liiornia 
 
 ional 
 
 ility
 
 SMALL BOOKS ON GREAT 
 SUBJECTS. 
 
 Pott 8tio, in Buckram Cloth, price Is. 6d. each. 
 
 1. Words by the Wayside. By 
 
 GEORGE MATHESON, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.E., 
 Minister of the Parish of St. Bernard's, 
 Edinburgh. [Second .Edition. 
 
 2. Faith the beginning, Self-sur- 
 
 render the fulfilment, of the 
 Spiritual Life. By JAMES MAR- 
 TINEAU, D.D., D.C.L., Author of "En- 
 deavours after a Christian Life," " Hours 
 of Thought," &c. [Second Edition. 
 
 3. Reconsiderations and Reinforce- 
 
 ments. By J. M. WHITON, Ph.D., 
 Author of "Beyond the Shadow," &c. 
 
 4. Mischievous Goodness, AND OTHER 
 
 PAPERS. By CHARLES A. BERRY, D.D. 
 
 5. The Jealousy of God, AND OTHER 
 
 PAPERS. By JOHN PULSFORD, D.D., Author 
 of "Quiet Hours," &c. 
 
 6. How to Become like Christ, AND 
 
 OTHER PAPERS. By MARCUS DODS, D.D. 
 
 [Second Edition. 
 
 7. Character through Inspiration, 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS. By T. T. HUNGER, 
 D.D., Author of "The Freedom of Faith," 
 "The Appeal to Life," &c. 
 
 8. Chapters in the Christian Life. 
 
 By the Ven. W. M. SINCLAIR, D.D., Arch- 
 deacon of London. 
 
 9. The Angels of God, AND OTHER 
 
 PAPERS. By JOHN HUNTER, D.D. 
 
 10. The Conquered World, AND OTHER 
 
 PAPERS. By E. F. HORTON, M.A., D.D. 
 
 11. The Making of an Apostle. By E. 
 
 J. CAMPBELL, of Brighton. 
 
 12. The Ship of the Soul, AND OTHER 
 PAPERS. By STOPFORD A. BBOOKE, M.A.
 
 Small Books on Great Subjects. XII. 
 
 THE SHIP OF THE SOUL. 
 
 By STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A.
 
 THE SHIP OP THE SOUL, 
 
 x' 
 
 And Other Papers. 
 
 By Stopford A. Brooke, M.A. 
 
 LONDON: JAMES CLARKE & CO., 
 13 & 14, Fleet Street. 1898.
 
 First Edition, November, 1898.
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Ship of the Soul .,. ... 1 
 
 The Triumph over Life ... ... 16 
 
 The Christian in the World ... 31 
 
 The Risen Life 47 
 
 The Calming of the Storm ... 60 
 
 God's Education of Man ... ... 82 
 
 Faithfulness until Death , 95
 
 The Ship of the Soul. 
 
 " Be sober, be vigilant." 
 
 WE are tVnff-- firnt flay of the 
 year like a fleet of ships about 
 to set sail on a new voyage. 
 As yet we lie in harbour, making 
 ready for the ocean- way, and 
 a motley group we are. Some 
 are great ships, some small ; some 
 are newly launched, and some 
 have borne for many years the 
 winds and dangers of the deep 
 seas of life. Some know the 
 great water-paths, and others 
 have no experience. But one and 
 all seek happiness ; though what 
 the happiness is, and of what 
 kind, varies as varies the character 
 and the past of the captain of each 
 ship. Each has the Happy Isles 
 before him, and the aim to reach 
 their shore. It is an undying 
 
 l
 
 2 THE SHIP OF THE SOUL. 
 
 hope ; and those who have most 
 often made in vain the voyage are 
 as eager in their hearts nay, it 
 may be, more eager than those who 
 set sail for the first time to seek 
 their paradise. For, save in those 
 who refuse, through inglorious 
 ease, to strive any more with 
 danger and towards unknown 
 lands, the ideal does not die. No 
 age can wither the love of the 
 perfect, no experience of failure 
 dash its effort ; it looks upward 
 with a youthful face, even in the 
 arms of death. 
 
 And to-day we begin. The sails 
 are spread ; the wind blows freshly 
 from the land ; we lift the anchor, 
 and one by one round the pier, 
 and before us is the wide and 
 tumbling sea. And from silent 
 witnesses, encompassing us like a 
 cloud, great cheer arises, wishing 
 us good fortune ; but good fortune 
 won by heroic endurance, heroic 
 act, and by an heroic heart ; wish- 
 ing us the strength of God our
 
 THE SHIP OP THE SOUL. O 
 
 Father, and the grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ; but the strength 
 made ours by faith and prayer and 
 watchfulness ; by noble resistance 
 to the storms of evil and the 
 craft of sloth ; and the grace made 
 ours by love and hope and joy, 
 that have their source in the life 
 that Jesus led, and the doctrine 
 that He taught. "Farewell!" 
 they cry. " Live well, fight well, 
 steer straight, keep a sharp look 
 out, defend the right, succour the 
 disabled ships, and find the islands 
 of the blest who see God." With 
 that cry in our ears we enter the 
 open sea. How many of us shall 
 return? Some will sink in mid- 
 ocean, and perchance find under- 
 neath its waves the Happy Land. 
 Others the storm shall smite, and 
 they will return with shattered 
 bulwark and riven sail to refit for 
 the year to come. Others will 
 bring back a noble cargo, or the 
 news of some great discovery. 
 Others will lose their way, and
 
 4 THE SHIP OF THE SOUL. 
 
 drift from one tract to another of 
 forgotten seas, and we shall not 
 meet them again ; and some will 
 reach in peace, worn out with long 
 sailing, the shores of heaven, the 
 haven where they would be. We 
 shall be sorrowful to miss their 
 barks, but they will be glad at 
 heart. And now, whom have we 
 on board who may help and guard 
 us in the dangers of the year ? 
 What qualities have we in the ship 
 of the soul ? 
 
 The first we need is Prudence. 
 When Jesus said to us, " Take no 
 thought for the morrow," He did 
 not mean (as many of His parables 
 make plain) that we should make 
 no provision, through prevision, 
 for the future. What He did mean 
 was that we were not to spend our 
 time in anxiety about the future, 
 in worrying over matters which we 
 could not help ; but have that trust 
 in God which enables us to act with 
 freedom from over-cares. The pru- 
 dence He counselled was the forti-
 
 THE SHIP OP THE SOUL. 5 
 
 fication of the soul against known 
 dangers, and the building of cha- 
 racter against unknown. By this 
 time most of us know where we 
 are weak, can tell fairly well what 
 kind of troubles and temptations 
 we shall meet. Do not start on 
 your voyage without preparation 
 against these. The worst are those 
 dangers which we like, those 
 temptations and sins we love. 
 Against these against drifting 
 into them we often make no 
 provision, because we do not wish 
 really to avoid them. Gather then 
 yourselves together, strengthen 
 your hearts, remember your high 
 vocation, pray to the Lord for 
 moral strength, foresee what 
 is coming, and be ready to 
 master your ship when the fatal 
 current begins to drift you away. 
 Take oil in your vessels with your 
 lamps to express it in the 
 words of Christ. Before the 
 temptation comes, strengthen the 
 feeble parts of your defence, even
 
 O THE SHIP OP THE SOUL. 
 
 though all your wishes be against 
 it. 
 
 But the prudence which Christ 
 advised was not only this which 
 provides for the future. His 
 method of defence lay much 
 deeper. This, of which I have 
 spoken, guards against known 
 danger and trouble. But life 
 is as full of surprises as the 
 sea. In a moment, out of a clear 
 sky, the lightning comes. In an 
 instant, before we know what has 
 happened, a new passion may leap 
 upon us ; or a new ocean in our 
 hearts, of which we were unaware, 
 opens before us, and all its waves 
 cry, " Come and sail on our sunny 
 surface " ; and that of which we 
 thought ourselves wholly incap- 
 able, which never occurred to us 
 as possible, is suddenly done by 
 us, suddenly known by us. We 
 are like men who think they are 
 in a dream, and who find out that 
 it is no dream at all. This sur- 
 prise within may be a good thing ;
 
 THE SHIP OP THE SOUL. 7 
 
 it may be an evil thing ; and if it 
 should be evil, what is our guard 
 against it, what is our Christian 
 prudence ? 
 
 The method of Christ went 
 to the root of the matter. 
 He could not secure us against 
 these surprises ; He would not have 
 done so if He could, for they be- 
 long to the education, the develop- 
 ment of the soul ; and we must find 
 out what is within us, what we 
 are. But He did warn and prepare 
 us. In many sayings He told 
 us that we were to form a cha- 
 racter ; to fill the heart with God ; 
 to accustom the soul to think and 
 to feel justly, courageously, hope- 
 fully, joyfully, trustfully, truth- 
 fully. Out of the heart are the 
 issues of life. Make it strong 
 and right, and then, whatever 
 surprise may come, you will 
 not be unprepared; but ready 
 at every instant to meet the 
 unforeseen with the qualities 
 which will claim and secure its
 
 O THE SHIP OF THE SOUL. 
 
 good, which will recover from the 
 surprise of evil, see through its 
 false beauty, reject its allurement, 
 and anchor amid its drifting. The 
 best prudence, the best prepara- 
 tion for the changes and chances 
 of life is that which is in the power 
 of you all the hourly formation 
 and strengthening of a character 
 like that of Jesus. Weave your 
 will,Ahiefly by renunciation of all 
 in it which injures love,Vnto the 
 character of God. Then you may 
 with humility begin your voyage 
 in joy and end it in victory. 
 
 So far for Prudence. Connected 
 with it is Watchfulness. Prudence 
 prepares before we start, counts 
 the cost, provides the stores. 
 Watchfulness is the continuance 
 of this temper in the voyage, from 
 hour to hour ; but applied more to 
 the wants and circumstances of 
 the moment than to prevision of 
 evil. It is having the soul awake, 
 with its eye on the object, its loins 
 girt for instant action, capable of
 
 THE SHIP OP THE SOUL. 9 
 
 presence of mind, and coolness of 
 thought, and rapidity of plan, and 
 swiftness of execution. And, in- 
 deed, we want that temper in life, 
 for to be without it is not only to 
 fail in the surprises of life of 
 these I have spoken, but to miss 
 that of which I have not spoken 
 the opportunities in life which God 
 gives us. Often, in the midst of 
 sorrow, that event occurs which, if 
 we could seize it, would enable us 
 to spring off the evil shadow of 
 sorrow and to keep only its beauty. 
 And our eyes are blind. The 
 happy thing we might have had 
 passes us by within reach of our 
 grasp, and offers us its hand, and 
 sighs, and passes on. Often, in 
 the midst of overwhelming trial, 
 the crisis of the battle comes, and 
 with the crisis the possibility of 
 the action which will save us ; and 
 we miss the moment. We have 
 allowed ourselves to be so confused 
 that we cannot understand what 
 we have to do, though it is often
 
 10 THE SHIP OF THE SOUL. 
 
 thundered in our ears. The hour 
 fleets on, the occasion is lost, and 
 we are beaten in the battle. 
 
 Again, we are sometimes only 
 watchful towards arriving at the 
 goal, and have neglected the need of 
 watching all that is now around us. 
 Our eyes are only fixed on the end 
 on the prize of peace as if God 
 were alone there, and not also on 
 the wayside and in the common life 
 through which we pass. And the 
 goal is so far away that it brings 
 tears into our eyes to think of it, 
 and despair into our hearts, or it 
 is so bright that it dazzles our 
 sight. Then we weary, and sit 
 down to weep ; lost or spoilt by 
 over haste. We should have 
 watched the wayside also. God 
 has provided for our journey a 
 thousand beautiful things in 
 nature which would cheer and 
 exalt our spirits if we would love 
 their beauty but a little. God has 
 made everyday humanity, the com- 
 mon duties, the common affections,
 
 THE SHIP OP THE SOUL. 11 
 
 so fair, so full of tenderness, so 
 full of claims on our love and 
 admiration, that, were we to watch 
 for them, and take their joy, the 
 path would be filled with music 
 and our souls with grace. It would 
 be lightened as a dusty road is 
 lightened by the murmur and the 
 song of a streamlet in the valley. 
 But we are so hurried that we 
 neither see nor hear, and the 
 beauty of life is lost, and its charm 
 unknown. 
 
 Others sail (for I return to my 
 lost comparison) and spend all 
 their days in the cabin where 
 their companions, the gods of this 
 world, sit and make their own bar- 
 barian merriment. These are the 
 great Cares with their worn faces, 
 who wear out the lives of men, 
 and yet are loved liked women. 
 There sits the Deceitfulness of 
 Riches, swollen and blind. There 
 is the sea goddess, Pleasure, chang- 
 ing and reckless and devouring as 
 the waves. There is False Honour
 
 12 THE SHIt OF Tflfc SOTIL. 
 
 with a scabbard and no sword. 
 There is the Love of the Moment 
 with her flattering eyes. There is 
 Ambition, his golden robe wrapped 
 round the fire that burns his heart. 
 There is the Pride of Life, the 
 painted harlot, wrinkled to the 
 eyes. There all the well-dressed 
 conventions, all the maxims in 
 society ; moving things that seem 
 men and women, but full of 
 machinery alone inside. And 
 with these, how many of you will 
 drink and eat and play and sleep 
 all your voyage through ? 
 
