{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_41520/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_41520","id":"gutenberg_41520","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41520","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- Appreciation","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\n\n  THANKSGIVING SERMONS     12mo, net, $1.00\n  LETTERS ON EVANGELISM    16mo, cloth, 25 cents;\n                                 paper, 15 cents\n\n\n\n\n  The Mendenhall Lectures, First Series\n  Delivered at DePauw University\n\n\n  THE BIBLE AND LIFE\n\n\n  BY EDWIN HOLT HUGHES\n  Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church\n\n\n  THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN\n  NEW YORK      CINCINNATI\n\n\n\n\n  Copyright, 1915, by\n  EDWIN HOLT HUGHES\n\n  First Edition printed February, 1915\n  Reprinted June, 1915\n\n\n\n\nTO CHARLES RAISBECK MAGEE\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                           PAGE\n\n        INTRODUCTION                   9\n\n        FOREWORD                      11\n\n        BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE             13\n\n        THE HUMAN OUTLINE             19\n\n     I. THE BIBLE AND LIFE            21\n\n    II. THE BIBLE AND MAN             49\n\n   III. THE BIBLE AND HOME            76\n\n    IV. THE BIBLE AND EDUCATION      102\n\n     V. THE BIBLE AND WORK           125\n\n    VI. THE BIBLE AND WEALTH         151\n\n   VII. THE BIBLE AND SORROW         185\n\n  VIII. THE BIBLE AND PRACTICE       213\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nBy the courteous invitation of the President, Faculty, and Trustees of\nDePauw University, the writer had the privilege of delivering the first\nseries of lectures under the foundation as endowed by his friend, the Rev.\nMarmaduke H. Mendenhall. The following comments are the only introductory\nwords that need be given.\n\nThe terms of the lectures were kept strictly within the radius of real\nlife. The author does not claim to be a biblical scholar in any technical\nsense. Nor did he deem that the primary need of the students whom he\naddressed would be met by a discussion of theories of inspiration or of\ndates and authorships. College students have a passion for reality, and\nthe most convincing apologetic for them is the argument from actual\nliving.\n\nUnder the instruction of the founder the lectures are to be placed in\npermanent form for the students of the University and for the wider\npublic. The lecturer having been rewarded by the close attention of\nhundreds of youthful hearers, the writer will have a still greater reward\nif those who heard the words as spoken in Meharry Hall are joined by the\nlarger company who will listen for the voice of the Spirit in these pages.\n\nEDWIN HOLT HUGHES.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MENDENHALL LECTURES\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nThe late Reverend Marmaduke H. Mendenhall, D.D., of the North Indiana\nConference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, donated to DePauw University\nthe sum of ten thousand dollars, the purpose and conditions of which gift\nare set forth in his bequest as follows:\n\nThe object of this gift is \"to found a perpetual lectureship on the\nevidences of the Divine Origin of Christianity, to be known as the\nMendenhall Foundation. The income from this fund shall be used for the\nsupport of an Annual Lectureship, the design of which shall be the\nexhibition of the proofs, from all sources, of the Divine Origin,\nInspiration, and Authority of the Holy Scriptures. The course of lectures\nshall be delivered annually before the University and the public without\nany charge for admission.\n\n\"The lecturers shall be chosen by an electing body consisting of the\nPresident of the University, the five senior members of the Faculty of the\nCollege of Liberal Arts, and the President of the Board of Trustees,\nsubject to the approval of the Board of Bishops of the Methodist\nEpiscopal Church. The lecturers must be persons of high and wide repute,\nof broad and varied scholarship, who firmly adhere to the evangelical\nsystem of Christian faith. The selection of lecturers may be made from the\nworld of Christian scholarship without regard to denominational divisions.\nEach course of lectures is to be published in book form by an eminent\npublishing house and sold at cost to the Faculty and students of the\nUniversity.\"\n\n  GEORGE R. GROSE,\n    _President of DePauw University_.\n\n\n\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nInasmuch as future lecturers on the Mendenhall Foundation may not have had\nthe privilege of personal acquaintance with the founder, it is doubtless\ngood that this first volume may record the outlines of his life and\ncharacter. Marmaduke H. Mendenhall was born at Guilford, North Carolina,\nMay 13, 1836. He died at Union City, Indiana, October 9, 1905. He was the\nson of Himelius and Priscilla Mendenhall, who, when their son was about\none year old, came northward and settled near Peru, Indiana. Doctor\nMendenhall did not suggest in manner or bearing that he was Southern born.\nHad one chosen to judge of his birthplace by the man himself, one would\nhave said that he was a typical son of New England. His deeper self was\ntypified by his personal appearance. He was tall, stately, dignified,\nserious, earnest.\n\nHe joined the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church\nin 1856. Those days were still pioneer, and he entered gladly into the\nsacrificial ministry of that period. It is a singular coincidence that he\nwas doubtless the first minister of his faith to begin work near Union\nCity, where he closed his earthly labors. It was his privilege, also, to\nbuild the first Methodist Episcopal church in the city where he died. The\nhistory of his ministry shows that he served all classes of\ncharges--country, city, village, county seat. Several times the record is\ndotted with the word \"Mission,\" which would indicate that he frequently\nfollowed the apostolic fashion of building strictly on his own\nfoundations. He came to a place of leadership in his own Conference. To\nthe day of his death he was an influential factor in all its plans and\nprograms. Though he had been technically \"superannuated\" for sixteen years\nprior to his death, his mind kept its full vigor, and his word kept its\nfull weight. Twice he was elected a reserve delegate to the General\nConference, while in 1880 he was chosen as one of the regular delegates.\n\nFrom the beginning of his ministry Dr. Mendenhall showed the signs of a\nremarkable mind, and at the end of his ministry he was still manifesting a\nkeen interest in current questions and in theological problems. His\nlibrary to the last was freshened by the purchase of new books. When he\nturned his many volumes over to Gammon Theological Seminary that\ninstitution did not receive hundreds of antiquated volumes, but rather a\ncollection brought down to date and selected by a master judgment. The\nintellectual, though suffused at times by a proper and restrained emotion,\nwas his noticeable characteristic. He was given to thorough analysis. He\nwas markedly painstaking. Records that he made of the conduct of his\npublic services indicate that the final details were all regarded, and\nthat hymns and Scripture lessons were chosen with a view to their bearing\non the instruction of the day.\n\nBeing a vigorous personality, he held his views with strength. He was\nkeenly loyal to his convictions, whether these related to methods of work\nor to statements of doctrine. In his advocacy or in his antagonism he was\nalways frank and open. His opponent could see him standing out in plain\nview, with no effort to protect himself by secrecy. Men could never doubt\nhis sincerity, however much they might question the correctness of his\npositions. He knew no sinuous paths. He was as direct as sunlight, and he\ntraveled in straight lines.\n\nIn all his spheres of work Dr. Mendenhall made deep and lasting\nimpressions. Highly intellectual as he was, he was still an excellent\nadministrator. His business qualifications were signal. Every matter\ncommitted to him was cared for with scrupulous nicety. He left no loose\nends to any of his work. Although his salaries were never large, as\nsalaries are counted to-day, he secured a comfortable property, and this\nin spite of the fact that throughout his lifetime he was a generous\ncontributor to good causes.\n\nHe served as a trustee of De Pauw University longer than other member of\nhis Conference had served, up to the time of his death. From 1878 to 1887\nhe served in this capacity, while in 1896 he was reelected and was an\nactive worker on the board up to the end of his life. He aided in pushing\nthe institution through its crisis. The files of this writer disclose a\ncareful and helpful correspondence upon matters vital to the welfare of\nthe University. In the sessions of the board he was always urbane and\nconciliatory. He crowned the work of his life by leaving to the University\nall of his estate. Upon the increase of the estate to a certain figure,\nthe income was to be used in founding a lectureship on Revealed Religion,\nespecially as related to the Holy Bible.\n\nAlthough the writer was an intimate friend of Dr. Mendenhall, he cannot\nremember any statements made to him which would indicate the founder's\nviews of inspiration or of the other questions that have made the\nbiblical problem of the last two decades. But his library showed that he\nwas fully aware of the modern discussions. Perhaps he felt that a\nlectureship, broadly founded and practically directed, would be of special\nservice to the church in a time of transition. The writer entertains the\nconviction that, even though Dr. Mendenhall might not agree fully with all\nthat is found in the following pages, he would still appreciate the effort\nto bring the Bible within its divine purpose as a Book of Life.\n\nThe home of the founder revealed him as a model of courtesy and\nkindliness. Friends who saw him by his own fireside noted the benignity\nthat matched his dignity, the tenderness that equaled his seriousness.\nThose who came into the nearer circle of his life regarded him most\nhighly. To the wife who survives him he was in all ways a helper, gentle\nin demeanor and loyally careful in the administration of her interests. As\nthe writer reviews the drift of these first lectures delivered under this\nfoundation, he is persuaded that the founder's relation to Himself, to his\nHome, to his Work, to his Wealth, to his Pleasure and Sorrow, and\nparticularly to the cause of Education, is not misrepresented herein. The\nBible was his Book, and its ideals were achieved in his living. It is the\nsincere wish that these pages may accomplish somewhat the main purpose of\nthe founder's heart in making the divine Book a brighter lamp for the\nguidance of youth.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUMAN OUTLINE\n\n\nIt may be well to give in human form the outline which will be followed in\nthese pages. The story is the story of millions of men on as many days.\n\nA man awoke one morning to the consciousness of himself. Looking about he\nsaw the familiar sights of his own home, and soon he heard the voices of\nhis wife and children. Ere long the little people were on their way to\nschool. The man proceeded to his work, while his wife took up her domestic\nduties. He returned in the evening with the proceeds of his day's labor\nadded to his stock of goods. He partook of the evening meal and then\nindulged in the pleasure of \"the children's hour.\" He later called upon a\nfriend who had met with sorrow and in the trouble of his friend he found a\nfresh reminder of his own affliction. He retired in due season to his\nslumber and went forth the next morning to make the like round of the day.\n\nThis is a piece of constant biography. It could be duplicated by reference\nto many a personal journal and diary. If we analyze the description, we\nshall find that the man was driven to take a relation to Himself, to Home,\nto Education, to Work, to Wealth, to Pleasure and Sorrow.\n\nThe aim of this book is to state somewhat the bearing that the Bible has\nupon these great departments of our human living. The apologetic tests the\nBook under the terms of this human outline.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE BIBLE AND LIFE\n\n\nThe Bible is a book of power. The man who would deny this statement would\nimpugn his own intelligence. It is to-day the Book of the strongest\nnations. If the strongest nations selected it for their inspiration and\nguidance, that fact is significant. If, on the other hand, the Bible has\ntrained the strongest nations, that fact is more significant. In either\ncase power is lodged in the Holy Scriptures. The miracle is this: That a\nvery ancient Book rules a very modern world.\n\nVarious explanations are given. Some men say that the Bible is powerful\nbecause it has been promoted by a powerful organization. But this\nexplanation needs explaining. How did the Bible secure the aid of this\norganization? Why did not the organization take the Dialogues of Plato and\nbecome the evangel of Socrates' splendid wisdom? Why did it elect one\nparticular volume? And what would have been the effect on its own life if\nit had chosen some other book? Would the writings of Marcus Aurelius or of\nSeneca, with their high moral grade and their marked religious insight,\nhave served the holy purpose as effectively? When we attempt to substitute\nsome other book in the Bible's place, our hesitancy quickly passes on to\npositive refusal. The Christian Church, with any other volume as its\ntextbook, is simply inconceivable.\n\nOther men will say that the power of the Bible has come from its girding\nby a doctrine of authority. This explanation must likewise be explained.\nCould a Book without inherent authority be long maintained among\nintelligent peoples on the basis of artificial authority? Why is the Bible\nthe best seller and the greatest worker in those lands where it has been\nset free to yield its own message? What is the peculiar quality in the\nBook that has saved any theory of its authority from appearing absurd? The\nBible showed its power long before men adopted any theory of its power.\nDoubtless the claim of authority has increased the influence of the Book\nover certain types of minds. Still it may be confidently asserted that the\nclaim of authority has depended far more on the power of the Bible than\nthe power of the Bible has depended on the claim of authority. The effect\nshould not be allowed to pass itself off as the main cause.\n\nNor does the power of the Bible depend upon mere bulk. Shakespeare wrote\nenough to make several Bibles. So did Scott. So did Dickens. So did\nParkman. If the Bible is a moral and spiritual Encyclopedia, its material\nhas been strangely condensed. It is a brief Book, yet out of its small\ncompass men gather texts for fifty years of preaching and at the close of\ntheir life's task feel that the pages are still exhaustless. The Bible has\ninspired literature far beyond its own bulk. It is a small library of\nbooks gathered from many authors, but it has filled great libraries with\ncommentaries and sermons and discussions. Its brevities have provoked\nmeasureless pages of writing. The world is big, yet it is measurably ruled\nby a small Book.\n\nIt would seem likewise that a Book written so long ago would fail of the\nelement of timeliness. That an old volume should keep its place in a new\ncentury is in itself an anomaly. The last of the Bible was penned hundreds\nof years since. Accepting the most radical views as to dates, its youngest\nbook was produced quite more than a millennium and a half ago. Meanwhile\nthe world has been making amazing progress. We boast of our achievements\nin transportation and communication. All ancient things seem to be\noutgrown, save only the Bible. The books that were written as\ncontemporaries of parts of the great Book have either slipped into\noblivion or are known to-day only by the intellectually elect. The\nclassics are studied by a small circle of scholars. The average man knows\nnothing of Virgil, or Cicero, or Homer, by any direct contact with the\nworks of those authors. But the Bible, which is out of date by the\ncalendar, is not out of date by its own meaning. It is singularly\ncontemporaneous. Its different portions were called forth by passing\nevents and the Book itself is clearly touched by its own times. For all\nthat, eternity appears to have lodged itself in its contemporaneousness.\nThe twentieth century, eager and thrilling as it is, accepts a Guide Book\nfrom the distant years. Roman Law and Greek Art are filtered to the new\nage through modern channels. The Bible itself comes to us more simple and\nmore powerful than any modern interpretations of its messages. There is a\nsense in which it declines to apply to itself its own figure of speech\nabout the new wine in the old bottles.\n\nThe Bible defies geographical distance as well as calendar distance. For\nthe most part its record relates to what happened in a small and remote\nsection of the earth. It reaches its climax in an obscure province which\nwas smaller than many a modern county. The customs of which it tells are\nmostly gone. Sandals and tents and camels and parchments are curiosities\nin the new lands and new times. Much of the setting of biblical events is\nwholly unknown to our day, and so must be reproduced for our children in\npictures and for our adults in descriptions. An Oriental Book is the chief\nliterature of an Occidental world.\n\nIn spite of its small size, its great age, its cramped geography, its\nvivid Orientalism, the Bible keeps its mastery. What is the explanation?\n\nIt must be that the Bible appeals to something fundamental in life itself.\nThe final test of inspiration must, of course, be found in what the Bible\ndoes for life. A book that is not inspiring cannot be proved to be\ninspired. It cannot give what it does not have and it must surely have\nreceived what it gives. It would be a mistake, however, to confuse formal\ntruthfulness with inspiring vitality. The description of a street scene,\ndealing with the passing relations of pedestrians, wagons, trees, birds,\nhouses; the lengths and widths of sidewalks and streets; the figures of\npopulation; the social status of the various groups--all this may be told\nwith exact and mathematical truthfulness. It may be correct and still not\nbe inspired or inspiring. On the other hand, the parable of the prodigal\nson is a story which in its precise detail may represent something that\nnever occurred. But it has impressed the world as both inspired and\ninspiring. Its words haunt and pierce and coax and subdue men. This\nindicates that a story given for a spiritual purpose shows more essential\ntruthfulness than does a description given for formal exactness. The\nreason is that the parable appeals to something fundamental in life\nitself. The son and the father are ever with us. God and his children are\nthe everlasting facts. The story is more true than is the description.\nThis contrast represents the biblical trend. The Book penetrates through\nthe husk to the kernel, through superficial facts to deepest truths,\nthrough passing events to eternal meanings. It is the Book of Life.\n\nWhat gives the Bible this appeal? Whence did it secure its vital quality?\nThe only reply is that the appeal to life must be born of life itself.\nSometimes a bizarre explanation is given of the source of a religious\nvolume, the assumption being that a human origin denies a divine origin.\nThe more men have to do with its production, the less may we presume that\nGod has touched the work. A curious illustration of this viewpoint is\nfound in the claim for the Book of Mormon. The story is as follows: A\nheavenly visitant appeared to Joseph Smith and told him that in a certain\nplace he would find the miracle book. Smith obeyed the directions and\nfound in the place named a box of stone. In this box was a volume half a\nfoot in thickness. It was written on thin plates of gold, and these plates\nwere bound together by gold rings. The writing was in a strange language,\nbut with the book was found a pair of miraculous eyeglasses which\nconferred the ability to read the pages. In other words the Book of Mormon\nwas not born of human life under the guidance of the divine life. It was\nthe product of a straight miracle, and the power to decipher its meaning\ncame only by miracle. Such a theory of the origin is easy to understand,\neven though it may be difficult to believe. It represents the extreme form\nof that faith which minimizes the partnership of man with God in the\nmaking of all genuine gospels of life.\n\nThe incarnation was Man and God together. The church is being fashioned by\nman and God together; the Spirit and the Bride are colleagues. Worship is\npossible only when man and God are together in fellowship. If the Bible\ncame by any method other than the coworking of man and God, its production\nwould stand for a departure from the usual divine method. The power of the\nBible, however, grows out of the fact that it is not an abnormal book,\nfantastically given to men. There is a humorous story of an old woman who\nwas discovered in diligent study of the Hebrew alphabet. Asked why at her\nage she was beginning to learn so difficult a tongue, she made reply that\nwhen she died she desired to address the Almighty in his own language!\nThere have been theories of the Bible that are scarcely caricatured by\nthis tale. If there have been doctrines of the Book that made it the\nproduct of a lonely man, there have likewise been doctrines that made it\nthe product of a lonely God. Neither doctrine is correct. The Bible grew\nout of human life that had been touched and glorified by the divine\npresence and power. Because it grew out of life it makes its appeal to its\nnative element in life itself. It simply claims its own.\n\nA review of the different parts of the Bible will show how true this\nstatement is. Practically every book is localized and personalized.\nSomething that happened among men called forth the writing. The names of\nthe books in the Pentateuch show this fact. Genesis treats of the origins\nof the earth and of man, and is an answer to the inevitable question that\nsprings in the human mind. Exodus treats of the going forth of the Hebrew\npeople from their Egyptian bondage. Leviticus is a description and\ndiscussion of the Levitical rules. Deuteronomy is a second giving of the\nLaw and an enlargement of its sphere as well as an enforcement of its\nprecepts. The Ten Commandments make a human document because their sole\naim is to ennoble and protect human life.\n\nIt is so with the historical books. They are the records of actual human\nliving. Their pages are sprinkled with the names of real men and women.\nJoshua, the Judges, Ruth, Samuel, the Kings are all there, eager\nparticipants in earth's affairs under the sense of God. These books are\nnot theoretical dissertations on life by a dreamer in his closet; they are\nrather the general descriptions of life itself as it moved along a period\nof seven or eight centuries. They give us the salient and meaningful\nhappenings among God's chosen people. They tell the story of a crude race\nas it is being led forward to the heights. The pages record limitations\nand faults simply because they tell us of actual life. The sins of the\nBible's premier heroes are written down with entire frankness. The human\ntouch is everywhere. We shall not read the historical books long ere we\nfind that they, too, are human documents. But these human documents,\ncovered with the names of men and women, are likewise covered with the\never-recurring name of Jehovah. In the record one discovers man and God.\n\nIn the prophetical books the like fact is apparent. The prophets were men\nof flesh and blood. They rushed into the prophetic work from the ordinary\noccupations of ancient life. From the fields they came, and from the\nvineyards. Perhaps one came from a royal palace. Surely not more than one\nof them came from the altar of the priesthood. They were men who knew the\nshame and glory of contemporary life. They did not hesitate to touch the\npolitics of their day. They decried kings. They denounced landlords. They\nmade frontal attacks on all forms of wickedness. Their appeal was for\nreality. They declared that God hated all pretense. New moons and feasts\nand fasts that did not grow out of devout hearts they declared to be an\ninsult and an abomination before a righteous God. They talked from life to\nlife. They came in response to some human demand in their times. They were\nnot theorists, discussing academic problems of conduct. They were blazing\nmoral realists. We do not need to detail the list of those forthtellers of\nthe Word of God. Even the book of Jonah is full of life. Parable,\nallegory, history--its descriptions are based in life and its appeal is to\nlife. In its moral lesson for the individual, and in its missionary lesson\nfor a narrow race, it offers enough duty to keep life busy for a million\nyears. If men would heed its lessons for life and cease their petty\ndebates about the anatomy of whales, the Book would meet them with vital\nurgings. The one point now is that the prophetical writings grew out of\nlife. They did not come encased in stone boxes, written on gold leaves, to\nbe read and understood only by miraculous spectacles. They came from real\nliving, and they claim their own wherever real men are living to-day.\n\nWe need not follow the same idea into the later books of the Old\nTestament. The Proverbs were gathered from the streets of life.\nEcclesiastes is the pronouncement of life vainly satiated. Even the\nPsalms, classed as devotional books, were usually evoked by some actual\nhappening. The king goes out to war; a psalm is penned. The ark is moved\nfrom one place to another; a psalm is written. A man is jaded and\ndiscouraged; a psalm is written to recover him to a consciousness of the\ncare of Jehovah. A monarch falls into grievous sin; a psalm is written to\nexpress his penitence. A study of any Commentary on the Psalms will show\nus that nearly all of these devotional utterances were prompted by some\nhuman experiences. They are the shoutings and sobbings of living men. The\nbook of Psalms is not the liturgy of academicians. Its processionals and\nits recessionals show actual men and women in the real march of life.\n\nIn the New Testament this same law of life rules. Jesus comes before the\nGospels. Without the Life there could not have been the record of the\nLife. In any worthy Bible life must always come first. This phase will be\ntreated later. Now it must be emphasized that the entire New Testament\nsprang from a Life that was lived among men. The Word must become flesh\nbefore it could become literary record. Grace and truth walked the earth\nere they were traced on pages. Here again the Bible comes from life in\norder that it may return to life again.\n\nThe statement concerning the New Testament will admit of more detail. The\nGospels grew immediately out of the disciples' life with the Lord. The\nActs grew out of the life of the disciples in their daily contact with\nthat ancient world. The Epistles all came from some urgency of life. While\nthere were minor reasons for writing each of them there was still a main\npurpose that dictated the writing in every case. The Epistles to the\nThessalonians seek to produce a right attitude toward the doctrine of the\nLord's return. The Epistle to the Romans is a discussion of the doctrine\nof justification by faith and the relations of that doctrine to Judaism.\nThat to the Galatians is both a personal defense of Paul's questioned\napostleship and a declaration of freedom from bondage to the law. The\nPhilippians grew out of an experience of human kindness, being an\nexpression of gratitude for help in trouble and sympathy in sorrow. The\nEphesians is a composite of moods--the victories of grace, the hope of the\nheavenlies, the expectation of ascension with the glorified Christ, the\nnature and aim of the true church. Colossians expresses the universal\nLordship of Christ and tears down every theory that denies the reality of\nthe incarnation and the utter preeminence of Jesus.\n\nEven those Epistles that are personal in their character deal with\nuniversal life. Philemon reappeared in the contests concerning slavery\nboth in England and America and scattered the arguments of Christian\ndemocracy. The bondage of men could not well live with the tender\nbrotherhood that breathes in the letter which Onesimus carried back with\nhim to his former master. Titus and Timothy are the pastoral advices sent\nby the aged apostle to his younger sons in the faith, while one of the\nEpistles is the hopeful farewell to earth and a glad trust toward the\nEternal City. Revelation may be filled with strange imagery and may be\nshaken by the tremors of a perilous age; but men who know real life will\nsay that the Beast and the Lamb are not merely wild figures of speech. The\nwriter of the Apocalypse knew the world, and he knew the churches in its\nvarious cities.\n\nThus it seems literally true that all the New Testament was penned for the\naid of life. When life went wrong, warning came. When life went aright,\nencouragement came. When life was mistaken, correction came. Whether the\nneed was for doctrine, for reproof, or for instruction in righteousness,\nGod met the need by the message that he gave to his servants. The Book is\nnot a series of infallible abstractions; it is rather a vital Guide Book\nwon from the experience of life's ways. The Bible is not a ready-made\nproduct dropped down from heaven; it is rather a Library made by men in\nmany ages in partnership with the God who lives with men in all ages. In\nthe best and truest fashion it makes record of the life of God in the\nsouls of responsive men. Because it came from life it inevitably seeks\nlife. It was born of God among men. Therefore, it lives among men with\nGod.\n\nWe may carry the relation of life to the Bible quite beyond this point.\nThe Bible not only grew from life, but it came back to life for its\ntesting. Even as there have been theories of the making of the Book that\nignored the element of human living, so have there been theories of the\ncanon of Scripture that ignored the element of human testing. Years ago a\nrenowned teacher said to his pupils, \"Never go deliberately to work to\nmake a book. The only volumes worth while are those that grow out of your\ndeepest life.\" The advice was good. In a way it suggests the manner of the\nBible's making. There is no evidence whatsoever that any writer of its\npages ever thought that his work would become part of a Bible. No man ever\nsaid, \"I will now write a book of the Holy Scripture.\" Nor did any group\nof men assign departments to each other, saying, \"We will prepare a divine\nBook.\" The Bible came in no such mechanical way. Written because of life's\nneeds, as seen in the light of God, it was tested and collected by life's\nneeds, as seen in that same light. It was once strikingly said that the\nwords of Jesus were vascular; if you cut them they would bleed. One\nshrinks from the metaphor. Yet it presents a truth about the whole Bible.\nA Book written by life and selected by life has naturally a message for\nlife.\n\nHow did the books of the Bible secure their place in the canon? The\nromancer offers his tradition here again. We find a very fantastic legend\ncoming down from medieval times to this effect: In the church at Nic\u00e6a one\nday a great mass of religious writing lay in an indiscriminate heap\nbeneath the altar. A miracle gave an answer to the question as to what\nbooks should secure permanent places in the Holy Book. The First\nEcumenical Conference was in session. The year was 325 A. D. While man\nwondered and questioned, God settled the issue. Suddenly the genuine books\nwere lifted from the mass of volumes and, without visible power, lay on\nthe sacred table. The writings miraculously declared uncanonical remained\nbeneath the altar. This theory of selection corresponds to the theory of\ndictation. We have in both cases an active God and a passive man. While it\nwould be unfair to say that this medieval legend has any modern following,\nit is true that certain theories of the selection of the canon resemble it\nin that they discount the human factor. Even as God and men worked\ntogether in the writing of the books, so God and men worked together in\nthe binding of the books into their volume of fellowship. Life that\nconfessed God and tried to do his will chose the books and decreed that\nthey should dwell in unity.\n\nAs there has been a tendency to overstate the miracle feature in the\nselection of the canon, so has there been a tendency to overstate the part\nplayed by the authoritative councils of the church. The assumption has\nbeen that arbitrariness was the chief feature of the whole process.\nCertain men met in conference, debated the merits of the several books,\nand finally settled by vote what particular writings should have their\nplace in the Bible of the church. Now while something of this kind did\noccur, it is far from the truth to affirm that the councils lacked a\nrepresentative capacity. The vote may have been recorded by theologians,\nbut the vote had previously been determined by the Christian democracy.\nAbraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. His predecessors were\nthe people. In a dignified sense Lincoln was their clerk, expressing their\nwill after many years of agitation. The wisdom of the Great Commoner was\nshown not only by the personal conviction that he put into the document,\nbut also by his keen appreciation of the will of the multitude. Though the\nparchment of liberty was proclaimed by one man, it is a fact that it was\ndictated by many men. Something parallel to this occurred in the selection\nof the material of the Bible. Councils played their part; their part,\nhowever, was the part of agents.\n\nThis was true of the Old Testament. Many persons may still have the vision\nof Jewish officials with long robes and sober faces deciding the ancient\ncanon. Indeed, there was for long a tradition that Ezra founded a kind of\nImperial Synagogue which continued for not less than two hundred years\nand which in that period finished the collection and authorization of the\nOld Testament. This synagogue had various presidents, including Nehemiah.\nNo such organization for the selection of the Scriptures existed. Accurate\nancient history gives no trace of its work. The work of testing the\nwritings was slow. The arbiter was life. Life had determined the writing.\nLife must now determine the authority.\n\nWe can catch an interesting glimpse into this process by studying for a\nmoment the story about Josiah, the young king. Hilkiah, the priest, finds\nthe book of the law. Shaphan carries the book to the king and reads to him\nfrom the ancient lore. The book quickens the royal conscience. God and the\nearthly ancestors of Josiah speak to him from the pages. He is made to\nfeel how far he and his people have gone from the will of Jehovah. He\nrends his clothes. He sends for the human voices of the Most High. Huldah,\nthe prophetess, is the chief instructor. The people are called back to\ntheir allegiance. The land is purged. A manuscript has done all this. It\ninspired the king and his people until abominations fled from Israel. The\nland continued in obedience until the archers sent King Josiah to his\nsepulcher. That portion of the law that had been read to the king by\nShaphan and had then been delivered to the people proved its inspiring\nquality in its effects on life. On that day a portion of the Old Testament\ncanon was selected.