{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36162/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36162","id":"gutenberg_36162","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36162","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian life","Spiritual life"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, David E. Brown, and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Living for the Best\n\n  By\n\n  James G. K. McClure\n\n  Author of \"A Mighty Means of Usefulness,\" \"The Great Appeal,\"\n  \"Possibilities,\" etc.\n\n\n  CHICAGO      NEW YORK      TORONTO\n  Fleming H. Revell Company\n  LONDON AND EDINBURGH\n\n\n  Copyright, 1903\n  By FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n  MARCH\n\n  CHICAGO: 63 WASHINGTON STREET\n  NEW YORK: 158 FIFTH AVENUE\n  TORONTO: 27 RICHMOND STREET, W.\n  LONDON: 21 PATERNOSTER SQUARE\n  EDINBURGH: 30 ST. MARY STREET\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe publisher of a large metropolitan journal, a most effective man in\nreaching and influencing his fellows, once expressed to me the thought,\n\"From what I know of myself and others, were I a writer or speaker\ndesiring to enforce truth, I would always try to vivify that truth\nthrough illustration and story. The every-day intelligence of man\nrejoices to have truth put before it in living form.\"\n\nIt is with these words in mind that this book is written. Its purpose is\nto set forth great ideas, and so to set them forth, each one illustrated\nby a historic life already familiar, that these ideas shall be made\nluminous, and even vivid, to the reader. The characters chosen for such\nillustration are from the Old Testament--those men of ancient times\nwhose humanity is the humanity of every race and clime, and whose\nexperiences touch our own with sympathy and suggestion. May these\nold-day heroes live again before the mind of him who turns these pages,\nand may the ideas which they are used to illustrate be an abiding power\nin the memory of every reader.\n\n      JAMES G. K. MCCLURE.\n\n  LAKE FOREST,\n    ILLINOIS.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                         PAGE\n\n     I. Open to the Best                            11\n\n    II. Winning the Best Victories                  31\n\n   III. Making the Best Use of Our Lives            49\n\n    IV. Putting the Best into Others                67\n\n     V. Developing Our Best under Difficulties      87\n\n    VI. The Need of Retaining the Best Wisdom      105\n\n   VII. The Best Possession                        123\n\n  VIII. Using Aright Our Best Hours                141\n\n    IX. Giving Our Best to God                     161\n\n\n\n\nOPEN TO THE BEST.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nOPEN TO THE BEST.\n\n\n\"If every morning we would fling open our windows and look out on the\nwide reaches of God's love and goodness, we could not help singing.\" So\nit has been written. So Luther thought. When he was at Wartburg Castle,\nin the perilous times of the Reformation, he went every morning to his\nwindow, threw it open, looked up to the skies, and veritable prisoner\nthough he was, cheerily sang, \"God is our Refuge and Strength, a very\npresent Help.\" Then he carried a buoyant heart to the labor of the day.\n\nThe joy of a glad outlook was well understood by Ruskin. His guests at\nBrantwood were often awakened early in the morning by a knocking at\ntheir doors and the call, \"Are you looking out?\" When in response to\nthis summons they pushed back the window-blinds a scene of beauty\ngreeted their eyes. The glory of sunlight and the grandeur of forest\ndispelled care, quieted fret, and animated hope.\n\nScarce anything in life more determines a soul's welfare than the nature\nof its outlook. If spiritual frontage is toward the shadow, the soul\nsees all things in the gloom of the shadow; if spiritual frontage is\ntoward the sunlight, the soul sees all things in the brightness of the\nsunlight.\n\nThe preliminary question of character is, What is the outlook? Let that\noutlook be wrong, and opinion and conduct in due time will be wrong; let\nit be right, and whatever the temporary mistakes of opinion and conduct,\nthe permanent tendency of character will be toward the right.\n\n\"From a small window one may see the infinite,\" Carlyle wrote. This was\nDaniel's belief. He acted upon his belief. The windows of his soul were\nalways open to the infinite. In that fact lies the explanation of his\ncharacter--a character of which every child hears with interest, every\nyouth with admiration, and every mature man with reverence.\n\nTo-day in eastern lands the Mohammedan, wherever he may be, turns his\nface toward Mecca when, seeking help, he worships God. To him Mecca is\nthe central spot of Mohammedan revelation, and is the focus of all\nMohammedan brotherhood. So in olden times the Israelite, wherever he\nmight be, thought of Jerusalem as the place where God's worship was\nworthiest and where Israelitish fellowship was heartiest. The name\n\"Jerusalem\" strengthened his religious faith and stirred his national\npatriotism. To open the windows of his soul toward Jerusalem was to open\nthe soul to the best thoughts and impressions that the world provided.\n\nAs the premier of the great Medo-Persian empire Daniel had his own\npalatial residence. The windows of the different rooms fronted in their\nspecial directions. There was one room that was his particular and\nprivate room. It was an \"upper room\" or \"loft,\" somewhere apart by\nitself. The distinctive feature of this room was that its windows opened\ntoward Jerusalem. Into this room Daniel was accustomed to go three times\na day, throw open the lattice windows, look toward Jerusalem, and then\nin the thought of all that Jerusalem represented, kneel and talk with\nGod.\n\nSuch was his custom. If the matters of his life were comparatively\ncomfortable, he did this; and if those matters were seriously\nunpleasant, he did the same. Should, then, an occasion much out of the\nordinary arise, an occasion involving a crisis in his life, it would be\nperfectly natural that he should, as he had invariably done, go into his\nretired chamber and open the windows.\n\nSuch an extraordinary occasion arose when Darius issued the decree that\nthe man who prayed to other than himself should be cast into a den of\nlions. In itself the decree seemed justifiable. It was customary for the\nPersians to worship their kings as gods. Ormuzd was said to dwell in\nevery Persian king. Accordingly, divine authority was attributed to\nPersian kings, and whenever one of them issued a law, it had the force\nof infallibility. So it was \"that the law of the Medes and the Persians\npublished by a king altereth not.\"\n\nAt this particular time a decree commanding all people to bow to the\nking was perhaps a matter of state policy. The kingdom of the Medes and\nPersians had just been established. Here was an opportunity of testing\nthe loyalty of the entire realm to the new king, Darius. If the people\nfar and wide would bow to him, then they were loyal; but if they refused\nso to bow, then they evidently were disloyal.\n\nThere was, however, an ulterior motive lying back of this seemingly\nrational decree. Many of the state officials envied Daniel. He was a\nforeigner, and still he held higher place than they. They desired to\nbring him into disrepute. They could not accomplish their purposes\nthrough charges of malfeasance of office, for his actions were\nabsolutely faultless. They therefore resorted to the securing of this\ndecree, believing, from what they knew of Daniel's habits and character,\nthat he would, as he always had done, pray to Jehovah and not to Darius.\nIn such case he would violate the decree and expose himself to the\npenalty of death.\n\nDaniel knew that the decree had been issued. What would he do about it?\nThe envious officials watched to see. When Daniel went to his palace\ntheir eyes followed him. Perhaps they had spies in the palace. In any\ncase, some eyes tracked him as he passed from room to room until he came\ninto his \"loft,\" his \"upper room,\" and then they saw him open the\nwindows toward Jerusalem and kneel before Jehovah! So much was it a part\nof Daniel's life to keep the windows of his soul open to the best, that\nthe direst threat had no power to divert him for an instant from his\nwonted course.\n\nDaniel kept the windows of his soul open to the best _religion_. To him\nJerusalem stood for the best religion on earth. From the time, as a boy\nof fourteen, he first went away from home, he had lived among peoples\nhaving different faiths. He had known the religion of the Chaldeans, and\nhad seen its phases under Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. It had much in\nits favor: its temples were beautiful, its ceremonies ornate, its feasts\nimposing. It had much however that was not in its favor: its\nheartlessness, its impurity, and its deceit. He had known, too, the\nfire-worshiping religion of the Persians. Many of its features appealed\nto him. The sun then as always was an object of admiration. As it rises\nabove the horizon, moving with a stately progress that no cloud can\ncheck, no force of nature can retard, and no hand of man can withstand,\nit is the personification of majesty. As it causes the birds to sing,\nthe beasts of the field to bestir themselves, and mankind to issue forth\nto labor, it is the emblem of power. As it makes the grass to grow and\nthe flower to bloom, and as it draws skyward the moisture of lake and\nocean that, like a great benefactor, it may send accumulated showers to\nrefresh the parched earth, the sun is a very life-giver. It was no\nwonder that the Persians of Daniel's day, with their imperfect\nknowledge, bowed before that sun and worshiped it; nor was it a wonder\nthat they worshiped all fire that has within itself such transforming\nand beautifying and energizing power.\n\nBut though Daniel knew this religion, and the many other religions that\nin his time had their votaries in Babylon, he kept his windows open\ntoward Jerusalem. Other religions might attempt the answer to the soul's\ninquiries concerning the meaning of life, other religions might have\ntheir beauties and their deformities, other religions might help him\nvery materially in his political career, but to him one religion was the\nhighest and the best, and to the influence of that religion he opened\nhis soul. Jerusalem stood for one God--an invisible Creator who formed\nall things and was Lord over the sun itself as well as over man. This\nGod, an unseen Spirit, was spotless in his character, and would dwell in\nthe heart of man as man's friend and helper. To Daniel there was no such\nreligion anywhere as the religion that taught this incomparable God--a\nGod without a vice, a God who forgives sin, a God who never disdains the\nweakest soul that comes to him in penitence--and still is \"Lord of lords\nand King of kings,\" the only wise and only Eternal One.\n\nOnce a distinguished thinker, addressing students, said: \"I have found\ngreat benefit in my own experience by emphasizing a very simple\nprinciple, one which never fails me when it is applied to questions of\nthe spiritual life: '_It is always best to believe the best._'\"\n\nThen he illustrated his meaning. The religion that teaches that all\nevents are guided by intelligence toward a goal of love, rather than by\nblind and remorseless force, enables us to live in hope. It makes\nexistence, not a prison-house, but a place of broad and splendid\nhorizons; it makes the service of humanity a prophecy of blessing for\nall; it makes the discipline of the race a means toward a beneficent\nend. The religion that also teaches that we all are children of a good\nGod, and that to the weakest and humblest of us there may be deliverance\nfrom all evil, transformation into all holiness, and finally reception\nto immortality in the presence and service of regnant perfection, such a\nreligion is the best--the best in its hopes, the best in its\ninspiration, the best in its purposes, and the best in its results.\nBecause it is the best, it is best to believe it; best to believe it,\nbecause through believing it we are helped toward the noblest manhood\nand are enabled to face life and death alike, with bravery.\n\nAll this Daniel realized. Accordingly, amid all the distractions and\nappeals, and even temptations, of other religions, he kept his heart's\nwindows open to the influences of God's religion. That was the wise\nattitude for him. It is the wise attitude for all. It is a man's duty,\nif he be true to his own soul, to keep an open mind to the best\nreligion. Christianity claims to be the best, and asks acceptance on\nthat ground alone. It welcomes study of every other religion. It\nrejoices in a \"Parliament of Religions,\" wherein the advocates of\ndifferent religions may present the claims of their religions in the\nstrongest language possible. It listens as one religion is praised\nbecause it can secure calmness of mind, and as another is praised\nbecause it can secure heroism of life. As it listens, it delights in\nevery word of encomium, _so long as each speaker and hearer keeps an\nopen heart toward the best religion_. Then, when its own opportunity\ncomes, Christianity presents itself, and asserting that the evil that is\nin any other religion is not in Christianity at all, that the good that\nis in any other religion is in Christianity far more abundantly, and\nthat there are blessings in Christianity that appear in no other\nreligion whatever, it claims to be the transcendent religion.\n\nIn the activity of intellectual life common to all awakening and\nthoughtful minds it is inevitable that doubts will arise concerning the\nworthiness of Christianity. Every age finds the special doubts of its\nown age peculiar to itself. In this present age questions are in the air\nconcerning the authorship of the Bible, concerning the person of Christ,\nand concerning the authenticity of the records of Christ's earthly\nministry. Men are asking whether this world is impelled by a blind,\nresistless, heartless force, whether we are merely a mass of atoms,\nwhether we may be delivered from the thraldom of sin, and whether when\nwe die we become dust and dust alone. What shall we do in the face of\nall these questions? _Keep the windows of our souls open to the beliefs\nthat are best for our life's grandeur and for humanity's uplift._ That\nis what we may do, what we should do, and what if we so do, will\ninvariably lead the mind to a higher and higher valuation of the\npre-eminence of Christianity.\n\nDaniel kept his windows open to the best _commands_ of the best\nreligion. His daily surroundings from the hour as a youth he entered the\nking's palace at Babylon were demoralizing. The ideals of his associates\nwere low. The religious life of his fellow-students was a mere form.\nDomestic life all about him was unsound. Public life was dishonest.\nLooseness of character everywhere prevailed. Impurity was alluring.\nBribery was considered a necessary feature of authority. The weak were\ncrushed by the mighty. Selfishness characterized both king and people.\n\nThe difficulty of his position was great: to breathe malaria and not be\naffected by it. He was in the whirl of worldliness and still he must not\nbe made dizzy thereby. His one resource for safety was his daily\nconsideration of the commands of God. Those commands charged men to be\nupright, to be clean, to do duty faithfully, even though it was duty to\na heathen master, and to make life serviceable to the welfare of others.\nAgain and again all through the years of his exile it was necessary for\nhis soul's welfare that he should ponder these commands of God and not\nlet the atmosphere that surrounded him lower and destroy his ideals.\n\nOn that day when the unalterable decree was issued Daniel was in\nimminent and unescapable peril. Jealous officers already rejoiced in his\nanticipated death. The danger of weakening threatened his heart. He\nremembered that Abraham once in Egypt surrendered his principles and\nthereby saved his life; that the Gibeonites once falsified and so\npreserved themselves alive. He might have reasoned, \"Why should not I,\nin this special matter, yield, and give up recognition of Jehovah until\nthe storm of persecution is past?\" He could easily say, \"Perhaps I am\nmaking too much of this whole subject; what difference will there be if\nI, away off here in Babylon, hundreds of miles from home, call this a\ncase of expediency, and temporarily relinquish my ideals?\" The\ntemptation was a fearful one. Many a man has gone down before it.\nCranmer did, Pilate did; but not Daniel. He kept his eyes on God's\ncommands--those commands that told him to do the right and scorn the\nconsequences, those commands that told him that faithfulness to\nprinciple, though it ended in martyrdom, was essential to place in God's\nhero list. He remembered Joseph, who would not sin against God in doing\nevil. He remembered God, that bade him bear his testimony, sealing it if\nnecessary with his life's blood. So remembering he kept the faith and\nproved invincible.\n\nMany a man, like Daniel, exposed to a peculiar temptation, has been\nmade brave as he has remembered the standards set for him by another. He\nhas thought of the wife perhaps, who charged him to meet his duties as a\nman of God, though godliness should involve them both in disgrace, and\nthus thinking he has stood firm before evil. Or as a youth, away from\nhome, in a school or factory, with deteriorating influences all about\nhim, and his feet well-nigh gone from the ways of uprightness, he has\nturned his heart toward that mother who would rather have him die than\nbe false, and the remembrance of her has roused his self-assertion and\nmade him master of the environment.\n\nThe commands of God summon men to _principle_, to _fidelity_, to\n_serviceableness_, to _self-renunciation_, and to _holiness_. The man\nhas never lived, nor ever will live, who can fulfil these commands of\nGod unless his windows are continually open toward Jerusalem. We need,\nwe always need, to have our ideals kept large and our standards kept\nhigh if we are to be noble souls.\n\nDaniel kept the windows of his soul open, too, to the best _promises_\nof the best religion. Even though the prince of the eunuchs was kind to\nthe home-sick captive, and a king was gracious to the interpreter of\ndreams, Daniel was always exposed to discouragement. Like the missionary\nof to-day, alone in a foreign land, he was surrounded by the depressing\ninfluences of heathenism. As he advanced in power there was no one to\nwhom he could go for religious fellowship. The aids of comradeship and\nthe aids of public worship were wanting. There were no audible voices\nsummoning him to trust, and there was no tangible evidence of the\nexistence of a people of God. He therefore needed every day to go to God\nHimself, and find in Him a refuge for his heart; needed to hear God's\nreassuring voice telling him that God was with him, was watching over\nhim in love, and would provide for him as occasion might require. How\noften Daniel must have been comforted and heartened as he opened his\nsoul to the promises of God!\n\nBut what an hour of need that was when he was tracked to his upper room!\nEvery power in the great Medo-Persian Empire was arrayed against him. No\nfriend, no helper, was at hand. He stood alone before his fearful\ncrisis. Brave and determined as his spirit might be, he was still a\nman--a man of flesh and blood. He needed strength: needed, as Christ\nafterward in Gethsemane needed, supporting and encouraging sympathy. He\nturned his soul toward the promises of God's protection and help. He let\nthose promises flood his heart. Those promises made his will like\nadamant.\n\nWe do well when we front our hearts to God's promises. Every earnest\nsoul, trying to make this world better, meets severe discouragements.\nThen let the soul open itself to God's assurance that the ends of the\nearth are given to Christ and that good shall indeed come off\nvictorious. Every weak soul struggling to subdue its sin comes to hours\nof weariness. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance that He\ngiveth power to the faint and to them that have no might He increaseth\nstrength. Every sorrowing soul, sighing for the loved and the lost, has\ndays of loneliness. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance\nthat life and immortality are brought to light in Jesus Christ. Only as\nthe needy world of humanity opens its heart to God's promises can it\nwalk in light and possess the peace that passeth understanding.\n\nThere is always danger lest men let the windows of their souls be shut\ntoward God. Our particular _sins_ cause us to shut these windows. We do\nnot like to look into God's face when we are conscious of cherished\nevil. Adam and Eve hid themselves from God when they knew they had done\nwrong. Those who condemned the reformers to death, often put wax in\ntheir ears so that they might not hear the testimony given by those\nreformers at the stake. _Cares_, too, cause us to shut these windows. We\nhave so much responsibility to absorb us that we have \"no time to look\nout to any distant tower of a sanctifying thought.