FOR many years it had been my lot frequently to pass along a narrow pathway in a certain city. On one side the pathway was bordered by a high, dingy wall, which enclosed some gasworks; this wall had a door in it, and over the top could be seen the roofs of one or two cottages built with shiny blue brick, and in my imagination I finished the picture with heaps of ashes and coal dust. The other side of the pathway was hemmed in by a raining wall, at the top of which were some coal yards and railway sidings. A more unattractive spot could hardly be imagined.
The other day the door in the wall had been left open, and for the first time I could see what was really on the other side. There was a small lawn, neatly kept and surrounded by festoons of crimson ramblers. On the lawn some little children were playing. They were clean, and brightly dressed; some of them were dancing in the sunshine, while others were playing a game of croquet!
I passed a woman a day or two ago. She was broad of shoulder and largely built, her face was almost expressionless, without wrinkles, and the eyes small and sharp. The lips were thin and straight, except for a slight droop towards the back, her hair was coarse black, and her clothes of the faded black variety, dirty yellow-green in color. Her general character might be expressed as acid and forbidding.
The woman was holding a child by the hand — not a beautiful child, but a child, and therefore winsome, anyhow.
As I watched these two approaching me, the woman, for a moment, looked down at the child by her side, and for that moment there was a wonderful transformation in her, like a ray of sunshine bursting through heavy clouds across some drenched and shadowed landscape.
The woman’s face lost, for that moment, its hard lines. The expressionless features became softened, and curved into the lines of tenderness and LOVE smiled out of this unpromising material. The change only lasted for a moment, then the face relapsed again into its acid and unpromising character.
Too often, as we pass along the ways of life, looking merely at the outside of what we see, we reckon up the things with which we daily come in contact, and say to ourselves: “Dull, a bore, spiteful, dirty, irresponsive, one to be shunned.” While all the while, if one could only open the heart’s door and look inside, we might see a character shy, longing for the love of others, capable of sunshine and brightness, possibly rather the quiet brightness of the star than the full blaze of the sun, a heart just waiting to take fire at the touch of the hand of one who really loves Jesus Christ; a heart just ready for service, if only encouraged by one who really believes and has known for themselves the call and power of Jesus.
I now know what is on the other side of that grim wall, and that dingy pathway is the brighter for the knowledge of that picture of sunshine, flowers, and dancing children. Not artificial dancing, but children dancing out of the very joy of living. If I ever meet that unpromising woman and child again, I should look out for the sunshine to break through the dark clouds of her character. May God help us—who call ourselves by the Name of Christ—to be willing to sow by all kinds of waters—to sow in faith, remembering “the hole of the pit whence ye are digged,” and that we—many of us—were as unpromising as anyone could possibly be in our days of unforgiven sin. It is well for us that God is a God who reads the heart’s longings, and not a superficial critic, as so many of us are apt to be.
Unitus.