The Inner Victory: Two Hundred Little Sermons [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674423589, 9780674499775

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THE INNER VICTORY TWO HUNDRED LITTLE SERMONS

CHARLES E. PARK M I N I S T E R - F I R S T CHURCH IN BOSTON

1 HARVARD

9

4

6

UNIVERSITY

CAMBRIDGE,

PRESS

MASSACHUSETTS

COPYRIGHT,

1946

THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO

A.» A. S*

THE TIME TO PRAY Cause me to hear thy loving-kindness in the morning. PSALM 143, 8. ow often we notice that the first impression of the day establishes the day's mood! Our spiritual machinery is little understood, and hence often abused. In times of emotional tension, when a single hope or apprehension pre-occupies all its powers, it seems to pick and choose, from the stream of experience, only those items that have direct bearing upon that single hope or apprehension. Everything else is dismissed as irrelevant. "In vain sweet voices sound." In the middle of the night, when the corrective influences of normal judgment are quiet, our spiritual machinery seems to run wild, and we toss and turn, the victims of fantastic terrors. When the rising sun awakens us, "restored to life and power and thought," our spiritual machinery seems to be at its best: the surface of the soul is placid, most susceptible to heaven's intimations, and most retentive of the impressions received. There are ages of childhood when formative influences are most welcome and most thoroughly assimilated. Each day is an epitome of the whole life; morning is its childhood, noon its vigorous maturity, and evening its old-age. "Cause me to heaf thy loving-kindness in the morning." Wise old Psalmist; he knew that morning is the time to pray, when the soul's powers are eager for prayer, sensitive to its impact, and absorbent of its benefits. Life is only a series of beginnings. What the end shall be we cannot say. But we can beautify each beginning by listening for his lovingkindness in the morning,

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PERSONAL INFLUENCE

Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? john i, 46. THIS scornful question betrays the ldw esteem in which Nazareth was held. It was a secluded, backward, culturally in-bred community rarely visited by travelers, hence deprived of the one available source of mental stimulus. To be proclaimed as "Jesus of Nazareth" was an inauspicious beginning. Wherever a group of people come together to form a social organism, then, whether it be as large as a nation or small as a ship's crew, that organism takes on a character, a "feel," a quality. Beginning as a composite of all the individual characters in the group, this community character soon becomes a cause as well as a result, a force as well as a fact. For it re-acts with a down-right weight upon its individual members to press therh into its mold. Culturally, every community lives to a large extent "on its own fat." No one, however humble, need ever complain that he has no influence and can do no good. On the contrary, it is almost terrifying to think how much good or harm each one of us is all the time doing. Every private choice and action, every personal standard and scruple registers at once on the community character, either to taint or to purify; and thenceforth becomes an influence either for good or ill on every member of the community. America is a nobler place just because of Abraham Lincoln. We do not like to think what the standards and ideals of our Western Civilization might be now were it not for Jesus of Nazareth,

SOMETHING

BETTER

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After this manner therefore pray ye. MATT. 6 , 9 .

CHRIST has just made some sarcastic comments on the way certain people address God in prayer: standing in synagogues or on street corners, that they may be seen of men; or using vain repetitions to attract God's wandering attention. He speaks with a touch of scornful anger, as one who resents the debasement of a holy privilege. But he does not stop there; he goes on, After this manner therefore pray ye. At once his mood changes; the anger and scorn vanish; and in a spirit of quiet reverence he utters the supplication that has become Christianity's universal bond of fellowship, the Lord's Prayer. W e notice that Christ is angry because he cares; he condemns because he has something better and truer to offer. A time of stress brings out of his burrow that most nearly useless of all human creatures, the professional cynic. Sometimes clever, often amusing, he criticises all things from a back-ground of utter disdain, and has nothing to give after he has taken away. He may not be Public Enemy Number One, but he belongs somewhere on the list. There is a better model to follow: he who, because he loved life, hated to see it abused and wasted; and who, after he had pulled down, built up again in fairer and truer forms. After this manner therefore pray ye. Christ may have been critical; but he was constructive, and positive; he always offered something better than what he took away.

A SIN-PROOF SOCIETY Make the tree good, and his fruit good. MATT. 1 2 , 3 3 .

HE great looms in our modern textile mills are marvels of ingenuity and precision. The boast is made that it is mechanically impossible to weave imperfect cloth upon such a loom. Apparently we are captivated by a corresponding theory regarding human life: that it should be possible to devise a society so ingenious and precise in its legal mechanisms that it will be impossible for a man to live an imperfect life once he is embraced within its operation. The past generation has seen our efforts to invent such a society,—one so contrived with checks and counter-checks, laws and regulations, safety devices and emergency provisions, that the man himself can unburden his mind of all moral rules and sanctions. He need only take his place within this fool-proof, sin-proof society, and it will be mechanically impossible for him to live any but a decent upright life. We have accomplished wonders in this direction, but we have made this embarrassing discovery: that man's most remarkable invention is surpassed in resourcefulness and ingenuity by ijts inventor; and that there is no substitute for moral principle and stamina in the man himself. Make the tree good, said Christ: the fruit will be good. The words are prophetic. Our greatest need is a revival of moral power in ourselves; a rededication unto those standards of honor and righteousness whose place and function no mechanism, however intricate, can take.

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E N L I G H T E N E D WORSHIP Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship. ACTS 17, 23. IT may have been ignorant, but it was genuine worship. They had many gods but their pantheon might be incomplete. With true oriental humility they had erected this altar to notify any deity unknown to them that they intended no neglect and would like to be sheltered beneath his favor. But the words also apply to us. W e ignorantly worship; not in the sense that we are ignorant of God's existence, but in the sense that we are careless of all that worship implies. How many prayers are uttered that leave the suppliant, for all his devoutness, as uninformed of God's nature, purpose, and method, as he was before! A little thought should warn us that some of the prayers we make are rejected before we make them. They are made impulsively, without considering the breadth and vastness of God's design. The mind has as important a part in prayer as the heart. For the prayer that is both prompted by the heart's desire and tempered by the mind's best wisdom will not only solace the heart but will also enlighten the mind. T o talk with a wise friend is to gain wisdom. Prayer is conversation with the Greatest Friend, an effort to see the facts of life from the highest point of view. Such prayer brings the man nearer to God in desire and also in understanding. And that is the best answer a prayer can have.

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THE INNER VICTORY Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.

MATT. 28, 20.

T o some of us, the end of the world seems uncomfortably close at hand: for that reason these words take on a peculiar significance. They try to tell us that everything the beloved name of Christ stands for,—truth, honor, justice, reverence, sympathy, human affection, all the decencies and spiritual values of our living,—are still with us, still at hand, not a single item destroyed or discredited. The only difference is that their sovereignty over our spirits is disputed by the rival forces of hatred, suspicion, terror, and passion. Modern war is notoriously far-reaching: it extends even into the privacies of our souls, and sets up within us its battle ground and its firing line. Shall Christ win us and hold us, or shall his dominion be usurped by these rivals? It is a test of the genuineness and power of our own religious professions. If the enemy conquers our private Christianity, his victory will be complete. On the other hand, if he conquers everything except our private Christianity his victory will be temporary and hollow. There is no neutral ground, and there are no exemptions. Every one of us is directly involved in that conflict. Either we believe in Christ, in his spirit and way of life, or we dori't. His call comes to each one. He needs our loyalty, and looks to each one of us for the trustful support on which his kingdom must finally be established.

THE WELL OF WATER WITHIN The water that I shall give him shall be in hint a well of water springing up into everlasting life. JOHN 4 , 1 4 . n the kitchen of the Unitarian parsonage in Montpelier is a white enamel box, next to the sink, about a foot square and three feet high. Lift the cover, and you find it is full of cool pure spring water, bubbling up from the bottom and running off through the overflow, a well of water within springing up eternally, a never-failing supply. On the hill-side behind the house there is a generous spring, and the rest is merely a matter of plumbing. Even in a land where water is plentiful, this constant independent supply of one of the prime necessities of life is noticeable; but think what Christ would have made of it in his arid Palestine. It would have given him a parable exactly fitted to his purpose. That part of religion which we express in worship must be adopted from the prevailing custom. Worship, to have any meaning, must be a group action, and must conform to the accepted proprieties. But there is another part of religion which we cherish secretly, a private and personal possession, original and independent, springing up in each heart from that heart's direct contact with Eternal Reality. This is the water that Christ gives us, this contact with God, this ability to recognize that spot in our natures at which we are attached to the Divine Source of Supply, and which becomes in us a well of water springing up into eternal life.

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8

CHRIST

REPUDIATED

Seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain. MATT. 5,1. "WHEN I read the Sermon on the Mount I feel as though I were eavesdropping." This remark indicates an unusual but probably correct view of the Sermon on the Mount: not an address to the multitude, but an intimate talk to a few chosen friends who with him had slipped away from the multitude. There are grounds for this unusual view. Christ's message had intellectual substance and supreme spiritual dignity. It could not be taught by words but only by example, and through the mysterious channels of personal sympathy. It was something to be understood, thought over, adopted, and actually lived out. No multitude could make such a response. The only way to reach them was to reduplicate himself in his disciples and trust them to carry on his spirit and aim by actually living with people and giving them opportunity to learn, by means more eloquent than words, that wealth of spirituality and that generous purity of motive which defy analysis. That is our difficulty. The Gospels tell us all we know about him, but they do not teach him—no book can— they say barely enough to awaken interest and prepare us for that flash of sympathetic insight which starts the process. Then, "in Christ I grow from day to day;" and as the knowledge gains weight, we unconsciously pass it on to others by living it out in our world, and kindling other spirits by the light he has kindled in us.

TIME T O DROP O U T The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever. ISAIAH 40, 8. MOSES brought his people to the very border of their promised land, but was not permitted to enter. He had once upon a time lost his temper, and had smitten the Rock of Horeb with his staff. He must be punished. This of course is the hollowest of reasons. The real reason was that Moses did not want to go further. He had reached his stopping place. He had done all that mortal could do, and was surfeited with excitement and labor. The desert was his natural antagonist; and now the desert was behind. A new kind of difficulty, and a new set of problems lay ahead, and Moses felt unequal to the task of adjusting himself to that new antagonist. His chapter was ended. I go no further, said Moses. My grass must now wither, and my flower must fade. Here I drop off, "on Nebo's lonely mountain," and you shall go on under a younger leader. Such moments come to us all. W e realize that we have had our turn, and cannot rearrange life-long habits of work to meet novel demands. It is time for us to drop out. The spirit is surfeited, and the energy spent. But the journey continues; the search for the Promised Land goes on. The Word of our God brooks no interference. It is a great thing to remember thé vast army of which the one is but a tiny fragment; and to drop off with a quiet mind, knowing that the army goes straight on to its day of triumph.

THE JOY THAT IS SET BEFORE Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. HEBREWS 1 2 , 2 .

life's blessings get in each other's way. A big deferred blessing will hide behind a lot of little intervening blessings, and can be reached only by forfeiting these intervening blessings. Sometimes the principles on which a solid society, or a noble character is built, interfere with the daily comforts and pleasures we all want. One or the other has to be sacrificed; \nd We must decide which. Here is one of the oldest and most stubborn conflicts in life: the everlasting conflict between present and future; between immediate comfort and deferred safety; between the pleasure at hand and the joy that is set before. We cannot explain the conflict, but we have to recognize it. Benjamin Franklin said that they who would sacrifice essential liberty for a little present safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Thus he expressed his contempt for the man who cannot recognize the alternative, and cannot choose nobly. For there is such a thing as the continuity of life. The generations hang together to form a majestic Unity. We are working toward a result too big and remote for us to see, except by faith. And it is the sign of a big, faithful, Christlike nature to be able to endure the present cross and despise the present shame, for the sake of that joy that is set before. OMETIMES

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A FORCEFUL CHRISTIANITY

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In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; 1 have overcome the world. JOHN 16, 33. IF the world is master, it is a hard master, causing tribulation. If the world can be reduced to the status of servant, its tribulations are innocuous. Be of good cheer, says Christ, the world can be overcome; I have overcome it; you can do the same. W e can think of two ways in which the world may be overcome: by ignoring it; and by controlling it. Christ may have pursued his own spiritual objectives regardless of the world's clamor. Or he may have conquered the world's spirit with his own. W e can think of him overcoming the world in either sense. But when we face that task, there is only one sense in which the task is feasible. It is useless for us to ignore the world; it cannot be done these days. Only by displacing the world's spirit and method by our spirit, our will, our method, can we hope to overcome it. And that is a difficult task. For fifteen centuries something like that has been done. The world's avowed standards, theoretical sanctions, professed aims and methods have been those which a vigorous and self-assertive Christendom has forced upon it. But can a modern, liberalized Christendom mean business earnestly enough to retain its hold on a world that shows signs of rebelliousness? It is going to depend on the quality and forcefulness of our own Christianity.

W F I A T IS T H E SOUL? He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusa-

lem.

LUKE 9, 51.

HE was a free agent; nothing but his own will forced him to take so fatal a step. He knew, and freely foretold, what would happen. There was still time to reconsider. Yet his action afii through was as inexorable as though he were dragged in chains to his death. Why? By keeping his life what would he lose? By giving up his life what did he gain? His own answer should suffice: What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Yet even that answer leaves some people mystified. What is this soul he speaks about so confidently; where and how is it lost? Suppose we use another term, self-respect. What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own self-respect? T o put it thus is a first step towards understanding Christ. As in every one, there was in him & wholeness, a sum-total that invited judgment. It was that part of him which was not flesh and blood, intangible but terribly real. It could be either noble or contemptible. The soul is as hard to define as it is to deny. We all have it. Sometimes it is "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune;" and sometimes "like a melody that's sweetly played in tune." For Christ it was the most important part of him. No price was too heavy to pay to keep it clean and good, and lay it before God taintless and true. There were never any doubts as to the Tightness of his decision where his soul was concerned. He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.

T H E MOMENTUM OF HISTORY

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Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands. JOHN 2 1 , 1 8 .

HE words paint a picture of utter helplessness, when everything depends on the kindly sympathy of the friend. Will he do what is wanted, or will he "gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not"? Moments in life come when the strongest of us are helpless; all we can do is stretch forth our hands; and everything will depend on that other,—Fate, Circumstance, Destiny,—who sees the gesture and takes charge. Such moments remind us we have not yet outgrown our weakness. Some of us may be captains of our souls, but none is master of his fate. W e have to submit ourselves to the Forces of life, the Drift of things. This would not be so bad if we could be sure of the kindliness of that Drift. And perhaps we can. The forces we put into operation during those moments when we do control our living will constitute the direction and the mood of the Drift. In history there is something like momentum. W e can establish that momentum. Little trifles of word and act, courtesies, rudenesses, kindnesses, affronts, sympathies, sneers, these are dragons' teeth or angels' teeth. W e sow them and they yield their crop. When helplessness comes and we stretch forth our hands these constitute the momentum, the Drift that takes us in charge. And whose fault will it be if they gird us and carry us whither we would not?

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THE VICTORY W E SHALL N O T SEE The house that is to be built to the name of the Lord. I CHRON. 22, 19. THE closing years of David's life show him at his best; and most of all, in the sense of direction he showed, up to the very last moment, towards a great objective for •which he could only prepare. "The house that is to be built to the name of the Lord;" someone else would build it; he might only buy the land, and collect the material. But he never lost his hold upon the ideal, despite the warning that he himself would never so much as behold its accomplishment. That is a hard lesson for Americans to learn: to see our life as a continuity which demands the service of more than one generation; to labor for a victory we shall never enjoy: to plant for our children to reap. Our excuse is, first, why should we? Let future generations take their chance, as we have taken ours. And, second, times are too uncertain. What we plant may be ploughed under by an unforeseen exigency. In our practicality, we forget that we are planting crops more imperishable than white pine forests which the next hurricane may destroy; and more durable than the family fortune which the next depression may wipe out. W e are planting habits of mind and spirit; institutions of justice and enlightenment and mutual concern. W e are preparing for a house that no temporal exigency can interrupt. All our life is a preparation for some consummation that we shall never see, but that stands before us as a continuing ideal calling for our faithful service and self-forgetting loyalty.

BLESSINGS A R E SERIOUS

Ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to your fathers. JER. 35, 15. THE words carry a certain implication: the land was given to the fathers; the fact of possession has been established; that is past history. Ye shall assume that the land is yours beyond question. Now ye shall go on from that fact; ye shall dwell in the land; ye shall cultivate its opportunities, reiognize the obligations it presents, and move your living up into the next higher and ampler stage which the land and its established possession make possible for you. We are severely criticised just now because we take our land, its opportunities and blessings for granted. Why should we not take them for granted? Our way of life is ours by a fact that is no longer debatable. What hope of progress would there be if we constantly had to rebuild the foundations on which our progress rests? The criticism is poorly aimed. The fault is, not that we take our land for granted, but that we have failed to dwell in it as we should; not that we assume our way of life to be once for all ours, but that we have failed to recognize the new duties it has brought us. It is a serious thing to be blessed, for a blessing is God's trust in us. He gives the blessing believing that we will justify his generosity. To misuse the blessing is to call into question our title to the way of life which contains the blessing.

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THE FAITHFUL BLACK-SHEEP Thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood. I CHRON. 22, 8.

with King David, the Lord God gives this as the reason why David may not build the temple. Is it fair to punish David for doing dirty work that had to be done? The Greek Tragedians loved to deal with just such a conflict of duties; but where they labored and floundered, our intuition discovers an; open path. In denying himself the privilege of building God's temple, David was protecting something far more precious than the privilege: he was protecting the sanctity of his God. Sometimes we have to do the same; but we are content. It is more precious, even to us, that there should be such commodities in our world as reverence, idealism, prayer, vision, than that we should have personal contact with them. David's class may not be a large one, but it does exist. Sometimes we are asked to serve God in ways that disqualify us for the very prayer and vision we have protected. It seems unjust; but it is so only in our worldly categories. For the world's faithful black sheep are white in God's sight; and a divine voice speaks its higher justice: Come, ye blessed of my Father. Ye may not have done it unto me; but ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,—which amounts to the same thing.

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ALKING

INSTINCTIVE PRAYER

He went up into a mountain apart to pray. MATT. 14, 23.

SUCH statements are made several times throughout the Gospels, but in no case are we told what he said. Suddenly it occurs to us that probably he said nothing at all. Only a very small per cent of real prayer ever gets to the point of verbal precipitation. We have known persons who have never once in their lives uttered a word of audible prayer, but whose every act and thought has been a prayer, and whose whole lives have been one long unbroken prayer. In one of our older hymns there is the line: While I breathe I pray. That is very suggestive. Prayer is just as much an instinctive act of the soul, as breathing is an instinctive act of the body. We can pray as we breathe,—without sound or conscious motion; most of us do. And we can pray for the same reason,—because without it we perish. The soul has its invisible companions, who are the strongest influence we know. Among them is One who sees our life "from the highest possible standpoint." In His companionship we touch goal, we "see life steadily, and see it whole, and therefore in the truest sense we pray. For real prayer does not aim to rearrange the facts of experience to our liking, so much as to rearrange our points of view to discover the purpose and the promise and the duty in our experience. The analogy between prayer and friendship is striking. Friendship with a great spirit admits us into a larger and fairer world. Friendship with God brings us glimpses of His thought and power and calm.

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R E L I G I O N FOR ITS O W N

SAKE

Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain. PSALM 73, 13. THIS practical man expects causes to be followed by results, and effort by some sort of reward. Some one has told him that if he will cleanse his heart God will reward him. But it does not seem to work out well, and he is disgusted. "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain." Jonathan Edwards would say that he has "closed with religion to serve a turn;" and he would add that "the man who closes with religion, not for its own most excellent name, but to serve a turn, has missed its secret." The argument is common just now. Books are written recommending that we take up religion. We are sick; aimlessness, loss of direction, moral slackness, vanished enthusiasm have closed us up. Religion is a bitter medicine, but it will cure our ailment. Therefore we must close with religion, or as we would say, turn to religion, for the benefit we can get out of it. All of which is just a build-up for another disappointment similar to the Psalmist's. Religion is not a means but an end. It is not the price we pay for a treasure; but the treasure for which we pay any price. T o cleanse our hearts for the sake of some reward is to make a bad bargain. But to cleanse our hearts because there is nothing we want so much as clean hearts fit for God's indwelling, fit for our own self-respect, and no matter what it may cost, is to begin at the right end, and know something of religion in its truth.

EACH MAN AN END WITHAL Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. LEV. 19, 18.

HRIST quotes the words, but in a larger sense. Originally, "thy neighbor" was thy fellow Jew. All Jews were equally precious in God's sight; and the commandment therefore means: "thou shalt treat thy fellow Jew as though he were as dear to God as you yourself." W i t h Christ, "thy neighbor" was thy fellow man, of whatever race or condition. All were children of God; and enjoyed the same status in God's love, without partiality or distinction. In Christ's mouth the commandment becomes: "thou shalt treat thy fellow man as though he were as dear to God as you are." Immanuel Kant may help us to understand. In one form of his categorical imperative he says: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only."

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Sometimes w e wonder what Christ meant by loving our neighbor as ourselves. But can there be any doubt? "Never think of your relations with other people as so much good policy; never use another man as a mere cat's paw, to pull your chestnuts from the fire; never be guilty of the craftiness that employs others as a means to your ends. Always recognize the dignity of another's status before God; and honor the dignity of that status as you would have your own recognized and honored. For he is an end in himself, as you are."

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PRETENSE IS USELESS As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. PROVERBS 23, 7.

INCIDENTALLY, that was just Christ's theory: the quality of a man's inward motive and spirit cannot be disguised. It is bound to leak out and color his outward words and deeds. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he in all his outward bearing and deportment. Uriah Heep set himself the toughest job a man can undertake; for in spite of his utmost effort, there was an indefinable "feel" about him that rendered him a repulsive creature. W e may be hypocrites in print, but where personal contacts are established, intuition will give sufficient warning even where words are fair and conduct irreproachable. Because he had to work in a hurry, Christ concentrated his effort at the vital point: to make over the inward man from a crafty, fearful, and vicious, to an honest, trustful, and well-meaning creature. "First make the tree good" was his policy; the fruit will take care of itself. There is no substitute for that policy. All these modern attempts of which we hear and read so much, to acquire personality, address, charm, conviction, are so much sanctimonious and unavailing hypocrisy unless they take into account Christ's law. Let the love of God saturate your spirit; make it clean, trustful, hopeful, and true. Anything less than that is a waste of time. There is no short cut. God is not deceived; and something Godlike in human nature makes all pretense useless.

N E W OUTLETS FOR STRENGTH

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Rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. PSALM 19, 5. ONLY a race will satisfy him. His strength is of the body, and craves its bodily exercise. But what is he to do when there is no race left for him to run? We find this a pointed question. There is a dislocation, just now, of ability and opportunity. Our times give little outlet, save the artificial outlet of athletics, for countless footpounds of physical energy still available in modern man. Courage, dexterity, endurance, bodily address, skill, strength of heart and limb, resourcefulness, hardihood, —plenty of this remains; but the conquistadors have subdued the last barbarian, and the pioneers have banished the last frontier, and the picturesque physical part of the work of civilization is about done. There seems no chance for the strong man except to learn to rejoice in writing a book, or fighting an epidemic, or leading a political reformation, which at first sight are poor substitutes. The tragedy of King Saul is upon us. The Lord made him for a warrior, but his task was royal diplomacy and statecraft. No wonder he failed. Perhaps we must expect several generations of misfit and failure before we learn to do what the psychoanalist urges: sublimate our energies and instincts into prowess of mind and heart and will and sense and song and spiritual insight. Civilization has pushed on. The future demands another kind of race to be run.

A GENTLE EASTER Tell his disciples, and Peter.

MARK 1 6 , 7 .

n Matthew's version of the Easter story we are told about the great earthquake and the angel of the Lord with countenance like lightning and the shaking watchers,—all superhuman, awe-inspiring details. In Mark's version there is only a friendly young man who speaks reassuring words and gives a personal message for the disciples. The accessories are simple, sympathetic and intimate. Tell his disciples, and Peter; especially Peter. He had loved and hoped so much; he had blundered and suffered so much; if any one needed comfort it was poor Peter. The comfort is given; his Master is safe; he has merely gone to Galilee where he will see them again; all is well, and forgiven,—ineffably intimate and personal. In retrospect, Easter has both qualities, the superhuman and the intimate. Its atmosphere is electric with intimations of mystery too potent for us to endure for more than a moment. But with its uncomfortable enchantment, there is the gentle familiar side,—its recognition of personalities and personal needs. It is our Easter, ready to go with us back to our Galilee, and speak to our condition, and answer our most intimate questions, and lay to rest with its benediction our secret doubts and fears. Each one of us is Peter, and the message is addressed to each: Tell his disciples, and Peter.

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OUR F O R G O T T E N SERVANTS

23

Which by night stand in the house of the

Lord.

PSALM 134,1.

EVEN in ancient Jerusalem they had the Forgotten Man. Jehovah's sanctuary must never be unattended. A company of Leyites was always on duty. Those who served m the day-time were very much in the public eye, and many psalms are addressed to them enjoining them to a joyous fidelity. But who ever thought of those "which by night stand in the house of the Lord?" This 134th Psalm, the next to the shortest in the Psalter, is the only one that alludes to their unapplauded service. We think of the parallel: the technicalities of religion expanded into public service; the house of the Lord enlarged to a great modern city; those which by night stand in the house of the Lord increased to the thousands who, in the darkness, carry on the work of the city, watching the steam gauge, tending the switchboard, patrolling the streets, driving the cabs, feeding the presses, pacing the silent corridors of banks and stores and factories,—do we ever think of them? how necessary they are? how much of our safety and comfort depends on their unnoticed fidelity? The marvel of a modern city is not its waste and political corruption, but the smoothness of its running, and the humble devotion to the common good in the hearts of its forgotten servants. After all, man is a pretty decent creature.

TOO GREAT TO FORGET Hold not thy peace at my tears. PSALM 39, 12.

historians wax poetic over Feudalism. A t its best, it was a beautiful cooperation of weak and strong, each side doing its duty willingly by the other, and together presenting a strong front to the savageries of the time. "You protect me, and I will labor for you" was the principle of the system. In the lawlessness of the Dark Ages, it was the only feasible system. In the economic uncertainties of the present, it is significant that thousands of people are reviving this feudal theory,— attaching themselves to a great institution like a college, or a hospital, or even a large estate, just as the serf attached himself to the over-lord, and for the same reason. W e deny ourselves one of the sweetest features of Christianity when we think of God as too vast and distant for such personal intimacies. Philosophers may think of him as the Unconditioned, who guides the super-galaxy on the one hand and the electron on the other. "What is man that thou art mindful of him!" But, "it is wisdom to follow the promptings of the heart," and these remind us that we impair the Divine Majesty by refusing him the power of personal attention. Great and small are human categories; they are nothing to him. It is the heart's prerogative to say, "Hold not thy peace at my tears. Thou art my God. Thou art not too great to think of me: thou art too great not to think of me." SENTIMENTAL

SCRUPULOUS FAIR-DEALING 25 I will not eat until I have told mine errand. GENESIS 2 4 ,

33.

task was to choose a bride for his master's son: hardly the task for which a Third Party would feel enthusiasm. We are not surprised that Eliezer, thinking to himself that marriage is a lottery at best, and that one girl had as good a chance of winning Isaac's love as another, chose the first girl he met, and sealed the bargain. Yet Eliezer did his work faithfully; for as he approached the maiden's home, he refused all offers of hospitality, and refused to put his hosts under the obligations which hospitality implied, until he had told his errand. Before he broke bread with them, he muát warn them what sort of a man it was whom they were so eager to befriend. "I will not eat until I have told mine errand." Such scrupulous fair-dealing is not uncommon among us. We know plenty of men who lean over backward just as far in the effort not to take advantage of other people's innocence, and not to let other people deceive themselves. There is that beloved "first American,— new birth of our new soil,"—Abraham Lincoln; he did it repeatedly. But it needs to be guarded. Modern business methods do not encourage that quixotic fairness; they laugh at it: caveat emptor. If it goes, the most lovable trait of our new soil, American generosity, will go. It needs protection, not only by practising it ourselves, but by treating with contempt any who fail to practice It.