\n\nDoubtless this incident is somewhat typical of a procedure that was more\nor less constant. The imperial synagogue was the Jewish people. The debate\nthat settled issues was the debate of experience. Life was electing its\nown books. Words that touched the conscience into an impression of God and\nthen worked their way outward to the blessing of the multitude were\ngaining for themselves the popular vote. Candidates for the canon were\nrejected. Other candidates were held in long suspicion. Ecclesiastes,\nProverbs, Esther, Solomon's Song--all these served a long probation ere\nthey proved themselves worthy of their place. The ancient world, like the\nmodern world, was not willing to surrender Proverbs, with their homely\nwisdom; Esther, with its lesson of loyalty to race and kindred; Solomon's\nSong, with its refusal to listen to the blandishments of royal\nlasciviousness luring to the betrayal of a true and humble lover; or even\nEcclesiastes, with its pessimism uncured until the writer once more finds\nGod.\n\nAfter books secured their place in the authorized list of the Jews, they\nhad still to contest to keep their place. As late as the first century of\nthe Christian era, debate was frequent. Life was slow to render its\ndecision. There was no hasty authority. The final judgment was rendered by\nthe experience of a race. When Eck reminded Martin Luther that the church\nhad decided what books should go into the canon and that Luther must\naccept a quotation from Second Maccabees as authoritative, the great\nReformer made reply, \"The church cannot give more authority or force to a\nbook than it has in itself. A council cannot make that be Scripture which\nin its own nature is not Scripture.\" So it came to pass that in due season\nthe freed religious consciousness of the church took certain apocryphal\nbooks from the Old Testament canon. That consciousness seemed to feel a\ndifference in spiritual power between the Apocrypha and the other portions\nof the Old Testament. Life was still coming to the polls in order that it,\nfar more than any stately council, should elect the true Word of God.\n\nThis same process of selection went on in relation to the New Testament.\nThe early Christians started with no New Testament whatsoever. Their Bible\nwas the Old Testament. We do not find any warrant for saying that they\nexpected to make additions to the Bible. Jesus came first. Then the\nGospels and Epistles came as natural consequences. The early Christians,\nas we shall later see, had received the very purpose and climax of\nRevelation, because they had received Christ. But the Gospels and Epistles\nwhich grew up out of life had in their turn to be tested by life.\nBelievers began by reading these as if they were suggestive; after the\nwritings had wrought their full impression upon the minds of the\nbelievers, they began to consider them inspired and holy. This decision\ndid not come abstractly, nor did it come quickly. Gradually the sense of\nthe value of certain writings grew upon the early church. Almost two\ncenturies of the Christian era passed ere the collection so commended\nitself to believing hearts as to be given definite form. As in the case of\nthe Old Testament, so in the case of the New, life declined to be hurried\ninto a decision. The books must prove their authority in the experience of\nthe people. The Christian republic was engaged in the task of choosing its\nBible from life.\n\nWe find, too, that certain books appeared as claimants for permanent\nauthority that did not win their case. The ancient manuscripts were passed\nfrom church to church and were read to the people. The task of sifting\nwent surely forward. Directly lists of books that peculiarly commended\nthemselves to the Christians began to appear. In the first two centuries\nsuch leaders as Iren\u00e6us, Clement, and Tertullian present their lists which\nshow some of our present books omitted, some other books included, and\nstill other books declared as good but inferior. The Christian\nconsciousness had not yet reached a confident verdict. But a review of the\nperiod shows the Christian leaders verging toward unanimity. Slowly some\nbooks were eliminated; and slowly other books asserted their right to be\nincluded. By the beginning of the fifth century the canon had been\npractically determined. The great Augustine, with his immediate\npredecessors and his close successors, reveals the well-nigh unanimous\nconclusion to which the church had come. It may well be noted that the\nvoting booth stood open for almost four hundred years. The Councils of\nHippo and Carthage were simply the servants of the people. The books that\nhad sprung from life had received the testing of life.\n\nIt must be allowed that here, as in the case of the Old Testament canon,\nsome books had to re-prove their right to the place of authority. The\nCouncil of Trent may have settled the matter for all Roman Catholics, but\nit did not irretrievably close the canon for Protestants. It is well known\nthat Luther himself wished to remove several books from the list, and that\nhe called the Epistle of James \"strawlike.\" Luther's reason was a\npolemical one. He felt that the vivid practicalness of James conflicted\nwith the principle of justification by faith alone. It is only a stronger\nevidence of the demands of life in the selection of the final canon that\neven the powerful influence of Luther could not prevail. The church well\nknew that the Epistle of James would be a good antidote for any lazy\nmysticism. Life voted against Luther in this instance, and life won.\nZwingli wanted to exclude the Book of Revelation from the canon. The\nChristian republic felt that beneath all the weird imagery of the\nApocalypse God was speaking by his servant to the churches of all time.\nLife voted against Zwingli in this instance, and life won. When life was\ngiven its freedom the most influential voices of authority could not\nprevail against its verdicts. This completes the circle. The Bible was\nwritten by life, and the Bible was selected by life.\n\nPerhaps it is well to note that when any portion of the Scripture has been\ntaken away from the purpose of life, it has lost its note of authority;\nwhen it has been brought back to that purpose of life, it has regained\nthat note. The Song of Solomon illustrates this point. It had slight hold\non the life of the world as long as it was used as a complex allegory or\nsymbol relating to Christ and the church. All labored attempts to so\nconstrue the book did the book itself injury. But when the Song was\npermitted to recover its own relation to life, it recovered its own power.\nThe lesson of the book, rightly used, may save many young women from\nselling themselves to lascivious luxury and may give them strength against\ntempting allurements away from loyal love. However old the world may\nbecome, it will always need that lesson. In some way the Song came from\nlife; and when it is tested by life, it regains its relation to life.\nReleased from the strain of an allegorical interpretation, it proves\nitself a servant of one of life's holiest causes.\n\nWe come now to the primary consideration. The Bible grew from life. The\nBible was tested by life. The Bible climaxes in Life. Jesus said that the\nScriptures testified of him. It is even so. In the Sargent pictures in the\nBoston Public Library the prophets are represented as pointing forward to\nhim. We may even more surely represent the writers of the Gospels and\nEpistles as pointing backward to him. The Bible is to be judged by its\ngoal; and the goal is Christ. Other sacred books, such as the Koran, were\nwritten by one person; the Bible was written by many persons for one\nPerson. Jesus himself insisted on this. He claimed to surpass the old\nrevelations. With all his reverence for the Old Testament, he still put\nhimself above it by words like these: \"Ye have heard that it hath been\nsaid by them of olden time, But _I_ say unto you.\" This is as much as to\naffirm that he was the end of a progressive revelation. A skeptic once\nsaid that the whole Bible turns upon Jesus. The skeptic was right. One of\nthe Gospels gives a word that may safely be applied to the whole trend of\nthe Bible, \"These things are written, that ye might believe that Christ is\nthe Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.\"\nThe very purpose is declared to be that men may be brought to faith in\nChrist.\n\nIt would be too much to say that all revelation ceased with the closing of\nthe canon. Lowell's claim that the Bible of the race is written slowly,\nthat each race adds its texts of hope and despair, of joy and moan, and\nthat the prophets still sit at the feet of God, cannot be denied. But we\nmay confidently assert that revelation came to its culmination and crown\nin Jesus Christ. When once the essential things concerning him had found\nplace in a Book, the Bible found its consummation. Thus do we see that the\nbooks that were written by life, and then were tested by life, came to\ntheir climax in Life. The only way to secure a book better than the Bible\nis to secure a person better than Jesus. The best men entertain no such\nvain expectation because they know that nothing can be more perfect than\nPerfection.\n\nWe have set forth these three main reasons for the unique influence that\nthe Bible exercises over life. Some are fond of saying that the Bible is\nmerely one of many sacred books. Those who have read the bibles of other\nraces will not be misled by the statement. Max M\u00fcller writes that the\nSacred Books of the East \"by the side of much that is fresh, natural,\nsimple, beautiful, and true, contain much that is not only unmeaning,\nartificial, and silly, but even hideous and repellent.\" Of the Brahmanas\nhe affirms that they \"deserve to be studied as the physician studies the\ntwaddle of idiots and the ravings of madmen.\" The Koran sets forth a very\nfine morality, but it was written by one man and really presents a legal\nreligion. Moreover it offers no perfect example. The author of the Koran\nhimself claimed to receive revelations that opened a path to immorality.\nOne voice declared the authority of the book, and an obedient people\naccepted this verdict. The Koran was not written by a wide range of life,\nexpressing God's dealing with many persons under diverse conditions. It\nwas not tested for its authority by the free conscience of a people.\nMohammed wrote and adopted his own canon. The Christian's Bible, written\nby life, tested by life, and culminating in Life, has come back to life\nwith transforming power.\n\nThe insistence of these chapters is that, when the Holy Scriptures are\ngiven a free opportunity to do their work with life, they prove their own\ninspiration. After all, there can be no other proof. The Bible is what it\nis, no matter what theory men may adopt as to its formation. It creates\nits own evidences. The argument for its inspiration is the life that it\ninspires. If the Book gives power and purity to all departments of life,\nthe Book defends itself against attack and makes its own conquests. Does\nthe Bible rightly exalt man? Does it sanctify the home? Does it promote\neducation? Does it glorify work? Does it save wealth from greed, pleasure\nfrom excess, sorrow from despair? These questions reach the center of the\nproblem.\n\nWe can go but one step beyond them, and that step is most significant. Do\nwe find in the Bible not only a way to be followed, and a goal of truth to\nbe gained, but a Life that will help lives along the way toward the goal?\nDoes the Book really reveal the way, the truth, and the life? The answer\nmust again be found in life. The evidences of dynamic are in the realms\nof human experience. More and more the students of the Holy Scriptures,\nwho seek the pages with a religious purpose, will find that all the\ndepartments of human living wait on Jesus for their meaning and come to\nhim for their power. He is the Saviour. He lifts men out of their sins, up\ninto a trembling and glorious idealism, and still up into a passion for\nefficient goodness. The supreme apology for the Bible will ever be found\nin men who have been so instructed, reproved, and corrected, that they may\nbe named as perfect men of God, thoroughly furnished unto every good work.\nGiven its full right, the Book that was born of life, tried of life,\nglorified of Life, will find its own best witnesses in redeemed lives.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE BIBLE AND MAN\n\n\nThe natural outline of a human life which has suggested the method of\nthese lectures represents a man as awaking each morning to the\nconsciousness of himself. Every man lives perforce in his own company. He\nwalks with himself on every road of life. He sits with himself in its\nresting places. He lies down with himself in its slumbers. He is his own\nfriend, and his own enemy. Omar Khayy\u00e1m declares that he is his own heaven\nand his own hell. There is a story of a farmer who said that when he\nclimbed to the roof of his barn and looked about, he always found that he\nhimself was the center of the world. The roof of the sky at all points was\nequally distant from him; the walls of the world made by the dipping\nhorizon showed the same length of radius from himself! The story has its\nserious, as well as its amusing side. Every man is the personal center of\na world which gets its meaning from his own heart. It is no wonder that\nthe old Greek motto was \"Know thyself.\"\n\nYet the knowledge of self is not easy knowledge. The fact that no man has\never seen his own face, save by reflection in some mirror, is a parable.\nThe very eyes that see cannot see themselves. They are so near that they\nare hidden. The moral literature of the race always emphasizes the\ndifficulty of self-revelation. Its cry is, \"Who can understand his errors?\nCleanse thou me from secret faults.\" It has a yet deeper desire: that it\nmay know more of its own essential nature. Each man longs for a revelation\nof God; and each man longs for a revelation of himself. The present\nemphasis is that the Bible is the medium of this human revelation.\n\nWe do not go far in the reading of its pages without discovering that the\nword \"thou\" looms large in its spiritual grammar. Those curious persons\nwho often bring their arithmetic to the Bible could doubtless tell how\nmany times \"thou\" and \"thee\" and \"thy\" and \"thine\" are found in its\nchapters. In the Ten Commandments and in the New Commandment \"thou\" is the\nrecurring word. Personal address is prominent everywhere. Indeed, the\nwhole Book is a kind of prophet coming into the court of each soul and\nsaying, \"Thou art the man.\" Sometimes the approach is an accusation,\nsometimes an approbation; in any case the note is intensely individual. In\nthe New Commandment the \"self\" is made the standard by which the relation\nto the neighbor is to be tested. The implication would seem to be that the\nman who does not love himself lacks the law by which his love for other\nmen may be made efficient. Polonius was not far from the biblical idea\nwhen he said:\n\n                To thine own self be true,\n  And it must follow, as the night the day,\n  Thou canst not then be false to any man.\n\nIn daily parlance it is often said. \"Put yourself in his place\": but the\nvalue of that transfer of self is small if you do not know what the self\nis after you give it the new place! The revelation of self is likewise the\nrevelation of other men. We know our neighbors only as we know ourselves.\n\nPresuming, therefore, that we send a man to the Scriptures to find the\ndoctrine of his own nature, what will be his discovery? The question is\nnot a new one, and its answer has sometimes been touched by prejudice.\nMany have contended that in its effort to magnify God, the Bible is guilty\nof belittling man. Fragments of Scripture might be presented to support\nthis criticism. We must, however, insist that the biblical teaching is to\nbe determined by its main current rather than by its eddies. The Book does\npresent God as high and lifted up, while man lies with his lips in the\ndust. It does make God a King, while it proclaims man a subject. It does\nstress divine sovereignty, while insisting on human obedience and\nreverence. It does call for humility on the part of man. We may well admit\nthat it is possible to overdo the call to humility. That good mood may\neasily pass over into a false mood. Occasionally men, in an effort to be\nhumble, speak untruth concerning their own souls. It is just here that the\n\"worm-of-the-dust\" theory gets its chance. That phrase was a biblical one,\nused by a character in his moment of self-abasement. Yet the Concordance\nwill prove that this lowly estimate of man is by no means the staple of\nteaching, as well as that much of the cheap preaching of human nature is a\nradical departure from the doctrine of the Book. It is always good to keep\nclear the distinction between vanity and self-respect, so that if a man\nmay not have the right to look down on his neighbors he may still have the\nright to look up to himself. Humility must ever be based on truth, and\nself-respect can have no other foundation. The two moods are not\ncontradictory. The one comes from the recognition of the nature of God, in\nthe utter and unspeakable perfection of his attributes; the other comes\nfrom the recognition of the nature of man as being himself a partaker of\nthat divine nature. In reality the two moods grow out of the same truth.\n\nA still deeper objection is sometimes offered against the scriptural\ntheory of human nature. It is charged that the doctrine of the Fall,\ntogether with the constant emphasis of man's \"exceeding sinfulness,\"\ndeprives man of special dignity. Without doubt the theory of the Fall has\nsometimes been presented in such a manner as to cancel all human claims to\ngreatness. Whenever a religious teacher carries his doctrine of the Fall\nto unjust lengths, we must all be tempted to declare that we can readily\nprove an alibi! And if he shall employ that doctrine as a vast slur on\nhumanity, we shall insist that the length of the fall must be the length\nof the possible rise! In harmony with this idea a great preacher has given\nthe world a sermon on \"The Dignity of Humanity as Evidenced by its Ruins.\"\nMuch of the glory of the Coliseum at Rome has departed, but even its ruins\nare a testimony to its greatness. Seeing its gaunt grandeur in the\nsunlight, or viewing its impressive shadows in the moonlight, the tourist\ngets the shock of its glory. The simple truth is that a doctrine of the\nFall is possible only when you start with human greatness. God made one\ncreature strong enough to resist Himself--one creature with sufficient\nself-determination to make mutiny in the world. We would not torture the\ndoctrine of the Fall into a mere compliment for humanity; but we would\ninsist that the possibility of a Fall implies a height to fall from, and\nthat responsibility for a Fall implies a nature great enough and free\nenough to make far-reaching choices. The evidence of the dignity is still\nfound among the ruins.\n\nWe must always supplement any doctrine of the Fall with a doctrine of\nhuman responsibility. The Bible is most explicit in this insistence. Its\npages are crowded with the moral imperative for man. The thorn and the\nbrier are on the earth; but they are not blamed, because they wait for the\nera of the good people. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth\ntogether in pain; but the creation is not blamed, because it waits for the\nrevealing of the sons of God. The lion and the lamb do not lie down\ntogether; but they are not blamed, because they wait for the age of peace\nthat can issue only from the hearts of men. The coin rolls into dust and\nshadow and is lost; we do not blame the coin. The sheep wanders into\ndesert and darkness and is lost; we do not blame the sheep. The son goes\noff into the swine field and is lost; and we do blame the son. The coin\nand the sheep have no communings with self, no sense of guilt, no road of\nrepentant return; but the son has all these. The Bible does utter its\nvigorous charge against man's sin; it is the ever-open court room into\nwhich the human conscience is summoned for judgment. The Book does not\ntreat man as a machine whose cogs and wheels are moved only by outside\nforce; nor does it treat him as a manikin, jerked hither and yon by\nirresponsible sensations; it rather dignifies him with personal\nresponsibility. The Fall does not prevent climbing, if only man will take\nadvantage of those gracious powers that are offered for his help. Emerson\nsaw the meaning of this when he wrote his tribute to mankind based on its\nability to respond to the moral order:\n\n  So nigh is grandeur to our dust,\n    So near is God to man,\n  When Duty whispers low, \"Thou must,\"\n    The youth replies, \"I can!\"\n\nWords like \"ought\" and \"should\" and \"must\" have gone forth from the Bible\nand have fairly penetrated the moral consciousness of the race. No other\nbook so honors human nature with a sublime call to responsibility.\n\nWe now leave these general considerations and take up the several portions\nof the Scriptures with a view to ascertaining their contributions to a\ndoctrine of man. The foundation of that doctrine is seen in the account of\nthe creation. Whether that account be poem, parable, allegory, or history,\nits meaning for this special point is the same. The climax of the creation\nis man. God is represented as changing chaos into cosmos, separating\nwaters and land, fixing sun and moon in their places, bringing verdure to\nthe surface of the earth, assigning birds and beasts and fishes to their\nspheres, and then as giving to man a wide rulership. \"God made man to have\ndominion\"--that is the biblical word; and the ages have been telling how\ntrue that word is. The Bible theory and the facts of life join in a\ncoronation of man.\n\nThe account of the creation goes deeper than this in its estimate of\nmankind. Its conferring of power on man is explained by its conferring a\nnature on man. Man is made in the divine image. The Word was not content\nwith one statement of that fact; it must needs give it double emphasis.\n\"So God created man in his own image\"--that would seem simple and strong\nenough. But the statement is strengthened by repetition, \"In the image of\nGod created he him.\" These twice-repeated words are the real charter of\nman's greatness. The atheist must admit that man has the dominion, but the\nbeliever holds that man has the dominion because he has the birthright.\nMan is not only God's submonarch, he is God's image.\n\nIt is interesting and convincing to note how soon that primary truth about\nman's nature began to work. In the persecution under Diocletian the\nprecious parchments of the Bible had been secretly carried from house to\nhouse. The charge that a Christian had given up the sacred Book in order\nto save himself from death was one of the most serious that could be\npresented. Many martyrdoms occurred because men preferred the Bible above\ntheir own lives. Though circulated under such difficulty, and though made\ninto readable parchments at such expense of labor and money, the Bible was\nslowly impressing its doctrine of man upon the stubborn period. We are\noften smitten with horror as we read stories which show how lightly human\nlife was regarded by the Romans. Those dreadful scenes in the arena, where\nthumbs so often declined to turn down as a sign of mercy, are dire\nmysteries to men who have gotten the biblical standpoint. We are distant\nfrom that heartless mood because we are near to the Bible. The Book and\nthe gladiator could not live together in peace. The Book at once began to\ncall men from the tiers of bloody pleasure. With the conversion of\nConstantine, superficial as it may have been, the change began. The\nemperor ordered many splendid copies of the Bible for the churches of his\ncapital. He himself came under the spell of its human doctrine. Zealous\nChristian teachers may sometimes overstate the influence which the Bible\nexercised over later Roman law. Still there are some undoubted evidences\nof that influence. Constantine made a law forbidding that a criminal\nshould be branded on the face, and he gave as his reason for the law that\nthe image of God should not be marred! This leaves us in no doubt as to\nwhat had inspired the legislation. It was the simple beginning of a\nprogram that has not yet come to its consummation. The biblical idea of\nman routed one form of slavery, and it will yet rout all other forms. When\nmen come to believe that man is made in the divine image all good\nmovements for the betterment of life are set in the way to victory.\n\nThe legal portions of the Bible give us the like lesson, even though the\napproach to the lesson is different. Here we discover that humanity is\nworthy enough to call for conservation and protection. The legislation\nreaches to hygienic and sanitary details of minute character. The whole\neffort is to build a protecting fence about men. The Ten Commandments,\nstudied in this light, become a very human document. Their harsh and\nnegative quality is softened into gentleness. They guard the goods of\nman--his property, his wife and children, his body, his good name. It\nwould be possible to regard the Decalogue as a series of prohibitions in\nwhich the word \"not\" occurs with forbidding frequency. In this case the\nappropriate accompaniment is thunder and lightning, and the appropriate\nscroll for the writing is stone. This viewpoint is one sided and unfair.\nThe Ten Commandments are prohibitions only because they are protections.\nThey have been through many ages the kindly sentinels of society. They\nhave taken the side of God, of his dumb creatures, and of men and women\nand little children. Considered in any just way, the legal portions of the\nBible are a tribute not merely to divine authority, but to human worth.\n\nThe prophetical books add their lesson, and from a still different angle.\nThey are filled with protests against man's conduct, with wrath against\nhis insincerities, and with predictions of his coming woe. The mouths of\nthe prophets were not filled with compliments. Those stern men were not\nthe flatterers of their own generations. Their sayings could be so elected\nas to make a degrading estimate of men. But here again we must get the\nfull meaning of the message. In their last analysis the prophecies are a\nmarked tribute to potential man. Beyond the disturbed present they see the\npeaceful future. Beyond the clash of swords and the swish of spears they\nsee the mild and productive era of the plowshare and the pruning hook.\nBeyond the unreal altars they see the incense of true worship arising to\nGod. The prophets were, in the best sense, optimists, and they were\noptimists because they believed that all men would some day yield to the\nLord. They beheld the whole earth filled with righteousness. They saw the\nstone cut loose from the mountain and filling the wide world. The healing\nriver was to flow to all peoples. Jerusalem was to be the universal joy.\nThe day would dawn when it would be unnecessary to say to any man, \"Know\nthou the Lord.\" The most dismal of the prophets foretold the perfect day.\nBut all this means that the prophets foretold the perfect man and the\nperfect race. To proclaim that humanity, under the guidance of God, is so\ncapable is to dignify human life beyond measure.\n\nNor are we lacking among the prophets an individual example of the power\nof self-respect. Nehemiah may not be the premier among his fellows, but he\ntalks with a royal self-consciousness. When messengers come, desiring\nthat he shall go down into the plain for a parley with Sanballat, he\ndeclines by saying, \"I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.\"\nAgain he is told that the enemy is coming, and he is counseled to go into\nthe temple and cling to the altar for protection. Once more self-respect\ncomes to the rescue; the reply is, \"Should such a man as I flee? and who\nis there, that, being as I am, would go into the temple to save his life?\nI will not go in.\" Here the potential man, foretold by the prophet, was\nthe actual man. He had reached such a high doctrine of his own nature that\nthe doctrine itself became the prevention of triviality and of cowardice.\nThe rebuilded walls of Jerusalem arose from that spirit. Those walls were\nlikewise an expression of the prophet's faith in the future of his people.\nThe prophetic confidence in man was second only to the prophetic\nconfidence in God. This form of tribute to humanity is preeminent in the\nbooks of the prophets.\n\nIn the devotional part of the Bible we should not naturally expect that\ntribute would turn manward. The tendency is seen in those sections of\nprophecy where the prophet himself has close dealings with God. When the\ngreatest of the prophets sees the ineffable One and hears the awful\ntrisagion of the seraphim, the prime confession is that his own lips are\nunclean and that he dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips.\nInasmuch as the Psalms are in large measure a liturgy of worship, their\nemphasis is on the greatness of Jehovah. Yet sometimes the emphasis turns\ntoward man. The most striking illustration occurs in the eighth psalm. The\nwriter there utters the feeling that we have all shared. The limitless\nexpanse of the heavens, the shining of moon and stars in the far heights,\nthe workmanship of the Lord in the vast universe--all this makes the\npsalmist feel that he is a mere speck in the scheme. Tried by those\ncelestial measurements, he drops into insignificance. He is rescued from\nself-contempt only by a return to the message of Genesis. His despairing\ncry issues in a shout of personal triumph. \"When I consider thy heavens,\nthe work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;\nWhat is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou\nvisitest him?\" If materialism should conquer the Bible there is but one\nanswer. The psalmist is saved by the Scripture, \"Thou hast made him a\nlittle lower than God, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.\" It is\nno marvel that the first translators lowered the tribute and substituted\n\"the angels\" for God. The reverence that so often used a sign for the\ndivine name trembled on the verge of such a human tribute. Still that\ntribute was a return to the doctrine that God had made man in his own\nimage and had given him dominion over the works of his hand. In addition\nto all this, the Psalms are girded with the consciousness that man can\nenter into the august presence of the Lord. The mutual element in worship\nis an exaltation of man. The greatness of Jacob is greater when he meets\nwith the heavenly visitant by the Jabbok brook. He becomes a prince. In\nthe devotional books man claims his princely heritage. He treads the\ncourts of the infinite King.\n\nMoving forward into the New Testament, we find that the doctrine of man\ngathers more impressiveness. Jesus never cast any doubt upon the supreme\nplace of man in the program of God. He put his harshest blame upon those\nwho wickedly misled the children of the Father. He himself was chided\nbecause he sought the lowliest and the worst among men and women. He ate\nwith the publican and gave his choicest lesson to the harlot. He was\nwilling to exchange his social reputation for the privilege of associating\nwith the humblest people. For a woman with a dark past he delocalized\nworship. From another he accepted the offering of grateful tears and put\nher conduct in contrast with that of the lordly Pharisee. He was the\nProphet for the soul as such. He was the Priest who mediated gladly\nbetween the least one and the greatest One. We search his words in vain\nfor anything that put contempt on man as man.\n\nWhen he compared men to the rest of creation it was always to human\nadvantage. He told of the care of the shepherd for the sheep, and then he\nasked, \"How much is a man better than a sheep?\" He declared that God noted\nthe fall of sparrows, though they brought small price in the market place,\nand then, speaking to ordinary men and women, nearly all of them ignorant\nand more than half of them slaves, he said, \"Are ye not much better than\nthey?\" Nor were these sayings really interrogative; they were exclamatory.\nJesus knew that every normal man would feel the answer in his own soul.\nThe worth of man was, in the teaching of Jesus, beyond debate.\n\nHe moved, also, from inanimate things to the assertion of man's worth. The\nlilies and grasses were in the care of God and waited on him for their\nvesture. \"Will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?\" He made\nthe worth of man the warrant of the care of God. At last he put man on one\nside of the scale and the whole world on the other side, and he affirmed\nthat man outweighed the world. Men may barter themselves for half a\ntownship; but Jesus declared that it would be a disastrous bargain, if a\nman should accept the world in exchange for himself. \"What shall it profit\na man, if he gain the world and lose himself? Or what will a man give in\nexchange for himself?\" This is the final answer to any paltry teaching\nabout the worth of man.\n\nWhen choice had to be made between man's interests and sacred laws and\nordinances, Jesus gave preference to man. The shewbread was consecrated,\nbut he approved the taking of it to satisfy human hunger. The Sabbath day\nwas holy, but the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath; so\nthe plucked ears of corn were a testimonial to men.\n\nThe attitude of Jesus toward childhood is tender evidence of his thought\nof humanity. The child has not yet won any achievement, save the loving\nassertion of its own dependency. The child in the midst represented\nhumanity in its freshest and most natural form. It is said that some\nancient religionists were accustomed to debate whether or not a child had\na soul. Jesus would have scorned such a debate. He made the child the\nmodel of the kingdom. Human life unspoiled was lifted up as an example. To\noffend a little one was worse than being sunk by a millstone into the\nsea. A cup of cold water given to a child would win a special reward. The\nangels of the children behold ever the face of the Father. Thus the child,\nin all the teaching of Jesus, was made the creditor of the race.\n\nJesus carried this doctrine of man on to the uttermost issue. We have\nnever yet secured the full meaning of that \"inasmuch\" in the account of\nthe final judgment. The Lord lives beyond the need of man's overt aid. But\nhuman beings are his representatives. The righteous had so far overlooked\nthis fact, that they were forgetful of any ministry to him; and what had\nbeen the unconscious glory of the righteous was the unconscious tragedy of\nthe wicked. The judgment day will be filled with human tests. He who has\nnot acted as if human beings stood for God cannot meet the final\nstandards. Jesus's picture of the judgment is a statement of divine\nauthority; and it is an appraisement of human worth.\n\nThus do we see that from whatever side we come to the teaching of Christ,\nwe find an exalted doctrine of man. The incarnation itself is a\ncontribution to that doctrine. If we call it \"the human life of God\" it\nwas a life lived for the sake of man. The Word became flesh and dwelt\namong men, full of grace and truth, because men needed the message of\nthat Word. The whole life of Jesus was lived for man. He himself said,\n\"For their sakes I sanctify myself.\" All those sacrificial phrases that\ndescribe the purpose of his coming add glory to human life. The joy that\nwas set before him was the goal of a redeemed humanity. His living for men\nwas simply his teaching about men, made over into concrete terms. In the\nParable of the Good Shepherd he gives the revelation of his own attitude\ntoward men. One soul, brought back into right relations with God, makes\njoy in heaven. It is the Eternal One who is represented as saying,\n\"Rejoice with me.\" Men may deny the doctrine of the only begotten Son, but\nthey can scarcely deny that that doctrine leads on to a wondrous doctrine\nof human worth.\n\nThe Cross, viewed in one light, becomes the very climax of the doctrine of\nman. Theologians have often laid their stress upon some single purpose of\nthe divine sacrifice. One has said that the Cross appeases the anger of\nGod; another that the Cross maintains the majesty of the law; another that\nthe Cross is a moral influence wooing and winning the heart of man to God;\nanother that the Cross is the expression of the Father's sorrow with the\nsins and sorrows of his children. But we may surely take one meaning of\nthe Cross to be the divine estimate of man. God's sense of values must be\npreserved. He did not send his Son to die for worms of the dust. That idea\nmay fit an extreme mood of spiritual abasement. We may grant all possible\ncondescension in the atoning act of God, but we cannot grant a\ncondescension that dedicates infinite worth to finite worthlessness. Jesus\ndied for men just because men were far more than worms of the dust. If we\nare to keep that theory of atonement that has long held the heart of the\nchurch, we are driven to affirm that the Cross gives us a divine estimate\nof mankind. No man ever appreciates the worth of himself until he gets the\nappraisal of Calvary. The dying of Jesus is not out of harmony with his\nteaching and his living. The whole program is like the garment taken from\nhim on the day of crucifixion; it is woven throughout without seam. Men\nmay decry a doctrine of substitution, but they cannot say that such a\ndoctrine is a slight tribute to human worth. In such a doctrine thorns and\nnails and spears and all the drama of the Cross are made into tributes to\nthe soul of man.\n\nThis carries us on to the biblical teaching of man's permanent worth. The\ndoctrine of immortality makes its incalculable addition to the doctrine of\nman. There is a story, for which the writer cannot vouch, that Thomas\nCarlyle in a mood of pessimism one day wrote this peevish estimate of man:\n\n  What is man? A foolish baby!\n    Vainly strives and fumes and frets!\n  Demanding all, deserving nothing,\n    One small grave is all he gets!\n\nLanguage like this is certainly no contribution to the literature of\nself-respect. The story proceeds to relate that Carlyle's wife found this\npoetic depreciation lying on the table, and that she wrote the following\nconfession and correction:\n\n  And man? O hate not, nor despise\n    The fairest, lordliest work of God!\n  Think not he made thee good and wise\n    Only to sleep beneath the sod!\n\nDoubtless the tale is apocryphal. In any case the latter estimate is far\nnearer to the biblical conception, and it is altogether worthy of a\nwoman's moral instinct. If man is to live forever, as the climax of\nRevelation insists, it is quite impossible for him to \"think too much\" of\nhimself, unless he indulges in comparison of himself with others. An\nargument for immortality does not fall within the scope of this lecture;\nbut the bearing of immortality, as declared in the Holy Scriptures, on the\nview that men must take of human nature, touches our purpose in a radical\nway. A deathless person must respect himself. A deathless person must\ncommand the respect of a world--and of God. The doctrine of immortality\nadds an infinite measure to the doctrine of human worth.\n\nEven the biblical representation of heaven secures a relation to this\nsubject. The abode for immortal life, as well as immortal life itself, may\nbe turned into a human estimate. The book of Revelation declares that the\nnations shall bring \"their glory and honor\" into the Eternal City. This\ncan only mean that men shall make some contribution to the eternal life.\nWhat they are and what they have done shall fill heaven with added value.\nThe cities of earth shall transport treasures to the Heavenly City. Here,\nagain, we come upon a reason based on the divine sense of values. God will\nnot provide an Eternal Home that is any better than the Eternal Beings for\nwhom he makes it ready. The gem is to be better than the setting. In a\ncertain sense, therefore, jasper walls and pearl gates and gold streets,\nas seen in the descriptions of heaven, are tributes to human souls. The\nBible tells us that \"greater than the house is he that built it,\" and the\nBible would tell us, also, that the occupant of the house is greater than\nthe house. God will provide no everlasting dwelling that is better than\nthe everlasting dwellers. Heaven is made for man, and not man for heaven.\nThe many mansions are tributes to the people that shall live in the\nFather's house. The Scriptures are reserved in their revealings of the\nother land; but their descriptions of celestial glories may be united with\nthose other portions of the Bible that dignify the human spirit and may be\ntaken as standing for the divine valuation of the essential selves of men.\n\nThis review of the teaching of the several sections of the Bible has\nconfessedly sought for the words and ideas that exalt the doctrine of man.\nAllowing all possible discounts, and admitting all possible offsets, the\nresiduum of instruction tending to glorify human nature is significant. We\nneed not wonder that some thoughtful men have affirmed that the chief\ncharacteristic of Christianity is the value that it places on man. If we\ndo not accept this statement, we can still declare that the Bible is the\nsupreme Book when judged by its emphasis on human values.\n\nNor can there be any doubt of the need of this emphasis in our own age. As\nmen crowd more and more into the great centers of population, the tendency\nwill be to hold men cheaply. In former times man was often highly valued\nbecause of his rarity. On the far Eastern plains a new face, not being\noften seen, was regarded with curious interest. Thus Abraham stood in the\ndoor of his tent in the heat of the day and welcomed the stranger, because\nthe stranger was an event. But in the modern city the stranger is no\nlonger an event; he is only an episode, or perhaps an incident. We pass\nhim on the dense street, and we do not notice him at all. There are so\nmany of him that, unless we are heedful, we shall come to regard him\nlightly just because he is hidden by the crowd. When factories grow so\nhuge that men are known, not by their names, but by their numbers, only\nthe scriptural emphasis upon men as such can save human beings from being\ndeemed \"hands\" rather than souls. If the sin of the countryside is an\nexcessive social interest that makes for gossip, the sin of the city is a\nsocial carelessness that makes for indifference. The various problems of\nour social life wait for their solution upon the Christian doctrine of\nman. When that doctrine has done its full service, race problems, labor\nproblems, liquor problems, and all their dreadful accompaniments will\nissue into a righteous and intelligent peace. An immortal son of God,\nknowing himself, cannot be unjust to another immortal son of God, when\nonce he knows his Brother.\n\nThis hints at the personal bearing of the doctrine. As men grow in moral\nand spiritual experience, they find themselves using more and more the\ntest of self-respect. Knowing that the reaction of certain behaviors makes\nthem feel that a fragment of the soul has slipped away from them, so that\nthey have the sense of smallness, they guard their natures lest legitimate\npride should be destroyed. Andrews Norton once wrote to his son, Charles\nEliot Norton, who was about to go abroad for an important service, telling\nthe young man that his family and friends recognized that he had special\npowers for doing large and worthy things. Then he added that \"this ought\nnot to make one vain. On the contrary, their true tendency is to produce\nthat deep sense of responsibility--of what we owe to God, to our friends,\nand to our fellowmen--which is wholly inconsistent with presumption or\nvanity.\" It was a wise father who wrote thus to his son. If the Christian\ndoctrine of man be true, no man can think too much of himself. There is a\ntype of saving pride. Clough stated it in his well-known lines:\n\n  Then welcome, Pride! and I shall find\n  In thee a power to lift the mind\n  This low and groveling joy above--\n  'Tis but the proud can truly love.\n\nThe pride that comes from the consciousness of the divine image has power\nto restrain from sins and trivialities, and it has power likewise to\nconstrain toward holiness of character and largeness of service. One who\nhas come to believe that he is made in the divine image, that he is one of\nthe divinely appointed rulers of the world, that the great laws are\ndesigned for his protection, that the alluring prophecies of the future\nare declarations of his coming power, that his worship is the symbol of\nhis partnership with the Most High, that the incarnation is in his\ninterest, that the Infinite Teacher brought him matchless tributes, that\nthe Cross of Calvary is an expression of his own valuation, that immortal\nlife is his destiny, and that a glorious heaven is the fitting place for\nhis final dwelling--such a one has gained all the preventions and all the\ninspirations of the Christian doctrine of self-respect. Sins and\ntrivialities cannot flourish when one thinks so much of oneself; great\naffections and lasting consecrations seem natural to one so highly\nendowed. The conception that makes for the dignity of self makes also for\nthe consideration of others. He who entertains this view begins to\n\n  Find man's veritable stature out,\n  Erect, sublime, the measure of a man,\n  And that's the measure of an angel,\n  Says the apostle.\n\nTo such a one life becomes solemn and beautiful. He is now the son of God.\nWhile he knows not yet what he shall be, he sees the vision of the Elder\nBrother and so purifies himself even as he is pure. The world needs the\ngospel of the Son of God in order that it may learn the gospel of the sons\nof God.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE BIBLE AND HOME\n\n\nThe significance of the home is seen in the fact that every human being is\na son or a daughter. This ordinary statement at once insists on becoming\nextraordinary. It is difficult to think what life would have been, or even\nhow it could have been, if children had been pushed upon the earth from\nsome mysterious void and had been nurtured without the providential agency\nof fathers and mothers. So much do we realize the importance of the home\nthat where it is impossible to maintain one, owing to the death, or\ninability, or worthlessness of parents, we still make provision for an\ninstitution that shall provide as many domestic features as can be won for\nthe orphaned. This we call an Orphans' Home. It is significant that the\nsociological tendency of the period drifts away from even this\ninstitution. The effort now is to bring the childless and the parentless\ntogether. Goldsmith said that the nakedness of the indigent world might be\nclothed with the trimmings of the vain. There are those who affirm that,\nif the parentless and the childless could be brought into the company of\nhomes, the Orphan Asylum would be no longer needed.\n\nOur imaginations may make an easy test. Let an authoritative edict go\nforth that after the approaching midnight the home would be banished, and\nthat each community must adjust itself to some other form of social life.\nWhat would such an edict mean? The homes from which students have come are\nno more responsible for them. They constitute no longer the bases of\nsupplies on which they can draw, nor the alluring hearthstones to which\nthey can return. The workman turns no more his eager feet toward the\nlights of his cottage. The prince finds his palace removed and all its\nsplendor ceases to invite him. Little children are herded into impersonal\nsurroundings and become public rather than domestic charges. The scene of\ndisaster could be described without merciful stint. These suggestions are\nenough to show that society could scarcely escape chaos if the home were\nto be destroyed. How much do the words father, mother, brother, sister,\nwife, husband, son, daughter mean? Empty out their closer significance,\nand you vacate much of life's meaning.\n\nNor is this the narrow word of an ecclesiastic or theologian. Drummond in\nThe Ascent of Man claims that the evolution of a father and mother was\nthe final effort of nature. John Fiske, as scientist and historian, points\nout the helplessness of infant life as binding parents into unity that\ngrows out of responsibility. Soon after its birth the wee animal runs and\nleaps, while the wee bird does not wait long ere it flies from limb to\nlimb; but the human babe in the ancient forest lies helpless in its log\ncradle for many months. Both Drummond and Fiske agree that by this program\nthe God of nature was introducing patience, devotion, and sacrifice into\nthe world and was making ready for the kingdom of heaven. It is plain that\nDrummond does not state it too strongly when he says that \"the goal of the\nwhole plant and animal life seems to have been the creation of a family\nwhich the very naturalist had to call Mammals,\" or Mothers.\n\nThis represents somewhat the divine history of the home. The prophecy of\nthe home likewise does some convincing work. The truth is that the home as\nan institution plants itself squarely in the path of some modern social\ntheories. Some of those theories have begun by boldly demanding that the\nhome be abolished because it has been made a buttress of private life and\nproperty. Not only has this suggestion been met with a horror that in\nitself expresses the instinctive conviction of the sacredness of the home,\nbut it has been met with the insistence that the prophets should name\ntheir substitute for the hearthstone. This insistence has received nothing\nmore than hazy and vague replies. The prophet stammers out some dark\nsaying about \"something better\" or about the home as having fulfilled its\nmission in \"the evolution of society\"; and by the very helplessness of his\nspeech he really becomes an advocate of closer domestic relations! It is\ninteresting to note how these reformers seek to find a good path back from\ntheir social desert! They soon declare that the new regime must keep the\nhome intact, and that only sporadic and irresponsible voices from their\ncamp are lifted against the home's sanctity! The antihome prophet always\nhas a hard task. He collides with one of the granite convictions of\nhumanity. If he would save the rest of his theory he must save the home\nfrom the proposed destruction. God has set the solitary in families. Men\nlook in vain for a better setting for the jewel of life. From all their\nseeking they come back in due season to the truth that, imperfect as the\nhome may often be, it is still rooted and grounded in outer life and in\ninner instinct, and that it is futile to try to make better what God has\nmade best.\n\nAll this will serve for emphasizing the importance of the home, though\nmuch more might be added. When the man awakes in the morning, becomes\naware of himself, and then hears the voices of his wife and children, he\nis immediately related to one of the fundamental institutions of society.\nIf the Bible be, as we have claimed, preeminently the Book of Life, it\nmust relate itself vitally to the home. Our inquiry, therefore, is, What\nbearing does the Book have upon the home? The answer must necessarily be\nsketchy and incomplete; but we can soon gather an answer that will\nestablish the biblical drift of teaching.\n\nThe Bible begins with an impressive lesson of monogamy. In the Eden life\none man and one woman join hands as partners in joy and work. Let the\naccount be poetry, allegory, parable, the lesson is the same. In that\nintimate communion with God that found him in the garden in the cool of\nthe day, bigamy and polygamy are not represented as being at home. Even\nthe Fall is not described as quickly dropping man low enough to reach the\ndreadful level of promiscuity or of any of the approaches to so-called\nfree love. It required time ere that downward journey could be made.\nHumanity in its innocence is not described as starting from the dens of\npolygamy.\n\nBut in season the Bible gives us some disconcerting facts. Bigamy and\npolygamy confront us in the lives of some worthies. Let it be allowed that\nsometimes the motive is the perpetuation of the home itself. Provision is\nsought against the curse of barrenness. Let it be allowed, also, that the\nBible does not represent bigamy as working well. It brought discord into\nAbraham's tent. The peevish wife drives her own wretched substitute from\nthe door, until the desolate Hagar stands in her loneliness and repeats\nthe comforting ritual of the seeing God. The son of bigamy goes off into\nhis wild life, with his hand against every man and every man's hand\nagainst him. The admirable thing about the second patriarch is his\ndevotion to one woman. Neutral and characterless as Isaac seems to be, he\nstill won a mention in the marriage service of the ages by his\nfaithfulness to Rebecca alone. Upon the third patriarch bigamy was forced\nby a cruel deception. In truth a review of the Old Testament will show\nthat any departure from the unity of the home made for trouble. It filled\nthe moving tabernacles of the patriarchs with quarrels. It led David on to\nmurder. It drenched Solomon in debauchery. It degraded the successive\nkings until it destroyed their power and ruined the nation. Its\ninevitable end was the loss of the land and the sadness of captivity.\n\nThe Old Testament records polygamy, but it does not applaud polygamy. When\nonce a polygamist stood in the halls of Congress and defended his right to\na seat by quoting the examples of the patriarchs, his plea did not avail.\nNot only was the conviction of the nineteenth century against his\ncontention, but the mood of the very Book from which he quoted was his\nenemy. So far as we can judge, monogamy was the general rule among the\nJewish people. The exemplars of bigamy and polygamy were mainly those\nwhose position enabled them to flaunt the public sentiment of their day.\nThe history of Old Testament polygamy is so sorrowful that the Hebrew\npeople have reacted from it into a stanch defense for the monogamic home.\nThe seduction of Tamar, the murder of Amnon, the unfilial licentiousness\nof Absalom, the sordid road of impurity trod by the later monarchs of\nIsrael, and the despair of the Babylonish captivity, make a piercing case\nagainst polygamy. On the other hand, the unwavering faithfulness of the\nmaid in the Song of Solomon, the patience of Hosea with his prodigal wife,\nthe idyllic story of Ruth, all these became persuasive pleas for a home\nwherein one man and one woman should live together in loyal love even\nuntil death. When Jesus came to give his message contemporaneous polygamy\nhad all but ceased in Palestine. But easy divorce, sometimes called\n\"consecutive polygamy,\" had become prevalent. The world was waiting for\nthe voice of authority, and it heard that voice when Christ began to\nteach.\n\nThe teaching of Jesus in reference to marriage is unmistakable. It may\nimpress many as severe; it cannot impress any as doubtful. If we accept\nhim as the Supreme Teacher we receive a decision given with no equivocal\nterms. It is often said that the method of the Lord was to offer general\nprinciples and to leave his followers to carry out these principles in the\nspirit of loving discipleship. Thus he declined to give detailed rules for\nthe observance of the Sabbath, explicit instructions for the division of\nestates, definite laws for prayer and worship and almsgiving. Yet when he\ndiscussed marriage he gave both general principles and specific rules. If\nthis was not the only case where he became sponsor for a rule it was\nsurely the most emphatic case. He seemed to feel that concerning marriage\nand the home he must give a mass of distinct precepts. It was as if he\ndeemed the home so sacred and its enemies so subtle and powerful as to\nmake necessary some particular instruction.\n\nPerhaps we shall not err in saying that Jesus found in his time urgent\nreasons for specific and strong teaching about marriage. The Jews, who\nwent to a mechanical extreme in their observance of the Sabbath law, had\ngone to an opposite extreme in their attitude toward the law of the home.\nIn this regard the period was worse than our own, but it was not unlike\nour own. The domestic conscience of the Jews had been more or less\nweakened. Mere trifles were made excuses for the breaking up of home.\nDoubtless the influence of the Romans was making itself felt among the\nHebrews. Professor Sheldon quotes Dorner as showing the reckless ease of\ndivorce among leading Romans. One man divorced his wife because she went\nunveiled on the street; another because she spoke familiarly to a\nfreedwoman; another because she went to a play without his knowledge. Even\nCicero, proclaimed a very noble Roman, divorced his first wife that he\nmight marry a wealthier woman, and his second wife because she did not\nseem to be sufficiently afflicted over the death of his daughter! \"In\nfine,\" says Professor Sheldon, \"it was not altogether hyperbole when\nSeneca spoke of noble women as reckoning their years by their successive\nhusbands rather than by the Consuls\" (History of the Early Church, pages\n29, 30).\n\nThe records of this same period among the Romans will rout the claim that\neasy divorce tends to purity. Faithlessness to marriage vows was not\nseriously regarded, and there were instances of so-called noble women\nregistering as public prostitutes in order that they might thus avoid the\npenalties of the laws! Easy divorce seemed to be accompanied by easy\nvirtue, as if, indeed, both evils grew naturally out of the same soil. The\nRoman fashions were having their influence on the Jews. The sacred law was\nsearched and was explained away with evil subtlety in order that men might\nbe religiously released from the marriage bond.\n\nEvidently, then, the times demanded that Jesus should save the marriage\nlaw from looseness. The ease of divorce was not unlike that in our own\nland to-day. If the teaching of Jesus was needed then it is needed now in\norder that marriage may recover its binding solemnity. On general\nprinciples we must all rejoice that Jesus did not give a dubious word on\nthis sacred matter. It may be doubted whether any man who did not have the\ncause of his own pleasure to serve and who was not willing to subordinate\na social law to the superficial joy of his own life, would be willing to\nmodify the Saviour's teaching. Certainly that teaching has long been the\nfirm bulwark of the married life. Had Jesus spoken with doubt, or had he\ngiven sanction to easy divorce, what would the results have been? Our\nhomes would have been builded upon the sands of freakish impulses and of\nhasty tempers. But Jesus's word puts rock into the domestic foundation.\nWhen it was given it was met by all of the objections which it still\nevokes. Some said that the teaching was extreme in its severity, quite\noutdoing the law of Moses in its demands. Others said that rather than to\nsubmit to a bond so unbreakable, it would be better not to marry at all.\nStill Jesus did not lower his teaching. God was the author of marriage;\nman must not assume to be its destroyer. God takes two persons and makes\nthem one flesh; man must not cut that vital bond.\n\nPlainly, then, Jesus felt that marriage established a family relationship\nwhich was to resemble other family relationships in its indissolubleness.\nHow can a man get rid of his brother, or his sister, or his father or\nmother, when God has decreed a relation in the flesh that cannot be\nsevered? One may live apart from brother or sister, or father or mother,\nas a matter of convenience or peace; but how can one destroy the\nrelationship? In spite of angry decrees, is not the brother still a\nbrother, and do not father and mother remain father and mother in\ndefiance of all unfilial pronouncements of divorce? In Jesus's view the\nsecond family relationship was as indissoluble as the first. If one were\nto argue from a certain standpoint it might be easy to claim that it must\nbe even more indissoluble. A man does not choose his first home. It\nrepresents a necessity against which he may not strive. But he does choose\nhis second home, and it represents a union for which he is himself\ndistinctly responsible. Why should a man be allowed to divorce himself\nfrom the home which is founded by his liberty while still being inexorably\nbound to the home which was founded without his choice? Jesus taught that\nthe very constitution of society, as resting on the word of God, demanded\nthat the second home be as sacredly unbreakable as the first. The \"one\nflesh\" must not be severed in either case.\n\nHence it comes about that, while the law of Jesus does not allow divorce,\nunless for the one reason mentioned later, it does not forbid separation.\nThe sin does not consist in putting away the wife when conditions are\nunbearable; it does consist in marrying another. He does not insist that\nthe quarrelsome shall live amid their brawls; but he does insist that they\nshall not go into another experiment that degrades a sacred covenant. We\ndo not long listen to the specious arguments for easy divorce, with the\nprivilege of remarriage, without discovering that these arguments affirm\neither that personal purity is impossible or that personal convenience and\npleasure are the primary demands of life. Jesus did not so teach. Dr.\nPeabody, in his matchless discussion of Jesus's teaching about the family,\nwell says: \"The family is, to Jesus, not a temporary arrangement at the\nmercy of uncontrolled temper or shifting desire; it is ordained for that\nvery discipline in forbearance and restraint which are precisely what many\npeople would avoid, and the easy rupture of its union blights these\nvirtues in their bud. Why should one concern himself in marriage to be\nconsiderate and forgiving, if it is easier to be divorced than it is to be\ngood?\" (Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 159.) That these words\ntouch the evil heart of many modern divorces there can be no doubt. The\nemphatic teaching of Jesus was that marriage should not be regarded as a\nbreakable agreement of convenience, but rather as an indissoluble pledge\nof permanent union.\n\nWhether Jesus allowed any exception to this law remains a debatable matter\namong the scholars. Some contend that the \"save for fornication\" clause is\nan interpolation, and that the teaching of Jesus admitted no divorce\nwhatsoever. Others contend that the gospel writers who omit this clause\nregarded the one reason for divorce as so certain that it was not deemed\nnecessary to mention its legitimacy. It may be claimed with a show of\nreason that the regarding of adultery as an exceptional sin against the\nmarried life stands for something instinctive in human nature.\nNotwithstanding all statements that desertion and abuse and drunkenness\nmay be so aggravated as to constitute offenses worse than fornication,\nnormal men and women continue to assign a lonely infamy to the sin of\ncarnal unfaithfulness. If Jesus did use the exceptional clause there is\nnot wanting evidence that his word is confirmed by an all but universal\nfeeling. Many races have been disposed to decree that the sin of adultery\nis the one iniquity sharp and incisive enough to sever the \"one flesh.\"\nPerhaps it is safe to affirm that the great majority of good men and women\ndo not shrink from the exception as being unworthy of Jesus's teaching.\nBut, the exception being granted, that teaching is clear and\nuncompromising. When that teaching becomes the law of the world divorce\ncourts will be largely emptied and the marriage vows will be assumed with\nless haste and with more solemnity.\n\nThe New Testament is thus seen to be the headquarters of that conception\nof marriage that alone gives a firm foundation to the home. It is\nimpossible to conceive what would have been the dismal statistics of\ndivorce, if Jesus had made the marriage bond of slender strength. Truly\nthe situation is bad enough as it is. Often the causes for divorce are\ntrivial; sometimes they are deliberately arranged by the separating\nparties! and occasionally the much-married comedian is hailed on the stage\nwith a joking tolerance. But when more than ninety per cent of the\nmarriages of the land stand the tests of time and are kept in fidelity\nuntil the \"one flesh\" is severed by death, it is evident that some strong\nforce still guards the home from desecration.\n\nWe need not inquire what that force is; it is the Word of Christ. Among\nthose who follow him least, he has made divorce \"bad form\"; among those\nwho follow him somewhat, he has made it doubtful morals; while among those\nwho accept him as Lord and Master, he has made it sacrilege and blasphemy.\nThe devotees of pleasure and convenience and lust may well quarrel with\nthe decree of Christ. The devotees of compromise may seek to refine and\ndiscount his explicit law. Yet all those who see in the home the very\ncenter and heart of a properly organized society, as well as the very\nordination of the Lord God Almighty, will not cease to be grateful that\nChrist spoke so unmistakably concerning its solemn sanction. He fixed\nforever the difference between the civil marriage and the Christian\nmarriage. He filled the marriage service with religious terms. \"The sight\nof God,\" \"instituted of God,\" \"mystical union,\" \"holy estate,\" \"Cana of\nGalilee,\" \"reverently, discreetly, and in the fear of God,\" \"God's\nordinance,\" \"forsaking all other,\" \"so long as ye both shall live,\" \"for\nbetter, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,\"\n\"the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,\" \"God hath\njoined together,\" \"in holy love until their lives' end\"--all these words\nare Christ's words, his Spirit confirmed them in the service of his\nchurch. That service may well close with the prayer which declares that\nhis is \"the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.\"\n\nMore and more careful students of both sociology and Christianity will see\nthat no safe conception of marriage can be found save in the words of the\nLord. The civil contract idea is full of peril. The case of Percy Bysshe\nShelley, the English poet, is in evidence. The illustration may be\nextreme, but it will the better show the sure goal of that theory of\nmarriage that forgets God. Shelley, for a time at least, was an outright\natheist. Bowing God out of the universe, he could not consistently leave\nGod in his theory of marriage. His college thesis was an argument for\natheism. Given sufficient provocation and motive, Shelley was sure to\nreach the limit of a godless idea of marriage. It seems almost impossible\nfor men with a literary mania to see social or moral fault in their\nheroes, and their tendency often is to absolve writers of genius from the\nusual laws. Shelley married the daughter of a retired innkeeper. In two\nyears he separated from his wife and two children. Three years later the\nwife drowned herself, meeting voluntarily a fate which Shelley was to meet\ninvoluntarily. An apologist for Shelley says, \"The refinements of\nintellectual sympathy which poets desiderate in their spouses Shelley\nfailed to find in his wife, but for a time he lived with her not\nunhappily; nor to the last had he any fault to allege against her, except\nsuch negative ones as might be implied in his meeting a woman he liked\nbetter.\" The more we study this language the more does its superficiality\nimpress us. Let it be said that Shelley was young and heedless when he\nfirst married; let it be said, also, that he was in general strangely\nlovable and warmly philanthropic; and let it be said, even, that he was in\nhis lifetime execrated beyond his deserts. But it would not be so easy to\npalliate his conduct if one's own daughter had drowned herself to end her\nsorrow, or if one's own daughter had traveled with him, unmarried, over\nFrance and Switzerland! Somehow literary admiration plays tricks on moral\nnatures. Doubtless the judgment of Shelley on the basis of his boyish poem\n\"Queen Mab\" was unfair, even as its surreptitious publication without his\nconsent was unfair. None the less one may trace a connection between his\ncollege production in defense of atheism and his later domestic conduct.\nNo marriage has a sure foundation apart from a religious sanction. The\nmore we consider the possibilities suggested by this confessedly extreme\nillustration, the more will we cling to the strict theory of Jesus as\nagainst the limping logic of any loose sociologist.\n\nWe have thus seen that the foundation of the home comes to the Bible, and\nparticularly to the goal of the Bible's revelation in Christ, for its\nsolidity. Other foundations are fashioned of yielding sand. The marriage\nceremony might well be modified in some minor regards; but the word of\nChrist will insist that the ceremony shall represent no flimsy contract.\nWhile he rules the pronouncement will be, \"God hath joined together\"; and\nthe human response will remain, \"till death us do part.\"\n\nThe relation of Jesus to the home goes farther than his word about\nmarriage, deep and far-reaching as that is. His life emphasized the\nsacredness of the family relation. He went back from the scene in the\nTemple to be \"subject unto his parents.\" He wrought his first miracle on\nthe occasion of a marriage. Many of his miracles of mercy were performed\nin answer to a family plea. He heard the cry of a mother when he healed\nthe daughter of the Syrophoenician woman, and again when he raised up the\nson of the widow of Nain. He heard the cry of a father when he cast out\nthe evil spirit and restored a stricken son, clothed and in his right\nmind. He heard the cry of sisters when he stood weeping at the grave of\nLazarus. The domestic plea quickly reached his heart and summoned his aid.\nIt was so even in the personal sense. In the agony of the crucifixion he\ndid not fail to commend his mother to the care of his best-to-do disciple,\nand to cause the writing of that simple statement, \"From that day that\ndisciple took her into his own home.\"\n\nIndeed, through all the life of Jesus he glorified the family, unless the\nfamily stood in the way of his truth or work. Emerson said once, \"I will\nhate my father and my mother when my genius calls me.\" We all know where\nEmerson got those words; they were not written on his own authority. Jesus\nmade our human ancestry subject to our divine ancestry. Above the earthly\nparents he saw the heavenly Father. The God who ordained the home was\nabove the home. But Jesus would allow no other exception. He himself lived\nby that supreme law. He was homeless in obedience to his own divine\nmission. There is a peculiar illustration of this, hidden somewhat by our\nawkward distribution of the Bible into chapters and verses. The seventh\nchapter of John ends with the words, \"They went every man to his own\nhouse.\" It is not difficult for us to reproduce the scene, even with its\nOriental touches. The discussion of the day is over. The hearers did what\nmen and women have been doing ever since--they turned to the twinkling\nlights of their homes. Soon the crowds had disappeared and the various\npersons had joined themselves to their family groups. The homeless One was\nleft alone. The first verse of the eighth chapter of John says, \"Jesus\nwent unto the mount of Olives.\" It was just an instance of his tragedy,\n\"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of\nman hath not where to lay his head.\" The homelessness of Jesus was\nvicarious. Sometimes still he calls his own into the same vicariousness.\nHe separates sons and daughters from their fathers and mothers and sends\nthem afar to preach his kingdom. Wherever those homeless ones may go, the\nmeaning of home takes on a new and sacred meaning. They carry with them\nthe Word and Spirit of him who, being weary, invited the weary ones to\ncome to him for rest; being thirsty, invited the thirsty ones to drink of\nthe water of life; being poor, invited the poor to come to him for riches;\nbeing dead, invited the dying ones to look to him for eternal life; and,\nbeing homeless, still commands the world to look to him for the spirit of\nhome. Even though he himself went down into the darkness of the Mount of\nOlives, ever since his day the people that have heard and heeded his word\nhave found the lights of home more inviting and the mission of the home\nmore divine.\n\nThere is yet another consideration which must be noted ere we receive the\nfull message of Jesus about the home. The teaching of Jesus concerning God\nwas almost wholly based on a figure of speech derived from the home. In\nthe Old Testament God is mentioned under the title of fatherhood but seven\ntimes. Five times he is spoken of as the father of the Jewish people;\ntwice he is spoken of as the father of individual men. Only once in the\nsweep of the ancient Scriptures is there found a prayer addressed to God\nas Father. God was the King of kings, and the Lord of hosts; he was\nCreator and Lawgiver. But in the knowledge of the people he was not yet\nFather. The world waited long ere men found an Elder Brother who could\nbreak the spell of their orphanhood and reveal to them a Father. When\nJesus desired to tell men what God was like he went to their homes and\nfound therein the form of his teaching. He sprinkled the New Testament\nwith the domestic name of God. Two hundred and sixty-five times God is\nspoken of under the title of Fatherhood. The sacredness of the home\nrelation could not receive holier emphasis.\n\nThus the homes which are founded by the Lord become revelations of the\nLord. Domestic relations are teachers of theology. Well may we speak of a\nFamily Bible! There is such a Bible. The illustration of theology is the\nfamily illustration. Some day we shall recover that theology, and we shall\nplace the theologies that have superseded it in their secondary place.\nJesus was the final Teacher of theology, and we must give him the primacy.\nUnder his teaching every true home is a symbol of the divine household;\nevery true parent is a limited representative of God; every true son is an\nexample of the filial spirit that is religion. The path of prayer starts\nwith the word Father. The doctrine of providential care is explained by\nthe word Father. The call to obedience refers to the will of the Father.\nThe deeper tragedy of sin comes from the fact that the offense is against\nthe Father. Conversion is a return to the Father.\n\nTaking, then, the direct teaching of Jesus with reference to marriage as\nthe founding of the home, taking his life in its merciful relation to the\nhome, and taking his teaching about God as based on the home, we are\njustified in saying that Jesus was the Prophet and Saviour of the Family.\nThe vision that he gave of the other life took on that form again. He\ndeclared that he was preparing a place for his own, and he called that\nplace the \"Father's house.\" He was likewise preparing a home this side of\nthe many mansions. A Carpenter he was. He has builded many sanctuaries,\nsome for worship, and some for the mercy that we show to the sick, and\naged, and destitute. But the Carpenter of Nazareth is the builder of the\ntrue home. His word lays its foundations, raises its walls, places its\ncapstone, and furnishes its atmosphere of peace and love. The home that is\nplaced on any other word cannot stand the shock of the tempest. It is\nbased on sand; and when the winds and rains and storms of passion come,\nthe home will fall, and great will be the fall thereof. The world needs\nto-day the lesson of Jesus about the home; and it needs, also, the spirit\nof Jesus in the home. When men and women yield to that spirit,\nextravagance will be checked, forbearance will be increased, love will be\npromoted, peace will be established. Husband and wife will not then plead\nthat Jesus's strict decree concerning marriage may be annulled. Earthly\nhomes will be like vestibules of the Father's House.\n\nThere remains for brief discussion the relation of the Epistles of the New\nTestament to the home life of the people. The tendency here has been to\ngive undue emphasis to certain phases of Paul's teaching. Some reformers,\nespecially some radical feminists, have spoken of the great apostle's\nteaching with scant respect. The command to wives to obey their husbands\nhas been kept apart from the command to husbands to love their wives even\nas Christ loved the church. Christ loved the church so that he gave his\nlife for it; and when husbands love their wives to that sublime extent,\nobedience is no longer demanded for tyranny. All technical matters aside,\nit will be seen that the apostolic treatment of the domestic relations,\ntouching the relative duties of husbands and wives, parents and children,\nand masters and servants, shows a marked balance. When each party keeps\nhis portion of the precepts, and is strictly minded to fulfill precisely\nhis part of the apostolic contract, debates about primacy and authority\nfind their gracious solution in mutual love. Unless we should wish to make\nundue account of Saint Paul's doctrine of the husband's primacy, we cannot\nsay that his attitude toward womankind was marked by anything other than\nutmost respect. Just what his own domestic experiences were is a question\nof age-long doubt. If we study his actual references to women we shall\nfind a series of compliments too deep to serve as the expression of a\nsuperficial gallantry and too genuine to allow the author to be classed as\na hater of the mothers and sisters and wives of the race. Near the end of\nhis life Paul caught the vision of his Master. Beyond his wanderings he\nsaw a destination; above his imprisonments he saw a freedom; after his\nshipwrecks he saw a haven; and the destination and freedom and haven were\nall expressed in the words \"at home.\" \"At home,\" \"at home with the Lord,\"\nthis was Paul's conception of the waiting heaven. He, too, exalted the\nhome by making it the forefigure of heaven.\n\nWe have now presented enough to justify the statement that the Bible is\nthe stanch friend of the home. As long as men and women read and obey the\nBook, and love and follow the Lord of the Book, their feet will turn\nreverently homeward as to the place of God's appointing, as to the school\nof God's own discipline, as to the place of God's own joy, and as to the\nanteroom of God's own heaven.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE BIBLE AND EDUCATION\n\n\nThe man whose program of daily life suggests the outline of these chapters\nawakes in the morning to the consciousness of himself. He is soon aware of\nthe presence of his family and catches the sense of home. Directly the\nchildren are made ready for school and join that romping procession that\nmoves each day at the joint command of parents and teachers. In the normal\nChristian community this fact of school-going is all but universal. In\nsuch a community the illiterate person is so exceptional as to be a\ncuriosity; he is marked by separateness if not by distinction. All of us\nhave marched to school; all of us have had teachers.\n\nThe fact is still more significant. School-going is not merely a general\nexperience; it is a long experience. It controls about one fourth of life.\nIndeed, if we figure the average span of life, the school claims more than\none fourth of the individual career. Many persons continue formal school\nwork into the third decade, while many give a score and a half of years\nin making educational preparation for the remaining twoscore years of the\nallotment.\n\nBeyond this, the whole educational scheme involves countless millions of\ndollars. Our bookkeeping is scarcely rapid enough to keep up with the\nfinances of the system. In our own country it really seems as if education\nhad become a primary passion. Our school buildings yearly become more\nimposing and more costly. Our college endowments annually leap to more\ngenerous figures. Our largest philanthropies seek the privilege of\nenlarging educational opportunity. It thus requires no long observation to\nconvince any thoughtful man that our educational program, involving every\nyoung life in the nation and ideally every young life on the planet, is of\nincalculable meaning. Each morning an army of many millions, ranging from\nwee kindergartners up to adult postgraduates, moves to the schoolroom\ndoor. The whole scene is as impressive as it is human. The question\nnaturally comes, What started that procession? What inspiration keeps it\nmoving through the years? Is there one Book that leads in some forceful\nway to the study of many books? Does the Bible have any sure relation\neither to the enthusiasm or to the efficiency of our educational life? If\nour friend of the day's program could discover the intricate influences\nthat unite in sending his children to the school, would he find that any\nlarge credit must be assigned to the Book?\n\nThe aim now is not to show the place that the Bible has had in the\ncurriculum of the world's education; nor yet is it to show the direct\neffect that the Bible has had upon the world's instruction. The Bible has\nbeen the supreme text-book, even as it has been the supreme force, in the\nschools of nearly two millenniums. These facts have been well set forth in\nmany treatises. The purpose now is simpler and more meaningful: to trace\nto its main sources the influence which the great Book has had upon the\nintellectual life of the race.\n\nWe are met at the outset by the singular fact that the Bible has little to\nsay specifically concerning education. Nowhere in its pages do we read the\ncommand, \"Thou shalt found schools.\" The literalist who started out to\nfind a biblical order for education, as such, would come back from an\nunrewarded search. But we have long ago discovered that the silence of the\nBible does not constitute a commandment. There are some things that are\nstronger than detailed orders. An outer law that has fought an inner\nsanction has usually fared badly in history. On the other hand, the inner\nsanction, unenforced by any objective form of obligation, has won some\nbig victories. An explicit command to act as an immortal is not so\npowerful as the implicit conviction that we are immortal. It is safe to\ndeclare that the implications of Scripture are often as deep and\ninfluential as its explications. If, then, the flowers of knowledge bloom\nnot by command in the fields of the Bible, may we still find there the\nseeds out of which such flowers inevitably grow? If the school building is\nnot definitely prescribed, as was the Temple of Solomon, does the Book\nyield in a deeper sense the wood and stone and mortar by which the\nbuilding must surely rise? Answers to these figurative questions will go\nfar toward determining the relation of the Bible to education. The\ncontention now is that the Bible has been the fountain whence streams of\nintellectual life have flowed, and that, minor influences being freely\nadmitted, these streams may be traced to the Scripture's implicit doctrine\nof human responsibility.\n\nIn discussing the bearing of the Bible on learning much has been made of\nthe example of the Bible's mightiest characters. This fact is striking,\nand it lends itself to popular treatment. The average man takes a truth\nmore readily when it is offered to him in a human setting. Hence it may be\ngranted that the spirit of the Book in its influence on education has\nbeen supplemented by its concrete examples. In the patriarchal era the\nmajestic figure is that of Abraham. Whatever the critics may say about the\nhistoricity of his person, they can hardly doubt the historicity of the\nintellectual process by which some \"Father of the Multitude\" must have\nreached the creed of the divine unity and spirituality. We could not\nexpect, of course, to find organized education in the primitive days of\nreligious history. But, after all, education is relative. An eminent\nAmerican graduated from Harvard in 1836 when he was sixteen years of age.\nIn this day his sixteen years and his completed course of study would\nbarely admit him to the Freshman class. So Abraham's education must be\ngraded by the standard of his dim and far day. Tradition represents him as\nreaching the central doctrine of the Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian\nfaith by a method of reasoning. You may say of his physical journey that\nhe went out, not knowing whither he went, but you cannot say that of his\nintellectual journey. While his feet pressed an unknown way, his mind and\nheart traveled straight toward the discovered God. If the best educated\nman of a period is he who sees most deeply and clearly into its essential\ntruths and problems, then the \"Father of the Faithful,\" whoever he was\nand whenever he came, was the supreme scholar of his generation.\n\nAs the life of the chosen people reaches more definite form, the place of\neducation is more plainly seen. Doubtless most men would agree that Moses\nwas the arch figure of the Old Testament. He is represented, both by the\nScripture and by the tradition given among the Jewish historians, as\nhaving the best mental furnishing of his day. The book of the Acts says of\nhim that he \"was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.\" Clemens\nAlexandrinus records that Moses had the finest teachers in Egypt, and that\nthe choicest scholars were imported from Greece and Assyria to instruct\nthe adopted prince in the arts and sciences of their respective countries.\nPerhaps we must allow something for the idealizing habit here; but it is\nsignificant that both sacred and secular history unite in declaring that\nthe Lawgiver was learned.\n\nIn the era of Prophecy we find the same development, only it is more\nspeedy. Elijah may have been the crude and forceful son of mountain and\nrock, but his successor is the product of one of the numerous \"schools of\nthe prophets.\" Although intellectual training might be presumed to have\nlittle to do with the stern function of Old Testament prophesying, the\n\"school\" arrived quickly and began the training of the young men.\nCriticism has not attacked the view that the book of Isaiah bears marks of\nhigh culture. If that book had two authors, the ancient world is entitled\nto the credit of a second scholar. When the radical is done with the story\nof Daniel we have left at least the schoolroom in which the youthful\nprophet gained his superior wisdom. It would appear that the examples of\nthe worthies of the Old Testament give slight encouragement to the idea\nthat any type of selection or any mood of afflatus may not be supplemented\nby trained intellect in the kingdom of God.\n\nWe need not halt long with the like lesson from the New Testament. Much\nhas been made of the fact that the twelve apostles were uneducated men.\nDoubtless we often do their intellectual life scant justice. Desiring to\nscore in an argument, we give it out as an evidence of the divinity of the\nfaith that it conquered in spite of the disciples' lack of education. The\ntruth is that the New Testament does not warrant the application to the\napostles of such words as \"illiterate.\" Some of them wrote books that have\nmoved the ages. But, whatever the fact be here, he would be wild indeed\nwho would find in ignorance any explanation of the gospel's victory. Let\nus remember, moreover, that, when the \"unlettered\" Twelve were cramping\nthe universal faith into a local religion, the corrector of their blunder\nwas the \"lettered\" Paul. In his statement of experience he was ever ready\nto say that he had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, the greatest Jewish\nteacher of the day. After Christ Paul is the colossal figure of the New\nTestament; and there are those who would confidently declare him the\ngreatest man who has walked the earth since Calvary. For a review of his\neducation, let anyone read a standard Life of the Apostle. We thus gather\nthe one result from both the Old and the New Testament. Moses was the\nmightiest personality of the one, and Paul was the mightiest human\npersonality of the other; and both were highly educated. The signal\nexamples of the Bible range themselves on the side of education.\n\nAs in all things else, so in the relation of the Bible to the intellectual\nlife we reach the climax only when we come to Christ. Here, too, we find\nin the life of Christ that same element of paradox that we often find in\nhis words. That saving was losing, giving was getting, and dying was\nliving were apparently contradictory statements that real life proved to\nbe true. Where words seemed to fight each other, the deeper facts were\nfound to live in peace. So Jesus in his personal influence was ever\nreaching goals of which the paths did not give promise. This is seen\npeculiarly in his relation to the intellectual life. He left no\nmanuscripts. The only time he is represented as writing was when he wrote\nthe sentence of the sinning woman on the forgetful sands of the earth. Yet\nhe who wrote no books has filled the world with books. Something in him\nquickly evoked Gospels and Epistles which were forerunners of a marvelous\nliterature. Even this moment thousands of pens are being moved by him. He\nwrote no books, and still he writes books evermore.\n\nIt was so with his relation to the schools. Men tell us that the\nincarnation imposed a limitation on intellect--that it involved a kenosis,\nan emptying of knowledge even as of power. Be that as it may, our human\nexplanations do not easily reach the mystery of his influence on the\nschools of the world. Did the boy Jesus go to school in Nazareth? Was his\nmother his only earthly teacher? Did his neighbors speak literal truth in\nthe question, \"Whence hath this man wisdom, having never learned\"? The\nsilent years give no answer to the questions. But this we do know: He who\nwent to school slightly or not at all has sent a world to school. He who\nfounded no immediate institution of learning has dotted the planet with\ncolleges. His schoolroom was itinerant and unroofed. It moved quickly from\ntown to city, from capital to desert, from mountain to seashore. We have\ndignified it with a great name. The school of Jesus, whose plant and\nendowment and faculty all centered in one life, is named \"the College of\nApostles.\"\n\nHe said to them, \"Go, teach.\" They went and they taught. They were not\ndeliberate founders of schools. But the heart of Jesus contained schools,\nand they, having gotten their hearts from him, carried schools with them.\nWhen the gospel reached England and Germany, education reached those\ncountries and began to thrive. The vast majority of the first one hundred\ncolleges founded in America were builded by the followers of the Great\nTeacher.\n\nNow, this unique relation of Jesus to the educational life of men is not\naccidental. Subtle as are the laws which determine it, those laws work\neffectively. They are elusive, but once in a while we glimpse their ways\nand meanings. The New Testament seems to feel their presence. It calls\nChrist a Teacher. Forty-three times it uses his name in connection with\nthe word \"teach\" in its various forms. The world gets the same impression.\nIt persists in calling Jesus the Greatest Teacher. It must note the\nschoolroom phrases with which the account of his life is filled. The\nprologue of his wonderful message on the Mount illustrates this. \"And\nseeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set,\nhis disciples came unto him; and he opened his mouth, and taught them.\"\nThe posture of Jesus was that of the teacher. His audience was made up of\n\"disciples,\" that is, of pupils. He \"taught\" them. All this might be\ncalled a superficial play upon mere words. But we may go further and\ndiscover that the method of Jesus was the method of the teacher. He put\nhis effort into other lives in order that these lives might, within their\nvarious limitations, duplicate his own. His work was largely devoted to\nthe preparation of a select few. Often he left hundreds and thousands that\nhe might be alone with Twelve. He poured himself into his disciples, his\nscholars. He thus did what every true teacher must do: He committed the\ncause of his life to those whom he schooled into faith and character and\npower.\n\nNor did the teaching method halt here. The good teacher makes the things\nof the earth serve as approaches to the highest developments. This Jesus\ndid supremely. Long before men made \"nature study\" an educational fad,\nJesus made it an ethical and spiritual service. He pressed flowers,\nmustard seeds, grapes, wine, thistles, corn, figs, into the lessons of\nhis roving school. He made nature study so effective that along a path of\nlilies men walked to God. When it was necessary to individualize in order\nto come to this high result, Jesus took up that burden of teaching. His\nschool, like all other schools since its day, enrolled \"a son of thunder.\"\nIt took the love that suffered long to make John, the son of thunder and\nlightning and vaulting ambition, into the son of tender love. It took the\npatience that knows no failure to change the shifting sand of Simon's\nnature into the rock of Peter's character. All these considerations will\nconvince us that we may go to Christ with the pedagogical, as well as with\nthe religious motive. We do not wonder that a man should have crept to him\nin the darkness and should have said, \"We know that thou art a teacher.\"\n\nThere is yet another side of the subject that calls for emphasis. The\nBible and Jesus give the ideal of the intellectual life, an omniscient\nGod. The God who is perfect in character is often lifted before us. We\nhear the voice saying, \"Be ye holy; for I the Lord your God am holy.\" Yet\nwe interpret the call narrowly. Christ has come to us with the call to\npurity. To the attentive he comes just as truly with the call to\nknowledge. He has given us a gospel for the body, and that gospel teaches\nthat drunkards and other defilers of the human temple of God cannot\ninherit his kingdom. He has given us a gospel for the spirit, and that\ngospel commands that the inmost realm of life be given to his sway. He has\nlikewise given us a gospel of the mind, and that gospel cannot be omitted\nfrom the fullness of the blessing of Christ. The God revealed in Christ\nknows all things. He counts the hairs of our heads. He marks the petals of\nthe flowers. He notes the fall of the sparrows. He is all-knowing and\nall-wise.\n\nEven though the ideal be a staggering one, we are still told to be like\nGod. Some day we shall appreciate more the duty that speaks to us in\nJesus's revelation of an omniscient God. As yet we hardly dare press to\nits full meaning the call implied in that revelation. We have said that\nthe man who neglects and stunts and poisons his body is a sinner. We have\nsaid that the man who dwarfs and represses his spirit is a sinner. Are we\nready to say that the man who gives his mind no chance, the man who fails\nto move on to the ideal of an omniscient God, is likewise a sinner? Is\nGod's perfect spirit a goal for his children, and is God's perfect mind\nremoved from our vision of duty? If we are to start on the endless march\nthat leads to the purity of God, are we freed from the obligation of\nstarting on the endless march that leads to his knowledge? We may shrink\nfrom the conclusion that is here involved; and our shrinking may be only\nan added evidence that we have omitted one element from the divine ideal.\n\nJust here we are struck with the consciousness that we shall need some\ngreat dynamic, if we are ever to start toward this unspeakable goal.\nEvidently we have not reached the last thing in Christ's relation to\neducation. Confucius was a great teacher, but his system has not produced\nschools. Mohammed was a great teacher, but his system has left his\nfollowers wallowing in ignorance. Though Mohammedanism has proclaimed an\nomniscient God, somehow that beacon on the infinite height has not coaxed\nthe Turk on to its shining. Mohammedanism has offered the ideal, but it\nhas lacked the power. On the contrary the system of Jesus seems to have\nhad a genius for diffusing education. It has been a vast normal school.\nThe purer and freer and more spiritual its form, the mightier has it been\nas an educational force. If we list the nations of the earth in classes\nwith reference to literacy and illiteracy, we shall find that the farther\nthe nations are from the Bible, the more dense is their ignorance. We\nshall find, too, that where the people are the freest in their relation\nto the Bible, there the ignorance is least. Plainly the Bible with its\ncrowning revelation in Christ does furnish something of a dynamic toward\neducation. The school has been the inevitable companion of the church.\nThis is because the church, in addition to giving a list of inspiring\nexamples, and in addition to lifting up the uttermost ideal, has also\nemphasized an obligation under the leadership of the ever-present Spirit.\nIt remains to show the nature of the obligation which the Spirit has\nenforced with reference to knowledge. Perhaps this can be done more\nclearly by taking the attitude of the Scriptures toward slavery as\nillustrating their attitude toward ignorance.\n\nWhen Jesus faced his audiences he looked upon men who were in bondage as\nwell as upon men who were in ignorance. It is frequently said that Christ\ndid not attack slavery. In the days before the war the biblical\nliteralist, who believed in freedom, had a hard time with his Bible. He\nfound that the Bible did not condemn slavery, but that the Bible did give\nconcerning it certain regulations. The pro-slavery orators made good use\nof the letter to Philemon. The people who believed in human liberty, and\nwho likewise believed in a mechanical and verbal theory of biblical\ninspiration, passed through intellectual agony in the period of\nanti-slavery agitation. If human bondage was the sum of all villainies,\nwhy did not Jesus condemn it with unsparing invective? Why did not the\napostles enter upon an immediate crusade for its downfall?\n\nThe answer is that Christ in the deepest way did condemn slavery, and that\nthe apostles in the realest way did begin their crusade. They gathered no\nvisible army, and they enforced no written statute, but Christ stated and\nhis followers promulgated a conception of humanity that prophesied the\nmelting of all chains. Usually the claim is that the Golden Rule was the\nprimary foe of slavery, but the Golden Rule is of little force, apart from\nthat doctrine of human personality that pervades the New Testament. Give\nthat doctrine power, and it would refuse to live in the same world with\nslavery. That doctrine, under a Captain, was a delivering army. That\ndoctrine, under a King, was an Emancipation Proclamation. The Golden Rule\nhad been given in negative form by Confucius, and it went to sleep in his\nmaxims. That rule had been uttered negatively by Plato, but it nestled\nquietly in his poetry. Hillel approached the positive statement of the\nrule, but he does not get credit for being its author. The glory of a\ntruth lies with the one who gives it power. Jesus made the Golden Rule\nleap to its feet. He turned it into a most effective traveler. It praised\nGod on its wide journeys. It began to work wonders.\n\nThat work was slow, but it was both sure and thorough. The Rule had power\nbehind its saying. At length the Spirit carried that gracious weapon over\nthe seas and laid it in the hearts of Clarkson and Wilberforce. Soon the\nEnglish flag floated over freemen everywhere. Again the Spirit carried the\ndoctrine over other seas and lodged it in the hearts of Lovejoy, Phillips,\nand Garrison. Directly four million sable faces were glowing with the\nlight of liberty. Jesus had said, \"If the Son therefore shall make you\nfree, ye shall be free indeed.\" The word had essentially a spiritual\nmeaning, but it was worked out, also, in a splendid literalness. The Son\nmade men free, not primarily by the force of law, nor yet primarily by the\nviolence of armies, but rather by the conquest of disposition. The honor\nof the victory is with the Bible theory of humanity, made strong with the\npower of Christ.\n\nNow what the truth of the Bible did in tearing down slavery, it is\ncontinually doing in routing ignorance. The connection is subtle, but it\nis vitally real. The doctrine of personal responsibility is atmospheric in\nthe Bible. It is equally comprehensive. Men are held responsible for\ntheir bodies. Drunkenness, adultery, and all forms of sensuality are\ncondemned. This is at the bottom of life. But at the top of life firmer\nstress is placed. The spirit of man is made a field of reckoning. The\ndivine dominion over motive is strongly asserted. And that comprehensive\nresponsibility claims the mind. The first great commandment of the new\ndispensation is that we must \"love God with all the strength, with all the\nsoul, with all the _mind_.\" Men may differ about the precise meaning of\nthe mind's love for the Lord, but the Christian sense of duty has asserted\nit in strange fashions. From vast revivals young men and women have gone\nforward intellectually and have sought the higher education. Conversion\nhas set free their intellects and has made them feel the duty of\nintellectual development. The pressure of the Christian ideal has been on\nthem. They have answered the call of the God who is infinitely good, and\nthey must now answer the call of the God who is infinitely wise. An\nelusive intellectual law is written sure and large in the code of the\nGreat Kingdom. It is as certainly a commandment of God as if it had been\nthundered among the crags and lightnings of a new Sinai.\n\nThe conviction of the church at this point has not always come to\ndefinition; nor has it always risen even to consciousness. For all that,\nit has risen to practical life and has struggled always for outward\nexpression. Feeling that the empire of God is over all of life, man must\nsubmit his mind to the divine rule. Hence it follows that the man who is\nintellectually lazy, as well as the man who is intellectually dishonest,\nis a sinner. This statement may shock those who have a surplus of caution,\nbut these may reassure themselves with the conviction that any theory may\nbe fearlessly accepted, if it brings us face to face with God at any point\nof our total life. The failure to follow this biblical idea has brought a\npenalty always. No denomination that has fought or slurred education has\nled a large and victorious life; on the contrary it has invariably become\none of the fading and dwindling forces of God's work. The God of wisdom is\nevermore against the promoters of ignorance. So do we find that, by the\nexamples of its greatest characters, by the life of its Greatest Teacher\nand its ruling Lord, by the vision of its supreme ideal, by the assertion\nof its inclusive theory of consecration, and by the divine dynamic which\nit brings to bear upon the mind, the Bible has become the steadfast friend\nof proper education. It has opened the doors of countless schools and has\nbidden the children of men to enter the portals of learning with the\nassurance that all truth is of God.\n\nThe Bible renders education the service of inspiration, and it renders it\nthe service of proper restraint. When any one faculty of human life\nbecomes a monarch it always makes for trouble. Zeal without knowledge\ntends to breakage; knowledge without zeal tends to waste. The Bible does\nnot make intellect all. Man has mind, and he must use that. Man has\nsensibility, and he must use that. Man has will, and he must use that. Man\nmust get the truth out of his integral self rather than out of his\nfractional self. The man who does not use his heart and will in the\ngaining of truth is just as faithless as is the man who will not use his\nmind. Without attempting to use psychological terms with exactness, we may\nsay that Jesus brought in the reign of the practical intellect, which gets\ntruth from all there is of man. Even as truth comes not from the naked\nwill of God, nor yet out of his cold thought, but rather out of the full\nnature of the Infinite, so truth finds man, not at some one point of his\nbeing, but in the glowing center of his whole life.\n\nWe may assert, also, that the Bible saves education from frigidity.\nTennyson speaks of \"the freezing reason's colder part.\" We all know the\nmeaning of the phrase. Jesus put into the search for truth the mood of\nhumility. The method of learning was obedience. Obedience is the organ of\nintellectual vision as well as of spiritual vision. The method of Jesus\nwas not merely for the spiritual life, as men speak in their fragmentary\nway; it was a universal method. It takes humility to make the beginnings\nof a scholar, and weariness and shame of ignorance, and faith in an\nintellectual empire, and a high trust that the mind is made for truth, and\nthe truth for mind. Ere we have done, we have a huge creed wrapped up in\nour intellectual processes. But the creed has been saved from its cold\npride. The Bible says in one of its marginal readings, \"Knowledge puffeth\nup; love buildeth up.\" Knowledge alone may be swollen with pride, and the\nhigher demand of the Bible would save from that disaster. This gives us\nthe clue to more than one biblical sentence. There is a \"science falsely\nso called.\" There is a sense in which \"not many wise after the flesh are\ncalled.\" These implied warnings are not the cries of prejudice. They stand\nfor the effort to touch learning with humility, which alone can save it\nfrom being distant and icy.\n\nThe good Book rescues education from a selfish inaction. There was a\nliving and serving element in Jesus's relation to the intellectual life.\nHe did not deal in barren metaphysics or in helpless abstractions. His\ntruth went to work. He fastened it to life's burdens, and they were\nlifted. He dropped it amid life's problems, and they were solved. He cast\nit against life's temptations, and they were defeated. He attached it to\nlife's duties, and they were fulfilled. He sought those truths with which\nmen had to dwell. He never attempted to set forth the essential mystery of\nthings. He was no dealer in an intellectual cure-all. He spoke with\nauthority and yet with reverent limitation. There was a great reserve in\nhis explanations. Yet in the realm where men must live their present\nlives, Jesus gave enough truth to keep men busy all their days. Here again\ncomes in the question of dynamic. Men sometimes prate about their \"love of\ntruth.\" The intellectual life, like the religious life, may be guilty of\ncant. It takes more than an open mind to get the truth; it takes a working\nmind. Truth does not come to the passive man by way of transfer. One\nteaching of the parable of the virgins is that, while the coarser goods of\nlife may be transferred, the finer goods of life must be won by spiritual\neffort. It takes dynamic to secure a real intellect. Perception may see a\ntruth, but only inward power can use the truth. Jesus conferred that\npower. He gave us the truth in the doctrine about God. He gave us the way\nin the spirit of obedience. He gave us the life in the willingness to make\nthe truth the servant of the world for the sake of Christ.\n\nThis leads us to the biblical idea of consecrated intellect. As we have\noften failed to indicate the sin of needless ignorance, so have we failed\nto point out the sin of an unconsecrated mind. All truth can be dedicated\nto Christ. His great call to-day is for more men with the highest culture\nplaced under the thrall of his grace and under the guiding power of the\nSpirit whom he sends--more Luthers from Wittenberg, more Wesleys from\nOxford, more Pauls from Gamaliel's school; more men from all our modern\nseats of learning who will know that gifts of learning can be placed at\nthe service of the King and that all science and philosophy and literature\nmay be placed at the foot of the Cross. In the coming day of the Christian\nintellect\n\n  Mind and heart, according well\n  May make one music as before,\n  But vaster.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE BIBLE AND WORK\n\n\nThe frank purpose of the present lecture is to discuss the relation of the\nBible to the moral and spiritual aspects of work. The aim is not a study\nin economics. Without doubt the Bible stands for justice; and without\ndoubt, also, the intent of the Bible is to make just men. But the great\nBook does not give an infallible table of wages; neither does it offer any\nsure rules whereby we can determine the working value of any particular\nindividual. It declares that \"the laborer is worthy of his hire,\" and it\nleaves the details to be wrought out by men whom it summons to the spirit\nof justice and love. Interested as we may be in the economic problems of\nour day, we must still rejoice that the Bible does not surrender its work\nof inspiration in an effort at mechanical guidance. The wage scale must\nnecessarily vary with the conditions of living; and, therefore, a textbook\nof money wages would have made a cumbersome volume with most of its pages\nas lifeless as the Book of the Dead. The very suggestion ends in\nridiculousness. The effort of the Bible is not to give directions for\nworking machines, but to give motives to working men. It is not a\ntaskmaster, but a task-inspirer.\n\nTrue toil of whatever sort is in need of inspiration. It must go by system\nand by schedule, and the element of monotony makes itself felt. The man\nleaves his home six mornings of the week and takes up his accustomed task.\nThe bell calls him to work at an appointed hour, and it dismisses him by\nthe demand of the clock. The husband goes to the store or office or\nfactory to do the same things again and ever again, while the wife goes\nabout the household duties that have engrossed her on thousands of\nprevious days. One of the victories of life is to be a worker and not to\nbe a drudge. We have all known people who have not won that victory. Their\nwork is a grim necessity. It is not acquainted with poetry or with music.\nWhen the idealist speaks of the man who sings at his toil, they sneer at\nhis sentimentalism or they doubt his sincerity. Work is a ceaseless grind;\nit is a dreary round; it is a hard compulsion. The poet who wields a pen\nmay tell the man who wields a pick that work is joy and refreshment and\nliberty, but the sour toiler will regard his teacher as a condescending\ncomforter. The complaint of many people is not simply that they must make\nbricks without straw, but that they must make bricks at all. In their\nvocabulary pleasure contrasts with labor because labor itself is pain.\nThey are weary in their work and weary of their work. The only ideal for\nthis sort of laborer is that he may labor so successfully as to be able\nsome day to get on without labor. This man is the drudge.\n\nOddly enough, he has had his theological partners. There have been Bible\nstudents who have held that all work is a penalty of the Fall. They say\nthat when God said to Adam, \"In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat\nbread,\" he entered toil among the punishments of life. Undoubtedly sin\nadds to the hardship of work, especially if the sin be the sin of a wrong\nattitude. Thorns and thistles do prosper more around the broken gate of\nthe sluggard. The earnest expectation of a groaning and travailing\ncreation does wait for the revealing of the sons of God. Discontent puts\nits evil reflex on the muscles. The rebellious worker is ever the tired\nworker. But even the literal story of Eden does not give the ideal of\nworklessness. Adam had been placed in the garden \"to dress it and to keep\nit.\" Wherever God places the man, he places the task for the man. Any\nother conception of life is unworthy and utterly irreligious. A silly\ntheology that puts a premium on idleness is not born of the God that\n\"worketh hitherto.\" Still the view that work is a curse persists even\nafter the theory that encouraged the view has gone to the discard. The\nsanctified escape the fret of work, but they do not escape its fact. The\nPerfect Life, as we shall later see, was the life of a Worker.\n\nAdmitting, as we all must, that work is sometimes tragic because it lacks\nits proper outer reward, we may still contend that often its deepest\ntragedy is a wrong attitude of spirit. Doubtless much of this comes from\nmaladjustment. Some idealists believe that if every man were given his own\ntask, every man would be happy at that task. Kipling so states it in the\n\"L'Envoi\" of \"The Seven Seas.\" He sees the good time when there shall be\nan adjustment between man and his task. The lower motives for work shall\nall be done away, and the one satisfying motive shall abide.\n\n  And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame,\n  And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,\n  But each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star,\n  Shall draw the thing as he sees it, for the God of things as they are.\n\nIdeal as this is, it gets a response from us all. Besides there are some\nforetokens of this age of joyful toil. Usually these are seen most clearly\nin work that has a relation to beauty. The woman works cheerfully at her\nfine embroidery, and she works just as cheerfully over the flowers in her\ngarden. With men the form of toil that stands for genuine achievement\noften becomes not only a pleasure but a veritable passion. Where a\nspiritual motive allures, work frequently becomes the gladness of life.\nAgassiz declined to accept the remunerative call to lecture by saying, \"I\nam only a teacher. I cannot afford to make money.\" Wesley poured back into\nhis work all the results of his work and died a poor man whereas he might\nhave become rich. In America college professors have been known to save\ntheir meager salaries in order that they might return their slight estates\nto endow more fully the institutions for which they labored. They received\nfrom their work so that they could give back to their work.\n\nThe more we study cases of this fine sort, the more will we be impressed\nthat the workers labored under the biblical sense of life. The men just\nmentioned were all profound believers in God, and they lived their lives\nas under his eye. Hence they saw their portion of work as a part of the\ninfinite whole that makes for the kingdom of God. There is a story of a\nworkingman who, standing on the street opposite the Cathedral of Cologne,\nwas overheard saying, \"Didn't we do a fine job over there?\" Turning about,\nthe listener saw a rough hand pointing at the wonderful cathedral. \"What\ndid you do?\" he asked the man. The reply was, \"I mixed the mortar for\nseveral years.\" The tale was told by the thoughtless as being humorous. It\nis, however, serious and beautiful. That workman had gotten the vision of\nhimself as a partner in a plan that covered centuries of grand toil. He\nwas a helper of God in the fashioning of his temple. In reality he had\njoined the company of Hiram and of Solomon. Now all honest work must have\na direction that is both long and high. It reaches down into the years of\nmen. It reaches upward into the heart of God. Precisely this idealism is\nneeded in order that toil may be redeemed from its drudgery. George Eliot\ngives us a striking illustration of it in her tribute to Stradivari, the\nmaker of violins. This immortal mechanic is said to have had a reverence\nfor his labor. He felt that, whereas God gave men skill to play, God\ndepended on Stradivari to furnish the instruments. He was the partner of\nthe Most High. God had chosen Stradivari as a helper. Hence he could say,\n\n                          God be praised,\n  Antonio Stradivari has an eye\n  That winces at false work and loves the true,\n  With hand and arm that play upon the tool\n  As willingly as any singing bird\n  Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,\n  Because he likes to sing and likes the song.\n\nWe may not all have this attitude toward our work, but we are all\nidealists enough to wish that we felt just that way. The singing workman\nis not altogether a figment of the imagination; neither is his spirit\nimpossible in the day that now is. The men who regard work as a blessing,\nand not as a penalty and a curse, are found in many trades and\nprofessions. They are the forerunners of the Eden life. Certainly the main\nteaching of the Bible, that labor is designed to aid in the bringing in of\nthe kingdom of God, must give to the honest laborers in every realm an\nexalted joy.\n\nThis primary consideration is joined by the human examples of the Bible.\nWe find in its pages a procession of workers, and from this procession God\nselects many of his chosen leaders. Moses was tending his flock on the\nhillside when the voice of the Lord summoned him to his manifold\nleadership. Saul was seeking his father's cattle when he found the kingdom\nof which he was to be king. David was busy in the sheepfold when the\nprophet called him to his work as warrior and monarch. Ruth was gleaning\nin the fields, in her pathetic effort to care for her widowed\nmother-in-law and herself, when she found her way into happiness and into\nthe ancestry of our Lord. Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press\nwhen he was drafted for the campaign that was to break the power of the\nMidianites. Elisha was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen when the mantle of\nElijah was cast over his shoulders. Nehemiah was serving as cupbearer to\nthe king when he evoked from Artaxerxes the permission to return and\nrebuild the walls of his beloved city. Amos was among the herdsmen of\nTekoa when the word of God took him captive and sent him to his prophetic\ncareer. These are the instances in the Old Testament where mention is made\nof the form of toil from which God called men to some spiritual service.\nWithout doubt the full record would show that other signal servants\nreceived their commissions while they were faithfully performing their\nduties on threshing floors, out in the fields, and within counting-rooms.\n\nThe New Testament is less specific in its descriptions, but it often gives\nus the like hint. Matthew was at the seat of custom when he was invited\ninto the fellowship of the disciples that he might tell men of the eternal\nexchange. James and John were engaged in their occupation as fishermen\nwhen they heard the voice on the shore and pulled their boat over the blue\nwaves that they might become fishers of men. The shepherds were in\nfaithful watch over their flocks by night when they heard the evangel of\nsong and were startled by the message of peace. The illustrations make us\nfeel that the favorite meeting place of God with man is the meeting place\nof man with his work. A motto says that \"the best reward of good work is\nmore good work to do.\" The providence of God upholds the motto. The Bible\nshows a preference for the workers as against the shirks. It puts the\npremium on industry, whether the type of toil be manual or spiritual.\n\nHere, as in all other themes of real life, we come to Christ for our\nhighest teaching and our best example. We have noted elsewhere that he\nmade the home the illustration of our relations with God; and we now note\nthat he made the common work of earth the illustration of our\nresponsibility for service to God. This he did so often and so urgently\nthat we are driven to feel that work was not only the form of illustration\nbut also the form of service itself. How many parables did he gain from\nthe ways of toil? He would say, \"The kingdom of heaven is like unto--,\"\nand straightway his hearers' minds were sent to the places where men\nwrought for their daily bread. In most places the blanks can be supplied\nby some form of employment. \"The kingdom of heaven is like unto--\" a\nmerchant and his pearls; a sower and his field; a woman and her leaven; a\nfisherman and his net; a husbandman and his vineyard; a merchant traveler\nand the intrusted talents. Where his words were used as deft and quick\nillustrations rather than as lengthy and formal parables, he gathered his\nmaterial from the realms of toil. The builder and the house; the shepherd\nand the sheep; the axman and the tree; the tailor and the cloth; the\nhousewife and the coin; the rich man and his steward; the woman and her\ngrinding; the man and his plowing; the watchman and his vigil; the\nhusbandman and the vine; all these entered into his speech as showing what\nGod would expect of men. Here we have almost a cyclopedia of labors.\nInasmuch as Jesus commended the qualities shown in these various phases of\nservice, we are allowed to think that he regarded the legitimate\noccupations of everyday life as both representing and fulfilling the\nkingdom of God. Nor will reverent thought be satisfied with any less\ncomprehensive view. There would be a dread of living if we were made to\nfeel that the work which we must do, both to meet our own sense of\nself-respect and to provide for the needs of ourselves and our beloved,\nwas either in opposition to the grace of God or stood for neutral\nterritory between the realms of good and evil. The teaching of Jesus saves\nus from that practical atheism. He allows every honest man to take the\noft-repeated phrase, \"The kingdom of heaven is like unto--,\" and to\ncomplete a portion of its meaning from his own form of labor. If a man is\nengaged in any task that makes sacrilege and blasphemy when it is used to\nfill out the sentence, then let that man look well to his own heart and\nlife. Every man's work should serve as a parable of Christ.\n\nBut Jesus was not simply the doctrinaire of toil; he was its exemplar. The\nemphasis here is usually placed upon the fact that Christ was a carpenter.\nHe transformed crude materials into useful tools. An overdone stress on\nthis point is itself a confession that manual toil needs an apologist! The\nsignificant thing is that such a stress is wholly absent from the speech\nand attitude of Jesus. With him carpentry seems to have been a natural\npart of life. He never refers to it as something that he had outgrown. His\nbackward look toward the occupation of his youth betrays no condescension,\nlike to that occasionally seen in so-called self-made men! After he had\nleft the carpenter's bench he said, \"I work.\" When he saw the night\nclosing down about him, the brevity of the working day became an incentive\nto more work, and he said, \"I must work.\" Even in the agony we can catch\nthe exultation of the cry, \"I have finished the work which thou gavest me\nto do.\" It was his meat to finish his \"work.\" Jesus did the appointed task\nfor each period of his life. Then he passed on to the task of the next\nperiod without the least hint that the varying tasks were not joined in\nthe harmony of the divine purpose. The work of his life was like his\ngarment; it was all of one piece. From the building of the Nazareth\ncottage on to the building of the \"many mansions,\" there is no\nconsciousness of contradiction. With Jesus the working life was a unity.\n\nAnd at the risk of being mechanical in the use of bungling divisions we\nmay declare that Jesus entered into all the large divisions of toil. The\nnote of universality is seen here as it is seen elsewhere. We have been\ntold that the three forms of temptation that Jesus encountered on mountain\ntop and temple pinnacle exhaust all the types. It has been said, too, that\nthe thankfulness of Jesus is directed toward all the channels by which the\ngood of life can flow in upon us. This same characteristic of universality\nappears in the work of Christ. As a carpenter he worked upon material\nthings. As a healer he worked upon the bodies of men. As a teacher he\nworked upon the minds of men. As a preacher he worked upon the souls of\nmen. All the workers of the world can be brought into one of these\ndivisions, and so all true workers can enter into partnership with Jesus.\nWe call him the Carpenter, the Great Physician, the Greatest Teacher, the\nWorld's Saviour! The manual toilers claim him. The doctors claim him. The\nteachers claim him. The evangelists claim him. He is at home in the shop,\nin the hospital, in the schoolroom, and in the temple. All the classes of\ntoilers can appeal to the sanction of his example.\n\nStill we must again assert that these clumsy divisions were not emphasized\nby Jesus himself. There has been an age-long debate, ofttimes degenerating\ninto a wrangle, as to the relative hardships of the different forms of\nlabor. Men who cling to their occupations will still declare that those\noccupations have trials beyond all others. Into this debate Jesus did not\nenter. He never set one form of toil against another by entering into any\ncomparisons or contrasts. As he experienced all the general forms of\nlabor, so did he honor all forms. In his view they were all good and all\ncooperative. On the surface they may seem to be rivals, but in the center\nthey are actual partners in the divine program. Hence Jesus passed from\none realm of work to another with little sense of transition. Carpenter,\nHealer, Teacher, Preacher, he was ever the servant of the Kingdom.\nFaithfulness, honor, industry, efficiency, patience--in short, all the\nvirtues were possible in any good way of work. The life of Jesus unites\nall our types of labor in a divine purpose and rebukes that quarrelsome\nspirit which so often sets the manual laborers and the mental and moral\nlaborers in opposition. The hand cannot say to the head, \"I have no need\nof thee,\" nor can the head utter the like speech of egotism and\nself-sufficiency. The workers are all one body, and every one members of\nanother.\n\nSo do we find Jesus putting himself with willing sacrifice into his\nvarying tasks. He had said to his parents in Jerusalem, \"Wist ye not that\nI must be amid my Father's matters?\" and then he went into what men call\nthe silent years. But they were not wholly silent. The attentive can hear\nthe sound of the hammer. The point is that in passing from the Jerusalem\ntemple to the Nazareth shop Jesus did not depart from his Father's\nbusiness. We may all resent the particular descriptions of the quality of\nhis work as a carpenter; and we may be quite content in our faith that\nall his work was done faithfully and well. Holman Hunt's \"Shadow of the\nCross\" relates Jesus's work in the shop to his sacrificial character. At\nthe end of a weary day the Nazareth Carpenter extends his arms to relieve\nhis weariness. The sunshine coming through the window casts his shadow on\nthe wall in the form of a Cross. His mother glancing in through another\nwindow sees the Cross foreshadowed there and gets her glimpse of the sword\nthat should enter her own heart. Nor did Jesus escape hardship and\nexhaustion when he became a healer and teacher of the people. The crowds\nthronged him wherever he went. The hillside became like an open-air\nhospital. The multitudes hung upon his words of instruction. Some have\nsaid that one reason why he commanded men who were healed or who were told\nthe deeper secret of his nature that they \"should tell no man,\" was that\nhe might avoid the greater press of the throngs. Be that as it may, we are\nsurely justified in saying that he gave himself lavishly to the work of\neach period. In each section of his life his action said, \"I must work.\"\n\nIt would be easy, however, to overstate Jesus's relation to work. He did\nnot labor all the time. Knowing how to toil he knew likewise how to rest.\nMen may plead the example of Satan against a vacation season, but they\ncannot plead the example of Christ! He rested after he had worked and in\norder that he might work again. When the crowd became importunate and the\ndrain upon his power had become severe, he sought the desert and in its\nquiet restored himself for the new labors. He bade his weary disciples to\ncome apart to the spot of respite. He was the exemplar of proper rest even\nas he was the exemplar of proper work. Industrious men often need one\nlesson even as lazy men need the other. There are persons who are greedy\nof toil. They are as avaricious for it as the miser is for gold. They are\nwhat Carlyle would call \"terrible toilers.\" They die before their time\nbecause they work after their time. Jesus knew this danger. He wished to\nguard against it by keeping the Sabbath for man. He wanted to save the\nresting place between the weeks because he wanted to save man to his best\nself and work. He prescribed the working day and the shop, and he\nprescribed the resting day and the desert.\n\nWe need not be surprised, then, to find that the new day puts the emphasis\non the sanctification of common work. Professor Peabody gives the contrast\nbetween two well-known poems as illustrating a change that has come over\nthe personal side of the social question. A generation since Lowell gave\nus his \"Vision of Sir Launfal.\" The hero of this poem, after traveling in\nmany lands, finally finds the holy grail in the cup which he had filled\nfor a way-side beggar, while the more personal presence of Jesus is\ndiscovered in the beggar himself to whom the searcher has given alms. The\ncharacteristic of the new day is seen in Van Dyke's \"The Toiling of\nFelix.\" The hero of this later poem, after seeking the direct vision of\nhis Lord in caves and deserts of idle contemplation, at last secures the\ncoveted revelation as he enters gladly into a life of toil and\nparticularly as he flings himself into the swollen river to rescue a\nfellow laborer. Felix finds that there is a holy literalness in the words\nwhich he found on the piece of papyrus as a recovered gospel of Christ:\n\n  Lift the stone, and thou shalt find me;\n  Cleave the wood, and there am I.\n\nThe ranks of labor are \"the dusty regiments of God.\" The Lord, being a\nworker, is mindful of his own:\n\n  Born within the Bethlehem manger where the cattle round me stood,\n  Trained a carpenter of Nazareth, I have toiled and found it good.\n\nThe good work of the world is the work of Christ. There is really no\ncontrast between sacred and secular; the actual contrast is between the\nsacred and the wicked.\n\n  They who tread the path of labor, follow where Christ's feet have trod,\n  They who work without complaining, do the holy will of God.\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  This is the Gospel of labor--ring it, ye bells of the kirk,\n  The Lord of Love came down from above to live with the men who work.\n\nThe inevitable drift of this emphasis on the working experience of Jesus\nhas swept admiration away from the monastic life. The \"religious\" are not\nthose who shun the world of toil in order that they may gain the world of\npersonal peace and salvation. The modern saint is not a Simon the Stylite.\nSaint Francis of Assisi projects himself into the admiration of the\ntwentieth century because he was a worker rather than a recluse. The\nattitude toward monasticism among the healthier and more energetic peoples\ngoes further than this: there is a feeling that in the last analysis the\nreligious hermit is spiritually selfish. That is deemed a poor kind of\nreligion which forsakes a world in order to save one's soul. The argument\nthat the recluses may render the world the service of constant prayer does\nnot appeal to those who know that work is itself a form of prayer; and\nthat in Jesus prayer and work lived together in harmony. A better\nunderstanding of the religion of Christ demands that its followers shall\nbe socially efficient. If Jesus is to be the world's example, more and\nmore men and women will find in their legitimate toil one of the\nsacraments of life.\n\nAlready we have come to feel that the Bible doctrine of work, especially\nas that doctrine is incarnated in Christ, lays stress upon the man as well\nas upon his task. It asks, \"What is the man doing with his work?\" It also\nasks, \"What is the work doing with the man?\" The reflexes of activity\noften become a topic of teaching. Paul said that the man reaps the harvest\nof his own sowing. Jesus said, \"With what measure ye mete, it shall be\nmeasured to you again.\" This is much as if he had said that in the upper\nrealms of living action and reaction are equal and in opposite directions.\nHe told his disciples that, if they pronounced the benediction of peace\nupon a house unfit or unwilling to receive it, the benediction should\nreturn to them again. The meaning is that no work done with the right\nspirit can really fail. The poets give this idea currency. George Herbert\ndeclares that a servant with the proper clause in his creed makes\n\"drudgery divine\":\n\n  Who sweeps a room as to thy law\n  Makes that and the action fine.\n\nHe had already implied that such a servant made himself fine. Mrs.\nBrowning emphasizes the need of a serious purpose in work when she uses\nher picturesque description:\n\n  I would rather dance at fairs on tight rope\n  Till the babies dropped their gingerbread for joy,\n  Than shift the types for tolerable verse, intolerable\n  To men who act and suffer. Better far\n  Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means\n  Than a sublime art frivolously.\n\nIt is \"better far\" because our seriousness comes back to dwell with us;\nand our frivolousness does the same. Many of the parables get their\nmeaning from this certainty of reaction. The good shepherd is good because\nhe does his work well, and the return of his work makes him better still.\nJust as physical work reacts on the muscles, so that sometimes men\nexercise without any outward object in view, even so does the moral spirit\nof work come back to dwell with the man and to make his last estate either\nbetter or worse. Our bodies are built into strength by a series of\nreactions, and our spirits evermore receive their own with usury.\n\nThis idea, as we have observed in another connection, has wrought some\nmarked changes in the social program. It has largely superseded\nalmsgiving by workgiving. Scientific charity seeks to remove the causes of\npoverty, knowing that this is the sure way to remove poverty itself. The\nconviction is that a day's work with a day's pay is far better for the man\nthan a day's pay without the day's work. In the latter case the man loses\nboth independence and self-respect, while in the former case he keeps both\nof these and gains in addition the rebound of faithful labor. The tramp,\nor the man with the heart of a tramp, always fails. Outwitting others, he\noutwits himself more truly. He plays tricks on his own soul. The weakness\nof his life settles back into his spirit. He drags with him always his\nevasions and neglects. Scamping his toil, he scamps his own soul. All\nshoddy material gets built into his own being. He erects a dishonest house\nfor another, but with it he erects an evil structure in which he himself\nmust live. So it is that a man's work may be his blessing, or it may be\nhis vengeance.\n\nWhile this idea has its terrible side, it has also its side of glory and\ncomfort. It provides amply for the failure of the faithful. Goldsmith says\nthat \"Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the giver's bosom,\" just as\nJesus says the declined benediction of peace comes back to the true\ndisciple. It follows that for the good workman there is no real failure.\nThe house that he has builded may go up in smoke and flame, but the\nindustry and honor that fashioned its walls and fashioned themselves in\nthe making of the walls cannot be destroyed. The fortune that he has\ngathered may take wings and fly away, but the deeper treasures that have\nbeen garnered by fair-dealing in the marketplace abide in the deposit of\nthe heart. Jesus said, \"Your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man\ntaketh from you.\" We see here that there are possessions that human power\ncannot remove. They have been woven into the self. The treasure house is\ntoo deep for the touch of man. A minor poet tells us:\n\n  I've found some wisdom in my quest\n    That's richly worth retailing;\n  I've found that when one does his best\n    There's little harm in failing.\n\nHe corrects this mild statement in his concluding verse. He wanted riches,\nbut he was rich without them; he wanted to sound the depths with his\nphilosophy, but his ship sailed on anyhow; he wanted fame; but he\ndiscovered the secret of greatness without it; and so he adds the lines\nwhich declare that the failing of the faithful not only does \"little\nharm,\" but even that it furnishes its own enrichment of the real life:\n\n  I may not reach what I pursue,\n    Yet will I keep pursuing;\n  Nothing is vain that I can do;\n    For soul-growth comes from doing.\n\nDavid \"does well\" that it is in his heart to build the Lord's house, even\nthough the honor be passed on to another. The good purpose helps to make\nthe good man; and the good purpose that expresses itself in work is sure\nof the inner reward. This conception may be twisted into a soft gospel for\nthe inefficient; but the evident purpose of the Bible is to offer it as a\ncomforting gospel for the faithful.\n\nIt would be easy to follow the guidance of the Concordance as it notes the\nword \"work\" in the Epistles. All of the conceptions that have thus far\nbeen treated reappear in the apostolic writings. The symbol of everyday\nwork is constantly lifted to the highest. We do not need to see Paul\nbending over the sailcloth and thrusting his needle into the canvas ere we\nknow that he is a worker. His whole life was one of toil. He was not\nslothful in his apostolic business; and the fervor of his spirit would\nhave been a good example to the ancient mechanic or merchant. He saw good\nmen as his colaborers with God. He saw the men that he helped to make good\nas a husbandry that he was cultivating for the Lord, as a building that he\nwas fashioning for Christ's sake. The cure for thieving was work. He that\nstole was to steal no more, but was to work with his hands the thing that\nwas good; and the benevolent motive was to impel to work that the former\nthief might have something to give to the needy. It was of the hard toil\nof servants that Paul said, \"Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same\nshall he receive of the Lord.\" It is the idea of reaction again; God\nsuffers no faithful worker to lose his reward. The apostolic rule is very\nthoroughgoing in dealing with laziness. \"If any will not work, neither\nshall he eat.\" This rule may be an offense to the idle rich, but it\nappeals to the sense of justice. Perhaps some day society will be skillful\nenough to starve its tramps and shirks until they flee to toil as to a\nrefuge.\n\nIt is peculiar that the end of the Bible should have been misconceived,\neven as the beginning, in its teaching concerning work. We have discussed\nthe heresy that declares that work is a penalty of sin. There is another\nheresy which pictures heaven as a place of everlasting idleness. If we\nselect certain of the descriptions of Revelation, it is easy to see how\nthe error arose. Yet in each of the weird pictures of the eternal city\nthere is one sentence at least that hints at heavenly service. For\nenergetic souls no other conception will be satisfying. Surely inactivity\nis not the goal of a redeemed race. Shortly before his death Mark Twain\npublished in a magazine a satire on the usual idea of heaven. Introduced\nin a dream to the city of our hope, he was told by an attending angel to\ntake his seat on a cloud and to occupy himself by wearing a crown and\nholding a harp. Soon becoming weary of this do-nothing life, he came down\nto the golden streets. He was asked to keep for a time the crowns and\nharps of the passers-by, and he noted that the way was strewn with these\nrejected ornaments! Some good people may have been offended by the satire;\nand some whose life has been filled with weariness will insist that heaven\nmust offer rest. So indeed it must. One suggestive passage says concerning\nthe souls of those that were slain for the testimony of Christ that they\nshould \"rest yet for a little season.\" Those that have come out of great\ntribulation are given service as a reward of their tribulation. \"Therefore\nare they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his\ntemple.\" In the later description the land of rest is seen as a land of\nwork, and \"his servants shall serve him.\" The race does not look back to a\nworkless Eden; neither does it look forward to a workless heaven. Kipling\nputs it well for either here or there:\n\n  We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it,\n    Lie down for an eon or two,\n  Till the Master of all good workmen\n    Shall set us to work anew.\n\nThe ideal of the Bible is service, and that ideal is not rejected when\nlife comes to its crowning.\n\nOne of the great hymns of the church gives to the worshipers in a\nsanctuary the Bible's Gospel of Work:\n\n  Yet these are not the only walls\n    Wherein thou mayst be sought;\n  On homeliest work thy blessing falls\n    In truth and patience wrought.\n\n  Thine is the loom, the forge, the mart,\n    The wealth of land and sea;\n  The worlds of science and of art,\n    Revealed and ruled by thee.\n\n  Then let us prove our heavenly birth\n    In all we do and know,\n  And claim the kingdom of the earth\n    For thee, and not thy foe.\n\n  Work shall be prayer, if all be wrought\n    As thou wouldst have it done;\n  And prayer, by thee inspired and taught;\n    Itself with work be one.\n\nThe biblical ideal for earth sends men forth to their daily tasks, while\nthe biblical ideal for heaven breaks its reserve sufficiently to show us a\nCity wherein the saints at rest are likewise the saints at work.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE BIBLE AND WEALTH\n\n\nThe word \"wealth\" as used in this discussion does not mean simply great\nriches; it rather means those outer and visible means which have a certain\npurchasing power and which gain their value from that fact. The word is\nrelative at best. A wealthy man of fifty years ago would by many be deemed\na poor man now; while, in the individual estimate, one man's poverty would\nbe another man's riches. We have all discovered, too, that persons may be\ntested by their attitude toward little as well as by their attitude toward\nmuch. The man who breaks down in his use of a thousand dollars is not\nlikely to recover his conscience in his use of a million dollars. There is\nhigh authority for the belief that he that is faithful in a few things can\nbe trusted with rulership over many things. This principle will apply to\nriches quite as well as to cities. We must necessarily take at large\ndiscount the vigorous attack that is made on great wealth by the man who\nis narrow and selfish in his use of moderate wealth. One ray of light\nfalling into a dark dungeon will test a man's attitude toward light; and\nso the real personal attitude toward one coin may become the revelation of\na human heart.\n\nAll of us must live within the realm of material endeavor. Six days of the\nweek are given by the average man in an effort to win worldly goods. If,\nas is generally supposed, Jesus went back from the temple scene in\nJerusalem when he was twelve years of age and worked in the village\ncarpenter shop until he was thirty, he spent eighteen years in a\nremunerative employment ere he entered upon the three years of public\nministry. It is a mechanical conception again; but it is interesting to\nobserve that the proportion of his years spent in his trade is the same\nsix sevenths of the time that most men must spend in the effort to gain\nthe necessaries or luxuries of life. One has only to stand on the streets\nof the city in the early morning and see the throngs as they move to their\nplaces of work to appreciate how large a part the wage motive plays in\nactual living. Each day many millions of men and women go down to the\nvarious marts in order that in the evening time they may come back from\nthe struggle with increased gains. If the Bible takes an attitude toward\nthe spirit that dominates work it must also take an attitude toward the\nspirit that dominates the object of work. It would be small use to have\nmen made right toward toil if they were to be twisted in their relation to\nthe proceeds of toil. We should expect, then, that the Bible would give\nsome explicit teaching to individual men concerning the right attitude\ntoward wealth; and when we turn to the Holy Book this expectation is fully\nmet.\n\nBeyond this, the social consequences of wealth are manifold and important.\nTo see this point clearly exemplified in a wide field, we have but to\nstudy the history of the wars waged by our own nation. At some point every\none of these great struggles has been caused by a false relation to\nwealth. Just where we locate that false relation will depend somewhat upon\nour prejudices; but the dilemma in each case is such that we are driven to\nlocate it somewhere. The French and Indian War was a military debate as to\nwhether the English or the French should gather the furs in the region of\nthe Upper Ohio and should secure the profits in the world's markets. In\nthe settlement of that issue many lives were sacrificed. The War for\nIndependence was caused by taxes--not, as many people suppose, by a tax on\ntea alone, but by a long series of taxes covering many years. If the\nEnglish had a right to levy the tax and if the tax was just, then the\ncolonists were greedy. If, on the other hand, the Americans refused to pay\nan unjust tax, inspired in their rebellion by a lofty spirit of liberty,\nthen the English were the greedy party. The War of 1812 was caused by the\nseizure of our vessels on the French coast and related to freedom of\ncommerce. The dilemma is the same as before. Some one was at fault in that\ncommercial war. A wrong attitude toward property caused the long-drawn-out\nstruggle.\n\nOur later wars show the same form of contest. Historians declare that the\nwar with Mexico was occasioned by the desire to extend slavery territory;\nby the nation's lust for the enlargement of her borders; and by certain\ndebts owed to citizens of the United States by citizens of Mexico. All of\nthese motives touch somewhere on gold. The Civil War grew from the same\n\"root of all evil.\" Northern men aided in bringing African slaves to this\nland in order to turn forced labor into money, while Southern men\ncontinued African slavery because it was deemed necessary for the\nproduction of cotton. The cry \"Cotton is king\" was not always spoken above\na whisper, but as a slogan it caused some fierce struggling. Boston\nmerchants helped to mob Garrison. The sentiment of England flowed against\nthe North because it was thought that the abolishing of slavery would\ndemoralize the markets of the world. The hooting crowds that Beecher faced\nin England were unconsciously influenced to their hostile attitude by a\ncommercial argument. The whole struggle was broadened and heightened until\nwords like \"liberty\" and \"unity\" put a moral passion into the fray. But,\nwhile the nature of the government and the question of human rights were\nto be settled, the primary occasion of the contest was commercial.\n\nNor was the war with Spain any exception to this rule. If we absolve the\nUnited States from any motive of greed in our claim that the struggle was\npurely humanitarian in its character, we must still grant that the heavy\ntaxes assessed against her Western colonies by the Spanish government led\nto the series of revolutions that occasioned our interference. Thus do we\nfind that somewhere in the heart of each war there was the lurking passion\nfor gold. When we make up the mournful lists of the many thousands whose\nlives have gone out in these contests, we can debit them against the\nspirit of greed. Milton in Paradise Lost represents that the rebellion in\nheaven was caused by the like lust, and that Satan's eyes were ever bent\nin anxious desire toward the very gold of the streets! Milton's\nimagination concerning heaven stands for the historical fact about earth.\nThe demon of greed is usually the demon of war.\n\nThe great problems of current national life all trench upon the same\ninfluence. If money be not the principal in each of them it comes in as an\nimportant confederate. The tariff problem, the currency problem, the canal\ntolls problem, the trust problem--all these are quickly classified by\ntheir names. The cleavage between American political parties for the last\nfifty years has been made by a wedge of gold. Tariff, or coinage, or\ntrusts--these have been the large words of political speech. In the\nproblems that have a more apparent moral bearing the same commercial\nelement appears. The Labor Problem is with us quite as acutely as it was\nwith the Romans when long ago the plebeians left the city and camped on\nthe hillsides, leaving the patricians to do their own manual toil. Whether\nthe employer gives too little or the employee asks too much in any given\nstruggle, the demon of greed plays his part again. In the Temperance\nProblem the case is even clearer. Distillers and brewers and saloonists do\nnot enter their trade because they thereby add either to their social\nstanding or to their moral peace. We cannot eliminate from the problem the\nfactor of the human appetite that craves a stimulant; at the same time we\nknow that the motive for the business itself comes from the lure of gold.\nThat gleam invites many men into a path which, as they themselves know\nwell, cannot lead to any large political preferment or to any great\npersonal admirations.\n\nThe problem of social purity is, of course, related to another human\npassion. But there has crept into the vocabulary of the people a\nsuggestive phrase, \"commercialized vice.\" There is the general feeling\nthat, if the element of monetary profit could be taken from the loathsome\ntrade, the problem would be much nearer its solution. Hence we have our\nRed Light Abatement Laws by which we seek to make it dangerous for men to\nrent their property for the traffic in virtue. On the legal side the\npresent efforts at the solution of the problem all strive to fix a set of\nconditions, making commercially unprofitable the house of her whose feet\ntake hold on death. If, as is earnestly contended by some, low wages tend\nto furnish the recruits for the pitiable ranks of the trade in bodies, we\nhave another commercial factor in the campaign. Explain it as we may, it\nis still true that money makes the unholy alliances. It is no marvel that\nthe Bible has sent down to all the centuries its phrase, \"the mammon of\nunrighteousness.\"\n\nOf course, many will overstate the case of American greed. The Almighty\nDollar is not our God. Our passing celebrities may be mere millionaires,\nbut our permanent heroes were quite more than traders. If we have seemed\nmore commercial than other peoples it has been because a new continent\ngave such sweeping opportunities for wealth. Some one has said that it is\nan evidence of the degeneracy of our period that the word \"worth,\" which\nonce had a noble and inner significance, is now controlled by the market.\nThe fact that the word has gone downhill is taken to mean that the people\nwho use it so have gone downhill too! But these verbal arguments are not\nreliable. While the word \"worth\" has dropped somewhat from its old glory,\nthe word \"talent,\" which once had merely a monetary significance, has\nmounted to a higher meaning. The one word is just as good a witness as the\nother. The truth is that we meet to-day the world-old problem. The\nevidence of this lies in the fact that the Bible dealt with the problem in\nemphatic fashion. It lists for us the victims of greed: Lot, Gehazi,\nAnanias and Sapphira, Simon Magus, the young ruler, Judas. We shall find\nin its pages some general principles by which it seeks to warn wealth away\nfrom pitfalls and to send it forth to service.\n\nThe first of these principles is that God is the only and absolute Owner.\nOur human conceit makes for us another theory, and our legal codes write\nout that theory in complicated formulas. We have our \"clear titles\" and\nour \"quitclaim deeds.\" Formal records at a courthouse tell men that we\n\"own\" houses and lands, while formal certificates assert our right to so\nmany shares of stock or so much value in bonds. The Bible confronts our\ncomplacency with its plea for the ownership of Another. God has the only\nclear titles! God has never put his signature to a quitclaim deed! The\ncourthouse record is a temporary convenience; the higher record gives the\neternal fact. \"The silver and the gold\" are God's. \"The cattle on a\nthousand hills\" are God's. \"The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness\nthereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.\" There is here not merely\nthe assertion of a property ownership, but an assertion of the ownership\nof the very men who think that they own the property! The sea and the land\nare the possessions of God. So spiritual a prelude as that to the Gospel\nof John claims a divine dominion, while many words could be quoted from\nboth Testaments which make God the one august Possessor. The history of\nall our materials leads us back to God alone. He fashioned the wood in\nthe forests. He stored the coal and iron in the hills. He packed the\nfertility in the soil. When we look for the source of the medium of\nexchange we must go back of men to God himself. We pursue the gold coin to\nthe bank, and then to the mint, and then to the mine, only to hear the\nsilent proclamation of the gold itself that it is of God. When\ncongregations sing:\n\n  All things come of thee, O God,\n  And of thine own have we given thee,\n\nit is not an instance of poetic license in reverence; it is sober fact\nexpressed in worship.\n\nThe claim of the Bible for the divine ownership is still more\ncomprehensive. All property is his; all men are his. There is, too, a bent\nof human power which God confers. We are in the habit of speaking of\n\"gifted\" men. The meaning of the word in its usual connection must be that\nGod gives certain powers to men--to one the power of poetry, to another\nthe power of moving speech, and to another the power of scientific and\ninventive insight. Now there is a suggestive verse in Deuteronomy which\ndeclares that it is the Lord God that \"giveth thee power to get this\nwealth.\" The \"thee\" is collective and refers to the people; but the rule\napplies as well to the individual. There is no reason for supposing that\npoetic genius or oratorical genius or inventive genius is a gift, while\nfinancial genius is an achievement. Yet there are probably no men who are\nmore inclined to call themselves \"self-made\" than are the men who pass\nfrom poverty into vast wealth. Their complacency would be diminished, and\ntheir humility would be increased, if they perceived that all property\nbelongs to God, that they themselves belong to God, and that their \"power\nto get this wealth\" comes from God. We find, then, that the first sweeping\nprinciple which the Scriptures give concerning wealth is that God is its\ninclusive and ceaseless owner.\n\nThe second principle follows as a matter of course. God being the absolute\nowner, man is a trustee, a lessee, a borrower. When the man in the New\nTestament asked, \"Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine\nown?\" he may not have reached a worthy definition either of \"lawful\" or of\n\"mine own.\" He may have deemed a loan a final gift, a lease a purchase, a\npossession a creation, a stewardship an ownership. It is just this error\nthat more than any other leads to the abuse of wealth. We treat it as\n\"personal property,\" and the \"personal\" looks selfward rather than\nGodward. This was the blunder of the foolish rich man. His ground brought\nforth plentifully. His crops could not be crowded into his granaries. He\nresolved to tear down his barns and to build greater. He told his soul to\neat, drink, and be merry, for that it had much goods laid up for many\nyears. Then came the sentence of eviction. In a moment the man discovered\nthat he was a tenant and not an owner. \"Whose shall those things be which\nthou hast provided?\" This is the question that every man of means must\nask. Wills are never shrewd enough to secure the property for the dead.\nJesus said that the man who acted on the idea that wealth was his own was\na \"fool.\" He missed the primary point of the divine ownership, and he\nmissed the secondary point of the human trusteeship. All his work was\nbased on impossibilities; and surely this is the supreme foolishness.\n\nThis lesson is impressed upon men when they return to their former places\nof residence after an absence of many years. They recall who \"owned\"\nyonder house, yonder farm, yonder lot, yonder block. The old \"owners\" are\ngone, and the new \"owners\" have come. Changes of apparent ownership have\nbeen entered in the civil records; but these in their turn will be\nchanged. The procession of trustees moves down through the millenniums;\nabove the trusteeships is one changeless Owner. \"We brought nothing into\nthis world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out\"--this is the\nsurest of edicts. It is said that one of the wealthiest of men in our\nnation called his wife to his bedside just before he passed away and asked\nher to sing to him, \"Come, ye sinners, poor and needy.\" The man knew that\nin a few moments he would be stripped of every earthly possession. It was\na pungent reply made when one man asked another how much a certain rich\nman had left--\"All he had!\" was the response. Even so. Whenever any person\nshall make a stout claim for his ownership of property, it is a wholesome\nlesson if he be asked to postpone the discussion for a hundred years!\n\nThe law of giving is compulsory. We may defer surrender, but we cannot\navoid surrender. The hand may grasp for fourscore years, but its final act\nwill be to \"let go\" of every earthly object. The loan must be returned.\nThe trusteeship must be dissolved. The lease must be transferred. The\naccount must be rendered. Directly all that remains of the gold is the\nreflex of gold. We may decide when to give, to what to give, in what\nspirit to give; but we may not decide whether we shall give. There is\nlasting truth in the much-quoted epitaph: \"What I spent I had. What I\nsaved I left behind. What I gave away I took with me.\" In this respect the\nwhole problem of life is the problem of a faithful stewardship. This is\nthe teaching of what we may call the commercial parables. We are\nresponsible for the use of our talents and pounds to an authority higher\nthan our own. The trustees pass away. The Owner abideth forever.\n\nThe third biblical principle declares that this stewardship is attended by\ngrave temptations. For a hasty reading the New Testament judgment will\nseem like a reversal of the Old Testament judgment. The ancient record\noften traces a relation between piety and prosperity. Jacob's proposal at\nBethel reads like a bargain struck in the market place. The book of Job\nwas meant to correct this error and to drive from the world those needless\nsuspicions that would be directed against the sick and the poor. In the\nvigorous debate with his friends the patriarch declines to plead guilty to\nthe charge that his bodily ills and property losses are the results of his\nsins. But although the commercial value of piety may often be found among\nOld Testament motives, still there is a constant offset. The period of\nplenty is described as accompanied by a \"leanness of soul.\" The deeper\ninsight of the psalmist saw the end of the man \"who made not God his\nstrength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches.\" Then there stood\nbefore him the perplexing sight of prosperous wickedness, the bad man\nspreading himself as the green bay tree and having everything that heart\ncould wish. Slowly the artificial nexus that had been fashioned between\npiety and prosperity and wickedness and misfortune was broken, and men\nbegan to seek for the different types of reward in their own fields. More\nstress was laid upon the methods by which wealth was gained, and more upon\nits charitable uses. The prophets came to thunder against a false outer\nprosperity and to give their advance hints of the wealth of the kingdom of\nGod.\n\nIn its warnings the New Testament is still more emphatic. The word\n\"riches\" becomes most often a symbol of the higher wealth of spirit. It is\nmade over into deeper meaning. Besides, the early Christian leaders saw\nthe enticing dangers of wealth. Visits to Ephesus or Corinth or Rome made\nthem see how multitudes could be caught in the snare of riches, while\nexamples among the Jews gave them the same lesson with a personal\nemphasis. There were likewise some concrete illustrations of a most\nforbidding kind. Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. The\nlust of the treasury had betrayed him ere he betrayed his Lord. The first\npersecution of the Christian Church was caused by greed. It is written,\n\"And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they\ncaught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the market place unto the\nrulers.\" Soon the two missionaries are beaten with rods and are taken to\nthe inner prison. The second persecution of the church was caused by the\nsame spirit of greed. Demetrius, the silversmith, makes his appeal to his\nfellow-craftsmen: \"Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.\nMoreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout\nall Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying\nthat they be no gods, which are made with hands: So that ... this our\ncraft is in danger to be set at naught.\" As is the custom of men with the\ncommercial heart, he lifted the issue to a specious height and made his\nplea for Diana of the Ephesians!\n\nWith the memory of Christ's betrayal and of the first two persecutions of\ntheir brethren fresh in their memories, it is no marvel that the New\nTestament writers began to stress the perils of greed. The work of Luke as\na physician had doubtless given him an intense sympathy with the poor, and\nhis Gospel records eagerly our Lord's warnings to the rich. James in his\nEpistle fairly bristles with indictments against the rich. He asks: \"Do\nnot rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not\nthey blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?\" When he wrote\nthus did he have visions of Ephesus and Philippi? Later he breaks into\nviolence, \"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that\nshall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are\nmoth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall\nbe a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.\" The\nlater verses indicate that he saw their injustice to the poor laborers and\nheard the cries which these poor had sent \"into the ears of the Lord of\nSabaoth.\" Severe as the indictment is, we can see how it was prompted by\nmemory as well as by scenes of recent greed. Moreover, we have all known\nmodern cases to which the language would apply. If the Bible is to be\ncomplete, it must give room to such indignant words as these.\n\nThe records would show that Paul included among his friends men and women\nof worldly means; still his words of chiding and warning are not withheld.\nHe writes of a \"cloak of covetousness.\" He had seen men don that cloak--by\ntheir paltry excuses for withholding gifts; by their effort to make an\nintent for the future stifle a present cry for help; by a deft transfer of\nincome to principal which \"must not be disturbed\"; by the plea that\nluxuries were necessities; by a recital of past generosities; by setting\none good cause against another. All these modern cloaks Paul doubtless\nfound in the wardrobes of long ago. He carries the charge against\ncovetousness on until he identifies it with heathenism. He writes of the\n\"covetousness which is idolatry,\" and in yet another place he speaks of\nthe \"covetous man who is an idolater,\" as if he wished to make the charge\npersonal. Idolatry is the worship of something less than God. When,\ntherefore, any man bows down to idols of silver and gold erected in banks\nrather than by temple altars, he joins the ranks of the idolatrous. He may\nbe even worse than those idolaters who strive to reach beyond their\nhideous images if haply they may feel after God and find him. These words\nof Paul are urgent warnings that covetousness may destroy personal\ngenuineness and may defeat spiritual worship. Greed may shut us away from\nboth man and God.\n\nBut the apostle's strongest word is given in his counsel to Timothy, a\nyoung man whose ideals he would seek to mold. We can imagine the\nimpression the advice made upon the susceptible youth when he read Paul's\nletter in rich and worldly Ephesus. \"They that will be rich fall into\ntemptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which\ndrown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root\nof all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the\nfaith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.\" It is a modern\naccount again. The twentieth century has already given thousands of\nillustrations of the same apostasy. As for the wide statement that \"the\nlove of money is the root of all evil,\" we have but to review these pages\nto find the commentary. Every item in the catalogue of crimes finds a\npartner in greed. Intemperance, lust, war, thieving, murder, betrayal,\npersecution, untruthfulness--all these grow from the root of greed. No\nheedless joking about the \"root\" can vacate the language or permit \"the\nlove of money\" to declare its innocence.\n\nIn addition to these positive statements sprinkled throughout the Book,\nthere is a negative testimony that may well be given a hearing. If we were\nto search the pages for warnings against poverty we would find that the\nsearch was difficult and that it met with slight returns. The prayer of\nAgur in the book of Proverbs is, perhaps, the only assured instance. He\npleads: \"Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is\nneedful for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is Jehovah? or\nlest I be poor, and steal, and use profanely the name of my God.\" There\nis here a recognition of the peril of discontent in poverty, as well as of\nthe peril of dishonesty, and the peril of a blasphemous indictment against\nGod. We may take the warning at its full value. Some people of every age\nwill need its plain speaking. But what shall we say of the biblical idea\nof the peril of wealth, when its chapters yield many scores of warnings as\ncontrasted with this lonely warning about poverty? It would seem\npermissible to paraphrase a Bible comparison of persons and to say that\npoverty has slain its thousands but wealth its tens of thousands! Even\nthis comparison falls short, if we measure it by the biblical proportion\nof teaching. The silence of the Bible gives us here a significant lesson.\n\nWe now approach the supreme authority in the teaching and example of\nJesus. The elective method here will give a man the result he most wishes.\nThe boisterous agitator can make choice of passages that will serve his\nharsh purpose, while the defender of his own unconsecrated surplus may\nquote us passages that give him great comfort. The one will tell us of\nJesus's words to the young ruler; of his command against laying up\ntreasures on earth; and of a hard-and-fast interpretation of the parable\nof Dives and Lazarus. The other will tell us of the praise bestowed on\nsuccessful traders; of the inclusion of the wealthy among Christ's friends\nand disciples; and of the law of the larger returns for the larger powers\nand larger industry so plainly enunciated in the parables of the talents\nand the pounds. The fragmentary method leads here to confusion and to the\nwildest partisanship. The teaching of Jesus must be taken in its\ncompleteness.\n\nThat teaching must, also, be judged by the attitude of Jesus toward men.\nThe well-to-do were in his band of disciples. The father of John and James\nhad servants; and when Jesus died on the Cross John had evidently a\ncomfortable home to which the mother of Jesus was taken. Nicodemus was\nrich. Yet in his conversation with him Christ is not represented as making\na demand that the ruler of the Jews should give up his wealth. The demand\nwas far more comprehensive. Zaccheus was rich. But in the table\nconversation with the publican there is no call to voluntary poverty.\nJoseph of Arimathea was rich. Still he appears to have been numbered with\nthe disciples and to have had the honor of providing the sepulcher for the\nbody of Christ. All this would make it certain that some of our Lord's\nteaching was directed toward an individual danger and so was not meant\nfor a universal application. The fact that Peter said to Simon Magus, \"Thy\nmoney perish with thee,\" does not warrant us in repeating the same words\nto every man who possesses some wealth. The rebuke was evoked by a\npersonal and peculiar attitude. If the teaching of Jesus, as he dealt with\nrich men, varied in a marked degree, it is only reasonable to suppose that\nhe was fitting his message to the individual subject. The fallacy of the\nuniversal has not yet departed from our treatment of the words of Christ.\n\nBut even when we take the whole of Jesus's teaching rather than any\nfraction thereof, and after we have given full consideration to the\npersonal element in his method, there is still a sobering remainder with\nwhich we must deal. The attempt to make the parable of Dives and Lazarus a\nstraight contrast between the final fate of a rich man and that of a poor\nman cannot succeed. Lazarus was not sent to heaven because he was poor. He\nwas not given a place in Abraham's bosom on the ground of his poverty of\ncircumstances, but on the ground of his wealth of character. Any other\nconclusion is abhorrent to the moral sense. Should poverty admit to\nheaven, some of the most unmitigated rascals are sure to meet the\nconditions of entrance. Nor was Dives sent to hell because he was rich.\nThe contrast in earthly conditions of which Abraham reminds him cannot\nfairly be taken to mean that the reward of poverty is heaven and the\npenalty of wealth is hell. The meaning is that earthly plenty and earthly\nwant cannot prevent the rounding out of God's purposes. Condition will\ninevitably come to correspond with real character. Should any rich man be\nminded to plead with himself that his wealth was, in itself, any evidence\nthat its owner was entitled to special privileges in the next world\ncorresponding to his special privileges in this world, this parable would\nmeet him with its needed corrective.\n\nThe command, \"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth\nand rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal,\" has\nbeen taken by many as a literal command. Usually, however, those who so\ntake it are ready to substitute a theory which would ask the community to\nbreak the literal demand by laying up treasures for us. We must read to\nthe end of the passage. Jesus's concern is about the heart. He wishes to\nestablish the direction of the treasure because he knows that in this way\nthe direction of the heart will be established. If money is hoarded with a\nselfish purpose, the heart goes to selfishness. If money is given for a\nholy cause, the heart goes into the cause. On the other hand, if money is\nsaved in order that the provident parent may give his child a better\nfitness for life, the parental heart is invested in the child. If money is\nnot hoarded at all, but is given for an evil cause, the heart takes that\nsame evil direction. The emphasis of Jesus is spiritual again. The money\ndoes something with the heart, and the motive of either saving or giving\ndetermines the \"heart action.\" It is the law of action and reaction at\nwork in another realm. Men say that the way to a man's purse is through\nhis heart; and men say well. Jesus, while accepting the statement that\nthere can be no true benevolence that does not come from the heart, still\nsays that often the way to a man's heart is through his purse. It is one\nof those practical rules whose working we have seen many times. We\npersuade a man to send his money into a hospital, a college, a library,\nand his heart follows his money. The terrible thing that Jesus saw in\nselfish hoarding was just that; and the glorious thing that he saw in\ngenerous giving was just that. The good and the evil of earthly treasure\nis that it fixes the journeys of the heart; it makes a spiritual\ngeography.\n\nThere is another word of Jesus about \"the deceitfulness of riches.\" The\nphrase piques us into a search for its meaning. There is no evidence that\nChrist meant that riches deceived us by flying away. The tricks which they\nplay upon men are far more subtle than sudden departure. Jesus meant that\nriches remained with men and still carried on the deceiving work. We have\nall seen enough of life to know some of the deceptions. One friend began\nhis business career with the idea that he would be content with a hundred\nthousand; he is now utterly restless with his million. Another friend gave\nto worthy causes a far larger proportion of his meager income in the day\nof struggle than he now gives of his plethoric income in the day of\nprosperity. Still another friend in the old days was simple and humble in\nall his attitudes toward life, while in the new days of wealth he has\nbecome proud in spirit and complex in his living. We have all seen men\nwhose souls lessened as their riches greatened. All these are\nillustrations of Jesus's teaching about \"the deceitfulness of riches.\" The\ntragic thing is that the men who are the victims of the deceitfulness are\nnot aware of the sad inner effects. Men do not know that they are stingy;\nthey are only prudent and economical! So runs the miserable deceit. It\nrequires a moment of marked self-revelation to enable these men to\nclassify themselves with truth. Over the Bank of England men read the\nwords, \"The Earth is the Lord's.\" This describes the source of wealth.\nOver many financial institutions it might be good to put another motto as\na reminder of a possible effect of wealth, \"The Deceitfulness of Riches.\"\n\nWe now face the utterance of Christ with reference to a double mastery\nover life. He asserts that \"no man can serve two masters,\" without love\nfor the one and hatred for the other. When he seeks for the power that is\nmost likely to contest with God for the allegiance of man he selects\nMammon. Hence he states the dilemma without modification, \"Ye cannot serve\nGod and Mammon.\" He did not select Pleasure as the opponent of God, nor\nAmbition, nor Impurity, nor Dishonesty. He saw clearly that Mammon had the\ngreatest power to draw men into life-long \"service.\" Other sins might be\noccasional contestants, but the sin of greed was the constant foe seeking\nto cleave the loyalty of men. Jesus did not say that we could not serve\nGod with Mammon. Elsewhere he says the very opposite of that. But he did\nsay unequivocally, \"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.\" Perhaps these six\nwords, more nearly than any other, give us the heart of Jesus's teaching\nabout wealth. They state in simple and direct form the alternatives for\nmany lives. We can serve God _with_ Mammon. We can serve God _or_ Mammon.\nWe cannot serve God _and_ Mammon. What Christ states as an impossibility\nmany men try to accomplish. We see the vain efforts daily--men putting\ntheir greatest diligence into the market place as an end, with an\noccasional tribute to the temple. This is the most frequent form of the\n\"double life.\" It is the poor compromise of a half-hearted or\ntenth-hearted service. Jesus said that God or Mammon must win the whole\nman. The God and the god cannot dwell in the same heart. Jesus here\nthrusts us back to the original biblical principle: God is the Absolute\nOwner. He will not share his rule. He will not partition his empire.\nMammon must yield to God. Thus Jesus enters all markets and counting rooms\nand banks with his demand for undivided hearts and undivided lives.\n\nThere is another saying of Jesus which is more frequently quoted, both\nbecause it is in itself so radical and because it is accompanied by a\nvigorous figure of speech. Besides these two attractions, the words have\nan appealing setting in a human life. The young ruler comes to Jesus with\nhis eager question. He stands before the Lord as a fine type of promising\nmanhood--fresh, alert, clean, and even reverent. He is able to say,\nwithout rebuke, that from his youth up he has kept the commandments and\nthat his life has moved on a high grade of morals. The record tells us\nthat \"Jesus, looking upon him, loved him.\" But in this instance, instead\nof meeting the young man's question with the demand for a new birth, as\nJesus did with Nicodemus, or with the acceptance of hospitality, as Jesus\ndid with Zaccheus, Jesus asked that he sell all his goods and give to the\npoor, and that then he should follow the Lord in his homeless life. Often\nthe comment omits this last demand. It may be that it is the more\nimportant demand, and that it is the reason for the minor requirement.\nOther disciples had left all in order to follow Jesus; and this man was\nnow asked to do likewise. Evidently the teaching here has the individual\nquality. Christ knew that the young man had set his heart on his riches,\nand that the only way to a true discipleship was through utter surrender.\n\nWe cannot read the story without feeling a measure of sympathy for the\nyoung ruler; and we may confess that we ourselves would scarcely have been\nequal to the severe test. The situation, however, can be estimated in\nanother way--not by our imagination, but by our admiration. Certain men in\nChristian history have done exactly what Jesus asked this young man to do.\nJohn Wesley did it; making much money, he continued to live on his\nallowance of twenty-eight pounds a year and gave the rest to a needy\nworld. When he was an old man he wrote to the assessor that his taxable\nproperty consisted of two silver spoons at Bristol! Saint Francis of\nAssisi gave up all his earthly possessions. At the altar of the church he\ndeliberately took poverty as his bride. The heroes of complete\nrenunciation have been many; and the world's verdict has not been that\nthey were fanatics. They heard the call of God that they should surrender\nall and give to the various kinds of poor; they heeded the command, and\nthey won their fame by their surrender. We can make a more direct test\nthan this. If this young man had heeded Christ's word, and had given all\nthat he had to the poor, and had followed the Lord--what would have been\nthe result? Would he have won the world's admiration by his\nself-renunciation? Would he now be known only by the virtually anonymous\ntitle of \"a certain ruler\"? We can see that he was offered a wonderful\nopportunity. He would have been enrolled among the saints of the early\nchurch, if he had risen to the higher choice. An English writer has\npointed out that the young man was not angered by the word of Christ; he\nwas \"saddened.\" He went away \"sorrowful,\" and his sorrow was for himself.\nHe went back to his riches and was lost to the sight of the world. He is\nnow known even anonymously only because he had a brief conversation with\nOne who had not where to lay his head.\n\nJesus saw the young man's retreating figure and then spoke his own\n\"sorrowful\" exclamation, \"How hardly shall they that have riches enter\ninto the kingdom of God!\" The account in the Gospel of Mark indicates that\nthe disciples were \"amazed\" by the saying, just as the men of the world\nhave wondered ever since. Seeing this amazement, Jesus added, \"Children,\nhow hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of\nGod! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for\na rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.\" It was a startling figure of\nspeech--an hyperbole, as the later conversation with the disciples would\nshow, unless, indeed, the saying refers to a certain gate of the city\nthrough which only the unburdened camel could enter. This figure of speech\nhas held the attention of the world for centuries. Strangely enough, the\nnineteenth century had a peculiar illustration of an accommodated meaning\nof the word \"needle.\" We cannot help wondering what the people of many\ngenerations hence would think if they were to read in ancient history that\nin the latter part of the nineteenth century a certain millionaire paid\nmore than one hundred thousand dollars for bringing Cleopatra's \"needle\"\nto America. Superficial as the suggestion is, it illustrates the manner in\nwhich a figure of speech could easily be pulled off into a path of false\nliteralism.\n\nBut if we take the view that the expression was either a vivid hyperbole\nor the description of a local gate, the warning still abides in strength.\nIt is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. It is\nsometimes very hard for him to remain there when his entrance into the\nkingdom preceded his entrance into wealth. Experienced pastors will tell\nus that not many wealthy are called. Yet Jesus distinctly declared that\nthe rich could enter into the Kingdom. The disciples, \"astonished out of\nmeasure,\" said, \"Who, then, can be saved?\" Jesus replied, \"With men it is\nimpossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.\" It is\nnot right that the man who clamors against the rich should omit this\nassurance from the teaching. Jesus says that a rich man can be brought\ninto the Kingdom. He offers this as one of the evidences of the divine\nomnipotence--that the power of God can break through the complacency, the\nself-content, the tangle of materialism, and can win men from the\nidolatry of gold to the love and worship of God.