LIFE ;iPI*«HE WAY THROUGH REV. F. B. MEYER .i^;^a,iW?(iftHni«M') rUnininiHii}iHU|, iWli.lHuUI iKi : I ! Lh(i.! !,' Ill Pil ' ^m 'mm tihvaxy of Che €heclo0ical ^tminavy PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY The Estate of the Rev, John 3. Wiedinp:er BV 4501 .M482 1913 Meyer, F. B. 1847-1929 Life and the way through LIFE AND THE WAY THROUGH Life and the Wa^'''' Through ^v; ^'f ^^ \^ •:> BY THE REV. F. B. MEYER, B.A. AUTHOR OF "The Shepherd Psalm," "Old Testament Heroes," "The Creed of Creeds," etc., etc. FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY New York and London 1913 FOREWORD So considerable a portion of this book has been planned or written whilst I am enjoying the generous hospitality of my friends, Lord and Lady Kinnaird, at their beautiful Scottish home, that it is natural and delightful to in- scribe it to them with warm affection and sincere admiration of all the holy activities which are ever issuing from their lives to make the way through this world easier for multi- tudes of pilgrims. F. B. MEYER. FOREWORD So considerable a portion of this book has been planned or written whilst I am enjoying the generous hospitality of my friends, Lord and Lady Kinnaird, at their beautiful Scottish home, that it is natural and delightful to in- scribe it to them with warm affection and sincere admiration of all the holy activities which are ever issuing from their lives to make the way through this world easier for multi- tudes of pilgrims. F. B. MEYER. CONTENTS PAGB Introduction . . . . i 1. There is a Way Through . . 5 2. The Guiding Hand ... 17 3. The Jewelled Gate — Faith . 25 4- .. » ,, Love . 55 5- .. >y „ Hope . 81 6. Some Experiences on the Way 90 7. Our Spending-Money . . . 123 8. The Companions of the Way . 140 9. Resting-Places . . . .151 10. The Growing Splendour of Life 175 At noon a shower had fallen, and the clime Breathed sweetly, and upon a cloud there lay One more sublime in beauty than the Day, Or all the sons of Time; A gold harp had he, and was singing there Songs that I yearn' d to hear ; a glory shone Of rosy twilights in his cheeks — a zone Of amaranth on his hair. He sang of joys to which the earthly heart Hath never beat ; he sang of deathless youth, And of the throne of Love, Beauty, and Truth Meeting no more to part; He sang lost Hope, faint Faith, and vain Desire Crown' d there; great works, that on the earth began Accomplished ; towers impregnable to man Scaled with the speed of fire; Of Power, and Life, and winged Victory He sang ; of bridges strown 'twixt star and star — And hosts all arm'd in light for bloodless war Pass and repass on high; ' Lo ! in the pauses of his jubilant voice He leans to listen : answers from the spheres, And mighty paeans thundering he hears Down the empyreal skies; ' Then suddenly he ceased — and seemed to rest His goodly-fashioned arm upon a slope Of that fair cloud, and with soft eyes and hope He pointed towards the West; ' And shed on me a smile of beams, that told Of a bright World beyond the thunder-piles With blessed fields, and hills, and happy isles. And citadels of gold." F. Tennyson. LIFE AND THE WAY THROUGH INTRODUCTION Which is the more important — to know the end of Hfe or the way through ? At the first glance one might suppose that it was all- important to be acquainted with the end or goal of life. How can we choose our path over the mountains, as we forgather at the dawn on the village green, unless the night before we have settled on our destination ? To a young man standing on life's threshold it is natural enough to say : '' What are you going to be ? What is your objective ? What are you aiming at ? Make everything converge towards that object. Count every moment lost that does not help you towards it." Was not such a thought in the mind of the Apostles when they said to the Master : '' Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know the way ? '' But here is the difficulty. Many of us have not the inkling of an idea as to the end to which to direct our steps. Some happy souls, by their birth or by some special impulse com- Life and the Way Through municated to them, seem to have the respon- sibiHty of decision taken out of their control. A voice called to them in early childhood. The idiosyncrasy of their mental bent determined their orbit. Before they saw their first sunrise, they seem to have been commissioned for some high quest. The ship, in some cases, sailed with sealed orders, but as soon as the coast- line faded the predestined port was known. But these are the exceptions. For most lives the future does not disclose itself. *' We know not what we shall be." For all of us who are in such a plight the profound teaching of Jesus is of priceless value. He says in effect that it is more important to know the way than the end. He does not deny that there is a distinct purpose in every human life. He does not deny that each of us was meant to reach a bourne, to do a work, to fulfil some item in the vast scheme of Providence ; but He says that this is not the most important matter. So long as we take the right way we shall reach a satis- fying and useful end. We shall not find our life to have failed. Follow the way ! Be loyal to truth ! Be faithful to opportunity ! Expend yourself for others, and, as the path develops, it will climb, and the mountain glories will un- told, and the goal will become always clearer of view. Introduction This is very comforting, because even in those cases where Hfe seems to have been pre- destined for a specific purpose, it often happens that we are prevented from realising it. We are hable to the intrusion of very starthng and sometimes very unwelcome surprises. It may be that through paralysing sickness, or through the death of some one who proposed to pro- vide the shelter and help that our life-course required, or through an unexpected change of fortune, we are thrown off the chosen track of our life. Immediately we are bewildered, sore vexed, inclined to be angry with the Almighty, and tempted to renounce all further care and effort. Yet how often such an experience has proved to be either a call of God to a truer con- ception of our ideal, or a swifter, shorter way to it ? When the waters of the Nile find them- selves blocked by the new dam which modern engineers have placed across their passage to- wards the sea, is it not conceivable that they greatly resent their diversion to the wastes of sand which for long centuries have lain bare and desolate ? But are they not amply repaid by their opportunity ? Who shall say that they have failed ? And when at last they are able to make their way to the bosom of the deep, to lie there for a little ere drawn up again to start on their vast cloud-journey, it must 3 Life and the Way Through be with the satisfaction that they have finished the work which was given them to do. Thus will it be with all who will take the right way through life. There may be the ups of achievement and the downs of disap- pointment ; there may be Transfiguration gleams and Gethsemane shadows ; but we shall win through, and shall not have lived in vain. The main consideration, therefore, is to centre our thoughts on the way through. We desire not only to get through life, but to do so in the best way possible. Not scourged through as felons ; not driven through as slaves ; not dragged through at the tails of wild horses ; but as those who have learned the secret of noble living — a secret which is applicable to all temperaments and conditions, a talisman of victory over the most terrific odds, a clue which shall thread the maze, and conduct the soul from out of the darkness of life's catacomb to stand beneath the open heavens, where we no longer behold through a glass darkly, but face to face. THERE IS A WAY THROUGH How often is the question asked by the motorist or pedestrian in a new country, where the road becomes worse, or the path more in- distinct over the moor, 'Xan I get through ? '' or, '' Is there a way, and will it bring me out ? " We may well ask that question of life. Is there any purpose in it all ? Are we going anywhere ? And, if so, is this the right track that we have taken ? One day Schopenhauer strayed into the Royal Gardens at Berlin; and when the official inquired, " Who are you ? " the philo- sopher replied : '' I don't know ; I shall be glad if you can tell me." The official reported him for a lunatic. But he was far from that. The only difficulty with him was that he had deeply pondered on the mystery of human life, and was bewildered with the perplexity of the problem. Similarly, if the question were put to vast numbers of people, " Quo vadis ? " (Whither are you going?), they would return the same reply : ''I don't know ; I shall be glad if you can tell me." Such people resemble 5 Life and the Way Through a bewildered child, standing on a platform in a railway centre like Finsbury Park or Clap- ham Junction. They know not how they came there, or whence ; they have no idea whither the long parallel metals lead ; they hear the trains thundering past, but what it all means, and which of them they should take, is a mystery they cannot solve. Some hold the policy of drift. — They are like a water-logged vessel on the ocean, or the flot- sam and jetsam which drift aimlessly to and fro between our London bridges. Without an idea of their destination, like the prophet, they go down to the nearest port, pay their fare, and go aboard the first boat that is leaving the quay, and take their chance whether they land East or West, and whether the boat is a merchantman or a man-of-war. Others hold the policy of pleasure. — Their one idea is to have a good time, placing their own construction on the phrase, according to their predilections. In his essay on George Eliot, Lilly reminds us of the question put by Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, v/ho inquires : '* Do not our lives consist of the four ele- ments ? " And to whom Sir Andrew Ague- cheek replies : *' Faith, so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drink- ing." The quotation is followed up by a 6 There is a Way Through picture of everyday existence sketched by another hand : " What is the course of the life ' Of mortal men on the earth ? Most men eddy about Here and there — eat and drink, Chatter and love and hate, Gather and squander, are raised Aloft, are hurled in the dust, Striving blindly, achieving Nothing ; and then they die — Perish ! and no one asks Who or what they have been, More than he asks what waves In the moonlit solitude wild Of the midmost ocean have swelled, Foamed for a moment, and gone." A miserable poHcy of hfe, surely, for which no thoughtful person can cherish an atom of desire ! Others adopt the policy of fatalism. — For them, as for the Moslem, it is always Kismet. They were born under an unlucky star. It is always their fate to meet with dis- appointment and trouble. If their invest- ments turn out badly, or their home is visited with a run of sickness, or a murrain takes their cattle, and a fire burns down their house, their one creed is that their lot fell out of the wrong side of the jar — it cannot be helped ! Their 7 Life and the Way Through favourite book in Scripture is Ecclesiastes. The earlier chapters are as well worn in their Bible as Isaiah xl. or John xiv. in that of the simple cottager of whom Cowper tells. These verses contain the main articles of their creed : '' That which hath been is that which shall be : all things are full of weariness : as it happeneth to the fool, so will it happen to me ; O, why was I not more wise ? What hath a man of all his labour, for all his days are but sorrow and his travail is grief. This also is vanity." But none of these policies can satisfy the thoroughly healthy soul. Their appeal is in- compatible with its nobler instincts and intui- tions, especially when they are quickened by a great inspiration from above. In an interesting snatch of autobiography, Mark Rutherford tells us that when he was a good way past middle life he became the possessor of a large astronomical telescope. He confesses that he was little better than a star-gazing amateur, who might have been regarded as an object of contempt by the youngest assistant in the Nautical Almanac office. He set to work, however, unaided, set up and adjusted his instrument, and was soon able to find any star within its range. Almost every clear night he spent hours in simply looking, with never-failing wonder. He says : 8 There is a Way Through " When I went into the observatory on a winter's night, when I shut the door, opened the roof, and set the driving clock going, the world and its cares were forgotten. How could they be remembered in the presence of Perseus, as he slowly came into view, falling westward across the sky, mysterious, awful, beauti- ful, without hurry, rest, acceleration, or delay ! " Later on he bought a spectroscope, and was enabled to see what he held to be almost the most tremendous spectacle in the universe — flames of glowing gas shooting up thousands of miles from the body of the sun like volcanic explosions. In the light of such a spectacle, he felt that the pretensions and self-importance of man were reduced to absurdity for their almost entire irrelevance. The inspiration that came to Mark Ruther- ford may come to us from other sources ; but from whatever source, the mind which is thus healthily and divinely energised cannot imagine that it alone, of all the wonderful uni- verse of which it forms a part, is a creature without aim or purpose, chart or course, an amoeba floating on the ocean, the sport of chance or fate. All around, and especially in the marvellous constitution of the body, there are many and manifest traces of design : surely, 9 Life and the Way Through there is design in the sending forth of the human soul which will justify the wise good- ness of the Almighty. '' Thou has made man a little lower than the angels, but Thou hast planted that in him, which enables him to measure himself against Orion.'* This has always been the conviction of those strong and healthy souls that have led the march of the generations of mankind. They may have often been sorely perplexed with the rebuffs they met with, the blind alleys that attracted them, but from which they had to retrace their steps, and the many contra- dictions and problems with which they were confronted ; but they have never surrendered the faith that there was a purpose in life, that there was a way marked out for them to tread, a mission to fulfil, a high calling which called to them from the upper skies, and which they dared not refuse. The instances of this fill our library shelves, but we may take for example two compara- tively recent ones, of men in many respects very diverse in temperament and experience. In Sir Walter Scott's diary for 1827, when, amid his terrible misfortunes, he actually con- templated taking refuge in the Isle of Man or in the sanctuary of Holyrood to escape his merciless creditors, there occurs this entry : 10 There is a Way Through " But I will not let this unman me. Our hope, heavenly and earthly, is poorly anchored if the cable parts upon the stream. I believe in God, who can change evil into good, and I am con- fident that what befalls us is always ultimately for the best.'