 That is not watchfulness. 
 Watchfulness is to live on the 
 deck in the open air, seeing that 
 the work of the ship is done, and 
 the course straight for God; but 
 never so straight as not to turn 
 aside, though it seem loss, to 
 help another ship. It is not loss. 
 For in such help, though it delay 
 us days and seem to make us 
 wander from the way, there is the 
 greatest progress to the goal.
 
 THE SHIP OF THE SOUL. 18 
 
 Yes, to live in the fresh air of 
 simple day and night, abiding not 
 with the perishing gods of the 
 world, but with One eternal and 
 invisible, though always near; 
 apart from all the idols whose 
 worship degrades; living for 
 whatever things are true and 
 just, and of the divine harmony, 
 and of good report among men, 
 and of the character of Jesus; 
 having in hand all your crew 
 every faculty ready at the moment, 
 and to awake to do the nearest 
 duty in the most needful work 
 that is watchfulness ; that be your 
 sailing companion through the 
 year. 
 
 But it is more than that. It is 
 to look upwards, and daily call for 
 inspiration, in faith that it will 
 come. It is in the silence of the 
 night to see the ever-burning stars 
 of life, the ideas that God has given 
 men to guide them on their way, 
 and seeing them, to sacrifice self 
 and all outward things to glorify
 
 14 THE SHIP OP THE SOUL. 
 
 them before men, to make men 
 love them better than life itself. 
 It is, as each sun rises o'er the 
 wandering sea, to expect new re- 
 velations of the truth of God, and 
 be ready to hail them, and take 
 them, when they come, into your 
 heart with joy. And it is, when 
 you have done all this which be- 
 longs to the actual voyage of this 
 life and to the ships that sail with 
 you and till you have done that, 
 you have no right to contempla- 
 tion to stand on the prow, in 
 the hours when you are alone, 
 and the material world fades 
 around you into mist, and look 
 forth, in faith and hope and joy 
 and prophetic love, for the undis- 
 covered land where there shall be 
 no more sea save the righteous- 
 ness of God like the great deep. 
 This is the Christian watchfulness. 
 God grant it may be ours. These 
 are the ship companions St. Paul 
 presents to you for the coming 
 year sober prevision, keen-eyed
 
 THE SHIP OP THE SOTJL. 15 
 
 vigilance, the first to use while 
 you are starting on your voyage, 
 the second to be your daily mate 
 while you sail. They, unlike too 
 many comrades on this earth, un- 
 like too many denizens of the soul, 
 will not betray you. You will not 
 regret that you have loved them, 
 for they bring with them the faith- 
 fulness of God. Take them, and 
 keep them and love them. Use 
 them in the love of the Father, and 
 in the grace of Jesus Christ. And 
 may the Lord bless you, and keep 
 you, and cause His face to shine 
 upon you, and give you peace, now 
 and for evermore. Amen.
 
 The Triumph Over Life. 
 
 "Blea3 the Lord, O my soul ; and all that ia 
 
 within me, bless His holy name. 
 " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all 
 
 His benefits ; 
 ' ' Who f orffiveth all thine iniquities ; who 
 
 healeth all thy diseases ; 
 "Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; 
 
 who crowneth thee with loving-kindness 
 
 and tender mercies ; 
 ' ' Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things ; 
 
 so that thy youth is renewed like the 
 
 eagle's." 
 
 PSALM cm. 1 5. 
 
 WHEN the writer of this psalm 
 looked back on life, what did he 
 see ? He saw his iniquities, for he 
 had done much wrong ; he saw the 
 diseases of body and mind by 
 which he had been troubled ; he 
 saw that his life, moral, spiritual 
 and perhaps physical, had been on 
 the verge of destruction; he saw 
 that the years as they had gone 
 by had robbed him of his youth, 
 of the power to see and soar like
 
 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 17 
 
 
 the eagle. But as he looked 
 deeper he saw also that all which 
 was corrupting and terrible in 
 these things had passed awaj. 
 
 Yet, he was not young. He 
 who talks of his youth being 
 renewed has left youth far behind. 
 He writes like a man who had had 
 his experience, and whose experi- 
 ence had been severe. But, 
 wonderful to say, the experience 
 had not made him sad. He had 
 fought through its woes and 
 passed triumphant into sunlight 
 on the other side. The Lord his 
 God had been with him through his 
 life that was his conviction. And 
 he knew that his sins had been 
 forgiven, because he had gained 
 the power of their opponent virtues 
 the only fact which does, or 
 ought to, convince us of forgive- 
 ness. He felt that the diseases of 
 his soul had left their weakness, 
 but that they were healed, and 
 that he would not need to go 
 through them again. The moral
 
 18 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 
 
 diseases which easily beset us 
 must often be exhausted before 
 we can gain true health. The 
 one thing is to be healed of 
 them, and, accepting their results, 
 to never have them again. With 
 God by our side, sometimes con- 
 sciously, sometimes unconsciously 
 that happy end is reached. 
 
 Again, the writer felt as we 
 often feel, that he had emerged 
 from the very gulf of destruction ; 
 that he had been, as it were 
 against his will, rescued from 
 moral suicide ; that all his life had 
 been redeemed by God. Therefore 
 he burst out into joy and thanks- 
 giving ! He who had been through 
 grave sorrows; who had known 
 sin, disease, even destruction ; who 
 might have cursed life and 
 shrieked at what men call Fate ; 
 cries out in unfeigned and un- 
 mistakable rapture it is a very 
 outburst of song "Bless the Lord, 
 O my soul ; and all that is within 
 me, bless His holy name. Bless
 
 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 19 
 
 the Lord, O my soul, and forget 
 not all His benefits." 
 
 And in realising 1 this joyful vic- 
 tory of the moral and spiritual 
 powers ; in the resurrection of his 
 spiritual being into strength; in 
 the leaving behind him in its own 
 grave all that was dead in his 
 past ; in the great cry of his heart 
 as he looked back "I am not 
 there, I am risen ; " his youth was 
 renewed like the eagle's ! It was a 
 great triumph ; for his best life 
 came back in a higher and a 
 stronger way, with now but little 
 chance of failure. He could again, 
 like the eagle, look upon the sun, 
 and love the upper ranges of the 
 sky ; again soar but with steadier 
 beat of wing than in youth ; again 
 possess the freedom he loved 
 before disease and destruction had 
 enslaved his plumes ; again breathe 
 the breath of immortal love ; again 
 in conscious union with God hear 
 the great spheres " in measured 
 motion draw after the heavenly
 
 20 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 
 
 tune." And certainty was now 
 with this victory, for he had 
 known and found the Father of 
 his spirit. The waters of his new 
 life arose out of the fountain Life 
 of God Himself, and he knew from 
 whence they came. There was 
 now a source and goal for his 
 ideals, hopes, efforts, for beauty he 
 loved, and for universal joy. It 
 was the Almighty Love and Life 
 of loveliness Himself who was 
 now in him a personal friend, 
 redeemer, strengthener, exalter ; 
 who crowned him with loving- 
 kindness and tender mercies. This 
 is the true resurrection ; this is 
 the triumph of life. This is the 
 landscape on which we shall look 
 at last from the peak of our 
 attainment; for God is sworn to 
 Himself to make it true for every 
 human soul. It will not be for us 
 alone ; it cannot be otherwise than 
 universal. Were it not so to be, 
 Love would cease to be. 
 
 This, then, is a noble temper in
 
 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 21 
 
 which to survey the past. And 
 were that joy more common here, 
 the world would be very different. 
 The one sorrow is, that it takes so 
 long to bring us to this point ; that 
 many never reach it on this earth. 
 Well, we are here for so short a 
 time ; it is such a small portion of 
 the road of our lif e that we travel ; 
 one stage alone in the vast years 
 that belong to us that we must 
 not ask too much, but be content 
 and bless the Lord. If, when we 
 come to die, we have wrought out 
 of our nature, hand in hand with 
 our Father, one evil twist, one 
 false form of passion; redeemed 
 a few failures, made one crooked 
 place straight for ourselves, or 
 straight for others ; we may think 
 ourselves fortunate in life . Indeed, 
 to smooth the path for others 
 is the great need for our own 
 nearness to God. It is in making 
 the rough places gentle for our 
 fellow-men, because we love them; 
 in saving them from sin, false
 
 22 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 
 
 passion, or false aims in healing ; 
 their diseases ; in redeeming their 
 life from destruction, that we most 
 certainly attain these blessings for 
 ourselves; most surely become 
 aware that God is with us ; most 
 gladly come to cry out at the end, 
 "My youth is renewed like the 
 eagle's; bless the Lord, O my 
 soul, and all that is within me, 
 bless His holy name ! " 
 
 There is always the possibility 
 of such a resurrection if we have 
 retained certain things in life, 
 which are, so to speak, the condi- 
 tions on which God is known by us 
 to be our own. They are Faith 
 and Hope and Love, the virtues 
 of the ideal world. I do not mean 
 that these, in order to form this 
 conditional state, should be directly 
 felt towards God; or that they 
 should exist in any high develop- 
 ment ; but they should at least be 
 in germ within us, towards God, 
 and displayed in action, towards 
 men. When they are not cast aside
 
 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 23 
 
 or lost, God can be felt by us as 
 acting in our soul ; and so strange, 
 so unexpected are the things that 
 occur, that when we are suddenly 
 touched by them, as it were from 
 without, we cannot help feeling 
 and saying to ourselves, " There is 
 some One whom I know not at 
 work on me, some One who cares 
 for me, some One who has watched 
 and laid His hand upon my life at 
 the right moment ; who now, just 
 when all seemed broken to pieces, 
 has opened to me a new garden of 
 work and happiness, who bids me 
 walk in it, forget my past, and 
 renew my youth." 
 
 I could tell many stories of 
 this happening to men who, like 
 the writer of the psalm, had 
 reached the middle term of life. 
 I remember one who had been for 
 a long time drifting towards an 
 evil act which was certain to do 
 more harm to others than to him- 
 self, but who had not as yet 
 determined on flinging friends,
 
 24 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 
 
 society, work, good repute, his 
 past and future, and God Himself, 
 to the winds. The one thing that 
 kept him back was a remnant of 
 belief in God, in One beyond 
 humanity, beyond the world's laws 
 of convention and morality. 
 Nothing else was left, for he 
 had, in the desire for this 
 wrong thing, passed beyond 
 caring whether the whole world 
 went against him, whether he 
 injured others or no. He was as 
 ready to destroy all the use of his 
 own life as he was careless of the 
 use of the lives of others. But he 
 felt a slow and steady pull against 
 him. He said to himself, " This 
 is God, though I know Him not." 
 At last, however, he determined to 
 have his way. One day, the lone- 
 liness and longing had been too 
 great to be borne, and when night 
 came he went down his garden 
 resolved on the evil thing. " This 
 night," he said, " I will take the 
 plunge." But as he went he
 
 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 25 
 
 heard the distant barking of a dog 
 in the village ; the moon rose 
 above a dark yew tree at the end 
 of the garden, and he was abruptly 
 stopped in the midst of the path- 
 way. Something seemed to touch 
 him as with a finger, and to push 
 him back. It was not till afterwards 
 that he analysed the feeling, and 
 knew that the rising of the moon 
 over the yew tree and the barking 
 of the dog in the distance had 
 brought back to him an hour in 
 his childhood, when in the dusk 
 he had sat with his mother, after 
 his father's death, in the same 
 garden; and had heard her 
 say " When thou passest through 
 the waters, I will be with 
 thee, and through the floods they 
 shall not overwhelm thee." It 
 was this slight touch that saved 
 him from wrong which would have 
 broken more lives than his own. 
 It was God speaking ; but it would 
 have been as nothing to him, had 
 he not kept his little grain
 
 26 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 
 
 of faith, in God alive, the dim 
 consciousness that there was One 
 who cared for him, who had 
 interest that he should conquer 
 righteousness. Next day, he left 
 his home, travelled and won his 
 battle ; and his action redeemed 
 not only his own, but another's life. 
 Take another story, of a man 
 who had given up his whole life to 
 love. At last, after many years, 
 he felt that love was being given 
 to him no more ; and I shall not 
 easily forget the words in which 
 he described, with terrible force 
 and brevity, the life of the two 
 years he passed while he knew 
 that all he cared for was gliding 
 away from him, and in a way so 
 unspeakably commonplace that it 
 doubled his pain. It was the 
 strangest thing that when the last 
 stroke was given, when he received 
 the letter which told him that his 
 whole life for more than ten 
 years was absolutely blotted out, 
 irrevocably blackened, that he
 
 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 27 
 
 should have had laid before him, 
 as if by a miracle, a wholly new 
 life into which and its interests he 
 was slowly drawn, so that healing 
 came and light arose. 
 
