{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_19193/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_19193","id":"gutenberg_19193","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19193","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian life"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMaking the Most of Life\n\n\nBY\n\nJ. R. MILLER, D.D.\n\n\n\nAUTHOR OF \"SILENT TIMES,\" \"THINGS TO LIVE FOR,\" \"BUILDING OF\nCHARACTER,\" \"THE GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n\n  \"I am the Lord thy God\n  Which teacheth to profit.\"\n        ISAIAH.\n\n\n\n\nNew York\n\nTHOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.\n\nPUBLISHERS\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1891, by T. Y. CROWELL & Co.\n\n\n\n\nA WORD OF INTRODUCTION.\n\nAlexander was accustomed to say; \"Philip of Macedon gave me life, but\nit was Aristotle who taught me how to make the most of life.\"\n\nTo have the gift of life is a solemn thing.  Life is God's most sacred\ntrust.  It is not ours to do with as we please; it must be accounted\nfor, every particle, every power, every possibility of it.\n\nThese chapters are written with the purpose and hope of stimulating\nthose who may read them to earnest and worthy living.  If they seem\nurgent, if they present continually motives of thoughtfulness, if they\ndwell almost exclusively on the side of obligation and responsibility,\nif they make duty ever prominent and call to self-renunciation and\nself-sacrifice, leaving small space for play, it is because life itself\nis really most serious, and because we must meet it seriously,\nrecognizing its sacred meaning and girding ourselves for it with all\nearnestness and energy.\n\nIf this book shall teach any how to make the most of the life God has\nentrusted to them, that will be reward enough for the work of its\npreparation.  To this service it is affectionately dedicated, in the\nname of Him who made the most of his blessed life by losing it in\nlove's sacrifice, and who calls us also to die to self that we may live\nunto God.\n\nJ. R. M.\n\nPHILADELPHIA.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER\n\n     I.  MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE\n    II.  LAID ON GOD'S ALTAR\n   III.  CHRIST'S INTEREST IN OUR COMMON LIFE\n    IV.  THE POSSIBILITIES OF PRAYER\n     V.  GETTING CHRIST'S TOUCH\n    VI.  THE BLESSING OF A BURDEN\n   VII.  HEART-PEACE BEFORE MINISTRY\n  VIII.  MORAL CURVATURES\n    IX.  TRANSFIGURED LIVES\n     X.  THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROW\n    XI.  OTHER PEOPLE\n   XII.  THE BLESSING OF FAITHFULNESS\n  XIII.  WITHOUT AXE OR HAMMER\n   XIV.  DOING THINGS FOR CHRIST\n    XV.  HELPING AND OVER-HELPING\n   XVI.  THE ONLY ONE\n  XVII.  SWIFTNESS IN DUTY\n XVIII.  THE SHADOWS WE CAST\n   XIX.  THE MEANING OF OPPORTUNITIES\n    XX.  THE SIN OF INGRATITUDE\n   XXI.  SOME SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE\n  XXII.  GOD'S WINTER PLANTS\n XXIII.  UNFINISHED LIFE-BUILDING\n  XXIV.  IRON SHOES FOR ROUGH ROADS\n   XXV.  THE SHUTTING OF DOCKS\n\n\n\n\nMAKING THE MOST OF LIFE.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nMAKING THE MOST OF LIFE.\n\n\n  \"Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;\n  Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth;\n  For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice,\n  And whoso suffers most hath most to give.\"\n        --_The Disciples._\n\n\nAccording to our Lord's teaching, we can make the most of our life by\nlosing it.  He says that losing the life for his sake is saving it.\nThere is a lower self that must be trampled down and trampled to death\nby the higher self.  The alabaster vase must be broken, that the\nointment may flow out to fill the house.  The grapes must be crushed,\nthat there may be wine to drink.  The wheat must be bruised, before it\ncan become bread to feed hunger.\n\nIt is so in life.  Whole, unbruised, unbroken men are of but little\nuse.  True living is really a succession of battles, in which the\nbetter triumphs over the worse, the spirit over the flesh.  Until we\ncease to live for self, we have not begun to live at all.\n\nWe can never become truly useful and helpful to others until we have\nlearned this lesson.  One may live for self and yet do many pleasant\nthings for others; but one's life can never become the great blessing\nto the world it was meant to be until the law of self-sacrifice has\nbecome its heart principle.\n\nA great oak stands in the forest.  It is beautiful in its majesty; it\nis ornamental; it casts a pleasant shade.  Under its branches the\nchildren play; among its boughs the birds sing.  One day the woodman\ncomes with his axe, and the tree quivers in all its branches, under his\nsturdy blows.  \"I am being destroyed,\" it cries.  So it seems, as the\ngreat tree crashes down to the ground.  And the children are sad\nbecause they can play no more beneath the broad branches; the birds\ngrieve because they can no more nest and sing amid the summer foliage.\n\nBut let us follow the tree's history.  It is cut into boards, and built\ninto a beautiful cottage, where human hearts find their happy nest.  Or\nit is used in making a great organ which leads the worship of a\ncongregation.  The losing of its life was the saving of it.  It died\nthat it might become deeply, truly useful.\n\nThe plates, cups, dishes, and vases which we use in our homes and on\nour tables, once lay as common clay in the earth, quiet and restful,\nbut in no way doing good, serving man.  Then came men with picks, and\nthe clay was rudely torn out and plunged into a mortar and beaten and\nground in a mill, then pressed, and then put into a furnace, and burned\nand burned, at last coming forth in beauty, and beginning its history\nof usefulness.  It was apparently destroyed that it might begin to be\nof service.\n\nA great church-building is going up, and the stones that are being laid\non the walls are brought out of the dark quarry for this purpose.  We\ncan imagine them complaining, groaning, and repining, as the quarry\nmen's drills and hammers struck them.  They supposed they were being\ndestroyed as they were torn out from the bed of rock where they had\nlain undisturbed for ages, and were cut into blocks, and lifted out,\nand then as they were chiselled and dressed into form.  But they were\nbeing destroyed only that they might become useful.  They become part\nof a new sanctuary, in which God is to be worshipped, where the Gospel\nwill be preached, where penitent sinners will find the Christ-Saviour,\nwhere sorrowing ones will be comforted.  Surely it was better that\nthese stones should be torn out, even amid agony, and built into the\nwall of the church, than that they should have lain ages more,\nundisturbed in the dark quarry.  They were saved from uselessness by\nbeing destroyed.\n\nThese are simple illustrations of the law which applies also in human\nlife.  We must die to be useful--to be truly a blessing.  Our Lord put\nthis truth in a little parable, when he said that the seed must fall\ninto the earth and die that it may bear fruit.  Christ's own cross is\nthe highest illustration of this.  His friends said he wasted his\nprecious life; but was that life wasted when Jesus was crucified?\nGeorge MacDonald in one of his little poems, with deep spiritual\ninsight, presents this truth of the blessed gain of Christ's life\nthrough his sacrifice and death:--\n\n  \"For three and thirty years, a living seed,\n    A lonely germ, dropt on our waste world's side,\n    Thy death and rising, thou didst calmly bide;\n  Sore compassed by many a clinging weed\n  Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need;\n    Hither and thither tossed, by friends denied;\n    Pitied of goodness dull, and scorned of pride;\n  Until at length was done the awful deed,\n  And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower--\n    Three days asleep--oh, slumber godlike, brief,\n    For Man of sorrows and acquaint with grief,\n  Heaven's seed, Thou diedst, that out of thee might tower\n    Aloft, with rooted stem and shadowy leaf\n  Of all Humanity the crimson flower.\"\n\n\nPeople said that Harriet Newell's beautiful life was wasted when she\ngave it to missions, and then died and was buried far from home--bride,\nmissionary, mother, saint, all in one short year,--without even telling\nto one heathen woman or child the story of the Saviour.  But was that\nlovely young life indeed wasted?  No; all this century her name has\nbeen one of the strongest inspirations to missionary work, and her\ninfluence has brooded everywhere, touching thousands of hearts of\ngentle women and strong men, as the story of her consecration has been\ntold.  Had Harriet Newell lived a thousand years of quiet, sweet life\nat home, she could not have done the work that she did in one short\nyear by giving her life, as it seemed, an unavailing sacrifice.  She\nlost her life that she might save it.  She died that she might live.\nShe offered herself a living sacrifice that she might become useful.\n\nIn heart and spirit we must all do the same if we would ever be a real\nblessing in the world.  We must be willing to lose our life--to\nsacrifice ourself, to give up our own way, our own ease, our own\ncomfort, possibly even our own life; for there come times when one's\nlife must literally be lost in order to be saved.\n\nIt was in a mine in England.  There had been a fearful explosion, and\nthe men came rushing up from the lower level, right into the danger of\nthe deathly afterblast; when the only chance of safety was in another\nshaft.  And one man knew this and stood there in the dangerous passage,\nwarning the men.  When urged to go himself the safe way, he said, \"No;\nsome one must stay here to guide the others.\"  Is there any heroism of\nthis world's life finer than that?\n\nIt was at Fredericksburg, after a bloody battle.  Hundreds of Union\nsoldiers lay wounded on the field.  All night and all next day the\nspace was swept by artillery from both armies; and no one could venture\nto the sufferers' relief.  All that time, too, there went up from the\nfield agonizing cries for water, but there was no response save the\nroar of the guns.  At length, however, one brave fellow behind the\nramparts, a Southern soldier, felt that he could endure these piteous\ncries no longer.  His compassion rose superior to his love of life.\n\n\"General,\" said Richard Kirkland to his commander, \"I can't stand this.\nThose poor souls out there have been praying for water all night and\nall day, and it is more than I can bear.  I ask permission to carry\nthem water.\"\n\nThe general assured him that it would be instant death for him to\nappear upon the field, but he begged so earnestly that the officer,\nadmiring his noble devotion to humanity, could not refuse his request.\nProvided with a supply of water, the brave soldier stepped over the\nwall and went on his Christ-like errand.  From both sides wondering\neyes looked on as he knelt by the nearest sufferer, and gently raising\nhis head, held the cooling cup to his parched lips.  At once the Union\nsoldiers understood what the soldier in gray was doing for their own\nwounded comrades, and not a shot was fired.  For an hour and a half he\ncontinued his work, giving drink to the thirsty, straightening cramped\nand mangled limbs, pillowing men's heads on their knapsacks, and\nspreading blankets and army coats over them, tenderly as a mother would\ncover her child; and all the while, until this angel-ministry was\nfinished, the fusillade of death was hushed.\n\nAgain we must admire the heroism that led this brave soldier in gray so\nutterly to forget himself for the sake of doing a deed of mercy to his\nenemies.  There is more grandeur in five minutes of such\nself-renunciation than in a whole lifetime of self-interest and\nself-seeking.  There is something Christly in it.  How poor, paltry,\nand mean, alongside the records of such deeds, appear men's selfish\nstrivings, self-interests' boldest venturing!\n\nWe must get the same spirit in us if we would become in any large and\ntrue sense a blessing to the world.  We must die to live.  We must lose\nour life to save it.  We must lay self on the altar to be consumed in\nthe fire of love, in order to glorify God and do good to men.  Our work\nmay be fair, even though mingled with self; but it is only when self is\nsacrificed, burned on the altar of consecration, consumed in the hot\nflames of love, that our work becomes really our best, a fit offering\nto be made to our King.\n\nWe must not fear that in such sacrifice, such renunciation and\nannihilation of self, we shall lose ourselves.  God will remember every\ndeed of love, every forgetting of self, every emptying out of life.\nThough we work in obscurest places, where no human tongue shall ever\nvoice our praise, still there is a record kept, and some day rich and\nglorious reward will be given.  Is not God's praise better than man's?\n\n  \"Ungathered beauties of a bounteous earth,\n    Wild flowers which grow on mountain-paths untrod.\n    White water-lilies looking up to God\n  From solitary tarns--and human worth\n  Doing meek duty that no glory gains,\n    Heroic souls in secret places sown,\n    To live, to suffer, and to die unknown--\n  Are not that loveliness and all these pains\n  Wasted?  Alas, then does it not suffice\n    That God is on the mountain, by the lake,\n    And in each simple duty, for whose sake\n  His children give their very blood as price?\n  The Father sees.  If this does not repay,\n  What else?  For plucked flowers fade and praises slay.\"\n\n\nMary's ointment was wasted when she broke the vase and poured it upon\nher Lord.  Yes; but suppose she had left the ointment in the unbroken\nvase?  What remembrance would it then have had?  Would there have been\nany mention of it on the Gospel pages?  Would her deed of careful\nkeeping have been told over all the world?  She broke the vase and\npoured it out, lost it, sacrificed it, and now the perfume fills all\nthe earth.  We may keep our life if we will, carefully preserving it\nfrom waste; but we shall have no reward, no honor from it, at the last.\nBut if we empty it out in loving service, we shall make it a lasting\nblessing to the world, and we shall be remembered forever.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nLAID ON GOD'S ALTAR.\n\n\n  \"My life is not my own, but Christ's, who gave it,\n    And he bestows it upon all the race;\n  I lose it for his sake, and thus I save it;\n  I hold it close, but only to expend it;\n    Accept it, Lord, for others, through thy grace.\"\n\n\nWe have to die to live.  That is the central law of life.  We must burn\nto give light to the world, or to give forth odor of incense to God's\npraise.  We cannot save ourselves and at the same time make anything\nworthy of our life, or be in any deep and true sense an honor to God\nand a blessing to the world.  The altar stands in the foreground of\nevery life, and can be passed by only at the cost of all that is\nnoblest and best.\n\nAll the practical side of religion is summed up in the exhortation of\nSt. Paul, that we present our bodies a living sacrifice to God.\nAnciently, a man brought a lamb and presented it to God, laid it on the\naltar, to be consumed by God's fire.  In like manner, we are to present\nour bodies.  The first thing is not to be a worker, a preacher, a saver\nof souls; the very first thing in a Christian life is to present one's\nself to God, to lay one's self on the altar.  We need to understand\nthis.  It is easier to talk and work for Christ than to give ourselves\nto him.  It is easier to offer God a few activities than to give him a\nheart.  But the heart must be first, else even the largest gifts and\nservices are not acceptable.\n\n  \"'Tis not thy work the Master needs, but thee,--\n  The obedient spirit, the believing heart.\"\n\n\n\"A living sacrifice.\"  A sacrifice is something really given to God, to\nbe his altogether and forever.  We cannot take it back any more.  One\ncould not lay a lamb on God's altar and then a minute or two afterward\nrun up and take it off.  We cannot be God's to-day and our own\nto-morrow.  If we become his at all, in a sacrifice which he accepts,\nwe are his always.\n\nHow can we present ourselves as a sacrifice to God?  By the complete\nsurrender of our heart and will and all our powers to him.  Absolute\nobedience is consecration.  The soldier learns it.  He is not his own.\nHe does not think for himself, to, make his own plans; he has but one\nduty--to obey.  Payson used to talk of his \"lost will\"--lost in God's\nwill, he meant.  That is what presenting one's self a sacrifice means.\n\nIt is a \"living\" sacrifice.  Anciently, the sacrifices were killed;\nthey were laid dead on the altar.  We are to present ourselves living.\nThe fire consumed the ancient offering; the fire of God's love and of\nhis Spirit consumes our lives by purifying them and filling them with\ndivine life.  Those on whom the fire fell on the day of Pentecost\nbecame new men.  There was a new life in their souls, a new ardor, a\nnew enthusiasm.  They were on fire with love for Christ.  They entered\nupon a service in which all their energies flamed.\n\nThe living sacrifice includes all the life,--not what it is now only,\nbut all that it may become.  Life is not a diamond, but a seed, with\npossibilities of endless growth.  Dr. Lyman Abbott has used this\nillustration: \"I pluck an acorn from the greensward, and hold it to my\near; and this is what it says to me: 'By and by the birds will come and\nnest in me.  By and by I will furnish shade for the cattle.  By and by\nI will provide warmth for the home in the pleasant fire.  By and by I\nwill be shelter from the storm to those who have gone under the roof.\nBy and by I will be the strong ribs of the great vessel, and the\ntempest will beat against me in vain, while I carry men across the\nAtlantic.'  'O foolish little acorn, wilt thou be all this?' I ask.\nAnd the acorn answers, 'Yes; God and I.'\"\n\nI look into the faces of a company of children, and I hear a whisper,\nsaying: \"By and by I will be a great blessing to many.  By and by other\nlives will come and find nest and home in me.  By and by the weary will\nsit in the shadow of my strength.  By and by I will sit as comforter in\na home of sorrow.  By and by I will speak the words of Christ's\nsalvation in ears of lost ones.  By and by I will shine in the full\nradiancy of the beauty of Christ, and be among the glorified with my\nRedeemer.\"  \"You, frail, powerless, little one?\" I ask; and the answer\nis, \"Yes; Christ and I.\"  And all these blessed possibilities that are\nin the life of the young person must go upon the altar in the living\nsacrifice.\n\nTake another view of it.  Some people seem to suppose that only\nspiritual exercises are included in this living sacrifice; that it does\nnot cover their business, their social life, their amusements.  But it\nreally embraces the whole of life.  We belong to God as truly on Monday\nas on the Lord's Day.  We must keep ourselves laid on God's altar as\nreally while we are at our week-day work as when we are in a\nprayer-meeting.  We are always on duty as Christians, whether we are\nengaged in our secular pursuits or in exercises of devotion.  All our\nwork should therefore be done reverently, \"as unto the Lord.\"\n\nWe should do everything also for God's eye and according to the\nprincipled of righteousness.  The consecrated mechanic must put\nabsolute truth into every piece of work he does.  The consecrated\nbusiness man must conduct his business on the principles of divine\nrighteousness.  The consecrated millionaire must get his money on God's\naltar, so that every dollar of it shall do business for God, blessing\nthe world.  The consecrated housekeeper must keep her home so sweet and\nso tidy and beautiful all the days, that she would never be ashamed for\nher Master to come in without warning to be her guest.  That is, when\nwe present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, we are to be God's\nin every part and in every phase of our life, wherever we go, whatever\nwe do.\n\n\"I cannot be of any use,\" says one.  \"I cannot talk in meetings.  I\ncannot pray in public.  I have no gift for visiting the sick.  There is\nnothing I can do for Christ.\"\n\nWell, if Christian service were all talking and praying in meetings,\nand visiting the sick, it would be discouraging to such talentless\npeople.  But are our tongues the only faculties we can use for Christ?\nThere are ways in which even silent people can belong to God and be a\nblessing in the world.  A star does not talk, but its calm, steady beam\nshines down continually out of the sky, and is a benediction to many.\nA flower cannot sing bird-songs, but its sweet beauty and gentle\nfragrance make it a blessing wherever it is seen.  Be like a star in\nyour peaceful shining, and many will thank God for your life.  Be like\nthe flower in your pure beauty and in the influence of your unselfish\nspirit, and you may do more to bless the world than many who talk\nincessantly.  The living sacrifice does not always mean active work.\nIt may mean the patient endurance of a wrong, the quiet bearing of a\npain, cheerful acquiescence in a disappointment.\n\n  \"Noble deeds are held in honor;\n  But the wide world sadly needs\n  Hearts of patience to unravel\n  The worth of common deeds.\"\n\n\nThere are some people who think it impossible in their narrow sphere\nand in their uncongenial circumstances to live so as to win God's favor\nor be blessings in the world.  But there is no doubt that many of the\nmost beautiful lives of earth, in Heaven's sight, are those that are\nlived in what seem the most unfavorable conditions.  A visitor to\nAmsterdam wished to hear the wonderful music of the chimes of St.\nNicholas, and went up into the tower of the church to hear it.  There\nhe found a man with wooden gloves on his hands, pounding on a keyboard.\nAll he could hear was the clanging of the keys when struck by the\nwooden gloves, and the harsh, deafening noise of the bells close over\nhis head.  He wondered why people talked of the marvellous chimes of\nSt. Nicholas.  To his ear there was no music in them, nothing but\nterrible clatter and clanging.  Yet, all the while, there floated out\nover and beyond the city the most entrancing music.  Men in the fields\npaused in their work to listen and were made glad.  People in their\nhomes and travellers on the highways were thrilled by the marvellous\nbell-notes that fell from the chimes.\n\nThere are many lives which to those who dwell close beside them seem to\nmake no music.  They pour out their strength in hard toil.  They are\nshut up in narrow spheres.  They dwell amid the noise and clatter of\ncommon task-work.  They appear to be only striking wooden hammers on\nrattling, noisy keys.  There can be nothing pleasing to God in their\nlife, men would say.  They think themselves that they are not of any\nuse, that no blessing goes out from their life.  They never dream that\nsweet music is made anywhere in the world by their noisy hammering.  As\nthe bell-chimer in his little tower hears no music from his own ringing\nof the bells, so they think of their hard toil as producing nothing but\nclatter and clangor; but out over the world where the influence goes\nfrom their work and character, human lives are blessed, and weary ones\nhear with gladness sweet, comforting music.  Then away off in heaven,\nwhere angels listen for earth's melody, most entrancing strains are\nheard.\n\nNo doubt it will be seen at the last that many of earth's most\nacceptable living sacrifices have been laid on the altar in the\nnarrowest spheres and in the midst of the hardest conditions.  What to\nthe ears of close listeners is only the noise of painful toil is heard\nin heaven as music sweet as angels' song.\n\nThe living sacrifice is \"acceptable unto God.\"  It ought to be a\nwondrous inspiration to know this; that even the lowliest things we do\nfor Christ are pleasing to him.  We ought to be able to do better,\ntruer work, when we think of his gracious acceptance of it.  It is told\nof Leonardo da Vinci, that while still a pupil, before his genius burst\ninto brilliancy, he received a special inspiration in this way: His old\nand famous master, because of his growing infirmities of age, felt\nobliged to give up his own work, and one day bade Da Vinci finish for\nhim a picture which he had begun.  The young man had such a reverence\nfor his master's skill that he shrank from the task.  The old artist,\nhowever, would not accept any excuse, but persisted in his command,\nsaying simply, \"Do your best.\"\n\nDa Vinci at last tremblingly seized the brush and kneeling before the\neasel prayed: \"It is for the sake of my beloved master that I implore\nskill and power for this undertaking.\"  As he proceeded, his hand grew\nsteady, his eye awoke with slumbering genius.  He forgot himself and\nwas filled with enthusiasm for his work.  When the painting was\nfinished, the old master was carried into the studio to pass judgment\non the result.  His eye rested on a triumph of art.  Throwing his arms\nabout the young artist, he exclaimed, \"My son, I paint no more.\"\n\nThere are some who shrink from undertaking the work which the Master\ngives them to do.  They are not worthy; they have no skill or power for\nthe delicate duty.  But to all their timid shrinking and withdrawing,\nthe Master's gentle yet urgent word is, \"Do your best.\"  They have only\nto kneel in lowly reverence and pray, for the beloved Master's sake,\nfor skill and strength for the task assigned, and they will be inspired\nand helped to do it well.  The power of Christ will rest upon them and\nthe love of Christ will be in their heart.  And all work done under\nthis blessed inspiration will be acceptable unto God.  We have but\ntruly to lay the living sacrifice on the altar; then God will send the\nfire.\n\nWe need to get this matter of consecration down out of cloud-land into\nthe region of actual, common daily living.  We sing about it and pray\nfor it and talk of it in our religious meetings, ofttimes in glowing\nmood, as if it were some exalted state with which earth's life of toil,\nstruggle, and care had nothing whatever to do.  But the consecration\nsuggested by the living sacrifice is one that walks on the earth, that\nmeets life's actual duties, struggles, temptations, and sorrows, and\nthat falters not in obedience, fidelity, or submission, but follows\nChrist with love and joy wherever he leads.  No other consecration\npleases God.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nCHRIST'S INTEREST IN OUR COMMON LIFE.\n\n\n  \"So still, dear Lord, in every place\n    Thou standest by the toiling folk\n  With love and pity in thy face,\n  And givest of thy help and grace\n    To those who meekly bear the yoke.\"\n\n\nOne of our Lord's after-resurrection appearances vividly pictures his\nloving interest in our common toil.  While waiting for him to come to\nGalilee, the disciples had gone back for a time to their old work of\nfishing.  They were poor men, and this was probably necessary in order\nto provide for their own subsistence.  Thus fishing was the duty that\nlay nearest.  Yet it must have been dreary work for them after the\nexalted privileges they had enjoyed so long.  Think what the last three\nyears had been to these men.  Jesus had taken them into the most\nintimate fellowship with himself--into closest confidential friendship.\nThey had listened to his wonderful words, seen his gracious acts, and\nwitnessed his sweet life.  Think what a privilege it was to live thus\nwith Jesus those beautiful years; what glimpses of heaven they had;\nwhat visions of radiant life shone before them.\n\nBut now this precious experience was ended.  The lovely dream had\nvanished.  They were back again at their old work.  How dreary it must\nhave been--this tiresome handling of oars and boats and fishing-nets,\nafter their years of exalted life with their Master!  But it is a\nprecious thought to us that just at this time, when they were in the\nmidst of the dull and wearisome work, and when they were sadly\ndiscouraged, Christ appeared to them.  It showed his interest in their\nwork, his sympathy with them in their discouragement, and his readiness\nto help them.\n\nThen the revealings of his appearance that morning are for all his\nfriends and for all time.  We know now that our risen Saviour is\ninterested in whatever we have to do, and is ready to help us in all\nour dull, common life.  He will come to his people, not in the church\nservice, the prayer-meeting, the Holy Supper only, but is quite as apt\nto reveal himself to them in the task-work of the plainest, dullest\nday.  Susan Coolidge writes:--\n\n  \"That thy full glory may abound, increase,\n    And so thy likeness shall be formed in me,\n  I pray; the answer is not rest or peace,\n  But changes, duties, wants, anxieties,\n    Till there seems room for everything but thee,\n  And never time for anything but these.\n\n  \"And I should fear, but lo! amid the press,\n    The whirl and hum and pressure of my day,\n  I hear thy garments sweep, thy seamless dress,\n  And close beside my work and weariness\n    Discern thy gracious form, not far away,\n  But very near, O Lord, to help and bless.\n\n  \"The busy fingers fly; the eyes may see\n    Only the glancing needle which they hold;\n  But all my life is blossoming inwardly,\n  And every breath is like a litany;\n    While through each labor, like a thread of gold,\n  Is woven the sweet consciousness of thee.\"\n\n\nThere are duties in every life that are irksome.  Young people\nsometimes find school work dull.  There are faithful mothers who many a\nday grow weary of the endless duties of the household.  There are good\nmen who tire ofttimes of the routine of office, or store, or mill, or\nfarm.  There comes to most of us, at times, the feeling that what we\nhave to do day after day is not worthy of us.  We have had glimpses, or\nbrief experiences, of life in its higher revealings.  It may have been\na companionship for a season with one above us in experience or\nattainment, that has lifted us up for a little time into exalted\nthoughts and feelings, after which it is hard to come back again to the\nold plodding round, and to the old, uninteresting companionships.  It\nmay have been a visit to some place or to some home, with\nopportunities, refinements, inspirations, privileges, above those which\nwe can have in our own narrower surroundings and plainer home and less\ncongenial intimacies.\n\nOr our circumstances may have been rudely changed by some providence\nthat has broken in upon our happy life.  It may have been a death that\ncut off the income, or a reverse in business that swept away a fortune,\nand luxury and ease and the material refinements and elegances of\nwealth have to be exchanged for toil and plain circumstances and a\nhumbler home.  There are few sorer tests of character than such changes\nas these bring with them.  The first thought always is: \"How can I go\nto this dreary life, these hard tasks, this painful drudgery, this\nweary plodding, after having enjoyed so long the comforts and\nrefinements of my old happy state?\"\n\nIn such cases immeasurable comfort may be found in this appearance of\nthe risen Christ that morning on the shore.  The disciples took up\ntheir dull old work because it was necessary, and was their plain duty\nfor the time; and there was Jesus waiting to greet them and bless them.\nAccept your hard tasks, and do them cheerfully, no matter how irksome\nthey appear, and Christ will reveal himself to you in them.  Be sure\nthat he will never come to you when you are avoiding any tasks, when\nyou are withholding your hand from any duty, or when you are fretting\nand discontented over any circumstances or conditions of your lot.\nThere are no visions of the Christ for idle dreamers or for unhappy\nshirkers.\n\nSuppose you have come back, like the disciples, from times of privilege\nand exaltation, and find yourself face to face once more with an old\nlife which seems now unworthy of you; yet for the time your duty is\nclear, and if you would have a vision of Christ, you must take up the\nduty with gladness.  Suppose that your home-life is narrow, humdrum,\nunpoetic, uncongenial, even cold and unkindly; yet there for the time\nis your place, and there are your duties.  And right in this sphere,\nnarrow though it seem, there is room for holiest visions of Christ and\nfor the richest revealings of his grace and blessing.\n\nIt will be remembered that Jesus himself, after his glimpse of higher\nthings in the temple, went back to the lowly peasant home at Nazareth,\nand there for eighteen years more found scope enough for the\ndevelopment of the richest nature this world ever saw, and for the\nfullest and completest doing of duty ever wrought beneath the skies.\nWhatever, then, may be our shrinking from dull tasks, our distaste for\ndreary duty, our discontent with a narrow place and with limiting\ncircumstances, we should go promptly to the work that God assigns, and\naccept the conditions that lie in the lot which he appoints.  And in\nour hardest toil, our most irksome tasks, our lowliest duties, our\ndreariest and most uncongenial surroundings, we shall have but to lift\nup our eyes to see the blessed form of Christ standing before us, with\ncheer, sympathy, and encouragement for us.\n\nThere is more of the lesson.  Not only did Christ reveal himself to\nthese disciples while at their lowly work, but he helped them in it.\nHe told them where to cast their net, and turned their failure to\nsuccess.  We think of Christ as helping us to endure temptation, to\nbear trial, to overcome sin, to do spiritual duties, but we sometimes\nforget that he is just as ready to help us in our common work.  That\nmorning he helped the disciples in their fishing.  He will help us in\nour trade or business, or in whatever work we have to do.\n\nWe all have our discouraged days, when things do not go well.  The\nyoung people fail in their lessons at school, although they have\nstudied hard, and really have done their best.  Or the mothers fail in\ntheir household work.  The children are hard to control.  It has been\nimpossible to keep good temper, to maintain that sweetness and\nlovingness that are so essential to a happy day.  They try to be\ngentle, kindly, and patient, but, try as they will, their minds become\nruffled and fretted with cares.  They come to the close of the long,\nunhappy hours disturbed, defeated, discouraged.  They have done their\nbest, but they feel that they have only failed.  They fall upon their\nknees, but they have only tears for a prayer.  Yet if they will lift up\ntheir eyes, they will see on the shore of the troubled sea of their\nlittle day's life the form of One whose presence will give them\nstrength and confidence, and who will help them to victoriousness.\nBefore his sweet smile the shadows flee away.  At his word new strength\nis given, and, after that, work is easy, and all goes well again.\n\nMen, too, in their busy life, are continually called to struggle,\nofttimes to suffer.  Life is not easy for any who would live truly.\nWork is hard; burdens are heavy; responsibility is great; trials are\nsore; duty is large.  Life's competitions are fierce; its rivalries are\nkeen; its frictions sometimes grind men's very souls well nigh to\ndeath.  It is hard to live sweetly amid the irritations that touch\ncontinually at most tender points.  