Making the Most of Life Part 7

--JOHANNES SCHEFFLER.

"Faithful servant" will be the commendation on the judgment-day of those who have lived well on the earth. Not great deeds will be commended, but faithfulness. The smallest ministries will rank with the most conspicuous, if they are all that the weak hands could do.

Indeed, the widow's two mites were more in value than the rich men's large coins.

"Two mites, two drops, but all her house and land Fell from an earnest heart but trembling hand; The others' wanton wealth foamed high and brave; The others cast away, she only gave."

Yet faithfulness as a measure of requirement is not something that can be reached without effort. It does not furnish a pillow for indolence.

It is not a letting down of obligation to a low standard, to make life easy. It is indeed a lofty measurement. "Thou hast been faithful" is the highest possible commendation.

It may not be amiss to look a little at the meaning of the word as a standard of moral requirement. In general, it implies the doing of all our work as well as we can. All our work includes, of course, our business, our trade, our household duties, all our daily task-work, as well as our praying, our Bible-reading, and our obeying of the moral law. We must not make the mistake of thinking that there is no religion in the way we do the common work of our trade or of our household, or our work on the farm, or in the mill or store. The faithfulness Christ requires and commends takes in all these things.

Ofttimes, too, it would be easier to be faithful in some great trial, requiring sublimity of courage, than in the little unpicturesque duties of an ordinary day. Says Phillips Brooks: "You picture to yourself the beauty of bravery and steadfastness. You let your imagination wander in delight over the memory of martyrs who have died for truth. And then some little, wretched, disagreeable duty comes, which is your martyrdom, the lamp of your oil; and if you will not do it, how your oil is spilt! How flat and thin and unilluminated your sentiment about the martyrs runs out over your self-indulgent life!"

Lovers of the violin are familiar with the name of Stradivarius, the old violin-maker of Cremona. He has been dead nearly two hundred years, and his violins now bring fabulous prices. George Eliot, in one of her poems, puts some n.o.ble words into the mouth of the old man.

Speaking of the masters who will play on his violins, he says:--

"While G.o.d gives them skill, I give them instruments to play upon, G.o.d choosing me to help him."

Referring to another violin-maker, his rival, he says:--

"But were his the best, He could not work for two.

My work is mine, And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked, I should rob G.o.d--since he is fullest good-- Leaving a blank instead of violins.

I say, not G.o.d himself can make man's best Without best men to help him.

'Tis G.o.d gives skill, But not without men's hands.

He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio."

At first reading these words may indeed seem heretical and irreverent, but they are not. It is true, indeed, that even G.o.d cannot do our work without us, without our skill, our faithfulness. If we fail or do our little duty negligently, there will be a blank or a blur where there ought to have been something beautiful. As another says, "The universe is not quite perfect without my work well done."

One man is a carpenter. G.o.d has called him to that work. It is his duty to build houses, and to build them well. That is, he is required to be a good carpenter, to do the very best work he can possibly do.

If, therefore, he does careless work, imperfect, dishonest, slurred, slighted work, he is robbing G.o.d, leaving only bad carpentering where he ought to have left good. For even G.o.d himself will not build the carpenter's houses without the carpenter. Or, here is a mother in a home. Her children are about her, with their needs. Her home requires her skill, her taste, her refinement, her toil and care. It is her calling to be a good mother, and to make a true home for her household.

Her duty is to do always her very best to make her home beautiful, bright, happy, a fit place for her children to grow up in.

Faithfulness requires that she do always such service as a mother, that Jesus shall say of her home-making, "She hath done what she could." To do less than her best is to fail in fidelity. Suppose that her hand should slack, that she should grow negligent, would she not clearly be robbing G.o.d? For even G.o.d cannot make a beautiful home for her children without her.

So we may apply the principle to all kinds of work. The faithfulness which G.o.d requires must reach to everything we do, to the way the child gets its lessons and recites them, to the way the dressmaker and the tailor sew their seams, to the way the blacksmith welds the iron, and shoes the horse, to the way the plumber puts the pipes into the new building and looks after the drainage, to the way the carpenter does his work on the house, to the way the bridge-builder swings the bridge over the stream, to the way the clerk represents the goods, and measures or weighs them. "Be thou faithful" is the word that rings from heaven in every ear. G.o.d's word for the doing of every piece of work that any one does. How soon it would put a stop to all dishonesty, all fraud, all scant work, all false weights and measures, all shams, all neglects or slightings of duty, were this lesson only learned and practiced everywhere!

