FOR the individual and the community alike the deepest influences are
expressed in life rather than words, yet it remains true that through
the symbols of spoken thought life must again and again come to
expression. In former days this was realised in the value set upon
prophecy, if we may use the word in its broadest and highest sense, as
the forth-telling, in the language of human thought, of the Divine will
present behind our lives and at work amid the world.
One of the changes that strike one most in organized Christianity
to-day, compared with the Church of earlier times, is the general
absence of prophecy in this sense, in all but very occasional crises.
The prophetic instinct is not dead indeed, but men find its highest
manifestations rather outside the Church of earlier times. The leaders
of the Church have been too often content to repeat the messages of the
prophets of a former day rather than to seek for a living voice within
their midst. Yet those who know anything of the life of the Church from
within, judged not merely by this incomplete [p.34 ]expression, but seen
as it affects the daily lives of countless men and women, must surely
agree that in spite of all the trammels of convention and tradition the
Church has still a life to pass on and a message to deliver for the
needs of to-day. Those who would have it become once more the school of
the prophets will surely be willing to look for a few moments at the
picture which has come down to us of what place prophecy filled in the
Church life of the earliest days, and how the prophet was supplanted,
not killed, as some have thought, by the priest, but rather silenced by
the iron grip of organization.
In the fourteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians is
preserved for us a picture the meetings of an early Christian Church,
full of interest to the historian.
It is clear from this description that an important part was usually
taken in these gatherings by men who gave to their fellow worshippers
what they believed to be God's message or revelation to them. This was
something quite distinct from the recitation of a hymn or a passage of
Scripture, or from the interpretation of scripture, or again from the
teaching of doctrine. It is regarded by the Apostle Paul as the highest
spiritual gift, one earnestly to be desired, although it was not given
to all, but only to some. Of the nature of this ministry we get a
glimpse in his description of the way in which an unbeliever who enters
the assembly is convinced by it. [p.35] The ministry goes to his inmost
self, reading the needs of his heart.
"If all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one
unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the
secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he
will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.[3] <#_edn3>
The message of prophecy is one, as it seems, which reaches the
subconscious self of the incomer, who suddenly beholds the realities of
his own inner life in this flood of light that flows in upon him,
piercing through the veil that custom and convention had wrought about
him. But the prophetic word does not merely give this fuller knowledge
of his own nature to the stranger; it puts him also into touch with a
higher self. He sees in a flash of revelation not only the evil in his
own life, but the source of power to set it right, here in the midst of
this assembly, and bowing himself before it he confesses the Divine
Presence.
If we ask how this prophetic ministry is conceived as coming to those
who exercise it, it would seem from the words of the Apostle that it is
not by exercise of the intellect that prophecy comes, though the
understanding is to be cultivated in connection with another highly
prized gift, that of teaching. But the Corinthians are urged to long
after the gift of prophecy most of all; they [p.36] are to prepare
themselves for it, then, by prayer, the door through which our life
opens out into the Divine life and is fed from it. The teacher thinks
over what he knows of the needs and difficulties of his fellows, ponders
over the truths that have been made clear to him in the past, searches
amongst the sayings of the Lord, the teachings of the Apostles, the
words of the Law or the prophets of old, for help for the present. Not
so the prophet. He may, indeed, go through all this preparation of
thought, but the essential preparation for his work is prayer; prayer in
which he must be willing to lay aside, if need be, all these thoughts of
this. The prophetic spirit reaches out to realize the condition of those
to whom it is to minister, and upward in search of light and strength
from its only source.
Sometimes it is not given to the prophet to reach conscious hold of Him
by whom we are all upheld, and then all his ministry may be but a cry
for help, with a deep sense of need. Sometimes he feels the presence
very near, and as he keeps close to the Father's hand, those about him
are given to feel it too.
Or, perhaps, some word of the Lord, or some thought of other days is
suddenly illumined by a fresh light, and his message is to hand on the
fire from the altar, that those about him may light their torches too.
