| The Building of Character |
Chapter 13 |
Page 7 |
Another secret of sweet and happy Christian life is in learning to live by the day. It is the long stretches that tire us. We cannot carry this load until we are threescore and ten. We cannot fight this battle continually for half a century. But really there are no long stretches. Life does not come to us in lifetimes; it comes only a day at a time. Even to-morrow is never ours till it becomes to-day, and we have nothing whatever to do with it, but to pass down to it a fair and good inheritance in to-day’s work well done and to-day’s life well lived.
It is a blessed secret, this of living by the day. Any one can carry his burden, however heavy, till nightfall. Any one can do his work, however hard, for one day. Any one can live sweetly, quietly, patiently, lovingly, and purely till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really ever means to us, — just one little day. “Do to-day’s duty, fight to-day’s temptation, and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.” God gives us nights to shut down the curtain of darkness on our little days. We cannot see beyond, and we ought not to try to see beyond. Short horizons make life easier, and give us one of the blessed secrets of brave, true, holy living.
These are some of the secrets of a beautiful life. We ought not to be content to live otherwise than beautifully. We can live our life only once. We cannot go over it again to correct its mistakes or amend its faults. We ought therefore to live it well. And to do this we must begin at the beginning, and make every day radiant as it passes. Lost days must always remain blanks in the records, and stained days must carry their stains. Beautiful days make beautiful years, and beautiful years make a beautiful life at its close.
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