The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-05-16
MASTERS OF FATE.

"A uOIeO 11aIVaIO professor QleQ mol
long ago. During his life he had be.
come very much interested in the
cases of many of his students who
had i'll health or bodily disability to
fight with. He desired to help and
encourage them. So he set himself
to collect all sorts Of instances of peo-
pie who had been burdened in the
race of life with grave difficulties, and
yet had achieved nobly. When he
died, his widow took this material,
and made most interesting book of
it, called "The Master of Fate" It
is chronicle of great deeds done by
weak bodies.
In philosophy, for example, Bacon,
Kant, Spinoza, Aristotle, and Her
bert Spencer were all men of weak
bodies. Kant was never entirely free
from pain. But he exercised his will
to such good purpose tnat even wnen
suffering from a headache or an op-
preston of the chest, he could concen-
trate his mind perfectly on his chosen
subject. He accepted life uncom-
plainingly. There was nothing of the
self-indulgence of the invalid about
him. He lived above his pain. "In
working out his salvation, an invalid
needs the heart of a chevalier, the
soul of believer, and the tempera-
ment of martyr, and Kant exempli-
fed this.
Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and
Daniel Webster were such weaklings
when they were born that their lives
weredespairedof. They went through
all sufferlngs of sick1y and unpromis-
ing youth. But they were determined
to be useful, to learn and to know, in
spite of constant ill-health. Webster
was sent to college partly because he
was unfit for work on his fathers
farm. Hewrote to classmate, 'The
talent with which heaven has intrust-
ed me is small, very small, yet l feel
responsible for the use of it." John
Flaxman, the great sculptor, was
feeble, cripple boy. Seated in chair
supported by pillows, behind the
counter in his fathers shop, the little
cripple spent his time in drawing
from plaster casts. He taught him
self Latin, and at fourteen was model
ing and designing for the Wedgewood
potteries. These young lives were
weighted down with burdens that
most boys would have considered
crushing. But they faced fate, and
mastered it by slow, patient, every
day effort. They had faith, too
faith in God, who had put them in
the world, and faith that he would
help them forward. They were not
morbid they were sane and brave.
Victory came to them because it be-
longs to the courageous.
Alfred the Great, from his early
teens, suffered from an illness of cpl
lepsy. There were times, frequently,
E0hzn hafh mind and body failed him.
with indomitable Sr;ai, ~ his task 81
ruling a distracted kingdom, and re-
sisting the incessant onslaughts of the
Danes. "He was constantly" says
one biographer, "af1icted with severe
attacks of an incurable complaint; he
had not moments ease, either from
the pain it caused him, or from the
gloom which was thrown over him by
the apprehensions of it's coming"
Yet how few young people who have
studied English history in school ever
think of Alfred except as strong, ac-
tive, and unconquerable. His stead
fast, splendid soul shines out in the
chronicles, and his weak, pain-racked
body is kept in the background.
Nelson, the great naval hero, was
extremely unpromising material for
even a midshipman. His health was
very weak, and his uncle, who took
him on his own ship as a favor said
that there was little use in his going
to sea but that "a cannon ball would
probably knock off his head the first
time he went into action, and so pro-
vided for him." After this, in diff
ferent naval battles, Nelson lost his
right arm and the sight of his right
eye. On the eve of the great
Battle of Copenhagen, he had to lie
on his cot, from sheer exhaustion,
while giving his orders. Yet Eng
land could have better spared hum
dred of her most stalwart and healthy
sons than 'tis one undersized, frail,
exhausted cripple.
The blind and deaf have in many
famous cases overcome their handi-
cap. Milton, writing his most splen-
did poetry in his blindness Prescott,
composing his great history Homer,
the blind bard of Greece Huber, the
blind naturalist; Fawcet, the blind
statesman Beethoven, the deaf COM
| poser; Harriet Martineau, the deaf
author and most wonderful of all,
Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller,
blind, deaf, and dumb, yet mastering
these Affections with extraordinary
greatness and bravery of spirit. Har
riet Martineau called her deafnes "the
greatest impulse to se1f-mastery."
Schiller, Stevenson, James Watts
Claiming, William Pitt, Pope, Eliza
beth Barrett Brewing, Wilberforce
Kepler, Parkman-the list of those
who have conquered their disabilities
contains all sorts of famous names
In the ordinary ranks of life, also
there are masters of fate. The story
is told of one-legged crippled soldie1
on an American farm, who turned tt
plowman's work, and won substantial
prosperity. He used that form o
blow where the plowman rides insteat
of following but he worked ffteer
hours a day and took care OF foul
horses. One of the big Atlantic lin
ers used to have a cripple captain
He sat all day in wheeled chair
pushed about the deck by an attend
ant, but he was one OF the aDlest com
| .o~~~s10 unf1ns