* And the late Bishop Francis Paget wrote : *' I think, as I look back upon my life, that there is hardly a single thwarting of my wishes, hardly a single instance where things seemed to go against me, in which I cannot even now see that, by God's profound mercy, they really went for me all the while. So that if I could have looked forward only so far as the time now present, I should have longed for and welcomed all those things which I have feared and grudgingly accepted. . . . There is no- thing that God does not work into His perfect plan of our lives. All lives converge, all move- ments tend to do His will, on earth as in heaven." But from ordinary experiences, we turn to the Master, who, throughout His life, was con- scious of its purpose and plan, and of the way which led Him through the years. '' The Son can do nothing of Himself," He said on one memorable occasion, '' He can only do what He sees the Father doing ; for whatever He does, that the Son does also in like manner ; II Life and the Way Through and greater deeds than these will He reveal unto Him." There was no break or pause in that fellowship between the Father and Him- self in His great progress from Bethlehem to the Ascension Mount ; and, therefore, with absolute truth, at the close, He was able, on the review of His earthly career, to say : '* I have done perfectly the work which, by Thine appointment, it was Mine to do." For Him also there was a goal to be reached, a mission to be accomplished ; He trod the perfect way of fellowship and obedience ; and though to human eyes it might have appeared as though His days were cut short by an untimely death, He knew that the Temple of His Life-work stood complete to the topmost stone. From the first He knew that He must be about His Father's business, that He was sent to cast fire on the earth, and to be baptised with a baptism of blood. Each step of the ways that threaded Palestine, whether to the Well of Sychar, the summit of the Mount of Beatitudes, or the descent from the Mount of Transfigura- tion, had been marked out for His most blessed feet, from before the foundation of the world. The sweet path that led to Martha's home on Olivet, and the via dolorosa that led to the Cross, were alike traced on the map of His pilgrimage between the manger-bed of Beth- 12 There is a Way Through lehem and the summit of the Mount of the Ascension. There was no accident, no room for the intrusion of unanticipated emergen- cies, no foothold for fortuitous circumstances. The Son of Man went as it was written of Him. He was deHvered to each incident of His career by the determinate counsel and fore- knowledge of God. And what was true of the Son of Man, whose life sums up and contains all human experiences, is equally true of all. This is the universal teaching of that compendium of universal biography — the Bible. According to its teaching each soul is a poem, each a study; each a distinct creation, as really as that of the flower in all its glory or the planet which swings around the sun. Each individual may, in a modified sense, appropriate those great words of Christ : '' For this cause was I born, and for this I came into the world.'' Not only were the lives of Abraham and David, of Cyrus and Daniel, of Augustine and Luther necessary to the fulfilling of the Divine programme, but yours and mine are. There must be pawns on the chess-board as well as kings and queens. If the planets are balanced with such nicety that the mountains have to be weighed in scales and the hills in a balance, surely man, who lives at the central point of eternities and 13 Life and the Way Through immensities, must be here for a purpose. He is no phantom child flung up on time's beach by the vagaries of the infinite ocean. What is true of the race as a whole is obviously true of each individual unit, and, therefore, we may thoughtfully and reverently adopt, each one, that great sentence of Fichte : '' It is most certain, and, indeed, the ground of all other certainty, that the moral order of the world exists — that for every intelligent being there is an appointed work which he is expected to perform, and that every circumstance of his life is a part of a plan." The Christians of the First Era were never weary of talking of *' the Way." It was one of the commonplaces of their speech, and in its use they implied that there was a beginning and an end, a gate of entrance and a goal of accomplishment, a purpose, a direction, and an end. Before Paul had formulated his great arguments for Justification, or Peter had elaborated his plea for a Divine patience, or John had built up his treatise on the Love of God as grafted on to human hearts, the simple folk who had entered through the Beautiful Gate into the Temple of a New Age, spoke of Christianity as the Way everlasting, along which, as by a causeway spanning a morass, the soul might safely make its momentous 14 There is a Way Through passage across the quaking quagmires of this transitory scene. It is needless to cite more than a few of these many references. '' This,'* said the Apostle, '' I confess unto thee, that after the Way I serve the God of our fathers " : ''Felix had more exact knowledge concerning the Way '\- '' There arose no small stir about the Way." But as is the universal so is the particular. It is not enough to speak generally about the \ way, we must believe in it for ourselves, and v. dare to act on the assumption that He who i by a mysterious leading conducts the migra- I tory birds in their yearly passage from their f) northern feeding grounds to the sunny south, flying so far above us, night and day, that we cannot catch the babel of their many voices, is leading each of us by a way, even though it is a way that we know not, not having passed it heretofore, which will bring us through and out on those bright tablelands where God Himself is Sun. '' And I saw no Temple there- in, for the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb, are the Temple of it. And the nations of the saved walk in the light of it." There is a way through life for each of us, to take which is to have fulfilled the purpose of our being, to keep which is to attain the 15 Life and the Way Through maximum of blessedness within our reach, The mystic caught sight of it when he spoke of Via crucis, via lucis ; and Bunyan described it in his matchless allegory. But, of course we may miss it, or be allured from it, or may stumble and maim ourselves by taking an- other and apparently parallel, though more tortuous or precipitous track. ** Remember Lot's wife ! " It is essential, then, that we should not only believe that there is a way through life, but that we should secure a guide in whose sure knowledge our ignorance may confide absolutely, and in whose mighty hand our weakness may become strong when the head turns dizzy and the feet are about to slide. 16 II THE GUIDING HAND Who that has once witnessed it can ever for- get the scene in the front of a Swiss mountain hotel, where in the early morning guides are waiting to be engaged, or to fulfil the appoint- ment made on the previous evening. There they are with their bronzed faces and their lithe, well-knit frames, with their alpenstocks, ropes, and other appliances, with their keen sight and deft hands. Many men of their class have imperilled and sacrificed their lives for their charges, and there is little doubt that any of these would cheerfully do the same were it required. You select your guide, chat pleas- antly among the lower gradients, listen to his yarns, consult his weather forecasts, gladly take his hand as you cross the glaciers, not afraid of their crevasses, blue with distance, allow him to rope you at a dangerous point, and trust him when the mist suddenly enwraps you in its clammy veil, or night begins to darken on the cold white mountains. Life is a climb across the mountains, from the ice-clad slopes of Switzerland to the vine- c 17 Life and the Way Through clad slopes of Italy. There is a way over, but it is foolish and foolhardy to attempt it with- out a g^ide. There is a guide for each human I soul, but the strange condition of his assistance is that he shall be unseen. Lord Tennyson ex- pected to see his Pilot, face to face, only after he had crossed the bar ! He who comes to us in life's early morning, saying, *' I am the Way," is one of whom it is true that not having seen we love. But though we see Him not, and frequently refuse to avail ourselves of His help. He is ever beside us, often interposing His unsolicited and timely help when we had almost come to grief through our headstrong follies. When we ascend into the heavens of earthly bliss and happiness, we find Him there ; when we de- scend into the depths of mortal misery and despair, we find Him there ; when we take the wings of life's morning, and dwell in the utter- most parts of Western lands, through their unexplored distances, we discover that His hand leads and His right hand upholds. Even when we think that the darkness must have enshrouded us from His finding, we suddenly hear His secret whisper amid the impene- trable gloom, and are aware of His fragrant breath upon our cheek ; yea, the night is luminous, and the darkness is as the day. i8 The Guiding Hand Such knowledge is too wonderful for us, it is high, and we cannot attain to it. When we speak of this universal Presence it reminds us of the words which Virgil uses in another sense : *' Myself will lead thee, when the sun has kindled the heat of noon, when the grass is athirst and the shade now grows more grateful to the flock, until thou comest to the old man's covert, his retreat from the weary waves." It is this guiding Presence that comes to all men in Christ, who is the true Light which enlighteneth everyone coming into the world. For some that Light shines more clearly than for others. For some it is a glow-worm's spark ; for others it resembles that star which shone clearly in the water that Dante passed on his way to find the Rose of Paradise. But to some extent, and in some measure, Christ speaks in every human breast. To those who never knew Him after the flesh. He came at sundry times and in divers manners, by the voices of Nature, of religious teachers, and of the heart, but to us in the unmistakable revelation, with which as Christianity He has enriched mankind. To all He sa^^s : ''I am the Way, ... He that foUoweth Me, shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Wherefore, we may say boldly : '' The Lord 19 Life and the Way Through is my Light and my salvation, whom shall I fear ? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid ? *' Though we cannot see our Guide, it is essential that we should be in constant touch with Him amid the various incidents of daily life. Our fingers, though they be as the fingers of blind men, must be in perpetual contact with His, as we handle the same affairs. It is under such a condition that He can fulfil His own promise : *' I will bring the blind by a way that they know not, and lead them in paths that they have not known. ... I will go before them, and make the crooked places straight, and the rough places smooth. . . . These things will I do unto them and not forsake them.'' This condition, however, is so important that we must in a few more sentences set it out. Every occurrence in life has an outward and inward value. The outer has to do with the objective, our environment of time and space ; whereas the inner has to do with the sub- jective and subliminal, which speaks in the heart, and is connected with the Eternal and Infinite. The real significance of all that hap- pens to us must, therefore, be approached from within. Directly we perceive this profound truth, and enter into the inner meaning and 2Q The Guiding Hand essential nature of the endless series of events that pass before us like the film of a cinemato- graph — we get near our Guide ! In 1897 the Egypt Exploration Fund dis- covered a single page of a book, recording some reputed sayings of Jesus which do not appear in any of the Gospels. The best-known and most striking of these Logia is : '' Raise the stone, and there thou shalf find me ; cleave the wood, and there am I " — a saying which was paraphrased in Scribne/s Magazine in the following lines : " Where the many toil and suffer There am I among my own ; Where the tired workman sleepeth There am I with him alone; Never more thou needest seek me, I am with thee everywhere ; Raise the stone and thou shalt find me, Cleave the wood., and I am there." These words affirm the truth which, when its significance is properly appreciated, will transform life. Our daily experiences will have a new meaning so soon as we learn to associate them with the presence and fellow- ship of Jesus Christ. Get to the inner secret of the stone and the wood ! We may do this because it is as true now as at the first moment of creation, that in Him all things 21 Life and the Way Through are being made, and that in Him all things consist. Behind the form and breath of every flower, behind the waving beauty of the glorious forests, behind the strength of the hills and the many waves of the seas, behind the fair expanse of the heavens and the be- witching calm of a summer's eve, behind the beauty and innocence of a little child, behind everything and everyone, if you reach down below the outward appearance and crust 3^ou will come at last to the presence and love and guidance of Him who is the First- begotten from the dead and the Prince" of the Kings of the Earth. At the heart of all that happens to us, our finger-tips may touch His. As we live deeply we have fellowship with His Spirit. Nothing ever befalls us at the core of which we cannot find Him. In the centre of every whirlwind of trouble, in the glowing heart of every furnace of fire, in the interior of every house of sorrow, in the holy place of every bereavement, at the pivot and focus of each responsibility, below the rough surface of every irksome duty, we shall always find the Word of God, whose glory was reflected in the days of His flesh on the waters of the Galilean lake, when it shone through the curtains of His humanity. Whilst we realise this, and keep in touch 22 The Guiding Hand with Him, we advance along the predestined path to its goal. The same truth may be illustrated in another way. One of the finest woman-intel- lects of the present day is Helen Keller's. But on account of the darkening of her sight, to say nothing of other senses, it would never have emerged had not one devoted woman given herself absolutely to the awak- ening and unfolding of the imprisoned mind. For years they were inseparable companions, and all correspondence between the outward world and Miss Keller's soul was maintained through her friend's patient and devoted mediation. They were always dealing with each other in regard to every incident of daily experience. Transfer that conception to the intercourse between the human soul and Christ, and it must be instantly appar- ent to the dullest intelligence what a new zest and fascination will stream through to the soul which learns that it need not with- draw itself from the objective world into a hermit's cell, but may find its discipline, its incentive, its joy and crown of rejoicing, in an unbroken fellowship with Christ, along the prosaic and ordinary course of life. So we shall come to the City of God. There is a strange story in the Old Testa- 23 Life and the Way Through ment of an army being conducted to a dis- tant city by the personal leadership of the prophet. They seem to have been mes- merised in some strange fashion, so that they thought less of the way they took than of the presence of their guide, and he led them into the city. *' And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that, Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw ; and behold they were in the midst of Samaria." Simi- larly — though the parallel does not perfectly hold, because Samaria was a hostile city — those of us who occupy ourselves with Christ, whom not having seen we love, and who in our blindness resign ourselves to His leader- ship, will one day discover that in our devo- tion to Him we have made progress along the Way, and at last find ourselves amid the solemn troops and sweet societies of the City of God. 24 Ill THE JEWELLED GATE We are speaking and thinking of the ideal way through Ufe, and naturally, since we are sure that there is such a way, it is of prime importance to find the gate. It may well be called the Beautiful Gate of the Temple of Life, and when the sun shines on it, as we view it in the retrospect, it flashes as though it were wrought of burnished gold and set with glistening jewels. The arch of Hope is supported on the two pillars of Faith and Love. (1) FAITH The first symptom of the awakening of the Spirit is faith. This to the soul is what the senses of the body are to a new-born child. Through the open gates of sight and touch, of the ear, the nostril, and the tongue, the outer world begins to stream in on the soul, which has just arrived from the Infinite. Similarly, it is through faith that the influences from the Divine and the Infinite begin to stream in upon the soul. As the senses are recipients of the one, so is faith of the other. 