A Crown of Life
C. E. St. John. Revelation 2:8-11 And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things said the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;… The finest heroism is that of ordinary life. Steadfastness in hard times is a far nobler manifestation of moral strength than the most dashing valour which souls display under the joyous impulse of great success. For instance, the greatness of General Washington is shown by the magnificent hopefulness and steadiness with which he held his poor little army together through long months of retreat and suffering, far more than by his consummate ability in the guidance of actual battle. Many persons after they have done well in an enterprise think they have received no reward unless they have obtained fame or riches. Yet comparatively few do receive such rewards as these, and we hear a continual outcry that justice does not rule between God and man. Is it just that the world's multitude of sufferers includes not merely the idle, inefficient, and vicious, but in large numbers those to whom poverty clings in spite of their devoted labours, and those who are kept down by constant illness or other unavoidable weakness? Why has God denied to all the multitudes of the unfortunate all adequate reward to their efforts? The sufficient answer to these doubting questions is the pointing out of the fact that those who ask them have set up a wrong standard of rewards, and so have overlooked the most important things God is doing in human souls. Who told you, my doubting friend, that the only just reward for writing a noble book is immediate fame, or that wealth ought always to be showered upon the most diligent workers? God is not a magnified committee of award, who examines the records of earth, and metes out to men as rewards for good conduct the things they most desire to possess. Abundant resources, delightful pleasures, gratifying honours, enrich some lives and fail to reach others by causes that are not intended, in my belief, to make of them arbitrary rewards. They fall to the share of evil men and good alike, and are missed by myriads of the most virtuous persons. Divine rewards must therefore be a different sort of thing; and, inasmuch as God can do no wrong, we ought to be able to discover His marks of approval in every life we know to be a noble one. This search inevitably becomes a religious one. Our trust in God is our chief guide; and by this we are led to see that the deepening of life itself is the Divine reward to all excellent deeds or hopes. Jesus gave the noblest utterance to His mission when He said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." They who are faithful, pure in heart, noble, do receive at once more abundant life; and life is but one thing before or after death. There is something which no evil heart can enjoy, but which no righteous soul ever for an instant fails to receive as the immediate reward of his good qualities. That gracious reward is life with its uncounted possibilities, to be your deepest joy at the present time and your eternal field for high surprise. The ancient Greeks gave a crown of wild olive to the victors in their athletic or poetic contests, and the modern world gives crowns of wealth and conspicuous leadership to those who win in its competitions. But there is a lovelier crown than these. The many souls that seem to lose in their competitions with others are in reality gaining much of permanent value while they strive with noble aims. To all who work thus, whether they seem to win or not, there is given life as a crown. Be faithful unto death; and you receive that crown — simply life. The hero makes his greatest sacrifice at the place of perilous duty, loses all his joys and treasures because honour bids him die, only to awake and find that life is still his, but brighter, dearer, than ever, because now ennobled by his faithful heroism. Once a mere existence full of mingled joy and sorrow, life has now been by his own act transformed into a crown, a reward sufficient for all goodness. It may well be that heaven is simply the discovery by an it, mortal soul of the Divine joy it is to be alive. If so, then, surely, life can be transformed into a crown, a measureless joy, at any moment by any sterling act of worthiness in the midst of the trials that make goodness difficult. To be faithful unto death is required but once of any man; but to be faithful up to the full requirement of every situation is demanded of us all at every moment, so that we can at any instant discover the real sublimity of this life of ours. Life may seem nothing rare to one who idly, selfishly, squanders its precious hours; but to every diligent man life is a treasure beyond estimation, and such natures find in the opportunities of each new day the ample reward for faithfulness in the day before. The true scholar's reward does not lie in the fame he may or may not receive for his book, nor in the financial returns it secures. His joy is in the doing of the work itself, in the eager search for truth, in the knowledge he is acquiring, in the actual labour of his literary art. The artist Turner cared so little for public praise and for the selling of his famous works, that when he died there were in his possession hundreds of his paintings, which by a little worldly wisdom he might have turned into gold. His joy was in the art itself, in the painting of pictures; that is, in life rather than in common rewards. Life was his crown, as is that of every worker who honours his occupation. The Divineness of this crown of life is made evident by its universality. Every good deed, every pure thought, broadens into finer life. If any man of an earnest mind understands what earnestness is worth, he has already the one Divine reward of earnestness, and need not care to be popularly known as an example of zeal. See life in this light, and, so far as you are concerned, the sting is taken away from all your failures and difficulties. The deepening, broadening, enriching, of your nature is your reward for your faithfulness through your long years of toil, hardship, loss, and grief. We know that restricted resources call out a man's own mental resources, and that a Robinson Crusoe with only a jack-knife to depend upon accomplishes more with it than another can with a whole kit of tools. We know that the gravest anxieties of business or private life give rise to our firmest courage, our grandest moral strength. We know how the trials and bitter, searching things of life take hold of careless youths and silly girls, and change their mood from vanity to beauty and strength, as the flames that burn out the iron's impurities and give forth the royal steel. In all such moral developments we see the gift of larger life coming to those that have earned it by desert; and, what is of most immediate interest to us, we see it coming without weary delay while yet the fierce struggle goes on. The most significant thing in the matter is that the crown of life — that is, life in its aspect of moral success and self-reliance — does not come to any one class of men more than to others. It comes in the very midst of anxiety, poverty, and physical weakness; and it blossoms forth also in souls that have easier careers. The only places where it does not appear are the wastes of vice and selfishness. No wicked person can know the depths of life until he changes his course, and begins by moral struggle to develop his soul. (C. E. St. John.) Parallel Verses KJV: And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; WEB: "To the angel of the assembly in Smyrna write: "The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life says these things: