The years of usefulness between the cradle and the grave are few.

The shortness of a life restricted to them is sufficient to discourage many from making strong efforts toward impressing the workings of their souls upon their fellows.

The number to whose minds we have immediate access is small, and they do not remain.

Is the good we might do worth the labor?
We cannot at times refuse a hearing to the question.
Fortunately, it is easily made clear to us that the area over which influence travels is vastly more extensive than at first sight appears.

The eye will not always discern the undulations of its spreading waves; but onward it goes, from one soul to another, far beyond our immediate ranks, and as each soul touched by it becomes a new motive power, it rolls forward, often with energy a hundred times intensified, long after the shadows of death have settled around its point of departure.
Isaac Thomas Hecker lives to-day, and with added years he will live more fully than he does to-day.