The prophet is God's spokesman. He must lose thought of himself in his
message. He is [p.37] translating for others and to others in the
presence of the Giver of the message. He must keep in touch with those
to whom he is speaking. He must remember too how easy it is for
interpreters to expand and embroider upon the original, and thus to mar
it. And, therefore, the prophet should keep very close to the Giver of
the message, who may have given to others its fuller exposition.
One danger of the prophets of Corinth was very present to St. Paul's mind.
Some of them seem to have got so wrapt up in a sense of the Divine
communion that they did not keep that control of their whole nature,
which would lead them to find expression in the language of
intelligence. Carried away by their feelings they gave utterance to the
experience of their spirit in words broken and unintelligible, the
channels of word and thought over which their brains had control seemed
too small for the flood of emotion which swept out in overmastering
power, so that their tongues moved and they spoke without knowing what
they said. Paul knew better than any of them the hidden things of the
Spirit, the groanings that cannot be uttered, the thoughts that flash
upon us and cannot be caught up by our halting reason, following slowly
after, the striving of the soul that no words can compass, the God-given
intuitions which cannot be imprisoned in words.
But he knew too that language was given us not for the joy of expressing
what we feel but as [p.38] a means of sharing our experience with
others. To speak with an unknown tongue, to abandon oneself to the
ecstasy of the moment, may be right for our own life, he writes, but it
is useless for our fellows. We must not be content to soar up ourselves
into the world of life and light, we must try to bring back into our
world of sense some symbols of the truths of the world beyond,
imprisoning in words which men may understand fragments of the truths
which can never wholly be expressed in words.
At times the message burns so within the prophet's breast that he feels
he must speak, no matter what is happening about him. Thus it seems that
sometimes at Corinth two or three prophets would speak at once, and mar
each other's messages. But this was to lose sight of their true place,
to forget that the message was given them that others might receive it.
The prophet, he writes, is still master of his own spirit: he is not to
allow his reason to lose its right control. He has to use his
intelligence in deciding when he is to speak and when he must hold
silence. He has not to let his conscious self be submerged in the
sub-conscious, like an island beneath the waves of the surrounding sea;
rather is he to gather on to its dry land the goods the waves have
brought him, before he sends them forth again to other shores. In this
way may the Divine message not only bring help to him but comfort to all
to whom it is sent. [p.39] Thus the picture of the Church of Corinth and
St. Paul's advice for its needs is one to which men may look who are
seeking to-day for that true prophetic ministry which seemed to the
Apostle the most important of the gifts of the Spirit to the Christian
Church.
It may help us too to consider how far that gift has been present
throughout the succeeding ages, and how far it has been hindered by the
Church from finding its true exercise.
When next we get a glimpse of the Church at Corinth, more than a
generation has passed away, and probably few of those who were members
when St. Paul wrote are still alive. The majority of the church is in
disagreement with its Elders or Bishops, and has deposed them from their
positions; and the Bishop of Rome, Clement writes in the name of his
church, in reply to some letter from the Corinthians, to urge them to be
reconciled, and give once more the honour that is their due to these
worthy presbyters. The first epistle of Clement is a long and beautiful
letter, and enters with tact and deep concern into a discussion of the
dissension that is troubling the peace of the Corinthians, but it makes
no mention whatever of the place of prophecy in the Church. The word
prophet does occur twice in the epistle, but only in reference to the
Old Testament.
At the same time it is clear that Clement is very sensible of the
importance of the position of [p.40] the bishops or presbyters, though
it is not quite clear whether these are wholly distinct offices.
Apparently the Church at Corinth was trying, in the spirit of Greek
democracy, to dispense with its church officers. Clement tells them [4]
how the Apostles went about setting up bishops and deacons
amongst the first fruits of their converts in different cities; these
offices had even been foreseen ages before, he notes, by the prophet
Isaiah (Ix. 17). [5] <#_edn5>
It was not right, he urges, that men who had been appointed by the
apostles and afterwards by other men of renown, with the consent and
approval of the whole Church, who had fulfilled their duties without
blame, should now be cast out of their offices.
