The beauty of every day

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The Beauty of Every Day

By
J. R. Miller.

Glass T)V ' :

Book

Copyright N°_

COPYRIGHT DEPOSHV

Wot Peautp of Cberp 2iaj>

DR. J. E. MILLEE'S BOOKS

A Heart Garden

Joy of Service

Beauty of Every Day

Lesson of Love

Bethlehem to Olivet

Making the Most of Life

Building of Character

Ministry of Comfort

Come ye Apart

Morning Thoughts

Dr. Miller's Year Book

Personal Friendships of

Evening Thoughts

Jesus

Every Day of Life

Silent Times

Finding the Way

Story of a Busy Life

For the Best Things

Strength and Beauty

Gate Beautiful

Things to Live for

Glimpses through Life's

Upper Currents

Windows

When the Song Begins

Go Forward

Wider Life

Golden Gate of Prayer

Young People's Problems

Hidden Life

BOOKLETS

Beauty of Kindness

Marriage Altar

Blessing of Cheerfulness

Mary of Bethany

By the Still Waters

Master's Friendships

Christmas Making

Secret of Gladness

Cure for Care

Secrets of Happy Home

Face of the Master

Life

Gentle Heart

Summer Gathering

Girls ; Faults and Ideals

To-day and To-morrow

Glimpses of the Heavenly

Transfigured Life

Life

Turning Northward

How? When? Where?

Unto the Hills

In Perfect Peace

Young Men ; Faults and

Inner Life

Ideals

Loving my Neighbor

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY

peautp of €berj> ©ap

j/r/miller

AUTHOR OF " SILENT TIMES," " MAKING THE MOST
OF LIFE," "UPPER CURRENTS," ETC.

" This could but have happened once, —
And we missed it, lost it forever."

Bbowning

lUeto iorfe

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS

\

n*

Copyright, 1910, by Thomas Y. Crowell fy Co.

Published September, 1910.

©CI.A273076

fc S *

r. 1 HESE simple chapters may have their mes-
sages for new friends and old, — those who for
many years have been reading the authors books
and those who may pick up this volume by chance.
The lessons are not new^ yet they may touch lives
that need them ; and if they do not take away bur-
dens, they may make hearts braver and stronger

to bear them.

J. R. M.

Philadelphia, U. S, A.

TITLES OF CHAFfERS

I. While we May Page 1

II. The Glory of the Common Life 15

III. Seeds of Light 31

IV. He Calls us Friends 47
V. Not Counting God 61

VI. Perfection in Loving 77

VII. Shut thy Door 89

VIII. What to do with Doubts 105

IX. Things that Hurt Life 119

X. Getting Away from our Past 135

XI. Thomas's Mistake 149

XII. Friends and Friendship 161

XIII. The Yoke and the School 175

XIV. The Weak Brother 191
XV. The Lure of the Ministry 207

XVI. Narrow Lives 221

XVII. The True Enlarging of Life 235

XVIII. Through the Year with God 249

XIX. The Remembers 263

XX. Caring for the Broken Things 279

mtyit mt jfta?

" There is a nest of thrushes in the glen;

When we come back we '11 see the glad young things ,"
He said. We came not by that way again;

And time and thrushes fare on eager wings!

"Yon rose" she smiled. "But no; when we return,
I '11 "pluck it then." 'T was on a summer day.

The ashes of the rose in autumn's urn

Lie hidden well. We came not back that way.

Thou traveller to the unknown ocean's brink,
Through life's fair fields, say not, " Another day

This joy I '11 prove; " for never, as I think,
Never shall we come this selfsame way.

m^tle Wit ffiav

ESUS defended Mary when
the disciples criticised her
anointing of him. They
said the ointment should
have be^n sold and the money
given to the poor, instead of being used for
a mere personal service. But Jesus said to
them, " Ye have the poor always with you,
and whensoever ye will ye can do them good ;
but me ye have not always." Whatever
they did for him, they must do then. In a
little while he would not be with them any
more. There would never be a day when
they could not minister to the poor, but he
would not sit again at Mary's table. If she
had not brought her alabaster cruse that
evening and broken it, she never would have
done it.

If you know that this is the last day you
will have a certain rare friend, that to-night

[3]

€$e QBeaut? of dEtoet? ?®ay

he will vanish from your companionship, and
you will never see him again, you will sur-
round him with the warmest devotion and
lavish upon him your heart's holiest affec-
tion while you may.

This is a lesson we should learn well. Op-
portunities come to-day and pass, and will
never come to us again. Other opportunities
will come to-morrow, but these will never re-
turn. The human needs that make their
appeal to you now will be beyond the reach of
your hand by another day. Whatever kind-
ness you would do, you must do now, for you
may not pass this way again. If we realized
this truth as we should, it would make the
common events of our life mean far more than
they do. We are always meeting experiences
which are full of rich possible outcome. God
is in all our days and nights. Opportunities
come to us with the hour, with the moment,
and each one says to us, " Me ye have not
always." If we do not take them as they
come, we cannot take them at all.

There are two kinds of sins, as the old

[4]

Wfyilt Wit jttai?

moralists put it — sins of omission and sins
of commission — sins of doing, as when we
do evil things, and sins of not doing, as when
we neglect to do the things we ought to have
done. One comes to you in distress, needing
cheer, some kindly help., or deliverance from
some danger, and you let the trouble go un-
relieved, the sorrow uncomforted, the want
unsupplied. The opportunity has passed
and you have missed it. There is a blank in
your life ; you have left a duty undone.

One virtuous and pure in heart did pray:
" Since none I wronged in deed or word to-day,
From whom should I crave pardon?
Master, say."

A voice replied:
" From the sad child whose joy thou hast not

planned ;
The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;
The rose that died for water from thy hand."

Everyone we meet any day comes to us
either to receive some gift or blessing from
us, or to bring some gift or blessing to us.
We do not think of this, usually, in our

m

C&e I3eautv of €Uvy ^a?

crowded days, in the confusion of meetings
and partings. We do not suppose there is
any meaning in what we call the incidental
contacts of life, as when we ride upon the
car beside another, for a few minutes, or
meet another at a friend's house and talk a
little while together, or when we sit beside
another in the same office day after day.
We are not in the habit of attaching any
importance to these contacts with others.
We do not suppose that God ordered this
meeting or that, that he sent this person to
us because the person needs us, and that we
are to do something for him, or else we need
something, some influence, some inspiration,
some cheer, from him. But the fact is that
God is in all our life and is always ordering
its smallest events.

When the older people think of it, they
will see that this is true. When they look
back over their years, they will find that the
strange network of circumstances and experi-
ences that has marked their days has not
been woven by chance, is no confused tangle

[6]

mtyiz mt i^at

of threads, crossing and recrossing, without
plan or direction, but rather that it makes
a beautiful web, with not one thread out of
place. The whole is the filling out of a pat-
tern designed by the great Master of life.
Most of the friendships of our lives are made
in this way — you and your friend meeting
first by chance, as we would say. You did
not choose each other. Emerson spoke for
all when he said, " My friends have come to
me unsought; the great God gave them to
me." All life is thus full of God.

Jesus taught the importance of the pres-
ent opportunity in the Garden of Gethsem-
ane. He asked three of his disciples to
keep watch with him while he went deeper
into the shadows and knelt in prayer. A
great anguish was upon him and he needed
and craved human sympathy. After his first
agony of supplication he came back to his
friends, hoping to get a little strength from
their love, but found them asleep. In his
bitter disappointment he returned to his place
of prayer. A second time he came back, and

[7]

C^e Beaut? of (fcbtvy ?^a?

again they were asleep. The third time he
said to them, " Sleep on now, and take your
rest." There was no need to wake and
watch any longer. The hour had come, the
traitor was approaching, the torches were
flashing through the trees. There is a
strange pathos in the Master's final words.
The disciples had had their opportunity for
helping him, but had not improved it. They
had slept when his heart was crying out for
their waking. Now the hour was past when
waking would avail, and they might as well
sleep on.

We do not dream of the criticalness of life,
of the mighty momentousness there is in the
hours through which we pass, what blessing
and good come to us when we watch and are
faithful, what loss and sorrow come when we
sleep and are faithless. " Me ye have not
always " is the voice of every opportunity
to receive good in some form. We miss God's
gift because we shut our hearts upon it, and
only when it is too late, when the gifts have
vanished, are we ready to accept them. Or

[8]

WityXz Wit jHai?

it may be an opportunity to do something
for another. We dally, and the opportunity
passes. The person perishes, perhaps, be-
cause we were not awake.

Opportunities differ in their importance.
" Ye have the poor always with you, and
whensoever ye will ye can do them good : but
me ye have not always." Jesus was defend-
ing Mary's act of love to him. If Mary had
not brought her precious ointment that night,
she never could have brought it. She had
wrought a good work on him. We never can
know what great good she wrought on him,
how much comfort and strength she gave to
him. He was carrying then the heaviest load
any heart ever carried. We all remember
hours of great need in our own lives, hours
of anxiety, of sorrow, of pain, when a word
spoken to us, or a flower sent to our room,
or a card coming through the mail, or some
little human touch, came to us as a very mes-
senger of God. We never can tell how Mary's
love helped Jesus that night. The disciples
said the ointment was wasted, did no one any

[9]

€^e iszmty of €toeri? ^a?

good. Ah ! they did not know what that
expression of love meant to the Master, how
it cheered him, how it heartened him for
going on to his cross. If they had known,
they never would have said that the ointment
would have done more good if it had been
applied to relieving the poor.

There would have been times when the
poor should have had the benefit of Mary's
gift. If the cruse of oil had been broken to
honor some unworthy man, it would have
been wasted. But Jesus was the Son of God.
This particular hour was one when he needed
love, when he craved sympathy, when he
longed to be strengthened. In all time there
never was an hour when a simple gift of love
could have meant so much as Mary's meant
that night in Simon's house. " Me ye have
not always." The blessing which the three
hundred shillings would have given to the
poor never could have been compared for a
moment with the blessing which the ointment,
as an expression of love, was to Jesus.

Life is full of similar contrasts in the value
[10]

mtyit taut pay

of opportunities. There are commonplace
opportunities, and there are opportunities
which are radiant and splendid. There are
days and days when the best use one can
make of money is to give it to those who need
it, or to some institution. Then there comes
a day, an hour, when some rare and sacred
need arises, which eclipses in importance as
day excels night in its brightness, all common
needs, — a need which must be met instantly
and heroically and at once. A few times in
every good man's life there comes a moment
of supreme importance, when every other
appeal or call for help must be unheeded for
one which must be answered at once. There
are many things which must be done instantly,
or they cannot be done at all. An artist was
watching a pupil sketch a sunset scene. He
noticed that the young man was lingering on
his sketching of a barn in the foreground,
while the sun was hastening to its setting.
The artist said to his pupil, " Young man,
if you lose more time sketching the shingles
on the barn roof, you will not catch the sun-

C^e TBeaut? of Cfcetv ?£>at

set at all." This is just what many people
do. They give all their time to commonplace
things, to fences and barn roofs and sheds,
and miss the glorious sunsets. They give to
the poor and help them, but have no thought
for Christ. They toil for honor, money, and
fame, and never see God nor get acquainted
with him. There are friendships which never
reach their possible richness and depths of
beauty, playing only along the shore, while
the great ocean of love lies beyond unex-
plored. They miss the really splendid things
in life, while they live for the poor and sordid
things.

We do not begin to realize how many of
us pay heed only to second-rate things, while
we miss altogether the great things of life.
We spend hours upon newspapers, never
reading a book that is worth while. All the
best opportunities of life are transient.
They are with us to-day, but to-morrow they
are gone. " Me ye have not always." There
is a time for forming friendships, but it does
not stay always. Miss it, and to-morrow you

[12]

mtyu mt jHa?

cannot find it. There is a time for making a
beautiful home life, but soon the time is gone
if it is not improved. Impatience, fretful-
ness, selfishness, irritability, nagging — you
know how the beauty is marred, the brightness
dimmed, the sweetness embittered by these.
When two young people marry and begin to
make a home, they have almost infinite pos-
sibilities before them. But the vision must
be seized at once, and not a moment must be
lost. " Me ye have not always," the oppor-
tunity says to the home-builders. Some years
after they find that they have failed, that
the vision has faded, and that they cannot
get it back again.

To every young person there comes in the
bright days the opportunity of living a beau-
tiful life, but it comes only once and it stays
only for a little while. The vision will not
wait. " Me ye have not always," it says.
There are some things we can do any time,
but this is not true of following Christ. We
think it is — that we can accept him and take
the blessings of his love when we will, but it is

[13]

W$z 'Beaut? of cEber? ?®ay

not true. Delay dulls and hardens our
hearts. Delay uses up the moments of his
waiting and eats up our opportunity. At
our convenience we say, " I will take him
now " ; we turn and he is gone.

All the best things are transient. George
Klingle has written a little poem, entitled,
"While We May." The words startle us.
" While we may " suggests that there will
come a time when we may not.

" They are such fond, frail lips

That speak to us. Pray, if love strips

Them of discretion many times,
Or if they speak too slow or quick, such crime

We may pass by, for we may see
Days not far off when those small words may be
Held not as slow or quick, or out of place, but dear

Because the lips are no more here."

As we gather about our home table let us
remember we may not all be there again, and
let us make the meal one of sweetness and joy.
Let us be patient with one another, kind and
thoughtful, gentle, while we may. Soon we
shall not have each other.

[14]

C^e dBao?? of t^e Common life

He had time to see the beauty

That the Lord spread all round;
He had time to hear the music

In the shells the children found;
He had time to keep repeating

As he bravely worked aivay:
"It is splendid to be living

In the splendid world to-day ! "
But the crowds — the crowds that hurry

After golden prizes — said
That he never had succeeded.

..." He was a failure," they compassionately
sighed.
For the man had little money in his pockets when he
died.

II

C^e dftot^ of ttje Common life

T was only a scrubby bush
that Moses saw in the desert,
and yet it gleamed with
splendor, as if burning. No
wonder the old shepherd
turned aside to look at the strange sight. He
wanted to solve the mystery. But a voice
halted him. God was in the bush. Mrs.
Browning, referring to this singular incident
says:

" Earth 's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes:
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.5

The poet's thought is that the glory of God
is in everything, in every tree, in every flower,
in every lowly bush, and that almost nobody
sees the glory. Most people see only the

[17]

C^e OBeaut? of cBber? ?W

burning bush or the plant. Only now and
then one sees the flame, the splendor of God,
and takes off his shoes.

To many people life is all a dreary com-
monplace. Some see nothing beautiful in
nature. They will walk through the loveli-
est gardens and see nothing to admire. They
will move among people and never observe in
them any glimpses of immortality, any re-
vealings of the divine nature. They will go
through all the years and never see God in
anything. It would give us a radiant world
in nature if our eyes were opened to see the
splendor that is in every tree, plant, and
flower.

An artist was painting a picture which he
hoped might be honored at the Academy. It
was of a woman, struggling up a street, on
a wild, stormy night, carrying her baby in her
arms. Doors were shut in her face. No-
where was there warmth, sympathy or love
for her. The artist called the picture
" Homeless.55 As he was painting it, im-
agination filled his soul with divine pity.

[18]

C^e dMor? of t^e Common Life

" Why do I not go to lost people themselves,
to try to save them, instead of merely paint-
ing pictures of them ? " he began to ask. The
common bush burned with fire. Under the
impulse of the new feeling he gave himself
to Christ and to the Christian ministry. He
went to Africa as a missionary, devoting his
life to the saving of the lowest lost. If we
had eyes touched by divine anointing, we
should see in every outcast, in every most
depraved life, the gleaming of every possible
glory.

Many of the best people in the world are
lowly and obscure. They have no shining
qualities, no brilliant gifts. Yet if we could
see them as they really are, we would find the
thorn bush burning with fire. They are full
of God. Christ lives in them. There is a
story of a Christian Italian who works with
pick and shovel, walking two miles every
morning to his task. He lives on the plainest
food. Yet he is the happiest man in all his
neighborhood. He has a secret which keeps
him happy in all his toil and pinching.

[19]

C^e CBeautt of Cfcer? &&V

Away in Italy he has a wife and two child-
ren, and he is working and saving to bring
them to America, where he is building a
home for them. His lowly thorn bush of
hardness and poverty is aflame with the fire
of love.

God is found usually in most unlikely
places. When the shepherds went to seek
for the Holy Child, they did not go to fine
mansions, to the homes of the great or rich,
to earthly palaces — they found the Babe in
a stable, sleeping in a manger. Lowell's
" Vision of Sir Launfal " is a story for all
days and all places. As the knight rode out
from his castle gate at the beginning of his
quest for the holy grail, he tossed a coin to
the leper who sat by the wayside begging.
Through all lands he rode in a vain search
for the sacred cup. At length, old, broken,
and disappointed, but chastened, he re-
turned home. There sat the leper as before,
by the castle gate. The knight has learned
love's lesson. He shares his last crust with
the leper. He breaks the ice on the stream

[20]

C^e <B\oty of ti&e Common tilt

near by, brings water in his wooden bowl,
and gives the beggar to drink. Then the
leper is revealed as the Christ and the bowl
as the holy Cup.

Ofttimes it is in lowliest ways that God
is found, after men have sought long for
him in vain, in ways of splendor. A dis-
ciple asked the Master to show him the
Father. He thought the revealing would
come in some heavenly splendor. Jesus said
that he had been showing the Father in all
the years he had been with the disciples. He
referred to his everyday life of love and
kindness. You say you never have seen God,
and that you wish you could see him. You
could believe in him more easily if you could
see him sometimes. That is what the dis-
ciples thought and said. " Show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us," was their plead-
ing. Yet they really had been seeing the
Father all the three years.

So it is that Christ comes to us contin-
ually in plain garb, in lowly ways, without
any apparent brightness. We decline tasks

[21].

C^e TStauty of &Uty &ay

and duties that are assigned to us, thinking
they are not worthy of our fine hands, not
knowing that they are holy ministries which
angels would eagerly perform. Not one of
the disciples that last night would take the
basin and the towel and wash the feet of the
others and of the Master. Washing feet
was the lowliest of all tasks — the meanest
slave in the household did it. But while
these proud men scoffed and shrank from
the service, Jesus himself did it. Then they
saw that washing the feet of others in love
is divine in its splendor. The thorn bush
burned with fire.

Some of the happiest people in the world
are doing the plainest tasks, are living in
the plainest way, have the fewest luxuries,
scarcely ever have an hour for rest or play.
They are happy because they are contented.
They love God. They follow Christ. They
have learned to love their work and do it
with delight, with eagerness, with enthu-
siasm. A pastor tells of calling at a little
home in one of the smallest houses in his

[22]

C^e (Mot? of t^e Common life

great parish. There is a widow who goes out
to work all day, and a girl of twenty who
also works. There is a boy of ten or twelve
who is at school. It would not have been
surprising if a tone of discontent had been
found in the little home, or if there had
been complaints about their hard condition.
But the pastor heard no word that was not
glad. The three people in the little house had
learned to see brightness in their humble cir-
cumstances. All the dreariness was touched
with a heavenly gleam. The rough thorn
bush burned with fire.

The angels find much of earth's truest
happiness in most unlikely places. Many of
the sweetest Christians in the world are those
who have least of earthly gladness. Their
joy is the joy of the Lord, a joy which is
transmuted sorrow. Many of the songs
which are fullest of praise are sung in
chambers of pain. St. Paul had learned to
rejoice in tribulation. Many of the most ra-
diant experiences of Christian life are born
of pain. Jesus gave a beatitude for sorrow:

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C^e I3eauti? of €Uty 3®ay

" Blessed are they that mourn : for they
shall be comforted."

The North American Indians have a
strange and beautiful fancy. They say that
as the flowers fade, their beauty is not lost,
but is gathered up into the rainbow, and
thus the flowers live again in even richer
colors than before. So the blessings that
are taken out of our hands on earth are only
gathered into heavenly blessedness, where
they shall be ours forever. The rough thorn
bush of sorrow is made by faith to appear
in unfading glory, to glow in the radiance of
God's eternal love.

There are certain lives which we are accus-
tomed to look upon and think of with pity.
Their condition is always one of suffering.
One person is blind and helpless ; another is
crippled so as never to be able to leave her
room; another is paralyzed and cannot use
her hands or feet; another is a hopeless in-
valid. We pity these people, and think their
case is forlorn. Yes, but nowhere do you
find such trust, such patience, such shining

[24]

C^e d5loti? of t^e Common JLtfe

as in their lives. The thorn bushes bum
with fire and are not consumed.

Many people never have learned to see
God in their everyday life. It seems to them
their life is not worthy of them, that its
splendor is lost in their commonplace tasks.
In a little book published a few years since
there was a story of a young minister vis-
iting among his people. One day he called
on an old shoemaker. He began to talk to
the old man, and inadvertently spoke of his
occupation as humble. The shoemaker was
pained by the minister's word.

" Do not call my occupation lowly ; it is
no more lowly than yours. When I stand
before God in judgment, he will ask about
my work, and will ask what kind of shoes I
made down here, and then he will want me
to show him a specimen. He will ask you
what kind of sermons you preached to your
people, and will have you show him one.
And if my shoes are better than your ser-
mons, then I shall have fuller approval than
you will have."

[25]

C^e 'hzauty of €toer? 3^a?

The old man was not offended, he was only
impressed with the honor of his own calling,
as God saw it. He was right, too. No oc-
cupation is in itself lowly — the commonest
kind of work is radiant if it is done for God.
We shall each be judged indeed by the way
we have done the work of our profession,
our trade, or our calling. What we do for
Christ is glorious, however lowly it is in
itself.

There is an impression that the calling of
a minister is more sacred than that of the
carpenter, the shoemaker, or the merchant.
But the old man was right when he said that
his calling was as honorable as his pastor's.
They do not have an ordination service for
the painter or the grocer; but why should
they not have? There really is a splendor,
a radiancy, in each one's peculiar occupa-
tion, however plain it may seem. St. Paul
said to the Corinthians, " Let each man,
wherein he was called, therein abide with
God." The slave was to continue a slave,
with God. The tradesman was to continue in

[26]

C^e <£>loti? of t^e Common Life

his trade, with God. We should not feel hu-
miliated by our earthly condition — we should
glorify it. The angels, as they go about, do
not recognize rank in people's occupations,
— some graded low, some high. We are
ranked by the degree of diligence or faithful-
ness that we put into our tasks. The bright,
cheery, good-hearted bootblack, who " shines
'em up," is far above the useless, way-up
millionaire who never thinks of God or man.
You can live a noble, divine life anywhere
with God. Your humblest thorn bush burns
with fire.

One whose life seems lowly writes : " Some
of my friends pity me for having to work in
a factory, but I feel honored that God should
call me to work at something like my Mas-
ter's earthly calling, and I do not feel that
polishing and packing watch crystals is my
real mission in this world any more than
carpentering was His." The thorn bush
burns with fire.

We go to far-off lands to see the splendors
there. Italy is glorious. Switzerland is

[27]

€^e QBeaut? of €Uvy l®ay

glorious. But there is glory also in every
common blade of grass, in every tiny flower,
in every bud, in every leaf, in every butter-
fly. You read biographies of great men and
are charmed by what they did, by the noble
qualities you find in their character. That
is well. But just where you are there are
glories too. In your own life there are di-
vine possibilities. You have not yet begun
to find them all or realize them.

Perhaps you have been thinking rather
discouragingly about yourself. You feel that
you have hardly a fair share of comfort, of
opportunities, of privileges. You have been
almost fretting because you are not getting
on or getting up as fast as you want to.
You have been discontented, depressed. Ask
God to open your eyes and you will see your
thorn bush burning with fire. Your every-
day life is full of splendor. There is not a
single hour in your commonest day that is
uneventful. You are thinking that there are
no miracles any more. But there really are as
many miracles any week as there were in the

[28]

C^e c0iort of ttye Common life

life of any Bible saint. Or, you have been
thinking of your troubles, that you have
more than your share of them. Tourists
come back from their travels and tell us about
the lace weavers. Their work seems to the
observer a great tangle, a strange puzzle.
But out of it all there comes marvellous
beauty. Life seems a tangle, a puzzle, to us,
as we look at its events, its circumstances, its
sorrows and joys. But in the end we shall
see that not one thread was ever thrown into
the wrong place in the web. God is in all
our life.

" I think if thou couldst see.
With thy dim mortal sight,
How meanings dark to thee
Are shadows hiding light,
Truth's efforts crossed and vexed,
Life's purposes all perplexed, —
If thou couldst see them right,
I think that they would seem all clear
And wise and right."

[29]

£s>tm of Ifgftt

Lord Shaftesbury used to quote a Scotch proverb —
" Be aye stickiw in a tree." He icould add, " Some
one will rest under the branches, if you don't"
That is the right principle. " One man soiceth and
another reapeth," but both shall share " in the joy
of God's harvest."

" God's love hath in us wealth unheaped:
Only by giving it is reaped.
The body withers and the mind
If pent in by a selfish rind.

Give thought, give strength, give deeds, give pelf,
Give love, give tears, and give thyself.

Grive, give, be always giving:

Who gives not is not living:
The more we give the more we live.
Plant your tree! "

Ill

$>tm of iugi)t

N one of the Psalms we are
told that light is sown for the
righteous and gladness for
the upright in heart. There
is nothing remarkable in the
assurance of light and gladness for the faith-
ful, — that is the teaching of the whole Bible.
The remarkable thing in the promise is the
way the light and gladness are said to come.
" Light is sown for the righteous." The
figure of sowing is striking, — light coming
in seeds, planted like wheat, to grow up for
us out of the soil. Our blessings are sown
for us and grow in fields and gardens, and we
gather them as we reap the harvests or pluck
lovely flowers.

