Influence

In this piece by Martin Tupper, he warns us that when we judge, although at times rightly, of another person: we rarely understand the person's influences and only God knows, like the hairs on our heads, all the many circumstances that make them who they are and why.

  "Sometimes at a glance thou judgest well; and years could add little to thy knowledge.

But often, by shrewd scrutiny, thou judgest to the good man's harm;

For it may be his hour of trial, or he slumbereth at this post,

Or he hath slain his foe, but not yet leveled the stronghold,

Or barely recovered of the wounds, that fleshed him in his fray with passion.

There may be deeper things than these, lying in the twilight of truth;

couldst thou read the history of character the chequred story of life,

Wert to add the forces from without, dragging him this way and that,

And the secret qualities within, grafted on the soul from the womb,

And the might of other men's example, among whom his lot is cast,

And the influence of want, or wealth, of kindness or harsh ill-usage,

Of ignorance he cannot help, and knowledge found for him by others,

And inheritance of likeness from a father, and natural human frailty,

And the habit of health or disease, and prejudices poured into his mind, and the myriad little matters none but God can know,

if thou couldst compass all these, and the consequents flowing from them, and the scope to which they tend, and the necessary fitness of all things, then shouldst thou see as God seeth, who judgeth all men equal."   

 "As I walked today, far and fast in the sun-warmed lanes, my thoughts came yapping and growling round me like a pack of curs -- undignified, troublesome, vexatious thoughts; I chase them away for a moment, and next moment they are snapping at my heels. There is no escape then, and the matter is in the hands of God; but when many dogs have come about one, one feels that one must try to deal with the situation oneself; and that is just what one does not want to do."     Arthur Benson.

"The heart's blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles over it."  

Charlotte Bronte

  "Here in my isle of silence, between low land and marsh, under the spacious sky, I want to try an experiment -- to live simply and honestly, without indolence or haste, neither wasting time nor devouring it, not refusing burdens but not inventing useless ones, not secluding myself in a secret cell of solitude, but not multiplying dull and futile relations. One thing I may say honestly and sincerely, that I do indeed desire to fulfill the Will and purpose of God for me, if I can but discern it;" A.C.Benson   

  "The mistake lies in thinking that things are unknowable when they are only unknown." Benson.

  I read this quote this morning and it made me think of how during my Christian walk I have advanced from, perhaps, what the Bible calls, "Grace to grace." 

At each stage of life we have understanding within the limits of our experience and education; and through some divine act or influence, we move to a higher level of intimacy with God or understanding of His ways. Until then, unknown; but with earnest seeking, not unknowable. To consider that we have a full understanding of the Christian experience is to make the knowable, unknowable.

 "The people who have time to listen and to talk, to welcome friends and to sympathize with them, to enjoy and to help others to enjoy, seem to me often to do more for the world than the people who hurry from committee to committee, address meetings, and do what is called some of the drudgery of the world, which might in a hundred cases be just as well undone."    A.Benson.