Advertisements and Pebbles.
I was interested once in finding a parable in L' Activité Chrétienne, the Christian Endeavor organ of Swiss and French societies, published in Geneva. Here is the little article, which is translated in the certainty that its moral is as good for Americans as for our brothers and sisters across the Atlantic. The title is, ADVERTISEMENTS ARE PEBBLES.
"Have you ever seen children sailing their little boats on the water? There is no wind, and the boats stop halfway over. They seem nailed to the water. It looks as if the trip could not be accomplished.
"But wait a while, and see the child's ingenuity! He throws a stone into the water near his boat. The pebble makes a little ripple, and the boat is lifted on the wave and takes one step toward the bank. Other stones follow the first. Gradually the boat moves toward the shore, and finally arrives in port.
"The child does not ask just which is the stone that had the chief effect in moving his boat. He knows that all the pebbles helped in obtaining the result.
"Good advertisements are efficacious pebbles, bringing to a safe harbor the bark of commerce. Every advertisement makes its little ripple, and every ripple helps to obtain the result sought for."
"This thought," says the editor of L'A ctivité Chrétienne, "is perfectly true from the special standpoint of commerce. How true it is also in the domain of the Christian life! It is fidelity in little things, and it is perseverance, which that excellent agency of publicity unintentionally recommends to us.
"This is an exhortation that is always seasonable. In short, if each of us brings his loyal effort,— sincere, persevering,—however feeble it may be, we shall contribute thereby to all forward progress.
p "But what joy it is to know that, contrary to the child's ignorance of what stone it was that moved the boat, God sees every one of our endeavors, and each endeavor has its separate and precious value in His eyes!"
"Seeing It Through."
The Great War, which has coined several brisk bits of language, has made nothing better than "seeing it through."
"Muddle through" has been the term in England for a generation, owing to a series of historic blunders in national crises which have yet been transformed into final victory by sheer British determination. England's en trance into the war was full of this "muddling through."
But now the Motherland has come out into this far better phrase, and is most spiritedly and effectively "seeing it through."
That is what every Christian is called upon to do, as well as every patriot. If a thing is worth starting it is worth ending. The start is crowned by the close. A fine start is no glory if it does not reach a fine conclusion; indeed, it is a disgrace, for it indicates vision without vim, hope without heroism. "Seeing it through" is the only justification of seeing it begun.
The writer knew in his boyhood a character well known in the Middle West who was called "the Great Starter" because he founded so many newspapers which he soon sold out or otherwise abandoned. Several States became the graveyards of his lightly conceived enterprises.
"Great Starters" are known in every community, in every church. They are fertile in ideas but fizzles in performance. They set on foot innumerable plans which they leave to others to carry out. They are brilliantly effective, up to the point of doing something. They are credited by the thoughtless with constructive minds, when they have only conceited minds. Some even call them "farseeing," but they never "see it through."
I am not prophet enough to see a month or a day into the future of this tortured world, but no prophet is needed to declare one fact of the future, namely, that the world war will be won, as all struggles, large or small, are won, by the plodding nations and men that "see it through."
My Two Sawhorses.
I enjoy sawing wood. It strengthens the back and the legs and the arms.
It forces the lungs full of air. It stirs up the circulation and promotes digestion. It is good for the whole man. Moreover, it is a pleasure to deal with wood, that splendid, stanch, sweet-smelling substance. It is a pleasure to push the shining saw through the manly fibers, to hear its manly song and see the growing pile of even lengths. The odor of the sawdust is another delight. Everything about sawing wood is pleasant to me.
But to saw wood you must have a sawhorse, and it ought to be a good one. It should stand level, for wabbling not only spoils the pleasure of the exercise but it makes the line of separation crooked, and so binds the saw. A firm sawhorse is almost as necessary as a sharp saw, if you would get the most out of woodsawing.
Now, for many years, ever since my boyhood, I have been enthusiastic for sawing wood; but recently I have been having trouble with my sawhorse. It is a fine sawhorse in most respects, one made for me by a good carpenter. Its sides are as solid as iron and will last a lifetime; but its crosspiece that holds the sides together became a wreck months ago. My saw had dipped down into it many a time, gnawing it a bit here and a bit there, until it became a mere thread of wood; and then one day it snapped and the sawhorse fell in two.
Then followed many futile devices—a cleat across the severed halves, wires binding them together, and the like; but the result was very unsatisfactory. The sawhorse wavered and floundered and came apart frequently just as I was putting special pressure on the saw, so that the horse and its load tumbled in a heap on the cellar floor, and I was lucky not to go down, too.
My difficulty set me to thinking of the two halves of our lives. Sometimes we call them the worldly side and the spiritual side. Sometimes we speak of them as body and soul.
Sometimes we refer to them as the interests of time and eternity. Whatever we may call them, we all recognize the fact that our lives have two sides as distinct as the two sides of my sawhorse, one of them having to do with things that are seen, what we eat and wear, our sports and the work by which we earn our bread and butter or are getting ready to earn it; and the other having to do with things that are unseen, the great concerns of conscience, of character, and of God.
Now, these two sides are not in opposition; they are parallel like the two sides of my sawhorse. But they must be held together or our life will go to pieces. "Saw wood" has come to be a phrase meaning accomplishment and success, and we cannot "saw wood" in life unless both sides of our life are bound firmly together-are a substantial and permanent unit.
What is the crosspiece that unifies life? What is it that binds together the interests of time and eternity, the physical and the spiritual, holds them in their right relations and makes it possible to labor with the entire being?
You all know what it is-Jesus Christ in the life. As we give ourselves to Him and let Him control our thoughts and deeds, our lives for the first time become well-balanced and solid. Our pleasures take the right proportions to our work. Our ambitions become adjusted to our powers. Our time is properly divided between secular matters and religious matters. We are able indeed to "saw wood" now, having a sound and consistent and reasonable basis of action. Jesus Christ is the one bond of life, the one strength and firmness of all human endeavor. That is one thing I have learned from my sawhorse.
Then I learned another thing. After I had endured my decrepit sawhorse as long as I could, I went to the hardware store and purchased a new one. It cost me only forty cents, and that was cheaper than to get a carpenter to mend the old sawhorse.
In this new sawhorse, which I am now greatly enjoying, the sides are bound together by a bar of iron, protected from the saw by a revolving wooden roller. There is, therefore, no danger that the two sides will come apart. But there was nothing to keep the sawhorse from flattening out. The sides, in the form of X's, are not mortised together like my old sawhorse, but are free to turn on the circular iron crosspiece. Every time my foot pressed down on the sawhorse with special energy, or I laid an especially heavy weight upon the sawhorse, it gave just a little and became a little flatter and shorter. There was likelihood that soon this sawhorse would collapse longitudinally as the first sawhorse collapsed laterally. What was to be done?
Of course, there were several things I might do, but what I did was to tie the lower part of the X's together with a stout rope, which kept them from spreading apart. Now I have a sawhorse which is perfectly solid lengthwise and sidewise, and my saw hums in confident bliss. I have reached the sawyer's paradise, which is good tools.
All of this is exactly like what happens in my life. For I am so liable to "flatten out"! I am so liable—even when I know what I ought to do, and have Christ to help me do it—to sink lower and lower each day in my decision and in my achievement! What do I need? The rope of perseverance! With that holding me together I can "saw wood."
With Jesus Christ to bind my life into one—the worldly side and the spiritual side, and with perseverance to hold me firmly to the course which Christ marks out for me, there is nothing worthwhile which I may not accomplish. Those are the great truths which my two sawhorses have taught me, and they are worth as much as all the cords of wood that ever were sawed!
Wiring That Wins.
No life is so cramped and ugly, so ignorant and brutal, that the light of truth cannot reach to its farthest corner, once it is given a chance. Many instructive lessons may be learned by watching the process of wiring an old house for electricity. The workmen seem to have an impossible task, yet they go at it with good grace. In or alongside the chimney they stretch their main cable from cellar to garret. Then they work down from story to story, taking up a doorsill here, taking off a mopboard yonder, or again removing a stair tread, fishing with long wires, boring holes through obstructing beams with augers a yard long, and managing in mysterious ways to drag their heavy steel cables back of the walls and over the ceilings at all angles, until at last, some bright evening, the house is all aglow with the beautiful, strong, soft light, and the demon of darkness is permanently exiled. It is an inspiring process.
But a process even more inspiring is what may be called the wiring of a life. The skilled, patient, loving gospel worker never admits defeat. He will make his way through the most difficult openings. He will utilize every opportunity. He will carry the Light of the world into the heart that is barred by the most forbidding hindrances.