Life In The Cross

1917

How much our Master spoke about life — the life that it now and the great life eternal! Is life worth living? That depends absolutely on the individual view of life and the view the individual takes of the God of life and of the world in which he lives.

The fullness of life does not consist in the abundance of earthly possessions, but in spiritual wealth. So many take the wrong view of life and obscure its sweetness behind a cloud of pessimistic thought. To pursue happiness is to miss it; she is a fleet runner and cannot be overtaken. The true fountain of life is within one, in the heart, and there we are just as young as we feel ourselves to be. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

Don Juan Ponce de Leon revered the cross as an outward symbol and planted it everywhere in the lands he discovered and conquered; but God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Ritual is beautiful, solemn, instructive; but if it is only a form, it is a dead thing and ought to be buried out of sight The cross is the noblest symbol the world knows or possesses, and the best place to erect it is in the garden of the heart, wherever else it may stand.

"There is no salvation for the soul nor hope of eternal life, but in the cross. Behold, everything is the cross, and everything depends upon our dying on it; and there is no other way to life and to true inward peace, save the way of the holy cross and of daily mortification." So wrote Thomas A. Kempis. —Selected.