My life. A ship that started well. All canvas set. A fair wind. A sea all sun. Then a cloud; then a lurid glare; then a lightning bolt, and the ship staggered in pain and fright. A great north wind, harsh, mighty, tempestuous, and then a sickening fear that I might never reach the shore. Perhaps go down in mid sea; perhaps perish in sight of land; perhaps go in more lost than found, a wreck to cry over.
My life? A bright bird, tuneful, brilliant, exceedingly; singing as I soar; cleaving the wind and getting higher and higher, and singing more blithely and more still; when an arrow strikes me, and I fall bleeding to the earth. Music gone; heart going; nothing but my own blood about me.
What is my life? A sullied robe; a crime concealed; a treason against God. I “know the right and yet the wrong pursue.” I have sinned. I have grieved my Maker. I have played the mean trick; kept back the price; spoken the false word; said “yes,” meant “no”; thought of self first, others last and least. The prayer has been upon my tongue, the loved sin under it.
The hymn religious has not cleansed the mouth that sang it. I have bent my knee in prayer and straightened it again to fight. I have wept over sin, and done again that sin that made me weep. I have stopped half way home, and gone back to have one more day with the devil.
I see oaths, vows, promises, lying behind me like tender blossoms shaken from the branches by rough winds in the spring time. My heart aches with the question “What shall I do?”
And the great answer is, “Do nothing of thyself.”
All is done for thee. The great Christ of God asks for no help of thine. One touch of his heart’s blood and thou art born again; thou art a child, the universe is thine, the stars thy playthings, and the sky thy home.—PARKER.
