| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 17 |
Page 4 |
At length closer intimacy or ruder contacts reveal faults. We learn that under the attractive exterior, which so pleased us, there are blemishes, spots, flaws, and infirmities, which sadly disfigure the beauty of the life. We discover in them elements of selfishness, untruthfulness, deceitfulness, or mean-ness which pain us. We find that they have secret habits, which are repulsive. There are uncongenial things in their disposition, never suspected in the days of social intercourse, which show offensively in the closer relations of friendship’s intimacy.
This is sometimes so in wedded life. The longest and freest acquaintance previous to marriage reveals only the better side of the life of both. But the same is true in greater or less degree in all close friendships.
This is oftentimes a severe test of love. It is only as we rise into something of the spirit of Christ that we are able to meet this test of friendship. He takes us as we are, and does not weary of us whatever faults and sins discovered in us. There is infinite comfort in this for us. We are conscious of our unworthiness and of the un-loveliness that is in our souls. There are things in our lives, which we would not reveal to the world. Many of us have pages in our biography, which we would not dare to spread out before the eyes of anyone.
There are in our inner being feelings, desires, longings, cravings, jealousies, motives, which we would not feel secure in laying bare to our dearest, truest, and most patient and gentle friend. Yet Christ knows them all. Nothing is hidden, from his eyes. To him there is perfect revealing of the innermost springs of being. Yet we need not be afraid that his friendship for us will change, or grow less, or withdraw itself, when he discovers in us repulsive things. Mrs. Browning’s sonnet voices what many of us have felt;–
“If all the gentlest-hearted friends I know
Concentrated in one heart their gentleness,
That still grew gentler, till its pulse was less
For life than pity,–I should yet be slow
To bring my own heart nakedly below
The palm of such a friend, that he should press
Motive, condition, means, appliances,
My false ideal joy and fickle woe,
Out full to light and knowledge; I should fear
Some plait between the brows,–some rougher chime
In the free voice–O angels, let your flood
Of bitter scorn dash on me! do ye hear
What I say, who bear calmly all the time
This everlasting face-to-face with God?”
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