\" All sorts of sights\nare before our windows--society, business, pleasure, study--but not God.\nOur life seems to open in every other direction than toward the holy\ncity. We do not go alone into a private place and expose ourselves to\nthe influences God stands ready to send to our hearts. It would be far\nbetter if we did. We should find that almost as gently as comes the\nsunlight, ideas, inspirations, and aspirations would be suggested to our\nhearts. They would enter our hearts, we would not know how; and if we\ncherished them, they would correct our false estimates of life, would\nre-mint our courage, would clarify the vision of our faith, and would\nprepare us, as they prepared Daniel, to discharge all life's duties with\nintegrity, humanity, and composure.\n\nIt is a blessed, very blessed, way to live, this way of keeping our\nhearts open to the best. We all can so live. We can have a secret\nchamber--a very closet of the soul--into which we can go, whether we are\nwith the multitude or are alone; and if through the broadly opened\nwindows of that closet we look out toward the best--distant as that best\nmay seem--back from the best will come the light that never fails and\nthe strength that never breaks.\n\n\n\n\nWINNING THE BEST VICTORIES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nWINNING THE BEST VICTORIES.\n\n\nSuccess in life is determined by the victories we win. Only he who\ntriumphs over obstacles is a successful man.\n\nThere are as many kinds of victory as there are kinds of obstacles. Some\nkinds of obstacles call upon us for the use of our secondary powers, and\nsome for the use of our primary powers. When the obstacles bring into\nplay the very best powers of our natures, and those powers conquer the\nobstacles, then we win our best victories.\n\nDavid is a most interesting illustration of the winning of victories.\nThe Bible evidently considers him one of its greatest heroes. While it\ngives eleven chapters to Jacob and fourteen chapters to Abraham, it\ngives sixty-one chapters to David. It thus asks us to pay great heed to\nthe story and lessons of David's life.\n\nAlmost our first introduction to David represents him in a fight. He is\na mere shepherd lad, out in the wilderness, perhaps miles from another\nhuman being, when a lion springs forth and seizes a lamb from the flock\nhe is guarding. It was a fearsome hour for a boy. He might have deserted\nthe flock and fled, preserving himself. But not so. He faced the lion.\nHe even attacked the lion. He wrested the lamb from its mouth, and he\nslew the lion. Again, when, under similar circumstances, a beast of\nanother kind, a bear, laid hold of a lamb, David stood up to the danger,\nand with such weapons of club and knife as he had, fought the bear to\nits death.\n\nSome years ago in Alaska, in a house hundreds of miles from any other\nwhite man's home, I saw a bearskin lying upon the sitting-room floor.\nThe son of the house, out hunting, had suddenly come upon a bear, that\nrose up within a few feet of his face. The boy lifted his gun, shot,\naiming at the bear's heart, and then, trembling with terror, ran for\nhome. The next day the boy's father took associates to the spot, found\nthe body of the bear, and brought the skin home as a trophy of the boy's\nskill and pluck. And a trophy it was! But when David, scarce armed at\nall, a boy, brought down his lion and his bear, in an actual\nface-to-face encounter, the skins of the lion and of the bear were\ntrophies indeed!\n\nThe next scene in David's life is when he meets Goliath. David is still\na youth. The ruddy color has not yet been burned out of his cheeks by\nthe Oriental sun. This meeting is different from any he has faced. It is\nnot with a beast, but with a man--a man armed, a man experienced in\ncombat, a man of much larger size and weight than himself, a man who had\nan assured sense of his own strength, a man whose voice, manner, and\nprowess put fear into the heart of every fighter in the army of Israel.\nIn David's previous contests there had been an element of suddenness, so\nthere was no time for hesitation, and so no time for the cowardice often\nborn of hesitation; in this contest there was delay, and during that\ndelay David was twitted with the foolishness of even thinking of facing\nGoliath, and an effort was made to break down his courage. Right\nmanfully, however, did he stand up to the danger. Instead of a lamb, an\narmy was in peril. The cause was worthy of a great venture. He made the\nventure. He took smooth stones from the brook, he used his shepherd's\nsling, he conquered Goliath, and Goliath's sword and Goliath's head\nbecame trophies of a splendid victory. The youth had rescued an army\nfrom paralyzing fear, and had saved the glory of Jehovah's name! He\ndeserved credit then. He received it then. And he became forever an\ninspiring example to all youth who would fight their country's battles,\nand win laurels for the God of battles.\n\nThese two scenes are suggestive. The one with the lion and the bear\nspeaks to us of pure physical bravery. David has such muscular strength\nthat he, by the power in his hands and arms, can hold beasts and fight a\nwinning fight with them. David's strength makes the killing of a lion or\nbear with a rifle, whether at long distance or even near at hand, seem\nsmall. It makes the ordinary successes of those who contest in the\nathletic trials of our day seem insignificant. Still it glorifies those\nsuccesses. Physical bravery is most desirable. People believe so. They\nlove to see contests of physical endurance. They will go miles to watch\nsuch contests, and they will cheer the victors to the echo. In so doing\nto-day they follow the example of all preceding generations. Barbarian,\nGreek, Roman, Indian, every man everywhere is interested in muscular\npower. It fells trees and wins victories over the forest; it plows soil\nand wins victories over the fields; it breaks stone and wins victories\nover roadbeds. Physical victories are not to be gainsaid. May every life\nwin them if it can against nature, against other lives in fair\nathletics, against any one who would rob a home or burn a house. The\nambition to win muscular victories, in a right way, for the defense or\nhonor of a worthy cause, is to be commended. Victories so won make their\nwinners heroes. Waterloo is said to have been fought and won on the\nfoot-ball ground of Rugby.\n\nThe other scene is likewise suggestive--of David with Goliath. It is\nthat of a youth fighting for his country and his God. It is still a\nphysical contest, but it is now skill and muscle combined; or rather,\nmuscle directed by skill. The contest, physically considered, is\nunequal. David is no match for Goliath. They are in different classes.\nBut a calm mind, a dexterous hand, and a high purpose are David's, and\nthey more than compensate for lack of physical force. The strongest\nbattalions do not always conquer. The strongest physical force is not to\nconquer in this instance. Patriotism may so nerve the heart that one man\nis equal to a hundred, and resolute purpose may develop such skill and\nsturdiness that a few can put a thousand to flight. It has always been\nso--in days of Marathon and in days of Bunker Hill--and it always will\nbe so. The men who win such victories may well be lauded. It was right\nthat David's name should go into the ballads of his country and be\nrepeated again and again to stir the heart of patriotism. Any man who\ncan fight the battles of trade or of manufacturing or of invention--any\nman who can head a great industry, who can write a strong book, or who\ncan make an eloquent speech--any man who conquers the difficulty of his\nposition by skill and energy, and succeeds, has indeed won a great\nvictory. For a mere shepherd youth to conquer a trained fighter was\nsuperb; and it is superb to-day when a poor boy honestly wins his way to\nwealth, and a stammering boy learns to speak like a Demosthenes, and a\nseeming dunce becomes a brilliant Scott. All soldiers conquering like\nGrant, all discoverers succeeding like Columbus, all investigators\nsearching like Darwin and writing like Spencer, deserve crowns of\nrecognition for victories they have won.\n\nAs a result of these two scenes in David's life many other scenes of a\nsomewhat similar nature occurred. As occasions arose, David led many\nanother attack upon the nation's foes. He possessed the rare power of\ncreating a well-disciplined force out of outlaws. He so combined skill\nand leadership that none of the enemies of Israel could resist him. The\nstory of his battles is a long and a glorious one. He was a fighter of\nwhom the nation might be proud. If physical prowess and military skill\nand administrative force and legislative provision are essential to\nkingly success, he had them. Victory after victory, in all these lines,\nwere written upon his banner.\n\nBut David's fame does not rest upon the victories he won over beast or\nfellow-man, interesting and great as these victories are. The reason\nthat the Bible gives him the space it does, and the reason Christ is\nsaid to be David's son (though never the son of any other Old Testament\nhero), is because of the victories David won over himself. In the sphere\nof his own heart he found his greatest difficulties, for in that sphere\nhe found his strongest foes; but in that sphere he wrought out his\ngreatest victories. The best element in David's life is not his physical\nstrength, not his intellectual skill, not his ability as a singer, a\ngeneral, a judge, a builder, or a king, but the best element is his\nconquest of himself.\n\nWhat a victory of _magnanimity_ that was, when Saul, who was bitterly\npersecuting David, entered the cave in whose dark recesses David was\nconcealed, and lay down for sleep! David had him in his power. He could\nhave killed him instantly, and forever ended the persecution. He was\neven urged to do so by his followers. But he conquered his enmity, he\nlooked upon the sleeping Saul with pity, and he left him unharmed. It is\na mighty soul that can pity and forgive. Here was a king pursuing an\ninnocent subject who had no other thought than of loyalty to his\nking--pursuing him relentlessly. The whole transaction on Saul's part\nwas unjust and cruel. But David, deeply feeling the wrong he was\nsuffering, crowded down the bitterness of his heart, and treated Saul\nmagnanimously.\n\nHow many men, otherwise splendid men, have failed just here. They could\nfight bravely as sailors or soldiers, but later they could not treat a\nrival graciously. They could win successes socially or commercially or\nscholastically, but they became jealous of their places and their\nrecognitions, and they wished no good to the one who in any way stood in\ntheir path. But David, knowing that he himself was anointed to be king,\nand that Saul's persecution of him was unjustifiable, still rose so far\nabove all thought of preserving his own dignity and insisting on his own\nrights, that when his enemy lay helpless at his feet, he treated him\nwith deference! Now we begin to see why David is called \"a man after\nGod's own heart.\" Was it because he could fight beast and man well? No;\nbut because he could fight his own jealous, bitter heart and make it\ngenerous and kind and magnanimous.\n\nWhat a victory of _penitence_ that was when David sinned in the matter\nof Uriah and Bathsheba! He did sin. No one exculpates David. The Bible\ndoes not exculpate him, nor will any sane man exculpate him. He did a\nwrong that brought incessant sorrow on his heart and home. During all\nthe remaining years of his life he had cause to regret his wrong. It\nmight have been alleged that he did only what king after king, situated\nlike himself in that Oriental land, with its despotic power and its\nmanner of life, had done before him and would do after him. He might\nhave justified himself by the custom of the day and by the prerogative\nof royalty. The probability is that he acted impulsively, allowing in an\nunguarded moment a wicked suggestion to conquer him. But when a prophet\nof God, Nathan, brought home to his soul the fact that he had sinned,\nwhat a victory that was, as the man fought down all the voices within\nhim, calling to him to \"brave it out,\" to \"show no weakening before the\nprophet,\" to \"justify himself to himself on the score of a king's right\nto do as he pleased,\" and in conquering these voices, humbled himself\nbefore God, making the one voice that triumphantly rose above every\nother voice the voice of penitence--\"Against Thee, Thee only, have I\nsinned, and done this evil in Thy sight. Create in me a clean heart and\nrenew a right spirit within me!\"\n\nThere is nothing in our world that shows high victory better than\npenitence. Mankind does wrong. Sometimes it knows the wrong. Then\nperhaps it confesses its wrong in the hurried words, \"I have sinned.\" So\nsaid Pharaoh, and immediately did again what he had done before. So said\nSaul, and never gave up the wrong that forced the confession from him.\nSo said Judas, and went out to hang himself. But when David said it, he\nsaid it with a broken and a contrite heart. The man who having sinned\nconquers all the passion and pride of his soul and becomes a sweet,\ntrue, pure penitent is a victor over whom angels rejoice. Thousands of\nmen who have made a success in their own field of labor fail to win\nlife's best victories because they never bow before God and say, \"Lord,\nbe merciful to me a sinner.\" They are as stout-hearted as the Pharisee,\nand as self-deceived. They forget the bitternesses they have cherished\ntoward their fellow-men, they overlook all the omissions of goodness\nthat have marked their lives, they do not consider how terrible is their\npresent and their past ingratitude to God for all His goodness to them,\nand so they lack that gentlest, most beautiful, and most exalting virtue\nof penitence.\n\nWhat a victory of _humility_ that was, when David, forbidden to carry\nout the supreme desire of his heart in the building of a temple, exerted\nall his power to help another to build it! The erection of a temple that\nshould be the richest structure of its time was David's dream. It was to\nbe the consummation of his effort. Enemies should be subdued, laws\nshould be passed, government should be sustained, and foreign alliances\nmade--all to this end. He looked forward to the day when the temple\nwould crown Moriah, as the happiest day of his life. But God told him\nthat another, not he, should build the temple, and that it would be\nknown, not as David's Temple, but as Solomon's Temple. Should he then\nwithdraw all interest from the undertaking? Should he say, \"This is not\nmy matter, it is another's; let another then carry its burden, as he\nwill carry its glory.\" He was sorely disappointed. The one thing he had\naimed to do was denied him. But he rose above his disappointment; he\nconquered it. He who was to take secondary place, threw himself into the\nhelp of him who was to have first place. He devised plans, he organized\nforces, he started instrumentalities, he gave his money by the millions,\nhe animated others to follow his example, and he did all that chastened\ndevotion could do to help another to complete the building which should\nforever sound the praises of Solomon.\n\nHumility is not a virtue easily won. The virtue of sweetly accepting\nminor place when we wished major place, and of working as earnestly for\nanother as for ourselves, is very rare. In the army of Washington there\nwas a general, Charles Lee, who again and again was conquered by his own\njealousy, and would not do as the interests of Washington, his\ncommanding officer, demanded. He would have fought to the death for his\nown reputation, but not for the reputation of Washington. Self-made men\nfind it exceedingly difficult to be humble. David won a far higher\nvictory when he cheerily went about all the self-imposed tasks of\ngathering material for Solomon's temple than when he fought the lion or\nGoliath, or led an army into battle. The man that does justice does\nwell; the man that does justice and loves mercy does better; the man\nthat does justice and loves mercy and walks humbly before God does best.\nAnd no man, whoever he may be, strong, reputable, industrious,\nscholarly, wealthy, ever wins his best victories until he walks humbly\nwith his God.\n\nAnd what a victory of _unselfishness_ that was when David, in the time\nof the numbering, called upon God to lay all penalty for the sin upon\nhimself! Again the lower propensities of David's heart had misled him.\nHe thought that he would number his military forces and let the nation\nknow how strong and ample its army was. The thought was a mistaken one.\nSafety lay, not in numbers, but in the virtues that spring from obedient\ntrust in God. The deed of numbering, however, had been done. Then the\nplague came. God would show that in three days the army could be so\nreduced by sickness as to make it, however large its numbers, utterly\nimpotent. David saw the angel of destruction as the angel drew near to\nthe threshing-floor of Araunah. With a heart overflowing with\nunselfishness, he cried to God, \"I have sinned, I have done perversely,\nbut these sheep, what have they done? Let Thy hand be against me, and\nagainst my father's house.\" He would die himself--to have others live.\n\nThis was perhaps his very best victory. Winkelried opened his breast to\nreceive all the concentrated spear thrusts of the enemy, that thus the\narmy behind him might have chance to advance. The self-immolating life\nis the noblest. True love comes to its expression in self-sacrifice.\nChrist reached His highest glory, not when He battled with wind and wave\nand conquered them, not when He battled with disease and demons and\nconquered them, not when He battled with lawyers and dialecticians and\nconquered them, but when He poured out His life for others.\n\nThere are victories to be won at every step of our life's progress. No\none of them is to be underestimated. Victories of mere brawn, wrought\nworthily in proper time and proper place, are good; victories of\nintellectual skill, wrought worthily in proper purpose and proper\nspirit, are good; but the best victories any life can win are the\nvictories won within a man's own heart. These are the most difficult\nvictories, and they are the most glorious victories. Each person,\nequally with every other, has opportunity for such victories. Whenever\nDavid failed to carry God and God's help into a battle he lost; but\nwhenever he fought under God and for God he won. David's life knew many\nand many a failure, but he rose from every failure and made a new\neffort. As a result, victory crowned his life, and he died a man of God.\nVictory, too, may crown our lives, however weak they are, if like David,\nafter every fall, we penitently turn to God, and in His grace strive\nonce again to win the victories of faith.\n\n\n\n\nMAKING THE BEST USE OF OUR LIVES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nMAKING THE BEST USE OF OUR LIVES.\n\n\nThe great Humboldt once said, \"The aim of every man should be to secure\nthe highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete\nand consistent whole.\" Another thoughtful man, Sir John Lubbock, also\nsaid, \"Our first object should be to make the most and best of\nourselves.\"\n\nProminent among the historic personages who have made the best use of\ntheir lives is Joseph. Touch his career at any point that is open to\ninvestigation, and always Joseph will be found doing the very best that\nunder the circumstances can be done. When his father tells him to carry\nfood to his envious brothers, he obediently faces the danger of their\nhatred and goes. When he is a slave in Potiphar's house he discharges\nall his duties so discreetly that the prison-keeper trusts him\nimplicitly. When his fellow-prisoners have heavy hearts, he feels their\nsorrows and tries to give them relief. When Pharaoh commits the ordering\nof a kingdom to his keeping, he governs the nation ably. When foresight\nhas placed abundant food in his control, he feeds the famishing nations\nso that all are preserved. When his father and his brethren are in need,\nhe graciously supplies their wants. When that father is dying, the son\nis as tender with him as a mother with her child. And when that father\nhas died, the son reverences his father's last request and carries\nJacob's body far up into the old home country at Machpelah for burial.\n\nThere were many occasions in Joseph's life in which he might have\nfailed. At least, in any one of them he might have come short of the\nbest. Seneca used to say of himself, \"All I require of myself is, not to\nbe equal to the best, but only to be better than the bad.