But there is another way in which the hand of Christ is laid on human lives. He sends his disciples into the world to represent him. "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you," is his own word. Of course the best and holiest Christian life can be only the dimmest, faintest reproduction of the rich, full, blessed life of Christ. Yet it is in this way, through these earthen vessels, that he has ordained to save the world, and to heal, help, comfort, lift up, and build up men.
"In these earthen vessels heavenly treasure
For the enrichment of thy poor may shine;
Thou canst fill us in our human measure
With thy being's overflow divine."
Perhaps in thinking of what God does for the world, we are too apt to overlook the human agents and instruments, and to think of him touching lives directly and immediately. A friend of ours is in sorrow, and, going to our knees, we pray God to give him comfort. But may it not be that he would send the comfort through our own heart and lips? One we love is not doing well, is drifting away from a true life, is in danger of being lost. In anguish of heart we cry to God, beseeching him to lay his hand on the imperilled life, and rescue it. But may it not be that ours is the hand that must be stretched out in love, and laid, in Christ's name, on the life that is in danger?
Certain it is, at least, that each one of us who knows the love of Christ is ordained to be as Christ to others; that is, to be the messenger to carry to them the gift of Christ's grace and help, and to show to them the spirit of Christ, the patience, gentleness, thoughtfulness, love, and yearning of Christ. We are taught to say, "Christ liveth in me." If this be true, Christ would love others through us, and our touch must be to others as the very touch of Christ himself. Every Christian ought to be, in his human measure, a new incarnation of the Christ, so that people shall say: "He interprets Christ to me. He comforts me in my sorrow as Christ himself would do if he were to come and sit down beside me. He is hopeful and patient as Christ would be if he were to return and take me as his disciple."
But before we can be in the place of Christ to sorrowing, suffering, and struggling ones, we must have the mind in us that was in him. When St. Paul said, "The love of Christ constraineth me," he meant that he had the very love of Christ in him—the love that loved even the most unlovely, that helped even the most unworthy, that was gentle and affectionate even to the most loathsome. We are never ready to do good in the world, in the truest sense or in any large measure, until we have become thus filled with the very spirit of Christ. We may help people in a certain way without loving them. We may render them services of a certain kind, benefiting them externally or temporally. We may put material gifts into their hands, build them houses, purchase clothing for them, carry them bread, or improve their circumstances and condition. We may thus do many things for them without having in our heart any love for them, anything better than common philanthropy. But the highest and most real help we can give them only through loving them.
"When I have attempted," says Emerson, "to give myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick—no more. They eat your services like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you and delight in you all the time." When we love others we can help them in all deep and true ways. We can put blessings into their hearts instead of merely into their hands. We can enter into their very being, becoming new breath of life to them,—quickening, inspiration, impulse.
"What is the best a friend can be
To any soul, to you or me?
Not only shelter, comfort, rest—
Inmost refreshment unexpressed;
Not only a beloved guide
To thread life's labyrinth at our side,
Or with love's torch lead on before;
Though these be much, there yet is more.
"The best friend is an atmosphere
Warm with all inspirations dear,
Wherein we breathe the large, free breath
Of life that hath no taint of death.
Our friend is an unconscious part
Of every true beat of our heart;
A strength, a growth, whence we derive
God's health, that keeps the world alive."
There is a touching and very suggestive story of a good woman in Sweden, who opened a home for crippled and diseased children—children for whom no one else was ready to care. In due time she received into her home about twenty of these unfortunate little ones. Among them was a boy of three years, who was a most frightful and disagreeable object. He resembled a skeleton. His skin was covered with hideous blotches and sores. He was always whining and crying. This poor little fellow gave the good lady more care and trouble than all the others together. She did her best for him, and was as kind as possible—washed him, fed him, nursed him. But the child was so repulsive in his looks and ways, that, try as she would, she could not bring herself to like him, and often her disgust would show itself in her face in spite of her effort to hide it. She could not really love the child.
One day she was sitting on the veranda steps with this child in her arms. The sun was shining brightly, and the perfume of the autumn honeysuckles, the chirping of the birds, and the buzzing of the insects, lulled her into a sort of sleep. Then in a half-waking, half-dreaming state, she thought of herself as having changed places with the child, and as lying there, only more foul, more repulsive in her sinfulness than he was.