{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20402/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20402","id":"gutenberg_20402","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20402","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","Sermons, English -- 19th century"],"text":"Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\nBESIDE THE STILL WATERS:\n\nA SERMON,\n\nPREACHED IN\n\nRENSHAW STREET CHAPEL, LIVERPOOL,\n\nON\n\nSUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1871.\n\nBY\n\nCHARLES BEARD, B.A.\n\nPRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.\n\n\n\n\nLONDON:\nPRINTED BY C. GREEN AND SON,\nSTRAND, W.C.\n\n\n\n\nIn Memory of\n\nELIZABETH GREENE GAIR.\n\n\n\n\nBESIDE THE STILL WATERS.\n\n    \"He leadeth me beside the still waters.\"\n                    PSALM xxiii. 2.\n\n\nThere has been a period of geological speculation, at which all the\nchanges which have taken place upon the earth's surface, and have left\ntheir unmistakable marks in countless relics of animal and vegetable\nlife, were attributed to the action of sudden and violent forces, of\nwhich, to-day, earthquake and tempest and volcano are only the feeble\nand transitory types. Those changes have manifestly been so great and so\nuniversal, as to stand out in vivid contrast to the imperceptibly slow,\nthe gently gradual processes, which are all that we are now able to\nwatch and to record: surely we can attribute them only to causes as\nexceptional as themselves. We see Niagara cutting its backward way\nthrough the ravine, so many feet in a thousand years; the lava stream\ndescends the mountain-side like a black and burning glacier, and\ndestruction too plainly marks its path; a storm bursts upon the hills,\nand for long miles the valleys are choked with barren mud, the bridges\nscattered in ruin through the stream, the cheerful husbandry of men laid\nhopelessly waste. But we cannot watch the slow upheaval of a long line\nof coast, where the fisherman hardly knows at the end of a lifetime\nwhether the sea has drawn back or his own landmarks have been moved; we\nare all unable to note how new continents are now being formed in the\nocean's stillest depths, from whose hardened and uplifted strata future\nages may dig out the relics of so much that has been dear and precious\nto us; we fail to notice how every running stream, from the tiniest\nmountain rill to muddy Po and fertilizing Nile, is perpetually at work\nto carry down the hills into the plains, and to change the world's\nfamiliar face. But so it is, and so, we have some right to conclude, it\nhas been always. God's chosen ways of working in the physical world are\nnot wholly of the sudden and violent sort. Storm and earthquake and\nflood have undoubtedly played their part; but not more than--perhaps\nhardly as much as--the perpetually dropping rain, the wind that seems to\nblow as it listeth, the tides that come and go and no man heeds them,\nthe sun that shines upon barren rock and fertile meadow with serene\nimpartiality of blessing. God seems to work, by preference, slowly and\nin silence. To Him a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is\npast, and the dial on which His operations are recorded takes no note of\nhuman thoughts and expectations.\n\nThe same is true, I think, in the moral world. It is indeed difficult to\nover-estimate the force of a great soul; though it is needful to remark\nthat not all great souls work in the full light of publicity and have\ntheir path marked by revolution, and equally needful to remember that\nnot all dislocating and disturbing spirits put forth any true claim to\ngreatness. We are far too apt to confound the occasions with the causes\nof any great change, and to forget that if fire do indeed come out of a\nnoble heart, it can only kindle other hearts that are already prepared\nto burn. Many souls were hot with Luther's indignation, before he\nburned the Bull in the market-place of Wittenberg; many spirits had\ninwardly rebelled against the deadness of the age, before Wesley told\nthe Gospel tale to the colliers of Kingswood. One indeed speaks what the\nmany feel; to him has been given a clearer insight, a diviner ardour, a\nmore articulate speech; but his word is with power because of the dumb\naspirations stirring in many breasts, and an universal emotion which has\nnot yet found fit expression. And this is even more the case with regard\nto moral operations of a quieter and less signal, though hardly less\nimportant kind; forces which do not so much suddenly change the world,\nas keep it (in some poor and imperfect way) sweet and pure, and perhaps,\nin the course of ages, urge it a little nearer the throne of God. Is the\nfaith of Christendom sustained from generation to generation by the\nsuccession of heroes and saints, to whose achievements all men look up\nwith despairing admiration, and in whose acknowledged and recorded\nexcellence they see the full embodiment of their own desire, or by