Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn Part 1

Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn.

by George Tybout Purves, et al.

Joy in Service

This is one of the sentences that dropped from the lips of Christ, which let us into his personal spiritual life and in some measure lay bare his mind. To be permitted thus to share his confidence is one of our greatest privileges. Viewing him from a distance, we may admire his character; viewing him in history, we may confess his incomparable power; viewing him when convincing us of our own sin, we may adore him as our Saviour; but we desire, and may have, a still more intimate acquaintance. He tells us about himself. He describes here and there his personal inner life. He permits us to share his secrets, and all that we otherwise feel of reverence, admiration, and grat.i.tude gives new value to these disclosures of the spiritual life of the G.o.d in man.

Now, in the words before us, Christ describes his joy in the service of the Father. They reveal a devotion so complete as to entirely control his mind. They reveal a soul so absorbed in doing the Divine will as to be insensible for the time to ordinary physical needs. They reveal a self-consecration which is absolute, and yet which is so spontaneous and glad as to be self-sustaining; so that Christ needed no other support in serving the Father than simply the opportunity of such service. We, on the contrary, require support to enable us to serve. We must be rewarded for our work, must be encouraged by sympathy, must be fed with promises and spiritual gifts, in order to be strong enough to do our duty. Christ found duty its own reward, service itself joy, obedience a source of renewed strength. His will was one with the Father's; and thus he discloses the, to us, marvelous spectacle of one who could truly say, Not my desire or my duty, or my purpose is, but my meat--my food--my source itself of life and strength--is to do the will of G.o.d, and to finish his work.

And yet our Lord Jesus was a very genuine man. He did not impress observers with the common insignia of holiness. It was the Pharisees, not Christ, who stood at the corners of the streets to make long prayers, who enlarged the borders of their phylacteries and chose the chief seats in the synagogues. It was the Baptist, not Jesus, who clothed himself in a garment of camel's hair and ate locusts and wild honey. Jesus, on the contrary, lived the outward life of other men, consorted with them in their usual places of resort, dressed and spake as they did; so that, in outward manner, it was impossible to distinguish him from the common ma.s.s in which he moved. All the more precious, therefore, is this revelation of his inner life. What a soul was his! The thought uppermost in his mind was devotion to the Father's will. The joy which most gladdened his lonely life was the joy of unknown, but sublime and perfect, obedience. He had been pointing a Samaritan woman, sitting by the wellside, to the salvation of G.o.d; and though she was but one, and that to human eyes an unworthy subject,--though she was a Samaritan and an open sinner,--his soul found such intense pleasure in bringing her--as the Father had sent him to bring men anywhere--to the knowledge of the truth, that fatigue and hunger were forgotten, and all his energies were absorbed in the delight of the task. In this I think Christ appears simply Divine. No later fame or success, no gaudy robes of human praise, no gilded crown of human admiration, are needed to adorn him. He discloses the very ideal of a G.o.dly life. All our poor efforts at obedience, all our faint aspirations after the knowledge and love of G.o.d, all our unfulfilled prayers, and falling flights, and unredeemed promises and sin-stained attempts to serve, confess the ideal perfectness of him who could truthfully say, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."

I. Let us first, then, draw a little closer to this peerless soul, in which there was such perfect sense of the worth of infinite things, and let us note more particularly, and appreciate as far as we are able, this phase of the character of the Son of Man.

I have said that Christ was a very natural man. But he was more than that. I am sure that none can study his character without admitting and admiring the perfect proportion in which truth evidently lay in his mind. This is one of the rarest beauties of character. Most of us are very one-sided. We can grasp but a part of truth; and in order to grasp that part firmly, we have to absolutely let other truth go. In order to be devoted to duty as we see it, we commonly have to leave other duties untouched. Our spiritual growth ought to take just this direction of including broader views of truth and duty, of obtaining a conception of life in which the various elements shall be held in their proper relations and proportions; no one allowed to eclipse the others, but each modified to a proper extent by the presence and influence of the rest. I say this is a rare achievement. No one but Christ has ever achieved it perfectly. It is easy to see that even the apostles, inspired as they were, did not equally appreciate all sides of revelation. They have their distinguis.h.i.+ng doctrines and points of view.

