o serve his fellows does not think of
declaring that he will not do humble tasks, but he demands that the work
he is asked to do shall be needed.

A young man who was seeking his life work made known his willingness to
be a shoe-black, if he could be convinced that this was the work God
wanted him to do. An immigrant in New York City read in the morning,
"Lord, my heart is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty." Then he went out to
sweep a store, and he swept it well. It is worthy of note that the young
man who was willing to be a shoe-black became one of the foremost men of
his generation, and that the immigrant became the pastor of a leading
city church. But a far more important fact is that the quality of the
service given counted more in their minds than the character of the
employment.

The service of the man who would be worth while in the world must
partake of the spirit of the successful figure on the baseball diamond
or the football gridiron: readiness to do everything, or anything--or
to do nothing, if he is so directed--in the interests of the team. It
must take a leaf from the book of General Pershing and his fellow
officers who, in a time of stress for the Allies, were willing and eager
to brigade their troops with the soldiers of France and England, thus
losing the identity of their forces in the interest of the great cause
for which they stood. It must learn the lesson taught by the life of Him
who emptied Himself for the sake of the world--and did it with a smile.

III

FORGIVING INJURIES

A gifted writer has told the story of a workman in a Bessemer steel
furnace who was jealous of the foreman whom he thought had injured him.
The foreman was making a good record, and the workman did not want to
see him succeed. So he plotted his undoing--he loosened the bolts of the
cable that controlled an important part of the machinery, and so caused
an accident that not only interfered seriously with the day's turn, but
put a section of the plant out of commission for the time being. As a
result the superintendent was discharged. When he left he vowed
vengeance on the man whom he suspected of causing his discharge: "I'll
get you for this some day," he declared. Perhaps he would have been even
more emphatic if he had known the extent of his enemy's culpability.

Years passed. The workman who had loosened the bolts became
superintendent of the mill. He, too, tried to break a production record,
and was in a fair way