"LIGHT-FOUNTAINS"
"No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him He gives him for mankind."
"If any man seek for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both."
"Nothing can make a man truly great but being truly good, and partaking of God's holiness."
Influence of Great Men.
Everybody likes to read and to hear about great men. Children, and grown people, too, delight to learn how the leaders of men in the past have made the world better and happier by their noble deeds. And when, after many years have passed, people still see how much good those leaders of men did in the world, worthy aspirations are awakened, and boys and girls of today desire to emulate the lives of these heroes of the past; for, as the poet Longfellow says:
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."
Boy's Ideals.
Every boy has somebody who becomes his ideal. Or perhaps there are more than one who form this ideal—one man, for instance, might be a good athlete, and the boy wishes to be just like him; another is a good violinist, and the boy feels that he, too, would some day like to be a musician; another is an able speaker, and the boy desires some day to be a great orator. But, sometimes, boys, and girls, too, for that matter, choose bad men for their ideals. This happens when young folks read trashy books or associate with trashy or evil-minded men. How unfortunate that little boy is who happens to read or to hear about some highwayman or robber, and has awakened in his young mind a desire to be like that bad man! How unfortunate for the boy who chooses for his ideal a man who smokes, and drinks and swaggers through life in idleness!
Sign Posts.
Thus we see that the lives of men become sign posts to us, pointing the way along roads that lead either to lives of usefulness and happiness or to lives of selfishness and misery. It is important, then, that we seek, both in life and in books, the companionship of the best and noblest men and women. Carlyle, a great English writer, says that "Great men taken up in any way are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living 'light-fountain,' which it is good and pleasant to be near."
Secret of Greatness.