If we turn to another group of letters, written some twelve years later
by Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome, we find, again,
that the only references to prophets and prophecy deal with old
Testament days, but that the greatest importance is set by Ignatius upon
the relations of the Church to its Bishop: "Do all of you," he bids the
Church of Smyrna, [6] "follow the Bishop, as Jesus Christ the
Father, and follow the College of Presbyters as the Apostles, and give
heed to the deacons as God's commandment. Let no man do anything of
those things that appertain to the Church apart from the Bishop. Let
that Eucharist be accounted valid that is under the authority of the
Bishop or of him to whomsoever he himself entrusts it. Wheresoever the
Bishop appeareth there let the multitude be, even as wheresoever Christ
Jesus is there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful apart from the
Bishop either to baptise or to hold an Agape, but whatsoever he approves
that is also well pleasing to God; that all that is done may be safe and
valid." (According to present Catholic doctrine even a woman may validly
baptize.)
We see at once that it would not be easy to fit into such an ordered
Church as this prophets like those of the earliest Church in Corinth.
But while in most of the larger towns the churches had been developing
along lines like these it would seem that at the same time there were
out of the way places in which a much more primitive tradition was
preserved.
We can get some idea of this from the passages in the Didache which
refer to prophets and travelling apostles.
Two whole chapters of this ancient book of teaching (xi. and xiii.) are
devoted to this subject, whereas only the briefest mention is made of
bishops and deacons, and in these words, "Elect then for yourselves
bishops and deacons, worthy of the Lord, men gentle and not money
loving, true and tested, for they too themselves offer to you the
service of the prophets and teachers; [p.42] "Despise them not then, for
these are they who are honoured of you along with the prophets and
teachers."
Thus it would seem that the bishops and deacons are chosen by the Church
for its work, perhaps in default of sufficiency of prophets and
teachers, to do the work which these would do, and they seem at least to
need, in the writer's eyes, to be supported by an appeal which he would
not think of making on behalf of the prophet and teacher whose messages
carry within themselves their authority. That the true prophet stands,
in his eyes, above the human ordering of the church, seems clear too,
from the section which gives instructions as to the words (and very
beautiful words they are too) of the eucharistic prayer (ch. x.). At the
conclusion of this model prayer the writer adds: "but allow the prophets
to offer thanks as much as they choose."
Warning of almost naive simplicity is given against dangers from false
prophets. Apparently the temptation to emotional enthusiasm is not
before the writer's mind, as it was before Paul's in writing to Corinth.
The travelling evangelist, or apostle, as he is called, is to be
received "as the Lord," but if he stay for as long as three days he is
to be recognised as a false prophet. The readers are warned not to judge
the prophet who speaks in the spirit, this being treated as the sin
against the Holy Ghost.
"But not every man who speaks in the spirit [p.43] is a prophet," the
writer goes on," but only if he have the ways of the Lord," thus making
the character of Christ the objective standard by which prophets are judged.
"From their ways then shall the false prophet and the prophet be known,
and every prophet who appoints a feast in the spirit does not eat of it,
unless, indeed, he be a false prophet, and every prophet who teaches the
truth, if he does not do that which he teaches, is a false prophet." The
readers are warned against judging the prophet who does some strange
symbolic act for the edification of the Church without bidding others to
do as he does," for even thus also did the ancient prophets." "But whoso
saith in the spirit Give me money, or any other things, to him ye shall
not hearken; but if he speak concerning others who are in need, and bids
men give, let no man judge him" (ch. xi.). The true prophet who is
willing to settle amongst them is worthy of his keep, they are told, and
so is the true teacher; "and so," the writer continues, "ye shall take
every first- fruit of the produce of your wine-press and threshing
floor, of your oxen and of your flocks, and shall give to the prophets,
for they are your high priests.
"But if ye have not a prophet give to the poor; and so likewise with
bread, oil and wine, with
money, clothes and all other things" (ch. xiii.).
