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
That world _needs_ our best. The problems of human society and the
wants of men can never be met by the cheap. What costs the giver little,
accomplishes little with the receiver. Skin deep beneficences never
penetrate beyond the skin of those helped. The woes of the world lie far
beneath the skin. When we study them, we are amazed by their depth; we
see how futile many of the efforts of mankind to relieve them are. The
failure of so many of these efforts causes some souls to question
whether it is possible for any one ever to relieve humanity's needs.
That question will always suggest a negative answer, so long as the
superficial, the secondary, and the merely good are brought to the
relief of mankind. It is only when the best that an individual can give
or society can provide is offered men that men will be redeemed.
The existence in our world to-day of so much sin and sorrow is most
significant. It exists and will continue to exist so long as we bring
anything less than our best to its help. There was no cure for the
lepers of Palestine so long as men threw them coins that they could
easily spare, gave them food that cost them little self-denial, and said
under their breath, "How pitiable those lepers are!" But when One came
who gave _Himself_ for them, who risked being put out of synagogue and
temple and all society by _touching_ them, who even ceremonially defiled
Himself with their defilement, and thus did the best He possibly could
do for them, the lepers were healed.
The best men in the world are not too good for the world's needs. The
streets of cities and the lanes of towns will never be purified by any
instrumentalities of usefulness that are less than the best. The heathen
world has not a village in which the wisest, noblest, purest man or
woman will not have to battle hard before the work to be done can be
done. Inexpensive apparatus may avail where operations are simple, but
the most expensive apparatus that can be found is required where
operations are intensely complicated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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