SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 100, 17 June 1911, Page 3

SUNDAY COLUMN.

■THE CLAD FACT OF COMPENSATIONS. (By George 11. Morrison, M.A. Glasgow.) “The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”— Job, 42:10. Now, of course if you wish you may interpret that quite literally. Prosperity is the blessing of tbs old covenant, and Job became very prosperous again, But there are far deeper and nobler senses in which Job was compensated for his better days. It is a great thing to have two oxen instead of one; it is far greater to have new views of God. It is a great thing to have a doubled income; it is far greater to have a deepened heart. And it was not in outward reckonings as of oxen, it was of inward and unseen, and spiritual spheres that Jobjiad his true recompense from heaven, l Probably the writer of this chapter was hinting at that, for an ■ Eastern always loves to speak ip parables. . Put 'in the language of the Western world, he is touching on the great itruth of compensations. Think of trial ■ which calls into exercise graces and gifts which otherwise Would have slumbered, and you will find a bin t : of compensation there. We l gain something with everything we lose. A thousand gifts would have lain dormant in the bosom of mankind hut for God’s strange ministry of loss and trial. Trial turns cold pitv into living sympathy—that is a noble compensation. We should never have known the meaning of human brotherhood, in the depth and tenderness which that term conveys, if it had not been for the discipline of sorrow. It gives us eyes to see and hearts to understand. it breaks the harriers down and we recognise each other. But trial compensates richly, im that it opens the heart to the hbaven 'tain is above us. It gives -one a new hold on God. Moses saw much i i the Court of Pharaoh that was splendid, but it was in the desert that he saw the burning, hush—and God. A man is more than compensated for the sorest hour if it. brings him to God and makes the 1 unseen real. To live for eternity is of vast importance, and. nothing on earth ds too great a price to pay for it... Then think of the compensations of being a second-class man, of not having brilliant gifts or anything remarkable—the compensation of being an average person. I suppose we all are tempted now and then to envy the men who are signally distinguished. 1 daresay most of us remember having dreamed of how one day we might set the Thames on fire. As wo get older wo get humbler. We come to see that the Thames is not inflammable. We are not such bright stars as we imagined when the heart, was rioting at one-and-twenty. There arc two great blessings in mediocrity. One is, it escapes the' penalty of isolation. All greatness inevitably isolates. There is a certain noble loneliness which is • inalienable from the possession of .extraordinary gifts. I think that almost always where there is genius, there goes with it a powerlessness to.)ho quite happy. ■ God forbid that :<I should say. a word against those : high gifts to which we owe so much that makes life rich. I only suggest that if we have been denied .them our compensations are ample./ .If greatness itvyours, take up thy , crqss. And yoiu, average man, renjfember, though Summoned not to snowy-hound Alp, God lots you know the ’ sweetest ‘ blessings as you move whcfepapen and women are. The secoifd,/c,dispensation of-i ordinary life is thi^:, givqs unequalled opportunities for*', moral heroism. Wherever tiiqvo. arQi great-gifts" there is surc to he an audience which cheers and stimulates and rouses.' The deeds of a greSt aium attract-attention. There is' a. dsiily incontivfc to work, there is a .• glow* > about it wh'eu it meets with recognition. But the second-class mam.may battle poor in health to get his Jchildrcn’s bread 1 ," and he may struggle! for years without a word of praise A And there" are countless thousands who toil and suffer and take up their cross daily, and hardly get one word of recognition. Now that is not a hardship 1 ; in the sight of God it, is an ••opportunity to ho morally heroic. A life that is easy is on the brink of failure. - And to work on, struggle on, love on through weary years without one voice to praise or lip to cheer, is perhaps the finest heroism in the world. It is far easier to ho first than to he second. Then there arc the compensations of death. We are apt to think of death as a midnight, and we have said life would ho exquisite hut for the shadow and spectre of the grave. But did you ever think how every relationship is deepened because of the certain fact of death? There arc some ferns that never become green except in the dark caves of the seashore. And friendship and love, and all that makes life holy, would never have deepened into their exquisite tenderness l if God had not rooted them within the shadow, and near the spray of the breakers which are death. Then death has height-' ened the intensity of life. If yoit wish to see that compensation expressed in matchless English road the ‘‘Legend of Jubal,” a '•••poem;' by George, Eliot. • Vvc are hliluj' to the sights -at our very, door because wo have lived hero i alwlrys and expect to see them sometime; hut the tourist, with Ids definite three week;) to spend, sees and examines thoThings' we rarely think of. It is. the'very* limits of his time that urgfc. him. So God has limited our life by death ; we cimhot dream of an indefinite to-morrow. We are pilgrims in this great glad world, and we must he eager, alert, and nobly earnest because of the time limit. In the heart of every hardship is a help. If we live humbly* faithfully, royally, if wo only believe in' God when things seem contrary, we shall all find in ways mysterious, that, the land has given us twice as much as we had before. GENERAL BOOTH AT 82. “1 have ups and downs,” said General Booth om his 82nd birthday, which ho attained last month; “hut on the whole I should think 1 am stronger and hotter than I have been sir.ee the accident To iiiy eye, and ! am full of hopg.that 1 shall lie aide to' have the impediment on my remaining eye removed. lam more than ever in love with my work.” At the same time, in view of the fact that the coVhing operation for cataract may fail, the General is already preparing for total blindness hv fooling his way about his house blindfolded. in tins bravo spirit ho outers his BMrd year. He intends ii io he a full one, for in addition t. - > the social congress, he intends to visit'Scandinavia, Denmark, and probably Finland and Russia. Later ho will go to Canada., returning via the -States, while in November he hopes to pay another \ hit to Germany.