The Irish standard., 1904-11-12
MAN and SOCIETY
He Helps Himself Who Nobly
Tries to Help Others.
Words From Bishop Spalding
in tho Cause of Mankind.


life, and it is strongest in those who
are most alive, in whom the vital cur
rent is deepest and mightiest. 1t is
the inner source of strength in high
and heroic souls, whether they seek
to utter themselves in word or in
deed, whether they strive for fame
Or for power or for union with God,
through faith and devotion to truth
and righteousness. Whatever the aim
and the means, the end all men pro-
pose and follow is their own happiness,
a more intense and enduring sense of
their own life. Personality is enroot-
ed in the love of self, and the higher
the person the more completely does
he identify himself with all that is
other than himself.
The degree in which individuals and
societies rise above this separate
of childish and savage thought is
measure of the degree of their prog
ress in religion and civilization. All
advance is an ascent from the print
tive and superficial self to the true
self, which is born of the union of the
soul with truth, justice and love. 1t
is a process Of self-estrangement, of
self denial, of self-abandonment. They
alone enter the land of promise who
quit the low and narrow house of their
early thoughts and desires, and strug-
gle with ceaseless effort and patience
to reach the kingdom that is founded
on the eternal principles of righteous
ness. They believe and know that
peace, joy and blessedness which are
the end to which the love of self
points, can be attained only by those
who seek and find the good of life in
the service of the Father who is in
heaven, and of His children who are
on earth. Self-seeking is transformed
into self-devotion; little world of
petty cares and sordid interests is
abandoned, and the enduring world
wherein alone souls are at home opens
wide its portals to receive us.
In isolation the individual is never
great or impressive. 10 be SO he must
identify himself with truth and JUS
tfce. with beauty and love. He must
feel that he lives and battles in the
company Of God and in that of the
noble and good, in some cause which
is not merely his own. but that of
mankind.
In Christendom the individual en-
tiers the world as the heir of all time.
For him the race has suffered and
CROPPED and toiled through ages that
have sunk into oblivion. For him
countless generations have fashioned
language-the social organ-into an
instrument fitted to express all that
he can feel or know. The clothes he
wears. the home that shelters him and
makes him self-respecting, every i'm
plement he uses, every continuance
that ministers to his comfort and Sc
eurity have been fashioned in the
process of unnumbered centuries. by
the pains and privations, by the suf-
ferings and deaths, of tribes and peo-
pies. to whose labors he gives no
heed.
A man cannot be wise or good or
strong for himself alone. He is form
ed and confirmed by the virtues he
imparts even more than by those he
receives. If his heart be set on ma
terial things, he may gather them for
himself. may grow hard and exclu-
sive, ignoble and base; but if his ST.
preme desire be for the things Of the
soul, he must communicate the bless
1ngs he gains, or they will vanish. In
the home, in the church, in the ma
ton, the important thing for each one
Is the help he gives. the benefits he
bestows. He who is not source of
faith, of courage, of joy for those
about him. has no well-spring of di-
vine life within himself. He must
educate If he would be educated; he
( must enn0ble if he would be made
%nOble: he must diffuse religious
thought if he would become religious.
Every worthy form of individual ac-
tivity is altruistic. The money paid
Is never the equivalent of the work
Gone; and whether tie laborer be far
mer or builder, PITY stefan or teacher,
he must look beyond the price he gets
to the good he does; he must inter-
fuse goodwill and the desire to be of
help with all he does, and with all he
receives for what lie does. or he will
sh1ivel into something that appears
to be alive, but is dead 1t must be
his object to realize himself, not
{ chiefly in his primitive physical self
with. its material needs and sor(lid in
teNsts, but he mast bind all his ener-
d s:les to rise from tho low bed wnereon
nature has laid him to the sphere
Where God manifests himself as Truth
and Love, as Beauty and Righteous
ness, as Life Everlasting. Then he
shall find himself in accord with the
things that are permanent, with the
good that is absolute; then shall he
learn sympathy with all who live and
/ are hard, pressed and beset with
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