Making the Most of Life

BY

J. R. MILLER, D. D. 

AUTHOR OF "SILENT TIMES, " "THINGS TO LIVE FOR, " "BUILDING OFCHARACTER, " "THE GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER, " ETC. 

 "I am the Lord thy God Which teacheth to profit. " ISAIAH. 

New York

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1891, by T. Y. CROWELL & Co. 

A WORD OF INTRODUCTION. 

Alexander was accustomed to say; "Philip of Macedon gave me life, butit was Aristotle who taught me how to make the most of life. "

To have the gift of life is a solemn thing. Life is God's most sacredtrust. It is not ours to do with as we please; it must be accountedfor, every particle, every power, every possibility of it. 

These chapters are written with the purpose and hope of stimulatingthose who may read them to earnest and worthy living. If they seemurgent, if they present continually motives of thoughtfulness, if theydwell almost exclusively on the side of obligation and responsibility, if they make duty ever prominent and call to self-renunciation andself-sacrifice, leaving small space for play, it is because life itselfis really most serious, and because we must meet it seriously, recognizing its sacred meaning and girding ourselves for it with allearnestness and energy. 

If this book shall teach any how to make the most of the life God hasentrusted to them, that will be reward enough for the work of itspreparation. To this service it is affectionately dedicated, in thename of Him who made the most of his blessed life by losing it inlove's sacrifice, and who calls us also to die to self that we may liveunto God. 

J. R. M. 

PHILADELPHIA. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER

 I. MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE II. LAID ON GOD'S ALTAR III. CHRIST'S INTEREST IN OUR COMMON LIFE IV. THE POSSIBILITIES OF PRAYER V. GETTING CHRIST'S TOUCH VI. THE BLESSING OF A BURDEN VII. HEART-PEACE BEFORE MINISTRY VIII. MORAL CURVATURES IX. TRANSFIGURED LIVES X. THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROW XI. OTHER PEOPLE XII. THE BLESSING OF FAITHFULNESS XIII. WITHOUT AXE OR HAMMER XIV. DOING THINGS FOR CHRIST XV. HELPING AND OVER-HELPING XVI. THE ONLY ONE XVII. SWIFTNESS IN DUTY XVIII. THE SHADOWS WE CAST XIX. THE MEANING OF OPPORTUNITIES XX. THE SIN OF INGRATITUDE XXI. SOME SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE XXII. GOD'S WINTER PLANTS XXIII. UNFINISHED LIFE-BUILDING XXIV. IRON SHOES FOR ROUGH ROADS XXV. THE SHUTTING OF DOCKS

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 

CHAPTER I. 

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 

 "Measure thy life by loss instead of gain; Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth; For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice, And whoso suffers most hath most to give. " --_The Disciples. _

According to our Lord's teaching, we can make the most of our life bylosing it. He says that losing the life for his sake is saving it. There is a lower self that must be trampled down and trampled to deathby the higher self. The alabaster vase must be broken, that theointment may flow out to fill the house. The grapes must be crushed, that there may be wine to drink. The wheat must be bruised, before itcan become bread to feed hunger. 

It is so in life. Whole, unbruised, unbroken men are of but littleuse. True living is really a succession of battles, in which thebetter triumphs over the worse, the spirit over the flesh. Until wecease to live for self, we have not begun to live at all. 

We can never become truly useful and helpful to others until we havelearned this lesson. One may live for self and yet do many pleasantthings for others; but one's life can never become the great blessingto the world it was meant to be until the law of self-sacrifice hasbecome its heart principle. 

A great oak stands in the forest. It is beautiful in its majesty; itis ornamental; it casts a pleasant shade. Under its branches thechildren play; among its boughs the birds sing. One day the woodmancomes with his axe, and the tree quivers in all its branches, under hissturdy blows. "I am being destroyed, " it cries. So it seems, as thegreat tree crashes down to the ground. And the children are sadbecause they can play no more beneath the broad branches; the birdsgrieve because they can no more nest and sing amid the summer foliage. 

But let us follow the tree's history. It is cut into boards, and builtinto a beautiful cottage, where human hearts find their happy nest. Orit is used in making a great organ which leads the worship of acongregation. The losing of its life was the saving of it. It diedthat it might become deeply, truly useful. 

The plates, cups, dishes, and vases which we use in our homes and onour tables, once lay as common clay in the earth, quiet and restful, but in no way doing good, serving man. Then came men with picks, andthe clay was rudely torn out and plunged into a mortar and beaten andground in a mill, then pressed, and then put into a furnace, and burnedand burned, at last coming forth in beauty, and beginning its historyof usefulness. It was apparently destroyed that it might begin to beof service. 

A great church-building is going up, and the stones that are being laidon the walls are brought out of the dark quarry for this purpose. Wecan imagine them complaining, groaning, and repining, as the quarrymen's drills and hammers struck them. They supposed they were beingdestroyed as they were torn out from the bed of rock where they hadlain undisturbed for ages, and were cut into blocks, and lifted out, and then as they were chiselled and dressed into form. But they werebeing destroyed only that they might become useful. They become partof a new sanctuary, in which God is to be worshipped, where the Gospelwill be preached, where penitent sinners will find the Christ-Saviour, where sorrowing ones will be comforted. Surely it was better thatthese stones should be torn out, even amid agony, and built into thewall of the church, than that they should have lain ages more, undisturbed in the dark quarry. They were saved from uselessness bybeing destroyed. 

These are simple illustrations of the law which applies also in humanlife. We must die to be useful--to be truly a blessing. Our Lord putthis truth in a little parable, when he said that the seed must fallinto the earth and die that it may bear fruit. Christ's own cross isthe highest illustration of this. His friends said he wasted hisprecious life; but was that life wasted when Jesus was crucified?George MacDonald in one of his little poems, with deep spiritualinsight, presents this truth of the blessed gain of Christ's lifethrough his sacrifice and death:--

 "For three and thirty years, a living seed, A lonely germ, dropt on our waste world's side, Thy death and rising, thou didst calmly bide; Sore compassed by many a clinging weed Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need; Hither and thither tossed, by friends denied; Pitied of goodness dull, and scorned of pride; Until at length was done the awful deed, And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower-- Three days asleep--oh, slumber godlike, brief, For Man of sorrows and acquaint with grief, Heaven's seed, Thou diedst, that out of thee might tower Aloft, with rooted stem and shadowy leaf Of all Humanity the crimson flower. "

People said that Harriet Newell's beautiful life was wasted when shegave it to missions, and then died and was buried far from home--bride, missionary, mother, saint, all in one short year, --without even tellingto one heathen woman or child the story of the Saviour. But was thatlovely young life indeed wasted? No; all this century her name hasbeen one of the strongest inspirations to missionary work, and herinfluence has brooded everywhere, touching thousands of hearts ofgentle women and strong men, as the story of her consecration has beentold. Had Harriet Newell lived a thousand years of quiet, sweet lifeat home, she could not have done the work that she did in one shortyear by giving her life, as it seemed, an unavailing sacrifice. Shelost her life that she might save it. She died that she might live. She offered herself a living sacrifice that she might become useful. 

In heart and spirit we must all do the same if we would ever be a realblessing in the world. We must be willing to lose our life--tosacrifice ourself, to give up our own way, our own ease, our owncomfort, possibly even our own life; for there come times when one'slife must literally be lost in order to be saved. 

It was in a mine in England. There had been a fearful explosion, andthe men came rushing up from the lower level, right into the danger ofthe deathly afterblast; when the only chance of safety was in anothershaft. And one man knew this and stood there in the dangerous passage, warning the men. When urged to go himself the safe way, he said, "No;some one must stay here to guide the others. " Is there any heroism ofthis world's life finer than that?

It was at Fredericksburg, after a bloody battle. Hundreds of Unionsoldiers lay wounded on the field. All night and all next day thespace was swept by artillery from both armies; and no one could ventureto the sufferers' relief. All that time, too, there went up from thefield agonizing cries for water, but there was no response save theroar of the guns. At length, however, one brave fellow behind theramparts, a Southern soldier, felt that he could endure these piteouscries no longer. His compassion rose superior to his love of life. 

"General, " said Richard Kirkland to his commander, "I can't stand this. Those poor souls out there have been praying for water all night andall day, and it is more than I can bear. I ask permission to carrythem water. "

The general assured him that it would be instant death for him toappear upon the field, but he begged so earnestly that the officer, admiring his noble devotion to humanity, could not refuse his request. Provided with a supply of water, the brave soldier stepped over thewall and went on his Christ-like errand. From both sides wonderingeyes looked on as he knelt by the nearest sufferer, and gently raisinghis head, held the cooling cup to his parched lips. At once the Unionsoldiers understood what the soldier in gray was doing for their ownwounded comrades, and not a shot was fired. For an hour and a half hecontinued his work, giving drink to the thirsty, straightening crampedand mangled limbs, pillowing men's heads on their knapsacks, andspreading blankets and army coats over them, tenderly as a mother wouldcover her child; and all the while, until this angel-ministry wasfinished, the fusillade of death was hushed. 

Again we must admire the heroism that led this brave soldier in gray soutterly to forget himself for the sake of doing a deed of mercy to hisenemies. There is more grandeur in five minutes of suchself-renunciation than in a whole lifetime of self-interest andself-seeking. There is something Christly in it. How poor, paltry, and mean, alongside the records of such deeds, appear men's selfishstrivings, self-interests' boldest venturing!

We must get the same spirit in us if we would become in any large andtrue sense a blessing to the world. We must die to live. We must loseour life to save it. We must lay self on the altar to be consumed inthe fire of love, in order to glorify God and do good to men. Our workmay be fair, even though mingled with self; but it is only when self issacrificed, burned on the altar of consecration, consumed in the hotflames of love, that our work becomes really our best, a fit offeringto be made to our King. 

We must not fear that in such sacrifice, such renunciation andannihilation of self, we shall lose ourselves. God will remember everydeed of love, every forgetting of self, every emptying out of life. Though we work in obscurest places, where no human tongue shall evervoice our praise, still there is a record kept, and some day rich andglorious reward will be given. Is not God's praise better than man's?

 "Ungathered beauties of a bounteous earth, Wild flowers which grow on mountain-paths untrod. White water-lilies looking up to God From solitary tarns--and human worth Doing meek duty that no glory gains, Heroic souls in secret places sown, To live, to suffer, and to die unknown-- Are not that loveliness and all these pains Wasted? Alas, then does it not suffice That God is on the mountain, by the lake, And in each simple duty, for whose sake His children give their very blood as price? The Father sees. If this does not repay, What else? For plucked flowers fade and praises slay. "

Mary's ointment was wasted when she broke the vase and poured it uponher Lord. Yes; but suppose she had left the ointment in the unbrokenvase? What remembrance would it then have had? Would there have beenany mention of it on the Gospel pages? Would her deed of carefulkeeping have been told over all the world? She broke the vase andpoured it out, lost it, sacrificed it, and now the perfume fills allthe earth. We may keep our life if we will, carefully preserving itfrom waste; but we shall have no reward, no honor from it, at the last. But if we empty it out in loving service, we shall make it a lastingblessing to the world, and we shall be remembered forever. 

CHAPTER II. 

LAID ON GOD'S ALTAR. 

 "My life is not my own, but Christ's, who gave it, And he bestows it upon all the race; I lose it for his sake, and thus I save it; I hold it close, but only to expend it; Accept it, Lord, for others, through thy grace. "

We have to die to live. That is the central law of life. We must burnto give light to the world, or to give forth odor of incense to God'spraise. We cannot save ourselves and at the same time make anythingworthy of our life, or be in any deep and true sense an honor to Godand a blessing to the world. The altar stands in the foreground ofevery life, and can be passed by only at the cost of all that isnoblest and best. 

All the practical side of religion is summed up in the exhortation ofSt. Paul, that we present our bodies a living sacrifice to God. Anciently, a man brought a lamb and presented it to God, laid it on thealtar, to be consumed by God's fire. In like manner, we are to presentour bodies. The first thing is not to be a worker, a preacher, a saverof souls; the very first thing in a Christian life is to present one'sself to God, to lay one's self on the altar. We need to understandthis. It is easier to talk and work for Christ than to give ourselvesto him. It is easier to offer God a few activities than to give him aheart. But the heart must be first, else even the largest gifts andservices are not acceptable. 

 "'Tis not thy work the Master needs, but thee, -- The obedient spirit, the believing heart. "

"A living sacrifice. " A sacrifice is something really given to God, tobe his altogether and forever. We cannot take it back any more. Onecould not lay a lamb on God's altar and then a minute or two afterwardrun up and take it off. We cannot be God's to-day and our ownto-morrow. If we become his at all, in a sacrifice which he accepts, we are his always. 

How can we present ourselves as a sacrifice to God? By the completesurrender of our heart and will and all our powers to him. Absoluteobedience is consecration. The soldier learns it. He is not his own. He does not think for himself, to, make his own plans; he has but oneduty--to obey. Payson used to talk of his "lost will"--lost in God'swill, he meant. That is what presenting one's self a sacrifice means. 

It is a "living" sacrifice. Anciently, the sacrifices were killed;they were laid dead on the altar. We are to present ourselves living. The fire consumed the ancient offering; the fire of God's love and ofhis Spirit consumes our lives by purifying them and filling them withdivine life. Those on whom the fire fell on the day of Pentecostbecame new men. There was a new life in their souls, a new ardor, anew enthusiasm. They were on fire with love for Christ. They enteredupon a service in which all their energies flamed. 

The living sacrifice includes all the life, --not what it is now only, but all that it may become. Life is not a diamond, but a seed, withpossibilities of endless growth. Dr. Lyman Abbott has used thisillustration: "I pluck an acorn from the greensward, and hold it to myear; and this is what it says to me: 'By and by the birds will come andnest in me. By and by I will furnish shade for the cattle. By and byI will provide warmth for the home in the pleasant fire. By and by Iwill be shelter from the storm to those who have gone under the roof. By and by I will be the strong ribs of the great vessel, and thetempest will beat against me in vain, while I carry men across theAtlantic. ' 'O foolish little acorn, wilt thou be all this?' I ask. And the acorn answers, 'Yes; God and I. '"

I look into the faces of a company of children, and I hear a whisper, saying: "By and by I will be a great blessing to many. By and by otherlives will come and find nest and home in me. By and by the weary willsit in the shadow of my strength. By and by I will sit as comforter ina home of sorrow. By and by I will speak the words of Christ'ssalvation in ears of lost ones. By and by I will shine in the fullradiancy of the beauty of Christ, and be among the glorified with myRedeemer. " "You, frail, powerless, little one?" I ask; and the answeris, "Yes; Christ and I. " And all these blessed possibilities that arein the life of the young person must go upon the altar in the livingsacrifice. 

Take another view of it. Some people seem to suppose that onlyspiritual exercises are included in this living sacrifice; that it doesnot cover their business, their social life, their amusements. But itreally embraces the whole of life. We belong to God as truly on Mondayas on the Lord's Day. We must keep ourselves laid on God's altar asreally while we are at our week-day work as when we are in aprayer-meeting. We are always on duty as Christians, whether we areengaged in our secular pursuits or in exercises of devotion. All ourwork should therefore be done reverently, "as unto the Lord. "

We should do everything also for God's eye and according to theprincipled of righteousness. The consecrated mechanic must putabsolute truth into every piece of work he does. The consecratedbusiness man must conduct his business on the principles of divinerighteousness. The consecrated millionaire must get his money on God'saltar, so that every dollar of it shall do business for God, blessingthe world. The consecrated housekeeper must keep her home so sweet andso tidy and beautiful all the days, that she would never be ashamed forher Master to come in without warning to be her guest. That is, whenwe present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, we are to be God'sin every part and in every phase of our life, wherever we go, whateverwe do. 

"I cannot be of any use, " says one. "I cannot talk in meetings. Icannot pray in public. I have no gift for visiting the sick. There isnothing I can do for Christ. "

Well, if Christian service were all talking and praying in meetings, and visiting the sick, it would be discouraging to such talentlesspeople. But are our tongues the only faculties we can use for Christ?There are ways in which even silent people can belong to God and be ablessing in the world. A star does not talk, but its calm, steady beamshines down continually out of the sky, and is a benediction to many. A flower cannot sing bird-songs, but its sweet beauty and gentlefragrance make it a blessing wherever it is seen. Be like a star inyour peaceful shining, and many will thank God for your life. Be likethe flower in your pure beauty and in the influence of your unselfishspirit, and you may do more to bless the world than many who talkincessantly. The living sacrifice does not always mean active work. It may mean the patient endurance of a wrong, the quiet bearing of apain, cheerful acquiescence in a disappointment. 

 "Noble deeds are held in honor; But the wide world sadly needs Hearts of patience to unravel The worth of common deeds. "

There are some people who think it impossible in their narrow sphereand in their uncongenial circumstances to live so as to win God's favoror be blessings in the world. But there is no doubt that many of themost beautiful lives of earth, in Heaven's sight, are those that arelived in what seem the most unfavorable conditions. A visitor toAmsterdam wished to hear the wonderful music of the chimes of St. Nicholas, and went up into the tower of the church to hear it. Therehe found a man with wooden gloves on his hands, pounding on a keyboard. All he could hear was the clanging of the keys when struck by thewooden gloves, and the harsh, deafening noise of the bells close overhis head. He wondered why people talked of the marvellous chimes ofSt. Nicholas. To his ear there was no music in them, nothing butterrible clatter and clanging. Yet, all the while, there floated outover and beyond the city the most entrancing music. Men in the fieldspaused in their work to listen and were made glad. People in theirhomes and travellers on the highways were thrilled by the marvellousbell-notes that fell from the chimes. 

There are many lives which to those who dwell close beside them seem tomake no music. They pour out their strength in hard toil. They areshut up in narrow spheres. They dwell amid the noise and clatter ofcommon task-work. They appear to be only striking wooden hammers onrattling, noisy keys. There can be nothing pleasing to God in theirlife, men would say. They think themselves that they are not of anyuse, that no blessing goes out from their life. They never dream thatsweet music is made anywhere in the world by their noisy hammering. Asthe bell-chimer in his little tower hears no music from his own ringingof the bells, so they think of their hard toil as producing nothing butclatter and clangor; but out over the world where the influence goesfrom their work and character, human lives are blessed, and weary oneshear with gladness sweet, comforting music. Then away off in heaven, where angels listen for earth's melody, most entrancing strains areheard. 

No doubt it will be seen at the last that many of earth's mostacceptable living sacrifices have been laid on the altar in thenarrowest spheres and in the midst of the hardest conditions. What tothe ears of close listeners is only the noise of painful toil is heardin heaven as music sweet as angels' song. 

The living sacrifice is "acceptable unto God. " It ought to be awondrous inspiration to know this; that even the lowliest things we dofor Christ are pleasing to him. We ought to be able to do better, truer work, when we think of his gracious acceptance of it. It is toldof Leonardo da Vinci, that while still a pupil, before his genius burstinto brilliancy, he received a special inspiration in this way: His oldand famous master, because of his growing infirmities of age, feltobliged to give up his own work, and one day bade Da Vinci finish forhim a picture which he had begun. The young man had such a reverencefor his master's skill that he shrank from the task. The old artist, however, would not accept any excuse, but persisted in his command, saying simply, "Do your best. "

Da Vinci at last tremblingly seized the brush and kneeling before theeasel prayed: "It is for the sake of my beloved master that I imploreskill and power for this undertaking. " As he proceeded, his hand grewsteady, his eye awoke with slumbering genius. He forgot himself andwas filled with enthusiasm for his work. When the painting wasfinished, the old master was carried into the studio to pass judgmenton the result. His eye rested on a triumph of art. Throwing his armsabout the young artist, he exclaimed, "My son, I paint no more. "

There are some who shrink from undertaking the work which the Mastergives them to do. They are not worthy; they have no skill or power forthe delicate duty. But to all their timid shrinking and withdrawing, the Master's gentle yet urgent word is, "Do your best. " They have onlyto kneel in lowly reverence and pray, for the beloved Master's sake, for skill and strength for the task assigned, and they will be inspiredand helped to do it well. The power of Christ will rest upon them andthe love of Christ will be in their heart. And all work done underthis blessed inspiration will be acceptable unto God. We have buttruly to lay the living sacrifice on the altar; then God will send thefire. 

We need to get this matter of consecration down out of cloud-land intothe region of actual, common daily living. We sing about it and prayfor it and talk of it in our religious meetings, ofttimes in glowingmood, as if it were some exalted state with which earth's life of toil, struggle, and care had nothing whatever to do. But the consecrationsuggested by the living sacrifice is one that walks on the earth, thatmeets life's actual duties, struggles, temptations, and sorrows, andthat falters not in obedience, fidelity, or submission, but followsChrist with love and joy wherever he leads. No other consecrationpleases God. 

CHAPTER III. 

CHRIST'S INTEREST IN OUR COMMON LIFE. 

 "So still, dear Lord, in every place Thou standest by the toiling folk With love and pity in thy face, And givest of thy help and grace To those who meekly bear the yoke. "

One of our Lord's after-resurrection appearances vividly pictures hisloving interest in our common toil. While waiting for him to come toGalilee, the disciples had gone back for a time to their old work offishing. They were poor men, and this was probably necessary in orderto provide for their own subsistence. Thus fishing was the duty thatlay nearest. Yet it must have been dreary work for them after theexalted privileges they had enjoyed so long. Think what the last threeyears had been to these men. Jesus had taken them into the mostintimate fellowship with himself--into closest confidential friendship. They had listened to his wonderful words, seen his gracious acts, andwitnessed his sweet life. Think what a privilege it was to live thuswith Jesus those beautiful years; what glimpses of heaven they had;what visions of radiant life shone before them. 

But now this precious experience was ended. The lovely dream hadvanished. They were back again at their old work. How dreary it musthave been--this tiresome handling of oars and boats and fishing-nets, after their years of exalted life with their Master! But it is aprecious thought to us that just at this time, when they were in themidst of the dull and wearisome work, and when they were sadlydiscouraged, Christ appeared to them. It showed his interest in theirwork, his sympathy with them in their discouragement, and his readinessto help them. 

Then the revealings of his appearance that morning are for all hisfriends and for all time. We know now that our risen Saviour isinterested in whatever we have to do, and is ready to help us in allour dull, common life. He will come to his people, not in the churchservice, the prayer-meeting, the Holy Supper only, but is quite as aptto reveal himself to them in the task-work of the plainest, dullestday. Susan Coolidge writes:--

 "That thy full glory may abound, increase, And so thy likeness shall be formed in me, I pray; the answer is not rest or peace, But changes, duties, wants, anxieties, Till there seems room for everything but thee, And never time for anything but these. 

 "And I should fear, but lo! amid the press, The whirl and hum and pressure of my day, I hear thy garments sweep, thy seamless dress, And close beside my work and weariness Discern thy gracious form, not far away, But very near, O Lord, to help and bless. 

 "The busy fingers fly; the eyes may see Only the glancing needle which they hold; But all my life is blossoming inwardly, And every breath is like a litany; While through each labor, like a thread of gold, Is woven the sweet consciousness of thee. "

There are duties in every life that are irksome. Young peoplesometimes find school work dull. There are faithful mothers who many aday grow weary of the endless duties of the household. There are goodmen who tire ofttimes of the routine of office, or store, or mill, orfarm. There comes to most of us, at times, the feeling that what wehave to do day after day is not worthy of us. We have had glimpses, orbrief experiences, of life in its higher revealings. It may have beena companionship for a season with one above us in experience orattainment, that has lifted us up for a little time into exaltedthoughts and feelings, after which it is hard to come back again to theold plodding round, and to the old, uninteresting companionships. Itmay have been a visit to some place or to some home, withopportunities, refinements, inspirations, privileges, above those whichwe can have in our own narrower surroundings and plainer home and lesscongenial intimacies. 

Or our circumstances may have been rudely changed by some providencethat has broken in upon our happy life. It may have been a death thatcut off the income, or a reverse in business that swept away a fortune, and luxury and ease and the material refinements and elegances ofwealth have to be exchanged for toil and plain circumstances and ahumbler home. There are few sorer tests of character than such changesas these bring with them. The first thought always is: "How can I goto this dreary life, these hard tasks, this painful drudgery, thisweary plodding, after having enjoyed so long the comforts andrefinements of my old happy state?"

In such cases immeasurable comfort may be found in this appearance ofthe risen Christ that morning on the shore. The disciples took uptheir dull old work because it was necessary, and was their plain dutyfor the time; and there was Jesus waiting to greet them and bless them. Accept your hard tasks, and do them cheerfully, no matter how irksomethey appear, and Christ will reveal himself to you in them. Be surethat he will never come to you when you are avoiding any tasks, whenyou are withholding your hand from any duty, or when you are frettingand discontented over any circumstances or conditions of your lot. There are no visions of the Christ for idle dreamers or for unhappyshirkers. 

Suppose you have come back, like the disciples, from times of privilegeand exaltation, and find yourself face to face once more with an oldlife which seems now unworthy of you; yet for the time your duty isclear, and if you would have a vision of Christ, you must take up theduty with gladness. Suppose that your home-life is narrow, humdrum, unpoetic, uncongenial, even cold and unkindly; yet there for the timeis your place, and there are your duties. And right in this sphere, narrow though it seem, there is room for holiest visions of Christ andfor the richest revealings of his grace and blessing. 

It will be remembered that Jesus himself, after his glimpse of higherthings in the temple, went back to the lowly peasant home at Nazareth, and there for eighteen years more found scope enough for thedevelopment of the richest nature this world ever saw, and for thefullest and completest doing of duty ever wrought beneath the skies. Whatever, then, may be our shrinking from dull tasks, our distaste fordreary duty, our discontent with a narrow place and with limitingcircumstances, we should go promptly to the work that God assigns, andaccept the conditions that lie in the lot which he appoints. And inour hardest toil, our most irksome tasks, our lowliest duties, ourdreariest and most uncongenial surroundings, we shall have but to liftup our eyes to see the blessed form of Christ standing before us, withcheer, sympathy, and encouragement for us. 

There is more of the lesson. Not only did Christ reveal himself tothese disciples while at their lowly work, but he helped them in it. He told them where to cast their net, and turned their failure tosuccess. We think of Christ as helping us to endure temptation, tobear trial, to overcome sin, to do spiritual duties, but we sometimesforget that he is just as ready to help us in our common work. Thatmorning he helped the disciples in their fishing. He will help us inour trade or business, or in whatever work we have to do. 

We all have our discouraged days, when things do not go well. Theyoung people fail in their lessons at school, although they havestudied hard, and really have done their best. Or the mothers fail intheir household work. The children are hard to control. It has beenimpossible to keep good temper, to maintain that sweetness andlovingness that are so essential to a happy day. They try to begentle, kindly, and patient, but, try as they will, their minds becomeruffled and fretted with cares. They come to the close of the long, unhappy hours disturbed, defeated, discouraged. They have done theirbest, but they feel that they have only failed. They fall upon theirknees, but they have only tears for a prayer. Yet if they will lift uptheir eyes, they will see on the shore of the troubled sea of theirlittle day's life the form of One whose presence will give themstrength and confidence, and who will help them to victoriousness. Before his sweet smile the shadows flee away. At his word new strengthis given, and, after that, work is easy, and all goes well again. 

