Says Phillips Brooks: "You picture to yourself the beauty of bravery and steadfastness.

You let your imagination wander in delight over the memory of martyrs who have died for truth.

And then some little, wretched, disagreeable duty comes, which is your martyrdom, the lamp of your oil; and if you will not do it, how your oil is spilt! How flat and thin and unilluminated your sentiment about the martyrs runs out over your self-indulgent life!" Lovers of the violin are familiar with the name of Stradivarius, the old violin-maker of Cremona.

He has been dead nearly two hundred years, and his violins now bring fabulous prices.

George Eliot, in one of her poems, puts some noble words into the mouth of the old man.
Speaking of the masters who will play on his violins, he says:-- "While God gives them skill, I give them instruments to play upon, God choosing me to help him." Referring to another violin-maker, his rival, he says:-- "But were his the best, He could not work for two.
My work is mine, And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked, I should rob God--since he is fullest good-- Leaving a blank instead of violins.
I say, not God himself can make man's best Without best men to help him.
* * * * * * 'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands.
He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio." At first reading these words may indeed seem heretical and irreverent, but they are not.