This means that the good things of our
lives do not come to us full-grown, but as
seeds. We know what a seed is. It contains
only in germ the plant, the tree, or the

[33]

C^e iseaut? of dEfoer? J®ty

flower which is to be. In this way all earthly
life begins. When God wTants to give an oak
to the forest, he does not set out a great tree ;
he plants an acorn. When he would have a
harvest of golden wheat waving on the field,
he does not work a miracle and have it spring
up over night — he puts into the farmer's
hands a bushel of wheat grains to scatter in
the furrows. The same law holds in the
moral and spiritual life. " The kingdom of
heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed,
which a man took, and sowed in his field:
which . . . becometh a tree." So a noble
life begins in a little seed, a mere point of
life. It is at first only a thought, a sugges-
tion, a desire, then a decision, a holy purpose.
God sows light and gladness for us. He
gives us blessings as seeds, which he buries
in the furrows of our lives, or hides in the soil,
so that they may grow and in due time de-
velop into beauty and fruitfulness. When
you look at a seed you do not see all the
splendor which will unfold from it at length.
All you see is a little brown and unsightly

[34]

^eeog of Htg^t

hull which gives no prophecy of the beauty
which will spring from it when it is planted
and dies and grows up. Many of the beams
of light, — comfort, strength, joy, and good,
that now are so prominent in your life, came
to you at first as unwelcome things. They
did not shine as beams of radiant light. They
were not glad things. They may have been
burdens, disappointments, sufferings, losses,
but they were seeds with life in them. God
was sowing light and gladness for you in
these experiences which were so unwelcome,
so hard to endure.

There are many ways in which God has
sown light in the past. Think of the seeds of
light sown in the creation and preparation
of the earth to be our home. In the account
of creation, we have a wonderful glimpse of
the divine heart and of God's love for man,
his child. The building of the earth was no
accident. It did not spring into being and
develop into beauty without thought and pur-
pose. There was divine design in it. From
the beginning, God meant the earth to be the

[35]

€^e beauty of cftjer? &a?

home of his children, and so we find love-
thoughts everywhere. God looked forward
and put in provisions, planned conveniences,
stored blessings that would make the earth
ages afterward a happy home for his chil-
dren, lacking nothing.

We have it in the Genesis story. There
was only chaos. " The earth was waste and
void ; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep." A marginal reading is, " The Spirit
of God was brooding upon the face of the
waters." The picture which the words sug-
gest is that of a hen sitting on her nest,
covering her eggs with her wings, brooding
over them. So God brooded over the chaos
of the world he was preparing, thinking in
love of his children to be asons hence, and
planning for their happiness and good.

Through all the great ages of world-
building, we find evidences of this divine
brooding and forethought. Think of all the
beauty put into the earth which was to be
man's home, of all the good and useful things
stored in nature for man's comfort, ages

[36]

$>tm of ifj$t

before there was a man on the earth. Think,
for instance, of the vast beds of coal laid up
among earth's strata, that our homes might
be warm and bright in these late centuries.
Think of the minerals piled away in the rocks,
of electricity stored in exhaustless measures
and kept hidden until these modern days, to
be of such incalculable service to mankind.
Look at the springs of water opened on every
hillside ; note the provision in every clime and
zone for man's food and raiment. All this
marvellous preparation was made ages before
man's creation. It was God sowing seeds of
light and gladness, that in due time they
might grow and fill the world with good.

Or think of the way Jesus Christ sowed
light and gladness for his people in his incar-
nation. What was he doing in those beautiful
years of his, those days of sharp temptation,
those hours of suffering? He was sowing
seeds of light and gladness, the blessings of
whose brightness we are receiving now. Or
think of the divine promises as seeds of light,
seeds of gladness, sown in the fields of the

[37]

C^e OBeautv of (Bbtxy l®ay

holy word. Wherever they grow they yield
joy and beauty. Deserts are made to blos-
som as the rose, wherever the sower goes forth
to sow.

God's sowing was not all in the past, in
forethought. He is sowing light and glad-
ness for us every day. Every duty given to
us is a seed of light, sown for us. We may
not see the shining in it as it first presents
itself. Many of us do not like duty. We
prefer to follow our own inclinations. A
good woman, speaking of something some
one was urging her to do and which she was
trying to evade, said, " I suppose it must be
my duty, I hate it so." Ofttimes our duties
at first seem distasteful, even repulsive. They
have no attraction for us. But when we ac-
cept them and do them, they are transformed.
We then begin to see good in them, blessing
to ourselves, help to others. Seeds are some-
times dark and rough as we look at them, but
when they are planted there emerges a beauti-
ful tree or a lovely flower. So disagreeable
tasks when done appear bright and glad.

[38]

^>eeD$ of tigftt

One tells of a homely picture which should
hearten humdrum life. It shows a poor,
discouraged-looking horse in a treadmill.
Round and round he tramps in the hot, dusty
ring, not weary only, we might say, of the
toil, but also of its endlessness and its boot-
lessness. Yet there is more of the picture.
The horse is harnessed to a beam from which
a rope reaches down the hill to the river's
edge, and there it is seen that the animal is
hoisting stones to build a great bridge, on
which by and by trains will run, carrying a
wealth of human life and commerce. This
transforms the horse's treadmill tramping
into something worth while. It is not bootless.
Good comes out of it.

There are men and women in workshops,
in homes, in trades, in the professions, in
Christian life's service, who sometimes grow
weary of the drudgery, the routine, the self-
denial, the endlessness of their tasks, with
never a word of praise or commendation to
cheer them. But if we could see to what these
unhonored toils and self-denials reach, what

[39]

they accomplish, the blessings they carry to
others, the bridges they help to build on
which others cross to better things, the picture
would be transformed. It is in these com-
monplace tasks, these lowly ministries, that
we find life's true beauty and glory.

" God's angels drop like grains of gold
Our duties midst life's shining sands,

And from them, one by one, we mould
Our own bright crowns with patient hands.

a From dust and dross we gather them ;
We toil and stoop for love's sweet sake

To find each worthy act a gem

In glory's kingly diadem
Which we may daily richer make."

Every duty, however unwelcome, is a seed
of light. To evade it or neglect it is to miss
a blessing ; to do it is to have the rough seed
burst into beauty in the heart and life of the
doer. We are continually coming up to stern
and severe things, and often we are tempted
to decline doing them. If we yield to such
temptations, we shall reap no joy from God's
sowing of light for us ; but if we take up the

[40]

^>eeD$ of JLtg^t

hard task, whatever it is, and do it cheerfully,
we shall find blessing. Our duties are seeds
of light.

God sows his seeds of light and gladness
also in the providences of our lives. They do
not always seem bright and good at the time.
Sometimes, indeed, we cannot see anything
beautiful in them, or anything good. For
example, Joseph's kidnapping and carrying
into Egypt. No one supposes that the boy
saw anything happy or radiant in the things
that befell him at the hands of his brothers.
There could scarcely have been the slightest
gladness in his heart as he found himself hope-
lessly in the hands of his enemies. Yet that
strange experience in the boy's life was really
a seed of light. It was only a seed, however,
at the time. It seemed then the utmost cruelty
in the men who did it. Some people ask
about such a murderous piece of inhumanity,
" How can God be kind, and permit such
wickedness? " Still it was a seed of light and
gladness. God used that terrible crime to
enfold in itself a great blessing. Twenty

[41]

C^e "Beauty of €Uty J®ay

years or so afterwards the seed had grown
into a plant of good and blessing.

Some of the providences in all our lives
come to us first in alarming and forbidding
form. They are seeds of light which God has
sown, but the light is not apparent. They
come to us in losses, sufferings, disappoint-
ments. Yet they are seeds of light, and in
due time the light will break out. At first
they seem only destructive, but afterward
blessing appears in them. We dread adver-
sity, but when its work is finished, we find
that we are enriched in heart and life. We
are reluctant to accept painful providences ;
afterward we learn that our disappointments
are divine appointments.

God is ever bringing good to us, never evil.
He goes before us and scatters the furrows
full of seeds, seeds of light. It is not visible
light that he scatters, but dull seeds, carrying
hidden in them the secret of light. Then by
and by, as we come after him, the light in
the seeds breaks forth, just at the right time,
and our way is made bright. There is not a

[42]

^>tm of ifg^t

single dark spot in all our path, if only we
are living righteously. There are places
which seem dark as we approach them. We
are afraid, and ask, " How can I ever get
through that point of gloom? " But when
we come to it, the light shines out and it is
radiant as day.

According to the old legend, our first parent
was in great dread as the first evening of his
life approached. The sun was about to set.
He trembled at the thought of the disaster
which would follow. But the sun went down
silently, and lo ! ten thousand stars flashed
out. The darkness revealed more than it hid.
So, for every darkness in our life, God has
stars of light ready to shine.

We need never dread hardness, for it is
in the hard experiences that the seeds of light
are hidden. The best things never are the
easiest things. The best men are not grown
in luxury and self-indulgence. We dread
crosses, but it is only in cross-bearing that
we find life's real treasures. In every cross
God hides his seeds of radiant light. Accept

[43]

€^e TStauty of <£totty J&w

the cross, take it up, and the light will shine
out.

God wants us to go forth every day as
sowers of light and gladness. Whether we
mean it so, or not, we are sowers, every one
of us, every day of our life, every step of our
way. The question is, What kinds of seeds
do we sow? The Master, in one of his little
stories, tells us of an enemy who, after the
farmer had scattered good seed over his field,
came stealthily and secretly sowed tares
among the wheat. What seed did you
sow yesterday? Did you plant only pure
thoughts, good thoughts, holy thoughts,
white, clean thoughts, gentle, loving thoughts,
in the gardens of people's lives where you
sowed? It is a pitiful thing for any one
to put an evil thought into the mind of
another.

God wants us to sow only good seeds.
Seeds of light! He wants us to make this
world brighter. Seeds of gladness ! He
wants us to make the world happier. Some
people do neither. They sow gloom, discour-

[44]

^>eei>0 of itg^t

agement, wherever they go. They sow sad-
ness, pain, grief. If we are this kind of sower,
we are missing our mission, we are disap-
pointing God, we are making the world less
bright and less happy.

But think of one who, wherever he goes,
sows only seeds of light and gladness. His
life is pure, for only pure hands can sow seeds
of light. He is a sincere lover of men, as his
Master was. He never thinks of himself. He
never spares himself when any other needs his
service. He is anxious only to do good to
others, to make them better, to make them
gladder. Let us be sowers of light and of
gladness always and everywhere. Thus shall
we help Christ to change deserts into rose
gardens and to fill the world with light and
love.

[45]

l$t Call* m ftitnttf

The world remembers, In that year

A nation/ 's splendid victory;
The year I first beheld your face
Is all it means to me.

Another year. How could I reck

War, famine, earthquake, aught beside?
My heart knows only one event —
It was the year you died.

When, Lord, shall I be fit — when wilt

Thou call me friend?
Wilt Thou not one day, Lord?

IV

l^e Calls m tfrienDg

HEN Jesus called his dis-
ciples his friends, he meant
that he was also their friend.
Then he intimates something
of the meaning of his friend-
ship for them when he says that he called them
no longer his slaves, but his friends. There
is a vast difference in the two. The slave
does not have the master's confidence. He
is only a piece of property. He has no
rights, no privileges, is never consulted
about anything, has no share in the mat-
ters considered, no liberty of opinion even
regarding his own work. A friend, how-
ever, is taken into equality, into comrade-
ship, then into confidence. He is conferred
with, is a partner in his friend's affairs.
Friendship with Christ gives thus the highest
exaltation possible to any man. How com-
monplace are the loftiest elevations of earth

[49]

C^e "Beaut? of €Uty 2£a?

compared with the privilege of being a friend
of Christ!

But is Christ the friend of his followers in
these days? Is it possible for the Christian
to establish a personal friendship with Jesus
Christ like that which John and Peter had
with him ? Yes ; he died, then rose again and
ever lives, walking with us on the earth, our
companion, our friend. There is no other
one who can be to us the one thousandth part
in closeness, in intimacy, in fellowship, that
Christ can be. He is the realest friend any
of us can have.

Think what Jesus was as a friend to the
poor people to whose door he came in the days
of his flesh. Perhaps he did not seem to do
much for them. He did not build them any
larger or better houses, nor give them richer
food, nor make softer beds for them to sleep
on, nor weave for them finer, warmer gar-
ments to wear. He was not what men call a
philanthropist. He endowed no institutions of
charity. A recent writer says : " The Son
of man was dowered at birth above the rest

[50]

f e Calls m tfrteutig

with the impulse and the power to love and to
minister. . . . His compassion for the multi-
tude because they were distressed and scat-
tered as sheep not having a shepherd, his
charity for the outcast, the oppressed, and the
weary, his affection for the innocence of child-
hood, are among the tenderest and sweetest
chapters in the history of our race, and seem
to have made the profoundest impression both
upon those whose exceeding fortune it was to
see his human countenance, and upon the ages
that came after."

The friendship of Jesus to the common
people was not shown in what he did in mate-
rial ways, nor in what he took away of the
common burdens, the hardness, the wrongs
they suffered, but in his sympathy for them,
in the cheer and courage he put into their
hearts, in the peace within which he imparted,
which made them better able to go on in their
lives of toil and struggle. So it is that to-day
the friendship of Christ is at work among
people, making them braver to bear their bur-
dens. Nothing does so much to help those

[51]

C^e 'Beaut? of €btty 1®ay

who suffer as to know that somebody cares.
The most that even Christian teaching can do
ofttimes is to assure the struggling world that
Christ feels and sympathizes.

Think what the friendship of Jesus did for
his disciples. They were not great men, wise,
or cultured. Dr. W. J. Dawson says of him,
" He spent his wealth of intellect upon infe-
rior persons, — fishermen and the like, who
did not comprehend one tithe of what he
said." This means that his personality was
the chief power of attraction in him, — that
his gentleness, faith, and goodness were more
influential than even his gracious wofds. The
apostles were drawn and influenced, no doubt,
more by the man himself than by the great-
ness of his words. Men who could not under-
stand his wonderful teachings were blessed,
comforted, cheered, uplifted by the power of
his personality. It was wonderful how they
were transformed, made great, by their com-
panionship with this " Poet of Galilee."

Take Peter. When he was first brought to
him, Jesus saw a man full of faults, — rude,

[52]

f e Callg m iff tfentjg

undisciplined, unlettered, rash, impetuous.
Nobody dreamed of the rough, blustering old
fisherman as having any promise of good, of
beauty, or of greatness in him. Nobody
thought he would be one of earth's strongest
men in future years, with influence reaching
all over the world. But the moment Jesus
saw him he said, "Thou art Simon: thou
shalt be called Peter." He saw in this man
cf the fishing-boat possibilities of large-
heartedness, of noble leadership, of power
and influence, of sublime apostleship. We
know what Simon was in his rude beginnings
and what he became through Christ's making
of him. Had Jesus not found him and be-
come his friend, he would have lived and died
as a rough, uncultured fisherman, for a few
years casting his nets into the Sea of Galilee,
then dying unhonored and being buried in an
unmarked grave beside the lake. His name
never would have been known in the world.
All that Peter is to-day is the fruit of the
friendship of Christ for him.

Or think what the friendship of Jesus was
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to John. He was one of the first two who
came to Jesus. Several hours were spent in
an interview one afternoon. What took place
in that blessed experience we do not know,
but we are sure that John received impres-
sions and impulses that day which changed
all his life. It seems that John was originally
intolerant, fiery, resentful. But all his fierce-
ness was cured by the gentle and softening
friendship of Jesus, which lay about him
continually like an atmosphere of summer.
John's influence in the world has been mar-
vellous. It has been like a holy fragrance,
breathing everywhere, sweetening the air,
softening human hardness, making men
gentler.

The friendship of Jesus was not always
soft and easy. Sometimes it seemed stern and
severe. " Think not," he said, " that I came
to send peace on the earth: I came not to
send peace, but a sword." This word ap-
pears to break like a false note in a Gospel
whose keynote was peace. Yet there is work
for the sword even in love's ministry. Hu-

[54]

$t Calls m tfrienDg

man friendships sometimes err in over-gentle-
ness. Faithful friendship is sometimes re-
quired to speak the word of rebuke, though it
should always be in love. Christ loves us too
well not to smite the evil he sees in us. His
holiness is the enemy of everything in our life
that is not beautiful and good. For what-
ever then there is in us that is wrong, he
brings the sword. We are not perfect, and
cannot be perfect until every evil element is
thrust out. Christ would not be our truest
friend if he sent peace to our hearts when
they were cherishing pride, self-conceit, and
selfishness. Love must come then first as a
sword.

There is much mystery in the friendship
of Christ. Perhaps no question is asked more
frequently than " Why does Christ send us
suffering or pain? " In one of the Gospels
there is an illustration of the dealing of
Christ's friendship, which may help us to see
love in the pain and sorrow. It is in the
story of the Bethany family. The brother
fell sick. Jesus was absent. A messenger

[55]

C^e TStwty of €iotty ^a?

was sent to tell him, " He whom thou lovest is
sick." We would say he would start at once
and travel in haste to get to his friend as soon
as possible. But the record reads strangely
indeed, — " When therefore he heard that he
was sick, he abode at that time two days in
the place where he was." That is, because
he loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, he
waited two whole days after hearing of his
friend's illness, before he started to go to him.
It was not accidental that he did not get to
Bethany in time. It was not neglect in his
love. It was not want of interest in his
friends. The delay was part of his friend-
ship. Nothing went wrong, therefore, with
his love, when he did not come for four days
and Lazarus died. Nothing went wrong in
your home when your prayer was not an-
swered at once and your friend died. It was
all love.

We know much about friendship in this
world — far more than we think we know.
Our friends mean more to us by far than we
dream they do. Here is a bit of verse which

[56]

f e Calls m tfrtenfcg

gives us a glimpse of what many a friend
means to those he loves :

"The world is not so difficult to-day

As in those far-off days before I knew
I might look forward, all the long years through,
Unto the thought of thee — let come what may.

" The loneliness from grief has gone away

Since now its coming brings thee to my side;
And Pain its sternest secrets seems to hide,
And doubt to vanish, if thou wilt but stay.

" And as the traveller in a desert land,

Longing for shelter from the heat above,
At length finds refuge 'neath some great rock's
shade ;
So when life's stress I may not well withstand,
I seek the memory of thy strengthening love, —
And in the thought of thee am unafraid."

Our friends make us strong. In fear
and danger they are a refuge to us. In
suffering they comfort us, perhaps, not by
what they say to us or do for us, but just
by what they are. Ofttimes our friend
is a hiding place for us, and this is one
of the offices of Christ as our Friend —
we may hide in him. Christ's companion-

[57]

€^e QBeauty of €Uty 3®ay

ship is a refuge in which we may find shelter
in loneliness.

You are in some great sorrow. The words
of the people who are trying to console you
seem only empty echoes. Then one comes in
who has been with you in deep experiences of
trial in the past, one who knows you and loves
you and whom you love. There is sympathy
in his eye, there is comfort in his words. You
have found a refuge, and hide away in your
friend's presence. So Christ is a hiding place
for us in whatever experiences of trouble,
loneliness, or sorrow we may ever find our-
selves. An old prophet gives a picture of a
glorious sheltering manhood : " A man shall be
as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert
from the tempest, as streams of water in a dry
place, as the shade of a great rock in a weary
land." There are some men who are indeed
all this in a measure to their fellows. Nearly
every one of us knows some one who is
a hiding place to us from the fierce winds
of life, a covert to us from the wild tem-
pest, like the shadow of a great rock in

[58]

f e Calls m fvitnhz

a weary land, like a well of water in a
place of thirst. But this wonderful pic-
ture is realized in full measure in only one
Man who ever lived. We thank God for
the human friends who mean so much to us,
in whose strong friendship we may hide
ourselves in all the bitter hours of life, and
who never fail us. But we thank God most
of all for the Man Jesus Christ, in whose
friendship we find fulness of sympathy, of
strength, of tenderness.

What a fearful thing sin is ! How it im-
perils our lives ! We may hide our secret sins
from our human friends. We would not want
to have our hearts photographed, with all
their spots and evils, their jealousies, envies,
meannesses, suspicions, bad motives, — all our
secret life, — and then have the photograph
held up before the eyes of our neighbors.
We would not dare trust even our nearest
loved ones to see all this and be sure that they
would still be our friends. But Christ sees
this picture all the while, sees all the evil
that is hidden in us — sees all, knows all,

[59]

C^e istauty of €tozty 3®ay

— and is still our Friend. We do not
need to try to hide our weaknesses, our
failures, from him. Oh, the comfort, the
inexpressible comfort of feeling safe, abso-
lutely safe, with Christ, from whose love
nothing can separate!

[60]

$ot Counting <0oi>

Behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

LOWELL.

We plan — and plan: "This shall be so — and so.
This shall I do," and " Thither shall I go."
Yet, as the hours shape themselves to days,
We tread not in those same self -chosen ways;
Our feet are led Hong paths we had not guessed,
And lo! we find those newer paths are best!

®ot Counting (0oD

EN do not have the last word
in this world's affairs. The
human hand is not omnipo-
tent. Forty men had bound
themselves in a conspiracy
to kill St. Paul and they were sure their plot
could not fail. But a boy heard of the con-
spiracy, and the apostle was rescued. By
nine o'clock that night he was on his way to
Caesarea, under strong military protection.
The forty men had everything in their favor,
but — they had not thought about God. If
it had not been for God, their plot would have
succeeded.

Not to take account of God in our plans
is folly. Dr. Howard Agnew Johnston tells
of a conversation he had with a well-known
manufacturer during a journey to Europe.
They were talking of missions, and reference
was made to India. The business man said,

[63]

€^e Beaut? of €Utv 2^a?

" Why, doctor, it will be ten thousand years
before India becomes Christian." " Do you
not think you are drawing a hard line on
God? " asked the minister. " Oh, I forgot
about him," was the reply. " Then," said
Dr. Johnston, " you can make it ten million
years if you leave him out."

That is what men are doing all the time.
They forget about God in making their plans
and calculations. These forty men never
thought of God's interfering in their con-
spiracy. They forgot all about him. There
are people to-day who laugh at our belief in
God. They tell us that the hopes we cherish
never can be realized, that we are only believ-
ing dreams. What they say would be true if
there were no God. Human skill, wisdom, or
power never could bring these glorious things
to pass. If there were no God, not one hope
of our Christian faith could find its fulfil-
ment. But there is a God, — a God of love,
of power, — and he is the hearer of prayer.

In this incident in St. Paul's life we see
God working silently and invisibly. The

[64]

$ot Counting c0oD

night before the plot was made the Lord ap-
peared to St. Paul, in his prison, in the dark-
ness, and said to him, " Be of good cheer: for
as thou hast testified for me at Jerusalem, so
must thou bear witness also at Rome." This
was assurance that he could not be killed by
the forty men who had conspired to assault
him the next day. When Christ has work
for a man somewhere next year, no man can
kill him this year. " Every man is immortal
till his work is done."

We do not know how St. Paul's sister's son
came to be at Jerusalem just at that time.
God always finds ways of doing what he wants
to have done. His hand is on all events. All
things serve him. We say it chanced that the
young man was in Jerusalem that day; it
chanced that he learned in some way of the
plot. We use the word chance because we
have no better word to use. It was only
chance so far as men knew, but we know that
God was in it all. The young man became
God's agent in the matter. When he heard
of the plot, he hastened to his uncle and in

[65]

C^e Beaut? of Cbetv ?^ai?

great alarm told him of it. St. Paul sent him
to the Roman officer. The officer chanced to
be a kindly man, and gave the boy courteous
attention. At once he set in motion the ma-
chinery to get this prisoner away from the
city. If it had not been for God, St. Paul
would have been killed. But since there is a
God, whose plans go on through all human
plots and schemes, he was delivered and
set one step farther on his way toward
Rome, where he was to witness for his
Lord.

Earlier in the Acts we have the story of
Herod's attempt to destroy the apostles. To
begin with, he killed James. He then had
Peter also arrested and cast into prison,
meaning to have him beheaded after the Pass-
over. The record says, " Peter therefore
was kept in the prison : but prayer was made
earnestly of the church unto God for him."
Everything in Herod's schedule seemed sure.
The prison was strong, a double guard
watched the prisoner inside the dungeon.
Guards also stood before the door. Peter

[66]

$ot Counting d&oD

could not possibly escape, Herod supposed;
but he had not thought about God.

Some time during the night an angel came,
unheard and unseen, into the prison. Peter
was sleeping between his two guards. The
angel touched him, awoke him, and bade him
arise. As he did so, the chains fell off. " Fol-
low me," said the angel ; and as he did so, the
doors and gates opened silently — the guards
sleeping on — and soon Peter was outside
and among his friends. He would have been
killed in the morning had it not been for God.
But when God had other plans for his ser-
vant, no prison walls, no chains, no double
guard of soldiers could keep him, and no
tyrant's sword could touch his life.

We believe these Scripture narratives of
deliverance. But somehow we get the im-
pression that the times then were special, dif-
ferent from our times, and that the men who
were thus delivered were God's servants in
a peculiar sense. We cannot quite realize
that it is the same in these times, that God
is as active now in human affairs as he was

[67]

C^e ^Beauty of (fcbzvy l^ay

then. But there are just as many miracles
of protection and deliverance in your life as
there were in the lives of Christ's friends in
those days. You do not know from what
dangers you are sheltered every day. You
do not know how often you would be harmed
in some way if it were not for God.

It will do us good to get anew into our
hearts this fact of God in all our life. Some
people are always afraid of the dangers
about them. They are afraid of sickness, of
trouble, of pain, of the darkness, of accidents,
of death. But there really never is any rea-
son for fear if we have God. When evil is
plotting against you and the plot is closing,
and you are about to be destroyed, God comes
in and you are delivered.

What, then, is the true way of living? It is
to go quietly on in obedience, in faithfulness,
in trust, asking no questions, having no fears,
letting God care for us in his own way. This
does not mean that we shall never suffer, that
pain, sorrow, or death shall never touch us.
Not all believers in the New Testament days

[68]

$ot Counting (Boo

were delivered from the plots of enemies.
James was killed, while Peter was led by an
angel out of the prison, and lived for many
years. Stephen was not rescued from mar-
tyrdom, but was left to die. St. Paul himself,
saved many times from death, at last was be-
headed. While a Christian man's work is still
unfinished, there is no power that can strike
him down. Back of all men's plots and
schemes stands God, and no human hatred can
beat down any one of his until he wills it.
Jesus told Pilate that he could have no power
to crucify him until it were given to him from
God. When a true Christian is allowed to
suffer, it is because God permits it, because it
is God's will, and then it is a blessing. When
a faithful follower of Christ meets accident,
when in some catastrophe he loses his life, or
when he is suddenly taken away, nothing has
gone wrong with God's plans. God is not
surprised or shocked as we are. No break in
his plan has occurred. The man's death
leaves nothing unfinished that it was meant
he should do. Our plans are broken continu-

[69]

Ctye "Beaut? of ttozty &ay

ally by life's changes, accidents, interrup-
tions, and vicissitudes, but God's great plan
is never broken.