Men, too, in their busy life, are continually called to struggle, ofttimes to suffer. Life is not easy for any who would live truly. Work is hard; burdens are heavy; responsibility is great; trials aresore; duty is large. Life's competitions are fierce; its rivalries arekeen; its frictions sometimes grind men's very souls well nigh todeath. It is hard to live sweetly amid the irritations that touchcontinually at most tender points. It is hard to live lovingly andcharitably when they see so much inequity and wrong, and sometimes mustthemselves endure men's uncharity and injustice. It is hard to toiland never rest, earning even then scarce enough to feed and clothethose who are dependent on them for care. It is hard to meettemptation's fierce assaults, and keep themselves pure, unspotted fromthe world, ready for heaven any hour the Lord may come. 

It is no wonder that men are sometimes discouraged and lose heart. They are like those weary disciples that spring morning on the Sea ofGalilee, after they had toiled all night and had taken nothing. Butlet us not forget the vision that awaited these disciples with thecoming of the dawn--the risen Jesus standing on the shore with hissalutation of love and his strong help that instantly turned failureinto blessing. So over against every tempted, struggling, toiling lifeof Christian disciple, Christ is ever standing, ready to give victoryand to guide to highest good. 

Life would be easier for us all if we could realize the presence andactual help of Christ in all our experiences. We need to care for onlyone thing--that we may be faithful always to duty, and loyal to ourMaster. Then, the duller the round and the sorer the struggle, thesurer we shall ever be of Christ's smile and help. We may glory ininfirmities, because then the power of God rests upon us. 

It is not ordinarily in the easy ways, in the luxurious surroundings, in the paths of worldly honor, in the congenial lot, that the brightestheavenly visions are seen. There have been more blessed revealings ofChrist in prisons than in palaces, in homes of poverty than in homes ofabundance, in ways of hardship than in ways of ease. We need only toaccept our task-work, our drudgery, our toil, in Christ's name, and theglory of Christ will transfigure it and shine upon our faces. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE POSSIBILITIES OF PRAYER. 

 "Ask and receive--'tis sweetly said; Yet what to plead for know I not, For wish is worsted, hope o'ersped, And aye to thanks returns my thought. If I would pray I've naught to say, But this, that God may be God still: For time to live So still to give, And sweeter than my wish his will. " --DAVID A. WASSON. 

We do not begin to realize the possibilities of prayer. There is nolimit, for example, to the scope of prayer. We may embrace in it allthings that belong to our life, not merely those which affect ourspiritual interests, but those as well which seem to be only worldlymatters. Nothing that concerns us in any way is matter of indifferenceto God. One writes: "Learn to entwine with your prayers the smallcares, the trifling sorrows, the little wants of daily life. Whateveraffects you, --be it a changed look, an altered tone, an unkind word, awrong, a wound, a demand you cannot meet, a sorrow you cannotdisclose, --turn it into prayer and send it up to God. Disclosures youmay not make to man, you can make to the Lord. Men may be too littlefor your great matters; God is not too great for your small ones. Onlygive yourself to prayer, whatever be the occasion that calls for it. "

We soon find, however, if we are really earnest, that our desires aretoo great for words. We have in our hearts feelings, hungerings, affections, longings, which we want to breathe out to God; but when webegin to speak to him, we find no language adequate for theirexpression. We try to tell God of our sorrow for sin, of our weaknessand sinfulness, then of our desire to be better, to love Christ more, to follow him more closely, and of our hunger after righteousness, after holiness; but it is very little of these deep cravings that wecan get into speech. 

Language is a wonderful gift. The power of putting into words thethoughts and emotions of our souls, that others may understand them, isone of the most marvellous powers the Creator has bestowed upon us. Thus we communicate our feelings and desires the one to the other. Itis a sore deprivation when the gates of speech are shut and locked, andwhen the soul cannot tell its thoughts. 

Yet we all know, unless our thoughts and feelings are very shallow andtrivial, that even the wonderful faculty of language is inadequate toexpress all that the soul can experience. No true orator ever findssentences majestic enough to interpret the sentiments that burn in hissoul. Deep, pure love is never able to put into words its most sacredfeelings and emotions. It is only the commonplace of the inner lifethat can be uttered in even the finest language. There is always morethat lies back, unexpressed, than is spoken in any words. 

It is specially true of prayer that we cannot utter its deepestfeelings and holiest desires. We have comfort, however, in theassurance that God can hear thoughts. He knows what we want to say andcannot express. Your dearest friend may stand close to you when yourmind is full of thoughts, but unless you speak or give some sign, hecannot know one of your thoughts. He may lay his ear close to yourheart, and he will hear its throbbings; but he cannot hear yourfeelings, your desires. Yet God knows all that goes on in your soul. Every thought that flies through your brain is heard in heaven. 

 "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. "

We need not trouble ourselves, therefore, if we cannot get our wishesinto words when we pray, for God hears wishes, heart-longings, soulhungerings and thirstings. The things we cannot say in speech of thelips, we may ask God to take from our heart's speech. There is not thefeeblest, faintest glimmer of a desire rising on the far-away horizonof our being, but God sees it. There is not a heart-hunger, not a wishto be holier and better, not an aspiration to be more Christ-like, nota craving to live for God and be a blessing to others, not the faintestdesire to be rid of sin's power, but God knows of it. St. Paul has awonderful word on this subject: God, he says, "is able to do exceedingabundantly above all that we ask or think. " When our heart is stirredto its depths, what large, great things can we ask in words? Then, howmuch can we put into thoughts of prayer, into longings, desires, aspirations, beyond the possibilities of speech? God can do more thanwe can pray either in words or thoughts. 

Our truest praying is that which we cannot express in any words, ourheart's unutterable longings, when we sit at God's feet and look upinto his face and do not speak at all, but let our hearts talk. 

 "Rather as friends sit sometimes hand in hand, Nor mar with words the sweet speech of their eyes; So in soft silence let us oftener bow, Nor try with words to make God understand. Longing is prayer; upon its wings we rise To where the breath of heaven beats upon our brow. "

Our best, truest prayers are not for earthly things, but for spiritualblessings. When the objects are temporal, we do not know what weshould pray for--what would be really a blessing to us. You are aloving parent, and your child is very ill. It seems that it must die. You fall upon your knees before God to pray, but you do not know whatto ask. Your breaking heart would quickly plead, "Lord, spare myprecious child"; but you do not know that that is best. Perhaps tolive would not be God's sweetest gift to your child, or to you. So, not daring to choose, you can only say, "Lord God, I cannot speak more;but thou knowest thy child; thou understandest what is best. "

Or, some plan of yours, which you have long cherished, seems about tobe thwarted. You go to God, and begin to pray; but you do not knowwhat to ask. You can only say, "Lord, I cannot tell what is best; butthou knowest. " What a comfort it is that God does indeed know, andthat we may safely leave our heart's burden in his hand, without anyrequest whatever!

 "Lord, I had chosen another lot, But then I had not chosen well; Thy choice, and truly thine, was good; No different lot, search heaven or hell, Had blessed me, fully understood, None other which thou orderest not. "

We can do little more than this in any request for temporal things. Says Archdeacon Farrar: "There are two things to remember about prayersfor earthly things: One, that to ask mainly for earthly blessings is adreadful dwarfing and vulgarization of the grandeur of prayer, asthough you asked for a handful of grass, when you might ask for ahandful of emeralds; the other that you must always ask for earthlydesires with absolute submission of your own will to God's. " Sosilence is oft-times the best and truest praying--bowing before God inlife's great crises; but saying nothing, leaving the burden in God'shand without any choosing. We are always safe when we let God guide usin all our ways. 

 "Ill that he blesses is our good, And unblest good is ill; And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be his sweet will. "

Many of the richest possibilities of prayer lie beyond valleys of painand sorrow. The best things of life cannot be gotten save at sorecost. When we pray for more holiness, we do not know what we areasking for; at least we do not know the price we must pay to get thatwhich we ask. Our "Nearer, my God, to thee, " must be conditioned by, and often can come only through, "E'en though it be a cross, That raiseth me. "

Not only are the spiritual things the best things, but many times thespiritual things can be grasped only by letting go and losing out ofour hands the earthly things we would love to keep. God loves us toomuch to grant our prayers for comfort and relief, even when we makethem, if he can do it only at spiritual loss to us. He would ratherlet it be hard for us to live if there is blessing in the hardness, than make it easy for us at the cost of the blessing. 

There are certain singing-birds that never learn to sing until theircages are darkened. Would it be true kindness to keep these birdsalways in the sunshine? There are human hearts that never learn tosing the song of faith and peace and love, until they enter thedarkness of trial. Would it be true love for these if God would heartheir prayers for the removal of their pain? We dare not plead, therefore, save with utmost diffidence and submission, that God wouldremove the cross of suffering. 

 "Thou canst not tell How rich a dowry sorrow gives the soul, How firm a faith and eagle-sight of God. "

Does God answer prayers? "I have been praying for one thing foryears, " says one, "and it has not come yet. " God has many ways ofanswering. Sometimes he delays that he may give a better, fulleranswer. A poor woman stood at a vineyard gate, and looked over intothe vineyard. "Would you like some grapes?" asked the proprietor, whowas within. "I should be very thankful, " replied the woman. "Thenbring your basket. " Quickly the basket was brought to the gate andpassed in. The owner took it and was gone a long time among the vines, till the woman became discouraged, thinking he was not coming again. At last he returned with the basket heaped full. "I have made you waita good while, " he said, "but you know the longer you have to wait, thebetter grapes and the more. "

So it sometimes is in prayer. We bring our empty vessel to God andpass it over the gate of prayer to him. He seems to be delaying a longtime, and sometimes faith faints with waiting. But at last he comes, and our basket is heaped full with luscious blessings. He waited longthat he might bring us a better and a fuller answer. At least we aresure that no true prayer ever really goes unanswered. We have to waitfor the fruits to ripen, and that takes time. 

Then sometimes God delays until some work in us is finished, somepreparation which is needed before the best answer can be received. The following words are suggestive:

 "Unanswered yet, the prayer your lips have pleaded In agony of heart these many years? Does faith begin to fail? Is hope departing, And think you all in vain those falling tears? Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer; You shall have your desire sometime, somewhere. 

 "Unanswered yet, though when you first presented This one petition at the Father's throne, It seemed you could not wait the time of asking, So urgent was your heart to have it known? Though years have passed since then, do not despair; The Lord will answer you sometime, somewhere. 

 "Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted; Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done; The work began when first your prayer was uttered. And God will finish what he has begun. If you will keep the incense burning there, His glory you will see sometime, somewhere. 

 "Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered. Her feet are firmly planted on the rock; Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted, Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock. She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, It shall be done--sometime, somewhere. "

CHAPTER V. 

GETTING CHRIST'S TOUCH. 

 "This is life--to pour out love unstinted; Good and evil, sunlike, blesseth he; Through your finite is his infinite hinted-- Children of your Father must ye be. " --LUCY LARCOM. 

There was wonderful power in the touch of Christ when he was on theearth. Wherever he laid his hand, he left a blessing, and sick, sad, and weary ones received health, comfort, and peace. That hand, glorified, now holds in its clasp the seven stars. Yet there aresenses in which the blessed touch of Christ is felt yet on men's lives. He is as really in this world to-day as he was when he walked in humanform through Judea and Galilee. His hand is yet laid on the weary, thesuffering, the sorrowing, and, though its pressure is unfelt, its powerto bless is the same as in the ancient days. It is laid on the sick, when precious heavenly words of cheer and encouragement from theScriptures are read at their bedside, giving them the blessing of sweetpatience, and quieting their fears. It is laid on the sorrowing, whenthe consolations of divine love come to their hearts with tendercomfort, giving them strength to submit to God's will and rejoice inthe midst of trial. It is laid on the faint and weary, when the graceof Christ comes to them with its holy peace, hushing the wild tumult, and giving true rest of soul. 

But there is another way in which the hand of Christ is laid on humanlives. He sends his disciples into the world to represent him. "Asthe Father hath sent me, even so send I you, " is his own word. Ofcourse the best and holiest Christian life can be only the dimmest, faintest reproduction of the rich, full, blessed life of Christ. Yetit is in this way, through these earthen vessels, that he has ordainedto save the world, and to heal, help, comfort, lift up, and build upmen. 

 "In these earthen vessels heavenly treasure For the enrichment of thy poor may shine; Thou canst fill us in our human measure With thy being's overflow divine. "

Perhaps in thinking of what God does for the world, we are too apt tooverlook the human agents and instruments, and to think of him touchinglives directly and immediately. A friend of ours is in sorrow, and, going to our knees, we pray God to give him comfort. But may it not bethat he would send the comfort through our own heart and lips? One welove is not doing well, is drifting away from a true life, is in dangerof being lost. In anguish of heart we cry to God, beseeching him tolay his hand on the imperilled life, and rescue it. But may it not bethat ours is the hand that must be stretched out in love, and laid, inChrist's name, on the life that is in danger?

Certain it is, at least, that each one of us who knows the love ofChrist is ordained to be as Christ to others; that is, to be themessenger to carry to them the gift of Christ's grace and help, and toshow to them the spirit of Christ, the patience, gentleness, thoughtfulness, love, and yearning of Christ. We are taught to say, "Christ liveth in me. " If this be true, Christ would love othersthrough us, and our touch must be to others as the very touch of Christhimself. Every Christian ought to be, in his human measure, a newincarnation of the Christ, so that people shall say: "He interpretsChrist to me. He comforts me in my sorrow as Christ himself would doif he were to come and sit down beside me. He is hopeful and patientas Christ would be if he were to return and take me as his disciple. "

But before we can be in the place of Christ to sorrowing, suffering, and struggling ones, we must have the mind in us that was in him. WhenSt. Paul said, "The love of Christ constraineth me, " he meant that hehad the very love of Christ in him--the love that loved even the mostunlovely, that helped even the most unworthy, that was gentle andaffectionate even to the most loathsome. We are never ready to do goodin the world, in the truest sense or in any large measure, until wehave become thus filled with the very spirit of Christ. We may helppeople in a certain way without loving them. We may render themservices of a certain kind, benefiting them externally or temporally. We may put material gifts into their hands, build them houses, purchaseclothing for them, carry them bread, or improve their circumstances andcondition. We may thus do many things for them without having in ourheart any love for them, anything better than common philanthropy. Butthe highest and most real help we can give them only through lovingthem. 

"When I have attempted, " says Emerson, "to give myself to others byservices, it proved an intellectual trick--no more. They eat yourservices like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feelyou and delight in you all the time. " When we love others we can helpthem in all deep and true ways. We can put blessings into their heartsinstead of merely into their hands. We can enter into their verybeing, becoming new breath of life to them, --quickening, inspiration, impulse. 

 "What is the best a friend can be To any soul, to you or me? Not only shelter, comfort, rest-- Inmost refreshment unexpressed; Not only a beloved guide To thread life's labyrinth at our side, Or with love's torch lead on before; Though these be much, there yet is more. 

 "The best friend is an atmosphere Warm with all inspirations dear, Wherein we breathe the large, free breath Of life that hath no taint of death. Our friend is an unconscious part Of every true beat of our heart; A strength, a growth, whence we derive God's health, that keeps the world alive. "

There is a touching and very suggestive story of a good woman inSweden, who opened a home for crippled and diseased children--childrenfor whom no one else was ready to care. In due time she received intoher home about twenty of these unfortunate little ones. Among them wasa boy of three years, who was a most frightful and disagreeable object. He resembled a skeleton. His skin was covered with hideous blotchesand sores. He was always whining and crying. This poor little fellowgave the good lady more care and trouble than all the others together. She did her best for him, and was as kind as possible--washed him, fedhim, nursed him. But the child was so repulsive in his looks and ways, that, try as she would, she could not bring herself to like him, andoften her disgust would show itself in her face in spite of her effortto hide it. She could not really love the child. 

One day she was sitting on the veranda steps with this child in herarms. The sun was shining brightly, and the perfume of the autumnhoneysuckles, the chirping of the birds, and the buzzing of theinsects, lulled her into a sort of sleep. Then in a half-waking, half-dreaming state, she thought of herself as having changed placeswith the child, and as lying there, only more foul, more repulsive inher sinfulness than he was. 

Over her she saw the Lord Jesus bending, looking lovingly into herface, yet with an expression of gentle rebuke in his eye, as if hemeant to say, "If I can bear with you who are so full of sin, surelyyou ought, for my sake, to love that innocent child who suffers for thesin of his parents. "

She woke up with a sudden start, and looked into the boy's face. Hehad waked, too, and was looking very earnestly into her face. Sorryfor her past disgust, and feeling in her heart a new compassion forhim, she bent her face to his, and kissed him as tenderly as ever shehad kissed babe of her own. With a startled look in his eyes, and aflush on his cheek, the boy gave her back a smile so sweet that she hadnever seen one like it before. From that moment a wonderful changecame over the child. He understood the new affection that had comeinstead of dislike and loathing in the woman's heart. That touch ofhuman love transformed his peevish, fretful nature into gentle quietand beauty. The woman had seen a vision of herself in that blotched, repulsive child, and of Christ's wonderful love for her in spite of hersinfulness. Under the inspiration of this vision she had become indeedas Christ to the child. The love of Christ had come into her heart, and was pouring through her upon that poor, wretched, wronged life. 

Christ loves the unlovely, the deformed, the loathsome, the leprous. We have only to think of ourselves as we are in his sight, and thenremember that, in spite of all the moral and spiritual loathsomeness inus, he yet loves us, does not shrink from us, lays his hand upon us toheal us, takes us into most intimate companionship with himself. ThisChristian woman had seen a vision of herself, and of Christ loving herstill and condescending to bless and save her; and now she was ready tobe as Christ, to show the spirit of Christ, to be the pity and the loveof Christ to this poor, loathsome child lying on her knee. 

She had gotten the touch of Christ by getting the love of Christ in herheart. And we can get it in no other way. We must see ourselves asChrist's servants, sent by him to be to others what he is to us. Thenshall we be fitted to be a blessing to every life which our lifetouches. Our words then shall throb with love, and find their way tothe hearts of the weary and sorrowing. Then there will be asympathetic quality in our life which shall give a strange power ofhelpfulness to whatever we do. 

Says a thoughtful writer, speaking of influence: "Let a man pressnearer to Christ, and open his nature more widely to admit the energyof Christ, and, whether he knows it or not, --it is better, perhaps, ifhe does not know it, --he will certainly be growing in power for Godwith men, and for men with God. " We get power for Christ only as webecome filled with the very life of Christ. 

Everywhere about us there are lives, cold, and cheerless, and dull, which by the touch of our hand, in loving warmth, in Christ's name, would be wondrously blessed and transformed. Some one tells of goinginto a jeweller's store to look at certain gems. Among other stones hewas shown an opal. As it lay there, however, it appeared dull andaltogether lustreless. Then the jeweller took it in his hand and heldit for some moments, and again showed it to his customer. Now itgleamed and flashed with all the glories of the rainbow. It needed thetouch and warmth of a human hand to bring out its iridescence. Thereare human lives everywhere about us that are rich in theirpossibilities of beauty and glory. No gems or jewels are so precious;but as we see them in their earthly condition they are dull andlustreless, without brightness or loveliness. Perhaps they are evencovered with stain and denied by sin. Yet they need only the touch ofthe hand of Christ to bring out the radiance, the loveliness, thebeauty of the divine image in them. And you and I must be the hand ofChrist to these lustreless or stained lives. Touching them with ourwarm love, the sleeping splendor that is in them, hidden mayhap undersin's marring and ruin, will yet shine out, the beginning of glory forthem. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE BLESSING OF A BURDEN. 

 "Then welcome each rebuff, That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand nor go. Be our joys three parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!" --ROBERT BROWNING. 

It is not always the easiest things that are the best things. Usuallywe have to pay for any good thing about its full value. In all marketscommodities that cost little may be set down as worth but little. Allour blessings may be rated in the same way. If they come easily, without great cost of effort or sacrifice, their value to us is notgreat. But if we can get them only through self-denial, tears, anguish, and pain, we may be sure that they hide in them the very goldof God. So it is that many of our best and richest blessings come tous in some form of rugged hardness. 

Take what we call drudgery. Life is full of it. It begins inchildhood. There is school, with its set hours, its lessons, rules, tables, tasks, recitations. Then, when we grow up, instead of gettingaway from this bondage of routine, this interminable drudgery, it goeson just as in childhood. It is rising at the same hour every morning, and hurrying away to the day's tasks, and doing the same things overand over, six days in the week, fifty-two weeks in the year, and on andon unto life's end. For the great majority of us, there is almost nobreak in the monotonous rounds of our days through the long years. Many of us sigh and wish we might in some way free ourselves from thisendless routine. We think of it as a sore bondage and by no means theideal of a noble and beautiful life. 

But really, much that is best in life comes out of this very bondage. A recent writer suggests a new beatitude: "Blessed be drudgery. " Hereminds us that no Bible beatitude comes easily, but that every one ofthem is the fruit of some experience of hardness or pain. He shows usthat life's drudgery, wearisome and disagreeable as it is, yields richtreasures of good and blessing. Drudgery, he tells us, is the secretof all culture. He names as fundamentals in a strong, fine character, "power of attention; power of industry; promptitude in beginning work;method, accuracy, and despatch in doing work; perseverance; couragebefore difficulties; cheer under straining burdens; self-control;self-denial; temperance"; and claims that nowhere else can thesequalities be gotten save in the unending grind and pressure of thoseroutine duties which we call drudgery. "It is because we have to go, morning after morning, through rain, through shine, through headache, heartache, to the appointed spot and do the appointed work; because, and only because, we have to stick to that work through the eight orten hours, long after rest would be so sweet; because the school-boy'slessons must be learned at nine o'clock, and learned without a slip;because the accounts on the ledger must square to a cent; because thegoods must tally exactly with the invoice; because good temper must bekept with children, customers, neighbors, not seven times, but seventytimes seven; because the besetting sin must be watched to-day, to-morrow, next day; in short, . . . It is because, and only because, of the rut, plod, grind, hum-drum in the work, that we get at lastthose self-foundations laid, " which are essential to all noblecharacter. 

So there is a blessing for us in the commonest, wearisomest task-workof our lives. "Blessed be drudgery" is truly a beatitude. We all needthe discipline of this tireless plodding to build us up into beautifulcharacter. Even the loveliest flowers must have their roots in commonearth; so, many of the sweetest things in human lives grow out of thesoil of drudgery. "Be thou, O man, like unto the rose. Its root isindeed in dirt and mud, but its flowers still send forth grace andperfume. "

Take again life's struggles and conflicts. There are, in theexperience of each one, obstacles, hindrances, and difficulties, whichmake it hard to live successfully. Every one has to move onward andupward through ranks of resistances. This is true of physical life. Every baby that is born begins at once a struggle for existence. To bevictorious and live, or to succumb and die? is the question of everycradle, and only half the babies born reach their teens. After that, until its close, life is a continuous struggle with the manifold formsof physical infirmity. If we live to be old it must be through ourvictoriousness over the unceasing antagonism of accident and disease. 

The same is true in mental progress. It must be made againstresistance. It is never easy to become a scholar or to attainintellectual culture. It takes years and years of study and disciplineto draw out and train the faculties of the mind. An indolent, self-indulgent student may have an easy time; he never troubles himselfwith difficult problems; he lets the hard things pass, not vexing hisbrain with them. But in evading the burden he misses the blessing thatwas in it for him. The only path to the joys and rewards ofscholarship is that of patient, persistent toil. 

It is true also in spiritual life. We enter a world of antagonism andopposition the moment we resolve at Christ's feet to be Christians, tobe true men or women, to forsake sin, to obey God, to do our duty. There never comes a day when we can live nobly and worthily withouteffort, without resistance to wrong influences, without struggleagainst the power of temptation. It never gets easy to be good. Evermore the cross lies at our feet, and daily it must be taken up andcarried, if we would follow Christ. We are apt to grow weary of thisunending struggle, and to become discouraged, because there is neitherrest nor abatement in it. 

But here again we learn that it is out of just such struggles that wemust get the nobleness and beauty of character after which we arestriving. One of the old Scotch martyrs had on his crest the motto, _Sub pondere cresco_ ("I grow under a weight"). On the crest was apalm-tree, with weights depending from its fronds. In spite of theweights the tree was straight as an arrow, lifting its crown ofgraceful foliage high up in the serene air. It is well known that thepalm grows best loaded down with weights. Thus this martyr testifiedthat he, like the beautiful tree of the Orient, grew best in hisspiritual life under weights. 

This is the universal law of spiritual growth. There must beresistance, struggle, conflict, or there can be no development ofstrength. We are inclined to pity those whose lives are scenes of toiland hardship, but God's angels do not pity them, if only they arevictorious; for in their overcoming they are climbing daily upwardtoward the holy heights of sainthood. The beatitudes in the Apocalypseare all for over-comers. Heaven's rewards and crowns lie beyondbattle-plains. Spiritual life always needs opposition. It flourishesmost luxuriantly in adverse circumstances. We grow best under weights. We find our richest blessings in the burdens we dread to take up. 

The word "character" in its origin is suggestive. It is from a rootwhich signifies to scratch, to engrave, to cut into furrows. Then itcomes to mean that which is engraved or cut on anything. In life, therefore, it is that which experiences cut or furrow in the soul. Ababy has no character. Its life is like a piece of white paper, withnothing yet written upon it; or it is like a smooth marble tablet, onwhich, as yet, the sculptor has cut nothing; or the canvas, waiting forthe painter's colors. Character is formed as the years go on. It isthe writing, --the song, the story, put upon the paper. It is theengraving, the sculpturing, which the marble receives under the chisel. It is the picture which the artist paints on the canvas. Finalcharacter is what a man is when he has lived through all his earthlyyears. In the Christian it is the lines of the likeness of Christlimned, sometimes furrowed and scarred, upon his soul by the divineSpirit through the means of grace and the experiences of his own life. 

I saw a beautiful vase, and asked its story. Once it was a lump ofcommon clay lying in the darkness. Then it was rudely dug out andcrushed and ground in the mill, and then put upon the wheel and shaped, then polished and tinted and put into the furnace and burned. At last, after many processes, it stood upon the table, a gem of gracefulbeauty. In some way analogous to this every noble character is formed. Common clay at first, it passes through a thousand processes andexperiences, many of them hard and painful, until at length it ispresented before God, faultless in its beauty, bearing the features ofChrist himself. 

Spiritual beauty never can be reached without cost. The blessing isalways hidden away in the burden, and can be gotten only by lifting theburden. Self must die if the good in us is to live and shine out inradiance. Michael Angelo used to say, as the chippings flew thick fromthe marble on the floor of his studio, "While the marble wastes, theimage grows. " There must be a wasting of self, a chipping awaycontinually of things that are dear to nature, if the things that aretrue, and just, and honorable, and pure, and lovely, are to come out inthe life. The marble must waste while the image grows. 