25 Life and the Way Through As the impressions of the outer world re- ceived through the senses are certain and sufficient, so by faith the soul is certified of the existence of a spiritual world in which it lives and moves and has its being. Faith is that faculty of the human spirit through which it perceives, and by which it welcomes, those uprushes and inrushes from the spiritual realm which supply a new and wonderful dynamic to such as are willing to pay the price. Just as our wide-awake consciousness throws open our nature to receive through the senses the impact of things material, so through faith we throw open our nature to receive the impact of the Eternal and Infinite ; and instantly tidal waves begin to pour up the estuaries, from which the sand-bars have been dredged out, and there is a silence in the heart as when the Severn meets the babbling Wye. The moment when this contact is first made is what we know as conversion. In conver- sion we first perceive, with the wonder of discovery, that there need be no barrier be- tween us and the Eternal Holiness and Love. We choose that on our side there shall be none, and thenceforward reckon that there is none. Then, as the life-stream enters, it is with us as with the far stretches of the 26 The Jewelled Gate Soudan into which, but the other day, the Nile waters were diverted. Forthwith the desert begins to rejoice and wrap her naked- ness around with living verdure. In his natural condition man is separated from the life of God by a great rampart of rock, like that which separates Tibet from the plains of Northern India. Led by an unerring impulse, he sets to work to pene- trate that wall, as, in constructing the Mont Cenis tunnel, the engineers wrought with pickaxe and explosives from the northern slopes of the Alps. He knows that he belongs not to the winter but the summer, not to the bleak snow-peaks but the warm sunlit plains, which lie under the kiss of perpetual sunshine. Then, as he works on through the darkness, he becomes suddenly aware of the dull thud which comes from the other side of the intervening rocky barrier. It is clear that Another is working towards him. The blows become increasingly resonant, until the last stroke breaks an aperture through the remaining film and he stands face to face with his fellow-worker, and his dazzled eyes gaze on the far-spread panorama. That moment of rapture, when the last barrier falls, and we see the Christ stand, is the moment of illumination. It is the moment 27 Life and the Way Through of vision, of revelation, of the certainty of assurance, and the demonstration of things not seen by unanointed eyes. Perhaps the most wonderful revelation of all is that, at that moment, the soul sud- denly perceives that through all its past the Divine Comforter and Guide has been work- ing and moving towards it. Though the human has not sought the Divine, the Divine has sought the human. The Almighty Lover has not only been waiting on the sunlit slopes for the emergence of the seeker, but has been inspiring and conducting his efforts, timing the hour, and determining with more than mathematic exactitude the plane of approach. Thus, as we follow on, we come to know the Lord, whose going forth is pre- pared as the morning. To state the fact in the terms of modern philosophy — in Conversion religious concep- tions, ideals, forces, that had previously lain on the outer rim of the soul, hardly recog- nised and seldom used, take the central place, and become the driving forces of a new life. The soul scraps its old machinery and procures new. It exchanges candle- light for electric, and horse-power for petrol. It begins to avail itself of forces that belong to higher planes of existence. It is dead 28 The Jewelled Gate to the lower, and keenly alive to the higher. In other words, it is born out of the limita- tions that cramped it into the liberty of the sons of God. This makes a vast difference. Dr. Star- buck finds analogies in other directions, which, though of a lower order, may serve to illustrate the greatness of the change. An athlete, for instance, may for years go on perfecting his knowledge of the rules of the " game and adding to his muscular develop- ment ; but there may come a day when all at once he ceases to play the game, and the game plays itself through him. He loses himself in some great contest, and stands no longer in need of the applause of the arena. A preacher may have perfect command of his art ; his every sentence may flash with brilliance of thought and expression ; his sermons may extort the ungrudging admiration alike of masters in theology and professors of rhetoric, yet he may not attain to the front rank in his profession until one day he casts aside his MSS. and rules of art before an overmastering rush of inspired eloquence. Poets, too, have been conscious of moments when they were lifted into a plane of freedom and power which previously had been absolutely be3^ond their reach. 2y Life and the Way Through Wagner had been a musician before that subHme moment when his genius was awoke by a strain of Mendelssohn. Many a young girl, though she has spent years in patient study and practice, may still be conscious that she has not yet gained glow, passion, and the soul of music ; but one day, appar- ently unsought, the entire secret is made known, the divine ecstasy falls on her, and from that hour she sways the souls of her audiences as by a spell. These are illustra- tions culled from other realms, but they are as moonlight to sunlight, when compared with the full glory of Conversion. In her illuminating book on '' Religious Genius," * Miss Swetenham has, therefore, abundant warrant for saying that to the religiously inspired man ** Conversion is the great central event of life." We agree with her that this unique and wondrous experi- ence burns itself into his memory, so that his soul glows with it for years afterwards. He knows that it was no fleeting impression, that it was not a light-footed fancy, touch- ing with slight foot-prints the yielding sands, to be instantly obliterated by the returning wave ; but that it was a divine act, im- parting a divine radiance, and empowering ♦ Hodder and Stoughton. 30 The Jewelled Gate with a divine energy. It was the moment when the soul was filled with God-conscious- ness, so that what had been dead lived and what had been content with the surface of things found itself. The Materialist knows nothing of all this. He lives only on the one side of his nature that looks out on the material and natural. What wonder that he is bewildered 1 His senses exclude more than they reveal of the vast environing universe. He resembles our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, whose windows were made of horn ; or the Japanese, who make them of paper. If we use our physical senses only, we are like Hagar, the Egyptian slave- girl, as she viewed the sand-wastes around her, but failed to descry the fountain of water ; or like Balaam, who beheld the high walls of the vineyards on either side, but missed the vision of the Angel, which even his ass saw ; or like the prophet's ser- vant, who was dismayed at the spectacle of the enemy's hosts that engirdled the city, but was oblivious to the horses and chariots of fire that formed an inner cordon of pro- tection. There are eyes and eyes — the eyes of the physical sense, which behold the objects 31 Life and the Way Through of their own sphere, with marvellous keen- ness and accuracy; but only the inner eye is able to discern the things which God hath prepared. The materialist, therefore, is much to be pitied. He refuses everything for which he cannot get mathematical proof, takes nothing on trust, and refuses to trouble himself with anything outside the cognisance of his senses. Who knows anything beyond this world ? he argues. Here at least there are matters we can understand and be sure of. Here are deserts to be irrigated, waste lands to be reclaimed, slums to be destroyed, garden cities to be created, facilities to be obtained for education and recreation. Let us make new conditions of life ; thus we shall regenerate society. It is a disappoint- ing Credo, for the whole experience of the past goes to prove that no amount of whiten- ing on the sepulchre will resuscitate the dead. And the soul of its professor becomes dwarfed and starved, as he pursues his work under starless skies. In his literature, it has been truly said, there is no poetry ; in his music no hymn ; in his architecture no cloister ; in his soul no prayer ; no altar lamp to keep the watch ; no still small voice in Horeb's cave. 32 The Jewelled Gate Materialism shouts question after ques- tion into the Cave of Destiny, but listens with the wrong ear for the reply. It waits at the wrong wharf for the returning ship. Therefore the disciples of this dreary system profess themselves worshippers at the shrine of an everlasting No. Thus the fair garden of life becomes a grim desert, filled with the howling of wild beasts or the groans of hate- filled despair. There is no pillar of cloud by day, no pillar of fire by night. The universe is without form and void, and no brooding spirit moves on the face of the deep. Natural law is just one huge, im- measurable steam-engine, rolling on in dead indifference to grind men limb from limb. But the position of the materialist is becoming less and less tenable as science pursues its researches in these remarkable years. The findings of modern investigation are more and more in the direction of the spiritual nature of things which appear most substantial. In fact, the very rocks are fluid. Sir William Ramsay, for instance, dis- covered recently that if an electric discharge is passed through a vacuum tube containing a little hydrogen, two rare gases appear — helium and neon. These can be produced by the recomposition of hydrogen atoms, or D 33 Life and the Way Through by the action of the electrical force out of nothing at all. Referring to these experi- ments, an acute observer, who probably would not rank himself with the Church, says : '* It is the very nemesis of mate- rialism to discover that the solid atoms on which it has built are not material at all. But if there be no such thing as matter, materialism would appear to be only the latest of many superstitions. Modern chemis- try doubts whether there is such a thing as matter, which has a birth, a life, and a death, but a death which leaves no corpse to bury. It looks as though Sir William Ramsay and his fellow-chemists had suc- ceeded in building atoms out of the raw material of atoms, which are not material things at all, but only a mode of energy.'* The creed of materialism, therefore, can- not satisfy, and we are amply justified in obeying the direction of those higher in- stincts of the human mind, which prompt towards the Unseen Holy, and asseverate the existence of the Everlasting Father. Whenever there is an instinct, there is a reality to meet it. For the migrating bird there is the sunny south ; for the babe the 34 The Jewelled Gate mother's breast ; for the soul, bewildered and blind, a Hand to lead it along a path which it cannot see, but which is as clearly marked as the paths which, from times immemo- rial, have been trodden by the natives in uncivilised lands. Thoma^ Carlyle was kept from drifting because of his tight hold on two great elemen- tary truths — the first, that God reveals Him- self to the spirit ; and the second, that it is always right to do right. " If e'er when faith had faU'n asleep, I heard a voice, * Believe no more,* And heard an ever breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep ; A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer' d, " I have felt." The reasonings of mind and heart are con- firmed, as we have seen, by Scripture and ex- perience. There is a way through life, though man's blindness may grope for it in vain ; and there is a hand that will lead the faltering feet of the pilgrim to find his home. The one inex- orable condition for all of us is that we should be willing to be led. There is a path, and our Father sees it clearly, though we cannot, for 35 Life and the Way Through we are fools and blind. We cannot even see our Guide, but He is near. The pressure of His hand is upon ours, and His voice speaks in the silence of the soul. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear ! " Speak to Him, then, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet ; Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." Faith may, then, be described as the sixth sense. It is the comprehensive term for all the senses of our spiritual nature — that part of us which opens out on the eternal world, and is made sensitive and operative by conversion. The new birth is the issuing of the soul from the cramping, confining conditions of its origin into the width and space of the spiritual and eternal ; and to the twice-born soul. Faith is as natural and inevitable as sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste are to the new-born babe. We are — we repeat — perfectly justified, therefore, in relying on the affirmation of Faith. As Emerson puts it : '' They who be- lieve have an access to the secrets and struc- ture of Nature by some better method than experience." What is this except to say that Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen. 36 The Jewelled Gate We cannot but recall those great words of William James, in one of the closing pages of '* The Varieties of Religious Experience " : *' The whole drift of my education goes to per- suade me that the world of our present con- sciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also ; and that although, in the main, their experiences and those of this world keep distinct, yet the two become contiguous at certain points, and higher energies filter in. By being faithful in my poor measure to this over-belief, I seem to myself to keep more sane and true. I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian scientist's atti- tude, and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and of scientific laws and objects may be all. But whenever I do this, I hear that inward monitor of which W. K. Clifford once wrote, whispering the word * Bosh ! ' Humbug is humbug, even though it bear the scientific name ; and the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow scien- tific bounds. Assuredly, the real world is of a different temperament — more intricately built than physical science allows." The seat of Faith is in the heart, or, as we 37 Life and the Way Through would call it to-day, in the subliminal con- sciousness. This is our other and better self. It is the shaft driven through our being to the Infinite, at the antipodes of daily life. It is the orifice up which the fountain of life, con- cerning which Jesus spake to the woman, springs. But we must give time for the fussy activities of existence to subside, as the silt does when you let muddy water stand in its jar. What a contrast in the Rhone between entering and leaving the deep and quiet waters of Leman! The sub-conscious or subliminal must have time to assert itself, and, therefore, the early morning is the day's prime. The hubbub of the streets, even for Jesus, must yield to the morning silence of Olivet. We must also watch against every evil thing that might detract from the singleness of our spiritual vision or the quickness of our response to the appeal of the unseen and eternal influences. It is only by continual watchfulness against the selfish and evil ele- ments in our nature that we can keep the windows of the soul clean, and hold the heights that we have scaled with hard and incessant toil. When these conditions are preserved, the spirit will lie open to the south winds of God, wafting into the soul the fragrance of Paradise. 38 The Jewelled Gate Such faith becomes the habitual attitude of the soul. It will not lead to a mischievous quietism. Indeed, none work so persistently and energetically as those who work out what God works in, and are aware of the pulse and throb of the divine life. Their only anxiety is lest they lose one ounce-weight of pressure through self-indulgence, indolence, or inatten- tion. The soul must follow hard after God. " Then,'* to quote true and eloquent words, *' the sense of God's presence will be with us in our going out and coming in, as a source of absolute repose and confident calm, securing us against terror and anxiety. From Him, as from a never-failing source, we shall be amply supplied, and we shall acquire the momentary habit, in all times of our tribulation, tempta- tion, or wealth, of drawing upon His fullness, and grace upon grace." But it may be that this ideal seems an impossible one. It strikes my readers as too mystical and transcendental to serve them. It is high ; they cannot attain to it. Then let us state the successive steps after another fashion, illustrating them from the great life of John the Baptist. It will be remembered that there were 39 Life and the Way Through three marked phases in his experience. First, there was the religion of tradition. As soon as he awoke to the consciousness of his own being he found himself in a priest's home, with every thing around him that spoke of the traditions and aspirations of his people. Hard by was the cave of Machpelah, with its sacred dust ; not far away, Samson had wrought his mighty exploits ; nearly every valley had some remin- iscence of David, either as the shepherd or the king. Whenever his father returned from the temple services there was much to hear of the holy psalmody, the solemn rites, the vast gatherings of the nation to worship the God of their fathers. The earliest ambition of the growing boy was to be permitted to participate in those splendid ceremonials. Under the tutel- age of that aged pair, how could he do other than imbibe those high and holy influences ? Thus, like his father and mother, he eagerly waited for the coming of the Messiah and the redemption of Israel. Years passed, and brought great changes in that mountain-home. The son saw the darken- ing shadows draw over the two dear faces that had bent over him in childhood, and closed their eyes in the last sleep. Then he was free to live his own life. But the winnowing-fan was passing over the floor of his religious con- 40 The Jewelled Gate victions, and he saw the hollowness of much of the traditional religion of his age. Already he had detected the poison that lay beneath the specious system of Pharisaism, and had seen how the people bolstered themselves up by the reflection, that whatever their lives might be, they yet had Abraham for their father, and must, therefore, be God's chosen. The hollowness and heartlessness of the reli- gion of the day nauseated that ardent young spirit, and drove him into the desolate high- land country, where he might live in direct contact with the elementary facts of Nature, God, and his own soul. The traditional piety of his boyhood was there exchanged for the religion of Reality. He built for himself, taught only by God, who spoke to him by the voices of the prophets, of the wild scenery of the wilderness, and of his own deep nature. The passion that burnt in his soul unquenchably was for Reality. He must get beneath shams and counterfeits, must bore to the virgin metal that lay below the accretions of tradition and ritual, must get at the facts of the eternal world for himself. And so he did. The effect was immediate, and whether he arrested cara- vans on their route to Jerusalem, or addressed the miners who wrought among the hills, it seemed as though in him that old promise was 41 Life and the Way Through fulfilled : ''I will come near to judgment ; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and adulterers, and false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right. . . . But who may abide the day of His coming, for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.'* Immediately his message received a great response. Men who were tired of the hollow- ness and falsehood of their times streamed out to him from all the cities ; and the young men, specially, in the ardour of an un- quenchable passion for righteousness, left their nets and boats, their sickles and pruning hooks, their homes and friends, in order to expose their lives to those heart-searching appeals. , j But in the midst of this national awaken- ing, when he swayed the hearts of men, from Herod on his throne to the Gentile soldiers of the Roman occupation, John was not satisfied. The voice that had spoken in his heart and sent him forth on his great mission assured him that he was not only to pro- claim but personally to see and know the Coming One, whose shoe latchet he was un- worthy to loose, and whose baptism would supersede his own as fire water. He looked 42 The Jewelled Gate eagerly into every face for the visage of the Messiah, and watched after every baptism for the opened heavens and the descending dove. Six months passed. All the people were now baptised and were waiting ex- pectantly. The committee of the Sanhedrin had come and gone with their questions, with no further satisfaction than the assur- ance that John was not the Christ ; then, when patience had wrought her perfect work in the heart of the Forerunner, and as his own cousin, whom he had never recognised as the Coming One, came up out of the water, the promised sign was afforded, and he saw, and tasted, and handled of the Word of life, and his joy was fulfilled. For six weeks he kept his secret locked in his heart, and then, as he beheld the Christ coming to- wards him, with an unearthly glory on His face, the result of his triumph in the wil- derness, the Baptist could contain himself no more, but cried, saying, '*This is He of whom I spake.'* His religion then had become one of direct and perfect vision. These same three phases are still experi- enced in the history of the soul, in its ever- lasting quest for truth. There is, first, the traditional stage. We believe because we were taught to believe, and accept without 43 Life and the Way Through questioning the facts which parents, teachers, and ministers of rehgion inculcate and en- force. The doctrines of the Christian Creed, the accepted theory of Inspiration, the dis- tinctive tenets of that section of the Church to which our people are attached — these are accepted as part of the nature of things, not to be understood, or explained, or ques- tioned, but accepted as final, authoritative, and satisfactory. Then we experience a great awakening. We go up with our parents to the Temple, and find ourselves separated from them. They feel that they have lost us, they seek us sorrowing, they cannot understand that other considerations are appealing to us which seem of paramount importance. This is our Father's business. We must ask questions in the Temple shrine, whether the answers are satisfactory or not. Our soul is awake, our eyes are open ; we are specially keen to detect any evasions, superficiality, and hypocrisy, wherever they may be found, and especially among religious professors. We have started on our wander-year. We go through the world, hammer in hand, tap- ping every appearance to see whether it is solid or not. But at this moment, when we have drifted from our old moorings 44 The Jewelled Gate and not found our new course, when we have razed our old home and not erected another, when we have sacrificed our ancient teachers without determining on others, we are ex- posed to very serious peril, and it is here that a few rules may be helpful : First : be true to yourself and to what you have so far realised. Do not profess more than you have experienced, and cer- tainly not less. Let your inner temper be neither convex nor concave, but like a pane of clear and even glass. Second : never doubt that you will come out into perfect vision. He that is of the truth shall hear the voice of the King of Truth, and see His face. Though the vision tarry, wait for it ; assuredly it will come and will not tarry. Third : live up to your highest ideals. Be pure and humble. ''It is of vast import- ance," says one of our greatest teachers, '' whether the soul, which is to live for ever, is a truthful, pure, and noble soul, made strong through the conquest of many and great temptations ; with affections set upon all that is good and beautiful ; with a con- science that clearly sees the difference be- tween right and wrong ; and with a firm will, resolute to choose the right. 45 Life and the Way Through Fourth : If you cannot as yet accept Christ in the full-orbed glory which is set forth in the Epistles of St. John, begin where John himself began — as a disciple. A disciple is just a learner, one that enters the class of the famous teacher, and puts himself under the regimen and discipline which the Master prescribes. The mistake of so many in the present day is that, because they cannot accept the whole truth about our Lord, as set down in the creeds and for- mularies of the Church, therefore they turn away and will have nothing to do with Him. They are staggered at the conclusions to which they who sit in the upper forms have been brought, though they are commended by the highest ideals and noblest characters, and therefore they refuse to enter themselves as scholars and sit in the lowest form. To say the least, this course is very irrational. Christ does not ask us to accept a system of doctrine, but to become scholars and dis- ciples under His regimen and instruction. He knows that our eyes cannot stand the sudden blaze of uncreated glory, and there- fore tenders us the mellowed beauty of the human and natural. All He wants is that we should come and see. He will not answer our questions and unveil His secrets before 46 The Jewelled Gate we have come ; but afterwards all will be made clear. The order of the New Testa- ment is, in a vast number of cases, the true order. We sit at Christ's feet and hear His words ; are enamoured by His ideals and penetrated by the power of His utterance. We find that He is Himself the exemplar of all He teaches us to honour and cherish. We become more and more attached to Him, feel His spell, adopt His conceptions, appre- ciate them with a growing conviction ; and then suddenly, when He drops the veil and tells us of great facts and truths which we could never have discovered, we are already acclimatised and prepared, and fall at His feet, saying : '' The Son of God has come and given us an understanding that we may know.'' Let us still further expand this thought, casting it into the form of a parable. Sup- pose that you become possessed of a motor- car. You have purchased it, or it has been given to you. Your next thought is to obtain a chauffeur who is acquainted not only with the great city in which you are living, and with every street of which you are familiar, but with the surrounding country, of which you are only partially acquainted. Among other applicants for the 47 Life and the Way Through situation, one man presents himself who says that he has a thorough knowledge not only of London, we will say, but of the adjacent counties. You engage him on trial that you may test the accuracy of this statement. On the first day you direct him to a certain building in a distant part of the city, and you know that he takes you by the most direct route. On the second day you indicate as your destination a point in quite another direction, and which requires a precise knowledge of the district in which it lies. You are keenly critical, but must admit that the congeries of small streets could not have been navigated with better skill. On the third day you resolve to go into one of the outlying counties — Essex or Cambridge, for example. You do not per- sonally know the road, but your chauffeur gives no sign of hesitation, and goes straight by what, as you reflect on the matter, is evidently the most direct route. You at last say to yourself : *' He took me so directly and expeditiously where I could test him, that now I will trust him, where my knowledge is at fault." You make final arrangements with this man, and he well repays your selection. It is thus with faith in regard to higher 48 The Jewelled Gate things. The young man grows away from the traditional religion which satisfied his parents, but which seems too narrow for himself. He wants to be sure for his own satisfaction, and to be strong in his convic- tions, because based on his personal experi- ence. He cannot, we will suppose, accept the Deity of Christ, or the Doctrine of the Atonement, or the supreme claim of Scrip- ture ; but as he views the effect that Chris- tianity has had on the world, and hears those whom he respects talk of Christ with a unique reverence and affection, he resolves that he will enter as a pupil of the great Master — so far, at least, as His moral pre- cepts are concerned. At the outset Christ says to him : '* Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God — Be pure." From that hour he examines every truant desire that craves admission to his fancy ; he turns away from suggestive pictures and books ; he avoids the old companionships which stank like an open sepulchre. He pursues this regimen for some weeks, and discovers not only that he has a sense of inward happiness, of which he had never before tasted, but that his vision of the unseen and divine is greatly clarified. He sees the eternal snow-peaks peering through E 49 Life and the Way Through the mists that hitherto had always veiled them. After awhile he returns to the Master and asks for further instruction, and the Master says : '* Give and it shall be given you ; with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again — Live to give.'' Again he applies himself to his task. Hitherto he has been self-contained, inclined to hoard, uncommunicative, and close. But he alters the whole method of life, and becomes as a running brook which is ever pouring forth to meet all the needs that call on its suppUes. A new smile is on his face, a new freedom in his manner, a new self-forgetfulness, a new ministry. What is the result ? The beautiful old words are fulfilled in his daily experi- ence. " When the ear hears his footstep, then it blesses him ; and when the eye beholds his coming, it gives witness. The blessing of him that is ready to perish comes upon him. His glory is fresh upon him, and his bow is renewed in his hand." He has again verified the trustworthiness of Christ, testing him in a department of life which is well within his cognisance. In following days other and always more intimate words are spoken. There is no " Yea " and *' Nay," but certainty, pre- 50 The Jewelled Gate cision, urgency. He begins to understand and appreciate Christ's great system, and as he does His will he knows more and more of the doctrine. His climb up the hill of obedience unfolds to him further and further pano- ramas of truth. Things which had puzzled him are unravelled, and he often wonders that they could have been stumbling-blocks in his path. His admiration and loyalty are always on the increase ; but as yet the Master has not introduced matters beyond his pupil's range. One day, however. He says : '' Let us spend a day together on the high mountains." Right gladly the young man accepts the invitation. He can hardly sleep on the pre- ceding night for very joy. The thought that the Master cares to expend on him His time and care is full of inexpressible delight. At dawn he is ready, and they begin to climb. When they have gained a considerable height, and are resting at a spot where the scenery presents a surpassing grandeur and loveli- ness, a light steals over the Master's face which imparts a heavenly beauty, as He says, '' I and My Father are One." Almost involuntarily the pupil falls at His feet, saying : '' Ah, my Master and Friend, here I cannot verify Thy words by my poor ex- 51 Life and the Way Through perience, but I trust Thee. I found Thee true in regions where I could discover for myself the accuracy and helpfulness of Thy words, and now I take this great saying of Thine to my heart, and accept it as the Truth." A little higher in the ascent the Master says : *' This is My blood, shed for many, for the remission of sins." Again the disciple says : *' Here again I cannot verify Thy words from my experience, but on Thy testi- mony I accept them as the truth." Thus Christ unfolds the truths of His Evangel to receptive souls until they fall at His feet with Thomas's confession. Was not this the method He adopted with the fisher- men of Galilee ? Could He have expected John or Peter to accept the statements which they themselves made afterwards in their Epistles ? It would not have been possible. Not even His miraculous deeds could have lifted them to those high levels. They had to associate with Him in daily intercourse, to watch Him in His hours of retirement, to rely on Him in days of opposition and nights of storm, and so they were gradually fitted to receive and transmit the Faith, once for all delivered to the Church. But let it be ever remembered that our 52 The Jewelled ^Gate faith will grow just in proportion as we are daily surmounting some higher peak of diffi- culty, treading under foot some insidious evil, refusing some pleasant temptation for the truth's sake, allowing ourselves to be swept out of ourselves by love, and giving ourselves to such high labours as shall test and strain our moral muscles and elicit the completest response of spiritual faculty. To sum up : Faith may be said to be the soul's Intuition of Christ, as the Solvent of all difficulty and the Absolver and Antidote of Sin. The heart first discovers its affinity with Him ; and the head thereafter formulates the science and doctrine. But whatever happens about these, and however long a time elapses, before a true and satisfactory formulary is dis- covered, the prime necessity is for the union of the soul with Christ to be unimpaired. If that is maintained. He, by His Spirit, will lead into all the truth. Chief amongst other dis- coveries will be that of the Bible as the Word of God. The Christian believer who holds fellowship with Christ will certainly and in- evitably be led to the Book which was so much to Him. He will feed on the Old Testament Scriptures as the Master fed on them. They will be bread and honey to his taste. And, in the New Testament, he will find a close and 53 Life and the Way Through intimate congruity with all his personal find- ings. He will be conscious that the same voice speaks there as in his heart. He will become convinced that the Word and the words have emanated from the same source. The Bible will become his armoury, his tool-closet, his treasure-house, and his observatory ; the holy and Divinely inspired gift of the Spirit of Truth. 54 IV THE JEWELLED GATE (Continue) (2) LOVE This is a most necessary ingredient, if the cup of life is to be of the rarest quahty, admin- istering perpetual blessedness to the soul, because it administers incessant helpfulness to others ; but we must be sure that we get the genuine article, as there are many counterfeits passing in current circulation. Anacreon begins one of his poems by saying that he can only sing of love ; but on his lips the word had a connotation which was alto- gether different from that with which it has been invested since the beginning of this era. In fact, Christianity had to perform for this word and others the same office that mission- aries have frequently to perform in the trans- lation of the Scriptures into the languages of African tribes, selecting words for their pur- pose, which have had other and lower signifi- cance, cleansing and reminting them. Before Christianity came, love had meant largely the fire of self-indulgence, henceforth it was to stand forthe pure flame of an unquenchable self -giving. 55 Life and the Way Through In the parable of the Good Samaritan, to use the ordinary term, though it is really a prose-poem of love, the Master clearly fore- shadowed this change. From the old days of Moses, love had been in constant usage as a necessary part of the equipment of the religious soul ; but it had remained unillumined, as the red sandstone peaks of Sinai's desert before sunrise. Christ unfolded the true significance of the word. He cleft the rock, and it flowed with living water. In love, as He understood it, there was an absolute breaking down of old prejudices and reservations. It overleapt the alienation of race, for the Samaritan was despised and abhorred by the Jew, as a mongrel ; and, on his part, he was not stinting in reciprocal hatred. It defied the narrow definitions of creed, on which the orthodox prided themselves, for this rare plant grew on a foreign soil, where it was least expected, whilst in those who stood forth as the acknow- ledged exponents of orthodoxy, it was scandal- ously absent. It differed, by a whole heaven, from the sentiment of pity, which the ancients were prepared to extol, because the stranger risked a further murdersome attack by the robber gang, which might have cost his life- blood, and freely expended time, thought, care and money on the wounded stranger, too 56 The Jewelled Gate far gone even to appeal to him for help, but lying there helpless in his blood. A sentiment which was irrespective of race, of religion, and of the soft appeal to complacency or pity, was the ideal which Christ propounded that day to the astonished crowd as His conception of Love! More than this, as we shall see. He filled in the outlines of His conception with the living colours of His own career. Indeed, when the great Apostle, who probably, after Christ, is the greatest Christian, painted in immortal colours his conception of Christian love, it was the Master Himself who sat for the portrait. Each line of I Cor. xiii. was true of Him,and even then the half was not told. One has often tried to imagine the amazement with which St. Paul's amanuensis must have looked up from his paper, when transcribing from the Apostle's lips these burning words. They had been wad- ing together through intricate problems of Church discipline and order ; the babble of dis- cordant voices had been filling the air ; strong and clear-cut analyses, founded on subtle intel- lectual and spiritual distinctions, had been enunciated and recorded ; there had been no continuous flow of thought or speech. The Apostle had laboriously picked his difficult way through his argument. But suddenly all 57 Life and the Way Through this was altered and from his Hps there poured forth this streari of liquid gold. To us, looking back on it over the level tract of the centuries, it seems like a gleam of sunshine breaking from a stormy sky on a verdureless and tem- pest-riven range. But the Apostle was himself an embodi- ment of the Love that he described so elo- quently. He was a debtor to all men for love's sake. It might be the judge on the tribunal on whose verdict his own fate, humanly speak- ing, depended, or a poor demon-haunted girl on the street — for him love levelled all distinctions, and offered its stores with the same lavish generosity. To many he seemed beside him- self. Felix, in a rare tribute, exclaimed : *Taul, thou art beside thyself, much learning has made thee mad ! " But whether he was beside himself, it was to God ; or sober, it was for the cause he loved. The love of Christ constrained him, as a boiling torrent is constrained within the narrow, rocky banks on either side. When he spoke in this way, he did not surely intend his natural love to Christ, but the love of Christ, in its pure and eternal essence, which had inundated his soul. He thus judged, that since the One had died for all, those who appre- ciated His supreme self-giving should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him, who had 58 The Jewelled Gate laid them under such infinite obHgations. There was no taint of exaggeration, when he confessed that whatever things he might have counted gain — and there were not a few on which he might have justly prided himself — these he accounted loss in comparison with the excellency of Christ, for whom he would have been willing to ^sacrifice ten thousand lives. This selfless devotion for others has been characteristic of the followers of Christ and His Apostles. It is the one dominant note of the Christian religion. Too often Christianity has been dwarfed into a system of morals on the one hand, or of the escape from justly- incurred penalty on the other ; its professors have built its shining materials on the rubble and sand of selfishness. What wonder that they have done irreparable damage to the pro- gress of the Gospel, the essential chord of whose music was struck by the Master, when He said : '* By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, when ye have love." All through the centuries there have been great lovers of men. Some have been known as saints, but there have been multitudes who were never canonized or even recognised. In many obscure and humble breasts this flame has burnt, which the Divine Prometheus 59 Life and the Way Through brought from Heaven in the reed of His humanity. In his '' History of Port Royal," Sainte- Beuve says : '' Penetrate a little beneath the diversity of circumstances, and it becomes evident that in Christians of different epochs there is a single fundamental and identical spirit of piety and love ; an inner state, which, before all things, is one of love, humility, of an infinite confidence in God, and of severity for one's self, accompanied with tenderness for others. The fruits, peculiar to this condition of soul, have the same savour in all, under distant suns, and in different surroundings, in St. Teresa of Avila, just as in any Moravian brother at Herrnhut.'* Let us take two widely different examples. St. Francis of Assisi was a great lover of men. In few has the flame of Divine love burnt more clearly and hotly than in him. The brilliant cavalier renounced his property, and stepped down from his social position and prestige. He went poorly clad in an old tunic, which a friend of other days in pity gave him. He took up his abode among the poorest, and made lepers his special charge. On these he expended the most touching care, washing and wiping their sores, and all the more gentle and radiant, as their sores were more repulsive. The Bishop 60 The Jewelled Gate of Assisi said : '' Your way of living without owning anything seems to me very harsh and difficult/' '' My lord/' he replied, '' if we pos- sessed property, we should have need of arms for its defence, for it is the source of quarrels, of lawsuits, and the love of God and one's neighbour usually finds many obstacles there- in, this is why we do not desire temporal goods/' It was this consuming love for his fellows that attracted to him men of all ranks. In the eyes of haughty nobles and jaded votaries of pleasure, a new light had arisen on life, before which the tremulous starlight of this world paled ; and they forsook all else to learn the secret. Once more those who sought for the pearls of life, vainly shuffling the heaps of common stones that lay on the pearl-fishers' trays, realised that in the ranks of the mendi- cants it was possible to find a Pearl of such great price as to repay them for the sacrifice of all else to obtain it. And, when the exchange was made, there on the shores of the infinite Southern Ocean of Love, they accounted them- selves enriched for ever. Or, crossing the gulf of centuries, we recall those touching words, which the virulent calumnies of her enemies extorted from Mrs. Butler, that true heroine and saint : *' I have 6i Life and the Way Through but one little spare room in my house. Into that little room I have received, with my husband's joyful consent, one after another of these fallen sisters. We have given them in the hour of trouble, sickness, and death the best that our house could afford. In that little room I have nursed poor outcasts and have loved them as if they had been my own sisters. Many have died in my arms. Not far from us there is a cemetery, in a sunny corner of which stands a row of humble graves, beneath which lie the earthly remains of these our children, now resting on the bosom of their Saviour. Every one of these departed