Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/79

 serviceable is our loftiest ambition. The service we dream of is such education, such religion, such science, as will increase in all men the abundance of life. The method we dream of is such an illustration of religion or science or scholarship in our own lives as will increase in others a hunger for the same spiritual sustenance. To make this illustration, we must first cultivate religion or science or scholarship in ourselves.

This is the statement of the call to service which I have been approaching slowly and with care, for to the generous-hearted it is on first acquaintance a hard saying. Seek truth or seek goodness for yourselves, if you wish others to have it. If you rise to your own stature, you will thereby perform all the service you could desire—you will help others to rise. Doubtless some of your neighbors will think you selfish. Doubtless the man