the\nthousand nameless fidelities to duty, and obscure victories of\nself-devotion, and hidden glories of purity, that pass away without\ncelebration? If you, my brethren, have any stoutness of heart to resist\nmean temptation, if you are conscious of any uplifting of desire towards\nbetter and more stable things than form the common stuff of life, if any\nquiet trust in God sustains you amid the world's chance and change, to\nwhat do you owe them? In the last resort, doubtless, to God Himself, and\nto God working through Christ; but immediately, and in a large measure,\nto hidden forces, unseen influences, which you perhaps can track only in\npart, but of which others know nothing. A father's integrity--a\nmother's sweet goodness--the quiet air of a happy home--a domestic\ncourage and patience, at which you have looked very closely, and whose\nevery line and lineament you know--some ancestral saintliness, which is\na household tradition and no more, but which has never withered in the\nfierce light of public estimate,--these things have inspired and\nnourished your nobler part. They are the refreshing dew and the\nfertilizing rain, the restful night and the kindling day, of God's moral\nworld. We grow up with them, and hardly know them for His activity; they\nare among the necessary conditions of our existence; and when we seek\nfor tokens of Him, it is rather in the crises and catastrophes of\nlife--in the sharp wound that pricks a sleeping conscience, in the call\nof duty which turns the whole current of our energy, in the sorrow\nwhich destroys for ever our trust in the world. But He has been with us\nall the while in the gentler motions of His will.\n\nSometimes, I am inclined to think, we insist too much on our own\nestimate of small and great in the moral world, forgetting that any\nsingle fact or individual life is but one link in an endless chain of\ncauses and consequences, of which we ought to know the whole before we\ncan rightly estimate a part. And looking back where some light seems to\nrest upon our own or others' history, it is easy to see how what we\nshould call great and signal, stands next in the line of causation to\nwhat seems (but only seems) to be trivial, and is certainly obscure. Let\nus take the most remarkable instance of all,--the Christ, whom no\nscepticism can dethrone from the foremost place in human history,--who,\nwhatever else he was, must be admitted even by unbelief to have set his\nmark upon mankind more deeply than any other son of men. Yet how he\nemerges upon the world out of secrecy and silence! Whatever bright cloud\nof hope and prophecy had formerly floated about his cradle, has long\nbeen scattered and forgotten; and he comes, from his Galilean hills, one\nof the simple folk who earned their bread in the sweat of their brow,\nunlearned save in the ancestral wisdom of his people, unheralded but by\nthe village estimate of a sweet and innocent life, to finish the work of\na long line of prophets, and to lift humanity nearer to God. And we are\noften so eager to prove the singularity of his mission, and to take him\nout of the category of other workers for God, as to miss the great\nlesson which is to be learned of the way in which the Father always\ntrains and educates a faithful and victorious Son. Of his mother, who\nknows anything, save what the few hints and statements of the\nEvangelists disclose? A superstition, not without its tender and\ngraceful side, has taken her from her cottage home at Nazareth, and\ncrowned her Queen of Heaven; till all the familiar extravagances of\nmythology have obliterated even from men's imagination the lines of a\nsweet and strong human character. And yet what a marvellous woman must\nhave been this unknown mother of Christ! What depth of tenderness, what\nsteadiness of judgment, what a majestic and yet winning purity, what a\nfaculty of self-devotion (not yet too hardly tried), what a simple\nintensity of devoutness, must have watched and helped the child, as he\ngrew and blossomed into man! What airs from heaven must have blown about\nthat lowly roof, filling all who dwelt beneath it with a noble\nsimplicity of content with their own lot, and one, with a nobler\ndiscontent with the world's innumerable wrongs and sufferings! These\nwere God's quiet ways, and the very record of them has disappeared; they\nsurvive only in their result. But there is no son in whom mother's blood\ndoes not flow, and though now we know not how or where, the Mary of whom\nthe world is ignorant, lived and spoke and died in the Christ, to whom\nthe world looks up.\n\nSo no mistake can be greater than to suppose that all the world's best\nwork is done by the eloquent tongue and the busy hand. I will not\ncompare what may be achieved by these means, with the less conspicuous\nresults of a goodness which propagates itself less by word and act than\nby the unconscious contagion of example; for it is not given to us to\nchoose the form and method of our obedience. The call of conscience is\nto action; God cannot be acceptably served in inglorious ease. The\ncommand comes in many forms: \"Work while it is day; the night cometh\nwhen no man can work,\" cries one voice; and then another, \"Whatsoever\nthy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might;\" and again a third,\n\"The fields are white unto harvest, but the labourers are few.