The Whence and the Whither of Man Part 15

1. It is not merely opinion or intellectual belief in a creed. This may be good, or even necessary, but it is not religion. "Thou believest that there is one G.o.d; thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble." We speak with pride, sometimes, of our puissant Christendom, so industrious, so intelligent, so moral, with its ubiquitous commerce, its adorning arts, its halls of learning, its happy firesides, and its n.o.ble charities. And yet what is our vaunted Christendom but a vast a.s.semblage of believing but disobedient men? Said William Law to John Wesley, "The head can as easily amuse itself with a living and justifying faith in the blood of Jesus as with any other notion." The most sacred duty may degenerate into a dogma, asking only to be believed. "I go, sir,"

answered the son in the parable, "but went not."

2. It is not mere feeling. It is neither hope of heaven's joy, nor fear of h.e.l.l's misery. It may rightly include these, but it is vastly more and higher. It is neither ecstasy nor remorse. The most resolutely impenitent sinner can shout "Hallelujah," and "Woe is me," as loudly as any saint. Now feeling is of vast importance. It stands close to the will and stimulates it, but it is not conformity. The will must be aroused to a robust life.

3. Christianity is these and a great deal more. Mere belief would make religion a mere theology. Mere emotion would make it mere excitement. The true divine idea of it is a life; doing his will, not indolently sighing to do it, and then lamenting that we do it not; but the thing itself in actual achievement, from day to day, from month to month, from year to year. Thus religion rises on us in its own imperial majesty. It is no mere delight of the understanding in the doctrines of our faith; no mere excitement of the sensibilities, now harrowed by fear, and now jubilant in hope; but a warfare and a work, a warfare against sin, and a work with G.o.d.

Religion is not an entertainment, but a service. We are to set before us the perfect standard, and then struggle to shape our lives to it. Personal sanct.i.ty must be made a business of.[A]

[Footnote A: This page is mainly a series of quotations from Dr.

R.D. Hitchc.o.c.k's sermon on "Religion, the Doing of G.o.d's Will."]

A little more than thirty years ago a regiment was sent home from the Army of the Potomac to enforce the draft after the riots in this city. Some of you may picture to yourselves a thousand men with silk banners and gold lace and bright uniforms, resplendent in the suns.h.i.+ne. You could not make a worse mistake.

First in that gray early morning came two old flags, so torn by shot and sh.e.l.l that there was hardly enough left of them to tell whether the State flag was that of Ma.s.sachusetts or Virginia. And behind these came scant three hundred men. All the rest were sleeping between Was.h.i.+ngton and Richmond, some on almost every battle-field.

The uniforms were old and faded from sun and rain. Only gun-barrel and bayonet were bright. And the men were scarred and tired and foot-sore, haggard from hard fighting and long, swift marches. For these men had been trained to be hurried back and forth behind the long line of battle, that they might be hurled into it wherever the need was greatest. I do not suppose that one of them could have delivered a fourth-of-July oration on Patriotism. They were trained not to talk, but to obey orders. But they had stood in the "b.l.o.o.d.y angle" at Spottsylvania all day and all night; and in the gray dawn of the next morning, when strength and courage are always at ebb, faint and exhausted, their last cartridge shot away, had sprung forward at the command of their colonel to make a last desperate, forlorn defence with the bayonet against the advancing enemy.

Numbers do not count against men like these. What made them such invincible heroes? It was mainly the resolute will and long training to obey orders. A Christian should never forget that he is a soldier in the army of the Lord of Hosts; that enlistment is easy and quickly accomplished; but that the training is long, and that he must learn, above all, to "endure hardness."

And so, my brothers, I beg of you to preach a heroic Christianity, for if there ever was a heroic religion it is ours. If you offer merely free transportation to a future heaven of delight on "flowery beds of ease," you will enlist only the coward and the sluggard. But everyone who has a drop of strong old Norse blood in his veins will prefer a heathen Valhalla, though builded in h.e.l.l, to such a heaven.

And his Norse instincts will be nearer truth than your counterfeit of a debased Christianity. But preach the city of G.o.d's righteousness on earth and now among men, and call on every heroic soul to take sides with G.o.d against sin within himself and the evil and misery all around him. There is an almost infinite amount of strength, endurance, and heroism in this "slow-witted but long-winded" human race waiting to leap up at the appeal to fight once more and win a victory after repeated defeats before the sun goes down. Appeal to this and point to the great "captain of our salvation made perfect through sufferings," and every man that is of the truth will hear in your voice the call of the Master and King.

