eems to them all too
short, the same time that before, when they could scarcely see what was
in life to make it worth the living, dragged wearily along. So there
are countless numbers of people in the world with lives that seem not to
have much in them, among the wealthy classes and among the poorer, who
might under the influence of this great, this simple principle, make
them so precious, so rich, and so happy that time would seem only too
short, and they would wonder why they have been so long running on the
wrong track, for it is true that much the larger portion of the world
to-day is on the wrong track in the pursuit of happiness; but almost all
are there, let it be said, not through choice, but by reason of not
knowing the right, the true one.

The fact that really great, true, and happy lives have been lived in the
past and are being lived to-day gives us our starting-point. Time and
again I have examined such lives in a most careful endeavor to find what
has made them so, and have found that in _each and every_ individual
case this that we have now come to has been the great central principle
upon which they have been built. I have also found that in numbers of
lives where it has not been, but where almost every effort apart from it
has been made to make them great, true, and happy, they have not been
so; and also that no life built upon it in sufficient degree, other
things being equal, has failed in being thus.

Let us then to the answer, examine it closely, see if it will stand
every test, if it is the true one, and if so, rejoice that we have found
it, lay hold of it, build upon it, tell others of it. The last four
words have already entered us at the open door. The idea has prevailed
in the past, and this idea has dominated the world, that _self_ is the
great concern,--that if one would find success, greatness, happiness, he
must give all attention to self, and to self alone. This has been the
great mistake, this the fatal error, this the _direct_ opposite of the
right, the true as set forth in the great immutable law that--_we find
our own lives in losing them in the service of others_, in longer
form--the more of our lives we give to others, the fuller and the
richer, the greater and the grander, the more beautiful and the more
happy our own lives become. It is as that great and sweet soul who when
with us lived at Concord said,--that generous giving or losing of your
life which saves it.

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