Then take suffering. Here, too, the same law prevails. Every onesuffers. Said Augustine, "God had one Son without sin; he has nonewithout sorrow. " From infancy's first cry until the old man's lifegoes out in a gasp of pain, suffering is a condition of existence. Itcomes in manifold forms. Now it is in sickness; the body is rackedwith pain or burns in fever. Ofttimes sickness is a heavy burden. Yeteven this burden has a blessing in it for the Christian. Sicknessrightly borne makes us better. It unbinds the world's fetters. Itpurifies the heart. It sobers the spirit. It turns the eyesheavenward. It strips off much of the illusion of life and uncoversits better realities. Sickness in a home of faith, prayer, and love, softens all the household hearts, makes sympathy deeper, draws all thefamily closer together. 

Trouble comes in many other forms. It may be a bitter disappointmentwhich falls upon a young life when love has not been true, or whencharacter has proved unworthy, turning the fair blossoms of hope todead leaves under the feet. There are lives that bear the pain andcarry the hidden memorials of such a grief through long years, makingthem sad at heart even when walking in sweetest sunshine. 

Or it may be the failure of some other hope, as when one has followed abright dream of ambition for days and years, finding it only a dream. Or it may be the keener, more bitter grief which comes to one when afriend--a child, a brother or sister, a husband or wife--does badly. In such a case even the divine comfort cannot heal the heart's hurt;love cannot but suffer, and there is no hand that can lessen the pang. The anguish which love endures for others' sins is among the saddest ofearth's sorrows. 

There are griefs that hang no crape on the door-bell, that wear noblack garments, that close no shutters, that drop no tears which mencan see, that can get no sympathy save that of the blessed Christ andperhaps of a closest human brother, and must wear smiles before men andgo on with life's work as if all were gladness within the heart. If weknew the inner life of many of the people we meet, we would be verygentle with them and would excuse the things in them that seem strangeor eccentric to us. They are carrying burdens of secret grief. We donot begin to know the sorrows of our brothers. 

There is no need to try to solve that old, yet always new, question ofhuman hearts, "Why does God permit so much suffering in his children?"It is idle to ask this question, and all efforts at answering it arenot only vain, but they are even irreverent. We may be sure, however, of one thing, that in every pain and trial there is a blessing folded. We may miss it, but it is there, and the loss is ours if we do not getit. Every night of sorrow carries in its dark bosom its own lamps ofcomfort. The darkness of grief and trial is full of benedictions. 

 "The dark hath many dear avails; The dark distils divinest dews; The dark is rich with nightingales, With dreams, and with the heavenly muse. 

 "Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain thou not, my heart, for these Bank in the current of the will. "

The most blessed lives in the world are those that have borne theburden of suffering. "Where, think you, " asks James Martineau, "doesthe Heavenly Father hear the tones of deepest love, and see on theuplifted face the light of most heartfelt gratitude? Not where hisgifts are most profuse, but where they are most meagre; not within thehalls of successful ambition, or even in the dwellings of unbrokendomestic peace; but where the outcast, flying from persecution, kneelsin the evening on the rocks whereon he sleeps; at the fresh grave, where, as the earth is opened, heaven in answer opens too; by thepillow of the wasted sufferer, where the sunken eye, denied sleep, converses with the silent stars, and the hollow voice enumerates in lowprayer the scanty list of comforts, the easily remembered blessings, and the shortened tale of hopes. Genial, almost to a miracle, is thesoil of sorrow, wherein the smallest seed of love, timely falling, becometh a tree, in whose foliage the birds of blessed song lodge andsing unceasingly. "

The truly happiest, sweetest, tenderest homes are not those where therehas been no sorrow, but those which have been overshadowed with grief, and where Christ's comfort was accepted. The very memory of the sorrowis a gentle benediction that broods ever over the household, like theafterglow of sunset, like the silence that comes after prayer. 

In every burden of sorrow there is a blessing sent from God, which weought not to thrust away. In one of the battles of the Crimea, acannon-ball struck inside a fort, gashing the earth and sadly marringthe garden beauty of the place. But from the ugly chasm there burstforth a spring of water, which flowed on thereafter, a living fountain. So the strokes of sorrow gash our hearts, leaving ofttimes wounds andscars, but they open for us fountains of rich blessing and of new life. 

 "Then Sorrow whispered gently: 'Take This burden up. Be not afraid. An hour is short. Thou scarce wilt wake To consciousness that I have laid My hand upon thee, when the hour Shall all have passed; and gladder then For the brief pain's uplifting power, Thou shall but pity griefless men. '"

These are hints of the blessings of burdens. Our dull task-work, accepted, will train us into strong and noble character. Ourtemptations and hardships, met victoriously, knit thews and sinews ofstrength in our souls. Our pain and sorrow, endured with sweet trustand submission, leave us with life purified and enriched, with more ofChrist in us. In every burden that God lays upon us, there is ablessing for us, if only we will take it. 

CHAPTER VII. 

HEART-PEACE BEFORE MINISTRY. 

 "Like the star That shines afar, Without haste And without rest, Let each man wheel, with steady sway, Round the task that rules the day, And do his best. " --GOETHE. 

Peace in the heart is one of the conditions of good work. We cannot doour best in anything if we are fretted and anxious. A feverish heartmakes an inflamed brain, a clouded eye, and an unsteady hand. Thepeople who really accomplish the most, and achieve the best results, are those of calm, self-controlled spirit. Those who are nervous andexcited may be always busy, and always under pressure of haste; but inthe end they do far less work than if they wrought calmly and steadily, and were never in a hurry. 

Nervous haste is always hindering haste. It does faulty work, and doesbut little of it in the end. Really rapid workers are alwaysdeliberate in their movements, never appearing to be in any hurrywhatever; and yet they pass swiftly from task to task, doing each dutywell because they are calm and unflustered, and, with their wits aboutthem, work with clear eye, steady nerve, and skilful hand. 

An eminent French surgeon used to say to his students, when they wereengaged in difficult and delicate operations, in which coolness andfirmness were needed, "Gentlemen, don't be in a hurry; for there's notime to lose. "

The people in all lines of duty who do the most work are the calmest, most unhurried people in the community. Duties never wildly chase eachother in their lives. One task never crowds another out, nor evercompels hurried, and therefore imperfect, doing. The calm spirit worksmethodically, doing one thing at a time, and doing it well; and ittherefore works swiftly, though never appearing to be in haste. 

We need the peace of God in our heart just as really for the doing wellof the little things of our secular life as for the doing of thegreatest duties of Christ's kingdom. Our face ought to shine, and ourspirit ought to be tranquil, and our eye ought to be clear, and ournerves ought to be steady, as we press through the tasks of ourcommonest day. Then we shall do them all well, slurring nothing, marring nothing. We want heart-peace before we begin any day's duties, and we should wait at Christ's feet till we get his quieting touch uponour heart ere we go forth. 

It is especially true in spiritual work that we must know the secret ofpeace before we can minister either swiftly or effectively to others inour Master's name. Feverishness of spirit makes the hand unskilful indelicate duty. A troubled heart cannot give comfort to other troubledhearts; it must first become calm and quiet. It is often said that onewho has suffered is prepared to help others in suffering; but this istrue only when one has suffered victoriously, and has passed up out ofthe deep, dark valley of pain and tears to the radiant mountain-tops ofpeace. An uncomforted mourner cannot be a messenger of consolation toanother in grief. One whose heart is still vexed and uncalmed cannotbe a physician to hearts with bleeding wounds. We must first have beencomforted of God ourselves, before we can comfort others in theirtribulations. 

The same is true of all spiritual ministry. We need a steady hand totouch the work of Christ's kingdom. One of our Lord's earlier miraclesfurnishes an illustration of this truth. Jesus was called to heal awoman who lay sick of a great fever. One of the Gospels describes thecure in these striking words: "He touched her hand, and the fever lefther; and she arose and ministered unto them. " We readily understandthis record in its primary reference to the physical cure that waswrought by our Lord. We know, of course, that the woman could notminister to others while the fever was on her. When sore sicknesscomes, the busiest, fullest hands must drop their tasks. No matter howimportant the work is, how essential it may appear, it must be laiddown when painful illness seizes us. We must be healed of our feverbefore we can minister. 

But there are other fevers besides those which burn in men's bodies. There are heart-fevers which may rage within us, even when our bodiesare in perfect health. We find people with feverish spirits--unhappy, discontented, fretted, worried, perhaps insubmissive and rebellious. Or they may be in a fever of fear or dread. These inward fevers areworse evils than mere bodily illness. It is better in sickness to haveour heart's fever depart, even though we must longer keep our pain, than to recover our physical health, meanwhile keeping our fretfulnessand impatience uncured. 

We cannot minister while heart-fever of any kind is on us. We may goon with our work, but we cannot do it well, and there will be littleblessing in it. Discontent hinders any life's usefulness. Jesus lovedMartha, and accepted her service because he knew she loved him; but heplainly told her that her feverishness was not beautiful, and that itdetracted from the worth and the full acceptableness of the good workshe did; and he pointed her to Mary's quiet peace as a better way ofliving and serving. Anxiety of any kind unfits us in some degree forwork. It is only when Christ comes and lays his hand upon our heart, and cures its fever, that we are ready for ministering in his name inthe most efficient way. 

There is a little story of a busy woman's life which illustrates thislesson. She was the mother of a large family, and, being in plaincircumstances, was required to do her own work. Sometimes, in themultiplicity of her tasks and cares, she lost the sweetness of herpeace, and, like Martha, became troubled and worried with her muchserving. One morning she had been unusually hurried, and things hadnot gone smoothly. She had breakfast to get for her family, herhusband to care for as he hasted away early to his work, and herchildren to make ready for school. There were other household dutieswhich filled the poor, weak woman's hands, until her strength waswell-nigh utterly exhausted. And she had not gone through it all thatmorning in a sweet, peaceful way. She had allowed herself to lose herpatience, and to grow fretful, vexed, and unhappy. She had spokenquick, hasty, petulant words to her husband and her children. Herheart had been in a fever of irritation and disquiet all the morning. 

When the children were gone, and the pressing tasks were finished, andthe house was all quiet, the tired woman crept upstairs to her ownroom. She was greatly discouraged. She felt that her morning had beena most unsatisfactory one; that she had sadly failed in her duty; thatshe had grieved her Master by her want of patience and gentleness, andhad hurt her children's lives by her fretfulness and her ill-temperedwords. Shutting her door, she took up her Bible and read the story ofthe healing of the sick woman: "He touched her hand, and the fever lefther; and she arose and ministered unto them. "

"Ah!" said she, "if I could have had that touch before I began mymorning's work, the fever would have left me, and I should have beenprepared to minister sweetly and peacefully to my family. " She hadlearned that she needed the touch of Christ to make her ready forbeautiful and gentle service. 

In contrast with this story, and showing the blessed sweetness and holyinfluence of a life that gets Christ's touch in the morning, there isthis account by Archdeacon Farrar of his mother: "My mother's habitwas, every day, immediately after breakfast, to withdraw for an hour toher own room, and to spend that hour in reading the Bible, inmeditation, and in prayer. From that hour, as from a pure fountain, she drew the strength and the sweetness which enabled her to fulfil allher duties, and to remain unruffled by all the worries and pettinesseswhich are so often the intolerable trial of narrow neighborhoods. As Ithink of her life, and of all it had to bear, I see the absolutetriumph of Christian grace in the lovely ideal of a Christian lady. Inever saw her temper disturbed; I never heard her speak one word ofanger, or of calumny, or of idle gossip. I never observed in her anysign of a single sentiment unbecoming to a soul which had drunk of theriver of the water of life, and which had fed upon manna in the barrenwilderness. The world is the better for the passage of such soulsacross its surface. They may seem to be as much forgotten as the dropsof rain which fall into the barren sea, but each rain-drop adds to thevolume of refreshful and purifying waters. 'The healing of the worldis in its nameless saints. A single star seems nothing, but a thousandscattered stars break up the night and make it beautiful. '"

There are many busy mothers to whom this lesson may come almost as arevelation. No hands are fuller of tasks, no heart is fuller of cares, than the hands and the heart of a mother of a large family of youngchildren. It is little wonder if sometimes she loses her sweetness ofspirit in the pressure of care that is upon her. But this lesson isworth learning. Let the mothers wait on their knees each morning, before they begin their work, for the touch of Christ's hand upon theirheart. Then the fever will leave them, and they can enter with calmpeace on the work of the long, hard day. 

The lesson, however, is for us all. We are in no condition for goodwork of any kind when we are fretted and anxious in mind. It is onlywhen the peace of God is in our heart that we are ready for true andreally helpful ministry. A feverish heart makes a worried face, and aworried face casts a shadow. A troubled spirit mars the temper anddisposition. It unfits one for being a comforter of others, for givingcheer and inspiration, for touching other lives with good and helpfulimpulses. Peace must come before ministry. We need to have our fevercured before we go out to our work. Hence, we should begin each newday at the Master's feet, and get his cooling, quieting touch upon ourhot hand. Then, and not till then, shall we be ready for good servicein his name. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

MORAL CURVATURES. 

 "I think we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope Of yon gray blank sky, we might grow faint To muse upon eternity's constraint Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope Must widen early, is it well to droop, For a few days consumed in loss and taint?" --MRS. BROWNING. 

Our Lord's miracles are parables in act. A woman came to him bentalmost double, and went away straight. The human form is made forerectness. This is one of the marks of nobility in man, in contrastwith the downward bending and looking of other animals. Man is theonly creature that bears this erect form. It is a part of the image ofGod upon him. It indicates heavenly aspiration, hunger for God, desirefor pure and lofty things, capacity for immortal blessedness. It tellsof man's hope and home above the earth, beyond the stars. Says an oldwriter, "God gave to man a face directed upwards, and bade him look atthe heavens, and raise his uplifted countenance toward the stars. " TheGreek word for "man" meant the upward looking. The bending of the formand face downward, toward the earth, has always been the symbol of asoul turned unworthily toward lower things, forgetful of its true home. Milton has this thought in describing Mammon:--

 "Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From heaven; for even in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent. "

The look of a man's eyes tells where his heart is, whither his desiresare reaching and tending, how his life is growing. 

There are a great many bent people in the world. Physical bending maybe caused by accident or disease, and is no mark of spiritualcurvature. Many a deformed body is the home of a noble and holy soul, with eyes and aspirations turned upward toward God. I remember a womanin my first parish who then for fourteen years had sat in her chair, unable to lift hand or foot, every joint drawn, her wasted bodyfrightfully bent. Yet she had a transfigured face, telling of abeautiful soul within. Joy and peace shone out through that poortortured body. Disease may drag down the erect form, until all itsbeauty is gone, and the inner life meanwhile may be erect as an angel, with its eyes and aspirations turned upward toward God. 

But there are crooked souls--souls that are bent down. This may be thecase even while the body is straight as an arrow. There are men andwomen whose forms are admired for their erectness, their gracefulproportions, their lithe movements, their lovely features, yet whosesouls are debased, whose desires are grovelling, whose characters aresadly misshapen and deformed. 

Sin always bends the soul. Many a young man comes out from a holy homein the beauty and strength of youth, wearing the unsullied robes ofinnocence, with eye clear and uplifted, with aspirations for noblethings, with hopes that are exalted; but a few years later he appears adebased and ruined man, with soul bent sadly downward. The bendingbegins in slight yieldings to sin, but the tendency unchecked grows andfixes itself in the life in permanent moral disfigurement. 

A stage-driver had held the lines for many years, and when he grew old, his hands were crooked into hooks, and his fingers were so stiffenedthat they could not be straightened out. There is a similar processthat goes on in men's souls when they continue to do the same thingsover and over. One who is trained from childhood to be gentle, kindly, patient, to control the temper, to speak softly, to be loving andcharitable, will grow into the radiant beauty of love. One whoaccustoms himself to think habitually and only of noble and worthythings, who sets his affections on things above, and strives to reach"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoeverthings are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, " will grow continuallyupward, toward spiritual beauty. But on the other hand, if one givesway from childhood to all ugly tempers, all resentful feelings, allbitterness and anger, his life will shape itself into the unbeauty ofthese dispositions. One whose mind turns to debasing things, thingsunholy, unclean, will find his whole soul bending and growing towardthe earth in permanent moral curvature. 

There is also a bending of the life by sorrow. The experience ofsorrow is scarcely less perilous than that of temptation. The commonbelief is that grief always makes people better. But this is not true. If the sufferer submits to God with loving confidence, and isvictorious through faith, sorrow's outcome is blessing and good. Butmany are crushed by their sorrow. They yield to it, and it bears themdown beneath its weight. They turn their faces away from heaven's blueand the light of God, toward the grave's darkness, and their souls growtoward the gloom. 

Here is a mother who several years since lost by death a beautifuldaughter. The mother was a Christian woman, and her child was also aChristian, dying in sweet hope. Yet never since that coffin was closedhas the mother lifted up her eyes toward God in submission and hope. She visits the cemetery on Sundays, but never the church. She goeswith downcast look about her home, weeping whenever her daughter's nameis mentioned, and complains of God's hardness and unkindness in takingaway her child. She is bent down with her eyes to the earth, and seesonly the clods and the dust and the grave's gloom, and sees not theblue sky, the bright stars, and the sweet face of the Father. So longhas she now been thus bowed down in the habit of sadness and grieving, that she can in no wise lift herself up. 

Since I began to write this chapter I have had a long talk with onewhose life is sorely bent. Ten years since I first knew her as abright and happy young girl, her face sunny in the light of God's love. Trouble came into her life in many forms. Her own father provedunworthy, failing in all the sacred duties of affection toward hischild. Events in her own life were disappointing and discouraging. Friends in whom she had trusted failed in that faithfulness andhelpfulness which one has a right to expect from one's friends. Therewas a succession of unhappy experiences, through several years, alltending to hurt her heart-life. As the result of all this, she hasbecome embittered and hardened, not only against those who have wrongedher and treated her unjustly, but even against God. So long has sheyielded to these feelings that her whole life has been bent down fromits upward, Godward look into settled despondency. God has altogetherfaded out of her soul's vision, and she thinks of him only as unkindand unjust. To restore her life to its former brightness and beautywill require a moral miracle as great as that by which the body of thecrooked woman was made straight. 

Then there are lives also that are bowed down by toil and care. Formany people, life's burdens are very heavy. There are fathers of largefamilies who sometimes find their load almost more than they can bear, in their efforts to provide for those who are dear to them. There aremothers who, under their burdens of household care, at times feelthemselves bowed down, and scarcely able longer to go on. In allplaces of responsibility, where men are called to stand, the load manytimes grows very heavy, and stalwart forms bend under it. This world'swork is hard for most of us. Life is not play to any who take itearnestly. 

And many persons yield to the weight of a duty, and let themselves bebent down under it. We see men bowing under their load, until theirvery body grows crooked, and they can look only downward. We see thembecome prematurely old. The light goes out of their eyes; thefreshness fades out of their cheeks; the sweetness leaves their spirit. Few things in life are sadder than the way some people let themselvesbe bent down by their load of duty or care. There really is no reasonwhy this should be so. God never puts any greater burden upon us thanwe are able to bear, with the help he is ready to give. Christ standsever close beside us, willing to carry the heaviest end of every loadthat is laid upon us. 

Men never break down so long as they keep a happy, joyous heart. It isthe sad heart that tires. Whatever our load, we should always keep asongful spirit in our breast. There are two ways of meeting hardexperiences. One way is to struggle and resist, refusing to yield. The result is, the wounding of the soul and the intensifying of thehardness. The other way is sweetly to accept the circumstances or therestraints, to make the best of them, and to endure them songfully andcheerfully. Those who live in the first of these ways grow old atmid-life. Those who take the other way of life keep a young, happyheart even to old age. 

The true way to live is to yield to no burden; to carry the heaviestload with courage and gladness; never to let one's eyes be turneddownward toward the earth, but to keep them ever lifted up to thehills. Men whose work requires them to stoop all the time--to work ina bent posture--every now and then may be seen straightening themselvesup, taking a long, deep breath of air, and looking up toward the skies. Thus their bodies are preserved in health and erectness in spite oftheir work. Whatever our toil or burden, we should train ourselves tolook often upward, to stand erect, and get a frequent glimpse of thesky of God's love, and a frequent breath of heaven's pure, sweet air. Thus we shall keep our souls erect under the heaviest load of work orcare. 

The miracle of the straightening of the woman who was bent double, hasits gospel of precious hope for any who have failed to learn earlierthe lesson of keeping straight. The bowed down may yet be lifted up. The curvature of eighteen years' growth and stiffening was cured in amoment. The woman who for so long had not been able to look up, wentaway with her eyes upturned to God in praise. 

The same miracle Christ is able to work now upon souls that are bent, whether by sin, by sorrow, or by life's load of toil. He can undosin's terrible work, and restore the divine image to the soul. He cangive such comfort to the sad heart that eyes long downcast shall belifted up to look upon God's face in loving submission and joy. He canput such songs into the hearts of the weary and overwrought that thecrooked form shall grow straight, and brightness shall come again intothe tired face. 

CHAPTER IX. 

TRANSFIGURED LIVES. 

 "The lives which seem so poor, so low, The hearts which are so cramped and dull, The baffled hopes, the impulse slow, Thou takest, touchest all, and lo! They blossom to the beautiful. " --SUSAN COOLIDGE. 

Every Christian's life should be transfigured. There is a sense inwhich even a true believer's body becomes transfigured. We have allseen faces that appeared to shine as if there were some hidden lightbehind them. There are some old people who have learned well life'slessons of patience, peace, contentment, love, trust, and hope, andwhose faces really glow as they near the sunset gates. Sometimes it isa saintly sufferer, who, in long endurance of pain, learns to lie onChrist's bosom in sweet unmurmuring quiet, and whose features take uponthemselves increasingly the brightness of holy peace. 

But whatever grace may do for the body, it always transfigures thecharacter. The love of God finds us ruined sinners, and leaves usglorified saints. We are predestinated "to be conformed to the imageof his Son. " Nor are we to wait for death to transform us; the workshould begin at once. We have a responsibility, too, in this work. The sculptor takes the blackened marble block and hews it into a formof beauty. The marble is passive in his hands, and does nothing butsubmit to be cut and hewn and polished as he will. But we are notinsensate marble; we have a part in the fashioning of our lives intospiritual holiness. We will never become like Christ without our owndesire and effort. 

We ought to know well what our part is, what we have to do with our ownsanctification. How, then, may we become transfigured Christians?

There is a transfiguring power in prayer. It was as our Lord waspraying that the fashion of his countenance was altered. What isprayer? It is far more than the tame saying over of certain forms ofdevotion. It is the pouring out of the heart's deepest cravings. Itis the highest act of which the soul is capable. When you pray truly, all that is best, noblest, most exalted, purest, heavenliest in you, presses up toward God. Hence earnest prayer always lights up the veryface, and lifts up the life into higher, holier mood. We grow towardthat which we much desire. Hence prayers for Christ-likeness have atransfiguring effect. 

Holy thoughts in the heart have also a transfiguring influence on thelife. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. " If we allowjealousies, envies, ugly tempers, pride, and other evil things to stayin our heart, our life will grow into the likeness of these unlovelythings. But if we cherish pure, gentle, unselfish, holy thoughts andfeelings, our life will become beautiful. 

Professor Drummond tells of a young girl whose character ripened intorare loveliness. Her friends watched her growing gentleness andheavenliness with wonder. They could not understand the secret of it. She wore about her neck a little locket within which no one was allowedto look. Once, however, she was very ill, and one of her companionswas permitted then to open this sacred ornament, and she saw there thewords, "Whom having not seen I love. " This was the secret. It waslove for the unseen Christ that transfigured her life. If we thinkcontinually of the Christ, meditating upon him, thinking over sweetthoughts of him, and letting his love dwell within us, we shall growlike him. 

Communion with Christ transfigures a life. Every one we meet leaves atouch upon us which becomes part of our character. Our lives are likesheets of paper, and every one who comes writes a word, or a line, orleaves a little picture painted there. Our intimate companions andfriends, who draw very close to us, and are much with us, entering intoour inner heart-life, make very deep impressions upon us. 

If, therefore, we live with Christ, abide in him, the close, continuedcompanionship with him will change us into his likeness. Personalfriendship with Christ in this world is as possible as any merely humanfriendship. The companionship is spiritual, but it is real. Thedevout Christian has no other friend who enters so fully into his lifeas does the Lord Christ Jesus. The effect of this companionship is thetransfiguring of the character. It is not without reason that theartists paint the beloved disciple as likest his Lord in features. Heknew Jesus more intimately than any of the other disciples, and, in hisdeeper, closer companionship, was more affected and impressed by theLord's beauty of holiness. 

Again, keeping the eye upon the likeness of Christ transfigures thelife. The old monks intently gazed upon the crucifix, and they saidthat the prints of the nails would come in their hands and feet, andthe thorn-scars in their brow as they beheld. It was but a grossfancy; yet in the fancy there is a spiritual truth. Gazing by faithupon Christ, the lines of his beauty indeed print themselves on ourhearts. This is the meaning of St. Paul's word: "We all, with unveiledface, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformedinto the same image. " The Gospel is the mirror. There we see theimage of Christ. If we earnestly, continually, and lovingly behold it, the effect will be the changing of our own lives into the samelikeness. The transformation is wrought by the divine Spirit, and ourpart is only to behold, to continue beholding, the blessed beauty. Wesit before the camera, and our own picture is printed on the preparedglass. We sit before Christ, and we become the camera, and his imageis printed on our soul. 

There is a pathetic story of a French sculptor, which illustrates thesacredness with which life's ideal should be cherished and guarded. Hewas a genius, and was at work on his masterpiece. But he was a poorman, and lived in a small garret, which was studio, workshop, andbedroom to him. He had his statue almost finished, in clay, when onenight there came suddenly a great frost over the city. The sculptorlay on his bed, with his statue before him in the centre of thefireless room. As the chill air came down upon him, he knew that inthe intense cold there was danger that the water in the interstices ofthe clay would freeze and destroy his precious work. So the old manarose from his bed, and took the clothes that had covered him in hissleep, and reverently wrapped them about his statue to save it, thenlay down himself in the cold, uncovered. In the morning, when hisfriends came in, they found the old sculptor dead; but the image waspreserved unharmed. 

We each have in our soul, if we are true believers in Christ, a visionof spiritual loveliness into which we are striving to fashion ourlives. This vision is our conception of the character of Christ. "That is what I am going to be some day, " we say. Far away beyond ourpresent attainment as this vision may shine, yet we are ever strivingto reach it. This is the ideal which we carry in our heart amid allour toiling and struggling. This ideal we must keep free from allmarring or stain. We must save it though, like the old sculptor, welose our very life in guarding it. We should be willing to die ratherthan give it up to be destroyed. We should preserve the image ofChrist, bright, radiant, unsoiled, in our soul, until it transforms ourdull, sinful, earthly life into its own transfigured beauty. 

