Helpful People
“May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!”
GEORGE ELIOT.
TTSEFULNESS is the true measure of living. Our Lord made fruit the test of discipleship. What is fruit? Is it not something which the tree bears to feed men’s hunger? In discipleship, then, fruit is something that grows upon our lives which others may take and feed upon. It is anything in us or that we do which does good to others. A fruitful Christian life is one, therefore, which is a blessing to men — one that is useful and helpful.
No one cares for a tree to be covered with fruit merely to make a fine appearance; the object of fruitfulness is to feed hunger, to satisfy men’s cravings. Our Lord does not ask us to have lives full of fruit merely to be looked at, merely to realize a certain standard of spiritual completeness. He does not want marble statues, however perfect in their cold whiteness. Moral excellence is not character merely, however faultless it may be. The stern old Puritan was right when, finding the silver images standing in dusty niches and learning that they were the twelve apostles, he directed that they should be taken down and coined and sent out to do good. Charles Kingsley said, “We become like God only as we become of use.”
Fruit, therefore, is usefulness. We are fruitful when our lives in some way feed others, when we are personally helpful. It may be by our words; the ministry of good words is very wonderful. He who writes a book full of living, helpful thoughts which goes into the hands of the young or of the hungry-hearted, carrying inspiration, cheer, comfort or light, does a service whose value never can be estimated. He who uses his gift of common speech, as he may use it, to utter brave, helpful, encouraging, stimulating words wherever he goes, is an immeasurable blessing in the world. He who writes timely letters to people who need sympathy, consolation, commendation, wise counsel or thoughtful word of any kind, puts secret strength into many a spirit, feeds as with hidden manna many a struggling soul. He who sends a few flowers to a sick-room or a little fruit to a convalescent friend, or calls at the door to ask after a neighbor who is ill, or remembers the poor in some practical way, or is kind to a bereft one, is scattering benedictions whose far-reaching influence for good no eye can trace. These are chiefly little ways of helpfulness, and are suggested because they are such as are possible to nearly every one.
“It is not mine to run with eager feet Along life’s crowded way my Lord to meet; It is not mine to pour the oil and wine, Or bring the purple robe or linen fine; It is not mine to break at his dear feet The alabaster box of ointment sweet; It is not mine to bear his heavy cross, Or suffer for his sake all pain and loss; It is not mine to walk through valleys dim Or climb far mountain-heights alone with him; He hath no need of me in grand affairs Where fields are lost or crowns won unawares. Yet, Master, if I may make one pale flower Bloom brighter for thy sake through one short hour, If I in harvest-fields where stray ones reap May bind one golden sheaf for love to keep, May speak one quiet word when all is still, Helping some fainting heart to bear thy will, Or sing one high, clear song on which may soar Some glad soul heavenward, — I ask no more.”
Not only are these little helpfulnesses possible to all, but they are the things that people need. Now and then a large thing must be done for another — men have sacrificed all in trying to help others — but, while at rare times very costly services are required, ordinarily it is the little kindnesses that are needed and that do the greatest good.
Then the ministry of helpfulness, as a rule, is one that the poor can render as well as the rich. People do not very often need money; at least a thousand times oftener they need love more than money. It is usually much better to put a new hope into a discouraged man’s heart than to put a coin into his pocket. Money is good alms in its way, but, compared with the divine gifts of hope, courage, sympathy and affection, it is paltry and poor. Ofttimes money-aid hinders more than it helps. It may make life a little easier for a day, but it is almost sure to make the recipient less manly and noble, less courageous and independent. The best way to help people is not to lighten the burden for them, but to put new strength into their hearts that they may be able to carry their own loads. That is the divine way. We are told to cast our burden upon the Lord, but the promise is not that the Lord will carry the burden for us, but that he will strengthen our hearts that we may be able to bear our own burden.
The aim of the divine helpfulness is not to make things easy for us, but to make something of us. We need to keep this divine principle in mind in our helping of others. It is usually easier to give relief than it is to help another to grow strong. Yet in many cases relief is the poorest help we can give; the very best is inner help — that which makes one stronger, purer, truer, braver, that which makes one able to overcome. Some one has said, “To help another is the divinest privilege one can have. There are many who help us in mechanical things; there are a few who help us in our outside duties; there are perhaps only two or three who can help us in our most sacred sphere of inner life.” Yet it is the latter kind of help that is most valuable. The help that in a lifetime counts for most in real blessing is an uninterrupted flow of little? ministries of word, of act, of quiet influence — kindness done to every one according to the need of each at the moment. To live fifty years of such life, though not one conspicuous thing is wrought in all that time, leaves an aggregate amount of good done vastly greater than fifty years of selfish living with one great and notable public benevoleuce reared like a monument of stone at the close of a man’s days.
Of helpful people the true Christian home presents the best illustrations. There each one lives for the others, not merely to minister in material ways and in services of affection, but to promote the growth of character into whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely. A true husband lives to be helpful in all ways to his wife, to make her happy, to brighten the path for her feet, to stimulate her spiritual life and to foster and encourage in her every noble aspiration. A true wife is a helpmate to her husband, blessing him with her love and doing him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. Parents live for their children. In all this world there is no nearer approach to the divine helpfulness than is found in true parental love. The Jewish rabbins said, “God could not be every where, and therefore he made mothers.”