You will not be disappointed, but among the publicans and fishermen of America you will find heroic souls, who will leave all to follow, as faithfully and unflinchingly as those from the sh.o.r.es of Galilee.

And what of faith? Faith is the personal attachment of a soul to such a leader. Fortunately the Bible contains a scientific monograph on this subject. I refer, of course, to the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. And the whole result is summed up in a few words of the thirteenth verse. The great heroes, like Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, "saw the promises afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

They saw the promises afar off, dimly, on the horizon of their mental vision; as one looks into the distance and cannot tell whether what he sees be cloud or mountain. And until they could make up their minds that there was some substance in the vision, they did not embrace it. They were not credulous. Neither were they carelessly or heedlessly sure that there was and could be nothing in the vision but mist and fancy. They recognized that on their decision of the question hung the life of which they meant to make the very most. They looked again and again, and kept thinking about it. Thus they became and were "persuaded of them." And most people stop here with a merely intellectual faith in their heads, and very little in their hearts and lives. Not so these old heroes; they were not so purely and coldly intellectual that they could not _do_ anything. They "embraced them." They said, that is exactly what I want and need, and I'll have it, if it costs me my life.

Now a promise is always conditional; if you want one thing, you must give up something else. It involves a choice between alternatives; you can have either one freely, you cannot have both. It was to them as to Christ on the "exceeding high mountain," G.o.d or the world; G.o.d with the cross, or the world with Satan thrown in. And the same alternative confronts us.

Moses could be a good Jew or a good Egyptian. Most of us, while resolved to be excellent Jews at heart, would have said nothing about it, but remained sons of Pharaoh's daughter in order to benefit the Jews by our influence in our lofty station. We should have become miserable hybrids with all the vices and weaknesses of both races, but with none of the virtues of either. And for all that we should ever have done the Jews might have rotted in Egyptian bondage. Enlargement and deliverance would have arisen to the Jews from some other place; but we and our father's house would have been destroyed. By faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the children of G.o.d, etc. And certainly he did suffer for it.

They embraced the promises with their whole hearts. They were stoned and sawn asunder rather than give them up. And what was the effect on their characters? Having counted the cost, and being perfectly willing to accept any loss or pain for the sake of these promises, and hence inspired by them, they became sublime heroes. Through faith they "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. And others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they wandered about in sheepskins and in goatskins; being dest.i.tute, afflicted, tormented.

Of whom the world was not worthy." That is a faith worth having, and it is as sound philosophy as it is scripture.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises." Did they receive nothing? Moses and Elijah, Gideon and Barak gained power and heroism greater than we can conceive of. Surely that was enough. But they did not get the whole of the promise, or even the best of it. And the simple reason was that G.o.d cannot make a promise small enough to be completely fulfilled to a man in his earthly life. He gets enough to make him a king, but this does not begin to exhaust the promise. It is inexhaustible. This is the experience of anyone who will faithfully try it. And this experience is the grandest argument for immortality.

Therefore, "giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue ([Greek: arete], strength), and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance ([Greek: enkrateia], self-control), and to temperance patience ([Greek: hypomene], endurance), and to patience G.o.dliness, and to G.o.dliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity" (love).

And what of prayer? How can it be answered in a universe of law? We certainly could have no confidence that our prayers could or would be answered if ours were not a universe of law. G.o.d's laws are, as we have seen, his modes of working out his great plan. And the last and highest unfolding of G.o.d's plan is the development of man. And man is to become conformed to his environment, and conformity of man's highest powers to his environment is likeness to G.o.d.

The laws of nature, then, are in ultimate a.n.a.lysis and highest aim the different steps in G.o.d's plan of man's salvation from the disease of sin, not merely or mainly from its consequences, and his attainment of holiness. For this is the only true and sound manhood.

Salvation is spiritual health, resulting also in health of body and of mind. If G.o.d's laws are his modes of carrying out his plan for G.o.dlikeness in man, then they are so thought out as to be the means of helping me to every real good.

The Bible declares explicitly that the aim of prayer is not to inform G.o.d of our needs. For he knows them already. It is not to change G.o.d's purpose, for he is unchangeable, and we should rejoice in this. We are to pray for our daily bread; we are to pray for the sick; and, if best for them and consistent with G.o.d's plan, they shall recover. Elijah prayed for drought and prayed for rain, and was answered. And Abraham's prayer would have saved Sodom, had there been ten righteous men in the city. "Men ought alway to pray and not to faint."

