The Pure Intention of the Soul Maintained in the Midst of Life's Drudgery

What a difference heaven’s light makes to common objects! A worn-out bottle-skin, a patch on an old garment, the fox creeping to its hole, the homeward flight of birds from their feeding-grounds, a rustic penfold — all these shine with a new glory when touched with the luminous words and thoughts of Christ. The shavings and implements of a carpenter’s shop are for ever consecrated, because the light from His

face shone on them during the years of 155

His service in carpentry. It is also true that when His thoughts and conceptions of life fall on the scenes of daily toil, “the common round” no longer appears as a tread-mill, but becomes a ladder which links the lowest earth with highest heaven. Drudgery, perhaps, belongs more to a woman’s life than to a man’s. I think, for instance, of a cripple girl, shut up in a narrow tenement with her querulous and constantly complaining mother, keeping the tiny room spotlessly clean, and working with her crippled hands from early morning till late at night to support them both; of the women employed in the manufacture of brushes for road-sweeping, engaged in dipping hard bristles into boiling pitch and riveting them into the stamped pattern of

the brush, their persons saturated with the mixture; of the girls who are employed in carrying sugar-sweets to ovens raised to a furious heat, stung by wasps in summer, and exposed to rheumatism in winter; of drudges in families and boarding-houses, on their feet from morning till night, and performing perpetually the same domestic duties; of lone women in secluded spots whose life is rarely lit up by an expression of love or interest, and whose daily track is the beaten one which has been trodden by their feet for tens of years. Such are cases of drudgery which are unlit by rays of earthly happiness. They spend their lives under leaden skies. Their path lies along the level sand, with no hill on the horizon nor juniper-bush to cast its tiny shadow.

Men also have their drudgery. The lawyer’s copying-clerk who has sat at the. same desk for years reproducing acres of legal phraseology; the “hand” in the factory who is always engaged in performing some trivial task which may only need the twist of a finger and thumb; the porter in the crowded station, ambitious for better things, but who probably will spend his life in shouldering heavy luggage; the cemetery chaplain, with his threadbare black, who probably will never receive a respite from the constant repetition of the Burial Service and contact with sable-vested mourners, until the service which he has so often read over others is mumbled over himself.

Such are some of the drudges in human life. Those of us to whom life brings so many changes of travel, of intercourse with

intelligent and noble souls, of new books, new scenes, and new tasks, can hardly realise what life is which has no ups and downs, no changes, no infusion of the fresh elements that give charm and expectation.

What are the considerations which will shed heavenly light upon drudgery like this, until common things begin to shine with heavenly lustre, as a bit of glass bottle across a valley which has caught the level rays of the setting sun and begins to sparkle like a star?

The first thought which will light up life’s drudgery ts the remembrance that it has been appointed by God’s wise Providence. — God as much sent Joseph through the drudgery and discipline of prison as through the glory of the palace. Every part of his life

was designed for the evolution of a Divine

Purpose for himself and others. If he had

evaded the irksome duties of the prison, he would never have come in contact with Pharaoh’s servants, and so the link which bound prison and palace would have been missing. You can never tell why God 1s exposing ‘you to the fret and pressure of the present moment until you see the apartments of which it is the vestibule. All God’s purposes are love; “all things work together for good.” For the disciple, all long, straight roads, however dusty, lead to the Golden City, the sure anticipation, therefore, of the goal which must be a happy one, since God is God, and our trust that He is bringing us thither by the shortest and wisest path, should gild with the light of expectant hope the tedium and monotony of the present.

The drudgery of life ts as much a Divine

vocation as ave tts more brilliant passages. — Too often we speak of being called to the ministry, confining the term to the young lad, who, like Samuel, has heard the Divine Voice; as though it were unsuitable to speak of a carpenter being called. to the bench, the blacksmith to the forge, the shoemaker to the last. This exclusive use of the word is in direct collision with the Apostolic precedent which bids “every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.” “Brethren,” said the Apostle, who more than any has inspired the thinking of subsequent generations, “let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.”

If it were possible for the poor slaves of

some great patrician’s household, who might be compelled, on their bended backs, to bear for hours together without the least movement the chess-board on which their masters were deliberately playing, to be taught to think that the menial service they were called to perform was a Divine vocation (1 Cor. vii. 21), surely there is no toil or duty assigned to us in the course of Divine Providence in which we may not hear the voice of God. If you listen when the bell arouses your tired body to another day of toil, you will detect the silver music of the bells of heaven summoning you to take up your part in the great economy of the universe. He who appoints stars and glow-worms, cherubim and fire-flies, suns and molecules of dust, to perform their several parts in the clockwork of the universe, has appointed you as a little cogwheel or screw, and by your faithful performance of obscure and unrecognised duty you are helping to maintain the order of the great movement which extends throughout the universe and is slowly advancing to that “far-off, Divine event” of which the poet sings.

