APPRECIATION BORN OF EXPERIENCE.
By Ruth Gardner
THE spiritual law declares that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." We see that in nature the law that "like produces like" is unfailing; but we can not quite believe that this will hold true in our spirit life. The world tempts us. We waver. "Come on," says the tempter. "You are young, and life is all before you. Come, taste the wine of my pleasures, and enjoy yourself while you can. These are innocent and harmless amusements. Time enough to sober up and settle down to prosy life when you've had your day. Come, be a man! Be your own master, and do as you please." This is a bold blow at the dearest heart-links that bind a boy to mother, home, and God; for to be manly is the ambition of every boy, and if being manly means to "cut loose" from those dear restraining ties that have thus far kept him within the safe bounds of God's law, if the tempter wins this point, our boy is fairly launched on the downward track. There is a sharp pang on the occasion of his first denial of the noble restraints of home. A tender cord is severed and bleeding—loyalty to God and truth, and father and mother's faithful teachings; but unless, like Peter, he speedily repents, the enemy quickly sears the wounded conscience with his hot iron, and the "toughening" process is begun. The boy begins plundering recklessly. The father is awakened to anxious solicitude for his boy; but the deceiver slaps him on the shoulder, and jokingly interposes: "Let the boy alone. He's all right. He's got to sow his 'wild oats,' you know. He'll steady down and forget all this foolishness when he's had his little 'fling' out." Thus the dust is thrown into the good man's eyes, beclouding his spiritual senses, and soothing his anxious fears to sleep. Years later, when that precious boy, bereft of every vestige of "manhood," cast his poor bruised and broken life at his father's feet, pleading his mercy and forgiveness, they both realized, from the depths of an awful heart-experience, that they had been deceived, and that "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." But why this broken and wasted life, manhood lost, hands stained with crime? Why need it be so?—Because he could not believe that the breaking of the great spiritual laws of our being would produce spiritual disease and death; because he would not hearken to the reproofs of instruction that pleaded with him to choose the path of wisdom, which is the path of life. (See first seven chapters of Proverbs.) But he listened to the flatterer, and now, picking his way back through the ruins of all his hopes and ambitions to his father's house, he realizes, with bitter remorseful tears, the loving, faithful heart he has slighted, and the holy law he has broken—for what?—For the friendship of the world, that false-hearted deceiver, who has cheated and betrayed his confidences, and robbed him of everything that made life noble and dear. It is the "burnt child" returning to the pitying Father-heart, who has been waiting all these years for His child to prove that "the wages of sin is death," that he might know how to appreciate, as he could not do before, the love, the joy, and the peace of a heart reconciled to God, and the priceless gift of eternal life. It is mentally impossible for any one who has never tasted death, nor felt the loss of his physical powers, to appreciate the priceless blessing of life. When we are in full possession of our faculties of body and mind, we are so apt to take glory to ourselves, and strengthen our hearts in our borrowed strength, as if we were self-existent creatures. We feel no need of God nor His bounty. We can get all we want ourselves. And we strengthen our hearts against our Father's pleading to consecrate our young life, with all its God-given powers, to Him in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways. How can the Lord reach such a one but by withdrawing His life-supporting power and blessings from him? His property is lost; friends fail him; he feels the very springs of his life giving way. The world, with all he boasted himself in, seems sinking from beneath his feet. All but perishing he cries unto the Lord for help, and he is helped. He acknowledges the Hand who feeds and clothes and supports his life, and God in mercy restores his health, and adds to his life new blessings. He has a new lease of life and a second trial. Will he profit by this experience, or will he, as we so often see, with the return of vitality and power allow self-will to take possession, and, seizing the precious boon of life, with all its glorious possibilities, squander it as recklessly as ever? What account shall he give who has wasted his Lord's talent, and has nothing to show for the precious gifts entrusted him but an empty life, when His Lord shall come "to reckon with His servants?" May God help us rightly to appreciate the opportunities and blessings that every day of this trial-life are bringing us, that we may receive at its close His "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."