p. 68 | CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1889

CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE.

THE law of a Christian life should be unceasing progress. As in climbing a mountain-peak, every step taken must lead on to a step still higher—must be taken in view of that higher step; and every support which presents itself, if it be a sound one, must be grasped and made to lend its assistance. We may indeed enjoy a momentary satisfaction in some particular resolution carried out or good step taken, just as a climber experiences a feeling of exultation on standing upon some obstacle surmounted, measuring with his eye the space between the pinnacle whereon he stands now and the spot where he lately stood at its base, and thinking that he has made the embattled crag itself a stepping-stone. The climber is justified in such satisfaction for a moment. But he cannot sit down content with this present exhibition of prowess; for it is not a mere display of prowess he is after, but to reach the top. The tree-tops yet close him in, thickets bewilder, crag upon crag rises higher than that whereon he stands, no breath of heaven dissipates the oppression of his constrained surroundings, and no sight of it but a little patch of blue; he must mount higher. And so must we. Our goal is to become Godlike.—The Church of To-day.