It is hard to live lovingly and\ncharitably when they see so much inequity and wrong, and sometimes must\nthemselves endure men's uncharity and injustice.  It is hard to toil\nand never rest, earning even then scarce enough to feed and clothe\nthose who are dependent on them for care.  It is hard to meet\ntemptation's fierce assaults, and keep themselves pure, unspotted from\nthe world, ready for heaven any hour the Lord may come.\n\nIt is no wonder that men are sometimes discouraged and lose heart.\nThey are like those weary disciples that spring morning on the Sea of\nGalilee, after they had toiled all night and had taken nothing.  But\nlet us not forget the vision that awaited these disciples with the\ncoming of the dawn--the risen Jesus standing on the shore with his\nsalutation of love and his strong help that instantly turned failure\ninto blessing.  So over against every tempted, struggling, toiling life\nof Christian disciple, Christ is ever standing, ready to give victory\nand to guide to highest good.\n\nLife would be easier for us all if we could realize the presence and\nactual help of Christ in all our experiences.  We need to care for only\none thing--that we may be faithful always to duty, and loyal to our\nMaster.  Then, the duller the round and the sorer the struggle, the\nsurer we shall ever be of Christ's smile and help.  We may glory in\ninfirmities, because then the power of God rests upon us.\n\nIt is not ordinarily in the easy ways, in the luxurious surroundings,\nin the paths of worldly honor, in the congenial lot, that the brightest\nheavenly visions are seen.  There have been more blessed revealings of\nChrist in prisons than in palaces, in homes of poverty than in homes of\nabundance, in ways of hardship than in ways of ease.  We need only to\naccept our task-work, our drudgery, our toil, in Christ's name, and the\nglory of Christ will transfigure it and shine upon our faces.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE POSSIBILITIES OF PRAYER.\n\n\n  \"Ask and receive--'tis sweetly said;\n    Yet what to plead for know I not,\n  For wish is worsted, hope o'ersped,\n    And aye to thanks returns my thought.\n        If I would pray\n        I've naught to say,\n  But this, that God may be God still:\n        For time to live\n        So still to give,\n  And sweeter than my wish his will.\"\n        --DAVID A. WASSON.\n\n\nWe do not begin to realize the possibilities of prayer.  There is no\nlimit, for example, to the scope of prayer.  We may embrace in it all\nthings that belong to our life, not merely those which affect our\nspiritual interests, but those as well which seem to be only worldly\nmatters.  Nothing that concerns us in any way is matter of indifference\nto God.  One writes: \"Learn to entwine with your prayers the small\ncares, the trifling sorrows, the little wants of daily life.  Whatever\naffects you,--be it a changed look, an altered tone, an unkind word, a\nwrong, a wound, a demand you cannot meet, a sorrow you cannot\ndisclose,--turn it into prayer and send it up to God.  Disclosures you\nmay not make to man, you can make to the Lord.  Men may be too little\nfor your great matters; God is not too great for your small ones.  Only\ngive yourself to prayer, whatever be the occasion that calls for it.\"\n\nWe soon find, however, if we are really earnest, that our desires are\ntoo great for words.  We have in our hearts feelings, hungerings,\naffections, longings, which we want to breathe out to God; but when we\nbegin to speak to him, we find no language adequate for their\nexpression.  We try to tell God of our sorrow for sin, of our weakness\nand sinfulness, then of our desire to be better, to love Christ more,\nto follow him more closely, and of our hunger after righteousness,\nafter holiness; but it is very little of these deep cravings that we\ncan get into speech.\n\nLanguage is a wonderful gift.  The power of putting into words the\nthoughts and emotions of our souls, that others may understand them, is\none of the most marvellous powers the Creator has bestowed upon us.\nThus we communicate our feelings and desires the one to the other.  It\nis a sore deprivation when the gates of speech are shut and locked, and\nwhen the soul cannot tell its thoughts.\n\nYet we all know, unless our thoughts and feelings are very shallow and\ntrivial, that even the wonderful faculty of language is inadequate to\nexpress all that the soul can experience.  No true orator ever finds\nsentences majestic enough to interpret the sentiments that burn in his\nsoul.  Deep, pure love is never able to put into words its most sacred\nfeelings and emotions.  It is only the commonplace of the inner life\nthat can be uttered in even the finest language.  There is always more\nthat lies back, unexpressed, than is spoken in any words.\n\nIt is specially true of prayer that we cannot utter its deepest\nfeelings and holiest desires.  We have comfort, however, in the\nassurance that God can hear thoughts.  He knows what we want to say and\ncannot express.  Your dearest friend may stand close to you when your\nmind is full of thoughts, but unless you speak or give some sign, he\ncannot know one of your thoughts.  He may lay his ear close to your\nheart, and he will hear its throbbings; but he cannot hear your\nfeelings, your desires.  Yet God knows all that goes on in your soul.\nEvery thought that flies through your brain is heard in heaven.\n\n  \"O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.\n  Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,\n  Thou understandest my thought afar off.\n  Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,\n  And art acquainted with all my ways.\n  For there is not a word in my tongue,\n  But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.\"\n\n\nWe need not trouble ourselves, therefore, if we cannot get our wishes\ninto words when we pray, for God hears wishes, heart-longings, soul\nhungerings and thirstings.  The things we cannot say in speech of the\nlips, we may ask God to take from our heart's speech.  There is not the\nfeeblest, faintest glimmer of a desire rising on the far-away horizon\nof our being, but God sees it.  There is not a heart-hunger, not a wish\nto be holier and better, not an aspiration to be more Christ-like, not\na craving to live for God and be a blessing to others, not the faintest\ndesire to be rid of sin's power, but God knows of it.  St. Paul has a\nwonderful word on this subject: God, he says, \"is able to do exceeding\nabundantly above all that we ask or think.\"  When our heart is stirred\nto its depths, what large, great things can we ask in words?  Then, how\nmuch can we put into thoughts of prayer, into longings, desires,\naspirations, beyond the possibilities of speech?  God can do more than\nwe can pray either in words or thoughts.\n\nOur truest praying is that which we cannot express in any words, our\nheart's unutterable longings, when we sit at God's feet and look up\ninto his face and do not speak at all, but let our hearts talk.\n\n  \"Rather as friends sit sometimes hand in hand,\n  Nor mar with words the sweet speech of their eyes;\n  So in soft silence let us oftener bow,\n  Nor try with words to make God understand.\n  Longing is prayer; upon its wings we rise\n  To where the breath of heaven beats upon our brow.\"\n\n\nOur best, truest prayers are not for earthly things, but for spiritual\nblessings.  When the objects are temporal, we do not know what we\nshould pray for--what would be really a blessing to us.  You are a\nloving parent, and your child is very ill.  It seems that it must die.\nYou fall upon your knees before God to pray, but you do not know what\nto ask.  Your breaking heart would quickly plead, \"Lord, spare my\nprecious child\"; but you do not know that that is best.  Perhaps to\nlive would not be God's sweetest gift to your child, or to you.  So,\nnot daring to choose, you can only say, \"Lord God, I cannot speak more;\nbut thou knowest thy child; thou understandest what is best.\"\n\nOr, some plan of yours, which you have long cherished, seems about to\nbe thwarted.  You go to God, and begin to pray; but you do not know\nwhat to ask.  You can only say, \"Lord, I cannot tell what is best; but\nthou knowest.\"  What a comfort it is that God does indeed know, and\nthat we may safely leave our heart's burden in his hand, without any\nrequest whatever!\n\n  \"Lord, I had chosen another lot,\n    But then I had not chosen well;\n  Thy choice, and truly thine, was good;\n    No different lot, search heaven or hell,\n  Had blessed me, fully understood,\n  None other which thou orderest not.\"\n\n\nWe can do little more than this in any request for temporal things.\nSays Archdeacon Farrar: \"There are two things to remember about prayers\nfor earthly things: One, that to ask mainly for earthly blessings is a\ndreadful dwarfing and vulgarization of the grandeur of prayer, as\nthough you asked for a handful of grass, when you might ask for a\nhandful of emeralds; the other that you must always ask for earthly\ndesires with absolute submission of your own will to God's.\"  So\nsilence is oft-times the best and truest praying--bowing before God in\nlife's great crises; but saying nothing, leaving the burden in God's\nhand without any choosing.  We are always safe when we let God guide us\nin all our ways.\n\n  \"Ill that he blesses is our good,\n    And unblest good is ill;\n  And all is right that seems most wrong,\n    If it be his sweet will.\"\n\n\nMany of the richest possibilities of prayer lie beyond valleys of pain\nand sorrow.  The best things of life cannot be gotten save at sore\ncost.  When we pray for more holiness, we do not know what we are\nasking for; at least we do not know the price we must pay to get that\nwhich we ask.  Our \"Nearer, my God, to thee,\" must be conditioned by,\nand often can come only through,\n\n  \"E'en though it be a cross,\n        That raiseth me.\"\n\n\nNot only are the spiritual things the best things, but many times the\nspiritual things can be grasped only by letting go and losing out of\nour hands the earthly things we would love to keep.  God loves us too\nmuch to grant our prayers for comfort and relief, even when we make\nthem, if he can do it only at spiritual loss to us.  He would rather\nlet it be hard for us to live if there is blessing in the hardness,\nthan make it easy for us at the cost of the blessing.\n\nThere are certain singing-birds that never learn to sing until their\ncages are darkened.  Would it be true kindness to keep these birds\nalways in the sunshine?  There are human hearts that never learn to\nsing the song of faith and peace and love, until they enter the\ndarkness of trial.  Would it be true love for these if God would hear\ntheir prayers for the removal of their pain?  We dare not plead,\ntherefore, save with utmost diffidence and submission, that God would\nremove the cross of suffering.\n\n          \"Thou canst not tell\n  How rich a dowry sorrow gives the soul,\n  How firm a faith and eagle-sight of God.\"\n\n\nDoes God answer prayers?  \"I have been praying for one thing for\nyears,\" says one, \"and it has not come yet.\"  God has many ways of\nanswering.  Sometimes he delays that he may give a better, fuller\nanswer.  A poor woman stood at a vineyard gate, and looked over into\nthe vineyard.  \"Would you like some grapes?\" asked the proprietor, who\nwas within.  \"I should be very thankful,\" replied the woman.  \"Then\nbring your basket.\"  Quickly the basket was brought to the gate and\npassed in.  The owner took it and was gone a long time among the vines,\ntill the woman became discouraged, thinking he was not coming again.\nAt last he returned with the basket heaped full.  \"I have made you wait\na good while,\" he said, \"but you know the longer you have to wait, the\nbetter grapes and the more.\"\n\nSo it sometimes is in prayer.  We bring our empty vessel to God and\npass it over the gate of prayer to him.  He seems to be delaying a long\ntime, and sometimes faith faints with waiting.  But at last he comes,\nand our basket is heaped full with luscious blessings.  He waited long\nthat he might bring us a better and a fuller answer.  At least we are\nsure that no true prayer ever really goes unanswered.  We have to wait\nfor the fruits to ripen, and that takes time.\n\nThen sometimes God delays until some work in us is finished, some\npreparation which is needed before the best answer can be received.\nThe following words are suggestive:\n\n  \"Unanswered yet, the prayer your lips have pleaded\n    In agony of heart these many years?\n  Does faith begin to fail?  Is hope departing,\n    And think you all in vain those falling tears?\n  Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer;\n  You shall have your desire sometime, somewhere.\n\n  \"Unanswered yet, though when you first presented\n    This one petition at the Father's throne,\n  It seemed you could not wait the time of asking,\n    So urgent was your heart to have it known?\n  Though years have passed since then, do not despair;\n  The Lord will answer you sometime, somewhere.\n\n  \"Unanswered yet?  Nay, do not say ungranted;\n    Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done;\n  The work began when first your prayer was uttered.\n    And God will finish what he has begun.\n  If you will keep the incense burning there,\n  His glory you will see sometime, somewhere.\n\n  \"Unanswered yet?  Faith cannot be unanswered.\n    Her feet are firmly planted on the rock;\n  Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,\n    Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock.\n  She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer,\n  And cries, It shall be done--sometime, somewhere.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nGETTING CHRIST'S TOUCH.\n\n\n  \"This is life--to pour out love unstinted;\n    Good and evil, sunlike, blesseth he;\n  Through your finite is his infinite hinted--\n    Children of your Father must ye be.\"\n          --LUCY LARCOM.\n\n\nThere was wonderful power in the touch of Christ when he was on the\nearth.  Wherever he laid his hand, he left a blessing, and sick, sad,\nand weary ones received health, comfort, and peace.  That hand,\nglorified, now holds in its clasp the seven stars.  Yet there are\nsenses in which the blessed touch of Christ is felt yet on men's lives.\nHe is as really in this world to-day as he was when he walked in human\nform through Judea and Galilee.  His hand is yet laid on the weary, the\nsuffering, the sorrowing, and, though its pressure is unfelt, its power\nto bless is the same as in the ancient days.  It is laid on the sick,\nwhen precious heavenly words of cheer and encouragement from the\nScriptures are read at their bedside, giving them the blessing of sweet\npatience, and quieting their fears.  It is laid on the sorrowing, when\nthe consolations of divine love come to their hearts with tender\ncomfort, giving them strength to submit to God's will and rejoice in\nthe midst of trial.  It is laid on the faint and weary, when the grace\nof Christ comes to them with its holy peace, hushing the wild tumult,\nand giving true rest of soul.\n\nBut there is another way in which the hand of Christ is laid on human\nlives.  He sends his disciples into the world to represent him.  \"As\nthe Father hath sent me, even so send I you,\" is his own word.  Of\ncourse the best and holiest Christian life can be only the dimmest,\nfaintest reproduction of the rich, full, blessed life of Christ.  Yet\nit is in this way, through these earthen vessels, that he has ordained\nto save the world, and to heal, help, comfort, lift up, and build up\nmen.\n\n  \"In these earthen vessels heavenly treasure\n    For the enrichment of thy poor may shine;\n  Thou canst fill us in our human measure\n    With thy being's overflow divine.\"\n\n\nPerhaps in thinking of what God does for the world, we are too apt to\noverlook the human agents and instruments, and to think of him touching\nlives directly and immediately.  A friend of ours is in sorrow, and,\ngoing to our knees, we pray God to give him comfort.  But may it not be\nthat he would send the comfort through our own heart and lips?  One we\nlove is not doing well, is drifting away from a true life, is in danger\nof being lost.  In anguish of heart we cry to God, beseeching him to\nlay his hand on the imperilled life, and rescue it.  But may it not be\nthat ours is the hand that must be stretched out in love, and laid, in\nChrist's name, on the life that is in danger?\n\nCertain it is, at least, that each one of us who knows the love of\nChrist is ordained to be as Christ to others; that is, to be the\nmessenger to carry to them the gift of Christ's grace and help, and to\nshow to them the spirit of Christ, the patience, gentleness,\nthoughtfulness, love, and yearning of Christ.  We are taught to say,\n\"Christ liveth in me.\"  If this be true, Christ would love others\nthrough us, and our touch must be to others as the very touch of Christ\nhimself.  Every Christian ought to be, in his human measure, a new\nincarnation of the Christ, so that people shall say: \"He interprets\nChrist to me.  He comforts me in my sorrow as Christ himself would do\nif he were to come and sit down beside me.  He is hopeful and patient\nas Christ would be if he were to return and take me as his disciple.\"\n\nBut before we can be in the place of Christ to sorrowing, suffering,\nand struggling ones, we must have the mind in us that was in him.  When\nSt. Paul said, \"The love of Christ constraineth me,\" he meant that he\nhad the very love of Christ in him--the love that loved even the most\nunlovely, that helped even the most unworthy, that was gentle and\naffectionate even to the most loathsome.  We are never ready to do good\nin the world, in the truest sense or in any large measure, until we\nhave become thus filled with the very spirit of Christ.  We may help\npeople in a certain way without loving them.  We may render them\nservices of a certain kind, benefiting them externally or temporally.\nWe may put material gifts into their hands, build them houses, purchase\nclothing for them, carry them bread, or improve their circumstances and\ncondition.  We may thus do many things for them without having in our\nheart any love for them, anything better than common philanthropy.  But\nthe highest and most real help we can give them only through loving\nthem.\n\n\"When I have attempted,\" says Emerson, \"to give myself to others by\nservices, it proved an intellectual trick--no more.  They eat your\nservices like apples, and leave you out.  But love them, and they feel\nyou and delight in you all the time.\"  When we love others we can help\nthem in all deep and true ways.  We can put blessings into their hearts\ninstead of merely into their hands.  We can enter into their very\nbeing, becoming new breath of life to them,--quickening, inspiration,\nimpulse.\n\n  \"What is the best a friend can be\n  To any soul, to you or me?\n  Not only shelter, comfort, rest--\n  Inmost refreshment unexpressed;\n  Not only a beloved guide\n  To thread life's labyrinth at our side,\n  Or with love's torch lead on before;\n  Though these be much, there yet is more.\n\n  \"The best friend is an atmosphere\n  Warm with all inspirations dear,\n  Wherein we breathe the large, free breath\n  Of life that hath no taint of death.\n  Our friend is an unconscious part\n  Of every true beat of our heart;\n  A strength, a growth, whence we derive\n  God's health, that keeps the world alive.\"\n\n\nThere is a touching and very suggestive story of a good woman in\nSweden, who opened a home for crippled and diseased children--children\nfor whom no one else was ready to care.  In due time she received into\nher home about twenty of these unfortunate little ones.  Among them was\na boy of three years, who was a most frightful and disagreeable object.\nHe resembled a skeleton.  His skin was covered with hideous blotches\nand sores.  He was always whining and crying.  This poor little fellow\ngave the good lady more care and trouble than all the others together.\nShe did her best for him, and was as kind as possible--washed him, fed\nhim, nursed him.  But the child was so repulsive in his looks and ways,\nthat, try as she would, she could not bring herself to like him, and\noften her disgust would show itself in her face in spite of her effort\nto hide it.  She could not really love the child.\n\nOne day she was sitting on the veranda steps with this child in her\narms.  The sun was shining brightly, and the perfume of the autumn\nhoneysuckles, the chirping of the birds, and the buzzing of the\ninsects, lulled her into a sort of sleep.  Then in a half-waking,\nhalf-dreaming state, she thought of herself as having changed places\nwith the child, and as lying there, only more foul, more repulsive in\nher sinfulness than he was.\n\nOver her she saw the Lord Jesus bending, looking lovingly into her\nface, yet with an expression of gentle rebuke in his eye, as if he\nmeant to say, \"If I can bear with you who are so full of sin, surely\nyou ought, for my sake, to love that innocent child who suffers for the\nsin of his parents.\"\n\nShe woke up with a sudden start, and looked into the boy's face.  He\nhad waked, too, and was looking very earnestly into her face.  Sorry\nfor her past disgust, and feeling in her heart a new compassion for\nhim, she bent her face to his, and kissed him as tenderly as ever she\nhad kissed babe of her own.  With a startled look in his eyes, and a\nflush on his cheek, the boy gave her back a smile so sweet that she had\nnever seen one like it before.  From that moment a wonderful change\ncame over the child.  He understood the new affection that had come\ninstead of dislike and loathing in the woman's heart.  That touch of\nhuman love transformed his peevish, fretful nature into gentle quiet\nand beauty.  The woman had seen a vision of herself in that blotched,\nrepulsive child, and of Christ's wonderful love for her in spite of her\nsinfulness.  Under the inspiration of this vision she had become indeed\nas Christ to the child.  The love of Christ had come into her heart,\nand was pouring through her upon that poor, wretched, wronged life.\n\nChrist loves the unlovely, the deformed, the loathsome, the leprous.\nWe have only to think of ourselves as we are in his sight, and then\nremember that, in spite of all the moral and spiritual loathsomeness in\nus, he yet loves us, does not shrink from us, lays his hand upon us to\nheal us, takes us into most intimate companionship with himself.  This\nChristian woman had seen a vision of herself, and of Christ loving her\nstill and condescending to bless and save her; and now she was ready to\nbe as Christ, to show the spirit of Christ, to be the pity and the love\nof Christ to this poor, loathsome child lying on her knee.\n\nShe had gotten the touch of Christ by getting the love of Christ in her\nheart.  And we can get it in no other way.  We must see ourselves as\nChrist's servants, sent by him to be to others what he is to us.  Then\nshall we be fitted to be a blessing to every life which our life\ntouches.  Our words then shall throb with love, and find their way to\nthe hearts of the weary and sorrowing.  Then there will be a\nsympathetic quality in our life which shall give a strange power of\nhelpfulness to whatever we  do.\n\nSays a thoughtful writer, speaking of influence: \"Let a man press\nnearer to Christ, and open his nature more widely to admit the energy\nof Christ, and, whether he knows it or not,--it is better, perhaps, if\nhe does not know it,--he will certainly be growing in power for God\nwith men, and for men with God.\"  We get power for Christ only as we\nbecome filled with the very life of Christ.\n\nEverywhere about us there are lives, cold, and cheerless, and dull,\nwhich by the touch of our hand, in loving warmth, in Christ's name,\nwould be wondrously blessed and transformed.  Some one tells of going\ninto a jeweller's store to look at certain gems.  Among other stones he\nwas shown an opal.  As it lay there, however, it appeared dull and\naltogether lustreless.  Then the jeweller took it in his hand and held\nit for some moments, and again showed it to his customer.  Now it\ngleamed and flashed with all the glories of the rainbow.  It needed the\ntouch and warmth of a human hand to bring out its iridescence.  There\nare human lives everywhere about us that are rich in their\npossibilities of beauty and glory.  No gems or jewels are so precious;\nbut as we see them in their earthly condition they are dull and\nlustreless, without brightness or loveliness.  Perhaps they are even\ncovered with stain and denied by sin.  Yet they need only the touch of\nthe hand of Christ to bring out the radiance, the loveliness, the\nbeauty of the divine image in them.  And you and I must be the hand of\nChrist to these lustreless or stained lives.  Touching them with our\nwarm love, the sleeping splendor that is in them, hidden mayhap under\nsin's marring and ruin, will yet shine out, the beginning of glory for\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE BLESSING OF A BURDEN.\n\n\n  \"Then welcome each rebuff,\n  That turns earth's smoothness rough,\n  Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand nor go.\n  Be our joys three parts pain!\n  Strive, and hold cheap the strain;\n  Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!\"\n        --ROBERT BROWNING.\n\n\nIt is not always the easiest things that are the best things.  Usually\nwe have to pay for any good thing about its full value.  In all markets\ncommodities that cost little may be set down as worth but little.  All\nour blessings may be rated in the same way.  If they come easily,\nwithout great cost of effort or sacrifice, their value to us is not\ngreat.  But if we can get them only through self-denial, tears,\nanguish, and pain, we may be sure that they hide in them the very gold\nof God.  So it is that many of our best and richest blessings come to\nus in some form of rugged hardness.\n\nTake what we call drudgery.  Life is full of it.  It begins in\nchildhood.  There is school, with its set hours, its lessons, rules,\ntables, tasks, recitations.  Then, when we grow up, instead of getting\naway from this bondage of routine, this interminable drudgery, it goes\non just as in childhood.  It is rising at the same hour every morning,\nand hurrying away to the day's tasks, and doing the same things over\nand over, six days in the week, fifty-two weeks in the year, and on and\non unto life's end.  For the great majority of us, there is almost no\nbreak in the monotonous rounds of our days through the long years.\nMany of us sigh and wish we might in some way free ourselves from this\nendless routine.  We think of it as a sore bondage and by no means the\nideal of a noble and beautiful life.\n\nBut really, much that is best in life comes out of this very bondage.\nA recent writer suggests a new beatitude: \"Blessed be drudgery.\"  He\nreminds us that no Bible beatitude comes easily, but that every one of\nthem is the fruit of some experience of hardness or pain.  He shows us\nthat life's drudgery, wearisome and disagreeable as it is, yields rich\ntreasures of good and blessing.  Drudgery, he tells us, is the secret\nof all culture.  He names as fundamentals in a strong, fine character,\n\"power of attention; power of industry; promptitude in beginning work;\nmethod, accuracy, and despatch in doing work; perseverance; courage\nbefore difficulties; cheer under straining burdens; self-control;\nself-denial; temperance\"; and claims that nowhere else can these\nqualities be gotten save in the unending grind and pressure of those\nroutine duties which we call drudgery.  \"It is because we have to go,\nmorning after morning, through rain, through shine, through headache,\nheartache, to the appointed spot and do the appointed work; because,\nand only because, we have to stick to that work through the eight or\nten hours, long after rest would be so sweet; because the school-boy's\nlessons must be learned at nine o'clock, and learned without a slip;\nbecause the accounts on the ledger must square to a cent; because the\ngoods must tally exactly with the invoice; because good temper must be\nkept with children, customers, neighbors, not seven times, but seventy\ntimes seven; because the besetting sin must be watched to-day,\nto-morrow, next day; in short, . . . it is because, and only because,\nof the rut, plod, grind, hum-drum in the work, that we get at last\nthose self-foundations laid,\" which are essential to all noble\ncharacter.\n\nSo there is a blessing for us in the commonest, wearisomest task-work\nof our lives.  \"Blessed be drudgery\" is truly a beatitude.  We all need\nthe discipline of this tireless plodding to build us up into beautiful\ncharacter.  Even the loveliest flowers must have their roots in common\nearth; so, many of the sweetest things in human lives grow out of the\nsoil of drudgery.  \"Be thou, O man, like unto the rose.  Its root is\nindeed in dirt and mud, but its flowers still send forth grace and\nperfume.\"\n\nTake again life's struggles and conflicts.  There are, in the\nexperience of each one, obstacles, hindrances, and difficulties, which\nmake it hard to live successfully.  Every one has to move onward and\nupward through ranks of resistances.  This is true of physical life.\nEvery baby that is born begins at once a struggle for existence.  To be\nvictorious and live, or to succumb and die? is the question of every\ncradle, and only half the babies born reach their teens.  After that,\nuntil its close, life is a continuous struggle with the manifold forms\nof physical infirmity.  If we live to be old it must be through our\nvictoriousness over the unceasing antagonism of accident and disease.\n\nThe same is true in mental progress.  It must be made against\nresistance.  It is never easy to become a scholar or to attain\nintellectual culture.  It takes years and years of study and discipline\nto draw out and train the faculties of the mind.  An indolent,\nself-indulgent student may have an easy time; he never troubles himself\nwith difficult problems; he lets the hard things pass, not vexing his\nbrain with them.  But in evading the burden he misses the blessing that\nwas in it for him.  The only path to the joys and rewards of\nscholarship is that of patient, persistent toil.\n\nIt is true also in spiritual life.  We enter a world of antagonism and\nopposition the moment we resolve at Christ's feet to be Christians, to\nbe true men or women, to forsake sin, to obey God, to do our duty.\nThere never comes a day when we can live nobly and worthily without\neffort, without resistance to wrong influences, without struggle\nagainst the power of temptation.  It never gets easy to be good.\nEvermore the cross lies at our feet, and daily it must be taken up and\ncarried, if we would follow Christ.  We are apt to grow weary of this\nunending struggle, and to become discouraged, because there is neither\nrest nor abatement in it.\n\nBut here again we learn that it is out of just such struggles that we\nmust get the nobleness and beauty of character after which we are\nstriving.  One of the old Scotch martyrs had on his crest the motto,\n_Sub pondere cresco_ (\"I grow under a weight\").  On the crest was a\npalm-tree, with weights depending from its fronds.  In spite of the\nweights the tree was straight as an arrow, lifting its crown of\ngraceful foliage high up in the serene air.  It is well known that the\npalm grows best loaded down with weights.  Thus this martyr testified\nthat he, like the beautiful tree of the Orient, grew best in his\nspiritual life under weights.\n\nThis is the universal law of spiritual growth.  There must be\nresistance, struggle, conflict, or there can be no development of\nstrength.  We are inclined to pity those whose lives are scenes of toil\nand hardship, but God's angels do not pity them, if only they are\nvictorious; for in their overcoming they are climbing daily upward\ntoward the holy heights of sainthood.  The beatitudes in the Apocalypse\nare all for over-comers.  Heaven's rewards and crowns lie beyond\nbattle-plains.  Spiritual life always needs opposition.  It flourishes\nmost luxuriantly in adverse circumstances.  We grow best under weights.\nWe find our richest blessings in the burdens we dread to take up.\n\nThe word \"character\" in its origin is suggestive.  It is from a root\nwhich signifies to scratch, to engrave, to cut into furrows.  Then it\ncomes to mean that which is engraved or cut on anything.  In life,\ntherefore, it is that which experiences cut or furrow in the soul.  A\nbaby has no character.  Its life is like a piece of white paper, with\nnothing yet written upon it; or it is like a smooth marble tablet, on\nwhich, as yet, the sculptor has cut nothing; or the canvas, waiting for\nthe painter's colors.  Character is formed as the years go on.  It is\nthe writing,--the song, the story, put upon the paper.  It is the\nengraving, the sculpturing, which the marble receives under the chisel.\nIt is the picture which the artist paints on the canvas.  Final\ncharacter is what a man is when he has lived through all his earthly\nyears.  In the Christian it is the lines of the likeness of Christ\nlimned, sometimes furrowed and scarred, upon his soul by the divine\nSpirit through the means of grace and the experiences of his own life.\n\nI saw a beautiful vase, and asked its story.  Once it was a lump of\ncommon clay lying in the darkness.  Then it was rudely dug out and\ncrushed and ground in the mill, and then put upon the wheel and shaped,\nthen polished and tinted and put into the furnace and burned.  At last,\nafter many processes, it stood upon the table, a gem of graceful\nbeauty.  In some way analogous to this every noble character is formed.\nCommon clay at first, it passes through a thousand processes and\nexperiences, many of them hard and painful, until at length it is\npresented before God, faultless in its beauty, bearing the features of\nChrist himself.\n\nSpiritual beauty never can be reached without cost.  The blessing is\nalways hidden away in the burden, and can be gotten only by lifting the\nburden.  Self must die if the good in us is to live and shine out in\nradiance.  Michael Angelo used to say, as the chippings flew thick from\nthe marble on the floor of his studio, \"While the marble wastes, the\nimage grows.\"  There must be a wasting of self, a chipping away\ncontinually of things that are dear to nature, if the things that are\ntrue, and just, and honorable, and pure, and lovely, are to come out in\nthe life.  The marble must waste while the image grows.\n\nThen take suffering.  Here, too, the same law prevails.  Every one\nsuffers.  Said Augustine, \"God had one Son without sin; he has none\nwithout sorrow.\"  From infancy's first cry until the old man's life\ngoes out in a gasp of pain, suffering is a condition of existence.  It\ncomes in manifold forms.  Now it is in sickness; the body is racked\nwith pain or burns in fever.  Ofttimes sickness is a heavy burden.  Yet\neven this burden has a blessing in it for the Christian.  Sickness\nrightly borne makes us better.  It unbinds the world's fetters.  It\npurifies the heart.  It sobers the spirit.  It turns the eyes\nheavenward.  It strips off much of the illusion of life and uncovers\nits better realities.  Sickness in a home of faith, prayer, and love,\nsoftens all the household hearts, makes sympathy deeper, draws all the\nfamily closer together.\n\nTrouble comes in many other forms.  It may be a bitter disappointment\nwhich falls upon a young life when love has not been true, or when\ncharacter has proved unworthy, turning the fair blossoms of hope to\ndead leaves under the feet.  There are lives that bear the pain and\ncarry the hidden memorials of such a grief through long years, making\nthem sad at heart even when walking in sweetest sunshine.\n\nOr it may be the failure of some other hope, as when one has followed a\nbright dream of ambition for days and years, finding it only a dream.\nOr it may be the keener, more bitter grief which comes to one when a\nfriend--a child, a brother or sister, a husband or wife--does badly.\nIn such a case even the divine comfort cannot heal the heart's hurt;\nlove cannot but suffer, and there is no hand that can lessen the pang.\nThe anguish which love endures for others' sins is among the saddest of\nearth's sorrows.\n\nThere are griefs that hang no crape on the door-bell, that wear no\nblack garments, that close no shutters, that drop no tears which men\ncan see, that can get no sympathy save that of the blessed Christ and\nperhaps of a closest human brother, and must wear smiles before men and\ngo on with life's work as if all were gladness within the heart.  If we\nknew the inner life of many of the people we meet, we would be very\ngentle with them and would excuse the things in them that seem strange\nor eccentric to us.  They are carrying burdens of secret grief.  We do\nnot begin to know the sorrows of our brothers.\n\nThere is no need to try to solve that old, yet always new, question of\nhuman hearts, \"Why does God permit so much suffering in his children?\"\nIt is idle to ask this question, and all efforts at answering it are\nnot only vain, but they are even irreverent.  We may be sure, however,\nof one thing, that in every pain and trial there is a blessing folded.\nWe may miss it, but it is there, and the loss is ours if we do not get\nit.  Every night of sorrow carries in its dark bosom its own lamps of\ncomfort.  The darkness of grief and trial is full of benedictions.\n\n  \"The dark hath many dear avails;\n    The dark distils divinest dews;\n  The dark is rich with nightingales,\n    With dreams, and with the heavenly muse.\n\n  \"Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill,\n    Complain thou not, my heart, for these\n  Bank in the current of the will.\"\n\n\nThe most blessed lives in the world are those that have borne the\nburden of suffering.  \"Where, think you,\" asks James Martineau, \"does\nthe Heavenly Father hear the tones of deepest love, and see on the\nuplifted face the light of most heartfelt gratitude?  Not where his\ngifts are most profuse, but where they are most meagre; not within the\nhalls of successful ambition, or even in the dwellings of unbroken\ndomestic peace; but where the outcast, flying from persecution, kneels\nin the evening on the rocks whereon he sleeps; at the fresh grave,\nwhere, as the earth is opened, heaven in answer opens too; by the\npillow of the wasted sufferer, where the sunken eye, denied sleep,\nconverses with the silent stars, and the hollow voice enumerates in low\nprayer the scanty list of comforts, the easily remembered blessings,\nand the shortened tale of hopes.  Genial, almost to a miracle, is the\nsoil of sorrow, wherein the smallest seed of love, timely falling,\nbecometh a tree, in whose foliage the birds of blessed song lodge and\nsing unceasingly.\"\n\nThe truly happiest, sweetest, tenderest homes are not those where there\nhas been no sorrow, but those which have been overshadowed with grief,\nand where Christ's comfort was accepted.  The very memory of the sorrow\nis a gentle benediction that broods ever over the household, like the\nafterglow of sunset, like the silence that comes after prayer.\n\nIn every burden of sorrow there is a blessing sent from God, which we\nought not to thrust away.  In one of the battles of the Crimea, a\ncannon-ball struck inside a fort, gashing the earth and sadly marring\nthe garden beauty of the place.  But from the ugly chasm there burst\nforth a spring of water, which flowed on thereafter, a living fountain.\nSo the strokes of sorrow gash our hearts, leaving ofttimes wounds and\nscars, but they open for us fountains of rich blessing and of new life.\n\n  \"Then Sorrow whispered gently: 'Take\n    This burden up.  Be not afraid.\n  An hour is short.  Thou scarce wilt wake\n    To consciousness that I have laid\n  My hand upon thee, when the hour\n    Shall all have passed; and gladder then\n  For the brief pain's uplifting power,\n    Thou shall but pity griefless men.'\"\n\n\nThese are hints of the blessings of burdens.  Our dull task-work,\naccepted, will train us into strong and noble character.  Our\ntemptations and hardships, met victoriously, knit thews and sinews of\nstrength in our souls.  Our pain and sorrow, endured with sweet trust\nand submission, leave us with life purified and enriched, with more of\nChrist in us.  In every burden that God lays upon us, there is a\nblessing for us, if only we will take it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nHEART-PEACE BEFORE MINISTRY.\n\n\n        \"Like the star\n        That shines afar,\n        Without haste\n        And without rest,\n  Let each man wheel, with steady sway,\n  Round the task that rules the day,\n        And do his best.\"\n            --GOETHE.\n\n\nPeace in the heart is one of the conditions of good work.  We cannot do\nour best in anything if we are fretted and anxious.  A feverish heart\nmakes an inflamed brain, a clouded eye, and an unsteady hand.  The\npeople who really accomplish the most, and achieve the best results,\nare those of calm, self-controlled spirit.  Those who are nervous and\nexcited may be always busy, and always under pressure of haste; but in\nthe end they do far less work than if they wrought calmly and steadily,\nand were never in a hurry.\n\nNervous haste is always hindering haste.  It does faulty work, and does\nbut little of it in the end.  Really rapid workers are always\ndeliberate in their movements, never appearing to be in any hurry\nwhatever; and yet they pass swiftly from task to task, doing each duty\nwell because they are calm and unflustered, and, with their wits about\nthem, work with clear eye, steady nerve, and skilful hand.\n\nAn eminent French surgeon used to say to his students, when they were\nengaged in difficult and delicate operations, in which coolness and\nfirmness were needed, \"Gentlemen, don't be in a hurry; for there's no\ntime to lose.\"\n\nThe people in all lines of duty who do the most work are the calmest,\nmost unhurried people in the community.  Duties never wildly chase each\nother in their lives.  One task never crowds another out, nor ever\ncompels hurried, and therefore imperfect, doing.  The calm spirit works\nmethodically, doing one thing at a time, and doing it well; and it\ntherefore works swiftly, though never appearing to be in haste.\n\nWe need the peace of God in our heart just as really for the doing well\nof the little things of our secular life as for the doing of the\ngreatest duties of Christ's kingdom.  Our face ought to shine, and our\nspirit ought to be tranquil, and our eye ought to be clear, and our\nnerves ought to be steady, as we press through the tasks of our\ncommonest day.  Then we shall do them all well, slurring nothing,\nmarring nothing.  We want heart-peace before we begin any day's duties,\nand we should wait at Christ's feet till we get his quieting touch upon\nour heart ere we go forth.\n\nIt is especially true in spiritual work that we must know the secret of\npeace before we can minister either swiftly or effectively to others in\nour Master's name.  Feverishness of spirit makes the hand unskilful in\ndelicate duty.  A troubled heart cannot give comfort to other troubled\nhearts; it must first become calm and quiet.  It is often said that one\nwho has suffered is prepared to help others in suffering; but this is\ntrue only when one has suffered victoriously, and has passed up out of\nthe deep, dark valley of pain and tears to the radiant mountain-tops of\npeace.  An uncomforted mourner cannot be a messenger of consolation to\nanother in grief.  One whose heart is still vexed and uncalmed cannot\nbe a physician to hearts with bleeding wounds.  We must first have been\ncomforted of God ourselves, before we can comfort others in their\ntribulations.\n\nThe same is true of all spiritual ministry.  We need a steady hand to\ntouch the work of Christ's kingdom.  One of our Lord's earlier miracles\nfurnishes an illustration of this truth.  Jesus was called to heal a\nwoman who lay sick of a great fever.  One of the Gospels describes the\ncure in these striking words: \"He touched her hand, and the fever left\nher; and she arose and ministered unto them.\"  We readily understand\nthis record in its primary reference to the physical cure that was\nwrought by our Lord.  We know, of course, that the woman could not\nminister to others while the fever was on her.  When sore sickness\ncomes, the busiest, fullest hands must drop their tasks.  No matter how\nimportant the work is, how essential it may appear, it must be laid\ndown when painful illness seizes us.  We must be healed of our fever\nbefore we can minister.\n\nBut there are other fevers besides those which burn in men's bodies.\nThere are heart-fevers which may rage within us, even when our bodies\nare in perfect health.  We find people with feverish spirits--unhappy,\ndiscontented, fretted, worried, perhaps insubmissive and rebellious.\nOr they may be in a fever of fear or dread.  These inward fevers are\nworse evils than mere bodily illness.  It is better in sickness to have\nour heart's fever depart, even though we must longer keep our pain,\nthan to recover our physical health, meanwhile keeping our fretfulness\nand impatience uncured.\n\nWe cannot minister while heart-fever of any kind is on us.  We may go\non with our work, but we cannot do it well, and there will be little\nblessing in it.  Discontent hinders any life's usefulness.  Jesus loved\nMartha, and accepted her service because he knew she loved him; but he\nplainly told her that her feverishness was not beautiful, and that it\ndetracted from the worth and the full acceptableness of the good work\nshe did; and he pointed her to Mary's quiet peace as a better way of\nliving and serving.  Anxiety of any kind unfits us in some degree for\nwork.  It is only when Christ comes and lays his hand upon our heart,\nand cures its fever, that we are ready for ministering in his name in\nthe most efficient way.\n\nThere is a little story of a busy woman's life which illustrates this\nlesson.  She was the mother of a large family, and, being in plain\ncircumstances, was required to do her own work.  Sometimes, in the\nmultiplicity of her tasks and cares, she lost the sweetness of her\npeace, and, like Martha, became troubled and worried with her much\nserving.  One morning she had been unusually hurried, and things had\nnot gone smoothly.  She had breakfast to get for her family, her\nhusband to care for as he hasted away early to his work, and her\nchildren to make ready for school.  There were other household duties\nwhich filled the poor, weak woman's hands, until her strength was\nwell-nigh utterly exhausted.  And she had not gone through it all that\nmorning in a sweet, peaceful way.  She had allowed herself to lose her\npatience, and to grow fretful, vexed, and unhappy.  She had spoken\nquick, hasty, petulant words to her husband and her children.  Her\nheart had been in a fever of irritation and disquiet all the morning.\n\nWhen the children were gone, and the pressing tasks were finished, and\nthe house was all quiet, the tired woman crept upstairs to her own\nroom.  She was greatly discouraged.  She felt that her morning had been\na most unsatisfactory one; that she had sadly failed in her duty; that\nshe had grieved her Master by her want of patience and gentleness, and\nhad hurt her children's lives by her fretfulness and her ill-tempered\nwords.  Shutting her door, she took up her Bible and read the story of\nthe healing of the sick woman: \"He touched her hand, and the fever left\nher; and she arose and ministered unto them.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said she, \"if I could have had that touch before I began my\nmorning's work, the fever would have left me, and I should have been\nprepared to minister sweetly and peacefully to my family.\"  She had\nlearned that she needed the touch of Christ to make her ready for\nbeautiful and gentle service.\n\nIn contrast with this story, and showing the blessed sweetness and holy\ninfluence of a life that gets Christ's touch in the morning, there is\nthis account by Archdeacon Farrar of his mother: \"My mother's habit\nwas, every day, immediately after breakfast, to withdraw for an hour to\nher own room, and to spend that hour in reading the Bible, in\nmeditation, and in prayer.  From that hour, as from a pure fountain,\nshe drew the strength and the sweetness which enabled her to fulfil all\nher duties, and to remain unruffled by all the worries and pettinesses\nwhich are so often the intolerable trial of narrow neighborhoods.  As I\nthink of her life, and of all it had to bear, I see the absolute\ntriumph of Christian grace in the lovely ideal of a Christian lady.  I\nnever saw her temper disturbed; I never heard her speak one word of\nanger, or of calumny, or of idle gossip.  I never observed in her any\nsign of a single sentiment unbecoming to a soul which had drunk of the\nriver of the water of life, and which had fed upon manna in the barren\nwilderness.  The world is the better for the passage of such souls\nacross its surface.  They may seem to be as much forgotten as the drops\nof rain which fall into the barren sea, but each rain-drop adds to the\nvolume of refreshful and purifying waters.  'The healing of the world\nis in its nameless saints.  A single star seems nothing, but a thousand\nscattered stars break up the night and make it beautiful.'\"\n\nThere are many busy mothers to whom this lesson may come almost as a\nrevelation.  No hands are fuller of tasks, no heart is fuller of cares,\nthan the hands and the heart of a mother of a large family of young\nchildren.  It is little wonder if sometimes she loses her sweetness of\nspirit in the pressure of care that is upon her.  But this lesson is\nworth learning.  Let the mothers wait on their knees each morning,\nbefore they begin their work, for the touch of Christ's hand upon their\nheart.  Then the fever will leave them, and they can enter with calm\npeace on the work of the long, hard day.\n\nThe lesson, however, is for us all.  We are in no condition for good\nwork of any kind when we are fretted and anxious in mind.  It is only\nwhen the peace of God is in our heart that we are ready for true and\nreally helpful ministry.  A feverish heart makes a worried face, and a\nworried face casts a shadow.  A troubled spirit mars the temper and\ndisposition.  It unfits one for being a comforter of others, for giving\ncheer and inspiration, for touching other lives with good and helpful\nimpulses.  Peace must come before ministry.  We need to have our fever\ncured before we go out to our work.  Hence, we should begin each new\nday at the Master's feet, and get his cooling, quieting touch upon our\nhot hand.  Then, and not till then, shall we be ready for good service\nin his name.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nMORAL CURVATURES.\n\n\n  \"I think we are too ready with complaint\n  In this fair world of God's.  Had we no hope\n  Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope\n  Of yon gray blank sky, we might grow faint\n  To muse upon eternity's constraint\n  Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope\n  Must widen early, is it well to droop,\n  For a few days consumed in loss and taint?\"\n          --MRS. BROWNING.\n\n\nOur Lord's miracles are parables in act.  A woman came to him bent\nalmost double, and went away straight.  The human form is made for\nerectness.  This is one of the marks of nobility in man, in contrast\nwith the downward bending and looking of other animals.  Man is the\nonly creature that bears this erect form.  It is a part of the image of\nGod upon him.  It indicates heavenly aspiration, hunger for God, desire\nfor pure and lofty things, capacity for immortal blessedness.  It tells\nof man's hope and home above the earth, beyond the stars.  Says an old\nwriter, \"God gave to man a face directed upwards, and bade him look at\nthe heavens, and raise his uplifted countenance toward the stars.\"  The\nGreek word for \"man\" meant the upward looking.  The bending of the form\nand face downward, toward the earth, has always been the symbol of a\nsoul turned unworthily toward lower things, forgetful of its true home.\nMilton has this thought in describing Mammon:--\n\n  \"Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell\n  From heaven; for even in heaven his looks and thoughts\n  Were always downward bent.\"\n\nThe look of a man's eyes tells where his heart is, whither his desires\nare reaching and tending, how his life is growing.\n\nThere are a great many bent people in the world.  Physical bending may\nbe caused by accident or disease, and is no mark of spiritual\ncurvature.  Many a deformed body is the home of a noble and holy soul,\nwith eyes and aspirations turned upward toward God.  I remember a woman\nin my first parish who then for fourteen years had sat in her chair,\nunable to lift hand or foot, every joint drawn, her wasted body\nfrightfully bent.  Yet she had a transfigured face, telling of a\nbeautiful soul within.  Joy and peace shone out through that poor\ntortured body.  Disease may drag down the erect form, until all its\nbeauty is gone, and the inner life meanwhile may be erect as an angel,\nwith its eyes and aspirations turned upward toward God.\n\nBut there are crooked souls--souls that are bent down.  This may be the\ncase even while the body is straight as an arrow.  There are men and\nwomen whose forms are admired for their erectness, their graceful\nproportions, their lithe movements, their lovely features, yet whose\nsouls are debased, whose desires are grovelling, whose characters are\nsadly misshapen and deformed.\n\nSin always bends the soul.  Many a young man comes out from a holy home\nin the beauty and strength of youth, wearing the unsullied robes of\ninnocence, with eye clear and uplifted, with aspirations for noble\nthings, with hopes that are exalted; but a few years later he appears a\ndebased and ruined man, with soul bent sadly downward.  The bending\nbegins in slight yieldings to sin, but the tendency unchecked grows and\nfixes itself in the life in permanent moral disfigurement.\n\nA stage-driver had held the lines for many years, and when he grew old,\nhis hands were crooked into hooks, and his fingers were so stiffened\nthat they could not be straightened out.  There is a similar process\nthat goes on in men's souls when they continue to do the same things\nover and over.  One who is trained from childhood to be gentle, kindly,\npatient, to control the temper, to speak softly, to be loving and\ncharitable, will grow into the radiant beauty of love.  One who\naccustoms himself to think habitually and only of noble and worthy\nthings, who sets his affections on things above, and strives to reach\n\"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever\nthings are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,\" will grow continually\nupward, toward spiritual beauty.  But on the other hand, if one gives\nway from childhood to all ugly tempers, all resentful feelings, all\nbitterness and anger, his life will shape itself into the unbeauty of\nthese dispositions.  One whose mind turns to debasing things, things\nunholy, unclean, will find his whole soul bending and growing toward\nthe earth in permanent moral curvature.\n\nThere is also a bending of the life by sorrow.  The experience of\nsorrow is scarcely less perilous than that of temptation.  The common\nbelief is that grief always makes people better.  But this is not true.\nIf the sufferer submits to God with loving confidence, and is\nvictorious through faith, sorrow's outcome is blessing and good.  But\nmany are crushed by their sorrow.  They yield to it, and it bears them\ndown beneath its weight.  They turn their faces away from heaven's blue\nand the light of God, toward the grave's darkness, and their souls grow\ntoward the gloom.\n\nHere is a mother who several years since lost by death a beautiful\ndaughter.  The mother was a Christian woman, and her child was also a\nChristian, dying in sweet hope.  Yet never since that coffin was closed\nhas the mother lifted up her eyes toward God in submission and hope.\nShe visits the cemetery on Sundays, but never the church.  She goes\nwith downcast look about her home, weeping whenever her daughter's name\nis mentioned, and complains of God's hardness and unkindness in taking\naway her child.  She is bent down with her eyes to the earth, and sees\nonly the clods and the dust and the grave's gloom, and sees not the\nblue sky, the bright stars, and the sweet face of the Father.  So long\nhas she now been thus bowed down in the habit of sadness and grieving,\nthat she can in no wise lift herself up.\n\nSince I began to write this chapter I have had a long talk with one\nwhose life is sorely bent.  Ten years since I first knew her as a\nbright and happy young girl, her face sunny in the light of God's love.\nTrouble came into her life in many forms.  Her own father proved\nunworthy, failing in all the sacred duties of affection toward his\nchild.  Events in her own life were disappointing and discouraging.\nFriends in whom she had trusted failed in that faithfulness and\nhelpfulness which one has a right to expect from one's friends.  There\nwas a succession of unhappy experiences, through several years, all\ntending to hurt her heart-life.  As the result of all this, she has\nbecome embittered and hardened, not only against those who have wronged\nher and treated her unjustly, but even against God.  So long has she\nyielded to these feelings that her whole life has been bent down from\nits upward, Godward look into settled despondency.  God has altogether\nfaded out of her soul's vision, and she thinks of him only as unkind\nand unjust.  To restore her life to its former brightness and beauty\nwill require a moral miracle as great as that by which the body of the\ncrooked woman was made straight.\n\nThen there are lives also that are bowed down by toil and care.  For\nmany people, life's burdens are very heavy.  There are fathers of large\nfamilies who sometimes find their load almost more than they can bear,\nin their efforts to provide for those who are dear to them.  There are\nmothers who, under their burdens of household care, at times feel\nthemselves bowed down, and scarcely able longer to go on.  In all\nplaces of responsibility, where men are called to stand, the load many\ntimes grows very heavy, and stalwart forms bend under it.  This world's\nwork is hard for most of us.  Life is not play to any who take it\nearnestly.\n\nAnd many persons yield to the weight of a duty, and let themselves be\nbent down under it.  We see men bowing under their load, until their\nvery body grows crooked, and they can look only downward.  We see them\nbecome prematurely old.  The light goes out of their eyes; the\nfreshness fades out of their cheeks; the sweetness leaves their spirit.\nFew things in life are sadder than the way some people let themselves\nbe bent down by their load of duty or care.  There really is no reason\nwhy this should be so.  God never puts any greater burden upon us than\nwe are able to bear, with the help he is ready to give.  Christ stands\never close beside us, willing to carry the heaviest end of every load\nthat is laid upon us.\n\nMen never break down so long as they keep a happy, joyous heart.  It is\nthe sad heart that tires.  Whatever our load, we should always keep a\nsongful spirit in our breast.  There are two ways of meeting hard\nexperiences.  One way is to struggle and resist, refusing to yield.\nThe result is, the wounding of the soul and the intensifying of the\nhardness.  The other way is sweetly to accept the circumstances or the\nrestraints, to make the best of them, and to endure them songfully and\ncheerfully.  Those who live in the first of these ways grow old at\nmid-life.  Those who take the other way of life keep a young, happy\nheart even to old age.\n\nThe true way to live is to yield to no burden; to carry the heaviest\nload with courage and gladness; never to let one's eyes be turned\ndownward toward the earth, but to keep them ever lifted up to the\nhills.  Men whose work requires them to stoop all the time--to work in\na bent posture--every now and then may be seen straightening themselves\nup, taking a long, deep breath of air, and looking up toward the skies.\nThus their bodies are preserved in health and erectness in spite of\ntheir work.  Whatever our toil or burden, we should train ourselves to\nlook often upward, to stand erect, and get a frequent glimpse of the\nsky of God's love, and a frequent breath of heaven's pure, sweet air.\nThus we shall keep our souls erect under the heaviest load of work or\ncare.\n\nThe miracle of the straightening of the woman who was bent double, has\nits gospel of precious hope for any who have failed to learn earlier\nthe lesson of keeping straight.  The bowed down may yet be lifted up.\nThe curvature of eighteen years' growth and stiffening was cured in a\nmoment.  The woman who for so long had not been able to look up, went\naway with her eyes upturned to God in praise.\n\nThe same miracle Christ is able to work now upon souls that are bent,\nwhether by sin, by sorrow, or by life's load of toil.  He can undo\nsin's terrible work, and restore the divine image to the soul.  He can\ngive such comfort to the sad heart that eyes long downcast shall be\nlifted up to look upon God's face in loving submission and joy.  He can\nput such songs into the hearts of the weary and overwrought that the\ncrooked form shall grow straight, and brightness shall come again into\nthe tired face.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTRANSFIGURED LIVES.\n\n\n  \"The lives which seem so poor, so low,\n    The hearts which are so cramped and dull,\n  The baffled hopes, the impulse slow,\n  Thou takest, touchest all, and lo!\n    They blossom to the beautiful.\"\n        --SUSAN COOLIDGE.\n\n\nEvery Christian's life should be transfigured.  There is a sense in\nwhich even a true believer's body becomes transfigured.  We have all\nseen faces that appeared to shine as if there were some hidden light\nbehind them.  There are some old people who have learned well life's\nlessons of patience, peace, contentment, love, trust, and hope, and\nwhose faces really glow as they near the sunset gates.  Sometimes it is\na saintly sufferer, who, in long endurance of pain, learns to lie on\nChrist's bosom in sweet unmurmuring quiet, and whose features take upon\nthemselves increasingly the brightness of holy peace.\n\nBut whatever grace may do for the body, it always transfigures the\ncharacter.  The love of God finds us ruined sinners, and leaves us\nglorified saints.  We are predestinated \"to be conformed to the image\nof his Son.\"  Nor are we to wait for death to transform us; the work\nshould begin at once.  We have a responsibility, too, in this work.\nThe sculptor takes the blackened marble block and hews it into a form\nof beauty.  The marble is passive in his hands, and does nothing but\nsubmit to be cut and hewn and polished as he will.  But we are not\ninsensate marble; we have a part in the fashioning of our lives into\nspiritual holiness.  We will never become like Christ without our own\ndesire and effort.\n\nWe ought to know well what our part is, what we have to do with our own\nsanctification.  How, then, may we become transfigured Christians?\n\nThere is a transfiguring power in prayer.  It was as our Lord was\npraying that the fashion of his countenance was altered.  What is\nprayer?  It is far more than the tame saying over of certain forms of\ndevotion.  It is the pouring out of the heart's deepest cravings.  It\nis the highest act of which the soul is capable.  When you pray truly,\nall that is best, noblest, most exalted, purest, heavenliest in you,\npresses up toward God.  Hence earnest prayer always lights up the very\nface, and lifts up the life into higher, holier mood.  We grow toward\nthat which we much desire.  Hence prayers for Christ-likeness have a\ntransfiguring effect.\n\nHoly thoughts in the heart have also a transfiguring influence on the\nlife.  \"As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.\"  If we allow\njealousies, envies, ugly tempers, pride, and other evil things to stay\nin our heart, our life will grow into the likeness of these unlovely\nthings.  But if we cherish pure, gentle, unselfish, holy thoughts and\nfeelings, our life will become beautiful.\n\nProfessor Drummond tells of a young girl whose character ripened into\nrare loveliness.  Her friends watched her growing gentleness and\nheavenliness with wonder.  They could not understand the secret of it.\nShe wore about her neck a little locket within which no one was allowed\nto look.  Once, however, she was very ill, and one of her companions\nwas permitted then to open this sacred ornament, and she saw there the\nwords, \"Whom having not seen I love.\"  This was the secret.  It was\nlove for the unseen Christ that transfigured her life.  If we think\ncontinually of the Christ, meditating upon him, thinking over sweet\nthoughts of him, and letting his love dwell within us, we shall grow\nlike him.\n\nCommunion with Christ transfigures a life.  Every one we meet leaves a\ntouch upon us which becomes part of our character.  Our lives are like\nsheets of paper, and every one who comes writes a word, or a line, or\nleaves a little picture painted there.  Our intimate companions and\nfriends, who draw very close to us, and are much with us, entering into\nour inner heart-life, make very deep impressions upon us.\n\nIf, therefore, we live with Christ, abide in him, the close, continued\ncompanionship with him will change us into his likeness.  Personal\nfriendship with Christ in this world is as possible as any merely human\nfriendship.  The companionship is spiritual, but it is real.  The\ndevout Christian has no other friend who enters so fully into his life\nas does the Lord Christ Jesus.  The effect of this companionship is the\ntransfiguring of the character.  It is not without reason that the\nartists paint the beloved disciple as likest his Lord in features.  He\nknew Jesus more intimately than any of the other disciples, and, in his\ndeeper, closer companionship, was more affected and impressed by the\nLord's beauty of holiness.\n\nAgain, keeping the eye upon the likeness of Christ transfigures the\nlife.  The old monks intently gazed upon the crucifix, and they said\nthat the prints of the nails would come in their hands and feet, and\nthe thorn-scars in their brow as they beheld.  It was but a gross\nfancy; yet in the fancy there is a spiritual truth.  Gazing by faith\nupon Christ, the lines of his beauty indeed print themselves on our\nhearts.  This is the meaning of St. Paul's word: \"We all, with unveiled\nface, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed\ninto the same image.\"  The Gospel is the mirror.  There we see the\nimage of Christ.  If we earnestly, continually, and lovingly behold it,\nthe effect will be the changing of our own lives into the same\nlikeness.  The transformation is wrought by the divine Spirit, and our\npart is only to behold, to continue beholding, the blessed beauty.  We\nsit before the camera, and our own picture is printed on the prepared\nglass.  We sit before Christ, and we become the camera, and his image\nis printed on our soul.\n\nThere is a pathetic story of a French sculptor, which illustrates the\nsacredness with which life's ideal should be cherished and guarded.  He\nwas a genius, and was at work on his masterpiece.  But he was a poor\nman, and lived in a small garret, which was studio, workshop, and\nbedroom to him.  He had his statue almost finished, in clay, when one\nnight there came suddenly a great frost over the city.  The sculptor\nlay on his bed, with his statue before him in the centre of the\nfireless room.  As the chill air came down upon him, he knew that in\nthe intense cold there was danger that the water in the interstices of\nthe clay would freeze and destroy his precious work.  So the old man\narose from his bed, and took the clothes that had covered him in his\nsleep, and reverently wrapped them about his statue to save it, then\nlay down himself in the cold, uncovered.  In the morning, when his\nfriends came in, they found the old sculptor dead; but the image was\npreserved unharmed.\n\nWe each have in our soul, if we are true believers in Christ, a vision\nof spiritual loveliness into which we are striving to fashion our\nlives.  This vision is our conception of the character of Christ.\n\"That is what I am going to be some day,\" we say.  Far away beyond our\npresent attainment as this vision may shine, yet we are ever striving\nto reach it.  This is the ideal which we carry in our heart amid all\nour toiling and struggling.  This ideal we must keep free from all\nmarring or stain.  We must save it though, like the old sculptor, we\nlose our very life in guarding it.  We should be willing to die rather\nthan give it up to be destroyed.  We should preserve the image of\nChrist, bright, radiant, unsoiled, in our soul, until it transforms our\ndull, sinful, earthly life into its own transfigured beauty.\n\nNo other aim in life is worthy of an immortal being.  We may become\nlike the angels; what debasement, then, to let our lives, with all\ntheir glorious possibilities, be dragged down into the dust of shame\nand dishonor!  Rather let us seek continually the glory for which we\nwere made and redeemed.  \"Beloved, now are we children of God, and it\nis not yet made manifest what we shall be.  We know that, if he shall\nbe manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he\nis.  And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself,\neven as he is pure.\"\n\n  \"Wonderful the whiteness of thy glory;\n    Can we truly that perfection share?\n  Yes; our lives are pages of thy story,\n    We thy shape and superscription bear;\n  Tarnished forms--torn leaves--but thou canst mend them,\n    Thou thine own completeness canst unfold\n  From our imperfections, and wilt end them--\n    Dross consuming, turning dust to gold.\"\n\n\nA drop of water lay one day in a gutter, soiled, stained, polluted.\nLooking up into the blue of the sky, it began to wish for purity, to\nlong to be cleansed and made crystalline.  Its sigh was heard, and it\nwas quickly lifted up by the sun's gentle fingers--up, out of the foul\ngutter, into the sweet air, then higher and higher; at length the\ngentle winds caught it and bore it away, away, and by and by it rested\non a distant mountain-top, a flake of pure, white, beautiful snow.\n\nThis is a little parable of what the grace of God does for every sinful\nlife that longs and cries for purity and holiness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE INTERPRETATION OF SORROW.\n\n\n      \"So much we miss\n  If love is weak; so much we gain\n  If love is strong; God thinks no pain\n  Too sharp or lasting to ordain\n  To teach us this.\"\n        --HELEN HUNT JACKSON.