Making the Most of Life Part 13

"Didst thou bring 'sealed instructions' with thee, dove, How to unlock the fount of mother-love?

Full well dost thou fulfil thy winsome part; With holy fire they're writ upon my heart.

"My child, I fear thee! thou'rt a spirit, soul!

How shall I walk before thee? keep my garments whole?

O Lord, give strength, give wisdom for the task, To train this child for thee! Yet more I ask:

"Life of my life, for thee I crave best gifts and glad, More than, even in dreams, thy mother had!

O Father! fine this gold! Oh, polish this, my gem!

Till it is fair and fitting for thy diadem."

Jesus said of little children that those who receive them, in his name, receive him. May we not then say that children bring great possibility of blessing and happiness to a home? They come to us as messengers from heaven, bearing messages from G.o.d. Yet we may not know their value while we have them. Ofttimes, indeed, it is only the empty crib and the empty arms that reveal to us the full measure of home happiness that we get from the children. Those to whom G.o.d gives children should receive them with reverence. There are homes where mothers, who once wearied easily of children's noises, sit now with aching hearts, and would give the world to have a baby to nurse, or a rollicking boy to care for. Children are among the secrets of a happy home.

Turning to the life of the household, affectionateness is one of the secrets of happiness. There are hundreds of homes in which there is love that would die for its dear ones; and yet hearts are starving there for love's daily bread. There is a tendency in some homes to smother all of love's tenderness, to suppress it, to choke it back.

There are homes where the amenities of affection are unknown, and where hearts starve for daily bread. There are husbands and wives between whom love's converse has settled into the baldest conventionalities.

There are parents who never kiss their children after they are babies, and who discourage in them as they grow up all longing for caresses.

There are homes whose daily life is marred by incessant petty strifes and discourtesies.

These are not exaggerations. Yet there is love in these homes, and all that is needed is that it be set free to perform its sweet ministry.

There are cold, cheerless homes which could be warmed into love's richest glow in a little while, if all the hearts of the household were to grow affectionate in expression. Does the busy husband think that his weary wife would not care any longer for the caresses and marks of tenderness with which he used to thrill her? Let him return again for a month to his old-time fondness, and then ask her if these youthful amenities are distasteful to her. Do parents think their grown-up children are too big to be petted, to be kissed at meeting and parting?

Let them restore again, for a time, something of the affectionateness of the childhood days, and see if there is not a blessing in it. Many who are longing for richer home happiness, need only to pray for a spring-time of love, with a tenderness that is not afraid of affectionate expression.

"Comfort one another; With the hand-clasp close and tender, With the sweetness love can render, And looks of friendly eyes.

Do not wait with grace unspoken While life's daily bread is broken: Gentle speech is oft like manna from the skies."

We ought not to fear to speak our love at home. We should get all the tenderness possible into the daily household life. We should make the morning good-byes, as we part at the breakfast-table, kindly enough for final farewells; for they may be indeed final farewells. Many go out in the morning who never come home at night; therefore, we should part, even for a few hours, with kindly word, with lingering pressure of the hand, lest we may never look again in each other's eyes. Tenderness in a home is not a childish weakness, is not a thing to be ashamed of; it is one of love's sacred duties. Affectionate expression is one of the secrets of happy home life.

Religion is another of these secrets. It is where the Gospel of Christ is welcomed that heaven's benediction falls: "Peace be to this house."

There may be a certain measure of happiness in a home without Christ, but it lacks something at best, and then when sorrow comes, and the sun of earthly joy is darkened, there are no lamps of heavenly comfort to lighten the darkness. Sad indeed is the Christless home, when a beloved one lies dead within its doors. No words of Christian comfort have any power to console, because there is no faith to receive them.

No stars s.h.i.+ne through their cypress-trees. But how different it is in the Christian home, in like sorrow! The grief is just as sore, but the truth of immortality sheds holy light on the darkness, and there is a deep joy which transfigures the sorrow.

Then may we not even put sorrow down as one of the secrets of happiness in a true Christian home? This may seem at first thought a strange suggestion. But there surely are homes that have pa.s.sed through experiences of affliction that have a deeper, richer, fuller joy now than they had before the grief came. The sorrow sobered their gladness, making it less hilarious, but no less sweet. Bereavement drew all the home hearts closer together. The loss of one from the circle made those that remained dearer to each other than before. The tears became crystalline lenses through which faith saw more deeply into heaven. Then in the sorrow Christ came nearer, entering more really into the life of the home. Prayer has meant more since the dark days. There has been a new fragrance of love in the household. There are many homes whose present rich, deep, quiet happiness sorrow helped to make.

