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You keep silent too much. "Have great leaders, and the rest will follow," said Whitman. The gift of your abilities while you live would be of priceless worth for the establishing and the maintenance of a fairer, a healthier, and a sweeter life in your community, your city, your country. It were better to do this and to be contented with a smaller accumulation than to have it so large or even so excessive, and when the summons comes to leave[Pg 183] it to two or three or to half a dozen who cannot possibly have good use for it all, and some of whom perchance would be far better off without it, or without so much. By so doing you would be leaving something still greater to them as well as to hundreds or thousands of others.
Significant in this connection are these words by a man of wealth and of great public service:[D]
"On the whole, the individualistic age has not been a success, either for the individual, or the community in which he has lived, or the nation. We are, beyond question, entering on a period where the welfare of the community takes precedence over the interests of the individual and where the liberty of the individual will be more and more circumscribed for the benefit of the community as a whole. Man's activities will hereafter be required to be not only for himself but for his fellow-men. To my mind there is nothing in the signs of the times so certain as this.
"The man of exceptional ability, of more than ordinary talent, will hereafter look for his rewards, for his honours, not in one direction[Pg 184] but in two—first, and foremost, in some public work accomplished, and, secondarily, in wealth acquired. In place of having it said of him at his death that he left so many hundred thousand dollars it will be said that he rendered a certain amount of public service, and, incidentally, left a certain amount of money. Such a goal will prove a far greater satisfaction to him, he will live a more rational, worthwhile life, and he will be doing his share to provide a better country in which to live. We face new conditions, and in order to survive and succeed we shall require a different spirit of public service."
I am well aware of the fact that the mere accumulation of wealth is not, except in very rare cases, the controlling motive in the lives of our wealthy men of affairs. It is rather the joy and the satisfaction of achievement. But nevertheless it is possible, as has so often proved, to get so much into a habit and thereby into a rut, that one becomes a victim of habit; and the life with all its superb possibilities of human service, and therefore of true greatness, becomes side-tracked and abortive.
There are so many different lines of activity for human betterment for children, for men and women, that those of great executive and financial ability have wonderful opportunities. Greatness comes always through human service.[Pg 185] As there is no such thing as finding happiness by searching for it directly, so there is no such thing as achieving greatness by seeking it directly. It comes not primarily through brilliant intellect, great talents, but primarily through the heart. It is determined by the way that brilliant intellect, great talents are used. It is accorded not to those who seek it directly. By an indirect law it is accorded to those who, forgetting self, give and thereby lose their lives in human service.
Both poet and prophet is Edwin Markham when he says:
This putting of divinity into life and raising thereby an otherwise sordid life up to higher levels and thereby to greater enjoyments, is the power that is possessed equally by those of station and means, and by those in the more humble or even more lowly walks of life.
When your life is thus touched by the spirit of God, when it is ruled by this inner Kingdom, when your constant prayer, as the prayer of every truly religious man or woman will be—Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? My one desire is that Thy will be my will, and therefore that Thy will be done in me and through me—then you are living the Divine life; you are a coworker with God. And whether your life according to accepted standards be noted or humble it makes no difference—you are fulfilling your Divine mission. You should be, you cannot help being fearless and happy. You are a part of the great creative force in the world.
You are doing a man's or a woman's work in the world, and in so doing you are not unimportant; you are essential. The joy of true accomplishment is yours. You can look forward always with sublime courage and expectancy. The life of the most humble can thus become an exalted life. Mother, watching over, cleaning, feeding, training, and educating your brood; seamstress, working, with a touch[Pg 187] of the Divine in all you do—it must be done by some one—allow it to be done by none better than by you. Farmer, tilling your soil, gathering your crops, caring for your herds; you are helping feed the world. There is nothing more important.
If you do not allow yourself to become a slave to your work, and if you cooperate within the house and the home so that your wife and your daughters do not become slaves or near-slaves, what an opportunity is yours of high thinking and noble living! The more intelligent you become, the better read, the greater the interest you take in community and public affairs, the more effectively you become what in reality and jointly you are—the backbone of this and of every nation. Teacher, poet, dramatist, carpenter, ironworker, clerk, college head, Mayor, Governor, President, Ruler—the effectiveness of your work and the satisfaction in your work will be determined by the way in which you relate your thought and your work to the Divine plan, and coordinate[Pg 188] your every activity in reference to the highest welfare of the greater whole.
However dimly or clearly we may perceive it great changes are taking place. The simple, direct teachings of the Christ are reaching more and more the mind, are stirring the heart and through these are dominating the actions of increasing numbers of men and women. The realisation of the mutual interdependence of the human family, the realisation of its common source, and that when one part of it goes wrong all suffer thereby, the same as when any portion of it advances all are lifted and benefited thereby, makes us more eager for the more speedy actualising of the Kingdom that the Master revealed and portrayed.
