Young ladies and gentlemen, an appeal to you.
The desire to be thought well of, to desire to be great in goodness,
is in itself a noble quality of the mind, and is often termed
ambition. If it is our ambition to gain distinction, we will rob the
weak and flatter the strong, and become the fawning slave of those who
are able to foist us above our betters and deck us with the titles and
honors of the great without any regard to our own merit of
respectability. But if we are ambitious to do good, without any regard
for the fame we may win or the praise we may command, our course will
be honorable and our acts and deeds most worthy and good. When we have
done with the world the prints of our worthy ambition we will still
remain in the minds of those who come after us to enjoy and reap the
benefits, for which they will revive our memory and retain our names
in the lists of those whose labors have aided in enlightening the
world and exalting the general interest of mankind.
Much of the advancement of the world can be traced of the efforts of
those who were moved by ambition to become famous. Ambition is like
fire. It is an excellent servant, but a poor master. As long as it is
held strictly to integrity and honor, and to conform to the
requirements of justice, there is but little danger of a man’s having
too much of it.
Ambition is an excessive quality and, as such, is apt to lead us to
the most extraordinary results. But if our ambition leads us to excel
or seek to excel in that which is good, the currents it may induce us
to support will be of great good. But if it is stimulated by pride,
envy or vanity, we will confine our support principally to the counter
currents of life, and thus leave behind us misery and destruction.
The happiness promised by ambition dissolves in sorrow just as we are
about to grasp it. It makes the same mistake concerning wealth. She
begins by accumulating power as a means of happiness, but she finishes
by continuing to accumulate it as an end.