 And when I asked him how it 
 was that he could with any fresh- 
 ness, after such long torment, take 
 up a new life, he said, " It was 
 because I never lost love; whatever 
 happened to me I went on loving ; 
 whatever commonplace came round 
 me I always clung to the ideal ; 
 whatever change came in others I 
 was always constant to love. 
 When the crash threw down my 
 palace, though I was miserable, i 
 was not embittered ; though I was 
 stripped of everything, my soul 
 was still young ; love had kept the 
 springs of life flowing in my heart. 
 There was never a desert in my 
 soul. Therefore, though I never 
 loved again, I was able to live a 
 fresh life; and on the very day 
 when I knew the old was entirely 
 hopeless, I looked round and felt
 
 28 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 
 
 that God had opened a new world 
 before my eyes. But I never 
 should have known that a new life 
 was possible had I not kept within 
 my soul love pure, constant, 
 ideal, and fresh and let nothing 
 embitter it. 
 
 These stories illustrate the 
 psalm ; they illustrate the temper 
 of the soul which makes resur- 
 rection possible, even in later life ; 
 which receives the word of God, 
 and brings forth fruit, some thirty, 
 some sixty, and some a hundred- 
 fold. Faith in One who, far beyond 
 the custom of the world, has 
 personally to do with us; whose 
 interest in us is supreme ; who, 
 touching us always, touches us 
 specially when we need it ; who is 
 sworn to lead us till we can say 
 with Jesus, I and my Father are 
 one this is the victorious principle 
 of life. And Love, never allowed 
 to fall into scorn, kept ideal, kept 
 untouched by the world that 
 keeps in us the capacity for new
 
 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 29 
 
 life, the power of hearing the 
 voice of Jesus, the power of 
 receiving into a contrite heart the 
 love of God the Father. 
 
 Afterwards, these things become 
 more and more divine, more and 
 more religious. He that is faith- 
 ful in the least, will be faithful 
 also in the greater. He that is 
 faithful in human things, will also 
 be faithful in divine things. He 
 who loves man faithfully will come 
 in the end to love God faithfully. 
 And God will fill with His own 
 love the soul which has been 
 abandoned by earthly affection. 
 The heart, that trusts in Him and 
 loves Him, will not be sent empty 
 away. And it is better that God 
 should so fill us, after we have 
 gone through our trouble ; for His 
 love never disappoints, suffers no 
 caprice, is touched by no betrayal, 
 does not diminish but increase in 
 good and power and joy till the 
 whole heart, catching fire from 
 God, renews its youth like the
 
 30 THE TRIUMPH OVER LIFE. 
 
 eagle. We shall be thrilled with 
 higher joy, keener excitement 
 than we felt when we were young, 
 before the days of pain ; we shall 
 see the perfect fulfilment of our 
 ideal, and looking back upon our 
 past, cry with the Psalmist : 
 
 Bless the Lord, O my soul ; and all 
 that is within me, bless His holy name. 
 
 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good 
 things ; so that thy youth is renewed 
 like the eagle's.
 
 The Christian in the 
 World. 
 
 " I pray not that Thou shonldest take them 
 out of the world, but that Thou shouldest 
 keep them from the evil." JoHNXVii.15. 
 
 THE last words of Christ to his 
 disciples, clustered round him in 
 that solemn hour when he took 
 leave of them before he died, were 
 prayer. It was a prayer as reported 
 to us, whicji threw into pregnant 
 words the meaning of his whole 
 work, but it was also steeped in 
 the tender thought which fills the 
 heart of one who parts from those 
 he has long loved. As he prayed 
 for those around him, who were 
 to spread among men the good 
 news of God, commending them 
 to his Father's care, every word is 
 touched with the human tender- 
 ness of separation. " Holy
 
 32 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 Father, keep through Thine own 
 name those whom Thou hast 
 given me, that they may be one " 
 one in love, one in that Will 
 of God which is 'the bond of love. 
 " Keep them from the world, not 
 from the outward world, but from 
 the evil of the world." With 
 that prayer Christ defines the 
 position of his followers in their 
 life among men, and the mean- 
 ing of it is our subject. 
 
 What is Christ's meaning for 
 the term ' ' world " ? It is this pass- 
 ing scene of time, with its transient 
 pleasures and sorrows, pursuits and 
 loves ; and the mass of men that 
 live for these alone. There is the 
 world of men, of business, of 
 politics, of labour for wealth and 
 fame the storm of life in which 
 we sail. "Pray," men say, "to 
 be taken out of that ; out into 
 the deserts or the quietude of our 
 retired rooms ; in solitary medita- 
 tion to live the life of God." 
 "I do not pray," said Christ,
 
 THE WORLD. 33 
 
 "that you should be removed 
 from that only from its evil." 
 
 The spirit of this prayer was 
 the practice of his life. His was 
 not the fanaticism of the ascetic, 
 or the devout dreaming of the 
 convent; his was the life which 
 moved in cities, and collected 
 around it the countryman, the 
 fisherman, the labourer, the 
 publican, the sick, the hungry, 
 all shades and classes of mankind ; 
 in active giving and receiving, in 
 vivid sympathy with the domestic, 
 social, and universal life of men. 
 And that is our life, we who desire 
 to follow Christ ; he will be nearest 
 to us, and God will be most with 
 us, when we are doing our daily 
 work most vigorously in the midst 
 of the world. 
 
 When we see our calling as the 
 will of (jod for us, as the place He 
 has set for us to keep, and in 
 which we are to reveal His will 
 and promote His work then, out 
 of this worldly calling, good and
 
 34 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 power will daily flow into our 
 character, and all its evil will be 
 kept far away. Pray every morn- 
 ing 1 , not that you may be taken 
 out of this world of work, but that 
 you may be guarded from its sin. 
 
 There are worlds in which we 
 move, other than the world of 
 business. There is the passing 
 world of human love. Decay 
 besets it, passions injure it, life 
 wears it out, sin corrupts it, death 
 seems to shatter it into pieces. 
 This is its passive evil, that it 
 fleets away. But it has also active 
 evils. The love of home is mixed 
 with too eager a desire for wealth, 
 with too absorbing an interest to 
 push our way into society, because 
 we want a good position for our 
 children. We often sacrifice to 
 home the great social interests of 
 men, and establish selfishness 
 within our family. Then, too, love 
 may become so slavish through 
 jealousy, so enthralling through 
 sensual passion, as to rob us of
 
 THE WORLD. 85 
 
 the power of work, or of the vision 
 of God. These are evils of the 
 world of love, and Christ prays to 
 G-od that we may be kept from 
 them but he does not pray that 
 we may be kept out of the world 
 of love. 
 
 Then there is also the world of 
 youthful enjoyment, in which to 
 live and breathe is happiness. 
 There is the world in which we live 
 with nature an enchanting world 
 indeed to those who care for it. 
 And, as manhood deepens, two 
 other worlds are ours, the world of 
 art, where beauty seeks for ever its 
 ideal form ; and the world of 
 knowledge, wrought by thought 
 out of the long results of time, 
 created by science out of the past 
 and the present, out of the heaven 
 above us and the earth beneath. 
 
 These, too, are of the things 
 that pass away. Disease and 
 death lay their hand on youthful 
 strength and joy; our pleasure 
 perishes, and as we grow older our
 
 36 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 beauty grows colder as death 
 draws near; knowledge vanishes 
 before an ever-increasing know- 
 ledge; even the love of nature 
 departs at last when the senses 
 lose their power, and only the 
 memory of the loveliness we have 
 seen endures. Death is merciless 
 to them all. 
 
 Alas ! they possess, not only the 
 passive evil of fleetingness, but 
 also active evils. Unchastened 
 joy shuts out the vision of G-od, 
 makes us forget the solemn work 
 of life, bids our own wild will 
 and not God's righteous will be 
 master, and keeping us careless, 
 frivolous and passionate, often 
 ends in the bitterness of a wearied 
 and unsatisfied old age. Unbridled 
 love of nature separates us from 
 man ; so does unbalanced love of 
 knowledge or of art. We should 
 pray with Christ not to be taken 
 out of these things, but to be kept 
 from the evil that belongs to them. 
 Even more we should pray to be
 
 IN THE WORLD. 37 
 
 kept from their spiritual evil. For 
 love of nature, or love of art, being 
 passions which derive their food 
 from the senses, tend when men 
 live in them, without one thought 
 of God, to sensualise the con- 
 science and the spirit ; and the vast 
 world of the invisible dies in us. 
 This earth becomes all in all 
 to us; decay becomes our chief 
 fear, and death our worst evil. 
 And it is just as possible to let the 
 love of knowledge so master us 
 that it usurps the whole of life. 
 Then the spirit pines and dwindles 
 for want of food; even more 
 swiftly than in the absorbing love 
 of beauty we lose the sight of 
 God, forget the world from 
 whence we came and whither we 
 are going, and lose the powers of 
 the soul. 
 
 Well, looking at all this, seeing 
 clearly the evil of these passing 
 worlds, men have said "that to 
 abandon them is unworldliness, 
 is the religious life; that to live
 
 38 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 without love, to shut the eyes to 
 nature, to leave the business of 
 men, to forswear art, to stifle 
 knowledge, is to live for God." 
 Christ does not say so. " I pray 
 not that Thou shouldest take them 
 out of the world, but that Thou 
 shouldest keep them from the evil 
 in it." 
 
 These worlds in which we live 
 are, when separated from their 
 active evils, beautiful, true, and 
 needful ; they ought to ennoble our 
 hearts and bring forth good for 
 men. By them, and through 
 our life in them, the great being 
 of mankind is civilised, educated, 
 wrought towards perfection. To 
 neglect them is to neglect our 
 duty to mankind. Through true 
 life in them our personal charac- 
 ter, also, is built up. They are 
 not our life, it is true, but through 
 them God trains our life. And it 
 is the very element of fleetingness 
 in them which makes them into 
 education. They die, but their
 
 IN THE WORLD. 39 
 
 results remain, built up into the 
 soul. 
 
 We may be left at last without 
 love, homeless and alone ; but the 
 gentleness, the forbearance, the 
 long habit of loving observance of 
 others, the rooted self-forgetful- 
 ness that has grown into a great 
 tree within us; the faith in the 
 beauty of human nature ; the love 
 which learnt at last to give up all 
 for others these things, born out 
 of our life with nature and man, 
 with knowledge and love and 
 beauty, live, and God exalts them 
 into spiritual powers. We may 
 be left, at last, it is true, unable 
 to see the landscape, unable to 
 thrill with joy, unable to shape 
 into beauty that which we have 
 seen and felt; but, when these 
 powers have fled away, we cannot 
 take out of your heart the power 
 of delight that we have won, the 
 refinement we have gained, the 
 delicacy and purity of thought 
 that these things have established
 
 40 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 in us, the inner music of truth 
 and life which these, while they 
 lasted, gave to our soul. God takes 
 these powers of imaginative life, 
 and makes them foundations of 
 spiritual powers which aspire to 
 find in Him the fountain of Joy, 
 the source of Beauty, the everlast- 
 ing light of Life and Truth. We 
 may be left at last, conscious that 
 we know nothing, that knowledge 
 has fled away from us ; but the 
 power of concentration of intel- 
 lect and of will that we have 
 gained while we wrought in the 
 world of knowledge ; the strength 
 and resolve that we have implanted 
 in our will by mastering the diffi- 
 culties that lay before us; the 
 increased desire to push forward 
 and never to be content with know- 
 ing these, rooted in the charac- 
 ter, God takes, and, fitting them 
 to eternal objects, makes them, 
 not only into powers of the brain, 
 but into powers of the soul. Yes, 
 it was divinely wise of Christ to
 
 IN THE WORLD. 41 
 
 say, " I pray not that they be 
 taken out of the world." 
 
 So far for the larger view of the 
 matter. The more personal view 
 remains, and I will make it per- 
 sonal to that in our life which 
 most leads us to desire to leave 
 the world. The world in which the 
 Apostles were about to live was a 
 world of trouble. It was Christ's 
 own prophecy : "In the world ye 
 shall have tribulation." It was a 
 natural thought then to some 
 of them that, looking forward to 
 so serious and so sad a life, they 
 should wish to pass at once by 
 death to the glory their Lord had 
 promised them ; and still more 
 natural that when they were 
 afterwards involved in trial, they 
 should say to their Father, " Take 
 us from the world to Thyself ; in 
 rest give us Thy perfection." 
 
 It is the wish and thought of 
 many now. Some are so tired 
 with pain and trouble ; others so 
 harassed with themselves; others
 
 42 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 in so impossible a set of circum- 
 stances ; others caught in so swift 
 a backwater, out of which for all 
 their passionate anger they cannot 
 get ; others so profoundly angry 
 with life because they cannot have 
 what they want that one and all 
 desire to have done with the whole 
 of the scene of life ; tortured with 
 its tragedy, weary of its comedy,, 
 sick of its farce. It is very 
 natural, and there are some who 
 think it very spiritual. It is not 
 spiritual, but selfish and faithless ; 
 it is not honourable, but cowardly. 
 It is the part of a deserter to run 
 away from life, even to desire to 
 run away from it. 
 
 We are like soldiers given a 
 post to keep, who know not how 
 much depends upon their fidelity. 
 We are placed here to face death 
 if it should come, but not, because 
 we are tired, to seek it, and rob the 
 army of mankind of our work and 
 vigilance. It is as dishonourable 
 to seek for death because we are
 
 IN THE WORLD. 43 
 
 troubled with or afraid of life, as 
 it is to run away from a battle 
 because we are afraid of dying. 
 We are born not only to be 
 happy, but to endure hard- 
 ness, as good soldiers of Jesus 
 Christ. Our endurance saves and 
 strengthens others of whom we 
 know not, and knits our own cha- 
 racter into the power and worth of 
 a veteran of the cross. To be fit 
 to live is to be fit to die. Until 
 we can learn to live bravely, we 
 cannot die bravely. 
 
