Some Secrets of a Beautiful Life
“We are but sketches of what one day, After the hard lines pass away, God, the Designer, would have us to be; ‘Only in charcoal, rude and rough,
The mere cartoons of his greater skill.”
WE all want to make our lives beautiful. At least, one who has no such desire is not living worthily. We are God’s children, and should live as those who have heaven’s glory in their souls. We have within us immortal possibilities, and he is as one dead who does not strive to realize the beauty that is folded up in his life.
A beautiful life is one that fulfils its mission. “Every man’s life is a plan of God,” is a familiar saying. One who attains that for which he was made, lives beautifully, however lowly his life may be. Completeness is beauty. The meaning of the root word for “sin” is, missing the mark. The aim is to keep God’s commandments, to do God’s will, to realize God’s pur pose. We miss the mark, and the beauty is marred. “Transgression” is a like word, meaning stepping out of the path, over the boundary; that is, not walking as God directs, failing to live according to the divine plan and pattern. “Iniquity” has also a similar suggestion, — unequalness, injustice, not according to the law of right, and therefore unbeautiful.
Thus the words which describe wrong-doing all suggest marring, spoiling, the failure to fulfil the perfect design. It is as if an architect were to make a plan for a perfect building, and the builder, through ignorance or carelessness, should spoil the house, not making it like the plan. The building is not beautiful when finished, because it is not what the architect intended it to be. A life which fulfils the divine Architect’s purpose, whether it be great and conspicuous, or lowly and obscure, is beautiful. We need not seek to do large things; the greatest thing for any human life in this world is God’s will for that life. That is the only true beauty.
There are some special words which may be said to hold the secret of beauty in a life. One is “victoriousness.” Many people let themselves be defeated almost habitually. It begins in childhood. The lessons are hard, and the child does not master them. It costs exertion to succeed in the games, and the boy indolently concludes that he cannot win, and does not do his best. The girl finds that she cannot play her exercises on the piano without a great deal of tiresome practice, and lets herself be defeated. It is hard to restrain temper and appetite in youth, and the young man gives up the struggle, and yields to the indulgence. Thus at the very beginning the battle is lost, and ofttimes all life afterward carries the debilitating effect. Always duty is too large, and lessons are too hard, and discipline is too severe, and passion is too strong. To its close the life is weak, never victorious, unable to cope with its environment. It is a fatal thing to form in youth the habit of permitting one’s self to be defeated. Life then never can be what it might have become.
On the other hand, when the lesson of beini; victorious is learned in childhood, all is different. Studies are mastered; exercises are played over a hundred times, if need be, till they are played accurately; games are not indolently lost for want of exertion. Later in life, when the lessons are larger and the discipline is sorer, and the tasks require more labor, and the battles test the soul to its last particle of strength, the habit of overcoming §till avails and the life is ever victorious. The thought of giving up is never entertained for a moment. The Indians say that, when a man kills a foe, the strength of the slain enemy passes into the victor’s arm. In the weird fancy lies a truth. Each defeat leaves us weaker for the next battle, but each conquest makes us stronger.
Pitiable indeed is the weakness of the vanquished spirit in the face of temptation, duty, toil, or sorrow. But it is possible for us always to be overcomers. We may meet duty with a quiet confidence that shall enable us to do it
SECRETS OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. l$l
well. We may be victorious in our struggles with temptation, keeping ourselves unspotted from the world. We may so relate ourselves to our conditions and our circumstances that we shall be masters, not slaves; that our very hindrances shall become helps to us, inspirers of courage and persistence.
“Stone walls do not a prison make.”
Nothing makes a prison to a human life but a defeated, broken spirit. The bird in its cage that sings all the while is not a captive. God puts his children in no conditions in which he does not mean them to live sweetly and victoriously. So in any circumstances we may be “more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
We may be victorious also in sorrow. If we are not, we are living below our privilege as Christians. We sin when we lie crushed, refusing to be comforted in our grief. Sorrow hurts us if we meet it with resistance and rebellion. The secret of blessing in trial lies in acquiescence. This takes out of it its bitterness and its poison, and makes it a blessing to us. One writes of sorrow: —
*” Look thou beyond the evening sky,’ she said, 4 Beyond the changing splendors of the day; Accept the pain, the weariness, the dread, — Accept and bid me stay.’
I turned and clasped her close with sudden strength;
And slowly, sweetly, I became aware, Within my arms God’s angel stood at length,
White-robed and calm and fair.