Here we have, perhaps, the hint of a transitional stage between the
early church of Corinth and the churches of Clement and Ignatius. The
prophet [p.44] has the first place of honour and next to him the teacher
but all churches have not their prophet, and in these bishops and
deacons must act in the place of prophets and teachers, and be honoured
as such, while in other churches the prophets and teachers were treated
as a sort of Christian priest, and one may see how their work came to be
regarded as a regular church office and gradually assimilated, in church
after church to the offices customary in the larger congregations like
Rome and Antioch. As time passes the place of the prophet is more and
more taken by the bishop, and by the end of the second century it would
seem, that, for such a bishop of the Church Catholic as Apollinaris of
Hierapolis, the prophet was a memory of the distant past.
The Montanist movement in Phrygia had owed its strength to the appeal
which it made to the prophetic tradition and the prophetic spirit. In
the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Phrygian convert Montanus had gone
into prophetic ecstasies which shocked the more orderly members of the
church, and a separation ensued, in which Montanus was joined by two
prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla; they continued for some time, it
would seem, to appeal to those within the greater church to recognise
them, for a fragment of Maximilla which is preserved to us, runs thus:
"I am chased like a wolf from the flock; I am wolf, I am utterance,
spirit and power." (Eusebius v.§ 16). [p. 45]
Some, like Tertullian, listened; but the Church, as a whole, was
frightened at the excesses of their enthusiasm and probably, as a
result, prophecy became more than ever suspect. Irenaeus, it is true,
mentions amongst the Divine gifts still given to Christians in his day,
that some have the knowledge of things to come, as also visions and
prophetic communications (Eus. v. § 7), but this certainly does not
imply any frequent and general gift like that in the early church of
Corinth.
His contemporary Alcibiades, indeed, writes a book to demonstrate the
impropriety of a prophet's speaking in ecstasy, which Apollinaris
abridged (Eus. v. § 17). The good bishop of Hierapolis was very earnest
in his attack against the Montanists: "They will never be able to show,"
he writes, "that any in the Old or New Testament were thus violently
agitated and carried away in spirit. Neither will they be able to boast
that Agabus or Judas or Silas or the daughters of Phillip or Ammia, in
Philadelphia, or Quadratus or others, that do not belong to them, ever
acted in this way." It is very significant that the latest examples of
eminent prophets in the Church here named, are Quadratus and Ammia.
Ammia appears to be unknown to Eusebius, who alludes to her in this
chapter as "one Ammia," but Quadratus he has mentioned in a previous
book as a prophet contemporary with Ignatius, in these words: "Of those
that flourished in these times Quadratus is said to have been
distinguished for his prophetical gifts. There [p.46] were many others
also noted in these times who held the first rank in the apostolic
succession." (iii. § 37); whether this Quadratus is to be identified
with the philosopher who wrote an apology for Christianity to Hadrian
(iv.§ 3) is uncertain.
It seems from the words of Apollinaris, which Eusebius goes on to quote
(v. § 17), that the Montanists claimed that their prophets and
prophetesses were the successors of Ammia and Quadratus, but Maximilla
had now been dead for some years, and the bishop challenges his
opponents to point to any living prophet who had succeeded her: "And if
you have no succession of prophets then," he urges, "you must give up
your claim to represent the Christian Church. (For the apostle shows
that the gift of prophecy shall be in all the church until the coming of
the Lord)." What would have been the bishop's answer if the Montanists
had turned on him with the demand that he, too, should produce his
living prophets within the pale of the great church? In view of what he
has told us, may we not believe that his answer would be somewhat on
this wise: "The gift of prophecy has never been removed from the church;
though it may be dormant as far as such prophecies as those of Quadratus
are concerned, it may be called forth again at any time by the Divine
will, and will be recognised at once by the bishops, who are the
divinely appointed authorities, without whose approval no true prophet
will act. And if there be no such prophets [p.47] now, in any church,
the bishop takes their place, expounding as is fit the will of the Lord
to the people, and guided himself by the Holy Spirit"? How are we to
explain this remarkable change that we have thus witnessed, and was it
the necessary and right development of the Church which led to it?
To those who know how, in the seventeenth century, another experiment
was begun, which after nearly nine generations, is not yet ended, in the
holding together of religious communities of which an essential feature
has always been the freedom of prophesying, it may, at first sight, seem
easy to reply that the change was no necessary one.