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LIEZER'S

26

T H E INNER HARMONY Without me ye can do nothing. JOHN 15, 5.

ANY sailor knows that a becalmed ship is one of the noisiest places in the world. Her sails are all spread to catch the first breeze; but there are only wandering airs, in which the canvas bangs and slats, the blocks rattle and whine, the reef-points drum and tap. The voice of the ship is a chorus of petulant complaint. This goes on till a real breeze comes; then instantly there is a blessed silence. Every sail begins to draw; every sheet grows taut; every rope and spar falls into its proper function. Quiet harmony takes the place of noisy complaint, and the vessel forges ahead. What the breeze is to the ship, Christ is to the human soul. There is a longing in human hearts for beauty of living, for perfect and harmonious self-fulfillment. It is the peculiar distinction of Christ that he, more than any one in history, is able to satisfy this longing in his fellowmen. Because he had satisfied it in himself, he can show others the way. This he evidently knew. "Without me, ye can do nothing." You are a ship becalmed, noisy, petulant, restless. But take my yoke upon you; learn of me; and instantly silence comes. Everything falls into place. W e begin to forge ahead in the quietness of inner harmony and self-integrity.

T H E SIMPLICITY OF CHRIST

27

I fear, lest by any means, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ. 2 CORINTHIANS 11,3. EVIDENTLY Paul had made a discovery: he had an active mind, impatient of evasion, eager to get to the heart of things. Tnis is hardly the equipment of the scholar, but Paul was the last to claim scholarship. He had studied a lot, to be sure, wading through endless volumes of his nation's lore in his search for truth, and baffled at every turn by the exasperating indecision, the cautious weighing of pro and con, the tedious logic-chopping which met him on every page. This frustration had disappeared, as mist disappears in sun-light, the moment he made acquaintance with Christ's teachings. Here was the brevity of perfect decision, the directness of entire assurance. He discovered what he craved, the simplicity which is in Christ. Sometimes we make the same discovery: we read a page from Job, and then the fifth chapter of Matthew; we compare the turgid vaporings of Ecclesiastes with the sparkling brilliance of one of Christ's parables. Often we turn from Old Testament to New with that sense of relief, thinking to ourselves, The more we handle the peach, the more we rub off the bloom. There may be faith in honest doubt, and profit in prolonged speculation; but we do hunger for the simplicity of Christ's perfect trust and unfaltering decision.

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SELF-COMMUNION I commune with my own heart. PSALM 7 7 ,

6.

OME people find this the hardest thing in the world to do, but the Psalmist is doing it constantly. Selfcommunion, where the man steps outside of himself and looks at himself objectively, as though seeing himself as others see him, and talks to himself as another might talk to him, arguing, caj oiling, rebuking, reminding, . striving to lift himself out of some temporary despondency or passion, and set himself upon higher and firmer ground,—this is one of the commonest moods we detect in the Psalms. Perhaps the greatest benefit to be derived from reading the Book of Psalms is just that we are taught this habit of self-communion. In our busy life there is little danger of our carrying the habit too far; we do not carry it far enough. Life is full of moments of choice; at such moments we "come to a division," as they say in the House of Commons. The headstrong part of us wants to gratify the impulse or the passion. The quieter and more thoughtful part of us wants to follow a truer and higher guidance: resist the passion, overcome the despondency. There would be less sorrow and sighing, less reproach and self-betrayal, if the Psalmist's habit of communing with his own heart were more prevalent. It is simply the habit of giving the better and truer part of our nature a chance to regain its proper ascendancy.

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SOMEBODY ELSE IS W O R K I N G

2

9

Both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not.

JEREMIAH 14, 18.

THE priest was champion of things as they were; the prophet was champion of things as they ought to be. Normally both acted with intelligence. The priest had a reason for his conservatism which was just as respectable as the prophet's reason for his radicalism, for both were thoughtful and well informed. Jeremiah calls attention to an abnormal period when both these types were mystified and deceived. The confusion was so great that neither did the prophet know what ought to be, nor the priest what was. Both were bewildered and lost. That sounds natural, for it is our condition. W e cannot say what ought to be, for we cannot even say what is. Whether radical or conservative, we are going about in a land that we know not. It is some comfort to find that our condition is not wholly unprecedented; that others in this condition have survived. The secret of their survival is too obvious to be a secret, and too necessary: to live moment by moment, taking care that each moment shall see a right choice; to keep the heart stout, and the hope high; to trust, and wait, and keep cool, and never get frightened; to learn their lesson from the quiet stars and the order of nature; most of all, to remember that everything does not depend on us, that Somebody Else is working with us who cannot be deceived, and cannot be defeated.

OFFICIAL WORSHIPPERS To stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord. I CHRON. 23, 30. THE Levites were the nation's official worshippers. Their task was to offer each morning and evening a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in behalf of the entire nation. W i t h our modern dislike of all totalitarianism in the state, this custom looks like a mere travesty of religion. W e claim that religion must come from the utter sincerities of each heart. What virtue is there in a religious gesture performed in such a perfunctory way, by officials appointed for the purpose, in behalf of a population the greater part of which did not even know the ceremony was being performed? Yet there is a beauty, and perhaps more than just a beauty, in the custom. It must have made some difference even to the most careless citizen that God's sovereignty was officially recognized, and his homage officially performed by the nation. T h e custom put certain ingredients into the very atmosphere he breathed, and influenced him in unsuspected ways. Such influences are incredibly pervasive. W h o shall say what insidious restraints and incentives go forth all over the city from the mere fact that several hundred churches stand upon their street corners, that several hundred congregations sing their praises, and say their prayers, and strive to conform their lives to a divine will? T h e whole atmosphere of the city is to that extent purified, and every citizen feels the difference, even though he may not know it.

RAREFIED L O V E

31

O how love I thy law!

PSALM I 1 9 , 9 7 .

HE love we feel for persons is warm and rich, substantial with elements of earthliness, possessive and jealous, like thick red wine. It craves gratification through the senses. What mother can love her baby at a distance? She wants, to hold the little body close to herself. Such love is beautiful and powerful; but there are more ethereal kinds of love. As we grow older, bodies become less important, and we find our love getting more rarefied. W e find we can understand the Psalmist: O how I love thy law! It becomes possible for our love to select objects that* are neither personal nor physical, like the Psalmist's law. W e can really love institutions, country, college, business house, church. This love has lost nothing of power, but it has less of the density and substance of passion, and more of the crystal translucence of spirit. Moreover, it is not jealous but generous. More of this rarefication comes to it as it selects objects even less concrete, like thoughts, ideas, concepts, motives, and virtues. These things we are constantly learning to love. W e used to say that the central demand of religion is preposterous. How can we ever love God the Invisible, the Unembodied, the Inconceivable? But now we see how youthful that question is; for that is precisely what we are learning to do all the time.

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INARTICULATE NOBLENESS

He knew 'what was in man.

JOHN 2, 25.

FOR this reason people gave him their grateful love: he understood them, not their evil only, but their unexpressed good. He could speak for them with authority, and do full justice to those vague little incoherences of their nobler nature that lurk shyly in all hearts, and give the whole nature its true flavor. We are reticent about such things; they are not reasoned but intuitive: little scruples, restraints, sentiments, preferences, tastes, and chivalries; we guard them with anxiety lest some pragmatist should laugh them to scorn. We gratify them surreptitiously whenever we are free to make our own choice. But when the choice is made for us, and their recommendations are ignored, as they so often are, we can only submit in uneasy dissatisfaction, feeling ourselves committed to something we do not approve, yet cannot tell why. Our life is full of commitments made for us. Other people are deciding for us what we shall hear, or see, or read, what governmental policies we shall support; and most of these decisions are guided by the rule: "give them what they want. Keep your finger on the public pulse." The trouble is with those fingers on the pulse, blundering, calloused, thick-skinned fingers, unable to detect the finer pulsations. But "he knew what was in man," and therefore we love him. His fingers were so sensitive. In him our inarticulate nobleness finds its champion.

APELLES

33

Salute Apelles, approved in Christ. ROMANS 16, 10. In Professor Goodspeed's American Translation these words are rendered: Remember me to that veteran Christian, Apelles. We can draw his portrait without the least difficulty. He is well along in years; his hair iron-gray; his face deeply lined but strong and kindly; his eyes frank and steady. He seldom speaks, and then only to ask or answer a question. He is attentive to all that is said, never contradicts a statement, never shows surprise. Why should he? His Christianity is not of words and opinions, but of actions; and it has made him sure of himself. He is impervious alike to doubt and pride; to all fads, innovations, passions, and emotional excesses. Long ago he adopted a few simple rules: keep clean, be fair and square, do the whole day's work, never lose your temper, pay your bills, go to church. During the years, "all thy waves and thy billows" have gone over him; but like a reliable old pole horse he has plodded steadily along through it all, pulling his whole share of the load and most of the other fellow's. He has never set the world on fire; he never will. He is neither rich nor famous. When he dies no bank will close for his funeral, and no flag will stand at half-mast. But if you don't care for his type, be advised and keep away from heaven, for that place will be full of him.

THE PUBLIC REGULATOR Let your light so shine.

matthew 5,16.

e say, "according to our light," meaning according to that understanding of the truth which is our personal property. This understanding is determined by each person's education, breadth of mind, and strength of passion or prejudice; greater in some, and less in others. Such as it is, however, this light of ours is not to be kept hid under a bushel, but given forth. "Let your light so shine" that it will be seen of all men, and will go into a common fund or deposit of light, and become a public possession from which all may draw. In this way there is built up one of the most important features in a community's life: the accepted moral standard by which that community approves or condemns human behaviour. That moral standard, once accepted by the community, is the real regulator of life in that community, more fundamental than the law, more effective than the policeman. A familiar remark of ours, "that sort of thing won't go down in this town," bears evidence to the reality and the active operation of this regulator. The worst thing one man can do is to contribute to this public deposit a personal light that taints or poisons the whole deposit. The best thing one man can do is to let his light so shine that all men see his good works, and the pubhc deposit of light is brightened and purified by the little ray which he contributes.

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DAVID'S LAMP

35

Thou art my lamp, O Lord; and the Lord will lighten my darkness. 2 SAMUEL 22, 29. ALL darkness is the same: an absence of light; but all darkness is different because it varies with the object on which it rests. In one, darkness rests upon hope; in another, upon duty. Both suffer from the same darkness, but because it .is differently applied it becomes in each case a different darkness. There were spots in David that were covered by darkness: honor, perhaps; and paternal affection; and forgiveness. That was his darkness. He must have been thinking of these when he said: "The Lord will lighten my darkness." The Lord is David's lamp, and everybody's lamp, waiting to lighten the particular darkness from which each one suffers. That is about as far as we can go in the knowledge of God. The strangest mistake we can make is to attempt a definition of God. As Job says, the perfection of God "is high as Heaven: what canst thou do? it is deeper than Hell: what canst thou know?" All we can do is to know God through our own necessities; that little ray of the Lamp which lightens our darkness. The fulness of his nature is 'as unattainable to our understanding as the fabulous infinity. Let it suffice that in our ignorance, he is wisdom; in our grief, he is comfort; in our weakness, he is power; in our despair, he is courage; and in our sin, he is punishment. That part of ,his being which we need, is God for us. We can ask no more.

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GOD THE COMMANDER Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem. JEREMIAH 2, 2.

To the Psalm-writers, God is usually comfort, refuge, redress, a covert in time of storm, a safe retreat from the harsh austerities of life. T o Jeremiah, God was command. Never mind your storms and hardships. Your comfort can wait. Your redress is not so important. There is something to be done: Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem. The difference is striking. W e feel that when we are with Jeremiah we are facing not the comforting side of faith, but the commanding side. W e are no longer in the position of those who are ministered unto by a tenderly sympathetic and solicitous faith, but rather in the position of those who must do a little ministering themselves at the behest of an exacting and peremptory faith. W e are not receivers but givers. That feeling persists all through Jeremiah. He is worthy of a better acquaintance; for in him God is not so much refuge from the storms and tempests of life, but commander unto the duties and activities of life. And is not that a somewhat neglected side of our religion? Too often we take our commands from our own inclination, and turn to God in moments of disappointment and failure to be comforted and reassured. Perhaps if we took our commands from God's will and purpose, we should feel less need of his comfort and reassurance, and should have some part in the joy of his industry and the hope of his final victory.

A SUICIDE CLUB

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I send you forth as lambs among wolves. LUKE IO, 3 .

HEY were as lambs because they lived and worked in the gentle way of trust and honor and generosity. Those among whom they were sent were as wolves because they lived and worked in the ferocious way of predatory and unscrupulous greed. By what right did Christ command them to be as lambs among wolves, to be gentle in a ferocious world? How did he suppose they were to survive? The wisdom or folly of this policy depends upon theology. If a God of Righteousness is in control of this world, then those who live in his righteous ways and adopt his spirit of righteousness are wise; they will be victorious because they are in harmony with his method. If no such God of Righteousness is in control then the wise way to live is the way of ferocity. Be a wolf; devour the lambs; when the last lamb is gone begin on the weaker wolves; devour them all until you are left alone. And then? Then there is nothing for you to do but perish yourself. You are in a blind alley. A world without God is a gorgeous great suicide club. God's lambs at best have a hard time of it; but the future lies with them. The wolves will never build a world. The lambs may never build one; but at least they are on the only path that shows any hope or any promise.

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38

SERVANT

OF

SERVANTS

Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers. MATT. 25, 27. THE ten-talent man had initiative. He used his trust to establish a business of his own. He prospered and doubled his capital. The five-talent man did the same. The one-talent man had neither originality nor skill, and was hampered by limited resources. What could he do? He might at least have added his resources to some flourishing enterprise already in existence. There were banks and exchanges already established; and if he felt unqualified to start his own enterprise, he might at least have joined forces with one of these "going" concerns and secured for his Lord a humble share of the profits. How reasonable his Lord was! I did not expect you to show original ability. But at least you might have helped those who have original ability. "Thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers," but you did not even do that. It is easy enough to substitute terms in this allegory. Christ's talents are abilities. Some of us are generously endowed; we can start our own soup kitchens or free clinics. Others are humbly endowed; all we can do is help those who are taking the initiative. Some of us are qualified to go about doing good; others can only make the shoes for their feet. What are we doing with our single talents,—a discouraged nothing? Or are we at least helping in some already established effort to serve mankind, and fulfill a holy purpose?

R E L I G I O N APPLIES T O SELF

39

Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor: ROMANS 13, 7. THESE words remind us of Christ's answer to the Pharisees who asked him if it was lawful for the proud Jewish nation to pay tribute to Rome: render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Christ and Paul were not moved by their religion to undertake political reforms. With them, religion was a personal duty which made them patient and long-suffering to others, but mercilessly exacting to self. According to them, it is not our business how religion may apply to our neighbors, or to our rulers, or to our public institutions, but only how it applies to ourselves. They tell us to keep our minds on our personal duty; to waste no time over the wrongs, fancied or real, that are done to us, but to make sure that no wrongs are done by us; not to complain of the mote in our brother's eye, or Caesar's eye, or Society's eye, but to concentrate attention on the beam in our own eye. Times have changed; we are a democracy; we cannot with-hold attention from social or political matters. But it is just as well to remember that forgetfulness of personal duties is fatal. The only sure way to build a good society is to begin with the people who compose it. For where the members of a society are faithful to their personal duties, their society can hardly help being fair and just.

4°

SOMEONE MUST BEGIN He began to seek after the God of David his father. 2 CHRONICLES 3 4 , 3.

HAT was young King Josiah. He did all that was needed: he began. A t once the smouldering resentment in thousands of loyal hearts blazed into flame, and effectually finished what their king began. Owing to the docility of good people, great corruptions frequently invade our life, and before w e know it entrench themselves in our habits and fashions. T h e y tell us this is just what has happened in our country since the War,—a lowering of moral standards that shows itself in drinking, gambling, extravagance, loose living, a general air of moral indifference. T h e Puritan conscience is a joke. The man who lives a clean and simple life, and pays his bills, and keeps his promises is not in the fashion. But against all this modern Baal-worship there is in millions of loyal hearts a great force of resentment held in check by our docility. The God of our fathers still has his worshippers. H e is an austere God, but he is clean, and honest, and faithful, and he rewards his followers with a noble self-respect. W e may well wonder what would happen if some Josiah among us should begin to seek the God of our fathers. Perhaps that beginning would be enough; the smouldering loyalty in millions of hearts would break into flame, and Baal with all his unclean ways would have to go.

GOOD TREASURE IN THE HEART

41

Out of the good treasure of his heart. LUKE 6, 4 5 .

ONE consistent theory runs through all Christ's labors: that certain outward results inevitably follow certain inward conditions; if there is good treasure in a man's heart, that man will bring forth good things in his outward life; if there is evil treasure in a man's heart, he will bring forth evil things in his outward life; outward conduct must correspond to inward conditions. Following this theory, Christ's first concern was to change men's inward condition: take away the greed and fear and malice, and give them instead trust, and generosity, and good-will. If he could do that, the rest would follow inevitably. But that is a task in which Christ needs our own help. One man says, My inward condition is my private affair; I cannot let you tamper with it. But my outward conduct I will place under your control. Another man says, My outward conduct is already determined by the accepted moral code of my times; I cannot change it. But my inward condition I would have you refashion asyou will. Neither man really helps Christ in his task. T o really help is to say, Take my heart: change it as only you can; fill it with the good treasure of a Christlike motive and spirit. Then give me courage to bring forth from that good inward treasure the deeds and generosities of Christlikeness in all my dealings with men.

T H E SOUL'S P O W E R Tempted like as we are, yet without sin. HEBREWS 4, 15. WHEN Yule-tide became Christmas, no violence was done to the essential meaning of the festival. When Easter became Resurrection Day, its original meaning was exactly preserved. But when Lent was made to commemorate Christ's temptations, the rule was broken; a period which, as the name implies, was marked by soft airs and expansive moods and expectations as cheerful as they were gentle, was burdened with suggestions of the striving and anguish of a soul in the grasp of temptation. This seems unfortunate; for the most conspicuous fact about Christ's spirit is not the effort to avoid selfbetrayal, but the comparative ease with which Satan's allurements may be spurned and self-integrity maintained. Satan really had no chance; he was beaten before he began. About all he could do was to prove to his intended victim that there are such things as temptations and that men frequently surrender to them. Beyond that, he could not for a moment compete with the sacred attraction that held Christ in its happy embrace all his days, at home or abroad, waking or sleeping,—the thought of God; the bond of adoring intimacy that absorbed and brightened every wish, every hope, every motive. Any action that might break that bond was simply out of the question. Lent really stands for the beauty and power to which Divine Love can lift the soul.

CHRIST'S A U T H O R I T Y

43

Damsel, I say unto thee, arise,

MARK 5, 41.

o much of the meaning of New Testament words depends on where the emphasis is laid, that we grow constantly more afraid of any cock-sureness of interpretation, and wish more earnestly that we might have heard the words actually spoken. For example: did Christ say, Come unto me, or come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden? Did he say, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise; or, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise? W e like to think that Christ had all the humility of a great nature; but we are sure that he regarded himself as only the instrument of a power greater than himself working through him, in which case humility would be a false note. Perhaps it is a trivial matter. Yet we can easily imagine that the damsel's obedience would depend on who uttered the command. So far as we are concerned, our mandates derive their authority from their source. When expediency, or self-interest, or inclination, or the weight of custom bid us to an action, we take the matter under consideration deeming our judgment as good as theirs. But when Christ, speaking for God, utters his, I say unto thee, there is no choice; in that presence arguments are of no avail. Christ always spoke with the authority of One Higher Up, whose mouthpiece he was. There is that One Higher Up in our own case, who speaks through conscience; and his commands are our categorical imperative.

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44

T H E A G E OF N E W

THINGS

Behold, all things are become new.

2 CORINTHIANS 5, 17.

SOME of us read these words with mounting pulse, and some with sighs of regret; for we are learning that novelty can terrify as well as exhilarate. There are so many things we are doing for the first time in human history, that we suspect the future historian will nickname this age "The Age of New Things." For the first time, we can mount ten miles into the stratosphere and see the whole island of Nantucket in a single glance of the eye; or we can sit in our houses and listen to a king's coronation three thousand miles away; or we can feel confident of the perpetuation of our culture and achievements, thanks to the printing press; or we can readjust our life to an economy of plenty, and apply our leisure to the next task and opportunity, and do so not becausewe must, but because we want to. These are but a few of the novelties to which we are being introduced. Some of them are pretty fundamental. It is no extravagance to say that our present confusion springs precisely from that fact: that all things are become new. W e are learning how to live in a new world; and the wonder is, not that there is so much confusion, but that there is so much steadiness and calm. W e may have to change our code of ethics, and adopt a revised set of values. But there is nothing to fear. "The word of our God shall stand forever." That word is Life, real and full. In some way, at some time, we shall find it; for We are his children.

COMFORTED BY T H E SUFFERER

45

When they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed, ACTS I 6,40. THE day before, Paul and Silas had been arrested, roughly used by the mob, beaten with rods, and cast into prison for the night. In the morning the frightened magistrates, learning that they were Roman citizens, had hastily released them and begged them to depart. These were the men who, when they had seen the brethren, comforted them, and departed. One would suppose that they should receive comfort, not give it: they were the sufferers. But as frequently happens where generous natures are concerned, the tables were turned, and the sufferers became the comforters. W e remember how Christ comforted his disciples, yet it was Christ, not they, who was to suffer: "Let not your heart be troubled; my peace I give unto you." Sympathy causes more pain to the beholder than the sufferer feels, unless the beholder understands the peace of heart, the radiant conscience, the calmness of trust that are in the sufferer. No pain can dim the brightness of these possessions. Where they are, there is an unearthly strength and tranquility, which Christ calls "my peace." It never needs comfort; it always gives comfort. For he who has it knows himself to be blessed above his fellows; and knows that it is himself, not they, who has something to give.

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CORRECTIVES OF DETACHMENT Then understood I their end.

PSALM 7 3 , 1 7 .

E is bewildered by the prosperity of the ungodly. It confutes all his theories. He tries to think it out, but it is too laborious. Then he happens to go into the sanctuary of God, and at once the solution comes. "Then understood I their end." There was something about the sanctuary of God that brought instant understanding of earthly problems and perplexities. T o study a problem in its setting of temporalities is •to find it baffling. T o carry that problem into the sanctuary, and to study it against such a back-ground as the sanctuary represents, a back-ground of the timelessness and wisdom and sovereign power of God, is to understand at once. For against that back-ground it is no problem at all. How this truth worked out in his case is of no consequence. How it may work in our case is the important thing. Do we distort our judgment by dwelling too much in the heat and passion of the moment, our eyes focused to a short-range vision, our ears full of the clamor of life's temporalities? Do we give ourselves the correctives of detachment, of quiet, and space, and distance, and eternity? The sanctuary is the Psalmist's synonym for these things; and his discovery is worth a little thought. T o carry our problems into that sanctuary, not necessarily a church, but a quiet hill-top, or a sunset, or a majestic forest, or the breathless purity of a winter twilight, is to make his discovery: Then understood I their end.

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THE INVISIBLE PRESENCE

47

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. MATT. 18, 20.

ON these words our Congregational churches rest their claim to validity. The theory is that a church is a container which holds and administers the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. These sacraments are immaterial mysteries always held in suspension in the air, in all times and places; just as Christ himself is a mystical, disembodied, invisible presence everywhere and at all times. Where two or three gather themselves together in his name his invisible presence is there to sanction them as a valid church. Set a dry glass bowl on the lawn at evening of a summer day. In the morning there will be a spoonful of water in the bottom, caused of course by the humidity in the night air condensing on the cool glass surface. Thus a church automatically gathers into itself the sacramental mysteries it is to ad-' minister. N o Apostolic Succession is necessary; no transmission of living ecclesiastical tissue from a parent stock once entrusted to Simon Peter. A church of Christ comes into existence spontaneously wherever the spirit of Christ is,—and that means anywhere. That is a beautiful theory; and it has an intimate application. Nothing can separate the soul from its God. T h e contact is always and everywhere possible. Just as we can open the window and let in the sweet fresh air, so we can open the heart and let in the Divine Presen6e.

48

T H E G U I D A N C E OF N E E D

When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. PSALM 2 7 , 8. AT some moment in the past, it matters little when, but a moment of dependence or need or loneliness or despair, the invitation had come: seek ye my face. It was personal and intimate, addressed to this one heart and no other. The reply was prompt and eager. It was just the invitation he wanted to hear, and was ready to accept. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. No thought of God is complete, and no worship is perfectly adequate that does not include that personal and sacredly intimate relationship. At some spot in that august contract the pronouns must be personal and singular: ye and I; seek ye my face, thy face will I seek. Our souls turn to the Light of Souls as eagerly and naturally as blossoms turn to the sun. And when we trust the cold dialectics of reason to guide us in our religious journey, as we have of recent years, and find ourselves ierishing among its comfortless impersonalities and rigid abstractions, we discover our mistake. Reason is not the guide on that journey, but only one of the bear- . ers. There is but one guide,—our own need, our own • natural craving for the warm reality and the intimate sanctity of a loving, sustaining, possessed, and possessing companionship,—my Lord and my God.

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MORAL AUTHORITY

49

He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. MATT. 7, 29. HE difference was that the Scribes interpreted the law, which involved them in endless disputations and sophistries, while Christ interpreted the conscience, which always speaks in crisp and clear-cut imperatives: "Ask, and ye shall receive. Judge not, that ye be not judged. Bless them that curse you. Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven." His conscience knew just what to say, and said it with finality. There are certain organs of the body that we do not talk about; it is not good taste. Just now Conscience seems to be classed as one of them. When a man confesses that he has a conscience, people raise their eyebrows and change the subject, as though he had committed a solecism. Yet there it is,—conscience. It deals in no sophistries. It knows what to say, and speaks with finality. The sooner we rehabilitate conscience in its proper dignity, and make it the supreme law of our living, the better for us. To be ashamed of it is to insult Almighty God, for it is God's voice speaking to man's heart and mind. To argue with it is to lose ourselves in a fog of speculations, like the Scribes. To listen to it is to acquire something of the moral authority, which filled the common people of Galilee with glad astonishment, and which has made Christ ever since a power for good in our bewildered world.

T H E BUSY M A N OF

PEACE

O, that thou hadst hearkened unto my commtmdments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.

ISAIAH 48, 18.

WHAT a beautiful simile! Then had thy peace been as a river. Such peace commends itself to us; it is active but steadfast; industrious but uninterrupted. Much of our talk about peace leaves us in some doubt of its desirability; for we often speak of peace as though it were mere indolence. None but the sick soul would want that kind of peace. Just what is true peace, the peace we think of as an attribute of God, the peace we invoke in our benedictions, and that every healthy nature craves? That is worth a moment's thought. When the German professor was asked his idea of heaven, he replied: Heaven is to have one thing to do, that you want to do, and all the time in the world to do it in. The definition may serve for peace, heaven and peace being almost synonymous. The man of peace is not idle but very busy, and absorbed in his work. His routine may be punctuated by excitements, but he is steadfast, undismayed, constant. His mind is unvexed by terror, doubt, hatred, or envy. His life goes on like a rivei, from small beginnings gathering power and volume; now tranquil, and again turbulent, but always holding his direction, following his law, and pursuing his course; little by little approaching the "gleaming sands and the leaping bar, and the taintless tide that awaits him afar," until the day's work is ended, and with perfect confidence he loses himself in the Infinite Main.

