_Enable us to carry out from this place the peace and strength that
here we gain, to take into our homes a kinder spirit, a new
thoughtfulness; that we may brighten sadness, heal the sick, and make
happiness to abound. May we take into our daily tasks and life of
labor, a sense of righteousness that shall be as salt to every evil
and corrupting influence._
_Because we have walked here awhile with Thee, may we be able to walk
more patiently with man. Send us forth with love to the fallen, hope
for the despairing, strength to impart to the weak and wayward; and
carry on through us the work Thou didst commence in Thy Son our
Brother Man and Saviour God. Amen._--W. E. Orchard.
Eighth Week, Fifth Day
Fear makes impossible any satisfying joy in life. A man of faith may
be deeply joyful even in disastrous circumstances, but a man of fear
would be unhappy in heaven. Stevenson sings in "the saddest and the
bravest song he ever wrote":
"God, if this were faith?...
To go on for ever and fail and go on again,
And be mauled to the earth and arise,
And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not seen
with the eyes:
With half of a broken hope for a pillow at night
That somehow the right is the right,
And the smooth shall bloom from the rough:
Lord, if that were enough?"
Sad this song may be, but at the heart of it is yet a fierce joy
because faith is there. But put a man of fear in luxury and remove
from him every visible cause of disquiet and he will still be
miserable. The more a man considers these two determinant moods in
life, the more he sees that somehow the faith-attitude must be his, if
life is to be worth living. Without it life dries up into a Sahara;
with it, he comes into a company of the world's glad spirits, who one
way or another have felt what the Psalmist sings:
=Jehovah is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
Jehovah is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
When evil-doers came upon me to eat up my flesh,
Even mine adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell.
Though a host should encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear:
Though war should rise against me,
Even then will I be confident.
One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of Jehovah,
And to inquire in his temple.
For in the day of trouble he will keep me secretly in his pavilion:
In the covert of his tabernacle will he hide me;
He will lift me up upon a rock.
And now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me;
And I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy;
I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto Jehovah.=
=--Psalm 27:1-6.=
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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