Living for the BestMcClure, James G. K. (James Gore King)
Religion
Living for the Best
McClure, James G. K. (James Gore King)
Christian life; Spiritual life
No parent, teacher, or friend can possibly reproduce himself in
another. It is God's law that, however alike plants may seem in
reproduction, no child shall see life exactly as his parents, nor shall
a pupil see it exactly as a teacher. This law is most wise. The same
work is never given to any two people to do. It may be work of the same
general nature, but never work the same in all particulars. Different
types of men, actuated by the same motives, are required for different
types of work. Any man who endeavors to be a pure copyist of another
gone before him, always fails of individual development and fails of
usefulness. Elijah could not foresee the changed circumstances in which
Elisha would live, when many of the vexatious questions of Elijah's day
would be settled and new questions of morality and public welfare would
arise. All that he could do, all that any man can do, is to give the
best he has to another, and send him forth to use that best as well as
the other can in the new place. The beauty of human history is that the
work the best man of one age could not accomplish, another coming after
him does accomplish, and he accomplishes it, not because he is any
better than his predecessor, but because he is the man for this hour as
his predecessor was for the hour before this. There is always work to be
done. There are always tasks left over from a previous generation. There
are always ideas hitherto unemphasized that to-day must be emphasized,
else society will not know its duty. For this work and task and emphasis
new men are needed, men who do not see exactly as their fathers saw, nor
pronounce nor act exactly as their fathers did. To provide such men, to
inspire them with a great sense of duty, and send them out into life
with open minds toward God and open hearts toward their fellows, and
then withdraw our hand and let them do their own work, in their own way,
this is our blessed privilege.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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