in good hope and joyfully, having found — besides the deeper peace — the treasure of a pure friendship before they died. I have sought out not only women, but the most miserable of men, poor sailors — Norwegians, Spaniards, Greeks — and have laboured to convey to them, in any language possible, the sense of a higher manhood. I am ashamed to be obliged to state facts I would far rather conceal, seeing we have only done our duty for the poor and sinful." One remarkable characteristic of this self- giving is the willingness to forgo rights. It is as though one common law ruled in lives dedi- cated to the cause of humanity — No living being has the right to all his rights, so long as the 62 The Jewelled Gate interests of others may he better served by their surrender. Christ would have been within His rights, if on His rejection at Nazareth He had withdrawn to where He was before, or from the slopes of the Lebanon had stepped across the open door of Paradise. He would have been within His rights had He spoken the word which had released the twelve legions of angels from their enforced restraint. Paul would have been within his rights if he had received the freely offered subsidies and maintenance of the infant churches which he had called into existence. Francis might have spent quiet years on the slopes of the Apennines, and Mrs. Butler might have enjoyed the opulence and respect accorded to the wife of a dignitary of the Anglican Church. But the summons of human misery and need was irresistible, and rights, as well as luxuries and pleasures, were freely surrendered at the call. In his '' Enoch Arden," Tennyson has im- mortalised this trait. The returned husband and father would have been perfectly within his rights had he stepped out of the obscurity of the little garden, and revealed his person and identity. Phillip's wife was his, and his the sweet dower of children, except the babe of that fatal but innocent second wedlock. But he quietly withdrew and went back to the 63 Life and the Way Through poor hostel, where, with no attendant but the garrulous housewife, he turned his face to- wards the wall, and died. Truly, the poet, how- ever, says of him : " He was not all unhappy. His resolve Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore Prayer from a living source within the will, And beating up through all the bitter world, Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, Kept him a living soul." The underlying conception of Christian love is that of Trusteeship. A man, sud- denly stricken with death, calls in the friend of his youth and manhood, and says : *' The end is near ; I had thought to live longer and make further provision for wife and child, but it is not to be. This is the amount of my property, and there are my invest- ments. I wish to appoint you as my trustee. Do not fail me in this hour. Deal with mine as you wish your own to be dealt by. Make the best of what I have gathered, and see to those I leave.'* Can a man resist an appeal like that ? Must not all other con- siderations be submerged before this last appeal ? And when presently he comes into possession of all, can he use one fraction of it for himself ? No, assuredly, he will act to his own detriment rather than lay his hands 64 The Jewelled Gate on the smallest item of his friend's bequest. Even his legitimate personal expenses will probably be absent, when he hands in the account of his stewardship. No effort will have been spared to increase the income for his wards, whatever the cost of time and thought for himself. This is the clue to Christ's own life in this world. He recognised that whatever He held. He held in the interests of mankind, and that He was not at liberty to abstract the smallest fraction for Himself. This was the first point that He established on the Mount of Temptation. He had already been declared to be the Son of God with power by that Voice which had spoken from heaven at His baptism, and proclaimed Him the beloved Son. Then the temptation arose, quite naturally, from the physical side of His nature, and when hard pressed with the hunger of His long fast, *' Why not use this power to turn these stones to bread." It was specious enough. There was no harm in wanting or eating bread. The Heavenly Father, in accepting His self-emptying, would surely not begrudge His self-sustenance in the conditions of His mortal career. But it could not be. Human need was too dire and clamant for Him to think of deducting F 65 Life and the Way Through even this ounce-weight of power from the deposit at His disposal on man's behalf, though that deposit were infinite and divine. And He was consistent with this resolve in all the subsequent incidents of His ministry. When ten thousand hungry people gathered around His table, spread in the lonely hills, He fed them with fish and bread, so that each was filled, and there was a large surplusage left over ; but in the early morn- ing He searched a fig tree for His breakfast, which apparently He had no other means of procuring. How could it be otherwise, whilst Judas held the bag ! He left the mountain at the dawn, tearing Himself from fellowship with His Father, and traversed the stormy waves, overpowering the laws of Nature for the purpose of calm- ing the fears of His distressed and affrighted followers ; but when challenged to cast Him- self down the steeps of air, He refused, because, whilst generous to extravagance for others. He was, so to speak, parsimonious for Himself. He was keen to take to Paradise a peni- tent malefactor, with a spoilt record and misspent life behind him ; but he would not go there for even a brief breathing space, 66 The Jewelled Gate though the doors stood wide open through which Moses and Ehjah had come. On the occasion of His arrest He had no hesitation in stretching out His hand to heal a wounded ear, but would not use aught of His power to help Himself, and meekly asked the ruffian soldiers who were tightly binding His hands, to permit Him to extend one of them far enough to touch the wound. '' Suffer ye thus far, and He touched the ear and healed it.'* So eager was His devotion to men that, if we may put it so. He took no percentage, however small, of the unsearchable riches which He brought to their help. Though He knew that His body must be raised again, for the great purposes of redemption. He took no kind of thought for its preservation and interment. His all-absorbing interest was for others. He saved others, but He would not save Himself, and He could not do both. He literally renounced everything that others might have everything ; and it is because of the immense wealth which, through His absolute self-surrender He has been able to distribute, that He has stood forth among all lovers of our race as easily Prince and Chief. He lost Himself ; but, in His own words, He found His life. There- 67 Life and the Way Through fore He is most blessed for ever, and anointed with the oil of joy above His fellows. The life which reproduces the Love of which we are speaking is the truly happy one. Compared with it, the joys of the giddy round of amusements, patronised by the jaded crowds of fashion, are as the flash of the meteor across the arch of night as compared with the steady shining of the sun. Go through the world, discovering and advertising the best in others, wiping tears from off all faces, pouring the oil of sym- pathy into the open wounds of belaboured and plundered travellers, ministering to suf- fering, soothing alarm, heartening the fear- ful ; bearing, believing, and hoping all things ; and never failing any in the hour when they turn for sympathy and help in their distress, and you will drink of the most exquisite joys that are known by mortals. This is the elixir of life. Beneath its spell our eyes are opened to behold the primal beauty of creation. Like the beloved Apostle, you will see jewels underpinning the City of God, hear voices sweeter than the chime of the waves on the beach, and find doors opening into Heaven, giving glimpses of the sapphire Throne. ** It is more blessed to give/* said the Master, *' than to receive." 68 The Jewelled Gate '' Give, and it shall be given unto you : good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall man give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete it shall be measured to you again." ***** It may seem that an impossible ideal has been set up, to which only those who are exceptionally gifted can aspire. But though the upper summits, where the edelweiss and gentian grow, may seem inaccessible, the lower slopes may be trodden, where the hamlets nestle in the dimples of the hi)ls and the scent of the hayfield bespeaks the near presence of the home of man. Let us begin with these. It may be that we shall be allured from level to level, until, almost unconsciously, we attain to the upper steps in the giant staircase of aspiration and ascent. One of the main points that we must make with ourselves, if we would attain to a rightly-ordered and pure love, is to forgo those proclivities and affinities which en- deavour to monopolise us. It is not diffi- cult to like people who are naturally attrac- tive and charming ; but there is no special virtue in this, and we cannot preen ourselves and congratulate ourselves as having a 69 Life and the Way Through specially loving and lovable disposition if we confine ourselves to these. " If ye love them that love you, what reward have ye ? Do not even the Publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? Do not even the Gentiles the same ? Ye therefore shall be perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect." It was a Master in the art of love who spoke thus ! A perfect love is that which is irrespec- tive of congenial and attractive personali- ties, which is elicited by the appeal of need, whether issuing from peasant or prince, enemy or friend, and which is not content with bearing with untoward and awkward people, but goes out of its way to redeem them from their untowardnesses and awk- wardnesses, their spurs and angles. We are summoned, if we would love with a divine love, to give ourselves for those we do not like, and minister to those who naturally repel us. We are bidden to love those who hate us, to do them good, to be kind to the unthankful and evil, to be like our Heavenly Father, whose sunshine falls on the evil and the good, and His rain on the just and the un- just. The life that is always giving, always 70 The Jewelled Gate pouring forth its stores, always forgiving, for- bearing, and uplifting — such is the life to which we are called, if we would make the most and best of these few years of sojourn in a world of unutterable need. It seems as though, in the Divine appor- tionment of our lot, people are put into our lives, who reveal us to ourselves and show how far short we have come of the Divine ideal that we have been studying ; they are about the last persons whom we would naturally have chosen. Their temperaments, interests, and views are at right angles to our own. They are like those bare and naked poles, characteristic of Kent, up which the hop plant climbs to spread its waving arms in the glorious sunlight. But their presence in our homes and family circles is intended to rebuke our pretensions to love, and teach us how to set about acquiring it in good earnest. Probably, under such circumstances, the true way to act is to reverse the order of pro- cedure as stated in the Gospels. We are there bidden to love with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Now, this may be the Divine order, but it is not the order which is easiest to follow. It is impossible to command the heart : it is too wayward, and too wilful. 71 Life and the Way Through It is only slightly less dii!icult to command the soul, because we have been accustomed to leave it to its vagrant and wayward choices. The mind, if it stands for the thinking faculty, unless we have trained ourselves to habits of concentration, is not wont to obey control. If, therefore, by any of these faculties we are to begin to love the unlovely, we may be greatly puzzled and set back. But we may find refuge in the word '' strengthy Here, at least, is a department of our nature, where the will can operate. And if we begin by loving people with our strength, doing things for them by the stern compulsion of our will, we shall find ourselves passing through the other phases, and loving with the mind, the soul, and the heart. I knew an incident of this kind. A poor governess, cramped with rheumatism, came into the home of relatives — a newly-married man and wife — as her only port in the storm, unless the workhouse. The husband fought hard with himself for long months, affecting to ignore her presence in the attic bedroom. Finally, however, his better nature triumphed, and he resolved that since he could love her by no other part of his nature, he would, at least, do so with his strength. He, therefore, offered to carry her down in his strong arms to share the midday meal with the family, and 72 The Jewelled Gate carried her back. The fact of making this effort for her comfort awakened new chords of sym- pathy. He began to think more kindly of her, of her need and lonehness — it was the love of his mind. Next, he offered to read poetry to her, and discovered that their ideals were similar, and he loved her with his soul. And when she died soon after, and his wife and he stood beside the open grave, they discovered that they had come to love her with the heart. What had begun as hard duty resulted in pure affection. Do these seem to be counsels of perfection ? Say not so. Remember that Divine Love is the atmosphere of the eternal world in which our spirits rear themselves, or bathe as the mountains bathe their feet in blue Lucerne. It is not possible to do these things that we have been indicating with out poor fickle re- sources, but we can place our five barley loaves and two small fish in the hands of the Almighty Christ. We can yield ourselves to Him as the vehicles through which He can shed abroad His love in the world. There is a quality in His love which is not negative only, but positive, which combines the vigour and energy of the man with the tenderness of woman, and the 73 Life and the Way Through sweetness of the little child. It is not what you can be, but what He can be in you ; not what you can do, but what He can do by you ; not what you feel, but what His emotions, rising up in you, amount to. You are hope- lessly bankrupt, but you are rich. In the earthen vessel of your heart, you carry much heavenly treasure, that the exceeding great- ness of your love may be of God, and not of you ! Long years ago, I remember two ladies coming to me — sisters — whose mother had recently died, and a dispute had arisen between them and their father about her property. So far as I remember, he was monopolising what had been left in part to them. In consequence, a breach had occurred, which had separated them, though circumstances compelled them to live together in a lone part of the country. These sisters had passed through an experience of Divine illumination granted to few, but they dreaded to return home, because of the inevit- able ice-barrier which had grown up between them and their only surviving parent. They sought help, and there was only one thing to say : '' You must love him, and to do so you must begin at once to express your love. On arrival at home, go straight to his room, and without a word of reference to the past, salute him with a daughter's kiss." They said that 74 The Jewelled Gate it was impossible. My reply was : '' Offer your lips to the love of God, and let it flow through them/' I heard after from them, that the effect was magical. The father broke down, and asked their forgiveness. It was as when one day of early summer changes the whole aspect of Nature. " If,'* says Rev. Robert Law,* '' we have the Love that is not merely liking for the like- able, admiration for the admirable, gratitude to the generous — Love whose will to bless men is undeterred by demerit or unattractiveness, that bears another's burden, dries another's tears, forgives injuries, overcomes evil with good — Love which is prompt to help those who need our help (hoping for nothing again), instead of those who need it not (hoping for much in return) — then the Love that mani- fests itself in us is that Divine kind of love which is most worthy of the name. It is God Himself within us, acting out His Life in ours. It is His Love that is fulfilled in us." It is this that enables the Apostle to use the word ought : '' We ought to love one another." It would be inadmissible to use the ought of necessary duty, unless we were able to draw from the nature of God love for love, as grace for grace. * " The Tests of Life." T. and T. Clark. 