| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 12 |
Page 6 |
Another condition of consecration is humility. It doe not usually mean great things, conspicuous services, but little lowly things, for which we shall probably get neither praise nor thanks. Most of us must be content to live commonplace lives. Ninety-nine hundredths of the work which chiefly blesses the world, which makes the bulk of human happiness, and which most sets forward the kingdom of Christ, and must always be inconspicuous, along the lines of common duties, in home relationships, in personal association, in neighborhood helpfulness. It is in these lowly spheres that consecration must prove itself. It is here too that the noblest lives of the world have been lived. Sir Edwin Arnold has written beautifully of these obscure heroes:–
“They have no place in storied page,
No rest in marble shrine;
They have passed and gone with a perished age;
They died and made no sign.
But work that will find its wages yet,
And deeds that their God did not forget,
Done for their love divine –
These were the mourners, and these shall be
The crown of their immortality.
Oh! Seek them not where sleep the dead –
Ye shall not find their trace;
No graven stone is at their head,
No green grass hides their face;
But sad and unseen is their silent grave –
It may be the sand or deep-sea wave,
Or a lonely desert place;
For they need no prayers and mourning bell –
They were tombed in true hearts that knew them well.
They healed sick hearts till theirs were broken’
And dried sad eyes till theirs lost light;
We shall know at last by a certain token
How they fought and fell in the fight.
Salt tears of sorrow unbeheld,
Passionate cries unchronicled,
And silent strife’s for the right, –
Angels shall court them, and earth shall sigh
That she left her best children to battle and die.”
Page 6