One would not say that they were wrong, for who can say what might not
have been, if men had only been faithful to their highest ideals, and
been willing always to take the rough and narrow way that leads straight
up to the heavenly city? But we shall, perhaps judge more fairly if we
think how very much greater were the difficulties that beset the
Christian organisms of the first and second centuries, than those, great
as they were, with which George Fox had to grapple. He had, it is true,
to deal with companies of men and women, amongst whom were enthusiasts
or individualistic quietists, who would brook no discipline, and many of
them were poor and very ignorant folk; but how different in many cases
was a church of the first century. Imagine a [p.48] community of varying
nationalities, containing a number of slaves, many of them illiterate
people, others degraded by their past life to the lowest depths; men and
women rescued from lives of terrible evil and still under constant
temptation to fall back; a number of Christian Jews with strange
oriental customs and traditions, half- familiar only with the language
and civilisation of their adopted town; a few men, possibly, of higher
social position and greater education, but the majority only able to
communicate with each other by a lingua franca of bad Greek, which was
the native tongue only of a small minority. One can see what a babel of
confusion might easily arise amongst such a community, especially when
we remember that many had but an imperfect knowledge of Christ and His
teaching, and very few churches possessed all the works which we have in
our New Testament.
Moreover, a great change had come from the days of Paul's letter to the
Corinthians. That little church was then still living in the days when
the Christians as such were tolerated by the law. Gallio's decision had
removed the church at Corinth from any need to observe secrecy.
But after two generations the position had wholly changed, and to be a
Christian was a penal offence which, if adhered to, was punishable with
death. This necessarily involved a need for greater precaution, for more
order and wise management in the assembling of the Church. [p.49] And in
the early days when the churches lived in constant expectation of the
immediate end of the age and the outward coming of Christ to set up His
Kingdom, they would naturally lay little stress on church order; the
struggle of the church militant was but to last a brief time more; there
was no need for much organisation, or for any other connection between
one church and another than the friendly ties of love. One church might
have its prophets and teachers, another only presbyters or a bishop and
deacons; others of larger size and needs might have ail these officers
together with deaconesses and widows. But no one was anxious about such
differences. Travelling apostles and evangelists formed living links of
love betwixt church and church, and occasionally, individuals and
churches sent letters to each other. No other bond was needed.
But when it became slowly more evident that the Church might yet have to
continue long years at work in the world before the consummation came,
and when it seemed to the leaders that they had to fight a life and
death struggle, on the one hand against the vast force of the world
empire of Rome, whenever a persecuting edict might be enforced, and on
the other against a growing crowd of strange errors, which seemed to
them to be sent by the Devil to delude the hearts of the faithful, and
draw them away from the Gospel of Christ; can we wonder that they did
their best to draw the scattered communities of [p.50] Christians to a
sense of unity under a like organization, adapted for a strenuous fight
to preserve the good order of the Church from being shattered by
persecutions from without or broken up and corrupted by false or
mistaken brethren from within. And often, too, especially under the fire
of persecution, something of the true prophetic spirit showed itself in
the bishops themselves, as they admonished their fellow believers to be
faithful even unto death, and beheld, amidst the shadow of death,
visions of the deep things of God. Very true is this of Ignatius, whose
letters breathe forth again and again the fiery faith and zeal of the
true prophet, with flashes now and then of great and Christlike thoughts
that still shine like gems amid the dust of pious exposition and
mistaken exegesis that even first century Christian literature shares as
a characteristic with our own. In the letter which he wrote to his
friend Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, one sees how intensely he felt the
importance of a bishop's work for the life of the Church, how great the
need was for gifted and holy men to fill such posts and what true help
such men were able to give to the struggling communities for whom they
lived and whom they served. Ignatius, for all his exaltation of the
bishop's office, is full of humanity, feeling his own unworthiness and
regarding himself as the servant of his church. As we hear him urging
upon Polycarp to do his best to save all his flock, to put up with them
all, even as Christ bears with [p.51] him, to love not just the good
disciples but rather more especially the worse, and to conquer them by
gentleness, to stand like a rock against false teaching, to care for the
widows and not to overlook the slaves, we feel indeed how high the task
of such a bishop was; and with both Ignatius and Polycarp, as with
countless of their less illustrious fellows, it was a task crowned by
martyrdom.
