To be near unto God - pagina 408

With old people not infrequently there is shrinking and diminution. With the artist also there is a moment in hia life when he has reached his zenith, and the fullness and richness of his expression of art rather decreases than gains. In the intellectual domain there may be a few whose minds at 70 or 80 years of age are still fresh and green, and even excel in depth and wealth of scope but for by far the most the boundary line is here drawn, beyond which there is no more advance, and which indicates the end of development. Only in the domain of morals and of the unfolding of character this limit by itself can not be shown. Love and consecration can ever increase. Solidity of character can advance in strength even unto death. And this claim is imposed upon the child of God. No reaching of limit here on earth, but always a going further and further. Even until death a going from strength to strength. But here our misery appears, which alas! obtrudes itself inexorably even upon the work of grace. Observe it with yourself, watch it with others. See it in a child of God, after an absence of ten or twenty years. For then you ought to see in him, and he in you, as with eyes, and handle with hands, the ripe fruit of this ten or twenty years' work of grace. And is it so? Can it be truly said, that a child of God, who was converted in early life, at 60 years of age is ten years farther advanced in grace than he was at 50? Do you feel and observe a doubling in the power of grace when you meet again at forty years of

—

age him

whom you

thirty?

Do

lost from sight when he was parents, after the measure of their 404

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