Our Debt to Those We Never Knew…

Life as we live it, is made possible by the services of many people. Whether we think so or not, we are none of us self-made, self-sustaining, or self-sufficient. We are dependent upon all the Lord God gives and has given, and we are dependent upon innumerable things that other people do and have done, that other people learn and have learned, that other people make and have made—and the great ideal of work, of service, of doing for others, of co-operative effort, is what keeps us alive, with enrichment of life.

We are indebted to others not only for knowledge and things and services, but even for companionship itself. And in the plans and purposes of God there is an endless service and society, including whom we are dependent for completeness. No man is sufficient unto himself. We owe an obligation to forebears along a long line, and to others yet to come in a long and endless line.

All of us have reason to be interested in all of us, with obligations to the past and to the far future—with an obligation to help keep free those who follow, and to pass to them as good or better what we ourselves have received.

All of us have reason to be helpful and to have understanding hearts, for we are dependent upon more people, past and present, than we have any real awareness of, and are more dependent upon Divine Providence than we have any real awareness of—with obligations to work, to serve, to cherish, to understand, forgive, help, encourage. We all of us owe much to innumerable others, many of whom we never knew—and to ancestors, who, in this life, we never saw—and gratitude to God for all that he has given.

“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers…” Not in any real sense is any man without obligation to others—past, present, or yet far future.