| The Golden Gate of Prayer |
Chapter 10 |
Page 4 |
Shall we say that this man’s life is a failure because of his physical condition, which has put a stop to all effort and compels him to sit with folded hands in the shadow, watching busy men at their tasks as they continue to win honor and success? No, his life is not a failure. He has loved nobly all his years. There is not a stain upon his name. He has been building up in himself a character in which the beatitudes shine, — loveliness, meekness, hunger for righteousness, mercifulness, purity of heart, the peacemaking spirit. He has won no name in the world’s ranks, but he has followed Christ faithfully, and has pleased him. He has loved a life of love, too — love which has expressed itself not merely in word, but in countless ministries of grace to those who have turned to him in faith and expectation for sympathy and help. He has had God and heaven in all his life, and has lived near the heart of Christ.
No doubt there is a mystery about the strange ways of Providence with him, but we may be sure that this good man’s life is in God’s sight no less successful not, when all activity has ceased, than it was in the days when he we busiest, full of energy and toil. Who will say, indeed, that these are not his best days? While the outer man has been perishing, decaying, may not the inner man have been growing in all worthy qualities, in all spiritual graces, in the things which shall endure forever? Ofttimes it is in what the world regards as failure that a man really achieves his noblest and best success. Many a man has found his soul only when he had lost his fortune or his health or his place.
“God lets us go our way alone,
Till we are homesick and distressed,
And humbly, then, come back to own
His way is best.
“He lets us thirst by Horeb’s rock,
And hunger in the wilderness;
Yet, at our feeblest, faintest knock,
He waits to bless.
“He lets us faint in far-off lands.
And feed on husks, and feel the smart,
Till we come home with empty hands,
And swelling heart.
“But then for us the robe and ring,
The Father’s welcome and the feast,
While over us the angels sing,—
Though last and least.”
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