75 Life and the Way Through There is nothing for which this world of ours is more thirsty than for Love hke this. All the legislation of Parliaments and the edicts of rulers are never going to change the face of Society. You may thrust down one set of rulers and establish another in their place ; you may alter the tenure of land, and insist on the distribution of wealth. But the great stone face cut into the rock is not materially altered by your prescriptions. The heart of man is too subtle for you. The new rulers will be as stony- hearted as the old. A godless democracy will not be more easy to cope with than a godless aristocracy. You may pound ice with a pestle and mortar, but it is still ice ; the warm sunshine is necessary to melt the ice-crystals to the common element of water. Not that legislation and political movements are to be tabooed, because they register the high- water marks of Christian civilisation ; but that they cannot be trusted to bring about that new heaven and earth for which the whole creation waits. One of the first conditions of this new universe is in the drawing together of the Church of Christ ; and here one cannot for- bear quoting the substance of a notable article which appeared lately in the public Press, which shows how the spirit of love may mani- 76 The Jewelled Gate fest itself among men of differing religious views: — * The greatest difficulty which has hitherto (0 Q confronted the missionary in Eastern Africa omZX/£ is the riven and divided state of Christendom. Mohammedanism presents to heathenism a united front, whilst Christianity is broken into factions. Behind Islam is the driving force of an intense realisation of one fact : *' There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet '* ; the power behind Christianity seems often to be only the desire of one faction to supplant another. The faith of the Moslem becomes forged into steel on the anvil of fanaticism ; that of the Christian becomes soft as lead in the cooling winds of controversy. The amazing thing which indeed proves the inexhaustible vitality of Christianity is that it still sweeps masses of heathen into its fold. If it were united against heathenism and Islam, its day of final victory would speedily dawn. Until lately, Christianity in East Africa has had neither a common policy nor a com- mon Gospel. But in this, that part of the mission field is not remarkable. More or less, it is the same everywhere, and instead of the unity of love there are the rivalry and collision * The Scotsman, August 9th, 191 3. 77 Life and the Way Through of many sects. But three years ago, in East Africa, a scheme was projected by Dr. Henry Scott, of the Church of Scotland Mission, whose death British East Africa still mourns, which, under the wise superintendence of Bishop Willis, of Uganda, has lately resulted in the federation of all the various missions on the field. The basis of this federation, which now unites Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and others, is a common acceptance of certain basic facts and truths of the Gospel ; a recog- nition of a common membership between the churches of the Federation ; a regular admin- istration of the two sacraments by outward signs ; and a common form of Church organisa- tion which is a blend of Episcopacy and Pres- byterianism. Each society is autonomous within its own sphere, but the organisation of the future native Church is to be developed along these lines. The federated missions are to respect each other's spheres, to observe a common Church discipline, to have a pre- scribed course of study for the native ministry, and each minister shall be set apart by lawful authority and by the laying on of hands. '* All recognised as ministers in their own churches shall be welcomed as visitors to preach in other federated churches." 78 The Jewelled Gate '' On the evening of that day, June 27th, on which the conference passed this scheme of federation, a service of Holy Communion was held in the Scottish Church at Kikuyu. Bishop Peel administered the Sacrament ; a minister of the Church of Scotland preached the sermon, and all the mission delegates received the Holy Communion from the Bishop's hands. There was no question of any difference between them. All the things that ever separated Christians were submerged by the rising tide of love and unity which had upborne them to that hour. It was a day of which the impulse will be felt throughout every mission field in the world. The missionaries of British East Africa and Uganda have given the Christian world an object-lesson in the spirit of unity. They have shown how it is possible for Christians to be ' one that the world may believe.' " If this is possible at Uganda, it is possible anywhere and everywhere. Let us together ask the Father, who is Himself Love, that He would shed abroad His love through the hearts of His children, that we may love in the con- centric circles of our life — our home, our social and business relations, and our churches — that the coming of that day may be hastened when Love will be enthroned in all hearts, kingdoms, 79 Life and the Way Through and countries, and the age of gold will come again to earth. " What is the beginning ? — ^Love. What the course ? — Love still. What the goal ? The goal is Love on happy hill. Is there nothing, then, but Love ? Search or sky or earth, There is nothing, out of Love, Hath perpetual worth. All things flag, but only Love ; All things fail or flee ; There is nothing left but Love, Worthy you or me ? " 80 THE JEWELLED GATE [Continued), (3) HOPE Faith and Love were brother and sister ; and it is said that, dwelHng in a newly opened country, they sallied forth each morning to clear the forest-lands, felling the big trees, extracting their roots, and preparing the ground for the plough ; but the work was arduous and slow. Sometimes, under the sweltering midday sun, their hearts would faint. Progress seemed so tedious, the tangled undergrowth so thick. At times they were on the point of abandoning their toils and retir- ing from an endeavour which threatened to master them. At such times their younger sister, Hope, lyre in hand, would come, and, sitting beside them, sing of the great glory for which they were preparing. She peopled those territories with mighty cities and flourishing towns, occupied with the activities and domes- ticities of men. Factories and homes filled her vision. The laughter of happy children, and the chime of church bells. Her favourite theme was attuned to that ancient chord, G 8i Life and the Way Through struck from the Harp of Prophecy by the finger of the God of Hope : '' The wilderness and the sohtary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing.'' Those of us who are continually immersed in the great currents and tides of human life need to refresh ourselves by looking away to these immortal frescoes on the walls of the corridors of Hope's dwelling-place. We must project ourselves into that great future, and encourage ourselves with that blessed Hope, When the present state of things will be ended, when the problem of evil will be solved, and the divine travail satisfied. But what is true for the race is true of the individual. We may speak in the same terms of the microcosm of our personal exist- ence as of the macrocosm of humanity. We need not, therefore, hesitate to say with the poet : " Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, While the swift seasons roll. Leave thy low-vaulted past. Let each new mansion, nobler than the last, Shut out from heaven with dome more vast ; Till thou at length art free. Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." Oliver Wendell Holmes. 82 The Jewelled Gate In the development of our life there are four stages. First, the putting forth of phy- sical strength ; then, the awakening to the appeal of sensuous emotion ; then, the grow- ing splendour of the intellect ; and finally, the reign of the spiritual faculty, by which the whole being is dominated from above. The precise order in which these four planes are reached may vary in different indivi- duals ; but that there are these four, and that they succeed each other, as strata, in this order, will be generally acknowledged. Similarly with mankind. The earliest monarchies were founded on physical force. Great empires, compared by Daniel to wild beasts, fought for the mastery of the world, came up out of the waters of the teeming ocean of life, trampled for a little while the sands, and passed from view. Next came the rule of fleshly appetite, and the mighty religious systems of paganism pampered sensual desire. Some of these survive to- day, such as Hinduism. Of others, we have traces among the recently exhumed relics of great nations that have long since passed away ; and what we know is confirmed by the allusions of the more ancient records of Scripture, which describe the lands of the Orient as spueing out their inhabitants be- 83 Life and the Way Through cause of the vileness of their abominable sensuaUty. Then came the rule of the Intellect. Greece, with her wisdom, captivated and led the world. To Athens all eyes were turned ; to the voice of her great teachers all men listened. And even after the incursions of barbarians had threatened to extinguish her illuminating genius, it was in the Renaissance of Greek learning that Europe and civilisa- tion were quickened from the torpor of the Middle Ages. That reign is not yet finished, as the modern investigations and discoveries of science suggest ; but already another empire is beginning to manifest itself, as when the light of a summer morning steals in on a brilliantly lighted banqueting-hall. The veil of the spirit- world thins every hour. The light behind is becoming more intense. It cannot be long before the full result of Christ's passage as man into the spiritual world will bring about the spiritualising of mankind. The law for the individual and the race is therefore ever Forward. We must leave behind our childish things, our mistakes, our failures, our sins. To look back on them will be to court petrifaction, as when Lot's wife looked back on Sodom. The beacon- 84 The Jewelled Gate cloud only once removed to the rear of the host, to intercept the attack of the foe. Its position was invariably at the head of the march. Leave the dead past to bury its dead. '' As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." And so it is written : '* The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit." The old legend tells that as Eve was leaving Eden she plucked a flower to carry with her as a memorial of its untainted beauty ; but it withered as she passed the gate. Yet surely those other flowers which were cultured by her husband's care were more beautiful in her eyes 1 And was not the face of her first-born more bewitching than any flower culled from the soil of Para- dise ? Always dare to believe that better things are awaiting you and your race than eye has seen or heart conceived. The earth, like an ocean-going steamer, is being steered by a Divine hand to a port which may well be called '* The Fair Havens." It is impos- sible that the great drama of human history 85 Life and the Way Through can end in disappointment and defeat. The Love of God has expended too much on us to abandon the work to which He has put His hand. He cannot allow His deep in- vestment of tears and blood to be wasted. Out of the chaos of the old world the brood- ing Spirit brought order and beauty, till, as He viewed His handiwork, the Almighty pronounced that it was very good. Less than that cannot be expected, either in the new creation of the soul or the coming revela- tion of the new Heavens and Earth. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast. It keeps our soul from drift- ing with the swing of the tide, because it enters within the veil. It cannot be ashamed because God's love is shed abroad in our hearts. Mr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, used to tell the story of an Irish cabin in which a cripple child lay on a mattress with no light except that which came through the open doorway. Her companions were pigs and fowls ; her father a drunkard. A friendly neighbour asked the father if he did not think that it would be a great improvement to strike out a window, that the child might look out as it lay. The window was made, but it only looked out on a cabbage garden. The 86 The Jewelled Gate neighbour came in to see if the work were done, and exclaimed in amazement at the window not having been placed on the other side of the house, where she could see the moving glory of the outspread sea. This also was done. But on yet another day the woman returned, because her heart yearned for the poor little child, and protested that the work would never be complete until, over the child's bed, the father had made a wm- dow in the roof, so that she might see the arch of the sky, and at night the moon and stars. This also was done. It is not enough to have the window of Patience for our cabbage gardens, or Experience for our seas ; we need an outlook on those abidmg reah- ties which already are in the purpose of God and shall be one day realised for evermore m the actual experience of mankind. '' Hast thou hope ? '^ they asked of John Knox when he was dying. He spoke nothmg, but raised his finger, and pointed upward, and so died. Hope thou in God, for thou shaft yet praise Him. All that we have ever hoped for will one day become ours, not m the coarser forms in which we have conceived, but in fair and ethereal shapes. Our hopes speak with prophetic voices of the good time S7 Life and the Way Through coming, and they shall not be found liars. We shall possess our possessions. We shall inherit the land. We shall be satisfied. Not along the way that we expected, nor in the precise form we anticipated, but as God hath planned. The outward may perish, but the inward will root itself and grow. The things that are capable of being shaken will remove, but those which cannot be shaken will be imperishably ours. *' No star is ever lost we once have seen; We always may be what we might have been. Since Good, though only thought, has life and breath, God's hfe — can always be redeemed from death ; And evil, in its nature, is decay, And any hour can blot it all away ; The hopes that lost in some far-distance seem, May be the truer hfe, and this the dream." — ^A. A. Procter; We cannot do better, as we close these paragraphs on Hope, than recall those true words of a great preacher,* which sum up precisely what we have been endeavouring to say : " Progress is the law of the world ; it is the law which ought to rule our lives. See that you have an active part in the great evolution of the race. What matters, after all, the catastrophes, the convulsions of ♦ Rev. Stopford Brooke. 