| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 11 |
Page 6 |
It is related that a friend once said to Lord Tennyson, “Tell me what Jesus Christ is to you, personally.” They were walking in the garden, and close by was a rose bush full of wonderful roses. Pointing to this miracle of nature, Lord Tennyson answered, “What the sun is to this rose bush, Jesus Christ is to me.” The sun had wooed out from the bare, briery bush of the spring days all that marvelous beauty of roses. And whatever was lovely, winsome, and divine in the life of the great poet, he meant to say had been wooed out of his natural self by the warmth of Christ’s love. So the John we know in later years was the St. John that the friendship of Christ had made. St. Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self control. These are the roses that grow on the thorny stem of human nature when the warmth of the love of Christ has been falling upon it.
Then the friendship of Christ makes our Christian work a thousand times more beautiful. Love has a strange power in calling out the best that is in us. They discovered the reason for the young soldier’s splendid courage in the battle, after he had fallen, in the picture of a fair face that he carried in his blouse pocket, over his heart. Love inspired his bravery. If the secrets of life were all known, it would be seen that the world’s best work in every field is done through love’s inspiration.
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