The faithful performance of drudgery-duties ts tending to the formation of noble character. — All that God wants of any one is /fazthfulness. Not brilliance, not success, not notoriety which attracts newspaper notice, but the quiet, regular, and careful performance of trivial and common duties, as beneath “the great Taskmaster’s eye.” To be “faithful in that which is least” will win as rich a reward as faithfulness in the greatest. Indeed, it is harder to be faithful over a very little

than over much, The opportunity, therefore, of winning the highest reward in the future world is not given only to those who are called to occupy the high places of the field, where every brilliant act is chronicled by admiring pens, but to those who dig out the foundations, who do duty in the trenches, and who are buried in common graves, without magnificent obsequies or glowing epitaphs. Of many it will be said at last: “They had their reward” in the blowing of the trumpet of earthly fame and the murmured applause of many voices; the turn of those to whom no one said “Thank you” will then have arrived.

Have you not seen the way in which men construct arches? A number of beams, wooden uprights, and cross-pieces are constructed into the form of the arch which is

to be. The structure looks very confused and flimsy, it is difficult to trace the design, and one spark of flame would consume the whole; but upon its span the bricks and stones are deposited which will last for generations, So upon the mean structures of daily drudgery, which excites no enthusiasm, which strains the muscles and wearies the nerves, is being built up a character which will be “a thing of beauty and a joy for ever” when the heavens have passed away ‘‘as a scroll.”

In every piece of honest work, however irksome, laborious, and commonplace, we are fellow-workers with God. — Throughout His miracles we find our Lord invited and used the co-operation of His followers, or of some material substance, such as bread and fish, or the clay for the blind man’s eyes,

or the interposition of the strong hands which rolled away the stone and unbound the swathed limbs of Lazarus. All these are living illustrations of an eternal fact that God uses us as His fellow-workers in the accomplishment of His purposes.

It is for Him to cause the growth of the golden corn; but man must reap and thresh it, grind out the flour, make and distribute the loaves of bread — only so can the great populations have their prayer answered as in many tongues they cry: “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is God’s work to flood with sunlight the woodland and forest, by earthquake and cataclysm to entomb vegetation in the cellars of the earth, and by long processes to change the green growth to coal; but all this provision would be useless unless man exhumed the ebony

treasure, with infinite labour bore it to the surface, and presently carried it, by collierbarque, or barge, or costermonger’s barrow, for consumption in human homes. The tailor is God’s fellow-workman, helping Him to clothe the bodies which He has made to need garments of various textures. The builder helps God to house the children of men. The merchant helps God to bring the products of the East to refresh and enrich the toiling masses of the West. The author, printer, and publisher help God to distribute His thoughts and Gospel for the quickening, comfort, and inspiration of men. The girl who makes chocolatecreams helps God to give pleasure and delight, as well as nourishment, to hundreds of children; and the lawn tennis-ball manufacturer helps God in the development and strengthening of the human body, on the endurance and vitality of which the success of the Gospel may largely depend on some far-off missionfield. It is a beautiful and inspiring thought as we each go forth day by day to what seems to us a piece of common drudgery, to realise that God is our fellow-helper, and that we are fellow-workers with Him.

Take up your work, then, you who seem to be the drudge, the man-of-all-work, shoeblack, or slavey; do it with a brave heart, looking up to Him who for thirty years wrought at the carpenter’s bench, remember that “your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” Throughout all the many scenes through which you pass and the actions you perform, set the Lord ever before you.

Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all as in His Presence and to win His smile, so life will be knit together by one pure intention of soul, as the different metres of a poem are penetrated by the one thought, or plan, that persists from the first line to the last.

Love is at the soul of everything, just as the commonest flint will emit sparks when struck. Wherever you may be, whoever you are, and whatever the burden and hardship of your life, you can love. It is pleasant to think that the sunshine, and the winds, and the trees are able to love in some way of their own. Though nature seems so solitary and silent through the long winter, or in the great far-stretching lands, she is never desolate, for through her the Spirit of Love, which is the Spirit of God, is ever breathing.

God is the greatest Lover, therefore He is the happiest of all beings; and the more we love the nearer we are to Him. It is His love that is brooding over the world, and He will never cease to love. Let thoughts like these fill your heart; resolve to love perfectly, unselfishly, helpfully, and the most lowly life of drudgery will begin to glisten, as the grass-blades do when the

sun and dew-drops garnish them,