STRIVING TO EXCEL by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Oct 18, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 42.

STRIVING TO EXCEL.

By T.

A YOUNG lady in New York has just completed a 600-mile run on a bicycle, and thinks that she will make it 700 miles before she quits. It is claimed that she has beaten all previous records of the kind made by ladies.

But supposing she has made this big record, what does it amount to? She has hurt herself physically by doing it. The nervous tension has been so great that her system is seriously weakened, even tho she bravely claims that she is just as strong as when she started in. And all she has to show for this expenditure of strength and nervous energy is the fact that she stands at the head of the list as long-distance lady bicycle riders.

If the fathers and mothers of this time were doing their whole duty, there would not be very many young women, or men either, for that matter, who would be squandering their strength and lowering their brain and nerve power in the strife to excel for the simple and only purpose of desiring to beat. Such strife is the most complete selfishness. How much more noble is the story of those who give their strength freely, but it is for the uplifting of those who are in distress!

It fires every noble impulse of the soul to hear of those who freely and unselfishly sacrifice their health and strength to save some fellow-creature. But to read of those who sacrifice health and expend their God-given energies merely to excel, and from this selfish motive purely, excites nothing more than pity and sadness that something has not arisen to place a higher object before the minds of these young people. T.