{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14453/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14453","id":"gutenberg_14453","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14453","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Sermons, English -- 19th century","Theology -- Sermons"],"text":"THE HOPE OF THE GOSPEL\n\nBY\n\nGEORGE MACDONALD\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nSALVATION FROM SIN\n\nTHE REMISSION OF SINS\n\nJESUS IN THE WORLD\n\nJESUS AND HIS FELLOW TOWNSMEN\n\nTHE HEIRS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH\n\nSORROW THE PLEDGE OF JOY\n\nGOD'S FAMILY\n\nTHE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE\n\nTHE YOKE OF JESUS\n\nTHE SALT AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD\n\nTHE RIGHT HAND AND THE LEFT\n\nTHE HOPE OF THE UNIVERSE\n\n\n\n\n_SALVATION FROM SIN_.\n\n--and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from\ntheir sins.--_Matthew_ i. 21.\n\n\nI would help some to understand what Jesus came from the home of our\nFather to be to us and do for us. Everything in the world is more or\nless misunderstood at first: we have to learn what it is, and come at\nlength to see that it must be so, that it could not be otherwise. Then\nwe know it; and we never know a thing _really_ until we know it thus.\n\nI presume there is scarce a human being who, resolved to speak openly,\nwould not confess to having something that plagued him, something from\nwhich he would gladly be free, something rendering it impossible for\nhim, at the moment, to regard life as an altogether good thing. Most\nmen, I presume, imagine that, free of such and such things antagonistic,\nlife would be an unmingled satisfaction, worthy of being prolonged\nindefinitely. The causes of their discomfort are of all kinds, and the\ndegrees of it reach from simple uneasiness to a misery such as makes\nannihilation the highest hope of the sufferer who can persuade himself\nof its possibility. Perhaps the greater part of the energy of this\nworld's life goes forth in the endeavour to rid itself of discomfort.\nSome, to escape it, leave their natural surroundings behind them, and\nwith strong and continuous effort keep rising in the social scale, to\ndiscover at every new ascent fresh trouble, as they think, awaiting\nthem, whereas in truth they have brought the trouble with them. Others,\nmaking haste to be rich, are slow to find out that the poverty of their\nsouls, none the less that their purses are filling, will yet keep them\nunhappy. Some court endless change, nor know that on themselves the\nchange must pass that will set them free. Others expand their souls with\nknowledge, only to find that content will not dwell in the great house\nthey have built. To number the varieties of human endeavour to escape\ndiscomfort would be to enumerate all the modes of such life as does not\nknow how to live. All seek the thing whose defect appears the _cause_ of\ntheir misery, and is but the variable _occasion_ of it, the cause of the\nshape it takes, not of the misery itself; for, when one apparent cause\nis removed, another at once succeeds. The real cause of his trouble is a\nsomething the man has not perhaps recognized as even existent; in any\ncase he is not yet acquainted with its true nature.\n\nHowever absurd the statement may appear to one who has not yet\ndiscovered the fact for himself, the cause of every man's discomfort is\nevil, moral evil--first of all, evil in himself, his own sin, his own\nwrongness, his own unrightness; and then, evil in those he loves: with\nthis latter I have not now to deal; the only way to get rid of it, is\nfor the man to get rid of his own sin. No special sin may be\nrecognizable as having caused this or that special physical\ndiscomfort--which may indeed have originated with some ancestor; but\nevil in ourselves is the cause of its continuance, the source of its\nnecessity, and the preventive of that patience which would soon take\nfrom it, or at least blunt its sting. The evil is _essentially_\nunnecessary, and passes with the attainment of the object for which it\nis permitted--namely, the development of pure will in man; the suffering\nalso is essentially unnecessary, but while the evil lasts, the\nsuffering, whether consequent or merely concomitant, is absolutely\nnecessary. Foolish is the man, and there are many such men, who would\nrid himself or his fellows of discomfort by setting the world right, by\nwaging war on the evils around him, while he neglects that integral part\nof the world where lies his business, his first business--namely, his\nown character and conduct. Were it possible--an absurd supposition--that\nthe world should thus be righted from the outside, it would yet be\nimpossible for the man who had contributed to the work, remaining what\nhe was, ever to enjoy the perfection of the result; himself not in tune\nwith the organ he had tuned, he must imagine it still a distracted,\njarring instrument. The philanthropist who regards the wrong as in the\nrace, forgetting that the race is made up of conscious and wrong\nindividuals, forgets also that wrong is always generated in and done by\nan individual; that the wrongness exists in the individual, and by him\nis passed over, as tendency, to the race; and that no evil can be cured\nin the race, except by its being cured in its individuals: tendency is\nnot absolute evil; it is there that it may be resisted, not yielded to.\nThere is no way of making three men right but by making right each one\nof the three; but a cure in one man who repents and turns, is a\nbeginning of the cure of the whole human race.\n\nEven if a man's suffering be a far inheritance, for the curing of which\nby faith and obedience this life would not be sufficiently long, faith\nand obedience will yet render it endurable to the man, and overflow in\nhelp to his fellow-sufferers. The groaning body, wrapt in the garment of\nhope, will, with outstretched neck, look for its redemption, and endure.\n\nThe one cure for any organism, is to be set right--to have all its\nparts brought into harmony with each other; the one comfort is to know\nthis cure in process. Rightness alone is cure. The return of the\norganism to its true self, is its only possible ease. To free a man from\nsuffering, he must be set right, put in health; and the health at the\nroot of man's being, his rightness, is to be free from wrongness, that\nis, from sin. A man is right when there is no wrong in him. The wrong,\nthe evil is in him; he must be set free from it. I do not mean set free\nfrom the sins he has done: that will follow; I mean the sins he is\ndoing, or is capable of doing; the sins in his being which spoil his\nnature--the wrongness in him--the evil he consents to; the sin he is,\nwhich makes him do the sin he does.\n\nTo save a man from his sins, is to say to him, in sense perfect and\neternal, 'Rise up and walk. Be at liberty in thy essential being. Be\nfree as the son of God is free.' To do this for us, Jesus was born, and\nremains born to all the ages. When misery drives a man to call out to\nthe source of his life,--and I take the increasing outcry against\nexistence as a sign of the growth of the race toward a sense of the need\nof regeneration--the answer, I think, will come in a quickening of his\nconscience. This earnest of the promised deliverance may not, in all\nprobability will not be what the man desires; he will want only to be\nrid of his suffering; but that he cannot have, save in being delivered\nfrom its essential root, a thing infinitely worse than any suffering it\ncan produce. If he will not have that deliverance, he must keep his\nsuffering. Through chastisement he will take at last the only way that\nleads into the liberty of that which is and must be. There can be no\ndeliverance but to come out of his evil dream into the glory of God.\n\nIt is true that Jesus came, in delivering us from our sins, to deliver\nus also from the painful consequences of our sins. But these\nconsequences exist by the one law of the universe, the true will of the\nPerfect. That broken, that disobeyed by the creature, disorganization\nrenders suffering inevitable; it is the natural consequence of the\nunnatural--and, in the perfection of God's creation, the result is\ncurative of the cause; the pain at least tends to the healing of the\nbreach. The Lord never came to deliver men from the consequences of\ntheir sins while yet those sins remained: that would be to cast out of\nwindow the medicine of cure while yet the man lay sick; to go dead\nagainst the very laws of being. Yet men, loving their sins, and feeling\nnothing of their dread hatefulness, have, consistently with their low\ncondition, constantly taken this word concerning the Lord to mean that\nhe came to save them from the punishment of their sins. The idea--the\nmiserable fancy rather--has terribly corrupted the preaching of the\ngospel. The message of the good news has not been truly delivered.\nUnable to believe in the forgiveness of their Father in heaven,\nimagining him not at liberty to forgive, or incapable of forgiving\nforthright; not really believing him God our Saviour, but a God bound,\neither in his own nature or by a law above him and compulsory upon him,\nto exact some recompense or satisfaction for sin, a multitude of\nteaching men have taught their fellows that Jesus came to bear our\npunishment and save us from hell. They have represented a result as the\nobject of his mission--the said result nowise to be desired by true man\nsave as consequent on the gain of his object. The mission of Jesus was\nfrom the same source and with the same object as the punishment of our\nsins. He came to work along with our punishment. He came to side with\nit, and set us free from our sins. No man is safe from hell until he is\nfree from his sins; but a man to whom his sins, that is the evil things\nin him, are a burden, while he may indeed sometimes feel as if he were\nin hell, will soon have forgotten that ever he had any other hell to\nthink of than that of his sinful condition. For to him his sins are\nhell; he would go to the other hell to be free of them; free of them,\nhell itself would be endurable to him. For hell is God's and not the\ndevil's. Hell is on the side of God and man, to free the child of God\nfrom the corruption of death. Not one soul will ever be redeemed from\nhell but by being saved from his sins, from the evil in him. If hell be\nneedful to save him, hell will blaze, and the worm will writhe and bite,\nuntil he takes refuge in the will of the Father. 'Salvation from hell,\nis salvation as conceived by such to whom hell and not evil is the\nterror.' But if even for dread of hell a poor soul seek the Father, he\nwill be heard of him in his terror, and, taught of him to seek the\nimmeasurably greater gift, will in the greater receive the less.\n\nThere is another important misapprehension of the words of the\nmessengers of the good tidings--that they threaten us with punishment\nbecause of the sins we have committed, whereas their message is of\nforgiveness, not of vengeance; of deliverance, not of evil to come. Not\nfor anything he has committed do they threaten a man with the outer\ndarkness. Not for any or all of his sins that are past shall a man be\ncondemned; not for the worst of them needs he dread remaining\nunforgiven. The sin he dwells in, the sin he will not come out of, is\nthe sole ruin of a man. His present, his live sins--those pervading his\nthoughts and ruling his conduct; the sins he keeps doing, and will not\ngive up; the sins he is called to abandon, and clings to; the same sins\nwhich are the cause of his misery, though he may not know it--these are\nthey for which he is even now condemned. It is true the memory of the\nwrongs we have done is, or will become very bitter; but not for those is\ncondemnation; and if that in our character which made them possible were\nabolished, remorse would lose its worst bitterness in the hope of future\namends. 'This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,\nand men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were\nevil.'\n\nIt is the indwelling badness, ready to produce bad actions, that we need\nto be delivered from. Against this badness if a man will not strive, he\nis left to commit evil and reap the consequences. To be saved from these\nconsequences, would be no deliverance; it would be an immediate, ever\ndeepening damnation. It is the evil in our being--no essential part of\nit, thank God!--the miserable fact that the very child of God does not\ncare for his father and will not obey him, causing us to desire wrongly,\nact wrongly, or, where we try not to act wrongly, yet making it\nimpossible for us not to feel wrongly--this is what he came to deliver\nus from;--not the things we have done, but the possibility of doing such\nthings any more. With the departure of this possibility, and with the\nhope of confession hereafter to those we have wronged, will depart also\nthe power over us of the evil things we have done, and so we shall be\nsaved from them also. The bad that lives in us, our evil judgments, our\nunjust desires, our hate and pride and envy and greed and\nself-satisfaction--these are the souls of our sins, our live sins, more\nterrible than the bodies of our sins, namely the deeds we do, inasmuch\nas they not only produce these loathsome things, but make us loathsome\nas they. Our wrong deeds are our dead works; our evil thoughts are our\nlive sins. These, the essential opposites of faith and love, the sins\nthat dwell and work in us, are the sins from which Jesus came to deliver\nus. When we turn against them and refuse to obey them, they rise in\nfierce insistence, but the same moment begin to die. We are then on the\nLord's side, as he has always been on ours, and he begins to deliver us\nfrom them.\n\nAnything in you, which, in your own child, would make you feel him not\nso pleasant as you would have him, is something wrong. This may mean\nmuch to one, little or nothing to another. Things in a child which to\none parent would not seem worth minding, would fill another with horror.\nAfter his moral development, where the one parent would smile, the other\nwould look aghast, perceiving both the present evil, and the\nserpent-brood to follow. But as the love of him who is love, transcends\nours as the heavens are higher than the earth, so must he desire in his\nchild infinitely more than the most jealous love of the best mother can\ndesire in hers. He would have him rid of all discontent, all fear, all\ngrudging, all bitterness in word or thought, all gauging and measuring\nof his own with a different rod from that he would apply to another's.\nHe will have no curling of the lip; no indifference in him to the man\nwhose service in any form he uses; no desire to excel another, no\ncontentment at gaining by his loss. He will not have him receive the\nsmallest service without gratitude; would not hear from him a tone to\njar the heart of another, a word to make it ache, be the ache ever so\ntransient. From such, as from all other sins, Jesus was born to deliver\nus; not, primarily, or by itself, from the punishment of any of them.\nWhen all are gone, the holy punishment will have departed also. He came\nto make us good, and therein blessed children.\n\nOne master-sin is at the root of all the rest. It is no individual\naction, or anything that comes of mood, or passion; it is the\nnon-recognition by the man, and consequent inactivity in him, of the\nhighest of all relations, that relation which is the root and first\nessential condition of every other true relation of or in the human\nsoul. It is the absence in the man of harmony with the being whose\nthought is the man's existence, whose word is the man's power of\nthought. It is true that, being thus his offspring, God, as St Paul\naffirms, cannot be far from any one of us: were we not in closest\ncontact of creating and created, we could not exist; as we have in us\nno power to be, so have we none to continue being; but there is a closer\ncontact still, as absolutely necessary to our well-being and highest\nexistence, as the other to our being at all, to the mere capacity of\nfaring well or ill. For the highest creation of God in man is his will,\nand until the highest in man meets the highest in God, their true\nrelation is not yet a spiritual fact. The flower lies in the root, but\nthe root is not the flower. The relation exists, but while one of the\nparties neither knows, loves, nor acts upon it, the relation is, as it\nwere, yet unborn. The highest in man is neither his intellect nor his\nimagination nor his reason; all are inferior to his will, and indeed, in\na grand way, dependent upon it: his will must meet God's--a will\n_distinct_ from God's, else were no _harmony_ possible between them. Not\nthe less, therefore, but the more, is all God's. For God creates in the\nman the power to will His will. It may cost God a suffering man can\nnever know, to bring the man to the point at which he will will His\nwill; but when he is brought to that point, and declares for the truth,\nthat is, for the will of God, he becomes one with God, and the end of\nGod in the man's creation, the end for which Jesus was born and died, is\ngained. The man is saved from his sins, and the universe flowers yet\nagain in his redemption. But I would not be supposed, from what I have\nsaid, to imagine the Lord without sympathy for the sorrows and pains\nwhich reveal what sin is, and by means of which he would make men sick\nof sin. With everything human he sympathizes. Evil is not human; it is\nthe defect and opposite of the human; but the suffering that follows it\nis human, belonging of necessity to the human that has sinned: while it\nis by cause of sin, suffering is _for_ the sinner, that he may be\ndelivered from his sin. Jesus is in himself aware of every human pain.\nHe feels it also. In him too it is pain. With the energy of tenderest\nlove he wills his brothers and sisters free, that he may fill them to\noverflowing with that essential thing, joy. For that they were indeed\ncreated. But the moment they exist, truth becomes the first thing, not\nhappiness; and he must make them true. Were it possible, however, for\npain to continue after evil was gone, he would never rest while one ache\nwas yet in the world. Perfect in sympathy, he feels in himself, I say,\nthe tortured presence of every nerve that lacks its repose. The man may\nrecognize the evil in him only as pain; he may know little and care\nnothing about his sins; yet is the Lord sorry for his pain. He cries\naloud, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will\ngive you rest.' He does not say, 'Come unto me, all ye that feel the\nburden of your sins;' he opens his arms to all weary enough to come to\nhim in the poorest hope of rest. Right gladly would he free them from\ntheir misery--but he knows only one way: he will teach them to be like\nhimself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of his father's\nwill. This is the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing\nthem from their sins, the cause of their unrest. With them the weariness\ncomes first; with him the sins: there is but one cure for both--the will\nof the Father. That which is his joy will be their deliverance! He might\nindeed, it may be, take from them the human, send them down to some\nlower stage of being, and so free them from suffering--but that must be\neither a descent toward annihilation, or a fresh beginning to grow up\nagain toward the region of suffering they have left; for that which is\nnot growing must at length die out of creation. The disobedient and\nselfish would fain in the hell of their hearts possess the liberty and\ngladness that belong to purity and love, but they cannot have them; they\nare weary and heavy-laden, both with what they are, and because of what\nthey were made for but are not. The Lord knows what they need; they know\nonly what they want. They want ease; he knows they need purity. Their\nvery existence is an evil, of which, but for his resolve to purify them,\ntheir maker must rid his universe. How can he keep in his sight a foul\npresence? Must the creator send forth his virtue to hold alive a thing\nthat will be evil--a thing that ought not to be, that has no claim but\nto cease? The Lord himself would not live save with an existence\nabsolutely good.\n\nIt may be my reader will desire me to say _how_ the Lord will deliver\nhim from his sins. That is like the lawyer's 'Who is my neighbour?' The\nspirit of such a mode of receiving the offer of the Lord's deliverance,\nis the root of all the horrors of a corrupt theology, so acceptable to\nthose who love weak and beggarly hornbooks of religion. Such questions\nspring from the passion for the fruit of the tree of knowledge, not the\nfruit of the tree of life. Men would understand: they do not care to\n_obey_,--understand where it is impossible they should understand save\nby obeying. They would search into the work of the Lord instead of doing\ntheir part in it--thus making it impossible both for the Lord to go on\nwith his work, and for themselves to become capable of seeing and\nunderstanding what he does. Instead of immediately obeying the Lord of\nlife, the one condition upon which he can help them, and in itself the\nbeginning of their deliverance, they set themselves to question their\nunenlightened intellects as to his plans for their deliverance--and not\nmerely how he means to effect it, but how he can be able to effect it.\nThey would bind their Samson until they have scanned his limbs and\nthews. Incapable of understanding the first motions of freedom in\nthemselves, they proceed to interpret the riches of his divine soul in\nterms of their own beggarly notions, to paraphrase his glorious verse\ninto their own paltry commercial prose; and then, in the growing\npresumption of imagined success, to insist upon their neighbours'\nacceptance of their distorted shadows of 'the plan of salvation' as the\ntruth of him in whom is no darkness, and the one condition of their\nacceptance with him. They delay setting their foot on the stair which\nalone can lead them to the house of wisdom, until they shall have\ndetermined the material and mode of its construction. For the sake of\nknowing, they postpone that which alone can enable them to know, and\nsubstitute for the true understanding which lies beyond, a false\npersuasion that they already understand. They will not accept, that is,\nact upon, their highest privilege, that of obeying the Son of God. It is\non them that do his will, that the day dawns; to them the day-star\narises in their hearts. Obedience is the soul of knowledge.\n\nBy obedience, I intend no kind of obedience to man, or submission to\nauthority claimed by man or community of men. I mean obedience to the\nwill of the Father, however revealed in our conscience.\n\nGod forbid I should seem to despise understanding. The New Testament is\nfull of urgings to understand. Our whole life, to be life at all, must\nbe a growth in understanding. What I cry out upon is the\nmisunderstanding that comes of man's endeavour to understand while not\nobeying. Upon obedience our energy must be spent; understanding will\nfollow. Not anxious to know our duty, or knowing it and not doing it,\nhow shall we understand that which only a true heart and a clean soul\ncan ever understand? The power in us that would understand were it free,\nlies in the bonds of imperfection and impurity, and is therefore\nincapable of judging the divine. It cannot see the truth. If it could\nsee it, it would not know it, and would not have it. Until a man begins\nto obey, the light that is in him is darkness.\n\nAny honest soul may understand this much, however--for it is a thing we\nmay of ourselves judge to be right--that the Lord cannot save a man from\nhis sins while he holds to his sins. An omnipotence that could do and\nnot do the same thing at the same moment, were an idea too absurd for\nmockery; an omnipotence that could at once make a man a free man, and\nleave him a self-degraded slave--make him the very likeness of God, and\ngood only because he could not help being good, would be an idea of the\nsame character--equally absurd, equally self-contradictory.\n\nBut the Lord is not unreasonable; he requires no high motives where\nsuch could not yet exist. He does not say, 'You must be sorry for your\nsins, or you need not come to me:' to be sorry for his sins a man must\nlove God and man, and love is the very thing that has to be developed in\nhim. It is but common sense that a man, longing to be freed from\nsuffering, or made able to bear it, should betake himself to the Power\nby whom he is. Equally is it common sense that, if a man would be\ndelivered from the evil in him, he must himself begin to cast it out,\nhimself begin to disobey it, and work righteousness. As much as either\nis it common sense that a man should look for and expect the help of his\nFather in the endeavour. Alone, he might labour to all eternity and not\nsucceed. He who has not made himself, cannot set himself right without\nhim who made him. But his maker is in him, and is his strength. The man,\nhowever, who, instead of doing what he is told, broods speculating on\nthe metaphysics of him who calls him to his work, stands leaning his\nback against the door by which the Lord would enter to help him. The\nmoment he sets about putting straight the thing that is crooked--I mean\ndoing right where he has been doing wrong, he withdraws from the\nentrance, gives way for the Master to come in. He cannot make himself\npure, but he can leave that which is impure; he can spread out the\n'defiled, discoloured web' of his life before the bleaching sun of\nrighteousness; he cannot save himself, but he can let the Lord save him.\nThe struggle of his weakness is as essential to the coming victory as\nthe strength of Him who resisted unto death, striving against sin.\n\nThe sum of the whole matter is this:--The Son has come from the Father\nto set the children free from their sins; the children must hear and\nobey him, that he may send forth judgment unto victory.\n\nSon of our Father, help us to do what thou sayest, and so with thee die\nunto sin, that we may rise to the sonship for which we were created.\nHelp us to repent even to the sending away of our sins.\n\n\n\n\n_THE REMISSION OF SINS._\n\nJohn did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance\nfor the remission of sins.--_Mark_ i. 4.\n\n\nGod and man must combine for salvation from sin, and the same word, here\nand elsewhere translated _remission_, seems to be employed in the New\nTestament for the share of either in the great deliverance.\n\nBut first let me say something concerning the word here and everywhere\ntranslated _repentance_. I would not even suggest a mistranslation; but\nthe idea intended by the word has been so misunderstood and therefore\nmistaught, that it requires some consideration of the word itself to get\nat a right recognition of the moral fact it represents.\n\nThe Greek word then, of which the word _repentance_ is the accepted\nsynonym and fundamentally the accurate rendering, is made up of two\nwords, the conjoint meaning of which is, _a change of mind_ or\n_thought_. There is in it no intent of, or hint at _sorrow_ or _shame_,\nor any other of the mental conditions that, not unfrequently\naccompanying repentance, have been taken for essential parts of it,\nsometimes for its very essence. Here, the last of the prophets, or the\nevangelist who records his doings, qualifies the word, as if he held it\ninsufficient in itself to convey the Baptist's meaning, with the three\nwords that follow it--_[Greek: eis aPhesin amarti\u00f4n:--kaeruss\u00f4n Baptisma\nmetauoias eis aphesin amarti\u00f4n]_--'preaching a baptism of\nrepentance--_unto a sending away of sins'._ I do not say the phrase\n_[Greek: aphesis amarti\u00f4n]_ never means _forgiveness,_ one form at least\nof _God's_ sending away of sins; neither do I say that the taking of the\nphrase to mean _repentance for the remission of sins_, namely,\nrepentance in order to obtain the pardon of God, involves any\ninconsistency; but I say that the word _[Greek: eis]_ rather _unto_ than\n_for;_ that the word _[Greek: aphesis],_ translated _remission_, means,\nfundamentally, a _sending away,_ a _dismissal;_ and that the writer\nseems to use the added phrase to make certain what he means by\n_repentance;_ a repentance, namely, that reaches to the sending away, or\nabjurement of sins. I do not think _a change of mind unto the remission\nor pardon of sin_ would be nearly so logical a phrase as _a change of\nmind unto the dismission of sinning._ The revised version refuses the\nword _for_ and chooses _unto,_ though it retains _remission,_ which\nword, now, conveys no meaning except the forgiveness of God. I think\nthat here the same word is used for man's dismission of his sins, as is\nelsewhere used for God's dismission or remission of them. In both uses,\nit is a sending away of sins, with the difference of meaning that comes\nfrom the differing sources of the action. Both God and man send away\nsins, but in the one case God sends away the sins of the man, and in the\nother the man sends away his own sins. I do not enter into the question\nwhether God's aphesis may or may not mean as well the sending of his\nsins out of a man, as the pardon of them; whether it may not sometimes\nmean _dismission,_ and sometimes _remission_: I am sure the one deed\ncannot be separated from the other.\n\nThat the phrase here intends repentance unto the ceasing from sin, the\ngiving up of what is wrong, I will try to show at least probable.\n\nIn the first place, the user of the phrase either defines the change of\nmind he means as one that has for its object the pardon of God, or as\none that reaches to a new life: the latter seems to me the more natural\ninterpretation by far. The kind and scope of the repentance or change,\nand not any end to be gained by it, appears intended. The change must be\none of will and conduct--a radical change of life on the part of the\nman: he must repent--that is, change his mind--not to a different\nopinion, not even to a mere betterment of his conduct--not to anything\nless than a sending away of his sins. This interpretation of the\npreaching of the Baptist seems to me, I repeat, the more direct, the\nfuller of meaning, the more logical.\n\nNext, in St Matthew's gospel, the Baptist's buttressing argument, or\nimminent motive for the change he is pressing upon the people is, that\nthe kingdom of heaven is at hand: 'Because the king of heaven is coming,\nyou must give up your sinning.' The same argument for immediate action\nlies in his quotation from Isaiah,--'Prepare ye the way of the Lord;\nmake straight in the desert a highway for our God.' The only true, the\nonly possible preparation for the coming Lord, is to cease from doing\nevil, and begin to do well--to send away sin. They must cleanse, not the\nstreets of their cities, not their houses or their garments or even\ntheir persons, but their hearts and their doings. It is true the Baptist\ndid not see that the kingdom coming was not of this world, but of the\nhigher world in the hearts of men; it is true that his faith failed him\nin his imprisonment, because he heard of no martial movement on the part\nof the Lord, no assertion of his sovereignty, no convincing show of his\npower; but he did see plainly that righteousness was essential to the\nkingdom of heaven. That he did not yet perceive that righteousness _is_\nthe kingdom of heaven; that he did not see that the Lord was already\ninitiating his kingdom by sending away sin out of the hearts of his\npeople, is not wonderful. The Lord's answer to his fore-runner's message\nof doubt, was to send his messenger back an eye-witness of what he was\ndoing, so to wake or clarify in him the perception that his kingdom was\nnot of this world--that he dealt with other means to another end than\nJohn had yet recognized as his mission or object; for obedient love in\nthe heart of the poorest he healed or persuaded, was his kingdom come.\n\nAgain, observe that, when the Pharisees came to John, he said to them,\n'Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:' is not this the same\nas, 'Repent unto the sending away of your sins'?\n\nNote also, that, when the multitudes came to the prophet, and all, with\nthe classes most obnoxious to the rest, the publicans and the soldiers,\nasked what he would have them do--thus plainly recognizing that\nsomething was required of them--his instruction was throughout in the\nsame direction: they must send away their sins; and each must begin with\nthe fault that lay next him. The kingdom of heaven was at hand: they\nmust prepare the way of the Lord by beginning to do as must be done in\nhis kingdom.\n\nThey could not rid themselves of their sins, but they could set about\nsending them away; they could quarrel with them, and proceed to turn\nthem out of the house: the Lord was on his way to do his part in their\nfinal banishment. Those who had repented to the sending away of their\nsins, he would baptize with a holy power to send them away indeed. The\noperant will to get rid of them would be baptized with a fire that\nshould burn them up. When a man breaks with his sins, then the wind of\nthe Lord's fan will blow them away, the fire of the Lord's heart will\nconsume them.\n\nI think, then, that the part of the repentant man, and not the part of\nGod, in the sending away of sins, is intended here. It is the man's one\npreparation for receiving the power to overcome them, the baptism of\nfire.\n\nNot seldom, what comes in the name of the gospel of Jesus Christ, must\nseem, even to one not far from the kingdom of heaven, no good news at\nall. It does not draw him; it wakes in him not a single hope. He has no\ndesire after what it offers him as redemption. The God it gives him news\nof, is not one to whom he would draw nearer. But when such a man comes\nto see that the very God must be his Life, the heart of his\nconsciousness; when he perceives that, rousing himself to put from him\nwhat is evil, and do the duty that lies at his door, he may fearlessly\nclaim the help of him who 'loved him into being,' then his will\nimmediately sides with his conscience; he begins to try to _be_;\nand--first thing toward being--to rid himself of what is antagonistic to\nall being, namely _wrong_. Multitudes will not even approach the\nappalling task, the labour and pain of _being_. God is doing his part,\nis undergoing the mighty toil of an age-long creation, endowing men with\npower to be; but few as yet are those who take up their part, who\nrespond to the call of God, who will to be, who put forth a divine\neffort after real existence. To the many, the spirit of the prophet\ncries, 'Turn ye, and change your way! The kingdom of heaven is near you.\nLet your king possess his own. Let God throne himself in you, that his\nliberty be your life, and you free men. That he may enter, clear the\nhouse for him. Send away the bad things out of it. Depart from evil, and\ndo good. The duty that lieth at thy door, do it, be it great or small.'\n\nFor indeed in this region there is no great or small. 