The Wider Life

^/Forbid me an easy place,
0 God, in some sequestered nook,

Apart to lie
With folded hands, in quiet rest,
To doze and dream, and weaker grow,
Until I die,

i’Give me, 0 Lord, a task so hard.
That all my powers shall taxed be

To do my best. That I may stronger grow in toil. And fitted be, for service harder still,

Until I rest,

“This my reward — development
From what I am, to what thou art, —

For this I plead;
Wrought out by being wrought upon.
By deeds reflective, done in love.
For those in need.”

—Charles C. Earle.

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E should never be content with a narrow life. We are made for breadth and fulness, and we rob God when we fail to reach our best. Some people assert that Christianity’s ideal for life is narrow. They say it cramps and limits us. It has no place, for example, for physical or intellectual development. It says nothing about art, music, science, or the many phases of human activity. It presents only the moral side — conscience, obedience to heavenly laws, spiritual attainments and achievements.

The answer is that while Christianity may not definitely name the things of the intellect, or distinctly call men to noble achievements in art, in exploration, in invention, in research, in the culture of the beautiful, it really includes in its range everything that [3]

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will add to the fulness and completeness of life and character. It excludes nothing but what is sinful — disobedience to law — impurity, selfishness, uncharity, and these only narrow and debase, do not broaden and enrich life. It includes “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report.” Is this a narrow life?

Our Christian faith places no limitation whatever on life except what would mar, blot, or debase the character. Japanese horticulturists have a trick of stunting trees, and the world is full also of stunted men, only dwarfs of what God made them to be. But the call of Christianity is always for whole men, men reaching up to their best, and out to their broadest in every way. The Chinese bind the feet, some nations mutilate the face, others repress and crush the feelings, affections, and desires, but Christianity seeks the fullest development of every power and capacity of [4]

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the being. Jesus Christ, our pattern, would have us become full-grown men. As leaders of others, as teachers, as followers of Christ, our influence should be toward the enriching and broadening of lives. A recent book is dedicated to a distinguished scholar and teacher, who is designated as an enlarger of human lives. There is no way in which we can prove ourselves better friends to others than by such influence over them as will make their lives fuller, truer, more loving, more helpful. One writes:

My life is a brief, brief thing,
I am here jor a little space.
And while I stay,
I would like, if I may.
To brighten and better the place.^’

There are many persons whose lives are small. They never grow into strength and beauty. It is said that Michael Angelo once paid a visit to the studio of Raphael, when the artist was absent. On an easel there was a canvas with the outline of a human figure, beautiful, [5] m)t wiiitt life

but too small. Michael Angelo took a brush and wrote under the figure the word “Amplius” — larger. The same word might be written under many lives. They may be good and beautiful, but they are too small. They need to be enlarged. They have not sufficient height or breadth. They do not realize God’s thought for them. They do not mean enough in the world.

There are many people who live in only one room, so to speak. They are intended to live in a large house, with many rooms, rooms of the mind, rooms of the heart, rooms of taste, imagination, sentiment, feeling. But these up7 per rooms are left unused, while they live in the basement.

A story is told of a Scotch nobleman who, when he came into possession of his estates, set about providing better houses for his people, who were living huddled together in single-roomed cottages. So he built for them pretty, comfortable houses. But in a short time each family was living, as before, in one room, and letting out the rest of the house. [6]

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They did not know how to live in larger, better ways. The experiment satisfied him that people could not be really benefited by anything done for them merely from the outside. The only true way to help them is from within, in their minds and hearts. Horace Bushnell put it in an epigram — “The soul of improvement is the improvement of the soul.” It is not a larger house that is needed for a man, but a larger man in the house. A man is not made larger by giving him more money, better furniture, finer pictures, richer carpets, an automobile, but by giving him knowledge, wisdom, good principles, strength of character; by teaching him love. A missionary took with him to some northern region a vine, which he planted. During the short summer it was put outside, and in the winter it was kept indoors. For ten years it lived, but grew only three feet and never put forth a blossom. The missionary was then sent to a southern clime and transplanted the vine. There it grew rapidly and bore much fruit. There are people who live in a chill [7] atmosphere, and their lives amount to almost nothing. If we can give them summer warmth their lives will expand into beauty and fruitfulness.

Some lives are narrow by reason of the way their circumstances have dwarfed them. We may not say, however, that poverty necessarily has this effect, for many who are poor, who have to live in a little house, with few comforts and no luxuries, live a life that is large and fre, wide as the sky in its gladness; while on the other hand there are those who haVe everything of an earthly sort that heart could desire, yet whose lives are narrow.

There are some people to whom life has been so heavy a burden that they are ready to drop by the way. They pray for health, and instead illness comes with its suffering and its expense. Their work is hard. They have to live in continual discomfort. Their associations are uncongenial. There seems no hope of relief. When they awake in the morning, their first consciousness is of the load they [8] must take up and begin again to carry. Their disheartenment has continued so long that it has grown into hoplessness. The message to such is, “Enlarge the place of thy tent.” No matter how many or how great are the reasons for discouragement, a Christian should not let bitterness enter his heart and blind his eyes so that he cannot see the blue sky and the shining stars.

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