RELIGION AS A

SURPRISE

Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.

GENESIS 28, 16.

happened upon a spot where he dreamt of angels and a heavenly voice. Such a spot could be no other than a house of God and a gate of heaven. He had stumbled upon it by the merest accident; and because he found it by accident it made a profound impression on him. The most fruitful religious moments are those that take us by surprise. Our conscious, deliberate worship is part of our routine living. Its results are foreseen, deliberately cultivated, never distinguished, and sometimes disappointing. That kind of worship is the expression of our habit, and habits are usually sedate both in their exercise and in their results. But when the deliberate, habitual worship is punctuated by some unforeseen spark of divine light, when by the merest accident the familiar occasions of the day fall suddenly into a celestial pattern, when for no apparent reason there comes an unexpected rift in this "veil of earthly things," through which we catch a fleeting glimpse of the love and peace and light that are not of earth, and w e are surprised by a vision of angels and the accents of a divine voice, then we have an experience that works upon us profoundly. It is a "moment blest," not sought but given, not our labored reaching up to God but his sudden stooping down to us. In the whole course of life there may be but three or four such moments, but the whole life is changed and brightened b y those moments. JACOB

THERE ARE NO STRANGE GODS He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange ACTS 17, 18. gods. HY do people who listen unmoved when told about God, rouse to eager attention when told about Allah, or Krishna, or Manitou? The setter forth of strange gods always gets a hearing, for strangeness is an amiable quality in a god. It matters not that there is nothing strange but the name; the strangeness of the name commands fresh attention and zealous discipleship. There is nothing difficult here, and nothing alarming. If the person who yawns in boredom when told to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with God, is transfigured with religious enthusiasm when told to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with Allah, then at all events there is one more person doing justly, and loving mercy, and walking humbly. For which let Allah be praised. The least novelty will sometimes throw a new light on the religious picture. And although the angels may smile to see so great a transformation from so slight a cause, it will*be a kindly smile. As much as to say: Dear Heart, familiar names lose their point, and hackneyed terminology gets meaningless. If the invitations of religion speak to you more powerfully in other terms you are welcome to those terms. For there are no strange gods. There are only many ways of aproach to the one Blessed Mystery, whose nature and LW and promise are one, and whose love enfolds all his children.

£

T H E W I L L T O BELIEVE Only believe.

MARK 5, 36.

PROFESSOR William James once wrote an essay, "The Will to Believe," in which he maintains that we not only may believe what we will, but that we are constantly doing so without knowing it. T o many people this is not acceptable. T h e y claim that belief cannot be an act of will; it must be dictated by logic, or reason, or observation. They quote Sir Thomas More: " A man may not believe what him listeth." He must believe what his senses or his reason approve. And so we have the common exclamation: "If only I could believe that," or "I cannot help believing that," as though belief were a privilege outside man's free agency granted by something besides the will. True enough, so long as we are in the realm where sense and reason speak with authority. There are realms where sense and reason have nothing to say; and where, if we wait for their permission, we shall wait forever. In those realms Christ is a fearless guide, and calls for bold spirits to follow. "Only believe;" go ahead and believe; fear nothing; exercise your will; commit yourself; make the plunge. Faith is creative. Adjust yourself to the assumption that there is a divine purpose, a moral law, and a rational meaning, and the loyalty of your belief will verify the assumption. W e discover God by believing that we shall discover him.

UNPERTURBED INTEGRITY Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. LUKE 12, 43. KEEPING steady, doing his work, giving the household their meat in due season, preserving his customary moral standards and obligations, not allowing the expected "coming" of his Lord to throw him off his balance, or excuse him from his routine of responsibility; blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Christ believed, as every one did, that a great, catastrophic End-of-the-Present-Order was coming. These words are his way of preparing his disciples for that event; keep your feet under you; keep steadily at your work; don t lose your grip. The night mail from Chicago to Omaha was derailed and ditched. When the wrecking gang arrived they entered the mail car and found the postal crew on the slanting buckled floor hard at work as usual, silently sorting out the several tons of mail they ha^ to handle. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when' he cometh, shall find so doing. Today religion is feeling the portent of the times, and is taking fantastic forms to meet that expected portent: Neo-Calvinism, Theology of Crisis, Philosophic Pessimism, etc. It is good to listen to Christ: the Lord may come or not; in either case, right is right, duty is duty; the household need their meat in due season. Keep steady; do your work; the Lord's coming does not repeal his eternal laws; maintain your unperturbed integrity. His blessing is for those whom he finds so doing.

A BESETTING GOD

55

Thou has beset me behind and before. PSALM I 3 9 , 5.

HE Psalmist may be speaking in a mood of grateful certainty:—whatever happens, there is God, behind and before, I am safe in his besetting embrace; or in a mood of resignation:—why rebel? it is of no use, I cannot escape, I am beset behind and before, and might as well accept the fact. Either mood can be made to fit; neither mood alters the fact. He may surrender to the fact with regret, or discover the fact with relief. But there is the fact: Thou has beset me behind and before. We are so precisely adjusted to our conditions, that we are normally unconscious of them. God is the brook; we are the trout. W e could not live in any other medium, yet we are unconscious of the medium. Sometimes we even question its reality, as though some skeptical trout should question the reality of water. But once in a while an awareness of its reality breaks into our consciousness. Then worship is awakened, and faith is established. For worship is intelligent humility, and faith is the substitute for conscious awareness of a Behind and Before whose besetting reality is the only medium in which we can live. Once the Psalmist had become copsciously aware of God; and thenceforth his worship was awakened and his faith established. In the darkest moment he could still say, Thou hast beset me behind and before.

T

56

IN GOD'S

ABSENCE

Occupy till I come.

LUKE 19, 13.

DR. L. P. JACKS once preached a sermon: "The Parable of the Lord's Absence." This was his text. The king, having distributed his talents among his servants, said before departing, Occupy till I come. The question is, not how do we live while we have the sense of God's presence to guard us and control every action; but how do we live during the intervals when the thought of God fades to nothing, and the influence of his presence is removed, and doubts of his reality spring up like weeds in the garden. By far the greater part of our lives is spent not within the consciousness of God, but without; and the test of our religion is, how do we live during his absence? How do we occupy till he comes? Many of the mystics confess that the "moment blest" comes to them only two or three times in the whole course of their lives; but those visits are so intense that all their lives are transformed. In the humbler forms of mysticism we all enjoy, that is as much as we can expect: that our infrequent revelations of truth, our timeis of perfect coordination, shall be so brilliant that their influence is thenceforth dominant. T w o travelers were comparing notes, and one boasted that he had seen the Matterhorn a hundred and eighteen times. Thank heaven, I've only seen it once, replied the other. One glimpse of the Divine can be more potent than a hundred. After that each day is touched with a glory. W e can occupy till he comes.

BE A W H O L E C I T I Z E N They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. PSALM 73, 5. THE Psalmist is envious of the foolish; they live a carefree life, acknowledging no responsibilities and accepting no anxieties. It is the "other men," those who are neither foolish nor wicked, who are troubled and plagued. One must conclude that the distinguishing mark of a wise and good man is the capacity to assume trouble and be plagued. This may seem unfair, but it is undeniable. Just as the management of an institution means care, labor, forethought, attention to detail, anxiety, industry for some one, so the management of human society means a great burden of toil for those who are wise enough to recognize the responsibility, and good enough to assume it. What wouM we do without such persons! By their uprightness they set the standard or our ethics. By their refinement they fix the level of our manners and culture. By their trust and prayer they establish the religious tone, and by their faith and hope they establish the spiritual quality for the social fabric. The privilege of living in God's world carries an obligation, imposes a tax, which some one must meet. Perhaps our vaunted Democracy will sometime spread beyond the realm of politics and industry into rarer aspects of our life; and will say to every generous nature: Be a whole citizen; not only cast your vote and pay your tax, but do your fair share of upright living, honorable thinking, trusting, hoping, believing, and praying.

58

T W O P E R C E N T OF T H E WORLD'S POPULATION For my brethren and companion? sokes, I •will now say, Peace be within thee. PSALM 1 2 2 , 8 .

ARD as it may be to imagine how brethren and companions could be benefited by such an act of piety, we can think of a good explanation of the words. The atmosphere we breathe is chiefly oxygen, but contains many other ingredients of which even the least has its effect upon our health. There is an intangible medium, corresponding to atmosphere, in which our souls live, and on the proper balance of which their health is as dependent as bodily health is dependent on a properly balanced atmosphere. This medium is ever in process of being determined, replenished, by the mental and spiritual activities of the people within it. We are forever fabricating the atmosphere which we all must breathe. The faith or hope or honor or generosity of one man becomes a contribution to the atmosphere of the community, and has its influence upon every man in that community. The innocence of the Luck of Roaring Camp became an ingredient in the atmosphere of that savage community and changed its life. Professor Einstein says that if two per cent of the world's population were set upon peace, the atmosphere of the whole world would be so charged with that determination that war would be impossible. Our brethren and companions are influenced unconsciously but profoundly by our privacies of trust and reverence and idealism and personal Christlikeness.

H

H E RUBS US T H E WRONG WAY

59

Take no thought for your life. MATT. 6, 25. CHRIST'S interests were spiritual. Earthly conditions, social, political, economic, he accepted without a murmur. To one who begged him, "speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me," Christ replied, "Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?" T o the Pharisees who asked about paying tribute to Caesar, he retorted, "Of course; render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." When the matter of the temple tax came up, his response was, "By all means; pay the tax." To us, with our brows furrowed in anxiety over the injustice of modern conditions, taxes, expenditures, sitdown strikes, child-labor, dictatorships, and the like, his apathy towards all technicalities is puzzling. How could a man of such pure motives be so acquiescent to palpable evils, so indifferent to worthy "causes"? The answer may offend us: to Christ these things were not important. Some one must govern; it may as well be Rome. Some one must have the tax; it may as well be the Temple. Some one must inherit; it may as well be your brother. What of it? It is just as possible to seek life's true objective in one social frame-work as in another. One can serve God just as well in a Roman province as in a free state; or can fulfill his manhood just as well without the inheritance as with; or can worship just as truly in an expensive temple as in a cheap one. At no point does Christ so rub us the wrong way. Yet it is worth a little thought: was he wrong, or are we?

6o

RELEASED ENERGY For the land whither thou goest is not as the land of Egypt, inhere thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, but drinketh water of the rain of heaven. DEUT. I I ,

IO-II,

THE garden, near the bank of the Nile, has been planted and is suffering for water. Two men with leather buckets go to the bank. One stands at the brink of the river, scoops his bucket full, and heaves it up over his head. His companion on the top of the bank deftly catches it, in the same motion putting the empty "bucket into the upstretched hand. While the second empties the bucket into a shallow trench, the first scoops the other bucket full and heaves it up. So the operation goes on, hard, ceaseless, back-breaking work. Meanwhile a third man guides the stream of muddy water by opening a gap with his naked foot in the side of the trench and letting the water into a little square patch of garden. When this is soaked, he closes that gap and opens another farther along the trench. Thou wateredst it with thy foot. Hard work. Life is easier in the land whither thou goest, for it drinketh water of the rain of heaven. It is a blessing to live at a time when the drudgeries are reduced, provided we use the released energy in higher forms of service. God blesses us, or teaches us how to bless ourselves, for a purpose. T o waste that released energy in self-indulgence is to defeat his purose, and make ourselves soft and vain and querulous, etter the hardships of life, where thou wateredst it with thy foot. Never is it safe to avoid hard, faithful, happy work.

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GOD THE ENCUMBRANCE

61

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or ivhither shall I flee from thy presence? PSALM 1 3 9 , 7 .

as if he wanted to escape; but he is using this extravagant expression to heighten the fact of God's reality: "Even if I tried to escape from God I could not. God is more than a presence who must be found; he is a presence who cannot be lost." There are people who would use these words seriously: "Let me see now, how can I escape from this tyrant? God is an encumbrance who circumscribes my activity. I must secure my liberty. Whither shall I go from his spirit? or whither shall I flee from his presence?" Many people harbor that strange desire; and when they find their way of escape, they act like liberated slaves. This is due to the way religion has been presented to them: as a mere mass of restraints, fears, and threats. "If you do that, God will send you to Hell." Alas for the injustice God has suffered at men's hands! If such people could acquaint themselves with Christ, they might see how exactly the reverse of slavery religion may be. For himj to lose God was outer darkness, cold and terror, weeping and gnashing of teeth. T o live with God was life and fight, freedom and enlargement, power and joy and self-discovery. The trouble is in the way we think of God; and the task is, not to escape from God, but to fashion that truer thought of God from which no right-minded man could ever want to escape.

I

T SOUNDS

62

M O N E Y AS A

SYMBOL

My joy, and croim.

PHILIPPIANS

4, 1.

confesses that "the care of all the churches" weighed heavily upon his spirit; their contentiousness, fickleness, snobbishness. But the Philippians were different; "my joy, and crown." They were Paul's best achievement. In fits of discouragement he could point to them and say, " A t any rate, I did that. There is a true sample of my craftsmanship." Every healthy nature craves those visible tokens of success which our system lacks. In other countries a successful man is knighted, or ennobled, or made a KCB, or invested with the Order of Some Rising Sun. In our country, there is but one symbol of success: money, the length of one's purse. Incidentally, we do a great injustice to our rich men, by charging them with sordid money-greed. In thousands of cases, it is not moneygreed at all: but just a rather inarticulate hunger for some token of worth and ability. There are those who can find satisfaction for this hunger in the serenities of conscience, or in self-respect. There are those who crave a satisfaction more patent, as much as to say, "I want some one beside God and myself to recognize my worth." Perhaps we shall devise a way to supply this recognition. Meanwhile, we can at least be fair. That which we so easily condemn as money-greed is quite as apt to be nothing more than the desire to stand well in the esteem of our fellows, which we all have, and which is earth's counterpart of heaven's approval. PAUL

THE POTENTIAL WE

63

Be of good cheer; I have overcome the •world. JOHN 16, 33. IF THE Gospel of John is trying to prove the deity of Christ, then the author made a bad theological slip when he wrote these words. They have no point unless they are spoken to human beings by one who, in every respect, was just as human as they. The world is something to be overcome. It is a good servant, but a poor master. It must be kept in its place by the creature man, who must somehow rise superior to its threat and attraction. He must have something that the world at its worst cannot take away. He must want something that the world at its best cannot give. He must show the world that it cannot destroy, but only menace, his real treasure; that it cannot give, but only help him to get, his real heart's desire. Thus he will overcome the world. This Christ did, as no one can doubt. But the only reason why his doing so can be a cause of good cheer to his disciples, is that it shows they can do so too. Since it has been done by a fellow-creature, it can be done by them. It at once falls within the limits of human possibility; therefore, be of good cheer. Christlikeness is a vain dream if Christ was in any particular more than the "potential we." So long as he was what we may be, then his achievements become our guiding star, and our constant cause for good cheer.

64

THE CASTLE Behold, he had sack-cloth within upon his flesh. 2 KINGS 6, 30.

A s a king of Israel he wore the robes of royalty. But Z\ hearing the woman's pitiful story he rent his J . J L clothes in dismay, and behold, he had sack-cloth within upon his flesh like any penitent. Outwardly he was a monarch; but inwardly he was just a distracted, humble-minded, dependent man, burdened by his responsibilities, and b y his sense of unworthiness. He commends himself to us. When William of Orange died, they found on his breast a plain gold locket containing a lock of his wife's hair. Such little revelations of unpretentious human simplicity in the great are very moving. T h e y reveal the inner springs of motive and value; what the man really is; what he loves, and believes, and trusts; what he depends on for guidance and inspiration. "The fountains of my inner life"—are they fair and sweet and simple? Much depends on that answer. As Sir Launfal issued from his castle to begin his quest, so each of us issues every morning from an invisible castle of private faith, motive, purpose, and reverence. The fairer and truer that castle, the better equipped we are for the work in hand. That work may be proud or humble; the royal task of a king, or the menial drudgery of a laborer. But the w a y w e do it must depend on the kind of castle from which our spirits emerge; on its order and peace and trust and humble prayer.

PICK U P T H E G A U N T L E T

65

Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh? EXODUS 3, 11.

THERE is no sense denying what is perfectly obvious: our age is full of things we do not want to do; tasks for which we are unfitted; burdens and obligations we tell ourselves we cannot bear; changes, promotions, new occasions, new duties from which we shrink in dismay. "Who am I, that I should encounter these Pharaohs?" W e call ourselves a free people; but there are forms of slavery which even free people have to endure, slavery imposed not by any Pharaoh, but by a tyrannical circumstance that has gotten out of control. How are we to meet and endure this slavery? Moses gives us his answer, in two parts. First: no man really knows his own capabilities. Every man is a mystery, even to himself. No man is limited to that which he has been, or has done. In every man there is a latent surprise, a reserve- power, an unsuspected ability, that is only waiting" to be called forth by the proper opportunity. Therefore, thank God for that opportunity and plunge in. And second: there is nothing so adaptable as the human spirit. Every twist of fortune, every abrupt change, every novel demand, however sudden, the human spirit can meet with the requisite courage and readiness to learn. W e can do what we have to do. There is nothing to fear. Therefore, as Moses might say from his own experience, face the occasion. Pick up the gauntlet. Have confidence in yourself. Trust the God who is with you and in you; and go on.

66

T H E M E T A L A N D ITS F O R M

And carried the brass of them to Babylon. 2 KINGS 25, 13.

JERUSALEM had been besieged and taken, and now the looting of the captured city was in full swing. The Temple proved a veritable treasure house to the victorious Babylonians. Here were numerous utensils of brass and silver and gold. The captors cared nothing for the vessels but the material was precious. So they brake them in pieces and carried the brass of them to Babylon. There they would refashion that precious metal into new utensils adapted to the place and time and needs of daily life. That happens wherever life is vigorous and active. Each generation besieges and captures its predecessor; replaces the old administration with a new. Each generation plunders its predecessor of its treasures of thought and spirit and motive and trust; breaks up the particular forms into which that treasure had been fashioned, but carries the precious metal on into a new day, there to refashion it into forms and customs better adapted to the needs of that new day. To mourn over this inevitable process is a sign of our own superficiality. The particular forms must change, unless life is to stagnate. But so long as the material is preserved; so long as the spirit, the trust, the hope, the devotion to truth, the determination to win remain undestroyed, there is nothing to fear, and nothing to lament. The letter killeth; the spirit giveth life.

NEGLECTED SOULS

67

He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. MARK 7, 37. F WE could interpret the miracle-stories as symbols of cures wrought in spiritual bodies, every difficulty would vanish and the stories would become luminous. If we must think of bodies and substances in connection with the miracles, we are facing difficulty. W h y deny it? Our credulity gives up the task. If we may think of spirits and essences in connection with the miracles, all becomes intelligible. Of course he fed five thousand souls with the spiritual food of one trustful little lad. Of course he made blind souls to see, deaf souls to hear, dumb souls to speak. Of course he brought dead souls to life again. Transferred to that realm every miracle in the Gospel becomes plain to understand and eloquent with truth. "He maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak." Our spiritual faculties become atrophied through disuse. The cares of this world are absorbing; the souls in us are neglected; their powers decline through lack of exercise. T o spend more time with Christ, with his words in our ears, and with his presence as our companion, is to find that he still performs his miracles. He is an effective reminder of the side of life we so easily forget. And before we know it, that which has grown blind in us, under the magic of his tutelage begins to see; that which had become deaf begins to hear; and that which was dumb begins to speak.

I

68

GRACES OF CHARACTER

He took the seven loaves and gave thanks. MARK 8, 6.

CHRIST had a noticeable way of using great verbs intransitively. "She loved much;" "If thou canst believe;" "He took the seven loaves and gave thanks." He does not say what or whom she loved much; or what the man was to believe; or for what he gave thanks. The predicate, if it must be supplied at all, is to be inferred from the context. But we suspect that the predicate was not at all the important item in his thought. It mattered little whether or not there was something specific to love, or to believe, or to be thankful for. The important thing was the ability to love, or to believe, or to be thankful. Christ always valued the graces of character far more than their particular exercise. In the same way we say: "How beautifully she sings;" "How eloquently he speaks." What she sings, or what he says is of no moment. We admire the grace of music in her, or the force of expression in him. Every time we touch'Christ a little profundity of thought is opened before us. To love definite things, or believe definite things, or be thankful for definite things is no especial virtue. Do not even publicans the same? But to cultivate a friendly, trustful, grateful nature is to employ the discipline of life in the way God meant us to employ it. With these graces of character in our possession we shall always find the specific occasions for their use. Life is never so barren but that the man who can love, or trust, or be thankful, will find something to love, or believe, or thank God for.

THROUGH HUMAN T O DIVINE

69

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. PSALM 27, 10. IN THIS figurative language we are not to find any reflection on a father's care or a mother's love. Father and mother stand for that net-work of human relationships and solicitudes which our civilization richly supplies, and in which we all find our immediate support. The Psalmist means simply that, when these human safeguards fail, as they do occasionally, there is still another and a more reliable safe-guard beneath them; "The Lord will take me up." W e notice that the men of the Bible talk more about that under-lying safe-guard, seem to be more conscious of it, derive more security from it, than we. Perhaps their civilization was more fragile, less trustworthy, than ours. Perhaps they had learned to put less confidence in its support, and to *sk themselves more often: "if these safe-guards fail, as they may, what is there to take me up?" The very excellence of our civilization prevents our living in close contact with the divine realities, and operates as an obstacle to keep us from God. The stronger we weave this fabric of earthly values and safeguards, the less we need "the strong tower unto which I may continually resort," or "the everlasting arms" which are underneath. Our task is a peculiar one to look through the human to the divine: to see the strong tower behind its earthly manifestations: to find the Lord God back of the father and mother who are his human agencies.

THE BALANCE OF POWER They shall not dwell in the Lord's land. HOSEA 9 , 3.

N the strength of those words the Puritans banished from their commonwealth all who hindered their experiment,—Familists, Antinomians, Ranters, Wanton gospellers. Such gentry had a right to their opinions, but "they shall not dwell in the Lord's land." Every class of people likes to think that their land is the Lord's land, a strong-hold of law and order, of justice, opportunity, righteousness. The Puritans were like any one else, only more so. Even today in democratic America we harbor that ideal: America is a Lord's land, a country ruled, in the last analysis, by God's laws of justice, liberty, opportunity, righteousness. W e are beginning to see that the life of a democracy depends upon keeping the weight of power in the hands of such people. Democracies can last only so long as the morally enlightened and the morally responsible are in control, if not in numbers at least in influence. That choice faces every single citizen: Which side are you on? the side of the opportunist, the unscrupulous, the predacious? or the side of the morally enlightened, the responsible, the right-minded? When that element loses control we are ripe for a dictatorship, and the sooner it comes the better. So long as that element sets the standard of our living and choosing, our land is still a Lord's land. The fate of America lies not in the hands of any designing adventurer, but in the hearts of her private citizens.

O

SOMETHING DECENT T O L I V E FOR

7i

Grievously tormented with a devil.

MATT. 15, 22.

THAT is a curious notion, that there are malicious devils in the atmosphere who can lodge themselves in a human soul and play havoc with a person's behaviour. We have a modern counterpart: the bacteria of disease that are swarming about us everywhere, in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, even the objects we touch; and that sometimes lodge themselves in the system and cause a desperate sickness. One of our safeguards is the serum, full of hostile bacteria, which we introduce in the system to fight off and overcome these bacteri^of disease. This cure may correspond to Christ's cure for those grievously tormented with a devil. He introduced into the sufferer's spiritual system a healthy interest, a vigorous hope, a new affection, a consuming preoccupation, against which the devil had no chance. Devils find it easy to invade empty spirits. They set up their undisputed sovereignty in aimless, uninterested, vacant souls. The great safeguard is a serum of powerful interests, convictions, and purposes. A good absorbing hobby to capture the affection and enlist the energy, something decent to live for and achieve,—this works wonders against our devils of cynicism, depression, and sin. When the hobby and the work are the same, we are fortunate. But even where the hobby only supplements the work we shall work better, more happily and effectively.

DIFFERENT THEORIES Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.

JOHN 9, 25.

THEY were jealous for the process; he cared only for the result. They discredited the cure because it had been performed by an impostor, a sinner; he brought them back to the fact: Sinner if you please, I cannot say. I never saw him before, and know nothing about him. One thing I know: whereas I was blind, now I see. That is all that counts, and you cannot argue that away. W e can understand their scruple. They wanted the result, but they wanted it secured by the conventional process, by one of their own class, a disciple of Moses, a supporter of the Law, a Pharisee. They wanted their theory of life to produce the result. T o see it produced by some alien theory filled them with wrathful dismay. It was a hard lesson to learn; that perhaps some other theory worked as well. W e also find it a hard lesson. W e are all of one mind as to the result desired: human happiness and contentment. But our world is divided as to the theory. Some recommend Fascism, some Communism, and some Capitalism. Must we therefore go to war about it? Perhaps God has more than one theory. Perhaps He has ordained that each theory shall succeed in its own time and place. Perhaps His method is a combination of theories. Perhaps by thinking more about Him and His Spirit we can discover the Master-theory which Christ tried to teach the world: ordinary friendliness.

THE SONG OF GOD'S HOLINESS

73

Thou art unto them as a very lovely song. EZEKIEL 3 3 , 3 2 .

HIS was said of Ezekiel; just why, we cannot at once say. He sounds to us like any prophet, full of condemnation. Spirits quickly tire of that sort of thing, and long for a happier strain. This happier strain is just what Ezekiel is credited with; and reading carefully we manage to detect it: the holiness of God's presence and nature; the beauty of that holiness; the exaltation which that holiness awakens in the worshipper; the elevation of thought which comes of dwelling on the divine purity, an elevation that removes us far away from the sordidness and strife and ugliness of this world, and takes us into the rapture of adoration and praise. "Thou art unto them as a very lovely song." Modern literature just now is wallowing in the mire of realism. Modern prophets and reformers are striving to infuriate us with their stories of actual conditions, the wrongs to be righted, the sin and squalor to be remedied. They are quite right; that side of life must not be forgotten. Yet there is another side; and we get pretty hungry for some Ezekiel to help us find a true balance by being unto us as a very lovely song. Both the squalor and the song are in life. We should be more determined to cure the squalor if we gave more heed to the song. For it is the very lovely song of God's holiness and purity and power that keeps ideals fresh and quick, and sends us to the task not in despair but in vigor and hope.

T

74

FLY OFF AT A TANGENT Lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. LUKE 14, 12.

WHY was Christ so afraid of a recompense? A man invites his neighbor to supper, and the neighbor returns the courtesy and invites the man. What harm is done? W h y did this transaction fill Christ with revulsion? Perhaps Christ saw too much of it. The life about him was based upon just that theory: tit for tat, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Their covenant relations to God, their social relations to each other were ruled by the desire to keep the scales of justice balanced, to maintain their mutual obligations on a dead center. Where did this get them? What progress were they making? T o balance one good with another, to offset one evil with another reduced their life to the semblance of a top spinning on its own axis but getting nowhere. It filled Christ with dismay. Break up this eternal spinning, he says, fly off at a tangent; do something different; overcome this dead center on which your life is stuck. Recompense evil with good for a change. Turn the other cheek; go the second mile. Does God maintain a balanced ledger in his dealings with you? Does he treat you with justice or with generosity? Does his sun rise only on the good, and his rain fall only on the just? The only hope of making some advance is to break out of this vicious circle of exact recompense, and copy the trustful, experimental ways of God. Therefore, "fetch thine eye up to his style and manners of the sky."

