THE USEFUL LIFE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 15, 1902

THE USEFUL LIFE.

“SHE has passed her usefulness.” Did you ever hear that said of one of your dear friends, or did you ever say that about some one? Did you ever stop to think about it, and just what it meant? Have you ever considered the meaning of that word usefulness?—Full of use, full of service, not some service or a little use, but full, important. Now that the once active hands are idly folded, and the eyes are dim, you thoughtlessly say, “She has passed her usefulness.”

What is the tale of the years that are gone? If you will take time for a backward look, you will probably see that at the foundation of her whole life was service, something for others. Many a sleepless night has she spent in caring for the sick, not only in her own household, but in that of her neighbor. Many a one has been helped over hard places by her cheery words or more material assistance. Care not only for her own, but also for the motherless child beneath her roof, has made for her long and weary days. Then, later on, it was usually the mother who thought and planned and went without many a comfort, that her child might receive the education so much desired. These things, and many more, have helped to make the home-maker old.

Do you know one of these mothers who is living in the past and looking forward to a future of rest and reunion with dear ones gone on before? Ask her children if she has ever been of service to them, and they will tell you of the lessons learned from mother. Lessons of truth and uprightness, of thought for man and love for God; lessons that have made them what they are. Ask the neighbors, who have been helped in untold ways so that they have learned how to help some one else. On every side, wherever a life has touched hers, some good has gone out, so that instead of one person who is trying to live a life of quiet usefulness, you have a score of people working out in their lives the lessons that were received from her, who, you say, has passed her usefulness. “Passed her usefulness.” Yes, passed it on into other lives and future years. The good one conscientiously tries to do goes on and on in the lives of those about us. Shakespeare must have had an attack of dyspepsia when he told us that the good is oft interred with a man’s bones. You can not bury it. Good must live, and it does. Coleridge came nearer the truth when he said, “The good man never dies.”—Sabbath Recorder.