By J.R. Miller
When the vacation season comes, some seekers of rest will settle down in one place for a quiet summer; others flit here and there, from shore to mountain, from mountain to spring, from spring to lake. Some cross the sea and climb the Alps, and hurry through foreign villages and cities. Some go into a secluded spot, away from the distracting noise and noxious smells of the city, and rest where the music of birdsongs breaks continually upon their ears, and the breath of summer flowers sweetens the air about them.
Among these refugees are many thousands of the best Sunday-school workers--pastors, superintendents, teachers, and officers. If they have earned their vacation rest by nine, ten, or eleven months of honest, earnest work--the Master will not blame them for taking it. There is no one who does not need hours and days of pause in his busy life. A few weeks of rest should fit all for better service when they return.
Now, of course, all these Christian workers take their religion with them wherever they go. It is sometimes charged that Christian people leave their religion at home, when they go away for summer vacation or summer travel. But this charge is manifestly untrue. True religion is not like a cloak, something which can be laid off. It is something which begins in the heart and permeates the whole life, weaving its thread into the warp and woof of the character, permeating the disposition, shining in the face, gleaming in the eye, uttering itself in the speech. It is absurd then, to talk about leaving one's religion at home when one travels. All the religion one really has--he will carry with him wherever he goes. People who leave their religion at home, will not have much trouble in laying it off, for it is precious little they can have to leave, and it must be only an outside cloak at the best.
So we may consider this point settled--that all true Christians will take their religion with them. They will be as sincere, faithful, watchful, reverent, prayerful, Bible-reading Christians, by the seashore or on the country farm, as they are at home.
Now let them carry also with them, their Christian activity. After the hard work of nine or ten months some good people think that they should have an absolute rest for the few weeks they spend away from their own fields. So they drop everything. They give up their lesson-study. They keep away from the Sunday-school. They attend church on Sunday mornings--but manifest no interest in the people with whom they worship, or in their work. They make no effort to be helpful to others. They give their hands and hearts a vacation. The result is they leave no impression for good in the place where they have tarried. They fail to let any light shine to cheer or bless other hearts. They fail to bear any positive witness for Christ. They leave no one blessed by their stay.
There is a better way. It is for the Christian worker to continue his active ministry for Christ, wherever he goes. It will not diminish in the smallest degree the benefit he will derive from his vacation. It never aids one's resting or recuperation to be selfish meanwhile. It does one's brain no good to shut up one's heart and stop the outflow of its kindness and beneficence. On the other hand, it makes a vacation all the richer in its results of rest, health, and new vigor--to keep the heart ever open, and to scatter blessings all along one's path.
There are a great many ways in which earnest Christian people can do good in vacation. You are stopping for a few weeks in a country village, or on a farm near a country church. You can enter at once with heartiness and sincerity into the interests of the little congregation. If teachers are needed, you can take a class. If there are young people who are not in the Sunday-school, you may gather a few of them together and form a Bible-class. If no such work seems to be needed, you can enter a class yourself, thus attesting you love for the Bible and your eager desire to know more of it.
At the same time you can make yourself one of the people, showing kindness on every hand, and trying in a simple, Christlike way to touch as many lives as possible with the blessing of your own loving, unselfish spirit. All work for Christ, is not that which we do as officers in church or school. Our unofficial ministry is ofttimes far more productive of good results, than that which is formal and official. What we do as Christian men and Christian women, is far more important than what we do as pastors, superintendents, and teachers. There is always a field therefore, and an open door, for the wayside ministry.
Let the spirit of Christ in your heart flow out in gentleness toward all. If you hear of a sick person in the neighborhood, find some way of showing Christian sympathy, by calling, by sending a few flowers, or some choice delicacy, or a little book. If sorrow enters a home while you stay, although you are a stranger, there is nothing improper in your manifesting your interest in some gentle way. You can notice the children whom you meet, win their confidence, and leave blessing in their hearts. If there is a poor family in the vicinity, a widow with orphaned little ones, or a household struggling with adversity--you can prove God's angel to carry help, cheer, and strengthening sympathy.
Or if you are spending the summer in a large boarding-house or hotel. You can gathers the children of the house into a pleasant little Sunday-school which they will greatly enjoy. Or you may arrange for a Bible-reading or a song service on Sunday evenings. There are many Christian ladies and gentlemen who every summer, do such work as this at the boarding-houses or hotels where they spend their vacations; and great good comes from their quiet efforts. In such resorts, too, there is constant opportunity for personal ministry. There are heavy hearts in every such circle as gathers in a large summer boarding-house. There is need for the ministry of sympathy and comfort. There are some who are thoughtless and worldly, who may be impressed, if not by spoken words, at least by the influence of a genuine Christian life, lived out close beside them, in patience, gentleness, and unselfishness, all the summer through.
These are hints only of the ways without number in which true Christian workers may carry on their work through all their summer rest. Wherever they go they will find opportunities, if not for formal, official service, yet always for that better service of heart and tongue and hand to which every Christian is chosen and ordained. They can so witness for Christ in every place--as to win friends for their Master. They can so give out the sweetness of Christian love--that every life which touches theirs shall receive a blessing, and shall bear away an inspiration for better living thereafter. They can so seek to do good to the poor, the sorrowing, the disheartened, that their memory shall be cherished for years in the spots where they tarry.
Is it not better to spend a vacation thus--than in idleness and selfishness, or in worldly gaiety and dissipation?