 We are placed here to be trained 
 for another and higher life. A 
 certain time and certain trials 
 upon this earth are necessary to 
 develop us into the likeness of 
 God's character. The aloe takes 
 a hundred years to make a flower, 
 the primrose a few spring days; 
 some trees reach maturity in half 
 a century, others weave their 
 strength of folded fibres out of 
 the rain, and wind, and sunshine 
 of a thousand years. Each has
 
 44 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 its own period. It is so, also, with, 
 us, the planting of the Lord. A 
 few trials, a few years, and some 
 of us flower into all the perfection 
 we can attain on earth. Many long 
 years, bitter and protracted trials 
 are the lot of others, before a single 
 blossom can spring upon their 
 lives ; but and it is a law which 
 ought to console us in pro- 
 portion to the length of time 
 and the greatness of the trial, 
 is the fitness of the character 
 for work, and the greatness also 
 of the work that it has to do. 
 The primrose is beautiful and 
 cheers the heart of the passing 
 traveller, and rejoices the Maying 
 children who weave it in a wreath 
 for their queen and that is useful 
 and lovely work, and has its place. 
 But the oak shelters a thousand 
 herds, and plants a forest ; and 
 builds the bulwark of the coast, and 
 the fleets that unite the nations. 
 We have no right to be impatient 
 if God is making us into the heart
 
 IN THE WORLD. 45 
 
 of oak, which will, when the wood- 
 man death has felled us, give 
 shelter and bring blessing to 
 thousands in the other world. Not 
 an hour of the time, not a single 
 agony of the trial is lost ; every- 
 thing that we suffer here is trans- 
 muted otherwhere into strength 
 and usefulness, into greatness 
 and beauty of character. 
 
 Therefore, finally, do not pray 
 to be freed from a world of trial ; 
 but pray to have the temper which 
 will prevent suffering and trial 
 becoming, through impatience or 
 petulance, cowardliness or weak- 
 ness of will, evil and not good 
 to you. God placed His purest 
 Son in the forefront of the 
 battle, not that he might fall, 
 but that he might conquer; not 
 that he might die, but that 
 he might live and contend for 
 men. That is our noble calling, 
 and well did Christ know how to 
 kindle and inspire the human 
 heart, when he told us that he
 
 46 THE CHBI8TIAN IN THE WOELD. 
 
 needed us to live that we might 
 save, ennoble, and comfort men; 
 and in that work become at one 
 with him, and at one with God. 
 "I pray not that Thou shouldest 
 take them out of the world, but 
 that Thou shouldest keep them 
 from the evil."
 
 The Risen Life. 
 
 " If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those 
 things which are above, where Christ sitteth 
 on the right hand of God. 
 
 " Set your affection on things above, not on 
 things on the earth. 
 
 " For ye are dead, and your life is hid with 
 Christ in God." COLOSSIANS in. 1-3. 
 
 THIS is a description of the 
 Resurrection life that the Chris- 
 tian should live in the present 
 world. It is to be a life hidden 
 with Christ in God. How can we 
 live such a life, men and women 
 ask, in the midst of the business 
 and many cares of the world ? 
 
 Some answer by retiring from 
 the world, by isolating their 
 manners, dress, or social habits 
 from those of others, by forming 
 themselves into a phalanx of oppo- 
 sition to the customs of society and 
 its modes of thinking. This is not 
 the Christian, but the Pharisaic
 
 48 THE RISEN LIFE. 
 
 life. Yet we must by no means 
 think that all who hold that 
 opinion, or who lead such a life 
 outwardly, are Pharisees at heart. 
 Many of them conscientiously 
 believe it is the right way to live, 
 and wear the dress of the 
 Pharisee with the spirit of the 
 Publican. 
 
 Nevertheless, the true Christian 
 life wears the common dress of 
 humanity. " It makes all things 
 kin. It does not stand out angu- 
 lar against any part of man- 
 kind." Its mark is that humble 
 spirit which is, in the sight of 
 God, of great price. It does not 
 dogmatise, it does not exclude. It 
 is meek and lowly of heart; 
 it has rest within itself, and 
 brings rest to others. Its king- 
 dom is not of this world, 
 though its work is here, and 
 therefore its servants do not fight. 
 It does not strive, nor cry, nor is 
 its voice heard in the streets. It 
 is content to grow like the violet,
 
 THE RISEN LIFE. 49 
 
 hidden from the eye, known only 
 by its scent ; universal as the 
 daisy, giving, like it, a " sympathy 
 which cares not should it be set at 
 naught ; " shining in unexpected 
 nooks among the rocks and fields 
 of common life ; in meekness, like 
 that flower, fulfilling its "function 
 apostolical." Read the Beati- 
 tudes, that is its charter. Read 
 the chapter of St. Paul on 
 charity that is its spirit and its 
 activity. 
 
 There is no work in the world 
 which may not be wrought in the 
 spirit of that chapter ; yet we are 
 told that the work of the world and 
 the Christian life are incompatible. 
 It is a great mistake. We have 
 divided it too much from practical 
 life, we have edged it round with 
 rules and observances which isolate 
 it from society ; so that when 
 men are asked to live the life 
 of one who has risen with Christ, 
 they answer "It is impossible." 
 It is wise then to make what it is
 
 50 THE RISEN LIFE. 
 
 a little plainer, though not less 
 difficult; a little simpler, though 
 not more comfortable. 
 
 Take public life. This is the 
 sphere in which a Christian life 
 is most often declared to be 
 impossible. But the Christian 
 life is in the imitation of Christ 
 for the love of his noble human- 
 ity, and that does not lead you 
 away from the world; it only 
 bids you rise above the spirit of 
 the world. It is to have Christ's 
 high standard of righteousness and 
 love ; and to live as close to it as we 
 can, exerting all our strength. It 
 forbids the tricks by which men 
 enter Parliament; it forbids the 
 corruption of others by any 
 means whatever ; it forbids the 
 violation of conscience for the 
 sake of party, or the sake of a 
 seat. It forbids the business 
 man to use the money of others 
 in chance speculation; it bids 
 him keep his hands clean, and his 
 honour untainted, not only before
 
 THE BISEN LIFE. 51 
 
 the world, but before the tribunal 
 of his own conscience. It tells 
 him he has no right to go by the 
 current standard of commercial 
 morality a standard which seems 
 to say : " Get all the money you 
 can by any means which will not 
 bring you into the grasp of the 
 law, or under public shame." It 
 tells you to believe men, rather 
 than to suspect them; to give a 
 courteous honour to an adversary, 
 rather than the dishonour of abuse ; 
 to have the justice which sees your 
 own value and that of your 
 opponent and allots the fitting 
 meed to both. These, and many 
 other things, are a part of the 
 resurrection life of Jesus in public 
 affairs. 
 
 Another side of public life is 
 our life in society. The best way 
 in which we may in heart and 
 mind rise there with Christ, is by 
 the thoughtful watchfulness of 
 love. Thoughtlessness of heart 
 slides into insensibility of heart,
 
 52 THE RISEN LIFE. 
 
 and, if encouraged in youth, 
 makes the cruel men and women 
 of after life. How often do we 
 ask ourselves before we speak 
 whether our speech will do wrong 
 or give pain? We are proud 
 sometimes of speaking daggers, 
 and delight in the cleverness 
 which makes another wince. It 
 is a pride and pleasure which is 
 base ; for it is inhuman, and it is 
 as far removed from the gentleness 
 and sweetness of Christ as heaven 
 is from hell. Then, again, there 
 is that careless habit of "plain 
 speaking," and the way we have 
 of pluming ourselves upon it till 
 it passes with some into overbear- 
 ingness, and with others into 
 acute disagreeability. We little 
 think how much it jars upon 
 persons more sensitive than our- 
 selves, and how much suffering it 
 gives. It is good to be plain- 
 spoken, but within the limits of 
 charity. Still more mischievous 
 is that looseness of tongue which
 
 THE RISEN LIFE. 53 
 
 proclaims everything that its 
 owner has heard from another 
 without a thought whether he 
 may like what has been said 
 in a moment of abandon to 
 be proclaimed upon the house- 
 tops; which seems to think that 
 nothing is sacred to feeling; and 
 that no seal of confession, though 
 not exacted, ought to be under- 
 stood as laid upon the lips. That 
 is abominable want of thought 
 and love. 
 
 Worse still, as not only careless, 
 but wicked, is the airy slander 
 which gossips away a character in 
 an afternoon, and runs lightly over 
 a whole series of acquaintances, 
 leaving a drop of poison on them 
 all. The things thus said are said 
 for ever. Years after the light 
 word was spoken, we may find that 
 it has made a whole life unhappy, 
 or ruined the peace of a house- 
 hold. It was well said by St. 
 James, "If any man among you 
 seem to be religious and bridleth
 
 54 THE RISEN LIFE. 
 
 not his tongue, this man's religion 
 is in vain." These are evil and 
 vile things which arise from want 
 of thought and watchfulness 
 watchfulness that can be only ex- 
 ercised and supported by the per- 
 severance in us of the grace of 
 Christ. 
 
 Mucfy of what has been said 
 about social life applies to 
 domestic life. That which most 
 spoils it, when love is there, is 
 petty quarrels. I do not speak of 
 differences of opinion upon sub- 
 jects worthy of discussion. Abund- 
 ance of discussion within the 
 household keeps its atmosphere 
 fresh ; enlivens and stimulates the 
 intellect, heart, and conscience 
 of the family. I speak of 
 quarrels. Familiarity of life with 
 one another gives room for un- 
 checked development of tempera- 
 ment ; and when opposed tempera- 
 ments do not care to play gently 
 in and out among one another, 
 ungracious disturbances ruffle the
 
 THE RISEN LIFE. 55 
 
 surface of our happy lake of life. 
 Let them continue day by day, and 
 these tempers, once so unf requent, 
 never let the waters rest. Love 
 remains, but life is spoiled. There- 
 fore, let the music of these words 
 enter into your spirit, and keep 
 them with you, till you learn how 
 to make their meaning into daily 
 act " Learn of Me ; for I am meek 
 and lowly of heart, and ye shall 
 find rest to your souls." 
 
 One or two examples, out of 
 many, may show how this gentle- 
 ness of the Christian life may be 
 attained. If you have been in 
 the wrong from impetuosity or 
 heat of temper, and for the 
 moment been betrayed into sharp 
 words or rude manners then 
 follow without false shame the 
 guidance of your heart; say that 
 you are sorry, not with the 
 haughtiness which contradicts 
 your words, but with the courtesy 
 of love. To apologise for ill-doing 
 or harsh speech is not ignoble. It is
 
 56 THE EISEN LIFE. 
 
 the offended isolation, it is the self- 
 ish sulkiness, which is unworthy of 
 man or woman. The apology may 
 be difficult at first, but difficulties 
 of this kind we are bound to over- 
 come if we seek to rise with Christ. 
 At each successive time it becomes 
 easier, and the doing of it pre- 
 vents the recurrence of the temper 
 which rendered the apology neces- 
 sary. Again, if blame has to be 
 given, wait till your personal irrita- 
 tion is over. It often comes in just 
 as well, and more forcibly, a week 
 or a month after, and when all 
 your own anger is fled. But blame 
 must sometimes be given directly. 
 There are times when principle is 
 involved, when one must speak at 
 once to wife, or husband, or child, 
 or friend. But be natural in it ; 
 let your heart speak and not your 
 intellect alone : and, moreover, let 
 all blame be rapid, and never re- 
 peat it. But, lastly, remember that 
 in public, social, and domestic life, 
 love is not, when unguarded, all in
 
 THE EI8EN LIFE. 57 
 
 all. It must be accompanied by 
 the right reason of justice ; for 
 justice is the only element in which 
 love can act without the danger of 
 falling into weakness, favouritism, 
 or folly. Indeed, justice is the 
 other side of the Shield of Love. 
 
 These little matters may seem 
 slight, but in faithfulness of love 
 among them, and in watchfulness 
 of thought around them, the 
 greater part of the resurrection 
 life with Jesus lies hidden. When 
 you have gained the spirit of his 
 power in them, that spirit will 
 expand to meet the demands of 
 larger duties ; and you will know 
 that you are nearing day by day to 
 that ideal life of yours, which, now 
 hidden with Christ in God, is wait- 
 ing for you in the ascended life of 
 the future. It is consolation to 
 think of it, when we have done our 
 work. In the midst of this resur- 
 rection life (which, though risen 
 out of sin and into victory, is yet 
 sorely troubled) we are, in the
 
 58 THE RISEN LIFE. 
 
 quiet hours of sadness, permitted to 
 look forward to the perfect life 
 with God. As in the story of 
 Jesus, so with us, the Ascension 
 will be the sequel of the Eesur- 
 rection. 
 
