The Gentleness of Christ

Entleness is not weakness. There are men who are gentle — sympathetic, kind, tender, yet who are not strong. But that is not the kind of manliness we admire. The true man is always strong. Tourists sometimes find high up on the Alps, on some bald crag, on the edge of the eternal snows, a sweet, lovely flower growing. That is gentleness — the mighty rock, immovable, unchanging, and on it growing the tender, fragrant bloom. Gentleness is essential to complete manliness, but gentleness is beautiful only when combined with strength. Christ is gentle in dealing with sufferers. Skill in giving comfort is very rare. Many people are sure to speak the wrong word when they sit down beside those who are in pain or trouble. Job’s friends were “miserable comforters.” ae ttmi of JLotie

They tried to make Job believe that he had displeased God, and that this was why so much evil had come upon him. Many good people think that when they sit beside a sufferer or a mourner, they must talk about the trouble, entering into all its details, and dwelling upon all that makes it painful and hard to endure. But the truest comforter is not the one who seems to sympathize the most deeply, going down into the depths with him who is in grief, but the one who, sympathizing with the sufferer, yet brings cheer and uplift, sets a vision of Christ before the mourning eyes, and sings of peace and hope.

It is thus that Christ deals with pain and sorrow. He does not seek to take away the burden — rather, he would make us brave and strong to bear it. One writes of an invalid lady who had a little locket in which were five dates written in red ink. “Those are the black-letter, not the red-letter, days of my life,” she said to her friend. “The first is the date of mother’s death, and O, how I rebelled, though I was only a girl in my teens. The second, [192]

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three years later, is the date of my father’s leaving us, and again I rebelled. The third marks the time of my husband’s going, and still I murmured and struggled. The fourth is the date of the taking of my only darling, a sweet little fellow of five, and this time I almost cursed my heavenly Father, for now all my loved ones were gone and I was left alone. All the while I was not a Christian — indeed, I had grown bitter and hard. I thought God was punishing me. Now I see that he was not punishing, but educating me by a strange discipline. But I want you to look at the last date,” the woman continued. It read “March 3, 1898.” She said, “That was the day I gave my heart to the Saviour. You notice there were twenty-six years between the first date and the last — twenty-six years of fruitless rebellion. It took me twenty-six years to learn to say, ‘Thy will be done.’” This is a beautiful illustration of Christ’s gentle way of dealing with those who suffer. The gentleness did not appear, however, at first, because the sufferer did not submit to the Mas- [193] ‘€i)t ttmn of iLobe

ter. While the struggle was continued there was no peace, no joy, no revealing of love. Resistance only made the darkness seem deeper, the trials harder to endure, the cup more bitter. At last the sufferer yielded and crept into the Master’s bosom. Then joy came. Who will say the Master was not gentle in all his dealing with that life those six and twenty years?

Christ is very gentle also with those who have sinned and are trying to begin again. He has no tolerance with sin, but is infinitely patient with the sinner. There is a story of an incorrigible soldier who had been punished so often for so many offences, without avail, that his commanding officer despaired of the man’s amendment. Again he was under arrest and the officer spoke hopelessly of him, asking what more could be done to save him from his own undoing. A fellow-officer suggested, “Try forgiving him.” The man was brought in and asked what he had to say for himself. He replied: “Nothing, except that I’m very sorry.” “Well,” said the officer, “we have de- [194]

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cided to forgive you.” The man stood dazed for a moment, and then burst into tears, saluted, and went out to become the best and bravest soldier in the command. Gentleness had saved him.

That is the way Christ deals with the penitent. He saves by forgiving. He loves unto the uttermost. His grace is inexhaustible. However often we fail, when we come back and ask to try again, he welcomes us and gives us another chance. This is our hope — if he were not thus gentle with us, we should never get home.

Christ is very gentle with us also in our serving of him. We sometimes hear it said, when the bareness and poverty of certain people’s homes are spoken of, that “the one half do not know how the other half live.” That is very true and thinking of this “other half” ought to give those who live in comfort Christly sympathy with those who live in want and poverty. But the same distinction exists among Christians, between those who live in a happy religious environment and those who [195]

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must follow Christ with almost nothing in their condition or circumstances to encourage or help them.

Those with all the refinements and inspirations of the best Christian culture about them have little conception of the disadvantages of others who arc following Christ without any of this help, in the face of most uncongenial surroundings. What kind of Christians would we be, and how beautifully would we live, if we were in their circumstances?

In a railroad accident a young fireman stood manfully at his post and was fatally hurt. Everything was done for him that kindness could do. A minister spoke to him of the love of Christ.

“Yes,” he gasped, “I do believe in Christ. But God knows I’ve had to work so hard, such long hours, and have been so tired at night that I have had no chance to pray much or to go to church.”

His brother stood by and broke in. “But he’s

been a good boy. He worked night and day

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to support our crippled mother — and me, when I was laid up for a year.” “Yes, sir, and he took care of me,” said a big baggageman, “when I had smallpox and nobody would come near me.” “And more than once,” added another young man, “he’s taken my run, after coming in from his own, when I was too sick to go out.” The poor fireman smiled on his friends — a smile of gratitude. He had never heard much praise.

“God will not keep him out of heaven — will he.’’” said his brother, tenderly. The minister bent over the dying boy and said, reverently and with deep feeling: “The peace of God, the peace of Christ, be upon you. You have done what you could.” Can we doubt the gentleness of Christ in such a case? He is infinitely patient with all whose lot is hard. He never exacts more of us than we can do. He is never unreasonable. He knows when the burdens are too heavy for us. Once he, “being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well” in his exhaustion. He sym- [197]

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pathizes with those who are weary and helps them.

There is a picture which shows a girl at her spinning-wheel. The hour is late — midnight, as a clock in the bare room shows — and the spinner, exhausted by her long toil to earn enough to support her little household, has fallen asleep beside the wheel. And an angel is finishing her work. How gentle our Taskmaster is! How sweet it is to come to him at the close of the long days and rest at his feet!

“if/ heart is tired, so tired to-night, —

How eyidless seems the strife!
Day after day the restlessness

Of all this weary life!
I come to lay the burden down

That so oppresseth me,
And shutting all the world without.

To spend an hour with thee,
Dear Lord,

To spend an hour with thee.

“I would forget a little while
The bitterness of fears.
The aixious thoughts that crowd my life,
TJie buried hopes of years;
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Forget that mortals’ weary toil
My patiejit care must be.

A tired child I come to-night.
To spend an hour with thee,
Dear Lord,

One little hour with thee,”

IS^ottlD ^m- Wav be isettei;?

^’’ Being perplexed, I say,
Lord make it right!

Night is as day to thee,
Darkness as light.

I am afraid to touch things

That involve so much,

My trembling hand may shake,

My skilless hand may break;

Thine can make no mistake.

*’ Being in doubt, I say,
Lord, make it plain!
Which is the true, safe way?

Which would be vain?
I am not wise to know.
Nor sure of port to go;
My blind eyes cannot see
What is so plain to thee;
Lord, make it clear to me.”