The Roman knight who rode, all accoutred as he was, into the gulf, and the mouth of the hungry Forum closed upon him and was satisfied, vanquished, in his own dying, that great Philistine, Oblivion, which, sooner or later, will conquer us all.

But there is an old story that always charmed me more. In some strange land and time they were about to cast a bell for a mighty tower; a hollow, starless heaven of iron. It should toll for dead monarchs—"the king is dead!"—and make glad clamor for the new prince—"long live the king!" It should proclaim so great a passion or so grand a pride that either would be worship, or, wanting these, forever hold its peace.

Now this bell was not to be digged out of the cold mountains; it was to be made of something that had been warmed with a human touch or loved with a human love. And so the people came like pilgrims to a shrine, and cast their offerings into the furnace and went away. There were links of chains that bondmen had worn bright, and fragments of swords that had broken in heroes' hands. There were crosses and rings and bracelets of fine gold; trinkets of silver and toys of poor red copper. They even brought things that were licked up in an instant by the red tongues of flame; good words they had written and flowers they had cherished; perishable things that could never be heard in the rich tone and volume of the bell.

And the fires panted like a strong man when he runs a race, and the mingled gifts flowed down together and were lost in the sand, and the dome of iron was drawn out like leviathan.

And by-and-by the bell was alone in its chamber, and its four windows looked forth to the four quarters of heaven. For many a day it hung dumb; the winds came and went, but they only set it a sighing; birds came and went, and sang under its eaves, but it was an iron horizon of dead melody still. All the meaner strifes and passions of men rippled on below it. They out-groped the ants, and out-wrought the bees, and out-watched the Chaldean shepherds, but the chamber of the bell was as dumb as the pyramids.

At last there came a time when men grew grand for right and truth, and stood shoulder to shoulder over all the land, and went down like reapers to the harvest of death; looked into the graves of them that slept, and believed there was something grander than living; glanced on into the far future and discerned there was something bitterer than dying, and so, standing between the quick and the dead, they quitted themselves like men.

Then the bell woke in its chamber, and the great waves of its music rolled gloriously out and broke along the blue walls of the world like an anthem; and every tone in it was familiar as a household word to somebody, and he heard it and knew it with a solemn joy. Poured into that fiery furnace-heart together, the humblest gifts were blent in one great wealth, and accents feeble as a sparrow's song grew eloquent and strong; and lo, a people's stately soul heaved on the tenth wave of a mighty voice!

We thank God in this our day for the furnace and the fire; for the offerings of gold and the trinkets of silver; for the good deed and the true word; for the great triumph and the little song.