{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34706/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34706","id":"gutenberg_34706","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34706","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity"],"text":"BY THE RT. REV. CHARLES H. BRENT, D.D.\n\n\n     ADVENTURE FOR GOD. _Crown 8vo._\n\n     THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE CROSS. _Small 12mo._\n\n     LEADERSHIP. _Crown 8vo._\n\n     LIBERTY AND OTHER SERMONS. _Crown 8vo._\n\n     THE MIND OF CHRIST JESUS ON THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD.\n     _Small 8vo._\n\n     PRESENCE. _Small 12mo._\n\n     THE SPLENDOR OF THE HUMAN BODY. _Small 12mo._\n\n     WITH GOD IN THE WORLD. _Small 12mo._\n\n     THE REVELATION OF DISCOVERY. _Crown 8vo._\n\n     PRISONERS OF HOPE. _Crown 8vo._\n\n     THE INSPIRATION OF RESPONSIBILITY, AND OTHER PAPERS. _Crown\n     8vo._\n\n     A MASTER BUILDER: BEING THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF BISHOP\n     SATTERLEE. _8vo._\n\n     THE MOUNT OF VISION. _Crown 8vo._\n\nLONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nWITH GOD IN THE WORLD\n\nA Series of Papers\n\nBY\n\nCHARLES H. BRENT, D.D.\n\n_BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK_\n\nNEW IMPRESSION\n\nLONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.\n39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON\nFOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK\nBOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS\n1919\n\n\n_Copyright, 1899, by Longmans, Green, & Co._\n\nFIRST EDITION, AUGUST, 1899\nREPRINTED JANUARY, 1900, JANUARY, 1902\nOCTOBER, 1905, FEBRUARY, 1908\nAUGUST, 1910, FEBRUARY, 1912\nOCTOBER, 1912, NOVEMBER, 1912\nJANUARY, 1914\nFEBRUARY, 1916\nJANUARY, 1919\n\n\nTO MY FRIENDS\nJOHN W. WOOD, SILAS MCBEE\nAND\nJAMES L. HOUGHTELING\n\n\n\n\nPreface\n\n\n_Charles Darwin says somewhere that \"the only object in writing a book\nis a proof of earnestness.\" Whether it is the only object, may be a\nquestion; it is certainly one object. And the poorest book that ever\nwent to press, merits respect, provided that its writer is sincere and\nspeaks from conviction. It is this and the sense that \"thought is not\nour own until we impart it\" to others, that has encouraged me to write\nthese pages--originally a series of papers prepared for the_ Saint\nAndrew's Cross, _the organ of a Society for which I am glad to profess\npublicly a deep admiration and affection. Often, more frequently far\nthan is noted, I have borrowed the thought and language of others to\nexpress my own mind. I send out this little volume with the hope that,\nbefore it meets with the fate of the ephemeral literature to which it\nbelongs, it may help a few here and there to take up life's journey with\nsteadier steps and cheerier mien._\n\n_C. H. B._\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n_CHAPTERS_\n\nI. THE UNIVERSAL ART                                _Page_ 1\n\nII. FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD--LOOKING                           9\n\nIII. FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD--SPEAKING                        20\n\nIV. FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD--THE RESPONSE                     29\n\nV. THE TESTING OF FRIENDSHIP                              40\n\nVI. KNITTING BROKEN FRIENDSHIP                            52\n\nVII. FRIENDSHIP IN GOD                                    61\n\nVIII. FRIENDSHIP IN GOD--CONTINUED                        71\n\nIX. THE CHURCH IN PRAYER                                  84\n\nX. THE GREAT ACT OF WORSHIP                               97\n\nXI. WITNESSES UNTO THE UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH       111\n\nXII. THE INSPIRATION OF RESPONSIBILITY                   123\n\nAPPENDIX--WHERE GOD DWELLS                               135\n\n\n\n\nChapter I\n\n_The Universal Art_\n\n\nIt is productive of much mischief to try to make people believe that the\nlife of prayer is easy. In reality there is nothing quite so difficult\nas strong prayer, nothing so worthy of the attention and the exercise of\nall the fine parts of a great manhood. On the other hand there is no man\nwho is not equal to the task. So splendid has this human nature of ours\nbecome through the Incarnation that it can bear any strain and meet any\ndemand that God sees fit to put upon it. Some duties are individual and\nspecial, and there is exemption from them for the many, but there is\nnever any absolution from a duty for which a man has a capacity. There\nis one universal society, the Church, for which all are eligible and\nwith which all are bound to unite; there is one universal book, the\nBible, which all can understand and which it is the duty of all to read;\nthere is one universal art, prayer, in which all may become well skilled\nand to the acquirement of which all must bend their energies.\n\nActive or dormant, the instinct of prayer abides, a faithful tenant, in\nevery soul. The peasants who went to the Incarnate One and said \"Lord,\nteach us to pray,\" were representative of a whole race, a race which\nfeels stirring within its breast a capacity for prayer, but whose power\nto pray falls far short of the desire. The instinct to pray may be\nundeveloped, or paralyzed by violence, or it may lie bed-ridden in the\nsoul through long neglect; but even so, no benumbed faculty is more\nreadily roused to life and nerved to action than that of prayer. The\nfaculty is there; no one is without it. Whether it expands, and how, is\nonly a question of the will of the person concerned.\n\nIt is good to be quite honest and frank. Is it not so that the real\nthing that makes men dumb towards God is, in the first instance, at any\nrate, not intellectual doubt about the efficacy of prayer but the\ndifficulty of it all--the rebellion of the flesh, the strain upon the\nattention, the claim upon the time? Are not the common stumbling-blocks\nin the way of prayer incidental rather than essential? Do men give up\nprayer because they are conscientiously convinced that they would do\nviolence to their noble nature if they were to persist in its exercise?\nNothing can release a man from the duty of praying but the profound\nconviction that it would be a sin for him to continue to pray. And it\nmight be safely added that any one thus momentarily caught in the toils\nof pure reason, any one endowed with such a delicate conscience as would\nlead to this, must eventually turn again with joy to the neglected task.\nEven the great agnostic scientist, Tyndall, who, of course, had a very\nlimited view of what prayer was capable of accomplishing, and was in a\nposition to perceive only one dim ray of its beauty--its subjective\nrefining influence upon the petitioner--even such an one declares that\n\"prayer in its purer forms hints at disciplines which few of us can\nneglect without moral loss.\"[1]\n\nHow to perfect the talent of prayer--that is the question. Bent upon\nthis errand many wind themselves in the folds of complicated rules or\nbathe themselves in the vapour of fascinating theories, all to no\npurpose. Or, as in the case of most things worth coveting, they cast\naround for some easy way of attainment, only to experience that where\nthey \"looked for crowns to fall,\" they \"find the tug's to come,--that's\nall.\" Simplicity and courage are two virtues indispensable for those who\ncovet to pray well. Especially must they be ready to embrace difficulty\nand court pain--and that through the long stretch of a life-time.\n\n    _Let no man think that sudden in a minute\n      All is accomplished and the work is done;--\n    Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it\n      Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun._\n\nLet it be clearly understood at the outset, then, that though the art of\nprayer is a universal art it is the most difficult of all. But even so\nthis is not an excuse for discouragement or a justification of spiritual\nindolence, for a man's best desires are always the index and measure of\nhis possibilities; and the most difficult duty that a man is capable of\ndoing is the duty that above all he should do.\n\nA moment's reflection must convince us that man cannot teach man to\npray, because of what prayer is. Prayer is man's side of converse with\nGod; it is speech Godward. How passing absurd it would be for a third\nperson to presume to instruct either one of two companions how to hold\nconverse with his friend! Were he to venture the impertinence he would\ndevelop in his pupil the curse of self-consciousness--that is all. We\ncan learn to converse with men only by conversing; we can learn to pray\nto God only by praying. Prayer is a universal art, but there is only one\nTeacher for all, and He never teaches two persons in exactly the same\nway. God's friendships are as diverse as the souls with whom He\ninterchanges confidences. These confidences must come from Himself; none\nelse can impart them. There are certain great truths about prayer which\nmay be formulated to good purpose--fundamental laws governing all\nfellowship with God, laws to which all in common must give heed; but\nbeyond this one may not venture. In the matter of prayer as in all else\nGod reserves to Himself the exclusive right of imparting His most\nintimate secrets directly to each separate soul, having a separate\nconfidence for each according to its capacity, temperament, and all\nthose qualities which distinguish every man from every other man.\n\nThough we may have learned the fundamental principles of prayer from\ndevout friends and teachers, whatever we really know of prayer we have\nlearned by praying. Even the mother, at whose knee the earliest phrases\nof prayer were lisped out, at the best only led us gently into the\npresence of God. It is not too much to say that the Church herself\ncannot do more than put the soul very near God and leave it there,\ntrusting that something will come of it. The rest must proceed in direct\ncourse from the lips of the Most High Himself. So delicate and subtle is\nthe correspondence between the soul and God, so \"intensely personal\" a\nthing is prayer[2] that we are often seriously hindered rather than\nhelped by the blundering but well-intended efforts of those who would\nguide us to better devotion. Even to put a manual of private prayers\ninto the hands of some persons who have not been accustomed to reach God\nthrough a book might be sufficient to mar the spontaneity of their\napproach to Him and check the intimate relations with Him which have\nhitherto always obtained. Because it suits one person's temperament to\ncall in the aid of a manual it by no means follows that every one else\nshould be presented with a copy of the book. Indeed happy are those\nsouls who have always been able to speak with a reverent yet free\nfamiliarity with God, having nothing to aid save the vision of His face;\nand the final aim of every good manual is to emancipate the soul into\nthe joyousness of a spontaneity which is wholly devoid of blighting\nself-consciousness.\n\nIt ought to be further added that every one who regularly uses set forms\nof prayer should habitually incorporate into his devotions at least some\nwords of his own which, however poor and few, yet are fresh and new from\nhis heart. Of course what has been said about forms of prayer applies\nexclusively to private devotions. When the great corporate life of the\nChurch speaks in worship it must be with one clear voice unmixed with\nthe idiosyncrasies of the individual and summing up the aspirations of\nthe best. But of this later.\n\nThe world just now is sadly in need of better service, but before this\ncan be rendered there must be better prayer. A low standard of prayer\nmeans a low standard of character and a low standard of service. Those\nalone labour effectively among men who impetuously fling themselves\nupward towards God. In view of this it is a comfort to feel that no\nearnest man, whatever be the stage of his spiritual development, can be\nsatisfied with his present attainments in his life of prayer.\nFortunately for us, here as well as in other departments of life the\nideal is always pressing itself upon our notice and making the actual\nblush with shame for what it is. And it is just because this is so that\nthere is hope of better things. The ideal beckons as well as condemns.\nWhat if long steeps of toil, strewn with the stones of difficulty, lie\nin between! God's home is far up on the hills, and nowhere is He so\neasily found as in a difficulty. As has been said, prayer is quite the\nmost difficult task a man can undertake; but it has this gracious\ncompensation that in no other duty does God lend such direct,\nface-to-face help. Man may speak wise words about prayer; the Church may\nbid to prayer; but God alone can unfold to souls the delicate secrets of\nprayer. The best help is for the hardest duty--the help that comes\nstraight from the Lord.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _On Prayer as a form of Physical Energy._\n\n[2] _Maturin._\n\n\n\n\nChapter II\n\n_Friendship with God--Looking_\n\n\nYes, prayer is speech Godward, and worship is man's whole life of\nfriendship with God, flowing out, as it were, of all that tide of\nemotion and service which is love's best speech. It is by thinking,\nthen, of the nature of fellowship between man and man, which is the most\nbeautiful thing in the world excepting only fellowship with God, that we\ncan get substantial help in developing the life of prayer. Consider the\nChristian fellowship of two noble characters. It is \"the greatest love\nand the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the\nnoblest sufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the severest\ntruth and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of\nminds,\"--Jeremy Taylor stops here only because he has exhausted his\nstock of sublime phrases--\"of which brave men and women are capable.\"[3]\n\nFriendship is a full, steady stream, not intermittent or spasmodic. It\nis not something which lasts only when each looks into the other's eyes;\nfor \"distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it.\"\nIt moves and expands the life even when the mind is busied with matters\nprosaic and vexatious, even when there is no inward contemplation of the\nfeatures or character of the absent friend. And yet, although friendship\ndoes not consist in face-to-face communication one with another, it is\nin this that it takes its rise, it is by this that it is fed. Fellowship\nis not the same as friendship, but there can be no friendship without\nfellowship. That is to say, there must be certain definite, formal acts,\nacts not made once for all, but repeated as often as opportunity is\ngiven; such form the cradle and nursery of friendship. In themselves\nthey are not much--a grasp of the hand, a smile, a simple gift, a\nconventional salutation, a familiar talk about familiar things--but they\nintroduce soul to soul, and through them each gives to the other his\ndeepest self.\n\nFriendship between man and man is no vague, intangible thing whose only\nreality is its name. Much less can one think thus of friendship with\nGod. Friendship with God is the friendship of friendships. While it\nlives on strong and true even when we are not in conscious fellowship\nwith Him, moments of conscious realization and contemplation of His\nperson, character and presence are as essential to friendship with Him\nas food is necessary for the sustenance of life. There must be times of\nprayer and occasions of definite, formal approach to Him, the more the\nbetter, provided they be healthy and free. It is not an arbitrary\nenactment that declares morning, noonday and evening to be the moments\nof time when the soul of man should with peculiar intensity lift up its\ngaze unto the hills.[4] One recognizes immediately the inherent fitness\nof having conscious fellowship with God at the opening, in the middle\nand at the close of day. In the morning,--because man's powers are then\nreplete with life, his will nerved to act, his eye clear to see; never\nis he so well able to gain a vision of God, whether in the solitude of\nhis room or in the quiet of the Church at an early Eucharist, as in the\nfirst hours of a new day. At noon,--because the soul like the body needs\na mid-day rest; the dust of activity and the distractions of business\nwill have dimmed the morning vision before the day is full gone, and it\nis good to refresh the nature by again, if it be only for a brief\nmoment, looking straight up into the face of the Most High. At\nnight,--for the evening shadows find God's servant with soiled soul and\ndrooping aspirations in sore need of that cleansing and cheer which the\nsight of God imparts.\n\nAnd the life of prayer works in a circle. The devotions of the morning\ngive tone to those which come at noon and night, while the night prayers\nin turn determine the quality of the morrow's. Men usually wake in the\ntemper of mind in which they went to sleep. It is all-important to gain\na clear vision of God as the last conscious act before going to rest.\nThe founder of French socialism was awakened every morning by a valet\nwho said: \"Remember, Monsieur le Comte, that you have great things to\ndo.\" But it is not men who aspire only or chiefly in the morning that\nachieve great things, but rather those who aspire at night. What is of\nnature in the morning is of grace at night. The vision that comes easily\nat the beginning of the unused stretch of a new day is harder to see\nwhen disappointment and failure have clouded the eye of hope; but it\nmeans more. The men who attain the highlands of the spiritual life never\n\"sleep with the wings of aspiration furled.\"\n\nOf course God is always with us, always looking at us with searching\nyet loving scrutiny. It would be impossible for us to be more completely\nin His presence than we are; for in Him \"we live, and move, and have our\nbeing.\" But for the most part our lives are spent without much conscious\nrecognition of the fact. He will be no more present at the last day when\nwe stand before His throne than He is now. The only difference will be\nthat then we shall see Him as He sees us; we shall be so wholly absorbed\nby that consciousness that there will be room for no other consideration\nas, God grant, there will be no other desire. But before that moment\ncomes men must practise looking into His face by faith so that it will\nnot be unfamiliar as the face of a stranger when the last veil is swept\naside.\n\nAmong men contemplation of another's personality is the requisite\npreliminary of fellowship with him. Fellowship can begin only when there\nis a mutual recognition each of his fellow's presence. Personality is\nthe most powerful magnet the world knows; and the finer the personality\nthe more readily will all one's best impulses be set in motion and\nattracted to it. How vain then is it to attempt to speak to God before\nthe consciousness of His living, loving presence has caught the\nattention and absorbed the mind--or at any rate until we have done our\nbest to see Him, attentive, sympathetic, with His gaze fixed upon us.\nPower to pray is proportionate to the vividness of our consciousness of\nHis presence and personality. When a man is talking to a companion his\nmind is occupied with the sense of the presence of an attentive,\nsympathetic personality rather than with the thought of the precise\nwords he is going to use. His fellow acts as a magnet to extract his\nthoughts. An orator makes his finest appeal when he is least conscious\nof himself and most conscious of his audience. Just so then is it with\nspeech Godward. The moment a man is assured that God's personality is\npresent and that His ear is opened earthward, speech heavenward is a\npower and a joy, and only then. Many make prayer a fine intellectual\nexercise or a training school for the attention--this and nothing more.\nThey strain their utmost, and doubtless they succeed well, to understand\neach sentence uttered and to speak it intelligently. Their minds are on\nwhat they are saying rather than on the Person to Whom they are saying\nit. They reap about the same benefit as they would if they recited\nattentively a scene from Shakespeare.\n\n\"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.\" The vision of God unseals\nthe lips of man. Herein lies strength for conflict with the common enemy\nof the praying world known as wandering thoughts. Personality will\nenchain attention when the most interesting intellectual, moral and\nspiritual concerns will fail to attract. If the eye is fixed on God\nthought may roam where it will without irreverence, for every thought is\nthen converted into a prayer. Some have found it a useful thing when\ntheir minds have wandered off from devotion and been snared by some good\nbut irrelevant consideration, not to cast away the offending thought as\nthe eyes are again lifted to the Divine Face, but to take it captive,\ncarry it into the presence of God and weave it into a prayer before\nputting it aside and resuming the original topic. This is to lead\ncaptivity captive.\n\nIt is hard for those to see God's face who confine their contemplation\nof spiritual things to moments of formal devotion, who, while occupied\nwith material things, do not explore what is beneath and beyond the\nvisible, who do not strive to discern the moral and religious aspect of\nevery phase of life. On the other hand the vision of God becomes\nincreasingly clear to such as look not at the things which are seen but\nat the things which are not seen. These may be exceedingly practical\npeople, people ever active in the commonplace duties of life, but their\nwont is to cast everything into the upward sweep of the Ascension of\nJesus and everything is seen by them with the glow of heaven upon it. Of\ncourse they pray well.\n\nAfter all \"the sin of inattention\" does not begin at the time of formal\napproach to God. It only makes itself peculiarly manifest then. If a\nperson lives listlessly and does not put his full force into the\nordinary duties of his life where the aids to attention are plenty, how\ncan he expect to command his mind at those times when it is called upon\nto make a supreme act of attentiveness and see Him Who is invisible? A\ngood man of our day[5] said of himself: \"My greatest help in life has\nbeen the blessed habit of intensity. I go at what I am about as if there\nwas nothing else in the world for the time being.\"\n\nHere then are two obvious, simple and rational principles upon obedience\nto which hinges the ability to make one's own the growing vision of\nGod--the habit of spiritualizing the commonplace and the habit of\nattention in work. Whoever equips himself with them has made the best\npossible preparation for approach to God. It is an indirect way of\ngetting at things, it is true; but often the method that is most\nindirect is the most direct. It is certainly so in this case.\n\nOf course in considering the subject of God's Being one cannot wholly\navoid the difficult question of personality. It would be aside from our\npurpose, however, to discuss the matter philosophically. For all\npractical purposes there is ample and secure footing near at hand. When\nby faith we look toward God, it is not toward an immovable but beautiful\nstatue we turn, not to an abstract quality or a tendency that makes for\nrighteousness, but to One Who looks with responsive gaze, Who notes our\ndesires, Who heeds our words, Who lives, Who loves, Who acts. It is a\nhorrible and deadening travesty of the truth to conceive of God as a\ngreat, impassive Being, seated on a throne of majesty, drinking in all\nthe life and worship that flow from the service of His myriad creatures,\nHimself receiving all and giving none. Though probably no one believes\nthis as a matter of theory, when men look for God in the practice of\nprayer too often it is such a God they find. And many can say with\nAugustine as they review moments of fruitless devotional effort in the\npast: \"My error was my God.\"[6] The truth is that though a great tide\nof energy moves ceaselessly toward God, it is but the shadow of what\ncomes from Him. Indeed He is the Source of the life which flows inward\ntoward Him as much as of that which flows outward from Him. He is\nundying energy, with unerring purpose, moving swiftly and noiselessly\namong men, striving to burn eternal life into their lame, stained,\nmeagre souls. He is the Father that goes out to meet the returning\nprofligate, the Shepherd that follows the track of the wandering sheep.\nMan has never yet had to wait for Him. He has always been as close to\nman as man would let Him come. His hands have never ceased to beat upon\nthe bars of man's self-will to force an entrance into starved human\nnature. All this must be in man's conception of God as he approaches\nHim.\n\nWhat above all gives to God that which enables man to see Him is the\nIncarnation. In the Godhead is a familiar figure--the figure of Man. It\nwas this that absorbed the attention of the dying Stephen. The Son of\nMan standing on God's right hand, was the vision that enthralled him as\nthe stones battered out his life. And it is this same vision that makes\nthe unseen world a reality to men now. Humanity is there at its centre,\nthe pledge of sympathy, the promise of victory. Not by a flight of\nimagination but by the exercise of insight we can look and see the\nsympathetic face of the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God; and with\nthe sight fellowship with God becomes possible, the string of the tongue\nis loosed and we are ready to pray.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] _Works: Vol. i. 72._\n\n[4] _Ps. lv_: 17.\n\n[5] _Charles Kingsley._\n\n[6] _For thou wert not thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my\nGod. Confessions, Bk. iv. 7._\n\n\n\n\nChapter III\n\n_Friendship with God--Speaking_\n\n\nQuite a sufficient guide as to how God should be addressed is afforded\nby the Lord's Prayer. It was given by the Master in response to the\nearnest request of His disciples for instruction in prayer. Brief,\ncompact and complete, it is as it were the Christian seed-prayer. Once\nlet it be planted in the heart of a Church or the soul of a child of God\nand it will grow into the glowing devotion of wondrous collects and rich\nliturgies. Indeed there is no Christian prayer worth anything which does\nnot owe its whole merit to the Lord's Prayer; and the noblest liturgy of\nthe Church is but the expansion and application of the same. Hence it is\nthe touchstone of all prayer. By it the Christian's mode of address to\nGod is finally approved or condemned.\n\nHow important is it, then, that a man should know the Lord's\nPrayer!--know it, not merely as a formula, but as the embodiment of the\nvital principles of converse with God. The process of yore must be\nrepeated by the disciples of to-day. Like their predecessors of Galilee\nthey must approach the unchangeable One and prefer the old entreaty:\n\"Lord, teach us to pray.\" Nothing short of this will suffice. Then if\nthey listen they will receive the familiar measures of the \"Our Father\"\nas a new and personal gift fresh and living from the lips of Jesus. It\nis good sometimes to \"wait still upon God\" between the sentences, and\nlet the Holy Spirit apply each several petition to one's own special\ncase and to all those interests which concern one's life--in sooth,\ntranslate it into the terms of our own day and generation. It is thus\nthat the compressed richness of the Lord's Prayer is unfolded.\n\nThe Lord's Prayer is one of those most precious of things known as\ncommon property. But a common possession to be worth anything to anybody\nmust be related by every one of the multitude who claim a share in it,\neach to his own personality. Before common property can fully justify\nits claim to be common, it must become in a sense private by a process\nof implicit appropriation on the part of the individuals concerned. So\nwhile the Lord's Prayer ideally belongs to every child of God as the\ncommon heritage of prayer, it actually belongs only to those who have\nrecognized and used it as a personal, though not exclusive, gift from\nits Author.\n\nNot the least important characteristic of the Lord's Prayer is its\nsimplicity in thought and expression. Surely it is not without\nsignificance that as it stands in the English tongue it is the purest\npiece of Saxon in literature, a monument of clearness and simplicity.\nGod neither speaks or desires to be spoken to in grandiloquent language\nwhich belongs to the courts of earthly kings. The difficulty that so\nmany persons find in praying without the aid of some form of devotion is\nlargely due to the impression that the language needed for address to\nGod is not such as an ordinary mortal can frame. There are four leading\nprinciples, the first of which contradicts this misconception, that\nstand out in bold prominence in the Lord's Prayer, and tell us what all\nspeech Godward should be.\n\nSec. 1. _Prayer must be familiar yet reverent._ We are taught to address\nGod as our Father. What a host of intimate confidences this single word\ncalls up! There is no familiarity so close as that between child and\nfather, no sympathy so sensitive. When Scripture declares that Enoch\nwalked with God, whatever else it means beyond, it means at least that\nEnoch was able to hold familiar converse with God in prayer. Those who\nknew him could find no better way of describing his relationship with\nGod than by drawing the picture of the familiar companionship of two\nintimate friends. Or again, when Abraham is termed the friend of God it\nimplies, as well as much beside, that he knew how to speak familiarly\nyet acceptably to God. All this was long ago, before man's full relation\nto God was made known. The coming of the Son of God as the Son of Man\nmakes what was really deep seem shallow, so mighty was the change that\nwas wrought. It is not merely as an ordinary friend that the Christian\nmay speak to God, but as a son. Filial relations are the highest type of\nfriendship.\n\nBut familiarity must be chastened by reverence, a quality strangely\nlacking in our national character. It would seem as though in the\nboldness of our search for independence reverence had been largely\nforfeited. The Father addressed is in heaven. That is He is where\nholiness prevails to the utter exclusion of sin. So while we may tell\nout the whole mind it must be done with regard for the moral character\nof God and His eternal and infinite attributes; with the familiarity,\nnot of equals, but of lowly souls addressing sympathetic greatness and\nholiness. To dwell exclusively on either one of these two\nconsiderations, God's Fatherhood or His infinite character, will result,\non the one hand, in familiarity without reverence; or, on the other, in\nreverence without familiarity. Familiarity without the discipline of\nreverence is desecrating impertinence, and reverence without the warmth\nof familiarity is chilling formalism.\n\nSec. 2. _Prayer should be comprehensive yet definite._ In the Lord's Prayer\neach petition gathers into its grasp whole groups of desires, and all\nthe petitions taken together give shelter under their hospitable shadow\nto every need and every aspiration that belong to human life. Great\ngifts are asked for--\"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it\nis in heaven.\" In such requests we even claim things _for_ God as well\nas _from_ Him. The dignity of each several petition is marked. We are\ntaught to expect royal gifts from our royal Father, gifts worthy of\nmembers of that royal family, the children of the Incarnation. The\neffect of the persistent use of these comprehensive petitions has\nfiltered right through human experience and taught man to expect great\nthings in all departments of life, in science, in invention, in\nliterature. Man's best desires have become a true measure of his\npossibilities.\n\nThe prayer that is shaped after the great model must not be timid or\nfaltering, but bold and aspiring. It is a great mistake for one to be\nsatisfied with praying for, say, purity instead of \"Thy will be done on\nearth as it is in heaven.\" That is to ask for the crumb from the rich\nman's table when the rich man is beseeching you to sit by his side and\nshare all that he has. Let us pray for purity by all means, though not\nas if it were a flower that grew in a bed all by itself. We can get one\nChristian grace only by aiming at all.\n\nNo less marked than the comprehension is the definiteness of the\npetitions of the Lord's Prayer. Each is as clear cut as a crystal. There\nis no mistaking its meaning. Like the articles of the Creed they are all\ntoo simple to be vague, and they carry their meaning on their face. It\nis a common fault in prayer to be content with a certain comprehension\nthat abjures definiteness. If the latter without the former can at the\nbest make a character of but small stature, the former without the\nlatter can make no character at all. Take the one matter of penitence.\nThe mere admission of sinfulness, as in the prayer of the publican, is\nbut the first moan of penitence. A riper penitence rises from the vague\nto the definite in declaring the sins, and not only the sinfulness, for\nwhich God's mercy is implored. True comprehension implies detailed\nknowledge and minute accuracy.\n\nSec. 3. _Prayer should be social rather than individual in spirit._ _Our_\nFather; forgive _us_. The \"our\" and the \"us\" warn men never to think of\nthemselves as units, or of religion as a private transaction between God\nand the individual. God regards each as a part _of_, and never apart\n_from_, the whole race, at the same time cherishing each part as though\nit were the whole. Consequently petitions for others ought to keep even\npace with those for ourselves. A moment's reflection shows how true\nphilosophically the social form of prayer is. So closely is the web of\nhuman life woven that what touches one touches two at least, unless a\nman be a hermit, when he is as good as dead. Even supposing one were to\npray for a spiritual gift for himself alone and receive it, it would at\nonce become the property of others in some measure at any rate. It is an\ninflexible law that the righteousness or the evil, as the case may be,\nwhich dwells in a man, becomes forthwith the righteousness or the evil\nof the society to which he belongs. It is only common sense then to pray\n\"give us\" and \"forgive us\" rather than \"give me\" and \"forgive me.\"\n\nOf course, this does not mean that \"I\" and \"me\" should never occur in\nour private prayers. They must do so. But I am to love my neighbour as\nmyself on my knees as well as in society. My neighbour is my other or\nsecond self to which I owe an equal duty of prayer with myself. To link\n\"their\" or \"his\" with \"mine\" on equal terms is really to say \"our\"; to\nask for others separately what I have already claimed for myself is to\nbe social rather than individual in prayer.\n\nIt would follow, then, that intercessory prayer is not a work of\nextraordinary merit but a necessary element of devotion. It is the\nsimple recognition in worship of the fundamental law of human life that\nno man lives or dies alone. But intercession rises to sublime heights\nwhen it claims the privilege and the power for each child of God to\ngather up in his arms the whole family to which he belongs, and carry it\nwith its multifold needs and its glorious possibilities into the\npresence of the common Father for blessing and protection. It is grand\nto feel that the Christian can lift, by the power of prayer, a myriad as\neasily as one, that he can hold in his grasp the whole Church as firmly\nas a single parish, and can bring down showers of blessing on an entire\nrace as readily as the few drops needed for his own little plot.\n\nSec. 4. _Prayer must maintain proper proportions._ Spiritual needs are\nparamount, material are secondary. Out of seven petitions six bear upon\nthe invisible foundations of life and the remaining one alone is\nconcerned, directly at any rate, with things material. It is further\nremarkable that the latter is as modest as the former are bold. The soul\nneeds the whole of God's eternal Kingdom where the body requires but\nbread for the day. The Lord's Prayer does not teach asceticism, but it\ncertainly condemns luxury, and implies that the physical nature requires\na minimum rather than a maximum of attention and care.\n\nWith the vision of God above and the Christian seed-prayer well planted\nin the soul, man can dare to hope that his speech Godward will not waste\nitself in hollow echoes, but will travel straight up to the throne of\nGrace and bring a speedy answer.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV\n\n_Friendship with God--The Response_\n\n\nProbably the greatest result of the life of prayer is an unconscious but\nsteady growth into the knowledge of the mind of God and into conformity\nwith His will; for after all prayer is not so much the means whereby\nGod's will is bent to man's desires as it is that whereby man's will is\nbent to God's desires. While Jesus readily responded to the requests and\ninquiries of His disciples His great gift to them was Himself, His\npersonality. He called His apostles that they \"should be with Him.\" The\nall-important thing is not to live apart from God, but as far as\npossible to be consciously with Him. It must needs be that those who\nlook much into His face will become like Him. Man reflects in himself\nhis environment, especially if he surrenders himself unreservedly to its\ninfluence. In the case of God, \"in Whom we live and move and have our\nbeing,\" the influence is not passive, but active in impressing its\ncharacter upon us. It is not as the white of the land of snow which\ncoats its animals with its own colour; it is a Person. The complete\nvision of Christ will mean the complete transformation of man--\"We shall\nbe like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.\" If there were no other\nconceivable result from prayer than just this, it would even so be\nwonderful. Certainly that which we treasure most in companionship with\nan earthly friend is not his counsel or service; it is the touch of his\nsoul upon our own; it is the embrace of his whole being that wraps\nitself about our whole being. One may say then that the real end of\nprayer is not so much to get this or that single desire granted, as to\nput human life into full and joyful conformity with the will of God.\n\nThis thought, beautiful and true as it is, would be too intangible and\ntoo great a tax upon faith, unless man had some more or less definite\nand immediate recognition of his heavenward appeals. The Old Testament\nis a standing witness to God's consideration for human limitations and\nweakness. He sometimes gave man less than the best because of the\nlatter's inability to receive the best, though He always gave as much as\ncould be received, until at last He gave His Son. Now it is in this\nsame way that He deals with His children of to-day. At first the lesser\ngifts are sought for and given, but as spiritual life ripens what man\ncraves most for and what God is most eager to grant is that the Father's\nwill may be wholly worked out in His child. Trust so grows that there\ncan be no such thing as disappointment regarding the way God treats our\npetitions.\n\n      _Not Thy gifts I seek, O Lord;\n      Not Thy gifts but Thee.\n    What were all Thy boundless store\n    Without Thyself? What less or more?\n      Not Thy gifts but Thee._\n\nThis frame of mind, however, belongs to the to-morrow of most lives. For\nthe present the lesser gifts are the best we are equal to. And it cannot\nbe too often or too strongly said that God has direct answers to prayer\nfor every soul that appeals to Him. But many fail to recognize the\nanswer when it comes because of inattention. If God is to be heard when\nHe speaks we must give heed. It is no less a duty to \"wait still upon\nGod\" than it is to address Him in prayer. A one-sided conversation is\nnot a conversation at all. Conversation requires an interchange of\nthought. He who is one moment the speaker must the next become the\nlistener, intent upon the words of his companion. The expectation of an\nanswer to prayer is laid down as a condition of there being one.\n\nSec. 1. Oftentimes God's answer is in the shape of an action rather than a\nvoice. When we entreat a friend to do something for us, speedy\ncompliance is a sufficient response to the request. If we are certain of\nthe person addressed no verbal assurance is required. The character of\nour friend is the guarantee that the petition will be heeded. When,\ntherefore, God is petitioned to do, we must look for an action rather\nthan listen for a voice.\n\nThere are some requests the answer to which returns with the speed of a\nflash of light, as, for instance, when we ask God to give us some\nChristian grace or disposition of heart. The giving comes with the\nasking.[7] A man may not be strong enough to retain the gift, but it\nactually becomes his before he rises from his knees. The rationalist\nwill object to this, that such an answer to prayer is nothing more than\nthe subjective effect of a given attitude of mind. Granted; but that\nmakes it none the less the direct work of God. Secondary or scientific\ncauses exhibit to the observer the method by which God fulfils His\npurposes. The stone falls to the ground according to the law of\ngravitation, but God is behind the law controlling it. The\ndistinguishing feature of the Jewish mode of thought was the way in\nwhich it related all things to God's immediate activity. The Old\nTestament is the book of God's immanence. The present attitude of mind\nleads men to rest in all causes short of God, and even to forget the\nneed of a Cause of causes. An earnest student of nature remarked upon\nleaving her microscope: \"I have found a universe worthy of God.\" She at\nleast felt that a revelation of secondary causes was, at the same time,\na new revelation of the God of causes.\n\nIf it could be proved that all answers to prayer came according to the\nworking of natural law, it would not eliminate God from the process, or\nhave any sort of bearing upon the efficacy of prayer. All we know of\nGod's method of work demonstrates His love of law; and it would be no\nsurprise, but rather what we should expect, to find that all the unseen\nstretches of life are equally within the domain of His law and order.[8]\n\nSec. 2. But when occasion requires, the reply to speech Godward comes in\nthe shape of a voice. In one sense God is always speaking; He is never\nstill. Just as in prayer it is not we who momentarily catch His\nattention but He ours, so when we fail to hear His voice it is not\nbecause He is not speaking so much as that we are not listening. We may\nhear sounds, as a language with which we are not conversant, but be\nunable to interpret. Or perhaps we are in the position of one who sits\nin the summer evening when nature is instinct with music,--the chirping\nof insect life, the whispering wind, the good-night call of the\nbirds,--deaf to the many voices, whereas a companion has ears for\nnothing else but what those voices say. The cause of the former's\ndeafness is that his attention is wholly absorbed by other interests. We\nmust recognize that all things are in God and that God is in all things,\nand we must learn to be very attentive, in order to hear God speaking in\nHis ordinary tone without any special accent. Power to do this comes\nslowly and as the result of not separating prayer from the rest of life.\nA man must not stop listening any more than praying when he rises from\nhis knees. No one questions the need of times of formal address to God,\nbut few admit in any practical way the need of quiet waiting upon God,\ngazing into His face, feeling for His hand, listening for His voice. \"I\nwill hearken what the Lord God will say concerning me.\" God has special\nconfidences for each soul. Indeed, it would seem as though the deepest\ntruths came only in moments of profound devotional silence and\ncontemplation.\n\nThe written Word of God has special messages for the individual as well\nas a large general message for the entire Christian body. The devotional\nuse of Holy Scripture is the means by which the soul reaches some of the\nmost precious manifestations of God's will. By devotional use is meant\nsuch a study as has for its ultimate purpose an act of worship, or of\nconscious fellowship with Him. The Bible reveals not merely what God\nwas, but what He is. Finding from its pages how He loved, we know how He\nloves; learning how He dealt with or spoke to men, we perceive how He\ndeals with and speaks to us. But our instruction in things divine must\ncome to us from a Person rather than a book, though _through_ a book\nperhaps. If we approach the Bible as we would approach Bacon or Milton,\nmerely as a collection of the wise thoughts and actions of the dead, it\nwill never sway the life to any large extent. Holy Scripture is\nseparated from all other literature by the fact that it contains\nabsolute spiritual truth and because its Author, as a living Person,\nalways stands behind it. Those who listen will hear the Holy Spirit\nsaying to them, in direct application, the same things that lie on the\nopen pages as the record of what was once said to men of old. Meditation\nor the devotional use of Scripture renders conscience, that organ of the\nsoul by which God's voice is received by man, increasingly sensitive.\nThe Old Testament days were full of men who could say \"Thus saith the\nLord,\" with the same assurance that they could report the speech of a\ncomrade. Doubtless God had many ways of speaking to the prophets, but\nwhatever these ways were and however special and singular, they were\nbased originally on those by means of which He addresses all men in\ncommon. As a result of the Incarnation \"all the Lord's people are\nprophets\" and the Lord has \"put His Spirit upon them;\" and they, too,\nought to be able to say \"Thus saith the Lord.\"\n\nSec. 3. A third way in which God makes His will known to man is by His\nsilences, silences which are always eloquent. As experience has taught\nus, silence can convey a message just as readily as speech sometimes, or\neven more readily. The silence of the Easter tomb was the first voice\nthat told of the Resurrection. The loved disciple read the message of\nthe orderly silence of the place where the Lord had lain; \"he saw and\nbelieved.\" Silence has expression and accent telling of sympathy,\nrebuke, anger, grief, as occasion may require. The silence of Jesus\nbefore the importunate appeal of the woman of Canaan, was full of\nsympathy and encouraged her faith to rise to sublime heights. Whereas\nHis silence before the accusations of His enemies during His trial was\nso eloquent as to establish His innocence even in the eyes of a Pontius\nPilate. And if God is silent now at times when we long for some sign\nfrom Him, it is because by means of silence He can best make known to us\nHis mind. His silence may mean that our request is so foreign to His\nwill, that it may not be heeded without hurt to the petitioner. Or, on\nthe other hand, He may be luring on our faith and inciting it to a more\nambitious flight. Or, again, it may be that His silence is His way of\ntelling us that the answer to our query or petition lies in ourselves.\nGod never tells man what man can find out for himself, as He never does\nwhat man can do for himself. The result of giving a person what he\nshould earn is pauperism. As God will do, nay, can do, only what will\nenrich human nature, it would be a contradiction of Himself to answer\nwhat we can find out for ourselves, or give what we can gain by our own\nefforts. Love lies within God's silences as their explanation.[9] The\nmother refuses to answer her child's questions because the child by a\nlittle observation and thought can itself get at the truth, and truth\nwon by struggle is the only truth that we really possess. If God is\nsilent when we ask for new knowledge of His Person and His love, may it\nnot be that it is because we are substituting books about the Bible for\nan earnest study of the Bible itself, which contains a full answer to\nour prayer? Or if, when day after day we have prayed for the conversion\nof a relative, no response comes, may it not be that we have never put\nourselves at the disposal of God to be the instrument for working out\nwhat is at once our desire and His purpose? At any rate, whatever be the\nexplanation of a silence in this or that special instance, God is never\nsilent excepting when silence speaks more clearly than a voice.\n\nSo the sure response comes to speech Godward in an action, or a voice,\nor a speaking silence. The persevering, faithful, attentive soul will\nnever fail to discern God's answer to prayer, nor be disappointed in the\nquality of that answer when it comes. God is more ready to hear than we\nto pray, and it is His wont to give more than either we desire or\ndeserve.[10]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] _St. Mark xi: 24._\n\n[8] _Cf. Liddon, Advent in St. Paul's, p. 22._\n\n[9] _I suppose that a constant vision of God would be an injury to\nalmost all men,--that there are periods when even utter scepticism is\nthe sign of God's mercy, and the necessary condition of moral\nrestoration.--R. H. Hutton, Theological Essays, p. 7._\n\n[10] _Collect for Twelfth Sunday after Trinity._\n\n\n\n\nChapter V\n\n_The Testing of Friendship_\n\n\nOf course, friendship with God must be tried. Not only can true\nfriendship stand any strain to which it may be put, but it even needs to\nbe thus tested in order to be solidly set. It is like the knot that\nbecomes more fixed and firm at each new pull of the cord. The faith and\naffection which will cling to a friend when all the forces of disunion\nseem combined to bring about a separation, are so tempered by the\nexperience involved as to defy every conceivable enemy, and to discover\nnew depths of love and service in the fellowship that has been thus put\nto the test. To enter upon just why this should be, is not to the\npurpose. It is a fact and law of the life of fellowship between man and\nman, and man and God. The force that threatens to break up the\nconnection between God and man, but by means of which that union may be\nconsummated, is temptation.\n\nSec. 1. _Temptation is always an opportunity._--There are two kinds of\ntesting--that which proves a thing to discover whether it is what it\nprofesses to be, and that which aims to bring out latent possibilities\nin the thing tested. With the former there goes a sort of lurking\nsuspicion that all may not be right, as when a bit of metal is tried by\nacid, or a big gun is proved by an excessive charge. When a test of this\nkind is over the thing that is tried is just what it was before, neither\nmore nor less. No new quality is in the gift of the test. With the\nlatter, on the other hand, the result is different, as when the silver\n\"from the earth is tried, and purified seven times in the fire.\" The\nquartz goes into the furnace and a stream of unalloyed metal flows out;\nor to seek still another illustration,--the process by which steel is\ntempered. Here new qualities are given by means of the testing; to the\nsilver, purity, and to the steel, hardness and elasticity. To this\nsecond form of testing belongs the element of trust rather than that of\nsuspicion. The material is so good, that the workman has no doubt about\nits coming through the fire purer and more valuable than ever.\n\nIt is this kind of testing which the friends of God must undergo, the\nkind of testing which affords friends the very opportunity they need to\nbecome better friends. It is not too much to say that man being what he\nis, there is no conceivable means excepting temptation, which would give\nto him just those elements which are necessary for his progress toward\nGod. Jesus was \"in all points tempted like as we are,\" primarily that\nHis manhood might reach its full measure, and this entailed such\nsympathy with the race as ensues upon a common experience. Atonement\nmeans a unity with God which has been achieved, not by a divine fiat,\nbut by a choice of the human will that has repelled the last attack of\nGod's greatest enemy.\n\nIt is always so that in scanning the harsh features of a refining\nprocess, the happy result of the process is blurred and forgotten.\nTemptation is surely an assault to be withstood, but at the same time it\nis an opportunity to be seized. Viewed in this light life becomes\ninspiring, not in spite but because of its struggles, and we are able to\ngreet the unseen with a cheer, counting it unmixed joy when we fall into\nthe many temptations which, varied in form, dog our steps from the\ncradle to the grave. The soldier who is called to the front is\nstimulated, not depressed; the officer who is bidden by his general to a\npost of great responsibility, and so of hardship and peril, is thrilled\nwith the joy of his task. An opportunity has been given him to prove\nhimself worthy of great trust, which can be done only at the cost of\ngreat trouble.\n\nThis is a true picture of temptation. And the result of it all is a\nnature invigorated and refined, a character made capable of close\nfriendship with God, to say nothing of the unmeasured joy that is the\nattendant of nobility of soul and stalwart Christian manhood.\n\nSec. 2. _The majesty of conflict with temptation._--One is often depressed\nby the seemingly inglorious character of our temptations. They are so\nmean, petty and commonplace. If they had in them something to rouse in\nthe heart that love of romance, that is a saving element in human\nnature, one could fight better. Now temptation has this very element.\nBut spiritual eyes are needed to discern the glory of the commonplace,\nthe romance of the inglorious. God has been trying with divine patience\nto convince men of this from the very beginning. The story of the first\ntemptation of the first human beings, in its poetic dress points to the\nromance of life's struggle. Jacob's wrestling bout with the mysterious\nbeing by the river's brink, is a view of the underside of any struggle\nagainst temptation, as God sees it, when the tempted one fights to win.\n\nAbove all in the narrative of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness,\nis the majesty of conflict with evil made plain. It is a record which\nexceeds in dramatic splendour the story of \"Faust,\" or the realism of\n\"Pilgrim's Progress.\" And in it we arrive at the paradoxical truth that\nthe temptations of Jesus were just as commonplace as ours, and that ours\nare just as glorious as His,--His, of course, having a completeness\nwhich none others could have, for the most complete temptation is the\ntemptation of the most complete.\n\nLooking beneath the surface of the story, we find ourselves face to face\nwith the well-known temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.\nWrapped in contemplation upon what His Divine sonship involved, He was\ndriven into solitude, and tempted, as He worked out His life's plan, to\nsubstitute evil independence for good dependence, then to flee to the\nopposite extreme and substitute evil dependence for good independence,\nand finally to disregard the means in His zeal for a righteous end.\nThese temptations are as common as humanity and as uninspiring as night.\nCould one have stood by when Jesus was struggling with them, doubtless\nnothing more would have been seen than is visible to-day when some man\nin loneliness, with his eyes lifted toward the hills, wins the mastery\nover himself and his unseen tempters. Yes, the Master's temptations were\njust as commonplace as ours. Why, then, this fine dressing up of the\ncommonplace? Because, when in after days Jesus told His companions of\nHis conflict and victory, He saw with the illumination of retrospect\nwhat at the moment of the struggle He could not see, the glory of it\nall. The story is not a fiction of the imagination. It is a true picture\nof what occurred, a revelation of the splendour that lies at the\nfoundation of every spiritual contest, a record of literal truth not\nperceived at the time, but clear to the vision after all was over.\n\n\"After all was over\"--the mean and commonplace incidents of to-day, form\nthe raw material out of which is woven the romance of to-morrow. The\nugliest facts make the choicest romance after they have been tempered in\nthe crucible of time. Ask a soldier how much romance there was when the\nfight was hot. The sublime in battle is visible only from the vantage\nground of victory. Often when the life of some humble and afflicted\nchild of God comes to a close, we see what was hidden from our eyes\nduring his days on earth--the heroism of his career. At first we esteem\nhim \"stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.\" Afterward we admire the\ngrandeur and largeness of the life that once seemed so narrow and lame.\nBefore death the character of the affliction claims our attention;\nafterward the character of the afflicted; now the ugly fact and then the\nglory; \"first that which is natural and afterward that which is\nspiritual.\" Consequently there are two methods of recording human\nhistory--bare fact, concrete, grim, commonplace; its romance, abstract,\nmajestic and just as real. We need both kinds of description--Gethsemane\nwith its agony and gouts of blood, and the wilderness with its dramatic\nimagery. Neither one is more real than the other. If the wilderness had\nits grim side, Gethsemane had its romantic side. The ideal is realized,\nwhen the real is idealized.\n\nGrant the truth of this--and who will gainsay it?--and it follows that\nwhile the temptations of Jesus were as commonplace as ours, ours are as\nglorious as His. S. Paul saw it all quite plainly, when in radiant\nlanguage he rolled out to his Ephesian friends that superb call to\nbattle. \"Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on\nthe whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles\nof the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but\nagainst the principalities, against the powers, against the\nworld-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness\nin the heavenly places.\" There is nothing in the whole of Scripture that\nmakes life seem more splendid and glowing, and yet the occasion is one\nof extreme peril and hardship--the moment of temptation. It is not so\nthat the scientific character of our age, with its darting electricity\nand whirring wheels, forbids romance to lift its head. Glory of the\nhighest type will live as long as dauntless human souls aspire to God,\nlet the world be as matter of fact or as evil as it chooses. The only\nthing that can dim glory is the domination of sin in man.\n\nSec. 3. So much for the splendid opportunity which temptation affords. How\nto meet it is what the story of the life of the Son of Man makes\nmanifest.\n\n(_a_) It is noticeable that neither by precept nor example are we\nencouraged to pray for the removal of temptation. Once, it is true,\nJesus expressed it as His desire that a cup of pain might pass from Him,\nbut He conditioned His prayer--\"not My will, but Thine, be done.\" God\ndid not remove the cup, but what was better still He gave Him strength\nto drink it. A prayer of S. Paul's was treated in like manner. The\nthorn in the flesh was not withdrawn, but it was transformed into a\nmeans of imparting spiritual vigour--\"My grace is sufficient for thee.\"\nIt is said of Pascal, whose last years were full of agony, that his\nmalady became a new quality of his genius and helped to perfect it.\nChristian character as well as great genius \"has the power of elevating,\ntransmuting, serving itself by the accidental conditions about it,\nhowever unpromising.\"[11]\n\nThis being so, even Gethsemane is an encouragement to the man who is\nsore tried, to pray for power to transcend his trial rather than that it\nmay be swept out of his life by the hand of God.\n\n    _'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,\n    More life and fuller that I want,_\n\nand not exemption from trial.\n\nThe lingering on in life of a temptation, which, if not born of past\nsin, at any rate has been intensified by self-indulgence, affords us our\nonly chance of expressing penitence to God for failure in loyalty to Him\nin this respect or that. How can the man, in whom the fires of passion\nare dead, express before God his sorrow for sins against purity in days\nthat are gone? It is easy to conceive of such a person entreating God to\ngive him back his temptation, that, by a reversal of former decisions,\nhe may prove the reality of his penitence. So far as we can see, the one\nchance a man has of regaining a lost virtue, is through the very\ntemptation by means of which he was robbed of it. Excessive resistance\nwins back, slowly but surely, what was lost by excessive indulgence.\nWhat is needed is not freedom _from_ but freedom _in_ temptation. This\nlatter is possible for every Christian.\n\n(_b_) Freedom in the life of temptation is achieved by meeting every\nenticement to sin with an upward rise toward virtue. It is quite\ninadequate to beat off temptation. We must spoil the strong man and\npossess ourselves of his goods. One sad feature of life is that we\nalways undershoot the mark, and for the most part perfection in purpose\nresults in nothing better than mediocrity in achievement. It is the sure\nfate of the man that is contented to view temptation merely as an\ninvitation to hell which must be declined, that he will yield at least\noccasionally to the sin to which he is tempted. Only he who flings\nhimself upward when the pull comes to drag him down, can hope to break\nthe force of temptation. Temptation may be an invitation to hell, but\nmuch more is it an opportunity to reach heaven. At the moment of\ntemptation sin and righteousness are both very near the Christian; but\nof the two the latter is the nearer.\n\nWalk in the spirit and you put yourself in such a position as to be\nunable to fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Meet the negation of sin with\nthe affirmation of righteousness. When Satan challenges you to wrestle\nwith him, turn about and wrestle with God for a blessing.\n\n(_c_) There is no reason to be afraid of temptation, that is to say if\nit is not a temptation into which we have entered unnecessarily, but one\nthat is consequent upon the fulfilment of duty. God does not allow us to\nbe tempted beyond our powers. But this is not all. Our fearlessness\nshould show itself in our attitude. We must meet our temptations face to\nthe foe. The temptations of Jesus never struck Him from behind but\nalways smote Him in the face. There is only one kind of temptation which\nwe are advised to run from, and that is the temptation to fleshly lust.\nEvasion is for the most part a sign of defeat, not of victory. The man\nwho would gain freedom in temptation must be\n\n     _One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward._\n\nWith this thought we leave the subject of temptation, that strange\nmystery which proves man and makes him less unworthy of friendship with\nGod, which is at once an opportunity and a snare, glorious and\ncommonplace.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] _Walter Pater._\n\n\n\n\nChapter VI\n\n_Knitting Broken Friendship_\n\n\nBut the best of us do not always rise to the opportunity which\ntemptation presents. A gust comes for which we are not prepared, and we\nare swept off our feet. And the earliest penalty of sin visits the\ntransgressor simultaneously with its committal--that depressing sense of\nloneliness and separation from God that has been the bitter experience\nof every one, and that is so graphically represented in the story of the\nfirst act of disobedience. Every one who does wrong, by the deed of\nwrong itself, hides himself from God just as Adam and Eve did. Sin is\nacting apart from God, a withdrawing of our allegiance from Him, an\nignoring of His voice, a snapping of the bonds of friendship.\n\nWhen this unhappy experience occurs what are we to do to have the breach\nbetween ourselves and God filled up and fellowship with Him\nre-established? It would seem natural to answer that as soon as we\nperceive that we have fallen we should pick ourselves up and go on our\nway without further thought about the dead past. It is out of our reach;\nit cannot be recalled, and to dwell upon it is disastrous.\n\nA man who has exercised a wide influence over English thought declared\nsin to be \"not a monster to be mused on, but an impotence to be got rid\nof. All thinking about it, beyond what is indispensable for the firm\neffort to get rid of it, is waste of energy and waste of time. We then\nenter that element of morbid and subjective brooding in which so many\nhave perished. This sense of sin, however, it is also possible to have\nnot strongly enough to beget the firm effort to get rid of it.\"[12]\n\nProbably of the two dangers mentioned by Matthew Arnold, the latter is\nthe greater in these days in which an \"amiable opposition\" to sin as\nmerely a pardonable flaw in human nature is so widely taught.\n\nWhatever risk there may be in looking sin squarely in the face, and\nhowever difficult we find it to strike the mean between morbid brooding\nand a total disregard for the past, there never yet was a man who\nachieved the royal dignity of Christian character without a painful and\nthoroughgoing grappling with his former self. Men may strive to forget\nthe past by weaving about themselves a web of absorbing interests. But a\nday of reckoning must come, as it came to Adam and Eve in \"the cool of\nthe day,\" as it came to Jacob as he wrestled for better things that\nnight by the plunging stream, as it came to S. Peter when he went out\nand sowed the seed of a chastened character in scalding tears.\n\nWere relief from the haunting memory of badness the only thing to be\nconsidered, a calm, fearless scrutinizing of sins committed is the one\ncure. The way to forget sin is to remember it before God--yes, even to\nthe deliberate raking over the ashes of the days that are gone lest some\nfault should escape observation. A sense of sinfulness is the earliest\nindication of awakening holiness. It seems as though the common idea\nconcerning the repentance of the Publican in the story of the Publican\nand Pharisee, as told by the Master, were short of the truth. Surely\nthere is no ground for thinking that Christ commends the penitence of\nthe Publican, who expressed his sorrow by saying \"God be merciful to me,\na sinner,\" as being ideal. Far from it. Poor and weak and young as was\nthis appeal, it was infinitely more valuable in the sight of God and\nefficacious than the finely phrased self-laudation of the Pharisee.\nPenitence rises from a sense of sinfulness to a recognition of sins.\n\nIt is not hard to perceive why this must be. The past strikes its roots\ninto the present, and until in some true sense the past has been undone\nit is bound to poison the motives and deeds of to-day. Of course when a\nthing is done it is done. No amount of effort can undo it in the sense\nof obliterating it from history. But it is not only possible but\nnecessary that _in intention_ it should be undone and that so far as can\nbe its evil consequences checked. With the aid of the imagination and\nthe will the life that has been lived apart from God may be lived over\nagain with Him. This in His sight is to undo it, for the motive is the\ndeed, and intention is the most powerful of realities.\n\nBut this is not all. It is a law of life governing all fellowship that\ntransparent frankness is the only atmosphere in which friendship can\nexist. A wrong committed ought to be followed by full admission of the\ndeed. And it is further noticeable that this admission is not dependent\nupon whether or not the person wronged is conscious of the wrong.\nPrudence demands, though not nearly so widely as is commonly supposed,\nthat under certain conditions a sin against society should not be\npublicly confessed or even made known to the person chiefly concerned.\nBut where this happens the penitent should feel silence as a weighty\npenance, and long for a day when he can throw open his life so that he\nwill be seen to be just what he is. We are only what we are in the sight\nof God. It is a grief to many a holy man that because of his secret sins\nhe is better thought of than he deserves; and he will hail the day when\nall that is hidden will be uncovered and made known, so that with the\nlast veil torn from his character he will be able to join unreservedly\nin free and humble fellowship with all men.\n\nNo Christian man has any more warrant for trying to \"dissemble or cloak\"\nhis sins before his fellow-men than he has for trying to do the same\nthing before God. To rejoice when we see others attributing to us\nqualities which we do not possess, or to congratulate ourselves when we\nescape detection--or at least when we think we do, for as often as not\nmen see our faults when we think they do not--upon the committal of some\nsin, is to deepen that line of deceit that furrows most characters.\nThere is no social quality quite so splendid as transparency. It is said\nby one[13] well qualified to speak of Mr. Gladstone that \"the man in\nhim leapt forward to express itself with transparent simplicity. If he\nwere subtle he showed at once why he wanted to be subtle. And in spite\nof everything that could be said about his intellectual subtlety, it\nremains that to the very last the dominant note of his character was\nsimplicity--the simplicity of a child; with the child's naive\nself-disclosure, the child's immediate response to a situation, without\ncloak or disguise.\"\n\nNow it is just this simple, childlike transparency that the Christian\nmust cultivate in every respect. When it so happens to a man that he may\nnot tell his wrong-doing to the person immediately wronged, then let him\ngo to some spiritual friend, or to his pastor, who stands as the\nrepresentative of Christian society, as well as the ambassador of\nChrist, and share with him his grief.\n\nThe exception referred to above--where an open confession would result\nin social injury--does not at all alter the fact that perfect frankness\nalone makes fellowship possible. More often than not when one friend\ntells another of some piece of petty meanness by which friendship has\nbeen marred, the injured party already knows all about it. The\nconfession is not made to give information, but to open up the soul\nthat has sinned so that the process of healthy social life may be free\nto work again. It is not wholly explicable, but it is a law which\ngoverns human intercourse.\n\nPrecisely in the same way this law works in the life of fellowship with\nGod. He knows more about our sins than we can tell Him. But by telling\nthem over, their occasion, their guilt, before Him, the soul is new-born\ninto His love, and the warmth of His compassion melts the emotions. This\nis a first requisite in genuine personal religion--frankness before God;\nand frankness among men is second only to it.\n\nIn requiring perfect openness of life from men God asks only what He\ngives. He is Light. There is no knowledge of His Person which man is\ncapable of grasping which He does not offer. He tears open His bosom and\nreveals the most sacred depths of His being. He asks man to do likewise\nthat fellowship may follow.\n\nSo far we have considered what man should do when, whether for a moment\nor for years, he has walked apart from God. He must review the past and\n_in intention_ live it over again with God, turning his back upon\neverything that is amiss. But this alone is incomplete. The heart must\nreceive some sort of assurance that the work of penitence is acceptable\nin God's sight. There is no thirst of the soul so consuming as the\ndesire for pardon. A sense of its bestowal is the starting point of all\ngoodness. It comes bringing with it, if not the freshness of innocence,\nyet a glow of inspiration that nerves feeble hands for hard tasks, a\nfire of hope that lights anew the old high ideal so that it stands\nbefore the eye in clear relief, beckoning us to make it our own. To be\nable to look into God's face and know with the knowledge of faith that\nthere is nothing between the soul and Him is to experience the fullest\npeace the soul can know.\n\nWhatever else pardon may be, it is above all things admission into full\nfellowship with God. It is not a release from certain penalties which\nthe natural course of sin entails, though it brings with it power and\nwisdom to endure and to use penalties so that they become means by which\nlost virtues are restored and the whole character reinvigorated. The\nsense of fellowship comes out with singular force when for the first\ntime the pardoned soul leaps out from under a weight of sin. The joy of\nprayer, the fearless approach to God, the contemplation of His personal\nlove--all this testifies to what pardon is. The absolution of the dying\nrobber on Calvary was not merely an admission into Christ's privileges,\nbut a call to His fellowship and a speedy call at that--\"_To-day_ shalt\nthou be _with Me_ in Paradise.\"\n\nThe first awakening of the soul to a sense of pardon makes this very\nvivid. But somehow as time goes on and repeated falls on the upward\nclimb discourage the soul, the difficulty of grasping God's pardon seems\nto increase. Confession is made and sorrow is felt, but God's face seems\nhidden behind a cloud. Then is it comforting to remember that all clouds\nare earthborn. The trouble is that we reflect our own impatience and\ndiscouragement up into the life of God. Because we chafe under our\nalmost imperceptible progress we imagine God does the same. His first\nabsolutions were full and generous, but how can these later ones be so?\nSurely they must be grudgingly bestowed. So we argue, and the latest\nforgiving message of God, a message as strong and full as the first,\nfalls upon listless ears. The absolution that comes to the penitent\nafter the seventy-times-seven repetitions of a sin is all that the first\none was. Absolution is never less than absolution. It always admits to\nfellowship so complete that it could not be closer.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] _Matthew Arnold, St. Paul and Protestantism._\n\n[13] _H. Scott Holland._\n\n\n\n\nChapter VII\n\n_Friendship in God_\n\n\nFriendship is not only _with_ God but also _in_ God. Fellowship with God\nhas for its corollary fellowship with man in God. And the latter in the\ngreatness of its dignity and privilege is second only to the former. The\nreligion of Christ does not allow of one without the other. The Church,\nwhich is the divinely ordered means by which man is admitted into and\nsustained in his fellowship with God, is also the ideal society of men.\nGod never considers men apart from, but always as a part of, a great\nsocial order--a social order that is not a concourse of independent\nunits, but a body instinct with life, a society which is not an\norganization but an organism. The description of our relationship to one\nanother is couched in the same terms that tell of our relationship to\nChrist--\"members one of another,\" \"members of Christ.\"\n\nIt is God's will that the Church should be coterminous with society, and\nthat the unity of life thus produced should make the \"communion of\nsaints\" a reality on earth and not a mere theory. Past years have seen\nmuch earnest straining to gain a truer conception of God, that\nfellowship with and love for Him might be according to His will. All\nthis theological effort will be lost, unless it is followed up by a no\nless strenuous effort to make the brotherhood of man a fact. The Master\ngave a new commandment of love, a commandment new not in essence but\nrather in intensity and comprehension. After the injunction to love God\ncomes the equally unequivocal injunction to love man--\"Thou shalt love\nthy neighbour as thyself.\" That is to say, personality whether in\nourselves or in others is to receive the highest reverence and\nconsideration, and that without any partiality. Humanity being full of\ndiversity, this commandment requires a most thorough and intelligent\nstudy of society and its elements. Heresies concerning God have been and\nare destructive of unity; but heresies concerning man are productive of\nalmost equal mischief. If the first part of the commandment of love\ncalls us to a study of theology, the second demands a study of\nsociology--an old science under a new name. It is worth while noting\nthat the Apostle who earned the name of \"the Divine,\" or as we would\nsay \"the Theologian,\" by reason of his familiar acquaintance with the\ndeep things of God, was the same who felt that the appeal most worth\nurging with the scant breath of extreme old age was, that men should\nlove one another; and he repeats this simple phrase until the world\nwonders--\"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in\ntongue, but in deed and in truth.\"\n\nBut it must never be forgotten that human fellowship and friendship must\nunder the best of conditions be sectional and shallow, and under the\nworst, disastrous, unless it be \"in Christ,\" that is, in God. The true\nideal of human fellowship is realized only thus. And it is such a unity\nas would be the outcome of fellowship in Christ, for which the Master\nprayed at the last. Ecclesiastical unity does not necessarily produce\nunity of life, though the latter must include the former in some true\nsense. Christian unity has a twofold basis, the love of God and the love\nof man. This differentiation in the commandment of love, is of Christ's\nown making, and cannot be ignored by His followers.\n\nIn considering the ideal human fellowship it is vital to remember that\nthe spiritual, here as elsewhere, is built upon the natural, the\nspiritual entering into, interpreting and developing the natural. And\nwhen the word \"natural\" is used, that which is purely accidental and\nartificial in life is not meant, but that which is fundamental and\nbelongs to the very constitution of humanity. For instance, trade\nrelations and conventional institutions of whatever kind are evanescent.\nTo use them for a foundation is to build on sand. An eternal fabric\ncannot gain coherence from a creation of man's whim or genius. Indeed\nthe institutions of commerce as well as all official intercourse, can be\nconstructed with effectiveness, not to say justice, only when built upon\nthe recognition of the dignity of humanity and the sacredness of\npersonality, with equality of consideration for each. And herein lies\nthe solution of the whole social problem in all its ramifications.\n\nThe fundamental relationship of life is such as springs out of that\ncommon humanity, which, in the last analysis, is a man's only absolute\npossession, be he prince or pauper, wise or ignorant. And this humanity\nof ours is a precious possession, not always perhaps for what it has\nactually become, but for what it is in process of becoming, or, it may\nbe, only because of those latent possibilities which the Incarnation has\ndeclared to be contained in that which is born of woman. Once armed with\nthis thought, Kant's valuable negative advice never to treat humanity\nas a thing[14] but always as a person, never as a means merely but\nalways as an end, is in order.\n\nIt is one of the evils springing out of an intercourse that is so\nlargely official, that on all sides men are valued and thought of, only\nor chiefly on the side of economic efficiency. That is to say, they are\ntreated with only that amount of consideration which is due a machine. A\nsimple illustration will suffice. The mistress of a household on coming\ndown stairs one morning was greeted by her maid, who was dusting in the\nhall, with a \"Good morning,\" and, \"Do you know, Mrs. Z----, that I have\nbeen with you five years to-day?\" \"Have you?\" was the response, \"You\nhave left some dust on that chair.\" The mistress boasted doubtless that\nshe had \"reminded her servant of her place.\" No further comment is\nneeded. The maid thought herself to be a person, but was reminded that\nshe was a thing.\n\nAgain, if the baker is thought of as a mere convenience for baking\nbread, all demands he may make beyond those which will enable him to\nproduce good bread, will be fiercely contested. The conditions under\nwhich the bread is baked are a paltry incident, provided they do not in\nany way discommode the consumer, and the claim made by the journeyman\nbaker for opportunity and means to realize the God-given ambitions of\nhis manhood, ambitions which perchance have nothing to do with baking\nbread, is scouted in much the same way that a request to decorate a\nmachine with gold trimmings would be scouted. Of course it is as wrong\nto ignore the former's claim, as it would be right to ignore the demand\nfor expensive and useless embellishments for a piece of machinery; for\none is a person and the other is a thing.\n\nIt is because men have been thought of as things, that there are such\nplague-spots on the social body as sweatshops. All movements that compel\nthe attention of the consumer to a recognition of his relation to the\nproducer as a person, are worthy of the most careful study and the\nhighest commendation. Preferential dealing, that is to say, dealing\npreferably with such merchants as we know to have humane regard for\nthose who produce and handle the goods offered for sale, is merely a\npassing phase of the attempt to recognize as persons those who, though\nfar removed from us, yet touch our lives and minister to our\nnecessities; and the movement deserves support and encouragement because\nof the principle which actuates it. When life was less complex than at\npresent, and the _entrepreneur_ and middleman did not exist to obscure\nthe relationship between consumer and producer, it was easier to realize\nthe responsibility of the one toward the other than it is now. However,\nit is of elementary necessity that men should learn that the accident\nwhich hides one section of society from the easy observation of another,\ndoes not lessen one whit the mutual responsibility which each bears\ntowards the other. Nor does the difficulty of gathering information\nafford an excuse. In these days of pertinacious investigation and\norganized experience, there is no set of conditions so complex as to\nbaffle ultimately the determined investigator of social phenomena, or to\nescape satisfactory adjustment.\n\nOnce again, the cry of the workman for a living wage, is but an\nindication that the labourer is coming to a realization of the dignity\nand fullness of manhood, and is inviting others to share in this\ndiscovery of himself. Who can turn a deaf ear to his appeal, excepting\nthose who deny a man's right to realize himself? The doctrine of the\naverage wage, that is, the wage which is determined by a \"brazen law\" of\none kind or another, whether that to which the name of Ricardo is\nattached or some other, equally unmanageable, is fast giving place to\nthat of the living wage. The living wage is the evolution of the average\nwage; the former phrase declares that men are requiring official\ndealings to be more humane than of yore, as well as that the law of\nwages is not an almighty tyrant to which society must bow, but a law\nwhich is more or less obedient to the dictates of man's will. There are\nthose among political economists who now maintain it to be more\nreasonable to claim, that prices must conform to wages, than wages to\nprices. It is worth while adding in this connection that the living wage\nis bound to be progressive, as the duty of treating men as persons and\nnot as things, comes to be more firmly imbedded in the public\nconscience. Some persons are ready to admit the justice of the theory of\nChristian democracy, though unwilling to accept many of its logical\nconclusions. The promulgation of the principle of democracy in its\nmildest form, creates new desires or awakens dormant ones in the\nundermost men, and of course provision must be made for satisfying\nthese, else the doctrine which gave the desires birth is hideously\ncruel. A living wage some years since, had the phrase obtained in the\nlanguage, would have signified for the most part a wage sufficient to\nsustain animal life. That is, the wage-earning man would have been\nrecognized as an animal but not a person. Or perhaps it would have meant\na wage capable of creating economic efficiency, in which case it would\nhave indicated that the wage-earner was viewed as a thing. Now the idea\nunderlying a living wage is a wage sufficient for the sustenance of\nhuman life, of life in which there is room for freedom of choice, and\nwhere the whole man is taken into consideration.\n\nIt is to the credit of society, that so much earnestness is being\nexpended to-day in the effort to humanize the various official\nrelationships of life. But it is a cause for shame, on the other hand,\nthat among Christian men there should have been so deplorable a falling\naway from elementary Christian principle, as to make this effort\nnecessary. Let it suffice for the present to insist that until men more\ngenerally recognize their fellows, whatever be their position in life,\nto be persons and not things, wide fellowship at any rate is an utter\nimpossibility. And it is from this point that all attempts to solve\nsocial problems must take their beginning. It might prove a useful\nexperiment if occasionally, for a short period, we were to test our love\nfor others by loving ourselves as we love them, treating ourselves as we\ntreat them. If it so happened that we were living reasonably near to the\nGolden Rule, our conduct would not have to be materially, if at all,\nchanged to do this; but if we happened, on the other hand, to be\ntreating our neighbour as a thing when the experiment took place, there\nis no doubt that we should immediately become so unhappy and full of\npain, as to be incapable of prolonging the experience.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[14] _That is called a thing to which no event can be imputed as an\naction. Hence every object devoid of freedom is regarded as a\nthing.--Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics._\n\n\n\n\nChapter VIII\n\n_Friendship in God (continued)_\n\n\nThe official temper of mind is by no means the only bar to wide\nfellowship. Exclusiveness and temperamental dislike are responsible for\na great many sins against brotherly love, and must be fought down by\nevery true follower of our Lord. When men are left to themselves, they\ngravitate into mutually exclusive groups composed of congenial classes\nor of congenial types. But Christianity steps in and breaks up these\nlittle sets, in order to blend them into one varied and splendid whole.\nThe vision which S. John had revealed to him, was humanity in all its\nvariety--\"out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and\ntongues\"--but at perfect unity with itself, a complete and harmonious\nfamily.\n\nSec. 1. Probably there is no temper of mind more difficult to master than\nthat of exclusiveness. In the evolution of society class\ndifferentiations have come into being, differentiations which, at the\ntime of their appearance, may have been a necessary phase of progress,\nbut which, in the development of Christian thought, should pass away. It\nwould not be right or wise to contend for the immediate obliteration of\nall artificial distinctions in life, for conventionalities are often\nsocial safeguards and have their place in civilization. But surely the\nearnest disciple of Jesus must array all the forces at his command\nagainst the continuance of customs that have been separated from their\nusefulness, and are perpetuated only to be stumbling blocks to human\nfellowship.\n\nThe worth of conventionalism has for its supreme test the life and\nteaching of Jesus Christ. When He quieted the strife of the disciples,\nwho were filled with the ignoble lust of domination, He inaugurated a\nnew social order. \"He that is the greater among you, let him become as\nthe younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.\" The old order\nmade kings the recipients of much service, the new calls them to give\nmuch service; the old order led men to strive for honour, the new\ninspires them to avoid honour unless bound up with an enlarged\nopportunity to serve; the old order prized whatever privileges set men\nabove and apart from their fellows, the new seeks everything that will\nbring them nearer to their fellows. So merit and reward, privilege and\nresponsibility, greatness and service must never be separated. Where\nthey have been separated in the past, as well as where they are in the\npresent, the result is exclusiveness. Men cling to prerogatives which in\ncommon justice they have no real claim upon, beyond the flimsy plea of\nhereditary right and the permission of society. Out of this have grown\nthose groups of persons who, though possessing nothing but a very common\nhumanity indeed, would, from a sense of superiority derived from a name,\nor from the false prestige given by wealth and social position, withhold\ntheir fellowship from all but a select few. If men could but realize the\ncramping influence on character of exclusiveness, how quickly would they\nhasten to divest themselves of every trace of the vice of snobbishness!\nDives lived in exclusive society after death because he did so before\ndeath. He was no farther from Lazarus in the other world than he was in\nthis; the gulf created here was \"fixed\" there, that is all. And among\nthe \"losses of the saved\" will be lack of capacity for wide fellowship.\n\nThe dignity of humanity is so great that nothing can add to its\ngreatness, excepting what ennobles human nature itself. Wealth, social\nposition, mere intellectual attainment, no more deserve deference or\nhomage, than do the tatters of a pauper or the ignorance of a dolt. No\nman insults human nature or demeans his personality so much as he who\nbows down to these accidents, excepting only the man who receives homage\non the ground not of what he is but of what he has. We may neither pay\nhomage to, nor receive it for, any of those things which belong merely\nto time and of which death will strip us bare; though piety, spiritual\nwisdom, and all forms of moral power, always and everywhere, demand\nhomage and reverence.\n\nThe true basis on which Christian fellowship is begun and maintained, is\nour common humanity--that which is essential and not that which is\naccidental. Our Lord drew men to Himself and had human fellowship with\nthem, by virtue of the completeness and attractiveness of His splendid\nmanhood. He had none of the accidents of life to use, and He was not\nweak without them. He was the most refined among men, and yet He found\ncompanionship among the peasant folk. Social differentiations did not\nenter into our Lord's reckoning. He ignored them, reaching through them\nand past them. It is touching to remember that one of the earliest\ncompanionships in Paradise of the human soul of Jesus, was the\nresumption of almost His last intercourse on earth. As the soul of the\npenitent outlaw and robber, \"pale from the passion of death,\" went into\nthe society of Paradise, it was received and welcomed by the Man, Christ\nJesus.\n\nIt is a myth that the wise and cultured must confine their fellowship to\nthe wise and cultured.[15] By means of literature men and women of high\nprivilege, have joined hands with those whose lives were bare of\neverything but character--with Adam Bede and with Uncle Tom. If this is\npossible with the creations of fiction, it is capable of being widely\ntrue in actual life. The richest human nature is often found in the most\nobscure places, as the experience of every social worker from Edward\nDenison to the resident in the newest \"settlement,\" will testify. True\nrefinement is not the result of paltry conventionalism, the flimsy\ncreation of an artificial society; true refinement is the inalienable\npossession of that character in which the Spirit of God rules, in which\nthe material is made the handmaid of the spiritual. At first men went\nout into the highways of the city, armed with their privileges, thinking\nthat they had everything to give. But they soon learned that this spirit\ncould only end in condescension, which is fatal to fellowship, for\nfellowship means give and take, and that the poor and unprivileged had\nmuch to give. Unless representatives from the different classes of\nsociety are contributing their special gifts to our lives, life is poor\nindeed. Wealth of fellowship consists not in numbers, but in variety.\n\nWhen men reach out for wider fellowship, they must not forget that no\nman ever yet won his fellows through his own interests. He must, by the\nsubtle power of sympathy, dive beneath the surface of other lives and\ncourt their interests. Even God failed to win men, until He made man's\nconcerns wholly His own by becoming Man. \"For ye know the grace of our\nLord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He\nbecame poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich.\"\n\nSec. 2. Temperamental dislike is another obstacle to Christian fellowship\nto be conquered. It is something found wherever human nature is. And men\ncommonly excuse quarrelsomeness, rudeness and other unchristian conduct\non this score, though the excuse is by no means valid. Probably all of\nus are afflicted with a natural antipathy to certain kinds of\ntemperament, but at least we need not humour it. It was part of God's\ndesign, that human society should be enriched by variety of disposition.\nThat is a poor garden which contains but one kind of flower, beautiful\nas its blossom may be. True beauty consists in variety; and monotony is\nthe height of ugliness. It is a reason for thankfulness that human\nnature is so wonderfully diversified that no two human beings are\nexactly alike, and that there is a whole gamut of temperamental\ndifference in the race.\n\nNow it is a part of the work of Christianity, to reconcile dispositions\nthat are naturally antipathetic and jarring. And the process by which\nthis is brought to pass, is probably one of the most beneficial\ndisciplines to which men are subjected. The Church is a great mixing\nbowl, in which all this vast variety is brought into close touch and\nblended together into a harmonious whole. \"The very purpose of the one\nChurch for all the men of faith in Jesus is that the necessity for\nbelonging to one body--a necessity grounded on divine appointment--shall\nforce together into a unity men of all sorts and different kinds; and\nthe forces of the new life which they share in common are to overcome\ntheir natural repugnance and antipathies, and to make the forbearance\nand love and mutual helpfulness which corporate life requires, if not\neasy, at least possible for them.\"[16]\n\nThat society is at once the most beautiful and the most powerful which\nis composed of the largest variety of temperaments, exercising their\nvarious faculties in unity and mutual helpfulness. Some persons imagine\nthat the most desirable parochial life is where all the parishioners are\nof one stripe, instead of that in which there is a finely disciplined\ndiversity. A parish of dead uniformity would be comfortable but not\neducative, quiet but colourless and insipid.\n\nUnquestionably certain natures are so constituted as to irritate us\nevery time we come near them. And unless we are very carefully on our\nguard we will not treat such persons justly or courteously, much less\nwill we be ready to render them delicate service. Quite unconsciously\nwe exhibit our temper of mind. There may be the determination not to\nallow our feelings to rise to the surface, but nevertheless before we\nknow it we have done the mischief; and somehow the bitterness we\nentertain has been let loose, not by a word or a look, perhaps, but by\nsome subtle telepathic or psychic influence which opens the secret of\nour soul to our companion. There is nothing more infectious than a\ntemper of mind. It seems to leap out of one soul and impart itself to\nanother without heeding the ordinary laws of transmission. Anger, lust,\nsuspicion, dislike, jealousy smirch not only the souls in which they lie\nrestrained though not conquered, but others that come within the radius\nof their wide-reaching influence.\n\nFortunately this power of infection is not confined to evil passions,\nbut belongs even in a larger degree to those which are good. And herein\nlies the remedy for temperamental dislike. If we stop short at choking\nit down, we can never make a friend of one whose disposition is\nnaturally repugnant to us. Sooner or later our dislike will crop out and\na gulf be made. If, on the other hand, the dislike is displaced by\ngenerous, full love--love that is a force and not a mere\nemotion--fellowship, and eventually friendship, will become possible.\nThere may be grounds often for our antipathies. Some people have the\nmisfortune to be graceless, awkward and repellant; others are\nunattractive if not positively disagreeable to every one--bad-tempered,\nperhaps, or mischief-makers. To educate these in Christian fellowship is\nprobably as large a public service as could be readily rendered. \"It is\nno great matter,\" says Jeremy Taylor,[17] \"to live lovingly with\ngood-natured, with humble and meek persons; but he that can do so with\nthe froward, with the wilful, and the ignorant, with the peevish and\nperverse, he only hath true charity.\"\n\nSec. 3. A third bar to Christian fellowship is what, for want of a better\nphrase, may be termed a weakness for interesting people. That is to say,\nthe humanity that is within easy reach seems commonplace and\nuninteresting, so that men of our intimate acquaintance often appear to\nbe hardly worth while labouring for. Hence it is a common habit to\nreserve our best thought, our best manners and our best service for\nstrangers, making little positive effort to love and serve those with\nwhom we are thrown into daily contact. Nowhere is human perversity more\nglaring than in the sad truth lurking behind the proverb: \"A prophet is\nnot without honour, save in his own country and house.\" The value of\nthose who stand nearest to us is lowered by means of their very\nnearness. On the other hand the persons who are outside our immediate\ncircle, however comprehensive it may be, seem to be more interesting\nthan the very average folk who are our ordinary companions. We long for\ncompanionship with men of this finer type.\n\nOf course this is all a delusion. Human nature is full of interest\nwherever we find it, that which is nearest as well as that which is\nfarthest removed. The men we would like to know and serve, are no more\nworthy of attention than the men who stand shoulder to shoulder with us.\nBut those who have the largest claim upon our attention and service, are\nour immediate friends and neighbours. Indeed the only way to arm\nourselves against disappointment, as the boundaries of our fellowship\nare enlarged, is so to attach ourselves to the people near at hand as to\nlearn the true dignity of all human nature and the almost unfathomable\ndepths of every personality. Otherwise an acquisition in\nacquaintanceship will, after the first glow of novelty has worn off,\nonly reveal one more uninteresting person.\n\nSec. 4. There is one other duty that ought to be at least touched upon in\nthis connection, though it has been referred to in a former chapter--the\nduty of praying for others. There is no more delicate service in the\nwhole round of human action than that of intercessory prayer. It is so\nhidden as to have a special beauty on that account. While men are all\nunconscious that we are thinking of them, we fold our arms about them\nand bring them up before God for blessing and guidance. Intercessory\nprayer might be defined as loving our neighbour on our knees. The common\nobjection, \"What good can it do? Will not God bless men just as much\nwithout our prayers as with them?\" seems to have a certain amount of\nweight. But a very little reflection shows that it does not amount to\nmuch. Even though intercessory prayer did nothing more than put us who\npray in a desirable frame of mind toward those for whom we pray, it\nwould be an exercise of great value. However, as a matter of fact, it\naccomplishes much more than this. Besides making our feeling of\nfellowship stronger, it really brings something to those for whom we\noffer our petitions. Human life is as closely bound up on the spiritual\nas on any other side of our being. It is quite certain that if we\nwithhold the duties of service in other ways God does not supply our\nlack, so far as we can see, but human life suffers through our neglect.\nIf all else in our experience is governed by law, why should we believe\nthat the spiritual part of life stands alone and is not affected by\nspiritual service? There is from analogy every reason to suppose, that\nthose who are not prayed for suffer spiritual loss on that account.\n\nBut the immediate point to be made is that the height of Christian\nfriendship cannot be reached without intercession. It has been pointed\nout by a spiritual teacher[18] that it makes a great difference in our\nfeelings towards others if their needs and their joys are on our lips in\nprayer; as also it makes a vast difference in their feelings towards us\nif they know that we are in the habit of praying for them. There is no\nchasm in society that cannot be firmly and permanently bridged by\nintercession; there is no feud or dislike that cannot be healed by the\nsame exercise of love.\n\nHere, then, as in all else, if we are to come anywhere near the ideal we\nmust lift our eyes to God. Friendship in God is possible only for those\nwho bring society before God in prayer.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[15] _Cf. Browning's verses in_ Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, _where the\nresult of false culture, or the abuse of culture, is referred to_:--\n\n    _Man is made in sympathy with man\n    At outset of existence, so to speak;\n    But in dissociation, more and more,\n    Man from his fellow, as their lives advance\n    In culture; still humanity, that's born\n    A mass, keeps flying off, fining away\n    Ever into a multitude of points,\n    And ends in isolation, each from each._\n\n[16] _Gore on Ephesians, p. 189._\n\n[17] _Works: Vol. vii. 624._\n\n[18] _Canon Gore._\n\n\n\n\nChapter IX\n\n_The Church in Prayer_\n\n\nThus far little has been said of the more corporate aspect of the\nspiritual life--of army movements, so to speak. Our minds have been\nchiefly on the duties of men in their individual capacity. Not that any\none can ever behave so that he alone is affected by his output of\nenergy. Whether consciously or unconsciously every human being that\nbreathes, according as he moves his will upwards or downwards, elevates\nor hinders his fellows. The most secret passages of life should be\ntraversed with reference to others, in order that we may be ruled by\nthat beautiful consistency which will enable us to act formally in\npublic without readjusting our whole inner temper. There will be no\nwrench, no unnatural straining to become what we cannot be at a moment's\nnotice, but on the contrary merely an exhibition under altered\nconditions of the spirit which has all along actuated us. For instance,\none who has not learned to pray hard for others and to ponder over\ntheir welfare, cannot hope to speak to men with any force on spiritual\ntopics. He has not cultivated the frame of mind that will give him power\nto do it. If he tries, his words will most likely be irreverent cant or\nan empty echo. It is only out of the fulness of the heart that the mouth\ncan speak effective words.\n\nIn no department of life is this more true than in corporate worship.\nThe power of public worship is dependent upon and the outcome of healthy\nand faithful private worship, to say nothing of the rest of the personal\nlife. Those who have true personal religion will feel their life of\ndevotion incomplete without common prayer; a growing desire for public\nworship is an index of a man's deepening spirituality. On the other\nhand, when we hear men saying that they do not care for church services,\nthat they can pray just as well at home, and so on, it is safe to\nconclude that whatever fine-spun theories they may hold, as a matter of\nfact they are suffering from spiritual atrophy, praying neither at home\nnor anywhere else. Private devotion whets the appetite for public\nworship. And those who are in intention true to fundamental Christian\nprinciples will not mistake the end of the Church's corporate worship.\n\nThe assembling of the congregation is something far larger than the\ncreation of a public occasion for saying private prayers. There are\nnumbers of persons who go through the whole service without a thought\nfor any one but themselves, sucking the liturgy dry of whatever touches\ntheir own immediate concerns, but oblivious to those who kneel around;\nand perhaps private manuals supply the place of the Prayer Book. Such\npersons squeeze into their own cup all the inspiration that a harmonious\nconcourse of men carries with it, and make no return. Like the\nhorse-leach's daughters their cry is, \"Give, give.\" Could anything be\nmore selfish or more anomalous? There is no effort of imagination, no\nkindling of sympathy, no struggle to enter under the shadow of the\nprayer of the congregation, so that they are as completely alone as\nthough they were in a desert place.\n\nNor is public worship a device for rousing in people a devotional frame\nof mind, which will enable them to pray better by themselves. Doubtless\none indirect effect of the great dignity and beauty of liturgical\nworship, is to stimulate those who participate in it to a deeper\ndevotion at home. But public worship is a climax, not a mere means to an\nend; it is the culmination of private devotion, not its starting point.\nWithout hidden spiritual effort, it is a phantom of the real thing; with\nit, it is the matchless consummation of adoration, prayer and sympathy.\nUnder the least satisfactory conditions the congregation gathered in\nGod's house has marvellous dignity; the unity of movement, the rich\nvariety and the rhythm of liturgical expression characterize it as the\nmost august of human assemblies.\n\nBut the possibilities of the Church in prayer rise to their supremest\nheight, when the congregation is rich with the fruits of personal\nreligion. So closely woven are the public and the private phases of\ndevotion that they are of a piece. The power of the former is due to the\nhours of secret prayer, the struggles with self, the nerving of the\nwill--in short, all that hidden discipline and training that lie behind\nthe veil of private life. Out of this, corporate worship emerges as\neffect rises out of cause. However great, then, the private life of\ndevotion is in which men pray to God in the guarded secrecy of their\nhomes, it is only preparatory, leading up to the service of the\nsanctuary.[19] Private prayer is the lesser, public the greater; the\nformer is the exercise of the individual members with special regard to\ntheir own development, the latter is the stately movement of the whole\nbody in beautiful unison. Each member contributes to the whole what has\nbeen gained in private efforts; each comes to give rather than to\nreceive, or, if it may be so put, to receive through giving; and of\ncourse a man can give only what he has gathered.\n\nThe glimpses we have of heavenly worship[20] reveal nothing but common\nworship. We see no individuals standing apart from the throng, absorbed\nin their own little expression of praise. The ranks are unbroken, and\none united and uniting impulse thrills the whole. The visions recorded\nby S. John are visions not merely of ideal worship in its restricted\nsense of spoken prayer and praise, but of the ideal life. The\nfundamental idea of common worship consists in dependence upon God and\nfellowship with man, and when all life is filled to the full with this\ntwofold spirit, all life will be worship, and let it be said here with\nfirm emphasis, that if we do not lift up our life to the level of our\nprayers, eventually our prayers will be dragged down to the level of our\nlife. Life in heaven is something more than one long Sunday service; it\nis the use of all powers and faculties in the spirit of worship, worship\nrepresenting the highest and finest temper of mind of which we have\nexperience. So when we read the figurative language of S. John, we must\nremember that he is declaring under the symbolism of worship what the\nfeatures of heavenly life are--the conscious service of God in a\nharmonious human society.\n\nSimilarly here on earth common worship is a symbol of true life as well\nas a means of sustaining it. The attention of the congregation gathered\nbefore the altar is fixed upon God, and no stronger indication of the\nreality of brotherhood could be conceived than the visible assembly\noccupied in a common exercise. When all our activities become saturated\nwith the consciousness of God in His perfection, and with the fact of\nthe oneness of Christ's mystical Body, formal worship will be no more a\nnecessity. But that will be when heaven is reached, for which day there\nmust be some little waiting yet. In the meantime it is vital that\nworship, as we know it, should not be an excrescence on life but a real\npart of it, part of it as truly as the deep, silent tide flowing between\nnarrow banks is part of the same river which above and below is worried\nby rocks or widened into a lake. Public worship should represent perhaps\nthe most concentrated part of life, but nothing unnatural, nothing out\nof gear with work-a-day moments. Work should flow into worship as easily\nas the stream into the ocean. There should be, in all the business of\nlife, the steady application of God's laws, and that underlying\nconsciousness of His Person and Presence which, so far from detracting\nfrom the efficiency of our work or preventing full devotion to it, will\nintensify every energy. The melody of the song is emphasized and\nsupported by the accompaniment, not lost in its multitude of sounds.\nGiven this attitude of mind, and what a simple, natural thing praise\nwith the lips becomes! And how sublime the uprushing flood of hymnody\nfrom an assembly of men of like mind!\n\nAgain, public worship ought to be the highest and not the only\nexpression of parochial family life. The assembled congregation is the\nsymbol of an enduring Christian brotherhood, where mutual consideration,\nlove and service form the unalterable watchwords. To-day this thought is\nmuch obscured by the parochial family having so little reality outside\nthe church walls. This is especially applicable to city churches, where\ncongregations gather from the remotest localities. The parish seems to\nbe fast dying out and the congregation is taking its place. The people\nwho worship in the same building neither know one another nor, in many\ninstances, desire to. This is simply fatal to ideal public worship, one\npurpose of which at any rate is to quicken and seal the sympathy that\nalready exists as the result of intercourse in the outside world. It is\na grave responsibility for any one, for the sake of what he may deem to\nbe larger spiritual privileges, to leave the church of the locality in\nwhich he lives and where his natural duties and friendships lie, to go\nto some distant place of worship where fellowship is impossible. Ideally\nthe worshippers belonging to the parochial family are all known to one\nanother and in frequent personal contact; they do not look to their\nclergy alone for spiritual help, but also to their fellow laymen. All\ntoo often the clergy are supposed to have the sole responsibility of\nspiritually aiding the members of a parish, whereas, the laity, whether\nthey recognize it or not, have almost an equal responsibility. The\nclergyman does spiritual work, not because he is a clergyman, but\nbecause he is a Christian; though his special vocation determines the\nexact form his work should take. If there were more intelligent sympathy\namong the members of the congregation one with another, what strength\nwould come to the penitent struggling to his feet, what added power to\nthe faithful! Many fail, not because the clergy have been negligent, but\nbecause those who are termed the brethren have never extended a helping\nhand to support, to comfort, to cheer. If a congregation were alive to\nthese responsibilities outside of the church, what a glorious time would\nbe the gathering within its walls--inspiring, thrilling! Indeed, any one\nwho tries to be unselfish and to act in the common concerns of life with\nreference to his neighbour's interests, any one who has elsewhere\nlearned ever so little about intercession, cannot be unmindful when he\ncomes to church of those who worship by his side, strangers though they\nbe. By the exercise of sympathy, sympathy which he has learned to kindle\nwith less at hand to quicken it to life than that given by the living,\nbreathing forms near by, he can bring close to him his\nfellow-worshippers, moving into the shadow of their intercessions as\nwell as calling them in to share his own. It will be noticed that the\nusual order has been reversed in the foregoing. Usually men are urged to\nworship well that they may live well;[21] the proposition that has been\nmade here is that men must live well if they would worship well. It\nmakes little difference which way the thought is expressed, the mode of\nexpression depending on the part of the circle at which we begin our\ncourse. Life runs up into worship and worship runs out into life. Each\nleads into the other.\n\nThe use of a liturgy is an added power to public worship. It is only by\nliturgical aids that public worship can become common worship. A liturgy\ndelivers a congregation from the spiritual idiosyncrasies of a minister\nas well as disciplining those of the worshippers themselves. The\ncomprehensiveness and symmetry, the saneness and dignity of the Book of\nCommon Prayer are educative forces of enormous value. Left to themselves\nmen lose the true perspective of things; they dwell too much on matters\nof secondary importance, and become insular in their outlook. A liturgy\ncomes in as a corrective of these constitutional failings; it confronts\nus with all that is vast in the realm of truth; it calls us away from\nthe consideration of those things over which we have pondered until\nmorbidness has seized upon us; it ministers that grateful rest which\ncomes from the mind being freed from the contemplation of one set of\ninterests, by being caught away by and absorbed in new and wider\ninterests; it rounds out the devotional life; it invites us to lean upon\nthe prayers of others as we desire them to lean on ours.\n\nAll who aspire to worship well in the congregation must note that the\nliturgy sets the tone for all devotions. Those who in private affect\nspiritual exercises foreign to the character of the Prayer Book of the\nChurch, may get a certain emotional satisfaction for the moment, but\nthey purchase the luxury at the cost of weakening their power for common\nworship. Their private prayers form no preparation for their public\nprayers. The clergy have it as a grave responsibility to see that the\nbooks of private devotion which they put into the hands of their people\nare such as fit into the Church's system.\n\nDemeanour in the congregation is a small thing to think of after the\ngreat central theme that has been holding our attention. But nothing is\nunworthy of consideration which bears on the perfecting of common\nworship; and with two simple observations on demeanour this chapter\nwill be closed. First, regarding the self-consciousness that both\ndistresses the soul and weakens its devotional power. The sense, while\nin the act of prayer, of being observed by others, is distracting. But\nis it not a piece of conceit to imagine that we are being observed,\nwidely at any rate, as well as something akin to an insult to those\nabout us? Are we not implicitly charging them with neglect of duty and\nwith irreverence? After all they are probably occupied with their\ndevotions as we ourselves should be. The simplest way of conquering the\ndistraction when it arises is to take the person or persons concerned\ninto our prayers by a conscious act. Then in the second place, as to our\nown behaviour, it is only common charity to avoid singularity of\nconduct. Most of the ordinary acts of reverence which the individual may\npractise, can be so unobtrusively performed as not to attract notice.\nBut when there is a danger of causing distraction to others, as in a\nstrange parish for instance, it is more conducive to real reverence to\nomit than to observe them. Sometimes the best way to be loyal to a\nprinciple is deliberately to break a rule, and if this suggestion be\nreasonable then why should not a person, unaccustomed to ornate ritual,\nfall in with any legitimate customs observed, if he finds himself at\nany time in a church where such customs obtain?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[19] _The writer does not hesitate to advise persons who are temporarily\nresiding, as is often the case during the summer, where there is no\nEpiscopal Church, to attend public worship, once a Sunday at least, at\nthe representative Evangelical place of worship of the community.\nReading the Church service at home by one's self is no substitute for\npublic worship._\n\n[20] _As_ e. g. _in Rev. v: 11-14_.\n\n[21] _See p. 7._\n\n\n\n\nChapter X\n\n_The Great Act of Worship_\n\n\nThe Eucharist is the Church's great central act of corporate worship. It\nwould be strange, considering the origin of this wonderful mystery, were\nit otherwise. Even those who regard it as a bare memorial of the\nhistoric occurrence of Christ's Passion and nothing more, however highly\nthey may honour the ordinary round of prayer and praise, approach the\nEucharist with unwonted awe.\n\nOf course no one conception of its character is complete, as its various\nand stately names testify. So bound up with the Person of our Lord is\nit, that, as new treasures of knowledge are laid open concerning Him who\nis the eternal Son of God, this feast of rich things is proportionately\nenriched to the participant. Says Jeremy Taylor in his quaint and\nreverent way: \"The Holy Communion or Supper of the Lord is the most\nsacred, mysterious and useful conjugation of secret and holy things and\nduties in the religion.\"[22] And withal it is, in essence, of all simple\nthings the most simple--a meal, a meal transformed and exalted, it is\ntrue, but still a meal. However difficult the liturgy may be for\nunlearned folk, the sacrament itself, \"the breaking of the bread,\" is\neasily understood by every one, even the least wise. Nor is it hard to\nreconcile the idea of a feast with this meagre meal of a morsel of bread\nand a sip of wine; for everyday experience has prepared us for the\nconveyance of great wealth through what has no intrinsic excellence. If\na scrap of paper can have the value of heaps of gold, and, by the law of\nassociation, an age-worn trinket can become of priceless worth, it\nsuggests no unreality to claim that under certain conditions a simple\nmeal becomes a royal banquet, filling heart and soul and mind, and\nadmitting into the very presence of the Most Holy and Most High. There\nis diversity in the explication of this act of worship, but whatever\ndifference of opinion there may be regarding its exact nature, those\nmost widely separated in thought will agree in this, that it is a\nprofound rite, and that in it is spiritual wealth. And in these days,\nwhen at last men are beginning to perceive that truth is always greater\nthan its best definition, no one will contend that what he sees in the\nEucharist is all that it contains.[23]\n\nThe best commentary on the Eucharist is the closing chapter of our\nLord's mortal career. The Son of Man, as He approached the Cross, drew\nnigh to that which throughout His ministry He had viewed as a goal; the\ncrucifixion was what He had been preparing Himself for in all that He\nsaid and did throughout His human experience; His whole life was indeed\na \"long going forth to death.\" He aspired to reach the moment when He\nwould be lifted up from the earth. He saw and predicted with composure\nall the horror and shame of the Passion, the betrayal and desertion, the\nscourging and spitting. But He saw even more clearly the dignity and\nwonder and majesty of the opportunity contained in it all, and spoke of\nit with suppressed joy: \"I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how\nam I straitened till it be accomplished!\" The Cross would test to the\nfull His obedience to God and reveal to what lengths Divine love would\ngo to redeem sinful man. When men near the goal of their innocent\nambition their cup of joy is full; nor was Christ's less than full. In\nthe first Eucharist the pain of self-sacrifice for the time being was\nlost in the joy of self-fulfilment. When He took the bread and the wine\nand said, \"This is My Body which is broken for you,\" \"This is My Blood\nwhich is shed for you,\" He made the sacrifice of Himself. It is this act\nwhich separates His death from all other deaths, transforming the\ncrucifixion from a judicial murder into a triumph of self-oblation. It\nis not the Cross which explains the Eucharist, but rather the Eucharist\nwhich explains the Cross.[24] Eliminate the Eucharist from the story of\nthe Passion and our Lord's death sinks from the atoning act by which the\nworld is reconciled to God into a mere act of resignation to a painful\nfate, to be classed with the death of Socrates and like heroes. It is\nthe Eucharist that enables us to say that the crucifixion was a\nsacrifice; that however true it is that Christ was put to death by\nsinful men, it is a truth of greater magnitude that, according to His\nrepeated prediction, He laid down His life for His friends; that the\nCross of Calvary, and through it every cross that bows the shoulders of\nmen, has become the instrument of victory and a school of obedience and\nsympathy.\n\nNo act of Christ was a mere personal experience. The Son of Man, as in\nloving sympathy He declared Himself to be, was the Universal Character\nwhose life must needs concern and touch all other lives. It was His\nexpressed desire that His fellows should share all that He was and did.\nHe, the Son of God, became the Son of Man that we might become Sons of\nGod.[25] Therefore it is not surprising that, at this the supreme moment\nof His life, He should bid the representative group who companied with\nHim, and through them all men, come in and participate in its power and\njoy; He did not merely lay down His life, but asked others to enter into\nHis experience, saying, \"Take, eat; this is My Body,\" \"Drink ye all of\nthis; this is My Blood.\" For what is the import of this invitation but\nthis? \"Associate yourselves with Me,--aye, be one with Me, incorporated\ninto Me, in this great moment of self-offering; for I would present you\na willing surrender in and with Myself.\" The idea of at-one-ment was\nnever more intelligible than in these latter days. We are becoming more\nand more conscious of how close-wrought are the fibres of the human\nrace; we recognize how the life of any one man affects the life of his\nfellows, and how the individual can gather into his own soul the sorrows\nand joys, the perplexities and aspirations of many people. If this is\npart of the experience of _a_ son of man, it follows that _the_ Son of\nMan, by the extension and completion of that quality which, when found\nin us, is known as sympathy, if by nothing else beyond,--and the\ncharacter of His personality tells us there is much beyond that is\ninexplicable--not only may but must take into Himself and hold there for\ntime and eternity the whole race--except so far, alas, as men struggle\nfrom the freedom of His embrace into the slavery of a false\nindependence. Thus the Eucharist is the divinely chosen means whereby we\nmen are invited to enter into, and consciously to appropriate the\nhighest points of the victory of the Cross as well as what lies\nbeyond,--the resurrection life. Through it He shares with us His\nlife-giving death and His deathless life, His Divine nature and His\nperfect humanity, and we are \"accepted in the Beloved.\"\n\nThe various titles of the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood suggest\nits various aspects,[26] one of which, and that the one that happily is\nmost common in our Church, we shall consider--the Holy Communion. This\ntitle indicates the view of the sacrament which most readily appeals to\nthe human heart. The Holy Communion means, of course, \"the Holy\nFellowship\"--not \"a\" but \"the,\" that fellowship which above all others\nis holy, the end of which is to make all who participate in it holy. It\nis fellowship with the Father in Christ--not merely with Christ; that is\nnot the whole of it, for Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man as He\nis, is the \"Way\" to the Father. Nor is it an ordinary fellowship, of\nwhich the fellowship of mere men is a complete image. Ordinary\nfellowship allows two lives to intertwine; but here so close is the\nrelationship that \"Christ _with_ us,\" \"we _with_ Christ\" is inadequate\nto describe the intimacy, and \"we _in_ Christ,\" \"Christ _in_ us,\"\nphrases which no one dare to apply to any other friendship, can alone\ntell the tale. And \"we in Christ\" not \"Christ in us\" is the grander and\nmore frequent phrase. \"In Christ\" tells of the unmeasured wealth of\nfellowship, divine and human, which is the Christian heritage; it is the\nwhole parable of the vine and the branches in two syllables.[27] This is\nthe Godward aspect of the sacrament. And in this connection three things\nare to be noted:--\n\nSec. 1. Every fresh communion is a new point of contact with God in Christ\nthrough the working of the Eternal Spirit; each last communion means\nmore than any of those which have gone before, as even in our\nassociation with a human friend new qualities and untried depths of\nfamiliar characteristics are revealed in each successive act of\nintercourse. Friendship is taken up day by day on a higher level than\nformerly, because of these new glimpses of the inner recesses of life\nwhich are caught from time to time as friends meet. And frequent\nrepetition of the sacrament ought no more to impair its value, than\nfrequent meetings the reality of friendship.\n\nSec. 2. Communion is only begun and not ended at the altar. It is something\nmore than a touch for a moment. Grace is not the infusion of some\nmysterious spiritual property, which God having imparted leaves the\nrecipient to make use of by himself; grace is the gift of God's personal\nworking in the life through the indwelling Spirit. God never holds His\nfaithful children one moment to let them go the next. He enfolds us in\nHimself with a tightening embrace, as by loyalty to His laws and\nrepeated acts of faith, we expose new portions of our nature for Him to\nlay hold on. The sense of God's presence may be peculiarly full as we\nkneel to receive the heavenly food, just as at the moment of meeting\nagain one whom we love the emotions are deeply stirred; but by virtue of\nyesterday's communion, God is as near at hand to-day as He was when we\nreceived the sacrament. The Holy Communion would fail in its purpose if\nit made the presence of our Lord a reality only for the time being, and\ndid not more fully introduce men into the Divine presence as an abiding\nstate. The fact of God's immanence in us requires this conclusion.\n\nSec. 3. The result of a faithful reception of the Holy Communion should be\nholiness in the common, everyday life, from which an incident, the\nfamily meal, is borrowed and transformed as the symbol and means by\nwhich all other incidents may be transformed. So great a mystery demands\nall the majesty of a liturgy and the accompaniment of stately worship;\nand a dignified ritual attached to this representative, this common act\nof our human life, is most valuable as indicating the majesty of all\nthat is commonplace when it is touched by God. Just as we consecrate\ncertain times and seasons in order that all times and seasons may become\nholy, so in the sacraments God has taught us to consecrate the simplest\nacts of ordinary life--the bath and the meal--as typical of the\npotential sacredness of all acts, and as a means of sanctifying and\nennobling them. So the Holy Communion touches alike private life and\nlife in society, the life of recreation and the life of business, and\nunless it transfigures each of these departments of human experience it\nfalls short of its purpose. Let the business man remember that he\nstrains to see and touch the Most Holy at the altar that he may see and\ntouch the Most Holy in the market; let the professional man and the man\nof letters, the day labourer and the scientist each in his sphere be\ncarried from the vision of God in the Eucharist to the abiding\nfellowship with God in his special vocation. He who comes _from_ God\ngoes _to_ God, whithersoever his steps may bear him. The presence of our\nLord at the altar is special but not exclusive. It is not a lamp lighted\nfor a moment and then put out, but a light which will illuminate all\nlife, and enable us to see at every turn the vision of omnipresent Love.\nIt is one function of the sacraments to enhance, not to dim, the reality\nof God's immanence in all His works; to train us to perceive and\napprehend that\n\n    _Earth's crammed with heaven\n    And every common bush afire with God_,--\n\na declaration which otherwise would be held to be but a poet's fickle\nfancy or a vague philosophical idea. Days are coming, if they are not\nalready upon us, when in the midst of scientific progress and\nexplanation in which men are prone to rest as final, the believer's\nceaseless theme must be the Divine indwelling. And the strongest and\nmost telling means of keeping alive this truth for ourselves and others\nis the sacramental system of the Church.\n\nThus far we have been thinking of the Godward aspect of the Holy\nCommunion--fellowship with God in Christ. On its manward side it is\nfellowship with man in Christ. As it sustains us in Divine fellowship\nand lifts us continually into purer heights, so it assures us of our\nincorporation in the mystical Body of Christ, \"which is the blessed\ncompany of all faithful people,\" and inspires us to deeper love. Here\nagain it is necessary to recall the original simple form of the\nsacrament, a form so simple that, as Bishop Westcott says somewhere, it\nis difficult in the earliest references to it to distinguish it from the\nordinary family meal. The brethren gather around the common table and\npartake of the common loaf.[28] And the use of the one loving-cup from\nwhich all drink goes beyond the customs of ordinary family life. The\nHoly Communion, which is a social act, speaks of the transformation of\nsocial life.[29] Just as the constant sharing of food at one table is\nthe pledge of loyal service to one another on the part of all who\npartake, as well as a means of gaining strength to fulfil the pledge, so\nthe Holy Communion is a pledge to mutual service and equipment for its\naccomplishment. \"In Christ\" a new relationship is established between\nman and man, or rather an old relationship is deepened and consummated.\nBrethren after the flesh are made brethren in the Lord.[30] Family and\nnational ties are very sacred and very close, but they reach the full\npurpose which God designed for them only when they become the basis for\nspiritual kinship. It is considered a dreadful thing, and rightly so,\nwhen men of common blood are at variance with one another; nothing is\nmore shameful than a family feud. And on the other hand, blood\nrelationship is in itself a demand for the most loyal service that men\nare capable of rendering. Now through the sacramental life a kinship is\nestablished and sustained as real and as binding as that consequent upon\nthe accident of birth; so that for Christian to be at variance with\nChristian is as unnatural as it is for two of one family to strive with\none another; for Christian to over-reach Christian is as treacherous as\nit was for Jacob to steal Esau's blessing. The loyalty which those who\nare \"in Christ\" owe one another is the loyalty due among those who sit\nat the same board and eat of the same loaf, among those in whose veins\nruns the blood of a common mother. When men learn the reality and force\nof spiritual kinship, social problems will be solved and social evils\nwill cease.\n\nBut a hasty glance has been bestowed in the foregoing pages on a mystery\nof unsearchable depth, and many of its aspects have not even been noted.\nThe more obvious aspects are the ones upon which stress has been laid as\nincluding in them all others. As with all other forms of approach to\nGod, so here, what a man knows about the Holy Communion is that which\nGod has taught him in his reception of the Sacrament. Those who would\nfain plumb its depths must come frequently and preparedly to the feast.\nNor is preparation a formal act. It is unfortunate that some teachers\nmake it so by laying insistence on a set form. The best, and indeed the\nonly, true preparation is an outcome of a full knowledge of the thing\nfor which we wish to prepare ourselves, just as the best thanksgiving\nfor a blessing is the spontaneous utterance consequent upon a\ncontemplation of the gift received. The man who knows the spiritual\nsignificance of the Holy Communion, _ipso facto_ knows how to prepare to\nreceive it.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[22] _Works: Vol. viii. p. 8._\n\n[23] _It is not easy to be understood, it is not lightly to be received;\nit is not much opened in the writings of the New Testament, but still\nleft in its mysterious nature; it is too much untwisted and nicely\nhandled by the writings of the doctors; and by them made more\nmysterious, and like a doctrine of philosophy made intricate by\nexplications, and difficult by the apperture and dissolution of\ndistinctions.--Jeremy Taylor, Works, vol. viii, p. 8._\n\n[24] _Milne._\n\n[25] _2 Cor. viii: 9._\n\n[26] _See a valuable little book, Some Titles and Aspects of the\nEucharist, by E. S. Talbot, D. D. (Bishop of Rochester). Rivington,\nPercival & Co., London._\n\n[27] _Bp. Alexander._\n\n[28] _Cf. 1 Cor. x: 17.--\"We, who are many, are one loaf.\" The one\nserious objection to the otherwise convenient custom of using unleavened\nbread in the shape of wafers is that the symbolism of the common loaf is\nlost, and the point of contact with common life is somewhat obscured._\n\n[29] _Our Church, by the title adopted, by the form of service used, by\nthe spirit of her rubrics where they touch upon the subject, plainly\ndeclares it to be her intention that the Holy Communion should always be\ncelebrated so as to be a social act. The priest is not a mere\nrepresentative of the congregation, doing things_ for _them, but a\nleader acting_ with _them. For the priest to act without the\ncongregation is only less anomalous than for the congregation to act\nwithout the priest. Not that the_ whole _congregation present should\nnecessarily receive at any given celebration of the Holy Communion,\nthough in the judgment of the present writer the ideal would be reached\nonly thus._\n\n[30] _Cf. Philemon 16._\n\n\n\n\nChapter XI\n\n_Witnesses unto the Uttermost Part of the Earth_\n\n\nThe breadth of the Christian's vision is exceeded only by its height,\nand his influence is coterminous with nothing less than the human fabric\nof which he is a part. By faith man penetrates into the heaven of\nheavens and reaches the very presence of God himself, a privilege and\nduty which belong not to a favoured few but to the race.\n\n    _Too low they build, who build beneath the stars,_\n\nis a truth of universal application. But just as the stars must not\nlimit man's vision as he gazes up, neither must the horizon limit his\nvision as he looks abroad. Christian energy is not doing its full work\nunless it aims at touching the uttermost part of the earth. That which\nis recorded in Acts 1: 8[31] tells of an abiding principle and not\nmerely of a historic fact. Our Lord is speaking through that group of\nrepresentative men who witnessed His Ascension, to all who become his\nfollowers. Not the Apostles alone but all Christians are destined to be\nHis witnesses \"unto the uttermost part of the earth.\" It is only to be\nexpected that those who have the power to explore the secrets of the\ndivine Being, will also have this lesser power of world-wide influence,\nwhich after all, great as it is, is infinitely less aspiring than the\nformer. The same faith that enables us to love and serve our Lord in\nheaven, equips us to love and serve the men of the remote parts of the\nearth. To have the former is to be heir to the latter.\n\nMen who imbibe this principle and make it part of themselves are said to\nhave missionary spirit. But it cannot be too strongly insisted that this\nspirit is not something over and above the common Christian character;\nfor it is not a possession which we are to claim simply because we are\nbidden to do so, spurred to it by the \"icy purity of the law of duty.\"\nThe missionary spirit is inherent in Christianity. Even though Christ\nhad never said, \"Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the\nnations,\"[32] even if He had not assured His followers that they were to\nbe witnesses \"unto the uttermost part of the earth,\" it would have made\nno practical difference in the final issue of Christian truth. The\nChurch would have been missionary just the same--S. Paul, S. Augustine,\nS. Columba, S. Francis Xavier, would have striven for the Gospel's sake\nnone the less boldly, none the less zealously. The missionary is not a\nmissionary because of a few missionary texts in the Bible. He is a\nmissionary because he is a Christian. All Christ's commands are\ninvitations, which merely put into concise language what the heart\nalready recognizes as its privilege and joy. The missionary\ncommission[33] is the Church's charter, telling all men of her right to\ndare to make Christianity coterminous with humanity, arresting the\nattention of those to whom the missionary is sent rather than acting as\nthe sole motive power of the missionary; from it we get definite\nauthority, and so a measure of inspiration, but we do not rest upon it,\nas though it were by an arbitrary fiat of God that a Christian were\nconverted into a missionary.[34] The latter term tells of one aspect of\nthe Christian character, that is all. Whoever accepts Christ's\nChristianity--the redundancy is necessary--forthwith becomes a\nmissionary.[35] Andrew needed no injunction to seek Peter; he did it\nbecause, being a follower of Christ, he could not help it. And if he had\nrefrained, he would have ceased at that moment to be a disciple.\nChristians, whether considered individually or corporately, who are not\nmissionary in desire and intention, are Christians only in name, getting\nlittle from and contributing nothing to the religion of the Incarnation.\nIf the foregoing contention be true, the definition of \"missionary\"\nstands sadly in need of revision. A missionary is an honourable title\nnot to be reserved only for those who work for God in the waste places\nof His vineyard, but the coveted possession of every Christian who\nstrives to bear a wide witness, as well as deep, to Christ among men.\n\nMissionary service is a _personal_ thing; it cannot be deputed to\nanother any more than it can have something else as a substitute for it.\nContributing money in order that others may be maintained in their\nmissionary undertakings, does not exempt the donor from personal\nservice himself. Every Christian is bound to strive to deepen and widen,\nby the force of his personality in Christ, the Kingdom of God. Of course\nthere is a narrower and a wider missionary spirit. The latter is reached\nby faithfulness to the former, here as well as elsewhere effective\nbreadth beginning in depth. All missionary power begins (as well as\nends) in that unconscious witness[36] which the Christian character\nbears to Christ. So infectious a thing is God's truth, that to receive\nit is to spread it.\n\n    _As one lamp lights another nor grows less,\n    So nobleness enkindleth nobleness_.\n\n\"Ye _are_ the light of the world;\" \"Ye _are_ the salt of the earth.\" And\nit is that part of the character which easily, simply and naturally lays\nhold on Christ, that first sheds God's light abroad and becomes the\npreservative element of society.\n\nIt is further noticeable that the sphere of Christian influence as\nalluded to by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, corresponds with the\nsphere of witness-bearing marked out by Him in His parting words before\nthe Ascension--\"Ye are the light of _the world_;\" \"Ye are the salt of\n_the earth_;\" \"Ye shall be witnesses unto the uttermost part of the\nearth.\" To recognize the fact that the Christian life is the most\ninvincible and the most permeating influence that the world can ever\nknow, is an enormous incentive to consistency and zealous devotion.\nChristian character is the only force which a man can both leave behind\nhim, and take with him when he comes to die. Nothing can withstand it,\nand nothing can check its career. It is bound to impress all that it\ntouches, and it touches everything--\"the world,\" \"the earth.\" It is not\ntoo much to hold that unconscious influence always exceeds conscious\ninfluence, the latter reaching the zenith of its effectiveness only when\nit has been transformed, by constant use, into the former. It is in the\nhome that the Christian begins that witness-bearing, which is destined\nto reach so far.\n\nBut the widest missionary spirit is inclusive. It is not a substitute\nfor home work, any more than public life is a substitute for family\nlife. The former is the extension of the latter. The disciples of the\nfirst days reached the uttermost part of the earth through Jerusalem and\nall Judaea and Samaria; while the disciples of these latter days must\ntouch the bounds of the world through the parish, the diocese, the\nChurch of the nation. Nothing, no matter how fine and striking it may\nbe, can take the place of loyalty to the duties that are nearest at\nhand. Church life may be conceived of as a series of concentric circles,\nthe innermost of which representing parochial relations, the next\ndiocesan missions, then domestic, and the outermost circle foreign\nmissions. Power to traverse the large circumference comes from\nfaithfully treading the round of those that lie within, beginning with\nthat next the centre. The only way to have power and to serve abroad is\nto live a deep full life at home, and, let it be added, the only way to\nhave large power and to serve at home is to cast the eye far abroad and\nwind the interests of a whole world around the heart. And the spiritual\nforce of the foreign mission field is no lying index of the spiritual\ncondition of the home Church; it tells the tale as truly as the pulse\nreports for the heart. It may be perfectly true of every other society\nof men that mere concentration is the secret of power, but it is not so\nwith the Church. Any ecclesiastical unit, be it parish, diocese,\nprovince, or national Church, which is content to feed itself on rich\nspiritual food, without regard for the rest of the world, will sooner or\nlater be filled with disease and die. However specious a form\nself-contemplation may assume, it inevitably ends in ruin, for it leads\nto isolation; and what is isolation but the most awful and irretrievable\nof catastrophes? The only true independence is that which is the fruit\nof interdependence. A given Church may have all the appearance of\nlife--there may be popularity, large property, handsome equipment and\nother signs of outward prosperity--but within there is nothing but\ndeath. It is just as wrong and just as fatal to hold aloof, on any plea\nsoever, from the common life of the entire Church at home and abroad, as\nit is to cut ourselves off from the Church of the past by a denial of\nfundamental truth. The former, quite as much as the latter, is a\ndeparture from Apostolic Christianity, and so merits the opprobrious\nname of schism.\n\nIt is a strange but inflexible spiritual law, that those who aim at\nanything short of the best according to their conception, as God has\ngiven them light, will sooner or later come to grief. It is merely a\nmatter of time. The hope of Christianity lies in its boldness. The\nChurch is strong when she is daring, and only then; her strength rises\nand falls with her courage--victory is faith.[37] What an inspiration to\nevery parish, the lowliest and poorest as well as the numerically strong\nand financially rich!--the uttermost part of the earth is within the\nreach of its influence: ay, more than that, is in need of its prayers\nand its labours. Work for foreign missions is the climax and crown of\nChristian life, not a sluggish tributary to it. And a parish will be in\nthe vanguard of God's forces or far in the rear, according as it rises\nto its responsibility in this direction or not.\n\nThere is an immense amount of untutored missionary desire. That is to\nsay, there are vast numbers of Christians whose hearts burn towards\nthose who do not know Christ, but there is no man to teach them how to\ncrystallize desire into prayer and action and let the stream of their\ndesire run clear and full; there are many others, too, who have a narrow\nmissionary spirit and who linger in Judaea and Samaria, only because they\nhave never been shown how it is possible to reach unto the uttermost\npart of the earth. The fire is there, but it smoulders for want of fuel.\nMen need direction for their missionary aspirations; they need to be\ninstructed in the work that is being done. We cannot expect people to be\ninterested in what they know nothing about. If the cause of missions is\npresented as an abstraction, and men are urged to give \"on principle,\"\nthe gifts that come will be such as cost the givers nothing. And as for\nprayers--well, there will be none, for prayers cannot live on\nabstractions. The clergy should be the leaders in making the missions of\nthe Church a living thing; and it is nothing short of a scandal that so\nmany pulpits are closed to those who wear the title of \"missionary.\" But\nwhatever be the shortcomings of the clergy, there is no more reason why\nChristian laymen should be ignorant of the general features of Church\nwork in the far West or in China and Japan than that they should be\nignorant of international politics; and there is more reason for shame\non account of ignorance in the former than in the latter case. Once\nwaken men's interest in the work abroad as a concrete reality, and there\nwill be stronger prayer, more numerous offers for personal service in\nforeign work from the best and bravest, more liberal contributions in\nmoney.\n\nIt has already been hinted that not only does the uttermost part of the\nearth need Christianity, but that Christianity needs the uttermost part\nof the earth. We cannot fully know Christ until all the nations have\nseen and believed and told their vision. The Church of God is poor, in\nthat it lacks the contribution which the un-Christianized nations alone\ncan give by being evangelized. Just as the speculative East needed in\nthe first days the practical West to balance its concept of the Gospel,\nand _vice versa_, so it is now. Before we can see the full glory of the\nIncarnation, representatives of all nations must blend their vision with\nthat which has already been granted. Every separate stone must be set\nbefore the temple reaches its final splendour. Foreign missions are as\nmuch for the Church's sake as for the heathen's, as much for the eternal\nprofit of those who are sent as for those to whom they go.\n\nNo attempt has been made in these pages to argue as with men who do not\nbelieve in the widest missionary enterprise, for missionary spirit is\nnot created by argument. Indeed, many an objection is but the instrument\nby which persons convict themselves of being Christian only in name.\nThere is no answer to what they say excepting, \"Of course you cannot\nbelieve in missions, because it is evident you do not believe in Christ.\nTo believe in Christ is to believe in missions, missions unto the\nuttermost part of the earth.\" It would be a shame to appear to apologize\nfor what is of the essence of Christianity. So we turn away from all\nsmaller reasoning, to the one great spring and impulse of mission work\nfar and near. The Christian has to see those whom Christ sees, for the\nfollower looks through his master's eyes; the Christian has to love and\nserve those whom Christ loves and serves, for the follower lives only in\nhis master's spirit. Consequently, he must see, love and serve unto the\nuttermost part of the earth. Being a follower of Christ, he cannot help\nit; he does it for the same reason and with the same naturalness that\nthe sun shines and the rose sheds its fragrance abroad.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[31] _Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea,\nand in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth._\n\n[32] _St. Matt. xxviii_: 19.\n\n[33] _St. Matt. xxviii:_ 19, 20.\n\n[34] _The following remarkable phrase occurs in Bp. Andrewes'\nDevotions:--Who_ [i. e., _Christ_] _hath manifested in every place the\nsavour of His knowledge ... by the incredible conversion of the world to\nthe Faith, without assistance of authority, without intervention of\npersuasion._\n\n[35] _The Brotherhood of S. Andrew is nothing more than an organized\neffort to fulfil a common Christian duty._\n\n[36] _Cf. Emerson's verses on unconscious influence_:\n\n    _Little thinks, in the field, yon red cloaked clown\n    Of thee from the hill-top looking down;\n    The heifer that lows in the upland farm,\n    Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;\n    The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,\n    Deems not that great Napoleon\n    Stops his horse, and lists with delight,\n    Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;\n    Nor knowest thou what argument\n    Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent._\n\n[37] _1 John v: 4._\n\n\n\n\nChapter XII\n\n_The Inspiration of Responsibility_\n\n\nThe responsibility of the sons of God has been the theme of this book,\nand the writer trusts that in dwelling upon the duties of the Christian\nlife he has not failed to bring out something of its glory and\ninspiration. But the thing out of which we can gather the largest help\nto fulfil our responsibility is the responsibility itself. If God dwells\nhigh up on the hills of difficulty, He has a throne, too, in the heart\nof every claim made on human character.[38]\n\nThe presence in our life of a difficulty is a call to responsibility,\nand the acceptance of a responsibility is the admittance into personal\nexperience of God in His triumphant march toward the great consummation;\nit is correspondence with victory. Just as the glory of duty consists,\nnot in its immediate issue, but in its performance, so the main\ninspiration for responsibility comes not from external goads and spurs,\nbut from the very thing which lies at our feet, looking at first sight\nlike a task given to mock rather than inspire, to denude of what little\npower we have rather than to equip, to undo the would-be doer rather\nthan to be done by him. Responsibility without doubt is a task, but much\nmore is it an inspiration. Of course the measure of inspiration which it\nimparts is proportionate to the faith and courage with which it is\napproached. Responsibility handled with dilettante fingers will only cut\nand wound; grasped in firm embrace, it will bestow so much illumination\nand vigour that the pain which inaugurates the gift will be forgotten\nalmost before the last ache has faded out. And again, it is not too much\nto say that the greater a responsibility is, the greater is its power to\ninspire. In other words, inspiration is always commensurate with\nresponsibility. \"As thy days, so shall thy strength be.\" In the common\nChristian duty, which has been outlined in the foregoing pages, so great\nis the responsibility imposed that nothing short of the highest\nconceivable incentive can carry a man through. And the inspiration lies\nwithin the task and will declare itself only in the doing of the task.\n\nEven on the natural side man finds attraction and inspiration in\nproblems, puzzles and difficulties.[39] No sooner is one problem solved\nor one difficulty surmounted than another is eagerly sought for and\ngrappled with. The spice of life lies in its antagonisms.[40] It is not\nthe prospect of some reward of wealth or honour that carries men to the\ncrown of their task; it is the joy of the doing, a joy that is felt even\nin those preliminary experimentations which only pave the way to the\nreal undertaking. Men--we are not thinking of butterflies--cannot exist\nwithout difficulty. To be shorn of it means death, because inspiration\nis bound up with it, and inspiration is the breath of God, without the\nconstant influx of which man ceases to be a living soul. Responsibility\nis the sacrament of inspiration. The miracles of Christ, whatever else\nthey did, suggested new responsibility to the race, opened up a new\nfield of daring and enlarged the scope of human operations. They\nencouraged men to attempt the impossible; and without question the\nhidden but no less effective cause of all scientific development has\nbeen and is Christian aspiration, roused to its highest pitch by the\nmarvels performed by the Man Christ Jesus. Christian faith has educated\nus to a belief that the first promise of order lies in the discovery of\nchaos, and that every problem carries in its own pocket a key formed to\nfit the hand of man. Thus interest in the sorrows and perplexities of\nthe multitudes rises from a nerveless compassion that of yore worked\nlaboriously with its \"law-stiffened fingers,\" to a wide-reaching\nministration of power; the secrets of nature become invitations to\nknowledge; and effort that was once merely instinctive and random\nbecomes rational and triumphant.\n\nBut Christ enabled men to achieve what before they had only sighed\nafter, not by releasing from, but on the contrary by adding to human\nresponsibility. He saw the inspiration of responsibility, so by making\nthe latter great He made the former reach its height; He equipped man to\ndo the smaller duties of life by giving larger ones. It will for ever\nhold true that to bring men up to their best, we must call them to the\nhighest. They are to be won, not by the promise of a gift, but by a\nringing call to duty, not by something to eat, but by something to do.