A True Ideal
H. W. Beecher. Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think… A man who looks up all the time is never a great man to himself. Are you a poet? Then do not get poetasters to read and say, "I write better poems than they do, and therefore I am a better poet." Read Milton, read Shakespeare, read Homer. Go to the old Englishmen of immortal thought, whose drums and trumpets have sounded clear down through the ages to this day. Go to the grandest and noblest of our thinkers and writers, sit in council with them, and then see if you are not a dwarf, a pigmy. It will make you humble to have high ideals. But a man who for ever measures himself by pigmies and dwarfs, and thinks he is better than they — what is he but a mountebank among pigmies and dwarfs? A true ideal tends to cure the conceit of men, and to rank them. Says the apostle, "Let every man think of himself as he ought to think, soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." The measure of faith? What is faith? It is the sight of invisible excellence. It is the sight of noble qualities unseen. It is the sight of ideal grandeur. Let every man measure himself by that conception, and then think of himself as he ought to think; let him think of himself as lowly, and poor, and needy; and he may well call out for help and for grace. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. WEB: For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith.