| Week-Day Religion |
Chapter 14 |
Page 2 |
It is said that when Thorwaldsen, the Danish sculptor, returned to his native land with those rare works of art which have made his name immortal, chiseled in Italy with patient toil and glowing inspiration, the servants who unpacked the marbles scattered upon the ground the straw which was wrapped around them. The next summer flowers from the gardens of Rome were blooming in the streets of Copenhagen from the seeds thus borne and planted by accident. While pursuing his glorious purpose and leaving magnificent results in breathing marble, he was at the same time, and unconsciously, scattering other beautiful things in his path to give cheer and gladness.
And so, in all true living, while men execute their greater plans they are ever unintentionally performing a series of secondary acts which often yield most beneficent and far reaching results. There is a wayside ministry, for instance, made up of countless little courtesies, gentle words, mere passing touches on the lives of those we meet casually, impulses given by our salutations, influences flowing indirectly from the things we do and the words we speak – a ministry undersigned, unplanned, unnoted, merely incidental – and yet it is impossible to measure the results of these accidents of usefulness.
We go out in the morning to our round of duties, and perform them with more or less faithfulness and effectiveness. But during the busy hours of the day we find opportunity for doing many minor kindnesses. We meet a friend on the street whose heart is heavy, and we stop to speak a word of thoughtful cheer and hope which sings in his ear like a bar of angels’ song all day long. We ring a neighbor’s door bell, as we go out from dinner, to inquire for his sick child, and there is a little more brightness in that sad home all the afternoon because of this thoughtfulness. We walk a few steps with a young man who is in danger of slipping out of the way, and let fall a sincere word of interest which he will remember and which may help to save him.
All sorts of people come to us on all sorts of errands during the day. We cannot talk much to each, and yet we may drop into each heart a word of kindness that will prove a seed of beauty. We meet people in business relations. To talk to them on religious themes may be neither practicable nor expedient. And yet there is not one of them to whom we may not minister in some way. One man has had sorrow in his home. His face carries the marks of sore struggle and inward pain. By a gentler bearing, a mellowed speech, a heartier hand grasp or longer pressure, and a thoughtful expressing of the sympathy and interest we feel, we send him away strangely comforted. Another is staggering under financial burdens, and a hopeful word gives him courage to stand more bravely under his load. We are writing business letters, and we put in a personal sentence or a kindly inquiry, revealing a human heart even amid the great clashing, grinding wheels of business, and it carries a pulse of better feeling into some dingy office and some dreary life far away. Not one of these things have we done with any clear thought, or even consciousness, of doing good, and yet, like the flower seeds the sculptor bore back amid the wrappings of his marbles, they yield loveliness and fragrance to brighten many a bare and toilsome path.
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