Never leave God out in making your plans.
Never be discouraged when you are faithfully
following Christ, though all things seem to
be against you. In the darkest hour be of
good cheer. God's plan for your life in-
cludes these very things which so discourage
you, takes them in as part of his thought,
and not one of them can mar the perfectness
or the beauty of your life when it is finished.
Let us meet all the hard things as parts of
God's plan. Plots against us shall fail to
harm us. This is our Father's world, and
there is no power in it which ever gets out of
his hand. Everywhere standeth God within
the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

His assassins thought they were absolutely
sure of St. Paul's death next morning, but
they had not thought about God. The busi-
ness man said that India could not be made
Christian in ten thousand years. But he had
not thought about God. You are dreading

[70]

$ot Counting (0oD

something to-day, — the passing of some
dream that is most dear, the losing of some
joy that appears to be slipping away from
you. But you have not thought about God.
You have left him out, forgetting his might,
his love, his wisdom, his power. He can pro-
tect you from the danger you are dreading.
He can keep for you the joy you fear losing,
if this is his purpose for you. He can do for
you the things you long to have done. In the
silence, unseen, stands God.

You are facing some duty which you feel
you ought to do, but when you think of it, it
seems so stupendous, so difficult, to require
such ability, such wisdom, such self-sacrifice,
that you say : " I cannot do it. It is impos-
sible for me. I have not the strength for it.
I am not wise enough." You are forgetting
about God. With him nothing is impossible.

You are facing a costly sacrifice. It is a
question of loyalty to truth and right. Per-
haps it is something which concerns your
occupation by which you make a living for
your family. If you do right, you will give

[71]

C^e OBeauty of €\>zty l®ay

this up. If it were for yourself alone, you
would not hesitate an instant, but the bread
for your wife and children also depends on
what you do. Yet you need not question.
God is with you.

You are not yet a Christian. You say you
never can be a Christian. You hear it said
that a Christian is one who loves — loves his
fellow-men. You think of what it is to love.
" Love suffereth long, and is kind ; love envi-
eth not; is not puffed up, doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not its own.55 You
read further that love is gentle, forgiving,
patient. As you think of the high ideal of
Christian life which Christ sets, you grow
alarmed. " I never can reach that sort of
life,55 you say. " I never can love people that
way. I never can be forgiving to those who
wrong me. There is no use trying — I can-
not be a Christian.55 But you are not think-
ing of God. You have left him out in trying
to solve the problem. Of course you cannot
change your own heart, you cannot trans-
form your own life, you cannot make yourself

[72]

$ot Counting <E»oD

sweet, gentle, patient, beautiful; you cannot
make the ugly things in your disposition, in
your temper, in your heart, Christlike. Oh,
no; but do not forget about God. He can
make your character lovely with his own love-
liness. Do not leave God out.

You are standing before some great ques-
tion, some question which seems to you to
involve your heart's happiness for all the
future. You are vexing yourself over it.
You are rent by conflicting emotions about
it. Are you forgetting about God and leav-
ing him out of this problem? He knows what
will be best for you. He has a plan for your
life, a plan which includes this very mat-
ter. Do not try to answer the question your-
self. Wait. Nothing is settled right until it
is settled in God's wise and best way.

How safe we are from all evil, since God
has our lives and our interests in his hands,
in his wisdom and love! What peace it gives
us in sorrow, suffering, and wrong, and in the
enduring of injustice, to know that our times
are in God's hands ! What comfort we have

[73]

€^e "Beaut? of €Uty 3®ay

when we realize that God is in all our lives,
in all events, in all our circumstances, that
daily Providence is simply God working with
us and for us, making all things to work to-
gether for good to all who love him. We need
never leave God out of anything.

Why can we not make God more real in our
lives? We have him in our creeds, in our
hymns, in our prayers, in our talk. We say
God is our Father. We say he will care for
us. We say we will trust him. But some-
times in the face of danger, need, loss, or sor-
row, we forget that he is with us. We cry
out in our distress. We think all is lost. Let
us train ourselves to make God real in our
lives, to practise his presence. He stands un-
seen, close beside us. Why should we ever be
afraid? We get discouraged when we see
chaos about us, — old beliefs disbelieved, ag-
nosticism lifting up its voice, anarchy prating
and making its assaults. Yes, but do not get
discouraged. Do not leave God out. He
holds the winds in his fists, and the waters in
the hollow of his hand. The clamor and tur-

[74]

$ot Counting <0oD

bulence of men are nothing in his omnipotent
hand. We are safe even in the most trouble-
some times.

" The lark 's on the wing,
The morning 's at seven,
The hillside 's dew-pearled,
God 's in his heaven,
All 's right with the world."

[75]

perfection in totoing

" While I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you overmuch:
I love him more, so let me love you, too.
Yea, as I understand it, love is such,
I cannot love you if I love not him;
I cannot love him if I love not you"

" Where am I going tot Never mind;
Just follow the sign-board that says ' Be kind,9
And do the duty that nearest lies,
For that is the pathway to Paradise"

VI

perfection in noting

ESUS taught that Christian
perfection is perfection in
loving. He said we are to
love our enemies and pray
for them that persecute us,
that we may be sons of our Father, who is in
heaven. Then he added, " Ye therefore shall
be perfect." He also gave some specific
suggestions of the working of this law of love,
showing what it includes.

It was the teaching of the times that men
should treat others as others treated them.
" An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,"
was the way it was put. But Jesus said,
" That is not the meaning of love. I say unto
you, Resist not him that is evil: but who-
soever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn
to him the other also." People say that of
course he did not mean he would do this lit-
erally. If not, just what did he mean? If

[79]

C^e istauty of ttety J®ay

some one were to smite you on the right cheek,
what ought you to do? What would Jesus
himself do? It is not in civilized countries in
our times that one actually strikes another
in the face ; but what kind of treatment does
face-smiting stand for? It may be regarded
as a type of anything of the nature of per-
sonal insult, wrong, or indignity. If we would
know just what Jesus would do in a case like
this, we have an actual illustration in his own
life. When he was on his trial, an officer
smote him on the cheek with his hand. Did
Jesus literally turn the other cheek? No; he
asked the officer why he had smitten him.
There was no anger in the question — it was
not a hot word that he spoke. He did not
return the blow. He showed no temper. He
bore the insult without resentment, without
bitterness, only challenging its justice.

When we study Christ's conduct in all his
life and note what he did when he was wronged
or insulted, when they spat in his face and
buffeted him, we find that he was always most
gentle and patient in return. He did not re-

[80]

perfection in Hobfttg

sist him that was evil. He did not contend
for his rights. He endured wrongs without
complaining. When he was reviled, he reviled
not again. When he suffered cruelty or in-
justice he threatened not. There are certain
trees which, when struck, bathe with fragrant
sap the axe that cuts into them. Thus it was
with Jesus when he was hurt — it only
brought out in him more tenderness, more
sweetness of love. When they drove nails
into his hands and feet, the blood that flowed
became the blood of redemption.

In all this manifesting, Jesus was God,
showing how God loves. " He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father." We are to love as
Christ loved. It is said that one day an aide-
de-camp of the Emperor Nicolas threw him-
self at his sovereign's feet in great excitement
and begged that he might be allowed to fight
a duel. The emperor emphatically refused to
grant the request. " But I have been dis-
honored ; I must fight ! " cried the young offi-
cer. The czar asked him what he meant. " I
have been struck in the face," he answered.

[81]

C^e iszauty of <&Uvy j®ay

" Well," said the emperor, " for all that, thou
shalt not fight. But come with me." Taking
the young man by the arm, the emperor led
him into the presence of the court, which was
assembled in an adjoining room. He then,
in the presence of the highest officers of his
empire, kissed the cheek on which the young
man had been struck. " The insult has been
effaced," the emperor said. " Go in peace."

Thus Christ by his example of patience
and love teaches us not to take revenge. He
himself kisses away the stain of dishonor
which the insult left on us. He makes it no
longer a dishonor to bear an indignity pa-
tiently, without anger or retaliation, but the
highest honor, rather, a mark of godlikeness.
That is the way God himself does.

For we can find no place in the world where
personal wrongs and injuries cannot reach
us. People will not always deal fairly with
us. There will be some one who is not gentle,
some one who will speak words which are
bitter and unjust, who slights or cuts us,
who wrongs or insults us, who, as it were,

[82]

perfection in Hofoing

slaps us on the cheek. As Christians, what
should we do? We know what the world's
men do in such experiences. Shall we act
differently? Men of the world think meek-
ness, patience in enduring wrong, the spirit
of forgiveness, marks of weakness. Oh, no;
they are distinctly marks of strength. Re-
venge is characteristic of the world's people,
but to be a Christian is to endure wrongs.
We are to give love for hate, to return good
for evil. Thus only can we be the sons of
our Father, and become perfect as he is
perfect.

Another duty set down among the laws of
the kingdom is, loving our enemies. " I say
unto you, Love your enemies." How many of
us, who call ourselves Christians, habitually
do this? How many of us pray for those
who persecute us ? Yet that is what we must
do if we would be perfect as our heavenly
Father is perfect. It is easy enough to love
certain people and be kind to them. It is
easy in your evening prayer to ask God to
bless those who have been kind to you that

[83]

C^e TBeaut? of &tety %>ay

day, who have spoken affectionate words to
you, who have helped you over the hard
places, whose love has brightened the way for
you. But here is one who was unjust to you,
who treated you rudely, who spoke to you
or of you bitterly, falsely, who tried in some
way to injure you. Is it easy, when you
make your evening prayer, to ask God to
bless this person and to forgive him, to do
him good? Yet that is what he requires.
" Pray for them that persecute you."

When we have learned to pray really in
this way, — for those who wrong us, treat us
injuriously, hate us, — we are Christians.
That is the way God loves. If we love as he
loves, we shall be perfect. " Love ... is
the fulfilment of the law." " God is love,"
and to be like God is to love. Wesley said,
" Pure love alone, reigning in the heart
and life — this is the whole of Christian
perfection."

The word perfection frightens some people.
They say they never can reach it. It seems
an inaccessible mountain summit. But Christ

[84]

^etfectfon in Lolling

never commands an impossibility. When he
says, " Be ye perfect," he means to give
grace and ability to reach the high attain-
ment. He means here especially perfection
in loving, as defined in his own words. No
other perfection is attainable. A writer tells
of the finding of a human skeleton in the Alps.
It proved to be that of a tourist who had been
trying to secure an Alpine flower, the edel-
weiss, but had slipped and lost his life. Many
men, in striving to reach some high honor,
some great joy, some rich possession, have
failed and fallen. Only a few of earth's
climbers ever gain their goal. But here is
a white flower which all who aspire to reach
shall find. " Ye shall be perfect in love as
your Father is perfect."

Perfection ever is a lesson which has to be
learned. It is not an attainment which God
will put into our hearts, as you might hang
up a picture in your parlor. Rather, it is
something which we have to strive after, which
we have to achieve and attain, in experience.
If we learn one by one the lessons which our

[85]

C^e QBeaut? of €Uxy &>ay

Master teaches us, we shall at length become
perfect. It may seem now only a far-away
vision, but if we continue patiently learning
we shall realize it by and by. We cannot at-
tain it in a day, but every day we may take
one little step toward it. The day in which
we do not grow a little less resentful, in which
we do not become a little more patient, toler-
ant, and merciful toward others, a little more
like Christ in love, in gentleness and kindness,
is a lost day. " Ye shall be perfect," — that
is the finished lesson, that is the radiance of
character to which we are coming. Every
hour we should draw a little nearer to it.
Cherish the blessed vision. Never let it fade
from your heart for a moment. Every temp-
tation to be angry is an opportunity to learn
to live a little better. Every wrong any one
does to you gives you another chance to grow
more forgiving, to learn more of meekness and
long-suffering, to get into your life a larger
measure of the love that beareth all things,
endureth all things, never faileth.

One says : " I never can learn this lesson —
[86]

perfection m Lofcmg

it is too hard. I never can love my enemy,
one who hates me and treats me with insult.
I never can cease to bear grudges. If this is
what the lesson is, I cannot learn to live it."
Without divine help we never can learn it. The
evil in our natural hearts we never can erad-
icate. We cannot change black into white.

That is just why Jesus came into the world
to be our Saviour. If we could have changed
our own hearts, there would have been no need
for a divine helper to come. We cannot, with-
out his help, change resentment to love in our
own hearts. We cannot, without his grace,
learn to love our enemies, to pray for them.
We cannot learn to be kind to the unthankful
and the evil, unless the Spirit of Christ be in
us. Jesus said to the disciples, " Apart from
me ye can do nothing." It is not a mere
human work we are set to do when we are
bidden to be perfect. We cannot too clearly
understand this, or too thoroughly remember
it. But when we are willing, God will work
with us. If we truly strive to be perfect in
love, God will help us to reach the lofty aim.

[87]

^Ut €^t %>00t

" Father, I come to thee, ,
Thou hast a place for me.
Thou wilt forgive the past and give me love.
So rests my heart in thee,
So sings my spirit free,
So may I come to thee, safe home above —
Safe home above.

" Now when life's storms are high,
Straight to thy care I '11 fly,

There find me rest and peace in thy strong arms.
Thy help forever nigh,
Will banish tear and sigh,

And keep me 'neath thine eye, safe from alarms
Safe from alarms.''

VII

ESUS gave very definite in-
structions concerning prayer.
We are to enter into our in-
ner chamber and shut the
door. This does not neces-
sarily mean that we must actually be in an
inner room in a house. We may be out in the
field, in the heart of a forest, or on a quiet
hillside. When Jesus himself prayed, it was
often in a garden or on a mountain — some-
where apart from the multitude. He teaches
us to do the same. We need to be alone. The
presence of others disturbs our thoughts.
We cannot become wholly absorbed in the
purpose of our errand to God if there are
others about us. The chatter of voices in-
terrupts us.

Prayer is a great deal more than we some-
times suppose it to be. We may have thought
of it as little more than a daily routine of

[91]

C^e TStauty of duty &>ay

devotion. We rise in the morning and
through force of habit kneel down for a min-
ute or two of what we call praying. We run
hurriedly through a form of words, without
giving serious thought to what we are saying.
We scarcely know when we are through what
we have asked God for. Indeed our petitions
were mere rote work — there were no strong
desires in our hearts, corresponding to the
words we used. We say we have been pray-
ing. Have we? That is not what Jesus
meant when he said, " Enter into thine inner
chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to
thy Father." We may have been in the inner
chamber in a literal sense, and the door may
have been shut, but we have not been with our
Father.

Christ means that when you enter the inner
room you and God are alone together. The
world is far away. Its noises break not in
upon your ear. You have put your business,
your ambitions, your pleasures, far from you.
No eye sees you. No ear hears what you say.
Then God is near and you are alone with him.

[92]

^ut C^t &>oov

When General Gordon was with his army in
the Soudan, it is said there was half an hour
each morning when a handkerchief lay outside
the General's tent, and the whole camp knew
the meaning of the little signal, and reli-
giously respected it. No foot dared to enter
the tent while the handkerchief lay there.
No sentinels could better have guarded the
portals. Any message, however pressing, had
to wait until the signal was lifted. Every one
knew that God and Gordon were alone to-
gether within, and not the most thoughtless
man in the camp would dare intrude. No
wonder that when the General came out of his
tent the glory of heaven seemed to shine on
his face, the fragrance of heaven to cling to
his garments, and that he had such peace and
such power in his life.

We must have the shut door for all the
most sacred experiences of life. Love will not
reveal its holiest thoughts in public. Sorrow
wants to be alone in its deepest moods. We
wear masks before the world; only when the
door is shut do we reveal our truest selves.

[93]

€^e iszauty of (&Uty %>ay

There are moments and experiences in real
true human friendships when two souls are
alone and come very close together. The door
is shut upon the outside world. No stranger
intermeddles. No eye looks in upon the sweet
communion. No ear hears what the two say
one to the other. No tongue breaks in with
any word upon the speech they are having
together. Their communion seems really full
and close.

Yet not even with the most faithful human
friends is the intimacy ideally perfect. Not
even our tenderest friends and those closest
to us, says Keble, know half the reasons
why we smile or sigh. Every human heart
is a world by itself. We really understand
very little of what goes on in the brain and
breast of the friend we most intimately know.
You say you are perfectly acquainted with
your friend. But you are not. You read his
smiles and you say, " My friend is very
happy to-day." But in his heart are cares
and griefs of which you suspect nothing.
The marriage relation, when it is what it

[94]

^ut €^i? ?^oor

should be, represents the most complete
blending of lives, and the most intimate mu-
tual knowledge, the one of the other. " We
tell each other everything," says a happy
husband or wife. " We have no secrets from
one another. We know all that goes on in
each other's mind and heart." But they do
not, they cannot. There may not be any
desire or intention to hide anything, one from
the other. Yet a life is so large that no one
can possibly understand it perfectly. We
cannot know either all the good or all the evil
in others. We cannot comprehend all the
mystery there is in any friend's life. We
cannot fathom the sorrow of our friend
when the tears stream down his cheeks, or
his joy when his heart is overflowing with
gladness.

These are suggestions of the incomplete-
ness of human communion and fellowship.
You and your friend come together in the
most sacred intimacy possible, and yet he
knows only a little of you. Your life and his
touch at only a few points.

[95]

€^e iszauty of €Uty %>ay

But when you enter into your inner cham-
ber and shut the door upon you and God,
you are in the presence of One who knows
you perfectly. It was said of Jesus, " He
knew what was in men." That is, he looked
into the life of every one who came into his
presence, and saw everything that was in
it. He read the thoughts and feelings, he
saw the insincerities, the hypocrisy, the in-
trigue, the enmity of those who were plotting
against him. He saw the heart hungers, the
cravings, the shy love of those who wished for
his friendship. He knew what was in every
man and woman. When Jesus asked Peter,
"Simon, lovest thou me?" the answer was,
" Yes, Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou
knowest that I love thee." He knew all.

This brings us to the very heart of the
meaning of prayer. You may not find great
comfort in communion with even your best
human friend, for he does not understand
you. He sees too little of your life. But it
is your Father who is in the inner chamber
with you, and he knows all, understands all,

[96]

^ut %X)y ^oor

and he loves you with a love that is infinite in
its compassion and its grace.

" Pray to thy Father." God seeks in every
way to make his love plain to us, to show us
how he wants to bless us. Of all the revela-
tions he has made to us of himself, no one
means quite so much as the name Father.
We know something of fatherhood as we see
it in imperfect men, in ourselves if we are
fathers. A writer says : " I never can forget
the hour when I first became a father. A new
feeling swept through my soul and trans-
formed all life and all the world for me. Then
a moment later came a vision of God. God
is my Father. My new-born love for my new-
born child is a shadow at least, a revelation,
of the love of God for me." It is your Father
whom you meet in the inner chamber when
you enter in and shut the door. No other
answer is needed when some one asks you
if you believe in prayer. Just say, " God is
my Father, and of course I can pray to him."
You cannot conceive of a true father to whom
a child cannot come with his questions, his

[97]

Clje iseaut? of €be*? 5©ai?

difficulties, his dangers, his sorrows, his sins.
If God is your Father, there is nothing you
cannot bring to him.

Think, too, who God is. Earthly fathers
are limited in their knowledge, in their vision,
in their power to help. But God is without
limitation. He is almighty. He is not little,
like you. It is sweet to sit down beside a
human friend who is rich in character, in
sympathy, in wisdom, in love, in power to
help, and to know that he is your friend.
Some of us know by experience what it is to
have such a person to whom we can go with
our weaknesses, our hard questions, our
inexperiences, and to know that all this
friend is and all he has he will put at our
disposal. But how little the strongest
human friend has power to do for us ! He
is only human like ourselves.

Then think of the immeasurable greatness,
power, wisdom, and love of this Father, with
whom you come into communion in the inner
chamber when you have shut the door.
When Tennyson was once asked his thought

[98]

^ut %fyy 2E>oor

about prayer, he answered, " It is the open-
ing of the sluice-gate between God and my
soul." Back of the sluice-gate is the great
reservoir with its pent-up volumes of water.
Below it are the fields and gardens to be irri-
gated, the homes to be supplied with water.
The opening of the sluice-gate lets the floods
in to do their blessed work of renewal and
refreshing. Prayer is the sluice-gate between
God and your soul. You lift the gate when
you pray to your Father, and infinite floods
of divine goodness and blessing — of life
— pour into your heart.

Our thought of prayer is too often pitiably
small, even paltry. Within our reach are
vast tides of blessing, and we take only a
taste. Many persons seek but the lower and
lesser things in prayer, and lose altogether
the far more glorious things that are possible
to their quest. What did you ask for this
morning when you entered into your inner
chamber and shut your door upon your
Father and you, and prayed? Did you ask
for large things, or only for trifles? for all

[99]

C^e iseaut? of ttotvy &>ay

the fulness of God, or only for bread and
clothes and some earthly conveniences? for
earth's tawdriness, or heaven's eternal things?

" It is true prayer

To seek the Giver more tlian gift;
God's life to share,

And love — for this our cry to lift."

A writer defines religion as friendship with
God. If this be a true definition, what then
is prayer? When you visit your friend and
are welcomed, and you sit together for an
hour or for an evening, do you spend the
time in making requests, asking favors of
each other? Do you devote the hour to tell-
ing your friend about your troubles, your
hard work, your disappointments, your pinch-
ing needs, and asking him to help you?
Rather, if you have learned the true way to
be a friend, you scarcely even refer to your
worries, anxieties, and losses. You would
spend the hour, rather, in sweet companion-
ship, in communion together on subjects dear
to you both? There might not be a single re-
quest for help in all the hour you are to-

[100]

^ut €^2 l^oor

gether. There might be moments of silence,
too, when not a word would be spoken, and
these might be the sweetest moments of all.
Our prayer should be friendship's communion
with God. It should not be all requests or
cries for help. When we enter our inner
chamber and shut the door and pray to our
Father, it should be as when two friends sit
together and commune in confidence and love.
" When thou prayest, enter into thine inner
chamber, and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father." But some one says, " It
would be impossible, with the duties that are
required of us, in our busy days to spend
large portions of time in the inner chamber,
even with God." There is a way to live in
which in a sense we shall be always in our
inner chamber, with the door shut, in com-
munion with our Father. This must have
been what St. Paul meant when he said,
" Pray without ceasing." There never was
a more strenuous Christian worker than St.
Paul. He certainly was not on his knees
" without ceasing." But we can learn to be in

[101]

€^e ^Beauty of €Uty &av

our inner chamber with God through all our
busiest days. That is, we can commune with
him while we are at our work and literally
shut our door to pray to our Father. Jesus
prayed that way. His days were all days
of prayer. He was in communion with his
Father when he was working in his carpen-
ter's shop, when he was teaching by the sea-
side, when he was performing miracles of heal-
ing in people's homes or upon the streets,
when he was walking about the country.
There really never was a moment when he
was not in the inner chamber, with the door
shut, praying to his Father.

There is a sense in which we all should
obey this word of Christ's in the same way.
There is no other way in which many of us
can obey it. We have our long hours when
we must be at our common tasks. We want
to give a portion of our time to religious
duties, but here also Christian work presses,
and we cannot pray long apart. There are
duties which must be done in certain hours,
even if we stay away from the meetings of

[102]

^ut C^t ?^oor

worship. It is said of St. Francesca, that
though she never wearied in her religious
services, yet if during her prayers she was
called away by some domestic duty, she would
cheerfully close her book, saying that when
a wife and mother was needed, she must quit
her God at the altar, to find him in the duties
of her home. There come times in every life
when formal prayer is not the duty. Yet we
may be really in communion with God while
we are doing our plainest tasks. We must
make all life prayer, in the inner chamber
with God.

Yet while this is true, this is not the only
way to read the lesson. Jesus took a great
many hours to be in the inner chamber, alone,
with his Father. He spent whole nights with
God. He would rise a great while before day
and go out to the mountain to pray. His com-
mand here should be literally obeyed by all
his followers. We must get time for prayer.
No other where can we get strength. The
work we do without prayer is poor work,
work without power. The busy day that does

[103]

€^e iszauty of ttotty %>ay

not begin with prayer is a day without divine
blessing. The sorrow that does not go to
God remains uncomforted. The joy that is
not sanctified by prayer is not perfect. The
teacher who does not pray before teaching
finds even the Bible without power to impress.
The preacher who does not enter into his inner
chamber and shut the door, with only God
and himself within, may preach eloquently,
but his preaching will not win souls, will not
comfort sorrow, will not edify saints, will not
lead men into holy service.

[104]

mtyat to i®o tott^ ^oubtg

Let thy day be to thy night

A letter of good tidings. Let thy praise

Go up as birds go up, that when they wake

Shake off the dew and soar. So take joy home,

And make a place in thy great heart for her,

And give her time to grow, and cherish her.

Then will she come, and oft will sing to thee

When thou art working in the furrows; ay,

Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.

It is a comely fashion to be glad —

Joy is the grace we say to God.

JEAN INGELOW.

VIII

ffifyat to %>o toiit) &tmbt$

E can scarcely think of John
the Baptist as ever among
the doubters. His faith
seems invincible. He intro-
duced Jesus to men as the
Lamb of God. He was most courageous and
strong in his witnessing. How can we explain
the lapse of faith in him?

No doubt the cause was partly physical.
Our bodies have more to do than we dream
with the tone of our spiritual life. John was
a child of nature. He had been brought up
in the wilderness, living in the open air. Now
he was in a close, foul dungeon. The con-
finement irked him and made him sick. No
wonder he became depressed.

Then John was disappointed in the trend
and course of the Messiahship of Jesus. When
he spoke so confidently a little while ago, pro-
claiming that Jesus was the one who was to

[107]

C^e I3eaut? of ttety 3®ay

come, he was thinking of a Messiah who should
carry the axe and go out with fire and fan.
The Messiah he was expecting was to be a
great conqueror. Instead of this, what he
heard in his prison was of a most gentle and
kindly man, who was everybody's friend, who
would not set his foot even upon a worm, who
allowed himself to be wronged and never re-
sented nor retaliated. " Can this really be
the Messiah? " he began to ask.

There probably was a personal element also
in John's questioning. He had been the de-
voted friend of Jesus. Now John was lying
in a dungeon, wearing chains, suffering un-
justly, and Jesus outside was enjoying great
popularity, and seemed to have utterly for-
gotten his old friend. Why did he not do
something for John? Why did he not even
come to see him in his prison, to give him
cheer? " An Arctic explorer was once asked,"
says Dr. George Adam Smith, " whether, dur-
ing the eight months of slow starvation which
he and his comrades endured, they suffered
much from the pangs of hunger. ' No,' he

[108]

Wi^at to ?g>o tofty ^oubtjs

answered, ' we lost them in the sense of aban-
donment, in the feeling that our countrymen
had forgotten us and were not coming to our
relief ! ' " May there not have been some feel-
ing like this in John's mind?

