is simply His secret for the alleviation of human life, His prescription
for the best and happiest method of living. Men harness themselves
to the work and stress of the world in clumsy and unnatural ways.
The harness they put on is antiquated. A rough, ill-fitted collar
at best, they make its strain and friction past enduring, by
placing it where the neck is most sensitive; and by mere continuous
irritation this sensitiveness increases until the whole nature is
quick and sore.
This is the origin, among other things, of a disease called
"touchiness"--a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one
of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness,
when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward
disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit,
WITH A HAIR-TRIGGER. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other
place; to let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps
as yet unused part of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart
while the old sensitiveness is becoming numb from want of use.
It is the beautiful work of Christianity everywhere to adjust the
burden of life to those who bear it, and them to it. It has a
perfectly miraculous gift of healing. Without doing any violence
to human nature it sets it right with life, harmonizing it with
all surrounding things, and restoring those who are jaded with the
fatigue and dust of the world to a new grace of living. In the
mere matter of altering the perspective of life and changing the
proportions of things, its function in lightening the care of man
is altogether its own.
The weight of a load depends upon the attraction of the earth.
Suppose the attraction of the earth were removed? A ton on some
other planet, where the attraction of gravity is less, does not
weigh half a ton. Now Christianity removes the attraction of the
earth; and this is one way in which it diminishes man's burden.
It makes them citizens of another world. What was a ton yesterday
is not half a ton today. So without changing one's circumstances,
merely by offering a wider horizon and a different standard, it
alters the whole aspect of the world.
Christianity as Christ taught is the truest philosophy of life ever
spoken. but let us be quite sure when we speak of Christianity
that we mean Christ's Christianity. Other versions are either
caricatures, or exaggerations, or misunderstandings, or shortsighted and
surface readings. For the most part their attainment is hopeless
and the results wretched. But I care not who the person is,
or through what vale of tears he has passed, or is about to pass,
there is a new life for him along this path.