'Be content with\nyour wages,' said the Baptist to the soldiers. To many people now, the\nword would be, 'Rule your temper;' or, 'Be courteous to all;' or, 'Let\neach hold the other better than himself;' or, 'Be just to your neighbour\nthat you may love him.' To make straight in the desert a highway for our\nGod, we must bestir ourselves in the very spot of the desert on which\nwe stand; we must cast far from us our evil thing that blocks the way\nof his chariot-wheels. If we do not, never will those wheels roll\nthrough our streets; never will our desert blossom with his roses.\n\nThe message of John to his countrymen, was then, and is yet, the one\nmessage to the world:--'Send away your sins, for the kingdom of heaven\nis near.' Some of us--I cannot say _all_, for I do not know--who have\nalready repented, who have long ago begun to send away our sins, need\nfresh repentance every day--how many times a day, God only knows. We are\nso ready to get upon some path that seems to run parallel with the\nnarrow way, and then take no note of its divergence! What is there for\nus when we discover that we are out of the way, but to bethink ourselves\nand turn? By those 'who need no repentance,' the Lord may have meant\nsuch as had repented perfectly, had sent away all their sins, and were\nnow with him in his Father's house; also such as have never sinned, and\nsuch as no longer turn aside for any temptation.\n\nWe shall now, perhaps, be able to understand the relation of the Lord\nhimself to the baptism of John.\n\nHe came to John to be baptized; and most would say John's baptism was of\nrepentance for the remission or pardon of sins. But the Lord could not\nbe baptized for the remission of sins, for he had never done a selfish,\nan untrue, or an unfair thing. He had never wronged his Father, any\nmore than ever his Father had wronged him. Happy, happy Son and Father,\nwho had never either done the other wrong, in thought, word, or deed! As\nlittle had he wronged brother or sister. He needed no forgiveness; there\nwas nothing to forgive. No more could he be baptized for repentance: in\nhim repentance would have been to turn to evil! Where then was the\npropriety of his coming to be baptized by John, and insisting on being\nby him baptized? It must lie elsewhere.\n\nIf we take the words of John to mean 'the baptism of repentance unto the\nsending away of sins;' and if we bear in mind that in his case\nrepentance could not be, inasmuch as what repentance is necessary to\nbring about in man, was already existent in Jesus; then, altering the\nwords to fit the case, and saying, 'the baptism of willed devotion to\nthe sending away of sin,' we shall see at once how the baptism of Jesus\nwas a thing right and fit.\n\nThat he had no sin to repent of, was not because he was so constituted\nthat he could not sin if he would; it was because, of his own will and\njudgment, he sent sin away from him--sent it from him with the full\nchoice and energy of his nature. God knows good and evil, and, blessed\nbe his name, chooses good. Never will his righteous anger make him\nunfair to us, make him forget that we are dust. Like him, his son also\nchose good, and in that choice resisted all temptation to help his\nfellows otherwise than as their and his father would. Instead of\ncrushing the power of evil by divine force; instead of compelling\njustice and destroying the wicked; instead of making peace on the earth\nby the rule of a perfect prince; instead of gathering the children of\nJerusalem under his wings whether they would or not, and saving them\nfrom the horrors that anguished his prophetic soul--he let evil work its\nwill while it lived; he contented himself with the slow unencouraging\nways of help essential; making men good; casting out, not merely\ncontrolling Satan; carrying to their perfect issue on earth the old\nprimeval principles because of which the Father honoured him: 'Thou hast\nloved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God,\nhath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.' To love\nrighteousness is to make it grow, not to avenge it; and to win for\nrighteousness the true victory, he, as well as his brethren, had to send\naway evil. Throughout his life on earth, he resisted every impulse to\nwork more rapidly for a lower good,--strong perhaps when he saw old age\nand innocence and righteousness trodden under foot. What but this gives\nany worth of reality to the temptation in the wilderness, to the\ndevil's departing from him for a season, to his coming again to\nexperience a like failure? Ever and ever, in the whole attitude of his\nbeing, in his heart always lifted up, in his unfailing readiness to pull\nwith the Father's yoke, he was repelling, driving away sin--away from\nhimself, and, as Lord of men, and their saviour, away from others also,\nbringing them to abjure it like himself. No man, least of all any lord\nof men, can be good without willing to be good, without setting himself\nagainst evil, without sending away sin. Other men have to send it away\nout of them; the Lord had to send it away from before him, that it\nshould not enter into him. Therefore is the stand against sin common to\nthe captain of salvation and the soldiers under him.\n\nWhat did Jesus come into the world to do? The will of God in saving his\npeople from their sins--not from the punishment of their sins, that\nblessed aid to repentance, but from their sins themselves, the paltry as\nwell as the heinous, the venial as well as the loathsome. His whole work\nwas and is to send away sin--to banish it from the earth, yea, to cast\nit into the abyss of non-existence behind the back of God. His was the\nholy war; he came carrying it into our world; he resisted unto blood;\nthe soldiers that followed him he taught and trained to resist also unto\nblood, striving against sin; so he became the captain of their\nsalvation, and they, freed themselves, fought and suffered for others.\nThis was the task to which he was baptized; this is yet his enduring\nlabour. 'This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many\nunto the sending away of sins.' What was the new covenant? 'I will make\na new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not\naccording to the covenant which they brake, but this: I will put my law\nin their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their\nGod, and they shall be my people.'\n\nJohn baptized unto repentance because those to whom he was sent had to\nrepent. They must bethink themselves, and send away the sin that was in\nthem. But had there been a man, aware of no sin in him, but aware that\nlife would be no life were not sin kept out of him, that man would have\nbeen right in receiving the baptism of John unto the continuous\ndismission of the sin ever wanting to enter in at his door. The object\nof the baptism was the sending away of sin; its object was repentance\nonly where necessary to, only as introducing, as resulting in that. He\nto whom John was not sent, He whom he did not call, He who needed no\nrepentance, was baptized for the same object, to the same conflict for\nthe same end--the banishment of sin from the dominions of his\nfather--and that first by his own sternest repudiation of it in himself.\nThence came his victory in the wilderness: he would have his fathers\nway, not his own. Could he be less fitted to receive the baptism of\nJohn, that the object of it was no new thing with him, who had been\nabout it from the beginning, yea, from all eternity? We shall be about\nit, I presume, to all eternity.\n\nSuch, then, as were baptized by John, were initiated into the company of\nthose whose work was to send sin out of the world, and first, by sending\nit out of themselves, by having done with it. Their earliest endeavour\nin this direction would, as I have said, open the door for that help to\nenter without which a man could never succeed in the divinely arduous\ntask--could not, because the region in which the work has to be wrought\nlies in the very roots of his own being, where, knowing nothing of the\nsecrets of his essential existence, he can immediately do nothing, where\nthe maker of him alone is potent, alone is consciously present. The\nchange that must pass in him more than equals a new creation, inasmuch\nas it is a higher creation. But its necessity is involved in the former\ncreation; and thence we have a right to ask help of our creator, for he\nrequires of us what he has created us unable to effect without him. Nay,\nnay!--could we do anything without him, it were a thing to leave undone.\nBlessed fact that he hath made us so near him! that the scale of our\nbeing is so large, that we are completed only by his presence in it!\nthat we are not men without him! that we can be one with our\nself-existent creator! that we are not cut off from the original\nInfinite! that in him we must share infinitude, or be enslaved by the\nfinite! The very patent of our royalty is, that not for a moment can we\nlive our true life without the eternal life present in and with our\nspirits. Without him at our unknown root, we cease to be. True, a dog\ncannot live without the presence of God; but I presume a dog may live a\ngood dog-life without knowing the presence of his origin: man is dead if\nhe know not the Power which is his cause, his deepest selfing self; the\nPresence which is not himself, and is nearer to him than himself; which\nis infinitely more himself, more his very being, than he is himself. The\nbeing of which we are conscious, is not our full self; the extent of our\nconsciousness of our self is no measure of our self; our consciousness\nis infinitely less than we; while God is more necessary even to that\npoor consciousness of self than our self-consciousness is necessary to\nour humanity. Until a man become the power of his own existence, become\nhis own God, the sole thing necessary to his existing is the will of\nGod; for the well-being and perfecting of that existence, the sole thing\nnecessary is, that the man should know his maker present in him. All\nthat the children want is their Father.\n\nThe one true end of all speech concerning holy things is--the persuading\nof the individual man to cease to do evil, to set himself to do well, to\nlook to the lord of his life to be on his side in the new struggle.\nSupposing the suggestions I have made correct, I do not care that my\nreader should understand them, except it be to turn against the evil in\nhim, and begin to cast it out. If this be not the result, it is of no\nsmallest consequence whether he agree with my interpretation or not. If\nhe do thus repent, it is of equally little consequence; for, setting\nhimself to do the truth, he is on the way to know all things. Real\nknowledge has begun to grow possible for him.\n\nI am not sure what the Lord means in the words, 'Thus it becometh us to\nfulfil all righteousness.' Baptism could not be the fulfilling of all\nrighteousness! Perhaps he means, 'We must, by a full act of the will,\ngive ourselves altogether to righteousness. We must make it the business\nof our lives to send away sin, and do the will of the Father. That is my\nwork as much as the work of any man who must repent ere he can begin. I\nwill not be left out when you call men to be pure as our father is\npure.'\n\nTo be certain whom he intends by _us_ might perhaps help us to see his\nmeaning. Does he intend _all of us men_? Does he intend 'my father and\nme'? Or does he intend 'you and me, John'? If the saying mean what I\nhave suggested, then the _us_ would apply to all that have the knowledge\nof good and evil. 'Every being that can, must devote himself to\nrighteousness. To be right is no adjunct of completeness; it is the\nground and foundation of existence.' But perhaps it was a lesson for\nJohn himself, who, mighty preacher of righteousness as he was, did not\nyet count it the all of life. I cannot tell.\n\nNote that when the Lord began his teaching, he employed, neither using\nnor inculcating any rite, the same words as John,--'Repent, for the\nkingdom of heaven is at hand.'\n\nThat kingdom had been at hand all his infancy, boyhood, and young\nmanhood: he was in the world with his father in his heart: that was the\nkingdom of heaven. Lonely man on the hillside, or boy the cynosure of\ndoctor-eyes, his father was everything to him:--'Wist ye not that I must\nbe in my father's things?'\n\n\n\n\n_JESUS IN THE WORLD._\n\n'Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have\nsought thee sorrowing.' And he said unto them, 'How is it that ye sought\nme? wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?' And they\nunderstood not the saying which he spake unto them.--_Luke_ ii. 48-50.\n\n\nWas that his saying? Why did they not understand it? Do we understand\nit? What did his saying mean? The Greek is not absolutely clear. Whether\nthe Syriac words he used were more precise, who in this world can tell?\nBut had we heard his very words, we too, with his father and mother,\nwould have failed to understand them. Must we fail still?\n\nIt will show at once where our initial difficulty lies, if I give the\nlatter half of the saying as presented in the revised English version:\nits departure from the authorized reveals the point of obscurity:--'Wist\nye not that I must be in my father's house?' His parents had his exact\nwords, yet did not understand. We have not his exact words, and are in\ndoubt as to what the Greek translation of them means.\n\nIf the authorized translation be true to the intent of the Greek, and\ntherefore to that of the Syriac, how could his parents, knowing him as\nthey did from all that had been spoken before concerning him, from all\nthey had seen in him, from the ponderings in Mary's own heart, and from\nthe precious thoughts she and Joseph cherished concerning him, have\nfailed to understand him when he said that wherever he was, he must be\nabout his father's business? On the other hand, supposing them to know\nand feel that he must be about his father's business, would that have\nbeen reason sufficient, in view of the degree of spiritual development\nto which they had attained, for the Lord's expecting them not to be\nanxious about him when they had lost him? Thousands on thousands who\ntrust God for their friends in things spiritual, do not trust him for\nthem in regard of their mere health or material well-being. His parents\nknew how prophets had always been treated in the land; or if they did\nnot think in that direction, there were many dangers to which a boy like\nhim would seem exposed, to rouse an anxiety that could be met only by a\nfaith equal to saying, 'Whatever has happened to him, death itself, it\ncan be no evil to one who is about his father's business;' and such a\nfaith I think the Lord could not yet have expected of them. That what\nthe world counts misfortune might befall him on his father's business,\nwould have been recognized by him, I think, as reason for their parental\nanxiety--so long as they had not learned God--that he is what he is--the\nthing the Lord had come to teach his father's men and women. His words\nseem rather to imply that there was no need to be anxious about his\npersonal safety. Fear of some accident to him seems to have been the\ncause of their trouble; and he did not mean, I think, that they ought\nnot to mind if he died doing his father's will, but that he was in no\ndanger as regarded accident or misfortune. This will appear more plainly\nas we proceed. So much for the authorized version.\n\nLet us now take the translation given us by the Revisers:--'Wist ye not\nthat I must be in my father's house?'\n\nAre they authorized in translating the Greek thus? I know no\njustification for it, but am not learned enough to say they have none.\nThat the Syriac has it so, is of little weight; seeing it is no original\nSyriac, but retranslation. If he did say '_my father's house_', could he\nhave meant the temple and his parents not have known what he meant? And\nwhy should he have taken it for granted they would know, or judge that\nthey ought to have known, that he was there? So little did the temple\nsuggest itself to them, that either it was the last place in which they\nsought him, or they had been there before, and had _not_ found him. If\nhe meant that they might have known this without being told, why was it\nthat, even when he set the thing before them, they did not understand\nhim? I do not believe he meant the temple; I do not think he said or\nmeant '_in my fathers house'_.\n\nWhat then makes those who give us this translation, prefer it to the\nphrase in the authorized version, '_about my Father's business_'?\n\nOne or other of two causes--most likely both together: an ecclesiastical\nfancy, and the mere fact that he was found in the temple. A mind\necclesiastical will presume the temple the fittest, therefore most\nlikely place, for the Son of God to betake himself to, but such a mind\nwould not be the first to reflect that the temple was a place where the\nFather was worshipped neither in spirit nor in truth--a place built by\none of the vilest rulers of this world, less fit than many another spot\nfor the special presence of him of whom the prophet bears witness: 'Thus\nsaith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is\nHoly; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a\ncontrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to\nrevive the heart of the contrite ones.' Jesus himself, with the same\nbreath in which once he called it his father's house, called it a den of\nthieves. His expulsion from it of the buyers and sellers, was the first\nwaft of the fan with which he was come to purge his father's dominions.\nNothing could ever cleanse that house; his fanning rose to a tempest,\nand swept it out of his father's world.\n\nFor the second possible cause of the change from _business_ to\n_temple_--the mere fact that he was found in the temple, can hardly be a\nreason for his expecting his parents to know that he was there; and if\nit witnessed to some way of thought or habit of his with which they were\nacquainted, it is, I repeat, difficult to see why the parents should\nfail to perceive what the interpreters have found so easily. But the\nparents looked for a larger meaning in the words of such a son--whose\nmeaning at the same time was too large for them to find.\n\nWhen, according to the Greek, the Lord, on the occasion already alluded\nto, says 'my father's house,' he says it plainly; he uses the word\n_house_: here he does not.\n\nLet us see what lies in the Greek to guide us to the thought in the mind\nof the Lord when he thus reasoned with the apprehensions of his father\nand mother. The Greek, taken literally, says, 'Wist ye not that I must\nbe in the----of my father?' The authorized version supplies _business_;\nthe revised, _house_. There is no noun in the Greek, and the article\n'the' is in the plural. To translate it as literally as it can be\ntranslated, making of it an English sentence, the saying stands, 'Wist\nye not that I must be in the things of my father?' The plural article\nimplies the English _things_; and the question is then, What _things_\ndoes he mean? The word might mean _affairs_ or _business_; but why the\nplural article should be contracted to mean _house_, _I_ do not know. In\na great wide sense, no doubt, the word _house_ might be used, as I am\nabout to show, but surely not as meaning the temple.\n\nHe was arguing for confidence in God on the part of his parents, not for\na knowledge of his whereabout. The same thing that made them anxious\nconcerning him, prevented them from understanding his words--lack,\nnamely, of faith in the Father. This, the one thing he came into the\nworld to teach men, those words were meant to teach his parents. They\nare spirit and life, involving the one principle by which men shall\nlive. They hold the same core as his words to his disciples in the\nstorm, 'Oh ye of little faith!' Let us look more closely at them.\n\n'Why did you look for me? Did you not know that I must be among my\nfather's things?' What are we to understand by 'my father's things'?\nThe translation given in the authorized version is, I think, as to the\nwords themselves, a thoroughly justifiable one: 'I must be about my\nfather's business,' or 'my father's affairs'; I refuse it for no other\nreason than that it does not fit the logic of the narrative, as does the\nword _things_, which besides opens to us a door of large and joyous\nprospect. Of course he was about his father's business, and they might\nknow it and yet be anxious about him, not having a perfect faith in that\nfather. But, as I have said already, it was not anxiety as to what might\nbefall him because of doing the will of the Father; he might well seem\nto them as yet too young for danger from that source; it was but the\nvague perils of life beyond their sight that appalled them; theirs was\njust the uneasiness that possesses every parent whose child is missing;\nand if they, like him, had trusted in their father, they would have\nknown what their son now meant when he said that he was in the midst of\nhis father's things--namely, that the very things from which they\ndreaded evil accident, were his own home-surroundings; that he was not\ndoing the Father's business in a foreign country, but in the Father's\nown house. Understood as meaning the world, or the universe, the phrase,\n'my father's house,' would be a better translation than the authorized;\nunderstood as meaning the poor, miserable, God-forsaken temple--no more\nthe house of God than a dead body is the house of a man--it is\nimmeasurably inferior.\n\nIt seems to me, I say, that the Lord meant to remind them, or rather to\nmake them feel, for they had not yet learned the fact, that he was never\naway from home, could not be lost, as they had thought him; that he was\nin his father's house all the time, where no hurt could come to him.\n'The things' about him were the furniture and utensils of his home; he\nknew them all and how to use them. 'I must be among my father's\nbelongings.' The world was his home because his father's house. He was\nnot a stranger who did not know his way about in it. He was no lost\nchild, but with his father all the time.\n\nHere we find one main thing wherein the Lord differs from us: we are not\nat home in this great universe, our father's house. We ought to be, and\none day we shall be, but we are not yet. This reveals Jesus more than\nman, by revealing him more man than we. We are not complete men, we are\nnot anything near it, and are therefore out of harmony, more or less,\nwith everything in the house of our birth and habitation. Always\nstruggling to make our home in the world, we have not yet succeeded. We\nare not at home in it, because we are not at home with the lord of the\nhouse, the father of the family, not one with our elder brother who is\nhis right hand. It is only the son, the daughter, that abideth ever in\nthe house. When we are true children, if not the world, then the\nuniverse will be our home, felt and known as such, the house we are\nsatisfied with, and would not change. Hence, until then, the hard\nstruggle, the constant strife we hold with _Nature_--as we call the\nthings of our father; a strife invaluable for our development, at the\nsame time manifesting us not yet men enough to be lords of the house\nbuilt for us to live in. We cannot govern or command in it as did the\nLord, because we are not at one with his father, therefore neither in\nharmony with his things, nor rulers over them. Our best power in regard\nto them is but to find out wonderful facts concerning them and their\nrelations, and turn these facts to our uses on systems of our own. For\nwe discover what we seem to discover, by working inward from without,\nwhile he works outward from within; and we shall never understand the\nworld, until we see it in the direction in which he works making\nit--namely from within outward. This of course we cannot do until we are\none with him. In the meantime, so much are both we and his things his,\nthat we can err concerning them only as he has made it possible for us\nto err; we can wander only in the direction of the truth--if but to find\nthat we can find nothing.\n\nThink for a moment how Jesus was at home among the things of his\nfather. It seems to me, I repeat, a spiritless explanation of his\nwords--that the temple was the place where naturally he was at home.\nDoes he make the least lamentation over the temple? It is Jerusalem he\nweeps over--the men of Jerusalem, the killers, the stoners. What was his\nplace of prayer? Not the temple, but the mountain-top. Where does he\nfind symbols whereby to speak of what goes on in the mind and before the\nface of his father in heaven? Not in the temple; not in its rites; not\non its altars; not in its holy of holies; he finds them in the world and\nits lovely-lowly facts; on the roadside, in the field, in the vineyard,\nin the garden, in the house; in the family, and the commonest of its\naffairs--the lighting of the lamp, the leavening of the meal, the\nneighbour's borrowing, the losing of the coin, the straying of the\nsheep. Even in the unlovely facts also of the world which he turns to\nholy use, such as the unjust judge, the false steward, the faithless\nlabourers, he ignores the temple. See how he drives the devils from the\nsouls and bodies of men, as we the wolves from our sheepfolds! how\nbefore him the diseases, scaly and spotted, hurry and flee! The world\nhas for him no chamber of terror. He walks to the door of the sepulchre,\nthe sealed cellar of his father's house, and calls forth its four days\ndead. He rebukes the mourners, he stays the funeral, and gives back the\ndeparted children to their parents' arms. The roughest of its servants\ndo not make him wince; none of them are so arrogant as to disobey his\nword; he falls asleep in the midst of the storm that threatens to\nswallow his boat. Hear how, on that same occasion, he rebukes his\ndisciples! The children to tremble at a gust of wind in the house! God's\nlittle ones afraid of a storm! Hear him tell the watery floor to be\nstill, and no longer toss his brothers! see the watery floor obey him\nand grow still! See how the wandering creatures under it come at his\ncall! See him leave his mountain-closet, and go walking over its heaving\nsurface to the help of his men of little faith! See how the world's\nwater turns to wine! how its bread grows more bread at his word! See how\nhe goes from the house for a while, and returning with fresh power,\ntakes what shape he pleases, walks through its closed doors, and goes up\nand down its invisible stairs!\n\nAll his life he was among his father's things, either in heaven or in\nthe world--not then only when they found him in the temple at Jerusalem.\nHe is still among his father's things, everywhere about in the world,\neverywhere throughout the wide universe. Whatever he laid aside to come\nto us, to whatever limitations, for our sake, he stooped his regal head,\nhe dealt with the things about him in such lordly, childlike manner as\nmade it clear they were not strange to him, but the things of his\nfather. He claimed none of them as his own, would not have had one of\nthem his except through his father. Only as his father's could he enjoy\nthem;--only as coming forth from the Father, and full of the Father's\nthought and nature, had they to him any existence. That the things were\nhis fathers, made them precious things to him. He had no care for\nhaving, as men count having. All his having was in the Father. I wonder\nif he ever put anything in his pocket: I doubt if he had one. Did he\never say, 'This is mine, not yours'? Did he not say, 'All things are\nmine, therefore they are yours'? Oh for his liberty among the things of\nthe Father! Only by knowing them the things of our Father, can we escape\nenslaving ourselves to them. Through the false, the infernal idea of\n_having_, of _possessing_ them, we make them our tyrants, make the\nrelation between them and us an evil thing. The world was a blessed\nplace to Jesus, because everything in it was his father's. What pain\nmust it not have been to him, to see his brothers so vilely misuse the\nFather's house by grasping, each for himself, at the family things! If\nthe knowledge that a spot in the landscape retains in it some pollution,\nsuffices to disturb our pleasure in the whole, how must it not have been\nwith him, how must it not be with him now, in regard to the\ndisfigurements and defilements caused by the greed of men, by their\nhaste to be rich, in his father's lovely house!\n\nWhoever is able to understand Wordsworth, or Henry Vaughan, when either\nspeaks of the glorious insights of his childhood, will be able to\nimagine a little how Jesus must, in his eternal childhood, regard the\nworld.\n\nHear what Wordsworth says:--\n\n    Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:\n    The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,\n    Hath had elsewhere its setting,\n        And cometh from afar:\n    Not in entire forgetfulness,\n    And not in utter nakedness,\n      But trailing clouds of glory do we come\n    From God, who is our home:\n      Heaven lies about us in our infancy!\n        Shades of the prison-house begin to close\n    Upon the growing Boy,\n      But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,\n    He sees it in his joy;\n      The Youth, who daily farther from the east\n    Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,\n    And by the vision splendid\n    Is on his way attended;\n    At length the Man perceives it die away,\n    And fade into the light of common day.\n\nHear what Henry Vaughan says:--\n\n    Happy those early dayes, when I\n    Shin'd in my angell-infancy!\n    Before I understood this place\n    Appointed for my second race,\n    Or taught my soul to fancy ought\n    But a white, celestiall thought;\n    When yet I had not walkt above\n    A mile or two, from my first love,\n    And looking back--at that short space--\n    Could see a glimpse of His bright-face;\n    When on some gilded cloud, or flowre\n    My gazing soul would dwell an houre,\n    And in those weaker glories spy\n    Some shadows of eternity;\n    Before I taught my tongue to wound\n    My conscience with a sinfull sound,\n    Or had the black art to dispence\n    A sev'rall sinne to ev'ry sence,\n    But felt through all this fleshly dresse\n    Bright shootes of everlastingnesse.\n      O how I long to travell back,\n    And tread again that ancient track!\n    That I might once more reach that plaine,\n    Where first I left my glorious traine;\n    From whence th' inlightned spirit sees\n    That shady City of palme trees.\n\nWhoever has thus gazed on flower or cloud; whoever can recall poorest\nmemory of the trail of glory that hung about his childhood, must have\nsome faint idea how his father's house and the things in it always\nlooked, and must still look to the Lord. With him there is no fading\ninto the light of common day. He has never lost his childhood, the very\nessence of childhood being nearness to the Father and the outgoing of\nhis creative love; whence, with that insight of his eternal childhood of\nwhich the insight of the little ones here is a fainter repetition, he\nmust see everything as the Father means it. The child sees things as the\nFather means him to see them, as he thought of them when he uttered\nthem. For God is not only the father of the child, but of the childhood\nthat constitutes him a child, therefore the childness is of the divine\nnature. The child may not indeed be capable of looking into the father's\nmethod, but he can in a measure understand his work, has therefore free\nentrance to his study and workshop both, and is welcome to find out what\nhe can, with fullest liberty to ask him questions. There are men too,\nwho, at their best, see, in their lower measure, things as they are--as\nGod sees them always. Jesus saw things just as his father saw them in\nhis creative imagination, when willing them out to the eyes of his\nchildren. But if he could always see the things of his father even as\nsome men and more children see them at times, he might well feel\n_almost_ at home among them. He could not cease to admire, cease to love\nthem. I say _love_, because the life in them, the presence of the\ncreative one, would ever be plain to him. In the Perfect, would\nfamiliarity ever destroy wonder at things essentially wonderful because\nessentially divine? To cease to wonder is to fall plumb-down from the\nchildlike to the commonplace--the most undivine of all moods\nintellectual. Our nature can never be at home among things that are not\nwonderful to us.\n\nCould we see things always as we have sometimes seen them--and as one\nday we must always see them, only far better--should we ever know\ndullness? Greatly as we might enjoy all forms of art, much as we might\nlearn through the eyes and thoughts of other men, should we fly to these\nfor deliverance from _ennui_, from any haunting discomfort? Should we\nnot just open our own child-eyes, look upon the things themselves, and\nbe consoled?\n\nJesus, then, would have his parents understand that he was in his\nfather's world among his father's things, where was nothing to hurt him;\nhe knew them all, was in the secret of them all, could use and order\nthem as did his father. To this same I think all we humans are destined\nto rise. Though so many of us now are ignorant what kind of home we\nneed, what a home we are capable of having, we too shall inherit the\nearth with the Son eternal, doing with it as we would--willing with the\nwill of the Father. To such a home as we now inhabit, only perfected,\nand perfectly beheld, we are travelling--never to reach it save by the\nobedience that makes us the children, therefore the heirs of God. And,\nthank God! there the father does not die that the children may inherit;\nfor, bliss of heaven! we inherit with the Father.\n\nAll the dangers of Jesus came from the priests, and the learned in the\ntraditional law, whom his parents had not yet begun to fear on his\nbehalf. They feared the dangers of the rugged way, the thieves and\nrobbers of the hill-road. For the scribes and the pharisees, the priests\nand the rulers--they would be the first to acknowledge their Messiah,\ntheir king! Little they imagined, when they found him where he ought to\nhave been safest had it been indeed his father's house, that there he\nsat amid lions--the great doctors of the temple! He could rule all the\n_things_ in his father's house, but not the men of religion, the men of\nthe temple, who called his father their Father. True, he might have\ncompelled them with a word, withered them by a glance, with a\nfinger-touch made them grovel at his feet; but such supremacy over his\nbrothers the Lord of life despised. He must rule them as his father\nruled himself; he would have them know themselves of the same family\nwith himself; have them at home among the things of God, caring for the\nthings he cared for, loving and hating as he and his father loved and\nhated, ruling themselves by the essential laws of being. Because they\nwould not be such, he let them do to him as they would, that he might\nget at their hearts by some unknown unguarded door in their diviner\npart. 'I will be God among you; I will be myself to you.--You will not\nhave me? Then do to me as you will. The created shall have power over\nhim through whom they were created, that they may be compelled to know\nhim and his father. They shall look on him whom they have pierced.'