\nOne reason at least why Christianity is bound to supersede all other\nreligions is because of the supreme largeness of its demands on human\ncharacter and the supreme inspiration that those demands contain. The\nfault of most modern prophets is not that they present too high an\nideal, but an ideal that is sketched with a faltering hand; the appeal\nto self-sacrifice is too timid and imprecise, the challenge to courage\nis too low-voiced, with the result that the tide of inspiration ebbs\nlow. The call to each soul to contribute its quota toward the\nrealization of the most remote ideal so far from being depressing is\nstimulating, and a necessary goad to the promotion of individual as well\nas corporate development. Mr. Kipling's prophetic voice rings out above\nthe Babel of a garrulous age and inspires men in the only way they can\nbe inspired, by pointing out human responsibility and bidding men take\nup their burden.\n\n    _Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,\n    Baulking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise.\n    Stand to your work and be wise--certain of sword and pen,\n    Who are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men!_\n\nClothed with the conviction that true inspiration lies in\nresponsibility, what better words of inspiration can this closing\nchapter bear than what will come from a final insistence upon the\nvastness of the ordinary man's spiritual responsibility and the grandeur\nof his opportunity? In these days a true man rises instinctively to a\nbroad outlook. He does not labour for his own self-fulfillment and\nnothing more. Of course, every act of self-sacrifice for the Kingdom of\nHeaven's sake helps toward that end, for self-sacrifice for the\npromotion of whatever cause is always the negative aspect of\nself-fulfillment. But Christians strive toward the best not from selfish\nmotives, not merely because what God commands must be done, but because\nHe has opened up to our gaze a vision of His world-purposes and shown us\nthat obedience means cooperation with Him in their fulfillment. Thus\nsmall actions become big with import. Personal purity means a\ncontribution toward the solution of the divorce question which exceeds\nin its constructive influence the most wisely worded canon of marriage.\nThe commercial honour of the individual is the forging of a ward in the\nkey that will some day unlock the closed door of the industrial problem.\nFaithfulness in spiritual duties in the most circumscribed life is a\nvoice that reaches the uttermost part of the earth and gives its undying\nwitness to all who have ears to hear. Loyalty and charity working hand\nin hand in the Christian soul will do as much as the most carefully\nframed and comprehensive formula of agreement, to bring about that\nChristian unity for which our Lord prayed[41] when His time was short\nand His thoughts only upon that which was the objective point of the\nIncarnation.\n\nWhether or not men recognize the extent of their influence, that\ninfluence tells. But what a source of inspiration and strength is lost\nwhen these things are hidden and one sees only the natural side of life,\nthe prison-house of environment and the task without its incentive! The\nArchitect of life would have His least workman know the full plan and\nnot merely that of the small bit of it which is his special care. Once\nto discern our personal relation to God's world-purposes is to be for\never purged of dilettantism; is to be for ever emancipated from a\ncertain religious littleness that shackles so many Christian feet, and\nto move out into a breadth which involves no loss of depth; is to shake\nnon-essentials into the background, and bring fundamental truths to the\nfore, where they can burn themselves into our very being; is to receive\na new motive for living and doing.\n\nFired by a sense of large responsibility, sustained spiritual effort on\na high plane becomes possible for each in his own little corner. The\ndemand upon men to pray well, to seek to make the moral life blameless,\nand to deepen and enlarge the sphere of service,--in a word, to aspire\nto the stars and reach out to the four corners of the world, suggests\nprivilege rather than hardship to the rank and file of the Christian\narmy. The layman may not look to the priest as a vicarious man of prayer\nand of righteousness. The priesthood is representative, not exclusive,\nin character and service. The priest is a man of prayer not because he\nis a priest, but because he is a Christian, his priesthood but\ndetermining the accidental features of his devotional life. He is a holy\nman not because he is a priest, but because he is a Christian, his\npriesthood but determining the sphere in which his holiness is to be\nexpressed. The priest does spiritual work not because he is a priest,\nbut because he is a Christian, his priesthood but making him a leader in\nservice, _primus inter pares_. Faithfulness in prayer, righteousness in\nlife, full spiritual service, are the responsibility as much of the\nlayman as of the priest. Failure in any one of these departments of life\nis as culpable in the layman as in the priest. It is notable that of all\nthe vows in the Ordinal, whether in the ordering of priest or deacon, or\nin the consecration of a bishop, the majority are but the expansion of\ncommon Christian duty and could be as well taken by layman as by cleric.\nThe functional peculiarities are as few as the representative duties are\nmany. The priestly life is mainly, though not solely, the\nintensification of fundamental relations with God and man, as the\nOrdinal testifies, and the ideal priesthood, so far as it touches\ndevotion, morals and common service, is but the perpetual and living\nreminder to the laity of what they should be and do. There are many\nready to decry sacerdotalism; but few of these have sufficient logic to\nrecognize that the more completely the ministry is denuded of all but\nits representative character, the more fully is the layman weighted with\nspiritual responsibility.[42]\n\nAnd spiritual work is as wide as human activity. The tendency to make\nreligion a department of life instead of the Christian synonym for the\nwhole of life, has given rise to such a redundancy as \"applied\nChristianity.\" The life of common activities, social and industrial, is\nas truly the sphere of religion as the sanctuary. The natural is not the\nantithesis but the foundation of the spiritual. First that which is\nnatural and afterward that which is spiritual--by transformation, not by\nsubstitution. The Resurrection of Christ is a parable as well as a fact.\nAnd it is for the layman, whether he be the thinker in his study or the\nlabourer in his ditch, to exercise his priesthood in the sphere of his\noccupation, lifting to God for His transforming touch each transaction\nin which he is engaged, recognizing that all life is divine, and all\nbusiness God's business. It is for the layman to enter into the bent of\nhis age and train it to God, not holding aloof from popular movements\nand ambitions, but laying hold of them and labouring for their\nconversion and sanctification. Thus will the natural become the\nspiritual. The witness that the world of to-day is most in need of is\nthat which will testify that if God is the God of the supernatural and\nextraordinary, just as really is He the God of the natural and ordinary,\nrevealing Himself through and using common things as the general rule,\nturning to what is uncommon as the exception. Who can bear this witness\nso well as the layman in the home and in the market? Certain it is that\nuntil this is done and theology has become much more than now part of\nthe web and woof of common life among common men, theological assent or\necclesiastical unity will accomplish but little toward unifying life in\nChrist in any worthy sense.\n\nThis, then, is the ordinary duty of a Christian layman. It is not\nsomething optional, to be assumed or not as we prefer. It is what we\nmust accept as our responsibility, if we accept Christ and look for\nacceptance in Him. The Church of to-day is coming to recognize this more\nand more, and is settling down to the work before her with wisdom and\nzeal. Even beneath the reaction against \"organized Christianity,\" which\nhas appeared of late, and partially explanatory of it, is moral\nearnestness, an earnestness that deprecates that conventional religion\nwhich, narrow in both its vision and methods, fails to touch life with a\nhand of power. Men of action wish a Christianity which is weighted with\nresponsibilities. Here and there one finds a nerveless Amiel who can\nspeak fine phrases, but who shrinks from responsibility. And here and\nthere, too, is a doctrinaire philosopher or an idle onlooker who croaks\nof degeneration and declares that life lacks inspiration. But all the\nwhile the workers, with eyes gleaming with hope, plunge into the most\nhopeless problems, and reap their inspiration from their toil.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[38] _See Appendix._\n\n[39] _See Prof. William James in, Is Life Worth Living? \"Too much\nquestioning and too little active responsibility lead, almost as often\nas too much sensualism does, to the edge of the slope, at the bottom of\nwhich lie pessimism and the nightmare or suicidal view of life.\"_ [The\nWill to Believe and other Essays.]\n\n[40] _See Dr. John Fiske in his recently published, Through Nature to\nGod, where in a study of the Mystery of Evil, he developes this thought\nmost admirably, though making the unnecessary deduction that God is the\ncreator of moral evil._\n\n[41] _St. John xvii._\n\n[42] _See Moberly's Ministerial Priesthood, chap. ii._\n\n\n\n\nAppendix\n\nWhere God Dwells[43]\n\n\nThere is no truth so thrilling as that which speaks of God's abiding\npresence, not merely _with_ but _in_ His creation, though He is neither\nlimited by nor dependent upon it. Having created, He sustains, sustains\nfrom within, so that the most recent manifestation of energy, whether in\nthe radiance of a sunrise or the smile on a child's face, is not the\nreflection of a far-off movement of God, but an indication of His\npresent working. God is behind the world of things, controlling and\nusing all that is visible, so that the voiceless speaks and the lifeless\nlives and imparts life. But His delight is among the sons of men. He\ndwells in men, making their bodies His temple and their souls His\nthrone. He dwells in nature because He dwells in man, as well as\ndwelling in man because man is part of nature. What will help a man to\nhonour his own body and to reverence the bodies of others, more than\nthe thought that the Spirit of God fills the human frame as light fills\nthe room, leaving no part untouched? It is not sufficient to think of\nGod as being in some organ of the body--the most worthy part, such as\nthe heart or the brain. God's Spirit fills His temple with His glory and\nHis power, making the least comely parts noble. He sanctifies each\nmember in the fulfillment of its proper function. To misuse or abuse any\npower or faculty, is to drive the Spirit of God from His chosen\nresting-place; whereas to surrender the members of the body and the\nfaculties of the soul to His influence, is to lift up the whole man into\nincreasing glory and beauty.\n\nBut it is not difficult to accept the truth that God lives within His\nwonderful creation. The earliest dawn of religion perceived Him in His\nworks of beauty and majesty,--the sun, the stars, the river, the\ntempest. And if He is immanent in that which is less, it is only logic\nto say that He must of necessity be in that which is greater--if in the\nworld of things, much more then in the world of men, in the individual\nand in society. But so deep is man's instinctive reverence, so abiding\nhis sense of unworthiness, that it needed the Incarnation to convince\nman that he was destined to become the heaven of God. Yes, the heaven of\nGod, for heaven is where God is rather than God where heaven is.\n\nAll this has become an elementary truth of religion. Only it has to be\nexpressed in new terms from time to time. The thought has to be recoined\nas the edges of language wear smooth, that its force and value may be\nrecognized. The immanence of God, as thus considered, is not difficult\nfor men to accept, unless indeed they wander into the barren wastes of a\ndeistic thought, which banishes God from life as we know it, and makes\nHim a transcendent unreality.\n\nWhat _does_ stagger men is the existence in a world in which God dwells,\nof the dark mysteries from which none can escape,--the disastrous\nstorms, the difficulties, the pains of life. If, they argue, God dwells\nin the world, why does He not sweep away these heavy shadows, this\nover-much grief? There is only one answer, and it is this: God does not\nannihilate these things because He has a high use for them; He cannot\ndestroy that which He can inhabit; God dwells in the dark places, in the\nwilderness, in the storms; He has taken possession of them, and they are\nHis just as much as the sunshine and the fertile land. In short, God\ndwells in everything short of sin, even in the fiercest, gloomiest\npenalty of sin. The angel of vengeance is the angel of God's blessing\nfor all penitents who will accept him as such.\n\nWhen our Lord came in the flesh, He entered into every human experience\nto abide in it all the days. He invested temptation, so that temptation\nis henceforth man's highest opportunity. He seized upon difficulty, and\nbehold, it becomes a revelation. He invested responsibility till it\nbecame inspiration, duty till it became privilege. He wrapped Himself in\nsorrow, and sorrow is turned into joy. He explored the darkest recesses\nof death, and death is the gate to life immortal. And these\ntransformations are for all time.\n\nIt is a process of transformation, let it be noted, which these\nmysteries undergo. It is not that the temptation in time is swept away\nand an opportunity substituted in its place; but the temptation\n_becomes_ an opportunity, and man mounts upon it to a higher level of\nself-sacrifice, or purity or honour. It is not that the difficulty is\nburned up by God's fire and a revelation comes gliding in as a sunbeam\nathwart the ashes of the difficulty; but the difficulty itself becomes\nthe revelation. The pain of Rebekah in child-birth as the children\nstruggled in her womb, made her inquire of the Lord, and God flashed\nback the reply from the heart of her difficulty: \"Two nations are in thy\nwomb.\" Joseph brooded over the condition of Mary, his espoused wife,\nuntil, in the night vision, the angel of the Lord appeared, and said:\n\"That Which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.\" His difficulty\nbecame a revelation. Similarly the dominant feature of responsibility\nbecomes not its weight but its inspiration, of duty not its 'ought' but\nits 'may.' And so it is with sickness, and sorrow, and death. S. Paul's\nsickness, whether it was a malady of the eyes or Asiatic malaria is of\nlittle consequence, became to him spiritual health and power; \"My grace\nis sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness.\" As for\nsorrow, it is turned into joy,--the very thing that caused tears\nbecoming the spring of smiles. And death, the king of shadows, is shorn\nof its horrors and becomes the entrance chamber to introduce into the\npresence of the King of Light.\n\nThe Bible is full of phrases (in the Old Testament, of course, they are\nprophetic, pointing to Messianic days) that tell of God's transforming\npower. Darkness shall be turned into light; the desert shall blossom as\na rose; the barren shall be a mother of children; the glowing sand shall\nbecome a pool; and the thirsty ground, springs of water; the deaf shall\nhear, and the blind see; defeat becomes victory; and the instrument of\nshame and torture, the symbol of glory and joy. And all this, which,\nthrough the Incarnation, has become a fact in common life, is a\nrevelation of God's power, not to say love, which far exceeds in wonder\nwhatever we knew before. It is appalling to think of a power so strong\nthat it can annihilate with the irresistible force of its grinding heel;\nbut it is inspiring to consider an Almightiness that transforms the\nworks of evil into the hand-maidens of righteousness and converts the\nsinner into the saint. And it is this latter power which eternal Love\npossesses and exhibits. He persistently dwells in the sinner until the\nsinner wakes up in His likeness and is satisfied with it; He enters into\nthe shadows and holds them until they become first as the morning clouds\nfingered by the earliest rays of the rising sun, and eventually as the\nbrightness of the noonday light.\n\nBut men must not accept this as a mere poetic fancy, beautiful but not\nof practical value. It is nothing, if not a source of power. We must\nexperiment with our own difficulties, sickness, sorrows--yes, and our\nown death. There are those, Christian scientists and others, that\nespouse a false idealism, who meet the grim realities of life with a\ncourage that is born of a lie. They deny the existence of everything\nthey do not like, saying that sorrow and sin and death are not, that\nthey are phantoms. They are not unlike the silly bird, which, finding\nitself hard pressed, buries its head in the nearest bush, and being\nunable to see its pursuers, deceives itself into thinking that it is not\npursued. But \"things and actions are what they are,\" so why should we\ndesire to deceive ourselves? The Christian's course of action is to say\nthat these dark mysteries are real, but the Spirit of God in us will\nenable us to find the Spirit of God in them.\n\nOur Lord on the Mount of the Transfiguration, and later on in the\nPassion, tells the whole story. Calmly contemplating His own approaching\ndeath, which He had just foretold, and bringing it before the Father in\nprayer, He sees the transfiguration of the king of terrors, and, in a\nblaze of spiritual exaltation, speaks of His own decease so soon to be\naccomplished. Then afterward in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the way of\nsorrow, and upon the Cross, He was in every detail the victor. These\nfinal experiences of life did not seize upon Him; it was He who seized\nthem; He wrung them dry of all that they had to give and for ever\nchanged their character. Frowning monarchs they can never be to the\nfollowers of our Lord, but, on the contrary, powerful servants. Christ's\nvictory was not in the Resurrection any more completely than in the\nPassion. It was in the former because it had been in the latter. Good\ndesires brought to good effect, as the Easter Collect puts it, end in\nthe resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Victory is not only a\nthing of to-morrow; it belongs to to-day. The Christian's life is\nvictory all along the line.\n\nLet men, then, take their own hard, grim, specific pain or difficulty,\nand face it fearlessly and expectantly, and they will find that the\n\"worst turns the best to the brave.\" Let them throw their arms about it,\nand say with Jacob: \"I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.\" And,\nlo! they will find that their arms are about God and His about them. If\nwe pray God to sanctify our sickness, it is not that we expect Him to\ntouch it from without. No, we look for more than that, much more. We\nexpect Him to reveal Himself out of the depths of the suffering, so that\nthe more earnestly we look at it the more clearly shall we see Him and\nHis Face of Love. Men who have done this with the lesser of the dark\nmysteries will be quite ready when the time comes to act in the same way\ntoward death, and say triumphantly: \"Thanks be to God which giveth us\nthe victory.\"\n\nWhat is true of personal difficulties, perplexities and sorrows, is\nequally true of the sorrows of a world. Let men remember that those who\nhold back timidly or discouraged from hand-to-hand conflict with social,\npolitical and industrial difficulties, are forfeiting their share in the\nlargest kind of revelation. God dwells there, in corporate sorrows, as\nwell as in those of the individual experience, and, if one may say so,\nin a fuller measure. The world needs brave men to-day, men who are\ndetermined to see God wherever He is, and He is in everything,\neverything short of actual sin. There is no philosophy so false to facts\nas pessimism, except perhaps cheap and unthinking optimism. It is only\nthe Christian philosophy that is equal to the situation, a philosophy\nwhich ignores nothing, howsoever gruesome, but which sees God master of\nHis world, and nowhere in such complete possession as in its darkest\ncorners.\n\nWhen God's storms come sweeping along, it is the Christian alone who can\nlift his head, look up, and stand erect as they enshroud him, for a\nChristian cannot fear where God is. Elijah could not find God in the\nstorm that swept by him. But the youngest Christian can do what the\nstern prophet of old could not; he can find God in all storms, for all\nstorms are God's.\n\n    _LAUS DEO_\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[43] _The Bishop of Ripon, under the title of \"Seeking and Finding,\"\ngives the following text and exquisite little poem as a Diocesan Motto\nfor 1899_:\n\n_Master, where dwellest Thou?--St. John i: 38._\n\nTHE QUEST\n\n    _O Master of my soul, where dwellest Thou?\n    For but one Sovereign doth love allow,\n    And if I find not Thee, quite lost am I;\n    Tell me Thy dwelling place: this is my cry._\n\n    _No travel will I shrink, no danger dread,\n    If to Thy home, where'er it be, I may be led:\n    Not where the world displays its golden pride,\n    Only with Him, Who is the King, would I abide._\n\nTHE FINDING\n\n    _Nay, not in far distant lands, but ever near,\n    Near as the heart that hopes or beats with fear;\n    My Home is in the heaven, and yet I dwell\n    With every human heart that loveth well._\n\n    _Not where proud perils are I place My throne,\n    But with the true of heart, and these alone;\n    So where the contrite soul breathes a true sigh,\n    And where kind deeds are done, even there dwell I._\n\n    _And those who live by love need never ask,\n    They find my dwelling place in every task;\n    Vainly they seek who all impatient roam;\n    If brave and good thy heart, there is My home._","title":"With God in the World: A Series of Papers","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":30886}