\n\nThis message of Jesus to the young ruler, and through him to the world, is\nnot always welcome to the ears of the rich. The religious teacher may be\ntempted to discount its meaning and to relieve in some way the severity of\nthe words. Yet an age of growing wealth needs this lesson, and needs it\nwith an increased emphasis. The trend of the Bible serves as a commentary\non the same lesson. If the Bible is to serve as the book of guidance, then\nwe are justified in saying that the path of material wealth is the path of\nspiritual peril.\n\nIf we halted our lesson here, we should be guilty of a partial use of the\nBible. The fourth principle of the great Book is that the stewardship of\nwealth offers glorious opportunities. It offers the opportunity of aiding\nthe poor. John wrote, \"Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother\nhave need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth\nthe love of God in him?\" It offers the opportunity of caring for the\nunfortunate, as illustrated in the parable of the good Samaritan. When\nJesus uttered this parable, he laid the foundations of many hospitals. It\noffers the opportunity of paying personal tributes of affection, as\nexemplified in the offering to the Lord of the precious ointment. It\noffers the opportunity of furnishing honest employment as a field of\npersonal fidelity, as taught in the parables of the talents and the\npounds. It offers the opportunity of projecting our influence to the ends\nof the world, as taught by those who aided Paul on his missionary journeys\nand by those who sent gifts whereby the gospel should be promoted in all\nthe earth. But the Bible does not give any set of rules for the use of\nwealth. It asserts the primacy of God. It commands the spirit of love. It\nstresses the probationary character of possessions. It declares in the\nword of Christ that any man makes a disastrous bargain who gains the whole\nworld and in the transaction loses himself.\n\nFinally Jesus relates our use of money to the eternal issues. He does this\nin a very simple and direct way, and in the form of an imperative. In the\nmore skilled translation of the Revised Version we read, \"Make to\nyourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it\nshall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles.\" It appears\nhere that worldly possessions may be either \"the mammon of\nunrighteousness\" or the maker of everlasting friendships. By the right use\nof gold and silver men can people the gates of heaven with welcomers. \"It\nshall fail,\" says Christ, referring to wealth. \"They may receive you,\" he\nsays, referring to those human lives that are our only permanent\ninvestments. The final emphasis of Jesus in giving the very crown of the\nBible teaching concerning wealth, great or small, is that his followers\nshall so use the coin stamped with the image of some earthly C\u00e6sar as to\nproduce in men and women and children the image of the heavenly Lord. The\nlower commerce is to serve the higher commerce. Faneuil Hall may keep its\nmarket place, but it must be subordinated to that upper room wherein men\nlearn the lessons of truth and liberty and righteousness. The Age of Gold\ncan help to make the Golden Age. The problem of wealth will not be solved\nuntil all men hold their riches as willing trustees of Him who himself was\nrich and who for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might\nbe rich.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE BIBLE AND SORROW\n\n\nOne who is jealous for the reputation of the Bible as a complete Book of\nlife must sometimes feel that undue emphasis has been placed upon its\nmessages for the sorrowing. If the jealousy does not entertain just this\nfeeling, it has the resembling fear--that the biblical message for sorrow\nhas been emphasized until it has hidden the message for gladness. As a\nnecessary prelude to a discussion of the Bible's relation to the sorrow of\nthe world, we shall treat its meaning for the world's gladness. We are\nwilling to use the word \"pleasure\" in this connection, though pleasure is\nclassed as representing a mood less deep than the mood of joy. Some of us\ncan recall the surprise we experienced in reading Lubbock's The Pleasures\nof Life. One chapter dealt with \"The Pleasure of Duty.\" This title caused\nus no wonder. But the next chapter astonished us with the heading, \"The\nDuty of Pleasure.\" We quickly found ourselves asking whether there was\nsuch a duty. Is it an obligation laid on men and women to seek for a\nproportion of pleasure? Are the light joys of life to be classed with our\nduties? Lubbock answered these questions in the affirmative. What reply\ndoes the Bible give?\n\nCertainly we can say in the beginning that, if we take a review of its\npages, the Bible does not impress us as being a mournful book. This is\nsignificant when we note the fact that its pages were all written by\nmature and serious persons. Even more, the pages were written with\nreference to some of the most serious and sacred elements and events in\nlife. Vast solemnities evoked many sections of the Bible. We should expect\nthat the seriousness of the authors and the critical importance of the\nevents would touch the Book and would dominate its spirit. It is even so.\nOur worthier thought would not have it otherwise. If the Bible had been\nsimply the inspiration and guide for the world's playgrounds, it would\nhave lost the most of its soul.\n\nFor a volume whose materials were jokes and whose primary purpose was\nlaughter might have a legitimate mission, but it would have difficulty in\nbeing rated as redemptive literature. The real humorist is doubtless one\nof God's agents in lifting the troubles of mankind; but Providence sees to\nit that humorists are not so plentiful as to destroy our sense of\nproportion. Each generation is granted a small group of men who set the\nworld aglee and become the distributors of smiles and laughter. The\nappreciation of humor, also, is placed in the nature of each normal\nperson; but the continual demand for humor becomes a plague. Men know\ninstinctively that for the greatest things it will not suffice. There is a\nstory to the effect that one of the most renowned Americans was not\nallowed to write the Declaration of Independence because it was feared\nthat he might work a joke into the historic document. True or false, the\nstory stands for a fact--that humor is a secondary form of service and\nthat the big crises insist that humor shall stay in its own realm.\n\nNone the less the Bible is not a stranger to the play element. As we march\nthrough its life we see smiles and hear laughter. Children are there in\ntheir careless gladness. Young men and maidens are there in their innocent\npleasures. Games are there with their delight of striving. Parties are\nthere with their gayety and music. We pass through pages of darkness only\nto emerge into pages of sunshine. We sit down at Marah and find the\nbrackish and bitter waters and hear the murmuring of the Israelites. But\nthe next day we come to Elim, with its twelve pure and gushing wells and\nits threescore and ten palm trees. This transition is what we would\nanticipate in a Book of real life, and it is what fits the Bible to be the\nguide of total life. A joyless book could not control a joyful world;\nneither could a sorrowless book control a sorrowful world. The Bible must\nhave a message for both types of experience.\n\nThere is a theological reason for this twofold message. We have been told\nby our religious teachers that Christ, being tempted, can succor those\nthat are tempted. The Man of Sorrows can save the people of sorrows. The\nHigh Priest is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. The Captain of\nour salvation was made perfect through suffering. He learned obedience\nthrough the things he suffered. The world is made acquainted with the\nsorrowing Saviour of the sorrowing world. Still we have been slow to apply\nour theology to the other side of life. The forged letter of Publius\nLentulus stated that Jesus had often been seen to weep, but never to\nsmile! The mischief of such a misconception is apparent. It provides for a\nmutilated theology. It gives the world a fractional Christ. It leaves the\nhour of gladness without its Exemplar. It gives comfort for a funeral, but\nno companionship for a feast. In the average life the realm of joy is\nlarger than the realm of sorrow. Few people would declare that with them\nsadness had exceeded gladness. The world needs to-day the Saviour of the\njoyful, even as it needs the Saviour of the sorrowful. Joy that refuses to\nbe curbed needs saving power just as does sorrow that refuses to be\ncomforted. We need not enter into any needless comparison and try to state\nwhich has the more need. It is sufficient to affirm that a complete Bible\nmust take account of pleasures and joys, if these are to be counted among\nthe divinely appointed experiences of life.\n\nWe do not long study the Bible without becoming aware of its law of\nproportion. It gives the word in season, and it gives the word in measure.\nHence its aim is to cultivate proportion in human lives. Its ideal is the\nideal of a holy God, that is, of One with a perfect balance of the\ninfinite nature. Its ideal for man must, therefore, be that man shall gain\nfor himself that balance in the human realm that God has in his divine\nrealm. For this reason the Bible is a curber of excesses, a restorer of\nproportions. It gives here its largest lesson for pleasure. Recognizing\nits legitimacy, it recognizes its limits as well. As an example from both\nTestaments we may give a statement of conduct that receives rebuke from\nMoses and from Paul. It is recorded in Exodus that, after their riotings\nwith the golden calf, the Israelites proceeded to engage in riotings of\npleasure. The ancient account puts it, \"The people sat down to eat and to\ndrink, and rose up to play.\" Saint Paul quotes it in First Corinthians in\nprecisely its original form. In the early account the rebuke of the Lord\nawaits the people. In the later account the apostle makes the conduct the\nnatural accompaniment of idolatry, as if indeed the worship of an image\nwould issue into the idolatry of the table and the playground. Now eating\nand drinking are not only good; they are necessary. Play is not only good;\nit is necessary. The Bible declares that food and water are the gifts of\nGod, and it makes them symbols of God's deeper benevolence. Nor does the\nBible ever condemn play. On the contrary, it represents the streets of the\nHoly City as filled with playing children. The trouble, then, must have\nbeen in the lack of proportion as well as in the lack of a good motive.\nThe people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. This is to\nsay that the two constant movements of life were monopolized by appetite\nand sport. The Israelites ate to play, and they played to eat. Two things\nintended to be legitimate portions of life became its illegitimate\nentirety. Designed to be preludes, eating and drinking and playing became\nthe whole program. Life consisted in the satisfaction of two ranges of\ndesire. The demand of Moses and Paul was not that eating and drinking and\nplaying should be abolished, but that they should be pushed back into\ntheir just proportions as worthy departments of living. The glutton of\nfood and the glutton of play are both condemned by the Bible.\n\nThere are those who say that one of the crying evils of our own day is\nthat the people are appetite-mad and pleasure-mad. Probably some men in\nevery age have brought this charge against their time; and the charge is\ntrue as applied to some persons in each period. For such the Bible has its\nrepeated warning. They who are lovers of pleasure more than of God fall\nunder condemnation. Mankind has never long admired the eaters and players\nof history. If it remembers Beau Brummel and Beau Nash at all, it enrolls\nthem in its lists of ridicule. An epitaph which recorded that \"He ate much\nof the time and played the rest of the time,\" would not serve to enroll a\nman among the earth's heroes! The Bible and humanity are against the\nunbalanced devotees of the table and the parlor and the field of sports.\n\nBut the Bible and humanity unite again in their estimate of the other\nextreme. The mere ascetic secures curiosity rather than admiration. He\nhas not learned how to follow Him who often went to feasts and who sat\ndown with his friends at the supper which they gave him at Bethany. It is\nsaid of him that \"he was anointed with the oil of joy above his fellows.\"\nJesus entered into the normal joys of life. He came eating and drinking,\nuntil his enemies seized upon his conduct and exaggerated it into a charge\nagainst him. He was present at weddings where joy reigned supreme. In all\nhis teaching and by all his example he never proved himself an enemy to\nthe normal pleasures of life. This particular emphasis is occasionally\nneeded. It may not have as large a mission as has the warning against\noverdone appetite and play; but it has its message to that smaller circle\nof the deceived who would drive joy from the world in the name of Christ.\nOne of the hymns declares:\n\n  The brightest things below the sky\n    Yield but a flattering light;\n  We should suspect some danger nigh\n    Where we possess delight.\n\nThere is something morbid in this conception. The invitation to the\nreligious life becomes gruesome. The sister of Pascal cared for him\nthrough a long and serious illness. Pascal came to love her so much that\nhe feared that his affection was wicked. In a gloomy hour he wrote in his\ndiary these words, \"Lord, forgive me for loving my dear sister so much!\"\nAfterward his abnormal conscience worked again, and Pascal actually erased\nthe word \"dear.\" For such moods the Bible has a lesson. God \"giveth us\nrichly all things to enjoy.\" We would think it small glory for ourselves\nif our children should push our gifts away from their little hands with\nthe idea that those selected gifts were perilous. God fills the world with\npossibilities of pleasure. Food and drink are not negative and tasteless.\nThe paths of earth are not flowerless. Voices are not without music.\nCompanionship is not lifeless. The Bible is the foe of wicked pleasure.\nThe Bible is the foe of excessive pleasure. The Bible is the friend of\nlegitimate and proportionate pleasure.\n\nBut while pleasure needs to be guarded and curbed, it is not either a\nburden to be lifted or a pain to be endured. Sorrow is both. Therefore\nsorrow demands some positive services from the Bible. We may be impatient\nwith those doleful folks who speak of this world as a vale of tears or as\na wilderness of woe! We may be inclined to quote the lines:\n\n  I think we are too ready with complaint\n    In this fair world of God's.\n\nOn the other hand, it is well to remember that the young, especially, see\nlife almost exclusively from the standpoint of hope and courage. The\nminister of the gospel begins to feel, when he reaches the age of forty,\nthat he has not given enough comfort to his people. As he identifies\nhimself closely with their lives he finds that most homes carry some\nsecret sorrow and that most men and women have their own personal\ntragedies. You will recall the myth about the boatman whose duty it was to\ncarry over the Styx the souls who departed from earth. He noticed that\nthese souls mourned much and took the voyage unwillingly. He thought that\nit must be a very beautiful and joyful land that laid such hold on their\nhearts. So he secured leave of absence from his post of duty and made an\nexcursion into the world. He discovered that for every birth there must\neventually be a death; that every home that was made must in due season be\nbroken; that men and women were troubled and maimed and sick. On all sides\nhe saw the evidences of sorrow. He went back to his ferry greatly\nwondering why people should be sad because they left a sad world. This\nmythical picture is overdrawn, but it has its suggestion of truth. Earth\ndoes have its manifold sorrows. If all the burdens and pains and problems\nand anguishes of a single day could focus their influence upon any single\nlife, the result would be either a broken heart or an insane mind.\n\nThe Bible does not make light of sorrows. Its heroes have their troubles.\nCall the roll of its sons and daughters and you will find that at some\ntime each one of them was a child of grief. The Book does not assign\nburden and pain and sorrow to the class of unrealities. Neither does it\nassign them to the class of negations. In the Bible sorrow is real and\nsorrow is positive. When Rachel weeps for her children, the scene is real.\nWhen David goes into the room in the tower over the gate and utters his\npitiful lament over Absalom, the Book does not describe his anguish as an\nillusion. Paul's hunger and thirst, and stripes and shipwrecks, and perils\nand imprisonments were not the vain froth of a mortal mind. Jesus's cross,\nand the thorns and the nails and the spear, and the tauntings of the\npassers-by, and the thirst, and the darkened face of the Father were not\nswept into the void by reciting a formula about the All. Jesus gave a\npromise to his disciples, \"In the world ye shall have tribulation.\" He\nkept that promise. They walked the ways of martyrdom. Their spirits won\nvictories over their flesh. Yet there is no hint that their persecutions\nand deaths were the fictions of error or the dreams of a night that did\nnot exist. The Bible, being real, ministers to sorrow that is real.\n\nThe Book, too, touches on all the phases of comfort that we may gather\nfrom the surface of life, only it does not make them either a full gospel\nof consolation or a large part of that gospel. Sometimes a word of\nScripture will suggest the method of comparison implied in the statement,\n\"It might be worse.\" Paul does this with one quick word. \"Our _light_\naffliction,\" he puts it. We have lost one hand; we might have lost two! We\nhave lost one eye; we might have lost both! We have been sick one week; it\nmight have been a year! Sometimes this method carries us off into rather\ngraceless comparisons of ourselves with other people as if, indeed, we\nwere divine favorites. Can a man prove more divine providence for himself\nby assuming that there is less for another person? This road of comparison\nleads to phariseeism unless we watch carefully against a despicable\nby-path. Tennyson in his \"In Memoriam,\" which is a poem of comfort, shows\nmuch impatience with this false form of consolation:\n\n  One writes, \"that other friends remain,\"\n    That loss is common to the race;\n    And common is the commonplace,\n  And vacant chaff well meant for grain.\n\n  That loss is common would not make\n    My own less bitter, rather more;\n    Too common! Never morning wore\n  To evening but some heart did break.\n\nThis method of comparison is inadequate. Whether the word \"light\" makes\nour imagination furnish the details of the worse affliction, or whether it\ncontrasts our sorrows with the greater sorrows of others, it does not do\nenough for our smitten hearts.\n\nNor are we fully satisfied with the plea that sorrow is but \"for a moment\"\nand that we can be thankful for its brevity. There is comfort here, to be\nsure, but it has no final quality. Paul knew that, and so he gave the idea\nan incidental part of a sentence, and then went on to the deeper\nconsolation. One poet puts it:\n\n                            Since the scope\n  Must widen early, is it well to droop\n  For a few days consumed in loss and taint?\n  O pusillanimous heart! be comforted;\n  And like a cheerful traveler, take the road,\n  Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread\n  Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod\n  To meet the flints? At least it may be said,\n  \"Because the way is short, I thank thee, God.\"\n\nThe truth is that there is real comfort in all this only when pain's\nbrevity contributes something to the good of the years and even to\neternity. Thus the Bible does not give much space to the slight comforts\nof either comparison or brevity. These have their function, but they are\nthe small helpers of the larger consolations.\n\nThe Bible likewise gives as one of the comforts of sorrow that sorrow\nprepares us to console others' sorrows. Saint Paul uses this in his\nmessage to the Corinthians: \"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord\nJesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who\ncomforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them\nwhich are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are\ncomforted of God.\" Here we are pushed back to the deepest sources of\ncomfort. God comforts the sorrowful in order that other sorrowful ones may\nhave comfort. The consolers are delegated by the great Consoler. It\nrequires this reach clear back to the heart of God to rescue this\nsuggestion from the superficial. One man has sorrow. He consoles others\nwho have sorrow. Then you have two sorrows in your problem. In this way\nyou would keep playing off sorrow against sorrow, without any fundamental\nexplanation of any sorrow. The question is, Why any sorrow at all? If one\nof the by-products of sorrow is the power to comfort the sorrowing, we\nmust still find some main product that will put the two sorrows together\nin a meaning of good. The God of comfort must preside over both sorrows\nere either sorrow shall yield its contribution to the sufferer. Paul saw\nthis, and so he related our power to comfort others to the fact that we\nhad gotten our comfort from the Father of all consolation.\n\nIt is thus clear that the Scriptures give place to all the minor elements\nin the ministry of sorrow. Its comparative lightness, its sure brevity,\nand its tuition for sympathy have their part in the Bible curriculum. The\nScriptures also move onward to the vision of a God who cares. \"Like as a\nfather pitieth\"--this is the message even of the Old Testament. It gives\nan answer to that piercing cry:\n\n  What can it mean? Is it aught to Him\n  That the nights are long and the sun is dim?\n  Can he be touched by the griefs I bear\n  Which sadden the heart and whiten the hair?\n  Around his throne are eternal calms,\n  And glad, strong music of happy psalms,\n  And bliss unruled by any strife!\n  How can he care for my little life?\n\nThe answer of the Bible is the vision of the pitying God. Our earthly\nfriends have helped us in our sorrows by simply caring. They have come to\nus in the shadows, and their words and faces have told us that they cared.\nIt is a strange feature of human psychology that just this gives us\ncomfort. Our friends do not solve the problem for us. They do not remove\nthe cause of our pain. But they feel with us, and this is aid. Every\nsympathizer seems to lift a bit of the weight from our own hearts. When\nthe Bible gives us the revelation of One who pitieth \"like as a father\npitieth,\" it brings God into that circle of helpfulness.\n\nThe lesson goes farther and deeper than this. Though we have not here used\nthe words technically, the soul's dictionary draws a distinction between\npity and sympathy. The pitier may never have walked the way that allows\nhim to understand our grief; the sympathizer comes to us from some\nexperience that permits him to remember those that are in bonds as bound\nwith them. We cannot read the Bible long ere we discover that there is in\nGod the capability of joy and sorrow. The passages are abundant that\njustify this statement. God can be pleased. God can be grieved. If men and\nwomen have been made in his image, and if we find in them the capability\nof pain and sorrow, we are driven to the conclusion that something\ncorresponding thereto must be in the divine nature. The father in the\nparable of the prodigal son, sitting lonely and mournful in his home,\nrepresents God. The father in that same parable meeting his son in the\nroadway and giving him glad welcome, and calling to his neighbors,\n\"Rejoice with me,\" likewise represents God. The truth seems to be that the\nfarther up we go in the grade of being, the more capability of pain and of\npleasure do we find. The polyp can neither suffer much nor enjoy much. The\noyster can enjoy more and suffer more. The bird has its note of joy and\nits note of pain. Human beings have exquisite powers of enjoyment and\nequally exquisite powers of suffering. We may well believe that when we\nreach the perfect being of God both of these capabilities come to their\nhighest. This is the meaning of that verse:\n\n  Can it be, O Christ Eternal,\n  That the wisest suffer most?\n  That the mark of rank in nature\n  Is capacity for pain?\n  That the anguish of the singer\n  Makes the sweetness of the strain?\n\nWe are allowed to believe, then, that the pity of God passes over into\nsympathy. We are visited in our sorrows not by a God whose mood toward us\nis abstract, but whose own infinite heart knows grief. \"The human life of\nGod\" is a phrase that has been used to describe the incarnation. That\nphrase enters into our problem here. If Jesus shows us what God is like,\nthen the Christ who wept over Jerusalem brings us one revelation of the\ndivine life. The pitying God becomes the sympathizing God.\n\nThe biblical lesson of comfort does not halt even here. It is given a\ncloser and more personal quality. A pitier and sympathizer may be very\ndistant, and his aid may reach us over the abysses. If the Bible gives us\nthe vision of a pitying father, it gives us also the vision of the God who\ncomforteth even as a mother comforteth. In the various kinds of trouble\nmen become aware of reserve forces in their nature. They endure what they\nthought they could not endure. In crisis times the muscles secure extra\nstrength, the mind secures extra alertness, and the spirit secures extra\npower either to do or to bear. These reserves must be of God's giving,\nwhether they lie ready in the nature always, or are special gifts sent\ndirect to help us in the troublous hours. There is, however, a still more\npersonal interpretation that the Bible offers for these experiences. They\nare the special visits of God to the afflicted. If the creed of the divine\nsympathy gets its meaning from \"the human life of God\" as seen in the\nincarnation of Christ, this part of the creed gets its meaning from the\ndoctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is true that the Greek word which is\ntranslated \"Comforter\" might be given other meanings such as Adviser or\nHelper. But this does not change the point for the present discussion. An\nAdviser in sorrow is a Comforter, and a Helper in sorrow is a Comforter.\nIt is significant that the consciousness of the church followed the\ntranslators eagerly and adopted the word Comforter as if it met some need\nof life and as if it answered to some deep experience of life. We may not\ngo into a labored discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity. We may affirm\nthat a humanity that sorrows is glad for a doctrine of the Godhead that\nmagnifies the office of consolation. The comforting quality in Barnabas\nled the early disciples to change his name from Joses to Barnabas because\nhe was a \"son of consolation.\" They rejoiced in their human comforter. The\nchurch has ever found satisfaction in the revelation of a divine\nComforter. In this revelation it sees the pitying God and the sympathizing\nGod become the Comforting God.\n\nRelated to this is the scriptural idea that God conquers our sorrow not by\nremoving it but by making us equal to its burden. The clearest concrete\nillustration of this is seen in Paul's words about his \"thorn in the\nflesh.\" His thrice-repeated prayer was that the thorn might be removed;\nhis answer was that, while the difficulty would not be taken away, he\nwould be given grace sufficient for his trial. Paul's experience has\nimpressed men as being typical of the inner kind of divine aid. The sorrow\nmay be of many kinds; but the powers of resistance are strengthened by the\ngrace of God and the sorrows are borne in a brave and patient spirit.\nAlthough the idea be trite, it claims a place in the discussion, as indeed\nit was worthy of a place in the ritual of comfort. We are not dealing with\nany mere law of reaction. It was not the thorn that was making Paul\nstrong; it was God who was making Paul strong to endure the thorn. He\nhimself describes the transaction as if it had involved a direct gift of\nthe divine grace, as it had involved a direct message from the divine\nheart.\n\nYet great as are all these types of biblical consolation, we all feel that\nwe have not reached the conclusion of the matter. Comparison is not\nenough. Brevity does not explain why sorrow should be just brief. Pity\ndoes not tell us why we should need to be pitied. Direct spiritual\nreserves do not fully justify the hard experience that calls for them.\nDirect and personal comfort does not solve the problem since no one would\nseek trouble in order to have the visits of a comforting friend. The\ngaining of inner strength comes nearer to a positive warrant for the\nsorrows of life; yet it does not quite reach the satisfying conception.\nAll these things are parts of the program, but they are not its\nconclusion. The tale of life's sorrow is not all told by their recital.\nThe full story we cannot understand now; still we may be able to glimpse\nits meaning. In the epic of Job there are traces of the revelation. The\npatriarch gathers a harvest out of his troubles. They never reach the\nuttermost extreme. They do not last forever. They bring him pity, however\ncrude; sympathy, however bungling; comforters, however mistaken; reserve\nforces, however tardy; inner strength, however won. But his sorrows do\nmore than this; they are represented in the last chapter as having been\nmade the servant of Job. The richer and stronger man returns to the richer\nand stronger life. The testings have been turned into gains.\n\nThis deeper lesson of comfort is often given to us in the Bible by means\nof a very positive verb. Our afflictions \"work\" for us. All things \"work\"\ntogether for us. As men are sent to the fields, and as the forces of\nnature are sent along the wires, so sorrows are sent to become our\nservants. This service is not inevitable; it is conditioned on the\nattitude of the sorrowing life; but it is a very real service when the\nconditions are met. Our afflictions work for us--when we get the\nspiritual vision so that we can receive the things that are eternal. All\nthings work together for good for us--when we fulfill the innermost\nrequirement of loving God. The condition in both cases is located within\nthe spiritual life. This condition being met, the promise of the Bible is\nthat sorrow is made our efficient servant. Paul in his famous verse of\nconsolation states the case with marked confidence. The afflictions work\nfor us until they produce \"a far more exceeding and eternal weight of\nglory.\" Language could scarcely be stronger. Nor were the words used by\none who lolled in the high places of ease and delight and shouted down his\nabstract comforts to the strugglers in the vale. The assurance to the\nsorrowing comes from their comrade. His experiences ranged all the way\nfrom the petty hardships of a wandering life on to the Appian Way and the\nblock of death. It was the sure faith of the apostle that all his sorrows\nhad been made to work for him. He was not their victim; he was their\nmaster and their beneficiary.\n\nThe persons who have seen much of the world's better living will not deny\nthis conception. Le Gallienne in his booklet, If I Were God, admits that\nsuffering does often work toward the making of character and becomes a\nreal servant. His skepticism does not lie at this point. His inquiry is\nwhether a just and good God could not have found some easier way, some\nservant for which we would not have to render such a painful cost. This,\nof course, is that old method of debate that flees for refuge to some\nimaginary world and conceives of people who do not exist. Our task is with\nthe people now on earth, and with them we must deal in our efforts at\nconsolation. Some of them we have seen driven to bitterness of spirit by\ntheir sorrow. They themselves made sorrow an evil servant which filled the\ngarden of life with noxious weeds, shut the windows of hope in the home of\nlife, put the poison of despair into the water of life, and spread the\nclouds of gloom over all the sky of life. Others we have seen mellowed and\nsweetened by the servantship of sorrow. All our visits to them showed\nclearly that sorrow was doing gracious service. The \"weight of glory\" was\nmore and more apparent. The \"good\" produced by the \"all things\" gave\nincreasing evidence that the \"servant\" was doing his work. When any close\nobserver of life writes down his lists of saints he will always find that\nhe has been compelled to canonize many who, like their Master, have been\nmade \"perfect through suffering.\"\n\nThe quotation of these words about Christ reminds us that the world turns\nto him as to the last resort for the sorrowing. Here, as in all other\nstudies, we find the climax in him. As he entered into all forms of work,\nso did he enter into all forms of sorrow. Is it homelessness? Is it\nprivation? Is it misunderstanding? Is it anxiety for others? Is it\nanticipated suffering? Is it evil accusation? Is it ridicule? Is it shame?\nIs it mockery? Is it torture? Is it utter disgrace? Is it abandonment? Is\nit denial? Is it betrayal? Is it death? All these he knew. If the wisest\nand holiest suffer most, he knew all these sorrows at their deepest. None\ncould really join with him in chanting the real De Profundis. He trod the\nwinepress alone, and of the people there was none with him. The world that\nleft him alone in his sorrow does not wish him to leave it alone in its\nsorrow. It seeks him then. It hears him as he promises, not immunity from\nsuffering, but the experience of overcoming in suffering: \"Be of good\ncheer: I have overcome the world.\" He put a deeply personal quality into\nhis assurance, \"I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.\" \"I\nam with you always, even unto the end of the \u00e6ons.\" So runs the promise.\nIt is no wonder that the troubled flee to him. The Man of Sorrows draws\nthe men of sorrows. His benediction of peace is not formal. With the\nauthority and with the reserves of comfort at his command, he still says,\n\"Let not your heart be troubled.\"\n\nTo the usual messages of consolation he now adds the eternal reason, \"In\nmy Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told\nyou. I go to prepare a place for you.\" Well did Carlyle say that if Jesus\nwere only man, he had no right to utter these words. But Jesus said much\nmore. He would prepare the place. He would come again. He would receive\nthem into his company. If some doubter shall ask about the way, his reply\nshall be the same as of old, \"I am the way.\" Through him alone we come to\nthe Father. Full trust in him removes all bitter tears: and the remainder\nof tears he does not rebuke. He inspires the visions wherein we see those\nwho have come up out of great tribulation hungering no more, nor thirsting\nany more, nor smitten by the sun or any heat; but fed by the Lamb and led\nby him amid fountains of living waters, while God wipes away all tears\nfrom their eyes.\n\nThis doctrine of heaven as a consolation for sorrow is not born of\nselfishness, as is often charged. The rankest of infidels said, \"In the\nnight of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle\nof a wing.\" Not \"listening selfishness,\" but \"listening love\"! The love\nthat we bear to our own and to all mankind seeks this vision and finds it\nwaiting in the divine plan. Is it selfish to desire that for ourselves\nwhich will injure none others? Is it selfish to long for that which will\nmeet the longings of the whole world? Verily some critics discover strange\ndictionaries when they define words in reference to the holy faith. But\nall the while the afflicted seek the face of Christ. Troubles look unto\nhim and are lightened. The poor man cries and the Lord still delivers him\nout of his troubles. Our Bibles and our Hymnals personalize the haven for\nus. He is the Rock of Ages. His bosom is the Refuge. To him we go when\nshadows darkly gather. A present help is he. The last low whispers of our\ndead are burdened with his name. The suffering world states its comfort in\nterms of Christ himself.\n\nFor the final sorrow of death he offers the full consolation. The tragedy\nof separation remains. Our indictment against death is that of Tennyson:\n\n  He puts our lives so far apart,\n  We cannot hear each other speak.\n\nThe more worthy of immortality our beloved seems to be, the keener is the\npang of parting. Lowell felt it so \"After the Burial\":\n\n  Immortal! I feel it and know it,\n    Who doubts it of such as she?\n  But that is the pang's very secret--\n    Immortal away from me.\n\nThe Bible has no rebuke for the sorrow of separation. But it does have the\nhealing hope of eternal reunion. Jesus said: \"I am the resurrection, and\nthe life: he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:\nand whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.\" These words,\nfully believed, still our fear, confirm our hope, and comfort our final\nsorrow.\n\nTo all the burdened, Jesus says, \"Come unto me, and I will give you rest.\"\nTo all the joyless he says, \"I will see you again, and your heart shall\nrejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.\" To all the lonely and\nmourning he comes with the message, \"Let not your heart be troubled: ye\nbelieve in God, believe also in me.\" The world may have difficulty in\nsecuring that belief; but the world knows well that this belief alone is\nthe defeat of sorrow. In their best and most desperate and most hopeful\nhours men flee to the Bible as to the only tent in which their anguish can\nbe soothed. Within that tabernacle walks the form of the Fourth. When\nthey turn from him, they must return with the question, \"Lord, to whom\nshall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.\" The eternal life that\nhe gives is the only consolation for our passing sorrows.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE BIBLE AND PRACTICE\n\n\nWhen men separate the Bible from devotion and practice they are guilty of\nthe final heresy in relation to the Book of Life. The previous pages have\nshown that the Bible has a real message for actual living. While the\nlarger departments have been treated, it is still true that the message of\nthe Scriptures for other sections of life is vital and fundamental.\nWhatever we may say about the message of the Bible in regard to chemistry,\nor biology, or geology; whatever we may say about its inspiration for the\nliterature of the world; and whatever we may say about its accuracy in\nmatters of ancient history and geography--the Book holds a lonely primacy\nas the Book of Duty. The scientist may not get from it a full revelation;\nthe litt\u00e9rateur may be tempted to omit certain portions from his \"choice\nselections\"; the historian may not find in it a full or chronological list\nof events; but the man with a moral and spiritual passion, the man bent on\nfinding his duty that he may do it faithfully, will discover ample\nmaterial in its pages. Indeed, he will have a sense of surplus. The ideals\nof the Book will be so far beyond his performance as to give him the\nfeeling of a gentle rebuke. As a Book of moral science, moral literature,\nmoral history, the Bible has no competitors. As a revelation of the heart\nof God, of the heart of man, and of the way in which the heart of God and\nthe heart of man are brought into loving harmony, the Bible is supreme.\n\nThe great difficulty in the use of the Bible has come from wrenching it\nfrom this main purpose. Confusion is sure to arise whenever any volume is\nemployed apart from its primary intent. If one wishes to learn\nmathematics, and his foolish teacher shall give him a book of music, the\nresult is not edifying. The pages of the book may be properly numbered,\nand the scales of music may be denoted by the correct fractions; but\nmathematics represents a thoroughly subordinate purpose, and the volume\ndoes not lead easily on to Calculus. The result is even more confusing if\nthe arithmetic be handed to a pupil who wishes to study versification. The\nmultiplication table may look like verses when seen at some distance;\nstill the arithmetic's main intent is not the teaching of poetry. The\nillustrations of possible confusion could be taken from all fields. The\ncommon sense of the race saves it from the blunder of misapplying the\nmost of its books. The Bible, however, has been subjected to\nmisapplication because the theory of its infallibility has often been made\nto cover a wide, not to say a universal, range. The student who goes to\nthe Bible with a purpose that is mainly historical, or scientific, or\ngeographical, or genealogical, or mathematical, or even poetical and\nliterary, may not find all his wishes gratified. But the student who seeks\nits pages under a profound sense of God and with an equally profound will\nto do God's will is certain to find material for all his moral and\nspiritual ambitions.\n\nConsequently when the religious attitude toward the Bible is changed into\na professional or critical or debating attitude, the Book is deflected\nfrom its intent. Doubtless we must have in the realm of scholarship some\nmen who give themselves to a technical discussion of the Bible. These men\nmay be charged with the duty of recovering portions of the Book to\nreality; and they may have an important, but secondary, relation to its\nprimary purpose. Nevertheless their attitude is not the final one. It\nwould be useless to deny that the last generation has witnessed a changed\nattitude toward the Holy Scriptures. One result has been that two camps\nhave been formed, and that doughty champions of a view have sallied forth\nfrom each camp to do warfare. The missiles have been verbal. Sometimes\nthey have been abusive. Each champion has believed himself a David and his\nopponent a Goliath. The unprejudiced observer of the conflict has had\ndifficulty in deciding which champion has been most guilty of a wrong\nspirit. The conservative has called the progressive various names,\ninfidel, atheist, destroyer, betrayer, a successor of Judas in spirit and\nof Celsus in method! The progressive has responded in kind and has named\nthe conservative a reactionary, an intellectual coward, a defender of a\ndiscredited theory, a foe of liberty, and a traitor to the truth. The\nconservative has often become a spiritual Pharisee and has ruled the\nprogressive out of court on the ground that the progressive lacked piety,\nwhile the progressive has often become an intellectual Pharisee and has\nruled the conservative out of court on the ground that the conservative\nlacked scholarship. There have, of course, been conspicuous instances of\nbreadth and catholicity on both sides, but occasionally the spirit of the\ncontest has not tended to exalt the mood of the contestants or to glorify\nthe divine Book.\n\nThe results of such a spirit could easily be predicted: they cannot make\nfor edification. If we list on one side the radical conservatives and on\nthe other side the radical progressives, we shall discover an evangelical\nhelplessness in both lists. In each case a conception of the Bible\nsupplants the purpose of the Bible. The champion defends a doctrine more\nthan he promotes a life. The apologist overcomes the preacher. The\ntheorist destroys the evangelist. All this is not a denial that the\nspeculative emphasis has its place. The defender of the faith will always\nhave his place. Usually he must work in the background, in some point of\nscholarly retreat. The pastor and preacher who goes into a community with\nthe idea that his main mission is to promote a special view of inspiration\nis doomed to failure, while he who goes into a community with the idea\nthat his main mission is to preach the salvation of the Bible as it\nclimaxes in Christ cannot fail utterly. There are conservatives and\nprogressives whose ministry is pitiably weak, and there are progressives\nand conservatives whose ministry is grandly strong. The difference comes\nfrom the point of emphasis. If a man is more anxious to prove that Moses\nwas the sole author of the Pentateuch than he is to prove that Jesus is\nthe sole author of salvation, his ministry will answer to his own\nemphasis. If a man is more anxious to prove that there were two Isaiahs\nthan he is to show that there is one only name given among men whereby we\nmay be saved, his ministry will be no more important than is his\ncontention. The primary purpose of the Bible is not the revelation of the\nsingle authorship of one of its sections or the dual authorship of one of\nits books; its primary purpose is to declare that One is our Master, even\nChrist.\n\nIt must be plain that, as the divine revelation of the Bible culminates in\na Life, so the human intent of the Bible can culminate only in lives. The\npurpose of the Bible is met in Practice. If we adopt the military figure\nof life, the Bible is a weapon given to men for moral warfare. Sometimes\nin its own pages the Word of God is presented under the figure of a Sword.\nThe writers could not have had in mind the Scriptures as we have them now;\nbut the principle applies to every revelation by which God seeks to bring\nmen to the understanding and doing of his own will. When Isaiah felt\ndivine messages burning in his heart he said, \"He hath made my mouth like\na sharp sword.\" The writer of Hebrews took the same nervous metaphor and\nwrote, \"The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any\ntwo-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,\nand of the joints and marrow.\" Paul in his description of the Christian\narmor speaks of \"The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.\" It\nmay not be amiss, then, to take this highly authorized figure of speech\nand to employ it once again--not claiming, of course, that our particular\napplications were in the thought of the first users. The point is that\nunder the ancient military system the sword had its main intent, and that\nit never did its real work as long as it was divorced from that intent.\nThere were wrong uses of the sword, and there were secondary uses of the\nsword; and there was but one primary use of the sword.\n\nWe can conceive of an actual sword as being used in different ways by\ndifferent people. A robber seizes it, defends himself against just arrest,\nand slashes the representatives of a righteous law. Evidently the sword\nwas not made for that purpose. The sportsman takes the sword, tests its\nhandle, polishes its blade, tries its resiliency, purchases a manual of\narms, secures the best teacher, drills himself in its use. On holidays he\nwears a flashy uniform, marches through the streets, waves the glittering\nthing over his head, and so makes it an instrument of personal flourish.\nThis use is not evil, but it does not stand for the weapon's first intent.\nA third man, with a more serious mien, secures the sword. He is enlisted\nin the militia, and the time may come when it will be necessary for him to\ngo into real war. He tests its handle and polishes its blade; he studies\nthe manual of arms; he seeks the best masters; he practices its use\nthrough many months. When the time of war actually comes this man draws\nthe sword from its scabbard and goes out to do service in his country's\ncause. The primary purpose of the sword is met only in this earnest use.\n\nThe three men may represent three classes in their attitudes toward the\nBible. The Bible is often used for defense in immoralities. It is often\nused as a means of that cheap skill that comes near to personal display.\nIt is often used for spiritual defense and warfare. The robber's use is\nevil. The parader's use is secondary. The warrior's use is primary.\n\nMany illustrations of the immoral use of the Bible could be given. In the\nstory of the temptation of Jesus the devil is pictured as a user of the\nScriptures, and he has not been without his followers in an unholy use of\na holy record. The Bible covers a wide range of thought and experience. It\ntells of all manner of sins. It deals with all classes of characters. It\npresents the lives of bad men who were sometimes good, and of good men who\nwere occasionally bad, and of other men who were quite steadily bad or\ngood. Thus the Bible gives us all sorts of examples. The record,\ndistorted and misapplied, may be made to justify the baldest of sins. In\nmatters of questionable morality men are ever ready to appeal to the\ndivine Book, and even for actions condemned by all enlightened moral\njudgment the Bible is sometimes summoned as an advocate. There is scarcely\na sin which has not had a passage of Scripture presented as its excuse.\nMen have justified rash murder on the ground that Moses killed the cruel\nEgyptian taskmaster. As was shown in a previous chapter the practices of\nthe patriarchs have been quoted, even in the halls of Congress, as a\nwarrant for bigamy and polygamy. Men in the midst of unreasoning anger\nhave condoned their madness by reciting the words, \"Be ye angry, and sin\nnot.\" Jesus himself named to the Jews a sacrilegious misuse of a Bible\nphrase by which heartless children excused themselves from filial duties.\nIllustrations might be given touching almost every phase of personal life.\nEven as in old days the wicked sometimes fled to a city of refuge, so now\ndo men caught in an evil mood hide themselves behind a biblical rampart.\n\nIn larger social matters this use of the Bible has been fully as striking.\nHuman slavery felt secure within a scriptural fortress. Wilberforce and\nClarkson in England, and Garrison and Phillips in America were compelled\nto reply to biblical arguments. Charles Sumner, at a meeting in\nMassachusetts, spent an entire evening in replying to a pro-slavery\ndiscussion based on Paul's letter to Philemon, arriving duly at the\nconviction that the only logical and religious result of the apostle's\nwords to Philemon would be the freeing of slaves in the name of Christian\nbrotherhood. So pieces of Mosaic legislation and scraps of Pauline\nregulation were used to conceal the Golden Rule and the law of fraternity.\nIt is easy to observe here, too, that as men advance in ethical life this\nuse of the Bible ceases. Doubtless in twenty years no one has heard the\nBible quoted in behalf of slavery. Yet the biblical argument would serve\nquite as well for reinstating slavery as it did for continuing slavery.\nThe argument dies not only because the moral consciousness of man lives,\nbut also because the moral judgment of man perceives that the general\nprinciples of the Bible are utterly opposed to human slavery. The man who\nproposed to bring the bondage of men back into the social life of the\nworld by means of the biblical argument would be deemed as much an\nanachronism as his method of debate.\n\nThis same evil use of the Bible proceeds to-day among the opponents of the\ntemperance reform. Our debate with the saloonist or brewer or wine maker\nnever goes far ere we are told of biblical examples of drinking, as well\nas that Christ turned water into wine in his first miracle at Cana of\nGalilee. Saloon keepers have framed and have placed upon the walls of\ntheir alluring palaces Paul's advice to Timothy, \"Take a little wine for\nthy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities.\" They do not quote the\nverdict that wine is a mocker, with a bite like that of a serpent and a\nsting like that of an adder--the cause of woes and sorrows and redness of\neyes; nor the pronouncement that no drunkard can inherit the Kingdom; nor\nthe condemnation laid upon him that putteth the bottle to his neighbor's\nlips. Nor do they put forward the inevitable drift of Paul's law of\ncharity which commands men to do naught that will make their brothers to\noffend. Nor yet do they heed the sure drift of the Bible's teaching as it\ncomes to its crown in Christ himself. The man who would claim that Jesus\nwould approve the modern traffic in intoxicating liquors would convict\nhimself of amazing perversity and ignorance. There are increasing\nevidences that the Master of life is now finding an effective use for his\nwhip of cords and that there is beginning a retreat greater than that of\nthe ancient thieves and dove sellers. The time will come when men will\nmarvel that an attempt was ever made to use the Bible as a foundation for\nthe trade in alcoholics.\n\nIn Scott's Ivanhoe there is given an example of this misuse of the Bible,\nas well as an example of its effective rebuke. Rebecca the Jewess is\nbeautiful in person, as she is in character. Brian de Bois-Guilbert is a\nmember of the Order of the Holy Temple. He is a dashing, handsome,\nhypocritical crusader, both a military and a moral adventurer. He turns\nhis lewd eye toward Rebecca. She stands by an open window, ready to throw\nherself to death upon the rocks far beneath rather than to submit herself\nto his wickedness. To justify his black intention Guilbert mentions the\nconduct of David and Solomon, and then says to the tempted one, \"The\nprotectors of Solomon's Temple may claim license by the example of\nSolomon.\" The beautiful woman makes a worthy retort, one that deserves\nfrequent repetition: \"If thou readest the Scriptures and the lives of the\nsaints only to justify thine own license and profligacy, thy crime is like\nthat of him who extracts poison from the most helpful herbs.\" No honest\nperson can believe in Guilbert's use of the Bible; nor can any honest\nperson escape the truth of Rebecca's reply. The murderer's, the\nbigamist's, the slaveholder's, the rum-seller's, the sensualist's method\nof employing the Bible is the final blasphemy against the Holy Word. The\nrobbers of life simply steal the sword of the Spirit in order that they\nmay use it in the service of hell. Wolves in sheep's clothing and devils\nclad in the livery of heaven are apt figures of speech for the description\nof this perversity. The Bible itself speaks of those who wrest the\nScriptures to their own destruction!\n\nThe second use of the sword moves into the realm of the legitimate, but\nnot into the realm of the final. Expert swordsmanship is no crime, even as\nit is not the highest morality. The Bible has long been one of the\nfavorite fields of the critical scholar. Very often the search has been\nfor technical truth rather than for vital truth. Heated discussions have\nrelated to questions of dates and authorship. These questions are not to\nbe ruled out as useless. Sometimes technical truth gives the vital truth\nof the Bible a setting that makes it more forceful and persuasive. It was\ninevitable that both the higher critics and their opponents would\nsometimes go to great extremes--the critics to an idolatry of intellect,\ntheir opponents to an idolatry of literalness. We must all have been\nimpressed that at times when the spiritual battle has been intense the\nwarriors have stepped aside from the main conflict in order that they\nmight discuss how and when and by whom the Sword and its parts were\nfashioned!\n\nWe may change the figure of speech for a moment and modify for the present\npurpose a borrowed illustration. A man finds a casket buried deeply in his\nyard. The vessel appears to have been constructed a long time ago. It\nbears upon its sides characters that are difficult of translation. There\nis even doubt as to the nature of the metal. The man summons the other\nmembers of the family. They open the vessel and discover that it is filled\nwith gold. At once a warm dispute begins over several questions. Who made\nthe casket? When was it made? How many persons took part in its fashioning\nand its filling? From what precise mintage did the coins come? What is the\nmeaning of the peculiar hieroglyphics found upon its sides? Are all the\ncoins of equal value? Whose images are stamped upon them? The debaters\nbecome excited over these mooted matters. At last one sensible member of\nthe family suggests that it is apparent that by right of finding this\nparticular household owns the casket; that the needs of the members are\nmany; that the gold, even though the coinage be ancient, can be turned to\nmodern use; that the questions which they are debating can be settled only\nby metallurgists and historians and philologists, if they are to be\nsettled at all; and that, pending the settlement of incidental issues, the\nwants of the family may be richly met by appropriating the contents of the\ncasket! The illustration scarcely needs any interpretation. It surely does\nrepresent the attitude which the devout and obedient heart may take in\nthis period toward the Holy Book. The ancient casket that we call the\nBible is full of treasures. This much lies beyond doubt or debate. While\nthe learned philologists and historians and exegetes surround the casket\nand try to ascertain the dates of its parts, the names of its authors, the\nmeaning of its obscurities, the family of God may continue to draw on its\nexhaustless treasures. Nor are there wanting signs that more and more our\nage is adjusting itself to this reverent and practical use of the Word of\nGod, and that Professor Dobsch\u00fctz rightly contends in his new volume that\nthe Bible is again becoming the Book of Devotion.\n\nThere is likewise what we might well call the \"lowest\" criticism--the\nspirit that uses the Bible as a volume of puzzles rather than as a volume\nof directions. Many a man has spent more time in speculating about where\nCain got his wife than he has in trying to find out how to make his own\nwife happy. Many a man has spent more time in trying to find out about\nthe Witch of Endor as an excuse for his consulting some vulgar\nfortune-teller of modern time than he has spent in trying to learn the\nwill and secure the guidance of the good and wise God. Many a man has\nspent more time in discussing Melchizedek, who had neither ancestors nor\ndescendants, than he has spent in trying to learn from the Bible how he\nhimself may honor his forbears and may train his own children in\nrighteousness. Many a man has been so piqued by curiosity about the exact\nnature of Saint Paul's \"thorn in the flesh\" as to forget the teaching that\nthe grace of God can make us equal to any burden and torment of life. The\nmen of this type will not allow the Bible the use of hyperbole. When it\nsuits their contentious mood they become strict literalists. Even though\nthey themselves may declare that it is \"raining pitchforks\" or that the\nwaves are dashing \"mountain high,\" they will insist that Christ's words\nabout the two coats and the two cloaks and the two miles are not the\nstrong urging of much forbearance and generosity, but the counsel of\nliteral folly. Meanwhile the certainties and duties of the Bible outnumber\nits riddles and its curiosities many-fold. The importunate call to holy\npractice ceases not. From each of a thousand passages of the Good Book\nthere issues a patient rebuke for the curiosity monger, \"What is that to\nthee? Follow thou me.\"\n\nThis leads us to the third use of the sword as seen in our illustration.\nThe gallant soldier took the weapon and used it in harmony with its\nintent. So the Bible should be employed preeminently as a means of\nspiritual defense and warfare. The Scriptures are profitable, not for\nimmoral justification, not for mere criticism however exact and searching,\nnot for the solving of superficial riddles, but \"for doctrine, for\nreproof, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be\nperfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.\" To go to the Bible\nwith the motive revealed in these great words is to recover the Bible to\nits divine purpose as the book of human practice. Such a motive lifts the\nvolume above any mere literary or historical aspects. There is, for\nexample, the oft-quoted story about Benjamin Franklin's experience at the\nCourt of France. He was passing an evening with a company of cultured\nladies and gentlemen. The conversation turned to the subject of Oriental\nlife. Franklin read aloud to the company the book of Ruth. Struck by the\nbeautiful simplicity and spirit of the narrative, his hearers expressed\ntheir delight and desired to know in what book the charming pastoral could\nbe found! It is safe to say that these men and women needed the lesson of\nfidelity in the book of Ruth far more than they needed the sense of its\nliterary merit.\n\nWe must always return to the idea that the key to the Bible is the deeply\nreligious instinct and motive. Nothing else will really open its pages.\nNor does the Bible herein wholly differ from other literature. There are\nmen and women so thoroughly cultivated on the so-called practical side of\ntheir natures that it would be punishment for them to read Whittier, or\nLongfellow, or Lowell, or Tennyson for a full hour. The demands of\nbusiness or social life have killed the poetic impulse. So many persons\nmay crush from their natures the religious instinct and then wonder why\nthe Bible does not appeal to them! The truth seems to be that a person\ngets from the Bible about what he seeks. It takes divinely opened eyes to\nsee the wondrous things in the law. The psalmist, therefore, prayed that\nthe change might come over himself rather than over the parchment. The way\nto illumine the sacred page was to illumine him. The Book may lie in a\ngreat light, but what can the Book do for a man with closed eyes? Seneca\ntells of an idiot child in his home who, becoming blind, insisted always\nthat the room was dark! Herein is another parable.\n\nIt is only this disposition of the seeing eye and the obedient hand that\ncan bring the Bible to us in its main purpose. Having this disposition we\nshall not suffer ourselves to be lured into interesting byways. We shall\nhave a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. Our spiritual purpose\nwill defeat all needless criticism and all needless dissection. Having\nthis purpose, we will turn to the early chapters of Genesis. Instead of\ndebating whether in a literal garden Adam and Eve were tempted by a\nliteral serpent to the eating of literal fruit, and were driven through a\nliteral gate, while a literal angel with a literal flame running along a\nliteral blade guarded against reentrance, we shall be moved by the thought\nthat we have lifted ourselves in puny rebellion against God, and that we\nhave gone forth from our place of innocence, and that the third chapter of\nGenesis recounts the essential history of our souls. Having this religious\npurpose, we shall read the story of Job with a view to securing its\nspiritual lesson. We shall not permit any critical arguer to confine us to\nthe question of the historicity of Job himself. We shall rather lay hold\nof the teaching of that marvelous book, with its colossal debate, and we\nshall see that, whether the book be a history or a parable or an allegory,\nit drives crushing suspicion from the world by teaching that suffering is\nnot always the result of sin, and brings cheerful trust into the world by\nteaching that afflictions bravely endured must have their reward. The man\nwho back in that dim and far age got hold of the teaching of the book of\nJob must have somehow caught the inspiration of God himself. The common\nground in all these mooted portions of Scripture is really a large and\nwealthy place; but only a common spiritual purpose will ever bring\nconservatives and progressives together in the knowledge and peace of God.\n\nOne almost hesitates to discuss the book of Jonah in this connection\nbecause petty debates have robbed it of much of its deeper meaning. The\nnature of the book doubtless lies beyond earthly settlement. Whether we\ndeclare that Jonah's journey was as historical as those of Saint Paul, or\nthat it was as parabolic as the journey of the prodigal son, we can find\nno sure end of the debate. But all the while the teaching of the book\nwaits for our obedience. The individual lesson seems to be that whenever a\nman turns his ship from the Nineveh of duty toward the Tarshish of\npleasure he will directly come to rough and perilous seas. In other words,\nthe man who flees from his God-assigned work sooner or later gets into\ntrouble. The missionary lesson is just as plain. Back yonder in a time of\nracial narrowness, some one caught the inspiration from God and declared\nthat the Lord of all the earth cared for all the people of the earth. The\ninfinite love traveled beyond all our little boundaries. The personal\nlesson and the missionary lesson of the book of Jonah are sufficient to\nkeep individuals and churches busy for a thousand years to come. The\nspirit with which we approach the book of Jonah will decide whether we\nshall become petty debaters, or men and women with dutiful purpose and\nmissionary zeal.\n\nThe conclusion is that when we seek the Bible with the motive of holy\npractice we never meet with disappointment. The religious purpose saves\nthe Book for us and saves us by the Book. This purpose will likewise bring\nus face to face with the Hero of the Divine Word. Other sacred literatures\nmay offer us high moral precepts, and they may occasionally give us\nglimpses of spiritual ideals. But one Book alone gives us Christ. One Book\nalone reveals the Redeemer. The climax of practice to which the Scriptures\ncall us is the following of Christ. In all our studies in these chapters\nwe have found that the supreme lessons centered in his teaching and in his\nexample. The Man, the Home, the School, the Workshop, the Market Place,\nthe Playground, and the Hospital all wait upon him for their guidance and\ntheir warning. But Jesus is more than the way and the truth; he is the\nLife. He is more than the Exemplar of Practice; he is the Helper in\nPractice. He walks the pages of the Bible even as he walked the ancient\npaths, and his disciples may still say, \"Behold the Lamb of God, which\ntaketh away the sin of the world.\" Other sacred books may offer\nrevelations of morality; the Bible offers the revelation of a Saviour. The\nBible is not its own goal. Jesus is the end of its revelation. The devout\nin all ages have been ready to use the heart of the verse of a familiar\nhymn:\n\n  Beyond the sacred page,\n    I seek thee, Lord;\n  My spirit pants for thee,\n    Thou living Word.\n\nIf men seek the Exemplar who will give them a goal for their practice,\nthey find such an Exemplar in the Christ of the Bible. If they seek the\nInspirer who will give them a longing for the perfect practice, they will\nfind that Inspirer in the Christ of the Bible. If men seek the Saviour who\nwill help them on to the perfect practice, they will find that Helper in\nthe Christ of the Bible.\n\nIndeed, it may be said to be characteristic of the Bible that it not only\noffers the perfect program, but that it offers the perfect help. This was\ntrue even of the Old Testament. Jehovah was the strength of life. His\npower was as immediate as his presence. He was a present help in time of\ntrouble. He was a present Guide in time of perplexity. The Christian\nrevelation seems to bring that consciousness of divine help nearer to men,\nand to make it more real. Hence the Christian faith goes over all the\nworld seeking to win men to God and his righteousness. Everywhere it\nproclaims a redeeming God. An ideal without a Saviour may become a\ndespair--a tormenting impossibility, the lure of the final falsehood. The\nBible gives the ideal and then it adds, \"It is God which worketh in you\nboth to will and to do of his good pleasure.\" The Bible warns against\ntemptation, and then it tells of One who was himself tempted in all points\nlike as we are, yet without sin, of One who is able to succor them that\nare tempted. The religion of the dead code becomes the religion of the\nliving Person. The Ideal becomes Example, and both Ideal and Example are\nfound in a Saviour.\n\nWith all this in our purpose, as well as in our creed, we come to the\nBible in full harmony with its primary intent. We find now that for every\nmoral and spiritual emergency the Book has its message. If it were\nnecessary we could list these emergencies and show the word that the\nBible has for each of them. Here is an illustration that serves as well as\na thousand for making the main point. The Gideons have been placing the\nBibles in the hotels of America. Travelers seldom go to their rooms\nwithout seeing upon the table a copy of the Book. The organization that\nhas done this good work often receives accounts, anonymous or otherwise,\nof the help given by the Bibles that its work has supplied. Here is a\nletter received from a young woman:\n\n    Perhaps a word will help you to realize that the little \"Good Book\" on\n    the table in a lonely hotel room helps some. Last night, after\n    fighting the fight that any young woman with any appearance fights, I\n    found myself in Chicago at this hotel. I had papers, magazines, books,\n    and other reading matter, but for a joke--yes, joke--I picked up the\n    Bible. It fell open at the seventieth psalm. Can you imagine the\n    impression it made on me? I read it again and again. Needless to say,\n    it helped and I feel better, happier, and not so much alone.\n\nPicture the full circumstances, and we may feel that the help went deeper\nand wrought more than this letter indicates. If this young woman was at\nthe beginning of that dreadful path of death that invites careless\ntravelers, how much must these ancient words, so graciously modern, have\nmeant to her? \"Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O\nLord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul: let them\nbe turned backward, and put to confusion, that desire my hurt. Let them be\nturned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, Aha. Let all those\nthat seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy\nsalvation say continually, Let God be magnified. But I am poor and needy;\nmake haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make\nno tarrying.\" Any study of the authorship or date of this seventieth\npsalm, or any theorizing as to the identity of \"The chief musician,\" or\neven any discussion of the particular circumstances under which the words\nwere originally written would not have solved the life problem of a young\nwoman coaxed on toward carelessness. The psalm was penned to make God\nreal, and his help real. Doubtless it performed that office long ago; and\nsurely it performs that office now whenever a needy heart supplicates the\ngood God by means of the ancient prayer. \"Thy word have I hid in my heart,\nthat I might not sin against thee\"--this was the psalmist's statement as\nto the reason for carrying portions of the ancient revelation with him on\nall his journeys. \"Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By\ntaking heed thereto according to thy word\"--this was the use of God's\nWord prescribed for all time. The writer of the one hundred and nineteenth\npsalm did not have our Bible, but when he wrote these two verses he had\nwithin him the purpose of our Bible. He brought the ancient law within its\nprimary intent, and he gave the principle by which all later Scripture\nshould be employed. The Bible is to be placed in the heart as a defense\nagainst sin. The Bible is intended to cleanse the ways of life. The Bible\nis given to lead us to Him who is himself the Perfect Life and who offers\nthe Divine Grace.\n\nAll this means that the best apologetic for the Bible is the earnest and\nhonest use of the Bible. We may well use the apostle's fine phrase and say\nthat those persons who follow the ideals of the Bible under the\ninspiration of the Saviour of the Bible are \"living epistles known and\nread of all men.\" They are the modern evidences for the ancient Book, the\nhuman and divine proofs of the human and divine Book. The Bible does not\nfail the soul that searches its pages for the paths of truth and\nrighteousness. The prayer of the ritual is that we may \"read, mark, learn,\nand inwardly digest, that by patience and comfort of thy Holy Word we may\nembrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.\" In\neverything that bears on making men worthy subjects of everlasting life\nthe Bible is the sure guide. All sincere souls that come to its chapters\nwith this primary and spiritual intent will find their due reward. They\nmay stand before the open Book confident that the voice of God will speak\nthrough the written Word and determined that they themselves shall ever be\nin the attitude of eager listeners, saying, \"Speak, Lord; for thy servants\nhear.\"","title":"The Bible and Life","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":51389}