It is still easier to see that Christian churches and theologians differ for this same reason, and to a much greater extent. No creed, no church, no theology, that builds on the Word of G.o.d, can be wholly wrong. Its difference from others must lie in its partial appreciation of the truth, in its inability to take in all truths in their relative proportion. And so in literature and science and philosophy some men are impressed with material evidences, others with moral. Some men are poets, others are logicians; some critical, others dogmatic. The hope of the future for the Church and for humanity is in the slow approximation and combination of these partial views, until at last, "in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of G.o.d, we shall come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Meanwhile, at the beginning of our Christian history, Christ stands perfect. To see this is to appreciate his authority. As Paul said, He is the corner stone of the spiritual temple which the Divine Spirit is building.

I do not mean that he taught explicitly all the truth which later times have discovered, or which after him apostles taught. But he laid the living germs of all later religious truth, and he held them in such perfect proportion that when the long course of history shall be finished, when that which is in part shall have been done away, and that which is perfect shall have come, the result will be but the reproduction on a large scale of the already perfect stature of Christ.

And this is particularly manifested in Christ's views of life. His peerless spirituality did not make him an ascetic. His clear vision of the future did not lead him to despise the present. His love of G.o.d did not destroy his love of nature or of man. His hatred of sin did not cause him to shun the sinner. Hence, though our Lord was the model of a religious man, he was no enthusiast, still less a fanatic. The enthusiast is a man who sees but part of truth and magnifies it out of its proportion; and the fanatic is one who, in addition to this, hates what he cannot understand. According to Isaac Taylor, "Fanaticism is enthusiasm inflamed by hatred." But Christ exaggerated nothing and hated no man. He hated sin, but no sinner. His boundless, tender love itself prevented such moral distortion. And, therefore, he is the ideal or model of human life. We do not feel that in striving to imitate even his most spiritual qualities we shall become impractical or unnatural.

We do not feel this in the case of most other holy men. They become examples of one virtue by exaggerating it. But Christ never did this.

Lofty as the view of life was which he discloses in our text, sublime as was its spiritual consecration, it existed in him in harmony with the life which by its thoroughly human and practical features proves that we too, in at least some measure, can make even his highest traits our exemplars. Look, therefore, at this text which discloses his mind, and mark its princ.i.p.al elements.

1. There is first disclosed the strong and constant consciousness that he had a distinct errand in the world. He knew that he had been born for a purpose, that a divine aim was in his coming, and that a positive result would follow his life. This sense of a definite errand was expressed by him on numerous occasions; in some of them quite incidentally, and in others more directly. You remember how, as a boy in the temple, he said to his mother, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" You remember how, at the marriage in Cana, he said to her again, "My hour is not yet come." So with that precious phrase which on several occasions fell from his lips, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost." He regarded himself as one sent from G.o.d; and when his life was about over he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour is come; I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do."

So in our text, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." He was here on a special errand, and that errand was always before his mind. Earth was but a place of appointed work. Life was to him an office, a stewards.h.i.+p. He had this consciousness, even when he seemed to be accomplis.h.i.+ng nothing. It gave unity to all his acts and words. To Galilean peasants and to Jewish scribes he could speak with equal a.s.surance, because his errand was to both. Yet he knew its limitations. He said to the Syro-Phoenician woman, "I am not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He had come do a special work among the Jews, and in that a work for all mankind. He had not come to be glorified. He had not come to be ministered unto, but to minister. But he had come on a distinct errand; and whatever be your doctrine of Christ's person, you must confess that he considered himself no accident of history; that he did not regard his life work as originating in his own choice; that his sense of a mission did not come as an afterthought to him, or grow clear as he advanced in life. He felt his special errand from the start. It was always before his mind, so that life was to him the performance of a given task and the fulfillment of an a.s.signed duty.

2. But furthermore, our text discloses that, to Christ's mind, this errand of his in the world derived its sanct.i.ty from the fact that it was the will or wish of his Father. Every man is governed by some controlling motive or cla.s.s of motives. The lowest of all is the motive of personal gain and pleasure, and the sorrows and sins of men chiefly spring from the tyranny of this degraded pa.s.sion.

Higher than it is the motive of pity and compa.s.sion, which may lead us to do good for the sake of benefiting others. This is the spring of much charity and philanthropy, and, so far as it goes, it is of course to be commended. But there is a higher motive than even it, and Christ reveals it to us here. It is the wish to do G.o.d's will.

Such was his motive. To him the will of the Father was the perfect good. He knew of nothing n.o.bler than it, so that the whole energy of his character consisted in the force of obedience.

This phrase may carry us back to that time in the counsels of the G.o.dhead when, as we conceive such matters, the Father determined to save the world that had rebelled against him. The question was, where to find a Saviour; and the spirit of the Divine Son was manifested in his self-dedication to the work. He, too, loved man, but that was not his main motive. He loved the Father. He appreciated the Father's wish to save. He gave himself to carry out that wish. "Lo, I come," said he, "to do thy will, O G.o.d." Thus we may perceive, I think, the deep reality in the Divine Sons.h.i.+p of Christ; and certainly on earth this was his controlling motive. He was obedient even unto death. To obey to the very least particular the Father's will was the principle of his being. To him the Father's will was not hard, stern law, as we with our rebellious instincts so often regard it; it was the Father's wish. When love exists between two persons, the will of one it is the other's joy to do, if possible. Love impels to its accomplishment. Love rejoices in being of service, in giving the loved one pleasure, in carrying out the other's desire. So the will of G.o.d was, to Christ, his Father's wish. Obedience was the mainspring of his soul's life, and his errand in the world derived its sanct.i.ty and its glory--in spite of man's antagonism and in spite of apparent fruitlessness--from the fact that it was the will of G.o.d. In this Christ discloses the very highest spiritual life which it is possible to conceive. How marvelous was this! He who has won the greatest influence over the race, he before whom the head bows in adoration, he who has changed already the course of history, and will change it until every knee has bowed to him, was one whose supreme wish was to be an obedient Son. Instead of conquering by selfishness he conquered by self-abnegation. Instead of doing his own work, he gave himself up to doing his Father's. Here is at once a miracle of history and a model of life of which man would never have dreamed.

3. As a consequence of all this we can perceive in the language of the text Christ's joy in the discovery of a special opportunity of carrying out the highest purpose of the Father's will. It would seem that his meeting with the Samaritan woman awakened almost a state of excitement in his mind. It lifted him above the reach of physical desires. This I suppose was because he recognized in that meeting an opportunity of doing what he knew was dearest to his Father's heart. His errand was to ultimately save the world, and now he was engaged in saving at least one soul. No doubt his devotion to the Father's will sustained him, even in the darkest hour. When the will of G.o.d consigned him to the hatred of men, to the rejection of the people, to the bitter sorrow of the cross, he could bow his head in humble compliance and say, "Thy will, not mine, be done." But he knew well that the Father willed his sorrows in order to the world's salvation, and that the object dearest to the Father's heart was the recovery of lost souls. He himself has told us of the angels' joy over such. And he has described the whole object of his appearing to man by these matchless words: "G.o.d so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." And therefore his love of G.o.d the Father, no less than his love of man, made him hail with especial joy such an opportunity as this. We may fairly say that Christ followed the lead of providence. He did himself what he requires of us; he was quick to recognize opportunities. He heard in them a divine call; and by all his sense of his mission among men, by all his desire to please the Father, did he hail the rising faith of that Samaritan and rejoice in bringing to her the message of salvation. Hence I say his evident excitement, if we may use the phrase. Hence his obliviousness to hunger. Hence his forgetfulness of his former fatigue. "Lift up your eyes," he cried to his disciples, "and look on the fields, for they are white already unto harvest." The Father's will would be accomplished, and in the joy of service his soul found its food. He wanted nothing else. Such fruitful obedience was to him its own reward.

I say again, therefore, what a spiritual life was this! Praise itself seems almost to defile it. It was perfect. It was sublime. Thus can we understand his sinlessness. We can imagine no higher ideal; and marvelous to say, here was the ideal realized. We cannot wonder any longer that over this Jesus of Nazareth G.o.d should say, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

II. And now, while admiring, we are to ask if it is possible for us to imitate in principle this spiritual life, of which the Master gave so fine an example. Possibly, you may say, we may imitate some of the least remarkable traits, but scarcely this. And yet this lies at the root and soul of the rest: imitation of them is but external and spurious if it does not reach this. Only by this can we have real fellows.h.i.+p with him.

We are met at the outset by man's natural reluctance to even think of regarding the will of G.o.d as aught but repulsive. Very often objection is openly made to the spiritual view expressed by Christ. G.o.d, it is said, must surely want to educate us into the love of virtue and truth for their own sakes. He does not want merely to conquer us, to break our wills by superior power. He wants to lead us to share his own spirit and life; and, therefore, would not ask us to submit merely to his will. To train men, therefore, to merely obey is not so n.o.ble as to train men to reason, or to love truth and righteousness for their own sakes. But we reply that we should attain to the most exalted love of truth and righteousness and every other n.o.ble thing in no way so well as through loyalty to G.o.d. Certainly G.o.d does not want to merely conquer us by force, but of all things in the world that is the one not exhibited in Jesus Christ. His was the obedience of love. It sprang from his admiration of the Father's nature. And so must ours. G.o.d has laid us under immeasurable obligations of grat.i.tude. He has condescended to reveal himself to us. He has given proof of his wisdom, his love, his holiness, his righteousness. And, therefore, the will of G.o.d is no arbitrary commandment. It is the wish of our dearest Friend.

It is the direction given from the world's Pilot. It is the direction of infinite wisdom and righteousness and love; and to be devoted to his will is but to be confident that all his glorious attributes are being expressed for our guidance.

And then, what should we say of one who seeks after truth and righteousness, and yet does not yield obedience to him who is the source of all things--the truth, the righteousness? We should probably conclude that his search was a fancy, his aspiration an illusion. No!

What we need is to love the Lord our G.o.d with all our heart, to feel that he is the wisest, the most lovely--the embodiment and the source of all other wisdom and goodness; the Sun by which the other planets s.h.i.+ne, by whose rays the world of nature receives its life and beauty.

We need to love G.o.d supremely; and if we do, then the will of G.o.d will seem to us always good, even as it did to Christ.

"Man's weakness, waiting upon G.o.d, Its end can never miss; For men on earth no work can do More angel-like than this.

"He always wins who sides with G.o.d.

To him no chance is lost; G.o.d's will is sweetest to him when It triumphs at his cost.

"Ill that he blesses is our good, And unblessed good our ill; And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be his sweet will."

Let man behold, through Christ, the infinite Father, the source of all life and blessedness and good, and man will put G.o.d first, and find his highest glory in acting out the prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

But even so, we are met by the further difficulty that, unlike Christ, we are not always sensible of being sent on any special errand into the world. We lose what aim we have, amid the diversities of toil to which we are compelled. We lose what breadth of view we have, amid the mult.i.tude of trifles of which our lives are composed. We can imagine Christ's sense of his mission, and how it could absorb him; but what in our lots can correspond? It may indeed be true that, unlike Christ, you have no clear idea of why G.o.d sent you into the world. Few have, but it would seem to quite remove G.o.d from actual government of the world to say that, therefore, he had no purpose. That glowing picture which the apostle paints of the rising temple should forbid the doubt. Every stone has its place and is needed. It may need to be broken and hewn, to be polished; it may be hid in an unseen place within the wall; no man may notice it. But the Builder meant it to be there, and it contributes its share to the work before which the ages of eternity shall fall in wonder; that work which is to manifest to the princ.i.p.alities and powers in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of G.o.d. We may dismiss the doubt therefore, since G.o.d is G.o.d. We have been made and sent here for a purpose. G.o.d's will is meaning to use us, and it is our duty and privilege now to carry out, as far as possible, that will of him that sent us, so far as he has made it known. And certainly, brother man, enough of the Father's will is made known to teach us our work.