\" But Joseph\naimed in every individual experience to be equal to the best. In that\naim he succeeded wondrously. Going out, as a young boy, from the simple\nhome of a shepherd, becoming a captive in a strange land, subjected to\ngreat temptations in a luxurious civilization, tested with a great\nvariety of important duties, exposed to the peril of pride and\nself-sufficiency, given opportunity for revenge upon those who had\ninjured him, he always, without exception, carried himself well, doing\nhis part bravely, earnestly, and wisely, and making of his life, in each\nopportunity, the best.\n\nIt is not every one that is called to such a vast range of experience as\nwas Joseph. Even Christ never traveled out of His own little environment\nof Judea, that was a few miles north and south, and still fewer miles\neast and west. The great majority of lives never come into public\nprominence. They have no part in administering the affairs of a kingdom\nor in managing large mercantile transactions. Even among the apostles\nthere were some whose history is almost lost in obscurity. We scarce\nknow anything of what Bartholomew said or Lebbeus did. It is not a\nquestion whether we can make a great name for ourselves. That may be\nabsolutely impossible. Many a beautiful flower is so placed in some\nextensive field that human eyes never see it and human lips consequently\nnever praise it. But the question is, whether we are doing the best that\ncan be done with our lives such as they are.\n\nEvery human life is like the life of some tree. Each tree is at its\nbest when it well fulfils the purpose for which it was made. There are\ntrees which must stand as towering as the date-palm if they answer their\nend, and there are other trees which can never expect to be towering,\nfor they were made, like the box, to keep near the ground. Some trees\nare for outward fruit, as the apple, and some for inward fruit, as the\nash. Fruit is \"correspondence in development with the purpose for which\nthe tree exists,\" is \"production in the line of the nature of the tree.\"\nWhen, then, the orange tree produces sound, sweet oranges that refresh\nthe dry lips of an invalid or ornament the table of a prince, the orange\ntree does well; and if it produces such fruit to as large a degree as\npossible, and for as long a time as possible, it has done its best. So,\ntoo, does the pine do well when it produces wood wherewith a good house\nfor family joy may be built, and the spruce does well when it brings\nforth a fiber that may be fashioned into paper on which words of truth\ncan be printed, and the oak does well when it develops a grain suitable\nfor the construction of a vessel that plowing the waves shall carry\ncargoes of merchandise. If the pine, the spruce, the oak, grow to the\nextent of their opportunity, and become all that they can become in the\nline of their own possibility, each and all have made the best use of\ntheir lives.\n\nBut how varied are the opportunities as well as the missions of trees,\nof the garden cherry and the forest poplar, of the swamp tamarack and\nthe plantation catalpa! Trees of the same genus may be so differently\nplaced that one can attain an abundant growth while another must strive\nhard simply to exist. An elm along a river bottom, fed by constant\nmoisture, lifts wide arms to the sunlight, while an elm on a rocky hill,\nscarce finding crevices for its roots, necessarily is small and stunted.\nAnd still that stunted elm may, in its place, make or not make the best\nuse of its life.\n\nHuman lives are as diversified in their natures as the growths of the\nfield and forest. Our tastes, our aptitudes, our memories, our\nimaginations, widely vary. The world is made up of thousands upon\nthousands of different needs, that must be met if mankind is to prosper.\nEvery function necessary for the world's welfare is an honorable\nfunction and becomes, when attempted by a consecrated heart, a sacred\nfunction. The world cannot live without cooking, nor can it live without\nbuilding, nor without bartering, nor without teaching. How to make the\nbest of the function or functions that are his, is the question every\nhuman being should ponder.\n\nA man may make a _bad_ use of his life. He may throw away his\nopportunities, he may wreck his powers of mind and body, he may tear\ndown that good in the world which he was put here to build up. This _is_\na possibility! Every life should understand that it is a possibility.\nJohn Newton held in his hand a ring. As he was leaning over the rail of\nan ocean vessel he had no thought that perhaps through careless handling\nhe might drop that ring and lose it forever. His mind was entirely on\nthe ring, not on the danger of losing the ring. Suddenly the ring\nslipped through his fingers, and before he could get hold of it again,\nit was in the depths of the sea. It is for this reason that the book of\nProverbs is constantly calling to men to see that the priceless jewels\nof opportunity are \"retained,\" and that Christ's word, \"not to let our\nlight become darkness,\" has so much significance. Men often squander\nfortunes. They also squander virtues and reputation and aptitudes and\nopportunities. Jails, reformatories, houses of detention, drunkards'\ngraves, the gathering places of tramps, all tell us that people can make\na miserable use of life. So does many a beautiful banquet-hall, many a\nluxurious home, many a speculator's resort, many a student's room, tell\nus that those we see there have had powers of mind and body and\nopportunities of social position and of wealth which they have thrown\naway. They have wasted their good as truly as a prodigal who has spent\nhis all in riotous living. They are Jeroboams; dowered with gifts that\nmight have been used for their own development and the welfare of others\nthey have let mean and low and unworthy attractions secure their gifts,\nthus spoiling their own characters and causing Israel to sin. Every\nblessing that a man has may become his curse, and drag him down and drag\nothers down with him.\n\nThis truth is well known. The other truth is not so well known, that a\nman may make an _inferior_ use of his life. This is exactly what that\nSeneca did who declared that his ambition was, \"not to be equal to the\nbest, but only to be better than the bad.\" He gained large knowledge, he\nwrote and spoke much that was philosophical and moral, he pointed out\nmany of the perils of a misuse of wealth, he was better than the bad,\nbetter than the Nero who would kick his mother, kill his wife, make\nmerry over his own indecencies, and gloat in the crucifixion of martyrs.\nSeneca was better than the man who never made effort to cultivate his\nmind, was better than the man who spent his days in orgies, yes, was far\nbetter than the man who was blind to the beauty of gems, of poetry, and\nof architecture. But all the same he made an inferior use of his life.\nHis library, his furniture, his precious stones, his worldly wisdom,\nwere very great. Let him be tutor even to an emperor, an emperor that\nwas a \"Caesar\"! And still, better than the bad, he made a lamentable\nmisuse of life when he let luxury enervate his righteous principles, let\nthe pleasures of the table rob him of his integrity, and let his own\nhand, in an hour of humiliation, end the life which was not his to end.\nSeneca was the man who let an inferior standard decide his purposes, and\nthus vitiated his powers. Any standard lower than the highest produces\npoor material. Second-rate standards make second-rate goods and\nsecond-rate men. Second-rate men are brought to hours of emergency\ncalling for first-rate principles. In such hours second-rate men go\ndown. A man satisfied to live for anything less than the best of which\nhe is capable may stand well for a considerable time, but before his\ndays are over he will be found to be an unsuccessful workman, a\ndisappointing teacher, a weak financier, an inaccurate student, an\nuntrustworthy friend.\n\nBut while we may make a bad or inferior use of life, we also may make\nthe _best_ use of it. To do this should be our ambition. It should be\nthe underlying, all-pervading purpose that quietly but regnantly\ndominates our being. The best use of our life will never be secured\napart from such ambition. It will not come of itself. We do not drift\ninto a best use. The best use is a matter of toil and perseverance, of\nthoughtfulness and devotion. It cost Joseph hours of consideration, days\nof application, and years of adaptation to make the best use of his\nlife. He found himself in new positions constantly. The boy naturally\nhad looked forward to being a shepherd. To that end he studied the lie\nof pasturage lands. When his father sent him to his brethren he knew the\nway to Shechem and Dothan, and he found his brethren.\n\nBut with his forced departure into Egypt, probably into the city of\nMemphis, all his surroundings are new and untried. The shepherd boy is\ngiven the duties of a household servant, exchanging the freedom of the\nfield for the confinement of the palace. But he takes up his new duties,\nmagnifying them as an opportunity of development, and he makes the best\nuse of them. Later, he who has known only a tent and a palace is in a\nprison, and is charged with the work of a prison guard. Right well he\ndoes that work, studying it, giving himself to it, and making a success\nof it by his heartiness and fidelity. Later still, he who has only\ntended sheep and ordered a household and enforced discipline is called\nto be a comforter to souls. He summons his sympathy, he persuasively\napproaches those whose hearts are sore, he obtains their confidence, and\nrelieves their anxiety. Still again, this prisoner, this shepherd boy,\nthis household servant, this man with pity in his eyes, is called to a\nnew adaptation. He must appear before a Pharaoh and as a courtier have\ninterview with him! That underlying purpose of his heart, always to make\nthe best of the hour and place, stands him in good stead, and the\ncourtier conducts himself so wisely that he is advanced to be an\nEgyptian viceroy. Later still this viceroy must become a minister of\nagriculture and charge a nation when and how to sow the fields. Still\nlater he must become a secretary of the treasury, purchasing grain and\nbuilding store-houses. Still later he must be a great premier, both\nproviding for present need and making arrangements for future taxation.\nLater he must be a brother with a true brother's heart and a son with a\nson's gentleness toward an aged and perhaps imperious parent. Later he\nmust be a mourner, then a traveler, and then as an orphan son he must\nassume again the heavy burdens of statesmanship.\n\nWhat strange varieties of experience Joseph thus met! How those\nexperiences kept changing every little while! Why did he succeed so well\nin them? Because in every one of them he made the best use of himself\nthat the occasion allowed. He magnified the opportunity he had. The\nthing that was at hand to do he did with absolute fidelity.\n\nWe do not forget and we must not forget that at the very bottom of his\nlife was a _belief in God_ and an intention to do what God sanctioned\nand only what God sanctioned. He would not disobey what he believed to\nbe a wish of God! Somehow, in that far-away country, surrounded by\ntemples and idols, meeting the thousands of priests of Isis, hearing the\ndaily services of heathenism, and seeing the unceasing vices of the\nland, he kept God and God's principles in his soul. Those principles in\ngeneral taught him purity and honesty; in particular they taught him\n_fidelity_ in the service of others and _desire to benefit_ his\nfellow-men. Such fidelity and helpfulness--united with dependence on the\naid of God--enabled him always and everywhere to make the best use of\nhis life. He trusted God when doors were shut as well as when they were\nopen. Privation as truly as prosperity was to him an opportunity.\n\nAccordingly, _heartiness_ went into his opportunities. The spirit of\ngrumbling never appeared in his career. No hour came too suddenly for\nhim, no task was too small nor too great, no occasion too low nor too\nhigh, no association too mean nor too noble. As a household servant he\ndid his work as under God and for God, and as a ruler of a nation he did\nit as under God and for God, and as an obedient son he did it as under\nGod and for God.\n\nA physician whose life has been beautiful in good deeds and in a high\nfaith once said, \"My happiness and usefulness in the world are due to a\nchance question from a stranger. I was a poor boy and a cripple. One\nday, standing on a ball-field and watching other boys who were strong,\nwell clothed, and healthy, I felt bitter and envious. The friends of the\nplayers were waiting to applaud them. I never could play nor have\napplause! I was sick at heart.\n\n\"A young man beside me must have seen the discontent on my face. He\ntouched my arm, and said, 'You wish you were one of those boys, do you?'\n'Yes, I do,' I answered quickly. 'They have everything and I have\nnothing.'\n\n\"Quietly he said, 'God has given them money, education, and health that\nthey may be of some account in the world. Did it never strike you that\nhe gave you your lameness for the same reason, to make a splendid man of\nyou?'\n\n\"I did not answer, but I never forgot the words. 'My lameness given me\nby God to teach me patience and strength!'\n\n\"At first I did not believe the words, but I was a thoughtful boy,\ntaught to reverence God, and the more I considered the words, the\nclearer I saw their truth. I decided to accept the words. I let them\nwork upon my temper, my purposes, my actions. I now looked on every\ndifficulty as an opportunity for struggle, every situation of my life as\nan occasion for good. If a helpless invalid was cast on me for support,\nor whatever the burden that came to me, I resolved to do my best. Since\nthen life has been sweetened and growth into peace and usefulness has\ncome.\"\n\nSoon after the death of Carlyle two friends met: \"And so Carlyle is\ndead,\" said one. \"Yes,\" said the other, \"he is gone; but he did me a\nvery good turn once.\" \"How was that,\" asked the first speaker, \"did you\never see him or hear him?\" \"No,\" came the answer, \"I never saw him nor\nheard him. But when I was beginning life, almost through my\napprenticeship, I lost all interest in everything and every one. I felt\nas if I had no duty of importance to discharge; that it did not matter\nwhether I lived or not; that the world would do as well without me as\nwith me. This condition continued more than a year. I should have been\nglad to die. One gloomy night, feeling that I could stand my darkness no\nlonger, I went into a library, and lifting a book I found lying upon a\ntable, I opened it. It was Sartor Resartus, by Thomas Carlyle. My eye\nfell upon one sentence, marked in italics, 'Do the duty which _lies\nnearest to thee_, which thou knowest to be a duty! The second duty will\nalready have become clearer.' That sentence,\" continued the speaker,\n\"was a flash of lightning striking into my dark soul. It gave me a new\nglimpse of human existence. It made a changed man of me. Carlyle, under\nGod, saved me. He put content and purpose and power into my life.\"\n\n\"The duty lying nearest\" was the duty Joseph magnified. He accepted\nthat duty as divine, and he performed it under God faithfully,\nserviceably, and cheerily. Any and every life that meets duty as Joseph\ndid, will make the best of its life. We may be placed in low position or\nin high position; we may have menial or kingly responsibilities; we may\nhave temptations of all possible kinds about us; but if we look to God\nfor guidance, and carry faithfulness, serviceableness, and cheer into\neach and every duty, we shall have made of life the best.\n\n\n\n\nPUTTING THE BEST INTO OTHERS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nPUTTING THE BEST INTO OTHERS.\n\n\nThere is nothing more worthy than the desire to perpetuate the good.\nThat desire implies that the person cherishing it has good within\nhimself, and that he wishes that good to live and flourish after his\ndeath. If a man thinks that his views are the best that can be held,\nthen, if he is a noble soul, interested in the world's welfare, he longs\nto have his best enter into other lives, and so continue to bless the\nworld.\n\nThis longing characterized Elijah. He came upon the scene of human life\nat a time when the worship of the low and debased threatened to dominate\nthe people of Israel. The priests of Baal, an impure god, were in the\nascendant. Vices, as a consequence, prevailed. These vices controlled\neven the court. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were impiously wrong. Elijah\nhad stern work to do. He must reprove the people for their errors. He\nmust face the priests of Baal and show them and show the nation that\ntheir god, as compared to Jehovah, was powerless. He must tell those in\nhigh places, even the king and queen themselves, that their sins, if\npersisted in, would surely be visited by Jehovah's wrath.\n\nHis was a difficult task. It required courage, persistency, and\ndetermined purpose. It would have been folly for him to undertake it\nunless he felt that his ideas were essential to the nation's good. He\nwould be resisted and hated. Hours would come when he would seem to\nstand wholly alone, and the cause he represented would appear to him\nhopeless. Still, difficult as his task was, he undertook it. All this\nworship of Baal and all these vicious practices of the people were\nwrecking the nation. As a patriot, as a lover of his fellow-man, as a\ngood servant of God, he must do and he would do whatever was in his\npower to replace the wrong with the right, to implant in the lives of\nthe people, from peasant to king, the truest and purest ideals.\nAccordingly he faithfully taught the will of God, called upon God to\nreveal Himself on Mount Carmel, reproved Ahab and Jezebel, and did his\nbest to put the best into the life of his day.\n\nBut he could not live forever. At any hour he might be stricken down by\nthe hand of an enemy or by the power of some illness. Like a wise man,\nloving the cause he had espoused, he looked about for some one who, in\ncase of his disability or death, could take up his work and carry\nforward his ideas. His mind turned toward one special man, perhaps just\ncoming out of boyhood into maturity, a man who seemed to have the\ninherent power of development, and he set his heart on putting into him,\nElisha, the best thought and the best principles that he had. He came\nupon Elisha in the full vigor of youth, plowing with twelve yoke of\noxen. The distinctive garment of Elijah's mission was his mantle. That\nstood for Elijah's special work of speaking the truth of God and calling\nthe nation to righteousness. Upon seeing Elisha in the field, Elijah\npassed over from the caravan path that he was traveling, and threw his\nmantle upon Elisha's shoulders! The action carried its own meaning. It\nindicated to Elisha that Elijah wished him to take up his work and stand\nfor his ideas. Elisha instantly realized the meaning of the act, and, in\nbriefest time compatible with filial duty, he answered to Elijah's wish.\n\nOne little sentence in the story of these two men's lives is very\ninstructive. \"They two went on.\" It is a very brief summary of what was\noccurring for days and months and years before Elijah died. \"They two\nwent on.\" They were together. They talked together. They thought\ntogether. They prayed together. Little by little Elijah imparted to\nElisha his views of life and imparted to him also his enthusiasm for the\nwelfare of Israel. When the time came for Elisha to step forward and do\nhis part for Israel's good, he was ready to act. He became and long\ncontinued to be a wise, helpful, instructive benefactor to Israel. The\nbest that had been in Elijah's life was perpetuated in Elisha's life.\n\nIt is a beautiful way to live, this way of putting the best into other\nlives. It confers such a blessing on the particular _individual_ who is\nthus helped. We cannot say with positiveness that the world might never\nhave known the full force of Elisha's character had not Elijah cast his\nmantle over Elisha's shoulder, but the probability is that it was\nElijah's interest in Elisha and his success in educating him toward his\nown ideals that gave the world Elisha's elevated personality. Paul acted\nsimilarly with Timothy. Timothy was undoubtedly a good boy of many\nworthy parts, and with many noble views of life. But Paul laid his hand\nand heart upon him, and claimed him for the special purpose of\ncontinuing the ministry of the gospel, and educated him to be a faithful\nrepresentative of the truth. Often there is much hesitancy to be\novercome, even in worthy people, before natural endowments will be put\nto the best use. Such may have been the case with both Elisha and\nTimothy. They needed encouragement. They needed inspiration through a\nsense of responsibility. This was the situation with John Knox. He,\nhumanly speaking, never could have come forward as an advocate of\nChrist's truth and religious freedom had it not been that another\napproached him, put his hand on his shoulder, and said, \"You have powers\nof good in you. You must use them in standing up for God and Scotland.