Did you ever try to help a person who will not be helped? To shed sunshine into a soul that will not empty itself or be emptied of shadows? Is there anything more discouraging? But after all, the best thing we can do for our friends is to be good and fine and true. Nothing tells like living. “The kingdom of heaven” is within. When we truly desire the best, we lose the certainty that it is revealed only to us and to those who agree with us.
God opens a great fountain of truth, that shows itself in many springs; we hold our cups for its waters of life, and our cups are of many shapes, molded by our own hands and decorated with our own thoughts; but they all hold living water, and the shape or pattern of the cup signifies nothing. If we keep this thought in mind, we shall not be overmuch disturbed that we cannot rule our world. As time goes on we change our cups; we learn to make them of larger mold and of more beautiful pattern, but however much we may draw from the fountain, its flow does not diminish, and no one is denied the water of life.
It is of no importance whether you or I see first the vision for which the world waits. The important thing is that we do not insist that others shall see it before their time. Emerson says: “God screens us evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden, that we cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time that we saw them not is like a dream.” We wait for the child. We are tenderly patient while he stumbles in learning to walk, patient also when we find that he must develop his character by his own experiences, and not by ours. Let us be patient with each other and with the world.
Nobody can make us happy. It all depends upon ourselves; and by the same token nobody can make us unhappy. What will you take from life’s menu? a strengthening feast of joy and sweetness, or the blighting, unsatisfying fare of bitterness and discouragement? It’s just for you to choose. And always remember that your song may cheer some one behind you whose courage is sinking low.
“Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God’s own smile,
His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile;
Just love and love and love and calmly wait awhile.
“Dear restless heart, be still; don’t fret and worry so;
God hath a thousand ways His love and help to show;
Just trust and trust and trust until His will you know.”