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Show DR. VANCE'S DAILY ARTICLE 4 -V By DR. JAMES I. VANCE , Founder of Inter-Church World Movement Move-ment and Chairman, Federal Council of Churches of America. 1 No man Is G'ea-t enough to end In himself. No man is worthy enough to terminate in his personal welfare. Self-culture- and self-development are to be sought, but not so much for their own sake as for the larger service ser-vice they will enable the Individual to render society. It is absurd for a man to think he can do something for the world unless he first does something for hlmseLf. There is no strength In a rope of sand,, no ballast In a wind-bag.. Before one can do, he must be. Before he can give, he must have. Society is not helped up by leveling- down. There Is no virtue in any kind of suicide. But self-culture must not end in itself. it-self. It is not enough to be a luxuriant grower In the world field of human activity. It does not suffice to bo shrewd and energetic and prosperous. It Is not all of Hfo to make a profitable Investment. What is the effect of all this on life of the community? What is a man worth to his own?. What is a citizen's value to society? The man who ends in himself be- comes his own god, and no man is good enough or great enough to be his own god. He mistakes egoism for deism. Such a man misses the best In life. He misses happiness, for happiness is a social Joy, and comes as a reaction from service. He misses the very thing he seeks, for self-interest in Its best form Is tied indissolubly to the common good. We are so built that the best in us germinates and develops not in what wo do for ourselves, but in what we do for others: Hence the finest selfishness must be unselfish. The mutual obligations of life pronounce pro-nounce the Infamy of a man who ends in himself. In a thousand ways a day he is the beneficiary of the communi ty. Every dollar he makes Is a part nership profit, and every joy that brightens life bears the community label. Life's center is outside self. Life's goal Is a neighborhood affair, and. after all, tho world Is just a big neighborhood. neigh-borhood. He who lives sanely and well must be a cosmopolitan. He must carry the world around m his heart. "None of us liveth to himself, and no man dleth to himself." JAMES I. VANCE. |