December 23
The Well-Done At the Last
In the Hour of Silence"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof."
So the builder says. The mallet and the chisel can be laid aside now. The scaffolding is taken down. The rubbish is cleared away. Men look up at the perfected edifice. My life is a building. Is its foundation Jesus Christ? And on this foundation have I been laying nothing flimsy and perishable? True thoughts, and holy deeds, and quiet labours of love. Not wood and hay and stubble, but gold and silver and precious stones.
So the husbandman says. Through spring and summer he waits; but autumn comes, and the reapers sing in the fields, and the waggons carry home the grain. My life is a sowing. Is it a sowing to the Spirit? Trust and love and penitence and purity—have I kept casting these seeds into the soil of my soul? Ah well, I may have no golden harvest in this life, but in far-off worlds, among triumphant saints, in the presence of God, my reaping will come.
So the traveller says. He is home from sea and hill. The goal is better than the toilsome march, the shore than the tossing billow. My life is a pilgrimage. Is it the path which shineth more and more unto the perfect day? The start was good, if it was Christ's redemption. The way is good, if it is the way of obedience and communion. But the end is best. It is the city of the saints. It is the King in His beauty.
There are endings which are hopeless as midnight. But, my soul, there are endings among the things which eye has not seen nor heart conceived, but which God hath prepared for them that love Him.