Some of us know how hard it is to pray and
count on God's coming with help in some in-
tolerable sorrow, and then not to have him
come. From the old crusading days we have
this pathetic story. A crusader returning
from the Holy Land was seized by enemies
and cast into prison. There he lay month
after month, hoping that in some way relief
might come to him. One day he heard the
sounds of martial music, faint and far away,
and his heart leaped with joy. The sounds
came nearer and still nearer, and soon he
caught the notes of old, familiar airs. Then,
looking out through the grating of his cell
window, he saw the flashing of spears. Closer
the column came, and then, with wild emo-
tion, he saw that it was a company of his own
men, the same men with whom he had gone to
the Holy Land. Right under his window they

[109]

C^e istauty of fttotty %>ay

were passing — he saw their very faces and
recognized them. He cried out to them, but
the music drowned his cries, and they rode on
and rode away, their banners passing out of
sight, leaving him in hopelessness in his
prison.

So it seemed with John in his dungeon.
News oi the beautiful things Jesus was doing
outside came to his windows continually. He
was working great miracles. " Will he not
come this way? " the chafing lion in the dun-
geon cried. " Will he not come and take me
out of this terrible prison? " But the music
died out on the air, and he came not. As we
think of this, we can understand why John
began to ask questions about Jesus. " Is he
really the Messiah, as I used to believe he
was ? "

Are we patient enough with doubt like
John's? Somehow the religious world has al-
ways been most unforbearing toward any
shadow of doubt, or even toward any ques-
tions concerning beliefs which seemed to in-
dicate the least uncertainty. There are

[110]

CSJ^at to ?E>o toitl) 5^oulitj8

Christian men who are so impatient of even
a child's mere request for light, as to drive the
tender-hearted one, hungry for knowledge,
back to the world, and almost to incurable
skepticism. The Bible is the same in its
teachings about God, age after age, but as
men see more and more clearly its wonderful
revealings, their opinions change, their views
become truer. It is said that in the archives
of an old church is preserved a manuscript
sermon, preached by a clergyman who was
pastor of the church for fifty years or more.
At the bottom of the title page are the words,
" All wrong," signed by the man who had
preached the sermon. In thirty-three years
the preacher's views upon the subject had
undergone a radical change.

Jesus was not fulfilling John's idea of his
Messiahship, and John began to wonder
whether he was really the Messiah or not. The
trouble was that John's early views of the
manner of the Messiahship were wrong.
There was nothing wrong with the course of
the Messiahship — it was only with John's

[mi

presuppositions concerning it. There are
good people in these days whose opinions are
different altogether from what they were in
the past. There has been no change in the
truth — only they understand it better now.
There are people who, in circumstances of
sorrow, almost begin to despair, because they
think that God is not the loving Father they
used to think he was. The trouble is, how-
ever, that they did not at first truly under-
stand his Fatherhood. They did not see how
continued pain could be love, how it could be
in love that he allowed the suffering to go on
unrelieved. Jesus said, " What I do thou
knowest not now; but thou shalt understand
hereafter." We say that John had lost his
faith; no, he did not yet understand the
Messiahship of Jesus — that was all.

It is instructive to notice what John did
with the doubts which arose in his mind. He
did not nurse them and brood over them.
That is the last thing to do with any doubts
or questions. Some people nurse their sus-
picions of others until they have grown into

[112]

M^at to %>o t»it^ doubts

utterly false beliefs concerning them. Some
people nurse their jealousies until they be-
come murderous thoughts and feelings. Some
people nurse their misunderstandings of Christ
and his way with them until they give up
Christ altogether and say they cannot be-
lieve on him nor follow him longer.

The truest thing for you to do, if you have
a friend who seems to have been unkind to
you, is not to believe the things some whis-
perer has told you, or your own interpreta-
tion of the things you may think your friend
has done; the only true thing to do is to go
right to the friend with the matter which is
troubling you. Then you will find, in ninety-
nine cases in a hundred, that you have only
misunderstood him. If to-day you are judg-
ing another, feeling that he is not loyal to
you, if he seems to have slighted you or failed
in tenderness or kindness to you, almost surely
you are misjudging him. Do not nurse your
feeling, nor let it grow into doubt or suspi-
cion. Do not allow it to influence your rela-
tions with your friend, your treatment of him.

[113]

C^e TBeaut? of tUvy %>ay

Keep on loving and believing in him. Go to
him and talk it over with him, and you will
find that you have only misunderstood him.

What did Jesus say when the disciples of
John came to him with their master's question?
He did not blame John for his doubts. He
did not say he was disloyal. He had no word
of unkindly criticism. He did not treat John
as if he had done something very wrong' in
seeking for light on his question. Christians
who are older and have had wider experience
in life, need to practise the utmost gentleness
in dealing with younger or less experienced
Christians. David in his old age said it was
God's gentleness that had made him great.
If God had been harsh or ungentle with him
in his sins and faults, David never would have
been saved. It was said of Jesus that he was
so gentle he would not even break a bruised
reed, nor quench a dying spark in the lamp
wick. He would so help to restore the reed
that it would grow into strength again; he
would so shield the dying spark that it would
live and become a flame. If Christ had re-

[114]

CflO&at to %>o toity ^oubtg

buked John for his questions, we cannot tell
what the effect on the discouraged man in
his dungeon would have been.

The definite question which John sent to
ask Jesus was, " Art thou he that cometh, or
look we for another? " Jesus gave no direct
answer. Instead, he asked the men to stay
during the day and see what he was doing,
and then go back and report to John. This
would be the best answer to his questions. The
things the men saw were the true evidences of
the Messiahship of Jesus. What are the evi-
dences of Christianity to-day? May we not
give the same answer that Jesus gave that
day to John's disciples? " The blind receive
their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are
raised up and the poor have good tidings
preached to them." The work of love that
is going on in the world is the greatest of all
evidences of Christianity. The map of the
world tells the story. The missionary map,
with its patches of white and black, tells the
story. Wherever the gospel goes, love

[115]

C^e I3eaut? of (Eiier? %>&v

goes, and the things that love does are
the evidences. Christianity has built every
hospital in the world, every asylum for the
insane, every institution of charity, every
orphanage, every home for the aged, for
the blind, for crippled children. These are
the real evidences of Christianity. Every
sweet home where love dwells, where Christ's
name is dear, where prayer is offered, is an
evidence. Every Christian mother, with her
children about her, is an evidence. Some one
says : " There is no human force for good or
ill equal to the talk of women. They have
listeners who have all power in heaven and on
earth, for women chiefly are the ones who talk
to God and to little children." Every Chris-
tian home, with its teachings, its prayer, and
its love, is a shining evidence that Christ is
the Son of God.

John was perplexed about the Messiahship
of Jesus. It seemed to him that things were
not going right with him, that he ought not
to have been left in prison if Jesus were really
the Messiah. He learned, however, that noth-

[116]

oa^at to %>o to(t^ doubts

ing was really going wrong, that he was not
being neglected. John's continued imprison-
ment was not in vain. His blood was not shed
in vain. The air of the world has been purer
ever since. There is no mistake made when
your prayers for relief from trouble seem not
to be answered — they are answered, though
the answer is not the taking away of the
trouble, but grace that you may bear it.

The way Jesus dealt with doubt is very
interesting and suggestive. He was most
patient with it. He pitied men's weaknesses.
There are two kinds of doubting. One is
skepticism, denial of the facts and truths
about Christ and Christianity. The other is
only inability to understand; merely ques-
tioning to learn. That was the doubt the
Baptist had ; that was the doubt Thomas had.
Christ loves to have us come to him with our
questions, our difficulties.

[117]

€#ng$ t^at $ in* We

" He kept his soul unspotted

As he went upon his way,
And he tried to do some service

For God's people day by day;
He had time to cheer the doubter

Who complained that hope was dead;
He had time to help the cripple

When the way teas rough ahead;
He had time to guard the orphan, and one day, well

satisfied
With the talents God had given him, he closed his
eyes and died"

IX

Clings ti&at 1$mt Life

HE problem of Christian liv-
ing is not to miss the strug-
gle, suffering, or hardship,
but to pass through life
without being hurt by any of
its experiences. One of the requirements of
pure religion is " to keep one's self unspotted
from the world." This does not mean that
we are to keep ourselves out of the world's
life, to flee away and hide in refuges and re-
treats, where the evil of the world will not
touch us, but to stay where our duty is, to
meet life as it comes to us, to face the bat-
tles with sin, the struggles and temptations
which belong to our peculiar place, and yet
not be hurt, not contract any stain, not carry
away wounds and scars.

In everything in life Jesus Christ is our
highest example. He solved this problem of
living for us. He met hard and painful ex-

[121]

C^e "htauty of €tozxy 2£ay

periences, but never was harmed by any of
them. He endured temptation, being tempted
in all points like as we are, yet always with-
out sin. He passed through the sorest test-
ings that any one ever endured, but kept
himself unspotted. He met enmity, growing
out of envy, pride, selfishness ; men hated
him, conspired against him, watched him,
persecuted him, sought to kill him.

The natural effect upon any man of such
enmity, hatred, bitterness, and injustice is
to make him grow suspicious, misanthropic,
cold, resentful, revengeful. But Jesus was
not affected in this way. He was beyond all
such effects. He could not be insulted, — his
nobility of character lifted him above the
possibility of this. He was pained but not
harmed by men's cruel words. He never
became suspicious. His love never grew
less gentle, less magnanimous, less kindly.
Through all his three years of opposition,
hatred, plotting, treachery, and wrong, he
came with the heart of a little child. He
passed on to the end unharmed in his own

[122]

C^ttQjS t^at ^utt tilt

life. He was as patient, gentle, loving, and
childlike the day he went to his cross, as he
was the day the Spirit descended upon him
like a dove. The little spring by the sea-
side pours out its sweet waters through the
salt sands. The tides roll over it and their
brackish floods bury it for hours. Bat again
it appears, and its waters are sweet and pure
as ever. So it was with the heart of Jesus
Christ. The world's enmity left no embit-
tering in him. He loved men at the last
as he had never loved them before.

This is the problem for every Christian
life. It is possible to pass through this
world's sorest temptations and not to be in-
jured by them. It is possible for us, how-
ever, to be hurt, most sorely hurt, by such
experiences. Sin always works injury. It
is something one never altogether gets over.
It may be forgiven — God loves to forgive
unto the uttermost — but its marks and
scars remain. When the bloom of the
fruit has been touched, it never can be
restored; when the rose has been crushed,

[123]

C^e I3eaiiti? of (Btotxy 3®ay

it never can be made lovely again. So sin's
hurt is irremediable. The secret we must
learn is to pass through life with garments
unsoiled.

There are special ways in which we may
be harmed by the experiences of life. Noth-
ing is more common than sorrow. Into every
life it comes at one time or another. It comes
sometimes as bereavement, taking away one
who is dear, whose continued existence seems
necessary to our happiness. Again it comes
as a grief that hangs no crape on the door,
wears no weeds of mourning, and does not
break into the outward show of happiness,
but which stays as a secret sorrow, without
human sympathy or comfort. We usually
suppose that sorrow brings always a bless-
ing, that it always helps those who endure
it, enriching the life, sweetening it, making
it more beautiful. But this is not in every
case true. Sorrow often harms people's
lives. It does not always sweeten — some-
times it sours the spirit. It does not always
soften — sometimes it hardens the heart.

[124]

Ctyngg t^at f urt Ltfe

It does not always give peace and calmness
— sometimes it makes one irritable, fretful,
selfish, exacting. When we pass through sor-
row, we need to be exceedingly careful lest
we shall be hurt by it. We need the great
Physician then — he only can heal wounded
hearts so as to leave no scar.

There is a story of an Indian child who
one day brought in from the field a hurt
bird. The old chief asked the child where she
had found the bird. " Among the wheat,"
was the answer. " Take it back," he said,
" and lay it down just where you found it.
If you keep it, it will die, but if you give it
back to God, he can make it well again."
It is with hurt hearts as it is with hurt birds.
They belong to God, and only he can heal
them. Human hands are clumsy and un-
skilful in comforting. If you have sorrow,
let God be your heart's healer. No human
hands can help, save those that God has
trained into something of his own gentleness.
When God comforts, there are no hurts re-
maining in the life, he is so gentle, so skilful.

[125]

Another common experience in life is the
wounding of love. Somebody does you a
wrong, speaks unkindly of you, injures you
in some way. It is natural for you to be
angry, to say bitter words in return, to cher-
ish resentful and unforgiving feelings against
the person. You are in danger now of being
hurt by the experience. The only safety in
such a case lies in love — keeping love in
your heart. Love says, " Forgive." Noth-
ing else can save your life from being seri-
ously hurt. If you grow resentful and bitter,
and refuse to forgive, you have inflicted
upon yourself an injury which never can be
undone.

The truth is that no one in the universe
can really do actual harm to you but your-
self. Others may treat you unjustly. They
may take your hard-earned money from you
and refuse to return it, may borrow and not
repay. They may wrong you in some griev-
ous way.* They may falsely accuse you, and
thus dim the whiteness of your name. They
may injure you in 3rour body, break your

[126]

^inw t^at f uxt JLtfe

bones, kill you, but in none of these wrongs
or injuries can they really touch you, your-
self — the being that lives within you. St.
Paul speaks of the outward man suffering
decay, while the inward man is renewed day
by day. Enemies may tear your flesh in
pieces, but they cannot harm you. You will
emerge with a broken and torn body, but
with the spirit of a little child, if you have
kept yourself in love, in peace, in purity,
through all the hard experiences.

But if in meeting wrong you have let
yourself grow bitter, if you have become
angry, if you have allowed vindictiveness to
enter your heart, if you have refused to for-
give, do you not see that you have hurt your-
self, have done grievous and irreparable harm
to your own life? A man told the story of a
great wrong which had been done to him by
another, a wrong involving base treachery.
It had been years before, but it was known
that his noble life had been nobler ever since
the wrong had been done, that he had been
sweeter in spirit, that he had been richer in

[127 ]

C^e I3eaut? of €tony 3®ay

helpfulness and service, and that he had been
in every way a better man, a greater bless-
ing to others. When asked how it came that
that great tragedy had not hurt his life,
had not made him bitter, he said that he had
kept love in his heart through it all. That
was the secret, and that is the only secret
of coming through life's wrongs, injustices,
cruelties, and keeping one's self unspotted
from the world, unhurt by its want of love,
by its cruelty.

One wrote to a friend, telling how hard she
had found it not to grow bitter toward a per-
son who for years had made life very hard for
her father. There is much injustice in the
world. It is easy to grow bitter; yes, but
think of the hurt the bitterness would bring
upon your own life. Yet if you patiently
endure the wrong and keep yourself un-
spotted, your heart unhardened. the expe-
rience has not made your life less beautiful.
Get the blessing that is promised in the Beat-
itude for those who are persecuted.

Another of these perils in life comes from
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C^tngg t^at f in* life

care. Perhaps no other mood is more com-
mon than worrying. Nearly everybody wor-
ries. A score of reasons against anxiety
could be given, but one of the most serious
of all is the harm it does the life. It hurts
it deeply and irreparably. It writes fear
and fret on the face, and blots out the fresh-
ness and the beauty. Worry makes you old
before your time. It takes the zest out of
your life. It quenches your joy. It makes
all the world less bright for you. It de-
stroys faith in God and robs you of the
sweetness of your trust. It withers, wrinkles,
and blotches your soul. You do not know
how seriously and ruinously you are hurting
your life, spoiling it, wasting its substance,
destroying it, if you are letting care into
your heart and allowing it to do its harmful
work in your life.

" Pure religion and undefiled before our
God and Father is ... to keep one's self
unspotted from the world." That is the
problem of Christian life, — whatever the life
may have of hardness, of wrong, of injustice,

[129]

Clje TStauty of tUvy ]®ay

of struggle, of sorrow, — to keep the heart
pure and sweet, at peace, filled with love
through it all. The lesson is hard, you say.
Yes, but not half so hard in the end as to
have your life scarred, bruised, blotted, its
possibilities of love atrophied, its gentleness
petrified. There are people no more than
middle-aged, who are incapable of any sweet
joy, incapable of loving deeply, richly, ar-
dently, incapable of enthusiasm in living and
doing good, because they have become a prey
to care, or have let themselves be hardened
by bitter feelings.

Life is too sacred, too holy, with too many
possibilities of beauty and happiness to be so
mistreated, so perverted, so irremediably in-
jured. How, then, can we keep our hearts
unspotted from the evil of the world? The
lesson is particularly for the young. Per-
haps the old never can now learn it well, —
it is too late, — but the young can do it,
if they begin now, living with Christ, in
his love, in his joy, in his companionship,
in his obedience. God can keep your life

[130]

Clings t^at i^urt life

hidden in the secret of his presence. Sci-
entists tell us of the charmed life of frail
things. The tiny flower that grows on the
mountain crag is safer than the mountain
itself. It bends and yields and remains un-
broken, unbruised, in the wildest storms. Its
frailness is its strength and its security. How
frail our lives are in comparison with the
great mountains and the mighty rocks ! Yet
we have a charmed existence. Our very weak-
ness is our safety.

The superintendent of a hospital in Mex-
ico, a hospital chiefly for workers on a new
railroad, writes of her amazement over the
way some persons are brought in hurt from
accidents, with scarcely a trace of life remain-
ing, and yet how life persists in them. She
tells of one man with both arms torn away at
the shoulders, of both limbs broken in two or
three places, head cut and torn, body bruised,
yet living and recovering. How frail we are,
and yet what persistent life we have! God
loves us and will shelter us from harm and
will keep us from being destroyed, if only

[131]

C^e I3eaut? of (Eber? &av

we will let our lives lie in his hands, trusting
and obeying him. " We prevail by yielding,
we succumb to conquer, like those sea flowers
which continue to bloom amid the surf, where
the rocks crumble." We have seen flowers
growing sweet and fresh in the early spring
days under the great snowdrifts. So God
hides and protects the gentle lives of those
who trust in him, in the very snow banks of
trouble and trial which surround them. The
least and feeblest of us can keep ourselves
unspotted in the sorest perils, if we hide away
under the shelter of the divine love.

The secret of coming through suffering
and struggle unharmed is to learn that we
must endure for the sake of others. It helps
us to be strong when we know that others
will be affected by our victory or defeat —
helped when we endure nobly, harmed if we
prove unfaithful. Some one writes : " We
shall be glad, really glad of everything that
has come to us, no matter if it be sorrow or
pain, when we find that our experience fits
some one's else need — that some one else

[132]

e^mgg t^at ^uvt lift

can build on our lives." It makes us strong
to be true and pure and noble and worthy
when we know others will be influenced by
the way we stand the test. We dare not fail
when others are depending on us.

[133]

letting £toa? from €>ur pa$t

Not what we have, hut what we use;
Not what we see, but what we choose —
These are the things that mar or bless
The sum of human happiness.

The things near by, not things afar;
Not what we seem, but what we are —
These are the things that make or break,
That give the heart its joy or ache."

X

(Bettfttg atoa? from £>ur $agt

T. PAUL tells us that he
made his progress in spirit-

ual life by forgetting the
things that were behind.
Remembering is a favorite
Bible word. Forgetting is not usually com-
mended. There is peril in forgetting. Indeed
we forget altogether too much. Yet there are
certain things we must forget if we would
make any progress in life. We must forget
our mistakes. There are many of them, too,
and some of us never get away from their
influence. We often sigh, " Oh, if I had not
done that foolish thing, if I had not let that
bad companionship into my life, if I had not
taken that bad advice, how much better my
life would have been ! " We fret over the
mistakes we have made, the blunders of our
lives, and yield to their disheartening in-
fluence. We think that we can never make

[137]

Cije OBeautr of tbzty ^a?

anything of our life because of one pitiful
mistake, one grievous sin; that we can
never be a soldier because we have lost one
battle; that we can never succeed in busi-
ness because our first effort was a sad
failure. These are things we should forget,
not allowing them to check our onward
life.

Some people carry the mistakes of all their
years with them unto the end, and they hang
like chains about them, so that they can
make no progress. But this is a fearful
waste of life. We grow by making mistakes.
Think how many mistakes you made in learn-
ing to write, how many copybooks you
spoiled before your penmanship became a
credit to you ! Think how many mistakes
the artist makes before he is able to put a
worthy picture on canvas, how many mis-
takes the musician makes before he is
able to play a piece of music well! In
every department of life there are years
and years with little but mistakes, imma-
turities, blunders, while men and women

[138]

dotting atoay from ®uv $agt

are preparing for beautiful living and
noble work. Forget your mistakes, leave
them behind, let God take care of them,
and go on to better things. Build a palace
on your failures, making them part of the
foundation.

We should forget the hurts we receive.
Somebody did you harm last year. Some-
body was unkind to you and left a wound.
Forget these hurts. Do not remember them ;
do not cherish them, allowing them to rankle
in your heart. The other day a man's hand
was swollen and black, in serious danger of
blood poisoning, all from a little splinter
which in some way got into a finger and was
permitted to stay there until it almost made
necessary the amputation of the hand or arm,
endangering the life. That is the way little
hurts, when remembered, fester and make
great distress, and sometimes produce even
fatal results. Remember how Cain's envy
was nursed and grew into fratricide. Jesus
warned men against anger, saying it is
murder, that is, the beginning of murder, a

[139]

Ctye Beauty of €totty %>ay

feeling which if cherished may ripen into
actual crime.

There are people who grow jealous of
others. First it is only a feeling of which
they are ashamed. But they brood over it,
think of it day and night, until it grows and
at length fills their whole life, and becomes
a hateful passion which spoils their days and
possibly ends in some great wrong. How
much wiser is the oyster! A tiny grain of
sand gets under its shell and grinds and
hurts and makes a sore. Instead, however,
of letting it become an ugly wound, the
oyster, by peculiar secretions, makes a pearl.
That is what we may do with others5 unlov-
ingness or their faults, — change them into
pearls of beauty in our character. If any
one hurts you by an unkindness, forget it
and let the wound be healed in love.

We should forget our past attainments,
our successes and achievements. A writer
tells of a man he had known for twenty-five
years. The first time he saw him the man
told of a certain good thing he had done

[140]

dotting &way ftom ®uv pa$t

many years before, — a really good thing
which greatly helped a community. He had
seen him occasionally ever since, and every
time the man told him the same story of the
fine thing he had done long ago. It was a
really good story. The thing he did was
worthy. But would it not have been better
if he had forgotten that one excellent deed of
the long ago in doing other better things a
hundred times since? We should never re-
gard any noble deed of ours as our best.
We should never look back for the climax of
our attainment or achievement. St. Paul was
quite an old man when he wrote the words
about forgetting past things, but he had for-
gotten all his past sacrifices and achieve-
ments, and was looking forward yet for bet-
ter and higher work to do. However noble
and useful your last year was, however good
you were, however much you did for Christ
and for your fellow-men, forget it all and
set about making the next year the best ever
you have lived.

We should forget our past sins. In one
[141]

C^e TSzmty of €tovv %>ay

sense we cannot. They will not be forgotten.
This ought to keep us humble and make us
wary. We should never forget the peril of
sin. But sin forgiven should be forgotten
and left behind. That is, we should believe
in the forgiveness of our sins which have
been confessed and repented of. The other
day one was speaking of an experience of
over fifteen years back, — a sin, — and the
black shadow still hung over his life, shutting
out the sun and the blue of the sky, hiding
the face of God and quenching all joy and
hope. That is not the way Christ wants us
to do with our sins. He came to save us
from them, and when they are forgiven, he
bids us go in peace. Put your repentance
into songs of gratitude and j oy and into new
service. If one day has been spoiled by sin,
do not spoil another day by grieving over it.
Forget your past sins in holy and beautiful
living.

We should forget our sorrows. It is not
easy. The empty chairs remind us always
of those who used to sit on them. The loneli-

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ness stays, and it takes wise and diligent
watchfulness not to allow a sadness to wrap
itself about us like sackcloth, or to enter into
us like an atmosphere and darken our life.
But God does not want our sorrows to hurt
us, so as to mar our joy and beauty. He
wants them to become a blessing to us, to
soften our hearts and enrich our character.
He wants us always to remember the friends
who have been so much to us and have gone
from us, but to forget the griefs in the joy
of divine comfort. A lost sorrow is one of
earth's sorest losses. Every grief should
leave a blessing.

These are suggestions of St. Paul's secret
of noble life, — forgetting things that are
behind. We should never leave behind or
throw away, however, anything that is good
and lovely. We are to keep all our treasures
of experience. All the good impressions, in-
fluences, lessons, and inspirations that we re-
ceive, we are to cherish. We should hold
fast every good thing that comes to us. Not
a good thing that is ever ours should we

[143]

C^e iszauty of cBfcett 1®ay

lose. A writer says, " I desire no future that
shall break the ties of the past." What a
serious loss it would be if there were no re-
membering, if we could not keep ever as our
own the joys, the delights, the precious
things of the past! We do not begin to
know what treasures we may lay up for our-
selves if we live always beautifully and have
only sweet and sacred memories. " Make
yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts," says
Ruskin. " None of us yet know, for none of
us have been taught in early youth, what
fairy palaces we may build of beauti-
ful thoughts, proof against all adversity, —
bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble his-
tories, faithful sayings, treasure-houses of
precious and restful thoughts, which care
cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor
poverty take away from us — houses built
without hands, for our souls to live in."

We should keep all that will enrich our
character, that will sweeten our memory, that
will make music in our hearts in the after
years, but things that will vex us and

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(Betting atoa? from £>ur p>agt

worry us as we think of them we are to
forget.

" Let us forget the things that vexed and tried us,
The worrying things that caused our souls to fret ;
The hopes that, cherished long, were still denied us
Let us forget.

" Let us forget the little slights that pained us,

The greater wrongs that rankle sometimes yet;
The pride with which some lofty one disdained us
Let us forget.

"Let us forget our brother's fault and failing,
The yielding to temptations that beset,
That he perchance, though grief be unavailing,
Cannot forget.

" But blessings manifold, past all deserving,

Kind words and helpful deeds, a countless throng,
The fault o'ercome, the rectitude unswerving,
Let us remember long.

" The sacrifice of love, the generous giving,

When friends were few, the handclasp warm and
strong,
The fragrance of each life of holy living,
Let us remember long.