\n\nHis parents found him in the temple; they never really found him until\nhe entered the true temple--their own adoring hearts. The temple that\nknows not its builder, is no temple; in it dwells no divinity. But at\nlength he comes to his own, and his own receive him;--comes to them in\nthe might of his mission to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the\nbroken-hearted, to preach deliverance, and sight, and liberty, and the\nLord's own good time.\n\n\n\n\n_JESUS AND HIS FELLOW TOWNSMEN._\n\nAnd he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his\ncustom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up\nfor to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet\nEsaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was\nwritten, 'The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me\nto preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the\nbrokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of\nsight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach\nthe acceptable year of the Lord.' And he closed the book, and he gave it\nagain to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were\nin the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them,\n'This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.'--_Luke_ iv. 14-21.\n\n\nThe Lord's sermon upon the mount seems such an enlargement of these\nwords of the prophet as might, but for the refusal of the men of\nNazareth to listen to him, have followed his reading of them here\nrecorded. That, as given by the evangelist, they correspond to neither\nof the differing originals of the English and Greek versions, ought to\nbe enough in itself to do away with the spiritually vulgar notion of the\nverbal inspiration of the Scriptures.\n\nThe point at which the Lord stops in his reading, is suggestive: he\ncloses the book, leaving the words 'and the day of vengeance of our\nGod,' or, as in the Septuagint, 'the day of recompense,' unread: God's\nvengeance is as holy a thing as his love, yea, is love, for God is love\nand God is not vengeance; but, apparently, the Lord would not give the\nword a place in his announcement of his mission: his hearers would not\nrecognize it as a form of the Father's love, but as vengeance on their\nenemies, not vengeance on the selfishness of those who would not be\ntheir brother's keeper.\n\nHe had not begun with Nazareth, neither with Galilee. 'A prophet has no\nhonour in his own country,' he said, and began to teach where it was\nmore likely he would be heard. It is true that he wrought his first\nmiracle in Cana, but that was at his mother's request, not of his own\nintent, and he did not begin his teaching there. He went first to\nJerusalem, there cast out the buyers and sellers from the temple, and\ndid other notable things alluded to by St John; then went back to\nGalilee, where, having seen the things he did in Jerusalem, his former\nneighbours were now prepared to listen to him. Of these the Nazarenes,\nto whom the sight of him was more familiar, retained the most prejudice\nagainst him: he belonged to their very city! they had known him from a\nchild!--and low indeed are they in whom familiarity with the high and\ntrue breeds contempt! they are judged already. Yet such was the fame of\nthe new prophet, that even they were willing to hear in the synagogue\nwhat he had to say to them--thence to determine for themselves what\nclaim he had to an honourable reception. But the eye of their judgment\nwas not single, therefore was their body full of darkness. Should\nNazareth indeed prove, to their self-glorifying satisfaction, the city\nof the great Prophet, they were more than ready to grasp at the renown\nof having produced him: he was indeed the great Prophet, and within a\nfew minutes they would have slain him for the honour of Israel. In the\nignoble even the love of their country partakes largely of the ignoble.\n\nThere was a shadow of the hateless vengeance of God in the expulsion of\nthe dishonest dealers from the temple with which the Lord initiated his\nmission: that was his first parable to Jerusalem; to Nazareth he comes\nwith the sweetest words of the prophet of hope in his mouth--good\ntidings of great joy--of healing and sight and liberty; followed by the\ngodlike announcement, that what the prophet had promised he was come to\nfulfil. His heart, his eyes, his lips, his hands--his whole body is full\nof gifts for men, and that day was that scripture fulfilled in their\nears. The prophecy had gone before that he should save his people from\ntheir sins; he brings an announcement they will better understand: he is\ncome, he says, to deliver men from sorrow and pain, ignorance and\noppression, everything that makes life hard and unfriendly. What a\ngracious speech, what a daring pledge to a world whelmed in tyranny and\nwrong! To the women of it, I imagine, it sounded the sweetest, in them\nwoke the highest hopes. They had scarce had a hearing when the Lord\ncame; and thereupon things began to mend with them, and are mending\nstill, for the Lord is at work, and will be. He is the refuge of the\noppressed. By its very woes, as by bitterest medicine, he is setting the\nworld free from sin and woe. This very hour he is curing its disease,\nthe symptoms of which are so varied and so painful; working none the\nless faithfully that the sick, taking the symptoms for the disease, cry\nout against the incompetence of their physician. 'What power can heal\nthe broken-hearted?' they cry. And indeed it takes a God to do it, but\nthe God is here! In yet better words than those of the prophet, spoken\nstraight from his own heart, he cries: 'Come unto me, all ye that labour\nand are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' He calls to him every\nheart knowing its own bitterness, speaks to the troubled consciousness\nof every child of the Father. He is come to free us from everything that\nmakes life less than bliss essential. No other could be a gospel worthy\nof the God of men.\n\nEvery one will, I presume, confess to more or less misery. Its apparent\nsource may be this or that; its real source is, to use a poor figure, a\ndislocation of the juncture between the created and the creating life.\nThis primal evil is the parent of evils unnumbered, hence of miseries\nmultitudinous, under the weight of which the arrogant man cries out\nagainst life, and goes on to misuse it, while the child looks around for\nhelp--and who shall help him but his father! The Father is with him all\nthe time, but it may be long ere the child knows himself in his arms.\nHis heart may be long troubled as well as his outer life. The dank mists\nof doubtful thought may close around his way, and hide from him the\nLight of the world! cold winds from the desert of foiled endeavour may\nsorely buffet and for a time baffle his hope; but every now and then the\nblue pledge of a great sky will break through the clouds over his head;\nand a faint aurora will walk his darkest East. Gradually he grows more\ncapable of imagining a world in which every good thing thinkable may be\na fact. Best of all, the story of him who is himself the good news, the\ngospel of God, becomes not only more and more believable to his heart,\nbut more and more ministrant to his life of conflict, and his assurance\nof a living father who hears when his children cry. The gospel according\nto this or that expounder of it, may repel him unspeakably; the gospel\naccording to Jesus Christ, attracts him supremely, and ever holds where\nit has drawn him. To the priest, the scribe, the elder, exclaiming\nagainst his self-sufficiency in refusing what they teach, he answers,\n'It is life or death to me. Your gospel I cannot take. To believe as you\nwould have me believe, would be to lose my God. Your God is no God to\nme. I do not desire him. I would rather die the death than believe in\nsuch a God. In the name of the true God, I cast your gospel from me; it\nis no gospel, and to believe it would be to wrong him in whom alone lies\nmy hope.'\n\n'But to believe in such a man,' he might go on to say, 'with such a\nmessage, as I read of in the New Testament, is life from the dead. I\nhave yielded myself, to live no more in the idea of self, but with the\nlife of God. To him I commit the creature he has made, that he may live\nin it, and work out its life--develop it according to the idea of it in\nhis own creating mind. I fall in with his ways for me. I believe in him.\nI trust him. I try to obey him. I look to be rendered capable of and\nreceive a pure vision of his will, freedom from the prison-house of my\nlimitation, from the bondage of a finite existence. For the finite that\ndwells in the infinite and in which the infinite dwells, is finite no\nlonger. Those who are thus children indeed, are little Gods, the divine\nbrood of the infinite Father. No mere promise of deliverance from the\nconsequences of sin, would be any gospel to me. Less than the liberty of\na holy heart, less than the freedom of the Lord himself, will never\nsatisfy one human soul. Father, set me free in the glory of thy will, so\nthat I will only as thou willest. Thy will be at once thy perfection and\nmine. Thou alone art deliverance--absolute safety from every cause and\nkind of trouble that ever existed, anywhere now exists, or ever can\nexist in thy universe.'\n\nBut the people of the Lord's town, to whom he read, appropriating them,\nthe gracious words of the prophet, were of the wise and prudent of their\nday. With one and the same breath, they seem to cry, 'These things are\ngood, it is true, but they must come after our way. We must have the\npromise to our fathers fulfilled--that we shall rule the world, the\nchosen of God, the children of Abraham and Israel. We want to be a free\npeople, manage our own affairs, live in plenty, and do as we please.\nLiberty alone can ever cure the woes of which you speak. We do not need\nto be better; we are well enough. Give us riches and honour, and keep us\ncontent with ourselves, that we may be satisfied with our own likeness,\nand thou shalt be the Messiah.' Never, perhaps, would such be men's\nspoken words, but the prevailing condition of their minds might often\nwell take form in such speech. Whereon will they ground their complaint\nshould God give them their hearts' desire? When that desire given closes\nin upon them with a torturing sense of slavery; when they find that what\nthey have imagined their own will, was but a suggestion they knew not\nwhence; when they discover that life is not good, yet they cannot die;\nwill they not then turn and entreat their maker to save them after his\nown fashion?\n\nLet us try to understand the brief, elliptical narrative of what took\nplace in the synagogue of Nazareth on the occasion of our Lord's\nannouncement of his mission.\n\n'This day,' said Jesus, 'is this scripture fulfilled in your ears;' and\nwent on with his divine talk. We shall yet know, I trust, what 'the\ngracious words' were 'which proceeded out of his mouth': surely some who\nheard them, still remember them, for 'all bare him witness, and wondered\nat' them! How did they bear him witness? Surely not alone by the\nintensity of their wondering gaze! Must not the narrator mean that their\nhearts bore witness to the power of his presence, that they felt the\nappeal of his soul to theirs, that they said in themselves, 'Never man\nspake like this man'? Must not the light of truth in his face, beheld of\nsuch even as knew not the truth, have lifted their souls up truthward?\nWas it not the something true, common to all hearts, that bore the\nwondering witness to the graciousness of his words? Had not those words\nfound a way to the pure human, that is, the divine in the men? Was it\nnot therefore that they were drawn to him--all but ready to accept\nhim?--on their own terms, alas, not his! For a moment he seemed to them\na true messenger, but truth in him was not truth to them: had he been\nwhat they took him for, he would have been no saviour. They were,\nhowever, though partly by mistake, well disposed toward him, and it was\nwith a growing sense of being honoured by his relation to them, and the\nproperty they had in him, that they said, 'Is not this Joseph's son?'\n\nBut the Lord knew what was in their hearts; he knew the false notion\nwith which they were almost ready to declare for him; he knew also the\nfinal proof to which they were in their wisdom and prudence about to\nsubject him. He did not look likely to be a prophet, seeing he had\ngrown up among them, and had never shown any credentials: they had a\nright to proof positive! They had heard of wonderful things he had done\nin other places: why had they not first of all been done in _their_\nsight? Who had a claim equal to theirs? who so capable as they to\npronounce judgment on his mission whether false or true: had they not\nknown him from childhood? His words were gracious, but words were\nnothing: he must _do_ something--something wonderful! Without such\nconclusive, satisfying proof, Nazareth at least would never acknowledge\nhim!\n\nThey were quite ready for the honour of having any true prophet, such as\nit seemed not impossible the son of Joseph might turn out to be,\nrecognized as their towns-man, one of their own people: if he were such,\ntheirs was the credit of having produced him! Then indeed they were\nready to bear witness to him, take his part, adopt his cause, and before\nthe world stand up for him! As to his being the Messiah, that was merest\nabsurdity: did they not all know his father, the carpenter? He might,\nhowever, be the prophet whom so many of the best in the nation were at\nthe moment expecting! Let him do something wonderful!\n\nThey were not a gracious people, or a good. The Lord saw their thought,\nand it was far from being to his mind. He desired no such reception as\nthey were at present equal to giving a prophet. His mighty works were\nnot meant for such as they--to convince them of what they were incapable\nof understanding or welcoming! Those who would not believe without signs\nand wonders, could never believe worthily with any number of them, and\nnone should be given them! His mighty works were to rouse the love, and\nstrengthen the faith of the meek and lowly in heart, of such as were\nready to come to the light, and show that they were of the light. He\nknew how poor the meaning the Nazarenes put on the words he had read;\nwhat low expectations they had of the Messiah when most they longed for\nhis coming. They did not hear the prophet while he read the prophet! At\nsight of a few poor little wonders, nothing to him, to them sufficient\nto prove him such a Messiah as _they_ looked for, they would burst into\nloud acclaim, and rush to their arms, eager, his officers and soldiers,\nto open the one triumphant campaign against the accursed Romans, and\nsweep them beyond the borders of their sacred country. Their Messiah\nwould make of their nation the redeemed of the Lord, themselves the\nfavourites of his court, and the tyrants of the world! Salvation from\ntheir sins was not in their hearts, not in their imaginations, not at\nall in their thoughts. They had heard him read his commission to heal\nthe broken-hearted; they would rush to break hearts in his name. The\nLord knew them, and their vain expectations. He would have no such\nfollowers--no followers on false conceptions--no followers whom wonders\nwould delight but nowise better! The Nazarenes were not yet of the sort\nthat needed but one change to be his people. He had come to give them\nhelp; until they accepted his, they could have none to give him.\n\nThe Lord never did mighty work in proof of his mission; to help a\ngrowing faith in himself and his father, he would do anything! He healed\nthose whom healing would deeper heal--those in whom suffering had so far\ndone its work, that its removal also would carry it on. To the Nazarenes\nhe would not manifest his power; they were not in a condition to get\ngood from such manifestation: it would but confirm their present\narrogance and ambition. Wonderful works can only nourish a faith already\nexistent; to him who believes without it, a miracle _may_ be granted. It\nwas the Israelite indeed, whom the Lord met with miracle: 'Because I\nsaid unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? Thou\nshalt see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.'\nThose who laughed him to scorn were not allowed to look on the\nresurrection of the daughter of Jairus. Peter, when he would walk on the\nwater, had both permission and power given him to do so. The widow\nreceived the prophet, and was fed; the Syrian went to the prophet, and\nwas cured. In Nazareth, because of unbelief, the Lord could only lay his\nhands on a few sick folk; in the rest was none of that leaning toward\nthe truth, which alone can make room for the help of a miracle. This\nthey soon made manifest.\n\nThe Lord saw them on the point of challenging a display of his power,\nand anticipated the challenge with a refusal.\n\nFor the better understanding of his words, let me presume to paraphrase\nthem: 'I know you will apply to me the proverb, Physician, heal thyself,\nrequiring me to prove what is said of me in Capernaum, by doing the same\nhere; but there is another proverb, No prophet is accepted in his own\ncountry. Unaccepted I do nothing wonderful. In the great famine, Elijah\nwas sent to no widow of the many in Israel, but to a Sidonian; and\nElisha cured no leper of the many in Israel, but Naaman the Syrian.\nThere are those fit to see signs and wonders; they are not always the\nkin of the prophet.'\n\nThe Nazarenes heard with indignation. Their wonder at his gracious words\nwas changed to bitterest wrath. The very beams of their ugly religion\nwere party-spirit, exclusiveness, and pride in the fancied favour of God\nfor them only of all the nations: to hint at the possibility of a\nrevelation of the glory of God to a stranger; far more, to hint that a\nstranger might be fitter to receive such a revelation than a Jew, was an\noffence reaching to the worst insult; and it was cast in their teeth by\na common man of their own city! 'Thou art but a well-known carpenter's\nson, and dost thou teach _us_! Darest thou imply a divine preference for\nCapernaum over Nazareth?' In bad odour with the rest of their\ncountrymen, they were the prouder of themselves.\n\nThe _whole_ synagogue, observe, rose in a fury. Such a fellow a prophet!\nHe was worse than the worst of Gentiles! he was a false Jew! a traitor\nto his God! a friend of the idol-worshipping Romans! Away with him! His\ntownsmen led the van in his rejection by his own. The men of Nazareth\nwould have forestalled his crucifixion by them of Jerusalem. What! a\nSidonian woman fitter to receive the prophet than any Jewess! a heathen\nworthier to be kept alive by miracle in time of famine, than a\nworshipper of the true God! a leper of Damascus less displeasing to God\nthan the lepers of his chosen race! It was no longer condescending\napproval that shone in their eyes. He a prophet! They had seen through\nhim! Soon had they found him out! The moment he perceived it useless to\npose for a prophet with them, who had all along known the breed of him,\nhe had turned to insult them! He dared not attempt in his own city the\ndeceptions with which, by the help of Satan, he had made such a grand\nshow, and fooled the idiots of Capernaum! He saw they knew him too well,\nwere too wide-awake to be cozened by him, and to avoid their expected\nchallenge, fell to reviling the holy nation. Let him take the\nconsequences! To the brow of the hill with him!\n\nHow could there be any miracle for such! They were well satisfied with\nthemselves, and\n\n            Nothing almost sees miracles\n    But misery.\n\nNeed and the upward look, the mood ready to believe when and where it\ncan, the embryonic faith, is dear to Him whose love would have us trust\nhim. Let any man seek him--not in curious inquiry whether the story of\nhim may be true or cannot be true--in humble readiness to accept him\naltogether if only he can, and he shall find him; we shall not fail of\nhelp to believe because we doubt. But if the questioner be such that the\ndispersion of his doubt would but leave him in disobedience, the Power\nof truth has no care to effect his conviction. Why cast out a devil that\nthe man may the better do the work of the devil? The childlike doubt\nwill, as it softens and yields, minister nourishment with all that was\ngood in it to the faith-germ at its heart; the wise and prudent\nunbelief will be left to develop its own misery. The Lord could easily\nhave satisfied the Nazarenes that he was the Messiah: they would but\nhave hardened into the nucleus of an army for the subjugation of the\nworld. To a warfare with their own sins, to the subjugation of their\ndoing and desiring to the will of the great Father, all the miracles in\nhis power would never have persuaded them. A true convincement is not\npossible to hearts and minds like theirs. Not only is it impossible for\na low man to believe a thousandth part of what a noble man can, but a\nlow man cannot believe anything as a noble man believes it. The men of\nNazareth could have believed in Jesus as their saviour from the Romans;\nas their saviour from their sins they could not believe in him, for they\nloved their sins. The king of heaven came to offer them a share in his\nkingdom; but they were not poor in spirit, and the kingdom of heaven was\nnot for them. Gladly would they have inherited the earth; but they were\nnot meek, and the earth was for the lowly children of the perfect\nFather.\n\n\n\n\n_THE HEIRS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH._\n\nAnd he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 'Blessed are the poor\nin spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' ...'Blessed are the\nmeek; for they shall inherit the earth.'--_Matthew_ v. 2, 3, 5.\n\n\nThe words of the Lord are the seed sown by the sower. Into our hearts\nthey must fall that they may grow. Meditation and prayer must water\nthem, and obedience keep them in the sunlight. Thus will they bear fruit\nfor the Lord's gathering.\n\nThose of his disciples, that is, obedient hearers, who had any\nexperience in trying to live, would, in part, at once understand them;\nbut as they obeyed and pondered, the meaning of them would keep growing.\nThis we see in the writings of the apostles. It will be so with us also,\nwho need to understand everything he said neither more nor less than\nthey to whom first he spoke; while our obligation to understand is far\ngreater than theirs at the time, inasmuch as we have had nearly two\nthousand years' experience of the continued coming of the kingdom he\nthen preached: it is not yet come; it has been all the time, and is now,\ndrawing slowly nearer.\n\nThe sermon on the mount, as it is commonly called, seems the Lord's\nfirst free utterance, in the presence of any large assembly, of the good\nnews of the kingdom. He had been teaching his disciples and messengers;\nand had already brought the glad tidings that his father was their\nfather, to many besides--to Nathanael for one, to Nicodemus, to the\nwoman of Samaria, to every one he had cured, every one whose cry for\nhelp he had heard: his epiphany was a gradual thing, beginning, where it\ncontinues, with the individual. It is impossible even to guess at what\nnumber may have heard him on this occasion: he seems to have gone up the\nmount because of the crowd--to secure a somewhat opener position whence\nhe could better speak; and thither followed him those who desired to be\ntaught of him, accompanied doubtless by not a few in whom curiosity was\nthe chief motive. Disciple or gazer, he addressed the individuality of\nevery one that had ears to hear. Peter and Andrew, James and John, are\nall we know as his recognized disciples, followers, and companions, at\nthe time; but, while his words were addressed to such as had come to\nhim desiring to learn of him, the things he uttered were eternal truths,\nlife in which was essential for every one of his father's children,\ntherefore they were for all: he who heard to obey, was his disciple.\n\nHow different, at the first sound of it, must the good news have been\nfrom the news anxiously expected by those who waited for the Messiah!\nEven the Baptist in prison lay listening after something of quite\nanother sort. The Lord had to send him a message, by eye-witnesses of\nhis doings, to remind him that God's thoughts are not as our thoughts,\nor his ways as our ways--that the design of God is other and better than\nthe expectation of men. His summary of the gifts he was giving to men,\nculminated with the preaching of the good news to the poor. If John had\nknown these his doings before, he had not recognized them as belonging\nto the Lord's special mission: the Lord tells him it is not enough to\nhave accepted him as the Messiah; he must recognize his doings as the\nwork he had come into the world to do, and as in their nature so divine\nas to be the very business of the Son of God in whom the Father was well\npleased.\n\nWherein then consisted the goodness of the news which he opened his\nmouth to give them? What was in the news to make the poor glad? Why was\nhis arrival with such words in his heart and mouth, the coming of the\nkingdom?\n\nAll good news from heaven, is of _truth_--essential truth, involving\nduty, and giving and promising help to the performance of it. There can\nbe no good news for us men, except of uplifting love, and no one can be\nlifted up who will not rise. If God himself sought to raise his little\nones without their consenting effort, they would drop from his foiled\nendeavour. He will carry us in his arms till we are able to walk; he\nwill carry us in his arms when we are weary with walking; he will not\ncarry us if we will not walk.\n\nVery different are the good news Jesus brings us from certain prevalent\nrepresentations of the gospel, founded on the pagan notion that\nsuffering is an offset for sin, and culminating in the vile assertion\nthat the suffering of an innocent man, just because he is innocent, yea\nperfect, is a satisfaction to the holy Father for the evil deeds of his\nchildren. As a theory concerning the atonement nothing could be worse,\neither intellectually, morally, or spiritually; announced as the gospel\nitself, as the good news of the kingdom of heaven, the idea is monstrous\nas any Chinese dragon. Such a so-called gospel is no gospel, however\naccepted as God sent by good men of a certain development. It is evil\nnews, dwarfing, enslaving, maddening--news to the child-heart of the\ndreariest damnation. Doubtless some elements of the gospel are mixed up\nwith it on most occasions of its announcement; none the more is it the\nmessage received from him. It can be good news only to such as are\nprudently willing to be delivered from a God they fear, but unable to\naccept the gospel of a perfect God, in whom to trust perfectly.\n\nThe good news of Jesus was just the news of the thoughts and ways of the\nFather in the midst of his family. He told them that the way men thought\nfor themselves and their children was not the way God thought for\nhimself and his children; that the kingdom of heaven was founded, and\nmust at length show itself founded on very different principles from\nthose of the kingdoms and families of the world, meaning by the world\nthat part of the Father's family which will not be ordered by him, will\nnot even try to obey him. The world's man, its great, its successful,\nits honorable man, is he who may have and do what he pleases, whose\nstrength lies in money and the praise of men; the greatest in the\nkingdom of heaven is the man who is humblest and serves his fellows the\nmost. Multitudes of men, in no degree notable as ambitious or proud,\nhold the ambitious, the proud man in honour, and, for all deliverance,\nhope after some shadow of his prosperity. How many even of those who\nlook for the world to come, seek to the powers of this world for\ndeliverance from its evils, as if God were the God of the world to come\nonly! The oppressed of the Lord's time looked for a Messiah to set their\nnation free, and make it rich and strong; the oppressed of our time\nbelieve in money, knowledge, and the will of a people which needs but\npower to be in its turn the oppressor. The first words of the Lord on\nthis occasion were:--'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the\nkingdom of heaven,'\n\nIt is not the proud, it is not the greedy of distinction, it is not\nthose who gather and hoard, not those who lay down the law to their\nneighbours, not those that condescend, any more than those that shrug\nthe shoulder and shoot out the lip, that have any share in the kingdom\nof the Father. That kingdom has no relation with or resemblance to the\nkingdoms of this world, deals with no one thing that distinguishes their\nrulers, except to repudiate it. The Son of God will favour no smallest\nambition, be it in the heart of him who leans on his bosom. The kingdom\nof God, the refuge of the oppressed, the golden age of the new world,\nthe real Utopia, the newest yet oldest Atlantis, the home of the\nchildren, will not open its gates to the most miserable who would rise\nabove his equal in misery, who looks down on any one more miserable than\nhimself. It is the home of perfect brotherhood. The poor, the beggars in\nspirit, the humble men of heart, the unambitious, the unselfish; those\nwho never despise men, and never seek their praises; the lowly, who see\nnothing to admire in themselves, therefore cannot seek to be admired of\nothers; the men who give themselves away--these are the freemen of the\nkingdom, these are the citizens of the new Jerusalem. The men who are\naware of their own essential poverty; not the men who are poor in\nfriends, poor in influence, poor in acquirements, poor in money, but\nthose who are poor in spirit, who _feel themselves poor creatures_; who\nknow nothing to be pleased with themselves for, and desire nothing to\nmake them think well of themselves; who know that they need much to make\ntheir life worth living, to make their existence a good thing, to make\nthem fit to live; these humble ones are the poor whom the Lord calls\nblessed. When a man says, I am low and worthless, then the gate of the\nkingdom begins to open to him, for there enter the true, and this man\nhas begun to know the truth concerning himself. Whatever such a man has\nattained to, he straightway forgets; it is part of him and behind him;\nhis business is with what he has not, with the things that lie above and\nbefore him. The man who is proud of anything he thinks he has reached,\nhas not reached it. He is but proud of himself, and imagining a cause\nfor his pride. If he had reached, he would already have begun to forget.\nHe who delights in contemplating whereto he has attained, is not merely\nsliding back; he is already in the dirt of self-satisfaction. The gate\nof the kingdom is closed, and he outside. The child who, clinging to his\nFather, dares not think he has in any sense attained while as yet he is\nnot as his Father--his Father's heart, his Father's heaven is his\nnatural home. To find himself thinking of himself as above his fellows,\nwould be to that child a shuddering terror; his universe would contract\naround him, his ideal wither on its throne. The least motion of\nself-satisfaction, the first thought of placing himself in the forefront\nof estimation, would be to him a flash from the nether abyss. God is his\nlife and his lord. That his father should be content with him must be\nall his care. Among his relations with his neighbour, infinitely\nprecious, comparison with his neighbour has no place. Which is the\ngreater is of no account. He would not choose to be less than his\nneighbour; he would choose his neighbour to be greater than he. He looks\nup to every man. Otherwise gifted than he, his neighbour is more than\nhe. All come from the one mighty father: shall he judge the live\nthoughts of God, which is greater and which is less? In thus denying,\nthus turning his back on himself, he has no thought of saintliness, no\nthought but of his father and his brethren. To such a child heaven's\nbest secrets are open. He clambers about the throne of the Father\nunrebuked; his back is ready for the smallest heavenly playmate; his\narms are an open refuge for any blackest little lost kid of the Father's\nflock; he will toil with it up the heavenly stair, up the very steps of\nthe great white throne, to lay it on the Father's knees. For the glory\nof that Father is not in knowing himself God, but in giving himself\naway--in creating and redeeming and glorifying his children.\n\nThe man who does not house self, has room to be his real self--God's\neternal idea of him. He lives eternally; in virtue of the creative power\npresent in him with momently, unimpeded creation, he _is_. How should\nthere be in him one thought of ruling or commanding or surpassing! He\ncan imagine no bliss, no good in being greater than some one else. He is\nunable to wish himself other than he is, except more what God made him\nfor, which is indeed the highest willing of the will of God. His\nbrother's wellbeing is essential to his bliss. The thought of standing\nhigher in the favour of God than his brother, would make him miserable.\nHe would lift every brother to the embrace of the Father. Blessed are\nthe poor in spirit, for they are of the same spirit as God, and of\nnature the kingdom of heaven is theirs.\n\n'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,' expresses the\nsame principle: the same law holds in the earth as in the kingdom of\nheaven. How should it be otherwise? Has the creator of the ends of the\nearth ceased to rule it after his fashion, because his rebellious\nchildren have so long, to their own hurt, vainly endeavoured to rule it\nafter theirs? The kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor; the meek shall\ninherit the earth. The earth as God sees it, as those to whom the\nkingdom of heaven belongs also see it, is good, all good, very good, fit\nfor the meek to inherit; and one day they shall inherit it--not indeed\nas men of the world count inheritance, but as the maker and owner of the\nworld has from the first counted it. So different are the two ways of\ninheriting, that one of the meek may be heartily enjoying his\npossession, while one of the proud is selfishly walling him out from the\nspot in it he loves best.\n\nThe meek are those that do not assert themselves, do not defend\nthemselves, never dream of avenging themselves, or of returning aught\nbut good for evil. They do not imagine it their business to take care of\nthemselves. The meek man may indeed take much thought, but it will not\nbe for himself. He never builds an exclusive wall, shuts any honest\nneighbour out. He will not always serve the wish, but always the good of\nhis neighbour. His service must be true service. Self shall be no umpire\nin affair of his. Man's consciousness of himself is but a shadow: the\nmeek man's self always vanishes in the light of a real presence. His\nnature lies open to the Father of men, and to every good impulse is as\nit were empty. No bristling importance, no vain attendance of fancied\nrights and wrongs, guards his door, or crowds the passages of his house;\nthey are for the angels to come and go. Abandoned thus to the truth, as\nthe sparks from the gleaming river dip into the flowers of Dante's\nunperfected vision, so the many souls of the visible world, lights from\nthe father of lights, enter his heart freely; and by them he inherits\nthe earth he was created to inherit--possesses it as his father made him\ncapable of possessing, and the earth of being possessed. Because the man\nis meek, his eye is single; he sees things as God sees them, as he would\nhave his child see them: to confront creation with pure eyes is to\npossess it.