\"\n\nWonderful resources are often developed in others through this purpose\nto put our best into them. No one knows the power latent in another\nlife. The most unpromising looking people may have faculties that, once\nawakened, directed, and called into action, will do a blessed part in\nthe world's advance. Every school whose history can be followed for\nfifty years has had pupils that at the outset seemed absolutely\nunpromising, that seemed even incapable of appreciation or development,\nbut who, under the devotion and inspiration of some teacher or\nfellow-pupil, became so aroused and so efficient that their names are an\nhonor to the school. The glory of every Ragged Boys' Home in a great\ncity is that former inmates who were thieves, parentless and friendless,\nwere so reached by a patient, loving man or woman that they became\nindustrious and honorable citizens, holding positions of power in the\ncity itself or possessing prosperous acres in the country. It is the boy\npicked up in the streets of New York and sent West to be a member of a\nfarmer's household that was led by that household's interest into such\ncharacter that he was appointed governor of Alaska. \"I have made,\" said\nSir Humphry Davy, \"many discoveries, but the best discovery was when I\ndiscovered Michael Faraday.\" There is scarcely any joy comparable with\nthe joy of discovering to himself and to the world the best elements\npossible in another's life. The one who brought about this discovery\ngladly sinks into the background, and rejoices to let the field be\noccupied by the one discovered. It would seem as though God Himself must\nhave rejoiced when, after all His patient teaching of Moses on the side\nof Horeb, He saw Moses showing his superb power of leadership in Egypt,\nand that God must have similarly rejoiced when He saw Paul responding to\nHis charge and manifesting traits of love, forbearance, and humility\nthat Paul had not thought he possessed. To put one Elisha into the\nworld's arena, there to stand and battle for the right, was the crowning\nglory and the crowning joy of Elijah's life. The men or women that can\ntake the best that is in them and put it into another, so that another\nshall live the best, honor the best, and glorify the best, can ask no\nhigher privilege in life.\n\nBut beyond the good secured to the individual by putting the best into\nhim is the good secured to the _world_ thereby. It was not merely that\nElijah inspired a new life in Elisha's soul and transformed a man, it\nwas also that he set in operation a new _influence_. The influence was\nnot exactly like his own. It was like Elijah's in that it was righteous,\nsafe, and helpful, but it was unlike Elijah's in its temper and\nexpression. Elijah was a great destroyer of evil: Elisha was a great\nuplifter of good. Elijah's earliest proclamation was, \"There shall not\nbe dew nor rain these years\": Elisha's earliest miracle is, \"There shall\nbe from hence life and fruitful land.\" Both were alike in their general\npurpose, both alike in their courage. Neither one of them could be moved\nfrom the path of duty by fear of man or men. But each was himself, as\ndistinct as two mountain peaks in the same range or as two ships on the\nsame sea. Elijah imparted his best to Elisha, but that best took shape\nin Elisha according to Elisha's individuality. Elisha was not Elijah\nover again, but he was Elijah's best in a new form--a new form that was\ndemanded by the needs of a new day. Elijah had laid blows of\ncondemnation on the nation: Elisha was to apply the balm of healing\nwhere those blows had fallen. Elijah was an agitator: Elisha was a\nteacher. Elijah was denunciatory: Elisha was tolerant. Each in his place\nheld the best views held by any man of his time, but each in his place\nwas called upon to hold those views according to his own temperament and\nexpress them according to the need immediately at hand.\n\nNo parent, teacher, or friend can possibly reproduce himself in\nanother. It is God's law that, however alike plants may seem in\nreproduction, no child shall see life exactly as his parents, nor shall\na pupil see it exactly as a teacher. This law is most wise. The same\nwork is never given to any two people to do. It may be work of the same\ngeneral nature, but never work the same in all particulars. Different\ntypes of men, actuated by the same motives, are required for different\ntypes of work. Any man who endeavors to be a pure copyist of another\ngone before him, always fails of individual development and fails of\nusefulness. Elijah could not foresee the changed circumstances in which\nElisha would live, when many of the vexatious questions of Elijah's day\nwould be settled and new questions of morality and public welfare would\narise. All that he could do, all that any man can do, is to give the\nbest he has to another, and send him forth to use that best as well as\nthe other can in the new place. The beauty of human history is that the\nwork the best man of one age could not accomplish, another coming after\nhim does accomplish, and he accomplishes it, not because he is any\nbetter than his predecessor, but because he is the man for this hour as\nhis predecessor was for the hour before this. There is always work to be\ndone. There are always tasks left over from a previous generation. There\nare always ideas hitherto unemphasized that to-day must be emphasized,\nelse society will not know its duty. For this work and task and emphasis\nnew men are needed, men who do not see exactly as their fathers saw, nor\npronounce nor act exactly as their fathers did. To provide such men, to\ninspire them with a great sense of duty, and send them out into life\nwith open minds toward God and open hearts toward their fellows, and\nthen withdraw our hand and let them do their own work, in their own way,\nthis is our blessed privilege.\n\nWe may endeavor to put the best into others _directly_. A parent is a\nparent largely for this particular purpose. The father and mother have\nthis end as their greatest and highest responsibility. They cannot shirk\nit without hurt to themselves and to their child. No one can and no one\nshould influence a child as directly as does a parent. The parent may\ntemporarily place the child beneath the influence of a nurse, a pastor,\nor a teacher, but the abiding influence should be and is the parent's.\nLittle by little, line upon line, precept upon precept, conduct upon\nconduct, the parent should endeavor to set before the child the highest\nideas of life. Skill is requisite in stating these ideas, in\nillustrating them, in making them attractive, in persuading to their\nacceptance. The evil or the inferior lodged in the child's heart needs\nto be forced out, that the best may enter. Happy the parent whose\nforcing process is like the incoming of light into a darkened room, a\nprocess that is gentle and conciliatory, a process that never boasts of\nvictory and never leaves a pain.\n\nThis is the parent's greatest hope and greatest reward, to have a child\nwho shall in the child's own time and place be an advancer of the\nworld's good. A thousand spheres of opportunity open before each new\ngeneration. Into any one of them the child may carry the best his father\nor mother ever thought or said. Many parents wish their children to do\nin life work of the very same type that they once did. It was therefore\na gratification to their ministerial fathers when they saw their own\nsons enter the ministry, Henry Ward Beecher, Jonathan Edwards, Frederick\nW. Farrar, Charles H. Spurgeon, John Wesley, and Reginald Heber. But\nother ministerial fathers likewise might be gratified when they saw\ntheir sons helpfully laboring in noble spheres not specifically \"the\nministry,\" as in poetry, Joseph Addison, Samuel T. Coleridge, William\nCowper, Ben Jonson, Oliver Goldsmith, Alfred Tennyson, James Russell\nLowell, Oliver W. Holmes, John Keble, and James Montgomery; as in\nliterature, Matthew Arnold, Bancroft, Froude, Hallam, and Parkman; as in\nart, Joshua Reynolds and Christopher Wren; as in law, Lord Ellenborough,\nStephen J. Field, David J. Brewer, David Dudley Field; as in\nstatesmanship, Henry Clay, Edward Everett, Sir William Harcourt, John B.\nBalfour, and William Forster; and as in invention, Samuel F. B. Morse.\n\nBut while the great opportunity of putting the best into others is the\nparent's (and men out in earnest usefulness thank God most of all for\ntheir mothers and fathers, especially as they grow older and realize how\nearly in youth it was that their characters received determining\nimpressions), still others, besides parents, may use direct means toward\nthis same end. Here is the teacher's opportunity. A plastic, receptive\nmind is before him. It says to him: \"I am here to be taught. Teach me\nthe best--the best way to see, to reason, to act, the best way to do my\npart in society and the world.\" Many a teacher has looked on that\nopportunity as sacred; has valued it as much as Elijah valued his\nopportunity to cast his mantle on Elisha. Such teachers have wrought out\nmost valuable results. They have put ideas, methods, principles, and a\nspirit into pupils that have made those pupils a blessing to the world.\nThe pupils may not recall much of what the teacher said--perhaps they\ncannot recall one particular truth that the teacher enforced--but they\nrecall a purpose that dominated the teacher, and the pupils now are\nendeavoring to fulfil what they feel would be the wishes of that teacher\nif the teacher to-day could stand beside them.\n\nAnd why should we stop with parents and teachers in speaking of this\ndirect effort to put the best into other lives. Nurses in homes have\nendeavored to give little children the truest knowledge of God and of\nbeauty, and have succeeded. The world owes them much for its best men\nand women. Had they not seconded parents, had they attempted to uproot\nthe good implanted by parents, all would have been ruined. So, too, have\nfriends, masters, employers, writers in the press, writers of books,\nlecturers, and preachers aimed at this same end. They have felt a great\ndesire to give their fellows beautiful thoughts, strong principles,\nsupporting comforts, and heavenly ideals. They have felt that their\nheart's supreme wish would be met if they could only cause a double\nportion of their own spirit--aye, a four-fold, a hundred-fold of their\ngood purposes to rest upon others--and to this end they have prayed,\ngiven money and counsel, spoken to employees and friends and comrades,\nwritten, sung, preached, labored, and died. The company of those who\nhave wished to put the best into others is a glorious company, the\ncompany of prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, workmen in every sphere,\nin every clime, in every age. Surely this host is the host of the elect,\nthe choicest ones of all God's people on earth and in heaven.\n\nApart from and beyond our direct effort to put the best into other lives\nis our _indirect_, our unconscious influence to this good end.\nPersonality is more potent than words. Men and women impart ozone to the\natmosphere without knowing what good they have done. They become\nstandards of righteousness and are all unaware that any one looks at\nthem to gauge his own opinion or shape his own conduct. They are like\nregulator clocks, by which the watches of the world seen to be wrong are\nset aright and are kept aright. To try to live the best in the hope that\nsomehow one can put the best into the very air, and get it into the life\nof the school and community, and have it become a part of public\nsentiment, that surely is noble. That is the way to live. No one ever\nlives in vain who so lives. Some one is helped by him. Some one tells of\nhim. Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh, \"I know he can toil\nterribly,\" is an electric touch.\n\nIn one of my pastorates there was a farmer's son, living two miles from\nthe church. Almost all the young men of his age in the village and\ncongregation were careless, selfish, and a little fast. His father was\nout of sympathy with religious earnestness. But the son resolved that he\nwould put his best into others' lives. He thought, prayed, worshiped, to\nthat end. Through snow and rain and mud he came where earnestness and\nhigh ideals were in the air. He did a manly, helpful part in his home,\nin his village, and in his church. Then, thinking that he knew farming\nand could teach it, he volunteered to go to an Indian school in Indian\nTerritory, and as a farm manager, teach farming. He went, on almost no\nsalary, and lived and labored, that through his words, conduct, and\nspirit he might put the best into others' lives. Thus he lived and\nlabored till he died, two thousand miles from home, and was buried\nthere, the only one of his family not placed in the village graveyard.\nBut his work has not died. It lives in all who know of it. They think of\nit again and again, and it always makes them wish to fulfil to the best\nall their opportunity for the good of others.\n\nThere are many, many hearts so conscious of the help they have received\nfrom others that they read with appreciation the commemorative tablet\nplaced by the distinguished Pasteur on the house of his birth: \"O my\nfather and mother, who lived so simply in that tiny house, it is to you\nthat I owe everything! Your eager enthusiasm, my mother, you passed on\ninto my life. And you, my father, whose life and trade were so toilsome,\nyou taught me what patience can accomplish with prolonged effort. It is\nto you that I owe tenacity in daily labor.\"\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  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\n\n\nDEVELOPING OUR BEST UNDER DIFFICULTIES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nDEVELOPING OUR BEST UNDER DIFFICULTIES.\n\n\nThere is nothing in this world that more appeals to my admiration than\na man who makes the best of himself _under difficulties_. Robert Louis\nStevenson deservedly has many admirers by reason of his writings, but\nwhat in him most appeals to my admiration was the struggle he waged with\ndifficulties. \"For fourteen years,\" he wrote the year before his death,\n\"I have not had a day's real health. I have wakened sick and gone to bed\nweary. I have written in bed, written in hemorrhages, written in\nsickness, written worn by coughing, written when my head swam for\nweakness. I am better now, and still few are the days when I am not in\nsome physical distress. And the battle goes on--ill or well is a trifle,\nso as it goes. I was made for a contest, and the Powers have so willed\nthat my battle-field should be this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and\nthe physic bottle. I would have preferred a place of trumpetings and the\nopen air over my head. Still I have done my work unflinchingly.\"\n\nThe story of many a strong and useful life is very similar to this story\nof Stevenson's.\n\nParkman wrote his histories in the brief intervals between racking\nheadaches. Prescott struggled with blindness as he prepared his volumes.\nKitto was deaf from boyhood, but he wrote works that caught the hearing\nof the English-speaking world.\n\nIt sometimes seems as though God never intended to bring the best out of\nus excepting through pain and pressure. The most costly perfume that is\nknown is the pure attar of roses, and one drop of it represents millions\nof damascene roses that were bruised before the sweet scent they\ncontained was secured.\n\n  \"The best of men\n  That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer.\"\n\nThe sphere of difficulty is usually the sphere of opportunity. \"I was\nmade for contest,\" Stevenson said. We all are made for it. As we let the\ncontest overpower us, we fail; as we overpower the contest, we succeed.\n\nOne particular personage of the Old Testament is in mind as\nillustrative of these thoughts, Jeremiah. He always reminds me of a\nviolet I once saw growing on Mount St. Bernard in Switzerland. The snow\nwas deep on every side, excepting on one little slope a few feet in\nwidth, exposed to the eastern sun. There, so close to the snow as almost\nto be chilled to death by the cold atmosphere about it, was a violet\nsweetly lifting its head and blooming as serenely as though it knew\nnothing of the struggle for life.\n\nJeremiah was a mere youth when the conviction came into his heart, \"God\nwishes me to be his mouthpiece in teaching the people to do right.\" He\nlived at Anathoth, three miles from Jerusalem, the distance of an hour's\neasy walk. His father was a priest who probably in his turn served in\nthe duties of the temple at Jerusalem. But though he came of religious\nancestry, and though he heard much of the religious exercises of the\ntemple, this call from God to be his mouthpiece in teaching the people\nto do right, broke in upon his life as a disturbing force. The times\nwere worldly, and even wrong. Nobles and princes, merchants, scholars,\nand priests had put the fear of God away from their eyes, and were\nacting according to the selfish impulses of the hour. The general\noutward life of the nation was pure, but it was the pureness of mere\nformality. Beneath the surface ambitions and purposes were cherished\nthat uncorrected would surely lead the people into selfishness,\nidolatry, and transgression.\n\nIt was no easy thing for Jeremiah to answer \"yes\" to this call of God.\nThe call involved a lifetime of brave service. Matters in the nation\nwere sure to go from bad to worse. Difficulties after difficulties\ntherefore, as they developed, must be faced. He stood at what we name\n\"the parting of the ways\"; if he did as God wished, his whole life must\nbe given to the work indicated; if he said \"no\" to God's call, he would\ndrift along with the rest of the people, leaving them to their fate, he\nno better and perhaps no worse than they.\n\nIn some respects there is nothing better than to be _forced_ to a\ndecision on some important matter, particularly if that decision is a\ndecision involving character. It was a choice with Jeremiah whether he\nwould live unselfishly for God or selfishly for himself. That choice\nordinarily is the supreme choice in every one's life. It is the supreme\nchoice that the Christian pulpit is constantly presenting. Present\ncharacter and eternal destiny are shaped according to that choice.\n\nIn Jeremiah's case there was a native reluctance to do the deeds which\nhe saw were involved in obedience to God's call. He was by temperament\nmodest and retiring. He shrank from publicity. He did not like to\nreprove any one. Severe words were the last words he wished to speak. It\nwould have been a relief to him if God had simply let him alone and\nimposed on others this duty of trying to make the people better. Some\nmen seem to be adapted for a fray, as Elijah was, and as John the\nBaptist was. But Jeremiah was more like John the beloved. He would have\nbeen glad to live and die, simply saying, \"Little children, love one\nanother.\"\n\nIt is God's way, however, again and again, to take lives that to\nthemselves seem utterly unfitted for special duties and assign them to\nthose duties. Almost all the best workers in God's cause came into it\nreluctantly, and against the feeling that they were fitted for it. We\nare bidden ask the Lord of the harvest to _thrust_ men into the fields\nof need. Jeremiah felt in his heart this \"thrusting.\" He did not kick\nagainst it. He yielded to it.\n\nBut with what results? The first result was _estrangement_. His goodly\nlife and conversation soon made the people of his village and even the\nbrothers and sisters of his home feel that he was different from\nthemselves. They chafed under the contrast of their carelessness and his\nearnestness. He found himself left out of their pleasures and chilled by\ntheir indifference. The estrangement developed until his fellow-townsmen\nwere eager to rid themselves of his presence, and his own family were\nready to deal treacherously with him.\n\nIt is just at this point that so often a good purpose breaks down. When\na man's foes are they of his own household or comradeship, he is very\napt to give up his good purpose. It is more difficult for a beginner in\nthe religious life to resist the insinuating and depreciating remarks of\nnear acquaintances than to face a mob. It must have cut Christ to the\nheart's core when his brethren said of him, \"He hath a devil!\" \"I would\nrather go into battle,\" said a soldier newly enlisted as a Christian,\n\"than go back to the mess-room and hear what the men will say when they\nknow of my decision.