Making the Most of Life.
by J. R. Miller.
A WORD OF INTRODUCTION.
Alexander was accustomed to say; "Philip of Macedon gave me life, but it was Aristotle who taught me how to make the most of life."
To have the gift of life is a solemn thing. Life is G.o.d"s most sacred trust. It is not ours to do with as we please; it must be accounted for, every particle, every power, every possibility of it.
These chapters are written with the purpose and hope of stimulating those who may read them to earnest and worthy living. If they seem urgent, if they present continually motives of thoughtfulness, if they dwell almost exclusively on the side of obligation and responsibility, if they make duty ever prominent and call to self-renunciation and self-sacrifice, leaving small s.p.a.ce for play, it is because life itself is really most serious, and because we must meet it seriously, recognizing its sacred meaning and girding ourselves for it with all earnestness and energy.
If this book shall teach any how to make the most of the life G.o.d has entrusted to them, that will be reward enough for the work of its preparation. To this service it is affectionately dedicated, in the name of Him who made the most of his blessed life by losing it in love"s sacrifice, and who calls us also to die to self that we may live unto G.o.d.
J. R. M.
PHILADELPHIA.
MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE.
"Measure thy life by loss instead of gain; Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth; For love"s strength standeth in love"s sacrifice, And whoso suffers most hath most to give."
--_The Disciples._
According to our Lord"s teaching, we can make the most of our life by losing it. He says that losing the life for his sake is saving it.
There is a lower self that must be trampled down and trampled to death by the higher self. The alabaster vase must be broken, that the ointment may flow out to fill the house. The grapes must be crushed, that there may be wine to drink. The wheat must be bruised, before it can become bread to feed hunger.
It is so in life. Whole, unbruised, unbroken men are of but little use. True living is really a succession of battles, in which the better triumphs over the worse, the spirit over the flesh. Until we cease to live for self, we have not begun to live at all.
We can never become truly useful and helpful to others until we have learned this lesson. One may live for self and yet do many pleasant things for others; but one"s life can never become the great blessing to the world it was meant to be until the law of self-sacrifice has become its heart principle.
A great oak stands in the forest. It is beautiful in its majesty; it is ornamental; it casts a pleasant shade. Under its branches the children play; among its boughs the birds sing. One day the woodman comes with his axe, and the tree quivers in all its branches, under his st.u.r.dy blows. "I am being destroyed," it cries. So it seems, as the great tree crashes down to the ground. And the children are sad because they can play no more beneath the broad branches; the birds grieve because they can no more nest and sing amid the summer foliage.
But let us follow the tree"s history. It is cut into boards, and built into a beautiful cottage, where human hearts find their happy nest. Or it is used in making a great organ which leads the worship of a congregation. The losing of its life was the saving of it. It died that it might become deeply, truly useful.
The plates, cups, dishes, and vases which we use in our homes and on our tables, once lay as common clay in the earth, quiet and restful, but in no way doing good, serving man. Then came men with picks, and the clay was rudely torn out and plunged into a mortar and beaten and ground in a mill, then pressed, and then put into a furnace, and burned and burned, at last coming forth in beauty, and beginning its history of usefulness. It was apparently destroyed that it might begin to be of service.
A great church-building is going up, and the stones that are being laid on the walls are brought out of the dark quarry for this purpose. We can imagine them complaining, groaning, and repining, as the quarry men"s drills and hammers struck them. They supposed they were being destroyed as they were torn out from the bed of rock where they had lain undisturbed for ages, and were cut into blocks, and lifted out, and then as they were chiselled and dressed into form. But they were being destroyed only that they might become useful. They become part of a new sanctuary, in which G.o.d is to be worshipped, where the Gospel will be preached, where penitent sinners will find the Christ-Saviour, where sorrowing ones will be comforted. Surely it was better that these stones should be torn out, even amid agony, and built into the wall of the church, than that they should have lain ages more, undisturbed in the dark quarry. They were saved from uselessness by being destroyed.
These are simple ill.u.s.trations of the law which applies also in human life. We must die to be useful--to be truly a blessing. Our Lord put this truth in a little parable, when he said that the seed must fall into the earth and die that it may bear fruit. Christ"s own cross is the highest ill.u.s.tration of this. His friends said he wasted his precious life; but was that life wasted when Jesus was crucified?
George MacDonald in one of his little poems, with deep spiritual insight, presents this truth of the blessed gain of Christ"s life through his sacrifice and death:--
"For three and thirty years, a living seed, A lonely germ, dropt on our waste world"s side, Thy death and rising, thou didst calmly bide; Sore compa.s.sed by many a clinging weed Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need; Hither and thither tossed, by friends denied; Pitied of goodness dull, and scorned of pride; Until at length was done the awful deed, And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower-- Three days asleep--oh, slumber G.o.dlike, brief, For Man of sorrows and acquaint with grief, Heaven"s seed, Thou diedst, that out of thee might tower Aloft, with rooted stem and shadowy leaf Of all Humanity the crimson flower."
People said that Harriet Newell"s beautiful life was wasted when she gave it to missions, and then died and was buried far from home--bride, missionary, mother, saint, all in one short year,--without even telling to one heathen woman or child the story of the Saviour. But was that lovely young life indeed wasted? No; all this century her name has been one of the strongest inspirations to missionary work, and her influence has brooded everywhere, touching thousands of hearts of gentle women and strong men, as the story of her consecration has been told. Had Harriet Newell lived a thousand years of quiet, sweet life at home, she could not have done the work that she did in one short year by giving her life, as it seemed, an unavailing sacrifice. She lost her life that she might save it. She died that she might live.
