Page:Lectures on Great Men.djvu/24

 4 MARTIN LUTHER. Perhaps this kind of greatness can only be realized fully in a man who is a Religious man. The man who shall stir immeasurable masses must derive his strength from an alliance with the Almighty: The man who shall move a world must have his standing-place in the Invisible : He can only lift it from some point without it : and I believe that only point is, Faith in GOD. But at the very least, before a man can be a great man it is necessary to be emphatically a Man : to have no littlenesses, no weaknesses. All human qualities must be fully developed in him, while some of them must be extraordinarily so. The first elements, then, in the composition of the character of such a man as I have been speaking to you of, are, to Endure and to Dare more than other men: but these are not enough of them- selves to constitute a Great Man. To dare anything and to fear nothing ; to endure calmly and cheerfully even to die : to look inevitable evil in the face and not tremble, yea to seek danger and to love it this is indeed to be a Man, but it is not necessarily to be a Great Man. For all this may be done by the savage or the selfish, by the foolhardy or the unthinking. Such qualities as these depend most upon what is physical, not necessarily anything at all upon what is spiritual ; and the indispensable condition of such Great- ness as I am speaking of is, greatness of Soul Sacrifice of Self, and Devotion to a Cause. The truly noble thing is not simply to Endure or to Dare : but to do thus for unselfish ends, and when to do otherwise were easier. And the more spiritual the aim and the more single it is, the greater the man who sacrifices himself for it. To die for one's Country is noble, to die for one's Conscience is nobler. The armed Patriot dying amid the shouts of multitudinous comrades may be a noble man the solitary Martyr suffering for his Faith and praying for his Murderers, is a nobler. But I will tell you what is noblest of all. for one to be a Sacrifice