Great Thoughts Jeremiah 5:1-9 Run you to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man… What is it to be a "hero"? A "hero" is simply the English form of the Greek "heros," which primarily meant a "man," a real man, a separate and unmistakable man, as distinct from "anthropos," or mankind in general. By a recognition of this very truth, that a man's distinctness as a man among men works and measures his exceptional character and capabilities, the Greeks came to call a grand man, or a great or preeminent man, a hero, as another way of saying that he was "distinguished" man. "Dost thou know what a hero is?" asks Longfellow and then gives answer, "Why, a hero is as much as one should say — a hero." A hero is a man. There is heroism in all real manliness. A real man is a real hero. This it is which gives force to Carlyle's question, "If hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a hero?" The answer is, that it requires character, exceptional character, to make one willing to be a man. Most men are afraid to be themselves. They shrink from being "distinguished." Their preference is to conform themselves to the common standard of their sphere — to be like others, rather than to be like themselves alone. Where this feeling prevails, heroism is an impossibility. One acting on this preference cannot be distinguished. He who is unwilling to exercise and assert his character, in spite of all the world, cannot be recognised as the possessor of character. He cannot be measured apart from the common standard to which he, of choice, conforms himself. (Great Thoughts.) Parallel Verses KJV: Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it. |
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