Sources of Strength

JOSEPHINE POLLARD.

“God doth suffice! O thou, the patient one, Who puttest faith in him, and none beside, Bear thou thy load; under the setting sun The glad tents gleam: thou wilt be satisfied.”

WE all need help. None of us are sufficient in ourselves for all the exigencies of our condition. Life is too large for any of us. Its duties are too great for our strength. Its trials overtax our power of endurance. Its antagonisms overmaster us. Our own hearts contain only a little cupful of oil; and, unless we can replenish them from some reserve supply, our lamps will go out, leaving us in darkness.

Yet we are required to meet life victoriously. We are not to succumb to its stress or struggle.

We are told that while our temptations are far more than a match for our strength, yet we need not fall in them. The task is set for us of being more than conquerors in all life’s trials. We are not to be crushed by sorrow. We are to rejoice always, though always enduring sore grief.

It is possible, therefore, for us to receive help from without our own little life, to make us equal to whatever we may have to bear or to endure. It is important that we learn how to live so that we can get this help. What are the sources from which we may draw strength in our time of need? Evidently they are two fold. We can be helped in a certain way by human hands; and we can be helped in the largest measure we need by the divine strength.

In all things the life of Christ is our pattern. He lived a human life to show us how to live. He did not meet life otherwise than we must meet it. He wrought no miracles to make trials easier for himself than they would be for his followers. In our Lord’s experience in Gcthsemane we have an illustration of the way he sought help in time of great need, both from the human and the divine source.

The real agony of Christ’s atoning death was in Gethsemane, and not on Calvary. It was there he fought the battle and won the victory. After this there was no more struggle. It is worth our while to look closely into our Lord’s experiences in the Garden, to learn the secrets of the victory he won there. It will be ours some time to face a sore struggle, a bitter disappointment, a great trial, a keen sorrow, or to take up a heavy cross. How can we prepare ourselves for the experience, so as to meet it victoriously?

The Mexicans whisper over the cradle of a new-born babe, “Child, thou art born to suffer; endure and hold thy peace!” Courage in meeting trial is good. We should learn to take up our burden quietly and walk beneath it steadfastly. We should learn to endure and hold our peace. There are men who do this, hardening themselves against pain and sorrow, and meeting life’s misfortunes and trials sto ically, with solemn firmness. But this is not the best way to meet life. It was not thus that our Lord met his trials. He did not go to his cross stoically. True, he set himself to endure and hold his peace. Never, before or since, has anguish been borne so victoriously, or has the world seen such peace as filled the Redeemer’s soul during all the hours of his deepest humiliation. But his was not the peace of stoical hardening; it was the peace of God which kept his heart and mind.

“Endure and hold thy peace” is not all of the lesson. There is something better than stoicism. We need not struggle unaided. It is not a mark of weakness to accept help in hours of great need. Jesus desired to be sustained as he entered his agony. First, he craved and sought the help of human sympathy. It seems strange to us, at first thought, that he, the strong Son of God, could receive help from men, and from such men as his disciples were. It showed his true humanity. It showed, too, how real human friendship was to him. We know that his friends received help and comfort from him, but we are not so apt to think of him needing them and receiving strength from their love. But here we see him leaning upon them, wanting them near to him while he struggled and suffered, and craving their sympathy and tenderness. How sad it was, then, that the three chosen disciples whom he led into the depths of the Garden that they might watch with him and strengthen him by their love, slept instead of watching!

In Brittany, among the peasants, they have this beautiful legend of the robin. They say that when the Saviour moved toward Calvary, bearing his cross, with enemies all about him, a robin hovered near. And, reckless of the tumult, the bird flew down and snatched a cruel thorn from the Christ’s bleeding forehead. Then over the robin’s bosom flowed the sacred blood, tinting with its ruby stream the bird’s brown plumage. This, the peasants say, was the origin of the red spot on the robin’s breast.

“And evermore the sweet bird bore upon its tender

breast

The warm hue of the Saviours blood, a shining seal impressed.

Hence, dearest to the peasant’s heart, ‘mid birds of

grove and plain, They hold the robin, which essayed to soothe the

Saviour’s pain.”

This is only a legend. No bird plucked a thorn from that sacred brow. Not by even so small a soothing was the Saviour’s anguish that day mitigated. Yet it was in the power of his disciples to have soothed his bitter agony immeasurably. But when he came back to them after each struggle, hoping to find com fort from their love, they were asleep. They failed him, not through carelessness, but through faintness. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. Had they been stronger, it would have been a little easier for Christ to endure the cross. Their love would have taken at least one thorn from his crown of thorns.

