The Path To Greatness
Those who are regarded as rulers of the heathen, as you know, lord it over them, and their great men are their masters. But among you it must not be so. On the contrary, whosoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whosoever wishes to take a first place among you must be at the call of everyone; for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.
—Jesus.
When A Man Comes To Himself
What every man seeks is satisfaction. He deceives himself so long as he imagines it to lie in self-indulgence, so long as he deems himself the center and object of effort. His mind is spent in vain upon itself. Not in action itself, not in “pleasure” shall it find its desires satisfied, but in consciousness of right, of powers greatly and nobly spent. It comes to know itself in the motives which satisfy it, in the zest and power of rectitude. Christianity has liberated the world, not as a system of ethics, not as a philosophy of altruism, but by its revelation of the power of pure and unselfish love. Its vital principle is not its code, but its motive. Love clear sighted, loyal, personal, is its breath and immortality.
Christ came not to save Himself, assuredly, but to save the world. His motive, His example, are every man’s key to his own gifts and happiness. The ethical code He taught may no doubt be matched, here a piece, there a piece, out of other religions, other teachings and philosophies. Every thoughtful man with a conscience must know a code of right and of pity to which he ought to conform, but without the motive of Christianity, without love, he may be the purest altruist and yet be as sad and as unsatisfied as Marcus Aurelius.
Christianity gave us, in the fullness of time, the perfect image of right living, the secret of social and of individual well-being; for the two are not separable, and the man who receives and verifies that secret in his own living has discovered npt only the best way to serve the world, but also the one happy way to satisfy himself. Then, indeed, has he come to himself. After this fretfulness passes away, experience mellows and strengthens and makes more fit, and old age brings, not senility, not regret, but higher hope and serene maturity.
—Woodbow Wilson.
First of all, I must make myself a man; if I do not succeed in that, I can succeed in nothing.
—James A. Garfield.
Alternate Reading: Romans 15: 7-21.