ring for us? What would become of filial piety if we
asked it for loving and caring for our aged parents?

What does it cost you to speak the truth? Misunderstandings, sometimes
sufferings and persecutions. To defend your country? Weariness, wounds
and often death. To do good? Annoyance, ingratitude, even resentment.
Self-sacrifice enters into all the essential actions of humanity. I defy
the closest calculators to maintain their position in the world without
ever appealing to aught but their calculations. True, those who know how
to make their "pile" are rated as men of ability. But look a little
closer. How much of it do they owe to the unselfishness of the
simple-hearted? Would they have succeeded had they met only shrewd men
of their own sort, having for device: "No money, no service?" Let us be
outspoken; it is due to certain people who do not count too rigorously,
that the world gets on. The most beautiful acts of service and the
hardest tasks have generally little remuneration or none. Fortunately
there are always men ready for unselfish deeds; and even for those paid
only in suffering, though they cost gold, peace, and even life. The part
these men play is often painful and discouraging. Who of us has not
heard recitals of experiences wherein the narrator regretted some past
kindness he had done, some trouble he had taken, to have nothing but
vexation in return? These confidences generally end thus: "It was folly
to do the thing!" Sometimes it is right so to judge; for it is always a
mistake to cast pearls before swine; but how many lives there are whose
sole acts of real beauty are these very ones of which the doers repent
because of men's ingratitude! Our wish for humanity is that the number
of these foolish deeds may go on increasing.

* * * * *

And now I arrive at the _credo_ of the mercenary spirit. It is
characterized by brevity. For the mercenary man, the law and the
prophets are contained in this one axiom: _With money you can get
anything._ From a surface view of our social life, nothing seems more
evident. "The sinews of war," "the shining mark," "the key that opens
all doors," "king money!"--If one gathered up all the sayings about the
glory and power of gold, he could make a litany longer than that which
is chanted in honor of the Virgin. You must be without a penny, if only
for a day or two, and try to live in this world of ours, to have any
idea of the needs of him whose