"It does not matter," people say, "whether I do my little work well or not. Of course I must not steal, nor lie, nor commit forgery, nor break the Sabbath. These are moral things. But there is no sin in my sewing up this seam carelessly, or in my using bad mortar in this wall, or in my putting inferior timber in this house, or a piece of flawed iron in this bridge." But we need to learn that the moral law applies everywhere, just as really to carpentry, or blacksmithing, or tailoring, as to Sabbath-keeping. We never can get away from this law.

Besides, it does matter, for our neighbor's sake, as well as for the honor of G.o.d's law, how we do our work. The bricklayer does negligent work on the walls of the flue he is putting in, and one night, years afterward, a spark creeps through the crevice and reaches a wooden beam that lies there, and soon the house is in flames and perhaps precious lives perish. The bricklayer was unfaithful. The foundryworker, in casting the great iron supports for a bridge, is unwatchful for an instant, and a bubble of air makes a flaw. It is buried away in the heart of the beam and escapes detection. One day, years later, there is a terrible disaster. A great railroad bridge gives way beneath the weight of an express train and hundreds of lives are lost. In the inquest it is testified that a slight flaw in one beam was the cause of the awful calamity which hurled so many lives into eternity. The foundry workman was unfaithful.

These are but suggestions of the duty and of its importance. No work can be of so little moment that it matters not whether it be done faithfully or not. Unfaithfulness in the smallest things is unfaithfulness, and G.o.d is grieved, and possibly sometime, somewhere, disaster may come as the consequence of the neglect. On the other hand, faithfulness is pleasing to G.o.d, though it be only in the sweeping well of a room, or the doing neatly of the smallest things in household care. Then faithfulness is far-reaching in its influence.

The universe is not quite complete without each one's little work well done.

The self-culture that there is in the mere habit of faithfulness is in itself a rich reward for all our striving. It is a great thing to train ourselves to do always our best, to do as nearly perfect work as possible. Said Michael Angelo: "Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor to create something perfect; for G.o.d is perfection, and whoever strives for it, strives for something that is G.o.dlike." The habit, unyieldingly persisted in, of doing everything with the most scrupulous conscientiousness, builds up in the one who so lives a n.o.ble and beautiful character.

CHAPTER XIII.

WITHOUT AXE OR HAMMER.

"Souls are built as temples are,-- Based on truth's eternal law, Sure and steadfast, without flaw, Through the sunshine, through the snows, Up and on the building goes; Every fair thing finds its place, Every hard thing lends a grace, Every hand may make or mar."

We read of the temple of Solomon, when it was in building, that it was built of stone made ready in the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it went up.

"No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung."

So it is that the great work of spiritual temple-building goes on continually in this world. We are all really silent builders. The kingdom of G.o.d cometh not with observation. The divine Spirit works in silence, changing men's hearts, transforming lives, comforting sorrow, kindling hope in darkened bosoms, washing scarlet souls white as snow.

The preacher may speak with the voice of a Boanerges, but the power that reaches hearts is not the preacher's noise; silently the divine voice whispers in the soul its secret of conviction, or of hope, or of strength. The Lord is not in the storm, in the earthquake, in the fire, but in the sound of gentleness, the spirit's whisper, that breathes through the soul.

Perhaps the best work any of us do in this world is that which we do without noise. Words give forth sound, but it is not the sounds that do good, that brighten sad faces as people listen, that change tears to laughter, that stimulate hope, that put courage into fainting hearts,--it is not the noise of our words, but the thoughts which the words carry. Words are but the chattering messengers that bear the sealed messages; and it is the messages that help and comfort. We may make noise as we work, but it is not our noise that builds up what we leave in beauty behind us. It is life that builds, and life is silent.

The force that works in our homes is a silent force,--mother-love, father-love, patience, gentleness, prayer, truth, the influences of divine grace.

It is the same in the building up of personal character in each of us.

