“In the desert where he lies entombed
He made a little garden and left there
Some flowers that for him had never bloomed.”
No doubt there is a duty of silence. There are times when silence is golden. But there is also duty of speech. There are times when silence is sin. There are times when it is both ungrateful and disloyal to God not to speak of his love and goodness, or witness for him before men in strong, unequivocal words.
We ought to speak out the messages given us for others. God puts something into the heart of every one of his creatures that he would have that creature utter. He puts into the star a message of light, and you look up into the heavens at night and it tells you its secret. Who knows what a benediction a star may be to the weary traveler who finds his way by it, or to the sick woman lying by her window, and in her sleeplessness looking up at the glimmering point of light in the calm, deep heavens? God gives to a flower a mission of beauty and sweetness, and for its brief life it tells out its message to all whom can read it. Wordsworth says,–
“To me the meanest flower that blooms can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
Who can count up the good that even a flower may do, as it blooms in the garden, or as it is carried into a sick-room, or into the cheerless chamber of poverty?
Especially, God gives to every human soul a message to deliver. To one it is some revealing of science. A great astronomer spoke of himself as thinking over God’s thoughts after him, as he traced out the paths of the stars and the laws of the heavens. To the poet God gives thoughts of beauty, which he is to speak to the world, and the world is richer, sweeter, and better for hearing his message. We do not realize how much we owe to the men and the women who along the centuries have given forth their songs of hope, cheer, comfort, and inspiration.
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