CHAPTER II: WANTED—A MAN

“Wanted; men:

Not systems fit and wise,

Not faiths with rigid eyes,

Not wealth in mountain piles,

Not power with gracious smiles,

Not even the potent pen;

Wanted; men.”

All the world cries, Where is the man who will save us? We want a man! Don’t look so far for this man. You have him at hand. This man,—it is you, it is I, it is each one of us!… How to constitute one’s self a man? Nothing harder, if one knows not how to will it; nothing easier, if one wills it.—ALEXANDRE DUMAS.

Diogenes sought with a lantern at noontide in ancient Athens for a perfectly honest man, and sought in vain. In the market place he once cried aloud, “Hear me, O men”; and, when a crowd collected around him, he said scornfully: “I called for men, not pygmies.”

Over the door of every profession, every occupation, every calling, the world has a standing advertisement: “Wanted—A Man.”

Wanted, a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say “No,” though all the world say “Yes.”

Wanted, a man who, though he is dominated by a mighty purpose, will not permit one great faculty to dwarf, cripple, warp, or mutilate his manhood; who will not allow the over-development of one faculty to stunt or paralyze his other faculties.

Wanted, a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting a living. Wanted, a man who sees self-development, education and culture, discipline and drill, character and manhood, in his occupation.

A thousand pulpits vacant in a single religious denomination, a thousand preachers standing idle in the market place, while a thousand church committees scour the land for men to fill those same vacant pulpits, and scour in vain, is a sufficient indication, in one direction at least, of the largeness of the op