A Labrador Doctor Part 27

Feeble and devious as my own footsteps have been since my decision to follow Jesus Christ, I believe more than ever that this is the only real adventure of life. No step in life do I even compare with that one in permanent satisfaction. I deeply regret that I did not take it sooner. I do not feel that it mattered much whether I chose medicine for an occupation, or law, or education, or commerce, or any other way to justify my existence by working for a living as every honest man should. But if there is one thing about which I never have any question, it is that the decision and endeavour to follow the Christ does for men what nothing else on earth can. Without stultifying our reason, it develops all that makes men G.o.dlike. Christ claimed that it was the only way to find out truth.

To me, enforced asceticism, vows of celibacy, denunciation of pleasures innocent in themselves, intellectual monopoly of interpretation of things past or present, written or unwritten, are travesties of common sense, which is to me the Voice within. Not being a philosopher, I do not cla.s.sify it, but I listen to it, because I believe it to be the Voice of G.o.d. That is the first point which I have no fear in putting on record.

The extraordinary revelations of some Power outside ourselves leading and guiding and helping and chastening are, I am certain, really the ordinary experiences of every man who is willing to accept the fact that we are sons of G.o.d. Only a child, however, who submits to his father can expect to enjoy or understand his dealings. If we look into our everyday life we cannot fail to see that G.o.d not only allows but seeks our cooperation in the establishment of His Kingdom. So the second fundamental by which I stand is the certainty of a possible real and close relations.h.i.+p between man and G.o.d. Not one qualm a.s.sails my intellect or my intuition when I say that I know absolutely that G.o.d is my Father. To live "as seeing Him who is invisible" is my one ideal which embraces all the lesser ideals of my life.

It has been my lot in life to have to stand by many death-beds, and to be called in to dying men and women almost as a routine in my profession. Yet I am increasingly convinced that their spirits never die at all. I am sure that there is no real death. Death is no argument against, but rather for, life. Eternal life is the complement of all my unsatisfied ideals; and experience teaches me that the belief in it is a greater incentive to be useful and good than any other I know.

I have read "Raymond" with great interest. I am neither capable nor willing to criticize those who, with the deductive ability of such men as Sir Oliver Lodge, are brave enough and unselfish enough to devote their talents to pioneering in a field that certainly needs and merits more scientific investigation, seeing that it has possibilities of such great moment to mankind.

The experiences on which rest one's own convictions of continuing life are of an entirely different nature. Even though the first and personal reason may seem foolish, it is because I desire it so much.

This is a natural pa.s.sion, common to all human beings. Experience convinces me that such longings are purposeful and do not go unsatisfied.

No, we do not know everything yet; and perhaps the critic is a shallower fool than he judges to be the patient delvers into the unknown beyond. The evidence on which our deductions have been based through the ages may suddenly be proven fallible after all. It may be that there is no such thing as matter. Chemists and physicists now admit that is possible. The spiritual may be far more real than the material, in spite of the c.o.c.ksure conceit of the current science of 1918. Immortality may be the complement of mortality, as water becomes steam, and steam becomes power, and power becomes heat, and heat becomes light. The conclusion that life beyond is the conservation of energy of life here may be as scientific as that great natural law for material things. I see knowledge become service, service become joy. I see fear prohibit glands from secreting, hope bring back colour to the face and tone to the blood. I see something not material make Jekyl into Hyde; and thank G.o.d, make Hyde over into Jekyl again, when birch rods and iron bars have no effect whatever. I have seen love do physical things which the mere intellectual convictions cannot--make hearts beat and eyes sparkle, that would not respond even to digitalis and strychnine. I claim that the boy is justified in saying that his kite exists in the heaven, even though it is out of sight and the string leads round the corner, on no other presumption than that he feels it tugging. I prefer to stand with Moses in his belief in the Promised Land, and that we can reach it, than to believe that the Celestial City is a mirage.

This attempted a.n.a.lysis of my religious life has revealed to me two great changes in my position toward its intellectual or dogmatic demands, and both of them are reflections of the ever rightly changing att.i.tude of the defenders of our Christian faith. "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamus in illis." Christians should not fret because they cannot escape adapting themselves to the environment of 1918--which is no longer that of 918, or 18. The one and only hope for any force, Christianity no less than others, is its ability to adapt itself to all time.

I still study my Bible in the morning and scribble on the margin the lessons which I get out of the portion. I can only do it by using a new copy each time I finish, because it brings new thoughts according to the peculiar experiences, tasks, needs, and environments of the day. I change I know. It does not--and yet it does--for we see the old truths in new lights. That to me is the glory of the Scriptures.

Somehow it suits itself always to my developing needs. Christ did not teach as did other teachers. He taught for all time. We find out that our att.i.tude to everything changes, to the things that give us pleasure and to those that give us pain. It is but a sign of healthy evolution (in this chapter, I suppose I should call it "grace") that the great churches have ceased to condemn their leaders who are unsound on points which once spelt f.a.got and stake. To-day predestination no longer involves the same reaction, even if dropped into a conference of selected "Wee Frees." The American section of the Episcopal Church has omitted to insist on our publicly and periodically declaring that we must have a correct view of three Incomprehensibles, or be d.a.m.ned, as is still the case in our Church of England.

I am writing of my religion. The churches are now teaching that religion is action, not diction. There was a time when I could work with only one section of the Church of G.o.d. Thank G.o.d, it was a very brief period, but I weep for it just the same. Now I can not only work with any section, but wors.h.i.+p with them also. If there is error in their intellectual att.i.tudes, it is to G.o.d they stand, not to me.

Doubtless there is just as much error in mine. To me, he is the best Christian who "judges not." To claim a monopoly of Christian religion for any church, looked at from the point of view of following Jesus Christ, is ridiculous. So I find that I have changed, changed in the importance which I place on what others think and upon what I myself think.

Unless a Christian is a witness in his life, his opinions do not matter two pins to G.o.d or man. Of course, to-day _we_ should not burn Savonarola, any more than we should actually crucify that brave old fisherman, Peter, or ridicule a Gordon or a Livingstone, or a.s.sa.s.sinate a Lincoln or a Phillips Brooks, even with our tongues, though they differed from us in their view of what the Christian religion really needs. Oh, of course we shouldn't!

Perhaps my change spells more and not less faith in the Saviour of the world. As I love the facts of life more, I care less for fusty commentators. As I see more of Christ's living with us all the days, I care less for arguments about His death. I have no more doubt that He lives in His world to-day than that I do. Why should I blame myself because more and more my mind emphasizes the fact that it is because He lives, and only so far as He lives in me, that I shall live also?

THE END