Merit Makes Man
Meek and unassuming is true merit. As credit creates confidence and counts for wealth in business and banking, so is man’s merit valued highly in this world. It is merit alone that opens the portals of paradise for man’s soul in the world to come. Merit is more praiseworthy than birth and rank. Merit wins praise and admiration of men in this world and of angels in the next. Real merit requires not recommendation. Merit is not merchandise that can be bribed and sold.
Men of great merit often live among their fellowmen, who remain unconscious of their merits and neglect and fail to reward them. Posterity recognizes their merit and values it at its proper worth. Their names, thereafter, live on the living lips of the young and old and their fame fades not.
Let me rise in my life by my worth. Let me prosper by my merit. Let me depend upon my personal merit to win the prize of life and not upon the favor of another. Let me honorably win my rank and title in due recognition of my merit. If my merit remains concealed and its recognition is delayed, let me have patience in the hope that if I deserve rightly, it cannot but be discovered some day and win recognition.
Thou, Ahura Mazda, art the final arbiter of human lives. In Thy own good time, Thou dost unfailingly reward all merit. Help me to do my duty and be worthy of Thy reward. Give me what I deserve and teach me to deserve what Thou givest me. Let my merit speak in both Thy worlds.
