Herein is hidden a secret of triumphant power. The greatest victories are won, not by gun and cannon, but by deep emotions expressed in tear-dimmed eyes. Great achievements are wrought by men who can feel keenly and deeply. Behold Garibaldi conquering a great Italian city. A thousand soldiers, armed with rifles, and supported with heavy artillery, stood ready to oppose him. Commanding generals, with drawn swords, stood ready to give command to fire the moment he made his appearance. This was the day that he had announced that he would take the city. Hours passed and neither he nor his army came in sight. Finally, in the afternoon, amid a cloud of dust, a carriage is seen rapidly nearing the city. Every eye is strained to see its passenger, when lo, above the dust, rises the stalwart form of the great Italian. Without gun, sword, or protecting soldier, the great general who has come to take the city, is standing erect in an open carriage, his arms folded in peace. Each defending soldier is ready to obey command, but no command is given. In the presence of such remarkable courage each officer is motionless and speechless. No moment of Italian history was more tense. Suddenly some sympathizer shouted, “Viva la Garibaldi!” and in an instant every weapon is dropped and Garibaldi takes the city and holds it as his own. The power to advance in the face of great odds, with no weapon save a burning heart and tear-filled eyes, has wrought more victories than we know.
To cry is not weakness, for tears are evidences of strong character. We have always loved Mark Twain, enjoying his travels as much as he, and laughing away dreary hours with his bubbling humor. But humor never revealed the true man he really was. It was not until his daughter died, and he sat all alone at home on Christmas day, amid the unopened gifts, and broken hopes of life, and wrote the matchless story of her death, that the world caught glimpse of the real Mark Twain. Beholding her lying there so quietly, he said: “Would I call her back to life if I could do it? I would not. If a word would do, I would beg for strength to withhold the word. And I would have the strength; I am sure of it. In her loss I am almost bankrupt, and my life is a bitterness, but I am content; for she has been enriched with the most precious of all gifts—that gift which makes all other gifts mean and poor—death.” It required the teardrop to reveal the real character of Mark Twain.
While for our friends we would have nothing but golden hours, for ourselves the rosary of tears is the most precious treasure we possess. None other creates such a spirit of devotion, none other so thoroughly prepares us for conquest; none other opens the heart to those diviner emotions which should thrill the inner life of all. The golden beads will become tiresome, but the crystal rosary of tears will always be attractive. Count over its beads. There are the large, fast-falling tears of childhood. Tell them one by one, and behold how they bring back the holy memories and yearnings for childhood purity and childhood faith. Hold fast those blessed beads that were once kissed away by a mother’s lips, but still sparkle in the light of her precious love. There too are the glittering tears of youthful ambitions, when the heart burned with passion, the brain whirled with plans for conquest, and the eyes were moist with tears of hope. How precious those tears that have long since ceased to flow! But they are not lost. We still have them on our rosary when we offer prayer, and the touching of them revives our old-time hopes. There also are the tears of love. The busy, all-consuming fires of worldly ambition cannot dry them away. They gleam in the eye every time memory presents the portrait of that precious face. How wonderful to love until the eyes blind with tears of ecstasy!
There too are the priceless tears of sympathy. The sight of another’s wrong or sorrow unloosed the fountains of the deep, and your heart responded. In order to right the wrong you gave yourself to work of reform, and made your influence a powerful factor in the remaking of the world. There, gleaming more beautiful than all, are the tears of sorrow. They were shed at the side of the grave; they came into the eye at the sight of an empty chair. How unbearable the world until relief came in a flood of tears! Only through tears do we find the sweetest comfort.
Thus, our devotions become more helpful when we hold this rosary of priceless treasure. These beads can be purchased of no merchant; they cannot be blessed by any priest. They were wrought in the fires of our suffering, and, because we trusted him, they were blessed of God. They cannot heal the soul—only God can do that; but they help heal the soul by quickening our memories and reviving our past experiences. Let no one rob you of the beneficent influences of deep feelings, whether of joy or sorrow, for we are never so much in the spirit of prayer as when we hold in our hands the rosary of tears.
XXV.
The Hearthstone of the Heart
Speaking to a young man who was about to assume the more weighty responsibilities of religious work and living, Paul bade him stir up the coals of genius, and build a fire of enthusiasm that would warm and set aglow with holy zeal his every endeavor. “I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee.” As the housewife stirs the living coals out of the dead ashes of the old fireplace, and fans them until they glow with sparkling fervor, setting aflame the newly placed faggots, making the room radiant with good cheer as shadows dance along the walls and ice melts from the frost-screened windowpanes, so out of the dead ashes of past enthusiasm he was to stir up the living coals of his best gifts until they snapped, and sparkled, and burst aflame, filling the heart with brightness, and creating an atmosphere that would melt the ices of indifference from the windows of his soul, and give him a clear vision of a great wide world. Yea, as in the days of Paul, one would take a dying torch, and placing it to his lips, pour out his breath upon it until it burst in flame, that he might have a torch of burning fire to guide his footsteps through the darkness of the starless midnight or to flash a message to the people living upon the distant hilltop, or to kindle the fireplace wood until the cold corners of the house breathed a hearty welcome to the tired and frozen travelers, so the young man was to take the divine elements of the soul, breathe upon them the breath of prayer and devotion, until they blazed and burned and cast abroad their helpful influence.
Within each human heart, however covered with the smothering ashes of sin, are God-made sparks of celestial fire that long to rise on wings of flame and make heroic battle with oppressive darkness. There are too many lives which, through carelessness, never burn bright, but, like smoldering flax, slowly eat themselves away, darkening and corrupting the very air they should illumine. When they began the Christian life they were radiant with hope, beaming with enthusiasm, and flashing with chivalric courage; but the spirit of worldliness choked and smothered them, until now, like the dead hearthstone of some shell-torn house upon the battle line, they offer to a worn-out world no hope of hospitality. To guard against this choking of the soul, this smoldering of genius, this reckless burning out of the priceless gifts of God, Paul urges all young men to stir up these coals and fan them into radiant and glowing character.
It is not the will of God that any life be formal and indifferent. How much all forms of life, plant, and animal owe to the hidden fires within the bosom of the planet, no scientist has been bold enough to state; but this we know about mankind, without the inner fires of burning thought and all-consuming zeal there is no productivity. And no life need be cold-hearted. For the hearthstone of every heart there are three divine qualities that should burn with all the intensity and fervor as in the hearts of ancient seer and prophet.