No other aim in life is worthy of an immortal being. We may becomelike the angels; what debasement, then, to let our lives, with alltheir glorious possibilities, be dragged down into the dust of shameand dishonor! Rather let us seek continually the glory for which wewere made and redeemed. "Beloved, now are we children of God, and itis not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shallbe manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as heis. And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. "

 "Wonderful the whiteness of thy glory; Can we truly that perfection share? Yes; our lives are pages of thy story, We thy shape and superscription bear; Tarnished forms--torn leaves--but thou canst mend them, Thou thine own completeness canst unfold From our imperfections, and wilt end them-- Dross consuming, turning dust to gold. "

A drop of water lay one day in a gutter, soiled, stained, polluted. Looking up into the blue of the sky, it began to wish for purity, tolong to be cleansed and made crystalline. Its sigh was heard, and itwas quickly lifted up by the sun's gentle fingers--up, out of the foulgutter, into the sweet air, then higher and higher; at length thegentle winds caught it and bore it away, away, and by and by it restedon a distant mountain-top, a flake of pure, white, beautiful snow. 

This is a little parable of what the grace of God does for every sinfullife that longs and cries for purity and holiness. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROW. 

 "So much we miss If love is weak; so much we gain If love is strong; God thinks no pain Too sharp or lasting to ordain To teach us this. " --HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 

There will always be mysteries in sorrow. Men will always wonder whatit means. It is impossible for us, with our earthly limitations, tounderstand it. Even the strongest Christian faith will have itsquestions, and many of its questions will have to remain unanswereduntil the horizon of life is widened, and its dim light becomes fulland clear in heaven. Meanwhile, however, some of these questions maybe at least partially answered, and grief's poignancy in some slightmeasure alleviated. And surely no smallest gleam of comfort should bewithheld from the world that needs comfort so sorely, and cries out sohungrily for it. 

Human hearts are the same everywhere. Sorrow's experiences, whilestrangely diverse, are yet alike in their general features. Whereverwe listen to the suppressed voices of grief, we hear the samequestions. What has been answer to one, will therefore be answer tothousands more. Recently, in one day, two letters came to me fromsorrowing ones, with questions. Whether any comfort was given in theprivate answers or not, it may be that the mere stating of thequestions, with a few sentences concerning each, may be helpful toothers who are carrying like burdens. 

One of these letters is from a Christian man whose only son has beenled into sinful courses, swiftly descending to the saddest depths. Thestory is too painful to be repeated in these pages. In his soredistress, the father, a godly man, a man of strong faith and noblewisdom, cries out: "What is the comfort even of Christ and the Biblefor me? How can I roll this burden of mine upon God?"

In answer to these questions it must be remembered that there are somethings which even the richest, divinest comfort cannot do. For onething, it cannot take away the pain of grief or sorrow. Our firstthought of comfort usually is that it shall lift off our burden. Wesoon learn, however, that it is not in this way that comfort ordinarilycomes. It does not make the grief any less. It does not make ourhearts any less sensitive to anguish. "Consolation implies rather anaugmentation of the power of bearing than a diminution of the burden. "In this case, it cannot lift off the loving father's heart the burdenof disappointment and anguish which he experiences in seeing his sonswept away in the currents of temptation. No possible comfort can dothis. The perfect peace in which God promises to keep those whoseminds are stayed on him, is not a painless peace in any case ofsuffering. The crushed father cannot expect a comfort which will makehim forget his wandering, sinning child, or which will cause him tofeel no longer the poignant anguish which the boy's course causes inhis heart. Father-love must be destroyed to make such comfortingpossible, and that would be a sorer calamity than any sorrow. 

The comfort in such a grief, is that which comes through faith in Godeven in the sore pain. The child was given to God in his infancy, andwas brought up as God's child along his early years. Who will say thathe may not yet, in some way, at some time, be brought back to God? Thedaily burden may then daily be laid in the divine hands. The heart'sanguish may express itself not in despairing cries, but in believingprayers, inspired by the promises, and kindled into fervency by blessedhope. Then peace will come, not painless peace, but peace which lieson Christ's bosom in the darkness, and loves and trusts and asks noquestions, but waits with all of hope's expectancy. 

At the same time we are never to forget, while we trust God for theoutcome of our disappointments, that every sorrow has its mission toour life. There is something he desires it to work in us. What it maybe in any particular instance we cannot tell; nor is it wise for us toask. The wisest, truest thing we can do is reverently to open ourhearts to the ministry of the sorrow, asking God to do his will in us, not allowing us to hinder the beautiful work he would do, and helpingus to rejoice even in the grief. The tears may continue to flow, butthen with Mrs. Browning we can sing:--

 "I praise thee while my days go on; I love thee while my days go on; Through dark and death, through fire and frost, With emptied arms and treasure lost, I thank thee while my days go on. "

The other letter referred to is from another father, over whom waveafter wave of sorrow had passed. Within a brief space of time twochildren were taken away. The one was a son who had entered hisprofessional career, and had large hope and promise for the future--ayoung man of rare abilities and many noble qualities. The other was adaughter, who had reached womanhood, and was a happy and beloved wife, surrounded by friends and the refinements of a beautiful home, and allthat makes life sweet and desirable. Both of these children God took, one soon after the other. The father, a man of most tender affections, and yet of implicit faith in God, uttered no murmur when called tostand at the graves of his beloved ones; and yet his heart cries outfor interpretation. 

He writes: "In one of your books[1] I find these words: 'Sometimes ourbest beloved are taken away from us, and our hearts are left bleeding, as a vine bleeds when a green branch is cut from it. . . . Here it isthat Christian faith comes in, putting such interpretation andexplanation upon the painful things, that we may be ready to acceptthem with confidence, even with rejoicing. . . . A strong, abidingconfidence that all the trials, sorrows, and losses of our lives areparts of our Father's husbandry, ought to silence every question, quietevery fear, and give peace and restful assurance to our hearts in alltheir pain. We cannot know the reason for the painful strokes, but weknow that he who holds the pruning-knife is our Father. That oughtalways to be enough for us to know. '"

Having quoted these words, he continues: "Now I do not question theFather's husbandry. I would also 'silence every question' concerninghis wisdom and his love. I would not doubt them for a moment. When Ifound that my only son, my pride and my staff, must die, I prayed withsuch strong crying and tears as only they can know who are in likecircumstances, yet feeling that I could give back to God what he hadlent me without a murmur. By his help, I believe even the slightestmurmur has been repressed concerning the painful things, and that insome measure I have been ready to accept them with confidence, evenwith rejoicing. But my faith has not come in, as you suggest, to put'such interpretation and explanation' upon them, as perhaps I ought todo. Why has God thus dealt with me? Why was a double strokenecessary? Is his dealing with me purely disciplinary? What are thelessons he would teach me? How am I to test myself as to whether hispurpose in afflicting me has been accomplished? Or am I not anxiouslyto inquire concerning the specific lessons, but rather to let him showin due time what he designed? Such questions multiply without answer. "

Has not this writer in his own last suggestion stated what should bedone by those who are perplexed with questions as to the interpretationof sorrow? They should not anxiously inquire concerning the specificlessons, but rather let God show in due time what he designed. Nodoubt every sorrow has a mission. It comes to us, as God's messenger, with a message. If we will welcome it reverently, and be still whileit gives its message, no doubt we shall receive some benediction. 

Yet we must look at this whole matter carefully and wisely. We are indanger of thinking only of ourselves, and of the effect upon us and ourlife of the griefs that smite us. We think too often of ourbereavements, for example, as if God took away the friend, ending hislife, just to chasten or punish us. But we have no right to take sonarrow a view of God's design in the removal of loved ones from ourside. His purpose concerns them as well as us. They are called awaybecause their work on earth is done, and higher service in otherspheres awaits them. To them death is gain, promotion, translation. The event itself, in its primary significance, is a joyous and blessedone. The sorrow which we experience in their removal is but anincident. God cannot take them home to glory from our side, withoutgiving us pain. But we must not reverse this order and think that theprimary end of the calling away of our beloved ones is to chasten us, or to cause us to suffer. No doubt there is blessing for us as well asfor them in their leaving us, since all things work together for goodto them that love God; but we unduly exaggerate our own importance whenwe think of God as laying a beautiful life low in death merely to teachus some lesson or give to us some blessing. 

When we look at our bereavements in this light, and think of what deathmeans to our beloved ones who have been taken from us, we find newcomfort in the thought of their immortality, their release fromsuffering and temptation, and their full blessedness with Christ. Itis selfish for us to forget this in the absorption of our own grief. Should we not be willing to endure loss and pain that those dear to usmay receive gain and blessing?

Even in life's relationships on the earth we are continually taught thesame lesson. Parents must give up their children, losing them out ofthe home nest, that they may go forth into the world to take up life'sduties for themselves. Then also the separation is painful, but it isborne in the sweet silence of self-denying love. We give up ourfriends when they are called from our side to accept other and higherplaces. Life is full of such separations, and we are taught that it isour duty to think of others, bearing our own loss in patience for theirsake. Does not the same law of love "that seeketh not its own" applywhen our beloved ones are called up higher?

Of lessons to be learned in sorrow the first always is submission. Weare told even of our Lord that he "learned obedience by the thingswhich he suffered. " This is life's great, all-inclusive lesson. Whenwe have learned this fully, perfectly, the work of sanctification in usis complete. 

Then another lesson in all sorrow comes in the softening and enrichingof the life in order to greater personal helpfulness. It is sad for usif for any cause we miss this blessed outcome of grief and pain. Christ suffered in all points that he might be fitted for his work ofhelping and saving men. God teaches us in our sorrow what he wouldhave us tell others in their time of trial. Those who suffer patientlyand sweetly go forth with new messages for others, and with new powerto comfort. 

Beyond these two wide, general lessons of all sorrow, it usually is notwise to press our question, "Why is it?" It is better for us so torelate ourselves to God in every time of trial, that we may not hinderthe coming to us of any blessing he may send, but on the other hand, may receive with quiet, sweet welcome whatever teaching, correction, revealing, purifying, or quickening he would give us. Surely this isbetter far than that we should anxiously inquire why God afflicts us, why he sent the sorrow to us, just what he wants it to do for us. Wemust trust God to work out in us what he wants the grief to do for us. We need not trouble ourselves to know what he is doing. 

Mercifully our old duties come again after sorrow just as before, andwe must take these all up, only putting into them more heart, morereverence toward God, more gentleness and love toward man. As we go onwe shall know what God meant the grief to do for us; or if not in thisworld, we shall in that home of Light, where all mystery shall beexplained, and where we shall see love's lesson plain and clear in alllife's strange writing. There is no doubt that sorrow always brings usan opportunity for blessing. Then we must remember that in this worldalone can we get the good that can come to us only through pain, for inthe life beyond death there is to be no sorrow, no tears. An oldEastern proverb says, "Spread wide thy skirts when heaven is raininggold. " Heaven is always raining gold when we are sitting under theshadow of the cross. We should diligently improve the opportunity, andlearn the lessons he would teach and get the blessings he would give, for the time is short. 

 "But if, impatient, thou let slip thy cross, Thou wilt not find it in this world again, Nor in another; here, and here alone, Is given thee to suffer for God's sake. In other worlds we shall more perfectly Serve him and love him, praise him, work for him, Grow near and nearer him with all delight; But there we shall not any more be called To _suffer_, which is our appointment here. "

[1] "Practical Religion, " page 107

CHAPTER XI. 

OTHER PEOPLE. 

 "We need--each and all--to be needed, To feel we have something to give Towards soothing the moan of earth's hunger; And we know that then only we live When we feed one another, as we have been fed From the hand that gives body and spirit their bread. " --LUCY LARCOM. 

There are other people. We are not the only ones. Some of the otherslive close to us, and some farther away. We stand in certain relationsto these other people. They have claims upon us. We owe them duties, services, love. We cannot cut ourselves off from them, from any ofthem, saying that they are nothing to us. We cannot rid ourselves ofobligations to them and say we owe them nothing. So inexorable is thisrelation to others that in all the broad earth there is not anindividual who has no right to come to us with his needs, claiming atour hand the ministry of love. The other people are our brothers, andthere is not one of them that we have a right to despise, or neglect, or hurt, or thrust away from our door. 

We ought to train ourselves to think of the other people. We may notleave them out of any of the plans that we make. We must think oftheir interests and good when we are thinking of our own. They haverights as well as ourselves, and we must think of these when assertingour own. No man may set his fence a hair's breadth over the line onhis neighbor's ground. No man may gather even a head of his neighbor'swheat, or a cluster of grapes from his neighbor's vine. No man mayenter his neighbor's door unbidden. No man may do anything that willharm his neighbor. Other people have inalienable rights which we maynot invade. 

We owe other people more than their rights; we owe them love. To someof them it is not hard to pay this debt. They are lovable and winsome. They are thoroughly respectable. They are congenial spirits, giving usin return quite as much as we can give them. It is natural to lovethese and be very kindly and gentle to them. But we have no liberty ofselection in this broad duty of loving other people. We may not choosewhom we shall love if we claim to be Christians. The Master's teachingis inexorable: "If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? foreven sinners love those that love them. And if ye do good to them thatdo good to you, what thank have ye? for even sinners do the same. Andif ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? evensinners lend to sinners, to receive again as much. But love yourenemies, and do them good, and lend, never despairing; and your rewardshall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High; for he is kindtoward the unthankful and evil. "

The good Samaritan is our Lord's answer to the question, "Who is myneighbor?" and the good Samaritan's neighbor was a bitter enemy, who, in other circumstances, would have spurned him from his presence. Other people may not be beautiful in their character, nor congenial intheir habits, manners, modes of life, or disposition; they may even beunkind to us, unjust, unreasonable, in strict justice altogetherundeserving of our favor; yet if we persist in being called Christiansourselves we owe them the love that thinketh no evil, that seeketh notits own, that beareth all things, endureth all things, and neverfaileth. 

No doubt it is hard to love the other people who hate us. It is not sohard just to let them alone, to pass them by without harming them, oreven to pray for them in a way; but to love them--that is a sore test. We are apt to ask:--

 "Dear Lord, will it not do, If we return not wrong for wrong, And neither love nor hate? But love--O Lord, our souls are far from strong, And love is such a tender, home-nursed dove-- How can we, Lord, our enemies bless and love?

 "Fasting--Oh, one could fast-- And praying--one could most pathetic pray; But love our enemies! Dear Lord, Is there not unto thee some easier way-- Some way through churchly service, song, or psalm, Or ritual grand, to reach thy heaven's calm?"

But there comes no answer of Christly indulgence to such questions. Other people, though they be our enemies, are not thus taken out of thecircle of those to whom we owe love. Our part is always pictured forus in the example of the good Samaritan. 

That is, we owe other people service. Service goes with loving. Wecannot love truly and not serve. Love without serving is but an emptysentiment, a poor mockery. God so loved the world that he gave. Lovealways gives. If it will not give it is not love. It is measuredalways by what it will give. The needs of other people are thereforedivine commands to us, which we dare not disregard or disobey. Torefuse to bless a brother who stands before us in any kind of want isas great a sin as to break one of the positive commandments of theDecalogue. Indeed, in a sense, it is the breaking of the whole secondtable of the commandments--the sense of which is, "Thou shalt love thyneighbor as thyself. "

We like to think there is no sin in mere not doing. But Jesus, in hiswonderful picture of the Last Judgment, makes men's condemnation turnon not doing the things they ought to have done. They have simply notfed the hungry, not clothed the naked, not visited the sick, notblessed the prisoner. To make these sins of neglect appear still moregrievous, our Lord makes a personal matter of each case, puts himselfin the place of the sufferer who needs it and is not cared for, andtells us that all neglects to give needed kindness to any are shown tohim. This divine word gives a tremendous interest to other people, whoare brought providentially into the sphere of our life, so that theirwants of whatever kind may make appeal to our sympathy and kindness. To neglect them is to neglect Christ. He sends them to us. Theyrepresent him. To turn them away is to turn him away. 

This matter of serving has multitudinous forms. Sometimes it ispoverty that stands at our gate, and money help is wanted. A thousandtimes more frequently, however, it is not money, but something elsemore precious, that we must give. It may be loving sympathy. Sorrowis before us. Another's heart is breaking. Money would be of no use;it would be only bitter mockery to offer it. But we can hold to theneighbor's lips a cup of the wine of love, filled out of our own heart, which will give new strength to the sufferer. Or it is the anguish ofa life struggle, a human Gethsemane, beside which we are called towatch. We can give no actual aid--the soul must fight its battlesalone; but we can be as the angel that ministered in our Lord'sGethsemane, imparting strength, and helping the weary struggler to winthe victory. 

The world is very full of sorrow and trial, and we cannot live amongour fellow-men and be true without sharing their loads. If we arehappy we must hold the lamp of our happiness so that its beams willfall upon the shadowed heart. If we have no burden it is our duty toput our shoulders under the load of others. Selfishness must die orelse our own heart's life must be frozen within us. We soon learn thatwe cannot live for ourselves and be Christians; that the blessings thatare given to us are really for other people, and that we are only God'sministers, to carry them in Christ's name to those for whom they areintended. 

We begin to felicitate ourselves upon some special prosperity, and thenext moment some human need knocks at our door, and we must share ourgood things with a suffering brother. We may build up our finetheories of taking care of ourselves, of living for the future, oflaying up in the summer of prosperity for the winter of adversity, ofproviding for old age or for our children; but ofttimes all thesefrugal and economic plans have to yield to the exigencies of humanneed. The love that seeketh not its own plays havoc with life's hardlogic, and with the plans of mere self-interest. We cannot say thatanything is our own when our brother is suffering for what we can give. 

 "Herein is love: to strip the shoulders bare. If need be, that a frailer one may wear A mantle to protect it from the storm; To bear the frost-king's breath so one be warm; To crush the tears it would be sweet to shed, And smile so others may have joy instead. 

 "Herein is love: to daily sacrifice The hope that to the bosom closest lies; To mutely bear reproach and suffer wrong, Nor lift the voice to show where both belong; Nay, now, nor tell it e'en to God above-- Herein is love indeed, herein is love. "

Not a day passes in the commonest experiences of life, in which otherpeople do not stand before us with their needs, appealing to us forsome service which we may render to them. It may be only ordinarycourtesy, the gentle kindness of the home circle, the patient treatmentof neighbors or customers in business relations, the thoughtful showingof interest in old people or in children. On all sides the lives ofothers touch ours, and we cannot do just as we please, thinking only ofourselves, and our own comfort and good, unless we choose to be falseto all the instincts of humanity, and all the requirements of the lawof Christian love. We must think continually of other people. 

We may not seek our own pleasure in any way without asking whether itwill harm or mar the comfort of some other one. For example, we mustthink of other people's convenience in the exercise of our own libertyand in the indulgence of our own tastes and desires. It may bepleasant for us to lie late in bed in the morning, and we may beinclined to regard the habit as only a little amiable self-indulgence. But there is a more serious side to the practice. It breaks theharmonious flow of the household life. It causes confusion in thefamily plans for the day. It makes extra work for faithfulhousekeepers or servants. It sorely tries the patience of love. 

The other day an important committee of fifteen was kept waiting forten minutes for one tardy member, whose presence was necessary beforeanything could be done. At last he came sauntering in without even anapology for having caused fourteen busy men a loss of time that to themwas very valuable, besides having put a sore strain on their patienceand good nature. We have no right to forget or disregard theconvenience of others. A conscientious application of the Golden Rulewould cure us of all such carelessness. 

These are but illustrations of the way other people impinge upon ourlife. They are so close to us that we cannot move without touchingthem. We cannot speak but that our words affect others. We cannot actin the simplest things without first thinking whether what we are aboutto do will help or hurt others. We are but one of a great family, andwe dare not live for ourselves. We must never forget that there areother people. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE BLESSING OF FAITHFULNESS. 

 "It must be done by both; God never without me, I never without God. " --JOHANNES SCHEFFLER. 

"Faithful servant" will be the commendation on the judgment-day ofthose who have lived well on the earth. Not great deeds will becommended, but faithfulness. The smallest ministries will rank withthe most conspicuous, if they are all that the weak hands could do. Indeed, the widow's two mites were more in value than the rich men'slarge coins. 

 "Two mites, two drops, but all her house and land Fell from an earnest heart but trembling hand; The others' wanton wealth foamed high and brave; The others cast away, she only gave. "

Yet faithfulness as a measure of requirement is not something that canbe reached without effort. It does not furnish a pillow for indolence. It is not a letting down of obligation to a low standard, to make lifeeasy. It is indeed a lofty measurement. "Thou hast been faithful" isthe highest possible commendation. 

It may not be amiss to look a little at the meaning of the word as astandard of moral requirement. In general, it implies the doing of allour work as well as we can. All our work includes, of course, ourbusiness, our trade, our household duties, all our daily task-work, aswell as our praying, our Bible-reading, and our obeying of the morallaw. We must not make the mistake of thinking that there is noreligion in the way we do the common work of our trade or of ourhousehold, or our work on the farm, or in the mill or store. Thefaithfulness Christ requires and commends takes in all these things. Ofttimes, too, it would be easier to be faithful in some great trial, requiring sublimity of courage, than in the little unpicturesque dutiesof an ordinary day. Says Phillips Brooks: "You picture to yourself thebeauty of bravery and steadfastness. You let your imagination wanderin delight over the memory of martyrs who have died for truth. Andthen some little, wretched, disagreeable duty comes, which is yourmartyrdom, the lamp of your oil; and if you will not do it, how youroil is spilt! How flat and thin and unilluminated your sentiment aboutthe martyrs runs out over your self-indulgent life!"

Lovers of the violin are familiar with the name of Stradivarius, theold violin-maker of Cremona. He has been dead nearly two hundredyears, and his violins now bring fabulous prices. George Eliot, in oneof her poems, puts some noble words into the mouth of the old man. Speaking of the masters who will play on his violins, he says:--

 "While God gives them skill, I give them instruments to play upon, God choosing me to help him. "

Referring to another violin-maker, his rival, he says:--

 "But were his the best, He could not work for two. My work is mine, And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked, I should rob God--since he is fullest good-- Leaving a blank instead of violins. I say, not God himself can make man's best Without best men to help him. * * * * * * 'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands. He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio. "

At first reading these words may indeed seem heretical and irreverent, but they are not. It is true, indeed, that even God cannot do our workwithout us, without our skill, our faithfulness. If we fail or do ourlittle duty negligently, there will be a blank or a blur where thereought to have been something beautiful. As another says, "The universeis not quite perfect without my work well done. "

One man is a carpenter. God has called him to that work. It is hisduty to build houses, and to build them well. That is, he is requiredto be a good carpenter, to do the very best work he can possibly do. If, therefore, he does careless work, imperfect, dishonest, slurred, slighted work, he is robbing God, leaving only bad carpentering wherehe ought to have left good. For even God himself will not build thecarpenter's houses without the carpenter. Or, here is a mother in ahome. Her children are about her, with their needs. Her home requiresher skill, her taste, her refinement, her toil and care. It is hercalling to be a good mother, and to make a true home for her household. Her duty is to do always her very best to make her home beautiful, bright, happy, a fit place for her children to grow up in. Faithfulness requires that she do always such service as a mother, thatJesus shall say of her home-making, "She hath done what she could. " Todo less than her best is to fail in fidelity. Suppose that her handshould slack, that she should grow negligent, would she not clearly berobbing God? For even God cannot make a beautiful home for herchildren without her. 

So we may apply the principle to all kinds of work. The faithfulnesswhich God requires must reach to everything we do, to the way the childgets its lessons and recites them, to the way the dressmaker and thetailor sew their seams, to the way the blacksmith welds the iron, andshoes the horse, to the way the plumber puts the pipes into the newbuilding and looks after the drainage, to the way the carpenter doeshis work on the house, to the way the bridge-builder swings the bridgeover the stream, to the way the clerk represents the goods, andmeasures or weighs them. "Be thou faithful" is the word that ringsfrom heaven in every ear. God's word for the doing of every piece ofwork that any one does. How soon it would put a stop to alldishonesty, all fraud, all scant work, all false weights and measures, all shams, all neglects or slightings of duty, were this lesson onlylearned and practiced everywhere!

"It does not matter, " people say, "whether I do my little work well ornot. Of course I must not steal, nor lie, nor commit forgery, norbreak the Sabbath. These are moral things. But there is no sin in mysewing up this seam carelessly, or in my using bad mortar in this wall, or in my putting inferior timber in this house, or a piece of flawediron in this bridge. " But we need to learn that the moral law applieseverywhere, just as really to carpentry, or blacksmithing, ortailoring, as to Sabbath-keeping. We never can get away from this law. 

Besides, it does matter, for our neighbor's sake, as well as for thehonor of God's law, how we do our work. The bricklayer does negligentwork on the walls of the flue he is putting in, and one night, yearsafterward, a spark creeps through the crevice and reaches a wooden beamthat lies there, and soon the house is in flames and perhaps preciouslives perish. The bricklayer was unfaithful. The foundryworker, incasting the great iron supports for a bridge, is unwatchful for aninstant, and a bubble of air makes a flaw. It is buried away in theheart of the beam and escapes detection. One day, years later, thereis a terrible disaster. A great railroad bridge gives way beneath theweight of an express train and hundreds of lives are lost. In theinquest it is testified that a slight flaw in one beam was the cause ofthe awful calamity which hurled so many lives into eternity. Thefoundry workman was unfaithful. 

These are but suggestions of the duty and of its importance. No workcan be of so little moment that it matters not whether it be donefaithfully or not. Unfaithfulness in the smallest things isunfaithfulness, and God is grieved, and possibly sometime, somewhere, disaster may come as the consequence of the neglect. On the otherhand, faithfulness is pleasing to God, though it be only in thesweeping well of a room, or the doing neatly of the smallest things inhousehold care. Then faithfulness is far-reaching in its influence. The universe is not quite complete without each one's little work welldone. 

The self-culture that there is in the mere habit of faithfulness is initself a rich reward for all our striving. It is a great thing totrain ourselves to do always our best, to do as nearly perfect work aspossible. Said Michael Angelo: "Nothing makes the soul so pure, soreligious, as the endeavor to create something perfect; for God isperfection, and whoever strives for it, strives for something that isGodlike. " The habit, unyieldingly persisted in, of doing everythingwith the most scrupulous conscientiousness, builds up in the one who solives a noble and beautiful character. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

WITHOUT AXE OR HAMMER. 

 "Souls are built as temples are, -- Based on truth's eternal law, Sure and steadfast, without flaw, Through the sunshine, through the snows, Up and on the building goes; Every fair thing finds its place, Every hard thing lends a grace, Every hand may make or mar. "

We read of the temple of Solomon, when it was in building, that it wasbuilt of stone made ready in the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axenor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it went up. 

 "No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung. "

So it is that the great work of spiritual temple-building goes oncontinually in this world. We are all really silent builders. Thekingdom of God cometh not with observation. The divine Spirit works insilence, changing men's hearts, transforming lives, comforting sorrow, kindling hope in darkened bosoms, washing scarlet souls white as snow. The preacher may speak with the voice of a Boanerges, but the powerthat reaches hearts is not the preacher's noise; silently the divinevoice whispers in the soul its secret of conviction, or of hope, or ofstrength. The Lord is not in the storm, in the earthquake, in thefire, but in the sound of gentleness, the spirit's whisper, thatbreathes through the soul. 