\"\n\nJeremiah started his obedience to God amid estrangement. It was not long\nbefore estrangement had given place to _threatening_. His duties as he\ngrew older called him to Jerusalem. The youth become a man must leave\nthe village, go to the city, and in the larger sphere of need, speak the\nmessages of God. In Jerusalem he assured the people that if they did\ninjustice, oppressed the poor, built themselves rich houses out of wages\nwithheld from servants, made sacrifices to base idols, and strengthened\nthe hands of evil-doers, God would bring a terrible overthrow upon them.\nHis task was made the more difficult because in his words and attitude\nhe stood alone. He had no following among priests or prophets to back\nhim. With one consent they affirmed that he was wrong and that a lie was\non his lips when he predicted desolation if present practices were\ncontinued.\n\nIt is a great hour in any man's life when he is obliged to stand up\nalone and state his case or defend his cause. What an hour that was in\nPaul's history when before the Roman officials \"no man stood with him,\"\nbut, dependent as he was on sympathy and fellowship, he stood alone! It\nis when a man is absolutely left alone, in danger or disgrace, that the\ndeepest test of his character is reached. That is the reason why the\nnight-time, which seems to say to us \"You are alone with God,\" has its\nimpressiveness, and why the death hour has a similar impressiveness.\n\nJeremiah felt his loneliness. There was nothing of the stoic in him. He\ncould not school himself to be brazen-hearted. He was so human, so like\nthe great majority of people, that every now and then some cry of\nweariness would escape his lips. \"Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast\nborne me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth. I\nhave neither lent on usury, nor men have lent me on usury; yet every one\nof them doth curse me.\" Sometimes his outbursts of mental agony make us\nfeel that the man has almost lost his bravery. \"Cursed be the day\nwherein I was born! Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor\nand sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?\" But glad as he\nwould have been to escape the responsibility of rebuking people, and\nglad as he would have been to hold the affection and regard of his\ncompanions, he never for a moment kept back the truth, nor for a moment\ndid he distrust God's blessing on his life. \"All my familiars watched\nfor my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall\nprevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.\" \"But the\nLord is with me,\" he declared, and so declaring he was immovable before\nhis adversaries.\n\nThere came a third experience into his life, which carried his\ndifficulties one degree higher. It was the experience of _disdain_. He\nknew full well that the wicked course of the nation was inevitably\nleading to destruction. Unless the evil of the people should cease the\npowers of Babylon would come and would destroy Judah. He was debarred an\ninterview with the king. He therefore wrote his message on a roll, put\nit in the hands of a messenger, Baruch, and in due time that roll was\ncarried into the king's presence by Baruch and read to the king. The\nking was sitting in his winter house. The weather was cold. A fire was\nburning before him in a brazier. As the king heard the words of Jeremiah\nthat called him and the people to penitence, his anger was aroused. He\nseized the roll ere three or four of the columns had been read, cut it\nup with his penknife, and cast the whole roll into the fire to be\nutterly consumed therein. He did this in the presence of his court. He\ndid it with a disdain and contempt that made every man present feel that\nJeremiah and Jeremiah's words were to be despised.\n\nIt never is a pleasure to be despised. Contempt usually embitters a man\nor suppresses him. The derisive laugh against a man is more powerful in\nbreaking him than the compactest argument. Many men can remain steadfast\nto convictions in estrangement or in opposition who give way when they\nhear that their words and actions are the subject of twitting and\nridicule. \"Who is this Jeremiah, and what are his words, that we should\nthink of them a second time? I will cut these words into fragments even\nwith my pocket-knife, and then I will burn them in this little brazier,\nand that shall be the last of them!\" So said and did King Jehoiakim. And\nhis princes heard and saw.\n\nBut whatever the effect produced on others, the effect produced on\nJeremiah must have been to the king a great disappointment. Jeremiah\nheard God's voice saying in his heart, \"You must write those same words\nof truth again.\" And again he wrote them on a roll. And just here comes\nout one of the sweetest and most characteristic features of Jeremiah's\ncharacter. The ordinary man, if he has made up his mind to retort or to\nridicule, says to himself, \"Now I will pour out my wrath on my\nadversary.\" But such was Jeremiah's self-control and peacefulness of\ntemper that perhaps he would have erred on the side of leniency unless\nGod had charged him, not to soften or to suppress one part of the\nmessage, but to write _all_ the words that were in the former roll and\nadd thereto other special predictions. To this charge, whatever his\nobedience might lead to, Jeremiah immediately and completely responded.\n\nThen came Jeremiah's fourth experience. His persistence in duty now\ncost him _imprisonment_. Not an ordinary imprisonment, but such an\nimprisonment as Oriental monarchs employ when they wish to place those\nwhom they dislike in a living death. The king first put Jeremiah in a\ndungeon-house where there were cells. This was not very bad. Then, when\nJeremiah still was true to his testimony, the king put him in the court\nof the guard, giving him a daily allowance of one little eastern\nbread-loaf. This also was not very bad. But later the king, when the\nprinces claimed Jeremiah for their victim, as afterward the rabble\nclaimed Christ from Pilate for their victim, gave Jeremiah into the\nhands of the princes to do with him as they pleased. Then it was that\nthey with cords dropped him down into a deep subterranean pit, whose\nbottom was mire, so that Jeremiah sank in the mire.\n\nHow many people in the time of the Inquisition, when they were racked\nto pieces, when thumb-screws agonized them, when water drop by drop fell\nceaselessly on their foreheads, and when pincers tore their flesh little\nby little continuously, renounced their faith and so saved themselves\nfrom slow torture! It was not an easy thing to die from starvation in a\ndark, damp pit, with mire creeping up all about him. It never has been\neasy to die slowly and alone for the faith; to die for a testimony; to\ndie for a message that involved others much more than one's self. All\nthat was needed to protect him from pain and to preserve his life was\nsilence. If Jeremiah would keep quiet all would be well. But for\nJeremiah to keep quiet would be to prove disobedient to a sense of duty\nimplanted by God in his heart. So this gentle nature, that shrank from\nthe horrors of the miry pit, horrors more to be dreaded than the lions'\nden or the fiery furnace or the executioner's sword, went down into the\npit unbroken--precursor of those sweet natures in woman and child that\nall the beasts of the Colosseum could not dismay, and that all the fires\nof martyrdom could not weaken.\n\nOne more experience awaited Jeremiah--_deportation_. So far as we know,\nit was the closing experience of his life. The dauntless soul had not\nbeen suffered to die in the pit. Patriotic men who realized the folly of\nletting an unselfish, high-minded citizen perish so terribly, and who\nrealized, too, the desirability of preserving alive so wise a counselor,\nsecured permission from the vacillating king to take rags and worn-out\ngarments, and let them down by cords into the pit. \"Put now these rags\nand worn-out garments under thine arm-holes under the cords,\" they said,\n\"and Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords.\" Once\nagain he was in his position of responsibility as God's messenger. In\nthat position he held fast to his faithfulness.\n\nThen came his final experience. Judah had passed through trial upon\ntrial. Jeremiah had shared in her trials, never running away from them,\nbut always bearing his full brunt of burden and loss. Then he was forced\nto go away from the land of his love and his tears to Egypt! He did not\nwish to go. He assured those who headed the movement that it was folly\nto go. But they took him with them, and carried him, like a captive, off\nto a foreign land.\n\nAll this would have meant little to some men, but to Jeremiah it meant\neverything. Jerusalem and the land of Judah were dear to his heart. He\nhad lived for them, spoken for them, suffered for them, and well-nigh\ndied for them. In older years the land of one's birth and of one's\nsacrifices becomes very dear. \"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my\nright hand forget her cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue\ncleave to the roof of my mouth!\" Into that deportation we cannot follow\nhim. We only know that up to the very last minute in which we see him\nand hear his words, he was unceasingly true to his God, and true to the\npeople around him, loving his Master and loving his brethren, with an\nunfailing devotion.\n\nBut this we do know, ignorant as we are whether he died naturally or was\nstoned to death, that in after years this Jeremiah became among the Jews\nalmost an ideal character. They saw that all his words predicting the\ndestruction of the holy city and the captivity were fulfilled. They\nlearned to revere his fidelity. They even called him \"the greatest\" of\nall their prophets. They well-nigh glorified him. In times of war and\ndifficulty they used his name wherewith to rouse halting hearts to\nbravery and to lead the fearful into the thick of perilous battles.\n\nHere, then, is a life that came to its best and developed its best under\ndifficulties. \"Best men are molded out of faults.\" So was this man\nmolded to his best out of faults of hesitation and unwillingness and\nimpatience. No one knows the best use we can make of ourselves but the\nOne who created us and understands our possibilities.\n\nIn the struggle against difficulties we have Christ's constant\nsympathy. Were not _estrangement_, _threatening_, _disdain_,\n_imprisonment_, and _deportation_ His own experiences? And did not they\ncome in this same order? And does not He realize all the stress through\nwhich a soul must pass that would fight its contest and advance to its\nbest? Certainly He does. And when He lays a cross upon us, it is that\nthrough our right spirit in carrying that cross we may become sweeter in\nour hearts and braver in our lives, and thus change our cross into a\nvery crown of manliness and of usefulness.\n\nTo many a man there is no object in this earth that so appeals to his\nadmiration as a person who makes the best of himself under difficulties.\nWe may well believe that to Christ likewise there is no human being so\nprized and admired as he who advances to his best through the conquest\nof difficulties.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NEED OF RETAINING THE BEST WISDOM.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE NEED OF RETAINING THE BEST WISDOM.\n\n\nNo one can read the story of Solomon's life, as given in the Bible and\nas given in eastern writings, without wonder. That story in the Bible is\namazing; that story in the historic legends of Persia, Abyssinia,\nArabia, and Ethiopia is still more amazing. It is said of Solomon that\n\"those who never heard of Cyrus, or Alexander, or the Caesars have heard\nof him,\" and that \"his name belongs to more tongues, and his shadow has\nfallen farther and over a larger surface of the earth than any other\nman's. Equally among Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan nations his name\nfurnishes a nucleus around which have gathered the strangest and most\nfantastic tales.\"\n\nAlmost at the beginning of his public activities he made a prayer to\nGod that may well be the prayer of every one. In a dream God appears to\nhim, asking what he most wishes God to confer upon him. Humbly and\nearnestly he asks for a discerning mind--a mind capable of\ndistinguishing between good and evil. He passes by long life, passes by\nwealth, passes by victory over enemies, and he asks only for such\nunderstanding as shall enable him to know the right from the wrong.\n\nWe cannot call this prayer a surprise to God, but we can call it a\ndelight to Him. There are very many kinds of wisdom, but in God's\njudgment, the best wisdom is that which always discriminating between\nthe good and the bad, the true and the false, the permanent and the\nfleeting, prefers the good, the true, and the permanent. It surprises us\nthat Solomon was wise enough to make the desire for discrimination the\none petition of his heart. He was comparatively young, he was\ninexperienced in life's responsibilities, he was at the threshhold of\nwhat promised to be a great, almost a spectacular career. Most men,\nunder such circumstances, given the opportunity of asking for anything\nand everything they pleased, would have said, \"Give me many, many years\nof mental growth; give me much, very much material wealth; give me great\nand constant triumphs over all who in any way oppose me.\" But Solomon\nasked only for a discerning mind that could see the difference between\nright and wrong, and in asking that, he asked for the best wisdom any\nhuman life can ever have.\n\nSolomon had other kinds of wisdom. How they came to him we do not know.\nPerhaps he was born with a large degree of mother wit and with a very\nstrong mental grasp. Perhaps his father, himself a thoughtful man and a\nbrilliant writer, provided the best teachers that wealth could procure\nfor his son. Perhaps his mother, who had eager ambition for her son,\nconstantly urged him on to large intellectual development.\n\nExplain his case as we may, the facts are that he had _scientific_\nwisdom. He knew nature so well that careful writers have even called him\n\"the father of natural science.\" He knew trees, from the lordly\ncedar-tree that graced Lebanon to the little hyssop that springs out\nfrom between the stones of a wall, as I once saw it in an old well near\nJerusalem. He knew beasts of the field, fowls of the air, animals that\ncreep on the ground, and fishes that swim in the water. Such is the\nbrief resume by the Scriptures of his acquaintance with nature. The\nlegends of the East add that he could interpret the speech of beasts and\nbirds, that he understood the hidden virtues of herbs, and that he was\nfamiliar with the secret forces of nature.\n\nHe had also _literary_ wisdom. He was a beautiful, trained, and\nforceful writer. The seventy-second Psalm, beginning \"Give the king thy\njudgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son,\" is\nascribed to him. So is the one hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm, opening\nwith the words, \"Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain\nthat build it.\" Much of the book of Proverbs is written by him or\ncompiled by him--a book whose concise, striking, intelligent, helpful\nutterances are a monument of literary skill. Ecclesiastes, with its\nphilosophical dissertations on the fleeting and disappointing elements\nof human life, is also assigned to him. So is the Song of Solomon, which\nbreathes a wealth of poetical fervor, that understood and applied\nspiritually, is as sweet as the voice of the meadow lark soaring skyward\nin the light and beauty of a summer day. Yet these writings are only a\npart of what he produced. His songs were a thousand and five, his\nproverbs not less than three thousand. What we have in the Bible simply\nsuggests the variety and power of his literary style, the force and\nsagacity of his sound sense, the brilliancy and fitness of his practical\nwisdom. Solomon's words are such that to this day, in this land, and in\nevery land of the earth, they are competent to teach prudence, economy,\nreverence for parents, self-protection, purity, honesty, and\nfaithfulness to duty. The boy that learns them and carries them with him\nas a vital principle of being and of conduct will move unsoiled and\nunhurt wherever he may go. The home that places them at its center and\nreveres them will be cheerful and brave. The grown man that carries them\nwith him into every detail of business and care will be upright and\nbeautiful.\n\nThe wisdom of Solomon was _commercial_ as well as scientific and\nliterary. He recognized the advantages of trade. He extended it. He sent\nships so far away to the east that passing through the Red Sea out into\nthe Indian Ocean they brought back the treasures of Arabia and India and\nCeylon--gold and silver and precious stones; nard, aloes, sandalwood,\nand ivory; apes and peacocks. He sent other ships along the\nMediterranean coasts to the north, where Hiram, king of Tyre, lived, and\nthen to the west, out between the gates of Hercules, past the present\nGibraltar, up the Atlantic Ocean to the north until they touched at\nsouthern England, at Cornwall, where they found the tin which, combined\nwith copper, formed the bronze for armor and for all so-called \"brazen\"\nfurniture. Not alone through ships of the sea did he seek out the best\ntreasures of all the accessible earth and beautify Jerusalem with them,\nbut also through ships of the desert--camels--did he do the same. He\ncaused the great caravan routes of the day to pass through Jerusalem,\nand he levied duties on the objects transported from Damascus on the\nnorth to Memphis on the south, and from Tadmor in the east to Asia Minor\nin the west. He put himself into contact with all the thought and\npurposes of other nations than his own, he learned what their kings and\nqueens, their merchants, their sailors, their writers, were saying and\ndoing, and thus he brought home to his mind the leading ideas of his\ntime. His knowledge of men, of methods, and of enterprise became vast.\n\nNor did his wisdom stop with commerce; it included government also, and\nwas _political_. He took the throne at a time when government was weak,\nor almost disorganized. David's last years were years of physical\ndisability, wherein he could not curb the rebellious spirits that were\ngaining influence in many quarters. Solomon, upon his assumption of\nrule, judiciously subdued all rebellion of every kind, united the entire\nkingdom, and started that kingdom upon the period of its greatest glory.\nHe made treaties that bound adjacent principalities to him and caused\nthem to pay tribute. He held such power that nations did not care to\nfight with him, and so he became a king of peace. He laid taxes on his\nown people that brought in large revenue. It was indeed the golden\nperiod of Israel.\n\nThe effect of Solomon's wisdom was great and extensive. His\n_reputation_ went far and wide. People made long journeys to see him,\nask him questions, and honor him. Even one like the Queen of Sheba came\nwith a great retinue, up through the desert, past village and town, to\nbring him costly gifts and talk with the man who knew so much. His\n_influence_ became pervasive. It entered into the legends of people who\nnever saw him, and became so fixed a part of those legends, that those\nlegends, repeated until to-day, still sound his praise. He was known in\ntent and in palace as the wisest man that had ever lived, and the most\nexaggerated statements were made and received of his insight into the\nmysteries of the spirit world and his power to control the supposed\nspirit forces of the air. His _wealth_ became almost incredible. Nothing\nlike it has ever been known--not in the time of the Roman emperors, nor\nin the time of to-day. The fabulous magnificence of Mexican and Peruvian\nkings helps us to realize Solomon's glory. \"The walls, the doors, the\nvery floor of the temple, were plated with gold, furnishing gorgeous\nimagery for John's description of heaven.\" Two hundred targets and three\nhundred shields of beaten gold were held by the guard through whose\nlines Solomon passed to the temple or to his house of the forest. His\nthrone of ivory, as were its steps, was overlaid with plates of gold.\nAll his drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house\nof the forest were of pure gold, none were of silver. He was able to\nmake the temple the costliest structure for its size the world has ever\nseen. Hundreds of millions of dollars went into its erection and\ndecoration. When to-day the traveler visits Baalbec and sees stones over\nseventy feet in length and fourteen in width and in depth--stones\nquarried, conveyed, raised up into high walls and securely masoned\nthere; when to-day the traveler sees the golden jewelry gathered from\nancient Grecian graves and placed on exhibition in Athens; and when\nto-day the traveler examines the massive work done in Egypt, whose ruins\nare overpowering in their grandeur, and seeing these stones, jewelry,\nand structures remembers that Solomon knew all the skill, wealth, and\nbuildings of the whole Mediterranean world, then he can understand how\nSolomon, with his resources, built a city like Palmyra, and a house of\nworship like the temple, and made silver to be as stones in Jerusalem.