 Be not, then, too weary of your 
 watchfulness ; for this long 
 struggle through public, social, 
 private life, will not be for ever. 
 " T go to my Father," said Jesus, 
 "and I shall prepare a place for 
 you." It is a happy thought. It 
 speaks of peace to come, rest in a 
 quiet country where our trouble 
 shall be over, and yet our rest be 
 not the rest of inactivity. It tells 
 us of a life of perfect love, where 
 all doing and thinking, being 
 loved, are done and thought with 
 pleasure ; where jealousy shall not 
 make affection torment; where 
 concealed impatience of delaying 
 friendship does not wear the mask 
 of an indifference which wearies 
 into pain the wearer's heart; 
 where work will be no longer
 
 THE BISEN LIFE. 59 
 
 enervated by passion ; where pas- 
 sion itself will replace feverish 
 excitement by calm intensity; 
 where, instead of wilfully giving 
 pain because we love cruelly 
 as the grave, we shall give plea- 
 sure because we know and trust. 
 It is to this ascension life that our 
 dying eyes shall look when the 
 last hours are upon us. The vision 
 is nearest then. We close our eye- 
 lids, and in a moment the world is 
 gone. Death has touched us, and 
 lo ! the sunshine and the peace 
 of Heaven! At last, we have 
 ascended.
 
 The Calming of the Storm. 
 
 " And when He was entered into a ship, His 
 disciples followed Him, And, behold, there 
 arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch 
 that the ship was covered with the waves ; but 
 He was asleep. And His disciples came to 
 Him, and awoke Him, saying, Lord save us : 
 we perish. And He saith unto them : Why are 
 ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? Then He arose 
 and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and there 
 was a great calm. But the men marvelled, 
 saying, What manner of man is this, that even 
 the winds and the sea obey Him ! ' ' 
 
 MATT. vui. 23-27. 
 
 ON as wild a storm as this upon 
 the Lake of Galilee, and at the 
 time when the story rose into 
 importance, the bark of the 
 Church was tossed. Christianity, 
 severed more completely than 
 before the destruction of, Jeru- 
 salem from its Jewish origins, 
 had now become frankly Gentile, 
 and the opposition of the 
 Judaic communities deepened
 
 THE CALMING OF THE STORM. 61 
 
 around it. Moreover, some years 
 before this time at which I 
 suppose the story took its 
 final clothing, Nero had directed 
 the painful attention of the 
 Roman world to the Christian 
 sect. It had been persecuted. 
 Since then, its great expansion 
 had made it a political element in 
 the empire ; and its direct attack 
 on the worship of the Emperor 
 made it dangerous to the Roman 
 Peace in the towns. Therefore, 
 on account, not of its religious, 
 but of its political, results, it drew 
 upon it now the iron hand of 
 Borne. 
 
 From the Jews, then from 
 Rome, the storm gathered round 
 the ship ; the waves threatened to 
 overwhelm it ; above the dark 
 clouds the people of Christ could 
 not see God ; fear and depression 
 fell upon them ; their Master 
 Jesus seemed asleep. "Lord, save 
 us, we perish ! " was their cry. 
 But persecution taught its noble
 
 62 THE CALMING 
 
 lesson. Their faith returned. 
 Again they seemed to hear the 
 words of Jesus : " Why are ye 
 fearful, O ye of little faith?" 
 Again the calm of courage and 
 trust descended into their hearts. 
 The storm passed by, and the 
 Church had peace. 
 
 On as wild a storm are we our- 
 selves often tossed in life. We 
 reel to and fro on our ship, and 
 stagger like a drunken man, and 
 are at our wits' end. As manifold 
 as our characters, so manifold are 
 our tempests tempests of sorrow; 
 overwhelming storms of joy in 
 which our wiser life is ship- 
 wrecked; hurricanes of passion, 
 followed by weakness of will and 
 fainting of conscience, so that if 
 we have escaped the terrible wind, 
 the summer breeze of trial that 
 succeeds it is enough to break up 
 our ship. Sometimes in the night 
 of trouble fear besets us, and 
 we lose the bearings of the lights 
 of life, and rush blindly on the
 
 OP THE STORM. 63 
 
 rocks. Sometimes the deeper 
 darkness of conscious wrong 
 settles down on life ; we remember 
 our innocence of old, we remember 
 God whom once we loved, and, 
 like Adam of old, we hide 
 ourselves for shame from both 
 remembrances. Then the wild 
 wind and the darkness grow 
 louder and gloomier. We lose 
 our faith in God, and losing that, 
 all our personal pain is more 
 terrible. And sometimes then, 
 apart from our own shame and 
 wrong, we look forth on the ocean, 
 and mark how hard and fierce is 
 the storm on others, how heavily 
 they labour in the waves, how 
 many, crying out with shrieks 
 that divide the night, go down in 
 the black solitude, while God 
 seems careless of their sorrow and 
 their ruin! 
 
 " Where is He ? " we ask, then, 
 " who bore and conquered storms 
 of old? Where is my Master 
 Jesus, who used to wake and
 
 64 THE CALMING 
 
 watch with men through life ? 
 Asleep ? Where is He whose spirit 
 will inspire me to find my Father 
 again ? Where is He whose faith 
 will kindle mine till courage rise 
 out of faith and peace out of 
 courage? Still asleep? Save, 
 Lord, I perish, I and all my 
 fellows." 
 
 There is but one answer ever 
 given by Him, and it has been 
 always the same through the 
 ages : " Why are ye fearful, 
 ye of little faith ? " Belief in 
 God, in a Father's love, in His 
 care for you, in His care for all 
 that is the victorious power in the 
 storms of life. It was at the root 
 of the immortal peace of Jesus. 
 It was at the root of the peace 
 that possessed the spirit of the 
 Church in the days of persecution. 
 It is at the root of our peace. 
 When we gain it there is a great 
 calm, and there is nothing else 
 which will bring us calm. 
 
 This is one of the great
 
 OF THE STORM. 65 
 
 tions of Christ's religion, and not 
 only of His religion, but of all the 
 great religions. But it is an 
 answer which many cannot accept, 
 which many will not accept. It 
 conflicts often with the under- 
 standing ; and there are thousands 
 who think that the understanding 
 is the best guide of life. It makes 
 a demand on human pride which 
 pride resents. Moreover, experi- 
 ence, till faith is felt, seems often 
 against it; and what we see 
 appears often to be the whole 
 truth that vain and common 
 error. In all these cases we think 
 there are other ways of getting 
 through the storm. It is not 
 through faith in a Father that we 
 think we shall arrive at peace. 
 There are other ways, we imagine, 
 and some of these I speak of 
 now. 
 
 We may have been so beaten by 
 the tempest that we have given up 
 all faith in God. Then we are 
 often thrown wholly on ourselves, 
 
 5
 
 66 THE CALMING 
 
 and we think our own will 
 sufficient for the day. "My 
 help," we say, " is in myself and 
 time. I cannot get rid of this 
 trouble, but if I wait, it will die 
 away. The tempest will blow 
 itself out. All I have to do is 
 to keep fast hold of the rudder, 
 and trim what sails are left, 
 and not let courage go ; ready 
 for the sunlight, should it break 
 through the clouds, ready for 
 destruction should it come, and 
 resolved at least to be un- 
 dismayed." 
 
 And many work in that fashion 
 through the wilder hours of life, 
 and pass into quiet, not much 
 damaged at first ; and then, refit- 
 ting their bark, set sail again. 
 But the misfortune of that way 
 is that the solitary self-confidence 
 of their character, which up to a 
 certain point is good, is developed 
 beyond that point, and becomes 
 self-pride. And self-pride (which, 
 indeed, a thousand experiences
 
 OF THE STORM. 67 
 
 has proved to be the worst of 
 the things which ruin men and 
 great causes) is that very quality 
 which trust in some one, such as 
 a Divine Father higher than 
 ourselves, would make impossible. 
 Faith in God prevents the de- 
 struction which follows pride in 
 one's self. And that destruction 
 comes in this way. After a time 
 these solitary, self-sufficing persons 
 become sick of themselves. Self 
 has that wearying power. It feeds 
 on its own heart. It sees itself 
 and nothing else, everywhere, and 
 that is a dreadful sight ; so dread- 
 ful that finally, the loathing of 
 its company weakens the whole 
 nature of its victim. It weakens 
 even self-confidence in the end ; 
 and that quality, (which in con- 
 junction with trust in God is 
 good), now becomes mere rigidity 
 of temper, loses its elasticity, and 
 when the next storm comes, 
 breaks like a steel rod, brittle 
 from too great rigidity. This has
 
 68 THE CALMING 
 
 been the fate of many ; and what 
 they reach in the end is not 
 peace, but hardened hatred of 
 life. 
 
 If the storm to take a par- 
 ticular example has been one 
 of sorrow, and is met in this 
 lonely, self-sufficing way, with- 
 out any trust in the love of 
 God the most beautiful and cer- 
 tain result of which is a deep- 
 seated tenderness for all mankind 
 the man, when he has emerged 
 from the tempest, is harder, less 
 kindly, less gentle than before. 
 He has been so hard with himself 
 that he thinks he is licensed to be 
 hard with others ; and he is harder 
 because he does not care now so 
 much as before for trouble. He 
 is, in himself, less sensitive to 
 pain. He has beaten sorrow and 
 suffering, and he demands that 
 others should beat it in the same 
 way. But he asks too much of 
 men, and he asks it too severely ; 
 and the result is that he is severed
 
 OP THE STORM. 69 
 
 from mankind. He can give them 
 no more help in trouble. This 
 result proves that his way of 
 conquering: is wrong. He has 
 missed all the uses of trouble. 
 It ought to have made him softer- 
 hearted, more gentle to failings, 
 more sensitive, less selfish, less 
 austere, less rough. It has made 
 him the opposite to these graces 
 of character. 
 
 Then, again, suppose that the 
 storm has been caused by wrong- 
 doing. Then, if we fight through 
 the gale of punishment in this 
 haughty fashion, we come out of 
 it without any true repentance. 
 The storm has been only a weari- 
 ness, a disagreeable consequence, 
 and no more. It has told us 
 nothing which makes us hate the 
 sin which caused it ; nothing which 
 will give us a motive to avoid it in 
 the future if it be agreeable. We 
 have no sense of having been 
 unworthy children of a Father 
 who is righteousness and desires
 
 70 THE CALMING 
 
 our righteousness ; that mighty 
 motive against sin which faith in 
 God creates. 
 
 And the result is that we are 
 often confirmed in the doing of 
 our own will, even when we know 
 that our will desires wrong. The 
 storm of natural punishment 
 blows itself out, and we sigh with 
 relief. But we have not learnt 
 its lesson. The only thing it tells 
 us is that it is certain to come on 
 again, if we do the same things. 
 But the things are delightful to 
 us. They are " worth the storm " 
 we think ; and we begin once 
 more our pleasant sin. " Let the 
 storm come," we cry ; " we shall 
 get through it again, if neces- 
 sary." The end of that is not 
 peace; no, nothing like peace. 
 And the days will come on such a 
 soul when it would give the world 
 to have some quiet from sin and 
 its fruits, and will not be able. 
 Then the tempest will be too 
 heavy for it ; and it will go down
 
 OF THE STOKH. 71 
 
 in the night, silent and stubborn 
 to the last. 
 
 There is another way in which 
 men meet the tempests of life. It 
 is the way of the fatalists, who 
 may have faith in God, but not in 
 a God who is the Father of men. 
 If the storm come on them from 
 without, having no apparent cause 
 in their own act, " I have nothing," 
 they say, " to do with this trouble. 
 It is like a fever caught in a crowd. 
 It is God's will ; or, if there be no 
 God, it is Nature's necessarian 
 trick. And since I had nothing to 
 do with it, I will do nothing to get 
 out of it. If it clears, so much the 
 better. If it does not, why, my 
 shipwreck was written on my fore- 
 head." 
 
 So he speaks, but another may 
 feel that the storm was, at least, 
 apparently, of his own raising. 
 " What the world calls my 
 imprudence, or my temper, or 
 the passionate desire which L would 
 fulfil these have brought this
 
 72 THE CALMING 
 
 trouble on me ; but the world is 
 really wrong. I was made in this 
 way by God, or heredity has made 
 me so ; these imprudences and 
 tempers and desires were in me, 
 and must have come out. No will 
 of mine could have prevented them. 
 My will to do them is as much 
 fated as the rest. So the storm is 
 fated also, and my rescue or not 
 from it does not depend on me. 
 My future was settled some millions 
 of years ago. Wherefore, I have 
 neither fear nor care ; nor am I 
 likely to ask for help. Why be- 
 seech the inexorable ? Why weary 
 myself with foolish prayer? I 
 shall be sorry, I suppose, if I am 
 overwhelmed, and glad if I find 
 myself in the sunny islands again ; 
 but whether I am glad or sorry 
 matters not a pin to imperturbable 
 necessity ; nay, my feelings are a 
 part of that necessity. This is my 
 faith, and in it I have peace. Calm 
 reigns in my inner life, however 
 loud the winds are without."
 
 OP THE STORM. 73 
 
 Peace ! It is the peace of the 
 desert where there is no life. In- 
 activity is not peace ; and fatalism 
 ends in the destruction of action. 
 To put aside thought, as the 
 fatalist does, is to lose the power 
 of thinking ; and to lose that power 
 is not to be able to learn anything. 
 And as to feel is only to torment 
 oneself in vain, he loses also the 
 power of feeling, or strives to lose 
 it. Doing nothing, then; think- 
 ing, learning, and feeling nothing ; 
 that is his end, and no doubt 
 there is calm in his soul. But he 
 might as well be dead ; and he is 
 dead while he lives. It does not 
 seem a very useful, noble, or 
 beautiful way in which to meet 
 the storms of life ; nor does it 
 enable us to do one atom of good 
 to men. The way of faith in a 
 Father is better the way of Jesus 
 because it ennobles character, 
 and enables us to strengthen men. 
 