Perhaps the best work any of us do in this world is that which we dowithout noise. Words give forth sound, but it is not the sounds thatdo good, that brighten sad faces as people listen, that change tears tolaughter, that stimulate hope, that put courage into faintinghearts, --it is not the noise of our words, but the thoughts which thewords carry. Words are but the chattering messengers that bear thesealed messages; and it is the messages that help and comfort. We maymake noise as we work, but it is not our noise that builds up what weleave in beauty behind us. It is life that builds, and life is silent. The force that works in our homes is a silent force, --mother-love, father-love, patience, gentleness, prayer, truth, the influences ofdivine grace. 

It is the same in the building up of personal character in each of us. There may be a great deal of noise all about us, but it is in silencethat we grow from a thousand sources come the little blocks that arelaid upon the walls, --the lessons we get from others, the influencesfriends exert upon us, the truths our reading puts into our minds, theimpressions life leaves upon us, the inspirations we receive from thedivine Spirit--ever the builders are at work on these characters ofours, but they work silently, without noise of hammer or axe. 

There is another suggestion. Down in the dark quarries, under thecity, the men wrought, cutting, hewing, polishing, the stones. Theyhung their little lamps on the walls, and with their hammers andchisels they hewed away at the great blocks. Months and years passed;then one day there was a grand dedication, and there in the glorioussunshine all the secret, obscure work of those years was seen in itsfinal beauty, amid the joy of a nation. If the men who had wrought inthe quarries were present that day, what a joy it must have been tothem to think of their work in preparing the great stones for theirplace in the magnificent building!

Here is a parable. This world is the quarry. We are toiling away inthe darkness. We cannot see what good is ever to come out of ourlonely, painful, obscure toil. Yet some day our quarry-work will bemanifested in the glory of heaven. We are preparing materials now andhere for the temple of the great King, which in heaven is slowly risingthrough the ages. No noise of hammer or axe is heard in all thatwondrous building, because the stones are all shaped and polished andmade entirely ready in this world. 

We are the stones, and the world is God's quarry. The stones for thetemple were cut out of the great rock in the dark underground cavern. They were rough and shapeless. Then they were dressed into form, andthis required a great deal of cutting, hammering, and chiselling. Without this stern, sore work on the stones, not one of them could everhave filled a place in the temple. At last when they were ready theywere lifted out of the dark quarry and carried up to the mountain-top, where the temple was rising, and were laid in their place. 

We are stones in the quarry as yet. When we accepted Christ we werecut from the great mass of rock. But we were yet rough and unshapely;not fit for heaven. Before we can be ready for our place in theheavenly temple we must be hewn and shaped. The hammer must do itswork, breaking off the roughnesses. The chisel must be used, carvingand polishing our lives into beauty. This work is done in the manyprocesses of life. Every sinful thing, every fault in our character, is a rough place in the stone, which must be chiselled off. All thecrooked lines must be straightened. Our lives must be cut and hewnuntil they conform to the perfect standard of divine truth. 

Quarry-work is not always pleasant. If stones had hearts andsensibilities, they would sometimes cry out in sore pain as they feelthe hammer strokes and the deep cutting of the chisel. Yet the workmanmust not heed their cries and withdraw his hand, else they would atlast be thrown aside as worthless blocks, never to be built into theplace of honor. 

We are not stones; we have hearts and sensibilities, and we do cry outofttimes as the hammer smites away the roughnesses in our character. But we must yield to the sore work and let it go on, or we shall neverhave our place as living stones in Christ's beautiful temple. We mustnot wince under the sharp chiselling of sorrow. Says Dr. T. T. Munger:--

 "When God afflicts thee, think he hews a rugged stone Which must be shaped, or else aside as useless thrown. "

There is still another suggestion from this singular temple-building. Every individual life has its quarries where are shaped the blockswhich afterward are built into character, or which take form in acts. Schools are the quarries, where, through years of patient study, thematerials for life are prepared, the mind is disciplined, habits areformed, knowledge is gained, and power is stored. Later, in activelife, the temple rises without noise of hammer or axe. Homes arequarries where children are trained, where moral truth is lodged in theheart, where the elements of character are hewn out like fair stones, to appear in the life in after days, when it grows up among men. 

Then there are the thought-quarries back of what people see in everyhuman life. Men must be silent thinkers before their words or deedscan have either great beauty or power. Extemporaneousness anywhere isof small value. Glib, easy talkers, who are always ready to speak onany subject, who require no time for preparation, may go on chattering, forever, but their talk is only chatter. The words that are worthhearing come out of thought-quarries where they have been wroughtofttimes in struggle and anguish. Father Ryan, in one of the mostexquisite of his poems, writes of the "valley of silence" where heprepares the songs he afterwards sings:--

 "In the hush of the valley of silence I dream all the songs that I sing; And the music floats down the dim valley 'Till each finds a word for awing, That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge, A message of peace they may bring. "

So it is of all great thoughts. Thinkers brood long in the silence andthen come forth and their eloquence sways us. So it is with art. Welook at a fine picture and our hearts are warmed by its wondrousbeauty. But do we know the story of the picture? Years and years ofthought and of tireless toil lie back of its enrapturing beauty. Orhere is a book which charms you, which thrills and inspires you. Greatthoughts lie on its pages. Do you know the book's story? The authorlived, struggled, toiled, suffered, wept, that he might write the wordswhich now help you. Back of every good life-thought which blesses men, lies a dark quarry where the thought was born and shaped into thebeauty of form which makes it a blessing to the world. 

Or here is a noble and beautiful character. Goodness appears naturalto it. It seems easy for the man to be noble and to do noble things. But again the quarry is back of the temple. Each one's heart is thequarry out of which comes all that the person builds into his life. "As he thinketh in his heart so is he. " Everything that appears in ourlives comes out of our hearts. All our acts are first thoughts. Theartist's picture, the poet's poem, the singer's song, the architect'sbuilding, are thoughts before they are wrought out into forms ofbeauty. All dispositions, tempers, feelings, words, and acts start inthe heart. If the workmen had quarried faulty stones in the caverns, the temple would have been spoiled. An evil heart, with stainedthoughts, impure imaginings, blurred feelings, can never build up afair and lovely character. 

We need to guard our heart-quarry with all diligence, since out of itare the issues of life. The thoughts build the life and make thecharacter. White thoughts rear up a beautiful fabric before God andman. Soiled thoughts pile up a stained life, without beauty or honor. We should look well, therefore, to our heart-quarry, where the workgoes on in the darkness without ceasing. If all be right there we needgive little concern to the building of character. Diligentheart-keeping yields a life unspotted from the world. 

A little child had been reading the beatitudes, and was asked which ofthe qualities named in them she most desired. "I would rather be purein heart, " she said. When asked the reason for her choice, sheanswered: "If I could but have a pure heart, I should then possess allthe other qualities of the beatitudes in the one. " The child wasright. A pure heart will build a beautiful life, a fit temple forChrist. Thinking over God's holy thoughts after him will make us likeGod. Thinking habitually about Christ, Christ's beauty will come intoour souls and shine in our faces. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

DOING THINGS FOB CHRIST. 

 "We can best minister to him by helping them Who dare not touch his hallowed garment's hem; Their lives are even as ours--one piece, one plan. Him know we not, him shall we never know, Till we behold him in the least of these Who suffer or who sin. In sick souls he Lies bound and sighing, asks our sympathies; Their grateful eyes thy benison bestow, Brother and Lord, --'Ye did it unto me. '" --LUCY LARCOM. 

If Christ were here, we say, we would do many things for him. Thewomen who love him would gladly minister to him as did the women whofollowed him from Galilee. The men who are his friends would work tohelp him in any ways he might direct. The children who are trying toplease him would run errands for him. We all say we would be delightedto serve him if only he would come again to our world and visit ourhomes. But we can do things for him just as really as if he were hereagain in human form. 

One way of doing this is by obeying him. He is our Lord. Nothingpleases him so well as our obedience. It is told of a greatphilosopher that a friend called one day to see him, and wasentertained by the philosopher's little daughter till her father camein. The friend supposed that the child of so wise a man would belearning something very deep. So he asked her, "What is your fatherteaching you?" The little maid looked up into his face with her cleareyes and said, "Obedience. " That is the one great lesson our Lord isteaching us. He wants us to learn obedience. If we obey him always weshall always be doing things for him. 

We do things for Christ which we do through love to him. Evenobedience without love does not please him. But the smallest serviceswe can render, if love inspire them, he accepts. Thus we can make thecommonest tasks of our lives holy ministries, as sacred as what theangels do. There is a legend of a monk who painted in an oldconvent-cell pictures of martyrs and holy saints and of the sweetChrist-face with the crown of thorns. Men called his pictures onlydaubs. 

 "One night the poor monk mused, 'Could I but render Honor to Christ as other painters do-- Were but my skill as great as is the tender Love that inspires me when his cross I view. '

 "'But no, 'tis vain I toil and strive in sorrow; What man so scorns still less can _He_ admire; My life's work is all valueless; to-morrow I'll cast my ill-wrought pictures in the fire. '

 "He raised his eyes within his cell--O wonder! There stood a Visitor; thorn-crowned was He; And a sweet voice the silence rent asunder: 'I scorn no work that's done for love of me. '

 "And round the walls the paintings shone resplendent With lights and colors to this world unknown, A perfect beauty and a hue transcendent, That never yet on mortal canvas shone. "

There is a beautiful meaning in the old legend. Christ scorns no workthat is done for love of him. Most of us have much drudgery in ourlives, but even this we can make glorious by doing it through love forChrist. 

Things we do for others in Christ's name, are done for him. We allremember that wonderful "inasmuch" in the twenty-fifth of Matthew. Ifwe find the sick one, or the poor one, and go and minister, as we maybe able, as unto the Lord, the deed is accepted as if done to him inperson. Mrs. Margaret J. Preston, in one of her beautiful poems, tellsof a weary sister who grieved sorely because, as it seemed to her, shehad not been able to do any work for Christ. By a mother's dying bedshe had promised to care for her little sister, and her work for thechild so filled her hands that she had not time for anything else. Asshe grieved thus once, the little sister sleeping beside her stirredand told her of a sweet, strange dream she had had. She thought hersister was sitting sad because the King had bidden each one to bringhim a gift. 

 "And in my dream I saw you there, And heard you say, 'No hands can bear A gift, that are so filled with care. '

 "What care?' the King said, and he smiled To hear you answer, wailing wild, 'I only toil to feed a child. '

 "And then with such a look divine ('Twas that awaked me with its shine), He whispered, 'But the child is mine. '"

There are many for whom this little story-poem should have sweetcomfort. There are fathers and mothers who find it hard to provide fortheir children. It takes all their time and strength, and sometimesthey say, "I cannot do any work for Christ, because it takes everymoment to earn bread and clothing for my little ones, and to care forthem. " But Jesus whispers, "Yes; yet your children are mine, and whatyou do for them you do for me. "

There is in a home an invalid who requires all the time and thought ofanother member of the household in loving attention. It may be an agedparent needing the help of a child; it may be a child, crippled, blind, or sick, needing all a parent's care; or it may be a brother broken inhealth on whom a sister is called to wait continually with patientlove. And sometimes those who are required thus to spend their daysand nights in ministry for others feel that their lives count fornothing in work for Christ. They hear the appeals for laborers and forservice, but cannot respond. Their hands are already filled. YetJesus whispers, "These for whom you are toiling, caring, and spendingtime and strength are mine, and in doing for them you are doing for mejust as acceptable work as are those who are toiling withoutdistraction or hindrance in the great open field. "

Sometimes the work we do for Christ with purest love fails, or seems tofail of result. Nothing appears to come of it. There are wholelifetimes of godly people that seem to yield nothing. A word ought tobe said about this kind of doing for Christ. We are to set it down astrue without exception, that no work wrought in Christ's name and withlove for him is ever lost. What we, in our limited, short-sightedvision, planned to do may not be accomplished, but God's purpose goeson in every consecrated life, in every true deed done. The disciplesthought that Mary's costly ointment was wasted. So it seemed; but thisworld has been a little sweeter ever since the breaking of the vasethat let the perfume escape into its common air. So it is with manythings that are done, and many lives that are lived. They seem tofail, and there is nothing on the earth to show where they have been. Yet somehow the stock of human happiness is larger and the world is alittle better. 

Our work for Christ that fails in what we intended may yet leave ablessing in some other way. A faithful Bible-class teacher throughmany months visited a young man, a member of her class, in sickness. She read the Bible to him and sang sweet hymns and prayed by hisbedside. He was not a Christian and she hoped that he would be led toChrist. But at length he recovered and went out again, unchanged, oreven more indifferent than ever to his spiritual interests. All thefaithful teacher's work seemed to have been in vain. Then she learnedthat a frail, invalid girl, living in an adjoining house, had beenbrought to Christ through the loving work done for the carelessscholar. The songs sung by the sick man's bedside, and which seemed tohave left no blessing in his heart, had been heard through the thinwall of the house in the girl's sick-room, and had told her of the loveof the Saviour. 

The records of Christian ministry are full of such good work doneunintentionally. Failing to leave a blessing where it was hoped ablessing would be received, it blessed some other life. We may not saythat any good work has failed until we know in the last great harvestall the results of the things we have done and the words we have spoken. 

 "Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed; Not all who fail have therefore worked in vain; For all our acts to many issues lead; And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain, Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain, The Lord will fashion in his own good time (Be this the laborer's proudly humble creed), Such ends as in his wisdom, fitliest chime With his vast love's eternal harmonies. There is no failure for the good and wise; What though thy seed should fall by the wayside, And the birds snatch it?--Yet the birds are fed; Or they may bear it far across the tide, To give rich harvests after thou art dead. "

Many people die, and see yet no harvest from their life's sowing. Theycome to the end of their years, and their hands are empty. But whenthey enter heaven they will find that they have really been buildingthere all the while, that the things that have seemed to leave noresult on the earth have left glorious results inside the gates ofpearl. 

 "There is no end to the sky, And the stars are everywhere, And time is eternity, And the here is over there; For the common deeds of the common day Are ringing bells in the far away. "

Then even if the work we do does not itself leave any record, the doingof it leaves a record--an impression--on our own life. There is a wordof Scripture which says, "He that doeth the will of God abidethforever. " Doing God's will builds up enduring character in us. Everyobedience adds a new touch of beauty to the soul. Every true thing wedo in Christ's name, though it leave no mark anywhere else in God'suniverse, leaves an imperishable mark on our own life. Every deed ofunselfish kindness that we perform with love for Christ in our heart, though it bless no other soul in all the world, leaves its surebenediction on ourselves. 

Thousands of years since a leaf fell on the soft clay and seemed to belost. But last summer a geologist in his ramblings broke off a pieceof rock with his hammer, and there lay the image of the leaf, withevery line, and every vein, and all the delicate tracery, preserved inthe stone through these centuries. So the words we speak, and thethings we do for Christ to-day, may seem to be lost, but in the greatfinal revealing the smallest of them will appear, to the glory ofChrist and the reward of the doer. 

CHAPTER XV. 

HELPING AND OVER-HELPING. 

 "As we meet and touch each day The many travellers on our way, Let every such brief contact be A glorious, helpful ministry; The contact of the soil and seed, Each giving to the other's need, Each helping on the other's best, And blessing each as well as blest. "

Even kindness may be overdone. One may be too gentle. Love may holdothers back from duty, and thus may wreck destinies. We need to guardagainst meddling with God's discipline, softening the experience thathe means to be hard, sheltering our friend from the wind that heintends to blow chillingly. All summer does not make a good zone tolive in; we need autumn and winter to temper the heat, and keepvegetation from luxuriant overgrowth. The best thing we can do forothers is not always to take their load or do their duty for them. 

Of course we are to be helpful to others. No aim should be put higherin our life-plans than that of personal helpfulness. The motto of thetrue Christian cannot be other than that of the Master: "Not to beministered unto, but to minister. " Even in the ambition to gather andretain wealth, the spirit of the desire must be, if we are Christiansat all, that thereby we may become more helpful to others; thatthrough, or by means of, our wealth, we may be enabled to do larger andgreater good. Whatever gift, power, or possession we have that we donot seek to use in this way is not yet truly devoted to God. Fruit isthe test of character, and the purpose of fruit is not to adorn thetree or vine, but to feed hunger. Whatever we are, whatever we have, is fruit, and must be held for the feeding of the hunger of others. Thus personal helpfulness is the aim of all truly consecrated life. Inso far as we are living for ourselves, we are not Christians. 

Then there are many ways of helping others. Some people help us inmaterial ways. It is a still higher kind of help which we get fromthose who minister to our mental needs, who write the books whichcharm, instruct, and entertain us. Mind is greater than body. Bread, and clothing, and furniture, and houses will not satisfy ourintellectual cravings. There are those, however, who do help us inthese loftier ranges. Music, poetry, and art minister both to ourgratification and our culture. Good books bring to us inestimablebenefits. They tell us of new worlds, and inspire us to conquer them. They show us lofty and noble ideals, and stimulate us to attain them. They make us larger, better, stronger. The help we get from books isincalculable. 

Yet the truest and best help any one can give to others is not inmaterial things, but in ways that make them stronger and better. Moneyis good alms when money is really needed, but in comparison with thedivine gifts of hope, friendship, courage, sympathy, and love, it ispaltry and poor. Usually the help people need is not so much thelightening of their burden, as fresh strength to enable them to beartheir burden, and stand up under it. The best thing we can do foranother, some one has said, is not to make some things easy for him, but to make something of him. 

It is just here that friendship makes most of its mistakes. Itover-helps. It helps by ministering relief, by lifting away loads, bygathering hindrances out of the way, when it would help much morewisely by seeking to impart hope, strength, energy. "Our friends, "says Emerson, "are those who make us do what we can. " Says anotherwriter: "Our real friend is not the man or woman who smooths over ourdifficulties, throws a cloak over our failings, stands between us andthe penalties which our mistakes have brought upon us, but the man orwoman who makes us understand ourselves, and helps us to betterthings. " Love is weak, and too often pampers and flatters. It thinksthat loyalty requires it to make life easy as possible for the belovedone. 

Too often our friendship is most short-sighted in this regard, and mosthurtful to those we fervently desire to aid. We should never indulgeor encourage weakness in others when we can in any way stimulate itinto strength. We should never do anything for another which we caninspire him to do for himself. Much parental affection errs at thispoint. Life is made too easy for children. They are sheltered when itwere better if they faced the storm. They are saved from toil andexertion, when toil and exertion are God's ordained means of grace forthem, of which the parents rob them in their over-tenderness. Thereare children who are wronged by the cruelty and inhumanity of parents, and whose cries to heaven make the throne of the Eternal rock and sway;but there are children, also, who are wronged of much that is noblestand best in their inheritance by the over-kindness of parents. 

In every warm friendship, too, there is strong temptation to make thesame mistake. We have to be ever on our guard against over-helping. Our aim should always be to inspire in our friend new energy, todevelop in him the noblest strength, to bring out his best manhood. Over-helping defeats these offices of friendship. 

There is one particular point at which a special word of caution maywell be spoken. We need to guard our sympathies when we would comfortand help those who are suffering or are in trouble of any kind. It mayseem a severe thing to say, but illness is ofttimes made worse by thepity of friends. There is in weak natures a tendency to indulgesickness, to exaggerate its symptoms, to imagine that it is moreserious than it really is, and easily to succumb to its influence. Youfind your friend indisposed, and you are profuse in your expressions ofsympathy, encouraging or suggesting fears, urging prompt medical help. You think you have shown kindness, but very likely you have done soreinjury. You have left a depressing influence behind you. Your friendis disheartened and alarmed. You have left him weaker, not stronger. 

It may seem hard-hearted to appear to be unsympathetic with invalids, and those who are slightly or even seriously sick; not to take interestin their complaints; not to say commiserating things to them; butreally it is the part of true friendship to help sick people fight thebattle with their ills. We ought, therefore, to guard against speakingany word which will discourage them, increase their fear, exaggeratetheir thought of their illness, or weaken them in their struggle. Onthe other hand, we ought to say words which will cheer and strengthenthem, and make them braver for the fight. Our duty is to help them toget well. 

Perhaps the very medicine they need is a glimpse of cheerful outlook. Sick people ofttimes fall into a mood of disheartenment and self-pitywhich seriously retards their recovery. To sit down beside them then, and fall into their gloomy spirit, listening sympathetically to theirdiscouraged words, is to do them sore unkindness. The true office offriendship in such cases is to drive away the discouragement, and puthope and courage into the sore heart. We must try to make our sickfriend braver to endure his sufferings. 

Then, even in the sacredness of sorrow, we should never forget that ourmission to others is not merely to weep with them, but to help them tobe victorious, to receive their sorrow as a messenger from God, and tobear themselves as God's children under it. Instead, therefore, ofmere emotional condolence with our friends in their times of grief, weshould seek to present to them the strong comforts of divine love, andto inspire them to the bearing of their sorrow in faith and hope andjoy. 

So all personal helpfulness should be wise and thoughtful. It shouldnever tend to pamper weakness, to encourage dependence, to make peopletimid, to debilitate manliness and womanliness, to make parasites ofthose who turn to us with their burdens and needs. We must take carethat our helping does not dwarf any life which we ought rather tostimulate to noble and beautiful growth. God never makes such mistakesas this. He never fails us in need, but he loves us too well and istoo wise to relieve us of weights which we need to make our growthhealthful and vigorous. We should learn from God, and should help ashe helps, without over-helping. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ONLY ONE. 

 "Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down-- One man against a stone walled city of sin. * * * * * * When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars. " --E. R. SILL. 

There are a great many people in this world--hundreds of millions, tables of population foot up. Yet in a sense each one of us is theonly one. Each individual life has relations of its own in which itmust stand alone, and into which no other life can come. Companionships may be close, and they may give much comfort andinspiration, but in all the inner meaning of life each individual livesapart and alone. No one can live your life for you. No one butyourself can answer your questions, meet your responsibilities, makeyour decisions and choices. Your relations with God no one butyourself can fulfil. No one can believe for you. A thousand friendsmay encircle you and pray for your soul, but until you lift up your ownheart in prayer no communication is established between you and God. No one can get your sins forgiven but yourself. No one can obey Godfor you. No other one can do your work for Christ, or render youraccount at the judgment-seat. 

In the realm of experience also the same is true. Each person suffersalone, as if there were no other being in the universe. Friends maystand by us in our hours of pain or sorrow, and may sympathize with usor administer comfort or alleviation, but they enter not really intothe experiences. In these we are alone. No one can meet yourtemptations for you, or fight your battles, or endure your trials. Thetenderest friendship, the holiest love, cannot enter into thesolitariness in which each one of us lives apart. 

 "Still in each heart of hearts a hidden deep Lies, never fathomed by its dearest, best. "

This aloneness of life sometimes becomes very real in consciousness. All great souls experience it as they rise out of and above the commonmass of men in their thoughts and hopes and aspirations, as themountains rise from the level of the vale and little hills. All greatleaders of men ofttimes must stand alone, as they move in advance ofthe ranks of their followers. The battles of truth and of progresshave usually been fought by lonely souls. Elijah, for example, in aseason of disheartenment and despondency, gave it as part of theexceptional burden of his life that he was the only one in the fieldfor God. It is so in all great epochs; God calls one man to stand forhim. As Robert Browning says:--

 "In life exceptional, When old things terminate and new commence, A solitary great man's worth the world. God takes the business in his own hand At such time. "

But the experience is not that only of great souls; there come times inthe lives of all who are living faithfully and worthily when they muststand alone for God, without companionship, perhaps without sympathy orencouragement. Here is a young person, the only one of his family whohas confessed Christ. He takes him as his Saviour, and then stands upbefore the world and vows to be his and follow him. He goes back tohis home. The members of the home circle are very dear to him; butnone of them are Christians, and he must stand alone for Christ amongthem. Perhaps they oppose him in his discipleship--in varying degreesthis ofttimes is the experience. Perhaps they are only indifferent, making no opposition, only quietly watching his life to see if it isconsistent. In any case, however, he must stand for Christ alone, without the help that comes from companionship. 

Or it may be in the workshop or in the school that the young Christianmust stand alone. He returns from the Lord's Table to his week-dayduties, full of noble impulses, but finds himself the only Christian inthe place where his duty leads him. His companions are ready to sneer, and they point the finger of scorn at him, with irritating epithets. Or they even persecute him in petty ways. At least they are notChrist's friends, and he, as follower of the Master, finds no sympathyamong them in his new life. He must stand alone in his discipleship, conscious all the while that unfriendly eyes are upon him. Many ayoung or older Christian finds it very hard to be the only one to standfor Christ in the circle in which his daily work fixes his place. 

This aloneness puts upon one a great responsibility. For example, youare the only Christian in your home. You are the only witness Christhas in your house, the only one through whom to reveal his love, hisgrace, his holiness. You are the only one to represent Christ in yourfamily, to show there the beauty of Christ, the sweetness andgentleness of Christ, to do there the works of Christ, the things hewould do if he lived in your home. Perhaps the salvation of all thesouls of your family depends upon your being true and faithful in yourown place. If you falter in your loyalty, if you fail in your duty, your loved ones may be lost and the blame will be yours; their bloodwill be upon you. 

In like manner, if you are the only Christian in the shop, the store, or the office where you work, a peculiar responsibility rests upon you, a responsibility which no other one shares with you. You are Christ'sonly witness in your place. If you do not testify there for him, thereis no other one who will do it. Miss Havergal tells of her experiencein the girls' school at Dusseldorf. She went there soon after she hadbecome a Christian and had confessed Christ. Her heart was very warmwith love for her Saviour and she was eager to speak for him. To heramazement, however, she soon learned that among the hundred girls inthe school, she was the only Christian. Her first thought was one ofdismay--she could not confess Christ in that great company of worldly, un-Christian companions. Her gentle, sensitive heart shrank from aduty so hard. Her second thought, however, was that she could notrefrain from confessing Christ. She was the only one Christ had thereand she must be faithful. "This was very bracing, " she writes. "Ifelt I must try to walk worthy of my calling for Christ's sake. Itbrought a new and strong desire to bear witness for my Master. It mademe more watchful and earnest than ever before, for I knew that any slipin word or deed would bring discredit on my Master. " She realized thatshe had a mission in that school, that she was Christ's witness there, his only witness, and that she dare not fail. 

This same sense of responsibility rests upon every thoughtful Christianwho is called to be Christ's only witness in a place--in a home, in acommunity, in a store, or school, or shop, or social circle. He isChrist's only servant there, and he dare not be unfaithful, else thewhole work of Christ in that place may fail. He is the one light setto shine there for his Master, and if his light be hidden, the darknesswill be unrelieved. So there is special inspiration in thisconsciousness of being the only one Christ has in a certain place. 

There is a sense in which this is true also of every one of us all thetime. We really are always the only one Christ has at the particularplace at which we stand. There may be thousands of other lives aboutus. We may be only one of a great company, of a large congregation, ofa populous community. Yet each one of us has a life that is alone inits responsibility, in its danger, in its mission and duty. There maybe a hundred others close beside me, but not one of them can take myplace, or do my duty, or fulfil my mission, or bear my responsibility. Though every one of the other hundred do his work, and do it perfectly, my work waits for me, and if I do not do it, it never will be done. 

