View source for Our Debt to the Past

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<p>"We see by the light of thousands of years,<br>
                      And the knowledge of millions of men;<br>
                      The lessons they learned through blood and in tears<br>
                      Are ours for the reading, and then<br><br>
We sneer at their errors and follies and dreams,<br>
                      Their frail idols of mind and of stone,<br>
                      And call ourselves wiser, forgetting, it seems,<br>
                      That the future may laugh at our own."<br><br>
Nearly all the precious things in our lives are made sacred to us—by their <em>cost</em>. This is true even of material things. We cannot live a day—but something must die to become food for the sustaining of our life. We cannot be warmed in winter—but some miner must crouch and toil in the deep darkness, to dig out the fuel of our fires. We cannot be clothed—but worms must weave their own lives into threads of silk, or sheep must shiver in the chill air, that we may have their fleeces to cover us. The gems and jewels which the women wear, and which they prize so highly as ornaments—are brought to them through the anguish and the peril of the poor wretches who hunt or dive for them in cruel seas. The furs we wrap about us in the winter—cost the lives of the creatures, which first wore them, which have to die to yield the warmth and comfort for us. Think, too, of the sweet songbirds that must be captured and cruelly slaughtered—to get feathers for the women's hats. Every comfort or luxury which we enjoy—comes to us at the price of weariness and pain, sometimes of anguish and tears, in those who procure and prepare it for us.<br><br>
In the higher spheres, the same is true. The <strong>books </strong>we read, and whose pages give us so much pleasure and profit, are prepared for us, oftentimes, at great cost to their authors. The great thoughts that warm our hearts and inspire us to noble living—are the fruit, many times, of pain and struggle. "Wherever a great thought is born," says one, "there has been a Gethsemane." Men had to pass through darkness and doubt to learn the lessons of faith and hope, which they have written in such fair lines for us. They had to endure temptations, and fight battles in which they well-near perished—that they might set down for us their bright inspiring story of victory and triumph. They had to meet sorrows in which their hearts were almost broken—to learn how to write the strong words of comfort, which so strengthen us as we read them in our times of grief. We do not know what some of the glad hymns of faith and hope, which lift up our hearts as on eagles' wings, cost those who first sang them. They have learned in suffering what they teach in song.<br><br>
You read a book which helps you. Its words seem to throb with life. You are in sorrow—and it comforts you. You are in darkness—and its lines appear to be luminous for you with an helpful light. You feel that the person who wrote the book has somehow understood your very experiences, and, like a most skillful physician, has brought to you just the healing your heart needs. But you do not know the pain, the anguish, the suffering, the struggle, and the darkness—through which he had to pass before they could write these living words.<br><br>
In one of his epistles Paul tells us that all things are ours, whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life or death. That is, we are the inheritors of the fruits of all godly lives in all past centuries. Every past age has contributed to the wealth we now have. David's songs are ours, and so are Paul's epistles, and Peter's sermons and letters and lessons of failure and restoration.<br><br>
"If there is anything good or true or beautiful in us, the saints and the poets and the sages have entered into our lives, and have helped to develop those qualities in us."<br><br>
We exult in our <strong>civilization</strong>, our advancement, our refinement, our knowledge, our culture, our arts, our wonderful inventions, our Christian society, and the many pleasant things of our modern life. Do we remember that all this comes to us from the <em>toils </em>and <em>tears </em>and <em>sacrifices</em>, the <em>study</em>, the <em>thought</em>, the <em>invention</em>, the <em>sweat</em>, and the <em>pain—</em>of thousands who have gone before us? There has not been a true life anywhere in the past, however humble, that has not contributed in some degree to the good and blessing we now enjoy. George Eliot says, "The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical facts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who have lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest now in unvisited tombs." Not a leaf has ever fluttered down into the dust and perished there—but has helped to enrich the earth's soil; and not a humble life in all the past has been lived purely and nobly—but the world today is a little richer and better for it.<br><br>
Look at our <strong>home </strong>life. We should not forget that, though they are ours without price, the good things of our homes have not been without cost to those whose love we are indebted for them. We have but to think of the untiring affection that sheltered our infancy, and guided our feet in our tender years, and of the self-denials and sacrifices, the toils and watching's, the care and anxiety, the loss of rest, the broken nights, the planning, the praying, the weeping, and all the <em>cost of love</em>—for love always costs—along the days of childhood and youth. Thus oftentimes much of the good in our homes has come down from the past—the fruit of the labor and the suffering of a long line of ancestors. Hence every comfort and joy and beauty should be sacred as a sacrament to us, because it has been gotten for us by hands of love, at cost of toil, sacrifice and self-denial.<br><br>