"More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing G.o.d, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of G.o.d."

But could not all these things be brought about without a single prayer? Not according to the plan of man's education which G.o.d has adopted. Whether he could well have made a plan by which material blessings could have been bestowed upon men who do not ask for them, I do not know. The ravens and all animals are fed without a single prayer, for they are not fitted or intended to hold communion with G.o.d. But a prayerless race of men has never been fed long; it has soon ceased to exist. G.o.d's plan of salvation and ordering of the universe involves prayer as a means of blessing and good things as an answer to prayer. G.o.d says, I make you a co-worker with me. I will help you in everything; but you must call on me for help, or you will forget that I am the source of your help and strength, and thus having lost your communion with me will die. "When Jeshurun waxed fat he kicked." This is the oft-repeated story of the Old Testament and of all history. And thus, while material blessings are given in answer to prayer, these are not the chief end for which prayer is to be offered.

Prayer is a means of conformity to environment, of G.o.dlikeness. How do you become like a friend? Of course by a.s.sociating and talking with him. And why does it help you to a.s.sociate with a hero? Simply because you cannot be with him without being inspired with his heroism. And so while I may pray for bread and clothes and opportunities, and G.o.d will give me these or something better; I will, if wise, pray for purity, courage, moral power, heroism, and holiness. And I know that these will stream from his soul into mine like a great river. And so I may pray for bread and be denied; for hunger, with some higher good, may be far better for me than a full stomach. But if I pray for any spiritual gift, which will make me G.o.dlike, and on which as an heir of G.o.d I have a rightful claim, every law and force in G.o.d's universe is a means to answer that prayer. And best of all, if I pray for the gift of G.o.d's Spirit, that is the prayer which the whole world of environment has been framed to answer.

But this I can never have unless I hunger for it. I can never have it to use as a means of gaining some lower good which I wors.h.i.+p more than G.o.d. G.o.d will not and cannot lend himself to any such idolatry.

I must be willing to give up anything and everything else for its attainment. Otherwise the answer to the prayer would ruin me.

I cannot grasp the higher while using both hands to grasp the lower.

Thus religion is the interpenetration and permeation of my personality by that of G.o.d. And prayer is the communion by which this permeation becomes possible. And faith is the vision of these possibilities, the being persuaded by them, and the resolute purpose to attain them. And faith in Christ is confiding communion with him and obedience to his commands that his divine life may flow over into me and dominate mine. And common-sense, and the more refined common-sense which we call science, can show me no other means to the attainment of that G.o.dlikeness which is the only true conformity to environment.

And, holding such a belief and faith, we must be hopeful. And only next in importance to faith and love stands hope. The hero must be hopeful. And when times look dark about you, and they sometimes will, you must still hope.

"O it is hard to work for G.o.d, To rise and take his part Upon the battle-field of earth, And not sometimes lose heart!

"O there is less to try our faith In our mysterious creed, Than in the G.o.dless look of earth In these our hours of need.

"Ill masters good; good seems to change To ill with greatest ease; And, worst of all, the good with good Is at cross purposes.

"Workman of G.o.d! O lose not heart, But learn what G.o.d is like; And in the darkest battle-field Thou shalt know where to strike.

"Muse on his justice, downcast soul!

Muse, and take better heart; Back with thine angel to the field, Good luck shall crown thy part!

"For right is right, since G.o.d is G.o.d; And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin."

Hope on, be strong and of a good courage. For in the dark hours others will lean on you to catch your hope and courage. To many a poor discouraged soul you must be "a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Every power and force in the universe of environment makes for the ultimate triumph of truth and right. Defeat is impossible. "One man with G.o.d on his side is the majority that carries the day. 'We are but two,' said Abu Bakr to Mohammed as they were flying hunted from Mecca to Medina. 'Nay;'

answered Mohammed, 'we are three; G.o.d is with us.'"

And not only the race will triumph and regain the Paradise lost. The city of G.o.d shall surely be with men, and G.o.d will dwell with them and in them. But you and I can and shall triumph too.

We are p.r.o.ne to feel that the individual man is too insignificant a being to be the object of G.o.d's care and forethought. But we should not forget that it is the individual who conforms, and that the higher and n.o.bler race is to be attained through the elevation of individuals, one after another. G.o.d deals with races and nations as such. But his laws and promises are made almost entirely for the individuals of which these larger units are concerned.