We can understand how that if the great prophet had failed God that daywhen he was the only one God had to stand for him, the consequenceswould have been most disastrous; the cause of God would have sufferedirreparably. But are we sure that the calamity to Christ's kingdomwould be any less if one of us should fail God in our lowly place anycommon day?

Stories are told of a child finding a little leak in the dike thatshuts off the sea from Holland, and stopping it with his hand till helpcould come, staying there all the night, holding back the floods withhis little hand. It was but a tiny, trickling stream that he heldback; yet if he had not done it, it would soon have become a torrent, and before morning the sea would have swept over the land, submergingfields, homes, and cities. Between the sea and all this devastationthere was but a boy's hand. Had the child failed, the floods wouldhave rolled in with their remorseless ruin. We understand howimportant it was that that boy should be faithful to his duty, since hewas the only one God had that night to save Holland. 

But do you know that your life may not stand any day, and be all thatstands, between some great flood of moral ruin and broad, fair fieldsof beauty? Do you know that your failure in your lowly place and dutymay not let in a sea of disaster which shall sweep away human hopes andjoys and human souls? The humblest of us dare not fail, for our onelife is all God has at the point where we stand. 

This truth of personal responsibility is one of tremendous moment. Wedo not escape it by being in a crowd, one of a family, one of acommunity. No one but ourself can live our life, do our work, meet ourobligation, bear our burden. No one but ourself can stand for usbefore God to render an account of our deeds. In the deepest, realestsense each one of us lives alone. 

There is another phase of this subject, however, which should not beoverlooked. While we must stand alone in our place and be faithful toour trust, our responsibility reaches only to our own duty. Othersbeside us have their part also to do, and the perfection of the wholework depends upon their faithfulness as well as upon ours. The bestany of us can do in this world is but a fragment. The old prophetthought his work had failed because Baalism was not yet entirelydestroyed. Then he was told of three other men, who would come afterhim--two kings and then another prophet, who each in turn would do hispart, when at last the destruction of the great alien idolatry would becomplete. Elijah's faithfulness had not failed, but his achievementwas only a fragment of the whole work. 

This is very suggestive and very comforting. We are not responsiblefor finishing everything we begin. It may be our part only to beginit; the carrying on and finishing of it may be the work of others whomwe do not know, of others perhaps not yet born. We all enter into thework of those who have gone before us, and others who come after usshall in turn enter into our work. Our duty simply is to do well andfaithfully our own little part. If we do this we need never fretourselves about the part we cannot do. That is not our work at all, but belongs to some other worker, waiting now, perchance, in someobscure place, who at the right time will come forward with new heartand skilful hand, anointed by God for his task. 

Mr. Sill illustrates this truth in one of his poems, where, speaking ofthe young, "led on by courage and immortal hope, and with the morningin their hearts, " he says:--

 "They to the disappointed earth shall give The lives we meant to live, Beautiful, free, and strong; The light we almost had Shall make them glad; The words we waited long Shall run in music from their voice and song. "

Mr. Whittier also suggests the same truth:--

 "Others shall sing the song, Others shall right the wrong, Finish what I begin, And all I fail of win. 

 "What matter I or they, Mine or another's day, So the right word be said And life the sweeter made?"

So while we are alone in our responsibility we need give no thought foranything but our own duty, our own little fragment of the Lord's work. The things we cannot do some other one is waiting and preparing now todo after the work has passed from our hand. There is comfort in thisfor any who fail in their efforts, and must leave tasks unfinishedwhich they hoped to complete. The finishing is another's mission. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

SWIFTNESS IN DUTY. 

 "Life is a leaf of paper white, Whereon each one of us may write His word or two--and then comes night. " --LOWELL. 

Many good people are very slow. They do their work well enough, perhaps, but so leisurely that they accomplish in their brief time onlya fraction of what they might accomplish. They lose, in aimlessloitering, whole golden hours which they ought to fill with quickactivities. They seem to have no true appreciation of the value oftime, or of their own accountability for its precious moments. Theylive conscientiously, it may be, but they have no strong constrainingsense of duty impelling them to ever larger and fuller achievement. They have a work to do, but there is no hurry for it; there is plentyof time in which to do it. 

It is quite safe to say that the majority of people do not get intotheir life half the achievement that was possible to them when theybegan to live, simply because they have never learned to work swiftly, and under pressure of great motives. 

There can be no doubt that we are required to make the most possible ofour life. Mr. Longfellow once gave to his pupils, as a motto, this:"Live up to the best that is in you. " To do this, we must not onlydevelop our talents to the utmost power and capacity of which they aresusceptible, but we must also use these talents to the accomplishmentof the largest and best results they are capable of producing. Inorder to reach this standard, we must never lose a day, nor even anhour, and we must put into every day and every hour all that ispossible of activity and usefulness. 

Dreaming through days and years, however brilliantly one may dream, cannever satisfy the demands of the responsibility which inheresessentially in every soul that is born into the world. Life meansduty, toil, work. There is something divinely allotted to each hour, and the hour one loiters remains forever an unfilled blank. We canideally fulfil our mission only by living up always to the best that isin us, and by doing every day the very most that we can do. 

 "So here hath been dawning another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away? Out of eternity this new day is born; Into eternity at night will return. "

We turn over to our Lord for example, since his was the one life in allthe ages that reached the divine thought, and filled out the divinepattern; and wherever we see him, we find him intent on doing the willof his Father, not losing a moment, nor loitering at any task. We seehim ever hastening from place to place, from ministry to ministry, frombaptism to temptation, from teaching to healing, from miracle-workingto solitary prayer. His feet never loitered. He lost no moments; heseems indeed to have crowded the common work of years into a few short, intense hours. He is painted for us as a man continually under thestrongest pressure, with a work to do which he was eager to accomplishin the shortest possible time. He was always calm, never in nervoushaste, yet ever quietly moving with resistless energy on his holyerrand. 

We ought to catch our Master's spirit in this celerity in the Father'sbusiness. Time is short and duty is large. There is not a moment tolose, if, in our allotted period, we would finish the work that isgiven us to do. We need to get our Lord's "straightway" into our life, so that we shall hasten from duty to duty, without pause or idlelingering. We need to get into our heart a consciousness of being everon the Master's errands, that shall be within us a mighty compulsion, driving us always to duty. 

Naturally we are indolent, and fond of ease and self indulgence. Weneed to be carried out of and beyond ourselves. There is no motivestrong enough to do this but love to God and to our fellow-men. Supreme love to God makes us desire to do with alacrity everything hecommands. Love to our fellow-men draws us to all service of sympathyand beneficence for them, regardless of cost. Constrained by suchmotives, we shall never become laggards in duty. 

Swiftness or slowness in duty is very much a matter of habit. As oneis trained in early life, one is quite sure to continue in matureyears. A loitering child will become a loitering man or woman. Thehabit grows, as all habits do. 

 "Lose this day loitering, 'twill be the same story To-morrow, and the next more dilatory; The indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost, lamenting o'er lost days. 

 "Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute. What you can do, and think you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated; Begin it, and the work will be completed. "

Many people lose in the aggregate whole years of time out of theirlives for want of system. They make no plan for their days. They letduties mingle in inextricable confusion. They are always in feverishhaste. They talk continually of being overwhelmed with work, of thegreat pressure that is upon them, of being driven beyond measure. Theyalways have the air of men who have scarcely time to eat or sleep. Andthere is nothing feigned in all their intense occupation. They reallyare hurried men. Yet in the end they accomplish but little incomparison with their great activity, because they work without order, and always feverishly and nervously. Swiftness in accomplishment isalways calm and quiet. It plans well, suffering no confusion in tasks. Hurried haste is always flurried haste, which does nothing well. "Unhasting yet unresting" is the motto of quick and abundantachievement. 

 "'Without haste! without rest!' Bind the motto to thy breast; Bear it with thee as a spell; Storm or sunshine, guard it well; Heed not flowers that round thee bloom, Bear it onward to the tomb. 

 "Haste not! let no thoughtless deed Mar for aye the spirit's speed; Ponder well and know the right; Onward then with all thy might; Haste not; years can ne'er atone For one reckless action done. 

 "Rest not! life is sweeping by, Do and dare before you die; Something mighty and sublime Leave behind to conquer time; Glorious 'tis to live for aye When these forms have passed away. 

 "Haste not! rest not! calmly wait; Meekly bear the storm of fate; Duty be thy polar guide; Do the right whate'er betide. Haste not! rest not! Conflicts past, God shall crown thy work at last. "

There is another phase of the lesson. Not swiftness only, but patientpersistence through days and years, is the mark of true living. Thereare many people who can work under pressure for a little time, but whotire of the monotony and slack in their duty by and by, failing at lastbecause they cannot endure unto the end. There are people who beginmany noble things, but soon weary of them and drop them out of theirhands. They may pass for brilliant men, men even of genius, but in theend they have for biography only a volume of fragments of chapters, notone of them finished. Such men may attract a great deal of passingattention, while the tireless plodders working beside them receive nopraise, no commendation; but in the real records of life, written inabiding lines in God's Book, it is the latter who will shine in thebrightest splendor. Robert Browning puts this truth in striking way inone of his poems:--

 "Now, observe, Sustaining is no brilliant self-display Like knocking down or even setting up: Much bustle these necessitate; and still To vulgar eye, the mightier of the myth Is Hercules, who substitutes his own For Atlas' shoulder and supports the globe A whole day, --not the passive and obscure Atlas who bore, ere Hercules was born, And is to go on bearing that same load When Hercules turns ash on Oeta's top. 'Tis the transition-stage, the tug and strain, That strike men: standing still is stupid-like. "

So we get our lesson. There is so much to do in the short days that wedare not lose a moment. Life is so laden with responsibility that totrifle at any point is sin. Even on the seizing of minutes eternalissues may depend. Of course we must take needed rest to keep ourlives in condition for duty. But what shall we say of those strong menand women who do almost nothing but rest? What shall we say of thosewho live only to have amusement, who dance away their nights and thensleep away their days, and thus hurry on toward the judgment-bar, doingnothing for God or for man? Life is duty; every moment of it has itsown duty. There is no malfeasance so sad and so terrible in itspenalties as that which wastes the golden years in idleness orpleasure, and leaves duty undone. 

Shall we not seek to crowd the days with most earnest living? Shall wenot learn to redeem the time from indolence, from loitering, fromunmethodicalness, from the waste of precious moments, fromself-indulgence, from impatience of persistent toil, from all thatlessens achievement? Shall we not learn to work swiftly for our Master?

 "You must live each day at your very best: The work of the world is done by few; God asks that a part be done by you. 

 "Say oft of the years as they pass from sight, 'This is life with its golden store: I shall have it once, but it comes no more. '

 "Have a purpose, and do with your utmost might: You will finish your work on the other side, When you wake in his likeness, satisfied. "

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE SHADOWS WE CAST. 

 "The smallest bark on life's tumultuous ocean Will leave a track behind for evermore; The slightest wave of influence set in motion Extends and widens to the eternal shore. "

Every one of us casts a shadow. There hangs about us a sort ofpenumbra, --a strange, indefinable something, --which we call personalinfluence, which has its effect on every other life on which it falls. It goes with us wherever we go. It is not something we can have whenwe want to have it, and then lay aside when we will, as we lay aside agarment. It is something that always pours out from our life, likelight from a lamp, like heat from flame, like perfume from a flower. 

No one can live, and not have influence. Says Elihu Burritt: "No humanbeing can come into this world without increasing or diminishing thesum total of human happiness, not only of the present, but of everysubsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from thisconnection. There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no darkniche along the disk of non-existence, to which he can retreat from hisrelations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of hisexistence upon the moral destiny of the world; everywhere his presenceor absence will be felt, everywhere he will have companions who will bebetter or worse for his influence. " These are true words. To be atall is to have influence, either for good or evil, over other lives. 

The ministry of personal influence is something very wonderful. Without being conscious of it, we are always impressing others by thisstrange power that goes out from us. Others watch us and their actionsare modified by ours. Many a life has been started on a career ofbeauty and blessing by the influence of one noble act. The disciplessaw their Master praying, and were so impressed by his earnestness, orby the radiancy they saw on his face, as he communed with his Father, that when he joined them again they asked him to teach them how topray. Every true soul is impressed continually by the glimpses it hasof loveliness, of holiness, or of nobleness in others. 

One kind deed often inspires many kindnesses. Here is a story from anewspaper of the other day, which illustrates this. A little newsboyentered a car on the elevated railway train, and slipping into across-seat, was soon asleep. Presently two young ladies came in, andtook seats opposite to him. The child's feet were bare, his clotheswere ragged, and his face was pinched and drawn, showing marks ofhunger and suffering. The young ladies noticed him, and, seeing thathis cheek rested against the hard window-sill, one of them arose, andquietly raising his head, slipped her muff under it for a pillow. 

The kind act was observed, and now mark its influence. An oldgentleman in the next seat, without a word, held out a silver quarterto the young lady, nodding toward the boy. After a moment'shesitation, she took it, and as she did so, another man handed her adime, a woman across the aisle held out some pennies, and almost beforethe young woman realized what she was doing, she was taking acollection for the poor boy. Thus from the one little act there hadgone out a wave of influence touching the hearts of two score people, and leading each of them to do something. 

Common life is full of just such illustrations of the influence ofkindly deeds. Every good life leaves in the world a twofold ministry, that of the things it does directly to bless others, and that of thesilent influence it exerts, through which others are made better, orare inspired to do like good things. 

Influence is something, too, which even death does not end. Whenearthly life closes, a good man's active work ceases. He is missed inthe places where his familiar presence has brought benedictions. Nomore are his words heard by those who ofttimes have been cheered orcomforted by them. No more do his benefactions find their way to homesof need where so many times they have brought relief. No more does hisgentle friendship minister strength and hope and courage to hearts thathave learned to love him. The death of a good man, in the midst of hisusefulness, cuts off a blessed ministry of helpfulness in the circle inwhich he has dwelt. But his influence continues. Longfellow writes:--

 "Alike are life and death When life in death survives, And the uninterrupted breath Inspires a thousand lives. 

 "Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still travelling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight. 

 "So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men. "

The influence which our dead have over us is ofttimes very great. Wethink we have lost them when we see their faces no more, nor hear theirvoices, nor receive the accustomed kindnesses at their hands. But inmany cases there is no doubt that what our loved ones do for us afterthey are gone is quite as important as what they could have done for ushad they stayed with us. The memory of beautiful lives is abenediction, softened and made more rich and impressive by the sorrowwhich their departure caused. The influence of such sacred memories isin a certain sense more tender than that of life itself. Deathtransfigures our loved one, as it were, sweeping away the faults andblemishes of the mortal life, and leaving us an abiding vision, inwhich all that was beautiful, pure, gentle, and true in him remains tous. We often lose friends in the competitions and strifes of earthlylife, whom we would have kept forever had death taken them away in theearlier days when love was strong. Often is it true, as CardinalNewman writes:--

 "He lives to us who dies; he is but lost who lives. "

Thus even death doth not quench the influence of a good life. Itcontinues to bless others long after the life has passed from earth. It is true, as Mrs. Sangster writes:--

 "They never quite leave us, our friends who have passed Through the shadows of death to the sunlight above; A thousand sweet memories are holding them fast To the places they blessed with their presence and love. 

 "The work which they left and the books which they read Speak mutely, though still with an eloquence rare, And the songs that they sung, and the dear words that they said Yet linger and sigh on the desolate air. 

 "And oft when alone, and oft in the throng, Or when evil allures us, or sin draweth nigh, A whisper comes gently, 'Nay, do not the wrong, ' And we feel that our weakness is pitied on high. "

It must be remembered that not all influence is good. Evil deeds alsohave influence. Bad men live, too, after they are gone. Cried a dyingman whose life had been full of harm to others: "Gather up myinfluence, and bury it with me in my grave. " But the frantic, remorseful wish was in vain. The man went out of the world, but hisinfluence stayed behind him, its poison to work for ages in the livesof others. 

We need, therefore, to guard our influence with most conscientiouscare. It is a crime to fling into the street an infected garment whichmay carry contagion to men's homes. It is a worse crime to send out aprinted page bearing words infected with the virus of moral death. Themen who prepare and publish the vile literature which to-day goeseverywhere, polluting and defiling innocent lives, will have a fearfulaccount to render when they stand at God's bar to meet their influence. If we would make our lives worthy of God, and a blessing to the world, we must see to it that nothing we do shall influence others in theslightest degree to evil. 

In the early days of American art there went from this country toLondon a young artist of genius and of a pure heart. He was poor, buthad an aspiration for noble living as well as for fine painting. Amonghis pictures was one that in itself was pure, but that by a sensuousmind might be interpreted in an evil way. A lover of art saw thispicture and purchased it. But when it was gone the young artist beganto think of its possible hurtful influence on the weak, and hisconscience troubled him. He went to his patron and said, "I have cometo buy back my picture. " The purchaser could not understand him. "Didn't I pay you enough for it? Do you need money?" he asked. "I ampoor, " replied the artist, "but my art is my life. Its mission must begood. The influence of that picture may possibly be harmful. I cannotbe happy with it before the eyes of the world. It must be withdrawn. "

We should keep watch not only over our words and deeds in their intentand purpose, but also in their possible influence over others. Theremay be liberties which in us lead to no danger, but which to others, with less stable character and less helpful environment, would be fullof peril. It is part of our duty to think of these weaker ones and ofthe influence of our example upon them. We may not do anything, in ourstrength and security, which might possibly harm others. We must bewilling to sacrifice our liberty, if by its exercise we endangeranother's soul. This is the teaching of St. Paul in the words: "It isgood not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything wherebythy brother stumbleth"; and "If meat maketh my brother to stumble, Iwill eat no flesh for evermore, that I make not my brother to stumble. "

How can we make sure of an influence that shall be only a benediction?There is no way but by making our life pure and good. Just in themeasure in which we are filled with the Spirit of God and have the loveof Christ in us, shall our influence be holy and a blessing to theworld. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE MEANING OF OPPORTUNITIES. 

 "'To-day' unsullied comes to thee--newborn, To-morrow is not thine; The sun may cease to shine For thee, ere earth shall greet its morn. 

 "Be earnest, then, in thought and deed, Nor fear approaching night; Calm comes with evening light, And hope and peace. Thy duty heed 'to-day. '" --RUSKIN. 

If people's first thoughts were but as good and wise as theirafter-thoughts, life would be better and more beautiful than it is. Wecan all see our errors more clearly after we have committed them thanwe saw them before. We frequently hear persons utter the wish thatthey could go again over a certain period of their life, saying thatthey would live it differently, that they would not repeat the mistakesor follies which had so marred and stained the record they had made. 

Of course the wish that one might have a second chance with any pastperiod of time is altogether vain. No doubt there ofttimes is muchreason for shame and pain in our retrospects. We live poorly enough atthe best, even the saintliest of us, and many of us certainly make sadwork of our life. Human life must appear very pathetic, and ofttimestragical, as the angels look down upon it. There are almost infinitelyfewer wrecks on the great sea where the ships go, than on that othersea of which poets write, where lives with their freightage of immortalhopes and possibilities sail on to their destiny. We talk sometimeswith wonder of what the ocean contains, of the treasures that lieburied far down beneath the waves. But who shall tell of the treasuresthat are hidden in the deeper, darker sea of human life, where theyhave gone down in the sad hours of defeat and failure?

 "In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships, While gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell, Lie nestled in the ocean-flowers' bell With love's gemmed rings once kissed by now dead lips; And round some wrought-gold cup the sea-grass whips, And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell, And seek dim sunlight with their countless tips. 

 "So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes, Beneath the now hushed surface of myself. In lonelier depths than where the river gropes, They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold, In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf, The gleam of irrecoverable gold. "

Glimpses of these lost things--these squandered treasures, these wastedpossibilities, these pearls and gems of life that have gone down intothe sea of our past--we may have when the reefs are left bare by therefluent tides, but glimpses only can we see. We cannot recover ourtreasures. The gleams only mock us. The past will not give again itsgold and pearls to any frantic appealing of ours. 

There is something truly startling in this irreparableness of the past, this irrevocableness of the losses which we have suffered through ourfollies or our sins. About two centuries ago a great sun-dial waserected in All Souls' College, Oxford, England, the largest and noblestdial, it is said, in the whole kingdom. Over the long pointer werewritten, in large letters of gold, the Latin words, referring to thehours, "_Pereunt et imputantur_. " Literally, the meaning is, "Theyperish, and are set down to our account"; or, as they have beenrendered in terser phrase, "They are wasted, and are added to our debt. "

It is said that these words on the dial have exerted a wonderfulinfluence on the boyhood of many of the distinguished men who havereceived their training at Oxford, stimulating them to the mostconscientious use of the golden hours as they passed, and bearing fruitin long lives of earnestness and faithfulness. The lesson is one thatevery young person should learn. In youth the hours are full ofprivileges. They come like angels, holding in their hands richtreasures, sent to us from God, which they offer to us; and if we arelaggard or indolent, or if we are too intent on our own little triflesto give welcome to these heavenly messengers with their heavenly gifts, they quickly pass on and are gone. And they never come back again torenew the offer. 

On the dial of a clock in the palace of Napoleon at Malmaison, themaker has put, the words, "_Non nescit reverti_"; "It does not know howto go backward. " It is so of the great clock of Time--it never can beturned backward. The moments come to us but once; whatever we do withthem we must do as they pass, for they will never come to us again. 

Then privilege makes responsibility. We shall have to give account toGod for all that he sends to us by the mystic hands of the passinghours, and which we refuse or neglect to receive. "They are wasted andare added to our debt. "

The real problem of living, therefore, is how to take what the hoursbring. He who does this, will live nobly and faithfully, and willfulfil God's plan for his life. The difference in men is not in theopportunities that come to them, but in their use of theiropportunities. Many people who fail to make much of their life chargetheir failure to the lack of opportunities. They look at one who iscontinually doing good and beautiful things, or great and noble things, and think that he is specially favored, that the chances which come tohim for such things are exceptional. Really, however, it is in hiscapacity for seeing and accepting what the hours bring of duty orprivilege, that his success lies. Where other men see nothing, he seesa battle to fight, a duty to perform, a service to render, or an honorto win. Many a man waits long for opportunities, wondering why theynever come to him, when really they have been passing by him day afterday, unrecognized and unaccepted. 

There is a legend of an artist, who long sought for a piece ofsandal-wood out of which to carve a Madonna. At last he was about togive up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when ina dream he was bidden to shape the figure from a block of oak-wood, which was destined for the fire. Obeying the command, he produced fromthe log of common firewood a masterpiece. 

In like manner many people wait for great and brilliant opportunitiesfor doing the good things, the beautiful things, of which they dream, while through all the plain, common days, the very opportunities theyrequire for such deeds lie close to them, in the simplest and mostfamiliar passing events, and in the homeliest circumstances. They waitto find sandal-wood out of which to carve Madonnas, while far morelovely Madonnas than they dream of, are hidden in the common logs ofoak they burn in their open fire-place, or spurn with their feet in thewood-yard. 

Opportunities come to all. The days of every life are full of them. But the trouble with too many of us is that we do not make anything outof them while we have them. Then next moment they are gone. One mangoes through life sighing for opportunities. If only he had this orthat gift, or place, or position, he would do great things, he says;but with his means, his poor chances, his meagre privileges, hisuncongenial circumstances, his limitations, he can do nothing worthy ofhimself. Then another man comes up close beside him, with like means, chances, circumstances, privileges, and he achieves noble results, doesheroic things, wins for himself honor and renown. The secret is in theman, not in his environment. Mr. Sill puts this well in his lines:--

 "This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, 'Had I a sword of keener steel-- That blue blade that the king's son bears--but this Blunt thing. '--He snapt and flung it from his hand, And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that heroic day. "

With the blunt sword, broken now, which the craven had flung away asunfit for use, the princely hand won its great victory. Life is fullof illustrations of this very experience. The materials of life whichone man has despised and spurned as unworthy of him, as having in themno charmed secret of success, another man is forever picking up out ofthe dust, and with them achieving noble and brilliant successes. Men, alert and eager, are wanted, men with heroic heart and princely hand, to see and use the opportunities that lie everywhere in the mostcommonplace life. 

There is but one thing to do to get out of life all its possibilitiesof attainment and achievement; we must train ourselves to take whatevery moment brings to us of privilege and of duty. Some people worrythemselves over the vague wonder as to what the divine plan in life isfor them. They have a feeling that God had some definite purpose increating them, and that there is something he wants them to do in thisworld, and they would like to know how they can learn this divinethought for their life. The answer is really very simple. God isready to reveal to us, with unerring definiteness, his plan for ourlife. This revealing he makes as we go on, showing us each moment onelittle fragment of his purpose. Says Faber: "The surest method ofaiming at a knowledge of God's eternal purposes about us is to be foundin the right use of the present moment. Each hour comes with somelittle fagot of God's will fastened upon its back. "

We have nothing to do, therefore, with anything save the privilege andduty of the one hour now passing. This makes the problem of livingvery simple. We need not look at our life as a whole, nor even carrythe burden of a single year; if we but grasp well the meaning of theone little fragment of time immediately present, and do instantly allthe duty and take all the privilege that the one hour brings, we shallthus do that which shall best please God and build up our own life intocompleteness. It ought never to be hard for us to do this. 

 "God broke our years to hours and days, that hour by hour And day by day Just going on a little way, We might be able all along To keep quite strong. Should all the weight of life Be laid across our shoulder, and the future, rife With woe and struggle, meet us face to face At just one place, We could not go, Our feet would stop; and so God lays a little on us every day, And never, I believe, on all the way Will burdens bear so deep, Or pathways lie so threatening and so steep, But we can go, if by God's power We only bear the burden of the hour. "

Living thus we shall make each hour radiant with the radiancy of dutywell done, and radiant hours will make radiant years. But the missingof privileges and the neglecting of duties will leave days and yearsmarred and blemished and make the life at last like a moth-eatengarment. We must catch the sacred meaning of our opportunities if wewould live up to our best. 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE SIN OF INGRATITUDE. 

 "The sun may shine upon the clod till it is warm, Warm for its own poor darkling self to live. He smites the diamond, and oh, how glows the gem, Chilling itself, irradiant, to give. 

 "The silent soul, that takes but gives not out again, In shining thankfulness, a smile, a tear, Absorbing, makes none other glad, and misses so The purest and the best of love's rich cheer. " --MARY K. A. STONE. 

A blessing given ought always to have some return. It is better to bea diamond, lighted to shine, than a clod, warmed to be only a dull, dark clod. We all receive numberless favors, but we do not all alikemake fitting return. 

