Norwich bulletin., 1915-01-30
Sunday Morning Talk
THE MAN WITH TWO TALENTS

The man with two talents has not come in for his proper share of at tention. The exhorters have spent much time on tho tive-talented man and have urged him to put his superi or gifts to use. And volumes of good advice have been expended on the ne-talented man, that irresponsible fellow who went and hid his single gift in the earth But the man who strikes the average between these two extremes has been left very largely to his own devices.
 This is unfortunate because he is so very. greatly in the majority. The world is simply full of average peO- pie. As you meet folks day after day you find that most of them are neither giants of intellect on the one hand nor dunces on the other; they are neither rich nor abjectly poor. neither com pletely happy nor absolutely miser- able. Both mountain peaks and deep valleys in human nature as well as in physical nature are far surpassed in extent by the plains.
 This unnumbered host of average people must fight against several temptations. There is that to discon- tent, for instance. Men and women With spark of ambition desire to rise a bit above the common level Youth especially will ever hitch it's wagon to a star People of spirit resolve to make some sort of mark on their times. But age is apt to find them still heWers of wood or drawers of water or adders of columns of if ures. X great test of character comes wben one realizes that his life per formanCe is not to be in any way dis tinguished. Then a trace of bitter ness is apt to appear. One resigns himself 10 mediocrity with suIIen re- 1rco of a
 There are many people who cannot contentedIy fulfil inconspicuous ca reers. Because they are not headliners they will not appear in the cast at all. They hide behind their own con sciousness of inferiortty. If the is conceit, that of the two-talented man is Encouragement and 'sloth.
 Yet who has a better right than the average man 10 stand with shoulders back and head high? The world could not do without him. We owe much tC genius. We are ill the debt of the great Statesnetn and scientists the Olympian poets and singers. But where would we be- let us ask, without the Martlas and the sons of Martha" whC things? One reads of Kitchener and Joffre, of Won Hindenburg and Grand Duke Nicholas as though they were fighting this war and so they are. But it is Tommy Atkins and the Paris shopl1eeDer,- the Hamburg ionSshore- man, and the Russian peasant WitL ! black bread in his hnapsack who sleeT in the mud of the trenches and fire the l big guns.
 Commcnplace lives make up the yer9 warp and wool or society. Occasiona threads Of gold and of brilliant colors can be woven in only because Of tlat solid fabric created by the ordinarJ ] people. l regiment of generals would ! be unmana geable; . church Of Billy ] Sundays would resemble 8 rzenagerie The average man must learn to fee l his place and his value in tho scheme i of things. Let h;tn becoma c0rsctOEl i Of his soul. We need 9 revival O l Christian iudiyidualiSZ1l, the EinC i taught by Jesus who said: "Not { l head is5 numbered" 1 Herein is the antidote fer the op' 1 pressive sense of ohscurity and irsig- nificance that falls ike GL blight on sC many lives. After a shipv!reck of l Cape Cod years ago. some bodies came i ashore and were 6ecently, buried 1 Names could be put on Sil the head | stones save one, For one poor seaman l there vas 20 means Of identification l So his simple slab vT'as marked witt ] this iuscrspllcT.: God IzncEs.' Is ro 1 that true of each one of the uucouutet 1 millions O{ our race who in any agi l or cline do their appointed work un ! der the eve of the Cnnni science?
 THE PARSoN,