March 14

Choice gifts in plain coverings


“Judge not according to the appearance” (John 7:24).
“Do ye look on things after the outward appearance?” (2 Cor. 10:7).

But all God’s angels come to us disguised;
Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death,
One after other lift their frowning masks,
And we behold the seraph’s face beneath,
All radiant with the glory and the calm,
Of having looked upon the front of God.
—J. R. Lowell.
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.  Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.  Welcome it!  Grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you!


Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.  Our joys too: be not content with them as joys.  They, too, conceal diviner gifts.  Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.  Courage then to claim it: that is all!
But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through an unknown country our way home.—Fra Giovanni.
Joy dwells not in external things,
It hath an inner birth;
The sweetest bird in darkness sings,
And fairest flowers oft nurture stings—
Such is our life on earth.
Then measure not by outward show
The depth of real joy;
The heart can o’er the darkest woe
A stream of sunlight softly throw,
Or purest bliss destroy.
—W. J. Brock.
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