The Varieties of Human Greatness (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Varieties of Human Greatness

We have no need of you. For man is not one power or faculty, but many. It behooves every one, then, to stir up and cultivate the peculiar gift of God which is in him, and thereby cause a various tribute. Of glory to ascend from earth to heaven. For God is truly glori hed by the full developement and right exercise of our several faculties, and by their consecration to the increase and diffusion of knowledge, virtue and happiness on the earth. Not in vain is this prodigal variety of human gifts, if God be honored and man blessed by it.

Let us, my hearers, take. A survey of some of the prominent varieties of human greatness. Let us see how they have been viewed and estimated. Let us look at them as so many manifestations of divine energy in man.

In the first place, and at the lowest point of the scale, stands physical greatness, strength of body, power of limb, capacity of labor and endurance, material energy and force. At some periods in the world's history, and at certain stages of man's growth, before the mental and moral faculties are unfolded, and the higher principles of our nature have gained the ascendency, and civiliza tion spread her restraining and refining influences, this species of greatness has been the most in honor and demand. When the earth was one vast forest, and the wild beast prowled on the frontiers of the infant settle ments, and waged a desperate and hardly unequal war fare with man, then physical strength was, of course, alone cultivated and prized. The great ones of that period were the men of giant frames, and tough muscles, and arms of iron - the Samson and the Hercules of their tribe. The primitive, or as we choose to call it, the fabulous history of our race, is full of the marvellous exploits of these renowned heroes, who protected the rising hamlets, with their flocks and herds, from the de predations of the wild boar and the wolf. In the early annals of almost every nation, ancient and modern, we meet witha great man of this sort, who, by mere phy sical strength, cleared the land of some ferocious animal.

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