| Things to Live For |
Chapter 5 |
Page 6 |
About her coffin there sat a large circle of her descendant, – her own children and grandchildren. Her life story was a record, not of any great deeds, nor of any fine things done, but of eighty years of plain, simple, lowly, Christ like goodness. Yet it never can be known until the Judgment Day, when the books shall be opened, what blessings that humble life left at its close in the world. Its silent, unconscious influence poured out through all the long years into other lives, making them better, happier, holier, and sweeter.
Such a ministry of goodness is within the reach of every Christian. It requires no brilliant gifts, no great wealth. It is a ministry which the plainest and lowliest may fulfill. Then its influence is incalculable.
The church in these days of fashionable worldliness needs just such simple goodness. It has eloquence in its pulpits, and activity in its pews; but it needs more good people filled with the spirit of Christ, repeating the life of Christ wherever they move. Of such Christians it may be said, as one said recently of a young Christian whose quiet life had realized this conception of goodness: “Wherever she went lovely flowers sprung up in her path, and the air was sweeter when she had passed by.”
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