But there is another standpoint from which we may gain a helpful view of the matter. I may be the meanest citizen of my native state, and my father may leave me heir of only a few acres of rocky land.

But, if my t.i.tle is good, every power in the state is pledged to put me in possession of my inheritance. They who would rob me may be strong; but the state will call out every able-bodied man, and pour out every dollar in its treasury before it will allow me to be defrauded of my legal rights. And it must do this for me, its meanest citizen, else there is no government, but anarchy, and oppression, and the rule of the strongest. And we all recognize that this is but right and necessary, and would be ashamed of our state and government were it not literally true.

If I travel in distant lands, my pa.s.sport is the sign that all the power of these United States is pledged to protect me from injustice. Think of the sensitiveness of governments to any wrong done to their private citizens. England went to war with Abyssinia to protect and deliver two Englishmen. And shall G.o.d do less? Can he do less? If it is only just and right and necessary for earthly governments to thus care for their citizens, shall not the ruler and "judge of all the earth do right?"

Now you and I are commanded to be heirs of G.o.d, to attain to likeness to him. This is therefore our legal right, guaranteed by him, for every command of G.o.d is really a promise. And he will exhaust every power in the universe before he allows anything to prevent us from gaining our legal rights, provided only that we are earnest in claiming them.

But if I alienate my rights to my inheritance, the commonwealth cannot help me. If I renounce my citizens.h.i.+p, the government of the United States can no longer protect me. And so I can alienate my "right to the tree of life," and to entrance into the city, and I can forfeit my heirs.h.i.+p to all that G.o.d would give me. "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princ.i.p.alities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of G.o.d, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." But I can alienate and make void every promise and t.i.tle, if I will or if I do not care. This is the unique glory, and awfulness of the human will. And we know that to them that love G.o.d all things work together for good. "If G.o.d is for us who is against us?" It must be so if G.o.d's laws are his modes of aiding men to conform to environment.

And what of the church? Is it anything else or other than a means of aiding man to conform to environment? If it fails of this, can it be any longer the church of G.o.d? The church is a means, not an end. And it is a means of G.o.dlikeness in man.

Some would make it a social club. The bond of union between its members is their common grade of wealth, social position, or intellectual attainments. And this idea of the church has deeper root in the minds of us all than we think. I can imagine a far better club than one formed and framed on this principle, but it is difficult for me to imagine a worse counterfeit of a church. Others make it a source of intellectual delectation, and the means of hearing one or two striking sermons each week. Such a church will conduce to the intelligence of its members, and may be rather more, though probably less, useful than the old New England Lyceum lecture system. Such a church is of about as much practical value to the world at large as some consultations of physicians are to their patients. The doctors have a most interesting discussion, but the patient dies, and the nature of the disease is discovered at the autopsy. Others still would make of the church a great railroad system, over which sleeping-cars run from the City of Destruction, with a coupon good to admit one to the Golden City at the other end.

The coaches are luxurious and the road-bed smooth. The Slough of Despond has been filled, the Valley of Humiliation bridged at its narrowest point, and the Delectable Mountains tunnelled. But scoffers say that most of the pa.s.sengers make full use of the unlimited stop-over privileges allowed at Vanity Fair.

The Bible would seem to give the impression that the church is the army of the Lord of Hosts, a disciplined army of hardy, heroic souls, each soldier aiding his fellow in working out the salvation which G.o.d is working in him. And it joins battle fiercely and fearlessly with every form of sin and misery, counting not the odds against it. And the Salvation Army seems to me to have conceived and realized to a great extent just what at least one corps in this grand army can and should be. And you and I can learn many a lesson from them.

The church is the body of which Christ is the head, and you and I are "members in particular." Let us see to it that we are not the weak spot in the body, crippling and maiming the whole. The church is the city of G.o.d among men, and we are its citizens, bound by its laws, loyal servants of the Great King, sworn to obey his commands and enlarge his kingdom, and repel all the a.s.saults of his adversaries. Thus the Bible seems to me to depict the church of G.o.d.

But what if the army contains a mult.i.tude of men who will not obey orders or submit to discipline? or if the city be overwhelmed with a ma.s.s of aliens, who see in its laws and inst.i.tutions mainly means of selfish individual advantage? Responsibility, not privilege, is the foundation of strong character in both men and inst.i.tutions. There was a good grain of truth in the old Scotch minister's remark, that they had had a blessed work of grace in his church; they had not taken anybody in, but a lot had gone out.