\n\nAh, if this Solomon, so brilliant and so powerful, so \"glorious,\" as\nChrist called him, could only have preserved the best wisdom all through\nhis years, whose name--except Christ's--would be comparable to his!\n\nHe asked God for the wisdom that discerns between the good and the\nevil. God answered that prayer and gave him such wisdom. How clearly he\nsaw at the first! If two women came to him, each claiming to be the\nmother of a little child, and asking for the child's possession, how\nskilful he was in ordering that the child be cut in twain in their\npresence, thus causing the true mother to cry out in love for her child\nand then giving her the child unhurt. The traditions of the east--some\nof them perhaps once a part of those lost books mentioned in the Bible,\nThe Book of the Acts of Solomon, The Book of Nathan the Prophet, The\nProphecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, The Visions of Iddo the Seer, tell\nagain and again how quiet and accurate Solomon's perception was in\ndistinguishing real flowers from artificial, in distinguishing girls\nfrom boys though dressed alike, and in deciding case after case of legal\nperplexity. He did have a discerning heart when, in his early days, he\nknew who his enemies were and he crushed them, who his true counselors\nwere and he listened to them, what his supreme duty was and he built\nGod's house, what his sinful heart needed and he shed the blood of\natonement for it. It was discernment when, though he made his own house\nrich, he made God's house richer; when he counted his gift of millions\nof dollars to God's honor a delight; and when he would let neither\nknowledge nor pleasure nor pomp nor glory withdraw his supreme affection\nfrom God.\n\nWould that he had always continued as he was! Would that he had\nremembered that the prayer offered to-day for a blessing in character\nmust be offered again to-morrow if that blessing in character is to be\nretained! Prayer is not so much a momentary wish as a continuous spirit.\nHis momentary wish and the resolve that sprang from it were at the time\nall that God or man could desire. A mind distrustful of its own\nomniscience, humbly waiting on God for discernment, is the wisest of all\nminds. That mind was once in Solomon, but not always. When grown to\nmaturity he talked philosophy, still he was wise. But when he came to\nact upon his philosophy, he was unwise. He failed to discern between the\nvalue and the curse of wealth. He became a lover of money for money's\nsake. He laid taxes on the people that they could not endure. He treated\nthem no longer as a father, but as a master. He ceased to distinguish\nbetween the beauty and the disease of luxury. He built gardens and\npalaces, and made displays, not with the thought of any praise they\nwould be to Jehovah, or to the establishment of God's people on a sound\nfinancial and political basis, but for the honor and recognition that\nwould come to him. He became a captive to the love of magnificence and\nto the desire for display. He made marriages that were matters of state\nexpediency and were not matters of heart conviction, and thus put\nhimself under the influence of those whose religious purposes were\nwholly opposed to his own. He filled his palaces with women whose\npresence indeed was a great indication of Oriental affluence, but whose\npresence was a menace to clear vision of integrity, and was a woeful\nexample to the nation. He grew blinder and blinder to fine perceptions,\nnot alone of what was good in taste, but of what was right in principle.\nHe became so broad in his religious sympathies that he seemed to forget\nthat there can be but one living and true God. He even went after\n\"Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcar, the\nabomination of the Amonites.\" And as a last blind act of folly, he even\nraised within sight of God's holy temple \"an high place for Chemosh, the\nabomination of Moab, and for Moloch, the abomination of the children of\nAmmon, in the hill that is before Jerusalem.\" What men like Daniel would\nnot do, what men like Shadrach would not do, what martyrs in after days,\nasked to say the simple word \"Caesar\" and throw a grain of corn on an\nheathen altar, would not do, though death awaited them, Solomon did. He\ngave up the fine distinction between the true and the untrue, between\nGod and idolatry, between divine principle and human expediency. And\nwith this loss of the best wisdom came loss of manliness, loss of peace,\nand loss of the favor of God. Wealth, power, luxury, praise, glory, were\nstill about him, but he had made the most serious of all serious\nmistakes. Later he recognized his mistake. We hope that he repented,\ngenuinely repented, of his mistake, and before his death turned back to\nGod and the best wisdom. But whether he died repentant or unrepentant\nSolomon is the man who is forever the example of unparalleled wisdom and\nof ruinous folly--of ruinous folly because his wisdom failed to retain\nthe element of the discerning mind.\n\nHere, then, is a lesson: \"With all thy getting, get understanding.\" Life\nis not a best success, whatever else it may have in it, unless it draws\nfine lines of separation between good and evil. The wealth and learning\nand glory of the wide world cannot make up for a lack of sensitive\nconscientiousness. The study and ambition of life must be applied to the\nsecuring and retaining of fine powers of moral discrimination if we are\nto be truly wise. Every one can have this discerning mind, at least to\nsuch a degree as shall enable him to avoid the fearful mistake of\npalliating evil and of becoming enslaved to evil. A little child may in\nthis respect be wiser than the oldest man; the simple peasant may be\nsafer than the most cultured scholar. Not even libraries of knowledge\ncan save the character of the man whose vision of good and evil is\nblunted.\n\nYouth is the time to make this prayer for true wisdom--when life's\ndecisions are first opening before us. Youth is the time when God can\nbest answer and when God cares most to answer prayer for the discerning\nmind. We need to start upon our careers with hearts exceedingly\nsensitive to the least variation from right. As the gunner cultivates\nhis aim and notes his least deviation from the true line to the target,\nso should we cultivate clearness of moral perception. We need the\n\"practiced\" eye and the \"practiced\" heart, for safe judgment.\n\n\"The grand endowment of Washington,\" wrote Frederic Harrison, \"was\ncharacter, not imagination, not subtlety, not brilliancy, but wisdom.\nThe wisdom of Washington was the genius of common sense, glorified into\n_unerring truth of view_.\"\n\nAlmost the same tribute can be paid to Victoria. When, six months after\nher accession, Victoria drove to the House of Parliament, there was not\na hat raised nor a voice heard. But when sixty years later her jubilee\nwas held, such paeans of admiration and love swelled in London's streets\nas never before had greeted any sovereign's ears--and all because the\npeople saluted in Victoria's person the _discrimination_ that had\nshunned vice, corrected abuses, exalted integrity, and glorified\nreligion.\n\nWhat every one needs, Washington, Victoria, and all--and what every\none should crave--is such wisdom, as all through life shall keep him\nfrom confusing moral principles and shall make him see, choose, love,\nand follow the best.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BEST POSSESSION.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE BEST POSSESSION.\n\n\nWhat is the best possession a human life can have? Judging from the\nefforts made to secure wealth, fame, and power, the answer would seem to\nbe that they--wealth, fame, and power--are the best possessions any one\ncan have. Observant and thoughtful people know, however, that such\npossessions do not necessarily nor ordinarily make their owners happy.\nThey therefore argue that there must be better possessions than these.\nSo they say, eloquence is perhaps the best possession, or knowledge is,\nor ability to do great deeds or express great thoughts is. But the\nwisest book that has ever been written says that something not yet\nmentioned is the best possession, and says that that something makes\nlife the happiest, and even makes it the holiest. That something, in the\nlanguage of the Bible, is _love_. The man that in his heart has love,\ntrue, pure, lasting love, has the best possession that can be secured.\n\nIt is for this reason that Jonathan is such an inspiring character. The\nstory of his life, hastily viewed, seems almost incidental, but\nscholarly examination of it shows that its light and gladness are in\nmarked contrast to the darkness and sorrow in the careers of Saul and\nDavid. The story of Jonathan's life has probably done more to suggest\nand arouse the unselfish devotion of man to man, than any story, apart\nfrom that of the Christ, that has ever been told. If we wish to find one\nwho really had the best possible possession, Jonathan is that one, a man\nwhose heart was bright, whose deeds were noble, and whose death was\nglorious.\n\nJonathan was a physical hero. He had both muscular strength and\nmuscular skill. The way he could throw a spear and shoot an arrow made\nhim famous. He had rare courage. Assisted only by his armor-bearer he\nonce made an attack upon a whole garrison at Michmash, slaying twenty\nmen within a few rods and putting an entire army to flight. He had great\nself-control. Found fault with by his father because in an hour of\nweariness he had tasted honey--in ignorance of his father's wish to the\ncontrary--he opened his breast to receive the death penalty vowed by the\nfather, and stood unmoved until the soldiers cried to Saul that the deed\nof blood must not be done. He was no weakling. Rather he was a mighty\nman, able to command military forces and call out their enthusiasm. Men\nrallied about him for hazardous undertakings, saying, \"Do all that is in\nthy heart; behold, I am with thee according to thy heart.\" In the field\nor in the court he was equally acceptable. His father, the king, had\nimplicit confidence in him, and took him into all his counsels. In the\nlanguage of poetry, he was \"swifter than an eagle, he was stronger than\na lion.\" Israel might well look forward to the day when this stalwart,\ninspiring, wise son should succeed his father and be their king. His\nname, in time of battle, would be a terror to their foes.\n\nBut better than Jonathan's strong arm and clear intellect and winsome\npersonality was his loving heart. He never had read Paul's description\nof love as given in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, nor had\nhe read Henry Drummond's exposition of love as \"The Greatest Thing in\nthe World,\" nor had he ever seen the devoted character of Christ, nor\nknown any of the beautiful examples of love created by the Gospel. He\nwas living in a selfish age--an age of strife and tumult and blood--and\nstill his whole being seemed pervaded by that love which is \"unselfish\ndevotion to the highest interests of others.\" Such love was his joyous\nand abiding possession.\n\nThe first time we have an opportunity of reading his inmost heart is\nwhen David, having slain Goliath, stands before Saul, holding Goliath's\nhead in his hand. Here we see the _generosity_ of love. It was an hour\nwhen every eye was turned from Jonathan and centered upon an unknown\nstripling who had carried off the honors of the day by a startling and\nbrilliant deed. Hitherto Jonathan had been the national hero; now he was\nto be set aside, and David was everywhere to come into the foreground.\nHow should all this transfer of honor affect Jonathan? Should it sour\nhim, making him look askance on this new competitor for the public\nrecognition, and influencing him to send back David to his father's\nflocks, away from further opportunity for martial deeds? Any such method\nwould be what is called \"natural.\" Men usually try to get rid of\ncompetitors. They do this in business and in games. Opera singers often\nkeep back, if they can, the voice that once heard will supersede their\nown voice in popular favor. We do not like to have another outshine us.\nPraise is sweet. People hate to lose it. Plaudits transferred to another\nleave a painful vacancy in the ordinary soul. We crave favor, and when\nthat favor passes from us to rest upon another we are severely tried.\nMany a man has thought himself kindly dispositioned until he found that\nsome one else was obtaining the recognition previously so secure to him,\nand then to his own surprise he has found himself grudging the other\nthat recognition. How much of the unhappiness of human life comes from\nthe fact that persons do not speak to us or of us as they do of others!\nHow apprehensively many people protect their place--social, political,\nor commercial--lest another shall in any wise encroach upon it! Jonathan\nmight easily have recognized that, so far as his interests were\nconcerned, it was far better that David should be dismissed to the sheep\npastures than allowed to stay near the court.\n\nBut in spite of what Jonathan recognized, Jonathan's heart warmed to\nDavid. By the time he had heard the story of David's home and family,\nthe soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved\nhim as his own soul. The interests of David became his interests. He\nwished David to succeed. Praises of David sounded sweet in his hearing.\nHe showed such wish to have David stay right there, at the heart of the\nnation's capital, where people could see him and honor him, and where\nDavid could have new opportunity for public service, that Saul would not\nlet David go back to the distant and quiet pastures. Jonathan even made\na covenant with David, promising to be his friend and helper. To show\nthe sincerity of that covenant, or rather in the expression of that\ncovenant, Jonathan took off his robe and his garments, even to his sword\nand to his bow and to his girdle--stripped himself of them--and gave\nthem to David. Jonathan wished David to be ready for possible\nopportunities of military success, and therefore he armed him with his\nown chosen and well-tried weapons.\n\nSo their friendship began. It was a friendship that was all \"give\" on\none side and all \"take\" on the other. There never was a clearer\nillustration of what love is than the relation between Jonathan and\nDavid. It is always said that \"Jonathan loved David,\" but no emphasis is\nplaced on David's love for Jonathan. David appreciated Jonathan, but\nJonathan loved David, and loving him, unceasingly aided him. \"I call\nthat man my friend,\" a noble poet declared, \"for whom I can do some\nfavor.\" Love exists only where costly kindnesses are conferred upon\nanother.\n\nTurner, England's honored painter, exemplified love when he was on a\ncommittee on hanging pictures for exhibition in London and a picture\ncame from an unknown artist after the walls were full. \"This picture is\nworthy; it must be hung,\" he said. \"Impossible; the walls are full now,\"\nothers asserted. Quietly saying \"I will arrange it,\" Turner took down\none of his own pictures and hung the new picture in its place.\n\nThe second scene of Jonathan's devotion to David reveals the\n_protection_ of love. David's life was in danger. Saul, jealous of\nDavid's popularity, desired to be rid of David. He even wished to kill\nhim. He let his servants know his wish. David was encompassed by peril.\nWhat would Jonathan do now? When others were turning against him, would\nhe also turn against him? The current was all setting one way. Any\nkindness to David would now be in direct opposition to a ruler's will\nand to the sentiment of the court. Interest in another often becomes\nluke-warm under such circumstances. \"There is no use of resisting the\ntide of events,\" people say. They therefore leave the man that is down\nto himself and to his fate. How lovers fall away in the hour of disgrace\nand danger! How difficult it becomes to speak favorably of a man when\nevery other is condemning him! In periods of excitement when the motives\nof men are called into question and innuendo is in the air, how\nreluctant we are to avow our confidence and try to still the cries of\nopposition.\n\nBut what was the effect of this situation on Jonathan? His heart warmed\nall the more to the imperiled man whose one crime was that he was a\ndeliverer to Israel. Jonathan delighted much in David. Jonathan revealed\nto David Saul's purpose to kill him. Jonathan provided for David's\nimmediate safety and took means to anticipate his future safety. Then he\nwent to the king and _plead_ for David. That was a splendid piece of\nwork. It was much as John Knox plead with Mary, Queen of Scots, for\nScotland. She did not wish to hear Knox's words. She was bitter against\nScotland and Scotland's religion. He risked much in venturing into her\npresence and interceding. But he loved Scotland and Scotland's religion.\nHe would rather die than have Scotland suffer, and so he braved Mary's\ntears and entreaties and commands, and he spoke for Scotland. Love is a\nvery expensive thing; it often summons us to surrender our personal\nease, and surrender, too, our closest comradeships. It may cost us\nobloquy, it may cost us loss of standing with king and court, it may\ncost us the disdain of the world, but cost what it might, Jonathan plead\nfor David's safety, and temporarily secured his wish.\n\nLater the love of Jonathan was to be subjected to a more subtle and\nmore difficult test. It was to be called upon for _self-effacement_.\nSaul's misdemeanors and incompetences had so weighed on Saul's mind that\nSaul actually hated the David whose conduct was always irreproachable;\nSaul's mind, too, at times had lost its balance, and he had done the\ninsane acts of a madman toward David. Saul, now half-sane and\nhalf-insane, was irrevocably determined to kill David. He learned that\nSamuel had quietly anointed David as king, and that David in due time\nwould succeed to the throne! Saul's heart was aflame with\nbitterness--the bitterness that is born of chagrin and envy. David knew\nof that bitterness, and knew that Saul's persistent enmity left but a\n\"step between him and death.\" Then it was that Jonathan ventured to\ninterview his father and see whether his father's hatred could not in\nsome way be appeased and David's safety be secured.\n\nBut with the first revelation of Jonathan's interest in David came an\noutburst from Saul that showed the utter implacability of Saul's rage.\nSaul even tried to inflame Jonathan's temper, charging him with\nperversity and rebellion, and with acting undutifully; and then, when he\nhoped that Jonathan was excited, he introduced the thought, \"This David,\nif you let him live, will seize the throne which is yours as my son and\nheir! Will you suffer David to live and take your throne?\" It was an\nappeal to Jonathan's envy, and that appeal touched on the most delicate\nambition of Jonathan's heart. What a fearful thing envy is! History is\nfull of its unfortunate work. It hurts him who cherishes it as well as\nhim against whom it rages. Cambyses killed his brother Smerdis because\nhe could draw a stronger bow than himself or his party. Dionysius the\ntyrant, out of envy, punished Philoxenius the musician because he could\nsing, and Plato the philosopher because he could dispute, better than\nhimself. \"Envy is the very reverse of charity; it is the supreme source\nof pain, as charity is the supreme source of pleasure. The poets\nimagined that envy dwelt in a dark cave; being pale and lean, looking\nasquint, abounding with gall, her teeth black, never rejoicing but in\nthe misfortune of others, ever unquiet and anxious, and continually\ntormenting herself.\"\n\nWhen such an appeal to envy as that subtly made by Saul to Jonathan\ncomes to most human hearts they are conquered by it. Few, very few, men\nhail the rise of the sun that pales their own star. But Jonathan could\nnot be overpowered by this appeal, however wilily the king drove it\nhome. He stood true to David, though by so doing he imperiled his own\nlife. For with his quick perception of Jonathan's fixed adherence to\nDavid, Saul hurled his javelin at his own son's breast and would have\nslain him on the spot.\n\nIn the days that followed this stormy interview, when the king's wrath\nagainst David was still at white heat, and when one turn of Jonathan's\nhand could have ended all possible rivalry between himself and David for\nthe throne, Jonathan sought David, said gladly to him, \"Thou shalt be\nking in Israel, and I shall be next unto thee,\" and saying this, made a\nnew covenant of love that should bind themselves and their descendants\nto all generations!