Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar EssaysHolland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Philosophy
Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar Essays
Holland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Conduct of life
But time and space would fail to give illustrations of the truth
that God has always a man ready for an emergency. It is not
necessary to speak of Washington. It would not be wise, perhaps,
to speak of the first Napoleon, because men differ so widely in
their estimate of his work. But of the last Napoleon, it may be
said that he furnishes one of the most notable instances the world
has ever seen of a man prepared for his age. I suppose that no one
believes that there is another man in existence who could have
done for France, and would have done for Europe, under the
circumstances, what Louis Napoleon has done. Never did the central
figure of an elaborate piece of mosaic fit more nicely into its
place, than did Louis Napoleon into the complicated affairs of his
age. They were made for him, and he for them.
Shall the world of matter never fail--shall the world of thought
be exhaustless--shall men be found for all the emergencies of their
race, and, yet, shall divine truth be contained in a nut-shell?
Must the human soul lack food--fresh food--because a generation
long gone has decided that only certain food is fit for the human
soul? I believe that the Bible is a revelation of divine truth to
men, and, believing this, I believe that its most precious deposits
have hardly been touched. I believe that in it, there is special food
prepared for all the wide variety of human souls, and that, as
generation after generation passes away, new deposits will be struck,
so rich in illuminating power that their discoverers will wonder
they had never been seen before. I know that just before me, or
somewhere before me, there is a generation of men who will think
less of being saved, and more of being worth saving, less of dogma,
and more of duty, less of law, and more of love; whose worship will
be less formal, and more truthful and spiritual, and whose God will
be a more tender and considerate father, and less a lawgiver and a
judge. For such a generation, there exists a deposit of divine truth
almost unknown by Christendom. Only here and there have men gathered
it, floating upon the surface. The great deposit waits the touch of
another age.
LESSON XI.
GREATNESS IN LITTLENESS.
"This earth will all its dust and tears
Is no less his than yonder spheres;
And rain-drops weak and grains of sand
Are stamped by his immediate band."
STERLING.
"There is a power
Unseen, that rules the illimitable world;
That guides its motions, from the brightest star
To the least dust of this sin-tainted world."
THOMSON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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