Reverence for life is an inexorable creditor! If it finds anyone with nothing to pledge but a little time and a little leisure, it lays an attachment on these. But its hardheartedness is good, and sees clearly. The many modern men who as industrial machines are engaged in callings in which they can in no way be active as men among men, are exposed to the danger of merely vegetating in an egoistic life. Many of them feel this danger, and suffer under the fact that their daily work has so little to do with spiritual and ideal aims and does not allow them to put into it anything of their human nature. Others acquiesce; the thought of having no duties outside their daily work suits them very well. But that men should be so condemned or so favoured as to be released from responsibility for devotion as men to men, the ethic of reverence for life will not allow to be legitimate. It demands that every one of us in some way and with some object shall be a man for men. To those who have no opportunity in their daily work of giving themselves as man to men, and have nothing else that they can give, it suggests their offering something of their time and leisure, even if these have been granted to them in scanty measure. Find for yourselves some secondary [pg 261] work (it says to them), an inconspicuous one, perhaps a secret one. Open your eyes and look for a human being or some work devoted to human welfare which needs from some one a little time or friendliness, a little sympathy, or sociability, or work. There may be a solitary or an embittered fellow-man, an invalid or an inefficient person to whom you can be something. Perhaps it is an old person or a child. Or some good work needs volunteers who can offer a free evening, or run errands. Who can enumerate the many ways in which that costly piece of fixed capital, a human being, can be employed! More of him is wanted everywhere! Hunt, then, for some situation for your humanity, and do not be frightened away if you have to wait, or to be taken on trial. And do not be disturbed by disappointments. Anyhow, do not be without some secondary work in which you give yourself as a man to men. There is one that is marked out for you, if you only truly will to have it. . . . Thus does the true ethic speak of those who have only a little time and a little human nature to give. Well will it be with them if they listen to it, and are preserved from becoming stunted natures, because they have neglected this devotion of self to others.