\n\n\nThere will always be mysteries in sorrow.  Men will always wonder what\nit means.  It is impossible for us, with our earthly limitations, to\nunderstand it.  Even the strongest Christian faith will have its\nquestions, and many of its questions will have to remain unanswered\nuntil the horizon of life is widened, and its dim light becomes full\nand clear in heaven.  Meanwhile, however, some of these questions may\nbe at least partially answered, and grief's poignancy in some slight\nmeasure alleviated.  And surely no smallest gleam of comfort should be\nwithheld from the world that needs comfort so sorely, and cries out so\nhungrily for it.\n\nHuman hearts are the same everywhere.  Sorrow's experiences, while\nstrangely diverse, are yet alike in their general features.  Wherever\nwe listen to the suppressed voices of grief, we hear the same\nquestions.  What has been answer to one, will therefore be answer to\nthousands more.  Recently, in one day, two letters came to me from\nsorrowing ones, with questions.  Whether any comfort was given in the\nprivate answers or not, it may be that the mere stating of the\nquestions, with a few sentences concerning each, may be helpful to\nothers who are carrying like burdens.\n\nOne of these letters is from a Christian man whose only son has been\nled into sinful courses, swiftly descending to the saddest depths.  The\nstory is too painful to be repeated in these pages.  In his sore\ndistress, the father, a godly man, a man of strong faith and noble\nwisdom, cries out: \"What is the comfort even of Christ and the Bible\nfor me?  How can I roll this burden of mine upon God?\"\n\nIn answer to these questions it must be remembered that there are some\nthings which even the richest, divinest comfort cannot do.  For one\nthing, it cannot take away the pain of grief or sorrow.  Our first\nthought of comfort usually is that it shall lift off our burden.  We\nsoon learn, however, that it is not in this way that comfort ordinarily\ncomes.  It does not make the grief any less.  It does not make our\nhearts any less sensitive to anguish.  \"Consolation implies rather an\naugmentation of the power of bearing than a diminution of the burden.\"\nIn this case, it cannot lift off the loving father's heart the burden\nof disappointment and anguish which he experiences in seeing his son\nswept away in the currents of temptation.  No possible comfort can do\nthis.  The perfect peace in which God promises to keep those whose\nminds are stayed on him, is not a painless peace in any case of\nsuffering.  The crushed father cannot expect a comfort which will make\nhim forget his wandering, sinning child, or which will cause him to\nfeel no longer the poignant anguish which the boy's course causes in\nhis heart.  Father-love must be destroyed to make such comforting\npossible, and that would be a sorer calamity than any sorrow.\n\nThe comfort in such a grief, is that which comes through faith in God\neven in the sore pain.  The child was given to God in his infancy, and\nwas brought up as God's child along his early years.  Who will say that\nhe may not yet, in some way, at some time, be brought back to God?  The\ndaily burden may then daily be laid in the divine hands.  The heart's\nanguish may express itself not in despairing cries, but in believing\nprayers, inspired by the promises, and kindled into fervency by blessed\nhope.  Then peace will come, not painless peace, but peace which lies\non Christ's bosom in the darkness, and loves and trusts and asks no\nquestions, but waits with all of hope's expectancy.\n\nAt the same time we are never to forget, while we trust God for the\noutcome of our disappointments, that every sorrow has its mission to\nour life.  There is something he desires it to work in us.  What it may\nbe in any particular instance we cannot tell; nor is it wise for us to\nask.  The wisest, truest thing we can do is reverently to open our\nhearts to the ministry of the sorrow, asking God to do his will in us,\nnot allowing us to hinder the beautiful work he would do, and helping\nus to rejoice even in the grief.  The tears may continue to flow, but\nthen with Mrs. Browning we can sing:--\n\n  \"I praise thee while my days go on;\n  I love thee while my days go on;\n  Through dark and death, through fire and frost,\n  With emptied arms and treasure lost,\n  I thank thee while my days go on.\"\n\n\nThe other letter referred to is from another father, over whom wave\nafter wave of sorrow had passed.  Within a brief space of time two\nchildren were taken away.  The one was a son who had entered his\nprofessional career, and had large hope and promise for the future--a\nyoung man of rare abilities and many noble qualities.  The other was a\ndaughter, who had reached womanhood, and was a happy and beloved wife,\nsurrounded by friends and the refinements of a beautiful home, and all\nthat makes life sweet and desirable.  Both of these children God took,\none soon after the other.  The father, a man of most tender affections,\nand yet of implicit faith in God, uttered no murmur when called to\nstand at the graves of his beloved ones; and yet his heart cries out\nfor interpretation.\n\nHe writes: \"In one of your books[1] I find these words: 'Sometimes our\nbest beloved are taken away from us, and our hearts are left bleeding,\nas a vine bleeds when a green branch is cut from it. . . .  Here it is\nthat Christian faith comes in, putting such interpretation and\nexplanation upon the painful things, that we may be ready to accept\nthem with confidence, even with rejoicing. . . .  A strong, abiding\nconfidence that all the trials, sorrows, and losses of our lives are\nparts of our Father's husbandry, ought to silence every question, quiet\nevery fear, and give peace and restful assurance to our hearts in all\ntheir pain.  We cannot know the reason for the painful strokes, but we\nknow that he who holds the pruning-knife is our Father.  That ought\nalways to be enough for us to know.'\"\n\nHaving quoted these words, he continues: \"Now I do not question the\nFather's husbandry.  I would also 'silence every question' concerning\nhis wisdom and his love.  I would not doubt them for a moment.  When I\nfound that my only son, my pride and my staff, must die, I prayed with\nsuch strong crying and tears as only they can know who are in like\ncircumstances, yet feeling that I could give back to God what he had\nlent me without a murmur.  By his help, I believe even the slightest\nmurmur has been repressed concerning the painful things, and that in\nsome measure I have been ready to accept them with confidence, even\nwith rejoicing.  But my faith has not come in, as you suggest, to put\n'such interpretation and explanation' upon them, as perhaps I ought to\ndo.  Why has God thus dealt with me?  Why was a double stroke\nnecessary?  Is his dealing with me purely disciplinary?  What are the\nlessons he would teach me?  How am I to test myself as to whether his\npurpose in afflicting me has been accomplished?  Or am I not anxiously\nto inquire concerning the specific lessons, but rather to let him show\nin due time what he designed?  Such questions multiply without answer.\"\n\nHas not this writer in his own last suggestion stated what should be\ndone by those who are perplexed with questions as to the interpretation\nof sorrow?  They should not anxiously inquire concerning the specific\nlessons, but rather let God show in due time what he designed.  No\ndoubt every sorrow has a mission.  It comes to us, as God's messenger,\nwith a message.  If we will welcome it reverently, and be still while\nit gives its message, no doubt we shall receive some benediction.\n\nYet we must look at this whole matter carefully and wisely.  We are in\ndanger of thinking only of ourselves, and of the effect upon us and our\nlife of the griefs that smite us.  We think too often of our\nbereavements, for example, as if God took away the friend, ending his\nlife, just to chasten or punish us.  But we have no right to take so\nnarrow a view of God's design in the removal of loved ones from our\nside.  His purpose concerns them as well as us.  They are called away\nbecause their work on earth is done, and higher service in other\nspheres awaits them.  To them death is gain, promotion, translation.\nThe event itself, in its primary significance, is a joyous and blessed\none.  The sorrow which we experience in their removal is but an\nincident.  God cannot take them home to glory from our side, without\ngiving us pain.  But we must not reverse this order and think that the\nprimary end of the calling away of our beloved ones is to chasten us,\nor to cause us to suffer.  No doubt there is blessing for us as well as\nfor them in their leaving us, since all things work together for good\nto them that love God; but we unduly exaggerate our own importance when\nwe think of God as laying a beautiful life low in death merely to teach\nus some lesson or give to us some blessing.\n\nWhen we look at our bereavements in this light, and think of what death\nmeans to our beloved ones who have been taken from us, we find new\ncomfort in the thought of their immortality, their release from\nsuffering and temptation, and their full blessedness with Christ.  It\nis selfish for us to forget this in the absorption of our own grief.\nShould we not be willing to endure loss and pain that those dear to us\nmay receive gain and blessing?\n\nEven in life's relationships on the earth we are continually taught the\nsame lesson.  Parents must give up their children, losing them out of\nthe home nest, that they may go forth into the world to take up life's\nduties for themselves.  Then also the separation is painful, but it is\nborne in the sweet silence of self-denying love.  We give up our\nfriends when they are called from our side to accept other and higher\nplaces.  Life is full of such separations, and we are taught that it is\nour duty to think of others, bearing our own loss in patience for their\nsake.  Does not the same law of love \"that seeketh not its own\" apply\nwhen our beloved ones are called up higher?\n\nOf lessons to be learned in sorrow the first always is submission.  We\nare told even of our Lord that he \"learned obedience by the things\nwhich he suffered.\"  This is life's great, all-inclusive lesson.  When\nwe have learned this fully, perfectly, the work of sanctification in us\nis complete.\n\nThen another lesson in all sorrow comes in the softening and enriching\nof the life in order to greater personal helpfulness.  It is sad for us\nif for any cause we miss this blessed outcome of grief and pain.\nChrist suffered in all points that he might be fitted for his work of\nhelping and saving men.  God teaches us in our sorrow what he would\nhave us tell others in their time of trial.  Those who suffer patiently\nand sweetly go forth with new messages for others, and with new power\nto comfort.\n\nBeyond these two wide, general lessons of all sorrow, it usually is not\nwise to press our question, \"Why is it?\"  It is better for us so to\nrelate ourselves to God in every time of trial, that we may not hinder\nthe coming to us of any blessing he may send, but on the other hand,\nmay receive with quiet, sweet welcome whatever teaching, correction,\nrevealing, purifying, or quickening he would give us.  Surely this is\nbetter far than that we should anxiously inquire why God afflicts us,\nwhy he sent the sorrow to us, just what he wants it to do for us.  We\nmust trust God to work out in us what he wants the grief to do for us.\nWe need not trouble ourselves to know what he is doing.\n\nMercifully our old duties come again after sorrow just as before, and\nwe must take these all up, only putting into them more heart, more\nreverence toward God, more gentleness and love toward man.  As we go on\nwe shall know what God meant the grief to do for us; or if not in this\nworld, we shall in that home of Light, where all mystery shall be\nexplained, and where we shall see love's lesson plain and clear in all\nlife's strange writing.  There is no doubt that sorrow always brings us\nan opportunity for blessing.  Then we must remember that in this world\nalone can we get the good that can come to us only through pain, for in\nthe life beyond death there is to be no sorrow, no tears.  An old\nEastern proverb says, \"Spread wide thy skirts when heaven is raining\ngold.\"  Heaven is always raining gold when we are sitting under the\nshadow of the cross.  We should diligently improve the opportunity, and\nlearn the lessons he would teach and get the blessings he would give,\nfor the time is short.\n\n  \"But if, impatient, thou let slip thy cross,\n  Thou wilt not find it in this world again,\n  Nor in another; here, and here alone,\n  Is given thee to suffer for God's sake.\n  In other worlds we shall more perfectly\n  Serve him and love him, praise him, work for him,\n  Grow near and nearer him with all delight;\n  But there we shall not any more be called\n  To _suffer_, which is our appointment here.\"\n\n\n\n[1] \"Practical Religion,\" page 107\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nOTHER PEOPLE.\n\n\n  \"We need--each and all--to be needed,\n    To feel we have something to give\n  Towards soothing the moan of earth's hunger;\n    And we know that then only we live\n  When we feed one another, as we have been fed\n  From the hand that gives body and spirit their bread.\"\n        --LUCY LARCOM.\n\n\nThere are other people.  We are not the only ones.  Some of the others\nlive close to us, and some farther away.  We stand in certain relations\nto these other people.  They have claims upon us.  We owe them duties,\nservices, love.  We cannot cut ourselves off from them, from any of\nthem, saying that they are nothing to us.  We cannot rid ourselves of\nobligations to them and say we owe them nothing.  So inexorable is this\nrelation to others that in all the broad earth there is not an\nindividual who has no right to come to us with his needs, claiming at\nour hand the ministry of love.  The other people are our brothers, and\nthere is not one of them that we have a right to despise, or neglect,\nor hurt, or thrust away from our door.\n\nWe ought to train ourselves to think of the other people.  We may not\nleave them out of any of the plans that we make.  We must think of\ntheir interests and good when we are thinking of our own.  They have\nrights as well as ourselves, and we must think of these when asserting\nour own.  No man may set his fence a hair's breadth over the line on\nhis neighbor's ground.  No man may gather even a head of his neighbor's\nwheat, or a cluster of grapes from his neighbor's vine.  No man may\nenter his neighbor's door unbidden.  No man may do anything that will\nharm his neighbor.  Other people have inalienable rights which we may\nnot invade.\n\nWe owe other people more than their rights; we owe them love.  To some\nof them it is not hard to pay this debt.  They are lovable and winsome.\nThey are thoroughly respectable.  They are congenial spirits, giving us\nin return quite as much as we can give them.  It is natural to love\nthese and be very kindly and gentle to them.  But we have no liberty of\nselection in this broad duty of loving other people.  We may not choose\nwhom we shall love if we claim to be Christians.  The Master's teaching\nis inexorable: \"If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? for\neven sinners love those that love them.  And if ye do good to them that\ndo good to you, what thank have ye? for even sinners do the same.  And\nif ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? even\nsinners lend to sinners, to receive again as much.  But love your\nenemies, and do them good, and lend, never despairing; and your reward\nshall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High; for he is kind\ntoward the unthankful and evil.\"\n\nThe good Samaritan is our Lord's answer to the question, \"Who is my\nneighbor?\" and the good Samaritan's neighbor was a bitter enemy, who,\nin other circumstances, would have spurned him from his presence.\nOther people may not be beautiful in their character, nor congenial in\ntheir habits, manners, modes of life, or disposition; they may even be\nunkind to us, unjust, unreasonable, in strict justice altogether\nundeserving of our favor; yet if we persist in being called Christians\nourselves we owe them the love that thinketh no evil, that seeketh not\nits own, that beareth all things, endureth all things, and never\nfaileth.\n\nNo doubt it is hard to love the other people who hate us.  It is not so\nhard just to let them alone, to pass them by without harming them, or\neven to pray for them in a way; but to love them--that is a sore test.\nWe are apt to ask:--\n\n  \"Dear Lord, will it not do,\n    If we return not wrong for wrong,\n  And neither love nor hate?\n    But love--O Lord, our souls are far from strong,\n  And love is such a tender, home-nursed dove--\n  How can we, Lord, our enemies bless and love?\n\n  \"Fasting--Oh, one could fast--\n    And praying--one could most pathetic pray;\n  But love our enemies!  Dear Lord,\n    Is there not unto thee some easier way--\n  Some way through churchly service, song, or psalm,\n  Or ritual grand, to reach thy heaven's calm?\"\n\n\nBut there comes no answer of Christly indulgence to such questions.\nOther people, though they be our enemies, are not thus taken out of the\ncircle of those to whom we owe love.  Our part is always pictured for\nus in the example of the good Samaritan.\n\nThat is, we owe other people service.  Service goes with loving.  We\ncannot love truly and not serve.  Love without serving is but an empty\nsentiment, a poor mockery.  God so loved the world that he gave.  Love\nalways gives.  If it will not give it is not love.  It is measured\nalways by what it will give.  The needs of other people are therefore\ndivine commands to us, which we dare not disregard or disobey.  To\nrefuse to bless a brother who stands before us in any kind of want is\nas great a sin as to break one of the positive commandments of the\nDecalogue.  Indeed, in a sense, it is the breaking of the whole second\ntable of the commandments--the sense of which is, \"Thou shalt love thy\nneighbor as thyself.\"\n\nWe like to think there is no sin in mere not doing.  But Jesus, in his\nwonderful picture of the Last Judgment, makes men's condemnation turn\non not doing the things they ought to have done.  They have simply not\nfed the hungry, not clothed the naked, not visited the sick, not\nblessed the prisoner.  To make these sins of neglect appear still more\ngrievous, our Lord makes a personal matter of each case, puts himself\nin the place of the sufferer who needs it and is not cared for, and\ntells us that all neglects to give needed kindness to any are shown to\nhim.  This divine word gives a tremendous interest to other people, who\nare brought providentially into the sphere of our life, so that their\nwants of whatever kind may make appeal to our sympathy and kindness.\nTo neglect them is to neglect Christ.  He sends them to us.  They\nrepresent him.  To turn them away is to turn him away.\n\nThis matter of serving has multitudinous forms.  Sometimes it is\npoverty that stands at our gate, and money help is wanted.  A thousand\ntimes more frequently, however, it is not money, but something else\nmore precious, that we must give.  It may be loving sympathy.  Sorrow\nis before us.  Another's heart is breaking.  Money would be of no use;\nit would be only bitter mockery to offer it.  But we can hold to the\nneighbor's lips a cup of the wine of love, filled out of our own heart,\nwhich will give new strength to the sufferer.  Or it is the anguish of\na life struggle, a human Gethsemane, beside which we are called to\nwatch.  We can give no actual aid--the soul must fight its battles\nalone; but we can be as the angel that ministered in our Lord's\nGethsemane, imparting strength, and helping the weary struggler to win\nthe victory.\n\nThe world is very full of sorrow and trial, and we cannot live among\nour fellow-men and be true without sharing their loads.  If we are\nhappy we must hold the lamp of our happiness so that its beams will\nfall upon the shadowed heart.  If we have no burden it is our duty to\nput our shoulders under the load of others.  Selfishness must die or\nelse our own heart's life must be frozen within us.  We soon learn that\nwe cannot live for ourselves and be Christians; that the blessings that\nare given to us are really for other people, and that we are only God's\nministers, to carry them in Christ's name to those for whom they are\nintended.\n\nWe begin to felicitate ourselves upon some special prosperity, and the\nnext moment some human need knocks at our door, and we must share our\ngood things with a suffering brother.  We may build up our fine\ntheories of taking care of ourselves, of living for the future, of\nlaying up in the summer of prosperity for the winter of adversity, of\nproviding for old age or for our children; but ofttimes all these\nfrugal and economic plans have to yield to the exigencies of human\nneed.  The love that seeketh not its own plays havoc with life's hard\nlogic, and with the plans of mere self-interest.  We cannot say that\nanything is our own when our brother is suffering for what we can give.\n\n  \"Herein is love: to strip the shoulders bare.\n  If need be, that a frailer one may wear\n  A mantle to protect it from the storm;\n  To bear the frost-king's breath so one be warm;\n  To crush the tears it would be sweet to shed,\n  And smile so others may have joy instead.\n\n  \"Herein is love: to daily sacrifice\n  The hope that to the bosom closest lies;\n  To mutely bear reproach and suffer wrong,\n  Nor lift the voice to show where both belong;\n  Nay, now, nor tell it e'en to God above--\n  Herein is love indeed, herein is love.\"\n\n\nNot a day passes in the commonest experiences of life, in which other\npeople do not stand before us with their needs, appealing to us for\nsome service which we may render to them.  It may be only ordinary\ncourtesy, the gentle kindness of the home circle, the patient treatment\nof neighbors or customers in business relations, the thoughtful showing\nof interest in old people or in children.  On all sides the lives of\nothers touch ours, and we cannot do just as we please, thinking only of\nourselves, and our own comfort and good, unless we choose to be false\nto all the instincts of humanity, and all the requirements of the law\nof Christian love.  We must think continually of other people.\n\nWe may not seek our own pleasure in any way without asking whether it\nwill harm or mar the comfort of some other one.  For example, we must\nthink of other people's convenience in the exercise of our own liberty\nand in the indulgence of our own tastes and desires.  It may be\npleasant for us to lie late in bed in the morning, and we may be\ninclined to regard the habit as only a little amiable self-indulgence.\nBut there is a more serious side to the practice.  It breaks the\nharmonious flow of the household life.  It causes confusion in the\nfamily plans for the day.  It makes extra work for faithful\nhousekeepers or servants.  It sorely tries the patience of love.\n\nThe other day an important committee of fifteen was kept waiting for\nten minutes for one tardy member, whose presence was necessary before\nanything could be done.  At last he came sauntering in without even an\napology for having caused fourteen busy men a loss of time that to them\nwas very valuable, besides having put a sore strain on their patience\nand good nature.  We have no right to forget or disregard the\nconvenience of others.  A conscientious application of the Golden Rule\nwould cure us of all such carelessness.\n\nThese are but illustrations of the way other people impinge upon our\nlife.  They are so close to us that we cannot move without touching\nthem.  We cannot speak but that our words affect others.  We cannot act\nin the simplest things without first thinking whether what we are about\nto do will help or hurt others.  We are but one of a great family, and\nwe dare not live for ourselves.  We must never forget that there are\nother people.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE BLESSING OF FAITHFULNESS.\n\n\n  \"It must be done by both; God never without me,\n  I never without God.\"\n        --JOHANNES SCHEFFLER.\n\n\n\"Faithful servant\" will be the commendation on the judgment-day of\nthose who have lived well on the earth.  Not great deeds will be\ncommended, but faithfulness.  The smallest ministries will rank with\nthe most conspicuous, if they are all that the weak hands could do.\nIndeed, the widow's two mites were more in value than the rich men's\nlarge coins.\n\n  \"Two mites, two drops, but all her house and land\n  Fell from an earnest heart but trembling hand;\n  The others' wanton wealth foamed high and brave;\n  The others cast away, she only gave.\"\n\n\nYet faithfulness as a measure of requirement is not something that can\nbe reached without effort.  It does not furnish a pillow for indolence.\nIt is not a letting down of obligation to a low standard, to make life\neasy.  It is indeed a lofty measurement.  \"Thou hast been faithful\" is\nthe highest possible commendation.\n\nIt may not be amiss to look a little at the meaning of the word as a\nstandard of moral requirement.  In general, it implies the doing of all\nour work as well as we can.  All our work includes, of course, our\nbusiness, our trade, our household duties, all our daily task-work, as\nwell as our praying, our Bible-reading, and our obeying of the moral\nlaw.  We must not make the mistake of thinking that there is no\nreligion in the way we do the common work of our trade or of our\nhousehold, or our work on the farm, or in the mill or store.  The\nfaithfulness Christ requires and commends takes in all these things.\nOfttimes, too, it would be easier to be faithful in some great trial,\nrequiring sublimity of courage, than in the little unpicturesque duties\nof an ordinary day.  Says Phillips Brooks: \"You picture to yourself the\nbeauty of bravery and steadfastness.  You let your imagination wander\nin delight over the memory of martyrs who have died for truth.  And\nthen some little, wretched, disagreeable duty comes, which is your\nmartyrdom, the lamp of your oil; and if you will not do it, how your\noil is spilt!  How flat and thin and unilluminated your sentiment about\nthe martyrs runs out over your self-indulgent life!\"\n\nLovers of the violin are familiar with the name of Stradivarius, the\nold violin-maker of Cremona.  He has been dead nearly two hundred\nyears, and his violins now bring fabulous prices.  George Eliot, in one\nof her poems, puts some noble words into the mouth of the old man.\nSpeaking of the masters who will play on his violins, he says:--\n\n  \"While God gives them skill,\n  I give them instruments to play upon,\n  God choosing me to help him.\"\n\n\nReferring to another violin-maker, his rival, he says:--\n\n        \"But were his the best,\n  He could not work for two.\n  My work is mine,\n  And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked,\n  I should rob God--since he is fullest good--\n  Leaving a blank instead of violins.\n  I say, not God himself can make man's best\n  Without best men to help him.\n  *    *    *    *    *    *\n  'Tis God gives skill,\n  But not without men's hands.\n  He could not make\n  Antonio Stradivari's violins\n  Without Antonio.\"\n\n\nAt first reading these words may indeed seem heretical and irreverent,\nbut they are not.  It is true, indeed, that even God cannot do our work\nwithout us, without our skill, our faithfulness.  If we fail or do our\nlittle duty negligently, there will be a blank or a blur where there\nought to have been something beautiful.  As another says, \"The universe\nis not quite perfect without my work well done.\"\n\nOne man is a carpenter.  God has called him to that work.  It is his\nduty to build houses, and to build them well.  That is, he is required\nto be a good carpenter, to do the very best work he can possibly do.\nIf, therefore, he does careless work, imperfect, dishonest, slurred,\nslighted work, he is robbing God, leaving only bad carpentering where\nhe ought to have left good.  For even God himself will not build the\ncarpenter's houses without the carpenter.  Or, here is a mother in a\nhome.  Her children are about her, with their needs.  Her home requires\nher skill, her taste, her refinement, her toil and care.  It is her\ncalling to be a good mother, and to make a true home for her household.\nHer duty is to do always her very best to make her home beautiful,\nbright, happy, a fit place for her children to grow up in.\nFaithfulness requires that she do always such service as a mother, that\nJesus shall say of her home-making, \"She hath done what she could.\"  To\ndo less than her best is to fail in fidelity.  Suppose that her hand\nshould slack, that she should grow negligent, would she not clearly be\nrobbing God?  For even God cannot make a beautiful home for her\nchildren without her.\n\nSo we may apply the principle to all kinds of work.  The faithfulness\nwhich God requires must reach to everything we do, to the way the child\ngets its lessons and recites them, to the way the dressmaker and the\ntailor sew their seams, to the way the blacksmith welds the iron, and\nshoes the horse, to the way the plumber puts the pipes into the new\nbuilding and looks after the drainage, to the way the carpenter does\nhis work on the house, to the way the bridge-builder swings the bridge\nover the stream, to the way the clerk represents the goods, and\nmeasures or weighs them.  \"Be thou faithful\" is the word that rings\nfrom heaven in every ear.  God's word for the doing of every piece of\nwork that any one does.  How soon it would put a stop to all\ndishonesty, all fraud, all scant work, all false weights and measures,\nall shams, all neglects or slightings of duty, were this lesson only\nlearned and practiced everywhere!\n\n\"It does not matter,\" people say, \"whether I do my little work well or\nnot.  Of course I must not steal, nor lie, nor commit forgery, nor\nbreak the Sabbath.  These are moral things.  But there is no sin in my\nsewing up this seam carelessly, or in my using bad mortar in this wall,\nor in my putting inferior timber in this house, or a piece of flawed\niron in this bridge.\"  But we need to learn that the moral law applies\neverywhere, just as really to carpentry, or blacksmithing, or\ntailoring, as to Sabbath-keeping.  We never can get away from this law.\n\nBesides, it does matter, for our neighbor's sake, as well as for the\nhonor of God's law, how we do our work.  The bricklayer does negligent\nwork on the walls of the flue he is putting in, and one night, years\nafterward, a spark creeps through the crevice and reaches a wooden beam\nthat lies there, and soon the house is in flames and perhaps precious\nlives perish.  The bricklayer was unfaithful.  The foundryworker, in\ncasting the great iron supports for a bridge, is unwatchful for an\ninstant, and a bubble of air makes a flaw.  It is buried away in the\nheart of the beam and escapes detection.  One day, years later, there\nis a terrible disaster.  A great railroad bridge gives way beneath the\nweight of an express train and hundreds of lives are lost.  In the\ninquest it is testified that a slight flaw in one beam was the cause of\nthe awful calamity which hurled so many lives into eternity.  The\nfoundry workman was unfaithful.\n\nThese are but suggestions of the duty and of its importance.  No work\ncan be of so little moment that it matters not whether it be done\nfaithfully or not.  Unfaithfulness in the smallest things is\nunfaithfulness, and God is grieved, and possibly sometime, somewhere,\ndisaster may come as the consequence of the neglect.  On the other\nhand, faithfulness is pleasing to God, though it be only in the\nsweeping well of a room, or the doing neatly of the smallest things in\nhousehold care.  Then faithfulness is far-reaching in its influence.\nThe universe is not quite complete without each one's little work well\ndone.\n\nThe self-culture that there is in the mere habit of faithfulness is in\nitself a rich reward for all our striving.  It is a great thing to\ntrain ourselves to do always our best, to do as nearly perfect work as\npossible.  Said Michael Angelo: \"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so\nreligious, as the endeavor to create something perfect; for God is\nperfection, and whoever strives for it, strives for something that is\nGodlike.\"  The habit, unyieldingly persisted in, of doing everything\nwith the most scrupulous conscientiousness, builds up in the one who so\nlives a noble and beautiful character.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nWITHOUT AXE OR HAMMER.\n\n\n  \"Souls are built as temples are,--\n  Based on truth's eternal law,\n  Sure and steadfast, without flaw,\n  Through the sunshine, through the snows,\n  Up and on the building goes;\n  Every fair thing finds its place,\n  Every hard thing lends a grace,\n  Every hand may make or mar.\"\n\n\nWe read of the temple of Solomon, when it was in building, that it was\nbuilt of stone made ready in the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe\nnor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it went up.\n\n  \"No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung;\n  Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung.\"\n\n\nSo it is that the great work of spiritual temple-building goes on\ncontinually in this world.  We are all really silent builders.  The\nkingdom of God cometh not with observation.  The divine Spirit works in\nsilence, changing men's hearts, transforming lives, comforting sorrow,\nkindling hope in darkened bosoms, washing scarlet souls white as snow.\nThe preacher may speak with the voice of a Boanerges, but the power\nthat reaches hearts is not the preacher's noise; silently the divine\nvoice whispers in the soul its secret of conviction, or of hope, or of\nstrength.  The Lord is not in the storm, in the earthquake, in the\nfire, but in the sound of gentleness, the spirit's whisper, that\nbreathes through the soul.\n\nPerhaps the best work any of us do in this world is that which we do\nwithout noise.  Words give forth sound, but it is not the sounds that\ndo good, that brighten sad faces as people listen, that change tears to\nlaughter, that stimulate hope, that put courage into fainting\nhearts,--it is not the noise of our words, but the thoughts which the\nwords carry.  Words are but the chattering messengers that bear the\nsealed messages; and it is the messages that help and comfort.  We may\nmake noise as we work, but it is not our noise that builds up what we\nleave in beauty behind us.  It is life that builds, and life is silent.\nThe force that works in our homes is a silent force,--mother-love,\nfather-love, patience, gentleness, prayer, truth, the influences of\ndivine grace.\n\nIt is the same in the building up of personal character in each of us.\nThere may be a great deal of noise all about us, but it is in silence\nthat we grow from a thousand sources come the little blocks that are\nlaid upon the walls,--the lessons we get from others, the influences\nfriends exert upon us, the truths our reading puts into our minds, the\nimpressions life leaves upon us, the inspirations we receive from the\ndivine Spirit--ever the builders are at work on these characters of\nours, but they work silently, without noise of hammer or axe.\n\nThere is another suggestion.  