| The Golden Gate of Prayer |
Chapter 10 |
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The true test of life is character. All else is extraneous, belonging only to the husk, which shall fall off in the day of ripening; character is the kernel, the wheat, that which is true and enduring. Nothing is worth while save that which we can carry with us through death in eternity. St. Paul puts it in a sentence when he says, “The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
It is altogether possible that a man may fail of winning any earthly greatness, any distinction among men, anything that will immortalize him in this world’s calendars, and yet be richly and nobly successful in moral things, in character, in a ministry of usefulness, in things which shall abide when mountains have crumbled. It is possible for one to fall behind in the race for wealth, for honor, for distinction in art or literature, and yet all the which to be building up in himself a fabric of beauty and strength which angels shall admire.
Here is a man who at mid-life is a physical wreck. He has dropped out of the ranks and fallen far behind those who at the first were his comrades. He is a hopeless invalid. The other day the physician said that he never can be any better. He may live for many years, yet there is nothing before him but pathetic invalidism.
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