m. Only so many square feet of
earth, and now there are more to walk upon them! The ground we tread was
once trodden by the feet of those long dead. I am taking up their room,
and in due time I must myself depart, that there may be footway for
those who are to come after me. Only the under-sod is really mine--the
little earth-barrow to which I go.
There is no question more baffling than this simple, ever-recurring one:
What am I? If I should decide what I am to-day, I discover that
yesterday I was quite a different person. To-day I may be six feet in
height, and climb the Alps; yesterday I lay helpless in swaddling
clothes. Yesterday I was a thing of laughter and frolic; to-day I am
grave, and brush away tears. As a babe, was I still I? What is Myself?
When did I come to Myself? How far can I extend Myself? My feet are
here, but in a moment my spirit can flee to Xanadu and Zanzibar. There
is no spot in the universe where I may not go. Where, then, are the
limits of Myself?
Personality is never for a single moment fixed: it is as changing and
evanescent as a cloud. We are whirlwind spirits, swept through time and
space, bearing within our souls hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, which are
never twice the same. Every aspect of the universe leaves new
impressions on us, and our wills, in their world-sweep, daily desire
different things.
Incompleteness lies on life--restlessness is in the heart. True love has
no final habitation on earth; there is no abiding-place for our deepest
affection, our most tender yearning. It is curious how deeply one may
love, and yet feel that there is something more. In all our journeys,
skyward and sunward, we never reach the End of All.
Over against this vague and changing self, there stands out the figure
of the changeless Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. In
Him we find the environment of all our lives, and the sum of all
our dreams.
2. Jesus calls us by our earth-born cares. In Mendelssohn's _Elijah_,
there is a voice which sings: "O rest in the Lord!" This angel's message
is the voice of Jesus to the human race.
The voice of Jesus calls us to awake to toil. We sometimes forget this,
and imagine that if we follow Jesus, we shall never have anything to do.
Christ does not still the machinery of the world, nor shut the mine, nor
take away the sowing and the reaping. The call of Jesus is not a call to
rest from work, but to rest in work. The rest we receive is that of
s
|