FAITHFUL IN T H E L E A S T For a wife he kept sheep.

75

HOSEA 12, 12.

WHEN stated so bluntly, this seems a novel way to secure a wife. It refers to Jacob serving Laban as a shepherd, with the understanding that seven years of such service should be rewarded by the hand of Rachel. For a wife he kept sheep. That is the way things work in this world. Great results follow humble efforts. Everything we do has two results. One is the direct, obvious result upon the outward facts and conditions involved. The other is the quiet, unsuspected result upon the spirit of the doer. One result of Jacob's service was direct and immediate, —the safety of the sheep. The other result was a better Jacob,—a more disciplined, self-controlled, patient, gentle, and determined man; one to whom Laban could confidently entrust his daughter in marriage. When Christ said, "He who is faithful in that which is least will be faithful also in much," he was thinking of this law. T o secure the second result, it matters not what a man may be doing; keeping sheep like Jacob; plowing a field like Cincinnatus; catching fish like Peter. The fidelity with which he does it becomes a part of his nature, and qualifies him for greater things. It is never safe to shirk a task because it is humble. The shirking reacts upon ourselves. Character is a jewel we can pick up in the lowliest surroundings. "Cleave ¿the wood and thou shalt find Me," says a heavenly voice; "lift the stone and I am there."

76

STRENGTH AND BEAUTY There was no stone seen.

I KINGS

6,

18.

HE words refer to the new temple which King Solomon was building. The interior finish was entirely of fragrant cedar. There was no stone seen. The stone was there but covered up. The strength was there but it was disguised by beauty. W e think at once of the Psalmist's phrase: Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. These words serve to amplify that phrase. The strength of the building was there but it was hidden. The eye saw nothing but beauty; there was no stone seen. Perhaps the idea was to symbolize religion. It has its grim, austere, inexorable quality. Sometimes we can feel the masonry in its structure. But it has also its beauty and charm and allure. W e need never feel its austerity, if we will but yield to its beauty. Christ always presents religion in its beauty; the proud love of God; the privilege of being His son; the rich opportunity of serving Him. Only when these are rejected does the stony side of religion appear in Christ's teachings. W e can give Reality whatever aspect we please. By our own bitterness and wilfulness we can make Reality a grim and stony matter. By our own generosity and faith we can make Reality loving and tender. T o the rebel soul God is terrible. T o the willing and the eager soul God is the Beauty of Holiness. There is no stone seen.

SELF-RESPECTING A N D UNDAUNTED He that ivalketh uprightly,

PSALM 15, 2.

THIS is the answer to the question: Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord; who shall stand in his Holy Place? The hill of the Lord was Mt. Zion, on which the great temple stood; and his Holy Place was the larger of the two chambers within the temple, containing the golden altar of incense. The question means, Who is fit to enter God's presence? The answer means, The man who is neither ashamed nor afraid, who neither slinks furtively nor cringes timidly; but who "walketh uprightly," self-respecting, undaunted, with a level eye and a clean conscience. Much of the Jewish religion was collective; the nation as a unit worshipping God through the ministrations of the priesthood. Without their sense of national solidarity, we can find little value in this collective worship. But when the Psalmist treats of the individual side of his religion, he gives us a picture of singular dignity. His individual worshipper is humble but honest, suppliant but self-respecting, reverent but fearless. He stands before his God, knowing that before that Omniscience there is nothing to conceal; and before that merciful Justice nothing to fear. And he comes away from his prayer with his self-respect confirmed, and his moral dignity ennobled. The posture in which we worship is ratified by the worship. T o stand before God in the dignity of honest penitence, and in the self-respect of true dependence, is to have that dignity and selfrespect confirmed unto us.

78

AS OTHERS SEE US O, sing unto the Lord, a new song. PSALM 98, 1.

IF we may interpret the words our own way, we can make them intelligible. For some reason a man gets going in a certain direction of thought and feeling; that direction becomes fixed upon his spirit. It may be suspicion: every man's hand is against him. Or it may be anxiety: the world is full of danger. Or it may be self-pity: he is surrounded by injustice. Before he knows it, he has spun himself into this invisible cocoon of mood and spirit. It is just the reverse of a spot-light on a dark stage; it is a spot-shadow on a light stage, and it dogs his every footstep. Suddenly there comes a moment of detachment; he is lifted out of his spot-shadow, and enabled to see the whole situation objectively. A great revulsion of feeling comes: Have I been living in that spot-shadow, when all the stage is bright? How wrong! How needless! What a waste of time! Away with it. "O, sing unto the Lord a new song." The experience is common enough. Suddenly we see ourselves as others see us; and realize that we are sick to death of ourselves, sick to death of the crabbed mood that has insidiously grown upon us, and that there is no need of it. We throw it off, and stand in the sun, and lift our faces to the blue sky, and draw a deep breath of freedom. That is our new song unto the Lord.

THE WORLD AS A MEANS

79

As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things. 2 COR. 6, 10. OR Paul there were t w o distinct classes of treasure: worldly and spiritual. T h e y were mutually exclusive; to be rich in either, one must be poor in the other. T h e idea runs all through N e w Testament times; the world and its treasure was in direct hostility to the life and wealth of the spirit. Man must choose between them; either Mammon or G o d . Paul has made his choice; he is sorrowful in the world, yet rejoicing in the spirit; poor in the world, yet rich in the spirit; having nothing in the world, y e t possessing all things in the spirit. Is this a defeatist argument, or is there a fundamental incompatibility between success in the world, and success in the spirit? Frankly, w e do not like that idea. If the world stands in the w a y of the spirit, surely it is only because w e have not yet learned how to use the world, and its opportunity, and its wealth. Here is our task: to enjoy the world and its success, not as an alternative to G o d and his spiritual wealth, but as a means; to learn how to find God, not through the tragic discipline of failure and sacrifice in the world, but through the joyous discipline of happiness and prosperity in the world. Surely G o d gave us the world, and all it contains; and we ire to learn how to use it; how to find the Something Greater to which it is waiting, when properly understood, to lead us.

F

8o

THE SOLITARY MOMENT Sleep on novo, and take your rest. MATT. 2 6, 45.

"You might have helped me, for it was a difficult moment. But it is all settled now; I managed it alone. Go ahead and sleep." Not for the world would we be in the place of those disciples, to have such words spoken to us. But had we been there, what could we have done? Christ had reached one of those moments in life when every one has to stand alone. W e might have kept awake, to be sure; given him the arid comfort of knowing that we were "watching with him." Yet even this might well have hindered more than helped, because our sympathy would only have encouraged what was weak in him. It would have been just another argument on the side that must be conquered. Something in him craved that sympathy; but something better in him feared it. What he really wanted was a sympathy so true and discerning that it would have taken sides with that part of him which said he must drink the cup. And that kind of sympathy could hardly be expected of them. On the whole, perhaps it was better for them to sleep. His noblest choice was the one made alone. That sounds cynical, but it is not; it simply corroborates a law of our natures. The solitary moments in life are those when we stand on a height, removed, exalted, with every worldly passion, aim, interest, and affection silenced. The noblest moments in life are those we touch when every influence save God is asleep, and we can think and weigh and choose alone, in his presence.

THE END OF TALK

81

Hereafter I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh. JOHN 14, 30.

IN any transaction between a master and his followers, there comes the moment when his instructions must cease, and their active and practical response must begin. That moment has come; Christ has said his say; here is the world with its spirit of error and sin and incompleteness offering them an urgent and instant chance; this is their cue; their turn has come to begin to practice what they have learned. W e are in an age of talk; sermons, lectures, hearings, debates, arguments, investigations, broadcasts; to say nothing of printer's ink in all its appalling abundance; enough talk to float a ship. Sometimes it seems as if ninety-nine percent of Modern Christianity were nothing but talking and listening. Has not the time come for keeping still and doing? The prince of this world is with us, a sardonic smile on his face. While we aré busy with talk, he is busy in his own silent and evil ways. Plainly, it is our turn to cease the talk, and begin the action. Christ has said all there is to say. N o w attention is fixed upon us: what are we going to do? Once upon a time God spoke four words: Let there be light. (And there was light.) It is time we sickened of a Christianity of barren listening, expounding, explaining, elucidating, and exhorting. Hereafter I will not talk much with you; what is the use? It lies now with us to show what is the use; to begin a Christianity of fruitful doing; to open a silent attack upon the evils in our own hearts, our homes, our churches, our cities, and our country.

82

THE BLESSED SHADOW In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. P S A L M 63, 7 .

t is a figurative way of saying, "I am grateful for your protection," yet the words have a deeper meaning. Water ana shade were rare in the Psalmist's country. When the sun was low upon the horizon the landscape was bathed in a soft light, full of gradations, delicate colors, cool shadows, suggestive indistinctnesses to stimulate the imagination. These were the more delightful portions of the day: "Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice." But when the sun was high this mystic charm vanished. The heat became oppressive; a merciless glare revealed every detail; the focus was sharp, and the contrasts brittle; the landscape lost its comforting tenderness; the eyes ached, and the senses were numbed. How much of the charm of our spiritual landscape depends upon its indistinctness; the softened outline; the gradations of color and shade; the uncertainty of detail; and the chance there is thus left for hope and trust and the brave surmise of faith! It is significant that in the Bible the shadow is usually a blessing: "In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice;" "The Lord shall be thy shade upon thy right hand." The arrogance of knowledge ceases to be knowledge. True light is something more than mere luminosity; and is lost in too much luminosity. Not the least of God's mercies is the shadow that throws over life the enchantment of a meaning not understood, and a promise not fulfilled.

I

STEP OUT ON DECK

83

Canst thou guide Arcturus, with his sons? JOB 38, 32.

You are on the New York boat, and have settled down with a book in one corner of the saloon. It is hard to concentrate. Children are playing around you; young eople are screaming with laughter; young men are rawling around the gambling machine. You put on your coat and step out on deck for a little peace. It is dark and chilly, but the wash of the water is pleasant. A lighthouse is sending forth its guiding ray in the distance. Other steamers are met and passed. It is quiet and orderly and reassuring; and you think to yourself that the steamer as a whole is safely on her course, and is bearing her passengers, with all their internal dissensions, to their desired haven. Just to step out on deck is to feel a sudden sharp change of interests, from those within the steamer, to those of the steamer as a whole. T o step out on deck: it is a good habit. T o forget the internal dissensions, and turn your eyes to the external order. The moon is almost full. Orion has taken his place in the sky. In a few days the new comet will be visible in the northwest. Our planet is still on its course, bearing its quarreling passengers to some haven. God is still in his heaven, and if all is not well with the world whose fault is it? Sometimes we wonder what prayer is. Here is a sample: step out on deck, and look at the world "from tjie highest point of view."

E

84

A SOLID R E A L I T Y

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go afishing. JOHN 21, 3.

PETER was bewildered. Every expectation had been disappointed. He had thought his Master was the Christ, beyond earthly harm; but he had seen this Master crucified. Once dead, he had thought his Master gone; but he had seen the tomb empty. Once risen, he had thought his Master a spirit, separated from human contacts; but he had seen this spirit speaking with men, showing them his wounded hands and side. His mind was in a whirl. It was a perplexing world, and he hardly knew where he stood. There was only one remedy: he must get his feet upon some solid familiar reality, something that would not baffle and bewilder. "I go afishing." It is not a bad example to follow. Our life is full of marvels, and our minds are finite and limited. There are many things for us to wonder about which we cannot solve. Sometimes we get so hopelessly entangled in speculations, that real seems false and false real. Then there is only one thing to do: clean out a closet; spade up the garden; shovel the snow; bake the bread. God is in charge of these imponderables, and there is really a little touch of insolence in our assuming responsibility for them, as though we could not trust him to manage them, but must supervise his work as well as our own. What we need is Peter's humility and good sense; to get our feet on Something homely and simple and solid; something that has no doubts in itself, and awakens no doubts in us.

AN INVISIBLE GOD

85

As seeing him who is invisible. HEBREWS I I , 2 7 .

lived as though he were in the presence of an actual, directing, governing person, as seeing Him who is invisible. That was a great advantage. If we could work as in the presence of our Master, where we could see displeasure or approval, rebuke or praise expressed in his face; within the zone of his influence, where we could catch the contagion of his intent and feel the spirit of his desire, what a difference it would make to us! Our most baffling difficulty is this invisibility of God. He is Spirit, Principle, Law, Abstraction, Inner Check, a Power that makes for Righteousness, and we find it the hardest task in the world to fear and love and serve such formless properties. It would seem, then, that an indispensable aid to our living is the imagination that can clothe with form and substance and voice this disembodied Divineness we call God; to be able to see him who is invisible. It can be done. The child sees him in father or mother. Many of us see him in a noble friend. Professor Bunsen, on his death bed, looks up to his wife and whispers, "In thy face I see the Eternal." Millions of people see him in Christ. God personifies himself in all who are beautiful and true and good. T o live for their approval is to live "as seeing him who is invisible."

M

OSES

86

SING Y O U R O W N

SONGS

At midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God; and the prisoners heard them. ACTS 16, 25. THE prisoners were fortunate; they were all in need of religion, and here were two of their number uttering words which they could make the vehicle of their own supplications. Yet we wonder if the prisoners derived more than half the value of those words. T o accept that which is done for you is better than nothing; to do it for yourself is to get its full benefit. Paul and Silas were the only ones in that company who got the full value of the prayers and praises that went up to God. The moving picture, the phonograph, and the radio have inaugurated an age of mere spectatorship. W e turn the knob, and "listen in." Like the cow-bird who lays her eggs in a nest that some other bird has built, we express our spirit's reactions in forms that some one else supplies. W e do not declare ourselves;, we merely ratify what some one else declares. This is better than nothing. But must we live in this colorless fashion; by acquiescence, by ratification, by mute consent? Paul would have a word to say: a poor song sung yourself is better than a good song that you only listen to. Sing your own songs; make your own prayers; drive your own firsthand traffic with God, and Man, and Life, and Opportunity, and the great wonder-land of Experience.

THE REMOTE

OBJECTIVE

87

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; till ive all come unto a perfect mm. EPHESIANS 4, U , 13. PAUL is obliged to recognize the difference in human aptitudes. There are diversities of gifts, he may as well admit it. And owing to these diversities of gifts, men have to assume the tasks for which they are specially qualified. Specialization is a law of Nature. It is by a provision of God that some are apostles and some prophets, some carpenters and some sailors, some bankers and some doctors. W h y deny that law? But back of all these special tasks there is a remote objective that calls to everybody. It must not be forgotten: the perfect man; the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The dangers of specialization are familiar enough, and all too real. "Life consists in what a man is thinking about all day;" and if a man thinks of nothing but banking or carpentry all day, he runs the risk of turning into nothing but a banker or a carpenter. There is an escape from that danger: to give other thoughts their place in the day's thinking,—hobbies, Nature, friendships, books, music, history, current events, the mystery beyond; to remember the remote objective, that well-rounded, well-proportioned wholeness of personality waiting in the shadowy back-ground for us to realize; that perfect man whom we all can be, and who is the triumph of Christ in us.

88

PUT A PURPOSE INTO LIFE I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart. PSALM 40, 10.

E is gone; the children are grown up and married; they no longer need me; in fact I am just an added burden to them; there is nothing to live for; I wish I might go; at least I should be with him again." It is the natural plaint of the bereft; but it is made by many others. Even those in the prime of life, busily engaged, and surrounded by their beloved, often make such a complaint. For a thoughtful person, to look up for a moment from the immediate preoccupation is to see nothing but futility in life; no chance to* serve; no demand for what we have to offer. Plenty of us know that this sense of life's futility is right there in the back-ground of thought ready to engulf us like a bitter winter night the moment the camp-fire of immediate interests dies down. So we feed the fire, and keep our eyes fastened on its cheering blaze. For all such the Psalmist speaks a word of comfort. Service does not always consist in action. T o live in such ways that God's righteousness is not hid within the heart, but is evident to all, is to serve. T o give the world a visible instance of quiet trust and serenity, of uprightness and daily cheer will do more than to build a bridge or move a mountain. In itself, life is neither futile nor purposeful; it is potential. It awaits our decision; futile so long as we leave it so; purposeful as soon as we put a purpose into it.

H

A N EVER-PRESENT G O D

89

Lord, show us the Father, and it sufjiceth us.

JOHN 14, 8.

what did Philip mean? "Master, seeing is believing; let us see the Father, and it will convince us of his reality." Such a demand is' unreasonable, almost flippant. W e hope Philip meant something different. "Master, merely assure us of God's existence; that is all we ask." In that sense, Philip's question states the commonest and most reasonable demand in human hearts. Is there a God? Is life rational? Has life a meaning? Is there intelligence at the heart of things? That is the only assurance we ask. Never mind his nature and purpose; we will take those on trust. Never mind his method and will; we will find those out for ourselves. Never mind his sympathy and support; we can bear our burdens unaided if we must. "Lord, only show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Christ's answer was instantly at hand. "You may have that assurance, Philip, if you but look at me. There is that in me which is more than human, more than earthly, more than can be explained by the world's logic and necessity." So often we ask Philip's question, but omit to read the answer; and the answer is as valid now as then. Only try to explain what we see every day, not only in Christ, but in the world, in human history, in friends and neighbors, in ourselves, and we discover how ever-present is God. The angels keep their ancient places; Turn but a stone, and start a wing. 'Tis we, 'tis our estranged faces That miss the many-splendored thing. JUST

A G O O D MAN'S SIN

1 said in my haste, all men are liars. PSALM II6, II.

HASTY judgments are nothing new, but they seem not to be diminishing. In them we find one of our besetting sins, a sin of which many are guilty who profess the purest motives. Strange to say, the more a man wants to reform the world the more likely he is to commit this sin,—attribute selfishness and greed and unscrupulous practice to those who are really innocent, and who only need to be understood in order to be honored and approved. It is a very prevalent "good man's sin." It does more harm than many a "bad man's sin," because it creates factitious divisions, awakens natural resentments, and splits up our whole into mutually antipathetic fragments. We have too many Don Quixotes today, tilting at monsters which are only windmills, and slaughtering devils who are only sheep. Virtue is indispensable, but virtue cannot reform the world alone; it needs the help of common sense and a little ordinary sympathy to show it that its fancied enemies are, nine times out of ten, ordinary men and women as good as any body else, who are doing their best to grapple with peculiar conditions and to overcome unsuspected handicaps. Two things are sorely needed: first, a League for the Better Understanding of One Another; second, to belong to it ourselves.

IN THEIR HEAVENLY LIVERY

9*

Mercy and Truth shall go before thy face. PSALM 89,

14.

HE words suggest a picture: the king is on a royal progress through his city, attended by his retinue. Heralds, pursuivants, courtiers precede him to warn the populace of his approach, and, by the splendor of their apparel, to prepare them for the glory of his royal presence. Thus does the Psalmist think of God, in his state and splendor, preceded by his courtiers, conspicuous among whom are Mercy and Truth. These by their livery and office give notice that God is near. An entire pageant is suggested by the words: Mercy and Truth shall go before thy face. To most of us religion offers an insurmountable obstacle; it speaks of God, his glory and power, and of the necessity of our knowing him; but, except for the very few favored ones who possess the mystic's insight, it leaves us crying out with Job: "O, that I knew where I might find him!" We need the sun; we see by his light, and live by his warmth, and rejoice in his radiance. But we never see him; we are unable to look at him. We can only know he is there by the light he sheds upon our lives. We may not look upon God; we can only know he is at hand because his courtiers, Mercy and Truth, in their heavenly livery, go before his face, and announce to us his presence, and give us their hint of his splendor and majesty.

T

HIS

HAPPINESS

That I may know him.

PHILIPPIANS 3, 1 0 .

PAUL specifies what he would know: the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings. Had Paul condescended to know the less important sides of Christ's nature he would have found immeasureable profit. This Lenten season invites us to know Christ intimately, in the little things that helped to make up his personality. Often it is these little things in their total rather than the one or two outstanding things that make us love a man and want his friendship. Any attempt to know Christ must reveal at once his happiness, constant, deep-seated, indestructible. W e call him Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Yes; but his sorrows were incidental, and grief was a passing acquaintance. His spirit's companion was happiness. W e need not depend on a few allusions to his joy for this conclusion; it is evident in his words and actions. There was no friction between duty and inclination. His work was his hobby; he was doing what he wanted to do. And he was spared the pain of loneliness. True, few could understand him, but he was surrounded by eager and grateful multitudes who wanted to understand, and gave him that sense of worthwhileness which is one of the secrets of happiness. Furthermore, he was no stranger to privation; the wolf was never far from the door. But his trust stifled all these anxieties, and spread its mantle of serenity over his spirit. In that serenity he passed all his days and nights.

T H E NECESSARY

CORE

In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. 2 TIM. 2, 25.

SUCH people were Paul's greatest problem; ready for instruction, but themselves resisting the instruction they craved. They opposed themselves. They are so intellectually fastidious that they can never choose. They perch forever on the fence of indecision. They make us ask: Are there such things as truth, religion, wisdom, in themselves? Are these properties adverbial rather than absolute? true, religious, or wise ways of doing something precedent to them all? And is not that something precedent which proposes to use truth, religion, or wisdom, the first requisite? African natives cannot gather rubber without a stick on which the gum can adhere. First of all, a purpose, an intention, a life-push within ourselves; then truth can adhere to that purpose and enlighten it; religion can volunteer for that intention and inspire it; wisdom can coagulate upon that life-push and guide it. An objective to serve as a core is the first need. Without such a core we oppose ourselves. If a man should ask us the unfinished question, How will you? we should retort, How will I what? Just that "what" is the first requisite: life's purpose and ambition. It is useless gathering the "hows' unless we have the "what". But with the "what" in hand, the "hows" come rushing to aid; truth, religion, wisdom, faith, knowledge; eager servants, to guide and glorify our lives.

THE HABIT OF PRAYER Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. PSALM 17, I .

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prayer should be like that of course. But by thus qualifying this prayer the Psalmist implies that some prayers do go out of feigned lips. They are the prayers of habit; perfunctory, customary. Have such prayers any value? Habits are as possible for souls as they are for minds and bodies, and serve souls the same way: by supplying an unstudied, automatic reaction in those moments of exigency when the premeditated response is impossible. In "The Tale of Two Cities" there is the old doctor imprisoned for years in the Bastille, and throughout those years of mental darkness finding his only solace in working at a cobbler's bench. When the mob storms the Bastille, he is freed and returned to his dear ones, and light and sanity return, and the cobbler's bench is laid aside. But the habit is never forgotten; and when all his efforts to save his hero from the guillotine are unavailing, and despair settles down upon his spirit again, the old habit gathers him in. For in that moment of mental darkness he turns again to the cobbler's bench seeking the old solace. Even the prayer of feigned lips can form a habit of prayerfulness. When the mental darkness comes, and the moment of exigency benumbs our spiritual faculties, there is the habit of prayer waiting for us, to supply us instinctively with its mood of dependence and supplication, its patience and trust. VERY

INEXHAUSTIBLE OBSTACLES

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My grace is sufficient unto thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 COR. 12, 9. PAUL was feeling pinched by his physical infirmity, and prayed God to cure him. This is the answer he got: It is enough that you have my favor, for only where there is weakness is perfect strength developed. The man who is all strength is not really strong. Only the man who has a weakness can be really strong. Only the man who overcomes his cowardice is really brave. Only the man who controls his temptations is really upright. And only the man who conquers his brutality is really gentle. A real virtue always presupposes its corresponding vice, and consists in overcoming it. And so there takes place that process of spiritual granulation which w e call character. But for his infirmity, Paul would have been less of a man than he was. N o one finds it easy to be grateful for these infirmities, ailments, weaknesses, handicaps, and obstacles. But these obstacles are really our opportunities. In overcoming them character is built. And we must believe thaX character has an eternal purport of its own. T o be sure, the whole trend of modern civilization seems to be based upon a fallacy, which bids us remove the obstacles from our path instead of conquer them. W e are trying our best to exhaust our obstacles; but, thank heaven, the supply is inexhaustible. And so long as they last, the highest aim in life, character, is still possible of achievement.

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T H E W O R S T VANDALISM

The wreathen work and pomegranates.

2 KINGS 25, 17.

THE Chronicler can hardly believe his own words. The Babylonians had besieged and captured Jerusalem, thrown down the wall and destroyed the great men's palaces. Not content with that, they had desolated the temple, looted its treasure, and smashed to bits its brazen pillars with their capitals of wreathen work and pomegranates. The pity of it! Pure, harmless beauty wilfully destroyed. The Chronicler is restrained and impersonal, as a broken-hearted man is apt to be. But he cannot wholly disguise his feelings. Even the wreathen work and pomegranates. The words have a cadence of piofound grief. It was not their intrinsic worth; that could be replaced. But the love, the pains, the reverence, the joy, the self-consecration that had gone into their fashioning, and had given them their intangible spiritual value—to think that anyone could be so brutal as to destroy such things! It is such things—they are not commodities: the philosopher calls them "values"—that enrich and beautify life. A mechanistic age disdained them and questioned their worth. But we are working out of the mechanistic age, beginning again to see the importance and reality of those values; that they are not mere sentiments but facts, as real as steel or granite; that without them life is barren and desolate; that to destroy a beauty, to kill a noble idea, to desecrate a holy sentiment or memory or hope or resolve is to commit the worst vandalism.

COUNTERFEIT FAITH The Lord is my light and my salvation. PSALM 2 7 , 1 .

HEN we say that we believe the sun will rise tomorrow, w e are exercising only a false faith. It is based on experience. It is a reasonable expectation encouraged b y the fact that the sun has never y e t missed a single day. In our religious thought w e are using almost exclusively that counterfeit faith. It is not the best guide,—hesitant and timid, taking each cautious step with constant backward looks to make sure it still has the support and encouragement of experience, and never venturing beyond the reach of the known and knowable. Such a faith is not religious; it is merely a concentration of the probabilities and implications of a rationalized experience. There is a something that is religion, and nothing else. There is such a thing as a pure religious faith, although w e seem to have forgotten it. Credo quia impossibile est. It operates beyond the pale of experience. It has no dealings with the probabilities or possibilities of the stream of events. It laughs at the pompous condescensions of logic. It scorns the encouragements of observation. It calmly says, I never saw God; never fathomed his purpose; never understood his method. I never shall. But the only thing that can explain human life must be something bigger than human life. T h e only thing that can create and sustain human thought must be something beyond human thought. Therefore the Lord is my light and my salvation; the Lord is the strength of my life.

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T H E SUPREME T E S T So they came and stood before the king. DANIEL 2, 2 .

IT WAS their supreme test. They were court astrologers, and the king had a dream to be interpreted. Should they fail they would be ruined. Their lives were at stake. In a form less picturesque but just as real, such moments come to us; when we are hailed before the austere face of Reality, and bidden to validate our claims to wisdom or goodness or strength or courage. Plenty of people evade these uncomfortable moments by the simple expedient of never making any claims; opportunists, mousemen, who never come out in the open but scurry through the chinks and shadows of life, adapting themselves to every turn of Fortune, and remaining by preference forgotten men. They are never asked to make good, because they see to it that there shall never be any good to make. Doubtless such people have a function, though it is hard to see what it is. But thank Heaven, there is another class, one to which every true spirit wants to belong; dauntless men, who, when the supreme test comes, when they stand before the king are ready with their courage and ability. The future is in their hands. Blessed are the responsible, who know what they know, who are what they claim, who do what they promise, who dare to take sides, who are ready to hazard all in Freedom's fight;. for they are the material of which great living is made, and on their sturdiness of character shall be founded our kingdom of Justice and Right.

