Everything that man is conscious of is his teacher.
You are the teacher of every person who sees or is otherwise conscious of you or of your example.
It is unmanly, and especially unchristian, not to seek the greatest possible enlightenment relative to the functions and duties in growth, not only for your own sake, but as an example for others; and, being enlightened, not to do all possible to assist growth.
Whoever reads and assents to the above, takes upon himself the responsibility of his future growth, and will be respectable or not-respectable insofar as he seeks enlightenment and assists growth, or neglects to seek enlightenment and thereby retards growth.
Happiness, the evidence, fruit and reward of growth, rests in self-respect first, and, incidentally, in the measure of respect held by others.
No one is respectable who is not doing his best.
When a man finds fault with the material with which he has been furnished—with his form, with his face, with his mind, with his muscle, with his equipment of wealth, or other means or tools of growth, at the time of his being fully born, he puts blame upon, and thereby blasphemes, his Creator, as well as discredits his progenitors.
Whoever reads, and assents to, the foregoing is fully born, in that he has learned and now knows what is best. The question then is: "What will he do with it?"
In highly-civilized life it is not-respectable not to be fully born.
The fully-born is not doing his best, and is therefore not-respectable when he suffers himself to retain or cultivate the habit-of-fearthought.