i ! 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 1 1 
 
 am 
 
 rani 
 
LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 4523 .H32 1911 
 
 Hackett, Wilfred S. 
 
 The land of your sojournings 
 
The Land of Your 
 Sojournings f 
 
 Studies in Christian Experience 
 
 By/ 
 WILFRED S. HACKETT 
 
 4&MIML S 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Of all things in the world, a sermon ought to 
 speak for itself without any preface, and yet when 
 a small collection of addresses is put forward a 
 word may be permitted on their connexion and 
 interdependence. 
 
 I have tried to touch (though the touch be of the 
 slightest) upon the great themes of the Faith — the 
 merciful majesty of God the Father, the work of 
 Christ and of the Holy Spirit, and our response to 
 that work in various phases of Christian experience. 
 The meditations never wander far from that most 
 fruitful topic, the mystery of divine and human co- 
 operation, according to which we work out our own 
 salvation, while all the time it is God who worketh 
 in us both our willing and our doing of His good 
 pleasure. Trying and trusting are the believer's 
 life-occupation, and to inspire the one and encourage 
 the other must be a preacher's best desire. 
 
 Wilfred S. Hackett. 
 
 Halifax, 1911. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ii 
 
 in 
 
 IV 
 
 VI 
 
 VII 
 
 VIII 
 
 IX 
 
 X 
 
 XI 
 
 The Redemption of Experience • 
 
 (Exod. vi. 4) 
 
 FAGK 
 
 9 
 
 'The Sure Mercies of David' 
 
 (2 Sam. xxiii. 3-5) 
 
 SI 
 
 The Inward Providence . . , 
 
 (Ps. xxxii. 8) 
 
 • 35 
 
 The Hidden Spirit .... 
 
 (i Cor. vii. 40) 
 
 • 47 
 
 The Two Hands of God . 
 
 (Matt. v. 45 and vii. 11) 
 
 • 57 
 
 The Way of Peace .... 
 (Gen. xxii. 8) 
 
 . 73 
 
 The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 (2 Kings iv. 10) 
 
 . 85 
 
 The Reward of Love . , , 
 
 (John xx. 16) 
 
 • 95 
 
 St. Paul's Dynamic .... 
 
 (Gal. ii. 20) 
 
 . 105 
 
 The Spending of Life 
 
 (Matt. xx. 28) 
 
 . 119 
 
 Compensation for Circumstances . 
 
 (I Cor. vii. 22) 
 
 • 129 
 
 rtt 
 
Contents 
 
 XII 
 
 On Trying and Trusting • • 
 
 (An Address) 
 
 PAGE 
 141 
 
 XIII 
 
 The Lesson of a Collection . 
 
 (Phil. iv. 19) 
 
 155 
 
 XIV 
 
 Clouds , 
 
 (Exod. xiv. 20) 
 
 . I67 
 
 XV 
 
 Moods and Feelings • • • . 
 
 (An Address) 
 
 177 
 
 XVI 
 
 The Rough Side of Life • . , 
 
 (Jas. i. 2-4) 
 
 . 185 
 
 XVII 
 
 The Puritan among the Flowers 
 (Jas. i. 9, 10) 
 
 ► 197 
 
 CVIII 
 
 Privation and Resolve . 
 
 (Ps. ci. 2) 
 
 • 209 
 
 XIX 
 
 A Seeker of the Beautiful Life , 
 
 (Prov. viii. 17) 
 
 2IQ 
 
 XX 
 
 Ambition • , 
 
 (Acts viii. 19) 
 
 231 
 
 XXi 
 
 'The Little Touch' • . • , 
 (2 Cor. i. 8) 
 
 *43 
 
 VU1 
 
I 
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF EXPERIENCE 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 / have also established my covenant with them, to give them the 
 land of Canaan, the land of their sowurnings, wherein they sojourned. — 
 ExODvi. 4(R.V.). 
 
 nr^HE revelation of God contains great doctrines of 
 ■*• astronomical magnitude as well as simpler 
 doctrines on the homely level of domestic economy ; 
 and as in daily life we forget the heavenly bodies and 
 give much attention to the price of provisions, so in 
 religion we are apt to think wholly about what we call 
 the practical truths, while allowing the mightier facts 
 to become remote and bedimmed. Yet in those un- 
 fathomable facts lie the inspirations which alone make 
 religion effective. 
 
 This verse, for example, sets forth in one aspect the 
 ancient truth of the Divine Sovereignty. The phrase, 
 if not the truth, is half forgotten to-day ; and yet 
 without that fact as starting-point and goal, no religion 
 can be like hands stretched out to capture and hold 
 and soothe and master and help men. It is quite 
 true that the doctrine needs to be apprehended afresh. 
 In some old statements of it, the will of God and the 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 immutable decrees occupied the nominative case so 
 exclusively that no room was left for man save as 
 mere material. We must recognize that the divine 
 methods are incalculably elastic and never rigid, and 
 that God wins His way by infinite resourcefulness 
 instead of overwhelming compulsion. We must 
 understand that the will of man is just as omnipotent 
 over his own destiny as God's will is. But then, for 
 our triumphant assurance, we must come to see that 
 those who choose God have something infinitely 
 stronger than their own constancy to trust in, even a 
 predestination unto life — a decree against which the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil may break their forces 
 in vain; and that human history and individual 
 experience are constantly tending to a completeness 
 of result arid a perfection of finish which reveal the 
 workmanship of the Master-hand. 
 
 In the text is shown an instance of God's mastery 
 over the results of individual lives. He brings about 
 a complete redemption of experience. In the careers 
 of His chosen ones God turns everything to account. 
 Nothing is ultimately lost or meaningless or unfruitful 
 — no place, no hour, no thought, no pang. All these 
 shall at last be gathered up and sealed to us as an 
 abiding possession. It was so with these saints of old 
 days. 
 
 ' The land of their sojournings ' is a phrase full of 
 
 12 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 home-sickness. We can scarcely read the stories of 
 the patriarchs without feeling that they were men 
 exiled in the distant provinces of time. Their godly 
 faith and spiritual insight were native to the gospel 
 age, and something deep within them would have been 
 truly at home in the light of the realized Evangel ; 
 yet they led their brief lives far off in strange, 1 arbaric 
 days. Abraham stayed his heart on a promise 
 mysteriously given ; Jacob strove in weakness to 
 grasp a dim ambition of his spirit ; Moses toiled to 
 follow a purpose beyond his understanding : and not 
 until two thousand years later did God in Christ fulfil 
 the promise and make clear the purpose. Meanwhile 
 these had all died in faith — and twilight. 
 
 How much, also, in their lives must have seemed 
 arbitrary and unprofitable ! Digging a well to satisfy 
 a day's need, or putting up a pillar to mark a moment's 
 joy, or making a grave to bury a life's sorrow — what 
 trivial work it was, seeing that to-morrow thirsts and 
 joys and sorrows would be put away for ever! 
 Abraham fought his battle and scattered the five 
 kings, and we see him come home and give away the 
 spoils, utterly sad at heart because such triumphant 
 adventures had nothing to do with the promise. Thus 
 it was very often in the land of their sojournings, — the 
 paltry, the irrelevant, and the futile mocking their 
 desire for the abiding and the essential. 
 
 13 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 Yet this great promise covers their lives, ' I will give 
 them the land of their sojournings.' We must interpret 
 the promise wonderfully and abundantly. It was, of 
 course, fulfilled barely and literally when Canaan 
 became the Fatherland of the Israelites ; but God is 
 never content with bare and literal fulfilments. It was 
 fulfilled more nobly and mystically later on, when 
 these same men came to possess the old land and their 
 old lives in an eternal and spiritual way. For, be it 
 noted, there are many degrees in possession. A man 
 who lives long must have his property on a long lease 
 if he is to enjoy it : otherwise it is but a loan. And 
 an immortal man can only possess immortal things, 
 for death terminates all earthly interests. Those 
 things which we call our own now, whether estates or 
 children or aught else, are but leasehold property — a 
 mere loan — unless we can give them an eternal value, 
 blending them into the living sacrifice so that the 
 money becomes treasure in heaven and the young 
 ones spiritual children as well as children of the flesh 
 If that is done, then indeed they are our own for ever. 
 It was thus with the patriarchs. Their life in the 
 land of their sojournings was given to God, and that 
 experience was thereby redeemed to eternal usefulness. 
 Ages afterwards, St. Paul found in Abraham's faith 
 the classical picture of the way of salvation. The 
 heartache of that leaden-footed journey to Moriah 
 
 14 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 gave St. James his argument for practical religion. 
 Even the queer ins and outs of poor Hagar and the 
 rather feline jealousies of Sarah served an illu- 
 minating purpose for the Galatians. As for Jacob, 
 that pathetic summary of inglorious human nature, 
 he is for ever the type of the poor in spirit, who have 
 no asset but the longing for God. Still does the 
 believer, feeling his moral insolvency, watch the 
 patient Love Divine which forgave and restored and 
 cherished Jacob, until he too cries out, ' Happy is he 
 that hath the God of Jacob for his help.' Nothing in 
 the land of their sojournings was lost. Every fraction 
 of that chequered experience is still doing the holy 
 work on which these men's hearts are set as they dwell 
 in the presence of God. All is gathered into the 
 treasury of the Church, an abiding possession for 
 them and for us. 
 
 I venture to set this forth as a law of experience. 
 There is no waste in God's universe — not even of 
 dreams and tears and wishes. Nature does not know 
 how to waste her products : through all change and 
 decay she patiently turns things to use. And in the 
 realm of Providence, God maintains an economy 
 quite as strict and immeasurably more wonderful. 
 Especially shall the lives of His people be redeemed 
 to the uttermost detail. They are regulated by a 
 Hand more skilful, an Eye more watchful, and a 
 
 i5 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 Thought more careful than we can even faintly 
 understand, and they will be found at last knitted 
 into a whole from which no part can be spared. 
 
 We need such a conviction as this, for we are beset 
 by the same difficulty as the heroes of old — to find 
 the immortal purpose in the day's trifles. So much 
 time is spent in things which seem to contradict our 
 high calling — eating, dressing, sleeping, wrestling with 
 stupid hindrances, bearing small sicknesses, doing 
 impertinent duties, while the soul is athirst for God, 
 for the living God. Lips that can frame the prayer 
 and the song must haggle for money : the mind that 
 can explore divine mysteries must consider hardware 
 and calico : hearts that would fain rejoice with joy 
 unspeakable must lie bound in affliction and iron. 
 We are kings in the spirit and drudges in the flesh. 
 This is painfully felt sometimes towards middle life, 
 when the dry earthly tasks settle like swarming locusts 
 and blight the verdure of youthful purposes. The 
 refreshing art of dreams grows difficult. We dwell in 
 Lilliput, the land of small doings, and feel it unworthy 
 of the children of God. Worse still, sometimes we do 
 not feel it unworthy of us. 
 
 Nevertheless, that province in the land of our 
 sojournings shall be given back to us with eternal 
 value. Surely if a man does not succumb to materi- 
 alism — if he goes through the day of small things 
 
 16 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 keeping a resolute belief in great things, and does his 
 drudgery without becoming a drudge — if he lives on 
 earth and yet maintains by God's grace his convers- 
 ation in heaven — he has much gain. He has laid hold 
 on eternal life. His ideal will be the more potent 
 because it has cost so much to keep. That experi- 
 ence will prove blessed and fruitful for ever. 
 
 Much in life seems irrelevant, and that word 
 describes another phase of the difficulty. So many 
 days are broken by interruptions which have no 
 bearing on our best purpose. Energy and time are 
 dissipated, while the chosen task stands still. It is 
 hard to say, ' No one knocks at my door but God has 
 sent him.' Perhaps, indeed, it would not be quite true 
 for there are many rascals in the world. But this at 
 least may be said, that no interruption ever comes 
 which God cannot teach us to profit by. It is one 
 compensation for growing older that we begin to see 
 how unexpectedly useful things may be. * Keep an 
 article for seven years and it will come in useful,' is a 
 spring-cleaning maxim. Very wonderfully do random 
 thoughts, brood ings of the sick-room, conversations 
 with unwelcome people, things long buried, rise again 
 full of suggestion. Even physical pain, seeming while 
 it lasts the most blind, senseless, and brutal of all 
 interruptions, leaves something behind — an otherwise 
 incommunicable touch of understanding. Truly life 
 
 B I 7 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 knits together as the years pass. We cannot regard 
 it as a cut-and-dried scheme drawn up beforehand by 
 Providence, because that conception leaves too little 
 room for liberty ; but certainly, as the feast of a good 
 man's life draws to its close, the almighty Economist 
 sends forth His mandate, ' Gather up the fragments 
 that nothing be lost.' Then the hours of waiting, the 
 tentative efforts, the wishes never gratified and the 
 prayers never answered begin to yield their profit. 
 Life is found luminous with wisdom. It may even 
 come to pass that, as in that wilderness meal of long 
 ago, the fragments shall bulk larger than the feast itself 
 and the random interruptions prove more fruitful than 
 the conscious endeavour. 
 
 And finally, this truth of a redeemed experience 
 brings brave impulse to the penitent who mourns his 
 wilful unfaithfulness. For whom is the sovereign 
 grace of God if not for the man who longs to begin 
 again and do better, yet is almost hopeless because of 
 time lost ? Life in the land of their sojournings was 
 by no means blameless in the case of the patriarchs, 
 yet that did not hinder this declaration. God's 
 redeeming power has no limit. Sin and idleness 
 bring a loss which in its own direction is irretrievable, 
 but repentance and faith always set us face to face 
 with an alternative which may yet be won. The 
 sampler on the cottage wall used to read, ' Lost, some- 
 
 iS 
 
The Redemption of Experience 
 
 where between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, 
 each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is 
 offered, for they are lost for ever.' We cannot always 
 be sure of that. In God's hands even time is elastic, 
 and what is lost in extent may sometimes be made up 
 for in intensity. He may teach us to pack the future 
 far more full than we should have done without the 
 reproach of vacant hours remembered. Even the 
 knowledge of sin, bitterly gained, may equip the 
 forgiven soul for special service. There is no room for 
 despair under the rule of that God ' who redeemeth 
 thy life from destruction.' 
 
 • 2 19 
 
II 
 
 THE SURE MERCIES OF DAVID' 
 
n 
 
 'The Sure Mercies of David * 
 
 The God of Israel said, 
 
 The Rock of Israel spake to me. 
 
 One that ruleth over men righteously \ 
 
 That ruleth in the fear of God, 
 
 • . . as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, 
 
 A morning without clouds ; 
 
 . . . the tender grass . . . out of the earth, 
 
 Through clear shining after rain. 
 
 Verily my house is not so with God ; 
 
 Yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, 
 
 Ordered in all things, and sure. 
 
 2 Sam. xxiii. 3-5. 
 
 THIS fragment, entitled 'the Last Words of 
 David/ has the special value that it explains 
 David better than any scripture except the three or 
 four psalms which tradition most definitely attributed 
 to him and criticism cannot with good reason take 
 from him. And he needs explaining. The interwoven 
 accounts which make up the continuous narrative shed 
 diverse lights and shadows, and their somewhat con- 
 tradictory details leave us in doubt. Was he a militant 
 saint, fallible but sincere, or mainly an adventurer with 
 a dash of poetry and a tincture of religious feeling- 
 
 23 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David' 
 
 scarcely removed from superstition ? Or was he 
 something between these two and more complex than 
 either — a man to whom high aspiration and incred- 
 ible baseness each in turn came naturally ; in whose 
 soul extreme forms of good and evil strove together, 
 making it a field on which God gained one of His 
 most protracted and significant battles ? No shallow 
 conception of David can possibly be true. A mere 
 adventurer could not have ileft a memory like his. 
 The rich and lingering afterglow tells of a brilliant 
 day gone by ; the long echoes of his name must have 
 been started by a mighty chord. He needs a great 
 explanation. 
 
 Let us try to unfold the testimony to the real 
 David which lies in the broken and gasping utterance 
 before us. There are three spiritual facts : an early 
 vision, a failure in mid career, and an everlasting 
 covenant. The vision supplies us with the initial 
 motive of his youth, and the failure, like a rock in the 
 stream, accounts for the deepening of his character ; 
 but it is the truth about the everlasting covenant 
 which lays bare the miracle of his life. Every life 
 that ends well is a miracle. 
 
 David was the romantic figure of Israel's history, 
 as Nelson is of our own. He appeared first as the 
 clean-blooded shepherd youth, of high courage, fine 
 in taste and attuned to hero-worship. His sword was 
 
 »4 
 
1 The Sure Mercies of David ' 
 
 mighty, and no less mighty the harp and song with 
 which he routed a foe more subtle than Goliath, the 
 melancholy spirit entrenched in Saul's bosom. David 
 rose rapidly, and a charm hung about him like the 
 1 Nelson touch ' of which sailors talked a hundred years 
 ago. Men loved him, and would follow with double 
 confidence where he led, counting even death less 
 bitter in his service. When the mighty three broke 
 through a host to get him a draught of water and 
 he poured it out to God as something too precious 
 for common use, that was the David touch of poetic 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 David was never common in those brilliant days. 
 His least deeds stirred the fancy, and he found a 
 place in the ballad music of his land while still young. 
 Maidens of Israel dreamed about him, and their 
 dreams set the standard for other youths. Outlawry 
 only favoured romance, adding fine scenery of vale 
 and crag and watch-fire. The David touch was seen 
 again when he spared the sleeping Saul. Whether 
 he shepherded or fought or sang he was always David 
 the high-hearted, with a way all his own. That dis- 
 tinction attended him also as a king. He was no 
 less dashing and successful in government than he 
 had been in opposition. His policy embraced four 
 objects : to secure his throne against malcontents 
 as mercifully as might be; to make the kingdom 
 
 '5 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David' 
 
 independent by defeating the Philistines ; to unify the 
 nation around Jerusalem, his own capital built on 
 neutral ground ; and finally to make his city and its 
 temple the centre of a common religious worship. 
 Three of these points David triumphantly gained, 
 and to the last one he opened the way. No more is 
 needed to prove his sagacity and justify the honour 
 ever afterwards paid to his name. 
 
 In all this story there seems a certain lack of 
 adequate motive until we come upon these last words. 
 Here, however, we learn of that youthful idealism 
 which had ruled David's will. It visited him first in 
 the early days when he was king of the helpless 
 flock. 'The silence that is in the starry sky, the 
 sleep that is among the lonely hills,' purified his 
 ambition. During leisurely meditations mercy and 
 truth took hold upon his heart. In the fresh morning 
 of a perfect summer day he read the parable of a 
 land ruled in wisdom and strength, and the tender 
 grass after rain suggested the fruitfulness which 
 springs to life under a government which draws out 
 the best in its age. God's kindly sway in nature 
 taught him the right use of power : beauty, order, and 
 strength became his ideal. If ever raised to great- 
 ness he would be like that — no selfish Eastern poten- 
 tate, but a royal shepherd whom the simple folk 
 might safely trust. It reminds us of the vision of 
 
 26 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David* 
 
 Nelson, who, loving the strength of words more than 
 he feared mixed metaphors, wrote : * In my mind's eye 
 I ever saw a radiant orb suspended which beckoned 
 me onward to renown/ 
 
 A boy's glimpses of fine possibility are prophetic. 
 Being born of grace in his own heart, they closely fit 
 his special ability and foretell exactly where success 
 or failure will lie. ' A fountain light of all our day' — 
 that is the truth about them. They are never super- 
 seded. It is a sad mistake to say lightly, ' No doubt 
 I shall get wiser as I get older.' Nothing more wise 
 and true than those first aspirations will ever come. 
 The jaunty confidence of youth which older folk 
 laugh at is very largely justified, for indeed God gives 
 us at the start the treasures of guidance and purpose 
 which most we need, but there is a pitiful hole in our 
 pockets and they often drop by the wayside. Then 
 we must turn and become as little children, going 
 back painfully to reclaim them. Life's real problem 
 is far less one of getting than of keeping. He was 
 right who wrote — 
 
 I pray that God may safely keep 
 
 'Neath angel's wings, 
 Through joy and sorrow, toil and sleep — 
 I pray that God may safely keep 
 
 ,*uv, u5u jwjr aim jwnvrr, lui, 
 
 pray that God may safely 
 Her heart's best things. 
 
 Those first thoughts will be our last thoughts. They 
 
 27 
 
* The Sure Mercies of David ' 
 
 will come back in old age and stand by the death- 
 bed, if there is time then, as they stood by David's, 
 either to rejoice us because we have been loyal, or, if 
 we have let them slip, to load us with unutterable 
 reproach. 
 
 Doubtless during those days of boyish vision and 
 resolve David entered into the covenant — not, of 
 course, with clear evangelic light to show him how 
 great a thing he was doing, but quite effectually for 
 all that, because every commandment is a promise, 
 and every effort of obedience reacts upon the heart 
 with strong assurance. Perhaps it is the very joy 
 of such a crisis which rings in the exultant words, 
 ' Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the 
 days of my life.' 
 
 • ••••• 
 Somewhat on these lines must we picture the 
 
 making of Israel's greatest monarch. The rest of his 
 story proves the long effect of a boy's prayer and the 
 strength of that everlasting covenant. After many 
 years it was tested by a terrible strain. In the 
 golden day of success the devil claimed his portion, 
 and the claim was allowed. The noon of that morn- 
 ing without clouds grew thick : the fresh visions of 
 the hill-country were abandoned for chambering 
 and wantonness. Our glorious David made himself 
 common at last. It began with the vulgar intrigue 
 
 28 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David ' 
 
 of a middle-aged man — the kind of thing which one 
 might think tempting enough to any uninspired, low- 
 thoughted swineherd among his subjects, but for 
 David the rare, the illustrious, the idealist . . . ! That 
 led on to the crafty, unscrupulous cruelty common to 
 selfish Eastern potentates. Thus does indulgence 
 always quench distinction and tear down the flowers 
 of character. 
 
 'The natural end of high-flown resolves and 
 fantastic vows,' says the cynic. But we are not 
 cynics, nor is this the end. 
 
 There was, indeed, a dreadful likelihood about 
 David's fall. A neglected, undisciplined province in 
 his nature lay ready to revolt, awaiting only the 
 opportune juncture of idleness and temptation. It 
 faithfully promised trouble sooner or later. His early 
 religion, though rich in broad, effective ideals of 
 achievement, was doubtless too deficient in regard 
 for personal holiness, his conscience too little solicitous 
 about ' hidden faults,' to suspect and cope with this 
 lurking disorder. Hitherto David had worshipped 
 the Lord of Hosts rather than the Searcher of hearts 
 and in a fair measure had lived up to that level of 
 faith. He could scarcely rise higher without an 
 increase of spiritual understanding, for a man's moral 
 attainment is strictly limited by his heart's creed. 
 And if that creed is to be deepened, it may sometimes 
 
 29 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David' 
 
 be possible only when the rebel in the soul finds its 
 opportunity, and in the grip of temptation or even in 
 the shame of ' a killing sin/ new knowledge of self 
 and God is gained. That is a supreme hazard from 
 which the God who made us does not shrink, and it 
 gives a meaning to life's temptations. Temptation 
 and sin are not indeed the will of God, but, seeing 
 that they have already entered our nature, it certainly 
 is His will that the bitter experience of sin shall drive 
 the penitent man closer into the divine fellowship. In 
 God's wisdom the tempter is made to overreach himself 
 and frustrate his own purpose, because the dread of his 
 power adds a trembling tenacity to the faith of the 
 saints. St. Paul put this mystery in his great way 
 when he wrote : ' Sin, that it might be shown to be sin, 
 by working death in me through that which is good.' 
 Rich natures like David and Nelson reveal the moral 
 problem in all its intricacy, for they are the fruitful 
 ground which favours both weed and grain abundantly 
 Set beside these two men a third, the mythical hero, 
 Lancelot. His confession the modern poet has written 
 in words reminiscent of Christ's teaching. 
 
 In me lived a sin, 
 So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 
 Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
 Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
 And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
 Not to be pluck'd asunder. 
 30 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David' 
 
 Few are without some knowledge of that state. In 
 early school-days we used to ask at the beginning of 
 a new reign in the history, ' Was this king good or 
 bad ? ' Now we know that among kings and men 
 scarce any are wholly either good or bad, so strangely 
 is human strength flawed with weakness and the bad 
 impulse interwoven with the good desire. There 
 comes home to us, maybe in the very moment of 
 enthusiastic consecration, the suspicion of what undis- 
 ciplined and rebellious provinces may yet lie unre- 
 vealed in our own nature, and with the thought the 
 brave protestations die upon our lips. We can only 
 stammer like the men at the Last Supper, l Lord, is it 
 I?' We are safest when asking that question. It 
 must not stay our surrender to Christ, and it certainly 
 cannot hinder His acceptance of us, but it will deepen 
 our creed. The only policy for the faulty man is to 
 find the right Master, One who is able to keep that 
 which is committed unto Him. That is the making 
 of the covenant. And the task which God accepts 
 for His Spirit to perform towards all who enter 
 that covenant is not merely the blotting out of 
 transgressions like figures from a slate, but the dis- 
 entangling of a labyrinth of roots, the good from the 
 evil, that the good may be saved. 
 
 David's restoration was very wonderful and quite 
 supernatural. He was literally born from above. 
 
 3i 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David ' 
 
 During the year after his fall it became clear that he 
 would never of himself stir hand or foot to escape 
 from the quagmire. The case was hopeless apart 
 from a divine intervention, and the king had lost his 
 hold upon the covenant. But God remembered. 
 Men may treat their boyish prayers lightly, but in 
 God's sight they are weighty and not to be set aside. 
 He never forgets. Therefore in the fullness of time 
 we behold the resurrection of David's faith and 
 worship, a miracle wrought by a brave prophet, a 
 timely parable, and a hidden Spirit. But if that dead 
 loyalty was sown a natural body, it is raised a 
 spiritual body. We meet a new and far greater 
 David, for it is generally a 'second blessing' that 
 marks the believer with the character by which he is 
 best remembered. 
 
 He found the divine favour again with merciful 
 swiftness, for he could not have faced the toil and 
 suffering of recovery without that. But the year in 
 By-path Meadow and Doubting Castle must be paid 
 for and the sinful nature purged with hyssop. That 
 included the grief of penitence, the loss of the might- 
 have-been, and the fearful reaction of natural con- 
 sequence. A godless deed done is an unchained 
 force not to be overtaken by the doer. So the evil 
 example went forth, ravaging his own home first of 
 all. I will not speak as though David were wholly 
 
 32 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David ' 
 
 responsible for the misdeeds of his sons : no man is 
 compelled to follow a bad example, and if he does 
 so the sin is his own. Nevertheless David's record 
 closed his mouth from all fatherly remonstrance, and 
 it is quite true that ' the real sequel of his sin is the 
 cry, " O Absalom, my son, my son ! " ' Yet we must 
 note this remarkable mercy in all the punishments, 
 that they struck David through his nobler nature, his 
 love of kin and people, thus making his very remorse 
 a generous and passionate thing. There is no 
 merely retributive punishment within the covenant 
 
 The might-have-been was lost. David must not 
 build the temple because of the blood that he had 
 shed, and it is likely that in this matter Uriah's blood 
 counted for more than all the rest. Only the strenu- 
 ous pursuer of great plans can understand the disap- 
 pointment of a lifework thus cut in two. Yet here 
 again is mercy. If David wrote the fifty-first psalm 
 (and there probably is nothing in the original version 
 of that psalm to prove this impossible) he built then 
 for the healing of hurt minds a matchless temple not 
 made with hands. That hymn is a temple of God 
 better than all human dreams, and by it alone a 
 troubled experience would be wholly redeemed for 
 the builder. 
 
 All this wonderful dealing, which aims at nothing 
 less than full cleansing and renewal, is ascribed in our 
 c 33 
 
'The Sure Mercies of David ' 
 
 text to the fact of an everlasting covenant. This 
 miracle of restoration and more than reinstatement 
 is not simply life and nature. Things do not ' come 
 right ' of themselves. It is the redeeming God and 
 His infinite patience. What God engages to do He 
 does. And the glory of the faith once delivered to 
 the saints lies in this, that any self- distrusting soul, 
 any nervous adventurer on the threshold of life, any 
 lad who has caught a startling glimpse of the world's 
 terrible temptations, may bring himself and his 
 treasure of good purpose and his weakness and his 
 fears to the covenant God, and by the simplest of 
 prayers secure the great engagement for himself. 
 God will not forget. A truth very like the doctrine 
 of final perseverance lies at the heart of all effective 
 religion, only, as some one has said, it must not be 
 made into a dogma. We will accept the mighty 
 encouragement in the form which it takes in one of 
 the Psalms : ' Commit thy way unto the Lord : 
 trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.' 
 
 1 Incline your ear, and come unto Me : hear, and 
 your soul shall live : and I will make an everlasting 
 covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.' 
 
 34 
 
Ill 
 
 THE INWARD PROVIDENCE 
 
 c » 
 
Ill 
 
 The Inward Providence 
 
 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go : J 
 will counsel thee with Mine eye upon thee. — Ps. xxxii. 8 (R.V.). 
 
 IN the depths of all creeds, often deeper than men's 
 doubts about the creeds can reach, lies the faith 
 that God is Master and Ruler of human lives and 
 that mercy and retribution are the final realities — 
 especially mercy. It is a stupendous idea, beset with 
 difficulties and sometimes utterly inconceivable, yet 
 it survives every shock and remains the instinctive 
 conviction which inspires all worship. To a merely 
 thoughtful man, theorizing with this unintelligible 
 world in full view, the difficulties may well be more 
 than he can solve or even count. How can God rule 
 and men be free and responsible ? How can God be 
 said to rule when so much goes amiss ? And so forth ! 
 It is something altogether different from logic which 
 helps us here, removing difficulties and touching the 
 heart : it is the startled insight of a penitent sinner. 
 Nothing cleanses the eyes like tears of contrite 
 sorrow — after a time. The rainbow of revelation 
 
 37 
 
The Inward Providence 
 
 always dawns there ; for the knowledge of sin is the 
 clue to the knowledge of God. 
 Read the text in this manner : — 
 
 I will make thee wise {or circumspect) ; 
 
 I will point out to thee the way which thou shalt go : 
 
 I will fix mine eye firmly upon thee. 
 
 It is a threefold assurance of guardianship. God 
 will do something in the man. Middle-aged as he 
 is, he shall yet be instructed more deeply than 
 ever, and shall find himself never too old to learn. 
 God will do something round about the man. He 
 shall have the guidance of circumstances, of closed 
 and opened doors, which only the wise can understand. 
 Finally, this man being a backslider of proven 
 weakness, God will watch him with fixed attention to 
 correct the least slip. Providential care is shown to 
 be a very complex thing, operating along many lines 
 which converge to the great result. But more parti- 
 cularly for our purpose, it is largely an inward thing, 
 dealing first and foremost with the mind rather than 
 with the circumstances, according to this initial pro- 
 mise, ■ I will make thee wise.' Probably circumstances 
 are much more nearly right than people admit, and 
 where failure arises the man himself is generally at 
 fault. Also men can never be saved from the outside 
 or by the most favourable circumstances. Deliverance 
 must be wrought supremely by an inward grace 
 
 38 
 
The Inward Providence 
 
 illuminating the mind and making men circumspect 
 and self-adaptive to win the mastery over life's con- 
 ditions. It is written that God did not stay the flood, 
 but Noah, being warned by Him, prepared an ark for 
 the saving of his house. The grand resource and 
 secret of the Most High in the protecting of His 
 children is this gift of wisdom. 
 
 That theory of Divine Providence is in complete 
 contrast to the popular notion that it is a power 
 wholly external to us. Many folk still think of God 
 in the way Omar Khayyam thought of Him — as an 
 infinite Chess-player, with the world for His board. 
 There stand bishops and knights and pawns, each on 
 its own square and perhaps untouched for long 
 intervals. But every piece is moved from time 
 to time by the inexorable Hand, and sooner or later 
 every piece is sacrificed for ends that it cannot know. 
 Our duty is simply to trust that God is winning the 
 game in His own way. Every one has met with 
 abundant illustrations of this forlorn view. Here is 
 a cottage interior from real life. The room is bare 
 and dirty. On the floor three or four tiny children 
 scramble in play with two or three puppies, all 
 so begrimed that it is hard to distinguish the human 
 from the canine. A slatternly, loose-lipped mother 
 tells the story of her troubles — a story of incapacity 
 and mismanagement, though not of flagrant wrong- 
 
 39 
 
The Inward Providence 
 
 doing. Then when the long complaint is ended, she 
 sees the ministerial hat on the table and hastens to 
 add, ' Ah well ! I suppose we must believe that these 
 things are sent for our good/ 
 
 There is a common view gathered up into one 
 tame, conventional little tag. The fruits of indolence 
 and incapacity and small self-indulgence, 'sent for 
 our good ' ! Thus do the uninstructed ones most 
 pitifully talk, taking the name of the Lord their God 
 in vain — finding faith a poor futility. They cast their 
 burden upon the Lord in quite the wrong sense, for 
 they lay only the blame of it on Him. They think 
 themselves not so much led through the world as 
 dragged through it, like a child's toy across the parlour 
 floor, meeting with a bump here and a bump there ; 
 and having caught a gleam of religious truth from 
 the nursery or the pulpit, they feel it right to say 
 without conviction, ' I suppose the bumps are all for 
 my good.' They are puppets in the hand of the 
 Inscrutable One : they are not made wise. 
 
 If such is the idea of Providence vaguely held by 
 the unthinking folk, the bolder and better trained 
 minds are in danger of losing all ideas on the matter. 
 They cannot detect any gracious intervention in 
 outward affairs, and many to-day are drifting away 
 from belief in a personal, over-ruling God because 
 either His omnipotence or His benevolence seems to 
 
 40 
 
The Inward Providence 
 
 be contradicted on every page of life. From hostile 
 faces and false lips, from mysterious failures of brain 
 and physical strength, from the unconscious cruelty of 
 social systems, troubles come. The Hand which points 
 out the way to the individual and to the race wears 
 often so heavy a gauntlet of affliction that men begin 
 to call it no longer God but Necessity. A lady put 
 this universal difficulty to me in a simple but complete 
 statement. ' My troubles,' she said, ■ come from the 
 unkindness of other people, and they are very hard 
 to bear because I know they are not God's will. 
 Unkindness cannot be His will.' Her complaint 
 wellnigh covers all the dreary catalogue of human 
 suffering. Nearly always it is * somebody's fault.' 
 The cotton-corner which spreads want over an English 
 county, the opened lamp in the coal-mine which 
 darkens a hundred homes, the careless workmanship 
 at the drain which slays the darling of the household, 
 the heartbreak of a fruitless search for employment — 
 these surely are not the will of your Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 The truth is that so long as the children of men 
 are free, and while they rebel against right or come 
 short of it, very much in things as they are will be 
 contrary to God's first and final purpose. Yet it is 
 undoubtedly His will that we should face things as 
 they are and share the conflict and sorrow of Christ. 
 
 4i 
 
The Inward Providence 
 
 1 Not peace but a sword ! ' is the word for the night. 
 1 Let both grow together until the harvest ' is the 
 divine policy. The God of the rainbow will not 
 destroy faulty men summarily, for that would be 
 omnipotence defeating redemption. Cause and effect 
 must not be tampered with, for they are the rules of 
 the great game. Suffering and disorder even become 
 the will of God in a limited and temporal sense 
 because they are the reaction of His holy constancy 
 upon human error. Mankind in the mass makes the 
 joy or sorrow of its circumstances as the shell-fish 
 makes its own shell. The knot which is in our life- 
 problem cannot be cut : it must be untied by the 
 divine patience of the saints. 
 
 Into this crisis of stress and fear there comes with 
 a clear, reassuring note this gospel of the old-time 
 penitent, ' I will make thee wise.' It is sufficient. 
 Atlantic storms may be beyond control, but nothing 
 hinders men from building ships strong enough to 
 weather them. There may be limits which we know 
 not to the miraculous betterment of circumstances 
 outside, but there is no limit to God's power to build 
 up His saints inwardly in strength. He may be 
 barred out of a thousand hearts, but He need not be 
 barred out of thine. And this gospel is ennobling 
 because it is educative. It may be doubted if ' God 
 tempers the wind to the shorn lamb/ but it is not at 
 
 42 
 
The Inward Providence 
 
 all doubtful that He expects men to invent warmer 
 clothing. The blessings of Providence are not for 
 idlers, but for those who are willing to learn wisdom. 
 
 It is only needful to add some brief hints as to the 
 nature of this wisdom which arms us against trial, so 
 that we may be the more ready to learn it. The 
 name * Wisdom ' pervades the Old Testament, bring- 
 ing the glimmer of jewels and visions of a good 
 woman's face as tokens of its power to adorn and 
 enrich life. In our text a smaller word is used 
 indicating circumspection or intelligence ; yet that is 
 but wisdom applied practically. The assertion is 
 that we may be made wise to think God's thoughts 
 after Him, intelligent to recognize the meaning of His 
 way with us, and when understanding fails — as fail 
 sometimes it will — patient to endure with a great 
 trust Never lay aside the endeavour to understand, 
 nor forget the need of labouring with God. Mere 
 acquiescence cannot be the end of our faith. He has 
 called us friends — not puppets. Trials and griefs 
 have no inevitable efficacy. In every different 
 destiny of joy and sorrow, health and sickness, help 
 and injury, there lie hidden both a use and a misuse, 
 both a blessing and a curse, and only active wisdom 
 can choose the better part. 
 
 If any ask how this practical wisdom is com- 
 pounded, I answer that it is not compounded at all, 
 
 43 
 
l'he inward Providence 
 
 for it is very simple. Men arrive at it by subtraction 
 rather than addition — by being stripped of needless 
 things till only one master-passion is left. It lies in 
 the motive. It might be called innocence, or singleness 
 of eye, or purity of intention. If a man will sink 
 quietly down upon the love of right that is in him, 
 with full purpose of heart so that mixed motives are 
 excluded, he shall reach wisdom. ' This one thing I 
 do/ said a master of wisdom, and the value of single- 
 ness is ever insisted upon. ' But one thing is needful ' : 
 ' seek ye first the kingdom of God,' and all shall be 
 well. This numerical test is an excellent guide, for if 
 a man is to have but one motive it must needs be the 
 mightiest motive. None but God can absorb a soul's 
 attention. We might define wisdom as 'absorbed 
 attention to God/ and it would harmonize well with 
 the other two promises in this verse. That is the 
 very attitude of one who watches circumstances to 
 find the pointing Hand, and it is the only fit response 
 to a God who fixes His eye firmly upon us. 
 
 When we grow bewildered and fail in the turmoil 
 of life it is just for lack of this singleness. We see too 
 many considerations and cherish too many interests. 
 We would fain serve God on a high plane and yet 
 advance ourselves on a lower one ; we would be filled 
 with the Spirit and yet guard some dear interest of 
 the flesh ; we would stand for righteousness and yet 
 
 44 
 
The Inward Providence 
 
 keep an unblessed peace with a wrong-doer who 
 seems profitable to us. Thus wisdom is lost and the 
 mind confused by compromise, and we are powerless 
 to grapple with our difficulties. The remedy lies in 
 a simple-hearted falling back on the instinct for good 
 which God has wrought in us. Concentrate on one 
 thing and thou shalt no longer be ' careful and 
 troubled about many things.' It is the secret of all 
 strength and preparedness, for the intensity of one 
 motive will bring all the resources of thy God-given 
 nature into full play. Under that eager impulse 
 contrivance will be quickened and force gained; thou 
 shalt be a Great-heart in simplicity, taking the right 
 way with instinctive skill and able to prove that ' all 
 which we behold is full of blessings.' Thus in find- 
 ing God thou shalt find thy true self with its destiny 
 of heavenly success, and great shall be thy peace. 
 
 45 
 
IV 
 THE HIDDEN SPIRIT 
 
IV 
 
 The Hidden Spirit 
 
 / think that I also have the Spirit of God.— I Cor. vii. 40. 
 
 A FEW phrases in this long discussion of marriage 
 are apt to draw the mind away from the 
 subject-matter and set the reader speculating as to the 
 method by which Holy Scripture was made. ■ To 
 the married I give charge, yea, not I, but the Lord. . . . 
 To the rest say I, not the Lord. . . . Concerning 
 virgins I have no commandment of the Lord. . . . 
 I think that I also have the Spirit of God.' In 
 these sayings we seem to come behind the scenes. 
 As a man may travel for once by the night-mail and 
 on dim railway platforms get a new conception of the 
 immense industry which quietly and certainly lays 
 his letters on the breakfast table, so here we behold 
 one of those * divers manners ' in which God conveyed 
 His canonical messages to humankind. Rising at one 
 moment far above our level the apostle is sure of a 
 divine authority for his words : at another point he 
 as surely disclaims such authority; and in the last 
 instance he confesses to a shade of doubt. 
 
 D 49 
 
The Hidden Spirit 
 
 The passages are very like St. Paul in their impulsive 
 candour, but the last one is somewhat unlike his mag- 
 nificent decisiveness. He does not usually allow any 
 discount on his exhortations, and no man ever wore 
 authority with more absolute conviction. Yet it is 
 better to take the words in good faith as an expres- 
 sion of genuine doubt. The suggestion of some 
 students that they are equivalent to the forcible ' I 
 should think so indeed ! ' which we moderns use when 
 indignantly certain of a thing would be plausible if 
 there were sufficient occasion for ironical vehemence, 
 but that is hardly so here. It is more likely that for 
 once the writer's experience descended into line with 
 our own. The Spirit did not leave him, but that 
 Spirit hid Himself so deeply in the man's mind that 
 St. Paul could not distinguish the divine Voice from 
 the action of his own faculties, or the heavenly Wisdom 
 from his own consecrated and practised judgement. 
 It is only an episode, but it illustrates a familiar situa- 
 tion, for the episode of an apostle may be the almost 
 everyday history of lesser men. The situation is 
 this, — a man under inspiration, yet moved and 
 guided by a Hidden Spirit whose presence he cannot 
 for the time detect. We find there an instance of 
 the familiar difficulty of recognizing the Spirit of 
 God. 
 
 The difficulty bears hardly upon our hearts at times 
 5° 
 
The Hidden Spirit 
 
 because the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is so vital 
 to us. Truly enough, we are not called to lay down 
 rules of faith and conduct for the ages ; but our 
 humbler task is our all, and it depends utterly upon 
 the Inward Director. In the little sailors' church of 
 Notre Dame de Bon Secours at Montreal many 
 votive lamps hang before the altar, each one modelled 
 after the steamship or schooner in which some 
 worshipper pursues his calling. And on the wall is a 
 prayer that as the light is always burning in those 
 lamps, so God will keep the light of His Spirit ever 
 burning in His children's hearts. That is the bare 
 necessity of our case. It is not enough to hear of the 
 Father and cherish the memory of the Galilean 
 Jesus : we must touch God hourly, or we have lost 
 ' the hope of glory/ Religion loses all meaning and 
 we are stricken into helpless loneliness if the promises 
 are not fulfilled—' He dwelleth with you and shall 
 be in you ' — ' If any man be in Christ he is a new 
 creature.* 
 
 Such is the glorious theory of the new life in 
 Christ. There have been many passages in our lives 
 when it was all manifestly true — times of wonder and 
 joy when c a new creature* was language not too 
 strong to describe our feelings. But have there not 
 been strange disappointments also? The upliftings 
 are followed by depressions and reaction. 'Love 
 Da 51 
 
The Hidden Spirit 
 
 flows like the Solway and ebbs like its tide.' Old 
 temptations again assert themselves and difficulties 
 of temperament remain. Thomas is Thomas still — 
 after the Vision. The song of the heart which was 
 like a June nightingale changes to the small twitter 
 of the nightingale in July. Assurance gives place to 
 questioning, and we can but say, * I think that I have 
 the Spirit of God.' 
 
 The doubt may even increase. The man plods 
 heavily, tried by his task. He thinks obscurely, 
 suspects blunders, grows anxious and weary. Surely 
 all would be different if he were filled with the light- 
 winged Spirit of God ! Work would go like magic 
 then. He is convinced that he has grieved the 
 Spirit ; and sometimes he has, but not always. The 
 language of his labouring heart shades off into ' I 
 hope that I have the Spirit. ... I wish that I had the 
 Spirit of God.' 
 
 Literal-minded and thoughtful children suffer from 
 this difficulty of recognizing the Spirit of God. Often- 
 times is the warning given from the Sunday-school 
 desk — ' You will fail if you try in your own strength : 
 you must get God's strength.' 'Tis a time-honoured 
 saying because of its importance, and not because of 
 its lucidity. A child may very well reason thus, — * It 
 is no use my trying, for that would be using my own 
 strength. I must wait till some strange and wonder- 
 
 5* 
 
The Hidden Spirit 
 
 ful power comes, which cannot possibly be my own.' 
 So, instead of finding in the well-worn counsel 
 something practical to do which even a child can 
 understand, he feels himself condemned to wait 
 wearily for a miracle. I know well one child (and 
 am loth to think him quite unintelligent) who thus 
 thought, and whose experience for years was a tire- 
 some and anxious effort to make out the difference 
 between God's strength and his own. 
 
 For child and man alike reassurance lies in the 
 truth of the Hidden Spirit. While His indwelling is 
 always a fact of faith, it is not always a fact of feeling. 
 He is in us — aye, long before we know and always 
 far nearer than we know ! — but often in a manner so 
 quiet and homely that we scarcely realize Him. 
 Who that reads a book takes note at the same time 
 of the light by which he reads ? The book must be 
 uninteresting or the light poor if he does. Who that 
 shapes some handiwork considers the nervous energy 
 moving his fingers ? The Spirit is often like that — 
 hidden, anonymous to the mind intent on detail. 
 Yet He hath wrought all our works for us. In plainest 
 truth God's strength is not usually distinguishable 
 from our own strength except by its effects, nor is the 
 divine life within us always to be distinguished from 
 our own life at its best. Only disappointment and 
 delay can result from waiting for something foreign 
 
 53 
 
The Hidden Spirit 
 
 to fall upon us like Elijah's mantle or the tongues of 
 flame. For the Spirit comes oftentimes not with 
 observation. He keeps all the laws of our nature. The 
 life of God blends inseparably with our mental life, 
 and in all innocent matters we remain very like 
 ourselves. As the tide flowing over the shore takes 
 the shape of the shore, filling its channels and mark- 
 ing its contours till the sands are lost in the flood, 
 so this new life takes the shape of a man's natural 
 disposition and idiosyncrasy. Nay, it often emphasizes 
 these because in them may lie the capacity for special 
 usefulness. It is all supernatural, yet all delightfully 
 natural, for to this end we were created — to be 
 filled with God. It is often fitting to say, * I think 
 that I have the Spirit of God,' but we may say it 
 with ever-growing assurance. 
 
 In our insistence on this quiet, habitual dwelling of 
 the Spirit deep within our nature there is certainly no 
 intention of ignoring His vivid action upon our 
 feelings, or of rebuking the desire for joyous spiritual 
 excitements. It may well be believed that the 
 Church is even now on the eve of a more emotional 
 experience. She has walked in sober garments and 
 talked in prose for a long time. The song will return 
 soon. But there is surely a supreme joy in remem- 
 bering that this divine Life in the midst of our life is a 
 fact more constant than all our feelings and not dis- 
 
 54 
 
The Hidden Spirit 
 
 proved by any of them. In that lies our hope for 
 all the great miracles of experience and our guidance 
 while we are waiting for them. 
 
 For this truth is above all things else a call to 
 make the best of ourselves by earnest effort. The 
 Hidden Spirit leaves a man singularly free and 
 singularly responsible, while at the same time setting 
 at his disposal all the wisdom and strength by which 
 responsibility may be nobly discharged. God's life 
 inspires man's heart and mind and will, but it does not 
 take their place. Boundless resources for our proper 
 work are in us, but the only thing which can make 
 them fruitful is the active consent of our will. God 
 can do anything with a man who tries : He can do 
 nothing with one who idles. The heavenly inspiration 
 is conditional upon our action. It is given for 
 holiness, and it is lost by those who forsake the quest 
 of holiness. The human must never abdicate before 
 the divine, but co-operate. Certain old truths of 
 common sense are for ever true. The full and rich 
 mind is the result of study and thought ; the helpful 
 nature becomes so by dint of loving practice which 
 brings skill in speaking the right word and doing the 
 tactful thing ; the will grows strong by repeated 
 resolution and steady acting on principle. Nothing 
 can shake these facts or supersede these homely 
 methods. And yet, if you do these things in simple 
 
 55 
 
The Hidden Spirit 
 
 faith and loyal purpose, the life of God that is in you 
 shall prove its reality by results better than you dream 
 of, and by effects which have a touch of spiritual 
 wonder such as no study or practice alone could 
 give 
 
 93 
 
V 
 
 THE TWO HANDS OF GOD 
 
V 
 
 The Two Hands of God 
 
 Your Father which is in heaven . . . maketh His sun te rise on 
 the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the 
 unjust. — Matt. v. 45. 
 
 Bow much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things 
 to them that ask Hi?n ? — Matt. vii. II. 
 
 IN this sermon Jesus thought fit to reveal the 
 nature of God in the simplest possible fashion. 
 He made two pictures, Sun and Shower and The 
 Blessing of the Prayej-ful^ and in them is gathered up 
 all that we need to know or can possibly understand 
 of this great theme. The first is God in Nature and 
 the second the God of Grace ; and the pronounce- 
 ment of Jesus is that the two pictures reveal the same 
 God. ' Hear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one 
 Lord.' They form a profound study in apparent 
 contrast and concealed unity — a harmonious discord 
 in the symphony of Truth. They offer a doctrine 
 which our own time greatly needs to consider. 
 
 We are at once struck with the forcible contrast 
 on the surface. Taking the second picture alone it 
 presents no difficulty, for it is the God of the Evangel 
 
 59 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 and of our fathers. Nothing can possibly be more 
 important to Him than the moral character and 
 spiritual disposition of men. * The eyes of the Lord 
 are upon the righteous . . . the face of the Lord 
 is against them that do evil.' This God is a re- 
 warder of them that diligently seek Him : in other 
 words, He has His favourites of the contrite heart. 
 He is a pardoning God, whose administration permits 
 the transfigurement of a sinful past and the blotting 
 out of transgressions. Any day and any moment 
 the penitent man may make a fresh beginning in the 
 strength of grace. And the pathway of this God is 
 strewn with miracles — answered prayers, healings of 
 hurt minds which often pass into healings of sick 
 bodies, inward voices of comfort and counsel, amazing 
 coincidences of guidance and the unfailing witness 
 of an indwelling Spirit. For miracles are simply the 
 spontaneous acts of a personal God who cares only 
 to be consistent with His own redeeming purpose. 
 
 But on turning back to the earlier verse we find 
 the strange contrast. Here nothing seems less im- 
 portant than character and disposition. True, this 
 April picture of God is also beautiful, especially as 
 Jesus uses it to enforce a lesson of forbearance. The 
 sun and the shower are both helping to make the 
 cowslips, and even sin must not be allowed to freeze the 
 geniality of God in nature or stem the stream of His 
 
 60 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 bounty. That generous, c undistinguishing regard' 
 is lovely on its bright side. But there is another and 
 a more difficult side. When the stress of a crisis 
 comes, and ordinary ways and means have failed, 
 that forbearance looks strangely like indifference, 
 that even-handed impartiality like unpitying hardness. 
 Nature is uniform, making no favourites, working 
 from cause to effect, turning not aside for the bitter- 
 est cry. Is it not as foolish to pray about the 
 weather as it was for the Irish servant to tie the 
 weathercock in the south-west for fear a cold wind 
 might harm his invalid mistress? Sun and shower 
 are indeed delightful while they are making cowslips, 
 but the sun of a hot summer may ruin the godly 
 farmer who lives on the upland in spite of his 
 supplications, while it prospers the unbelieving 
 farmer whose land is in the fen. The same wet 
 August may spoil the saint's wheat and nourish the 
 sinner's turnips. In the market-place also it would 
 seem that prayer does not take the place of sorely 
 needed capital. Custom and prosperity come to him 
 who best understands buying and window-dressing, 
 and these coveted visitors pay little heed to 
 character. 
 
 The problem begins to shape itself, but the acute 
 distress of it is felt when the rough hand touches our 
 tender interests. The dreadful hour when 
 
 61 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 The sensuous frame 
 Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust ; 
 And Time, a maniac scattering dust, 
 And Life, a Fury slinging flame, 
 
 may come even to the disciple whom Jesus loves. 
 What of the watcher who sits by the bed where a 
 life dearer than his own lies in danger ? He feels, as 
 such watchers often do, far more anguish than the 
 sick one endures. The ceaseless cough and the 
 laboured breathing wring his heart, and the old 
 instinctive cry rises to his lips, ' Come down ere my 
 child die.' But the quiet voice of ordered knowledge 
 says, ' It all depends on the constitution. If the 
 heart can stand the strain. . . .' Alas, we thought 
 that it depended on God who raiseth the dead, and 
 behold it lies with Nature who is deaf. 
 
 Again, it is said of the God of Grace that He 
 tempteth not any. Can you say that of Nature ? 
 She uses strong desires as her driving force : she 
 spreads before men crude and simple delights which 
 require no pilgrimage and impose no discipline. So 
 often the heavenly call is drowned for young ears by 
 her Circean enchantments. 
 
 So the problem grows, and Nature becomes to us 
 the great bewilderment ; at one hour, perhaps, the 
 motherly friend ' who never did betray the heart that 
 loved her,' and at another ' the Lady of the Hills 
 with crimes untold.' She seems to value everything 
 
 62 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 but the treasure of faith, and the highest grace of 
 character must be won in her despite. She seems 
 now broadly beneficent, again exquisitely cruel, and 
 often utterly callous. And, strangest of all, the fact 
 of Nature is to-day actually interposing to hide and 
 banish the sorely needed vision of Grace and the fact 
 of Christ from many minds. ' The modern man to 
 whom Nature means much more than Grace' — a recent 
 writer could drop that clause from his pen quite 
 casually because it is so true. The age is dominated 
 by the revelation of the rocks and the microscope, 
 and it will not easily be convinced that they tell only 
 half the story without the interpretation. Men are 
 entering upon the inauspicious task of working out 
 their own salvation by natural methods without the 
 full assurance of the inward working of a mighty 
 God. Education must do instead of . conversion : 
 ' Ye must be born again ' becomes for the race a 
 matter of eugenics : a vague brotherly-kindness takes 
 the place of the old solemn sense of obligation to the 
 covenant God. Such is the tendency of our time. 
 Doubtless it turns our attention to many neglected 
 outward duties and helps, and it must not be met 
 with narrow prejudice ; yet if, in the drift of it, men 
 lose their full faith in the God of Grace the heart will 
 drop out of the effort and piteous disillusionment will 
 follow all endeavour. 
 
 63 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 A railway-carriage acquaintance said to me recently : 
 ' If you believe in a God who is just like a big man ' — 
 he meant the personal God of our ancient faith — 'you 
 have many difficulties to face.' That is true enough. 
 The trouble of men's thoughts is not trifling : they do 
 not question the sweetness of spring merely because 
 there are prickles on the hawthorn, but because there 
 are deep veins of agony in life. If we believe in the 
 heavenly Father who feeds the birds, we must wonder 
 why so many of them die on the snow. If we believe 
 in the great Physician, we must account for the 
 horrors brought to light in the operating-theatre. 
 But if for their difficulties we lay aside these beliefs, 
 we are left with the giant difficulty of a God who 
 does not reveal Himself, who never did and never will 
 ' rend the heavens and come down/ who answers no 
 prayer and works no miracle. 
 
 • t • • • • 
 
 After all their questioning men are still ready to 
 listen to Jesus. It says much for His authority that 
 He recognized the difficulty, and more that He 
 endured a life singularly filled with mysterious pain 
 and yet never swerved from this Galilean teaching. 
 He offers a bold doctrine for faith to cling to and for 
 hope to build upon. The God of Nature is one with 
 the God of Grace, and He is ' your Father which is 
 in heaven.' The Father who gives 'good things* 
 
 64 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 gives also pain and trial and those conditions in 
 which our wayward hearts find temptation. Shall 
 not these, then, also prove good things in their final 
 issue? If we still talk of Nature — "tis she whose 
 hand God's mightier hand doth hold/ Nay, we must 
 go further to keep abreast of this teaching. If the Old 
 Testament writers ascribed God's great deliverances 
 to His strong right hand, we may say that Nature is 
 His left hand. 
 
 Observe how closely the figure of speech fits 
 these two verses. A left hand is always compara- 
 tively indiscriminating. It does not express character 
 and personality forcibly. It is unoriginal in action, 
 guided chiefly by habit and instinct. It attempts no 
 fine work, but merely answers general purposes. Such 
 is Nature. The right hand, on the contrary, is the 
 strong, original, dexterous member. It expresses 
 purpose fully, distinguishes clearly, and adapts itself 
 to subtle details of delicate work. It writes a man's 
 self-revealing letters and gives the clasp of friendship 
 and the lingering pressure of love. Such is Grace 
 Yet both hands are ruled by one mind and most 
 perfectly co-operate. Such are the ways of God. 
 
 This great doctrine cannot be proved except by 
 life. We are like children on the station platform, 
 told by their elders that the shining railway lines of 
 which they see a hundred yards or so carry trains and 
 
 E 65 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 their passengers safely to London. Like them we 
 may believe and try, and so reach the only possible 
 proof — ' experience worketh hope.' This teaching has 
 carried many trustful folk very safely as far as earthly 
 eyes could follow them. They asked few questions 
 and put forth great prayers. When dark times befell 
 them they said of the stroke or the sorrow : ' It is the 
 Lord : let Him do what seemeth Him good/ So did 
 patience and hope keep their hearts superior to evil for- 
 tune till brighter days returned. Either there is some- 
 thing wondrously kind in Nature or something mightily 
 healing and sustaining in Grace. We may well 
 believe that in both there works the will of 'your 
 Father which is in heaven.' 
 
 A few important results follow, which may be 
 briefly expressed though they are hard to classify. 
 
 To those who believe our Lords teaching it becomes 
 something like a blasphemy to talk of the cruelty of 
 Nature, and a needless blasphemy because we may 
 well hope that it is not true. If God the Father 
 Almighty is also Maker of heaven and earth, 
 the one purpose of redeeming mercy must underlie 
 both Nature and Grace. It is not merely that there 
 will be found here and there in Nature tokens of mercy 
 like a rainbow on a black sky. That is, of course, a plain 
 fact. The inexorable constancy of the natural order 
 is the condition upon which we keep our reason. The 
 
 66 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 rains and fruitful seasons never finally disappoint the 
 true worker. Even disease has its ' laws ' which render 
 treatment possible and discovery hopeful. Through 
 the whole creation there is doubtless an intensity of 
 enjoyment which we forget in thinking of the harrow- 
 ing exceptions ; and our very protest against the 
 exceptional pain proves our faith that comfort is 
 normal. Ifsuchafaith has survived the chequered 
 ages it goes far to vindicate God's merciful govern- 
 ment. Modern research points towards the truth 
 that the capacity for pain is never developed beyond 
 what is useful to life. Of course, when that statement 
 is carried forward into human experience with its 
 network of affections, every one of which is a nerve for 
 joy and sorrow to touch, we must remember that here 
 is a higher life to be engendered and developed. 
 Keeping that in view we may well believe that God 
 permits even to us no useless pain. Without suffering 
 tenderness could not arise, and the suffering of one 
 makes many tender. Danger must come before 
 heroism. Could souls grow in a world where ' Blessed 
 are they that mourn' was unintelligible ? Even the most 
 perplexing fact of all, the passing of suffering from the 
 guilty to the innocent, adds to the sanctity of our moral 
 obligations and helps to make life holy and love deep. 
 Strictly personal chastisement might deter merely 
 prudent minds, but that punishment alone ennobles 
 e 2 67 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 which appeals to our affection and moves us to ask 
 with David, * These sheep, what have they done ? ' 
 All human suffering may indeed become very like 
 wanton cruelty if we turn away from the high purpose 
 for which our life was given, but in that case we make 
 the cruelty for ourselves by rendering the discipline 
 useless. If, however, we use Grace to interpret 
 Nature it will be seen more and more clearly that 
 Nature plays into the hand of Grace. 
 
 Nature, in fact, sets a common standard for all. 
 Her uniformity and her hardship amount to that ; 
 and we know the value of a common standard. Boys 
 of very diverse capacity use the same textbook and 
 take the same examination paper. The standard 
 cannot be lowered, though the teacher is at liberty to 
 give special help to backward scholars. If a boy fails 
 in the examination after honest effort, he does not lose 
 the esteem of his teacher nor the success which rewards 
 good effort in the great world out of school. Nature's 
 standard requires a far higher level of knowledge than 
 has yet been gained, and there must be generations of 
 clean living and ordered effort before men can pass 
 through life with complete joy. That prize is for 
 others yet unborn. At present we are all backward 
 scholars, and we all fail in some subjects though 
 taught by the Spirit of Grace, but we need not lose 
 His friendship nor the rewards that come when school 
 
 68 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 is over. And every life of true endeavour leaves the 
 race nearer attainment. 
 
 Again, those who believe Christ 's doctrine will pray 
 about everything — even the weather if it concerns 
 them. Nothing is more foolish than to limit prayer, 
 as, for example, by saying that we may pray for pardon 
 but not for much-needed money, for the Holy Spirit 
 but not for a fine day. Leave those distinctions for 
 God to make in His answering. Simple minds ask for 
 what they want, and if it does not come they conclude 
 that either it was not a good thing for them or that the 
 contrary was better for somebody else. So they keep 
 in the way of miracles and often find, like him sick 
 of the palsy, that the trifling earthly boon is given as 
 a sacrament of spiritual blessing. 
 
 It also appears from this teaching that the old 
 supposed opposition between natural and spiritual means 
 to a good end is unreal Some fantastic folk say that 
 trust in the doctor and his treatment implies distrust of 
 God. There are those even in the present day who 
 have a religion which finds no place for self-reliance 
 and that assured confidence in our own faculties 
 which makes the joy of effort. The supernatural 
 overshadows them and the First Cause fills their 
 thoughts, excluding from attention the multitude of 
 second causes in the control of which man can exercise 
 his skill with delight. Theirs is perhaps the safest 
 
 69 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 extreme, but it is an extreme, and the modern instinct 
 revolts from it. Human personality craves expression 
 and asks liberty, responsibility, adventure, for by these 
 things it grows. And the supreme Wisdom is not 
 likely to refuse. Students of child life emphasize the 
 value of playtime, when the teacher's eye is no longer 
 on the learner, and he is left free to initiate action, to 
 think for himself, and give and take hard knocks in 
 the cause of school-boy justice. For a like end — that 
 His scholars may grow up — God in Nature veils His 
 purposes, setting a wide arena for effort and competi- 
 tion, offering a splendid freedom to enterprise, and 
 letting man find his own path by wise and great 
 striving. In this way true manhood is attained. If 
 Nature is one of God's hands, a timely and reverent 
 trust in her order is part of our faith in Him. 
 
 As we ponder this great matter instruction will 
 spread both ways. Grace must interpret Nature, but 
 Nature reminds us of neglected truths about the God 
 of Grace. If He is inexorable in one sphere He is the 
 same God in both. There are fatal lengths of trans- 
 gression in physical things : can we think, then, that 
 the Grace of such a God is to be trifled with ? The 
 world to-day is in some danger of thinking so. Men 
 trade upon His fatherhood to indulge their weaknesses. 
 They would claim His mercy without subscribing to 
 His covenant. It may not be. Nature's first m>rd is 
 
 70 
 
The Two Hands of God 
 
 ' Obey ! ' and God never changes that demand for any 
 plea of ours, though He will marvellously help the 
 prayerful man to meet it. 
 
 I saw a boy carving a face upon a stick from the 
 hedgerow. His left hand held the stick very firmly 
 lest it should turn and the knife slip, while his right 
 hand shaped and smoothed the features. The left 
 hand performed an office lowly but essential : the 
 right hand did the work. That trifling scene may be 
 taken as a true illustration. On some distant morning 
 when we awake with His likeness it will be found that 
 the blind, unyielding grip of Nature, its inevitable 
 effects and its so-called accidents, have helped to 
 express with exquisite fidelity the will of God for our 
 small lives. We cannot escape that left Hand : let 
 us take heed that we miss not the right Hand of 
 Grace. 
 
 7i 
 
VI 
 
 THE WAY OF PEACE 
 
VI 
 The Way of Peace 
 
 And Abraham said, God will prepare Himself the lamb for a burnt 
 offering, my son. — Gen. xxii. 8. 
 
 AN obvious difficulty besets this most poignant 
 of all Old Testament stories— is it not too 
 cruel? Can we believe that the Eternal Father 
 would test an earthly father's obedience by thus 
 torturing the finest nerve in his moral nature? 
 Those questions stir far-reaching thoughts. It is as 
 impossible to banish all appearance of cruelty from 
 God's historical providence as it is to blind ourselves 
 to a seeming cruelty in Nature. Sin is cruel and 
 ignorance is cruel, and when the divine Will reacts 
 upon these things there will be great suffering : other- 
 wise men would never revolt against sin or struggle 
 out of ignorance. Yet such suffering is exalting 
 beyond all comparison, and in the depths of it may 
 be found the wonderful mercy of 'the Celestial 
 Surgeon/ setting wrong right ; for if ' the foolishness 
 of God is wiser than men/ the cruelty of God is kinder 
 than men. All that we can do is so to focus this story 
 
 75 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 as to show that sin and ignorance had as much to do 
 with the complicating of Abraham's terrible problem 
 as divine mercy had to do with unravelling it. 
 
 As a first step in explanation we find the testimony 
 of the Altar, that immemorial feature of man's inter- 
 course with God. There is an instinct of sacrifice. 
 Never have His creatures dared to seek God's presence 
 empty-handed. Indeed, there has been a rivalry in 
 this matter, for if sacrifice can win peace, the costliest 
 gift will be the surest. From this cause it comes to 
 pass that every great love is shadowed by a great fear. 
 An ineradicable touch of superstition makes every 
 man tremble for his nearest and dearest lest God 
 should claim that one from him. This is superstition 
 because it travesties the nature and motive of God, 
 but it is ineradicable because the claim is real. 
 
 Now without doubt, in the ancient land where 
 Abraham dwelt men were recognizing that claim 
 in blindest literalism and with a hopeless stoicism by 
 offering their children as dying sacrifices. He was 
 perfectly familiar with the practice, and such examples 
 would have a certain influence, for though spiritual 
 faith comes from heaven, forms of worship are learned 
 by imitation. Reverence is of the Spirit, but we 
 should not think to show reverence by baring our 
 heads in church if we had not seen others do it. 
 What wonder then if love and fear began to whisper 
 
 76 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 in Abraham's heart the dreadful suggestion, and 
 whispered on until it became a conviction, that God 
 wanted this supreme proof from him ? So much 
 did natural ignorance contribute to the trial. 
 
 But there is something deeper and more personal 
 to be said. Abraham's undivided joy in the child of 
 the promise was only secured by the most painful act 
 of his life. For Isaac's sake he had cast Hagar 
 and Ishmael into the desert. We may not count that 
 for a sin, but it was an outcome of sin. Abraham's 
 gravest error took place when in an hour of unbelief 
 and impatience he tired of waiting for God and joined 
 himself to Hagar as a short cut to the promise. 
 Therein, not for the first time, the stately constancy 
 of his faith was overcome by his native aptitude for 
 worldly policy. And the sin at last found him out 
 by means of a heartrending consequence, for he 
 could only extricate himself from a false position by 
 doing wrong to a woman who had trusted him and 
 by casting off a son who shared his love. That 
 gnawed upon Abraham's heart. As the pain returned 
 time after time the question would rise within him — 
 c What right have I to my joy in Isaac ? Is it not 
 purchased by untruth and cruelty — made safe by 
 wrong to other innocent ones? If ever a man was 
 called to sacrifice the fruit of his body for the sin of 
 his soul, I am that man/ 
 
 77 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 This chapter, then, shows a picture of a resolute and 
 conscientious man setting out to make his own peace 
 with God. The idea was natural though profoundly 
 mistaken, and God let him go a long way with it. 
 The man had chosen his ground by instinct and by 
 imperfect knowledge, and he must be tested on that 
 ground first, before being led to a higher. But ah, 
 the bitterness of that journey ! Abraham is like 
 Cranmer at the stake — * This hand sinned . . . this 
 hand must first suffer. This hand pointed Hagar and 
 Ishmael to the hopeless desert . . . this hand shall 
 drive hom« the knife. The light in my boy's eyes 
 will be suddenly quenched ... his young limbs will 
 relax . . . his voice fall dumb. I must go home alone. 
 No more eager questions — no more laughing wel- 
 comes — only an everlasting silence and justice done.' 
 Isaac made it no easier by his artless talk. * My 
 father ! ' ' Here am I, my son.' ' Behold the fire and 
 the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offer- 
 ing ? ' And Abraham, willing to cheer the lad but seeing 
 no comfort for himself, makes answer, ' God will pro- 
 vide Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' 
 A mockery of words to him who spoke, yet eternally 
 true. God is very wonderful who can wring from the 
 despairs of His people unwitting prophecies of His 
 great compassion. 
 
 There is a strange grandeur about this august and 
 78 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 lonely man so bent on finding peace with God. Has 
 he anything in common with our pleasant, well-bred, 
 modern life ? Men talk much about the importance 
 of peace with Germany and peace in our industrial 
 world at home, but who talks of peace with God ? 
 We cannot tell, for it is not a subject to be lightly 
 talked about. But Abraham's question is the first and 
 the last for the human heart — the very Alpha and 
 Omega of our searching. Behind the scenes many are 
 wrestling with it. Now and then at night-time in a 
 quiet room after a weary day and when the household 
 is asleep, a man thinks of these things. Business has 
 not gone smoothly, nor has he felt so well that day. 
 Life just then looks frail and unsatisfying and brief, 
 and the end of it can be foreseen. In such an hour 
 his sin is apt to find him out and pose him with its 
 thorny problem. The deed of folly and the untruth 
 and the mad indulgence come to mind : the tightening 
 chain of habit is felt : he suspects deterioration in him- 
 self. Believing prayer — how difficult it has become ! 
 And in the midst of these thoughts, the centre from 
 which they spring, round which they travel, to which 
 they all return, is an utter longing for peace with God 
 and rest unto the soul. 
 
 • • • • 
 
 It is time to read the sequel. Abraham carried his 
 purpose to the very verge of tragedy, and then God 
 
 79 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 stopped him. The sacrifice was set aside as irrelevant 
 and unavailing for the main purpose. For the costly- 
 offering of the dear son God substituted a com- 
 paratively worthless animal which He Himself 
 provided. 
 
 The magic lies in that — God provided it. None 
 but God can meet God on even terms and satisfy Him. 
 Abraham was mistaken, nobly but completely. Man 
 cannot atone or make amends. That was true in 
 this history even within the human relationships. 
 Hagar and Ishmael were gone to the desert to meet 
 what fate it held for them. Tears cannot blot out 
 history or cleanse the hour that is fled. Of course 
 Abraham knew this, and he had left that part of the 
 matter. His sacrifice was designed to bring peace 
 back to his own heart by self-punishment, but would 
 it have done even that ? I think not. A certain fierce 
 self-righteousness might have come, but not the peace 
 that passeth understanding, in which the heart grows 
 soft and wise and the day of life mellows tenderly to 
 the gloaming. 
 
 God alone can satisfy God : and the true reason lies 
 deeper than difficulties of chronology. If man could 
 atone and make amends, sin would be a very little 
 thing, no larger than a man's hand ; and if sin were 
 very little it could only be because man was very little 
 and his life without sublimity. Whereas something 
 
 80 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 ever tells us that sin is an all but infinite evil, a dis- 
 ordering of the very springs of being. 
 
 A robin redbreast in a cage 
 Puts all heaven in a rage : 
 A skylark wounded on the wing 
 Doth make a cherub cease to sing. 
 
 We small people may go to war with God's eternal 
 purpose and do mischief which we can never under- 
 stand. And only One who does understand sin in all 
 its scope and significance can offer that sufficient 
 sacrifice of holy obedience and acknowledgement and 
 submission whereby righteousness is exalted as the 
 desire and the goal and the reward of men unto all 
 generations. Therefore God kept that matter of 
 atonement in His own hands and provided the Lamb 
 — the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
 world. We look at the Cross and say, ' It took that 
 to show God's feeling against sin.' And never since 
 that Cross was set up have men been able to think sin 
 a little thing. 
 
 Having shown that, God turns with an abandon- 
 ment of tenderness to labouring souls in Abraham's 
 case. It is the surprise of mercy. They have strained 
 their poor resources to meet His requirement, and lo ! 
 He has met it Himself. What He really asks is so 
 different from their thoughts. 
 f 81 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving; 
 And pay thy vows unto the Most High : 
 And call upon Me in the day of trouble ; 
 I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me. 
 
 That is absolutely and marvellously all — no labour 
 set, no penance exacted, no responsibility imposed, 
 as the condition of forgiveness. These will not be 
 lacking in the redeemed life, but they will come to pass 
 joyously as the result of forgiveness and the leading of 
 the Spirit. The heart will take to them instinctively 
 in its ecstasy of relief. And there are intense moments 
 when the seeker after peace should concern himself 
 not at all with these results, but solely with the finished 
 work of Christ which makes him, by dint of his simple 
 trust in it, a beloved child of God. For if he is cer- 
 tainly a child of God by this free gift he will as certainly 
 grow into saintliness. 
 
 We do not know much about Abraham's home- 
 coming, but we are very sure that the sacrifice of 
 thanksgiving was abundant in his life thereafter, and 
 that his old faith became magnified into an everlasting 
 delight in God, and that wilful sin was impossible to 
 him from that time forward. So doth grace work. 
 That revelation of the Father was essentially the same 
 as comes to men to-day when they find themselves in 
 the circle of the defeated and the fearful and the self- 
 wearied and the child-hearted. The hem of His gar- 
 
 82 
 
The Way of Peace 
 
 ment may serve at other times, but in those great 
 moments they need the truth which lies in the bosom of 
 the mystery of Jesus — this divine act of sin-bearing 
 which takes away all guilt and bestows all the privi- 
 leges if men will but have them. Then the penitent 
 can say with John Bunyan, ' I saw that it was not my 
 good frame of heart that made my righteousness 
 better, nor yet my bad frame of heart that made my 
 righteousness worse ; for my righteousness was Jesus 
 Christ Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
 ever.' And the same message which brings him peace 
 brings him power, for he can also say with Luther, 
 ' When I have this within, I descend from heaven, as 
 the rain which fructifies the earth ; that is, I go forth 
 into another kingdom and do good works whenever an 
 occasion offers. . . . Whosoever really knows Christ 
 to be his righteousness, from the heart and with joy 
 doeth well in his vocation, for he knows that this is 
 the will of God and that this obedience is pleasing 
 to Him/ 
 
 «3 
 
VII 
 
 THE CHAMBER OF THE SPIRIT 
 
VII 
 
 The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 Let us make, I pray thee, a little chamber on the wall ; and let us set for 
 him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick ; and it 
 shall be, when he cotneth to us, that he shall turn in thither. — 2 Kings 
 iv. 10. 
 
 IS it possible to have going on in the Church very 
 much well-intentioned prayer for the Holy 
 Spirit's power without corresponding evidences of His 
 triumphant indwelling ? Can prayer for this blessing 
 go partly unanswered in spite of the fact that our 
 Lord's most definite assurances are given to such 
 prayers? If it can, we may find here an explanation 
 of some perplexing features of Church life. Making 
 full allowance for the ' diversities of gifts/ which 
 doubtless include some that we do not easily recognize, 
 we yet feel that the Church is often jaded rather than 
 joyous — less fruitful in works of victory and less 
 conscious of abundant life than she would be if filled 
 with the Spirit. This impression sends us back to 
 consider the quality and conditions of our prayers. 
 What fault lies in our asking ? What can we do to 
 make supplication more effective ? Perhaps if we allow 
 ourselves liberty to treat this tender Old Testament 
 
 87 
 
The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 story of the Shunammite as a parable of prayer and 
 preparation it may furnish a hint. 
 
 The great woman had come to know the prophet 
 as a visitor, and the comfort of those occasional inter- 
 views had set her longing for much more, even for the 
 frequent presence and continual benison of the godly 
 man. She wanted the fullness of his friendship and a 
 secure hold upon his influence. So she stirred up her 
 rather colourless husband and they made a little 
 chamber on the wall, furnishing it plainly, as for a 
 man of God and not of the world, with a table and a 
 bed and a stool and a candlestick. It was to be Elisha's 
 own room where he might dwell unmolested ; but, of 
 course, his blessing was to rest upon the whole house 
 and extend even to the fields and the crops. Such 
 was the woman's simple appeal for the divine favour. 
 And the prophet was so touched by this devout 
 attention that he gave her more than she dared to ask, 
 and thenceforward undreamed-of joys and sorrows 
 came to her in that little room. The drama of her 
 wonderfully enlarged future acted itself out in that 
 consecrated chamber. The child of her old age was 
 promised there : there she laid him when he died ; and 
 there also this woman received her dead raised to life 
 again. These vital experiences began not with a mere 
 asking but with a thoughtful and comprehensive act 
 of preparation. 
 
 88 
 
The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 Such is a story which shows a close parallel to our 
 position. We indeed seek not a prophet, but we do 
 seek that Spirit who made prophets. Of Him we say — 
 
 O that the Comforter would come ! 
 
 Nor visit as a transient guest, 
 But fix in me His constant home, 
 
 And take possession of my breast. 
 
 We beseech Him directly in words like these— 
 
 With clearer light Thy witness bear, 
 More sensibly within me live. 
 
 Does it not too often end with the mere asking ? With 
 many of us such prayers are the utterances of a 
 variable enthusiasm, whereas they ought to be the 
 solemn expression of our steadfast will, evidenced by a 
 methodical preparation affecting our whole conscious 
 life. We might do so m uch more. It is not as if we were 
 seeking an altogether strange, ecstatic, and magical 
 gift, the conditions and use of which we knew not, 
 and in the bringing of which we could not co-operate. 
 At every stage of religious experience there is some- 
 thing to be done and something to be waited for. If 
 we forget the waiting our doing becomes fruitless : if 
 we ignore the doing our waiting becomes aimless. In 
 this matter of receiving the Holy Spirit words with- 
 out deeds are even more futile than deeds without 
 words. We must ourselves complete the parallel with 
 the Shunammite woman. There is a chamber to be 
 
 89 
 
The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 prepared — a candle to be lighted — as an earnest of 
 welcome. In social life the general invitation has a 
 useful place, but only when the definite invitation has 
 guaranteed real hospitality. Till then it is a mockery. 
 We must not be content to offer general invitations 
 to the Spirit of God. 
 
 This task of preparation is inward as well as out- 
 ward. There must be a chamber for the Spirit within 
 ourselves and also a sphere for Him in our programme 
 of active life. And the inward chamber is, of course, 
 the cleansed and furnished and consecrated mind. 
 The Holy Spirit, truly, is not restricted to the mind. 
 His energy is the force of the universe by which the 
 stars swing and the waves break and the blossom 
 opens. By Him the blood circulates and the nerves 
 thrill, because, in the widest possible sense, God is 
 the strength of our life. Nevertheless, for purposes of 
 salvation ' the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit! 
 and for intelligent communion we can meet Him only 
 in our intelligence. Evidently, then, in order to meet 
 Him we must dwell there ourselves — in the highest 
 part of our nature. The chamber must be on the wall, 
 not in the basement ; for the Paraclete still loves the 
 upper room. 
 
 There are many other rooms in the great house of 
 a man's nature. The foundations lie deep in physical 
 things ; the ground floor is open to the World's 
 
 90 
 
The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 business like a shop ; the living-rooms of family love 
 and social intercourse are higher still. But above all 
 is the chamber under the stars, the upper story 
 which no creature but man possesses, the quiet room 
 of devout and wise reflection where one is alone 
 with God, where earthly details look small and the 
 issues of life are seen. All the rooms are made to be 
 hallowed, and none is ignoble. In some degree we 
 dwell in all of them at the same time. But one 
 is the room of our heart, of our choice, of our habit, 
 and from it the house is ruled. Every man is some- 
 thing first and foremost — a merchant, an artist, a 
 lover of ease, a saint. It depends on the chamber in 
 which he chooses to live most intensely. The Spirit 
 can deal freely only with him who seeks to live in 
 his highest capacities. 
 
 This truth is elementary ; but when we fail it is 
 always in the elementary matters. We have, of 
 course, often visited that upper room. We could not 
 be believers at all unless it had been opened to the 
 light. But there are many dangers. The shop-bell 
 rings almost constantly and it is a great trouble 
 to climb the stairs so often. Why not stay nearer 
 the shop ? It may only too easily come to pass that 
 we think it but a slight shame to take our 
 motives even from the flesh and allow imagination to 
 hang unholy pictures in the chamber of reflection. 
 
 9i 
 
The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 There is no Spirit's chamber then in all the house. 
 No doubt for every wanton thought and worldly 
 dream we pay a very exact penalty in the loss of that 
 divine Presence, and it is likely that the misuse of a 
 particular faculty paralyses that very faculty for 
 God's use. Perhaps that is why many cannot image 
 Jesus so clearly as they wish. The imagination has 
 been abused. 
 
 If any one points out here that the intelligent will- 
 ingness to live in the highest that we can understand 
 is itself the work of the Spirit, his word is true. The 
 woman could not desire the prophet until she had 
 made his acquaintance. We receive the Spirit's 
 visits unconditionally, and the initial power to plan 
 and plead for His constant indwelling is already ours. 
 Therefore it is our turn to move. He will not claim 
 and seize us permanently and fully without our very 
 practical consent. 
 
 Equally important is it that we have a sphere for 
 the Spirit in our programme of activities. He will 
 not come where there is nothing for Him to do. 
 
 In my old home long ago there was a locked 
 drawer where the mystery of grown-up life seemed to 
 centre. The household cash-box lay there, and so 
 did certain other things which my childish fingers 
 itched to handle — one or two coins and medallions 
 and heirlooms of small value. Among the rest was a 
 
 92 
 
The Chamber of the Spirit 
 
 sailor's cornelian ring and seal which belonged to 
 some seafaring ancestor, and this I coveted ardently 
 and often begged for. But the guardian of the 
 drawer would always say in her tone of gentle remon- 
 strance, ' My boy, you cannot write yet, you must 
 wait until you can use it.' How often God might 
 make that reply to our prayers for the gift of His 
 Spirit ! A man prays in the prayer-meeting for the 
 Spirit, and goes forth to be engrossed in money-making 
 all the week. He needs no Holy Spirit for that if his 
 motive is all worldly. Another prays, and then lives 
 contentedly for the pleasures of the hour. The Spirit's 
 power is not necessary to trifling. What wonder if 
 God says, ' You must wait until you can use it ' ? 
 The discrepancy between the prayer and the purpose 
 is too great. God will give us the Spirit as freely as 
 we give our children bread. True, but a hungry lad 
 has a singularly good and intelligent use for a loaf. 
 If we are half so clear as to what we mean to do in 
 the power of the Spirit our prayer will not be refused. 
 Make a noble programme. Fear not to put your arm 
 out farther than you can draw it back. Take up a, 
 duty in which you must fail if He fails you. Exult 
 in difficulty as St. Paul did when he said, * A great 
 door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are 
 many adversaries.' You will find that the Spirit is 
 not less adventurous than His poor servants. 
 
 93 
 
VIII 
 THE REWARD OF LOVE 
 
VIII 
 
 The Reward of Love 
 
 AN EASTER-MORNING PICTURE 
 
 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herselj, and saith unto Him 
 in Hebrew, Rabboni ; which is to say, Master. — John xx. 1 6. 
 
 IT was the appearances of the risen Saviour which 
 first exalted the life and words and death of 
 Jesus into a religion. No disciple could behold the 
 Conqueror of death and reflect upon the sight without 
 feeling that he had something to tell the world. Yet 
 that evidential value came only with reflection. The 
 first preciousness of the manifestation was altogether 
 personal — the joy of recovered friendship, of the same 
 eyes and voice charged with reassurance. 
 
 Especially would this be true of the first occasion. 
 We are very sure that Mary dreamed not of Christian 
 evidences when Jesus spoke her name. A singular 
 importance attached to this appearance in that it broke 
 the spell of despair. They used to tell us at school 
 how in some places within the Arctic Circle, as the 
 long night of winter draws to its close, the people will 
 climb the hills to watch for the sun, every one anxious 
 g 97 
 
The Reward of Love 
 
 to be the first to see his golden rim and raise the 
 shout, ' The sun ! the sun ! ' The first view is every- 
 thing for the moment, and subsequent observations do 
 but confirm it. Even so the risen Saviour had a 
 supreme favour in His gift on that first day of the 
 week, and we are acutely interested to know who 
 gained it, and why. An apostle would, we think, have 
 been a fitting recipient, because apostles were chosen 
 and trained heralds of the faith ; and by preference 
 the boon should have come to a writing apostle, who 
 could record the wonder for future ages with exactness 
 beyond cavil. But Jesus passed by them all — Matthew, 
 Peter and even John His bosom friend — and granted 
 the favour to a poor woman once laden with sins. 
 This is very significant, for nothing happens by chance 
 in the kingdom of grace. It means that He came first 
 to the one who loved Him utterly, bringing the 
 sweetest comfort to the sorest sorrow, the swiftest 
 succour to the direst need. It means that 'the 
 greatest of these is love.' 
 
 When we trace the story, there proves to have been 
 a close and gradual sifting of the disciples in the net- 
 work of circumstances, as if it were designed to measure 
 and test their love. It is one of the beauties in earthly 
 life that its casual happenings and seeming accidents 
 are a fine sieve for real worth. The men have been 
 the first to go, most of them very early, though Petei 
 
 98 
 
The Reward of Love 
 
 has stayed longer than was safe for his consistency, and 
 John, protected, perhaps, by his social connexions, has 
 waited nearly to the end. The women are protected by 
 their sex, yet surely something stronger than woman's 
 weakness explains their watchful lingering. The holy 
 Mother has gone from the Cross only because she can 
 bear no more. A few other women remain in the story, 
 numbed and self-forgetful with sorrow. Some slight 
 services may yet be rendered to the dead Master's 
 memory — the embalming is not quite so abundant as 
 affection would have it — so they will sleep outside the 
 gates and be early at the sepulchre, and perhaps 
 some one will roll away the stone for them. Already 
 the love of Jesus has begun to obliterate the fear of 
 the tomb in faithful hearts. This is the darkest hour, 
 yet over hillside and dale the sunshine is coming. 
 
 When it does come one woman stands forth alone to 
 meet it. The life-story of Mary Magdalene is but dimly 
 guessed by us. She was the woman out of whom 
 Jesus cast seven devils, and tradition doubtfully 
 identifies her with the sinner in Simon's house who 
 washed the Lord's feet with tears. The best link, if 
 link there be, is in the words, ' she loved much.' That 
 saying fits this Mary. She loved much, and her love 
 kept her at the grave, and at the grave she met Jesus 
 That is Mary's gospel-message to us. Before all else 
 Jesus treasures simple, direct, personal affection. He 
 G2 99 
 
The Reward of Love 
 
 comes to all, not despising those whose strength lies 
 elsewhere and whose love has some alloy of earthly 
 interest. He honoured faith, commended Nathanael's 
 sincerity, valued obedience and practical ability, for 
 these things are often the garb of love. But they are 
 secondary. One quality outshines them all, is the 
 true measure of our kinship to Him and wins the seal 
 of His tenderest approval — even clinging, self- 
 abandoning love, which is great not so much for what 
 it does as for what it is, which finds the glory of life 
 realized in the friendship of Jesus and all problems 
 solved in the joy of communion with Him. Of this 
 love Mary Magdalene is the perfect type. 
 
 It is worth while to measure the degree of her love 
 by her contrast to the other disciples. They are 
 variously occupied at this period, some grouped sadly 
 in the room, others walking singly or together into 
 the country, but all inclining towards the question, 
 What is the next thing ? ' They will never forget the 
 good Master and those wonderful years, but — ' to-day 
 is the third day since these things were done.' The 
 cold steel of the fact strikes through their hearts, and 
 the instinct of self-preservation bids them seek solace 
 and distraction. What compensations has life to offer ? 
 4 1 go a-fishing.' ' We also go with thee.' It is natural 
 enough : the mind is too wise to abandon itself to grief 
 unless the lost love has been everything. The differ- 
 
 ioo 
 
The Reward of Love 
 
 ence lay here — to Mary that love was everything. 
 Let others seek other interests, business, marriage, 
 pleasure : she will invent what little offices of devotion 
 she can, and when those are fulfilled her life is over 5 
 her world empty. Hers was an exclusive affection, 
 So that in reality a great miracle happened when Jesus 
 spoke her name. Two resurrections took place that 
 morning ; and the second was when Christ came to this 
 woman, whose heart and hope and purpose and future 
 lay buried in His grave, and restored them all to her, 
 so that ' She that was dead sat up.' 
 
 There is something deeply emblematical in this 
 scene. In the dim dawn of the long day of Christianity 
 a forlorn woman weeps beside an empty grave. Her 
 tears will soon be dried, and never again will tears flow 
 for the same cause — for a lost Leader and a dead 
 Saviour; but while that long day lasts there must 
 always be the capacity for those tears in His disciples' 
 hearts. They are the assent to His own saying, 
 1 Without Me ye can do nothing ' : they are the con- 
 fession that an endurable life is impossible without 
 Jesus. 
 
 That truth always needs demonstrating afresh, and 
 not least in this age, which is so lacking in the repose 
 of great convictions, striving to the limit of its strength 
 and often at its wits' end. Never did the Christian 
 
 IOI 
 
The Reward of Love 
 
 Church offer her Lord a more amazing variety of activi- 
 ties or toil more earnestly to reform her intractable 
 neighbour the World. Future historians may call this 
 the age of committees, for religion is a mighty business. 
 Nor has it by any means been all in vain, for the 
 general average of honour and kindness stands higher 
 than ever before. Yet the hope for coming days never 
 lies in the average, but in the saints. The giant enter- 
 prises need underpinning with the personal love ol 
 Jesus. The question is not without force — does 
 such a hymn as * Jesu, the very thought of Thee ' ring 
 quite true to our feelings ? Are we not wearied with 
 much service rather than rested by the tumult of glad 
 emotion ? 
 
 Mary's testimony may even be scorned. 'The 
 woman was neurotic and overwrought. Her very love 
 for Jesus was not quite spiritual.' It may be granted — 
 the half- rebuke, 'Touch me not,' implies as much; 
 yet the spiritual love for the Christ should be not less 
 but more intense and vivid than the earthly affections 
 which are its faint symbols. But the man of action 
 again objects. ' In any case it was a woman's love, 
 not possible to busy men, and the example is over- 
 strained.' That touches a true distinction. Women 
 are wont to subordinate themselves, and self-forgetful- 
 ness comes more easily to them. Men assert them- 
 selves and show their love by self-expression and active 
 
 102 
 
The Reward of Love 
 
 achievement. Yet the distinction affects only the form : 
 the quality can be tried by a test common to all. Ex- 
 clusiveness is the touchstone, and in respect of that 
 there is neither male nor female. Mary's state of heart 
 was paralleled by the manliest of heroic figures, even 
 by him who said, ■ I count all things loss for the excel- 
 lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.' If 
 the expression was different in his life it was because 
 the circumstances differed, not the love. Mary wept by 
 the rifled grave of a dead Saviour, as she thought. Had 
 St. Paul thought that Christ was dead he could have 
 found nothing better to do. But he knew well that 
 Christ was alive, and therefore we behold him daring 
 the salt sea and the perils of mountain roads and the 
 wrath of great cities, eager only to be near Jesus in 
 the very heart and crisis of His triumph. About the 
 person of the Redeemer floats an aura of gladness and 
 an entangling charm, first perceived perhaps in the 
 garden of loss, or in the Arabia of the soul's extremity, 
 or in some other place where hurrying time stands still 
 a moment, and when it has once been perceived — lo ! 
 His yoke is easy and His burden light. 
 
 Amid the roar of London to-day there is a new St. 
 Paul's Cross, and elsewhere, in a city church which is 
 almost hidden by crowded buildings, shines a window 
 of St. Mary Magdalen. They both tell the same 
 truth — that the thronging life of the world can only be 
 
 103 
 
The Reward of Love 
 
 ordered and purified by a divine passion. Enthusiasm 
 for a cause is excellent ; but it so easily stops strangely 
 short of great effects, or loses itself in unprofitable 
 details, or takes to prickly partisanship. Only the 
 heart in love with Jesus keeps ever to the point, feels 
 with a gracious catholicity for the good that really 
 matters, and tires not. * For love carries a burden 
 which is no burden, and makes everything that is 
 bitter, sweet and pleasant to the taste.' 
 
 It is for this efficacious power of personal, clinging, 
 self-forgetful, absorbing and exclusive love that the 
 heart should often be tested. If Christianity were 
 exploded and the sweet story of old torn to shreds, 
 would life be empty ? If that be a far-fetched sup- 
 position (and it is, thank God !), how do I bear myself 
 to the risen Saviour now ? Am I seeking tawdry and 
 vagrant compensations by the wayside, not trusting 
 Him to satisfy my heart's desire ? The clue to Mary's 
 self-abandonment is very simple — ' out of whom He 
 cast seven devils.' It was not that she had just 
 seven, neither more nor less ; but the perfect number 
 means that He cast out all the devils she had, down 
 to the last and comeliest and most amiable devil of 
 all. And whosoever allows Jesus to deal thus with 
 him shall assuredly know perfect love and the joyous 
 service of an undivided heart. 
 
 104 
 
IX 
 
 ST. PAUL'S DYNAMIC 
 
IX 
 
 St. Paul's Dynamic 
 
 / have been crucified with Christ . . . and that life which I now live 
 in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who 
 loved me, and gave Himself up for me. — Gal. ii. 20. (R.V.) 
 
 WE shall never attain to a great love for Jesus un- 
 less we habitually realize that the true cause of 
 all blessing is His love to us and not ours to Him. A 
 flower may very well become the cause of other flowers 
 which shall bloom in successive seasons, but it is 
 never its own cause : some hand planted it or the wind 
 sowed it. And it is thus with love and prayer and 
 obedience, the things which make the perfect flower of 
 a good life. Their example is wonderfully effective 
 in scattering seed of good desire into other hearts, but 
 these graces themselves are not brought about by an 
 effort of will : they are evoked by our understanding 
 of the great things the Lord hath done for us. They 
 are born of inward gladness, and there is no other 
 source of gladness than that of the old words, 'Thou, 
 Lord, hast made me glad through Thy work.' God 
 wills that our best activities should be free offerings 
 
 107 
 
St. Paul's Dynamic 
 
 of the new and thankful heart, and it is through forget- 
 ting this and trying to love and pray by sheer force of 
 resolve and from a bare sense of duty that many be- 
 lievers find Christian living a new burden instead of a 
 new song. Our main endeavour should be to lay 
 ourselves open to the irresistible dynamic of a heavenly 
 motive. 
 
 In this connexion it is good to study the secret of 
 St. Paul. His was indeed the winged and buoyant 
 spirit, the picturesque, rapid, and eager life. Yet that 
 great character did not result from an entirely happy 
 mingling of elements, but was a sustained achieve- 
 ment in self-conquest. We can discern plainly some 
 of the inward dangers which threatened St. Paul. 
 The seventh chapter of Romans, for example, shows 
 him on the slippery verge of depression which might 
 easily have become chronic, morbid, and paralysing. 
 He tells us much about his physical trouble, the thorn 
 in the flesh ; and elsewhere confesses to appetites 
 which called for a constant buffeting of the body. His 
 fiery temper, also, flames up more than once in the 
 story which has come down to us. These were great 
 perils one and all. Yet he won safely through, past 
 the abyss and the thicket and the quagmire and the 
 volcano, and we know him as a complete moral suc- 
 cess, foremost among those clean and tender hearts 
 who have made virtue lovable. His own descriptive 
 
 108 
 
St Paul's Dynamic 
 
 phrase for this deliverance and transformation is — ( 1 
 have been crucified with Christ. 
 
 That is a true account of the mystery of character. 
 Not even St. Paul could trust his own instincts and 
 impulses to work out unchecked a happy destiny. 
 Man's high welfare depends upon victory in an inward 
 conflict. In every one there is something perfectly 
 natural which is at the same time utterly ruinous, and 
 the successful life must therefore be a life of crucifixion. 
 Some insurgent sinfulness must be beaten down, slain, 
 and extirpated. Much modern speculation seeks a 
 more genial religion — a Christianity without the Cross, 
 the gentle culture of wise counsels and fair ideals, a 
 Christ who is chiefly a gracious Teacher of souls ready 
 to learn. Such a Christ and such a creed might 
 suffice did not every day's experience tell us that we 
 must die to live, that there really is a body of sin to 
 be destroyed, and that the man who desires simply to 
 be good must himself hang upon a cross. St. Paul's 
 analysis of selfishness has never been superseded. 
 The habit of loving — natural as it ought to be and in 
 part is — can only be perfected through an utter trans- 
 formation. The beautiful result — the finished picture 
 of unworldliness — he gives us in many scattered verses. 
 ' I know how to be abased, and I know also how to 
 abound ' — he had no great care for his pocket ; 
 ' Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my 
 
 109 
 
St. Paul's Dynamic 
 
 weaknesses, that the strength of Christ may rest 
 upon me ' — he had no burdensome care for his health ; 
 1 Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by 
 life or by death ' — he had no overweening love of 
 life, however great his joy in it. That state seems 
 inaccessible from where we stand, yet we feel its 
 allurement. It implies a boundless liberty and fear- 
 lessness and enthusiasm : it is the climax of uncon- 
 scious heroism. And the apostle puts it all in this 
 way — * I have been crucified with Christ.' 
 
 Certainly his figure of speech is terrifying, and we 
 cannot look gladly at the details of crucifixion. 
 Monkish preachers have tried to do so, and fall in love 
 with pain ; but we are children of sunshine, and we 
 long for joy. Much less can we plan and carry out 
 the details. But is it not the very point of the figure 
 of speech that this responsibility does not rest directly 
 upon us ? The crucified man lies prostrate and help- 
 less, with arms extended so that either hand is far out 
 of reach of the other. It is the utterly passive attitude. 
 No man can possibly nail himself to the cross : he can 
 only yield to the strong affections and embrace the 
 great causes which will lead him and lay him there. 
 Surely this means that the long, bitter-sweet discipline 
 of life and those transforming penances and chastise- 
 ments which make the birth-certificate of God's chil- 
 dren are not artificial or self-imposed. We do badly 
 
 no 
 
St Paul's Dynamic 
 
 with our blundering fingers in the work of reforming 
 ourselves, and while we gather up the tares too often 
 root up the wheat with them. It is easy to cast away 
 improvidence and liberality at the same time, to check 
 an indulgence and in so doing narrow our human 
 kindness, to practise scrupulousness and grow pain- 
 fully self-conscious. Then the old Adam in us laughs, 
 and he laughs still more when we break down in our 
 endeavour for fear of hurting ourselves too much. I 
 heard an old dentist tell how he once extracted a 
 molar of his own before a looking-glass. It was a 
 gruesome account of a not very successful operation. 
 When it comes to the extraction of inordinate self- 
 love and the turning of the heart from sin to God, a 
 Hand wiser and firmer than our own must do it. Our 
 part is to take the discipline joyfully, with high-hearted 
 submission, like many a martyr who ' bowed his comely 
 head down as upon a bed.' Let us not talk about 
 crucifixion, but rather grasp the great motive which 
 makes the cross inevitable and acceptable — the motive 
 upon which the emphasis of our text finally rests. 
 
 Thus far all that has been said is by way of de- 
 scription, not of explanation. It is no explanation to 
 say ' I have been crucified with Christ/ for that mar- 
 vellous experience itself needs explaining. We find 
 the true dynamic in the last phrase, ' who loved me, and 
 gave Himself for me.' How came that to be written ? 
 
 in 
 
St Paul's Dynamic 
 
 There is no doubt that a great deal of biography 
 lies behind this verse which would be well worth un- 
 folding. Did St. Paul see the crucifixion of Jesus ? 
 Carlyle pictured the young Oliver Cromwell standing 
 as a boy by the scaffold where Raleigh died, and 
 learning there his first lesson in the hatred of tyranny ; 
 and we could wish to think of Gamaliel's youth- 
 ful scholar following Jesus along the Way of 
 Sorrow and witnessing the scenes on Calvary, so learn- 
 ing all unconsciously his first great lesson in divine 
 love. There is no reason why we should not think 
 this. M. Auguste Sabatier has explained away the 
 one New Testament passage which upon a narrow in- 
 terpretation might forbid us, and as for the argument 
 from St. Paul's silence, perhaps this very verse breaks 
 that silence. And if we assume that he was there, 
 can we select from the incidents of that day one which 
 would give a clue to his later thoughts about dying 
 with Jesus ? I think we can. 
 
 On either side of Jesus a malefactor was crucified. 
 Of all men in the world those two alone could say 
 with literal truth, * I have been crucified with Christ' 
 One of them does not count, because he attained to 
 no more than the bare outward fact, but the othe i 
 went further and gained a transfigured ending to his 
 gloomy life. He began by railing at Jesus. Doubt- 
 less he was a man of rough nature, hardened by 
 
 112 
 
St Paul's Dynamic 
 
 circumstance : just then, moreover, the fear of death 
 troubled him, and perhaps also 'a little grain of 
 conscience made him sour.' He cursed the Saviour 
 because Jesus seemed superior in His gentleness and 
 patience. Soon, however, the agony began to subdue 
 the man. The weight of his body tearing his hands 
 upon the nails, the intolerable cramp in every limb, 
 the burning thirst — these tamed him. As the hours 
 passed he became no more than an anguished shred 
 of human flesh, willing to do anything for relief. And 
 all through those long moments he saw Jesus suffer- 
 ing the same pain, yet speaking tenderly, thoughtfully, 
 spiritually, as One who still retained command of His 
 purpose. It was the man's vision of God, and it won 
 him. He gasped his prayer, and Christ, who had 
 already begun to rule the world from that strange 
 throne, gave him the eternal things with kingly 
 bounty. 
 
 So far as it went that was just like St. Paul. In my 
 childhood I often listened to the well-known hymn 
 which says, 
 
 The dying thief rejoiced to see 
 That fountain in his day, 
 
 and I used to think that St. Paul wrote it. Probably 
 the idea came from the apostle's description of him- 
 self as ' of sinners chief.' Certainly there is no need 
 to be ashamed of that childish error of detail, for in 
 
 h 113 
 
St, Paul's Dynamic 
 
 truth St. Paul and William Cowper collaborated over 
 that hymn, and my only mistake lay in forgetting 
 Cowper's share of the work. To-day to older eyes 
 it seems quite within the manifold possibilities of the 
 case that in writing this verse St. Paul consciously 
 accepted that dying thief as a symbol of himself. 
 For he too began by railing at Jesus and persecuting 
 His disciples. And all the time he himself was being 
 subdued by an equal but more subtle pain, even the 
 s ense of sin and the shame of failure and the horror of 
 a life without a meaning, until he too became just a 
 conscience-lashed shred of humanity ready for any 
 deliverer. Then the Lord appeared to him with His 
 quiet command of the situation. The Victim was the 
 Master. Jesus lived, and therefore He need never 
 have died. At any moment He might have left the 
 cross and the anguish behind. Clearly enough, that 
 pitiful suffering had all been voluntary. And for 
 what purpose, then ? The answer came in the tender- 
 ness of Christ's words and in His manifest concern for 
 Saul of Tarsus. Under the touch of that gentle 
 reproach the new realization broke upon the man, and 
 the sob burst from him — ' He loved me, and gave 
 
 Himself for me.' 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 Thus the text has told us how in one of old time 
 a great love for Jesus was brought to birth, and that 
 
 114 
 
St. Paul's Dynamic 
 
 love grown strong burst all barriers of habit and 
 prejudice and convention, leading him forth into 
 boundless spaces of service which he called 'the 
 glorious liberty of the children of God.' A child of 
 God drawing life daily from the central source must 
 be free and forceful, an uncaged spirit and a great 
 initiator. Few of us will deny that this is our sore 
 need. We have other motives, but passion is the 
 motive. It is very wise to be a Christian, but wisdom 
 alone never made a Christian. It is highly profitable 
 to be a Christian, but self-regard will not bring us to it. 
 It is perilous not to be a Christian, but fear will not do 
 the work. How is love made, and what will set men's 
 hearts on fire ? 
 
 St. Paul found the secret of a holy passion in the 
 sight of Christ's voluntary suffering for himself. And 
 truly, vicarious suffering is the one profoundly moving 
 spectacle which never stales. The masters of imagina- 
 tion have wrought their most powerful results upon 
 this theme. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet y Haw- 
 thorne's Scarlet Letter, and Dickens' Tale of Two 
 Cities come easily to mind. If any spark of nobility 
 glows in a man's nature, the knowledge that another 
 is willingly bearing pain for him will fan it into flame. 
 The least instance of such sacrifice is strangely power- 
 ful, and the greatest overwhelms. Your little child 
 tries with a real effort to stifle its sobs in obedience to 
 h 2 115 
 
St Paul's Dynamic 
 
 your word, and how tenderness warms within you ! A 
 friend suffers in your cause out in the world, and how 
 life is lifted to a higher level ! And all the vicarious 
 suffering which threads human existence through and 
 through with beauty is exemplified and transcended by 
 the work of Jesus. That is the everlasting appeal of 
 the Cross. 
 
 But a man may say, * That appeal has been before 
 me all my days, yet, alas, it leaves me tepid.' It is 
 an honest confession and sometimes true. It comes 
 from a partial understanding of the appeal. We are 
 too apt to conclude that Christ wants simply gratitude, 
 and an idle sentiment of gratitude quickly grows 
 wearisome : man's strong motives can never be wholly 
 retrospective. Gratitude is indeed the first step. 
 Christ loved thee and gave Himself for thee, took the 
 responsibility of thy debts upon Himself and put away 
 all thy well-grounded fears. There is no need now to 
 fear condemnation, or thine own unworthiness, or 
 backsliding, or the ultimate victory of sin. He is able 
 to keep that which thou hast committed unto Him 
 against that day. Take it at its largest, Faint-heart, 
 and rejoice. Gratitude is the first step, and a great 
 step. But now what art thou going to do with thy 
 time ? There is no need for a single selfish care even 
 about spiritual things if thou believest, so thou wilt 
 now want a better employment. What shall it be ? 
 
 116 
 
St Paul's Dynamic 
 
 Thou canst not for ever cherish an idle sentiment of 
 gratitude. 
 
 And surely the answer comes in the contagiousness 
 of love. The appeal of a wonderful sacrifice has 
 certainly failed unless it evokes an answering sym- 
 pathy within us, convincing us that sacrifice is the very 
 refinement of joy, and that if we would live indeed we 
 must lay down our lives for the brethren. This com- 
 pletes the message of the Cross. St. Paul expressed 
 it in his vehement desire to know the fellowship of 
 the Lord's sufferings, and it may be hoped that there 
 never was a time when his ambition was more widely 
 shared by * men of goodwill ' than in these days 
 Never did the life of selfish ease seem so tawdry, and 
 never was there stronger yearning for what that young 
 master of holy speech whom God lately took from us 
 has called 
 
 Such pulse and flame and sacrifice and song 
 As none may know who live to save their life. 
 
 Here again, in the quest for this higher life which 
 satisfies the heart with costly enterprise, there has been 
 opened for us a new and living way into the Holiest 
 by the blood of Jesus. 
 
 Look long and steadfastly at the Cross, and thou 
 shalt not fail to find that way for thine own feet to 
 tread. 
 
 117 
 
X 
 
 THE SPENDING OF LIFK 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 To give His life a ransom for many. — Matt. xx. 28. 
 
 THIS is Christ's lesson for kings, and therefore for 
 all of us. Every man has a great deal in common 
 with his king : they differ in a few matters and are 
 alike in everything else. Especially are monarch and 
 merchant, prince and pedlar alike in that each is 
 trying to engrave in everlasting lines the portrait of 
 a man, and this task is no easier for one than for the 
 other. Whether the frame shall be gilded or plain is 
 very unimportant. Indeed they come into closest 
 sympathy, because in many parts of his life the 
 king is a veritable drudge, and the labouring man in 
 some parts of his life is an absolute monarch. So we 
 may take the Master's lesson as belonging to us all, 
 and calculated to impart and maintain a touch of 
 royalty in everybody. 
 
 Dignity of character lies in serviceableness. We 
 gain a fresh and clear view of this truth in the light 
 of an illustration suggested — accidentally, perhaps — 
 by the language which Jesus used. ' The Son of Man 
 
 121 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
 to give His life a ransom for many.' His life was a 
 ransom-price, and a ransom-price is usually paid in 
 money. Thus a comparison is momentarily instituted 
 between life and money, and the comparison takes us 
 a long way in useful thinking. Money is the best 
 earthly servant of the sound mind and the most 
 terrible master of the mind enslaved — a sweet and 
 blessed treasure to the man who after months of want 
 at last handles wages again, but a maddening curse 
 to the gamester when its jingle has drowned the 
 music of his life. It is a thing most emphatically 
 'not to be ministered unto but to minister/ and 
 what we know about it may guide us directly into the 
 Christly conception of life. 
 
 A simple statement of economics asserts that 
 money is not wealth. In itself it possesses no parti- 
 cular value, but by agreement among men a definite 
 purchasing power has been assigned to it. If 
 Robinson Crusoe has any readers to-day they can 
 supply the proof. Crusoe went back to the wreck 
 shortly after the storm to pick up such things as might 
 be useful to him in his solitary existence. In the 
 cabin he opened a drawer and found there thirty-six 
 pounds in gold. Hear him on the subject. ' I smiled 
 to myself at the sight of this money. " O drug ! " 
 said I aloud, "what art thou good for? Thou art 
 
 122 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 not worth to me, no not the taking off of the ground : 
 one of these knives is worth all that heap. I have no 
 manner of use for thee ; even remain where thou art 
 and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not 
 worth saving." ' In the desert isle with no exchange 
 or mart the natural sterility of the coins became 
 manifest, and that ' hard food for Midas ' seemed 
 poor enough to merit contempt. 
 
 Most children have that lesson brought home to 
 them in early days. A friendly visitor will leave 
 a shilling or a half-crown for the boy of the family. 
 The young capitalist's hopes rise and his imagination 
 kindles — until he shows it to his mother. Then the 
 fiat goes forth — f How kind of your uncle ! Now mind 
 you don't spend it! So the power and promise of the 
 coin vanish into the unprofitable depths of the money- 
 box, and the child wonders what is the use of money 
 if it cannot be spent. That juvenile logic is entirely 
 sound. The ' pale and common drudge 'twixt man 
 and man ' only realizes its value as it passes from 
 hand to hand, ever purchasing for its spenders things 
 to eat and drink and enjoy. 
 
 We may turn and scrutinize life with exactly the 
 same question on our lips. What is it good for 
 except to be spent — except in regard of its purchasing 
 power? Animate existence, physical fitness, mental 
 agility, the delicacy of unspoiled senses, the mystery 
 
 123 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 of days and hours — our joy is not in these things, but 
 in what we may use them for and gain by them. 
 Somewhere behind this earthly and perishable stock- 
 in-trade sits the soul, solicitous only to spend its 
 capital with advantage and buy satisfaction. Life 
 may be expended for pleasure — a dangerous invest- 
 ment ! — or it may be paid away for love or honour or 
 immortal hope, but spent it must be if it is to yield 
 value. As a Lord of the Admiralty put it at a naval 
 banquet, ' Human life is very precious, but its most 
 precious asset is that it can be parted with in a great 
 cause.' 
 
 Now in relation to money there often comes to 
 some minds the temptation to hug and hoard and 
 make the means into an end. We recall the miser of 
 the old tales, horribly picturesque, lean, sallow, and 
 unkempt, his hands like talons and the gleam of the 
 gold in his bilious eyes. His wealth lies in the iron 
 chest, and nightly by the light of a single candle he 
 counts it, letting the guineas drip through his palsied 
 fingers. His very name stands for damnation and 
 futility. He has the gold, but it is not wealth, for by 
 a strange obsession he can never spend it He is a 
 rare and perhaps mythical sort of madman. 
 
 But there are misers of life not so rare. Truly that 
 volatile essence cannot be kept in a strong box. If 
 not boldly spent, it will none the less slip away. Yet 
 
 124 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 here and there a man is infatuated over mere physical 
 living and tremulous with anxiety for his momentary 
 safety. He shrinks from the weather and shivers at 
 the rain, finds suspicious symptoms every day and 
 dreams of germs at night. He hugs his animal life 
 even when it has become but a hollow anxiety. He 
 will probably keep it a long time with his stupendous 
 precautions, but though he has the coin he has lost 
 its value. The lust of existing quenches the spirit 
 of adventure, the fear of death stifles the impulse to 
 help, the fountain of brave purpose is dried up* 
 Though the coward live as long as Old Parr his life 
 has no meaning, and he dies daily. Few perhaps are 
 quite so foolish as this. A commoner miserdom is to 
 hug and hoard the sweet things of life, such as com- 
 fort and selfish affection. Therein lies the charac- 
 teristic sin of the middle and later years. We may 
 gather to our own cosy fire, drawing the curtains and 
 shutting out the winter sleet — shutting out also the 
 alien sorrow of Lazarus, unwilling to lacerate our 
 feelings by even contemplating his woe. Then the 
 tragedy of the withered hand comes upon us. Soon 
 we cannot help if we would, and our biography is 
 written in respectable self-indulgence. We keep our 
 comfort but its glitter is gone. Never more will the 
 thrill of romance shake the cold heart, for romance 
 costs much, and true love is always a breathless 
 
 125 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 adventure. The law for money, life, and comfort is 
 the same : they must be spent lavishly, put to the 
 hazard with devoted recklessness if we would profit 
 by them, and only he that loseth his life will save it. 
 
 This is much more than a mere bargain in hap- 
 piness : it is a sacred call and a point of honour. 
 Long ago Lord Wolseley wrote in his Soldier's Pocket- 
 Book a sentence which deserves to live — ' The 
 officers must try to get killed.' The matter could 
 not be more conclusively put. Not in the battlefield 
 alone, but everywhere and always, except among the 
 few lost souls of whom men do not speak, has that 
 great rule won simple unthinking obedience. Every 
 physician goes by it to the haunt of contagion. John 
 Richard Green wrote his beloved history when the 
 pains of death gat hold upon him ; Archbishop 
 Temple's father made provision for his widow 
 and family by taking a government appointment 
 in a deadly climate and leaving them a pension after 
 two years' service. Undistinguished men and women 
 are spending their slender capital of health and life 
 with but a plain idea of doing right by those they 
 love, and with no talk of sacrifice. So vast and lovely 
 are man's possibilities when he turns his face to Right 
 — which is God ! 
 
 All the wealth of example and the wisdom of 
 instinct condenses into this — find out the thing that 
 
 126 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 you can do best and get killed in the doing of it. True, 
 spending is not the whole of life, but it is ' the last of 
 life for which the first was made.' * Get all you can : 
 save all you can ; give all you can' — that familiar 
 motto, interpreted as lavishly as Wesley interpreted 
 it in his own affairs, and applied to all our talents, 
 makes great living. When the hour strikes, and the 
 need of our country or our neighbour, of our Church 
 or our God is greatest, we are to spend, forgetting to 
 be tired, recking not of overwork, casting health and 
 wit and joy and life into the service. Often enough, 
 indeed, this turns out to mean prolonged and enlarged 
 earthly life ; but should it be otherwise and ' death be 
 waiting at the gate/ he will prove a gentle and 
 applauding friend. 
 
 We end where we began, with the touch of royalty. 
 The glory of a king is his voluntary service to his 
 people. Perhaps this faint distinction may be traced 
 between the two words used by Jesus, that a 
 1 minister ' was a slightly more exalted worker than a 
 'servant.* In modern English, at any rate, that 
 distinction is deeply drawn, for the king's ministers 
 are the most dignified of rulers. The distinction 
 comes into every life. Throughout many hours we 
 are servants under the yoke, doing work for wages. 
 Even there the touch of royalty may be added, for 
 though others may set our work, it is not in the bond 
 
 127 
 
The Spending of Life 
 
 that we should love it. But again there are our 
 leisure hours where no one dictates — whole realms of 
 thought and speech where we do as we will. Here 
 indeed our state is kingly. If these unclaimed spaces 
 are hallowed by voluntary service it is ministration in 
 the free and full sense, and we find there our richest 
 capital and our finest sacrifice. 
 
 It is not the hardest life — this of free service. The 
 hard life is that passed in wresting an unwilling 
 homage and tribute from the world. Life is restful 
 when a man has learned to watch the years pass and 
 old age come, well content that all should be spent. 
 We do not grudge the payment that we have duly 
 allowed for in our estimates. And such lives end 
 well. Andrew Carnegie holds it a disgrace to die 
 rich, and Wesley was pleased to write in an epitaph 
 happily not needed at the time, ' not leaving, when 
 his debts are paid, ten pounds behind him.' Men die 
 very easily, and we may be sure that they rise very 
 lightly, when there remains with them not an ounce of 
 strength reserved and not a good word unspoken, but 
 all their earthly capital is transferred into the currency 
 of that Country to which they are going and ma^ 
 treasure in Heaven. 
 
 198 
 
XI 
 
 COMPENSATION FOR CIRCUMSTANCES 
 
XI 
 
 Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 For he that was called in the Lord, being a bondservant, is the Lord's 
 freedman : likewise he that was called, being free, is Christ's bondservant. 
 — i Cor. vii. 22. 
 
 THIS is a paradoxical saying which asserts that 
 a man can be a slave yet not a slave, free and yet 
 not free in the same moment. It does not mean, how- 
 ever, that St. Paul is losing his grip of reality, but that 
 he is dwelling on the way in which appearances can 
 contradict reality. Circumstances seldom tell the 
 whole truth about people. ' It is not the cowl that 
 makes the monk,' nor the black coat that betokens 
 the gentleman, nor the chain that proves the slave. 
 Think your way back to that scene in the almost for- 
 gotten story where Uncle Tom is dying, flogged to 
 death by a brutal master. Who was the slave there ? 
 Was it the old negro who could master his spirit and 
 forgive the man who had misused him, or the white 
 tyrant in bondage to his own rage ? The text suggests 
 a contrast something like that. It tells us that 
 circumstances have a certain importance, but are very 
 1 2 131 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 far from all-important. They do not decide that a 
 man shall be good or that he shall be happy : those 
 things depend at last upon the man inside the circum- 
 stances. Our subject is the true and rich compensa- 
 tion which all may find in the inward life for the 
 shortcomings and mistreatment of circumstances. 
 The doctrine will still be needed even when the 
 humanitarianism which in our day exercises itself 
 chiefly about life's outward ills has done its noble 
 best, for man's standard of blessing is ever within. 
 
 The passage is an echo from an old social state, 
 happily passed away. Slavery, plainly acknowledged 
 as such, was everywhere, and Christianity had not yet 
 declared against it. St. Paul apparently had no 
 conscience against it. He could send Onesimus back 
 to his master with a lovely letter full of sympathy for 
 the slave's lot, yet never hinting that slavery was 
 wrong. The vast implications of Christ's saving work 
 had not then been so far unfolded. It may be said 
 also, that however much horror St. Paul had felt at the 
 system, he could not have shaken it, and an attempt 
 to do so would have caused delay and perhaps de- 
 struction to that preaching of the Great Emancipation 
 which must lead to all lesser kind of freedom. So 
 the apostle began at the workable end of things. He 
 would teach the slave how to endure. 
 
 His teaching contains two steps. First, let every 
 132 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 man accept his lot. After all, the great circumstances 
 of life are there by God's permission. They may be 
 His will: perhaps there is a purpose in them. At any 
 rate this may be said, that where God's call has found 
 a man, God's grace can keep him. That is the great 
 conservative principle in the life of faith — open to 
 modification, of course, and not to be too rigidly 
 applied, but more wise and wholesome than hasty folk 
 know. ' Do not be in a hurry to change your state,' 
 says St. Paul, and he applies the doctrine to several 
 matters. Marriage is one, and upon that a preacher 
 will be slow to advise. Another matter is creed, and 
 here the counsel has great value. One of the letters 
 in Charles Kingsley's biography was written to a lady 
 who felt that it might be her duty to join the Church 
 of Rome, and the Canon's argument ran closely upon 
 these lines, that as grace had come to her first through 
 the Church of England, there was a presumption that 
 God had further gifts to give her through the same 
 channel. It is probable that all the scattered sections 
 of Christ's flock would be drawn more swiftly into 
 unity if that principle were generally observed, and if 
 minds which see the good in other systems remained 
 at home in their own fold, and created sympathy 
 there for the good they have discovered in their 
 neighbours. The hardest application of all was in the 
 case of the slave, yet St. Paul plainly said that even 
 
 133 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 if the bondman saw his way to freedom, he must not 
 seize it hastily as though it were the one thing needful. 
 
 The apostle then takes an all-important second 
 step. He is not one of those wearisome comforters 
 who preach the word resignation until our gorge rises 
 at it : he will not say, * Be resigned,' without bringing 
 that ray of illumination which makes resignation 
 possible. His further counsel is — look for the com- 
 pensations. There are compensations even for the 
 slave. He is branded on the body, but his spirit may 
 be free. A chain may bind his limbs, but there need 
 be no chain upon his heart. The word of God is not 
 bound. Knowing Christ, the bondman may be 
 always doing the Lord's work, tasting the cup of 
 salvation, rejoicing in love, looking for the inheritance 
 incorruptible and undefiled. And beside these high 
 privileges, do circumstances matter so very much after 
 all ? Nay, does it not come true that there is neither 
 bond nor free in Christ Jesus ? There is a glory in the 
 Saviour for those who really see Him which dazzles 
 their weak eyes so that they cannot closely observe 
 time's disadvantages, and a sweetness in His love 
 which overpowers many a passing bitterness. The 
 saint will often be too thankful to complain. 
 
 I would stretch this teaching to cover our circum- 
 stances. Slavery is gone, but bondage remains in 
 many forms. Few are they who know it not. There 
 is the bondage of comparative poverty — perhaps 
 
 134 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 a sorer trial than absolute poverty. We meet no 
 sterner taskmaster and no more fretting discipline 
 than financial difficulty on a small scale. The work- 
 man's wife who must maintain the home and keep 
 love at the fireside on twenty shillings each week, and 
 the single-handed tradesman who knows that a two- 
 months' illness would put him in bankruptcy — the 
 tears of angels fall on their bonds. There is the 
 slavery of labour. The daily task waits for a man. 
 It never considers his feelings. Ill or well he must 
 return to it, whether the bitter winter dawn snaps at 
 him, or the summer morning smiles an invitation. 
 There is the bondage of taxing relationships and 
 unnatural subjection to others. And there is the 
 bondage of physical weakness. In an old character 
 sketch of a great statesman who is still to the fore, 
 Mr. Stead said about him something to this effect. 
 'With all his vast ability he reveals a delicacy of 
 constitution which will, perhaps, for ever prevent him 
 from taking a place among the historic prime-ministers 
 of England.' What real pain lies in such limitations ! 
 It would seem that many men have paths of the 
 heart's desire which they would dearly love to tread, 
 yet the hand of circumstance has written up there 
 4 No road/ and they must turn aside and walk in less 
 interesting ways. At least if it has never been so 
 with you, God pity you ! 'Tis a small soul whose 
 desire never outruns its possibilities. 
 
 i35 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 What shall we say to these things ? ' Be resigned ' ? 
 Yea, truly, that is needful ; but let us not stop there, 
 A larger counsel is given us. Be not over-anxious 
 about outward freedom. There is a sweetness of heart 
 that can never be lost, save by repining thought. The 
 circumstances do not matter — so much. Look for the 
 compensations. Dwell on the affirmatives of life, not 
 on its negatives ; on its permissions, not on its 
 prohibitions ; on what you can do, not on what you 
 cannot do. ' The heroic for earth too hard ' is not lost 
 though it be postponed. Take this homely philosophy 
 with its apostolic sanction, and thank God that at 
 least the dream visited your heart. 
 
 And because men are earnest — partly also because 
 they are only half wise — they will say with some 
 bitterness, 'Ah, it's easy talking.' Is it? Was it 
 easy for St. Paul ? True, he had never worn a chain 
 when he wrote these words, but he came to wear it 
 later, and the chain made no difference. ' I therefore, 
 the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily 
 of the calling wherewith ye were called.' Read the 
 first chapter of Philippians if you would know in how 
 many ways a chained man may glorify God. But be 
 sure it was not 'easy talking.' When the apostle 
 wrote in another place, ' I reckon that the sufferings 
 of this present time are not worthy to be compared 
 with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward,' it 
 was not because he knew little 01 sufferings, but 
 
 136 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 because he had caught a glimpse of the glory and 
 found it very great. 
 
 It is not easy for honest men to talk as though 
 circumstances mattered little, nor for good men to feel 
 that they do, for indeed that independence of spirit is 
 life's hardest lesson and the learning of it a triumph 
 of grace. Our subject lies not on the fringe of religion 
 but at its very centre. There is no more searching 
 test of character than our relation to circumstances. 
 If we are easily cast down or uplifted by them, 'the 
 world is too much with us ' : we are of those who 
 • mind earthly things.' But only the man who sets his 
 affections on things above where Christ sitteth can 
 treat outward ills as they deserve. A bit of by-play 
 in Wesley's Journal comes to mind. The great 
 Methodist was one day riding out of Bristol by a 
 narrow lane, when he met a cart which barely left 
 room for his horse to pass. This small space was 
 taken up by the carter, an ill-conditioned fellow who 
 would not make way. The confusion led to a collision, 
 in which Mr. Wesley's horse fell and he himself was 
 thrown to the ground, severely bruised and very nearly 
 run over. He tells the incident with interesting details 
 of homely treatment with warm treacle on the bruises, 
 but the significant sentence is one quite casually set 
 down — ' I found no flutter of spirit, but the same 
 composure as if I had been sitting in my study.' It 
 was a trifling occasion, and perhaps the more significant 
 
 137 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 for that, since we often suffer little thorns to remain 
 and rankle while we deal bravely with the big ones. 
 For a like Christian high-mindedness amid weightier 
 trials compare this sentence from Bradford's History 
 of the Puritan Fathers. After describing their perils 
 and conflicts by sea and in the wilderness of New 
 England, the writer adds in his quaint spelling — ' They 
 knew they were pilgrimes and looked not much on 
 these things, but lift up their eyes unto the heavens, 
 their dearest countrie, and quieted their spirits.' 
 
 How can this serene forgetfulness of troublous 
 circumstances which is so sure a mark of grace be 
 gained ? The other side of the text offers guidance. 
 ' He that was called, being free, is Christ's bondservant." 
 That applies as widely as the first, for if everybody 
 tastes bondage in some respects, everybody has 
 liberty in other parts of life. Few men indeed are 
 slaves all round. The poor man is often rich in health, 
 and the hard worker frequently enjoys a certain 
 independence. Most of us have our easy circumstances 
 as well as our stringent ones. Then the rule is — 
 where you are most free ' use not your freedom for an 
 occasion to the flesh/ but count yourselves in those 
 matters the slaves of Jesus Christ. Let not assured 
 health promote self-confidence, and if you have riches 
 hold them with a loose hand, and if you have leisure 
 tremble for your use of it. The whole secret of 
 
 138 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 spirituality lies near this point. Talk about circum- 
 stances touches a chief difference which separates 
 men. There are those who depend utterly on outward 
 conditions and find their temper and their usefulness 
 decided by the irritations and the comforts of the day ; 
 and there are others whose whole life is dictated by an 
 authority which resides in the depths of their being. 
 1 Genius,' said John Foster, ' is that which can kindle 
 its own fire ' : mediocrity, we may add, only glows 
 when Circumstance acts the housemaid. There is no 
 doubt as to which class the believer should be found 
 in. All who hold to Christ may be geniuses in the 
 life of faith, and that possibility is made an accom- 
 plished fact by one plain and only method — by taking 
 up the cross. Nothing else will make the strong and 
 heavenly temper. Wesley could ignore and forgive 
 the rudeness of an ignorant man because he had 
 dedicated his free powers to a spiritual undertaking 
 which taxed all his attention : the New England 
 Puritans were striving to found the kingdom of God 
 in the wilderness, and their conflicts with savage 
 Indians formed but a small part of the day's work, 
 not to be brooded upon. He who values the pleasant 
 things of life lightly for Christ's sake will find that 
 Christ enables him to hold its harder circumstances 
 very lightly when they come. He who willingly serves 
 the Eternal shall never be the slave of the transient. 
 
 i39 
 
Compensation for Circumstances 
 
 Circumstances are but the scaffolding of the soul 
 upon which the feet of God's workmen rest while they 
 build and adorn character. When I was first in 
 Oxford, I hastened to see St. Mary's Church, where 
 Wesley and Newman preached their great sermons. 
 The spire was covered with scaffolding which hid it 
 almost completely, so that only a scanty hand's- 
 breadth of the stone here and there remained visible. 
 A passer-by expatiated upon this, telling me that it 
 was one of the most intricate and remarkable pieces 
 of scaffolding ever erected in England, and giving facts 
 about the length of planking and the cost. Having 
 come to see the church, I felt only disappointment 
 and no interest whatever in the scaffolding. A year 
 later I was in Oxford again, and saw the spire in its 
 comeliness clear against the sky, for the workmen had 
 finished their task. Thus are men wrapped round 
 with that which, though necessary for their final beauty 
 and strength of heart, in this present time hides all 
 the grandeur that is theirs. But it will not last. 
 Some day God will strike the hardships and the 
 limitations away, and in the glory of the Great 
 Emancipation we shall regret nothing that has helped 
 to bring us into the likeness of Jesus Christ. 
 
 140 
 
XII 
 
 ON TRYING AND TRUSTING 
 
XII 
 On Trying and Trusting 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 THESE are homely words with no weight of 
 dignity, yet they stand for the supreme activities 
 of the human spirit, effort and desire. Our present 
 question is, which of the twain counts for most in the 
 experience of salvation ? 
 
 The question sounds very juvenile, and, indeed, it 
 naturally belongs to the earlier stages of pilgrimage. 
 As the years pass, men either find the answer in a 
 surer knowledge of the divine Spirit and so rise 
 above the question, or they sink below it through 
 growing indifference to moral progress. Yet in its 
 time the inquiry often springs from a sorely troubled 
 heart and distracted mind, and it is profitable to 
 consider. 
 
 Let us define the question more sharply by re- 
 calling a familiar experience. Here is one who after 
 long and honest endeavour finds himself shamed by 
 the recurrence of an old failing, and sick at heart 
 because of the hope of victory again deferred. The 
 besetting temptation has surprised him in an 
 
 i43 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 unguarded moment, or worn down his resistance by 
 long pressure through hours of discouragement. 
 What shall he say to himself to revive his own 
 spirit ? There are two possible suggestions : ' I must 
 try again and try harder,' or ' I must find the secret 
 of a greater trust.' Either answer is difficult — the 
 first because he has already tried with his utmost 
 skill and decision, and the second because trust is 
 one of those states like sleep and health and love 
 which must just come of themselves. ' It droppeth 
 as the gentle rain from heaven,' and our best attempts 
 at trust in the absence of the bounteous outpouring 
 are much like the poor work of a watering-can in 
 place of a summer shower. Yet some way of escape 
 from this dilemma there must be. 
 
 The natural human answer which comes readily 
 in these days is, * Don't worry, but try again.' We 
 have a reverence for natural human answers, because 
 common sense never leads us far astray in vital 
 matters. No doubt there will be great wisdom in 
 this, but it is too brusque. Why say ' Don't worry ' ? 
 Worry may not be wise, but it is allowed that a man 
 may reasonably be excused for worrying over a loss 
 of money or time or health ; and is it not at least as 
 reasonable to worry over a loss of temper, or honour, 
 or purity? It may be that in the light of the highest 
 revelation there are assurances which lay to rest all 
 
 144 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 terrified concern about one's own character and 
 destiny, but the man who never turns his face toward 
 that light has no ground for dismissing such anxieties. 
 Without exception the saints have ' worried ' about 
 their sins, until they found the remedy. 
 
 The weakness of the human answer, however, lies 
 chiefly here, in that the man has tried his best already, 
 with disappointing results. There is a strange sense 
 of fatality in dealing with a besetting sin. It recurs 
 at intervals like the paroxysms of certain diseases, and 
 the will becomes paralysed by the rhythm of defeat. 
 At last the sinner reaches the stage of despair and 
 makes his confession, ' I can try no more until I am a 
 better man.' That is absolutely true. Effort has 
 proved inadequate, and some spiritual force must be 
 invoked to make the human answer practicable. 
 
 Let us glance at two small incidents which convey 
 a hint of the spiritual possibilities. 
 
 In his Short Studies on Great Subjects James 
 Anthony Froude tells how upon one occasion he 
 visited a gathering of some religious sect in the west 
 of England. It was an experience meeting, and the 
 historian listened to the testimonies which were borne. 
 They had one feature in common : all the speakers 
 agreed in expressing what sounded like an intense 
 horror of ' good works/ They disclaimed them, and 
 energetically repudiated all intention of ever trusting 
 
 k 145 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 to them. Finally they put their sentiment beyond 
 all doubt by singing a hymn— one which still lingers 
 neglected in Sankey's book. 
 
 Nothing, either great or small- 
 Nothing, sinner, no; 
 
 Jesus did it, did it all, 
 Long, long ago. 
 
 Weary, working, burdened one, 
 
 Wherefore toil you so? 
 Cease your doing ; all was done 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 
 Till to Jesus' work you cling 
 
 By a simple faith, 
 'Doing' is a deadly thing — 
 
 'Doing' ends in death. 
 
 Cast your deadly 'doing' down — 
 
 Down at Jesus' feet ; 
 Stand in Him, in Him alone, 
 
 Gloriously complete. 
 
 Froude describes himself as utterly amazed and 
 mystified. What could these people mean? They 
 were all respectable and upright : they would go out 
 to live the week's life, trading honestly, helping others 
 in difficulty, and doing an abundance of those same 
 ' good works ' which they spoke so slightingly about 
 on the Sunday. Perhaps the language was rather 
 puzzling to an outsider, but we may note that, what- 
 ever the meaning might be, it showed a remarkable 
 
 146 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 freedom from the despondent anxiety which we have 
 been considering. 
 
 Another tiny picture is from my own memories. 
 When about eighteen years of age I heard that noted 
 American preacher, Dr. A. T. Pierson, and had an 
 experience very like Froude's. His text was our 
 Lord's saying, 'This is the work of God, that ye 
 believe on Him whom He hath sent.' The preacher 
 said very little beyond the words of his text, yet it 
 was a long sermon, for he reiterated with intense 
 emphasis his message that the Christian has nothing 
 to do but believe in Christ. I also left the place 
 puzzled and dissatisfied. 
 
 Such doctrine is fiercely opposed to salvation by 
 works. It brushes aside roughly — perhaps too 
 roughly — our ingenious little compromises and pays 
 scant respect to venerable illustrations of faith and 
 works as being ' like the two oars of a boat.' It takes 
 no pains to meet the love of personal achievement in 
 our proud age. But all this may well be pardoned il 
 in the strange and technical language there lies the 
 secret of an ineffable heart's-ease and the cure for 
 moral failure. 
 
 And it is so. The substance of this teaching 
 declares conduct to be the outcome of the nature. 
 Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or good fruit 
 from a corrupt tree. And the cleansing of the nature 
 
 K 2 147 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 is God's work quite as truly as the pardoning of sin is 
 His work. Human co-operation is required in both 
 processes : the experience of pardon does not come 
 to pass without penitential prayer, nor the experience 
 of cleansing without the striving of active repentance ; 
 but in both alike the redeeming Will of God is the 
 sure, effective force. The healthy growth of a flower 
 really depends upon its being in the midst of suitable 
 conditions; for while in a lesser sense growth also 
 depends upon what the flower does — that is to say, 
 on its true performance of its own functions — yet 
 that right functioning will take place naturally and 
 instinctively if the flower is in its right place. A sick 
 man may aid his own recovery by cheerful confidence, 
 but it is mainly the doctor's work to medicate the 
 disordered nature. We are more liable to wander 
 than a flower and more responsible for our conduct 
 than for our health, yet in matters of character our 
 chief duty is to stay in our right place, under the 
 mighty hand of God, or, in other words, to trust 
 
 The whole problem and its solution is given by 
 St. Paul in the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans. 
 The diagnosis of a soul arrested by moral weakness 
 is put with such masterly power in the seventh chapter 
 that one turns to the conclusion in sanguine hope of 
 a solution. At first the hope is disappointed by the 
 brief and vague statement, 'Through Jesus Christ 
 
 148 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 our Lord. Instinctively the seeker remonstrates, 
 'Yes, but what must /do?' Ah, that is the old 
 question, so liable to mislead. St. Paul has a deep 
 design in the very structure of this passage. The 
 seventh chapter is the most egotistical document in 
 his epistles : the personal pronouns ' I ' and ' me ' 
 occur more than forty times in eighteen verses. And 
 the outcome is failure : ' ego ' comes to mean utter 
 helplessness. The key only changes, and the advanc- 
 ing march-music of victory is first heard, when with 
 a stroke of the pen he substitutes for that impotent 
 pronoun the Name which is above every name. 
 
 The seventh chapter feels to the reader like the 
 straining effort of launching a heavy boat from a 
 rough beach. It is a dead lift. The timbers grate 
 and drag on the shingle. But when once the Name 
 is reached the boat slips into the buoyant water and 
 moves forward on a strong current of reasoning, 
 helplessness exchanged for power and awkwardness 
 for grace. Let us follow the reasoning for a few 
 verses and watch the effect. 
 
 ' There is therefore now no condemnation to them 
 that are in Christ Jesus.' Keep strictly to the Revised 
 Version, for the Authorized misleads here. The verse 
 simply shows the believer in his right place, resting 
 on the mercy of God after his act of faith. It does 
 not mean that the man is not sinful, or that he 
 
 149 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 cannot do wrong, or that he is not to blame for his 
 misdeeds. These things are all true, yet by trusting 
 Christ the man has put himself under a new authority. 
 1 The law of sin and death ' has given place to ' the 
 law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ/ God regards 
 the aim of the man's heart, and since he aims at 
 Christ he shall have Him. He is no longer in the 
 position of a criminal sentenced to death, but of one 
 morally sick in the hands of a physician who can 
 and will cure. The Spirit, God's tireless, watchful 
 Agent, has taken up the case never to abandon it 
 while the man remains a believer. But the sin must 
 go. Even in the seventh chapter St. Paul found 
 that grace had effected a certain separation between 
 sin and his own will, and could say, ' It is no more 
 I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me.' Here 
 that separation is again recognized and confirmed, 
 for we read that God has 'condemned sin in the 
 flesh/ The death-sentence which rested on the sinner 
 is now restricted to the sin since he began to trust. 
 Sin is expatriated and made an alien, not because 
 it has changed its domicile, but because that domicile 
 has changed owners. Henceforward the responsi- 
 bility of casting out the bad tenant is accepted by 
 Christ, and the work shall be done. 
 
 We put this strongly, for in our present-day doubt 
 of the supernatural it often goes unrealized, and it 
 
 150 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 is the truth that the anxious soul supremely needs 
 to realize. Sin is doomed, and it shall be utterly 
 destroyed if you look to God. 'Shall I be able 
 to conquer it?' says the anxious one. I do not 
 know. Personal conquest in a hand-to-hand en- 
 counter is rather an ambitious idea. But very 
 certainly, ' the God of peace shall bruise Satan under 
 your feet shortly/ Perhaps your besetment may lose 
 whatever charm it has had, or you may suddenly 
 find that you have forgotten it in the joy of better 
 things. It will be God's victory, not yours, and when 
 it comes you will call it deliverance rather than 
 conquest. But it will come. 
 
 What now is the place of ' trying ' in this experi- 
 ence? From the very first stages trying intensifies 
 trust. We cannot trust God except as we know 
 the power of sin, and our very failures are useful 
 in teaching us that. Penitence involves effort, and 
 failure leads on to faith. So trying plays no un- 
 important part. Charles Wesley has a little verse, 
 rather unpoetical for him, but very compendious. 
 
 O may the least omission pain 
 
 My well-instructed soul, 
 And drive me to the blood again 
 
 Which makes the wounded whole! 
 
 That cycle of experience — shortcoming, penitence, 
 pardon — is the process by which the spiritual nature 
 
 J 5i 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 grows, and it is continually being repeated on ever 
 higher levels. Everything that softens our hearts 
 toward God helps the work. 
 
 Trying is, moreover, an instinctive and right way 
 of expressing trust. A necessary part of the spiritual 
 work, as Jesus showed in dealing with the Gadarene 
 demoniac, is to enlist the human will on the side of 
 God. He will do this. Let no man think that since his 
 saving is supremely God's work, he himself can fold 
 his hands and wait in idleness. The believer is never 
 allowed to do that, for within him dwells the Holy 
 Spirit, touching and arousing the active powers of 
 conscience, will, and affection. We can only idle 
 when we cease to believe. 
 
 The importance of this doctrine of trust is seen 
 when a man confronts the great world of outward 
 need and opportunity. There, in the wide service 
 of God and humanity, is scope for magnificent en- 
 deavour. The last reserves of ability in brain and 
 energy in will are called into action. Commerce, 
 statesmanship, research, exposition, artistry, philan- 
 thropy, home-building, child-training, are but a few 
 departments in the universal workshop, and life offers 
 an open invitation to enterprise. But to have power 
 without the man must have peace within, the 
 secure and established peace of hope and purpose on 
 sure foundations. Of those foundations the Builder 
 
 152 
 
On Trying and Trusting 
 
 and Maker is God, and they who rightly trust in 
 Him know that their striving is an expression of 
 His will, and can neither flag nor fail. 
 
 I should like to sum up the whole situation in 
 words used by a friend in the class-meeting. They 
 are simple words, but carefully thought out and rich 
 in wisdom. ' If I want to succeed in business I must 
 try by dint of punctuality and diligence and sagacity. 
 If I would lead another to Christ, I must not only 
 pray for him but try> so far as circumstances permit, 
 to influence and reason with him. But sinfulness in 
 my own heart is another matter. In regard of that 
 I can but pray and trust that by His own power God 
 will cast that out while I busy myself about His 
 work.' It is even so. No one shall lack guardian- 
 ship in the hour of weakness, or fail of final deliverance 
 who follows that way. 
 
 iW 
 
XIII 
 THE LESSON OF A COLLECTION 
 
XIII 
 The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 And my God shall fulfil every need of yours according to His riches in 
 glory in Christ Jesus.— Phil, iv. 19. 
 
 THIS familiar verse is a blank cheque upon the 
 bank of divine power, drawn by St. Paul in favour 
 of the Philippians and in repayment of their loving 
 contribution towards his relief. We will deny our- 
 selves the pleasure of dwelling upon the story behind 
 the verse or the comfort in its surface meaning, and 
 gather up instead its implied lesson in the use of 
 money. That is a subject which affects all men very 
 closely. Every one must handle money more or less, 
 and find therein a touchstone of character. Not 
 seldom has finance become the grave of a reputation 
 otherwise high. One man grips money too greedily, 
 another holds it too carelessly, while some feel such 
 an incongruity between business and spiritual religion 
 that they never attempt to combine the two. Yet 
 money judges all things. The dream of the artist or 
 the reformer, the purpose of the saint, the sweet hopes 
 
 157 
 
The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 of lovers and the valiant tenderness of young parents 
 must all face the rigid and humbling test of paying 
 their way ; and individual character can claim no 
 exemption. And as the believer essays to pass this 
 ordeal, he will find that the only secret of using money 
 rightly is to give it the right meaning — the meaning 
 here suggested by God's Word. 
 
 The clue to St. Paul's philosophy of wealth lies in 
 that phrase ' in glory.' How shall we interpret it ? 
 It is one of his magic words which yield every gift 
 to the thoughtful mind except a precise definition. 
 There is so much breadth in the expression that 
 almost any reasonable interpretation yields a true 
 part of the meaning. It might signify ' when you 
 get to heaven,' but then the cheque would be post- 
 dated, which is unlikely ; and we cannot consent to im- 
 poverish the apostle's language by treating the phrase 
 merely as an adverb — ' God shall gloriously fulfil/ A 
 simple and graphic meaning is gained by taking it to 
 describe the currency in which payment will be made. 
 The teller at the bank asks about every cheque, 
 * How will you take it ? ' and we reply ■ In gold,' 
 unless we are fortunate in the size of our cheque and 
 can say ' In notes.' In like manner, when young King 
 Solomon presented his cheque at God's bank he chose 
 to take it in wisdom. Here the Spirit decides that 
 Lydia and the jailor and the other contributors shall 
 
 i S 8 
 
The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 be repaid in that wonderful New Testament currency 
 called 'glory' — a delightful, bewildering, heart- 
 rejoicing form of inward wealth which meets every 
 need. The Philippians gave their money : God will 
 give them glory. A sort of equation is established 
 between the two, and in the new light of this promise 
 we find that what has so often been called 'filthy 
 lucre ' may come to stand for the wonder of the Spirit's 
 work. 
 
 This is all-important, for the value of money 
 consists in what it stands for. A country is not 
 wealthy because its exchequer is full, but because coal 
 and iron are in its rocks, timber and corn on its 
 uplands, rich pasturage and cattle in its meadows, the 
 world's supplies on its quays, and strength, skill, and 
 industry in its sons and daughters. Money only 
 symbolizes these and their utilities. Men do not toil 
 for money, but for bread and house-room, for books 
 and pictures, for social position, power and the means 
 of travel — for their hearts' desire. Indeed men do not 
 even steal for money. One of the greatest railway 
 frauds was perpetrated by a poor clerk who longed to 
 be a philanthropist, and, like Robin Hood, could only 
 do it with other people's possessions. The sums this 
 man embezzled he gave to charity, and he enjoyed 
 presiding at the annual meetings of great beneficent 
 societies. Finally at one such meeting some of his 
 
 i59 
 
The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 own directors met him on the platform, and they 
 pricked his bubble. So queer a case sharply empha- 
 sizes the truth that the value of money resides in its 
 deep meanings. In normal, honest life, if only we 
 knew enough we could re-write the money-column 
 without the signs of pounds, shillings, and pence. 
 The market reports, the rise and fall of stocks, the 
 price of commodities might all be told in the hopes 
 and fears, the love and desire, the happiness and 
 despair of fathers and wives — sometimes, alas, in the 
 hunger of children. It would be very like poetry, now 
 and then tragic, but often glad and cheering. No 
 doubt in some such way the money-column is read by 
 the all-seeing God. 
 
 Since money is, then, altogether symbolical, it can, 
 as the Philippians found, be made to symbolize the 
 truest devotion to God and the wisest loving-kindness 
 to men ; and this is so not only when it is given to 
 religious collections, but when it passes over the 
 counter or is paid in wages. The fair side of trade 
 lies in this susceptibility of money to a noble 
 meaning. In the eighteenth century, Montesquieu, 
 writing about England from his French standpoint, 
 declared that the most promising quality of our 
 people was their zeal for trade. That judgement 
 needs emphasizing at the present day. Com- 
 mercial enterprise is the best gift to a nation after 
 
 1 60 
 
The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 religion itself. Thereby men become partners in the 
 sustaining and shepherding task of Him who openeth 
 His hand and satisfleth the desire of every living 
 thing. The God of history grants long lives to 
 trading nations, while those who readily take the 
 sword find their own greatness prematurely laid waste 
 by it. In other words, commerce is an abiding 
 strength because it knits the friendship of mankind, 
 and military prowess is a vanishing glory because 
 all disintegrating passions are suicidal. Another 
 Frenchman would fain have reversed his countryman's 
 verdict when he sneered at us for a nation of shop- 
 keepers, but it was a veiled compliment. How much 
 better that than a nation of swashbucklers ! May 
 God give England grace never to acquire even uncon- 
 sciously the thirst for military glory ! 
 
 It is a national application of our text if we insist 
 ever more fully on the nobility of wholesome getting 
 and spending. The sordid side of trade intrudes 
 itself only too often. Competition seems almost to 
 compel hard measures and tricky methods, and men 
 who are least scrupulous can bring sore pressure to 
 bear on those who would keep business clean and 
 merciful. All the more is it worth real sacrifice and 
 stern effort to raise the standard of commercial life 
 high, and there is no finer Christian service than this. 
 As in every other moral difficulty, strength and 
 l 161 
 
The Lesson oi a Collection 
 
 guidance come from clear views as to the real nature 
 of our daily occupation. 
 
 To make a happy fireside clime 
 
 To weans and wife, 
 That's the true pathos and sublime 
 
 Of human life. 
 
 The highest dignity of an employer Is that he can 
 enable many men to fulfil that simple ideal. He does 
 it to some extent whatever his disposition may be, 
 but he can only do it to the full extent when he aims 
 at it, rejoices in it, and in hard times is willing to bear 
 severe personal loss rather than curtail such far- 
 reaching usefulness. Then indeed his money shall 
 turn to glory. There are profits which no accountant 
 can tabulate, and there will be a stock-taking for all 
 men in which money lost in mercy's name shall prove 
 a rich asset. Likewise the highest thing in the lot of 
 every workman is not the wages he commands, but the 
 service which by strength and training he can render 
 to his fellows, and as he exalts that motive he also 
 shall be God's capitalist. 
 
 If such sanctification ot capital and labour is 
 
 possible (and God help us if it be not !), every man 
 
 who labours to bring it about is doing spiritual work 
 
 of the abiding kind. There is no gap between the 
 
 sacred and the secular. Spirituality is never found at 
 
 a lonely shrine afar from common human affairs : it 
 
 is always embodied, now in social intercourse, again 
 
 162 
 
The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 in study and discovery, and most constantly in daily 
 industry. Spirituality is a matter of adverbs, depend- 
 ing little on what we are doing but much on how and 
 why we do it. Indeed the virile insight of Robert 
 Louis Stevenson discerns the Will of God most 
 grandly revealed in things which men hastily call 
 secular. 
 
 Those He approves that ply the trade, 
 That rock the child, that wed the maid, 
 That with weak virtues, weaker hands, 
 Sow gladness in the peopled lands, 
 And still with laughter, song, and shout, 
 Spin the great wheel of earth about. 
 
 If those fine lines are true, the trader and the toiler 
 are home-missionaries as truly as the preacher, and 
 their work wrought in righteousness will be the 
 effective cause of that peace and good-will that the 
 angels sang about. 
 
 ' Behold your calling, brethren.' There is room and 
 need for holy enthusiasm. Long ago, when our Saxon 
 forefathers came to Britain first, they found two roads, 
 one beneath their feet and the other above their 
 heads. The first was the Roman road from London 
 to Tamworth and thence by different branches to 
 Chester and Carnarvon : the second was the Milky 
 Way. The heathen Saxons, however, thought of the 
 latter as the path by which their god Waetla and his 
 sons marched to war, and with a fine touch of idealism 
 l 2 163 
 
The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 they called the Roman road where the pack-horses 
 were soon to travel, Watling Street. It was a great 
 inspiration to name an earthly road after the stars, yet 
 Keble did no less when he wrote of the 'trivial round, 
 the common task' as c a road to lead us daily nearer 
 God.' That idealism will give the merchant's office 
 the power of the sanctuary, and make the workman's 
 task a means of grace. 
 
 It is but needful to add a final word about the 
 divine repayment. When men strive to put into their 
 money this holy meaning of sacrifice and offering, 
 both by just and beneficent use and by the more 
 familiar way of cheerful giving, God always repays. 
 But He does not always repay in cash. Let there be 
 no mistake about that. Lending to the Lord were a 
 sordid business indeed if we got only money back 
 again. The man who gives as he should and runs 
 his business on lines of mercy and help will as a rule 
 have a lighter pocket as well as a lighter heart. But 
 he will have ' glory.' 
 
 There is a glory of character. Like the rainbow it 
 cannot be analysed, and it is fashioned by God's hand 
 alone. Men may doctor their own characters and 
 cultivate a few exiguous virtues. Prudence, for 
 example, can be cultivated — but imprudence cannot, 
 and the occasional glorious imprudence has far more 
 
 164 
 
The Lesson of a Collection 
 
 to do with the making of a saint. It was very 
 imprudent of Francis to leap from his horse and kiss 
 the leper whom he loathed yet wished to love, and the 
 world has never forgotten that unpremeditated deed. 
 Men may cultivate courtesy and regularity as they can 
 make artificial flowers of perfect correctness ; but 
 those flowers lack the fragrance of life, and the 
 character which is only correct is deadly dull. The 
 saint can be nobly discourteous and delightfully 
 irregular. Heavenly impulses are the Spirit's secret. 
 There is also a glory of experience. It never goes 
 with the closed hand — not always with the full purse. 
 A man's banker may so easily hide God from him. 
 Indeed most ministers can testify that the glory ot 
 faith is often brightest in the almshouses. An aged 
 inmate there told me but yesterday how that when the 
 silence of her little chamber grows oppressive she is 
 wont to draw forward a chair from the wall for the 
 Lord Jesus to sit in, and then she can talk to Him till 
 loneliness is forgotten. For her, as for St. Paul, 
 poverty had opened the way to inward content. It is 
 easier for the poor to put the right meaning into their 
 pence than for the rich to put it into their thousands, 
 yet all may do it by dint of pains and love of prayer 
 And whoever does so, grasping nothing greedily for 
 himself, shall find the need of his hungry heart 
 supplied by inward joy. 
 
 165 
 
XIV 
 
 CLOUDS 
 
XIV 
 
 Clouds 
 
 There was the cloud and the darkness^ yet gave it light by night. 
 — Exod. xiv. 20. 
 
 CLOUDS are things with a bad name. In out 
 homely speech ' the cloudy and dark day ' means 
 the day when the husband is out of work, or when a 
 debtor has gone off without paying, or when the wife 
 is in hospital and the home bereft of its domestic 
 providence, or when a dear child lies sick and the 
 doctor looks grave for many hours. These are 
 'clouds,' and they mean trouble, confusion, doubt, 
 the interruption of happiness and the eclipse of hope. 
 How strange, then, that God should choose to lead 
 His people by a cloud, wrapping His glorious 
 presence in so unfriendly a cloak ! Throughout 
 Scripture nearly all His chosen names speak of light — 
 ' the Father of lights with whom can be no variation ' 
 . . . . ' the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His 
 wings ' . . . . ' who coverest Thyself with light as with 
 a garment '....' dwelling in light which no man 
 can approach unto.' Yet here God has changed His 
 
 169 
 
Clouds 
 
 clothes so that we hardly know Him. Nor is this 
 our ideal of Christian experience. The life of faith 
 should mean the clearing away of mystery and 
 deliverance from difficulty and perplexity. 'The 
 path of the just is as a shining dawn which broadeneth 
 out unto the perfect day.' Yet here are the people of 
 God, pilgrims of the night, treading among quick- 
 sands and mysteries and hairbreadth escapes, and 
 following a murky cloud. Aye, and they complained 
 and grumbled and blasphemed and wished they had 
 never gene on pilgrimage at all, and at last they 
 came to a bad end and their carcases fell in the 
 wilderness, all because they did not know the mean- 
 ing and value of a cloud. 
 
 Yet two facts are told us about this cloud which 
 would have reconciled them entirely and changed 
 their bitterness to gratitude if only they had given 
 them due consideration. The cloud came between 
 the people and their enemies. It bothered the 
 Egyptians far more than it bothered the Israelites. 
 It stood for safety. And the second fact is that it 
 gave light by night. It served for secure guidance at 
 the hour of need. These are wonderful assurances. 
 Thus early in the Bible they anticipate the best 
 results of that long discussion of suffering which runs 
 through the sacred literature. The problem of the 
 cloud is Job's problem : it is the burden of innumer- 
 
 170 
 
Clouds 
 
 able psalms, of the letters from Paul and Peter and 
 James, and the whole story of the divine Man of 
 Sorrows ; nor is it solved till the redeemed come forth 
 * out of great tribulation ' into the timeless light of 
 God. Does the man of faith meet more trouble than 
 the unbeliever, that his holy books should say so 
 much about it ? That would be hard to decide. 
 Many troubles are common to all men. The believer 
 certainly escapes some of the worst which are caused 
 by flagrant sin, but then he suffers others which the 
 unbeliever knows nothing about. But however the 
 balance may incline, one supreme difference appears 
 between the two men — in the godly life there is no 
 sorrow without a beautiful meaning, and no cloud, 
 however dark, which will not become a torch luminous 
 with blessed encouragement ere the journey ends. 
 
 Those two assurances are so grandly simple and so 
 inviting to faith that every Christian soul may be 
 trusted to use them freely in his hours of trial. We 
 will limit ourselves to one special application. It has 
 been said that the believer has clouds which other 
 people escape. This is specially true of the fears and 
 cares which arise from an awakened and tender 
 conscience. 
 
 The Christian life begins in a cloud of this kind, and 
 the shadow often returns until abounding grace chases 
 it away for ever. David describes it very forcibly. 
 
 171 
 
Clouds 
 
 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old 
 
 Through my roaring all the day long : 
 
 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: 
 
 My moisture was changed as with the drought of summer. 
 
 The memory of sin prostrated him and put him in a 
 fever ; and recalling the immensity and cruelty of 
 David' s sin, we cannot wonder at it. 
 
 Who can ever forget the beclouded pilgrim in 
 Bunyan's great story as he wanders round the City 
 of Destruction wailing over his burden? He tells 
 them at home about it, and they can only say, ' Go to 
 bed. Try what a night's rest will do. ' He does try, 
 but day and night God's hand is heavy upon him, 
 and his family, out of all patience, would have put 
 him in a madhouse but that he escapes them by 
 going on pilgrimage. That is the ancient cloud of 
 conviction of sin. It is a strange woe. All things in 
 a man's life may be fair and peaceful, his home bright, 
 his children loving, his business sound — all right 
 except his own sinful heart, and because that is not 
 right the other things might as well be wrong for all 
 the joy that he can find in them. 
 
 That cloud is heavy and dark, but God is in it. 
 When you are most depressed and discouraged, utterly 
 out of friends with yourself and consciously unholy, 
 there is but one comfort, one salvation for the reason 
 — God is making you feel thus in order that He may 
 
 172 
 
Clouds 
 
 have mercy upon you. There are two sides to the 
 dealings of God : He is as stern as He is tender — a 
 Father in deepest reality and not as some human 
 fathers. David offers a contrast here, for nowhere 
 else did that great king fail as he failed in his father- 
 hood. When the historian tells how that handsome 
 younger son Adonijah made a plot against the suc- 
 cession and troubled David's very death-bed, he adds 
 this significant explanation, ' His father had not dis- 
 pleased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou 
 done so ? ' God is not like David. He will have no 
 spoiled children, and He fears not to displease them. 
 Children instinctively trust most the parent who can 
 be stern, and the human heart can only find rest in a 
 God who makes Himself the master. In his twelfth 
 chapter Isaiah pours out a flood of praise from an 
 overburdened heart, almost incoherent in its tumult- 
 uous volume. ' I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, 
 for though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger 
 is turned away and Thou comfortest me.' Only the 
 sternness could make the comfort so real. We find 
 the rock oi assurance when we can say, 'This 
 awful God is ours.' 
 
 It would be a very foolish and dangerous counsel, 
 tending towards much unwholesome morbidity, if a 
 preacher persuaded men to brood upon sin and culti- 
 vate conviction. The cloud must come when God 
 
 i73 
 
Clouds 
 
 sends it. But it is a sane and very important counsel 
 to say, when the cloud comes, do not try to escape it 
 by worldly means. Do not stifle conscience. There 
 is an oft-quoted passage in John Stuart Mill's autobio- 
 graphy where he describes how in his youth he came 
 under 'what the Methodists call conviction of sin.' 
 Feeling the cloud, he sought to escape from it. He 
 travelled a little, went into society and read cheerful 
 books. And in no long time the cloud left him — a 
 poorer man, surely. He escaped his cloud without 
 asking its meaning, and through all his life he knew 
 not the faith which then he missed. That mistaken 
 dealing was never easier for all classes than it is 
 to-day. The world was never so full of comparatively 
 innocent amusements to save men from thought. 
 The cloud comes down with its solemn shadow and 
 the hidden boon of a holy Presence — and we go to the 
 animated pictures to shake off our depression, or spend 
 an evening cosily with a good novel. After that the 
 cloud is gone indeed, but the erring and impoverished 
 heart remains, and the opportunity for a new life has 
 been lost. 
 
 Never does a man pass through the cloud patiently 
 without a deepening and strengthening of his nature 
 for after-days. If the law of God seems to lay down 
 restrictions and to cramp passion and prove itself irk- 
 some in the merry years of youth, it promises a rich 
 
 i74 
 
Clouds 
 
 repayment for all that is foregone. One evening in 
 my early ministry I rode home from a service while a 
 thunderstorm gathered behind me. The way lay for 
 five miles along an upland road, and the lightning 
 spread its flickering reflection around me and before. 
 Anxious to reach shelter before the worst of the storm 
 came up, I was urging my bicycle to its best speed, 
 when a longer flash than usual broke the darkness 
 ahead, and there in my path, on the wrong side of the 
 road and showing no light, stood a large van twenty 
 yards away. A moment more and I should have 
 crashed into it, but the very cloud that I feared and 
 was flying from ' gave light by night ' to show the 
 danger. Even so in life do the awful, restraining, 
 baffling commandments serve but to illuminate the 
 peril, and God guides us by our fears. 
 
 This is one of many applications to which our text 
 may be brought. It touches all the turns of life with 
 meaning. How wearisome life would be without its 
 difficulties — how shallow without its sorrows ! I 
 travelled away from Liverpool one afternoon with 
 another passenger in the compartment. He gazed 
 from each window in turn with the liveliest interest, 
 and at length remarked, ' What a lovely thing it is to 
 see a cloud in the sky ! ' Then he explained that 
 he had just landed from South America, where for 
 nine months in the year they have the unbroken blue 
 
 175 
 
Clouds 
 
 above until the eyes ache with the sight. I was able 
 to assure him that he need not expect to suffer from 
 that trouble now that he had reached our northern 
 clime. Yet imagination may help us to understand 
 his point of view. There is a beauty even in the 
 cloud. Remember the finest sunset that you ever 
 watched, when the heraldic glory of crimson and 
 purple and gold shone out and the skies became a 
 stained-glass window of eternity. What made the 
 unutterable beauty ? The sun truly, but not the sun 
 alone. That spectacle was wrought in clouds. And 
 if sometimes at high noon we are discontented that 
 the heavens wear a grey and lowering aspect, we need 
 only remind ourselves that the cloud gives light — by 
 night 
 
XV 
 
 MOODS AND FEELINGS 
 
XV 
 
 Moods and Feelings 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 ANY discussion of moods and feelings must seem 
 wanton and unwholesome foolishness to those 
 practical people whose fear is ever before our eyes. 
 What would Mr. Wesley in real life or Mrs. Poyser in 
 story-land say to it? These admirable temperaments 
 revealed themselves to the world almost entirely in 
 cognition and will, the element ot feeling — though 
 strong enough — doing its work in the background with 
 reasonable docility. They were marvellously balanced. 
 Is it not even said that John Wesley could take sleep 
 — the delicate fugitive — whenever he would and for 
 exactly so long as he wished ? A power like that is 
 not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, and not bestowed 
 on many in these days. Such well-regulated natures 
 may think scorn of moods. And indeed it is true 
 that many sensitive folk brood far too much on their 
 feelings and grow sadly morbid. Nor are they all 
 weaklings who do so. Surely the writer of Grace 
 Abounding lay open to the reproach — if reproach there 
 be, when his moods drove him ever to God. Allowing 
 
 M 2 179 
 
Moods and Feelings 
 
 the danger, let us nevertheless recognize that to not 
 
 a few well-meaning folk moods are a real fact, worth 
 
 considering because they so greatly influence conduct 
 
 and work. If you have a willing horse you may go 
 
 fast and far ; but if the only steed available shies or 
 
 jibs or plays all manner of tricks, a little time spent 
 
 in studying how to meet his humours and get the best 
 
 work out of him is not wasted. Our temperament is 
 
 the only steed available : we may not change horses 
 
 on life's journey. 
 
 Moodiness is not altogether a disadvantage. Man 
 
 can work with the stolid precision of a machine when 
 
 his soul is dead, and not before. Very plaintively the 
 
 hymn runs — 
 
 I am never at one stay, 
 Changing every hour I am. 
 
 That is partly a fact to thank God for. Every one who 
 has taken an ocean voyage must remember the relief 
 which his eyes found in the constant change of light 
 and colour — the ' zones of sun and shadow ' through 
 which the good ship 'glimmers away to the lonely 
 deep/ Without this the endless waves and the arch- 
 ing skies would be unbearably monotonous ; but with 
 it, while all details of the scenery remain the same, the 
 effect is hourly varied. Even so the play of mood and 
 feeling brings striking charm into the uneventful life. 
 The daily round alters little for many of us, but the 
 
 180 
 
Moods and Feelings 
 
 man who girds himself to face it is never quite the 
 same. To-day he bears down upon his task strong in 
 the spirit of joy : to-morrow he will pass the hours 
 thoughtfully, finding hidden meanings everywhere ; 
 another day his mood is touched with gentle sadness 
 and is rich in sympathy. So he feels his way down 
 the keyboard of experience even to the very lowest 
 mood of utter depression. Never a psalm but fits his 
 tongue at one time or another, be it ' O come let us 
 sing unto the Lord/ or 'O God, why hast Thou cast us 
 off for ever ? ' ( A little while and ye behold Me no 
 more ; and again a little while and ye shall see Me.' 
 Life is like April weather, made up of these little 
 whiles of shine and shower. 
 
 Now all this change has a practical bearing upon 
 conduct. It means that love, joy, peace, long-suffering 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, are 
 very much easier at some times than at others. They 
 are not less blessed when less spontaneous ; but in 
 general the blessedness of the dark moods is mainly 
 for ourselves. There is no discipline in life finer than 
 the effort to assert our will against the despair of those 
 enveloping mists. On the other hand, the blessedness 
 of the bright moods lies chiefly in their helpfulness to 
 our influence upon others. If the 'best portion of a 
 good man's life ' is really 'his little nameless un- 
 remembered acts of kindness and of love,' we may be 
 
 181 
 
Moods and Feelings 
 
 sure that these flow most effectively from the rejoicing 
 heart. People are so quick to see when kindness is 
 laboured and geniality constrained. We cannot have 
 it every way. The problem of life and duty is solved 
 for many of us when we have learned how to live 
 always in a good temper. 
 
 That is one of our long lessons. Moods may be 
 mastered and made of service if we know how to do 
 it. The rule is to give them their right value and no 
 more. Do not think that the light or shadow on the 
 wave is the wave, or that any mood is altogether an 
 expression of your character. These experiences 
 show rather what we are capable of than what we are ; 
 and very much misery may come from attaching the 
 wrong significance. For example, there is the mood 
 of lowest depression, marked by irritability, languor, 
 and an utter failure to see any good in one's self or 
 any hope in life. It probably has a physical origin, 
 and is akin to the monkish accidie. Much harm may 
 be wrought by it. The novice in moods feels that it 
 is surely the end of all things : life is to be like that 
 henceforward. He yields himself miserably to it 
 abandoning prayer because it is difficult, absenting 
 himself like poor Thomas from the place of fellowship 
 and the risen Christ. He is filled with obstinate 
 discouragement, and sees most plainly that he is a 
 wretched sinner — which is true enough, but not the 
 only truth in God's world. November is bad enough 
 
 182 
 
Moods and Feelings 
 
 while it lasts, but June is quite as sound a fact. The 
 nightmare rolls off with the morning. The sufferer 
 has to make acknowledgment with Jacob, ' Surely the 
 Lord is in this place and I knew it not/ He only 
 regrets that he did not play the man of faith better. 
 Such moods are just our occasional glimpses of hell, 
 like the whiffs of brimstone which Bunyan's pilgrim 
 caught at times. They show not what we are, but 
 what unfaithfulness might bring us to. And similarly 
 the bright, ecstatic moods are glimpses of heaven. 
 They also contain their measure of illusion. We are 
 not so good as they make us think, but we have 
 ground to hope that their sweet prophecy shall be 
 realized. 
 
 This amounts to saying that a man's self is greater 
 than his moods and should have the ruling word to 
 say. The danger in talking and thinking much about 
 temperament is that we may come to believe that 
 temperament fixes destiny. The choleric man will 
 say that his temper must be hasty because he is made 
 so, and the phlegmatic man may resign himself to 
 sloth, feeling it useless to struggle. Nothing can be 
 more disastrous than the idea that certain virtues and 
 graces are congenitally impossible to us. Tempera- 
 ment is a fact, and it fixes our handicap ; but divine 
 grace and will-power are facts of far greater moment, 
 and they may fix our destiny. No level of equanimity 
 or any other blessing necessary to life and godliness is 
 
 183 
 
Moods and Feelings 
 
 beyond our reach. It is mischievous to think our- 
 selves different from others. Much has been said in 
 connexion with modern education about the im- 
 portance of the teacher adapting his methods to each 
 individual child. Without disputing that doctrine, it 
 may be pointed out that the old education had one 
 advantage in that it compelled every child to measure 
 himself by a common standard and face a common 
 duty, and encouraged no child to make dangerous 
 allowances for himself. We moody people need that 
 stern discipline. If we exempt ourselves from some 
 duty on account of an interesting peculiarity in 
 ourselves, the latter generally turns out to be just a 
 sordid bit of the old Adam. Let us try to be always 
 the same to others, to reach the fair level of patience, 
 courtesy, kindness and energy, on all days and at all 
 hours. It will not be easy, and may very well mean a 
 fight every morning which calls for devout strategy 
 and great determination. But we worship the Father 
 of lights with whom is no variableness— He has no 
 moods, no fits of anger, no caprices of feeling. Our 
 Help is ever the same. Let us do as Bunyan did — refer 
 our fitfulness to the changeless One, till His quality 
 enters into us. This probationary life is just a struggle 
 with temperament for every one, until the wavering 
 man becomes steadfast, the cold-hearted man loving, 
 and the earthly-minded man spiritual. 
 
 184 
 
XVI 
 THE ROUGH SIDE OF LIFE 
 
XVI 
 
 The Rough Side of Life 
 
 A REVERIE 
 
 Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations ; 
 knowing th at the proof of your faith worketh patience. And let patience 
 have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in 
 nothing. — J as. i. 2-4. 
 
 THE writer means 'trials/ Fine old puritan that 
 he was, St. James would never have said about 
 those evil seductions which we commonly call tempt- 
 ations, ' Count it #// joy.' These things are ' our fallen 
 nature's shame/ and this rugged, pure man would be 
 the first to feel that even where there is no yielding 
 and no personal blame there is nevertheless moral 
 humiliation almost amounting to the touch of disgrace 
 in our susceptibility to their attraction. 
 
 He is really thinking of the rough side of life, ot 
 'sorrow and sickness, poverty and pain/ of great 
 powers marred for full use by one gift withheld, of 
 some physical frailty which lets a man down on the 
 eve of attainment, of ' the spurns that patient merit 
 of the unworthy takes.' And all the rest. Jewish 
 
 .87 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 Christians of the Dispersion, gathered in a little secret 
 club in the ghetto of an ancient city, some of them 
 slaves and all of them poor, could fill in the dreary- 
 catalogue. 
 
 But even if there is no sin in the trials he speaks ot 
 his statement is none the less amazing. Professor 
 Bradley, in his Oxford lectures on poetry, reproves 
 the shallowness which sees only a charming sentiment 
 in the hackneyed lines — 
 
 To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 
 
 Wordsworth's assertion has an audacity which keeps 
 it fresh. How deep such thoughts must lie ! How 
 seldom we have a thought even worth weeping for, not 
 to speak of deeper thoughts still ! What revelations 
 we are blind to in the daisies ! Yet we belittle that 
 astonishing passage into a pretty saying for an 
 album. It is as easy and far more disastrous to 
 belittle this text, as if St. James had merely said, 
 ' There's a silver lining to every cloud.' Whereas he 
 says, ' Count it all joy.' There is to be nothing that 
 is not joy — the sick anxiety, the pang of hunger, the 
 exhaustion of toil, the weary waiting, the actual pain 
 of trial. The believer must prefer to be braced rather 
 than comforted. These things are to be accounted 
 /qy } not merely evil discounted by an offset of promise. 
 
 188 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 At the moment of strain we must rejoice in the 
 strain. Is even Christian faith sufficient for these 
 things ? Only in one who has a completely spiritual 
 interpretation of life and who lies prostrate on God's 
 grace. St. James with his ideal dwarfs our best 
 spiritual attainments. 
 
 • • • • 
 
 Why should life have a rough side — and so rough a 
 side ? If God is God He could have left it out We 
 certainly should. 
 
 Ah Love, could you and I with Him conspire 
 To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, 
 Would not we shatter it to bits — and then 
 Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire ! 
 
 Even the body one wears is so imperfect. Many 
 words have been spent on the wonder of Nature's 
 work in the human frame, and not unjustly, for there 
 is much to marvel at. Yet the thought comes, c If so 
 much, why not a little more — the little that would 
 turn aside untimely disaster, and make the body the 
 tireless, unbetraying ally of the spirit.' An old 
 physician remarked in the Johnsonian manner, 
 1 Madam, our physical organism leaves much to be 
 desired.' That is the point of view of art. Evolution 
 is a rough-and-ready process, confessedly turning 
 things out just good enough to get along with. It 
 aims at no ideal perfection. And God has often been 
 
 189 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 content to work by evolution. He aims at no ideal 
 perfection — except only in the character of the saints. 
 
 We must just set the one against the other and 
 ask whether the rough efficiency in the material 
 sphere helps or hinders ideal perfection in the 
 spiritual sphere. St. James would say that it helps, 
 wholly and solely. There are men but partially 
 equipped for life, sweet-natured blunderers like Seth 
 Bede in the great story, who are more lovable for 
 their mistakes and the spirit in which they bear them. 
 They climb the steep ascent with better speed because 
 they halt upon the thigh. The human will con- 
 trolled by the heavenly temper has an immeasurable 
 power of transfiguring disadvantages. We grow by 
 overcoming resistances and are enriched through 
 our inadequacies. The untroubled and self-sufficient 
 man alone is utterly poor, as he easily gathers his 
 handfuls of dust. 
 
 A perfect world would be fatally imperfect. Earth 
 is no * desert drear/ but it is not a home. Call it a 
 school and you are nearer the truth. And we expect 
 some roughness of accommodation at school. To be 
 sure, the religious weeklies advertise boarding-schools 
 with ' all home comforts/ but that is an extreme of 
 enthusiasm in language. What about the father's 
 friendly presence and the mother's sheltering sym- 
 pathy? These are home comforts, and school does 
 
 190 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 not provide them. It would be a sorry business if 
 the children grieved to come home at the term's end. 
 Neither would the best and dearest Father have our 
 hearts loth to turn to Him because earth had captured 
 us : therefore there are no home comforts for pilgrims 
 except fellowship one with another and the hope of 
 glory. If only we would learn the truth that there 
 is but one pleasure for the believing heart, and the 
 rest are accidental — often dangerous ! 
 
 Strength of spirit is the essential thing to be 
 wrested from the earthly years. St. James calls it 
 patience. He has the best right to speak of it, having 
 inherited the quality so far as it can be inherited and 
 having cultivated it as few men do. We take it that 
 the old tradition is true which makes him a son of 
 our Lord's foster-father, Joseph the carpenter. There 
 are the strongest resemblances between the pen- 
 pictures of James and the word-pictures of Jesus. 
 They differ as literature differs from speech and as 
 the outcome of separate minds must always differ ; 
 yet the sententious wisdom, the habit of accurate 
 observation, and the chaste and pithy expression 
 which they both share may well have been learned 
 from the priestly father who trained their childhood. 
 And Joseph was all patience. Think of him in middle 
 life, marrying as a second wife the sweet maid Mary 
 
 191 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 in hopes of a quiet and settled home, yet forthwith 
 plunged into terrible mysteries, hair-breadth escapes, 
 heart-wringing responsibilities. He was hurried from 
 Nazareth to Bethlehem, thence to Egypt, and back 
 by uncertain stages and on shortest notice. And he 
 never once complained. In all those wanderings he 
 spoke no word that needed to be recorded. His duty 
 was too desperate for talk, and he feared to miss 
 some hint of the unfolding purpose if he looked at 
 his own thoughts. There fell upon Joseph the habit 
 of waiting for the Lord, and thus Burne-Jones has 
 painted him into that great picture The Star of 
 Bethlehem, There is the face of a man with keen, 
 inquiring eyes, who sees portents in unlikely places, 
 one who obeys his visions and holds his tongue, 
 anxious only to guard his treasures without a moment's 
 failure. No wonder his son praises silence and broods 
 on patience. 
 
 It is the supreme lesson. None ever become the 
 indispensable benefactors of their fellows without 
 learning it. However faulty the world may be, it 
 teaches patience : the only question is whether the 
 drilling is not too severe. Life begins to inculcate it 
 at the cutting of the first tooth, and it is engraved 
 beyond erasure on the faces of the old and blind in 
 the street. Death loves with exultant hand to fix 
 tnat expression on the countenance that will change 
 
 192 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 no more. He that is patient let him be peaceful 
 still. 
 
 In the learning of other things there are many 
 interruptions. A child cannot be always at the piano 
 or the desk, and in the intervals the fingers and the 
 memory lose something. But there are no inter- 
 ruptions here. Fortitude in suffering is patience ; 
 moderation in joy is patience ; the care with which 
 the skilled master-craftsman puts in finishing touches 
 and the despairing earnestness with which the almost 
 beaten man girds for a last effort are forms of patience. 
 It is essential to every virtue. ' Love is not love that 
 alters when it alteration finds ' : courtesy and purity 
 and zeal and faith are gauged by their power to 
 persist. St. James says well and truly, ' Let patience 
 have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect.' 
 
 Of course this quality is far above dull resignation ; 
 it is no pale and common drudge. Carry patience 
 into high things. You must be too patient ever to 
 show depression. James took his patience specially 
 into prayer till his knees became as callous as his 
 spirit was sensitive. Such a temper underlies all 
 brilliant accomplishment. We should not naturally 
 turn to the bright, romantic figure of Nelson for an 
 example, yet here is a passage from his life. Peace 
 was coming, but the Government thought its halting 
 •steps might be hastened if their right-hand man was 
 n 193 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 kept to the front, so he lay off the south coast. 
 ' Lying in an open roadstead, with a heavy surf pour- 
 ing in on the beach many days in the week, a man 
 with one arm and one eye could not easily or safely 
 get back and forth ; and being in a small frigate 
 pitching and tugging at her anchors, he was con- 
 stantly sea-sick, so much so that he wrote, " I can 
 scarcely hold up my head," afflicted also with pain 
 and toothache.' Add that at the same time he was 
 fretted by officialism above, that he was watching a 
 brother-officer die of terrible wounds and following 
 the body to the grave in such grief as wrung from 
 j'vn the groan, ' I could not suffer much more and 
 xive.' Finally he paid for the funeral out of his 
 slender means and bore the burden of the dead man's 
 debts. That was Nelson taking the rough side of 
 life, and it was a spirit disciplined by such trial that 
 flashed into historic brilliance at Copenhagen and the 
 Nile and Trafalgar. 
 
 The background of all lives that are good or great, 
 or both good and great, is patience — not supine sub- 
 mission to suffering, but tenacity which holds its 
 purpose even in weakness, and persistence which keeps 
 on doing a little when it cannot do much. The 
 importance of life lies in its time-test. Heaven is 
 not won in an hour of inspiration, but 'after a long 
 time the lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth 
 
 X94 
 
The Rough Side of Life 
 
 with them.' Patience with God's methods, with 
 crowding difficulties, with the unseen future, with 
 ourselves no less than with outside things — patience 
 which gives itself whole-heartedly to present duty, 
 begins again very often, and] seeks to make the pass- 
 ing hour perfect — patience which shows in a strong 
 tone of voice when a whine or snarl would be easier — 
 all this is a homely virtue. But when perfect there, 
 we are perfect everywhere, lacking nothing. 
 
 N- 2 195 
 
XVII 
 THE PURITAN AMONG THE FLOWERS 
 
XVII 
 The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 A REVERIE 
 
 Let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate : and the rich, in 
 that he is made low : because as the flower of the grass he shall pass 
 aioay. — J as. i. 9, 10. 
 
 SOMEWHERE on the road between Hitchin and 
 Bedford there is (or used to be) a spot on which 
 hallowed memory and natural beauty confer a double 
 consecration. The woodlands closely border the 
 highway, and the traveller can turn aside and pass 
 quickly through a screen of leafage and find himself 
 in a wide dingle, dim with soft light like a sanctuary. 
 The trees bend over as though seeking to arch in the 
 holy ground, but they only cover the side-chapels and 
 leave the centre-aisle roofed by the blue sky. The 
 wanderer goes ' wading ankle-deep in flowers,' for the 
 cowslips gather thickly and make a glorious carpet. 
 The people call it Bunyan's Dell, and they say that in 
 the time of his persecution the gentle dreamer would 
 call his little congregation together there, as it were 
 
 199 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 * secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues,' and 
 teach them the arts of pilgrimage. 
 
 I describe the place from childish memory, and 
 know not how it may now be changed. It was my 
 first hearing of Bunyan's name, and frequent readings 
 of the Pilgrim's Progress in after years were pursued 
 with more avidity for the fact that I first knew its 
 author among the cowslips. Did the dell suggest 
 By-path Meadow to him ? If so, no wonder Christian 
 and Hopeful went astray. But one would more 
 naturally regard it as a lawful place of rest for 
 pilgrims, ordained and adorned to this use by the 
 King out of his great love. 
 
 It is no less pleasant to watch this other puritan, 
 St. James, among the flowers. Here he sits by the 
 death-bed of one, and his love of beauty and his 
 tender interest appear in every phrase. * The flower 
 thereof falleth,' and you see the drooping of that 
 shapely little head under the scorching heat. 'The 
 grace of the fashion of it perisheth,' the corolla losing 
 its firm and dainty shape as the petals begin to 
 shrivel. Soon the bit of embodied loveliness has 
 vanished, like a good thought forgotten. And this 
 strong man of prayer feels the tiny tragedy, though 
 without sorrow. 
 
 For there is much difference between the Old and 
 New Testaments in their mention of flowers. Both find 
 
 200 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 them an emblem of the transitory elements in human 
 life. That comparison was too plain to be missed, a 
 veritable first lesson from Nature's picture-book. 
 But the Testaments differ so widely as to what are 
 the transient elements, and therefore the whole tone 
 is different. In the older volume death spares nothing 
 more of the man than it does of the flower. You 
 open a book upon which the dust has gathered, 
 and there falls out a spray of scented geranium 
 which leaves a faint fragrance on the page. Thirty 
 years ago it was put there to be preserved, and now 
 it brings so sharply to mind that long-ago afternoon 
 and the careful fingers of her whom you loved in the 
 days when little things seemed great, such as the 
 pressing of a flower, and great things perhaps seemed 
 small, such as motherly love. That dearest of mothers, 
 you know her worth better now ! Yet it is but a 
 travesty of a flower that comes to light, and its 
 fragrance is like an unsubstantial memory. Is there 
 no more than that left of the heart that once beat so 
 warmly for you ? 
 
 The older writers hardly encourage you to hope 
 for more. ' We all do fade as a leaf,' they say. ' In 
 the morning it is green and groweth up : but in the 
 evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.' 
 Again and again the sad refrain comes. ' The wind 
 I asseth over it, and it is gone; a\id the place thereof 
 
 201 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 shall know it no more.' That is the burden of old- 
 time sorrow. 
 
 But the new light brings new hope. Never after 
 the coming of Jesus do His scribes talk so sadly. 
 James is quite possibly the first of them, a man upon 
 whom the tremendous meaning of the Evangel has 
 scarcely dawned, and who still lives mainly in the Old 
 Testament, yet he says, ' Let the rich man glory in 
 that he is brought low : because as the flower of the 
 grass he shall pass away.' The tone is already 
 changed, and the pensive sadness turned to joy. 
 1 Are ye not much better than they ? ' is the new 
 question, and henceforward the difference between the 
 fate of men and flowers will be chiefly emphasized. 
 4 If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day 
 is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not 
 much more clothe you ? ' And St. Peter in his 
 dogmatic way hammers the Old Testament language 
 till it rings with strange assurance. 'All flesh is 
 grass,' he quotes, ' but the word of the Lord abideth 
 for ever,' and through that word have the saints 
 been begotten again, not of corruptible seed but of 
 incorruptible. 
 
 What wrought this change from question to answer ? 
 It is the more wonderful because it begins when the 
 New Testament begins and long before apostolic 
 minds had fairly thrashed their harvest and garnered 
 
 202 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 the grain of doctrine. Without doubt the fact of the 
 Resurrection was essential to this leap from sadness 
 into joy, yet some previous influence must have 
 prepared the disciples for their apprehension of a fact 
 so startling. We are thrown back to the teaching of 
 Jesus about the goodness of God, in which birds and 
 lilies played so large a part, and from which the 
 disciples learned a beautiful theory which the Resur- 
 rection appearances strengthened into a faith. 
 
 Jesus taught them to turn the argument from the 
 flowers completely round. They are very beautiful, 
 the objects in part of His infinite thought, but ye are 
 more than they, the objects of His whole thought, 
 and He will not care for the less and neglect the 
 greater. If there are the garnishings of the feast 
 there must be a feast. Huxley's admission comes to 
 mind, that the beauty of a flower seems a strong 
 evidence for a beneficent Creator. The heart's 
 reasoning is embodied in Whittier's prayer — 
 
 Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, 
 Leave not its tenant when its walls decay. 
 
 If God centres His love on us and shows it by such 
 exquisite tokens, He will not forsake the work of His 
 own hands. The vast, dim afterwards grows bright 
 with the hope. It will be, as Jowett of Balliol once 
 said, ' either immortality or something better.' We 
 
 203 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 are sometimes troubled by our failure to conceive the 
 unimaginable things that eye hath not seen. Let not 
 your heart be troubled. God speaks no words that 
 cannot be understood at the right time, and as the 
 flowers are intelligible syllables of His love now, so 
 that after-life shall satisfy our simplest desires. 
 
 This reasoning is other than scientific. Science 
 limits itself, and rightly, to the natural explanation 
 of results. It is not as specialists but as men that we 
 take the step of faith and talk of purposes. 
 
 Why does St. James remind the rich man in 
 particular that he shall pass away, when the poor 
 man must do so equally ? It is not due to his 
 habitually stern view of the rich, for this is a calm 
 appeal on the facts. But the rich man is distin- 
 guished by his clothing ; indeed, riches are all a kind 
 of clothing, extraneous, accidental, and transitory. 
 * We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain 
 we can carry nothing out.' There is a humorous old 
 story about a fox who sought to get into a vineyard 
 guarded with palings, and after starving for three 
 days found himself slender enough to squeeze in. 
 But when he had eaten his fill of grapes he was too 
 stout to retire by the only route open, and he must 
 needs starve himself again for three days amid the 
 
 204 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 clusters of enticing fruit ere he escaped as empty as 
 when he entered. So it is with worldly gear. 
 
 And in this the rich man closely resembles a 
 flower, for the flower is all clothing. Its whole 
 meaning and value lies in its transitory beauty. 
 When that is over it has passed away. There is no 
 sadness in the passing. If its beauty and fragrance 
 have given joy to a child or cheered a sufferer or 
 earned a few pence for a hungry girl on the pavement, 
 or carried a sweet message from one lover to another, 
 the flower has served its turn worthily. Let it pass. 
 
 Riches are like that, an adornment of life. If they 
 are made to serve their turn worthily, it is well. Men 
 of property can relieve suffering, find leisure for public 
 service, foster art and letters. It is good to have 
 some stately homes in England so that all homes 
 may be made more beautiful. Capital in the right 
 hands is like sunshine in God's hands, drawing out the 
 bursting fruitfulness of all that is best. What pictures 
 of the genial influence of riches might be drawn, and 
 how often we have to look upon the blighting influence 
 of wealth misused ! Yet it shall pass. 
 
 St. James is not condemning riches here, but he has 
 a keen eye for the true equality of faith. ' The man's 
 the gowd for a' that.' In spiritual religion character 
 and service alone count, and in the task of manhood 
 and godliness the brother of low degree forgets his 
 
 205 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 handicap and the rich loses his worldly advantages. 
 He is a poor soul who measures his worth by his 
 wealth and other men's worth by their want of wealth. 
 
 As life becomes more wholesome we continually 
 learn how little riches affect vital matters. There is, 
 of course, a minimum. * Having food and clothing ' 
 and daily accessories, a small sum in reserve against 
 a rainy day and the means for a reasonable holiday 
 now and then, need we ask more from money? Can 
 it indeed give much more that is worth having ? We 
 must turn to a greater Magician for the things that 
 touch life with charm. The conventional excuse for 
 lucrative ambition is 'the good that money can 
 do.' It can do good, but its possibilities are easily 
 exaggerated. St. James's programme, 'to visit the 
 fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
 himself unspotted from the world,' is singularly In- 
 expensive. Men do good by the trouble they take 
 rather than by the cheques they sign, and the 
 children's verse about ' little acts of kindness ' con- 
 tains the whole secret. We must make life fine in its 
 simplicity. 
 
 All the rest is merely clothing which shall pass 
 away like the flowers. Manhood and joy are the 
 prizes in that great university of life where the rich 
 and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the 
 Maker of them all. We must blend together what is 
 
 206 
 
The Puritan among the Flowers 
 
 useful in the two lines of thought along which the 
 puritan apostle has set us drifting, until the fair 
 ambition of immortality and the love of the better 
 country absolve us from bondage to the seen. We 
 shall then be skilled in the heavenly use of earthly 
 things, and shall find abiding treasure hidden in them 
 like honey in the flowers. 
 
 *>7 
 
XVIII 
 PRIVATION AND RESOLVE 
 
XVIII 
 
 Privation and Resolve 
 
 / will behave myself wisely in a perfect way: 
 
 when wilt Thou come unto me ? 
 
 1 will walk within my house with a perfect heart. 
 
 Ps. ci. 2. 
 
 THIS is a psalm of good resolutions. For the 
 most part its language suits the case of a king 
 or magistrate who holds the power to rule and punish, 
 and feels the importance of seeking wise counsellors 
 and maintaining his dignity. He has a calm, wise, 
 and sensible mind. Being neither kings nor magis- 
 trates ourselves we are apt to pass such a psalm by as 
 one of the less attractive items in the Jewish hymn- 
 book. The good resolutions of a superior person are 
 not exceedingly interesting to others. 
 
 But the psalm is illuminated and redeemed into 
 human sympathy by one great cry, 'O when wilt 
 Thou come unto me?' That is not the voice of a 
 superior person, but of a soul athirst for God. We 
 can in no wise recover the history of the psalm, and 
 are therefore free to interpret it as may be most 
 helpful. Let us regard this, then, as the effort of a 
 
 O 2 211 
 
Privation and Resolve 
 
 man enduring spiritual privation and eclipse to seek 
 the Lord if haply he might feel after Him and find 
 Him. In the hour of desolation and discontent this 
 worshipper takes refuge in a strong and good resolu- 
 tion. Feeling forsaken, he yet determines to be true 
 and faithful until God returns to him in bright 
 wonder. 
 
 Spiritual privation or religious depression is a state 
 of feeling best described as a lack of the conscious 
 presence of God. It is a hard trial to those who love 
 His appearing, for it robs them of their mainstay. 
 The Christian needs to be normally the most far- 
 sighted of men, since he deals with heavenly powers 
 and with purposes which extend beyond this life. 
 He must sow a little seed, very often in other people's 
 fields, and go his way not waiting for the harvest. 
 His best accomplishment will probably be a legacy of 
 a sweet influence which few or none will trouble to 
 trace to its source. Sic nos non nobis is peculiarly his 
 motto. He is a voice crying in the wilderness often- 
 times. His support and his reward are in the secret 
 friendship of God and the whispers of immortal hope. 
 He can endure only 'as seeing Him who is invisible.' 
 To a man so situated, that is a most serious hard- 
 ship which hinders his vision. Religious depression 
 comes upon him like November fog, hiding the stars, 
 aamping the spirits, narrowing the outlook to a mill- 
 
Privation and Resolve 
 
 round of uninspiring tasks. The preacher in such a 
 state feels God's Word unsuggestive and cannot find a 
 text in all the Book. To all sufferers alike it is a time 
 when happy thoughts are flown. The higher exercises 
 of the soul grow difficult : the heavens seem as brass 
 to the voice of prayer. There may even arise within 
 the spirit a distaste for worship and the Scriptures and 
 the sanctuary. It is much if the victim has still 
 grace enough to cry, ' O when wilt Thou come unto 
 me?' 
 
 Most of us have suffered occasionally from this 
 trouble, for it has varied causes. It often marks some 
 stages of recovery after a wilful sin, but it may also 
 come quite apart from definite transgression. Nowa- 
 days, when every one has a smattering of medical 
 knowledge, we are apt to refer such moods altogether 
 to physical disorder. There is some truth in that 
 explanation, but it does not end the matter. The 
 body has power to depress the soul, but the soul has 
 probably greater power to uplift the body. Indiges- 
 tion and east winds help to cause depression and 
 irritability, but they are no more than a partial excuse. 
 A poor-spirited generation would use these ailments 
 in the way that mediaeval folk used the popish indul- 
 gences, as permissions to sin ; but the disciple of Jesus 
 is never released from the law of kindness, nor are 
 religious duties cancelled by a fit of dyspepsia. There 
 
 213 
 
Privation and Resolve 
 
 is, indeed, comparatively little virtue in patience and 
 good temper when all is well within, but these are 
 heroic things when they cost much in prayer and self- 
 conquest. 
 
 There is a nobler explanation, more worthy of man- 
 hood. These times of desertion, whether coming 
 through the body or otherwise, are part of God's 
 educative discipline. Among devotional writers of 
 the old school this experience was labelled with a 
 technical name, 'spiritual privation.' Thomas a 
 Kempis has a chapter ' On the Want of all Comfort/ 
 wherein he writes, ' It is much, and very much, to be 
 able to want both human and divine comfort, and for 
 God's honour to be willing cheerfully to endure 
 banishment of heart, and to seek one's self in nothing, 
 nor to regard one's own merit.' Madame Guyon tells 
 of her great period of privation when the joys of 
 religion were taken from her for nearly seven years. 
 And there are others. For the most part these 
 students of the spiritual life draw the same moral, 
 that the gifts are withheld lest we should love the gifts 
 instead of God. That means, lest we should revel in 
 feelings and forget the true end of religion, character 
 born of faith. True, we long for peace and spiritual 
 comfort, and therefore our hearts are pained till they 
 rest in God. That desire starts us on the homeward 
 journey, and the Father meets us with His gifts. 
 
 214 
 
Privation and Resolve 
 
 Then f6rthwith we may easily fall into a premature 
 content. Being happy, we think our religion perfect. 
 Being happy, we think ourselves sanctified and 
 unselfish. Being happy, we think we can say, ' Thy 
 will be done.' And if the happiness remained un- 
 broken the pleasant illusion would never pass. So 
 God withdraws Himself somewhat from our percep- 
 tion and our soul begins to strive. * We see the 
 ground of our heart,' as Wesley said, and learn that 
 we are still wilful and imperfect. That need not dis- 
 courage. The boy who has dreamed of castles in the 
 air must not lose heart when he finds how hard it is to 
 build a simple home. 
 
 Spiritual privation brings us to our senses and clears 
 away our illusions, especially the fond illusion that the 
 end of religion is peace and gladness alone. We are 
 like children sent on an errand, who choose a fragrant 
 bank and sit there till the slanting afternoon sunlight 
 finds them still playing with the flowers, their errand 
 forgotten. It is good to be like a child, and idleness 
 is not always unprofitable, but God knows when to 
 speak the stern and stirring word. It is not His will 
 that we should leave this world with nothing but a 
 handful of flowery memories and a duty unfulfilled, so 
 He sometimes leads us through the wilderness where 
 there is nothing to distract our attention. Our time 
 often divides into what Swinburne called 
 
 215 
 
Privation and Resolve 
 
 The years that were flowerful and fruitless, 
 The years that were fruitful and dark : 
 
 The hopes that were radiant and rootless, 
 The hopes that were winged to their mark. 
 
 Whatever causes our religious depression, the 
 renewed presence of God will cure it, and while we 
 wait for that, the best remedy is this of the psalmist, 
 a strong moral resolution. * Though I feel little 
 fervour or response, I will pray : though my sluggish 
 heart loves no one eagerly, I will deal kindly, 
 courteously, and generously with all : though I cannot 
 see God, I will worship Him. Whether present or 
 absent I will try to be well-pleasing to Him, and I 
 will behave myself wisely in a perfect way.' 
 
 The unregarded but real and potent heroisms in life 
 lie along that line. Such effort braces the soul, 
 exalts the character into true refinement, and em- 
 phasizes the will. We are responsible for the will, 
 not the feelings. And even if the privation arises 
 from bodily disorder, that remedy avails. There is 
 no better tonic for the physical frame than a strong 
 purpose. Who can forget that Scott kept to his 
 work through pain that made him roar ' like a bull- 
 calf ? It probably saved him from chronic invalidism, 
 while it gave us The Bride of Lammerntoor and 
 Rob Roy. Your work is doubtless more vital than 
 novel-writing, yet you will do well to keep the great 
 
 216 
 
Privation and Resolve 
 
 novelist's temper in that respect. Assert yourselves 
 and use your will for God. It is not godless self- 
 assertion, nor shall it prove futile. He is not really 
 ' in the stern of the ship asleep on a pillow,' but even 
 now working in your heart to prompt the brave 
 words, as He will work to justify them. 
 
 We dread the seasons of privation, talking of good 
 times and bad, but it is a human fashion of speech. 
 They are all God's times and all useful. We make 
 great mistakes with our adjectives. That good 
 mother sees her son attain ^access. He wins a 
 college prize or a civic honour, or he gets into 
 parliament, or he comes back from foreign service 
 with green laurels. Perhaps there are crowds to 
 cheer him. Other women looking on break the 
 tenth commandment in their hearts, coveting a son 
 like hers. Her cup is full : it is her good time : her 
 love never shone so brightly before. No ? Ah, 
 God thinks differently, and those angels who were 
 privileged to strengthen that woman years ago when 
 on weary nights she put sleep aside and came near 
 to utter exhaustion for the sake of a sick child. 
 They listened in early days to many an anxious 
 prayer over that boy's wilfulness, and they brought 
 her grace to correct him wisely. Perhaps they know 
 that the mother-love shone more gloriously in the 
 hour of agony than it can do in success. 
 
 217 
 
Privation and Resolve 
 
 Be not misled by circumstances and feelings and 
 the appearance of things. Our good times are those 
 when we make good speed towards heaven, and we 
 can travel by night as well as day. Says Thomas 
 a Kempis again, ' What great matter is it if at the 
 coming of grace thou be cheerful and devout?' 
 Truly, though we should never choose them and 
 cannot too often bear them, the hard times bring 
 their boon. Such is the example of this man, with 
 his holy resolution in his day of privation. If we 
 have caught the lesson we can henceforward draw a 
 new inspiration from the Life of lives, for we shall 
 understand better how it came to pass that the Son 
 of God completed His availing sacrifice in that lonely 
 moment when He cried, ' My God, my God, why 
 hast Thou forsaken Me?' 
 
 »i8 
 
XIX 
 
 A SEEKER OF THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE 
 
XIX 
 A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 A STUDY IN MOTIVE 
 
 / love them that love me; and those that seek me diligently shall 
 find me. — Pro v. viii. 17. 
 
 Lesson : Acts viii. 26-40. Philip and the Ethiopian. 
 
 MOTIVES lie beyond our making, but not 
 altogether beyond our choosing. Small we 
 may be, like Zaccheus, yet each one stands at times 
 before his earthly future as before a great tree with 
 many branches of purpose, lower and higher, short 
 and far-reaching ; and he can choose which he will 
 climb. I picked up an unpretending little book 
 whose title, Roads to the Cross ', suggests the same 
 truth under another figure. All the motives that are 
 natural to the human heart — self-preservation, desire 
 of joy, hope of reward, fear of disaster, gratitude, love 
 of the beautiful, and so forth — are capable of guiding 
 a man to Christ. It is interesting to study the con- 
 verts in the Acts of the Apostles with a view to 
 noting the varied paths by which they converged 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 toward Him who is the Life indeed ; and the study 
 promises advantage, for every man greatly needs to 
 find and heartily adopt that motive which fits him 
 best and enlists the full strength of his disposition. 
 Perhaps the story of the Ethiopian stranger illus- 
 trates specially the most wide-spread religious motive 
 of our age. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 This man stands out eminently as a seeker after 
 God. As such he inherits many promises. A whole 
 range of assurances and exhortations like that in 
 our text belong to him, and on his side are the 
 examples of nearly all those folk who received 
 Christ's miracles. Jesus hardly ever offered a gift of 
 healing before it was asked for. He desired people 
 to seek, simply because seeking is the healthiest 
 occupation of the human spirit. 
 
 The Ethiopian excels many other characters in 
 this respect. The lame man at the temple-gate 
 asked no more than an alms, and the jailer at 
 Philippi certainly was not thinking at all about 
 salvation when he locked up his prison for the night. 
 Those cases come under another series of scrip- 
 tures — ' I am inquired of by them that asked not 
 for Me ; I am found by them that sought Me not ' : 
 ' The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that 
 which was lost* Theirs are the stories of the lost 
 
 22a 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 coin and the lost sheep. There are, indeed, two 
 great activities in every instance of redemption, that 
 of the seeking God and that of the seeking man ; 
 and where invincible ignorance or ingrained pre- 
 judice or extreme weakness handicaps the man, the 
 activity of God becomes the vastly more striking 
 feature. 
 
 Yet our story undoubtedly shows the nobler and 
 the normal way. We depend absolutely on divine 
 grace for all stirrings of good, but in the strength 
 of the first grace we should become seekers after 
 God, as earnest in our quest as students of science 
 are in theirs. Nothing can be more ignoble and dis- 
 honouring to our human powers or more unseemly 
 and irreverent toward God than the common habit 
 of drifting. Our placid and uneventful modern life 
 disfavours concern about the inward life. Men drift 
 into temptation, and with equal facility they drift into 
 moods of transient penitence. We see the irony of 
 that old situation when Lord Chesterfield, the least 
 worthy nobleman of his generation, kept Johnson, the 
 classic ornament of his generation, sitting vainly in 
 hopes of an interview ; but how horrible is the irony 
 when in sheer thoughtlessness men keep the God of 
 all power and truth and grace waiting for ever in the 
 ante-room of their lives ! If the zest has somewhat 
 departed from modern Christianity it is because so 
 
 223 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 many believers yield to the inertia of middle life and 
 forget their fine responsibility of seeking. 
 
 Let us try to conjecture what made this man a 
 seeker. As minister of state to a dusky Abyssinian 
 queen he lived in a pagan court with little to prompt 
 the higher desires. It was a hard and dangerous 
 situation. More uneasy than the head which wears 
 a crown is that head which comes between the 
 crown and its enemies — and more insecure upon 
 the shoulders which belong to it. This man must 
 consistently please a woman. That is not an im- 
 possible task with the right woman : if she is mother 
 or wife the partisanship of love will bring success. 
 But in his case the woman was a queen, and the 
 queen a barbarian. His position would depend on 
 splendid force of character, the keenest use of his 
 wits, constant attention, and — one would think — 
 unscrupulous fidelity. Anxiety would be his familiar 
 comrade. Life's brightest joys of home and family 
 were denied to this man. How should he com- 
 pensate himself for the wear and tear of nerve and 
 restore his haggard face save by indulgence in eat- 
 ing and drinking and the hot pursuit of wealth and 
 power? Yet a cooling spring of patience flowed in 
 his heart, and he became a seeker after God in spite 
 of all. He found his way to the purest religion on 
 earth, perhaps even became a proselyte to Judaism. 
 
 224 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 He planned and made time for a pilgrimage to 
 Jerusalem. He loved his Greek copy of the Old 
 Testament. He sought among the teachings of the 
 wise and saintly for those secrets which might make 
 him a happy man. 
 
 This Ethiopian stranger had outstripped many 
 whose fortunes in knowledge and training seem 
 more promising. He was in earnest for one thing, 
 and that means much. He had come to believe that 
 life was meant to be a far more beautiful experience 
 than he had hitherto found it. Let us say that in 
 some fashion he believed in the ideal life. That was a 
 very great thought to have grasped, and it offered a 
 mighty motive. 
 
 There is a simple charm about the thought of the 
 Life Beautiful which needs no analysis. Most people 
 know the comfort of being well dressed — dressed in 
 their best. It brings a sensation which strengthens 
 self-respect, promotes good manners and forbearance, 
 and inoculates us with good-will. It cannot be 
 always enjoyed, for then there would soon be no best 
 clothes left. And there is an opposite misery of 
 being ill-clad, sometimes, alas, inevitable to many. 
 But no good reason exists that the inward man 
 should not always be dressed in his best. A bad 
 temper is like a torn garment, a sullied imagination 
 like a bedraggled skirt, an irresolute will like shoes 
 p 225 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 down at heels and dangerous. The spirit so clad 
 knows its own misery. And to be dressed in the 
 dignity of rectitude, in the fine manners of honest 
 good-will, in the grace of helpfulness, brings its own 
 joy. Nor does that cost anything in money — only in 
 pains and thought and prayer. 
 
 Every child believes instinctively in the Life 
 Beautiful. To-morrow is always to bring it. And a 
 man may go on believing in it, with ideas as to its 
 details which ever grow wiser. The child wants sun- 
 shine and play ; the man ' righteousness, peace, and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost.' Men may crave for this who 
 never heard of the Holy Ghost, for it is a matter less 
 of head knowledge than of heart quality. Socrates 
 was a believer seeking full redemption as truly as 
 Wesley, though he could not have defined it so 
 clearly. The seekers form a brotherhood everywhere 
 and in all times. They have dreamed that life may 
 be beautiful beyond telling, satisfying, and sweeter 
 than honey and the honeycomb. They believe that 
 purity and usefulness are attainable. They hold that 
 there is a peace that passeth all understanding, which 
 is possible even to the chancellor of a barbarian 
 queen's exchequer. And this man was with them in 
 such hopes. 
 
 Like him in the parable, the Ethiopian suspected a 
 
 treasure hid in a field. He knew not exactly in which 
 
 226 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 field or in which corner, but he would try all fields, 
 selling all that he had and turning the soil over till it 
 came to light. And you will agree that he was marvel- 
 lously guided, for when Philip found him he had his 
 hand on the secret. He was reading in Isaiah that 
 supreme prophecy which was the inspiration of the 
 apostolic age and gave to the first theologians their 
 key to the mystery of Jesus Christ. The man had 
 discovered the treasure, and only needed Philip's help 
 to open the box. 
 
 So much for earnest seeking. Do we believe that 
 life may be all beautiful and death transfiguration ? 
 Or have we begun to lose faith like the rest ? In 
 these days men's faculty of hope grows very tired, for 
 the world is no longer young, and there be many 
 which say, ' Who shall show us any good ? ' The 
 children may believe, but life gets harder as the 
 years wear on. Few escape the stain of grave sin, 
 and when the fall into the miry clay has taken place 
 they question if it is worth while getting up again. 
 They can no longer offer an unblemished sacrifice. 
 Nerves are jangled, and gentleness, patience, and love 
 are so difficult. Home peace is marred by ill-temper 
 and fretfulness : selfishness gradually gains the mas- 
 tery, and life is all on the seamy side. The soul's 
 garments are slovenly and frayed. Old dreams fade, 
 and men leave off hoping for much and aiming high. 
 
 p 2 227 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 Instead of a treasure found there is a talent buried. 
 Poor pleasures and sordid comforts offer some refuge. 
 The real trouble with England is that so many cease 
 to believe that life can be made fair. And yet every 
 man and woman in England once learned this child's 
 verse, ' I love them that love me ; and those that seek 
 me diligently shall find me.' 
 
 If we would but grasp the promise with confidence ! 
 1 Every one that asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh 
 findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.' 
 The Ethiopian found just when he was past hope. 
 He had gone up to Jerusalem to worship. Doubtless 
 that journey, long projected and arranged for with 
 infinite pains, was the crowning effort of his search. 
 He sought Jerusalem as the very fountain-head of 
 truth. But when at length he trod the temple-courts 
 there was no voice nor any that answered. The voice 
 of the scribe and the rabbi sounded like a dead 
 language. He found no open vision in the schools ot 
 orthodoxy. All was dry as a museum. So he turned 
 away with a disappointed heart and went down to the 
 desert. Surely no hope could lie there. He was near 
 despair, yet he read the old words as he went, for — 
 glory be to God ! — the habit of seeking once acquired 
 is hard to kill. And now appears the other truth, of 
 the seeking Saviour — or the Saviour who does not 
 need to seek because He has never lost. God had 
 
 228 
 
A Seeker of the Beautiful Life 
 
 prepared to fulfil His promise. In the desert, the 
 utterly unlikely place, all things were ready — the 
 teacher, the living voice, the Spirit of faith, the con- 
 scious salvation, even the baptismal font of a wayside 
 pool. 
 
 It is a token for you who would fain seek. Draw 
 near to God, make some new surrender, put your need 
 into a prayer, and He will draw near to you. When 
 perhaps you feel least strong and least attractive, 
 men shall see in you the beautiful life beginning; and 
 when your way seems most barren and beset with 
 difficulties, suddenly ' the wilderness and the solitary 
 place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and 
 blossom as the rose' because God makes you know 
 that He has not forgotten either His pledges or His 
 child 
 
 **9 
 
XX 
 
 AMBITION 
 
XX 
 
 Ambition 
 
 A STUDY IN MOTIVE 
 
 Give me also this potver, that upon whomsoever I lay my hands, he 
 may receive the Holy Ghost. — ACTS viii. 19. 
 
 IT is impossible to feel any deep interest in Simon 
 the discredited sorcerer. Such traffickers in 
 magic and spells alienate ordinary human sympathy 
 while pretending to superhuman powers. Weak 
 minds fear them and strong minds despise them, but 
 no one loves them. We need spend no time upon 
 Simon except to note two facts in the story which 
 lead up to our subject — the love of power and its 
 place in religious experience. 
 
 The first fact to observe is the road by which 
 Simon came, or, in other words, the motive which 
 inspired him. The love of power over other minds 
 has always been a ruling passion with professors of 
 the black arts — medicine men, devil-priests, witches, 
 Mother Shiptons and the like — and Simon was absorbed 
 in the pursuit. When hopelessly out-rivalled by 
 
 233 
 
Ambition 
 
 Philip he Relieved' — which probably means that he 
 believed only in the superior strength of Philip's 
 familiar spirit. Seeing that the hope of his gains was 
 gone, and being more politic than the charlatans of 
 Philippi, Simon gat him at once to the winning side 
 and received baptism. In due course he made this 
 absurd proposal to St. Peter for the purchase of the 
 Holy Ghost, as though the Spirit's might could be 
 separated from the presence and service of God and 
 given to a man. The instinct of the simplest believer 
 disrelishes his words and conduct, and we need 
 neither the apostle's statement nor the bulky 
 traditions of the Fathers to prove that his heart was 
 not right. ' The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,' 
 and Simon's spirit was as proud as it was supple. * I 
 am no more worthy . . . make me as one of thy hired 
 servants' — thus the penitents have ever pleaded ; and 
 Simon asked only for mastery. He was not a convert, 
 and he never reached the Cross, but that does not 
 prove his road to have been wholly wrong. 
 
 The second fact to notice is the reception he met 
 with. St. Peter rebuked him sternly and unsparingly, 
 but did not close the door of hope. We should be 
 apt to say that personal ambition is quite a wrong 
 road and can lead no man to Christ, but the apostle 
 would not say so. Peter rebuked Simon not so much 
 because he loved power as because his self-centred 
 
 234 
 
Ambition 
 
 nature was entirely unfit to be entrusted with power. 
 Let him go. 
 
 And as Simon goes he leaves us something to muse 
 over. This love of power, so natural to some minds 
 and so incomprehensible to others, what is its place 
 and its value ? It is the characteristic motive of the 
 strong, and a substantial fact to be reckoned with : 
 what answer does Christ's religion make to it ? 
 
 The question is worth asking. To treat the passion 
 merely as an evil to be repressed and stamped out is 
 quite unsatisfactory. A thoughtful woman in my 
 hearing passed the criticism on the influence of the 
 little church where she worshipped, that while it 
 gathered in the feebler and more docile minds, it 
 altogether failed to win men of stronger personality. 
 That is a common result, and perhaps only partly due 
 to the Naaman-like pride of the strong men them- 
 selves. We need earnest thought here that our 
 ministry be not blamed. It is cruel to preach the 
 Lord's claim so rigorously that the weak are dis- 
 heartened, but it is an even more disastrous folly to 
 preach a religion so repressive, so prudential, and so 
 tame that it seems to an active and enterprising man 
 smaller than his own mind. The end of faith is not 
 merely to be comforted but to achieve. 
 
 In attempting to answer the question it must be 
 remembered that the love of power is a natural gift, 
 
 235 
 
Ambition 
 
 and therefore neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy 
 at first. Its presence or absence affects a man's moral 
 station, but does not decide his moral character. We 
 admire the build of an athlete, but we do not praise 
 him for his physical proportions. In any group ot 
 school-boys one will be active, daring, never still, a 
 moving spirit in mischief, while the rest appear more 
 or less unoriginal, easy-going, and content to follow. 
 No fortune-teller is needed to identify the born 
 leader with his instinct for power. Nature shows her- 
 self merciful in that she turns out a boy of that kind 
 only occasionally : otherwise life would be harder 
 than it is. Yet all admire those large-built souls, and 
 we feel a gentle contempt for the milder class even 
 though we belong to it. The charm of a page ol 
 history centres in the doings of the strong, and the 
 interest of the daily newspaper depends on the few 
 men whom the eyes of England are watching. 
 Strength is a glorious heritage, not indeed to be 
 commended or condemned in itself, but making for 
 great opportunity. It does not solve the problem of 
 life, but it renders that problem breathlessly interest- 
 ing. Will the love of power issue in a Napoleon or a 
 Cromwell, an empire-building Caesar or a murderous 
 Macbeth ? Without that passion the race would 
 have no leaders. Your favourite politician is doubt- 
 less sincere in saying that he desires office for the sake 
 
 236 
 
Ambition 
 
 of carrying out his excellent policy ; nevertheless he 
 dearly likes the box-seat, and would not face the toil 
 and care did he lack ambition. The fact is in no way 
 dishonourable : our judgement simply waits suspended 
 till we know whether he drives toward the public good 
 or toward national disaster. 
 
 Ambition in the mind may be consecrated in the 
 highest service and transfigured. How much sheer 
 love of power went to make St. Paul or Francis 
 of Assisi ? Under no circumstances could such men 
 act a subordinate part. One who devotes himself to 
 Christ does not thereby lose the instinct, but finds it 
 made to subserve the greater glory of God. The 
 proudest boy I knew at school is now a mission- 
 ary of the doughtiest kind. On the other hand, when 
 ambition is absent there remains so much less to 
 consecrate. And if some one says that by way of 
 compensation the unambitious soul is safer, I take 
 leave to doubt even that statement, for it is amon^ 
 small craft that most shipwrecks happen, while the 
 big liners generally come safe to port. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, the love of power often acts 
 as a contributory motive towards good, though this 
 result is not inevitable. The first disciples were 
 strongly allured by it, and on this occasion St. Peter, 
 who had done his share of boasting and brave 
 dreaming and found that it all ended in a clearer 
 
 237 
 
Ambition 
 
 relation to the Saviour, will say no word to repress 
 a passion which may be greatly blessed. The motive 
 acts for good differently in the lowly and the 
 ambitious. 
 
 Docile minds need to acquire ambition and learn 
 how to utter the prayer, ' Give me also this power.' 
 The Church suffers because too many of her children 
 conform to the type of Philip the apostle. According 
 to tradition it was he who said, * Suffer me first to go 
 and bid them farewell that are at my house/ and who 
 received the stern answer, ' No man, having put his 
 hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the 
 kingdom of God.' More certainly it was Philip who 
 said, 'Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not 
 sufficient.' A man of hesitation and flaccid will, quick 
 to see the difficulties, dwelling too much on the 
 strength in his opponent's case, unable to make up his 
 own mind, lacking tone and needing iron in his blood, 
 such was Philip by constitution. Personalities like 
 his are scared out of their ambitions by want of 
 confidence : they reason when they should act, and 
 love the easy neutral attitude ; instead of lights in the 
 world they become mirrors to reflect other men's 
 convictions, ' tossed about by every wind of doctrine ' 
 as another figure of speech puts it. Small craft are 
 they, and in much danger. Their temptations come 
 along the line of self-contempt and self-indulgence ; 
 
 218 
 
Ambition 
 
 and if self-importance is disagreeable, self-contempt 
 trips folk sooner into the pit. Well might Philip cry, 
 1 Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.' It 
 was the cry of self-preservation. Strong-willed men 
 can generally make a success in this world without 
 religion, whatever happens to them hereafter, but men 
 like Philip cannot even find an earthly career without 
 the redeeming guidance of God. 
 
 A more beautiful instance of the prayer for power 
 was when Salome asked Jesus that her two sons 
 might sit ' the one on Thy right hand and the other on 
 Thy left in Thy Kingdom.' Wise mother, who knew 
 the value of a high destiny, and would lift her sons on 
 the wings of her ambition ! She would save them 
 from Philip's peril. And most tenderly did Jesus 
 answer her, not refusing her petition, but pointing out 
 the pathway of service which leads to the highest 
 seats. It is the true way. Every man is called 'to 
 serve the present age' with effective goodness, and the 
 desire of power, conceived under a sense of responsi- 
 bility in those who have it not by nature, points to 
 Christ as the Master who finds a place and a career 
 for all who follow Him. 
 
 Every man has some things to learn as a life-lesson, 
 and other things to practise which need little or no 
 learning ; and with different men different virtues fall 
 into these two classes. The docile and diffident, for 
 
 239 
 
Ambition 
 
 example, must be learning confidence and vigour all 
 their lives. They will not easily become leaders of 
 men on this earth, but they maybe excellent servants 
 of great causes, finding a duty which fills the years 
 with meaning and a reward which crowns life with 
 glory. That needs power. I have just read again in 
 Lockhart the epitaph on Tom Purdie the poacher 
 whom 'the Sherra' took into his household. 'In 
 grateful remembrance of the faithful and attached 
 services of twenty-two years, and in sorrow for the 
 loss of a humble but sincere friend, this stone was 
 erected by Sir Walter Scott, Bart, of Abbotsford.' 
 There is just a touch of seigneurial condescension in 
 the inscription, and the ' Bart.' sounds rather tre- 
 mendous when death has found the least common 
 denominator, yet Scott loved to glorify faithful 
 servants. But there will be no condescension in 
 the Master towards those servants concerning whom 
 He has promised — ' he shall gird himself, and make 
 them sit down to meat, and shall come and serve 
 them.' Neither will there be any need for the second 
 clause about the loss of a humble friend. 
 
 There is a lesson about ambition for those also who 
 have it abundantly in their hearts. Their danger is 
 that of doing without God. 
 
 On one occasion the Twelve put up to Christ the 
 very proper-sounding prayer, ' Increase our faith.' 
 
 240 
 
Ambition 
 
 He detected the ambition behind the request, and met 
 it guardedly, still not repressing the desire. In effect 
 His answer was as follows. ' You shall have power — 
 power sufficient to move mountains and trees — but 
 not for yourselves. Ye are servants, and your care 
 must be for duty. Like the tired but uncomplaining 
 ploughman, you must undertake the extra task, 
 and in the end remember still that you are servants.' 
 Jesus always met ambition with the lesson of service. 
 In all the kingdom of righteousness there is no such 
 thing as irresponsible power. This is the dividing- 
 point between right and wrong ambition. If a man 
 lusts after authority for the satisfying of his own pride, 
 he is an enemy to Christ and to order. 
 
 No one understands the right basis of power better 
 than a soldier. The centurion said, ' I also am a man 
 under authority, having soldiers under me.' Accord- 
 ing to Canon Carnegie of Birmingham the man knew 
 that his own authority was effective because it ex- 
 pressed the will of Caesar, and he conceived the author- 
 ity of Jesus invincible because He stood for the highest 
 Will. And our Lord's eyes flashed with pleasure at 
 the comparison, because He always insisted, ' I came 
 not to do Mine own will.' That is legitimate power. 
 St. Paul exhorted those who bore the coveted name 
 of ' master ' — ' Render unto your servants that which 
 is just and equal, knowing that your Master is in 
 Q 441 
 
Ambition 
 
 heaven.' Modern life has no greater authority than 
 the medical man. He is instantly obeyed because he 
 speaks in the name of sound and vital knowledge. 
 
 Seek power, then. The world is thronged with 
 weaklings, and a hundred merciful reforms are waiting 
 for mighty men to carry them out. But do not play 
 your own game to the ruin of good causes. Prince 
 Rupert is remembered as a brilliant adventurer who 
 dashed to pieces a whole wing of the parliamentary 
 army in many a battle. He played his own game, 
 pursuing flying foemen for miles and then returning 
 to find the day lost by his own party. He was an 
 adventurer but not a soldier, and his strength was put 
 forth in vain. Dr. Martineau states the lesson in his 
 own great words. ' Only he who visibly forgets him- 
 self and becomes the organ of a law he did not make 
 and cannot alter, whose will is firm because.it is not 
 his own but is backed by a divine adamant which 
 cannot yield, can win a loyal and glad obedience.' 
 
 *4* 
 
XXI 
 
 •THE LITTLE TOUCH • 
 
 Q» 
 
I 
 
 XXI 
 
 'The Little Touch' 
 
 Concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia. — 2 COR. i. 8. 
 
 T is clear that somewhere between his two letters 
 to Corinth, and well on in his middle age, St. 
 Paul looked death in the face. A great peril tried 
 his seasoned nerves and daunted his brave heart. 
 The language points to bodily illness, but other 
 things have been suggested, such as a dangerous sea 
 voyage, a malicious plot, or the fierce riot at Ephesus 
 engineered by Demetrius. Perhaps several of these 
 evils combined together and led up to the almost 
 fatal illness, so making these months the sorest 
 passage of the apostle's experience — his Straits of 
 Magellan through which he struggled into the Ocean 
 of Peace. It was an epoch-making crisis and 
 changed the key of all his music thenceforward. He 
 came out of it not exactly ' a sadder and a wiser 
 man,' for that is a very worldly sort of outcome, but 
 wiser certainly, and endowed with the diffusive and 
 abiding joy of closer fellowship with the risen Christ. 
 
 It is good that the details are unknown, for now 
 245 
 
'The Little Touch $ 
 
 every man can take home the example and lesson 
 which otherwise we might limit to those who suffer 
 after the similitude of St. Paul. The form of the 
 trouble matters nothing : its place in life is every- 
 thing. Something corresponding to it enters every 
 mature experience. There is a remarkable sameness 
 in human lives as there is in human bodies. Features 
 and complexion vary, but the skeleton of the frame 
 or the ground plan of the career are much alike in all 
 cases. Every one is born, every one dies, and some- 
 where along the earthly course every one can point to 
 
 1 the affliction which befell us in .' Fill that blank 
 
 with the place-name that means most to you. It will 
 be a sick-chamber where you lay and learned strange 
 lessons, or a graveside where you buried a joy, or a 
 railway platform where you bade a long farewell, or a 
 scene in the world's arena where you met a bad 
 defeat. It may be anything in the nature of affliction. 
 But as you read over those words, ' When I became 
 a man I put away childish things/ that name fixes 
 their date in your life. 
 
 Browning has an inconspicuous line in A Gram- 
 marian 's Funeral upon which all that is heroic in that 
 poem turns. He wastes but few words on the Gram- 
 marian's early years. 
 
 juong he lived nameless : how should spring take note 
 
 Winter would follow? 
 
 246 
 
'The Little Touch' 
 
 It was a careless, easy, pleasure-loving, and undistin- 
 guished time. 
 
 Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone ! 
 
 We are not told what it was. Somewhere in the 
 thirties or the forties it came, that little touch, perhaps 
 a touch of rheumatism, an unwonted flagging of the 
 heart after exertion, a loss of money, a humiliating 
 defeat, a disappointment in love like that of old 
 Teufelsdrockh. And it made the difference. He 
 * left play for work, and grappled with the world,' and 
 the price of the passing hour rose to an eternal value 
 in his soul's market. St. Paul needed no such com- 
 plete transformation as that, yet his affliction wrought 
 in the same direction : it was the little touch which, 
 like the angel's touch on Jacob's thigh, at once crippled 
 and ennobled. 
 
 He indicates the effects which he felt and the results 
 which he gained. 'We ourselves have had the 
 answer of death within ourselves, that we should not 
 trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.' 
 The blessing may be outlined in three phrases — a 
 deepened trust in God, a larger measure of love, and a 
 finer qualification for service. 
 
 I. The first step is the home-coming of the heart, 
 even as it is written, 'Return unto thy rest, O my 
 soul.' Paul had looked death closely between the 
 
 247 
 
'The Little Touch' 
 
 eyes ; he had felt the familiar natural foundations 
 shake beneath his feet, and he must hasten to the 
 eternal foundations of the mercy and wisdom which 
 cannot be shaken. That compulsion comes to all 
 who are being saved. Youth is buoyant and confident, 
 easy-going because it takes to-morrow always for 
 granted, and rather intolerant of weaker folk because 
 it feels so strong. But the first affliction changes all 
 that. Students of the great apostle have pointed 
 out the manifest change which crept into his writings 
 as a consequence. Up to this time he had held an 
 unquestioning belief that he should live to see the 
 glorious return of Christ. He wrote to the bereaved 
 Thessalonians about their dead friends gravely and 
 compassionately, but not as if death were a personal 
 problem for himself. ' Then we that are alive, that 
 are left, shall together with them be caught up in the 
 clouds.' And to the Corinthians he wrote, ' The dead 
 shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.' 
 He will never write in that way again. Henceforward 
 his talk will be of the frail earthen vessels which hold 
 the heavenly treasure and of the dying of Jesus 
 repeated daily in his body. Ringed round with 
 accident as he is, and compacted of weakest material, 
 how soon the silver cord may be loosed ! At any 
 hour God may bid him drop the splendid plans and 
 leave the unfinished task. 
 
 248 
 
'The Little Touch' 
 
 It is the way of affliction thus ruthlessly to inter- 
 rupt. I remember a reading competition at school in 
 which each competitor had to mount the desk in turn 
 and read two or three fragments of prose and poetry, 
 and I recall my sense of grievance at the judge's 
 abruptness. It seemed that no sooner was the young 
 reader warming to his work, perhaps just getting into 
 the swing of Chatham's eloquence on the American 
 War, than that authoritative voice would cut across 
 the middle of a sentence with a short — ' Turn to page 
 sixty-seven,' or 'You can stand down/ The judge 
 had learned what he wished to know of the boy's 
 quality. God's interest is not so much in the well- 
 rounded sentence or the splendid plan as in the heart 
 which labours at these. He has often gained His 
 point before we have made ours. With all our 
 wisdom we ever need a capacity for blind trust and 
 simple obedience, and the affliction tests us in 
 this. 
 
 When it comes we surely do well to hasten towards 
 the eternal foundations. Usually we temporize, and 
 cheer ourselves and one another with the assurance, 
 1 We shall get better : the old times will come back.' 
 Is this always wise ? Would it not be truer wisdom 
 sometimes to look forward, facing what we call ' the 
 Worst' — the decline and fall of our little empire 
 which is so inevitable sooner or later — and so see our 
 
 249 
 
'The Little Touch* 
 
 way to the unimagined Best which lies in the will of 
 ' God which raiseth the dead ' ? This transition is 
 the essence of salvation. From the natural to the 
 spiritual, from the fitful to the permanent, from the 
 shifting sand to the enduring rock, from the earthly 
 Galilee to the heavenly Jerusalem, a man's care and 
 desire and trust must pass. And nothing less potent 
 than the touch of affliction can promote that passage 
 and urge us to that attainment. An old poet's words 
 are true in all degrees and at every stage of ex- 
 perience — 
 
 The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 
 
 Lets in new light through chinks that time has made ; 
 
 Stronger by weakness, wiser men become 
 
 As they draw near to their eternal home. 
 
 Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, 
 
 Who stand upon the threshold of the new. 
 
 II. The second step follows the first naturally. 
 When we trust more we love more ; and the love of 
 God is the appointed gladness for which the human 
 spirit was created. 
 
 It is really necessary to insist that the effect of 
 affliction is not a mournful subject. Youth is apt to 
 dismiss with a moment's hearty commiseration the 
 man of disappointment, the man of the heavy handi- 
 cap, who must, as the saying is, play second fiddle 
 
 250 
 
'The Little Touch' 
 
 for the future and go softly all his days. Miss Anne 
 Bronte's pathetic lines — 
 
 I hoped that with the brave and strong 
 My portioned task should lie — 
 
 will not be often sung, and they should not be, for 
 they belong absolutely to the circumstances in which 
 they were written. Sanguine and eager minds hear 
 them as a passing-bell. Yet they prove that there 
 may be peace in a passing-bell and faith's victory in 
 the extreme of weakness. These things would be 
 mournful if the vivid lower world were all — but it is 
 so far from being all. The blows of misfortune often 
 break the cage and liberate a whole bevy of the 
 singing birds of joy. 
 
 This is true for the present hour. How often the 
 man who perforce walks much on the shadowy verge 
 finds a delicate charm in the flickering happinesses of 
 earth, in the love of children, in the works of the 
 mind and the things of nature, which he never found 
 there before the hint of loss was given. Renan once 
 said in his bright French way, * Of what do you 
 complain ? That you are not immortal here below ? 
 Of all the flowers (and what a heaven of beauty there 
 is in a flower ! ) only one is entirely without beauty, 
 and it is that which we call an immortelle! We are 
 often happiest in the twilight. 
 
 251 
 
'The Little Touch' 
 
 Much more is this true of the present as the 
 threshold of the infinite, hopeful future. The old 
 Methodists sang with an abandonment of enthusiasm 
 about 
 
 A rest where pure enjoyment reigns 
 And Thou art loved alone. 
 
 We cannot make ourselves love God utterly, but He 
 can woo and win our hearts into that fullness of 
 joy, and the little touch is a master-touch in His 
 tender work. Psychologists have found a natural age 
 for conversion : there is a natural age also for the 
 second blessing of perfect love — when the shadows 
 have made us wise. 
 
 III. Finally, when we love best we serve best. St. 
 Paul's great words came from him after this dark 
 hour. True, the chapter on Love was written before 
 it, yet that wonderful song seems to me to need one 
 little touch to bring it quite home. Is it not just 
 slightly academical, a masterly analysis that lacks the 
 poignancy of appeal which we find in this epistle and 
 his Romans ? ' I take pleasure in weaknesses, in 
 injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, 
 for Christ's sake : for when I am weak, then am I 
 strong.' The man who can say that can grip other 
 hearts. St. Paul learned it in Asia. It is a feature 
 of that maturity which affliction brings. 
 
 252 
 
'The Little Touch ' 
 
 A recent writer on the question of women's suffrage, 
 contrasting the possibilities of a career for men and 
 women respectively, dropped the remark — ■ A man 
 at forty finds a cause to live for, and is saved by it.' 
 Whatever might be its value in the writer's argument, 
 that remark is true in itself. In youth there is harm- 
 less vanity and self-seeking and care for appearances. 
 These faults are innocent enough and inevitable at 
 the beginning, but they hinder and limit service, and 
 in middle life under the touch of which we are think- 
 ing they fall from the way-worn man. In the hour of 
 deepened feeling personal interest dies a natural 
 death and the heart grows softer. The westering sun 
 shines on the face, and ' its first sweet evening yellow ' 
 brings out the mystic meaning of common things. 
 The man is less full of fight, more disposed for love 
 and the healing of quarrels. ' Blessed are the peace- 
 makers ' is a step in the golden ladder which it takes 
 time to reach. It may be said that the Christian 
 pilgrim is not unlike a pedestrian whose journey lies 
 over the watershed of a great country. For half the 
 way he must climb, upheld by young energy and high 
 spirit. And the rivers are flowing towards him. He 
 is a receiver of teaching and example and influence 
 won by others at much cost. But he is climbing 
 hopemlly towards the source of these. By and by he 
 crosses the summit and begins to descend. It is 
 
 253 
 
'The Little Touch' 
 
 easier going now and the views are wider. The end 
 may not come for a long while, but it can sometimes be 
 foreseen. And the rivers are flowing from him. He 
 is a giver now, and because the night cometh he must 
 hasten to give all that is in his heart before the hour 
 when no man can work. So we are gently lured into 
 the larger service. 
 
 Perhaps the clue to the mysterious reason of 
 affliction lies most often in its effect upon service. 
 The ancient explanation put forward by the Greek 
 poets was that it came from the jealousy of the gods, 
 who hated to see a man too much uplifted. Affliction 
 was apt, therefore, to fall in the moment of success as 
 a whimsical punishment upon the hero ; and one 
 Roman general after a victorious campaign went in 
 fear of this counter-stroke from heaven until he learned 
 that his two brave sons were dead and so felt that he 
 knew the worst. The fact that affliction and prosper- 
 ity often come close together is very likely true, but 
 the theory by which they tried to explain that fact is 
 superstitious and false. When I read that a modern 
 statesman in the very crisis of success is called away 
 to the death-bed of a beloved child and afterwards con- 
 fesses that in spite of all his fame he was at that time 
 the saddest man in England, I do not think about the 
 jealousy of the gods. I remember that richer word — 
 1 Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, He purgeth it 
 
 2 54 
 
'The Little Touch' 
 
 that it may bring forth more fruit.' In the strength 
 of that hope we shall at last be able to give our God 
 the lovely name that St. Paul gives Him in this 
 chapter — ' the Father of mercies and the God of all 
 comfort* 
 
 *55 
 
THE MINISTER AND HIS WORK 
 
 THIS ELTON MARK, D.Lit. 
 
 The Pedagogics of Preaching 
 
 A Short Essay in Practical Homiletics. Net %0z. 
 
 Much has been done for the Teacher in showing him 
 the practical application in his work of the findings of the 
 new Psychology, but comparatively little has been done in 
 the field of "Psychology and Preaching." This scholarly and 
 yet popular book applies to the art of preaching methods 
 which have long been followed in the training of teachers. 
 
 FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, P.P. 
 
 The Minister and The Spiritual Life 
 
 Yale Lectures on Preaching for 1911. Net $1.25. 
 
 Among the phases of this vital subject treated by the 
 pastor of The Central Church, Chicago, are: The Spiritual 
 L,ife and Its Expression in and Through Ministering; The 
 Spiritual Life in View of Changes in Philosophical and 
 Theological View-Points; The Spiritual Life in Its Rela- 
 tion to Truth and Orthodoxy; The Spiritual Life and 
 Present Social Problems, etc. 
 
 PROF. A. T. ROBERTSON, P.P. 
 
 The Glory of the Ministry 
 
 Paul's Exultation in Preaching. Cloth, net $1.25 
 
 Rev. F. B. Meyer says: # "I think it is the best of al 
 your many books and that is saying a good deal. Its il 
 luminating references to the Greek text, its graphic por 
 traiture of the great Apostle, its allusions to recent liter 
 ature and current events, its pointed and helpful instruc 
 tions to the ministry combine to give it very special value.'' 
 
 SAMUEL CHARLES BLACK, P.P. 
 
 Building a Working Church 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 Every pastor or church officer no matter how successful 
 he may be, will find practical, vital suggestions for strength- 
 ening some weak place in his present organization. The au- 
 thor makes every chapter bear directly upon some specific 
 phase of the church building problem. 
 
 WILLIAM E. BARTON, P. D . 
 
 Rules of Order for Religious Assemblies 
 
 i8mo, cloth, net 50c. 
 
 This work is entirely undenominational and will be 
 found adapted to use in any religious assembly whether 
 church, council, association or convention. 
 
ESSAYS, ADDRESSES, Etc. 
 
 HENRY W. CLARK 
 
 Laws of the Inner Kingdom 
 
 t ismo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 f A series of discriminating and profitable discussion! of 
 the laws, operative in spiritual life, by author of "The 
 Philosophy of Christian Experience." Under Mr._ Clark's 
 treatment the laws of spiritual life become as distinct and 
 real as the laws of physics or biology. At the same time 
 there is nothing fanciful or forced in these discussions. It 
 there is nothing fanciful or forced in these discussions. 
 
 DOREMUS SCUPPER 
 
 The Passion for Reality- 
 Net 50c. 
 
 A discussion of the growing demand for sincerity in 
 every walk of life, evidencing broad culture and keen insight 
 on the writer's part. His quotations show extended reading 
 and his observations wide experience. It is primarily a 
 young man's book and deals with the practical rather than 
 the theoretical aspect of all questions. 
 
 PERCY C. AINS WORTH 
 
 The Pilgrim Church and Other Sermons 
 
 Cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 Sir Robertson Nicoll says: "E)very page and almost 
 every sentence is striking. It is above all forthright, simple 
 and thrusting. Mr. Ainsworth's sermons have an extraord- 
 inary reality. They are sagacious and often beautiful, but 
 they are more than that. They have each a central thought 
 unfolding itself and blossoming out into striking and often 
 profound reflections. He has seized, for example, the great 
 lessons of such books as "Wilhelm Meister," that we often 
 imagine we have come to the end of the book when we have 
 really come to the end of the first chapter The ser- 
 mons are saturated with the true evangelical spirit. This is 
 a book which must inevitably find its way into the hands 
 of every preacher worthy of the name and multitudes 
 who are not preachers will find in it the help that they 
 need. It is truly a golden book." 
 
 DEVOTIONAL STUDY 
 
 What Jesus Said 
 
 The Great Discourse of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 We have red letter Bibles with the words of Christ so 
 indicated; we have also unified Gospels giving a harmonious 
 record of all the message of the four Gospels; but here we 
 have the words or sayings of Jesus compiled topically, with- 
 out extraneous matter, so that the reader finds at a glance 
 all that Jesus said upon any given subject — one is surprised 
 to find how extended and varied are the themes treated. 
 The book meets a distinct want. 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
 1012 01246 9492 
 
 
 Date Due 
 
 Mr 4 '40 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 w*'iii#lS» IM «" rt **i 
 
 >f&&K$tit«lHt 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <f)