" Whatever things were good and true and gracious,
Whate'er of right has triumphed over wrong,
What love of God or man has rendered precious,
Let us remember long."

[145]

C^e TBeautr of tbtxy l®ay

We are to win the high altitudes in life by
leaving and forgetting the things that are
behind. Oh, if we could only get away from
our past! It holds us in chains. It en-
meshes us, so that we cannot get disentan-
gled from it. " Remember Lot's wife," how
the poor woman could not get free from her
past, how it dragged her back when the an-
gels were trying to rescue and save her, so
that she was whelmed in the salt tide and
perished.

Many people are lost by clinging to their
past. They have allowed it to be unworthy.
When Cardinal Mazarin was near to death,
it is said a courtier in his palace saw him
walking about the great halls of his palace,
gazing on the magnificent pictures, the stat-
uary, and works of art. " Must I leave it
all? Must I leave it all? " he was heard to
murmur despairingly. These were his treas-
ures, the accumulation of a long life of
wealth and power. These were the things he
had lived for, and they were things he
could not take with him. He must leave

[146]

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them to the moth and rust. We must
beware of our earthly entanglements. We
should forget the things of the past by
having our hearts filled with the glory of
things to come.

[147]

C^omas'g jtttetafee

A wasted day! no song of praise

Wells up from depths of grateful heart,

Yet others long to hear our lays,

The souls that dwell in gloom apart.

A wasted day! no kindly deed;

No cup of ivater, cool and siveet,
We bear to other souls in need,

Nor lead some pilgrim's straying feet.

A wasted day! no victory won,
The sicord lies idle in its sheath,

If deeds of valor be undone,

How can we wear the conqueror's wreath?

XI

t^omag'g jtttetafee

HOMAS was not with the
other apostles when Jesus
appeared to them the even-
ing of the Resurrection.
Through his absence he
missed the revealing of Jesus when he came
that night and stood in the midst of the little
company alive, and showed them his hands.
The other apostles went out from the room
with hearts full of joy. They had their
Friend again. We have no record of what
happened that week, but we are sure they were
wondrously glad. A pastor tells of one who
came to him with a great spiritual burden and
whom he helped and led out into the light.
The person said, " I have seemed to be walk-
ing on air all the week." This must have been
the experience of these apostles after Jesus
had appeared to them that night. But think
of Thomas all that week. He had missed see-

[151]

€^e I3eaut? of Cbeti? 2^a?

ing the risen Jesus. His sorrow was uncom-
forted. There were no songs in his heart.

Do not many people have the same expe-
rience? Have you thought what you may
miss any time you are absent from a reli-
gious service? There is a story of a col-
ored man in the South who walked several
miles to his church, and never failed to attend.
One week he was noticed by a white neighbor
trudging every evening through rain and
slush to his meeting. " Why do you go so
far to church these stormy nights? I should
think you would stay at home when the
weather is so bad." The old man took off his
hat in the cold rain, and said with deep rev-
erence, " You see, we are praying in our
church for a blessing, and I would not dare
to stay away for one night, for that might
be the very night the blessing we are seeking
would come, and if I were not there I should
miss it."

Church services are God's appointments.
Christ asks his people to meet him. He al-
ways keeps his appointments, and comes with

[152]

C^omajs'g $®imu

a blessing. If we do not keep our appoint-
ments with him, we shall miss the good, the
cheer, the help we need, and which he came to
bring to us.

Thomas was not with the disciples when
Jesus came. Those who came saw the risen
Lord and received his benediction. A great
joy came into their hearts. But Thomas
missed all this blessing. We do not know what
divine message may come to the worshippers
in our accustomed place of worship any Sun-
day morning. You may be in sorrow. The
word that day may be a word of comfort, just
the word your heart needs. Those who hear
it thank God and go away with a song; but
you, sitting in your home, nursing your grief,
brooding over it, miss the message and go into
another week unhelped, to walk all the days
through gloom and shadow.

You are a young person, discontented, un-
happy, not knowing what to do with your life.
You did not feel like going to church, so you
were not there. That day the preacher spoke
of life's meaning and purpose, — every life

[153]

€^e l$eautY of €Uty 3®ay

a plan of God, — and showed with unusual
plainness and clearness how to live so as to
fulfil the divine plan for it. He answered
the very question your heart was asking. But
you were not at the service and you missed the
lesson which might have changed the course
of all your after life.

You were greatly discouraged because of
the hardness of the way. The week had been
a difficult one, — things had gone wrong, you
had not done well in business, there had
been tangles and misunderstandings in your
friendships. Saturday you were sick at heart.
Sunday you were in gloomy mood and did
not attend church. The service was an espe-
cially uplifting one, telling of God's love, full
of cheer, encouragement, and impulses to
joy. If you had been present, you would
have been greatly helped by the services, the
prayers, the Scriptures, the hymns, the ser-
mon — toward gladness and victoriousness ;
you would have lost your discouragement in
new spiritual courage, your weariness in
magnificent enthusiasm. Others who were

[154]

C^omag'g jHtetafee

present that morning carried away with them
thoughts and inspirations which made all the
week glad. But you, hiding away in your
self-pity or your disheartenment, missed the
message and the blessing, the kindling of hope
and joy, and went into another week of
weary struggle and toil unhelped.

Thomas's mistake was that his gloom kept
him from being present that night with the
other apostles. Many people yield to dis-
couragement, and discouragement hurts their
lives. Discouragement is a sort of mental
and spiritual malaria. It poisons the blood.
Much of certain forms of sickness is only
discouragement darkening the sky, putting
out the stars, quenching all joy and hope. It
was discouragement which kept Thomas
away from the meeting with the apostles that
night. We see how that mistake almost
wrecked everything for him. If Jesus had
not been so marvellously patient with his
gloomy, doubting disciple, giving him a sec-
ond chance a week later, Thomas would never
have recovered himself and got back into the

[155]

C^e TStauty of Cfcer? J&ty

apostolic family. But if he had been present
at the meeting, he would have seen Jesus when
the others did, and his discouragement would
have been changed into faith, hope, and joy.
We should lose no chance to see Christ.
We should seek the places where he is most
likely to come; we should be ready to hear
every word that might reveal him. We should
keep ourselves always in the light of the
truth, in the shining of God's face. Christ is
always coming to show us his hands with the
print of the nails, to prove to us that God
loves us. If we are always present when he
comes, we shall never miss the blessing which
he brings, and our lives will always be full of
gladness. But the trouble with too many of
us is that we are not present when he comes.
He comes continually in manifold ways. He
comes in every flower that blooms, in every
blade of grass that waves in the breeze, in
every bird that sings, in every beautiful thing
that grows. He comes in the sweet love of
your home, in the laugh of your little child,
in the kindness of your friend. He comes in

[156]

C^omajs's jtttetafee

all the blessings of the church, in the holy
places of prayer.

A good man said that the evening family
worship had saved his home and its love. The
days were full of little frictions and irrita-
tions. He was a man of quick temper and
hasty speech, and often was the home music
jangled. The close of the day was unhappy.
But the evening prayer set all things right
again. The father and mother knelt, side by
side, with their little children, and as they
prayed, " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors," they were drawn close together
again in love. The little strifes were healed,
and their wedded joy was saved. The sun
was not allowed to go down upon their dif-
ferences. This is one of the blessings of fam-
ily prayer. Christ comes and appears to us
alive beside the sacred home altar and shows
us his hands and speaks his word of peace.

In every part of true home life Christ is
always coming in little kindly, beautiful ways.
In all pure friendships he comes continually
with words and acts of cheer. Human kind-

[157]

C^e Beaut? of €Uty ?^a?

ness is simply God revealing himself, Christ
showing his hands. The world and all life
are full of lovely things. In the darkest
gorges among the mountains men find lovely
little flowers blooming, which brighten the
ruggedness ; so the tender things of divine
grace make beautiful the most painful
experiences.

All this is meant to keep our lives cheerful.
The joy is to dispel the sorrow. The sweet-
ness is to overcome the bitterness^ Jesus
comes in a thousand ways, with cheer and
comfort, to make us brave and strong, to
keep us from despair. But how often do we
miss the beautiful things, the pleasure, the
happiness, the comfort that God sends to us.
We always find the thorns, but we do not
always see the roses. We feel the pangs, the
sufferings, but do not get the pleasure, the
joy, the cheer. We miss seeing Jesus when
he appears alive, shows his hands, and speaks
his words of peace, but we always see the
cross, the grave, the darkness.

Shall we not learn the lesson which Thomas
[158]

C^omag's jmtgtafee

had not learned and avoid making the mis-
take he made? Life is full of opportunities
of blessing, but too often we miss them. Shall
we not learn to accept them every one? The
room was chill and uncomfortable, for it was
midwinter. Presently a beam of sunlight
stole in through a crack in the shutter, and
fell in a patch of brightness on the floor.
The little dog had been lying in the cold and
gloom. But the moment he saw a spot of
sunshine on the carpet he got up and walked
over to it and lay down in it. The dog
teaches us a lesson. Wherever we see a spot
of light in the darkness of our condition or
circumstances, let us hasten to it and appro-
priate it. Whenever we find a comfort or a
pleasure, however it may have come to us,
let us accept it. Whenever there is any
beautiful thing along our path, it is for us,
it was put there expressly for us ; let us take
it into our heart and enjoy it as we go on our
way.

Let us miss no opportunity to be where
Christ may be, to stand where he may pass

[159]

C^e iBeaut? of €Uvy &a%

by, to go where he may come. The mistake
of Thomas was that in his gloom and dis-
couragement he was not in the company of
the apostles that night. He lost the oppor-
tunity of seeing the Lord living and of hav-
ing his doubts and griefs swept away by the
light of faith and love. Many of us con-
tinually miss opportunities of gladness and
beauty. We nurse our sorrows and turn not
our faces toward the comforts of God. We
stay in our little dark rooms with the shutters
closed, and go not out into the blessed sun-
light. We are not as happy Christians as we
ought to be. We miss blessings we might
enjoy. We live in the mists and fogs of the
valley, when we might be dwelling on the clear
mountain tops. We neglect opportunities of
receiving divine revealings, and then say we
cannot believe. Let us open our hearts to
the beauty and grace of Christ, however it
may come to us. Then we shall have no more
doubts and fears, but shall find light and joy
everywhere.

[160]

ffrtenng ana fittttfo&tfp

/ shut my casement 'gainst the murky night.
The morning dawned. The world ivas bathed in
light.

So, bent to shield my heart from pain and grief,
I lost the joy that comes from pain's relief.

EICHABD S. HOLMES.

XII

tfrtenttf and fivitnt&typ

HE need of friendship is the
deepest need of life. Every
heart cries out for it. Jesus
was the perfect Man, also
divine, and he needed friends,
craved friendship, and was disappointed when
his friends failed him. Perhaps no shortcom-
ing in good men and women is more common
than the failure to be ideal friends. Too
many follow their impulses only. To-day
they are devoted in their friendship and in
their expression of friendship; to-morrow
something happens and they forget their
ardor and abandon their friendship.

There is no limit to the extent and devo-
tion of true friendship. Peter thought if he
would forgive seven wrongs and still keep on
loving, he would do well. But Jesus said, —
not seven times, but seventy times seven. The

[163]

C^e istmxty of ttevy %>ay

love of a friend should never be worn out.
" A friend loveth at all times.55

Many times, however, friendship balks and
fails. So long as it is easy to do the things
that need to be done, there is no wincing, no
reluctance. You have only to entertain your
friend, and he is genial and courteous. He
never imposes on your kindness. He does not
exact hard service, nor take your time need-
lessly. He does not expect you to go out of
your way to do things for him. Indeed, he is
so thoughtful and pleasant that you are de-
lighted to entertain him. But the case may be
different. For instance, he is not a pleasant
person to have with you. He expects a great
deal of attention. The friendship becomes
burdensome. What shall we do? Here is the
test, — "A friend loveth at all times.55 That
is, your friendship does not fail when there is a
call for large service, costly help, painful self-
denial. Friendship requires us to turn aside
from our own pursuits, if necessary, to oblige
another who needs our service. The friend is
willing to give up his own plans, drop his own

[164]

work, and at great inconvenience go with his
friends to help them. This is the law of
service. The friend who loveth at all times
must be ready to do for his friend whatever
the friend needs, perhaps whatever he de-
mands, as far as it is in his power, not con-
sidering the cost. If asked to go one mile,
he goes two.

The proverb reminds us also that a friend
is " born for adversity." The very heart of
friendship implies this. Friendship is not
merely for times of trouble, — it is for bright
days too. We need our friend's cheer in our
happiest hours. "At all times" includes the
sunny days. But it is for our days of adver-
sity that our friend is born. Then it is that
we need him most, and then it is that the rich-
est and best of his love for us reveals itself.
Adversity tests him. He may never have had
an opportunity to do anything for you when
all things were going well with you. There
was no need in your life then to appeal to his
sympathy. He was your friend, and shared
with you the sweetness of his love, but the

[165]

Clje OBeautv of <&tevy 3®ay

depths of his heart were not stirred. Then
one day trouble came to you, — sickness, sor-
row, loss, or danger, perhaps dishonor. In-
stantly his love grew stronger. Its grip
tightened. Its loyalty strengthened. The
best that was in it came out. You never knew
before that he loved you so much. All he had
was yours, for whatever service he could ren-
der to you.

This is the test of friendship. Is it equal
to the day of adversity? Does it shine out
all the more brightly, the darker the night
grows? Does your love become deeper,
stronger, more ready for service and sacrifice,
the greater your friend's need? It may be
physical need, or it may be need of a mental
or spiritual kind. Your friend may have
fallen into temptation, and there is a shadow
on his name. What should your friendship
do then ? " A friend loveth at all times ; and
a brother is born for adversity."

" His lamps are we,

To shine where he shall say,
And lamps are not for sunny rooms,
Nor for the light of day,

[166]

tfrien&g ant) jfrienD^tp

But for the dark places of the earth,

Where shame and wrong and crime have birth;
Or for the murky twilight gray,

Where wandering sheep have gone astray;
Or where the light of faith grows dim,

And souls are groping after him;
And as sometimes a flame we find

Clear shining through the night —
So bright we do not see the lamp,

But only see the light,
So we may shine — his light the flame,
That men may glorify his name."

What are some of the ways in which friend-
ship should reveal itself? It should not help
unwisely; it should not overhelp. One of
the truest words Emerson spoke concerning
friendship is this, — "This is the office of a
friend, to make us do what we can." At no
point is there greater need for giving firm,
urgent counsel to those who would be true
friends than just here. In the warmth of
your love you are apt to think that it never
can be possible to be too kind. Yet true kind-
ness is wise as well as tender. It must know
how to restrain itself. You could do no
greater harm to your friend than to teach
him to be selfish, or to make him weak by an

[167]

C^e Beaut? of tUvy 2£a?

excess of help to him when his burden is heavy.
Your highest duty to him is to make him un-
selfish. You are also to make him strong,
self-reliant, and self-dependent. You are to
bring out in him all the best and manliest
qualities. This you never can do by coddling,
petting, and babying.

A distinguished botanist, exiled from his
native country, found a position as under-
gardener on a nobleman's estate. While he
was there, his master received a rare plant
with which no one on the estate was familiar.
The head gardener, supposing it to be a trop-
ical plant, put it in the hothouse to protect
it from the winter's cold. He thought the
plant needed warmth. It did not thrive, how-
ever, — indeed, it began to droop. The new
under-gardener, knowing the plant, its native
place, and its nature, said : " This is an arctic
plant. You are killing it by the tropical at-
mosphere into which you have introduced it."
He took the plant out into the frost, and to
the amazement of the gardener piled ice about
it. Soon it began to recover its freshness and

[168]

iffrfeuDg ana tfvittiDtifyip

vigor, and its drooping life became vigorous
and strong. It was being killed by summer
heat when what it needed was the cold of
winter.

Friendship makes the same mistake with
many lives. It coddles them, indulges them,
treats them softly, with over-kindness. It
tries to make all things easy for them, in-
stead of making strong, brave men of them.
This is a mistake that is made by many par-
ents in dealing with their children. They
try to save them from all hardness, from self-
denial, from work and struggle. They bring
them up in hothouses, not knowing that they
are arctic plants, and need the snow and ice
about them instead of the warm air of the
conservatory.

One finds the same mistake made sometimes
in the way young wives try to bring up their
husbands. They pamper them and coddle
them, instead of helping to make stalwart men

of them. Too manv wives do not think of the

«/

higher moral good of their husbands. " And
often a man who starts with a great many

[169]

C^e Beaut? of &Uty ^a?

lofty and disinterested aspirations, deteri-
orates year by year in a deplorable manner
under the influence of a sufficiently well-
meaning and personally conscientious wife."
A young wife will prove her husband's best
friend by trying to make him do his best, do
what he can, become a man of heroic mould,
a self-denying man. Every true wife wants
her husband to take an honored place among
men, to become a useful, influential man in his
community, and to do something, in however
lowly way, to make one spot of the earth
brighter, better, more wholesome. The only
way she can be that sort of a friend to him is
to be his inspirer, findkig the best in him, and
calling it out. This she can never do by pam-
pering and by holding him back from hard
work, from heroic struggle, from noble sacri-
fice. She is his best friend when she makes
him do what he can.

The lesson applies to all friendships. If
you are a friend who loves at all times, you
will seek always to be an inspiration to every
one in whom you are interested. You will

[170]

tfrfenDg ana fivimbtyiy

ever be an encourager, never a discourager.
That is the kind of Friend Christ is to all.
He is ever calling us to something better,
nobler, worthier, and truer. He does not tell
us we are worms of the dust, as some of our
hymns make us say we are, — he tells us we
are children of God, heirs of glory, immortal
beings, and calls us to live worthily. We
should be such friends to men that we shall
ever be striving to make them do what they
can.

The culture of friendship is most impor-
tant. No friendship begins perfect. At first
it is very imperfect. It is like the sculptor's
block of unhewn marbte. The angel is in the
block, but it has yet to be dug out and pol-
ished into perfect beauty. No truest friend-
ship which men admire ever has reached its
perfect attainment easily, without struggle,
without self-repression and much painful dis-
cipline. We all start with a large measure
of selfishness in our nature, and this must be
mastered, extinguished, for no selfish man can
be a worthy friend.

[171]

C^e beauty of €tety 1®ay

We must practise the Beatitudes, — humil-
ity, meekness, hunger for righteousness, mer-
cifulness, purity of heart, the peace-making
spirit. We must practise the Thirteenth of
First Corinthians. A student in the Academy
may master all the principles of art, but until
he has practised art and acquired the tech-
nique and is able to put his beautiful concep-
tions on the canvas, he is not an artist. A
music student may study the principles of
music till he knows them all, but until he has
learned to sing or play, he is not a musician.
So one may know all the maxims and rules of
friendship, but if he has not practised being a
friend, he is not yet a friend, and may fail
in some of the most important qualities of
friendship, — patience, kindness, gentleness,
thoughtfulness.

The matter of expression is also important.
It is important in music. It is important
in speech. It is important in friendship.
Many people love, but they do not show their
love in delicate and fitting ways. Many
homes are loving in a sense, but lack the fine

[172]

and gentle expression of love which would
transform them into places of almost heav-
enly happiness. A writer says : " When we
look on this life from the heights of the heav-
enly world, we shall marvel that the dearest
friends who would have died for one another,
if need be, should consent to give each other
so much pain with their little unkindnesses.
How strange it will all seem then that we were
so exacting in matters so unimportant; that
we were so careless of the sensitive places in
a fond heart and touched them so roughly;
that we were so ready to answer an impatient
word with a more impatient one; that we
were so forgetful of the little ministries of
love that are worth so much more when un-
solicited."

Nothing in this world is more important
than learning to live the friendly life. It is
the highest reach in Christian living. The
young people who are going together these
days, talking about friendship, beginning to
taste of its sweetness and dream of its rich-
ness, should learn well what friendship means.

[173]

C^e iseautr of (fcbzxy ?^ay

" A friend loveth at all times " — suffers
long and is kind, envies not, does not act un-
becomingly, is not provoked, seeks not his
own, is patient, trusts, serves to the utter-
most. We all need friends, but we must put
first being a friend, and in this our hearts
will be marvellously fed with friendship's best
bread. In blessing others we shall be blessed
ourselves.

We must not forget that the only friend-
ship which will fully meet any of life's deep-
est needs is friendship with Christ. You
may have all the joy and help of the sweetest
human friendships, but if you have not
Christ's friendship, you still lack that which
is essential, that without which you never can
know perfect peace. Thomas a Kempis says,
" Love him and keep him for thy Friend,
who, when all go away, will not forsake thee,
or suffer thee to perish at the last."

[174]

C^e PoU and tije ^c^ool

Just a little every day,

That 's the way !
Children learn to read and write
Bit by bit and mite by mite;

Never any one, I say,
Leaps to knowledge and its power;
Slowly — sloicly — hour by hour,

That 's the way I

Just a little every day.

XIII

VERY heart longs for rest
and seeks it. The world
cannot give it. It is not
found in the paths of pleas-
ure; pleasure's flowers have
thorns among them. It is not found in
honor's rewards ; men chase fame, but when
they seek to clasp it, it is only a bubble which
bursts in their hands. It brings no rest.
Money is one of the coveted prizes in this
world. If only they can gather and amass
money, they will be happy, men think. Money
will supply all their wants. It will build pal-
aces and fill them with the splendors of art.
It will gather from all lands the luxuries that
will load their tables and leave nothing to be
desired by the daintiest appetites. Money
seems to be able to meet all human needs. But
there are some things which money cannot
supply. It cannot give rest to the human

[177]

C^e beauty of €fce*i? ?Dat

soul, cannot quiet the conscience and impart
peace to a heart. Nothing earthly can.
Then Jesus says to the whole race of men,
to all weary ones, " Come unto me, and I will
give you rest." Then he says again, " Take
my yoke upon you, and learn of me; . . .
and ye shall find rest unto your souls." It
is important that we understand just how
this prize of peace can be got.

First of all, we must come to Christ.
There he stands, looking with love and com-
passion upon the whole world, with its needs,
its sorrows, and its sin, inviting all to come
to him. He is the Friend of friends. He is
not a tyrant, to make gain of men; he comes
to help them, to comfort them in their sor-
rows, to enrich them in all noble ways, to lead
them into the best possibilities of character.

To come to Christ means to accept him as
our Friend, to come into companionship with
him, to take all the good he would give. We
know what it is to come to a friend. We
trust him, we love him, we give ourselves to
him. A young girl hears the invitation and

[178]

C^e ^ofee and tyz ^c^ool

wooing of love, and she comes to the man
who offers her his affection, believes in him,
confides in him, entrusts the happiness of her
life to him, and becomes his. This is like
what it is to come to Christ. This is the first
thing in becoming a Christian.

The next thing is to take Christ's yoke
upon us. Yoke is not an attractive word.
In the olden days it meant subjection. A
captive nation came under the yoke of the
nation conquering it. Christ speaks to those
who come to him as taking his yoke upon
them. This means voluntary acceptance of
Christ as Master. He never compels us to
become his, to be his friends, to do his will.
We must take our place willingly with him.
He has no slaves among his followers. They
must offer themselves freely.

Jesus says that his yoke is easy. We do
not usually think of any yoke as easy. Sub-
mission to any one is not to our mind. We
like to be our own master. We do not like
to be anybody's slave. Yet the yoke of
Christ, he says, is easy. He means, for one

[179]

C^e idzauty of Ctoeri? %>ay

thing, that he does not lay any unnecessary
burden upon those who take his yoke. He
is not a cruel master. He does not exact
more than is right. He is very patient with
our weakness. He sympathizes with our in-
firmities. He knows how frail we are; he
remembers that we are dust. His command-
ment is not grievous.

The weight or comfort of a yoke depends
much upon our feeling toward the master we
serve. It irks you and makes you chafe to
serve one you dislike, but love makes any
yoke easy. An old man, used to working with
oxen, told the minister he could have helped
him with his sermon. Then he said : " Jesus
meant that his yoke fits well. It is made to
suit the neck, so as not to hurt it." A badlv
fitting shoe hurts the foot. A yoke which is
rough or badly shaped is not easy, — it
chafes. An easy yoke is one that suits the
neck, that causes no friction. The yoke of
Christ is easy because it suits the soul. It
is natural to accept it and wear it. Sin is
not natural. It means missing the mark*

[180]

Sin is failure. It is violation of law. Obe-
dience is natural; disobedience hurts, jars,
breaks the harmony, interrupts the peace.
The yoke of Christ, as God made it, fits the
soul. Hence it is easy, brings happiness,
gives peace to the conscience. " The soul
of man was made for God and never finds
rest until it rests in God." We talk about
God as the home of the soul. We never are
really at home until we accept God's will;
but when we do this, we soon begin to find
joy, peace, and comfort in it. There is no
truly happy life but the Christian's. The
reason some Christians do not appear happy
is because they do not really take the yoke
of Christ. They do not love to obey. They
do not completely give themselves up to
Christ. They do not absolutely trust their
lives, their affairs, to him. If we truly take
Christ's yoke upon us, we shall find it a yoke
of love and it will give rest to our souls.

Then we are to enter Christ's school.
" Learn of me," is the word. We begin as
little children in the lowest grades. The cur-

[181]

C^e Tdzauty of Ctoery J®ty

riculum of this school includes the whole line
of study, from the merest beginnings until
we reach perfection. Christian life is not
something we attain in fulness at once, that
we finish in a single act. At first it is only a
decision, a choice, a determination. We then
have everything to learn. We enter the
school at the lowest grade. For example,
the whole of Christian duty is love. Love is
the fulfilling of the law. Jesus said we
should be known to the world by our love one
to another. Because our natures are jangled
and perverted by sin, we are naturally self-
ish, envious, jealous, unforgiving, uncharit-
able. It is not natural for us, with our evil
hearts, to be kind to those who are unkind
to us, to return good for evil, to love our
enemies, to pray for those who persecute us.
Therefore the whole wonderful lesson of love
has to be learned. And we will not master
it in a day — it will take all our life.

There is something very interesting in
thinking of life as a school. There will come
to you to-morrow a sharp temptation. When

[182]

God permits it, he does not mean that you
shall be overcome by it, that you shall sin.
Neither does he want to make life hard with
struggle for you — he wants you to learn to
meet and endure temptation victoriously. He
wants you to become strong, and you can be
made strong only by exercise. One cannot
become a brave and skilful soldier by study-
ing drill books — he must enter the battle.
Jesus himself learned to be victorious in
temptation by experience. Every tempta-
tion is a lesson set for you; it is an oppor-
tunity to grow. It is a part of the school
of life.

