As he hung on the cross, dying slowly
from sheer agony, he said, «Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.»
But some Bunyan, writing Pilgrim's Progress in a prison where it was so damp that, as he cried, «The moss did verily grow upon mine eyebrows»; some Kernahan, born without arms and legs, but by
sheer grit fighting his way up until he sat in the House of Commons; some Henry M. Stanley, born in a workhouse and buried in Westminster Abbey; some Dante, his Beatrice dead, he himself an exile
from the city of his love, distilling all his
agony into a song that became the «voice of ten silent centuries», or some more obscure and humble life close at hand where handicaps have been mastered, griefs have been built into character, disappointments have been turned into trellises, not left a bare, unsightly thing — such incarnations of fortitude and faith have infectious power.