The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1886-06-23
THE ioEAL AND THg REAL.

Tho Difference Between the Human and
the Divine way.-YIow True Liberty andl
Enduring Strength Are Obtained. j
The ideal life, rs most men and
women think Of 1t, would be one utter
ly free from all claims upon Its time
and resources which would check Its
movement, dwarf its growth, or i'm
pede it's, swift and orderly progress.
Most of the rebellion against our cir
cumstances arises from the feeling we
have that they restrict, limit and mar
row US; we should like to be set free,
and we fancy that If no responsibilities
or duties were imposed upon us other
than those we choose for ourselves we
should move swiftly and irresistibly
forward, accomplishing all our aims
and turning all our dreams into facts.
But the Divine way of attaining free
dom is very different from the human
way, as we all learn sooner or later.
There is no truth which men and
women accept SO slowly and with 80
much pain of heart and mind as the
truth that freedom comes through pa
tience, and that our life gets its rich
ness and strength, not by working itself
out according to our plans, but
by submitting itself to the di-
rection of another. Every one
of us has some little structure which
he would like to complete for himself,
laying the foundations, building the
walls, spreading the roof, and .adorn-
ing it without and within according
to his own design. But God sets US at
work upon an edifice so vast that our
work upon it is only a small detail,
and we are such inferior artists that
we would prefer to be the architects of
the small design rather than the build
ers of the great temple. There is not
one of us upon whom some kind of re-
striction is not laid; not one of us
whose free, spontaneous movement of
life is not checked by the weakness Of
some other whose work we have to add
to our own. While we are doing the
work of the day with all our might
and with entire success, some one else
near to us falls out by inefficiency, or
by positive evil of nature, and we are
obliged to stop and add his load to our
own. Instead of doing the thing we,
would like, which would bring COM,
pleteness to our lie in our eyes, we
must pick up a wearisome burden that
has no inspiration in 1t, and carry il
with q constant sense of loss.i
Many a woman's life would
be far richer in her external
activities and opportunities H
she were not taking upon her own
shoulders the deficiencies and weak
nesses of others; many a man would
have larger education, finer social sur
roundings, a sweeter life, If 1t were not
for the responsibilities he assumes for
those who are unable or unwilling to-
meet their own responsibilities. There
are times when the best nature revolts,
against this; and yet it is precisely
through this discipline that men and
women are nodded into nobler stature,
of spiritual growth; it is by patient
submission to restriction, by cheerful
bearing of the burdens Of others, by
accomplishing acceptance of condf-,
tions imposed upon us by the weak
nesses and sins of those that we love-
that the truest liberty and the most en-
during strength are won. Christ's life.
was the very opposite Of that which.
from any human conception, q Divinel
nature would seek for itself; and yet it
is plain that its highest divinity lay in
its cheerful surrender to the hardness
and barrenness of human conditions.
He came not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, and He saved his life by
losing it.-Christian Union. ,l 4. i.-