irror catching the
rays of His face and sending them down to those around. And not only do
those around see the light--His light--in us, but we are being changed all
the while. For others' sake as well as our own the mirror should be kept
clean, and well polished so the reflection will be distinct and true.
The Outlook Changed.
Looking at Jesus _changes the world for us._ It is as though the light of
His eyes fills our eyes and we see things all around as He sees them. Have
you ever gone out, as a child, and looked intently at the sun, repressing
the flinching its strength caused and insisting on looking? You could do
it for a short time only. It made your eyes ache. But as you turned your
eyes away from its brilliance you found everything changed. You remember a
beautiful yellow glory-light was over everything, and every ugly jagged
thing was softened and beautified by that glow in your eyes. Looking at
the sun had changed the world for you for a little.
It is something like that on this higher plane, in this finer sense. That
must have been something of Paul's thought in explaining the glory of
Jesus that he saw on the Damascus road. "When I could not see for the
glory of that light." The old ideals were blurred. The old ambitions faded
away. The jagged, sharp lines of sacrifice and suffering involved in his
new life were not clearly seen. A halo had come over them.
I recall a bit of a poem I ran across in an old magazine somewhere. It was
one of those vagrant, orphan poems with fine family lineaments that find
their way unfathered into odd corners of papers. It told about a man
riding on horseback through a bit of timber land in one of the cotton
states of the South.
It was a bright October day, and he was riding along enjoying the air and
view, when all at once he came across a bit of a clearing in the trees,
and in the clearing an old cabin almost fallen to pieces, and in the
doorway of the cabin an old negress standing. Her back was bent nearly
double with the years of hard work, her face dried up and deeply bitten
with wrinkles, and her hair white. But her eyes were as bright as two
stars out of the dark blue, it said.
And the man called out cheerily, "Good-morning, auntie, living here all
alone?" And she looked up, with her eyes brighter yet with the thought in
her heart, and in a shrill keyed-up voice said, "Jes me 'n' Jesus, massa."
But he said a hush came over the whole place, there seemed a
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