But if history shows us how valuable was the work done under the system
of the catholic hierarchy to preserve a living Christianity across the
centuries, it also bears witness to the way in which in succeeding ages
the prophetic spirit re-asserted itself. A long series of heresies from
that of the Montanists in the second century to that of the Fraticelli
in the fourteenth, or of the Lollards and Hussites in the fifteenth, up
to the days of the Reformation and the Anabaptist prophets of Munster,
give us evidence of the way in which that spirit meets the profound need
of humanity and proves the outcome of deep stirring of soul. But inside
the Church itself we shall find again that the spirit of prophecy cannot
be banished, just because there always was true life there. Yet the
prophetic gift does not go along the orthodox channels of the hierarchy,
but is continually bursting out in new and unexpected quarters, so that
often the authorities of the Church are in a strait whether they are
dealing with a saint or a heretic. To those outside the Church, the
canon sometimes seems strange enough which [p.52] rules into one class
St. Theresa, into the other Madame Guyon, which, after burning
Savonarola was almost on the point of canonising him, which deposed and
exiled John of Parma, and then beatified him. The prophetic spirit
surely often found its outlet in the early ages amongst the monks of the
desert, witness for instance such a saint as Telemachus, who brought to
an end the gladiatorial shows at Rome; and in later times first in the
Benedictine and the subsequent monastic orders, and then, very notably,
in the Franciscan brotherhood, it found freer outlets than the church of
the day could provide, while the lives of countless saints bear witness
to some touches at least of the spirit of the prophet re-asserting
itself in spite of the trammels of the organization of the church. If
the gift of prophecy were to be connected with a divinely ordered
hierarchy we might naturally look for it most of all in the popes. Yet
in so many centuries comparatively few popes have been canonised as
saints, and few amongst these are conspicuous as showing forth this gift
in the way in which we see it in such a simple woman as Catherine of
Siena, or in plain men like Giles of Perugia.
In our own day, a devout catholic like Fogazzaro has pictured for us the
way in which a true prophet may arise within the bosom of the Church,
only to meet with obstacles from the authorities, and finally with
persecution ending almost in martyrdom. Yet that book, which, in spite
of [p.53] Papal prohibition, has found such warm support and awakened
such eager interest in Catholic Italy, bears witness to the profound
longing (which many in England surely share) that there is within the
orthodox Church for a deep spiritual ministry, which the recognised
authorities have not always supplied, for a revelation of new truth to
meet the needs of our day, for a fresh unfolding of the meaning of the
gospel of Christ, which shall appeal once more with apostolic power to
the hearts of men.
Two centuries ago the early Quakers felt that they had known such an
experience and tried to hand it on to others. Need we wonder if it
should appear that the Society of Friends to-day has inherited their
traditions but not their spirit? For, indeed, the prophetic spirit can
never be inherited, or passed on from man to man by any mechanical
arrangement. It must come anew from generation to generation, often
after the hardest travail of soul, through fresh strivings, as the
result of other needs; but we can, at least, see that our ordering,
whether of the Church's life or our own, is such as not to hinder its
coming but to prepare us for it.
And not the least of such a heritage has been a form of worship and a
view of life which may still give not only to a little community but to
a wider world a school of the prophets.
When we see the weak side of quietism, and mistakes of an earlier day of
mystics (as now we [p.54] are so apt to do), let us not forget that,
amidst the quietist Quakerism of the eighteenth century, there grew up
and flowered one of the most beautiful products not only of Quaker but
of Christian training; to many of us to-day, John Woolman speaks as do
few others with the power of a true prophet. Yet too often in the past
the Society of Friends has been content with a succession of minor
prophets, whose message was only to a little congregation. Without was a
multitude who had no priests or shepherds, and nations needing a guide.
To-day, if we cannot make teachers like Woolman, at least we can prepare
the way for their coming.