Down in the dark quarries, under the\ncity, the men wrought, cutting, hewing, polishing, the stones.  They\nhung their little lamps on the walls, and with their hammers and\nchisels they hewed away at the great blocks.  Months and years passed;\nthen one day there was a grand dedication, and there in the glorious\nsunshine all the secret, obscure work of those years was seen in its\nfinal beauty, amid the joy of a nation.  If the men who had wrought in\nthe quarries were present that day, what a joy it must have been to\nthem to think of their work in preparing the great stones for their\nplace in the magnificent building!\n\nHere is a parable.  This world is the quarry.  We are toiling away in\nthe darkness.  We cannot see what good is ever to come out of our\nlonely, painful, obscure toil.  Yet some day our quarry-work will be\nmanifested in the glory of heaven.  We are preparing materials now and\nhere for the temple of the great King, which in heaven is slowly rising\nthrough the ages.  No noise of hammer or axe is heard in all that\nwondrous building, because the stones are all shaped and polished and\nmade entirely ready in this world.\n\nWe are the stones, and the world is God's quarry.  The stones for the\ntemple were cut out of the great rock in the dark underground cavern.\nThey were rough and shapeless.  Then they were dressed into form, and\nthis required a great deal of cutting, hammering, and chiselling.\nWithout this stern, sore work on the stones, not one of them could ever\nhave filled a place in the temple.  At last when they were ready they\nwere lifted out of the dark quarry and carried up to the mountain-top,\nwhere the temple was rising, and were laid in their place.\n\nWe are stones in the quarry as yet.  When we accepted Christ we were\ncut from the great mass of rock.  But we were yet rough and unshapely;\nnot fit for heaven.  Before we can be ready for our place in the\nheavenly temple we must be hewn and shaped.  The hammer must do its\nwork, breaking off the roughnesses.  The chisel must be used, carving\nand polishing our lives into beauty.  This work is done in the many\nprocesses of life.  Every sinful thing, every fault in our character,\nis a rough place in the stone, which must be chiselled off.  All the\ncrooked lines must be straightened.  Our lives must be cut and hewn\nuntil they conform to the perfect standard of divine truth.\n\nQuarry-work is not always pleasant.  If stones had hearts and\nsensibilities, they would sometimes cry out in sore pain as they feel\nthe hammer strokes and the deep cutting of the chisel.  Yet the workman\nmust not heed their cries and withdraw his hand, else they would at\nlast be thrown aside as worthless blocks, never to be built into the\nplace of honor.\n\nWe are not stones; we have hearts and sensibilities, and we do cry out\nofttimes as the hammer smites away the roughnesses in our character.\nBut we must yield to the sore work and let it go on, or we shall never\nhave our place as living stones in Christ's beautiful temple.  We must\nnot wince under the sharp chiselling of sorrow.  Says Dr. T. T.\nMunger:--\n\n  \"When God afflicts thee, think he hews a rugged stone\n  Which must be shaped, or else aside as useless thrown.\"\n\n\nThere is still another suggestion from this singular temple-building.\nEvery individual life has its quarries where are shaped the blocks\nwhich afterward are built into character, or which take form in acts.\nSchools are the quarries, where, through years of patient study, the\nmaterials for life are prepared, the mind is disciplined, habits are\nformed, knowledge is gained, and power is stored.  Later, in active\nlife, the temple rises without noise of hammer or axe.  Homes are\nquarries where children are trained, where moral truth is lodged in the\nheart, where the elements of character are hewn out like fair stones,\nto appear in the life in after days, when it grows up among men.\n\nThen there are the thought-quarries back of what people see in every\nhuman life.  Men must be silent thinkers before their words or deeds\ncan have either great beauty or power.  Extemporaneousness anywhere is\nof small value.  Glib, easy talkers, who are always ready to speak on\nany subject, who require no time for preparation, may go on chattering,\nforever, but their talk is only chatter.  The words that are worth\nhearing come out of thought-quarries where they have been wrought\nofttimes in struggle and anguish.  Father Ryan, in one of the most\nexquisite of his poems, writes of the \"valley of silence\" where he\nprepares the songs he afterwards sings:--\n\n  \"In the hush of the valley of silence\n    I dream all the songs that I sing;\n  And the music floats down the dim valley\n    'Till each finds a word for awing,\n  That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge,\n    A message of peace they may bring.\"\n\n\nSo it is of all great thoughts.  Thinkers brood long in the silence and\nthen come forth and their eloquence sways us.  So it is with art.  We\nlook at a fine picture and our hearts are warmed by its wondrous\nbeauty.  But do we know the story of the picture?  Years and years of\nthought and of tireless toil lie back of its enrapturing beauty.  Or\nhere is a book which charms you, which thrills and inspires you.  Great\nthoughts lie on its pages.  Do you know the book's story?  The author\nlived, struggled, toiled, suffered, wept, that he might write the words\nwhich now help you.  Back of every good life-thought which blesses men,\nlies a dark quarry where the thought was born and shaped into the\nbeauty of form which makes it a blessing to the world.\n\nOr here is a noble and beautiful character.  Goodness appears natural\nto it.  It seems easy for the man to be noble and to do noble things.\nBut again the quarry is back of the temple.  Each one's heart is the\nquarry out of which comes all that the person builds into his life.\n\"As he thinketh in his heart so is he.\"  Everything that appears in our\nlives comes out of our hearts.  All our acts are first thoughts.  The\nartist's picture, the poet's poem, the singer's song, the architect's\nbuilding, are thoughts before they are wrought out into forms of\nbeauty.  All dispositions, tempers, feelings, words, and acts start in\nthe heart.  If the workmen had quarried faulty stones in the caverns,\nthe temple would have been spoiled.  An evil heart, with stained\nthoughts, impure imaginings, blurred feelings, can never build up a\nfair and lovely character.\n\nWe need to guard our heart-quarry with all diligence, since out of it\nare the issues of life.  The thoughts build the life and make the\ncharacter.  White thoughts rear up a beautiful fabric before God and\nman.  Soiled thoughts pile up a stained life, without beauty or honor.\nWe should look well, therefore, to our heart-quarry, where the work\ngoes on in the darkness without ceasing.  If all be right there we need\ngive little concern to the building of character.  Diligent\nheart-keeping yields a life unspotted from the world.\n\nA little child had been reading the beatitudes, and was asked which of\nthe qualities named in them she most desired.  \"I would rather be pure\nin heart,\" she said.  When asked the reason for her choice, she\nanswered: \"If I could but have a pure heart, I should then possess all\nthe other qualities of the beatitudes in the one.\"  The child was\nright.  A pure heart will build a beautiful life, a fit temple for\nChrist.  Thinking over God's holy thoughts after him will make us like\nGod.  Thinking habitually about Christ, Christ's beauty will come into\nour souls and shine in our faces.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nDOING THINGS FOB CHRIST.\n\n\n  \"We can best minister to him by helping them\n  Who dare not touch his hallowed garment's hem;\n  Their lives are even as ours--one piece, one plan.\n  Him know we not, him shall we never know,\n  Till we behold him in the least of these\n  Who suffer or who sin.  In sick souls he\n  Lies bound and sighing, asks our sympathies;\n  Their grateful eyes thy benison bestow,\n  Brother and Lord,--'Ye did it unto me.'\"\n        --LUCY LARCOM.\n\n\nIf Christ were here, we say, we would do many things for him.  The\nwomen who love him would gladly minister to him as did the women who\nfollowed him from Galilee.  The men who are his friends would work to\nhelp him in any ways he might direct.  The children who are trying to\nplease him would run errands for him.  We all say we would be delighted\nto serve him if only he would come again to our world and visit our\nhomes.  But we can do things for him just as really as if he were here\nagain in human form.\n\nOne way of doing this is by obeying him.  He is our Lord.  Nothing\npleases him so well as our obedience.  It is told of a great\nphilosopher that a friend called one day to see him, and was\nentertained by the philosopher's little daughter till her father came\nin.  The friend supposed that the child of so wise a man would be\nlearning something very deep.  So he asked her, \"What is your father\nteaching you?\"  The little maid looked up into his face with her clear\neyes and said, \"Obedience.\"  That is the one great lesson our Lord is\nteaching us.  He wants us to learn obedience.  If we obey him always we\nshall always be doing things for him.\n\nWe do things for Christ which we do through love to him.  Even\nobedience without love does not please him.  But the smallest services\nwe can render, if love inspire them, he accepts.  Thus we can make the\ncommonest tasks of our lives holy ministries, as sacred as what the\nangels do.  There is a legend of a monk who painted in an old\nconvent-cell pictures of martyrs and holy saints and of the sweet\nChrist-face with the crown of thorns.  Men called his pictures only\ndaubs.\n\n  \"One night the poor monk mused, 'Could I but render\n    Honor to Christ as other painters do--\n  Were but my skill as great as is the tender\n    Love that inspires me when his cross I view.'\n\n  \"'But no, 'tis vain I toil and strive in sorrow;\n    What man so scorns still less can _He_ admire;\n  My life's work is all valueless; to-morrow\n    I'll cast my ill-wrought pictures in the fire.'\n\n  \"He raised his eyes within his cell--O wonder!\n    There stood a Visitor; thorn-crowned was He;\n  And a sweet voice the silence rent asunder:\n    'I scorn no work that's done for love of me.'\n\n  \"And round the walls the paintings shone resplendent\n    With lights and colors to this world unknown,\n  A perfect beauty and a hue transcendent,\n    That never yet on mortal canvas shone.\"\n\n\nThere is a beautiful meaning in the old legend.  Christ scorns no work\nthat is done for love of him.  Most of us have much drudgery in our\nlives, but even this we can make glorious by doing it through love for\nChrist.\n\nThings we do for others in Christ's name, are done for him.  We all\nremember that wonderful \"inasmuch\" in the twenty-fifth of Matthew.  If\nwe find the sick one, or the poor one, and go and minister, as we may\nbe able, as unto the Lord, the deed is accepted as if done to him in\nperson.  Mrs. Margaret J. Preston, in one of her beautiful poems, tells\nof a weary sister who grieved sorely because, as it seemed to her, she\nhad not been able to do any work for Christ.  By a mother's dying bed\nshe had promised to care for her little sister, and her work for the\nchild so filled her hands that she had not time for anything else.  As\nshe grieved thus once, the little sister sleeping beside her stirred\nand told her of a sweet, strange dream she had had.  She thought her\nsister was sitting sad because the King had bidden each one to bring\nhim a gift.\n\n  \"And in my dream I saw you there,\n  And heard you say, 'No hands can bear\n  A gift, that are so filled with care.'\n\n  \"What care?' the King said, and he smiled\n  To hear you answer, wailing wild,\n  'I only toil to feed a child.'\n\n  \"And then with such a look divine\n  ('Twas that awaked me with its shine),\n  He whispered, 'But the child is mine.'\"\n\n\nThere are many for whom this little story-poem should have sweet\ncomfort.  There are fathers and mothers who find it hard to provide for\ntheir children.  It takes all their time and strength, and sometimes\nthey say, \"I cannot do any work for Christ, because it takes every\nmoment to earn bread and clothing for my little ones, and to care for\nthem.\"  But Jesus whispers, \"Yes; yet your children are mine, and what\nyou do for them you do for me.\"\n\nThere is in a home an invalid who requires all the time and thought of\nanother member of the household in loving attention.  It may be an aged\nparent needing the help of a child; it may be a child, crippled, blind,\nor sick, needing all a parent's care; or it may be a brother broken in\nhealth on whom a sister is called to wait continually with patient\nlove.  And sometimes those who are required thus to spend their days\nand nights in ministry for others feel that their lives count for\nnothing in work for Christ.  They hear the appeals for laborers and for\nservice, but cannot respond.  Their hands are already filled.  Yet\nJesus whispers, \"These for whom you are toiling, caring, and spending\ntime and strength are mine, and in doing for them you are doing for me\njust as acceptable work as are those who are toiling without\ndistraction or hindrance in the great open field.\"\n\nSometimes the work we do for Christ with purest love fails, or seems to\nfail of result.  Nothing appears to come of it.  There are whole\nlifetimes of godly people that seem to yield nothing.  A word ought to\nbe said about this kind of doing for Christ.  We are to set it down as\ntrue without exception, that no work wrought in Christ's name and with\nlove for him is ever lost.  What we, in our limited, short-sighted\nvision, planned to do may not be accomplished, but God's purpose goes\non in every consecrated life, in every true deed done.  The disciples\nthought that Mary's costly ointment was wasted.  So it seemed; but this\nworld has been a little sweeter ever since the breaking of the vase\nthat let the perfume escape into its common air.  So it is with many\nthings that are done, and many lives that are lived.  They seem to\nfail, and there is nothing on the earth to show where they have been.\nYet somehow the stock of human happiness is larger and the world is a\nlittle better.\n\nOur work for Christ that fails in what we intended may yet leave a\nblessing in some other way.  A faithful Bible-class teacher through\nmany months visited a young man, a member of her class, in sickness.\nShe read the Bible to him and sang sweet hymns and prayed by his\nbedside.  He was not a Christian and she hoped that he would be led to\nChrist.  But at length he recovered and went out again, unchanged, or\neven more indifferent than ever to his spiritual interests.  All the\nfaithful teacher's work seemed to have been in vain.  Then she learned\nthat a frail, invalid girl, living in an adjoining house, had been\nbrought to Christ through the loving work done for the careless\nscholar.  The songs sung by the sick man's bedside, and which seemed to\nhave left no blessing in his heart, had been heard through the thin\nwall of the house in the girl's sick-room, and had told her of the love\nof the Saviour.\n\nThe records of Christian ministry are full of such good work done\nunintentionally.  Failing to leave a blessing where it was hoped a\nblessing would be received, it blessed some other life.  We may not say\nthat any good work has failed until we know in the last great harvest\nall the results of the things we have done and the words we have spoken.\n\n  \"Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed;\n    Not all who fail have therefore worked in vain;\n  For all our acts to many issues lead;\n    And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain,\n    Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain,\n  The Lord will fashion in his own good time\n  (Be this the laborer's proudly humble creed),\n  Such ends as in his wisdom, fitliest chime\n    With his vast love's eternal harmonies.\n    There is no failure for the good and wise;\n  What though thy seed should fall by the wayside,\n    And the birds snatch it?--Yet the birds are fed;\n  Or they may bear it far across the tide,\n    To give rich harvests after thou art dead.\"\n\n\nMany people die, and see yet no harvest from their life's sowing.  They\ncome to the end of their years, and their hands are empty.  But when\nthey enter heaven they will find that they have really been building\nthere all the while, that the things that have seemed to leave no\nresult on the earth have left glorious results inside the gates of\npearl.\n\n  \"There is no end to the sky,\n    And the stars are everywhere,\n  And time is eternity,\n    And the here is over there;\n  For the common deeds of the common day\n  Are ringing bells in the far away.\"\n\n\nThen even if the work we do does not itself leave any record, the doing\nof it leaves a record--an impression--on our own life.  There is a word\nof Scripture which says, \"He that doeth the will of God abideth\nforever.\"  Doing God's will builds up enduring character in us.  Every\nobedience adds a new touch of beauty to the soul.  Every true thing we\ndo in Christ's name, though it leave no mark anywhere else in God's\nuniverse, leaves an imperishable mark on our own life.  Every deed of\nunselfish kindness that we perform with love for Christ in our heart,\nthough it bless no other soul in all the world, leaves its sure\nbenediction on ourselves.\n\nThousands of years since a leaf fell on the soft clay and seemed to be\nlost.  But last summer a geologist in his ramblings broke off a piece\nof rock with his hammer, and there lay the image of the leaf, with\nevery line, and every vein, and all the delicate tracery, preserved in\nthe stone through these centuries.  So the words we speak, and the\nthings we do for Christ to-day, may seem to be lost, but in the great\nfinal revealing the smallest of them will appear, to the glory of\nChrist and the reward of the doer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nHELPING AND OVER-HELPING.\n\n\n  \"As we meet and touch each day\n  The many travellers on our way,\n  Let every such brief contact be\n  A glorious, helpful ministry;\n  The contact of the soil and seed,\n  Each giving to the other's need,\n  Each helping on the other's best,\n  And blessing each as well as blest.\"\n\n\nEven kindness may be overdone.  One may be too gentle.  Love may hold\nothers back from duty, and thus may wreck destinies.  We need to guard\nagainst meddling with God's discipline, softening the experience that\nhe means to be hard, sheltering our friend from the wind that he\nintends to blow chillingly.  All summer does not make a good zone to\nlive in; we need autumn and winter to temper the heat, and keep\nvegetation from luxuriant overgrowth.  The best thing we can do for\nothers is not always to take their load or do their duty for them.\n\nOf course we are to be helpful to others.  No aim should be put higher\nin our life-plans than that of personal helpfulness.  The motto of the\ntrue Christian cannot be other than that of the Master: \"Not to be\nministered unto, but to minister.\"  Even in the ambition to gather and\nretain wealth, the spirit of the desire must be, if we are Christians\nat all, that thereby we may become more helpful to others; that\nthrough, or by means of, our wealth, we may be enabled to do larger and\ngreater good.  Whatever gift, power, or possession we have that we do\nnot seek to use in this way is not yet truly devoted to God.  Fruit is\nthe test of character, and the purpose of fruit is not to adorn the\ntree or vine, but to feed hunger.  Whatever we are, whatever we have,\nis fruit, and must be held for the feeding of the hunger of others.\nThus personal helpfulness is the aim of all truly consecrated life.  In\nso far as we are living for ourselves, we are not Christians.\n\nThen there are many ways of helping others.  Some people help us in\nmaterial ways.  It is a still higher kind of help which we get from\nthose who minister to our mental needs, who write the books which\ncharm, instruct, and entertain us.  Mind is greater than body.  Bread,\nand clothing, and furniture, and houses will not satisfy our\nintellectual cravings.  There are those, however, who do help us in\nthese loftier ranges.  Music, poetry, and art minister both to our\ngratification and our culture.  Good books bring to us inestimable\nbenefits.  They tell us of new worlds, and inspire us to conquer them.\nThey show us lofty and noble ideals, and stimulate us to attain them.\nThey make us larger, better, stronger.  The help we get from books is\nincalculable.\n\nYet the truest and best help any one can give to others is not in\nmaterial things, but in ways that make them stronger and better.  Money\nis good alms when money is really needed, but in comparison with the\ndivine gifts of hope, friendship, courage, sympathy, and love, it is\npaltry and poor.  Usually the help people need is not so much the\nlightening of their burden, as fresh strength to enable them to bear\ntheir burden, and stand up under it.  The best thing we can do for\nanother, some one has said, is not to make some things easy for him,\nbut to make something of him.\n\nIt is just here that friendship makes most of its mistakes.  It\nover-helps.  It helps by ministering relief, by lifting away loads, by\ngathering hindrances out of the way, when it would help much more\nwisely by seeking to impart hope, strength, energy.  \"Our friends,\"\nsays Emerson, \"are those who make us do what we can.\"  Says another\nwriter: \"Our real friend is not the man or woman who smooths over our\ndifficulties, throws a cloak over our failings, stands between us and\nthe penalties which our mistakes have brought upon us, but the man or\nwoman who makes us understand ourselves, and helps us to better\nthings.\"  Love is weak, and too often pampers and flatters.  It thinks\nthat loyalty requires it to make life easy as possible for the beloved\none.\n\nToo often our friendship is most short-sighted in this regard, and most\nhurtful to those we fervently desire to aid.  We should never indulge\nor encourage weakness in others when we can in any way stimulate it\ninto strength.  We should never do anything for another which we can\ninspire him to do for himself.  Much parental affection errs at this\npoint.  Life is made too easy for children.  They are sheltered when it\nwere better if they faced the storm.  They are saved from toil and\nexertion, when toil and exertion are God's ordained means of grace for\nthem, of which the parents rob them in their over-tenderness.  There\nare children who are wronged by the cruelty and inhumanity of parents,\nand whose cries to heaven make the throne of the Eternal rock and sway;\nbut there are children, also, who are wronged of much that is noblest\nand best in their inheritance by the over-kindness of parents.\n\nIn every warm friendship, too, there is strong temptation to make the\nsame mistake.  We have to be ever on our guard against over-helping.\nOur aim should always be to inspire in our friend new energy, to\ndevelop in him the noblest strength, to bring out his best manhood.\nOver-helping defeats these offices of friendship.\n\nThere is one particular point at which a special word of caution may\nwell be spoken.  We need to guard our sympathies when we would comfort\nand help those who are suffering or are in trouble of any kind.  It may\nseem a severe thing to say, but illness is ofttimes made worse by the\npity of friends.  There is in weak natures a tendency to indulge\nsickness, to exaggerate its symptoms, to imagine that it is more\nserious than it really is, and easily to succumb to its influence.  You\nfind your friend indisposed, and you are profuse in your expressions of\nsympathy, encouraging or suggesting fears, urging prompt medical help.\nYou think you have shown kindness, but very likely you have done sore\ninjury.  You have left a depressing influence behind you.  Your friend\nis disheartened and alarmed.  You have left him weaker, not stronger.\n\nIt may seem hard-hearted to appear to be unsympathetic with invalids,\nand those who are slightly or even seriously sick; not to take interest\nin their complaints; not to say commiserating things to them; but\nreally it is the part of true friendship to help sick people fight the\nbattle with their ills.  We ought, therefore, to guard against speaking\nany word which will discourage them, increase their fear, exaggerate\ntheir thought of their illness, or weaken them in their struggle.  On\nthe other hand, we ought to say words which will cheer and strengthen\nthem, and make them braver for the fight.  Our duty is to help them to\nget well.\n\nPerhaps the very medicine they need is a glimpse of cheerful outlook.\nSick people ofttimes fall into a mood of disheartenment and self-pity\nwhich seriously retards their recovery.  To sit down beside them then,\nand fall into their gloomy spirit, listening sympathetically to their\ndiscouraged words, is to do them sore unkindness.  The true office of\nfriendship in such cases is to drive away the discouragement, and put\nhope and courage into the sore heart.  We must try to make our sick\nfriend braver to endure his sufferings.\n\nThen, even in the sacredness of sorrow, we should never forget that our\nmission to others is not merely to weep with them, but to help them to\nbe victorious, to receive their sorrow as a messenger from God, and to\nbear themselves as God's children under it.  Instead, therefore, of\nmere emotional condolence with our friends in their times of grief, we\nshould seek to present to them the strong comforts of divine love, and\nto inspire them to the bearing of their sorrow in faith and hope and\njoy.\n\nSo all personal helpfulness should be wise and thoughtful.  It should\nnever tend to pamper weakness, to encourage dependence, to make people\ntimid, to debilitate manliness and womanliness, to make parasites of\nthose who turn to us with their burdens and needs.  We must take care\nthat our helping does not dwarf any life which we ought rather to\nstimulate to noble and beautiful growth.  God never makes such mistakes\nas this.  He never fails us in need, but he loves us too well and is\ntoo wise to relieve us of weights which we need to make our growth\nhealthful and vigorous.  We should learn from God, and should help as\nhe helps, without over-helping.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nTHE ONLY ONE.\n\n\n  \"Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down--\n  One man against a stone walled city of sin.\n  *    *    *    *    *    *\n  When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier\n  Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars.\"\n          --E. R. SILL.\n\n\nThere are a great many people in this world--hundreds of millions,\ntables of population foot up.  Yet in a sense each one of us is the\nonly one.  Each individual life has relations of its own in which it\nmust stand alone, and into which no other life can come.\nCompanionships may be close, and they may give much comfort and\ninspiration, but in all the inner meaning of life each individual lives\napart and alone.  No one can live your life for you.  No one but\nyourself can answer your questions, meet your responsibilities, make\nyour decisions and choices.  Your relations with God no one but\nyourself can fulfil.  No one can believe for you.  A thousand friends\nmay encircle you and pray for your soul, but until you lift up your own\nheart in prayer no communication is established between you and God.\nNo one can get your sins forgiven but yourself.  No one can obey God\nfor you.  No other one can do your work for Christ, or render your\naccount at the judgment-seat.\n\nIn the realm of experience also the same is true.  Each person suffers\nalone, as if there were no other being in the universe.  Friends may\nstand by us in our hours of pain or sorrow, and may sympathize with us\nor administer comfort or alleviation, but they enter not really into\nthe experiences.  In these we are alone.  No one can meet your\ntemptations for you, or fight your battles, or endure your trials.  The\ntenderest friendship, the holiest love, cannot enter into the\nsolitariness in which each one of us lives apart.\n\n  \"Still in each heart of hearts a hidden deep\n  Lies, never fathomed by its dearest, best.\"\n\n\nThis aloneness of life sometimes becomes very real in consciousness.\nAll great souls experience it as they rise out of and above the common\nmass of men in their thoughts and hopes and aspirations, as the\nmountains rise from the level of the vale and little hills.  All great\nleaders of men ofttimes must stand alone, as they move in advance of\nthe ranks of their followers.  The battles of truth and of progress\nhave usually been fought by lonely souls.  Elijah, for example, in a\nseason of disheartenment and despondency, gave it as part of the\nexceptional burden of his life that he was the only one in the field\nfor God.  It is so in all great epochs; God calls one man to stand for\nhim.  As Robert Browning says:--\n\n        \"In life exceptional,\n  When old things terminate and new commence,\n  A solitary great man's worth the world.\n  God takes the business in his own hand\n  At such time.\"\n\n\nBut the experience is not that only of great souls; there come times in\nthe lives of all who are living faithfully and worthily when they must\nstand alone for God, without companionship, perhaps without sympathy or\nencouragement.  Here is a young person, the only one of his family who\nhas confessed Christ.  He takes him as his Saviour, and then stands up\nbefore the world and vows to be his and follow him.  He goes back to\nhis home.  The members of the home circle are very dear to him; but\nnone of them are Christians, and he must stand alone for Christ among\nthem.  Perhaps they oppose him in his discipleship--in varying degrees\nthis ofttimes is the experience.  Perhaps they are only indifferent,\nmaking no opposition, only quietly watching his life to see if it is\nconsistent.  In any case, however, he must stand for Christ alone,\nwithout the help that comes from companionship.\n\nOr it may be in the workshop or in the school that the young Christian\nmust stand alone.  He returns from the Lord's Table to his week-day\nduties, full of noble impulses, but finds himself the only Christian in\nthe place where his duty leads him.  His companions are ready to sneer,\nand they point the finger of scorn at him, with irritating epithets.\nOr they even persecute him in petty ways.  At least they are not\nChrist's friends, and he, as follower of the Master, finds no sympathy\namong them in his new life.  He must stand alone in his discipleship,\nconscious all the while that unfriendly eyes are upon him.  Many a\nyoung or older Christian finds it very hard to be the only one to stand\nfor Christ in the circle in which his daily work fixes his place.\n\nThis aloneness puts upon one a great responsibility.  For example, you\nare the only Christian in your home.  You are the only witness Christ\nhas in your house, the only one through whom to reveal his love, his\ngrace, his holiness.  You are the only one to represent Christ in your\nfamily, to show there the beauty of Christ, the sweetness and\ngentleness of Christ, to do there the works of Christ, the things he\nwould do if he lived in your home.  Perhaps the salvation of all the\nsouls of your family depends upon your being true and faithful in your\nown place.  If you falter in your loyalty, if you fail in your duty,\nyour loved ones may be lost and the blame will be yours; their blood\nwill be upon you.\n\nIn like manner, if you are the only Christian in the shop, the store,\nor the office where you work, a peculiar responsibility rests upon you,\na responsibility which no other one shares with you.  You are Christ's\nonly witness in your place.  If you do not testify there for him, there\nis no other one who will do it.  Miss Havergal tells of her experience\nin the girls' school at Dusseldorf.  She went there soon after she had\nbecome a Christian and had confessed Christ.  Her heart was very warm\nwith love for her Saviour and she was eager to speak for him.  To her\namazement, however, she soon learned that among the hundred girls in\nthe school, she was the only Christian.  Her first thought was one of\ndismay--she could not confess Christ in that great company of worldly,\nun-Christian companions.  Her gentle, sensitive heart shrank from a\nduty so hard.  Her second thought, however, was that she could not\nrefrain from confessing Christ.  She was the only one Christ had there\nand she must be faithful.  \"This was very bracing,\" she writes.  \"I\nfelt I must try to walk worthy of my calling for Christ's sake.  It\nbrought a new and strong desire to bear witness for my Master.  It made\nme more watchful and earnest than ever before, for I knew that any slip\nin word or deed would bring discredit on my Master.\"  She realized that\nshe had a mission in that school, that she was Christ's witness there,\nhis only witness, and that she dare not fail.\n\nThis same sense of responsibility rests upon every thoughtful Christian\nwho is called to be Christ's only witness in a place--in a home, in a\ncommunity, in a store, or school, or shop, or social circle.  He is\nChrist's only servant there, and he dare not be unfaithful, else the\nwhole work of Christ in that place may fail.  He is the one light set\nto shine there for his Master, and if his light be hidden, the darkness\nwill be unrelieved.  So there is special inspiration in this\nconsciousness of being the only one Christ has in a certain place.\n\nThere is a sense in which this is true also of every one of us all the\ntime.  We really are always the only one Christ has at the particular\nplace at which we stand.  There may be thousands of other lives about\nus.  We may be only one of a great company, of a large congregation, of\na populous community.  Yet each one of us has a life that is alone in\nits responsibility, in its danger, in its mission and duty.  There may\nbe a hundred others close beside me, but not one of them can take my\nplace, or do my duty, or fulfil my mission, or bear my responsibility.\nThough every one of the other hundred do his work, and do it perfectly,\nmy work waits for me, and if I do not do it, it never will be done.\n\nWe can understand how that if the great prophet had failed God that day\nwhen he was the only one God had to stand for him, the consequences\nwould have been most disastrous; the cause of God would have suffered\nirreparably.  But are we sure that the calamity to Christ's kingdom\nwould be any less if one of us should fail God in our lowly place any\ncommon day?\n\nStories are told of a child finding a little leak in the dike that\nshuts off the sea from Holland, and stopping it with his hand till help\ncould come, staying there all the night, holding back the floods with\nhis little hand.  It was but a tiny, trickling stream that he held\nback; yet if he had not done it, it would soon have become a torrent,\nand before morning the sea would have swept over the land, submerging\nfields, homes, and cities.  Between the sea and all this devastation\nthere was but a boy's hand.  Had the child failed, the floods would\nhave rolled in with their remorseless ruin.  We understand how\nimportant it was that that boy should be faithful to his duty, since he\nwas the only one God had that night to save Holland.