Daniel Webster, referring to the early home of his parents in a log cabin, built amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, "at a period so early that, when the smoke rose first from its crude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada," uttered these noble words concerning this crude cabin, "Its remains still exist. I make it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations, which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents, which mingle with all that I know of the primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it, and defended it against the savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven years' Revolutionary War, shrank from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to save his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the names of my posterity, be blotted forever from the memory of mankind!"<br><br>
Or we may think of our <strong>country</strong>. We enjoy its liberties and its prosperity's. We look at our beautiful flag, and our hearts are filled with patriotic pride. We sit in peace beneath its sheltering folds. We think of our institutions, our beneficent government, our civilization, our schools, and our churches, the peace and safety we enjoy. But we should not forget what all these national blessings cost those who procured them, and those who have preserved them for us. Our present Christian civilization is the growth of many centuries of fidelity, of sacrifice, of blood. The story of the struggle for human freedom is a story of <em>tears </em>and <em>suffering </em>and <em>martyrdom</em>. Every schoolboy knows what it cost the colonists to lay the foundations of our nation; how bravely they fought, how they suffered in maintaining the principles, which enter into the Constitution, and are the basis of all that is noble in our country. Every thread of our flag represents a precious cost in loyalty to the truth, and to the cause of human rights. Our Civil War is not yet too distant for many of us to remember the price that was paid in those dark, sad days on battle fields and in prisons by brave men, to preserve the liberty that is so dear to us, and to wipe out the shame of human slavery that, until then, had still blotted our escutcheon. Thus everything that is noble and good in our country—comes to us from sacrifice and blood, somewhere along the past centuries.<br><br>
There is one other obvious application of this principle of the cost of all blessings. We have great joy in our <strong>Christian blessings</strong>. We are children of God. We have Christ's peace in our hearts. We walk beneath the smile of God. We have comfort in our sorrow, guidance in our perplexities, help in temptation, and the assurance of eternal life. We should never forget that all these priceless blessings, which are so free to us—come to us through the cross and passion of our Savior. By his stripes we are healed. We have joy—because he endured sorrow. We have peace in the midst of the storm. We have forgiveness, because the darkness gathered about his soul on the cross. The hands that save us are <em>pierced </em>hands—pierced in saving us.<br><br>
"I fall not on my knees and pray,<br>
                      But God must come from heaven to fetch that sigh,<br>
                      And pierced hands must take it back on high;<br>
                      And through his broken heart and cloven side<br>
                      Love makes an open way<br>
                      For me, who could not live—but that He died."<br><br>
These are illustrations of this great law of <em>the cost of all that is good</em>. Past ages have sent down to us their fruits of <em>pain </em>and <em>sacrifice </em>and <em>loss </em>to enrich us. Our inheritances, others toiled to get them for us. The blessings of our homes and firesides—come to us baptized with love's tears and blood. Everything that is beautiful in life has cost somewhere—anguish and pain. Heaven is entered only by the way of the cross of Christ.<br><br>
What is the lesson? When three brave men brought to David, who was shut up in a cave, water from the well of Bethlehem, cutting through the lines of the Philistines to get it for him—he would not drink it—but poured it out unto the Lord. "Be it far from me, O Lord," he said, "that I should do this! Shall I drink the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?" Its cost made the water too sacred to be used even for the gratification of his own natural thirst. It could be fitly used in no way but as an offering to the Lord.<br><br>
If that cup of water was so sacred because hands of love brought it through peril, what shall we say of the blessings of our lives, which have cost others so much? Are they not all sacred? This is one lesson. Nothing is <em>common</em>. Everything has been cleansed by its cost. How this thought transfigures all life, all our possessions and enjoyments!<br><br>
Then a further lesson is that these <em>sacred </em>things must not be used for <em>common</em> ends, for any mere selfish gratification. We should consecrate them to God. But how can we do this? For one thing, we should never put anything of ours to any sinful or unholy use. We cherish heirlooms, mementos, and memorials of friends who are gone. We hold them as sacred as life itself. We would not for the world desecrate a keepsake. A poor woman told the other day, how her husband had taken her ring, her dead mother's gift to her, and had pawned it to get a little money to buy alcohol. No wonder her heart was almost broken by his act. When we think of it, all the <em>blessings </em>of our lives are sacred memorials of love, because they represent the toil and sacrifice of those who have gone before us. To use even the <em>commonest </em>of them in any sinful way—is to desecrate hallowed things.<br><br>
Even to use our blessings solely for ourselves is also to dishonor them. David would not even quench his own sore thirst with the water, which had cost so much. It is sacrilege to use our good things for ourselves alone. We employ them worthily only when we share them with others. This is the true way of giving them to God. This is what he wants us to do with them. We lay them on his altar—but they are not burned up there, as were the ancient offerings. God gives them back to us—that we may take them, and with them bless other lives!
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