We all need human friendship. We need it specially in our times of darkness. He does not well, he lives not wisely, who in the days of prosperity neglects to gather about his life a few loving friends, who will be a strength to him in the days of stress and need.

Then we should be ready, too, to give the strength of our love to those whom we see passing into the ways of struggle or sorrow. We should not commit the mistake of our Lord’s friends, failing those who need and expect our cheer. There is a deep lesson in the words Christ spoke at the last to the men to whom he had come three times in vain, craving sympathy. “Sleep on now, and take your rest; it is enough, the hour is come.” There was no need, then, for longer watching, nor could any good come of it. The struggle was over, the victory had been won without them, and there was nothing left for them to do.

This experience is too common. Continually men close beside us are needing sympathy and love which we have it in our power to give, but which we do not give, letting them pass on unhelped. Here in a stanza is told too many a life-story: —

“A heart beat in our midst that vainly tried

Companionship of other hearts to gain; A soul lived pure and sweet before our eyes, Whom our unsympathy caused cruel pain.”

There is a time to show sympathy, when it is golden; when this time has passed, and we have only slept meanwhile, we may as well sleep on. You did not go near your friend when he was fighting his battle alone. You might have helped him then. What use is there in your coming to him now, when he has conquered without your aid? You paid no attention to your neighbor when he was bending under life’s loads, and struggling with difficulties, obstacles, and adversities. You let him alone then. You never told him that you sympathized with him. You never said a brave, strong word of cheer to him in those days. You never scattered even a handful of flowers on his hard path. Now that he is dead and lying in his coffin, what is the use in your standing beside his still form, and telling the people how nobly he battled, how heroically he lived; and speaking words of commendation? No, no; having let him go on, unhelped, uncheered, unencouraged, through the days when he needed so sorely your warm sym pathy, and craved so hungrily your cheer, you may as well sleep on and take your rest, letting him alone unto the end. Nothing can be done now. Too laggard are the feet that come with comfort when the time for giving comfort ‘up past.

“Ah! woe for the word that is never said

Till the ear is deaf to hear; And woe for the lack to the fainting head

Of the ringing shout of cheer; Ah! woe for the laggard feet that tread

In the mournful wake of the bier.

A pitiful thing the gift to-day

That is dross and nothing worth,

Though if it had come but yesterday,
It had brimmed with sweet the earth;

A fading rose in a death-cold hand,
That perished in want and dearth.”

Shall we not take our lesson from the legend of the robin that plucked a thorn from the Saviour’s brow, and thus sought to lessen his pain rather than from the story of the disciples, who slept and failed to give the help which the Lord sought from their love? Thus can we strengthen those whose burdens are heavy, and whose struggles and sorrows are sore.

SOURCES OF STRENGTH. IO?

So much for the human help. There was an other source of help in our Lord’s Garden ex perience. If there had not been, he would have been utterly unhelped in all his sore need, for human friendship proved inadequate. “Being in an agony, he prayed.” He sought strength from heaven. He crept to his Father’s feet and made supplication to him and was heard.

As we watch him in his struggle, we see that he grows calmer and quieter as he prays. It is evident that divine help comes to him. He is sustained and strengthened. At length, when he comes from his pleading, his heart is at rest; his pleading has died away in the sweetest and divinest of peace.

We have the same infinite and unfailing source of help in our times of great need. Human friendship can go with us a little way, yet not into the inner depths of our ex perience of sorrow or trial. Human sympathy is very sweet, but it is weak, and ofttimes sleeps when we most need its cheer and com fort. But when the human ceases to avail, the divine is ready. In the face of life’s great needs, when no other help can come to us, God comes, and from his divine fulness gives all that we need.

The prayer of our Lord in the Garden is a model for all who would find help in sore need. It was intense in its pleading, but it also breathed the most perfect submission, “Not my will, but thine be done.” No other spirit of prayer is pleasing to God, or brings blessing. The answer did not come, the cup did not pass away, and yet our Lord was really strengthened and helped in his praying. At its close, he came forth with peace in his heart, ready now to pass into the darkness of his cross.

“How was he helped,” some one may ask, “when that which he craved was not granted?” He was not spared the sorrow, but he was strengthened to endure it. This is God’s way in much of our praying. We do not know what would be a blessing to us. What to our thoughts seems bread, might really be a stone to us. We may make our requests for things we desire, but we should make them humbly and submissively. If it is not our Father’s will to grant us what we wish, he gives us grace to go without it. If he does not avert the trial from which we ask to be spared, he strengthens us for meeting it. Thus no true prayer ever goes unanswered. The divine help never fails. There is a limit to what our human friends can do for us: but God is infinite, and all his strength is ready to our hand, to help us as we need.