Prophecy is born of prayer, supported by it, not the prayer of words,
but that attitude of soul, of will, of which the most beautiful of our
collects are the momentary reflections. In this spirit then, feeling our
need and our fellows', let us long for more light to come into our
lives. Let us remember that we have not just to sit down contentedly in
the dark and wait for God's light.
If we try to listen to the voice of the prophet teachers of the past
whose message still comes home to us, and to picture the thoughts of
some disciple of theirs to-day, might we not frame them thus?
"If we cannot scatter the clouds, we can at least clean our windows and
open our doors. Every faculty of our nature is God's gift and to be used
in His service, and so we are not to think of prophecy [p.55] as coming
with the atrophy of the intellect; with every power of our minds we are
called to serve God and seek truth, which is His revelation. To pray, '
Thy will be done ' should be, as Fogazzaro has told us, no attitude of
passive submission, but a call to our whole nature to strive to the
utmost for the cause of God.
"Then we must remember that the more truly we are at one with Christ,
the more we shall feel ourselves fundamentally united with all our
fellows. We shall feel their wrongs and sins as ours, and their needs
too, and as we come to feel this, we shall realise more and more that in
every act and word and thought we are not our own.
"Every evil desire overcome is a victory for our brothers, and not
merely for ourselves. Our lives are intertwined one with another, and
constantly, unseen and unknown to ourselves and each other, we influence
one another for evil or for good. The prophet is nothing else than a
true priest, not to one or two, but to a multitude.
"We are all called to be priests, and, if God calls us to be prophets,
in learning to be truly priests, we shall unconsciously be learning too
in the prophets' school.
"The priest must have a two-fold vision, of the truth above him and of
the brother beside him who has need of the truth. The more he can see of
either, the more he can be brought into communication with his fellows,
and with the truth, the more priestly will his service be. [p.56] "Let
us be faithful in word and deed to the highest that we know, and higher
things shall be revealed unto us. Let us be patient with the worst and
those who naturally repel us. Far more repulsive has been the evil in
our own thoughts in the eyes of the holy angels. Let us not be uplifted
because others have been helped through us; Truth is not ours, but God's.
"Let us not be discouraged if our work seem fruitless; never despair of
the truth. Have faith in the truth that has been revealed to you, for
some day others too shall see it.
"Have faith in the Truth that is yet unknown; others perhaps have
already caught some glimpse of it.
"Blessed is the man in whose heart there is built an altar with the
inscription written: ' To the unknown Truth '; of such men are prophets
made.
"Truth is beautiful in the mouth of a friend, but most divine when it is
seen in the heart of an opponent. The devil had delight to seek for
faults in Job; let us seek rather to see, with Christ, the good in the
heart of the publican."
Those of us who are striving after this ideal should be the greatest of
sacerdotalists; our faith and worship are built up upon belief in the
essential priesthood of every human soul. Let us not forget then, that
if all men have some vision of God, all may teach us something of Him.
And since heavenly truth comes to no man naked, but clad in changing
robes, let us strive in our [p.57] search for truth, alike in speaking
and in listening, to remember that the garment of words changes and may
mean one thing to us and another to our fellows. Let us get beneath
words and forms to the life-giving spirit, and as we are to be the
greatest sacerdotalists let us be the most thorough- going of ritualists
too, to whom there are symbols and lessons of the Divine Life, not only
in the beautiful liturgies of the altar, but in all the mysteries of
nature and the sacraments with which life is full.
For surely there are not merely two or seven sacraments, but seventy
times seven, for him whose heart seeks ever fellowship with his brothers
and with the Father above him, who would be loved in them, and served by
their service. The whole world is God's and full of His light; our lives
are His and they are our fellows. And since in every heart of man is
some well through which the God-given waters of life may flow, we may go
forth in faith to our work; as we serve our neighbours and search for
truth, in the spirit of followers of Christ Jesus, seeking that our own
wells may be made wider and deeper, and that their springs may be shared
more fully by others, God will make priests of all of us, and, if He
will it, prophets too. [p.58]