By J.R. Miller
We hear many an exhortation about the duty of bearing other people's burdens. This is a lesson we should learn. Living only for one's self, is always sinful. At certain points in life, and in certain experiences, it is proper also to allow others to share our burdens. We cannot live without brotherly help. It is sad that Napoleon, on the way to Helena, as he noted the fidelity with which everyone on the vessel did his part, remarked that he had never before realized how dependent every man is on others--for the comfort and safety of his life. We are so bound up together, that countless others are continually sharing our burdens and ministering to our needs.
Yet there is a duty of bearing our own burdens which everyone should learn. Many people depend too much on others. They have never trained themselves to answer their own questions, to decide upon their own course in any mater, to attend to their own affairs. They always seek advice and help. By and by, however, in some trying experience, they turn to the old sources of counsel, strength or aid, and find the place empty. Unused to act for themselves, lacking the wisdom, confidence, and ability which training in self-dependence alone can give--they fail, and sink under the burden. If only they had been trained to think and act for themselves, to fight their own battles, to carry their own loads--they would not have been so helpless when caught in the sudden stress of circumstances.
Parents who shelter their children from every rough wind, who think and plan for them, in youth, never accustoming them to burdens, to responsibility, to self care--are not preparing them in the wisest way for life. This is not God's way with us. He does not save us from struggle, from tasks, from thought, from discipline and suffering. He loves us too well for this. He would make us brave, strong, wise, and self-reliant; and therefore he leads us into ways in which we must use every power we have, and develop every slumbering resource in our nature. Thus he prepares us for meeting whatever experiences the future may bring, and trains us for the best character and the largest usefulness.
There are those who have learned to think that others should bear all their burdens for them. They demand service from all about them. They expect everyone to show them attention and favor, to think of their interests and to minister in their advancement. But the quality of character which this spirit fashions, is by no means a beautiful one. It is the very reverse from that which the Master sketched, when he said of himself that "the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto--but to minister." He, the greatest man who ever walked on this earth, exacted nothing from others, claimed no service, and demanded no attention. He lived to serve, to help others, to bear their burdens, to comfort their sorrows.
This is the divine ideal life. If we would realize God's thought of beautiful character, we must not expect others to take care of us, to do our tasks for us--but must quietly and bravely accept the responsibility for our own life, and at the same time use our strength to serve and help others.
There are burdens which we must bear for ourselves, or they never can be borne. There are things which no other one can do for us. If we do not do them, they never will be done. Even God, with his omnipotence, will not do them for us. No other can make our choices, do our duty, meet our responsibility, and answer to God for us. No other can pray to our Father for us, can believe on Christ for us, can get our sins forgiven, can receive divine strength for our weakness.
Ever individual life exists as a separate and distinct entity, filling its own place in the universe, and running its own career. There is something awe-inspiring in the thought of human personality, in its isolation, its individuality, its responsibility, its independence of other personalities while touched by them on all sides. Thousands of other people may be close about us, sharing their life with ours in many ways--and yet in a deep sense each one of us really dwells apart and alone. The heart nearest to ours in love cannot live for us, cannot enter into the inner experiences of our life. Each one must bear his own burden.
This truth is not a mere theoretical one, without practical bearing. It lies at the basis of the only true philosophy of living. No one can make anything of a young man's life but himself. His intellectual powers may be great--but as yet they are only a bundle of possibilities, folded away in his brain, as a stately oak is hidden in the acorn you hold in your hand. These powers must be developed, and this can be done only through a long course of education. In this the young man himself must bear his own burden. He may be sent to the best school--but no school or teacher can bring out the powers that are in his brain, save through his own faithful application and diligent self-disciple. No most affectionate and interested friend can do it. No one can study his lessons for him. No love can relieve him of the burden and toil of the task work, which is necessary in mastering this science of that art.
The price of education each one must pay for himself. There is no easy way of attaining it. A rich man can buy many things--but his gold will not purchase for him a trained mind and the treasures of knowledge and culture. He can get these only as the poor man must--by long, patient, unwearying study.
The same is true of character. No one can give us the qualities of truth, courage, strength, meekness, gentleness, patience, which belong to the worthy life. We must get them each for himself.
In experience, also, it is true that no one can transmit anything to another. We may learn something from what others tell us about the way they have passed over--but the actual lessons each must get for himself. We cannot acquire sympathy, from another's suffering. We cannot appropriate the wisdom from another's mistakes and failures, as we can from our own. Every man must bear his own burden.
"Insist upon yourself," exhorts a wise writer. The lesson is important. Most of us depend too little upon ourselves, and lean too much on others. We do not care to bear our own burden. We follow in other's paths, we thresh over and over again other's straw, we gather up the gold which other's have dug out of the rock. Few men are original. It were better for us all if we would insist upon ourselves, if we would let the life that God has given us develop in its own normal way, under the sunshine of divine love. If God has a thought for each life, he will help us to know what this thought is, and then will give us grace to become what he would have us be. While, then, we seek to bear one another's burdens, and cast our own burden upon God, let us each bravely and confidently accept his own burden, and bear it calmly and with faith.