\n\nHow little is the man able to make his own, who would ravish all! The\nman who, by the exclusion of others from the space he calls his, would\ngrasp any portion of the earth as his own, befools himself in the\nattempt. The very bread he has swallowed cannot so in any real sense be\nhis. There does not exist such a power of possessing as he would\narrogate. There is not such a sense of having as that of which he has\nconceived the shadow in his degenerate and lapsing imagination. The real\nowner of his demesne is that pedlar passing his gate, into a divine\nsoul receiving the sweetnesses which not all the greed of the so-counted\npossessor can keep within his walls: they overflow the cup-lip of the\ncoping, to give themselves to the footfarer. The motions aerial, the\nsounds, the odours of those imprisoned spaces, are the earnest of a\npossession for which is ever growing his power of possessing. In no wise\nwill such inheritance interfere with the claim of the man who calls them\nhis. Each possessor has them his, as much as each in his own way is\ncapable of possessing them. For possession is determined by the kind and\nthe scope of the power of possessing; and the earth has a fourth\ndimension of which the mere owner of its soil knows nothing.\n\nThe child of the maker is naturally the inheritor. But if the child try\nto possess as a house the thing his father made an organ, will he\nsucceed in so possessing it? Or if he do nestle in a corner of its case,\nwill he oust thereby the Lord of its multiplex harmony, sitting regnant\non the seat of sway, and drawing with 'volant touch' from the house of\nthe child the liege homage of its rendered wealth? To the poverty of\nsuch a child are all those left, who think to have and to hold after the\ncorrupt fancies of a greedy self.\n\nWe cannot see the world as God means it, save in proportion as our souls\nare meek. In meekness only are we its inheritors. Meekness alone makes\nthe spiritual retina pure to receive God's things as they are, mingling\nwith them neither imperfection nor impurity of its own. A thing so\nbeheld that it conveys to me the divine thought issuing in its form, is\nmine; by nothing but its mediation between God and my life, can anything\nbe mine. The man so dull as to insist that a thing is his because he has\nbought it and paid for it, had better bethink himself that not all the\ncombined forces of law, justice, and goodwill, can keep it his; while\neven death cannot take the world from the man who possesses it as alone\nthe maker of him and it cares that he should possess it. This man leaves\nit, but carries it with him; that man carries with him only its loss. He\npasses, unable to close hand or mouth upon any portion of it. Its\n_ownness_ to him was but the changes he could make in it, and the\nnearness into which he could bring it to the body he lived in. That body\nthe earth in its turn possesses now, and it lies very still, changing\nnothing, but being changed. Is this the fine of the great buyer of land,\nto have his fine pate full of fine dirt? In the soul of the meek, the\nearth remains an endless possession--his because he who made it is\nhis--his as nothing but his maker could ever be the creature's. He has\nthe earth by his divine relation to him who sent it forth from him as a\ntree sends out its leaves. To inherit the earth is to grow ever more\nalive to the presence, in it and in all its parts, of him who is the\nlife of men. How far one may advance in such inheritance while yet in\nthe body, will simply depend on the meekness he attains while yet in the\nbody; but it may be, as Frederick Denison Maurice, the servant of God,\nthought while yet he was with us, that the new heavens and the new earth\nare the same in which we now live, righteously inhabited by the meek,\nwith their deeper-opened eyes. What if the meek of the dead be thus\npossessing it even now! But I do not care to speculate. It is enough\nthat the man who refuses to assert himself, seeking no recognition by\nmen, leaving the care of his life to the Father, and occupying himself\nwith the will of the Father, shall find himself, by and by, at home in\nthe Father's house, with all the Father's property his.\n\nWhich is more the possessor of the world--he who has a thousand houses,\nor he who, without one house to call his own, has ten in which his knock\nat the door would rouse instant jubilation? Which is the richer--the man\nwho, his large money spent, would have no refuge; or he for whose\nnecessity a hundred would sacrifice comfort? Which of the two possessed\nthe earth--king Agrippa or tent-maker Paul?\n\nWhich is the real possessor of a book--the man who has its original and\nevery following edition, and shows, to many an admiring and envying\nvisitor, now this, now that, in binding characteristic, with\npossessor-pride; yea, from secret shrine is able to draw forth and\ndisplay the author's manuscript, with the very shapes in which his\nthoughts came forth to the light of day,--or the man who cherishes one\nlittle, hollow-backed, coverless, untitled, bethumbed copy, which he\ntakes with him in his solitary walks and broods over in his silent\nchamber, always finding in it some beauty or excellence or aid he had\nnot found before--which is to him in truth as a live companion?\n\nFor what makes the thing a book? Is it not that it has a soul--the mind\nin it of him who wrote the book? Therefore only can the book be\npossessed, for life alone can be the possession of life. The dead\npossess their dead only to bury them.\n\nDoes not he then, who loves and understands his book, possess it with\nsuch possession as is impossible to the other? Just so may the world\nitself be possessed--either as a volume unread, or as the wine of a\nsoul, 'the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and\ntreasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.' It may be possessed as a\nbook filled with words from the mouth of God, or but as the\ngolden-clasped covers of that book; as an embodiment or incarnation of\nGod himself; or but as a house built to sell. The Lord loved the world\nand the things of the world, not as the men of the world love them, but\nfinding his father in everything that came from his father's heart.\n\nThe same spirit, then, is required for possessing the kingdom of heaven,\nand for inheriting the earth. How should it not be so, when the one\nPower is the informing life of both? If we are the Lord's, we possess\nthe kingdom of heaven, and so inherit the earth. How many who call\nthemselves by his name, would have it otherwise: they would possess the\nearth and inherit the kingdom! Such fill churches and chapels on\nSundays: anywhere suits for the worship of Mammon.\n\nYet verily, earth as well as heaven may be largely possessed even now.\n\nTwo men are walking abroad together; to the one, the world yields\nthought after thought of delight; he sees heaven and earth embrace one\nanother; he feels an indescribable presence over and in them; his joy\nwill afterward, in the solitude of his chamber, break forth in song;--to\nthe other, oppressed with the thought of his poverty, or ruminating how\nto make much into more, the glory of the Lord is but a warm summer day;\nit enters in at no window of his soul; it offers him no gift; for, in\nthe very temple of God, he looks for no God in it. Nor must there needs\nbe two men to think and feel thus differently. In what diverse fashion\nwill any one _subject_ to ever-changing mood see the same world of the\nsame glad creator! Alas for men, if it changed as we change, if it grew\nmeaningless when we grow faithless! Thought for a morrow that may never\ncome, dread of the dividing death which works for endless companionship,\nanger with one we love, will cloud the radiant morning, and make the day\ndark with night. At evening, having bethought ourselves, and returned to\nhim that feeds the ravens, and watches the dying sparrow, and says to\nhis children 'Love one another,' the sunset splendour is glad over us,\nthe western sky is refulgent as the court of the Father when the glad\nnews is spread abroad that a sinner has repented. We have mourned in the\ntwilight of our little faith, but, having sent away our sin, the glory\nof God's heaven over his darkening earth has comforted us.\n\n\n\n\n_SORROW THE PLEDGE OF JOY._\n\n'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.'--_Matthew_\nv. 4.\n\n\nGrief, then, sorrow, pain of heart, mourning, is no partition-wall\nbetween man and God. So far is it from opposing any obstacle to the\npassage of God's light into man's soul, that the Lord congratulates them\nthat mourn. There is no evil in sorrow. True, it is not an essential\ngood, a good in itself, like love; but it will mingle with any good\nthing, and is even so allied to good that it will open the door of the\nheart for any good. More of sorrowful than of joyful men are always\nstanding about the everlasting doors that open into the presence of the\nMost High. It is true also that joy is in its nature more divine than\nsorrow; for, although man must sorrow, and God share in his sorrow, yet\nin himself God is not sorrowful, and the 'glad creator' never made man\nfor sorrow: it is but a stormy strait through which he must pass to his\nocean of peace. He 'makes the joy the last in every song.' Still, I\nrepeat, a man in sorrow is in general far nearer God than a man in joy.\nGladness may make a man forget his thanksgiving; misery drives him to\nhis prayers. For we _are_ not yet, we are only _becoming_. The endless\nday will at length dawn whose every throbbing moment will heave our\nhearts Godward; we shall scarce need to lift them up: now, there are two\ndoor-keepers to the house of prayer, and Sorrow is more on the alert to\nopen than her grandson Joy.\n\nThe gladsome child runs farther afield; the wounded child turns to go\nhome. The weeper sits down close to the gate; the lord of life draws\nnigh to him from within. God loves not sorrow, yet rejoices to see a man\nsorrowful, for in his sorrow man leaves his heavenward door on the\nlatch, and God can enter to help him. He loves, I say, to see him\nsorrowful, for then he can come near to part him from that which makes\nhis sorrow a welcome sight. When Ephraim bemoans himself, he is a\npleasant child. So good a medicine is sorrow, so powerful to slay the\nmoths that infest and devour the human heart, that the Lord is glad to\nsee a man weep. He congratulates him on his sadness. Grief is an\nill-favoured thing, but she is Love's own child, and her mother loves\nher.\n\nThe promise to them that mourn, is not _the kingdom of heaven_, but\nthat their mourning shall be ended, that they shall be comforted. To\nmourn is not to fight with evil; it is only to miss that which is good.\nIt is not an essential heavenly condition, like poorness of spirit or\nmeekness. No man will carry his mourning with him into heaven--or, if he\ndoes, it will speedily be turned either into joy, or into what will\nresult in joy, namely, redemptive action.\n\nMourning is a canker-bitten blossom on the rose-tree of love. Is there\nany mourning worthy the name that has not love for its root? Men mourn\nbecause they love. Love is the life out of which are fashioned all the\nnatural feelings, every emotion of man. Love modelled by faith, is hope;\nlove shaped by wrong, is anger--verily anger, though pure of sin; love\ninvaded by loss, is grief.\n\nThe garment of mourning is oftenest a winding-sheet; the loss of the\nloved by death is the main cause of the mourning of the world. The Greek\nword here used to describe the blessed of the Lord, generally means\n_those that mourn for the dead_. It is not in the New Testament employed\nexclusively in this sense, neither do I imagine it stands here for such\nonly: there are griefs than death sorer far, and harder far to\ncomfort--harder even for God himself, with whom all things are possible;\nbut it may give pleasure to know that the promise of comfort to those\nthat mourn, may specially apply to those that mourn because their loved\nhave gone out of their sight, and beyond the reach of their cry. Their\nsorrow, indeed, to the love divine, involves no difficulty; it is a\nsmall matter, easily met. The father, whose elder son is ever with him,\nbut whose younger is in a far country, wasting his substance with\nriotous living, is unspeakably more to be pitied, and is harder to help,\nthan that father both of whose sons lie in the sleep of death.\n\nMuch of what goes by the name of comfort, is merely worthless; and such\nas could be comforted by it, I should not care to comfort. Let time do\nwhat it may to bring the ease of oblivion; let change of scene do what\nin it lies to lead thought away from the vanished; let new loves bury\ngrief in the grave of the old love: consolation of such sort could never\nhave crossed the mind of Jesus. Would The Truth call a man blessed\nbecause his pain would sooner or later depart, leaving him at best no\nbetter than before, and certainly poorer--not only the beloved gone, but\nthe sorrow for him too, and with the sorrow the love that had caused the\nsorrow? Blessed of God because restored to an absence of sorrow? Such a\nGod were fitly adored only where not one heart worshipped in spirit and\nin truth.\n\n'The Lord means of course,' some one may say, 'that the comfort of the\nmourners will be the restoration of that which they have lost. He means,\n\"Blessed are ye although ye mourn, for your sorrow will be turned into\njoy.\"'\n\nHappy are they whom nothing less than such restoration will comfort! But\nwould such restoration be comfort enough for the heart of Jesus to give?\nWas ever love so deep, so pure, so perfect, as to be good enough for\nhim? And suppose the love between the parted two had been such, would\nthe mere restoration in the future of that which once he had, be ground\nenough for so emphatically proclaiming the man blessed now, blessed\nwhile yet in the midnight of his loss, and knowing nothing of the hour\nof his deliverance? To call a man _blessed_ in his sorrow because of\nsomething to be given him, surely implies a something better than what\nhe had before! True, the joy that is past may have been so great that\nthe man might well feel blessed in the merest hope of its restoration;\nbut would that be meaning enough for the word in the mouth of the Lord?\nThat the interruption of his blessedness was but temporary, would hardly\nbe fit ground for calling the man _blessed_ in that interruption.\n_Blessed_ is a strong word, and in the mouth of Jesus means all it can\nmean. Can his saying here mean less than--'Blessed are they that mourn,\nfor they shall be comforted with a bliss well worth all the pain of the\nmedicinal sorrow'? Besides, the benediction surely means that the man is\nblessed _because_ of his condition of mourning, not in spite of it. His\nmourning is surely a part at least of the Lord's ground for\ncongratulating him: is it not the present operative means whereby the\nconsolation is growing possible? In a word, I do not think the Lord\nwould be content to call a man blessed on the mere ground of his going\nto be restored to a former bliss by no means perfect; I think he\ncongratulated the mourners upon the grief they were enduring, because he\nsaw the excellent glory of the comfort that was drawing nigh; because he\nknew the immeasurably greater joy to which the sorrow was at once\nclearing the way and conducting the mourner. When I say _greater_, God\nforbid I should mean _other!_ I mean the same bliss, divinely enlarged\nand divinely purified--passed again through the hands of the creative\nPerfection. The Lord knew all the history of love and loss; beheld\nthroughout the universe the winged Love discrowning the skeleton Fear.\nGod's comfort must ever be larger than man's grief, else were there gaps\nin his Godhood. Mere restoration would leave a hiatus, barren and\ngrowthless, in the development of his children.\n\nBut, alas, what a pinched hope, what miserable expectations, most who\ncall themselves the Lord's disciples derive from their notions of his\nteaching! Well may they think of death as the one thing to be right\nzealously avoided, and for ever lamented! Who would forsake even the\nwindow-less hut of his sorrow for the poor mean place they imagine the\nFather's house! Why, many of them do not even expect to know their\nfriends there! do not expect to distinguish one from another of all the\nholy assembly! They will look in many faces, but never to recognize old\nfriends and lovers! A fine saviour of men is their Jesus! Glorious\nlights they shine in the world of our sorrow, holding forth a word of\ndarkness, of dismallest death! Is the Lord such as they believe him?\n'Good-bye, then, good Master!' cries the human heart. 'I thought thou\ncouldst save me, but, alas, thou canst not. If thou savest the part of\nour being which can sin, thou lettest the part that can love sink into\nhopeless perdition: thou art not he that should come; I look for\nanother! Thou wouldst destroy and not save me! Thy father is not my\nfather; thy God is not my God! Ah, to whom shall we go? He has not the\nwords of eternal life, this Jesus, and the universe is dark as chaos! O\nfather, this thy son is good, but we need a greater son than he. Never\nwill thy children love thee under the shadow of this new law, that they\nare not to love one another as thou lovest them!' How does that man love\nGod--of what kind is the love he bears him--who is unable to believe\nthat God loves every throb of every human heart toward another? Did not\nthe Lord die that we should love one another, and be one with him and\nthe Father, and is not the knowledge of difference essential to the\ndeepest love? Can there be oneness without difference? harmony without\ndistinction? Are all to have the same face? then why faces at all? If\nthe plains of heaven are to be crowded with the same one face over and\nover for ever, but one moment will pass ere by monotony bliss shall have\ngrown ghastly. Why not perfect spheres of featureless ivory rather than\nthose multitudinous heads with one face! Or are we to start afresh with\ncountenances all new, each beautiful, each lovable, each a revelation of\nthe infinite father, each distinct from every other, and therefore all\nblending toward a full revealing--but never more the dear old precious\nfaces, with its whole story in each, which seem, at the very thought of\nthem, to draw our hearts out of our bosoms? Were they created only to\nbecome dear, and be destroyed? Is it in wine only that the old is\nbetter? Would such a new heaven be a thing to thank God for? Would this\nbe a prospect on which the Son of Man would congratulate the mourner, or\nat which the mourner for the dead would count himself blessed? It is a\nshame that such a preposterous, monstrous unbelief should call for\nargument.\n\nA heaven without human love it were inhuman, and yet more undivine to\ndesire; it ought not to be desired by any being made in the image of\nGod. The lord of life died that his father's children might grow perfect\nin love--might love their brothers and sisters as he loved them: is it\nto this end that they must cease to know one another? To annihilate the\npast of our earthly embodiment, would be to crush under the heel of an\niron fate the very idea of tenderness, human or divine.\n\nWe shall all doubtless be changed, but in what direction?--to something\nless, or to something greater?--to something that is less we, which\nmeans degradation? to something that is not we, which means\nannihilation? or to something that is more we, which means a farther\ndevelopment of the original idea of us, the divine germ of us, holding\nin it all we ever were, all we ever can and must become? What is it\nconstitutes this or that man? Is it what he himself thinks he is?\nAssuredly not. Is it what his friends at any given moment think him? Far\nfrom it. In which of his changing moods is he more himself? Loves any\nlover so little as to desire _no_ change in the person loved--no\nsomething different to bring him or her closer to the indwelling ideal?\nIn the loveliest is there not something not like her--something less\nlovely than she--some little thing in which a change would make her, not\nless, but more herself? Is it not of the very essence of the Christian\nhope, that we shall be changed from much bad to all good? If a wife so\nlove that she would keep every opposition, every inconsistency in her\nhusband's as yet but partially harmonious character, she does not love\nwell enough for the kingdom of heaven. If its imperfections be essential\nto the individuality she loves, and to the repossession of her joy in\nit, she may be sure that, if he were restored to her as she would have\nhim, she would soon come to love him less--perhaps to love him not at\nall; for no one who does not love perfection, will ever keep constant in\nloving. Fault is not lovable; it is only the good in which the alien\nfault dwells that causes it to seem capable of being loved. Neither is\nit any man's peculiarities that make him beloved; it is the essential\nhumanity underlying those peculiarities. They may make him interesting,\nand, where not offensive, they may come to be loved for the sake of the\nman; but in themselves they are of smallest account.\n\nWe must not however confound peculiarity with diversity. Diversity is in\nand from God; peculiarity in and from man. The real man is the divine\nidea of him; the man God had in view when he began to send him forth out\nof thought into thinking; the man he is now working to perfect by\ncasting out what is not he, and developing what is he. But in God's real\nmen, that is, his ideal men, the diversity is infinite; he does not\nrepeat his creations; every one of his children differs from every\nother, and in every one the diversity is lovable. God gives in his\nchildren an analysis of himself, an analysis that will never be\nexhausted. It is the original God-idea of the individual man that will\nat length be given, without spot or blemish, into the arms of love.\n\nSuch, surely, is the heart of the comfort the Lord will give those whose\nlove is now making them mourn; and their present blessedness must be the\nexpectation of the time when the true lover shall find the restored the\nsame as the lost--with precious differences: the things that were not\nlike the true self, gone or going; the things that were loveliest,\nlovelier still; the restored not merely more than the lost, but more the\nperson lost than he or she that was lost. For the things which made him\nor her what he or she was, the things that rendered lovable, the things\nessential to the person, will be more present, because more developed.\n\nWhether or not the Lord was here thinking specially of the mourners for\nthe dead, as I think he was, he surely does not limit the word of\ncomfort to them, or wish us to believe less than that his father has\nperfect comfort for every human grief. Out upon such miserable\ntheologians as, instead of receiving them into the good soil of a\ngenerous heart, to bring forth truth an hundred fold, so cut and pare\nthe words of the Lord as to take the very life from them, quenching all\ntheir glory and colour in their own inability to believe, and still\nwould have the dead letter of them accepted as the comfort of a creator\nto the sore hearts he made in his own image! Here, 'as if they were\nGod's spies,' some such would tell us that the Lord proclaims the\nblessedness of those that mourn for their sins, and of them only. What\nmere honest man would make a promise which was all a reservation, except\nin one unmentioned point! Assuredly they who mourn for their sins will\nbe gloriously comforted, but certainly such also as are bowed down with\nany grief. The Lord would have us know that sorrow is not a part of\nlife; that it is but a wind blowing throughout it, to winnow and\ncleanse. Where shall the woman go whose child is at the point of death,\nor whom the husband of her youth has forsaken, but to her Father in\nheaven? Must she keep away until she knows herself sorry for her sins?\nHow should that woman care to be delivered from her sins, how could she\naccept any comfort, who believed the child of her bosom lost to her for\never? Would the Lord have such a one be of good cheer, of merry heart,\nbecause her sins were forgiven her? Would such a mother be a woman of\nwhom the saviour of men might have been born? If a woman forget the\nchild she has borne and nourished, how shall she remember the father\nfrom whom she has herself come? The Lord came to heal the\nbroken-hearted; therefore he said, 'Blessed are the mourners.' Hope in\nGod, mother, for the deadest of thy children, even for him who died in\nhis sins. Thou mayest have long to wait for him--but he will be found.\nIt may be, thou thyself wilt one day be sent to seek him and find him.\nRest thy hope on no excuse thy love would make for him, neither upon any\nquibble theological or sacerdotal; hope on in him who created him, and\nwho loves him more than thou. God will excuse him better than thou, and\nhis uncovenanted mercy is larger than that of his ministers. Shall not\n_the_ Father do _his_ best to find his prodigal? the good shepherd to\nfind his lost sheep? The angels in his presence know the Father, and\nwatch for the prodigal. Thou shalt be comforted.\n\nThere is one phase of our mourning for the dead which I must not leave\nunconsidered, seeing it is the pain within pain of all our mourning--the\nsorrow, namely, with its keen recurrent pangs because of things we have\nsaid or done, or omitted to say or do, while we companied with the\ndeparted. The very life that would give itself to the other, aches with\nthe sense of having, this time and that, not given what it might. We\ncast ourselves at their feet, crying, Forgive me, my heart's own! but\nthey are pale with distance, and do not seem to hear. It may be that\nthey are longing in like agony of love after us, but know better, or\nperhaps only are more assured than we, that we shall be comforted\ntogether by and by.\n\nBethink thee, brother, sister, I say; bethink thee of the splendour of\nGod, and answer--Would he be perfect if in his restitution of all things\nthere were no opportunity for declaring our bitter grief and shame for\nthe past? no moment in which to sob--Sister, brother, I am thy slave? no\nroom for making amends? At the same time, when the desired moment comes,\none look in the eyes may be enough, and we shall know one another even\nas God knows us. Like the purposed words of the prodigal in the parable,\nit may be that the words of our confession will hardly find place. Heart\nmay so speak to heart as to forget there were such things. Mourner, hope\nin God, and comfort where thou canst, and the lord of mourners will be\nable to comfort thee the sooner. It may be thy very severity with\nthyself, has already moved the Lord to take thy part.\n\nSuch as mourn the loss of love, such from whom the friend, the brother,\nthe lover, has turned away--what shall I cry to them?--You too shall be\ncomforted--only hearken: Whatever selfishness clouds the love that\nmourns the loss of love, that selfishness must be taken out of\nit--burned out of it even by pain extreme, if such be needful. By cause\nof that in thy love which was not love, it may be thy loss has come;\nanyhow, because of thy love's defect, thou must suffer that it may be\nsupplied. God will not, like the unjust judge, avenge thee to escape the\ncry that troubles him. No crying will make him comfort thy selfishness.\nHe will not render thee incapable of loving truly. He despises neither\nthy love though mingled with selfishness, nor thy suffering that springs\nfrom both; he will disentangle thy selfishness from thy love, and cast\nit into the fire. His cure for thy selfishness at once and thy\nsuffering, is to make thee love more--and more truly; not with the love\nof love, but with the love of the person whose lost love thou bemoanest.\nFor the love of love is the love of thyself. Begin to love as God loves,\nand thy grief will assuage; but for comfort wait his time. What he will\ndo for thee, he only knows. It may be thou wilt never know what he will\ndo, but only what he has done: it was too good for thee to know save by\nreceiving it. The moment thou art capable of it, thine it will be.\n\nOne thing is clear in regard to every trouble--that the natural way\nwith it is straight to the Father's knee. The Father is father _for_ his\nchildren, else why did he make himself their father? Wouldst thou not,\nmourner, be comforted rather after the one eternal fashion--the child by\nthe father--than in such poor temporary way as would but leave thee the\nmore exposed to thy worst enemy, thine own unreclaimed self?--an enemy\nwho has but this one good thing in him--that he will always bring thee\nto sorrow!\n\nThe Lord has come to wipe away our tears. He is doing it; he will have\nit done as soon as he can; and until he can, he would have them flow\nwithout bitterness; to which end he tells us it is a blessed thing to\nmourn, because of the comfort on its way. Accept his comfort now, and so\nprepare for the comfort at hand. He is getting you ready for it, but you\nmust be a fellow worker with him, or he will never have done. He _must_\nhave you pure in heart, eager after righteousness, a very child of his\nfather in heaven.\n\n\n\n\n_GOD'S FAMILY._\n\n'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' 'Blessed are\nthey which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be\nfilled.' 'Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the\nchildren of God.'--_Matthew_ v. 8, 6, 9.\n\n\nThe cry of the deepest in man has always been, to see God. It was the\ncry of Moses and the cry of Job, the cry of psalmist and of prophet; and\nto the cry, there has ever been faintly heard a far approach of coming\nanswer. In the fullness of time the Son appears with the proclamation\nthat a certain class of men shall behold the Father: 'Blessed are the\npure in heart,' he cries, 'for they shall see God.' He who saw God, who\nsees him now, who always did and always will see him, says, 'Be pure,\nand you also shall see him.' To see God was the Lord's own, eternal, one\nhappiness; therefore he knew that the essential bliss of the creature is\nto behold the face of the creator. In that face lies the mystery of a\nman's own nature, the history of a man's own being. He who can read no\nline of it, can know neither himself nor his fellow; he only who knows\nGod a little, can at all understand man. The blessed in Dante's Paradise\never and always read each other's thoughts in God. Looking to him, they\nfind their neighbour. All that the creature needs to see or know, all\nthat the creature can see or know, is the face of him from whom he came.\nNot seeing and knowing it, he will never be at rest; seeing and knowing\nit, his existence will yet indeed be a mystery to him and an awe, but no\nmore a dismay. To know that it is, and that it has power neither to\ncontinue nor to cease, must to any soul alive enough to appreciate the\nfact, be merest terror, save also it knows one with it the Power by\nwhich it exists. From the man who comes to know and feel that Power in\nhim and one with him, loneliness, anxiety, and fear vanish; he is no\nmore an orphan without a home, a little one astray on the cold waste of\na helpless consciousness. 'Father,' he cries, 'hold me fast to thy\ncreating will, that I may know myself one with it, know myself its\noutcome, its willed embodiment, and rejoice without trembling. Be this\nthe delight of my being, that thou hast willed, hast loved me forth; let\nme know that I am thy child, born to obey thee. Dost thou not justify\nthy deed to thyself by thy tenderness toward me? dost thou not justify\nit to thy child by revealing to him his claim on thee because of thy\ndisparture of him from thyself, because of his utter dependence on thee?\nFather, thou art in me, else I could not be in thee, could have no house\nfor my soul to dwell in, or any world in which to walk abroad,'\n\nThese truths are, I believe, the very necessities of fact, but a man\ndoes not therefore, at a given moment, necessarily know them. It is\nabsolutely necessary, none the less, to his real being, that he should\nknow these spiritual relations in which he stands to his Origin; yea,\nthat they should be always present and potent with him, and become the\nheart and sphere and all-pervading substance of his consciousness, of\nwhich they are the ground and foundation. Once to have seen them, is not\nalways to see them. There are times, and those times many, when the\ncares of this world--with no right to any part in our thought, seeing\neither they are unreasonable or God imperfect--so blind the eyes of the\nsoul to the radiance of the eternally true, that they see it only as if\nit ought to be true, not as if it must be true; as if it might be true\nin the region of thought, but could not be true in the region of fact.\nOur very senses, filled with the things of our passing sojourn, combine\nto cast discredit upon the existence of any world for the sake of which\nwe are furnished with an inner eye, an eternal ear. But had we once\nseen God face to face, should we not be always and for ever sure of him?\nwe have had but glimpses of the Father. Yet, if we had seen God face to\nface, but had again become impure of heart--if such a fearful thought be\na possible idea--we should then no more believe that we had ever beheld\nhim. A sin-beclouded soul could never recall the vision whose essential\nverity was its only possible proof. None but the pure in heart see God;\nonly the growing-pure hope to see him. Even those who saw the Lord, the\nexpress image of his person, did not see God. They only saw Jesus--and\nthen but the outside Jesus, or a little more. They were not pure in\nheart; they saw him and did not see him. They saw him with their eyes,\nbut not with those eyes which alone can see God. Those were not born in\nthem yet. Neither the eyes of the resurrection-body, nor the eyes of\nunembodied spirits can see God; only the eyes of that eternal something\nthat is of the very essence of God, the thought-eyes, the truth-eyes,\nthe love-eyes, can see him. It is not because we are created and he\nuncreated, it is not because of any difference involved in that\ndifference of all differences, that we cannot see him. If he pleased to\ntake a shape, and that shape were presented to us, and we saw that\nshape, we should not therefore be seeing God. Even if we knew it was a\nshape of God--call it even God himself our eyes rested upon; if we had\nbeen told the fact and believed the report; yet, if we did not see the\n_Godness_, were not capable of recognizing him, so as without the report\nto know the vision him, we should not be seeing God, we should only be\nseeing the tabernacle in which for the moment he dwelt. In other words,\nnot seeing what in the form made it a form fit for him to take, we\nshould not be seeing a presence which could only be God.