\n\nI know not what others may think, but as for me, nothing in this world\nis sweeter, stronger, nobler, than an unselfish friendship. We have used\nand misused the word \"love\" so often that we have dragged it down from\nits high meaning. We have flippantly passed it over our lips when by\n\"love\" we meant mere interest, or sympathy, or fondness, or even a\nmental or a physical passion. We have belittled it and even smirched it\nin the mire. But next to the word \"God\" it is the greatest word of human\nlife, and is associated with God as no other word is. The man that can\nand will prove a generous, unselfish, devoted friend is the highest type\nof man. The man that can cherish a sweet, uplifting love that is beyond\nthe reach of envy, and that will lay down every treasure but itself for\nanother, is the noblest specimen of manhood that can be produced. More\nand more it becomes clear that genuine devotion to the highest interests\nof others is the solution of the world's social problems. Love makes its\nowner happy. It is a giver and a sustainer of joy. There is no\nbitterness in its root and no acid in its fruit. By nature it is the\nsweet, the healthy, the sane. The absence of love always means the\npresence of the selfish, or of the vain, or of the proud, or of the\nself-seeking, or of the cruel. Envy is a thorn in the soul. Love is\ncontent and cheer, a radiant flower whose perfume is refreshingly\nfragrant.\n\n  \"For life, with all it yields of joy or woe,\n               And hope or fear,\n  Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love--\n  How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.\"\n\nTo the very end of his days Jonathan stood true to David. He\naccomplished what might seem to many an impossible task, but what by his\naccomplishment of it is shown to be possible. He was true to two persons\nwhose interests were opposite, proving a friend to each. He loved his\nfather. He knew his father's weaknesses. They tried him seriously. When\nhis father threw the spear at his head, and maligned his mother, and\ncharged him with ingratitude, his whole being was stirred; he went out\nfrom his father's presence \"angry.\" But that anger was merely a\ntemporary emotion. He soon realized his duty to his father. He returned,\nplaced himself at his father's hand, continued to be his adherent,\ncounselor, and helper, went with him as one of his lieutenants to the\nbattle on Gilboa, and fought beside him until he fell dead at Saul's\nside!\n\nThere is nothing weak in this character of Jonathan. Let him who can\nreproduce it. Christ said of John the Baptist, \"There hath not been born\nof women a greater than he,\" because John, free from envy, was so full\nof love that he rejoiced to see Christ come into a recognition that\nabsolutely displaced John. By these words of Christ John is made to loom\nup as no other character of his day. Jonathan was John's prototype--a\nmassive man, a man of momentum, a man of absolute fearlessness, whose\nvirtues were crowned by his generous, protecting, self-effacing love. No\nwonder that when word reached David that Jonathan had been slain in\nfierce battle his heart poured out the greatest elegy of history--an\nelegy that has been sung and resung for thousands of years--\"How are the\nmighty fallen! I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very\npleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing\nthe love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war\nperished!\" Noticeable it is that the supreme elegy of the Old Testament\nis on the man who had a heart of unselfish devotion, Jonathan; and that\nthe one elegy of the New Testament pronounced by Christ, is likewise on\nthe man who had a heart of unselfish devotion, John the Baptist. The\ngreatest possession any one can have is a loving heart--a heart that\ngenerously recognizes worth in another and tries to make place for that\nworth; a heart that guards another's interests, even though such\nguarding costs intercession; a heart that gladly surrenders its own\nadvantage that another may advance to the place which might be its own.\n\nNo one can tell another how and when the heart of love should show\nitself. All that can be told is this: \"Let any one be pervaded by love\nas Jonathan was, and in that one's home, in that one's business, and in\nthat one's pleasures God will provide him occasion upon occasion for\nliving that love.\" The love that a man gives away is the only love his\nheart can retain. The man that has such a heart of love has the\nsweetest, happiest, gladdest possession that can be obtained on earth or\nin heaven. All the money in the world leaves a man poor if his heart is\nbitter. All the poverty that can come to a man finds him rich if his\nheart is glad and strong. Love is the only possession that a man can\ncarry with him to heaven and always keep with him in heaven. He lives\nfor eternity who lives for love.\n\n  \"The one great purpose of creation--love,\n  The sole necessity of earth and heaven.\"\n\n\n\n\nUSING ARIGHT OUR BEST HOURS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nUSING ARIGHT OUR BEST HOURS.\n\n\nEvery writer who has described what we call opportunity has insisted\nupon the necessity of seizing opportunity as it flies. We are told that\nthere is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at its proper moment\nleads us on to fortune. It is also asserted that once at least there\ncomes into every one's life a special hour which used aright has much to\ndo with assuring his permanent welfare.\n\nUniversal experience bears witness to the truthfulness and force of\nthese sayings. Every human being who has studied the history of the race\nis aware that now and then decisive hours come to his fellows, and\naccording as those hours are used to advantage or to disadvantage, is\nthe success or failure of his fellows. We know this fact applies also to\nourselves. All our hours are not the same hours, either in their nature\nor in their possibility. Some hours are special hours when, for one\nreason or another, crises are present; if we meet these hours aright we\nadvance, if we fail to meet them aright we fall back.\n\nSuch hours are the supreme opportunities of our entire existence: the\nhours when duty appears more clear than is its wont, or hours when the\nheart is strangely moved toward the good, or hours when a new and very\nuplifting sense of God's presence is felt. It is not asserted that such\nhours are equally bright and glorious to every one. They may not be\nbright at all. They may be dull and heavy. But they bring us a\nconviction of what is right, a sense of obligation to do the right, and\nan assurance that God's way is the way our feet should tread. Given any\nsuch hour, whether it be on the mountain or in the valley, and a man has\nhis best hour. All other hours, as we plod or play, may be good, but the\nhour when a soul is brought face to face with duty and with God is the\nbest hour in that particular period of our life.\n\nIt was simply and only because Jacob used aright his best hours that he\nrescued his name from disgrace and crowned it with glory. If ever a man\nstarted in life handicapped by unfortunate characteristics and\nunfortunate environments Jacob was such a man. One of the modern\nsculptors, George Grey Barnard, has a life-sized marble, showing what he\nnames \"Our Two Natures,\" two men, one the good and one the evil, coming\nout of the same block of stone, and struggling, each to see which shall\ngain the ascendancy over the other. Such two natures are in every one;\nbut they appear with special prominence in Jacob. The question of his\nlife was, Which is to conquer, the good or the evil? The struggle of the\ngood for ascendancy was prolonged and severe. It was a struggle in which\nthere were disgraceful defeats, but in which there was also a\npersistency of purpose and a reassertion of effort whereby the good\nfinally triumphed. And this triumph, it may safely be asserted, was\nsecured through the use Jacob made of a few supreme hours in his life.\n\nWhen we first begin to notice Jacob, we see him participating in the\ndeception of his aged and almost blinded father, Isaac. We do well, in\nstudying that deception, to bear in mind that the mother, before Jacob's\nbirth, had been told that Jacob should inherit his father's blessing. So\nshe had probably taught Jacob that this blessing belonged to him, and\nthat she and he were justified in securing it in any way they could. And\nwe do well also to bear in mind that the mother recognized a certain\nundeveloped but capable fitness in Jacob for this blessing, a fitness\nthat Esau lacked. Esau was a lusty, out-of-doors, happy-going man who\nwould not control his appetites, and who, however pleasant he might be\nto have around when merry-making and sport were in the air, was not\nprudent enough and judicious enough to be the head of a great people.\nRebekah, and Jacob, too, may have felt that it would be the height of\nfamily folly to leave the family blessing with Esau, who probably in a\nshort time would squander it; it ought, therefore, to be diverted from\nhim. Besides, the age was one in which fine distinctions between right\nand wrong, as we to-day see these distinctions, were not clear. We thus\ncan understand some of the reasoning which lay back of the fraud\npracticed on Isaac when Jacob made believe that he was Esau bringing the\ndesired venison, and so secured the blessing.\n\nBut we do not mean to justify the deception. It carried--as every sin\ncarries--fearful consequences, and those consequences affected all of\nJacob's future life. As he had deceived his father, again and again his\nchildren deceived their father. Even immediately upon its perpetration\nJacob's life became endangered. He was obliged to flee from enraged and\nthreatening Esau. Then it was that Jacob, at nightfall, coming alone to\nrocky Bethel, and lying down to sleep--a wrong-doer, a fugitive,\nhomeless, friendless, and in peril--had his dream. He saw heaven opened\nover him, with angels ascending as it were by a ladder to God and then\ndescending by that ladder from God to his resting-place. The dream bore\nin upon his mind certain thoughts. One was, that God had not forsaken\nhim, but was with him. Another was, that God was ready to forgive him\nfor his sin and bless him. And still a third was, that God would take\neven his life and so use it, if he should be consecrated to Him, that\nhe, Jacob, should some day come back to Bethel as its owner and be the\nhead of that people through whom the whole world should be blessed. And\na fourth thought was, that however long the delay in fulfilling the\npromises, God certainly would fulfil them, and He would watch over Jacob\nuntil they were fulfilled.\n\nAs Jacob awaked from his dream those four thoughts were in his mind: of\nGod's presence, of God's forgiveness, of God's call, and of God's\nprotection. Up to this time the hour of this awakening was the best hour\nof his life. Thoughts stirred in his heart different in degree and\ndifferent in quality than any he had ever had. There came a new sense of\nthe wonderful love of God. What had he done to deserve it? Nothing. Why\nshould not the heavens be closed, and be dark and forbidding to a\ndefrauder like himself? That certainly was what one like himself might\nexpect. Did not the cherubim drive sinful Adam and Eve out of the\ngarden, and stand with flaming sword forbidding their return? But here\nwas God appearing in mercy, assuring of His readiness to pardon\ntransgression, and calling upon the wrong-doer to repent, to be earnest,\nand to make his life a benediction rather than a curse. Here, too, was\nGod pledging His unfailing aid to Jacob if Jacob would struggle toward\nsuccess!\n\nWhat should Jacob do with these thoughts? He might have brushed them\naway from his heart as he brushed away the morning dew from his eyes,\nand thus immediately have banished them. He might have pondered the\nthoughts for a day or two, being softened and comforted by them, and\nthen let them pass out of his mind forever. Many men have acted in such\nways. A wicked man opened a letter from his mother, and with the sight\nof her penmanship there came to him the memory of all her interest in\nhis purity, integrity, and godliness. He crushed the letter in his hand\nand threw it into the fire burning on the hearth. But another man, many\nanother man, though moved by good impulses, and even touched to the\nquick by them after a while has let such impulses glide away from his\nheart and carry with them their helpfulness. That is what Darwin says\nthat he did. The thought of God came to him now and then in special\nhours of his earlier life, but he did not hold fast to it, he let it\nescape, and the thought of a personal God who watches over and blesses\nnever became the cheering possession of his soul.\n\nBut it was not so with Jacob; and because it was not so, hope of\nbetterment dawned upon his character. He _valued_ the thoughts that had\ncome to him. He was awed. Awe, or reverence, is the originating spring\nof worthy character. His was not a simple mind easily affected. Jacob\nwas a cool, calculating, careful, worldly-wise man, almost the last type\nof man that finds it easy to be awed. But to him--with whom money and\nsheep and slaves and retinue were now and were long afterward to be very\nprominent objects of ambition--there was a feeling that, after all, God\nand God's blessings are the supreme things of life. So he did not let\nthe awe of the hour pass unimproved. He acted on that awe. He then and\nthere as best he could confessed God and his faith in Him, raising a\npillar of stone in God's name and anointing it with oil in significance\nthat the spot upon which it stood was consecrated to God. Thus he\nerected the first of all those tabernacles, temples, synagogues,\nchurches, cathedrals, chapels, that have been a testimony to faith in\nGod all over the earth. And then, as though an outward thing was not\nenough, but some inner thing of character was now required, he vowed a\nvow--the best vow probably that he, with his idea of God and of money,\nknew how to vow. He vowed that if God who had thus shown him his\nopportunity and duty would be true to His promises and would take care\nof him as covenanted, he, Jacob, would uphold the worship of God and\nwould give a tenth of all he might ever obtain unto God.\n\nThat vow laid hold on Jacob's life. It began to work a change that only\nmany, many years advanced toward completion. But it began the change.\nWhen a soul, in a best moment of life, seeing duty clearly, or beholding\na new revelation of God, crystallizes the emotions thus aroused by a vow\nthat consecrates its dearest treasures to God, then the soul has taken\nits first step toward strong and beautiful character. Here it was that\nEsau failed. He seems to have had more traits that men would name\nattractive than had Jacob. An open-hearted, open-handed, out-spoken man,\nrough but kind and generous and ready, he at life's beginning appeared\nto have more in his favor than this grasping, secretive brother. When\nEsau's best hours came--hours when the sense of his own misdeeds rankled\nin his heart and when he was aware that repentance and reformation and a\nnew application to duty should be his--he felt his situation deeply; he\neven, as a man of his temperament could do, shed tears of grief over his\nmistakes and losses. But he did not realize with awe the gravity of his\nsituation, nor did he turn to God and to duty with a softened, chastened\nspirit, and vow his life in devotion to God. Jacob's right use of his\nbest hours set Jacob's face towards God and character. Esau's wrong use\nof his best hours set Esau's face away from God and character.\n\nBut Jacob's life needed, as every life needs, more than one best hour.\nOff in Haran where he dwelt for twenty years he was among heathen\npeople. As he served seven years for Leah and seven years for Rachel and\nsix years beside, he preserved many of the ideals and purposes that came\nto him in the morning hour at Bethel, but not all of them. These\npurposes seem to have kept him from idolatry and to have given him\npatience and fortitude and prolonged endurance. Laban treated him\ndeceivingly and unkindly. Jacob showed much self-control and much\ngenerosity. Laban's flocks increased beneath Jacob's care until Laban\nbecame a very rich man. If a lamb or a sheep was injured in any way\nJacob bore all the expense connected with its hurt or its death. Had\nLaban recognized the value of his services, then perhaps Jacob would not\nagain have come under the power of his own crafty, calculating,\nmoney-making propensities. But Laban treated Jacob like a slave, and\nJacob retaliated with meanness. He speciously secured from Laban a large\nproportion of Laban's cattle, and with his wealth thus gathered started\naway from his angry master toward the old-time Bethel, that somehow was\nalways in his memory. There was a sense in which he deserved every sheep\nand goat and servant that he had: he had earned them all; they ought by\nright of service to be his. But in another sense he had tricked Laban\nand was going away with ill-gotten gains.\n\nNow is to come the second great crisis in his life. Jacob is to venture\ninto the country where Esau is, Esau who for years has been cherishing\nhatred against Jacob. Hatred cherished sours and becomes malice. Esau\nwas a difficult one to meet--fierce, strong, and determined. It was then\nthat another great hour came to Jacob. To the east he had parted company\nwith Laban, who had become reconciled to Jacob and who had given him his\nfarewell blessing. To the west, where Bethel lay and whither his heart\ncalled him, is Esau. How shall he meet Esau? He does now what seems,\nfrom the night at Bethel, to have become more or less of a custom with\nhim; he consults God. He lays the situation as it lies in his mind\nbefore God. He thus tries to see the situation as it actually is when\nseen in the presence of One who is omniscient. As he thus studies the\nsituation he deems it wise to send ahead, in relays, goodly parts of his\nflocks, which, as they pass Esau, should be announced as gifts to Esau.\nIt is the same cool, calculating Jacob still at work. Then he sends\nforward all his family and all his cattle, over the Jabbok, toward the\ncountry where Esau is. This done he remained behind alone.\n\nAgain it was the night-time. There was darkness, the darkness that often\nis so conducive to earnest thought and clear vision of the right. Light\nis indeed essential that men already in the path of duty may walk safely\ntherein, but the path of duty itself is more often discovered when we\nlook out of darkness than when we stand in the sunlight.\n\nIt was a time of uncertainty and almost of fear on Jacob's part--a\ntime of heart searching in view of the past and of hesitation in view of\nthe present. Such a time can come only to one who has ceased being a\nmere child and has entered into the experiences of manhood. The great\nquestions of the nature of God and of the protection of His providence\nstirred in Jacob's heart. His had been a sinful career. Still he had\nrepented, and repenting had grown in grace. But even yet his faith was\nfearful and his trust hesitant. Was God really on his side? Would this\nGod, the God that had promised to bring him back to Canaan and give him\na place there, surely preserve him? Then it was, while these questions\nwere throbbing within him, that in the darkness one like a man grappled\nwith him in wrestling. Should he be faint-hearted and cowardly,\ndistrusting God's promise of protection, and let this stranger throw\nhim, kill him, and so forever end the possibility of God's fulfilling\nHis promise? Or should he lay hold of God's promise to sustain him, and\ndo his best to throw this stranger, and thus preserve his life and\naccomplish his mission? It was a decisive time. Luther had such a time\nthe night before the Diet of Worms, when he had to wrestle with the\nthought \"Shall I be distrustful of God's providence and recant\nto-morrow, or shall I hold fast to my faith in God and stand by the\ntruth to-morrow?\" Hamilton had such a time the night before he decided\nthat he would be burned at the stake rather than deny the truth. Such\ntimes come into many lives, when great questions about a right or a\nwrong marriage, a right or a wrong business, a right or a wrong\namusement, must be decided.\n\nJacob _would_ not surrender to fear! He _would_ trust God to continue\nhis life. He therefore relaxed no hold on the stranger, but wrestled\nwith him as best he could. Then came the revelation. The stranger simply\ntouched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and by that touch put it out of\njoint! Here was an Almighty One wrestling with him! Jacob realized that\n_God_ had come to him! With that revelation, even in his weakened\ncondition, he clings the closer to the stranger; he _will_ hold on to\nGod. \"Let me go, for the day breaketh,\" cries the stranger. \"I will not\nlet thee go, except thou bless me,\" Jacob replies. Jacob cleaves to God.\nJacob longs for God's blessing. He has found God very near to him. He\nwill avail himself of His nearness. The face of God is turned upon him\nin love. He will not let this hour go without getting from it all the\ninspiration and help he can obtain.