| Things to Live For |
Chapter 9 |
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The same is true of the forth puttings of every life. The good things that fall from your hands, as you go along the way, are seeds, and will not die. The gentle poet found his song from beginning to end, long, long after he had sung it, in the heart of his friend. The song had not lain there along the years, a mere melody of musical words remembered, like a piece of gold wrapped in a napkin, kept safe and undimmed; all the while it had been a thing of life in the friend’s heart. The influence of its sweet thought had been like a holy perfume in the friend’s soul, pouring out into every nook and cranny, permeating all his spirit. So it is with whatever good things we do, with the true words we speak, with the faithful example we show, with all the influences of our life that are Christlike. They are living seeds. They will not fall into the ground and perish. They will stay where they drop, and you will find them again after many days.
Not only will they stay; they will germinate and grow, and yield a harvest. Faber has said: “When men do anything for God, – the very least things, – they never can know where it will end, nor what amount of work it will do for him.” Go on doing the little things, no matter how small, only making sure that you breathe love into them. Let them fall where they may, not matter into what heart, no matter how silently, no matter how hopeless may seem the soil into which they drop, no matter how you yourself may appear to be forgotten or overlooked as you do your deeds of kindness, and speak your words of love. These words and deeds and influences of yours are living seeds, and not one of them shall perish.
“I dropped a sympathetic word,
Nor stayed to watch it grow,
For little tending’s needed when
The seed is good we sow;
But once I met the man again,
And by the gladsome way
He took my hand,
I knew I sowed
The best of seed that day.”
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