She offered herself a living sacrifice that she might become useful.
In heart and spirit we must all do the same if we would ever be a real blessing in the world. We must be willing to lose our life--to sacrifice ourself, to give up our own way, our own ease, our own comfort, possibly even our own life; for there come times when one"s life must literally be lost in order to be saved.
It was in a mine in England. There had been a fearful explosion, and the men came rushing up from the lower level, right into the danger of the deathly afterblast; when the only chance of safety was in another shaft. And one man knew this and stood there in the dangerous pa.s.sage, warning the men. When urged to go himself the safe way, he said, "No; some one must stay here to guide the others." Is there any heroism of this world"s life finer than that?
It was at Fredericksburg, after a b.l.o.o.d.y battle. Hundreds of Union soldiers lay wounded on the field. All night and all next day the s.p.a.ce was swept by artillery from both armies; and no one could venture to the sufferers" relief. All that time, too, there went up from the field agonizing cries for water, but there was no response save the roar of the guns. At length, however, one brave fellow behind the ramparts, a Southern soldier, felt that he could endure these piteous cries no longer. His compa.s.sion rose superior to his love of life.
"General," said Richard Kirkland to his commander, "I can"t stand this.
Those poor souls out there have been praying for water all night and all day, and it is more than I can bear. I ask permission to carry them water."
The general a.s.sured him that it would be instant death for him to appear upon the field, but he begged so earnestly that the officer, admiring his n.o.ble devotion to humanity, could not refuse his request.
Provided with a supply of water, the brave soldier stepped over the wall and went on his Christ-like errand. From both sides wondering eyes looked on as he knelt by the nearest sufferer, and gently raising his head, held the cooling cup to his parched lips. At once the Union soldiers understood what the soldier in gray was doing for their own wounded comrades, and not a shot was fired. For an hour and a half he continued his work, giving drink to the thirsty, straightening cramped and mangled limbs, pillowing men"s heads on their knapsacks, and spreading blankets and army coats over them, tenderly as a mother would cover her child; and all the while, until this angel-ministry was finished, the fusillade of death was hushed.
Again we must admire the heroism that led this brave soldier in gray so utterly to forget himself for the sake of doing a deed of mercy to his enemies. There is more grandeur in five minutes of such self-renunciation than in a whole lifetime of self-interest and self-seeking. There is something Christly in it. How poor, paltry, and mean, alongside the records of such deeds, appear men"s selfish strivings, self-interests" boldest venturing!
We must get the same spirit in us if we would become in any large and true sense a blessing to the world. We must die to live. We must lose our life to save it. We must lay self on the altar to be consumed in the fire of love, in order to glorify G.o.d and do good to men. Our work may be fair, even though mingled with self; but it is only when self is sacrificed, burned on the altar of consecration, consumed in the hot flames of love, that our work becomes really our best, a fit offering to be made to our King.
We must not fear that in such sacrifice, such renunciation and annihilation of self, we shall lose ourselves. G.o.d will remember every deed of love, every forgetting of self, every emptying out of life.
Though we work in obscurest places, where no human tongue shall ever voice our praise, still there is a record kept, and some day rich and glorious reward will be given. Is not G.o.d"s praise better than man"s?
"Ungathered beauties of a bounteous earth, Wild flowers which grow on mountain-paths untrod.
White water-lilies looking up to G.o.d From solitary tarns--and human worth Doing meek duty that no glory gains, Heroic souls in secret places sown, To live, to suffer, and to die unknown-- Are not that loveliness and all these pains Wasted? Alas, then does it not suffice That G.o.d is on the mountain, by the lake, And in each simple duty, for whose sake His children give their very blood as price?
The Father sees. If this does not repay, What else? For plucked flowers fade and praises slay."
Mary"s ointment was wasted when she broke the vase and poured it upon her Lord. Yes; but suppose she had left the ointment in the unbroken vase? What remembrance would it then have had? Would there have been any mention of it on the Gospel pages? Would her deed of careful keeping have been told over all the world? She broke the vase and poured it out, lost it, sacrificed it, and now the perfume fills all the earth. We may keep our life if we will, carefully preserving it from waste; but we shall have no reward, no honor from it, at the last.
But if we empty it out in loving service, we shall make it a lasting blessing to the world, and we shall be remembered forever.
CHAPTER II.
LAID ON G.o.d"S ALTAR.
"My life is not my own, but Christ"s, who gave it, And he bestows it upon all the race; I lose it for his sake, and thus I save it; I hold it close, but only to expend it; Accept it, Lord, for others, through thy grace."
We have to die to live. That is the central law of life. We must burn to give light to the world, or to give forth odor of incense to G.o.d"s praise. We cannot save ourselves and at the same time make anything worthy of our life, or be in any deep and true sense an honor to G.o.d and a blessing to the world. The altar stands in the foreground of every life, and can be pa.s.sed by only at the cost of all that is n.o.blest and best.
All the practical side of religion is summed up in the exhortation of St. Paul, that we present our bodies a living sacrifice to G.o.d.
Anciently, a man brought a lamb and presented it to G.o.d, laid it on the altar, to be consumed by G.o.d"s fire. In like manner, we are to present our bodies. The first thing is not to be a worker, a preacher, a saver of souls; the very first thing in a Christian life is to present one"s self to G.o.d, to lay one"s self on the altar. We need to understand this. It is easier to talk and work for Christ than to give ourselves to him. It is easier to offer G.o.d a few activities than to give him a heart. But the heart must be first, else even the largest gifts and services are not acceptable.