Wisdom Vault — onlinknow.co.za

HAVE brought you thus far through the two preceding chapters with a view to finally settling the question of duty. This is one that puzzles and perplexes very many peo- ple who are earnest and sincere, and gives them a great deal of difficulty in its solution.

When they start out to make something of themselves and to practice the science of being great, they find themselves necessarily compelled to rearrange many of their relation- ships. There are friends who perhaps must be alienated, there are relatives who misunderstand and who feel that they are in some way being slighted; the really great man is often considered selfish by a large circle of people who are connected with him and who feel 133 THE SCIENCE OF that he might bestow upon them more benefits than he does.

The question at the outset is: Is it my duty to make the most of myself regardless of every- thing else? Or shall I wait until I can do so without any friction or without causing loss to any one? ‘This is the question of duty to self vs. duty to others.

One’s duty to the world has been thoroughly discussed in the preceding pages and I give some consideration now to the idea of duty to God. An immense number of people have a great deal of uncertainty, not to say anxiety, as to what they ought to do for God.

The amount of work and service that is done for him in these United States in the way of church work and so on is enormous. An immense amount of human energy is expended in what is called serving God. I propose to con- sider briefly what serving God is and how a man may serve God best, and I think I shall be able to make plain 134 BEING GREAT. that the conventional idea as to what constitutes service to God is all wrong.

When Moses went down into Egypt to bring out the Hebrews from bondage, his demand upon Pharaoh, in the name of the Deity, was, “Let the people go that they may serve me.” He led them out into the wilderness and there insti- tuted a new form of worship which has led many people to suppose that worship constitutes the service of God, although later God himself distinctly declared that he cared nothing for ceremonies, burned offerings, or oblation, and the teaching of Jesus, if rightly understood, would do away with organized temple worship altogether.

God does not lack anything that men may do for him with their hands or bodies or voices. Saint Paul points out that man can do nothing for God, for God does not need anything. The view of evolution which we have taken shows God seeking expression 135 THE SCIENCE OF through man.

Through all the suc- cessive ages in which his spirit has urged man up the height, God has gone on seeking expression. Every genera- tion of men is more Godlike than the preceding generation. Every genera- tion of men demands more in the way of fine homes, pleasant surroundings, congenial work, rest, travel, and oppor- tunity for study than the preceding generation.

I have heard some shortsighted econ- omists argue that the working people of to-day ought surely to be fully con- tented because their condition is so much better than that of the working- man two hundred years ago who slept in a windowless hut on a floor covered with rushes in company with his pigs.

If that man had all that he was able to use for the living of ali the life he knew how to live, he was perfectly con- tent, and if he had lack he was not contented. The man of to-day has a comfortable home and very many 136 BEING GREAT. things, indeed, that were unknown a short period back in the past, and if he has all that he can use for the living of all the life he can imagine, he will be content.