ld establish on earth.

They got very busy pursuing greatness, but I do not read that they were
half so busy preparing for greatness. They even had their mother out
electioneering for them.

"O, Master," said the mother, "grant that these my two sons may sit,
the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom."

The Master looked with love and pity upon their unpreparedness. "Are ye
able to drink of the cup?" Then he gave the only definition of
greatness that can ever stand: "Whosoever will be great among you, let
him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be
your servant."

That is we cannot be "born great," nor "have greatness thrust upon" us.
We must "achieve greatness" by developing it on the inside--developing
ability to minister and to serve.

We cannot buy a great arm. Our arm must become a great servant, and
thus it becomes great.

We cannot buy a great mind. Our mind must become a great servant, and
thus it becomes great.

We cannot buy a great character. It is earned in great moral service.

The First Step at Hand

This is the Big Business of life--going up, getting educated, getting
greatness on the inside. Getting greatness on the outside is little
business. Much of it mighty little.

Everybody's privilege and duty is to become great. And the joy of it is
that the first step is always nearest at hand. We do not have to go off
to New York or Chicago or go chasing around the world to become great.
It is a great stairway that leads from where our feet are now upward
for an infinite number of steps.

We must take the first step now. Most of us want to take the hundredth
step or the thousandth step now. We want to make some spectacular
stride of a thousand steps at one leap. That is why we fall so hard
when we miss our step.

We must go right back to our old place--into our kitchen or our
workshop or our office and take the first step, solve the problem
nearest at hand. We must make our old work luminous with a new
devotion. We must battle up over every inch. And as fast as we solve
and dissolve the difficulties and turn our burdens into blessings, we
find love, the universal solvent, shining out of our lives. We find our
spiritual influences going upward. So the winds of earth are born; they
rush in from the cold lands to the warm upward currents. And so as our
problems disappear and our life currents set upward, the world is drawn
toward us wit