\n\nTo see God is to stand on the highest point of created being. Not until\nwe see God--no partial and passing embodiment of him, but the abiding\npresence--do we stand upon our own mountain-top, the height of the\nexistence God has given us, and up to which he is leading us. That there\nwe should stand, is the end of our creation. This truth is at the heart\nof everything, means all kinds of completions, may be uttered in many\nways; but language will never compass it, for form will never contain\nit. Nor shall we ever see, that is know God perfectly. We shall indeed\nnever absolutely know man or woman or child; but we may know God as we\nnever can know human being--as we never can know ourselves. We not only\nmay, but we must so know him, and it can never be until we are pure in\nheart. Then shall we know him with the infinitude of an ever-growing\nknowledge.\n\n'What is it, then, to be pure in heart?'\n\nI answer, It is not necessary to define this purity, or to have in the\nmind any clear form of it. For even to know perfectly, were that\npossible, what purity of heart is, would not be to be pure in heart.\n\n'How then am I to try after it? can I do so without knowing what it is?'\n\nThough you do not know any definition of purity, you know enough to\nbegin to be pure. You do not know what a man is, but you know how to\nmake his acquaintance--perhaps even how to gain his friendship. Your\nbrain does not know what purity is; your heart has some acquaintance\nwith purity itself. Your brain in seeking to know what it is, may even\nobstruct your heart in bettering its friendship with it. To know what\npurity is, a man must already be pure; but he who can put the question,\nalready knows enough of purity, I repeat, to begin to become pure. If\nthis moment you determine to start for purity, your conscience will at\nonce tell you where to begin. If you reply, 'My conscience says nothing\ndefinite'; I answer, 'You are but playing with your conscience.\nDetermine, and it will speak.'\n\nIf you care to see God, be pure. If you will not be pure, you will grow\nmore and more impure; and instead of seeing God, will at length find\nyourself face to face with a vast inane--a vast inane, yet filled full\nof one inhabitant, that devouring monster, your own false self. If for\nthis neither do you care, I tell you there is a Power that will not have\nit so; a Love that will make you care by the consequences of not caring.\n\nYou who seek purity, and would have your fellow-men also seek it, spend\nnot your labour on the stony ground of their intellect, endeavouring to\nexplain what purity is; give their imagination the one pure man; call up\ntheir conscience to witness against their own deeds; urge upon them the\ngrand resolve to be pure. With the first endeavour of a soul toward her,\nPurity will begin to draw nigh, calling for admittance; and never will a\nman have to pause in the divine toil, asking what next is required of\nhim; the demands of the indwelling Purity will ever be in front of his\nslow-labouring obedience.\n\nIf one should say, 'Alas, I am shut out from this blessing! I am not\npure in heart: never shall I see God!' here is another word from the\nsame eternal heart to comfort him, making his grief its own consolation.\nFor this man also there is blessing with the messenger of the Father.\nUnhappy men were we, if God were the God of the perfected only, and not\nof the growing, the becoming! 'Blessed are they,' says the Lord,\nconcerning the not yet pure, 'which do hunger and thirst after\nrighteousness, for they shall be filled.' Filled with righteousness,\nthey are pure; pure, they shall see God.\n\nLong ere the Lord appeared, ever since man was on the earth, nay,\nsurely, from the very beginning, was his spirit at work in it for\nrighteousness; in the fullness of time he came in his own human person,\nto fulfil all righteousness. He came to his own of the same mind with\nhimself, who hungered and thirsted after righteousness. They should be\nfulfilled of righteousness!\n\nTo hunger and thirst after anything, implies a sore personal need, a\nstrong desire, a passion for that thing. Those that hunger and thirst\nafter righteousness, seek with their whole nature the design of that\nnature. Nothing less will give them satisfaction; that alone will set\nthem at ease. They long to be delivered from their sins, to send them\naway, to be clean and blessed by their absence--in a word to become men,\nGod's men; for, sin gone, all the rest is good. It was not in such\nhearts, it was not in any heart that the revolting legal fiction of\nimputed righteousness arose. Righteousness itself, God's righteousness,\nrightness in their own being, in heart and brain and hands, is what they\ndesire. Of such men was Nathanael, in whom was no guile; such, perhaps,\nwas Nicodemus too, although he did come to Jesus by night; such was\nZacchaeus. The temple could do nothing to deliver them; but, by their\nvery futility, its observances had done their work, developing the\ndesires they could not meet, making the men hunger and thirst the more\nafter genuine righteousness: the Lord must bring them this bread from\nheaven. With him, the live, original rightness, in their hearts, they\nmust speedily become righteous. With that Love their friend, who is at\nonce both the root and the flower of things, they would strive\nvigorously as well as hunger eagerly after righteousness. Love is the\nfather of righteousness. It could not be, and could not be hungered\nafter, but for love. The lord of righteousness himself could not live\nwithout Love, without the Father in him. Every heart was created for,\nand can live no otherwise than in and upon love eternal, perfect, pure,\nunchanging; and love necessitates righteousness. In how many souls has\nnot the very thought of a real God waked a longing to be different, to\nbe pure, to be right! The fact that this feeling is possible, that a\nsoul can become dissatisfied with itself, and desire a change in itself,\nreveals God as an essential part of its being; for in itself the soul is\naware that it cannot be what it would, what it ought--that it cannot set\nitself right: a need has been generated in the soul for which the soul\ncan generate no supply; a presence higher than itself must have caused\nthat need; a power greater than itself must supply it, for the soul\nknows its very need, its very lack, is of something greater than itself.\n\nBut the primal need of the human soul is yet greater than this; the\nlonging after righteousness is only one of the manifestations of it; the\nneed itself is that of _existence not self-existent_ for the\nconsciousness of the presence of the causing Self-existent. It is the\nman's need of God. A moral, that is, a human, a spiritual being, must\neither be God, or one with God. This truth begins to reveal itself when\nthe man begins to feel that he cannot cast out the thing he hates,\ncannot be the thing he loves. That he hates thus, that he loves thus, is\nbecause God is in him, but he finds he has not enough of God. His\nawaking strength manifests itself in his sense of weakness, for only\nstrength can know itself weak. The negative cannot know itself at all.\nWeakness cannot know itself weak. It is a little strength that longs for\nmore; it is infant righteousness that hungers after righteousness.\n\nTo every soul dissatisfied with itself, comes this word, at once rousing\nand consoling, from the Power that lives and makes him live--that in his\nhungering and thirsting he is blessed, for he shall be filled. His\nhungering and thirsting is the divine pledge of the divine meal. The\nmore he hungers and thirsts the more blessed is he; the more room is\nthere in him to receive that which God is yet more eager to give than\nhe to have. It is the miserable emptiness that makes a man hunger and\nthirst; and, as the body, so the soul hungers after what belongs to its\nnature. A man hungers and thirsts after righteousness because his nature\nneeds it--needs it because it was made for it; his soul desires its own.\nHis nature is good, and desires more good. Therefore, that he is empty\nof good, needs discourage no one; for what is emptiness but room to be\nfilled? Emptiness is need of good; the emptiness that desires good, is\nitself good. Even if the hunger after righteousness should in part\nspring from a desire after self-respect, it is not therefore _all_\nfalse. A man could not even be ashamed of himself, without some 'feeling\nsense' of the beauty of rightness. By divine degrees the man will at\nlength grow sick of himself, and desire righteousness with a pure\nhunger--just as a man longs to eat that which is good, nor thinks of the\nstrength it will restore.\n\nTo be filled with righteousness, will be to forget even righteousness\nitself in the bliss of being righteous, that is, a child of God. The\nthought of righteousness will vanish in the fact of righteousness. When\na creature is just what he is meant to be, what only he is fit to be;\nwhen, therefore, he is truly himself, he never thinks what he is. He\n_is_ that thing; why think about it? It is no longer outside of him that\nhe should contemplate or desire it.\n\nGod made man, and woke in him the hunger for righteousness; the Lord\ncame to enlarge and rouse this hunger. The first and lasting effect of\nhis words must be to make the hungering and thirsting long yet more. If\ntheir passion grow to a despairing sense of the unattainable, a\nhopelessness of ever gaining that without which life were worthless, let\nthem remember that the Lord congratulates the hungry and thirsty, so\nsure does he know them of being one day satisfied. Their hunger is a\nprecious thing to have, none the less that it were a bad thing to retain\nunappeased. It springs from the lack but also from the love of good, and\nits presence makes it possible to supply the lack. Happy, then, ye\npining souls! The food you would have, is the one thing the Lord would\nhave you have, the very thing he came to bring you! Fear not, ye\nhungering and thirsting; you shall have righteousness enough, though\nnone to spare--none to spare, yet enough to overflow upon every man. See\nhow the Lord goes on filling his disciples, John and Peter and James and\nPaul, with righteousness from within! What honest soul, interpreting the\nservant by the master, and unbiassed by the tradition of them that would\nshut the kingdom of heaven against men, can doubt what Paul means by\n'the righteousness which is of God by faith'? He was taught of Jesus\nChrist through the words he had spoken; and the man who does not\nunderstand Jesus Christ, will never understand his apostles. What\nrighteousness could St Paul have meant but the same the Lord would have\nmen hunger and thirst after--the very righteousness wherewith God is\nrighteous! They that hunger and thirst after such only righteousness,\nshall become pure in heart, and shall see God.\n\nIf your hunger seems long in being filled, it is well it should seem\nlong. But what if your righteousness tarry, because your hunger after it\nis not eager? There are who sit long at the table because their desire\nis slow; they eat as who should say, We need no food. In things\nspiritual, increasing desire is the sign that satisfaction is drawing\nnearer. But it were better to hunger after righteousness for ever than\nto dull the sense of lack with the husks of the Christian scribes and\nlawyers: he who trusts in the atonement instead of in the father of\nJesus Christ, fills his fancy with the chimeras of a vulgar legalism,\nnot his heart with the righteousness of God.\n\nHear another like word of the Lord. He assures us that the Father hears\nthe cries of his elect--of those whom he seeks to worship him because\nthey worship in spirit and in truth. 'Shall not God avenge his own\nelect,' he says, 'which cry day and night unto him?' Now what can God's\nelect have to keep on crying for, night and day, but righteousness? He\nallows that God seems to put off answering them, but assures us he will\nanswer them speedily. Even now he must be busy answering their prayers;\nincreasing hunger is the best possible indication that he is doing so.\nFor some divine reason it is well they should not yet know in themselves\nthat he is answering their prayers; but the day must come when we shall\nbe righteous even as he is righteous; when no word of his will miss\nbeing understood because of our lack of righteousness; when no\nunrighteousness shall hide from our eyes the face of the Father.\n\nThese two promises, of seeing God, and being filled with righteousness,\nhave place between the individual man and his father in heaven directly;\nthe promise I now come to, has place between a man and his God as the\nGod of other men also, as the father of the whole family in heaven and\nearth: 'Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the\nchildren of God.'\n\nThose that are on their way to see God, those who are growing pure in\nheart through hunger and thirst after righteousness, are indeed the\nchildren of God; but specially the Lord calls those his children who, on\ntheir way home, are peace-makers in the travelling company; for, surely,\nthose in any family are specially the children, who make peace with and\namong the rest. The true idea of the universe is the whole family in\nheaven and earth. All the children in this part of it, the earth, at\nleast, are not good children; but however far, therefore, the earth is\nfrom being a true portion of a real family, the life-germ at the root of\nthe world, that by and for which it exists, is its relation to God the\nfather of men. For the development of this germ in the consciousness of\nthe children, the church--whose idea is the purer family within the more\nmixed, ever growing as leaven within the meal by absorption, but which\nitself is, alas! not easily distinguishable from the world it would\nchange--is one of the passing means. For the same purpose, the whole\ndivine family is made up of numberless human families, that in these,\nmen may learn and begin to love one another. God, then, would make of\nthe world a true, divine family. Now the primary necessity to the very\nexistence of a family is peace. Many a human family is no family, and\nthe world is no family yet, for the lack of peace. Wherever peace is\ngrowing, there of course is the live peace, counteracting disruption and\ndisintegration, and helping the development of the true essential\nfamily. The one question, therefore, as to any family is, whether peace\nor strife be on the increase in it; for peace alone makes it possible\nfor the binding grass-roots of life--love, namely, and justice--to\nspread throughout what were else but a wind-blown heap of still drifting\nsand. The peace-makers quiet the winds of the world ever ready to be up\nand blowing; they tend and cherish the interlacing roots of the\nministering grass; they spin and twist many uniting cords, and they\nweave many supporting bands; they are the servants, for the truth's\nsake, of the individual, of the family, of the world, of the great\nuniversal family of heaven and earth. They are the true children of that\nfamily, the allies and ministers of every clasping and consolidating\nforce in it; fellow-workers they are with God in the creation of the\nfamily; they help him to get it to his mind, to perfect his father-idea.\nEver radiating peace, they welcome love, but do not seek it; they\nprovoke no jealousy. They are the children of God, for like him they\nwould be one with his creatures. His eldest son, his very likeness, was\nthe first of the family-peace-makers. Preaching peace to them that were\nafar off and them that were nigh, he stood undefended in the turbulent\ncrowd of his fellows, and it was only over his dead body that his\nbrothers began to come together in the peace that will not be broken. He\nrose again from the dead; his peace-making brothers, like himself, are\ndying unto sin; and not yet have the evil children made their father\nhate, or their elder brother flinch.\n\nOn the other hand, those whose influence is to divide and separate,\ncausing the hearts of men to lean away from each other, make themselves\nthe children of the evil one: born of God and not of the devil, they\nturn from God, and adopt the devil their father. They set their God-born\nlife against God, against the whole creative, redemptive purpose of his\nunifying will, ever obstructing the one prayer of the first-born--that\nthe children may be one with him in the Father. Against the heart-end of\ncreation, against that for which the Son yielded himself utterly, the\nsowers of strife, the fomenters of discord, contend ceaseless. They do\ntheir part with all the other powers of evil to make the world which the\nlove of God holds together--a world at least, though not yet a\nfamily--one heaving mass of dissolution. But they labour in vain.\nThrough the mass and through it, that it may cohere, this way and that,\nguided in dance inexplicable of prophetic harmony, move the children of\nGod, the lights of the world, the lovers of men, the fellow-workers with\nGod, the peace-makers--ever weaving, after a pattern devised by, and\nknown only to him who orders their ways, the web of the world's history.\nBut for them the world would have no history; it would vanish, a cloud\nof windborne dust. As in his labour, so shall these share in the joy of\nGod, in the divine fruition of victorious endeavour. Blessed are the\npeace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God--_the_\nchildren because they set the Father on the throne of the Family.\n\nThe main practical difficulty, with some at least of the peace-makers,\nis, how to carry themselves toward the undoers of peace, the disuniters\nof souls. Perhaps the most potent of these are not those powers of the\nchurch visible who care for canon and dogma more than for truth, and for\nthe church more than for Christ; who take uniformity for unity; who\nstrain at a gnat and swallow a camel, nor knowing what spirit they are\nof; such men, I say, are perhaps neither the most active nor the most\npotent force working for the disintegration of the body of Christ. I\nimagine also that neither are the party-liars of politics the worst foes\nto divine unity, ungenerous, and often knowingly false as they are to\ntheir opponents, to whom they seem to have no desire to be honest and\nfair. I think, rather, they must be the babbling liars of the social\ncircle, and the faithless brothers and unloving sisters of disunited\nhuman families. But why inquire? Every self-assertion, every form of\nself-seeking however small or poor, world-noble or grotesque, is a\nseparating and scattering force. And these forces are multitudinous,\nthese points of radial repulsion are innumerable, because of the\nprevailing passion of mean souls to seem great, and feel important. If\nsuch cannot hope to attract the attention of the great-little world, if\nthey cannot even become 'the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,' they will,\nin what sphere they may call their own, however small it be, try to make\na party for themselves; each, revolving on his or her own axis, will\nattempt to self-centre a private whirlpool of human monads. To draw such\na surrounding, the partisan of self will sometimes gnaw asunder the most\nprecious of bonds, poison whole broods of infant loves. Such real\nschismatics go about, where not inventing evil, yet rejoicing in\niniquity; mishearing; misrepresenting; paralyzing affection; separating\nhearts. Their chosen calling is that of the strife-maker, the child of\nthe dividing devil. They belong to the class of _the perfidious_, whom\nDante places in the lowest infernal gulf as their proper home. Many a\nwoman who now imagines herself standing well in morals and religion,\nwill find herself at last just such a child of the devil; and her misery\nwill be the hope of her redemption.\n\nBut it is not for her sake that I write these things: would such a woman\nrecognize her own likeness, were I to set it down as close as words\ncould draw it? I am rather as one groping after some light on the true\nbehaviour toward her kind. Are we to treat persons known for liars and\nstrife-makers as the children of the devil or not? Are we to turn away\nfrom them, and refuse to acknowledge them, rousing an ignorant strife of\ntongues concerning our conduct? Are we guilty of connivance, when silent\nas to the ambush whence we know the wicked arrow privily shot? Are we to\ncall the traitor to account? or are we to give warning of any sort? I\nhave no answer. Each must carry the question that perplexes to the Light\nof the World. To what purpose is the spirit of God promised to them that\nask it, if not to help them order their way aright?\n\nOne thing is plain--that we must love the strife-maker; another is\nnearly as plain--that, if we do not love him, we must leave him alone;\nfor without love there can be no peace-making, and words will but\noccasion more strife. To be kind neither hurts nor compromises. Kindness\nhas many phases, and the fitting form of it may avoid offence, and must\navoid untruth.\n\nWe must not fear what man can do to us, but commit our way to the Father\nof the Family. We must be nowise anxious to defend ourselves; and if not\nourselves because God is our defence, then why our friends? is he not\ntheir defence as much as ours? Commit thy friend's cause also to him who\njudgeth righteously. Be ready to bear testimony for thy friend, as thou\nwouldst to receive the blow struck at him; but do not plunge into a nest\nof scorpions to rescue his handkerchief. Be true to him thyself, nor\nspare to show thou lovest and honourest him; but defence may dishonour:\nmen may say, What! is thy friend's esteem then so small? He is unwise\nwho drags a rich veil from a cactus-bush.\n\nWhatever our relation, then, with any peace-breaker, our mercy must ever\nbe within call; and it may help us against an indignation too strong to\nbe pure, to remember that when any man is reviled for righteousness-sake,\nthen is he blessed.\n\n\n\n\n_THE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE._\n\n'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' 'Blessed are\nthey which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the\nkingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and\npersecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for\nmy sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in\nheaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before\nyou.'--_Matthew_, v. 7, 10 11, 12.\n\n\nMercy cannot get in where mercy goes not out. The outgoing makes way for\nthe incoming. God takes the part of humanity against the man. The man\nmust treat men as he would have God treat him. 'If ye forgive men their\ntrespasses,' the Lord says, 'your heavenly father will also forgive you;\nbut if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father\nforgive your trespasses. And in the prophecy of the judgment of the Son\nof man, he represents himself as saying, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it\nunto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'\n\nBut the demand for mercy is far from being for the sake only of the man\nwho needs his neighbour's mercy; it is greatly more for the sake of the\nman who must show the mercy. It is a small thing to a man whether or not\nhis neighbour be merciful to him; it is life or death to him whether or\nnot he be merciful to his neighbour. The greatest mercy that can be\nshown to man, is to make him merciful; therefore, if he will not be\nmerciful, the mercy of God must compel him thereto. In the parable of\nthe king taking account of his servants, he delivers the unmerciful\ndebtor to the tormentors, 'till he should pay all that was due unto\nhim.' The king had forgiven his debtor, but as the debtor refuses to\npass on the forgiveness to his neighbour--the only way to make a return\nin kind--the king withdraws his forgiveness. If we forgive not men their\ntrespasses, our trespasses remain. For how can God in any sense forgive,\nremit, or send away the sin which a man insists on retaining?\nUnmerciful, we must be given up to the tormentors until we learn to be\nmerciful. God is merciful: we must be merciful. There is no blessedness\nexcept in being such as God; it would be altogether unmerciful to leave\nus unmerciful. The reward of the merciful is, that by their mercy they\nare rendered capable of receiving the mercy of God--yea, God himself,\nwho is Mercy.\n\nThat men may be drawn to taste and see and understand, the Lord\nassociates reward with righteousness. The Lord would have men love\nrighteousness, but how are they to love it without being acquainted with\nit? How are they to go on loving it without a growing knowledge of it?\nTo draw them toward it that they may begin to know it, and to encourage\nthem when assailed by the disappointments that accompany endeavour, he\ntells them simply a truth concerning it--that in the doing of it, there\nis great reward. Let no one start with dismay at the idea of a reward of\nrighteousness, saying virtue is its own reward. Is not virtue then a\nreward? Is any other imaginable reward worth mentioning beside it? True,\nthe man may, after this mode or that, mistake the reward promised; not\nthe less must he have it, or perish. Who will count himself deceived by\noverfulfilment? Would a parent be deceiving his child in saying, 'My\nboy, you will have a great reward if you learn Greek,' foreseeing his\nson's delight in Homer and Plato--now but a valueless waste in his eyes?\nWhen his reward comes, will the youth feel aggrieved that it is Greek,\nand not bank-notes?\n\nThe nature indeed of the Lord's promised rewards is hardly to be\nmistaken; yet the foolish remarks one sometimes hears, make me wish to\npoint out that neither is the Lord proclaiming an ethical system, nor\ndoes he make the blunder of representing as righteousness the doing of a\ngood thing because of some advantage to be thereby gained. When he\npromises, he only states some fact that will encourage his\ndisciples--that is, all who learn of him--to meet the difficulties in\nthe way of doing right and so learning righteousness, his object being\nto make men righteous, not to teach them philosophy. I doubt if those\nwho would, on the ground of mentioned reward, set aside the teaching of\nthe Lord, are as anxious to be righteous as they are to prove him\nunrighteous. If they were, they would, I think, take more care to\nrepresent him truly; they would make farther search into the thing, nor\nbe willing that he whom the world confesses its best man, and whom they\nthemselves, perhaps, confess their superior in conduct, should be found\nless pure in theory than they. Must the Lord hide from his friends that\nthey will have cause to rejoice that they have been obedient? Must he\ngive them no help to counterbalance the load with which they start on\ntheir race? Is he to tell them the horrors of the persecutions that\nawait them, and not the sweet sympathies that will help them through?\nWas it wrong to assure them that where he was going they should go also?\nThe Lord could not demand of them more righteousness than he does: 'Be\nye therefore perfect as your father in heaven is perfect;' but not to\nhelp them by word of love, deed of power, and promise of good, would\nhave shown him far less of a brother and a saviour. It is the part of\nthe enemy of righteousness to increase the difficulties in the way of\nbecoming righteous, and to diminish those in the way of seeming\nrighteous. Jesus desires no righteousness for the pride of being\nrighteous, any more than for advantage to be gained by it; therefore,\nwhile requiring such purity as the man, beforehand, is unable to\nimagine, he gives him all the encouragement he can. He will not enhance\nhis victory by difficulties--of them there are enough--but by\ncompleteness. He will not demand the loftiest motives in the yet far\nfrom loftiest soul: to those the soul must grow. He will hearten the\nchild with promises, and fulfil them to the contentment of the man.\n\nMen cannot be righteous without love; to love a righteous man is the\nbest, the only way to learn righteousness: the Lord gives us himself to\nlove, and promises his closest friendship to them that overcome.\n\nGod's rewards are always in kind. 'I am your father; be my children, and\nI will be your father.' Every obedience is the opening of another door\ninto the boundless universe of life. So long as the constitution of that\nuniverse remains, so long as the world continues to be made by God,\nrighteousness can never fail of perfect reward. Before it could be\notherwise, the government must have passed into other hands.\n\nThe idea of merit is nowise essential to that of reward. Jesus tells us\nthat the lord who finds his servant faithful, will make him sit down to\nmeat, and come forth and serve him; he says likewise, 'When ye have done\nall, say we are unprofitable servants; we have done only that which it\nwas our duty to do.' Reward is the rebound of Virtue's well-served ball\nfrom the hand of Love; a sense of merit is the most sneaking shape that\nself-satisfaction can assume. God's reward lies closed in all\nwell-doing: the doer of right grows better and humbler, and comes nearer\nto God's heart as nearer to his likeness; grows more capable of God's\nown blessedness, and of inheriting the kingdoms of heaven and earth. To\nbe made greater than one's fellows is the offered reward of hell, and\ninvolves no greatness; to be made greater than one's self, is the divine\nreward, and involves a real greatness. A man might be set above all his\nfellows, to be but so much less than he was before; a man cannot be\nraised a hair's-breadth above himself, without rising nearer to God. The\nreward itself, then, is righteousness; and the man who was righteous for\nthe sake of such reward, knowing what it was, would be righteous for the\nsake of righteousness,--which yet, however, would not be perfection.\nBut I must distinguish and divide no farther now.\n\nThe reward of mercy is not often of this world; the merciful do not\noften receive mercy in return from their fellows; perhaps they do not\noften receive much gratitude. None the less, being the children of their\nfather in heaven, will they go on to show mercy, even to their enemies.\nThey must give like God, and like God be blessed in giving.\n\nThere is a mercy that lies in the endeavour to share with others the\nbest things God has given: they who do so will be persecuted, and\nreviled, and slandered, as well as thanked and loved and befriended. The\nLord not only promises the greatest possible reward; he tells his\ndisciples the worst they have to expect. He not only shows them the fair\ncountries to which they are bound; he tells them the truth of the rough\nweather and the hardships of the way. He will not have them choose in\nignorance. At the same time he strengthens them to meet coming\ndifficulty, by instructing them in its real nature. All this is part of\nhis preparation of them for his work, for taking his yoke upon them, and\nbecoming fellow-labourers with him in his father's vineyard. They must\nnot imagine, because they are the servants of his father, that therefore\nthey shall find their work easy; they shall only find the reward great.\nNeither will he have them fancy, when evil comes upon them, that\nsomething unforeseen, unprovided for, has befallen them. It is just\nthen, on the contrary, that their reward comes nigh: when men revile\nthem and persecute them, then they may know that they are blessed. Their\nsuffering is ground for rejoicing, for exceeding gladness. The ignominy\ncast upon them leaves the name of the Lord's Father written upon their\nforeheads, the mark of the true among the false, of the children among\nthe slaves. With all who suffer for the world, persecution is the seal\nof their patent, a sign that they were sent: they fill up that which is\nbehind of the afflictions of Christ for his body's sake.\n\nLet us look at the similar words the Lord spoke in a later address to\nhis disciples, in the presence of thousands, on the plain,--supplemented\nwith lamentation over such as have what they desire: St Luke vi. 20--26.\n\n_'Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye\nthat hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now,\nfor ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when\nthey shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and\ncast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice ye in\nthat day, and leap for joy, for behold your reward is great in heaven;\nfor in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets._\n\n_'But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your\nconsolation. Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto\nyou that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you when all\nmen shall speak well of you; for so did their fathers to the false\nprophets.'_\n\nOn this occasion he uses the word _hunger_ without limitation. Every\ntrue want, every genuine need, every God-created hunger, is a thing\nprovided for in the idea of the universe; but no attempt to fill a void\notherwise than the Heart of the Universe intended and intends, is or can\nbe anything but a woe. God forgets none of his children--the naughty\nones any more than the good. Love and reward is for the good: love and\ncorrection for the bad. The bad ones will trouble the good, but shall do\nthem no hurt. The evil a man does to his neighbour, shall do his\nneighbour no harm, shall work indeed for his good; but he himself will\nhave to mourn for his doing. A sore injury to himself, it is to his\nneighbour a cause of jubilation--not for the evil the man does to\nhimself--over that there is sorrow in heaven--but for the good it\noccasions his neighbour. The poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated,\nmay lament their lot as if God had forgotten them; but God is all the\ntime caring for them. Blessed in his sight now, they shall soon know\nthemselves blessed. 'Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall\nlaugh.'--Welcome words from the glad heart of the Saviour! Do they not\nmake our hearts burn within us?--They shall be comforted even to\nlaughter! The poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, the persecuted,\nare the powerful, the opulent, the merry, the loved, the victorious of\nGod's kingdom,--to be filled with good things, to laugh for very\ndelight, to be honoured and sought and cherished!\n\nBut such as have their poor consolation in this life--alas for\nthem!--for those who have yet to learn what hunger is! for those whose\nlaughter is as the crackling of thorns! for those who have loved and\ngathered the praises of men! for the rich, the jocund, the full-fed!\nSilent-footed evil is on its way to seize them. Dives must go without;\nLazarus must have. God's education makes use of terrible extremes. There\nare last that shall be first, and first that shall be last.\n\nThe Lord knew what trials, what tortures even awaited his disciples\nafter his death; he knew they would need every encouragement he could\ngive them to keep their hearts strong, lest in some moment of dismay\nthey should deny him. If they had denied him, where would our gospel be?\nIf there are none able and ready to be crucified for him now, alas for\nthe age to come! What a poor travesty of the good news of God will\narrive at their doors!