The Secret of a Perfect Life

A little more than half a century ago I drew my first breath of life. It was a day in early May, so I have been told; the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the early flowers were in bloom. It is not to be supposed that my environment in life’s early hour had any influence upon the passions of my soul; nevertheless, from my earliest recollection I have been an ardent lover of the beauties in nature. Many of the days of my childhood were spent wandering through the fields in the bright sunshine, admiring and culling the flowers; rambling through the leafy wood, listening with glad heart to the songs of birds; or sitting on the mossy bank of the rippling brooklet, delighted by the music made by its crystal waters as they played among the rocks.

But the happy, innocent days of childhood do not last always. The sun does not always shine, nor the birds sing; neither do the flowers always bloom along our way. Oh, if we could only have been overlooked by Father Time—so have many of us have wished in the dreary days of after-life—and been left behind to be always in the green, sunlit fields of childhood, how happy we should have been! But it was not so; and now, since I have found the riches of grace, I am glad it was not so. No one can escape the onward-leading hand of Time. He will lead us, despite our protests, into days where the sun has ceased shining, where the birds have flown to a more genial clime, and where the flowers have faded. As our much-loved poet has said,

“Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.”1

My life has been a confirmation of these words.

My First Sin

Among the recollections of my early childhood, one is more deeply impressed on my mind than any other, so deeply and firmly stamped that the many and varied experiences of fifty years have failed to make it less clear and distinct to the vision of memory than it was the day it occurred. It was the committing of a sin. It may have been my first willful transgression, but, however that may be, it was one that caused an awful sense of guilt to come into my heart, and I trembled, as it were, in an unseen presence. No one had ever spoken to me of God, of shunning the wrong, or of doing the right, except my mother (sweet today is my memory of her). So I carried my trouble to her, and in her presence the tempter led me into falsehood, so that I was made more wretched than before.

Getting Deeper into Sin

The days sped on; and after a few years, I had won the title of “Bad Boy.” Though the sins of those youthful days (over which I prefer to throw the relieving mantle of forgetfulness) were dark and deep, I did not altogether lose my love for the beautiful and the good. In those shadowy days, a ray of sunlight would now and then break through, a bird note would be heard, and a fragrant flower would raise its drooping head. In such hours, I would get a glimpse of a better life. An unseen hand would set before me a picture of a pure life, and in my fancy I would see myself a good man. Oh, that the dreams of those youthful days were more perfectly fulfilled! But I must give praise to God for what He has wrought in me.

Many a time at the midnight hour in those youthful days, after I had left some den of vice, there would be whisperings in my soul of a higher, nobler life. As I, in my fancy, gazed down through the years, the angel of goodness would shift before me bright pictures of the different characteristics of a holy life. At this distant day, on looking back, I am surprised to note in what trueness the Holy Spirit set before me the ideal godly life.

But I must be brief, as only a few pages of this work are allotted to me in which to tell you how I found—or, rather, what I found to be—the secret of a perfect life.

My Conversion

I was converted at the age of twenty-eight. A few months later, realizing the need of a deeper spiritual life, I yielded myself a living sacrifice to God, and He gave me the desire of my heart. Bless His name! To tell you the joy of my soul in these experiences, is immeasurably beyond the power of my pen. The happiness of a pure life fancied in the day-dreams of my youth were more than realized. Although I was of a highly imaginative mind, the joy my heart found in the riches of redeeming grace was numberless times greater than the fancied joys pictured to my mind in my boyhood hours.

My heart now flowed out in a gushing stream of love to God, and my mind glowed with thoughts of Him. It was the poet Milton who said: “As to other points, what God may have determined for me, I know not; but this I know—that if He ever instilled an intense love of moral beauty into the breast of any man, he has instilled it into mine. Ceres, in the fable, pursued not her daughter with a greater keenness of inquiry than I, day and night, the idea of perfection.” And I think the same was true of me.

Early in my religious life I became conscious that the law of development is written in the Christian heart, and that this law, if given full scope, will raise us year after year into higher degrees of perfection. The Holy Spirit revealed to me also at this time the secret of attaining to this perfect life by a natural growth in grace day after day. In love and humility lies the secret of a perfect and successful Christian life. The earnestness with which we seek God is in proportion to our love for Him. Just as truly as the seven colors are woven together in one white ray of sunlight, so truly are the laws of a perfect life gathered up and fulfilled in the life of those who love God. “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”* (Romans 13:10) No man can escape the effect of breaking a law of love. What fragrance is to the flower, obedience is to love. Any act of unfaithfulness to God or man sounds a false note on the golden harp of love. He who loves truth intensely will dwell with truth; he who loves purity of thought will think only on things that are pure. Vain thoughts will he hate. He who loves learning will seek after learning and just to that intensity of his love for it. He who loves home will dwell at home as much as possible, and home will become sweeter home. He who loves God will dwell with God, will seek after God, thereby strengthening his affection for God and daily growing into His perfection.

Humility Needed

But love alone will not suffice; humility is needed that love may be rightly directed. If humility be lacking, love unconsciously begins to center in self. With a feeling of shame I confess that twice in my life since becoming a Christian, I have lost the ballast of humility so that love went astray. I thought to love God and be faithful; I thought that I was attaining to greater love; but to my surprise, when the Holy Spirit set my heart before me in the clear light of pure love, I found within that awful, ghastly, defiling principle of self-love.

If your soul loves the perfect life, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God”* (1 Peter 5:6) and “Keep yourselves in [His] love.”* (Jude 1:21) After years of experiences and some sad failures, I have found, with a greater certainty than ever, that love ballasted by humility is the secret of a happy, holy life. I trust that during the remaining days of my life my soul shall flourish like the palm tree, and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon, and that I shall develop into that greater fulness of God—into a more perfect image of Him.

Today I know that “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”* (1 John 4:16) As my inner man is renewed day by day, to my spiritual eyes the ideal perfect life grows in loveliness. As I journey on toward the setting of life’s sun, I can see farther into the beyond, catch clearer glimpses of unseen things, hear more distinctly the songs of angels, scent in greater sweetness the fragrance from the flowers that grow in that celestial land, and feel the beauty of the Lord growing upon me. I have passed through the furnace flames; but God has brought me through, and He will bring you through.

A Perfect Ideal

Have there been times in your life when a glowing feeling crept into your heart and you beheld a vision of ideal perfection? Oh, be obedient to “the heavenly vision,”* (Acts 26:19) remembering this, that the secret of approach to your ideal is love and humility. Humility will keep you in the right path as love hurries you on after your ideal. Neither the rocks, the thorns, the waves, nor the furnace flames, hinder the lover in his race for a perfect life when the vision is kept clear before his soul. Have you made failures? So have I—greater failures, perhaps, than any you have made or ever will make; but the God who transforms the caterpillar into the butterfly will transform you into His perfect image if you only love Him intently and be submissive to all His will.