There may be a great deal of noise all about us, but it is in silence that we grow from a thousand sources come the little blocks that are laid upon the walls,--the lessons we get from others, the influences friends exert upon us, the truths our reading puts into our minds, the impressions life leaves upon us, the inspirations we receive from the divine Spirit--ever the builders are at work on these characters of ours, but they work silently, without noise of hammer or axe.

There is another suggestion. Down in the dark quarries, under the city, the men wrought, cutting, hewing, polishing, the stones. They hung their little lamps on the walls, and with their hammers and chisels they hewed away at the great blocks. Months and years pa.s.sed; then one day there was a grand dedication, and there in the glorious sunshine all the secret, obscure work of those years was seen in its final beauty, amid the joy of a nation. If the men who had wrought in the quarries were present that day, what a joy it must have been to them to think of their work in preparing the great stones for their place in the magnificent building!

Here is a parable. This world is the quarry. We are toiling away in the darkness. We cannot see what good is ever to come out of our lonely, painful, obscure toil. Yet some day our quarry-work will be manifested in the glory of heaven. We are preparing materials now and here for the temple of the great King, which in heaven is slowly rising through the ages. No noise of hammer or axe is heard in all that wondrous building, because the stones are all shaped and polished and made entirely ready in this world.

We are the stones, and the world is G.o.d's quarry. The stones for the temple were cut out of the great rock in the dark underground cavern.

They were rough and shapeless. Then they were dressed into form, and this required a great deal of cutting, hammering, and chiselling.

Without this stern, sore work on the stones, not one of them could ever have filled a place in the temple. At last when they were ready they were lifted out of the dark quarry and carried up to the mountain-top, where the temple was rising, and were laid in their place.

We are stones in the quarry as yet. When we accepted Christ we were cut from the great ma.s.s of rock. But we were yet rough and unshapely; not fit for heaven. Before we can be ready for our place in the heavenly temple we must be hewn and shaped. The hammer must do its work, breaking off the roughnesses. The chisel must be used, carving and polishing our lives into beauty. This work is done in the many processes of life. Every sinful thing, every fault in our character, is a rough place in the stone, which must be chiselled off. All the crooked lines must be straightened. Our lives must be cut and hewn until they conform to the perfect standard of divine truth.

Quarry-work is not always pleasant. If stones had hearts and sensibilities, they would sometimes cry out in sore pain as they feel the hammer strokes and the deep cutting of the chisel. Yet the workman must not heed their cries and withdraw his hand, else they would at last be thrown aside as worthless blocks, never to be built into the place of honor.

We are not stones; we have hearts and sensibilities, and we do cry out ofttimes as the hammer smites away the roughnesses in our character.

But we must yield to the sore work and let it go on, or we shall never have our place as living stones in Christ's beautiful temple. We must not wince under the sharp chiselling of sorrow. Says Dr. T. T.

Munger:--

"When G.o.d afflicts thee, think he hews a rugged stone Which must be shaped, or else aside as useless thrown."

There is still another suggestion from this singular temple-building.

Every individual life has its quarries where are shaped the blocks which afterward are built into character, or which take form in acts.

Schools are the quarries, where, through years of patient study, the materials for life are prepared, the mind is disciplined, habits are formed, knowledge is gained, and power is stored. Later, in active life, the temple rises without noise of hammer or axe. Homes are quarries where children are trained, where moral truth is lodged in the heart, where the elements of character are hewn out like fair stones, to appear in the life in after days, when it grows up among men.

Then there are the thought-quarries back of what people see in every human life. Men must be silent thinkers before their words or deeds can have either great beauty or power. Extemporaneousness anywhere is of small value. Glib, easy talkers, who are always ready to speak on any subject, who require no time for preparation, may go on chattering, forever, but their talk is only chatter. The words that are worth hearing come out of thought-quarries where they have been wrought ofttimes in struggle and anguish. Father Ryan, in one of the most exquisite of his poems, writes of the "valley of silence" where he prepares the songs he afterwards sings:--

"In the hush of the valley of silence I dream all the songs that I sing; And the music floats down the dim valley 'Till each finds a word for awing, That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge, A message of peace they may bring."