A T A L E OF MANY CHAPTERS

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A little 'while and ye behold me no more; and again a little while and ye shall see me. JOHN 16, 16.

THE Interrupted Fern has curious gaps in its fronds, as though a child had pulled out two or three, then left five or six in a row, then pulled out two or three more. It is a true symbol of our experience. Our having is interrupted by periods of losing. Christ promised his disciples that the final estate in their tale of friendship would be a permanent period of having; again a little while and ye shall see me; the interruptions would be outlived, perhaps not in this life, but who cares whether in this or the next? Christ's conception of life was far too big to be crowded into an earthly pattern. Every time he speaks of life his words look beyond earth and suggest glimpses of a future, a region beyond our mortal pale. T o look at life narrowly, as limited by earth, is to find it crupl and tragic. Its interruptions are final; its hopes are never realized. T o look at life after Christ's fashion, broadly and trustfully, a tale of many chapters, a mystery that vastly exceeds all we can know now and here, is to brush aside its interruptions and rejoice in its completions. Again a little while and ye shall see me. Courage is necessary to survive those little whiles of emptiness and loss; but beyond them are the periods of having, to reward our faith and to vindicate our brave patience.

FAIL HOPEFULLY It doth not yet appear what we shall be. I JOHN 3, 2.

HE Christians of the Apostolic Age were distinguished by a great hope: the future was bright with blessings for them and the world. This hope was peculiar to them, and made them conspicuous. Ten minutes' talk with a stranger, in those days, would reveal whether he was a Christian or not. If he was quiet, resigned, sophisticated, even cynical, if he talked like a man who was resolved to make the best of conditions which were never going to improve, then he was not a Christian. If he showed a suppressed excitement, and hinted confidently of better things to come, and smiled and nodded with an air of perfect assurance, then he was probably a Christian. T w o thousand years of hope deferred could make the stoutest heart sick, if we let it. But remembering that every bridge has its approaches, every mountain its foothills, and every achievement its long ancestry of experiment and failure, we can face the new year with as jubilant a spirit as they. W e may not scale the mountain, but we shall draw nearer to it; and that is all we can ask. The secret of splendid living in an imperfect world is the ability to fail hopefully. W e are not yet ready for God's victory; there are many foot-hills still to climb. But there is the future, each year a little nearer and a little brighter. Thank, God for that, and go on.

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GOODNESS A N D STUPIDITY

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Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven. MATT. 5, 20. THE words remind us of Hamlet: "How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!" Was Christ also bored? It would be no wonder. Life to him was so rich in opportunities, with so mapy ways to serve God, to enjoy his invitation, to meet the challenge, to face the dangers, to outwit the temptations. And the men about him were so unimaginative, so stereotyped in their reactions to every situation, slogging along in the old, conventional ways, no spontaneity, no originality, no surprise, the same old weary, stale, flat, unprofitable technique. The most conspicuous example of this technique is found in our international relations. It goes something like this: war; an impossible treaty; resentment and wounded pride; the treaty abrogated; danger of another war; the problem of keeping peace turned over to that seething cauldron of intellectual fertility, the military mind; troops massed on the border; naval parades; the challenge accepted; another war,—and the same dismal routine all over again? Do we get anywhere? Is there no better way to meet situations and resolve difficulties? Are ingenuity, originality, imagination confined to the powers of darkness? Must the good man be stupid? Truly, except our righteousness shall exceed this sort of stuff we shall in no case enter our kingdom of heaven.

A PRIVATE MATTER By what means he now seeth, we know not. JOHN 9 , 2 1 .

IN their desire to discredit the miracle, the Jews raised the question, Was the man really blind? They asked his parents: Is this your son? Was he blind? How doth he now see? The parents could vouch for the first two points; but, "by what means he now seeth, we know not." That was the young man's secret. In the religious process, there is one spot which is forever private property. It is personal, and intimate, and secret. Our dearest friend cannot share it with us. Throughout much of its extent, religion is a community affair; a social institution; a common accretion of thoughts, beliefs, customs, and sanctions gradually built up "by the faithful keeping of good men and women" through generations of usage. This part of religion we can inherit, as we inherit our accumulations of learning, or our political theory. But this inheritance is only the outer shell, still to be inhabited by the living quickening germ of the whole wondrous phenomenon. That living germ can neither be inherited nor transmitted; it can neither be shared with others, nor destroyed by others. It is sacred and private, the spot where each soul stands alone "in the secret place of the Most High." Others can vouch for our religious forms and nurturings; but, "by what means he now seeth, we know not." Nobody knows, except the soul and God. But once that sight comes, the whole aspect of life is transformed.

NEARER TO JERUSALEM He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying to-ward Jerusalem. LUKE 13, 22.

F all the Gospels, Luke has the clearest perception of the dramatic values in Christ's life. This sentence is an ideal Palm Sunday text. The ostensible reason for his going through the cities and villages is given in the first participle: "teaching." Luke knows perfectly well that the real reason was his desire to get to Jerusalem, where he must consummate his Messiahship by his death. So Luke adds his second participle, like an ominous aside: "journeying toward Jerusalem." His immediate activities were only incidental; things that he could do on the way. They all led up to a greater purpose, the real purpose in the back-ground, journeying toward Jerusalem. How well-ordered, coherent, self-integrated his life was! Nothing interfered with his main purpose. His daily acts of service were incidental to his great service; and his immediate opportunities were steps that led straight on to the fulfillment of his great opportunity. So many of our immediate acts are obstacles to the sureme purpose of our lives. It is a rather subtle example e gives us: to order our lives in such a way that each day's immediate choice and achievement shall fall directly in line with the remote ideal; and we shall go through the daily occasions and opportunities of our lives, teaching, laboring, helping, laughing, enjoying, but all the time journeying steadily on toward our Jerusalem of manhood and womanhood fulfilled.

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GOD'S

TURN

He did eat and drink, and laid him down again. I KINGS 19, 6. IT had been a strenuous time for Elijah. His loyally to Jehovah had never wavered. But Jehovah's service had been exhausting; and here he is at the end of his tether, under a juniper, fast asleep. Once he was awakened for f6od; and he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. T h e Angel of the Lord was reasonable and merciful; as much as to say, M y prophet Elijah needs a. rest. He has worked hard against heavy odds. H e is wearied, heartsick, discouraged, desperate. H e is in an angry mood, and needs a little discipline. But that can come later. He is a good prophet, and a faithful servant. I will feed him and let him sleep, for it is now m y turn to cherish him, and revive his spirit. There are just such rare moments in our frantic lives, when God seems to take the initiative and says to us: M y servant, the work has been hard; the strength is almost spent. Frail Nature can no more. I understand. Let the mantle of my Providence enfold you. Let the might of my Majesty flood into your scanty shores. For this brief season of refreshment, lay aside the yoke and the burden. Y o u are a good and faithful servant. N o w let me take care of you for a while. Eat, and drink, and lay you down in peace, and sleep.

T H E DIVINE COMPULSION Thou art of purer eyes than to behold the evil. HAB. I, 13. GOD is not constantly on the watch for human evils. His nature is not suspicious. He assumes that his children are just and righteous and honorable. W e find it much easier to be decent because God assumes that we are, than we would if God were watchful and suspicious and assumed we were just the opposite of decent. It is a temptation to be what we are expected to be. In our human relationships such an assumption has an element of danger, since the occasional unscrupulous man is ready to take advantage of it. Yet we must fight against this increasing suspicion in human relationships. W e are growing more mistrustful of our fellowmen. There may be grounds for it; but it is well to remember that, as a rule, people are decent and just and honorable. Any newspaperman will tell us there is no news value in decency; the news value lies in sin and fraud and crime, because they are the exceptions to the rule. Our whole social structure rests upon that rule: that people are decent and reliable. T o suspect evil in others is to encourage it. As usual, God sets us a good example, though it takes courage to follow it. T o be of purer eyes than to behold the evil, to assume that people are decent, is to put them under the divine compulsion which says to us, You cannot help being decent and honorable, just because God assumes that you are.

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THE MAN AND HIS TIDINGS He is a good man, and cometh with good tidings. z SAM. 18, 27.

ING David argued that the goodness of the messenger must indicate the goodness of the tidings he bore. That association of ideas is common. N o t the hawk, but the dove bears the olive branch of peace. T h e Narragansetts' challenge to the Pilgrims was a handful of arrows, not in a wampum belt, but in a rattlesnake skin. Although poor David was disappointed, w e still feel that his argument was sound. The good man may tell us unwelcome news, but in a larger sense he is in himself good tidings. Good men: there are millions of them but we need more; men of solid integrity, thoughtful, magnanimous, far-seeing, reliable, just to look upon whom is a reassurance that our future is in competent hands; that problems will be seen, not as they bear on personal advantage, but upon the advantage of all; that issues will be judged, not in the light of "myself, now" but in the light of "my country, in the future." Such men are always necessary, but never so necessary as now. Restful thoughts are scarce these days, as we all know, and even when they come we greet them with a sense of guilt. But more restful than any thought is the sight of a good man, a substantial citizen, a big-minded voter, the kind of man who makes democracies possible, and robs the future of its terrors. Such a man is his own good tidings.

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T H E BELIEVING M A N

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Ye believe in God, believe also in me. JOHN 14, 1.

WE detect in Christ a greater desire to find qualities in men, than the concrete exercise of those qualities. This is quite in line with Christ's way of going to the bottom of things. One cannot very well ask for something definite unless he is first an asking kind of man, nor give thanks for something definite, nor forgive something definite, unless he is first a grateful and forgiving kind of man. The quality is the first thing to cultivate. In this case Christ recognizes a quality present in all men—trust. On that universal he builds his particular. Ye believe in God: that is axiomatic. You are believing creatures. Let the quality have free play; believe also in me. He might say the same to us. Ye believe in yourselves. You have the quality. Exercise it, lest it die. Believe also in your fellow men, in me, in God. You are not the only object worthy of that quality of trust. In fact, the man who begins by believing in anything, himself, or democracy, or tomorrow's sunrise, finds a path opened before him that he cannot avoid, and that carries him straight on to Him who is Alpha and Omega. One grain of faith as big as a mustard seed will spread and grow by the law of its own logic, until it does the work of the soul's reassurance.

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MORAL SELF-CONFIDENCE The people is greater and taller than we. DEUT. I ,

28.

THE report of the spies was discouraging. As they looked ahead, it seemed wholly impossible that they could conquer such people and possess their land. Yet a few months later, with the task right at hand, that is just what they did. At Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, Beth-horon, the people who were greater and taller than they were put to night, their rulers captured, and their cities taken. The task which seemed hopeless in anticipation becomes possible in actuality. Had we known, in 1940, what we should have to do and bear and suffer, we would have said it was impossible. The restrictions and self-denials, the bodily discomforts, the incredible cost, most of all the burden of anxiety concerning our young men at the front,—why argue: we simply could not survive such an ordeal. T o day our worst anticipations are surpassed; yet somehow the sun rises and sets, day follows day, we go about the day's duties, not easily to be sure, but bravely, victoriously, and with untold fortitude still in reserve. W e surprise ourselves. What is more to the point, we upset all calculations. There is nothing to equal the resilience of the human spirit. Our real enemy is neither bomb, tank, nor torpedo, but the insidious forces of peace-time which corrode that resilience and destroy that spiritual fibre. That test is yet ahead of us; and our task is to carry over into the dangers of the coming peace the self-knowledge and moral self-confidence we are discovering in ourselves now.

FOR A SMALL MOMENT

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For a small moment have 1 forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. ISAIAH 54, 7 .

tell us that the common-place has no news value; only the exceptional. The result is that the daily paper can give a false impression of a community's experience. This habit of judging the whole by the exceptional has spread into all our thinking, even into our religion. A calamity befalls our world; at once we say, "Where is God that such a thing could happen? Surely there is no God." W e are quick to punish God for the slightest apparent lapse of attention. W e make a great deal of the small moments, and wholly forget the unpublicized great mercies. It is even worse than that: we forget that there is ample reason for the small moments. This world is a morally rational place. W e are not forsaken unless there is cause. Wars do not come of God's negligence, but of man's ignorance and greed and injustice. Because God is in the world, and because his laws of right and justice rule the world, we have wars. Such wars are correctives. A hundred years hence the historian will say, During the first half of the twentieth century mankind had to take time out to correct certain accumulated wrongs in its way of living. But it was a small moment in the record of great mercies which have been the prevailing rule throughout human life; and it was needed in order to make those great mercies again possible.

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OURNALISTS

MORE THAN MAN Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is an holy God.

JOSH. 24, 1 9 .

urges his people to commit themselves to Jehovah. Just as they are about to make the promise, he suddenly declares, "Ye cannot serve the Lord: he is too holy." It is a curious inconsistency; urging them in one breath to do the very thing that, in the next breath, he tells them they cannot do. We are reminded of a line in one of Chesterton's Christmas poems: "The things that cannot be, and that are." What strange guiding have we here? The things we cannot do, and must; the things that cannot be, and that are? Reason based on experience outlines what we can do, what we can know. Faith leaps far ahead and beckons us to things beyond reason's cautious limits, both to do and to believe. If we followed reason we should go right but never get far or do much. It is just because our souls, tutored by faith, are reckless enough to bite off more than we can chew that we clothe our fate in raiment of hope and promise. The entire glory of life lies in the courage with which we embrace these inconsistencies; to believe that which is beyond knowledge, to attempt that which is beyond ability. The unpardonable sin is to repudiate that guidance of faith and surrender to reason. The supreme act of manhood is to trust the unreasonable something in us which is More-than-Man, and follow its guidance into the glories that eye hath not seen nor ear heard. JOSHUA

EXPERIMENTAL DISCIPLESHIP

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Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost? l u k e 14, 28.

enterprises demand foresight, and are not to be undertaken unless we are sure we can finish. Discipleship to Christ is no exception. The cost is great. Whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple. Before undertaking that discipleship, make sure that you can meet the cost. The words sound as if spoken towards the end of his life. During the last months a noticeable change came over Christ, both in thought and manner. His approaching end had a sharpening eifect upon him. His face wears more often an expression of sternness, and a certain acridity appears in his words. W e detect it in this particular sentence, as though he said, It is no simple matter to follow me. It requires more than you think; perhaps all you have, as in my own case. Don't begin unless you know you can finish. Many of us are experimental in our discipleship; rather anxious to try it for a while, to see how it feels. W e can give it up at any time. And why not? W h y not walk with him a little way at least, until it begins to rain? W e do not injure Christ by this dilletante discipleship; and while it lasts Christ may really do us some good; who knows? T o be sure, who knows? All we know is that the cause of Christ just now calls for Christlike followers. He gave all; his cause demands of us the same completeness of loyalty, the same entire selfcommitment. Life's

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THE GLITTERING PLAIN Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. I COR. II, I.

AUL truly remarks that there are diversities of gifts; we are unequally equipped. Some of us are more practical and less meditative than others; some more artistic and less matter-of-fact. In some people the capacity for action is highly developed, while thp mystical capacity lies embryonic. Paul has such people in mind when he writes these words. Y o u are anxious to follow an invisible Christ, and put his spirit into operation in this world; but you are unable to apprehend that spirit of Christ for yourselves, at first hand. V e r y well; the gift which has been denied to you is richly present in me. Let me be your spiritual eyes and understanding. I am a follower of Christ in my own right. I cherish my immediate mystical awareness of his presence, his grace, his spirit. Be ye followers of me, and I will lead you unerringly into the region of Christlikeness. Much of our spiritual sterility arises from a reluctance to be religious by proxy. But are we consistent? W e follow Beethoven's guidance, and Raphael's guidance, and Plato's guidance into otherwise inaccessible regions of music and beauty and thought. W h y can we not do the same in worship and faith? There are diversities of i gifts. And for many of us the Glittering Plain of discipleship and prayer is available only as we follow those ' whose gifts enable them to explore that domain and open it up to our habitation.

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BECAUSE WE WANT TO

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Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. MATT. 5, 20.

I N his letter to the Romans, Paul condemns the righteousness which is of the law, and recommends the righteousness which is of faith. He has caught just the. meaning of Christ's words: unless you can exceed the grudging, legalistic righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and give instead the unstinted, intelligent righteousness of co-operative sympathy, your chance of heaven is not much better than theirs. Christ wanted to see in others more of that beautiful commodity which he so abundantly possessed,—the grace of spontaneity. Don't serve God because you must, but because you want to. He is your God; the ruler of your life; the director of your destiny; the guardian of your interests. Think of yourself as his son; a co-proprietor with him in this enterprise of life. Let that thought inspire your service. W e might begin with patriotism instead of righteousness. Except your patriotism exceed the patriotism which asks, What is there in this for me? How much can I get out of it? How little must I give to it? it does not amount to much. This is your country; you help to make its laws, and set its taxes; you have a stake in its welfare, and a share in its destiny. Let your patriotism be generous and spontaneous. That is only the first step in understanding Christ. When we transfer this eager, spontaneous, co-operative spirit from patriotism to religion, from country to God, we see at once what Christ meant, and how right he is.

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A L O O K OF E X P E C T A N C Y And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. LUKE 22, 61.

PALM SUNDAY commemorates Christ's entry into Jerusalem. T o ask what there is noteworthy about that action is to confess ignorance of the circumstances in which the significance of the action is concealed. T o enter Jerusalem as the avowed Messiah of the nation might have been a safe thing for some to do, but for him it was fatal, as he very well knew. He would be called an impostor and put to death. But there is something more in the action than courage to run that risk. T o know that God meant him to be the Messiah, to know that he would be despised and rejected by the rulers of the nation, and still to journey steadfastly to Jerusalem, with its waiting trial and rejection and death, is to set a standard of fidelity before all his followers for all the years to come. Christ has looked at us many times during the year, and in many ways; sometimes with affection; sometimes with reproach; sometimes with compassion; sometimes—more often than we think—with amusement. Beginning on Palm Sunday he looks at us with expectation. W e may wince and turn away, change the subject, put him out of our minds. It is of no avail. The look never changes. It is fixed and patient. It seems to hover between hope and disappointment. It is haunting, almost unbearable. Every new Palm Sunday renews it, and will renew it, until we answer it by our fidelity to the Voice that speaks in our hearts.

G O O D BRICKS

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And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. EXODUS 4, 3.

t was his own staff. As soon as it got out of hand it turned into something deadly. It symbolizes some power or passion or appetite in each of us that is good and useful so long as it is kept in hand. Once it gets out of hand, beware. In these days, when the pieces on life's chess board have grown too heavy for any one man to move, and individuals are replaced by organizations, we are constantly reminded of the virtue of loyalty. W e are told that we must be loyal to our organization, for unless its integrity is preserved its efficiency will vanish. This talk has grown so noisy that we forget another holier loyalty,—to ourselves. The self is an organization of many parts, all fitly joined together, each part supplying something necessary to the whole. The self has an integrity to be preserved, a group of constituent members to be kept in hand and organized unto the single supreme purpose of manhood. If the claim of the larger organism so preoccupies us that we forget the claim of the private self, and allow the parts of self to get out of hand and turn into something deadly, what have we gained? It is another form of Christ's question, at which the world has winced for nineteen centuries: What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? If we would build a good wall, we must first make sure that the bricks are good.

I

NÒ

A KINDLY MYSTERY

They departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy. MATT. 28, 8. WE should have felt the fear, for we always do when facing the incomprehensible. Experience has taught us to fear what we cannot understand, suspect what we cannot control, distrust every mystery. W e argue that our only safety is in strength to overcome the forces about us, or in wisdom to manage them. That argument from fear rules our life. W e need superior armaments; we need union for its strength; and knowledge for its power. With our mother's milk we have absorbed that grim doctrine: be afraid of what you cannot overcome; never trust what you do not understand; death is terrible because you cannot avert it; eternity is appalling because you cannot fathom its intentions; there is nothing in heaven or earth you can trust; nothing exempt from your suspicion; nothing that wishes you well for your own sake. Easter comes with a message that falls at right angles to our habit of thought. It tells us that just because death is a mystery we need not tremble; we need not fight for the right to live against a jealous God, for God wants us to live. Learn a lesson from the women: we understand their fear; understand also their great joy. There is such a thing as a kindly mystery. In the embrace of that mystery we are safe,—our friends and dear ones, our hopes and longings, our broker purposes, unfinished tasks, unanswered questions,—all safe with Him. W e cannot understand; but we can trust, and rejoice.

T O O

G O O D

T O

E X P E C T

For brass I will bring gold, and for iron 1 will bring silver, for wood brass, and for stones iron. ISAIAH 60, 1 7 . speaks through his prophet and tells us some things about his nature which we find hard to believe. He is a great deal more generous than we think. In forming our concept of him our mistake is not "in coming above, but in falling below" the reality. W e do not expect too much of him, but too little. Inevitably, w e judge him by our own standards; for two reasons: they are the only standards we have; and only as we judge him by our standards can we ever hope to form the vaguest idea of him. But to judge him by our standards is to live in constant surprise. W e find him so much holier, more loving and generous than we had expected. W e ask all w e dare, and hope all we dare, and then find that he beggars our most extravagant requests. For wood brass, and for stones iron. JEHOVAH

Most of us approach Easter with timidity. W e would like to accept its hope, but we do not dare. W e simply cannot see how such a hope can ever be fulfilled; it JS too good to be true. Some of us are even teaching ourselves not to want its gift; in which case probably w e will not be troubled. But where the hesitation arises from timidity, that is pathetic enough to make angels weep. Alas for the sophistications of this world. W e fear to accept the hope because it is something too good for G o d to give us!

n8

THE FORGIVING HABIT Until seventy times seven.

MATT. 18, 22.

ETER suggested that to forgive his brother seven times was generous. Peter thought of forgiveness as a policy: always worth trying; might work; could be discarded if it failed after reasonable trial. Christ's answer was a rebuke too profound in its implications for Peter to grasp. A policy is an experiment; its validation depends on its success. His answer to Peter implies that Christ looked upon forgiveness, not as a policy to be validated, but as a principle to be followed for its own sake, and quite regardless of its validation. "Peter, never count your forgivenesses. Keep right on forgiving till you have lost count. Make it your habit. Let it be one of your life-principles." Policy is the instrument of the opportunist. He uses it, like a man caught in a traffic jam, to find some way out of his tangles. Of course we are all opportunists part of the time, especially in war time. How could we live without substitutes, devices, expedients—all policies, and all necessary? Meanwhile, are we forgetting our principles;. those basic convictions of eternal right and justice and truth which never depend on the world's corroboration, but which the world has got to accept if it wants to continue? Do we ever think what a stupendous ultimatum the Cross proclaims to the world? Either you will corroborate my principles, or we will fight it out along this line until you do.

P

SIGNS F O L L O W I N G

Confirming the word with signs following. MARK 16, 20.

THE apostles scattered at once to preach Christ, his life, teachings, death, and resurrection. Their Lord helped them in a most effective way. As they preached the word, he furnished the visible confirmation. If they prophesied punishment, he supplied the punishment. If they promised reward, he produced the actual reward. If they prayed for a cure, the cure came. They could say nothing vain or extravagant. Every prediction they made, he fulfilled; and every threat, he substantiated. He confirmed their words with signs following. It is no wonder that Christianity, under such preaching, became the world's leading religion. This sentence is from that part of Mark which was added later tofinishout the interrupted narrative; therefore it is not authentic. Yet it haunts the mind. In India the way to accredit a religion seems to be to kill off its opponents. So the Mohammedans try to kill the Hindus, and the Hindus the Mohammedans. We can hardly wonder that England hesitates to grant dominion status. In this war-temperature, the method appeals to us: to make our Way of Life safe by killing its opponents. That means a deal of killing and a dubious success at the end. There is only one real way: to confirm our word with signs; to be ourselves the visible specimens of our own professions; to stand before the world,—"Exhibit A. This is what a Christian is."

H E R F I N G E R O N H E R LIPS

It doth not yet appear what we shall be.

I JOHN 3, 2.

THAT was the mood of early Christianity—happy expectation. Into a life fettered to its present, with no prospect of further meaning, had come this voice of promise. It was like freeing a prisoner from jail. It filled every spirit with relief: " W e are living for some purpose; death is not our destiny; even now we are sons of God, but that is not all; there is something more, though it doth not yet appear what it shall be." The effect was magical; despair vanished; present burdens became trivial incidents; the entire mood changed from depression into what Principal Jacks has called the radiance of Christianity. The Eternal God was in charge, and those under his charge would have their place in his eternity. Never mind what it would be; the question was barely asked. Enough that there is something to justify the labor and frustration of the present. When Christianity loses that treasure of hope it cuts its life-nerve. And when Christian spirits seek to investigate the hope: how, where, when, in what form it is to be fulfilled, they simply torture themselves with needless questions. W e were not meant to know; even if we were told we could not comprehend. Easter comes to us with a gift of hope in her outstretched hand and a finger on her lips: do not ask; accept the gift; take courage; and thank God.

THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT

121

As many as touched were made perfectly whole.

MATT. 1 3 , 4 6 .

VEN his garments became impregnated with his healing power. The people had but to touch their hem, and a channel was opened through which that power flowed into them and they were made perfectly whole. It is a very old belief; we cannot wonder that it came alive in the case of Jesus of Nazareth. The psychologist explains it by his formulas of associated ideas and auto-suggestion. But we are not so interested in how the principle works as we are in the fact that it does work. Dates, places, objects all have a sacramental potency which we feel in greater or less degree. "John, for the last two weeks you .have been so kind and considerate, so gentle and patient with the children, that I can't help wondering what has come over you." And John replied, soberly, " M y watch is being repaired. Meanwhile I am wearing the old silver hunting-case that belonged to my father. Every time I look at it I can't help thinking of him." Every one of us has a store of little awakening memories, our equivalents to the hem of his garment. They remind us of some one we once admired; incidentally, they remind us of ourselves. True, we are pretty busy. Life is exacting. There is little room in. the day's routine for memories. But if we could make place for them in our daily thoughts, we might learn for ourselves what it means to touch the hem of his garment and be made perfectly whole.

E

B E T T E R KEEP SILENCE How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish •with hunger. LUKE. 15, 17. THOSE hired servants were better off than he. What was to prevent his approaching his father incognito, and applying for a job? Mate me as one of t h y hired servants. Then he could cherish in secret certain sentiments which he could no longer expect his father to .feel. He could remember with wistful pride that his employer was really his father; a barren privilege,, perhaps; but it was all that was left to him, and he cherished it. When he found that his father had .never forgotten it he was speechless. The last words w e hear from him are the words which his father impatiently interrupted: no longer worthy to be called thy son.. After that he is silent, swept off his feet by the torrent of his father's lovet By inference, God'« love f o r his earthly children is full of the same surprises; and the thought has its bearings. The world is full of Prodigal Sons, prodigal peo)le, prodigal nations. Dealing with them, there is the ove that will not let them go; full of surprises. Beware how we attempt, in our half-blind human ways, to act for God towards them. Better let God deal with them directly, in his own way. Our part is silence,—the silence of humble wonder. Sufficient unto us is that portion of the world's prodigality which belongs to us.

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HAPPIEST IN FAILURE

123

I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain. ISAIAH 4 9 , 4 .

