| Things to Live For |
Chapter 21 |
Page 3 |
In human measure the same is true of all those who teach us lessons that help us in life. Mere compilers may aid us through the good thoughts of others which they gather and bring to us, but they have no help of their own, out of their own life, for us. Only the words which come with the authority of experience can be real bread to our hunger. Only with the comfort wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of God can we really comfort others. Only what we have learned by experience can we truly teach.
Hence it is that the books which truly help us must have cost their authors a great deal more than the mere literary labor of their production. Every word that tells of Christian peace is the fruit of a victory over self in times of sore struggle and trial. Every word that gives comfort tells of sorrows met and endured victoriously. It is the story of his own experience that the author has put into his words. It has been said of poets that what they teach in song they have learned in suffering. All Christians love to read the Hebrew psalms. In every mood and phase of our heart’s feelings we find in these psalms the very words in which to frame our thoughts and utter our desires. The reason is that these psalms are the faithful records of what other men thought and felt when they were in experiences like ours. We walk in the paths which their feet broke for us in the rough wilderness. The blessing we receive comes out of their pain and tears.
So it is in all literature. Great thoughts, wherever we find them, have been born in struggle and anguish. So it is in all life. We cannot be of use in the world without cost. What it costs us nothing to give or to do is not worth the giving or the doing. It is those who sow in tears who reap in joy. It is he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, that shall come again and again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
Page 3