\n\nThose whom our Lord felicitates are all the children of one family; and\neverything that can be called blessed or blessing comes of the same\nrighteousness. If a disciple be blessed because of any one thing, every\nother blessing is either his, or on the way to become his; for he is on\nthe way to receive the very righteousness of God. Each good thing opens\nthe door to the one next it, so to all the rest. But as if these his\nassurances and promises and comfortings were not large enough; as if the\nmention of any condition whatever might discourage some humble man of\nheart with a sense of unfitness, with the fear, perhaps conviction that\nthe promise was not for him; as if some one might say, 'Alas, I am\nproud, and neither poor in spirit nor meek; I am at times not at all\nhungry after righteousness; I am not half merciful, and am very ready to\nfeel hurt and indignant: I am shut out from every blessing!' the Lord,\nknowing the multitudes that can urge nothing in their own favour, and\nsorely feel they are not blessed, looks abroad over the wide world of\nhis brothers and sisters, and calls aloud, including in the boundless\ninvitation every living soul with but the one qualification of unrest or\ndiscomfort, 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I\nwill give you rest.'\n\n\n\n\n_THE YOKE OF JESUS._\n\nAt that time Jesus answered and said,--according to Luke, In that hour\nJesus rejoiced in spirit, and said,--'I thank thee, O Father, Lord of\nheaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and\nprudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it\nseemed good in thy sight.\n\n'All things are delivered unto me of my father; and no man knoweth the\nson,'--according to Luke, 'who the son is,'--'but the father; neither\nknoweth any man the father,'--according to Luke, 'who the father\nis,'--'save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal\nhim.'--_Matthew_ xi. 25--27; _Luke_ x. 21, 22.\n\n'Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give\nyou rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and\nlowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is\neasy, and my burden is light.' _Matthew_ xi. 28--30.\n\n\nThe words of the Lord in the former two of these paragraphs, are\nrepresented, both by Matthew and by Luke, as spoken after the\ndenunciation of the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum; only\nin Luke's narrative, the return of the seventy is mentioned between; and\nthere the rejoicing of the Lord over the Father's revelation of himself\nto babes, appears to have reference to the seventy. The fact that the\nreturn of the seventy is not mentioned elsewhere, leaves us free to\nsuppose that the words were indeed spoken on that occasion. The\ncircumstances, however, as circumstances, are to us of little\nimportance, not being necessary to the understanding of the words.\n\nThe Lord makes no complaint against the wise and prudent; he but\nrecognizes that they are not those to whom his father reveals his best\nthings; for which fact and the reasons of it, he thanks, or praises his\nfather. 'I bless thy will: I see that thou art right: I am of one mind\nwith thee:' something of each of these phases of meaning seems to belong\nto the Greek word.\n\n'But why not reveal true things first to the wise? Are they not the\nfittest to receive them?' Yes, if these things and their wisdom lie in\nthe same region--not otherwise. No amount of knowledge or skill in\nphysical science, will make a man the fitter to argue a metaphysical\nquestion; and the wisdom of this world, meaning by the term, the\nphilosophy of prudence, self-protection, precaution, specially unfits a\nman for receiving what the Father has to reveal: in proportion to our\ncare about our own well being, is our incapability of understanding and\nwelcoming the care of the Father. The wise and the prudent, with all\ntheir energy of thought, could never see the things of the Father\nsufficiently to recognize them as true. Their sagacity labours in\nearthly things, and so fills their minds with their own questions and\nconclusions, that they cannot see the eternal foundations God has laid\nin man, or the consequent necessities of their own nature. They are\nproud of finding out things, but the things they find out are all less\nthan themselves. Because, however, they have discovered them, they\nimagine such things the goal of the human intellect. If they grant there\nmay be things beyond those, they either count them beyond their reach,\nor declare themselves uninterested in them: for the wise and prudent,\nthey do not exist. They work only to gather by the senses, and deduce\nfrom what they have so gathered, the prudential, the probable, the\nexpedient, the protective. They never think of the essential, of what in\nitself must be. They are cautious, wary, discreet, judicious,\ncircumspect, provident, temporizing. They have no enthusiasm, and are\nshy of all forms of it--a clever, hard, thin people, who take _things_\nfor the universe, and love of facts for love of truth. They know\nnothing deeper in man than mere surface mental facts and their\nrelations. They do not perceive, or they turn away from any truth which\nthe intellect cannot formulate. Zeal for God will never eat them up: why\nshould it? he is not interesting to them: theology may be; to such men\nreligion means theology. How should the treasure of the Father be open\nto such? In their hands his rubies would draw in their fire, and cease\nto glow. The roses of paradise in their gardens would blow withered.\nThey never go beyond the porch of the temple; they are not sure whether\nthere be any _adytum_, and they do not care to go in and see: why indeed\nshould they? it would but be to turn and come out again. Even when they\nknow their duty, they must take it to pieces, and consider the grounds\nof its claim before they will render it obedience. All those evil\ndoctrines about God that work misery and madness, have their origin in\nthe brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of the children.\nThese wise and prudent, careful to make the words of his messengers rime\nwith their conclusions, interpret the great heart of God, not by their\nown hearts, but by their miserable intellects; and, postponing the\nobedience which alone can give power to the understanding, press upon\nmen's minds their wretched interpretations of the will of the Father,\ninstead of the doing of that will upon their hearts. They call their\nphilosophy the truth of God, and say men must hold it, or stand outside.\nThey are the slaves of the letter in all its weakness and\nimperfection,--and will be until the spirit of the Word, the spirit of\nobedience shall set them free.\n\nThe babes must beware lest the wise and prudent come between them and\nthe Father. They must yield no claim to authority over their belief,\nmade by man or community, by church any more than by synagogue. That\nalone is for them to believe which the Lord reveals to their souls as\ntrue; that alone is it possible for them to believe with what he counts\nbelief. The divine object for which teacher or church exists, is the\npersuasion of the individual heart to come to Jesus, the spirit, to be\ntaught what he alone can teach.\n\nTerribly has his gospel suffered in the mouths of the wise and prudent:\nhow would it be faring now, had its first messages been committed to\npersons of repute, instead of those simple fishermen? It would be\nnowhere, or, if anywhere, unrecognizable. From the first we should have\nhad a system founded on a human interpretation of the divine gospel,\ninstead of the gospel itself, which would have disappeared. As it is, we\nhave had one dull miserable human system after another usurping its\nplace; but, thank God, the gospel remains! The little child, heedless\nof his trailing cloud of glory, and looking about him aghast in an\nunknown world, may yet see and run to the arms open to the children. How\noften has not some symbol employed in the New Testament been forced into\nthe service of argument for one or another contemptible scheme of\nredemption, which were no redemption; while the truth for the sake of\nwhich the symbol was used, the thing meant to be conveyed by it, has\nlain unregarded beside the heap of rubbish! Had the wise and prudent\nbeen the confidants of God, I repeat, the letter would at once have\nusurped the place of the spirit; the ministering slave would have been\nset over the household; a system of religion, with its rickety,\nmalodorous plan of salvation, would not only have at once been put in\nthe place of a living Christ, but would yet have held that place. The\ngreat brother, the human God, the eternal Son, the living one, would\nhave been as utterly hidden from the tearful eyes and aching hearts of\nthe weary and heavy-laden, as if he had never come from the deeps of\nlove to call the children home out of the shadows of a self-haunted\nuniverse. But the Father revealed the Father's things to his babes; the\nbabes loved, and began to do them, therewith began to understand them,\nand went on growing in the knowledge of them and in the power of\ncommunicating them; while to the wise and prudent, the deepest words of\nthe most babe-like of them all, John Boanerges, even now appear but a\nfinger-worn rosary of platitudes. The babe understands the wise and\nprudent, but is understood only by the babe.\n\nThe Father, then, revealed his things to babes, because the babes were\nhis own little ones, uncorrupted by the wisdom or the care of this\nworld, and therefore able to receive them. The others, though his\nchildren, had not begun to be like him, therefore could not receive\nthem. The Father's things could not have got anyhow into their minds\nwithout leaving all their value, all their spirit, outside the\nunchildlike place. The babes are near enough whence they come, to\nunderstand a little how things go in the presence of their father in\nheaven, and thereby to interpret the words of the Son. The child who has\nnot yet 'walked above a mile or two from' his 'first love,' is not out\nof touch with the mind of his Father. Quickly will he seal the old bond\nwhen the Son himself, the first of the babes, the one perfect babe of\nGod, comes to lead the children out of the lovely 'shadows of eternity'\ninto the land of the 'white celestial thought.' As God is the one only\nreal father, so is it only to God that any one can be a perfect child.\nIn his garden only can childhood blossom.\n\nThe leader of the great array of little ones, himself, in virtue of his\nfirstborn childhood, the first recipient of the revelations of his\nfather, having thus given thanks, and said why he gave thanks, breaks\nout afresh, renewing expression of delight that God had willed it thus:\n'Even so, father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!' I venture to\ntranslate, 'Yea, O Father, for thus came forth satisfaction before\nthee!' and think he meant, 'Yea, Father, for thereat were all thy angels\nfilled with satisfaction,' The babes were the prophets in heaven, and\nthe angels were glad to find it was to be so upon the earth also; they\nrejoiced to see that what was bound in heaven, was bound on earth; that\nthe same principle held in each. Compare Matt, xviii. 10 and 14; also\nLuke xv. 10. 'See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I\nsay unto you that their angels in heaven do always behold the face of my\nfather which is in heaven.... Thus it is not the will before your father\nwhich is in heaven,'--_among the angels who stand before him_, I think\nhe means,--'that one of these little ones should perish.' 'Even so, I\nsay unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one\nsinner that repenteth.'\n\nHaving thus thanked his father that he has done after his own 'good and\nacceptable and perfect will', he turns to his disciples, and tells them\nthat he knows the Father, being his Son, and that he only can reveal the\nFather to the rest of his children: 'All things are delivered unto me\nof my father; and no one knoweth the son but the father; neither knoweth\nany one the father save the son, and he to whomsoever the son willeth to\nreveal him.' It is almost as if his mention of the babes brought his\nthoughts back to himself and his father, between whom lay the secret of\nall life and all sending--yea, all loving. The relation of the Father\nand the Son contains the idea of the universe. Jesus tells his disciples\nthat his father had no secrets from him; that he knew the Father as the\nFather knew him. The Son must know the Father; he only could know\nhim--and knowing, he could reveal him; the Son could make the other, the\nimperfect children, know the Father, and so become such as he. All\nthings were given unto him by the Father, because he was the Son of the\nFather: for the same reason he could reveal the things of the Father to\nthe child of the Father. The child-relation is the one eternal, ever\nenduring, never changing relation.\n\nNote that, while the Lord here represents the knowledge his father and\nhe have each of the other as limited to themselves, the statement is one\nof fact only, not of design or intention: his presence in the world is\nfor the removal of that limitation. The Father knows the Son and sends\nhim to us that we may know him; the Son knows the Father, and dies to\nreveal him. The glory of God's mysteries is--that they are for his\nchildren to look into.\n\nWhen the Lord took the little child in the presence of his disciples,\nand declared him his representative, he made him the representative of\nhis father also; but the eternal child alone can reveal him. To reveal\nis immeasurably more than to represent; it is to present to the eyes\nthat know the true when they see it. Jesus represented God; the spirit\nof Jesus reveals God. The represented God a man may refuse; many refused\nthe Lord; the revealed God no one can refuse; to see God and to love him\nare one. He can be revealed only to the child; perfectly, to the pure\nchild only. All the discipline of the world is to make men children,\nthat God may be revealed to them.\n\nNo man, when first he comes to himself, can have any true knowledge of\nGod; he can only have a desire after such knowledge. But while he does\nnot know him at all, he cannot become in his heart God's child; so the\nFather must draw nearer to him. He sends therefore his first born, who\ndoes know him, is exactly like him, and can represent him perfectly.\nDrawn to him, the children receive him, and then he is able to reveal\nthe Father to them. No wisdom of the wise can find out God; no words of\nthe God-loving can reveal him. The simplicity of the whole natural\nrelation is too deep for the philosopher. The Son alone can reveal God;\nthe child alone understand him. The elder brother companies with the\nyounger, and makes him yet more a child like himself. He interpenetrates\nhis willing companion with his obedient glory. He lets him see how he\ndelights in his father, and lets him know that God is his father too. He\nrouses in his little brother the sense of their father's will; and the\nyounger, as he hears and obeys, begins to see that his elder brother\nmust be the very image of their father. He becomes more and more of a\nchild, and more and more the Son reveals to him the Father. For he knows\nthat to know the Father is the one thing needful to every child of the\nFather, the one thing to fill the divine gulf of his necessity. To see\nthe Father is the cry of every child-heart in the universe of the\nFather--is the need, where not the cry, of every living soul. Comfort\nyourselves then, brothers and sisters; he to whom the Son will reveal\nhim shall know the Father; and the Son came to us that he might reveal\nhim. 'Eternal Brother,' we cry, 'show us the Father. Be thyself to us,\nthat in thee we may know him. We too are his children: let the other\nchildren share with thee in the things of the Father.'\n\nHaving spoken to his father first, and now to his disciples, the Lord\nturns to the whole world, and lets his heart overflow:--St Matthew alone\nhas saved for us the eternal cry:--'Come unto me all ye that labour and\nare heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'--'I know the Father; come\nthen to me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.' He does not here\ncall those who want to know the Father; his cry goes far beyond them; it\nreaches to the ends of the earth. He calls those who are weary; those\nwho do not know that ignorance of the Father is the cause of all their\nlabour and the heaviness of their burden. 'Come unto me,' he says, 'and\nI will give you rest.'\n\nThis is the Lord's own form of his gospel, more intensely personal and\ndirect, at the same time of yet wider inclusion, than that which, at\nNazareth, he appropriated from Isaiah; differing from it also in this,\nthat it is interfused with strongest persuasion to the troubled to enter\ninto and share his own eternal rest. I will turn his argument a little.\n'I have rest because I know the Father. Be meek and lowly of heart\ntoward him as I am; let him lay his yoke upon you as he lays it on me. I\ndo his will, not my own. Take on you the yoke that I wear; be his child\nlike me; become a babe to whom he can reveal his wonders. Then shall you\ntoo find rest to your souls; you shall have the same peace I have; you\nwill be weary and heavy laden no more. I find my yoke easy, my burden\nlight.'\n\nWe must not imagine that, when the Lord says, 'Take my yoke upon you,'\nhe means a yoke which he lays on those that come to him; 'my yoke' is\nthe yoke he wears himself, the yoke his father lays upon him, the yoke\nout of which, that same moment, he speaks, bearing it with glad\npatience. 'You must take on you the yoke I have taken: the Father lays\nit upon us.'\n\nThe best of the good wine remains; I have kept it to the last. A friend\npointed out to me that the Master does not mean we must take on us a\nyoke like his; we must take on us the very yoke he is carrying.\n\nDante, describing how, on the first terrace of Purgatory, he walked\nstooping, to be on a level with Oderisi, who went bowed to the ground by\nthe ponderous burden of the pride he had cherished on earth, says--'I\nwent walking with this heavy-laden soul, just as oxen walk in the yoke':\nthis picture almost always comes to me with the words of the Lord, 'Take\nmy yoke upon you, and learn of me.' Their intent is, 'Take the other end\nof my yoke, doing as I do, being as I am.' Think of it a moment:--to\nwalk in the same yoke with the Son of Man, doing the same labour with\nhim, and having the same feeling common to him and us! This, and nothing\nelse, is offered the man who would have rest to his soul; is required of\nthe man who would know the Father; is by the Lord pressed upon him to\nwhom he would give the same peace which pervades and sustains his own\neternal heart.\n\nBut a yoke is for drawing withal: what load is it the Lord is drawing?\nWherewith is the cart laden which he would have us help him draw? With\nwhat but the will of the eternal, the perfect Father? How should the\nFather honour the Son, but by giving him his will to embody in deed, by\nmaking him hand to his father's heart!--and hardest of all, in bringing\nhome his children! Specially in drawing this load must his yoke-fellow\nshare. How to draw it, he must learn of him who draws by his side.\n\nWhoever, in the commonest duties that fall to him, does as the Father\nwould have him do, bears His yoke along with Jesus; and the Father takes\nhis help for the redemption of the world--for the deliverance of men\nfrom the slavery of their own rubbish-laden waggons, into the liberty of\nGod's husbandmen. Bearing the same yoke with Jesus, the man learns to\nwalk step for step with him, drawing, drawing the cart laden with the\nwill of the father of both, and rejoicing with the joy of Jesus. The\nglory of existence is to take up its burden, and exist for Existence\neternal and supreme--for the Father who does his divine and perfect best\nto impart his glad life to us, making us sharers of that nature which is\nbliss, and that labour which is peace. He lives for us; we must live for\nhim. The little ones must take their full share in the great Father's\nwork: his work is the business of the family.\n\nStarts thy soul, trembles thy brain at the thought of such a burden as\nthe will of the eternally creating, eternally saving God? 'How shall\nmortal man walk in such a yoke,' sayest thou, 'even with the Son of God\nbearing it also?'\n\nWhy, brother, sister, it is the only burden bearable--the only burden\nthat can be borne of mortal! Under any other, the lightest, he must at\nlast sink outworn, his very soul gray with sickness!\n\nHe on whom lay the other half of the burden of God, the weight of his\ncreation to redeem, says, 'The yoke I bear is easy; the burden I draw is\nlight'; and this he said, knowing the death he was to die. The yoke did\nnot gall his neck, the burden did not overstrain his sinews, neither did\nthe goal on Calvary fright him from the straight way thither. He had the\nwill of the Father to work out, and that will was his strength as well\nas his joy. He had the same will as his father. To him the one thing\nworth living for, was the share the love of his father gave him in his\nwork. He loved his father even to the death of the cross, and eternally\nbeyond it.\n\nWhen we give ourselves up to the Father as the Son gave himself, we\nshall not only find our yoke easy and our burden light, but that they\ncommunicate ease and lightness; not only will they not make us weary,\nbut they will give us rest from all other weariness. Let us not waste a\nmoment in asking how this can be; the only way to know that, is to take\nthe yoke on us. That rest is a secret for every heart to know, for never\na tongue to tell. Only by having it can we know it. If it seem\nimpossible to take the yoke on us, let us attempt the impossible; let us\nlay hold of the yoke, and bow our heads, and try to get our necks under\nit. Giving our Father the opportunity, he will help and not fail us. He\nis helping us every moment, when least we think we need his help; when\nmost we think we do, then may we most boldly, as most earnestly we must,\ncry for it. What or how much his creatures can do or bear, God only\nunderstands; but when most it seems impossible to do or bear, we must be\nmost confident that he will neither demand too much, nor fail with the\nvital creator-help. That help will be there when wanted--that is, the\nmoment it can be help. To be able beforehand to imagine ourselves doing\nor bearing, we have neither claim nor need.\n\nIt is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden,\nhowever slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to\nthe yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and\nsoul that he has created. From every burden, from every anxiety, from\nall dread of shame or loss, even loss of love itself, that yoke will set\nus free.\n\nThese words of the Lord--so many as are reported in common by St Matthew\nand St Luke, namely his thanksgiving, and his statement concerning the\nmutual knowledge of his father and himself, meet me like a well known\nface unexpectedly encountered: they come to me like a piece of heavenly\nbread cut from the gospel of St John. The words are not in that gospel,\nand in St Matthew's and St Luke's there is nothing more of the kind--in\nSt Mark's nothing like them. The passage seems to me just one solitary\nflower testifying to the presence in the gospels of Matthew and Luke of\nthe same root of thought and feeling which everywhere blossoms in that\nof John. It looks as if it had crept out of the fourth gospel into the\nfirst and third, and seems a true sign, though no proof, that, however\nmuch the fourth be unlike the other gospels, they have all the same\norigin. Some disciple was able to remember one such word of which the\npromised comforter brought many to the remembrance of John. I do not see\nhow the more phenomenal gospels are ever to be understood, save through\na right perception of the relation in which the Lord stands to his\nfather, which relation is the main subject of the gospel according to St\nJohn.\n\nAs to the loving cry of the great brother to the whole weary world\nwhich Matthew alone has set down, I seem aware of a certain\nindescribable individuality in its tone, distinguishing it from all his\nother sayings on record.\n\nThose who come at the call of the Lord, and take the rest he offers\nthem, learning of him, and bearing the yoke of the Father, are the salt\nof the earth, the light of the world.\n\n\n\n\n_THE SALT AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD._\n\n'Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour,\nwherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to\nbe cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of\nthe world. A city that is set on an hill, cannot be hid. Neither do men\nlight a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it\ngiveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine\nbefore men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father\nwhich is in heaven.'--_Matthew_ v. 3--16.\n\n\nThe Lord knew these men, and had their hearts in his hand; else would he\nhave told them they were the salt of the earth and the light of the\nworld? They were in danger, it is true, of pluming themselves on what he\nhad said of them, of taking their importance to their own credit, and\nseeing themselves other than God saw them. Yet the Lord does not\nhesitate to call his few humble disciples the salt of the earth; and\nevery century since has borne witness that such indeed they were--that\nhe spoke of them but the simple fact. Where would the world be now but\nfor their salt and their light! The world that knows neither their salt\nnor their light may imagine itself now at least greatly retarded by the\nlong-drawn survival of their influences; but such as have chosen\naspiration and not ambition, will cry, But for those men, whither should\nwe at this moment be bound! Their Master set them to be salt against\ncorruption, and light against darkness; and our souls answer and say,\nLord, they have been the salt, they have been the light of the world!\n\nNo sooner has he used the symbol of the salt, than the Lord proceeds to\nsupplement its incompleteness. They were salt which must remember that\nit is salt; which must live salt, and choose salt, and be salt. For the\nwhole worth of salt lies in its being salt; and all the saltness of the\nmoral salt lies in the will to be salt. To lose its saltness, then, is\nto cease to exist, save as a vile thing whose very being is\nunjustifiable. What is to be done with saltless salt!--with such as\nwould teach religion, and know not God!\n\nHaving thus carried the figure as far as it will serve him, the Master\nchanges it for another, which he can carry farther. For salt only\npreserves from growing bad; it does not cause anything to grow better.\nHis disciples are the salt of the world, but they are more. Therefore,\nhaving warned the human salt to look to itself that it be indeed salt,\nhe proceeds: 'Ye are the light of the world, a city, a candle,' and so\nresumes his former path of persuasion and enforcement: 'It is so,\ntherefore make it so.'--'Ye are the salt of the earth; therefore be\nsalt.'--'Ye are the light of the world; therefore shine.'--'Ye are a\ncity; be seen upon your hill.'--'Ye are the Lord's candles; let no\nbushels cover you. Let your light shine.' Every disciple of the Lord\nmust be a preacher of righteousness.\n\nCities are the best lighted portions of the world; and perhaps the Lord\nmeant, 'You are a live city, therefore light up your city.' Some\nconnection of the city with light seems probably in his thought, seeing\nthe allusion to the city on the hill comes in the midst of what he says\nabout light in relation to his disciples as the light of the world.\nAnyhow the city is the best circle in which, and the best centre from\nwhich to diffuse moral light. A man brooding in the desert may find the\nvery light of light, but he must go to the city to let it shine.\n\nFrom the general idea of light, however, associated with the city as\nvisible to all the country around, the Lord turns at once, in this\nprobably fragmentary representation of his words, to the homelier, the\nmore individual and personally applicable figure of the lamp: 'Neither\ndo men light a lamp, and put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, and\nit giveth light to all that are in the house,'\n\nHere let us meditate a moment. For what is a lamp or a man lighted? For\nthem that need light, therefore for all. A candle is not lighted for\nitself; neither is a man. The light that serves self only, is no true\nlight; its one virtue is that it will soon go out. The bushel needs to\nbe lighted, but not by being put over the lamp. The man's own soul needs\nto be lighted, but light for itself only, light covered by the bushel,\nis darkness whether to soul or bushel. Light unshared is darkness. To be\nlight indeed, it must shine out. It is of the very essence of light,\nthat it is for others. The thing is true of the spiritual as of the\nphysical light--of the truth as of its type.\n\nThe lights of the world are live lights. The lamp that the Lord kindles\nis a lamp that can will to shine, a soul that must shine. Its true\nrelation to the spirits around it--to God and its fellows, is its light.\nThen only does it fully shine, when its love, which is its light, shows\nit to all the souls within its scope, and all those souls to each other,\nand so does its part to bring all together toward one. In the darkness\neach soul is alone; in the light the souls are a family. Men do not\nlight a lamp to kill it with a bushel, but to set it on a stand, that\nit may give light to all that are in the house. The Lord seems to say,\n'So have I lighted you, not that you may shine for yourselves, but that\nyou may give light unto all. I have set you like a city on a hill, that\nthe whole earth may see and share in your light. Shine therefore; so\nshine before men, that they may see your good things and glorify your\nfather for the light with which he has lighted you. Take heed to your\nlight that it be such, that it so shine, that in you men may see the\nFather--may see your works so good, so plainly his, that they recognize\nhis presence in you, and thank him for you.' There was the danger always\nof the shadow of the self-bushel clouding the lamp the Father had\nlighted; and the moment they ceased to show the Father, the light that\nwas in them was darkness. God alone is the light, and our light is the\nshining of his will in our lives. If our light shine at all, it must be,\nit can be only in showing the Father; nothing is light that does not\nbear him witness. The man that sees the glory of God, would turn sick at\nthe thought of glorifying his own self, whose one only possible glory is\nto shine with the glory of God. When a man tries to shine from the self\nthat is not one with God and filled with his light, he is but making\nready for his own gathering contempt. The man who, like his Lord, seeks\nnot his own, but the will of him who sent him, he alone shines. He who\nwould shine in the praises of men, will, sooner or later, find himself\nbut a Gideon's-pitcher left broken on the field.\n\nLet us bestir ourselves then to keep this word of the Lord; and to this\nend inquire how we are to let our light shine.\n\nTo the man who does not try to order his thoughts and feelings and\njudgments after the will of the Father, I have nothing to say; he can\nhave no light to let shine. For to let our light shine is to see that in\nevery, even the smallest thing, our lives and actions correspond to what\nwe know of God; that, as the true children of our father in heaven, we\ndo everything as he would have us do it. Need I say that to let our\nlight shine is to be just, honourable, true, courteous, more careful\nover the claim of our neighbour than our own, as knowing ourselves in\ndanger of overlooking it, and not bound to insist on every claim of our\nown! The man who takes no count of what is fair, friendly, pure,\nunselfish, lovely, gracious,--where is his claim to call Jesus his\nmaster? where his claim to Christianity? What saves his claim from being\nmerest mockery?\n\nThe outshining of any human light must be obedience to truth recognized\nas such; our first show of light as the Lord's disciples must be in\ndoing the things he tells us. Naturally thus we declare him our master,\nthe ruler of our conduct, the enlightener of our souls; and while in\nthe doing of his will a man is learning the loveliness of righteousness,\nhe can hardly fail to let some light shine across the dust of his\nfailures, the exhalations from his faults. Thus will his disciples shine\nas lights in the world, holding forth the Word of life.\n\nTo shine, we must keep in his light, sunning our souls in it by thinking\nof what he said and did, and would have us think and do. So shall we\ndrink the light like some diamonds, keep it, and shine in the dark.\nDoing his will, men will see in us that we count the world his, hold\nthat his will and not ours must be done in it. Our very faces will then\nshine with the hope of seeing him, and being taken home where he is.\nOnly let us remember that trying to look what we ought to be, is the\nbeginning of hypocrisy.\n\nIf we do indeed expect better things to come, we must let our hope\nappear. A Christian who looks gloomy at the mention of death, still\nmore, one who talks of his friends as if he had lost them, turns the\nbushel of his little-faith over the lamp of the Lord's light. Death is\nbut our visible horizon, and our look ought always to be focussed beyond\nit. We should never talk as if death were the end of anything.\n\nTo let our light shine, we must take care that we have no respect for\nriches: if we have none, there is no fear of our showing any. To treat\nthe poor man with less attention or cordiality than the rich, is to show\nourselves the servants of Mammon. In like manner we must lay no value on\nthe praise of men, or in any way seek it. We must honour no man because\nof intellect, fame, or success. We must not shrink, in fear of the\njudgment of men, from doing openly what we hold right; or at all\nacknowledge as a law-giver what calls itself Society, or harbour the\nleast anxiety for its approval.\n\nIn business, the custom of the trade must be understood by both\ncontracting parties, else it can have no place, either as law or excuse,\nwith the disciple of Jesus. The man to whom business is one thing and\nreligion another, is not a disciple. If he refuses to harmonize them by\nmaking his business religion, he has already chosen Mammon; if he thinks\nnot to settle the question, it is settled. The most futile of all human\nendeavours is, to serve God and Mammon. The man who makes the endeavour,\nbetrays his Master in the temple and kisses him in the garden; takes\nadvantage of him in the shop, and offers him 'divine service!' on\nSunday. His very church-going is but a further service of Mammon! But\nlet us waste no strength in despising such men; let us rather turn the\nlight upon ourselves: are we not in some way denying him? Is our light\nbearing witness? Is it shining before men so that they glorify God for\nit? If it does not shine, it is darkness. In the darkness which a man\ntakes for light, he will thrust at the heart of the Lord himself.