Tuesday, April 18, 2017

2017-16 - Bearing Another's Burden

Albert Schweitzer was one of the most famous missionaries of the modern era. Leaving behind both an academic career, and a musical one, he set up a medical clinic in French Equatorial Africa. He was 85 years old when Andrew Davison of Colgate Rochester Seminary had the privilege of visiting.

Davison tells how one morning, at around 11.00, he, Schweitzer and some others were walking up a hill. It was extremely hot. Suddenly the 85 year old Dr Schweitzer walked away from the group. He made his way toward an African woman struggling up the hill with a large load of wood for the cookfires. Schweitzer took the entire load of wood from the woman and carried it up the hill for her.

When Schweitzer rejoined the group one of them asked why he did things like that. With the rest of the group this person was surprised and concerned that a person of Dr Schweitzer's age would strain themselves so. Dr Schweitzer looked at the group, and said, "No one should ever have to carry a burden alone."

~ Andrew Davison



No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of anyone else.

~ Charles Dickens

No comments:

Post a Comment