\j/ ^ The Booth children were left in no mist of doubt as to their future. There was an end, a point, a purpose, in their life. They grew up in an atmosphere of decision. Many children are made timid, diffident, ineffective by their training. They are constantly told how naughty they are, till they begin to believe that they are good for nothing. The Booth parents acted on a different principle. They had faith in their children and for their children. When Katie was still a little girl in socks, her mother would say to her, " Now, Katie, you are not here in this world for yourself. You have been sent for others. Tht world is waiting for you." ^
^ It was the strange fancy of a little child, writes George MacDonald, as he stood on a summer's evening looking intently and thoughtfully at the great banks of clouds piled like mountains of glory about the setting sun: "Mother, I wish I could be a painter." " Why, my child ? " " For then I would help God to paint the clouds and the sunsets." It was a strange and beauti- ful aspiration. But our commonest work in this world may be made far nobler than that. We may live to touch hues of loveli- ness in immortal spirits which shall endure for ever. Clouds dis- solve and float away. The most gorgeous sunset splendours vanish in a few moments. The artist's canvas crumbles and his wondrous creations fade. But work done for Christ endures for ever. A life of simple consecration leaves a trace of imperishable beauty on everything it touches. Not great deeds alone, but the smallest, the obscurest, the most prosaic, write their record in fadeless lines.^
^ It is possible to bring near that far-distant world and to hold it in our hearts. When the soul's revealing-glass is brought to bear upon it — when eternity swims like a new world into our ken — how differently does life look in the light of that revelation ! The light of eternity playing about the things of time, how it changes everything ! How differently now shall our life be led, once that vision has begun to be ours ! In this light we see our life and work at a new angle, and we change our minds as to the things that are big with importance and the things that are of little value. We see that things are large or small, not so much from the comparison they make with one another, but according as they have in them the elements of eternal meaning and
» J. Strahan, The. Marichah (1913), 10. « J. K. Miller, Week-Day Relig-ion, 90.
PSALM XXXI. 8 63
purpose. As to our life's work, it is not so much what we are doing or where we are doing it, as it is how we are doing it and with what purpose in view. The case is well put by Professor Drummond in his own clear-cut way. " An office is not a place for making money, it is a place for making character. A work- shop is not a place for making machinery, it is a place for making men. ... A school of learning is not so much a place for making scholars, as a place for making souls. And he who would ripen and perfect the eternal element in his being will do this by attending to the religious uses of his daily task, recognizing the unseen in the seen, and so turning three-fourths of each day's life into an ever-acting means of grace." In his picturesque study of Lazarus brought back to earth again from heaven, Browning seeks to show the effect that the heavenly vision will have on a man who must still walk the earth. It will mean for him a reversal of the world's judgments as to the meaning of things and the proportion of values. And it will mean for those who watch him a feeling of his unfitness for playing his part as a successful man of the world in the affairs of this life. The man is witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much.^
^ The type may be as crude and clumsy as were the first wooden pieces of Faust and Gutenberg, but if the thought be deep and great the imperfection of the medium through which it finds its way to the mind is of small account ; the conditions in which we pass this mortal life may be hard and uncongenial, but if they convey spiritual truths to us, and make us aware of spiritual realities, it were cowardly to complain and ignorant to rebel. The wise traveller, to whom the great scenery or the great art of the world is accessible, does not waste his time on the discomforts of travel or allow his thoughts to dwell on the shortcomings of his inn. The measure of a man's soul is his ability to disregard the hindrances and concentrate his energy on the achievement; to put aside the accidents of a relation, a work, an opportunity, and grasp the reality. If there is, as a wise poet has told us, a soul of goodness in things evil, there is much more certainly a soul of beauty within the form of all relations and duties and works ; and he who is able to carry all his relationships, duties, and work to the mount where the patterns are, to the light of the spiritual order where these mortal things instantly put on immor- tality, has read the open secret and pierced the mystery of life.^