THIS cry of dismay breaks from the prophet when he realizes that after a life of toil he lias nothing to show. The cry is common enough; and the sense of failure it indicates is a heavy cross for human spirits to bear. Curiously enough, there is a cross still heavier: the sense of success. A strange intuition warns us that every success we can win is but a way station on the journey, and that if we stop there we are nothing but disillusioned embittered Castaways. W e look at our success, whatever it may be, and think to ourselves: Is this it? the great objective? the end of all our hope and toil? What of it? what is it for? what comes next? And so Alexander weeps that there are no> more worlds to conquer. What a paradox is man! Forever seeking the victory for his labors, and forever disappointed when the victory comes. W e crave success, but we are happiest in failure, because failure means something still to be attempted. After all, what we most want is the feeling that we are engaged upon an enterprise that is going to succeed,— but -not yet! The genuine, completely satisfactory triumph must be something too big for us to win, and too stupendous to come now. The happiest life is the life of present failure in the service of the Ultimate Success. A? the prophet goes on to say: my judgment is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.

RELIGION IN GOOD H E A L T H The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind. ISAIAH 9 , 1 2 . OOR Israel seemed to be in a hard way. The words remind us of Paul writing to the Corinthians: "without were fightings, within were fears." Paul also was in a hard way. This is a familiar condition to us just now. Whether our solicitude is exercised over Democracy, or Religion, or World Peace, or the condition of the Church, or the relations between Capital and Labor, we see this menacing array of perils and. hostilities,—Syrians before, and Philistines behind; fightings without and fears within. We get very solemn at the prospect. Disaster seems to threaten on every side. The basic institutions of life are trembling in the balance. No one knows what calamity lurks right around the next corner, but every one is sure there is one lurking. Is it heresy, or thoughtlessness, or just the natural reactions of a something in the soul that refuses to be terrified? That something says, Let them fight; let them lurk, and menace, and rage. Religion is never so healthy as when it is on the brink of ruin. The institutions of life are basic only as they are true; and the necessity of maintaining their truth against all comers is the safest, soundest, healthiest, most secure position they can occupy. The right is never so solid as when surrounded by Syrians and Philistines who are going to overthrow it tomorrow. That particular tomorrow never comes. Tranquility is a poisonous atmosphere for truth; strife is the very breath of life in its nostrils.

GOD T H E G R E A T SUBSTITUTE

I2

5

He giveth power to the -faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. ISAIAH 40, 29.

SOME people claim that belief in God does more harm than good, because it discourages human effort and gives the believer an excuse for neglecting wrongs that need to be righted, and work that should be done. Since God is divinely wise, benevolent and powerful, why be disturbed over earthly conditions? In his good time he will bring all things to rights. Fret not thyself because of evil doers. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Cast thy burden on the* Lord. Tarry thou the Lord's leisure. It looks like a strong argument, and these people make the most of it. Man will never amount to anything until he rids himself of God thé Great Substitute, and learns to stand on his own feet, and attack his problems with his own wit and strength. As a matter of fact, it is the flimsiest, most pitiable argument that could be devisçd; only those who are blandly ignorant of what faith is could ever have devised it. For every one man whose energies are atrophied by faith, there are a thousand whose energies are awakened and redoubled by faith. For every slacker who casts his burden on the Lord, there are a thousand rankand-file heroes who would never have recognized iheir burdens at all but for the enlightenment of their faith in God; and who are bearing those burdens and doing those tasks with fortitude and fidelity because of the strength which their faith gives them.

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W I T H I N T H E H U M A N LIMITS If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. i CORIN. 15, 13.

WE can find our way through the Easter mystery more safely with Paul as our guide. He was as near to the event as any of our narrators, and his allusions may be taken to reflect the soberer opinion of the time. Paul makes it very plain that the resurrection of Christ was not a unique but a typical event. Its only significance to him is that it represents an experience possible to all. "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." "If there be no resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen." That is, Christ's resurrection was the outstanding instance of an experience that awaits everybody. Paul is not greatly concerned by the manner and the form: whether as body or as spirit, what difference does it make? W h y speculate? Time alone will tell. The important thing, and the comforting thing, is that even in his resurrection Christ did not step out of our human categories. On that point, Paul is insistent. Whatever it was, body or spirit, the form of flesh or the continuing spiritual influence, it was in God's scheme of nature; it was an experience not peculiar to one but standard for all. As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive. There was something in his resurrection that belongs to us all; and the only way to explain it is to see it, not in terms of the miraculous, but of the normal and the natural and the human.

ABLE TO RECOGNIZE Master, rebuke thy disciples,

127 LUKE

19, 39.

disciples were vociferously conducting Christ into Jerusalem, as God's anointed. To them it was a great moment, and called for celebration. T o the Pharisees, it was a common spectacle, just another local prophet surrounded by fanatic followers. "Master, rebuke thy disciples." Because they had grown accustomed to the sight, they argued that every such candidate for national recognition was mistaken. They had seen these "prophets" one by one dwindle in popularity, fizzle out, and disappear. God's anointed had not as yet been found among such. The chances that this particular claimant from Nazareth was the true anointed were too slender to consider. That was the great obstacle facing Christ: their blindness to the one true among the many false. "Hadst thou but known, even thou, the time of thy visitation!" The incredulity which experience had built up in them made them unable to recognize the one they were awaiting. How are we to guard against this common blindness? The pearl we are seeking often comes to us among many counterfeits, and is discarded with the rest. The time of our visitation looks and sounds just like the many false alarms. There is only one way to distinguish it: like forever seeks like; soul with soul hath kin. There must be the fragment of Christlikeness in us before we can recognize him who cometh in the name of the Lord. HESE

128

T H E WILL A N D T H E DEED

She hath done what she could, MARK 14, 8. CHRIST never asked: Is the achievement good in itself? He always asked: How does the achievement compare with the ability? We repeatedly turn to the Gospels with a sigh of relief, because we know that in them we shall find that unfailing justice which recognizes the difference in natural abilities, never asks great things from humble powers, and always commends the will instead of the deed, and the quality of devotion instead of the quality of achievement. By this standard of appraisal, the widow giving her two mites gave more than they all; and the servant with two talents was praised as the servant with five. Natural abilities are a happy accident for which no credit can be claimed. It is no credit to Helen that she was beautiful, nor to Samson that he was strong. Credit is reserved for the way Helen uses her beauty, and Samson his strength. And in neither of these two cases is there any credit earned. Both were among God's bad investments. But to live so that Christ can say, She hath done what she could; her fidelity-coefficient is up to one hundred per cent, is to know that however the world may sniff, the Heart of Divine Justice approves. He who made persons is no respecter of persons. He whose creative word can fashion a solar system needs no human achievement. He values only the will to adoring service.

T H E G A R D E N OF T H E UNFORGOTTEN

He went over the brook Cedrón, where •was a garden. JOHN 18, I. SIR FREDERICK TREVES, travelling across northern India, found a community which still honored the memory of a beloved local saint, four hundred years dead. With much difficulty he learned the location of the saint's resting place; and with more difficulty he made the journey to the spot. It was an arduous trip, across a singularly barren, desolate, repulsive tract, full of rocks and ruins and ugliness. Reaching his destination, he found an enclosure of perhaps two acres, scrupulously clean, orderly, and well-kept, with trees and flower borders, marble basins of water, cool shade and trim walks, and in the center a dainty little marble shrine in perfect repair. A worshipper was kneeling on the steps. There was an air of perfect peace and seclusion, which by contrast to the desolate surroundings, gave the spot a memorable significance. He calls it, "The Garden of the Unforgotten." The spirit of desolation is no respecter of persons. For one reason or another it visits every heart. It may depart after a time, or it may stay. It is especially active just now. But the Garden of the Unforgotten is a possibility, always, and for each one: its order and peace, its treasure of memories and possessions, its undying hopes and promises. W e all need such a garden. W e can all have it; and when the moment comes, retire thither if only for half a minute, and kneel on the pavement, and whisper the prayer of unforgetting gratitude and loyalty.

FAREWELL TO THE OLD Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing.

JOHN 2 1 , 3.

ISHING was his life-work; but there had come an inr terruption. A man named Jesus of Nazareth had broken into his field of attention, won his love, and led him into the brightest, happiest, most enlarging interlude of life that could come to any routine of living. It had been a blessed interruption, but still an interruption. N o w it was all over; there was nothing to do but pick up the old life. Some preparation would be necessary. Eighteen months of disuse had played havoc with his fishing boat. T h e shrunken seams would have to be recaulked, the rotten cordage replaced, and the mildewed sail white-washed. So Peter falls to work. But he speedily finds it not so easy to resume the old life. This interlude of discipleship had been not an interruption but a change. He was no longer a fisherman. Christ had wrought a profounder difference in him than he had suspected. N o w he was a disciple for good and all. That is a way Christ has: once he gains a foothold in the mind's activities and the heart's affections, it is all up with the old life. Behold, a new commandment give I unto you, he says. And he is as good as his word. Thereafter mind and heart are deflected into brighter paths, and the first aim is to obey that new commandment, and fill out the possibilités of the new creature into which they have been transformed.

F

A HARD

CHOICE

He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. LUKE 9, 5 1 .

HE would be left alone; even the few humble friends he had would desert him. He would have not a single companion to whom he could look for sympathy and support; and he was as dependent on friendship as any one. He would be misunderstood; his motives misjudged; his aims mistaken. T o explain himself would be useless, for there would not be a soul with the ability or even the desire to comprehend; and he craved the approval of others, as we all do. There would be ridicule, mockery, the cold hard cynicism of officialdom, cruel where it was not indifferent, extending to him a perfunctory justice too thin to disguise the malice that was bound to put an end to him; and he feared officialdom, as we all do. There would be pain, bodily pain, some of it unbearably acute; some of it of the dull, rending sort that is almost worse; and he dreaded pain, as much as any of us. On the one hand, every consideration warned him against Jerusalem, urged him to keep away, cried aloud to him that there could be but one outcome once he entered the city. On the other hand, a single voice, which none but he could hear, told him that just this was expected of him; that failing in this he would be an outcast from the Presence whose love was more to him than life. So he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.

VIOLENT

METHODS

The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence; and the violent take it by force. MATT. II, 12.

SOME situation must have prompted this outburst. When that situation comes again, it throws the switch and the words flash out with meaning. The most democratic of governments only approximates the wishes of the people. Governments see the whole picture, and work for remote ends. People see a part of the picture, and desire immediate ends. Some discrepancy is inevitable between the policy of the government and the wish of the people. When this discrepancy reaches the point of tension the people begin to grow restive and mutter about "the next election," "a cabinet shake-up." Was it at such a moment of tension that this ejaculation fell from Christ's lips? "The technique of government will never bring in the Kingdom of Heaven which we all want. The discrepancy between its policy and our wish is increasing. W e must assert ourselves; insist on what we want in spite of political trends; take our Kingdom of Heaven by force of personal determination." It may be pure fancy, but the words seem to quiver with meaning for us. Here is our discrepancy. Our ideal of peace is farther away than ever. What can we do but fall back on a sort of spiritual violence: "in spite of it all, I will follow Christ; I will love my fellow-man; I will work and pray for a Kingdom of Heaven on earth." All over the world the plain people are thinking such thoughts.

THE INDISPENSABLE ELEMENT

133

/ will praise him among the multitude. PSALM 109, 30.

VEN in a book so completely preoccupied with God as the Psalms we catch glimpses of a background of scoffers to whom God was a jest, and worship a meaningless waste of time. There are allusions to the "fool who saith in his heart, There is no God;" to those who say, H o w doth God know; and is there knowledge in the Most High? Even in those times God had his detractors who strove by their ridicule to discredit religion, and make it unfashionable. W e are especially qualified in this age to appreciate such allusions. It is among this multitude, and in defiance of their ridicule that the Psalmist affirms his purpose. A t the cost of being conspicuous, "I will praise him among the multitude." Though it be to commit a solecism and to cause the lifted eye-brow and covert sneer, "I will praise him among the multitude." T o believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, has always demanded courage and the exercise of the right of independent judgment. It still does. God's worshippers are a band of brave people. They are also the indispensable element in any society. If the multitude paused to think that their right to scoff is a privilege contingent on the reverence of the few who worship and pray, they would realize that the shame and confusion of face rest on them, not on those they deride. God is very patient; so are his worshippers.

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*34

T H E B E N I G N EPIDEMIC If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? MATT. 7 , I I .

CAN we substitute "nation" for "God?" If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your nation give good things unto other nations that ask? It does not sound quite so logical. The nation is not only the sum-total of all the good in its citizens, it is also the sum-total of all the evil and the weakness and the fear. National morality has to strike an average. All the moral tensions in the country find their equilibrium in the nation's morality. Furthermore, some students claim that nations are committed to a morality different not only in degree but in kind from the individual's code. To the man it is a duty to be sentimental, to sacrifice advantage to principle or ideal; but nations must be practical, must compromise with ideals, and must follow enlightened self-interest. Sometimes this obliges them to do that which ninety per cent of the citizens disapprove. Just now we are wondering if this is truth or fallacy, if there are two kinds of morality, or if it is only a question of waiting for the light which guides the individual to spread till it becomes the nation's guide. There are benign epidemics. Most of the failings we deplore in nations were individual failings only a few generations ago. They are the areas which the divine epidemic has not yet reached.

THE

DISTORTING MIRROR

»35

Then Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel,¡came up to Jerusalem to war. 2 KINGS 16, 5.

THREE little kingdoms, Syria, Israel, and Judah, close neighbors, closely affiliated in ancestry and common interests, lay near together directly in the path of the Assyrian conquerors when they went forth to war against Egypt. They were predestined by geography to be the first victims whenever the danger of such a war became imminent. Just now this danger was more than imminent; it was actual and acute. The Assyrians were already on the march. It seems incredible, but what did these three little kingdoms do but start a small-sized war of their own, forgetting Assyria in the background ready to swallow all three at one gulp. It is easy to be wise after the event, but this was a criminal folly for which we cannot forgive them. Other people are committing the same folly every day. Selfishness is a distorting mirror: we look into it and our personal grievances, our private discomforts and restrictions are grossly magnified, while our national duties and dangers are made to appear very small and distant. In a newsmongering world this distortion of selfishness cannot be forgiven. The least we can do is to inform ourselves of the tremendous issues at stake, and the supreme sacrifices being made for us; then stifle our petty indignations, accept our share of suffering, and work and pray together for the victory in which lies our only hope for the future.

136

I N T H E H E A R T OF T H I N G S Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees. MATT. 1 5 , I .

e can see him stiffen at once. A hard glint comes to his eyes. He had encountered scribes and Pharisees before. The very sight of one put him on his guard. The thickness of the world lay between him and them. T o him, God was a constant beloved presence, whose proud approval was as necessary as the air he breathed, and whose slightest wish he was eager to anticipate. T o them, God was the Divine Antagonist, whose will they were obliged to obey even though they found it a nuisance and a hindrance to the worship of mammon which engrossed their interest. Such religion was easily satisfied with punctilious observance of rites and formalities, and barely enough of that to satisfy their sense of obligation. We can easily recognize traces of this scribe-and-Pharisee element in our own religion; but how to interpret Christ's warm, generous, spontaneous love for God into our modern terms is not so easy. The feeling of a son for his beloved father, of a true citizen for his country, of an artist or musician for his ideal of beauty, these come near it. Some people have an acute feeling of love for, and dependence on, their Beloved Community. Its interests, hopes, companionships, and securities are precious beyond all else. They call it "being in the heart of things." Christ might have defined his own feeling as "being in the heart of God." We have got to recapture it somehow; for without it here is just another scribe or Pharisee.

W

STAINLESS

*37

Whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice. PHIL, I, 18.

W E say to ourselves: Come now, Paul, pull yourself together. Think what you are saying. If Christ is preached in pretence how can you rejoice? But Paul knows what he is talking about. It is virtually impossible to spoil Christ. Handle him with clean hands or foul, with true motives or false, with broad-mindedness or fanaticism, in sympathy or in fury, he is still a power for good. No bias of treatment or poverty of understanding can disguise the beauty of his life and words and sacrifice. Everything about him is so assertively pure that no impurity of presentation can change its quality. Even his anger is righteous. Even his scorn is cleansing. Even his prejudices are ennobling. Paul saw this very clearly. Some preach Christ in a spirit of envy, some from a motive of contentiousness, and some in shameless hypocrisy. What of it? So long as they mention his name, whatever their motive, it is a cause for rejoicing; for the final result is infinitely more good than harm. W e often complain that Christianity suffers more from the ignorance, bigotry, and savage fanaticism of its advocates than from the hostility of its enemies. But perhaps Paul is right. Here is a spiritually prepotent figure. Dirt cannot stick to him, nor falsehood disguise him. He towers above his enemies, and, what is more to the point, he delivers himself unspoiled even from his friends.

Ì38

CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY Simon the Canaanite, and Judas lscariot, •who also betrayed him. MATT, IO, 4.

were in strong contrast to each other. One was not a Jew at all, but a descendant of the aborigines from the distant time of Joshua and the invasion of the Land of Canaan. The other was from the little Judean village of Kerioth, and was of unmixed Jewish descent. W e see the same contrast throughout the whole group of disciples. Perhaps five were Galileans. One was a silent publican who kept his own counsel no matter what people thought of him. One was a proud Judean who felt superior to these Galilean provincials. One or two others beside Simon may have been Canaanites. One was Christ's own brother. It was a mixed company. The common denominator which bound them together as disciples of a single leader was something independent of race or social background: a spiritual congeniality that found its satisfaction in Christ's depth and honesty. This has always been true of Christianity. Its bond of union has never been a bond of race or language or color or social status; but in the broadest sense something human. Christianity has always said: If you are human, if God is your father, then it matters not who you are or where you come from; there is a place for you in my ranks. That is the most precious feature in the religion that Christ, the Brother of Mankind, has given us. Through the emphasis of that feature Christianity can bind the whole world together. THEY

FACE THE FACT

I

39

Truly, this is a grief, and I must bear it. jer. 10, 19,

eremiah had to pay a stiff price for the privilege of being an honest man. There was a weight of anxiety on his mind, for he saw how inescapable was the doom that was creeping down upon his country. There were others about him who, lacking his courage to face facts, deceived themselves with foolish hopes of some last-minute deliverance. They cried Peace, peace, when there was no peace. Jeremiah was not of their number. He could not deny the facts, and the facts were a grief; he might as well acknowledge it: Truly, this is a grief, and I must bear it. There was nothing else to do. Less honest men can find scores of ways to evade the burdeh. They can listen to Hamlet telling them there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so; and they can force themselves to think differently, —that is the sour-grapes method. They can distract their minds with amusements and excitements,—that is the inebriate's method. They can implore the silent stars to tell them their secret,—that is the occult method. Such devices arouse the wrath of the honest man; and we may as well be honest. We are all under a grief which no thinking can change, no distraction conceal, and no star-secret dispel. Jeremiah gives us the only help: the simple recognition that there is no help. I must bear it. Many thanks, Jeremiah; if you could, we can.

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USE Y O U R

IMAGINATION

Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds. PSALM 108, 4 .

THE Psalmist put the clouds farther away than they are. Only God's truth could reach so high. What would he have thought if someone had told him that men in air planes would one day invade those clouds, and learn all the truth they conceal by first-hand investigation? W e seem to be out-growing our planet. W e already claim to possess powers of reason capable of coping with that which lies beyond the reach of our conception. As Isaiah might say, The bed of our imagination is shorter than that our power of thought can stretch itself upon it. Just as, today, we have plenty of money but a scarcity of things to spend it on, so have we an abundance of intellectual power but a scarcity of imaginations to spend it on. The trouble with the caterpillar is not that he cannot think of himself as a butterfly, but that he cannot form any conception of the butterfly. Paul met some Christian disciples at Ephesus and asked them if they had received the Holy Ghost. They replied, W e have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. W h y are we so timid about using our imaginations? W h y are we so captive to our categories? Like the cow pony who stands all day if the reins are thrown over his head, we stand all our lives as if tied to our categories, when really we are free to imagine wondrous possibilities in God's reality that would turn our ashes to beauty and our mourning into joy.

T H E R I G H T T O BE CHRISTLIKE

/ am crucified with Christ.

141

GAL. 2, 20.

was crucified for his non-conformity. The accepted pattern of thought built up by the influential people of the nation, whom we would call the intelligentsia, asserted that no man among the common people was qualified to be the Chosen Messiah. His class was simply not good enough to produce God's prophet. Christ did not agree, and was crucified as a blasphemer. Paul was crucified with Christ, not literally but symbolically, because he also believed that men were good rather than bad. Paul's world was a dangerous place for men who were not only good themselves but insisted that others were good. That world said to men like Paul: "What do you mean by being decent? It is your business to be evil, hopeless, and worthless. Be what you were meant to be or suffer the consequences." History repeats itself; and we have a world which is no safe place for decency, honor, and sympathy. Such men are also being crucified with Christ today. What a curious predicament! W e have to cultivate brutality in order to gain the right to live; we have to be evil in order to protect our right to aim at Christlikeness. That is a dangerous necessity. The nations may be at a loss to state their objectives. In privacy, we cannot afford to be at a loss; we must be explicit at least with ourselves. W e are hoping, praying, and fighting for the right to be Christlike; for a world in which Christ shall be safe. CHRIST

GOD IN THE CLOUD As long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle, they rested in their tents. NUMBERS 9, 18.

HEY were a wandering people, and the tabernacle was the portable house of their God. T h e y dared not part company with him, lest they be lost. T h e cloud was the sign of his presence. When it settled down upon the tabernacle they knew he was within. There they must remain, no matter how long the time. When they awoke some morning to find the cloud vanished and the tabernacle clearly visible, they knew he had gone, and they must set forth and follow. Resting or travelling, apart from him there was no safety; and the only token of his presence was this cloud, this mystery, this inability to see or to know. Their only safety was in the presence of the mystery. It sounds rather paradoxical,—that they never felt so sure of God as when his dwelling was hidden by a cloud; and they never felt so uneasy as when the cloud vanished and the tabernacle was clearly revealed. T o them a visible tabernacle was an empty tabernacle. W e are trying to substitute sight for faith. But can it done? Perhaps there is a hint here worth taking. W e may examine, analyze, prove, define, all w e please. But all w e can be sure of is that what w e have proved and defined is not God. Only when we are conscious of him as a mystery, invisible and unknowable, are we really in his presence.

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I N W A Y S OF B E A U T Y

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with

you all.

ROMANS 16, 24.

ONE of the minor effects of Christ's life was to beautify the entire aspect of existence for those who came under his influence. The memory of their master lay like gentle sunlight on all their landscape. It softened every outline, and rounded every angle, and blunted every sharp edge in their human relationships. Thanks to him, their world became a different place, full of hope and promise and quiet happiness; for they recognized the grace of his nature, and it was inevitable that they should become gracious in their turn, and carry that graciousness out with them into all their occasions. This poor world of ours needs that graciousness now. Of course, as we get accustomed to our Christianity we lose the first surprise, the first sensitiveness to its higher values. But this is only a superficial condition. When the words of Christ really sink into our minds, when the spirit of Christ really reveals itself to our understanding, when the influence of Christ really captures our hearts, the effect on us is just as profound as it was on them. The point is, to let it show, to let it shine out, to let that effect become visible, apparent, outwardly evident as it is inwardly real, in the beauty and grace of all our words and dealings.

MORE PUZZLING T H A N E V E R I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. PSALM 17, 15. THE beauty of the sentence consists in its condensation of thought. It is one of those teeming sentences that can be expanded into a small paragraph. Thus: I find life a confusing and self-contradictory ordeal; a bewildering dream, full of labor, sorrow, hopes deferred, beginnings unfinished, and glimpses of happiness unrealized. Sometimes I wonder what it is all about. But some day I shall awake, and see things as they really are, their purport and eternal value, the likeness of thy truth and being, which bafHes me now yet lures me on. When that awakening comes, all my present questions will be answered, and my present experience justified. I shall be satisfied. For thousands of years, this trust has inspired human energies and sustained human hearts. It seems as necessary now as ever. Life is still a puzzle in spite of all we have done and are doing to straighten it out and make it self-justifying. On every side the evidence confronts us that what we call life is but a fraction of some greater whole, and can be understood only when we awake to see it in relation to that greater whole. That awakening still challenges man's faith. It still promises the only solution there is, and the only satisfaction that can really convince our hearts. As Paul says, We are saved by hope; the hope of this awakening. Without it, there is darkness and cold; with it, strength abounds, and spirits retain their buoyant vigor.

A GRACEFUL BEGINNING

145

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, unto the church of God, which is in Corinth: grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 COR. 1, 1-2-3. HAT a beautiful way to begin a letter! Perhaps it became in time a mere formula like our own modern "Dear Sir," yet it pleases and stimulates the imagination. Here are all the essentials for intelligent communication; the writer identifies himself and the person addressed by name and station, beyond danger of mistake; then he adds a cordial bit of good-will: "Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." After such a beginning, how could he be anything but friendly, reasonable, patient, and kindly, in the body of his letter? This seems to us to be carrying the Christian spirit out into practical daily relationships. We could wish that the custom might regain vogue with us, of being more deliberate in our human relations, of taking time to consult and express more of the amenities of fife. So many of our frictions and irritations would become impossible if only we began in the right way; and this applies to more than letter-writing. Our haste deprives us of too much of the fragrance and beauty of life. We are too ready to slur over the little graces of every day and every hour, and get right to the main point. And too often we find that when we have got to the point, it is not the main point at all, but only a factitious emphasis engendered of our carelessness.

146

UNFINISHED LABORS Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors. JOHN 4, 38.

THE last word is the one to emphasize. W e hear a good deal about reaping where others have sown: about enjoying the results of other people's labors. There is no talk here of reaping, or of results. Others have labored, to be sure: but they have not finished. The task sometimes outlives the toilers. W e have entered into their labors—not their results. The results are still a long way off, and the time to inherit them has not yet come. But the labor is as yet unfinished, and calls to us as it called to those others before us, whose memories and examples we cherish today. It is a perfectly natural mistake to look upon Memorial Day as something final, marking the end of a task. In a measure, this is true. The task has ended for the toilers of former times, and Memorial Day invites us to think of those toilers with becoming pride and gratitude. But just because they have finished their shift, it does not follow that the task is finished. Memorial Day speaks in a sterner mood: the task is yet with us. W e have entered into the labor. It is hard for us to see life in its continuity. W e measure life in terms of personalities and generations. But life asks to be measured in terms of eras and millenniums. There is victory in the future: it is for us to understand that we are still working for that victory.

T H E WILL OF G O D

Thy will be done.

MATT. 6, 10.

CHRIST never does a thing because it is right; but because it is the will of God. The two qualities are co-existeiit: if a thing is right it is the will of God; if it is the will of God it is right. Theoretically, there was the choice: he could do a thing because it was right or because it was the will of God. He chb se the latter. By preference he was a lover of God, and wanted to do what God wished. By derivation he was a lover of right, because right was the will of God. For the modern mind, God as a personality, loving and beloved, recedes into the background. We no longer do a thing because it is the will of God, but because it is right in the abstract. And there is a strange little detour. First, we must decide what is right; and we find that absolute right does not exist, that things are right or wrong only by reference to some purpose. But the moment •we talk about purpose we are standing on holy ground. Purpose is the vesture of God. No man can make a moral choice without proclaiming his faith in God; and we are back where we started. The thing that is right is the will of God. Escape is impossible. Ourselves from God we cannot free. We may as well surrender, and allow the warmth and power of that relationship to flood our souls and teach us Christ's joy in doing the will of God.

I48

CODE AND CONSCIENCE Thou art the man.

N SAMUEL 1 2 ,

7.