We may rejoice to do his will as revealed _in conscience_. He has placed within the soul of man a guide which, within certain limits, and as applied to special acts and circ.u.mstances, infallibly indicates his will. So far as it acts, no man can say he is ignorant; and the true child of G.o.d will give heed and say, "This is the will of G.o.d."

Conscience will itself be re-enforced by being so regarded; and it is practically impossible to question conscience, as to most of the practical duties of life, without plainly hearing, "This is the way."

But we may further rejoice to do his will as revealed _in Scripture_.

Here he has gone beyond the starlight of conscience and flooded the world with the sunlight of his revelation. The Scriptures contain the will of G.o.d for our salvation. They speak in no doubtful tone. We may be as certain as Jesus was what the will of the Father is. Paul called himself an apostle "by the will of G.o.d"; so may we. "This is the work of G.o.d, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." It is the will of G.o.d that we trust him, that we serve him, that we be holy as he is holy, that we extend his knowledge. These are as absolute commands as are those of the Decalogue; and the true child will take this revelation for his guidance, and by its light will try to carry out his Father's will.

But you may say, "Much of this direction is general, it is not specific.

What is the specific will of G.o.d for me?" I answer therefore, finally, that we may, like Christ, rejoice to do his will as revealed _in providence_. I have tried to show that even Christ followed where the Father led, embraced opportunities, met new circ.u.mstances, prepared for "the hour." And certainly we are to do so. The will of G.o.d for each one of us is unfolded by the events of life. These are not causeless. They are not a chance medley of good and bad. G.o.d rules: not a sparrow falls without him. And therefore, as providence unrolls the will of G.o.d for us, the true child is to accept and obey. Now he brings an opportunity; now he lays a burden. Now he tries us with prosperity; now with sorrow.

Now he sends us into battle and temptation; now he lays us on beds of pain and idleness. Now he wounds, and now he heals; the way opens under his Divine guidance. It may lift us up, it may cast us down. As with Christ, I say, so with us. It may give us a soul to save, it may cause our plans to be rejected, it may lead to Gethsemane, it may translate us to glory; but in all it is the will of him that sent us, the work he has for us to do. In all, infinite wisdom, the Father's goodness, and eternal righteousness move. He shows the way, and man's highest privilege--yea, man's strength and food--is to do his will, because we love and trust and adore him so entirely that what he wishes, that we are glad to do.

I hold, therefore, before us Christ's joy in service as not beyond our power to imitate; and I ask if conscience and reason do not testify that this is the loftiest ideal in life which we can have. When we reach heaven, this will be realized. But here, in the desert, now, in this world of sin, is the time to begin. I do not show you so exalted a Jesus as to put him beyond the reach of imitation. He came to make us like himself. And I ask if any other ideals of life can compare with this--if they are not poor and mean--if this does not soar above them.

You claim to seek n.o.bility and greatness and victory. Here they are.

Come, learn from Jesus the love of G.o.d. Let it win your heart; and as at his feet you look in that infinite, eternal sea of love, whose depths are fathomless and whose billows break on the sh.o.r.es of time--that love of G.o.d to man out of which Christ came to save our souls by death--as you gaze on it, rise with this resolve: "By thy grace, O Christ, I too will joy to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."

FORGETTING, AND PRESSING FORWARD.

_"Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of G.o.d in Christ Jesus."_--PHILIPPIANS 3:13, 14.

FORGETTING, AND PRESSING ONWARD.

We are not to take the first part of this text too literally, nor press the apostle's words too closely. He certainly did not mean to say that he had forgotten all his past life and blotted out the memory of all that lay behind him. The Bible must be interpreted naturally, as you would interpret the language of ordinary writers. If we were to take texts =out of their connections and press the literal meaning of every clause and word, we would soon make the book a bundle of contradictions and reduce it to an actual absurdity. Unfortunately this has sometimes been done, and not a few of the differences of opinion which believers of the Bible have among themselves arise from such false and unreasonable methods of interpretation. So, as I have said, Paul did not mean that he had really forgotten the things that lay behind him.