 Again, there is a kind of faith, 
 or of that which calls itself faith,
 
 THE CALMING 
 
 which is of little good in the gale, 
 and which leaves us as peaceless as 
 before. An example of that is 
 given to us in an addition made to 
 this story of the calming of the 
 sea, and which seems to have been 
 made in order to fit the case of 
 many during the persecutions. 
 This is the story of Peter walking 
 on the sea to meet Jesus. It is 
 plainly symbolic. There were 
 those who in the persecution put 
 themselves into the way of 
 martyrdom ; wished to give a strik- 
 ing proof of their faith ; affronted 
 death on an impetuous impulse of 
 excitement ; and then, when tor- 
 ture and death were realised, broke 
 down in fear and feebleness. 
 Having no clear understanding 
 of the dangers of temptation, 
 their faith only an excited 
 impulse, and not a rock-rooted 
 conviction; they set forth tri- 
 umphantly to walk on the tossing 
 waves. "God will protect me," 
 they cry ; " I will take the plunge.
 
 OF THE STOKM. 
 
 75 
 
 He will give His angels charge 
 over me, lest I fall." This is to 
 hunt for the storm, to believe in 
 one's self more than in God, to seek 
 to test our faith or to test God by 
 running into spiritual danger 
 which does not offer itself in the 
 quiet way of duty. 
 
 Untried, then, ignorant, vain, 
 having no calmness of faith, we 
 enter into troubles which we have 
 ourselves challenged, and all for a 
 little time is well. But suddenly 
 the wind grows louder, the waves 
 heave and foam beneath our feet, 
 our eyes are blinded by the gale, 
 our ears deafened with its roar 
 all the rush and fierceness of the 
 trial is upon us. In a moment fear 
 has possession of us, and in the 
 weakness born of fear we begin to 
 sink. We realise that we have 
 had only the semblance of faith ; 
 only transient excitement, not 
 eternal trust ; only weakness, not 
 the strength of quiet faith. 
 
 And then we know that God
 
 76 THE CALMING 
 
 has been to us only an idol of 
 sentiment to which our unreal 
 emotions offered incense ; and our 
 faith only vanity. We understand 
 then that human life is serious, 
 that trouble and temptation are 
 not to be played with, that God 
 is a reality and our childhood to 
 Him no dream. Then, if we have 
 any earnestness in us at all, we 
 learn what prayer actually is, 
 know our weakness, get some sense 
 of the realities of life, some con- 
 viction of God, and cry, "O my 
 Father, save me lest I perish " ; till 
 at last we are stripped of all self- 
 conceit, our self-will torn out of 
 our hearts ; and we are cast, 
 stripped of unrealities, upon the 
 shore of a new life, to begin again. 
 It is a long time, after that experi- 
 ence, before we gain our peace. 
 
 The true faith is very different. 
 It does not need to prove itself 
 by challenging danger ; but when 
 the storm comes, it is ready to 
 meet it, certain to overcome it ;
 
 OP THE STORM. 77 
 
 because it knows that the storm is 
 in the order of God, and that if 
 we are true children, we shall be 
 nearer, by fighting through it, to 
 our Father. That is a steady, 
 resolute, active quality not the 
 child of impulse, but the continu- 
 ous movement of the whole nature 
 in holy love towards union with 
 God; not the ephemeral birth of 
 sudden feeling that dies in fear or 
 pain, but the long-growing, slowly- 
 built conviction of the whole being 
 of intellect, conscience, imagi- 
 nation, affections, and spirit each 
 harmonised with the rest, each con- 
 vinced, that the Almighty right- 
 eousness and love are ours, that 
 God is ours, and that we are His. 
 In such a heart there is a great 
 calm, the calm of activity which 
 knows it is useful to mankind, for 
 all its work is in God ; the calm of 
 perfect knowledge; the calm of 
 absolute trust ; the deeper calm of 
 perfect love of Him whose very 
 Being is the love of all. All
 
 78 THE CALMING 
 
 storms may blow wildly round the 
 ship of this faithful man, but he 
 can afford to sleep if he be weary. 
 And when others call on him for 
 help, he comes to cheer, to com- 
 fort, to infuse his own faith into 
 his fellow-men; and thus to still 
 their storms. He has faith in 
 himself because he has faith in 
 God. And the result is courage, 
 the mark and proof of perfect 
 faith ; courage to endure as well as 
 to act ; the power Jesus possessed, 
 and by which He died ; the power 
 by which thousands have subdued 
 the world, wrought righteousness, 
 stopped the mouths of lions, out 
 of weakness were made strong, 
 and met in death the bridal hour 
 of life always tranquil and mak- 
 ing tranquillity. Yes, we must 
 have more than faith in ourselves ; 
 we must have faith in One beyond 
 ourselves to be entirely brave, to 
 have peace in the midst of storms. 
 He who can face death without an 
 eyelid quivering cannot often face
 
 OF THE STORM. 79 
 
 the hooting of the world. There 
 are who have the courage to die, 
 but not the courage to live. Saul 
 was brave, but not brave enough 
 to endure defeat or meet the wail 
 of Israel. 
 
 But he who can cling to a right- 
 eous cause because he believes that 
 God is in it, and that it is the 
 right thing for man, at the very 
 time when the world is pushing it 
 over the precipice with contempt ; 
 he who can endure shame for the 
 sake of righteousness, and bear 
 the cruelty of lies for the sake of 
 truth ; who can be serene when all 
 else despair, for he knows that 
 God is Master of the world ; who 
 never lets go his grip, but tightens 
 it closer round thoughts and aims 
 that belong to truth, the more 
 bitter and heavy grows the opposi- 
 tion of the world; and who can 
 pass away, if need be, as Jesus 
 passed, not by a glorious death in 
 battle, but by the ignominy of 
 the cross, alone, despised, appar-
 
 80 THE CALMING 
 
 ently defeated, yet convinced of 
 the future, and seeing the Father 
 in the hour of his dissolution - 
 he has the highest courage, the 
 courage which makes him know 
 that he is immortal, the courage 
 which is absolute peace, the 
 courage which is the serene and 
 noble victory of faith, and which 
 leaves to mankind the dearest 
 legacy : " Peace I leave with 
 you My peace I give unto 
 you." 
 
 And now think again (that I 
 may bind up the end of these 
 sayings with the whole) of the 
 little Church of Jesus when the 
 waves of persecution beat upon 
 it; think again of our own lives 
 when in the fourth watch of the 
 night the wind is contrary ; think 
 again of the great agonies of 
 human kind heavily labouring in 
 the tempest ; and at last of Jesus, 
 calm and content in conviction 
 that His Father was always love 
 and righteousness, bringing com-
 
 OF THE STORM. 81 
 
 fort and cheer to others Himself 
 at peace and giving peace. 
 
 And then you will understand, 
 with self-reproach and yet inspira- 
 tion to be like Him, all the mean- 
 ing of His cry : " Why are ye 
 fearful, O ye of little faith?"
 
 God's Education of Man. 
 
 " Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is 
 come, He will guide you into all truth." 
 
 JOHN xvi. 12. 
 
 WHEN Christ spoke these words 
 the Apostles were clustered round 
 Him after the Last Supper. It 
 was a solemn hour. The past of 
 His life lay now before His eyes. 
 tf It is finished," said His heart. 
 The present was still full of work ; 
 for He had to fill the hearts of 
 His followers with those concep- 
 tions which were to abide like 
 seeds within their hearts until the 
 time came to vivify them. But the 
 present also held the future in it. 
 In those few men, educated by 
 Him ; in their work, filled by God's 
 Spirit ; the redemption of the world 
 was concentrated. It was as if He 
 stood on a mountain-side, whence
 
 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 83 
 
 issued eleven streams, and saw 
 each flowing through a different 
 country, and changing the world, 
 now a desert, into a garden of the 
 Lord. He prophesied within Him- 
 self the future. He saw mankind 
 redeemed. But none could share 
 His onward glance, nor see what 
 He saw in the past; none could 
 understand. With the deepest 
 desire to speak of all that lay 
 in His soul, with that longing we 
 have for utterance when the heart 
 is full, He could not speak. 
 
 Why could He not speak ? Not 
 because the Apostles would not, 
 but because they could not, com- 
 prehend. How could He tell 
 them, so long as they were in 
 their present state of mind, all 
 He knew ? They would only have 
 said, "We cannot tell what He 
 saith." So, at last, in His quiet 
 way, He let His thoughts come to 
 the surface for a moment: "I 
 have got many things to say to 
 you, but ye cannot bear them now.
 
 84 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 
 
 When He, the Spirit of Truth, is 
 come, He will guide you into all 
 truth." 
 
 They had not grown enough in 
 heart or soul to understand Him 
 then. But then, swiftly, crowded 
 into a few weeks, through the days 
 of the Passion to the hour of 
 Pentecost, enough of education 
 came upon them to enable them 
 to reach a higher level of 
 spiritual life. And the education, 
 as frequently happens in life, 
 was given in a succession of tre- 
 mendous emotions. Often, when 
 we have been brought slowly to a 
 certain point, that which is needed 
 to make us turn into a new path 
 comes upon us, shock after shock, 
 in a month, a week, even a day. 
 This is a common human experi- 
 ence, but not many have had it 
 given to them in the quick and 
 rushing, the uncommon, trials the 
 Apostles suffered. 
 
 First came the betrayal, when 
 shame dwelt upon their hearts,
 
 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 85 
 
 and the sense of utter failure 
 darkened round their lives. Then 
 came the death of Christ; and 
 none can tell what a storm of 
 emotion, trouble, confusion filled 
 their hearts that night and day. 
 Then came the sudden joy and 
 wonder at the conviction that 
 He was alive in another world. 
 Joy was succeeded by unbelief, 
 unbelief again followed by joy. 
 Then came the five weeks in 
 Galilee. Back at their work, 
 musing on what had happened, 
 their souls slowly opened in medi- 
 tation as they fished by the lake, 
 or walked at evening by the shore, 
 where they had so often been with 
 Him. Then came the sense that 
 if they were to realise Him it must 
 now be no longer as a living man, 
 but as an inward spirit. Then 
 came the days of waiting at Jeru- 
 salem ; the pause that fell upon 
 their lives before the great 
 change of Pentecost. They were 
 alone, a few men and women
 
 86 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 
 
 and children who had clung to 
 Him through life, and still clung 
 to His memory. Alternate hope 
 and fear, though hope predomin- 
 ated, filled their hearts; and in 
 them and around them, as they 
 prayed, all the past life of Christ 
 grew into harmony and unity in 
 their souls. Thoughts knit them- 
 selves fco thoughts, feelings joined 
 themselves to feelings, till at last 
 they were fully prepared to enter 
 upon a new life. 
 
 Into a few weeks all that experi- 
 ence was concentrated. The men 
 who had gone through it did not 
 come out at the other side of it 
 the same men. Every point on 
 which I have touched made a new 
 world of feeling and thought in 
 their hearts. They were a century 
 older in intellect, in knowledge, in 
 emotion, in love, in power, and in 
 capacity both to do and to receive. 
 And now that they were so 
 changed now was the time when 
 many of the things Christ could
 
 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 87 
 
 not say to them at the Last Supper 
 could be said ; when they could be 
 guided into further truth. They 
 could bear it now, and then the 
 day of Pentecost arrived. They 
 were filled with the Spirit. They 
 knew what their Master meant 
 when He said : " I will see you 
 again, and your heart shall rejoice, 
 and your joy no man taketh from 
 you. When He, the Spirit of 
 Truth, is come, He will guide you 
 into all truth." 
 
 From all this, one principle 
 arises. Revelation is measured out 
 to mankind in nations, in societies, 
 and in individuals, by the capacity 
 to receive it, and God educates us 
 through the circumstances of life 
 up to that capacity. It is the 
 law in accord with which God 
 educates you and me, and every 
 individual soul; and it is the 
 law by which He educates 
 also the vast personality of the 
 human race. As the capacity of 
 seeing light and truth increases,
 
 88 GOD'S EDUCATION OP MAN. 
 
 and as the power of feeling and 
 knowing grows in mankind, so 
 grows the light; so works the 
 Spirit of God, year by year, age by 
 age, never ceasing, never less living 
 than in earlier times. 
 
 But we may bring this matter 
 very close to ourselves. We have 
 lived with God in our childhood 
 and youth, all unconscious, per- 
 haps, but still so near to Him that 
 we never asked ourselves whether 
 He was with us or not. We were 
 educated by Him without knowing 
 it; and when we stepped into 
 manhood, in the inspiration with 
 which we began our work, and, in 
 the hope with which we looked 
 forward, we heard like a prophecy 
 these words, " I will guide you into 
 truth." 
 
