The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

168 THE WIDOW'S SON
readier to excuse
1
us than they arc.
So we take up a
grudge against the world, and come to cherish a
certain peevish selfishness. It IS in such hours that
we grow brave again by remembering the community
of trial. A single glimpse into an Eastern city, and
there are hearts companion to our own. There is not
a trouble you are called to meet, but a thousand men
have met it in the past. There is not a cloud that ever
hides your sun, but has veiled the
sunshine of countless
other lives,
When a man sits and lets himself be
tempted, when the thought tingles into imagination,
when subtle arguments crowd in upon the will, till
the will yields, and the senses are triumphant: then
when remorse comes, and the sense of failure, and
the feeling that life has fallen like a star— in such
hours of trial and strain we all think we have a
secret history, and it is only in the late evening we
discover that the sad secret was common to humanitv.
The subtlest suggestion that ever flashed on you has
flashed on other hearts as weak as yours. The pretexts
and excus
u keep dreaming of have sprung
into countless minds since man was man. Make up
your mind that your secret is no secret. It is an old
Story in the ear of God. Thou, think that if men as
weak as you, mastered temptation and crushed it
under foot ; if shoulders quite as sensitive as yours
carried their cross in a victorious way ; if wills unstable
as vou know vours to be, and hearts as timid
as you have found your own— if these by the ten
thousand, strong in God, have been more than conquerors
in Jesus Christ, there is no reason in
the world why you should fail. Remember the
brotherhood of what is hard. Remember the one