We too need to be told that man is but a limited and
contingent creature, subject to sudden disrupting forces.
Success is not finally to be measured by fame or material
prosperity. Human greatness consists ultimatley in nobly
excepting the responsibilty of being what we are; human
freedom, in the personal working out of our fate in terms
appropriate to ourselves. Though we may be innocent, we are
all potentially guilty, because of the germ of
self-sufficiency and arrogance in our nature. We must
remember always that we are only man and be modest in our
own conceits. Our place in the total pattern of the cosmos
is only finite. That is not to say that it may not be
glorious, whatever our circumstances, we can achieve and
endure through to essentail greatness. It is not what our
fate has in store for us that matters, but what we can do
with it when it comes. There may be suffering, but no
abiding hopelessness. No power, no imposition, no
catastraphe can uproot the personal dignity of each human
being. The seeming caprice and unfairness of life, striking
some down and pampering others, is only the beginning of The
Great Encounter. Both the choice and the destiny are ours.