A new duty comes to your hand, some-
thing you have never had to do before, —
a new task, a new responsibility. God is
setting you a new lesson. The first baby
came the other day to the home of two young
people. They are very happy, but happiness
is not all. They have a new lesson set for
them now, one they never have had before, —
fatherhood, motherhood. The Christian vir-
tues are lessons set for us to learn. They

[183]

Ctye I3eaut? of tUxy 3®ay

are not put into our hearts full grown, when
we first become Christians ; we have to learn
them as lessons. St. Paul said he had learned
contentment, and he seems to have been a
good many years at it. In the same way we
all have to learn patience; patience does not
come natural to any of us. So meekness is
a lesson to be learned. To be meek is to be
gentle, mild of temper, self-controlled, not
easily provoked, overcoming evil with good.
Browning has it —

He feels he has a fist, then folds his arms
Crosswise, and makes up his mind to be meek.

We have to learn meekness, and it takes
most of us a long while. Forgiveness is a
lesson. We are taught to pray, " Forgive
us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
Perhaps some of us have been conning the
lesson for many years and have not yet got
it well learned. We have to learn unselfish-
ness. Probably this is one of the hardest
lessons in our whole course. Selfishness is
ingrained in the very fibre of our nature.

[184]

C^e pofit and t^e ^c^ool

We know how it persists, how it keeps com-
ing up again and again at every point, no
matter how you think you have it vanquished.
It is very hard to forget self in our contacts
with others, to honor the other person, to
take cheerfully for ourself the second place,
to deny ourself, that the other person may
have the better portion. Unselfishness is a
very long and hard lesson, and one of the
latest of Christian life's lessons to be mas-
tered, but it is one we must learn if we are
ever to be a beautiful Christian.

The same is true of all the sweet details of
love. We are to be kindly affectioned. We
are to be thoughtful and gracious. We are
to love people that are disagreeable. That
is, we are to be gentle to them, patient with
them. We are to serve them if they need our
service, to relieve them if they are in distress.
We are to be kind to those who are unkind
to us. We are to go miles to do some gentle
deed to one who has treated us ungently.
These are all lessons in Christ's school.

u I never can learn these lessons," says
[185]

C^e iseautt of €tety ?®ay

one. " If that is required in being a Chris-
tian, I must give it all up. I never can cease
to be jealous; I never can be kind to one I
despise; I never can pray for one who does
me an injury; I never can return good for
evil." Not to-day perhaps, but perfection
cannot be reached at once; it is the attain-
ment of all one's years. We have to begin
with little more at first than a desire to be
kind, gentle, patient, a desire growing into
a decision. You are a Christian the moment
you really begin to learn, but a Christian
only in the lowest forms. Then you are to
continue in the school, learning every day,
until at last you are graduated and receive
your diploma and your degree.

There is comfort in the form of the Mas-
ter's words. His life is our lesson-book.
" Learn of me," he says. Every lesson was
perfectly learned and practised by him, in
his own actual experience. Patience, humil-
ity, meekness, gentleness, kindness, unself-
ishness — he learned them all, learned them
just as we have to learn them. They did

[186]

C^e ^ofee ana t^e ^c^ool

not come to him in a miraculous way. Being
with him, living with him, we shall see every
lesson mastered and perfectly lived out in his
life.

Then " Learn of me " means also that
Christ himself is our great Teacher. And he
is a wonderfully patient Teacher. He never
chides us for our slowness and dulness in
learning. Nor is that all — he helps us with
our lessons. Other teachers can do little
more than set the lessons for us, and then
encourage and inspire us, but our great
Teacher can do more. He can give us skill
and will even help us, will do the work for us
or with us, when the lesson is hard. One tells
of an artist's pupil who tried his best to
paint his picture, but could not do it well.
After trying hard he grew discouraged and
weary, and then sank to sleep beside his easel.
While he slept the master came, and seeing
the boy sleeping, and knowing he had done
his best and was disheartened, he took the
brush from his limp hand and completed the
picture for him in most beautiful way. That

[187]

C^e "Btauty of €Uty 2£a?

is the way our Teacher does with us. When
we have done our best, he takes our poor
picture and finishes it for us.

Let no one ever be discouraged in the
school of Christ. Let no one ever say he can-
not learn the great and hard lessons of Chris-
tian life. We never can, — alone. We can-
not even make one hair of our head black or
white ourself. We cannot give up our jeal-
ousy, our envy, our bitterness, our selfish-
ness, and put sweetness, generosity, kindness,
and love in their place, — we cannot alone.
But Christ and we can, and that is the lesson.

We are told that love, joy, peace, long-
suffering, gentleness, goodness — the very
things it is said we must learn as lessons —
are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That is,
the Holy Spirit alone can produce these
graces in us. You cannot make yourself lov-
ing — it is the Spirit's work in you. Let the
Spirit into your heart, give him charge of
your life, and he will produce all these new
and beautiful graces in you.

We have seen also that the first thing in
[188]

C^e poU ana t^e ^c^ool

becoming a Christian is to come to Christ.
We come into his companionship, we live
together, henceforth, — our Lord and we.
Being with a lovely human friend transforms
our life, makes it like our friend's life. Being
with Christ will transform us into his beauty.
Let no one then say it is impossible for him
to become a Christian, to learn the things that
Christ wants us to learn. In Christ you can
do all things. Enter Christ's school, there-
fore, join his classes, and let him teach you,
help you, transform your life, and then you
will grow into his loveliness. Then you can
learn the lessons.

[189]

C^e meafe prot^ejc

If any word of mine has caused one tear

From other eyes to flow;
If I have caused one shadow to appear

On any face 7 know;
If out one thoughtless word of mine has stung

Some loving heart to-day;
Or if the word I 've left unsaid has wrung

A single sigh, I pray
Thou tender heart of Love, forgive the sin.

Help me to keep in mind
That if at last I would thy " well done " win,

In word as well as deed I must be kind!

XIV

T. PAUL had a good deal
to say about the weak
brother. The substance of
his teaching is that those
who are strong ought to be
careful not to harm him who is weak in any
way. They should be willing for his sake to
make sacrifices of personal rights and privi-
leges. We must modify and adjust our own
life to bring it down to the level of the weak
brother. We may not ignore him in the as-
serting of our own liberty. The great ship
in the channel may not go ploughing on its
way with no regard for the smaller ships
pursuing their course in the same channel.
The great man in pursuing his course must
think of the little men that are in his way.
We may not live for ourselves alone. If you
are one in a company of men travelling to-
gether, and are strong and swift-footed, you

[193]

C^e I3eaut? of (fcUvy ?^at?

may not set the pace for the party; you
must hold your strength in restraint and ac-
commodate your speed to the weak and slow-
stepping members. The strong must help
the weak, must be gentle toward them, patient
with them.

A little story poem tells of a race. A num-
ber of runners were on the course. There
was one who at first seemed destined to out-
strip all the others. The way was long, and
the goal far away. Still the favorite kept
in the lead. But those who were watching
the race saw this man stop by and by to lift
up a little child that had fallen in the way
and take it out of danger. A little later,
a comrade fainted and he turned aside to
help him. A woman appeared, frail and in-
experienced, and he lingered to help her find
the way. The watchers saw the favorite
again and again leave his race to comfort,
cheer, or help those who were in distress or
peril. Meanwhile he lost his lead, and others
passed him; and when the winners reached
the goal he was far behind. He did not re-

[194]

Ctye oaeafe QBtot^er

ceive the prize for the race, but the real
honor was his. Love had ruled his course,
and the blessing of many helped by him was
his. The only true monument any one can
have is built of love. John Vance Cheney
writes in " The Century " :

If so men's memories not thy monument be,

Thou shalt have none. Warm hearts, and not cold

stone,
Must mark thy grave, or thou shalt lie unknown.
Marbles keep not themselves; how then keep thee?

There are men of ambition who harden
their hearts against every appeal of human
weakness, frailty, or suffering. They pay
no heed to the needs that come before their
eyes. They never turn away from their
strenuous course to help a brother. They
run their business on lines of strict justice,
perhaps, but justice untempered by love or
mercy. They demand always their pound
of flesh. They put no kindness into their
dealings. They pay small wages and exact
the utmost of toil and service. They never
turn aside to help a fainting one. They tell

[195]

C^e iszamy of €\*ny %>ay

you there is no place for sentiment in busi-
ness. They reach their goal — they become
rich and great, but they have crushed the
weak under their feet. There are other men
who turn aside continually to help the feeble
and the fainting, to be a comfort to the weak.
They may not get along so well in the com-
petition for power, money, or fame, but no
weak brother perishes through their ambi-
tion; no sufferer is left unhelped because
they have not time to answer his cries. They
leave no wreckage of little boats behind them
in the water as they move on their course.

There are a great many weak brothers in
the world. There are those who are physi-
cally weak. Some are lame. Some have
feeble health. Some suffer from the infir-
mities of age. What is the duty of the
strong to the weak? Should they hold them-
selves aloof and refuse to accept any burden,
care, interest, or sympathy? A strong man
may say, " I cannot take time from my busi-
ness to do anything for this weak brother."
But is not the strong man strong for the very

[196]

€^e ©3eafe OB totter

purpose of helping the brother who is weak?
The mountains in their majesty and strength
minister to the plains below, to every little
valley, to every flower and blade of grass, to
every beast and bird. " The Alps were not
uplifted merely to be gazed at and admired by
pleasure-seeking tourists, but to feed the
Rhine, and to nourish the teeming cities on
its banks." But God does not give certain
men strength and position, fine personality
and great influence, merely that they may
stand up high among their fellows, towering
above them, to be admired and honored.
They have their strength and their abilities
that they may be a blessing to those who are
less highly favored.

In almost every community there is one who
is intellectually weak, a foolish boy or man,
or a girl or woman who lacks ability to take
her place among her sisters. Sometimes such
a person is made the sport of neighbors, of
those who are bright and talented, laughed
at, even treated rudely, cruelly. It is a piti-
able sight to see one who is feeble-minded,

[197]

Ctye TBtauty of €iony 3®ay

who has not wit enough to take his place
among others. It is pathetic to see one buf-
feted and abused by those to whom God has
given good mental abilities. It is beautiful
to see a bright, manly boy become the cham-
pion and friend of another boy who is almost
imbecile, protecting him from the sport of
others. It is told of Edward Eggleston that
in his boyhood he and his companions were
forming a literary society. The membership
they determined should include only the best
boys and young men of the place. None who
were undesirable should be admitted. There
was one boy in the neighborhood who was
mentally deficient, who greatly desired to
join the society, that he might learn to
" speak pieces," he said. Most of the boys
laughed at the suggestion that he should be
admitted. But young Eggleston, with a
manly earnestness, favored receiving him.
" We have no right," he said, " to keep all
our good things to ourselves. This poor boy
will do us no harm, and it will please him and
it may do him good." He pleaded for the boy

[198]

C^e meafe 'htotyzx

so earnestly that he was admitted. It made
him very happy, and he became fairly bright.
This was a Christly thing to do. Jesus
would have treated the boy just as Edward
Eggleston did. He never broke even a
bruised reed, so loving was he toward the
weak. We should seek to get the lesson into
all our conduct. If there is a bashful girl in
the neighborhood, or a shy, retiring boy,
these are the ones to whom Jesus would have
the young people show the greatest attention
in their social life. Those for whom most
persons do not care are the ones for whom
Jesus would care the most tenderly if he were
here. Those who need the most help are the
ones Jesus himself helps the most.

"All honor to him who wins the prize! "
The world has cried for a hundred years;
But to him who tries and fails and dies,
I give great glory and honor and tears.

Some people are weak in their character.
The Master was infinitely patient with those
who stumbled and fell. On his ears, as he
stood in the place of trial, wearing the crown

[199]

€^e I3eautt of ttotty 2Dat

of thorns, fell the words of bitter denial from
the lips of his chief disciple, and they must
have pierced his heart like thorns. But he
spoke not one condemning word. He only
looked toward Peter with grief, not with
anger, winning him back to loyalty. Then
when he returned from the grave, he sent his
first message to Peter, — " Tell the disciples
and Peter that I am risen." A little later
he appeared to Peter first of the apostles.
With wonderful love he surrounded this sin-
ning, fallen disciple, that he might save him.
Think what would have been the result if
Jesus had not been thus loving and patient
with Peter in those terrible hours. Peter
never would have been restored. Think what
a loss it would have been to the church in all
ages if he had perished.

We think we are strong, that we cannot
fall, and so we condemn those who stumble.
But we do not know that we are really strong.
We dare not say we could not fall. When
another Christian falls, it becomes us to be
most watchful over ourselves, lest we also be

[200]

c^e aneafe isvotytt

tempted. We do not know how a harsh or
severe word may imperil the weak brother
who has slipped or stumbled. If we treat
him in a severe and condemning way, we may
cause him to perish. We must be as Christ
to him. Let the Master find genuine love in
us. It is well to tell him of the love of Christ
for him, of Christ's patience, gentleness, and
compassion, but if he does not find these qual-
ities of love in our treatment of him, what
we have told him about them will make small
impression upon him.

Some men claim they have a right to drink
moderately, and that it does not hurt them.
St. Paul would say to these men : " Very well ;
I grant all you say, at least for the sake of
argument. You are strong and are never
going to come under the power of appetite.
You have liberty to have your wine on your
table every day. Yes, but what about the
weak brother who is influenced by your ex-
ample, yet who has not your strength and
cannot withstand the temptation of appetite,
as you think you can do? What about him?

[201 ]

C^e I3eaut? of €tety 39ay

6 Through thy knowledge he that is weak
perisheth, the brother for whose sake Christ
died.' "

Some men say: "I cannot care for my
weak brother. I cannot like him. I cannot
have any patience with him. He is narrow
and bigoted and has so many scruples that
there is no getting along with him. Or he is
not bright and I cannot enjoy being with him
or doing anything for him. Or he is rude
and low in his tastes. I cannot be the weak
brother's friend."

" For whose sake Christ died," seems to
answer all these difficulties. Since Christ
loved the weak brother enough to die for him,
I ought to love him enough to be kind to him,
to be his friend, to do him good, at least not
to cause him to perish. This is a tremendous
motive. The fact that Jesus died for the
weak brother suggests his worth in the sight
of God. There is a story of a woman who
made her house a home for crippled and dis-
eased children. Among those gathered under
her care was a boy of three who was a piti-

[ 202 ]

C^e flUeafe i3rot^er

able object. He was covered with blotches.
The good woman could not love him, he was
so repulsive, although she was always kind
to him. One day she was sitting on the
veranda with this boy in her arms. The sun
was warm and in the perfume of the honey-
suckles she slept. She dreamt of herself as
having changed places with the child and as
lying there, only more repulsive in her sin-
fulness than he was in his physical condition.
And over her the Lord Jesus was bending
and looking into her eyes with longing, say-
ing to her, " If I can bear with you who are
so full of sin, and love you in spite of it all,
can you not for my sake love this innocent
child who is suffering not for his own sin but
for the sin of his parents ? "

She awoke with a sudden start, and looked
into the boy's face. He had waked, too, and
was looking intently at her. The passion of
love came into her heart, and in her new emo-
tion she bent down and kissed him as tenderly
as ever she had kissed child of her own. The
boy gave her a smile, so sweet she had never

[203]

Ctye istauty of cBfoer? 2^a?

seen one like it before. From that moment a
wonderful change came over the child. Love
had transformed him from peevishness and
fretfulness into gentle quiet and beauty.

This is the vision we have in St. Paul's
words, — " The weak brother perisheth for
whom Christ died, — perisheth through thy
strength, thy goodness." He is weak and
perishes for want of your love, he for whom
Christ died. How the picture startles us !
Surely we cannot think unkindly, harshly, or
neglectfully any more of the weak brother
when we remember that the Son of God gave
himself to redeem him. There are lives all
about us which seem to have lost their beauty
and their splendor. They appear dull and
lustreless. Yet in them sleep glorious possi-
bilities. They need only the touch of love to
bring out in them the divine loveliness.

They are all about us, — these weak
brothers. They have not our strength. They
are unable to stand in the front rank to do
great things. They are weak in their dis-
position, — full of scruples, not easy to get

[204]

C^e COeafe TBroti&et;

along with. They are weak in their charac-
ter, — easily tempted, falling back readily
into the old, bad ways. They are weak in
their business life, never getting on. We
need more and more to become helpers of the
weak, whatever the form of their weakness
may be. We ought, with our disciplined
power, to be a home, a shelter, a refuge, for
all weak or weary ones who come under our
influence. Let them find love in us, for they
have never found it in any one else. Let the
weakest find love in us, though no otherwhere
have they had any welcome. The sweetest
and the strongest should be the gentlest. Let
us go slower because the weak brother can-
not go fast. Do not get vexed with the weak
brother's scruples or unreasonable ways. Be
sure that no weak brother shall ever perish
through your superior strength and knowl-
edge. Remember always that Christ died for
the weak brother.

[205]

C^e Hurt of ti&e piinimv

For me — to have made one soul
The better for my birth;
To have added but one flower

To the garden of the earth;

To have struck one blow for truth,
In the daily fight with lies;
To have done one deed of right
In the face of calumnies;

To have sown in the souls of men
One thought that will not die — -
To have been a link in the chain of life,
Shall be immortality/"

XV

€^e JLure of t^e ffiini$tvv

VERY worthy human occu-
pation has its glory. Not
every man should be a law-
yer, not every one a physi-
cian, a teacher, a journalist,
a statesman, or a minister ; some should be car-
penters, some shoemakers, some stone masons,
some painters, — to each one his own work.
Every one who does his duty after the will of
God, in whatever calling, is pleasing God.
Every man should find zest and joy in his
work, should think of it as noble and worthy,
and should put his best life into it. In speak-
ing of the attraction of the ministry, we must
remember that in every calling, even the low-
liest, there is room for beautiful life, for hal-
lowed service, for great influence.

Somehow there is an impression in many
quarters that the ministry is not an attrac-

[209]

€^e T&twty of €Uty 3^a?

tive calling. The number of young men who
choose it for their life work is small and seems
to be growing smaller every year. Half a
century ago many Christian fathers and
mothers hoped that one or more of their boys
would become ministers. Many a mother
gave her first-born son to God with intense
longing and much prayer that he might some
day preach the gospel. Over his cradle she
breathed this prayer continually. Perhaps
the mothers do not now so much desire that
their boys should become preachers. The
attractions of the ministry do not win
people's hearts as they did formerly. In-
deed, there are many Christian parents who
even seek to dissuade their sons from choosing
this calling. It does not offer much in the
way of money — other callings offer more.
The commercial and financial world holds up
its attractions and allurements. The other
professions present opportunities for more
brilliant careers. A lawyer may become a
great jurist, a great statesman, or even may
reach the presidency. The physician may

[210]

C^e lure of t^e piinimv

attain high rank among men, may become
celebrated all over the world for his skill in
his profession. Over against all these attrac-
tions the minister's life seems to suffer in
winningness. The minister is not likely to
become rich. It is said the average salary
for ministers in this country is from seven to
eight hundred dollars a year. This means
ofttimes plain and close living, even pinching.
It means also, in many cases, obscurity, with
little chance for fame. Then the ministry
has its hardships, its self-denial, and sacrifice.

But in spite of these conditions the min-
istry has its attractions which should draw
resistlessly upon the hearts of worthy men.
The minister is an ambassador of Christ.
" We are ambassadors therefore," says St.
Paul, " on behalf of Christ, as though God
were entreating by us." The minister brings
to men the good news of the love of God, and
calls them to accept that love. Can there be
any earthly honor so high, any calling so
sacred as this?

The minister himself is a representative of
[211]

C^e isZMty of ttevy %>ay

Christ in the saving of the world. We know
something of what Christ did for the com-
munity in which he lived, for the homes into
which he was received, for the individuals into
whose lives he came. What he was to the
community, to privileged households, and to
the people who enjoyed his personal friend-
ship, that the minister of Christ is to-day to
the households and to the men and women to
whom he ministers.

Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) in one
of his lectures to theological students speaks
thus of his own boyhood pastor : " People
turned to him as by instinct in their joys and
sorrows; men consulted him in the crises of
life, and as they lay a-dying committed their
wives and children to his care. He was a
head to every widow, a father to the orphans,
and the friend of all lowly, discouraged, un-
successful souls. Ten miles away people did
not know his name, but his own congregation
regarded no other, and in the Lord's presence
it was well known and was often mentioned.
When he laid down his trust, and arrived on

[212]

C^e lure of ti&e pLinimv

the other side, many whom he had fed and
guided and restored and comforted, till he
saw them through the gates, were waiting to
receive their shepherd-minister, and as they
stood round him before the Lord, he, of all
men, could say without shame, ' Behold, Lord,
thine under-shepherd, and the flock thou didst
give me.5 "

This picture is not overdrawn, although
perhaps not many pastors in the rush and
hurry of these strenuous days get into such
close and tender relations with their people.
This, however, is the ideal relation, and in
many parishes, both in city and country, min-
isters do indeed become all this and more to
their flocks. Old and young love them. The
people welcome them to their homes. In times
of joy they come, and their presence is not
a restraint to gladness, but an inspiration.
In times of sorrow they come, and their pres-
ence, their sympathy, their love, and their
prayers bring Christ himself near, and even
seem to bring heaven down into the sad home,
with its benedictions of joy. When the baby

[213]

C^e TStauty of €Uty 3®ay

is born, when birthdays are marked, when
the girl becomes engaged, when the wedding
is celebrated, when the boy is graduated or
takes an honor, when the silver and the
golden anniversaries of the old people are
observed, when sickness comes and all walk
softly in the house, when death comes, and
crape is on the door, and the funeral service
is held, the pastor is there, — the friend, the
sharer of joy, the giver of loving greetings
and congratulations, the sympathizer, the
comforter, — in his own lesser human way,
just what Jesus was in the homes of the
people in Galilee and Judaea the true minister
is to his people in all the experiences of their
lives.

We are thinking of the attractions of the
ministry, that in it which should draw young
men into it, should lead them to choose it as
a calling in which to find the deepest joy and
the widest opportunities for service and help-
fulness. Is it not something worth while,
something worthy of the noble life, to come
into such relations with people?

[214]

C^e JLute of ti&e jftinim?

Perhaps we do not appreciate the sacred-
ness of this part of the minister's life and
work. He is the confidential friend of thou-
sands of people who come to him with their
anxieties, their perplexities, their questions,
their disappointments, their failures, their
fears and doubts, their sorrows and their sins.
His study is a confessional. Protestants do
not require the confession of people in their
churches, and yet there are times in the life
of every one of us when we need to go volun-
tarily to a trusted pastor and tell him the
burden that is on our hearts. To many per-
sons this is one of the most sacred privileges
of life. Ofttimes hope would die if it were
not possible to find some one to whom to
speak, to find human sympathy and wise
counsel in days when the burden is too heavy
to be borne alone, or the way cannot be found
without a guide. Even the strongest people
need sometimes a friend who will stand by
them, who will be gentle, patient, and for-
bearing with them when they have stumbled
and sinned. Thousands go down when they

[215]

C^e iszmty of thzxy j®9$

have failed because no love comes and no
hand is reached up to help them to start
again.

Ofttimes people need advice. They do not
know what to do or where to go. In such
times a wise, sympathetic pastor may save a
life from doubt, a soul from despair. People
are inexperienced. They lack wisdom. They
are dazed and confused by their circum-
stances, and need a friend who understands
life better than they do. It is not material
help they require, — it is guidance, inspira-
tion, direction, encouragement. Two persons
have fallen apart through some misunder-
standing. A wise, gentle, and tactful pastor
can bring them together and make their lives
one again. A man has some trouble in his
business, and his minister cheers him and
makes him brave to overcome his discourage-
ment and go on to success. One falls into a
bad habit which is sapping his life and ruin-
ing his career. The minister comes, not with
reproof, but with love and grief and strong
help, and saves him. One fails and falls and

[216]

€^e lure ot ttye jtttmgtti?

is almost in despair, and the minister is like
Christ to lift him up, to save him.

These are mere glimpses of some phases of
the personal work of the minister, the part
of his work the world knows nothing about.
He is priest as well as pastor. In one of St.
Paul's epistles, where he is speaking of the
strenuousness of his own work, he says this:
" Besides those things that are without, there
is much that presseth upon me daily, anxiety
for all the churches." If any one is in trouble,
he is troubled too. If any have sinned, he is
grieved, almost to heart breaking. If any
are suffering, he suffers too. " Who is weak,
and I am not weak? who is caused to
stumble, and I burn not?" The minister's
heart-burdens are his heaviest. People do
not begin to know how their minister enters
into their experiences, their sicknesses, their
struggles, their sorrows, their temptations
and falls, as well as their joys. When their
home is shrouded in gloom, his heart is
breaking.

Is there nothing in this part of the min-
[217]

ister's calling to make it sacred and holy?
There is higher honor in being such a friend
to men and women, in entering into the inner
experiences of their lives, and in standing as
priest between them and God, than there can
be in the most distinguished position the world
can give to any man.

The work of a minister is sacred also be-
cause of its essential motive. It is all a ser-
vice of love. The lawyer does not need to
love his clients. The physician may not love
his patients. The teacher may teach without
personal affection for his pupils. But the
minister must love his people, or his work will
avail nothing. Though he speak with the
tongues of men and angels, if he does not love,
his eloquence is but sounding brass. St.
Paul's epistles are full of love. You feel the
heart-beat in every chapter. For example,
" We are gentle in the midst of you, as when
a nurse cherisheth her own children : even so,
being affectionately desirous of you, we were
well pleased to impart unto you, not the
gospel of God only, but also our own souls,

[218]

C^e tun of t^e ffltntmv

because ye were become very dear to us."
There is no true ministry without love.

The name minister means servant. He is
his people's servant for Jesus' sake. The
people of a true pastor do not begin to know
how deeply and fully he lives for them, how
devotedly he serves them, how tenderly he
loves them. He never wearies of doing for
them. There is a story of St. John, the be-
loved disciple, which illustrates the minister's
love for his people. A noble youth was once
committed to him by his parents. St. John
was obliged to go away on a long journey,
and left his ward in the care of others. When
he returned, he was told that the youth had
fallen into evil ways and had joined a band
of robbers and had become their leader. St.
John was filled with grief and self-reproach.
He hastened to the stronghold of the robbers'
band, seized the young man by the hand,
kissed it, and calling him by his familiar
name, brought him back home again to his
old faith. Thus does the true minister love
souls and seek to save them.

