for self,
purely for self-aggrandizement in this form or in that, as the case may
be.

Especially do we find this true in our municipalities. In some, the
government instead of being in the hands of those who would make it such
in truth, those who would make it serve the interests it is designed to
serve, it is in the hands of those who are there purely for self, little
whelps, those who will resort to any means to secure their ends, at
times even to honorable means, should they seem to serve best the
particular purpose in hand. We have but to look around us to see that
this is true. The miserable, filthy, and deplorable condition of affairs
the Lexow Committee in its investigations not so long ago laid bare to
public gaze had its root in what? In the fact that the offices in that
great municipality have been and are filled by men who are there to
serve in the highest degree the public welfare or by men who are there
purely for self-aggrandizement? But let us pass on. This degraded
condition of affairs exists not only in this great city, but there are
scarcely any that are free from it entirely. Matters are not always to
continue thus, however. The American people will learn by and by what
they ought fully to realize to-day--that the moment the honest people,
the citizens, in distinction from the barnacles, mass themselves and
stay massed, the notorious, filthy political rings cannot stand before
them for a period of even twenty-four hours. _The right, the good, the
true, is all-powerful, and will inevitably conquer sooner or later when
brought to the front._ Such is the history of civilization.

Let our public offices--municipal, state, and federal--be filled with
men who are in love with the human kind, large men, men whose lives are
founded upon this great law of service, and we will then have them
filled with statesmen. Never let this glorious word be disgraced,
degraded, by applying it to the little, self-centred whelps who are
unable to get beyond the politician stage. Then enter public life; but
enter it as a man, not as a barnacle: enter it as a statesman, not as a
politician.

* * * * *

Is it your ambition to become a great _preacher_, or better yet, with
the same meaning, a great _teacher?_ Then remember that the greatest of
the world have been those who have given themselves in thorough
self-devotion and service to their fellow-men, who have given themselves
so thoroughly