Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/202

218 ruler is possessed of a great amount of “good sense,” as well as of fatherly benevolence towards his people. But when King Leopold finally summed up the impelling motives to a life of truth and justice, to be this: “the hope of reward in heaven,” I said what I thought, that it was better not to reason in this way; that virtue was depreciated by any consideration of reward; and in this I was right. The king smiled archly, and said good-humoredly, such reasoning was “quite too strict,” and in this he was right, that is to say, if the reward be accepted in its highest sense. “You shall be where I am; you shall see my glory,” says our Great Master and Teacher to his dearest disciples, in the hour of separation, as the highest consolation and the highest reward for their trouble and labor on earth. And must not also the poorest, the most unselfish of all the sons of earth live thankfully in the prospect of this highest reward; a life with the Lord and the beholding of His glory a perfected and blessed world!——

I do not know whether King Leopold comprehended this reward in heaven in its highest significance; whether he comprehended the life of the state and of the human being according to its highest ideal; but it did not seem to me so. And where indeed is the ruler of the present day who is capable of it? To him I would bend the knee, even if he sat on the throne of Russia! It is, however, certain that the present King of Belgium is a ruler of integrity, tact and fatherly benevolence, who may be regarded by all people as a blessing, if not, in every respect, as an example.