Making the Most of Life: Chapter 13 - Without Axe or Hammer
By J.R. Miller
"Souls are built as temples are,--
Based on truth's eternal law,
Sure and steadfast, without flaw,
Through the sunshine, through the snows,
Up and on the building goes;
Every fair thing finds its place,
Every hard thing lends a grace,
Every hand may make or mar."
We read of the temple of Solomon, when it was in building, that it was built of stone made ready in the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it went up.
"No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung."
So it is that the great work of spiritual temple-building goes on continually in this world. We are all really silent builders. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. The divine Spirit works in silence, changing men's hearts, transforming lives, comforting sorrow, kindling hope in darkened bosoms, washing scarlet souls white as snow. The preacher may speak with the voice of a Boanerges, but the power that reaches hearts is not the preacher's noise; silently the divine voice whispers in the soul its secret of conviction, or of hope, or of strength. The Lord is not in the storm, in the earthquake, in the fire, but in the sound of gentleness, the spirit's whisper, that breathes through the soul.
Perhaps the best work any of us do in this world is that which we do without noise. Words give forth sound, but it is not the sounds that do good, that brighten sad faces as people listen, that change tears to laughter, that stimulate hope, that put courage into fainting hearts,--it is not the noise of our words, but the thoughts which the words carry. Words are but the chattering messengers that bear the sealed messages; and it is the messages that help and comfort. We may make noise as we work, but it is not our noise that builds up what we leave in beauty behind us. It is life that builds, and life is silent. The force that works in our homes is a silent force,--mother-love, father-love, patience, gentleness, prayer, truth, the influences of divine grace.
It is the same in the building up of personal character in each of us. There may be a great deal of noise all about us, but it is in silence that we grow from a thousand sources come the little blocks that are laid upon the walls,--the lessons we get from others, the influences friends exert upon us, the truths our reading puts into our minds, the impressions life leaves upon us, the inspirations we receive from the divine Spirit--ever the builders are at work on these characters of ours, but they work silently, without noise of hammer or axe.
There is another suggestion. Down in the dark quarries, under the city, the men wrought, cutting, hewing, polishing, the stones. They hung their little lamps on the walls, and with their hammers and chisels they hewed away at the great blocks. Months and years passed; then one day there was a grand dedication, and there in the glorious sunshine all the secret, obscure work of those years was seen in its final beauty, amid the joy of a nation. If the men who had wrought in the quarries were present that day, what a joy it must have been to them to think of their work in preparing the great stones for their place in the magnificent building!
Here is a parable. This world is the quarry. We are toiling away in the darkness. We cannot see what good is ever to come out of our lonely, painful, obscure toil. Yet some day our quarry-work will be manifested in the glory of heaven. We are preparing materials now and here for the temple of the great King, which in heaven is slowly rising through the ages. No noise of hammer or axe is heard in all that wondrous building, because the stones are all shaped and polished and made entirely ready in this world.
