God’s Standard of Prosperity

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.” — Psa. xxiii. 6.

HERE is a mercy which goes before us, and there is a mercy which follows us. The

one is the clearing of our own path; the other is the clearing of a path for our brother man. There is an expression, “May your path be strewn with flowers!” That may mean one or other of two things. It may be the wish that you may be called to tread a flowery way, or it may be the wish that when you tread the thorny way you may leave flowers where you have passed. The latter is the Psalmist’s aspiration, and it is the nobler aspiration. It is an aspiration which can only come from a “restored soul.” Any man can desire to be cradled in green pastures and led by quiet waters. But to desire that my life may make the pastures green, to desire that my life may

make the waters quiet — that is a Divine prayer, a Christlike prayer. There is a prosperity for which every good man is bound to pray. It is finely expressed, I think, in a line of Tennyson’s “Maud” —

‘‘Her feet have touched the meadows, and have left the daisies rosy.”

The daisies were not rosy in advance; they became rosy by the feet touching them. It was the footsteps themselves that exerted a transforming power; they created a flowery path for Suture travellers; goodness and mercy followed them.

Lord, make my wish thus golden; help me to say, “Let goodness and mercy follow me!” I have been looking to the roses that lie before me — to the flowers that others have spread for me. But am I to leave no roses behind me, O my Father! Am I to leave no footprints on the sands of time which may cheer the heart of some shipwrecked brother! Methinks the blessed life is the life that bequeaths blessing. There are men whose angel goes before them to prepare their way; and truly their comfort should be deep! But I think the richest consolation is reserved for those whose angel shall follow them — whose feet shall prepare the way for coming geneiations. Many a life is pronounced by man unfortunate which by

Thee is pronounced prosperous. We look at the bleeding hands which plucked the thorns; we say, “It is the record of a sad life.” But Thine eye rests upon the thorns that are plucked, on the pain which the bleeding hands have made impossible to others; and Thy verdict is, “A life of great prosperity.” J should like to get that verdict, my Father! I should like Thy recording angel to tell how he journeyed behind me and made my deeds glorious. I should like the future traveller to say, “‘This path is thornless because that man passed through the briars.” I should like a monument to be raised, not to the thorns I have escaped, but to the thorns I have cleared away. I should desire on my tombstone this, beyond all other epitaphs — “Goodness and mercy have followed

me.