by Pat Laster
Once again, I reach for a book. It’s the liturgical
season of Lent, and bent on being useful, I submit this essay published in 1919
when Woodrow Wilson was president. Dr. Crane was a Presbyterian minister and
wrote at least eight volumes of such essays published by Wm. H. Wise & Co.,
Inc. This essay is from Volume 8.
“The universal blunder of this world,” said Phillips
Brooks, “is in thinking that there are certain persons put into the world to
govern and certain others to obey.
“Everybody is in this world to govern and everybody
to obey. There are no benefactors and no beneficiaries in distinct classes.
Every man is at once both benefactor and beneficiary. Every good deed you do
you ought to thank your fellow-man for giving you an opportunity to do it; and
they ought to be thankful to you for doing it.”
That is a mighty good sentiment to set down on your
tablets. It may gain you a deal of happiness if you will believe it. It may
even save your soul.
Certain people work for me and I pay them wages. But
the maid who sweeps my room is no more my servant than I am hers. Because I
give her money and she gives me work does not make me her superior.
It is the ancient delusion of the centuries that
labor in some way lowers a man. The real fact is that it ennobles him.
For instance, Mr. Wilson is considered by the
American people, and I am sure he considers himself, as their servant. He has
no mortgage on his job. He holds it by no divine right. He cannot pass it on to
a successor of his own blood or choice. When we don’t like what he does, we
criticize him. There are certain partisans that yelp at him every turn he
makes, like a pack of yapping pups. We do not suppress them. It is the
constitutional privilege of vulgar people to scold their servants.
And yet he is the chief man of the … nation… . In
former days he would have shouted, “Off with his head!” when any one crossed
him, and would have worn a crown, also a robe… .It is the spirit of service
that makes him the decent, conscientious, hard-working man he is.
The curse of wealth is that it destroys this spirit
of service. The man who does nothing because he has enough to live on
comfortably is no better than the man who does nothing because he can beg or
smoke … on the bench by the poorhouse door. Both are leeches. They are not
serving. They are being served.
When you lose sight of the duty of serving, you
invite … spiritual microbes of the most destructive character to come and breed
in you.
There is a luxury in being waited on. But that
feeling induces pride, meanness, selfishness, the undisciplined will, the
unruled passions, and the whole rakehelly crew of traits that cause excess,
perversion, indolence, selfishness, boredness, and pessimism.
There is a luxury, too, in serving. It is a real
pleasure when it becomes a habit. It brings on the genuine happiness-makers,
which are humility, unselfishness, sanity, health, optimism, cheer, and a
wholesome interest in life.
The greatest of men said of himself: “The Son of Man
came not to be served, but to serve.”
And I say, especially during this season of Lent, Amen.
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1 comment:
Great post. Great reminder.
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