[219]

€^e TStauty of €tety 5^ar

The minister is also a man of prayer, a
man of mighty intercession. The ancient
high priest carried the names of the twelve
tribes on the twelve stones on his breastplate ;
the minister carries the names of his people
in his heart. He prays for them, not as a
congregation only, but as individuals, one by
one. His church roll is his rosary. He is
the personal friend of every member of his
flock. He is the lifter-up of those who faint
or fall. He is an encourager, a strengthener.
In all the world there is no opportunity for
such service of others as the ministry affords.

No true-hearted young man seeks for ease,
for self-indulgence, whatever his calling.
There is nothing noble in such a life.
Worthy men want an opportunity to give
their life for men, as their Master did. They
want an opportunity to be the friend of
others, to do them good, to lead them upward.
This is the highest life possible. They will
find scope for such life in the ministry.

[220]

ISarroto *Lfoe$

" / saw him across the dingy street,

A little old cobbler, lame, with a hump,

Yet his whistle came to me clear and sweet

As he stitched away at a dancing pump.

" Well, some of us limp while others dance;

There's none of life's pleasures without alloy.
Let us thank heaven, then, for the chance
To whistle while mending the shoes of joy."

XVI

OME people seem to live
narrow lives. Their circum-
stances are narrow. They
are hemmed in, as it were,
and it appears to them they
never can make anything of themselves. In
their little, circumscribed environment they
dream of a larger world outside, with its
beauty, its opportunities, its privileges, its
achievements, and they wish they could climb
out of their close, cramped place and enjoy
the wider world, the freer air, the larger
room for living, outside. And some young
people fret in the limitations in which they
find themselves.

But we should never chafe, — chafing
spoils our lives. It is ingratitude to God.
We should accept our circumstances in life,
our condition, our providential environment,
with love and trust, in the spirit of content-

[223]

C^e 'Beaut? of <BUty %>ay

ment. We are not, however, indolently to
accept our limitations, as if God wants us
to stay there forever, and make no effort to
get into larger conditions. Usually we are
to be led out of them at length into a larger
place if we do our part and are faithful.
Contentment with our lot is a religious duty,
and yet we are never to fret about our small
chance, not trying to better our condition,
and blame God for it, complaining that if we
had had the larger opportunity which some-
body else had, we would have made something
worth while of our life.

God does not want us to be contented with
insignificance if we are able to hew our way
out to better things. Ofttimes narrowness
of this kind is really a splendid opportunity
rather than an invincible hindrance. God
puts us into a small place at the beginning
that in the very narrowness we may get im-
pulse and inspiration for larger things, and
in the effort and struggle grow strong. A
young medical student was speaking of the
hampered early beginnings, — poverty, neces-

[224]

$at*ot» JLffoeg

sity for hard work, and more struggle to
get an education. A friend said : " Do
you know that these very experiences were
God's way of blessing you? He gave you
the narrow circumstances that you might
make the effort to grow. If you had had
money, easy conditions, and affluent circum-
stances, you never would have been where
you are to-day, — about to enter an honored
profession."

In one of the Psalms there is a word which
tells not only the writer's own life story, but
that also of countless others. He says, " He
brought me forth also into a large place."
He is referring to troubles and dangers which
had encompassed him, shut him in, made
what seemed an invincible siege about him.
But the Lord delivered him from his strong
enemy and brought him out into a large
place. Many people have had similar de-
liverances. We remember times when there
appeared to be only disaster and calamity
for us, and trouble, shutting us in, entan-
gling us in the wilderness, with no hope of

[2*5]

€^e 'Btauty of ttotvy %>ay

escape, when God, in some way we had not
dreamed of, brought us out into a place of
safety, of joy, of peace, of enlargement, of
prosperity.

But in still gileater way David's word
was true of his life. He had been brought
up in lowly circumstances, but the Lord led
him out into a large place, making him king
of a great nation, and giving him opportu-
nities for wide usefulness. The same was true
of Joseph. Through thirteen years of what
seemed adversity and calamity, God brought
him to honor, power, and great success.
Nearly all who have reached noble character
and great usefulness have been led forth from
limiting circumstances into a large place by
a divine hand.

Some people, however, permit themselves
to be dwarfed in their hampering conditions.
They allow the narrowness of their circum-
stances to get into their souls, and every
noble aspiration is smothered, the wings of
hope are cut, the fires of enthusiasm are
quenched. There are stories of men who

[226]

$arrot» JLtoeg

have been buried alive, sometimes built into
granite walls. So these people allow them-
selves to be buried alive, in their narrow
circumstances. Far more people than we
know make this mistake. They have not
wealth with its luxuries to give them a soft
nest. They have not influential friends to
open doors for them, to lift them into places
of comfort and favor, to give them opportu-
nities for a great career. So they conclude
that their lives are doomed to littleness
and failure. But really, if they only knew
it, what they consider disadvantages are
meant for advantages. What they regard
as hopeless handicaps are meant to be wings
on which they may rise. The narrowness
which makes some people despair, is really
a condition full of great possibilities. It
needs only courage and persistence to turn
it into a blessing. One writes :

Misfortune met two travellers, and swelled to twice

his size;
One, cowering, groaned, "Alas, this hour! " and fell,

no more to rise.

[227]

C^e istmty of Ctoeri? &av

The other climbed the ugly shape, saying, " It 's well

you came! "
And made Misfortune serve him as a stepping-stone

to fame.

Look at Christ's own life. We know how
narrow it was in its early conditions. He
was brought up in a peasant village, without
opportunities for education, for social im-
provement, for training for life. When we
think of the bare circumstances in which Je-
sus grew up, we wonder how his life devel-
oped into such beauty, such nobleness, such
marvellous strength.

The secret was in himself. The grace of
God was in him. At the end he said, " I
have overcome the world." He always lived
victoriously. His circumstances were nar-
row, but no narrowness from without could
cramp or dwarf or stunt his glorious spirit.
The narrowness never entered his soul. His
spirit was as free in the hardest days of his
earthly life as it was in heaven's glory be-
fore he came to the earth. He found in the
Nazareth home, with all its limitations, room

[ 228 ]

^arroto Libeg

enough in which to grow into the most glo-
rious manhood the world has ever known. We
need not say that it was the divine within
him that enabled him to triumph over hin-
drances and disregard limitations. He met
human life j ust as we all must meet it. Temp-
tation and struggle were as real to him as
they are to us. He showed us how we may
overcome the world.

Whatever our conditions may be, however
bare, hard, and invincible they may seem to
be, Christ can enable us to live in them just
as he lived in his barer, harder conditions,
and to come out at length into a wider place.
We are not clay, dust. We have in us an
immortal life which ought to be unconquer-
able. We should laugh at our limited con-
ditions ; they cannot bind or limit us. Some
one, or perhaps it was a bird or a squirrel,
dropped an acorn in the crevice of a great
rock. It sank down and was imprisoned in
the heart of the stone. But moisture from
heaven's clouds reached it, and it grew. It
must die in its dark prison, you would have

[229]

€^e TBeaut? of <&tety &>ay

said. No; it grew and burst the mighty
rock asunder and became a great oak tree.
So we should grow in the severest conditions,
and then we shall come out into a wide place.
Truth is mighty. It may not manifest it-
self in a strenuous life. It may be quiet,
making no noise, and yet it has all the power
of God in it. A noble girl was engaged to
a young man who was in business with his
father — the brewing business, although
they did not say much about this, — with fine
prospects of wealth and prosperity. When
the girl learned the fact, she talked it over
with the young man and then told him very
frankly that she could not marry him unless
he abandoned the business in which he was
engaged. She said that she was a Christian,
and believing that the business was wrong,
she could not be the wife of a man who was
engaged in it. She could not live in a home
which the business maintained. She could
have no blessing in it. The young man was
astounded. He saw nothing wrong in the
business. His father was honorable. Yet

[230]

jftatrotD JLifceg

he loved the girl, listened to what she said,
and considered seriously the possibility of
doing what she asked. After much thought
he became satisfied that she was right, and
decided to give up his place in the business
— for his father was immovable. He went
to the bottom of the ladder and began life
anew. His friends talked of the unreason-
ableness of the girl in demanding such sacri-
fice, and of the young man's folly in accept-
ing her guidance. They called it bigotry
and intolerance.

But the narrowness was really in the cir-
cumstances in which he was already bound
in his father's business. He was held a pris-
oner there. Christ now led him out into a
larger place. His manliness developed into
splendor of character. It took half a dozen
years of hard work, severe struggle, and
pinching economy, but he came out at length a
man of strength. If he had remained in his
old environment, he would have been only a
rich brewer, unrecognized among men, unhon-
ored, even cut off from men of noble rank.

[231]

C^e istauty of €Uxy l®ay

But in this new free life he became a power
among his fellows, a moral force in the com-
munity, building up a home which became a
centre of beauty, happiness, and good. He
was accustomed to say afterward, " My
wife's principles made a man of me." Here
was indeed the gentle hand of Christ, sent
to lead him out of his narrow prison into a
wide place.

Sin stunts life wherever it touches it.
Selfishness cramps and dwarfs. Envy and
jealousy bind the soul in a wretched environ-
ment. Love enlarges the tent. A Christian
woman tells of the kind of friend she used to
be. SKe would choose a girl friend and
would love her intensely. But she was so
insanely jealous of her that the girl must be
her friend and hers only. If she called on
another, or walked with another, or even
spoke kindly to another, her friend's anger
knew no bounds. There was no happiness in
such friendship for either of the two. It was
a miserable prison in which the woman her-
self was bound, and her passionate friend-

[232]

$areoto Libeg

ship made only bondage for the one she
loved.

Then the woman tells of giving her heart
to Christ, and learning from him the secret
of true friendship. The old jealousies had
vanished. When she had a friend, she was
kind and loving to her, and wanted everybody
to love her. God had led her forth into a
large place. She had a thousand times the
joy she used to have in the old-time narrow,
exacting, suspicious friendship. She had en-
larged the place of her tent. It was no
longer a little place for our thin canvas
walls, with room only for herself and one;
it widened out until it was as wide as the
love of Christ.

We cannot let Christ into our hearts with-
out becoming broader in feeling, larger in
interest, wider in hope, more generous in all
ways. We have no right to be narrow. We
should pray to be delivered from all narrow-
ness in our friendships, — in our heart life,
our church life, our neighborhood life, our
school life, our social life. Look at Christ

[233]

C^e QBeaut? of tiazvy %>ay

himself as the perfect One. He enlarged the
place of his tent until it became as wide as
the blue sky. Under its shelter all the weary,
the lonely, the homesick, the suffering, and
the sorrowing take refuge.

[ 234 ]

€^e €tue Enlarging of JLtfe

Soul that canst soar!
Body may slumber;
Body shall cumber
Soul-flight no more.

BBOWNING.

XVII

€^e Ctue Enlarging of life

O the external eye there is no
great difference in men.
Some are tall, some are short,
some are heavy, some are
light, some are slow, some
are quick of movement. We soon learn that
the real size of men is not measured by their
height or their weight, or the alertness or
slowness of their movements. A physical
giant may be a very little man in intellectual
or in moral quality, and a man of very small
stature may be great in the things which
make real manhood.

The actual measurement of life is not
therefore determined by the weigher's scales
or by the tailor's patterns, but by qualities of
mind and heart. When we are exhorted to
enlarge our life, it is not meant that we shall
increase our stature or add pounds to our

[237]

Clje OBeautt of ttotty 1®$$

weight, but that we shall grow in the things
that make character, that give power, that
add influence. There is always room for
such enlarging. The possibilities are sim-
ply immeasurable. No man is ever so good
that he cannot be better. No one has ever
attained so worthy a character that he can-
not be worthier. No one is ever so noble a
friend but he can become nobler. Richard
Watson Gilder puts this truth in a beautiful
way in a little poem:

Yesterday, when we were friends,
We were scarcely friends at all;
Now we have been friends so long,
Now onr love has grown so strong.

When to-morrow's eve shall fall
We shall say, as night descends,

Again shall say: Ah, yesterday
Scarcely were we friends at all —

Now we have been friends so long;

Our love has grown so deep, so strong.

The same is true of every noble quality.
All life is immortal. Its reach is infinite. Yet
few of us begin to make of our own per-

[238]

C^e Cnie enlarging of life

sonal life what we might make of it. We do
not live as we could live. We touch only
the edges of possible attainment. The call
of Christ to us ever is to enlarge our lives.
He wants us to have not life merely, but
abundant life. Yet many of us are satisfied
if we have life at all, even the smallest meas-
ure of it. We live only at a " poor dying
rate," as the old hymn puts it. Our veins are
scant of life. We are not living richly. Our
cheeks are thin and sunken. We are spirit-
ually anemic.

Men are looking after their bodies now a
good deal more than they did formerly. We
are taught that we ought to be well, that we
ought to bring our bodies up to their best.
Athletics may be overdone in some of our
colleges, where some young men seem to
think they have no minds, no souls, have only
bodies. But true education thinks of all
parts of the life — body, mind, and spirit —
and seeks to make full-rounded men. That is
what Christ means when he calls for abun-
dant life. It means enlargement in all phases

[239]

C^e Beaut? of <£bet? l®ay

and departments of our being. We are not
living up to our full duty if we are not tak-
ing care of our bodies. We are always in
danger of over-indulging our appetites.
Plain living and high thinking belong to the
true life. Men talk about the mystery of
Providence when their health is poor or when
they break down early. They wonder why
it is. Perhaps it would be more fair to put
the responsibility on their own neglect of
the laws of life and health.

The heart makes the life. This is true of
the physical life, — its health and fulness de-
pend on the working of the heart. It is true
also of the spiritual life. " Thy heart . . .
shall be enlarged," is the promise to those
who are called to live the life of divine grace.

A larger heart makes a larger man. Love
is the final measure of life. There is just as
much of life in a man as there is of love, for
love is the essential thing. Not to love is not
to live. Love is the perfect tense of live. St.
Paul tells us that though we have the elo-
quence of angels, the gift of prophecy, and

[240]

C^e Ctue Enlarging of iLtfe

though we have all knowledge, and faith to
work the most stupendous miracles, and the
largest benevolence, and have even a martyr
spirit, but have not love, we are nothing. We
are empty. When we say that our heart is
enlarged, we mean we are growing in love,
becoming more kind, more long-suffering, less
envious, less irritable, seeing more of the
good in others and less of things to blame
and condemn, having more patience, more
gentleness, more sympathy.

We must also make sure that what seems
to us to be enlargement of life is really en-
largement. " Getting is not always gain-
ing." A man may be growing in certain ways
and yet be really dwindling. He may bulk
more largely before the eyes of men, and yet
in the sight of heaven be a smaller man than
when he seemed least. Writers distinguish
between possessing and inheriting. In one of
the Beatitudes we read, " Blessed are the
meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
The meek are the unresisting. They are not
the strenuous among men. Ordinarily they

[241 ]

€^e TStauty of €totvy 3©a?

do not grow rich. They do not add field to
field. They are not generally regarded as
successful. They are not shrewd, and are
easily imposed upon. Ambitious and un-
scrupulous men often take advantage of
them. They do not contend for their rights.
They give to him who asks of them, and
from him that takes away their goods they
demand them not again.

It seems strange, therefore, to read of the
meek that they shall inherit the earth. But
note the word that is used, - — inherit. They
do not possess the earth. They do not have
its millions in their own name. A writer,
speaking of the Beatitudes, says : " The men
who leave behind them much hoarded wealth,
rarely leave anything else. Their names are
not known in religion, in education, in social
reform. The scholars, the thinkers, the poets
and saints, the men who raise the moral stat-
ure of mankind, usually die poor." Yet the
Master says of just such as these, that they
shall inherit the earth. What does he mean?
There is a world-wide difference between get-

[242]

W$z €rue (Enlarging of Life

ting and gaining, between possessing and
inheriting. A man may acquire power and
may amass millions of money. That is, he
may put his name on the millions. He may
own railroads, banks, mines, houses, but his
vast wealth really means nothing to him. At
the heart of it all, there is only a poor, mis-
erable, dwarfed soul. Then when he dies,
he is a beggar, like the rich man in our
Lord's parable, — owning nothing. He takes
none of his money with him. He possessed
millions, — he inherited nothing. He made
nothing really his own. No part of his
wealth was laid up in heaven. No part of it
was ever wrought into his own life. No part
of it was put into the lives of others.

There is no true enlarging of the heart
and life in such acquisition as this. A man
may increase in money-possessions until the
boy of poverty has become a millionaire, and
yet be no wiser, no greater in himself, no
more a man, with not one more worthy qual-
ity of character. He may live in a great deal
finer house, with richer furniture and rarer

[243]

C^e 'Beaut? of €tevy l®ay

pictures and costlier carpets, but the man
in the midst of all the splendor is no better,
no greater. He may have a large library
in the part of his house where the library
ought to be, but the books have done nothing
for him, have been nothing to him ; the pages
are uncut ; he has not taken any of them into
his life. He was told that a rich man ought
to have a fine library and he bought one, but
never read a book.

He may have lovely gardens on his estate,
with rare plants and flowers, but he knows
nothing of any of them, and they mean noth-
ing to him. They have put neither beauty
nor fragrance into his life. He may have
great works of art in his house, purchased
for him by connoisseurs at fabulous prices,
but he knows nothing of any of them. All
the costly things he has gathered about him
by means of his wealth are but vain bits of
display. They mean nothing to the man.
They represent no taste, no culture, no voca-
tion of his. He is no greater, no more intel-
ligent, no more refined, because of owning

[244]

C^e Ctue Cnlatgtng of life

them. His life is no more beautiful, no more
gentle or useful, for any or all of them.

There is no true enlarging of life in all
this. Acquisition is not gain, possessing is
not inheriting. The way the meek man in-
herits the earth is by getting the beautiful
things of the world into his life, not merely
by having them added to his estate. It is
not by owning mountains, but by having the
mountains in his heart that a man is really
enriched. Dr. Robertson Nicoll, in speaking
of owning and possessing, says : " I occa-
sionally go out on a Saturday afternoon
along a Surrey lane. Who owns that lane?
I do not know. But I possess it. It belongs
to me, for I can appreciate its beauty of
color and contour; I go through it with a
rejoicing heart, and I care not who holds
the title-deeds."

A man who is seeking to enlarge his life
may continue poor all his years in an earthly
sense, but he receives into his life qualities of
character which make him a better and
greater and richer man. St. Paul lost all his

[ 245]

C^e istmxty of Ciier? ?&a?

■ *

money, all his earthly inheritance, in follow-
ing Christ. But think what a glorious
Christian manhood he built up meanwhile for
himself! Think of the way he blessed the
world by his life, by his teaching, by his
splendid self-sacrifice, by his influence!
Think of all he gave to the world in his
words ! He scattered seeds of truth, plants
of beauty everywhere. Think how the world
has been blessed and enriched by what he
said and did. His heart was enriched and
his life grew into marvellous ardor and in-
fluence. Jesus said, " No man . . . hath left
house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or
father, or children, or lands, for my sake,
and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive
a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and
brethren . . . and lands." Whatever we
part with in following Christ we shall get
back again, in our own lives, in real posses-
sion, in rich blessing.

When we speak of the true enlarging of
the life, we must think of such enlarging as
this, — not of a man's property, but of him-

[246]

C^e Crue (Enlarging of life

self. You have grown richer, perhaps, these
years; you have a great bank account, a
bigger and finer house, more property, are
more widely known among your fellows, oc-
cupy a more conspicuous place; but are you
a larger man, are you truer? Have you
more peace in your breast? Is your heart
warmer? Do you love your fellow-men any
more? Are you giving out your life more
unselfishly to make others better? Are you
making yourself more continually a bridge
that others may cross over life's chasm; a
stairway on which the weak, the weary, the
struggling, the lowly, may climb up to better
things? The enlarging life is one that is
growing more Christlike every day, that has
more of the fruits of the Spirit in it, — love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, self-
control.

[247]

C^roug^ t^e gear <mity ct^oti

" Whichever tcay the tcind doth blow
Some heart is glad to have it so;
Then blow it east or bloto it west,
The wind that blows, that wind is best.

" My little craft sails not alone;
A thousand fleets from every zone
Are out upon a thousand seas;
And ivhat for me were favoring breeze
Might dash another, with the shock
Of doom, upon some hidden rock.
And so I do not dare to pray
For winds to waft me on my way,
But leave it to a Higher Will
To stay or speed me; trusting still
That all is well, and sure that He
Who launched my bark will sail with me
Through storm and calm, and will not fail,
Whatever breezes may prevail,
To bring me, every peril past,
Within his sheltering port at last J9

XVIII

N ancient heathen religions
there were deities for times
and places. The gods were
local. In passing through
countries the traveller would
find himself passing from under the juris-
diction and protection of one deity to-day to
the sway and shelter of another to-morrow.
But where the one true God is known and
worshipped we have no such perplexity in
finding divine care. We do not have to
change Gods as we pass from place to place.
Our God is the God of the mountains and of
the valleys, of the land and the sea, of the
day and of the night. He is the God of all
nations and wherever we journey, to the re-
motest parts of the world, we are always in
his kingdom. We never can get away from
beneath the shadow of the wings of Jehovah.

[251]

C^e TBeaut? of cftiett %>w

There is something wonderfully comforting
in this truth of the universality of God and
his care.

Then God is also the God of all time.
" Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in
all generations. . . . Even from everlasting
to everlasting, thou art God." Two friends
set out, side by side, at the beginning of a
year, hoping to walk together to the year's
end, but they are not sure that they will.
Their fellowship may continue, but many set
out together who do not complete the year
in company. One is taken and the other left.
We are sure, however, that nothing can in-
terrupt our walk with God. The great Com-
panion cannot die. Though our earthly life
ends, we still shall be with God. Nothing can
separate us from him.

This is a sweet thought for a new year,
that we go through it with God. The sen-
timent is devout and fitting. Whether we
do it conscientiously and reverently, or with-
out thought, unconsciously, we shall cer-
tainly go through the year with God. We

[252]

cannot help it. We cannot get away from
him. The atheist thought to teach his child
his own negation of belief and wrote for her,
" God is nowhere." But the child spelled out
the words, and in her own simplicity made
them read, " God is now here." We cannot
get away from God any hour of the year,
whatever we may do. It is better, however,
that we go through the year consciously
with God. Then we shall experience con-
tinually the joy of his presence, the inspira-
tion of his love, and the guidance of his
hand.

We write in our letters, Anno Domini, " In
the year of our Lord." There is something
very beautiful and suggestive in this. Our
years are all really years of our Lord. We
should make them so indeed, — years of
Christ. This means that we should remem-
ber they are his, — not the world's, not ours,
but Christ's. Only he should be permitted to
direct us ; all the work we do should be for
him, and all our life we should live to get his
approval. Thus we shall make the years,

[253]

C^e iszmty of €\>zxy &av

in fact as they are in name, years of our
Lord.

We want to give our whole year to God,
but we can do this only by giving him the
days one by one as we begin them. An Eng-
lish clergyman says that one of the most in-
fluential memories he cherishes of his father
is that every morning, as he went out from
his home to his work, he would say solemnly
in the presence of his family, " I go forth
this day in the name of the Lord." God
breaks up our life into days to make it easier
for us. We could not carry at one load the
burden of a whole year, — we would break
under it, — so he gives us only a day at a
time. Anybody ought to be able to get
through a single day, whatever its duty, its
care, or its suffering. The trouble too often
is that we look at a whole year at one
glimpse, and it dismays us to think that we
have all its accumulated burdens to bear and
tasks and duties to do. We forget that we
have only one thing to do for any minute,
and we can easily do that.

[ 254 ]

C^oufil) tyt $zat ttritij (Bon

" One step and then another,

And the longest walk is ended;
One stitch, and then another,

And the longest rent is mended;
One brick upon another,

And the highest wall is made;
One flake upon another,

And the deepest snow is laid.

u Then do not look disheartened

On the work you have to do,
And say that such a mighty task

You never can get through;
But just endeavor, day by day,

Another point to gain,
And soon the mountain which you feared

Will prove to be a plain."

One of the secrets of a beautiful life is
found in this simple rule, — living day by
day. We can go through one little day with
God, whatever its path may be. When we
rise in the morning, we may give ourselves to
him just for the day. We do not know what
it will have for us, — joy or sorrow, ease or
hardship, — but no matter ; what God gives
or sends we must accept and do sweetly,
faithfully, the very best we can. The day
may have interruptions, and our own plans

[255]

C^e iBeaut^ of €toty %>ay

may have to be set aside. But such inter-
ruptions are only bits of God's will set into
our schedule in place of our own thoughts of
duty. If we are going through the day with
God, we need never trouble about not getting
all our self-imposed tasks finished, if only we
have done God's will each hour. What we
could not do was not ours to do, that day
at least. What of our own planning was set
aside by God's plan, we need not fret
over, for God's allotment is better than
ours.

If we are going through the year with
God, we need have no fear for the difficulties
or the hindrances of the way. The path will
be opened for us as we go on, though it be
through mountains, and the seeming obsta-
cles will not only disappear as we come up
to them, but will prove to be stairways or
stepping-stones to higher planes, gates to
new blessings. As Peter followed the angel,
his chains fell off, the doors and gates opened
of their own accord, and he was led out of
his prison into the free air and back to his

[256]

C^vougl) ti&e pear toit^ <0o&

work. In every faithful and obedient Chris-
tian life hindrances become helps.

" Yet this one thing I learn to know,
Each day more surely as I go,
That doors are opened, ways are made,
Burdens are lifted or are laid,
By some great law unseen and still,
Not as I will."

Making the journey with God is assur-
ance that every step is a real and true ad-
vance. Some people come to birthdays re-
gretfully. They do not like to confess that
they are growing older. But there is no
reason for regret, if only we are living our
years as we should live them, as we may live
them. Empty years are a dishonor. Years
filled with sin are blots in the calendar. We
should be ashamed to come to a birthday at
the close of a year of idleness, indolence,
neglect, or unfaithfulness. Jesus said we
must give account for every idle word we
speak. It will be an unhappy reckoning
that we must make after an idle year or for
idle hours and days in a year.

