A LITANY.* WHEN the world around us throws WH Wall its proud, deceiving shows, Yet the heart no danger knows, Help us, Lord most holy! When like sheep we go astray, By the joys that look above, To our sinful selves to die, And to set our hearts on high, Help us, Lord most holy! Thus to do thy will below, Daily in thy grace to grow, Help us, Lord most holy! *Written to music, Hymnal " Amore Dei," No. 138. THE CONFLICT OF DUTIES. 'Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought good work upon me."-MATT. xxvi. 10. EVERY one knows the story,- the woman who pours the precious ointment on the Master's feet, the disciple who rebukes this waste of treasure, and Jesus taking sides, not as you might have expected, with him who pleaded for what seemed the larger use of a precious thing, but with the loving impulse which had prompted Mary of Bethany to pay her Master this seemingly fanciful and useless tribute. We have here, it seems, the familiar conflict between your duty to some one near you and to other lives further off, but in greater need, or of the conflict between any claims that lie in wholly different directions, yet both appealing strongly to your sense of what is right and generous. These conflicting claims of duty are sometimes among the hardest experiences of life and most painful to the most conscientious people. Is there not a suggestion in this gospel story of the principles that must enter into all such cases? Notice that Jesus, on other occasions, sometimes decides in favor of the narrower, sometimes of the wider, field of action. Better be reconciled to one's brother than to bring a gift to the altar,- that is, the narrower against the wider service; but another disciple, who asked, "Let me go first and bury my father," is commanded to leave even that sacred duty and to follow the Messiah. He himself also, twice rejects his mother seeking him, and declares that all who do his Father's will are equally his own. Thus we see constantly in our Master's life that the question of wide and narrow, large or small, does not enter. To him the greatness of an opportunity was not measured by the number of persons immediately concerned, but by the quality of act put forth. His few words to the woman of Samaria were as precious and fruitful as his preaching to the multitudes in Galilee or his rebuke to the rulers of Jernsalem. He neither sought publicity nor shunned it. The multitudes followed after him, not he after the multitudes. His great actions, his great words, never sprang from any inquiry as to their effect upon a smaller or greater number of persons, but always from the spontaneous movement of his whole nature to what was holiest, highest, and best, because of its intrinsic worthiness before God. His first concern, then, was never with the appearance or effect of his life upon other men, but with its intrinsic quality, its conformity to the will and the character of his Father in heaven. Here, then, is one principle which often helps in conflicts of duty,— that our first concern is with the quality of life. The desire to do good to others is indeed a stirring of what is highest in our natures and a reflection in us of the divine love itself. But you often need to remember that the greatest service you can render to a fellow-creature is to show him what in your own soul is best and "likest God," and so to bring him the help and inspiration of a higher life. This is what the apostle means when he says that, if we have not charity, nothing we can give, though it were our bodies to be burned, is of any use. In the deepest sense, it is not what you bring to other men of your possessions and your talents that helps the world forward, but what you give of yourself in giving them. The quality of life is our first concern. How often we take hold of these things from the wrong end! It is taught us as one of our Christian duties that we should visit the sick and help the poor. Many people, therefore, in a mechanical, lifeless way go about (as they think) "doing good." All who truly love the sick and the poor know what an encumbrance this formal and lifeless philanthropy is to the real work of bringing life, help, and strength to suffering men. Suppose you were sick yourself, or very poor, anxious, and discouraged; which would you like best, to have some bustling individual come in with a basket and a tract,—or would you rather have that person come, even with empty hands, who took away your fear, your discouragement, who made you feel that human love is strong and true, that God is faithful, and who, after sitting with you a little while, left behind that spiritual light which follows such angels of God? All your gifts and all your doing good to the poor are of little worth indeed unless you bring with them, and express by their means, the highest quality of life; unless to all the lesser givings you can add this precious spikenard of love, and nobleness, and true prayer, so that as in Bethany of old "the whole house is filled with the odor of that ointment." Nowhere more than in the choice between conflicting duties is it plainly true that the motive makes the deed. It is this high quality of the life inspiring the action, that makes any action worthy. This is equally true, whether it be in a wider or narrower circle of claims, that the action lies. To know the merit of the choice, you must know what kind of spiritual life lies behind it. Sometimes a man's conscientious loyalty to personal claims leads him to give what seems almost too precious to sacrifice. How many a faithful and excellent son, in order to be of immediate service to his family, has sacrificed his education, changed his career, and adopted a mode of life for which neither his tastes nor capacities fitted him! We honor in our hearts the man who thus sacrifices the scholar's life, because we have the secret sense that such self-sacrificing love, such faithfulness and patience, is nobler and better, is a greater spiritual conquest, than any intellectual achievement. Yet it is by no means certain in any particular case that this greatness of soul is the moving power. There are some who claim the merits of self-renunciation |