| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 22 |
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There are many men who, by reason of broken health or some sore misfortune, or through narrow limitations, are shut up in a dark prison, and compelled to lie there, from their dim windows seeing their former companions march by them with gay banners and cheerful music, and pass out of sight. It is not easy to keep one’s spirit brave and strong in such and experience. The weariness is apt to become faintness, and the faintness to pass into the well nigh incurable sickness of despair.
What does the religion of Christ have to say to a man in such condition? It has a message, for, as the gospel views life, there is no human hopelessness. It tells us of another sphere in life besides that in which success is measured by physical activities and material results – a sphere in which one may fail to the eyes of men, and yet to be a glorious success in the sight of heaven. Activities are not the only measure of living. It is not what we do in a given time that tells what real progress we have been making, but what has been done in us. One may be accomplishing a great deal, as men look at life, and yet really be doing nothing that shall last. One may be straining every nerve in exertions which seem to produce splendid results, and yet be only beating the air.
A business man, who, after years of energetic work, was suddenly stricken down and compelled to lie for months on his bed, scarcely moving hand or foot, one day said to his pastor, “For years I have been running my soul thin by my incessant activities, but in these quiet months I have had time to think about my life, and now, for the first time in all my experience, I am growing.” He was learning lessons he never could have learned in the rushing restlessness of his earlier years.
We must not think that, because we can go on no longer in our chosen course, therefore life has nothing more for us. The breaking up and setting aside of a plan of human ambition is ofttimes the making of the man. A young woman who had been an intense student of music for several years, studying at home and abroad, and devoting herself with great enthusiasm to her art, found it necessary to give up all her work and rest for a year.
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