| Finding the Way |
Chapter 23 |
Page 5 |
But the man whom Christ will present some day with exceeding joy before God will be the man with all the fruits and harvests of his life garnered, nothing lost by the way. This truth should give us measureless comfort as we think of our failures here and the dropping off of so many blossoms without any earthly fruiting. Browning puts this finely–
“All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.”
Not all of any one’s life is gathered in this world in even the most fragrant name. A thousand good things which the man has done have been forgotten. Countless gentle deeds were wrought so quietly that no one ever heard of them. Then only God could know the things which took no form in either word or deed – the love, the sympathy, the gentle thoughtfulness, the self denials, the prayers for others and for the kingdom of Christ, the aspirations, the desires to do good. It is only a little of any noble life that the world ever knows. But God knows all and remembers all, and the names of His saints will at last represent all the story of their lives, with nothing good or beautiful wanting.
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