| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 5 |
Page 5 |
After the terrible earthquake and fire at San Francisco, some children far out in the country were gathering up pieces of charred paper which had been carried by the currents of air. Among these fragments they found a partly burned leaf of the Bible. A boy found it, and took it home to his father, who smoothed it out and read for the first time the immortal words, “Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” It was a strange message to come out of the great conflagration – strange, but wonderfully fitting. Everything else of beauty and power had gone down in dust and ashes, but love remained – that was imperishable, and faith and hope remained. Nothing is worth living for but love – God’s love, and the love that it inspires. If we would be rich with riches which nothing can take from us, we must make larger room in our hearts for this love. Christ loves, and has infinite compassion for weakness, for infirmity, for life’s bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks. We shall become like Christ only in the measure in which we get the same compassion into our hearts, and are filled with a like sense of the weakness in others.
“Touched with a feeling of our infirmities.” This wonderful revealing of the heart of Christ in his glory should be full of comfort to those who, with all their striving, are unable to reach the perfect ideal. Christ understands. He sees into our hearts, and he knows when we have done our best, though that best fall so far below the standard. He knew when we tried to keep sweet tempered in the provocation and irritation to which we were exposed yesterday and yet failed, and spoke bitterly and impatiently. He knew when we wanted to be calm and trustful, and to have quiet peace in our heart in some time of great sorrow, or in some sore loss or disappointment. Then when, in spite of our effort, the peace failed and we cried out – he knew what was due to unbelief in us and what to human weakness. We have a most patient Master. He is pitiful toward our infirmities. He is tolerant of our outbreaks. He is gentle toward our failures. Do not say you are not a Christian because you have failed so often, because you fall so far below what you ought to be. Christian life is a long, slow growth, beginning with infancy and reaching at last up to manhood.
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