\n\nBut do you know that your life may not stand any day, and be all that\nstands, between some great flood of moral ruin and broad, fair fields\nof beauty?  Do you know that your failure in your lowly place and duty\nmay not let in a sea of disaster which shall sweep away human hopes and\njoys and human souls?  The humblest of us dare not fail, for our one\nlife is all God has at the point where we stand.\n\nThis truth of personal responsibility is one of tremendous moment.  We\ndo not escape it by being in a crowd, one of a family, one of a\ncommunity.  No one but ourself can live our life, do our work, meet our\nobligation, bear our burden.  No one but ourself can stand for us\nbefore God to render an account of our deeds.  In the deepest, realest\nsense each one of us lives alone.\n\nThere is another phase of this subject, however, which should not be\noverlooked.  While we must stand alone in our place and be faithful to\nour trust, our responsibility reaches only to our own duty.  Others\nbeside us have their part also to do, and the perfection of the whole\nwork depends upon their faithfulness as well as upon ours.  The best\nany of us can do in this world is but a fragment.  The old prophet\nthought his work had failed because Baalism was not yet entirely\ndestroyed.  Then he was told of three other men, who would come after\nhim--two kings and then another prophet, who each in turn would do his\npart, when at last the destruction of the great alien idolatry would be\ncomplete.  Elijah's faithfulness had not failed, but his achievement\nwas only a fragment of the whole work.\n\nThis is very suggestive and very comforting.  We are not responsible\nfor finishing everything we begin.  It may be our part only to begin\nit; the carrying on and finishing of it may be the work of others whom\nwe do not know, of others perhaps not yet born.  We all enter into the\nwork of those who have gone before us, and others who come after us\nshall in turn enter into our work.  Our duty simply is to do well and\nfaithfully our own little part.  If we do this we need never fret\nourselves about the part we cannot do.  That is not our work at all,\nbut belongs to some other worker, waiting now, perchance, in some\nobscure place, who at the right time will come forward with new heart\nand skilful hand, anointed by God for his task.\n\nMr. Sill illustrates this truth in one of his poems, where, speaking of\nthe young, \"led on by courage and immortal hope, and with the morning\nin their hearts,\" he says:--\n\n  \"They to the disappointed earth shall give\n  The lives we meant to live,\n  Beautiful, free, and strong;\n  The light we almost had\n  Shall make them glad;\n  The words we waited long\n  Shall run in music from their voice and song.\"\n\n\nMr. Whittier also suggests the same truth:--\n\n  \"Others shall sing the song,\n  Others shall right the wrong,\n  Finish what I begin,\n  And all I fail of win.\n\n  \"What matter I or they,\n  Mine or another's day,\n  So the right word be said\n  And life the sweeter made?\"\n\n\nSo while we are alone in our responsibility we need give no thought for\nanything but our own duty, our own little fragment of the Lord's work.\nThe things we cannot do some other one is waiting and preparing now to\ndo after the work has passed from our hand.  There is comfort in this\nfor any who fail in their efforts, and must leave tasks unfinished\nwhich they hoped to complete.  The finishing is another's mission.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nSWIFTNESS IN DUTY.\n\n\n  \"Life is a leaf of paper white,\n  Whereon each one of us may write\n  His word or two--and then comes night.\"\n          --LOWELL.\n\n\nMany good people are very slow.  They do their work well enough,\nperhaps, but so leisurely that they accomplish in their brief time only\na fraction of what they might accomplish.  They lose, in aimless\nloitering, whole golden hours which they ought to fill with quick\nactivities.  They seem to have no true appreciation of the value of\ntime, or of their own accountability for its precious moments.  They\nlive conscientiously, it may be, but they have no strong constraining\nsense of duty impelling them to ever larger and fuller achievement.\nThey have a work to do, but there is no hurry for it; there is plenty\nof time in which to do it.\n\nIt is quite safe to say that the majority of people do not get into\ntheir life half the achievement that was possible to them when they\nbegan to live, simply because they have never learned to work swiftly,\nand under pressure of great motives.\n\nThere can be no doubt that we are required to make the most possible of\nour life.  Mr. Longfellow once gave to his pupils, as a motto, this:\n\"Live up to the best that is in you.\"  To do this, we must not only\ndevelop our talents to the utmost power and capacity of which they are\nsusceptible, but we must also use these talents to the accomplishment\nof the largest and best results they are capable of producing.  In\norder to reach this standard, we must never lose a day, nor even an\nhour, and we must put into every day and every hour all that is\npossible of activity and usefulness.\n\nDreaming through days and years, however brilliantly one may dream, can\nnever satisfy the demands of the responsibility which inheres\nessentially in every soul that is born into the world.  Life means\nduty, toil, work.  There is something divinely allotted to each hour,\nand the hour one loiters remains forever an unfilled blank.  We can\nideally fulfil our mission only by living up always to the best that is\nin us, and by doing every day the very most that we can do.\n\n  \"So here hath been dawning another blue day;\n  Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?\n  Out of eternity this new day is born;\n  Into eternity at night will return.\"\n\n\nWe turn over to our Lord for example, since his was the one life in all\nthe ages that reached the divine thought, and filled out the divine\npattern; and wherever we see him, we find him intent on doing the will\nof his Father, not losing a moment, nor loitering at any task.  We see\nhim ever hastening from place to place, from ministry to ministry, from\nbaptism to temptation, from teaching to healing, from miracle-working\nto solitary prayer.  His feet never loitered.  He lost no moments; he\nseems indeed to have crowded the common work of years into a few short,\nintense hours.  He is painted for us as a man continually under the\nstrongest pressure, with a work to do which he was eager to accomplish\nin the shortest possible time.  He was always calm, never in nervous\nhaste, yet ever quietly moving with resistless energy on his holy\nerrand.\n\nWe ought to catch our Master's spirit in this celerity in the Father's\nbusiness.  Time is short and duty is large.  There is not a moment to\nlose, if, in our allotted period, we would finish the work that is\ngiven us to do.  We need to get our Lord's \"straightway\" into our life,\nso that we shall hasten from duty to duty, without pause or idle\nlingering.  We need to get into our heart a consciousness of being ever\non the Master's errands, that shall be within us a mighty compulsion,\ndriving us always to duty.\n\nNaturally we are indolent, and fond of ease and self indulgence.  We\nneed to be carried out of and beyond ourselves.  There is no motive\nstrong enough to do this but love to God and to our fellow-men.\nSupreme love to God makes us desire to do with alacrity everything he\ncommands.  Love to our fellow-men draws us to all service of sympathy\nand beneficence for them, regardless of cost.  Constrained by such\nmotives, we shall never become laggards in duty.\n\nSwiftness or slowness in duty is very much a matter of habit.  As one\nis trained in early life, one is quite sure to continue in mature\nyears.  A loitering child will become a loitering man or woman.  The\nhabit grows, as all habits do.\n\n  \"Lose this day loitering, 'twill be the same story\n  To-morrow, and the next more dilatory;\n  The indecision brings its own delays,\n  And days are lost, lamenting o'er lost days.\n\n  \"Are you in earnest?  Seize this very minute.\n  What you can do, and think you can, begin it.\n  Boldness has genius, power, magic in it.\n  Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;\n  Begin it, and the work will be completed.\"\n\n\nMany people lose in the aggregate whole years of time out of their\nlives for want of system.  They make no plan for their days.  They let\nduties mingle in inextricable confusion.  They are always in feverish\nhaste.  They talk continually of being overwhelmed with work, of the\ngreat pressure that is upon them, of being driven beyond measure.  They\nalways have the air of men who have scarcely time to eat or sleep.  And\nthere is nothing feigned in all their intense occupation.  They really\nare hurried men.  Yet in the end they accomplish but little in\ncomparison with their great activity, because they work without order,\nand always feverishly and nervously.  Swiftness in accomplishment is\nalways calm and quiet.  It plans well, suffering no confusion in tasks.\nHurried haste is always flurried haste, which does nothing well.\n\"Unhasting yet unresting\" is the motto of quick and abundant\nachievement.\n\n  \"'Without haste! without rest!'\n    Bind the motto to thy breast;\n  Bear it with thee as a spell;\n    Storm or sunshine, guard it well;\n  Heed not flowers that round thee bloom,\n    Bear it onward to the tomb.\n\n  \"Haste not! let no thoughtless deed\n    Mar for aye the spirit's speed;\n  Ponder well and know the right;\n    Onward then with all thy might;\n  Haste not; years can ne'er atone\n    For one reckless action done.\n\n  \"Rest not! life is sweeping by,\n    Do and dare before you die;\n  Something mighty and sublime\n    Leave behind to conquer time;\n  Glorious 'tis to live for aye\n    When these forms have passed away.\n\n  \"Haste not! rest not! calmly wait;\n    Meekly bear the storm of fate;\n  Duty be thy polar guide;\n    Do the right whate'er betide.\n  Haste not! rest not!  Conflicts past,\n    God shall crown thy work at last.\"\n\n\nThere is another phase of the lesson.  Not swiftness only, but patient\npersistence through days and years, is the mark of true living.  There\nare many people who can work under pressure for a little time, but who\ntire of the monotony and slack in their duty by and by, failing at last\nbecause they cannot endure unto the end.  There are people who begin\nmany noble things, but soon weary of them and drop them out of their\nhands.  They may pass for brilliant men, men even of genius, but in the\nend they have for biography only a volume of fragments of chapters, not\none of them finished.  Such men may attract a great deal of passing\nattention, while the tireless plodders working beside them receive no\npraise, no commendation; but in the real records of life, written in\nabiding lines in God's Book, it is the latter who will shine in the\nbrightest splendor.  Robert Browning puts this truth in striking way in\none of his poems:--\n\n          \"Now, observe,\n  Sustaining is no brilliant self-display\n  Like knocking down or even setting up:\n  Much bustle these necessitate; and still\n  To vulgar eye, the mightier of the myth\n  Is Hercules, who substitutes his own\n  For Atlas' shoulder and supports the globe\n  A whole day,--not the passive and obscure\n  Atlas who bore, ere Hercules was born,\n  And is to go on bearing that same load\n  When Hercules turns ash on Oeta's top.\n  'Tis the transition-stage, the tug and strain,\n  That strike men: standing still is stupid-like.\"\n\n\nSo we get our lesson.  There is so much to do in the short days that we\ndare not lose a moment.  Life is so laden with responsibility that to\ntrifle at any point is sin.  Even on the seizing of minutes eternal\nissues may depend.  Of course we must take needed rest to keep our\nlives in condition for duty.  But what shall we say of those strong men\nand women who do almost nothing but rest?  What shall we say of those\nwho live only to have amusement, who dance away their nights and then\nsleep away their days, and thus hurry on toward the judgment-bar, doing\nnothing for God or for man?  Life is duty; every moment of it has its\nown duty.  There is no malfeasance so sad and so terrible in its\npenalties as that which wastes the golden years in idleness or\npleasure, and leaves duty undone.\n\nShall we not seek to crowd the days with most earnest living?  Shall we\nnot learn to redeem the time from indolence, from loitering, from\nunmethodicalness, from the waste of precious moments, from\nself-indulgence, from impatience of persistent toil, from all that\nlessens achievement?  Shall we not learn to work swiftly for our Master?\n\n  \"You must live each day at your very best:\n  The work of the world is done by few;\n  God asks that a part be done by you.\n\n  \"Say oft of the years as they pass from sight,\n  'This is life with its golden store:\n  I shall have it once, but it comes no more.'\n\n  \"Have a purpose, and do with your utmost might:\n  You will finish your work on the other side,\n  When you wake in his likeness, satisfied.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTHE SHADOWS WE CAST.\n\n\n  \"The smallest bark on life's tumultuous ocean\n    Will leave a track behind for evermore;\n  The slightest wave of influence set in motion\n    Extends and widens to the eternal shore.\"\n\n\nEvery one of us casts a shadow.  There hangs about us a sort of\npenumbra,--a strange, indefinable something,--which we call personal\ninfluence, which has its effect on every other life on which it falls.\nIt goes with us wherever we go.  It is not something we can have when\nwe want to have it, and then lay aside when we will, as we lay aside a\ngarment.  It is something that always pours out from our life, like\nlight from a lamp, like heat from flame, like perfume from a flower.\n\nNo one can live, and not have influence.  Says Elihu Burritt: \"No human\nbeing can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the\nsum total of human happiness, not only of the present, but of every\nsubsequent age of humanity.  No one can detach himself from this\nconnection.  There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark\nniche along the disk of non-existence, to which he can retreat from his\nrelations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his\nexistence upon the moral destiny of the world; everywhere his presence\nor absence will be felt, everywhere he will have companions who will be\nbetter or worse for his influence.\"  These are true words.  To be at\nall is to have influence, either for good or evil, over other lives.\n\nThe ministry of personal influence is something very wonderful.\nWithout being conscious of it, we are always impressing others by this\nstrange power that goes out from us.  Others watch us and their actions\nare modified by ours.  Many a life has been started on a career of\nbeauty and blessing by the influence of one noble act.  The disciples\nsaw their Master praying, and were so impressed by his earnestness, or\nby the radiancy they saw on his face, as he communed with his Father,\nthat when he joined them again they asked him to teach them how to\npray.  Every true soul is impressed continually by the glimpses it has\nof loveliness, of holiness, or of nobleness in others.\n\nOne kind deed often inspires many kindnesses.  Here is a story from a\nnewspaper of the other day, which illustrates this.  A little newsboy\nentered a car on the elevated railway train, and slipping into a\ncross-seat, was soon asleep.  Presently two young ladies came in, and\ntook seats opposite to him.  The child's feet were bare, his clothes\nwere ragged, and his face was pinched and drawn, showing marks of\nhunger and suffering.  The young ladies noticed him, and, seeing that\nhis cheek rested against the hard window-sill, one of them arose, and\nquietly raising his head, slipped her muff under it for a pillow.\n\nThe kind act was observed, and now mark its influence.  An old\ngentleman in the next seat, without a word, held out a silver quarter\nto the young lady, nodding toward the boy.  After a moment's\nhesitation, she took it, and as she did so, another man handed her a\ndime, a woman across the aisle held out some pennies, and almost before\nthe young woman realized what she was doing, she was taking a\ncollection for the poor boy.  Thus from the one little act there had\ngone out a wave of influence touching the hearts of two score people,\nand leading each of them to do something.\n\nCommon life is full of just such illustrations of the influence of\nkindly deeds.  Every good life leaves in the world a twofold ministry,\nthat of the things it does directly to bless others, and that of the\nsilent influence it exerts, through which others are made better, or\nare inspired to do like good things.\n\nInfluence is something, too, which even death does not end.  When\nearthly life closes, a good man's active work ceases.  He is missed in\nthe places where his familiar presence has brought benedictions.  No\nmore are his words heard by those who ofttimes have been cheered or\ncomforted by them.  No more do his benefactions find their way to homes\nof need where so many times they have brought relief.  No more does his\ngentle friendship minister strength and hope and courage to hearts that\nhave learned to love him.  The death of a good man, in the midst of his\nusefulness, cuts off a blessed ministry of helpfulness in the circle in\nwhich he has dwelt.  But his influence continues.  Longfellow writes:--\n\n  \"Alike are life and death\n    When life in death survives,\n  And the uninterrupted breath\n    Inspires a thousand lives.\n\n  \"Were a star quenched on high,\n    For ages would its light,\n  Still travelling downward from the sky,\n    Shine on our mortal sight.\n\n  \"So when a great man dies,\n    For years beyond our ken\n  The light he leaves behind him lies\n    Upon the paths of men.\"\n\n\nThe influence which our dead have over us is ofttimes very great.  We\nthink we have lost them when we see their faces no more, nor hear their\nvoices, nor receive the accustomed kindnesses at their hands.  But in\nmany cases there is no doubt that what our loved ones do for us after\nthey are gone is quite as important as what they could have done for us\nhad they stayed with us.  The memory of beautiful lives is a\nbenediction, softened and made more rich and impressive by the sorrow\nwhich their departure caused.  The influence of such sacred memories is\nin a certain sense more tender than that of life itself.  Death\ntransfigures our loved one, as it were, sweeping away the faults and\nblemishes of the mortal life, and leaving us an abiding vision, in\nwhich all that was beautiful, pure, gentle, and true in him remains to\nus.  We often lose friends in the competitions and strifes of earthly\nlife, whom we would have kept forever had death taken them away in the\nearlier days when love was strong.  Often is it true, as Cardinal\nNewman writes:--\n\n  \"He lives to us who dies; he is but lost who lives.\"\n\n\nThus even death doth not quench the influence of a good life.  It\ncontinues to bless others long after the life has passed from earth.\nIt is true, as Mrs. Sangster writes:--\n\n  \"They never quite leave us, our friends who have passed\n    Through the shadows of death to the sunlight above;\n  A thousand sweet memories are holding them fast\n    To the places they blessed with their presence and love.\n\n  \"The work which they left and the books which they read\n    Speak mutely, though still with an eloquence rare,\n  And the songs that they sung, and the dear words that they said\n    Yet linger and sigh on the desolate air.\n\n  \"And oft when alone, and oft in the throng,\n    Or when evil allures us, or sin draweth nigh,\n  A whisper comes gently, 'Nay, do not the wrong,'\n    And we feel that our weakness is pitied on high.\"\n\n\nIt must be remembered that not all influence is good.  Evil deeds also\nhave influence.  Bad men live, too, after they are gone.  Cried a dying\nman whose life had been full of harm to others: \"Gather up my\ninfluence, and bury it with me in my grave.\"  But the frantic,\nremorseful wish was in vain.  The man went out of the world, but his\ninfluence stayed behind him, its poison to work for ages in the lives\nof others.\n\nWe need, therefore, to guard our influence with most conscientious\ncare.  It is a crime to fling into the street an infected garment which\nmay carry contagion to men's homes.  It is a worse crime to send out a\nprinted page bearing words infected with the virus of moral death.  The\nmen who prepare and publish the vile literature which to-day goes\neverywhere, polluting and defiling innocent lives, will have a fearful\naccount to render when they stand at God's bar to meet their influence.\nIf we would make our lives worthy of God, and a blessing to the world,\nwe must see to it that nothing we do shall influence others in the\nslightest degree to evil.\n\nIn the early days of American art there went from this country to\nLondon a young artist of genius and of a pure heart.  He was poor, but\nhad an aspiration for noble living as well as for fine painting.  Among\nhis pictures was one that in itself was pure, but that by a sensuous\nmind might be interpreted in an evil way.  A lover of art saw this\npicture and purchased it.  But when it was gone the young artist began\nto think of its possible hurtful influence on the weak, and his\nconscience troubled him.  He went to his patron and said, \"I have come\nto buy back my picture.\"  The purchaser could not understand him.\n\"Didn't I pay you enough for it?  Do you need money?\" he asked.  \"I am\npoor,\" replied the artist, \"but my art is my life.  Its mission must be\ngood.  The influence of that picture may possibly be harmful.  I cannot\nbe happy with it before the eyes of the world.  It must be withdrawn.\"\n\nWe should keep watch not only over our words and deeds in their intent\nand purpose, but also in their possible influence over others.  There\nmay be liberties which in us lead to no danger, but which to others,\nwith less stable character and less helpful environment, would be full\nof peril.  It is part of our duty to think of these weaker ones and of\nthe influence of our example upon them.  We may not do anything, in our\nstrength and security, which might possibly harm others.  We must be\nwilling to sacrifice our liberty, if by its exercise we endanger\nanother's soul.  This is the teaching of St. Paul in the words: \"It is\ngood not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby\nthy brother stumbleth\"; and \"If meat maketh my brother to stumble, I\nwill eat no flesh for evermore, that I make not my brother to stumble.\"\n\nHow can we make sure of an influence that shall be only a benediction?\nThere is no way but by making our life pure and good.  Just in the\nmeasure in which we are filled with the Spirit of God and have the love\nof Christ in us, shall our influence be holy and a blessing to the\nworld.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nTHE MEANING OF OPPORTUNITIES.\n\n\n  \"'To-day' unsullied comes to thee--newborn,\n    To-morrow is not thine;\n    The sun may cease to shine\n  For thee, ere earth shall greet its morn.\n\n  \"Be earnest, then, in thought and deed,\n    Nor fear approaching night;\n    Calm comes with evening light,\n  And hope and peace.  Thy duty heed 'to-day.'\"\n          --RUSKIN.\n\n\nIf people's first thoughts were but as good and wise as their\nafter-thoughts, life would be better and more beautiful than it is.  We\ncan all see our errors more clearly after we have committed them than\nwe saw them before.  We frequently hear persons utter the wish that\nthey could go again over a certain period of their life, saying that\nthey would live it differently, that they would not repeat the mistakes\nor follies which had so marred and stained the record they had made.\n\nOf course the wish that one might have a second chance with any past\nperiod of time is altogether vain.  No doubt there ofttimes is much\nreason for shame and pain in our retrospects.  We live poorly enough at\nthe best, even the saintliest of us, and many of us certainly make sad\nwork of our life.  Human life must appear very pathetic, and ofttimes\ntragical, as the angels look down upon it.  There are almost infinitely\nfewer wrecks on the great sea where the ships go, than on that other\nsea of which poets write, where lives with their freightage of immortal\nhopes and possibilities sail on to their destiny.  We talk sometimes\nwith wonder of what the ocean contains, of the treasures that lie\nburied far down beneath the waves.  But who shall tell of the treasures\nthat are hidden in the deeper, darker sea of human life, where they\nhave gone down in the sad hours of defeat and failure?\n\n  \"In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships,\n    While gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell,\n    Lie nestled in the ocean-flowers' bell\n  With love's gemmed rings once kissed by now dead lips;\n  And round some wrought-gold cup the sea-grass whips,\n    And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell\n    Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell,\n  And seek dim sunlight with their countless tips.\n\n  \"So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes,\n    Beneath the now hushed surface of myself.\n  In lonelier depths than where the river gropes,\n  They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold,\n    In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf,\n  The gleam of irrecoverable gold.\"\n\n\nGlimpses of these lost things--these squandered treasures, these wasted\npossibilities, these pearls and gems of life that have gone down into\nthe sea of our past--we may have when the reefs are left bare by the\nrefluent tides, but glimpses only can we see.  We cannot recover our\ntreasures.  The gleams only mock us.  The past will not give again its\ngold and pearls to any frantic appealing of ours.\n\nThere is something truly startling in this irreparableness of the past,\nthis irrevocableness of the losses which we have suffered through our\nfollies or our sins.  About two centuries ago a great sun-dial was\nerected in All Souls' College, Oxford, England, the largest and noblest\ndial, it is said, in the whole kingdom.  Over the long pointer were\nwritten, in large letters of gold, the Latin words, referring to the\nhours, \"_Pereunt et imputantur_.\"  Literally, the meaning is, \"They\nperish, and are set down to our account\"; or, as they have been\nrendered in terser phrase, \"They are wasted, and are added to our debt.\"\n\nIt is said that these words on the dial have exerted a wonderful\ninfluence on the boyhood of many of the distinguished men who have\nreceived their training at Oxford, stimulating them to the most\nconscientious use of the golden hours as they passed, and bearing fruit\nin long lives of earnestness and faithfulness.  The lesson is one that\nevery young person should learn.  In youth the hours are full of\nprivileges.  They come like angels, holding in their hands rich\ntreasures, sent to us from God, which they offer to us; and if we are\nlaggard or indolent, or if we are too intent on our own little trifles\nto give welcome to these heavenly messengers with their heavenly gifts,\nthey quickly pass on and are gone.  And they never come back again to\nrenew the offer.\n\nOn the dial of a clock in the palace of Napoleon at Malmaison, the\nmaker has put, the words, \"_Non nescit reverti_\"; \"It does not know how\nto go backward.\"  It is so of the great clock of Time--it never can be\nturned backward.  The moments come to us but once; whatever we do with\nthem we must do as they pass, for they will never come to us again.\n\nThen privilege makes responsibility.  We shall have to give account to\nGod for all that he sends to us by the mystic hands of the passing\nhours, and which we refuse or neglect to receive.  \"They are wasted and\nare added to our debt.\"\n\nThe real problem of living, therefore, is how to take what the hours\nbring.  He who does this, will live nobly and faithfully, and will\nfulfil God's plan for his life.  The difference in men is not in the\nopportunities that come to them, but in their use of their\nopportunities.  Many people who fail to make much of their life charge\ntheir failure to the lack of opportunities.  They look at one who is\ncontinually doing good and beautiful things, or great and noble things,\nand think that he is specially favored, that the chances which come to\nhim for such things are exceptional.  Really, however, it is in his\ncapacity for seeing and accepting what the hours bring of duty or\nprivilege, that his success lies.  Where other men see nothing, he sees\na battle to fight, a duty to perform, a service to render, or an honor\nto win.  Many a man waits long for opportunities, wondering why they\nnever come to him, when really they have been passing by him day after\nday, unrecognized and unaccepted.\n\nThere is a legend of an artist, who long sought for a piece of\nsandal-wood out of which to carve a Madonna.  At last he was about to\ngive up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in\na dream he was bidden to shape the figure from a block of oak-wood,\nwhich was destined for the fire.  Obeying the command, he produced from\nthe log of common firewood a masterpiece.\n\nIn like manner many people wait for great and brilliant opportunities\nfor doing the good things, the beautiful things, of which they dream,\nwhile through all the plain, common days, the very opportunities they\nrequire for such deeds lie close to them, in the simplest and most\nfamiliar passing events, and in the homeliest circumstances.  They wait\nto find sandal-wood out of which to carve Madonnas, while far more\nlovely Madonnas than they dream of, are hidden in the common logs of\noak they burn in their open fire-place, or spurn with their feet in the\nwood-yard.\n\nOpportunities come to all.  The days of every life are full of them.\nBut the trouble with too many of us is that we do not make anything out\nof them while we have them.  Then next moment they are gone.  One man\ngoes through life sighing for opportunities.  If only he had this or\nthat gift, or place, or position, he would do great things, he says;\nbut with his means, his poor chances, his meagre privileges, his\nuncongenial circumstances, his limitations, he can do nothing worthy of\nhimself.  Then another man comes up close beside him, with like means,\nchances, circumstances, privileges, and he achieves noble results, does\nheroic things, wins for himself honor and renown.  The secret is in the\nman, not in his environment.  Mr. Sill puts this well in his lines:--\n\n  \"This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:\n  There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;\n  And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged\n  A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords\n  Shocked upon swords and shields.  A prince's banner\n  Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.\n  A craven hung along the battle's edge,\n  And thought, 'Had I a sword of keener steel--\n  That blue blade that the king's son bears--but this\n  Blunt thing.'--He snapt and flung it from his hand,\n  And lowering crept away and left the field.\n  Then came the king's son wounded, sore bestead,\n  And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,\n  Hilt buried in the dry and trodden sand,\n  And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout\n  Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,\n  And saved a great cause that heroic day.\"\n\n\nWith the blunt sword, broken now, which the craven had flung away as\nunfit for use, the princely hand won its great victory.  Life is full\nof illustrations of this very experience.  The materials of life which\none man has despised and spurned as unworthy of him, as having in them\nno charmed secret of success, another man is forever picking up out of\nthe dust, and with them achieving noble and brilliant successes.  Men,\nalert and eager, are wanted, men with heroic heart and princely hand,\nto see and use the opportunities that lie everywhere in the most\ncommonplace life.\n\nThere is but one thing to do to get out of life all its possibilities\nof attainment and achievement; we must train ourselves to take what\nevery moment brings to us of privilege and of duty.  Some people worry\nthemselves over the vague wonder as to what the divine plan in life is\nfor them.  They have a feeling that God had some definite purpose in\ncreating them, and that there is something he wants them to do in this\nworld, and they would like to know how they can learn this divine\nthought for their life.  The answer is really very simple.  God is\nready to reveal to us, with unerring definiteness, his plan for our\nlife.  This revealing he makes as we go on, showing us each moment one\nlittle fragment of his purpose.  Says Faber: \"The surest method of\naiming at a knowledge of God's eternal purposes about us is to be found\nin the right use of the present moment.  Each hour comes with some\nlittle fagot of God's will fastened upon its back.\"\n\nWe have nothing to do, therefore, with anything save the privilege and\nduty of the one hour now passing.  This makes the problem of living\nvery simple.  We need not look at our life as a whole, nor even carry\nthe burden of a single year; if we but grasp well the meaning of the\none little fragment of time immediately present, and do instantly all\nthe duty and take all the privilege that the one hour brings, we shall\nthus do that which shall best please God and build up our own life into\ncompleteness.  It ought never to be hard for us to do this.\n\n  \"God broke our years to hours and days, that hour by hour\n        And day by day\n        Just going on a little way,\n        We might be able all along\n        To keep quite strong.\n        Should all the weight of life\n  Be laid across our shoulder, and the future, rife\n  With woe and struggle, meet us face to face\n        At just one place,\n        We could not go,\n        Our feet would stop; and so\n  God lays a little on us every day,\n  And never, I believe, on all the way\n        Will burdens bear so deep,\n  Or pathways lie so threatening and so steep,\n        But we can go, if by God's power\n        We only bear the burden of the hour.\"\n\n\nLiving thus we shall make each hour radiant with the radiancy of duty\nwell done, and radiant hours will make radiant years.  But the missing\nof privileges and the neglecting of duties will leave days and years\nmarred and blemished and make the life at last like a moth-eaten\ngarment.  We must catch the sacred meaning of our opportunities if we\nwould live up to our best.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE SIN OF INGRATITUDE.\n\n\n  \"The sun may shine upon the clod till it is warm,\n    Warm for its own poor darkling self to live.\n  He smites the diamond, and oh, how glows the gem,\n    Chilling itself, irradiant, to give.\n\n  \"The silent soul, that takes but gives not out again,\n    In shining thankfulness, a smile, a tear,\n  Absorbing, makes none other glad, and misses so\n    The purest and the best of love's rich cheer.\"\n        --MARY K. A. STONE.\n\n\nA blessing given ought always to have some return.  