OT even Jacob, that prince of meanness, could boast of having done anything so contemptible as what David had done:—contrived the death of a faithful servant that he might marry the widow. How can we explain David's apparent unconsciousness of guilt? Perhaps it was the kind of action that was permitted by the conventions of the day to one in David's position; the kind of action that was included in the accepted code. Outwardly, David was living by the code. Inwardly, he was susceptible to a far higher moral appeal. It was only necessary to show him how far short his outward behaviour came of his inward standard. "Thou art the man." At once he was overwhelmed by the realization. The man who lives that dual life,—outwardly following a tawdry code, inwardly sensitive to a true standard, —is no uncommon sight. Most of us do things which, once we stop to think, conscience flatly condemns. Most of our moral pioneering is done in the quiet places of conscience. There we discover new countries of moral nobility. But just as America, discovered in 1000 A. D. by Lief Erikson, had to wait five hundred years to be rediscovered and settled, so these new countries often have to wait a long time before outward conduct actually moves into them and settles them. What we really need is not moral insight, so much as moral courage to defy the code and live as moral insight commands.

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O U R LITTLE PITCHERS

With the merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful. PSALM 18, 25. WE determine God's mood to us by our own nature; as though God were the Ultimate Sanction wh.o touches that which we really are, and validates it with divine authority. That thought is a little too elusive for comfort, but it suggests another thought closely akin, which is both easy and helpful. We cannot know or define God. We can only believe that he is the cause of all that is true and beautiful and good, and that whatever we need and worship and admire must be in him and from him. He is the Eternal Fire, ever burning, ever giving off life and light, but never exhausted. We light our little candles, and for each one of us that candle is our share of God. He is the Perpetual Fountain of the water of life. We fill our little pitchers, and for each one of us that pitcher is our share of God. The last claim we would make is that our pitcher holds all the Fountain; we claim only that it was filled at the Fountain which is God, and contains as much of God as we can worship and must have; Personality, if we need a Personal God; Love, if we need a Loving God; Wrath, if we need a wrathful God; Strength, if we need a strong God; Purpose, if we need a Purposeful God. For each, God is what we can understand and worship and need.

SONGS OLD A N D N E W O sing unto the Lord a new song. PSALM 96, I. THE inference is two-fold: either the Lord must be tired of hearing the old one, or the singer was tired of singing it. Possibly both are right, but we can well understand how the second must be right. Life has its monotonies which become acutely tiresome. W e get tired of ourselves, our unanswered questions, unfulfilled hopes, ineffective efforts. Our very thoughts are diaphanous with use, and as for the vocabulary by which we express them, even the words are worn smooth, their cutting edges blunted, their point lost. N o wonder the spirit goes stale and craves something new. H o w many books, pictures, plays, schools of thought, diplomatic incidents, even wars owe their brief popularity to nothing more dignified than their novelty! This ennui is especially noticeable in our religious life: for we are not as patient with our religion as we are with our science, or art, or politics. And the cure is not flattering. That which is sincere is never monotonous. It is the pose that gets tiresome. Much of our religious activity is, necessarily, a sequence of gestures and decencies. T h e y are spiritual potentials, cold electric light bulbs. T h e y glow the instant we mean them. W e cannot always mean them, but it would be as foolish to discard them as it would be to throw away the bulb because it is daylight. Wait till the shadows come; then sing any one of the old songs, meaning it, and it becomes at once a new song.

AN HONORARY COLONEL

151

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. COLOSSIANS 2, 8 .

T is all very well for Paul to talk that way, but what would he do in our place? The rudiments of the world have caught us in their drift. W e may as well confess that we are no longer free moral agents. Nine times out of ten, the next thing we do is something we have got to do whether we approve of it morally or not. The privilege of weighing actions in conscience and deciding whether they are right or wrong is simply not our privilege. The rudiments of this world give the order and we have to obey. This is not true of our whole field of action, but of so much of it that we have to wonder what has become of our freedom? What chance has Christ with us? Some time ago the Princess Elizabeth was made honorary colonel of a Canadian regiment. She receives their love and homage, but she has nothing to say about their actions. Christ is honorary colonel of a good many lives. Even that office has its wistful beauty. He can receive our love and longing and hope. Not even the rudiments of the world can prevent the attainment of that which human hearts persistently love and hope for. Some day the Princess will be Queen. Christ's sovereignty is still in the future. These are the long ages of preparation. All we can do is love and hope; but the degree of our loyalty in loving and hoping is the promise of that distant Coronation Day.

I

MORE HOPING T H A N REMEMBERING Who then can be saved?

MATT. 19, 25.

Christ smiled, as we do, at that naive ejaculation. They misunderstood his hyperbole, and thought they must say goodbye either to riches or to heaven. Automatically they said goodbye to heaven. Who thfen can be saved? Christ offered them an alternative they did not even consider. Our preferences represent life-long adjustments. We have been brought up to look upon a certain ideal as good, wholly desirable. We make it the aim of all our wishing and thinking and choosing and striving. Inevitably it becomes the case-hardened pivot upon which the entire merry-go-round of our living revolves. So it is with money, our symbol of success. We are so conditioned to the desirability of money, not necessarily as money but as a symbol of success, that the idea becomes an axiom; it petrifies in our minds as though it had been molded of plaster of Paris. That is a troublesome thought: so much of our living is built on these plaster of Paris ideas that we wonder if we have lost our spiritual adaptability. We may have to change; who can say? We may have to shift our merry-go-round on to another pivot; or aim our living at another objective. We are all trying to accustom ourselves to that possibility. But we can all meet the change, if it comes, provided we trust and help each other, and provided we do more hoping than remembering. God is in the future as much as in the past; perhaps more. PROBABLY

T H E T A X OF F A I T H Be ye all of one mind.

I PETER 3, 8.

WE ask, Just what is propaganda? Some of it is deliberate njendacity. Good propaganda is truth with a special emphasis, or truth sharpened at a single point. The purpose of good propaganda is to invite confidence in an assumption which supports our common life. The theory is that to believe in that assumption, and to act as if it were true, helps to make it true. Pippa's little song, God's in his heaven, all's right with the world, makes an assumption that no one can prove, but that invites confidence. If all accepted the invitation, the sum total of confidence would make the assumption true; for all practical purposes, God would be in his heaven, all would be right with the world. The theory will not work in the exact sciences. N o amount of confidence in the assumption that two and two are five will make that assumption true. But only a part of our living is guided by such facts. Much of it is guided by hopes, hypotheses, beliefs, and ideals. W e nave to live "as if" lire had a meaning, "as if" there were honor among men. These unverifiable "as ifs" are as necessary to our welfare as any chemical or mathematical law. Their validity depends on the amount of confidence they attract. The man who refuses his confidence does an injury to the whole. This is what Peter means, —Be ye all of one mind. Pay your tax of faith. Do your share of believing. Give your confidence to the assumptions on which our life depends; or else furnish a better assumption.

A NEW MISTAKE They shall build up the old wastes. ISAIAH 6 1 , 4 .

HE prophet, born in exile, had learned from his wistful mother to call Jerusalem "home"; and as often happens this home of his imagination was even fairer than it might have been had he suffered exile in person and retained memories of his own. Now that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is a probability he can think of no greater privilege than the chance to restore it to the splendor he has always imagined for it,—the perfect city of his dreams. There was no brighter fate for Jerusalem than to be again as he pictured it formerly. W e wish we could look back to the life that has been interrupted or laid waste by the war, and discover in it that perfection that needs only to be recaptured. It would be such a simple task to make the new just like the old; use the same blue-prints, the same materials, and the same cellar hole. But that is probably the most dangerous thing we could do. It would start the same vicious forces at work, and lead to the same disaster. Here is our chance to learn from experience; and experience shouts at us, red-faced and angry: Go ahead ana build up your old wastes, but don't be fools. Build it different. Take the hint. Use your imagination. Design it better. Don't make the same mistake. God's patience is running out. At least have the sense to make a new kind of mistake.

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THE MAY-FLY O N THE CLOCK

155

But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared. TITUS 3, 4. THE New Testament scholar tells us that these words are a fragment of one of the earliest Christian hymns. That is interesting, but what is there about the idea in these words that they deemed worthy to be emphasized and repeated as a hymn in their worship? The idea is that at a given point in time God decided to change his method of dealing with men. Before that point he had been severe and just; after that point he became kind and loving. That was quite in keeping with their thought. Christ was the point in time. Before Christ God had granted man his stern dispensation of law. After Christ, man enjoyed God's sweeter dispensation of kindness and love. A t once we raise the question: Is it God who changes his method; or is it man who slowly perceives God's unspeakable majesty, his time-span or eternal years, his cycles of progress which a hundred generations of man's life can barely cover? The minute hand of the Custom House clock must be about ten feet long. The May-fly, which lives twelve hours, perched on the end will say the hand has made a drastic change in its method. When he was born the hand was moving up; in his middle life the hand changed its direction and began moving down, and has been sinking lower ever since. Therefore, it is perfectly obvious that all is lost and the world is doomed. Yet somehow we still trust the clock; we still trust him in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning.

156

A N O T H E R COMFORTER Another truth.

Comforter,

even the Spirit of JOHN 14, 16.

CHRIST knew that he was a comfort to his disciples. Every man of integrity and conviction is a rock of safety to his doubting and mercurial fellows. He realized how lost they would be when he was gone. But he promised them another comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who would prove even more valuable to them than himself. If I go not away, he says, the Comforter will not come unto you. As though the Comforter were more to be desired than he. W e can only surmise his meaning. T o be dependent on a strong, straight-minded friend, to have his convictions always as a guide to our thinking, and his self-reliance as a support in each moment of timidity, is a great privilege; but there is something better. Be strong yourself; be straight-minded and self-reliant yourself. There were at least three things which Christ dreaded and hated: hypocrisy, taking advantage of another's weakness, and inability to stand on one's own feet. He was not content to be free of these weaknesses himself, he wanted others to be as free. N o man ever lived who had so eager a solicitude for the full wellbeing of his fellow-men. He was not flattered by their slavish emulation. If he could teach them that they were sons of God as much as himself, and help them to discover their own possibilities of character and faith and spiritual power, he would do them the greatest service in his power.

SELF-ADJUSTMENTS OF PRAYER

'57

He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.

MARK I, 35.

E are never told that he prayed in public, or in the presence of others. He speaks scornfully of the hypocrites who love to pray in the synagogues, or on the corners of the streets, "that they may be seen of men." T o him prayer was a private matter, to be done in a solitary place, or in a mountain apart, or a great while before day, or in his closet with the door shut. One might say that the first essential of his prayer was its solitariness. This was inevitable, for his times of prayer were his times of self-adjustment; and self-adjustment is possible only when the soul, removed from every disturbance, can review its situations and experiences in the light of the holiest standards and the loftiest purposes it can know. And when this is done, the man is no longer the victim but the master of experience. A t once we think of his own words: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Of course. Through the self-adjustments of prayer, he no longer lost himself to his experience, but found himself in his experience. So little of prayer can be put into words. So much of prayer is the habit of getting away from the heat and burden of the day, and thinking things out straight in a solitary place; in the company of no one but God.

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158

HOW A N D W H Y When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul. PROV. 2, 10.

THE Book of Proverbs has much to say about wisdom. It is the great essential for successful living; God's choicest gift, to be sought as silver, and as hidden treasure; a deliverance from the way of evil; more precious than rubies; a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her. In short, happy is the man that findeth wisdom. They were already rich in their consciousness of God, their religion. But religion was not enough; they wanted what religion could give them: wisdom, understanding, knowledge. They began with God, and went on to explore the mysteries of his purpose and method. With us the process is reversed. By comparison with them, we possess wisdom; at least, we possess far more knowledge of our world, its composition, its truths and laws, than they. Beginning with this wisdom, we are now groping toward God. Is he real? Is his existence a rational possibility? After all, is he necessary? Is not our wisdom, present and coming, enough for us? What more do we need? They had the enlightenment of the heart which they felt they must supplement with the understandings of the mind. We have the understandings of the mind; but are we seeking to supplement them by the enlightenment of the heart? Both are necessary. Their great question was: How? Our great question is: Why? Without our answer we are as lost as they.

G O D F O U N D IN SELF The servant is not greater than his Lord. JOHN 15, 20. THIS thought is frequently found in the Prophets; and we are therefore encouraged to surmise that a strong sense of the fitness of things was characteristic of the Ancient Jews. They never lived up to the moral standards their religion set for them,—nobody with a real religion ever does. But they never made the mistake of thinking God less holy or less righteous than themselves. They thought of God as a Being at least as decent as themselves, or any one of them. He was at least the sum total of all they valued and honored; how much more he might be they could not say. But God the Lord was never less than any human being. So by knowing themselves better they were forced to know God better. Jonah, for instance, found in himself an impulse of pity for the innocent gourd tree which had been blasted in a night. A t once he had to add to his concept of God the attribute of pity; there was no escape from that necessity. In our own theological history we have more than once been asked to worship a God who does things we would blush to do. They were never guilty of that blasphemy. If we followed their example we should have to put into our idea of God: "Caesar's hand; Plato's brain; the Lord Christ's heart; and Shakspere's strain"; and much more beside. For no servant is greater than his Lord, or ever was, or ever can be.

i6o

GUIDANCE OR COMFORT Let thine hand help me, for I have chosen thy precepts. PSALM 1 1 9 , 1 7 3 .

HE title of Mr. Gilbert Murray's book, "Five Stages of Greek Religion," suggests that a religion undergoes changes to answer the changes of experience. We can see such changes in the Psalms. There are many precepts to heed God's will, to choose and act as he would wish. We are answerable to God. Also, there are supplications for God's comfort and support. I have chosen thy precepts; now, O God, do your part: let thine hand help me. As though God were answerable to us. We notice at least two stages in our own religion. At one time we sought the will and the 1 . 1 lod's commands and choose his thought of ourselves as free agents, in full vigor, able to recognize temptations, acknowledging a duty to God. We seem to have passed into another stage. We say nothing nowadays about temptations, or making a choice between right and wrong. We seek little except God's comfort. Most of our religion is the effort to remind God of his duty to us. What does it signify? Are we no longer masters of our circumstance, but only helpless victims without the power to choose? Our prayer always betrays our own condition. Comfort is prayed for by the beaten man, whose greatest need is help to endure what he cannot escape. To see the true way, the right choice, the nobler task is prayed for by him who is strong and free, and whose greatest need is light to keep him on the path.

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HOME C O U N T S MOST

161

Your goodness is as a morning cloud. HOSEA 6, 4. THAT is to say, it is not the normal condition but only a false appearance that rests upon your moral landscape like a morning mist, and disappears as soon as the day's climate has established itself. Hosea would have felt better about it if he could have said, Your evil is as a morning cloud. When goodness is the morning cloud, it means that the real landscape is evil; but when evil is the morning cloud, it means that the real landscape is good. And while the proportion of good to evil may be about the same in each case, yet one contemplates with a greater moral cheerfulness the essentially good man who spends twenty five per cent of his time in making excursions into evil, than the essentially evil man who spends seventy five per cent of his time in making excursions into good. An excursion is an interruption of normal home life; and there is more weight, more prestige, more momentum in the influence of home, than there is in the influence of any number of excursions from home. The first task is to make home a good place; to make the normal rule of life a good rule; to accept honor and justice and truthfulness and kindness as taken for granted, axiomatic, "of course," the familiar and permanent features of the moral landscape. Absences from such a home may be regrettable, but in the long run they can hardly be very serious. There is more hope for one who lives in a good home and occasionally goes away, than for him who lives in a bad home and often goes away. After all, it is home that counts most.

162

T H E DIVINE INJUSTICE What thank have ye?

LUKE 6, 32.

THIS passage from verse 27 invites an interpretation that may be wrong, yet hints at a novel side of Christ's mind. When you hate your enemies, and curse the curser, and smite the smiter, and love those that love you, and lend to those of whom you hope to borrow, where do you get? What thank have ye? What progress have you made towards a better human relationship? At best you have set your life to gyrating upon its own axis, like a well-balanced top, every offense compensated by its retribution, every kindness offset by its return. That is very pretty; but have you made headway towards any goal? What is your life but a stale-mate; and how exhilarating is the prospect of spending the entire three score years and ten in that stale-mate, only to confess at the end that you are not one whit bigger or more charitable or more magnificent than you were at the beginning? Did Christ feel a kind of desperation? Did he lose his patience, and cry out: In Heaven's name, break this futile spell. Fly off at a tangent. Do something original. T r y loving your enemies, and blessing them that curse you. Try turning the other cheek, and lending to those who cannot repay. Nothing but the Divine Injustice suffers you to live. T r y some of that injustice on others, and perhaps you can help them, and yourself, to become more divine.

COURTESY AND INDEPENDENCE

163

But as for us, the Lord is our God. 2 CHRON. 13, IO.

HE words suggest tolerance. Oriental people have learned to respect each other's preferences and be tolerant of each other's opinions. They suggest courtesy with independence: as much as to say, You have your Gods and your customs. You came by them properly, and we respect your right to enjoy them. As it happens, our God and our customs are different. This difference implies no disapproval of you; it is an accident. W e acknowledge your right to be loyal to your customs, and you will acknowledge our right to be loyal to ours. The differences between us are interesting, but nothing more serious. You have your Gods; but as for us, the Lord is our God. Here is perfect courtesy and at the same time perfect independence. In the field of human relations, we can learn from the Oriental humility, respect for others, quiet self-respect, dispassionate independence. W e find it hard to handle our differences of opinion. W e either boast of them and become discourteous, or we are ashamed of them and become guilty of self-betrayal. T o o often we are embarrassed by them as though they were grounds for animosity. T o o ofteh we apologize for them as though conformity to the standard were the highest virtue. What a better place our modern world would be if the spirit of these words could prevail! Truth has many guises. It appears to you in one guise, to us in another. You have your Gods. But as for us, the Lord is our God.

T

164

SPIRITUAL PATRIOTISM Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly him declare I unto you.

worship,

ACTS 17, 23.

A GENEROUS impulse, but hardly a wise one. Paul, recalling his own experience, might have known that the truth of God is not a discovery which one can make for another, or impart to another, but a process of seeking and finding which must take place in each heart. Sometimes faith is a birth-right; and sometimes an enlightenment. Usually it is a gradual discipline that lasts through life. W e begin by loving parents, fearing teachers, trusting friends, honoring heroes, and serving ideals. But as life gathers coherence and momentum and reaches unification, these fragmentary objects of our love and trust and service fall into place to form a single whole; and we see that, back of what we have worshipped in ignorance, by piecemeal, loving this, serving that, trusting here, honoring there, a One emerges to command our conscious adoration,—a One to whom we look up and whisper, M y Lord and my God. There is such a thing as spiritual patience. It is a common mistake to expect faith before it is ripe, and to be resentful over the disappointment. Faith does not always precede experience. Sometimes experience must come first to produce the faith. Sometimes a life that is gradually unified in the service of One whom we ignorantly worship, at the last declares that One in unmistakable terms to our enlightened hearts.

MOURNING

DOVES

165

They shall be on the mountains like doves of the valley, all of them mourning. EZEKIEL 7, 61.

NOT a cheerful picture; but the imagery is striking. T o hear a great flock of mourning doves, perched on the trees of some hillside, and making by their combined notes a substantial back-ground of mournful sound, is to recognize the aptness of Ezekiel's figure. Such a background of lament rises from our life today. Every one has something to bewail: precarious business conditions, husband or wife over-worked, grand-children ailing, the boy at college doing none too well, taxes rising, scarcely money enough to pay the month's bills, war imminent, jolitics worse each year, no leisure, no security, no ight-heartedness,—our communities are like flocks of doves on the mountain, all of them mourning. A little more, and it will be funny. W e admit the disciplinary value of a reasonable amount of anxiety; but we wonder if the amount of our present anxiety is not beyond all reason. If this is Christian civilization, Wordsworth is right: "Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed out-worn." What we need is an aristocracy of the capable? the honorable, the magnanimous, and the spiritually serene, to replace this cult of mediocrity, selfishness, suspicion and gloom that prevails in our life. One or two simple rules will qualify us for membership in such an aristocracy: "I will do my work well. I will be honorable in speech and action. I will demand honor and fidelity of others. I will be sympathetic, hopeful, and trustful."

I

166

FREEDOM TO CHQOSE If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve. JOSHUA 24, 1 5 .

would be surprised at our retort: Good Sir, you quite misunderstand the people you address. Your remark falls unpleasantly on our minds. It is a command; we don't like commands. No, Joshua, not this day, nor any day. W e are a free people. W e take orders from no one. If it seem evil to us to serve the Lord, that settles it. W e serve nobody. You merely aggravate your offense by commanding us to choose whom we will serve. You seem to think we must serve somebody. Evidently we are a wholly novel phenomenon that has swum into your ken,—a people who have secured their freedom, and propose to serve no one in earth or high heaven unless they wish to. The retort is wholly possible, and shows to what absurdity we have carried our freedom. It is the absurdity with which the wild asses quench their thirst. If Joshua's command goes against the grain so much the worse for the grain; for Joshua is entirely right. All the freedom we can claim is the freedom to choose whom or what we shall serve. For some sort of service, bigger and better than self, is the tacit assumption underlying every freedom. T o forget that is to pick out the shortest cut there is to utter chaos. That is a hard lesson but it must be learned. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Our task is to be big enough to justify that privilege of choice.

J

OSHUA

I N C L U S I V E N E S S OF L O V E

167

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.

DEUT. 6, 5.

THERE are many precepts in the Old Testament to love righteousness or the Law or mercy or salvation. Deuteronomy contains more commandments to love God than all the rest of the Old Testament. The author knew that love is inclusive: all the graces and attributes of God are loved where he is loved. Our thoughts are lifted to this plane by the recollection of Abraham Lincoln. Other presidents have been as wise, learned, and pure in motive; but Lincoln has grown to a place in our thoughts which no other president has shared: he is preeminently the beloved president. Time is merciful to all; to him it is more than merciful, it is just. Such natures are not easily known; they require perspective. W e gradually distinguish the quality in him that can be answered only by affection. And with that affection we give also our loyalty to everything that was dear to him. Every grace and nobility of his becomes an ideal for us to cherish just because we love him. This ability to attract love is a mystery. It cannot be cultivated. It cannot be simulated; the counterfeit is as obviously a sham as the real pearl is genuine. Men have tried in vain to learn the secret, just as they have tried in vain to rule without the secret. But life is a dead lift, and duty a burden until, once in a while, there comes the noble man who is, also the lovable man. Then all is turned to light and joy.

168

T H E

W H O L E

O F

T H I N G S

The sum of our words is, He is all. ECCLESIASTICUS 4 3 , 2 7 .

WE suspect that some of the books of the Apocrypha are of a later date, and spring from a more mature religious condition. These words indicate great richness of theological thought. W e may talk all we please about God, ascribe unto him every conceivable power that may enhance his being, or define his nature, or assert his holiness. But we shall never reach the full truth. There will always be that which still lies beyond our conception. God is everything that we can think or wish him to be, and a thousand times more. The sum of our words is, he is all. In our limitations we are doomed to worship God piecemeal, a little at a time; at one moment his eternity, at another his immediateness; at one time his purposefulness, at another his comfort. But the greatest mistake we can make is to forget those aspects of his being that we cannot know, and to think that the quality which happens to appeal to our nature or our need is the whole of God. T o believe is beautiful; to dogmatize is perilous. No thought of ours can contain him. His truest manifestation is that indefinable feeling in our hearts that the Whole of Things in which our lives are set is Order and Purpose and Power and Goodness and Love.

TROUT IN THE BROOK There was joy in Israel.

169

1 CHRON. 1 2 ,

40.

F course there were many other things in Israel: pain, sorrow, defeat, wickedness, corruption. Yet so long as they could be sure there was joy in Israel, that Israel was the kind of land where joy could be found and possessed, they were satisfied. We are in much the same condition. We are made aware that in our world there are violence and wrong, greed and injustice, suffering and bloodshed. But so long as we can be sure that somewhere in our world there are joy, truth, right, beauty, love, holiness, we are at heart satisfied. All the fisherman wants to know is that there are trout in the river. The endurance and skill and patience required to catch the trout are precisely the fun of trout fishing; and if any one deprived him of these he would resent it. But if any one assured him there were no trout in the river, he would give up and move on to another stream. Life is a romantic adventure. The objective is, by our own character and skill, to defeat its threat of frustration and sorrow, and to realize its potentials of success and happiness. Deprive us of that objective, and the charm of living is gone. We should say with Hamlet, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world. All we want to know is that there is joy in our Israel; that this world is the kind of place where the victory and happiness of the Christ are possible.

O

THE UNFAILING ANSWER They looked unto him, and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed. PSALM 34, 5 .

THE realism of the words is the secret of their beauty. We have seen faces in a dim room, turned to the light, and at once illumined so that every detail of feature and expression becomes distinct. To the Psalmist, God is the source of light; on those who look unto him the light shines. The truth is stated metaphorically, but it is profound. That which transfigures our life in every aspect, its industry and routine, business and pleasure, motive and ambition, law and order, is the light that shines upon it from the Sanctity we call God. Without that light our life is a drab and musty fabric, meaningless and unlovely. We look at it cynically, and wonder why we trouble to weave such a fabric; what is it for; what is gained? Why do we labor and suffer, and fail and try and spend? Lord, what wait I for? Truly, my hope is in thee. The moment we turn the fabric unto God, it is lightened. Its face is beautified. It begins to glimmer with meaning and purport. Its pain and effort, its labor and achievement become bright with significance. Without God, our life is as futile as a sun-dial in the shade. Only as his light falls upon it can it become intelligible. For he is the Unfailing Answer to every riddle; and the Great Explanation of every fact and force.

171

A POTENTIALLY GOOD WORLD Unto the pure, all things are pure.

TiTus I, 15.

THAT sentiment is none too common in the Bible. The Jews were not given to introspection; they were objective, acted upon by outside influences. The idea that each man looks upon life through colored glasses, and that the forces of life take on the color of those glasses, was not a popular idea. They had much to learn from Epicurus,—that we can make life bright or sombre or gay by looking for its brightness or gloom or gaiety. Of course that teaching can be overdone. Some of life's experiences are so emphatically sour that no amount of looking on the bright side will make them anything else. But most of life's experiences are mixed; and our trouble is that the prevalent mood filters out every quality save the one which that mood demands, and then proceeds to over-accentuate that quality. Thus we become easy victims for propaganda. Just to live these days requires all the powers of the whole man. Be a whole man, says the voice of Reason. Keep your balance. Remember that the dry howl of the pessimist is as false as the silly titter of the optimist. Be practical, and recognize the darkness in our world. Also be trustful, quiet, idealistic, and know that it is a good world. Right is still Right; or "there would be no war. Truth is still Truth, and is calling for its champions to defend it, and good world the

172

THE NEED OF HATRED I hate them with perfect hatred. PSALM I39, 22.

NE of the noblest of our psalms contains these words. T h e y come to us with a distinct jolt. H o w can such a psalm even mention hatred? or speak of it as something perfect? True, there are men and things that we hate today; for that emotion is overworked just now. W e are not ashamed of our hatred; yet w e hesitate to put it among our religious activities, or try to reconcile it with the spirit of religion. W e confess that insofar as we hate, we are taking a "day off" from our religious duties. But to do this is to run another risk: that of devitalizing our religion. T o mutilate our spiritual systems is to render our religion anaemic. For religion is not confined to a part of our nature. It is our whole nature properly balanced. It has a place for all our powers, but it asks each power to keep to its proper place and function. Hatred in its proper place, and doing "what it should, is not only perfect; it is a part of religion. For if religion can find no use for hatred there is something wroijg with it. Think how Christ felt towards the blind legalism and shameless hypocrisy about him. Only one •phrase can describe his feeling: perfect hatred. Here is a very sharp sword, and one that is dangerous to handle. But without it man is not fully equipped to defend his soul, and do God's work in this partially habitable world.

