Opportunity

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a chaos or a desert. We should not love the flowers if it were always spring; and our purest pleasures would pall did not pain and loss come to teach us. their worth.

Life is action; but to be passive, awaiting the utterances of God, through whatever medium they may come, is often the highest wisdom. To souls that are calmly expectant, whisperings become audible, as in the silence of serene nights, which tell of diviner worlds, where it is eternally well with the gentle, the loving, and the pure of heart.

There is no worse perversion of Christian truth than to maintain that the Savior taught that to make one's self miserable here is the means of attaining future blessedness. They who follow Him walk in the way of peace and joy. They are unafraid. They dwell in a heavenly kingdom. The Omnipotent is their father, with them in death as in life. They need little, nor fear to lack that little.

Suffering makes them wise and strong. They are able to be of help, for they think not of themselves. They do no evil, and therefore can suffer none. They despise not this present life, for they are conscious that even now they are with God and are immortal. Since universal love is the law of Christ's religion, they thrust forth whatever may foster the spirit of distrust and alienation. It is weakness and ignorance to imagine that to dislike those who have a creed or a country other than ours, is proof of piety and patriotism. The bitterness we cherish against others makes our own lives bitter; the wrong we do them we ourselves must suffer. We play the Pharisee when we think or believe as though we were superior to the rest of men.

The followers of the Divine Master best know that true men need not great opportunities. He himself met with no occasions which may not be offered to anyone. His power and goodness are most manifest amidst the simplest and lowliest surroundings. To beggars, fishermen, and shepherds He speaks words which resound throughout the ages and still awaken in myriad hearts echoes from higher worlds. Whether He walks amid the cornfields, or sits by the well, or from a boat or a hillside speaks to the multitude; whether He confronts the elders who bring Him the guilty woman, or stands before Pilate, or hangs on the cross, He is equally noble, fair, and God-like. The lesson He teaches by word and deed is that we should not