Making the Most of Life

ife by loss in

drunk, but the w

gth standeth in

ers most hath

Disci

lower self that must be trampled down and trampled to death by the higher self. The alabaster vase must be broken, that the ointment may flow out

s really a succession of battles, in which the better triumphs over the worse, the sp

ve for self and yet do many pleasant things for others; but one's life can never become the great bl

One day the woodman comes with his axe, and the tree quivers in all its branches, under his sturdy blows. "I am being destroyed," it cries. So it seems, as the great tree crashes d

man hearts find their happy nest. Or it is used in making a great organ which leads the worship of a cong

rving man. Then came men with picks, and the clay was rudely torn out and plunged into a mortar and beaten and ground in a mill, then pressed, and then put into a fur

rock where they had lain undisturbed for ages, and were cut into blocks, and lifted out, and then as they were chiselled and dressed into form. But they were being destroyed only that they might become useful. They become part of a new sanctuary, in which God is to be worshipped, where the Gospel will be preached, where pen

e seed must fall into the earth and die that it may bear fruit. Christ's own cross is the highest illustration of this. His friends said he wasted his precious life; but was that life wasted

thirty years,

dropt on our wa

ising, thou did

ed by many a

fallow soil of

her tossed, by

ess dull, and s

th was done t

lie outworn i

ep-oh, slumber

rows and acqua

u diedst, that out

ooted stem an

ity the crim

indeed wasted? No; all this century her name has been one of the strongest inspirations to missionary work, and her influence has brooded everywhere, touching thousands of hearts of gentle women and strong men, as the story of her consecration has been told. Had Harriet Newell lived a thousand y

willing to lose our life-to sacrifice ourself, to give up our own way, our own ease, our own comfort, pos

afterblast; when the only chance of safety was in another shaft. And one man knew this and stood there in the dangerous passage, warning the men. When

nd no one could venture to the sufferers' relief. All that time, too, there went up from the field agonizing cries for water, but there was no response save the roar of the guns. At

hose poor souls out there have been praying for water all night and all d

. From both sides wondering eyes looked on as he knelt by the nearest sufferer, and gently raising his head, held the cooling cup to his parched lips. At once the Union soldiers understood what the soldier in gray was doing for their own wounded comrades, and not a shot was fired. For an hour and a half he cont

ies. There is more grandeur in five minutes of such self-renunciation than in a whole lifetime of self-interest and self-seeking. There is somethin

y self on the altar to be consumed in the fire of love, in order to glorify God and do good to men. Our work may be fair, even though mingled with self; but it is only whe

ed of love, every forgetting of self, every emptying out of life. Though we work in obscurest places, where no human tongue shall ever v

auties of a bo

ch grow on mount

lilies looki

ry tarns-an

uty that no

s in secret

uffer, and to

oveliness and

, then does

n the mountai

imple duty, f

ive their very

es. If this d

cked flowers fade

on the Gospel pages? Would her deed of careful keeping have been told over all the world? She broke the vase and poured it out, lost it, sacrificed it, and now the perfume fills all the earth. We may keep our life if we will