not like Paul, who said, “This one thing I do.” The story is told of the father of the famous Webster brothers, who found the boy s lounging around listlessly. “What are you doing, Daniel?” “Helping Zeke, sir.” If we are to achieve a worth while ambition it will require such a wholehearted abandon ment as the orator Demosthenes displayed in pursuit of oratorical power. Dr. A. T. Pierson tells that when Demosthenes first spoke in public he was hissed off the plat form. His voice was harsh and weak and his appearance unpre possessing. He determined that his fellow citizens would yet hang on his words, and to this end he gave himself day and night to elocution. He shaved half his head so tha t he would not be drawn into the involvements of social life. To overcome a stammer he recited with pebbles in his mouth. He matched his orations with the thunders of the Aegean Sea that his voice might gain in volume. An ugly hitching of the shoulder he corrected by standing beneath a suspended sword. He corrected any facial distortions as he prac ticed in front of a mirror. I t is not surprising that when he next appeared in public, he moved the nation. He was speaking with an other orator on a matter of vital moment to the nation. When his companion concluded his speech the crowd said, “What marvelous oratory!” But when Demosthenes reached the end of his peroration they cried with one voice, “Let us go and fight Philip!” Worldly ambition expresses it self in three main directions: to build a reputation, to amass wealth, to wield power, but its fatal flaw is that its center is self and not God. This ambition does not ennoble: it engenders jealousy and envy. I t is impatient of the consideration due to others and will go to all lengths to achieve its end. It drives the “successful” businessman to crush ruthlessly his weaker and more scrupulous competitor. But how tawdry and THE KING'S BUSINESS
GOD-Sanctioned
‘And Jabez was more honor able' than his brethren and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested ” (I Chron. 4:9, 10).
by J. Oswald Sanders
ROMWELL, I charge thee, fling away ambition; by tha t sin W fell the angels.” When Shake speare put these words into the mouth of one of his characters, Cardinal Wolsey, was he giving advice which accords with the teaching of Scripture? Is ambi tion necessarily a base and selfish quality? Is it indeed the “last in firmity of noble minds” ? The Bible appears to teach that there is an ambition which war rants these strictures, but also tha t there is an ambition which is
worthy and to be cherished. In essence, any ambition which cen ters around and terminates upon oneself is unworthy, while an am bition which has the glory of God as its center is not only legitimate but positively praiseworthy. A Master Ambition Many fail of w o r t h -w h i l e achievement simply because they have no master ambition, no dom inating purpose to unify their lives. They live haphazardly and
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