 Then came the world upon us. 
 How busy we were; all the day 
 long at work ; and as our special 
 work denned itself, and we were full 
 of hope and strength, with what 
 eagerness we pursued our aims,
 
 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 89 
 
 with what hope we rose in the 
 morning, how full the day, how 
 well earned the rest at night. Ab- 
 sorbed in the present, how could 
 we think of that dim future, far 
 away, of that unseen God who 
 claimed our thoughts ? And God, 
 looking at us then, and loving us, 
 said : " I have many things to say 
 to you, but ye cannot bear them 
 now ; My voice will not be heard, 
 nor, if I spoke, is your heart yet 
 educated to desire or receive My 
 truth." At last, in the very midst 
 of all our restless activity it may 
 be when a little weariness comes of 
 long-continued labour we pause 
 for a week, or a month, and in 
 some hush of the life of the world, 
 we hear the voice of God : " I will 
 guide you into all truth." And we 
 do not understand Him. " What 
 does it mean ? Why this strange 
 voice, as of something beyond my 
 daily life ? Truth ! Why, the only 
 truth I want is that which lies 
 before me here in this world."
 
 90 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 
 
 Many a time that experience comes ; 
 and again and again in the turmoil 
 of the world and the noise of work 
 the voice of God is drowned. 
 
 At last, suddenly, the sky 
 darkens. A rush of events, such as 
 came to the Apostles, comes upon 
 us. Shock after shock invades our 
 life ; betrayal of love, or betrayal 
 of friendship, the shattering of 
 business, or the death of one who 
 was the staff of life ; sickness, or 
 pain, or bitter agony of heart. 
 We are silent, but the mainspring 
 of existence is broken, and we 
 know it. Life, for years, perhaps, 
 is very hard to live. At last, by 
 the very hardness of life, by the 
 very pain which has finally driven 
 us from our last refuge in this 
 world, we begin to meditate on God. 
 Thoughts spring up which say, 
 " Whose is this work? It is not 
 mine." And then, like the 
 Apostles while they waited at Jeru- 
 salem, we think back over our life. 
 We study, in the sorrow of
 
 COD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 91 
 
 imagination, God's hand in it, and 
 in the new, strange light of all we 
 hare gone through, we seem to see 
 God, to hear Him, to believe. It 
 is as if we listened to Him saying, 
 " Dost thou now understand ? The 
 time is coming fast when I will 
 guide thee into truth." 
 
 Then, like the Apostles, also we 
 wait in obedience. For often it is 
 all we can then do. There is 
 nothing but a dim hope, and we 
 can only go on bearing inwardly, 
 day by day, our pain, with enough 
 fortitude to say nothing. Only 
 now we have enough courage also 
 to obey God's will, so far as we 
 know it. We strive to love others, 
 to do good to them ; we undertake 
 the duties of life cheerfully, and 
 love them because the loving of 
 them brings us nearer to God till 
 at last we begin to feel that all 
 sorrow is nothing, and all pain 
 worthy of forgetting; if we can 
 feel God at last to be truly ours, 
 and know that though our earthly
 
 92 GOD J S EDUCATION OF MAN. 
 
 life decay His presence is enough 
 to make all things new. 
 
 And then, finally, arises the last 
 attitude of the Apostles prayer. 
 " Out of the depths I cry unto 
 Thee, O God. Answer me, my 
 Father ! I want nothing now, but 
 the consciousness of Thy presence ; 
 to know that Thou art mine, and 
 I Thy child for ever. My soul is 
 athirst for Thee and Thee alone." 
 
 That is education. At last we 
 can bear the new light, the new 
 life. And it comes now that we 
 are capable of receiving it. Sud- 
 denly, the house of life is shaken, 
 there is a sound from heaven in 
 the chambers of the heart ; all the 
 windows fly open, and the light of 
 God's morning streams in upon the 
 soul; a rushing, mighty wind 
 freshens the woods of feeling and 
 animates the new blossoms of 
 thought. It fills the whole estate 
 of life. Our Pentecost has come. 
 
 But it is not the final Pentecost. 
 We have not learnt all yet. No
 
 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 93 
 
 sooner is the first joy of revelation 
 over, no sooner is the new life 
 begun on these new impulses, than 
 we hear again God's voice, ' ' I will 
 guide you into all truth. I have 
 yet many things to show to you." 
 Year by year, as the power of 
 receiving grows, new truth is com- 
 municated. It is an endless 
 growth, and it will never cease. 
 
 All growth is joy, the conscious- 
 ness of it our very greatest joy. 
 But until growth becomes the easy 
 habit of the soul, it is dashed with 
 sorrow and pain. Only when we 
 reach the summit of endeavour is 
 our joy complete. But the time 
 will arrive when the growth will be 
 difficult enough for effort but not 
 for exhaustion; when every step 
 will be delight; when in a newer 
 and more inspiring world God will 
 be closer to us, and life be always 
 enkindled, always ready, always at 
 full sail before a flowing, uplifting 
 wind. That will be perfect joy. 
 Many things that God could not
 
 94 GOD'S EDUCATION OF MAN. 
 
 say to us on earth He will say then : 
 it will be a new Pentecost. A 
 rushing, mighty wind, indeed, shall 
 fill our being; new tongues, 
 tongues of fire, will be ours with 
 which we shall declare new 
 thoughts, and speak new things. 
 The Spirit will give us utterance. 
 But, even then, in the very 
 heart of that divine revelation, we 
 shall know that God's education of 
 us will not be final. For God is 
 infinite, and eternity cannot ex- 
 haust the education He gives to us. 
 As each period of growth reaches 
 its end in the heavenly world, we 
 shall again hear with joy the 
 ancient words of progress : ",I 
 have yet many things to say to 
 you, but ye cannot bear them 
 now."
 
 Faithfulness until Death. 
 
 "Be thou faithful until death, and I will 
 give thee a crown of life." EEV. u. 10. 
 
 THE words themselves are in- 
 spiration ; they sound like a trum- 
 pet in the midst of the battle ; and 
 I would that the passing emotion 
 they awake might be so continuous, 
 as not to be able to refrain from 
 expression in the thought and 
 action of a life. The emotion 
 which flies through the soul, like a 
 sparrow through the Northum- 
 brians' hall, is pleasant, but having 
 no result in act is worthless. Only 
 that emotion is worthy which 
 completes itself in form. More- 
 over, the habit of emotions which 
 pass away, and the cherishing of 
 them for the sake of the flitting 
 succession of pleasures that they 
 give, creates a positive evil in the
 
 96 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 character. It makes the character 
 faithless. The new emotion blows 
 out the candle of the old, and its 
 successor extinguishes it in turn. 
 Nothing is kept, and nothing 
 is truly loved. The new alone 
 is sought for, and to seek only 
 the new is not to be able to be 
 faithful. 
 
 Yet we are the children of 
 emotion. It is, in our lives, first 
 in the field before intelligence, 
 before conscience, even before 
 will. Therefore, considering the 
 swiftness with which emotion 
 tends to change, the first thing we 
 have to do when the will has awak- 
 ened, and conscience and intelli- 
 gence are born; and the first 
 thing children should be taught 
 to do, is to learn how to hold fast 
 our emotions, when they are noble, 
 and to put them into shape. When 
 children are allowed to avoid that 
 effort, and to take pleasure in the 
 mere drift of feelings through 
 them, they are being brought up to
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 97 
 
 become faithless characters. When 
 they are trained in the other way, 
 they have made the first step to- 
 wards faithfulness, as well as to- 
 wards the continuity of aspiration. 
 They become men to whom the text 
 means something more than the 
 kindling of the senses as at the 
 sound of a trumpet. It means the 
 unfaltering effort of a life, its 
 nobility and its spiritual joy. 
 
 But it meant more to the early 
 Christian people. To us, the words 
 are partly metaphorical ; but they 
 had no metaphorical meaning when 
 they were written. The persecution 
 of Nero had told the Christians 
 what they might expect. Death 
 was the least pain which the world 
 against them had in its quiver. 
 They were hunted like the wild 
 beast of the woods. They were 
 tortured, exposed to the hatred 
 of the crowd who cheered the lion 
 and the wild bull who tore and 
 dragged them to death. Through 
 these physical woes, as well as 
 
 7
 
 98 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 through the spiritual struggles 
 that we have, they had to persevere, 
 were they to be faithful. Those 
 who kept the faith were obliged to 
 look agony of body and death in 
 the face. 
 
 Men who began the Christian 
 race had then to count the cost, 
 and resolve to pay it. They had 
 to give up ally or at least be ready 
 at a moment to give up all home, 
 friends, wealth, worldly honour 
 and to take Christ instead, and 
 death. The rich, of whom there 
 were many, had harder tempta- 
 tions to face than the poor. Not 
 only did all the good things of the 
 world which they were bound to 
 surrender appeal to them, but every 
 inducement was held out to them 
 of love, and property, and fame to 
 lead them to sacrifice to the Em- 
 peror. On their ears, even louder 
 than on the ears of the poor, fell 
 this trumpet-call, " Be thou faith- 
 ful unto death/' and to their 
 eternal honour the greater number
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 99 
 
 of them obeyed the call, and paid 
 the glorious penalty. 
 
 Faithful to what ? To a selfish 
 aim, to a political or religious 
 party cry, to a cause which offered 
 to them material rewards? No; 
 but faithful unto death to the 
 great ideas of Christ ; to the 
 conception of God's fatherhood ; of 
 man's brotherhood; of communion 
 which could not be broken, with 
 the Divine and with the human ; 
 faithful to the conception of the 
 Church universal, and the immor- 
 tality of all its members ; faithful 
 in life to the character of the 
 Father to goodness, to truth, to 
 justice, to purity within and with- 
 out ; to an ideal perfection which 
 was certain at last to be attained ; 
 faithful to their Master, Christ, 
 who had established in them 
 these truths ; faithful to Him 
 with so passionate a love that it 
 were easier to die in torment than 
 to betray His name or swerve 
 from His example ; faithful to His
 
 100 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 work, which was love of men to 
 the death, pardon for the sinner, 
 forgiveness of enemies, absolute 
 sacrifice of life for love, death 
 that wrong might die, death for 
 the cause of man. These were the 
 matters to which they were faith- 
 ful, and not one of them brought 
 with it a worldly reward. There 
 was not one which was not 
 spiritual, which did not proclaim 
 that the spiritual world that is, 
 the world of love and faith and 
 righteousness was the only world 
 for men, and that, in comparison 
 with it, the material world and all 
 its rewards were nothing at all. 
 
 And what was their reward ? It 
 also was spiritual. It was the 
 consciousness of union with God, 
 and through Him, because He was 
 our Father, union with all human- 
 ity. It was to feel themselves 
 citizens of an eternal kingdom 
 which annihilated all the differ- 
 ences, castes and classes of earth, 
 but annihilated them that it might
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 101 
 
 make one nation out of all nations, 
 and all men brothers in that uni- 
 versal nationality. It was to feel 
 themselves at one with all the 
 noble dead who now dwelt in the 
 City of God. It was that they had 
 in all their sorrows, the immortal 
 sympathy of God and Jesus, of 
 angels and just men made perfect. 
 They were never alone, none were 
 ever lost to them. The whole 
 universe of spirit was their friend. 
 It was that the crown of eternal 
 life was theirs; not a life in 
 after days so coarsely imagined 
 a life of rewards such as those 
 given on earth but the continu- 
 ance of the eternal life they 
 already had on earth ; the Divine 
 life of the soul ; in which righteous- 
 ness should become perfect, which 
 should be immortal union with 
 Justice, Purity, and Truth the 
 life of God Himself: that life of 
 absolute love which some are 
 fools enough to say is a selfish 
 thing to desire ; but which is. on
 
 102 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 the contrary, the transformation 
 of every touch of selfishness into 
 love ; love so full, so absolute, 
 and so undying, that never for one 
 moment, through all eternity, 
 shall we think of ourselves again. 
 Absence of self-desire there are 
 religions which think to gain that 
 in ceasing to be in the destruc- 
 tion of personal life. But our 
 religion's highest honour is that 
 through it we gain absence of 
 self-desire through fulness of life ; 
 that personality remains, and is at 
 its height in absolute loss of self. 
 These blessings were their reward, 
 and to desire them, to live for 
 them, enforces and secures unself- 
 ishness. It is the greatest glory 
 of the human race to live for 
 them, and die for them. It is to 
 live and die, as Jesus did, for 
 love, since to love like God is to 
 possess them all. Immortal Life 
 is equal to Immortal Love. 
 
 This was the meaning of the 
 text to the early Christians. It
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 103 
 
 should be its meaning for us. 
 The conditions of life, indeed, 
 are changed, but the things for 
 which we should live and die 
 faithfully are the same ; and the 
 fruit of them is the same now as 
 then. 
 
