April 6
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeSaturday after Ash Wednesday
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. S. Matthew 13:12.
ONLY let the aim be definite and clear. Let the will fasten on a few points only. Sometimes one object of spiritual conquest, one only, earnestly and steadfastly held before the soul, has been the commencement of the entire revolution of a life, the starting-point of a continual victory. "To him that hath," i.e. that useth whatsoever he hath, "shall be given, and he shall have more abundance." "He that is faithful in a few things, I will make him ruler over many things." Nothing is slight and unimportant on which an exercise of the will has operated. A renewed will is the accumulated result of a successive series of minute details of faithful efforts. The beatitude of the Saints is the matured result of the long course of patient strivings which may have passed wholly unobserved because of their minuteness. One step has followed another in the mysterious progress of daily, hourly acts, each seeming to pass away, as footprints on the sand are obliterated by the advancing tide; but the end is the vision of God, and the perfection of a nature made one with the mind of God.
Thus did he live his life, A kind of passive strife, Upon the God within his heart relying; Men left him all alone, Because he was unknown, But he heard the angels sing when he was dying.
God judges by a light Which baffles mortal sight, And the useless-seeming man the crown hath won: In His vast world above, A world of broader love, God hath some grand employment for His son.