Chapter 34 - Men of Exceptional Executive and Financial Ability

The great nation is, again, the nation in which the man of great natural executive or financial ability finds contentment in a smaller amount of possessions for himself, and the larger contentment and satisfaction and joy in using that unusual ability in the service of, for the benefit of, his city, his state, the nation. The wonder is that more are not doing this already. What an influence a few such men could have, what results they could accomplish, what real riches they could bring into their lives through the riches they would bring into the lives of multitudes -- What gratitude would go to them!

As men continue to see the small satisfaction there is in the possession of great ability of this nature, and in the possession of great wealth when divorced from an adequate or even from an abundant connection with the interests and the welfare of their fellow-men, and as they catch the undying truth of the great law of life as enunciated by One who though He had not even where to lay His head was greater than them all -- He that is greatest among you shall be your servant -- then they in company with all men will be the gainers.

Think what could be accomplished in the nation along the lines we have been considering in this little volume by a company of such men devoted to such ends. A change is coming and very rapidly. The time has already arrived when we will no longer look upon the possession of mere wealth or the ability to get it as deserving of any special distinction, and especially when the means adopted in its acquirement are other than those of absolute honour and rectitude. How significant are the following observations from the "Outlook:"

"Those who have fallen most completely under the spell of fortune-hunting, and have been consumed by the fever of a pursuit which dries up the very sources of spiritual life, can no longer be blind to the fact that when great wealth ceases to be associated with character, honour, genius, or public respect, it is a very shabby substitute for the thing men once held it to be. There are hosts of honourable men of wealth, and there are large fortunes which have been honourably made; but so much brutal indifference to the rights of others, so much tyrannical use of power, so much arbitrary employment of privilege without a touch of genius, so much cynical indifference to human ties of all kinds, so much vulgar greed, have come to light, . . . that the lustre has very largely gone and wealth, as a supreme prize of life, has immensely lost in attractive power. There are hosts of young men who are ambitious to be rich, but who are not willing to accept wealth on such terms; the price is too great, the bargain too hard."

Men of exceptional executive and financial ability. raise yourselves to the standing-point of real greatness and use these abilities to noble purposes and to undying ends instead of piling a heap of things together that you'll soon have to leave and that may do those to whom it will go more harm than good. The times are changing, mankind is advancing and ascending to higher standing places, and it will be but a short time when your position if maintained as at present will be a very ordinary one or even a very low one in the public esteem -- and so will be your memories.

The Bishop of Exeter voices a well-nigh universal human cry at present when he says: Give us men!, strong and stalwart ones: men whom highest hope inspires, men whom purest honour fires, men who trample Self beneath them, men who make their country wreathe them As her noble sons, worthy of their sires. Men who never shame their mothers, men who never fail their brothers, true, however false are others: Give us Men -- I say again, Give us Men!

(from: In the Fire of the Heart)