 But the change of conditions, 
 while it has made the physical 
 trials less, has doubled the 
 spiritual difficulties. We are not 
 persecuted as Nero persecuted 
 the Christians, but we have 
 twice as many temptations in life. 
 We must not regret our greater 
 knowledge, our more complex life, 
 our own time. Out of such regret 
 nothing comes but base retirement 
 from the strife. But we are all 
 the more bound to be faithful unto 
 death to the spiritual, since we are 
 so overwhelmed with the material. 
 Alas ! it is this faithfulness to the 
 spiritual that Society has largely 
 abandoned. Luxury, comfort, ease, 
 wealth, the tyranny of knowledge, 
 the belief only in the palpable
 
 104 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 and the probable, the competition 
 for money, the doing of art for 
 money these have driven life 
 down into the mud, and our 
 society is not far from that degree 
 of baseness which, when it is 
 reached, dooms the society. All 
 that men say now of the splendour 
 and wealth of England, and all 
 the boasting of the upper classes 
 in this country, while deep below 
 lies a morass of misery and ignor- 
 ance and crime and despairing 
 poverty, in which monsters of the 
 slime are moving and devouring, 
 is dreadful to hear. It is glorying 
 in degradation. Their luxury is 
 filth, and their wealth is villainy. 
 All luxury and comfort, gained for 
 selfish ends alone, is corrupt ; and 
 the tendency to consider them to 
 be the whole of life belongs to 
 every class, to the poor as well as 
 to the rich. Have they been 
 gained, and are they established, 
 by love of man ? Has the faith in 
 the universal Fatherhood of God
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 105 
 
 anything to do with them, or 
 have they been gained by trampling 
 that faith into the dust? What 
 would Christ and His doctrine of 
 the brotherhood of all, of giving 
 up our lives to men, say to the for- 
 tunes which are made out of the 
 misery of the poor, and which are 
 spent to the detriment and ruin of 
 the real capital of the country, 
 of the men, women, and children 
 who are the vitals of England? 
 Can we say for one moment that 
 a great part of our society has any 
 faith in Jesus, or that He is to it 
 more than a plague and a weari- 
 ness ? You read in every daily 
 paper what we are doing, what the 
 life is which many in this country 
 are leading. Is that life faithful 
 unto death for the spiritual for 
 love and truth and justice ? No ; 
 and its doom, unless it repent, 
 will be the crown of death. 
 
 But there are others who do 
 not live in this idling, gambling, 
 corrupt, greedy fashion ; but who
 
 106 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 have no more faith than they in 
 the spiritual life, that is, in a life 
 which is directed by ideas which 
 are above the material world, 
 belief in a Father in whom the 
 race of man is contained, and by 
 the duties towards men which 
 follow on that belief; men who have 
 no hope for man, and no happier 
 hopes for the race. These are 
 weary of the whole matter, and 
 retire from the strife, some in 
 sorrow, some in cynicism. They 
 have had their dreams ; they hstve 
 done some work ; but they have 
 found out that their dreams had 
 no basis, and that their work was 
 no use. Henceforth they will sing 
 their songs alone. It is not very 
 noble, but it is very comfortable. 
 They have built a wall round the 
 park of their life to shut out 
 the world. The rooms in their 
 house are filled with know- 
 ledge and with art and song. Not 
 a cry from the suffering world 
 penetrates into this refuge of
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 107 
 
 peace ; nothing to disturb the 
 pleasant solitude in which the his- 
 tory of man is like a picture on 
 the wall, and his agony of battle 
 is seen, as one sees a tragedy from 
 a stall in a theatre. 
 
 It is agreeable, artistic, poetic, 
 though the true artist and the true 
 poet are not there. They are in 
 the battle ; if they be true artist, 
 true poet, they know the sorrow 
 and joy, the torment and the strife 
 of man, if they write well and 
 paint well. Let the word pass 
 then we are not likely to confuse 
 these persons with the true artist. 
 But wherever they may be, this life 
 of theirs is not being faithful unto 
 death, but faithful unto self ; and 
 the crown it wins is not the crown 
 of life, but the crown of death 
 death of high imagination, death 
 of true emotion, death of eager 
 thought, death of those passions 
 which bear us beyond ourselves, 
 death in us of man, and therefore 
 death of God. They think they
 
 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 have these things their life, 
 imagination, passion, and the rest 
 and for a time they may 
 have their remnants. But they 
 have divided themselves from the 
 common heart of man, and these 
 great qualities, fed no more from 
 that rockborn and perennial 
 fountain, droop and die. Then 
 they make false images of them 
 and worship them from degrada- 
 tion to degradation. 
 
 This is one of the curses of an 
 over- rich, an over-easy society 
 vast numbers of comfortable 
 middle-class people, who do plenty 
 of work for themselves, but little 
 for mankind; who nurse their 
 dainty sympathies ; and who, re- 
 fusing every idea that troubles 
 their ease, despising every emotion 
 which in their youth led them to 
 join in the great strife and labour 
 of the world towards good, are 
 sodden in selfishness, till humanity 
 becomes a vision of the night, 
 and God a phantom of the brain.
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 109 
 
 This is the result of not having 
 clear, passionately felt principles, 
 of having no convictions of truths 
 for which we would sacrifice our 
 life. The natural sloth of the 
 mind then passes into indifference 
 to everything except ourselves. 
 Nothing outside matters much, 
 we then think, except our own 
 interest and our own fancies. 
 
 It was different in that Apos- 
 tolic time. Men had then clear 
 convictions, and they were faithful 
 to them. They believed that what 
 they held as main principles were 
 necessary for the welfare of the 
 human race, and they would rather 
 have died than have swerved 
 from them for a moment. 
 That earnestness, that convic- 
 tion of necessary truth, is what so 
 many of us need in a world where 
 beliefs tend to become indefinite 
 and indifferent. " It does not 
 matter much," they say, "under 
 what form we worship God, what 
 principles we hold, what truths we
 
 110 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 accept. God is seen in many ways ; 
 He fulfils Himself in various 
 fashions." Faiths have many 
 sides; principles vary in form. 
 That is true ; but it argues loose- 
 ness of mind and weakness of will 
 not to be able to choose one way 
 one set of principles for life and 
 when we have chosen them, to 
 cling to them. If we change our 
 convictions as we some times must, 
 under the pressure of God, in order 
 to be true to conscience we ought 
 to change with the whole mass 
 of our nature and character 
 going with the change. The 
 drifting habit so many have the 
 indifferent swinging to and fro 
 from one set of religious, political, 
 and moral ideas to another, and then 
 to another is not a thing to boast 
 of, but is rooted in unfaithfulness 
 of character, in inconstancy of 
 mind. If, having any faith at all, 
 we have no clear conceptions of 
 what it is most useful to the human 
 race to have taught everywhere,
 
 UNTIL DEATH. Ill 
 
 and best for us ourselves to live out 
 plainly before the world, we have 
 no faith worth having; and we 
 shall not realise God, or moral or 
 social truth with any reality, nor 
 impress ourselves with any force 
 upon the world. It is our business 
 to get what we think and believe 
 into lucid form, and then to sup- 
 port it with all our power, influ- 
 ence, and presence. Faithfulness 
 is claimed from us by God and 
 man. 
 
 It is not faithfulness to our con- 
 ceptions to be lured away from the 
 action due to them or their sup- 
 port by any pleasure or any fancy, 
 or by the desires of ambition, of 
 society, or the world. It is not 
 faithfulness to be ashamed of their 
 reproach, if they have any reproach 
 in the eyes of men. It is not 
 faithfulness to be indifferent to 
 their advance, or to fail to sup- 
 port them by our presence in 
 public ; to be half in them and 
 half outside of them in other ideas.
 
 112 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 It is not faithfulness, by any act 
 of ours, to let lookers-on think that 
 our belief lies loose on us like a 
 garment which we wear or not at 
 pleasure. 
 
 No ; whatever you profess, cling 
 to with all your soul. Whatever 
 ship you sail in, fly your flag ; and 
 let all the world know clearly 
 under which banner you sail the 
 seas. There is no indifference, 
 no to and fro, where there is faith- 
 fulness. As a man clings to his 
 wife, so should he cling to the 
 truths, forms, and faith which he 
 has chosen. Let him marry what 
 form he likes, but having mar- 
 ried, let him be faithful all round 
 to his faith. That constancy, that 
 faithfulness, is what moves the 
 world. By that, the ideas we think 
 worthy and precious are spread far 
 and wide for the use and good of 
 men. By that, religious, political, 
 social, moral, artistic, educational, 
 societies win their way, and there 
 is no other way the wit of men
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 113 
 
 can compass. By that, also, we 
 ourselves attain slowly the most 
 noble of all the virtues for the 
 practical strength of character in 
 man or woman the virtue of en- 
 during faithfulness. I recommend 
 these considerations at a time 
 when indifferentism is exalted 
 almost into a virtue. Have con- 
 victions and cling to them. Gain 
 principles of faith, of morals, of 
 human action ; love them earnestly, 
 and shape them into undeviating 
 action. 
 
 Once more, there is another 
 tendency in modern Society to 
 which the text speaks home. In- 
 difference sinks into a belief that 
 this world is too bad to be cured, 
 too vile to live in. I have often 
 said that this belief is the child of 
 a too comfortable, too science- 
 ridden, too luxurious a Society. 
 The miserable, the oppressed, the 
 starving sometimes preach this 
 doctrine when the contrasts of life 
 are too horrible to them. But few 
 
 8
 
 114 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 among them keep it. Misery, 
 poverty, desperate battle, rage of 
 indignation, unspeakable suffering 
 this is not the soil in which 
 hatred and scorn of life flourish, 
 but rather that in which optim- 
 ism roots itself most deeply. It 
 is among these that almost all 
 of the Utopias of the earth have 
 been formed and preached. It is, 
 on the contrary, among the com- 
 fortable philosophers, among those 
 who have time to despise humanity 
 or to pity it, from a distance 
 among those who are wearied 
 with luxury, and bored with the 
 dregs of all enjoyment, that this 
 degrading belief grows up and 
 flourishes. It is the product of 
 an enervated, idle, and decaying 
 society. Its saddest symptom is 
 that those who hold it boast them- 
 selves in it, are even excited in 
 its propaganda. The excitement 
 is, in itself, not a bad thing. One 
 sees in it a certain vigour of 
 which God will make use here-
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 115 
 
 after when they know better. But 
 it is a bad thing to be excited 
 about base prophecies. To prove 
 that to be nothing is better than 
 to be alive ; that life itself is only a 
 battle against misery on one side, 
 and ennui on the other; that 
 egoism is the only motive of man ; 
 that love is only the blind desire 
 of sense or of reproduction ; that 
 death is the only blessing, for 
 it destroys us ; that all the work 
 of humanity is a motiveless 
 battle that is not worth the 
 proving. It is to try and prove 
 what is base, and out of it comes no 
 nobility. To believe it would de- 
 grade the race, and turn the good 
 into the wicked, and the wicked 
 into devils. It is a doctrine which 
 is faithful unto death in another 
 way than the writer of our text 
 meant, and its crown is the crown 
 of corruption. 
 
 I thank God that there are thou- 
 sands in this country who have 
 not bowed the knee to these Baals,
 
 116 FAITHFULNESS 
 
 who have neither given themselves 
 over to the world, nor retired from 
 the work of humanity, nor de- 
 clared that everything is base, and 
 death its only remedy ; and who 
 have resolved, in humility and in 
 failure, in sorrow or in joy, to be 
 faithful to God and man unto 
 death, whether there be a crown 
 of life or not. There is this crown, 
 and it comes none the less to those 
 who do not believe in it ; if they 
 are faithful to the life and spirit of 
 Jesus, who lived and died for love 
 of man the child of God. These 
 are men and women whom we 
 honour, with whom we desire to 
 work, whose aims are the same as 
 ours, though we wish they built 
 their labour on our foundation. 
 They believe in man, hope for him 
 and love him, and so far, they 
 and we are one in the work of Jesus 
 Christ. They do not share His 
 faith or ours in a Brotherhood 
 held in God the Father ; but in the 
 end the loving work will create the
 
 UNTIL DEATH. 117 
 
 faith. I wish we could work more 
 heartily together. It would be a 
 miserable matter if, for the sake 
 of religious opinions, we were to 
 split into two unconnected efforts 
 the opposition we both make to 
 the luxury, materialism, indiffer- 
 ence, and despair of progress, 
 which are the true enemies of the 
 human race. 
 
 Let us not only be faithful to 
 the death, but faithful to one 
 another. Schism in the ranks of 
 those at war against selfishness, in 
 men or national life, is the worst 
 of pities. It strikes at the root of 
 progress, for it strikes at the love 
 of one another. Therefore let us 
 join our armies for a great pur- 
 pose, for the bettering of man- 
 kind by love ; bring our thoughts, 
 our ideals, our action into one 
 movement of sacrifice for this pur- 
 pose. Let us cease to attack, and 
 only support, one another; and 
 whether we confess God or not, 
 He will be with us ; whether we
 
 118 FAITHFULNESS UNTIL DEATH. 
 
 own Christ or not as our Master, 
 we shall be doing His work. 
 
 There is an uphill strife before 
 us. It is the old strife against the 
 lust of the flesh, the lust of wealth, 
 the desire to get everything for 
 oneself out of our fellow men, the 
 desperate greed of self-interest, 
 within ourselves and without us in 
 the world. In conquering these 
 evil things is the true honour and 
 salvation of our country. In the 
 fate of the battle all over the 
 world the fate of humanity is con- 
 tained. Be faithful to your cause, 
 faithful to death, and we shall 
 have the crown of life ; for the 
 more we labour, sacrifice, and die 
 in this strife, the more we shall 
 love, and love is the Crown of Life.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 W. 8PEAIGJIT AND SONS, PBINTEBS, 
 PUTTER LANE, E.C.