I know, myself, a lovely church, not far from Ehrenbreitstein on the Rhine, which was built only from stones brought by loving hands to ground chosen by the village pastor. The building took very many years, but it stands there now complete, a monument of the free-will offerings and labour of poor working folks.
We do not all need to think of building churches, but the stories are typical. We are all either building, or—awful thought—pulling down the good work of others. As the Book says, "Every wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands."
Our power to work increases by use. Many of the world's greatest books have been written by busy men. How often, too, one hears it said that if you want anything special done you must ask a busy man or woman to do it. That barren fig-tree to which our Lord directed the attention of His followers is a by-word and a proverb for all ages. Persistent industry it is that meets with the reward. An abiding sense of duty we need.
Yet all of us have our times of depression, of weakness, and days when aspiration and hope seem dead within us. Then let us try to cast ourselves on Him whose joy, "the joy of the Lord," may become our strength. One of our poets says—
"We cannot kindle when we will
The fire that in the heart resides;
The spirit moveth, and is still,
In mystery the soul abides;
Yet tasks in hours of insight willed
May be in hours of gloom fulfilled."
It is these two last lines I would beg you to take to heart.
Huber, the distinguished naturalist of Geneva, who wrote so much and so finely on bees, was blind from the age of seventeen; yet he had a passion for the study of animal and especially of insect life, a study one would suppose quite out of the reach of the blind. He had a good and devoted wife, who never wearied in promoting his well-being and their joint happiness. Through her eyes he studied and succeeded in mastering a department in natural history which needs the clearest and keenest eyesight. And not only did he write a great work, which is still referred to as a masterpiece of its kind, and is still constantly quoted, but what the wife's eyes saw and transferred to his brain became his very own, to dwell upon, to draw deductions from, to gather to himself a fund of personal happiness, to give forth again to the world enriched by his thoughts—his life made a happiness and a blessing to himself and others—all through the unwearying industry and persevering efforts of a loving woman who effaced herself, apparently, for the sake of her husband and his life's work. "Who would lose his life shall find it."
A last word. The sovereign remedy for doubt and perplexity is, "Doe the next thynge."
(To be continued.)