88 The Jewelled Gate heart and intellect which 3^ou must suffer, the shattered sail, the midnight watch in the hurricane, the loneliness of mid-ocean ? It is life at least ; it is more, it is moving with the movement of the world, and the world is moving under the direction of Christ." Yes, Christ is with us. We are all to come in the power of the Holy Spirit to perfect manhood, to the measure of the stan- dard of the fullness of Christ. A thousand years with Him is as a watch in the night. To us the pace is slow, but it is not really so. *' Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come." Be of good cheer, for there shall be a fulfilment unto you of all things spoken by the Lord ! 89 VI SOME EXPERIENCES ON THE WAY The way often lies for miles over the dull and irksome flats of the commonplace. Each dawn summons us to the same uninteresting and uninviting tasks. *' The common round and daily task '* are easier to sing about than practise. We feel that it is perfectly legitimate to complain of the dull, slow life we are forced to lead, the lowliness of our position, the drudgery of our toil. Surely we were made for something better than to drive the pen over reams of paper, to type out business accounts, to wait behind a counter, or travel for wares in which we have no interest. What shall we have to show for these years of obscure com- monplace ! If it were not for the necessity of getting bread for ourselves and the young or aged lives that depend on us, how gladly would we renounce our homely toils, and seek some way of living more congenial and romantic, which would gain the notice of the great world, and enable us to feel at the last that we had not lived in vain. Life becomes very bitter when we allow thoughts like these to corrode 90 Some Experiences on the Way it. The gnawing of the worm of remorse is only more to be feared ! Of course, the ultimate remedy for the corrosion of discontent is to get down to the bottom fact of the will of God. Every morning and evening we pray, '' Thy will be done '' ; but of what use is it to utter this petition, unless we are content to have that will done in us ? The one secret of life and peace and growth is not to devise and plan for ourselves, but to accept loyally that position which is assigned to us by Divine Providence, to fall in with the order' of Society, to be prepared to be a cogwheel so long as we are included in the great movement of the age. If the stand on which the Master of the House has placed you is a very lowly or common one, or if the room you are called to illuminate is only a cold, dark cellar, still, be content to shine your brightest, and do not repine against His decision. Perhaps these lowly duties are the highest of which you are really capable ; or perhaps they are given as the supreme test of your character ; and if, like Joseph, you will be thoughtful and attentive to the poor prisoners in the gaol, you may be promoted to a high place presently, where the qualities which have been approved in the restricted sphere 91 Life and the Way Through of the commonplace will be needed to direct the affairs of the nation. What vast numbers have never had the chance to do really big things, because they have not set themselves carefully and earnestly to do little ones. They have not been promoted to rule their ten cities because in discontented pettishness they have buried their one talent in the ground. *' He who neglects a thing which he suspects he ought to do, because it seems to him too small a thing, is deceiving himself ; it is not too little, but too great for him, that he doeth it not.'' In point of fact, by their refusal to do little things well men are perpetually revealing their littleness. The really great will do little things greatly, and in doing them thus they show themselves of the highest quality possible. The perfect man will do common things perfectly. Have you not noticed how the greatest artists choose the commonest incidents of life and glorify them ? Take, for instance. Millet's ** Angelus." What is there in that familiar picture but a potato-patch, a couple of simple peasants in the attitude of prayer, and a church steeple on the skyline in the distance ! They are the most ordinary objects that he could have selected ; but out of them the great artist has constructed a conception which has furnished 92 Some Experiences on the Way a moving and uplifting inspiration to tens of thousands. The fact that WelHngton slept on a camp-bed, or that Nelson used such and such a common article of toilet ; that Wilber- force made his vow under this tree, or that William Carey chalked his name and cobbler's trade on that board of wood, has apprised these ordinary things at a value altogether dispro- portionate to their actual worth. Why should the commonplace drag you down ? Why should not you lift it up, so that people may even desire to be occupied in that very sphere because you once filled it ? This is turning the valley of Baca into a place of water- springs. It demands a much larger amount of virtue to do an obscure duty nobly than one that glistens in the eye of the public. Perhaps it is not so difficult to die a martyr's death, when you know that you are lighting a fire that will never be put out ; but to die by inches, to starve in the absence of human love and sym- pathy, to plod on with no word of gratitude or recognition — this is the supreme test of character. Besides the routine nature of our daily toil affords an opportunity for a more intensive culture of the soul. An occasional effort, on which you concentrate all 3^our thought and 93 Life and the Way Through prayer, may be successful in attaining the object to which you set yourself. But it is too spasmodic, too transient, to give you an oppor- tunity of forming permanent character. The mould is broken before the metal has cooled. The wine-skin splits and the wine is spilled. But prolonged discipline in ordinary and commonplace duty, the spirit's silence and unselfishness carried over a long track of time, the formation of a hidden habit of unassuming humility, obedience, and piety, adorn the soul with a saintly beauty which can only result from the exercise of a prolonged endurance. Nothing is common or unclean unless degraded by an ignoble soul. The lowliest insect when placed beneath the microscope has beauties which Solomon in all his glory could not excel. The desert bush is aflame with God, though we fail to see. The meanest flower that blows may awaken thoughts too deep for tears. The flower in a crannied wall may be a window into the infinite. '' No day,'* says some one, '' is commonplace if we only had eyes to see its splendour. There is no duty that comes to our hand but brings with it the possibility of kingly service." Remember that the glory of Christ's nature made the poor robes He wore shine with a glory and whiteness such as no fuller on earth could attain to. 94 Some Experiences on the Way " The common problem — ^yours, mine, every one's, Is not to fancy what were fair in life, Provided it could be — ^but finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means — a very different thing." — R. Browning; Character has been said to have the power of building an edifice out of ordinary circum- stances. From the same materials, common and ordinary as bricks and mortar, one man builds palaces, and another hovels, one ware- houses, and another villas. Bricks and mortar are bricks and mortar until the architect makes something else. It is a good rule for an artist to mix brains with his paint, but for a Chris- tian it is a still better rule to work character on the canvas of the commonplace until the blended materials yield a cloth of gold. :(« :f: Hi 4: sf: Sometimes the way will dip down into the shadowed valley of great sorrow. The Master said that He would give us a joy which no man could take from us ; but He also said that our sorrow would be turned into joy. It is as though sorrow were the raw material out of which He makes joy. At Cana before He sup- plied the guests with wine, He had the water-pots filled with water. So you must not be surprised if now you have sorrow, for out 95 Life and the Way Through of your present affliction He is making the eternal weight of glory, and you cannot have that without this. It worketh the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. There is not one tear of sorrow, humbly and resignedly shed, which is not a seed-corn cast into the desolate furrows of your life, and which shall not yield you some hundred-fold of joy when the summer has arrived. But remember to take your sorrows from the divine permission. Even though his brethren were the obvious cause of his long suffering, Joseph refused to see their hand in it, and said : ^^ It was not ye, God sent me hither to preserve life.'' If you prefer, you may make the distinction between what God per- mits and what He decrees. There is His decre- tive will that ordains, but His permission has to be sought before Satan can tempt Job, or Pilate crucify the Christ. '' Thou couldst do nothing against me, except it were given thee from above." But the ultimate fact in each case is the will of God. And the way to find sorrow's yoke both easy and light is to take it from the Father's hand, saying : '' Even so. Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight." Then the yoke becomes wings to soar with, something as when we were children the tail of our kite helped the kite to face the wind 96 Some Experiences on the Way and fly. '' I asked Allah for something to ride ; He gave me something to carry ! '* But much depends on whether we turn to the lower or the higher help when sorrow beats down on us like a pitiless storm. If we stoop to avail ourselves of human sympathy to the exclusion of the divine, or resort to the diver- sion of company or travel or amusement, we shall come out of our trouble, not stronger but weaker, not greater but smaller, not richer but poorer. But if we turn Godwards, and seek to be comforted with His comfort, if we declare that we have none in heaven or earth that we desire beside Him, then will a light arise to us in the darkness, and the night shall be light about us. *' Weeping,'* says the Psalmist, '' may come in to lodge at even." (A.V., marg.) We can almost see her veiled figure creeping along under the shadows of the big trees, whilst below the torrent thunders down the glen, and she seeks lodging for the night. Let us not refuse her request, for she will repay us hand- somely as she leaves our house at dawn, giving place to jocund joy. Her payment will be fortitude, patience, self-control, wisdom, sym- pathy and faith. Adam Bede, the great novelist tells us, did not attempt to outlive his sorrow, did not let it slip from him as a tem- H 97 Life and the Way Through porary burden, leaving him the same man as before. '' It would be a poor result of all our anguish and wrestling," she says, '' if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it — if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident frame, the same Hght thoughts of human suffering, the same frivo- lous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of the unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indomitable force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy — the one poor word which includes all our best thoughts and our best love." " Do not cheat thy heart and tell her * Grief will pass away, Hope for fairer times in future, And forget to-day.' Tell her if you will that sorrow Need not come in vain ; I Tell her that the lesson taught her Far outweighs the pain." Sorrow is necessary to the soul, as a back- ground for the rainbow of hope to repose upon. Sorrow is the furnace that burns our bonds, so that we walk free in the fires. Sorrow is the veil flung over the cage of the song-bird whilst 98 Some Experiences on the Way it learns to sing. Sorrow is the excuse for God to draw nearer to us, and for Him to draw us nearer to Himself. Sorrow is God's almoner, who brings His fairest gifts packed in rough cases. But, after all, the gift which has required most packing, and comes encased in straw, and crate, and matting, however ugly the appearance, is the most valuable and precious. In sore trouble, let us anoint our heads and wash our faces, so that we may not seem to others to be hardly used at our Father's hands. Though your heart be sad within you, let cheery words and kindly deeds go forth to others. Meet them with a gentle welcome, considerate kindness, and helpful words. There is no cure for heartache and heartbreak so sure or speedy as becoming a son or daughter of consolation, after the manner of the good Barnabas. No trouble should be too great to make us forget to show courtesy to those around us, and especially to the poor, the timid and the oppressed. No heart-sorrow must be so engrossing as to rob us of our readiness to show kindness and sympathy. We must school ourselves to obey a code of unfaltering noble- ness, whatever our inward smart ; to subject ourselves to a vigorous self-discipline lest we become self-centred in our grief. But directly 99 Life and the Way Through we compel ourselves to take this side against ourself, we begin to recover. The heart-forces begin to rally. The tears begin to flow more quietly. A new radiance comes into our eyes, and we ask to be called not Marah, but Naomi — Pleasantness. '' I beg you/' wrote Phillips Brooks, '* whatever be your suffering, to learn first of all that God does not mean to take your sorrow off, but to put strength into you, that you may be able to carry it. Be sure your sorrow is not yielding you its best, unless it makes you a more thoughtful person than you have ever been before," Perhaps the loftiest attitude to take up in the presence of some crushing sorrow is to dare to thank God for it. A lady of my acquaint- ance, on hearing from her doctor that her children were sickening for scarlet fever, before taking the necessary precautions, went direct to her room, and kneeling before God said : ** I thank Thee, Father, for allowing this to come, because Thou couldst not have allowed so great a trouble, except for its vast revenue of gain to us all.'* And it was so, because through that illness salvation came to that house. *' Whatever seeming calamity happens to you," says William Law, " if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. Could you, therefore, work miracles, you could I