\n\nHe who goes about his everyday duty as the work the Father has given him\nto do, is he who lets his light shine. But such a man will not be\ncontent with this: he must yet let his light shine. Whatever makes his\nheart glad, he will have his neighbour share. The body is a lantern; it\nmust not be a dark lantern; the glowing heart must show in the shining\nface. His glad thought may not be one to impart to his neighbour, but he\nmust not quench the vibration of its gladness ere it reach him. What\nshall we say of him who comes from his closet, his mountain-top, with\nsuch a veil over his face as masks his very humanity? Is it with the\nFather that man has had communion, whose every movement is\nself-hampered, and in whose eyes dwell no smiles for the people of his\nhouse? The man who receives the quiet attentions, the divine\nministrations, of wife or son or daughter, without token of pleasure,\nwithout sign of gratitude, can hardly have been with Jesus. Or can he\nhave been with him, and have left him behind in his closet? If his faith\nin God take from a man his cheerfulness, how shall the face of a man\never shine? And why are they always glad before the face of the Father\nin heaven? It is true that pain or inward grief may blameless banish all\nsmiling, but even heaviness of heart has no right so to tumble the\nbushel over the lamp that no ray can get out to tell that love is yet\nburning within. The man must at least let his dear ones know that\nsomething else than displeasure with them is the cause of his clouded\ncountenance.\n\nWhat a sweet colour the divine light takes to itself in courtesy, whose\nperfection is the recognition of every man as a temple of the living\nGod. Sorely ruined, sadly defiled the temple may be, but if God had left\nit, it would be a heap and not a house.\n\nNext to love, specially will the light shine out in fairness. What light\ncan he have in him who is always on his own side, and will never descry\nreason or right on that of his adversary? And certainly, if he that\nshoweth mercy, as well he that showeth justice, ought to do it with\ncheerfulness.\n\nBut if all our light shine out, and none of our darkness, shall we not\nbe in utmost danger of hypocrisy? Yes, if we but hide our darkness, and\ndo not strive to slay it with our light: what way have we to show it,\nwhile struggling to destroy it? Only when we cherish evil, is there\nhypocrisy in hiding it. A man who is honestly fighting it and showing it\nno quarter, is already conqueror in Christ, or will soon be--and more\nthan innocent. But our good feelings, those that make for righteousness\nand unity, we ought to let shine; they claim to commune with the light\nin others. Many parents hold words unsaid which would lift\nhundred-weights from the hearts of their children, yea, make them leap\nfor joy. A stern father and a silent mother make mournful, or, which is\nfar worse, hard children. Need I add that, if any one, hearing the\ninjunction to let his light shine, makes himself shine instead, it is\nbecause the light is not in him!\n\nBut what shall I say of such as, in the name of religion, let only their\ndarkness out--the darkness of worshipped opinion, the darkness of\nlip-honour and disobedience! Such are those who tear asunder the body of\nChrist with the explosives of dispute, on the plea of such a unity as\nalone they can understand, namely a paltry uniformity. What have not the\n'good church-man' and the 'strong dissenter' to answer for, who, hiding\nwhat true light they have, if indeed they have any, each under the\nbushel of his party-spirit, radiate only repulsion! There is no schism,\nnone whatever, in using diverse forms of thought or worship: true\nhonesty is never schismatic. The real schismatic is the man who turns\naway love and justice from the neighbour who holds theories in religious\nphilosophy, or as to church-constitution, different from his own; who\ndenies or avoids his brother because he follows not with him; who calls\nhim a schismatic because he prefers this or that mode of public worship\nnot his. The other _may_ be schismatic; he himself certainly _is_. He\nwalks in the darkness of opinion, not in the light of life, not in the\nfaith which worketh by love. Worst of all is division in the name of\nChrist who came to make one. Neither Paul nor Apollos nor Cephas\nwould--least of all will Christ be the leader of any party save that of\nhis own elect, the party of love--of love which suffereth long and is\nkind; which envieth not, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself\nunseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil,\nrejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all\nthings, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.\n\n'Let your light shine,' says the Lord:--if I have none, the call cannot\napply to me; but I must bethink me, lest, in the night I am cherishing\nabout me, the Lord come upon me like a thief. There may be those,\nhowever, and I think they are numerous, who, having some, or imagining\nthey have much light, yet have not enough to know the duty of letting it\nshine on their neighbours. The Lord would have his men so alive with his\nlight, that it should for ever go flashing from each to all, and all,\nwith eternal response, keep glorifying the Father. Dost thou look for a\ngood time coming, friend, when thou shalt know as thou art known? Let\nthe joy of thy hope stream forth upon thy neighbours. Fold them round in\nthat which maketh thyself glad. Let thy nature grow more expansive and\ncommunicative. Look like the man thou art--a man who knows something\nvery good. Thou believest thyself on the way to the heart of things:\nwalk so, shine so, that all that see thee shall want to go with thee.\n\nWhat light issues from such as make their faces long at the very name of\ndeath, and look and speak as if it were the end of all things and the\nworst of evils? Jesus told his men not to fear death; told them his\nfriends should go to be with him; told them they should live in the\nhouse of his father and their father; and since then he has risen\nhimself from the tomb, and gone to prepare a place for them: who, what\nare these miserable refusers of comfort? Not Christians, surely! Oh,\nyes, they are Christians! 'They are gone,' they say, 'to be for ever\nwith the Lord;' and then they weep and lament, and seem more afraid of\nstarting to join them than of aught else under the sun! To the last\nattainable moment they cling to what they call life. They are\nchildren--were there ever any other such children?--who hang crying to\nthe skirts of their mother, and will not be lifted to her bosom. They\nare not of Paul's mind: to be with Him is not better! They worship\ntheir physician; and their prayer to the God of their life is to spare\nthem from more life. What sort of Christians are they? Where shines\ntheir light? Alas for thee, poor world, hadst thou no better lights than\nthese!\n\nYou who have light, show yourselves the sons and daughters of Light, of\nGod, of Hope--the heirs of a great completeness. Freely let your light\nshine.\n\nOnly take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen\nof them.\n\n\n\n\n_THE RIGHT HAND AND THE LEFT._\n\nTake heed that ye do not your righteousness before men to be seen of\nthem; otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in heaven....\nBut when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand\ndoeth; that thine alms may be in secret; and thy father which seeth in\nsecret, himself shall reward thee.--_Matthew_ vi. I,3.\n\n\nLet your light out freely, that men may see it, but not that men may see\nyou. If I do anything, not because it has to be done, not because God\nwould have it so, not that I may do right, not because it is honest, not\nthat I love the thing, not that I may be true to my Lord, not that the\ntruth may be recognized as truth and as his, but that I may be seen as\nthe doer, that I may be praised of men, that I may gain repute or fame;\nbe the thing itself ever so good, I may look to men for my reward, for\nthere is none for me with the Father. If, that light being my pleasure,\nI do it that the light may shine, and that men may know _the_ Light,\nthe father of lights, I do well; but if I do it that I may be seen\nshining, that the light may be noted as emanating from me and not from\nanother, then am I of those that seek glory of men, and worship Satan;\nthe light that through me may possibly illuminate others, will, in me\nand for me, be darkness.\n\n_But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right\nhand doeth_.\n\nHow, then, am I to let my light shine, if I take pains to hide what I\ndo?\n\nThe injunction is not to hide what you do from others, but to hide it\nfrom yourself. The Master would have you not plume yourself upon it, not\ncherish the thought that you have done it, or confer with yourself in\nsatisfaction over it. You must not count it to your praise. A man must\nnot desire to be satisfied with himself. His right hand must not seek\nthe praise of his left hand. His doing must not invite his\nafter-thinking. The right hand must let the thing done go, as a thing\ndone-with. We must meditate nothing either as a fine thing for us to do,\nor a fine thing for us to have done. We must not imagine any merit in\nus: it would be to love a lie, for we can have none; there is no such\nthing possible. Is there anything to be proud of in refusing to worship\nthe devil? Is it a grand thing, is it a meritorious thing, not to be\nvile? When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants. Our very best\nis but decent. What more could it be? Why then think of it as anything\nmore? What things could we or any one do, worthy of being brooded over\nas possessions. Good to do, they were; bad to pride ourselves upon, they\nare. Why should a man meditate with satisfaction on having denied\nhimself some selfish indulgence, any more than on having washed his\nhands? May we roll the rejection of a villainy as a sweet morsel under\nour tongues? They were the worst villains of all who could be proud of\nnot having committed a villainy; and their pride would but render them\nthe more capable of the villainy, when next the temptation to it came.\nEven if our supposed merit were of the positive order, and we did every\nduty perfectly, the moment we began to pride ourselves upon the fact, we\nshould drop into a hell of worthlessness. What are we for but to do our\nduty? We must do it, and think nothing of ourselves for that, neither\ncare what men think of us for anything. With the praise or blame of men\nwe have nought to do. Their blame may be a good thing, their praise\ncannot be. But the worst sort of the praise of men is the praise we give\nourselves. We must do nothing to be seen of ourselves. We must seek no\napprobation even, but that of God, else we shut the door of the kingdom\nfrom the outside. His approbation will but quicken our sense of\nunworthiness. What! seek the praise of men for being fair to our own\nbrothers and sisters? What! seek the praise of God for laying our hearts\nat the feet of him to whom we utterly belong? There is no pride so\nmean--and all pride is absolutely, essentially mean--as the pride of\nbeing holier than our fellow, except the pride of being holy. Such\nimagined holiness is foulness. Religion itself in the hearts of the\nunreal, is a dead thing; what seems life in it, is the vermiculate life\nof a corpse.\n\nThere is one word in the context, as we have it in the authorized\nversion, that used to trouble me, seeming to make its publicity a\nportion of the reward for doing certain right things in secret: I mean\nthe word _openly_, at the ends of the fourth, the sixth, and the\neighteenth verses, making the Lord seem to say, 'Avoid the praise of\nmen, and thou shalt at length have the praise of men.'--'Thy father,\nwhich seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.' _Thy reward shall be\nseen of men! and thou seen as the receiver of the reward!_ In what other\nway could the word, then or now, be fairly understood? It must be the\ninterpolation of some Jew scribe, who, even after learning a little of\nthe Christ, continued unable to conceive as reward anything that did not\ndraw part at least of its sweetness from the gazing eyes of the\nmultitude. Glad was I to find that the word is not in the best\nmanuscripts; and God be thanked that it is left out in the revised\nversion. What shall we think of the daring that could interpolate it!\nBut of like sort is the daring of much exposition of the Master's words.\nWhat men have not faith enough to receive, they will still dilute to the\nstandard of their own faculty of reception. If any one say, 'Why did the\nLord let the word remain there so long, if he never said it?' I answer:\nPerhaps that the minds of his disciples might be troubled at its\npresence, arise against it, and do him right by casting it out--and so\nWisdom be justified of her children.\n\nBut there are some who, if the notion of reward is not naturally a\ntrouble to them, yet have come to feel it such, because of the words of\ncertain objectors who think to take a higher stand than the Christian,\nsaying the idea of reward for doing right is a low, an unworthy idea.\nNow, verily, it would be a low thing for any child to do his father's\nwill in the hope that his father would reward him for it; but it is\nquite another thing for a father whose child endeavours to please him,\nto let him know that he recognizes his childness toward him, and will be\nfatherly good to him. What kind of a father were the man who, because\nthere could be no merit or desert in doing well, would not give his\nchild a smile or a pleased word when he saw him trying his best? Would\nnot such acknowledgment from the father be the natural correlate of the\nchild's behaviour? and what would the father's smile be but the perfect\nreward of the child? Suppose the father to love the child so that he\nwants to give him everything, but dares not until his character is\ndeveloped: must he not be glad, and show his gladness, at every shade of\na progress that will at length set him free to throne his son over all\nthat he has? 'I am an unprofitable servant,' says the man who has done\nhis duty; but his lord, coming unexpectedly, and finding him at his\npost, girds himself, and makes him sit down to meat, and comes forth and\nserves him. How could the divine order of things, founded for growth and\ngradual betterment, hold and proceed without the notion of return for a\nthing done? Must there be only current and no tide? How can we be\nworkers with God at his work, and he never say 'Thank you, my child'?\nWill he take joy in his success and give none? Is he the husbandman to\ntake all the profit, and muzzle the mouth of his ox? When a man does\nwork for another, he has his wages for it, and society exists by the\ndependence of man upon man through work and wages. The devil is not the\ninventor of this society; he has invented the notion of a certain\ndegradation in work, a still greater in wages; and following this up,\nhas constituted a Society after his own likeness, which despises work,\nleaves it undone, and so can claim its wages without disgrace.\n\nIf you say, 'No one ought to do right for the sake of reward,' I go\nfarther and say, 'No man _can_ do right for the sake of reward. A man\nmay do a thing indifferent, he may do a thing wrong, for the sake of\nreward; but a thing in itself right, done for reward, would, in the very\ndoing, cease to be right.' At the same time, if a man does right, he\ncannot escape being rewarded for it; and to refuse the reward, would be\nto refuse life, and foil the creative love. The whole question is of the\nkind of reward expected. What first reward for doing well, may I look\nfor? To grow purer in heart, and stronger in the hope of at length\nseeing God. If a man be not after this fashion rewarded, he must perish.\nAs to happiness or any lower rewards that naturally follow the first--is\nGod to destroy the law of his universe, the divine sequence of cause and\neffect in order to say: 'You must do well, but you shall gain no good by\nit; you must lead a dull joyless existence to all eternity, that lack of\ndelight may show you pure'? Could Love create with such end in view?\nRighteousness does not demand creation; it is Love, not Righteousness,\nthat cannot live alone. The creature must already be, ere Righteousness\ncan put in a claim. But, hearts and souls there, Love itself, which\ncreated for love and joy, presses the demand of Righteousness first.\n\nA righteousness that created misery in order to up-hold itself, would be\na righteousness that was unrighteous. God will die for righteousness,\nbut never create for a joyless righteousness. To call into being the\nnecessarily and hopelessly incomplete, would be to wrong creation in its\nvery essence. To create for the knowledge of himself, and then not give\nhimself, would be injustice even to cruelty; and if God give himself,\nwhat other reward--there can be no _further_--is not included, seeing he\nis Life and all her children--the All in all? It will take the utmost\njoy God can give, to let men know him; and what man, knowing him, would\nmind losing every other joy? Only what other joy could keep from\nentering, where the God of joy already dwelt? The law of the universe\nholds, and will hold, the name of the Father be praised:--'Whatsoever a\nman soweth, that shall he also reap.' 'They have sown the wind, and they\nshall reap the whirlwind.' 'He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the\nflesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit, shall of the\nspirit reap life everlasting.' 'Whosoever hath, to him shall be given,\nand he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall\nbe taken away even that he hath.'\n\nTo object to Christianity as selfish, is utter foolishness; Christianity\nalone gives any hope of deliverance from selfishness. Is it selfish to\ndesire to love? Is it selfish to hope for purity and the sight of God?\nWhat better can we do for our neighbour than to become altogether\nrighteous toward him? Will he not be the nearer sharing in the exceeding\ngreat reward of a return to the divine idea?\n\nWhere is the evil toward God, where the wrong to my neighbour, if I\nthink sometimes of the joys to follow in the train of perfect loving? Is\nnot the atmosphere of God, love itself, the very breath of the Father,\nwherein can float no thinnest pollution of selfishness, the only\nmaterial wherewithal to build the airy castles of heaven? 'Creator,' the\nchildlike heart might cry, 'give me all the wages, all the reward thy\nperfect father-heart can give thy unmeriting child. My fit wages may be\npain, sorrow, humiliation of soul: I stretch out my hands to receive\nthem. Thy reward will be to lift me out of the mire of self-love, and\nbring me nearer to thyself and thy children: welcome, divinest of good\nthings! Thy highest reward is thy purest gift; thou didst make me for it\nfrom the first; thou, the eternal life, hast been labouring still to fit\nme for receiving it--the vision, the knowledge, the possession of\nthyself. I can seek but what thou waitest and watchest to give: I would\nbe such into whom thy love can flow.'\n\nIt seems to me that the only merit that could live before God, is the\nmerit of Jesus--who of himself, at once, untaught, unimplored, laid\nhimself aside, and turned to the Father, refusing his life save in the\nFather. Like God, of himself he chose righteousness, and so merited to\nsit on the throne of God. In the same spirit he gave himself afterward\nto his father's children, and merited the power to transfuse the\nlife-redeeming energy of his spirit into theirs: made perfect, he became\nthe author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. But it is a\nword of little daring, that Jesus had no thought of merit in what he\ndid--that he saw only what he had to be, what he must do.--I speak after\nthe poor fashion of a man lost in what is too great for him, yet is his\nvery life.--Where can be a man's merit in refusing to go down to an\nabyss of loss--loss of the right to be, loss of his father, loss of\nhimself? Would Satan, with all the instincts and impulses of his origin\nin him, have _merited_ eternal life by refusing to be a devil? Not the\nless would he have had eternal life; not the less would he have been\nwrapt in the love and confidence of the Father. He would have had his\nreward. I cannot imagine thing created meriting aught save by divine\ncourtesy.\n\nI suspect the notion of merit belongs to a low development, and the\nhigher a man rises, the less will he find it worth a thought. Perhaps we\nshall come to see that it owes what being it has, to man, that it is a\nthing thinkable only by man. I suspect it is not a thought of the\neternal mind, and has in itself no existence, being to God merely a\nthing thought by man.\n\n          For merit lives from man to man,\n    And not from man, O Lord, to thee.\n\nThe man, then, who does right, and seeks no praise from men, while he\nmerits nothing, shall be rewarded by his Father, and his reward will be\nright precious to him.\n\nWe must let our light shine, make our faith, our hope, our love,\nmanifest--that men may praise, not us for shining, but the Father for\ncreating the light. No man with faith, hope, love, alive in his soul,\ncould make the divine possessions a show to gain for himself the\nadmiration of men: not the less must they appear in our words, in our\nlooks, in our carriage--above all, in honourable, unselfish, hospitable,\nhelpful deeds. Our light must shine in cheerfulness, in joy, yea, where\na man has the gift, in merriment; in freedom from care save for one\nanother, in interest in the things of others, in fearlessness and\ntenderness, in courtesy and graciousness. In our anger and indignation,\nspecially, must our light shine. But we must give no quarter to the most\nshadowy thought of how this or that will look. From the faintest\nthought of the praise of men, we must turn away. No man can be the\ndisciple of Christ and desire fame. To desire fame is ignoble; it is a\nbeggarly greed. In the noble mind, it is the more of an infirmity. There\nis no aspiration in it--nothing but ambition. It is simply selfishness\nthat would be proud if it could. Fame is the applause of the many, and\nthe judgment of the many is foolish; therefore the greater the fame, the\nmore is the foolishness that swells it, and the worse is the foolishness\nthat longs after it. Aspiration is the sole escape from ambition. He who\naspires--that is, does his endeavour to rise above himself--neither\nlusts to be higher than his neighbour, nor seeks to mount in his\nopinion. What light there is in him shines the more that he does nothing\nto be seen of men. He stands in the mist between the gulf and the glory,\nand looks upward. He loves not his own soul, but longs to be clean.\n\n    Out of the gulf into the glory,\n      Father, my soul cries out to be lifted.\n    Dark is the woof of my dismal story,\n      Thorough thy sun-warp stormily drifted!--\n    Out of the gulf into the glory,\n    Lift me, and save my story.\n\n    I have done many things merely shameful;\n      I am a man ashamed, my father!\n    My life is ashamed and broken and blameful--\n      The broken and blameful, oh, cleanse and gather!\n    Heartily shame me, Lord, of the shameful!\n    To my judge I flee with my blameful.\n\n    Saviour, at peace in thy perfect purity,\n      Think what it is, not to be pure!\n    Strong in thy love's essential security,\n      Think upon those who are never secure.\n    Full fill my soul with the light of thy purity;\n    Fold me in love's security.\n\n    O Father, O Brother, my heart is sore aching\n      Help it to ache as much as is needful;\n    Is it you cleansing me, mending, remaking,\n      Dear potter-hands, so tender and heedful?\n    Sick of my past, of my own self aching--\n    Hurt on, dear hands, with your making.\n\n    Proud of the form thou hadst given thy vessel,\n      Proud of myself, I forgot my donor;\n    Down in the dust I began to nestle,\n      Poured thee no wine, and drank deep of dishonour!\n    Lord, thou hast broken, thou mendest thy vessel!\n    In the dust of thy glory I nestle.\n\nO Lord, the earnest expectation of thy creature waiteth for the\nmanifestation of the sons of God.\n\n\n\n\n_THE HOPE OF THE UNIVERSE._\n\nFor the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the\nmanifestation of the sons of God.--_Romans_ viii. 19.\n\n\nLet us try, through these words, to get at the idea in St Paul's mind\nfor which they stand, and have so long stood. It can be no worthless\nidea they represent--no mere platitude, which a man, failing to\nunderstand it at once, may without loss leave behind him. The words mean\nsomething which Paul believes vitally associated with the life and death\nof his Master. He had seen Jesus with his bodily eyes, I think, but he\nhad not seen him with those alone; he had seen and saw him with the real\neyes, the eyes that do not see except they understand; and the sight of\nhim had uplifted his whole nature--first his pure will for\nrighteousness, and then his hoping imagination; and out of these, in the\nknowledge of Jesus, he spoke.\n\nThe letters he has left behind him, written in the power of this\nuplifting, have waked but poor ideas in poor minds; for words, if they\nseem to mean anything, must always seem to mean something within the\nscope of the mind hearing them. Words cannot convey the thought of a\nthinker to a no-thinker; of a largely aspiring and self-discontented\nsoul, to a creature satisfied with his poverty, and counting his meagre\nfaculty the human standard. Neither will they readily reveal the mind of\none old in thought, to one who has but lately begun to think. The higher\nthe reader's notion of what St Paul intends--the higher the idea, that\nis, which his words wake in him, the more likely is it to be the same\nwhich moved the man who had seen Jesus, and was his own no more. If a\nman err in his interpretation, it will hardly be by attributing to his\nwords an intent too high.\n\nFirst then, what does Paul, the slave of Christ, intend by 'the\ncreature' or 'the creation'? If he means the _visible world_, he did not\nsurely, and without saying so, mean to exclude the noblest part of\nit--the sentient! If he did, it is doubly strange that he should\nimmediately attribute not merely sense, but conscious sense, to that\npart, the insentient, namely, which remained. If you say he does so but\nby a figure of speech, I answer that a figure that meant less than it\nsaid--and how much less would not this?--would be one altogether\nunworthy of the Lord's messenger.\n\nFirst, I repeat, to exclude the sentient from the term common to both in\nthe word _creation_ or _creature_--and then to attribute the\ncapabilities of the sentient to the insentient, as a mere figure to\nexpress the hopes of men with regard to the perfecting of the insentient\nfor the comfort of men, were a violence as unfit in rhetoric as in its\nown nature. Take another part of the same utterance: 'For we know that\nthe whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now:'\nis it not manifest that to interpret such words as referring to the mere\nimperfections of the insensate material world, would be to make of the\nphrase a worthless hyperbole? I am inclined to believe the apostle\nregarded the whole visible creation as, in far differing degrees of\nconsciousness, a live outcome from the heart of the living one, who is\nall and in all: such view, at the same time, I do not care to insist\nupon; I only care to argue that the word _creature_ or _creation_ must\ninclude everything in creation that has sentient life. That I should in\nthe class include a greater number of phenomena than a reader may be\nprepared to admit, will nowise affect the force of what I have to say,\nseeing my point is simply this: that in the term _creation_, Paul\ncomprises all creatures capable of suffering; the condition of which\nsentient, therefore superior portion, gives him occasion to speak of\nthe whole creation as suffering in the process of its divine evolution\nor development, groaning and travailing as in the pangs of giving birth\nto a better self, a nobler world. It is not necessary to the idea that\nthe creation should know what it is groaning after, or wherein the\nhigher condition constituting its deliverance must consist. The human\nrace groans for deliverance: how much does the race know that its\nredemption lies in becoming one with the Father, and partaking of his\nglory? Here and there one of the race knows it--which is indeed a pledge\nfor the race--but the race cannot be said to know its own lack, or to\nhave even a far-off notion of what alone can stay its groaning. In like\nmanner the whole creation is groaning after an unforeseen yet essential\nbirth--groans with the necessity of being freed from a state that is but\na transitional and not a true one, from a condition that nowise answers\nto the intent in which existence began. In both the lower creation and\nthe higher, this same groaning of the fettered idea after a freer life,\nseems the first enforced decree of a holy fate, and itself the first\nmovement of the hampered thing toward the liberty of another birth.\n\nTo believe that God made many of the lower creatures merely for prey, or\nto be the slaves of a slave, and writhe under the tyrannies of a cruel\nmaster who will not serve his own master; that he created and is\ncreating an endless succession of them to reap little or no good of\nlife but its cessation--a doctrine held by some, and practically\naccepted by multitudes--is to believe in a God who, so far as one\nportion at least of his creation is concerned, is a demon. But a\ncreative demon is an absurdity; and were such a creator possible, he\nwould not be God, but must one day be found and destroyed by the real\nGod. Not the less the fact remains, that miserable suffering abounds\namong them, and that, even supposing God did not foresee how creation\nwould turn out for them, the thing lies at his door. He has besides made\nthem so far dumb that they cannot move the hearts of the oppressors into\nwhose hands he has given them, telling how hard they find the world, how\nsore their life in it. The apostle takes up their case, and gives us\nmaterial for an answer to such as blame God for their sad condition.\n\nThere are many, I suspect, who from the eighth chapter of St Paul's\nepistle to the Romans, gather this much and no more:--that the lower\nanimals alive at the coming of the Lord, whensoever that may be, will\nthenceforward, with such as thereafter may come into existence, lead a\nhappy life for the time allotted them! Strong champions of God, these\nprofound believers! What lovers of life, what disciples of St Paul, nay,\nwhat disciples of Jesus, to whom such a gloss is consolation for the\nmoans of a universe! Truly, the furnace of affliction they would\nextinguish thus, casts out the more an evil odour! For all the creatures\nwho through ages of misery have groaned and travailed and died, to these\nmild Christians it is enough that they are dead, therefore, as they\nwould argue, out of it now! 'It is well with them,' I seem to hear such\nsay; 'they are mercifully dealt with; their sufferings are over; they\nhad not to live on for ever in oppression. The God of their life has\ntaken from them their past, and troubles them with no future!' It is\ntrue this were no small consolation concerning such as are gone away!\nSurely rest is better than ceaseless toil and pain! But what shall we\nsay of such a heedless God as those Christians are content to worship!\nIs he a merciful God? Is he a loving God? How shall he die to escape the\nremorse of the authorship of so much misery? Our pity turns from the\ndead creature to the live creator who could live and know himself the\nmaker of so many extinguished hearts, whose friend was--not he, but\nDeath. Blessed be the name of the Father of Jesus, there is no such\ncreator!\n\nBe we have not to do with the dead only; there are those which live and\nsuffer: is there no comfort concerning them, but that they too shall at\nlength die and leave their misery? And what shall we say of those\ncoming, and yet to come and pass--evermore issuing from the fountain of\nlife, daily born into evil things? Will the consolation that they will\nsoon die, suffice for the heart of the child who laments over his dead\nbird or rabbit, and would fain love that father in heaven who keeps on\nmaking the creatures? Alas, they are crowding in; they cannot help\nthemselves; their misery is awaiting them! Would those Christians have\nme believe in a God who differentiates creatures from himself, only that\nthey may be the prey of other creatures, or spend a few hours or years,\nhelpless and lonely, speechless and without appeal, in merciless hands,\nthen pass away into nothingness? I will not; in the name of Jesus, I\nwill not. Had he not known something better, would he have said what he\ndid about the father of men and the sparrows?\n\nWhat many men call their beliefs, are but the prejudices they happen to\nhave picked up: why should such believers waste a thought as to how\ntheir paltry fellow-inhabitants of the planet fare? Many indeed have all\ntheir lives been too busy making their human fellows groan and sweat for\ntheir own fancied well-being, to spare a thought for the fate of the yet\nmore helpless. But there are not a few, who would be indignant at having\ntheir belief in God questioned, who yet seem greatly to fear imagining\nhim better than he is: whether is it he or themselves they dread\ninjuring by expecting too much of him? 'You see the plain facts of the\ncase!' they say. 'There is no questioning them! What can be done for the\npoor things--except indeed you take the absurd notion into your head,\nthat they too have a life beyond the grave?'\n\nWhy should such a notion seem to you absurd? I answer. The teachers of\nthe nation have unwittingly, it seems to me through unbelief, wronged\nthe animals deeply by their silence anent the thoughtless popular\npresumption that they have no hereafter; thus leaving them deprived of a\ngreat advantage to their position among men. But I suppose they too have\ntaken it for granted that the Preserver of man and beast never had a\nthought of keeping one beast alive beyond a certain time; in which case\nheartless men might well argue he did not care how they wronged them,\nfor he meant them no redress. Their immortality is no new faith with me,\nbut as old as my childhood.\n\nDo you believe in immortality for yourself? I would ask any reader who\nis not in sympathy with my hope for the animals. If not, I have no\nargument with you. But if you do, why not believe in it for them?