But it is not in sorrow only that religion gives its benediction. It makes all the happiness sweeter to have the a.s.surance of G.o.d's love and favor abiding in the household. Burdens are lighter because there is One who shares them all. The morning prayer of the family, when all bow together, makes the whole day fairer; and the evening prayer before sleep, makes all feel safer for the night. Then religion inspires unselfishness, thoughtfulness, the spirit of mutual helpfulness, of burden-bearing, and serving, and thus enriches the home life.

After a while the young folks scatter away, setting up homes of their own. How beautiful it is then to see the old couple, who, thirty or forty years before, stood together at the marriage altar, standing together still, with love as true and pure and tender as ever, waiting to go home. By and by the husband goes away and comes back no more, and then the wife is lonesome and longs to go too. A little later and she also is gone, and they are together again on the other side, those dear old lovers, to be parted henceforth nevermore. And that is the blessed end of a happy Christian home.

CHAPTER XXII.

G.o.d'S WINTER PLANTS.

"The wind that blows can never kill The tree G.o.d plants; It bloweth east; it bloweth west; The tender leaves have little rest, But any wind that blows is best.

The tree G.o.d plants Strikes deeper root, grows higher still, Spreads wider boughs, for G.o.d's good-will Meets all its wants."

--LILLIE E. BARR.

One of the papers tells of a newly discovered flower. It is called the snow-flower. It has been found in the northern part of Siberia. The plant shoots up out of the ice and frozen soil. It has three leaves, each about three inches in diameter. They grow on the side of the stem toward the north. Each of the leaves appears to be covered with little crystals of snow. The flower, when it opens, is star-shaped, its petals being of the same length as the leaves, and about half an inch in width. On the third day the extremities of the anthers show minute glistening specks, like diamonds, which are the seeds of this wonderful flower.

Is not this strange snow-flower an ill.u.s.tration of many Christian lives? G.o.d seems to plant them in the ice and snow; yet they live and grow up out of the wintry cold into fair and wondrous beauty. We should say that the loveliest lives of earth would be those that are reared amid the gentlest, kindliest influences, under summer skies, in the warm atmosphere of ease and comfort. But the truth is that the n.o.blest developments of Christian character are grown in the wintry garden of hards.h.i.+p, struggle, and sorrow.

Trial should not, therefore, be regarded with discouragement, as something which will stunt and dwarf the life and mar its beauty. It should be accepted rather, when it comes, as part of G.o.d's discipline, through which he would bring out the n.o.blest and best possibilities of our character. Perhaps we would be happier for the time if we had easier, more congenial conditions. Children might be happier without restraint, without family government, without chastening--just left to grow up into all wilfulness and waywardness. But there is something better in life than present happiness. Disciplined character in manhood, even though it has been gotten through stern and severe home-training, is better than a childhood and youth of unrestraint, with a worthless manhood as the outcome. A n.o.ble life, bearing G.o.d's image, even at the price of much pain and self-denial, is better than years of freedom from care and sacrifice with a life unblessed and lost at the end. "To serve G.o.d and love him," says one, "is higher and better than happiness, though it be with wounded feet and bleeding hands and heart loaded with sorrow."

"So much we miss If love is weak; so much we gain If love is strong. G.o.d thinks no pain Too sharp or lasting to ordain To teach us this."

It is well that we should understand how to receive trial so as to get from its hard experience the good it has for us. For one thing, we should accept it always reverently. Resistance forfeits the blessing which can be yielded only to the loving, submissive spirit.

Teachableness is the unvarying condition of learning. To rebel against trial is to miss whatever good it may have brought for us. There are some who resent all severity and suffering in their lot as unkindness in G.o.d. These grow no better under divine chastening, but instead are hurt by it. When we accept the conditions of our life, however hard, as divinely ordained, and as the very conditions in which, for a time, we will grow the best, we are ready to get from them the blessing and good intended in them for us.

