Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1891-09-05
value ofIdeal Characters.

What was Christs view and example
in regard to this great faculty Of idealism?
Why, he created hundred fold more fcti-
tious personages and events Than Dickens,
or Ihackeray, or any other novelist. ever
did We read that h seldom spoke 10
the people except IN parallels And
what were his parb.es2 They were ideals,
that were more vivid than 'le abstract
reals of actual human life. They were
fictitious transactions, experiences, and
actors; but every one ~ them had true
human basis or possibility of fact, which
carried its instruction to the listener 6
mind with the double force of truth
Take, for example, the Prodigal Son
Historically he was fiction. But to the
universal and everlasting conscience and
experience of mankind there has not been
a human son born into this world for two
thousand years endowed with such i'm
mortal life and power as that young man
He viii live forever He will give power
CAS- long as the heart has passion,
A. long as life has woes
He will travel down all the ages, and.
in loving sympathy and companionship
with the saddest experience Of human
nature, he will stand at every door and
lair of sin and misery and shame; be will
stand there us he stood in his rags, hunger
and contrition among the swine, and say
to the fallen, with his broken voice and
falling tears. I'll will arise and 20 unto
my father, and say unto him, Father,
have siuncd against heaven and in thy
sight, and ana no more worthy to be called
thy son; make me as one Of thy hired
servants.
The Good Samaritan historically was "a
fictitious being as the Pro2igal Son But
what one man has lived on the earth since
be was introduced 10 the world who has
been worth to it the value of that ideal
characier2 What one mere humin being
has worn actual flesh and blood for the last
two thousand years, who lives with such
intense vitality in the best memories, life
impulse and action of this living genera
tlon as that ideal Of a good neighbor ?
What brightest star in our heavens above
would we hold al higher worth than the
light Of his exampleY Forever and for
ever, as long as men shall fall among the
thieves that beset the narrow turuings Of
life. or into the more perilous ambush Of
their own appstites and passions, so long
the Good Samaritan will seek for them
with his lantern in one hand and his cruet
Of oil In the other, 4nd pour the healing
sympathy Of his loving heart into their
wounded spirits; 90 lsnR will be walk the
thoTny and stony paths Of poverty, sin.
md guilt; and. with a hand and voice soft
ard tender with Gods love, raise the
fallen, bind up their wounds. and bring
them back 10 the bosom Of the great sal-
vattlon.
Take away these ideas from the world
and what should we have left? How
c5Cld humanity have ever been lifted
above any level on which it CROPPED unless
il could have taken hold Of something let
down to 1T from above? And what was
that something's It was the divine gift
Of this very creative faculty Of the mind
which people nickname imagination.
Where would civilization have been 10 day
had it not been for these ideals which
imagination. if you please, has embodied
in sculpture, Pointing, architecture, and
even in the commonest Of industrial arts
There was a time in the history Of Greece
when its early settlers almost worshipped a
benefaetor who FIRST taught them 70 build