In the hour of success, let not pride vaunt itself, while vanity
looks down upon the crowd, exclaiming, “Why did they not work
as I did? Why did they not have courage to launch out into
the deep? Why did they not fling their plans as a whaler his
harpoon, or a hunter his spear?” Well, because God and your
fathers made you the child of special good fortune, through
unique gifts of body and of mind. Why did not the poor and
unsuccessful do as you have done? Why does the turtle-dove not
soar like the eagle, and lift its stroke against any enemy?
Why does not a lamb go out for its prey like a wolf or a lion?
Why did not a modest violet grow tall as a redwood-tree? Why,
because God had planned something other for a violet and a dove
and a lamb, and quite another thing for an oak and an eagle and
a lion. Men’s gifts vary because their tasks are unlike. What
God asks is not success, but fidelity in the appointed sphere,
in the ordained equipment.--N. D. HILLIS.
(1216)
=Gifts from God=--See GOD SENDS GIFTS.