| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 8 |
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It is our great Teacher himself who paints this picture for us, meaning us to get a spiritual lesson from it. He tells us plainly, also, what kind of people he has in mind – those who hear the word, at first receiving it with joy, but in whom the word, lacking root, does not abide, because it cannot bear the testing of this world, and soon droops and perishes.
That is, there are those who by reason of the thinness or shallowness of their life do not furnish soil in which the good things of religious principle and character can grow. They are not unreceptive, like the life depicted under the figure of the trodden road; they receive quickly and impulsively the good teachings and holy influences which come to them. But they just as quickly let them go. Worthy intentions do not grow into fixed purposes. Impulses do not become principles. Good feelings do not ripen into fruits of noble character. Heavenly visions are not wrought into holy deeds. The green shoots lie withered and dead on the ground.
Shallowness of life is too common a fault. It is not a large proportion of beginnings of good which grows into maturity. There are too many people who are always eager to accept any new truth that is brought to them, but who do nothing with it, make nothing of it, do not assimilate it in their life, and therefore soon lose it. Many begin to build, and are not able to finish. Countless readers read part of the first volume of great books, and never get any farther. In certain popular schools and lecture courses the first enrolment falls off fifty percent before the close. If all who begin to learn music or art persevered unto the end, how full the world would be of music and of beauty! If all fine beginnings of character ripened into perfection, how good we all should be!
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