of idleness,
while his mind was busied with splendid
and useless dreams. He had crept into a narrow
corner, hemmed in on one side by the heaven-
reaching hills, which he had crossed with so
much trouble, while all around roared the cruel
sea. He could not choose but sleep. The land
he had come to, was brilliant as the dawn, favoured
beyond all others by the sun's strong
beams; food, far more than he could need,
grew within his reach. Surely after so much
toil he could afford to rest; surely, this was the
promised land of which he had dreamed so long.

There is no room for idleness in this world of
ours, Elder Brother! Those magnificent imaginings
of yours, those deep thoughts grasping
sometimes at truth, but oftener bright and
flimsy as a foam-bubble—could you not read in
them the great lesson of unceasing toil which
you have striven against in vain?

Pure and beautiful were his thoughts at first,
but the moss grew round his heart, the fetters
of foolish custom tied down his hands, and his
limbs grew stiff for want of use. His soul died
within him, and the unconscious cry arose to his
lips, "Brother, save me from myself!"

This was the voice the Younger Brother
heard, but he knew not whose need it was that
called him to that land of luxury. He has
found that brother, and is trying now to help
him: though so enfeebled, so degraded is he, so
unlike all others whom the Younger Brother has
helped, that it will be a long and weary task.

I dare not say that the Younger Brother has
acted throughout as became one who had received
such high teaching; I dare not say that
when the Elder Brother, once roused beyond
all endurance, turned like a wild beast to rend
his helper, it was altogether without cause.
But I hope that the Younger Brother will remember
the good things which fell to his share
in the grey old times when the choice of life or
death lay before them both; when, but, for the
energy which was given him, and the wide field
of work which was opened to him, he might
have been like this poor degraded brother, in
all, perhaps, but the noble thoughts which for a
while staved off that brother's decay. I hope