An ambition to be a man, to stand for more in the community, to push our horizon farther and farther away from us, to think a little higher each day, to think a little more of ourselves, to have a little more faith in ourselves and in everybody else, an ambition to be of real use in the world is an ambition worthy of the man God created, and cannot but bring happiness to the individual.
In the white light of history, before the tribunal of justice, we shall not be judged for what we seem to be or have achieved, but for what we are and by what we have tried to do.
In the judgment of this tribunal, from which there is no appeal, many failures will be approved as successes, and many successes will be adjudged failures.
It will be easy to find the story of some boy who remained on the farm and helped pay the mortgage, stifled his ambition in order that the favorite brother might be sent to college, and thereby scored a much greater success than the one for whom the sacrifice was made.
The girl who smothered her longings for a higher education or sacrificed the prospects of marriage and a home of her own, in order to take care of her aged parents, and was not known outside of her little coterie of friends, may have her name recorded far higher on the honor roll than that of the sister who went to college, or became a great author, musician, artist or actress.
In imperishable characters there will be inscribed on the success roll of honor names unfamiliar to most of us, the names of those who nobly performed humble parts in life; the unknown workers for humanity, the heroic sufferers,—some blind, some crippled or handicapped by the loss of hands or feet, or tortured by incurable diseases,—who, with a fortitude equal to that of the martyrs of old, took up life’s burdens and bravely made the most of the powers and opportunities bestowed upon them by the Almighty.
CHAPTER IX
WHY DON’T YOU BEGIN?
When do you expect to do the wonderful things you have been dreaming about? Why don’t you begin? What are you waiting for? Why don’t you start? Are you waiting for a “good thing” to come to you, waiting for influence, for pull, for some one to help you?