Brothers and sisters, also, where they realize the Christian ideal of their relation to each other, are mutually helpful in all ways. True brothers shield their sisters, protecting them from harm; they encourage them in their education and in all their culture of mind and heart. True sisters, in turn, are their brothers’ guardian angels; many a young man owes to a sweet and gentle sister a debt he can never repay. Especially to older sisters are the brothers in countless homes indebted. Many a man honored in the world and occupying a place of influence and power owes all that he is to a sister perhaps too much forgotten or overlooked by him, worn and wrinkled now, her beauty faded, living lonely and solitary, unwedded, who in the days of his youth was a guardian angel to him. She freely poured out for him then the best and richest of her life, giving the very blood of her veins that he might have more life and richer, denying herself even needed comforts that he, her heart’s pride, might have books and might be educated and fitted for noble and successful life. Such brothers can never honor enough the sisters who have made such sacrifices for them.
There is a class of women in every community whom society flippantly and profanely denominates “old maids.” The world ought to be told what uncrowned queens many of these women are, what uudeco rated heroines, what blessings to humanity, what builders of homes, what servants of others and of Christ. In thousands of instances they voluntarily remain unmarried for the sake of their families. Many of them have refused brilliant offers of marriage that they might stay at home to toil for younger brothers or sisters, or that they might be the shelter and comfort of parents in the feebleness of their advancing years. Then there are many more who have freely hidden away their own heart-hunger that they might devote themselves to good deeds for Christ and for humanity. A glance over the pages of history will show many a woman’s name which shines in the splendor of such self-sacrifice. Then in every community and neighborhood is one whose hand has not felt the pressure of the wedding-ring be cause home-loved ones or the work of the Master outside seemed to need her hallowed love and her gentle service. We should learn to honor these unmarried women instead of decorating their names with unworthy epithets. Many of them are the true heroines of neighborhood or of household, the real Sisters of Charity of the communities in which they live. Those who sometimes speak lightly or flippantly of them, who jest and sneer at their spinsterhood, ought to uncover their heads before them in reverence and kiss the hands — wrinkled now and shriveled — which never have been clasped in marriage. One writes in true and loyal spirit of such hands, folded in the coffin:
“Koughened and worn with ceaseless toil and care, No perfumed grace, no dainty skill, had these; They earned for whiter hands a jeweled ease
And kept the scars unlovely for their share.
Patient and slow, they had the will to bear
The whole world’s burdens, but no power to seize The flying joys of life, the gifts that please,
The gold and gems that others find so fair. Dear hands where bridal-jewel never shone,
Whereon no lover’s kiss was ever pressed,
Crossed in unwonted quiet on the breast, I see through tears your glory newly won, The golden circlet of life’s work well done
Set with the shining pearl of perfect rest.”
No ambition could be higher than that which seeks to be worthy of a ministry of personal helpfulness. Every disclosure of heavenly existence that has been made to us in this world shows a life devoted to unselfish serving of others. We have in the Scriptures many glimpses of angels, and these radiant beings are presented to us a? ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation. Then holiness manifests itself in love and pity, and theii adoration of God leads them to serve in behalf of fallen men. Every disclosure of the character of God himself reveals in him the same quality. His name is Love, and love is not love which does not serve. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, and he said of his own mission that he came, “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Thus it is in serving and in helping others that we become likest angels and likest God himself. No one has begun to live who has not begun to live for others. Life is never so rich and so beautiful as when it is giving itself out the most lavishly in act and sacrifice of love. No one living in pampered self-indulgence, though wearing a jeweled crown, is half so royal in God’s sight as the lowly one, obscure and uiititled among men, who is living to serve.
“Pour out thy love like the rush of a river Wasting its waters, for ever and ever, Through the burnt sands that reward not the giver;
Silent or songful, thou nearest the sea. Scatter thy life as the summer shower’s pouring! What if no bird through the pearl-rain is soaring? What if no blossom looks upward adoring?
Look to the life that was lavished for thee I”
There is an Oriental story of two brothers, Ahmed and Omar. Each wished to perform a deed whose memory should not fail, but which, as the years rolled on, might sound his name and praise far abroad. Omar with wedge and rope lifted a great obelisk on its base, carving its form in beautiful devices and sculpturing many a strange inscription on its sides. He left it to stand in the hot desert and cope with its gales — his monument. But Ahmed, with deeper wisdom and truer though sadder heart, digged a well to cheer the sandy waste, and planted about it tall date-palms to make cool shade for the thirsty pilgrim and to shake down fruits for his hunger.
These two deeds illustrate two ways in either of which we may live. We may think of self and worldly success and fame, living to gather a fortune or to make a name splendid as the tall sculptured obelisk, but as cold and useless to the world. Or we may make our life like a well in the desert, with cool shade about it, to give drink to the thirsty and shelter and refreshment to the weary and faint.
“Which of these two ways of living is the more Christlike it is not hard to tell. Our Master went about doing good; his life was one of personal helpfulness wherever he went. If we have his spirit, we shall hold our lives and all our possessions not as our own, but as means with which to serve and bless our fellow-men. We shall regard ourselves as debtors to all men, owing to the meanest the love that works no ill to the neighbor, that seeks not its own, that strives to do good to all. Then we shall consider our white hands as none too fine to do the lowliest service, even for the most unworthy.
With this spirit in us we shall not have to seek opportunities for helpfulness. Then every word we speak, every smallest thing we do, every influence we send forth, our mere shadow, as we pass by, falling on need and sorrow, will prove sweet, blessed ministry of love and will impart strength and help. Such living is twice blessed: it blesses others; it enriches and gladdens one’s own heart. Selfishness is a stagnant pool; loving service is a living stream that in doing good to others blesses itself as well and remains ever fresh and pure.
“How many gentle, lovely lives,
And fragrant deeds that earth has known,
Were never writ in ink or stone 1
And yet their sweetness still survives.”