| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 7 |
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Then it is our office as Christians to be interpreters for others. Joseph found the two prisoners sad, and his heart was touched with sympathy. He became eager to comfort them. This revealed the true and noble spirit in him. He had a warm, gentle heart. No one can ever be greatly useful in this world who does not enter into the world’s experiences of need. Christ was moved with compassion when he saw human pain and sin. At once his love went out toward the sufferer, and he desired to impart help. Wherever we go we see sad faces which tell of unrest, of broken peace, of unsatisfied longings, of unanswered questions, of deep heart hungering. Sometimes it is fear that writes its perplexity which darkens the features. Sometimes it is baffled longing. Here it is desire to look into the future; again it is eagerness to learn more of God.
We are sent to be interpreters, each in his own way, and in the things which he knows. All the rich knowledge of the world has come down to us through human interpreters. All along the ages there have been men who have climbed to the mountain tops, where they saw the earliest gleams of light, while it was yet dark in the valley of life below, and have then come down and spoken to men of what they saw. There have been seers in every age, gifted to look upon the scrolls of truth and read off the words written there. The scientific knowledge we have learned to read God’s words in nature. To most people nature’s wonderful writings mean almost nothing, — flowers, trees, rivers, lakes, seas, mountains, the splendor of the skies, — people walk amid these divine works without awe, seeing nothing to touch their hearts or thrill their spirits. As Mrs. Browning says:
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it, and pick blackberries.”
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