| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 2 |
Page 4 |
We say that was a beautiful thing for the older brother to do. It is always a beautiful thing to do – to be a bridge on which another may cross over to something better. Stories are told of battles in which chasms have been filled up with bodies of the dead over which finally other brave men have passed to victory. That was what Jesus Christ did with his life – he made himself of no reputation that through his self humiliation uncounted multitudes might cross the gulf, otherwise forever impassable, into the heavenly kingdom. This is the story, too, of all civil and religious liberty and of all advances of truth and Christian civilization. Men give their lives to holy service and to sacred causes and seem to fail and sink down into obscurity; but they have only made their work and their lives bridges over which others, coming after them, move to success and honor.
Every day we have opportunities to make of our own life a bridge on which another may pass over to something that he could not of himself have attained. By forgetting self we can prefer in honor our brother and promote his advancement. Sometimes, too, men insist on using our life or our work as a footpath to some goal or ambition of their own. Naturally we resent such injustice. But after all, need we vex ourselves overmuch about such treatment? If only we keep sweet, not allowing the wrong or the injustice to embitter us, cherishing ever the spirit of cheerful, patient love, we are the gainers. The man who does the mean or oppressive thing is the man who loses. He gathers a curse in his hands with the seeming gain he selfishly snatches. We need only to watch that no bitterness enter our heart, enduring the wrong as our Master endured, patiently, committing ourselves to him that judgeth righteously.
No doubt the world, even in these closing days of this nineteenth century, calls this manner of life unmanly. Yet it is marvelous how the spirit of meekness has grown and diffused itself, how it has gone on permeating the lives of men and of nations. More and more are men recognizing the truth of Christ’s teachings that love always win even though it seems to perish, like the dew which loses itself in giving its blessing.
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