“Poor baby! how sad it is that it must begin to suffer so soon, and give its poor mother so many anxious nights and weary days.”
The baby smiled upon me its accustomed smile; and, by the time I was back to my seat, I saw the mother’s head bent over the child; the quiet tears were dropping upon its face, and the evil spirit was gone.
Now, this lady was by no means of an unkind disposition; she would have given us money if we had asked for it, and would have exerted herself far more than many, to render us any real service. She might truly have said—
“And yet it was never in my soul To play so ill a part; But evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart.”
The most beautiful and touching lessons on this subject are to be found in the life of our Saviour! Of course a _word_ or a _message_ from Him could have conveyed the miraculous healing power; but in most cases He chose to touch the sightless eye, to put His finger into the deaf ear, and to take her that was dead by the hand. Even the poor leper, whom no one would scarcely pass on the road—who had “sat apart” for years, a stranger to all human sympathy—what must that touch have been to Him! Jesus knew that a double healing was required here, not only for the body covered with sores, but for the spirit, wounded by long neglect and estrangement. Each must be healed, before the feelings of a man and a brother could return. A word or a message could have effected the first, but the touch accomplished both.
And yet how incomparably greater was the distinction that existed between Jesus and this poor man, compared with that which exists between the highest lady of the land and the poor cinder-picker at Paddington! We hear often about the condescension of the high towards the low; yet, how it all fades away in the light of the life of Him “who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor!” We are commended sometimes for the few spare hours which we give to the poor; but what are these to His gifts, who always “went about doing good;” who sought not “to be ministered unto, but to minister;” and who closed all by “giving His _life_ a ransom for many?”
Haydon remarked, about his pictures, “I was never satisfied with anything I did, until I had forgotten what I wished to do.” With the example of Christ before us, at which to aim, it will surely be long before any of His followers will be able to say of _their_ work that they are _satisfied_.