\" But God\nHimself provides a diversity of work for His own purposes, and at the\nsame time a variety of example for us, when He chooses some lives, and\nlaying upon them, what seems to be a heavy burthen of sickness and\ninfirmity, or filling them with a great modesty and retiringness of\nspirit, or shutting them up within very narrow and insurmountable\nbarriers of circumstance, says to them, in a voice which it is\nimpossible to misinterpret, \"Serve Me in darkness and in silence; and\nlet it be enough that I accept the faithfulness which is unknown of\nmen.\" Sometimes a command like this finds a ready echo in a timid and\nsensitive spirit, to which it is a deliverance not to be compelled by\nconscience to go down into the throng of life; quite as often it lies,\nat least for awhile, like a galling fetter upon the active mind and the\neager will. But God tempers His weapons in His own way, and all to the\nbest effect; and presently the busiest and most versatile intellect\nfinds new depths and fresh possibilities of interest in the things that\nlie closest at home; the widest and the warmest heart learns that\nfaltering feet and feeble hands cannot restrain love's farthest and\nhighest flight; and as for God, with all that is involved in the soul's\nupward strain towards communion, and His descent of help, He may easily\nbe nearer to the silence of an enforced quietness, than to the noise and\npress of men's common life. And so it often happens that, under\ncircumstances like these, a character is built up which, if it\nnecessarily shine upon but a few lives, shines for them with a\nbrightness all the purer and more intense. Such virtue is not the beacon\nflame upon the hill-top, wakening half the land to heroic courage and\nstern endurance, but the quiet lamp which giveth light to all that are\nin the house, for sweet patience, and fine courtesy, and the practice of\nall homely goodness.\n\nSuch a life, withdrawn as it is from common temptations, is not without\ntrials and difficulties peculiarly its own; but of these it is not\nneedful now to speak. It is more to my purpose to point out that it is\nsusceptible of a singular symmetry and completeness. The very narrowness\nwhich has been imposed upon it by God, and which we are so ready to\nregard as a privation, is only in another shape the restriction upon the\nindefiniteness of duty which many dutiful souls so passionately desire.\nFor the claims upon an energetic nature are so many, so various, often\nso conflicting; it is so hard to know which of two competing duties\nought to take precedence, so impossible to adjust effort at precisely\nits right intensity, and to hit the mean between base self-saving and\nfoolish self-squandering,--that I think it must be a common wish for\nkeen consciences to have the boundaries of industry a little more\nplainly marked out by God, and to be relieved from the perpetual\nperplexity of choice. If only one had but a fixed and limited place to\nfill! If only one could always clearly distinguish between what one\nought to do, and what it would be wrong and foolish to attempt! And\ntherefore, in this sense, God's prison may be the soul's liberty, and no\nround of duty so cheerfully and completely trodden as one which we, who\nare burthened with too large a capacity of flight, think sadly and\nhopelessly circumscribed. Then, so God has willed it, Quietness and Pain\nare sister angels, that have a singular privilege of access to Him; and\nthe soul to which they minister, through the weary hours of the day and\nin the long watches of the night, may frequently mount upon their\nfriendly wings into the sanctuary of His Presence, bringing with it,\nupon its return earthward, one knows not what glow caught from the\ninfinite and eternal Brightness. The difficulties of a busy life are apt\nto throw mind and heart back upon themselves; the necessities of a quiet\nlife have in them this fine quality, that they directly lead mind and\nheart to God. So ripen, slowly as the seasons pass and the years come\nand go, that sweetness and roundness of character which we call\nsaintliness; and as we come in from our worldly work and struggle, with\nits soil still clinging to us, and the joy of achievement always dashed\nwith the recollection of failure, we wonder at a goodness in which we\ncan hardly detect a flaw, and upon which already rests a foregleam of\nthe presence of God.\n\nFor one secret source of the influence which such a life may exercise,\nundoubtedly lies in its contrast to men's common and more active\nexistence. I have just indicated one element of that contrast; the\ncompleteness with which a comparatively narrow place may be filled, over\nagainst the want of balance, and symmetry, and thoroughness, of which\nall day-workers in the world must be conscious. But this is not all.