| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 14 |
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We do things for Christ which we do through love to him. Even obedience without love does not please him. But the smallest services we can render, if love inspire them, he accepts. Thus we can make the commonest tasks of our lives holy ministries, as sacred as what the angels do. There is a legend of a monk who painted in an old convent cell pictures of martyrs and holy saints and of the sweet Christ face with the crown of thorns. Men called his pictures only daubs.
“One night the poor monk mused, ‘Could I but render
Honour to Christ as other painters do–
Were but my skill as great as in the tender
Love that inspires me when his cross I view.
“‘But no; ‘tis vain I toil and strive in sorrow;
What man so scorns still less can He admire;
My life’s work is all valueless; tomorrow
I’ll cast my ill wrought pictures in the fire.’
“He raised his eyes within his cell–O wonder!
There stood a Visitor; thorn crowned was He;
And a sweet voice the silence rent asunder:
‘I scorn no work that’s done for love of me.’
“And round the walls the paintings shone resplendent
With lights and colours to this world unknown,
A perfect beauty and a hue transcendent,
That never yet on mortal canvas shone.”
There is a beautiful meaning in the old legend. Christ scorns no work that is done for love of him. Most of us have much drudgery in our lives, but even this we can make glorious by doing it through love for Christ.
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