[257]

But there need never be a shadow of re-
gret in coming to a birthday or to a new
year when we have lived our best through all
the days. If we go through a year with God,
we shall come to its close with enlarged life,
with fairer character, with richer personal-
ity, in every way a better man or woman.
Growth is a law of life. When growth
ceases, death is beginning. Men count the
age of trees by the circles which the years
make. God counts our age, not by the date
in the old family register, but by the accre-
tions his eye sees in our inner life. If a
man is put down as threescore and ten, and
has lived only one year with God, he is really
only one year old, not seventy.

Growth, too, is not marked by height or
weight or by accumulations of money or
property or earthly honor, but by character.
You may be more popular at the end of a
year, people may know you better, you may
be more in the newspapers, but these are not
the real measurements of life. You may be a
really smaller man at the heart of the noto-

[258]

riety you have achieved than you were with-
out fame. Ruskin says, " He only is ad-
vancing in life whose heart is getting softer,
whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker,
whose spirit is entering into living peace."
The journey through the year with God
should be joyous from beginning to end.
A life of praise is the ideal life. No other
is beautiful. Yet praise is by no means
universal even among Christians. Somehow
many people do not train themselves to see
the glad things. There are a thousand
times more things to make us glad than to
make us sad. A writer tells of cycling in
England with a friend. They were flying
down a hill, through a woods. The friend
stopped and jumped off his wheel, and they
both stood and listened. From the woods on
either side came songs of nightingales, —
one, two, three, four, five, six. It is marvel-
lous how much music God can put into a lit-
tle bird's throat. The forest seemed filled
with song. The loneliest places in life are
thus filled with music if we have ears to hear

[259]

€tye I3eaut? of Cfcen? %>ay

what the myriad voices say. The trouble
with too many people is that their ears mis-
interpret the sounds that fall upon them.
They hear only sadness, while they ought to
hear songs. If we would learn to find even
the thousandth part of the good there is in
the world, we would sing all the way. Thus
we would have all our life transfigured. One
of the Sunday afternoon songs the British
Weekly gives its readers teaches somewhat
severely, yet in unforgettable fashion, a good
lesson:

If you wish to grumble, go

Where there's no one nigh to hear;
Let the story of your woe

Fall upon no mortal ear.

Store your troubles far away,
Hid within some jungle deep,

Where nobody 's like to stray,

Or to hear you when you weep.

But if joy hath come to you,

Shout it, spread it far and wide;

Share with others all the true
Happinesses that betide.

[260]

Ctyrougty ttye ^eat ttritty d5oU

Joy and pain contagious are.

Smiles evoke their kith and kin.
Tears will travel fast and far

If you fail to hold them in.

Who is blest the better? He

Who hath filled the world with cheer,

Or the man of misery
With his ever-ready tear?

To go through the year with God is the
noblest, divinest, blessedest thing any one can
do. It will lead the feet on an upward path
every step of the way. Though the outward
life waste, the inward life shall be renewed
day by day.

[261]

€^e ffiemembettf

" The day was dull and drenched and cold,
Full half a year from June —
Was this the garden where, of old,
The birds sang late and soonf

" Gray mists, more desolate than rain,
Hung low o'er borders bare;
Would ever roses bloom again,
Or sunbeams linger there?

" But, sudden, from a laurel spray,
There came a gift of cheer —
A robin's joyous roundelay,
Full, sorrowless, and clear:

" ( His will be done! God's will is love,'

He sang, ' and love is rest;
Through mist below or cloud above
His ways are always best' "

XIX

NE of the secrets of a happy
life is the memory of past
favor and good. Some
people forget the pleasures
and kindnesses that made
yesterday glad, and to-day, when there are
only unpleasant things, are overwhelmed and
cannot find one thing to make them happy.
But if we remember how bright last night's
stars were, to-night, when not a star can be
seen, ought not to dismay us. Mr. Charles
G. Trumbull tells a beautiful little story
which illustrates this. It is an incident of
an Austrian watering place:

" t Ah ! but I have the remembers,' said
the young Austrian doctor, with a happy
smile. The day was gloomy and dismal, for
it was raining hard. The great Kaiserbad,
with its white steps and handsome architec-
ture, that shone so gleamingly beautiful under

[265]

C^e Beaut? of cEto? ?Da?

a noonday sun, now looked a dirty yellow as
the rain beat upon its sides, and trickled down
the ins and outs of its masonry. Few people
were to be seen on the streets or in the music-
gardens and open-air cafes of the usually
lively little Bohemian resort. Even the peaks
of the surrounding Austrian Alps could be
seen but dimly through the clouds and fog. If
one was ever to be depressed by the weather,
it seemed as though the time had come.

" So thought an American visitor, who, on
ascending the steps of the Kaiserbad for his
customary Swedish gymnastics and bath, had
met one of the little physicians in attendance.
But only yesterday the Prince of Bulgaria
had completed his stay in the village. He had
conferred an honorable order upon the chief
physician at the Kaiserbad, and had given
each of the lesser lights a princely fee as a
parting token. No wonder that the spirits
of the young doctor were not to be dampened
by a mere rainy day. So, in response to the
American's ' Good-morning : what disagree-
able weather ! ' came quickly in broken Eng-

[266]

C^e isememberg

lish, ' Ah ! but I have the remembers.' The
words and the lesson stayed with those to
whom they were afterward repeated, and the
thought of the gloom-banishing power of the
little doctor's 6 remembers ' had been more
effective and far-reaching than perhaps he
or the Prince of Bulgaria ever dreamed of."
If we all would keep in our hearts the
" remembers," the memory of the beautiful
things, the cheering things, the happy things
that come to us in our bright, pleasant days,
we should never have a day of unrelieved
gloom. The weather is the cause of a great
deal of unhappiness. A cloudy or rainy day
makes a great many people wretched. You
go out on a dripping morning in a mood like
the weather, and nearly everybody you meet
will greet you with a complaint about the mis-
erable day. The Kaiserbad tourists were not
sinners above all people, though, possibly,
being invalids to some degree, they were
more excusable than most others who
grumble about lowering skies and dripping
mists. The trouble with many people is that

[267]

Clje "Beauty of Cfcet? 2£>a?

the gloom of the weather gets into their
hearts and darkens their eyes and makes
them unhappy. Ofttimes whole days are
altogether spoiled for them in this way.

The Kaiserbad doctor's philosophy ought
to come in with fine effect on every such day.
" Ah, but I have the remembers." To-day
may be gloomy, but remember what bright
sunshine you had yesterday. There are few
people who do not have many such remem-
bers in the story of their lives, if only they
would recall them in the days when they are
discouraged; and if only they would recall
them, their gloom would be lightened.

The Bible is full of exhortations to remem-
ber : " Thou shalt remember all the way
which Jehovah thy God hath led thee these
forty years in the wilderness." " Remember
the day when thou earnest forth out of the
land of Egypt all the days of thy life."
" But I will remember the years of the right
hand of the Most High." The memory of
past goodness should shine in the present
darkness, however deep and dense it is.

[268]

C^e Eememberg

Once you were in great perplexity. You
seemed hopelessly shut in. You could see
nothing but danger and loss. Then in a mar-
vellous way God led you out into a large
place. In your present gloom and fear,
whatever it is, remember this former deliver-
ance. Yesterday's mercy ought to be a
guarantee for mercy to-day. Yesterday's
kindness should keep our hearts warm in
spite of to-day's hardness. " I will remember
the years of the right hand of the Most
High." Those were glorious years. They
were full of sunshine. They were full of love.
There were no troubles then. Everything
was bright. The air was full of bird songs.
The paths were strewn with flowers. All was
prosperous. Now all is changed. The birds
are not singing to-day. The flowers have
faded. The friends are gone. Prosperity
has given way to adversity.

But have you forgotten the past? Ought
not the memory of the goodness of other
blessed days to shine through the clouds of
to-day and to touch them with glory? "I

[ 269 ]

C&e 'Beaut? of €\*tty &ay

will remember the beautiful years that are
gone, and remembering them will bring them
back again,

55

" Thank God for friends your life has known,

For every dear departed day;
The blessed past is safe alone —

God gives, but does not take away;
He only safely keeps above
For us the treasures that we love."

Why are we so fickle in our faith and glad-
ness? We are on the mountain top one hour
and next hour we are away down in the dim
valley. We have all the great and essential
elements of happiness on a dark, rainy day
that we had on the bright day a week ago.
We have God, we have hope, we have love.
Why should we let a little drizzle, a gust of
wind, and a flurry of sleet darken our mood
and make all things seem hopeless for us?
Why should one dreary day make us forget
whole weeks of bright sunshine and fragrant
air? Ought not the ' remembers 5 to save us
from such gloomy feelings?

[270]

€^e ISememberg

We ought to keep always the lesson of the
" Remembers," as the Kaiserbad doctor
taught it. Yesterday had been a glorious
day for him because the king had put a deco-
ration upon him. The honor had so im-
pressed him, so filled his heart with gladness,
that no unpleasant weather could make him
forget it. What did a little rain amount to
while he wore the decoration and remembered
the great favor the king had bestowed upon
him? "A miserable day," other people said
to the doctor when they met him. " Oh, no ;
I have the remembers ! "

If to-day is gloomy and cheerless, remem-
ber the past days that were glorious in their
brightness. Let their splendor strike
through to-day's clouds. In the old Psalm
we read, " This is the day which Jehovah
hath made." This is true of every day, —
not only of the rare days of June, so marvel-
lous in their splendor, but just as really of
the sombre days of November and the wintry
days of January. The aspect of the dreary

[271]

C^e 'Beaut? of €Uty ^a?

days is only a thin veil, behind which always

are blue heavens, glorious sunshine. God

made the days, and he made every one of

them beautiful. If to-day is dark and misty,

it has divine beauty in it nevertheless. If

things seem adverse, God is still God, our

Father, still love, and nothing is really going

wrong.

God's in his heaven —
All 's right with the world.

Even Luther, heroic as he was in his faith,
sometimes lost confidence in the long and
hard struggle of the Reformation. Once it
is said he seemed to have given up utterly,
and was almost in despair. No one could
revive his hope. In the morning his wife
came down to breakfast in deep mourning.
Luther noticed her garb and in alarm asked,
" What is wrong? Who is dead? " " Why,
don't you know? Didn't you hear it? God
is dead." Luther rebuked her for her words
in saying that God was dead. God could not
die. Then she told him that God must be

[272]

€^e Bemembettf

dead or he would not have become so hope-
less. Her reply brought back to the great
reformer the old trust.

We sometimes need to be reminded that
God is not dead. He lives, he always lives;
he loves, he always loves. The fluctuations
in our experience are not fluctuations in the
divine interest and care. " I, Jehovah,
change not," is an Old Testament assur-
ance. Then in the New Testament we have
it thus : " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday
and to-day, yea and for ever." This faith
in the unchanging God should bridge over all
the chasms of earthly trial and keep ever in
our hearts a joyous trust.

There are many people who find their
trouble not in the actual experiences of to-
day, which may be kindly, but in dreading to-
morrow, which may bring gloom or disaster.
All is well now, but they see a dark stream
just before them, and they fear its floods.
But the memories of the past in which good-
ness has never failed should teach us never to
be anxious about any to-morrow,

[273]

C^e 'Beaut? of €tety 3®ay

" There 's a stream of trouble across my path.

It is black and deep and wide.
Bitter the hour the future hath

When I cross its swelling tide.
But I smile and sing and say:
* I will hope and trust alway ;

I '11 bear the sorrow that comes to-morrow,
But I '11 borrow none to-day.'

"To-morrow's bridge is a crazy thing;

I dare not cross it now.
I can see its timbers sway and swing,

And its arches reel and bow.
O heart, you must hope alway;
You must sing and trust and say:

6 1 '11 bear the sorrow that comes to-morrow,
But I Tl borrow none to-day.' "

Count your blessings. Do not forget the
multitude of your benefits in the recollection
of the few disappointments and discomforts
you have had. Let the many joyous re-
members blot out the marks of the lines that
stand black in the record. Even your sor-
rows are seed-plots of blessing. When you
get to heaven and look back, you will see that
the days which now appear draped in mourn-
ing have been your best days, — the fullest
of good. Where the plough has cut deepest,

[ 274 ]

C^e Eememberg

tearing up your garden of happiness and de-
stroying the flowers of gladness, you will find
loveliness a thousand times more wonderful.
God never destroys, — he only and always
fulfils. Out of sadness he brings light. Out
of pain he brings health. Out of disappoint-
ments he brings appointments of good.
Every year is a harvest growing out of past
3'ears, each one better than the one left
behind.

" Why do we worry about the nest ?
We only stay for a day,
Or a month, or a year, at the Lord's behest,
In this habitat of clay.

" Why do we worry about the road,
With its hill or deep ravine?
In a dismal path or a heavy load,
We are helped by hands unseen."

One was speaking of a friendship that was
wondrously sweet, but lamented that it was
given only for a short while. A year after
marriage the loved one was gone. " I could
almost have wished I had not had the friend-
ship at all, — it was so soon ended," grieved

[275]

C^e I3caut? of €\>tvy i®ay

the lonely one. Say it not. It is blessed to
love and be loved, though it be only for a
day. One of Richard Watson Gilder's sweet-
est poems runs :

Because the rose must fade,
Shall I not love the rose?

Because the summer shade
Passes when winter blows,

Shall I not rest me there
In the cool air?

Because the sunset sky-
Makes music in my soul

Only to fail and die,

Shall I not take the whole

Of beauty that it gives
While yet it lives?

It is sweet to have had your friend if only
for a few days, for then you will have the
memory forever, and this remember will cast
its soft radiance down over all the years to
come.

A good woman wrote that she had found
the secret of getting joy out of every sorrow.
When the grief comes and begins to seem
more than she can bear, she goes out and

[276]

C^e Bemembettf

finds some other one in suffering or need, and
begins to minister, to comfort. Then her
own grief or trouble is gone. Try it. It will
prove true for you too. Put your pain or
sorrow into some service of love and it will be
changed into a song.

[277]

Cattng for ttje TStt&tn C^tngjs

"J will go and work for my King" I cried,

" There are so many ways on every side."

But my feet could not reach the open door,

And I heard a voice whisper, " Try no more,

Rest quietly on this bed of pain,

Strength for some other day to gain."

And my heart teas filled with dark despair,

For how could I serve my Master there?

While I lay idle day by day

Those chances to work would slip away.

Then slowly the darkness lifted, and lot

Again came the whisper, soft and low,

" When they cease to murmur against their fate,

They also serve who only wait"

XX

Caring for t^e l3ro6en C&tttgg

T was after the feeding of the
five thousand. There was
much bread left over, and
Jesus bade the disciples
gather up the broken pieces,
that nothing be lost. The incident suggests
our Lord's care for the fragments. Our
lives are full of broken things. Indeed many
people seem to leave nothing after them but
broken pieces. They begin many things, but
finish nothing. Life is too short for us to
do more than begin things. It is said even of
Jesus in his earthly life, that he only began
to do and to teach.

Think of the broken things in our lives, —
the broken threads of our dreams, the broken
hopes that once were brilliant as they shone
before us, but now lie shattered about our
feet; the broken plans we once made and ex-
pected to see fulfilled, but which have not been

[281]

C^e QBeaut? of €Uxy l®ay

realized. Most older people can recall lost
dreams, hopes, and plans, cherished in the
earlier years of their lives, but which seem to
have come to nothing. Some of the men with
whitening hairs supposed once they were
going to be millionaires. But somehow the
dream did not come true. Many of us think
of our career as strewn with broken things
like these, and say that we have made a fail-
ure of our lives. Perhaps so, and perhaps
not. It all depends upon what we have
made of our life instead of what we once
thought we would make of it; of what the
broken things are that lie about us, and
what the shining splendor really was which
we have not attained. Carlyle describes
success as Cfc growing up to our full spiritual
stature under God's sky." If that is what
we have been doing instead of becoming mil-
lionaires, as we once dreamed we would, we
have nothing to vex ourselves over.

There is supposed to be a good deal of
tragedy in the broken things of life, but there
is a great deal more and sadder tragedy in

[282]

eating for t^e TBtofeen Clings

very much of what the world calls success.
Some one wrote under the name of a man who
had achieved phenomenal success in business,
this description, " Born a man and died a
grocer." He became a great grocer, but the
man was lost in the process. He was only a
grocer now. It might have been better if his
dream had been broken, — it certainly would
have been better if the grocer had been a
failure and through the failure the man had
reached up to splendid spiritual stature
under God's sky.

Some people have lying about them broken
dreams of social success. Some tell of dis-
appointments in other ways, in scholarship,
in art, in music, in friendship, in love, in hap-
piness, in intellectual development, in popu-
larity. Whatever these shattered dreams
may be, Christ bids us gather up the broken
pieces. They are of priceless value or the
Son of God would not set his eye upon them
and so earnestly call us to gather them all
up. There is ofttimes far more value in the
broken things of life, things men weep over,

[283]

C^e OBeautt of ttozty %>ay

things they regard as only the wreckage of
failure, than there is in the things they pride
themselves upon as the shining token of their
greatness. God's thoughts are higher than
our thoughts and his ways than our ways.
When he touched your brilliant dream and it
seemed to fall to nothing, he built something
better for you instead. When your plan was
shattered, he substituted his own far nobler
plan in its place.

It is said that when a cathedral was
building an apprentice gathered thousands
of broken pieces of stained glass, chippings
from the glass used by the artists in making
the great windows, and with these made a
window of his own which was the finest in
all the cathedral. Christ can take the
broken things in our lives, our broken plans,
hopes, joys, and dreams, and make perfect
beauty, perfect truth, perfect love for us.
You are discouraged by the losses you have
had in business, the flying away on wings
of the riches you were toiling for and trying
to gather, but, as God sees, you have been

[284]

Catfng for tyz QBrofeett C^fttgg

piling away in your soul riches of spiritual
character while losing earthly possessions.
You think of your sorrows and count your
losses in them, but some day you will find
that you are richer rather than poorer
through them. What seems loss to you is
gain.

" That nothing be lost." This word ought
to encourage us in all our life, in our Chris-
tian work, and in our efforts to gather up the
broken pieces that nothing be lost. We
would say that when such a wonderful mir-
acle had just been wrought, there was no
need for pinching economy in saving the
broken bits. Why should the disciples be
required, each one of them, to carry a great
basket of broken bread, to feed his hunger
for days to come, when the Master could, by
a word, make bread for him anywhere?

For one thing, we know that God, with all
his mighty power, never works the smallest
unnecessary miracle. He will never do for
you what you can do for yourself.

For another thing, the Master wanted to
[285]

€^e iseaiit? of €fcer? 3^a-p

teach his disciples, and he wants to teach us,
to be economical. Waste is sin. To have
gone off that day, leaving those good pieces
of broken bread lying on the ground, bread
of miracle, too, would have been a sin. One
of the stories told of Carlyle is that one day
when the old man was crossing a street he
stopped half-way over, amid hurrying traffic,
stooped down and picked up something lying
there, brushed off the dust, then carried it to
the curb-stone and laid it down gently as if
it had been something of rare value. It was
only a crust of bread, but he said in a voice
of unusual tenderness, for him, " My mother
taught me never to waste a particle of
bread, most precious of all things. This
crust may feed a little sparrow or a hungry
dog."

But bread is not the only thing that men
waste. Time is valuable, — do we never
waste time? Every hour is a pearl. Sup-
pose you saw a man standing by the sea,
with a string of pearls in his hands, and
every now and then taking off one of them

[286]

Caring for tlje TBrofeen Cljiug*

and flinging it into the waves. You would
say he was insane. Yet how many hours of
time, God's priceless hours, of your last
week did you throw away into the sea? Life
itself is wasted by many people. Judas said
Mary had wasted her ointment in pouring
it on the Master. A little later, however,
Jesus spoke of Judas as the " son of perdi-
tion," that is, son of waste. Judas wasted
his life. He was made to be an apostle, and
he died a traitor.

Jesus was most solicitous for broken lives,
always trying to save them. Nobody else
ever had seen any preciousness in the world's
broken lives before. Nobody had cared for
the poor, the blind, the lame, and the palsied,
until he came. The lunatic was bound with
chains and turned out to wander wild where
he would. The fallen were despised. Jesus
was the first to care for these broken bits
of humanity. He saw the gold of heaven
gleaming in the debris of sin. He saw the
possibilities of restored beauty and blessed-
ness in the outcasts of society. " Gather up

[287]

C^e Beaut? of nftjer? l®ay

the broken pieces," was his word to the dis-
ciples, " that nothing be lost." That is his
word to the church to-day. There is not a
wreck of humanity anywhere, along life's
rocks and shoals, that it is not the will of
Christ that we should try to gather up and
save.

Those who are laboring to gather up the
broken pieces should never be discouraged.
Christ is with them wherever they go. They
are his, these broken lives. No particle of
matter ever perishes. Life is immortal and
imperishable. No soul shall ever cease to be.
Then no work for God is ever lost.

" There is no labor lost,
Though it seem tossed
Into the deepest sea.
In dark and dreary nights,
'Mid stormy flash of lights,
It cometh back to thee, —
Cometh not as it went,
So strangely warped and bent,
But straight as an arrow new.
And though thou dost not know
How right from wrong may grow,
From false the true, —

[ 288 ]

Caring for t^e i3rofceu things

Thou mayest confess ere long —

Sorrow hath broke forth in song,

That life comes out of death,

The lily and rose's breath

From beds where ugly stains

Were washed below by earthly rains.

Fear not to labor, then,

Nor say, ' I threw my time away ! '

It is for God, not men,

To count the cost and pay."

The broken pieces of bread were part of
our Lord's miracle, and therefore were sa-
cred. The broken things in our lives, if we
are living faithfully, are of Christ's break-
ing. They are his way of giving us what
we have longed and asked for, of letting us
do the things we wanted to do. It will be
well if we accept them as such. The disap-
pointment we had was Christ's appointment.
One tells of a broken day, nothing done that
in the morning was put into the schedule for
the day, but countless interruptions instead.
— the coming of others with their needs, to
be helped, until all the hours were gone. In
the evening the day was deplored and grieved
over as a lost one, but the answer of comfort

[289]

€^e OBeautt of €Uvy 2^at

given was that these interruptions were bits
of the divine will coming into the human pro-
gramme. They seemed only broken bits, but
they were the best of all the day's work. We
may gather up these broken pieces in faith
and love. Not one of them shall be lost.

There are broken pieces, however, in our
lives which are not part of God's plan for
us, but failures to do our whole duty. At the
end of a year there are in our records many
broken things, — broken pledges, broken
promises, broken intentions, lying among the
debris. Have there been tasks not even
touched? Have there been duties of kind-
ness left undone day after day? "Gather
up the broken pieces." But can we? Can
we make up for past failures? Yes, in a
sense. Because you have been carrying a
miserable grudge in your heart against a
neighbor, treating him coldly, selfishly, un-
christianly, for eleven months and eighteen
days, is no reason why you should continue
to keep the grudge in your heart, the un-
loving coldness in your treatment of him, the

[290]

Cating (ov ti&e istofeen C^wgg

remaining thirteen days of the year. Be-
cause we have been haughty and proud and
self-conceited, spoiling all the year thus far,
must we spoil the little that yet remains of
it? We cannot undo, but the people we have
harmed and neglected will forget and for-
give a very unkind and even cruel past, if
we come now with genuine kindness and flood
all the bitter memories with love while we
may.

It is a beautiful arrangement that Christ-
mas comes in among the last days of the
year. Its warmth melts the ice. Everybody
gives presents at Christmas time. Dr. Rob-
ertson Nicoll, in a happy suggestion for
Christmas, says that giving presents is not
always the best way to help the joy. Most
of us do not need presents, he says. But
what will do our hearts far more good is to
write a batch of kind, affectionate, and en-
couraging letters. We can readily call to
mind friends and acquaintances with whom
life has passed roughly during the year. Let
us write to them. Write to the friend far

[291]

C^e QBeautt of €iotty 1®ay

away, who is fighting a hard battle, and tell
him what you think of his constancy. Write
to the sick friend who fancies herself of no
use in the world and tell her that her life
matters much to you. Hugh Price Hughes,
Dr. Nicoll says, kept very few letters, but in
searching through his desk one day his wife
came upon one from a special friend which
Mr. Hughes had not destroyed. He had
been passing through a serious trial, and
this friend had written him a letter of en-
couragement and strong affection. This
letter he had preserved. Then Dr. Nicoll
says, " If I were to covet any honor of
friendship, it would be this, — that some
letters of mine might be found in the desks
of my friends, when their life struggle is
ended."

There is no way in which we can half so
successfully gather up the broken fragments
that we find strewed along the stories of our
friendships, our associations with neighbors
and business companions, as by doing a
great deal of thoughtful letter-writing from

[292]

Caring iov t^e 13ro6en Ctyngg

time to time. Write to the person you think
is not your friend, does not like you. Do
not say a word about your past difference
or quarrel; just tell him that you have been
thinking about him and want to wish him
happiness. Write to the man who did you
a marked unkindness during the year. Do
not remind him of what he did, and do not
tell him you have forgiven him. Just tell
him that you wish him all the joys of the
blessed days. Write to the discouraged per-
son, to the one who is suffering, to the shut-
in. To have a warm, sincere, encouraging,
and cheerful letter on almost any morning
will mean more to thousands of people than
any gift you could have sent them.

" Gather up the broken pieces which re-
main over." Do at the end of a year, as far
as you can, the things you have been leaving
undone through the year. Go and say in
the right place the kind words you have not
spoken, but ought to have spoken. Do the
duty that for a good while you have been
neglecting to do. Gather up the broken

[293]

r'

€^t TStauty of tbtty &>ay

things, whatever they may be, as far as you
can possibly do it. Finish up the unfinished
things. Do the things that have been left
undone.

Time is short, and when the end comes, no
hustling or hurrying of ours will enable us
to go back and do neglected things of past
years. It is said in the legend that Father
Ventura died before he had finished writing
his life of St. Francis, and so heaven let him
come back for three days to finish the work.
Dr. Watkinson suggests that if men could
come back and complete what they have left
unfinished, it would be a strange lot of work-
ers we would find among us. " There would
be preachers coming back to preach their un-
spoken sermons, and what sermons they
would be! Sunday-school teachers would
come back to repair scamped lessons, and
rich saints would come back to complete
their giving, and what church collections we
should have ! "

But we are not going to come back, any
of us, to finish up the work we have neg-

[294]

Cattng for tt)e l3tofeen Clings

lected along the way. " Night cometh, when
no man can work." Whatever we do for
God and for man, we must do now, as we
go along the way. What we get into the
year's story, we must put in in the three
hundred and sixty-five days which make up
the year.

[295]

1910

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