If I should ask you what that something is, I suppose almost all of you would say, “I want to be rich, so rich that I can do whatever I like; that I need not do any work; that I can go where I please.” Some of you would say, “I would travel all over the world and write about what I see, so that long after I am dead people will read my books and say, ‘what a great man he was!’” Some of you would say, “I would build great houses, and fill them with all the richest and most beautiful goods. I would have whole fleets of ships, sailing to all parts of the world, bringing back wonderful things from strange countries; and when I would meet people in the street they would stand aside to let me pass, saying to one another, ‘there goes a great man; he is our richest merchant; how I should like to be as great as he.’” And still another would say: “I don’t care anything about books or beautiful merchandise. No, I’ll go into foreign countries and become a great fighter, and I shall conquer whole nations, so that my enemies shall be afraid of me, and I shall ride at the head of great armies, and when I come home again the people will give me a grand reception; will make arches across the street, and cover their houses with flags, and as I ride along the street the air will be filled with cheers for the great general.” And so each one of you would tell me of some way in which he would like to be great. I should think very little of the boy who had no ambition, one who would be entirely content to just get along somehow, and never care for any great success so long as he had enough to eat and drink and to clothe himself with, and who would never look ahead to set his mind on obtaining some great object. It is perfectly right and proper to be ambitious, to try and make as much as possible of every opportunity that is presented. No one can read that parable of the master who called his servants to account for the talents he had given them, and not see that God gives us all the blessings and advantages that we have, in order that we may have an opportunity to put them to such good use, that He may say to us as the master in the parable said to his servants, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”