And now I look beyond the evening star, Beyond the changing splendor of the day;
Knowing the pain he sends more precious far, More beautiful than they!”
The lesson of victoriousness is one of the secrets of a beautiful life. It makes us master everywhere and in all things. Come what may, we are not overcome. Nothing hurts us; all things help us. The common antagonisms of life build themselves into a ladder, up which we climb step by step, nearer God and nearer heaven. Christ was victorious in his life, and so may we be if we put our feet over in the prints of his shoes.
Another of the secrets of a beautiful life is found in the word “serving.” Our Lord gave us the full truth when he said of his own mission, that he came, “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” When we understand the meaning of this word, and then relate ourselves to all others about us in accordance with this standard, we begin to be a blessing to every one. Our thought then ever is, not what we can get of pleasure, of help, of profit, of com fort, of good in any form, from others, but what we can give to them. True loving is not receiving, but giving. The Christlike desire toward our friends is not that we may get some thing from them, that they may be of use to us, but that in some way we may be a blessing to them, may do them good. This feeling will restrain us from ever harming another in any way. It will keep us from offering temptation to another. It will make us watchful of our influence over others, lest in some way we cast a hurtful instead of a healing shadow upon them. It will also temper our demands of others, since we are seeking, not to be minis-I$4 THE BUILDING OF CtiAAACTER.
tered unto, but to minister. It will turn the whole thought ‘of our life from the mere seeking of happiness to the doing of good to others, the giving of happiness.
“Life were not worth the living,
If no one were the better
For having met thee on the way,
And known the sunshine of thy stay.
Give as thy God is giving;
To no one be a debtor!
So hearts shall faster beat for thee,
And faces beam thy light to see.”
Some people have a great deal of trouble looking after their rights, seeing that no one wrongs them, that they always get proper honor and attention from others, and that no injustice is ever done to them. We hear echoes of this human striving breaking out from the heart of certain great and splendid pageants, where the grand participants contend for precedence in rank, for degree of nobility, at the table or in the procession. We find it in much lowlier places, in society, and in the common walks, in the clamor for the highest distinction or for honor among men. We are spared all such troubleif we have this law of serving deep in our hearts. Our only care then is that we do not ourselves wrong others, even if they have treated us unjustly or unkindly.
The highest rank with Christ is the fullest, truest serving. When we have learned this lesson, we are prepared to be a blessing to every life that touches ours, even for a moment, in passing; as when two ships meet, speak each other, and move each on its own way. Our entire attitude toward others is changed; we look upon every human being as one who possibly needs something we have to give, one to whom we have an errand of love, one whom we must wish God-speed, one for whom we must at least breathe a whispered prayer.
This is the heart of Christlikeness as interpreted in practical living. It is the real secret of happiness too; for it is more blessed to give than to receive — not more pleasant to nature, but more blessed. We vex ourselves then no longer about the lack of gratitude in others, about the exact balance of reciprocal attention or favor, about whose turn it is to call, or write, or whose place it is to take the first step toward reconciliation. Love keeps no debit and credit accounts, and seeks only to be always first in serving.
Another secret of sweet and happy Christian life is in learning to live by the clay. It is the long stretches that tire us. We think of life as a whole, running on for years, and it seems too great for us. We cannot carry this load until we are threescore and ten. We cannot fight this battle continually for half a century. But really there are no long stretches. Life does not come to us in lifetimes; it comes only a day at a time. Even to-morrow is never ours till it becomes to-day, and we have nothing whatever to do with it, but to pass down to it a fair and good inheritance in to-day’s work well done and to-day’s life well lived.
It is a blessed secret, this of living by the day. Any one can carry his burden, however heavy, till nightfall. Any one can do his work, however hard, for one day. Any one can liw sweetly, quietly, patiently, lovingly, and purely till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really ever means to us, — just one little day. “Do to-day’s duty, fight to-day’s temptation, and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.” God gives us nights to shut down the curtain of darkness on our little days. We cannot see beyond, and we ought not to try to see beyond. Short horizons make life easier, and give us one of the blessed secrets of brave, true, holy living.
These are some of the secrets of a beautiful life. We ought not to be content to live other wise than beautifully. We can live our life only once. We cannot go over it again to correct its mistakes or amend its faults. We ought therefore to live it well. And to do this we must begin at the beginning, and make every clay radiant as it passes. Lost days must always remain blanks in the records, and stained days must carry their stains. Beautiful days make beautiful years, and beautiful years make a beautiful life at its close.