The Lost Portrait

Dr. Watkinson reminds us of a great French beauty who was one of the most renowned of her type of the Second Empire. When her beauty began to vanish her anguish of mind was intense, displaying itself in her actions and mode of life.

She possessed a full-length picture of herself by a distinguished artist, painted in the hey-day of her loveliness. One day her friends noticed that it had disappeared from the walls of her drawing-room.

The reason was that she had fretted over the fact that every day she was growing more and more unlike the exquisite creature portrayed on the canvas, which, in a final fit of anger and vexation, she had cut into strips with a pair of scissors. That loss of beauty, however, did not happen all at once.

Little by little, bit by bit, did it fade, until one day, comparing herself with what she once was, she was overcome with despair at the tragic contrast. That is how life changes. Little by little, bit by bit, till, one day, we are surprised at the great change that has taken place.

It was all so subtle, but it was all so very real. And it is the same so often in Christian life and experience. The decay and the drift are so imperceptible. We find ourselves to begin with, not quite so keen in Christian activity as once we were.

We find it harder to persuade ourselves to attend God’s House, to participate in Communion or in mid-week service. We need more constraint to do God’s work, and find it increasingly easy to make excuse to any call that may be made upon us for Christian service and duty. So it is that slowly and gently we drift, till, one day, we find ourselves without spiritual interest or response.

We had drifted so subtly and imperceptibly that we had hardly been conscious of the drifting. And because drift can be like that, we need to pay the more earnest heed lest we are caught in the toils that rush us on to spiritual death and disaster.