Christian life -- Fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction
FEBRUARY 1.-Ernest spoke to-day of one of his patients, a Mrs.
Campbell, who is a great sufferer, but whom he describes as the
happiest, most cheerful person he ever met. He rarely speaks of his
patients. Indeed, he rarely speaks of anything. I felt strangely
attracted by what he said of her, and asked so many questions that at
last he proposed to take me to see her. I caught at the idea very
eagerly, and have just come home from the visit greatly moved and
touched. She is confined to her bed, and is quite helpless, and at
times her sufferings are terrible. She received me with a sweet
smile, however, and led me on to talk more of myself than I ought to
have done. I wish Ernest had not left me alone with her, so that I
should have had the restraint of his presence.
FEB. 14.-I am so fascinated with Mrs. Campbell that I cannot help
going to see her again and again. She seems to me like one whose
conflict and dismay are all over, and who looks on other human beings
with an almost divine love and pity. To look at life as she does, to
feel as she does, to have such a personal love to Christ as she has,
I would willingly go through every trial and sorrow. When I told her
so, she smiled, a little sadly.
"Much as you envy me," she said, "my faith is not yet so strong that
I do not shudder at the thought of a young enthusiastic girl like
you, going through all I have done in order to learn a few simple
lessons which God was willing to teach me sooner and without the use
of a rod, if I had been ready for them."
"But you are so happy now," I said.
"Yes, I am happy," she replied, "and such happiness is worth all it
costs. If my flesh shudders at the remembrance of what I have
endured, my faith sustains God through the whole. But tell me a
little more about yourself, my dear. I should so love to give you a
helping hand, if I might."
"You know," I began, "dear Mrs. Campbell, that there are some trials
that cannot do us any good. They only call out all there is in us
that is unlovely and severe."
"I don't know of any such trials," she replied.
"Suppose you had to live with people who were perfectly uncongenial;
who misunderstood you, and who were always getting into your way as
stumbling-blocks?"
"If I were living with them and they made me unhappy, I would ask God
to relieve me of this trial if He thought it best. If He did not
think it best, I would then try to find out the reason. He might have
two reasons. One would be the good they might do me. The other the
good I might do them."
"But in the case I was supposing, neither party can be of the least
use to the other."
"You forget perhaps the indirect good one may in by living with
uncongenial, tempting persons. First such people do good by the very
self-denial and self-control their mere presence demands. Then, their
making one's home less home-like and perfect than it would be in
their absence, may help to render our real home in heaven more
attractive."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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