It is probable that from the age of sixteen up to thirty Jesus of
Nazareth spent His life in mechanical toil; He made wooden plows, ax
handles, and yokes; He served as a carpenter. Then for three years He
gave Himself to the ministry of ideal things, exclusively to the
service of the spirit.
There is a wonderful satisfaction in making things, in looking over
some concrete piece of work accomplished when the day ends. It is a
satisfaction that belongs to the artisan. Is it not probable that many
said that it was a great pity when Jesus gave up so useful a trade as
His? To them He seemed to be but chasing the rainbow.
But to-day who possesses a single one of the things that young
carpenter made? And did we possess them all what better off would the
world be? Yet, on the other hand, how ill could this world afford to
lose what He gave it by those three years of the service of the ideal.
In our age of things we so easily forget how large is the place of the
ideal and the spiritual. Ever estimating our assets in the concrete,
we fail to recognize that our real wealth lies in thoughts and things
abstract. The permanent possessions of humanity are spiritual. Not
acres nor armies, not banks nor business make a nation, but mighty,
compelling ideals and traditions.
Jesus, Shakespeare, Browning, Lowell, Emerson left no goods and
chattels, no bonds and mortgages; they left inspirations; they
bequeathed ideals; living first for the soul, their souls survive and
remain to us all. The truly great who still stand after the test of
the years are those who have lived for the spirit.
This is as true of the worker and the warrior as of the philosopher and
poet. All were inspired by glowing visions; they set their affections
on things above the trifles for which we struggle and spend ourselves.
They endured as seeing glories to us invisible; therefore their names
endure.
The great undertakings of our own day are possible only under spiritual
inspirations. No rewards of money only can induce a man to steadfastly
conduct affairs of great moment and enterprise; he is buoyed up by a
great hope; often the very greatness of the task and the sense of
serving great ends carry him on; always he sees the worth in the ideal
rather than the wage.
We must learn to measure life with the sense of the infinite. We must
not think that a man has failed because he has not left burdened
warehouses and bonds. We must cease to think that we can tell whether
work be high or lowly by the size of the wage. We need eyes to see the
glory of the least act in the light of the glowing motive.
A new estimate is placed on each act when it is measured not by bread
alone but by the things of the soul. The mother's care of the
children; the father's steady humble toil for them, the faithful
watching over the sick, the ministry of the lowly, all have a new glory
in the light of the love that leads the way and the spirit that guides
those who do the least of these things.
We need to learn for ourselves what is the work that endures. It is a
good thing to lay a course of bricks so that it shall be true, but of
greater value to the world than the wall that stands firm is the spirit
that forces the man to build aright. No man can do even this without
an ideal set in his heart, and when the wall shall have fallen the
world shall still be enriched by his ideal.
Too many of us are fretting because we are not getting on in the world.
Seeing the apparent ease with which some acquire fortune, we become
discontented with our small gains. We talk as though fortunes and
follies, money and lands were the only things worth while. Yet we know
better, for we all find our real joys in other things.