| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 14 |
Page 4 |
The upas tree which grows in Java has an acrid, milky juice which contains a virulent poison. According to the story told by a Dutch surgeon about a hundred years ago, the exhalations of this tree are fatal to both animal and vegetable life. Birds flying over the tree fall dead. No flower or plant will live near the tree. The story is probably untrue, but it illustrates human lives in this world whose influence always leaves a blight on others. They may be winning and attractive. They may come in the guise of friendship and wear the garb of innocence, but they have absorbed the poison of evil until their very breath is deadly. One cannot be with them, accepting their friendship, or coming under their influence, without being hurt by them. The sweet flowers of purity wither in their presence. There are men and women whose merest touch is defiling, who carry moral blight for other lives wherever they go.
How can we hope to live unhurt in this world so full of evil and danger? This is one of the most serious problems of Christian living. Yet it is possible for us to do it through the grace and help of Christ. We can never do it without Christ, but we are assured that he can keep us. One inspired word tells us that he is able to keep us from stumbling, and to set us before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy. The secret of safety lies, therefore, in staying ever in the keeping of Christ.
We miss much of the comfort we should get from Christ by narrowing our thought of his redeeming work. This was not all wrought on the cross, when he there gave himself for us. Comfort should come to us from the knowledge that he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. That is, he met every form of temptation and of evil, and was victorious. This assures us, first, of his sympathy with us in all our temptations–he knows what the struggle means. Then, having himself overcome, he is able to help us to overcome.
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