\nVerily, were immortality no greater a thing for the animals than it\nseems for men to some who yet profess to expect it, I should scarce care\nto insist upon their share in it. But if the thought be anywise precious\nto you, is it essential to your enjoyment in it, that nothing less than\nyourself should share its realization? Are you the lowest kind of\ncreature that _could_ be permitted to live? Had God been of like heart\nwith you, would he have given life and immortality to creatures so much\nless than himself as we? Are these not worth making immortal? How, then,\nwere they worth calling out of the depth of no-being? It is a greater\ndeed, to make be that which was not, than to seal it with an infinite\nimmortality: did God do that which was not worth doing? What he thought\nworth making, you think not worth continuing made! You would have him go\non for ever creating new things with one hand, and annihilating those he\nhad made with the other--for I presume you would not prefer the earth to\nbe without animals! If it were harder for God to make the former go on\nliving, than to send forth new, then his creatures were no better than\nthe toys which a child makes, and destroys as he makes them. For what\ngood, for what divine purpose is the maker of the sparrow present at its\ndeath, if he does not care what becomes of it? What is he there for, I\nrepeat, if he have no care that it go well with his bird in its dying,\nthat it be neither comfortless nor lost in the abyss? If his presence be\nno good to the sparrow, are you very sure what good it will be to you\nwhen your hour comes? Believe it is not by a little only that the heart\nof the universe is tenderer, more loving, more just and fair, than yours\nor mine.\n\nIf you did not believe you were yourself to out-live death, I could not\nblame you for thinking all was over with the sparrow; but to believe in\nimmortality for yourself, and not care to believe in it for the sparrow,\nwould be simply hard-hearted and selfish. If it would make you happy to\nthink there was life beyond death for the sparrow as well as for\nyourself, I would gladly help you at least to hope that there may be.\n\nI know of no reason why I should not look for the animals to rise again,\nin the same sense in which I hope myself to rise again--which is, to\nreappear, clothed with another and better form of life than before. If\nthe Father will raise his children, why should he not also raise those\nwhom he has taught his little ones to love? Love is the one bond of the\nuniverse, the heart of God, the life of his children: if animals can be\nloved, they are loveable; if they can love, they are yet more plainly\nloveable: love is eternal; how then should its object perish? Must the\nvery immortality of love divide the bond of love? Must the love live on\nfor ever without its object? or worse still, must the love die with its\nobject, and be eternal no more than it? What a mis-invented correlation\nin which the one side was eternal, the other, where not yet annihilated,\nconstantly perishing! Is not our love to the animals a precious variety\nof love? And if God gave the creatures to us, that a new phase of love\nmight be born in us toward another kind of life from the same fountain,\nwhy should the new life be more perishing than the new love? Can you\nimagine that, if, here-after, one of God's little ones were to ask him\nto give again one of the earth's old loves--kitten, or pony, or\nsquirrel, or dog, which he had taken from him, the Father would say no?\nIf the thing was so good that God made it for and gave it to the child\nat first who never asked for it, why should he not give it again to the\nchild who prays for it because the Father had made him love it? What a\nchild may ask for, the Father will keep ready.\n\nThat there are difficulties in the way of believing thus, I grant; that\nthere are impossibilities, I deny. Perhaps the first difficulty that\noccurs is, the many forms of life which we cannot desire again to see.\nBut while we would gladly keep the perfected forms of the higher\nanimals, we may hope that those of many other kinds are as transitory as\ntheir bodies, belonging but to a stage of development. All animal forms\ntend to higher: why should not the individual, as well as the race, pass\nthrough stages of ascent. If I have myself gone through each of the\ntypical forms of lower life on my way to the human--a supposition by\nantenatal history rendered probable--and therefore may have passed\nthrough any number of individual forms of life, I do not see why each of\nthe lower animals should not as well pass upward through a succession of\nbettering embodiments. I grant that the theory requires another to\ncomplement it; namely, that those men and women, who do not even\napproximately fulfil the conditions of their elevated rank, who will not\nendeavour after the great human-divine idea, striving to ascend, are\nsent away back down to that stage of development, say of fish or insect\nor reptile, beyond which their moral nature has refused to advance. Who\nhas not seen or known men who _appeared_ not to have passed, or indeed\nin some things to have approached the development of the more human of\nthe lower animals! Let those take care who look contemptuously upon the\nanimals, lest, in misusing one of them, they misuse some ancestor of\ntheir own, sent back, as the one mercy for him, to reassume far past\nforms and conditions--far past in physical, that is, but not in moral\ndevelopment--and so have another opportunity of passing the\nself-constituted barrier. The suggestion may appear very ridiculous, and\nno doubt lends itself to humorous comment; but what if it should be\ntrue! what if the amused reader should himself be getting ready to\nfollow the remanded ancestor! Upon it, however, I do not care to spend\nthought or time, least of all argument; what I care to press is the\nquestion--If we believe in the progress of creation as hitherto\nmanifested, also in the marvellous changes of form that take place in\nevery individual of certain classes, why should there be any difficulty\nin hoping that old lives may reappear in new forms? The typical soul\nreappears in higher formal type; why may not also the individual soul\nreappear in higher form?\n\nMultitudes evidently count it safest to hold by a dull scheme of things:\ncan it be because, like David in Browning's poem _Saul_, they dread lest\nthey should worst the Giver by inventing better gifts than his? That we\ndo not know, is the best reason for hoping to the full extent God has\nmade possible to us. If then we go wrong, it will be in the direction of\nthe right, and with such aberration as will be easier to correct than\nwhat must come of refusing to imagine, and leaving the dullest\ntraditional prepossessions to rule our hearts and minds, with no claim\nbut the poverty of their expectation from the paternal riches. Those\nthat hope little cannot grow much. To them the very glory of God must be\na small thing, for their hope of it is so small as not to be worth\nrejoicing in. That he is a faithful creator means nothing to them for\nfar the larger portion of the creatures he has made! Truly their notion\nof faithfulness is poor enough; how then can their faith be strong! In\nthe very nature of divine things, the common-place must be false. The\nstupid, self-satisfied soul, which cannot know its own stupidity, and\nwill not trouble itself either to understand or to imagine, is the\nfarthest behind of all the backward children in God's nursery.\n\nAs I say, then, I know no cause of reasonable difficulty in regard to\nthe continued existence of the lower animals, except the present nature\nof some of them. But what Christian will dare to say that God does not\ncare about them?--and he knows them as we cannot know them. Great or\nsmall, they are his. Great are all his results; small are all his\nbeginnings. That we have to send many of his creatures out of this phase\nof their life because of their hurtfulness in this phase of ours, is to\nme no stumbling-block. The very fact that this has always had to be\ndone, the long protracted combat of the race with such, and the\nconstantly repeated though not invariable victory of the man, has had an\nessential and incalculable share in the development of humanity, which\nis the rendering of man capable of knowing God; and when their part to\nthat end is no longer necessary, changed conditions may speedily so\noperate that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie\ndown with the kid. The difficulty may go for nothing in view of the\nforces of that future with which this loving speculation concerns\nitself.\n\nI would now lead my companion a little closer to what the apostle says\nin the nineteenth verse; to come closer, if we may, to the idea that\nburned in his heart when he wrote what we call the eighth chapter of his\nepistle to the Romans. Oh, how far ahead he seems, in his hope for the\ncreation, of the footsore and halting brigade of Christians at present\ncrossing the world! He knew Christ, and could therefore look into the\nwill of the Father.\n\n_For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the\nmanifestation of the sons of God_!\n\nAt the head of one of his poems, Henry Vaughan has this Latin\ntranslation of the verse: I do not know whether he found or made it, but\nit is closer to its sense than ours:--\n\n'Etenim res creatae exerto capite observantes expectant revelationem\nfiliorum Dei.'--'For the things created, watching with head thrust out,\nawait the revelation of the sons of God.'\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause God has subjected the creation to vanity, in the hope that the\ncreation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into\nthe glorious liberty of the children of God. For this double\ndeliverance--from corruption and the consequent subjection to vanity,\nthe creation is eagerly watching.\n\nThe bondage of corruption God encounters and counteracts by subjection\nto vanity. Corruption is the breaking up of the essential idea; the\nfalling away from the original indwelling and life-causing thought. It\nis met by the suffering which itself causes. That suffering is for\nredemption, for deliverance. It is the life in the corrupting thing that\nmakes the suffering possible; it is the live part, not the corrupted\npart that suffers; it is the redeemable, not the doomed thing, that is\nsubjected to vanity. The race in which evil--that is, corruption, is at\nwork, needs, as the one means for its rescue, subjection to vanity; it\nis the one hope against the supremacy of corruption; and the whole\nencircling, harboring, and helping creation must, for the sake of man,\nits head, and for its own further sake too, share in this subjection to\nvanity with its hope of deliverance.\n\nCorruption brings in vanity, causes empty aching gaps in vitality. This\naching is what most people regard as evil: it is the unpleasant cure of\nevil. It takes all shapes of suffering--of the body, of the mind, of the\nheart, of the spirit. It is altogether beneficent: without this ever\ninvading vanity, what hope would there be for the rich and powerful,\naccustomed to, and set upon their own way? what hope for the\nself-indulgent, the conceited, the greedy, the miserly? The more things\nmen seek, the more varied the things they imagine they need, the more\nare they subject to vanity--all the forms of which may be summed in the\nword disappointment. He who would not house with disappointment, must\nseek the incorruptible, the true. He must break the bondage of havings\nand shows; of rumours, and praises, and pretences, and selfish\npleasures. He must come out of the false into the real; out of the\ndarkness into the light; out of the bondage of corruption into the\nglorious liberty of the children of God. To bring men to break with\ncorruption, the gulf of the inane yawns before them. Aghast in soul,\nthey cry, 'Vanity of vanities! all is vanity!' and beyond the abyss\nbegin to espy the eternal world of truth.\n\nNote now 'the hope that the creation itself also,' as something besides\nand other than God's men and women, 'shall be delivered from the bondage\nof corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.'\nThe creation then is to share in the deliverance and liberty and glory\nof the children of God. Deliverance from corruption, liberty from\nbondage, must include escape from the very home and goal of corruption,\nnamely death,--and that in all its kinds and degrees. When you say then\nthat for the children of God there is no more death, remember that the\ndeliverance of the creature is from the bondage of corruption into the\nglorious liberty of the children of God. Dead, in bondage to\ncorruption, how can they share in the liberty of the children of Life?\nWhere is their deliverance?\n\nIf such then be the words of the apostle, does he, or does he not, I\nask, hold the idea of the immortality of the animals? If you say all he\nmeans is, that the creatures alive at the coming of the Lord will be set\nfree from the tyranny of corrupt man, I refer you to what I have already\nsaid of the poverty of such an interpretation, accepting the failure of\njustice and love toward those that have passed away, are passing, and\nmust yet, ere that coming, be born to pass away for ever. For the man\nwhose heart aches to adore a faithful creator, what comfort lies in such\ngood news! He must perish for lack of a true God! Oh lame conclusion to\nthe grand prophecy! Is God a mocker, who will not be mocked? Is there a\npast to God with which he has done? Is Time too much for him? Is he God\nenough to care for those that happen to live at one present time, but\nnot God enough to care for those that happened to live at another\npresent time? Or did he care for them, but could not help them? Shall we\nnot rather believe that the vessels of less honour, the misused, the\nmaltreated, shall be filled full with creative wine at last? Shall not\nthe children have little dogs under the Father's table, to which to let\nfall plenty of crumbs? If there was such provision for the sparrows of\nour Lord's time of sojourn, and he will bring yet better with him when\nhe comes again, how should the dead sparrows and their sorrows be passed\nover of him with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning? Or\nwould the deliverance of the creatures into the groaned-for liberty have\nbeen much worth mentioning, if within a few years their share in the\nglory of the sons of God was to die away in death? But the gifts of God\nare without repentance.\n\nHow St Paul longs for and loves liberty! Only true lover of liberty is\nhe, who will die to give it to his neighbour! St Paul loved liberty more\nthan his own liberty. But then see how different his notion of the\nliberty on its way to the children of God, from the dull modern fancies\nof heaven still set forth in the popular hymn-books! The new heaven and\nthe new earth will at least be a heaven and an earth! What would the\nnewest earth be to the old children without its animals? Barer than the\nheavens emptied of the constellations that are called by their names.\nThen, if the earth must have its animals, why not the old ones, already\ndear? The sons of God are not a new race of sons of God, but the old\nrace glorified:--why a new race of animals, and not the old ones\nglorified?\n\nThe apostle says they are to share in the liberty of the sons of God:\nwill it not then be a liberty like ours, a liberty always ready to be\noffered on the altar of love? What sweet service will not that of the\nanimals be, thus offered! How sweet also to minister to them in their\nturns of need! For to us doubtless will they then flee for help in any\ndifficulty, as now they flee from us in dread of our tyranny. What\nlovelier feature in the newness of the new earth, than the old animals\nglorified with us, in their home with us--our common home, the house of\nour father--each kind an unfailing pleasure to the other! Ah, what\nhorses! Ah, what dogs! Ah, what wild beasts, and what birds in the air!\nThe whole redeemed creation goes to make up St Paul's heaven. He had\nlearned of him who would leave no one out; who made the excuse for his\nmurderers that they did not know what they were doing.\n\nIs not the prophecy on the groaning creation to have its fulfilment in\nthe new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness? Does\nnot this involve its existence beyond what we call this world? Why\nshould it not then involve immortality? Would it not be more like the\nking eternal, immortal, invisible, to know no life but the immortal? to\ncreate nothing that could die; to slay nothing but evil? 'For he is not\na God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto him.'\n\nBut what is this liberty of the children of God, for which the whole\ncreation is waiting? The children themselves are waiting for it: when\nthey have it, then will their house and retinue, the creation, whose\nfate hangs on that of the children, share it with them: what is this\nliberty?\n\nAll liberty must of course consist in the realization of the ideal\nharmony between the creative will and the created life; in the\ncorrespondence of the creature's active being to the creator's idea,\nwhich is his substantial soul. In other words the creature's liberty is\nwhat his obedience to the law of his existence, the will of his maker,\neffects for him. The instant a soul moves counter to the will of its\nprime cause, the universe is its prison; it dashes against the walls of\nit, and the sweetest of its uplifting and sustaining forces at once\nbecome its manacles and fetters. But St Paul is not at the moment\nthinking either of the metaphysical notion of liberty, or of its\nreligious realization; he has in his thought the birth of the soul's\nconsciousness of freedom.\n\n'And not only so'--that the creation groaneth and travaileth--'but\nourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we\nourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for.... the redemption of our\nbody.'--We are not free, he implies, until our body is redeemed; then\nall the creation will be free with us. He regards the creation as part\nof our embodiment. The whole creation is waiting for the manifestation\nof the sons of God--that is, the redemption of their body, the idea of\nwhich extends to their whole material envelopment, with all the life\nthat belongs to it. For this as for them, the bonds of corruption must\nfall away; it must enter into the same liberty with them, and be that\nfor which it was created--a vital temple, perfected by the unbroken\nindwelling of its divinity.\n\nThe liberty here intended, it may be unnecessary to say, is not that\nessential liberty--freedom from sin, but the completing of the\nredemption of the spirit by the redemption of the body, the perfecting\nof the greater by its necessary complement of the less. Evil has been\nconstantly at work, turning our house of the body into a prison;\nrendering it more opaque and heavy and insensible; casting about it\nbands and cerements, and filling it with aches and pains. The freest\nsoul, the purest of lovers, the man most incapable of anything mean,\nwould not, for all his mighty liberty, yet feel absolutely at large\nwhile chained to a dying body--nor the less hampered, but the more, that\nthat dying body was his own. The redemption of the body, therefore, the\nmaking of it for the man a genuine, perfected, responsive house-alive,\nis essential to the apostle's notion of a man's deliverance. The new man\nmust have a new body with a new heaven and earth. St Paul never thinks\nof himself as released from body; he desires a perfect one, and of a\nnobler sort; he would inhabit a heaven-made house, and give up the\nearth-made one, suitable only to this lower stage of life, infected and\nunsafe from the first, and now much dilapidated in the service of the\nMaster who could so easily give him a better. He wants a spiritual\nbody--a body that will not thwart but second the needs and aspirations\nof the spirit. He had in his mind, I presume, such a body as the Lord\ndied with, changed by the interpenetrating of the creative indwelling\nwill, to a heavenly body, the body with which he rose. A body like the\nLord's is, I imagine, necessary to bring us into true and perfect\ncontact with the creation, of which there must be multitudinous phases\nwhereof we cannot now be even aware.\n\nThe way in which both good and indifferent people alike lay the blame on\ntheir bodies, and look to death rather than God-aided struggle to set\nthem at liberty, appears to me low and cowardly: it is the master\nfleeing from the slave, despising at once and fearing him. We must hold\nthe supremacy over our bodies, but we must not despise body; it is a\ndivine thing. Body and soul are in the image of God; and the lord of\nlife was last seen in the glorified body of his death. I believe that he\nstill wears that body. But we shall do better without these bodies that\nsuffer and grow old--which may indeed, as some think, be but the outer\ncases, the husks of our real bodies. Endlessly helpful as they have been\nto us, and that, in a measure incalculable, through their very\nsubjection to vanity, we are yet surely not in altogether and only\nhelpful company, so long as the houses wherein we live have so many\nspots and stains in them which friendly death, it may be, can alone wash\nout--so many weather-eaten and self-engendered sores which the builder's\nhand, pulling down and rebuilding of fresh and nobler material, alone\ncan banish.\n\nWhen the sons, then, are free, when their bodies are redeemed, they will\nlift up with them the lower creation into their liberty. St Paul seems\nto believe that perfection in their kind awaits also the humbler\ninhabitants of our world, its advent to follow immediately on the\nmanifestation of the sons of God: for our sakes and their own they have\nbeen made subject to vanity; for our sakes and their own they shall be\nrestored and glorified, that is, raised higher with us.\n\nHas the question no interest for you? It would have much, had you now\nwhat you must one day have--a heart big enough to love any life God has\nthought fit to create. Had the Lord cared no more for what of his\nfather's was lower than himself, than you do for what of your father's\nis lower than you, you would not now be looking for any sort of\nredemption.\n\nI have omitted in my quotations the word _adoption_ used in both English\nversions: it is no translation of the Greek word for which it stands. It\nis used by St Paul as meaning the same thing with the phrase, 'the\nredemption of the body'--a fact to bring the interpretation given it at\nonce into question. Falser translation, if we look at the importance of\nthe thing signified, and its utter loss in the word used to represent\nit, not to mention the substitution for that of the apostle, of an idea\nnot only untrue but actively mischievous, was never made. The thing St\nPaul means in the word he uses, has simply nothing to do with\nadoption--nothing whatever. In the beginning of the fourth chapter of\nhis epistle to the Galatians, he makes perfectly clear what he intends\nby it. His unusual word means the father's recognition, when he comes of\nage, of the child's relation to him, by giving him his fitting place of\ndignity in the house; and here the deliverance of the body is the act of\nthis recognition by the great Father, completing and crowning and\ndeclaring the freedom of the man, the perfecting of the last lingering\nremnant of his deliverance. St Paul's word, I repeat, has nothing to do\nwith _adoption_; it means the manifestation of the grown-up sons of God;\nthe showing of those as sons, who have always been his children; the\nbringing of them out before the universe in such suitable attire and\nwith such fit attendance, that to look at them is to see what they are,\nthe sons of the house--such to whom their elder brother applied the\nwords: 'I said ye are Gods.'\n\nIf then the sons groan within themselves, looking to be lifted up, and\nthe other inhabitants of the same world groan with them and cry, shall\nthey not also be lifted up? Have they not also a faithful creator? He\nmust be a selfish man indeed who does not desire that it should be so.\n\nIt appears then, that, in the expectation of the apostle, the new\nheavens and the new earth in which dwell the sons of God, are to be\ninhabited by blessed animals also--inferior, but risen--and I think, yet\nto rise in continuous development.\n\nHere let me revert a moment, and say a little more clearly and strongly\na thing I have already said:--\n\nWhen the apostle speaks of the whole creation, is it possible he should\nhave dismissed the animals from his thoughts, to regard the trees and\nflowers bearing their part in the groaning and travailing of the sore\nburdened world? Or could he, animals and trees and flowers forgotten,\nhave intended by the creation that groaned and travailed, only the bulk\nof the earth, its mountains and valleys, plains and seas and rivers, its\nagglomeration of hard and soft, of hot and cold, of moist and dry? If\nhe could, then the portion that least can be supposed to feel or know,\nis regarded by the apostle of love as immeasurably more important than\nthe portion that loves and moans and cries. Nor is this all; for\nthereupon he attributes the suffering-faculty of the excluded, far more\nsentient portion at least, to the altogether inferior and less sentient,\nand upon the ground of that faculty builds the vision of its redemption!\nIf it could be so, then how should the seeming apostle's affected\nrhapsody of hope be to us other than a mere puff-ball of falsest\nrhetoric, a special-pleading for nothing, as degrading to art as\nobjectless in nature?\n\nMuch would I like to know clearly what animals the apostle saw on his\ntravels, or around his home when he had one--their conditions, and their\nrelations to their superiors. Anyhow they were often suffering\ncreatures; and Paul was a man growing hourly in likeness to his maker\nand theirs, therefore overflowing with sympathy. Perhaps as he wrote,\nthere passed through his mind a throb of pity for the beasts he had to\nkill at Ephesus.\n\nIf the Lord said very little about animals, could he have done more for\nthem than tell men that his father cared for them? He has thereby\nwakened and is wakening in the hearts of men a seed his father planted.\nIt grows but slowly, yet has already borne a little precious fruit. His\nloving friend St Francis has helped him, and many others have tried,\nand are now trying to help him: whoever sows the seed of that seed the\nFather planted is helping the Son. Our behaviour to the animals, our\nwords concerning them, are seed, either good or bad, in the hearts of\nour children. No one can tell to what the animals might not grow, even\nhere on the old earth under the old heaven, if they were but dealt with\naccording to their true position in regard to us. They are, in sense\nvery real and divine, our kindred. If I call them our poor relations, it\nis to suggest that poor relations are often ill used. Relatives, poor or\nrich, may be such ill behaved, self-assertive, disagreeable persons,\nthat we cannot treat them as we gladly would; but our endeavour should\nbe to develop every true relation. He who is prejudiced against a\nrelative because he is poor, is himself an ill-bred relative, and to be\nill-bred is an excluding fault with the court of the high countries.\nThere, poverty is welcome, vulgarity inadmissible.\n\nThose who love certain animals selfishly, pampering them, as so many\nmothers do their children with worse results, that they may be loved of\nthem in return, betray them to their enemies. They are not lovers of\nanimals, but only of favourites, and do their part to make the rest of\nthe world dislike animals. Theirs are the dogs that inhospitably growl\nand bark and snap, moving the indifferent to dislike, and confirming\nthe unfriendly in their antagonism. Any dog-parliament, met in the\ninterests of their kind, would condemn such dogs to be discreetly\nbitten, and their mistresses to be avoided. And certainly, if animals\nare intended to live and grow, she is the enemy of any individual\nanimal, who stunts his moral and intellectual development by unwise\nindulgence. Of whatever nature be the heaven of the animals, that animal\nis not in the fair way to enter it. The education of the lower lies at\nthe door of the higher, and in true education is truest kindness.\n\nBut what shall I say of such as for any kind of end subject animals to\ntorture? I dare hardly trust myself to the expression of my judgment of\ntheir conduct in this regard.\n\n'We are investigators; we are not doing it for our own sakes, but for\nthe sake of others, our fellow-men.'\n\nThe higher your motive for it, the greater is the blame of your\nunrighteousness. Must we congratulate you on such a love for your\nfellows as inspires you to wrong the weaker than they, those that are\nwithout helper against you? Shall we count the man worthy who, for the\nsake of his friend, robbed another man too feeble to protect himself,\nand too poor to punish his assailant? For the sake of your children,\nwould you waylay a beggar? No real good can grow in the soil of\ninjustice.\n\nI cannot help suspecting, however, that the desire to know has a greater\nshare in the enormity than the desire to help. Alas for the science that\nwill sacrifice the law of righteousness but to behold a law of sequence!\nThe tree of knowledge will never prove to man the tree of life. There is\nno law says, Thou shalt know; a thousand laws cry out, Thou shalt do\nright. These men are a law unto themselves--and what a law! It is the\nold story: the greed of knowing casts out righteousness, and mercy, and\nfaith. Whatever believed a benefit may or may not thus be wrought for\nhigher creatures, the injustice to the lower is nowise affected. Justice\nhas no respect of persons, but they are surely the weaker that stand\nmore in need of justice!\n\nLabour is a law of the universe, and is not an evil. Death is a law of\nthis world at least, and is not an evil. Torture is the law of no world\nbut the hell of human invention. Labour and death are for the best good\nof those that labour and die; they are laws of life. Torture is\ndoubtless over-ruled for the good of the tortured, but it will one day\nburn a very hell in the hearts of the torturers.\n\nTorture can be inflicted only by the superior. The divine idea of a\nsuperior, is one who requires duty, and protects, helps, delivers: our\nrelation to the animals is that of their superiors in the family, who\nrequire labour, it may be, but are just, helpful, protective. Can they\nknow anything of the Father who neither love nor rule their inferiors,\nbut use them as a child his insensate toys, pulling them to pieces to\nknow what is inside them? Such men, so-called of science--let them have\nthe dignity to the fullness of its worth--lust to know as if a man's\nlife lay in knowing, as if it were a vile thing to be ignorant--so vile\nthat, for the sake of his secret hoard of facts, they do right in\nbreaking with torture into the house of the innocent! Surely they shall\nnot thus find the way of understanding! Surely there is a maniac thirst\nfor knowledge, as a maniac thirst for wine or for blood! He who loves\nknowledge the most genuinely, will with the most patience wait for it\nuntil it can be had righteously.\n\nNeed I argue the injustice? Can a sentient creature come forth without\nrights, without claim to well-being, or to consideration from the other\ncreatures whom they find, equally without action of their own, present\nin space? If one answer, 'For aught I know, it may be so,'--Where then\nare thy own rights? I ask. If another have none, thine must lie in thy\nsuperior power; and will there not one day come a stronger than thou?\nMayst thou not one day be in Naboth's place, with an Ahab getting up to\ngo into thy vineyard to possess it? The rich man may come prowling\nafter thy little ewe lamb, and what wilt thou have to say? He may be the\nstronger, and thou the weaker! That the rights of the animals are so\nmuch less than ours, does not surely argue them the less rights! They\nhave little, and we have much; ought they therefore to have less and we\nmore? Must we not rather be the more honourably anxious that they have\ntheir little to the full. Every gain of injustice is a loss to the\nworld; for life consists neither in length of days nor in ease of body.\nGreed of life and wrong done to secure it, will never work anything but\ndirest loss. As to knowledge, let justice guide thy search and thou wilt\nknow the sooner. Do the will of God, and thou shalt know God, and he\nwill open thine eyes to look into the very heart of knowledge. Force thy\nviolent way, and gain knowledge, to miss truth. Thou mayest wound the\nheart of God, but thou canst not rend it asunder to find the Truth that\nsits there enthroned.\n\nWhat man would he be who accepted the offer to be healed and kept alive\nby means which necessitated the torture of certain animals? Would he\nfeel himself a gentleman--walking the earth with the sense that his life\nand conscious well-being were informed and upheld by the agonies of\nother lives?\n\n'I hope, sir, your health is better than it has been?'\n\n'Thank you, I am wonderfully restored--have entered in truth upon a\nfresh lease of life. My organism has been nourished with the agonies of\nseveral dogs, and the pangs of a multitude of rabbits and guinea-pigs,\nand I am aware of a marvellous change for the better. They gave me their\nlives, and I gave them in return worse pains than mine. The bargain has\nproved a quite satisfactory one! True, their lives were theirs, not\nmine; but then their sufferings were theirs, not mine! They could not\ndefend themselves; they had not a word to say, so reasonable was the\nexchange. Poor fools! they were neither so wise, nor so strong, nor such\nlovers of comfort as I! If they could not take care of themselves, that\nwas their look-out, not mine! Every animal for himself!'\n\nThere was a certain patriotic priest who thought it better to put a just\nman to death than that a whole nation should perish. Precious salvation\nthat might be wrought by injustice! But then the just man taught that\nthe rich man and the beggar must one day change places.\n\n'To set the life of a dog against the life of a human being!'\n\nNo, but the torture of a dog against the prolonged life of a being\ncapable of torturing him. Priceless gain, the lengthening of such a\nlife, to the man and his friends and his country!\n\nThat the animals do not suffer so much as we should under like\ninflictions, I hope true, and think true. But is toothache nothing,\nbecause there are yet worse pains for head and face?\n\nNot a few who now regard themselves as benefactors of mankind, will one\nday be looked upon with a disapprobation which no argument will now\nconvince them they deserve. But yet another day is coming, when they\nwill themselves right sorrowfully pour out disapprobation upon their own\ndeeds; for they are not stones but men, and must repent. Let them, in\nthe interests of humanity, give their own entrails to the knife, their\nown silver cord to be laid bare, their own golden bowl to be watched\nthrobbing, and I will worship at their feet. But shall I admire their\ndiscoveries at the expense of the stranger--nay, no stranger--the poor\nbrother within their gates?\n\nYour conscience does not trouble you? Take heed that the light that is\nin you be not darkness. Whatever judgment mean, will it suffice you in\nthat hour to say, 'My burning desire to know how life wrought in him,\ndrove me through the gates and bars of his living house'? I doubt if you\nwill add, in your heart any more than with your tongue, 'and I did\nwell.'\n\nTo those who expect a world to come, I say then, Let us take heed how\nwe carry ourselves to the creation which is to occupy with us the world\nto come.\n\nTo those whose hearts are sore for that creation, I say, The Lord is\nmindful of his own, and will save both man and beast.\n\n\nTHE END.","title":"The Hope of the Gospel","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":52053}