| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 18 |
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It is said that when a cathedral was building an apprentice gathered thousands of broken pieces of stained glass, chipping from the glass used by the artists in making the great windows, and with these made a window of his own, which was the finest in all the cathedral. Christ can take the broken things in our lives, our broken plans, hopes, and dreams, and will make perfect beauty, perfect truth, and perfect love for us. You are discouraged by the losses you have had in business, the flying away on wings of the riches you were toiling for and trying to gather, but as God sees, you have been piling away in your soul riches of spiritual character while losing earthly possessions. You think of your sorrows and count your losses in them, but some day you will find that you are richer rather than poorer through them. What seems loss to you is gain.
“That nothing be lost.” This word ought to encourage us in all our life, in our Christian work, and in our efforts to gather up the broken pieces that nothing be lost. We would say that when such a wonderful miracle had just been wrought, there was no need for pinching economy in saving the broken bits. Why should the disciples be required, each one of the, to carry a great basket of broken bread, to feed his hunger for days to come, when the Master could, by a word, make bread for him anywhere? For one thing, we know that God, with all his mighty power, never works the smallest unnecessary miracle. He will never do for you what you can do for yourself.
For another thing, the Master wanted to teach his disciples, and he wants to teach us, to be economical. Waste is sin. To have gone off that day, leaving those good pieces of broken bread lying on the ground, bread of miracle, too, would have been a sin. One of the stories told of Carlyle is that one day, when the old man was crossing a street, he stopped half way over, amid the hurrying traffic, stooped down, and picked up something lying there, brushed off the dust, then carried it to the curbstone and laid it down gently as if it had been something of rare value. It was only a crust of bread, but he said in a voice of unusual tenderness, for him, “My mother taught me never to waste a particle of bread, most precious of al things. This crust may feed a little sparrow or a hungry dog.”
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