It is better to be\na diamond, lighted to shine, than a clod, warmed to be only a dull,\ndark clod.  We all receive numberless favors, but we do not all alike\nmake fitting return.\n\nKrummacher has a pleasant little fable with a suggestion.  When\nZaccheus was old he still dwelt in Jericho, humble and pious before God\nand man.  Every morning at sunrise he went out into the fields for a\nwalk, and he always came back with a calm and happy mind to begin his\nday's work.  His wife wondered where he went in his walks, but he never\nspoke to her of the matter.  One morning she secretly followed him.  He\nwent straight to the tree from which he first saw the Lord.  Hiding\nherself, she watched him to see what he would do.  He took a pitcher,\nand carrying water, he poured it about the tree's roots which were\ngetting dry in the sultry climate.  He pulled up some weeds here and\nthere.  He passed his hand fondly over the old trunk.  Then he looked\nup at the place among the branches where he had sat that day when he\nfirst saw Jesus.  After this he turned away, and with a smile of\ngratitude went back to his home.  His wife afterward referred to the\nmatter and asked him why he took such care of the old tree.  His quiet\nanswer was, \"It was that tree which brought me to him whom my soul\nloveth.\"\n\nThere is no true life without its sacred memorial of special blessing\nor good.  There is something that tells of favor, of deliverance, of\nhelp, of influence, of teaching, of great kindness.  There is some\nspot, some quiet walk, some room, some book, some face, that always\nrecalls sweet memories.  There is something that is precious to us\nbecause in some way it marks a holy place in life's journey.  Most of\nus understand that loving interest of Zaccheus in his old tree, and can\nbelieve the little fancy to be even true.  In what life is there no\nplace that is always kept green in memory, because there a sweet\nblessing was received?\n\nYet there seem to be many who forget their benefits.  There is much\ningratitude in the world.  It may not be so universal as some would\nhave us believe.  There surely are many who carry in their hearts,\nundimmed for long years, the memory of benefits and kindnesses received\nfrom friends, and who never cease to be grateful and to show their\ngratitude.  Wordsworth wrote:--\n\n  \"I've heard of hearts unkind,\n    Kind deeds with coldness still returning;\n  Alas! the gratitude of men\n    Hath left me oftener mourning.\"\n\nHowever, Archdeacon Farrar, referring to these words, says, \"If\nWordsworth found gratitude a common virtue, his experience must have\nbeen exceptional.\"  There certainly are hearts unkind that do return\ncoldness for kind deeds.  There are children who forget the love and\nsacrifices of their parents and repay their countless kindnesses, not\nwith grateful affection, honor, obedience, thoughtfulness, and service,\nbut with disregard, indifference, disobedience, dishonor, sometimes\neven with shameful neglect and unkindness.  There are those who receive\nhelp from friends in unnumbered ways, through years, help that brings\nto them great aid in life--promotion, advancement, improvement in\ncharacter, widening of privileges and opportunities, tender kindness\nthat warms, blesses, and inspires the heart, and enriches, refines, and\nennobles the life--who yet seem never to recognize or appreciate the\nbenefit and the good they receive.  They appear to feel no obligation,\nno thankfulness.  They make no return of love for all of love's\nministry.  They even repay it with complaint, with criticism, with\nbitterness.  We have all known years of continued favors forgotten, and\ntheir memory wiped out by one small failure to grant a new request for\nhelp.  We have all known malignant hate to be the return for long\nperiods of lavish kindness.\n\nIngratitude is robbery.  It robs those to whom gratitude is due, for it\nis the withholding of that which is justly theirs.  If you are kind to\nanother, is he not your debtor?  If you show another favors, does not\nhe owe you thanks?  True, you ask no return, for love does not work for\nwages.  Only selfishness demands repayment for help given, and is\nembittered by ingratitude.  The Christly spirit continues to give and\nbless, pouring out its love in unstinted measure, though no act or word\nor look tells of gratitude.\n\n  \"If thy true service mounted, in its aim,\n    No higher than the praise that men bestow\n  On noble sacrifice, there might be shame\n    That thou hast missed it so.\n\n  \"But not for selfish gain or low reward,\n    Didst thou so labor under shade and sun;\n  But with the conscious sense that for thy Lord\n    This weary work was done.\n\n  \"He asked no thanks, no recognition nigh,\n    No tender acceptation of his grace,\n  No pitying tear from one responsive eye,\n    No answering human face.\n\n  \"To do God's will--that was enough for Christ,\n    'Mid griefs that make all agonies look dim.\n  It shall for thee suffice--it hath sufficed,\n    As it sufficed for him.\"\n\n\nYet while love does not work for wages, nor demand an equivalent for\nits services, it is sorely wronged when ungrateful lips are dumb.  The\nquality of ingratitude is not changed because faithful love is not\nfrozen in the heart by its coldness.  We owe at least loving\nremembrance to one who has shown us kindness, though no other return\nmay be possible, or though large return may already have been made.  We\ncan never be absolved from the duty of being grateful.  \"Owe no man\nanything but love\" is a heavenly word.  We always owe love; that is a\ndebt we never can pay off.\n\nIngratitude is robbery.  But it is cruelty as well as robbery.  It\nalways hurts the heart that must endure it.  Few faults or injuries\ncause more pain and grief in tender spirits than ingratitude.  The pain\nmay be borne in silence.  Men do not speak of it to others, still less\nto those whose neglect or coldness inflicts it; yet It is like thorns\nin the pillow.\n\n  \"Blow, blow, thou winter wind;\n  Thou art not so unkind\n  As man's ingratitude.\"\n\nParents suffer unspeakably when the children for whom they have lived,\nsuffered, and sacrificed, prove ungrateful.  The ungrateful child does\nnot know what bitter sorrow he causes the mother who bore him and\nnursed him, and the father who loves him more than his own life; how\ntheir hearts bleed; how they weep in secret over his unkindness.  We do\nnot know how we hurt our friends when we treat them ungratefully,\nforgetting all they have done for us, and repaying their favors with\ncoldness.\n\nThere is yet more of this lesson.  Gratitude, to fulfil its gentle\nministry, must find some fitting expression.  It is not enough that it\nbe cherished in the heart.  There are many good people who fail at this\npoint.  They are really thankful for the good others do to them.  They\nfeel kindly enough in their hearts toward their benefactors.  Perhaps\nthey speak to other friends of the kindnesses they have received.  They\nmay even put it into their prayers, telling God how they have been\nhelped by others of his children, and asking him to reward and bless\nthose who have been good to them.  But meanwhile they do not in any way\nexpress their grateful feelings to the persons who have done them the\nfavors or rendered them the offices of friendship.\n\nHow does your friend know that you are grateful, if you do not in some\nway tell him that you are?  Verily here is a sore fault of love, this\nkeeping sealed up in the heart the generous feeling, the tender\ngratitude, which we ought to speak, and which would give so much\ncomfort if it were spoken in the ear that ought to hear it.  No pure,\ntrue, loving human heart ever gets beyond being strengthened and warmed\nto nobler service by words of honest and sincere appreciation.\nFlattery is contemptible; only vain spirits are elated by it.\nInsincerity is a sickening mockery; the sensitive soul turns away from\nit in revulsion.  But words of true gratitude are always to human\nhearts like cups of water to thirsty lips.  We need not fear turning\npeople's heads by genuine expressions of thankfulness; on the other\nhand, nothing inspires such humility, such reverent praise to God, as\nthe knowledge which such gratitude brings,--that one has been used of\nGod to help, or bless, or comfort another life.\n\nSilence is said to be golden, and ofttimes, indeed, it is better than\nspeech.  \"It is a fine thing in friendship,\" says George MacDonald, \"to\nknow when to be silent.\"  There are times when silence is the truest,\nfittest, divinest, most blessed thing, when words would only mar the\nhallowed sweetness of love's ministry.  But there are times again when\nsilence is disloyalty, cruelty, unkind as winter air to tender plants.\nEspecially is this true of gratitude; to be coldly silent, when the\nheart is grateful, is a sin against love.  When we have a word of\nthanks in our heart, which we feel we might honestly speak, and which\nwe do not speak, we have sorely wronged our friend.\n\nEspecially in homes ought there to be more grateful expression.  We\nwrong home friends more than any other friends.  Home is where love is\ntruest and tenderest.  We need never fear being misunderstood by the\nloved ones who there cluster about us.  Yet too often home is the very\nplace where we are most miserly of grateful and appreciative words.  We\nlet gentle spirits starve close beside us for the words of\naffectionateness that lie warm, yet unspoken, on our tongues.  None of\nus know what joy and strength we could impart to others, if only we\nwould train ourselves to give fitting, delicate, and thoughtful\nexpression to the gratitude that is in our hearts.  We would become\nblessings to all about us, and would receive into our life new\ngladness.  Nothing is sadder than the sorrow witnessed about many a\nCoffin; the grief of bereavement and loss made bitter by the regret\nthat now the too slow gratitude of the heart shall never have\nopportunity to utter itself in the ear which waited so long, hungry,\nand in vain, for the word that would have given such comfort.\n\n  \"Over the coffin pitiful we stand,\n  And place a rose within the helpless hand,\n  That yesterday, mayhap, we would not see,\n  When it was meekly offered.  On the heart\n  That often ached for an approving word,\n  We lay forget-me-nots--we turn away,\n  And find the world is colder for the loss\n  Of this so faulty and so loving one.\n\n  \"Think of that moment, ye who reckon close\n  With love--so much for every gentle thought,\n  The moment when love's richest gifts are naught:\n  When a pale flower, upon a pulseless breast,\n  Like your regret, exhales its sweets in vain.\"\n\n\nBut it is not enough that we be grateful and show our gratitude to the\nhuman friends who do us kindnesses.  It is to God that we owe all.\nEvery good and perfect gift, no matter how it reaches us, through what\nmessenger, in what form, \"cometh down from above, from the Father of\nlights.\"  All the blessings of Providence, all the tender things that\ncome to us through human love and friendship, are God's gifts.\n\n  \"Whence came the father-heart in man,\n    The mother-heart in woman?\n  The love throughout the cosmic plan\n    Which makes God's children human?\n\n  \"These never came: what we control\n    Is good because 'tis given,\n  And all made better to man's soul\n    By the sweet touch of heaven.\"\n\n\nWe owe thanks to God, therefore, for all that we receive.  When we have\nshown gratitude to our human benefactors, we still owe our Heavenly\nFather thanks and gratitude.  It is possible, too, for us to be\ngrateful to the friends who help us, and yet be as atheists, never\nrecognizing God, nor giving him any thanks.  This is the sorest sin of\nall.  We rob God, and hurt his heart, every time we receive any favor\nat whatsoever hand, and fail to speak our praise to him.\n\nWhatever we may say about man's ingratitude to his fellow-men, there is\nno question about man's lack of gratitude to God.  We are continually\nreceiving mercies and favors from him, and yet, are there not days and\ndays with most of us, in which we lift no heart and speak no word in\npraise?  Our prayers are largely requests and supplications for help\nand favor, with but little adoration and worship.  We continue asking\nand asking, and God continues giving and giving; but how many of us\nremember always or often to give thanks for answered prayer?  The angel\nof requests--so the legend runs--goes back from earth heavily laden\nevery time he comes to gather up the prayers of men.  But the angel of\nthanksgiving, of gratitude, has almost empty hands as he returns from\nhis errands to this world.  Yet ought we not to give thanks for all\nthat we receive and for every answered request?  If we were to do this\nour hearts would always be lifted up toward God in praise.\n\nThere is a story of some great conductor of a musical festival suddenly\nthrowing up his baton, and stopping the performance, crying,\n\"Flageolet!\"  The flageolet was not doing its part and the conductor's\ntrained ear missed its one note in the large orchestra.  Does not God\nmiss any voice that is silent in the music of earth that rises up to\nhim?  And are there not many voices that are silent, taking no part in\nthe song, giving forth no praise?  Shall we not quickly start our\nheart-song of gratitude, calling upon every power of our being to\npraise God?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nSOME SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE.\n\n\n  \"The primal duties shine aloft like stars;\n  The charities that sooth and heal and bless\n  Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers.\n  *    *    *    *    The smoke ascends\n  To heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth\n  As from the lofty palace.\"\n          --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.\n\n\nHome life ought to be happy.  The benediction of Christ on every home\nto which he is welcomed as an abiding guest is, \"Peace be to this\nhouse.\"  While perfection of happiness is unattainable in this world,\nrich, deep, heart-filling happiness certainly may be, and ought to be,\nattained.\n\nYet it requires wise building and delicate care to make a home truly\nand perfectly happy.  Such a home does not come as a matter of course,\nby natural growth, wherever a family takes up its abode.  Happiness has\nto be planned for, lived for, sacrificed for, ofttimes suffered for.\nIts price in a home is always the losing of self on the part of those\nwho make up the household.  Home happiness is the incense that rises\nfrom the altar of mutual self-sacrifice.\n\nIt may be said, in a word, that Christ himself is the one great,\nblessed, secret of all home happiness; Christ at the marriage altar;\nChrist when the baby is born; Christ when the baby dies; Christ in the\ndays of plenty; Christ in the pinching times; Christ in all the\nhousehold life; Christ in the sad hour when farewells must be spoken,\nwhen one goes on before and the other stays, bearing the burden of an\nunshared grief.  Christ is the secret of happy home life.\n\nBut for the sake of simplicity the lesson may be broken up.  For one\nthing, the husband has much to do in solving the problem.  Does a man\nthink always deeply of the responsibility he assumes when he takes a\nyoung wife away from the shelter of mother-love and father-love, the\nwarmest, softest human nest in this world, and leads her into a new\nhome, where his love is to be henceforth her only shelter?  No man is\nfit to be the husband of a true woman who is not a good man.  He need\nnot be great, nor brilliant, nor rich, but he must be good, or he is\nnot worthy to take a gentle woman's tender life into his keeping.\n\nThen he must be a man, true, brave, generous, manly.  He must be a good\nprovider.  He must be a sober man; no man who comes home intoxicated,\nhowever rarely, is doing his share in making happiness for his wife and\nfamily.  He must be a man of pure, blameless life, whose name shall\ngrow to be an honor and a pride in his household.  Husbands have a\ngreat deal to do with the matter of happiness at home.\n\nThe wife, too, has a responsibility.  It should be understood at the\nvery beginning, that good housekeeping is one of the first secrets of a\nhappy home.  If a man must be a good provider, a woman must be a good\nhome-maker.  No woman is ready to marry until she has mastered the fine\narts of housekeeping.  Home is the wife's kingdom.  She holds very\nlargely in her hands the happiness of the hearts that nestle there.\nThe best husband, the truest, the noblest, the gentlest, the\nrichest-hearted, cannot make his home happy if his wife be not in every\nsense a helpmeet.  In the last analysis, home happiness does depend on\nthe wife.  She is the true home-maker.\n\nChildren, too, are great blessings, when God sends them, bringing into\nthe home rich possibilities of happiness.  They cost care, and demand\ntoil and sacrifice; ofttimes causing pain and grief: yet the blessing\nthey bring repays a thousand times the care and cost.  It is a sacred\nhour in a home when a baby is born and laid in the arms of a young\nfather and mother.  It brings fragments of heaven trailing after it to\nthe home of earth.  There are few deeper, purer joys ever experienced\nin this world than the joy of true parents at the birth of a child.\nMuch of home's happiness along the years is made by the children.  We\nsay we train them, but they train us ofttimes more than we train them.\nOur lives grow richer, our hearts are opened, our love becomes holier\nwhen the children are about us.  Croons a young mother over her babe:--\n\n  \"And art thou mine, thou helpless, trembling thing,\n  Thou lovely presence?  Bird, where is thy wing?\n  How pure thou art! fresh from the fields of light,\n  Where angels garner grain in robes of white.\n\n  \"Didst thou bring 'sealed instructions' with thee, dove,\n  How to unlock the fount of mother-love?\n  Full well dost thou fulfil thy winsome part;\n  With holy fire they're writ upon my heart.\n\n  \"My child, I fear thee! thou'rt a spirit, soul!\n  How shall I walk before thee? keep my garments whole?\n  O Lord, give strength, give wisdom for the task,\n  To train this child for thee!  Yet more I ask:\n\n  \"Life of my life, for thee I crave best gifts and glad,\n  More than, even in dreams, thy mother had!\n  O Father! fine this gold!  Oh, polish this, my gem!\n  Till it is fair and fitting for thy diadem.\"\n\n\nJesus said of little children that those who receive them, in his name,\nreceive him.  May we not then say that children bring great possibility\nof blessing and happiness to a home?  They come to us as messengers\nfrom heaven, bearing messages from God.  Yet we may not know their\nvalue while we have them.  Ofttimes, indeed, it is only the empty crib\nand the empty arms that reveal to us the full measure of home happiness\nthat we get from the children.  Those to whom God gives children should\nreceive them with reverence.  There are homes where mothers, who once\nwearied easily of children's noises, sit now with aching hearts, and\nwould give the world to have a baby to nurse, or a rollicking boy to\ncare for.  Children are among the secrets of a happy home.\n\nTurning to the life of the household, affectionateness is one of the\nsecrets of happiness.  There are hundreds of homes in which there is\nlove that would die for its dear ones; and yet hearts are starving\nthere for love's daily bread.  There is a tendency in some homes to\nsmother all of love's tenderness, to suppress it, to choke it back.\nThere are homes where the amenities of affection are unknown, and where\nhearts starve for daily bread.  There are husbands and wives between\nwhom love's converse has settled into the baldest conventionalities.\nThere are parents who never kiss their children after they are babies,\nand who discourage in them as they grow up all longing for caresses.\nThere are homes whose daily life is marred by incessant petty strifes\nand discourtesies.\n\nThese are not exaggerations.  Yet there is love in these homes, and all\nthat is needed is that it be set free to perform its sweet ministry.\nThere are cold, cheerless homes which could be warmed into love's\nrichest glow in a little while, if all the hearts of the household were\nto grow affectionate in expression.  Does the busy husband think that\nhis weary wife would not care any longer for the caresses and marks of\ntenderness with which he used to thrill her?  Let him return again for\na month to his old-time fondness, and then ask her if these youthful\namenities are distasteful to her.  Do parents think their grown-up\nchildren are too big to be petted, to be kissed at meeting and parting?\nLet them restore again, for a time, something of the affectionateness\nof the childhood days, and see if there is not a blessing in it.  Many\nwho are longing for richer home happiness, need only to pray for a\nspring-time of love, with a tenderness that is not afraid of\naffectionate expression.\n\n        \"Comfort one another;\n    With the hand-clasp close and tender,\n    With the sweetness love can render,\n  And looks of friendly eyes.\n    Do not wait with grace unspoken\n    While life's daily bread is broken:\n  Gentle speech is oft like manna from the skies.\"\n\n\nWe ought not to fear to speak our love at home.  We should get all the\ntenderness possible into the daily household life.  We should make the\nmorning good-byes, as we part at the breakfast-table, kindly enough for\nfinal farewells; for they may be indeed final farewells.  Many go out\nin the morning who never come home at night; therefore, we should part,\neven for a few hours, with kindly word, with lingering pressure of the\nhand, lest we may never look again in each other's eyes.  Tenderness in\na home is not a childish weakness, is not a thing to be ashamed of; it\nis one of love's sacred duties.  Affectionate expression is one of the\nsecrets of happy home life.\n\nReligion is another of these secrets.  It is where the Gospel of Christ\nis welcomed that heaven's benediction falls: \"Peace be to this house.\"\nThere may be a certain measure of happiness in a home without Christ,\nbut it lacks something at best, and then when sorrow comes, and the sun\nof earthly joy is darkened, there are no lamps of heavenly comfort to\nlighten the darkness.  Sad indeed is the Christless home, when a\nbeloved one lies dead within its doors.  No words of Christian comfort\nhave any power to console, because there is no faith to receive them.\nNo stars shine through their cypress-trees.  But how different it is in\nthe Christian home, in like sorrow!  The grief is just as sore, but the\ntruth of immortality sheds holy light on the darkness, and there is a\ndeep joy which transfigures the sorrow.\n\nThen may we not even put sorrow down as one of the secrets of happiness\nin a true Christian home?  This may seem at first thought a strange\nsuggestion.  But there surely are homes that have passed through\nexperiences of affliction that have a deeper, richer, fuller joy now\nthan they had before the grief came.  The sorrow sobered their\ngladness, making it less hilarious, but no less sweet.  Bereavement\ndrew all the home hearts closer together.  The loss of one from the\ncircle made those that remained dearer to each other than before.  The\ntears became crystalline lenses through which faith saw more deeply\ninto heaven.  Then in the sorrow Christ came nearer, entering more\nreally into the life of the home.  Prayer has meant more since the dark\ndays.  There has been a new fragrance of love in the household.  There\nare many homes whose present rich, deep, quiet happiness sorrow helped\nto make.\n\nBut it is not in sorrow only that religion gives its benediction.  It\nmakes all the happiness sweeter to have the assurance of God's love and\nfavor abiding in the household.  Burdens are lighter because there is\nOne who shares them all.  The morning prayer of the family, when all\nbow together, makes the whole day fairer; and the evening prayer before\nsleep, makes all feel safer for the night.  Then religion inspires\nunselfishness, thoughtfulness, the spirit of mutual helpfulness, of\nburden-bearing, and serving, and thus enriches the home life.\n\nAfter a while the young folks scatter away, setting up homes of their\nown.  How beautiful it is then to see the old couple, who, thirty or\nforty years before, stood together at the marriage altar, standing\ntogether still, with love as true and pure and tender as ever, waiting\nto go home.  By and by the husband goes away and comes back no more,\nand then the wife is lonesome and longs to go too.  A little later and\nshe also is gone, and they are together again on the other side, those\ndear old lovers, to be parted henceforth nevermore.  And that is the\nblessed end of a happy Christian home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nGOD'S WINTER PLANTS.\n\n\n  \"The wind that blows can never kill\n    The tree God plants;\n  It bloweth east; it bloweth west;\n  The tender leaves have little rest,\n  But any wind that blows is best.\n    The tree God plants\n  Strikes deeper root, grows higher still,\n  Spreads wider boughs, for God's good-will\n    Meets all its wants.\"\n        --LILLIE E. BARR.\n\n\nOne of the papers tells of a newly discovered flower.  It is called the\nsnow-flower.  It has been found in the northern part of Siberia.  The\nplant shoots up out of the ice and frozen soil.  It has three leaves,\neach about three inches in diameter.  They grow on the side of the stem\ntoward the north.  Each of the leaves appears to be covered with little\ncrystals of snow.  The flower, when it opens, is star-shaped, its\npetals being of the same length as the leaves, and about half an inch\nin width.  On the third day the extremities of the anthers show minute\nglistening specks, like diamonds, which are the seeds of this wonderful\nflower.\n\nIs not this strange snow-flower an illustration of many Christian\nlives?  God seems to plant them in the ice and snow; yet they live and\ngrow up out of the wintry cold into fair and wondrous beauty.  We\nshould say that the loveliest lives of earth would be those that are\nreared amid the gentlest, kindliest influences, under summer skies, in\nthe warm atmosphere of ease and comfort.  But the truth is that the\nnoblest developments of Christian character are grown in the wintry\ngarden of hardship, struggle, and sorrow.\n\nTrial should not, therefore, be regarded with discouragement, as\nsomething which will stunt and dwarf the life and mar its beauty.  It\nshould be accepted rather, when it comes, as part of God's discipline,\nthrough which he would bring out the noblest and best possibilities of\nour character.  Perhaps we would be happier for the time if we had\neasier, more congenial conditions.  Children might be happier without\nrestraint, without family government, without chastening--just left to\ngrow up into all wilfulness and waywardness.  But there is something\nbetter in life than present happiness.  Disciplined character in\nmanhood, even though it has been gotten through stern and severe\nhome-training, is better than a childhood and youth of unrestraint,\nwith a worthless manhood as the outcome.  A noble life, bearing God's\nimage, even at the price of much pain and self-denial, is better than\nyears of freedom from care and sacrifice with a life unblessed and lost\nat the end.  \"To serve God and love him,\" says one, \"is higher and\nbetter than happiness, though it be with wounded feet and bleeding\nhands and heart loaded with sorrow.\"\n\n        \"So much we miss\n  If love is weak; so much we gain\n  If love is strong.  God thinks no pain\n  Too sharp or lasting to ordain\n        To teach us this.\"\n\n\nIt is well that we should understand how to receive trial so as to get\nfrom its hard experience the good it has for us.  For one thing, we\nshould accept it always reverently.  Resistance forfeits the blessing\nwhich can be yielded only to the loving, submissive spirit.\nTeachableness is the unvarying condition of learning.  To rebel against\ntrial is to miss whatever good it may have brought for us.  There are\nsome who resent all severity and suffering in their lot as unkindness\nin God.  These grow no better under divine chastening, but instead are\nhurt by it.  When we accept the conditions of our life, however hard,\nas divinely ordained, and as the very conditions in which, for a time,\nwe will grow the best, we are ready to get from them the blessing and\ngood intended in them for us.\n\nAnother important suggestion is that we faint not under trial.  There\nare those who give up and lose all their courage and faith when trouble\ncomes.  They cannot endure suffering.  Sorrow crushes them.  They break\ndown at once under a cross and think they never can go on again.  There\nhave been many lives crushed by affliction or adversity, which have not\nrisen again out of the dust.  There have been mothers, happy and\nfaithful before, out of whose home one child has been taken, and who\nhave lost all interest in life from that day, letting their home grow\ndreary and desolate and their other children go uncared for, as they\nsat with folded hands in the abandonment of their despairing,\nuncomforted grief.  There have been men with bright hopes, who have\nsuffered one defeat or met with one loss, and then have let go in their\ndiscouragement and have fallen into the dust of failure, never trying\nto rise again.\n\nNothing is sadder in life than such yieldings.  They are unworthy of\nimmortal beings.  The divine intention in trial never is to crush us,\nbut always to do good to us in some way, to bring out in us new energy\nof life.  Whatever the loss, struggle, or sorrow, we should accept it\nin love, humility, and faith, take its lessons, and then go on into the\nlife that is before us.  When one child is taken out of a home, the\nmother should, with more reverent heart and more gentle hand, turn the\nwhole energy of her chastened life into love's channels, living more\nthan ever before for her home and the children that are left to her.\nThe man who has felt the stunning blow of a sudden grief or loss should\nkiss the hand of God that has smitten, and quickly arise and press\nonward to the battles and duties before him.  We should never accept\nany defeat as final.  Though it be in life's last hours, with only a\nmere fringe of margin left, and all our past failure and loss, still we\nshould not despair.\n\n  \"What though the radiance which was once so bright,\n  Be now forever taken from my sight;\n  Though nothing can bring back the hour\n  Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower,\n  We will grieve not, rather find\n  Strength in what remains behind.\"\n\n\nThere is nowhere any better illustration of the way we should always\nrise again out of trial than we have in the life of St. Paul.  From the\nday of his conversion till the day of his death, trouble followed him.\nHe was misunderstood; he was cast out for Christ's sake; he met\npersecution in every form; he was shipwrecked; he lay in dungeons; he\nwas deserted by his friends.  But he never fainted, never grew\ndiscouraged, never spoke one word about giving up.  \"Cast down, but not\ndestroyed,\" was the story of his life.  He quickly arose out of every\ntrial, every adversity, with a new light in his eye, a new enthusiasm\nin his heart.  He could not be defeated, for he had Christ in him.\nShall we not catch St. Paul's unconquerable spirit, that we may never\nfaint in any trial?\n\nIt requires faith to meet trouble and adversity heroically.\nUndoubtedly, at the time, the blessing is not apparent in the sorrow or\nthe defeat.  All seems disastrous and destructive.  It is in the\nfuture, in the outworking, that the good is to come.  It is a matter of\nfaith, not of sight.  \"All chastening seemeth for the present to be not\njoyous, but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto\nthem that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of\nrighteousness.\"  Oh, the blessing of God's \"afterwards\"!  Jacob one day\nthought and said that all things were against him, but afterward he saw\nthat his great afflictions and losses were wrought in as parts of a\nbeautiful plan of love for him.  The disciples thought that the cross\nwas the destruction of all their Messianic hopes; afterward they saw\nthat it was the very fulfilment of these hopes.  The pruning, which at\nthe time cuts so into the life of the vine, lopping off great, rich\nbranches, afterward is seen to have been the saving and enriching of\nthe whole vine.  So we always need faith.  We must believe against\nappearances.\n\n  \"Under the fount of ill\n  Many a cup doth fill,\n  And the patient lip, though it drinketh oft,\n  Finds only the bitter still.\n\n  \"Nevertheless, I know,\n  Out of the dark must grow,\n  Sooner or later, whatever is fair,\n  Since the heavens have willed it so.\"\n\n\nBack and forth the plough was driven.  The field was covered with\ngrasses and lovely flowers, but remorselessly through them all the\nshare tore its way, cutting furrow after furrow.  It seemed that all\nthe beauty was being hopelessly destroyed.  But by and by harvest-time\ncame, and the field waved with golden wheat.  That was what the\nploughman's faith saw from the beginning.\n\nSorrow seems to destroy the life of a child of God.  Its rude share\nploughs again and again through it, making many a deep furrow, gashing\nits beauty.  But afterward a harvest of blessing and good grows up out\nof the crushed and broken life.  That is what God intends always in\ntrial and sorrow.\n\nLet us have the ploughman's faith, and we shall not faint when the\nshare is driven through our heart.  Then by faith we shall see beyond\nthe pain and trial the blessing of richer life, of whiter holiness, of\nlarger fruitfulness.  And to win that blessing will be worth all the\npain and trial.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nUNFINISHED LIFE-BUILDING.\n\n\n  \"Let me not die before I've done for thee\n  My earthly work, whatever it may be.\n  Call me not hence, with mission unfulfilled;\n  Let me not leave my space of ground unfilled;\n  Impress this truth upon me, that not one\n  Can do my portion, that I leave undone.\"\n\n\nWe are all builders.  We may not erect any house or temple on a city\nstreet, for human eyes to see, but every one of us builds a fabric\nwhich God and angels see.  Life is a building.  It rises slowly, day by\nday, through the years.  Every new lesson we learn lays a block on the\nedifice which is rising silently within us.  Every experience, every\ntouch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every\nbook we read, every conversation we have, every act of our commonest\ndays, adds something to the invisible building.  Sorrow, too, has its\nplace in preparing the stones to lie on the life-wall.  All life\nfurnishes the material.\n\n  \"Our to-days and yesterdays\n  Are the blocks with which we build.\"\n\n\nThere are many noble fabrics of character reared in this world.  But\nthere are also many who build only low, mean huts, without beauty,\nwhich will be swept away in the testing-fires of judgment.  There are\nmany, too, whose life-work presents the spectacle of an unfinished\nbuilding.  There was a beautiful plan to begin with, and the work\npromised well for a little time; but after a while it was abandoned and\nleft standing, with walls half-way up, a useless fragment, open and\nexposed, an incomplete, inglorious ruin, telling no story of past\nsplendor as do the ruins of some old castle or coliseum, a monument\nonly of folly and failure.