We must not fear that in such sacrifice, such renunciation and
annihilation of self, we shall lose ourselves. God will remember every
deed of love, every forgetting of self, every emptying out of life.
Though we work in obscurest places, where no human tongue shall ever
voice our praise, still there is a record kept, and some day rich and
glorious reward will be given. Is not God's praise better than man's?
"Ungathered beauties of a bounteous earth,
Wild flowers which grow on mountain-paths untrod.
White water-lilies looking up to God
From solitary tarns--and human worth
Doing meek duty that no glory gains,
Heroic souls in secret places sown,
To live, to suffer, and to die unknown--
Are not that loveliness and all these pains
Wasted? Alas, then does it not suffice
That God is on the mountain, by the lake,
And in each simple duty, for whose sake
His children give their very blood as price?
The Father sees. If this does not repay,
What else? For plucked flowers fade and praises slay."
Mary's ointment was wasted when she broke the vase and poured it upon
her Lord. Yes; but suppose she had left the ointment in the unbroken
vase? What remembrance would it then have had? Would there have been
any mention of it on the Gospel pages? Would her deed of careful
keeping have been told over all the world? She broke the vase and
poured it out, lost it, sacrificed it, and now the perfume fills all
the earth.
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