Beside the Still Waters | Page 4

sadly and hopelessly circumscribed. Then, so God has willed it, Quietness and Pain are sister angels, that have a singular privilege of access to Him; and the soul to which they minister, through the weary hours of the day and in the long watches of the night, may frequently mount upon their friendly wings into the sanctuary of His Presence, bringing with it, upon its return earthward, one knows not what glow caught from the infinite and eternal Brightness. The difficulties of a busy life are apt to throw mind and heart back upon themselves; the necessities of a quiet life have in them this fine quality, that they directly lead mind and heart to God. So ripen, slowly as the seasons pass and the years come and go, that sweetness and roundness of character which we call saintliness; and as we come in from our worldly work and struggle, with its soil still clinging to us, and the joy of achievement always dashed with the recollection of failure, we wonder at a goodness in which we can hardly detect a flaw, and upon which already rests a foregleam of the presence of God.
For one secret source of the influence which such a life may exercise, undoubtedly lies in its contrast to men's common and more active existence. I have just indicated one element of that contrast; the completeness with which a comparatively narrow place may be filled, over against the want of balance, and symmetry, and thoroughness, of which all day-workers in the world must be conscious. But this is not all. There is a great charm in the difference between the heated air in which we fight our battles even for goodness, and the still atmosphere which environs these quiet lives: we come back to them from the struggle, and find that while they too are full of all fine aspiration for right, and thrill with a divine indignation against wrong, their aspiration is without restlessness, their indignation has no root of bitterness in it; they are not unduly elated by successes which have turned our heads, nor daunted by failures which have utterly cast us down; their faith is, as ours should be, far more in God than in any of His human instruments. Their characteristic excellences answer in many respects to our weaknesses, and we admire and love them all the more: we cannot wait, and their existence is one long patience: the noise and the light of publicity are our life, and God has hidden them in His pavilion from the strife of tongues: we argue, and wrangle, and fight, while they but love and pray: health and energy are the very conditions of our activity, and their life is rooted in weakness and in pain: we converse continually with men, and it is a familiar thing with them to be alone with God. And so it often happens that the chamber of long and disabling sickness, or the sofa from which the invalid rarely moves, is the fountain of the finest influence, and the centre of the noblest activities. For there the charities of life may be all astir, and the quick affections thence make their far journeys of sympathy; thither may come the workers, now for the refreshment of peace, now for the balm of consolation, now, again, for the inspiration of a purer dutifulness; while over all constantly broods the presence of God, who gives and who denies the power of active service; who bids this child toil and struggle, while from that He asks only that she should "stand and wait." So in the weakness of one many are made strong; and the activities of earth are bathed and freshened in the airs of heaven.
Such lives are rarely counted happy; the world pities, while it admires them; and there is often a note of commiseration even upon the lips of those who know them best. I cannot think that it ought to be so; that it is so, arises from the fact, that when we speak of happiness, we use the word in some shallow and conventional sense which does not answer to our best and deepest knowledge. For although one who lives so narrowed a life as I have described, and, like a caged lark, praises God in clear strains and out of a full heart, might well desire, were such a thing yet possible, a restored activity and an enlarged power of service, it would almost always be for others' sake rather than her own; not that she might multiply occasions of pleasure, but that she might extend the ministry of love. The truth is, that such an one has penetrated far more deeply than most into the true secret of human happiness; learning that, so far as external