In fact, he refers again and again to his past life and experience. In this very chapter he relates his pedigree. Often he refers to his state of mind before he became a Christian--to his spiritual unrest and vain efforts after peace. Still oftener does he recount the story of his conversion, and hold himself up to all ages as a miracle of grace and a monument of Divine mercy. He was very far, therefore, from having forgotten the way along which he had been led. It had been too momentous both for himself and others. It had been too full of both storm and suns.h.i.+ne not to be worth remembering. It had written, as with a pen of steel, lessons of law and love upon the soul of the apostle, and in characters too deep ever to be obliterated.

What, then, did Paul mean when he here describes himself as "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before"? He meant his language to be understood comparatively and relatively. He was thinking chiefly of the new life which had been opened before him by Jesus Christ, and of the enthusiasm and devotion with which he pursued it. He likens himself to a contestant in a foot-race, whose eye is bent on the track before him, not on that behind his back--who is ever measuring in thought the distance yet to be traveled until the prize is won. He meant, therefore, that he was so absorbed in the new pursuits and duties given him by Jesus Christ that his past life was comparatively forgotten. He did not mourn the honors in the Jewish Church which he had lost by becoming a Christian. He did not dwell upon the anger of his Hebrew friends, now that he had the friends.h.i.+p of Christ himself. He did not regret the sacrifice he had made, since a better reward had been bestowed upon him. He did not let past troubles hamper present actions, nor past successes cause him to rest upon his laurels, nor past services satisfy him, nor past losses embitter him. He turned resolutely to the future. He pushed ahead in his divinely appointed way. He let the dead past bury its dead, while he was absorbed in the living present and the coming future. Speaking relatively, in comparison with the absorbing business of his life, he could say, "Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things that are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of G.o.d in Christ Jesus."

Thus understood, St. Paul's language becomes exceedingly suggestive of things that it is worth our while to forget, and the way in which we should forget them. Like him, we are not required to blot out the remembrance of the past. There could be no improvement if we did not remember past mistakes and profit by them. It is often our sweetest joy and highest pride to think of the days that are no more, of the wondrous history of mankind, of our own journey as Providence has led us on, and above all things, of him whom we are to hold in everlasting remembrance. But we must keep life's balance true. Some people are always living among the gravestones, regretting what is now inevitable, mourning over losses that cannot be repaired, thinking the days of old better than those which are to be--and wasting their energies in sorrowful reminiscences and wistful longings for a perished past, instead of using their energies in the accomplishment of what may be done for the winning of better crowns. It is against this practice that the apostle's experience warns. This practice makes progress impossible. It is a source of misery. It fetters the Christian mind. It does not know that the resurrection has taken place. It makes life a threnody instead of a hosanna. We are to turn from the past that we may obtain the better future. Let me give you an example of the way in which we are to forget the things which are behind, and reach forth unto those things that are before.

I. It is worth our while to forget old doubts and questionings, through absorption in the practical application of the truth brought us by Jesus Christ. Most of the doubts and questionings which men have on the subject of religion are very old. Their hair is gray with the anxious thought of many centuries. They may be represented by old men, with wrinkled foreheads and feeble knees, pretending by dress and manner to be young. But you would be surprised to find how old they are, these questions that disturb your religious faith and hinder you from the performance of your whole duty.

There, for instance, is that weary question about the reason why G.o.d allowed sin and misery to enter into his world--a question which men are still pondering, under which they are still restless and sometimes unhappy. But lo! it is as old as human history. The ancient Brahmins wrestled with it. We find it echoed in the hymns of Chaldea that date from the days of Abraham, in the songs of Greece, and in the literature of the age of Solomon; and neither philosophy nor science, neither discovery nor accident, has to this day been able to frame a satisfactory answer.

In like manner the question how to harmonize in thought the absolute sovereignty of G.o.d, who ruleth over all and designed the end from the beginning, with the freedom and responsibility of man, is an ancient problem which no answer has been found able to finally solve. Hindoo philosophy settled it by fatalism, making man nothing and deities all.

Greek thought vibrated between the two extremes; and from the beginning of Christian history the problem has vexed the ingenuity and taxed the patience of the Church. It is not peculiar to Calvinism. It is a problem which has ever risen up before inquiring minds and baffled the wisdom of the greatest who have grappled with it.