\nThere is a great charm in the difference between the heated air in which\nwe fight our battles even for goodness, and the still atmosphere which\nenvirons these quiet lives: we come back to them from the struggle, and\nfind that while they too are full of all fine aspiration for right, and\nthrill with a divine indignation against wrong, their aspiration is\nwithout restlessness, their indignation has no root of bitterness in it;\nthey are not unduly elated by successes which have turned our heads, nor\ndaunted by failures which have utterly cast us down; their faith is, as\nours should be, far more in God than in any of His human instruments.\nTheir characteristic excellences answer in many respects to our\nweaknesses, and we admire and love them all the more: we cannot wait,\nand their existence is one long patience: the noise and the light of\npublicity are our life, and God has hidden them in His pavilion from the\nstrife of tongues: we argue, and wrangle, and fight, while they but love\nand pray: health and energy are the very conditions of our activity, and\ntheir life is rooted in weakness and in pain: we converse continually\nwith men, and it is a familiar thing with them to be alone with God. And\nso it often happens that the chamber of long and disabling sickness, or\nthe sofa from which the invalid rarely moves, is the fountain of the\nfinest influence, and the centre of the noblest activities. For there\nthe charities of life may be all astir, and the quick affections thence\nmake their far journeys of sympathy; thither may come the workers, now\nfor the refreshment of peace, now for the balm of consolation, now,\nagain, for the inspiration of a purer dutifulness; while over all\nconstantly broods the presence of God, who gives and who denies the\npower of active service; who bids this child toil and struggle, while\nfrom that He asks only that she should \"stand and wait.\" So in the\nweakness of one many are made strong; and the activities of earth are\nbathed and freshened in the airs of heaven.\n\nSuch lives are rarely counted happy; the world pities, while it admires\nthem; and there is often a note of commiseration even upon the lips of\nthose who know them best. I cannot think that it ought to be so; that it\nis so, arises from the fact, that when we speak of happiness, we use the\nword in some shallow and conventional sense which does not answer to our\nbest and deepest knowledge. For although one who lives so narrowed a\nlife as I have described, and, like a caged lark, praises God in clear\nstrains and out of a full heart, might well desire, were such a thing\nyet possible, a restored activity and an enlarged power of service, it\nwould almost always be for others' sake rather than her own; not that\nshe might multiply occasions of pleasure, but that she might extend the\nministry of love. The truth is, that such an one has penetrated far more\ndeeply than most into the true secret of human happiness; learning that,\nso far as external things go, it stands much more in the limitation than\nin the satisfaction of desire; and that for the things within, to lie\nclose to God, and to be able to do and bear all His will with a complete\nand ready assent, is the single sufficient source of a Peace which the\nworld can neither give nor take away. And then there is a grace of\ncharacter which is one of the rarest gifts of healthy, active life; but\nwhich, wherever it shews itself, is almost always a plant of God's own\nrearing and tending,--I mean a willingness to live or die, as He\npleases; and a genuine conviction, that whatever He pleases in this\nrespect is wisest, kindest, best. How little do we feel this, my\nbrethren, we who come here for an hour's repose from the world's\nturmoil! Our life's work, we think, is half undone; our best hopes have\nnot yet reached fruition; our vital capacity is still unexhausted; a\nthousand interests claim us. If God called us now, we should obey the\ncall with sorrowful reluctance, and innumerable backward glances to the\nwork and love in which our hearts are centred. Not so with those who\nhave long dwelt in the silence and the seclusion which lie between life\nand death. It is the counterpoise of their suffering and the reward of\ntheir patience, that to them there is no terror, but a great\ndeliverance, in God's last message. It opens the door of the\nprison-house, and sets the captive free. It is the summons to exchange\npain for peace, and enforced quietness for the vigour and the joy of\nservice. The God who has straitened them so long is He who now sets\ntheir lives in a large place; and from the twilight of faith they pass\ninto the noon of sight. Amen.","title":"Beside the Still Waters: A Sermon","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":3440}