| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 18 |
Page 5 |
The story of the outcome of life shows that early disadvantages, instead of being a hindrance to the development of, which is best in manhood, are helpful and stimulating. Most people are naturally indolent, indisposed to exertion, needing to be impelled to it by the pressure of necessity. No greater blessing can come to young people than to be compelled to endure hardship, to bear the yoke in their youth, to have their exacting tasks to perform, their burdens to carry, their responsibilities to meet, their own way to make.
Another hidden peril of continuous prosperity is the dropping of heaven out of their life-plan. The years pass without break, and all things go on well and prosperously, until at length we begin to grow content with earth, and lose our hunger, our homesickness, for the city, which hath foundations. Spiritual things begin to have less and less interest for us, and power over us. We grow materialistic, if not in our creed, yet in our life. Our souls begin to cleave to the dust, no longer flying aloft like the eagle, but groveling like the worm.
This I a most serious peril. A picture, which has no sky in it, is without the highest beauty. “It is the horizon that gives dignity to the foreground.” A life without sky in it is most unworthy and incomplete.
A person who sees only bonds and stocks and deeds, bales of goods and blocks of houses, stores and factories and machinery and chimney tops, with no gleams above and beyond all these, of stars and blue skies and a Heavenly Father’s face, is not living as an immortal being should live. There is no sky in this person’s vision of life. This world is very beautiful in its place and God means us to enjoy it and do faithful, earnest, and beautiful work in it; but it is only one little part of our Father’s house. When in our thinking, planning, and doing we do not look beyond this world, we are not living worthily. When we lose the sky out of our life-vision the glory fades from it. The only secret of spiritual safety and good in prosperous times is in keeping the eye fixed on heaven.
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