Another important suggestion is that we faint not under trial. There are those who give up and lose all their courage and faith when trouble comes. They cannot endure suffering. Sorrow crushes them. They break down at once under a cross and think they never can go on again. There have been many lives crushed by affliction or adversity, which have not risen again out of the dust. There have been mothers, happy and faithful before, out of whose home one child has been taken, and who have lost all interest in life from that day, letting their home grow dreary and desolate and their other children go uncared for, as they sat with folded hands in the abandonment of their despairing, uncomforted grief. There have been men with bright hopes, who have suffered one defeat or met with one loss, and then have let go in their discouragement and have fallen into the dust of failure, never trying to rise again.

Nothing is sadder in life than such yieldings. They are unworthy of immortal beings. The divine intention in trial never is to crush us, but always to do good to us in some way, to bring out in us new energy of life. Whatever the loss, struggle, or sorrow, we should accept it in love, humility, and faith, take its lessons, and then go on into the life that is before us. When one child is taken out of a home, the mother should, with more reverent heart and more gentle hand, turn the whole energy of her chastened life into love's channels, living more than ever before for her home and the children that are left to her.

The man who has felt the stunning blow of a sudden grief or loss should kiss the hand of G.o.d that has smitten, and quickly arise and press onward to the battles and duties before him. We should never accept any defeat as final. Though it be in life's last hours, with only a mere fringe of margin left, and all our past failure and loss, still we should not despair.

"What though the radiance which was once so bright, Be now forever taken from my sight; Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the gra.s.s, of glory in the flower, We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind."

There is nowhere any better ill.u.s.tration of the way we should always rise again out of trial than we have in the life of St. Paul. From the day of his conversion till the day of his death, trouble followed him.

He was misunderstood; he was cast out for Christ's sake; he met persecution in every form; he was s.h.i.+pwrecked; he lay in dungeons; he was deserted by his friends. But he never fainted, never grew discouraged, never spoke one word about giving up. "Cast down, but not destroyed," was the story of his life. He quickly arose out of every trial, every adversity, with a new light in his eye, a new enthusiasm in his heart. He could not be defeated, for he had Christ in him.

Shall we not catch St. Paul's unconquerable spirit, that we may never faint in any trial?

It requires faith to meet trouble and adversity heroically.

Undoubtedly, at the time, the blessing is not apparent in the sorrow or the defeat. All seems disastrous and destructive. It is in the future, in the outworking, that the good is to come. It is a matter of faith, not of sight. "All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous, but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness." Oh, the blessing of G.o.d's "afterwards"! Jacob one day thought and said that all things were against him, but afterward he saw that his great afflictions and losses were wrought in as parts of a beautiful plan of love for him. The disciples thought that the cross was the destruction of all their Messianic hopes; afterward they saw that it was the very fulfilment of these hopes. The pruning, which at the time cuts so into the life of the vine, lopping off great, rich branches, afterward is seen to have been the saving and enriching of the whole vine. So we always need faith. We must believe against appearances.

"Under the fount of ill Many a cup doth fill, And the patient lip, though it drinketh oft, Finds only the bitter still.

"Nevertheless, I know, Out of the dark must grow, Sooner or later, whatever is fair, Since the heavens have willed it so."

Back and forth the plough was driven. The field was covered with gra.s.ses and lovely flowers, but remorselessly through them all the share tore its way, cutting furrow after furrow. It seemed that all the beauty was being hopelessly destroyed. But by and by harvest-time came, and the field waved with golden wheat. That was what the ploughman's faith saw from the beginning.

Sorrow seems to destroy the life of a child of G.o.d. Its rude share ploughs again and again through it, making many a deep furrow, gas.h.i.+ng its beauty. But afterward a harvest of blessing and good grows up out of the crushed and broken life. That is what G.o.d intends always in trial and sorrow.

Let us have the ploughman's faith, and we shall not faint when the share is driven through our heart. Then by faith we shall see beyond the pain and trial the blessing of richer life, of whiter holiness, of larger fruitfulness. And to win that blessing will be worth all the pain and trial.

CHAPTER XXIII.

UNFINISHED LIFE-BUILDING.

"Let me not die before I've done for thee My earthly work, whatever it may be.

Call me not hence, with mission unfulfilled; Let me not leave my s.p.a.ce of ground unfilled; Impress this truth upon me, that not one Can do my portion, that I leave undone."