AN EXHAUSTED

Asleep on a pillow.

CHRIST

MARK 4, 38.

CHRIST gave everything to his work, all his bodily strength, all his thought and sympathy and hope; and the more he gave the greater became the drain on his energies. For his fame spread throughout the .country side; the number of people seeking his help increased with every passing day; and opportunities for rest and relaxation grew scarce until they wholly vanished, leaving him, as Mark tells us in another place, no leisure so much as to eat. We are not surprised then to find him in the stern of Peter's fishing boat asleep on a pillow. The moment sometimes came when exhausted nature must assert the rights that no one else considered. This is a small matter, yet it does add its little detail to our picture of Christ. W e cannot suppress some indignation for the thoughtless multitudes who showed their gratitude in that left-handed but common fashion,—by half killing their benefactor. But we welcome the thought that he held back nothing for himself; he was complete in his generosity. That much at least any one can do. T o work wisely and well is reserved for some. T o work generously, and come to the end of the day, as Stevenson has it in his well-known prayer, "weary, and content, and undishonored," is possible for all. There is a true significance in the fact that weariness usually means a clean conscience.

S E R V A N T OR

MASTER

Behold, Dagon ivas fallen upon his face to the ground, before the ark of the Lord. I SAM. 5, 4.

HAVING captured the ark of the Lord in battle, the Philistines placed the trophy in the temple of their god Dagon. T h e y found they had made a powerful captive. The story suggests a question: is God our servant, or our master? Does religion obey us, or command us? Aladdin could rub his lamp and summon to his aid a mighty genie; are faith and prayer our magic formulas by which we can summon to our aid, to do our bidding, the boundless powers of the Most High? It is a strange conceit, born of our thoughtlessness. H o w much of the discredit that rests on prayer is due to the false note in the prayer itself! It was not a prayer that we uttered, but only a magic lamp that we rubbed, expecting thereby to enthrall the Divine and make him obey our behests. N o temple is big enough to contain that Tenant; no human heart masterful enough to command him; no human design holy enough to bind his allegiance. The first step is to get the thought straight: it is we who are his servants. Our temples are not his prisons, but his guest chambers. In his presence, every idol, every unworthy hope or ambition falls upon its face to the ground. His will takes command of us, and fills us with his own holy desires, and enrolls us in his own purpose and loyalty. False religion says, O God, because I believe in you I expect you to do my will. True religion says, Father, not my will but thine be done.

INDIVIDUAL FAITHFULNESS

i75

Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.

PSALM 120, 5.

and Kedar were two tribes whose black tents were notorious for filth and confusion. T h e Psalmist's plaint has a point for us. Our times are confused. A hundred details demand instant attention. A s though they were not enough, our selfappointed overseers of public morals have dozens of additional calls for us to heed, "national disgraces" for us to avoid. T h e y are right, but they are nof human. T h e y are so busy reminding us of our shortcomings w e wonder how they find time to do their own share. T h e trouble is, we are unskilled in the technique of living in such times. W e know too little of the art of minding our own business, of trusting others to mind theirs, of not spoiling the broth with too much volunteer cookery, and of doing the thing ourselves instead of scolding some one else for not doing it. W e have not learned these difficult arts; and so we make our life a mammoth tent of Kedar. 'When the Psalmist asks God to "turn thy face from my sins," he says in effect: O God, just leave me alone for a while. I know I am a sinner, but I can straighten myself out if you don't bother me. In peace our best way to get things done is mass-action; cumbersome, but democratic and therefore necessary. In times of stress mass-action is even more necessary, but it must rest on a base of individual faithfulness. That is our first concern: take care of the individual faithfulness, and the mass-action will in large measure take care of itself.

M

ESECH

176

T H E TREE C A N STAY GREEN If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? LUKE 23, 31.

THE tree stands for Jerusalem. If such cruel injustice is possible when Jerusalem is a green tree, full of life and vigor and hope, what must we expect when Jerusalem becomes a dry tree, its hope gone, its future dark, its institutions powerless to govern human conduct? When the soul of man or nation looks forward to a bright future, full of promise and growth and prosperity, it wears an expansive smile on its face indicating a defiant self-confidence toward enemies and a generous indulgence toward friends. Every one is good-natured in a time of prosperity. Sins are committed to be sure, but are laughed off as merely the exuberance of good health and high spirits. A change comes when the soul contemplates a drab future, whose promise has evaporated, and whose growth and prosperity begin to look dubious. Age has its disillusionments. The tree becomes dry. A bitter, cynical desperation takes the place of the boisterous laughter of its youthful greenness. In that mood anything can happen; even the extremes of ruthless cruelty, shameless perfidy, and ungovernable spite. Bodies cannot avoid the dry tree, but souls can stay green; can retain their expansive smile of hope, and selfreliance, and good humor, and generous fellowship. God never grows old; and is always ready to work his miracle of perpetual youth in the souls that welcome him.

T H E SHINING PATH He maketh a -path to shine after him. JOB 41, 32. LEVIATHAN, the monster of the deep, passing through the sea on a dark night, upon his lawful occasions, leaves behind him a wake of gleaming phosphorescence. He maketh a path to shine after him. Forgetting Leviathan, we think of the words in quite a different connection. The most wonderful thing in human nature is the inborn predisposition to right and truth and beauty which is hidden away in every soul. Emerson calls it the moral conscience. Kant speaks of it with reverence as the moral law within. Modern philosophers give it their own strange names: the Inner Check, the Inner Urge, the Nisus. T o Matthew Arnold it is the Power that makes for Righteousness. With some people it is disguised and forgotten. With others it is instant and vocal. But it is present in all, a something "that stirs within, loving goodness, hating sin." The greatest service a man can do is to live in such ways that this indwelling predisposition to nobility in others will be revealed and encouraged. W e think of two such men at this time of year: George Washington, self-controlled, fearless, and true; Abraham Lincoln, honest, generous, and kindly. Each one lived in such a way that he maketh a path to shine after him. And in that shining path all who follow find it easier to be true citizens, true Christians, and true men and women. Somebody is looking to us as we look to these two heroes. In our humbler ways we can so live that we shall make a path to shine after us.

178

CONVICTION AND ITS VENT They say and do not.

MATT. 2 3 , 3 .

NCE a conviction is accepted by the mind it becomes like Washington taking command of the army on Cambridge Common. It begins to assert its authority as commander-in-chief of the forces of that life. But it finds a rival already in power, the authority of the social custom under which that particular man lives. The conviction of the mind cannot always override this authority of custom; it can assert its own authority in but one way, in talk. A man's actions are already prescribed by custom; the only remaining vent through which conviction can assert its commands is words. This may explain the blast of talk that sweeps through our days. Talk is our only safety-valve. Like the scribes and Pharisees, we say and do not. About half of this talk is simply not heard; in at one ear, out at the other. The other half is neutralized by a counter blast from those who disagree, and we have a very pretty argument but no progress. Only the deed can instigate progress. For once the deed gets into the world's ear, it is like a lobster that has got into the trap: it cannot get out. This great lobster trap, the world, cannot argue away the deed,—the voyage of the Santa Maria, the cup of hemlock, the cross on Calvary. It must do something about it. If we could learn to do and to say not, we might begin to get ahead. Or if every Christian could be smitten deaf and dumb, thus leaving his conviction but one vent, action, we might begin to get ahead.

INNER RADIANCE

179

He ivas transfigured before them. MATT. 17, 2.

1

His face did shine as the sun. His garments became white as the light. A voice from heaven spoke words of pride and love. Christ was one of those natures whose inner moral victories are rewarded by a sudden glow of light and peace and blessedness as from heaven. More than once he faced a difficult problem, and made an unflinching decision for the right. Each time his decision was answered by a sudden vivid awareness of God's pride and love. There is enough of conscience in each one to understand this experience. But the thought awakens a rather reproachful question: Are we too busy or too careless to give our Christianity a fair chance? Must religion be nothing more than a tiresome system of moral exactions; or conscience nothing more than a sinister voice interfering with our happiness, and warning us away from dangerous ground? Must God be only a grim taskmaster demanding our obedience? That is one side of religion. Is there no other, brighter side, with its Mount of Transfiguration; its inward radiance; its voice from heaven,— This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased? Here is the testimony of the Psalmist: In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Christ had learned how to enter into that fulness of joy, those pleasures forevermore, which await us all at the right hand of the Most High.

180

T H E DARK INTERVALS

He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.

LUKE 9, 51.

SOMETHING about tfhe words gives a feeling of iron selfcontrol. He did not want to go to Jerusalem; he knew what awaited him there; he could think of a dozen reasons for not going. But he permitted no argument with himself. And when Simon Peter tried to dissuade him, making light of his forebodings, and speaking words of conventional optimism, he turned on Peter with a sort of fury: Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me. There was no getting around it,—here was an ordeal that must be faced. It was an interval between the heights of his life, dark and lonely and full of torturing pain, and there was neither bridge nor detour. So against every warning impulse of the shrinking body, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. O yes, of course; it makes us think of Browning's poem: "Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, and blew: Childe Roland to the dark tower came." But we need no figment of the poetic imagination to teach us the reality of those intervals between the heights. W e are in one now. W e refuse to believe they are in the law of our Being; they are simply incidental to the process of Becoming. Some day perhaps the process will be complete and life will be its hope fulfilled. Meanwhile here is the grim fact, and there is nothing to do but steadfastly set our face to go to Jerusalem.

CHRISTIAN L A U G H T E R

The Lord shall laugh at him.

181 PSALM 3 7 , 1 3 «

is hard to define, for it expresses more than one emotion. Among other things, it is our emotional response to the incongruous. The enemy with whom we are in actual conflict, we hate; and our hatred implies our fear that he may overcome us; he is in our zone of conflict, a possible victor. In fact, the nearer he is to victory the more violent grows our hatred. The temptation which Christ most passionately repudiated was the one that came nearest to overcoming him. But as the gap between ourselves and the enemy grows wider, ana as the enemy recedes from the zone of conflict into the region or the impossible and the utterly incongruous, our hatred abates and gives place to laughter. He is no longer a danger but only a joke. The laughter of the Lord is a sign of his impregnable confidence in the rightness and victory of his own law. If Christ was the type of perfect manhood, he must have had his sense of humor. We get a hint of it in Mark 12, 34; Luke 14, 10; possibly in other places. It is hard to think of a laughing Christ, but still harder to think of a Christ who never laughed. And it is an interesting speculation: how much of his effectiveness was conveyed by the sarcasm with which he punctured selfrighteousness; by the ridicule with which he pilloried human greed; by the laughter with which he branded all wickedness as hopelessly incongruous in a world governed by God's law of righteousness! AUGHTER

I

182

SUPREMELY T R U E Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. MATT. 4, 10.

THIS is his answer to the last temptation. We get the idea that the last temptation was the hard one, the onlyone that really tempted him. He disposed of the first two on the door-mat. But this last one really got beyond the threshold, it was so crafty. The two strongest features in his nature were devotion to God and sympathy for men. This temptation sought to undo him by adroitly enlisting his sympathy against his devotion. He greatly wanted to help and serve his fellowmen. He could do so if he woula worship the devil, who in return would make him king of the whole region. No one could then hinder him; no Scribe question his authority; no Pilate dare to crucify him. He would be the Enlightened Monarch of Plato's dream. And think of the blessings of his reign! It was a truly devilish temptation because it turned the best part of him against the best art of him: his love for man against his love for God. et the faithful centuries have vindicated his choice. They have revealed him supremely true to man because he was supremely true to God. The devil could never have made him what God has made him, the Saviour of the World. The end justifies the means in the sense that a good end proves that its means have been good. The end is only the sum-total of its means; and a good end from bad means is as impossible as figs from thistles.

?

A N INSULT T O GOD

183

If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down. MATT. 4, 6. THfc temptations are an inner experience without witnesses, and could have been known only because he himself had narrated them in allegorical form. Not only the temptations, but other inner experiences like the transfiguration are tantalizing to us because they hint at teachings that are not recorded in the Gospels, but are wholly lost. In spite of its allegorical form, this temptation was just as real to him as though an actual devil had taken him to the pinnacle of an actual temple, and dared him in actual words: You say you are the Son of God; and you have the promise in the psalm,—he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to bear thee up in their hands-lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Very well; now prove it. Cast thyself down to the marble pavement sixty feet below, and let the people see; the angels bear you up. That will be a convincing sign. No one will venture to doubt your claim after that. Nothing so clearly reveals the quality of Christ's spiritual dignity as his fiat refusal. To demand proof of God was to imply that he was not to be trusted. He was nothing but a divine Confidence Man whose every promise must be tested. He would not insult God in any such way. There shall no sign be given. Faith in God was enough fpr Christ. That is a sharp rebuke. If we must wait for God to prove his integrity- by signs, then the one with whom we are dealing is not God.

I84

STUPIDITY OF SIN He answered and said: It is 'written. MATT. 4 , 4 .

OT many of us have noticed that Christ meets all the temptations in the same way,—by quoting a sentence of the Law. There is never a word of argument, never the least discussion of the subject on its own merits; simply, It is written. He apparently looked on the devil as a creature of limited intelligence, unimaginative and conventional, who could be silenced immediately by a purely conventional retort. In fact, we cannot resist the feeling that Christ regarded the devil with contempt. He was just a joke, a poor one at that. He was not worth arguing with; wouldn't understand; quote a bit of the Law; that will silence him. There was an affinity between Christ and Socrates, who taught that virtue and wisdom are identical. If a man commits a sin knowing it to be a sin, he is just a stupid fool. Such perfectionism is a bit out of our reach. Even with Christ it was perhaps more theoretical than actual; not that he sinned, but he knew what it is to be really tempted. Only one who had been through the struggle himself could have said: If thine eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee. His contempt for the devil and all his devilish ways may be understood to be his ideal manner of treating that gentleman. One does not readily succumb to him whom one holds in contempt. When we can "whistle the devil to make us sport," we are fairly safe from his wiles.

N

OVER-WORKED INDIVIDUALISM

185

Command that these stones be made bread. MATT. 4, 3.

His answer was prompt and conclusive: Man shall not live by bread alone. In other words, bread was not what he wanted. It was not even a temptation; and the devil had made a poor guess, as he sometimes does. The significance of the story lies in its application to the rest of us. Not many of us can dispose of that temptation with such scornful ease. We are reputed to be sympathetic, generous, and helpful; but we are incorrigible individualists. We boast or it. Our "Way of Life" can be defined as the way that offers least obstruction to the giatification of individual ambition. And at that point we are in aphelion to Christ; just about as far from him as we can get. To suggest that individualism can be carried too far, or that there are limits to its gratification, is rank heresy. But the one thing of which we can be certain in "this uncertain world," is that so long as the suggestion remains a heresy there will be wars; and a few more wars will mean the extinction of the race. What folly to talk about "this uncertain world!" Our greatest need is wisdom to see that this world is full of terrifying certainties. One of them is that this idolatry of self, which is what our individualism too easily becomes, is just an elaborate way to commit suicide. History is full of individuals cultivated to noble ends. Our jails are full of the other kind. Christ is not only good; he is wise.

186

GOD'S

MAN

Then -was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness for to be tempted of the devil. MATT. 4, I .

HE had reached a decision: he himself was the Messiah, for whose coming he had tried to prepare his countrymen. At first he had never dreamt of the possibility; he was just another John the Baptist, a preparer of the way for the Messiah. He had returned to Galilee to do for his people what John had done for the Judeans: inform them of the Messiah's nature; how to qualify for entrance into his kingdom. This labor among the people had brought self-discovery: his own power, leadership, purity of motive, spiritual capacity. It had brought their surmise: Art thou he that should come? The evidence had proved strong; in the end conclusive. So it was the self-acknowledged Messiah, Son of God, who went up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The Synoptic Gospels put the story at the beginning where it is out of place. He could hardly be tempted to misuse his power before he knew he had power to misuse. But the temptation was bound to come. It comes on the heels of every discovery of personal power, gifts, talent; the simpering insidious whisper: Think what you can do for yourself, the riches, the fame! It came to him and fell on deaf ears. The first grace that Christ reveals is consecration of self. We know what consecration to self is; the world is full of it. In such a world Christ is conspicuous because he was not a career-man. He was God's man.

ANGELICAL WEAVING

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Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. PSALM 5 1 , 10. TLE new-born Viola in Francis Thompson's poem is a perfect fabric woven of "hands angelical." T h e old theology says the task for her parents and herself is to retain as much as possible of the initial perfection against the moral attrition of experience. G o d hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions; therefore keep the many inventions to a minimum; don't spoil God's handiwork. T h e new theology says the perfect baby is only the beginning of the upright man; what is perfect for the baby is sadly inadequate for the man. Innocence must grow into wisdom, and purity into strength before the baby can come unto the perfect man. Quite true; and modern; and proper; and we agree. But what a lot of needless waste the process entails. W h a t pathos w e find in the Psalmist's cry: O God, renew, renew. I had it once. I did not appreciate its worth. I threw it away. I wish I had it now. Help me to get it back! Browning says, we fall to rise again. V e r y good,—provided we rise more than we fall. But to exchange innocence for wisdom, and purity for strength is to make a questionable bargain. Perhaps the old theology says something worth heeding: b y all > means acquire wisdom and strength; but be more jealous of the innocence, purity, clean heart, and right spirit of the original angelical weaving. A f t e r all, the angels work under a pretty good master craftsman.

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A COUNSEL OF DESPAIR The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. PROV. 8, 1 3 .

OME of Christ's parables must have been told in a mood of impatience. He had been urging his friends to practice more persistence in living prayerfully. They were so dull and unresponsive that in desperation he tells about the unjust judge. The persistent widow got his attention by making herself a nuisance to him. The teaching is plain although some of the implications make us gasp. Suppose God is an unjust judge, uninterested in your case; why should he be? Keep at him all the time. Be a gad-fly. Keep on buzzing around his head. He will grant your prayer just to be rid of you. W e may be wrong, but such a teaching seems to us prompted by his despair at their inattention to more conventional words. How many times would Christ lose patience with us at New Year? How long before he would try some new approach? If I cannot get you to love the good, can I not induce you to hate the evil? It amounts to the same thing. Your heart contains spites and grudges, hatreds and prejudices that you haven't changed since you went into long trousers. Aren't you a little bit tired of them? Wouldn't a little variety be pleasant? W h y not try a new set of thoughts, not borrowed but original; or a new political line-up, just to see how it feels? W e need •not natter ourselves that Christ would never descend to such whimsical obliquities. He would try anything to insinuate a new idea into our heads.

S

WE CAN HEAR IF WE WILL Be still, and know that I am God. PSALM 4 6 ,

10.

A SMOOTH SEA; a bright day; the steamer's deck a scene of jollity; people walking for their morning exercise, playing deck tennis or shuffleboard, splashing in the pool, or driving the tethered golf ball; a babel of voices. Suddenly there comes a lull in the tumult. In that lull we hear the steady throb of the turbines far down in the engine room. It was there all the time, but disguised by confusion. Every great community is like the steamer. There are surface noises, the confusion of daily concerns. In a moment of silence we detect as though it were audible the steady, forgotten, unsuspected carry-on of the community's life, its deep routine activity, by which it supplies to all the necessities of life, the thousand-and-one details that are needed by all, from the first milk wagon in the early morning, to the last mail plane that drones over the city at midnight. These are eloquent parables: the throb of the steamer's engines, the carry-on of the community's life,—they are there all the time; but we detect them only when we are still. God, the engine of life; God, the carry-on of life; God, the Sustaining Principle, steadfast, silent, unsuspected, forgotten; "Be still, and know that I am God." Our own surface confusion drowns out that Music of the Heavenly Spheres, and because we cannot hear we doubt. But we could hear if we would. A moment of silence, of quiet, attentive prayer, and the reassurance comes at once. We have only to be still, and we may know that he is God.

SILVER LININGS This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope.

LAMEN. 3, 21.

F Jeremiah wrote the words, it is quite fitting. He had to look on helplessly while his beloved city suffered almost the greatest of her afflictions: destruction at the hands of the Babylonian troops and the deportation of her foremost citizens into exile. It was a heavy black cloud which settled down on Jeremiah's spirit. But as a prophet of Jehovah, it was his instinct to justify Jehovah's ways. So he makes the most of every shred of silver lining. It might have been worse. It is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed. T h e Lord is good to those who wait for him; Jerusalem did not wait. His compassions are new every morning; who knows what tomorrow morning will reveal? T o be sure, Jeremiah had almost forgotten. This I will recall to my mind; therefore have I hope. There is no scarcity of silver linings to our clouds; but the trouble is we store them away in our minds and forget them. Life as a whole, and all its situations, are full of reasons for gratitude. Memories, prospects, possibilities, alternatives, and always the verdicts of time to reveal the ultimate blessedness of so many apparent misfortunes in this deceptive present,—it is a part of our duty, in simple justice to God, to keep these constantly available. For if, like Jeremiah, w e could recall them to our minds we should at least lessen the despair and increase the hope in which our days are passed. Most of our woes are the result of either forgetfulness or short-sightedness.

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PENETRATE THE DISGUISE

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He went out into the mountain to pray. LUKE 6, 12.

A PEASANT'S home in Galilee was no place for prayer. When Christ would pray he had to seek some quiet hillside pasture. "Cold mountains and the midnight air witnessed the fervor of thy prayer." Perhaps it was as well. Man's best manifestation of Deity has always been nature; the mountain his best symbol of God's eternity; the heavenly bodies of God's order; and the glories of field and forest and sunset the most eloquent promise of God's truth and beauty. The mountain was more than a chance for Christ to pray; it was an incentive to prayer. To live near to nature is to live as near to God as most of us can get. Our human interests and activities, especially as they are accentuated in our cities, become an artificial world in which we are captive, and by which we are removed one more step from God's realities. This artificial world both helps us and hinders. The street lamp guides our feet, but we can hardly see Venus, just a little to the left, waiting to guide our thoughts. We do not have to grope through the Stygian darkness with which nature covers her mountain; but neither can we walk in the light which nowhere seems so clear as when nature bathes that same mountain with her sunrise. We live in the very center of a nest of boxes. Our task is to penetrate each concentric disguise, until we find what Christ found on his mountain side,—nothing between our souls and the Everlasting Arms.

CHRIST A N D JOB

Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. JOB 19, 26. IN two respects the belief of the ancient Jews was deficient: they had no conception of life after death; they did not know how to express their sense of well-being in what we call spiritual exaltation. We find these deficiencies all through the Book of Job. For the trouble with Job was that he felt he had lost contact with God. All his mourning is on that account. His disasters are never mentioned; he takes them in his stride. It is what these disasters mean that troubles him. They mean that God has cast him off, and his heart is full of panic for he really loves God. He tells himself that God will surely relent, but it will have to be before he dies. In my flesh shall I see God. And it will have to be by the only token he can understand: restored prosperity. If only Christ could have been among his comforters! Blessed are the pure in heart, Job, for they shall see God. In my Father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you. Prosperity in this life is the poorest token of God's love we can have. For God can show his love in an inward peace that passeth understanding, and that defies the grave. We cannot measure the wealth of in- | sight that Christ brought into our world. The soul is ; deathless; and the soul filled with the sense of God's presence is indestructibly blessed.

CRISIS-CHRISTIANITY If in the land of peace they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? JER. 12, 5. T might surprise Jeremiah to learn that we do better in the swelling of Jordan than we did in the land of peace. Jeremiah's logic is sound, but his observation is faulty. The land of peace bored us. Its problems were trivial, and its issues seemed to be of small consequence. There was no challenge to our Christianity or to our patriotism. Life was divested of its dramatic quality, and slipped along in uneventful, monotonous fashion, making no demands and requiring no effort. It was too easy to forget ourselves, forget that we were patriots and Christians. And many of us did forget. All of us forgot to some extent; some of us forgot completely. Then came the swelling of Jordan. Instantly both our patriotism and our Christianity were aroused; jealous, defiant, determined, and watchful. It needed only the crisis to bring us to our bearings as patriots and Christians. A t least we can claim to be patriots in a crisis, and Christians in a crisis. But there is the question: is this crisis-Christianity enough; or this crisis-patriotism? Must we look forward to an indefinite history of periodic correctives, with its long, deceptive, insidiously dangerous reaches of peace when we forget both Christ and nation, and culminating in a day of reckoning, when we suddenly assume our crisis-Christianity and our crisis-patriotism, and apply the grim correctives of war?

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O N E

H E A R T

I will give them one heart, and one way. JER. 32, 29.

EVERY society must rest upon certain taken-for-granted agreements, so self-evident that they need no mention. No laws are framed to provide for them. As well pass a law that two and two shall equal four. They are axiomatic; the unwritten conditions of social life, so deeply engraved upon our nature that no one thinks of breaking them. In fact, no one thinks of them at all any more than of the wrinkles in the palm of the hand. They may be called the customs of our living; but they are so deep and silent and authoritative that they have been dignified with the Latin term: mores. T o be given one heart is to have a broad foundation of mores, axiomatic principles, on which to erect the social fabric. No law-giver needs to bother with them. When treachery becomes so unscrupulous that it breaks faith with this fundamental like-mindedness, we are first incredulous, then aroused, for such treachery attacks the very foundation of society. It is obvious to the humblest intelligence that we need this one heart in our world; perhaps in our own country. A common religion would supply it; or a common body of ideals. Experience gradually establishes it, for there is only one successful way to live which experience is slowly discovering. Every infraction weakens it. Every fidelity strengthens it. Say what you mean. Keep your word. Recognize your duties. Respect your neighbor's rights.

VICARIOUS

FAITH

For all men have not faith.

*95 2 THESS. 3, 2.

THERE is nothing profound in that remark; it is simply interesting, because it shows that conditions then were similar to conditions now. "For all men have not faith" is just as true of this day as of that. The division of labor is not man's invention, but Nature's expedient. In a world of individuals no- two are alike, and since every individual has to belong to a larger organism called society, it follows that co-operation is the law of life. Each must do what he is best qualified to do for the good of the whole. The work of running a society has to be divided up, and each item assigned to the man or the class best qualified to do it. He serves all the rest, and is served by all the rest. One aspect of the matter is not so rudimentary. Every society needs some kind of faith to determine its temper and its trend, its moral standard, its criterion of values, its hope and its direction. This duty of having faith is one that all men cannot perform, for all men have not faith. Those who are capable of discharging that specialized function are facing the duty of "having faith" for their brothers, for their whole society. Many people will dislike the idea; no one can deny it. The faith of the few determines the moral standard and spiritual texture of the whole. One church spire pointing heavenward over a handful of worshippers will, change for the better the quality of the whole town.

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T H E FIRST A L T A R And Saul built an altar unto the Lord; the same was the first altar that he built unto the Lord. 1 SAM. 14, 35.

HE chronicler considers this an event worth recording. Saul was young, self-confident, gigantic, unexcelled in bodily strength. So far, no situation that life presented had made him question his own powers. But here was a crisis too heavily loaded with consequences to be faced in his own strength and wit. By some ceremonial misdemeanor the people had offended their God. As king, he could neither let the matter pass, nor could he handle it unaided. It was too much for him. Therefore, "the same was the first altar he built unto the Lord." The moment is pretty sure to come sooner or later into every life. As children we were happy and careless, because others had us in loving protection, thinking and deciding for us. With the coming of maturity there was a change: we had to do our own thinking, make our own decisions, pay for our own sins. Even that was possible, until this overloaded moment came, too portentous f