Krummacher has a pleasant little fable with a suggestion. WhenZaccheus was old he still dwelt in Jericho, humble and pious before Godand man. Every morning at sunrise he went out into the fields for awalk, and he always came back with a calm and happy mind to begin hisday's work. His wife wondered where he went in his walks, but he neverspoke to her of the matter. One morning she secretly followed him. Hewent straight to the tree from which he first saw the Lord. Hidingherself, she watched him to see what he would do. He took a pitcher, and carrying water, he poured it about the tree's roots which weregetting dry in the sultry climate. He pulled up some weeds here andthere. He passed his hand fondly over the old trunk. Then he lookedup at the place among the branches where he had sat that day when hefirst saw Jesus. After this he turned away, and with a smile ofgratitude went back to his home. His wife afterward referred to thematter and asked him why he took such care of the old tree. His quietanswer was, "It was that tree which brought me to him whom my soulloveth. "

There is no true life without its sacred memorial of special blessingor good. There is something that tells of favor, of deliverance, ofhelp, of influence, of teaching, of great kindness. There is somespot, some quiet walk, some room, some book, some face, that alwaysrecalls sweet memories. There is something that is precious to usbecause in some way it marks a holy place in life's journey. Most ofus understand that loving interest of Zaccheus in his old tree, and canbelieve the little fancy to be even true. In what life is there noplace that is always kept green in memory, because there a sweetblessing was received?

Yet there seem to be many who forget their benefits. There is muchingratitude in the world. It may not be so universal as some wouldhave us believe. There surely are many who carry in their hearts, undimmed for long years, the memory of benefits and kindnesses receivedfrom friends, and who never cease to be grateful and to show theirgratitude. Wordsworth wrote:--

 "I've heard of hearts unkind, Kind deeds with coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath left me oftener mourning. "

However, Archdeacon Farrar, referring to these words, says, "IfWordsworth found gratitude a common virtue, his experience must havebeen exceptional. " There certainly are hearts unkind that do returncoldness for kind deeds. There are children who forget the love andsacrifices of their parents and repay their countless kindnesses, notwith grateful affection, honor, obedience, thoughtfulness, and service, but with disregard, indifference, disobedience, dishonor, sometimeseven with shameful neglect and unkindness. There are those who receivehelp from friends in unnumbered ways, through years, help that bringsto them great aid in life--promotion, advancement, improvement incharacter, widening of privileges and opportunities, tender kindnessthat warms, blesses, and inspires the heart, and enriches, refines, andennobles the life--who yet seem never to recognize or appreciate thebenefit and the good they receive. They appear to feel no obligation, no thankfulness. They make no return of love for all of love'sministry. They even repay it with complaint, with criticism, withbitterness. We have all known years of continued favors forgotten, andtheir memory wiped out by one small failure to grant a new request forhelp. We have all known malignant hate to be the return for longperiods of lavish kindness. 

Ingratitude is robbery. It robs those to whom gratitude is due, for itis the withholding of that which is justly theirs. If you are kind toanother, is he not your debtor? If you show another favors, does nothe owe you thanks? True, you ask no return, for love does not work forwages. Only selfishness demands repayment for help given, and isembittered by ingratitude. The Christly spirit continues to give andbless, pouring out its love in unstinted measure, though no act or wordor look tells of gratitude. 

 "If thy true service mounted, in its aim, No higher than the praise that men bestow On noble sacrifice, there might be shame That thou hast missed it so. 

 "But not for selfish gain or low reward, Didst thou so labor under shade and sun; But with the conscious sense that for thy Lord This weary work was done. 

 "He asked no thanks, no recognition nigh, No tender acceptation of his grace, No pitying tear from one responsive eye, No answering human face. 

 "To do God's will--that was enough for Christ, 'Mid griefs that make all agonies look dim. It shall for thee suffice--it hath sufficed, As it sufficed for him. "

Yet while love does not work for wages, nor demand an equivalent forits services, it is sorely wronged when ungrateful lips are dumb. Thequality of ingratitude is not changed because faithful love is notfrozen in the heart by its coldness. We owe at least lovingremembrance to one who has shown us kindness, though no other returnmay be possible, or though large return may already have been made. Wecan never be absolved from the duty of being grateful. "Owe no mananything but love" is a heavenly word. We always owe love; that is adebt we never can pay off. 

Ingratitude is robbery. But it is cruelty as well as robbery. Italways hurts the heart that must endure it. Few faults or injuriescause more pain and grief in tender spirits than ingratitude. The painmay be borne in silence. Men do not speak of it to others, still lessto those whose neglect or coldness inflicts it; yet It is like thornsin the pillow. 

 "Blow, blow, thou winter wind; Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude. "

Parents suffer unspeakably when the children for whom they have lived, suffered, and sacrificed, prove ungrateful. The ungrateful child doesnot know what bitter sorrow he causes the mother who bore him andnursed him, and the father who loves him more than his own life; howtheir hearts bleed; how they weep in secret over his unkindness. We donot know how we hurt our friends when we treat them ungratefully, forgetting all they have done for us, and repaying their favors withcoldness. 

There is yet more of this lesson. Gratitude, to fulfil its gentleministry, must find some fitting expression. It is not enough that itbe cherished in the heart. There are many good people who fail at thispoint. They are really thankful for the good others do to them. Theyfeel kindly enough in their hearts toward their benefactors. Perhapsthey speak to other friends of the kindnesses they have received. Theymay even put it into their prayers, telling God how they have beenhelped by others of his children, and asking him to reward and blessthose who have been good to them. But meanwhile they do not in any wayexpress their grateful feelings to the persons who have done them thefavors or rendered them the offices of friendship. 

How does your friend know that you are grateful, if you do not in someway tell him that you are? Verily here is a sore fault of love, thiskeeping sealed up in the heart the generous feeling, the tendergratitude, which we ought to speak, and which would give so muchcomfort if it were spoken in the ear that ought to hear it. No pure, true, loving human heart ever gets beyond being strengthened and warmedto nobler service by words of honest and sincere appreciation. Flattery is contemptible; only vain spirits are elated by it. Insincerity is a sickening mockery; the sensitive soul turns away fromit in revulsion. But words of true gratitude are always to humanhearts like cups of water to thirsty lips. We need not fear turningpeople's heads by genuine expressions of thankfulness; on the otherhand, nothing inspires such humility, such reverent praise to God, asthe knowledge which such gratitude brings, --that one has been used ofGod to help, or bless, or comfort another life. 

Silence is said to be golden, and ofttimes, indeed, it is better thanspeech. "It is a fine thing in friendship, " says George MacDonald, "toknow when to be silent. " There are times when silence is the truest, fittest, divinest, most blessed thing, when words would only mar thehallowed sweetness of love's ministry. But there are times again whensilence is disloyalty, cruelty, unkind as winter air to tender plants. Especially is this true of gratitude; to be coldly silent, when theheart is grateful, is a sin against love. When we have a word ofthanks in our heart, which we feel we might honestly speak, and whichwe do not speak, we have sorely wronged our friend. 

Especially in homes ought there to be more grateful expression. Wewrong home friends more than any other friends. Home is where love istruest and tenderest. We need never fear being misunderstood by theloved ones who there cluster about us. Yet too often home is the veryplace where we are most miserly of grateful and appreciative words. Welet gentle spirits starve close beside us for the words ofaffectionateness that lie warm, yet unspoken, on our tongues. None ofus know what joy and strength we could impart to others, if only wewould train ourselves to give fitting, delicate, and thoughtfulexpression to the gratitude that is in our hearts. We would becomeblessings to all about us, and would receive into our life newgladness. Nothing is sadder than the sorrow witnessed about many aCoffin; the grief of bereavement and loss made bitter by the regretthat now the too slow gratitude of the heart shall never haveopportunity to utter itself in the ear which waited so long, hungry, and in vain, for the word that would have given such comfort. 

 "Over the coffin pitiful we stand, And place a rose within the helpless hand, That yesterday, mayhap, we would not see, When it was meekly offered. On the heart That often ached for an approving word, We lay forget-me-nots--we turn away, And find the world is colder for the loss Of this so faulty and so loving one. 

 "Think of that moment, ye who reckon close With love--so much for every gentle thought, The moment when love's richest gifts are naught: When a pale flower, upon a pulseless breast, Like your regret, exhales its sweets in vain. "

But it is not enough that we be grateful and show our gratitude to thehuman friends who do us kindnesses. It is to God that we owe all. Every good and perfect gift, no matter how it reaches us, through whatmessenger, in what form, "cometh down from above, from the Father oflights. " All the blessings of Providence, all the tender things thatcome to us through human love and friendship, are God's gifts. 

 "Whence came the father-heart in man, The mother-heart in woman? The love throughout the cosmic plan Which makes God's children human?

 "These never came: what we control Is good because 'tis given, And all made better to man's soul By the sweet touch of heaven. "

We owe thanks to God, therefore, for all that we receive. When we haveshown gratitude to our human benefactors, we still owe our HeavenlyFather thanks and gratitude. It is possible, too, for us to begrateful to the friends who help us, and yet be as atheists, neverrecognizing God, nor giving him any thanks. This is the sorest sin ofall. We rob God, and hurt his heart, every time we receive any favorat whatsoever hand, and fail to speak our praise to him. 

Whatever we may say about man's ingratitude to his fellow-men, there isno question about man's lack of gratitude to God. We are continuallyreceiving mercies and favors from him, and yet, are there not days anddays with most of us, in which we lift no heart and speak no word inpraise? Our prayers are largely requests and supplications for helpand favor, with but little adoration and worship. We continue askingand asking, and God continues giving and giving; but how many of usremember always or often to give thanks for answered prayer? The angelof requests--so the legend runs--goes back from earth heavily ladenevery time he comes to gather up the prayers of men. But the angel ofthanksgiving, of gratitude, has almost empty hands as he returns fromhis errands to this world. Yet ought we not to give thanks for allthat we receive and for every answered request? If we were to do thisour hearts would always be lifted up toward God in praise. 

There is a story of some great conductor of a musical festival suddenlythrowing up his baton, and stopping the performance, crying, "Flageolet!" The flageolet was not doing its part and the conductor'strained ear missed its one note in the large orchestra. Does not Godmiss any voice that is silent in the music of earth that rises up tohim? And are there not many voices that are silent, taking no part inthe song, giving forth no praise? Shall we not quickly start ourheart-song of gratitude, calling upon every power of our being topraise God?

CHAPTER XXI. 

SOME SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. 

 "The primal duties shine aloft like stars; The charities that sooth and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers. * * * * The smoke ascends To heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth As from the lofty palace. " --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Home life ought to be happy. The benediction of Christ on every hometo which he is welcomed as an abiding guest is, "Peace be to thishouse. " While perfection of happiness is unattainable in this world, rich, deep, heart-filling happiness certainly may be, and ought to be, attained. 

Yet it requires wise building and delicate care to make a home trulyand perfectly happy. Such a home does not come as a matter of course, by natural growth, wherever a family takes up its abode. Happiness hasto be planned for, lived for, sacrificed for, ofttimes suffered for. Its price in a home is always the losing of self on the part of thosewho make up the household. Home happiness is the incense that risesfrom the altar of mutual self-sacrifice. 

It may be said, in a word, that Christ himself is the one great, blessed, secret of all home happiness; Christ at the marriage altar;Christ when the baby is born; Christ when the baby dies; Christ in thedays of plenty; Christ in the pinching times; Christ in all thehousehold life; Christ in the sad hour when farewells must be spoken, when one goes on before and the other stays, bearing the burden of anunshared grief. Christ is the secret of happy home life. 

But for the sake of simplicity the lesson may be broken up. For onething, the husband has much to do in solving the problem. Does a manthink always deeply of the responsibility he assumes when he takes ayoung wife away from the shelter of mother-love and father-love, thewarmest, softest human nest in this world, and leads her into a newhome, where his love is to be henceforth her only shelter? No man isfit to be the husband of a true woman who is not a good man. He neednot be great, nor brilliant, nor rich, but he must be good, or he isnot worthy to take a gentle woman's tender life into his keeping. 

Then he must be a man, true, brave, generous, manly. He must be a goodprovider. He must be a sober man; no man who comes home intoxicated, however rarely, is doing his share in making happiness for his wife andfamily. He must be a man of pure, blameless life, whose name shallgrow to be an honor and a pride in his household. Husbands have agreat deal to do with the matter of happiness at home. 

The wife, too, has a responsibility. It should be understood at thevery beginning, that good housekeeping is one of the first secrets of ahappy home. If a man must be a good provider, a woman must be a goodhome-maker. No woman is ready to marry until she has mastered the finearts of housekeeping. Home is the wife's kingdom. She holds verylargely in her hands the happiness of the hearts that nestle there. The best husband, the truest, the noblest, the gentlest, therichest-hearted, cannot make his home happy if his wife be not in everysense a helpmeet. In the last analysis, home happiness does depend onthe wife. She is the true home-maker. 

Children, too, are great blessings, when God sends them, bringing intothe home rich possibilities of happiness. They cost care, and demandtoil and sacrifice; ofttimes causing pain and grief: yet the blessingthey bring repays a thousand times the care and cost. It is a sacredhour in a home when a baby is born and laid in the arms of a youngfather and mother. It brings fragments of heaven trailing after it tothe home of earth. There are few deeper, purer joys ever experiencedin this world than the joy of true parents at the birth of a child. Much of home's happiness along the years is made by the children. Wesay we train them, but they train us ofttimes more than we train them. Our lives grow richer, our hearts are opened, our love becomes holierwhen the children are about us. Croons a young mother over her babe:--

 "And art thou mine, thou helpless, trembling thing, Thou lovely presence? Bird, where is thy wing? How pure thou art! fresh from the fields of light, Where angels garner grain in robes of white. 

 "Didst thou bring 'sealed instructions' with thee, dove, How to unlock the fount of mother-love? Full well dost thou fulfil thy winsome part; With holy fire they're writ upon my heart. 

 "My child, I fear thee! thou'rt a spirit, soul! How shall I walk before thee? keep my garments whole? O Lord, give strength, give wisdom for the task, To train this child for thee! Yet more I ask:

 "Life of my life, for thee I crave best gifts and glad, More than, even in dreams, thy mother had! O Father! fine this gold! Oh, polish this, my gem! Till it is fair and fitting for thy diadem. "

Jesus said of little children that those who receive them, in his name, receive him. May we not then say that children bring great possibilityof blessing and happiness to a home? They come to us as messengersfrom heaven, bearing messages from God. Yet we may not know theirvalue while we have them. Ofttimes, indeed, it is only the empty criband the empty arms that reveal to us the full measure of home happinessthat we get from the children. Those to whom God gives children shouldreceive them with reverence. There are homes where mothers, who oncewearied easily of children's noises, sit now with aching hearts, andwould give the world to have a baby to nurse, or a rollicking boy tocare for. Children are among the secrets of a happy home. 

Turning to the life of the household, affectionateness is one of thesecrets of happiness. There are hundreds of homes in which there islove that would die for its dear ones; and yet hearts are starvingthere for love's daily bread. There is a tendency in some homes tosmother all of love's tenderness, to suppress it, to choke it back. There are homes where the amenities of affection are unknown, and wherehearts starve for daily bread. There are husbands and wives betweenwhom love's converse has settled into the baldest conventionalities. There are parents who never kiss their children after they are babies, and who discourage in them as they grow up all longing for caresses. There are homes whose daily life is marred by incessant petty strifesand discourtesies. 

These are not exaggerations. Yet there is love in these homes, and allthat is needed is that it be set free to perform its sweet ministry. There are cold, cheerless homes which could be warmed into love'srichest glow in a little while, if all the hearts of the household wereto grow affectionate in expression. Does the busy husband think thathis weary wife would not care any longer for the caresses and marks oftenderness with which he used to thrill her? Let him return again fora month to his old-time fondness, and then ask her if these youthfulamenities are distasteful to her. Do parents think their grown-upchildren are too big to be petted, to be kissed at meeting and parting?Let them restore again, for a time, something of the affectionatenessof the childhood days, and see if there is not a blessing in it. Manywho are longing for richer home happiness, need only to pray for aspring-time of love, with a tenderness that is not afraid ofaffectionate expression. 

 "Comfort one another; With the hand-clasp close and tender, With the sweetness love can render, And looks of friendly eyes. Do not wait with grace unspoken While life's daily bread is broken: Gentle speech is oft like manna from the skies. "

We ought not to fear to speak our love at home. We should get all thetenderness possible into the daily household life. We should make themorning good-byes, as we part at the breakfast-table, kindly enough forfinal farewells; for they may be indeed final farewells. Many go outin the morning who never come home at night; therefore, we should part, even for a few hours, with kindly word, with lingering pressure of thehand, lest we may never look again in each other's eyes. Tenderness ina home is not a childish weakness, is not a thing to be ashamed of; itis one of love's sacred duties. Affectionate expression is one of thesecrets of happy home life. 

Religion is another of these secrets. It is where the Gospel of Christis welcomed that heaven's benediction falls: "Peace be to this house. "There may be a certain measure of happiness in a home without Christ, but it lacks something at best, and then when sorrow comes, and the sunof earthly joy is darkened, there are no lamps of heavenly comfort tolighten the darkness. Sad indeed is the Christless home, when abeloved one lies dead within its doors. No words of Christian comforthave any power to console, because there is no faith to receive them. No stars shine through their cypress-trees. But how different it is inthe Christian home, in like sorrow! The grief is just as sore, but thetruth of immortality sheds holy light on the darkness, and there is adeep joy which transfigures the sorrow. 

Then may we not even put sorrow down as one of the secrets of happinessin a true Christian home? This may seem at first thought a strangesuggestion. But there surely are homes that have passed throughexperiences of affliction that have a deeper, richer, fuller joy nowthan they had before the grief came. The sorrow sobered theirgladness, making it less hilarious, but no less sweet. Bereavementdrew all the home hearts closer together. The loss of one from thecircle made those that remained dearer to each other than before. Thetears became crystalline lenses through which faith saw more deeplyinto heaven. Then in the sorrow Christ came nearer, entering morereally into the life of the home. Prayer has meant more since the darkdays. There has been a new fragrance of love in the household. Thereare many homes whose present rich, deep, quiet happiness sorrow helpedto make. 

But it is not in sorrow only that religion gives its benediction. Itmakes all the happiness sweeter to have the assurance of God's love andfavor abiding in the household. Burdens are lighter because there isOne who shares them all. The morning prayer of the family, when allbow together, makes the whole day fairer; and the evening prayer beforesleep, makes all feel safer for the night. Then religion inspiresunselfishness, thoughtfulness, the spirit of mutual helpfulness, ofburden-bearing, and serving, and thus enriches the home life. 

After a while the young folks scatter away, setting up homes of theirown. How beautiful it is then to see the old couple, who, thirty orforty years before, stood together at the marriage altar, standingtogether still, with love as true and pure and tender as ever, waitingto go home. By and by the husband goes away and comes back no more, and then the wife is lonesome and longs to go too. A little later andshe also is gone, and they are together again on the other side, thosedear old lovers, to be parted henceforth nevermore. And that is theblessed end of a happy Christian home. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

GOD'S WINTER PLANTS. 

 "The wind that blows can never kill The tree God plants; It bloweth east; it bloweth west; The tender leaves have little rest, But any wind that blows is best. The tree God plants Strikes deeper root, grows higher still, Spreads wider boughs, for God's good-will Meets all its wants. " --LILLIE E. BARR. 

One of the papers tells of a newly discovered flower. It is called thesnow-flower. It has been found in the northern part of Siberia. Theplant shoots up out of the ice and frozen soil. It has three leaves, each about three inches in diameter. They grow on the side of the stemtoward the north. Each of the leaves appears to be covered with littlecrystals of snow. The flower, when it opens, is star-shaped, itspetals being of the same length as the leaves, and about half an inchin width. On the third day the extremities of the anthers show minuteglistening specks, like diamonds, which are the seeds of this wonderfulflower. 

Is not this strange snow-flower an illustration of many Christianlives? God seems to plant them in the ice and snow; yet they live andgrow up out of the wintry cold into fair and wondrous beauty. Weshould say that the loveliest lives of earth would be those that arereared amid the gentlest, kindliest influences, under summer skies, inthe warm atmosphere of ease and comfort. But the truth is that thenoblest developments of Christian character are grown in the wintrygarden of hardship, struggle, and sorrow. 

Trial should not, therefore, be regarded with discouragement, assomething which will stunt and dwarf the life and mar its beauty. Itshould be accepted rather, when it comes, as part of God's discipline, through which he would bring out the noblest and best possibilities ofour character. Perhaps we would be happier for the time if we hadeasier, more congenial conditions. Children might be happier withoutrestraint, without family government, without chastening--just left togrow up into all wilfulness and waywardness. But there is somethingbetter in life than present happiness. Disciplined character inmanhood, even though it has been gotten through stern and severehome-training, is better than a childhood and youth of unrestraint, with a worthless manhood as the outcome. A noble life, bearing God'simage, even at the price of much pain and self-denial, is better thanyears of freedom from care and sacrifice with a life unblessed and lostat the end. "To serve God and love him, " says one, "is higher andbetter than happiness, though it be with wounded feet and bleedinghands and heart loaded with sorrow. "

 "So much we miss If love is weak; so much we gain If love is strong. God thinks no pain Too sharp or lasting to ordain To teach us this. "

It is well that we should understand how to receive trial so as to getfrom its hard experience the good it has for us. For one thing, weshould accept it always reverently. Resistance forfeits the blessingwhich can be yielded only to the loving, submissive spirit. Teachableness is the unvarying condition of learning. To rebel againsttrial is to miss whatever good it may have brought for us. There aresome who resent all severity and suffering in their lot as unkindnessin God. These grow no better under divine chastening, but instead arehurt by it. When we accept the conditions of our life, however hard, as divinely ordained, and as the very conditions in which, for a time, we will grow the best, we are ready to get from them the blessing andgood intended in them for us. 

Another important suggestion is that we faint not under trial. Thereare those who give up and lose all their courage and faith when troublecomes. They cannot endure suffering. Sorrow crushes them. They breakdown at once under a cross and think they never can go on again. Therehave been many lives crushed by affliction or adversity, which have notrisen again out of the dust. There have been mothers, happy andfaithful before, out of whose home one child has been taken, and whohave lost all interest in life from that day, letting their home growdreary and desolate and their other children go uncared for, as theysat with folded hands in the abandonment of their despairing, uncomforted grief. There have been men with bright hopes, who havesuffered one defeat or met with one loss, and then have let go in theirdiscouragement and have fallen into the dust of failure, never tryingto rise again. 

Nothing is sadder in life than such yieldings. They are unworthy ofimmortal beings. The divine intention in trial never is to crush us, but always to do good to us in some way, to bring out in us new energyof life. Whatever the loss, struggle, or sorrow, we should accept itin love, humility, and faith, take its lessons, and then go on into thelife that is before us. When one child is taken out of a home, themother should, with more reverent heart and more gentle hand, turn thewhole energy of her chastened life into love's channels, living morethan ever before for her home and the children that are left to her. The man who has felt the stunning blow of a sudden grief or loss shouldkiss the hand of God that has smitten, and quickly arise and pressonward to the battles and duties before him. We should never acceptany defeat as final. Though it be in life's last hours, with only amere fringe of margin left, and all our past failure and loss, still weshould not despair. 

 "What though the radiance which was once so bright, Be now forever taken from my sight; Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower, We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind. "

There is nowhere any better illustration of the way we should alwaysrise again out of trial than we have in the life of St. Paul. From theday of his conversion till the day of his death, trouble followed him. He was misunderstood; he was cast out for Christ's sake; he metpersecution in every form; he was shipwrecked; he lay in dungeons; hewas deserted by his friends. But he never fainted, never grewdiscouraged, never spoke one word about giving up. "Cast down, but notdestroyed, " was the story of his life. He quickly arose out of everytrial, every adversity, with a new light in his eye, a new enthusiasmin his heart. He could not be defeated, for he had Christ in him. Shall we not catch St. Paul's unconquerable spirit, that we may neverfaint in any trial?

It requires faith to meet trouble and adversity heroically. Undoubtedly, at the time, the blessing is not apparent in the sorrow orthe defeat. All seems disastrous and destructive. It is in thefuture, in the outworking, that the good is to come. It is a matter offaith, not of sight. "All chastening seemeth for the present to be notjoyous, but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit untothem that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit ofrighteousness. " Oh, the blessing of God's "afterwards"! Jacob one daythought and said that all things were against him, but afterward he sawthat his great afflictions and losses were wrought in as parts of abeautiful plan of love for him. The disciples thought that the crosswas the destruction of all their Messianic hopes; afterward they sawthat it was the very fulfilment of these hopes. The pruning, which atthe time cuts so into the life of the vine, lopping off great, richbranches, afterward is seen to have been the saving and enriching ofthe whole vine. So we always need faith. We must believe againstappearances. 

 "Under the fount of ill Many a cup doth fill, And the patient lip, though it drinketh oft, Finds only the bitter still. 

 "Nevertheless, I know, Out of the dark must grow, Sooner or later, whatever is fair, Since the heavens have willed it so. "

Back and forth the plough was driven. The field was covered withgrasses and lovely flowers, but remorselessly through them all theshare tore its way, cutting furrow after furrow. It seemed that allthe beauty was being hopelessly destroyed. But by and by harvest-timecame, and the field waved with golden wheat. That was what theploughman's faith saw from the beginning. 

Sorrow seems to destroy the life of a child of God. Its rude shareploughs again and again through it, making many a deep furrow, gashingits beauty. But afterward a harvest of blessing and good grows up outof the crushed and broken life. That is what God intends always intrial and sorrow. 

Let us have the ploughman's faith, and we shall not faint when theshare is driven through our heart. Then by faith we shall see beyondthe pain and trial the blessing of richer life, of whiter holiness, oflarger fruitfulness. And to win that blessing will be worth all thepain and trial. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

UNFINISHED LIFE-BUILDING. 

 "Let me not die before I've done for thee My earthly work, whatever it may be. Call me not hence, with mission unfulfilled; Let me not leave my space of ground unfilled; Impress this truth upon me, that not one Can do my portion, that I leave undone. "

We are all builders. We may not erect any house or temple on a citystreet, for human eyes to see, but every one of us builds a fabricwhich God and angels see. Life is a building. It rises slowly, day byday, through the years. Every new lesson we learn lays a block on theedifice which is rising silently within us. Every experience, everytouch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, everybook we read, every conversation we have, every act of our commonestdays, adds something to the invisible building. Sorrow, too, has itsplace in preparing the stones to lie on the life-wall. All lifefurnishes the material. 

 "Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. "

There are many noble fabrics of character reared in this world. Butthere are also many who build only low, mean huts, without beauty, which will be swept away in the testing-fires of judgment. There aremany, too, whose life-work presents the spectacle of an unfinishedbuilding. There was a beautiful plan to begin with, and the workpromised well for a little time; but after a while it was abandoned andleft standing, with walls half-way up, a useless fragment, open andexposed, an incomplete, inglorious ruin, telling no story of pastsplendor as do the ruins of some old castle or coliseum, a monumentonly of folly and failure. 