\n\nAnd he did obtain the best blessing that ever came to his life--the\nblessing that assured him his character was to be completely changed,\nand made beautiful and strong for God. Christ once said to a weak,\nimpulsive, oft-falling man: \"Thou art Simon, son of Jonah\"--that is, the\n\"listening\" son of a weak \"dove,\" unreliable, changeable, frail--\"thou\nshalt be Peter\"--that is, a \"rock,\" firm, stable. Christ thus indicated\nthat he would make of weak Simon a resolute, trustworthy Peter, as He\ndid. Just so God in this hour said, \"Thy name shall be called no more\nJacob\"--the \"supplanter,\" the tricky, the calculating--\"but Israel\"--a\n\"prince of God,\" a man that has power with God and men, a man that even\n_prevails_ with God and men!\n\nWhat a benediction that was, one of the choicest in all history! No\nhigher designation could be promised to such a man as Jacob had been,\nthan \"Israel\"! I would rather--under God and for God--have that name\ngiven me by God than any other name that can be named upon a weak, frail\nman: \"Israel\"--a man who can _prevail_ with his _fellows_ and with _God_\nfor _human good_!\n\nAll this came about because Jacob used aright his best hours; because\nwhen God was near him, he held on to God; because when he was\ndiscouraged and heavy-hearted and the prospect was dark, he trusted God;\nbecause when he was weakened and brought low, he would not let God go\nunless He bless him. \"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,\" Job\nsaid. \"Even if God will not deliver us from the burning fiery furnace,\nstill we will not disobey Him,\" said the three prisoners at Babylon.\n\nHenceforth in Jacob's life there would still be vicissitudes. Troubles,\nresponsibilities, disappointments, sorrows, needs, would come. His\nchildren did not always treat him aright. Joseph was mourned as dead.\nBenjamin was taken from him to Egypt. He had cares and burdens, as all\nmen must have them, until life's end. But the thought of God became\nincreasingly precious to him year by year; his spirit sweetened and\nsoftened; his memory was full of the loving kindnesses of God, and his\nhope laid hold on a blessed future. Down in Egypt as he draws nigh to\ndeath he triumphantly speaks of \"God, before whom my fathers, Abraham\nand Isaac, did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this\nday, and the Angel which redeemed me from all evil.\" He died a man of\nGod, honored in his day, and honored since--a man who had such faith in\nthe promises that he charged Joseph to carry his body to the Holy Land\nand bury it there where the Christ was to come. He started life with\nmost unfortunate traits of character and in most unfortunate\nsurroundings of environment, but he came off a victor, not a perfect\nman, but a successful man, a man whom we may well praise, a man who\npreserved the faith and blessed the world, and all because he made a\nright use of his best hours.\n\nWhere the highest thoughts are in the air, where the holiest persons\ngather, where the loftiest influences of God's Holy Spirit breathe,\nthere we do well to go. There we do well to stay. Any voice that calls\nus nearer God should be followed, any motion of our heart toward duty\nshould be obeyed. God is sure to send us, one and all, special hours in\nwhich His wishes are clear to our understandings and His promises are\nreassuring to our wills. Those are the golden hours of existence. Even\nGod can provide no better. If we use these best hours aright, our whole\nmoral nature is changed, and the weakest of us becomes a mighty \"prince\nof God.\"\n\n\n\n\nGIVING OUR BEST TO GOD.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nGIVING OUR BEST TO GOD.\n\n\nGod asks every man to give to Him his best. It is God's way, God's\nundeviating way with each individual to say to him, \"Whatever in\nyourself or in your possessions is best, that I ask you to devote to\nMe.\"\n\nStudents of God, in all ages, have recognized this fact. They have\nunderstood that a human life cannot wholly follow God unless all the\nholdings of that life are consecrated to God. They have also understood\nthat a man's \"all\" includes his best, and that unless that best is\nGod's, the man's real heart and the man's strongest purposes are not\nGod's.\n\nAbraham realized these truths. Accordingly, when Abraham, pondering his\npersonal relation to God, asked himself whether he was a perfectly\ndevoted man, the thought of his son Isaac crept into his mind. Isaac was\nhis only real son. He dearly loved him. He was the supreme treasure of\nhis heart. Abraham's hopes centered in Isaac. His ambitions and his joys\nwere bound up in that son and in that son's life.\n\nWas Abraham willing to give to God his best treasure, his Isaac? That\nwas the question Abraham found himself called upon to face. In facing it\nhe was affected by the theories of consecration that prevailed among the\nsurrounding nations. Those theories asserted that consecration meant\nsacrifice--that to consecrate a lamb to a god meant to slay the lamb\nupon the altar of that god, and that to consecrate a child to Jehovah\nwould mean to slay the child upon the altar of Jehovah.\n\nAs he thought on these things and knew God wished him to give to Him his\nbest, there came to him a conviction that spoke to his heart with all\nthe authority of the voice of God. \"Abraham, if you are ready to give Me\nyour best, you will take Isaac, your son, your only son, whom you love,\nand in Moriah offer him there for a burnt-offering.\"\n\nThat was the most searching command that could have entered his soul. It\nasked of him the sacrifice of the dearest object of his life.\n\nNobly, even sublimely, did he meet the test. Believing, according to\nthe ideas prevalent about him, that perfect devotion to God and to God's\nkingdom called him to lift his fatherly hand and plunge the knife of\ndeath into the heart of his child, Abraham lifted his hand for the\nsacrifice. In that act God, who ever stood ready to correct Abraham's\nmisconception of method, had evidence that before Him was an absolutely\nloyal soul. Here was one who to all generations might deservedly be\ncalled, \"The father of the faithful.\" Accordingly, with the man who\nwould give Him his best and who thus became a worthy example for all\nmankind, God made a covenant; \"In Abraham and in his seed all the\nnations of the earth should be blessed.\"\n\nThis impressive scene heads the very beginning of the salvation of the\nrace. It is the prelude to the definite record of the world's\nredemption. It ushers in that line of history that starting with Abraham\nadvances through a chosen people until a Christ is come and in Him and\nthrough Him and for Him all people are asked to give their best to God\nand to the world's help.\n\nWhat is a person's best? Sometimes the question can easily be answered.\nIn Malachi's time, when people were bringing their offerings to the\ntemple, and those offerings were the blind, the lame, and the sick of\nthe flock, it was evident that these imperfect creatures were not the\nbest. The best were the clear-eyed, the strong-limbed, and the\nvigorous-bodied sheep that were left at home. Of two talents or five\ntalents or ten talents, all in the possession of the same owner, it is\nclear that the ten talents are the best. The thing that to a man's own\nheart is the dearest is to him his best. The thing that for the world's\nbetterment is the most helpful is to that world the man's best. Usually\nthese two things are the same thing; a man's dearest treasure\nconsecrated to the world's uplift is the best thing he can give to the\nworld's good. Whatever carries a man's undivided and enthusiastic heart\ninto usefulness is the best that he can offer to God and to God's world.\n\nFor a man is at his best when in utter self-abnegation his heart is\nenlisting every power of mind and body in devotion to a worthy cause.\nMoses was good as a shepherd. The rabbins love to tell of his protection\nof sheep in time of danger and of his provision for them in time of\nneed. But Moses was at his best when, under God's call, he conquered his\nfear and reluctance, resolved to do what he could to rescue Israel from\ncruel Pharaoh, and throwing his heart into the effort, undertook the\nredemption of his race. Joshua was good as a servant and as a spy, but\nhe was at his best when he took the lead of armies, won glorious\nvictories, and wisely administered government. Paul was good when he sat\nat the feet of Gamaliel and studied well, and when, grown older, he was\nan upright citizen of Judea, but Paul was at his best when, under the\ninspiration of a cause that inflamed his whole life, he pleaded on Mar's\nHill, wrote to Roman saints, and triumphed over suffering in prison.\n\nIt is not easy for a youth to know what is his best. He is uncertain of\nhis aptitudes. He is not sure that he _has_ special aptitudes. His\nmarked characteristics have not become clear to his own eye, if they\nhave become clear to the eyes of others; nor does he understand what\npower is latent in his distinctive characteristics, whose existence he\nis beginning to suspect. Such a youth need not, must not, be discouraged\nand think he has no \"best.\" He has a \"best\" that in God's sight\nindividualizes him, a \"best\" that God wishes consecrated to him.\nWhatever is most precious to that youth, whatever he least likes to have\ninjured and most likes to have prosper, that is the element of his life\nthat he should lay at God's feet. If the most treasured possession of\nhis being is thus given to God, God in the due time will develop its\naptitudes. He will provide a place or an hour when those aptitudes shall\nbe given opportunity. No Moses--competent for mighty tasks--is ever\nallowed to remain unsummoned, provided such competency is wholly given\nto God. There are many marvels in human history, but no marvel is\ngreater than the coming of the hour of opportunity to every man to do\nhis best and to reveal his best. It is not so much a question of what is\nour best, as it is whether we are willing to consecrate the thing we\nprize most to the service of God's world.\n\nThat world _needs_ our best. The problems of human society and the\nwants of men can never be met by the cheap. What costs the giver little,\naccomplishes little with the receiver. Skin deep beneficences never\npenetrate beyond the skin of those helped. The woes of the world lie far\nbeneath the skin. When we study them, we are amazed by their depth; we\nsee how futile many of the efforts of mankind to relieve them are. The\nfailure of so many of these efforts causes some souls to question\nwhether it is possible for any one ever to relieve humanity's needs.\nThat question will always suggest a negative answer, so long as the\nsuperficial, the secondary, and the merely good are brought to the\nrelief of mankind. It is only when the best that an individual can give\nor society can provide is offered men that men will be redeemed.\n\nThe existence in our world to-day of so much sin and sorrow is most\nsignificant. It exists and will continue to exist so long as we bring\nanything less than our best to its help. There was no cure for the\nlepers of Palestine so long as men threw them coins that they could\neasily spare, gave them food that cost them little self-denial, and said\nunder their breath, \"How pitiable those lepers are!\" But when One came\nwho gave _Himself_ for them, who risked being put out of synagogue and\ntemple and all society by _touching_ them, who even ceremonially defiled\nHimself with their defilement, and thus did the best He possibly could\ndo for them, the lepers were healed.\n\nThe best men in the world are not too good for the world's needs. The\nstreets of cities and the lanes of towns will never be purified by any\ninstrumentalities of usefulness that are less than the best. The heathen\nworld has not a village in which the wisest, noblest, purest man or\nwoman will not have to battle hard before the work to be done can be\ndone. Inexpensive apparatus may avail where operations are simple, but\nthe most expensive apparatus that can be found is required where\noperations are intensely complicated.\n\nIt sometimes seems as though even intelligent people had not\ncomprehended these facts. They talk of the foolishness of casting pearls\nbefore swine. But the woes of humanity are not the woes of swine. They\nare the woes of men and women in bondage to wrong--and pearls are none\ntoo good to set before them that thereby the beauty of life may be seen\nby them and thereby that earthly condition of society whose every gate\nis one single pearl of purity, may be desired by them. If in a home we\ncannot be a comfort to the sorrowful, or in a school be an inspiration\nto the laggard, or in business be a cheer to the discouraged, without\ngiving the very best out of our hearts that we can give, how shall we\nexpect that the great mass of evil congested in dense centers and\ncompacted through ancient custom, will ever be purified, unless we take\nthe best resources we can command, in ourselves and in others, and bring\nthose best resources face to face, yes, heart to heart, to that mass of\nevil. The world will never be saved until we offer our Isaacs upon the\naltar of its needs.\n\nThat world _deserves_ our best. We never can repay to this world the\ngood this world has done us. The richest man on the earth is the most\nheavily indebted to his fellows. All our knowledge, culture, and safety\nare gifts from others. Our schools are the product of men who for a\nhundred generations have thought and labored for us. \"Every ship that\ncomes to America got its chart from Columbus. Every novel is a debtor to\nHomer.\" The more of treasure any man has, the more of toil others have\nborne for him. The best elements of our homes, our business, and our\ncivilization reach us through the tears and blood of others. Were the\nman who has two hundred millions of dollars to attempt to meet his\nindebtedness to the world by the expenditure of that sum in charities,\nhe would not _begin_ to discharge his indebtedness. Every single benefit\nwe enjoy cost many men their best.\n\nThe nobler our type of manhood the gladder we are to acknowledge this\nindebtedness and the gladder we are in our present place and time to\ngive our best for others.\n\n  \"Fame is what you have taken,\n    Character is what you give;\n  When to this truth you waken,\n    Then you begin to live.\"\n\nSomething of fineness and of greatness is lacking in the person who\nthinks himself above his neighbors and their needs. The better and the\nlarger a man becomes, the readier he is to declare himself a brother to\nsuffering humanity and to feel that no sacrifice he can make of himself\nis too costly if thereby he can elevate others. It is \"angelic\" to be a\nministering spirit sent forth to minister to those who may be made heirs\nof salvation.\n\nThe highest examples possible to our emulation confirm this theory of\nthe gift of the best. Christ Himself withheld not any treasures He\npossessed, but He gave them all and gave them cheerily for foolish\nhumanity. He laid upon the altars of the world's need His best wisdom,\nHis best power, His best glory. He even laid upon that altar His own\nprecious life, and He laid it there, in all its spotlessness, subject to\nthe very curses of men.\n\nSo, too, did the Father unhesitatingly give His best for the world's\nwelfare. He gave His Son, His only begotten Son, in whom He was well\npleased, to save the lost. He gave that Son to any and to every pain\ninvolved in the cheering of the sorrowful and the strengthening of the\nweak. Not even from Gethsemane, no, nor from Calvary, did He withhold\nHis best. What Abraham was ready to do, but what God spared him from\ndoing, that God Himself did--and God's Isaac was stretched upon the\ncross and died there a sacrifice.\n\nIt is the gift of the best that touches the heart of the recipient.\nSuperficial kindnesses are impotent, but kindnesses that involve the\nsurrender of the giver's treasures sway the soul of the recipient. This\nis not always true, but it is true as a principle. \"They will reverence\nMy Son.\" Yes, though they pay no heed to mere servants and prophets, and\nthough some unappreciative men slay even the Son, other men, the great\nmultitude of men, when they realize that the Son is God's best\npossession, and realize that in His gift of Christ God exhausts the\ntreasury of His heart, will reverence His Son. The cross is sure to win\nthe whole world to God, because the cross stands for God's gift of His\nbest. God's way of doing good should be our way. It is the only way that\nhas assurance of success. Our wisest learning, our best possessions, our\nchoicest scholars, our dearest children, our brightest hours, our\nlargest abilities--all must be given to the service of humanity, if the\nneeds of humanity are to be met.\n\nLook where we will, the souls of men are waiting for help. Thousands\nupon thousands of lives will not suffice to provide this help. Millions\nupon millions of dollars may be expended, and still, in this land and in\nother lands, there will be the destitute, the afflicted, and the\nenslaved. It was not Abraham's gift of his sheep nor of his shekels that\nmade him the forerunner of the Christ, but it was his gift of Isaac. Our\ngift of the best alone will put us in line with Abraham and Christ, and\nmake our service a power for salvation.\n\nOnly a large-hearted life will give its best to God. Small hearts cling\nto their best treasures. Achan puts God's name on every object found in\nfallen Jericho excepting the most valuable; that he hides in his tent.\nSaul devotes to Jehovah all the cattle conquered from the Ammonites but\nthe best; those he reserves for himself. It was the mark of the\ngreatness of her nature that when to the widow there came a man of God\nasking for food, and her meal was only enough to bake a cake for her son\nand herself ere they died, she took that meal, obedient to what she\nconsidered to be a call from God, and made of it, her best, her all, a\ncake for the man of God. God honored that gift and paid back into her\nown life the blessing of His unfailing provision. He always honors any\nsuch gift. A man like Joseph gives his best and keeps giving his best to\nGod all his days, and God never suffers Joseph to lose his spiritual\nvigor. But if Solomon only gives his best in his early life, and\nwithholds his best in his later life, that later life becomes weak and\nmeager.\n\nThe proof to which God put Abraham is the most soul-searching proof that\never comes into human lives. If we answer to it as did Abraham, we are\nimmediately brought into a new and sweeter relation to God. God\nwithholds no blessing from him who offers Him his best. God enters into\na dearer and closer fellowship with such an one. He declares to him that\nHis name is \"Jehovah-Jireh,\" \"The Lord will provide,\" assuring the man\nthat though he does make great sacrifices for God, God will provide for\nhim abundantly more than he has thus sacrificed. The young ruler went\naway from Christ sorrowful when he declined to give Christ his best, but\nno soul ever can be sorrowful that gives its best to Christ. \"You shall\nhave a hundred-fold more in this world and in the world to come life\neverlasting.\" It was because the disciples gave their best to Christ\nthat they became so efficient in his service. \"What things were gain to\nme, those I counted loss for Christ.\" Accordingly Paul became mighty to\nthe upbuilding of the kingdom of his Master and was always joyous.\n\nLet every one look into his life and find his best. \"What is it I prize\nmost? What is it that gives me largest place among my fellows?\" Then let\nevery one consecrate that best to God. That best may be the enthusiasm\nof our youth, or the wisdom of our maturity, or the wealth of our age.\nIt may be a child in our home, or our hope of advancement, or some\nspecial attractiveness we possess. Whatever our best may be, God asks us\nto consecrate it to Him. Whoever so consecrates his best will find God\ndearer, life sweeter, and service richer than ever before.\n\n  \"There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave,\n    There are souls that are pure and true;\n  Then give to the world the best you have,\n    And the best shall come back to you.\n\n  \"Give love, and love to your heart will flow,\n    A strength in your utmost need;\n  Have faith, and a score of hearts will show\n    Their faith in your word and deed.\n\n  \"For life is the mirror of king and slave,\n    'Tis just what you are and do;\n  Then give to the world the best you have,\n    And the best will come back to you.\"\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\n\n  Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.\n\n  The word \"repentence\" on page 149 was changed to \"repentance.\"","title":"Living for the Best","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":29651}