| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 4 |
Page 6 |
Sometimes it is the daughter and sister in the home, whose quiet sweetness blesses the whole household. She has learned the lesson of patience and gentleness. She has smiles for everyone. She has the tact to dissipate little quarrels by her kind words. She softens the father’s ill temper when he comes in weary from the day’s cares. She is a peacemaker in the home, a happiness-maker, through the influence of her own lovingness of spirit, and draws all at length into harmony with her own quietness and peace.
These are familiar illustrations of the blessing of quietness. Wherever we find this quality in any life it has a wondrous influence. It surely is a lesson worth learning, better than the winning of the crown. But can it be learned? Can the blustering, quick-tempered, rash-speaking man or woman learn to be quiet and self-mastered? Yes; Moses learned it, until he became the meekest man. John learned it, until he became the beloved disciple, lying on Jesus’ bosom. Any one who will enter Christ’s school, for he says, can learn it: “Come unto me; Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; and ye shall find rest unto your soul.” Quietness never can come through the hushing of the world’s noise so that there shall be nothing to try or irritate the spirit. We cannot find or make a quiet place to live in, and thus get quiet in our own soul. We cannot make the people about us loving and gentle that we shall never have anything uncongenial or unkindly to vex or annoy us. Nothing but the peace of God in the heart can give it. Yet we can have this peace if we will simply and always do God’s will and then trust him. A quiet heart will give a quiet life!
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