| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 6 |
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The teacher naturally wishes to win the love of his scholars for himself, while he is winning a place in their hearts for Christ. It is easier, too, to get people to love us and honor us than it is to get them to do homage to Christ. Yet, if this is all we do we have doubly failed. We have failed to put honor upon Christ; then we have failed also to give to others anything on which they may really rest in the hour of need. No matter how truly they may love us, how confidently they may trust us, how highly they may honor us, we can do but little for them, in life’s real stress. We may bring them the help of our sympathy, the word of cheer, the word of comfort, but we cannot be to them the rock they need to stand upon, the everlasting arm whose enfolding alone can keep them. If all we do for them is to get them to love us and believe in us we have done nothing for them that will avail in time of real need.
Our work will not stand the test of the day of final revealing. They build only on sand that get nothing better into their life as foundation than love for a minister, a teacher, a friend, or for any Christian. “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” We do men real good only when we get them to put their trust in Christ, to rest altogether on him. To get ourselves built into the foundation is only to put in wood, hay and stubble.
We have our place as mediators of the divine help. We are little cups in which Christ puts something of his love, that we may carry it to those who are hungry and thirsty. We are vessels to bear his name to others. We are voices to cry in the wilderness the message of grace. But we need to make sure always that we get people to know and love Christ and not merely to know and love us.
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