thing, are, in the first place, individuals of considerable wealth
and strength of personal character. They certainly are resolute. They
have a will of their own. They make choices. And so the contribution
of their individual experience to their moral purpose is large. It
would be wrong to say, as some do, that they are characterised by mere
"altruism," by utter "self-forgetfulness," by "living solely for
others." If you were on a wreck in a storm, and the lighthouse keeper
were coming out to save you, you would take little comfort in the
belief, if you had such a belief, that, since he was a man who had
always "lived for others," he had never allowed himself the selfish
delight of being fond of handling a boat with skill or of swimming for
the mere love of the water. No, on the contrary, you would rejoice to
believe, if you {198} could, that he had always delighted in boating
and in swimming, and was justly vain of his prowess on the water. The
more of a self he had delightedly or with a just pride trained on the
water, the more of a self he might have to save you with. When we are
in desperate need, we never wish beings who, as some say, "have no
thought of self" to help us in our plight. We want robust helpers who
have been trained through their personal fondness for the skill and
the prowess that they can now show in helping us. So individual
self-development belongs of necessity to the people whose faithfulness
we are to prize in an emergency. And if people resolve to become
effectively faithful in some practical service, their principle of
action includes individual self-development.

In the second place, people of the type whom I here have in mind have
strong social motives. Their faithfulness is a recognition of the
significance, in their eyes, of some socially important call. And
this, of course, is too obvious a fact to need further mention.

But in the third place, these people are guided by a motive which
distinguishes their type of social consciousness from the chance and
fickle interests in this or that form of personal and social success
which I exemplified a short time since. A peculiar grace has been
indeed granted to them--a free gift, but one which they can only
accept by being ready to earn it--a precious treasure that they cannot
{199} possess without loving and serving the life that has thus
endowed them--a talent which they cannot hide, but must employ to earn
new usury--a talent which seems to t