\n\n\"There is nothing sadder,\" writes one, \"than an incomplete ruin; one\nthat has never been of use; that never was what it was meant to be;\nabout which no pure, holy, lofty associations cling, no thoughts of\nbattles fought and victories won, or of defeats as glorious as\nvictories.  God sees them where we do not.  The highest tower may be\nmore unfinished than the lowest to him.\"\n\nWe must not forget the truth of this last sentence.  There are, lives\nwhich to our eyes seem only to have been begun and then abandoned,\nwhich to God's eyes are still rising into more and more graceful\nbeauty.  Here is one who began his life-work with all the ardor of\nyouth and all the enthusiasm of a consecrated spirit.  For a time his\nhand never tired, his energy never slackened.  Friends expected great\nthings from him.  Then his health gave way.  The diligent hand lies\nidle and waiting now.  His enthusiasm no more drives him afield.  His\nwork lies unfinished.\n\n\"What a pity!\" men say.  But wait!  He has not left an unfinished\nlife-work as God sees it.  He is resting in submission at the Master's\nfeet and is growing meanwhile as a Christian.  The spiritual temple in\nhis soul is rising slowly in the silence.  Every day is adding\nsomething to the beauty of his character, as he learns the lessons of\npatience, confidence, peace, joy, love.  His building at the last will\nbe more beautiful than if he had been permitted to toil on through many\nbusy years, carrying out his own plans.  He is fulfilling God's purpose\nfor his life.\n\nWe must not measure spiritual building by earthly standards.  Where the\nheart remains loyal and true to Christ; where the cross of suffering is\ntaken up cheerfully and borne sweetly; where the spirit is obedient\nthough the hands lie folded and the feet must be still, the temple\nrises continually toward finished beauty.\n\nOr here is one who dies in early youth.  There was great promise in the\nbeautiful life.  Affection had reared for it a noble fabric of hope.\nPerhaps the beauty had begun to shine out in the face, and the hands\nhad begun to show their skill.  Then death came and all the fair hopes\nwere folded away.  The visions of loveliness and the dreams of noble\nattainments and achievements lay like withered flowers upon the grave.\nAn unfinished life! friends cry in their disappointment and sorrow.  So\nit seems, surely, to love's eyes, from the earth-side.  But so it is\nnot, as God's eye looks upon it.  There is nothing unfinished that\nfulfils the divine plan.  God cuts off no young life till its earthly\nwork is done.  Then the soul-building which began here and seemed to be\ninterrupted by death, was only hidden from our eyes by a thin veil,\nbehind which it still goes up with unbroken continuity, rising into\nfairest beauty in the presence of God.\n\nBut there are abandoned life-buildings whose story tells only of shame\nand failure.  Many persons begin to follow Christ, and after a little\ntime turn away from their profession and leave only a pretentious\nbeginning to stand as a ruin to be laughed at by the world and to\ndishonor the Master's name.\n\nSometimes it is discouragement that leads men to give up the work to\nwhich they have put their hand.  In one of his poems, Wordsworth tells\na pathetic story of a straggling heap of unhewn stones, and the\nbeginning of a sheepfold which was never finished.  With his wife and\nonly son, old Michael, a Highland shepherd, dwelt for many years in\npeace.  But trouble came which made it necessary that the son should go\naway to do for himself for a while.  For a time good reports came from\nhim, and the old shepherd would go out when he had leisure and would\nwork on the sheepfold which he was building.  By and by, however, sad\nnews came from Luke.  In the great dissolute city he had given himself\nto evil courses.  Shame fell on him and he was driven to seek a\nhiding-place beyond the seas.  The sad tidings broke the old father's\nheart.  He went about as before, caring for his sheep.  To the hollow\ndell, too, he would repair from time to time, meaning to build at the\nunfinished fold.  But the neighbors in their pity noticed that he did\nlittle work in those sad days.\n\n        \"'Tis believed by all\n  That many and many a day he thither went\n  And never lifted up a single stone.\n  There by the sheepfold sometimes was he seen\n  Sitting alone, with that his faithful dog,\n  Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.\n  The length of full seven years from time to time\n  He at the building of his sheepfold wrought,\n  And left the work unfinished when he died.\"\n\n\nYears after the shepherd was gone the remains of the unfinished fold\nwere still there, a sad memorial of one who began to build but did not\nfinish.  Sorrow broke his heart and his hand slacked.\n\nToo often noble life-buildings are abandoned in the time of sorrow, and\nthe hands that were quick and skilful before grief came, hang down and\ndo nothing more on the temple-wall.  Instead, however, of giving up our\nwork and faltering in our diligence, we should be inspired by sorrow to\nyet greater earnestness in all duty and greater fidelity in all life.\nGod does not want us to faint under chastening, but to go on with our\nwork, quickened to new earnestness by grief.\n\nWant of faith is another cause which leads many to abandon their\nlife-temples unfinished.  Throngs followed Christ in the earlier days\nof his ministry when all seemed bright, who, when they saw the shadow\nof the cross, turned back and walked no more with him.  They lost their\nfaith in him.  It is startling to read how near even our Lord's\napostles came to leaving their buildings unfinished.  Had not their\nfaith come again after their Master arose, they would have left in this\nworld only sad memorials of failure instead of glorious finished\ntemples.\n\nIn these very days there are many who, through the losing of their\nfaith, are abandoning their work on the wall of the temple of Christian\ndiscipleship, which they have begun to build.  Who does not know those\nwho once were earnest and enthusiastic in Christian life, while there\nwas but little opposition, but who fainted and failed when it became\nhard to confess Christ and walk with him?\n\nThen sin, in some form, draws many a builder away from his work, to\nleave it unfinished.  It may be the world's fascinations that draw him\nfrom Christ's side.  It may be sinful human companionships that lure\nhim from loyal friendship to his Saviour.  It may be riches that enter\nhis heart and blind his eyes to the attractions of heaven.  It may be\nsome secret, debasing lust that gains power over him and paralyzes his\nspiritual life.  Many are there now, amid the world's throngs, who once\nsat at the Lord's Table and were among God's people.  Unfinished\nbuildings their lives are, towers begun with great enthusiasm and then\nleft to tell their sad story of failure to all who pass by.  They began\nto build and were not able to finish.\n\nIt is sad to think how much of this unfinished work God's angels see as\nthey look down upon our earth.  Think of the good beginnings which\nnever come to anything in the end; the excellent resolutions which are\nnever carried out, the noble life-plans entered upon by so many young\npeople with ardent enthusiasm, but soon given up.  Think of the\nbeautiful visions and fair hopes which might be made splendid\nrealities, but which fade out, not leaving the record of even one\nsincere, earnest effort to work them into reality.\n\nIn all lines of life we see these abandoned buildings.  The business\nworld is full of them.  Men began to build, but in a little time they\nwere gone, leaving their work uncompleted.  They set out with gladness,\nbut tired at length of the toil, or grew disheartened at the slow\ncoming of success, and abandoned their ideal when it was perhaps just\nready to be realized.  Many homes present the spectacle of abandoned\ndreams of love.  For a time the beautiful vision shone in radiance, and\ntwo hearts sought to make it come true, but then gave it up in despair.\n\nSo life everywhere is full of beginnings never carried out to\ncompletion.  There is not a soul-wreck on the streets, not a prisoner\nserving out a sentence behind iron bars, not a debased, fallen one\nanywhere, in whose soul there were not once visions of beauty, bright\nhopes, holy thoughts and purposes, and high resolves--an ideal of\nsomething lovely and noble.  But alas! the visions, the hopes, the\npurposes, the resolves, never grew into more than beginnings.  God's\nangels bend down and see a great wilderness of unfinished fabrics,\nsplendid possibilities unfulfilled, noble might-have-beens abandoned,\nghastly ruins now, sad memorials only of failure.\n\nThe lesson from all this is, that we should finish our work, that we\nshould allow nothing to draw us away from our duty, that we should\nnever weary in following Christ, that we should hold fast the beginning\nof our confidence steadfast unto the end.  We should not falter under\nany burden, in the face of any danger, before any demand of cost and\nsacrifice.  No discouragement, no sorrow, no worldly attraction, no\nhardship, should weaken for one moment our determination to be faithful\nunto death.  No one who has begun to build for Christ should leave an\nunfinished, abandoned life-work to grieve the heart of the Master and\nto be sneered at as a reproach to the name he bears.\n\nYet we must remember, lest we be discouraged, that only in a relative,\nhuman sense can any life-building be made altogether complete.  Our\nbest work is marred and imperfect.  It is only when we are in Christ,\nand are co-workers with him, that anything we do can ever be made\nperfect and beautiful.  But the weakest, and the humblest, who are\nsimply faithful, will stand at last complete in him.  Even the merest\nfragment of life, as it appears in men's eyes, if it be truly in\nChrist, and filled with his love and with his Spirit, will appear\nfinished, when presented before the divine Presence.  To do God's will,\nwhatever that may be, to fill out his plan, is to be complete in\nChrist, though the stay on earth be but for a day, and though the work\ndone fulfil no great human plan, and leave no brilliant record among\nmen.\n\n  \"Thy work unfinished!  Do not fear\n  Though at his coming may be found\n  The stone unset.\n  Yet, for thy faith, beyond the skies\n  Thine own shall be the longed-for prize.\n  He knoweth best who calls from labor now\n  To rest, to build no more.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nIRON SHOES FOR ROUGH ROADS.\n\n\n  \"Our feeble frame he knoweth,\n    Remembereth we are dust;\n  And evermore his face is kind,\n    His ways are ever just.\n  In evil and in blindness,\n    Through darkened maze we rove,\n  But still our Father leads us home,\n    By strength of mighty love.\"\n          --MARGARET E. SANGSTER.\n\n\nThe matter of shoes is important.  Especially is this true when the\nroads are rough and hard.  We cannot then get along without something\nstrong and comfortable to wear on our feet.  One would scarcely expect\nto find anything in the Bible about such a need as this.  Yet it only\nshows how truly the Bible is fitted to all our actual life to discover\nin it a promise referring to shoes.\n\nIn the blessing of Moses, pronounced before his death upon the several\ntribes, there was this among other things for Asher: \"Thy shoes shall\nbe iron.\"  A little geographical note will help to make the meaning\nplain.  Part of Asher's allotted portion was hilly and rugged.  Common\nsandals, made of wood or leather, would not endure the wear and tear of\nthe sharp, flinty rocks.  There was need, therefore, for some special\nkind of shoes.  Hence the form of the promise: \"Thy shoes shall be\niron.\"\n\nEven the Bible words which took the most vivid local coloring from the\nparticular circumstances in which they were originally spoken, are yet\nas true for us as they were for those to whom they first came.  We have\nonly to get disentangled from the local allusions the real heart of the\nmeaning of the words, and we have an eternal promise which every child\nof God may claim.\n\nTurning, then, this old-time assurance into a word for\nnineteenth-century pilgrims, we get from it some important suggestions.\nFor one thing it tells us that we may have some rugged pieces of road\nbefore we get to the end of our life-journey.  If not, what need would\nthere be for iron shoes?  If the way is to be flower-strewn, velvet\nslippers, as Dr. McLaren somewhere suggests, would do.  No man wants\niron-soled shoes for a walk through a soft meadow.  The journey is not\nlikely to be all easy.  Indeed, an earnest Christian life is never\neasy.  No one can live nobly and worthily without struggle, battle,\nself-denial.  One may find easy ways, but they are not the worthiest\nways.  They do not lead upward to the noblest things.  One reason why\nmany people never grasp the visions of beauty and splendor which shine\nbefore them in early years is because they have not courage for rough\nclimbing.\n\n  \"I reach a duty, yet I do it not,\n    And, therefore, climb no higher; but if done,\n  My view is brightened, and another spot\n    Seen on my mortal sun;\n  For be the duty high as angel's flight--\n    Fulfil it, and a higher will arise\n  Even from its ashes.  Duty is our ladder to the skies,\n    And climbing not, we fall.\"\n\n\nWe shall need our iron shoes if we are to make the journey that leads\nupward to the best possibilities of our life.\n\nBut the word is not merely a prophecy of rugged paths; it is also a\npromise of shoeing for the road, whatever it may be.  One who is\npreparing to climb a mountain, craggy and precipitous, would not put on\nsilk slippers; he would get strong, tough shoes, with heavy nails in\nthe soles.  When God sends us on a journey over steep and flinty paths\nhe will not fail to provide us with suitable shoes.\n\nAsher's portion was not an accidental one; it was of God's choosing.\nNor is there any accident in the ordering of the place, the conditions,\nthe circumstances, of any child of God's.  Our times are in God's\nhands.  No doubt, then, the hardnesses and difficulties of any one's\nlot are part of the divine ordering for the best growth of the person's\nlife.\n\nThere was a compensation in Asher's rough portion.  His rugged hills\nhad iron in them.  This law of compensation runs through all God's\ndistribution of gifts.  In the animal world there is a wonderful\nharmony, often noted, between the creatures and the circumstances and\nconditions amid which they are placed.  The same law rules in the\nprovidence of human life.  One man's farm is hilly and hard to till,\nbut deep down beneath its ruggedness, buried away in its rocks, there\nare rich minerals.  One person's lot in life is hard, with peculiar\nobstacles, difficulties and trials; but hidden in it there are\ncompensations of some kind.  One young man is reared in affluence and\nluxury.  He never experiences want or self-denial, never has to\nstruggle with obstacles or adverse circumstances.  Another is reared in\npoverty and has to toil and suffer privation.  The latter seems to have\nscarcely an equal chance in life.  But we all know where the\ncompensation lies in this case.  It is in such circumstances that grand\nmanhood is grown, while too often the petted, pampered sons of luxury\ncome to nothing.  In the rugged hills of toil and hardship, life's\nfinest gold is found.\n\nThere are few things from which young people of wealthy families suffer\nmore than from over-help.  No noble-spirited young man wants life made\ntoo easy for him by the toil of others.  What he desires is an\nopportunity to work for himself.  There are some things no other one\ncan give us; we must get them for ourselves.  Our bodies must grow\nthrough our own exertions.  Our minds must be disciplined through our\nown study.  Our hearts' powers must be developed and trained through\nour own loving and doing.  One writes of two friends and two ways of\nshowing friendship:--\n\n  \"One brought a crystal goblet overfull\n  Of water he had dipped from flowing streams\n  That rose afar where I had never trod--\n  Too far for even my quickened eye to see.\n  They were fair heights, familiar to his feet--\n  They were cool springs that greeted him at morn,\n  And made him fresh when noon was burning high,\n  And sang to him when all the stars were out;\n  His hand had led them forth, and their pure life\n  Was husbanded, with sacred thrift, for flower,\n  And bird, and beast, and man.  The hills were his,\n  And his the bright, sweet water.  Not to me\n  Came its renewal.  I was still athirst.\n\n  \"The other looked upon me graciously,\n  Beheld me wasted with my bitter need,\n  And gave me--nothing.  With a face severe,\n  And prophet brow, he bade me quickly seek\n  My own hard quarry--there hew out a way\n  For the imprisoned waters to flow forth\n  Unhindered by the stubborn granite blocks\n  That shut them in dark channels.  I sprung up,\n  For that I knew my Master; and I smote,\n  Even as Moses, my gray, barren rock,\n  And found sufficient help for all my house,\n  All my servants, all my flocks and herds.\"\n\n\nThe best friend we can have is the one, not who digs out the treasure\nfor us, but who teaches and inspires us with our own hands to open the\nrocks and find the treasures for ourselves.  The digging out of the\niron will do us more good than even the iron itself when it is dug out.\n\nShoes of iron are promised only to those who are to have rugged roads,\nnot to those whose path lies amid the flowers.  There is a comforting\nsuggestion here for all who find peculiar hardness in their life.\nPeculiar favor is pledged to them.  God will provide for the ruggedness\nof their way.  They will have a divine blessing which would not be\ntheirs but for the roughness and ruggedness.  The Hebrew parallelism\ngives the same promise, without figure, in the remaining words of the\nsame verse: \"As thy days so shall thy strength be.\"  Be sure, if your\npath is rougher than mine, you will get more help than I will.  There\nis a most delicate connection between earth's needs and heaven's grace.\nDays of struggle get more grace than calm, quiet days.  When night\ncomes stars shine out which never would have appeared had not the sun\ngone down.  Sorrow draws comfort that never would have come in joy.\nFor the rough roads there are iron shoes.\n\nThere is yet another suggestion in this old-time promise.  The divine\nblessing for every experience is folded up in the experience itself,\nand will not be received in advance.  The iron shoes would not be given\nuntil the rough roads were reached.  There was no need for them until\nthen, and besides, the iron to make them was treasured in the rugged\nhills and could not be gotten until the hills were reached.\n\nA great many people worry about the future.  They vex themselves by\nanxious questioning as to how they are going to get through certain\nanticipated experiences.  We had better learn once for all that there\nare in the Bible no promises of provision for needs while the needs are\nyet future.  God does not put strength into our arms to-day for the\nbattles of to-morrow; but when the conflict is actually upon us, the\nstrength comes.  \"As thy days so shall thy strength be.\"\n\nSome people are forever unwisely testing themselves by questions like\nthese: \"Could I endure sore bereavement?  Have I grace enough to bow in\nsubmission to God, if he were to take away my dearest treasure?  Or\ncould I meet death without fear?\"  Such questions are unwise, because\nthere is no promise of grace to meet trial when there is no trial to be\nmet.  There is no assurance of strength to bear great burdens when\nthere are no great burdens to be borne.  Help to endure temptation is\nnot promised when there are no temptations to be endured.  Grace for\ndying is nowhere promised while death is yet far off and while one's\nduty is to live.\n\n  \"Of all the tender guards which Jesus drew\n  About our frail humanity, to stay\n  The pressure and the jostle that alway\n  Are ready to disturb, what'er we do,\n  And mar the work our hands would carry through,\n  None more than this environs us each day\n  With kindly wardenship--'Therefore, I say,\n  Take no thought for the morrow.'  Yet we pay\n  The wisdom scanty heed, and impotent\n  To bear the burden of the imperious Now,\n  Assume, the future's exigence unsent.\n  God grants no overplus of power: 'tis shed\n  Like morning manna.  Yet we dare to bow\n  And ask, 'Give us to-day our _morrow's_ bread.'\"\n\n\nThere is a story of shipwreck which yields an illustration that comes\nin just here.  Crew and passengers had to leave the broken vessel and\ntake to the boats.  The sea was rough, and great care in rowing and\nsteering was necessary in order to guard the heavily-laden boats, not\nfrom the ordinary waves, which they rode over easily, but from the\ngreat cross-seas.  Night was approaching, and the hearts of all sank as\nthey asked what they should do in the darkness when they would no\nlonger be able to see these terrible waves.  To their great joy,\nhowever, when it grew dark they discovered that they were in\nphosphorescent waters and that each dangerous wave rolled up crested\nwith light which made it as clearly visible as if it were mid-day.\n\nSo it is that life's dreaded experiences, when we meet them, carry in\nthemselves the light which takes away the peril and the terror.  The\nnight of sorrow comes with its own lamp of comfort.  The hour of\nweakness brings its own secret of strength.  By the brink of the bitter\nfountain itself grows the tree whose branch will heal the waters.  The\nwilderness with its hunger and no harvest has daily manna.  In dark\nGethsemane, where the load is more than mortal heart can bear, an angel\nappears, ministering strength that gives victory.  When we come to the\nhard, rough, steep path we find iron for shoes.  The iron will be in\nthe very hills over which we shall have to climb.\n\nSo we see that the matter of shoes is very important.  We are pilgrims\nhere and we cannot walk barefoot on this world's rugged roads.  Are our\nfeet shod for the journey?\n\n\"How can I get shoes, and where?\" one asks.  Do you remember about\nChrist's feet, that they were pierced with nails?  Why was it?  That we\nmight have shoes to wear on our feet, and that they might not be cut\nand torn on the way.\n\nChrist's dear feet were wounded and sore with long journeys over thorns\nand stones, and were pierced through with cruel nails, that our feet\nmight be shod for earth's rough roads, and might at last enter the\ngates of pearl and walk on heaven's gold-paved streets.\n\nDropping all figure, the whole lesson is that we cannot get along on\nour life's pilgrimage without Christ; but having Christ we shall be\nready for anything that may come to us along the days and years.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nTHE SHUTTING OF DOORS.\n\n\n      \"Never delay\n  To do the duty which the hour brings,\n  Whatever it be in great or smaller things;\n      For who doth know\n  What he shall do the coming day?\"\n\n\nThe shutting of a door is a little thing and yet it may have infinite\nmeaning.  It may fix a destiny for weal or for woe.  When God shut the\ndoor of the ark the sound of its closing was the knell of exclusion to\nthose who were without, but it was the token of security to the little\ncompany of trusting ones who were within.  When the door was shut upon\nthe bridegroom and his friends who had gone into the festal hall, thus\nsheltering them from the night's darkness and danger, and shutting them\nin with joy and gladness, there were those outside to whose hearts the\nclosing of that door smote despair and woe.  To them it meant hopeless\nexclusion from all the privileges of those who were within and exposure\nto all the sufferings and perils from which those favored ones were\nprotected.\n\nHere we have hints of what may come from the closing of a door.  Life\nis full of illustrations.  We are continually coming up to doors which\nstand open for a little while and then are shut.  An artist has tried\nto teach this in a picture.  Father Time is there with inverted\nhour-glass.  A young man is lying at his ease on a luxurious couch,\nwhile beside him is a table spread with rich fruits and viands.\nPassing by him toward an open door are certain figures which represent\nopportunities; they come to invite the young man to nobleness, to\nmanliness, to usefulness, to worth.  First is a rugged, sun-browned\nform, carrying a flail.  This is labor.  He invites the youth to toil.\nHe has already passed far by unheeded.  Next is a philosopher, with\nopen book, inviting the young man to thought and study, that he may\nmaster the secrets in the mystic volume.  But this opportunity, too, is\ndisregarded.  The youth has no desire for learning.  Close behind the\nphilosopher comes a woman with bowed form, carrying a child.  Her dress\nbetokens widowhood and poverty.  Her hand is stretched out appealingly.\nShe craves charity.  Looking closely at the picture we see that the\nyoung man holds money in his hand.  But he is clasping it tightly, and\nthe poor widow's pleading is in vain.  Still another figure passes,\nendeavoring to lure and woo him from his idle ease.  It is the form of\na beautiful woman, who seeks by love to awaken in him noble purposes,\nworthy of his powers, and to inspire him for ambitious efforts.  One by\none these opportunities have passed, with their calls and invitations,\nonly to be unheeded.  At last he is arousing to seize them, but it is\ntoo late; they are vanishing from sight and the door is closing.\n\nThis is a true picture of what is going on all the time in this world.\nOpportunities come to every young person, offering beautiful things,\nrich blessings, brilliant hopes.  Too often, however, these offers and\nsolicitations are rejected and one by one pass by, to return no more.\nDoor after door is shut, and at last men stand at the end of their\ndays, with beggared lives, having missed all that they might have\ngotten of enrichment and good from the passing days.\n\nTake home.  A true Christian home, with its love and prayer and all its\ngentle influences, is almost heaven to a child.  The fragrance of the\nlove of Christ fills all the household life.  Holiness is in the very\natmosphere.  The benedictions of affection make every day tender with\nits impressiveness.  In all life there come no other such opportunities\nfor receiving lovely things into the life, and learning beautiful\nlessons, as in the days of childhood and youth that are spent in a home\nof Christian love.  Yet how often are all these influences resisted and\nrejected.  Then by and by the door is shut.  The heart that made the\nhome is still in death.  The gentle hand that wrought such blessing is\ncold.  Many a man in mid-life would give all he has to creep back for\none hour to the old sacred place, to hear again his mother's voice in\ncounsel or in prayer, to feel once more the gentle touch of her hand\nand to have her sweet comfort.  But it is too late.  The door is shut.\n\nTake education.  Many young people fail to realize what golden\nopportunities come to them in their school-days.  Too often they make\nlittle of the privileges they then enjoy.  They sometimes waste in\nidleness the hours they ought to spend in diligent study and helpful\nreading.  They might, if they would, fit themselves for high and\nhonorable places in after years; but they let the days pass with their\nopportunities.  By and by they hear the school door shut.  Then, all\nthrough their years they move with halting step, with dwarfed life,\nwith powers undeveloped, unable to accept the higher places that might\nhave been theirs if they had been prepared for them, failing often in\nduties and responsibilities--all because in youth they wasted their\nschool-days and did not seize the opportunities that then came to them\nfor preparation.  Napoleon, when visiting his old school, said to the\npupils, \"Boys, remember that every hour wasted at school means a chance\nof misfortune in future life.\"  Thousands of failures along the years\nof manhood and womanhood attest the truth of this monition.\n\nFriendship is another opportunity that offers great blessing.  Before\nevery young person stand two kinds of friends, ever reaching out a\nbeckoning hand.  The one class whisper of pleasures that lead to sin\nand debasement.  They offer the young man the wine-glass, the\ngambling-table, the gratification of lust and passion.  They offer the\nyoung woman flattery, gay dress, the dance, pleasures that will tarnish\nher womanly purity.  We all know the end of such friendship.\n\nBut there is another class of friends who stand before young people,\nwooing them to noble things.  They may be plain, perhaps homely, almost\nstern in their earnestness of purpose and in the seriousness with which\nthey talk of life.  They call to toil, to diligence, to self-denial, to\nheroic qualities of character, to purity, to usefulness, to \"whatsoever\nthings are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are\nhonorable, whatsoever things are lovely.\"  It is impossible to\noverstate the value of the blessings that true, wise, and worthy\nfriendship offers to the young.  It seeks to incite and stimulate them\nto their best in character and achievement.  It would lift them up to\nlofty attainment, to splendid victoriousness.  The young people to whom\ncomes the offer of such friendship are most highly favored.\n\nBut how often do we see the blessing rejected for the solicitation of\nmere idle pleasures that bring no true good, that entangle the life in\nall manner of complications, that lead into the ways of temptation, and\nthat too often end in disaster and sorrow.\n\nThere is a time for the choosing of friends, and when that time is\npassed and the choice has been made, the door is shut.  Then it is too\nlate to go back.  There are many people in mid-life, bound now in the\nchains of evil companionships, who would give all they have for the\nsweet delights and pure pleasures of friendship which once might have\nbeen theirs, which in youth reached out to them in vain white hands of\nimportunity and blessing.  But it is too late; the door is shut.\n\nSo it is with the opportunities of doing good to others, comforting,\nhelping, cheering, lightening burdens, giving gladness and joy.  We\nstand continually before open doors which we do not enter.  Ofttimes we\nshrink with timid feeling from the sweet ministry, holding back the\nsympathetic word or restraining ourselves from the doing of the gentle\nkindness, thinking our proffer of love might be unwelcome.  Or we do\nnot perceive the opportunity to give a blessing.  This is true very\noften, especially in the closer and more tender intimacies of life.  We\ndo not recognize the heart-hunger in our loved ones, and we walk with\nthem day by day, failing to help them in the thousand ways in which we\nmight help them, until they are gone from us and the door is shut.\nThen all we can do is to bear the pain of regret, having only the hope\nthat in some way in the life beyond, we may be able to pay--though so\nlate--love's debt.\n\n        \"How will it be\n  When you at last in heaven we see--\n  Dear souls, whose footsteps in lost days\n  Made musical earth's toil-worn ways,\n  While we not half the loneliness\n  That bound you to our side could guess?\n  Where angels know your footfall we\n        Are fain to be.\n\n        \"We never knew--\n  So heedlessly we walked with you--\n  The drops we jostled from your cup,\n  That spilt, could not be gathered up;\n  We might have given you foam and glow\n  From our own beaker's overflow;\n  Ah! what we might have been to you\n        We never knew.\n\n        \"We might have lent\n  Such strength, such comfort and content\n  To you, out of our ample store;\n  We might have hastened on before\n  To lift the shadows from your way,\n  Darkened, ere noon, to twilight's gray;\n  With earth's chilled air love's warm heart-scent\n        We might have blent.\n\n        \"Dear, wistful eyes,\n  Ye haunt us with your kind surprise,\n  Your tender wonder that a heart\n  Should thus be left alone, apart,\n  So loving, so misunderstood\n  By us, in our self-centred mood:\n  Alas! in vain to you arise\n        Our longing cries.\n\n        \"Oh, will you wait\n  For us beyond the shining gate?\n  Though lovely gifts behind you left,\n  We want yourselves; we are bereft.\n  From your new mansion glorious\n  Will you lean out to look for us?\n  Shut is the far-off, shining gate--\n        Are we too late?\"\n\n\nThese are but illustrations.  The same is true in all phases of life.\nEvery day doors are opened for us which we do not enter.  For a little\ntime they stand open with bidding and welcome, and then they are\nclosed, to be opened no more forever.  To every one of us along our\nyears there come opportunities, which, if accepted and improved, would\nfit us for worthy character, and for noble, useful living, and lead us\nin due time to places of honor and blessing.  But how many of us there\nare who reject these opportunities and lose the good they brought for\nus from God!  Then one by one the doors are shut, cutting off the\nproffered favors while we go on unblessed.\n\nThere is another closing of doors which is even sadder than any of\nthose which have been suggested.  There is a shutting of our own\nheart's door upon God himself.  He stands at our gate and knocks and\nthere are many who never open to him at all, and many more who open the\ndoor but slightly.  The latter, while they may receive blessing, yet\nmiss the fulness of divine revealing which would flood their souls with\nlove; the former miss altogether the sweetest benediction of life.\n\n  \"He that shuts Love out in turn shall be\n  Shut out from Love, and on his threshhold lie\n  Howling in outer darkness.  Nor for this\n  Was common clay made from the common earth,\n  Moulded by God and tempered with the tears\n  Of angels to the perfect shape of man.\"\n\n\nThis sad sound of closing doors, as it falls day after day upon our\nsoul's ears, proclaims to us continually that something which was ours,\nwhich was sent to us from God, and for which we shall have to answer in\njudgment, is ours no longer, is shut away forever from our grasp.  It\nis a sad picture--the five virgins standing at midnight before a closed\ndoor through which they might have entered to great joy and honor, but\nwhich to all their wild importunity will open no more.  It is sad, yet\nmany of us are likewise standing before closed doors, doors that once\nstood open to us, but into which we entered not, languidly loitering\noutside until the sound of the shutting fell upon our ear as the knell\nof hopeless exclusion:--\n\n  \"Too late!  Too late!  Ye cannot enter now!\"\n\n\nOf course the past is irreparable and irrevocable, and it may seem idle\nto vex ourselves in thinking about doors now closed, that no tears, no\nprayers, no loud knockings, can ever open again.  Yes; yet the future\nremains.  The years that are gone we cannot get back again, but new\nyears are yet before us.  They too will have their open doors.  Shall\nwe not learn wisdom as we look back upon the irrevocable past and make\nsure that in the future we shall not permit God's doors of opportunity\nto shut in our faces?","title":"Making the Most of Life","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":50097}