| Things to Live For |
Chapter 10 |
Page 6 |
The teaching of this pleasant legend is that the divinest ministries of each day are the things of love which God sends across our way. The half hour the busy man takes from his business to comfort a sorrow, to help a discouraged brother to start again, to lift up one who has fainted by the way, to visit a sick neighbor and minister consolation, or to give a young person needed counsel, is the half hour of the day that will shine the most brightly when the records of life are unrolled before God.
So we get our lesson on the superiority of love as the guide and inspirer of life. Knowledge has its place and its power, but knowledge alone is cold and stern. It thinks only of what reason would say, of the path in which logic would lead. But love has its beating heart of tenderness, which thinks of others as well as of self, and inspires to a ministry of holy deeds, which honors God and blesses the world. St. Paul was right when he said that noble and beautiful as are life’s gifts; the most excellent is the way of love.
“If sudden to mine eyes, joy dazzled bliss!
Some happy dawn, the angel of the Lord
Should come all glorious, hiding his dread sword,
And in glad greeting stoop my brow to kiss,
With message from the Master, who would grant
The dearest wish my soul had known to frame;
What would I ask, in that most Holy Name,
Which upon life most blessing would implant?
“Not for great gift; nor even virtue great
In steadfast righteousness remotely set,
Uplifted, far apart from other men;
But that, in daily living’s poor estate,
I might divine my stumbling neighbor’s fret,
And with strong hand clasp lift him up again.”
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