"There is nothing sadder, " writes one, "than an incomplete ruin; onethat has never been of use; that never was what it was meant to be;about which no pure, holy, lofty associations cling, no thoughts ofbattles fought and victories won, or of defeats as glorious asvictories. God sees them where we do not. The highest tower may bemore unfinished than the lowest to him. "

We must not forget the truth of this last sentence. There are, liveswhich to our eyes seem only to have been begun and then abandoned, which to God's eyes are still rising into more and more gracefulbeauty. Here is one who began his life-work with all the ardor ofyouth and all the enthusiasm of a consecrated spirit. For a time hishand never tired, his energy never slackened. Friends expected greatthings from him. Then his health gave way. The diligent hand liesidle and waiting now. His enthusiasm no more drives him afield. Hiswork lies unfinished. 

"What a pity!" men say. But wait! He has not left an unfinishedlife-work as God sees it. He is resting in submission at the Master'sfeet and is growing meanwhile as a Christian. The spiritual temple inhis soul is rising slowly in the silence. Every day is addingsomething to the beauty of his character, as he learns the lessons ofpatience, confidence, peace, joy, love. His building at the last willbe more beautiful than if he had been permitted to toil on through manybusy years, carrying out his own plans. He is fulfilling God's purposefor his life. 

We must not measure spiritual building by earthly standards. Where theheart remains loyal and true to Christ; where the cross of suffering istaken up cheerfully and borne sweetly; where the spirit is obedientthough the hands lie folded and the feet must be still, the templerises continually toward finished beauty. 

Or here is one who dies in early youth. There was great promise in thebeautiful life. Affection had reared for it a noble fabric of hope. Perhaps the beauty had begun to shine out in the face, and the handshad begun to show their skill. Then death came and all the fair hopeswere folded away. The visions of loveliness and the dreams of nobleattainments and achievements lay like withered flowers upon the grave. An unfinished life! friends cry in their disappointment and sorrow. Soit seems, surely, to love's eyes, from the earth-side. But so it isnot, as God's eye looks upon it. There is nothing unfinished thatfulfils the divine plan. God cuts off no young life till its earthlywork is done. Then the soul-building which began here and seemed to beinterrupted by death, was only hidden from our eyes by a thin veil, behind which it still goes up with unbroken continuity, rising intofairest beauty in the presence of God. 

But there are abandoned life-buildings whose story tells only of shameand failure. Many persons begin to follow Christ, and after a littletime turn away from their profession and leave only a pretentiousbeginning to stand as a ruin to be laughed at by the world and todishonor the Master's name. 

Sometimes it is discouragement that leads men to give up the work towhich they have put their hand. In one of his poems, Wordsworth tellsa pathetic story of a straggling heap of unhewn stones, and thebeginning of a sheepfold which was never finished. With his wife andonly son, old Michael, a Highland shepherd, dwelt for many years inpeace. But trouble came which made it necessary that the son should goaway to do for himself for a while. For a time good reports came fromhim, and the old shepherd would go out when he had leisure and wouldwork on the sheepfold which he was building. By and by, however, sadnews came from Luke. In the great dissolute city he had given himselfto evil courses. Shame fell on him and he was driven to seek ahiding-place beyond the seas. The sad tidings broke the old father'sheart. He went about as before, caring for his sheep. To the hollowdell, too, he would repair from time to time, meaning to build at theunfinished fold. But the neighbors in their pity noticed that he didlittle work in those sad days. 

 "'Tis believed by all That many and many a day he thither went And never lifted up a single stone. There by the sheepfold sometimes was he seen Sitting alone, with that his faithful dog, Then old, beside him, lying at his feet. The length of full seven years from time to time He at the building of his sheepfold wrought, And left the work unfinished when he died. "

Years after the shepherd was gone the remains of the unfinished foldwere still there, a sad memorial of one who began to build but did notfinish. Sorrow broke his heart and his hand slacked. 

Too often noble life-buildings are abandoned in the time of sorrow, andthe hands that were quick and skilful before grief came, hang down anddo nothing more on the temple-wall. Instead, however, of giving up ourwork and faltering in our diligence, we should be inspired by sorrow toyet greater earnestness in all duty and greater fidelity in all life. God does not want us to faint under chastening, but to go on with ourwork, quickened to new earnestness by grief. 

Want of faith is another cause which leads many to abandon theirlife-temples unfinished. Throngs followed Christ in the earlier daysof his ministry when all seemed bright, who, when they saw the shadowof the cross, turned back and walked no more with him. They lost theirfaith in him. It is startling to read how near even our Lord'sapostles came to leaving their buildings unfinished. Had not theirfaith come again after their Master arose, they would have left in thisworld only sad memorials of failure instead of glorious finishedtemples. 

In these very days there are many who, through the losing of theirfaith, are abandoning their work on the wall of the temple of Christiandiscipleship, which they have begun to build. Who does not know thosewho once were earnest and enthusiastic in Christian life, while therewas but little opposition, but who fainted and failed when it becamehard to confess Christ and walk with him?

Then sin, in some form, draws many a builder away from his work, toleave it unfinished. It may be the world's fascinations that draw himfrom Christ's side. It may be sinful human companionships that lurehim from loyal friendship to his Saviour. It may be riches that enterhis heart and blind his eyes to the attractions of heaven. It may besome secret, debasing lust that gains power over him and paralyzes hisspiritual life. Many are there now, amid the world's throngs, who oncesat at the Lord's Table and were among God's people. Unfinishedbuildings their lives are, towers begun with great enthusiasm and thenleft to tell their sad story of failure to all who pass by. They beganto build and were not able to finish. 

It is sad to think how much of this unfinished work God's angels see asthey look down upon our earth. Think of the good beginnings whichnever come to anything in the end; the excellent resolutions which arenever carried out, the noble life-plans entered upon by so many youngpeople with ardent enthusiasm, but soon given up. Think of thebeautiful visions and fair hopes which might be made splendidrealities, but which fade out, not leaving the record of even onesincere, earnest effort to work them into reality. 

In all lines of life we see these abandoned buildings. The businessworld is full of them. Men began to build, but in a little time theywere gone, leaving their work uncompleted. They set out with gladness, but tired at length of the toil, or grew disheartened at the slowcoming of success, and abandoned their ideal when it was perhaps justready to be realized. Many homes present the spectacle of abandoneddreams of love. For a time the beautiful vision shone in radiance, andtwo hearts sought to make it come true, but then gave it up in despair. 

So life everywhere is full of beginnings never carried out tocompletion. There is not a soul-wreck on the streets, not a prisonerserving out a sentence behind iron bars, not a debased, fallen oneanywhere, in whose soul there were not once visions of beauty, brighthopes, holy thoughts and purposes, and high resolves--an ideal ofsomething lovely and noble. But alas! the visions, the hopes, thepurposes, the resolves, never grew into more than beginnings. God'sangels bend down and see a great wilderness of unfinished fabrics, splendid possibilities unfulfilled, noble might-have-beens abandoned, ghastly ruins now, sad memorials only of failure. 

The lesson from all this is, that we should finish our work, that weshould allow nothing to draw us away from our duty, that we shouldnever weary in following Christ, that we should hold fast the beginningof our confidence steadfast unto the end. We should not falter underany burden, in the face of any danger, before any demand of cost andsacrifice. No discouragement, no sorrow, no worldly attraction, nohardship, should weaken for one moment our determination to be faithfulunto death. No one who has begun to build for Christ should leave anunfinished, abandoned life-work to grieve the heart of the Master andto be sneered at as a reproach to the name he bears. 

Yet we must remember, lest we be discouraged, that only in a relative, human sense can any life-building be made altogether complete. Ourbest work is marred and imperfect. It is only when we are in Christ, and are co-workers with him, that anything we do can ever be madeperfect and beautiful. But the weakest, and the humblest, who aresimply faithful, will stand at last complete in him. Even the merestfragment of life, as it appears in men's eyes, if it be truly inChrist, and filled with his love and with his Spirit, will appearfinished, when presented before the divine Presence. To do God's will, whatever that may be, to fill out his plan, is to be complete inChrist, though the stay on earth be but for a day, and though the workdone fulfil no great human plan, and leave no brilliant record amongmen. 

 "Thy work unfinished! Do not fear Though at his coming may be found The stone unset. Yet, for thy faith, beyond the skies Thine own shall be the longed-for prize. He knoweth best who calls from labor now To rest, to build no more. "

CHAPTER XXIV. 

IRON SHOES FOR ROUGH ROADS. 

 "Our feeble frame he knoweth, Remembereth we are dust; And evermore his face is kind, His ways are ever just. In evil and in blindness, Through darkened maze we rove, But still our Father leads us home, By strength of mighty love. " --MARGARET E. SANGSTER. 

The matter of shoes is important. Especially is this true when theroads are rough and hard. We cannot then get along without somethingstrong and comfortable to wear on our feet. One would scarcely expectto find anything in the Bible about such a need as this. Yet it onlyshows how truly the Bible is fitted to all our actual life to discoverin it a promise referring to shoes. 

In the blessing of Moses, pronounced before his death upon the severaltribes, there was this among other things for Asher: "Thy shoes shallbe iron. " A little geographical note will help to make the meaningplain. Part of Asher's allotted portion was hilly and rugged. Commonsandals, made of wood or leather, would not endure the wear and tear ofthe sharp, flinty rocks. There was need, therefore, for some specialkind of shoes. Hence the form of the promise: "Thy shoes shall beiron. "

Even the Bible words which took the most vivid local coloring from theparticular circumstances in which they were originally spoken, are yetas true for us as they were for those to whom they first came. We haveonly to get disentangled from the local allusions the real heart of themeaning of the words, and we have an eternal promise which every childof God may claim. 

Turning, then, this old-time assurance into a word fornineteenth-century pilgrims, we get from it some important suggestions. For one thing it tells us that we may have some rugged pieces of roadbefore we get to the end of our life-journey. If not, what need wouldthere be for iron shoes? If the way is to be flower-strewn, velvetslippers, as Dr. McLaren somewhere suggests, would do. No man wantsiron-soled shoes for a walk through a soft meadow. The journey is notlikely to be all easy. Indeed, an earnest Christian life is nevereasy. No one can live nobly and worthily without struggle, battle, self-denial. One may find easy ways, but they are not the worthiestways. They do not lead upward to the noblest things. One reason whymany people never grasp the visions of beauty and splendor which shinebefore them in early years is because they have not courage for roughclimbing. 

 "I reach a duty, yet I do it not, And, therefore, climb no higher; but if done, My view is brightened, and another spot Seen on my mortal sun; For be the duty high as angel's flight-- Fulfil it, and a higher will arise Even from its ashes. Duty is our ladder to the skies, And climbing not, we fall. "

We shall need our iron shoes if we are to make the journey that leadsupward to the best possibilities of our life. 

But the word is not merely a prophecy of rugged paths; it is also apromise of shoeing for the road, whatever it may be. One who ispreparing to climb a mountain, craggy and precipitous, would not put onsilk slippers; he would get strong, tough shoes, with heavy nails inthe soles. When God sends us on a journey over steep and flinty pathshe will not fail to provide us with suitable shoes. 

Asher's portion was not an accidental one; it was of God's choosing. Nor is there any accident in the ordering of the place, the conditions, the circumstances, of any child of God's. Our times are in God'shands. No doubt, then, the hardnesses and difficulties of any one'slot are part of the divine ordering for the best growth of the person'slife. 

There was a compensation in Asher's rough portion. His rugged hillshad iron in them. This law of compensation runs through all God'sdistribution of gifts. In the animal world there is a wonderfulharmony, often noted, between the creatures and the circumstances andconditions amid which they are placed. The same law rules in theprovidence of human life. One man's farm is hilly and hard to till, but deep down beneath its ruggedness, buried away in its rocks, thereare rich minerals. One person's lot in life is hard, with peculiarobstacles, difficulties and trials; but hidden in it there arecompensations of some kind. One young man is reared in affluence andluxury. He never experiences want or self-denial, never has tostruggle with obstacles or adverse circumstances. Another is reared inpoverty and has to toil and suffer privation. The latter seems to havescarcely an equal chance in life. But we all know where thecompensation lies in this case. It is in such circumstances that grandmanhood is grown, while too often the petted, pampered sons of luxurycome to nothing. In the rugged hills of toil and hardship, life'sfinest gold is found. 

There are few things from which young people of wealthy families suffermore than from over-help. No noble-spirited young man wants life madetoo easy for him by the toil of others. What he desires is anopportunity to work for himself. There are some things no other onecan give us; we must get them for ourselves. Our bodies must growthrough our own exertions. Our minds must be disciplined through ourown study. Our hearts' powers must be developed and trained throughour own loving and doing. One writes of two friends and two ways ofshowing friendship:--

 "One brought a crystal goblet overfull Of water he had dipped from flowing streams That rose afar where I had never trod-- Too far for even my quickened eye to see. They were fair heights, familiar to his feet-- They were cool springs that greeted him at morn, And made him fresh when noon was burning high, And sang to him when all the stars were out; His hand had led them forth, and their pure life Was husbanded, with sacred thrift, for flower, And bird, and beast, and man. The hills were his, And his the bright, sweet water. Not to me Came its renewal. I was still athirst. 

 "The other looked upon me graciously, Beheld me wasted with my bitter need, And gave me--nothing. With a face severe, And prophet brow, he bade me quickly seek My own hard quarry--there hew out a way For the imprisoned waters to flow forth Unhindered by the stubborn granite blocks That shut them in dark channels. I sprung up, For that I knew my Master; and I smote, Even as Moses, my gray, barren rock, And found sufficient help for all my house, All my servants, all my flocks and herds. "

The best friend we can have is the one, not who digs out the treasurefor us, but who teaches and inspires us with our own hands to open therocks and find the treasures for ourselves. The digging out of theiron will do us more good than even the iron itself when it is dug out. 

Shoes of iron are promised only to those who are to have rugged roads, not to those whose path lies amid the flowers. There is a comfortingsuggestion here for all who find peculiar hardness in their life. Peculiar favor is pledged to them. God will provide for the ruggednessof their way. They will have a divine blessing which would not betheirs but for the roughness and ruggedness. The Hebrew parallelismgives the same promise, without figure, in the remaining words of thesame verse: "As thy days so shall thy strength be. " Be sure, if yourpath is rougher than mine, you will get more help than I will. Thereis a most delicate connection between earth's needs and heaven's grace. Days of struggle get more grace than calm, quiet days. When nightcomes stars shine out which never would have appeared had not the sungone down. Sorrow draws comfort that never would have come in joy. For the rough roads there are iron shoes. 

There is yet another suggestion in this old-time promise. The divineblessing for every experience is folded up in the experience itself, and will not be received in advance. The iron shoes would not be givenuntil the rough roads were reached. There was no need for them untilthen, and besides, the iron to make them was treasured in the ruggedhills and could not be gotten until the hills were reached. 

A great many people worry about the future. They vex themselves byanxious questioning as to how they are going to get through certainanticipated experiences. We had better learn once for all that thereare in the Bible no promises of provision for needs while the needs areyet future. God does not put strength into our arms to-day for thebattles of to-morrow; but when the conflict is actually upon us, thestrength comes. "As thy days so shall thy strength be. "

Some people are forever unwisely testing themselves by questions likethese: "Could I endure sore bereavement? Have I grace enough to bow insubmission to God, if he were to take away my dearest treasure? Orcould I meet death without fear?" Such questions are unwise, becausethere is no promise of grace to meet trial when there is no trial to bemet. There is no assurance of strength to bear great burdens whenthere are no great burdens to be borne. Help to endure temptation isnot promised when there are no temptations to be endured. Grace fordying is nowhere promised while death is yet far off and while one'sduty is to live. 

 "Of all the tender guards which Jesus drew About our frail humanity, to stay The pressure and the jostle that alway Are ready to disturb, what'er we do, And mar the work our hands would carry through, None more than this environs us each day With kindly wardenship--'Therefore, I say, Take no thought for the morrow. ' Yet we pay The wisdom scanty heed, and impotent To bear the burden of the imperious Now, Assume, the future's exigence unsent. God grants no overplus of power: 'tis shed Like morning manna. Yet we dare to bow And ask, 'Give us to-day our _morrow's_ bread. '"

There is a story of shipwreck which yields an illustration that comesin just here. Crew and passengers had to leave the broken vessel andtake to the boats. The sea was rough, and great care in rowing andsteering was necessary in order to guard the heavily-laden boats, notfrom the ordinary waves, which they rode over easily, but from thegreat cross-seas. Night was approaching, and the hearts of all sank asthey asked what they should do in the darkness when they would nolonger be able to see these terrible waves. To their great joy, however, when it grew dark they discovered that they were inphosphorescent waters and that each dangerous wave rolled up crestedwith light which made it as clearly visible as if it were mid-day. 

So it is that life's dreaded experiences, when we meet them, carry inthemselves the light which takes away the peril and the terror. Thenight of sorrow comes with its own lamp of comfort. The hour ofweakness brings its own secret of strength. By the brink of the bitterfountain itself grows the tree whose branch will heal the waters. Thewilderness with its hunger and no harvest has daily manna. In darkGethsemane, where the load is more than mortal heart can bear, an angelappears, ministering strength that gives victory. When we come to thehard, rough, steep path we find iron for shoes. The iron will be inthe very hills over which we shall have to climb. 

So we see that the matter of shoes is very important. We are pilgrimshere and we cannot walk barefoot on this world's rugged roads. Are ourfeet shod for the journey?

"How can I get shoes, and where?" one asks. Do you remember aboutChrist's feet, that they were pierced with nails? Why was it? That wemight have shoes to wear on our feet, and that they might not be cutand torn on the way. 

Christ's dear feet were wounded and sore with long journeys over thornsand stones, and were pierced through with cruel nails, that our feetmight be shod for earth's rough roads, and might at last enter thegates of pearl and walk on heaven's gold-paved streets. 

Dropping all figure, the whole lesson is that we cannot get along onour life's pilgrimage without Christ; but having Christ we shall beready for anything that may come to us along the days and years. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE SHUTTING OF DOORS. 

 "Never delay To do the duty which the hour brings, Whatever it be in great or smaller things; For who doth know What he shall do the coming day?"

The shutting of a door is a little thing and yet it may have infinitemeaning. It may fix a destiny for weal or for woe. When God shut thedoor of the ark the sound of its closing was the knell of exclusion tothose who were without, but it was the token of security to the littlecompany of trusting ones who were within. When the door was shut uponthe bridegroom and his friends who had gone into the festal hall, thussheltering them from the night's darkness and danger, and shutting themin with joy and gladness, there were those outside to whose hearts theclosing of that door smote despair and woe. To them it meant hopelessexclusion from all the privileges of those who were within and exposureto all the sufferings and perils from which those favored ones wereprotected. 

Here we have hints of what may come from the closing of a door. Lifeis full of illustrations. We are continually coming up to doors whichstand open for a little while and then are shut. An artist has triedto teach this in a picture. Father Time is there with invertedhour-glass. A young man is lying at his ease on a luxurious couch, while beside him is a table spread with rich fruits and viands. Passing by him toward an open door are certain figures which representopportunities; they come to invite the young man to nobleness, tomanliness, to usefulness, to worth. First is a rugged, sun-brownedform, carrying a flail. This is labor. He invites the youth to toil. He has already passed far by unheeded. Next is a philosopher, withopen book, inviting the young man to thought and study, that he maymaster the secrets in the mystic volume. But this opportunity, too, isdisregarded. The youth has no desire for learning. Close behind thephilosopher comes a woman with bowed form, carrying a child. Her dressbetokens widowhood and poverty. Her hand is stretched out appealingly. She craves charity. Looking closely at the picture we see that theyoung man holds money in his hand. But he is clasping it tightly, andthe poor widow's pleading is in vain. Still another figure passes, endeavoring to lure and woo him from his idle ease. It is the form ofa beautiful woman, who seeks by love to awaken in him noble purposes, worthy of his powers, and to inspire him for ambitious efforts. One byone these opportunities have passed, with their calls and invitations, only to be unheeded. At last he is arousing to seize them, but it istoo late; they are vanishing from sight and the door is closing. 

This is a true picture of what is going on all the time in this world. Opportunities come to every young person, offering beautiful things, rich blessings, brilliant hopes. Too often, however, these offers andsolicitations are rejected and one by one pass by, to return no more. Door after door is shut, and at last men stand at the end of theirdays, with beggared lives, having missed all that they might havegotten of enrichment and good from the passing days. 

Take home. A true Christian home, with its love and prayer and all itsgentle influences, is almost heaven to a child. The fragrance of thelove of Christ fills all the household life. Holiness is in the veryatmosphere. The benedictions of affection make every day tender withits impressiveness. In all life there come no other such opportunitiesfor receiving lovely things into the life, and learning beautifullessons, as in the days of childhood and youth that are spent in a homeof Christian love. Yet how often are all these influences resisted andrejected. Then by and by the door is shut. The heart that made thehome is still in death. The gentle hand that wrought such blessing iscold. Many a man in mid-life would give all he has to creep back forone hour to the old sacred place, to hear again his mother's voice incounsel or in prayer, to feel once more the gentle touch of her handand to have her sweet comfort. But it is too late. The door is shut. 

Take education. Many young people fail to realize what goldenopportunities come to them in their school-days. Too often they makelittle of the privileges they then enjoy. They sometimes waste inidleness the hours they ought to spend in diligent study and helpfulreading. They might, if they would, fit themselves for high andhonorable places in after years; but they let the days pass with theiropportunities. By and by they hear the school door shut. Then, allthrough their years they move with halting step, with dwarfed life, with powers undeveloped, unable to accept the higher places that mighthave been theirs if they had been prepared for them, failing often induties and responsibilities--all because in youth they wasted theirschool-days and did not seize the opportunities that then came to themfor preparation. Napoleon, when visiting his old school, said to thepupils, "Boys, remember that every hour wasted at school means a chanceof misfortune in future life. " Thousands of failures along the yearsof manhood and womanhood attest the truth of this monition. 

Friendship is another opportunity that offers great blessing. Beforeevery young person stand two kinds of friends, ever reaching out abeckoning hand. The one class whisper of pleasures that lead to sinand debasement. They offer the young man the wine-glass, thegambling-table, the gratification of lust and passion. They offer theyoung woman flattery, gay dress, the dance, pleasures that will tarnishher womanly purity. We all know the end of such friendship. 

But there is another class of friends who stand before young people, wooing them to noble things. They may be plain, perhaps homely, almoststern in their earnestness of purpose and in the seriousness with whichthey talk of life. They call to toil, to diligence, to self-denial, toheroic qualities of character, to purity, to usefulness, to "whatsoeverthings are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things arehonorable, whatsoever things are lovely. " It is impossible tooverstate the value of the blessings that true, wise, and worthyfriendship offers to the young. It seeks to incite and stimulate themto their best in character and achievement. It would lift them up tolofty attainment, to splendid victoriousness. The young people to whomcomes the offer of such friendship are most highly favored. 

But how often do we see the blessing rejected for the solicitation ofmere idle pleasures that bring no true good, that entangle the life inall manner of complications, that lead into the ways of temptation, andthat too often end in disaster and sorrow. 

There is a time for the choosing of friends, and when that time ispassed and the choice has been made, the door is shut. Then it is toolate to go back. There are many people in mid-life, bound now in thechains of evil companionships, who would give all they have for thesweet delights and pure pleasures of friendship which once might havebeen theirs, which in youth reached out to them in vain white hands ofimportunity and blessing. But it is too late; the door is shut. 

So it is with the opportunities of doing good to others, comforting, helping, cheering, lightening burdens, giving gladness and joy. Westand continually before open doors which we do not enter. Ofttimes weshrink with timid feeling from the sweet ministry, holding back thesympathetic word or restraining ourselves from the doing of the gentlekindness, thinking our proffer of love might be unwelcome. Or we donot perceive the opportunity to give a blessing. This is true veryoften, especially in the closer and more tender intimacies of life. Wedo not recognize the heart-hunger in our loved ones, and we walk withthem day by day, failing to help them in the thousand ways in which wemight help them, until they are gone from us and the door is shut. Then all we can do is to bear the pain of regret, having only the hopethat in some way in the life beyond, we may be able to pay--though solate--love's debt. 

 "How will it be When you at last in heaven we see-- Dear souls, whose footsteps in lost days Made musical earth's toil-worn ways, While we not half the loneliness That bound you to our side could guess? Where angels know your footfall we Are fain to be. 

 "We never knew-- So heedlessly we walked with you-- The drops we jostled from your cup, That spilt, could not be gathered up; We might have given you foam and glow From our own beaker's overflow; Ah! what we might have been to you We never knew. 

 "We might have lent Such strength, such comfort and content To you, out of our ample store; We might have hastened on before To lift the shadows from your way, Darkened, ere noon, to twilight's gray; With earth's chilled air love's warm heart-scent We might have blent. 

 "Dear, wistful eyes, Ye haunt us with your kind surprise, Your tender wonder that a heart Should thus be left alone, apart, So loving, so misunderstood By us, in our self-centred mood: Alas! in vain to you arise Our longing cries. 

 "Oh, will you wait For us beyond the shining gate? Though lovely gifts behind you left, We want yourselves; we are bereft. From your new mansion glorious Will you lean out to look for us? Shut is the far-off, shining gate-- Are we too late?"

These are but illustrations. The same is true in all phases of life. Every day doors are opened for us which we do not enter. For a littletime they stand open with bidding and welcome, and then they areclosed, to be opened no more forever. To every one of us along ouryears there come opportunities, which, if accepted and improved, wouldfit us for worthy character, and for noble, useful living, and lead usin due time to places of honor and blessing. But how many of us thereare who reject these opportunities and lose the good they brought forus from God! Then one by one the doors are shut, cutting off theproffered favors while we go on unblessed. 

There is another closing of doors which is even sadder than any ofthose which have been suggested. There is a shutting of our ownheart's door upon God himself. He stands at our gate and knocks andthere are many who never open to him at all, and many more who open thedoor but slightly. The latter, while they may receive blessing, yetmiss the fulness of divine revealing which would flood their souls withlove; the former miss altogether the sweetest benediction of life. 

 "He that shuts Love out in turn shall be Shut out from Love, and on his threshhold lie Howling in outer darkness. Nor for this Was common clay made from the common earth, Moulded by God and tempered with the tears Of angels to the perfect shape of man. "

This sad sound of closing doors, as it falls day after day upon oursoul's ears, proclaims to us continually that something which was ours, which was sent to us from God, and for which we shall have to answer injudgment, is ours no longer, is shut away forever from our grasp. Itis a sad picture--the five virgins standing at midnight before a closeddoor through which they might have entered to great joy and honor, butwhich to all their wild importunity will open no more. It is sad, yetmany of us are likewise standing before closed doors, doors that oncestood open to us, but into which we entered not, languidly loiteringoutside until the sound of the shutting fell upon our ear as the knellof hopeless exclusion:--

 "Too late! Too late! Ye cannot enter now!"

Of course the past is irreparable and irrevocable, and it may seem idleto vex ourselves in thinking about doors now closed, that no tears, noprayers, no loud knockings, can ever open again. Yes; yet the futureremains. The years that are gone we cannot get back again, but newyears are yet before us. They too will have their open doors. Shallwe not learn wisdom as we look back upon the irrevocable past and makesure that in the future we shall not permit God's doors of opportunityto shut in our faces?