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 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. 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:
We men of earth have here the stuff
Of Paradise—we have enough!
We need no other stones to build
The stairs into the Unfulfilled—
No other ivory for the doors—
No other marble for the floors—
No other cedar for the beam
And dome of man's immortal dream.
Here on the paths of every day—
Here on the common human way,
Is all the stuff the gods would take
To build a Heaven; to mould and make
New Edens. Ours the stuff sublime
To build Eternity in time!
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.